“An accident? It was just an accident?” She sat clown and looked away. “That’s all?”
“It was an accident. The same thing almost happened to us.” He looked up at her and saw that she was crying. “I’m sorry.”
Tana patted her on the back and echoed what Ryan said. “I’m sorry.”
19
The Final Choice
It’s time,” Ryan said. “We have to choose.”
Everyone was silent.
Ryan held out his fist. The ends of three strips of paper protruded. “Pick a strip. One of the strips is shorter than the rest. The two long ones go home.”
Estrela shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’ve made my decision already. It doesn’t matter who draws which slip of paper. I’m staying.”
“What?” Ryan and Tana said, at almost exactly the same time.
Estrela smiled, a wan smile. “I surprised you, didn’t I?”
Ryan was gripped by a contradiction of emotions. His heart was telling him, let her stay here, let her stay, I’m going home. But his conscience told him that they couldn’t let her kill herself, not after all this; they were in here together. He said cautiously, “It’s a surprise, yes.” Then added, “But it wouldn’t be fair to have you make the sacrifice. We’ll all take the same chance.”
Estrela shook her head. “It doesn’t matter whether you go back or not. I’m staying here.”
“How would you survive?” Tana said.
Estrela tossed her hair, and for a moment a spark of her stubborn vitality showed through. “I can survive. I’ll go back to the American base; plenty of food and water there, plenty of supplies for the expedition that did not stay. Even a greenhouse.”
Ryan was startled. Yes, he thought, it might be possible. Maybe. “You can’t count on a rescue,” he said.
“In two more years they will send a ship,” she said. “Or maybe four. They will send the fourth expedition, and it will rescue me.”
She sounded so perfectly confident that for a moment Ryan believed it. Of course they would rescue her. Why had he ever thought they wouldn’t? And then common sense took over. “You can’t count on that,” he repeated.
Estrela shrugged. “Or six years. Or, maybe I won’t even wait for a ship. I’ll live here.”
“But, why?”
“I like it here,” Estrela said. “I’ve decided to stay.” She looked at them, looked at their surprised expressions, and laughed. “I know. You thought that I was a survivor, that I would do anything to get on the return trip. I thought that too. That’s why I killed Trevor, to take his spot.”
Tana looked up in surprise. “You—”
Estrela had a distant smile. She nodded. “Yes. That’s right. I killed him.”
Ah, Ryan thought. That should have been obvious. His death was too convenient. “Why?” he asked.
“Why do you think?” she snapped back. “Because only two of us could return. Because he was one more person who might make it back in what should have been my place. And because he was a liability to the expedition. That’s why.”
“What did you do?” Ryan asked.
Estrela looked him right in the eyes. “I stole the battery out of his emergency beacon,” she said, “and then I made sure his gyro compass was miscalibrated. And a couple of other little things like that. I wanted to make sure that if he got lost, he would stay lost. He was always sloppy in checking his equipment; I figured it would only be a matter of time before he got lost.”
“But why?” Tana said. “Are you sorry?”
“I told you. Somebody had to die. I decided it would be him.”
“I thought it was an accident,” Ryan said.
“Call it an accident, then,” she said. She shrugged. “I didn’t force him to wander around and get lost, I guess. You can call it an accident, if it makes you feel better.”
“And Commander Radkowski, too,” Ryan said, suddenly realizing. “You thought he wouldn’t pick you. So you killed him. It wasn’t Brandon at all; it was you!”
Estrela shook her head. “That was an accident. Sure, of course I wanted to kill Radkowski, didn’t you? But I’m not stupid. I was frantic when he died; I didn’t think we could make the pole without a leader.”
“An accident,” Ryan said slowly.
Estrela nodded. “He switched ropes at the last moment. He took the rope Trevor was supposed to use, and rappelled off the cliff before I could think of an excuse to stop him.”
“Shit,” Ryan said. “So what the hell are we supposed to do now?” He paused for a moment, and then asked, “and why are you telling us this? You were home free now. Why didn’t you just kill one of us? We never would have known.”
Estrela smiled. “I changed my mind.”
20
The Last Chance
Tana used the day to continue her inventory of the supplies left at the Brazilian base, and Ryan checked out the snow rovers left behind by the Brazilian expedition. Regardless of what had happened on the long road since they had left Felis Dorsa, or who would stay behind on Mars, Estrela’s idea to return to the American base at Agamemnon was clearly a sound plan. And the one who stayed behind, whoever it would be, would need supplies and a working snow rover.
Since that night they had not talked about Estrela’s confession. Ryan was working alone in the tiny hangar that held the snow rovers when Tana came to him. She stood there, silent, watching him work. At last she called his name, and he looked up.
“Do you believe her?” Tana said. “I need to know.” She bit her lower lip. “Do you think she really did—?”
Ryan had the fuel cell of a snow rover taken apart. He was carefully checking the seals, making sure that the sulfur poisoning had not penetrated and embrittled the power system. It was his way of avoiding thinking about it. He put the fuel cell down and looked at Tana, thinking. “Yes,” he said.
“But are you sure, really sure?” Tana asked, and when Ryan nodded, she said, “So what should we do?”
Ryan considered for a moment. “What do you suggest? The death penalty?”
“No, no,” Tana said. “But we could—” she stopped. “I don’t know.”
“What more do you want from her? We can’t take her home and put her on trial. And even if we could, we don’t have any actual evidence of a crime, do we?”
“But, we have to tell somebody.”
Ryan shook his head. “Who would we tell? What would we say?” He waved his hand to indicate the planet around them. “She says she’s going to stay behind on Mars. Think of it this way. Mars is a prison more secure than Alcatraz could ever be, a prison with walls that cannot be climbed. Are you really worried that this isn’t penance enough?”
“But what do we do!? How can we just leave her here?”
“Ah.” Ryan sighed. Yes, that was it. Despite what Estrela had told them, leaving her behind still seemed a betrayal. After all the distance they had traveled together, how could they just leave her behind? But was there an alternative? “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”
He bent back to his inspection. After a while Tana was gone.
At last the night came, and the three of them ate in silence. After eating, they gathered in the pressurized module. The habitat was still cold, but not as cold as it had been. Ryan sat down and looked at Estrela with a long, steady gaze.
She looked back. “Well?” she said.
“No more holding back,” Ryan said. “I need to know. Tell me, why do you want to stay behind?”
“Do you really care?” she said. “I’m telling you that you get to go home. Take it, it’s your life, and I’m giving it to you free. Do you care why?”