"Yes, I am," Rachel continued in a matter-of-fact way. "But the problem is, on Earth they have all these asinine laws and regulations, and if you don't have a degree from an accredited medical school, it doesn't matter how good you are—the rhinos won't let you practice."
Gwen smiled warmly. "Well, I'm sure we can use you here."
Suddenly Rachel seemed to be hit by a new thought. "Oh, I almost forgot. Here's a present for you from Mother." The young doctor reached into her pack and pulled out a bag of seeds. "It's her latest gene-splicing invention—‘coldberries' she calls them. She says they should do fine growing outside on Mars."
Gwen gratefully accepted the seeds. "Thanks to both of you. But you haven't been properly introduced. These are our younger children, Caitlin and Dylan, and this is Virginia. Your mother delivered her, the first child born on Mars."
A teenaged boy wandered in and, without noticing the new arrival, started wiping greenhouse dirt from his arms.
"And this is our second, Brendan."
Brendan looked up and saw Rachel, who, pleased with her obvious effect on the boy, twinkled her eyes at him. "Hello, Brendan," the girl said.
A little embarrassed at being unexpectedly subjected to the study of a pretty girl, Brendan blushed. "Hello," he said awkwardly.
Rachel reassured him with a generous smile. "Anyway, I start work tomorrow, and I was wondering if there was any way I could get a chance to do a little exploring first? You know, have a look around the country?" She looked at Brendan to make sure the poor lad got his cue.
For a moment it seemed as if the boy didn't get it, then suddenly there was a light in his eye. "I've got a rover!" he blurted. "I know all the country around here. I could take you for a drive right now."
"That would be very nice," Rachel said.
Brendan gestured for the young doctor to follow and headed for the door. But Gwen stopped him with a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Now wait a minute, son, lunch is almost ready, and there's work..."
"Oh come on, Mom," Brendan pleaded.
McGee saw the stricken expression on his son's face and was reminded of the desperate and joyful hopes of his own youth. "Let him go, Gwen."
She nodded, as if understanding, and let go. In a flash, Brendan was across the galley. Taking Rachel's hand, he was out the door.
Gwen called out after him, "Check the oil, transmission, and battery fluids if you're planning on taking out that old tin lizzie of yours."
Already downstairs, Brendan shouted his reply. "I will."
An instant later, the two young people were running down one of the translucent tunnels that now linked the Beagle to other habs and auxiliary buildings.
As they ran, Brendan held Rachel's hand in one of his, while using the other to point things out and make animated gestures. Rachel's eyes were wide.
"And this is my rover," Brendan explained, as they entered an inflatable garage. "It's the original one that landed with the Beagle. Everybody says it's too old for use, but I keep it in shape."
Rachel walked over and touched the machine. "You mean this is the very same vehicle that Mother used when she made her discovery?"
"Yep. And it's also the rover that..." Brendan leaned over and whispered in her ear, provoking a snicker from the girl.
Rachel regarded him coyly. "But if this rover is so old, how do we know we won't get stuck?"
"Yes, that would be awful, wouldn't it?" Brendan deadpanned.
Rachel gave him a playful shove. "Don't you even think of it, you... you, Martian!"
"Don't worry," Brendan reassured her. "Come on, let's go!"
They hopped into the rover, and Brendan cycled the airlock door and steered their way outside. As he drove, the young man kept talking animatedly with his hands, while Rachel looked at him, her smile alternating between interest and skepticism.
As they rode out, Rachel got a good view of the old Snoopy on the side of the Beagle, and then the emblems and flags on the dozens of other habs connected by inflatable tunnels. Oddly colored clumps of blue-green grass grew between the habs. Few from Earth had ever seen such grass firsthand, but Rachel had: It grew in the Mars simulation chambers of her mother's lab.
Then they were out of the base area and onto the planitia, whose endless expanse was beginning to be invaded by scattered tufts of tall blue-green grass spreading out from the base.
McGee and Gwen stood by the window of the Beagle, watching the two drive joyfully across the plain. He squeezed her hand, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. From the depths of his memory came a snatch of a song:
One spark of Reason thy life shall start.
One spark of mind shall make alive thee.
McGee flashed with feeling as he remembered the lyric. The hope had become real. Life, full of play and full of wonder, had come to Mars... and Mars was coming to life.
TECHNICAL APPENDIX:
THE MARS DIRECT PLAN
FIRSTL ANDING PRESENTS a humans-to-Mars expedition not as a venture for the far future, but as a mission for our generation. This is entirely realistic. As I explained in detail in my books Entering Space and The Case for Mars, the United States has in hand, today, all the technologies required for undertaking an aggressive, continuing program of human Mars exploration, with the first piloted mission reaching the Red Planet Mars within a decade. We do not need to build giant spaceships embodying futuristic technologies in order to go to Mars. We can reach the Red Planet with relatively small spacecraft launched directly to Mars by boosters embodying the same technology that carried astronauts to the Moon more than thirty years ago. The key to success comes from following a "travel light and live off the land" strategy similar to that which has well-served terrestrial explorers for centuries. The plan to approach the Red Planet in this way is called Mars Direct. This is the plan used by the crew of the Beagle in the present novel.
Here's how the Mars Direct Plan works: At an early launch opportunity—for example, 2009—a single heavy lift booster with a capability equal to that of the Saturn V used during the Apollo program is launched off Cape Canaveral and uses its upper stage to throw a forty-tonne unmanned payload onto a trajectory to Mars. Arriving at Mars eight months later, the spacecraft uses friction between its aeroshield and Mars' atmosphere to brake itself into orbit around the planet, and then lands with the help of a parachute. This payload is the Earth Return Vehicle (ERV). It flies out to Mars with its two methane/oxygen-driven rocket propulsion stages unfueled. It also carries six tonnes of liquid hydrogen cargo, a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor mounted in the back of a methane/oxygen-driven light truck, a small set of compressors and automated chemical processing unit, and a few small scientific rovers.
The Mars Direct mission sequence. The sequence begins with the launch of an unmanned Earth Return Vehicle (ERV) to Mars, where it will fuel itself with methane and oxygen manufactured on Mars. Thereafter, every two years, two boosters are launched. One sends an ERV to open up a new site, while the other sends a piloted Hab to rendezvous with an ERV at a previously prepared site.
As soon as the craft lands successfully, the truck is telerobotically driven a few hundred meters away from the site, and the reactor deployed to provide power to the compressors and chemical processing unit. The hydrogen brought from Earth can be quickly reacted with the Martian atmosphere, which is ninety-five percent carbon dioxide gas (CO2), to produce methane and water, thus eliminating the need for long-term storage of cryogenic hydrogen on the planet's surface. The methane so produced is liquefied and stored, while the water is electrolyzed to produce oxygen, which is stored, and hydrogen, which is recycled through the methanator.