Return to Mars (40 page)

Jamie kissed Vijay’s bare shoulder; she muttered something sleepily and snuggled closer to him. As he drifted toward sleep with Vijay’s body warm and softly cupped next to him, he knew he would feel empty and alone without her. And afraid.

Sharp, cold reality stabbed through him. You can’t talk about love. You can’t even think about it. Not here. Not under these conditions. You made that mistake last time and it brought nothing but pain to you and Joanna. You can’t expect Vijay to commit her life to you on the basis of what we’re doing here.

Which means, he heard himself reason, that you can’t burden her with your problem about Trumball. It’s your problem, not hers. You’ve got to find the right path for yourself, alone.

Jamie turned slightly in the bunk and looked over at the glowing red numerals of the digital clock. Get some sleep. It’s going to be one A.M. damned soon.

The wind howled louder outside. To Jamie it sounded like the wild laughter of the trickster, Coyote.

It was nearly midnight as Stacy returned to her chair in the comm center and set a plastic cup of hot tea on the console beside the main display screen. The wind was screeching outside, a thin tortured wail like the distant howl of souls in hell. Methodically she started checking all the dome’s environmental systems again.

With deliberate calm, Dezhurova tapped into the environmental monitoring display. Everything was normal in the dome, except for one of the air-circulation fans, which had gone off-line earlier in the day. She would attend to that in the morning, she told herself.

She opened the program for the sensors that monitored environmental conditions in the garden dome. Before she could check them, though, the yellow light on the main communications console began blinking and her screen showed: INCOMING MESSAGE.

She grumbled to herself as she tapped at the keyboard. What does Tarawa want now?

To her surprise, it wasn’t mission control at Tarawa. Her comm screen showed the scratchy, static-streaked image of a bleary-eyed, tousle-haired Dex Trumball.

Dex could not sleep.

He lay in his bunk listening to the wind shrieking just inches away, hearing the iron-rich sand scratching at the rover’s thin metal skin, feeling the storm clawing at the rover, trying to find a way inside, a loose latch, a slight seam, the tiniest of openings in the welds that held the rover’s skin together.

We could be dead in a minute, he knew. Or worse, buried alive under the sand with the electrical power gone. Strangle to death when the air gives out.

And we can’t do anything about it! Just lay here and take it. Let the friggin’ storm pound us and batter at us until it finds a way to kill us.

He sat up abruptly, heart racing, chest heaving. He felt sweaty and cold at the same time. He had to urinate again.

Peering through the darkness, he could make out in the faint glow from the instrument panel up in the cockpit the lumpy form of Craig, sleeping in the bunk on the other side of the module. Wiley lay on his back, mouth slightly open, snoring gently.

Christ, he’s as relaxed as a baby in its cradle, Trumball thought as he slipped quietly out of his bunk.

He padded barefoot to the lavatory, opposite the racks where the hard suits stood like ghosts in armor. Fear fills the bladder, Dex told himself as he urinated into the stainless steel toilet bowl. This motherfucking storm’s scaring the piss out of me. It was his fourth trip to the toilet since he had gone to bed.

“You all right, buddy?” Craig asked softly as he crawled back into his bunk.

“Yeah,” Dex snapped. “I’m fine.”

“Kinda noisy out there, ain’t it?”

“It sure is.”

“Don’t let it spook you, kid. We’re safe as can be inside here.”

Dex knew Craig was trying to reassure him, calm him. He knew he should be grateful to Wiley. Instead he felt angry that the older man had called him “kid.” And ashamed to be caught in his terror.

The wind quieted a bit. The shrieking softened. Maybe it’s over, Dex thought. Maybe it’s winding down.

He lay back on his sweat-soaked pillow and closed his eyes again. But the instant he did, the wind gusted again with a furious scream. Dex felt the rover rock.

He bolted up to a sitting position and pounded the mattress with both fists, almost sobbing. Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Go away and leave me alone, please, please, please.

The wind continued to howl, though. If anything, it got louder.

Blearily, he shuffled up to the rover’s cockpit and slumped into the right-hand seat. Let’s see what’s happening at the dome. Talk to somebody. Anybody. Take your mind off this mother-humpin’ storm.

Stacy’s stolid, fleshy face filled the tiny screen on the control panel. The picture was streaked, grainy, but she looked surprised.

“Dex?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, not wanting to wake Craig again. “Too noisy out here to sleep. How’s everything there?”

Dezhurova spoke with Dex for a few seconds, then realized that Trumball merely wanted to chat because he could not sleep in the midst of the storm. Reception was weak; his video kept breaking up. Probably dust is piling up on his antennas, she thought. She kept on talking with him, but turned her real attention to the monitoring screens and continued checking the environmental conditions in the garden dome.

Temperature below nominal, she saw. That should not be. Air pressure was falling too.

Her breath caught in her throat. Without even thinking about Dex, still jabbering on the main comm screen, Stacy grabbed the loudspeaker mike and bellowed:

“Emergency! The garden dome is ripping apart!”

Dex gaped at the tiny comm screen.

“Jamie, everyone—the garden dome is ripping apart!” Dezhurova repeated, roaring like the crack of doom. “We need everyone, right now!”

Then the comm screen went dark.

Dex sat in the rover’s cockpit, icy sweat trickling down his ribs, staring at the dead comm screen.

My god almighty, he thought, panting with mounting terror as he sat in the shadows. If the garden dome goes, the main dome could go too. Then we’d all be dead.

Mitsuo Fuchida lay in his bunk, staring up into the darkness, listening to the wind and the accompanying creaks and groans of the dome.

It’s like being on a ship at sea, he said to himself, except that it doesn’t rock.

He had considered taking a tranquilizer before going to bed, but decided that he would not need one. He had looked death in the face, back at the lava tube on Olympus
Mons.
This wind storm held no more terrors for him. Death will come or not, he thought. What cannot be controlled must be accepted.

Still, he lay awake listening to the storm, thinking about Elizabeth, hoping that Rodriguez would live up to his promise and not reveal that he was a married man. Where is she tonight? he wondered. What is she doing now, at this moment?

He began to build a pleasant fantasy about her.

Until he heard Stacy’s shout: “Emergency! The garden dome is ripping apart! We need everyone, right now!”

Automatically he leaped out of bed, a stab of pain from his injured ankle shooting through his leg. Awkward with the bandaged ankle, Fuchida limped to the comm center. Jamie, Vijay, Rodriguez and Trudy Hall were also hurrying there, each of them hastily pulling on rumpled coveralls as they ran.

“The garden dome has been punctured,” Stacy said, jabbing a thick finger at the monitor screen.

“Camera view,” Jamie snapped, slipping into the wheeled chair beside her.

He peered at the screen. “Can’t see anything—wait, the dome fabric is rippling.”

“Pressure and temperature both falling rapidly,” Dezhurova said, an unaccustomed edge of fear in her voice.

“The plants will die!” Trudy was saying, her voice pitched high, frightened. “The nighttime temperature—”

“I know, I know,” Jamie snapped. Turning toward Rodriguez, he said, “We have spare cans of epoxy, don’t we? Where are they?”

Rodriguez bent over one of the unused consoles and punched at its keyboard, then started scrolling through a list so fast it looked like a blur.

He saw what he wanted and froze the display. “Repair epoxy,” he said, pointing to the screen. “It’s stored in locker seventeen, shelf A.”

“Go get it,” Jamie commanded. “As much as you can carry.”

Rodriguez brushed past Fuchida as he raced out of the comm center, staggering the limping biologist. Vijay headed out, too. “I’ll help Tommy,” she called over her shoulder.

Jamie jumped up from his chair. “Stacy, get suited up. Trudy, you help her. Mitsuo, take over the comm chair.”

“Where are you going?” Stacy demanded.

As he rushed out into the dome’s dimly-lit central area, Jamie said, “We’ve got to slap some temporary patches on the holes in the dome, if they’re not already too bad.”

“You can’t go in there!” Trudy yelped.

“Somebody’s got to stop the leak before it gets worse.”

“Wait for Tomas,” Dezhurova said. “The epoxy—”

“No time!” Jamie snapped, sprinting away from them. He headed for the airlock as they yelled after him.

“Get Stacy suited up!” he yelled back. “Mitsuo! Turn on all the lights in there!”

The dome flared into daytime brightness as Jamie reached the airlock that connected to the garden. Not in here, Mitsuo, Jamie corrected silently. In the garden, for the sake of Christ!

The pressure on the other side of the airlock had not fallen so low that the lock automatically sealed, Jamie realized as he pushed through the double hatches. Not yet, he told himself.

It was cold inside the garden. Jamie shivered involuntarily as he stepped in. The wind shrieked louder and the dome fabric was flapping noisily, like a sail fluffing in the breeze. At least the overhead lights were on at full intensity. Mitsuo heard me after all.

The emergency patches were stored in a closed box next to the airlock hatch. Tearing it open and grabbing a double handful of the thin plastic sheets, Jamie thought that they should have learned their lesson from the first expedition and scattered the sheets on the floor around the dome’s perimeter.

Now he released them and saw them flutter in the air currents, then slap themselves against a pair of puncture holes on the far side of the dome. It’s cold in here, Jamie thought. Close to freezing already.

Rodriguez boiled through the hatch, a big spray can of epoxy in each hand. He looked like a two-gun frontier sheriff, grim and determined.

“I’ll take them,” Jamie said over the shrieking wind. “No sense both of us risking—”

“You’re not gonna be the only hero tonight,” Rodriguez shouted, pushing past Jamie and heading for the spots where the temporary patches were fluttering against the side of the dome.

Vijay stepped through with more cans. Jamie grabbed one from her and they both ran after Rodriguez.

The plants didn’t look too had, Jamie thought, glancing at the rows ol hydroponics trays. But what the hell do I know? Green leaves, mostly curled tight. Are the ones closest to the rips drooping more than the others?

After a furious few minutes of spraying, Rodriguez said, “I think we got it sealed.”

Jamie looked around. The dome had stopped flapping. Mitsuo must’ve pumped up the air pressure, he thought. The wind sounded just as loud, maybe even louder, but now the dome’s plastic structure seemed rigid, safe.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said cautiously.

“It’s cold in here,” Vijay said, hugging herself.

“Go and tell Mitsuo to goose up the heaters,” Jamie instructed. “Tomas, let’s spray the whole perimeter of the dome, down here where the fabric joins with the flooring. If there’s going to be any more problems, that’s where they’ll happen.”

“Right,” said Rodriguez.

Just then Dezhurova clomped in, buttoned up in her hard suit.

“We got it under control,” Rodriguez shouted happily at her.

She raised her visor and glowered at him. Rodriguez laughed.

“Stacy,” Jamie said, “I want you and Tomas to check the integrity of the dome. Spray anything that looks like a potential leak.”

”The epoxy is not transparent. It will cut down on the sunshine the plants receive.”

“Can’t be helped. The important thing is to ensure the dome’s integrity.”

Trudy Hall stepped through the airlock hatch. “Oh, my lord! The tomatoes are ruined.”

Jamie grabbed her by the arm. “Trudy, you and Mitsuo should check out all the plants, see how much damage has been done. I’ll take over at the comm center.”

“All right, certainly.” She rushed to the trays of plants at the far side of the dome.

JAMIE WAS STILL AT THE COMM CONSOLE WHEN THE SUN FINALLY CAME UP and the others began to stir. The wind was still yowling, but with the sunrise the visibility outside improved somewhat. In the screens that showed the outside camera views Jamie could see that the planes were all still there, although one of the soarplane’s wings seemed bent oddly. One of the cameras had ceased functioning, but otherwise everything seemed to be in reasonably good shape.

“D’you want some coffee?”

It was Vijay, standing at the comm center doorway with a steaming mug in her hands.

“Good idea,” said Jamie, reaching for it.

“How is everything?” she asked, sliding into the chair next to his.

“We’re in reasonably good shape.”

“How much damage to the garden was there?”

“Trudy was almost in tears over the tomatoes and some of the soybeans. All the strawberries are gone. But most of the plants are all right. We caught the leak in time.”

“We won’t have to pack up and go home, then?”

He shook his head slowly. “No. We might have to go without soyburgers for a while, but the garden will still feed us.”

“That was a very brave thing you did, dashing in there like that.”