Pale Mars by Elliott Garnett

Author:Elliott, Garnett [Elliott, Garnett]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: General
Publisher: BEAT to a PULP
Published: 2016-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

The trip back up the shaft, with its steeply-scaled steps, took much longer than the descent. Gennady became violently sick and had to stop at several points. Whitcombe seemed spent after her excitement at the pyramid, and Nadezhda found herself feeling listless as well, exhausted beyond the events of an event-packed day. Only Ramos appeared to have energy left. The American whistled as he climbed, seemingly unaffected by what he'd seen, though Nadezhda noticed he'd been careful to stay on the causeway and not touch the husks. They reached the corridor with the rope ladder. The climb up that drained Nadezhda's reserves. She had to stop and catch her breath before helping Ramos guide Gennady inside the pressure tent.

"Kapitan," her engineer said, slumping against a bedroll, "I don't think we should try to fly back in the Volga just yet."

"Agreed. We need rest." Outside the tomb chamber, Martian night would be falling. As would the temperature. She didn't like the idea of bumping around in the cold, trying to find the ship's boat while more sippee beetles could be lurking.

"Good to see you're human like the rest of us," Ramos said. He took off his hat and respirator. "You alright with that, ma'am? We'd like to impose on your hospitality a bit."

Whitcombe didn't respond. She'd sat herself down by the fire, and was busy fumbling for another amphorae of wine. When her eyes did make contact, they were narrow and secretive.

"In that case …" Nadezhda opened a plastic crate marked 'provisions.' Inside were stacks of freeze-dried potatoes, an old spacer standard. She pulled tabs on the foil pouches, allowing water to mix, and placed them around the fire to heat. Gennady didn't seem hungry, but Ramos was already licking his lips.

"Those bodies looked like the ones we found in the air shaft," he said. "Well, except they were Martians and not people I knew."

"That was my thought," Nadezhda agreed.

"So, if I'm reading this right … whatever did all that, down there, might be loose in the domes now?"

Nadezhda waited to see if Whitcombe would comment. The archeologist was too busy guzzling wine straight from the container. Crimson fluid splashed down either side of her mouth.

"… and this thing," Ramos continued, "is supposed to have wiped out the Martian race?"

"That's the implication."

"Well, it doesn't square. For one thing, we know the Martians were at least as aggressive as we are. Hell, most of their artifacts are weapons. I can't picture them just rolling over and letting something pick them off."

"No. I think they would've tried to fight, just like your fellow colonists."

"For all the good it's done." He pulled a pouch away from the fire, checked the temperature, and put it back. "The past couple days I've been getting this feeling … when I was a kid, my dad would take me out deer hunting every season. We'd set up a salt-lick, find a good place to hide and wait, for hours on end. Sometimes for days. That's the feeling I've been having—except I'm the deer.

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