Return to Mars (64 page)

“I love him,” Trudy said, tears in her eyes. “I wanted to bring him back to Earth where he’d be safe, where we’d all be safe.”

“I understand.”

Trudy looked up at her angrily. “Do you? How could you? How could you know what it’s like to love a man so much you’d be willing to die for him?”

Startled, Vijay had no reply.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Trudy burst. “I’m so, so sorry. I’ve made such a botch of everything. Tommy won’t even want to look at me when we get back home. I love him so much and he won’t even want to look at me.”

Suddenly Vijay wanted to cry.

“You can’t stay here alone,” Dezhurova said flatly when Jamie made his announcement to the five of them gathered at the galley table.

“Sure I can,” Jamie said, trying to make it sound simple, commonplace.

“Won’t be easy,” Craig said, “even if you just stay inside here and watch TV for four months.”

“There’s plenty of work for me to do,” Jamie said. “Just sorting out the data you guys amassed during your excursion out to Ares Vallis could keep me busy for four months and more.”

“And you’re going to try building solar cells?” Dex asked.

“Out of the elements in the ground, yes.”

“One of us should remain with you,” said Fuchida.

“No,” Jamie said. “That’s not necessary. I couldn’t ask any of you to make that sacrifice. You’re going home! I’ll be okay here.”

“Mitsuo’s right,” Rodriguez said. “Somebody ought to stay behind with you.”

“It’s not necessary,” Jamie repeated.

“You are not staying for science,” Stacy said, almost as an accusation.

“No,” Jamie admitted. “I’m not.”

Dex looked intrigued, delighted. “You’re staying so you can maintain the Navaho claim.”

“Right,” said Jamie.

“That’s what I thought,” said Dex.

“It’s what I’ve got to do,” Jamie said.

“Uh-huh. Well, I’ve got a few things to do, too.”

“Such as?”

“Now here’s my plan,” Dex said, with his old cocky grin. “As soon as I get back to Earth I’m going to start a foundation, a not-for-profit organization specifically devoted to the exploration of Mars. Call it the Mars Research Foundation, I guess.”

Jamie blinked at him.

“That way we’ll be able to raise money all the time, steadily. We won’t have to go around with our hat in our hand for each individual expedition. We’ll put the exploration of Mars on a solid financial foundation. Get people to contribute all the time, like they buy stocks or bonds.”

“But they won’t make a profit from it.” Fuchida said.

Dex’s eyes danced. “Yeah, but they’ll be able to deduct their contributions from their taxes. It’ll make a neat little tax shelter for them.”

Jamie broke into a broad grin. “You’ve been thinking about this for a long time, haven’t you?”

Grinning back at him, Dex said, “About as long as you’ve been thinking about staying here by yourself.”

“Your foundation will work with the Navaho Nation?”

“You betcha. Maybe we’ll headquarter it out in Arizona or New Mexico, on the Navaho reservation.”

Jamie nodded happily. The thought of Dex on the reservation pleased him.

“Okay, pal,” Dex said, sticking out his hand, “you hold the fort here and I’ll go out and see the Navaho president as soon as we land.”

“Not your father?” Jamie asked, grasping Dex’s hand in his own.

Dex laughed. “Yeah, okay, I suppose it’d be better if I face him sooner instead of later.”

As they stood facing one another with their hands firmly clasped, Jamie looked into the younger man’s eyes. There was no trace of fear there, or hostility. Dex has grown up here on Mars. He’s a full-grown man now instead of a spoiled kid.

Suddenly, impulsively, Dex pulled Jamie to him and wrapped his free hand around his shoulders. Jamie did the same, pounding Dex’s back as if he were the younger brother he never had.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dex said, almost in a whisper. “I’ll handle my dad and work with your Navaho guys. You’re not going to lose Mars.”

As they pulled away from their embrace, Dezhurova shook her head stubbornly. “It is dangerous for one man to be here alone. If some emergency comes up—”

“He won’t be alone.”

Jamie turned to see Vijay striding determinedly toward the galley table.

“I’m staying, too,” she said.

“But you can’t!” Jamie blurted.

Very sweetly, she replied, “I haven’t been asked, that’s true. But I’m staying with you, mate.”

“What about Trudy? She needs—”

Vijay walked toward him as she answered, “Stacy and Tommy have enough paramedical training to take care of her on the trip back. She’s recuperating okay, no worries. If something pops up, they’ll be able to get advice from Earth, same as I would.”

“You want to stay?” Jamie asked, afraid this was all a dream, a hallucination.

She was standing less than an arm’s length away from him. Looking squarely into his eyes, she said, “Yes, I want to.”

Every other thought flew from Jamie’s consciousness. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her soundly. She did likewise as the others sat there, thunderstruck, until someone let out a low, long appreciative whistle.

“FIVE SECONDS,” DEZHUROVA’s VOICE CRACKLED TENSELY IN JAMIE’s HELMET earphones. “Four …”

He and Vijay were standing just outside the dome, gloved hands clasped together, their eyes on the L/AV sitting nearly a full kilometer away.

“… two … one …” The top half of the stubby spacecraft leaped up in a sudden crack of thunder that blasted dust and pebbles across the barren red ground. Despite himself, Jamie flinched. He craned his neck as the ascent vehicle rose higher and higher into the cloudless pink sky. The roar of its rocket engines dwindling into a thin, muted rumble and then lading altogether.

“There they go,” said Vijay. She sounded almost triumphant.

Jamie followed the bright speck until the top edge of his visor cut off his view. Stacy, Dex and the others were on their way back to Earth, with the Pathfinder hardware and Trudy Hall’s problems.

He turned to face Vijay. Before he could say anything, her voice sounded buoyantly in his earphones. “Well, it’s just you and me, now, mate.”

He felt less than cheerful. I’m responsible for her life now. She trusts me and I’ve got to live up to her trust.

“We’re Martians now, aren’t we?” Vijay asked.

“Not yet,” he replied. “We’re still guests, visitors. We still have to live inside these suits. We still have to respect Mars for what it is.”

“Will it always be like this?”

“I don’t know,” Jamie answered. “Always is a long time. Maybe someday, when we’re smarter … much wiser than we are now. Maybe our grandchildren will be able to live on Mars, with Mars. Or their grandchildren. I don’t know.”

As they started back for the dome’s airlock, Vijay wondered, “Will we be able to protect Mars the way you want to? I mean, keep people like Dex’s father from spoiling it all?”

Even though he knew better, Jamie tried to shrug inside the hard suit. “All we can do is try, Vijay. The ICU is arguing against the Navaho claim, but it looks as if the Astronautical Authority is going to recognize it as legal and binding.”

He heard her laughing. ”The Navaho reservation is now bigger than the States, isn’t it?”

“If you take in all of Mars, yes. But this isn’t part of the reservation, it’s—”

“Don’t take it so seriously!”

“But it is serious,” he said. “I’m hoping that this will motivate Navaho kids to get involved in Mars, to study science and astronautics, to—”

“To become Martians?”

He took a breath. “Yeah, maybe. Eventually. Someday.”

They stopped at the airlock hatch and, without a word between them, both turned to look over the red, rock-strewn landscape.

“If only we could have met them, talked to them …”

“The Martians?”

“Yes. We can’t even read the writings they left.”

“They’ve given us their message, Vijay. The important message. They existed. There were intelligent beings on this world. There must be others out there, among the stars. We’re not alone.”

She sighed heavily. “But it’s just you and me here on Mars for the next four months.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve got a whole world to ourselves.”

“I love it here,” Jamie said.

“It’s peaceful,” she replied. “I’ll give you that.”

“Dex is going to have his hands full when he gets back. His father’s going to fight him every inch of the way.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Vijay said confidently. “Dex’s dad won’t cause that much trouble. He’ll win the old man over.”

“Do you think so?”

“He can charm a snake out of a bush when he wants to.”

Jamie said nothing.

“Even if he doesn’t,” Vijay went on, “Dex’ll raise enough money for a fresh expedition with his foundation.”

“It won’t be profitable,” Jamie said.

”You think not? Dex has ideas about virtual reality tours of Mars, y’know. See, feel, hear … the complete experience of being on Mars without the expense or inconvenience of leaving home. And selling Mars rocks, that sort of thing.”

Despite himself, Jamie gritted his teeth.

“He’ll make a profit, one way or the other, don’t you worry.”

“And pump it into further exploration.”

“You’ll see.”

The sun was high overhead. The soft winds of Mars murmured across the empty, rolling plain. Jamie saw the rocks and the worn rims of ancient craters and the dunes off in the distance, spaced as precisely as soldiers on parade. He looked down for the footprints of the long-extinct Martians and saw instead their own boot prints in the red dust and the cleat tracks of their tractors and rovers.

He looked out toward the horizon again and envisioned his grandfather Al out there, smiling at them. This is where our path has led, Grandfather, Jamie said silently. We’re home now.

“Do you love me?” Vijay asked.

A day earlier the question would have startled Jamie. But now he knew. Now there was no doubt in his mind, no conflict.

“Yes,” he said, unequivocally. “I love you, Vijay.”

Then she asked, “Do you love me more than Mars?”

He heard the smile in her voice. He hesitated, then answered, “That’s a completely different thing.”

Vijay laughed delightedly. “Good! I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d said yes.”

She grasped his gloved hand in hers and they turned back to the airlock hatch, ready to begin their first night alone on the planet Mars.

The story you have read is fiction, based as solidly as possible on the known facts about conditions on Mars. I have extrapolated from those facts, of course; that is the prerogative—and responsibility—of the novelist.

At this moment, no one knows if life once existed on Mars, or if life exists there now. No one knows, and we will not find out for certain until we explore our red-robed neighboring world much more thoroughly.

The idea that Mars once harbored an intelligent civilization may strike the reader as a fanciful speculation. Yet as of this writing, it is a speculation that cannot be disproved.

Not until we travel to Mars to search out its marvels for ourselves will we know for certain. Probably intelligent Martians never existed. Possibly there has never been life of any kind on the red planet. But we will find surprises on Mars, of that you can be sure. An entire world is there to be explored. A new age of discovery is soon to begin.

Mars waits for us.

Ben Bova

Naples, Florida

1998

The breathtaking continuation of a monumental SF epic, Ben Bova’s masterful sequel combines high-frontier adventure, cutting-edge science, evocative otherworldly atmosphere, and the vividly drawn characterizations that have become his trademark. It is a thrilling—and grittily realistic—tale of human and technological triumph in the early decades of our next century.

BEN BOVA has been a presence in science fiction for more than four decades. He is a past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America and the former editor of Analog. The recipient of the Hugo and other awards, he has written dozens of novels, including Mars, Voyagers, and Death Dream—as well as Moonrise and Moonwar, the first two books of his acclaimed Moonbase Saga. He lives in Florida with his wife, Barbara Bova.