Genesis (22 page)

It wasn’t white. The walls were a dull, pale orange and there were no windows. It wasn’t as clean either. There was something metallic in the scent. They stopped at a door marked with a number nine and dragged Essie inside.

As soon as Pip entered, he wanted to run out again. The room was large. Around the walls were lines of desks and holo coms and all manner of scientific equipment. Machines whirred in a low undercurrent, and at odd moments holo coms would come on, translucent green shapes and graphs hanging in the air. There was no one else in the room apart from them and one other: Rosie’s dad. Clad only in a pair of briefs, he reclined, half upright on a long red chair, eyes closed, in the middle of a totally enclosed transparent tent. Tubes ran from his arms and torso to medibots that hovered near him, monitoring his life signs. His head had been shaved and a series of small pods attached to his skull.

Essie saw him and struggled weakly in the grip of the grunts, swearing at them. Pip moved forward barely hearing her. Rosie’s dad had the MalX; he would recognise it anywhere. His skin was covered in curls of pink rash that formed over his chest and legs like waves, and already his limbs were starting to waste. Pip was horrified. It took weeks to get to this stage. He’d seen him on Earth when the grunts came for him; he’d been fine then. There was only one way he could have become so sick, so fast, and the thought of it turned his stomach. Someone had deliberately infected him with a massive dose and Pip knew exactly who would have done it.

“Riley.” Rosie kneeled on the floor by his head. “Wake up.”

She touched his left shoulder.

“I’m awake,” he said, but didn’t open his eyes.

“Can you move?” She tried to keep the urgency out of her voice. “We have to get out. The ship is going to slip into the river.”

He made a deep grunting sound and frowned. “I think my arm is broken.”

“Yeah, but–”

He tried to get up and roared in pain.

Rosie reached out to help him.

“No! Don’t!” He hung onto the balustrade, white-faced and panting, and spoke from between clenched teeth. “I’m going to need a … sling or something.”

“Wait there.” She ran down to Aunt Essie’s quarters. Her aunt’s gear was everywhere, thrown into chaos by the crash. Rosie sifted through the mess. “Found it!” she shouted and raced back with a medikit. Inside were antivirals, syringes, vitamin surge pods, a kind of mask, and other vials, but no sling.

“Any material,” Riley panted.

She flew down the stairs and pulled the sheet off the bunk. Using the same bit of metal she’d pried his helmet off with, she ripped a piece off it into a rough square.

“You’ll have to … help me. Pain …” Riley nodded towards the medikit.

“Pain relievers?” She found a small medigun. She went to put it to his left arm, but he stopped her.

“No. There.” He pointed to the broken one. Rosie hesitated. “Works faster, straight in the nerves.” His face was distorted with pain. “Rosie, come on!”

Rosie jabbed the needle into his shoulder. He yelled and closed his eyes, his breath coming in gasps.

“Now the sling,” he said after a minute.

They got it right after three tries and by then Riley was sweating. But with his arm tied against his body, he was breathing easier and seemed to be in less pain.

“So, do we know where we are?” he said.

Rosie showed him their location on the geocompass.

“There’s no way we can get up those canyon walls with your arm like that,” she said. “We’re going to have to make some kind of raft and use the river. If we can get to where this tributary meets the Marineris, we might be able to get out of the canyon at this point. I think the walls might be lower there.”

Riley nodded, weakly. “Sounds good. Do we have any water?”

Rosie was taken aback that he had agreed so readily to her plan. “I’ll find some.” She went to the narrow galley just off the cargo bay. The food lockers were buckled and the supplies strewn across the floor. Many of the packets had burst open. Rosie crunched across a carpet of dried food and searched for as many intact bottles of water and packs of food as she could. She was worried about Riley. He hadn’t even looked at the geocompass to double-check her bearings. It wasn’t like him. She located a backpack and filled it with the water and food and took it back to him.

He sipped his water slowly and didn’t complain when she unwrapped a protein bar and put it in his hand. That worried her even more.

“What are we going to use for a raft?” he said.

“I don’t know.” Rosie surveyed the cargo bay. Why didn’t Aunt Essie carry an inflatable? Then she was struck with an idea. The bay was full of plastic cargo carriers that had come loose from their webbing. “The carriers.” She flicked the light around so it played across the bright red containers. “We could tie them together.” They would need an oar as well, but the current was going the way they wanted to go, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

“Good idea,” he said, although he didn’t sound enthusiastic. “We don’t have any coms, do we?”

“No. All busted.”

“You sure? Maybe I can fix one.”

Rosie sighed. “I’ll get one.” She went to the bridge, coming back with the broken one she’d found earlier. “Here.” She handed it to him. Weariness washed over her again and her head ached.

He flipped off the back of the com. “Got any tools?”

Rosie retrieved her aunt’s toolbox. She ate some food and watched Riley fiddle with the com for a while, then she got up and began to drag cargo carriers together.

For a time they didn’t speak. Rosie kept dragging containers, listening for any suspicious metallic scraping noises and worrying how long it would be until Helios found them. Her muscles ached and she was still hungry despite the three protein bars she’d consumed. All she wanted to do was sit down and go to sleep. But they had to get out of the pod.

The hull creaked and she dropped a container on her foot. “Ow!” she yelled and kicked it, suddenly furious with it and herself.

“You okay?” Riley said.

She pulled the container to her pile, shoving it savagely against the others. “You mean apart from my whole family possibly being dead and being stuck at the bottom of a canyon?” she said. “Yeah, I’m just fantabulous. A-1, thanks.”

“Considering that, you are doing pretty well,” he said. His calm response sucked the anger out of her.

She swayed on her feet then slumped down on one of the containers. “Do you think they’re still alive?”

He stopped, a tiny screwdriver paused above the com, and met her gaze. “The chances are slim.”

Rosie’s chest tightened. She was glad he hadn’t lied. Tears made her sight blurry and she closed her eyes for a minute, trying to deny them, but they spilled out anyway. She wiped them away with the back of her hand, not looking at him.

He went back to fiddling with the com and said quietly, “You could use the harnesses from the seats and the cargo restraints to tie the containers together.”

It was a good idea. She took a deep breath then went to look for the straps.

It took nearly an hour to fasten the straps around the eight containers. It made a reasonable-sized raft, big enough for the two of them. Riley did what he could to help her, instructing in a good knot to use so they held, but he had trouble staying on his feet and had to sit down. He’d got the com working though and Rosie couldn’t help being impressed. He knew a lot about the mechanics of coms and devices; maybe he could teach her one day – if they survived.

It was starting to get light by the time they’d finished. Their plan was to slide the raft out of the side cargo doors and paddle downriver towards the colony until the com was in range.

Riley said he had some friends on Genesis who could help. If he could contact them, they might be able to get a rover to come get them when they got to the junction of the Marineris. If they could find a place to land. If they could get up the canyon wall. It was a lot of “ifs” but they couldn’t just sit here.

Rosie slung the pack with the food and water onto her back, then found a waterproof bag Riley could seal the diary in. He wrapped it carefully and zipped it into the front pocket of his spacesuit. They had both kept the suits on to help stay warm.

“Ready?” he said.

She nodded.

The pod was on more of a tilt now, the back section sitting lower than before. The cargo bay doors were at the back end of the ship, ten metres away from the bottom of the steps where Riley was sitting. Rosie pushed the raft down towards them easily enough, the slanted floor helping her progress, but she was worried about the water outside. How deep were they?

“I think we’re still just above the waterline,” Riley said.

“What if we’re not?”

“We are,” he said firmly.

She’d cobbled together a paddle from a length of pipe and a broken slice of a container. She picked it up from the floor and shoved it under the straps that held the raft together.

“Where’s the com? If it gets wet …”

“In here with the diary.” Riley patted the zipped pocket. “The suit should keep them dry.”

Rosie hoped the suits would keep the cold out as well. It was autumn on Mars and even though they were near the equator, it was still only about seven degrees outside. “Come on, let’s get the door open.”

He walked slowly down to the higher end of the doors. They’d decided earlier that Rosie would have to be at the end where the water would rush in. Risky though it was, if she slipped, Riley stood a better chance of holding the raft.

Riley said, “If you feel it start to go, you jump on, and I mean fast. I’ll get us out somehow.”

She gripped the manual door release. “I’m ready.”

“You packed the medikit, didn’t you?” he asked.

“It’s in the pack.”

“Good.” He unlocked the door. “I’m going to need those painkillers. Okay. Pull!”

Rosie heaved. The door began to slide open, her side slower than his. He had hold of it with his left hand and his face was screwed up in pain as his injured right arm brushed against the wall.

Water began to flow in around Rosie’s feet. It was freezing, the cold seeping into her boots. Riley’s side was still dry, but the wider Rosie opened her door, the more water came in, until it was halfway up her calves and rising. The raft began to lift, banging against the floor of the ship and the roar of the water through the canyon was massively loud.

Rosie let go of her door. She grabbed the raft and pushed hard, swinging her end towards the gap while Riley pulled.

“Rosie, get on!” he shouted.

But before she could, there was a sudden terrifying shriek of metal against rock and the pod slipped. A great rush of water flowed in and knocked Rosie off her feet. She lost her grip on the raft and went under. Her chest seized. The water was so cold, it was like being pinpricked by thousands of icicles. She flung her hands out in panic scrabbling for a handhold. The bag on her back caught on something and the stairwell rail almost hit her in the face. She clung to it and dragged herself up to surface, coughing and spitting.

“Rosie!” Riley’s face was contorted with pain as he hung on to the raft that was on the verge of being swept out of the doors. Metal shrieked around them. The ship was breaking loose.

“I’m losing it!” Riley shouted.

She leaped towards it, managing to grab one of the straps.

“Get on!” He yelled. Rosie threw herself across it and he gave the raft a mighty heave then followed, landing on top as it was swept out onto the river.

Rosie clung to the raft’s straps, shivering. The current whisked them away downstream faster than she’d anticipated. She looked behind and a moment later saw the pod sink in a glut of bubbles and a last scrape of metal. A mix of fear and exhilaration flooded her.

She was wet and freezing, but they were alive. She turned to Riley but the words died on her lips. He lay on the raft, his eyes closed, and he wasn’t moving.

“Riley?” Rosie crawled towards him then realised the raft was heading straight for the canyon wall. She pulled the paddle out from under the straps then shoved it into the water like a rudder. The raft tossed and bobbed in the current and it took all her concentration to control it. She balanced on her knees and dipped the paddle in left, then right, shuffling from one side to the other as she tried to steer them on a straight course. The water dragged hard at the paddle and she was terrified they’d tip over.

“Riley!” She shouted at him several times, and finally he moved his hand the tiniest bit.

“Okay,” he said weakly, but didn’t open his eyes. It was better than nothing.

After a frantic dance of shuffling and dipping, Rosie managed to steer the raft towards the centre of the river, where the water ran swift but smooth. They settled into the strong central current, floating in a relatively straight course.

Her knees sore, she sat back on her heels to catch her breath, inhaling deeply through the breather. Her arms and back were aching, her fingers so numb from the cold she could barely feel the paddle any more. With slow movements she shrugged the backpack off her shoulders and looked up at the sky that was cloud streaked and getting brighter by the minute.

It was just past dawn and a pale red glow was suffusing the rim of the canyon, highlighting the redness of the rock. The canyon walls rose almost half a kilometre above her head and down where they were, the light was still soft.

A thin mist was coming off the water and the air was cold, her breath frosting in front of her. Water had penetrated part of the way into her suit when she’d been pushed under. Her forearms, lower legs and neck were all damp and water had got into her boots; her socks were soaked. A chill was settling in her bones. But when she looked around, her discomfort faded as it suddenly struck her that she was actually on Mars – she was here, she was actually here.

Even after all her study, she’d not been able to comprehend Mars’s actual existence until now, or its staggering beauty. The planet was still wild, and here in this relatively small canyon, humans had barely touched its natural beauty. Perhaps no one had actually ridden this river, no one had seen that particular slab of rock, that tuft of shrub. She could be the first.