3 Chapter 3: False Idols, Part 1

Travis unlocked the hatch of his emergency pod, and spun it counterclockwise. A blast of methane shoved him back as the denser atmosphere of Beta Cassiopeiae XII equalized with the air inside. He struggled to his feet, his breath echoing within his helmet. He braced his boots against the hull, and shoved the door as hard as he could, swinging it outward.

A heavy wind carrying tendrils of glowing mist buffeted him, rippling the silver foil of his environment suit. He looked up. On approach, the atmosphere had been clear. Now the sky was a featureless, brown-grey muck. He had only about thirty feet of visibility before the rocks and desert melted into the gloom. He rubbed one of the passing phosphorescent wisps between his fingertips. There was some resistance. The substance clung to his glove for just an instant before floating off. He dropped the pod's chain ladder, and descended to the surface.

His scanner estimated that James had crashed five miles away. Travis oriented himself in what he hoped was the right direction, and began to walk. The eggshell clay under his boots was dense and cracked. Every few minutes, the scanner corrected his course.

"Travis?"

The voice, laced with static, crackled inside his helmet. Travis winced, and adjusted the volume.

"James?" he asked. "James, are you ok?"

There was a pause. Five seconds went by, then ten. Travis wondered if he had suffered some sort of auditory hallucination. He turned the volume back up. He heard quick, jerking sniffs. "James?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," James sobbed through a sea of electronic gibberish. "...Such an idiot, ...ucked everything up."

"It's ok," Travis said. "Where are you now? Can you boost your antenna at all?"

"Do you even know what... means?" James asked. "Lock... frequency at two zero three point nine seven megahertz."

Travis complied. The screeches and intermittent whistling went away. "Can you hear me?" he asked.

"Yes," James said. The software engineer's voice sounded flanged, but his signal was clean. "I hear you."

"Can you help me out with your location?"

There was a pause. "My left leg is broken. I got twisted in my ladder, and fell. I'm not young like you."

"Did your suit puncture?"

"Don't ask stupid questions," James said. "My DualCoder finger is intact. I know that's all you care about."

A faint scuttling sound, like the whisper of a snake's rattle, echoed across the canyon. Travis stopped, and held his breath. All he could hear was the wind.

"Travis?"

"Shush."

He scanned the horizon. He could not make anything out except the clay, the occasional smooth boulder, a few thorny shrubs, and, in the thick of the fog, something that was either a cliff wall, or a steep ridge. The scanner was of no help.

"Travis?"

He let his breath out in a long sigh. "I thought I heard something," he said.

"Just your imagination."

Travis bit the inside of his cheek. "James, I'm sorry I got you into this," he said, marching on once more. "Why did you jump ship?"

"We sinned, Travis. We stole from the Church."

"We found information that can save lives," Travis said. "There's a difference."

He could make out a column of smoke in the distance, just beyond the ridge. He assumed it came from James's pod, and cursed silently. Through occasional clear patches in the billowing miasma, he saw that the sedimentary rock face was at least a hundred feet high, and stretched miles in each direction. More importantly, the pods had atmosphere recyclers, but the suits did not. He only had an hour of air left.

"All the colonies use Invictus Intelligrain," James said. "It is Sol's will. We challenged that will, and now look at us."

"It's poison," said Travis. "It's swimming with toxins, and they know it."

"The digestive systems of the faithful can handle it."

Catherine looked up at him with large, faultless, brown eyes. She was terrified. She had been sick, and her vomit was red. Her whole dress was stained with -

Travis squeezed the memory from his mind. "My daughter has Crimsons," he said. "She's four."

"I'll pray for her."

Travis closed his eyes. "I don't understand," he said. "If you felt this way, why did you help me?"

"You tempted me with money. You lured me away from Sol's light, and into sin."

"Letting millions die isn't a sin?"

Travis could hear James breathing hard. "The Pontifex Maximus knows the will of Sol," the elder man said at last.

Travis checked his scanner. It estimated another one and a half miles to go. That was assuming he would not have to scale the ridge. He cycled the sensors through various spectrums. The luminescent wisps caused too much interference to survey the landscape beyond forty feet, but his scanner had charted his course as he walked. He looked at the map, and swallowed.

About a fifth of a mile back, he had been walking on a road.

"Travis?" James asked. "Travis, can you hear me?"

Travis switched the radio off, and considered his options. The most important factor was air, and the direct route was usually best. However, a road was some sort of construction, and there was a good possibility that it led to a passage.

Travis retraced his steps to the road, and wondered how he had missed it. It was much harder beneath his feet than the clay that made up the rest of the landscape. He knelt, and brushed at the top layer. The surface underneath was dark, and mirror-polished. He ignited his arc knife, and tried to cut a piece off. The blue-white line of plasma flared against the murky glass, but left it unscathed. He pocketed the tool, and switched his radio back on. "Are you still there?" he asked.

"I'm still here," James said. "You hung up on me. Do not ever - "

"Shut up," Travis cut him off. "I found a road." There were a few moments of silence. "Do you hear me, jackass?"

"I hear you."

"There's intelligent life on this planet, or at least there was. Contamination is an executable sin."

"So is stealing from the Church."

Travis pressed his forehead against the cool glass of his faceplate. "I have friends," he said. "They could have helped us. Now we'll never get out of here. I know you were scared, but what the hell were you thinking?"

"Well, you didn't have to follow me." James began to cry again. "I am a sinner, and the light of Sol Invictus will protect me in all things," he chanted. "I am a sinner, and the light of Sol - "

Travis snapped the radio off. He had two choices: return to the pod, set the beacon, put himself in suspended animation, and claim ignorance if rescue ever arrived - or move forward, and find James.

Catherine - just her name was enough. He did not want to recall her bloody image again. He had to find James, and retrieve his half of the data. Besides, he realized as he checked his tank, in forty-five minutes he would have to return to the pod anyway.

He whipped his head around. He could have sworn he heard the whispering rattle again, but he saw nothing. He took a deep breath, and headed down the road.