46
Endurance, Mars-
Cho and Linda between them helped John Tracy out of his sand-covered hard suit. The insulating black neoprene and memory-plastic lining remained, mostly because he wasn't wearing much beneath it, and because the thing was a tedious pain to remove. It didn't so much cling, as adhere, providing protection, warmth, and constant pressure.
He only half-listened to the ladies' attempts at conversation, too busy wrestling with something internal to care much about what happened outside. It was very strange, but all at once, John had found himself crushed beneath a terrible sense of failure.
"What?"
Someone... Dr. Bennett... asked sharply. Evidently, he'd spoken aloud. Coming back to the moment, John saw that she was staring at him with puzzled, wary concern; brown eyes narrowed, lips pursed.
"Speak English, please, John," she told him. "Unless you enjoy blank stares."
Standing a bit behind and to the right of Linda, Dr. Kim also watched him with the serene, alert curiosity of a Siamese cat, or a..., He 'saw' something, only semi-understood it, and hurriedly shoved the odd visuals away. Once again forcing himself back to (almost) normal, John shook his head, and dug up a faint smile.
"No, Doctor..., but I'm getting used to them." (The blank stares, that is.)
There was a soft 'thump', and then a whirring noise, as a pump cut on. It was scheduled, he recalled, turning his face up to the sudden gust of smelly, filtered air hissing through its overhead vent. Nothing to worry about.
"What was it you said, before?" Linda asked him, coming closer, and pressing the point.
John considered.
So long...
So very, very long to wait and watch, with parts disintegrating, thermal power fading, and radiation storms scourging the face of the drying little world... and then, when something finally began to happen... when life appeared, in a sudden and unexpected form...
"I failed."
The admission hurt more than anything else had, since 17 years before, when the lid slammed shut on a long, wooden box.
Growing terribly cold, Linda glanced over at Dr. Kim, who returned the startled look, and stepped forward.
"In what way have you failed, John?" The exobiologist enquired, her voice gentle and non-threatening. Meanwhile (and very casually), Dr. Bennett was preparing a tranquilizer, slipping a rubber-capped drug vial into the needle gun, which immediately extruded a fresh tip. To keep the pilot occupied, Cho went on.
"Can you tell us more?"
He tried, but the exhaustion, the utter loss of purpose, made it difficult to speak. He felt as though he were sliding down an icy, black slope, while the distance between himself and the other beings (and the light and warmth that poured from them) grew ever greater.
Linda placed her two hands on John's slender shoulders.
"John, I want you to listen to me, very carefully; you did not fail. They did, whoever they are, and thank God for that! You succeeded in stopping what could have been the end of this mission, and maybe our species, as well. What you're feeling right now, isn't yours, John, and you need to let it go. Can you understand that?"
Yes..., a little. Parts of him, anyway (some of his mind, and his left wrist had caught on, but the jury was still out, everywhere else).
Linda continued, looking directly into his blue-violet eyes,
"You're John Matthew Tracy, a human man from Earth, a NASA astronaut, and a damn good pilot, and we need your help if we're going to get out of this mess. Anything else in here...,"
And she tapped at his temple, on the uninjured side (with every word and gesture, pulling him back),
"...came from someone else, and it's got to be shown the door."
"But understood, first!" Dr. Kim cut in, with uncharacteristic force. This was her first, and maybe only opportunity to study the work of an alien civilization. She very much wanted to read the files, before discarding them. After all, Pete had said that he needed more information...
Guiding John Tracy to a seat at the medlab's work bench, Cho gave him a piece of paper, and a red marker.
"We will talk together, John," she said to the bemused young pilot, "and if something comes to you that you cannot express with words, you may draw, or use equations. Is this acceptable to you?"
John's head lowered, and he gazed at the women from behind his over-long, silver-blond hair.
"That's what the school psychologists did, back in Wyoming. They'd give me a damn puzzle, or a coloring book, as a 'distraction', while they tried to figure out what was wrong with me." And he added coldly, all at once, more himself, "I lied."
Linda came over to stand beside him, hands at her slim hips.
"Except that we're not trying to trick you into cooperating, John. You've known us for months; in Pete's case, years... And you're going to damn well tell the truth this time, because...,"
She shifted into a cartoonishly heavy, mock-menacing German accent,
"...Ve haf vays to make you talk!" And smacked the top of his blond head.
He made an abrupt, quiet sound; a laugh, almost. Then, shaking the hair away from his face with a slight head jerk, John replied,
"Okay..., but I'll need more paper. A lot more paper."
What he had 'seen' could not be quickly reproduced.