Runaway World

Cockpit Debate

     When mid morning came, Andrew was finally forced by fatigue to get some sleep. He returned to his bed, which was large, cold and empty without Susan in it, and dropped off almost immediately.

     When he awoke as evening was falling, he emerged from his room to find the door to the children's bedroom closed with the sound of heavy snoring coming from within. He crept quietly past, did what he had to do in the bathroom and got dressed. Then he went down to the lower level to see what progress had been made in the chase after Reginald Fox.

     Ivan Kartoshka was alone in the cockpit and Andrew sat in the co-pilot's chair beside him. "Where are we?" he asked.

     "Europa Terra," the other man replied. "We crossed Sinus Manches, what used to be called the North Sea, while you were asleep. It was uneventful. We've closed to within fifty klicks of Fox but he's now driving forward at full speed, still heading due east, so that we're unable to make any headway on him."

     "What's east of here that he could possibly be heading for?" asked Andrew in confusion. He called up a map of what had been Europe to see what lay ahead in that direction. "Denmark. Baltica Planitia. Siberia. Nothing but the same hills and glaciers. Maybe his plan is to just keep driving, stay ahead of us, until we're past the Malina return window. All the dysprosium in the world won't do us any good without a gravity assist from Malina."

     "Philip Badger told us that most of their food is missing from the dig site," said Kartoshka. "They were running low, waiting for a resupply, but even so they estimate that he has enough food to last him for three months. Longer if he rations it."

     "That's not long enough," said Andrew. "If he holds out as long as he can, drives until he's almost dead from hunger, we'll still catch him in plenty of time to make the Malina gravity assist. And that's without the other rovers that will be setting out from the city. Give it a few weeks and we'll have him cornered no matter where in the world he runs to."

     The Constable nodded. "If it were you in that rover, what would you do to keep the dysprosium permanently out of our hands?"

     Andrew thought about it. "Maybe there's a crevasse somewhere that he intends to drop it into. He might have spotted something on the new terrain maps."

     "If he were heading west, out over Atlantica Planitia, maybe," the Constable replied. "They reckon there's still liquid water deep under the ice. Kept liquid by the Earth's inner warmth. If he found a way to dig through the ice he could drop the dysprosium in and we'd never get it back. The way he's going now, though... Nothing but land for five thousand kilometres."

     "Perhaps he intends to turn north after a while," mused Andrew. "To where there's liquid water under Barenta Planitia."

     "Then he'd have gone in that direction from the beginning. We were wondering whether he intends to turn south, once he's far enough away from the city."

     "Why? What's south?" Andrew looked at the map. "Alpes Montes. Mediterrania Planitia. Africa Terra." He shook his head in confusion. "I got nothing," he admitted.

     "Well then, all we can do is keep on his tail and hope to catch up with him. As you said, there are other rover's heading out from New London. Some heading north east, some going south east, to try to cut him off if he turns either north or south. Sooner or later we'll get him."

     "You're probably right," Andrew replied.

     "That's assuming, of course, that we want to catch him," the Constable replied, watching him carefully.