“So the way I see it is, behind our being here is a restless, unspoken craving. It’s the scientific class, people like me, reaching out—through the space program, through the radio listeners of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence—for evidence that we intellects aren’t alone. That’s why our discovery of fossil microbes satisfied nobody, not even me.”
She poured into words her sense of the tragic desolation outside. Mars had fought an epic struggle over billions of years, against the blunt forces of cold and desiccation, betrayed by inexorable laws of gravitation, chemistry, and thermodynamics. Had life climbed up against all the odds, done more than hold on?
“To me, evolution of even bacteria in such a hellish, dry cold is a miracle. But I can’t leave it at that!”
She went on about trying to persuade the others, the varying positions of each, then remembered that this wasn’t a strategy session. And Erika would not enter into any quarterbacking, anyway. Each counselor kept professional confidentiality and stayed out of crew disputes.
“So, well, just wish me luck. And don’t try to talk me out of it!”
The trouble with therapy at long distance was that she would have loved a response right now. She paused, feeling awkward. “I just have to face up to the others, I guess.”
She could get an answer that evening, after Erika had a chance to think and frame something suitable; the counselors were on instant demand by the Consortium.
But as she punched off with her usual wry salutations, Julia realized that she did not really need a reply. Once the pressures were out, she felt much better.
The vent beckoned. And there was such a short time left.
16
JANUARY 17, 2018
SHE TOOK A CALCULATED RISK THAT EVENING, BRINGING UP THEIR FIRST day here.
They were all tired and edgy. Mars had worn the corners off them. As she watched the weary figures riding a dune buggy back from the ERV in the stretched shadows of twilight, the memory came back sharp and clear.
Partly it was the contrast. After landing they had left the Mars Landing-Habitat Module—soon to be just “the hab”—all four together, stepping off the landing pads together on cue, so there was no single First On Mars. That was planned; even Axelrod liked the gesture.
Before them lay a sandy vista streaked with radial blast marks from their landing exhaust. A few kilometers away reared the hilly walls of Thyra Crater, craggy and darker red, the minor welt a mere punctuation mark compared with Gusev Crater. A hundred fifty kilometers across, its ramparts reared all around them a kilometer high, catching the slanting rays of early morning like a vast shining wall.
Her first thought had been, It’s even more beautiful than I had hoped.
The others felt something similar, she felt, but they carefully said nothing. This portion they had debated endlessly. As the hab cameras and their own handhelds watched, each of them made a gesture. None knew what the others planned. A large fraction of the human race would discover their decisions at the same time—or rather, after the time delay for transmission.
Each had done something quite characteristic.
Viktor had planted the Consortium flag. “But for the whole world. Remember that Mars belongs to no one country. It is for all of us.”
Marc had been undecided about what to do. In the end, his geologist’s curiosity led him to turn over a rock. “This is igneous, but plainly shows signs of water erosion. Already something exciting!”
Julia looked under Marc’s rock for signs of life. Nothing, of course, but she had felt a thrill to actually get a sample into her gloved hands.
Raoul had bent down, scratched a straight line in a rock ledge nearby.
“What, you’re drawing a line?” Julia asked, laughing. “Us on one side, Airbus—if they ever get here—gets the other half of the planet?”
Raoul smiled. “Nope, it’s a one. One day. And we have five hundred and seventy to go.”
So that evening, when she reminisced, she hoped it would make them think about all that had happened to them here. She even recalled their celebration of Katherine’s baby two months after Raoul became their hero by sealing the water leak. Anything to bind them together, she figured.
When she received Erika’s return message, and played it on her slate, she was pleased to see the counselor give the same sort of advice. “Plant thoughts about what they’re really there for,” Erika had said in her warm, soothing tones. “Let your shared past do the work for you. Don’t harangue.”
This was further than Julia could remember Erika going. Did the tight little circle of counselors and psych types have an agenda, too? No matter; if they were allies, all the better.
She cooked that evening, a luscious beef stroganoff done in rich creamy style with a lot of freeze-dried mushrooms. It was damned good, and they had the last bottle of red wine with it. Moods lightened. Raoul fell asleep at the table.
Seven weeks to go before the absolute optimum minimum-energy orbit for Earth.
Message from Earthside: No communications from Airbus, no update on their position. The German side of the operation did send a note that their team had the capability of sending down the “repair kit” Axelrod had paid so dearly for. It could come in on a small aeroshell and parachute to within approximately twenty-five kilometers of their site. “If the Mission Commander so decides,” the German message concluded.
“Hundred million and they do not deliver to door,” Viktor grumbled as he made coffee.
Raoul was silent and distracted, staring into space as he ate. Over breakfast Julia signaled to Marc, took a deep breath and made her pitch. The last few days’ work had pushed them hard. More than that, it had nudged them across an unseen boundary in their feelings. For them, Mars was a onetime experience. Once they left it would be all over.
But she had to try. She crept up on the subject, reasonably indirectly—or so she thought.
Raoul’s head jerked up. “This is going to be about that vent trip again? I thought we laid that to rest. You didn’t find anything the first time.”
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” she shot back.
Raoul frowned. “Besides, there isn’t time. We’ve still got the test to do.”
“We’re ahead of your schedule,” said Julia.
Viktor cut in quickly. “Under normal circumstances, would be true.” He gestured at his ankle cast. “With this, I am clumsy. It takes longer to do everything.” He peered at Julia. “I need your help.”
They all knew that a public admission of weakness cost him a lot, and it touched her. He had said as much when they lay in each other’s arms. But she was determined not to be swayed. She refused to meet his eyes. Damn. Why did women always have to choose? He never would’ve asked that of a man.
Impassioned, she used her Columbus argument—how could they go home when there was the chance they had only nibbled at the edges of discovery? Columbus never set foot on the continent that he had discovered.
