Analog SFF, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Weren't you?”

  “Ever try riding a surfboard?”

  It made Scarborough go silent a moment or two. He fiddled with his unit. “Well, you made it.”

  “Some of us didn't,” Don said. “Don't lose track of that. And it was everybody doing the job that got the rest of us through. How much was me, how much was dumb luck, and how much was what you people did for us, ask a hundred people and you'll get a hundred fifty answers.” He thought a moment. “And if it wasn't for the cargo pods we'd be nothing but a lot of scattered bones.”

  “You looked ahead and saw what you'd need. Everything.”

  “Any fool could have.”

  “You're the one who did.”

  “Just happened it was me.”

  “There's also the matter of timing. You saw what was needed long enough forward and got the requirements to us with enough time window that we had time to get it up to you.”

  “It's what the numbers told me. If you've got numbers, you don't hardly need to think.”

  “Numbers,” Scarborough said, “don't make decisions. People do.”

  “What else could we have done?”

  “You made the right choices at the right time,” Scarborough said. “There's not one study that says different.”

  “That's bean counters talking. Pick up the pieces when it's over, it came out all right, so must've been the thing to do. Leaves a lot of possibilities, only we hadn't the sense to think of them.”

  “No one else, with hindsight, has come forth with a set of practical alternatives to the choices you made.”

  Don showed empty hands; let it go, he meant. More credit than his share, but to argue would change nothing. “Did what we had to,” he said. “What we could think of with what we had.”

  Oddly, Scarborough seemed satisfied. “Excellent,” he said. Then, more slowly, “We expect you'll have some detractors among the web people. Op-edders, especially. Sounds like you know how to answer them.”

  So it was what Don suspected; Scarborough was probing for how he'd react to provocative questions. Feeding him additional things he could say. Watching for spots he might put his foot wrong. Well, he'd learned long ago there was more than one sort of cow pie.

  “Anything else I'll need to watch for?” he asked.

  Scarborough gave him a look of appreciative surmise. “We think it likely,” he said then, “you'll be asked how it comes that you're in the first small group to be repatriated. They'll wonder if you took advantage of your position to put yourself at the head of the line.”

  “Uh huh.” Somehow, Don wasn't surprised. “Well, they'll think wrong. I think you know that.”

  “True, perhaps,” Scarborough admitted. “But how would you answer them?”

  Shrug. “Tell ‘em what happened.”

  “Which is?”

  * * * *

  When the first passenger capsule came down—with people aboard, that is—it delivered a team of Space Medicine men to staff the hospital module already down. Also aboard, without advance word, one Wallace Fortney from Space Administration to take over from Don.

  Bumped aside, he might have resented but, burnt down to a nub, he hadn't. “You'll be wanting to go home, too,” Fortney said.

  True enough, once he thought about it. “Not right away,” he said. “Lot of us not in good shape. They get first call.”

  Docked to the new Synch, preparing to go, the Edgar Burroughs had capacity to take eighteen. Huddled with Doc Hilliard, Don had already decided how the lucky few would be picked.

  “Wally was smart,” he told Scarborough. “Good at keeping a balance, and he'd studied up on what he was coming to. Spent a lot of time with me, bolting him down, up and running. If I've any complaint, I'll keep it to myself. Fair?”

  “Excellent,” Scarborough said. “But that's aside from what we're asking.”

  Almost all were sick, to tell the truth. Everyone had malnutrition or the aftereffects. Many had lung trouble. Also there were ulcers and digestive upset, neurological dysfunctions, and tumors. Mitch Blumenson had gone delusional and Jay Cooper's diabetes had resisted all Doc Hilliard's attempts at reversal. Only insulin cooked by the science guests’ chemistry lab—which had never been equipped for it—kept him alive. So on and so forth.

  Working from Doc Hilliard's records and the physical exams they did themselves, the medicine men did triage. Also, of course, they talked with Doc Hilliard to measure the imponderables.

  They constructed three lists: those who stood likely to survive the trip, which would mean, don't forget, a threefold increase of ambient gravity; those whose condition might be improved to where, someday, they would be able to go; and those who could not survive without continuous treatment and would therefore have to stay on Mars, perhaps forever.

  How Don had planned it, the names on list number one would be given numbers and the numbers would be put in a mess hall serving pot to be drawn one by one. Eighteen, plus two alternates on the odd chance that, at the last moment, a winner or two turned out unfit to go. Knowing that they themselves had no such hope, persons from list number three would draw the numbers. Cruel in some senses, perhaps, but as close to fair as possible in a universe that was not fair.

  Fortney reviewed the plan, pursed his lips, and asked questions. Why not let the medicine men pick the numbers?

  “They're who made the lists,” Don said. “Likely they'll know the numbers, who's which, and got some judgments of their own. And they're outsiders. Not sure we can trust.”

  “We?” Fortney asked.

  “I talked to people,” Don said. “When I say we, I mean all of us. Only thing worse would be if we let you pick the numbers.”

  “They'll trust?”

  “We've had to trust each other for almost twenty years,” Don said.

  “The situation's changed.”

  “Not for the ones on list three,” Don said, but softened a point. “I don't say it's perfect. No such thing. But the number pickers won't know ahead of time they'll be picking a number, and they won't know who's got what number.”

  “Puts a lot of responsibility on who's holding the numbers list,” Fortney said.

  “I'll be looking over your shoulder. So will Doc Hilliard. Likewise somebody else from list three.”

  Fortney thought a moment. “How about we add someone from list one?”

  Don considered. “What if his number comes up?”

  Fortney smiled. “The rest of us will congratulate him.”

  “Deal,” Don decided. “But one other thing. They put my name on list one. It comes off.”

  “You don't want...?”

  Damn right, he wanted. But ... “Nobody gets to say I rigged it.”

  “Mm,” Fortney said. Don could almost see his brain grinding out conflicting thoughts. “I'm in charge now.”

  “That's not how they see it. You're not one of us. You say something, they look to see what I say.”

  It was a flat-out truth. Fortney had to nod. “As long as you're here, you'll be a distraction.”

  “You want me gone.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Tough,” Don said. “Things held together because I didn't pull rank. We don't start now. Going home matters too much.”

  “You have a point,” Fortney admitted, and let a silence pass. “It's not just myself who wants you gone.”

  It had Don off guard. “Who...?” Something clutched at his gut like it did sometimes. “Doc Hilliard? He know something and didn't tell me?”

  “Oh, no one up here. Down home. Where it's from, I wasn't told.”

  Don's turn to be quiet a while. “My name's off,” he said firmly. “And stays off. And we do a double check: one number to a name and each number only once in the pot.”

  Fortney appeared to give way, but ... “And when the Schiaparelli comes?”

  “Off,” Don said.

  “And the Bradbury?"

  “Off. I don't go until everyone else who can.”

  F
ortney let silence gain weight. “As you wish,” he said at last.

  “No tricks,” Don said.

  Wallace Fortney bobbed his head. “No tricks,” he agreed, but with the hint of a smile.

  * * * *

  “So how did you rig it?” Scarborough asked.

  “I didn't,” Don said. “Wally ... about him, I'm not sure. Either we both made a mistake or he pulled one. After we did the drawing we posted the lists, numbers and all. His idea. Then somebody noticed my name didn't show on any, so Wally explained. Next thing I know—here's the part I'm not sure about: it's possible Wally got to them behind my back—the winners went on strike. Said it wasn't fair. Wouldn't go if I didn't.”

  “Ah,” Scarborough said, but then thought some more. “So...?”

  “I tried to face them down. Cussed ‘em and said it was nice, but that didn't make it fair. Also, if I went, one of them wouldn't. Made ‘em uneasy, but they stuck.”

  Scarborough frowned. “Hold on. You've been saying eighteen, but it's nineteen came on the Burroughs."

  “That was Wally's doing, too. I don't know, possible he had it schemed that way all along. What he said, he talked to the Burroughs' crew and they said maybe they could squeeze in an extra. Trim the rations. Play some games with the bunk time rotation. That sort of thing.”

  “And?” Scarborough asked.

  “They had me boxed. And...” Deep breath. “...I knew it wasn't good to have the old boss still around while the new boss is trying to get stuff done. I made ‘em put it to a vote, everybody, secret ballot—none of this show of hands stuff—and just to look at the piles of paper you'd know they wanted rid of me. And, well, not as if I didn't want to come home.”

  “So here you are.” Scarborough tapped an entry into his unit. “I don't know if it will satisfy the op-edders. Probably not.” He paused. “The part about pressure from down here, best you don't mention. Sounds too much like us manipulating things.”

  As if they weren't? Don cocked an eye. “Got anything on that?”

  Scarborough tapped another entry, scowled, and tapped again. “Absolutely nothing.” He let it hang a moment. “That sort of thing, well, not everything gets into the official record. Know how it is?”

  “Sounds like somebody wiggled things,” Don said, and wished he knew what Scarborough's unit really showed.

  “Some things, it's best to leave out. Do you really want to know?”

  Don did and didn't. Give it up, he decided. “If these op edders ask, I'll tell ‘em go ask someplace else.”

  “Oh, they'll ask,” Scarborough said. “Be sure of that.”

  “And if they don't like how I've told it, they can go ask the rest of us. They'll be coming down the next day or two. ‘Cept Guido, maybe. Wasn't taking the heavy G too good. Talked like he might ask to go to the Moon.”

  Scarborough consulted his unit. “Yes, we have that. But the docs have cleared him to come down. It's his option.” “Good man with machinery,” Don said. “Saved us a hundred times.”

  “But the op-edders,” Scarborough added, “it's our experience they're not interested in facts that disagree with what they want to believe.”

  Don shrugged. “Their problem.”

  * * * *

  XIII

  The outside view still showed nothing but patterns of cloud over water. Looking hard, Don could make out a few flecks that might be ships but, just as possible, flaws in sensor or display. Maybe some islands under the clouds, but impossible to know.

  As if, Don thought, Planet Earth was an amorphous something where every point was identical to every other point. Not correct, he knew, but for twenty years it had been just that sort of abstraction. He tried to adjust his thoughts.

  “Here's something,” Scarborough said. “We have a memo. Someone thinking ahead. Reminds us the public mind tends to forget a job before it's finished. Now that we have all the systems in place, we could have a problem to keep the repatriation program going. Budget cutters will want to trim it down to nothing and move the money to something else, so it'd help if we had a man outside the agency to remind people there's still five hundred of you up there. You'd be a perfect fit.”

  No accident, Don thought, that the memo had turned up now. “Seems to me we've already talked about it,” he said. “Eighteen or twenty bods per trip, four ships, it'll take about two thirds of forever. Doesn't count the ones too sick to travel, either.”

  “That's why we need you,” Scarborough said.

  “Need?” Don asked, perhaps too archly.

  “To keep our projects funded,” Scarborough said. “We're developing a module with a larger passenger capacity. To fit onto one of the ships. And a traveling treatment facility for the ones too sick. Costly, that one, but seems like the only practical solution. Otherwise, if the talk about a new Mars Petro develops into be more than just talk, we see a few possibilities. Too soon for any details, but you could be a help there, too.”

  To Don, the idea of a new Mars Petro felt unwise, but leave that aside; he didn't understand how business people thought, anyway. “You want me to sign up,” he said. How much it would cost him—time, cash, or frustration—he didn't know. “Dress me up and push me out to yell to heaven. What makes you think I can make people listen?”

  People with power, he meant. People who controlled the money. The ones who decided. Bitterly, Jeni had talked about them. Too often, their only concern was how much would land in their own pockets.

  “You're the hero and the public face,” Scarborough said. “You could make it a public issue. Being a government agency, we'd have trouble.”

  “Uh huh.” So there he was. Well, not as if he'd ever had control of his life. “You think that's why somebody wanted me down here?”

  “It's dated only six months ago. You were already on the way.”

  “Doesn't mean it wasn't in somebody's head,” Don said. “Mind telling me who?”

  “It's not signed. Came from Senator Trombley's office.”

  “Who's he?”

  “Right now, chair of the subcommittee that oversees Space Ad. Other times he's just been senior minority member. I don't know how much you know about the committee system, how Congress does its business, but...”

  “Somebody told me once,” Don said.

  * * * *

  Jeni had complained about it many times, how both House and Senate divided their work and had committees do the hard part, often far outside the public eye. And the congressmen and senators all had huge staffs and the committees had staffs besides. To do all the dog work.

  It put too much power in the hands of people never elected to have such power, she said.

  Once, when she was blowing off, he'd answered with some thoughts out of basic engineering: that while some ways of doing a job might be more efficient than others, choice of tools and technique mattered less than the intrinsic worth of what was made. Also, that you had to start with what the bedrock presented.

  She stayed annoyed. “You mean accept a clunky system with all its potential for crooked deals, and use it to get done what needs doing? That's criminal!”

  He didn't know if it was clunky or not, nor what potentials for corruption it had. Just that he'd opened his mouth without thinking deep. “If it needs doing,” he found himself saying, “and it's the machinery already in place, what else can you do? Dig down to the world's core and build back up from scratch?”

  She wasn't satisfied. “Oh, I suppose,” she'd said disgustedly.

  Funny, how some things stuck in the memory. Where he'd been with her, what they'd been doing, and how the subject came up, all that was lost. Just that it was one of the world's imperfections that exasperated her. To Scarborough, now, he said, “So it was this senator who...?”

  “Or someone on his staff, taking care of details. He's had his weight behind the repatriation project since before it was authorized. And before that, the relief program.”

  Now it felt like some politician's meddling; what did he get out
of it? “Umm,” Don said. “Why?”

  Scarborough shrugged. “Side of the angels, I guess. All that was before I came to Space Ad, so I really don't know. He was only a congressman then, and not even on a committee that involved us, but—what I'm told—we started getting questions from his office—what were we doing, and why not, and he got some other people interested—and, well, the rest is history.”

  “You're saying we owe him.”

  “Well, yes and no. It gave him some political muscle. Helped him move up to the Senate. Painted him a good man who got right things done. Basically—I don't mean to sound cynical—I'd say he saw a good issue and rode with it.”

  “Doesn't mean we don't owe him,” Don said. So it had been the senator who'd wanted him home ahead of everyone else. He wondered what kind of coin he'd be asked to pay. A nice big stone from Mars for a paperweight? Not likely. Something more.

  “This memo,” he said. “It say what he wants me to do?”

  “Not specifically,” Scarborough said. “Just that you'd be useful as someone outside of channels who could—Oops! ‘Scuse, please.”

  His phone had birdchirped. Quickly, he unpouched it. “Scarborough here.”

  Gabble came back. A woman's voice, it sounded like, but Don couldn't make out the words.

  “Right in front of me,” Scarborough said. “Want talk to him?”

  More gabble replied, too much for a simple yes or no. Don had tensed but, as the talk went on, let himself relax again.

  “Check. Right. I'll tell him.”

  Gabble.

  “Uh, certainly. Uh...” He covered the phone with a hand and raised his voice. “Hey Fred,” he called. “Miz Ell wants our ETA?”

  Fred answered with only a heartbeat's pause. “Twelve minutes to ground, if they don't make us hold. Maybe three to gate—no assignment yet—depending on traffic.”

  Scarborough repeated it to his phone. Gabble came back. Finally he clicked off and pouched it. “She says they won't make us hold,” he called to Fred.

  “I'll wait for the official,” Fred replied.