Grechko smiled with tea-stained teeth when he saw DiNardo. The two men bent over to wash their hands side by side. The priest saw in the mirror above his sink that he should have shaved before coming to this meeting. His jaw and skull were dark with stubble. Then he glanced at Grechko’s face.
Director of the Russian Space Research Institute, Grechko was well into his sixties, his sparse hair totally gray. The jacket of his dark suit seemed to hang on him, as if he had recently lost weight. Is he ill? DiNardo wondered. The quizzical little smile that Grechko always wore was still in place; he seemed to be bemused by the world constantly. Yet he had clawed his way to the top of the Russian scientific hierarchy, a member of their academy and head of the institute that directed their space efforts.
As they shouldered their way out of the men’s room Grechko asked, “You have recovered fully from your surgery?”
“Oh yes,” said DiNardo, unconsciously running a hand across his side. “As long as I am careful with my diet I am in fine condition.”
The Russian nodded. DiNardo noticed that their suits were almost the same shade. Except for my collar we might have gotten our outfits at the same place, he thought.
“Meetings like this give me an ulcer,” Grechko muttered, getting into the tea line. “Not even Brumado can keep order.”
“We have an enormous decision to make, whether to allow another excursion to the Grand Canyon or not. If we do, it will cut short all the other traverses.”
“Or eliminate them altogether.”
DiNardo asked, “How do you feel about it?”
“I have no strong opinion, scientifically speaking,” said the physicist. He lowered his voice to the point where DiNardo had to lean close to hear him over the buzz of the crowd. “But I can tell you that our mission directors have already convinced the politicians to let the American go back to Tithonium.”
“Really?”
Grechko nodded, his ever-present smile temporarily replaced by something close to a scowl.
DiNardo mused, “I wonder how the Americans feel about it?”
“There is Brownstein, we can ask him.”
Murray Brownstein was taller than the Italian priest and the Russian physicist by several inches, yet his back was so stooped that he looked almost small, slight, in his gray jacket and off-white chino slacks. His face was California tan, his once-golden hair now graying and so thin that he combed it forward to cover as much of his high forehead as possible. Where DiNardo looked like a swarthy overaged wrestler and Grechko resembled a pleasantly puzzled old man, Brownstein had an air of intense dissatisfaction about him, as if the world never quite managed to please him.
He saw Grechko and DiNardo coming toward him and immediately flicked his eyes toward an empty corner down the corridor. Without a word the three men fell into step and walked away from the crowd at the refreshment table: Grechko with a glass of tea in his hand, Brownstein holding a can of diet cola, DiNardo empty-handed.
“What do you think of all this?” Brownstein spoke first as they reached the corner. His voice was low, tight, like a conspirator who was afraid of being overheard.
DiNardo made an Italian gesture. “Brumado has given our colleagues a chance to vent their anger, but now even he is growing short-tempered.”
Brownstein said bitterly, “It’s all a frigging waste of time. Our government’s already made its decision.”
“You are not pleased?” asked Grechko.
“I don’t like scientific decisions being made in Washington and then rammed down my throat.”
DiNardo said, “But perhaps the decision is a good one. After all, the canyon is an extremely interesting environment. If I had been allowed my own way, the teams would have been landed on the canyon floor.”
“Much too risky for the first mission,” Grechko said flatly.
“I disagreed then, and I disagree now,” DiNardo said, without a trace of rancor.
“The science may be okay,” Brownstein said. “It’s the politics that rankles me. If we allow the politicians to override our decisions…”
DiNardo interrupted, “But that is why this meeting was called. So that we scientists could make our decision and then inform the politicians of it.”