To Jamie it looked like a recent landslide, newer and fresher than the older, bigger ones that had gouged huge alcoves out of the canyon walls. Recent, he knew, meant that it might be only a few million years old.
“Looks like a nice day,” Connors joked.
The sky was a delicate salmon pink and as cloudless as always.
Jamie cracked back, “I don’t know. Might rain in another hundred thousand years or so.”
“Damn! I left the umbrella back in Houston.”
Joanna, still standing behind the driver’s seat, said quite seriously, “Toshima said there have been an unusual number of dust storms farther north.”
“How does he define unusual?” Ilona asked.
“Compared to satellite observations over the past ten years, I suppose.”
“No storms this close to the equator, though,” Jamie said.
“Not so far,” Joanna replied. “But we do not know what causes the storms to start.”
“Or stop,” said Ilona.
Connors said, “Hell, we don’t even know what starts storms on Earth, and the meteorology guys have been studying ’em since Ben Franklin’s time.”
They stayed precisely on schedule, stopped when the shrunken sun touched the red horizon, and called in their position to Vosnesensky back at the dome. Some of the old strangeness seeped into Jamie’s soul as the four of them ate their precooked dinners. We’re out in the middle of a frozen desert, surrounded by air we can’t breathe at a temperature that can freeze our blood in seconds. How safe and homey the dome seemed now!
They sat on the padded benches that unfolded into bunks, two by two, the men on one side of the narrow table and the women on the other. Jamie took the first turn on the cleanup detail while Connors went back to the cockpit to check all the rover’s systems before retiring for the night. The women slid the table into its niche below the bottom right bunk, chatting together, then took turns in the lavatory.
Once all four bunks were unfolded the rover’s compartment became impossibly crowded. The two women took the uppers, leaving Jamie and Connors to slide into the lowers like a pair of sewer workers crawling into a tunnel. Jamie could hear Joanna and Ilona whispering together over his head like a pair of schoolgirls. No giggling, though. They seemed totally serious, whatever it was they were confiding to each other.
A sudden thought pulsed through him. Suppose Ilona tells Joanna about making out with me during the transit here! Damn! He did not want Joanna to know that.
Ilona wouldn’t do that, he told himself. It doesn’t make sense for her to talk about that. Why would she tell Joanna? It’d make a complete mess of our relationships here, cooped up in this aluminum can. She wouldn’t do that. Ilona’s smart enough to know she shouldn’t.
But there’s a strange streak in her, he realized. She has a weird sense of humor. Maybe she thinks it’d be funny.
Jamie strained his ears but could hear nothing except the wind sighing outside. The women had gone to sleep. Or at least stopped talking. It took a long time before Jamie fell into a troubled sleep, dreaming of school all over again.
Li Chengdu felt relaxed for the first time since they had taken up orbit around Mars.
We have weathered the political storms, he told himself. We are even doing some good scientific work. Despite the tragedy of Konoye’s death, the Americans and Russians have proved that they can actually extract water from the Martian moons. The next expedition will be able to refuel here and replenish most of its consumables. There will be no more need to carry every gram of water and air and rocket propellant for the entire two-way journey. Things will be easier the next time. We will even be able to establish a replenishment depot on Phobos.
He eased back in his comfortable chair and watched Vosnesensky’s heavy, dour face in his communications screen as the Russian made his evening report. The man’s normal expression is a scowl, Li thought. I don’t believe I have ever seen him so much as smile.
Vosnesensky was reporting that everything was proceeding normally. The traverse was going according to schedule; Waterman’s team should reach the lip of the canyon before sundown tomorrow. Patel and Naguib were analyzing the lava flow samples that they had brought back from Pavonis Mons. Monique Bonnet was testing other rock samples from Pavonis for evidence of life. She had found some interesting microscopic formations in the samples, but no organisms, not even organic chemicals.