“You have a different class of trajectory in mind?” Viktor asked.
She saw what was coming in Chen’s deliberately blank expression, the eyes studying Viktor like a laboratory specimen. “An accelerated one, yes. Faster than your Hohmann orbit.”
In the long silence that followed she remembered the embarrassed quiet of only a few days before, one of suppressed giggles. Now all seven eyed each other as the words sank in. Flinty anger in Viktor’s eyes, Marc’s openmouthed astonishment, Raoul’s mouth scrunched into a tight arc. A studied, calm gaze from the other women.
“To beat us back,” Raoul said loudly.
“You knew it was a race,” Chen said.
“But the Mars Accords!” Julia blurted. “You can’t possibly get the range, the depth of our studies here! We’ve got hundreds of kilos of—”
“All invaluable, of course,” Chen said smoothly. “We shall depend enormously upon your reports, to be sure.”
“What? What?” Marc sputtered. “You—”
“We shall visit the sites you found most productive,” Gerda said slowly, formally. “Taking parallel samples from nearby will nicely verify your work and provide an interesting set of—”
“Verify?” Julia’s mind spun. “The Mars Accords require a lot of representative samples and a cross section—”
“We believe we will be able to persuade the Accord Board that we have complied with their essential minimum,” Gerda said mildly.
They’ve rehearsed this, Julia thought. She could sense the barely suppressed energy in the room. “Look, damn it, this makes no sense. Trying to run around, snatch up a few things—”
“Ah,” Gerda pounced. “But we have your thorough work as a guide. In two days we were able to complete a satisfying fraction of the geological—”
“You’re following in our tracks!” Marc shot back.
“Well, of course,” Gerda said in the slow, pedantic tone that was really starting to get on Julia’s nerves. And this cramped room, the seething anger—Gerda raised a finger, as if in a lecture. “There is nothing wrong with science building upon the work of—”
“This isn’t science!” Viktor exploded.
“It’s a goddamned race!” Raoul finished for him.
Julia said, “And you’re trying to sneak in, grab stuff from where we’ve found it, and scoot back Earthside. Nobody believed you’d try that, because we’ve done real exploring here, and, and—” She gasped for air, suddenly aware that she had been holding her breath.
“We shall satisfy the minimum requirements,” Gerda said. “I am sure we all realize that the Mars Accords have been, ah, reinterpreted several times during your stay here, to increase the work you needed to do. That was perhaps a bit greedy of the Accords Board. We intend to hold them to their original statement of work, and contest their decision in court if need be.”
She’s not an engineer, she’s a goddamned lawyer, Julia thought giddily.
“You could not have done this,” Viktor said tightly, “if not for finding the ice under the pingos.”
Chen had been quiet the last minute, letting Gerda carry the argument forward, obviously by arrangement. Now he said, “That was the break we had for so long hoped. Originally we planned to go to the northern pole and use the snows there. Conditions would have been difficult in the cold. Making the proper scientific studies would have taken much more time. But your discovery of the pingo hills, measuring the depth of the ice—yes, that did it.”
Marc slammed his fist abruptly into a bulkhead, startling them all. “I cleared the way for you.”
Chen said, “I wish we could all look at this as scientists.” He smiled benignly.
It flashed to Julia that Chen was especially enjoying baiting Marc. He’s gloating. He still resents Marc for coming back to the Consortium, she realized.
“Some of us are engineers,” Viktor said ominously. “Pilots.”
Chen nodded thoughtfully. “We do not take from you the glory of being the first.”
“Just the first to return,” Julia said sharply.
“Well, yes,” Chen allowed civilly. “We shall win the Mars Prize. Races usually do go to the swift. Surely this outcome must have occurred to you.”
24
JANUARY 24, 2018
THEY DIDN’T STAY FOR LUNCH AFTER ALL.
The ride back was irksome, and not just because they had to eat their emergency rations.
After Chen’s announcement, there was no choice. Viktor had led them proudly out into the Airbus lock, refusing to sit down to lunch with “our sneak competition.” Julia’s stomach was in a knot anyway. She never knew what to do in tricky situations—thank God Viktor was captain. He hadn’t hesitated for a minute.
Rover Boy’s emergency kit stocked cereal bars and sugary water, yucky stuff at the best of times, and these were not the best. The one container of real food had been removed to make room while Raoul was moving his machine shop to the ERV.
They traded dour looks and munched, each so self-involved that nobody except Marc, who was driving, looked out at the midday view. The white dot of Phobos hung on the eastern horizon. Julia rode alongside Marc while the other two sat in the fold-downs behind.
“Bastards,” Raoul said. “Steal our results…”
“We broadcast them to the world,” Julia said. “The Consortium made a fortune selling those ride-along virtual reality shows. I guess in a way it served them right.”
“Only we pay,” said Marc. “Twice.”
“Yes. Was big pain to make them,” Viktor said.