The Martian Race (27 page)

They called it Roger the Rug, and let it creep around the whole hab, cleaning corners and nooks. Roger was the most advanced biotech they had, deceptively simple.

She needed the pampering. Trouble started at breakfast.

“We will all go to greet our friends and losers of the race,” Viktor said.

“I want to stay here,” Julia said. “I've got plenty to do—”

“Axelrod's orders. We look like happy people welcoming fellow brave explorers.”

Raoul said, “ ‘Showing them around the planet,’ was the way he put it.”

“When did this come in?”

“While you were oversleeping,” Raoul said.

“Like me,” Marc said. “That descent really took it out of us.”

“Let me see Axelrod's song and dance,” Julia said, quickly finishing her oatmeal.

Last night they had sent a quick report to the Consortium, with a few shots from her videos of the Marsmat. Axelrod had sent a bunch of “guidelines” for handling Airbus, but Julia had ignored all that talk in favor of putting her samples in order. Then she had crashed. That billions of people were at a fever pitch over the “race” mattered not at all to her.

She and Marc watched Axelrod's message on the big screen. “I can't believe our luck,” he began, “finding life and getting the repair kit, all in one day.”

“They were correlated,” Marc remarked wryly. “We just barely squeezed in the vent descent before Airbus got here.”

“Yes,” Julia said, as Axelrod went on with superlatives, “but the PR people won't present it that way.”

Axelrod said, “As big a discovery as this is, Julia and Marc, you've got to realize it raises problems. I'm keeping it quiet for now, see? Announcement in a day or three. We've got to be
really sure
to observe the—what's that name?—oh yeah, Planetary Protection Protocols. No Mars life in the hab or the ERV. No exposure of you crew. Samples stay outside, always. No glove box work in the hab. My people tell me this is a
minimum
that we
have
to follow, or there'll be hell to pay.”

“The real trick will be to keep any of it alive,” Julia said to the others with growing annoyance. She yearned to get outside and see if any of the samples had survived the night under the conditions she had rigged in the greenhouse.

“Now, I know you'll both want to get right on those samples, study the hell out of ‘em.” Axelrod smiled warmly. “But there's this other big deal, Airbus. I want the best coverage. Those Chinese, they seem to be calling the shots from back here, and they're as media-stupid as ever. No good camera shots from them, except for some pretty night-landing stuff. They just sent out a footprints-and-flags video, been on all the media. A copy of how you guys handled it. That guy Chen and the engineer, Gerda, they stepped off together. That woman, Claudine, she was a half step behind—dunno why.”

“Who cares?” exploded Julia. “Damn it, how trivial can you get? We discover the first alien life in the universe, and he's worrying about who steps off the blooming nuke first!”

“Let's see what else is bothering boss, okay? Then we can discuss,” said Viktor. This was a clear warning to Julia.

She glared at him but said nothing.

“He's worried,” Marc whispered. “Look how he runs on.”

“Maybe he's afraid they'll hold the repair kit for ransom?” Raoul asked.

“—so our footage will be
much
better. You guys welcoming them, showing them the territory. Smiles, all smiles. Give ‘em a ride in the dune buggy—be sure to take it along.”

“He thinks the technical problems are solved,” Marc said.

“Yes,” Viktor said. “Raoul plus kit, game is over.”

Axelrod beamed. “Can you believe it? Ol’ Airbus is giving away their video feed! Anybody wants, can run it. Not only are they losing the race, they're losing all the media money.”

Marc said, “He's going to want us to outperform them on camera.”

“No thanks,” Julia said. “I don't want to—”

“So Julia,” Axelrod said earnestly, projecting warmth and concern. “I know how you feel about your big discovery. I'm sure you understand, though, that you and Marc have got to be in the welcome. Can't have just half our guys show up! People will wonder why. We don't want questions, not while you're finding out just what we've got there, scientifically.”

“Grumble grumble,” Julia said. “Maybe it makes sense, but—”

“He's got a point,” Marc said.

Axelrod beamed. “With all the excitement, plus Raoul putting the finishing touches on the ERV, that's plenty of cover for you to get something done—just as soon as you wave hello.”

She grimaced. “Logic okay, but I don't have to like it.”

While the others got the dune buggy checked out—anything standing exposed on the surface needed a going-over after a few days, they had learned—she ducked into the greenhouse. The vent samples were in the glove box, looking the same as last night. The box stood against one filmy wall so that it could operate at Martian ambient pressure, venting directly out. Though its atmosphere was filtered, the positive pressure from the greenhouse would pull any leak outward. She wanted to start some simple experiments, but already the others were waving at her.

The hour-long trip to the pingos she spent planning her research strategy. Riding on the dune buggy was much more fun than using Red Rover, because your view was wide, even in the lobster suit. As they approached she studied the fog rising from the several pingo hills Airbus had scoured out. The pearly mist poured up like slow-motion smoke. The rocket exhaust had blown deep holes in the pingo hills, now open fuming pits. Milky crusts spattered the nearby rock flanks. Debris from the blast wave stretched away in long, dark fingers of freshly exposed gravel.

“They'll have to dig into that,” Viktor sent over comm. “Mine ice and then warm it up in a kettle.”

Raoul said, “No, something more efficient. Run a pipe through the ice, melt it where it is, pump it out.”

“Whatever they do,” Viktor said, “will take a lot of time to make so much fuel.”

Raoul chuckled. “Axelrod. This morning he asked if Airbus would separate the water into liquid oxygen and hydrogen, maybe? Still thinking like it was a chem rocket.”

They all got a laugh out of that, but Julia knew it was pure nerves driving the mirth. Instead of fretting over meeting Airbus, though, they fell into technical talk.

A big virtue of nuclear rocketry was that ordinary water was a perfectly fine “fuel” because it simply served as mass to shove out the nozzle. The true fuel was the uranium or plutonium in the reactor core—a compact cylinder no bigger than a Volkswagen. Water pumped into it exploded into steam and jetted out the back.

The Magnum booster that had sent them here was also a steam rocket, its energy gotten when liquid hydrogen combined with liquid oxygen. Nuclear rockets just skipped all the trouble of handling ultra-cold fluids. They could fly anywhere in the solar system where ice could be found, then fly home on local “fuel.”

She let them rattle on, aware that something was working in the back of her mind. With the first glimpse of the ship in the distance, she felt her perspective change suddenly. This was not just two crews of astronauts meeting on assignment. She, Viktor, Marc and Raoul were about to welcome their first visitors from Earth to their home on Mars.

The Airbus ship gleamed on the Martian sands like a shiny tower. It
looked
like a futuristic spaceship, Julia had to admit. Compact, slender, and much more impressive than their clunky, utilitarian hab and ERV. They halted the dune buggy and she took several panoramic video shots, on direct feed for the waiting Earthside millions.

“We prepare to welcome the crew of the
Valkyrie
to Mars,” she said for the sound track.

Raoul checked the radiation count as they ground across the dunes to the blasted landing site. “Their pile has cooled off to very low levels,” he announced. “No higher than ambient now.”

She was glad they'd had the night to let the nuke subside. Nobody was very clear about the Airbus operating mode, and some high-efficiency piles could leave a lot of short half-life isotopes to fry the surroundings. Not here, luckily.

The slender ship had its pile riding just over the nozzles, with the fuel tanks stacked above to shield the two passenger levels. They parked at the foot of a large elevator, craning their necks to see the ablation shield that capped the elegant spire.

All this slick engineering had ridden into medium-high Earth orbit atop a Proton booster stack bought from the Russians. Then they had fired up the nuke and boosted. They kept the upper Proton stage for centrifugal gravity, copying the Consortium. Airbus had kept quiet on technical details of the Venus flyby, but that had not been a demanding maneuver, just coast through a looping orbit, picking up delta-vee from the planet. Unmanned spacecraft had been using the same trick since the 1960s.

There were tracks of a rover and boot prints all around the ship, but by radio Viktor knew they were all inside. The Consortium four rode up in the elevator. The cycle-through at the air lock was complicated. They had to shuck their lobster suits after their antiperoxide shower. Nobody mentioned a second shower, though it was standard after you had worked on Mars for a while. A few hours in the suit made you as rank as a plow horse. They formed up and went through the big air lock together.

And here came the big moment: Julia traded turns with Marc videoing the handshakes, greetings and exchanges in Chinese, Russian, French, German, and English. Once performed for the domestic audience, as usual, the only useful shared tongue was broken English.

She was shocked by Lee Chen's lean, lined face. He had grayed a lot since she had last seen him, in Texas during mission training. His hairline had receded, and he seemed slightly stooped. She wondered if the trip had been difficult. “You're looking great!” she lied.

“You, too,” he lied back.

Two years into the mission, and she knew it would take her a week in a makeover salon to look presentable. “We've got plenty to discuss,” she said. “The only two biologists within fifty million miles.”

“I have memorized your papers in
Nature,
of course.”

His polite, professional formality, despite their knowing each other half a dozen years, now made her uneasy. But
the
BIG
discovery, I can't tell you …

“You'll be able to do plenty of backup work around here …” What
an understatement!
How to get the conversation away from this?

Marc turned to Claudine. “Ah, good to see you again.”

She was French, and on this mission, pilot and medic. Julia and the Consortium crew had known all the Airbus crew from NASA training, but not always well.

Alongside Claudine, Julia always felt like a rough-cut Colonial. The Frenchwoman was remarkably self-possessed, her long ash-blond hair controlled, today in a bun. Her gestures were graceful, and she moved with economy. To Julia she had always represented old-world manners. She was astronaut-short but with a slender build. Like all the astronauts, she was good-looking and photogenic, with regular features.

She nodded. Marc pressed, “You're staying here? Not just stopping to drop off the mail?”

Laughs, a little nervous. “We plan to stay here,” Chen answered. “Your site intrigues us.”

He's
the designated talker,
thought Julia. She shot a quick glance at Marc, who was keeping his face carefully blank.

Chen was pouring a ritual sweet drink—plum wine.

“To the first social event on Mars,” Julia said.

They all toasted the moment. She videoed it.

What do we talk about next? Are we companions in space or competitors? And how do they feel about Marc? Residual bitterness?

“So, what d'you think of the scenery?” asked Marc. “A bit skimpy on landscaping, but then we've been busy.”

Claudine smiled, “It's like all the videos you hav’ sent back. You are quite ze celebritees now, you know.”

Julia searched for undertones, but the French woman had been impeccably correct, gave away nothing. Julia remembered now that while Claudine's mouth smiled easily, her wide-set hazel eyes often did not.

Julia smiled ruefully, gestured with her minicam. “Welcome to Mars TV, the series. Condition of our employment, I'm afraid.” She felt, somehow, like a bull in a china shop.

Chen said, “We hope to profit from your many explorations.”

Soon enough the seven formed groups. Captains Chen and Viktor conversed as they moved through the narrow passageways, with Julia coming behind.

Raoul and Gerda Braun, their engineer, traded lore. Julia remembered her as a determined-looking woman with a somewhat chunky build. Today her round face was all smiles. Her light brown hair was braided and on the top of her head, and the effect was oddly Tyrolean. She seemed solicitous, worried by the myriad repairs Raoul had been called upon to perform.

Julia remembered that Marc and Claudine had done their heavy-duty training together in Germany and China; they paired off quickly, she showing him ship details. With more time to plan, Airbus had some niceties, like built-ins. Claudine seemed unusually focused on Marc, though, her expression more animated.

Mars
has a lot of past, and so do we.

Finally, Raoul could restrain himself no longer. “Say, about that mail …”

Laughs again. The repair kit was a foam-steel box that Raoul cracked immediately after Chen ceremoniously presented it. His eyes flew over the parts. He nodded, smiled. “Just the ticket.”

“Ticket home, I hope,” Viktor said.

Chen insisted on giving them a “tour” of the ship, if that was the right term for seven people crowding around each other in the narrow passageways, low ceilings and general cramped air of the living quarters and small bays. Their staging area had held the rover they had already deployed, workbenches, cabinet stores, a machine shop that Raoul instantly inspected with gleaming eyes. He asked for one or two tools and Gerda gracefully offered them up.

“I would be happy to assist, if need be,” she said in a flawless English accent.