Mars gt-4 Read online

  So for the first time since he had been in kindergarten Jamie returned to Santa Fe. He learned to fish and hunt and to love his grandfather Al, even though he actually spent most of his days in Al’s store on the plaza in Santa Fe. Al was a good grandfather but a better businessman. Anglo ladies cooed over the “little Indian boy” all summer long.

  The very last week, while Jamie was already moping about his return to Berkeley, Al took him to one of the Navaho pueblos up in the mountains where he bought the pottery and carpets for which the Anglo tourists paid so dearly.

  Most of Al’s business that day was conducted at the trading post, a combination bar and general store with uncarpeted creaking floorboards, worn old wooden counters, warped shelves half bare, and a big ceiling fan that hardly moved at all. A half dozen older men sat at the bar, silent and virtually motionless beneath their drooping broad-brimmed hats, while Al bargained patiently, interminably in Navaho with the pueblo’s head man. To Jamie the old men at the bar seemed as dusty and time ravaged as the room itself.

  Bored with his grandfather’s endless low-pitched haggling in a language he did not understand, Jamie went outside and sat on the sagging wooden steps. The late afternoon sun felt hot as molten lava, coloring the whole land copper red.

  A scrawny cat slinked past his feet, gray and silent. A pair of mangy, mean-eyed dogs lay panting in the dust on the other side of the street beneath the shade of a cottonwood tree. Jamie could count their ribs.

  Across the way, on the shaded porch that fronted an adobe house badly in need of patching, a little girl, maybe six or seven years old, was playing with a puppy, a joyful bundle of wriggling fur. Jamie thought about going over to her, but he did not know how to speak Navaho. The girl cuddled the puppy, petted it, crooning to it in her language.

  She put the puppy down briefly, then picked it up by its tail. The pup yelped and snapped at her. She dropped the puppy and jumped to her feet. Then, breaking into English, she cried, “You bad boy! Bad! You always want make trouble, always fighting! I send you to principal. Get out of this classroom! Go to principal! I tell your mother on you!”

  Even though he was only nine, Jamie immediately recognized that the girl was imitating an Anglo school teacher.

  Her mother called from the cool darkness of the house, through its open door, and spoke sternly in Navaho to her. Jamie realized his grandfather was standing beside him now, laughing at the scene.

  Scrambling to his feet, Jamie asked, “What’d she say, Al?”

  “Aw, she just told her daughter not to hurt the puppy.” He laughed. “Then she told her not to make jokes about her teacher in front of a white man.”

  “A white man?”

  “You, son!”

  “But I’m not a white man.”

  “Guess you look like one to her,” said Al.

  The following week Jamie was sent back to Berkeley, where his parents expressed great pleasure that their son had not turned into “a wild Indian.”

  MARS ORBIT

  It was damned annoying to be a sage.

  Li Chengdu stared at the blank comm screen and still saw James Waterman’s stubborn face. An honest face, slightly square with broad cheekbones and just a hint of distant Asian ancestry in the shape of his eyes. Piercing black eyes that were an open pathway to the young man’s soul.

  I should not have lost my temper with him, Li scolded himself. I was angry because he is down there on the planet and I am forced to ride in this celestial tin can without ever setting foot on Mars.

  There was more to it than that, he knew. Russians, Americans, Japanese — nineteen different nationalities living cheek by jowl a hundred million kilometers from Earth. If there isn’t a mental breakdown before we return home I’ll be surprised beyond words. Not even the Japanese were meant to live this close together.

  The engineers had anticipated all the physical problems of the Mars mission, but they had studiously ignored the worries of the psychologists. No, rather, they had passed over all those worries by ordering the psychologists to pick “well-balanced” personalities who could remain stable even under the pressure-cooker conditions of this mission. Li did not know whether he should laugh or weep. Remain stable under these conditions! How does a man remain stable when he is supposed to deny himself sex for nearly two years? This mission should have been planned by Polynesians, not Russians and Americans. The two most prudish peoples in the world.

  And now this American Indian has his government upset with his foolish words. That is something none of us had planned for.

  At least the crowding had eased now that half the ship’s complement had departed for the surface. Li leaned back in his softly yielding chair. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the ruddy curve of Mars float past in his compartment’s round window. The orbiting Mars 2 spacecraft was still tethered to its Mars 1 twin, five kilometres away, the two of them still rotating about their common center to maintain a feeling of Martian-level gravity. If it became necessary to send one of the backup personnel down to the surface, he or she could go instantly. They were all acclimated to the gravity of Mars.

  Li was grateful that their long voyage had not required them to live in zero gravity for any length of time. He always became nauseous in zero gravity; even thinking of unending months of it made him feel queasy.

  Sighing heavily, he pushed his chair away from the comm console and stood up, almost six and a half feet tall, lean as a broom handle. The tightly buttoned collar of his coveralls hid the old scar on his throat, a reminder of the riots during his student days in Shanghai. The only decoration on the olive drab outfit was his name tag on the left breast and the shoulder patch of the First Martian Expedition.

  Silly of the Americans to be troubled over a few words, he thought. Yet they have never fully resolved their problems with the Indians. Li frowned. No, they did not call them “Indians” anymore. Native Americans? Amerinds? Words are important, he realized, especially in a nation ruled by its media.

  As commander of the First Martian Expedition, Li Chengdu had both absolute power and absolute responsibility. Two dozen human beings were under his charge, their very lives in his hands. Half of them, the envied half, were down on the surface of Mars. Waterman was not the first choice among the geologists, not even the second. But the young man is down there on the surface of Mars; his Tao is so powerful that it shapes and transforms the paths of all others who come in touch with him, even my own.

  Those of us remaining up here, coasting in orbit, secretly consider ourselves second-rate. There is important work for us to do here in orbit, but except for the few who are going to probe the tiny moons, the scientists here would gladly commit murder for the chance to replace any one of the men or women down on the planet’s surface.

  I am being melodramatic, he sighed to himself. These are all adult human beings, the healthiest and most stable men and women who could be selected out of the thousands who sought positions on this expedition. The best of the best. They have their problems, naturally. We all face stresses and emotional tensions. It would be foolish to expect otherwise. My task is to reconcile these problems and make certain that they do not interfere with the performance of our mission.

  But how healthy and stable was it for that American to speak Navaho to the world’s media? How healthy and stable is it for anyone to want to fly off to another world, risking one’s life for the thrill of setting foot where no one has stepped before?

  Ah, said Li to himself, perhaps that is a form of madness that is divine. The human beast is an explorer, a wanderer, and always has been. Young Waterman’s ancestors would never have roamed from Asia to America if it were not thus.

  Dealing with two dozen such wandering souls while simultaneously trying to keep their overseers back on Earth placated — that requires the patience of a Confucius, the intelligence of an Einstein, and the guile of a Machiavelli. I am none of them.

  Yet as far as these young men and women are concerned, as far as the mission contr
ollers in Kaliningrad and Houston are concerned, I am all of those things and more. And so I must continue to appear to them. If for no other reason than to protect them from their politicians back on Earth. Even when I really want to pursue that slender young blonde who is running the cartographic cameras. Such a tempting smile!

  Li sighed heavily. Damned annoying being a sage.

  SOL 2: EVENING

  “TOSH-ima,” the Japanese corrected. “Not Tosh-EE-ma.”

  Jamie unconsciously bowed his head slightly, acknowledging the meteorologist’s pronunciation. Toshima’s voice was soft and he smiled as he spoke, but it was clear that he wanted his name pronounced his way. He seemed big for a Japanese: slightly taller than Jamie himself, thick-bodied, with a round flat-featured face.

  The wardroom felt almost crowded with all twelve of them sitting together. They had pushed the three tables together and, after a long day of unloading supplies and equipment, were celebrating with a festive dinner.

  Vosnesensky and his fellow Russian, Mironov, sat shoulder to shoulder at one end of the table, two squat fireplugs in gray coveralls. The American astronauts, Connors and Paul Abell, Were on the Russians’ left. The three women sat across from the Americans, and the other scientists had seated themselves around the rest of the table.

  Jamie had spent more than an hour during the free time after they had finished unloading the second L/AV composing a conciliatory note for Houston. He had used Li’s words as exactly as he could remember them: “I was overwhelmed with emotion upon stepping onto the surface of Mars and relapsed into the language of my ancestors.” That ought to satisfy the pisspot sons of bitches, he thought as he transmitted his apology to the spacecraft orbiting above.

  Now he sat at the improvised dining table flanked on one side by Seiji Toshima and on the other by Tony Reed.

  “I’ve wondered why the Japanese weren’t represented in the first landing,” Reed mused as he picked at his tray of precooked beef slices. “After all, if it weren’t for Japan’s contribution of funding and electronics hardware we would never have gotten here.”

  Toshima looked up from his rice and fish at the Englishman. “Such decisions were made by the politicians. Japan is not so prideful that one day’s difference matters to us. It is enough to be part of this expedition.”

  With a winking glance at Jamie, Reed teased, “Yes, but after all — even Israel and Brazil were represented before Japan.”

  “And even England,” said Toshima thinly.

  “Ah, but England,” Reed countered, “represents the European Community.”

  Toshima bowed his head slightly.

  “Then of course,” Reed continued amiably, “there is the Navaho nation.”

  Jamie put down his plastic fork. “Tony, you know as well as any of us that the final decisions on who went aboard which ship determined the order of landing. Why make an issue of it?”

  “Indeed,” said Toshima, “it is sufficient for us to be here, regardless of which hour each one of us put his first bootprint on the ground.”

  Reed made a gracious nod and brushed back the stubborn lock of sandy hair that fell across his forehead. “I accept your superior wisdom. Excuse my English gamesmanship, please.”

  Reed broke into a conversation on his left and Toshima started talking to the Egyptian geophysicist on his right, leaving Jamie sitting alone and wishing that there was a burrito or even a supermarket taco on the microwave tray before him. He had not tasted real food since he had left Houston, more than ten months ago. The nutritionists who planned the meals for this expedition had paid careful attention to the varying national tastes of the Mars explorers — so they had thought. Jamie was eating their version of the Italian meals prepared for Father DiNardo: soybean paste attempting to look like veal cutlets; spaghetti that miraculously managed to be dry and mushy at the same time. And it was all so bland! DiNardo’s damned gall bladder problems had ruled out spices, apparently. That’s what you get for taking another man’s position, Jamie told himself. Eat DiNardo’s meals and be grateful you’re here in his place.

  He glanced at the three women, talking among themselves. Ilona’s patrician face was animated, smiling as she spoke, her hands a flurry of gestures. Little Joanna looked almost solemn, as if hearing bad news. The other woman, Monique Bonnet, was nodding in rhythm to Ilona’s gesticulations.

  Bonnet was tiny, even shorter than Joanna, but as plump as a Provencal matron. She was older than the other two, her thick dark hair speckled with gray, laughter wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her face was round, with ruddy cheeks that dimpled when she smiled. She must have been a beauty when she was younger, Jamie thought. And thinner.

  Liquor was strictly off-limits, as far as the mission regulations went. So naturally every member of the expedition had carried aboard a bottle or two among his or her personal baggage. Jamie, inserted at the last minute and flown unexpectedly from his quarters in Houston to the launching center in Florida, never had a moment to buy, borrow, or steal so much as a can of beer.

  Vosnesensky rapped his knuckles on the table, making it rattle dangerously.

  “I want to make it clear,” he said, almost in a growl, “that this is the last occasion on which liquor will be tolerated.”

  Groans and grumbles down the table.

  “We have much work to do and little time to do it. Liquor is strictly forbidden; it could be a safety hazard.”

  Vosnesensky was simply stating the mission rules, but no one felt happy about it.

  “However, since this is the first night here on Mars for all twelve of us,” he said, pushing himself to his feet, “I wish to propose a toast.”

  Relieved sighs and grins broke out around the table. Seven men and the three women raised glasses of whiskey, vodka, brandy, wine, and sake. Jamie lifted his water glass and noticed that whatever Vosnesensky had in his plastic glass was also clear.

  “We have been through a difficult time,” Vosnesensky said, his heavy features quite serious. With a glance at Ilona Malater he went on, “Nine months aboard the spacecraft created certain tensions, certain problems.”

  “At least no one got pregnant,” Tony Reed whispered loud enough to generate a few giggles.

  Vosnesensky glared at him. “Tomorrow our true work begins: the conquest of Mars.”

  Conquest? Jamie’s mind flashed pictures of the white man’s conquest of America. That’s not what we’re here for. Nobody’s going to conquer Mars.

  “The next seven weeks will test us,” Vosnesensky was going on. “Make no mistake about it. Each of us will be tested to his limit. Or hers. Mars will test us all.”

  “Our arms are getting tired, Mikhail Andreivitch,” quipped Mironov, grinning. “Is this a toast or a speech?”

  Vosnesensky did not smile. Quite seriously he raised his glass even higher and said, “May each of us find on Mars what we are looking for.”

  “Zah vahsheh zdahrovyeh!” exclaimed Mironov.

  “Zdahrovyeh,” Vosnesensky echoed.

  They all drank. Jamie’s water tasted flat, sterile.

  “I wonder just what it is that each of us is looking for,” Tony Reed called from his end of the table.

  “Good question,” said Abell, the American astronaut, with a grin that creased his face from chin to hairline. He reminded Jamie of a frog: bulging eyes, round cheeks, and a wide grinning slit of a mouth. “Me, I’d like to find some beautiful Martian women who’ve been without men for a thousand years or so.”

  A few tolerant chuckles from the scientists. Ilona cast him a sultry look.

  “No, seriously,” Reed said. “I’m curious to know what each of us hopes to find on Mars.”

  Jamie grumbled to himself, Tony’s taking his assignment as team psychologist too seriously.

  “For myself,” said Vosnesensky, placing a stubby-fingered hand against his broad chest, “I wish only that we can work in harmony and no one becomes injured so we all return to our homes in happiness.”

  Mirono
v added in a stage whisper, “And that you could weigh only thirty kilos even back on Earth!”

  “I’m looking forward to flying the soarplane,” said Pete Connors in his resonant caramel voice.

  “I desire very much to see the great Olympus Mons with my very own eyes,” said Ravavishnu Patel, the Indian geologist.

  “Mount Olympus, the largest volcano in the solar system,” agreed the Egyptian geophysicist, Abdul al-Naguib.

  “I want to prove that a permafrost ocean exists beneath the surface of the ground,” Ilona Malater said. “Theory predicts it does, but I want to find it for myself and map its extent.”

  “Life.”

  Joanna Brumado spoke the one word, and all other talk stopped. Everyone turned toward her. She looked embarrassed. Her heart-shaped face colored slightly.

  “Of course life,” said Monique Bonnet, sitting next to her. “Joanna is right. The most astounding thing we could find on this world would be life.”

  No, Jamie corrected silently. The most astounding thing we could find would be intelligent life. Or its remains.

  LIFE

  The Old Ones taught that miracles are not rare. The world is filled with them.

  Life is a miracle so commonplace that it can arise wherever there is water and sunlight. Even in the desert life abounds, as long as there is a little water and sunlight.

  Did life arise on the red world? Did Man Maker and the other gods of creation start their work there? If so, life may have begun there earlier than on the blue world, because the rocks of the red world’s crust cooled sooner than those of the larger, warmer blue world. In the shallow seas that dotted the red world’s surface, life could have taken shape and begun to reproduce itself. It would have been difficult, because the red world was always colder than the blue. Often the waters would have frozen and the living things in them would have died or gone into a long hibernation that was the next thing to death. Still, life is persistent.