The Martian Race

by Gregory Benford

  “You have been carrying out DNA comparisons?”

  “Oh, yes, let me show you. That's the best of all. First I tried Venter's essential three hundred genes—not much luck. In fact, I can't really interpret what I got.”

  “I would like to help. Theory's my game, you know.”

  “Well, you're going to love this.” On her slate she punched up the results of the archaea bacterial gene comparisons. “There. The vent life's genes have an eighty-six percent concordance with the so-called unique part of the genome of the archaea.”

  Chen seemed dazed. “Which means—”

  “Common origin. Those unique genes are Martian genes.”

  “This is incredible. It's the biggest story in biology since Darwin. I must see it. We need to reconfirm your results.”

  She hesitated, then stepped off the cliff. “When things have settled down a bit, maybe we can do a joint descent in the vent, and you can see for yourself.”

  Chen smiled broadly. “That would indeed be interesting. But why wait? You have samples in the greenhouse.”

  “I'm sorry, I can't…”

  He recovered himself, his face hardening. “You will not let me see because of your company,” he said sternly.

  “They say so, yes.”

  “You and I, we are the only biologists. We must work on this together.”

  “You're going back in a few months. If I show you all my work, what's—”

  “To stop me from claiming it?” he smiled warmly. “Only that billions of people already know the truth. You found it. Not I.”

  “I don't want to let out results until I've had time to check—”

  “I will help you check. There is much to be done.”

  “It's Consortium property. We can't just—”

  “As you assert, I will be gone soon. This is your only chance at collaboration.”

  “Look, I really would like to work with you, but—”

  “Then I can make that possible. Come back with us.”

  “What?” She had not seen this coming.

  “We will have six months to work together. To think, to compare—”

  “No, I can't leave—”

  “You will bring the samples of course.”

  “No, I meant I can't leave Viktor.”

  “Most important, you cannot leave your great discovery.”

  “If you listen to the Earthside media, plenty of people want us to leave it all right here.”

  He waved this aside. “Fools. Western journalists.”

  “Even if we ship them back with you, they'll be quarantined.”

  “So that for a long time no one will be able to work on them.”

  She caught his drift. “So our work will be all there is.”

  “That is quite possible.”

  Something in his rapt gaze, blazing with excitement, put her off. Let's see just what the offer is. “I don't think the Consortium will let the samples go with you.”

  “Why?” He seemed affronted.

  “Because Airbus will scoop up all the Mars Prize. That hadn't crossed your mind?”

  “I do not think of the race, compared with the science.” “I bet.” Really?

  “Neither should it concern you so much.”

  “Look, what if I come back, we have time to discuss all the biology, you look at all my data—there's a lot—and we maybe write a paper on it in transit. But no samples.” What's he gonna say to that?

  His eyes narrowed. “We must have the samples. No one will be satisfied with merely your—”

  “Nope, that's a condition. The Consortium won't let the samples out of their hands.”

  “Your hands. We make the decisions here, as Viktor your captain said, and they are your hands.”

  “So no berth without the samples?”

  “You wish to force my hand this way?”

  “Let's call it a legitimate question.”

  “A negotiation, you mean.”

  “You don't really want me, you want the vent life.”

  “Your captain said only he and I, we carry out negotiations.”

  “So it is the samples or else no berth for me?” As if I would go alone under any conditions.

  Chen ground his teeth suddenly, as if no longer caring how he appeared. “The biological specimens, yes, they are essential.”

  “Nuts.”

  “What?”

  “Nuts.”

  29

  JANUARY 29, 2018

  AS THE AIRBUS ROVER FELL BELOW THE HORIZON, THROWING DUST, Viktor said, “We talk.”

  “You bet,” Marc said, beating the rest of them to the communal table.

  “First, what did Chen say in there?” Viktor asked Julia.

  “Biology, mostly. I showed him my slate data. We discussed genetics, that the vent life is related to the early Earth life. We're distant cousins.”

  Viktor nodded. “He wants samples?”

  “Yes—asked for them several times. Or to at least see them.” “Show him a video,” Marc said.

  “Not of the vent descent, no,” Viktor said. “Maybe of the samples in their little dishes. That would be okay, I suppose.”

  “He wanted to go to the greenhouse,” Julia said.

  Raoul said, “Did you notice him stop and look at it when they were headed back to their rover?”

  Marc said, “Yeah, he wanted to walk over there so bad you could feel it.”

  Viktor sniffed. “Knew we would come out if he did.”

  “Yeah,” Marc said, “but it takes five minutes minimum to suit up.” Julia grinned wryly. “Me, I'd just make the run without the suit again. He's not getting my samples.”

  “Offer to work on them with you?” Viktor persisted.

  “Sure. And to go down the vent with me.”

  The men all looked stern. “Sure, help him win the prize money,” Raoul said. “I bet he'd like plenty of help, maybe toss us a free dinner or something.”

  Viktor said, “No descent with him, no.”

  Julia said nothing. Somehow they all knew there was more. Nobody spoke. At last she said, “He offered me the berth home if I would.”

  Predictably, each exploded in a different way. Raoul smacked his palm on the table, Marc shot to his feet, Viktor gave a loud, derisive grunt.

  “Bastard!” Raoul shouted. “He's going to bargain us down for it, I knew it.”

  “Not all of us,” Marc said, pacing back and forth. “What've the rest of us got to offer?”

  “True for now,” Viktor said gravely. “Have pilot. Doubt would want Marc's rocks, but his core samples might help them. I am thinking that Raoul may be useful to them.”

  Raoul blinked. “How come?”

  “Getting ice from pingos, nobody ever done. Need good engineer. Engineers. Gerda is able but there is lot of labor to do.”

  Raoul could not disguise his interest, not from people who had lived with him for years. “Think so?”

  “If cannot get enough water, they cannot lift in the best launch window. More they wait, more they need. Orbital mechanics very clear. Could be they will need smart worker.”

  Marc said, “Sheesh!”

  “I doubt that,” Raoul said, measured and not very convincingly, to Julia's ear.

  “I do not like this,” Viktor said. “Captains should decide who goes. Not bargain.”

  “What'd you say?” Raoul asked her. “I told him no, of course.”

  Raoul kept his face carefully under control but his voice was strained. “Really? You'd sit on those samples and not go home?” “You bet.”

  Nobody said anything, but Julia could feel the furious calculation going on in the room. She could not tell whether they believed her. The signal bell rang and she was glad to hear it. It was Axelrod, of course. Marc started the priority message and sat down.

  “I heard it all, guys. That Chen sonofabitch! One slot, he says.”

  Axelrod was pacing before his desk and the view through the broad window behind it was of city lights
winking in the night. They had long since ceased keeping track of the mismatch of times between the planets; their clocks gained half an Earth hour every day. Yet somehow Julia was surprised to see the moon hanging in a luminous evening sky. Comfy Earth was indeed a long way from raw Mars.

  Axelrod looked frazzled, gray. “Well, don't think you guys have to deal with him up there. I'm talking to his bosses right now. They're playing cagey. Not saying how many berths they could squeeze out. One, Chen says. My engineers say that's a pretty plausible number, given the uncertainties we have about their detailed designs.”

  “Fits with what I know from the training,” Marc said.

  Axelrod waved away his own reservations. “They're hinting like crazy about those samples of yours, Julia. I figure we got ‘em there, I really do. You're not to tell him anything that might help him find that vent. Nothing. He might be able to just follow your tracks back. In fact, don't talk to him at all about this stuff.”

  “A little late, Axy,” Raoul said sardonically. “The old time delay strikes again.”

  “We discussed theory, genetics,” Julia said defensively.

  Axelrod looked at the camera cannily. “One thing I learned in tight negotiations like this. Make damn sure you know your opponent's true position. What's valuable to him. So he doesn't get that for a cheap price, while you're imagining he wants something else.”

  “Gotta admire him,” Marc said. “He's holding no cards but he's still playing the game.”

  “He knows this sort of business,” Viktor said. “We do not.”

  Axelrod spread his hands. “Say, suppose, they need a part or something. Have to come to you, Raoul. Or maybe they really do need fuel, after all this talk about mining those pingo hills. Nobody's ever done that, right? They couldn't have trained for it—Marc hadn't even drilled through to the ice until after they'd boosted on their way. Could be they don't have all the equipment they need. Or can't do it at all, and that engineer, that Gerda, has already found that out.”

  “He's got a point,” Marc said.

  Axelrod waxed on, thinking out loud. This was not prepared material, carefully scripted to keep their spirits up. “Hell, maybe they'll come begging for that methane of yours. They get more lift than we do out of a pound of liquid, right? Two, three times as much, the engineers tell me. They might not need nearly as much as you guys do to get back here. So they'd bargain for some.”

  “He's just winging it,” Raoul said. “All his people, they haven't found out a thing.”

  “Not yet,” Julia said. “But they could.”

  “So what I'm saying here is, tell them zip, nada, zero. Wait for word from us, from me particularly.” Axelrod blinked. “I know you guys are hanging on by your fingernails there. Stay with me on this. We can wangle somethin’ out, I'm sure of it.”

  “Sure about a lot, isn't he?” Marc mocked.

  Axelrod straightened and stared into the camera. “Julia, you're the crucial one here. Your message about the vent life, that went over real well in the media. Real well. We're playing you as scientist hero, see. Protecting Earth by studying this thing, before we ever even think of bringing it back. The vent—hey, let's come up with a better word for it, huh? ‘Vent life’—that doesn't have a ring to it, seems to me.”

  There were some more sign-off phrases, his energy running down, and then he was gone.

  Nobody said anything. Julia mused, “Do you think the spin doctors would like my ‘Marsmat’?”

  Viktor said, “Still like ‘Marshroom’ better.”

  The others laughed dutifully at that, then became quiet again.

  “He's so damn sure he can cut some deal,” Raoul said sourly.

  “He means for a share of the Mars Prize,” Marc said.

  “Means for all of us,” Viktor said loyally.

  “Maybe he can get two berths back,” Julia said.

  Raoul scowled. “Cold equations time here, folks. There is only so much room in that cramped little ship. Want to spend half a year crawling all over those three?”

  “And vice versa,” Marc said.

  “Not that you'd mind,” Raoul said.

  “Huh? What's that mean?”

  “You and that Claudine have taken every chance you could get to go off and rub up against each other,” Raoul said tightly.

  “What the hell?” Marc demanded.

  “It's pretty damn obvious.”

  “We knew each other in training. Went out a couple times, is all.”

  “You'd love to fly back with them,” Raoul said hotly.

  “Well, who wouldn't?” Marc shot back.

  Raoul said sharply, “And you do know where the vent is, right?”

  Marc leaped up. “You think I'd—”

  Raoul glowered. “You've got motivation, is all I'm saying.”

  Marc's hands twitched. “Geeze! I'd never—”

  “Of course he would not,” Viktor said mildly. “Sit down, Marc.”

  “He accused me of—”

  “He spoke too quickly,” Viktor said rapidly. A cool, steady look at Raoul. “I am sure he is sorry he did.”

  “Look, I didn't mean you'd really do that.” Raoul looked down at his mug. “Axy said we should think through possibilities, right? Well, that's one that will occur to Chen, too.”

  This seemed a weak comeback to Julia, but Viktor nodded. “He could try to pull us apart.”

  Raoul muttered darkly into his mug, “Thing is, I've had to watch my son grow up on the goddamned vid. When he walked for the first time, I saw a tape a day later, ‘cause we were out on a rove. His second birthday is coming up!”

  Julia said awkwardly, “We know, it has been hard.”

  Raoul looked her square in the eye. “And what do I have to offer Chen? Nothing but helping get water from the pingos. If they need help at all.”

  “He does not decide,” Viktor said patiently.

  Julia's throat felt tight, as though she were holding something in. She had never been able to talk to Raoul about his separation from Katherine, even though she was the unofficial Empathy Officer here. Apparently he had not been able to talk about it to anyone else, either. “We'll all decide together, really.”

  Viktor said, “No, I will. For us.”

  “Can't say as I like that,” Raoul said. He slurped from his mug, as if to underline his point.

  “I decide for best of mission,” Viktor said.

  Raoul studied Viktor and from his expression Julia judged that he had evidently decided not to challenge Viktor directly, at least not now. Raoul said carefully, “It seems to me that my chances are best if we just draw straws.”

  “Judgment is always better than gambling,” Viktor said.

  “Especially with lives,” Julia said loyally. She felt warm, as if she were getting angry herself. Or maybe, she thought ruefully, it was just thwarted self-righteousness. She, after all, had already turned down the slot Raoul was whining about. Viktor sat up straighter, a visible sign that he wanted to move the discussion forward. “We should discuss methane.”

  Marc tilted his head. “You mean Axy's idea?”

  “No, the methane we need to get back on next orbital opportunity, two years from now.”

  “It's a lot,” Raoul said, shaking his head. His guttural tone told Julia that he was not satisfied at having his drawing-straws proposal brushed aside.

  He was so obviously in pain. It was an impossible situation for each of them, but Raoul was taking it much harder than the others. Machismo is exacting another toll.

  “Delta vee is nearly twice our max rating, in present ERV.” Viktor pressed a command into his slate and it sent his display to the flatscreen. They all studied the details for a long moment: the required rendezvous speeds, expenditures, trajectory times—all for a family of return trajectories in the flight window. “So is nearly four times original fuel requirement.”

  Raoul said in a flat, factual voice, free of emotion, “They'll have to send us an ERV with lots bigger tanks. Pl
us plenty of hydrogen.”

  “Unless we do different scheme,” Viktor said. “Use water for hydrogen, keep oxygen separated. Be ready with fuel when ERV lands.”

  “How?” Marc asked, then snapped his fingers. “Sure! We use the pingos, melt ‘em for water.”

  “Before,” Viktor said, “was impossible. Did not have hoses, circulation chambers, storage. Now Airbus comes. Must have such things.”

  Marc said, “Claudine was saying she had worked for days setting it up. They've got plenty of heat with that nuke, so they run a simple heat cycle through the reactor.”

  Raoul said, “Their reactor's big, but we have one hundred forty kilowatts available here. Three nuke heaters that give mostly electricity, but I could modify them. Build up a chamber out of spare parts, if we have to—”

  “So we could have fuel ready when the ERV arrives?” Julia asked. “Could we use it right away, not have to wait for the ERV to make methane out of Martian CO2?”

  “Might make some difference in our choice of trajectories,” Viktor said.

  “Let's propose it to Earthside!” Marc said happily.

  “Requires some thought,” Raoul said carefully. “But I don't think it can help much.”

  “Why not?” Marc was surprised.

  “Because there's no good window, right after the ERV touches down. Sure, there's a window a few months from now, to lift from Earth. But there's no easy, low-cost way back, once it gets here.”

  Viktor nodded. “So as I have calculated. But Earthside may be able—”

  “That's a pipe dream,” Raoul said with sudden anger. “You're feeding us false hope here.”

  Viktor's face stiffened. “I explore all possibilities.”

  “You want to talk methane,” Raoul said hotly, “I'd say we take care of what we got. That ERV over there has plenty enough methane to fly the Airbus nuke back to Earth. They'd be fools not to try for it.”

  Julia's heart sank. Not this again.

  Marc blinked. “Try—steal it?”

  “Axy was right. If they can't bargain for it, why not just take it?” Raoul demanded. “Let the lawyers fight over it afterward, when they're already on their way Earthside.”

  Marc said thoughtfully, “Yeah, it's really NASA's, isn't it? Axy, he cut a deal, but it's got so many extra clauses and stuff in it—”