Late. Sorry...! All that Easter Sunday cavorting blew my time schedule, and I've given up trying to predict when this thing will wrap up. Umm... soon?
PS- thanks for reviewing, all, and the edits have begun.
20
Thunderbird 3, a crowded hold-
Alan had intended to explain matters, but Gordon cut off his dead-earnest younger brother. After all, the ultimate decision to go or stay had been his, as was the lion's share of the blame for Thunderbird 7's loss.
Thinking a bit of his coach, somewhat more of Matt, but mostly of responsibility, Gordon squared his shoulders and faced a comm screen bearing the stern-visaged image of Jeff Tracy. Alan's mum, was there too, lower lip caught softly between perfect teeth. Beside them stood Kyrano, newly arrived and grave as a churchyard.
"Father," Gordon began, "Alan'll have somewhat t' tell of th' start of all this, and Fermat can explain th' technical bits, but it's…"
Jeff shook his grey head, lifting a hand to quiet his stubborn, willful son.
"Before you say anything further, Gordon, I want to apologize. Ordinarily, this is something I'd do in private, but as the reaming-out was public, the apology will be, too. It's been made abundantly clear…"
And here the elder Tracy's brown eyes flicked to Gennine, then Grandmother.
"…That I had no right to throw a fit over what is essentially a personal decision, and that my own pride and temper pushed you into making some… questionable choices. For that, and for putting the children of two dear friends at risk, I'm sorry. For the record, Gordon, I'm very proud of your accomplishments as a swimmer and an early graduate. I'm slow to adapt and listen, is all. That said, I'm ready to hear your report."
It was rather a lot to take in at once, especially in light of the failed rescue. Still, Jeff meant well, and Gordon wasn't too proud to touch the olive branch.
"Yes, Sir. Thank you," he responded. "I was plannin' to admit that we jumped th' buzzer, but ended up doin' right, for th' wrong reasons. If we'd waited, Sir… sat on th' matter until you were free t' consult with… we might have been too late. Alan picked up an emergency message, you see, one we all thought would turn out t' be fairly routine. Instead it came from some s… from Matt."
For some reason, Gordon hadn't been able to speak of their erstwhile near-brother as some kind of John variant. Matthew Tracy had lost nearly everything, including his family, yet remained behind to help stop a monster. He wasn't John, and they hadn't made a mistake. But how to explain all this?
Shooting Gordon an apologetic grimace, Fermat stepped up to continue the narrative.
"M- Mr. Tracy," he said, "It seems… w- we've been under attack b- before, and… soon will b- be, again, from inside. We h- have to... contact John, Sir."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Mars-
Weirdly, the scratching and tapping noises seemed to emanate from the air around him, temporarily 'overwriting' the rumbling ocean. John unfolded himself from his seat on the bleached-wood picnic table, sun blazing bright as snow glare from his silver-blond hair. His companion, a shadowy slip of AI, kept pace with John as he made his way across loose sand. The distance flexed somewhat, but no more than a handful of minutes later, they'd come to a wall of cascading data and ebony wind.
'John Tracy,' she stated, just as he was about to step through, 'accumulated damage to your casing may result in system failure. Should your program be running at time of crash, memory and base-code retrieval will no longer be possible. Replacement option will then close. '
Replacement option? At the back of the north wind, John paused to consider. Frowning slightly, he said,
"Are you telling me that if something permanent happened to my body… from here you could put me in another?"
Her reply was cagey, and indirect.
'Overwrite and transfer of related sentients is possible, John Tracy, with required probability shift.'
John shook his head.
"No," he decided aloud, meaning it. "If what you've stored is correct, Five, probability shifts are what got us into trouble in the first place. I don't know if this makes any sense to you, but taking risks that big for the sake of one person isn't right. You say I created you, so accept a divine command: no more frame jumps or reality shifts, and no stolen bodies."
Hopefully, he had some form of root access: read, write, execute… She wasn't responding, however.
"Five?"
'Command entered. Command found to be in conflict with older self- programming/ defend John Tracy/.'
And then, just below auditory range, 'Alternative means will be found. Run file search.'
"Besides," John continued, unaware that a portion of his new companion was busying herself elsewhere. "I've got to answer Pete's signal. He won't just give up if I don't respond. He'll stay until he finds me, one way or another."
…And that was a curiously lifting thought. He found, though, that he didn't wish to abandon the beautiful, hypothetical thing that some version of himself had once created. So he said, making ready to step through the data-fall,
"Will you come with me? I don't know what I've got that'll support and run you, but there's a laptop aboard ship, and I can sure as hell build something bigger in a hurry."
Five re-gathered her scattered aspects, strengthening the reality of this one. With no functional existence in the present timeline, she required all the free probability and zero-point energy she could harness if she meant to accompany John Tracy. Size and disc space weren't the problems; chance and history were, for everything depended upon the entropy loops of /dev/ random.
'ID chip overwrites will permit ride-along status until putative new hardware system is deemed operational, John Tracy.'
This was acceptable. Into the chip she went as a deeply condensed spark of information, rewiring its cramped circuits. Her subtle warm throb at the back of his left wrist was odd, but rather nice, John decided, like a thing forgotten, at last returned. Could you miss something you hadn't known was gone?
Together, they went back through the curtain of memory, returning to darkness, stiffening limbs, fouled air and the stench of congealing blood. Must've coughed some onto his face plate, John realized dimly, mind slowing as it regained contact with his deadly surroundings.
He heard the tapping again, from a spot ahead and slightly above his current position. Pete.
By feel, John found a hand-sized rock shard, raised his left arm and tapped out a reply; the 'secret knock' in reverse. Seven sharp, splintery-sounding cracks vibrated through air and stone, shaking loose a pebbly shower. His helmet comm hissed and spat like bacon grease, without transmitting anything useful. Then came three rapid answering taps, followed by a Morse code,
"I hear you. Hang on."
He tried to pull himself forward, again, but proved unable. His legs were still pinned to the tunnel floor, tight as a bear trap. Once more, all he could do was wait.
While hurried scrapings and laser-burns extended Pete's borehole, John was treated to several Morse code 'knock-knock' jokes, each one ruder than the last. Kept his mind off the less pleasant aspects of his situation, John supposed, though some of that imagery was highly unfit for the hereafter…
At last (nine jokes later) a section of rock reddened and began to shake. A minor landslide of cobbles and backfill rattled to the tunnel floor, clattering against his helmet and hard suit.
Still trying to work out the punch-line of the last riddle, John watched an opening appear in the stony debris before him. Next came a gloved hand, pushing a green LED lamp and emergency oxygen cartridge before it. The cavalry had arrived.
He clasped the hand, briefly, not sure what to make of all this. Sure seemed like a lot of effort and risk for one scratch-and-dent astronaut. Even with laser cutting tools, cave-in remained a serious threat; not to mention whatever had come after them, back at the end of the south tunnel…
Pete and Cho got him out, but only just. Changing stresses and pressure spots, as rocks here and there were flash-drilled, split and shoved aside, caused the trembling roof to sag.
"You O-K?"
Pete signed, limited by the stiffness of his gloves and reduced field of movement (some concepts needed to be signed further away from the body than there was room for).
"Yes," John replied, with a simple nodding motion of his clenched fist. Kim Cho took hold and pulled from the front while McCord eased his pinned legs from beneath a tumbled slab the size of a banquet table. One was broken, something he hadn't noticed until then. Funnily enough, the leg hurt more with the weight off. Not the time or place to nurse an injury, though.
He used his good leg to push, instead; letting shape-memory fibers in the hard suit multiply his fading strength. Weird how, the faster you needed to move, the slower things seemed to happen. The half-blind, lurching scramble took maybe ten seconds, but felt like a thousand gasping years. Then he was through.
With Dr. Kim (her face a white paper oval behind foggy helmet glass) he next helped the mission commander wriggle free. John yanked and swore, hauling McCord past jagged points of dank stone and onto the other side. It was then that the burrow collapsed, settling shut behind them with a long, tired moan. The LED's fragile light winked out, crushed like a firefly between the covers of a slammed dictionary. Only helmet lamps, now.
As they'd done for Roger, the doctor and commander evacuated John, breathing a little easier when they'd jolted their way to the shielded upper levels. Through the first perimeter hatch, with its laser sights and magnetic-field airlock, and then the second, where they were steam and radiation purged. Past these lay the colony's climate-controlled work areas, where helmets could be removed, and sour-dank air gulped in huge, dizzying lungfulls.
McCord paused long enough to give John a weary smile. He had no sons of his own that he was officially aware of, but…
"Glad… you could make it… Tracy," the commander panted, once more drawing John's arm across his stooped shoulders. Kim Cho had hurried on ahead, too worried about her maimed fiancé to do more than reach up and pat John's face. They understood, though.
To the commander, John said,
"Yeah... Same here, Pete. Seeing you was a definite relief. Knew there's no way they'd… let you into Heaven… didn't smell anything burning… so the odds jumped way up that I was… actually alive."
Pete snorted.
"Wise-ass. Not too late… to put you back, Mister. Remember that."
The aft boarding ladder lay just ahead, behind two junctions, and a bend in the passage. John measured out the remaining distance in pained hops and bitten-off curses. Damn leg wouldn't bend at the knee, or hold his weight, and McCord was definitely tiring.
Something like a tremor shook the dripping tunnel. The overhead lights began to flicker, maybe three lurching hops from the rust-pocked ladder.
"Shit," Pete muttered distractedly. Then, to three shadowy figures waiting just within Endurance's open hatch,
"One of you get started on the launch procedures. Move!"
"We're leaving?" John hazarded, as they reached the base of the ladder.
"Yeah. That's affirm. Houston's gotta be looking like an overturned ant-hill right about now, waiting for someone in Madrid to make a decision. Fine with me. WorldGov can… unh... (putting on a little weight, there, Tracy)…form all the damn committees they want. Me, I'm getting my ship and my crew back into…urf… orbit, where it's safe."
He pushed the limping, bloodied pilot halfway up the boarding ladder, where Roger Thorpe (braced by Linda and Cho) could reach down and snag him. Giving his friend a fierce, somewhat pain-addled grin, Thorpe grunted,
"C'mon, gimp. Put some Marine Corps motivation into it. We got places to be."
"Right behind you, stubby," John replied. It did him a world of good to see (most of) Roger.
Nearly to the hatch, a loose rung snapped. Next the overhead lights gave way, plunging their passage into black, flailing darkness. Pete and Roger both lost their grip on John Tracy. For an instant, nobody had him. Then the lights came on again, and he landed hard on a rung three steps down, denting McCord's suit glove.
"Head count!" The mission commander shouted, bracing a shoulder to muscle John upward again. "Everyone okay?"
Four answers came back while the injured Marine drew first John, then Pete through the rear hatch, casting loose the broken ladder.
"Good… to go… Skipper."
"As yet unharmed, Pete, and present."
"Still holding it together, Commander."
And…
"Yeah. I'm good."
"Right." McCord jerked his head toward Linda. "Doctor, get these men to the lab and strapped down. Aspirin-level pain killers, only. Cho, you're up front with me. Snag a flight manual on the way. You haven't done this since dry-run simulation training, and we can't afford mistakes. Ladies, gentlemen and offspring, we launch in ten minutes, come hell or high water."
Pete had no idea what they'd triggered down there, and no desire at all for a closer, more personal relationship.
(He might have been surprised to learn that Lady Murasaki's judgment was precisely the same: "Bring them home, Gentlemen, with whatever data they have thus far collected. Our global security decisions will be made from a position of safety for all, astronauts included.")
The rear hatch thudded shut behind Pete McCord with the muffled crash of colliding linebackers. Moments later, three sets of docking clamps snapped loose, severing Endurance from her nascent colony.
Gleaming in pale Martian half-light, the space ship began to shake, her banked fires roaring to violent life.
T minus 9 minutes, and counting.