Return to Mars (25 page)

“You must redeem the family’s honor,” Fuchida’s father insisted. “You must make the world respect Japan. Your namesake was a great warrior. You must add new honors to his name.”

So Mitsuo knew that he could not marry Elizabeth openly, honestly, as he wanted to. Instead, he took her to a monastery in the remote mountains of Kyushu, where he had perfected his climbing skills.

“It’s not necessary, Mitsuo,” Elizabeth protested, once she understood what he wanted to do. “I love you. A ceremony won’t change that.”

“Would you prefer a Catholic rite?” he asked.

She threw her arms around his neck. He felt tears on her cheek.

When the day came that he had to leave, Mitsuo promised Elizabeth that he would come back to her. ‘ ‘And when I do, we will be married again, openly, for all the world to see.”

“Including your father?” she asked wryly.

Mitsuo smiled. “Yes, including even my noble father.”

Then he left for Mars, intent on honoring his family’s name and returning to the woman he loved.

FUCHIDA’S EXCURSION PLAN CALLED FOR THEM TO LAND LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, almost at sunset, when the low sun cast its longest shadows. That allowed them to make the flight in full daylight, while giving them the best view of their landing area once they arrived at Olympus
Mons.
Every boulder and rock would show in bold relief, allowing them to find the smoothest spot for their landing.

It also meant, Fuchida knew, that they would have to endure the dark frigid hours of night immediately after they landed. What if the batteries failed? The lithium-polymer batteries had been tested for years, Fuchida knew. They stored electricity generated in sunlight by the solar panels and powered the plane’s equipment through the long, cold hours of darkness. But what if they break down when the temperature drops to a hundred and thirty below zero?

Rodriguez was making a strange, moaning sound. Turning sharply to look at the astronaut sitting beside him, Fuchida saw only the inside of his own helmet. He had to turn from the shoulders to see the spacesuited pilot—who was humming tunelessly.

“Are you all right?” Fuchida asked nervously.

“Sure.”

“Was that a Mexican song you were humming?”

“Naw. The Beatles. ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’ “

“Oh.”

Rodriguez sighed happily. “There she is,” he said.

“What?”

“Mount Olympus.” He pointed straight ahead.

Fuchida did not see a mountain, merely the horizon. It seemed rounded, now that he paid attention to it: a large gently rising hump.

It grew as they approached it. And grew. And grew. Olympus Mons was an immense island unto itself, a continent rising up above the bleak red plain like some gigantic mythical beast. Its slopes were gentle, above the steep scarps of its base. A man could climb that grade easily, Fuchida thought. Then he realized that the mountain was so huge it would take a man weeks to walk from its base to its summit.

Rodriguez was humming again, calm and relaxed as a man sitting in his favorite chair at home.

“You enjoy flying, don’t you?” Fuchida commented.

“You know what they say,” Rodriguez replied, a serene smile in his voice. “Flying is the second most exciting thing a man can do.”

Fuchida nodded inside his helmet. “And the most exciting must be sex, right?”

“Nope. The first most exciting thing a man can do is landing.”

Fuchida sank into gloomy silence.

Jamie was in the comm center, staring fixedly at the immersion table, trying not to look at his wristwatch.

Tomas will call when they land. There’s no point in his calling until they’re down safely. He’s probably reached the mountain by now and is scouting around, making sure the area is okay for an actual landing.

Behind him, he heard Stacy Dezhurova say tersely, “They are over the mountain now. Beacon is strong and clear, telemetry coming through. No problems.”

Jamie nodded without turning around. The immersion table showed a three-dimensional map of Tithonium Chasma, but if you pulled your head away you lost the depth sense and it took several moments of blinking and head movements to see the map in three-d again.

He had marked the electronic display so that the niche in the cliff face where he had seen the—artifact, Jamie called it—was clearly noted in white. Not that far from the landslide we went down to get to the Canyon floor, he saw. But it would save a day’s trip if we went straight to the spot and then I lowered myself down on a cable. No sense going to the floor of the Canyon; the niche is more than three-quarters of the way up to the top.

There are other niches along the Canyon wall, he knew. Are there buildings in them, too? And we haven’t even looked at the south face of the Canyon yet. There could be dozens of villages strung along the cliffs. Hundreds.

Behind him, he heard someone step into the comm center, then Vijay’s low, throaty voice asked, “Have you heard from them?”

“Not yet,” Stacy said.

Then Trudy Hall asked, “Anything?”

“Not yet,” Dezhurova repeated.

“NEVER SHOW FEAR.” TOMAS RODRIGUEZ LEARNED THAT AS A SCRAWNY asthmatic child, growing up amidst the crime and violence of an inner-city San Diego barrio.

“Never let them see you’re scared,” his older brother Luis told him. “Never back down from a fight.”

Tomas was not physically strong, but he had his big brother to protect him. Most of the time. Then he found a refuge of sorts in the dilapidated neighborhood gym, where he traded hours of sweeping and cleaning for free use of the weight machines. As he gained muscle mass, he learned the rudiments of alley fighting from Luis. In middle school he was spotted and recruited by an elderly Korean who taught martial arts as a school volunteer.

In high school he discovered that he was bright, smart enough not merely to understand algebra hut to want to understand it and the other mysteries of mathematics and science. He made friends among the nerds us well as the jocks, often protecting the former against the hazing and casual cruelty of the latter.

He grew into a solid, broad-shouldered youth with quick reflexes and the brains to talk his way out of most confrontations. He did not look for fights, but handled himself well enough when a fight became unavoidable. He worked, he learned, he had the kind of sunny disposition—and firm physical courage—that made even the nastiest punks in the school leave him alone. He never went out for any of the school teams and he never did drugs. He didn’t even smoke. He couldn’t afford such luxuries.

He even avoided the trap that caught most of his buddies: fatherhood. Whether they got married or not, most of the guys quickly got tied down with a woman. Tomas had plenty of girls, and learned the pleasures of sex even before high school. But he never formed a lasting relationship. He didn’t want to. The neighborhood girls were attractive, yes, until they started talking. Tomas couldn’t stand even to imagine listening to one of them for more than a few hours. They had nothing to say. Their lives were empty. He ached for something more.

Most of the high school teachers were zeroes, but one—the weary old man who taught math—encouraged him to apply for a scholarship to college. To Tomas’ enormous surprise, he won one: full tuition to UCSD. Even so, he could not afford the other expenses, so he again listened to his mentor’s advice and joined the Air Force. Uncle Sam paid his way through school, and once he graduated he became a jet fighter pilot. “More fun than sex,” he would maintain, always adding, “Almost.”

Never show fear. That meant that he could never back away from a challenge. Never. Whether in a cockpit or a barroom, the stocky Hispanic kid with the big smile took every confrontation as it arose. He got a reputation for it.

The fear was always there, constantly, but he never let it show. And always there was that inner doubt. That feeling that somehow he didn’t really belong here. They were allowing the chicano kid to pretend he was as smart as the white guys, allowing him to get through college on his little scholarship, allowing him to wear a flyboy uniform and play with the hotshot jet planes.

But he really wasn’t one of them. That was made abundantly clear to him in a thousand little ways, every day. He was a greaser, tolerated only as long as he stayed in the place they expected him to be. Don’t try to climb too far; don’t show off too much; above all, don’t try to date anyone except “your own.”

Flying was different, though. Alone in a plane nine or ten miles up in the sky it was just him and God, the rest of the world far away, out of sight and out of mind.

Then came the chance to win an astronaut’s wings. He couldn’t back away from the challenge. Again, the others made it clear that he was not welcome to the competition. But Tomas entered anyway and won a slot in the astronaut training corps. “The benefits of affirmative action,” one of the other pilots jeered.

Whatever he achieved, they always tried to take the joy out of it. Tomas paid no outward attention, as usual; he kept his wounds hidden, his bleeding internal.

Two years after he had won his astronaut’s wings came the call for the Second Mars Expedition. Smiling his broadest, Tomas applied. No fear. He kept his gritted teeth hidden from all the others, and won the position.

“Big fuckin’ deal,” said his buddies. “You’ll be second fiddle to some Russian broad.”

Tomas shrugged and nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I guess I’ll have to take orders from everybody.”