'Dr. Brumado, this question concerns your father. As you know, he has been quite close to the day-to-day operations of our mission. Naturally, he has been informed of your… predicament. He is already heading for Houston. I have given strict orders that no one outside mission control is to know about the problem we are now facing until the situation has been resolved. This is to forestall the media from sensationalizing the situation, you see.'
Jamie thought, I sure as hell see that they don’t want the media to know the fix we’re in. They’d be buried alive by reporters.
'However,' the chief controller went on, 'apparently your father is being accompanied by a representative of the American news media, a young woman television reporter. We have not been able to learn her affiliation, although we have her name.' The Russian looked down, obviously reading from a piece of paper. He pronounced stiffly, 'Edie Elgin.'
Joanna frowned. Jamie felt a jolt of surprise. Edith? With Brumado?
The chief controller looked distinctly uncomfortable. 'Your father will want to speak with you, of course. Apparently this newswoman with him wants permission to tape your conversation for possible broadcast — after this crisis is resolved. The tape would not be released, of course, without the permission of the Mars Project administrators. And your father’s permission also, of course.'
She’s hooked up with Brumado, Jamie realized. Son of a bitch! And she wants to make a tape of their conversation. What a coldblooded piece of genius that is! If we die she’ll have terrific footage of the last tender moments between father and daughter. If we live, it’ll still be great human — interest material for her.
And she hasn’t asked to contact me. She doesn’t give a damn about me. Why the hell should she? She’s got Brumado now.
The chief controller was asking Joanna, 'Will you be able to conduct a brief conversation with your father — allowing for the time lag between transmission and reception of messages, of course.'
Joanna glanced at Jamie, then seemed to draw herself up taller and straighter in the cockpit seat.
'I appreciate your solicitude toward my father and myself, and I thank you for it. But please do not bother to arrange a special transmission for us,' Joanna said, more firmly than Jamie had ever heard her speak before. 'I repeat: do not set up a link with Houston. I want no special privileges. If you have chosen to maintain a news blackout about this problem we are facing, then please do not consider me to be an exception.'
Jamie cut off the transmission switch. 'Wait a minute,' he said. 'Doesn’t your father have a right…'
Her red-rimmed eyes flared at him. 'I am not a little girl who must talk with her papa when she is in trouble. I want to be treated just the same way you and the others are treated.'
'But he’s Alberto Brumado,' Jamie said. 'It’s not you that they want to give special treatment to; it’s him.'
Joanna tried to shake her head. The effort made her grip the edge of the control panel with a white- knuckled hand. 'No. I would not be able to keep my strength in front of him. I would break down and cry. I will not have that put on videotape.'
'Oh. I see. I guess.'
'Jamie — if we… if it becomes certain that we are going to die here, then there will be plenty of time to speak to my father. Each of us will tape messages for our families, I am sure.'
'I guess so.' And Edith will get it all for the goddammed prime-time news.
'But not now. I have not given up hope. You have not given up hope, have you?'
'Hell no,' he said, with a fervor that he did not truly feel.
'Then turn the transmitter on once again.'
Jamie did. Joanna took a breath, brushed her hands unconsciously through her tousled hair.
'I appreciate your offer,' she said calmly, with great dignity, 'but my decision is that I want to be treated exactly like the others. I expect you to keep my father informed of our situation — and the newswoman with him. Thank you very much.'
She’s as sore about Edith as I am, Jamie saw. The realization gave him no comfort at all.
Dmitri Iosifovitch Ivshenko was at the controls of the backup rover, a crooked grin on his pinched face. He is happy to be on the ground doing something useful instead of sitting up in orbit, Vosnesensky thought.
Reed sat back on one of the midship benches. Vosnesensky wondered about the Englishman. He is here with us out of a sense of guilt; he wants to atone for the accident with the vitamins. Will he be a positive help to us or will he just get in our way? He doesn’t know how to drive the rover. He has no real experience in EVA. I doubt that he has been outside the dome more than a few hours, total, since we landed. What good will he be in an emergency?
The Russian turned in the cockpit seat and looked over his shoulder at Reed. The physician seemed lost in thought, dazed almost, as he leaned back on the bench, both hands gripping its edge.
Vosnesensky shook his head, then immediately regretted it. He still felt woozy and terribly weak. Having my own private physician aboard has done nothing to improve my health, he grumbled to himself.
Vosnesensky turned his attention back to Ivshenko. Studying the fellow, he realized for the first time that Ivshenko looked decidedly un-Russian. He was as lean as a willow and his hair was a thick curly thatch of midnight black. His eyes were coal dark too. A thin aquiline nose and even thinner lips. His complexion was pale, bloodless white, although Vosnesensky thought that he would tan to a deep brown if he could get some sun on him.
He is younger than I am, Vosnesensky thought, envying the energy that radiated from the cosmonaut’s taut, wiry frame. Younger and healthier. Vosnesensky’s head thundered; his arms and legs ached miserably. If Reed is right, these vitamin doses ought to be helping, but I certainly don’t feel any better. Perhaps worse.
'Tell me, Dmitri Iosifovitch,' Vosnesensky said aloud, his voice sounding harsh and strained even in his own ears, 'where did you get such good looks?'
The younger man glanced at him, almost startled, then quickly turned back to his driving.
'My mother is Armenian, if that’s what you mean,' Ivshenko replied.
'Ah, I wondered. I thought perhaps you had some Turkish blood in you.'
Ivshenko’s nostrils flared. 'No. Armenian.'
'I see,' said Vosnesensky. 'And how is your love life, up there in orbit?'
Ivshenko’s grin returned. 'Adequate, comrade. Quite adequate. Especially when that German physicist gets bored with her work.'
'Diels? The blonde?'
'She is teaching me things about physics that I never knew before.'
'The quest for knowledge is never-ending,' Vosnesensky agreed.
'A worthwhile goal.'
Vosnesensky started to laugh, but it made his chest hurt. He ended up coughing.
'You are in pain, Mikhail Andreivitch?'
'It’s nothing. Just a little agony.'
'Do you want to turn back?'
'No!' Vosnesensky thundered. 'We go onward. No matter what happens, we go onward.'
Hours passed. They stopped the rover briefly and changed seats so that Vosnesensky could drive. Ivshenko watched him carefully, though. The younger cosmonaut had no great desire to allow his older comrade to get them both killed.
'At sundown you can take over again,' Vosnesensky said, feeling perspiration beading his face, trickling along his ribs, plastering the back of his coveralls against the seat.
'You will sleep then?'
'I will try.'
'The safety regulations forbid operating the rover unless a backup driver is awake and prepared to take over in case of an emergency. And operating at night…'
'I know the regulations quite thoroughly,' Vosnesensky snapped. 'I helped to write them. This is an emergency situation; we will bend the rules a little.'
'A little,' Ivshenko murmured.
Jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, 'If you get lonely while I sleep you can have our physician to keep you company.'
Ivshenko made a sour face.
