it an airlock?” I couldn’t see the computer’s camera, but I was sure it had one, and so it should have known what I was indicating.
“Yes.”
“The outer door is sealed?”
“Yes.”
“Does it swing in or out?”
“Out.”
I motioned to Pickover. He walked over and worked the wheel that opened the inner door, which swung in toward him. There was a chamber with curving walls between the inside and outside hulls of the ship, big enough for one person. “Is there a safety interlock that will prevent us from opening the outer door while the inner one is open?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the computer.
“Can it be defeated?” I assumed there must be a way to turn it off, since it’d be a pain in the ass to have to cycle through the airlock during testing back on Earth.
“Yes.”
“Do so.”
“Done.”
“Okay. I propose that you fire the engine to lift the ship up out of the ground so that the airlock is just above the surface. Can do?”
“Can do,” said the computer.
“All right,” I said. “Rory, are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
I got out of the chair and moved over to stand behind him. “Nothing personal,” I said, “but if whoever is outside opens fire, you’ve got a better chance of surviving than I do.”
The paleontologist nodded.
“Computer,” I said.
“My name is Mudge,” the machine replied.
I heard Pickover snort; the name must have meant something to him. “Fine, Mudge,” I said. “We’re ready.”
“Ten,” said Mudge, and he continued in the predictable sequence.
There was a wheel set into the outer door, which was also red. Pickover moved over and grabbed it with both hands, ready to start rotating it as soon as it was above the ground. I grabbed onto a handle conveniently set into the wall of the airlock, in case it turned out to be a rough ride.
“Two,” said Mudge. “One. Zero.”
The whole ship began to shake, and I heard the roar of the engine beneath my feet and felt it transmitted through the deck plates and the soles of my boots. We did not explode, for which I was grateful. But we didn’t seem to be going anywhere, either.
“Mudge?” I called.
The computer divined my question. “The permafrost is melting beneath us and, by conduction, at our sides, as well. Give it a moment.”
I did just that, and soon did feel us jerking upward. I tried to imagine what the scene looked like outside: perhaps like a cork working its way slowly out of a wine bottle.
There was a rectangle in front of Pickover, above the wheel, that I’d stupidly taken as decorative, but it was a window in the outer airlock door. Light was now streaming in from the top of it, and the strip of illumination was growing thicker centimeter by centimeter as the ship rose out of its muddy tomb. I couldn’t make out any details through the window, though: it was streaked with reddish brown muck.
If whoever had locked us in had been standing guard, I hoped—old softy that I am—that he or she realized what was going on, since I imagined the superheated rocket exhaust would spray out in all directions once the cylindrical hull was fully above ground.
Soon the entire height of the window was admitting light. Our ascent was still slow, though. Pickover was craning to look out the port, presumably to see when the bottom of the door was above ground—
—which must have been now, because he gave a final twist to the locking wheel and hauled back and kicked the door outward with the leg that had the uninjured ankle.
Suddenly we popped higher into the air—free now from the sucking wet melted permafrost. Pickover threw himself out the airlock with a cry of “Geronimo!”
I scrambled to follow suit, but by the time I got to the precipice, we were already dozens of meters above the ground; even in Martian gravity, the jump would surely break my legs and probably my neck, too.
“Abort!” I yelled over my shoulder. “Mudge, lower us back down!”
The vibration of the hull plating changed at once, presumably as the computer throttled back the engine. We hung in the air for a moment, like a cartoon character after going off a cliff, and then started to descend.
Pickover had ended up spread-eagled in the mud, but was now getting to his feet and trying to run, despite his bad ankle. The cylindrical habitat had reduced its altitude by half. Pickover was having a terrible time gaining traction in the mud; I didn’t