The basalt path ended at a low survey marker.
Tarin had known it would. From the shuttle apron, the trail crossed the old training ground, followed the ridge, and stopped where the rock fell away toward the plain. He had walked it years before, usually with someone timing him.
Today he reached the marker and stood beside it.
The wind moved against his trousers. He had chosen them for the room through the thigh and the way the fabric yielded when he stepped uphill. At the shuttle he had caught himself checking his reflection, briefly wondering what kind of man they made him look like.
Then he had bent to fasten a boot.
The trousers fit.
That had settled the matter.
Below him, a pale line of dust moved across the plain. He watched until it dispersed.
Is this enough?
The question had followed him out here, although he was no longer certain what it asked. Enough walking? Enough distance from the station? Enough to justify coming?
He looked back along the ridge. The trail was finished. His legs could use more.
He could turn around and walk it again.
Or remain here.
He sat on a broad stone.
Earlier, in Sayeed’s office, he had told her he was considering a different assignment. Something with fewer people looking to him for their next step.
She had listened without touching her slate.
“Okay.”
He had prepared several explanations. Her answer left them unemployed.
At the door she had said, “Check back in six months. We’ll have different questions.”
“And more people asking them?”
“Possibly. But there’s a coupling fault in the return lattice that keeps defeating our engineers.”
“You’re offering me a fault?”
“I’m telling you one may still be available.”
He had laughed then. Out here, he found himself smiling again.
She had remembered.
The plain would be here in six months.
He could say that with reasonable confidence. The basalt had survived everything the station had done beside it. But the weather would change. There were weeks when this stone would be too hot to sit on, when the walk would become an exercise in getting back under cover.
And he might come wanting something else.
He rested his hands on his knees.
During the recovery, the lost man had described a room that looked right and failed to receive him. Tarin had helped locate it by listening to that failure. Then they had prepared another arrival.
He remembered the moment the signal resolved. His eyes had stayed on the display after the confirmation, waiting for a complication.
Instead, the man’s voice came through.
“Like the room knew I was coming back.”
Tarin had understood the report. Understanding what it asked of his own life had taken longer.
He rose when the shade withdrew from his boots.
There was no need to prolong the sitting merely because it had been good.
Back aboard the shuttle, he stopped at the small mirror above the washbasin.
A little dust at his temples. Sun across his forehead. The collar sitting unevenly where he had pulled it open.
After the recovery, he had seen this face reflected in the lift glass while Sayeed spoke about doing it without the machine. He had looked for evidence that something had happened to him.
Today he recognized the man who had been walking.
He turned on the water, washed his hands, and watched the dust loosen from the creases of his fingers.
This was quieter than watching the lost man return. He could follow himself through it: the ridge, the decision to leave, his boots on the shuttle steps, his hands beneath the water.
He had come back with the walk still in him.
He dried his face and went to heat something to eat.
Six months was a long time.
He wondered what the coupling fault looked like.
WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co.
