Mars Life (17 page)

I have good news and bad news,” said Izzy Rosenberg.

Puffing from exertion, Hasdrubal looked up from the tubular probe sticking out of the rust-colored sand. “Is this a joke?”

Rosenberg was inside the camper, checking the data from the miniature sensors down at the business end of the probe.

“I wish it were,” he said. His voice sounded worried in Hasdrubal’s headphone.

Looking toward the camper, parked twenty-some meters from the probe, Hasdrubal said guardedly, “Tell me the good news first, then.”

“The GC/MS has picked up a whiff of carbon.”

“Carbon?” Hasdrubal stood up straighter. He could 
feel 
his eyes go wide. The gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer analyzed the gases boiled out of the rock by the laser pulses.

“Where? How deep?”

“At the thirty-meter level, rather where the foundations of the village should be.”

“Carbon?” Hasdrubal repeated. “Like, from something organic?”

“It could be,” said Rosenberg, his voice curiously flat, unexcited. “Fossilized wood, perhaps. Construction material.”

“Or the remains of a body!”

“Whatever. It’s definitely not the rock we’ve been drilling through above that level. It must be part of the village. Building foundations, perhaps.”

“Yow!” Hasdrubal leaped into the air and flung his arms over his head joyfully.

“You haven’t heard the bad news, Sal.”

“Bad news?”

“The laser’s drained our battery power almost completely.”

“That’s not so bad. We’ll recharge ‘em from the solar cells.”

“Not enough sunlight left in the day. Besides, the resupply hopper is due in fifteen minutes. By the time we set it down and transfer the supplies to the camper the sun will be on the horizon.”

“Recharge ‘em tomorrow, then, first light.” Hasdrubal started walking toward the camper.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“The fuel cells’re okay, aren’t they?”

“So far.”

Frowning inside his collapsible bubble helmet, Hasdrubal snapped, “What th’hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Rosenberg answered, “I don’t like going through the night without the batteries to back up the fuel cells.”

Yanking open the airlock’s outer hatch, Hasdrubal smiled as he said, “Don’t be chicken, Izzy. We got plenty of power.”

“I suppose so.”

“You’re a worrywart, Izzy,” said Hasdrubal, climbing into the coffin-sized airlock. He sealed the outer hatch and touched the keypad that started the pumps chugging. “You oughtta relax, enjoy life, like me.”

“Extraordinary.” In Hasdrubal’s headset, Rosenberg’s voice sounded halfway between astonishment and disgust. “We’re two days’ ride from the safety of the base, alone out here in a glorified omnibus without a working backup power system, the temperature outside is already twenty-nine below zero, and there’s nothing between us and this near-vacuum that’s pretending to be an atmosphere except a few millimeters of metal, and you say I should relax. Extraordinary. Simply extraordinary.”

The airlock panel cycled from red light through amber and into green. Hasdrubal chuckled as he popped the inner hatch. Izzy’s twitchy today. Wonder what’s really bothering him?

He pulled his nanofabric bubble helmet off his head and unsealed the torso of the suit.

“What’s itchin’ you, buddy? Your shorts twisted or something?”

From up in the cockpit Rosenberg answered, “The supply rocket’s due in eleven minutes. I just got a confirmation from the base.

“Okay,” said Hasdrubal as he stepped past the folded-up bunks and slipped into the cockpit’s right-hand seat. “I’ll bring her in, no sweat.”

Rosenberg wasn’t perspiring, but he looked decidedly edgy.

“Relax, pal.” Hasdrubal tapped at the control panel’s keyboard, changing the touchscreen displays from their usual configuration to the setup for guiding the resupply hopper down to a soft landing.

“Base says the hopper’s oxygen tank pressure is low.”

Hasdrubal peered at the displays that sprang up on the panel. “Yeah, so I see. A smidge. Nothing to worry about.”

“It’s dropping,” Rosenberg said, pointing to the graph curves with a shaky finger.

“Yeah, yeah. Still plenty good enough. Damn tank’s prob’ly sprung a pinhole leak. We’ll have to fix it once she’s down.”

“In the dark?”

“Tomorrow. Stop worrying.”

Rosenberg got up from the driver’s seat and headed back toward the lavatory. Hasdrubal studied the displays. Everything nominal except for the oxy tank pressure, and that wasn’t anything to really worry about.

By the time Rosenberg returned to the cockpit the hopper’s radio beacon was sending a strong beeping signal. Hasdrubal leaned back in his seat.

“She’s comin’ right down the pipe,” he said to Rosenberg, as Izzy slipped into the left-hand seat. “I won’t even hafta touch a button.”

Still, he reached for the tiny T-shaped joystick that was tucked into a slot on the control panel and balanced it on his left knee.

“There it is!” Rosenberg shouted, rising halfway out of his seat.

They saw a black dot against the darkening saffron of the Martian sky. As the two men watched, the dot grew and took form: a boxy, octagonal shape with four spindly legs jutting out from corners of its structure and a rocket nozzle hanging from its underside. Adapted from the lander/ascent vehicles of the first Mars missions, the hoppers were now used to ferry supplies and equipment from Tithonium Base to teams in the field.

His eyes flicking from the descending hopper to the displays on the control panel, Hasdrubal touched the joystick with a fingertip.

“Just a smidge closer ...” 

The rocket nozzle flared bright hot gas for a flash of a second. From inside the camper’s cockpit they heard it as a thin shriek. The hopper seemed to hesitate in midair, then slowly descended, like an old man settling into an invisible chair. Smaller methane gas jets puffed from around the edges of the octagon and then the hopper touched down, its insect-thin legs bending slightly.

“There y’are,” said Hasdrubal grandly as he shut down the controls. “Easy as pie.”

Rosenberg grinned weakly at his partner.

“I told you — “

The hopper blew up in a bright explosion of white-hot flame billowing into the thin air. The shock wave rocked the camper.

“Holy shit!” yelled Hasdrubal.

Rosenberg closed his gaping mouth with an audible click, then tried to speak, but found his throat was too parched and constricted to get out any words.

Jamie was in the greenhouse dome with Kalman Torok, kneeling in the reddish sandy strip between rows of string bean and pea plants. Most of the dome was devoted to long hydroponics trays, where soybeans, cereal grains and fruits were being grown without soil. But this little patch of a garden was Torok’s work. Sunlight poured through the transparent wall of the dome; it felt pleasantly warm inside.

“You should have seen the look on Chang’s face when I asked him for a shipment of beetle grubs and earthworms,” Torok was saying, his round face split into a happy grin. “The old sourpuss looked as if I’d suddenly grown horns.”

Jamie smiled back. “But it’s worked. You’ve turned this sterile ground into productive soil.”

Digging his fingers into the faintly pinkish dirt, Torok corrected, “It wasn’t sterile, not completely. Damned little organic material in it, but there was some. We had to bake all the oxides out, of course.”

He held a palmful of dirt up to Jamie’s face. “Smell it. Go ahead, take a whiff.”

Jamie sniffed. “It... it almost smells like dirt back home.”

“Almost,” said Torok, still smiling. “It’s taken two years of work, but we’ve almost got a plot of terrestrial soil here on Mars.”

Jerking with surprise, Jamie saw a tiny black beetle push its way out of the dirt and crawl feebly across the clump in Torok’s hand.

The biologist laughed. “One of my assistants.”

Jamie grinned back at him as Torok gently deposited the handful of dirt back on the ground and patted it smooth. Both men straightened to their feet.

“The next resupply mission will include a shipment of genetically engineered bacteria that can fix nitrogen for cereal grains,” Torok said. “If that works we’ll be able to grow our own wheat!”

Looking over the tiny garden, Jamie asked, “Do you think you could grow enough food to feed the whole team here?”                         

Torok’s smile faded. “It’s not worth the effort. The hydroponics system is cheaper.”

“Really? I thought-”

“Hydroponics takes a lot of water and nutrients, yes. But we recycle the water, and to turn Martian ground into productive soil you’d need to start by baking the oxides out, then bring in earthworms and beetles and such to aerate the dirt, and pump in nutrients by the ton to make up for the lack of organics, and — “

“We can build solar energy farms to provide electricity for baking out the oxides,” Jamie interrupted. “And power the lamps, as well,” he added, glancing up at the rows of full-spectrum lights hanging from the dome’s superstructure. “That’s what they do at Selene.”

“You’d also have to seal the entire area, lay a concrete slab under it with a bioguard sheet to prevent back contamination into the Martian environment, surround it with more concrete and bioshields.”

“That adds to the expense.”

“And how,” Torok said. “In time, though, I suppose you could make a garden big enough to be self-sufficient, recycling organic wastes the way they grow crops at Selene.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Raising his heavy dark eyebrows, Torok said, “Well, as I said, the big problem is back contamination. You don’t want terrestrial organisms getting loose out in the Martian environment.”

Jamie looked through the dome’s transparent wall at the frigid, barren desert outside. “Earth plants couldn’t survive for five minutes out there.”

“Plants, no,” said Torok. “But the microorganisms that live on them and in them —maybe yes. Those microbes are tough, and a lot of them are anaerobic. They don’t need oxygen to survive.”                 

Jamie nodded. “You’re afraid they’d infect the Martian
 
environment.”

“It’s a long shot, I admit. But we’ve got to protect the local environment against back contamination. Remember, it wasn’t gunpowder and cavalry that destroyed the Native Americans; it was the microbes the Europeans brought with them that killed off men, beasts and plants.”

Jamie nodded, thinking, We’re aliens here. Visitors. We’re not Martians and we never will be, no matter how much we want to be. If we’re not careful we could wipe out what’s left of Mars’s native species, just like the whites decimated the Native Americans.

“But if we could protect the environment from contamination?” Jamie asked. “What then?”

With a shrug, Torok replied, “Building farms big enough to feed the whole crew here will take a lot of time. And money. In the beginning you’ll have to bring in the nutrients and aerators and every gram of everything else you need from Earth. That’s expensive.”

“It’s a project worth doing, if we’re going to stay on Mars.”

Torok’s smile returned, but it was melancholy now. “If, Dr. Waterman. If.”

“Can you do it?” Jamie asked.

“It can be done, I suppose. But I won’t be here to carry it through.”

“You’re leaving?”

“My term ended two months ago. I’ve told Chang I’ll leave on the next resupply flight.”

Jamie stared at the biologist for a silent moment, then spread his arms. “But all this. . . you’d leave this behind you?”

With a dejected shake of his head, Torok replied, “My wife is suing for divorce back in Budapest. If I don’t get back she’ll win custody of my children.”

“Oh,” was all that Jamie could think to say. But then he heard himself suggesting, “Maybe she could come here to be with you. . . .

“Two sons, ages four and six. And she won’t leave Hungary, let alone travel to Mars.”

“But what about this farm? What’s going to happen to your work?”

Torok’s brows contracted almost into a solid line. “I’ve asked several of my colleagues to look after it. That black giant, the American with the odd name, he showed some interest.”

“Hasdrubal,” Jamie said.

“Yes, Hasdrubal. He said he’d tend my garden—when he’s not busy with other responsibilities.”

Jamie realized there was nothing he could do. Torok was leaving, and his experiment would die of neglect without him.

His pocket phone buzzed. Jamie was glad of the interruption.

“Dr. Waterman, you have an incoming message from Mr. Trumball in Boston.”

Looking at Torok’s glum face, Jamie said, “I’ve got to get back to my office.”

He hurried to the tube that connected the greenhouse dome to the main structure of the base.

Dex Trumball was excited, Jamie could see even on the small wall screen.

“It’s a coup,” he was saying, grinning happily. “A gift. From the Vatican, no less.”

Jamie leaned back in his little chair and watched Dex pacing across his office, gesturing with both hands as he spoke. The distance between Mars and Earth defeated any chance of holding a true conversation. Dex talked and Jamie listened.

“He’s a priest, Jamie. A Jesuit! We can get plenty of media time with him before he goes. He can counter those pious sonsofbitches who’re trying to slit our throats. He can tell the people what we’re doing, show them that there’s no conflict between religion and science. It’s a godsend, I tell you!”

As Jamie listened to Dex chattering on enthusiastically for almost half an hour, he was thinking, DiNardo’s older than I am. He must be older than Carleton, even. Will it be safe for him to come here? The fusion ships make the flight fast and easy, but how will DiNardo handle the low gravity here? The whole environment? What will Chang think of having DiNardo here? Will he think I’m trying to subvert his authority? First Carleton horns in on the operation here, then I pop in, and now the priest who was originally picked to lead the geology team on the First Expedition. Chang’s a geologist, for god’s sake. He’s not going to like this.

Dex was actually feeling slightly out of breath when he finally wound down and ran out of words. He was on his feet, in the corner of his office where the big windows met. Out there it was a sparkling blue New England afternoon. He could see planes landing and taking off at Logan Aerospaceport and sailboats cutting through the whitecaps of the bay and even the masts of Old Ironsides at its pier in Charlestown, across the harbor.

It’ll take Jamie at least fifteen-twenty minutes to get back to me, Dex
 
thought, even if he picked up my message as soon as it arrived at Mars. I ought to get back to work.

He returned to his desk and sat down, but couldn’t concentrate on the tasks before him. Wheedling contributions out of increasingly reluctant donors. Dealing with half a dozen government agencies that want to stick their fat asses into our program so they can slow us down even more. Budgeting. That was the most depressing thing of all. How to stretch the funding they had without endangering the people working on Mars. Dex leaned back in his customized leather chair and stared at the ceiling.

But if I can swing the Navaho president onto this tourist idea, and start quietly soliciting funding from a couple of friendly bankers, then maybe . . . just maybe, we can put this program on a sound financial basis. Maybe even make a few bucks of profit. The Navahos would like that.

But how to get Jamie to agree to it? He’s as stubborn as a jackass. Thinks Mars is his private preserve. No, worse. Jamie thinks it’s his sacred duty to protect Mars. Keep it pristine. No visitors, except for scientists.

The chime of his phone broke into Dex’s thoughts. “Dr. Waterman, from Tithonium Base,” said the synthesized voice of his second wife.

Dex snapped to an upright posture and said crisply, “Open message.”

Jamie looked wary. Not suspicious or unreceptive, really: just guarded, cautious. He was smiling, but it was the smile that Dex knew he used when he was trying to cover his true feelings.

“Dex, that’s great news about Father DiNardo,” Jamie began.

Monsignor DiNardo, Dex corrected silently.

“But I’m worried about a couple of things. First, he’s kind of old for Mars, don’t you think? What kind of physical condition is he in? And what’s made him decide to come out here all of a sudden? If we take him, we’ll have to make sure he’s checked out very carefully. We’ll need the best doctors we can find to give him a very thorough physical.”

“No problem,” Dex muttered, knowing that Jamie couldn’t hear him.

“Second, if he comes here it’ll probably disturb Dr. Chang. I mean, he’s the mission director and a geologist. DiNardo’s a geologist, too, and he’s older and he was originally picked to head the geology team for the First Expedition. Chang’s going to feel like DiNardo’s breathing down his neck. That wouldn’t be fair to him.”

Jamie’s smile turned warmer. “On the other hand, I agree that having a priest from the Vatican join us here could be a great public relations move. The fundamentalists have been working against us, and Father DiNardo can show that a deeply religious person can still be a scientist who wants to learn about Mars and the Martians.”

Dex found himself nodding vigorously.

“So let’s proceed carefully,” Jamie went on. “It would certainly be great to have Father DiNardo here. I like the man and he’s a good geologist. His presence here will create problems with Chang, but I’ll try to smooth that out. Above all else, though, we’ve got to make sure that DiNardo’s in top physical condition. So don’t start beating the publicity drums until he’s passed all the exams. Okay?”

“Okay,” Dex replied immediately. “I’ll have him checked out sixteen ways from Tuesday. And then we’ll have something to stuff under the noses of those psalm-singing bastards!”