Semper Mars (15 page)

“Colonel?” Joubert handed him the hardcopy. “It seems we have our reply.”

Bergerac’s bushy eyebrows raised as he accepted the sheet and glanced at it. ALPHA APPROVED IMMEDIATE was all it said.

“That was fast,” he said. “Scarcely time for the light lag.”

Earth and Mars were currently five light-minutes apart. The query, coded and inserted in the normal outbound comm traffic, had uploaded at 2136 hours. It would have reached Earth at 2141. Valle and the others must have been waiting right there at the Geneva command center to have made their decision and relayed it back in less than an hour.

“Soltime tomorrow,” she said. “That will give our people at Candor time to get ready.”

Bergerac nodded. “It will be good to have these American Marines out from underfoot,” he said.

T
EN

Mars Expedition/Communications: Reliable communications are vital for the safety, efficiency and productivity of the mission, and Spacenet has been adapted to the purpose. Established in 2024 as an extension of the existing Internet , Spacenet provides both broad- and narrow-band data transmission, including graphical and video interfacing through the World Wide Web . Primary Earthside nodes include the AI systems at Kennedy and Vandenberg Spaceports, as well as the Marshal , Johnson , and Greenbelt Space Centers. Spaceside nodes include the AI systems of each of the manned space stations, with the primary node in the ISS , as well as the Fra Mauro Node on Luna. All Mars communications are currently relayed through a PV-10K communications satellite in areosynchronous orbit. A secondary relay is located in the old MSC-1 system on the inner Martian moon, Phobos—currently inoperative.

— Download from Networld Encyclopedia vrtp://earthnet.public.dataccess

Sunday, 27 May: 1159 Hours GMT

Cydonia Base, Mars

Sol 5636: soltime +13 minutes MMT

It was just past midnight, the time of the day reserved for the so-called soltime, the extra forty-one minutes and some odd seconds that brought the human reckoning of time by hours, minutes, and seconds into line with Mars’s longer rotational period. Garroway had been planning on hitting his rack early, but he was on edge and sleep eluded him. It had been a long day—most of it spent in a long series of diagnostics with the EVA suits used by Alexander, Kettering, Pohl, Druzhininova, and Vandemeer when they’d made their discovery at the Fortress the day before. All five suits had flagged red in pre-EVA checkout. With the chance—admittedly remote—that something about the site had somehow affected the suits, no one was being allowed to return to the site until it could be checked out remotely, and that was going to take time. There’d been nothing wrong with the suits that he could determine.

Alexander had been furious, convinced that Joubert or one of the UN people had sabotaged the readouts to keep them from going back to the Fortress site.

The possibility that the expedition could be torn apart by internal dissension or even UN sabotage was a serious one; building psychological pressures within any small group of mismatched people cooped up together far from other humans had more than once led to disaster.

Unable to sleep, Garroway walked over to the comm center, where he commed a long vidmessage to Kaitlin. After uploading it onto Spacenet, he went back to the command center, poured himself a cup of coffee at the mess, and sat down at a spare console seat with Dr. Graves and Corporal Phil Hayes, who had the communications mid-watch. Hayes stood as Garroway came closer.

“At ease, at ease,” he said. “What’s the good word?”

“Hello, Major,” Graves said. “The corporal was just telling me about the problems you Marines are having on Mars.”

“You having problems, Corporal?” Garroway asked.

“No, sir!” the Marine snapped back, resuming his seat but managing to remain at attention. “It’s okay, son,” he said. “I’m not your CO, and I don’t bite. What’s the trouble?”

“Well, sir… the sand is hell on the rifles. It’s more like a real fine dust or windblown grit, y’know? Gets into everything. Coats everything, worse’n mud.”

“Which is why all of the weapons-cleaning drills on the way out, right?”

“Roger that, sir. Then, on top of that, some REMF back on Earth recalibrated all of ATARs, so we couldn’t hit shit when we started range practice last week. We had ’em set for Mars gravity, y’know? Then when we started workin’ with ’em here, we kept hitting above the bull’s-eye. I thought old Lloyd and Master—uh, I mean—”

“That’s okay. Go ahead, Marine.”

“Uh, I thought the colonel was gonna shit, sir. We were all selected for this mission, y’know, on the strength of our quals Earthside, and it was looking like we were the worst damned shots in the Corps.”

“You get that straightened out?”

“Oh, sure. It was pretty obvious what had happened. You know, no one in the Marines, no one in the ranks, anyway, likes these new electronic rifles. Too much gadgetry screws things up, y’know? Give me a rifle you could sight in with a sandbag and a screwdriver, like in the old days.”

Garroway chuckled. Hayes looked too young to reminisce about “the old days.”

“I was telling him,” Graves added, “that it sounded like someone on Earth got his sums wrong.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Garroway said. The M-29 ATAR was designed to accept PAD entries feeding it data such as air pressure, altitude, cartridge size, and gravity in order to precisely sight the rifle—supposedly a big improvement over the old-fashioned chore of taking it out to the range and sighting it in manually. “The gravitational acceleration on Earth is 980 centimeters per second squared. On Mars it’s, what?”

“Three seventy-one and a bit,” Graves said. “About a third.”

“I can see how that would throw your aim off. Some supply officer probably looked at that 371 centimeters per second squared, said, ‘Hey! This can’t be right!’ and changed it.”

“Every rifleman ought to be responsible for sighting in his own weapon,” Hayes said in the matter-of-fact way that professionals have when they discuss their tools. “Leave it to some supply officer back on Earth, and, see what happens? If there’s a way to fuck it up, you know they’ll find a way to do it.” He didn’t specify who they might be, but Garroway understood the feelings every soldier of every time and nationality had for the bureaucrats and bean counters behind the lines.

“You know,” Graves added, “I’m reminded of something I read about the early space-station designs. The US Skylab, put up way back in the 1970s… apparently the crews had some real problems because the engineers back on Earth kept forgetting that there was no up or down in space. And these people were designing a space station, for chrissakes!”

“It’s hard to shake our Earthbound prejudices,” Garroway agreed.

“Tell me about it, sir!” Hayes said, laughing. “Didja hear about the boots?”

“Nooo…”

“Some idiot, probably the same ROAD-SOB who fucked up the rifles, must’ve seen we were headed for a desert environment, ’cause he also saw to it we had thirty pairs of Boots, Mark I Desert, Marine Issue, Standard.”

Garroway’s eyes widened. “Desert boots? On Mars?”

“Swear to God! Like we could wear ’em with our Class-One armor! The colonel was fit to be tied when he heard. Anyway, I guess that’s why Slider and Fulbert volunteered to go to Candor Chasma and give Captain Barnes a hand straightening the mess out.”

“I’m sure Captain Barnes appreciates their help,” Garroway said, grinning. “In fact, I—”

He broke off the sentence as the hatchway from the base common area clanked open. The first person in was one of the UN troops, wearing full combat armor and carrying a Sturmgewehr SG-32 assault rifle. The bullpup magazine was locked in place behind the pistol grip—in direct violation of standing station operational orders.

“What the hell—” Garroway started, but the UN trooper swung the muzzle of the stubby, deadly-looking weapon to cover him.

“Please to remain seated,” the figure said, the voice harsh through the sealed helmet’s external speaker. The accent sounded German; most of the Foreign Legion troops serving as UN security, Garroway knew, were German, serving under French officers, Bergerac, La Salle, and Dutetre.

Bergerac, in fact, was the next man through the hatch, though he was recognizable only by the name stenciled on his sand-scuffed armor. He held a SIG-Sauer P-940 in his gloved hand. “If you would please stand up and move back slowly from the console,” he said, gesturing with his pistol. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

Two more soldiers entered, taking up positions flanking the door while the first man kept the two Marines and Dr. Graves covered at the center of the room.

“Please, no one make any sudden movements,” Bergerac announced. He nodded, and one of the UN troops slung his weapon, moved past him, and began checking each American for weapons. “C’est libre,” the man said when he was done.

“What is the meaning of this?” Graves demanded.

“Be quiet, Doctor. None of you is in any danger, unless my orders are disobeyed.” Another person in UN blues stepped through the hatch from the rec area. Mireille Joubert. Garroway was not surprised. “You…”

“I am sorry, Major. But David’s stubbornness has made this necessary.” She was holding a small jewel case, which she handed to Bergerac. The tall French colonel opened the case, extracted a ten-gig RAM cartridge, and plugged it into a slot in the CON console. Then he began tapping out commands on a keyboard.

“Just a minute, now!” Graves said. He stepped forward and was immediately blocked by a burly young UN trooper, who stopped him with the blunt muzzle of his weapon shoved against the geologist’s stomach. “But he can’t do that!” Graves protested, backing off.

“On the contrary, Doctor,” Joubert told him. “We can. And we have. At this moment, every American and Russian on this base is being taken prisoner.”

Garroway’s eyes narrowed. She could be right; the Marines’ mission was to provide security for the US science team… but that was pretty vague. It was the middle of the night, and there was no reason for a heightened alert. Most of the Marines would be asleep in the barracks hab. The only exceptions would be the various people on watch—such as Hayes, here in the comm center—and the fire and security watches. That amounted to… what was it? Eight people out of thirty? No, out of twenty-seven, with three Marines at Candor Chasma. And all but two of them inside during the bitter Martian night.

Maybe the guys outside would notice something was wrong. Garroway had helped draw up the watch-standing bill for the week. Who had the duty outside tonight? Kaminski and Groller, he was pretty sure. He looked at the radio console. If someone could just get a message off on the working frequency…

“Forget about putting out a warning,” Bergerac said, following his glance. “I’ve just uploaded new communications codes. That will keep your people from talking to one another… or you with Earth, for that matter.”

“You must be damned worried about those political repercussions you were talking about,” Garroway told Joubert. As he spoke, he casually put his hands behind his back. Bergerac had demanded that they keep their hands out in the open, but he said nothing now as Garroway kept talking. “What are you trying to do? Bury David’s discovery completely? Or just grab the credit for yourself?”

“You Americans concern yourselves far too much with the individual, or his accomplishments,” she replied, “and not enough with the good of the community. In this case, the world community. We cannot allow this information to be released to the general public. Not until they’ve been properly prepared to receive it.”

“I think there’s something else you’re worried about,” Garroway told her. He kept his hands shielded from the UN people, his right hand cupped over his wrist-top. “You see a chance here to get sole access to the alien technology.”

“That is a factor,” she said. “Mostly, we cannot allow you Americans, or the Russians, to gain all of the benefits of what you learn here for yourselves.”

“And you’re not grabbing it for yourselves?” He pressed the strap release on his wrist-top and let the device drop into the palm of his right hand. Carefully, betraying nothing with facial expression or movements of his arms, he tucked it into the waistband of his greens at the small of his back. He had a feeling these people were going to be nervous about their captives having access to computers… and maybe this way he could keep his.

It was the only plan going at the moment, the only thing he could think of.

“What we do,” Bergerac said, “we do for all of Humanity. Not just for selfish and corrupt Americans.” The man sounded angry, and Garroway decided not to push the issue. The UN propaganda machine had been working overtime lately on the “greedy and corrupt Americans” idea, while mobilizing the rest of the world against them. The thought worried him. Once you reduce a person to a label—“greedy and corrupt” was as good as any—you’re liable to have fewer qualms about arranging for that person’s disappearance. If the UN troops were moving against all Americans on Mars… hell, what were they going to do with them? There were too many to guard easily. At the moment, things did not look good…

1211 Hours GMT

Post 1, outside the hab facilities

Cydonia Base, Mars

Soltime +25 minutes MMT

Lance Corporal Frank Kaminski’s feet were getting cold, and he knew it was time to move on. Of all the duties assigned to the Marines at Cydonia, this was the worst. Why, he thought miserably, am I freezing my ass off up here while Ben and Slider are taking it easy down at Candor? The answer came immediately. Because you were a pussy and didn’t volunteer to go. The truth was, he’d been afraid that Slider was going to do something stupid and get them all caught. Man, I don’t think I’m ever going to speak to either of those assholes again.

After months cooped up inside the cycler, he’d thought he’d be glad to set foot on a planet again, with a real sky and the room to get out and move around some. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked out quite the way he’d expected. The habs at Cydonia were roomier than the cycler, of course, but they were all the same drab, stark, utilitarian design, obviously worked up by an architect who thought people liked living inside fuel tanks.

And outside was worse. You couldn’t go out without wearing Class-One armor—the full rig, complete with fifty-kilo backpack and power unit. Even if that rig only weighed something like fifteen kilos on Mars, it still moved like fifty… and once you were walking, you had to be ready to dig in your heels to stop, or that backpack would keep on going and take you with it. He was used to wearing Class-Ones, of course, after long hours of practice, but it wasn’t like really being outside. The information downloading over the HUD projected across his visor was comforting, but it still felt like he was playing video games inside a tin can.