Return to Mars (22 page)

“I will, later,” Dex replied, trying to hide his exasperation. “But first tell us about what we have planned for the next stages of the expedition.”

“Oh. you mean the flight out to Olympus Mons.”

“Yes, that … and the long-distance excursion to the Sagan

Station.”

“Oh, sure,” Jamie said, relieved that he had something concrete to talk about.

Darryl C. Trumball watched the broadcast on the flat wall screen of his office. He had no time or inclination to don a VR helmet and those sticky gloves.

Dex is trying to get that damned redskin to pump up the audience about retrieving the Pathfinder hardware and all the Indian’s talking about is that stupid volcano!

Robert Sonnenfeld had begged, borrowed, and even paid with his own money to get a total of eighteen virtual reality helmets and glove sets, so his entire class could experience the broadcasts from Mars.

Now he and his seventeen enthralled middle school students felt as if they were actually walking through the domed garden that the explorers had built on the rust-red sands of Mars.

An English woman was guiding them through the garden, explaining what they were seeing.

“This is actually a very specialized version of a system called the Living Machine. It was first developed in the United States as a way of purifying waste water and making it safe enough to drink.”

Trudy Hall stopped by a large vat filled with thick, sludge-brown water. “The process begins with bacteria, of course,” she explained. “They begin the job of breaking down the wastes and pollutants in the water…”

Fifteen minutes later she was standing amid rows of plastic trays that held a variety of green, leafy plants.

“We can’t grow plants in the local soil, of course, because the ground is heavily saturated with superoxides,” Trudy was explaining. “Rather like a very strong bleach. However, by using hydroponics— growing our crops in trays through which we flow nutrient-rich water…”

Li Chengdu was fascinated by the tour. As mission director of the first expedition, he had remained in orbit about Mars. He had never set foot on the red planet’s surface. Now he was walking through a man-made hydroponic garden set up beneath a plastic dome, a garden that recycled the expedition’s water and provided not only clean drinking water but fresh food, as well. Remarkable.

He was walking virtually beside Trudy Hall as she paced slowly along an aisle between hydroponics trays, pointing left and right as she spoke.

“And by this point the water is used to nourish our garden vegetables. Soybeans, of course. Lettuce, quinoa, eggplant … and over there, in those larger trays, are the melons and strawberries.”

Hall reached out and touched a bright green leaf. Li felt it in his gloved fingers.

I am on Mars at last, he marveled to himself.

Jamie and the others had drifted to the galley tables when Dex and Trudy had gone out to the garden. They sat around and talked shop, now that the cameras were off them.

“It’s a good thing the VR rig is working tonight,” said Stacy Dezhurova. “Tarawa has been sending up complaints every day about its breaking down.”

Tarawa, Jamie thought, was merely relaying the yowls from the elder Trumball, in Boston.

“Well, I’m takin’ her with us on the ride out to Ares Vallis,” Possum Craig said, both his big hands clutching his mug of cooling coffee. “I’ll work on her until she starts behavin’ right.”

“Good luck,” Rodriguez muttered.

The airlock hatch sighed open and Trudy and Dex came sauntering in. Dex had removed the VR cameras from his head, Jamie saw.

“Okay,” he proclaimed, “we wowed ‘em in Peoria. Trudy’s a natural VR performer. You should’ve seen her.”

Hall smiled politely and made a tiny curtsey. “My new career: show business.”

Vijay excused herself as Trumball went to the dispenser and filled a cup with coffee. Jamie noticed that he didn’t offer to get anything for Trudy, who merely sat at the galley table and took a deep breath, as if she had just finished a footrace.

Looking at Jamie as he returned to the table, Dex said, “You guys have no idea how important these VR transmissions are. We get tens of millions of people watching us, experiencing what we show them.”

“Mucho dinero,” Rodriguez said.

“It’s more than the money,” Trumball shot back. “It’s the support. Those viewers feel like they’ve really been on Mars with us. They’ll support us when it comes to future expeditions. They’ll even want to come themselves.”

Before Jamie could reply, Vijay returned to the table with a brilliant smile and a half-liter-sized plastic container.

“I have here in my hand,” she said, holding the container high so everyone could see, “a certain amount of medicinal alcohol. Now that the cameras are off and we’re safe from prying eyes, let the real party begin!”

A BIG MORNING, JAMIE THOUGHT. THE BIGGEST THAT MARS HAS EVER SEEN since we first landed here.

“It will be lonesome around here,” Stacy Dezhurova said morosely over breakfast.

“We won’t be gone that long,” said Mitsuo Fuchida. “Less than a week.”

“Four weeks, tops, for us,” Dex Trumball said.

The Russian cosmonaut seemed almost melancholy, which surprised Jamie. Usually Stacy was impassive, businesslike. “The dome will be quiet,” she said, turning her glance from Trumball to Fuchida.

Dex grinned at her. “Yeah, but when we come back we’ll have the old Pathfinder hardware with us. And the little Sojourner wagon, too.”

Jamie noted that the Japanese biologist had finished every bit of his breakfast of fruit and cereal. Despite his bravado, Dex’s bowl was still almost full when he pushed it away.

He had decided to let them go off on their separate excursions on the same day, if Stacy could land the fuel generator roughly in the area of Xanthe Terra that it had to be for Dex’s trip to succeed.

So the morning’s work would be: First, launch the generator and land it safely in Xanthe. Second, get Dex and Possum off on their jaunt. Third, see Fuchida and Rodriguez take off for Olympus
Mons.

A big morning. A big day. Inwardly, Jamie worried that they were biting off more than they could chew.

It’s not good planning, Jamie told himself. There’s no margin for error. It’s not smart, not safe. And it certainly isn’t good science. Dex is stealing four weeks from his work and Craig’s … for what? To make money. To get glory for himself.

Everyone crowded into the comm center as Dezhurova made the final preparations to launch the generator. Everyone except Jamie, who suited up and went through the airlock to watch the launch with his own eyes.

He knew he was bending the safety regulations to the breaking point, yet he walked alone to the crest of the little ridge formed by the rim of an ancient crater. The safety regs are too restrictive, he admitted to himself. We’ll have to rewrite them, sooner or later.

From his vantage point he could see the rocket booster standing on the horizon, the fuel generator still sitting at its top, as always. He, Craig and Dex had labored hard to install the backup water recycler back into the equipment bay where it had originally been.

The booster’s main tanks were filled with liquefied methane and oxygen. Jamie could see a wisp of white vapor wafting from a vent hallway up the rocket’s cylindrical body. But there was no condensation frost on the tankage skin; there simply was not enough moisture in the Martian air for that.

In his helmet earphones Jamie heard the automated countdown ticking off, “Four … three … two … one …”

A flash of light burst from the rocket’s base and the booster was immediately lost in a dirty pink-gray cloud of vapor and dust. For a heartbeat Jamie thought it had exploded, but then the booster rose up through the cloud and he heard—even through his helmet—the whining roar of its rocket engines.

Higher and higher the rocket rose, swifter and swifter into the bright cloudless sky. Jamie bent back as far as his hard suit would allow, saw the rocket dwindle to a speck in the sky, and then it was lost to sight.

By the time he had come back through the airlock and taken off his suit, there were whoops and cheers coming from the comm center. Leaving the suit to be vacuumed later, Jamie hurried to join the crowd.

“Down … the … pipe,” Dezhurova was saying. She sat hunched before a display screen, her thick-fingered hands poised over the keyboard like a concert pianist’s ready to play.

But she did not touch the keys. She did not have to. The screen showed a plot of the rocket’s planned descent trajectory in red, next to a plot in green of its actual course. The two lines overlapped almost completely.

“The wind is stiffer than we expected,” Dezhurova said. “But neh problemeh.”

Rodriguez, sitting beside her, had an eager kid’s look on his face. The others were clustered behind them, huddled together like a short-handed football team.

“Fifteen seconds to touchdown,” Rodriguez called out.

“Looking good,” Dezhurova said tightly.

“Lookin’ great,” shouted Possum Craig.

“Ten … nine …”

“I told you the spot was clear of boulders,” Dex Trumball said, to no one in particular.

Jamie saw that Vijay was standing beside Dex; his hand was on the small of her back. Jamie felt his nostrils flare with barely suppressed anger.

“Four … three … two … touchdown!” Rodriguez announced.

“She is down, safe and sound,” said Dezhurova. She swivelled her chair around and swept her headset off with a flourish.

“We’re set for the run out to the Sagan site,” Dex crowed, beaming with satisfaction.

“Not till we check out the fuel generator, partner,” Craig warned. “That contraption’s gotta be perking right before we go traipsin’ all the way out there.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dex replied, his triumphant grin shrinking only a little.

Within an hour they had all the data they needed. The water recycler’s drill had hit permafrost and the fuel generator was working just as if it had never been moved, already replenishing the booster’s propellant tanks.

Trumball and Craig were suiting up; Jamie and Vijay were checking them out: Jamie with Possum, Vijay with Dex.

“Hope we can get the VR rig working right,” Dex said as he lifted his helmet from its shelf. Even encased in the bulky suit he radiated excitement, practically quivering, like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Well, I’ll finally get enough time to really tear her innards apart and see what th’ hell’s wrong with her,” Craig said.

Their plan was for Possum to work on the faulty VR rig during the long hours of the trek when he was not driving the rover.

Jamie was helping him put on his suit’s backpack. Craig backed into it and Jamie clicked the connecting latches shut. Then Possum stepped away from the rack on which the backpack had rested.

“Electrical connects okay?” Jamie asked.

Craig peered at the display panel on his right wrist. “All green,” he reported.

“Good.” Jamie plugged the air hose into Craig’s neck ring.

“You’re ready for your radio check,” Vijay said to Trumball.

Dex slid his visor down and sealed it. Jamie could hear his muffled voice calling to Stacy Dezhurova, who was manning the communications center, as usual. After a moment he slid the visor up again and made a thumb’s-up signal.

“Radio okay.”

It took Craig another few minutes to get his suit sealed up and check out its radio. Trumball paced up and down restlessly. In the suit and thick-soled boots he reminded Jamie of Frankenstein’s monster waiting impatiently for a bus.

“We’re all set,” Dex said once Craig’s radio check was done. He turned toward the airlock hatch.

“Hold on a second,” Jamie said.

Trumball stopped but did not turn back to face Jamie. Craig did.

“I know you’ve checked out the rover from here to hell and back,” Jamie said, “but I want you to remember that it’s an old piece of hardware and it’s been sitting out in the cold for six years.”

“We know that,” Trumball said to the airlock hatch.

“The first sign of trouble, I want you to turn back,” Jamie instructed. “Do you understand me? The hardware you’re setting out to retrieve isn’t worth a man’s life, no matter how much money it might bring in on Earth.”

“Sure,” Dex said impatiently.

“Don’t worry, I ain’t no hero,” Craig added.

Jamie took in a deep breath. “Possum, I’m putting you in charge of this excursion. You’re the boss. Dex, you follow his orders at all times. Understand?”

Now Trumball turned toward Jamie, slowly, ponderously in the cumbersome hard suit.

”What kind of bullshit is this?” he asked, his voice low and even.

“It’s chain-of-command, Dex. Possum’s older and he’s had a lot more experience living out in the field than either one of us has. He’s in charge. Any time you two don’t agree on something, Possum is the winner.”

Trumball’s face went through a whole skein of emotions within the flash of a moment. Jamie waited for an explosion.

But then Dex broke into a boyish grin. “Okay, chief. Possum’s the medicine man and I’m just a lowly brave. I can live with that.”

“Good,” Jamie said, refusing to let Trumball see how much he hated Dex’s sneering at his Navaho heritage.

Gesturing toward the hatch with a gloved hand, Trumball said to Craig, “Okay, boss, I guess you should go through the airlock first.”

Craig glanced at Jamie, then pulled down his visor and clomped to the hatch.

Vijay said, “Good luck.”

“Yeah, right,” answered Trumball. Craig waved silently as he stepped over the sill of the open hatch.

The three of them stood in uncomfortable silence while the airlock cycled. When its panel light turned green again, Trumball opened the hatch and stepped in.