Joanna glanced at Jamie, then seemed to draw herself up taller and straighter in the cockpit seat.
"I appreciate your solicitude toward my father and myself, and I thank you for it. But please do not bother to arrange a special transmission for us," Joanna said, more firmly than Jamie had ever heard her speak before. "I repeat: do not set up a link with Houston. I want no special privileges. If you have chosen to maintain a news blackout about this problem we are facing, then please do not consider me to be an exception."
Jamie cut off the transmission switch. "Wait a minute," he said. "Doesn’t your father have a right…"
Her red-rimmed eyes flared at him. "I am not a little girl who must talk with her papa when she is in trouble. I want to be treated just the same way you and the others are treated."
"But he’s Alberto Brumado," Jamie said. "It’s not you that they want to give special treatment to; it’s him."
Joanna tried to shake her head. The effort made her grip the edge of the control panel with a white-knuckled hand. "No. I would not be able to keep my strength in front of him. I would break down and cry. I will not have that put on videotape."
"Oh. I see. I guess."
"Jamie — if we… if it becomes certain that we are going to die here, then there will be plenty of time to speak to my father. Each of us will tape messages for our families, I am sure."
"I guess so." And Edith will get it all for the goddammed prime-time news.
"But not now. I have not given up hope. You have not given up hope, have you?"
"Hell no," he said, with a fervor that he did not truly feel.
"Then turn the transmitter on once again."
Jamie did. Joanna took a breath, brushed her hands unconsciously through her tousled hair.
"I appreciate your offer," she said calmly, with great dignity, "but my decision is that I want to be treated exactly like the others. I expect you to keep my father informed of our situation — and the newswoman with him. Thank you very much."
She’s as sore about Edith as I am, Jamie saw. The realization gave him no comfort at all.
Dmitri Iosifovitch Ivshenko was at the controls of the backup rover, a crooked grin on his pinched face. He is happy to be on the ground doing something useful instead of sitting up in orbit, Vosnesensky thought.
Reed sat back on one of the midship benches. Vosnesensky wondered about the Englishman. He is here with us out of a sense of guilt; he wants to atone for the accident with the vitamins. Will he be a positive help to us or will he just get in our way? He doesn’t know how to drive the rover. He has no real experience in EVA. I doubt that he has been outside the dome more than a few hours, total, since we landed. What good will he be in an emergency?
The Russian turned in the cockpit seat and looked over his shoulder at Reed. The physician seemed lost in thought, dazed almost, as he leaned back on the bench, both hands gripping its edge.
Vosnesensky shook his head, then immediately regretted it. He still felt woozy and terribly weak. Having my own private physician aboard has done nothing to improve my health, he grumbled to himself.
Vosnesensky turned his attention back to Ivshenko. Studying the fellow, he realized for the first time that Ivshenko looked decidedly un-Russian. He was as lean as a willow and his hair was a thick curly thatch of midnight black. His eyes were coal dark too. A thin aquiline nose and even thinner lips. His complexion was pale, bloodless white, although Vosnesensky thought that he would tan to a deep brown if he could get some sun on him.
He is younger than I am, Vosnesensky thought, envying the energy that radiated from the cosmonaut’s taut, wiry frame. Younger and healthier. Vosnesensky’s head thundered; his arms and legs ached miserably. If Reed is right, these vitamin doses ought to be helping, but I certainly don’t feel any better. Perhaps worse.
"Tell me, Dmitri Iosifovitch," Vosnesensky said aloud, his voice sounding harsh and strained even in his own ears, "where did you get such good looks?"
The younger man glanced at him, almost startled, then quickly turned back to his driving.
"My mother is Armenian, if that’s what you mean," Ivshenko replied.
"Ah, I wondered. I thought perhaps you had some Turkish blood in you."
Ivshenko’s nostrils flared. "No. Armenian."
"I see," said Vosnesensky. "And how is your love life, up there in orbit?"
Ivshenko’s grin returned. "Adequate, comrade. Quite adequate. Especially when that German physicist gets bored with her work."
"Diels? The blonde?"
"She is teaching me things about physics that I never knew before."
"The quest for knowledge is never-ending," Vosnesensky agreed.
"A worthwhile goal."
Vosnesensky started to laugh, but it made his chest hurt. He ended up coughing.
"You are in pain, Mikhail Andreivitch?"
"It’s nothing. Just a little agony."
"Do you want to turn back?"
"No!" Vosnesensky thundered. "We go onward. No matter what happens, we go onward."
Hours passed. They stopped the rover briefly and changed seats so that Vosnesensky could drive. Ivshenko watched him carefully, though. The younger cosmonaut had no great desire to allow his older comrade to get them both killed.
"At sundown you can take over again," Vosnesensky said, feeling perspiration beading his face, trickling along his ribs, plastering the back of his coveralls against the seat.
"You will sleep then?"
"I will try."
"The safety regulations forbid operating the rover unless a backup driver is awake and prepared to take over in case of an emergency. And operating at night…"
"I know the regulations quite thoroughly," Vosnesensky snapped. "I helped to write them. This is an emergency situation; we will bend the rules a little."
"A little," Ivshenko murmured.
Jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, "If you get lonely while I sleep you can have our physician to keep you company."
Ivshenko made a sour face.
Across the rubble-strewn plain they drove, south by east, the dwarf sun lowering toward the rugged horizon, throwing long blood-red shadows from every rock on the barren desert. To Vosnesensky the shadows looked like the lean claws of dead men’s hands reaching for him.
Back in the midsection of the command module Tony Reed felt every bump and dip of the rover as he sat gripping the edge of the bench with both hands. This is madness, he told himself. Why did I ever talk myself into coming out here? Penance? This is carrying expiation for one’s sins a bit too far, really.
But he stayed silent, uncomplaining, trying to hold down the fear that was building up inside him. We’re out in the middle of the empty Martian plain in this piddling little vehicle. If anything goes wrong, anything at all, we’re all dead men.
Up in the cockpit the comm unit buzzed. Ivshenko turned it on and Dr. Li’s long sallow face appeared on the screen. His mouth curved downward, his eyes looked weary, defeated.
"I have spent half the day arguing with Kaliningrad," Li said, his voice hoarsely rasping. "The mission controllers are adamant."
Vosnesensky grunted, but kept the rover moving forward.
"They insist that the crew in the dome must be evacuated to orbit, and only afterward can an attempt be made to rescue the team in the rover."
"Have you told them that we are already on our way to the canyon?"
Li slowly shook his head. "No. I told them that we do not agree either with their assessment of the situation or their decision."