Redemption Ark

That was when he felt the breeze again. It was stronger this time, and with it came a more insistent rumble of shifting masonry. In the dim illumination that was afforded by the biochemical thermal/light-stick he had cracked open an hour earlier, he saw dust and debris scud across the ground. The cat’s golden fur rippled like a field of barley. The injured animal tried to raise its head in the direction of the wind. Clavain touched the animal’s head with his hand, doing his best to comfort it. Its eyes were bloody sockets.

The end was coming. He knew it. This was no relocation of air within the ruin; it was a major collapse on the perimeter of the fallen structure. The cell of air was leaking out into the Martian cold.

When he laughed it was like scraping his own throat with razor wire.

‘Something… funny?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Not at all.’

Light speared through the darkness. A wave of pure cold air hit his face and rammed into his lungs.

He stroked the cat’s head again. If this was dying, then it was nowhere near as bad as he had feared.

‘Clavain.’

His name was being spoken calmly and insistently.

‘Clavain. Wake up.’

He opened his eyes, an effort that immediately sapped half the strength he felt he had left. He was somewhere so bright that he wanted to squint, resealing the eyelids that had nearly gummed shut. He wanted to retreat back into his own past, no matter how painful and claustrophobic the dream might be.

‘Clavain. I’m warning you… if you don’t wake up I’m going to…’

He forced his eyes as wide as he could, realising that just before him was a shape that had yet to shift into focus. It was leaning over him. It was the shape that was talking to him.

‘Fuck…’ he heard the woman’s voice say. I think he’s lost his mind or something.‘

Another voice, sonorous, deferential, but just the tiniest bit patronising, said, ‘Begging your pardon, Little Miss, but it would be unwise to assume anything. Especially if the gentleman in question is a Conjoiner.’

‘Hey, as if I needed reminding.’

‘One merely means to point out that his medical condition may be both complex and deliberate.’

‘Space him now,’ said another male voice.

‘Shut up, Xave.’

Clavain’s vision sharpened. He was bent over double in a small white-walled chamber. There were pumps and gauges set into the walls, along with decals and printed warnings that had been worn nearly away. It was an airlock. He was still wearing his suit, the one he had been wearing, he remembered now, when he had sent the corvette away, and the figure leaning over him was wearing a suit as well. She — for it was the woman — had been the one who had opened his visor and glare shield, allowing light and air to reach him.

He groped in the ruins of his memory for a name. ‘Antoinette?’

‘Got it in one, Clavain.’ She had her visor up as well. All that he could see of her face was a blunt blonde fringe, wide eyes and a freckled nose. She was attached to the wall of the lock by a metal line, and she had one hand on a heavy red lever.

‘You’re younger than I thought,’ he said.

‘Are you all right, Clavain?’

‘I’ve felt better,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be all right in a few moments. I put myself into deep sleep, almost a coma, to conserve my suit’s resources. Just in case you were a little late.’

‘What if I hadn’t arrived at all?’

‘I assumed you would, Antoinette.’

‘You were wrong. I very nearly didn’t come. Isn’t that right, Xave?’

One of the other voices — the third — he had heard earlier answered, ‘You don’t realise how lucky you are, man.’

‘No,’ Clavain said. ‘I probably don’t.’

‘I still say we should space him,’ the third voice repeated.

Antoinette looked over her shoulder, through the window of the inner airlock door. ‘After we came all this way?’

‘It’s not too late. Teach him a lesson about taking things for granted.’

Clavain made to move. ‘I didn’t…’

‘Whoah!’ Antoinette had extended a hand, clearly indicating that it would be very unwise of him to move another muscle. She nodded towards the lever she held in her other hand. ‘Check this out, Clavain. You do one thing that I don’t like — like so much as bat an eyelid — and I pull this lever. Then it’s back into space again, just like Xave said.’

He mulled over his predicament for several seconds. ‘If you weren’t prepared to trust me, at least slightly, you wouldn’t have come out to rescue me.’

‘Maybe I was curious.’

‘Maybe you were. But maybe you also felt I might have been sincere. I saved your life, didn’t I?’

With her free hand she worked the other airlock controls. The inner door slid aside, offering Clavain a brief glimpse into the rest of her ship. He saw another spacesuited figure waiting on the far side, but no sign of anyone else.

‘I’m going now,’ Antoinette said.

In one deft movement she undipped her restraint line, slipped through the open doorway and then made the inner airlock door close again. Clavain stayed still, waiting until her face appeared in the window. She had removed her helmet and was running her fingers through the unruly mop of her hair.