Mars

'Perhaps I can help you there, too. I have many acquaintances among the media people.'

Edith marveled at how smart Brumado really was, understanding that the media people he knew were acquaintances, not friends.

SOL 38: MORNING

Jamie awoke well before dawn. The wind had stopped! He lay flat on his bunk, listening. The storm must be over. There was no sound of the wind, no sounds in the darkened rover at all except Connors’s fitful snoring and the faint rustling of Joanna turning on her bunk just above him. And the ever-present background hum of electrical power and air fans.

Slowly, silently, he slid out of the bunk and padded in his socks and coveralls to the cockpit. He pulled back the thermal shroud. Still black night outside. There was no discernible moonlight on Mars; its two satellites were too tiny to shed much light on the planet’s surface. Jamie switched on the rover’s headlamps. The air was clear. He could see the cliff wall out there standing gray and rugged like the ghost of some ancient grandfather.

Quickly he turned the headlamps off, closed the shroud, and crept back to his bunk, satisfied that the storm had indeed ended. He crawled beneath the thin blanket and soon fell back to sleep.

He dreamed of Joanna, the two of them walking across the desert wearing ordinary street clothes. He could not tell if the desert was on Earth or Mars. A city shone on the horizon, white and sparkling in the hot sun. But no matter how long they walked the city came no closer. They trudged along for hours, tired, thirsty, sweaty, but the gleaming towers remained nothing more than a hope in the distance. They became weaker and weaker. Joanna collapsed in his arms, suddenly naked. They both sank to the burning sand, dying, too weak to go any farther.

Jamie had his fetish in his hand, but the little stone bear melted beneath the awful heat and flowed between his fingers.

He was reaching for it, scrabbling in the sand to recover it, when he awoke and realized he was pawing at the sheet that had become tangled between his legs.

Sheepishly Jamie got out of his bunk and headed for the lavatory before any of the others awoke. For the first time since they had left the dome, he shaved. The razor seemed to be slicing flesh, oven though it drew no blood. No blood left in me, Jamie thought wearily. The lotion stung when he splashed it on, but the sharpness of the pain was almost welcome after days of the dull, sullen, glowering ache that had been dogging him.

'Thanks,' Jamie muttered to his freshly shaved image in the lav’s metal mirror. 'I needed that.' The face that looked back at him was gaunt, red eyed, with hollows beneath the high cheekbones. You’re turning into a paleface, Jamie said to it.

Joanna seemed wearier, too, and Ilona barely managed to pull herself out of her bunk and make it to the lavatory. After a glum breakfast Jamie accompanied Connors outside despite the astronaut’s mild protests.

'There won’t be a media conference until the antenna’s fixed,' Jamie pointed out. 'So there’s no reason for me to stay inside.'

He got the impression that the astronaut was too weak, too much in pain, to argue. Jamie himself felt ragged, and tired. The night’s sleep had done nothing to restore his strength. The achy feeling that had assailed him for two days now was worse; every muscle in his body felt strained.

Morning mists hovered as they stepped out from the airlock. Tendrils of cold gray fog drifted by, slowly as departing spirits. Where does the moisture come from? Jamie asked himself again. It’s being replenished every day. It evaporates when the sun touches it, and then more mist forms the next morning. How? Why?

Connors ignored the mist. 'Looks like we’ve got some digging to do.'

The rover was piled almost roof high with sand on its windward side, nearly buried in dust so fine and loose that it blew up in powdery clouds when the two hard-suited men stepped in it.

'Good thing the hatch is on the sheltered side,' Jamie said.

'I don’t think the sand’s heavy enough to keep the hatch closed,' Connors said, as they walked through the powdery drifts, tossing up plumes of dust with each booted step. 'We could’ve pushed it open with no sweat, I betcha.'

Maybe, Jamie said to himself.

Connors clambered slowly, awkwardly up the ladder set into the command module’s side just behind the cockpit canopy and began to examine the microwave antenna.

'Just what I thought,' Jamie heard in his earphones as he waited at the ladder’s base. 'Goddamn dust wormed its way under the gasket seal… oh shit, I can’t believe I did that!'

'What? Are you okay?'

'Yeah. Just dumb, that’s all. I tried to blow the dust out of the gasket.'

Connors was grumbling to himself. Then Jamie realized, 'With your helmet on!'

'Fogged up the faceplate real nice.'

'Turn up the blower.'

'Already have. It’s clearing up.'

Connors came down and went to the outside equipment compartment on the lab module for tools: a fine wire brush and a shovel. In a few minutes he had the antenna mount clear of dust.

Over the suit radios, they asked Joanna to check the TV link. They saw the antenna arm unfold; then the dish turned slowly until it locked onto their spacecraft orbiting over the equator. Joanna reported that she had contacted the dome without difficulty.

'Vosnesensky says the news conference will start in another hour, if we can be ready by then,' she reported.

'No sweat,' said Connors.

Jamie grunted to himself. In fact, he was perspiring heavily inside his suit and was certain that Connors was too.

'You go in now,' the astronaut said to Jamie. 'I’ll go around the other side and dig out one of the wheels, see if we can get away without digging out the others.'

'I can help.'

'Naw, it’s okay. This stuff is so fluffy you can blow it away with a whisk broom. If I need help I’ll ask you. Maybe we’ll have a digging party after the media conference, all four of us.'

'You’re sure you’ll be okay out here?'

'I’m no hero, Jamie. If I need help I’ll yell, don’t worry.'

Reluctantly Jamie went back inside. It took much longer than usual to vacuum the dust off his suit. Leaving his helmet in the airlock, he tramped the length of the command module to the cockpit. Joanna was in the pilot’s seat, speaking into the display screen. Jamie recognized the face of Burt Klein, the American astronaut on Mars 2.

Klein grinned at him. 'You guys have your antenna back on track,' he said.

Jamie mumbled an acknowledgment, then turned to the voice link with Connors. 'Everything’s fine. We’ve got Mars 2 on the screen.'

'Great,' said Connors, puffing. 'I’ve got our right front wheel almost cleared.'

Looking from Joanna’s tired face to Klein’s healthy unclouded image on the little display screen Jamie realized how sick the four of them must be. His skin’s almost pink, Jamie thought.

Dr. Li came on the screen and began giving instructions about the news conference that would begin within the hour. He asked Jamie to bring Connors inside before the conference started. Jamie checked his wristwatch against the digital clock on the cockpit control panel, then asked Joanna to take over the comm link. Klein came back on and Joanna chatted with him almost as if they were old friends discussing the weather.

Jamie saw that Joanna had put on a fresh set of coveralls, coral pink, and had applied makeup to her face. She’s trying to hide the pallor, he realized, trying to look good for the media. And for her father.

Making his way back toward the airlock in the bulky hard suit, Jamie passed Ilona. She sat on one of the benches, looking exhausted. She too had put on makeup and had even wrapped a bright flowered scarf around her coverall collar. But she still looked terribly pale and weak.

Jamie tried to be cheerful. 'Ready to be famous?'