Mars

by Ben Bova

  “I don’t think anybody’s spelled it out to her,” Jamie replied.

  Reed’s lopsided grin turned almost into a sneer. “She’d be a fool if she didn’t figure it out for herself.”

  “Maybe,” said Jamie.

  He had left Joanna for last, and now, feeling as frustrated and exhausted as he had the winter he had tried to sell magazine subscriptions bicycling through his Berkeley neighborhood, he tapped at the door to Joanna’s room.

  She opened the door, looked up at him, and smiled.

  “Come in,” said Joanna Brumado in her little girl’s voice. “Sit down.”

  She still wore the sweater and jeans she had arrived in. Her room was neatly arranged, emptied suitcases stacked in the far corner, garment bag hanging behind the door. Her laptop computer was open on the desktop but its screen was dark and silent. There were no pictures on the walls, no personal items in sight.

  Jamie took the chair that stood by the bunk.

  “I’ve told all the others,” Jamie began, “that Dr. Li asked me to stay here at McMurdo to help you and the rest of your group get through your six weeks here as easily and profitably as possible.”

  Joanna went to the desk and sat at the chair behind it, turning the desk into a protective barrier.

  Her face entirely serious, she said, “We can be honest with one another, James.”

  “Jamie.”

  Her lips did not curve up into a smile. Her luminous dark eyes were somber. “You are here to make certain that I get through this part of the training. You have stayed behind because I am Alberto Brumado’s daughter and for no other reason.”

  Well, she’s no fool, Jamie said to himself. She’s under no illusions. No pretensions.

  “Dr. Li asked me to remain here,” he said:

  “Because of me.”

  “It was his first big decision as expedition commander.”

  Her eyes would not leave his. “And what about your training? Your own group is going ahead with its regular schedule, is it not?”

  “They’re going to Utah, yes.”

  “And you?”

  Jamie made himself shrug. “I’ve spent most of my summers in New Mexico. Maybe Dr. Li figures I don’t need any more time in the desert.”

  Joanna shook her head. “He asked you to stay here? He himself? Personally?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you agreed to do it?”

  “What choice did I have? Tell Li that I refuse to carry out his first major decision? How would that look on my record?”

  She bit her lower lip. “Yes, he did not give you any real choice at all, did he?”

  “Well, I’m here and you’re here, so we should try to make the best of it.”

  “But you will be throwing away your chance for a position on the mission just for me.”

  “I guess that’s already been decided,” Jamie said, surprised at the obvious bitterness in his voice.

  “I could call my father,” said Joanna, tentatively, her eyes sliding away from his. “I could tell him what Dr. Li has done to you.”

  Jamie tried to probe beneath her words, understand what was churning inside her. She was not angry, yet something was radiating from this elfin woman as she sat behind the desk. Was it fear? Bitterness? A sense of injustice?

  “Are you afraid that the others will think you’re getting special treatment?” he asked.

  “I am getting special treatment!”

  “And you don’t like it?”

  “It could cost you your chance to make the mission.”

  “But it’s important to your father that you go to Mars.” Her eyes went even wider.

  “Is that important to you?” Jamie asked.

  “Important? That I go to Mars?”

  “Right.”

  “Of course it is important! Do you think I am here merely to satisfy my father’s vicarious desires?”

  A part of Jamie’s mind was registering the fact that Joanna was beautiful. Her figure was certainly adult enough; not even the bulky sweater could hide that. It was her face that gave her the lost, defenseless look of a street urchin, vulnerable yet knowing. And that tiny, whispering voice. Her deep brown eyes were large and almost as dark as Jamie’s own.

  Jamie looked into those luminous eyes and saw emotions battling against one another. What is she afraid of? he wondered. She says she doesn’t want to be her father’s pawn, yet she certainly doesn’t want to be left behind. That’s unmistakable. She wants to go to Mars. Badly.

  “I’ll help you,” he said. “That’s my job assignment now.”

  “I will call my father and tell him what Dr. Li has done to you. It is not fair that …”

  Jamie silenced her with an upraised hand. “You don’t want to be causing trouble between Li and your father. That would be bad for everybody—and especially bad for you.”

  “But you. What about you?”

  He made himself smile. “The Navahos believe that a man’s got to keep in balance with the world around him. Sometimes that means you must accept things that you don’t particularly like.”

  “That is stoicism.”

  “Yep, I suppose it is,” said Jamie, trying hard to mask his real feelings.

  5

  I do wish Father DiNardo were here, Antony Reed said to himself for the twentieth time that morning. He’s the only one who can keep that Austrian prig in his place.

  Reed was at his desk in the small room that served as the base dispensary. The snow had been shoveled away from the room’s only window; pale sunlight drifted in and a milky pearl-gray sky showed through its triple panes. In place of the bookshelves and equipment racks that crammed most of the offices in the half-buried base, the dispensary contained an examination table and medical equipment.

  Reed shared the office with the “in-house” physician, a surgeon who looked after the routine medical needs of the base’s regular staff as well as the Mars trainees. Reed’s work was more concerned with the computer on the desktop than with pills and bandages. He was serving in the role of psychologist for the trainees more than medical officer.

  The computer screen showed that his next appointment was with Franz Hoffman. Reed loathed the Austrian geologist, loathed everything about him—especially his reputed successes among the women trainees. He kept wondering how any decent, self-respecting female could let herself be touched by that neo-Nazi.

  Yet the tales were undoubtedly true. Hoffman had a way with women. A way that Reed found himself envying.

  He hunched forward in the creaking swivel chair and flicked his fingers across the computer keyboard. All the details of each trainee’s medical and psychological records were available to him. Perhaps there was something in Hoffman’s background that could be used to disqualify him for the mission.

  Reed searched Hoffman’s dossier avidly, the thought of spending nine months in a cramped spacecraft with the Austrian depressing him beyond measure.

  Nothing. His record was immaculate. Impressive, even, Doctorates in physics and geology. Excellent health. No psychological history at all; as far as the records showed his only contact with psychologists had been when he had taken standard tests as part of the Mars Project requirements. The test results were dismally normal. Either he’s just as dull as he seems or he’s a mastermind at hiding his true personality, Reed thought.

  No mention of his amours, of course. That kind of information seldom got into the record. Unless there was an incident too awful to be hushed up.

  “Ahhh!” Reed said aloud. Softly, but aloud. An incident too awful to be hushed up. Perhaps one could be manufactured.

  He needed a victim. A woman who would not only be offended by Hoffman’s advances, but who would make a stink about it. And he thought he knew who it should be.

  Flicking rapidly through the files he found the woman. Her background and her personality profile were well-nigh perfect. From what Reed knew of her through personal contact she would be frightened and enraged by the Austrian’s b
oorishness.

  “It’s worth a try,” Reed murmured, a crooked little smile spreading across his handsome face. “I could even stand by to console the poor wench afterward.”

  He cleared the computer screen and looked expectantly toward the door. Precisely at the hour set for his appointment, Franz Hoffman knocked once, then opened the door and stepped into the dispensary. He looked as if he were ready to receive a knighthood. Round face shaved and scrubbed pink, hair slicked back, crisp fresh shirt and trousers with a crease that could slice bread. Even his shoes were polished.

  “Come in, come in,” said Reed happily.

  Throughout the perfunctory physical examination Reed had difficulty keeping a straight face. He kept thinking of Browning’s wonderful “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” with its perfect final line: “G-r-r—you swine!”

  Reed chatted affably with the Austrian, using his best bedside manner. Hoffman had only two modes of discourse, as far as Reed could tell: either scowling suspicion or smug superiority. Taking Reed’s affable manner at face value, the Austrian responded with infuriating haughtiness. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, Reed thought. Which merely damned him further.

  As he took Hoffman’s blood pressure and laid him on the table for an EKG and tapped him here and there, Reed slowly, subtly moved their conversation to the subject of. women.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” Reed said smoothly. “I seem to be all thumbs around a pretty girl.”

  “It is the fault of your schooling, I think,” said Hoffman. “You Englishmen are sent to boys’ schools. You never see women until you are graduated from college, except for your mothers and nurses. That is why there are so many homosexuals among you.”

  Reed broke into a sunny smile. G-r-r—you swine! he said to himself.

  “Most young women are looking for father figures,” Hoffman expounded. “It is not necessary to wine and dine them; merely show them a mixture of authority and kindness and they will fall into your bed.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It has never failed for me. The only difficulty is that sometimes they don’t know when the affair is over. You must be very expert at getting rid of them. That takes more skill than screwing them in the first place.”

  “Hmm, I never thought of that.”

  “On this mission, of course, one will have to be very careful, very discreet. And pick the women carefully. There are those who know how to behave and those who don’t.”

  “Yes, I see.” Reed hesitated only long enough to prevent himself from bursting out in laughter. “How can you tell which is which?”

  Hoffman smiled an oily, scheming smile, and beckoned Reed to lean closer.

  “You test your subjects before the flight begins, naturally,” he whispered. “What else would a good scientist do?”

  “Test your subjects? Oh, of course. Are you doing that now?”

  Something flickered in Hoffman’s eyes. An awareness of danger, perhaps. A realization that he was talking too much.

  “A gentleman does not kiss and tell,” he replied, somewhat stiffly.

  Reed arched an eyebrow. “Yes, I can see where it might get sticky, dabbling among the women here. And the project managers are very concerned about sex during the mission. They don’t want to disrupt the efficient functioning of the team, you know.”

  Hoffman matched Reed’s raised brow. “Perhaps the team would function more efficiently if a certain amount of lubrication was included in the operation.”

  “Lubrication! That’s a good one!”

  Hoffman looked pleased with himself, but said no more.

  “You know,” Reed said, lowering his voice to a conspirator’s whisper, “there’s one woman among the group here who’s been watching you very closely.”

  “Oh?”

  “She hasn’t said anything to me, you realize, but I can see that she’s fascinated by you. And if ever a young lady looked up to a father figure, it’s her.”

  “Who?”

  “Why, Joanna Brumado, of course. Didn’t you know?”

  6

  Jamie delayed going to the dining room until he was certain most of the others had eaten and returned to their individual quarters, Most of the regular McMurdo staff and visiting researchers shared dormitory rooms, but the Mars Project’s one luxury was to afford each of its members a private room. Jamie had spent the day talking with the new arrivals, embarrassing them and himself. He had no desire to speak with any of them further. Not this evening.

  Sure enough, the dining room was almost empty. It had been a long day for the newcomers, he realized. The flight in from Christchurch took ten hours even when the weather was good. Unpacking, getting settled in this spartan godforsaken base—the new arrivals were already in their bunks, for the most part. Only a couple of them still sat at one of the long galley tables, tiredly huddled over the remains of their dinners, talking in whispers. Half a dozen of the base’s regular technicians and maintenance personnel sat near the battered old coffee urn, playing cards.

  Somebody had put a cassette in the tape player up by the snow-covered window: a softly whining old country lament: “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys. …”

  Or scientists, Jamie said to himself as he took a tray and walked down the self-service counter. He found that he had no appetite, settled for a slice of soggy defrosted pie and a mug of coffee. Then he went to the farthest corner of the dining room and sat alone at the end of an empty table.

  No one paid him any attention. Which suited Jamie fine. He was an outsider now, a pariah, and they all knew it.

  Then Joanna came in, wearing a dark green chamois man’s shirt that fit her like a tent: shoulders drooped down almost to her elbows, shirttails around her knees. She had rolled up the sleeves, and beneath it she wore a white tee shirt and nubby running pants. Dressed for comfort, Jamie saw. Yet she did not look sloppy: casual, not unkempt.

  She went straight to the coffee urn and poured herself a steaming mug. Then, looking around the nearly empty dining room, she saw Jamie and came to his table.

  “I could not sleep,” she said, sitting at the corner of the table just to his right.

  Jamie nodded toward the coffee mug. “That’s not going to help you.”

  She laughed lightly. “Oh, caffeine never keeps me awake. I was raised on coffee.”

  “In Brazil.”

  “Yes.”

  As if to prove her point Joanna took a long swallow, then put the mug down on the Formica tabletop. Jamie felt as if he wanted to get away, but he did not know how.

  Joanna said, “I understand that you are an Indian.”

  “Half Navaho.”

  “In Brazil you would be called a mestizo. I am a mestizo myself. My father and mother, both mestizos. There are millions of us in Brazil. Tens of millions in Latin America, from Mexico southward.”

  “And two here in Antarctica,” Jamie said.

  She laughed again, a pleasant happy sound. She seemed less tense than she had been earlier, her voice stronger. “Yes, two of us here.”

  Jamie smiled back at her. They began to talk, easily, quietly. He could feel himself relaxing with her.

  She told him about Sao Paulo and Rio, how the poor farmers and villagers had streamed into the cities in such a torrent that they had swollen into a single urban megacity more than three hundred kilometers wide that stretched from the beaches to the inland hills, sparkling high-rise towers for the rich, sprawling filthy slums for the poor, and smoggy lung-corroding pollution for all.

  Jamie found himself telling her about Berkeley and the Bay, beautiful, earthquake-vulnerable San Francisco and the golden fertile valleys of California. And then about New Mexico and his grandfather.

  “Al thinks of himself as a Navaho, but he acts like an Anglo businessman. He can go around saying that a man can’t get rich if he takes proper care of his family, yet he owns half the housing developments on the north side of Santa Fe.”

  Jamie lost tr
ack of the time, talking with Joanna. She asked if he had a girlfriend and he told her that he had been dating a TV anchorwoman back in Houston.

  “But it’s nothing serious,” he quickly added. “What about you? Are you married? Engaged?”

  Joanna shook her head. “No. No one. There is only my father and me. My mother died several years ago.”

  Then she asked, “When did you first become interested in going to Mars?”

  “Oh, god, it happened so long ago I don’t even remember … wait, yes I do.” The memory came into clear clean focus. “In elementary school. They took the class on a field trip to the planetarium. The show was all about Mars.”

  “Ah,” said Joanna. “With me, of course, it was my father. We talked about Mars every evening at dinner, every morning at breakfast.”

  “I started reading everything I could about Mars. Fiction, nonfiction. Pretty soon I found the scientific books much more interesting than the fiction.”

  “That is why you became a scientist?”

  Jamie thought a moment. “Yep, I guess maybe it is.”

  “But why a geologist?” she asked.

  With a grin, Jamie replied, “You can’t spend much time in the southwest without becoming a geologist. Have you ever seen the Grand Canyon? Or the Barringer Meteor Crater?”

  Joanna shook her head.

  “The-mountains, the rocks—they’re like picture books that have the history of the planet written on them.”

  “And Mars?”

  He shrugged. “A new world. Nobody’s touched it yet.”

  Jamie had done a double major in school: geology and planetary sciences. He did not want to be just another rock hound or end up working for an oil company. He wanted to find out what makes the world the way it is; not just the Earth, the other planets too.

  But there were no jobs in planetary sciences when he left school with his brand-new Ph.D. He accepted a postdoc at CalTech and spent a year hunting for meteorites. When the year was finished he wound up taking an assistant professorship at Albuquerque, thinking that he would have to spend the rest of his life teaching would-be oil hunters and doing field work in the summers. He was in Canada studying astroblemes, the scars from ancient meteor strikes, when the Mars Project sent out its first call for scientists.