“Tell me, Dmitri Iosifovitch,” Vosnesensky said aloud, his voice sounding harsh and strained even in his own ears, “where did you get such good looks?”
The younger man glanced at him, almost startled, then quickly turned back to his driving.
“My mother is Armenian, if that’s what you mean,” Ivshenko replied.
“Ah, I wondered. I thought perhaps you had some Turkish blood in you.”
Ivshenko’s nostrils flared. “No. Armenian.”
“I see,” said Vosnesensky. “And how is your love life, up there in orbit?”
Ivshenko’s grin returned. “Adequate, comrade. Quite adequate. Especially when that German physicist gets bored with her work.”
“Diels? The blonde?”
“She is teaching me things about physics that I never knew before.”
“The quest for knowledge is never-ending,” Vosnesensky agreed.
“A worthwhile goal.”
Vosnesensky started to laugh, but it made his chest hurt. He ended up coughing.
“You are in pain, Mikhail Andreivitch?”
“It’s nothing. Just a little agony.”
“Do you want to turn back?”
“No!” Vosnesensky thundered. “We go onward. No matter what happens, we go onward.”
Hours passed. They stopped the rover briefly and changed seats so that Vosnesensky could drive. Ivshenko watched him carefully, though. The younger cosmonaut had no great desire to allow his older comrade to get them both killed.
“At sundown you can take over again,” Vosnesensky said, feeling perspiration beading his face, trickling along his ribs, plastering the back of his coveralls against the seat.
“You will sleep then?”
“I will try.”
“The safety regulations forbid operating the rover unless a backup driver is awake and prepared to take over in case of an emergency. And operating at night…”
“I know the regulations quite thoroughly,” Vosnesensky snapped. “I helped to write them. This is an emergency situation; we will bend the rules a little.”
“A little,” Ivshenko murmured.
Jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, “If you get lonely while I sleep you can have our physician to keep you company.”
Ivshenko made a sour face.
Across the rubble-strewn plain they drove, south by east, the dwarf sun lowering toward the rugged horizon, throwing long blood-red shadows from every rock on the barren desert. To Vosnesensky the shadows looked like the lean claws of dead men’s hands reaching for him.
Back in the midsection of the command module Tony Reed felt every bump and dip of the rover as he sat gripping the edge of the bench with both hands. This is madness, he told himself. Why did I ever talk myself into coming out here? Penance? This is carrying expiation for one’s sins a bit too far, really.
But he stayed silent, uncomplaining, trying to hold down the fear that was building up inside him. We’re out in the middle of the empty Martian plain in this piddling little vehicle. If anything goes wrong, anything at all, we’re all dead men.
Up in the cockpit the comm unit buzzed. Ivshenko turned it on and Dr. Li’s long sallow face appeared on the screen. His mouth curved downward, his eyes looked weary, defeated.
“I have spent half the day arguing with Kaliningrad,” Li said, his voice hoarsely rasping. “The mission controllers are adamant.”
Vosnesensky grunted, but kept the rover moving forward.
“They insist that the crew in the dome must be evacuated to orbit, and only afterward can an attempt be made to rescue the team in the rover.”
“Have you told them that we are already on our way to the canyon?”
Li slowly shook his head. “No. I told them that we do not agree either with their assessment of the situation or their decision.”
“Yet they still insist?”
“Yes.”
“So what do you intend to do?”
The expedition commander tugged nervously at one end of his moustache. “It is my duty to command you to turn around and return to the dome so that you can carry out the orders from mission control.”
“Very well,” Vosnesensky said. “You have done your duty.” He reached across the control panel and turned off the communications unit. Then he slowed the rover to a halt.
Ivshenko was looking at him worriedly. “You’re going to turn around?”
Heaving a great pained sigh, Vosnesensky said, “Don’t be an idiot. You drive for the next two hours while I nap. If we go all night we could reach the canyon rim by midday tomorrow.”