Mars (37 page)

The ex-Texan glanced at Brumado, then at his fellow directors across the table. “Let’s get one thing straight here: How do
you
all feel about the next mission?”

“I am in favor of it, of course,” the Russian answered immediately. “I would go myself if they would allow me!”

The Japanese grinned. “Yes, of course.”

“As I see it,” Brumado said gently, “we have a sacred trust. Project Mars must not end as Project Apollo did. We
must
continue the exploration of the planet and its moons.”

The American pushed his chair back. It screeched against the uncarpeted floor. “Okay,” he said as he lumbered to his feet. “We’re agreed as to what we want. Now we’ve got t’ figure out how to get it.” He walked around his desk and, bending down slowly, opened a panel and took out four glasses and a bottle of Kentucky sour mash. “Fuel for thought,” he said, a bright grin spreading across his ruddy face.

Three hours later the bottle sat empty on the conference table and Brumado, who had hardly touched the one glass poured for him, was summarizing: “The Vice-President told me personally that she is willing to make a statement supporting the further exploration of Mars if we can get Dr. Waterman to make a statement supporting her candidacy.”

“Better get her statement in writing,” said the American, grumpily. “And get it down on paper
before
you let the Indian open his mouth.”

“I’m not certain that Dr. Waterman would be willing to make such a statement,” Brumado admitted.

“Then you’ll have to convince him. Use your powers of persuasion. I’d do it myself,” the former Texan said, “but if anybody up on the Hill found out about it they’d pin my balls to the wall and the Mars Project would go down the toilet in half a minute.”

The Japanese turned to the Russian. “What would be the reaction of the Russian Federation if the United States makes a strong statement of support for further missions?”

The Russian shrugged elaborately. “With both the U.S.A. and Japan lined up in favor, I think the forces of enlightenment
in Moscow would gain enough strength to override the objections of the obstructionists.”

The American hiked a shaggy eyebrow. “Does that mean yea or nay?”

They all burst into laughter. “Yes,” said the Russian. “Positively yes.”

Then all three of the project directors fixed their eyes on Brumado.

“It’s up to you, then, Alberto old pal,” said the American. “None of us can do it. You’ve got to convince this redskin that he’s got to support the Vice-President.”

“I hope he will,” said Brumado.

“It’s either that or the program ends when they return to Earth.”

Brumado nodded his agreement. Then, “Has Waterman been kept from taking personal messages? Is he being held incommunicado while he is on Mars?”

The three project directors glanced uneasily at one another. The Russian said, “Once the American government refused to release his interview tape we assumed that he was not to have any contact with the media.”

“Far as I know,” said the American, “he hasn’t squawked. Hasn’t even asked to send any personal messages, I don’t think.”

“No personal communications at all?” Brumado asked. “Not to his family, his friends?”

The Russian shrugged. “Apparently no one has tried to reach him, nor has he attempted to call anyone.”

“Not even his parents?”

“Apparently not.”

“Why do you ask?” said the Japanese director.

Brumado replied, “I ran into a young woman who says she is a friend of Waterman’s, and she has been denied permission to speak with him.”

The American leaned back in his chair again. “I don’t see why she can’t make a tape, like everybody else’s friends and relatives are doing. Then Waterman can decide if he wants to answer her or not. That’s the way we’ve been handling personal messages, what with the time lag and the busy schedule those guys have down on the surface of the planet.”

“That makes sense,” Brumado said. “I will tell her that.”

“The computer enhancements prove that your ‘village’ is nothing more than a natural formation of rock,” said Ravavishnu Patel.

Jamie shook his head stubbornly. “The enhancements prove nothing of the sort.”

“I’m afraid I must agree with Rava,” Abdul al-Naguib said. “You are leaping to an erroneous conclusion.”

The three men—two geologists and the Egyptian geo-physicist—were sitting tensely on spindly stools in front of a computer display screen in the geology lab. The area was partitioned off from the rest of the dome, its shelves cluttered with bare rocks and transparent plastic cases that held core samples and stoppered bottles filled with red soil. A long table set against one partition held analysis equipment and computer modules, their display screens flickering orange and blue, showing curves and graphs of data from the global network of sensors that changed every few moments.

“Look,” Jamie said to the others, “the computer enhancement of the videotape shows a nicely enlarged view of that formation. I’m not saying it’s artificial; all I’m saying is that the enhancement really doesn’t prove it’s natural.”

“But it cannot be artificial!” Patel insisted. “Even Father DiNardo back in Rome agrees it has to be a natural formation!”

Jamie gave him a stern look. “Rava, science doesn’t work on opinions. We learn by observing, by measuring. For god’s sake, when Galileo first reported seeing sunspots, there were priests in Rome who claimed the spots must have been in his telescope because everybody knew that the sun was perfect and without blemish.”

Naguib smiled in a fatherly way. Older than either of the two geologists, he saw himself as the voice of mature wisdom in this emotional debate.

“We have observed,” the Egyptian said patiently. “We have measured. The most powerful tools we possess tell us that the formation is natural, a formation of rocks and nothing more.”

“The evidence says nothing of the sort,” Jamie snapped. “You’re looking at the evidence with a bias against it being artificial.”

“And you are looking at the same evidence with a bias against it being natural,” Patel countered.

“Which proves to me that the evidence is not conclusive,” Jamie said.

Naguib asked, “But how could it be artificial? You are presupposing that an intelligent species once existed on Mars and built itself a village—in the same manner that your own ancestors built cliff dwellings? That is so unlikely that it beggars the imagination.”

Patel added, “When you make a large claim, you must have strong evidence to back it up.”

“Right!” Jamie said. “I agree! We have to go back to Tithonium Chasma and see that formation close up. Go right up to it and put our hands on it.”

The Hindu geologist stared at Jamie as if he had uttered blasphemy. “Go there! And what of my excursion to Pavonis Mons? Do you think your make-believe ‘village’ is more important than the Tharsis volcanoes?”

“If that ‘village’ really is artificial, it sure as hell is more important than anything else,” Jamie shot back.

“The next thing you know, you will want to go all the way to Acidalia to examine the ‘Face’!”

Photographs from early spacecraft orbiting Mars had found a rock formation that resembled a human face when the sun hit it at the right angle.

“Maybe we’ll have to,” Jamie snapped. “But first I want to see if that ‘village’ is natural or artificial.”

Naguib raised his hands in a gesture of peacemaking. “Everyone who has examined the enhanced video agrees that the formation must be natural. Just as the ‘Face’ is.”

“Science doesn’t work by counting votes,” Jamie said,
feeling anger rising inside him. “The only way to settle this question is to go back there and see for ourselves.”

“It would wreck our schedule,” Patel said. “It is entirely unnecessary.”

“The hell with the schedule,” Jamie said.

“The hell with your Village’!” Patel shouted. “The hell with your fantasies!”

Jamie took a deep breath, trying to control his seething temper. Then, “Listen, both of you. Our job here is to seek the truth—and not be afraid of finding it. We’ve got to go back to the canyon.”

“No,” said Patel, anger simmering in his dark face.

“I’m afraid I must agree with Rava,” Naguib said reluctantly. “Our mission here is clearly defined. We are the first scouts, our task is to make the preliminary reconnaissance. We have two other regions scheduled for overland traverses before our forty-nine days are finished. Others will come to study the planet in greater detail on follow-on missions. We are not here to swallow everything in one gulp.”

Jamie looked at the two of them. Patel, worried that his excursion to the goddammed volcano might be in jeopardy. Naguib, willing to let others get the glory. Jamie thought that the Egyptian was old enough to become an administrator when they returned to Earth; his days as an active scientist are finished. He’ll go back to Egypt and be a famous man, get a prestigious chair in a university and be solidly fixed for the rest of his life. What the hell does he care?

“What makes you so damned certain there’ll be follow-on missions?” Jamie asked. “If the goddammed politicians have their way we’ll be the
last
expedition to Mars as well as the first one.”

Naguib and Patel looked at each other, dumbstruck, as if the idea had never occurred to them before.

Jamie grimaced and turned slightly on his stool. The display screen still showed the enhanced image of the rock formation: straight walls with some detritus at their base, set well back into the rock cleft, protected by the massive overhang of deep red iron-rich stone.

“Okay,” he said calmly. “If you won’t back me on this I’ll just have to ask Dr. Li by myself.”

The two other men groaned their displeasure.

•   •   •

Even over the whirring hum of the centrifuge Ilona Malater could hear the argument among the geologists growing into vehemence.

Ah, she said to herself, Jamie is showing some passion at last.

Joanna Brumado, a few feet away from Ilona at her workstation in the biology lab, heard the argument too. She looked worried, almost frightened as the men snapped at each other. She’s frightened for Jamie’s sake, Ilona thought. She cares about our Red Indian more than she is willing to admit. Perhaps more than she herself realizes.

Smiling inwardly, Ilona returned her attention to the whirling centrifuge and the work she was trying to finish. With the tedious, time-consuming care of the most conservative of chemists, she had spent the past several days tenderly baking the water out of half a dozen of the corings drilled out of the Martian ground. Only half a dozen, to start. The other core samples she left strictly alone, safe inside their protective boxes, as a control on her experiment.

The permafrost yielded its water easily enough. With Monique Bonnet’s help, Ilona had tested the water, analyzed it with every instrument the laboratory had. It was water, all right: H
₂
O, heavily laced with carbon dioxide and minerals such as iron and silicon.

Jamie’s changing, Ilona thought as she watched the arms of the bench-top centrifuge spin blurringly. We all are. Mars is changing us. Even Tony is different now; he tries to maintain his air of English imperturbability, but I can see that something deep inside him has changed. He’s not the same man he was aboard the spacecraft. Something is eating away at him.

Is it Joanna? she wondered. Does Tony really care that much about bedding our Brazilian princess?

As if she sensed Ilona’s thoughts, Joanna looked up from the work she was bent over, right into Ilona’s eyes. For an instant Ilona felt flushed, caught red-handed. But just then the centrifuge finished its run and began to slow down, its thin shrill whine sighing to a fainter note, its arms slowly drooping as if exhausted from the work it had been doing.

Joanna slipped off her stool and came down the length of the lab bench to stand beside Ilona.

“Do you need any help?” she asked.

Watching the centrifuge slowly spinning down to a complete stop, Ilona answered, “Monique was supposed to be here by now.”

“She’s off tending to-her plants. Some of them are beginning to sprout already.”

“Yes. I know.” The centrifuge stopped altogether. “If everything goes well, I’ll be able to give her Martian water for her precious sprouts.”

Joanna watched as Ilona detached a vial from the centrifuge and held it up to the overhead lights. The vial was divided into two sections; its top was clear liquid, the bottom section much murkier.

“You see? The water is clear now. I’ve separated out the dissolved minerals.”

“It looks bubbly,” Joanna said.

“Carbon dioxide, absorbed from the atmosphere. If all the permafrost could be melted, we’d not only cover half of Mars with water, we’d outgas enough CO
₂
to make the atmosphere as thick as Earth’s, almost.”

Ilona decanted the clear water into a plastic beaker.

“Aren’t you going to analyze it?” Joanna asked.

“The mass spectrometer is off-line again.”

“I thought Abell …”

“Paul said he fixed it, but I don’t trust the calibration since he’s had his hands on it. I’ve got to go over it myself, and I haven’t had the time for it.”

Joanna said, “The geology lab has a mass spectrometer.”

With a sudden smile, Ilona answered, “Good thought.”

The men were still arguing, almost shouting, when the two women came around the partition and stepped into the geology lab. The argument snapped off into silence.

“We need to use your spectrometer for a few minutes,” Ilona said. “Do you mind?”

Naguib said, “No. Of course not. Is that local groundwater you have there?”

“Yes.”

“Unprotected?” Patel asked. “With no cover atop it?”

“It’s only water, Rava. It can’t hurt you.”

Joanna added, “We have run it through every test we know; there are no organisms in it. It is completely sterile.”

“Not now,” said Patel. “You have exposed it to our air, to our microbes.”

Ilona shrugged grandly, as if the Hindu’s observation meant nothing whatsoever to her, and stepped over to the mass spectrometer sitting on the lab bench between an assortment of small stones and the thick sheaf of an operations manual. On the other side of the manual was a desktop computer, its screen blank.