SIXTY-THREE

 

 

MARTHE’S MOUTH WAS dry. She’d blacked out. The world seemed to happen fast, and yet time also stood still. The storm played with her, and the world moved, yet nothing changed. Clouds surrounded her. Hot rain pelted. Heat pressed suit to skin. They all blended into a confusing set of feelings and images without order.

Bright red smeared the inside of her faceplate. Her own blood. Acid bubbled at the cracks. That meant she was sinking. She was so hot. The worn plastic straw gave only air when she sucked. No water. Her head ached. And her shoulder. With her good hand, she slowly pulled the acid-resistant tarp out of a pocket and gingerly unfolded it, using her injured shoulder as little as possible. One-handed, she clipped it above her on the balloon cable and tried to extend it over herself. By this time her head was pounding so hard that blotches of black floated in her vision, the rain pattered onto the tarp and not her helmet, torso and arms. The rain washed over her dangling legs, but nothing was to be done for it. She couldn’t make her shoulder do more.

She woke again. The rain had stopped. She didn’t know when she’d passed out, or for how long. The readings in her helmet were weird: temperature way up, close to a hundred, but pressure way down. Her barometer was broken.

Thunder rolled in the formless world outside, strong enough to rattle her bones and set her head to aching harder.

Edging close to a hundred degrees; that put her almost at the bottom of the lower cloud deck, just above the sub-cloud haze. Her safety balloon must be leaking. She moved the tarp out of the way and looked up, making her head throb so hard that she nearly passed out again. She couldn’t reach the balloon to patch or refill it. And the gauge on her oxygen tank wasn’t healthy. She had a couple of hours. Maybe less. At least Venus was leaking into her helmet rather than the reverse.

The clouds still had shape, were still made of tiny droplets of sulfuric acid floating in the air, so she floated above the virga zone, but this wasn’t good. She tried activating her radio. She couldn’t tell if it was on. The HUD was buggy.

“This is Marthe D’Aquillon,” she said, “calling anyone. SOS. Severe distress. Equipment failing. I think I’m at about forty-ninth rang, maybe deeper. Can’t fly. Safety balloon failing. Injured. Please respond.”

She said this four more times before her HUD gave out. She couldn’t tell if the helmet’s CPU was working, but just not displaying. Acid might have gotten into the projector, or, more dangerously, beneath the seals and into the CPU, wiring or battery.

She couldn’t talk anymore anyway. Breathing was hard, raspy, and for a time, her forehead pressed against the faceplate of her helmet. She only came to properly when it felt like her forehead was burning.

Marthe couldn’t see any way out. She couldn’t use political cleverness here, no cunning survival maneuvers from the sunlit world or from the coureurs to get her out of this. Sometimes Venus just caught up to the slowest gazelle and pounced. Despite all the respect with which they treated their new world, her jaws sometimes snapped shut.

Maman hadn’t died like this. She’d died at home, surrounded by crying children, a loving husband. No one knew how Chloé had died. Marthe hoped she’d at least been with Mathurin.

Marthe didn’t want to die, but maybe it was easier like this. She was probably concussed, passing in and out of consciousness, unable to raise the panic that came before death. Her head hurt so badly she felt like she was going to throw up. She breathed the stifling air with eyes closed until the feeling retreated. She would hold on, until she passed out for the last time. She hoped it was painless.

She hoped her new family was happy. Marie-Pier and Gabriel-Antoine deserved it. She hoped Alexis grew up smart and strong and happy. She’d hugged him hard on her last visit. She hoped he never forgot how much she loved him. She’d made peace with Émile, as much peace as they could make. Peace, brother. And she wished Pa some kind of peace. He’d tried so hard to give them what they needed. He’d succeeded and they’d grown up all right, but losing her would kill him. Let me go, Pa. And she wished Pascale all that she wanted and needed. Pascale had the hardest path in front of her.Goodbye, little sister.

Blotches of black swam in front of the vision of plastic and cloud beneath her. She rested her head against the padded sides of the helmet. She needed water. So hot. She needed rest. For a little while.