Part 15 (1/2)

Jennifer nodded. 'I'm using the typewriter you got me. It's the best present I've ever received. What have you been doing?'

Terry felt disappointed. 'Don't you know Lauren has landed on Mars? Haven't you had the TV on?'

'I know she's there.'

'Aren't you excited? Aren't you proud of her?'

'I've always been proud of Lauren,' she said softly.

'She's been asking about you.'

'I know. I'll turn on the TV.'

'Good. I wish you were here.'

She shook her head sadly. 'I can't come.'

'Have you been having any nightmares?'

Her eyes strayed to the fire. 'They're gone. But I stay up at night and write my story. I have to finish it. There's a way to go.'

'Is Daniel there?' Terry asked.

'He was here. But I sent him off to do things.'

I sent him off.

'Professor Ranoth was asking for you, too,' Terry said.

Jennifer brightened. 'Jim's with them?'

'Of course. You knew he was going.'

'He's with Lauren?'

'They're together on the same planet.'

Jennifer seemed to lose interest. 'It doesn't matter. Tell him h.e.l.lo for me. Tell him I'm still wearing the ring.'

Kathy knocked on the booth. She gestured back toward the TV. Terry understood Lauren was about to climb out of the Hawk.

'Jenny,' he said, 'I've got to go. Lauren's about to walk on the surface of Mars. It's on TV if you want to watch, on almost every channel. I'll call you later tonight, OK?'

'Fine,' Jennifer said, her voice forlorn. 'Tell Lauren I love her, and that I think about her all the time.'

'I'll do that,' he said.

FIFTEEN.

The Hawk had three levels. The top level was the control room. That was where they had sat during the landing. It was the heart of the lander. Besides containing the propulsion controls, it also housed Friend's brain and their communication system. On the second level were the personal quarters: two small bedrooms attached to a central living area. The second level was also used for storage. The bottom level they called the bas.e.m.e.nt. It contained a kitchen, a bathroom, a laboratory, the airlock and the garage. The garage housed two extraordinary vehicles. One was a lightweight jeep with six-foot-tall wheels that could waltz over boulders. The other was more jet than car, a missile with four seats and a winds.h.i.+eld attached. It had earned the nickname Hummingbird. Hummingbird floated and accelerated on an invisible jet cus.h.i.+on, and would be especially valuable when they explored around Olympus Mons, in the mountainous Tharsis region.

For all its three levels, the Hawk was a tight squeeze. Lauren was anxious to get outside and stretch. At present she was in the bas.e.m.e.nt, checking her pressure suit for the third time. Jessica worked an arm's reach away, preparing a soil sample for incubation to see if it contained organic compounds. Gary was in the bas.e.m.e.nt, too, lying under a ma.s.sive insulated coil and repairing a generator that had been damaged in the landing. He was fuming to go outside, and was mad at Bill for making him repair the generator first. Lauren stepped on his toes as she climbed into the airlock.

'Watch out for the natives, Doc,' he called.

'Gotcha,' Lauren said. A door rifled shut behind her. Fans sucked the atmosphere away. When she returned inside she would be blasted with scalding steam and rinsed with disinfectant. They were infinitely cautious of an infection. An alien breed of germs, totally foreign to their bodies' defenses, could wipe them out as surely as giant insect monsters. Such an infection could wipe out the entire world if they brought it home with them.

The external door of the airlock finally opened, and Lauren was face to face with Mars. She could have been on a Hollywood set. There were cameras pointed at her, and the rusty landscape and pink sky looked like one giant prop. There were rocks everywhere.

Lauren remembered that billions on Earth were watching. She started down the ladder, praying she didn't look like a klutz, and worrying what her first words should be. Bill had stepped onto Mars and walked around for two minutes before saying a word. Jim had made a remark about opening a real estate office. Lauren paused on the last rung of the ladder, still thinking.

G.o.d. Destiny. The stars. The future. Evolution.

Finally she gave up and hopped off the ladder and said the first thing that came to her 'This place is better than Disneyland!'

Gary snickered inside her helmet. Because the Martian atmosphere was extremely thin, normal conversation was impossible. However, scientists had devised acoustical sensors that could pick up faint sound waves and boost them a hundredfold. With these instruments attached to the outside of their helmets - they were called vocals - they could talk to each other without the aid of radio. They could even hear the wind rising, and rocks falling, and monsters approaching. Lauren opened her vocals now and grabbed the cellophane-wrapped American flag that stood at the foot of the ladder. Bill had put it there and it was a stupid place; they would fry the flag when they fired their rockets at take off. Flag in hand, she bounced towards Jim, enjoying the gentle gravity. Jim had half buried himself in a hole he was digging.

'Are you off line?' Lauren asked.

'Yes,' Jim said.

'Seen any monsters?'

'No.'

'Tired?' she asked.

'A bit.' He killed his pneumatic drill and tried to wipe the perspiration from his brow. Then he laughed. 'Is there no way to get the sweat out of your eyes?'

'There is. Take a break. Doctor's orders. Here, I'll give you a hand.' She pulled him out of the hole without effort. 'Find anything interesting?'

'A couple of humanoid skeletons. The usual.'

'Want to help me replant the flag?' Lauren asked.

'Where?'

Lauren pointed. 'On that rise. The camera is facing that way.'

As they scaled the shallow hill, Lauren noted how hard and brittle the ground was beneath the thin layer of covering dust, as if the surface had been baked in an enormous oven. Jim had a hammer with him, but pounding the flagpole into the ground took them several minutes.

'Stay there,' Jim said. He backed away and raised his camera.

'Should I salute?' Lauren asked.

Jim crouched down. 'Only if you're feeling patriotic'