Mars

SOL 34: AFTERNOON

Pete Connors frowned at the rover’s control panel as he said into the pin microphone of his headset, “The blamed fans still won’t power up to one hundred percent.”

Vosnesensky’s face was on the display screen in the center of the panel. “How high will they go?”

“Eighty, eighty-two.”

Sitting beside the astronaut, Jamie tried to keep the worried impatience tingling inside him from showing to the others. We can’t put off the departure because the air circulation fans won’t run up to max. That’s no reason to delay the traverse.

Vosnesensky’s eyes went down to the checklist in front of him. “Eighty percent is within tolerable limits,” he said doubtfully.

“I don’t think it’s gonna cause any problems, Mike,” said Connors. “The fans have always been kind of cranky.”

“You can increase the oxygen ratio if necessary,” Vosnesensky said.

“Right. Let’s go with it. We’re ready to roll.”

Connors looked deadly serious, determined. Jamie thought that the man had lost weight since they had arrived on Mars. His face looks thinner, almost haggard. I guess we all do.

Ilona was standing behind Jamie’s chair, her hands on the seat back. Joanna stood behind Connors, expectant tension drawing her lips into a tight line.

Come on, Jamie urged silently. Let’s get this show on the road.

Vosnesensky’s face pulled together in a morose little frown. He puffed out a deep breath, more of a snort than a sigh. “Very well,” he said at last. “You are cleared to proceed.”

Jamie let his own breath out as Connors nodded and replied, “Right. Here we go.”

“Dahsvedahnya. Good luck!”

“Thanks, Mike,” Connors said. He licked his lips, then nudged the accelerator pedal. The rover surged forward. Jamie turned off the comm screen before Vosnesensky could change his mind.

“We’re off,” Ilona murmured.

“Next stop, Tithonium Chasma,” said Connors, trying to sound cheerful.

Their excursion plan called for them to go directly to the canyon, stopping only at sundown and starting again at the next sunrise. There were to be no EVAs, no stops along the way to go outside and explore. Their goal was Tithonium Chasma and nothing less. Jamie wanted them to have as much time and as much food and water and other consumables at the canyon as they possibly could.

The impromptu maps that had been stitched together from the photos taken by the remotely piloted airplanes had shown that it might be possible to descend to the canyon floor along the slope of an ancient landslide that had partially filled in one section of the canyon’s cliff wall. It would be tricky going at best. Most of the old landslides had slumped down below the canyon rim, leaving a drop too steep for the rover to handle. Some of the avalanches completely filled in the canyon floor and even rode up the southern cliff face.

This one, though, seemed usable, and was within the range of their rover. Not too steep, it extended from the lip of the cliff wall down to the bottom without totally covering the canyon floor. It was narrow, compared to most of the others, barely a kilometer wide. But that would be plenty of room for the rover. If the rubble was firm enough to ride over without getting bogged down. If the slope was gentle enough all the way to the bottom; the aerial photos could not catch all the details of every inch of the slide.

To Jamie it looked like a recent landslide, newer and fresher than the older, bigger ones that had gouged huge alcoves out of the canyon walls. Recent, he knew, meant that it might be only a few million years old.

“Looks like a nice day,” Connors joked.

The sky was a delicate salmon pink and as cloudless as always.

Jamie cracked back, “I don’t know. Might rain in another hundred thousand years or so.”

“Damn! I left the umbrella back in Houston.”

Joanna, still standing behind the driver’s seat, said quite seriously, “Toshima said there have been an unusual number of dust storms farther north.”

“How does he define unusual?” Ilona asked.

“Compared to satellite observations over the past ten years, I suppose.”

“No storms this close to the equator, though,” Jamie said.

“Not so far,” Joanna replied. “But we do not know what causes the storms to start.”

“Or stop,” said Ilona.

Connors said, “Hell, we don’t even know what starts storms on Earth, and the meteorology guys have been studying ’em since Ben Franklin’s time.”

They stayed precisely on schedule, stopped when the shrunken sun touched the red horizon, and called in their position to Vosnesensky back at the dome. Some of the old strangeness seeped into Jamie’s soul as the four of them ate their precooked dinners. We’re out in the middle of a frozen desert, surrounded by air we can’t breathe at a temperature that can freeze our blood in seconds. How safe and homey the dome seemed now!

They sat on the padded benches that unfolded into bunks, two by two, the men on one side of the narrow table and the women on the other. Jamie took the first turn on the cleanup detail while Connors went back to the cockpit to check all the rover’s systems before retiring for the night. The women slid the table into its niche below the bottom right bunk, chatting together, then took turns in the lavatory.

Once all four bunks were unfolded the rover’s compartment became impossibly crowded. The two women took the uppers, leaving Jamie and Connors to slide into the lowers like a pair of sewer workers crawling into a tunnel. Jamie could hear Joanna and Ilona whispering together over his head like a pair of schoolgirls. No giggling, though. They seemed totally serious, whatever it was they were confiding to each other.

A sudden thought pulsed through him. Suppose Ilona tells Joanna about making out with me during the transit here! Damn! He did not want Joanna to know that.

Ilona wouldn’t do that, he told himself. It doesn’t make sense for her to talk about that. Why would she tell Joanna? It’d make a complete mess of our relationships here, cooped up in this aluminum can. She wouldn’t do that. Ilona’s smart enough to know she shouldn’t.

But there’s a strange streak in her, he realized. She has a weird sense of humor. Maybe she thinks it’d be funny.

Jamie strained his ears but could hear nothing except the wind sighing outside. The women had gone to sleep. Or at least stopped talking. It took a long time before Jamie fell into a troubled sleep, dreaming of school all over again.

Li Chengdu felt relaxed for the first time since they had taken up orbit around Mars.

We have weathered the political storms, he told himself. We are even doing some good scientific work. Despite the tragedy of Konoye’s death, the Americans and Russians have proved that they can actually extract water from the Martian moons. The next expedition will be able to refuel here and replenish most of its consumables. There will be no more need to carry every gram of water and air and rocket propellant for the entire two-way journey. Things will be easier the next time. We will even be able to establish a replenishment depot on Phobos.

He eased back in his comfortable chair and watched Vosnesensky’s heavy, dour face in his communications screen as the Russian made his evening report. The man’s normal expression is a scowl, Li thought. I don’t believe I have ever seen him so much as smile.

Vosnesensky was reporting that everything was proceeding normally. The traverse was going according to schedule; Waterman’s team should reach the lip of the canyon before sundown tomorrow. Patel and Naguib were analyzing the lava flow samples that they had brought back from Pavonis Mons. Monique Bonnet was testing other rock samples from Pavonis for evidence of life. She had found some interesting microscopic formations in the samples, but no organisms, not even organic chemicals.

Toshima was fretting about a series of dust storms up north, almost at the edge of the melting polar cap. The Japanese meteorologist insisted that such storm activity at this time of the year was unusual and bore careful watching. Especially with a traverse team out in the open. Li Chengdu nodded absently. He agreed totally. The storms bore watching. But there was little else that could be done about them.

Finally Vosnesensky looked up from the notes he had been reading and said, “That completes my report.”

Li said to the image on the screen, “Everyone is in good health?”

With a grunt and a nod the Russian answered, “Yes, it seems so. I can have Dr. Reed give you the data from his weekly examinations.”

“That information is transmitted to our computer, is it not?”

“Yes. Automatically.”

“Then I can access it if necessary without troubling Dr. Reed.” Li hesitated a heartbeat. “Tell me, how is everyone emotionally? How do you assess the psychological aspects of your group members?”

Vosnesensky’s beefy face showed surprise, then pulled into a thoughtful frown. “They all seem normal enough to me,” he said after several moments. “There was considerable excitement just before the excursion team left, but everything has settled back to normal routine now.”

That was precisely what Li wanted to hear. “Good,” he said. “I am glad that they are happy in their work.”

Mikhail Vosnesensky nodded glumly at Dr. Li’s image on the comm screen. The expedition commander made a few more polite remarks, then bade the cosmonaut a good night.

Vosnesensky continued to stare at the display screen for long moments after it had gone dead gray. He had not lied to the expedition commander, not exactly. He had merely put the best face on the answer he gave to Li’s question about morale. True enough, everyone seemed to be happy in their work. Yet that was not the entire truth.

There was something subtly wrong, Vosnesensky thought. He felt a tension in the air that had not been there a few weeks earlier. Nothing he could put his finger on, no obvious clashes or animosities. Nothing so blatant as Ilona Malater’s malicious baiting or Patel’s unhappy bleating about the schedule rearrangements.

But something was going on. Something.

Most of the group have lost weight. It’s been especially noticeable over the past week or so. Reed says that’s to be expected, though. And all that physiological data goes straight back to the medical experts on Earth. If it alarmed them they would have let us know by now, wouldn’t they?

Or would they be afraid of frightening us, ruining our efficiency? After all, we only have a little over three more weeks to go.

Perhaps I should discuss it with Reed, he said to himself as he got up from the communications console. He’s our doctor. And psychologist. Perhaps he can throw some light on the problem.

With a shrug of his heavy shoulders Vosnesensky decided to try to get a good night’s sleep, instead. I can talk to Reed tomorrow if I still feel worried. Tomorrow will be soon enough.