MORNING: SOL 48
A BIG MORNING, JAMIE THOUGHT. THE BIGGEST THAT MARS has ever seen since we first landed here.
“It will be lonesome around here,” Stacy Dezhurova said morosely over breakfast.
“We won’t be gone that long,” said Mitsuo Fuchida. “Less than a week.”
“Four weeks, tops, for us,” Dex Trumball said.
The Russian cosmonaut seemed almost melancholy, which surprised Jamie. Usually Stacy was impassive, businesslike. “The dome will be quiet,” she said, turning her glance from Trumball to Fuchida.
Dex grinned at her. “Yeah, but when we come back we’ll have the old Pathfinder hardware with us. And the little Sojourner wagon, too.”
Jamie noted that the Japanese biologist had finished every bit of his breakfast of fruit and cereal. Despite his bravado, Dex’s bowl was still almost full when he pushed it away.
He had decided to let them go off on their separate excursions on the same day, if Stacy could land the fuel generator roughly in the area of Xanthe Terra that it had to be for Dex’s trip to succeed.
So the morning’s work would be: First, launch the generator and land it safely in Xanthe. Second, get Dex and Possum off on their jaunt. Third, see Fuchida and Rodriguez take off for Olympus Mons.
A big morning. A big day. Inwardly, Jamie worried that they were biting off more than they could chew.
It’s not good planning, Jamie told himself. There’s no margin for error. It’s not smart, not safe. And it certainly isn’t good science. Dex is stealing four weeks from his work and Craig’s … for what? To make money. To get glory for himself.
Everyone crowded into the comm center as Dezhurova made the final preparations to launch the generator. Everyone except Jamie, who suited up and went through the airlock to watch the launch with his own eyes.
He knew he was bending the safety regulations to the breaking point, yet he walked alone to the crest of the little ridge formed by the rim of an ancient crater. The safety regs are too restrictive, he admitted to himself. We’ll have to rewrite them, sooner or later.
From his vantage point he could see the rocket booster standing on the horizon, the fuel generator still sitting at its top, as always. He, Craig and Dex had labored hard to install the backup water recycler back into the equipment bay where it had originally been.
The booster’s main tanks were filled with liquified methane and oxygen. Jamie could see a wisp of white vapor wafting from a vent halfway up the rocket’s cylindrical body. But there was no condensation frost on the tankage skin; there simply was not enough moisture in the Martian air for that.
In his helmet earphones Jamie heard the automated countdown ticking off, “Four … three … two … one …”
A flash of light burst from the rocket’s base and the booster was immediately lost in a dirty pink-gray cloud of vapor and dust. For a heartbeat Jamie thought it had exploded, but then the booster rose up through the cloud and he heard—even through his helmet—the whining roar of its rocket engines.
Higher and higher the rocket rose, swifter and swifter into the bright cloudless sky. Jamie bent back as far as his hard suit would allow, saw the rocket dwindle to a speck in the sky, and then it was lost to sight.
By the time he had come back through the airlock and taken off his suit, there were whoops and cheers coming from the comm center. Leaving the suit to be vacuumed later, Jamie hurried to join the crowd.
“Down … the … pipe,” Dezhurova was saying. She sat hunched before a display screen, her thick-fingered hands poised over the keyboard like a concert pianist’s ready to play.
But she did not touch the keys. She did not have to. The screen showed a plot of the rocket’s planned descent trajectory in red, next to a plot in green of its actual course. The two lines overlapped almost completely.
“The wind is stiffer than we expected,” Dezhurova said. “But neh problemeh.”
Rodriguez, sitting beside her, had an eager kid’s look on his face. The others were clustered behind them, huddled together like a shorthanded football team.
“Fifteen seconds to touchdown,” Rodriguez called out.
“Looking good,” Dezhurova said tightly.
“Lookin’ great,” shouted Possum Craig.
“Ten … nine …”
“I told you the spot was Clear of boulders,” Dex Trumball said, to no one in particular.
Jamie saw that Vijay was standing beside Dex; his hand was on the small of her back. Jamie felt his nostrils flare with barely suppressed anger.
“Four … three … two … touchdown!” Rodriguez announced.
“She is down, safe and sound,” said Dezhurova. She swivelled her chair around and swept her headset off with a flourish.
“We’re set for the run out to the Sagan site,” Dex crowed, beaming with satisfaction.
“Not till we check out the fuel generator, partner,” Craig warned. “That contraption’s gotta be perking right before we go traipsin’ all the way out there.”
“Yeah, sure,” Dex replied, his triumphant grin shrinking only a little.
Within an hour they had all the data they needed. The water recycler’s drill had hit permafrost and the fuel generator was working just as if it had never been moved, already replenishing the booster’s propellant tanks.
Trumball and Craig were suiting up; Jamie and Vijay were checking them out: Jamie with Possum, Vijay with Dex.
“Hope we can get the VR rig working right,” Dex said as he lifted his helmet from its shelf. Even encased in the bulky suit he radiated excitement, practically quivering, like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Well, I’ll finally get enough time to really tear her innards apart and see what th’ hell’s wrong with her,” Craig said.
Their plan was for Possum to work on the faulty VR rig during the long hours of the trek when he was not driving the rover.
Jamie was helping him put on his suit’s backpack. Craig backed into it and Jamie clicked the connecting latches shut. Then Possum stepped away from the rack on which the backpack had rested.
“Electrical connects okay?” Jamie asked.
Craig peered at the display panel on his right wrist. “All green,” he reported.
“Good.” Jamie plugged the air hose into Craig’s neck ring.
“You’re ready for your radio check,” Vijay said to Trumball.
Dex slid his visor down and sealed it. Jamie could hear his muffled voice calling to Stacy Dezhurova, who was manning the communications center, as usual. After a moment he slid the visor up again and made a thumb’s-up signal.
“Radio okay.”
It took Craig another few minutes to get his suit sealed up and check out its radio. Trumball paced up and down restlessly. In the suit and thick-soled boots he reminded Jamie of Frankenstein’s monster waiting impatiently for a bus.
“We’re all set,” Dex said once Craig’s radio check was done. He turned toward the airlock hatch.
“Hold on a second,” Jamie said.
Trumball stopped but did not turn back to face Jamie. Craig did.
“I know you’ve checked out the rover from here to hell and back,” Jamie said, “but I want you to remember that it’s an old piece of hardware and it’s been sitting out in the cold for six years.”
“We know that,” Trumball said to the airlock hatch.
“The first sign of trouble, I want you to turn back,” Jamie instructed. “Do you understand me? The hardware you’re setting out to retrieve isn’t worth a man’s life, no matter how much money it might bring in on Earth.”
“Sure,” Dex said impatiently.
“Don’t worry, I ain’t no hero,” Craig added.
Jamie took in a deep breath. “Possum, I’m putting you in charge of this excursion. You’re the boss. Dex, you follow his orders at all times. Understand?”
Now Trumball turned toward Jamie, slowly, ponderously in the cumbersome hard suit.
“What kind of bullshit is this?” he asked, his voice low and even.
“It’s chain-of-command, Dex. Possum’s older and he’s had a lot more experience living out in the field than either one of us has. He’s in charge. Any time you two don’t agree on something, Possum is the winner.”
Trumball’s face went through a whole skein of emotions within the flash of a moment. Jamie waited for an explosion.
But then Dex broke into a boyish grin. “Okay, chief. Possum’s the medicine man and I’m just a lowly brave. I can live with that.”
“Good,” Jamie said, refusing to let Trumball see how much he hated Dex’s sneering at his Navaho heritage.
Gesturing toward the hatch with a gloved hand, Tramball said to Craig, “Okay, boss, I guess you should go through the airlock first.”
Craig glanced at Jamie, then pulled down his visor and clomped to the hatch.
Vijay said, “Good luck.”
“Yeah, right,” answered Trumball. Craig waved silently as he stepped over the sill of the open hatch.
The three of them stood in uncomfortable silence while the airlock cycled. When its panel light turned green again, Trumball opened the hatch and stepped in.
Before closing it, though, he turned back to Jamie and Vijay.
“By the way, Jamie, I didn’t get a chance to say so long to my father. Would you give him a buzz and tell him I’m on my way?”
“Certainly,” Jamie said, surprised at the sweet reasonableness in Trumball’s voice.
The hatch slid shut. Jamie started toward the comm center, Shektar walking alongside him.
Vijay asked, “Did you have to do that?”
“What?” Jamie asked.
“Humiliate him.”
“Humiliate?” Jamie felt a pang, but it wasn’t surprise. It was disappointment that Vijay saw his decision this way.
“Making him officially subordinate to Possum,” she went on. “That’s belittling him.”
Striding along the partitions that marked off the team’s sleeping cubicles, Jamie said, “I didn’t do it to Dex, I did it for Possum.”
“Really?”
“Dex would try to steamroller Possum whenever they had a difference of opinion. This way, Possum’s got the clout to make the final decisions. That might save both their lives.”
“Really?” she said again.
“Yes, really.”
He looked down at her. Her expression showed a great deal of disbelief.
By the time they reached the comm center, Craig and Trumball had climbed into the rover and started up its electrical generator.
“The boss is going to let me drive,” Dex exclaimed, his radio voice brimming with mock delight. “Goodie, goodie.”
With Rodriguez sitting beside her, Stacy Dezhurova went down the rover checklist with him, then cleared them for departure.
“We’re off to see the Wizard,” Dex said. “Be back in a month or so.”
“Sooner,” Craig’s voice added.
“Better be sooner,” Rodriguez said into his lip mike. “Thanksgiving’s in four weeks.”
“Save me a drumstick,” said Dex.
In Dezhurova’s display screen Jamie saw the rover shudder to life, then lurch into motion. It rolled forward slowly at first, then turned in a quarter-circle and headed off toward the east.
“Oh, Jamie,” Trumball called as they trundled toward the horizon, “please don’t forget to call my dad, okay?”
“You can call him yourself, right now,” Jamie responded.
“No, I want to concentrate on my driving. You do it for me, huh? Please?”
Jamie said, “Sure. I’ll send him a message right away.” “Thanks a lot, chief.”