EVENING: SOL 102
JAMIE SHIFTED UNCOMFORTABLY IN THE ROVER’S COCKPIT seat and rubbed his eyes. He’d been reading off the comm screen for hours.
“It’s taking more time to answer all these messages than we spent in the village,” he complained.
From his bunk, where he sat cross-legged with his lap-top screen glowing on his face, Dex said, “Everybody wants to congratulate us—and take some of the credit.”
They had split the task of replying to the calls from Earth. Dex was handling his half from his bunk. Jamie felt his stomach growling; it was long past their normal dinnertime. He had already sent a fifteen-minute report to the news media, to be shared by any station or print outlet that wanted to use it. Jamie could imagine how the video people would edit it down to a sound byte or two.
“Let’s take a break and get back to them after we eat,” Jamie suggested.
“Good idea—wait a sec! Here’s one from Father DiNardo, in Rome.” Dex broke into laughter. “Well, whattaya know? Our Jesuit geologist got himself named chairman of the archeology team. How’s that for tricky politics?”
“DiNardo? Hold on, I want to see what he’s got to say.”
Jamie tapped the keyboard between the two cockpit seats and Fr. DiNardo’s dark, jowly face came up on the control panel’s screen.
“… congratulations with all my heart,” the priest was saying. “God has been very generous to you. And to me, too, I suppose. As I was saying, the ICU has asked me to head the committee that directs your study of the Martian structure.”
Dex grinned up the length of the rover module at Jamie and made a slicing motion across his throat with one finger. Jamie understood: there must have been plenty of knives flashing in the dark over the past thirty-six hours or so.
“Apparently the archeologists and paleontologists could not agree on one of their own people to chair the committee, so Dr. Li suggested that I do it, as a sort of neutral entity, not favoring either side.”
“God works in mysterious ways,” Dex cracked.
“A certain number of anthropologists want to be included, also,” DiNardo went on, “but I am not convinced that anthropologists have any special claim to this investigation. Clearly the Martians are not human, by definition. However, the anthropologists insist on being involved.”
Knowing that it would take almost half an hour for a reply to reach him from Mars, DiNardo went on without waiting for an answer, without even pausing for a breath, it seemed to Jamie. The man was excited, Jamie realized. Beneath the placid exterior he fried to maintain, DiNardo was just as thrilled as he was himself.
And why not? Jamie asked silently. This is the biggest discovery in the history of the human race. We’re not alone I There are—or were—intelligent creatures on Mars.
The priest finally wound down his little speech. “You have already been told to touch nothing in or around the dwelling, I understand. Tomorrow you should set up as many cameras as you can, so we can see as much as possible of the exterior and interior of the building.”
“We did a lot of that today,” Dex said, more to himself than the image on the screen. Jamie realized that DiNardo had not yet seen the imagery they had sent to Earth.
“The next thing we will want is a tour through the building using the virtual reality system. In that way, our people here can get a better feeling for what you have there.”
Jamie nodded. Makes sense, he thought.
DiNardo’s image looked up sharply from the screen, at someone or something off-camera. “I must leave you now. We have set up an electronic meeting of the full committee and I must chair it. I will call you again tomorrow. Goodbye, and God be with you.”
“Amen,” said Dex. “Now let’s eat.”
Halfway through their prepackaged dinners, Dex looked up from his tray and said, “The virtual reality tour that DiNardo wants … it’ll make a terrific tourist attraction.”
Jamie forced himself to continue chewing.
“I mean, people could buy a trip through the village right in their own homes. Whet their appetites for the real thing.”
“I suppose you could make money out of it,” Jamie said, trying to keep his voice calm.
“Yeah.”
Jamie swallowed carefully, then asked, “Any word from your father yet?”
“No, not yet.” Dex took a swig of fruit juice, then planted the plastic cup firmly on the table between them. “Oh, he’ll get around to calling. He’ll let me wait a day or two and then he’ll call. Dear old dad’s always worrying about my head getting too big, so he tries to take the air out of my balloon whenever he thinks I need it. Which is always.”
Jamie heard more, than sarcasm in Dex’s tone. He heard pain.
“I’m sure he’s very proud of you,” Jamie said.
“Yeah,” said Dex. “Real proud. Busting his buttons.”
Jamie said nothing.
“The thing is, if he really is proud, he’s keeping it a deep, dark secret. He’s good at that, hiding his pride in his only begotten son.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“Ah, never mind, Jamie. It’s not your problem.” Dex grabbed the juice cup and drained it. As he got up from the narrow table, he asked, “Now, what about moving the dome here? We can’t work out of the rover forever.”
“I know,” Jamie said. “I’ve been thinking about it.”
“And?”
“Moving the dome is a helluva task,” Jamie said. “It’ll take weeks.”
“We can do it between Christmas and New Year’s, I bet.”
“It would take longer than that.”
“So? We’ve got more than sixteen months to go. You’re not going to shuttle back and forth from the present base site to here for all that time, are you?”
“It doesn’t sound practical,” Jamie admitted.
“So let me work out a plan for moving the dome, the whole base, the L/AVs, the generators, everything.”
“Then we’ll be ready to receive tourists here with the next mission, is that it?”
Dex looked genuinely surprised, shocked. “Tourists? I’m not talking about tourists. Not yet, anyway. First things first, pal.”
“Yes,” Jamie replied. “First things first.”