“We would not let them,” Viktor said sternly.
“Suppose they just fly their nuke over here and take it?” Raoul shot back.
“They're not going to try,” Julia said in what she hoped was a reasonable voice, though her face felt hot.
“I wonder,” Raoul said suggestively. “I mean, they could show up, force us to cut a deal.”
“For what?” Julia asked.
“For the extra berth, say?” Raoul said archly.
“What a mind! A conspiracy theory nightmare,” Julia said.
Viktor said slowly, coolly, “I have thought about it, since boss suggested this problem. We do not need to protect methane.”
“How about Axy's idea?” Raoul said hotly. “That maybe they need some parts or something? They could come over at night, take it.”
“I do not think threat is there,” Viktor insisted stolidly.
“You don't see a problem anywhere, do you?” Raoul said loudly, waving his right hand in a half-clenched fist. “You just wanna be in charge, like, like some goddamn emperor—”
He emphasized the word with a sweeping gesture—and knocked his mug off the table. It hit the deck and shattered.
Everyone gasped. Raoul turned, dumbfounded. He gazed down at the shards that clinked to a stop against the walls. His horrified look, mouth half open in wrenched despair, froze the moment in Julia's mind as the depth of their own disintegration swept over her.
30
JANUARY 29,2018
THIS TIME HER DREAMS WEREN'T ABOUT SWIMMING. THEY WERE SHORT, disconnected fragments. She couldn't seem to really get to sleep. She finally gave up and sat up in bed. Her throat was raw, her shoulders ached. She felt goosebumps on her legs. Realization dawned slowly. I'm sick. I must have a fever. Feels like the flu.
But how? An infection? But Mars was sterile. We've been isolated together for over two years. We can't get sick anymore.
This phenomenon was first noted on submarines. Any incubating viruses made the rounds once. Then the crew were all immune and nobody got sick anymore. It must be Airbus. Just my luck. I caught something from that weasel Chen.
A thought prickled the back of her mind. The vent life. She had been exposed without her helmet. That's absurd. This is real life, not some tabloid fantasy. She tried to push the thought back, failed.
Viktor stirred, reached for her in his sleep. She gently removed his arms. But he was persistent. Finally, after a couple more skirmishes, he awoke. “Something wrong? What time is it?”
“It's not quite midnight. I think I've got a fever, and I don't want you to get it.”
He was instantly concerned. “You are sick? With what?”
“It's probably a virus from Airbus.” She hesitated. “At least I hope it is.”
“What else could it be?”
“Viktor, what if it's a reaction to the Mars life?”
“I thought it was not likely to react with us.”
“No, it isn't. That's really a far-fetched idea, but I can't absolutely rule it out.”
“Is fever speaking, not biologist. You have Chinese variety of flu, probably.”
“Oh, God, when they find out about this on Earth, I'll never be allowed back home.”
“We say nothing. You be careful in front of camera, is all.”
“Well, they have nothing to worry about, since I'm not going back.”
“Maybe you should. Chen offered you the berth.”
“How could I live without you for two years?”
“Have busy time with ticker-tape parades, TriVid shows, lectures.”
“That's not what I want to do.”
“Work on vent life in fancy lab on Earth, then.”
“Hah. I'll probably never be able to touch my samples again. Every A-list microbiologist on the planet will want to work on them. I have no special credentials. I'm just the discoverer. Besides, Axelrod will sell ‘em to the highest bidder anyway.”
“Will be tough here. I would feel better if you were safe.”
“Viktor, I'm not going to go without you. And that's final.”
“Three guys here could—”
She put a hand over his mouth. “Wait a minute. What's that noise?”
He sighed. “Marc and Raoul, drunk and singing.” “They're drunk?”
“After you went to bed, Raoul brought out bottle of tequila. That one he was talking about opening after launch, remember?”
“Sounds like bad news. Depression plus alcohol.”
“I had one shot only, then came in here.”
“Well, it sounds like they've patched things up.”
“Both pretty tense today.”
“What's the captainly thing to do here?”
“Sleep.”
She wasn't going to sleep, not with a red-raw throat. And something in the tone of the words, though she could not make them out, sounded faint warning bells. Viktor believed in a rather formal standard of leadership, however, with strict compartments between professional and private behavior. How to get around that? “Um … I could use some entertainment.”
“I get your slate and headphones.”
Was he being deliberately dense? “I am going to breach protocol and eavesdrop.”
In the faint light she could see him grin. “Captain cannot do this.”
“But he can lie here and let sounds blow by him?”
“Captain can do that. Not his fault.”
She grunted as she slipped out of bed and moved quietly to the door. Carefully she turned the latch and cracked the door open. As she got back under the covers Marc's voice came through clearly, though slurred.
“—knew he was a prick with a ramrod up his ass alla time ‘bout somethin’.”
“Bastard sure hasn't changed,” Raoul agreed.
“Trainin’ in China, he'd make us run drills till we dropped, but no feedback about what was wrong. We were supposed to ‘discover it ourselves,’ he'd say.”
Julia whispered, “Well, at least it's not about you.” Viktor grinned again, lazing back. Even the captain could bend the rules and enjoy it.
“Ask me, he's got somethin’ goin’ here,” Marc muttered.
“Cards he hasn't played, like Axy says?”
“Can't read the guy. That always makes me suspicious.”
“He got all the breaks, right.” Raoul poured more coffee into a plastic mug.
“Glad he can't get the bio stuff, at least.”
“Hell, he sure wants it. And more.”
“An’ ever'body talks about the bio, sure. Thing is, he was trying to work it so he gets to fly home with three women, ever’ damn one of ‘em.”
“That's true. Leave us here with nothin’.”
“One sly guy, three women, two of ‘em single.” Marc's voice got fainter. Was he looking down into his glass in self pity? “Six, seven months to Earth.”
“Crowded, maybe they have to double up on bunk space.”
Marc laughed sourly. “Li'l adjustment, right. Captain's orders an’ all.”
“Li'l threesomes, maybe even?” Raoul's voice was low, muggy.
“Why not, he's the cap'n.”
“Goddamn Captain Chen—he's the one we should yank outta there.”
“Hey?”
“Pull him off, take that damn nuke for ourselves.”
“Huh? How?”
“Four of us, three of them. We got three guys, they got one tightass we could use for a punching bag, we wanted.”
“Uh, wow.” Marc sounded dazed.
“Take them when there's two outside, one inside.”
“Using what?”
“I can rig something that looks dangerous, never mind that.”
“What if Chen has a gun?”
“Who'd take a gun to Mars?”
“Chinese, I wonder.”
Raoul said rapidly, “You and me, we take the two slots. Leave the two biologists here to work over the Marshroom or whatever the hell it is. We fly home, got a woman apiece.”
<
br /> “My God.”
“Y'know, I just thought it through,” Raoul said carefully, his diction more precise. “It makes some kind of sense, right?”
“Well …”
“We get what we want. Axy does, too. Sure we're using the Airbus nuke, but we're running things. We fly back your rocks, Julia's samples—dead, sure, but the real stuff. With thirty billion bucks in his pocket, Axy can do the legal for us.”
“Good Lord, I dunno.”
“You just think about it. That's all I am saying.”
“They'd maybe throw us in prison.”
“You know who runs Earthside? Not laws—no, just lawyers. And those Axy can provide.”
“For the boys who bring home the bacon.”
“Right. With Marshroom sauce.” Raoul chuckled.
“I… I really dunno …”
“Look, we're tired—”
“And drunk on cheap tequila.”
“Best tequila there is.”
“That's the best? Whoosh.”
“Look, point is, you sleep on it. We talk some more tomorrow.”
“I … okay.”
Scraping chairs. Closing doors.
Julia looked at Viktor. He got up and silently closed the door, securing it with the lever that would make a good vacuum seal if necessary.
“My God,” she said. “What…?”
“Drunk talk. It may go no farther than this.”
“But if it does—”
“I will stop it.”
“How?”
“I do not know, but there are tricks.”
“What tricks?”
“Captain tricks.”
“Like?”
“Raoul did not think anyone would take a gun to Mars.”
31
JANUARY 30,2018
JULIA BRACED HERSELF BEFORE ENTERING THE COMMON AREA FOR BREAKfast.
She felt as if she were walking on eggs. Not only unsure of what Marc and Raoul would be like, but suddenly aware of the camera. She and Viktor had agreed that, as a fallback, she would claim “lingering effects” from the near-vacuum run for her hoarse voice. Best thing would be to talk as little as possible. That she was prepared to do.
Viktor and Raoul were already at the table, reading their electronic newspapers and trading items of interest. She was momentarily startled to see Raoul drinking his coffee from one of the generic plastic mugs before remembering that his special ceramic one was gone. He appeared tense and withdrawn, as he had since the engine test failure.
The psychological support team had insisted that the crew receive daily news summaries from Earth to reduce their feelings of alienation. This was in addition to the mission-relevant news summaries prepared for them by Axelrod's communications people.
So each had picked a newspaper, and the features they wanted to see. Raoul got the Los Angeles Times, with augmented coverage of South American soccer. Viktor read the London Times, and was deeply into European geopolitics and soccer. He and Raoul had spent most of the time they were fixing the ERV happily comparing and arguing soccer minutiae.
Marc stuck with the Dallas Times, the paper of his birthplace. He followed most traditional American sports, especially volleyball, of which he had an encyclopedic knowledge. Only a minor knee injury at a critical time in college had turned him away from a pro career in the game. Julia had found it was possible to be utterly bored in conversation with Marc if he got going on stats, spiking versus blocking, and arcane rule changes. But he was a bright and well-read scientist, so she tried to keep their conversations on a professional level. Still, she genuinely liked Marc. He seemed to be a more cautious version of her much-missed brother Bill.
Julia had opted for the Sydney Morning Herald. It was partly a lark, to see the world again through Aussie eyes, and it helped her keep in touch with Harry and Robbie in Adelaide. It carried a diffuse piece about her—pride of Aussies, on Mars!—the life discovery, and endless speculations. This one had not made it into her “filtered” personal news summary. There were probably thousands like it, long on imagination, short on information.
She cleared her throat and tried a tentative “Morning.” It came out as a croak. Raoul looked up with a frown and stared at her.
She tried a smile and a half shrug, and went over to make herself some tea. Glancing furtively at the camera, she was relieved to see that its little ruby light was dark. Makes sense. At some point last night, Raoul and Marc must've turned it off. She wondered briefly how much of their conversation had been beamed Earthside before they remembered about that ever-roving eye. The psych team would be busy this morning if anything had gotten through. In any case, it was a lucky break for her.
Julia made her tea and gratefully slurped the hot liquid down her aching throat. She sat at the table and scanned the comics.
Recently Viktor had been following closely two minor brush wars being put down by the German army. Despite the traditional Russo-German enmity, he approved heartily of their role as the policeman of the New Europe. “Let ‘em pay the price of being big shots,” was how he put it.
Julia managed a few grunts at appropriate moments in their onesided conversation, and picked away at her crossword puzzle. The painkillers and tea began to kick in. She started to feel human.
When Marc finally appeared, unshaven and bleary-eyed, Raoul and Viktor were well into their second coffees. This was normally a very pleasant time for the crew. For all of these highly motivated people, the morning was an optimistic time. With plans for the day, and energy levels high, they would trade funny bits from their respective newspapers. Julia hoped desperately today would be the same.
“G'day, Marc,” she said with feigned cheeriness.
He grunted something and shuffled over for coffee.
Raoul drained his mug and joined him at the food prep center. They talked, their words drowned out by the noise of the microwave. Julia shot a quick look at Viktor, but he was absorbed in his electronic news. She felt a gathering storm in the air. To give herself something to do, she grabbed a deck of cards—the fourth they had worn out on this mission—and started laying them out for solitaire.
For a while after Marc and Raoul returned to the table, the loudest sound was the gentle slapping of the cards. Viktor resolutely stared at his slate. He's not going to give them any openings.
The silence stretched between them.
Finally, Raoul looked at Viktor and said, “We want to talk about who goes back with Airbus.”
Viktor looked up. “Who is ‘we’?”
“Marc and I.”
Viktor shrugged. “What is there to discuss? Axelrod is making deal with Airbus for space, but I have final decision about who goes.”
“We don't agree with that.” Raoul frowned. “We want a more equal shot at that berth.”
“Look, Viktor,” Marc cut in hurriedly. “You've been very fair so far on workloads, assignments, and all that. You haven't favored Julia, everyone knows that. But this is different. There's no way you could make this decision without personal considerations coming into it.”
“Yeah,” said Raoul. “This could mean life or death. But we're not in the military, and we're not gonna stand for a battlefield command decision. Each of us has an equal right to that slot.”
“I remind you that Airbus captain thinks he will pick,” said Viktor mildly.
“I'm not worried about Chen,” growled Raoul. “And I don't want to have a fight about it here. Let's just draw straws. That way I have a one in four chance to get home and see my son.”
“I agree,” said Marc. “It's the fairest way.”
“I agree with Viktor. We should use other criteria than the luck of the draw to pick,” said Julia.
“Figures,” said Marc.
Julia steamed. “May I remind you that I was offered that berth, and I turned it down.”
“So you say,” said Raoul.
“Yeah, why did you?”
“What?” Julia was furious. “Are you implying
that I didn't?”
“I just find it hard to believe, the way you described it,” said Raoul. “You sure there wasn't more to it?”
“Like what?” she demanded.
“Like some kinda agreement to say no publicly, and then have Viktor pick you.” Raoul shrugged.
“Or Axelrod,” said Marc. “You're his favorite. He kicked me off when you asked him to.”
“Either way, you go home, but you look noble,” said Raoul grimly.
“I can't believe I'm hearing this!” said Julia. “I said no to Chen without thinking a lot about it. It just seemed wrong, that's all. Anyway, what he wants is the Marsmat, not me. I suspect he'll ask each of you in turn the same thing. And from what I hear, neither of you would hesitate to sell the rest of us out.”
She glared at them.
“Okay. Let us draw straws,” said Viktor's calm voice.
“What?” Julia looked at him in astonishment. “Viktor, what are you doing?”
“Uncertainty is tearing us apart. Is better to know.”
“That's more like it.” Raoul smiled and visibly relaxed.
“Anyone have any spare broom straws?” asked Julia bitterly.
“Yeah, what do we use?” asked Marc. He looked around. “We don't actually have any straws.”
“We play Russian Roulette with cards,” said Viktor. “Is old Russian military tradition for settling disputes.”
“Huh?”
Viktor reached for the deck of cards, still laid out on the table for solitaire. He hunted around, pulled out the ace of spades, held it up. “This is short straw. I bury it in the deck,” he said, demonstrating. “Shuffle it, person to pick cuts deck, takes card. Wrong cards are not replaced. Shuffle after each pick. Finally, someone finds ace.”
“Sounds okay to me,” said Raoul.
“Me too,” agreed Marc.
“Julia?” Viktor looked at her. “All must agree.”
“This is crazy. It's like a bad old movie.”
“Julia doesn't have to play if she's already refused the berth,” said Raoul. “That betters my chances.”
“All must pick, or no deal. If all are equal, all have same chance,” said Viktor.
“Well, Julia?” asked Marc.
The Martian Race Page 30
