“Tell me about it.” James recalled what Daniel had told him of his experience on Phobos.
“Fortunately we were both spared that ordeal. I just had to hope you didn’t have any injuries I couldn’t see and that you’d last long enough to make it back to the infirmary.
Dr. Snow smiled. “It’s a good thing you’re young and strong. You don’t show any after-effects from your ordeal.”
“Unless you count this headache. Thanks, Doc. I owe you one. And Hector, and Joe—and I suppose Petr, after what I did to his precious Cat.”
“Nonsense. I was just doing my job, as you were doing yours. Besides, flying across that rocky plain in an ATV was the most excitement I’ve had in years. Yee-ha!” He had a big grin plastered on his face, belying the sixty-plus years the calendar said he’d lived. “You go ahead and relax for the rest of the day. Dr. Chow wants to debrief you in the morning.”
James nodded, grateful for the rest time, but dreading the confrontation to come with the Dragon Lady.
* * * *
At 0900 on the button, James rapped smartly on the door to Dr. Chow’s office.
“Enter.” Her tone was neither friendly nor antagonistic.
As usual, James was struck by the gloom in her office. The advanced degrees from Oxford, Edinburgh, and Macquarie that lined her walls were veiled in shadow. The simulated dark walnut paneling made the tight confines of the office seem even more closed in.
I might as well be back in space for all the feeling of openness I get in camp. Living and working under meters of dirt and rock may be the best protection from radiation and small meteorite impacts and, okay, it retains heat better, but I’d sure like to have some windows to let the sun in! The least she could do is turn on some lamps.
Dr. Holly Chow, Ph.D., turned from a 3D wall-mounted monitor showing a topological map to face James. Her appearance certainly didn’t match her reputation as the Dragon Lady—eater of children and a terror to all who reported to her. Her head of straight black hair streaked with silver didn’t quite reach the top of James’ shoulder, and she couldn’t have weighed more than forty kilos covered in mud. But she more than made up for that with a fierce intellect and an equally fierce temper. More than one large man had left her office pale and shaken.
James expected to see steam coming from her ears and death-rays from her eyes after everything he had done wrong. Maybe a pre-emptive strike would be best. He squared his shoulders and stood stiffly, almost as if at attention.
“Ma’am, before you say anything, I just want to apologize for wrecking the Cat and making a mess of everything. I’m ready to accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate.”
Was that a hint of amusement in her almond eyes? Damn! She must really enjoy torturing people.
She spoke with a trace of a lilt, the last vestiges of a heavy Scottish burr she had worked diligently to extinguish. “Shouldn’t you tell me what happened first, before we talk about punishment?”
That took James by surprise. “Oh. Uh, yeah, I guess that’s probably a good idea.” He took a deep breath and explained everything as best he could remember it.
“So, let me summarize,” she said sternly. “You thoroughly researched that area of Tandoori Ridge, concluded that it was a rich source of bauxite, drove out there and spent several days meticulously surveying the territory. You analyzed samples, and wrote up detailed field notes. Then you drove back, had a wreck, showed great resourcefulness in repairing the Cat well enough to drive it back near enough to base for your distress call to be heard, and kept yourself alive long enough to be rescued.
“So, what is it again that I’m supposed to punish you for?” She seemed highly amused.
James spluttered. “But-but I found nothing on the Ridge. I just wasted days of my time and camp resources. Then I wrecked a very expensive vehicle, and I made everyone run around trying to figure out how to find and rescue me. And poor Doc Snow had to risk his life on the ATV to come charging out and get me!”
Dr. Chow actually laughed out loud. “My, my, we do have a high opinion of ourselves, don’t we?”
Now James was totally befuddled. “Ma’am?”
She shook her head slowly. “This whole place doesn’t revolve around what you do right or wrong. Do you really think you’re the first areologist to come up empty on a survey trip? Hell, ninety-eight percent of our surveys find nothing. You’ve been here long enough to know that. That’s why we go out in the field—to verify whether our evaluations of the area are accurate. But no survey is a waste of time. We learn something from each of them, even if it’s nothing more than where the minerals aren’t. By the time we’re done we’ll have the most detailed geological map of the area ever created.
“As for wrecking the Cat, any year we don’t wreck at least two of them is a bonus. Besides, the damage was trivial. The rear motor and wheels can be replaced, along with the light rack and the antennas. Now if you’d run it off a cliff into a bottomless gorge and gotten yourself killed, I might be a bit miffed. It takes so long to requisition another areologist from Earth.”
She chuckled at the bemused look on James’ face. “Of course, if that were the case you wouldn’t be here right now to be lectured to. You didn’t do anything each of us hasn’t done at least several times in his or her career. Besides, from what you say, I don’t see how you could have avoided it.”
Now she assumed a wry smile. “By the way, a piece of advice: the next time you need to blow dust out of the motor, try using one of the CO2 bottles from the airlock, instead of one of your O2 bottles. You’ve got better uses for your oxygen.”
James’ eyes went wide with the realization that he might have been able to avoid all the resulting drama had he only thought of that himself!
“Look,” Dr. Chow continued, “Mars is a dangerous place—or haven’t you figured that out yet? Cat-wrecks are par for the course. In my younger days, before I was desk-bound, I once had to be rescued from several hundred kilometers away when I got stuck in a sinkhole. It took two other Cats to pull me out. Talk about pissed! Old Man Waylon was livid that he had to call two other areologists from their surveys to come and pull me out. It took me quite a while to live that down, believe you me! It seemed like forever that my nickname was ‘Holey Holly,’ in reference to the big hole I fell in.” Her eyes glazed over for a moment in reminiscence. She chuckled.
“Not my finest hour, but in the grand scheme of things, just a bump in the road. And it taught me to be more careful. If that’s the worst that ever happens to you, consider yourself fortunate. The important thing is that you kept your head and did what you had to do to get back safely. And you managed to bring the Cat back with you. So much the better.”
James was nonplussed. He opened his mouth once, then twice, but nothing came out.
“So, Tandoori Ridge was a bust—big deal. Keep at it. I’m glad you made it back in one piece. Now get to work. You still haven’t found the big score you were looking for, have you?”
“Yes ma’am! I mean, no ma’am. I mean, ‘yes I will’ and ‘no I haven’t’.” He left before he could step on his tongue any more than he already had.
As the door closed behind him, he thought he heard Dr. Chow softly sigh, “Rookies.”
* * * *
“Jankowski really reamed me out over what I did to his baby.” James shook his head with a small smile for the holocam. “I tried to explain that Dr. Chow thought I did as much as humanly possible. He said he didn’t give a damn what the Old Lady said because he was the one who was going to have to clean up my mess. It didn’t matter that I brought the Cat back almost all the way to camp under its own power. Or that there was nothing seriously wrong with it. I think he would have blown up if I had simply smudged the wax job!” His smile grew to a grin. “He’s very protective of his Cats and the other vehicles he’s responsible for.
“Amazingly, the Dragon Lady didn’t dangle my feet over hot coals for what happened. She was actually supportive and encouraging.
I guess her reputation is overblown. Or maybe I just caught her on a good day. Who knows?
“Anyway, I just wanted you to know I was alive and well down here, in case the rumor mill is running rampant there on Barsoom. I’ll send Kim a v-mail next to let her know I’m okay. I hope you two are still doing well together. Daniel, you really need to call me more often and let me know what’s going on at your end. For all I can tell, you’re back on Earth—or Jupiter!
“That’s all for now. I’ll talk to you later. James out.”
He had just hit the Send key when there was a rap at the door. James walked the few paces it took to open it. An attractive blonde stood there, her brows drawn together in concern.
“Janice. Hi! It’s good to see you. Come on in. I thought you were still out in the field.”
Janice Keegan slipped past him into the room. “I just got back an hour ago, grabbed a shower and went to the commissary for a bite to eat. That’s when I heard what happened to you. Are you all right?”
James gestured to the only chair in the room, in front of his desk. “Yeah, I’m fine. Have a seat.” He sat on the edge of the bed, facing the desk. “It’s no big deal. I wrecked the Cat, straggled back to camp, and ran out of air on the way. Lucky for me Joe heard my maydays; then Doc Snow reached me in time.”
“My God, it must have been awful!” She leaned forward in her seat, looking intently into his eyes.
“Not as bad as it might sound. Actually the worst of it was waking up with a pounding headache in the infirmary.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. I heard you showed…” here she put on a deep voice, “‘great bravery and cool-headedness in a crisis,’ or words to that effect.”
He shrugged. “Don’t believe everything you hear on the grapevine. Bravery didn’t enter into it. Most of the time I was too busy trying to figure out how to stay alive to be afraid. I tried not to think about what would happen if I didn’t get back before my air ran out. By the time I realized I wasn’t going to make it, I was already so fuzzy-headed from oxygen deprivation that I was more sleepy than scared. It wasn’t until I woke up in the infirmary that it really hit me. I had a bad case of the shakes for at least an hour when I thought about all the what-ifs. All the things I almost missed out on in my life; the people I would have left behind; the places I’d never get to see. That sort of thing.”
Janice got up and sat beside James on the bed. She took his hand in hers. “I had the same thoughts when I heard about what happened to you. I didn’t want to be one of the what-ifs.” She shook back a lock of blonde hair that had fallen in front of her eyes.
Her face was now near to his, her gray eyes peering into his hazel ones.
Funny, I never noticed how beautiful her lips are. So moist, so inviting. He kissed them.
She returned his kiss, first softly and then with urgency. The kiss lasted for long seconds; it lasted for eternity. They fell back on the bed.
Maybe that mission didn’t turn out so bad after all.
For a time, he stopped worrying about the mission.
* * * *
“Daniel, you really need to call me more often and let me know what’s going on at your end. For all I can tell, you’re back on Earth—or Jupiter!
“That’s all for now. I’ll talk to you later. James out.”
Daniel closed James’ v-mail and began one of his own. “Wow! James, I’m glad you’re all right. It seems like there’s been a lot of excitement around here these days. First another explosion on a cargo vessel—this time the Aurora Explorer, just in from the Belt—and now this. The Aurora’s okay; they just had to tow it in for repairs.
“Good thing it’s quiet around here. It’s great being aboard a nice, big, safe space station…surrounded by vacuum—gulp!” He grinned for effect. “But hey, it’s a living, right? At least there haven’t been any crazed terrorists since you left. Speaking of which, Ramirez continues to claim that someone paid him to set those bombs and that he didn’t blow up the elevator car. Nothing new on that front.
“Nothing much to report on the work front, either. I’ve had a couple of close calls outside while working on ship repairs, but nothing serious. Overall, the work is interesting, but I can’t wait until I finish this rotation and my trainee status ends. Then I get to start doing real engineering work. That’s when the fun begins!
“I’ll try to do better about calling in the future. I promise. Later, gator. Daniel out.”
* * * *
The v-mail message from James was coming to an end. “All in all, it was a pretty exciting finish to a boring mission.
“By the way, do you remember me telling you about the birthday party and Janice Keegan? She came to see me after I got back to check how I was doing, and, well, let’s just say we really hit it off. It’s too early to tell how it’ll turn out but I’ll keep you informed about my love life. I know how obsessed with it you are, Miss Nosy Parker. Talk to you later. Keep well. James out.”
It’s about time! Kim smiled to herself. Good for you, James.
She began her reply. “My God, James! Two bombshells in one message! First you almost get killed, and then you get laid. I don’t know which is more momentous!” She favored him with a wink.
“But seriously, it seems like the surface is a dangerous place to be right now. You may not have heard about it yet, but just in the last hour there was a big explosion in Amalgamated’s Base Camp 12. You remember Larry Ohrman. Isn’t that where he works? It looks like one of their mines blew up. Our automated sensors picked it up while I was in the room. I was concentrating on a particularly interesting view of Epsilon Aurigae—which is a fascinating variable star, by the way—and the alarm nearly gave me a heart attack!
“It’s too soon to know what caused the explosion, and down there you may find out long before I do. But if I were you, I’d stay away from mineshafts for a while. It seems you’ve had more than enough excitement lately! I wish you much happiness with your new lady.
“If you don’t mind some motherly advice….” Here her twenty-three year-old eyes twinkled with merriment. “Remember, you only get out of a relationship what you put into it. Kim out.”
She smiled softly to herself as she sent the v-mail. James may have himself a girlfriend. Will wonders never cease?
* * * *
That evening, James opened the reply to his message to Larry Ohrman. “Hi, James. Long time no talk! I was surprised to hear from you after all this time. Yeah, you’re not the only one wondering about the explosion. It’s too early to know what caused it, but right now none of us can think of anything down there that could have exploded accidentally in the absence of oxygen. Just between you, me, and the fencepost, I think it was deliberate. I don’t have anybody specific in mind, but some of those union guys have been getting mighty pushy lately.
“The blast made a real mess. The extractor was destroyed, as was the lift car, and part of the tunnel caved in. It’s going to be weeks until they get the shaft back up and running. That’s going to put a real crimp in our production. We may not meet quota this month.” He flashed a weak smile.
“On a positive note, at least no one was hurt. There’s no telling how many people would have died in the old days; fortunately, with all this automated equipment everyone was aboveground when it happened.
“It was good to hear from you again. Have you kept in touch with anyone else from our group? You know we’re a new base camp, and I’ve been so busy since I got here that I really haven’t had time to follow up with anyone. I’ll let you know when we figure out what caused the explosion. Take care of yourself. Ohrman out.”
James puzzled over recent events as he walked to the commissary and then ate dinner.
He shook his head in disbelief. What the hell is going on around here? Nautilus, the Flyer, Barsoom, the Aurora and now the Amalgamated mine? Is there a connection? Could they all be sabotage? Capt. Singh did say the fire suppression system in Engineering shouldn’t have failed like it did.
Most likely this is all just a series of unrelated accidents and I’m working myself up over nothing. Who knows? But I’m definitely keeping my eyes open, just in case.
On the other hand, would I recognize an explosive device if it came up behind me and bit me on the ass? Someone could put a bomb under the driver’s seat of a Cat and I’d never know the difference!
James was concerned enough that he stopped by the motor pool on the way back to his quarters. Fortunately Jankowski was there despite the late hour.
“Petr, have you heard about the explosion over at Amalgamated? It made a hell of a mess.”
A graying blond giant, fully two meters tall and massing at least 120 kilos on Earth, turned his head and wiped his hands on a greasy rag. “Oh, McKie. Yeah, I heard about it. Do they know what caused it yet?
James shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard. But there’s a rumor that it might have been intentional.”
“Sabotage? Ha!” Jankowski snorted in derision. “We hear that bit of scuttlebutt at least twice a year—every time something odd happens. Nothing ever comes of it.” He shrugged. “This is Mars. Bad things happen all the time; but that doesn’t make it sabotage.”
“Maybe not, but what if the rumor’s true this time? Someone planted a bomb on Nautilus that killed two people, and an explosion on the Ares Flyer killed a man on my trip from Earth. Then there was the confirmed sabotage aboard Barsoom—we still don’t know the reason—and then an explosion on the Aurora Explorer, and now the mine blast. That seems like a lot of explosions lately. Is anyone checking for bombs in the mineshafts…or the Cats?”
The Imperative Chronicles, Books One and Two: The Mars Imperative & The Tesserene Imperative Page 18
