1899- Journey to Mars

“Right now, we think.”

Everyone became quiet. Ian pulled his flask from his kilt, took a swallow, then passed it to John, who drank and passed it to Pat. Pat drank and started to pass it on, but the others declined, so Pat took a second swallow and passed it back to John.

The heat was building, and everyone took off their spacesuits. It helped some, but not enough. Ekka’s bare thighs and arms glistened with sweat, and Edgar’s pale blue shirt had dark stains under the arms and down his back. Billy mopped sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. Although they had oxygen from the greenery, and the air circulated through the duct system, there was no refrigerated air to cool things down.

Ian suddenly stood and said, “I’ll need a couple of ye ta help me for a wee bit.”

John and Pat followed him down the hallway. He led them to the engine room and stopped in front of the hatch he had helped Bixie open a sixteenth of an inch. Ian drew his claymore and said, “If you two can open this a wee bit, I might be able to get me blade through to do some work on the outside.” He pointed at the pry bar and a handful of loose change on the floor. They went to work, with John on the pry bar and Pat forcing the coins into the crack to hold it until John would work the bar deeper for more leverage.

It was like working against a spring-loaded door. The pressure to close was relentless, and the further they opened the door, the more powerful it became. Ian studied the crack again, “A wee bit more, lads, a hair’s breadth more.”

John and Pat both pushed on the pry bar as hard as they could and Ian slipped a stack of three silver dollars in the space. “Let it go.” The door closed on the stacked coins and Ian made sure to keep his fingertips out of the space as he gripped the dollars with the ends of his digits. They stood and looked at the now visible crack. Pat and John were flushed from the effort and the heat.

“Let’s see what she does, lads,” Ian said, and he gently slipped the point of the large sword into the gap. It stuck almost immediately to the translucent red web, but Ian gently pulled on it and the sword released and came clear. “It is sticky, but no more than a weak glue.”

Ian put the tip of the sword into the gap and let the sword rest on the three coins. Six inches of the blade were in the crack. Ian use the three coins as a fulcrum point, worked the hilt steadily up and down in a small elliptical motion. All three men could hear the micro-fibers of the webbing snap apart one by one.

Pat wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, “This is gonna take till the end of time this way. Each one of those web ropes must have a million of those threads in it.”

“Patrick, I cannae cut the web in one slice. I open the space until I can use more of the steel and more of me arms, then the web will part much faster.” He pulled the flask from his pocket, “Let’s have a bit of the thunder before we begin again.” He offered it first to Pat, who took a large swallow, smiled and seemed to relax. He handed it to John, who turned up the flask, swallowed deeply, then burped as he turned the flask upside down at his side so that the last few drops fell to the floor.

Ian’s eyes widened, “Ye two are vandals! I bet ye would steal the coppers from a dead man’s eyes!” John and Pat looked at Ian with mischievous grins. John pulled a smaller flask hidden in his own pocket and handed it to the highlander. Ian spun off the cap, took a sniff, then grinned. “The Glenlivet. Ye two are princes of the first rank, ye are!” He turned up the flask and drank half of it, then screwed the cap on, handing it back to John. “Let me get back at the work now.”

The first wrist-thick rope of spiderweb snapped apart under Ian’s blade three minutes later, making a deep thrum sound, like a cut bowstring. The sound rumbled around the ship as the rope released all its tension. Ian said to the others, “I have a wee bit of room now.” He put the blade deeper into the opening and sawed with longer strokes. The second sticky, translucent, rose-colored strand parted with a sound like a loud clap. The ship shuddered slightly as the ends withdrew across it. Ian went to work, sawing, cutting, making more space to work the blade, and every time they could push the door farther open, John and Pat did so. They soon had an opening three inches wide, braced apart with a block of wood in the hatchway.

They stopped for a minute to catch their breath and wipe their faces free of sweat. Pat said, “That pig-sticker still holding sharp?”

“It is.”

“I’m happy to hear it, because the faster we can get out of here, the better it will be. I’m feelin’ mighty closed in right now.”

John said, “If this opens suddenly, remember that there is only thin air out there, not enough to keep you alive. You need to wear a suit and helmet to go outside.”

“I didn’t think about that.”

“Right here, still in the ship, even if the door opens all the way, we will be able to breathe for a while because of the air in the ship. We could probably get a few feet outside the door and be all right for a few minutes.”

“But that is letting all our ship’s breathing air out into the planet’s atmosphere.”

“Yes, and that is why we don’t want to be careless with any of it.”

Ian returned to his work, and in another five minutes he felt the air flowing out of the ship like a strong breeze. He looked through the opening and saw he had a foot-wide hole through the webbing. He moved his head closer.

John said, “What do you see?”

“We knocked a wee hole through the sticky.”

“Can you see anything?”

“There’s a faint blue glow out there, and I can see we’re in a cave, or maybe a mine. She be huge, though. A hundred feet to the roof, I’m thinkin’.”

Pat said, “Do you see what webbed us?”

“No, and I don’t hear anything. Maybe it left.”

“Let’s hope so,” John said.

Ian was at the point where he could chop the webs in two with half a dozen swings, and he felt it would only be a matter of minutes until he could swing with enough force to sever them with a single blow. He eased the sword blade out of the hole, feeling with the tip, then he eased his head beyond the ship and into the dark opening, saying, “I’ll take a wee look, laddies.”