Mars (41 page)

Ears popping, heart triphammering, Vosnesensky rushed to the spot, bent down to scoop up more of the repair patches, and slammed them over the widening hole. They slipped down, would not stay. They still fluttered, and Vosnesensky could hear the dome’s air roaring now as it rushed into the near-vacuum outside. In a few minutes it would all be gone. The force of the escaping wind was tugging at him, trying to suck him through the wall and out into the deadly open.

Without a word or a call to anyone, he braced himself and began to struggle back toward the center of the dome, leaning against the wind, staggering like a drunk, threading his way painfully past the scientists’ workstations, dodging chairs in the wardroom carelessly left scattered about the floor. His ears were screaming with pain, as if someone had jabbed icepicks into them.

The life-support equipment. Pumps that sucked in the dry cold air of Mars. Separators that culled the scanty nitrogen and even scantier oxygen out of the native atmosphere. More pumps to make the nitrogen/oxygen mix thick enough for humans to breathe. Cylinders of spare oxygen, in case of emergency.

He had to reach the oxygen. Vosnesensky went down the row of green, man-tall oxygen tanks, twisting their valves to the full open position, overpressurizing the dome as quickly as he could with pure oxygen. Force oxygen into the dome; replace the air being lost. It was a race, and he had no intention of losing. Higher pressure might even push the repair seals firmly against the hole. At the very least it would buy them a few more minutes.

Yet even over the hissing rush of the escaping oxygen he could hear
pock, pock.

He clawed his way back toward the tear in the wall in a blizzard of papers swirling through the dome. By the time he got back to the place where the meteoroid had broken through, Abell was there in his white hard suit, spraying epoxy over the repair patches as calmly as a painter doing a living-room wall.

“I have turned on the emergency oxygen,” Vosnesensky said, almost breathless, his chest aflame.

“Right,” said Abell. It was standard emergency procedure.

The wind had died down. The shriek of escaping air had quieted. Vosnesensky was panting, but from fear and exertion, not lack of oxygen.

“Are the others in their suits?”

Abell turned toward him, a faceless robot in rust-stained white. “Uh-huh. You should be too, Mike.”

“Yes, yes.” Vosnesensky saw that the patches were no longer fluttering. They were glued flat to the curving wall. “What about the people outside?”

“They’re coming through the airlock. Nobody’s been hurt, far as I know.”

“Good. Now, if we are not struck again …”

“You should get into your suit,” Abell reminded him.

“Yes. Of course.”

By the time Vosnesensky was fully suited up, though, he heard no more sounds of meteoroids striking the dome. He clumped awkwardly to the communications console and saw on the screen that Tolbukhin was still on duty up in orbit, and still in his coveralls. His armpits were dark with sweat.

Dr. Li stretched his long legs as far as he could, considering the pain, and wriggled his bare toes until the cramp in his left calf began to subside. Two hours in a space suit that had never fit his lanky frame properly was more than his body could endure.

He sighed as he tried to relax in the reclining chair. He sipped tea from the one delicate porcelain cup he had brought with him and gazed at the silk paintings on the walls of his quarters, waiting for them to work their calming magic.

No one was hurt, he repeated to himself for the hundredth time. All the emergency procedures had worked just
as they were designed to; all the emergency equipment had functioned properly. We survived the meteor shower without even any damage to our equipment, except for one minor puncture in the dome that was quickly sealed and one strike on the
Mars 1
ship’s main communications antenna, which the astronauts will go EVA to repair.

The odds against meteoroid danger had been carefully calculated on Earth; they were something on the order of a trillion to one. And this particular meteor shower had been a renegade, unknown and uncharted until it suddenly struck at them. At least we should not be bothered again for another hundred million years or so, Li told himself.

He almost smiled, realizing that he could claim discovery of a new meteor swarm, so small and insignificant that it had never even been noticed on Earth. But not so small and insignificant here. No, not at all. We are very vulnerable here, Dr. Li realized. Extremely vulnerable.

He had ordered that regular radar sweeps be made as they orbited around Mars. We cannot avoid meteors, but we may be able to give ourselves some warning time if another shower develops. And we can produce data on the density of meteoroids in the vicinity of Mars; that should please the astronomers back home.

He rubbed the back of his neck, still trying to relax after the long, terrible, terrifying day. No one was killed, he said yet again. No one even hurt, except for this damnable leg cramp. No equipment damaged, except for the antenna. The team on the ground survived without any problems greater than a single small puncture and a spilled bottle of vitamin pills.

Now to report it all to Kaliningrad.

It had taken hours to clean up the mess inside the dome. Mironov and Connors went outside to seal the rip in the dome’s outer wall, while Vosnesensky and Abell checked every square centimeter of the inner wall for damage. They found none.

Now all twelve of the team were sitting in the wardroom, physically and emotionally spent after the adrenaline surge of their wild afternoon. The schedule said it was time for dinner, but no one thought about food. Instead, Vosnesensky
had brought from his quarters the bottle of vodka he had not touched since their second night on Mars.

“For medicinal purposes,” he said when Tony Reed arched a questioning eyebrow. The others immediately rushed to their quarters to ferret out their own stashed bottles.

The first toast was to Vosnesensky.

“To our intrepid leader,” said Paul Abell, his hand raised high, “who ignored his own safety to turn on the oxygen tanks and save the dome from collapse.”

“At great risk to his own life,” added Toshima.

“And even greater risk to his own safety rules,” Connors joked.

Vosnesensky frowned slightly. “We must modify the oxygen tanks so that their valves open automatically if the air pressure in here drops below a certain point.”

“I don’t think we’ve got the equipment even to jury-rig a setup like that,” Connors said.

“I will check the inventory,” Mironov volunteered. “Perhaps between our spares here and what’s left up in the spacecraft we can do it.”

Vosnesensky nodded, satisfied. But the scowl did not leave his face.

“Are you still in pain, Mikhail Andreivitch?” Reed asked.

The Russian looked almost startled. “Me? No. My ears feel fine.”

“You’re certain? I don’t think your eardrums ruptured, but perhaps I should check you over again.”

“No. I am all right. No pain.”

They sat tiredly at the wardroom tables, slowly unwinding from the terror of the meteors. Joanna had offered Jamie a share of her half bottle of Chilean wine. “The last I have until we return to the spacecraft,” she confided. “I hid another bottle of champagne there for the day we start home.”

Jamie sipped at the wine gratefully. He had put his helmet on the table in front of him. Its curving back held a long thin gouge, blackened as if a miniature incendiary bullet had grazed it. If it had been a little bigger, a little more energetic, it would have blown my head off, he knew. Jamie stared at the damaged helmet, his insides hollow. Just a little bigger …

“You are a fortunate fellow, Jamie,” Vosnesensky called from the other end of the table. “A very lucky fellow.”

Pete Connors said, “Well, the suits are built to take small meteorite hits. Jamie was in no real danger.”

Not much, Jamie said to himself.

Vosnesensky made a rare grin. “I did not mean he is lucky to have survived. I know the suits can protect against such things. He is lucky to have been hit! Do you know the odds against being struck by a meteorite? Fantastic! Astronomical! I salute you, Jamie.”

And the Russian raised his plastic glass again, while the others chuckled tolerantly.

“Perhaps you should place a bet on the next Irish Sweepstakes,” Reed suggested.

Jamie shook his head. “No thanks. One stroke of luck like this is enough for me.”

“To think of the odds,” Vosnesensky kept muttering.

Mironov said, “Even long shots pay off, sometimes. What would you say were the odds against the only elephant in the Leningrad zoo being killed by the first cannon shell the Nazis fired into the city during the Great Patriotic War? Yet that is exactly what happened.”

“They killed the eléphant?” Monique asked.

“Exactly.”

“No!”

“It is an historical fact.”

“How long will we have to breathe pure oxygen?” Naguib asked. “I think it is giving me a headache. My sinuses hurt.”

“A day or two,” Vosnesensky said. “Virtually all of our nitrogen escaped. We must wait until the pumps accumulate enough nitrogen from outside to return the air mixture to normal.”

“Let me take a look at you,” Reed suggested.

Suddenly Naguib seemed reluctant, wary. “Oh no, it’s nothing. Just a bit of a headache. Tension, most likely.”

“Still,” Reed said, “if you wake up with it tomorrow I’d better examine you.”

Jamie fingered the gouge on the back of his helmet. It was not deep, nowhere near serious enough to threaten the helmet’s integrity. He could wear it again if he had to. But he would use one of the spares instead. Katrin Diels had demanded that it be put aside so that she could examine it on
the trip back to Earth. So had the mission controllers, once they learned of it. The hard-suit manufacturers would want to study the damage, to see how, well the helmet had protected its wearer.

You’ll be famous, Jamie said to the helmet. They’ll put you in the Smithsonian. He thought of what the inside of the helmet would have looked like if the meteorite had gone all the way through. And shuddered.

“But I’m much too valuable to risk outside,” Tony Reed was saying.

Looking up, Jamie realized that Ilona was teasing the Englishman.

“You haven’t been outside the dome since our second day here, Tony,” she said, smiling slyly at him. “One would almost think you’re afraid-to go outside.”

“Nonsense!” Reed spat. “I am the team physician. I’m needed here, in my infirmary.”

“Safely barricaded behind your pills and instruments,” Ilona needled him. “And you even spilled all the pills, didn’t you?”

“Only one bottle,” Reed answered stiffly.

“Five hundred vitamin capsules, all over the floor.”

“Only a few hit the floor! Most of them stayed on my desktop, which is clean enough to eat from, I assure you.”

“Yes,” said Ilona mockingly. “Certainly it is. Just be certain that you don’t feed us the dirty ones.”

The others were grinning, Jamie saw. Enjoying the entertainment. Usually Tony’s the one who does the needling. He’s damned uncomfortable when he’s the victim instead of the attacker.

Joanna pushed her chair back and got to her feet. “I believe I will lie down for a while.”

Grateful for a way to escape Ilona’s scalpel, Reed asked swiftly, “Don’t you feel well?”

“Oh, I’m just tired,” Joanna replied. “I think I’ll try to sleep.”

“Without dinner?” Vosnesensky asked from down the table.

“I don’t believe I could eat anything right now. Perhaps later.”

The Russian glanced at Reed but said nothing more.

As Joanna left the table, Reed turned toward Jamie. “I
think we should name this meteor swarm after Jamie, here. After all, it seems to be attracted to him. The James F. Waterman Meteor Swarm.”

Rava Patel said seriously, “Dr. Diels and Dr. Li are attempting to plot out its orbit. The swarm is obviously the remains of an ancient comet.”

“Obviously,” said Reed.

“It will be quite difficult, however,” Patel went on, “to plot its orbit with so little data. The swarm is so small that it does not return radar signals very well.”

Reed’s old smirk returned. “Perhaps we can stand Jamie outside again. The meteors seem to like him. Perhaps they’ll come back if he’s standing out in the open like a lightning rod.”

“Or you could go out,” Ilona said.

“Oh no, not me,” said Reed. “Let Jamie do it. It would be the American Indians’ first contribution to the science of astronomy, you see.”

“Not the first,” Jamie said.

“Oh? Really?”

“The Aztecs and Incas were fine astronomers. They built observatories …”

“I don’t mean them,” Reed interrupted. “They were civilized, somewhat. I meant your people, Jamie. The savages of North America.”

All eyes had turned to him, Jamie realized. Tony’s got the needle out of his hide by sinking it into me.

“My ancestors watched the stars,” he said, measuring his words carefully.

Reed said, “Of course they did. In the desert where they lived, what else was there to do once the sun went down? But what did they accomplish, outside of some tribal mumbo-jumbo?”

Jamie hesitated a heartbeat’s span, then answered, “They recorded the great supernova of 1054, for one thing. Carved the data into petroglyphs. Even decorated pottery bowls with accurate drawings of where and when the supernova appeared.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Jamie turned to the others. “The supernova of 1054 is the one that created the Crab Nebula; you can see it
in a telescope today. The only other astronomers to observe the supernova were in China.”

“Japan also,” said Toshima.

Jamie nodded at him gravely. “Japan also. Nobody in Europe paid any attention, apparently.”

“It was probably too cloudy that night,” Reed said.

“The supernova was visible to the naked eye for twenty-three days,” Jamie countered. “The Chinese records show that. So do the drawings my ancestors made. Even in England the sky must have been clear for part of that time, but nobody there bothered to look up. Either that, or they were too ignorant of the stars to notice a new one blazing away each night.”