"Emergency oxygen," Townsend gasped, his voice high and tiny. "Switch 4A."
McGee saw it, two feet from his hand. Two feet too far. The room was going dark, and he had no strength left at all. He stretched his arm toward the switch and touched it, but then his vision blurred and he fainted... .
When McGee awoke, Rebecca was standing over him, holding a breathing mask to his mouth. Observing her concern and angelic countenance, he wondered if this might be heaven, but the sight of Colonel Townsend behind her brought him back to Mars. He opened his eyes to full awareness, and she removed the mask.
"What happened?"
"The cabin atmosphere cycler replaced all of our air with a helium/nitrogen mix. It's lucky you made it to the oxygen switch, Kevin, or we'd all be dead."
Townsend appeared confused. "I just don't see how a malfunction like this could happen."
Rebecca's eyes flashed. "Really? I think it's pretty easy to see who could make it happen."
The colonel shook his head. "Doctor, you're a sophisticated person. I expect you to be above such paranoia."
Even with an edge of anger in Rebecca's voice, her argument was coldly rational. "What's paranoid about my assessment? She's accused me of planning to kill her in the rover, then she disappears right before a convenient equipment failure occurs, something she could easily engineer. Gwen's got a motive for murder, and she's got the weapon for it. Q.E.D."
Just then Gwen entered the Hab, followed by Luke. They were greeted by looks of curiosity from Townsend and McGee, and icy suspicion from Rebecca. Gwen and Luke appeared puzzled.
"What's the matter, Gwen, have you just seen a ghost?" Rebecca challenged.
"Ghost?" Gwen scowled. "What are you talking about? What's going on here?"
"The cabin pumps just tried to replace our air with a mixture of helium and nitrogen." McGee's tone was level.
Rebecca's voice was sharp. "While you two were conveniently away. We all almost suffocated."
"You're accusing me?"
The doctor didn't blink. "Yes. Where were you, Major? And you, Luke?"
"We were in the ERV," the geologist replied simply.
"And what were you doing there?" Rebecca's voice was inquisitorial.
The flight mechanic put her hands on her hips. "That's none of your damn business!"
Townsend intervened with all the authority he could muster. "That's enough. There was no sabotage. Not here today, not two weeks ago in the rover. They were both machine malfunctions."
"Oh, is that the official story?" Rebecca asked dryly. "Convenient."
Her tone was so supercilious that the colonel got angry. "That is the story, the only story. And get this straight—" he removed his belt and held it menacingly in his hand, "I am prepared to flog anyone who says otherwise." With that, he whipped the belt down hard upon the table, making a loud and nasty sound. He looked threateningly around the room. "If I have to, I will enforce the strictest military discipline upon this crew. I don't want to do that, but, by God, I will if I have to. I don't care what you think of each other; we will function as a team, or we will all die. Starting right now, these social cliques are history. No more rednecks verses eggheads. Got that?"
Rebecca stared at the belt in disbelief. Flogging? As unbelievable as it sounded, something warned her the colonel was serious. None of the others had any doubts. As one they all responded: "Yes, sir."
Pleased, and slightly amazed at this response, Townsend continued: "Right. The rover sortie that begins tomorrow will include all four of you. It will do you good to be crammed together for a few days of exploration."
"That'll be a pretty tight fit," Luke commented.
"It'll be fine, if you just stop hating each other," the colonel responded.
The crew members looked uneasily at each other.
"If you don't, then do me a favor and don't come back."
CHAPTER 20
XANTHE TERRA
OCT. 27, 2012 16:40 MLT
THE PRESSURIZED ROVER was comfortable for two, but awfully snug for four—especially under such tense circumstances.
During the long sortie, Gwen drove with Luke beside her, pretending to watch the radar readouts. In the uneasy silence, the two tried with limited success to forget about McGee and Dr. Sherman in the seats behind them. The terrain was novel, for they had never been so far from base along this particular runoff channel. For Rebecca, such new landscape sights offered only a modest diversion; the others showed little interest at all.
Suddenly, the radar began to receive echo pings. Luke snapped out of his woolgathering. "I think we might be getting something."
Gwen ventured a side glance at the digital readout. Nothing she hadn't seen before. "You think. Tell me when you know. I don't want to drill another dud."
Luke could only shrug. "It's impossible to know for sure."
That was hardly good enough. Gwen shook her head. "Well, this time, we'll just keep driving until something really jumps out at us."
Again silence prevailed—if anything, made worse by the hopeless hope the weak echo pings offered.
Realizing how intolerable the situation was, McGee thought to begin a conversation. "I wonder how our man in the White House is doing. There's supposed to be a new poll out today."
In response, Gwen turned on the radio. "Beagle this is rover. Do you read?"
After an answering crackle of static, Townsend's voice said, "Beagle here. I read you clearly."
"Roger that, Beagle. Do you have the campaign scores?"
More crackles, then, "The President trails Fairchild, 39 to 55."
McGee shook his head. "And less than two weeks to go."
So much for that. Gwen picked up the mike again. "Got any baseball scores? How are the Braves doing?"
This time the time lag before a response was radioed seemed longer. "The season ended two weeks ago, Major."
Gwen was stunned. Was she losing it? "Yeah, I forgot," was all she could muster.
As if to rescue her from her embarrassment, a change of subject was offered by Townsend's radio voice. "How's the search going?" he crackled.
"We've had a couple of radar hits," she reported, "but nothing special, so I decided to keep driving."
There were more static and whistles, typical of late afternoon conditions when the thinning Martian ionosphere made the rover's over-the-horizon shortwave radio unreliable. Soon it would be nonoperable. Gwen adjusted the frequency, obtaining a clear channel only in time to get the last words of Townsend's reply.
"Rover, I repeat, it's getting late." Townsend's voice was briefly clear, then the crackles and whistles got stronger. "You might as well try the next hit you get, or there'll be no time for drilling today."
This made sense. There was no point pinging if you don't eventually drill.
"Roger. Rover out." Gwen terminated the radio connection.
"I've got something now." Luke seemed faintly excited, but noticing Gwen's cynical look, he added, "Nothing out of the ordinary, though."
Gwen stopped the rover and stretched. "Let's give it a try. Break out the gear, people. It's drilling time again."
With four crew members, it took little time to set up the lightweight drilling rig, but once it was operative they had nothing to do but wait as the bit hummed and chewed its way through the Martian regolith.
Late afternoon turned to twilight, and a magnificent sunset developed in the Martian west, made more brilliant by the bright presence of Earth, shining as a wonderful evening star. Sitting on a rock next to McGee, Rebecca was taken with the scene. "There's Earth. Look how beautiful she is. Yet so unreachable."