Jamie nodded at him gravely. “Japan also. Nobody in Europe paid any attention, apparently.”
“It was probably too cloudy that night,” Reed said.
“The supernova was visible to the naked eye for twenty-three days,” Jamie countered. “The Chinese records show that. So do the drawings my ancestors made. Even in England the sky must have been clear for part of that time, but nobody there bothered to look up. Either that, or they were too ignorant of the stars to notice a new one blazing away each night.”
Ilona made a low whistle. Naguib chuckled softly. The others grinned and nodded.
Tony Reed got slowly to his feet and made a slight bow in Jamie’s direction. “Touché,” he said. “And now, if no one objects, I think I’ll make myself a spot of dinner.”
One by one the others got up and began to prepare their evening meals. Jamie sat alone at the table, staring at his damaged helmet, wondering why human beings had to inflict pain on one another to gain respect.
MARS ARRIVAL
For all the months that they had coasted across the dark emptiness between worlds, the members of the expedition had watched Mars steadily grow from a bright red star to a ruddy disc to a fully three-dimensional globe that hung before their eyes like a gigantic prize waiting to be seized.
Once the two spacecraft established themselves in orbit around the planet Jamie found himself spending hours at the observation port watching the strange world of rust and brick and almost bloody reds. The window bristled with instruments now, but peering between them Jamie could see Mars sliding past his feasting eyes slowly as the spacecraft turned in its stately revolutions. Jamie saw massive volcano cones projecting upward like the turreted eyes of lizards, staring at him impassively. The vast twisted gash of Valles Marineris called to him with memories of river-carved canyons back home.
He saw dust storms spring up and sweep across a quarter of the globe before dying away as mysteriously as they had started. Huge craters smashed out by ancient meteor strikes; some of them had blasted out the smaller meteoroids that had eventually made their way to Earth to be found on the Antarctic ice.
“Are you ready to go down there and start to work?”
Jamie recognized Ilona Malater’s throaty voice even before he turned his head.
He nodded solemnly. “Aren’t you?”
She gave a wintry smile. “After nine months in this concentration camp I’d be willing to run along the sand dunes in the nude.”
Jamie laughed.
In the reflected reddish light of Mars Ilona’s haughty face looked almost as coppery as Jamie’s. Her short-cropped golden hair took on glints of fire.
“Have you remained celibate?” she asked, the corners of her lips curving upward slightly.
It was more of a challenge than a question, Jamie thought. He nodded once more.
“You must have interesting dreams,” Ilona said.
He felt a surge of anger heating his face. “You know, Ilona, you have a reputation for being the local sex therapist.”
Her smile widened. “And why not? Tony Reed assures me that no one aboard is carrying any communicable diseases worse than the cold you gave us all. Why not make life a little less tedious?”
“Less tedious, maybe, but a lot more tense.”
“Really?” Ilona arched a brow. “I would think that sex lowers tensions among us.”
“Not among the Russians.”
“Oh, them! Let them jerk each other off.”
Jamie huffed and turned away from her.
“You’re such a prude, Jamie,” Ilona said, still smiling. “I thought that once we made love you would relax, but you’re not the kind who can take sex casually, are you?”
“That’s why we’re here,” he shot back, jabbing a finger toward the observation window and the red bulk of Mars hanging beyond. “To explore that planet. Not for high-school fun and games.”
“My god, you’re so serious!”
“We’re on a serious mission, Ilona. Very serious.”
“I’m not hurting anyone. In fact, I think the tensions aboard this prison would have been a lot worse.” Her eyes were dancing with amusement. “Tony agrees with me; he says my contributions to the team’s morale have been invaluable.”