"I might live," Annie thought. "I might."
There was sand in the bag now. Annie could feel it sifting under her collar and blowing up her ankles. Not much. It was coming from the bottom of the bag. Probably the end of the zipper had worked open just a little.
Was that the dull roar of the storm through her stoppered ears or the rushing of her own blood? If sand were seeping in, the storm must still be on.
How did Bradman breathe in his storm cellar? Would the storm last long enough for the air to go bad? It would go bad fast, in an enclosed place on Mars.
Bradman. What sort of monster would walk off and let another human being die? Without a glance backwards? Did the cold desert wear the humanity out of a man? How did a human being get like that?
"'You've got a smile like a concrete slab.'" Is that what you say to a person when you know you're about to leave them to die?
UNMARRIED WOMEN BETWEEN THE AGES OF 21 AND 30. GOOD HEALTH. WELL ADJUSTED. MARRIAGE ON ARRIVAL. MARS TRANSPORT LEAVES OCT. 1.
Good health ... well adjusted ... she could see the printed words, red stereo words reaching out from the page. Unmarried women between ... they came and went in her mind and there was a roar in her ears. The words were gone now. Only a redness that came and went. No. A blackness.
Annie snatched the exhausted oxygen mask off her face and gulped a pallid, sandy breath of air. It wouldn't do. She took the sock off her eyes and bound it around her nose and mouth. It would filter some of the sand out. She opened her eyes briefly and closed them. The grit stayed in. She didn't dare open them again.