She had gone on arguing with him, continuously, while her conviction grew that the most valuable discovery they would ever make on Mars must lie somewhere here in the Mariner Valley. And as her conviction grew that out in the thousands of square kilometers of this tremendous canyon system, she alone could find that proof . . .
Petra wrapped the collar of her bathrobe tightly under her chin. Even though this small temporary base was buried under two meters of insulating soil, the determined Martian cold crept in, and it was always coldest just before the dawn. And darkest. Anger drove the chill out of her again as she remembered Mitradati’s contemptuous sarcasm, the hostility lying so clearly below the surface of his ‘rational’ mind: “Simply because it’s 2001, Petra, that doesn’t mean an alien monolith is waiting for us.” The taunt still stung her…No: Haunted her. Haunted—She remembered the look on his face, as though he hadn’t expected to say the words himself. And she remembered the almost physical pain as the words burst into stars behind her eyes. In that instant certainty had crystalized out of the vague urges moving her forward, and she had known what she had to do. As she knew it now. . . .
Petra swore softly and crossed the room to her dresser, pulled open a drawer. The first time she had seen Shiraz Mitradati, among the scientists awaiting departure from L2 for the journey to Mars, she had been strongly attracted to him. But it had been purely a physical attraction, and abruptly short-circuited. Mitradati was an Iranian: although Iran had used its oil money to catch up with the 20th Century (before clean hydrogen fusion had made oil obsolete), she had discovered that social progress—at least as far as Mitradati was concerned—had not kept up with technological progress. He was a believer in Iran’s old regime, who would have been much happier in her presence, she suspected, if she’d been wearing a veil.
But once they reached Little Earth on Mars they had gone their separate ways, on separate research projects; up until three months ago, when she had joined this particular geological team, a team that Shiraz Mitradati was nominally in charge of. Neither Elke nor Shailung seemed to feel the same irritation with Mitradati that she did, and she had wondered whether it was all her own fault, her own outspokenness, her own opinionation…Damn it! I’m teaching at Harvard because I happen to have something to say. It took two to make an argument. Shiraz had refused a perfectly reasonable request to let her investigate her find more fully, and his growing irrational hostility had nothing to do with ‘reason’ or ‘logic’ It was no wonder her own conviction had hardened into an obsession; that even while she was awake the need to go on with her search filled her mind. He had no right to stop her; why should she let him stand in her way, she didn’t have to—
Petra blinked, shivering violently; found herself half-naked, in the act of getting dressed. She stood for a moment staring down at the bulky red sweater clutched between her hands in a death-grip, watched her hands begin to tremble. Then she pulled the sweater roughly on over her head, fastened her pants, and sat down to put on her worn sneakers. She could see the clock on the desk: almost 5:00. A quarter of an hour left until dawn; now was the time, before anyone else was awake. She couldn’t afford to have anyone stop her now—she stood at the mirror, folding her straight black hair into a knot at the back of her head, fastening it with a clip; moving methodically now, her face frozen into placidity. Dark eyes stared back at her from the mirror, her own eyes, screaming at her silently, What are you doing to me? She shook her head at the caged image, “Oy, Gottenyu, Petra—” She picked up her flashlight and left the room.
She walked silently down the dim hallway, knowing that the room partitions were paper thin. She slipped into the dark stairwell midway along it, switched on her flashlight and went down the steps into the storage area. She needed a vehicle, her pressure suit, and—the other thing she had to find. She moved cautiously among piled crates and equipment, following a thin streamer of light through the dark room, and through the blackness that clotted her brain. This was the right thing, the only rational thing to do ... then why am I so afraid?
The room filled with light, an explosion against her senses. She cried out in surprise and protest, turning—
“Shiraz!” Squinting against the sudden brightness she pulled the figure into focus. She raised her hand with the flashlight to shield her eyes, half threatening. “What are you doing here?” An accusation.
“I might ask the same of you.” She thought there was a trace of sullenness in his accented Oxford English.
“I’m going to prove I’m right. I’m going out to find…to find—it.” She glanced down, confused, as the image slipped away from her. She looked up again, brandishing the heavy flashlight as he moved. “Don’t get in my way, Shiraz! I’ll kill you if I have to,” knowing, desperately, that she meant every word of it.
“I know you will. I’d do the same, to you, to anybody, now.” He moved away from the out-curve of the wall, coming toward her, his hands open and empty. “Petra, listen to me. I’m not here to stop you. I’ve come for the same reason you have.”
“Don’t try to humor me, Shiraz. It won’t work.”
“Humor you! For God’s sake! Do I look like I want to be here?” He was close enough now that she could see his eyes, see the fury and the desperation that mirrored her own. “I don’t want to be here! But I couldn’t help myself ... I couldn’t stop it. Could you—?” with something in his voice that she had never heard before.
“No.” She shook her head, her hand dropped to her side. “I couldn’t stop it, either…But all this time, you denied it! Why?”
“How could I admit to a thing like that? That I heard ‘voices’ whispering in my head—like some bloody lunatic. People would have thought I was mad!” She saw his fists tighten, and waited for the outburst. But he only said at last, wearily, “I’m sorry.”
She looked down, rubbing her hand across her mouth. “Yes, so am I. We should try not to make this any harder than it is.” She realized for the first time that he was already wearing his pressure suit. She turned away, picking a path through the boxes and equipment to the locker, to take out her own suit. She watched her tiny, crumpled image reflecting over and over as she pulled it on. “We’ll have to hurry if we want to get out of here before anyone wakes up.” She listened to her mind, watching her body obey it unquestioningly—the way a stranger would, the way she watched her reflections move, echoes of her self.
“I know.” Shiraz tested his air tanks.
“We have explosives here, don’t we? Where are they? We’ll need them—”
“It’s taken care of. I’ve already put what we want in the back of the buggy.”
“Good.” She nodded, checking her own suit. “Do you—do you know why?”
“No. Do you?”
“No.” She looked away, down the long half-cylinder of the lower level, toward the air lock. “I don’t like being somebody’s golem.”
She walked slowly along the floor platform, awkward in her insulated suit, to the balloon-tired exploration vehicles parked side by side. “Which one?”
Shiraz followed. “The first one. That’s where I put the bomb.”
She opened the door and climbed in on the driver’s side; he got in on the other, without protest. She wondered whether he was too tense to drive; managed a brief sympathy for the extra strain his inability to accept this nightmarish loss of control must add to the tangle of emotions that already held them both. She leaned past the seat’s headrest, glanced into the back of the pressurized cab; saw the drab, unremarkable metal container waiting, and the red radiation trefoil on its side. “Oh, my God…” They had set off small, clean atomic blasts to create measurable seismic tremors in their analysis of the planet’s core. But why do we need one now? She turned back, fastening her safety harness. “Do you know how to detonate one of these? I’ve never—worked with one.” He shrugged, wiping away sweat. “I’ve watched it done.” She nodded. She checked the fuel gauge, not sure how far they were going: Full, as usual, a full one liter of water. She started the fusion power unit.