“I woke up and knew something was wrong,” Mark said. “From there, I guess I just did what made sense.”
Guillermo sat on his own bed and looked at the floor. “I just don’t get why Govind had to go, and not me.”
Mark didn’t have an answer for that. Govind had fallen asleep and missed the onset of a crisis, but Guillermo’s anxiety could have derailed the recovery effort. If he’d given into panic, if he’d dropped his tools and cracked his helmet, if he’d become disoriented and run off into the desert at night . . .
Guillermo met Mark’s gaze just long enough for Mark to see the doubt in his eyes. Then he looked away again.
“What if something like that happens on Mars?” Guillermo asked.
“Then we’ll deal with it.” Yoshiko sat up and swung his feet down to the floor. He brushed back his thinning, black hair that had clumped into bed-head disarray. “Each of us has faults. If not, I imagine we’d be in the U.N. Space Corps, as real astronauts. Instead, we’re sitting inside this terrarium auditioning to be colonists.”
Guillermo laughed, but his tone was bitter. “It’s not a good feeling, is it?”
Yoshiko shook his head. “No, it’s not.”
Mark stretched out on his bed and let the mattress take the weight of his tired body. It hadn’t occurred to him that many of his fellow Mars Ho candidates might well be Space Corps rejects. Personally, he didn’t like the idea of rotating through so many space station and ground control assignments.
“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have skills that someone decided might be useful to a new settlement on an alien planet,” Yoshiko said. “You’re an experienced mechanic. You don’t think that would be handy?”
Guillermo frowned. “How did you know . . . ?”
Yoshiko smiled. “You talk in your sleep.”
Guillermo relaxed, and Mark saw the beginnings of a bashful smile brightening his face.
“And maybe somebody liked the way Lori Ridgway was talking to you.” Yoshiko pushed himself up from the bed and stepped into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
At the mention of Lori, Mark felt his body tensing. Worse, Guillermo turned toward him with a question on his face.
“Mark, did you . . .” Guillermo rubbed his hands together again. “When you were in the other bunk, did Oskar Block say anything to you?”
That wasn’t the question Mark expected. He groaned out a laugh and sat up, his forearms resting on his thighs. “You, too?”
Guillermo glanced quickly at the cameras and lowered his voice. “That dude is weird. You know he’s got that sex show? Online? With his wife?”
By now, Mark knew more than he wanted to about Cocks Unblocked, thanks to Trent. Mark had had to stop the kid from getting too specific about his favorite episode, about some maneuver called the Venus Butterfly.
“I think he was trying to help,” Guillermo said. “He was talking about a relationship alliance. I didn’t really get it. And I didn’t really want to, either. You know?”
“I know.”
Guillermo glanced quickly at the bathroom door and the sound of running water. “So, I wanted to ask, because I kinda got the feeling something was heating up between you and Lori. And then it wasn’t. Maybe it’s none of my business.”
Mark resisted the urge to hang his head. Or to stomp his feet or punch his mattress. None of those actions would make him feel better. Instead, he gestured to the cameras. “In here, I’m pretty sure everyone knows everyone else’s business.”
“So, are you two, like, a thing?”
Mark chuckled at Guillermo’s earnest awkwardness. Lindsay had let it slip that several of the women considered Guillermo one of the Mars Ho hunks, and the fact that he was on the shy side only increased his cachet.
But his anxiety was a concern. April had told Mark how bad things nearly got with Guillermo—alone in the dark, in the confines of a space suit, in an emergency. Lori had taken one for the team.
But Mark had still been cool to her afterward. Hadn’t she jumped to conclusions about him and April? And his gut still twisted at all the flirting, because it wasn’t just with Guillermo.
He had no idea how he was supposed to feel about the woman. He had his own issues still digging at him. And Guillermo was still waiting for an answer. It was looking like an awfully long ride to Mars.
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Mark spread his hands out in front of him and tried to think. Did he want Guillermo to go after Lori? No. He also estimated Guillermo’s chances with Lori at slim to none. “Nothing’s settled until you get that final spot.”
And maybe not even then. Mark lay back down and closed his eyes. Seconds later, the familiar moaning of the Mystery Mating Couple started up, their excited sighs carried far and wide by the air ducts.
Mark squeezed his pillow in over his ears.
Guillermo laughed. “I guess that’s my cue, bro.” He stood and stretched his strong arms over his head. “Time to make my move.”
Mark heard his loping stride across the floor, followed by the sound of the bunk door opening and closing.
“Good luck there,” Mark mumbled into his pillow.
Lori was pumping hard on the stair machine in the fitness room, the same machine she’d broken in her hissy fit with Mark, and which Govind had helped her repair. Sweat dripped from her brow as she pushed her already exhausted body to climb farther, faster, harder, as if the endless steps to nowhere could help her escape the biodome—or maybe just escape the old episode of Stargate Universe streaming on her tablet.
Behind her, April pedaled lazily on a stationary cycle.
Now the dome was down to thirteen—seven women and six men. Lori had a better than fifty-percent chance of making the first colony team.
She’d tried to sleep after the elimination, but rest wouldn’t come. The hottest shower the dome’s limiters would allow soothed away some of the tension, but then the water had shut off automatically and left Lori sopping wet and only a little closer to solace than she had been dry.
She stepped harder, slamming her weight into each downward thrust. Her movements were aggressive, angry, and awkward from fatigue. What she really wanted was a barbell she could load up for some deadlifts, the more brutal the better. She wanted to grit her teeth and growl in a battle with gravity.
But there were only resistance machines in the habitat’s fitness room, a simulation of what they’d have on the ship and on Mars. Weights would be an expensive nuisance on a supply ship. For the successful Mars colonists, it was resistance from here forward.
Lori wiped her forearm across her face and didn’t care what she might look like to viewers at home.
April hummed to herself as she pumped her legs in a slow rhythm that was at odds with the rapid pace of her fingers across her tablet screen.
Lori increased the machine’s level of difficulty and picked up her pace. Her heart thudded against her ribs and she huffed with every step. She grunted and sweated and still wanted to punch the wall.
All she needed to do now was keep her head in the game. But flirting with Govind and Guillermo had left a bad taste in her mouth. Had she been a factor in Govind’s elimination? She also didn’t know how to deal with Guillermo now that the challenge was over. He obviously had ideas about continuing the conversation, a consequence she hadn’t counted on.
This wasn’t who she was. This wasn’t who she wanted to be.
Lori’s pace slowed as she thought about dropping off the stair machine to ask April how she managed the fallout from her “data gathering.” But then Guillermo mounted the treadmill to her immediate left. She blew out a long breath and started climbing harder.
For a guy who had been quiet and shy for much of the competition, he was really turning on the charm now. There was nothing bashful about his approach as he waved a hand in Lori’s face to get her attention before he powered up his treadmill. He flashed a smile that would shame even Gary Nelson’s expensive grin, but Lori could only wi
nce in response. Against her will, her imagination presented her with a guess of what Guillermo might look like naked.
On her tablet screen, Dr. Nicholas Rush yelled and ran down a dark corridor. She knew just how he felt.
Not that Guillermo would look bad. If the fit of his workout shorts and t-shirt were any indication, the man would be all sorts of yummy. But there was something in his manner—how he held himself a little too erect as the treadmill sped up and he began to run, how he flexed his biceps more than was necessary, how he kept glancing at Lori to make sure she was watching—that reminded her of a peacock.
“Hey.” He wasn’t remotely out of breath, his brown skin smooth over rippling muscles. “How’s it going?”
How’s it going?! That was the best he could do? Swallowing her laughter, Lori started to cough and reached for her water bottle to buy some time before she had to respond. She heard April’s snicker behind her, and that didn’t help.
Lori gulped down some water and slowed her pace. “Okay, I guess.”
“So, have you read any good books lately?”
Lori missed a step and had to catch herself, painfully, against the machine’s dashboard. A glance over her shoulder rewarded her with April’s expression of baffled sympathy.
To Lori’s dismay, Guillermo stepped off the treadmill and reached out a brawny arm to steady her. “You okay there?”
Lori righted herself and waved Guillermo off, all the while hoping he didn’t assume it was his swagger that had her swooning.
“I’m fine.” She punched up the machine’s intensity again and climbed like she was racing up a mountain to escape a horde of mutant spiders.
Guillermo resumed his running, but he kept glancing at Lori. She kept her eyes on her tablet so as not to encourage further conversation. But he didn’t take the hint.
“So I really like country music, and I’m not a bad dancer. You?” He engaged in some loud throat clearing and cracking of finger joints that Lori really hoped wasn’t intended to impress her. He smiled at her again even as he jogged at a steady clip. “It’s just, uh, you know, you have such a beautiful mind.”
April spluttered so hard with laughter that she fell off her exercise bike.
“She has such a beautiful mind?!” April pulled herself up to a sitting position on the cushioned floor, then grabbed her tablet. “Did you find that in a magazine somewhere?”
“No! That’s not, I wouldn’t . . .” Guillermo grabbed at the treadmill’s front bar to keep from tripping over his own fast-moving feet. “I just want to talk to you.”
Lori felt genuinely bad for him, even if his pickup lines were atrocious. She didn’t want to embarrass him for making the effort— clumsy, ill-executed, and a sharp contrast to Mark Lauren’s no-nonsense approach to just about everything. But she resisted the urge to lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She didn’t want to give him any more encouragement.
Lori turned down the stair stepper’s intensity. “It’s okay, but—”
April shrieked in dismay.
Lori leapt off of her machine and knelt at April’s side, with Guillermo crouching close behind her. She scanned April’s tiny frame, looking for any sign of injury. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
April stared in shock at her tablet screen. “Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god.” She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and started rocking. “No no no no.”
Lori grabbed April’s shoulders and tried to hold her still. “April, what’s wrong? Look at me!”
“The Chinese crew launch. They just, they’re . . .” April squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, god.”
The Mars Ho candidates spent the next hour huddled together in the kitchen, watching and rewatching the same video footage: The Chinese rocket and its Mars-bound payload and crew lifting off from the launchpad, hurtling upward through the blue sky on a plume of bright flame, separating spent stages and entering the Earth’s lower atmosphere, only to explode in a fiery ball.
After the third viewing, someone had muted the sound so they didn’t have to listen to the replay of the forced, professional calm of the commentators as they struggled to make sense of the accident as it happened.
Mark sat at the table, his hands cupped around a mug of coffee just so he had something warm to hold onto. April sat next to him, her eyes glistening with tears.
“How many were onboard?”
Mark looked up to find Jacki standing behind him.
“Five,” April answered, her voice dull and raw. “The Chinese ship can accommodate five passengers. The international program has space for eight. Eight people rocketing into orbit to rendezvous with the ISS-5 to prepare for departure to Mars.”
Seated on her other side, Lori squeezed April’s hand and stopped her from spouting more facts and figures.
“It’s an entirely different program,” Lori murmured to her. “There’s a logical explanation for what went wrong—something that can be fixed and guarded against. You’ll see.”
Mark closed his eyes. His lids felt like sandpaper. Taking a break from the next replay of the tragedy, he glanced around the room to gauge the status of his teammates. Like April, they stared blankly at the gruesome footage. Trent, looking especially disheveled, stood in the doorway and rhythmically bounced his fist against the metal doorjamb. Beside him, Melissa was still as granite. Trevor slumped against the back wall with his arms crossed, his dark face stern and unmoving.
Cecilia and Oskar conferred in hushed, heated tones in one corner. He pointed at the screen and gestured toward her while she shrugged, her face wet with tears.
Leah’s hair was a tangled mess, and one of her boots was unlaced.
Dina pulled up a chair behind April and Lori. She patted April’s back, then pulled her hand away. Guillermo crouched in front of the table, his hands deep in his black hair. Yoshiko sprawled on the floor next to him, rubbing his eyes at regular intervals and glancing back at Mark.
Each time Mark met Yoshiko’s gaze, he shook his head or gave a weak shrug. What was there to say? What could anyone do to make this better?
“How long ago did this happen?” Jacki made a weak gesture toward the screen.
April blinked at her tablet screen. “It’s here. Just let me find it.”
The latest replay of the accident stopped when Hannah broke in, her face in close-up on the wide screen.
“The events you’ve been watching occurred approximately fourteen hours ago,” Hannah said in direct answer to Jacki’s question. Mark cursed under his breath. Even when they were under extreme duress, the Mars Ho cameras kept rolling.
Hannah looked about as tired as Mark felt, and he noted the dark circles under her eyes and the rats’ nest of her curly hair. “I wish I could tell you that you’re not being recorded right now, but I can tell you that there’s a huge fight going on in the production studio about whether to use any of your reactions on air. I mean, until you’ve had a chance to absorb what’s happened . . .”
“And what exactly did happen?” Jacki walked around the table to stand directly in front of the screen, moving aside only when Trent and Dina objected to her blocking everyone’s view.
“It’s all speculation at this point.” Hannah stifled a yawn and rubbed at her face. “You know how these things go. There’ll be an official investigation by the Chinese National Space Administration, with governmental oversight. There’s no telling how long it will take for those findings to be disseminated, even through scientific channels, or how complete it will be.”
“There is speculation, though.” Jacki planted her hands firmly on her hips.
Hannah took a deep breath. “A faulty valve, maybe, controlling the propellant. Our own experts here are poring over the footage and talking to their counterparts at NASA, CSNA, ESA, and the UNSC. Some are saying it might have been a freak collision with some space debris. Probably the best guess so far is that a valve cracked, allowing ignited rocket fuel to spill over . . .”
At the sound of raised voices off-c
amera, Hannah glanced over her shoulder and her frown deepened. She moved partly out of frame to argue in whispers with someone, then nodded and looked back into the camera. “You’ve probably guessed that the entire vehicle—rocket, payload, and crew—was lost.”
Jacki steadied herself against the kitchen counter, shoving the coffee maker aside. Guillermo rose from the floor and grasped her shoulders, but she pushed him away.
Hannah clasped her hands together on her desk, getting ready to deliver the production party line. “This should in no way deter you from participating in the Mars Ho program. This unfortunate accident was in no way related to the Mars Colony Program and will not ground or otherwise negatively impact MCP efforts or schedules. We have grief counselors standing by, and technical materials available to reassure you of mission plans and safety protocols. The confessional booths are at your disposal, though we remain under time-delay for communications with outside family and friends. For the sake of the greater mission, we strongly urge you not to—”
“You don’t want us to say anything that might derail the Mars program.” It was Dina who spoke up, her chin lifted even as she gripped the back of April’s chair. “We get it.”
“They weren’t using the same protocols.” April stared at her tablet. “Cutting corners. Trying to be first. It happens sometimes. Just like the Soviets, trying to beat the Apollo missions with three astronauts . . .”
“Shhh.” Lori patted April’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about any of that. It’s all going to be . . .”
Mark pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “So this is what the power outage was about. You cut us off to keep us from knowing what had happened.”
“To delay our knowing, at least,” Lori said.
Hannah nodded grimly. “The power outage was not a planned challenge, not like that anyway.”
Mark shoved his hands deep into his jumpsuit pockets. The junction box was someone’s contingency plan, a quick means of cutting off the dome—but not its cameras—if something went awry. A mechanical switch instead of something in the computer code that April or another candidate might have run across. Ridiculously simple.
Mars Ho! (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 1) Page 17