Season of Passage, The (14 page)

smiled often, but he was unusual y shy and kept mostly to himself. Since he would be left alone aboard the Nova while they explored Mars, his

solitary nature was an asset. The loneliest man in the solar system, the papers were already cal ing him, comparing him to Charles Lindbergh. His

field was engineering. Word had it that he possessed a photographic memory, and knew every pipe and pump in the Nova's propulsion system by

heart. He was obviously very good with his hands. Once Lauren had broken the clasp on a necklace Terry had given her for Christmas. Mark had

repaired it in minutes. Natural y she'd assumed he'd had experience with jewelry, but such was not the case. He possessed almost instinctual

mastery in his specialty, and that specialty was to fix things that were broken, whatever they might be. His nickname was 'The Mechanic'

'Mark,' Gary said, shaking his hand. 'There is a gremlin attached to the aft fuel tank. Could you go outside and shake him off, please?'

'Hel o, Gary,' Mark said, never sure where Gary was coming from. 'Is there real y a problem?'

'No,' Lauren said, removing her helmet. 'That was cruel of them to leave you here alone.' She gave Mark a quick kiss on the lips. Mark blushed.

Gary threw a fit.

'On the lips!' Gary said. 'And she cal s herself a doctor. How disgusting.'

'Shut up, Major Wheeler,' Colonel Brent said flatly, bent over the manual helm controls.

Lauren released Mark with an affectionate squeeze and moved to the central computer console, where Jim was already sitting. Friend surrounded

them - indeed, the entire ship could be said to be his body - but she always felt

most at ease looking at the main screen when she addressed the master computer. It was here alone, on a light blue background, that his printed

words appeared in brackets. When Friend spoke, she almost heard those brackets.

Friend was part of the latest generation of intel igent machines - optical computers. He didn't contain a single circuit board or silicon chip. He was,

rather, made up of a complex network of lasers, lenses, and mirrors, and was capable of making computations one thousand times faster than

conventional machines. It had been a cousin of Friend that had mapped the complex human genetic structure. If he couldn't think, he faked it so wel

it was impossible to tel the difference.

'Hel o, Friend,' she said. 'How are you feeling today?'

[Very wel , Lauren, thank you. I trust your flight up from Earth was pleasant?]

Friend's voice was masculine, but high and sweet, reminding her of a member of the Vienna Boys' Choir she had once met at a big social

gathering in Houston. Although the voice wasn't the least bit mechanical, Friend stil sounded artificial because of his flawless pronunciation and

utter lack of emotion.

'The trip was fine,' she said. 'Gary was in top form.'

[Gary is an excel ent pilot.]

'Hear, hear,' Gary said. 'At least someone appreciates my greatness. Thank you, Friend.'

[You're very welcome, Gary.]

Through the Nova's windows, Earth was shrinking, a giant colored bal fal ing slowly into an endless black wel . Six hours had elapsed since Nova's

rockets had fired, adding twelve thousand miles an hour to their speed, and throwing them wel beyond Earth's maximum orbital velocity. Because

of the tremendous energy needed, the Nova would not cut a straight line towards Mars. Rather, it would bend outward in a gentle curve from Earth's

orbit and intersect the slower fourth planet approximately three months later.

Gary never did get to talk to his parents, nor did Lauren get to speak with Jennifer and Terry again. Bil tried his best to obtain permission, and even

went so far as to tel the president he was being il ogical, but the powers that be had already made up their minds. Gary was upset, but Lauren

accepted the situation philosophical y. The goodbye at Cape Canaveral had been bad enough. Why go through it again?

Lauren kept herself busy. The hibernaculums were her particular concern, and she spent hours checking the metabolic sensors and priming the

equipment with the life-supporting solutions that would be fed into their bloodstreams during the long sleep.

After the six of them had completed their respective duties, they gathered in the control room, and had the inevitable discussion on the Martians

and their footprints. Gary, Jessica, and Lauren did most of the talking. Mark was content to nod his head and agree with whoever was talking. Bil

sat silent and aloof, as if the discussion were beneath his dignity. Jim, too, for the most part, remained silent. When he did speak, it was only to ask

how they had felt while looking at the Rover's pictures. The nature of the creature who had made the footprints did not seem to concern Jim.

Gary put forth the interesting theory that the footprints were created by beings not native to Mars. He fetched a half-dozen science fiction novels

from his private locker as authoritative references. His notion was plausible since, as Jim had said to the president, conditions on Mars appeared

too hostile for evolved life to develop. Jessica suggested that the footprints were made by the descendants of human beings who had traveled to

Mars before recorded history began. Jessica was a great one for esoteric ideas. She even swore she had seen a UFO once. Lauren argued for a

creature native to Mars, perhaps a being similar to the arthropod phylum on Earth, since the arthropods had adapted most successful y to the

greatest variety of conditions back home. Everyone shuddered at her suggestion. No one wanted to meet a giant insect.

Final y, it was time for them to retire to their hibernaculums, and Lauren real y got to work. Each person had numerous wires attached to their

bodies to monitor their brain-wave activity, heart activity, and so on. Each had to be hooked up to two tubes that fitted into a previously implanted

arm shunt similar to those that kidney patients used for dialysis. Human kidneys functioned poorly during hibernation; consequently their blood had

to be circulated and filtered by mechanical means. During their filtration, the chemical that would reduce their metabolic rate - the Antabolene - was

periodical y introduced. Antabolene had been discovered in experiments with African lungfish. During the long dry summers in Africa, these fish

burrowed into mud beds and their metabolism fel to a fraction of the normal level. What nature had given to the lungfish, science had been able to

duplicate and improve upon. When Project Nova was in the formative stages, NASA had realized a tremendous amount of supplies could be saved

if the crew was unconscious for the bulk of the journey. Yet the Antabolene did not induce the popularly depicted suspended animation. The drug

merely al owed them to copy the bears, and sleep peaceful y during the dark winter months ahead. The Russians had not had this blessing, and

perhaps the mystery behind their disappearance was nothing more than insanity caused by too many games of chess. Terry had once written an

article that said as much.

A couple of hours after putting the crew to bed, Lauren's duties were almost complete. Monitoring her companions' vital signs on the six separate

screens above her own hibernaculum, she saw that al was going wel . Nearby, Jessica and Bil were already asleep, and in the adjacent room,

Gary, Mark, and Jim were about to join them. Lauren left her monitors and went to bid those three a final goodnight. But she was too late for Mark;

he did not respond when she cal ed his name.

'Sweet dreams,' she said, crossing to Gary. He smiled vaguely through the clear lid of his hibernaculum. She lifted the glass aside. 'I came to kiss

you goodnight.'

Gary mumbled something she could not understand. Lauren leaned over and put her ear to his lips. 'Tel me,' she said.

'I wish I had you to keep me warm,' he whispered. Then his eyes fel shut. Lauren kissed him on the forehead and then lightly on the lips. She

brushed his hair aside and stood staring down at him for a long time.

'I wish so, too,' she said softly, before closing the lid. He hadn't heard her, and it was probably just as wel .

Jim was stil alert. Her surprise must have showed as she stepped up to his hibernaculum, for he said, 'Insomnia. An old friend. I always take a while

to doze off.'

Lauren checked his pulse. 'You're on your way, though.'

Jim nodded. 'Did you say goodnight to Gary?'

Lauren felt a pang of guilt. 'Yes.'

'That's good,' Jim said. He seemed preoccupied. Lauren thought of his puzzling attitude toward the Rover's pictures. If she didn't ask him now, she

might forget when they woke up.

'Are you thinking about the footprints?' she asked.

'The footprints.' He frowned. 'I guess we al are.'

'But they bother you for different reasons than the rest of us. Tel me, Jim, what is it?'

He smiled his kind smile. Except for the faint colored glows of buttons and dials, and the soft hum of equipment, the Nova was dark and quiet. For

the first time, Lauren felt the ful impact of having left Earth. Yet Jim's nearness was comforting.

'When I was a child,' he said, 'someone donated a telescope to the orphanage where I lived. I was interested in astronomy already, and the

instrument was like a gift from heaven. Almost every night I would go out and look at the sky for hours, especial y when Mars was up. For some

reason, it always held a special fascination for me. Of course, the telescope could show scarcely any detail on the planet. But I had heard of the

famous Martian canals, and for a long time I tried to see them. I must have been about ten at the time. There was no halfway knowledgeable adult

around to tel me there were no canals. So I kept searching, night after night, and eventual y I saw them. Quite clearly, if I remember right. I was so

happy. I could hardly sleep for thinking about them. I would stay awake and imagine how great the Martian engineers must have been to construct

canals that circled their entire planet. But not long after that I read a library book that said the canals were an il usion. The book said that the famous

astronomers, Lowel and Schiaparel i, had only imagined that they had seen them. I was disappointed, but in time I accepted the reality of the

situation, and stopped seeing them myself. But even as a child I often wondered how such a great astronomer as Lowel , with a respectable

telescope, could have made such a stupendous error. The theory that they were generated by his technique of occasional y placing a diaphragm

over the lens of his telescope never made sense to me. In this technique - it's cal ed "stopping down" - two bright patches sometimes bleed a dark

line in between them. But you see, Lowel not only saw the canals, but drew intricate maps of them. Stopping down would have produced two or

three il usionary images at best. No, Lowel saw the canals he drew on his maps, there is no doubt in my mind. Once he said that the more he

looked at Mars, the clearer they became to him. And he wasn't alone. Several others confirmed his sightings.' Jim paused. 'Yet there are no canals.'

'I don't understand,' Lauren said, understanding more than she wanted to admit. At first she hadn't seen any footprints, and then - once they had

been pointed out to her - they had been perfectly clear. And so fascinating.

'I don't either,' Jim said, beginning to fade under the effects of the Antabolene. 'It worries me.'

'But how could this common il usion affect us?'

Jim closed his eyes. 'Lowel saw canals from mil ions of miles away. We'l be walking in that place.'

'But?'

Too late. Jim was asleep. The discussion would have to continue in a few months. Lauren felt an eerie chil in her stomach as she looked down at

him. Jim reminded her of her father. They both seemed so wise. They even looked similar: sun-beaten skin, thinning gray hair, lines of hardships

and triumphs etched in their faces. If Jim could not take care of them, no one could.

Lauren returned to her monitors. Everyone was doing nicely. Now it was her turn. She stripped and took a hot shower, afterwards putting on a pair

of white shorts and an oversized Houston Oilers T-shirt. Then she climbed into her hibernaculum and repeated the machine-flesh fusion that she

had accomplished on the others. She felt no fear of the process. A year ago she had undergone a practice

hibernation in Houston that had lasted seven days. She had awoken feeling wonderful; ful of energy. And in the event of an emergency, Friend

would wake her.

Lauren fitted two clear plastic tubes into the artery shunt on her left arm and turned on the circulator. Quickly the Antabolene began to flood her

system, bringing with it a sudden wave of drowsiness. She opened a final line to Houston and they wished her sweet dreams. For a long time she

rested, fol owing the heartbeats of her friends as they traced rhythmic green lines across the screens above her head. She felt herself drifting away,

but also felt a sudden need to say a last goodbye to Earth. She hauled herself into an upright position where she could peer out a portal beside her

hibernaculum. Unfortunately the revolution of the Nova had momentarily placed the ship's spine between her and Earth. She did not have the

strength to wait for the Nova to wing her around to the other side. She fel back exhausted, experiencing a vague foreboding that she would never

see her world again.

'Friend?' she whispered.

[Yes, Lauren?]

'What are the odds that I wil return from Mars?'

[91.762 percent, Lauren.]