“You’re right, Rava,” he said slowly, his voice deep and calm and implacable. “Only three days. I’ll do everything I can to help you learn as much as possible during our stay at Pavonis. But after three days we go back.”
“So you can ride out to the canyon.”
“Yes.”
“And look for your absurd cliff dwellings.”
“Look for life.”
“Bah! Nonsense! Absolute nonsense.”
“Rava, if I truly had my way we would stay here on Mars for a year or more. We would have new teams arriving. We would be exploring this planet on a rational scientific basis. But I don’t have my way. None of us does.”
“You have more of your way than I have of mine,” Patel grumbled.
Jamie acknowledged the point with a dip of his head. “Yes, that’s so. But if you want to come back to Mars someday and spend as much time as you like studying these volcanoes, then we’ve got to bring the politicians something that they can’t ignore. They can’t ignore evidence of life, Rava. And the most likely place to find life- even evidence of extinct life-is at the bottom of Tithonium Chasma.”
“There are other places,” Naguib said, “equally likely. Hellas, for example…”
“We can’t reach that far on this mission,” said Jamie. “It’s halfway around the planet. The canyon is as far as we can get this time, and even that’s stretching things.”
“You can be perfectly rational, can’t you, when you are getting what you want,” Patel said.
“I’m not going to argue with you, Rava,” Jamie replied. “I understand how you feel. I’d feel the same way if our positions were reversed.”
“Yes, of course.”
Jamie slid out from behind the narrow table and stood at his full height. Looking down at Patel he said, “If my jaunt out to the canyon had been scrubbed in favor of extending your stay at the volcanoes, I’d be sore as hell. But I’d accept it and try to do my best to make your excursion a success.”
Patel turned away from him.
Mironov, his usual smile long disappeared, said quietly, “I suggest that we drop this topic of conversation. The mission plan is firm. We spend the next three days at Pavonis Mons and then return to the base. No further arguments.”
Jamie nodded and headed up toward the cockpit. Naguib made a small shrug of acceptance. Patel grimaced and stared after Jamie, his dark eyes burning.
When Tony Reed tried to sleep he heard the night wind of Mars moaning outside the dome. The noise unsettled him. One little meteor hit, a bit of dust so small that they could find no trace of it afterward, had almost killed them all. Oh, it’s very well for Vosnesensky and the others to boast that all the safety systems worked and we were never in actual danger. My left foot! We could have all been asphyxiated. No, we wouldn’t have lasted that long. The blood and fluids in our bodies would have boiled. We would have popped like overcooked sausages, exploded like pricked balloons.
He shuddered beneath his light blanket.
I’m not a coward. Tony almost said it aloud. He pictured his father standing over his cot, glowering at him. I’m not a coward. It isn’t cowardly to fear real danger. We’re constantly on the edge of death here. Each breath we draw might be our last.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to force himself to sleep. Unbidden, the memory of his mother came to him: all the times she let him crawl into bed with her when a clap of thunder or some other noise had frightened him.
He wished his mother were here to comfort him now. Ilona had refused to come to his bed once they had landed on Mars. If he suggested it to Monique she would smile and pat his cheek and walk away, laughing softly to herself. He was certain of that.
Joanna. If only Joanna would come to him, comfort him. He needed her warmth here on this world of cold and danger. He longed to feel her arms enfold him in safety.
DOSSIER:
ANTONY NORVILLE REED
Tony Reed was barely four years old, lying in a hospital bed feeling very small and very frightened. His father bustled in, bundled in a heavy dark overcoat and a muffler striped gray and red, his nose and cheeks pinkly glowing from the winter’s cold that frosted the hospital windows.