Mars

by Ben Bova

  He was spinning, turning lazily as he floated in mid-air. It was almost pleasant. Fun, nearly. Just hanging in nothingness, separated from the entire world, alone, totally alone and free.

  It was as if he had no body, no physical existence at all. Nothing but pure spirit, clean and light as the air itself. He remembered the old legends his grandfather had told him about Navaho heroes who had traveled across the bridge of the rainbow. Must be like this, he thought, high above the world, floating, floating. Like Coyote, when he hitched a ride on a comet.

  He realized with a heart-stopping lurch that he had forgotten to count. And his hand had come off the D-ring. He fumbled awkwardly, seeing now that the hard baked dry ground was rushing up to smash him, pulverize him, kill him dead, dead, dead.

  A gigantic hand grabbed him and nearly snapped his head off. He twisted in mid-air as new sounds erupted all around him. Like the snapping of a sail, his parachute unfolded and spread above him, leaving Jamie hanging in the straps floating gently down toward the barren ground.

  His heart was hammering in his ears, yet he felt disappointed. Like a kid who had gone through the terrors of his first roller-coaster ride and now was sad that it had ended. Far down below he could see the tiny figure of a man gathering up a dirty-white parachute.

  I did it! Jamie thought. I made the jump. He wanted to give out a real Indian victory whoop.

  But the sober side of his mind warned, You’ve still got to land without breaking your ankles. Or popping that damned incision.

  The ground was really rushing up at him now. Relax. Bend your knees. Let your legs absorb the shock.

  He hit hard, rolled over twice, and then felt the hot wind tugging at his billowing chute. Suddenly Zavgorodny was at his side pulling on the cords, and the other cosmonaut was wrapping his arms around the chute itself like a man trying to get a ton of wrapping paper back inside a box.

  Jamie got to his feet shakily. They helped him wriggle out of the chute harness. The plane circled lazily overhead.

  “You did hokay,” Zavgorodny said, smiling broadly now.

  “How’d you get down so fast?” Jamie asked.

  “I did free-fall, went past you. You did not see me? I was like a rocket!”

  “Yuri is free-fall champion,” said the other cosmonaut.

  The plane was coming in to land, flaps down, engines coughing. Its wheels hit the ground and kicked up enormous plumes of dust.

  “So now we go to Muzhestvo?” Jamie asked Zavgorodny.

  The Russian shook his head. “We have found it already. Muzhestvo means in English courage. You have courage, James Waterman. I am glad.”

  Jamie took a deep breath. “Me too.”

  “We four,” Zavgorodny said, “we will not go to Mars. But some of our friends will. We will not allow anyone who does not show courage to go to Mars.”

  “How can you …?”

  “Others test you for knowledge, for health, for working with necessary equipment. We test for courage. No one without courage goes to Mars. It would make a danger for our fellow cosmonauts.”

  “Muzhestvo,” Jamie said.

  Zavgorodny laughed and slapped him on the back and they started walking across the bare dusty ground toward the waiting plane.

  Muzhestvo, Jamie repeated to himself. Their version of a sacred ritual. Like a Navaho purifying rite. I’m one of them now. I’ve proved it to them. I’ve proved it to myself.

  SOL 1: EVENING

  The dome was neatly laid out with two airlocks on opposite sides of its circular perimeter, all the life-support equipment in the center, and precisely partitioned little cells for each of the twelve team members arranged in an arc on one side of the floor. The plastic partitions were two meters high, like a set of office cubicles in a bank staffed by basketball players. The psychologists had insisted that the tall partitions be colored in cool pastels. Jamie would have preferred the bold warm hues of his native desert. We’re going to need all the warmth we can get here, he thought.

  Two phonebooth-sized bathrooms stood at either end of the personnel cubicles. Scheduling would be a major headache.

  Common areas were grouped around the center: a galley; a wardroom that was nothing more than a trio of tables with spindly Martian-gravity chairs of lightweight plastic; and a communications center with desktop computers and display screens. Workstations for the individual scientists were arrayed along the circular outer wall. Each scientist was responsible for unpacking his or her own equipment and setting up a workstation. Most of their equipment was still up in orbit; it was to be brought down by the second lander.

  After their long day of labor, the four scientists and two astronauts began to shrug out of their backpacks and peel off the hard suits they had been wearing for more than twenty hours.

  Within minutes the suits were strewn on the floor like discarded pieces of brightly colored armor, and the six team members stood in their coveralls of tan or olive green or pale aqua blue. We look like human beings again, Jamie thought.

  Frightened human beings. Each staring silently at the others, as if seeing them for the first time. Each realizing with utter finality that they were more than a hundred million kilometers from home, from safety, that a single failed transistor or a slight rip in the dome’s plastic skin could kill them all without warning or mercy.

  They stood in silence, wide-eyed, openmouthed, hands held stiffly away from their bodies, as if testing the world on which they stood and trying to determine if it would be kind to them or not. Like children suddenly thrust into a totally new place, they held their breath and stared silently around them.

  Tony Reed broke the tense silence. “I hate to bring up anything so pedestrian, but I’m rather peckish. How about some supper?”

  Vosnesensky snorted, Connors laughed out loud, and the others grinned broadly. They left their discarded suits on the floor and trooped to the galley where six frozen precooked meals were speedily microwaved to steaming readiness.

  Joanna Brumado disappeared into her own cubicle briefly and came back with a bottle of Spanish champagne.

  “You brought that all the way from Brazil?” Pete Connors asked.

  Reed said disdainfully, “Of course not. Obviously Joanna fermented the grapes on the way here.”

  The cork popped noisily and champagne frothed over their dining table.

  “I’m afraid it’s not chilled,” Joanna apologized.

  “That’s all right. Don’t worry about it.”

  Jamie thought, Just put it outside for a minute or so. That’ll ice it down.

  There was enough champagne for one drink each. Reed sat between the willowy blonde Ilona and the dark-eyed little Joanna. The Israeli had the lean, haughty look of an aristocrat, even in drab coveralls. Joanna looked like a waif, barely suppressing the anxiety that lay just behind her wide dark eyes.

  Reed, sandy haired, athletically trim, seemed absolutely at ease. He was saying, “… so we actually have all the comforts of home, almost.”

  “Almost,” echoed Ilona Malater.

  “Food, air, good company,” Reed bantered. “What more could one ask for?”

  “The water is recycled,” Ilona said. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  Reed ran a fingertip across his pencil-slim sandy moustache. “I must admit I’d prefer to have something to purity the water. Whisky would do nicely.”

  “That’s not allowed,” Joanna said seriously. “I broke the rules with my bottle of champagne.”

  “Yes,” said Ilona. “I’m surprised that he”—she tilted her head slightly toward Vosnesensky, at the head of the table—“didn’t reprimand you and confiscate the bottle for himself.”

  “Oh, he’s not that bad,” Reed said. “We’ll make him unbend, never fear.”

  The Israeli biochemist looked doubtful. Then she said, “I wish we did have some Scotch whisky here.”

  “Perhaps I could mix you some from my infirmary supplies.”

  Ilona raised an eyebrow. Joanna looke
d perplexed at the suggestion.

  “You’ve got to be careful, however,” Reed went on. “I once shared a bottle of whisky with a Scotsman. When I mixed a little water with my drink the man actually shuddered!”

  Both women laughed.

  The two pilots were at the end of the little table, talking earnestly together about flying, judging from the way they were using their hands. Pink-faced Russian and black American, their nationalities—even their races—made less difference here than the fact that they were fliers rather than scientists: engineers, at best. A clear difference in caste from the scientists. The American was lanky, lean dancer’s legs and arms. The Russian was shorter, thicker, his hair the shade of auburn that had probably been brick-red when he was a child. His fleshy face, normally a dark scowl, was animated now and his bright blue eyes sparkled as he talked about flying.

  Jamie knew he was the outsider. For nearly four years these men and women had trained with Father DiNardo, the Jesuit geologist who had originally been picked for the Mars expedition. Jamie had been one of the also-rans, knowing every instant of every day for nearly four years that he was going through the motions of training for a mission he would never be a part of. And then DiNardo’s god struck him down with a gall bladder infection that required surgery, and his chosen backup had been swiftly chopped down by back-room politics. Suddenly, miraculously, unbelievably, James Waterman—Native American—had joined the team that would actually set foot on Mars.

  A red man on the red planet, Jamie mused. I’m here, but only because of blind luck. They accept me, but DiNardo was their first choice; I’m just a substitute.

  Yes, he heard the whispered voice of his grandfather. But you’re here, on Mars, and the Anglo priest is not.

  Jamie almost smiled, To his grandfather even a Jesuit from the Vatican was an Anglo. He was glad that he was here among the first explorers, yet that very emotion stirred a latent sense of guilt. He had won this privilege at the expense of other men’s pain. A true Navaho would fear retribution.

  Vosnesensky pushed himself away from the table and stood up.

  “Time for sleeping,” he said gruffly, as if expecting an argument. “Tomorrow we must be ready for the arrival of the second team. And before we sleep we must clean the suits and store them properly.”

  No one argued, although Tony Reed muttered something that Jamie could not catch. They were all tired but they knew that the hard suits had to be properly maintained. Tomorrow’s schedule would be just as punishing as this first day’s. The tensions and hostilities that had grown during their nine-month flight had not evaporated simply because they had set foot on Mars. Maybe in the days to come, Jamie thought, when we’re busy working and we can roam around outside, maybe then things will change. Maybe then.

  After vacuuming the dust off his hard suit and hanging it properly in the storage rack by the airlock, Jamie passed Ilona Malater’s quarters on his way to his own. The accordion-fold door to her cubicle was open. She was taping a tattered old photograph to the partition beside her bunk.

  She noticed Jamie and said over her shoulder, “Come in for a moment.”

  Feeling slightly uncomfortable, Jamie hesitated at her doorway.

  Ilona whispered throatily, “I’m not going to seduce you red man. Not our first night on Mars.”

  Jamie hung by the doorway, not knowing what to say.

  “Would you like to see my family album?” Ilona asked, with a wicked smile.

  There was only the one photograph taped up. Jamie stepped in closer and saw a tall, tired man in a dirty soldier’s uniform standing in a street choked with rubble, his hands raised over his head, half a dozen soldiers in a different uniform menacing him with submachine guns.

  “That is my grandfather in 1956,” Ilona said, her voice suddenly louder, brittle. “In Budapest. Those are Russian soldiers. The Russians hanged my grandfather, eventually. His crime was to defend his country against them.”

  “We’re on Mars now,” Jamie said softly.

  “Yes. What of it?”

  Jamie turned and left her cubicle without another word. Ilona would keep on deviling Vosnesensky, just as she had all during the long months of the flight here. She thought she had a reason to hate all Russians. All during the years of training she had cleverly hidden her hatred. And nursed it. Now it was coming out into the open. Now, when it might get us all killed.

  We bring it all with us, Jamie said to himself. We come to a new world with words of peace and love, but we carry all the old fears and hatreds wherever we go

  Feeling completely spent, Jamie tumbled onto his cot without bothering to undress. Nearly an hour later he lay still awake on the spindly cot in his cubicle, worrying about Ilona. The dome was dark now, but not silent. The metal and plastic creaked and groaned as the cold of the Martian night tightened its frigid grip. Pumps were chugging softly and air fans humming. The psychologists had decided that such noises would actually be comforting to the lonely explorers. If the machinery noise suddenly stopped it would alert them to a dangerous situation, just as the sudden cutoff of a plane’s engine starts the adrenaline flowing immediately.

  As he lay on his cot, though, Jamie heard another sound. A rhythmic sort of signing that came and went, started and stopped. A low whispering, almost like a soft moaning, so faint that Jamie at first thought it was his imagination. But it persisted, a strange ghostly breathing just barely audible over the background chatter of the man-made equipment.

  The wind.

  There was a breeze blowing softly across their dome, stroking this new alien artifact with its gentle fingers. Mars was caressing them, the way a child might reach out to touch something new and inexplicable. Mars was welcoming them gently.

  Jamie let his thoughts drift as he clasped his hands behind his head and listened to the soft wind of Mars until at last he fell asleep.

  He dreamed of spaceships landing in New Mexico and whole tribes of Indians stepping out of them, naked, to claim the harsh barren land for their own.

  IN TRAINING: ANTARCTICA

  1

  McMurdo Base reminded Jamie of a cross between a seedy mining town and a run-down community college campus, set on the edge of frigid McMurdo Sound between the snow-covered mountains and the Ross Ice Shelf, a quarter-mile-thick shield of ice that covered most of the Ross Sea. All the buildings looked government issue: curved-roof metal huts and square wooden barracks, even the newer cinderblock two-story administrative offices. There was a farm of oil tanks, endless rows of equipment sheds, a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker anchored in the harbor, and an airfield literally carved out of the shelf of glittering ice that extended past the horizon, covering an area bigger than France.

  The streets were plowed clear of snow, but hardly anybody ventured out into the piercing wind. The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth had been measured in Antarctica, one hundred twenty-seven degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

  A midsummer overnight low on Mars, Jamie knew.

  Inside the hut provided for the Mars Project trainees it was almost comfortably warm, thanks to the new nuclear power system that had been installed the previous year. Old-style environmentalists had protested bringing nuclear power to Antarctica, while the new-style environmentalists protested against further use of fuel oil that soiled the increasingly polluted Antarctic air with its sooty emissions.

  Each group of trainees for the Mars mission had to spend six weeks at the Antarctic station learning what it was like to live in a research outpost cut off from the rest of the world, crowded tensely together in barely adequate facilities with few amenities and little privacy, struggling to survive in a barren frozen world of ice and bitter cold.

  As Jamie strode briskly down the narrow corridor of the half-buried hut he thought to himself, All project scientists are equal. Except that some are more equal than others. And now Dr. Li is more equal than all the rest of us.

  Dressed in his usual thick red-and-black corduroy shirt and faded denim jeans, his we
stern boots thumping against the worn wooden flooring, Jamie headed toward the office of Dr. Li Chengdu, the man who had just been designated to be the expedition commander. No other appointment had been made for the mission, not yet, not officially. But the snow-blanketed base was a buzzing beehive of rumors and speculation about who would be picked to fly to Mars and who would not. The men and women cooped up in the crowded base had set up betting pools. Some of them were even trying to hack their way into the computer’s confidential personnel files.

  Tomorrow Jamie and the group he was attached to would fly out of McMurdo and back to civilization, weather permitting, ending their mandatory six weeks. Jamie had spent much of his, time in searches for meteorites out on the snow-covered glacier that fed into the ice pack covering the Ross Sea. Antarctica was a good place for meteorite hunting. The perpetual ice and snow of the frozen continent preserved the rocks that had fallen from the sky, keeping them relatively free of terrestrial contaminants. Some of those meteorites were in fact suspected to have come from Mars. Jamie had hoped to find one in his searches of the wind-swept glacier. If I can’t get to Mars, he had told himself, maybe I can find a chunk of Mars that’s come to Earth.

  In six weeks he had found four meteorites in the ice, none of them Martian.

  For more than three years Jamie had worked and trained with scientists from a dozen different nations in laboratories and field centers from Iceland to Australia. For most of that time he—and everyone else—had known that he would not be selected as the geologist to land on Mars. Father Fulvio DiNardo was the top choice for the mission, not only a world-class geologist but a Jesuit priest as well.

  “He’s what we call a ‘twofer,’” one of the American mission administrators had explained cheerfully over breakfast, months earlier, when they had been at Star City, outside Moscow, “Fills two slots: geologist and chaplain.”

  Tony Reed had agreed, a slight smirk twitching at his lips. “Yes. He can hear confessions and baptize any babies born during the mission. No other geologist could be so useful.”