“We are adjusting. Temperature varies so much. Shadows are chilly always. At least, with the atmosphere so thin, it cannot chill us so quickly as the ground. My feet are always cold. What did you do to avoid this?”
“Put heating pads in the rover,” Viktor said. “And come inside now. Do not go out for view of night sky.”
“Very good advice. We violated it last night and Claudine may have frozen a toe.”
“Hoog!” Viktor winced. “I the same, first week.”
“But I am calling for more than a check-in,” Chen said. “We will be back at the ship tomorrow. Please come for lunch with us.”
“Thank you. We will come.” Viktor glanced over his shoulder.
“I realize not all may be able to visit. Preparations for your launch—”
“I at least, and Julia,” Viktor said. “What can we bring?”
“We have plenty of food, do not worry.”
A few more pleasantries and Chen signed off. Julia said, “What was that about?”
“Maybe they are lonely.”
“Or want to find out how our ERV work is going?”
Viktor grinned. “Billions of dollars being gambled on our ERV, Earthside, I hear on news.”
“You mean, besides Axelrod?”
“Betting. I wish I could do myself.”
She caught a mischievous twitch of his mouth. “You tried, didn’t you?”
“Wanted to transfer my bank funds to my mother, she make bet. Some kind of rule stopped it, they say.”
“Axelrod?”
“I suspect. Does not want heroic crew gambling.”
“Good for publicity, if we bet on ourselves.”
“But surprising? That it is not. He cannot sell for news value.”
She kissed him quickly, as she heard Marc come clumping into the air lock with Raoul. “Once we get back, you’ll lose that veneer of cynicism.”
“Is genetic to Russians.” He left to prepare dinner.
“I’ll be in soon to help, ol’ bear,” she called after him.
For the first time in days she checked in for her personal mail. A long one from Mums and Dad came first. Her parents were sitting on the living-room couch, smiling but strangely stiff. As she watched their routine greetings she felt guilty about threatening to leak her big vent-life news through them. Using your family as a pipeline was tawdry, even if it might be necessary. She hoped that matters would never come to that.
Amid such musings she sat bolt upright. Her father was saying in his matter-of-fact way, “—turns out it’s pretty serious.”
She thumbed back. What had she missed, daydreaming?
“We wanted you to be the first to hear, in case it got out into the damned media and worked around to you. The other shoe’s dropped on this darned virus, and it turns out it’s pretty serious. Unfortunately, it’s affected my liver, caused a cancer. In that way it’s similar to hepatitis IV, only it moves much faster. Dunno what you know about liver cancer, but according to the docs, you don’t get a discrete tumor. Instead, it just infiltrates throughout the liver tissue, so it’s difficult to treat. The standard menu of treatments is not very appetizing: chemo, radiation, liver transplant. I’m not doing anything right away until we look around some more.” He took a deep breath, as though exhausted. “Sorry to drop this on you, with all the stuff you’re dealing with right now, but Robbie and I felt you should hear it without embellishments.” He smiled wanly and sat back into the cushions.
She halted the vid, checked quickly for the date it was sent: two days ago! Oh, Lord. Remorse washed over her. I’ve been so wrapped up in everything here, they must think I don’t care.
She blinked, feeling an almost physical ache at the prospect of her parents facing this alone. Bill was gone, and she was millions of miles away. Would she be back in time?
Without waiting to see the rest of the message, which she expected would be full of “interesting” news items, she squirted a short greeting and good wishes, with the promise of a longer message soon. She felt an intense desire to tell them about the Marsmat, to give them something else to think about. Gotta check with Axelrod about a secure feed, then I’ll tell them.
She was aware of an inner turmoil. She sat back, consciously cleared her mind, and relaxed. On the vidscreen, the colors outside were darkening rapidly. She thumbed the controls to the back camera, so she could see the sunset. She’d always liked watching the sunset on Earth, even parking her car to get out and gawk if a particularly good one was in progress. Here on Mars she tried to watch as often as she could, with Viktor if possible. It was one of the quiet moments they shared. Raoul and Marc didn’t seem to care much.
Tonight’s sunset was fairly typical—yellow sun in a blue-gray sky. Earth’s glorious sunsets were red, but on Mars the daily red gave way often to blue skies at dusk. She stared at it until the screen was black, then reluctantly turned it off. If the engine test went well, she wouldn’t be seeing many more.
She felt a yearning both to stay and to get back to Earth. It was going to be hard to leave, knowing it was forever. She could hear Viktor rattling dishes next door in the galley. Despite the physical hardship and the constraints, she’d been happy here.
Well, luckily, I don’t get to decide.
She went into the kitchen and shredded the cabbage viciously.
“We’re piling up the social obligations here,” Julia said as they approached the Airbus ship’s elevator. Its name, Valkyrie, sprawled in big letters across the shiny white crown in an electric blue.
“I am thinking we not get to repay,” Viktor said, “until on Earth.”
“Leaving that soon?” Marc asked, huffing audibly into his suit mike.
“I estimate we could make our safety margin within three weeks,” Viktor said.
