Return to Mars (43 page)
“No. Detective work.”
“Detective?”
Jamie saw on the laptop screen one of the photos he had taken of the damaged garden dome the morning after the storm.
“Do you notice two important things in this image?” Fuchida asked. His voice was low, almost a whisper.
Jamie shook his head.
“Observe,” the biologist said, pointing at the screen, “that the dome fabric is puckered outward.”
Nodding, Jamie said, “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?”
“You took this image from outside the dome,” Fuchida said.
“Right.”
“What does this outward-facing puckering suggest to you?”
Christ, Jamie thought, Mitsuo’s sounding like an imitation Sherlock Holmes.
“You tell me,” he said.
“The puncture was made from the inside, not from the outside.”
“No,” Jamie said slowly. “That can’t be. What could puncture the dome from the inside?”
Instead of answering, Fuchida said, “Observe the height of the puncture above the ground.”
Jamie peered at the image. “Two and a half, three feet, I’d say.”
“Sixty-two centimeters. I have measured it.”
“What are you driving at, Mitsuo?”
Lowering his voice until it was almost a hiss, Fuchida answered, “The storm did not damage the dome. The fabric was punctured from the inside. Deliberately!”
Jamie blinked at him. “Deliberately? You’re joking!”
”No joke. The puckering shows the puncture was made from inside the dome, not from outside. And the punctures are at the height a man’s hand would be if his arm were fully extended downward.”
It took Jamie several moments to realize that Fuchida was completely serious.
“Mitsuo, that can’t be. Nobody here would deliberately damage the dome.”
Fuchida pointed silently to the display screen.
Jamie said, “For one thing, the puckering makes it look like the damage was done from inside because air from inside the dome blew outward, through the puncture.”
The biologist’s brows knit. “That is a possibility, I suppose.”
‘ ‘And the height of the punctures is just where the pebbles happened to hit the fabric.”
“Both at the same height?”
Jamie shrugged. “A coincidence.”
Fuchida looked totally unconvinced.
“Listen, Mitsuo, you can’t believe that one of us deliberately punctured the dome during the storm. That kind of behavior would be insane!”
Fuchida nodded. “That is exactly the conclusion I came to.”
It was Vijay’s turn for the cleanup detail, so while Stacy and Rodriguez went back to the comm center for a final evening’s systems check and Fuchida and Trudy went off to the bio lab, Jamie went to his quarters and ran through his incoming messages.
As he scanned the screen his mind wandered to Fuchida’s detective work. Mitsuo’s overreacting, he told himself. Who the hell would deliberately puncture the garden dome? Why? For what reason? It’s all nonsense.
Still, the possibility was there, lurking in his mind like a dark ominous cloud. A madman in our midst? Jamie shook his head, tried to clear his mind of the possibility.
He finished scrolling through his messages, saw that there was nothing that demanded immediate attention, then closed down the computer and went back to the galley.
Vijay was still there. The dome lights were turned down to their overnight level. The dishwasher was humming away; the table was glistening clean. She’s waiting for me, Jamie thought happily.
“Everybody else in bed?” he asked.
“Trudy and Rodriguez are,” she replied lightly. “Mitsuo’s still poking around out in the garden and Stacy hasn’t come out of the comm center.”
“Oh.”
She took a mug and a teabag, then went over to the hot water dispenser. Jamie pulled out a chair and sat in it. He knew it was silly, but he wanted to wait until all the others were in their quarters for the night before he took Vijay to his cubicle.
“Mitsuo thinks somebody deliberately sabotaged the dome,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“What?” She turned toward him, her eyes wide with surprise.
“He’s got what he thinks is evidence.”
“He’s daft.”
“I hope so,” Jamie said.
“I’ll talk to him about it,” she said, bringing her cup to the table and sitting next to him.
“No, wait. Let me see what else he comes up with first.”
Vijay gave him a sideways glance, unconvinced, but then nodded and said, “If that’s what you want.”
“Dex’s father wants to bump me,” he heard himself say. The words surprised him. He had convinced himself several times over not to burden her with his problem.
“I was wondering when you’d get around to talking about it,” she said.
He felt an instant of shock, then realized that there were no secrets in this hothouse they lived in.
“So everybody knows about it,” he said.
“Of course,” she said, sitting beside him. “We’ve been wondering what we can do to help. You know, send a petition to the ICU board, threaten a job action, whatever.”
“A job action?”
“Go on strike,” she said. “Sit down on our butts until Trumball stops harassing you.”
She took a sip of the steaming tea, waiting for him to respond. Looking into her lustrous black eyes Jamie realized again how beautiful she was.
“We’ve got this whole world to explore,” he said to her. “We can’t go on strike. That wouldn’t help anything.”
She replied, “Do you have any better ideas?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
“And?”
“Trumball’s threatening to hold up the funding for the next expedition.”
“Using it as a hostage, I know.”
“I can’t let him stop the next expedition, Vijay. That would be criminal.”
“How can you stop him, then?”
He leaned back and stared up into the darkness. For long moments there was no sound except the soft chugging of the life-support pumps, the faint whispered hum of electrical equipment. And the high, barely audible sighing of the night wind outside, the breath of a world calling to him.
Then he heard Vijay exhale and realized she had been holding her breath, waiting for him to answer.
“I could resign,” he said flatly.
“Resign?”
“Step down as mission director. After all, I’m here on Mars; he can’t call me back to Earth. I’m here for the duration of the expedition. What difference does it make if my title is mission director or bottle-washer?”
Vijay banged her cup on the table so hard that tea sloshed out of it.
“You can’t do that, Jamie! You can’t!”
“Why not? What does the title mean? It’s what we do here on Mars that’s important.”
“But he’ll put Dex in charge!”
“I don’t think so. I think the rest of you will get a chance to express your opinions. A vote, maybe.”
She shook her head vehemently. “That would tear us apart, Jamie. Some would vote for Dex and anyone who didn’t would be perceived as a vote against him.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Maybe so.”
“You can’t step down! That would ruin everything.”
“I don’t think—”
“You want to go out to the cliff dwelling, don’t you? Do you think Dex would approve that?”
“I don’t think Dex would be named director,” he repeated.
“And who would?”
“Stacy would be my choice.”
“She’s not a scientist.”
“Then Craig.”
“Wiley? Do you think he has the respect that you do? Can you see Fuchida following Wiley’s orders?”
“It’s not a matter of following orders,” he said.
“Of course it is! That’s what the mission director’s position is all about.”
Jamie shook his head. “Come on, Vijay, I don’t give orders to people. We all work together.”
She sat up rigidly and tapped the tabletop with one manicured fingernail. “You don’t give orders because you don’t have to. Everyone here respects you tremendously. Don’t you understand that? You lead by example. You’re a natural leader.”
“So is Dex, according to you.”
“Dex wants to be what you already are. He’s not there yet.”
“And if I give it up, resign,” Jamie could barely force the words out, “and Dex is named mission director … what will you do?”
She drew in her breath sharply, as if struck by a blow. For long, agonizing moments she was silent.
“What will I do?” Vijay echoed, her voice so low he could barely hear her.
“About us,” Jamie whispered.
She stared at him.
“I mean—”
“My god, Jamie,” she said, her voice trembling, “if you think I’m sleeping with you just because you’re the boss man here … if you think I’ll prance off to Dex’s bed if he’s named director …”
“I … but you said …”
“You’re an idiot!” she snapped. “A damned fool bloody idiot!”
She stamped off toward her own quarters, leaving the mug sitting on the table in a small puddle of tea. Jamie watched her go, telling himself that she was right: I’m an idiot.
PREDAWN: SOL 54JAMIE KNEW HE SHOULD HAVE FELT SLEEPY, BUT HE WAS WIDE AWAKE.
Grimly awake.
He sat in his coveralls at the desk in his quarters, the glow from his laptop screen etching his face and throwing a dim, lumpy shadow across the back wall. I wonder what time it is in Boston? he asked himself.
The image frozen on his screen showed Darryl C. Trumball at his desk, staring into the camera, his face frozen in an angry scowl, a jewel-tipped pen in one hand. Jamie was studying Trumball’s image, trying to find the soul beneath the hard exterior. What does he want? Jamie asked himself. Why does he want to get rid of me?
Jamie had sent a simple message to Trumball more than an hour earlier:
”In the interest of harmony among the ICU board members, I am willing to step down as mission director,” he had said, “providing that Stacy Dezhurova is named to the position in my place, and an excursion to the possible cliff dwelling in Tithonium Chasma is inserted into our mission schedule.”
The words harmony among the ICU board were a code phrase, aimed at assuring funding for the next expedition. Trumball had threatened to hold up the funding unless Jamie was removed from his position. Without putting it in so many words, Jamie was offering his head for an assurance of funds. And a promise to allow him to investigate the cliff dwelling.
Now he sat and waited for Trumball’s reply, watching a still image of the old man taken from one of his earlier messages. He opened a window on the screen and checked the current time in Boston. Twelve minutes past two P.M. Trumball should be there; if he wasn’t, somebody should have responded with that information by now.
No, he’s thinking it over. Or maybe he just wants to let me stew in my own sweat for a while. That would be like his kind of man, the power-trip; all ego and no consideration for anyone else.
Maybe he’s trying to talk it over with Dex, Jamie thought. But as he stared at Trumball’s image on the little screen he realized that this man doesn’t talk things over with anyone. He makes up his own mind for his own reasons and steamrollers anyone who objects. Or tries to.
Jamie had spent a bad hour or so after Vijay stormed out of the galley. He wondered how the others would feel if he resigned, wondered what Dex would do, in particular. I’m not doing Stacy a favor, he told himself, putting her on the hot seat.
But it’s got to be done, he realized. Trumball will just make so much trouble that the next expedition will never get off the ground.
That was what had decided him. There has to be a third expedition. And a fourth and a fiftieth and a five hundredth. We have a whole world to explore! I can’t let my own ego get in the way. I’d be just as bad as Trumball.
He had paced back and forth in his tiny cubicle for miles, four steps at a time, from the bunk to the accordion-fold door and back again, for hours. Worrying, balancing, tearing himself apart trying to find the right path. At last he realized what it was, what it had to be.
This isn’t a contest of wills between Trumball and me. It’s not a battle of alpha males between Dex and me. This is about the exploration of Mars, nothing more. And nothing less.
The decision freed him. Calmed him. He sat at his desk, opened the laptop, and sent his message to Trumball.
Now he waited for the old man’s response.
And realized, down deep where the hollow tremors of fear begin, that he had lost Vijay. Lost her respect. Lost her love.
The message light on the laptop began to blink, like a yellow eye winking at him.
Jamie touched the key and Trumball’s still image seemed to come to life. There he was, behind the same desk, with a different pen in his hand, looking at Jamie with a gruff expression on his cold, grim face.
“I got your message,” Trumball said, his voice rough and gravelly. “I’ll see to it that the board accepts your resignation. I presume you’ll transmit a similar message to each of the individual board members.”
Trumball shifted uneasily on his massive, high-hacked leather chair, fiddled with his pen, then continued. “About your recommendation of Ms. Dezhurova, I don’t know. Will the other scientists up there with you accept her, or will they want another scientist to be named mission director? I’d like to know what they think.”
Jamie felt surprised that Trumball was not insisting outright that his son be named director.
“As far as your request to go out and look at your supposed cliff dwelling, it’s all right with me if it’s all right with the rest of your people. You’ve got an extra rover vehicle, thanks to my son. Use it to go out there and take a look. If it’s real, it’ll be the greatest tourist attraction since the Crucifixion.”
The picture winked off. Trumball had had his say, he’d gotten his way. Jamie sat there feeling as if a heavyweight boxer had just punched him in the gut.
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