Mars Crossing by Geoffrey Landis

Author:Geoffrey Landis [Landis, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

ON THE TOP

Ascending the cliff on the far side of the canyon turned out to be actually somewhat simpler than descending. The channel Radkowski had found led almost to the canyon rim, close enough that the remaining two hundred feet to the top were easily climbed, and bolts set into the rock to anchor cables to slowly winch the rockhopper up. Once out of the catena, they were able to unstow the dirt-rover.

Dazed, slightly dizzy from the constant pain of her arm, Estrela thought to herself, I’ve been stupid, I’ve been stupid, I’ve been stupid. Every rock that the rockhopper crawled over hurt her.

She wanted to snarl and bite when they treated her like a child. She held back, forced herself to appear calm, because she knew that she needed their help to survive, and more, she needed to get on the captain’s good side if she was to be chosen to return.

The crew were beginning to get on each other’s nerves. She could see it in the curt language they used with each other, in their short tempers.

Her attempt at seduction in the rockhopper, the night that Ryan had gone haywire, hadn’t worked. Even before the radio had broken in, the mood had gone bad. Radkowski hadn’t actually told her no, but when she had unzipped his jumpsuit and slid her warm hand inside, he had gently pushed her away. Perhaps if she had a little more time…

She was in pretty bad shape for a seduction right now, with a broken arm. The captain wasn’t the one she’d really like to seduce, though, not by a long shot. And it sure wasn’t Trevor. She saw the way the kid looked at her sometimes, and sometimes she even went out of her way to show him a little skin, to give him a bit of a thrill, but that was just to be nice. She didn’t have any real interest in seducing children. He said he was twenty-one, but to her he sure didn’t look twenty-one. She doubted if he was a day over eighteen. Maybe seventeen. He was just a kid.

No, the one she’d really like to catch alone was Ryan Martin. His slender, lithe body; his long eyelashes and hazel eyes and the intensity of his gaze when he was talking … He was the only one of the crew that she would crawl for. There was something about him, some essential core of sadness …

But it was the captain that she had to seduce, she knew. Ryan was candy. The captain was the key to life and death.

The landscape outside the rockhopper’s viewports was hypnotic, almost magical. North of the Coprates Catena the land was flatter than it had been. She couldn’t name the rocks anymore, but they almost seemed to talk to her. The pain in her arm sang a little song to her, made her head dance. The landscape and the pain, the pain and the landscape; it was all mixed up together in her mind.

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