Still they were exhausted by the time the sun had finally dropped behind the ragged horizon at their backs and the dark cold shadows of night overtook their vehicle. Two straight days of continuous driving, much of it detours around ridges too steep to climb or crevasses too deep to traverse, had sapped them physically and emotionally. They ate a sparse dinner in moody silence; then Vosnesensky checked in with Dr. Li and the base camp. Everything was going smoothly at the base, and to Jamie’s continuing surprise and delight, Li still did not order them to turn around and return to the domed camp.
“The mission controllers haven’t vetoed our excursion,” he said, leaning back on the bench that would later unfold to be his bunk. Vosnesensky sat across from him, the narrow folding table between them.
“Not yet,” said the cosmonaut, like a man waiting for the ax to fall.
Feeling something between guilt and embarrassment, Jamie said, “I’m sorry I had to go over your head about this.”
Vosnesensky shrugged his heavy shoulders. “It was your right to do so.” He looked into Jamie’s eyes and added, “My responsibility was to stick to the mission plan until higher authority changed the plan. I was only doing my duty. I was not objecting on personal grounds.”
A tendril of relief wormed along Jamie’s spine. “Then you’re not angry?”
“Why should I be? Do you think you scientists have a monopoly on curiosity?”
Jamie smiled broadly. “That’s great! I was afraid I’d made you sore.”
The Russian grinned back at him. “Not so. Once Dr. Li took the responsibility of allowing this change in the traverse, my objections vanished. I would like to see this Grand Canyon too.”
Jamie slept soundly, dreaming of Mesa Verde and his grandfather.
They awakened after their third night aboard the rover at the first eerie light of dawn, the faintest pale pink brightening of the sky along the flat eastern horizon. Jamie pulled his coveralls over his briefs, then set up the folding table between their bunks and popped two precooked breakfasts into the microwave while Vosnesensky was in the lavatory. The Russian, already in his tan coveralls and soft slipper-socks, spooned down his steaming oatmeal while Jamie took his turn at the toilet.
As Jamie was washing up he heard Vosnesensky shout, “Jamie! Look at this!”
He ducked out of the narrow lavatory and saw that Vosnesensky was up in the cockpit. Squeezing past the table, Jamie hurried there.
Vosnesensky had pulled back the thermal shroud. The plastiglass bubble canopy was twinkling with faintly glistening little glimmers that winked on and disappeared like fireflies. Jamie felt his breath catch in his throat.
“Dewdrops,” Vosnesensky said. “Morning dew.”
“It condenses on the glass.” Jamie reached out his fingers to touch the bubble. It was cold but dry inside. Even while he watched more tiny droplets appeared and flickered out, evaporating before his eyes, vanishing so quickly that he would have missed them altogether if others had not glimmered into brief existence. Like tiny diamonds they sparkled for a heartbeat and then were gone. After a few minutes they stopped completely. Jamie realized that he would never have suspected they had been there if he had not seen them himself. Mikhail caught them at just the right moment.
“There is moisture in the air here,” the Russian said. “A little, at least.”
“Frost,” Jamie murmured. “Must be ice particles that form in the air at night. They melted on the warm surface…”
“And evaporated immediately.”
“Where’s the moisture coming from?” Jamie asked. Turning to the Russian, “Mikhail, how far are we from the canyon?”
“An hour’s drive, perhaps a little more.” Vosnesensky slid into the pilot’s seat and punched up a map display on the control panel’s central screen. “Yes, about one hour.”
“Let’s get going! Right away! I’ll drive.”
“I will drive,” said Vosnesensky firmly. “You are too excited. You would drive like a cowboy, not an Indian.” Then he chuckled deep in his throat at his own wit.
Jamie blinked at the Russian. Humor, from Mikhail? That’s even more rare than morning dew on Mars.
Now the rover lurched and swayed as Vosnesensky threaded between rocks and over ridges, every ounce of his attention focused on his driving. He had the throttle full out and the segmented vehicle was making its best speed across the rusted desert. To Jamie, sitting at Vosnesensky’s right, the rover was a large metal caterpillar inching its way across the Martian landscape. The dusty red ground was strewn with rocks, as everywhere, although craters seemed to be much fewer than farther west. Boulders as large as houses lay here and there, making Jamie itch to go out and investigate them.