Return to Mars (59 page)

The important thing, the vital thing, is to keep Darryl C. Trumball from doing to Mars what his forefathers did to the Native Americans.

Jamie’s grandfather came to him again in a dream.

But not at first. Jamie’s dream began in the cliff structure, bare, cold and abandoned. He walked through each of the silent, empty chambers as he had done every day now for many months. He was free of his hard suit, though, striding slowly, purposefully through the rooms in nothing more than his frayed and worn coveralls.

He touched the walls, traced his fingertips along the graceful curved lines of the writing etched into their stones. He could feel the warmth of the sun glowing from the secret symbols.

Alone, he turned and left the abandoned temple, then climbed slowly down the narrow, steep steps carved so painfully into the rugged face of the cliff. The village waited for him down on the Canyon floor, where the river ran peacefully through bountiful fields of crops.

The People were there, alive and vital as he himself, but they paid him no attention. They went about their tasks, men gathering together in the central square and talking together animatedly, pointing off to a distant horizon, a rendezvous with the future. Women sat by their doorways, weaving fine baskets while their children ran and played boisterously. There was laughter and the warmth of life everywhere.

They were real and he was a pale ghost, almost invisible to them. He knew their faces, the sturdy broad-cheeked faces of his own ancestors. Their dark hair and darker eyes. He searched for his grandfather but could not find him.

Then a commotion at the far end of the village. A disturbance. People stopped in their tracks to stare down the long street. Men began running toward the noise, their faces frowning with anger, perhaps fear.

Strangers were there, pale men on snorting, stamping horses. Jamie recognized one of them as Darryl C. Trumball. He was shouting commands, pointing with one hand while he kept his plunging, neighing horse under control with his other.

Then Grandfather Al appeared out of the crowd. He wore his best suit, dark blue, with a turquoise-and-silver bolo at the open collar of his crisp white shirt. Hatless, he strode up to Trumball.

“You can’t come here,” Grandfather Al said, in a stronger voice than Jamie had ever heard in life. “Go away!”

Trumball blustered. “We’re taking over here. You’ll be taken care of, don’t worry. I’ll see to it that you’re protected.”

“We don’t want your protection,” Al said. “We don’t need it.”

“You’ll have to go,” Trumball insisted.

Grandfather Al turned slightly and beckoned toward Jamie. “No, we’re not going. You’re the one who’ll have to leave. Jamie, show him the paper.”

Jamie realized he had a scroll of paper clutched tightly in his right hand. He stepped up to Trumball, still atop his impatient horse.

And woke up.

JAMIE SAT UP ON HIS COT, WIDE AWAKE, FEELING STRONG AND REFRESHED.

That’s it! He told himself. That’s what I have to do.

He didn’t know whether to offer a prayer of thanks or belt out a wild yell of jubilation. He decided on neither. Instead he booted up his laptop and put in a call to Pete Connors at Tarawa.

It took almost the whole day, but finally Jamie got the correct address and sent his message. Then he had to wait for the reply. Jamie remembered the summers he had spent with his grandfather in New Mexico, the times Al would take him up to the pueblos on the reservation, where he bought blankets and ceramics to sell to the tourists at his shop in Santa Fe.

This might take several days, Jamie realized. They’re not going to answer me right away.

To his surprise, the answer was waiting for him when he booted up his computer the following morning. His fingers trembled slightly as he called up the message.

The president of the Navaho Nation smiled from the display screen. “Ya’aa’tey,” he said. He was surprisingly plump, his eyes bright and dancing as if it was a pleasure to speak to Jamie, even in the time-delayed manner enforced by the distance between the two worlds.

“I was sure surprised by your message,” he went on, “but very pleased about it. I knew your grandfather, and I saw you on the TV that first time you landed on Mars. I hope someday to be able to speak to you in person.”

Then he grew more serious. The smile waned but did not disappear altogether. “Your proposal is a real stunner. I like it, but it’s not for me alone to decide. I’ve already called for a council meeting and we’ll have to have our lawyers look into it, of course. But 1 like the idea and I’ll do everything I can to push it through.”

He hesitated, then, more serious still, he said, “This is a heavy responsibility you want to give us. I don’t know if we’re up to it.” His smile returned, full wattage. “But I’d sure like to try!”

Jamie heard out the rest of his message, then sent an acknowledging, “Mr. President, thanks for your good words. I’ll wait for the Nation’s official answer. Thanks again.”

Then he put in a call to Dex Trumball.

Dex was at breakfast when Stacy Dezhurova called him to the comm center. He slid into the empty chair beside her and saw Jamie’s stolid, earnest face on the message screen. Beside him, Stacy was scrolling through the logistics inventory, checking their supplies.

“What’s up, chief?” Dex asked casually.

Jamie said, “I’ve offered Mars to the Navaho Nation.”

Dex nearly popped off the chair. ”You what?”

“I’ve asked the president of the Navaho Nation if his people will formally claim utilization rights to all the areas of Mars that we’ve explored so far.”

“But they’re in Arizona!”

“I’m here,” Jamie said firmly. “I represent the Navaho Nation.”

“Holy crap,” Dex muttered.

Stacy had frozen her screen. She was staring at Dex and Jamie.

“As I understand it,” Jamie said, “if the Navaho claim use of this land, then your father can’t get his hands on it.”

“That’s right,” Dex said, a grin working its way across his face. “He’d have to be here, physically present, to claim utilization rights.”

“And we’re already here. So I’m going to file the claim as soon as I get a go-ahead from the Navaho council.”

“Jesus H. Christ on a jet ski,” Dex said, laughing. “My old man’s gonna pop an artery over this! The Indians pull a land steal on the white men! Wow!”

Jamie asked, “Do you think that will really stop your father?”

“It’ll keep him away from the cliff building, the main dome, the volcanoes that Mitsuo’s explored—yeah, he won’t be able to set up for business anyplace we’ve already been.”

“That still leaves a lot of Mars for him.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got the good parts! Or, your redskin pals do.”

“Then it can work.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dex said, sobering. “Only one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“There goes the funding for the next expedition.”

Dex was too excited to do any useful work. He went to the geology lab, but spent his lime sending frantic messages toward Earth, calling lawyers and professors of international law. Finally, after several hours, Wiley Craig looked up from the heat flow map he was working on and shook his head.

“Hey, buddy, whatever you’re doin’, it ain’t on the work schedule.”

Dex looked up from his computer screen. “I’m gathering information, Wiley.”

“Not about geology, I bet.”

“No, that’s damn straight.” Dex got up from the stool and headed for the door of the lab. “I’ve got to get over to the second dome. Got to talk with Jamie, face-to-face.”

Wiley merely shook his head and returned to his work, muttering, “Well, somebody’s got to get the job done.”

Stacy was not surprised that Dex wanted to join Jamie at Dome Two. But she was not sympathetic, either.

“You have work to do here,” she said sternly, standing in the middle of the comm center like an immovable linebacker. ‘ ‘Task assignments are—”

“You want me to walk to the Canyon?” Dex snapped. “I’ve got to go there, Stace. The funding for the next expedition is important, for chrissake!”

She planted her chunky fists on her hips. “You are going to raise ten billion dollars over at the Canyon?”

Dex gave her a boyish grin. “Maybe, maybe not. But we’re sure as hell going to lose ten bil if we can’t work out a way to get around my father.”

Dezhurova snorted. Before she could reply, though, Vijay stuck her head through the open comm center doorway.

“Did I hear you say you want to take a rover out to Dome Two?” she asked. “I’d like to go there, too.”

“What? Why?” Dezhurova demanded.

“I need to run physical exams on the people there,” Vijay answered. “And psych profiles.”

The cosmonaut raised her eyes to heaven. “Maybe we should all go and abandon this dome completely.”

“I’ve been saying that for months,” Dex replied, grinning mischievously.

“Go!” Dezhurova blurted, nearly shouting the word. “Forget about the work, go traipsing around anywhere you like.”

“Now don’t be sore, Stace,” Dex said soothingly. “If it wasn’t really important, I wouldn’t do it, you know that.”

“I know that you always get your way. Go! Take the old rover. At least leave me with one of the new machines.”

Night fell before they were even a quarter of the way to Dome Two, but Dex kept driving through the darkness—slowly, but still making progress.

Sitting beside him in the rover’s cockpit, Vijay saw that wheel tracks across the dust-covered ground were clearly visible in the rover’s headlights.

“You’re following the beaten path,” she said.

“Yep. Makes it easier. You know you’re not going to hit any major rocks or craters.”

“Is Jamie’s idea really going to work?” Vijay asked, turning slightly in the seat to look squarely at Dex. “Will he be able to keep your father from taking over this region?”

“Looks that way,” Dex said, watching his driving. “But the other side of the coin is that we lose my father’s drive for funding the next expedition.”

Vijay thought about that for a moment, then said, “So you’ll have to take his place.”

“What?” Dex glanced at her, his eyes wide, startled.

“If your father won’t raise the money for the next expedition, then you’ll have to do it.”

He pressed the brake pedals and brought the rover to a halt. Slowly, methodically, he shut down the drive motors.

“I’ll have to do it,” he muttered.

“Who else?”

Dex seemed lost in thought as they went back to the galley and microwaved their dinners. They ate in almost total silence. Vijay could see that Dex’s mind was a hundred million kilometers away.

“The thing is,” he said as they cleaned up the table, “I’ve never gone against my father. I’ve always had to do things his way—unless I could wheedle him around to make him think that what I wanted was his idea in the first place.”

“Now you’re going to have to stand up to him,” Vijay said.

Dex nodded slowly. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Don’t you think it’s about time you found out?”

They were standing by the galley sink, between the microwave and the racks of hard suits. Dex grasped Vijay’s arm just above the elbow and pulled her toward him.

She put the flat of her free hand against his chest. “No, Dex.”

“No?”

“There must be several million women waiting for you to return to Earth. You’ll have your pick of them.”

“That’s then,” he said. “This is now.”

“I’m afraid not.”

He let out a breath. “Jamie, huh?”

“Jamie,” she admitted.

“He’s u lucky guy.” Now she sighed. “I wish he knew that.” Dex looked puzzled.

“He’s in love with Mars,” Vijay explained. “I’ve got this whole bloody planet for a rival.”

DARRYL C. TRUMBALL WAS NOT ACCUSTOMED TO THE GLARE OF PUBLICITY.

He preferred to remain in the background and let his hirelings and puppets face the public.

But as the first “ordinary” person to go to Mars, he had become a celebrity. Now, a scant four days before the backup mission was scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, he found himself sharing a long table with four young archeologists and two astronauts, staring out at a sea of reporters and photographers who filled the auditorium to overflowing.

Like his crewmates, Trumball wore coral-red coveralls bearing the stylish logo of the Second Mars Expedition over his heart. He was of course older than any of them, older than any two of them put together, almost. But he was slim and hard and fit. No one knew the fear that chilled his blood; no one could hear how his heart thundered in his chest when he thought of actually climbing into that flying bomb and riding it all the way to distant, freezing, dangerous Mars.

“Why isn’t this mission called the Third Expedition?” a reporter was shouting from the floor.

“This is a backup mission for the Second Expedition,” explained the senior astronaut, an old hand at fielding inane questions.

“We’re going specifically to explore the ancient building that’s been discovered in the cliffs of the Grand Canyon of Mars,” said the chief archeologist, all of forty years old.

“What about the Third Expedition?” another reporter asked.

“Will there be a Third Expedition?”

Everyone along the table turned to Trumball. “Yes,” he assured them all smoothly. “There will be a Third Mars Expedition.”

“When?”

“How soon?”

“We are working out the details,” Trumball said.

“What about other kinds of flights to Mars?” a woman asked. “When will we he able to take vacations there?”

A slight snickering laugh tittered through the news people.

But Trumball answered the planted question, “That’s why I’m going along with the scientists. I want to show the world that ordinary people can go to Mars, can see for themselves the glories of the vanished Martian civilization, walk where the Martians walked, reach the peak of the tallest mountain in the solar system, explore the longest, widest, deepest Grand Canyon of them all.”