“Yeah. Guess so.”
“You saved Marta’s life. The frickin’ rescue team took half an hour to get outside. She’d a’ been gone by then.”
“My leg . . .”
The super shook his head. “Mashed to a pulp. No way to save it.”
Harry let out a long, weary breath.
“They got therapies back Earthside,” the super said. “Stem cells and stuff. Maybe they can grow the leg back again.”
“Workman’s insurance cover that?”
The super didn’t answer for a moment. Then, “We’ll take up a collection for you, Harry. I’ll raise whatever it takes.”
“No,” Harry said. “No charity.”
“It’s not charity, it’s—”
“Besides, a guy doesn’t need his legs up here. I can get around just as well without it.”
“You can’t stay here!”
“Why not?” Harry said. “I can still work. I don’t need the leg.”
“Company rules,” the super mumbled.
Harry was about to say, “Fuck the company rules.” Instead, he heard himself say, “Change ’em.”
The super stared at him.
Hours after the supervisor left, a young doctor in a white jacket came into Harry’s cubicle.
“We did a routine tox screen on your blood sample,” he said.
Harry said nothing. He knew what was coming.
“You had some pretty fancy stuff in you,” said the doctor, smiling.
“Guess so.”
The doctor pursed his lips, as if he were trying to come to a decision. At last he said, “Your blood work report is going to get lost, Harry. We’ll detox you here before we release you. All off the record.”
That’s when it hit Harry.
“You’re Liza’s friend.”
“I’m not doing this for Liza. I’m doing it for you. You’re a hero, Harry. You saved a life.”
“Then I can stay?” Harry asked hopefully.
“Nobody’s going to throw you out because of drugs,” said the doctor. “And if you can prove you can still work, even with only one leg, I’ll recommend you be allowed to stay.”
And the legend began. One-legged Harry Twelvetoes. He never returned to Earth. When the habitat was finished, he joined a new crew that worked on the next habitat. And he started working on a dream, as well. As the years turned into decades, and the legend of Harry Twelvetoes spread all across the orbital construction sites, even out to the cities that were being built on the moon, Harry worked on his dream until it started to come true.
He lived long enough to see the start of construction for a habitat for his own people, a man-made world where his tribe could live in their own way, in their own desert environment, safe from encroachment, free to live as they chose to live.
He buried his great-uncle there, and the tribal elders named the habitat after him: Cloud Eagle.
Harry never quite figured out what the monster was that he was supposed to slay. But he knew he had somehow found his path, and he lived a long life in harmony with the great world around him. When his great-grandchildren laid him to rest beside Cloud Eagle, he was at peace.
And his legend lived long after him.
Introduction to
“Muzhestvo”
Jamie Waterman is the central character (hero?) of my three novels about Mars: Mars (published 1992), Return to Mars (1999), and Mars Life (2008).
Jamie is half Navajo, half Yankee. As the novels evolved while I wrote them, the two worlds of Earth and Mars came to represent the two sides of Jamie’s character: the blue world, Earth, and the red world of Mars.
The Anglo and the Navajo.
“Muzhestvo” takes place early in Jamie’s career, before he’s even selected to make the first mission to Mars. It’s a tale about courage and comradeship, about the strange inner workings of the people who want to extend humankind’s horizons—and their own.
MUZHESTVO
As they drove along the river, Yuri Zavgorodny gestured with his free hand.
“Like your New Mexico, no?” he asked in his hesitant English.
Jamie Waterman unconsciously rubbed his side. They had taken the stitches out only yesterday, and the incision still felt sore.
“New Mexico,” Zavgorodny repeated. “Like this? Yes?”
Jamie almost answered, “No.” But the mission administrators had warned them all to be as diplomatic as possible with the Russians—and everyone else.
“Sort of,” Jamie murmured.
“Yes?” asked Zavgorodny over the rush of the searing wind blowing through the car windows.
“Yes,” said Jamie.
The flat, brown countryside stretching out beyond the river looked nothing like New Mexico. The sky was a washed-out pale blue, the desert bleak and empty in every direction. This is an old, tired land, Jamie said to himself as he squinted against the baking hot wind. Used up. Dried out. Nothing like the vivid mountains and bold skies of his home. New Mexico was a new land, raw and magic and mystical. This dull, dusty desert out here is ancient; it’s been worn flat by too many armies marching across it.
“Like Mars,” said one of the other Russians. His voice was a deep rumble, where Zavgorodny’s was reedy, like a snake-charmer’s flute. Jamie had been quickly introduced to all four of them but the only name that stuck was Zavgorodny’s.
Christ, I hope Mars isn’t this dull, Jamie said to himself.
Yesterday Jamie had been at Bethesda Naval Hospital, having the stitches from his appendectomy removed. All the Mars mission trainees had their appendixes taken out. Mission regulations. No sense risking an attack of appendicitis twenty million miles from the nearest hospital. Even though the decisions about who would actually go to Mars had not been made yet, everyone lost their appendix.
“Where are we going?” Jamie asked. “Where are you taking me?”
It was Sunday, supposedly a day of rest even for the men and women who were training to fly to Mars. Especially for a new arrival, jet-lagged and bearing a fresh scar on his belly. But at sunrise the four cosmonauts had roused Jamie from his bed at the hotel and insisted that he come with them.
“Airport,” said the deep-voiced cosmonaut on Jamie’s left. He was jammed into the back seat, sandwiched between two of the Russians, sweaty body odor pungent despite the sharp scent of strong soap. Two more rode up front, Zavgorodny at the wheel.
Like a gang
