Dead on Mars

With the final crate on its back, Tomcat trudged into the sandstorm.

From that moment forth, there wasn’t any radio communication.

About an hour later, Tang Yue couldn’t bear it any longer. Tomcat should have long returned ago.

According to their agreement, Tang Yue was to retract the safety rope if Tomcat wasn’t back in Kunlun Station after one and a half hours. One and a half hours was a red line. If Tomcat hadn’t returned safely at this point in time, it likely meant that something had gone wrong.

He decided to pull Tomcat back.

Tang Yue began retracting the rope, but as he did so, the feeling that something amiss grew in him. This was because there wasn’t any tension on the rope. Tang Yue anxiously pulled back the rope and it returned like a thin snake from the pitch-black sandstorm outside. A coiled pile lay on the floor in the airlock, but what returned wasn’t Tomcat, but a loosened locking mechanism.

There was nothing on the other end of the rope.

Tang Yue’s mind buzzed as it instantly went blank.

…

“Tomcat? Tomcat? Answer me if you copy!” Tang Yue panted as he stepped into the sand. He ultimately chose to leave Kunlun Station. Tang Yue used the safety rope to tie himself to the airlock’s hatch. It was a form of insurance that if he were to fail to find Tomcat, he could return to Kunlun Station using the safety rope.

The two headlamps installed on the sides of the Radiant Armor were useless. The four LED bulbs emitted a white beam that didn’t illuminate further than two meters into the sandstorm. Tang Yue couldn’t even tell east from west. Just walking a few meters away from Kunlun Station was enough to prevent him from seeing the white building that stood more than three meters tall. He surveyed his surroundings and only saw sand.

The sandstorms on Mars were completely different from what Tang Yue had imagined.

The sandstorms Tang Yue had imagined were described by the lyrics of a classic Chinese song: You are wind and I am the sand; sentimentally we go around the ends of the world…

The sandstorm in reality: Holy sh*t! Where’s the sun? Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?

Most of the sand particles in a sandstorm weren’t visible particles, but smog-like particulate. When the strong winds blew, they were extremely fine particulate that moved. Their diameters were a few microns or tenths of microns. These minute particles moved across the atmosphere, making it transform into a turbid soup.

Sunlight was completely incapable of penetrating this turbid smog; therefore, everything beneath the sandstorm was pitch-black.

“Tomcat—!” Tang Yue yelled at the top of his voice. He proceeded in the direction which his memories told him the Eagle stood. As the visibility was nearly zero, all Tang Yue could do was walk in the darkness. However, he didn’t have the precise ability to pinpoint his location. All he could do was estimate.

The Radiant Armor was bulky and heavy. The mobility of his limbs suffered restrictions while the life support system on his back was a massive burden. Therefore, the Radiant Armor’s center of mass was towards the back. Tang Yue had to walk leaning forward. He felt like the Foolish Old Man who tried to move a mountain in the well-known fable in Chinese mythology.

Tang Yue didn’t dare turn his body or change direction. The direction in which he proceeded was decided upon the moment he left Kunlun Station’s hatch. By following that direction, he was bound to reach the Eagle. However, if Tang Yue deviated midway, he had no means of returning to the correct trajectory in the dark environment. Tang Yue wasn’t a sea turtle or a pigeon. His brain wasn’t able to detect a magnetic field—besides, Mars didn’t have any magnetic fields.

Tang Yue was blind, a blind man who carried a heavy turtle shell. As he forged forward in the sandstorm, his body wobbled in the strong winds. Yet, he needed to rescue his assistant.

It was tragic just thinking about it.

“Tomcat! Tomcat!” Tang Yue exhaled. He was quickly losing his stamina. He was already exhausted from moving the supplies all day. Furthermore, he had yet to eat dinner. “Answer me if you copy! Answer me if you copy…”

There was still no reply over the comms. The conditions for radio transmission in the sandstorm were just terrible.

All Tang Yue could do was hope that Tomcat remained conscious and could receive his shouts. As long as he was near enough, the short-distant radio communications could break through the environment’s interference.

It would be problematic if Tomcat is already unconscious… It was impossible for Tang Yue to find an unconscious entity in an environment with such poor visibility. He couldn’t even see his feet when he looked down.

“Tomcat—!” Tang Yue moved his legs one after another mechanically. He was gradually losing the feeling in his legs, and the aching had already gone. All that was left was numbness.

Tang Yue had heard of the poles on Earth. To the scientific teams that stayed there, being lost in a snowstorm was equivalent to death. The sandstorms on Mars were more terrifying than the snowstorms in the South Pole on Earth. –80°C and 40 m/s wind speeds had already exceeded the limits of Earth. Now, Tomcat was lost in that vast, pitch-black sandstorm.

No one knew if he could succeed in finding Tomcat, but Tang Yue didn’t wish to give up hope.

As long as he didn’t give up hope, there was still a sliver of chance.

“Tomcat—! Tomcat—!” Tang Yue’s voice was hoarse. His dry throat was burning and the voice he produced sounded as though he was sawing wood. “Answer me if you copy!”

It was truly the apocalypse.

The last man in the world was walking alone in the desolate plains in a hurricane. He shouted, his throat hoarse, but there wasn’t any response from the comms. If the Universe truly had the end of days, it would be like this. There was an instant that Tang Yue felt that he would die there and then.

After wandering for an unknown amount of time, Tang Yue was suddenly pulled back.

He was stunned as he turned his head and realized that the safety rope was taut. The rope had reached its maximum length… Tang Yue was alarmed. The safety rope’s length was nearly two hundred meters, but the Eagle spacecraft was only about a hundred meters from Kunlun Station. This meant that Tang Yue had walked two hundred meters without encountering the Eagle.

Without a doubt, he had deviated from the correct direction and had missed the lander.

In the sandstorm, even if you brushed by the lander by tens of centimeters, you might not even be able to see it.

All Tang Yue could do was turn around helplessly to return to Kunlun Station, following the rope.

Then, he would redo his venture again.

It was likely that he would need to repeat this many times until he found Tomcat.

“Tomcat… Damn you, Tomcat. Answer me if you hear me! Don’t f*cking torture me any longer… I’m dying of exhaustion… Really…”

Tang Yue suddenly stumbled as he stepped into a sandpit. Immediately he lost his balance and collapsed to the ground.

Tang Yue didn’t recover from the fall. He lay sprawled on the ground without the strength to even get up.

“Tomcat… Tomcat, can you copy me?” Tang Yue’s face clung to the visor’s glass as he cried out. “Tomcat? Tomcat…”

Tang Yue slowly crawled forward. To move in a hurricane, lowering one’s body and using all limbs was a lot easier than walking upright. The center of gravity was lowered and the cross-sectional area that met the win was reduced. Tang Yue crawled forward bit by bit, hoping that he wasn’t crawling in the wrong direction. The fall had left his head spinning. The direction he had decided upon was gone from the fall.

Humans were indeed creatures who lacked a sense of direction. Just blindfolding their eyes and turning them around a few times was enough to make them lose their bearings.

Tang Yue crawled about ten meters aimlessly before draining the strength to crawl.

He lay there sprawled on the sand, his limbs aching and weak. His brain issued commands to move, but his muscles refused to carry out the orders. There was the sharp sound of howling winds everywhere as Tang Yue struggled to raise his hand to wipe the mud from the display on his wrist. The temperature gauge indicated that the temperature was –82°C. After seeing the number, Tang Yue stopped moving.

He lay inside the Radiant Armor, feeling as though he was inside a coffin.

I’ll probably die here.

Tang Yue thought silently.

The Martian temperature had reached extremely low temperatures. Furthermore, the atmosphere was dry. It didn’t suit the survival of microorganisms. After Tang Yue died, he would likely naturally wither away, preserved like a Mummy for years to come.

Realizing that his corpse could remain for a century or so, just like accomplished monks whose bodies attained Buddhahood in ancient times, Tang Yue decided to pose in a more meaningful manner to express his inner emotions.

He pointed his middle finger at the sky.