Runaway World

Etna Mons

     When the rover began tilting upwards, Andrew knew that they'd finally begun climbing the slopes of Etna Mons.

     Andrew took a moment to make sure Windsor and Fox were comfortable and safe, then returned to the cockpit to see how things were going. The warmth of the volcano meant that there was no ice here. There was only bare rock visible through the cockpit window. Scattered with boulders, but loose and crumbly enough that the wheels were able to get a good grip on it. Here and there he also saw the frozen remains of grass and small shrubs, withered and black. The land ahead looked flat. Only the tilt of the rover told him that they were climbing. They were too close to the volcano for it to look like a volcano. It looked more as if they were climbing the side of a moderately steep valley.

     Andrew's heart quailed to see the other rover close ahead of them, bouncing and shuddering as it drove across the uneven ground. Occasionally its motion slowed as its wheels lost their grip, throwing rocks and loose soil backwards as they spun. Other times it surged ahead as it passed over a region of compact but uneven ground. Their own rover also surged and slowed, with the result that the gap between the two rovers opened and closed erratically. Nevertheless the gap was slowly narrowing as Cheval used his manual control over the rover to take them over the best ground.

     "Best get suited up," the Sergeant told him. "We can't be more than half an hour from the caldera."

     "Right," said Andrew, his mouth dry. He turned to leave, but paused as something new entered the oval of light cast by the headlights.

     It was a human corpse wrapped in thick layers of furs, his outline visible in the rocky snow that covered him like an extra blanket placed over him by a grieving and remorseful God. More followed, some sitting cross legged on the ground as if they'd sat down to die. The last of their food gone, the last stick of wood burned. He saw a family group. Father, mother and two small children, huddled together. Frozen forever in a last tender embrace. And then there were tents. A small city of them forming hundreds of mounds under the sooty grey, silicate snow.

     "The Etna refuge," said Cheval sadly. "They thought the heat of the volcano would give them a little extra time."

     "When you've got a family, I suppose you'll grasp at any straw," said Andrew. "I might have brought my own family here myself, if we'd been around at the time. Who knows what miracle might occur if you can just hang on a couple of days longer? A spokesman from one of the underground cities, maybe, saying come with us. We've got room for you after all... Watch out!"

     The rover drove straight over one of the tents, crushing it under its wheels. Ahead, they saw Fox's rover driving over others. A tent was caught on the jagged end of a bent and broken wheel cleat. As it was lifted away they saw two mummified corpses smashed into pieces like elaborate ice sculptures. Andrew reacted with horror. "Can't we go around?" he cried. "This is a desecration! This place should be preserved out of respect for the people who died here."

     "Perhaps you can use your sense of outrage to stop Fox's rover. If you can't, we have to go where it goes."

     Andrew stared at him helplessly, knowing he was right, but it didn't help. Off to the right, on a relatively level stretch of ground, he saw a larger tent the size of a circus ring that had a crucifix rising above it. He imagined it packed with the frozen corpses of those who had begged God to save them. Beside it was a small group of ambulances. He wondered what help they thought they'd be able to provide as the planet receded from the sun and the world froze. He stared at one scene of tragedy after another until he felt a kind of mental numbness coming over him. There was only so much tragedy the human mind could take, it seemed, before safety mechanisms kicked in to keep you from feeling any more.