Simmons, Dan - Ilium 01 - Ilium by Simmons Dan

Author:Simmons, Dan [Simmons, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_epic
Published: 2003-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

26

Between Eos Chasma and Coprates Chasma in East-Central Valles Marineris

Three weeks into the voyage west up the river—inland sea, really—of Valles Marineris, and Mahnmut was close to losing his moravec mind.

Their felucca, crewed by forty little green men, was just one of many ships plying their way east or west in the flooded rift valley or north-south up or down the estuary opening onto the Chryse Planitia Sea of the Northern Tethys Ocean. In addition to a score of other LGM-crewed feluccas, they had passed at least three 100-meter-long barges each day, each hauling four great, uncarved stones for heads, all headed east from the cliff quarry on the south side of Noctis Labryinthus at the west end of Valles Marineris, still some 2,800 kilometers ahead of Mahnmut’s west-bound felucca.

Orphu of Io had been rolled aboard and secured on the lower mid-deck, hidden from aerial view by a raised tarp, tied down next to the major pieces of cargo and other items recovered from The Dark Lady. Even the thought of his submersible—left behind in the shallow sea cavern along the Chryse Planitia coastline some 1,500 kilometers behind them—depressed Mahnmut.

Until this voyage, Mahnmut hadn’t known that he was capable of depression—capable of feeling such a terrible emotional malaise and sense of hopelessness that could leave him with almost no will and even less ambition—but the violent separation from his sub had shown him just how low he could feel. Orphu—blinded, crippled, hauled aboard like so much useless ballast—seemed in good spirits, although Mahnmut was learning how carefully and rarely his friend showed his true feelings.

The felucca had arrived, as promised, early that next Martian morning after their arrival on the coast, and while the LGM were man-hauling poor Orphu aboard, Mahnmut had gone down into the flooded sub several times, pulling out all the removable power units, solar cells, communication equipment, log disks, and all the navigation gear that he could haul.

“You swam naked out to the wreck and stuffed your pockets with biscuits before swimming back, eh?” Orphu had said that morning after Mahnmut told him about the salvage efforts.

“What?” Mahnmut wondered if the battered Ionian had finally lost his mind.

“Little continuity error in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe,” rumbled Orphu. “I always enjoy continuity errors.”

“I never read it,” Mahnmut said. He was in no mood for banter. Leaving The Dark Lady behind was tearing him apart.

They discussed his reaction during the first three weeks of their voyage, since they had little to do aboard the felucca except discuss things. The short-range radio receiver transmitter that Mahnmut had grafted onto Orphu’s commline jack worked well.

“You’re suffering from agoraphobia as much as from depression,” said Orphu.

“How so?”

“You were designed, programmed, and trained to be part of the sub, hidden under Europan ice, surrounded by darkness and crushing depths, comfortable in your tight spaces,” said the Ionian. “Even your short forays on the ice surface of Europa didn’t prepare you for these vast vistas, distant horizons, and blue skies.”

“The sky’s not blue right now,” was all that Mahnmut said in response.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.