Marc added, “Followed by ANCIENT EGYPTIAN TEMPLE FOUND!”
Raoul shook his head in disbelief. “After you and Julia turned up those fossil cells, it was DINOSAUR BONES IN MARS ROCKS.“
Viktor said, “Of course right away followed by COVER-UP OF ANCIENT DINOSAURS FROM MARS.”
Marc said, “Those were the real woo-woo press, though. Media crap. But the Tokyo Times had that big feature SAND SKIING ON MARXIAN SLOPES, with pictures. All from a shot of me falling down! Just digitally add skis and go with it.”
“Remember the Frankfurter Zeitung piece METEOR ATTACK! when we had a tiny hole?” Raoul said.
“The news shows played the sound of it for days,” Julia recalled. “And then somebody changed that little whistle into a pop song background and paid Axelrod royalties.”
Viktor nodded. “No money made from MARS QUAKES one, though. Maybe because no quake.”
Raoul said, “The truth never stops them. You guys forgotten FIRST BABY DUE ON MARS?”
Julia laughed. “That came right before ABORTION RIFT SPLITS MARS COUPLE.”
Viktor added, “Then was DIVORCE ON MARS? CONSORTIUM NOT TALKING.”
Marc said, “Hey, they didn’t let any of us off easy. LOVE TRIANGLES RUMORED AT GUSEV, that was in some Chinese paper.”
Raoul grimaced. “It never ends. This last week, my media summary had CONSORTIUM TO AIRBUS: ‘WE’LL SHOOT YOU DOWN’ and NUKE ROCKET STERILIZES AIRBUS CREW. And that was after my gofer program supposedly edited out the real crap.”
“How can a program know nonsense?” Julia asked. “Or the public? When Marc found ice, some supposedly respectable show features BURIED ANCIENT CANALS DISCOVERED. Science gets treated like candy.”
Raoul said, “Axelrod told me once that journalism is the first draft of history. I hope not for us.”
Viktor said soberly, “Our world has not enough to excite it. So it makes up things.”
Julia nodded intently. “They have the usual wars and scandals, celebs and accidents. But what’s to do? Shave a fraction of a second off the hundred-meter race, if you devote your younger life to it. Be the hundredth person to climb a certain high peak—never mind Everest, the crown is a trash heap now. Most of the people in our own countries are just sitting at home and watching the twenty-first century on vid.”
“Not us,” Marc said quietly.
“Thank goodness!” Julia said. “Maybe being here so long makes me see it better, but geez, how trivial most lives are.”
“Not here,” Raoul said. “Here, it’s desperate.”
“And now we are desperate to leave it,” Viktor said.
They ate in silence for a while, Julia still thinking. Marc switched the music to Mozart, their signal for dessert—strawberry shortcake, her favorite. When she could tear her mind away from her stomach, she looked over at Raoul. She could tell by his drawn, solemn face that it had been a long day and he was distracted. Precisely because it was all-important, nobody had mentioned his repairs.
As they finished up, Raoul announced, “We should all listen to Earthside’s latest.”
“Spare me,” Viktor said. “You look, I lie down.”
“No, I replayed some of this, it’s important.”
They settled in before the big screen. She and Marc had filed the obligatory story of the first social call on Mars, with all their footage. The first item in the priority vid was a squeezed, edited, and enhanced version. Raoul wanted to speed through it but the others wanted to see how they came off—not bad, of course, with emphasis on beaming faces rather than the fuming pingos.
Then came an anxious Axelrod. His yachting jacket was a bit rumpled and he looked worried.
“Your coverage was aces on the Airbus meeting. Got to let you know, though, that all of us here want to get your impressions of what they’re planning to do. Any chance they’ll finish their recon in a few months? I mean, and get all that ice melted and into their tanks? Raoul, Viktor, the engineers here need your assessment of their capability.”
“How can?” Viktor talked back uselessly to the screen. “We see no gear, no hoses or mining equipment.”
“Tell him to ask his spy guys for that,” Marc joined in.
“—and keep track of how they’re setting up. I mean, are they uncorking one of those inflatable habitats we heard about?” Axelrod flashed on the screen photos of trials done with blowup habs, one deployed in orbit.
“Never get me in one of those,” Raoul said. “No radiation shielding.” He had been strict about sandbagging the hab roof on the first full day after their landing. He had even strung more over the lip, to get more coverage. Viktor had remarked to Julia that after all, Raoul was hoping to have more children.
“—and their supplies. Point is, my guys, we’re wondering down here if Airbus would maybe do an end run around you. Take off maybe a month or two after you do, but catch up on the return. With enough water, the engineers tell me, they could.”
“Impossible,” Raoul said. “They might have the tank volume, but mining that ice, no. It’s a big job.”
“—so we’re depending on you to fill us in on everything you see. Go over there, sniff around. Invite them to the hab, big dinner and all. Maybe give them the rest of your booze, see if that loosens some tongues. I’d say, get them off by themselves for that, so they’re not under Chen’s watchful eye alla time.” Axelrod smiled shrewdly. “See, we’re putting out the story that we welcome these latecomers and all. But I smell a rat.”
“He’s off-base,” Raoul said.
“True,” Viktor said. “They cannot do all the Accords want, plus make their water reaction mass. Not in few months.”
But Axelrod wasn’t nearly through. On the screen popped the “pork chop” plots that showed the orbitally ordained launch windows. A big broad spot at the center was the minimum-energy zone. The window was broad, but its edges steep. Just above the spot was a high ridgeline when the energy costs became huge.
A glance told the story: Leave Mars between late January and late March, the dates laid out at the bottom. For these there were orbits for which the energy required to reach Earth was at the absolute minimum. On the left-hand axis were the arrival times on Earth.
“Now, I know you got all this in mind, Viktor, but just lemme see if I’m right here—”
Deciding on a trajectory was in principle simple. Pick a launch date, draw a straight line up into the minimum-energy spot. Depending on exactly which long ellipse Viktor chose, there were different arrival dates at Earth. Draw a horizontal line across the contours to the left-hand axis, tell your loved ones when to expect you in their sky.
