“They’re coming,” Ilona said in a choked whisper. “They’re coming to save us.”
“Three cheers for our side,” said Connors weakly.
Jamie remained in the cockpit and watched their rescuers approaching. More than an hour went by as the rover trundled closer, agonizingly slow, with Ivshenko out front testing the ground. A blind man leading an elephant, Jamie thought.
“Now be careful,” he said to the cosmonauts. “You see where the ground starts to break up into a series of little sand ripples?”
Vosnesensky’s image in the display screen nodded its head. Ivshenko said from inside his helmet, “Yes, it is about fifty meters in front of me.”
“That’s where the crater rim is, I’m pretty sure,” Jamie said. “It’s filled with this very loose sand, more like dust. You’ll have to take the rover around it. Otherwise you’ll get stuck too.”
Vosnesensky was peering at it suspiciously. “It seems quite wide.” “I know. But you can work your way around it, can’t you?” “Going down, perhaps. I wonder about going up again.” Ivshenko’s voice said, “It might be best to stop the rover at the edge of the loose soil and let me go through the area on foot. Then we can connect a safety line and winch them across to our rover.”
“Can all four of you get into your hard suits?” Vosnesensky asked.
“Yes,” said Jamie. “I think so.”
“I hesitate to risk getting the second rover stuck, too.”
“I understand. We can get into suits and you can winch us across the soft stuff-if we can set up a line from your vehicle to ours.” “Very good. That is what we will do.”
Dr. Li Chengdu had never in his life felt so hesitant about making a report. This could ruin everything, he knew. It will reflect poorly on my ability as a leader; it will devastate the mission control team. If the politicians and the media find out about it, it will destroy our chances for further missions to Mars.
Yet he had to report on the scurvy and the chain of events that had led to it. There was nothing else that Li could do except tell the facts to the men and women who directed the mission. There is no way to cover it up, Li realized. Nor would it be proper to do so. Even to think of a cover-up is criminal. No matter what affect this has on my career or the careers of others.
Scurvy. Everyone on the ground team nearly killed by scurvy because they had overlooked the fact that pure oxygen had deactivated their crucially needed vitamin C supply. The politicians will jump to the conclusion that the traverse team got stuck in their rover because the scurvy sapped their strength and their judgment. And now Vosnesensky, of all people, is disobeying orders and trying to rescue them.
Vosnesensky. Wait until the mission controllers sink their teeth into that morsel! What a mess. What a confounded, convoluted, unequivocal disaster.
Li knew he had to tell the facts to Kaliningrad. Still he hesitated.
Pacing his private cubicle in three long-legged strides, back and forth, back and forth, he passed his desktop computer a dozen times without even thinking of starting to file his report.
Even if I wanted to hide the facts it would be impossible. They will know soon enough that we are not evacuating the dome, as ordered. He agonized for hours. How to put the best face on this disaster. How to tell the news in a way that will not destroy any chance for future missions to Mars. How to admit my own inadequacy without ruining my chances for the future.
That is the important thing. How to tell this terrible news in a way that will not destroy our chances for the future. That is the vital thing.
Virtually all of the reports from the ground team were made orally and transcribed into hard copy automatically by the computers in the spacecraft and back at Kaliningrad. Li alone regularly wrote out his reports and transmitted them in written form. But what can I write now? What words can soften this news?
Like a caged cheetah he paced back and forth, seeking a way out and finding none. Finally, in an agony of reluctance, he sat at his little desk and began pecking on the computer keyboard with his long manicured fingers.