IMAGERY

TOMAS RODRIGUEZ DRUMMED HIS FINGERS ABSENTLY AGAINST the desktop in rhythm to the trumpets and strings of the mariachi CD he was listening to while he squinted hard at the computer’s display screen. He was trying to force some sense out of what the soarplane’s cameras showed.

It was well past midnight. He was sitting alone in the dome’s geology lab, surrounded by shelves laden with red, pitted rocks and plastic containers of rusty red soil. The dome was dark and quiet; he kept the music low, just enough to keep him company while everyone else slept.

Rodriguez desperately wanted to see what Jamie Waterman thought he had seen: an artificial structure built into a niche two-thirds of the way up the steep rugged cliff of Tithonium Chasma’s northern face. He tried his best to see it.

The image on the screen showed the niche, a dark cleft in the massive cliff face with a bulging rock overhang above it. The overhang kept the niche in shadow, despite the fact that the sun was shining on the cliff wall.

The plane’s not a good platform for this, Rodriguez thought as he watched the niche get bigger and bigger, then slide out of view as the soarplane banked away and climbed out of the Canyon.

With a patient sigh he went back to the beginning of the sequence, slowed it down, and watched even more intently. The plane was flying almost straight into the cliff, its forward cameras aimed at the niche. Rodriguez’s fingers flicked across the computer keyboard, calling up the best level of brightness the machine could produce. The cliff face washed out almost entirely, but the interior of the niche remained maddeningly unresolved.

He froze the image with a bang of a thick forefinger on a key. Yes, there was something in there, a formation of rock that was lighter than the rest. And it looked like it ran roughly parallel to the lip of the niche. Pretty straight.

A wall? Rodriguez puffed out a pent-up breath. Quién sabe?

“Is that Jamie’s village?”

Her voice startled him. Rodriguez spun around in his little wheeled chair and saw Vijay Shektar standing at the doorway to the lab cubicle, each hand holding a plastic mug. She was wearing coveralls, as everyone did. But the Velcro seal down the front was open a few inches, enough for him to notice. Jesus, but she’s a sexy one, Tomas thought.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she explained. “Thought some hot tea would help.”

Tomas noticed that both mugs were steaming slightly. And he realized that, when she spoke quietly like this, Vijay’s voice was a throaty, sultry purr.

“I heard the music. Mexican, isn’t it?” she said, stepping into the lab. “Thought you might like a cuppa.”

He took the cup and started to say thanks, but found that his voice stuck in his throat. Like a goddamn kid, he thought. He took a breath, then said carefully, “Mexican, right. Mariachi. Their equivalent of country and western.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Same old stuff: I loved you but you left me. My heart’s broken because you were unfaithful.”

“And you took my pickup truck,” she added.

“And my dog.”

Vijay laughed. Then she said, “Somebody told me once that it’s music for losers.”

Rodriguez shrugged. “I like it.”

“Is that Jamie’s village?” she asked again. She remained standing, her eyes focused on the display screen, looking past him.

The mug of tea was hot in his hand. He sighed. “It’s no village.”

“Are you certain?”

“Pretty much.”

The tea felt too hot to drink, he thought, but she put it to her lips and drank with no qualms. He took a cautious sip. It was scalding. Suppressing a yowl of pain, Tomas put the cup down on the desk beside him.

“Pull up a chair,” he said, wondering if his tongue would blister, “and I’ll show you what we’ve got.”

As she sat in the lab’s other little wheeled chair, Vijay commented, “You’re up awfully late.”

“So are you.”

She shrugged, and the movement excited him. “I’m not much of a sleeper. Never have been.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What about you, though? Shouldn’t you be getting your rest? You ought to be taking tip-top care of yourself. We need you to be bright and shiny in the morning.”

According to the expedition’s regulations, Rodriguez was in charge at the dome while Jamie and Stacy Dezhurova were both away. He was the second-ranking astronaut, and that put him in command when the first astronaut and the mission director were absent. Not that the scientists paid any attention to such protocol. The only time they would obey his commands, Rodriguez was certain, would be if some emergency came up. Maybe not even then.

“I’m okay,” he said, thinking that he’d be more than willing to march off to bed this instant if she would come with him.

She turned her attention to the screen again. “So you don’t think it’s a village or anything artificial?”

She was wearing perfume, he was certain of it. Faint, but a scent of something feminine. It took an effort to keep from reaching out and taking her in his arms. Turning reluctantly back to the screen, Tomas found the strength to say, “See for yourself.”

They spent the next half hour studying the imagery from the soarplane: visual, infrared, radar, false color, even the brief burst of data from the gas chromatograph that gave them nothing but the composition of the air in the Canyon.

She sat next to him, so close they were almost touching shoulders. Tomas felt a thin sheen of perspiration beading his upper lip.

Vijay sighed stirringly. “There’s certainly no signs saying, ‘Welcome Earthlings,’ are there?”

Is she doing that deliberately? Tomas wondered. Does she know how it affects a man?

“If it was anybody but Jamie, I’d say we’re wasting our time,” he told her.

“But Jamie’s different?”

“He’s the expedition’s director,” Rodriguez said. “And he’s been here before.”

“Does that make him right?”

He thought about that for a moment. “No. But it means we go out of our way to follow up his hunch.”

Vijay looked directly into his eyes. “How far but of your way would you go for Jamie?”

“For Jamie? What do you mean?”

“Suppose Jamie asked you to go With him to this area, to poke about in that niche and see what’s really there. Would you go?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Because he’s the expedition director?”

Rodriguez hesitated. “I guess so. Also … I guess I’d want to go with him even if he wasn’t the boss.”

“Why?”

He could feel his brows knitting. This is a psych test, he realized. That’s all she’s after. She’s just doing this to fill out her goddamned psych report on me.

“I like Jamie,” he said. “I trust him. I guess if he asked me to go with him to the Canyon I’d be kinda flattered.”

Vijay nodded. “He is likable, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“But he’s wrong about the village.” She said it softly, with real sadness in her voice.

“You like him, too, don’t you?”

Staring at the display screen image of the shadowed niche high up on the cliff wall, Vijay Shektar answered very softly, “Yes, I like him too.”

Abruptly, Rodriguez turned to the computer and began to shut it down. The image of the rock niche winked off. The screen went dark.

“You’re right,” he said, almost angrily. “It’s late. I better get some sleep.”

Dr. Shektar got up from her chair. “Yes, I suppose I should, too.”

Rodriguez stood up and noticed for the first time how small she really was. Tiny. Like a little doll. With curves. I could pick her up off her feet with one hand.

She looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry I disturbed you, Tom. Have a good sleep.”

She turned and headed for the doorway, leaving Rodriguez standing alone in the geology lab.

She likes Jamie, he told himself. She likes him, not me. I’m just one of her patients, one of her goddamn study subjects. Sorry she disturbed me. Like hell she is. She knows goddamn well the effect she has on me. She’s getting her kicks watching me sweat.

He fell asleep fantasizing about her.