"Right, boss," said Jamie, laughing.
Joanna watched the display screen as Vosnesensky and then Jamie Waterman made their evening reports. She was sitting on a spider-legged stool at the workbench in the biology lab, cocooned in the bulky equipment that surrounded her. She felt almost at home in the laboratory area; the microscopes and isolation boxes and racks of glassware made her feel more comfortable and protected here than in the bare narrow cubicle that served as her sleeping quarters.
She had patched her lab computer into the base’s communications system so that she could see the excursion team’s report in some privacy. Jamie’s face looked serious yet happy. He was not really smiling, but there was an excitement in his eyes that she had never seen before as he described his day’s observations.
"This is where we should have landed," he was saying, looking out from the screen as if he knew his eyes would meet hers. "There’s moisture here and I’m willing to bet that the temperatures down at the bottom of the valley are significantly warmer than up here on the plain."
He went on, his eyes sparkling as he described the rock formations that looked to him so much like the adobe cliff dwellings of southwestern America.
"He’s a handsome red devil, isn’t he?"
Joanna whirled on the stool. Tony Reed was standing there, one arm casually leaning on the transparent plastic hood of an empty isolation box. He wore a black turtleneck shirt beneath his tan coveralls. One corner of his lips was curved slightly in a strange sardonic smile. Joanna stared at him for a wordless moment. It was almost as if Reed’s face had been split in two: half his face was smiling, the other half not.
"Jamie makes a strong case for studying the canyon," she said. "The chances for finding living organisms, or even the fossils of extinct species…"
Reed moved closer to her, pulled up the other stool, and straddled it. Gesturing toward the screen he said, "Our Indian friend seems to think he’s found the ruins of an ancient village. How preposterous."
Sudden anger flared within Joanna. "How do you know it is preposterous? How can we say anything about this world until we have explored all of it?"
Reed’s smile widened. "I’m not a betting man, but I’d be willing to wager long odds that there are no ancient civilizations to be found on Mars."
"Yes, and a century and a half ago you would have bet that Schliemann would never find the ruins of Troy."
"My, aren’t we fiery!" Reed laughed.
Joanna turned back to the computer, but Vosnesensky’s heavy-featured, morose face filled the screen now. She clicked it off.
"You’re right, of course," Reed admitted easily. "One mustn’t jump to conclusions — either way."
Joanna accepted it as an apology.
"Jamie’s doing good work, isn’t he?" Reed asked rhetorically. "I’m glad we fought to get him onto the team."
"He is a great asset," Joanna agreed.
"Much better than Hoffman would have been, although I wonder how DiNardo would have fared here."
"What do you mean?"
Leaning both his elbows on the lab bench behind him, Reed appeared as relaxed as if he were in a London pub. "Well, DiNardo has this enormous reputation, you know. If he had seen what Jamie’s seen out there at the Grand Canyon, I wonder if his prestige would have been big enough to get us to move the camp there."
"The entire base?"
Reed cocked his head slightly, sending a boyish lock of sandy hair over his forehead. "If Jamie’s right and the canyon is the best place to look for life, then we should at least set up a secondary camp there, don’t you think?"
Nodding slowly, Joanna said, "But we can’t pick up this entire dome and move it."
"With that silly Japanese getting himself killed," Reed answered, "the mission controllers probably won’t allow us to do anything that’s even a millimeter off our official schedule."
"But the schedule was meant to be flexible! They cannot hold us to a preset routine, as if we were puppets."
"You think not? I can’t help supposing, though, that if DiNardo were here we’d already be working out a plan to set up a camp on the floor of the canyon."
"That is what Jamie wants to do, is it not?"
"Rather. But he’s in trouble with his own politicos back in the States, you know, over this Navaho nonsense he said when we landed. I doubt that his recommendations would be accepted by the powers that be."
Joanna studied the English physician’s face. He was no longer grinning. He seemed completely serious.
"I can speak to my father about it," she said. "I am sure he already knows about the possibility — or he will, as soon as today’s data reaches mission control."
"Yes, surely your father would be helpful. I was thinking more of DiNardo, though. If we can get his agreement that we should set up a secondary camp in the canyon, that would help enormously, I should think."
Joanna felt a thrill of excitement run through her. "Yes! Of course! They could not fail to agree with Father DiNardo."
"Hardly," said Reed.
"I will contact him myself," Joanna said. "And suggest to my father that he enlist Father DiNardo’s aid, as well."
"Yes, that’s the ticket."
"I will send a message now, this evening. Right away."
"Good show," said Reed. He straightened up and got off the stool. Leaning closer to Joanna he whispered, "We can accomplish a great deal, you and I, working behind the scenes."
"Oh, yes. Thank you. I am grateful for your help."
"Think nothing of it, dear lady."
But as he strolled casually away from the biology lab back toward his own cubicle, Reed thought: She’s hot for Jamie, that’s for certain. Now the game is to work things out so that he remains out there in the Grand Canyon and she stays here. A thousand kilometers or so between them ought to give me enough working room. I’ll have her, sooner or later. All I need is patience. And a little help, which she herself will provide. How nice!
He actually whistled, tunelessly, as he strode past the wardroom where most of the others sat huddled together, discussing the day’s events like a gaggle of schoolchildren. Reed ignored them and headed for his cot and his dreams.
Jamie and Vosnesensky sat in the rover’s cockpit as they made their evening report. Once they were finished with their official duty, Pete Connors filled them in on the reactions to Konoye’s accident. While he watched the astronaut’s troubled features on the display screen in the center of the cockpit control panel, Jamie glanced at the secondary screen. The glowing curves of its graphic display showed that the ozone outgassing from the Martian dust in the airlock was now down almost to zero.
"The accident’s got everybody pretty down," Connors was saying worriedly. "Dr. Li has been on the horn with Kaliningrad for hours now. God knows what they’re going to do."
"But nothing went wrong with the equipment," Jamie said. "The cosmonaut and the rest of the team worked just the way they’ve been trained. Konoye just had a stroke."
"Or panicked for some reason and then suffered the stroke," Vosnesensky said, heavy with gloom.
Connors was also deeply somber. "Whatever happened, the politicians are going apeshit. It doesn’t look good to have somebody killed.
"He wasn’t killed," Jamie snapped. "He died."
"D’you think that matters in Tokyo? Or Washington?" Connors growled.
"No, I guess it doesn’t."
Vosnesensky said, "We will start back at first light tomorrow morning, as ordered. In the meantime, I will transmit to you all the videotape and other data we have accumulated."