The Martian Race

by Gregory Benford

  Damn. What does Viktor want me to do? Am I supposed to refuse, or go along? I just can't read him on this one. It's like when we play poker—I can never tell when he's bluffing. Still, he suggested it. “All right,” she said reluctantly.

  Viktor ceremoniously showed each of them the ace, put it in the deck, shuffled it, and placed it in front of Raoul. “Cut, then pick.”

  Despite herself, Julia was fascinated.

  “Seven of diamonds,” said Raoul. “Shit card.”

  “All same, but one.” Viktor reshuffled, passed the deck to Marc. “You next. Cut, then pick.”

  “Jack of clubs. No good.”

  It was Julia's turn. Ohmigod, they're serious. We're really doing this crazy thing. With a sense of unreality, she cut the deck, hesitated, turned over the card. It was a black ace. Her heart leaped. No. “Ace of clubs,” she heard herself say. She placed it in the reject pile and sagged back in her chair.

  Viktor drew the four of spades.

  They played as if nothing else in the world mattered.

  Two rounds in, the comm chime sounded.

  Julia made a move to get up.

  “Forget it,” growled Raoul. “It's probably the eavesdroppers wanting to know why we turned off the vid.”

  She shrugged and sat down again. It was her turn anyway. Earth could wait.

  The reject pile grew steadily.

  Three rounds. Nothing. Raoul cursed more violently at each failed pick.

  Four.

  Five.

  “Fuckin’ thing isn't in here,” Marc muttered under his breath.

  Julia couldn't see how this would all end. She felt exhausted by the tension. She tore her eyes away from the cards and looked at her fellow crewmates. Who were these two frenzied, ragged men?

  They seemed like strangers, suddenly.

  Viktor seemed very tense. He cut the deck, flipped over the card. Stared at it for a long moment, then closed his eyes and sighed with relief. “Ace. Of. Spades,” he said slowly, turning it so all could see.

  32

  JANUARY 29, 2018

  AFTERWARD, THEY SAT FOR A FEW MINUTES, TRYING TO UNDERSTAND the implications. Raoul frowned into his plastic mug, rubbing it absentmindedly. Julia wondered how he was going to last for more than two years without seeing his family.

  “So, Viktor, you won,” said Marc in a flat voice. “You'll get to see how a nuke flies before I do. That's a turnabout.” He laughed, a short bark.

  “I will not leave Julia here. But the seat is mine to decide.”

  Raoul sighed. “Yep, so it is.” He looked at Marc. “Time for us to get moving. You about ready?”

  “I want to pack a bag, is all.” He shuffled slowly off.

  Julia raised her eyebrows. “Where are you going?”

  “Moving to the ERV,” said Raoul.

  “What for?” Julia was dumbfounded. This she had not anticipated.

  “Safeguard the fuel, Axelrod's orders,” said Raoul.

  Julia's brief hopes for normalcy shattered.

  “I don't think is necessary,” said Viktor. “Boss has funny ideas of what can happen here. Is not bad sci-fi movie.”

  “Well, we're not gonna sit here on our asses wondering when Chen makes his move.”

  “You really think he's going to try for the fuel?” Julia was dazed.

  “What I said is I don't wanna worry about it. We stay in the ERV, there's no question of him trying anything funny.”

  “And Marc is going too?” asked Julia hoarsely. “But his samples, his work, everything's here.”

  “We're not exactly moving out of the neighborhood, although God knows we tried.”

  Julia struggled to clear her throat. They're serious.

  Raoul looked at her coldly. “And there's another reason to go. This place is so small we'll catch whatever she has. And I don't want it. Especially if it turns out to be a Mars bug.”

  “It's from the Airbus crew.”

  “No one else caught it. You were the only one exposed to the Marshroom.”

  “Marsmat,” she corrected him automatically. “Yeah, my immune system was down after the accident, so that's why I got it first.”

  “Whatever,” Raoul said, getting up. “I don't fancy spending the rest of my life in quarantine.”

  Viktor looked thoughtful. “Is time to plan maintenance for hab. These last few weeks we have not been on correct schedule.”

  “No kidding,” said Raoul. “We were trying to get the hell outta here.”

  “Is not criticism, just observation.”

  Over his shoulder he called, “You make up the schedule, get back to us, we'll come over.” She heard the door to his cabin bang.

  “Damn,” Julia said. “I thought it was all over.”

  “Just beginning, is more likely.”

  “They were looking for any excuse to move out of the hab.”

  “My guess also.”

  The red light on the comm was blinking steadily. “Damn again. We forgot about that vid that came in earlier.”

  Axelrod was indeed anxious. He delivered his rambling soliloquy while pacing back and forth. “Hey, what's wrong? You've been off the air for damn near twelve hours now. What's happening? You know, I worry about you guys alla the time. And—well, I've already apologized for not sending a backup ERV. I'm doin’ all I can here to get you guys home, but it's sorta limited at this point.” A grimace.

  “Airbus is still holding tight. They won't come right out and demand Julia's samples, we'd blow them outta the water in the international press if they did. Might jeopardize their getting the prize also. Blackmail isn't cricket, y'see.”

  He stopped pacing and looked straight at them. “I was worried that you didn't agree with my Airbus negotiations. When you turned off the camera, I thought you might have taken matters into your own hands or somethin’.” He laughed nervously.

  Why did he think that? Maybe all men are alike. Or somebody talked to his supposedly personal advisor.

  “So just hang in there, guys. I can imagine how tough it is, and I feel really bad about it.

  “Well, turning to something else, my PR boys are okay with calling Julia's alien the ‘Marsmat.’ Everybody on this planet has gone crazy about it. This is some hot property we've got! The U.N. is going to debate whether Mars life should come to Earth. I mean, how could they stop us? Give me a break. There's talk about permanent quarantine—in orbit—or worse. Meantime, every guy in a lab coat wants to get his hands on those samples. So, what d'ya think we get the scientists to fight the PEPA crazies? Julia, you got any ideas?”

  Julia said sourly, “Sure, lots.”

  “So, guys, lemme hear from you. Soon. Okay?” He signed off.

  “What are you going to tell him?” asked Julia. “About this morning?”

  “I tell only truth,” said Viktor stolidly. “But I volunteer nothing. I am going to do it live, to show we have nothing to hide.”

  She sat behind him while he did the broadcast. She even waved cheerfully, but said nothing.

  “Hey, Boss, relax,” said Viktor. “Camera was accidentally left off all night. We have just turned it back on.”

  That is true—as far as it goes.

  They had regretfully turned it back on. Besides the privacy, leaving the camera off also made them feel farther from Earth, which felt surprisingly good.

  Viktor continued blandly, “There is nothing wrong here, as you can see. Apart from ERV, that is. We think you are on right track with Airbus. I am content to let you handle it.”

  “I” not “we,” but maybe he won't notice.

  Viktor continued, “You are professional at sit-downs, not us. As you wanted, Marc and Raoul are moving to the ERV to guard the methane. That way we keep all options open. We give nothing away here.”

  If only he knew how true that is!

  “You arrange for space on nuke, get as many slots as possible. As captain, I will make final choice of personnel. We all agree on this.”

  Ver
y neatly done, that. She had to admire his ballsy attitude. He really was good at command.

  “Have not heard from Airbus crew since visit yesterday. We have sensor near their ship, though, shows they are getting ready to melt pingo water. Laying hoses, setting up connections to their reactor.”

  A beaming smile.

  “As for us, we have to do schedule of maintenance around here. We let it slip working on ERV so much. Could use help from tech staff to make sure we have forgotten nothing.”

  She was amazed how Viktor could carry on as if it had been just a normal day. But maybe that's how he copes. A familiar routine is calming.

  For her part, Julia was exhausted. Flu and worry combined to make her very sleepy. After Marc and Raoul left, taking the dune buggy, she decided to hide out in her cabin, reading backed-up e-mail and catching up on long-neglected correspondence. That way she would have a plausible excuse not to be on camera.

  The hab felt strange, with just the two of them. They'd been alone before, when Marc and Raoul had taken days-long trips in Red Rover, but this felt different. They didn't talk about it in the public rooms—out of long habit they saved such talk for their cabins, out of range of ears and cameras.

  Julia went to bed early. She brought her usual evening mug of hot cocoa in with her, and stretched out under the covers blissfully.

  Viktor joined her a short time later, saying, “Is too quiet out there.”

  “A li'l spooky. Why do you think they really left?”

  “Easier to hatch plans alone.”

  “You think they still want to attack the nuke?”

  “Raoul is very unhappy man, but not crazy.”

  “Yeah. I'm more afraid they'll try to cut a deal with Airbus.”

  “With what?”

  “With whom, you mean.”

  “Ah, the women.” He propped up on one elbow. “Tell me what you think.”

  “For starters, we've all noticed Marc and Claudine. Maybe Raoul wants Marc where he can watch him.”

  “Yes. Good thinking. But what about Gerda with Raoul?”

  She shook her head. “I don't sense any interest there, and I remember seeing her once or twice with typical Germanic types. But we never talked about anything personal, so I really have no idea what she likes.”

  “Eight months in a rocket can change tastes.”

  “For sure, but we don't know anything about those kind of arrangements on the nuke.”

  “Is something we must watch from now on, for sure.”

  “Yeah, I think so too. Even though you won this morning, fair and square. I was so relieved. What great luck!”

  “Good commander never relies on luck.”

  “What?”

  “Marc was right. Was never in deck.”

  “Viktor! Don't tell me you cheated! A gentleman doesn't cheat at cards.”

  “Am captain, not gentleman.”

  She put her hand to her chest theatrically. “I'm shocked, shocked, to discover that you would do something underhanded!” She frowned. “But you looked so relieved when you turned over the ace. I'd have sworn it was genuine.”

  “It was. I wasn't sure trick would work. Had only done it once before.”

  33

  JANUARY 31, 2018

  JULIA AWOKE FEELING MUCH BETTER. AFTER THE INITIAL SHOCK, SHE'D recognized her virus as an absolutely standard Earth-type bug. Viktor still showed no signs of catching it, but that was no surprise—they rarely shared colds. In fact, they joked about whether that was good or bad news for their future children. Either they'd catch none, or get twice as many colds as anyone else.

  They rattled around at breakfast, just the two of them. She thought of calling over to the ERV just to say hi, but Viktor discouraged her with a shake of the head. As they all had been early in the mission, she was aware of the intrusion of the camera. By unspoken agreement, she and Viktor did not allude to the problems the crew was having while on camera. Having to hide things put her on guard.

  Viktor was obviously enjoying the privacy. She realized that with the others he was forced to be always on duty: Viktor the captain, not the man. This being together felt more like it had been in their apartment on Earth, so long ago.

  They both took advantage of it to be physically affectionate, something she had missed over the long months of enforced togetherness. She even indulged him with a neck rub as he read his London Times.

  He grunted with pleasure. “Could get used to this, easy.”

  “Say, look—” She stopped and pointed. “They're taking the dune buggy.”

  Marc and Raoul were already churning away in the open light rover. “Going north,” Viktor said.

  “Toward Airbus.”

  “There are other things north.”

  “Sure.”

  Viktor shrugged. She let it go. Instead of fretting over the situation, very little of which they could do anything about, she settled into her acceleration couch and called up her e-mail. Ah good, one from the folks. It was a vid. When her dad appeared on the screen she studied him carefully. He seemed animated and happy.

  “Hi, honey. Hope you're doing okay. We think we understand your situation and understand it's pretty difficult. Axelrod's folks keep us informed, but I'm sure they put their own spin on things. Thanks for cc'ing me on your bio e-mails, they're fascinating. But we'd love to hear how you're feeling, when you can spare the time.”

  Oops. How long since I last e-mailed? She checked her “sent” file. Almost a week. The prodigal daughter screws up again. She'd been assuaging her conscience by sending copies of her scientific transmissions. Guess that only works so long.

  She went back to the message. “On the other front, I have some better news. I've found a group of doctors with an experimental treatment for liver cancer. Not drugs or radiation, but ultrasound.” She listened carefully. “It's from the same folks who invented the ultrasound arterial cleaning technique. They had both ideas at the same time, but it's taken a lot longer to get the bugs ironed out of this one. Lotsa tech stuff, but basically, they can zap the cancer without harming the healthy liver tissue. And that's the main threat of this type of cancer—it's all mixed up with healthy tissue. They've done all the animal tests and some small-scale human trials, and the results are good.”

  Wow, she thought.

  He stopped and took a deep breath.

  “So, we're flying to Los Angeles in a couple days. Your mother and I feel pretty optimistic about this treatment. It won't do any harm, and at the very least it'll buy me more time. So don't worry about me, sweetie. You have some tough decisions to make and I don't want to make them any harder.”

  A bit of unrelated family news, and he signed off. She got up and stretched. Long ago she had learned to kick back from problems when somebody else was doing the right thing. No fretting, no burning of useless anxiety. Time for some fun.

  She donned her pressure suit for a trip to the greenhouse. After days in the hab, she was longing for some different scenery.

  “No taking helmet off,” Viktor reminded her sternly. “I will be watching.”

  The greenhouse welcomed her, as always. An oasis of green in a red desert …

  Except that the plants had frozen during the night after the blowout. Dead, brown vines hung from their support lines. Upright plants had simply collapsed in place.

  “Viktor,” she called over the comm, “while you're making up the maintenance schedule, don't forget that the greenhouse needs replanting ASAP.”

  “I make note. Everything dead?”

  “Just about. I haven't done an inventory but I don't see any green.” After checking the readout on the internal atmosphere, she opened the faceplate of her helmet, sniffed tentatively. It was just hab air with a faint tinge of vegetation. She sighed. It wouldn't smell fresh again until plants grew.

  She went straight for the repaired mist chamber. Viktor had strengthened the joints, and they seemed secure. She peered through the transparent walls—

  And was
astounded by what she saw.

  A riot of diminutive shapes. And even—yes—colors! Faint, but definite.

  Over in the far corner was the original celery-like spike. Underneath the nozzle that sprayed the nutrients was a small pool covered by a pinkish scum. Bet it's teeming with Marc's “shrimp.” At the center of the chamber was a tangle of pale blue filaments. The remaining mat surface was smooth or sported bumps of varying size. It was larger than before the blowout.

  Her thoughts were racing. How could those pale blobs of mat have spawned this diversity?

  She saw two possibilities. The mat could be a community of different organisms, finally large enough to express its true complexity. Microbes on Earth had chemical systems that allowed them to count their neighbors. If enough were present, the microbes turned on new genes and assumed different characteristics.

  Or … it was one organism of extreme plasticity. And minute differences in the environment were causing radical changes in the organism.

  Like slime molds. They spend most of their life as single wandering cells. As such, they cruise their landscape of wet, rotting wood like the familiar amoeba. But a drop in moisture causes a radical change in behavior and morphology. Using chemical attractants, great numbers of individual cells aggregate and differentiate into an elaborate reproductive structure of great beauty and brilliant color.

  Hmmm. On second thought, that's a cooperative effort also.

  She went back to the microscope slides she'd made. Those cell types really did look different. But the slime mold model was also attractive. She didn't have enough data to be able to decide.

  Two heads would be way better than one.

  Damn Chen anyway. Why couldn't we have cooperated on this discovery, rather than be at swords’ points!

  What had really surprised her during the vent descent was how large and complex the structures were. It was a throwback to the grand old days of the Precambrian on Earth, three billion years ago, when anaerobes had ruled the Earth. With the exception of the stromatolites near Perth, living anaerobes on Earth were minute, and most lived solitary lives. Even biofilms, communities of bacteria, were microscopic.