Return to Mars

by Ben Bova

  Jamie felt his insides go hollow. “But we’re being forced to leave. An accident—”

  “Cuts no ice,” Dex said. “I’ve studied the law, the treaties and all the international agreements. If you abandon this territory, your legal claim goes down the chute.”

  Jamie sank down onto the nearest chair.

  “I’m sorry,” Dex said softly.

  “But your father won’t be,” Jamie muttered.

  “No, dammit. He’ll be overjoyed.”

  Trudy Hall’s hands, arms, face, her entire upper body was wrapped in spray-on antiseptic bandaging. Her eyes were covered, a breathing tube was inserted into her nostrils. There was a small slit where her mouth should be. What was left of her hair looked like the singed pinfeathers of a badly seared chicken.

  The medical monitors on one side of the cramped infirmary cubicle were all humming peacefully, however. Blood pressure, heart rate, and most of the other indicators were steady. Her breathing was ragged, but that was to be expected from the fire-heated air she had inhaled.

  “Has she regained consciousness at all?” Jamie asked, in a whisper.

  Vijay stood on the other side of the bed, replacing a bag of saline solution for the IV drip.

  “Only briefly,” she answered, her voice somewhat louder than his. “I’ve been sedating her rather heavily, you know. She’d be in considerable pain otherwise.”

  “I need to talk to her,” he said.

  “Not for a while, mate.”

  “And Tomas?”

  “He’s in much better shape,” Vijay said, allowing herself a tiny smile. “You can talk to him all you want.”

  Rodriguez lay in his bunk on his stomach, head and shoulders propped up by a small mountain of cushions. Jamie recognized them: they were mattresses from one of the rovers, rolled tightly and strapped with duct tape.

  “I just couldn’t keep my eyes open,” he was telling Jamie, his face showing guilt and puzzlement. “Never happened to me before, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open.”

  “Trudy put sleeping pills in your coffee,” Jamie said. He had pulled the cubicle’s desk chair up to the edge of the bunk. “Vijay told me she’d been taking pills—”

  “I never saw her take any,” Rodriguez blurted.

  Jamie shrugged. “She must’ve been saving them to use on you.”

  “I still can’t believe that she’d do that.”

  “She’s emotionally sick,” Jamie said. “She must be.”

  “Yeah, guess so.”

  “The smoke alarm woke you up?”

  Rodriguez nodded, winced. His back must be painful, Jamie realized.

  “Yeah. Y’know, I felt like I’d been drugged. Couldn’t move fast at first, everything seemed slow, dopey.”

  “Trudy wasn’t in the comm center?”

  “No. I saw the smoke coming from the greenhouse hatch. She wasn’t anywhere in sight, so I went in to see if she’d been caught inside the greenhouse. And there she was.”

  There she was, Jamie thought. A poor scared little sparrow who went over the edge. Why? What happened in her mind to make her snap like this?

  Another voice in his head sneered, What difference does it make? She’s destroyed this expedition and turned Mars over to Trumball and his world-wreckers.

  NIGHT: SOL 388

  THEY RETURNED TO DOME ONE, DISPIRITED, WEARY, A SAD PROCESSION OF beaten men and women. Hall had to be carried in; Rodriguez could walk shakily, Jamie and Dex supporting him.

  After they got the L/AV’s fuel cells producing electricity for the dome, Craig and Dezhurova went out to the fuel generator to connect it to the fuel cells.

  Fuchida shook his head as he stood in the middle of the dome. “Mars has defeated us,” he said quietly.

  Jamie suppressed an urge to punch him. “Mars didn’t do this,” he snapped. “We’ve defeated ourselves.”

  Hours later, Jamie was helping Vijay check out the medical stores inventory, comparing what was actually on the shelves of the infirmary against the computer records. The replenishment mission was bringing

  a fresh cargo of medical supplies, bin they had to make certain the computer inventory was correct before they left.

  “Remember our first night here?” Jamie asked. “The party?”

  “I remember you hiding in your quarters while the rest of us partied,” Vijay said.

  “I remember other nights, too,” Jamie said. He was sitting at her tiny desk, the inventory list on the computer screen in front of him.

  She turned from the open cabinet and looked at him. “So do I,” she said, her voice low.

  “They were good.”

  Vijay nodded, then turned back to her work.

  Jamie found that he couldn’t focus his attention on the inventory list. His mind was filled with thoughts of Trumball and the Navaho Nation and how this expedition had been such a disaster even though they had found the Martian building and Mars must be dotted with similar buildings, there must be the remains of cities scattered across the planet, there couldn’t be just this one building left on a whole world that was populated by intelligent beings, and how much he wanted Vijay, standing close enough for him to reach out and take in his arms yet miles away, light-years away because he had pushed her out of his life and had no right, no hope, not even a whisper of a chance to bring her back to him.

  He heard himself tell her, “I’m not leaving.” His voice sounded so damned controlled, not a trace of emotion showing.

  Vijay closed the cabinet. When she turned, her luminous midnight eyes were sorrowful. “I know.”

  That jolted him. “How could you know? I didn’t know myself until just now.”

  She made a rueful smile. “I’m the psychologist, remember? And I know you. As soon as Dex told you that if we all left it would break the Navaho claim, I knew you’d stay.”

  “You knew it before I did, then.”

  “No,” Vijay said, shaking her head. “You knew it then, too, but you had to go through all the logical steps first. You had to turn it over in your mind and convince yourself you could last here four months or more by yourself.”

  Reluctantly he nodded agreement. “I guess you’re right.”

  “So you’ve concluded that you can make it, then?”

  “I think so. I don’t see why not.”

  “By yourself?”

  He wanted to say, not if you’ll stay with me, but knew that he couldn’t ask her that. It was one thing to risk his own neck alone on Mars for more than four months, he couldn’t ask her to share that risk with him. It meant too much, there were too many complications.

  So he merely nodded tightly and said, “By myself, yes.”

  “Just you and Mars, eh?”

  He shrugged. “It shouldn’t he that much of a sweat. The garden here is okay. All the equipment is functioning. I won’t starve and I won’t run out of air.”

  “But you’ll want to run down to the building and poke around some more, won’t you?”

  “No,” Jamie said firmly. “I’m going to stay right here and do some of the geological work we should’ve done months ago.” Then he added, “And I’ll try making a few solar cells out of in situ materials. It’d be a big help if we could generate enough electricity out of sunlight to run the entire dome.”

  “Alone,” she repeated.

  He hesitated for the barest fraction of a moment, then said, “Alone.”

  Her face a blank mask, Vijay put her hand out to Jamie and said, “Well, come on then, you’d better tell the others.”

  The others were gathering in the galley for their last dinner on Mars, all except Trudy, who was still confined to her bunk. The burns on her face would require plastic surgery, and despite all of Rodriguez’s assurances that it would all turn out fine, she had sunk into a pit of depression.

  Rodriguez tried hard to cheer her, making a show of each time he could get rid of a set of bandages. Stacy, Jamie and even Fuchida had spent hours with Trudy, assuring her that there would b
e no publicity about her emotional breakdown, no accusations, no blame. Their assurances seemed only to deepen the biologist’s depression.

  Vijay slapped together a dinner tray for Trudy as the others milled about, making their selections without worrying about the planned menus the nutritionists had worked out for them.

  “I’ll be happy to see a real steak again,” Fuchida said, quite seriously.

  “With real beer,” Rodriguez quipped.

  Without a word to any of them, Vijay started off toward Trudy’s quarters with the tray. Behind her, she heard Jamie announce:

  “I’m not leaving with you. I’m going to stay here.”

  She slid Trudy’s door open, stepped through, and slammed it shut again.

  Trudy was sitting up now, her back healed enough for her to rest it against a water-filled plastic cushion. It had struck Vijay, when she pulled the device out of the medical stores, that they might have adapted it to make waterbeds for themselves. Fine time to think of that, she had huffed at herself.

  “How’re you feeling?” Vijay asked brightly.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow?” Trudy asked. The bandages were off her face; her skin was raw and pink. It would he scarred and brittle by the time they reached Earth. She had no eyebrows, no eyelashes. She was lucky that she could still see, Vijay thought, then wondered how lucky it was to be able to look into a mirror when your face is so horribly burned.

  “Yes,” Vijay replied, keeping her voice light, cheerful. “Tomorrow.”

  Trudy looked down at the tray Vijay placed on her lap. At last she murmured, “I’ve made an awful mess of everything, haven’t I?”

  Vijay answered softly, “I suppose one could say that.”

  “I could have killed Tommy. I never thought that I’d be placing him in danger.”

  Vijay wanted to say that she’d placed them all in danger, but she held her tongue. Trudy Hall was going to be a wonderful subject for a psychology research paper, she thought. I’ll have five months on the return trip to study her, probe her motivations …

  “I love him,” Trudy said, tears in her eyes. “I wanted to bring him back to Earth where he’d be safe, where we’d all be safe.”

  “I understand.”

  Trudy looked up at her angrily. “Do you? How could you? How could you know what it’s like to love a man so much you’d be willing to die for him?”

  Startled, Vijay had no reply.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Trudy burst. “I’m so, so sorry. I’ve made such a botch of everything. Tommy won’t even want to look at me when we get back home. I love him so much and he won’t even want to look at me.”

  Suddenly Vijay wanted to cry.

  “You can’t stay here alone,” Dezhurova said flatly when Jamie made his announcement to the five of them gathered at the galley table.

  “Sure I can,” Jamie said, trying to make it sound simple, commonplace.

  “Won’t be easy,” Craig said, “even if you just stay inside here and watch TV for four months.”

  “There’s plenty of work for me to do,” Jamie said. “Just sorting out the data you guys amassed during your excursion out to Ares Vallis could keep me busy for four months and more.”

  “And you’re going to try building solar cells?” Dex asked.

  “Out of the elements in the ground, yes.”

  “One of us should remain with you,” said Fuchida.

  “No,” Jamie said. “That’s not necessary. I couldn’t ask any of you to make that sacrifice. You’re going home! I’ll be okay here.”

  “Mitsuo’s right,” Rodriguez said. “Somebody ought to stay behind with you.”

  “It’s not necessary,” Jamie repeated.

  “You are not staying for science,” Stacy said, almost as an accusation.

  “No,” Jamie admitted. “I’m not.”

  Dex looked intrigued, delighted. “You’re staying so you can maintain the Navaho claim.”

  “Right,” said Jamie.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Dex.

  “It’s what I’ve got to do,” Jamie said.

  “Uh-huh. Well, I’ve got a few things to do, too.”

  “Such as?”

  “Now here’s my plan,” Dex said, with his old cocky grin. “As soon as I get back to Earth I’m going to start a foundation, a not-for-profit organization specifically devoted to the exploration of Mars. Call it the Mars Research Foundation, I guess.”

  Jamie blinked at him.

  “That way we’ll be able to raise money all the time, steadily. We won’t have to go around with our hat in our hand for each individual expedition. We’ll put the exploration of Mars on a solid financial foundation. Get people to contribute all the time, like they buy stocks or bonds.”

  “But they won’t make a profit from it.” Fuchida said.

  Dex’s eyes danced. “Yeah, but they’ll be able to deduct their contributions from their taxes. It’ll make a neat little tax shelter for them.”

  Jamie broke into a broad grin. “You’ve been thinking about this for a long time, haven’t you?”

  Grinning back at him, Dex said, “About as long as you’ve been thinking about staying here by yourself.”

  “Your foundation will work with the Navaho Nation?”

  “You betcha. Maybe we’ll headquarter it out in Arizona or New Mexico, on the Navaho reservation.”

  Jamie nodded happily. The thought of Dex on the reservation pleased him.

  “Okay, pal,” Dex said, sticking out his hand, “you hold the fort here and I’ll go out and see the Navaho president as soon as we land.”

  “Not your father?” Jamie asked, grasping Dex’s hand in his own.

  Dex laughed. “Yeah, okay, I suppose it’d be better if I face him sooner instead of later.”

  As they stood facing one another with their hands firmly clasped, Jamie looked into the younger man’s eyes. There was no trace of fear there, or hostility. Dex has grown up here on Mars. He’s a full-grown man now instead of a spoiled kid.

  Suddenly, impulsively, Dex pulled Jamie to him and wrapped his free hand around his shoulders. Jamie did the same, pounding Dex’s back as if he were the younger brother he never had.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Dex said, almost in a whisper. “I’ll handle my dad and work with your Navaho guys. You’re not going to lose Mars.”

  As they pulled away from their embrace, Dezhurova shook her head stubbornly. “It is dangerous for one man to be here alone. If some emergency comes up—”

  “He won’t be alone.”

  Jamie turned to see Vijay striding determinedly toward the galley table.

  “I’m staying, too,” she said.

  “But you can’t!” Jamie blurted.

  Very sweetly, she replied, “I haven’t been asked, that’s true. But I’m staying with you, mate.”

  “What about Trudy? She needs—”

  Vijay walked toward him as she answered, “Stacy and Tommy have enough paramedical training to take care of her on the trip back. She’s recuperating okay, no worries. If something pops up, they’ll be able to get advice from Earth, same as I would.”

  “You want to stay?” Jamie asked, afraid this was all a dream, a hallucination.

  She was standing less than an arm’s length away from him. Looking squarely into his eyes, she said, “Yes, I want to.”

  Every other thought flew from Jamie’s consciousness. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her soundly. She did likewise as the others sat there, thunderstruck, until someone let out a low, long appreciative whistle.

  NOON: SOL 389

  “FIVE SECONDS,” DEZHUROVA’s VOICE CRACKLED TENSELY IN JAMIE’s HELMET earphones. “Four …”

  He and Vijay were standing just outside the dome, gloved hands clasped together, their eyes on the L/AV sitting nearly a full kilometer away.

  “… two … one …” The top half of the stubby spacecraft leaped up in a sudden crack of thunder that blasted dust and pebbles across the barren
red ground. Despite himself, Jamie flinched. He craned his neck as the ascent vehicle rose higher and higher into the cloudless pink sky. The roar of its rocket engines dwindling into a thin, muted rumble and then lading altogether.

  “There they go,” said Vijay. She sounded almost triumphant.

  Jamie followed the bright speck until the top edge of his visor cut off his view. Stacy, Dex and the others were on their way back to Earth, with the Pathfinder hardware and Trudy Hall’s problems.

  He turned to face Vijay. Before he could say anything, her voice sounded buoyantly in his earphones. “Well, it’s just you and me, now, mate.”

  He felt less than cheerful. I’m responsible for her life now. She trusts me and I’ve got to live up to her trust.

  “We’re Martians now, aren’t we?” Vijay asked.

  “Not yet,” he replied. “We’re still guests, visitors. We still have to live inside these suits. We still have to respect Mars for what it is.”

  “Will it always be like this?”

  “I don’t know,” Jamie answered. “Always is a long time. Maybe someday, when we’re smarter … much wiser than we are now. Maybe our grandchildren will be able to live on Mars, with Mars. Or their grandchildren. I don’t know.”

  As they started back for the dome’s airlock, Vijay wondered, “Will we be able to protect Mars the way you want to? I mean, keep people like Dex’s father from spoiling it all?”

  Even though he knew better, Jamie tried to shrug inside the hard suit. “All we can do is try, Vijay. The ICU is arguing against the Navaho claim, but it looks as if the Astronautical Authority is going to recognize it as legal and binding.”

  He heard her laughing. ”The Navaho reservation is now bigger than the States, isn’t it?”

  “If you take in all of Mars, yes. But this isn’t part of the reservation, it’s—”

  “Don’t take it so seriously!”

  “But it is serious,” he said. “I’m hoping that this will motivate Navaho kids to get involved in Mars, to study science and astronautics, to—”

  “To become Martians?”

  He took a breath. “Yeah, maybe. Eventually. Someday.”

  They stopped at the airlock hatch and, without a word between them, both turned to look over the red, rock-strewn landscape.