The Martian Race

by Gregory Benford

  Viktor's mouth twisted into sour agreement. “They are good. Skipped building space station, gained a lot of advantage. But nuclear!”

  Axelrod's incisive gaze momentarily rested upon each astronaut in turn. “So you all think this is a credible threat?”

  They all nodded.

  “Dangerous,” Katherine said, “but credible.”

  “Could work. A big advance, if it does,” Raoul said.

  “But we get to Mars first,” Viktor said. “Tell Airbus, fine. We will leave a light on the porch for you.”

  They all laughed, but to Julia's ear there was a hollow ring to the sound.

  7

  JANUARY 11,2018

  AFTER DINNER IT WAS TIME FOR THEIR REGULAR VIDEO TRANSMISSION. No groaning allowed.

  They pulled Consortium logo shirts over their waffle-weave long johns and prepared to look presentable. In fact, they wore as little as possible when in the hab—loose clothing didn't aggravate the skin abrasions and frostbite spots they suffered in the suits. They kept the heat cranked up to compensate, but then nobody had to pay the electric bill, Marc pointed out. Competition was keen for creams and ointments for their dry skin rashes.

  “My turn, I think,” said Marc.

  Julia smiled. “Janet on the other end tonight, then?”

  Janet Conover was a former test pilot who had trained with them, and clearly had hoped to make the trip. Janet was a good mechanic, but Raoul was better. The Consortium had made a careful selection: individual talents balanced with strategic redundancy. The crew of four had to cover all the basics: mission technical, scientific, and medical. They fit together like an intricately cut jigsaw puzzle.

  Tonight's broadcast was going to be somewhat sticky. They were going to have to describe Viktor's injury while reassuring their millions of regular viewers that they were okay and the mission was still on track. A considerable feat of bravado would be required. Maybe they would reassure themselves at the same time.

  “Let's play up the water angle, not the ankle,” Viktor said.

  “Drama plays better than science,” Julia said.

  “So we must educate, yes?” Viktor jabbed his chin at Marc.

  But Marc wasn't listening. The brief description of Viktor's accident had been squirted to Earth earlier, and he was downloading the reply. Due to the present time delay of six minutes each way, normal back and forth conversations were not possible, and communications were more like an exchange of verbal letters. At times the round-trip delay was only a matter of four minutes, sometimes it was forty. Mars's distance from Earth varies by more than two hundred million miles from closest to farthest approach in the course of each Earth year. Still, it was a big advance over earlier missions.

  In the Sojourner era, it took twenty-four hours to execute a single command. NASA used solar panels on its robot vehicles, so when Sojourner was in Mars night, it was unresponsive. And part of the time Earth's giant antennae were on the wrong side of the planet to receive signals from Mars. The new comm satellites circling both planets ensured that they were always in contact with Earth, but there was still the delay time.

  Early on, Earth and Mars teams agreed on a download at a specified time, to preserve the semblance of a conversation. At the short delay times Marc and Janet tended to handle the bulk of the communications. And there was a little spark in the transmissions.

  They did a short, live video sequence at the same time each Mars day, after the crew's dinner. Because Earth's day is twenty minutes shorter, they drifted in and out of synchrony with various listening stations on Earth. But they didn't worry about it. That was Axelrod's end of the business. The “Nightly Report from Mars” was great theater, but the Consortium also had a team of doctors scrutinize the footage.

  The crew gathered around the screen to watch the latest video from Earth. It was Janet, all right, gesturing with a red Mars Bar. Mars, Inc., the candy manufacturer, had become a mission underwriter. Cautiously waiting until after the successful landing, they'd released a special commemorative wrapper—a red number featuring the four of them against a “Martian” backdrop. On Earth they had taken about twenty shots of the crew in their colored pressure suits—one each in blue, yellow, green, and purple—holding up a standard Mars Bar before scenic backdrops. They each got $5,000 per shot, and the Mars Bar people paid ten thousand dollars per pound to ship a box of the bars out for the follow-up ad campaign. It would have been irritating after a while, except that they came to relish the damned things, keeping one for exterior shots, where it quickly got peroxide-contaminated, and eating the rest as desserts. The cold sopped up calories and the zest of sugar was like a drug to Julia. She was quite sure she would never eat another, Earthside, even if she did get an endorsement contract out of the deal.

  Julia had dubbed the red-wrapped candy the Ego Bar, unwilling to honor it with the name of a planet and an ancient god, and the team adopted the name. There had been some talk early on about producing another wrapper with Mars life pictured, but rocks with wavy lines weren't exciting enough, so the manufacturer had decided to just stick with the Ego Bar.

  Somehow, the commercialism of it all still grated on her. But she had signed on with eyes open, all the same. She had known that market-minded execs ran the Consortium, but going in she had thought that meant something like, If we do this, people will like it. Soon enough she learned that even exploring Mars was seen by the execs as If we do this, we'll maximize our global audience share and/or optimize near-term profitability. Such were the thoughts and motivations on Earth.

  Still, Mars the raw and unknown survived, unsullied. And deadly.

  They all snorted when the expected question came in from Janet. She looked embarrassed, but what could she do? “And how are you feeling, with Airbus getting nearer and your own launch—”

  Marc started before Janet was finished. “We'll wave to them as we head home.”

  It was what they always said.

  Then they turned to the story of the pingos. Earth had already gotten the video footage, and in the intervening hours had reacted. Axelrod's press team had decided to play it up in a major way. Another great success for the mission: WATER on Mars! Janet duly asked the team a long list of standard questions: how much water had they found, what did finding water mean to the mission, etc. As co-discoverers, Marc and Raoul fielded the questions, leaving Julia free to think her own thoughts.

  What did the water mean? She sat back and envisioned life on Mars with plentiful water, no longer a cold, dusty desert. Under a pressurized dome the greenhouse effect would raise the temperature to something livable. A colony could grow plants, have open pools of water, even fountains, if they wished. She smiled as she thought about strolling along tree-lined walkways from hab to hab without helmet and suit, then realized with a start that she would never do it. They were just a few weeks from launching to Earth.

  A few short weeks, something inside of her said.

  How odd. When they'd arrived it'd seemed as though they had such a long time ahead of them. Now, suddenly, they'd made a major discovery, but so late …

  She suddenly remembered the sample she'd picked up outside the vent. She'd been so worried about Viktor she'd forgotten about it!

  She mentally tuned back in to the broadcast, suddenly impatient to be off. Could she slip away? Janet wished Viktor a speedy recovery, and transmitted some medical advice from the ground team of doctors. The public part of the broadcast ended. Then Janet turned to technical details about the upcoming liftoff test. Viktor's accident was one more mishap to be overcome. Janet didn't fail to mention the obvious: the sprained ankle meant their captain would be less effective if anything went wrong with the engine test fire of the Return Vehicle. What should have been a routine test now loomed as a potential crisis.

  There had already been plenty to worry about. The subject of the ERV had been a touchy one ever since they'd arrived.

  Soon after touchdown they'd discovered that the Return Vehicle was damaged. A
failure in the aerobraking maneuver apparently had made the Return Vehicle come in a shade too fast, crushing fuel pipes and valves around the engines. None of the diagnostics had detected this, since the lines were not pressurized. In some places where the damage went beyond mere repair, Raoul had been forced to refashion and build from scratch several of the more tricky parts. Working with the Earthside engineers, he had been steadily making repairs.

  In this he drew upon not only his technical training, but his family's tradition of Mexican make-do. His father and uncle ran a prosperous garage in Tecate, just below the U.S. border. He'd grown up in greasy T-shirts with a wrench in his hand. Coming from a country with a chronic shortage of hard goods meant that “recycle and reuse” was not just a slogan but a necessity.

  Viktor admired his work, and they understood each other at this basic level. The Russian space program, starting way back in the Soviet era, had always operated in the same way. Cosmonauts on Mir were expert at cannibalizing discarded electronic components to make repairs. Still, although Raoul was good at creative reuse and making novel pieces fit, he had never before had to work under this kind of pressure. Their return, and quite possibly their lives, depended on his repairs.

  They ended the transmission on an edgy note. It was two months and counting to launch.

  As soon as they signed off, Julia slipped away to her lab space, where she'd left the sample. She looked around at the usual clutter in her tiny lab. A mostly unused lab, she thought, since she'd not found anything living to study.

  Ah, there it was. She held the sealed bag up to the light. The wiper material appeared to be damp, with a light orange smear in the center of the damp spot. What looked like drops of water had collected on the plastic of the bag over the damp patch. So there was water ice at the top of the vent! That was interesting by itself. It meant there was liquid water somewhere below the surface, and the cloud they'd seen was water vapor. Maybe all of them had found water today.

  She slipped the bag under the dissecting microscope to have a quick look at the orange smear. It was probably just dust previously frozen into the ice, but she always checked anyway.

  She looked through the eyepieces, expecting to see the familiar scatter of grainy dust and sand particles. Sure enough, they were there—but there was other stuff as well.

  She rotated the nosepieces to get a closer view. Her heart caught in her throat. Trapped in the fine fibers of the wiper, it looked for all the world like cellular debris.

  She sat back, her thoughts racing, reviewing in her mind how she had collected the sample and whether it could have been contaminated. The wiper had been clean, still sealed in its sterile wrapper, identical to all the others she had used unsuccessfully before this. And she had used the same technique as always. Except there was no second sample because of Viktor's accident. Could she have delayed sealing the bag? No. She remembered stowing it in her sample pack just before his first cry of pain.

  She looked at the sample again. It had to be real. This was the stuff on the ice at the mouth of the vent. But what was it?

  She changed nosepieces again, altering the size of the image, then fiddled with the light source to see it in different ways. It was actually quite difficult to make out, but after fifteen minutes she was satisfied. It seemed to be a very pale-colored, dried up scum coated with red dust.

  Pale because it lived underground, that fit. But unmistakably organic. Life!

  Her yells brought all three of her crewmates running, or in Viktor's case, hobbling.

  They were a lot more reserved than she was.

  “This is what you're excited about?” asked Raoul, after taking a look through the microscope. “It looks like nothing at all.”

  “Yes, but it's organic nothing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It can't be anything else.”

  Marc popped in. “What's up?”

  “Julia's discovered organic nothing.”

  “Really? Let me see.”

  She'd learned from Raoul's reaction. “As a geologist, how would you interpret this?”

  Marc settled onto the seat, scanned the sample, changed the magnification, altered the light source. Viktor arrived as he was studying it. “Hmm,” said Marc. “There's water in here.” He looked up. “Where'd you find this?”

  “This is sample from vent?” asked Viktor.

  Julia nodded. “Just outside. I swabbed one of the shiny frozen spots at the mouth of the vent as you started down. Here, sit down.”

  “Looks like sand particles and some dust in a wet patch,” said Marc.

  “What about the other stuff?” she asked.

  “What other stuff?”

  “There are bits of …” She was about to say “organic material,” but said instead “flaky material.”

  “Wha? Oh, yeah I saw that, what is it?”

  “That's just the point, Marc, what is it? I think it's dried organic material, but what else could it be?” Julia was aware of her deflating excitement. What if Marc had a ready chemical explanation? And she'd been so sure.

  “Some kinda weird—no, it seems to be a bit stringy …” He looked up. “I can't tell just by looking. You'll hafta try some chemical tests. Do you have any more?”

  “Nope, that's it. There was more, only—”

  “Science was interrupted to come to aid of fallen comrade.” Viktor came to her rescue. “You think it's alive?”

  “No. I think it's been freeze-dried, probably torn apart by UV and peroxide dust. But it was alive, and very recently. There was more of the stuff, probably blown out when the vent outgassed.”

  Raoul yawned. “When you scientists decide, come wake me up. I'm bushed. Lots to do, plenty of tests to run if we're gonna get out of here.” He shuffled off.

  Marc stood up. “Well, Jules, I just don't know what this stuff is. It could be organic, or some funny dried saltlike formation.” He shrugged. “Find out what it's made of. Mars has fooled us before.” He clapped Viktor on the back as he left. “Hope the ankle's not too bad, old man.”

  Julia watched him go, somewhat put off by his attitude. To Viktor she said, “They don't seem to care. What could be more important than finding life on Mars?”

  “To go home, maybe? Organic scum is not exciting to lonely men.” He reached up, put an arm around her waist. “I too long for home, but am not lonely, so is bearable.”

  As she hugged Viktor back she was already planning the next step in the campaign to return to the vent.

  8

  SEPTEMBER 2015

  THE MEDIA WENT WILD WITH THE AIRBUS ANNOUNCEMENT.

  By chance, that week there were no major wars, scandals, or tragedies to capture public attention. A covert program—prepared and sprung upon the world in one rather stiff press conference in Beijing— was far more exciting than the Consortium's by-now wearying preparations. A race for the Mars Prize! the media sang.

  At least the snout of the media pig rooted after Airbus for a while, leaving them in comparative peace. Time passed quickly for the astronauts as Axelrod's media machine purred busily day and night. Their cameras and constant, though ever-polite, questions got in the way of training. Antagonism rose in the Consortium crew. Countless times they complained, and Axelrod promised to tone it down.

  Slowly it dawned on Julia that Axelrod loved it. Not just because a real race meant higher ratings, max coverage, and product endorsements, either. He had been a prominent figure before, but now he stood above all the many billionaires in a rich world, his cocky grin instantly known to anyone who glanced at a TV set. He kept this under control, but Julia remembered a comment from her father, early on: “Crowns work on the heads beneath them.”

  Axelrod was brilliant, but beneath the media blitz he was plainly growing more concerned. He had put up a lot of money and even with his vast holdings could not afford to lose the prize. Within weeks he had to sell trivid rights to make the monthly financial nut. The rather generous astronaut contracts began gnawing at
him, because he could not touch the sums the four were already acquiring for interviews and book contracts.

  The chancy air of racing fever could not disguise that, after all, this entire gaudy attraction could explode on the launch pad—gone in an instant, leaving behind only graveside tributes and a mountain of debt.

  On a chilly evening she found herself sharing a limousine with Axelrod, coming back from a pointless backslapping banquet for Consortium bigwigs, and she pressed him on whether he could truly bring together all the elements before their launch date. “The money alone—”

  He grinned. “Ah, my Julia, always worryin’. Any idea how much the Summer Olympics bring in?”

  “Uh, a billion?”

  “Last ones, five billion—and they last just three weeks!”

  “But most of going to Mars is boring, just sitting in a tin can for half a year—”

  “Sure, we don't sell that. We sell danger.”

  “The landing?”

  “And the launches. Both of ‘em, from here and there.”

  “Okay, that's a couple of tight moments—”

  “There's tension building to that, y'know. Will they make it? What's the aerobraking look like, anyway? That kinda thing.”

  “You can't show much at landing—”

  “Sure we can. I'm having a TV mounted just behind the aeroshell so we can see you guys skipping along the top of the air, landing—the works.”

  “And TV on the rovers?”

  “Of course.”

  “How about in our suits?”

  Her sarcasm was lost on Axelrod. He arched his eyebrows. “Too hard to fit ‘em into the helmet, but we'll have great little portables. On live feed, right back to the hab, tight beamed to us here, join the Mars Adventurers, you can ride along with the astronauts. Every time they turn a corner, you're seeing stuff nobody ever saw. Same time as the astronauts see it, too.”

  “I'm a little bothered by the whole feel of it.”

  “Might I remind you that Stanley of ‘Dr. Livingston, I presume’ was a reporter. He paid for his fare to Africa and into the jungle with stories for a newspaper. One of the polar explorers, the one who got to the South Pole first, Shackleton—he wrote books, gave lectures, even showed the first movies of Antarctica. All to finance his exploration.”