Mars Life (38 page)

They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

Sal Hasdrubal was on his knees in the bottom of the crater, half a dozen sample cases scattered across the broken rocks. The steep sides of the crater were studded with sensor poles. Hasdrubal had scraped a meter-long trench in the looser ground between the rocks and was pouring some of the dirt into one of the insulated plastic boxes.

But as he worked he grumbled, “It’s useless. We’re too friggin’ late. They’re all dead.”

From up at the lip of the crater Jamie asked, “How can you be sure?”

Hasdrubal looked up at him, then shook his head. “They couldn’t take the radiation. The cold. The low pressure.”

“But maybe some of them—”

“Naw. We’re too damned late. They’re all dead.”

Dex came up beside Jamie in his nanosuit and peered into the crater. They could see Hasdrubal’s bootprints weaving through the sensor poles. The biologist had insisted on going down to the bottom alone, afraid that too many boots might damage the microbes living in the ground down there.

“They formed a crust of dead cells,” he said mournfully. “Like they were trying to shield themselves.”

“Then maybe some of them have survived,” Jamie said hopefully. “Beneath the protective crust.”

Dex added, “Bacteria have survived on the surface of the Moon for years, with no air, no water, and hard radiation pouring in on them.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Hasdrubal. He clicked the last of his sample cases shut. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe some of ‘em have gone into a spore state.”

“You’ll have to get them under a microscope,” Jamie said, trying to sound encouraging.

“Yeah,” Hasdrubal replied glumly.

“Can we give you a hand carrying the cases back to the camper?” Dex asked.

Slowly rising to his feet, Hasdrubal said, “Sure. ‘Preciate it. Come on down.”

Jamie and Dex scrambled down the loose rocks and soil of the crater’s steep walls. With each of them carrying a pair of sample cases, they made their way back up to the surface and trudged to the camper.

“Stow ‘em in the outside bay,” Hasdrubal said. “Keep ‘em at ambient temperature.”

Jamie glanced at the sun, still climbing in the yellowish sky. A few thin wispy clouds rode near the horizon. Nothing to worry about, he thought. No sign of a dust storm. Wrong season.

With a glance at the digital watch on the wrist of his nanosuit, Jamie said, “It’s not even noon yet. We could get back to the dome before sunset if we start out now.”

“Might’s well,” Hasdrubal agreed. “Nothin’ more here for me to do.”

Once they had vacuumed the dust off their suits, Jamie took the driver’s seat, with Hasdrubal at his right.

“I thought we had jump seats in the old campers,” Dex said, leaning in between them again.

“Nope,” said Jamie, engaging the superconducting electric motors that drove each individual wheel. “We always had to scrunch down like that.”

“Well I’m going to make a note about it. A jump seat would be a helluva lot more comfortable.”

“Do that,” Jamie said, thinking, That’s the least of our worries.

Hasdrubal looked morose, Jamie thought.

“Too bad we didn’t get here soon enough to study the microbes alive,” Jamie said.

“Yeah. I had hoped to bring ‘em back to the dome, put them in a simulated environment, see how they made out, watch them adapt. But we were too late. Now we’ll never know.”

Dex said, “Don’t give up. Maybe some of them survived.”

The biologist made a halfhearted shrug. “Like you said, I’ll put ‘em under the microscope, see what there is to see.”

“Then what?” Dex asked.

“Then I pack ‘em up and ship ‘em back to Chicago.”

“The University of Chicago?”

“Yeah. Biology department.”

“Who’ll be studying them there?” Jamie asked.

“Me. If I still have a job there.”

Jamie felt his brows hike up. “You? You’re leaving?”

“Not on the ship in orbit now,” Hasdrubal said, his voice heavy and slow. “The next flight.”

“The evacuation flight,” Jamie said.

“Yeah. Right.”

Dex asked, “What did you mean, if you still have a job there?”

“I been gettin’ messages from the university, and from a few friends in the bio department. I’m supposed to be up for tenure, but the university brass is puttin’ tenure appointments on hold.”

“Why the hell would they do that?” Dex asked.

Jamie said, “I’d think your work on Mars would guarantee you an appointment.”

Shaking his head, Hasdrubal said, “Just the opposite. There’s a move on to deny tenure to anybody who’s been away from the campus for more’n a year.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Jamie snapped. “You got a sabbatical for your time on Mars, didn’t you?”

“The sabbatical was up last year. My department head said he’d handle the paperwork so’s I could stay on Mars long as I needed to. But now the university administration is cutting the legs out from under him. Me, too, looks like.”

Jamie glanced back at Dex. He looked grim.

Hasdrubal went on, “If I can get back before the academic year ends next spring I oughtta be okay. But I can’t stay on Mars and keep my job. They’ve made that clear enough.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dex said softly, carefully pronouncing each word.

“I could talk to them. . . .” Jamie started to say.

“Wouldn’t do any good,” Dex said. “The university’s caving in to the fundamentalists. Just like Penn did to get rid of Carleton.”

“I can’t believe that,” Jamie said.

“Believe it. This is just another one of their cute little tricks to kill the Mars program.” Dex’s voice dripped acid. “I’ll have to start checking some of the other schools. Cute: stay on Mars and lose your job. Real cute.”

“That’s what I’m up against,” Hasdrubal said.

“That’s what we’re all up against,” said Jamie, feeling hollow inside.

“Naw, you got tenure,” Hasdrubal said. “You’re okay.”

Dex grunted. “How long do you think it’ll be before those psalm-singing sons of bitches get the universities to start reviewing their tenure appointments?”

They were a glum trio as they rode the buckyball cables down to the valley floor and trudged to the dome, toting Hasdrubal’s sample cases. Jamie glanced at the people working on Carleton’s excavation as they passed by the pit in the dying light of the day. They all were working busily away at the dig. Like ants, Jamie thought.

The three men hardly spoke a word to each other as they went through the airlock, vacuumed the dust off their nanosuits, and then pulled the suits off and hung them on their racks.

Dex muttered something about meeting with Chang and headed off for the mission director’s office. Hasdrubal put all six sample cases on a cart and pushed it toward the biology laboratory. Jamie stood alone by the airlock hatch and gazed out across the dome. The place looked quiet, subdued. No excitement, no 
purpose 
to any of it. They all know they’re going to leave soon, he thought. They all realize that the best we can hope for is a caretaker operation. Their work here is finished. Their careers aren’t on Mars anymore. Their lives aren’t on Mars. He felt tired, utterly weary, defeated.

Where’s Vijay? he wondered. She’s usually at the airlock when I come back from outside. She knows we’re coming in. We sent the word to the excursion controller. Why isn’t she here?

Because she has her own work to do, the other side of his mind answered. She’s got more to do than run into your arms every time you come back from an excursion.

Still, he felt disappointed. She’s always there to greet me. Even when I’d fly home to Albuquerque she’d be at the airport. Even when I came back after Jimmy died.

He started out across the dome toward the infirmary, telling himself, She must be working. Maybe some emergency came up, somebody got hurt or something.

Several people nodded hellos at Jamie as he strode across the plastic flooring. He nodded back and gave perfunctory greetings.

“Hey, good to see you back, Dr. W,” said Billy Graycloud. “I’ve got something to show you—”

“Not now, Billy,” Jamie said, brushing past the young Navaho, not looking back to see the hurt expression on the kid’s face.

As he neared the entrance to the infirmary a new thought struck him. What if something’s happened to her? What if she got sick, or had an accident? He hurried to the infirmary.

Vijay was in Nari Quintana’s office, deep in earnest conversation with the chief medical officer, their two heads bending toward each other over Quintana’s little desk like two schoolgirls sharing a secret.

Jamie stopped at the office’s open doorway, feeling immensely relieved and more than a little exasperated. She’s all right. Nothing’s happened to her. Then why—

Before he could speak a word, Quintana noticed him and flinched like a woman caught by surprise. Vijay turned. Her eyes went wide and she leaped out of her chair.

“Jamie!” She flung herself into his arms. “Oh my god, I completely lost track of the time. I’m so sorry. I really wanted to be at the airlock when—”

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her soundly.

“I’m sorry, Jamie,” Vijay repeated. “You must think . . .” She glanced at Quintana, who was leaning back in her desk chair with a knowing grin on her lean face.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I just wondered where you were.”

“Nari and I got to talking,” Vijay said, speaking faster than usual, embarrassed or upset or—what? Jamie wondered.

Quintana made a show of looking at her wristwatch. “It’s almost the dinner hour. You two go off and get something to eat. I have a lot of paperwork to do here.” She made a show of pecking at her keyboard and peering at her computer screen.

Arm in arm, Jamie and Vijay headed for the cafeteria. Jamie noticed that Carleton’s people were coming through the airlock. It’ll be sundown in a few minutes, he realized. The cafeteria was almost empty; dinner hour was just starting. He realized he was famished.

“How’d it go?” Vijay asked as they loaded their trays.

“Not good,” said Jamie. “Hasdrubal’s bugs have either died off or gone into a spore state.”

“I mean with Dex.”

“Even worse,” Jamie said. They walked through the mostly unoccupied tables, found a small one near the dome’s curving wall. As they pulled out their chairs the wall turned opaque for the night; suddenly there was nothing to see outside.

“The only way Dex can get any reasonable funding is to bring his big-spending friends here and turn this base into a tourist center.” He plopped down in his chair, his appetite suddenly gone.

Vijay started to reply, hesitated, then went ahead. “You’ll have to let him do it, then, won’t you?”

“No,” Jamie snapped.

She leaned toward him, placed her dark hand on his coppery one. “Jamie, if you want to stay here, if you want to keep on with the work you’re doing here, you’re going to have to make a compromise.”

He said nothing.

Vijay went on, “There must be some way to allow a few tourists here without ruining everything.”

“They’ll want to put up a huge dome to cover the whole area and fill it with air at Earth-normal pressure,” he said grimly. “That’ll kill the lichen. God knows what the oxygen will do to the ruins of the village, the bodies in the graves.”

It was Vijay’s turn to go silent.

Bitterly, Jamie said, “Those buildings in the cliff have stood there for sixty million years and more. How long do you think they’d last in a terrestrial atmosphere? With tourists chipping pieces off them? Writing graffiti on the walls?”

“Oh, come on, now, Jamie. It won’t be like that and you know it.”

He tried to frown at her, found he couldn’t. “Well,” he said softly, “maybe I’m exaggerating. A little.”

He saw Vijay look up and, turning, there was Billy Graycloud standing at his elbow.

“Uh, I’m sorry to interrupt, Dr. W, but if you have a couple-minutes after you’re finished eating could you come over to the comm center? I’ve got something I want to show you.”

A little irritated at the interruption, Jamie nodded. “Sure, Billy. After dinner.”

“Thanks!” The young man beamed a grateful smile and then quickly walked away.

Jamie noticed Carter Carleton and several others pushing two tables together. Carleton sat at the head, with several young women sitting at the places closest to him.

Vijay smiled. “Carter’s taking my advice.”

“Advice?”

“We had dinner last night.” Before Jamie could say anything she went on, “I told him there were plenty of young women here who’d be glad to be with him.”

“In bed,” said Jamie.

Vijay nodded.

“You had dinner with him. Did he come on to you?”

“Nothing serious. Nothing that I couldn’t handle,” she said. But she looked down at her plate of soymeat.

Jamie half-joked, “Should I go over there and punch him out?”

Vijay looked up. Totally serious, she replied, “No need for that, Jamie. His reputation is much worse than he really is. I can handle him, no worries.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Jamie looked into her midnight eyes and decided to let the subject drop. I can trust Vijay. She’s the one person in the world I can rely on. The one person in two worlds. No, make it three, if we count Selene.

“The wheels in your head are turning,” Vijay said, with a smile that was almost impish.

He shook his head. “They’re spinning, but I’m not getting anywhere.”

“You will, love,” said Vijay. “You will.”

But when they were leaving the cafeteria, Jamie saw Sal Hasdrubal morosely pushing a half-filled dinner tray along the counter.

“What did the microscope show, Sal?” he asked.

The lanky biologist gave Jamie a somber stare. “They’re all gone. Just a few weeks out in the open killed them all.”

“They’re all dead?”

“Every last one of the cells. Dead.”

And so are we, Jamie said to himself. So are we.