The Martian Race

by Gregory Benford

  “Oh no,” she said weakly.

  “—and Raoul, I want your verdict on the repairs, right away. Before you knock off for today. I know you're tired, all of you, been working hard. But we gotta know back here, make plans.” He paused, beamed again. “Plans for your victory celebration, soon as we know the launch date.”

  They sat in silence as the screen went gray with static.

  Julia fumed. “Damn him. This is the biggest story—”

  “He knows the situation there,” Raoul said.

  “He is boss,” Viktor said.

  “Well, he doesn't control everything,” she said. “I can blow the story any time.”

  Raoul's eyes bulged. “What!”

  “Tell my parents, just let it slip. They'll know what I mean.”

  “You wouldn't,” Raoul said.

  “I would.” She put more confidence into her tone than she felt. “Axelrod can't suppress news this big! We'll have a devil of a time explaining why we stalled.”

  “He is boss,” Viktor said simply.

  “If he told you to dump your gemstones, would you do it?” she said sharply.

  Viktor looked affronted. “Is my personal mass.”

  “I'd say we may have to put all our cards on the table,” she said in what she hoped was a calm manner.

  “Hey,” Marc said, “let's cool this off a little.”

  “I'm tired,” Raoul agreed. “Got to call Earthside and report, too.”

  She tried to think of a way to smooth matters over. Better not let everybody sleep on unresolved issues. “How is it going?”

  “Pretty well.” Raoul smiled. “I'm replacing all the seals I can.”

  “Can?” Marc pressed.

  “I'd like to replace every one. They've been standing in that damned peroxide dust for years. Impossible to tell if they have micropore damage, not without putting every square millimeter under a microscope. The temperature swings stress the material, crack it, peroxides get in, eat away—a nightmare.”

  For Raoul this was a long speech, especially lately. Julia said, “They only have to work once.”

  “Right, one clean shot. That's all I'm asking for.” Raoul smiled wanly.

  Viktor said, “As soon as I say we can lift, we go. Okay?”

  There wasn't any real doubt. He was captain. But Julia seethed.

  23

  JANUARY 22, 2018

  THEY SPENT ANOTHER DAY IN HARD, EARNEST LABOR. RAOUL AND VIKtor were refitting every possible seal, testing every valve, examining electrical interfaces, endlessly checking, checking, checking.

  There was plenty of gofer work for Julia and Marc. He, however, was more than willing to take some of her chores. That freed some of the day for Julia's greenhouse experiments. Just why Marc was so willing she did not question, though she suspected that his anxiety over the ERV exceeded his interest in the vent mat. Maybe he was trying to help everyone, bridging the growing gap in their interests with his work.

  She forgot all that as soon as she stepped inside the greenhouse.

  The mat samples were indeed growing. In the mist chamber the pieces had expanded and merged, nearly covering the available floor space. Where they touched they blended seamlessly: this was a surprise that hinted at their complexity. Individual bacterial cultures would maintain a perimeter, whereas cultured tissue from higher plants and animals would be expected to blend together. In a few places there was a hint of more complex structures.

  She had enough material to start some more sophisticated biochemical tests. She gingerly cut off a piece of the mat, bracing for some kind of reaction. But nothing happened.

  She froze, then thin-sectioned tiny pieces of mat for biochemical staining and microscopic examination. Under the microscope the colors showed that the basic constituents of life—proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, nucleic acids—were the same here, or at least close enough to respond to the same simple chemical tests.

  “All right!”

  This was already a big step. Although the biologists had been betting that Mars life would be carbon-based, no one had known for sure what she would find. Some had speculated it could be silicon-based— even some kind of self-assembling mineral life. But so far matters were a lot less strange.

  Doing all the tests carefully took a lot of time, and she was more than ready to quit when she saw the dune buggy with the guys trundle slowly by.

  The next day was equal parts tedium and excitement: careful, slow work rewarded by glimpses of the fast-growing and ever more complex biofilm. On her stretch breaks she stared through the plastic walls of the mist chamber and thought, I'm looking at aliens.

  The words brought no fear, just wonder.

  She was ready for the next step, to find out how close it was genetically to Earth life.

  She used standard lab techniques and extracted what seemed to be DNA from the microbes. So how similar was it to Earthly DNA?

  DNA spells out the amino acids, which then construct the cellular proteins—both the structural brickwork and the busy enzymes that do the cell's business. If Martian DNA spelled in the same language as on Earth, it would mean unequivocally a common origin for life.

  Time for biotech on a stick.

  She prepared to run some comparative tests using the DNA of terran microbes she'd brought along. Basically, you unzip the double-stranded DNA helix by heating, then mix the soup of single strands with single strands of a different DNA. When the mixture is cooled down again, strands that are similar enough pair up.

  Ten years earlier she'd have had to run through a series of tricky lab protocols. She'd done it often enough in grad school, but it would've been difficult under greenhouse conditions.

  Luckily, development of elegant new chip-based technology and new theory had allowed her to bring to Mars a library of what was hoped to be representative genes from Earth organisms. These were mostly from microbes, and heavily biased toward primitive anaerobes, the archaebacteria.

  Craig Venter, an Axelrod-type biotech entrepreneur, had sequenced some of Earth's smallest microbes and found that they shared about 300 genes in common. He argued that this was the minimum genome necessary for life. This notion was somewhat controversial, but had enough promise that Julia's gene library included Venter's selection.

  The new technology was kin to simple home-use pregnancy and glucose test sticks. Unique sequences from microbial genes were attached to tiny glass chips in a rectangular array. Each was tagged with a fluorescent dye.

  If the Marsmat DNA recognized a similar sequence by pairing with it, the dye would fluoresce. Picked up by a small charge-coupled detector, the results were displayed on Julia's electronic slate. The similar sequence “hits” would light up in the array, like a bingo card. The number of hits was the number of genes the Marsmat had in common with Earthly microbes.

  That afternoon, her first test—using Venter's 300 “essential” genes—came up with seventy-nine hits.

  Seventy-nine … what did that mean?

  It was an equivocal answer. It was enough pairing to indicate that life on both planets used the same four-letter alphabet and probably the same language.

  She longed to talk to Chen, or her old friend Joe Miller in Texas, or her dad. To work alone on a discovery of this magnitude was crazy. She could miss something important—would certainly miss something.

  The automatic lights came on, startling her. It was dusk, and she'd have to hurry to beat the plummeting temperatures back to the hab.

  The rest would have to wait.

  As she suited up, she felt like Dr. Frankenstein working away in splendid isolation in his drafty old castle. But even he had Igor to talk to.

  As she came out of her shower at the end of the day, Viktor was out in the public area, talking to the big screen. She paused. The screen view was of ruddy hills catching the first slanting beams of sunset. In the foreground stood Lee Chen in a brilliant sky blue hard suit.

  “—found some interesting outcroppings on the eastern slope.
We went where you didn't—your tracks are still here. Our aim is to gather a wider range of samples, building upon what you have learned already.” Chen walked slowly to the left, opening up the view, and the camera panned after him. Julia could see the shadow of their rover.

  “They are using our relay satellite,” Viktor whispered to her.

  “Some kind of deal with Axelrod?”

  “Or NASA. I am not sure of rights.”

  “—and with Gerda I am preparing to take cores in areas similar to those of Marc and Julia. My goal here is to verify independently and yet in different terrain the stratigraphic density and dating data you acquired.”

  “Good idea,” Julia said, leaning into their camera's field of view. “We've been wondering why we couldn't hail you.”

  Chen nodded. “A relay problem. I hope it is solved now.”

  “You have been out, all three, for three days?” she asked.

  “Yes, testing our equipment. Our comm bands are not yours. Connection through satellite is best, we find.”

  “Cold enough for you?” Viktor asked mildly.

  “We are adjusting. Temperature varies so much. Shadows are chilly always. At least, with the atmosphere so thin, it cannot chill us so quickly as the ground. My feet are always cold. What did you do to avoid this?”

  “Put heating pads in the rover,” Viktor said. “And come inside now. Do not go out for view of night sky.”

  “Very good advice. We violated it last night and Claudine may have frozen a toe.”

  “Hoog!” Viktor winced. “I the same, first week.”

  “But I am calling for more than a check-in,” Chen said. “We will be back at the ship tomorrow. Please come for lunch with us.”

  “Thank you. We will come.” Viktor glanced over his shoulder.

  “I realize not all may be able to visit. Preparations for your launch—”

  “I at least, and Julia,” Viktor said. “What can we bring?”

  “We have plenty of food, do not worry.”

  A few more pleasantries and Chen signed off. Julia said, “What was that about?”

  “Maybe they are lonely.”

  “Or want to find out how our ERV work is going?”

  Viktor grinned. “Billions of dollars being gambled on our ERV, Earthside, I hear on news.”

  “You mean, besides Axelrod?”

  “Betting. I wish I could do myself.”

  She caught a mischievous twitch of his mouth. “You tried, didn't you?”

  “Wanted to transfer my bank funds to my mother, she make bet. Some kind of rule stopped it, they say.”

  “Axelrod?”

  “I suspect. Does not want heroic crew gambling.”

  “Good for publicity, if we bet on ourselves.”

  “But surprising? That it is not. He cannot sell for news value.”

  She kissed him quickly, as she heard Marc come clumping into the air lock with Raoul. “Once we get back, you'll lose that veneer of cynicism.”

  “Is genetic to Russians.” He left to prepare dinner.

  “I'll be in soon to help, ol’ bear,” she called after him.

  For the first time in days she checked in for her personal mail. A long one from Mums and Dad came first. Her parents were sitting on the living-room couch, smiling but strangely stiff. As she watched their routine greetings she felt guilty about threatening to leak her big vent-life news through them. Using your family as a pipeline was tawdry, even if it might be necessary. She hoped that matters would never come to that.

  Amid such musings she sat bolt upright. Her father was saying in his matter-of-fact way, “—turns out it's pretty serious.”

  She thumbed back. What had she missed, daydreaming?

  “We wanted you to be the first to hear, in case it got out into the damned media and worked around to you. The other shoe's dropped on this darned virus, and it turns out it's pretty serious. Unfortunately, it's affected my liver, caused a cancer. In that way it's similar to hepatitis IV, only it moves much faster. Dunno what you know about liver cancer, but according to the docs, you don't get a discrete tumor. Instead, it just infiltrates throughout the liver tissue, so it's difficult to treat. The standard menu of treatments is not very appetizing: chemo, radiation, liver transplant. I'm not doing anything right away until we look around some more.” He took a deep breath, as though exhausted. “Sorry to drop this on you, with all the stuff you're dealing with right now, but Robbie and I felt you should hear it without embellishments.” He smiled wanly and sat back into the cushions.

  She halted the vid, checked quickly for the date it was sent: two days ago! Oh, Lord. Remorse washed over her. I've been so wrapped up in everything here, they must think I don't care.

  She blinked, feeling an almost physical ache at the prospect of her parents facing this alone. Bill was gone, and she was millions of miles away. Would she be back in time?

  Without waiting to see the rest of the message, which she expected would be full of “interesting” news items, she squirted a short greeting and good wishes, with the promise of a longer message soon. She felt an intense desire to tell them about the Marsmat, to give them something else to think about. Gotta check with Axelrod about a secure feed, then I'll tell them.

  She was aware of an inner turmoil. She sat back, consciously cleared her mind, and relaxed. On the vidscreen, the colors outside were darkening rapidly. She thumbed the controls to the back camera, so she could see the sunset. She'd always liked watching the sunset on Earth, even parking her car to get out and gawk if a particularly good one was in progress. Here on Mars she tried to watch as often as she could, with Viktor if possible. It was one of the quiet moments they shared. Raoul and Marc didn't seem to care much.

  Tonight's sunset was fairly typical—yellow sun in a blue-gray sky. Earth's glorious sunsets were red, but on Mars the daily red gave way often to blue skies at dusk. She stared at it until the screen was black, then reluctantly turned it off. If the engine test went well, she wouldn't be seeing many more.

  She felt a yearning both to stay and to get back to Earth. It was going to be hard to leave, knowing it was forever. She could hear Viktor rattling dishes next door in the galley. Despite the physical hardship and the constraints, she'd been happy here.

  Well, luckily, I don't get to decide.

  She went into the kitchen and shredded the cabbage viciously.

  “We're piling up the social obligations here,” Julia said as they approached the Airbus ship's elevator. Its name, Valkyrie, sprawled in big letters across the shiny white crown in an electric blue.

  “I am thinking we not get to repay,” Viktor said, “until on Earth.”

  “Leaving that soon?” Marc asked, huffing audibly into his suit mike.

  “I estimate we could make our safety margin within three weeks,” Viktor said.

  “I agree with the calculations,” Raoul said. “Cutting it a little close for comfort, launching that early, but—”

  “Wow! Headed for home.” Marc beamed as they closed the elevator door and started up.

  “We not discuss this at lunch,” Viktor said, looking at each of them in turn.

  “No launch at lunch, check,” Marc said happily.

  “We are here to find out what we can,” Viktor said carefully.

  “I don't want to be here at all,” Raoul said.

  “Take a break from repairs,” Viktor said. “Good for spirit.”

  “Think they'll have spirits?” Marc was still bubbling from the news.

  “We're not out of alcohol yet,” Julia said.

  It was somehow Viktor-like to tell Marc the news just before entering the critical discussions with the Airbus crew. He had a theory, maybe typically Russian, that people worked best when they were responding to a quick challenge. Or maybe he just occasionally liked to jerk people's chains; nobody's perfect.

  “Yeah, but after launch, we'll want to celebrate,” Marc said. “We should save our own, drink theirs.”

  “Aft
er lunch, somebody's got to drive back,” Raoul said.

  “So who's the designated driver?” Marc grinned.

  “No drinking for anyone,” Viktor said. “Still work to be done in this day. And I want no loose tongues inside.”

  They all nodded, though Marc was still grinning maniacally. The Airbus lock was small and they showered down their suits using the one hose. She was first into the living quarters. Chen greeted them with plum wine again. She got hers before Viktor was in the room, and the others politely took their glasses but didn't sip any. She downed hers, though Viktor frowned. She gave him an impish smile. Marc saw it and took a sip himself. Discipline was breaking down all over the place.

  “We have a little lunch laid out,” Chen said, ushering them into the tiny dining area. No food was visible. “First, however—”

  He led them into the staging bay. There Gerda and Claudine stood proudly beside—

  “Trailblazer!” The 2009 rover/prospector craft stood there, showing the wear that almost a decade of service had inflicted upon it. Julia automatically bent down and touched it.

  It had roved over a lot of Gusev Crater after its 2009 landing, helping make the case for human exploration there. When they arrived, it was still serviceable. She had steered it herself, from inside the hab, on further excursions, until it had broken down near the northern crater rim sixty kilometers away. They had left it there, since Raoul did not have adequate repair parts, and the dune buggy could do many of Trail-blazer's tasks now.

  “We ran across it,” Gerda said, “and thought to take it home.”

  “To repair?” Raoul asked, puzzled.

  “No, to have as keepsake,” Claudine said.

  Julia frowned. “To take it back to Earth?”

  “A collector has paid for its return,” Gerda said.

  “You're going to haul it all that way …” Viktor shook his head in wonder. “They must be crazy back there.”