Return to Mars (50 page)

“Maybe it was a fortress,” Dex suddenly suggested. “Y’know, like a castle. Maybe they came up here to hide out from enemies.”

Jamie had already thought of that possibility. “There would still be some evidence of their living here, some furniture or pottery or something.”

“Yeah,” Dex agreed as they walked hack to the rectangular opening in the roof. “A broken spear or two.”

“Arrowheads. Spear points.”

“Maybe it was a religious shrine,” Dex repeated.

“Maybe,” Jamie said, getting down onto his knees so he could lower himself to the next floor.

“Nothing that looks like an altar, though,” Dex said.

Hanging by both hands, Jamie lowered himself until he felt his boots touch the floor. Then Dex did the same and they started for the next opening that led to the ground.

“Not even a crumb,” Dex grumbled.

“Might be hidden in the dust,” Jamie said. “Once we start brushing the dust away, we might find something.”

Dex was silent until they got to the ground floor. As they walked slowly, tiredly toward the low doorway that led outside he said, “The thing is, we’re thinking of this in human terms. These people weren’t humans. They were Martians.”

“Alien.”

“Right.”

“Maybe they didn’t have altars or religious shrines,” Jamie said. “Maybe they didn’t need fortresses and didn’t have to make arrowheads or spears.”

“Maybe,” Dex agreed.

Jamie thought about it as he helped Dex strap into the climbing harness.

“Then we don’t even know what we should be looking for, do we?” he mused.

Dex pushed off the rim and dangled in the harness, twisting slowly. “Might be nothing here to find.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“Unless …”

Jamie watched as Dex began to rise slowly out of sight.

“Unless what?” he called.

“Unless this place is so friggin’ old that anything less solid than the stone walls has crumbled away.”

Jamie stood alone on the rim of the rock cleft and thought about that until Dex finally sent the harness back for him.

“There’s a Christmas present on its way to you,” Rodriguez said, a lopsided grin on his swarthy, square-jawed face.

Jamie was in the cockpit, checking in with the base, while Dex microwaved their dinner packages.

“What do you mean, a Christmas present?”

“It’s Christmas Eve, so Santa’s bringing you a present.” The astronaut’s dark eyes sparkled.

“What?”

“Hold one,” said Rodriguez.

His image winked off and the screen showed Stacy Dezhurova instead. The picture was grainy, a little washed out. It looked to Jamie as if Stacy was driving one of the rovers.

“Ho, ho, ho,” said Dezhurova, in the deepest tone her voice could reach. “I am your official Father Christmas.”

Jamie had to smile at that. “Where’s your beard?”

‘ ‘Never mind trivialities. In all your planning for this excursion you forgot that you would be out there on Christmas day, didn’t you?”

“I guess I did,” Jamie admitted.

“Our schedule calls for a day of rest, a holiday. No work tomorrow.”

With a rueful grin, Jamie asked, “Do DiNardo and his committee know that?”

“DiNardo made a point of emphasizing it,” Dezhurova said. “He is a Catholic priest, remember.”

“That’s right.”

“So we are bringing you a present.” Stacy allowed a slight smile to curve her lips.

“We?”

“Fuchida and Hall are in this rover with me; we are heading for your site.”

“No kidding?” Jamie turned halfway in his seat. “Dex, did you hear that?”

“We’re getting company!” Dex hurried up to the cockpit and slid into the other chair.

“Right.”

Dezhurova raised her voice to get his attention. “Wait. There’s more. We are carrying with us your Christmas dinners.”

“Soybean turkey and fake cranberry sauce,” Dex groused.

“No, no, no!” Dezhurova cried. “Real turkey and real cranberry sauce! The special dinners were packed aboard by mission control before we left Earth.”

“Who the hell did that?” Dex wondered.

“It was a surprise for all of us. The information about the dinners was in today’s mission schedule,” Dezhurova went on. “I saw it this morning when I went into the daily sked.”

“A Christmas surprise,” Jamie said.

“For everyone. They didn’t know, on Tarawa, that you two would be away from the dome on Christmas day. So we are bringing your dinners to you.”

“Company for Christmas.” Dex beamed happily. “We’d better clean up the place if company’s going to drop in.”

Vijay stood behind Rodriguez, watching as Stacy told Dex and Jamie about the Christmas surprise.

She had thought about going out to the Canyon with the others, but that would leave Rodriguez and Craig by themselves for the holiday. Tommy couldn’t leave the dome with his hand still on the mend, and Vijay realized that she should stay close to her patient, just in case.

Besides, Rodriguez and Trudy had become a twosome, and now that she had gone to the Canyon to help with exploring the ruins, Tommy had a woeful hangdog look about him. Christmas without his girlfriend was going to be pretty sad for him.

She knew that was a good reason to stay, but not her real reason. She knew that she was afraid to be out there with both Jamie and Dex, afraid of the tensions it would raise, the trouble it could cause. The two alpha males seemed to be getting along fairly well by themselves, no sense stirring up their hormones.

Or mine, she admitted to herself.

Jamie went to sleep that night thinking that tomorrow morning would be Christmas and they were going to have company. Three friendly faces added to their holiday.

It’s lonesome out here, he realized, staring at the curving metal overhead. With nobody but Dex, it’s like being a cowboy out on the range in the old days. The work is fine and exciting, but at night, when you gather round the old campfire, a few more friends will be welcome.

Hall and Fuchida will stay, according to the plan Dezhurova explained to him. Dex and I will move to their rover and the four of us will work on the village. Stacy will drive the old clunker back to the dome.

Shouldn’t call it an old clunker. It’s served us very well. It’s been great for us.

He closed his eyes and saw Vijay. Naked. Glistening with sweat. Warm and soft and yielding in his arms.

Wish she were coming, too. He turned his head and saw Dex lying on his bunk, hands laced behind his head, staring into the shadows. I’ll bet he’s thinking about her, too. Good thing she isn’t coming. Some Christmas it would be, with the two of us ready to tear out each other’s throats over her.

No, she’s smart not to come here. Dex and I are just starting to understand one another. If she were here, all that would be wrecked.

Still, he glanced at Dex once again. He’s thinking about her, too. I’d bet money on that.

As if he sensed Jamie’s thoughts, Dex turned on his bunk toward Jamie.

“How old you think that building is?” he asked.

Jamie propped himself up on one elbow. “I don’t know. I get the feeling that it’s really old, older than anything on Earth. But that’s just a feeling, a hunch. We don’t have any evidence yet.”

His lingers still twined behind his head, Dex said, “There’s something screwy here. It just doesn’t add up.”

“What doesn’t?”

“All our heat flow measurements show that Mars is a lot younger than anybody thought. Geologically, I mean.”

Jamie nodded in the shadows.

“I mean, the Tharsis volcanoes were active until only a few tens of millions of years ago. The planet’s interior is a lot hotter than we expected. Right?”

“Right,” said Jamie.

“But the planet’s too frigging small for all that,” Dex complained. “It should’ve cooled off a long time earlier.”

“According to the accepted theories, yes,” Jamie admitted. “But when the theories don’t match up with the observations …”

“And now this building. You think it’s a million years old? Older?”

Shaking his head, Jamie said, “I don’t know. That’s what we’ve got to find out.”

“How does it all fit together? That’s the thing of it: How does everything we’ve found here fit together?”

Jamie almost wanted to laugh. Dex was as perplexed as any child trying to figure out a new puzzle.

“Well, we’re not going to get the answers here in our bunks,” he said. “Let’s get some sleep and tackle it tomorrow.”

He heard Dex chuckle softly. “Yeah. Right. If we don’t go to sleep Santa won’t come.”

But Dex couldn’t sleep. His curiosity about Mars gave way to thoughts about his father. Good old Dad. I’ve helped to discover intelligent life on Mars and he hasn’t sent a word to me. Not a frigging word. Not even a Christmas greeting. Not him.

He’s too busy playing the bigshot financier to say anything to me. Too busy lining up money for the next expedition. And the one after that. He’s taking the credit for me, letting them all tell him what a terrific son he’s got while he picks their pockets.

Dex turned over to face the curving bulkhead of the rover. Well, when I get back I’m going to take over all that. I’m going to take my fair share of the glory and push dear old Dad out of the picture. Kick him upstairs. Let him be the Old Man while I take the spotlight and set up a regular schedule of expeditions to Mars. All kinds of scientists are going to want to come here: archeologists, paleontologists—hell, they’ll open up a new department, a whole new discipline. Alien anthropology. Xenology, that’s what they’ll call it. Maybe I’ll endow a chair of Xenology at Yale and take it for myself.

No, he thought. I’m going to take the position Dad has now. I’m going to run things. I’m going to set up the financing and put the expeditions together. Make a regular corporation: Mars Expeditions, Inc. C. Dexter Trumball, president and chief executive officer.

I’ll get contributors to finance individual scientists. The tourists will pay for the scientists! That’s the way to do it. Each tourist’s fare will pay the way for a scientist to come to Mars. Great!

When I get back to Earth I’ll already be famous. That’s when I cash in on the fame. I’ll fuck every debutante between Boston and Atlanta and screw their fathers out of enough money to send a dozen expeditions to Mars. A hundred. I’ll build a tourist facility right here, on the rim of the Canyon, where they can come down and see the village and then go on down to the Canyon floor. Build a regular elevator so they can ride in comfort and safety.

I’m going to make them forget about dear old Dad. When I get back to Earth, I’m going to be the star. I’m going to be so frigging important even Dad will have to admit it.

CERTAINLY WE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS IN JAPAN, SAID MITSUO FUCHIDA.

He sat on one of the bunks, squeezed between Stacy Dezhurova and Dex Trumball. Jamie sat on the opposite bunk with Trudy Hall beside him. On the narrow table separating them was the remains of their holiday dinners, now little more than crumbs and bones.

The special Christmas dinners had been almost as good as advertised. Real turkey, drumsticks as well as white breast meat, with sweet potatoes, green beans and cranberry sauce. Indestructible fruitcake for dessert. There was even a small ration of white wine in plastic containers for each of them. Dex made extra-strong coffee to soften the fruitcake.

“Is Christianity that big in Japan now?” Trudy asked.

Fuchida shook his head. ”Not so much. But we celebrate Christmas exactly the way you do—as a major retail sales event.”

Everyone laughed. They were in the rover that Dezhurova had driven. A mangy tree made of aluminum strips stood lopsidedly by the airlock hatch, lit by tiny winking bulbs from the electronics spares supply. They had no gifts to exchange except the warmth of their own company.

It was enough.

Jamie lounged back against the bulkhead as they chattered and bantered back and forth. Tomorrow Dezhurova would drive the old rover back to the dome while the four scientists lived in this one and started the work of thoroughly investigating the dwelling site, under the direction of DiNardo’s committee.

It’s going to be tedious work, Jamie thought. Painstaking. With a half-hour lag between our asking a question and their answer.

But that’s tomorrow, he told himself. Tonight it’s Christmas. He felt pleasantly buzzed by the little portion of wine he’d drunk with his dinner. Everyone else seemed to be equally relaxed, equally happy.

Jamie looked across the table at Dex, grinning as he needled Fuchida about the religious significance of a shopping spree. A sudden thought popped into Jamie’s mind.

He slid out from behind the table, muttering an “Excuse me,” and started toward the cockpit.

“Hey, Jamie!” Dex called. “The pissoir’s down the other direction.”

He turned and made a smile for them. “I can whiz out the window.” Ducking his head, he slipped into the cockpit’s right-hand seat.

The four of them were making enough noise, talking, joking, laughing, so that Jamie didn’t feel he needed to put on the headset. Still, he plugged it in and held its pin mike close to his lips as he addressed his message to C. Darryl Trumball.

“Mr. Trumball, I don’t know where you are and I haven’t checked on what the time might be in the Boston area right now, so please excuse me if I’m interrupting your Christmas celebration. I just thought it would be a reasonable present for your son if you called Dex to wish him a merry Christmas.”

Glancing at his wristwatch, Jamie continued, “We’ve got a little less than three hours of Christmas remaining here, so if you’re going to call, it ought to be pretty soon. I know Dex would appreciate it. Thanks.”

He rejoined the group as they began singing Christmas carols. Trudy had brought a CD with her, and no less than the Westminster Abbey Choir filled the rover with sonorous Noels. The five explorers sang along, at the tops of their lungs.