Exile

We detected the beacon in the last hour of the dust storm. Mierhof thought that the beacon might be one of the many transponders scattered about the crater in which the Colonies were situated. But I knew that our crawler had ventured farther than that ring of transponders before the storm had hit.

I’d parked the crawler facing into the storm, which presented a smaller profile to the wind and the regolith it whipped so furiously. When the sky lightened, Mierhof checked the plastic sheets attached to the chassis behind the eight, all-terrain wheels – these sheets were a field modification, meant to keep the regolith from the axles and brake pads.

The eastern horizon was a wall of mahogany brown. The high pressure front was moving away to the east, leaving behind a featureless plain of soft, stirring dust. Above us, the sky was a faded grey-brown, and the ring barely discernable through this haze. The finest regolith was now suspended in Fram’s thick atmosphere.

Mierhof’s e-suit was layered with regolith when he squeezed through the airlock. “Right, let’s see what this thing is.”

He began geo-caching, feeding the beacon telemetry into the GPS.

We headed north-north-west for ten kilometres. Here we found a sharp-edged crater, its walls steep and inaccessible. I circled the crawler around the circumference of the crater. On the western side, the dust storm had deposited a bank of regolith which had lessened the outer incline. I worked the crawler laterally across this regolith ramp, angling toward the rim.

Beneath the crest we disembarked and continued on foot. We hiked upwards through a series of switchbacks. From the crater rim, I watched the dust storm receding to the east. Mierhof oriented himself toward the north, and looked from the GPS readout on his handheld to the horizon and back again.

“There,” he said, and pointed toward a knot of darker regolith about fifty meters below us and away to the north.

I thought that what he had pointed to was a bolide, perhaps of basalt but more likely a nondescript silicate, ejected from any number of impacts that scarred Fram’s surface. But as we drew closer, we saw the glint of sunlight on metal, and made out the shape of a Sprat.

The Sprat was leaning at an angle, and drifts of regolith had built up by its western side. I saw that the dust storm had begun to weather the paint from the edges of the frame. The buggy had been here for some time; even on its leeward side, the regolith had built up past the hubcaps.

Mierhof walked around the far side of the Sprat. He pointed at the ground but made no noise over our intercom. Where he pointed I saw a dark purple shape: a torso, the back of a head, and an arm, dusted by rust-red particles. The rest of his body was buried.

“Huh,” Mierhof said. “This must be that guy who killed that woman.”

“Cane.”

Mierhof pulled at the body’s right arm. On the inside of his arm was his wristpad. He brushed a gloved finger across the screen, and woke it from hibernation.

Mierhof read aloud from the screen:

“My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou has drive me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face I shall be hid; I shall be a fugitive and vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.”

I was instantly reminded of something I had read once, long ago: that when community was synonymous with survival, exile was an especially lethal threat. How more true could that be, than here on Fram? I suddenly felt very far from home.

Mierhof unceremoniously dropped the man’s arm.

“I will not miss him.” He spoke with venom. “Let’s see if we can get this Sprat working. Head back to the crawler and get some digging equipment, will you?”

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