But they stayed inside the rover, comfortable in their coveralls, and stuck to their low-speed dash toward the Grand Canyon of Mars. Jamie gripped the stone fetish in his pocket. There’s moisture in the air in the morning, he kept repeating to himself. It must be coming from the canyon. Must be.
He worried in the back of his mind that Dr. Li’s approval might be countermanded by someone in the chain of command on Earth. He wanted to be at their destination when such a signal came in- or so close that they could do some exploring before they had to obey the command to return to base. Mikhail seems to want it too, Jamie thought. In his own way he’s as excited as I am.
“I have never met an Indian before,” Vosnesensky said abruptly, without taking his eyes from his driving.
“I’m not much of an Indian,” Jamie replied. “I was brought up to be a white man.”
“But you are not white.”
“No, not entirely.” The rover jounced over a little rill, bouncing Jamie in his seat. “In the States we have people from every part of the world-all the nationalities of Europe, Asians, Africans…”
“I have heard about the problems of your blacks. We learned in school how they are hold down by your racist system.”
Jamie felt himself bristling. “Then why is the only black man on Mars an American? Why haven’t the African nations joined in this expedition?”
“Because they are poor,” the Russian answered, deftly maneuvering the rover around a new-looking crater about the size of a swimming pool. “They cannot afford luxuries such as space exploration. They can barely feed their people.”
“Is this really a luxury, Mikhail? Do you think that reaching out into space is a waste of money?”
“No.” Vosnesensky’s answer was immediate and firm beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Thinking of the run-down pueblos and crumbling old adobe homes in New Mexico, Jamie mused, “I wonder. Sometimes I think the money could have been better used to help poor people.”
The Russian shot him a quick glance, then returned to his driving. For long moments he said nothing and Jamie watched the dusty red land pass by, rocks, tired worn gullies, craters, little wind-stirred dunes. Off toward the horizon he saw a dust swirl, as red as a devil, spiraling into the pink morning sky.
“What we do helps the poor,” Vosnesensky said. “We are not taking bread from their mouths. We are enlarging the habitat of the human species. History has shown that every expansion of the human habitat has brought about an increase in wealth and a rise in living standards. That is objective fact.”
“But the poor are still with us,” Jamie said.
A slight note of exasperation crept into the Russian’s voice. “The Soviet Federation alone has spent thousands of billions on aid to poor nations. The United States even more. This expedition to Mars has not hurt the poor. What we spend here is a pittance compared to what they have already received. And what good does it do for them? They go out and produce more babies, make a new generation of poor. A larger generation. It is endless.”
“So they’re not going hungry because we’re here on Mars.”
“Definitely not. They lack discipline, that is their problem. In the Soviet Federation we pulled ourselves up from a backward agricultural society to a powerful industrial nation in a single generation.”
Yes, Jamie replied silently, with Stalin in the driver’s seat. He didn’t care how many millions starved while he built his factories and power plants.
“But tell me, what was it like when you were growing up in New Mexico? It is near Texas?”
“Yes,” Jamie said. “Between Arizona and Texas.”
“I have been there. Houston.”
“New Mexico is nothing like Houston.” Jamie laughed. Then, “Actually, I did most of my growing up in California. Berkeley. That’s where my parents taught, at the university. I was a kid when we moved there. But I spent a lot of my summers in Santa Fe, with my grandfather.”
It had been a trying day. Jamie was almost seventeen, finishing high school, a vast disappointment to his parents because he had no clear idea of what he wanted to study in college.