After a few Japanese bows and hisses, the meteorologist explained that he had the comm watch for the moment. Zieman was manning the link with Vosnesensky, in the second rover.
Li wanted to inquire about Vosnesensky’s rescue attempt, but instead he heard himself say, “Can you put me through to Dr. Reed, please?”
The only indication of surprise from Toshima was the barest instant of hesitation before he replied, “Yes, sir. Of course.”
It took a few minutes but at last Reed’s face appeared on his screen. The Englishman was sitting in the rover cockpit, the expression on his face wary, guarded.
“I would like to have a medical report,” Li said.
Reed ran a finger across his moustache. “Well-Ivshenko’s knee will need to be drained once we get back to the dome and I have the proper facilities for it. Vosnesensky is progressing well enough, but he’s exhausted and quite weak. It takes several days to recover from scurvy, even with high doses of vitamin C.”
“And the others?”
“Difficult to say. Waterman apparently feels well enough to walk from his rover to ours, although he seems to be moving awfully slowly.”
Li ran out of questions. He sat in front of the display screen, trying to find a polite way, a way that was not painful, to bring up the subject he really wanted to discuss.
“I am in the process of making my report to Kaliningrad,” he said at last.
“Yes,” Reed responded.
“I intend to give you full credit for deducing the nature of the illness and its cause.”
The Englishman seemed to stiffen. “And full blame, I should think, for not being clever enough to deduce it sooner.”
“There is no blame…”
“Responsibility, blame, it’s all the same thing, isn’t it? I was the responsible man, the medical officer. I fouled up. That’s the simple truth of it.”
“No one could foresee that a meteor strike would have such consequences.”
“No?” Reed almost smirked. “Then what are you going to put into your report, that it was an act of god?”
“It was an unforeseen chain of events,” Li said.
The Englishman shook his head. “That won’t wash. A mission such as this can’t admit to an unforeseen chain of events. The controllers in Kaliningrad and Houston want everything planned and spelled out in the finest detail. Unforeseen events are not allowed. For god’s sake, that’s why they’re called controllers, isn’t it?”
“I do not want you to be the scapegoat.”
“How can you avoid it?”
The answer came to Li as he spoke. “By emphasizing that you discovered the cause of the malady and have taken the necessary steps to cure it.”
“And deemphasizing that my clumsiness caused it, and it took me weeks to realize what had happened? No matter how you write your report, that fact will stand out like a lighthouse beacon. As it should.”
“You are too hard on yourself.”
“Not as hard as Kaliningrad will be. My career in the Mars Project is over. Or it will be, once we get back. We both know that.”
Li studied the Englishman’s image on his screen. Reed had changed; it seemed as if he had aged. There were lines around his mouth that he had never noticed before. And yet, he did not appear to be angry, or even particularly unhappy. Reed seemed strangely satisfied with the idea that he would be blamed for the illness. He seemed almost relieved to think that he would never be permitted to return to Mars.
EARTH
HOUSTON: “It must be bad,” said Alberto Brumado. “Very bad. Joanna refuses to speak to me. Something must be terribly wrong.”
For the first time since Edith had met him, Brumado looked his sixty-some years. His face was lined with worry; his boyish grin had been replaced by a somber, fearful frown.
She sat on the bed next to him. “Do you think the project people aren’t telling you the whole story?”
They had taken adjoining rooms at one of the dozen hotels lining the road that passed the Johnson Space Center, neither Brumado nor Edith even thinking ahead far enough to consider who would pay for her room. As they had checked in, Edith had noticed that the lobby was filling up with reporters and camera crews. They sensed that something was happening, a big news story was about to break. Somebody was leaking information.