NIGHT: SOL 359
STRANGE, JAMIE THOUGHT AS HE STRIPPED OFF HIS COVERALLS, there’s just the two of us in this whole dome, yet we hardly said a dozen words to each other all day.
Dex and Rodriguez were trundling back to Dome One, where the astronaut would pick up Trudy Hall and bring her back to the Canyon site. Rodriguez was whistling all the way, grinning like a cat with canaries on its mind.
We’re beating a regular road between the two domes, Jamie said to himself. Like the ruts the Conestoga wagons left across the prairies.
He hadn’t deliberately avoided Fuchida after the rover departed, and neither of them had suited up to work outside, but somehow he and the biologist seemed to be on opposite ends of the dome most of the day. They had even eaten at different times, each one alone in the galley.
I’m sore at him, Jamie realized. I’m pissed off that he’s made me send Dex back to Dome One. Him and his paranoid accusations! Stacy’s no saboteur and she’s not a neurotic. She’s probably saner than all the rest of us put together.
Then who’s responsible for these accidents? Jamie asked himself. Nobody, came the immediate reply. They’re just accidents.
Still … Jamie thought about talking it over with Vijay. She’s the psychologist here, she ought to know about this. Yet he hesitated. What Fuchida had told him was in confidence; telling Vijay about it would be a breach of the biologist’s trust.
Which is more important? Jamie demanded silently. Keeping Mitsuo’s paranoia a secret, or protecting the mental well-being of the whole expedition?
He knew what the answer should be. Yet when he called Vijay it wasn’t to protect the expedition and he knew it. He called her because he wanted to see her face, hear her voice. Because for the next four weeks she would be with Dex and he’d be an overnight trip away.
She was awake. Her hair was down, hanging loosely about her shoulders. Which were bare. She was obviously in her own cubicle, preparing for bed. When she saw it was Jamie, she smiled warmly out of his laptop screen.
“Hi, mate,” she said cheerfully. “How’re the bots biting?”
“Bots?”
“Insects,” she said.
“No bites,” Jamie answered. “No insects.”
“One of the blessings we should be thankful for, eh?”
She seemed genuinely pleased to be talking with him, Jamie thought. Then he realized he must be grinning like a schoolboy at her. But he felt his grin fade as he remembered his reason for calling.
“I think I’ve got something of a problem here,” Jamie said, lowering his voice.
“Oh? Serious?”
“You tell me.” He swiftly outlined Fuchida’s behavior, leaving the biologist’s name out of it.
Vijay listened intently. When Jamie finished, she said, “This isn’t Dex you’re talking about, is it?”
“No,” he admitted, shaking his head slightly.
“And it’s certainly not Tommy.”
Jamie said nothing.
“So it must be either you or Mitsuo.”
“Does it matter who it is?”
“Of course it matters,” she said. “And since you’re so reluctant to name a name, I’ve got to assume it’s Mitsuo.”
“So much for keeping secrets,” Jamie muttered.
“How’s he performing? In his work, I mean.”
“Fine. As good as ever.”
“Why din’t he come back here this trip? He was scheduled to return here, wasn’t he?”
Jamie took a breath. “He didn’t want to be with Stacy. He’s afraid she’ll go off the deep end or something.”
“H’m,” said Vijay, her brows knitting. “Interesting.”
“Well?”
Vijay seemed lost in thought.
“What should I do about him?” Jamie demanded. Her dark eyes focused on Jamie again. “Nothing much you can do. He’s not bonkers. And I doubt that he’s dangerous, unless …” Her voice trailed off. “Unless?” Jamie prompted.
Vijay bit her lip momentarily, then replied, “Unless he’s been causing these accidents himself and projecting the blame onto Stacy.” Jamie felt stunned.
“I don’t think that’s the case,” Vijay added quickly. “It was just a thought.”
“Some thought.”
“How do you feel about all this? Are you convinced these accidents are really accidental?”
“I was, but now … I just don’t know.”
“I see.”
“I’m getting paranoid, too,” Jamie said.
“Not unusual in these circumstances. Everybody gets suspicious of everybody.”
“What should I do?” Jamie asked again.
Vijay shrugged her bare shoulders. “Not much you can do, Jamie. Keep an eye on him. Listen to him sympathetically. Humor him. I’ll find a reason to come over to your site and talk with him.” “Okay. Good.”
“ ’Fraid that’s all I can offer you right now, mate.”
“It’s a relief just to talk it over with you.”
She smiled again, but now there was a tinge of sadness in it. “Yes, it’s good to talk with you, too.”
He wanted to tell her that he missed her, he wanted to say that he needed her warmth, her comfort, her presence in his life. But he couldn’t form the words. Instead he simply said, “Thanks, Vijay.”
She too seemed lost for the proper words. For long moments the two of them simply stared at each other in their screens.
At last Vijay said, “G’night, Jamie.”
“Goodnight.”
Her image winked off. The screen went dark. Jamie stripped off his underwear and stretched out on his cot. He grinned up into the shadows of the darkened dome.
She’s coming here! She’s going to find an excuse to come over here. I ought to thank Mitsuo.
His last thought before he fell asleep was about her bare shoulders. Was she wearing anything while they talked? Had she really been naked?
Fuchida seemed to brighten once Trudy joined them. The two biologists started chattering together as soon as she came through the access tunnel. The following morning they rode the Buckyball cables down to the Canyon floor to work on the lichen together.
Rodriguez was obviously happier. He and Trudy bunked together, no pretenses and no questions asked. Jamie had to admit that Trudy made everything brighter. If only she didn’t thump around the dome before daybreak every morning with her incessant jogging.
The only sour notes came from Dex. He called Jamie each day to report on the progress of the next expedition’s preparations.
“Dear old Dad passed his physicals,” Dex said dolorously. “His blood pressure was completely normal. God knows how much medication he took before the test.”
The next day Dex reported, “My old man sent me a message about our attempt to get the ICU to claim our territory on Mars. He sat there behind his big fucking desk just as calm and cool as a glacier and told me if I tried another stunt like that he’d disinherit me.”
“Oh no,” Jamie groaned.
Dex’s grin was ferocious. “Like I need his fucking money. I can have my pick of university chairs when I get back home.”
Jamie warned gently, “A professor’s salary isn’t quite the same as the kind of money you’re accustomed to, Dex.”
With an impatient wave of his hand, Dex said, “I know how to make money, pal. Been watching my father do it all my life. Let him write me out of his will! I don’t give a shit! I’ll show him I can live damn well without him or his money!”
Sure you will, Jamie answered silently. Aloud, he said to Dex, “Don’t cut off your nose—”
“Bullshit!” Dex snapped. “He’s trying to chop off my balls. I’ll show him.”
It wasn’t until hours afterward that Jamie realized he was no longer worried that Dex and Vijay might be getting involved with each other. A few months ago such a realization would have made Jamie very happy, but now he was more worried about Dex’s father and his coming to claim this part of Mars for his business schemes.
He wondered why he no longer worried about Vijay and Dex. It wasn’t because he didn’t care about her. He did, more than he could admit to her. But all these personal relationships were tangled here on Mars. She’s right to keep it from getting too heavy. We won’t get things truly settled between us until we return to Earth, Jamie told himself. If then.
The important thing, the vital thing, is to keep Darryl C. Trumball from doing to Mars what his forefathers did to the Native Americans.
Jamie’s grandfather came to him again in a dream.
But not at first. Jamie’s dream began in the cliff structure, bare, cold and abandoned. He walked through each of the silent, empty chambers as he had done every day now for many months. He was free of his hard suit, though, striding slowly, purposefully through the rooms in nothing more than his frayed and worn coveralls.
He touched the walls, traced his fingertips along the graceful curved lines of the writing etched into their stones. He could feel the warmth of the sun glowing from the secret symbols.
Alone, he turned and left the abandoned temple, then climbed slowly down the narrow, steep steps carved so painfully into the rugged face of the cliff. The village waited for him down on the Canyon floor, where the river ran peacefully through bountiful fields of crops.
The People were there, alive and vital as he himself, but they paid him no attention. They went about their tasks, men gathering together in the central square and talking together animatedly, pointing off to a distant horizon, a rendezvous with the future. Women sat by their doorways, weaving fine baskets while their children ran and played boisterously. There was laughter and the warmth of life everywhere.
They were real and he was a pale ghost, almost invisible to them. He knew their faces, the sturdy broad-cheeked faces of his own ancestors. Their dark hair and darker eyes. He searched for his grandfather but could not find him.
Then a commotion at the far end of the village. A disturbance. People stopped in their tracks to stare down the long street. Men began running toward the noise, their faces frowning with anger, perhaps fear.
Strangers were there, pale men on snorting, stamping horses. Jamie recognized one of them as Dairyl C. Trumball. He was shouting commands, pointing with one hand while he kept his plunging, neighing horse under control with his other.
Then Grandfather Al appeared out of the crowd. He wore his best suit, dark blue, with a turquoise-and-silver bolo at the open collar of his crisp white shirt. Hatless, he strode up to Trumball.
“You can’t come here,” Grandfather Al said, in a stronger voice than Jamie had ever heard in life. “Go away!”
Trumball blustered. “We’re taking over here. You’ll be taken care of, don’t worry. I’ll see to it that you’re protected.”
“We don’t want your protection,” Al said. “We don’t need it.”
“You’ll have to go,” Trumball insisted.
Grandfather Al turned slightly and beckoned toward Jamie. “No, we’re not going. You’re the one who’ll have to leave. Jamie, show him the paper.”
Jamie realized he had a scroll of paper clutched tightly in his right hand. He stepped up to Trumball, still atop his impatient horse.
And woke up.