MORNING: SOL 358
JAMIE WOKE UP SLOWLY, THE REMNANTS OF A DISTURBING dream fading from his consciousness like a mirage dissipating as he tried to reach it. Something about the Martians, he thought, although he vaguely remembered Fuchida in his dream, trying desperately to tell him something but unable to speak a word aloud.
A mini-nightmare, Jamie decided as he quickly showered and shaved. Got to keep up appearances, he told himself while he ran the electric razor across his chin. Its buzzing sounded weak, lower in pitch than normal. The batteries need recharging. Which started him thinking about the nuclear generator buried a full kilometer from the dome. People still freaked out about nuclear power back home. Here we couldn’t get along without it.
This is home, Jamie, he heard his grandfather whisper. That other world isn’t for you. This one is.
“For a while, Grandfather,” Jamie answered in a barely vocal whisper. “Only until Trumball arrives to take it away from us.”
He pulled on his coveralls and sat dejectedly at his desk chair. We’re just going through the motions, Jamie told himself. The excitement has drained away. Now we’re just collecting data bits, like a bunch of graduate students following the drill that the professors back on Earth have set for us.
Nothing new had been discovered in months. The cliff building held its secrets tenaciously, empty and silent, revealing nothing. Except that its very existence told so much.
What do we know? Jamie asked himself for the thousandth time that week.
We know that Mars bears life: lichen in some surface rocks and bacteria deep underground.
We know that once intelligent Martians lived here and they built the structure in the cliff.
We know that they no longer exist.
We’re pretty certain they were wiped out by one or more meteor strikes about sixty-five million years ago.
And that’s it. They had developed writing. Maybe they even understood what was happening to them.
But we haven’t been able to find another building anywhere on the whole planet. We don’t understand their writing and probably never will.
So why are we going through the motions of searching the planet and poking around the niche where the building is sited? We don’t have the tools or the manpower to find anything more. We don’t have the fundamental understanding to figure who or what they were. They could have honeycombed this planet with their cities and farms, but after sixty-five million years they’re all lost, gone, covered over by dust or ground into dust themselves.
Jamie admitted to himself, We’re wasting our time here. Even the VR shows we beam to Earth have lost their appeal; the audience is down to schools and museums. We might as well pack up and go home.
Then he saw Trumball and his hotel builders and the tourists he wanted to bring to Mars. Bulldozers and buses and shopping malls where you could buy plastic Martian dolls.
Grimly he turned to his laptop and booted it up, ready to review the day’s schedule of tasks.
Instead, Pete Connors’ chocolate-brown face looked out at him from the display screen, grinning cheerily.
“Congratulations! Today marks the three hundredth and sixty-fifth day since your arrival on Mars. You’ve put in a full year on the planet’s surface. A real milestone, guys.”
Jamie blinked at Connors’ image. It’s only sol three fifty-eight, he saw from the data line at the bottom of the screen.
Then, despite his listless mood, he smiled tightly. Of course, he told himself. Three hundred sixty-five Earth days, not Martian. A full Earth year.
He didn’t feel like celebrating;
In the main dome, Vijay was also thinking about the calendar.
“It’s a real accomplishment,” she said to Stacy, “and we ought to do something to celebrate it.”
The two women were in Vijay’s phonebooth-sized infirmary. Dezhurova was stripped to her bra and panties, a blood-pressure cuff wrapped around her left arm, six medical sensor patches plastered to her sturdy chest and back.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked warily. As a cosmonaut she distrusted medics, especially doctors who doubled as psychiatrists. It was their job to find reasons to keep fliers on the ground, Dezhurova feared.
“I’m not sure,” Vijay replied, seemingly unaware of her patient’s latent hostility. “With the group split up like it is between the two domes, it’s difficult to bring everyone together for a blast.”
“No alcohol,” Dezhurova said flatly.
“I didn’t mean a booze party,” Vijay quickly amended, one eye on the monitor screens. Dezhurova seemed adequately healthy; blood pressure a bit lower than usual, but well within tolerable limits.
“Then what?”
Vijay shrugged and started unwrapping the cuff from the cosmonaut’s beefy upper arm. Dezhurova began peeling off the sensors with her free hand.
“We need something,” Vijay said. “Morale is sinking quite low. It’s been nothing but work, work, work the past several months. No excitement at all. That’s not good for our emotional outlook.”
“Trudy and Tom seem happy,” Dezhurova said as she got down from the examination table and reached for her coveralls.
“When they’ re together, yes,” Vijay agreed. “But he tends to mope when they’re, apart.”
Stacy shook her head. “I can’t adjust the work schedule to accommodate their romance.”
“No, of course not. And frankly, I think Trudy is grateful for some time away from Tommy.”
“You think she does not love Tom?”
“Love’s got very little to do with it,” Vijay said, her face growing quite serious. “Tommy may be bonkers over her, but she …” Vijay’s voice trailed off.
“Yes? What?”
“I’m not sure,” Vijay said, looking troubled. “Trudy likes Tom, of course. Very much. But I don’t think you could call it love, not for either one of them.”
“Is that your professional opinion?” Dezhurova asked, sealing the coveralls’ Velcro seam.
“Not quite.”
Stacy tapped Vijay on the shoulder with a heavy, blunt finger. “Is this what you psychologists call projection?”
“Projection?”
“You can’t make a commitment to Jamie, so you believe Trudy has the same problem.”
“I can’t make …?” Vijay’s dark eyes flashed wide, then she looked away from Dezhurova.
With a grim smile, Stacy said, “Dex and Jamie are both in the second dome. I think it’s good to keep you away from them. No party.”
And with that she walked out of the infirmary.
Instead of a party, Dezhurova linked all eight of the explorers electronically at dinner. She planted a Picturephone unit at one end of the galley table in Dome One and ordered Jamie to do the same at Dome Two.
“We mark this milestone with unity and comradeship,” she said, sitting at the head of her table and lifting a glass of grapefruit juice.
“Unity and comradeship,” Jamie repeated from the head of his table.
But as he glanced at the three others with him, Jamie knew that the toast was empty. Fuchida suspected that one of their comrades was an insane saboteur. Rodriguez was gloomy because he wanted to be with Trudy, and he knew that when he shuttled back to Dome One, Trudy would be coming here to Dome Two. Tomas probably thinks Stacy is keeping them apart on purpose.
Looking at Dex, Jamie thought mat he had changed a good deal over the past year. Especially since we found the building, he told himself. But he’s torn up inside over his father. And deep down, where it counts, he still wants to turn Mars into a profit-making venture.
Unity and comradeship, Jamie repeated silently. Not likely.
After dinner Jamie went to the comm center, more to get away from the others than anything else. But it was not to be. Jamie had barely started reviewing the task assignments for the next day when Fuchida stepped in and wordlessly pulled up the second chair.
“What is it, Mitsuo?” he asked, dreading the answer.
Fuchida pulled a minidisk out of the chest pocket of his coveralls.
“I believe I know who our saboteur is,” he said, nearly whispering.
Despite himself, Jamie asked, “Who?”
Fuchida proffered the disk. “Take a look at this.”
Sliding it into the computer port, Jamie asked, “What is it?”
“I correlated every so-called ‘accident’ with the job assignments of each one of us,” the biologist said.
Jamie saw a bewildering chart on the computer display: eight jagged lines in eight different colors marched across a gridwork background.
“It looks like the Alps,” Jamie grumbled.
Hunching closer, Fuchida traced the light blue line across the graph. “Each line represents one of us. This one is me.” His ringer moved to the red line. “That is you.”
“And the axes?”
“Abscissa plots time; ordinate plots the position of each individual. See? Here you are on the first excursion to the Canyon, with Dex, Trudy and Stacy.”
Jamie nodded. “Okay.”
“Now …” Fuchida leaned across and tapped the keyboard. Red arrows began flashing at half a dozen points along the bottom of the graph.
“The arrows represent times when ‘accidents’ occurred. This one, for example,” he touched the screen, “is when the garden dome was punctured.”
“Okay,” Jamie repeated.
Another few taps on the keyboard, then Fuchida said, “Here all the unnecessary clutter is removed.”
Jamie saw that most of the lines had disappeared from the graph. But the red arrows still flashed accusingly.
“Notice that only one individual was present at the time and place of each separate ‘accident.’”
“The yellow line,” Jamie said.
“Exactly!”
“And who does that represent?”
“Stacy.”
“Stacy?” Jamie felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. “You’re saying Stacy is the saboteur?”
Gesturing to the screen, Fuchida said, “The facts show it.”
Jamie said nothing, but his mind was racing. It can’t be Stacy. Mitsuo’s got to be wrong. He’s just throwing together some half-assed statistics—
Fuchida interrupted his train of thought. “Stacy was alone in the comm center when the garden dome was punctured. The rest of us were in our quarters, remember?”
“Yes, but—”
“She was alone in the rover when the wheel bearing burned out.”
“She wasn’t anywhere near the kiln when Tomas burned his hand.”
“True, but she had been working on the kiln just before Rodriguez took over.”
“It can’t be Stacy,” Jamie insisted. “Hell, Mitsuo, we don’t even know that there is a saboteur. These accidents are probably just that—accidents.”
Fuchida shook his head sternly.
“Now wait, Mitsuo,” Jamie said. “What about your own accident? Up on Olympus Mons. Did Stacy twist your ankle for you?”
The biologist stared at Jamie like a teacher disappointed in a student’s recitation. “Some accidents are truly accidental,” he said patiently, his voice low, almost hissing.
“Then why can’t the others be accidental?”
“Too many!” Fuchida insisted. “I ran a statistical analysis and compared it against records of other expeditions.”
“There’s only been one other expedition here.”
“No, no. expeditions to Antarctica, deep sea missions, treks across the Sahara, that kind of thing. Our accident rate is twice normal!”
Jamie took a deep, deliberate breath. Stay calm, he told himself. Look at this rationally.
“All right, Mitsuo,” he said softly. “I appreciate all the work you’ve put into this, but I just can’t believe that Stacy or anyone else among us is trying to sabotage the equipment.”
Fuchida started to reply, but Jamie cut him off. “Why? Why would somebody puncture the garden dome or tamper with the solar kiln? It’s not rational.”
“That is my point,” Fuchida whispered urgently. “This person is not rational. She is insane.”
“But wouldn’t an insane person show other symptoms?”
Fuchida spread his hands. “I don’t know.”
“We can’t make an accusation without real evidence,” Jamie said.
“My statistical analysis is not real evidence?”
“Would it hold up in a court of law?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” said Jamie.
“I am scheduled to return to Dome One tomorrow,” Fuchida said. “If Stacy realizes that I suspect her, she might try to arrange another ‘accident’ for me.”
“I can’t believe that,” Jamie said.
“I would prefer to remain here, away from her,” he said stiffly.
Jamie thought swiftly. If Mitsuo stays here, then Dex will have to go back to Dome One with Tomas. Trudy and Wiley are coming here. That means Dex will be with Vijay for the next four weeks.
“I’d rather you went as scheduled,” Jamie said.
“You could take my place,” said Fuchida.
Then I could be with Vijay, he thought. But he heard himself reply, “No, Mitsuo, I can’t do that. My place is here.”
“I don’t want to be in the dome with Stacy,” Fuchida said firmly.
Jamie looked at the biologist, studied his face, and saw that Fuchida was neither angry nor agitated. He looked scared.
“All right,” Jamie yielded, sighing. “I’ll send Dex back.”
He wondered if they weren’t all going rapidly insane.