“Radiation level’s not up much over ambient yet,” she said.
“How soon?” Dan asked impatiently.
The lights on her helmet’s inner face flickered, changed. “Hour and a half, maybe a little less.”
Dan went back to digging, blinking sweat out of his eyes, wishing he could wipe his face or just scratch his nose. But that was impossible inside the suit. Should have worn a sweat band, he told himself. Always did when I went outside. Been so long since I’ve done any EVA work I forgot it. Hindsight’s always perfect.
“Y’know we’re gonna need at least a meter of this dirt over us,” Pancho said, digging alongside him.
“And then dig our way out, after the cloud passes.”
“Yep,” Dan repeated. It was the most he could say without stopping work. His muscles ached from the unaccustomed exertion.
It seemed like hours later when he heard Pancho’s voice in his helmet speaker. “How’re you guys doin’, Mandy?”
“We’re fine. We found a lovely cave and we have it almost completely filled in.”
“Once you’re all covered over it’s gonna degrade our radio link,” Pancho said.
“Yes, I’m sure it will.”
“Got your air tanks in there with you?”
“Yes, of course.”
Dan saw that their air tanks were still lying out on the surface, more than arm’s reach away.
“Okay, keep your radio open. If we get completely cut off, you stay in the hole for fourteen hours. Got that?”
“Fourteen hours, check.”
“Time count starts now.”
“Fourteen hours from now,” Amanda confirmed.
“Have a nice day.”
“We’ll see you in fourteen hours,” Fuchs said.
“Right,” said Dan, silently adding, Dead or alive.
To Pancho, he said, “I’d better drag the air tanks in here.” Before she could object he pushed himself out of the hole and soared up above the dark, uneven ground. Dan glanced around but could not find the shelter that Amanda and Fuchs had dug for themselves. They did a good job, he thought as he tapped his jet thruster controls to push himself back to the surface.
The cylinders weighed next to nothing, but still he was careful with them as he slid them down into the pit. They still have mass, and inertia, Dan knew. I could break open Pancho’s helmet or spring her suit’s joints if I let one of these things bang into her.
By the time he wormed himself back into the pit beside her, Dan was bathed in cold sweat and puffing hard.
“You’re not used to real work, are you, boss?” Pancho teased.
Dan shook his head inside his helmet. “Soon as we get back to Selene I’m going in for rejuvenation therapy.”
“Me too.”
“You? At your age?”
“Sooner’s better’n later, they claim.”
Dan humphed. “Better late than never.”
“Radiation level’s starting to climb,” Pancho said, starting to paw at the sides of their pit again. “We better get ourselves buried or neither one of us’ll get any younger.”
“Or older,” Dan muttered.
Buried alive. This is like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story, Dan said to himself. He knew Pancho was mere centimeters from him; so were the air tanks. But he could see nothing. They were buried under nearly a full meter of loose rubble, curled fetally, nothing to see or hear or do except wait.
“… are you doing?” He heard Amanda’s voice, scratchy and weak, through his helmet’s speaker.
“We’re okay,” Pancho said. “I’ve been thinkin’ we oughtta organize a square dance.”
Dan suppressed a groan. That’s just we need, he thought, redneck humor. Then, surprisingly, he laughed. He hadn’t heard the term “redneck” since he’d been in Texas, long ages ago. There are no rednecks off-Earth, Dan realized. You don’t get sunburned out here. Cooked, maybe. Fried by radiation. But not tanned, not unless you sit under the sunlamps in the gym at Selene.
He wiggled his right hand through the loose rubble encasing him and felt for the keyboard on his left forearm. By touch he called up the ship’s sensor display. They had programmed the suits to show the displays on the inner surfaces of their bubble helmets. Nothing but streaks of colored hash. Either the pile of dirt atop them or the radiation storm was interfering with their link to the ship. Probably a combination of both, he thought.