Olympus Mons (23 page)

In less than an E-week Glorious Gloria and Jesperson were a gossip item, or would've been if Marsrats were gossipers. My partner had been playing the field, wining and dining his targets, now and then moving in with one or another. For whatever reason, each ‘n every squeeze had eventually booted him out on his ear. This romance was different, I could tell. It had honeymoon written all over it, and the handwriting was real easy to read.

What I had trouble digesting was the attention Jesperson all of a sudden focused on his newfound lady love; it distracted him from designing parachutes, recruiting Marsrats for his foot-sloggin' stable, or otherwise prepping for what our growing collection of volcano crusaders now realized with a degree of certainty would
have
to take place if we were to stay upright and keep breathing. Aguilar had successfully souped-up the range of a half-dozen more pressure-suit transceivers, and was working on another baker's dozen. Even so, Jesperson had twice postponed a return junket to Olympus Rupes so as to check-out hoist system operation. That bothered me plenty. It wasn't like him to slough off an ironclad necessity.

Two days later he filled me in on the private get together Scheiermann had insisted he and Franklin attend. Behind closed doors, the director dithered while my partner and the areographer pored over enlargements of the orbital hi-res pix, ground-penetrating radar plots that barely managed to penetrate the dense volcanic basalt, and the IR images. According to my partner, neither the optical scan pixels, radar or infrared images revealed any slightest hint of a potential break or damaged section of the pipeline's exposed stretches.

Naturally Doc Franklin pissed-off Jesperson by calling the data retrieved on-orbit “valueless,” saying it added zilch to the sum knowledge of what was causing our problem. With not a milliliter of runoff dribbling into the holding tanks, the areographer's remark had punched all of my partner's sensitive buttons. He'd squashed Franklin flat, explaining that a vital, extremely important datum had appeared upon a close study of the pix, plots and scans. The fearsome notion of a disrupted or crushed section of pipeline many meters, even kilometers, in length had been halfway put to rest, though not entirely since the pipeline repeatedly dove into and erupted out of endless fissures and canyons striping the volcano's lower slopes. Yet the visible, arrow-straight portion of pipe string did appear intact all the way from the manifold outfall to the escarpment.

Whereupon Franklin had again huffed and puffed and tried to blow down Jesperson's prospective mountaineering expedition. Usable hoist system or not, the areographer had contended, a search beneath the sands for pockets of water ice was an infinitely better target to pursue than “planning for failure” by petitioning for council approval of an all-out assault on the volcano's unassailable heights. An ice hunt, Franklin had insisted, would be an infinitely more productive goal than the insane, futile “pipe dream”
—
his pun, not mine
—
of scaling the unscalable volcano to repair whatever unknown fault or faults had cut off our water supply.

Forever Jesperson, my partner refused to let his well-informed, pompous colleague get away with that inflammatory pronouncement. He'd invited Franklin to go right ahead and search the surrounding plains for buried ice, cautioning him in no uncertain terms that, aside from what might lay beneath a blanket of carbon dioxide “snow” at the unreachable northern pole, the most ice deposits were beneath the impact basins of Chryse Planitia five thousand klicks to the east, or perhaps Argyre Planitia seven thousand klicks to the southeast. Jess had forcefully reminded the areographer of the limited tools in the enclave's possession
—
the small, fold-handled utility spades carried aboard each crawler
—
and invited him to grab one, then dig for ice to his heart's content.

When the going gets slippery, Jesperson gets riled; it makes him about as easy to corner as a glob of mercury. He told me he'd stopped Franklin's clock, telling “the officious bastard” he hoped his divining rod was in good working order, and then demonstrated his lack of patience with anyone and everyone who differed with him by storming out of the director's office.

Even if he hadn't departed the scene in a huff, Jesperson had been sure his snide innuendos and caustic put-down of Franklin's ice hunt scheme had not exactly endeared him to Scheiermann. If not having eighty-sixed the meeting on his own, he felt certain the irate director would have kicked him out.

Grinning like a cheerful skull while relating his version of the “private” séance, Jesperson announced his conviction that the director harbored a death wish. “His mindset,” he declared, punctuating the statement with a brittle, humorless laugh, “matches that of Nazi demigod Adolf Hitler. He's determined to uphold the
Götterdamerung
tradition by pulling the rest of us into the grave along with him.”

At the time, I didn't bother looking up the German word, and let what it was he'd said slide, though I didn't like the sound of it. “Softly, Bwana. You'll end up in a peck of trouble poor-mouthing our fearless leader.”

“I'm up to my chin now,” he said, “and slipping in deeper.”

***

Lorna finally semi-graduated from her fits and sulks. I caught her in what passed for a reasonably good mood, and tried again to sweet-talk her into letting me invite the lovebirds over for dinner. “Babe,” I argued, countering her third, fourth or fifth objection, “you keep on saying you plain don't like Jesperson. Could be you've never halfway gotten to know the man.”

Her huffiness returned. “I know that crazy bo plenty good enough.”

“Uh-uh, don't believe you do. Not really.”

“Then it's time you changed your thinking, Mr. Barnes.”

Her attitude stayed as bad as before, or worse, then over a span of days swung a notch or two in the upside direction. I suspect her resistance wore down mostly ‘cause she got curiouser and curiouser about what made Doc Steinkritz tick. Finally the last wall came tumbling down, and she gave in.

Jesperson and his newest squeeze came early and ended up staying late. I saw right away why Glorious Gloria had picked what she called “exotic pediatrics” for her lifework. In a matter of minutes she was aces with our boy, and if I do say so myself Jay's a bright kid; he's usually downright choosy about which folks he gets friendly with. Gloria looked him over carefully, on the sly, winked at me and asked him how he felt.

“About what?” piped Jay.

For some reason Jesperson found my son's response hugely amusing.

Believe it or not, in short order the oh-so-pretty doctor also got to be aces with the woman of the house. All through dinner Gloria had done her best to keep the conversation light and frothy. Afterward, she insisted on helping Lorna with the dishes, and that scored heavily with Jay's momma. Lorna told me later she cottoned to the fact that Gloria didn't put on any airs about being what my missus had at first called, “A highfalutin' fem pill roller.” No, there was zero hint of anything like that
—
no uppityness.

I couldn't help but eavesdrop on their conversation while Jess and I lounged around, waiting for them to exit the kitchen alcove. I heard Gloria ask Lorna if she'd mind talking about her pregnancy?”

“No piece of cake,” my better half admitted. “Specially with the damn pack-batteries hangin' round my middle and the baby growing, moving ‘round inside. Gave me real stubborn backaches, it did.”

“God, I imagine so!”

“Barney says you'll be tryin' to make it safer for newborns to do good here.”

“It's one of the principal aims,” Gloria told her. “You might even say it's what decided me on volunteering to practice in Mars. The infant mortality statistics I reviewed in New Zealand tell less than an ideal story. I have some ideas about how to do things differently. If I may ask, how long after he was born did Jay have his first procedure?”

“Oh, two, maybe three days. I disremember. Doc Yokomizo said we should start soon's he came out of the oxygen incubator.”

“Um, three days . . . We'll have to do better than that . . .”

So it went. All things considered, Jesperson and Gloria didn't make what you'd call a bad match. Gloria gave no thought to knuckling under when her man's fiery disposition erupted, nor did he act all that impressed by her impressive professional background. I'll wager in private they had some fee-rocious verbal skirmishes and duels. I'll also wager that every last tiff ended in a draw.

The stunner came when Jess told me on the QT Gloria was agitating to have a child. “Women are peculiar creatures,” he remarked. “Poke a little fun at them, and before you can say spermicide they take it seriously.”

“Well, har-de-har-har! You ought to feel flattered, you klutz.”

“Umm-m-m, don't conclusion-jump, Barney. There's more to Gloria agitating for parenthood than the primal urge. She's spooked about the smallish gene pool we have here in our exotic Martian paradise. She wants us to build up our numbers as fast as possible.”

“Uh-huh, it figures. That's so she can practice what she preaches, right? Have no fear, Bwana. You'll make a superior, truly outstanding papa.”

“Fat chance!” he said. “With Burroughs waterless, anyone dumb enough to make a baby deserves to be . . . liquidated.”

“Hilarious! Of all the sick rib-ticklers you ever came up with, that has to be the sickest.”

***

Not long after daybreak the next morning, Jesperson and Glorious Gloria must've engaged in what some people politely call, “A heated discussion.” After the donnybrook wore down and it was truce time, he escorted her over to the pumping station between Burroughs' dual reservoirs. They jotted down gauge readings, then put their heads together and did some careful arithmetic. The totals galvanized Jesperson into rushing back into action not later, but sooner, in fact right then and there. Slightly less than a three-E-month supply remained in the reservoir, and even that he said was a nebulous figure.

Rationing, while strongly recommended and instituted by a council ruling, wasn't being strictly enforced. Since Jesperson had become the director's favorite pariah, Gloria had voiced her own intention to storm into Scheiermann's office and pass along the sad, bad tidings, so she went and did exactly that, and I suppose it mattered. For me, the important upshot of their findings was that it goosed Jesperson into springing back into action.

He rounded up his foot-slogger gang, plus assorted fresh recruits, and marched us up and down the blasted ringwall trail till our tongues were hanging out, nor was that a figure of speech. During a rest halt late one afternoon he made a short speech, telling us time was wasting, and badgered us to pitch in and circulate like John the Baptist and recruit foot-sloggers like the hammers of hell. He wanted every one of the eleven youthful, physically fit newly arrived brethren to join the workout team, announcing the need for a goal of forty to fifty candidates from which to select twenty-six dedicated climbers when the time was ripe to fish or cut bait.

All us foot-sloggers turned to like good soldiers and did missionary duty to the best of our unnatural inability. I found out recruiting like the hammers of hell is a lot easier to suggest than do. The few newbies I approached all listened respectfully, nodded politely and begged off, every one of ‘em offering an identical excuse, telling me they'd landed only a short time ago and were too busy getting their feet on the ground, settling in their digs and getting used to their work assignments to hike up ‘n down the ringwall trail like a fools.

Black-like-me struck it rich. He brought a spanking new foot-slogger into the fold. Seems the kid named Ned lit his short fuse by casually turning down his invitation to become a foot-slogger. After thinking it over, the glassblower went back and offered the youngster simple alternatives: he could either join our foot-sloggin' team, or be dissociated from his arms, legs, and other accessories. A couple dozen hasty words from me calmed Black-like-me down, but only a tad. In the end, he and Ned got to be partners after the young Marsrat mentioned his itch to learn the glassblowing trade. Black-like-me promptly took Ned under his strong, broad wing.

A day or two later our thoroughly bushed team was de-suiting after a major foot-sloggin' session, when the glassblower flashed a self-satisfied grin my way, showing a mouthful of ivory that'd do credit to a bull elephant. “Got my own mouthy, little white bread pal now,” was his self-satisfied declaration. “Make damn sure to keep yours outta my hair, Barnes. Hear me?”

What could I do but agree?

 

Coming like a cannon shot, Jesperson's turnabout had nothing to do with slumping esteem for Glorious Gloria. It was entirely due to our water situation being what it was, and
would be
until, or if and when, we succeeded in climbing Jesperson's “hill” and doing a fix. Once he got all his soldiers back in vacuum gear and lined up to fight the conditioning crusade, his doctor roommate realized she needed to take a back seat to her newfound love's deadly serious, no nonsense dedication to the do-or-die business at hand. Once his intensity refocused on doing right, he put his smart-mouth in full flower, got his ducks all lined up, and privately vowed to stop making waves in high places, saying it was nonproductive. Unless the hoist system checked-out as functional, or at minimum fit to be repaired and used, us foot-sloggers would be sweating up and down the ringwall maintenance trail to no purpose. The primo item on his agenda was therefore to corral his original three helpmates and lead us back out to Olympus Rupes. This time, however, he filed a formal crawler-use requisition and trip plan, and waited impatiently for the council to sprinkle holy water on his humble request.