This is a fan translation of Road to Mars (Дорога к Марсу) by fifteen Russian science fiction writers.
This chapter was written by Sergei Lukyanenko.
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Chapter 25
All the Rivers Run
For some reason, random nonsense always popped into one's head in dangerous and extreme situations. Givens knew that from personal experience. Once, as a boy, during a traditional spring burger eating contest among schoolkids, Edward's older brother had choked on a bite and nearly died. Everyone around them was in a panic, the firefighters someone had called couldn't get through to the scene where the teenager was turning blue. Naturally, no one who wasn't a doctor or an emergency responder tried to help him. The situation was saved by an old Chinese garbageman, who gave the boy such an unexpectedly professional punch in the gut that he immediately spat out everything in his throat and was able to take a breath.
At that terrible moment, Givens hadn't been looking at his brother's face that was rapidly turning purple and not at his bulging eyes. He was staring at a piece of lettuce stuck under the boy's nose. The lettuce was quivering, fluttering from the breathing with greater and greater frequency and then less and less often… and Edward knew that the piece of lettuce was going to stop moving, indicating that his brother was no longer breathing. Dead. For good…
Now, looking at Kartashov, who was sliding down the corridor like a nimble salmon in pursuit of the spider, Givens was surprised not so much at his sudden appearance, and not at the mysterious spider, not even what was happening in general, but the fact that there was still water flowing from Kartashov… He was also moving strangely, not quite the way one was supposed to in zero-g, but as if he was swimming.
Was that what was causing the strange association with salmon?
"Andrei!" Givens shouted. "Wait!"
Kartashov paused, floated in the middle of the corridor, still stroking with his hands as if swimming against the current. Givens, nimbly pushing off the walls, came close to him and hovered in mid-air.
"Are you standing or something?" Kartashov asked curiously. "Is it that shallow here?"
There was still water coming down from him.
"Andrei, where do you think we are?" Givens asked carefully.
"Hell if I know," Kartashov shrugged. "Maybe Mars in the past, or maybe in another reality… To be honest, I haven't figured it out yet."
"Andrei, we're on the ship," Edward informed him. "At this particular moment, we're in the corridor between Storage 2 and the cockpit."
"This is the ship?" Kartashov laughed, still moving his arms and legs.
"Yeah."
"To me, you and I are swimming in a river and are being carried away by the current," Kartashov replied gloomily. "And I would suggest that we get out onto the bank… especially since that damned spider has escaped."
"Try it!" Edward told him.
Kartashov threw him a suspicious look and "swam" to the wall. He did it without pushing away from anything, just by stroking the air! A chill ran down Edward's spine. There was a meter left from the wall… half a meter… centimeters…
Kartashov's head smoothly passed through the wall and disappeared somewhere outside the ship. His body followed.
Edward came close to the wall. Hesitated. Then he remembered his favorite children's book and whispered, "So… platform 9¾ then?"
After that, he followed the Russian.
Strangely enough, it was just as easy for him to pass through the wall than it was for Harry Potter at King's Cross station.
"Please, everyone," Anikeev said. "I'd like to hear our options."
"We can jettison the solar sail," Jeubin suggested with a grin. "Then the acceleration will stop, and we'll miss the comet."
"I would suggest that we seal and blow up one of the compartments. The greenhouse, for example," Bull said excitedly. "Then the kick of the exploding air will alter our course."
"Friends! Friends, why so difficult?!" Piccirilli was incensed. "If there really is an AI aboard the ship, then why not simply open the compartment and ask it for advice?"
Anikeev shook his head and said, "All right, all jokes aside. I value your sense of humor… but let's get serious. We're not going to hit the comet's core in any case… Piccirilli, what's the orbit looking like?"
"As I said, Storage 2 pushed us directly towards the comet's core," the Italian shrugged. "We're not going to hit it, of course… but we will catch the dust tail. And this is serious, no joke."
Anikeev stared at the screen for a few moments, quickly touching the keys and running through some trajectory options. Bull floated closer and looked at the screen over the Commander's shoulder.
"It would've been better if we were going straight at the core," Anikeev summarized. "The core is tiny, easy to dodge. But the tail… we'll catch it. Even if we burn through all our fuel."
"We'll be riddled with holes," Jeubin said. "It'll be the end of the sail, and of the ship too."
"I suggest that we don't dodge the comet," Bull said suddenly. "Let's turn on the engines and pass between the comet and the Sun!"
Everyone exchanged glances.
"If there's one thing I love about you Americans," Jeubin said, "it's how radical your solutions are!"
Anikeev looked at the screen thoughtfully.
"We can make it he said finally. "If we leave the bare minimum for deceleration and orbital insertion, then the remaining fuel will be enough to slip between the comet and the Sun… Then we'll also avoid the tails… and, by the way, also win a little more time… But there's a risk. We'll be passing literally within a hundred kilometers from the comet's core on converging vectors. There's a two percent chance of a collision. Head-on. Like in Jules Verne's books."
"Two percent is nothing," Piccirilli said.
"Many in Russia would argue with you," Anikeev muttered. "Well… I think we should risk it. We have a window of four minutes to turn on the engines… get secured, everyone!"
"How can this be?" Givens asked. "Maybe I'm sleeping after all."
He and Kartashov were sitting in a boat and watching the blades of red reeds flutter in the wind. The river was carrying the boat slowly and tirelessly.
"I think you're right," Kartashov backed him up unexpectedly. "Both of us are sleeping. Well… we're in a coma. And our minds are…" He thought about it.
"In another reality? In virtual space?" Givens suggested.
"Maybe."
"Then why does the ship's reality exist for me, and an alien planet's reality exist for you?" Givens kept asking.
They'd already figured out that the ship—actually, its duplicate, empty and deserted—was located next to the boat. Always next to it, sliding through space as if tied to it, incorporeal and invisible. But if they swam from the starboard side for three and a half meters, then bam! Instead of the river, they found themselves in corridors filled with red light…
"Probably because to you the ship, space, the flight itself are more important," Kartashov said. "To me it's Mars. That's why my personal hallucination is tied to Mars, and yours is to the ship. But they intersect. And we can move from one dream to the other…"
"But why us?" Givens asked thoughtfully. "Maybe… maybe it's because we're black."
"I'm not black," Kartashov said. "I'm a Buryat. Pureblooded." He snorted. "I guess you can say that neither of us is white: you're African American, I'm Mongolic… But I doubt our skin color has anything to do with this."
"I had a white grandfather," Givens admitted. "Still, there could be some connection here—"
"Quiet!" Kartashov raised his hand. "Something's happening!"
Indeed, the banks were now moving past them much faster. They could also hear an even hum coming from up ahead…
"A waterfall!" Givens gave voice to what they were both thinking. "Let's go!"
"Go where?" Kartashov asked in surprise.
"To the ship! Into my dream! We can wait it out!"
Kartashov shook his head, "Edward… I doubt the ship will be all right if something happens to the boat…"
They looked at each other, then started to row feverishly, as hard as they could: Kartashov with the paddle, and Edward with his hands.
The banks were now moving past them faster and faster. The reeds were gone, the clay mud first gave way to hard reddish soil and then to rocks (which were still just as red). There were no longer any problems with going ashore… except for the river going mad and carrying the boat faster and faster.
Givens's comet looked frightening on the computer screens. It was a glowing ball whose size was hard to determine.
"What is that?" Jeubin exclaimed. "Is that the comet?"
Anikeev didn't answer. They couldn't do anything anymore. The ship was drowning in the glow. The polarizing filters had removed the extra light, and for a few seconds the crew felt as if they were in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon during a hyperjump.
"Merde!" Jean-Pierre Jeubin exclaimed. "The trains are about to collide!"
The sail is definitely done for, Anikeev thought. There's a swarm of debris and ice around the core, it'll get torn up. It was a stupid idea from the start. The important thing is for the ship to make it. He'd known even in school that the typical odds of a ship hitting a meteorite were small. So what was it then? Beginning's luck?
The blinding light was slowly fading.
"Bon voyage!" Jean-Pierre said with a sigh of relief. "Just think! Is the universe really so small that some comet core can't freely fly across the sky?"
"We're not rowing fast enough!" Edward shouted. "Kartashov, let's go!"
But Kartashov, kneeling on the bow of the boat, was quickly working the paddle, stubbornly directing the boat to a bank. They could already see a cloud of sprays hanging over the waterfall up ahead, with sharp rocks peeking through the water at the rapids. But it was as if there nothing else existed for Kartashov but the boat, the paddle, and the reluctantly approaching bank.
We're going to die, Edward thought in a detached manner. We're all going to die… so scary…
But either the Russian's stubbornness or his belief that they couldn't wait it out in the ship worked — Edward, simultaneously swearing and crying, continued to paddle. His hands were frozen from the cold water, his ears were stuffed up from the rumble of the waterfall, and he continued paddling…
Even after the boat hit the bank about twenty meters from the abyss, Givens couldn't stop right away. Kartashov was the first to leap onto the bank and started to pull the boat out. Coming to his senses, Givens helped him. Dragging the boat from the water, they carefully walked up to the edge.
And froze, staring at the plain that opened up below them. A wide river now leisurely and freely flowed through it towards the sea on the horizon…
The plain was green.
Alive.
"Holy shit!" Givens shouted. "Holy shit!"
Cursing himself for the recent terror that had nearly made him choke at the wrong moment, he unzipped his jumpsuit and said, "I've always dreamt of taking a leak off the Grand Canyon's edge…"
Kartashov laughed hoarsely and followed his example.
"If I really am in a coma right now," Givens mused while zipping back up, "then I hope they put a big diaper on me."
"You know, man," Kartashov said suddenly," I have a feeling that we didn't just save ourselves… we also saved the ship."
"Maybe," Givens agreed. "Listen, is it me, or is there a sail on the horizon?"
"Don't move!" Kartashov interrupted him suddenly. "Stand and don't turn around!"
