They dragged themselves vertical, pulled on their worn coveralls, and got themselves out to the social area. Cereal and pseudomilk. Raisins and sugar. No music, just the hab popping as it stretched itself for the day.
Raoul sat over his breakfast, silent, staring at the oatmeal Marc had cooked. Nobody spoke.
They had said little the night before, as well. The hours of cleaning up after the crash had completely robbed them of energy. Then they had all taken refuge in what was normally an onerous task—reporting in. For Julia this meant a soulful message to her parents and a stiff-upper-lip, we’re-studying-our-options stall for the Consortium PR flaks to work with.
For Viktor and Raoul it was harder. She could see it in their faces that evening, after each had listened to Axelrod’s incoming priorities and then responded. They had recorded their reports in private, each sitting in his acceleration couch. Neither she nor Marc wanted to watch.
They had all retreated to their precious privacy after supper, and Viktor had said little to her. Long experience had taught them when contact meant conflict.
Raoul suddenly attacked his oatmeal, dumping extra sugar on it and wolfing down spoonfuls. They all waited until he was through, nursing their coffees. Julia had deviated from her ritual tea today, somehow feeling that it would help solidarity, and maybe she needed the caffeine, too. Certainly she needed something.
She dreaded the end of breakfast. When it arrived, Raoul drained his coffee mug and rubbed it, a sure sign that he was steeling himself to speak. She wondered whether he was aware that the floral ceramic made by Katherine had come to stand in his mind for Katherine herself. Often he cradled it obsessively, kept it in its own holder he had made of elastics, insisted on cleaning it himself, and would stare into it for long moments—like now.
Raoul said abruptly, “Seals failed, pumps jammed tight. I can’t fix it. Nobody can.”
Viktor nodded. They all knew this, but the words hung in the air for a long time. Julia let the minutes stretch.
Viktor said at last, “They have to send a second ERV. Launch in mid-May, arrives about nine months from now, in November.”
Marc asked quietly, “Can we live off our supplies until then?”
“Marginally,” Julia said. “The ERV has seven months’ food for six, NASA’s mission plan. But we’ll have to play farmer with a vengeance.”
Viktor continued in his flat, reporting voice, “ERV arrives, we transfer methane and oxy from the ruined ERV. Cannot launch right away. Delta vee is too large, no hope. We must wait for next window, about four hundred fifty days more.”
“Oh no,” Marc said. “There’s no other window?”
“None we can make. June 2020 is first time planets are in right place, we can go. It’s a Hohmann orbit but not a good one.” He paused, as if unsure whether they were ready for what came next. “Need extra delta vee even so.”
“How much delta vee?” Raoul demanded.
“Almost twice what we would have needed,” Viktor said very precisely, “for this time.”
“My God!” Marc’s eyes widened in alarm. “That’s nearly four times as much fuel as we have.”
“They know that on Earth,” Viktor said coolly. “They must build—very fast—ERV that can carry that much more.”
“Good God…” Marc paled.
“I believe we can make it. Axelrod must fly us more hydrogen…or else we mine water from the pingos.”
“And that’s if everything works right,” Marc said. “The ERV has to make it okay, land near us…”
A silence. The mountain of labor and time and sheer endurance that confronted them was overpowering. Julia felt herself forced to note, “We’re headed into the southern summer.”
That was the subtle point behind their entire mission profile. Dust storms raged across the southern hemisphere through its warm season. Though the winds rose to hundreds of kilometers per hour, they carried less mass. Still, nobody wanted to be there for months of stinging dust.
“Will not be fun,” Viktor conceded. “May have to go on diet, too.”
“I don’t know what happened,” Raoul suddenly blurted.
“I do not know either,” Viktor said calmly, holding one hand palm up toward Raoul. “We ran the pressure profile we thought was best. Earthside approved.”
“But they sure as hell can’t explain,” Raoul said bitterly.
“They say they are running fresh simulations,” Viktor said with a slight edge in his voice.
Julia frowned. It was not like Viktor to blame anyone but himself. Derision he handed out in sometimes ample portions, but not fault. She said quietly, “It doesn’t matter.”
“I agree, does not,” Viktor said, looking not at her but at Raoul. “We did best we could.”
“Nobody’ll ever know what made the whole system crash like that,” Raoul said. “I went over it all yesterday afternoon, couldn’t see what blew first.”
“Standing out there for years, it got worked pretty bad by the weather,” Marc said. Julia could see Marc was trying to soothe Raoul and Viktor, but she knew that only time could do the job. Well, at least we have plenty of that…
They were facing months of hardship and a long voyage back—at best. They all knew it and there was nothing to say.
Into the gathering silence came the beep announcing a priority message. Viktor glanced at the monitor. “Axelrod.”
The slim, athletic, elegantly tailored frame had gotten a bit gaunt and tired. “Got your reports, Raoul and Viktor. Been through the slow-mo of the crash with the experts. They figure—well, hell, what’s it matter?”
He sagged against his desk and eyed them bleakly. Julia felt a spurt of alarm. John Axelrod had always been buoyant, even when troubled. This deflated balloon did not bode well.
“Don’t matter worth a bushel of dog turds, as my daddy used to say. You’re stuck there and there’s no way back. You’ve got enough food to hold out until I can get you an ERV—the one I damned well shoulda sent way back then, right after your launch. I know that now, in spades.”
“Yeah,” Raoul said with an icy spike of a voice, “you bastard.”
“So I got nothing to say to you until I hear from the tech boys. Tell thee true, I don’t expect much from ’em. Ever’body knows how much food you got. Air, water, the rest—keep making ’em with the thermal nukes. Goddamn they’re good!” He suddenly brightened. “Wasn’t that a good break, though? Didn’t crack a single fuel tank when you came down, Viktor. That’s good piloting.”
