• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1886 0

stiffened muscles that she hadn’t heard from in months. Around her Nadia and Sasha and Yeli Zudov were chattering away, and in the warm wash of voluble Russian it suddenly occurred to her that everyone was happy— they were in the last moment of their anticipation, an anticipation that had lain in their hearts for half a lifetime, or ever since childhood— and now suddenly it had bloomed below them like a child’s crayon drawing of Mars, growing huge then small, huge then small, and as it yo-yoed back and forth it loomed before them in all its immense potential: tabula rasa, blank slate. A blank red slate. Anything was possible, anything could happen— in that sense they were, in just these last few days, perfectly free. Free of the past, free of the future, weightless in their own warm air, floating like spirits about to invest a material world…. In the mirror Maya caught sight of the toothbrush-distorted grin on her face, and grabbed a railing to hold her position. It occurred to her that they might never be so happy again. Beauty was the promise of happiness, not happiness itself; and the anticipated world was often more rich than anything real. But this time who could say? This time might be the golden one at last.

She released the railing and spit toothpaste into a wastewater bag, then floated backward into the hallway. Come what may, they had reached their goal. They had earned at least the chance to try.

• • •

Disassembling the Ares made a lot of them feel odd. It was, as John remarked, like dismantling a town and flinging the houses in different directions. And this was the only town they had. Under the giant eye of Mars, all their disagreements became taut; clearly it was critical now, there was little time left. People argued, in the open or under the surface. So many little groups now, keeping their own counsel… What had happened to that brief moment of happiness? Maya blamed it mostly on Arkady. He had opened Pandora’s box; if not for him and his talk, would the farm group have drawn so close around Hiroko? Would the medical team have kept such close counsel? She didn’t think so.

She and Frank worked hard to reconcile differences and forge a consensus, to give them the feeling they were still a single team. It involved long conferences with Phyllis and Arkady, Ann and Sax, Houston and Baikonur. In the process a relationship developed between the two leaders that was even more complex than their early encounters in the park, though that was part of it; Maya saw now, in Frank’s occasional flashes of sarcasm, of resentment, that he had been bothered by the incident more than she had thought at the time. But there was nothing to be done about it now.

In the end the Phobos mission was indeed given to Arkady and his friends, mainly because no one else wanted it. Everyone was promised a spot on a geological survey if they wanted one, and Phyllis and Mary and the rest of the “Houston crowd” were given assurances that the construction of base camp would go according to the plans made in Houston. They intended to work at the base to see that it happened that way. “Fine, fine,” Frank snarled at the end of one of these meetings. “We’re all going to be on Mars, do we really have to fight like this over what we’re going to do there?”

“That’s life,” Arkady said cheerfully. “On Mars or not, life goes on.”

Frank’s jaw was clenched. “I came here to get away from this kind of thing!”

Arkady shook his head. “You certainly did not! This is your life, Frank. What would you do without it?”

• • •

One night shortly before the descent, they gathered and had a formal dinner for the entire hundred. Most of the food was farm-grown: pasta, salad, and bread, with red wine from storage, saved for a special occasion.

Over a dessert of strawberries, Arkady floated up to propose a toast. “To the new world we now create!”

A chorus of groans and cheers; by now they all knew what he meant. Phyllis threw down a strawberry and said, “Look, Arkady, this settlement is a scientific station. Your ideas are irrelevant to it. Maybe in fifty or a