Return to Mars (7 page)

JAMIE WAS SHOCKED WHEN HE REALIZED THAT HE WAS NOT BEING considered to go on the second expedition to Mars.

For three years he had been something of a celebrity in the international community of scientists: the man who had insisted on exploring the Valles Marineris. The man whose stubborn determination had led to the discovery of life on Mars.

He married Joanna Brumado, one of the two biologists who actually made the discovery. Joanna and her colleague, Ilona Malater, shared a special Nobel Prize for their rind. Jamie went with his Brazilian bride to conferences all around the world, often accompanied by her father, Alberto Brumado, the astronomer-turned-activist who had spent his life cajoling the world’s governments and corporations into supporting a human expedition to the red planet.

The marriage had been a mistake from the start. Born of the enforced intimacy of the long years of training and the actual expedition to Mars, it fell apart almost as soon as they took their vows in the magnificent old Candelaria Church in Rio de Janeiro. Jamie was a celebrity among the scientists, but Joanna was an international star, beloved of the media, the woman who discovered life on Mars, an instant target of the paparazzi wherever she went.

They drifted apart even though they traveled together. And Jamie had known from the beginning that Joanna’s world really revolved around her father. The kindest, gentlest man in the world, Alberto Brumado was still the one man whom his daughter worshipped. She had gone to Mars despite her inner terrors because he was too old to go himself. She had married despite her inner doubts because he wanted to see her married before he died.

He died much too soon, cut down while he labored as a volunteer during an Ebola epidemic that decimated Sao Paolo despite a multinational task force of medical aid.

With her father gone, but her stardom elevated even more by the tragedy, Joanna for the first time in her life found that she wanted to live to please herself. She enjoyed the limelight; Jamie did not. She wanted her freedom; Jamie numbly agreed.

That was when he discovered that he was being passed over for the return expedition.

“You are three years out of date,” said Father DiNardo, his naturally soft voice even gentler than normal. “For three years you have been attending conferences and media interviews instead of doing research.”

Jamie had gone to the Jesuit geologist once he realized that the planning for the second expedition was going ahead without him. They sat in a small office in the Vatican, Jamie tensely hunched in an ornately carved wooden chair that dated to the high Renaissance, DiNardo sitting behind a modern desk of gleaming rosewood.

Except for his clerical garb, DiNardo would have looked like the bouncer in a cheap bistro: he was built like a fireplug, short and wide; his scalp was shaved bald, his swarthy jaw stubbled.

“I’ve kept up with the results coming out of the various studies,” Jamie protested.

DiNardo made a sympathetic smile. “Ah, yes, certainly. But you have not produced any of those results yourself. You have allowed others to do the work. Three years is a very long time.”

The priest had originally been selected to be chief geologist for the first expedition; a sudden gall bladder attack had grounded him. Nearly scandalous political maneuverings had put Jamie in his place.

“I’ve got to go back there,” Jamie muttered. “I’ve got to.”

DiNardo said nothing.

Jamie looked into the older man’s calm brown eyes. “Nobody’s planning to look for the cliff dwelling. That ought to be our first priority.”

The priest sighed patiently. “Let me give you a piece of friendly advice,” he said, the hint of soft Italian vowels at the end of his English words. “The more you mention the cliff dwelling, the less likely that you will be accepted for the mission.”

“But it’s there! I saw it!”

“You saw a rock formation that was many kilometers away from you. You believe it might be an artificial construction. No one else believes it is anything but a natural formation.”

“I took video footage,” Jamie insisted.

“And we have all studied your video very intensely. I myself have had it computer-enhanced. The formation appears to be a wall of some kind, standing in a niche in the cliff face. There is no evidence that it is artificial.”

“That’s why we’ve got to go back there, to find out what it really is!”

DiNardo shook his head sadly. “Do you want to be included in the second expedition or not?”

“Of course I want to be.”

“Then stop talking about your cliff dwelling. It makes you look ridiculous. It makes you appear to be a fanatic. Be quiet, and I will do whatever I can to find you a berth on the mission.”

Jamie stared at the priest for a long while, his mind racing. He can’t accept the possibility that there might have been intelligent life on Mars. None of them want to think about that possibility. The lichen surprised them, but the idea of intelligent life is too much for them to swallow. They can deal with a simple form of life on Mars, but they won’t open their minds to the bigger possibilities.

Why? Jamie asked himself.

The answer came to him: They’re afraid.

Li Chengdu was very satisfied with his life now. He had been chosen mission director of the First Mars Expedition as a political compromise. Born in Singapore of Chinese parents, a respected atmospheric physicist, he did not belong in any entrenched political camp.

As mission director, he had remained in orbit above Mars and watched with a mixture of dread and curiosity as Jamie Waterman had wrested actual command of the scientists and astronauts on the ground team and reshaped the expedition to his purposes. Waterman had been extremely fortunate: thanks to his insistence, they found living organisms at the floor of the Grand Canyon.

And Li Chengdu, upon their return from Mars, was invited to join the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. A fitting reward, he thought, for his leadership and patience—and Waterman’s luck.

Now an older, warier James Waterman walked beside him through the woods outside the red-brick campus of the institute.

A scant centimeter short of two meters’ height, the lean, sallow-faced Li towered over Jamie, his long legs devouring the forest track at a pace that forced Jamie almost into a jogging gait.

“I agree with Father DiNardo,” Li said as they walked through the woods. The trees were blazing with autumn; red and gold and auburn leaves littered the ground like a many-hued carpet that crackled and rustled as they hiked along.

“About not mentioning the cliff dwelling,” Jamie said.

“Yes. Why stir up more controversy than necessary? Your goal is to be on second expedition, not to argue the chances of intelligent Martians.”

“If they existed they must have died out long ago,” Jamie said, puffing slightly as he worked to keep pace with Li. The Navaho part of his mind thought, If they existed they might have migrated to a richer, bluer world.

Li raised one long-fingered hand in a gesture indicating silence. “Be patient. You will be on Mars for a year and a half. There will be ample time to visit the site again—if you can find it.”

“Blindfolded,” Jamie snapped.

The Chinese looked down on the intent, bronze-faced younger man and smiled slightly.

“Patience is a virtue,” he said.

“You’ll recommend me for the expedition?” Jamie asked.

“You have little idea of what you ask. There will be only eight berths for this expedition. Only two geologists.”

“I know. Anybody would commit murder to get included,” said Jamie.

“Worse than that. You have already been to Mars. The younger scientists are clamoring that it would not be fair to allow someone who has already been there to return.”

“Fair? This isn’t a game!”

“I agree. But by convincing the selection committee to reject anyone who has already gone to Mars, they make it more likely for one of themselves to be picked.”

“Christ,” Jamie grumbled. “It always boils down to politics.”

“Always,” said Li.

They walked through the falling leaves in silence for a while. The afternoon sun was warm, but Jamie felt a chill inside him.

At last, Li said, “I will support your inclusion in the expedition, but not as a geologist.”

Jamie blinked up at him, puzzled.

“Trying to take one of the geology berths would stir up too much animosity,” Li explained.

“Then what?”

“Mission director, of course,” said Li. “As mission director, your experience with the first expedition would be an asset, not a liability.”

All that Jamie could think to say was, “Oh.”

Li smiled again, like a Cheshire cat. “After all, you really were de facto mission director the first time, no?”

Jamie was not a politician, but he knew enough to keep his mouth shut. There was no way to answer that loaded question without putting his foot in his mouth.

Li felt delighted. It would be a delicious irony to place Waterman in the same position he himself had struggled with during the first expedition. Let this red man know the stress of responsibility, just as I did. Let him feel the strains of younger men making demands on his judgment and patience, just as he made demands on mine.

This is not worthy of you, Li chided himself silently. This is not the way an enlightened man should behave.

Yet he nodded inwardly, satisfied that the cosmic wheel was going to complete a full turn.

There was one more person Jamie had to see before his post of mission director could be confirmed: Darryl C. Trumball.

Jamie shivered involuntarily as he was ushered into Trumball’s spacious office on the top floor of the tallest tower in Boston’s financial district. The room was cold, almost painfully so. It wasn’t only that the air conditioning was set to a frosty temperature, the entire decor of the office was wintry: bare walls of pallid gray, not a painting or a photograph or even a flower to brighten up the bleakness. Nothing but sweeping windows in one corner, looking out on the city of Boston, far below.

Trumball was lean and hard-eyed as he sat behind an airport-sized desk of hand-polished ebony. He was completely bald, making him look almost like a death’s head shining in the glow of a tiny spotlight set into the high ceiling. He was in shirtsleeves with a precisely knotted maroon tie at his throat. A gray vest was buttoned up tight over the silk shirt.

He looked as hard and sharp-edged as flint. Jamie wondered if this was what Dex would be like in thirty years.

“Have a seat, relax,” he said, indicating one of the big burgundy leather chairs in Iron I of the desk.

As he sat down, Jamie remembered how his grandfather would sit in silence for several minutes when meeting someone new to him; take the man’s measure, size up his persona.

But Trumball was not a patient man. “So you want to be mission director,” he said.

Jamie nodded. The truth was, Jamie wanted to go back to Mars and he would accept any position, any job, just to be included.

“That’s a lot of responsibility,” Trumball said.

“Dr. Li recommended me for the position,” Jamie said slowly. “He was mission director for the first expedition.”

“I know, I know.” Trumball tilted back in his massive desk chair and steepled his long, manicured fingers.

He waited for Jamie to say something. When he didn’t, Trumball said, “This is going to be a very different kind of trip, Dr. Waterman. Very different. We’re not going just for the sake of sweet science, no sir. We’re going to make money out of Mars!”

“I hope so,” said Jamie.

Trumball went silent for a moment, his hard gray eyes studying Jamie. “You’re not against turning an honest dollar, are you?”

“Not if it helps us to explore Mars.”

“That it will, that it will.”

“Then I’m for it.”

“Hasn’t been easy raising the funding for this trip. I’ve had to work like hell.”

Jamie realized the man was waiting for a compliment. “You’ve done a fine job,” he said.

Trumball drummed his fingers on the desktop for a moment. “My son’s going to be one of the scientists, you know.”

“Yes, I’ve met him. He’s a geophysicist.”

“Right. But he’s got a good business head. Do you have a good business head, Dr. Waterman?”

Jamie was taken aback by the question. “I don’t really know,” he answered honestly.

Trumball looked displeased, almost angry. But he said, “Doesn’t matter. Dex will look out for the business end of this job, don’t you worry.”

Jamie thought the man was really talking to himself.

“Well, I suppose you’ve got the best qualifications for the job,” Trumball said, grudgingly.

“I’ll take good care of your son,” he said.

Trumball looked genuinely surprised. “Take good care …! Hah! Dex’ll take care of himself, by damn. He’d better! You just make sure that everything goes right. That’s your job.”

Jamie thought, No one can guarantee that everything will go right. Not when we’re a hundred million kilometers away.

But he said nothing. He got up from his chair when Trumball rose from his, reached across the massive desk and shook Trumball’s cold, dry hand.

And left Boston with his appointment as mission director assured.

TRUDY HALL WAS SAYING, “THE IMPORTANT THING, OF COURSE, IS TO avoid contamination.”

“Yes,” Mitsuo Fuchida agreed, “we don’t want to accidentally introduce Earth microbes on Mars.”

Jamie nodded. He was walking with the two biologists between long trays of barely leafed plants. The greenhouse garden was finally set up in its own dome, connected to their habitat dome by a double-hatched airlock. The two domes were exactly the same size, even though much of the garden’s floor space was not yet used. Room to grow, Jamie told himself. For the people who follow us.

The atmosphere in the garden was just the same Earth-normal as that in the main dome, but kept at a slightly higher pressure so that air from outside its dome would not leak into the garden.

“Then there’s back-contamination to consider, as well,” Hall said, her brows knitting slightly. “We can’t have Martian organisms infecting us.”

“Or our food supply,” Fuchida added.

The greenhouse garden served two purposes. The long rows of hydroponic plants were intended to supply the expedition’s food: soybeans, potatoes, leafy vegetables, green beans, onions, peas, eggplant, melon and strawberries. All fed by nutrient-rich wastewater that the plants themselves recycled—with the aid of specially cultivated scavenging bacteria.

Fuchida intended to raise wheat eventually, using high-intensity full-spectrum lamps instead of natural sunlight.

“It looks good,” Jamie said.

“It is good,” replied Hall, very seriously. Fuchida looked equally proud of the garden.

Hall went on, “We’re thinking, Mitsuo and I, of increasing the carbon dioxide partial pressure in this dome.”

“To accelerate the growth of the plants,” Fuchida said.

Looking across the rows of seedlings, Jamie asked, “Will that mean that we can’t breathe in here?”

“You won’t need a space suit, just an oxygen mask,” Hall said.

“But we don’t have masks.”

Fuchida allowed a tiny smile to crack his serious facade. “There are four oxygen masks in the medical stores. We could use those.”

Before he could reply, Jamie heard the airlock hatch sighing open. Turning, Jamie saw Dex Trumball step through.

“There you are,” Trumball said. Striding along the aisle between rows of plants, he said to Jamie, “I just heard you’re going to go with us on the first traverse. Is that true?”

As mission director, Jamie’s place should have been at the base camp. But the expedition’s first overland traverse was heading for Tithonium Chasma, where the lichen had been found, and Jamie had no intention of remaining in the dome while the others were in the field.

“You really want to come out with us?” Trumball asked, looking somewhere between amused and annoyed.

Through the open hatch Jamie could hear a country and western tune that someone was playing, plaintive guitars and nasal yearning.

Jamie nodded solemnly. “You bet I do.”

Trumball swept an arm through the air, grinning. “And give up all this luxury?”

“I’m part Navaho,” Jamie countered, making himself grin back at Dex. “I’m rugged.”

Their base was at last in order. All systems were functioning adequately, even the toilets. Possum Craig was outside with the drilling rig, digging deeper every day, seeking samples of bacteria from the “Plutonian biosphere” that Earthbound biologists had conjectured.

The backup water generator now stood less than fifty meters from the dome; the plumbing lines from both the primary and backup machines were buried underground and heavily insulated. Now that Fuchida and Trudy Hall had transferred the hydroponic garden from the ship to its own transparent dome they could eat a completely “home grown” vegetarian diet again, as they had during the long flight from Earth.

There were two fuel generators, as well. The first one, sent ahead of the explorers, still sat slightly more than two kilometers away. After discussing the situation with the two astronauts and Craig, Jamie had decided to let that one continue to serve as their backup and use the one that had landed with them as their primary fuel source.

Standing in front of Jamie, close enough almost to touch noses, Trumball planted his fists and his hips and cocked his head slightly to one side. “So it’s going to be you, me and Trudy: two geoscientists and one biologist.”

“And Stacy.”

“Our driver.”

Safety regulations required that every field mission had to include one of the team’s astronauts until each of the scientists qualified as an experienced driver.

Jamie said, “I’ll double as her backup; I’ve had experience driving on Mars.”

“Learned how to do it back on the reservation, I’ll bet.”

With a curt nod, Jamie answered, “It’s a lot like Mars back there, yes. Where’d you learn to drive?”

“Boston,” said Trumball. “If you can drive in Boston you can drive anywhere.”

Mars was bracketed by three communications satellites now, hovering above the equator in synchronous orbit, so they stayed fixed over one spot on the ground.

One of Mars’ two tiny moons, Deimos—no bigger than Manhattan island—orbited almost at the synchronous altitude. Its slight gravitational pull would eventually warp the commsats out of their precise orbits, but calculations had shown that the satellites should remain stable for at least the length of the explorers’ stay on the ground.

So Jamie was not concerned that he, as mission director, would be away from the base for a week. He could remain in touch with the camp, and with Earth, through the hovering commsats.

As he suited up for the ten-meter walk to the waiting rover, he saw Vijay Shektar step through the airlock’s inner hatch and lift off her helmet. She shook her hair free, noticed Jamie, and smiled at him.

“I’ve double-checked all the supplies,” she said. “Everything’s in place.”

“Then we’re go for the excursion,” said Jamie.

“Yes.”

She sat beside him on the bench that ran the length of the hard-suit lockers and with a sigh began to pull off her gloves.

“Blasted suit is chafing my right elbow raw,” she complained.

“Put a sponge pad on the spot,” Jamie suggested. No matter how well the suits fit, there was always some discomfort. His own suit felt inordinately stiff. It would be impossible to run in it.

Jamie had already gotten into the leggings and boots, the hardest part of suiting up. Now he stood and stepped over to the waiting torso.

“It’s like getting into a knight’s armor, isn’t it?” Shektar said.

“Going out to joust with the dragons,” said Jamie.

“Dragons? That would be news!”

“Real dragons,” he said. “Ignorance, the unknown.”

“Ah. Yes, real dragons, all right.”

“And fear.”

“Fear? D’you feel fear?”

“Not fear of going outside.” Jamie explained hastily. “Not fear of Mars. This world might he dangerous, hut it’s not malign.”

She sat there encased in the hard suit like a woman being devoured by a metallic monster, and smiled curiously at Jamie.

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid—but others are. Afraid of finding things that upset them.”

“Such as life?”

“Such as intelligent life,” said Jamie.

Understanding lit her face. “That’s why you insisted on going out on this traverse. Your cliff dwelling.”

Jamie nodded solemnly.

“Do you really think you can find it?”

“I could walk to it, if I had to.”

“And you really believe it’s an artifact, built by intelligent Martians?”

Dex Trumball came through the airlock hatch and slid up his visor. “We’re all set to go, soon as the mission director climbs aboard.”

“Two minutes,” Jamie said. Then, looking back at Vijay’s questioning eyes, he added, “We’ll find out pretty soon, won’t we?”