Dmitri Iosifovitch Ivshenko had the physique and the personality of the typical cosmonaut. Slight of build, lightning-fast reflexes, and enough youth to have survived being a fighter pilot and then a test pilot. Drinking all night, sobering up on oxygen in the morning, breakfasting on a cigarette and then throwing up behind the hangar before climbing into the cockpit of some supersonic jet. Yet once in the cockpit he became cool and calculating, capable of sizing up a situation in an instant and doing the right thing at precisely the right moment on a combination of instinct, training, and blindingly fast thought processes. He did not consider himself to be a bold pilot; the bold ones died young. Ivshenko was a cautious pilot who flew dangerous aircraft. When he transferred to the cosmonaut corps he was almost bored with the Newtonian predictability of each space mission.
He was not bored now. He was not particularly worried, either. Merely careful. No need to rush, he reminded himself as he cautiously poked his pole into the sandy ripples a meter in front of his boots. We are here to rescue those four wretches, not to get stuck alongside them.
Dust stirred up where he prodded the ground. The pole sank in a few centimeters, then seemed to hit firm soil. Ivshenko nodded inside his helmet and took a step forward, dragging his safety tether behind him.
“How is it?” Vosnesensky’s voice rasped in his earphones.
“Soft, like sand. Not good traction.”
“Be very careful.”
“I am always very careful, Mikhail Andreivitch.”
“Then be doubly careful.”
“Yes, sir, comrade group commander.” Ivshenko chuckled to himself and took another step forward.
His foot slid out from under him. His body half turned as he grabbed at the pole with both hands but it too was sinking into the sand, suddenly the consistency of talcum. Clouds of pink dust billowed softly as Ivshenko felt himself slipping, sliding forward, his boots suddenly without purchase, sinking into a sea of soft red sand.
He did not call out. Even as he sank down into the clinging dust he let go of the useless pole and tried to twist his body around and reach back toward the last bit of firm ground. But inside the cumbersome hard suit he could barely turn a few degrees as he floundered, arms flailing, legs kicking. It was like sinking into gooey mud. Ivshenko imagined himself being sucked down into quicksand.
With those rapid reflexes and his ability to size up a situation quickly, Ivshenko stopped his struggling even as he heard Vosnesensky bellowing in his earphones: “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
He felt something firm beneath the heel of his left boot and tried to balance all his weight on it. But the boot slipped off it and he continued to sink slowly, inexorably, into the fine red dust. It rose up to his chest, up to his armpits, to the lip of his helmet.
“I am sinking,” he reported glumly. The visor of his helmet was spattered with rust-colored dust. His arms were spread across the surface of the sand like a swimmer trying to float. He was afraid to move them for fear of sinking faster.
Vosnesensky swore in Russian.
“I’m sinking!” Ivshenko repeated, louder, his voice pitched higher. The talcumlike sand was crawling up the faceplate of his helmet.
Vosnesensky hesitated only a moment. It would be dangerous to try to back up on this slope, he knew, but Ivshenko’s tether was attached to a simple ring fastener on the nose of the vehicle. There was no winch to pull him up.
“Sit down,” he snapped at Reed as he punched the control panel buttons that put all the wheel motors into reverse.
Reed slipped into the right-hand seat, his eyes goggling at the scene in front of them. Ivshenko’s helmet had disappeared into the sand almost entirely. He was yelling something in Russian, but his radio voice was breaking up, garbled with static.
“Pull me up, dammit!” Ivshenko shouted into his helmet microphone. He was completely drowned in the red dust now. And still sinking. It was bottomless.
Then he felt the tether take hold. Like a parachute blossoming over his head. Ivshenko felt the same rush of gratitude and joy.