The Sails of Tau Ceti (9 page)

Below and all around them was the red surface of the high Martian desert. It was local summer, which meant that winds were light and blowing dust was at a minimum. Visibility in the thin atmosphere was nearly as good as on Luna, with only a minute softening of detail with distance, and none of the bluing that is characteristic of Earth’s atmosphere.

“We’d best move if we don’t want our legs to cramp up,” Ben said after they had rested for five minutes.

“Right,” she replied without enthusiasm. As her joints creaked inside her suit, she reminded herself that this trek into the wilderness had been her idea.

They worked as a team to drag the pressure tent off the sledge and unfold it. After several attempts, they got it spread out so that there were no folds in the heavy underlining. Working in opposite directions, Tory and Ben anchored the tent every twenty degrees around its circumference, driving stakes deep into the crumbly ground. Finally, Ben hooked up the environmental unit and pressed a control. The tent began to slowly inflate.

Ten minutes later, it was a silver igloo straining at its moorings. Ben set up the reinforcing rods that maintained the shape of the small tubular airlock while Tory unloaded the case of food and other supplies from the sledge. She piled the boxes inside the airlock, crawled in after, and then sealed the outer flap behind her before cracking the valve that let air in from the main section of the tent. She pushed the supplies inside and crawled in after.

Once inside, Tory struggled out of her suit, pushing it to one side when she finished with it. She resealed the inner airlock flap and signaled Ben that he could enter. He retrieved the chemical toilet from the sledge and repeated Tory’s performance with the airlock. She unsealed the inner flap and pulled the toilet inside, moving it to its place behind the privacy curtain. She then turned to help Ben off with his suit. It was hard work with the two of them and all their supplies in the tent. It took another twenty minutes to arrange things so that most of the clutter was out of the way. Ben busied himself unrolling the electrically heated sleeping bags while Tory plugged two prepackaged dinners into their power unit.

“Well, was it worth the climb?” Ben asked ten minutes later as he munched on pressed chicken loaf covered in something that was advertised to be brown gravy.

“Don’t you think so? Where else can you find a view this spectacular?” she asked as she gestured toward where the sun was setting. She had dialed the tent to full transparency so they could see out. Because of the dust in the air, Martian sunsets were always spectacular.

He smiled. “Too much red if you ask me.”

“I suppose I would think the same about blue and green if I ever went to Earth.”

“Care to make a bet on that?” he asked. It was an argument they had had before. Ben maintained that love of trees and water was imbedded in humanity’s genes, while Tory thought it an acquired taste. “How was your visit home?”

“Not what I’d hoped for,” Tory said. Her parents had been happy enough to see her, but it had not been twenty minutes before her father was grilling her about where she was going for three long years. She had given him the cover story that she had accepted a three-year contract from an asteroid mining company, to begin immediately after
Starhopper
launched. Her father had called her inconsiderate for not telling them earlier, while her mother and sister had made a fuss over her.

She had stayed with her parents for three days, then called Ben and asked him if he wanted to go camping. It had taken two more days to arrange transportation and rent the equipment. “Camping” on Mars bore only the faintest resemblance to the same activity on Earth.

The two of them lay propped up on one elbow, facing one another after dinner. Ben regarded her with serious eyes.

“What?” she asked when she noticed him looking at her.

“You’re beautiful when you’re red.”

She laughed, glancing down at herself. Martian dust was the same consistency as talcum powder. It covered the suits and the interior of the tent with a fine ocher layer, and despite their best efforts, had covered both of them from head to toe as well.

“Do you think so?” she asked.

“I do. Also, I’ve been noticing how much you’ve changed since college.”

“How so?” she asked, wondering what he was getting at.

“You’re more mature. You seem to care less about what other people think than you did.”

“Hah!” she said. “I’m still crushed whenever anyone makes even the tiniest critical comment about my work.”

“Well, you show it less. I remember a time when you had to dress precisely right and go to all of the functions everyone else was going to.”

“You should talk,” she said. “Who was it that had to have that new pocket computer because Bill Ames had bought one?”

“Not the same thing,” he said with a grin. “That was simple envy on my part. I didn’t care what Ames thought about me, I just didn’t want him to have a better computer.”

“I stand corrected.”

Although spectacular, because of the thin atmosphere, the Martian sunsets are over quickly. When it was nearly too dark to see one another, Ben got to his knees and activated the overhead glowlamp. At the same time, Tory dialed the surface back to silver. They had to be careful about heat loss at night. In their scrambling, they met in the middle of the tent where Ben folded her into his arms and kissed her.

When their lips parted, Tory asked, “Who’s Gloria?”

Tallen blinked and was quiet for a long moment. “Where did you hear about her?”

“Do you remember Hideki Sato from school?”

Ben nodded.

“The project hired him as a programmer last week. We were talking about the software changes when I mentioned that you were back on Mars. He told me to say hi for him and then asked me how you were getting along with Gloria. Who’s Gloria?”

“Someone I met on Earth. Her father is on the Board of Directors of Tramton Corp.”

“Oh, she’s rich!”

He shrugged. “She isn’t hurting for credit.”

“Is it serious between you two?”

“We’ve talked marriage, but haven’t agreed to anything yet. Lately, I’ve been wondering if that would be such a good idea.”

“Oh?” Tory asked.

“I’ve recently come to realize that I may still be in love with someone else.”

“How recently?”

“Very,” he said as he leaned forward to kiss her again.

She pulled back this time. “Are you suggesting that we take up where we left off?”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m about to ship a zillion kilometers out into space.”

“That’s a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Truly, I didn’t realize how much I miss you.”

“Are you sure you aren’t just suffering from proximity syndrome? I’m here and Gloria isn’t.”

He sighed and released her. “So young to be so cynical.”

“You still haven’t told me how we are going to carry on a romance while I’m out at the light sail and you’re back on Earth.”

“We could write each other long love letters.”

“Who’s going to deliver them?”

“They’ll go out as official comm traffic. You may be interested to know that Underminister Sadibayan has assigned me to be liaison to the project technical staff.”

“Really? I suppose congratulations are in order.”

“They are indeed. It is my job to assemble the threat team. That is one reason I am still here. I’m going to ask Vance Newburgh to join once he finishes modifying the software for launch.”

“Threat team?”

“A poor title. It is more an adverse impact evaluation group. Each datum you people send back will be analyzed for adverse effects on our military capability, economy, and social institutions. There will be another team to evaluate positive impacts, and several groups of specialists to study any alien technology you tell us about.”

“It’s nice to know we’ll be able to get our questions answered when we call home.”

“You’re more likely to get a long list of questions that need answering,” he replied. “But don’t change the subject, which if I remember correctly, was you and me.”

She regarded him for long seconds before answering. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Damned serious.”

“What about Gloria?”

“That’s something I need to work out.”

Tory nodded. “I need to work some things out as well. Can we talk about this later?”

“Sure. How about we get this dust cleaned off and get some sleep? I’ll use the electrostat on you, if you use it on me.”

“That sounds like a come on, Mr. Tallen.”

Somehow, his look of innocence did not ring true as he reached for the dust attractor and Tory wriggled out of her undersuit.

CHAPTER 7

Phobosport, where the Mars ferries landed, was on the opposite end of the moon from the field where
Starhopper
was being modified. Despite this, Tory was able to catch a glimpse of the big booster during final approach.
Starhopper
looked like one of the pyramids of Egypt transplanted to the Martian moon.

The ferry landed and a tired Tory Bronson pulled herself hand over hand through the embarkation tube. It was a pleasant tired, nothing like the fatigue that had sapped her strength before going on leave. As she exited the surface lock into the main terminal, Tory was surprised to discover Kit Claridge standing among those waiting for the disembarking passengers.

“Kit! What are you doing here? Something wrong?”

“Nothing wrong,” the doctor assured her. “I heard you were scheduled in and wanted to see how the prescription took.”

“Prescription?”

“How was your leave?”

Tory smiled. “Great. Ben and I had a marvelous time. It was almost like our college days.”

“What did the two of you do?”

“Believe it or not, we went camping! We spent two days in environment suits trudging the Olympus foothills. We watched the sunset from the top of Sutter’s Peak, then snuggled together all night in a pressure tent.”

“To each their own. Personally, I would have preferred the diversions of civilization.”

Tory laughed. “We didn’t rough it the
whole
time. Ben took me to the theater and the opera.”

“That’s more like it. What opera?”

“
The Barber of Seville
.”

“With Standish Barnes in the lead?”

“The one and only.”

Kit sighed. “I saw him in
Carmen
ten years ago. Is he as handsome as ever?”

“Hard to tell under all that makeup.

They walked as they talked. As they entered the main Phobosport terminal area, Kit asked, “How do things stand between you and Ben?” Suddenly, she sounded very like a doctor diagnosing a patient.

Tory shrugged. “He wants to get back together. I told him we would have to wait until after my return. Then if we’re both still interested, we’ll see what happens.”

“A wise move. A lot can happen during a three year separation.”

“How go launch preparations?”

Kit sighed. “I never realized there was so much to getting a ship ready for space. We are on schedule … barely. All supplies have been loaded except the antimatter fuel and hydrogen reaction mass. Garth has a full week of onboard simulations planned, by the way. They begin at 08:00 hours tomorrow. If he’s happy with the results, we fuel in ten days and launch in twelve.”

“And software certification?”

“Going smoothly so far as I know. Garth has been meeting daily with Vance Newburgh. If there’s been any screaming, they did it behind closed doors.”

Tory made a mental note to check with Vance via implant as soon as she was alone. “What about Guttieriz? Did he ever show up?”

Kit nodded. “He was able to get an earlier ship and arrived the day before yesterday.”

“How is he?”

“A bit of a stuffed shirt at first, but he’s loosened up some in just two days. I think he’ll do all right.”

“He’d better. It will be difficult getting a replacement out beyond Pluto.”

“There’s always the airlock solution.”

Tory shivered. “On that cheery thought, I think I’ll head for home.”

“Need any help with your luggage?”

“No, I don’t really have that much.”

“All right,” Kit said. “I’ll see you at the ship at 08:00 tomorrow. By the way, the captain has asked me to tell you to get a full night’s sleep. He says that you are going to need it.”

“Tell him that I intend to do just that.”

Tory collected her luggage, and then sailed the kilometer to her apartment in long dives down tunnels bored straight through the moon’s interior. She did not even bother to unpack upon arrival. She merely flung her kit bag into a corner, spent ten minutes in the bathroom preparing for bed, then laid down on the rock shelf that was all that was needed in Phobos’s gravity field. She lightly fastened her restraining straps, lay back and closed her eyes. Despite her best efforts, however, she found she could not sleep. She was too excited.

#

The four of them stood in their vacuum suits at the base of the
Starhopper
booster and gazed up at their new home.
Austria
looked like an afterthought perched atop the booster. The fleet corvette was composed of three spherical modules connected by an external gridwork of braces. Across its surface was the usual panoply of ungainly mechanisms that make most ships of deep space look as though they were assembled in a junkyard. A dozen thruster clusters were mounted to the sides of the corvette, while large heat rejection “wings” were in their stowed position for launch. A long boom jutted at right angles from the middle sphere. At the end of it was the stowed parabolic antenna that would be their primary communications link with Earth.

The corvette had been anchored to the booster by a series of high strength cables. A forest of fiber optics ran from the corvette’s aft airlock to the body of the interstellar booster. Inside
Austria
’s Number One hold were both of
Starhopper
’s main computers. Though much of
Austria
’s original equipment had been stripped to lighten ship, the corvette’s engines had been retained. So had the dozen cylindrical fuel tanks that ringed the rearmost sphere. The naval craft retained the capability of separating from the booster and maneuvering on its own if the delta V requirements were not too large.