I think so.
I have to be. It was ahead of me, a little to my right. But that was when I was moving toward it.
Which way did I end up facing when I got Cleo to her feet? Toward the garage, or away?
We’re running out of time, and I don’t know where we are.
Cleo’s shuffling in front of me, all her concentration on keeping her suit intact. She’s hyperventilating – I can feel her ribs heaving against my arms – then suddenly her legs give, and she sags in my arms, head swaying from side to side. I catch aglimpse of her face through her helmet – her lashes are fluttering, her mouth open wide, gasping for air.
Her right hand begins to peel away from her left arm, and I clamp my own hand over it, holding her ripped suit in place like a vise. That means I have to keep her moving with just one arm wrapped around her ribs.
A moment later her foot catches on another rock, and we both stumble and fall together, me desperately clinging to her. We land in a tangled heap on the ground that drives the air from my lungs, sending up more dust to join the cloud all around us. My arm lands under her and pain shoots up into my shoulder, but I force myself to keep my grip tight.
I have to hold on.
I wouldn’t know which way was up if it wasn’t for the ground beneath me, pressing into my sore shoulder. Red dirt’s scattered across it, red dust hanging in the air as the storm moves through, every possible landmark invisible. The whole world is red.
I keep hold of the rip in Cleo’s suit as she lolls onto her back. She’s looking up at me in confusion, a line between her brows, and then she pushes onto her elbows, trying to get clear of me.
‘Cleo, no! Stay still!’ I’m shouting – when she keeps trying to wriggle free, I’mscreaming, but she can’t hear me. I’m screaming inside my own private little world, stuck inside my suit.
The realization is hitting me like a body blow, driving my own air from my lungs:I can’t lose her.
I won’t be okay without her.
I need her.
I press my helmet against hers, begging her with my eyes to understand. Starved of air, her gaze is bleary, totally bewildered. She doesn’t know where she is, and I don’t think she knows who I am either.
She stares up at me for a long moment, then goes obediently still.
Slowly, painfully, I start to pull the two of us to our feet. I have no idea which direction the garage is in – I have no idea where we came from in the first place.
I can’t leave Cleo, because I can’t trust her to keep the pressure on her suit, so I’m forced to bring her with me, walking her in front of me like a giant puppet as I stumble along in zero visibility, searching for the buildings and safety. She’s almost a deadweight, more harm than help.
I walk us in each direction in turn, because I know we can’t be more than twenty paces from the place where the rock and dirt gives way to the hard lines of the hab emerging from it – and if I can find that wall, I can follow it to the garage entrance.
Once I’ve done my twenty paces, I swivel what I desperately hope is 180 degrees, then return and try the next direction.
I do this six times, over and over, forcing myself to stay calm, ignoring the fact that now I’m hyperventilating too – my breath is coming too fast, too short, and my helmet’s starting to fog up, a drop of water running down the center of my vision.
Cleo’s dying in my arms, and I can’t find the way to safety.
Then finally, finally, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life looms up ahead of me. The edge of a straight wall, emerging from the ground like a whale breaking the surface ofthe ocean. It pushes up on an angle, and I stumble along it until I find the seams of the garage door.
I pin Cleo against the wall with my body to keep her upright, one hand clamped around the rip at her forearm, the other running frantically up and down the doorframe for the release.
I find the release button, pound it with my fist, and we stumble in together, the doors taking an eternity to close behind us. I feel the pressure shift, and I’m gasping inside my helmet, turning Cleo in my arms so I can check her face. Tears stream down her cheeks and her pale skin is turning gray.
It’s a lifetime until the airlock equalizes. The doors to the empty garage swing open, and breathable air rushes in. I rip off my gloves and grab for the release on Cleo’s helmet with a shaking hand, unlatching it and tossing it to the ground to bounce away.
She gasps a shuddering breath, lips parting, chest rising, and relief rushes through me in a trembling wave. She’s still breathing. She’s still here.
She’s alive.
My legs fold, and together, the pair of us sink down to the floor.
21.
