Mars

by Ben Bova

  “And the others?”

  “Difficult to say. Waterman apparently feels well enough to walk from his rover to ours, although he seems to be moving awfully slowly.”

  Li ran out of questions. He sat in front of the display screen, trying to find a polite way, a way that was not painful, to bring up the subject he really wanted to discuss.

  “I am in the process of making my report to Kaliningrad,” he said at last.

  “Yes,” Reed responded.

  “I intend to give you full credit for deducing the nature of the illness and its cause.”

  The Englishman seemed to stiffen. “And full blame, I should think, for not being clever enough to deduce it sooner.”

  “There is no blame …”

  “Responsibility, blame, it’s all the same thing, isn’t it? I was the responsible man, the medical officer. I fouled up. That’s the simple truth of it.”

  “No one could foresee that a meteor strike would have such consequences.”

  “No?” Reed almost smirked. “Then what are you going to put into your report, that it was an act of god?”

  “It was an unforeseen chain of events,” Li said.

  The Englishman shook his head. “That won’t wash. A mission such as this can’t admit to an unforeseen chain of events. The controllers in Kaliningrad and Houston want everything planned and spelled out in the finest detail. Unforeseen events are not allowed. For god’s sake, that’s why they’re called controllers, isn’t it?”

  “I do not want you to be the scapegoat.”

  “How can you avoid it?”

  The answer came to Li as he spoke. “By emphasizing that you discovered the cause of the malady and have taken the necessary steps to cure it.”

  “And deemphasizing that my clumsiness caused it, and it took me weeks to realize what had happened? No matter how you write your report, that fact will stand out like a lighthouse beacon. As it should.”

  “You are too hard on yourself.”

  “Not as hard as Kaliningrad will be. My career in the Mars Project is over. Or it will be, once we get back. We both know that.”

  Li studied the Englishman’s image on his screen. Reed had changed; it seemed as if he had aged. There were lines around his mouth that he had never noticed before. And yet, he did not appear to be angry, or even particularly unhappy. Reed seemed strangely satisfied with the idea that he would be blamed for the illness. He seemed almost relieved to think that he would never be permitted to return to Mars.

  EARTH

  HOUSTON: “It must be bad,” said Alberto Brumado. “Very bad. Joanna refuses to speak to me. Something must be terribly wrong.”

  For the first time since Edith had met him, Brumado looked his sixty-some years. His face was lined with worry; his boyish grin had been replaced by a somber, fearful frown.

  She sat on the bed next to him. “Do you think the project people aren’t telling you the whole story?”

  They had taken adjoining rooms at one of the dozen hotels lining the road that passed the Johnson Space Center, neither Brumado nor Edith even thinking ahead far enough to consider who would pay for her room. As they had checked in, Edith had noticed that the lobby was filling up with reporters and camera crews. They sensed that something was happening, a big news story was about to break. Somebody was leaking information.

  Brumado wrung his hands. “Joanna is trapped in the rover and they are all ill. Apparently they have come down with some sort of vitamin deficiency disease.”

  “Holy lord!” Edith breathed. “How bad off are they?”

  “That is what I do not know. I wanted to speak with Joanna, but she refused to talk to me.”

  “Refused? Why?”

  “I don’t know!” he shouted.

  Edith’s mind raced. Jamie must be sick too, then. Stuck out there in the wilderness and sick. Maybe dying. And all those newshounds gathering down in the lobby. Like buzzards circling over a wounded deer.

  “And the project still wants to keep a blackout on the news?” she asked.

  Brumado nodded, his face a portrait of misery. “My baby is dying out there and she won’t even speak to me.”

  “Alberto—the blackout won’t work. The reporters already know something big is stirring. It’s only a matter of time until somebody spills their guts, and then you’re going to have a three-ring circus here.”

  His deep dark eyes focused on her, as if seeing her for the first time. “You want to break the story, is that it?”

  “If I don’t, somebody else will.”

  “Our agreement—that doesn’t matter to you anymore?”

  “This is my big chance, Alberto. And yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “You’re the soul of the Mars Project. Everybody calls you that, right? Well, now’s the time for you to get in front of those cameras and tell the world what’s happening up there on Mars. Tell it your own way. You’ve got to be the spokesman for the project now. You’ve got to be the link between them and the rest of the world.”

  “I can’t … the project administration would never allow it. They have their own media relations staffs, their own spokespersons …”

  Edith shook her golden curls. “It’s got to be you, Alberto. Everybody in the world knows you and trusts you; they been watching you on their TVs for more’n thirty years. You’re as respected as ol’ Walter Cronkite, for lord’s sake. You’ve got to be the one who faces the media.”

  He got up from the bed and paced to the curtained window.

  “You can tell the world what’s happening, Alberto. Tell it your way, the right way. Otherwise those reporters are going to get bits and pieces from leaks and hints and they’ll put their own suspicions and guesswork on the air. It’ll be a fiasco, a grade-A numero-uno disaster for the Mars Project. Every enemy the project’s ever had will be on TV screamin’ and yellin’ their heads off. You know how they work. If you don’t get in front of the cameras, and damned soon, they will.”

  “But my daughter …”

  “Do it for her!” Edith snapped. “You want her to die up there while people down here are saying that exploring Mars was all a big mistake? A big waste of money?”

  “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Nobody else can.”

  His back was still to her. He pulled the window drapery open a little. “My god, there are three TV trucks down on the parking lot—and another one pulling in.”

  “Somebody’s already leaking the word,” Edith said.

  Brumado turned back toward her, his face grim, doubtful. “I could call Kaliningrad. If they have no objection to your plan …”

  “Whether they do or not, you’ve got to do it. You’re not officially part of the project. They can’t control you.”

  He looked as if he were going to object, but instead he went to the telephone.

  “I’ll go downstairs and tell the guys in the lobby that you’ll talk to them,” Edith said.

  Brumado looked up at her, hesitated a fraction of a second, then nodded unhappily.

  Edith went out into the corridor, heading for the elevator. It’s the right thing to do, she kept telling herself. Whether or not it helps me, it’s the right thing to do. And maybe I can get through to Jamie. Maybe they’ll let us talk to them once we break the story.

  SOL 40: SUNDOWN

  The thermometer on the instrument cluster built into Jamie’s left sleeve read forty below zero Celsius. He almost smiled. The one place where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales agree: forty below is forty below on either system. Cold, no matter which way you read it.

  The sun had just touched the jagged horizon, throwing immensely elongated shadows across the broken, rocky ground. Jamie saw his own shadow reaching out incredibly, stretching far out in front of him. But nowhere near far enough.

  He had been pushing forward around the rippled sand that betrayed the dust-drowned crater. When he turned to see the tiny lifeless sun he also saw his rover, two thirds sunk in the red dust
, disappointingly close. He had been trudging around the ghost crater’s perimeter for more than an hour, yet it seemed that he had hardly begun his trek to the second vehicle.

  The cable stretched from the connection on his harness backward toward the partially buried rover, most of it resting on the ridged surface of the sand. The farther I go around the crater, the more cable’s going to be lying on the sand, Jamie said to himself. That shouldn’t cause any problems. I don’t think it will. Shouldn’t be any problem at all. The cable won’t sink into the damned sand. Even if it does we can winch it taut if I get to Vosnesensky’s rover. Not if. When. When.

  He kept walking. Even when he turned backward he kept his legs moving toward his goal: that second rover where Vosnesensky and Reed and Ivshenko were waiting for him.

  It was getting dark. And cold. Jamie’s legs felt rubbery, weak. Cold saps your strength. Got to keep going.

  He walked at the slow, steady pace he had learned from his grandfather when they had hunted mule deer up in the mountains. “Just get your rhythm right,” Al would say, “and you can walk all damned day, no trouble. It’s all in the rhythm. Don’t hurry. Don’t rush. The deer won’t run very far. You can walk him until he’s exhausted and ready to drop at your feet.”

  Yeah. Right, Grandfather. If you’re healthy. If you’ve been getting all your vitamins. If you’re breathing real air and it’s not forty below zero and dropping fast.

  It was getting too dark to see the ground. Jamie reached up and turned on the lamp atop his helmet. Don’t want to step into the sand by mistake. Wonder how golfers would like it here on Mars? Sand traps two kilometers wide. No water hazards. Maybe we ought to bring a set of clubs here the next time. Might start a demand for tourism. Take your vacation on Mars. Climb the solar system’s tallest mountain. Drink a glass of Martian Perrier. Put your bootprints where no one has stepped before.

  “Jamie! Did you hear me?”

  He snapped his attention to Vosnesensky’s demanding voice. “What? What did you say?”

  “I asked if you had turned on your helmet lamp. It is becoming quite dark.”

  “Yes, it’s on.”

  “Can you see the ground well enough to guide yourself?”

  Jamie looked down. He was trudging along the hard-packed stony soil. A dozen paces to his right the rippled sand began.

  “Yep. I can see okay.”

  “Good. Good.”

  Then Jamie realized what Vosnesensky’s call meant. The Russian could not yet see Jamie’s light. He was still too far away from the rover to be seen. He had miles to go.

  They chattered back and forth, Jamie, the two cosmonauts, even Connors and the women. Jamie listened to the tension in their voices even when they tried to joke and banter. They’re scared. They’re all scared. And I am too.

  It was fully night now. Jamie heard the soft breeze of Mars sighing past him. Gentle world, he told himself. If only you weren’t so damned cold. Why did you make it so cold, Man Maker? Or why did you make us so weak? Did Coyote trick you into it?

  “Talk,” Vosnesensky said. “Speak, Jamie. Let us know that you are all right.”

  “It’s getting … too damned cold … to talk much,” he said. He was panting now. His legs felt stiff, hurting.

  “Turn up the heater in your suit to maximum.”

  “Did that already.”

  “Make certain.”

  “Right.”

  The heater dial was already turned to max, Jamie knew. He tried it again and the dial would turn no further. Too bad we don’t have a thermostat control for the planet. Stop the temperature from dropping any lower. Be a nice touch.

  He kept plodding along, one foot after the other. One step at a time. I can outwalk any mule deer in these mountains. I can walk all the way around Mars if I have to. Show me how, Grandfather. Lead me.

  Jamie remembered the fetish, stuck in his coverall pocket. He wished he could worm his arm free and reach into the pocket for it. He knew its power would warm him, bring him strength.

  The cable suddenly pulled taut, yanking Jamie off his feet. He toppled over backward and hit the ground with a thud.

  “Holy shit,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Vosnesensky in one ear, Joanna in the other.

  “Cable’s stuck,” Jamie said. He struggled up to his knees, tugged on the cable. “Christ, it feels as if …” he had to take a gulping breath “… as if the winch motor’s frozen.”

  “That should not happen,” Vosnesensky snapped.

  “Right. Tell me.” Jamie pulled on the cable again, leaning his full weight against it. It gave a little, stuck momentarily, then suddenly freed up. He staggered backward ludicrously, arms flailing to regain his balance, a string of obscenities he had not used since undergraduate days flowing from him.

  “Jamie!” Joanna’s voice was pitched high with anxiety, almost a scream.

  “Okay … I’m okay …,” he gasped. “It worked loose again.”

  “The motor of the winch is self-heating,” Vosnesensky said, as if to prove that what had happened had not happened.

  “Right,” said Jamie. He looked down at the ground to get his bearings, then started out again, keeping the sand a dozen paces to his right.

  Sure, the motor’s self-heating. Down to what temperature? Fifty below? A hundred below? A hundred fifty? Jamie did not want to look at his thermometer again. The numbers would be meaningless. It was cold. He could feel his life warmth seeping out into the thin keening night air. Numbers. Numb. Cold and freezing and numb.

  His feet felt as if they no longer belonged to him. Cold and numb. He kept plodding forward; at least his legs obeyed the dogged commands of his brain. He leaned into the harness, dragging the cable behind him. If the winch motor goes I’m really stuck. Damned cable weighs too much for me to drag all the way without a motor helping me.

  He heard a humming sound in his earphones, almost rhythmic, droning.

  “What’s … that?”

  “‘The Song of the Volga Boatmen,’” Vosnesensky’s voice answered solemnly out of the darkness. “It has been used for ages by men pulling barges up the Volga river. I thought it would help you.”

  “Sounds like … a funeral dirge.”

  Vosnesensky stopped his humming. “If you do not appreciate my music, then let me hear you speak. I want to hear you.”

  “No breath for talking.”

  “Make breath! I want to know that you are conscious and making progress.”

  “You can hear my gasping, can’t you?”

  “Yes, but I—wait! I can see your light! Jamie, you are getting close enough for me to see the light from your helmet lamp! Where are those binoculars? Yes! It is your helmet lamp! You are getting closer!”

  Vosnesensky was being ridiculous. What other light could he possibly see out on this frozen empty slope?

  “Keep moving, Jamie.” Tony Reed’s voice. “Don’t stop now.”

  “Don’t stop now,” repeated Vosnesensky, with even more fervor in his voice.

  “What’re you … going to do … if I stop? Come out … after me?”

  “If both my legs worked,” Ivshenko said, “I would gladly come out to greet you.”

  Jamie shook his head, knowing that they could not see his gesture even if they were standing beside him in the full warm light of noon. Ivshenko can’t walk and Mikhail can’t even stand up, from what he had heard.

  “Jamie,” Joanna called, “talk to me, please. Tell me about your home in New Mexico. I have never been there.”

  “Not my home. I don’t have … any home. Not in New Mexico … not anywhere. Except here. Maybe here. Mars is my home.”

  “Tell me what we will do once we return to Earth, then,” she said.

  “I’ll tell you about Coyote.”

  “Coyote?”

  “The trickster. Always causing trouble.”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “Tell me.”

&nb
sp; “You know … the patterns of the stars? The constellations?”

  No answer. Jamie kept plodding forward, panting, until he heard Joanna in his earphones. “Go on.”

  “First Man and First Woman … put the stars in their places,” he said. “They had … all the stars … in a blanket. Wanted to put them … in the right places … in the sky. Harmony is beauty. Order and … harmony.”

  The cable was sticking again; it was harder to pull it along. Jamie leaned all his weight into the harness.

  “What happened then?” Joanna asked.

  “Old Coyote came by … saw what they were doing. He grabbed … the blanket … swung it around and around … then he hurled the whole blanket … full of stars … into the sky. That’s … what made … the Milky Way.”

  “Oh!” said Joanna.

  “Coyote ruined … the harmony of the sky. He’s always … messing things up.”

  “A cosmological myth,” Vosnesensky said.

  “Kind of.” Jamie wondered how Coyote had tricked Man Maker into making Mars so cold. So utterly damnably cold. Then he realized that Coyote had tricked him, had tricked all of them, into coming to this dead world. This world of death.

  But it’s not dead, a voice in his mind said. You found life here.

  Jamie blinked sweat from his eyes. Strange to find life on a world where we’re all going to die, he thought. Strange to be sweating while you’re freezing to death.

  He staggered forward another few steps, then sank to his knees. His legs refused to move any farther. His arms felt as if encased in ice. Far in the distance he could see the tiny running lights of Vosnesensky’s rover. Close enough to see. Close enough to reach.

  Jamie tried to push himself to his feet, but he hadn’t the strength to do it. Cold freezing numb. He crawled on his hands and knees, hearing the voice of his first mission instructor warning, “Even the smallest tear in your gloves, the tiniest leak in a seal or a joint, will kill you within minutes out on the surface of Mars.”