The Season Of Passage Part 29

Another beautiful b.l.o.o.d.y sunset spread around them. Only a day ago, as Mars counted time, they had sat and chatted with Jim. Good conversation on Thursday, dissection on Friday. The autopsy said that he had died of a heart attack. A fine doctor she had turned out to be. But what exactly had brought on the attack? Mitral valve prolapse never led to cardiac arrest, not that she knew of. She was at a complete loss, and Gary and Bill were both asking her for her professional opinion.

Gary climbed out of the grave he had just finished digging and stood next to the dark green plastic bag that held Jim's body. Gary glanced at Bill, who waited inside his suit, stonefaced, at the top of the hole, his back to the setting sun.

'Why don't you begin, Jessie,' Bill said.

His wife opened the book and - her gloved hands turning the pages with great difficulty - settled on a selection. 'This is one of the Psalms,' she said. 'I think Jim would like it.' She cleared her throat. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...

"He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil..."'

She finished the Psalm, and added, 'We'll miss you, Jim.'

Jessica handed the open book to Lauren. The pages were yellowed with years. It was ironic, Lauren thought. Gary was trying to convince her there was a devil loose on the planet, and maybe he was right. But she didn't believe there was a G.o.d here. If he did exist, he couldn't have anything to do with Mars. She knew there was no one to hear their prayers. Shaking her head silently, Lauren gave the book to Gary.

But I did love you, Jim. I always will.

Gary thumbed through the pages angrily, but couldn't find what he was looking for. He slammed the Bible shut. 'I'll say my own prayer.' He addressed the red heavens. 'If you're there, G.o.d, and you do care about us, please watch over Jim's soul. I believed in him. I think he helped me believe in you. He was the best of us all.' Gary spoke quietly to the plastic bag at his feet. 'He was my best friend.'

There followed an empty silence. It was always a one sided conversation when you talked to G.o.d. Gary thrust out the Bible to Bill. 'Here,' he said bitterly. 'You're our commander. You're the one who should be saying these things.'

Bill took the book without any sign of emotion. He spoke to the rectangular hole in the ground. 'Our loss is great. Jim was rare among men. All his life he accomplished what he set out to do. He let nothing stand in his way. He was brilliant, he was kind, but above all else, he was courageous. We can take a lesson from the example he set, to perform our duty without hesitation, and let nothing stop us. Our thirst is great but soon it will pa.s.s. We will complete our explorations and leave this world. Tomorrow Jessie will accompany me under the ground.'

Jessie.

The last rays of the sun licked their commander's back. A gust of wind came up and sprayed snow in the air; it settled on their faceplates like dirt thrown in their faces. Bill searched the Bible. 'But for now we must say goodbye to our friend,' he said. 'I would like to say the Lord's Prayer. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in heaven..."'

I will show thee the condemnation of the great harlot, Lori, who sits upon many waters. With whom the Kings of Earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the Earth were made drunk with the wine of her immortality.

Lauren did not recognize the voice in her head. It was not the voice of her own thoughts, nor was it Bill's voice. Yet it flowed in rhythm with Bill's words and it seemed to express a part of him that was still hidden, but a part which was becoming clearer with each pa.s.sing second, as the light steadily faded.

"'Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespa.s.ses, as we forgive those who trespa.s.s against us, and..."'

And I saw Lori drunk with the blood of saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus...

' "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,"' Bill said. '"Amen."'

Amen. And f.u.c.k you, sweet Lori.

Lauren was having difficulty breathing. Her lungs felt as if they were filled with burning ash. Yet there was a cold spreading inside her, too, like frost growing on a cracked window in an empty house. The sun had set. Bill closed the Bible and stared at her. The ceremony was over. She was glad it was over.

'That was very nice,' Gary said sarcastically.

'Yeah,' Jessica agreed blankly.

Bill nodded, still watching Lauren. Finally he spoke, 'It's late. We have shown our respects. You will bury the body, Gary. The rest of us will return to the ship.'

'I'd like to stay,' Lauren said.

'Fine,' Bill said, 'Let's go, Jessie. We have much to accomplish tomorrow.'

As they turned and walked toward the Hawk, Gary reached for the laser he had earlier lain beneath Jim's body. In seconds he had released the safety and leveled the rifle at Bill's back. Lauren closed her eyes, and heard Gary pull the trigger.

But no devastating beam of energy spurted forth. Lauren opened her eyes and found a shocked Gary examining the laser. Bill had turned and watched him patiently. Jessica stood to Bill's left, to the left of the ozone, not understanding that anything unusual had just happened.

'Is something the matter, Gary?' Bill asked.

'No.'

'Something I can help you with?'

'No,' Gary said.

'Good,' Bill said, taking his wife's hand and turning away again. 'You need not bury him deep.'

Jessica and Bill disappeared inside the Hawk. Lauren stepped to Gary's side. He had thrown the laser to the ground.

'You missed,' she said.

'The laser's broken.'

'Obviously.'

Gary knelt and took hold of Jim's legs. 'I didn't particularly like Bill's last remark,' he said. 'Give me a hand, Lori.'

'OK.'.

'We have a deep hole here,' Gary said. 'He'll rest peacefully. Nothing will disturb him.'

Lauren nodded, and took hold of the shoulders.

'We don't have to worry about Jim,' Gary said. 'I know we don't have to worry about him.'

'Yeah,' Lauren said. Still holding his legs, Gary jumped into the grave.

'The b.a.s.t.a.r.d overloaded the laser,' he said. 'He's the one we have to worry about.' Gary quickly slipped Jim's body into the ice-rimmed hole, setting it down gently, and then climbed out. He began to scan the area.

'What are you looking for?' she asked.

'Jim won't hurt us,' he said for what seemed the tenth time. 'But I think we should get a big rock.'

'What for?' Lauren asked.

'It's good to be careful. I'm looking for a boulder that we can roll over the grave.' He got angry when she shook her head as if he was crazy. 'Just help me, G.o.dd.a.m.nit! We don't know what's going on here.' He turned away. 'We don't know nothing.'

The steps echoed from the control room to the bedroom where Lauren lay staring at the ceiling. According to the engineers who had built the Hawk, it was impossible to hear footsteps from one deck to the next. Lauren figured Bill must have gained two thousand pounds.

Jessica was asleep on the other bed, her system fortified for a long excursion in dreamland with two grams of phen.o.barbital. Lauren had contemplated taking a pill herself, but only for a tenth of a second. In her right hand, under the covers, she held the razor-sharp scalpel she had used during the autopsy on Jim.

The door opened. Lauren jumped, but it was only Gary. He sat at her feet, and the bedroom door shut automatically behind him. He wore a pair of red shorts and nothing else. His muscles looked remarkably tan and supple considering that he hadn't exercised in the sun in months.

'Can't sleep?' he asked.

'That's a stupid question.' She sat up against the wall and tucked her bent knees under her T-shirt. Her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s touched her thighs.

'Will I wake Jessie talking?' Gary asked.

'She'll stay asleep,' Lauren said sarcastically.

'She suspects nothing?'

'Not even that you tried to shoot her husband in the back a couple of hours ago.'

Gary tightened his fists. 'Are you glad I failed?'

'I don't know.'

'Well, listen to this. The other lasers are overloaded, too. Coincidence? Thank G.o.d we still have the one at the Karamazov.'

Lauren coughed with a dry throat. She was beginning to believe she would give her life for a gla.s.s of water. 'I was just thinking of Jim,' she said. 'How wise he was. How much he saw that none of us could see. He never tried to do what you did today.'

Gary was hurt. 'I know I'm not Jim. But the situation was different yesterday. He had a theory. He was trying to gather information. He didn't have the proof we have. No one was dead then.'

"The autopsy showed it was his heart,' Lauren said.

'You believe that?'

Lauren sniffed. 'I don't know.'

'I remember once when Jim and I were sitting alone together in his room in the isolation complex,' Gary said. 'A moth began to buzz around his lamp, and I started to swat it, but he stopped me. He said to open the window and let it out. Sure, I thought. We were in quarantine. Those windows couldn't be opened without taking out a half dozen screws. But you know what he did when I told him that? He went to the kitchen and got a knife and undid the entire window. Just to save a moth's life.' Gary shook his head. 'I don't think Jim could have shot a rattlesnake if it was ready to bite him.'

'He was very brave,' Lauren said, thinking that Bill had said the same thing. She noticed that Gary had a new book with him. It made her mad. 'Oh, and I see you've got fresh reading material. I don't know where you find the time, what with all the funerals we've been having lately. What is it this time? The Invasion of the Body s.n.a.t.c.hers Gary held up the book. Dracula.

'What are you reading, Jenny?'

'Nothing. Just something I found at the library.'

'And it's a secret?'

'It's a love story.'

Lauren felt miserably depressed. Nothing was sacred anymore. Not even young girls with golden hair and blue eyes. 'I didn't know you had a copy, too,' she said.

That startled Gary. 'Too? does Bill have this book?'

'No. Jenny was reading Dracula before I left. She was really into it, but I burned it before she could finish it.' Anger rose inside Lauren. 'I burned it because it's garbage. How can a story help us now? You and your Martian Chronicles and your lost expeditions. You hear those footsteps? He's right above us!'

I said it. I confessed my faith. Am I a believer now?

Gary nodded gravely. 'You're right, I know these stories are bulls.h.i.t. But what about the stuff that inspired the authors to write the stories? Some of that stuff could be true.'

'What stuff?'

'Jim mentioned ghost stories. I've read some fairly reliable cases about people who've drunk blood and had supernormal strength.'

'In the Enquirer?' Lauren asked dryly.

'No. In sensible books written by sensible people. Get off your high horse and open your mind. Weird stuff is going on around us left and right. We can't just close our eyes and say we're astronauts and NASA will take care of everything.'

'You can't possibly be talking about vampires?'

Gary paused. He blinked. 'I think I am.'

Lauren chuckled. 'Bill can stand the sun.'

Gary leaned forward, intense. 'I don't think he likes it. At the funeral, he kept his back to it. Plus we're on Mars. The sun's a lot brighter on Earth.'

'There are no vampires on Earth.'

'What about on Mars?'

She gestured to his book. 'That story was written on Earth. You've got a gap of millions of miles to account for before you start making sense. And you're not going to make sense as long as you keep talking about vampires.'

'Call them what you want,' Gary snapped. 'AH right, they're not vampires, but they're like vampires. Let's call them Martians. How do we kill these Martians? That's all I care about.'

'I don't think that book's going to give you any ideas.' 'There's a pattern here. How can you deny it?' 'What pattern? Dracula was a count who lived in Transylvania. Bram Stoker was a writer who lived in Ireland. We're on Mars, Gary!'

'You said that already. What about the blood beside Ivan's bed? What about his abnormal strength?' 'I never actually saw Ivan drinking the blood.' 'He would have chewed on your neck had you given him half a chance,' Gary said. He sat for a moment. 'Perhaps something in the distant past inspired these legends. I'm reminded of Jim's cavern under the Himalayas. We may not be the first civilization on our world capable of s.p.a.ce flight. There could have been a people here, too. There could have been an interaction between us and them, and they could have been real nasty bloodsuckers. The stories we're talking about could have arisen from then. Quit laughing! Lots of myths have been found to be based on historical fact.'

'You have been reading the Enquirer.' She waved him away with her hand, tasting the salt that crusted her lips. 'I'm tired of arguing about this. If you've got garlic, I'll be glad to keep it by my bed.' 'I don't have any,' Gary said seriously. She spoke wearily. 'What else does your monster bible suggest?'

Gary studied the novel. 'Most of this you'll know from TV. First Dr Van Helsing prescribes driving a stake through the heart of the vampire.'

'Bill won't go for that.'

'Or driving the vampire off with a communion wafer or holy water.'

'We should have brought a priest with us.'

'Or using a cross. Jesus, Lori, we can make a cross. Listen to me! Our souls are in danger.'

'A cross is just a symbol. Doesn't Van Helsing say that as well? If I remember correctly, he was big on faith. A cross won't work for us. Neither of us is a Christian.'

Gary protested, 'I was baptized.'

'So was I. Who gives a f.u.c.k? I'm sure Martian Bill doesn't.'

'I believe in G.o.d,' Gary said. 'How else can you explain people like Jim? He went down there, knowing the danger. He died trying to save us.' Gary paused, and asked in a worried voice, 'You don't think he's going to rise, do you?'

She smiled painfully. 'No, I cut out his heart in the autopsy. It's in a bottle in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Even a vampire needs his heart.'