More damage reports came in over the sub’s surviving AI systems. Given an e-month or more in a Conamara Chaos ice dock with a score of service moravecs working on her, The Dark Lady could be saved. Otherwise, her days—whether measured in Martian sols, Earth days, or Europan weeks—were numbered.

Keeping in touch with the mostly silent Orphu on the hardline—afraid his friend would cease to exist without warning—Mahnmut gave the most positive report he could and launched a periscope buoy. The buoy was deployed from the section of the stern still above the silt line and it still worked.

The buoy itself was smaller than Mahnmut’s hand, but it packed a wide array of imaging and data sensors. Information started flowing in.

“Good news,” said Mahnmut.

“The Five Moons Consortium launched a rescue mission,” rumbled Orphu.

“Not quite that good.” Rather than download the nonvisual data, Mahnmut summarized it to keep his friend listening and talking. “The buoy works. Better than that, the communication and positioning sats Koros III and Ri Po seeded in orbit are still up there. I wonder why the . . . persons who attacked us . . . didn’t sweep them out of space.”

“We were attacked by an Old Testament God and his girlfriend,” said Orphu. “They might not deign to notice comsats.”

“I think they looked more Greek than Old Testament,” said Mahnmut. “Do you want to hear the data I’m getting?”

“Sure.”

“The MPS puts us in the southern reaches of the Chryse Planitia region of the northern ocean, only about three hundred and forty kilometers from the Xanthe Terra coast. We’re lucky. This part of the Acidalia and Chryse sea is like a huge bay. If our trajectory had been a few hundred klicks to the west, we would have impacted on the Tempe Terra hills. Same distance to the east, Arabia Terra. A few more seconds of flight time south over Xanthe Terra highlands . . .”

“We’d be particles in the upper atmosphere,” said Orphu.

“Right,” said Mahnmut. “But if we get The Dark Lady unstuck, we can sail her right into the Valles Marineris delta if we have to.”

“You and Koros were supposed to land in the other hemisphere,” said Orphu. “North of Olympus Mons. Your mission was to do recon and deliver this device in the hold to Olympos. Don’t tell me the sub is in good enough shape to carry us up and around the Tempe Terra peninsula . . .”

“No,” admitted Mahnmut. In truth, it would be an amazing stroke of luck if The Dark Lady held together and kept functioning long enough to get them to the nearest land, but he wasn’t going to tell the Ionian that.

“Any other good news?” asked Orphu.

“Well, it’s a pretty day on the surface. All liquid water as far as the buoy could see. Moderate swells of less than a meter. Blue sky. Temperature in the high twenties . . .”

“Are they looking for us?”

“Pardon me?” said Mahnmut.

“Are the . . . people . . . that slagged us looking for us?”

“Yes,” said Mahnmut. “Passive radar showed several of those flying machines . . .”

“Chariots.”

“. . . several of those flying machines crisscrossing above the sea in the several thousand square kilometers of the debris impact footprint.”

“Looking for us,” said Orphu.

“No register of radar or neutrino search,” said Mahnmut. “No energy search spectra at all . . .”

“Can they find us, Mahnmut?” Orphu’s voice was flat.

Mahnmut hesitated. He didn’t want to lie to his friend. “Possibly,” he said. “Almost certainly if they were using moravec technology, but they don’t seem to be. They’re just . . . looking. Perhaps just with eyes and magnetometers.”

“They found us in orbit easily enough. Targeted us.”

“Yes.” There was no question that the chariot or its occupants had some sort of target acquisition device that had worked well at 8,000 klicks of distance.

“Did you reel in the buoy?”

“Yes,” said Mahnmut. There were several seconds of silence except for the creak of the damaged hull, the hiss of ventilation, and the thump and hum of various pumps working in vain to clear the flooded sections. “We have several things going for us,” Mahnmut said at last. “First, there are tons and tons of metal debris from the spacecraft in this footprint, and it’s a long footprint. The first impacts weren’t that far south of the polar cap.

“Second, we’ve settled in bow first, and the only section of the sub above the silt line, the stern, still has some tatters of loose stealthwrap on it. Third, we’re powered down to the point that we have almost no energy signature at all. Fourth . . .”

“Yes?” said Orphu.

Mahnmut was thinking of the dying power supply, the dwindling reserves of air and water, and the doubtful propulsion system. “Fourth,” he said, “they still don’t know why we’re here.”

Orphu rumbled softly. “I don’t think we do either, old friend.” After a minute of no communication, Orphu said, “Well, you’re right. If they don’t find us in the next few hours, we may have a chance. Or is there any other bad news?”

Mahnmut hesitated. “We have a slight problem with our air supply,” he said at last.

“How serious a problem?”

“We’re not producing any.”

“Well, that is a problem,” said the Ionian. “How much in reserve?”

“About eighty hours. For two of us, that is. Certainly twice that, probably more, if it’s just for me.”

Orphu rumbled slightly over the intercom. “Just for you? Are you planning on stepping on my air hose, old friend? My organic parts need air too, you know.”

For a second Mahnmut couldn’t speak. “I thought . . . you’re a hardvac moravec . . . I mean . . .”

“You’re thinking that I spend long months in space without topping off from the Io tender,” sighed Orphu. “I produce my own oxygen from the internal fuel cells, using the the photovoltaics on my shell to power them.”

Mahnmut felt his pulse slow. Their chances of survival had just gone up if Orphu did not need ship’s air.

“But my shell photovoltaics are blasted to hell,” Orphu said softly, “and the fuel cells haven’t been producing O2 since the attack. I’m surviving on the ship’s supply. I’m sorry, Mahnmut.”

“Look,” Mahnmut said quickly, strongly. “I was planning to keep the air running to both of us anyway. It’s not a problem. I did the numbers—we have about eighty hours at our present consumption rate. And I can lower that. This whole control room and enviro-niche of mine is flooded. I’ll pour it back in and parcel it out. Eighty hours easy, and then we’ll come up for air. Their search should be over by then.”

“Are you sure you can get The Dark Lady out of the mud?” asked Orphu.

“Absolutely positive,” lied Mahnmut, voice firm.

“I vote we lie doggo in the seabed for . . . say . . . three sols, three Martian days, seventy-three hours or so, to see if their chariot search is really called off. Or twelve hours after our last radar contact with them. Whichever comes first. Will that give us enough time to get out of the mud and to the surface, plus leave some oxygen and energy to spare?”

Mahnmut looked at his virtual wall of red alarm and non-function lights. “Seventy-three hours should be plenty of extra time,” he said. “But if they go away sooner than that, we should get to the surface and head for the coast. The Lady can do about twenty knots on the surface with the reactor at this level, so it’ll take the better part of the day and a half to get to land anyway, especially if we’re picky about where to put in.”

“We’ll just have to avoid being picky,” said Orphu. “All right, it looks like the only thing we have to worry about for the next couple of days is boredom. Shall we play poker? Did you bring the virtual cards?”

“Yes,” said Mahnmut, brightening.

“You wouldn’t rob a blind moravec, would you?” said Orphu.

Mahnmut stopped in the process of downloading the green baize card table.