“Some of the time I’m so sure I’m right that I could scream at Kosoff and Littlejohn for being so blind,” Brad was telling Felicia. “Then I wonder if I’m the one who’s blind … or at least pigheaded.”
It was late at night. Brad was squatting in his shelter talking with his wife while the wind outside gusted fitfully.
At last Felicia answered, “I’ve spoken with Captain Desai. He says it would be possible for you to leave Gamma and get to us at Alpha in the shuttlecraft. But you’ll have to leave in the next day or so, before the atmosphere becomes too turbulent for the shuttlecraft to fly through it safely.”
“I’m not leaving.” Brad’s own words surprised him. Something deep inside him wanted to leave, to get away, to return to Felicia and safety.
But another emotion, deeper, stronger, was making him stay. I’m not going to leave them alone, to die, to be wiped out. I’m not going to repeat Tithonium, he told himself.
Once she heard his words, Felicia’s eyes widened with fright. “Brad, you’ve got to get away. You’ve got to! You can’t stay there and die!”
“I’ll be all right,” he insisted, trying to put on a smile. Holding up his pistol, he said, “I can defend myself.”
They argued for nearly an hour, a strange kind of quarrel, with three-minute gaps punctuating their interchanges. For once, Brad was grateful for the time lag: it gave him a chance to calm down, to control his rising temper, to deal with his fears.
He saw that Felicia was terrified. “Brad,” she begged, “for me. For my sake. Leave the damned planet and come back to me.”
“I can’t, Fil,” he replied, practically begging. “I just can’t run away. Can’t you see that?”
In the three-some minutes before her next message, Felicia seemed to change. As if she’d taken a deep breath and decided that further attempts to convince him would be fruitless, barren.
“All right,” she said at last, flatly, coldly. “If that’s the way you want it.”
“That’s the way it’s got to be,” Brad said.
“Good night, then.” It almost sounded like good-bye.
“Wait!” he called. “You haven’t told me what you’re doing. How’s everything going with your study of the octopods?”
Again he waited, wondering if she would answer him at all.
“Oh, that’s going along pretty well. We’ve established that Emcee’s estimation of how they survive Mithra’s flares is pretty accurate. But unless we shield the planet, they won’t be able to survive the death wave by diving deeper into the ocean.”
It’s as if she’s delivering a lecture, Brad thought. To a stranger.
Felicia went on without hesitating. “According to our calculations, the octopods can go deep enough to avoid being killed by the gamma radiation. But the fish and other sea creatures that they feed on can’t. When the octopods return to their normal levels, they’ll find a desert waste. No food. They’ll starve to death. All of them.”
“Unless we provide the shielding to protect the planet,” Brad said.
Slightly more than three minutes later, Felicia nodded, poker-faced. “Yes, unless we provide the necessary shielding.”
“Which will also protect them from having the atmosphere and ocean boiled away.”
“Yes,” said Felicia, as flatly as one of Emcee’s responses.
“Fil, I’ve got to stay here,” he blurted. “You can see that, can’t you?”
At last she replied, “I can see that you need to stay, more than you need to return to me.”
Brad stared at the display screen, stunned by her answer. Abruptly, the screen went blank.
She’s cut the connection! Brad realized. She’s cut me off. It never occurred to him that she might have cut the connection because she didn’t want him to see her crying.
* * *
Brad couldn’t sleep. He tossed fitfully in his bedroll, his mind filled with his last glimpse of Felicia’s face. She looked hard, angered, disappointed, cold.
I’ve hurt her, he realized. She’s hurt because I need to stay here more than I want to return to her.
I’ve hurt her, he told himself over and over again. Maybe I’ve lost her.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to force himself to sleep. No use. Sitting up, he realized it was probably a good thing. Sleep brings dreams and he didn’t want to face the dream again. Not tonight. I wouldn’t be able to deal with it.
Is that why I’m staying? he wondered. Am I trying to atone for Tithonium? Trying to prove that I’m not a coward?
With a shake of his head he told himself, No. There’s more to it than that. I’m going to help Mnnx and the others, help them get through their death time, show them how to survive.
Outside his shelter the wind suddenly rose to a piercing shriek. In the darkness, Brad felt the shelter shake. Something flashed out there, a bright streak of lightning. A heartbeat later thunder exploded, like a bomb going off.
Brad heard rain pelting down on his shelter, hard, insistent. It’s okay, he told himself. This shelter can withstand hurricane-force winds. That’s what the manual said.
But he felt the shelter shaking, trembling under the lashing of the rain like a man being pummeled by a giant.
It’ll be okay, he told himself. The shelter’s hurricane-proof.
And then he laughed out loud. I couldn’t get to the shuttlecraft in this storm, he realized. I couldn’t start back to Felicia even if I wanted to.
And he wanted to. At this particular moment, battered by the lashing rain, terrified by the shrieking wind, he wanted to be safe and warm in Felicia’s arms.
Something thumped in the darkness. Must be the lamp, Brad thought. It’s fallen over. I ought to find it, turn it on. It’s stupid to sit here in the dark.
But before he could get to his knees the whole shelter lurched and swayed. Brad heard water gurgling outside its thin walls. The shelter moved, like an aircar gliding across the sands of Mars.
Brad toppled sideways in the darkness while the shelter slid downhill like a canoe careening along a raging stream.