Graycloud looked embarrassed. “Dr. W, the professional journals won’t publish this. The real philologists will say it’s crap-by an amateur.”
“Then we’ll have the Foundation publish it. We’ll get it in front of the public. Get it on the Net, in the news.”
“You really think…?”
Jamie patted the youngster’s shoulder. “Billy, you’re going to become famous. Your translation’s going to cause a stir, one way or the other. The more controversy, the better.”
“But they’ll say I don’t know what I’m doing! They’ll laugh at me.”
“Pioneers always get laughed at. Look at Wegener and the theory of plate tectonics. The geologists laughed him to scorn, but he turned out to be right.”
Graycloud looked down at his shoes and muttered, “I don’t know if I could deal with that, Dr. W.”
“You will, Billy.” Silently, Jamie added, You’ll have to.
His face showing clearly the conflict inside him, Graycloud asked, “If I write this up, you know, make a formal paper for publication, would you put your name on it, too?”
Jamie felt surprised. “I didn’t do any of this work, Billy.”
“I did it under your supervision. And if your name’s on the paper people’ll take it more seriously.”
“And I’ll take some of the heat,” Jamie said with a smile.
“Yeah. I guess.”
Nodding, Jamie said, “Okay, Billy. I’ll write a preface for your paper. Explain the background. We’ll include images of the pictographs and the cliff structures.”
“And you’ll put your name in as coauthor?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“Thanks, Dr. W!”
We’ve got to get this to Dex before he leaves, Jamie thought. Maybe it’ll turn him around, convince him we’ve got to push ahead with our work here.
But then the reaction set in. Billy’s right. The academics will rip this translation to shreds. Nobody will pay any real attention to it. The news nets will claim it’s a desperate attempt to draw support for exploring Mars. A dying gasp. Which it is.
Graycloud broke into his dismal thoughts. “Dr. W? How long do you intend to stay here? On Mars?”
Jamie looked into the youngster’s earnest face. “As long as I can, Billy.”
Graycloud’s eyes shifted away momentarily. Then he said, “I’ll go back on the evacuation flight, then. You’ll be the resident Navaho, okay?”
Wearily, Jamie said, “Going back to Arizona?”
“New Mexico first. I’ll take a little vacation in Taos. That’s where my family lives.”
“Not on the Navaho lands?”
“Naw. My father owns an art gallery in Taos.”
Jamie almost smiled. “My grandfather had a shop on the Plaza in Santa Fe.”
“You wouldn’t recognize Taos,” Graycloud said. “Last time I was there the whole state was green as Ireland, just about. You couldn’t walk along the sidewalks in town because the bushes had grown so thick.”
“From the greenhouse climate shift,” said Jamie. “Some regions get drought, some get floods, but the southwestern desert is getting good rain.” He thought about the president of the Navaho Nation and her problems with squatters encroaching on their land.
“Yep. Just give that old desert scrub some rain and it blooms like the Garden of Eden.”
A memory popped into Jamie’s consciousness. “When Arizona was admitted to the Union, back around nineteen-twelve, one of the men appointed to the U.S. Senate gave a speech about the new state. He ended it by saying, ‘All that Arizona needs to make it heaven is water and society.’ ”
Graycloud grinned. “And somebody in the audience said, ‘That’s all that hell needs to make it heaven.’ ”
They both chuckled at the story.
“Wish we could say the same for Mars.”
“Water and society,” Graycloud echoed. “Yeah.”
For several moments neither of them said anything. Jamie looked past Graycloud, at the two communications technicians sitting at their consoles, at the humming, blinking screens, at the curved beams of the dome high above, lost in shadows. How long will we stay here? he asked himself. How long can we hold on?
He had no answers. At last he got to his feet.
“You’ve done a good job, Billy,” he said to the younger man. “I’m proud of you, son.”
Graycloud actually blushed.
Jamie left the younger man sitting there, with his translation on the display screen, and padded barefoot and alone back to his quarters.
Tithonium Base: The Path
Jamie tried to enter the room as quietly as possible, but still Vijay stirred awake.
“You okay?” she asked drowsily.
“More or less,” he replied.
She lifted her head slightly and squinted at the digital clock. “Try to get some sleep before the sun comes up, love.”
“Billy Graycloud’s translated the pictographs,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “He might be on to something.”
“That’s good.”
“He’s going back on the evacuation flight. Back to New Mexico.”
“Almost everybody is.”
“Yeah.” Jamie stretched out on the bed beside her, too tired and worn down even to take off his coveralls. But something was playing in his mind. A thought, an idea, fragile, elusive. He almost had it, but it kept slipping away from his conscious grasp. Something Billy said, he remembered. Something about rain and the desert…
Just give that old desert scrub some rain and it blooms like the Garden of Eden.
Turn the desert into a Garden of Eden, Jamie said to himself. Easier said than—
He sat bolt upright in the bed. “Why not?” he said aloud.
Vijay turned toward him. “Why not what?”
“We could do it!”
“Do what?” She sat up beside him.
“We could do it!” he repeated, almost shouting. “I’ve got to tell Dex! And Hasdrubal.”
Jamie jumped off the bed and ran to the door, leaving Vijay in the bed, startled and confused.
“Chrissake, Jamie, it’s not even six o’clock!” Dex complained.
Jamie had waited as long as he could. He’d never felt so excited, not since the moment when he’d first set foot on Mars, back in the First Expedition.
Still barefoot, Jamie had gone from his bedroom to the cafeteria and started up the coffeemaker. He fidgeted around impatiently, mentally reviewing what he had to do. Billy Graycloud came out of the comm center, yawning, together with the two technicians who had been on duty there. Their replacements shuffled in, looking surprised that the aroma of brewing coffee was already wafting through the dimly lit dome.
Jamie had laughed and waved at Graycloud, then taken a mug of coffee and sat impatiently in the cafeteria, thinking, planning, hoping, waiting for the sun to come up. At last the dome’s wall depolarized and became transparent again. Jamie saw the rusty surface of Mars out there, rocks scattered everywhere, the massive cliffs rising almost perpendicularly, so high their top was cut off by the edge of the dome’s transparent section.
He couldn’t wait any longer. Sitting at the cafeteria table, his insides fluttering, he yanked out his pocket phone and buzzed Dex.
A sleepy, “Whassamatter?”
“Come on out to the cafeteria, Dex. I’ve got something to tell you. Something important.”
“Jamie?”
“Yes! Get up! Now!”
“Chrissake, Jamie, it’s not even six o’clock!”
“Coffee’s waiting for you.”
Dex mumbled something and cut the connection. Jamie laughed inwardly. If he doesn’t come out in a few minutes I’ll go over and drag him out of bed.