Published:
January 29, 2025
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“Your state-of-the-art sciencey gizmos are offline, boss.”
Jaan Bhaduri’s voice, transmitted from orbit, filled my ears. I nudged down the volume with a wink at the control display. “Where’ve I heard that before?”
Jaan chuckled like a sedated kookaburra.
I wasn’t packing sciencey gizmos. Being the CEO, I didn’t need to deal with those unless I wanted. I had people for that, some up there, some down here. Besides, my first glimpse of the Verona Rupes imagery gave me other ideas. The team could do the work. I’d come for fun. And symbolism.
Jaan came to keep his 253-year-old boss on the right side of the grave. His light demeanor masked a serious concern: my latest round of cancer treatments had been way rough. Two days ago, I’d barely been able to walk in a one-g facility. Miranda’s gravity, thank God, was a mere hundredth that. Here, I weighed just a pound and three quarters, so walking wasn’t much trouble. Plus, I came not to walk but to fall.
Recurring cancer was my nemesis, an unforeseen consequence of the long-abandoned immortality experiments in which I’d been conceived. The only survivor of twenty subjects, I’d remained anonymous until perpetual youth exposed me. Two and a half centuries later, I still look thirtyish. Inescapable disease pushed me to a failed suicide attempt on Io. (Don’t laugh. It’s harder to kill yourself than you might think.) But there my spirit was reborn, and I turned my energies to human exploration of the outer solar system.
Now here I stood in a bulky self-repairing pressure suit on this jumbled moon orbiting Uranus, perched on the icy rim of the highest cliff in the solar system, preparing to jump. And was it ever a long fall. We’d measured it precisely. The scarp plummeted seventeen kilometers. Once I stepped off the edge, I’d fall for eleven minutes and nine seconds, hitting the rift floor at 183 kilometers per hour if the braking thrusters attached to my legs failed. Jaan was right to be nervous.
“They’ve been a bit glitchy in extreme cold testing,” he remined me.
“They’re within specs.”
“Yeah, barely. Like you.”
Point. I had but an eight second-window to fire the things, and adventure always distracted me. We could have automated it, sure, but where was the fun in that? Besides, this wasn’t just for adrenaline.
I checked the status displays along the edges of my visor. Environment, controls, fuel systems, all nominal. “Go for launch,” I reported. “Keep the cameras on me. It’ll be great publicity either way.”
“Don’t jinx yourself, boss.”
“What’s the word?”
He didn’t want to say it. I could tell by the way he said it. “Go for launch.”
I stepped into nothingness.
* * *
Long ago, planetary geologists say, Miranda was shattered by an impact. Its fragments reformed into a jumbled ball with tortured topography. The face of this scarp, gleaming in orbital imagery, bore testimony to that history, a rippled wall of water ice and buried organics on the edge of a twenty-kilometer-wide gash ripped open by colossal forces. I wanted to touch that wall, to glide my cocooned hand along that ice, wanted to yank off the glove and feel the frigid sting. My brain always whispered such treachery, part residue from my suicidal period, part pure awe.
Awe didn’t quite rob me of my senses, but the feeble light reflected in the ice, a white blur riddled with dark streaks, hypnotized me as it accelerated by, on and on forever.
A red light flickered at the edge of my visor. An alarm sounded. The intrusion barely registered.
“You awake, boss?”
Jaan’s voice broke the trance. “Maybe,” I acknowledged. “Firing braking thrusters.” I hit the switch at my right hip with three seconds to spare.
Nothing happened.
I hit it again. And again.
“Hell,” Jaan mumbled in my ear.
Time expired, I jabbed the switch until something did happen, a jolt, then a wave of warmth engulfing my left leg, then I was spinning out of control, jetting along the face of the cliff, up, down, into the chasm’s void, back to the wall, around and around in a dizzy, disorienting, reckless spiral.
Jaan said something I didn’t catch. Ice rushed by, white and featureless, in what direction I couldn’t tell. My vector changed moment to moment. I bounced off its iron surface, spun into emptiness, slammed the wall again, ricocheted off.
Jaan’s voice sounded again. “…connector jiggled… right unit… give… no time… give it… hear me?... thump it!”
Right, the old hammer trick. But I couldn’t reach the unit, couldn’t pull my leg up without losing all control. Instead, I kicked out my left leg, twisted to lead with my right, and directed myself at the scarp. It worked somehow. I angled toward the cliff and hit a glancing blow on the mechanism. Something sputtered. Maybe I’d broken it. Or my leg. I spiraled into the gorge and back again, barely conscious. My right leg struck the ice again, and this time flame erupted. Both thrusters firing, I regained attitude control but knew not which way I was going, knew not which way to turn.
Frozen wall flashed by. All else was black.
Reorienting, repositioning—feet pointing groundward I hoped—I reduced thrust for a few seconds, then cut it.
My body slammed into the ice.
Damn, did that hurt.
* * *
They say my ground crew, stationed near my predicted landing point, trekked five kilometers to recover me. I suffered various broken bones and scores of bruises, but nothing worse. News outlets had a field day. My recklessness tanked our stock for a few hours before it soared to a new high.
Interviewers followed, lots, all asking the same question: why do I pull such stupid stunts?
For you, I said. For you. We’re made to explore, to jump, to live. I’m not suicidal anymore, but hell, I’ve already lived two lifetimes. I could die happy if I inspired you to live at least one.

Copyright 2024 - SFS Publishing LLC
Cliff Dive
A risk worth taking
Dale E. Lehman

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