Hogarth wore a suit better suited for heavy activity in an airless, low-gravity environment. His boots gripped the soil, keeping him from flying into the roof of the cave. Fleming’s suit could easily handle the vacuum and Mars’s half-standard gravity. On the barren rock, though, it threatened to bounce her off the walls and into orbit of Zeta Reticuli if she found an opening.
At the top of the rise leading to the mouth of the cave, he stopped and looked back. Nothing followed them. “Rene, slow down. You’re going to tumble off into space the way you’re running.”
Her breath came ragged over the radio. “It ate him, Adam. That thing ate Bernard!”
“We have to get back to the ship. You can’t do that like you’re running through a thin CO2 atmosphere with a full planet beneath you.”
“I don’t want to get eaten!” Her piercing voice almost hurt his ears.
“Calm down, Doctor. We’re going to die if you don’t. Use your grips and slowly come to me. The ship is right outside the cave.”
“We have to leave as soon as we’re aboard.” She pulled two rods from a pack behind her back. They extended into something resembling ski poles with claws at the end. These dug into the soil and rock, letting her stay on the surface. “Do you hear me? I want to leave the second the lock recycles.”
“We have to wait for a pickup.” Here he was lecturing a woman with two more doctorates than he had. It felt like explaining something to a child. “You know this.”
“It ate Bernard.”
That changed nothing. The worm-like extension did not follow them. Instead, it had retracted as soon as it consumed Botaki. Nothing chased them. “We’re safe for now. Let’s take our time and get back to the ship.”
He could see her face inside her helmet as she nodded. He wished Fleming had not panicked, had been the one to stay calm. Right now, the pressure within him had built to where he wanted to scream and lose it like she did. The hysterics grabbed him first, so he would have to keep them at bay, at least until he reached his quarters on the ship. And only when he locked the door. He did not want the Etruscan crew on board to see him lose it.
It took them ten more minutes to reach their landing pod and another five to cycle the airlock. When their helmets came off, Fleming hyperventilated. Hogarth put his hands on his knees as he half knelt, struggling to control his own breathing. “I feel ya,” he said to Fleming, her hair matted.
The Martian scientist burst out laughing. It took her several minutes to calm down, going from nearly hyperventilating to breathing slowly. Hogarth merely sat and stared out the window.
“Hello?”
It took Hogarth a minute to realize Corbin, the pod’s pilot, had been speaking to them. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Are we taking off?” said Corbin, running a hand through his long black hair. “What happened?”
“A giant metal worm ate Botaki.” Fleming stared ahead. She gave Hogarth the impression she would be smoking something if one could smoke aboard the pod. That would be almost as shocking as Botaki’s death, since smoking was illegal on Mars.
“An appendage came off the object we were scanning,” said Hogarth. “It looked like a worm.”
Corbin’s eyes lit up. “Like that tacky artwork from the World War Era with the naked woman straddling the… the…”
Hogarth waved him off. “Earth people. Look, it resembled a snake-like creature. The grays walked into its mouth and let it eat them. One of them pulled itself inside. Botaki probably stood too close.”
“So, we’re taking off?”
“To where? The Cousteau is still out looking for more objects. If we leave, we’ll be making it harder for them to pick us up. Besides, we’re safe here. That thing didn’t follow us. If we leave before the ship returns, we’ll run out of fuel.”
“No, we won’t. The Etruscans overfuel all their spacecraft. They believe in contingencies, not range anxiety.”
“Would you two focus?” said Fleming. “That thing ate Botaki, like he was a snack or something. What the hell kind of engineering is that?”
“Alien?”
A tapping sound came from the lower deck.
Hogarth wanted to ask Corbin if any valves had opened or closed when the pilot asked, “What the hell?”
Fleming leaned over to a nearby console and manipulated a touchscreen. “Oh, my God.” Fleming went even paler, which Hogarth did not think even possible. “Adam, come here and look at this.”
He crawled over to Fleming’s position and looked over her shoulder. The display showed the airlock on the lower deck. Outside, a gray stood knocking on the outer hatch with a rock.
It had Botaki’s face.