SOL 40: MIDNIGHT
Something was droning faintly in his ears. It was all dark, he could see nothing. His body felt numb, encased in ice. But there was that soft humming sound coming from somewhere.
His eyes were gummy. Too tired even to try raising his head or moving his arms, Jamie used every atom of his willpower to force his eyes open. A blurred confusion of grays swam before him. He blinked several times. It was the curved ceiling of the rover. The hum was the steady background throb of electrical power. He was lying on his back on one of the bunks. A bottom bunk, he saw, still blinking, focusing. The top bunk was pulled up and locked into its stowed position.
Vosnesensky appeared over him, his beefy face strangely gentle, tender. His wrinkled green coveralls looked too big for him, as if he had lost weight.
Jamie tried to say something but his throat was too dry. All that came out was a cracked groan.
“Rest, my friend,” Vosnesensky whispered. “Do not try to exert yourself. Here…”
The Russian lifted Jamie’s head and brought a steaming mug to his lips. “Easy… just a sip.”
It felt scalding hot on Jamie’s tongue. And good. Hot tea, heavily laced with lemon concentrate. He took several sips. It felt warm all the way down.
Vosnesensky laid Jamie’s head back down softly on the bunk, then looked at him silently with dark solemn eyes. Jamie realized the Russian was sitting on the opposite bunk, not standing. From up in the cockpit he heard Ivshenko’s voice speaking in English: reporting to the dome, or maybe straight to Dr. Li.
“You went out,” Jamie croaked. “You went out and got me.”
The Russian shook his head. “Reed went out.”
“Tony? Tony brought me in?”
Vosnesensky nodded.
Jamie lay there, realizing that they had pulled him out of his hard suit. He wormed a hand into the pocket where the bear fetish was; it felt solid, warm, comforting. Tony went out and got me, he said to himself. Tony’s not trained for EVA, but he went outside in the dark and dragged me in.
He heard the clumping thumps of boots and then Reed came into his vision, still encased in his yellow hard suit, except for the helmet. He looked like a man at an amusement arcade posing behind a cardboard cutout figure.
“You’re very lucky, James,” the Englishman said softly. “No frostbite. We got you in time.”
“You saved my life.”
Reed’s face flushed slightly. “Couldn’t let you freeze out there, could we?”
“Our physician has become a hero,” Vosnesensky said. But he did not smile.
“It took a lot of guts to go out into the night,” said Jamie. “Mars has given you courage.”
Reed glanced at Vosnesensky. “No heroics. Mikhail Andreivitch would have strangled me if I hadn’t gone out,” he said. “I was saving my own life, actually.”
“I don’t believe that. It took a lot of courage. A coward would have stayed in here no matter how Mikhail threatened.”
“You were practically here,” Reed said. “You collapsed less than a couple of hundred meters from the rover. We couldn’t sit here and let you die. That would have killed the other three in your group, as well, wouldn’t it?”
“But still…”
Vosnesensky scowled down at Jamie. “After what you did, in your condition, our physician’s little journey is insignificant.”
Jamie smiled back at him. “Except for one small detail-without that little journey everything I did would have meant nothing at all.”
Reed suddenly looked terribly uncomfortable. Vosnesensky shrugged and slowly pulled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the metal supports of the upper bunk.
“You should try to sleep,” Vosnesensky said.
“Yes,” Reed agreed swiftly. “Rest. You’ve earned it.”
“Dmitri is in contact with Connors and the women. Once the sun comes up I will ride the cable to their vehicle and help them into their suits. Then we will winch them across to us.”
Jamie nodded, his eyes already closing.
“Good,” he said. “Good.”
His last conscious thought was that Reed seemed a reluctant hero. God knows what Mikhail threatened him with. But Tony came through. That’s the important thing. Tony came through when it counted.