by Ben Bova
Despite all that technology can do for us, when we face a real challenge what is important is what’s inside us: brains, heart, and guts. On the frontier they are more vital than ever.
RED SKY AT MORNING
The gentle winds wafted ghostlike across the rust red desert of Mars as they had for uncounted millions of years, hardly stirring the dusty ground. Across plains pitted by meteor craters they swirled, along deep yawning gorges, around the flanks of massive shield volcanoes and across fields of rocks strewn like the scattered toys of careless children.
Across the entire planet, nothing had changed in ages. Except for one place, on the western end of Lunae Planum, where the rocky ground begins to rise toward the great Tharsis bulge. There stood a strangely incongruous structure, a pair of plastic domes, surrounded by cleat treads of tractors and boot prints of human explorers, visitors from distant Earth.
Morning sunlight streamed through the main dome’s lower sides. Above the transparent layer the dome was opaque, reinforced with foam gel to absorb the impact of stray meteoroids. After sunset even the transparent layer was darkened by a polarizing electric current, to keep the dome’s interior heat from leaking out into the frigid Martian night. The frail strangers from the blue planet could not survive in the cold of the red planet’s night.
“It will be lonesome around here,” Stacy Dezhurova said over breakfast.
“We won’t be gone that long,” Dex Trumball said. “Four weeks, tops.”
They were sitting around the long table in the galley: Dezhurova, Trumball, Jamie Waterman, and Possum Craig. The Russian cosmonaut seemed almost melancholy, which surprised Jamie. Usually Stacy was impassive, businesslike. She was a solid, thickset woman with a broad, chunky face and a sandy-blond pageboy that looked as if somebody had put a bowl over her head and chopped away.
“The dome will be quiet,” she said, turning her glance from Trumball to Craig. “First Mitsuo and Tómas fly out to the volcano, now you two are leaving us.”
Dex grinned at her. “Yeah, but when we come back we’ll have the old Pathfinder hardware with us. And the little Sojourner wagon, too.”
Dex was handsome, with movie-star looks: dark curly hair, lively blue-green eyes the color of a tropical sea, and a crooked little grin that hovered between self-confidence and cockiness.
Craig was just the opposite: a jowly, shaggy, good-natured bear of a former oil-field geologist with a prominent snoot and permanent five-o’clock shadow.
Jamie inwardly worried that they were biting off more than they could chew. Dex had insisted on adding this long excursion to the mission. For what? Jamie asked himself. So that they could retrieve the Pathfinder/Sojourner spacecraft and auction them off to a museum or private collector. The money people who funded the Second Martian Expedition backed the idea whole-heartedly, of course. Including Dex’s father, who was the biggest money guy of them all.
Despite Jamie’s misgivings, the expedition controllers had okayed Dex’s plan. So now he and Craig were off on a four-week-long jaunt to Ares Vallis in the old rover they had recovered from the first expedition and refurbished with spare parts from their stores.
And they had to launch their backup fuel generator all the way out to Xanthe Terra, to the halfway point in Dex’s excursion, so that he and Craig could refuel their rover on the way out and the way back again.
It’s not good planning, Jamie told himself. There’s no margin for error. It’s not smart, not safe. And it certainly isn’t good science. Dex is stealing four weeks from his geology work and Craig’s . . . for what? To make money. To get glory for himself.
But there was nothing he could do about it. He had objected as strongly as he knew how. His objections were noted back on Earth. And overruled.
So the morning’s work would be: First, launch the generator and land it safely in Xanthe. Second, get Dex and Craig off on their jaunt—if the generator lands safely where it’s supposed to.
A big morning.
Everyone crowded into the comm center as Dezhurova made the final preparations to launch the generator. Everyone except Jamie, who suited up and went through the airlock to watch the launch with his own eyes.
He walked alone to the crest of the little ridge formed by the rim of an ancient crater. From this vantage he could see the rocket booster standing on the horizon, the fuel generator still sitting at its top, as always. But now its propellant tanks were filled with liquified methane and oxygen. Jamie could see a wisp of white vapor wafting from a vent halfway up the rocket’s cylindrical body. But there was no condensation frost on the booster’s skin; there simply was not enough moisture in the Martian air for that.
In his helmet earphones Jamie heard the automated countdown ticking off, “Four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”
A flash of light burst from the rocket’s base and the booster was immediately lost in a dirty pink-gray cloud of vapor and dust. For a heartbeat Jamie thought it had exploded, but then the booster rose up through the cloud and he heard—even through his helmet—the growling roar of the rocket engines.
Higher and higher the rocket rose, swifter and swifter into the bright pink sky. Jamie bent back as far as his hard suit would allow, saw the rocket dwindle to a speck in the sky. And then it was lost to sight.
By the time he had come back through the airlock and taken off his suit, there were whoops and cheers coming from the comm center. Leaving the suit to be vacuumed later, Jamie hurried to join the crowd.
“Down . . . the . . . pipe,” Dezhurova was saying. She sat hunched before a display screen, her thick-fingered hands poised over the keyboard like a concert pianist’s ready to play.
But she did not touch the keys. She did not have to. The screen showed a plot of the rocket’s planned descent trajectory in red, next to a plot in green of its actual course. The two lines overlapped almost completely.
“The wind is stiffer than we expected,” Dezhurova said. “But neh problemeh.”
Vijay Shektar, the expedition doctor, was sitting beside Stacy, filling in as her assistant. The others were clustered behind the two women, huddled together like a shorthanded football team.
“Fifteen seconds to touchdown,” Vijay called out.
“Looks good,” Dezhurova said tightly.
“Lookin’ great,” shouted Possum Craig.
“Ten . . . nine . . .”
“I told you the spot was clear of boulders,” Dex Trumball said, to no one in particular.
Jamie saw that he was standing behind Vijay, his hand on her shoulder. He felt his nostrils flare with barely suppressed anger.
And he remembered what Vijay had told him the first night after they had landed, her almond eyes so serious, so lustrous. She always disconcerted Jamie, with her exotic dark Hindu looks and flippant, almost caustic Aussie accent. That night she had rattled him even more than usual.
“Dex is an alpha male, y’know. Just like you. You’re both natural leaders. You both have to be top dog. It’s a prescription for trouble. Maybe disaster.”
Maybe disaster, Jamie thought as the countdown ticked off. Maybe I’m sending the two of them off to their deaths. And it would be my fault if it happens; not the money people who made the decision to let them go, not the expedition controllers who agreed to do it—my fault.
“Four . . . three . . . two . . . touchdown!” Vijay announced.
“She is down, safe and sound,” said Dezhurova. She swivelled her chair around and swept her headset off with a flourish.
“We’re set for the run out to the Sagan site,” Dex crowed, beaming with satisfaction.
“Not till we check out the fuel generator, partner,” Craig warned. “That contraption’s gotta be perkin’ right before we go traipsin’ all the way out there.”
“Yeah, sure,” Dex replied, his triumphant grin shrinking only a little.
Within an hour they had all the data they needed. The drill had hit permafrost and the fuel generator was working just as if it had never been
moved, already replenishing the booster’s propellant tanks.
Trumball and Craig were suiting up; Jamie and Vijay were checking them out: Jamie with Possum, Vijay with Dex.
“Hope we can get the VR rig working right,” Dex said as he lifted his helmet from its shelf. Even encased in the bulky suit he radiated excitement, practically quivering, like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Well, I’ll finally get enough time to really tear her innards apart and see what th’ hell’s wrong with her,” Craig said.
Their plan was for Possum to work on the faulty VR rig during the long hours of the trek when he was not driving the rover.
Jamie was helping him put on his suit’s backpack. Craig backed into it and Jamie clicked the connecting latches shut. Then Possum stepped away from the rack on which the backpack had rested.
“Electrical connects okay?” Jamie asked.
Craig peered at the display panel on his right wrist. “All green,” he reported.
“Good.” Jamie plugged the air hose into Craig’s neck ring.
“You’re ready for your radio check,” Vijay said to Trumball.
Dex slid his visor down and sealed it. Jamie could hear his muffled voice calling to Stacy Dezhurova, who was manning the communications center, as usual. After a moment he slid the visor up again and made a thumbs-up signal.
“Radio okay.”
It took Craig another few minutes to get his suit sealed up and check out its radio. Trumball paced up and down restlessly. In the suit and thick-soled boots he reminded Jamie of Frankenstein’s monster waiting impatiently for a bus.
“We’re all set,” Dex said once Craig’s radio check was done. He turned toward the airlock hatch.
“Hold on a second,” Jamie said.
Trumball stopped, but did not turn back to face Jamie. Craig did.
“I know you’ve checked out the rover from here to hell and back,” Jamie said, “but I want you to remember that it’s an old piece of hardware and it’s been sitting out in the cold for six years.”
“We know that,” Trumball said to the airlock hatch.
“The first sign of trouble, I want you to turn back,” Jamie instructed. “Do you understand me? The hardware you’re setting out to retrieve isn’t worth a man’s life, no matter how much money it might bring in on Earth.”
“Sure,” Dex said impatiently.
“Don’t worry, I ain’t no hero,” Craig added.
Jamie took in a deep breath. “Possum, I’m putting you in charge of this excursion. You’re the boss. Dex, you follow his orders at all times. Understand?”
Now Trumball turned toward Jamie, slowly, ponderously in the cumbersome hard suit.
“What kind of bullshit is this?” he asked, his voice low and even.
“It’s chain of command, Dex. Possum’s older and he’s had a lot more experience living out in the field than either one of us has. He’s in charge. Anytime you two don’t agree on something, Possum is the winner.”
Trumball’s face went through a whole skein of emotions within the flash of a moment. Jamie waited for an explosion.
But then Dex broke into a boyish grin. “Okay, chief. Possum’s the medicine man and I’m just a lowly brave. I can live with that.”
“Good,” Jamie said, refusing to let Trumball see how much he hated Dex’s sneering at his Navaho heritage.
Gesturing toward the hatch with a gloved hand, Trumball said to Craig, “Okay, boss, I guess you should go through the airlock first.”
Craig glanced at Jamie, then pulled down his visor and clomped to the hatch.
Vijay said, “Good luck.”
“Yeah, right,” answered Trumball. Craig waved silently as he stepped over the sill of the open hatch.
The three of them stood in uncomfortable silence while the airlock cycled. When its panel light turned green again, Trumball opened the hatch and stepped in.
Before closing it, though, he turned back to Jamie and Vijay.
“By the way, Jamie, I didn’t get a chance to say so long to my father. Would you give him a buzz and tell him I’m on my way?”
“Certainly,” Jamie said, surprised at the sweet reasonableness in Trumball’s voice.
The hatch slid shut. Jamie started toward the comm center, Shektar walking alongside him.
Vijay asked, “Did you have to do that?”
“What?” Jamie asked.
“Humiliate him.”
“Humiliate?” Jamie felt a pang, but it wasn’t surprise. It was disappointment that Vijay saw his decision this way.
“Making him officially subordinate to Possum,” she went on. “That’s belittling him.”
Striding along the partitions that marked off the team’s sleeping cubicles, Jamie said, “I didn’t do it to Dex, I did it for Possum.”
“Really?”
“Dex would try to steamroller Possum whenever they had a difference of opinion. This way, Possum’s got the clout to make the final decisions. That might save both their lives.”
“Really?” she said again.
“Yes, really.”
He looked down at her. Her expression showed a great deal of disbelief.
By the time they reached the comm center, Craig and Trumball had climbed into the rover and started up its electrical generator.
“The boss is going to let me drive,” Dex exclaimed, his radio voice brimming with mock delight. “Goodie, goodie.”
Stacy Dezhurova went down the rover checklist with him, then cleared them for departure.
“We’re off to see the Wizard,” Dex said. “Be back in a month or so.”
In Dezhurova’s display screen Jamie saw the rover shudder to life, then lurch into motion. It rolled forward slowly at first, then turned a quarter-circle and headed off toward the east.
“Oh, Jamie,” Trumball called as they trundled toward the horizon, “please don’t forget to call my dad, okay?”
“You can call him yourself, right now,” Jamie responded.
“No, I want to concentrate on my driving. You do it for me, huh? Please?”
Jamie said, “Sure. I’ll send him a message right away.”
“Thanks a lot, chief.”
Jamie went to his quarters and sent a brief message Earthward, telling Darryl C. Trumball that his son was on his way to Ares Vallis and wanted him to know that everything was going well.
As he looked up from his laptop screen, he saw Stacy Dezhurova at his open doorway. She looked even moodier than she had at breakfast, almost worried.
“What’s the matter, Stacy?”
The cosmonaut stepped into Jamie’s cubicle but didn’t take the empty desk chair. She remained standing.
With a shake of her head that made her pageboy flutter, she answered, “I can’t help thinking that I should be out in that rover with them.”
Jamie shut down his computer and closed its lid. “Stacy, we went over that a couple of hundred times. You can’t be everyplace.”
“The safety regulations say an astronaut must be on every excursion.”
“I know, but this trek of Dex’s is an extra task that we didn’t plan on.”
“Still . . .”
“Sit down,” Jamie said, pointing to the desk chair. He immediately felt silly; there was no other chair in the cubicle.
She sat heavily, like a tired old woman, and Jamie leaned toward her from the edge of his bunk. “We just don’t have enough people to send you along with them. You know that.”
“Yes.”
“And Possum’s about as good as they come—for a guy who’s not an astronaut.”
“Yes,” she said again.
“They’ll be okay.”
“But if something happens,” she said, “I will feel responsible. It is my job to go out with the scientists and make certain they don’t get themselves killed.”
Jamie sat up straighter. “If something happens, it’s my responsibility, not yours. I made the decision, Stacy.”
“I know, but . . .�
�� Her voice trailed off.
“Look: Tómas had to go with Mitsuo, there was no way around that. We need you here at the base. We don’t have any other astronauts! What do you expect me to do, clone you?”
She let a small grin break her dour expression. “I understand. But I don’t like it.”
“They’ll be okay. Possum’s no daredevil.”
“I suppose so.”
Is she sore because Tómas got to fly to Olympus Mons instead of her? Jamie wondered. But she knew that’s how it would be. God, we made that decision before we left Earth.
All during the weeks that Rodriguez had been test-flying the rocket plane, taking it out on jaunts that started with a simple circle around their base camp and gradually extended as far as Olympus Mons and back again, never once did Stacy ask to fly the plane. Never once did she show that she was unhappy that Tómas would be the pilot while she “flew” the comm console here at the base.
Only now was she showing how unhappy it made her. Astronauts are fliers, Jamie realized. She’s a pilot and she’s not being allowed to fly. He remembered how he had felt when it looked as if he would not be selected for the expedition to Mars.
Leaning closer to her, Jamie said, “Stacy, the Navaho teach that each person has to find the right path for his life. Or hers. I’m sorry that your path is keeping you on the ground while Tómas gets to fly. But there’ll be other flights, other missions. You’ll get into the air before we leave Mars, I promise you.”
She brightened only slightly. “I know. I am being selfish. But still . . . damn! I wish it was me.”
“You’re too important to us right now to risk on an excursion. We need you here, Stacy. I need you here.”
Dezhurova blinked with surprise. “You do?”
“I do,” Jamie said.
“I didn’t think of it that way.”
“Find the right path, Stacy. Find the balance that brings beauty to your life.”
“That is the Navaho way, eh?”
“It’s the way that works.”
DOSSIER: ANASTASIA DEZHUROVA
It was the Americans who called her Stacy. Her father’s pet name for her was Nastasia.