Mars Life (22 page)

Graycloud shifted from one foot to the other by the doorless entrance, looking uneasy.

“Don’t tell me you want to go back, too, Billy.”

“No, not me!” The youngster looked genuinely alarmed. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to, Dr. W.”

“That’s good, Billy. Good.” Jamie turned his attention to his desktop screen and called up the logistics program. Graycloud didn’t leave, though, he simply stood by the entrance, fidgeting silently.

Jamie glanced up at him.

“It’s just that. . .” Graycloud’s voice tailed off, but the expression on his face looked urgent.

“What?”

“The writing. Those pictographs on the wall of the building. Would it be all right if I took a crack at translating them?”

Taken completely by surprise, Jamie suppressed his impulse to say, “You?” Instead, he merely leaned back in his springy little chair and waited for Graycloud to go on.

“I could do a computer analysis of the frequency of each symbol, then assign arbitrary meanings to each of the symbols and see if any sense comes out of it.”

The kid’s totally serious, Jamie realized. I’m trying to hold this operation together and he wants to tackle a problem that’s stumped the best experts in the world.

“Hasn’t anybody already done that?” he asked softly.

Graycloud shook his head. “I’ve read everything in the literature. A couple guys at Carnegie Mellon took a crack at it, but they didn’t even try to guess at what the individual symbols mean. They just did a statistical analysis of the frequency of each symbol.”

Despite himself, Jamie felt a glow of interest. “But how can you know what the symbols stand for? I mean, that’s the whole point of the exercise, isn’t it, trying to determine what they represent?”

“I’ll just guess,” Graycloud said, pulling up the only other chair in the cubicle and folding his lanky body into it. “The computers can rattle through thousands of guesses per second, y’know. If I guess wrong, we won’t get any sense out of it. But if I guess right. . .”

Unconvinced, Jamie said, “That’s a brute force way of going at it.”

“Right! Exactly! But with enough computer power the brute force way might give us something!”

Jamie could see the enthusiasm shining out of the youngster’s eyes. “How much computer power do you have access to?” he asked.

Graycloud actually glanced over his shoulder before answering. Hunching closer to Jamie, he lowered his voice as he replied, “At night I can put most of the units in the base together in parallel. We’ve got two supermodels and dozens of office and lab stand-alones. I can program them together. That’s more teraflops than a whole university department!”

“You have your regular duties, Billy. When would you sleep?”

“That’s the beauty part! Once I slave them all together they can chug along all night long on their own. All I have to do is check their results each morning.”

“This wouldn’t interfere with anyone’s regular work? You wouldn’t want to screw up anyone’s computer.”

“Nobody even needs to know about it,” Graycloud said, practically twitching with eagerness.

Jamie shook his head. “No, I don’t want you sneaking behind anybody’s back on this.”

Graycloud nodded, but without much enthusiasm.

“Write out a program plan, just a page or so will do.”

“And try to get Chang to approve it?”

“He’ll approve it,” Jamie said. “I’ll see to that.”

“Really?”

“Really. As long as you can absolutely promise us that this won’t foul up any of the work the computers are already programmed to do.”

“No sweat! I guarantee it, Dr. W!” Graycloud shot to his feet.

Grinning at the lad’s enthusiasm, Jamie got up from his chair and took Graycloud’s hand in his own.

“Go write that program plan,” he said.

“Yessir! Right away!”

As the youngster stumbled through the cubicle’s entryway, awkward in his haste, Jamie heard himself lapse into the old Navaho saying, “Go in beauty, son.”

He stood there for a moment, wondering if Graycloud heard that. Then, with a shrug, he went back to the logistics program. The kid wants to run with his idea, Jamie said to himself. As long as it doesn’t bother anybody—

The PA system announced, “THE L/AV HAS MADE RENDEZVOUS WITH RESUPPLY OH-EIGHT-ONE. L/AV LANDING IS EXPECTED IN TWO HOURS, GIVE OR TAKE A FEW MINUTES FOR THE CARGO LOADING.”

Monsignor DiNardo was in the midst of his morning breviary when the command pilot called him over the ship’s intercom, “Father DiNardo, we’re ready to transfer you to the L/AV.”

DiNardo’s compartment was as small as a monk’s cell, but more comfortably furnished with a soft bed and modern plumbing.

He put his rosary beads down on the metal dresser that was built into the curving bulkhead and touched the intercom keyboard.

“I am ready,” he said. Ready to go down to Mars, he thought, his heart thumping.

He had already packed his meager belongings in his single black travel bag. Stuffing the beads into one pocket of his gray coveralls and his prayer book into another, he reached for his travel bag. And thought of a colleague in the seminary, ages ago, who would skim through his breviary by saying, “All the saints on this page, pray for me,” over and over as he flicked through the pages.

DiNardo smiled to himself at the memory as he slung the bag over his husky shoulder and slid open the door of his compartment. The bag felt featherlight. Of course, he thought: the ship is spinning at only one-third normal gravity now. I weigh only thirty-some kilos. The best diet I’ve ever been on!

He headed along the narrow passageway toward the main airlock, careful to grip the safety bars on both sides as he adjusted his stride to the lighter Martian gravity. During the four days of the flight from Earth the wheel-shaped torch ship had spun at a rate that produced a feeling of almost normal gravity. Now that they were in orbit around Mars, the spin rate had been cut down to one-third of a g.

The command pilot was still on the bridge, overseeing the transfer of the last of several tons of cargo to the landing/ascent vehicle. One of the other astronauts, a gangly, long-legged African-American woman with a lantern jaw and dark hair cut so short it looked almost like a skullcap, was waiting for him at the airlock hatch.         

“You’re almost there, Padre,” she said, in a west Texas twang.

“Yes,” DiNardo replied softly, his voice almost choking in his throat. “Thank you for a very pleasurable flight.”

The astronaut chuckled. “You call sittin’ in that bitty li’l compartment for four days and eatin’ what passes for food on this bucket pleasurable?”

“It has brought me to Mars.”

She sobered. “Oh. Yep, that it has. Good luck, Padre.”

“God bless you, my child.”

The airlock was connected to the L/AV’s airlock, so there was no need to cycle it. DiNardo simply stepped from the torch ship into the tubular segment that linked it with the landing/ascent vehicle, much as an airliner passenger would go from the airport terminal gate through an access tunnel and into the airplane.

No windows, no view of the red planet outside. Another astronaut—male, short and wiry—greeted DiNardo inside the L/AV, showed him to a bucket seat. The seat’s thin padding looked threadbare, worn. Four others were already buckled in: one woman and three men, fresh and fuzzy-cheeked as teenagers in DiNardo’s eyes.

“We’ll be on the ground in about half an hour,” the astronaut said. “The ride ought to be pretty easy, but you’ll have to stay strapped in until we touch down.”

DiNardo nodded and started to pull his prayer book from his coveralls pocket, to resume his morning devotions.

“Would you like to go up to the cockpit?” the astronaut asked. “Just for a minute or so, but you can see outside from there.”

DiNardo jumped out of his chair so quickly that he stumbled into the astronaut in the light gravity. Laughing, the man led him past the empty seats, up a short ladderway and through a hatch.

And there was Mars.

DiNardo’s breath caught in his throat. He had seen thousands of images of Mars, pictures taken from orbit and from the surface. But this was no photograph. Through the curving window of the L/AV’s cockpit he could see the red planet gliding past his goggling eyes. That’s Olympus Mons! DiNardo realized. The largest mountain in the solar system, its massive flanks sheened with ice, its gaping caldera dark and mysterious. Close enough almost to touch! And that mass bulking up on the horizon must be Pavonis Mons.

He was gasping, he realized. And the pain had returned to his chest.

“You okay, Father?” asked the astronaut, his face suddenly taut with concern.

The other astronaut, seated at the craft’s controls, turned to look up at him. “Don’t sweat it, Reverend, this creaky old bird’ll get you down on the ground all right.”

“I’m fine,” DiNardo lied. “Fine. It’s. . . the excitement. I’ve waited . . . twenty-three years... for this.”

The astronaut’s expression eased and he showed DiNardo back to his passenger’s seat and helped him strap in. Once the astronaut climbed back up to the cockpit, DiNardo dug the bottle of pills From his pocket and swallowed one of them dry. He had lots of experience doing that, furtively taking the heart pills so that no one knew he needed them.

After several minutes the astronaut called from the cockpit, “Separation in three minutes, folks. We’ll be on the ground in fifteen.”

On the ground, DiNardo thought. On Mars.

The pain in his chest eased, and DiNardo tried to resume his breviary prayers. But he closed the well-thumbed little book as soon as he felt the gentle surge of thrust that meant that the landing vehicle had separated from the torch ship.

I’m on my way, he told himself. 
Deo gratias. 
Thanks be to God for allowing me to reach Mars. The pain of the heart is a trifling price to pay for such a privilege. Glory be to God.

His chest constricted again and he reached for the bottle of pills once more.

“L/AV LANDING IN TEN MINUTES,” the public address speakers blared.

Jamie looked through the opening in the partitions that formed his office and saw that a couple of dozen people were milling about the open area of the dome, waiting to leave Mars when the L/AV departed again. Their luggage was piled in a disorderly heap near the main airlock.

He knew he shouldn’t feel this way but he couldn’t help thinking of the departing men and women as traitors, turncoats, cowards who were running away from Mars rather than staying here to push the exploration further.

You’re supposed to be scientists, Jamie berated them silently. You’re supposed to seek out new knowledge, new understandings. Instead you’re running away. When the going gets tough, you run away.

But then the Navaho part of his mind spoke: They have to find their own paths, seek their own goals. Look at that Hungarian, Torok: his marriage is falling apart and he has to go back to salvage what he can. No two lives follow the same course, no two lives arrive at the same destiny. You’ll have to explore Mars without them. In time, there will be others to help you.

In time, Jamie thought. In time we could be shut down completely. The exploration of Mars could come to an end.

“Not while I live,” Jamie whispered to himself. “Not while there’s breath in my lungs or a beat in my heart.”

He thought he could hear Coyote laughing, out on the frigid, bleak red desert of Mars. Laughing at him.

“L/AV LANDING IN FIVE MINUTES.” The PA system broke into his thoughts.

Almost reluctantly Jamie got up from his chair and walked toward the small crowd shifting restlessly near the main airlock. What can I say to them? he asked himself. Nothing, he realized. They’ve made their choice. They’re running away.

He spotted Kalman Torok among the others, looking edgy, running a hand through his dark hair.

Walking up to him, Jamie put on a smile and stuck out his hand. “Good luck in Budapest,” he said softly.

Torok looked mildly surprised. “Thank you, Dr. Waterman. I hope I can come back here after I get this legal tangle straightened out.”

Jamie nodded, not trusting himself to say more. He went from one person to another, shaking hands, smiling tightly, holding back the urge to plead with them to stay. We couldn’t afford to keep them all, he knew. We couldn’t feed them or pay their salaries.

Still, he felt betrayed. It’s not their fault, he told himself as he went through the little group. It’s mine. I should have paid more attention to the funding problems. I should have worked closer with Dex and the board in Boston. I’ve been sleepwalking the past few years while the program’s been strangled.

He saw Carter Carleton in the crowd, standing beside Doreen McManus. They both looked grim, almost angry.

Carleton’s morning had begun badly and went downhill from there.

When he awoke, Doreen was already up and dressed in a freshly cleaned set of coral pink coveralls.

“Your flight suit?” he asked, putting as much sarcasm into the words as he could.

She frowned at him. “I’m leaving, Carter. Let’s not make our last morning together a battle.”

“No,” he said, swinging his legs off the bed. “Of course not.”

Once he was finished in the lavatory and came back into the bedroom she was gone. He dressed swiftly and strode out toward the cafeteria, looking for her. Good tactics, he thought. Get out in public where we won’t make a scene. She’s a smart little bitch.

But she was sitting alone at a table for two, off in a far corner of the cafeteria. Only about half the tables were occupied; most people had already taken their breakfasts. Carleton poured himself a mug of coffee from the one urn that was working, then went and sat across the table from her.