She stood up, waited for the other three to join her, then said, “We, the surviving members of the first human expedition to Mars, honor the memory of Ludwig Holter, Alta McIntosh-Mohammad, and Zoe Nash. Without the lessons learned from their sacrifice, our own return to Earth would have been impossible.”
Jenny gasped, and all four bowed their heads. They stood shaky-legged and silent for half a minute in the long-awaited air and gravity of Earth. At last Celine looked up and made her first inspection of their surroundings.
She stood at the end of a long stretch of tarmac about fifteen meters wide and three hundred meters long. By her side the orbiter was nose-down and buried deep in a bank of snow that had damped the force of its collision. The ship was ruined and might never fly again, but crazy Reza could take pride in his piloting. Even orbiter specialists expected a runway twice as long and wide as this one.
Beyond the runway, hugging the ground and partly dug into it, Celine counted half a dozen wooden buildings. Gray smoke rose from the chimneys of three of them, and the snow had melted from their roofs. Around the runway, trees clad in the foliage of late spring stood bowed down by snow. More deep snow covered the bushes and ground between them. In the distance, white hills stretched to the horizon. The orbiter had landed in the deepest part of a valley. The air that filled Celine’s nostrils was rich with strange but familiar smells, of smoke and pine needles and resin. She stretched her arms wide, luxuriating in wide spaces and open sky. The air was colder than she had expected.
“And you told me,” Jenny said, “that the temperature on Earth is higher because of supernova heating?” It was less a question than a skeptical jibe intended for Reza, but Wilmer answered.
“Globally, and overall. But the effects you’re most likely to notice are the fluctuations from normal weather. Like now. Much more chilly than usual for this time of year. Somewhere else, maybe down at the South Pole, it’s one big heat wave.”
“Then take me to the South Pole,” said Jenny. Her teeth were starting to chatter. Celine suspected most of that was nervous reaction. On the other hand, Jenny was thin and lightly built, and she had removed her jacket on entering the Clark to provide a little more padding to the hammock.
“We have to get inside,” Celine said. She gestured toward the buildings. “Inside there. They must have heat.”
“And a place to rest.” Jenny took a trial step, then another. “If we can walk that far. Ooh, Earth gravity. My legs feel like spaghetti.”
Reza took her arm to help her. “Come on. Walk. We have to.”
“Maybe not.” Wilmer pointed along the valley, to a building shaped like an A-frame barn. The front had opened to reveal three odd-looking machines. They were painted dark red and had balloon tires, and a handful of people stood clustered around each one.
“We don’t need to walk,” Celine said. “They’ve noticed our arrival. We can relax. Thank God, we made it. We’re home from Mars.”
20
Saul was explaining to Yasmin the history of his relationship with Tricia. The facts were easy, though he didn’t quite understand why he was offering them; and Yasmin did not ask.
Did not ask that question, at least; she asked a hundred others. Did Tricia know of his political aspirations when they first met? Had he been in a relationship of his own at the time? How old was Tricia? Was he upset by her multiple marriages and divorces? Did he know her previous husbands personally? Her present husband? Did he know her family? Had she met his mother and his sister? Did she know how much he was worth? Did she, in fact, even realize that he was rich?
As soon as they finished eating they moved into the next room, a small lounge with two old armchairs in front of a fireplace and a fake log fire. The room was heated by hot-water radiators that creaked and cracked as they expanded and contracted, so that Saul constantly glanced into the corners to see what else was going on in the room. He had come to the story of that final evening, when he had told Tricia that all thoughts of marriage must be postponed until after the election. At a critical moment, just as he was trying to recall his own exact words, the overhead lights flickered and dimmed to an orange glow.
He looked at Yasmin questioningly and she shook her head. “Nothing to do with me. It’s midnight, and they’ve gone to low power to conserve energy. I suspect someone is trying to tell us it’s bedtime. Go on.”
The mood had changed as the hour advanced. Saul felt instinctively the shift in power dynamics. It was no longer a meeting of President and aide, but part of some undefined and evolving relationship. Differences of age and status were less relevant. Late at night, all cats are gray. And Yasmin’s eyes were tiger eyes, glinting a yellow reflection in the half-light. She had drawn her legs up beneath her on the armchair and was leaning forward, crouched and ready to spring. He thought she looked too beautiful to be true; but that was not why he had come to Indian Head.
“I told Tricia this didn’t change the way I felt about her,” he said. “And we didn’t have to wait forever. We just had to avoid being seen together until after the election.”
“Did she make a scene?”
“Not a bit. We were in a San Francisco restaurant, the Catch of the Bay. Tricia listened to me very quietly when I told her. Then she said she had to use the rest room. She left the table. And she never came back.”
“A shitty way to act, don’t you think?”
“I guess so.” Saul was convinced that Yasmin was talking about his action, not Tricia’s.
“Did you call her?”
“Of course I did. I was off on the campaign trail the next morning, but I called her as soon as I could. All I got that night was her message service.”
“Did you try to see her?” She rose from her chair in one fluid movement and came to perch on the broad arm of his.
“Not at once. I was all over the country, they had my every minute programmed. It was three weeks before Tricia and I were even in the same town. Then she wouldn’t see me. Four weeks later, when I was up in Vermont, I received a media report that she had married Joseph Goldsmith.” He wondered if the bitterness showed in his voice. “My staff briefed me about him. Someone who was everything I wasn’t, first families of Virginia, horses and hunting and estates and a pedigree back to the mid-1600s.”
“Was she seeing Goldsmith at the same time as she was seeing you?”
Saul stared. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t look amazed. It happens all the time where I come from. Go with one, keep another in cold storage just in case.”
“I don’t believe Tricia would do a thing like that.”
“That’s your option. But what’s your theory? You must have one.”
“I think she married on the rebound.”
“A woman scorned? But she wasn’t scorned, was she? She had been asked to wait a while, that’s all.” Yasmin was staring sightlessly at nothing, her tawny eyes wide. “Something doesn’t smell right. I need time to think about this.”
“I’ve thought about it endlessly.”
“Maybe. But you haven’t thought as a woman.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning you’re like a lot of men, charitable when it comes to women’s motives. Are you sure you told Tricia that you would marry her after the election?”
“Absolutely. I mean, I’m sure I said it, I couldn’t have been clearer. But she hardly seemed to be listening. She seemed preoccupied, even before we began to talk.”
“Did she have a key to where you were staying?”
“Yes. We were staying together.”
“You were lucky. If you dropped me the way you dropped her, I’d have been over that same night and fixed you for life.”