One part of the habitat module was different. A section toward the rear was devoted to an oblong window made of thick quartz. Once they got to Mars, this observation port would be studded with cameras and other sensors. For now, though, it made a fine picture window.
The hour they were scheduled to depart, Jamie found himself at the observation port, hovering easily in zero g, his slippered feet dangling a few centimeters above the foot restraints set into the metal floor. He saw the Earth sliding past, an enormously massive curve of deep luminous blue, then the duller green-brown of land and the hard gray wrinkles of a mountain chain, dusted with clutching skeletal fingers of white snow. Another ocean slid into view, the immense swirl of a tropical storm’s seething clouds forming a gigantic gray-white comma over the water.
“Those are the Andes Mountains.”
Joanna had come up beside him, floating noiselessly. He had not noticed, he had been staring at the world so intently.
“Come to say good-bye to Mother Earth?” Jamie asked her.
“Not good-bye,” she whispered. “We will return.”
“Adios, then.”
She nodded absently as she slipped her feet into the floor loops, her eyes on the world they were about to leave.
“I still can hardly believe I’m here,” Jamie said. “It’s kind of like a dream.”
Joanna glanced up at him. “We have a long and difficult journey ahead of us. Hardly a dream.”
“It is for me.”
She almost smiled. “You are a romantic.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No,” Joanna said. “Women must be practical. Men can be the romantics. Women must think about the consequences.”
“Departure in three minutes,” came a Russian-accented voice over the speaker in the ceiling above them. “Please take your assigned seats in the forward lounge.”
Jamie took Joanna by the shoulders and kissed her on the lips, lightly, swiftly.
“For luck,” he said.
Joanna pushed free and floated away from him, her face frozen, unsmiling, her eyes wide and fearful. Without a word she turned and grabbed the edge of the hatch for purchase, then launched herself up the passageway toward the forward lounge.
Jamie waited a few moments, then went after her, moving more slowly. Then he saw Tony Reed hovering in the doorway to his cubicle, a sardonic smile on his lean face.
“I don’t think the direct approach will work with little Joanna,” Reed said.
Jamie said nothing. He pushed past Reed, heading forward.
The Englishman followed him. “I may have told you too much about our little cabal to get rid of Hoffman. Remember, my impetuous friend, that she may have wanted to have you picked for the expedition, but she certainly did not want Hoffman to come with us.”
Jamie looked over his shoulder and said, “White man speaks with forked tongue.”
Reed laughed all the way to the forward lounge.
There were no windows in the compartment. If necessary, this entire forward section of the spacecraft could be detached and flown by the pilots up in the cockpit into a reentry trajectory and an ocean splashdown. The procedure was for emergency use only; the mission plan called for the spacecraft to return to Earth orbit, where the personnel would transfer to shuttles for the final ride to Earth’s surface. But a water landing was possible, if the need arose.
Jamie had barely floundered through the swimming course required by the mission planners. He wondered how the seven other scientists strapping themselves into their cushioned chairs would handle such an emergency. Or the four astronauts and cosmonauts in the cockpit, for that matter. It would be fine irony to go all the way to Mars and back and then drown.
“Departure in thirty seconds,” came Vosnesensky’s voice from the cockpit. “I am putting an external camera view on the display screen.”
The compartment had a small screen built into its forward bulkhead. It flickered briefly, then showed the curving bulk of the blue-and-white Earth sliding past. Jamie took the last remaining seat and clicked the safety belt across his lap to prevent himself from floating out of the chair. Reed had taken the chair beside Joanna.
“Five seconds… four, three, two, one-ignition.”
The Russian’s voice was flat calm. Jamie felt a surge of pressure pushing him against the chair’s back. Nothing startling; he had driven sports cars with more acceleration. The picture of Earth on the display screen did not change discernibly.