The Martian Race

by Gregory Benford

  Well, now she had her vent. And it had injured Viktor within a few minutes.

  Looking like a giant's drum, seven meters high and eight meters across, the hab—their former command module—stood off the ground on sturdy metal struts. Sandbags on the roof cut their radiation exposure. Inside, the two stacked decks had the floor space of a smallish condo, their home for the last twenty months. A thousand carefully arranged square feet. Not for the claustrophobic, but they would certainly be nostalgic for it in the cramped quarters of the Return Vehicle they would shortly be boarding.

  By now the hab was familiar to billions of Earthbound TV viewers and Net surfers. Everyone on Earth had the opportunity to follow their adventures, which were beamed daily from Ground Control and carried on the evening news. Their webpage registered over a hundred million hits in the week following the landing. Mars had ceased to be space and had become a place.

  Raoul and Marc climbed down out of the hab as she approached in the last slanting rays of a ruddy sunset, two chubby figures in dark parka suits. Only Raoul's slight limp from frostbitten toes distinguished them. The tracker system had alerted them. Thanks to the mission planners, they would not have to carry Viktor in. The rover mated directly to hab airlock.

  But first, a little ceremony they had devised: salvaging water from the rover. Even with Viktor hurt, they followed procedure.

  The methane-oxygen burn made carbon dioxide, which the engine vented, and pure water. She backed the rover to the conical return ship. The gaudy NASA emblem they had completely covered with a plated-on, red-on-white MARS CONSORTIUM in wrap-around letters a meter high. Axelrod had made a point of including that thumb-in-your-eye gesture in the payload.

  Outside, Raoul and Marc hooked the water condensers to the input lines, so the chem factory inside could store it. They had full tanks of methane and oxygen for the liftoff, but water was always welcome, after the parching they had taken on the long flight here.

  They waved to her. Their little rituals; the guys made the gesture as a way of saying “welcome home.” In the bleak, rusty dusk, the cold of night biting already through to her, the symbolism was important. Mars was sharp, cold, and unrelenting, and they all felt it to the bone.

  4

  APRIL 2015

  “VIKTOR, YOU SHOULD GET OUT, GO FOR A WALK.”

  “Thank you, no.”

  Julia walked around to where he sat on the couch, watching a news channel in Russian. The story seemed to be about the latest shuffling of governments. From her very limited Russian, Julia gathered that somebody had been president for the total span of three hours.

  “You can't just veg out like this.”

  “Vegetables have right to be left alone. Plant liberation.”

  “I thought if we both go to Axelrod, explain how well we work together—”

  “Work? Is what you call single entendre meaning?”

  She got up and paced, not liking this edgy humor of his, but in an odd way respecting it. No astronaut was built to take failure. They all knew they could be cut from a list, and many had been.

  But this list was the culmination of a lifetime, the A-grade ticket. Not just because everyone who returned would be wealthy—a rather new element in space careers, since NASA kept salaries at civil service levels for everybody. Because Mars was the sole destination that lifted the heart, that gave the inevitable risk a gravitas of immense historical and scientific heft.

  And Viktor wasn't going.

  He sat on the couch and watched the trivid and drank dark beer. He had quite a capacity, she had to give him that. He had arranged the five bottles before him in an exact pentagonal pattern.

  “Look, I'll go to Axelrod.”

  “I do not wish you to go begging for me.” He gave her a grave, owlish look.

  “I don't think four people is enough for this, anyway. I could start there—”

  “Four is the design spec.”

  “Look, all the thorough design studies at JSC showed—”

  “That six was better. Of course is. But is not cheaper.”

  “We aren't even taking a doctor, for Chrissake, just me.”

  “You have year of emergency medical training.”

  “But it's not enough! What if I had to do heart surgery, or—”

  “You are all excellent”—he paused to pronounce each part, excellent—“condition. No heart attacks likely.”

  “Okay, okay, but we should have a backup pilot, right?”

  “You say that because I am pilot-engineer.”

  “And if the pilot gets hurt? Not like a biologist breaking a leg, who cares? No pilot, nobody goes home.”

  “Marc is good pilot.” He peered down the mouth of his beer, Anchor Steam Porter.

  This non sequitur, she saw, was Viktor's way of saying that he was resigned to not going. “Hey, is this phlegmatic acceptance routine of yours just the Russian coming out?”

  His head jerked up and he stared at her, mouth open. “What means phlegmatic?”

  “Stolid.”

  “What means stolid?”

  “What am I, a thesaurus? No, don't bother, a thesaurus is—”

  “I know thesaurus.”

  “Passive, it means you sit on your ass and do nothing.”

  “Whole world is sitting on ass, watching glorious Twenty-first century on TV.”

  “Yeah, some truth to that.” She sighed and collapsed onto the couch next to him. “And they'll be watching us.”

  “You. I watch, too.”

  “No, you're going. I dunno how, but I'm gonna get you there.”

  “You now say ‘gonna.’”

  “So?”

  “Notice how everybody now talks something like that?”

  “Oh. Like Axelrod.”

  “American Southern.”

  “We're taking on his mannerisms?”

  “His ideas, too. Sounds to my ear, like.”

  “I hadn't noticed.”

  “I think is nothing wrong with. Is his money.”

  “And Microsoft's and Boeing's and Lockheed's and don't forget that fine old Russian Energiya, Inc.”

  “Very ancient joke.” He suddenly turned and hugged her in his bearlike grip. “Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, is the reverse.”

  “Okay, I get your drift.”

  “So we rejected astronauts, we are angry but what can do?”

  “I can—”

  “No, me. I do for myself.”

  Except … she embraced him fervently and could not think of anything he could do. In him she felt the simmering, sour longing.

  Three of the other astronauts had simply disappeared. Lee Chen, her instructor in exobiology, who had recently joined the astronaut program, Gerda Braun, a German engineer inherited from the European Space Agency, and Claudine Jesum, a French pilot. Where had they gone? Probably off to various ventures in the burgeoning low orbital business. But they had all left quietly, letting nobody know their plans. Astronauts were not usually very public in their passions, and even less so in their defeats.

  Viktor had said he would remain behind to support the mission, serving in systems operations, trying out variant routines in the simulators as they flew to Mars and met unanticipated problems. Fair enough, she supposed, especially if he were positioning himself to fly in a later expedition—if any, she reminded herself.

  But would their relationship survive this? She murmured into his shoulder and realized that Axelrod's decision had forced her to become something other than a standard, loyal team player.

  The recognition surprised her. She did not want to go to Mars without Viktor. Even if it meant staying home.

  She hesitated at the double glass doors. On the other side was the plush outer office of Axelrod's huge suite at Genesmart. Here she was still safe, still one of the golden four astronauts picked to go to Mars. When she came out after their interview, what would she be? Just another failed candidate? How would she feel? She sighed inwardly. This isn't going to ge
t you anyplace, Jules, ol’ gal. Let's get it over with. She pushed through the door and slogged across what felt like miles of thick carpeting to her appointment.

  Axelrod somehow managed not to be dwarfed by the massive desk. He came around it to greet her, moving in his usual kinetic style. To her mild surprise, he was the clean-desk variety of leader. The mahogany desktop held exactly two pieces of paper, one pen, and a pop-up computer flatscreen.

  He clasped her proffered hand in both of his, then guided her to a seat in an alcove of the room, sort of a coffee table and chairs arrangement. The vastness amazed her; he had more room in his office than they would occupy on Mars. She wondered briefly if he had any idea what he was asking them to do.

  An attendant who had been hovering in the background appeared with a rolling tray covered with an assortment of fruit drinks and mineral waters. She picked one and they made very small talk while she was being served. Then the tray disappeared and she knew she had to go for it.

  “So, Julia, you're looking well. I can tell it's not your health that's bothering you. But something is.” It was a question without being one.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the crew selection.”

  “Something wrong?” He smiled, but his eyes were watchful. “I think I made a very fine selection.”

  “No, not wrong. Well, for me, yes. Raoul and Katherine are top-notch, and Marc is a fine pilot and geologist to boot. I guess I'm the problem.”

  “Don't tell me now you don't want to go.”

  “Oh, no, I do, all of my life I have, only … well, there's something you didn't know when you chose.”

  “Oh?” A little edge to the voice.

  “Not that you could've known,” she said hastily. “We were very careful, perhaps too careful.” She smiled ruefully. “But NASA always discouraged socializing among the astronauts. Part of the Mr. Clean persona they favor. And it tends to weigh against you when mission crews are chosen.”

  “I see. But it happened anyway.”

  “Well, of course.” A half shrug. “So you see, the problem is that Raoul and Katherine aren't the only couple.”

  “And Marc isn't your paramour?”

  The old-fashioned term startled her. “No, or else there'd be no problem. And he's a fine choice …”

  “But you'd prefer someone else?”

  “Well, I can't ask you to yank him for that reason, so I came here to say that I've decided to pull out.”

  In rapid order Axelrod looked surprised, vexed, puzzled, contemplative, intrigued, then vexed again. How had so transparent a man risen so high in business? Unless there lay his talent—to let his true self out to play, letting others see just who he was, and so solidifying their trust in him. If so, it struck her as an original method. Not calculated, but all the more effective for that.

  Axelrod leaned back in his leather recliner and clasped both hands behind his neck, feet up on an ottoman, face now unreadable.

  “Now you tell me.”

  “I couldn't go on without—”

  “Rather than when it could actually have influenced my decision.”

  “I didn't know who you would pick. Or how I would feel, for that matter.”

  “But you do want to go.”

  “Oh, yes, but not alone. Not for two and a half years.”

  “And I'm supposed to send you to Mars? What if you get there and just don't feel like doing your job?”

  “I wouldn't do that, I've trained—”

  He laughed. “You'll have to do better than that when you face the press.”

  “Oh.”

  “Either tell ‘em everything, or nothing. Me, I go the everything route.”

  “I noticed.”

  “More honest, seems to me.”

  “I'm trying to be honest. I just don't think I could stand being separated from Viktor that long, and leaving him behind.”

  “So it's Viktor you love. The Russian.”

  “Yes.” Should she let “love” pass? She hadn't truly owned up to that yet, even to Viktor.

  “I understand.” He gazed out the enormous broad window that was the entire wall of his office. “NASA liked him, top rated as a pilot, no problem there. How is he on TV?”

  The question surprised her. She thought Viktor was very attractive, but not in the typical blond American mode of Marc. She smiled, allowed herself to say, “Well, I think he looks great, but I'm pretty biased …”

  “Got presence?”

  “Uh, I think so—”

  “Do you think you can handle the right angle on this?”

  She felt like a slow student summoned before the principal, not following remotely what was happening. She bought a moment by taking a sip of her drink. Axelrod gave her no help whatever, just leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling.

  So far nothing in this conversation had gone the way she had anticipated. His silence was unnerving. Suddenly it occurred to her that when she left the mission, inevitably word would get out about why, and that would force her to reveal all of it to her parents. Her ex-astronaut mother would be all right, but her father did not like Viktor, the one time they met. So complication would not leave her life anytime soon …

  “Surprise!” Axelrod sat straight up, face animated again. “I like the idea.”

  “What idea?”

  “Of lovers going to Mars. Better ratings for the TV coverage, for sure. First, a big wedding. Plenty of advertising spin-offs, if we play it right. ‘What would you take on a Honeymoon to Mars?’ Victoria's Secret could run up a whole line of low-gravity lingerie, I'll bet.”

  She wanted to laugh, but he was perfectly serious. And happy.

  “You want Viktor, you got him. I stand by my crew.”

  Wedding? Marry Viktor? “I don't really know if we're ready for that yet.”

  Axelrod looked surprised. “I think it's got to play this way.”

  “Why?”

  “The whole world is watching. I don't want people saying I'm running a program that flouts the marriage bond.”

  She looked at him, struggling to hide her incredulity. Hadn't he had three marriages already? Carefully she said, “I don't either. I just need a little time.”

  “Don't take too long.”

  “Well … it's all right with me, but I need to talk to Viktor.”

  “Sure, sure. But no marriage, no Viktor on this flight.”

  “Marc—”

  “You wouldn't be sleepin’ with him. Makes all the difference.”

  “Doing it on camera, that makes the difference here?”

  “You bet.” He smiled in a completely open way, no guile at all. Or was he really a quite accomplished actor, after all? She could not tell.

  Then her astronaut training asserted itself. “Uh, won't the habitat have to be altered to take an extra crew mem—”

  “No changes.” Axelrod waved both hands in dismissal. “Too late for that, we're fabricating the hab right now.”

  “But—”

  “I'll bump Marc. Tell you true, only big difference between him ‘n Viktor was, Marc's better looking and speaks well.”

  “Not … not piloting?”

  “Viktor's a shade better, the simulations showed.”

  A wave of confused relief washed over her. Marc was a good friend. She had not seen this coming. “I never thought you would, honestly, I'm—”

  “Don't have to. I'll do that. You think Mars, I'll think Earth.” He winked. “Specialize. Now, then, let's pick the big date.”

  Viktor was tricky to deal with.

  Not that he needed to be persuaded. Julia discovered to her surprise that he was happy with the idea of getting married. In his complicated Russian soul, what bothered him was her going to Axelrod in the first place. As pilot, he would be commander of the mission. He worried that he wouldn't be accepted as the clearly chosen leader.

  But Raoul and Katherine didn't seem to mind the switch. Raoul had always had more in common with Viktor than with Marc. And as a couple
they were preoccupied with some internal dialogue of their own.

  Marc was furious. He blamed Julia, accusing her of plotting to remove him from the crew. Then he was gone.

  Julia had the most trouble with her father. Harry referred to it as a “shotgun marriage” and wouldn't be cajoled into feeling better about it. In some ways, Australia wasn't really in the twenty-first century, she mused. He'd wanted Viktor to ask for her hand, not be told about her choice. And he resented Axelrod's forcing the decision. When he was offered a long-delayed consulting trip to Africa, he went, missing the wedding. Her mother, Robbie, would make the trip alone, in one of Axelrod's private jets.

  Axelrod assigned each of the crew a media representative. They needed that. The impending wedding raised the issue of sex in space, and they became fodder for the tabloids.

  They were now not just a team, but The Couples. Julia and Viktor, Raoul and Katherine. The press corps became an ever-hungry beast. Parents, friends, enemies, managers who had barely known them—all became suitable targets for microphone-in-face journalism.

  NASA had created plenty of opportunities for the press to, well, press against the astronauts. Axelrod killed that attitude immediately. “Thing is,” he explained to the four, “you are a commodity now. Don't want to oversell you.”

  Katherine said straightforwardly, “I'm not a commodity.”

  “Partners, then,” Axelrod said smoothly. “Partners in the Consortium.”

  Raoul supported his wife's objection. “We have rights to our own stories, I believe.”

  “So you do.” Axelrod nodded vigorously. He was sitting on his mahogany desk, and the four of them were alone with him, a rarity. He had ordered champagne brought in to celebrate the “consolidation,” as he termed it, of the team.

  Raoul said, “Then we should manage our own relationships with the media.”

  “You shall—when you can reap the benefits. Right now, you train.”

  Viktor said, “Good. No speaking to those fellows.”

  Axelrod smiled coolly. “Not entirely. But we'll orchestrate the press conferences. You keep your stories to yourselves, and our legal department will handle your separate contracts.”

  Viktor asked, “Contracts?”