When will it end? he asked himself. Maybe I should call Toshima and ask for his forecast. Then he thought, Why bother? It’ll end when it ends, no matter what the meteorologist says. Fingering the comforting smooth stone of the bear fetish in his pocket, Jamie told himself it was foolish to try to press things. Especially when you have no power over them. Wait out the storm. Wait out all the storms.
He felt tired, utterly tired, yet too keyed up to crawl into his bunk. Like a kid the night before Christmas. So damned tired he can barely keep his eyes open, yet too excited to go to sleep.
Connors and Ilona are spending a long time in the lab. Is she up to her old tricks again? Well, if Pete can get it up when he feels as bad as he looks, then more credit to him. And Ilona-he almost laughed-she’s like the good old Post Office: neither rain nor storm nor dark of night will stop her.
He rubbed a hand across his bristly chin. Maybe I ought to shave. If we get the antenna fixed and we’re on TV tomorrow I ought at least to try to look respectable. On the other hand, maybe I’ll look worse shaved than with a four-day growth. Maybe. Li won’t want the media to know we’re sick. Brumado must know about his daughter and the rest of us, but we sure as hell don’t want the media to pick up on it. They’ll go nuts. Martian fever. Everything we’ve accomplished will get buried the instant they suspect one of us has so much as the sniffles.
He realized that there are people on Earth who would be afraid of any Martian life. The idea of life on other worlds destroyed their comforting self-esteem, attacked their religious beliefs, shattered their view of the universe. Or worse. The UFO nuts must be going crazy! They’ll be expecting a Martian invasion, at the very least. The thought startled Jamie. Saddened him beyond measure.
Absently, his mind churning, Jamie leaned across the control panel and turned on the rover’s headlamps. Peeking through the thermal shroud again, he saw a softly diffused grayish light that revealed nothing, just a dimensionless glow like a thick, billowing fog. Thu Martian wind sang its endless song, although he thought it sounded a tone deeper than before. Is that good news or bad? he wondered.
They’re going to make us turn back tomorrow, he knew. Without getting near the cliff village. They’re going to say we’re too sick to go on and make us head back for the dome.
Jamie knew that it was the right thing to do. Four lives depended on it. Yet as he peered out at the pearly gray clouds wafting past the rover’s canopy he wondered if there were some way he could get them to agree to pushing forward instead of retreating.
I could walk it, he thought. I could walk there from here and get to see it, climb up the cliff and put my hands on it. I could do it.
And then die. There’s no way to get back again; the suit can’t keep you alive for that long. But I could at least get there and see it for myself. It wouldn’t be a bad place to die. Maybe that’s the meaning of my dream.
Tony Reed could not sleep either.
He had retired to his cubicle, of course, as had the seven others living in the dome when the lights had automatically dimmed for the night. Vosnesensky insisted on keeping exactly to the mission schedule except for dire emergencies, and Mikhail Andreivitch was becoming more of a stickler than ever, grouchy and brooding, as the illness took hold of him.
As soon as he heard the Russian’s deep snoring, like a farm tractor rumbling back and forth, Reed got up from his bunk and tiptoed in his bulky slipper socks back to his infirmary. The dome felt cold in the darkness. Reed dared not turn on the overhead lights as he padded past the silent workstations. He reached the infirmary and, sliding its door shut, groped around his desk to his chair and reached for his desktop computer as he sat down. He found its power switch by touch and turned it on. The little screen glowed orange like a cheery fire.