Nods, but her little speech moved nobody.
Marc gave her a quick glance and she saw that he was going to come to her rescue. After days of grunt work, the scientist in him yearned for this last chance as much as she did. The dung job had somehow united them, without their ever discussing it.
He gave them all his easy smile. Again she had the flash recognition that he could quite easily have become an actor of the Tom Cruise type. He was naturally mellow, the sort of man everyone liked immediately.
“We can do it in two days,” Marc said amiably. “We’ll work here tomorrow morning, fine. Get a lot of gear set up in the ERV. Then we drive Red Rover to the site and set up the pulleys by nightfall. Next day we’ll explore the vent and come back. Minimum time lost. Plenty of room left before the liftoff test.” He looked at Viktor and Raoul. “Bottom line is, we feel we have to do this.”
Technically, the two scientists could amend mission plans if they felt it was warranted. Viktor could overrule that. But he shook his head, opened his mouth—
—and a priority message popped up on the board, softly buzzing. When they called it up, there was Axelrod.
“Hi, my guys! I got to come at you right away on this one. No news from Airbus, no, but I been thinking about that vent you found. It could be a big thing, and I don’t like the idea of walking away from it.”
Julia frowned. When they had reported on Viktor’s ankle and the vent, Axelrod had barely spent a sentence on anything but the injury. Now he was all concern, shaking his head with folded arms, the camera shooting him from below as he leaned back on his mahogany desk under soft indirect lighting.
“If you can find time in your schedule—and only if—I’d sure appreciate it if you could give that place another look-see. Maybe Julia and Marc, if they can be spared?” A winning grin. “Thing is, we’re all of us back here proud of all you’ve accomplished, but if there’s something in that vent that bears on life on Mars—life still, well, alive—we’d sure like to know it. That would enhance the value of this expedition for all humankind. Think on it, will you?”
He gave them a salute as his image faded.
Silence. One by one, the men turned to look at her.
Julia said, “You think I went to him.”
“And you didn’t?” Raoul’s scowl was frankly disbelieving.
“No. Not a word.”
“You were in here a long time yesterday, all alone,” Marc said.
“I called Erika. That’s all.”
“You’re sure?” Raoul’s scowl did not go away.
“Damned right I’m sure!”
Viktor had kept his face blank the whole time. His eyes bore into her. “Then this is serious for two reasons,” he said gently.
“Axelrod’s giving us orders, that’s pretty serious,” Marc said. “We are in charge of scheduling on the ground.”
“Is true,” Viktor said, “and if was just that, I would not be getting, as you say, my shorts in a knot. We could maybe spare you two for a day. But big point is that the counselors are not reliable now.”
They all nodded. A cardinal point for the last two years had been their private transmissions. Nothing was more personal than their counselor chats. There they could pour out their feelings, whine and complain, vent anger, lapse into depression or self-pity or anything they liked, and it would not get back to anybody on Earth. Or Mars. A release.
“Damn bastard,” Marc said.
“Yeah,” Raoul said sullenly. “How long has he been piping into everything we send? Even“—he sat upright—”my talks with Katherine.” His jaw clenched.
Viktor’s face was composed, giving nothing away, but she could tell it was a struggle for him; his fingers had knotted into tight bunches, their tips white. “Why does he give this away now?”
“Maybe he just slipped up, didn’t realize we’d figure it out,” Marc said.
“Or maybe he doesn’t care whether we know, not now,” Raoul said bitterly. “Now that we’ve got to bust ass just to get home. So what if he piles on the work? So what—”
“I think is his error, you are right,” Viktor moved into Raoul’s building tide of anger. “He thinks maybe we are too tired to figure him out? And he smells a big story here, maybe the biggest—and has already sold to TV or somebody.”
Julia said, “I don’t think he’s quite that bad. It could be that Axelrod simply wants to get one more triumph out of this expedition. He’s sure we’ll come home, and he wants us to have the most glory, the most discoveries, we can.”
Marc looked at her with genuine curiosity. “You’re ready to put that positive a spin on it? It was your conversation with Erika he tapped into.”
She shrugged ruefully. “Don’t I know it. Who is the leak? We’ll never really know, not until we get back and get these clowns alone to ask.”
Viktor said softly, “Did Erika give any sign later? That she had…”
“No, none I could read.”
“So we can’t know,” Raoul said. “Either Axelrod eavesdropped or Erika ratted.”
Marc said, “How long it’s been going on, we dunno that either.”
“So we put it aside,” Viktor said decisively. When he was being captain his sentences rose at the last word, cutting off debate. It worked well, and Julia had always wondered if he was even conscious of it. Better not to ask; it might kill the effect for him.
“We just forget?” Raoul asked.
“Until we get Earthside, yes,” Viktor said. “And in meantime we consider what Axelrod says at face value.”
Julia said, “We might as well.”
A long silence—while they searched out their feelings, Julia guessed. And how did she feel, anyway? Betrayed by Erika—if she was to blame. By Axelrod, maybe. But without proof of either, there was no point in belaboring the issue. Like so many things, it had to go on the shelf, marked DO NOT OPEN UNTIL ON EARTH.