“Dr. Waterman, I’m going to read off a list of questions we would like you to answer. As I understand it, your answers will be screened by the government before they’re turned over to us. Please feel free to answer as completely as you want. Don’t worry about time. We can edit any redundancies or coughs or sneezes out of the final interview.”
His smile grew wider although his eyes seemed hard and intense, like a wolf’s. Jamie remembered Edith warning him that a videotape could be edited to make an interviewee look good or bad, but he barely had time to think of that before the anchorman asked his first question.
“Your records from Berkeley and the University of New Mexico show no indication that you were involved in pro-Indian activism or any causes at all, other than student housing, even though you were president of the student council in your senior year at Albuquerque. Were you politically active in secret? If not, when did you become active?”
And so it went. Jamie followed Brumado’s advice and went through the entire tape before trying to answer any of the questions. It was all the same: an attempt to get Jamie to take a stand on Indian affairs and against the U.S. government’s handling of them. The Anglo even had the gall to bring up Wounded Knee and Custer.
Abell laughed out loud at several of the questions. When the tape was finished he showed Jamie how to rewind it and then stop it at the end of each question, so that he could give his response.
“And when did you stop beating your wife?” Abell asked gleefully. “He forgot to ask you that one.”
Jamie leaned back in the flimsy plastic chair and stared at the empty screen, his mind churning. For many minutes he said nothing, remained absolutely still.
Finally Abell asked, “Are you ready?”
Behind him Jamie could hear the voices of the others and Rachmaninoff’s dark melodies. Above him he saw the curve of the dome, darkened now against the encroaching cold of the Martian night.
Beyond that thin barrier was another world waiting to be explored.
He nodded to Abell. “I’m ready.”
The anchorman’s face came back on the screen, repeating his first question with that earnest little smile that was meant to convey sincerity. The face froze on the screen as Jamie answered.
“I’ve never been active in politics of any kind, on campus or afterward. I vote every election day, but that’s about it. I consider myself to be an American citizen, just like you do. My ancestry is part Native American, part New England Yankee-a mixture of Navaho and Mayflower. To me, it’s just the same as if all my ancestors came from some country in Europe, like yours did. I’m proud of my Navaho ancestry, but no more so than you’re proud of your own heritage, whatever it may be.”
Jamie took a breath, then went on, “I’m speaking to you from the planet Mars. This afternoon my fellow scientists and I discovered water here. That is far more important than the color of my skin or the nature of my political activities. For the first time in our exploration of the solar system we have found water in a liquid state on another world. You should be interviewing us about that, not over a few words I spoke at a very emotional moment in my life. All the others of our team spoke in their native languages when they gave their first words from Mars. I spoke in mine-spoke the only words of Navaho that I really know. And that’s all there is to it. Now let’s stop this bullshit and get on with the exploration of Mars.”
He turned in his chair toward Abell. “That’s it.”
“You don’t really expect them to put that last line on the air, do you?”
“I don’t really give a damn.”
Looking slightly worried, the astronaut punched up the anchorman’s next question.
“No,” Jamie said. “That’s it. I’ve said all I have to say. Send it up to Dr. Li and on to Washington. I’ve got nothing to add to that.”
Despite himself, Li Chengdu smiled as he reviewed the tape of Jamie’s abbreviated interview. They will not like this back in Washington, but the young man has courage.