'I cannot grant you permission for this!'
'Yes, I understand. That is your responsibility. Mine is to my comrades.'
'Let me discuss it with Kaliningrad.'
Vosnesensky almost laughed. 'By the time the mission controllers finish arguing we will all be ready for our pensions — or our funerals. No, this must be done now, not two days from now.'
Li licked his lips. In the comm screen he suddenly looked to Vosnesensky like a startled rabbit staring at him, ready to dart to safety. For long moments the two men stared at each other wordlessly.
Finally Li said, 'Good luck.'
Vosnesensky gathered the eleven men and women together in the wardroom and announced his decision.
'Ivshenko and I will drive the second rover to the canyon and pick up Waterman’s team. We will be gone for three days — four, maximum.'
The others said nothing. Standing in a loose semicircle before the cosmonaut, they looked at one another uneasily, feet shifting, eyes questioning.
Finally Dr. Yang said, 'You are not in physical condition to make such a journey.'
'It is my responsibility,' Vosnesensky said. 'Li and the mission controllers want to evacuate us back to orbit before trying to rescue the excursion team. I have decided otherwise. I must go. Me, myself.'
'But you are still ill,' said Yang. 'The effects of scurvy will linger for many days. You will be weak and debilitated…'
'Dmitri Iosifovitch will do all the work; I will merely take the glory.'
They laughed, nervously.
'I’ll go with you,' said Tony Reed.
'You? No.'
'I must,' Reed insisted.
'There is no need for you to come,' Vosnesensky said. 'It is an unnecessary risk.'
Reed stepped up to confront the Russian. 'It is my responsibility to go,' he said quietly, 'just as it is yours.'
Vosnesensky shook his head stubbornly. 'We will not need a physician on board the rover. You will be in touch with us over the comm link.'
'Don’t you understand?' Reed burst out. Turning to face the others, 'Don’t any of you understand? It’s my fault! The reason you all got sick is my fault! My doing! I fouled up the vitamin pills. Then I failed to see what was happening to you.'
It was the most difficult thing Antony Reed had ever done in his life. The others stared at him in surprise.
'I’ve got to go with you,' Tony pleaded, turning back to Vosnesensky. 'Jamie and the others… they’ll need a doctor once we get there.'
Vosnesensky’s mouth was open, as if he wanted to reply but did not know what to say. The others began to look embarrassed, uncertain of what to do.
'He should go,' Yang said firmly. 'He is right. The four in the rover will need immediate medical attention once you reach them.'
Vosnesensky stroked his broad chin. 'I see.'
'So will you,' Yang added.
The Russian grinned weakly. 'My personal physician?'
Yang did not smile back. 'If you insist on making this traverse in your condition, you will need a physician with you.'
'Very well,' Vosnesensky said reluctantly.
'Thank you!' said Reed. He saw the look on Vosnesensky’s face, on all their faces. He had expected anger, or perhaps disgust at his stupidity. Instead they all seemed sympathetic, even the sickest of them. They don’t blame me, Reed realized with a surge of gratitude that nearly buckled his knees. They don’t blame me!
For the first time in his life he had admitted a shortcoming, accepted the consequences for his own actions, bared his guilt to the men and women around him. He had thought it would be more painful than slicing open his own guts. And it was. But he had survived the pain. Like a man facing suicide he had confronted the worst he could imagine and come through it alive.
Vosnesensky sank gratefully into the nearest wardroom chair. His legs were so weak he could not stand any longer. A good thing that I will be able to sit all the way out to the canyon, he told himself. I only hope I will be able to drive the damned rover without collapsing like a weak old woman.
Jamie was sitting in the cockpit again, Joanna beside him. Connors was stretched out on his bunk, moaning softly in his sleep. Ilona was also trying to sleep, on the bunk above the astronaut’s. None of them had possessed the strength to fold the cots back. They had eaten their gloomy breakfasts sitting on the edges of the lower cots, heads bent low to avoid bumping the uppers.
'Vitamin deficiency,' Jamie mused. 'Of all the things that could have gone wrong with this mission, we come down with scurvy. Talk about Murphy’s Law.'
Joanna seemed barely awake. But she said, 'Knowing what the problem is, somehow it does not seem so bad. It was the unknown that frightened me.'
'It can still kill us, whether we know what it is or not.'
She smiled wanly. 'You won’t let us die, Jamie. I know you won’t.'
Why is she putting this load on me? he wondered, half angry. But aloud he said to her, 'There’s not much any of us can do now except wait.'
Joanna’s weak little smile widened slightly, as if she knew something that Jamie did not.
The comm unit buzzed. Jamie flicked the switch and Abell’s frog-like face appeared on the control panel screen. He looked just as sallow and gaunt as the four in the rover, his sunken cheeks making his protruding eyes seem to pop out even more than usual.
'There’s a message coming in for Joanna from Kaliningrad,' Abell said. 'Is she up and about?'
'I am here,' Joanna said, leaning enough from the pilot’s seat so that Abell could see her even though the miniature camera built into the control panel was aimed at Jamie.
'Oh, good. I’ll tell them up in Mars 2 to pipe it right down to you.'
'How are you doing?' Jamie asked.
Abell swung his head back and forth. 'Reed’s pumping so much vitamin C into us that I feel like I’m turning into an orange grove. I can shake my head without getting woozy, but I still feel like canned dog food.'
Jamie realized that he felt like used dog food. And that Abell refrained from asking how he felt.
'Dmitri and Ollie are outside rerigging the spare rover. Mikhail’s straw-bossing them over the TV link and making their lives miserable. He’s too weak to go out there himself so he’s giving them hell every inch of the way.'
'How long before they get under way?' Jamie asked.
'Another hour. Two at most. Mikhail’s taking Dmitri with him. Ollie’s sore as hell.'
'No sense risking more skins than you have to,' Jamie said.
'Reed’s coming, too.'
'Tony? Going outside?'
'Yeah. He says you’ll need a medic by the time they get to you.'
That’s a comforting thought, Jamie said to himself.
Abell said, 'Okay. I’ll tell them to shoot you the message from Kaliningrad.'
The screen cleared briefly, flickered; then the image of a tired old man took form. His red hair was rumpled, his sharp little Vandyke beard messy, his shirt collar unbuttoned. He identified himself as the chief of mission control.
'My message is for Dr. Joanna Brumado, and it is of a personal nature. It is a question, actually, that Dr. Brumado must answer for us.'
Jamie swiveled the little ball-mounted camera on the control panel toward Joanna while the mission controller hesitated, as if waiting for him or expecting a reply. Then he took a deep breath and plunged onward:
