Martian Winter: Titan Dreams by Stuart Atkinson

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Maybe it was his sister's time to be first –

"Blare? Everything ok up there?"

Blare ignored his sister as his mother's voice sang in his head again.

Go... just go... everything will be alright, trust me...

I'm afraid, he told her. I wish you were here, with me, with us... you're so far away...

Never too far away to protect you, Blare... remember that...

"Blare..." Cat cautioned, concerned, "timeline's slipping..."

I'll be with you every step...

But -

Go...!

In years to come Blare would swear that at that moment something had pushed him from behind. It was impossible, of course; Cat was several metres behind him, at the rear of the airlock, watching over the systems, but something had pushed him in the back and set him walking towards the top of the ladder.

"EV1 egressing..." Blare reported, voice shaking, still, but steadying now he was on the move, boots clomping over the metal deck of the airlock. "...at the top of the ladder now..."

Pausing a moment, he peered out into the gloom. Even though the Baxter's powerful floodlights were blazing at full strength the landscape beneath him was invisible, little more than variations of darkness in the murk. All he could see were icy particles drifting and dancing in the air, caught in the beams of the floodlights, wafting in slow motion in the low gravity.

"Good to go, EV1" Cat prompted gently from behind him.

Every step...a soft voice chimed in his head, and Blare felt all the fear and tension evaporate from him so suddenly he half expected to see it rising from him like a ghostly cloud. Relaxed totally now, he swung one leg over the top of the ladder, probing for the first rung with his foot, smiling as he felt it hard and steady beneath his thick boot.

"Rung one," he confirmed, "on my way..."

"Roger that," Cat replied casually, using the same tone and vocabulary astronauts had used since the dawn of the Space Age, a hundred and thirty five years earlier.

Then he was stepping down the ladder, slowly, slowly, one foot, one rung at a time. Step, step, pause to look at the orange ice crystals already coating the metal of the ladder and the hull of the Baxter... step, step, pause to look back up to the top of the ladder, to see his sister silhouetted there by the bright interior lights of the airlock. –

Then suddenly there were no more rungs left, and his right foot was swinging free, searching for something solid to rest on. His heart jumped for a moment, until his boot touched – something.

Something so cold it took his breath away.

"You should be at the foot of the ladder now, EV1, in contact with the pad...?" Cat quizzed him subtly, a touch of tension creeping into her voice at last.

"Roger that," Blare replied, shivering, "can confirm contact with pad... it's cold, sis, so, so cold – "

"Did you forget to turn your boot's heating elements on again, little brother?" she asked warmly, quietly.

Blare smiled, remembering all the times she'd had to remind him to do just that before going Outside when they were kids.