“There are the medical technicians, though,” said Vijay.
“Of course. Five of them. Usually they outnumber our patients.”
“What you’re saying is that you don’t need me.”
Quintana shook her head hard enough to make her mousy hair flutter. “You are here because you are Jamie Waterman’s wife and you want to be with your husband. You are also a trained physician with a background in psychology. It would be foolish not to use your talents in some manner.”
“Yes, but how?”
Pursing her lips, Quintana said, “You tell me. You’ve seen the infirmary and the kinds of cases we get here. What can you do to help?”
Vijay hesitated, thinking, She’s batted the ball back into my side of the court.
“I don’t require an answer this minute,” Quintana said. “Take your time. Think about it.”
“I know what I’d like to do,” Vijay said.
“Yes?”
“I’d like to run a psych profile on the people here. Not the kind of multiple-choice tests they beam up from Earth, but real, personal, in-depth interviews with as many of the personnel as will sit down with me.”
“You plan to write a paper for a psychology journal?”
Nodding, Vijay said, “That would be appropriate, don’t you think? A psychological profile of the men and women on Mars. You and I could be coauthors.”
“I am not a psychologist.”
“No, but you’re the chief physician here. Your input and insights would be very important to the study. Either way, I’ll be available to help you with your patients in any way I can, whenever you need me.”
Quintana tapped her desk top absently. Vijay noted that her fingernails were unpolished and clipped very short. Yet the nails on her right hand were longer and well-shaped.
“You play the guitar?” she asked.
Quintana blinked with surprise. “My father taught me when I was a little girl. I brought two of them to Mars with me.”
“How wonderful. I can play piano a little.”
“No piano here.” Quintana’s suspicion and anxiety eased somewhat. “But I can teach you the guitar, if you like.”
Tithonium Chasma: Excursion Team
“I have good news and bad news,” said Izzy Rosenberg.
Puffing from exertion, Hasdrubal looked up from the tubular probe sticking out of the rust-colored sand. “Is this a joke?”
Rosenberg was inside the camper, checking the data from the miniature sensors down at the business end of the probe.
“I wish it were,” he said. His voice sounded worried in Hasdrubal’s headphone.
Looking toward the camper, parked twenty-some meters from the probe, Hasdrubal said guardedly, “Tell me the good news first, then.”
“The GC/MS has picked up a whiff of carbon.”
“Carbon?” Hasdrubal stood up straighter. He could feel his eyes go wide. The gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer analyzed the gases boiled out of the rock by the laser pulses.
“Where? How deep?”
“At the thirty-meter level, rather where the foundations of the village should be.”
“Carbon?” Hasdrubal repeated. “Like, from something organic?”
“It could be,” said Rosenberg, his voice curiously flat, unexcited. “Fossilized wood, perhaps. Construction material.”
“Or the remains of a body!”
“Whatever. It’s definitely not the rock we’ve been drilling through above that level. It must be part of the village. Building foundations, perhaps.”
“Yow!” Hasdrubal leaped into the air and flung his arms over his head joyfully.
“You haven’t heard the bad news, Sal.”
“Bad news?”
“The laser’s drained our battery power almost completely.”
“That’s not so bad. We’ll recharge ’em from the solar cells.”
“Not enough sunlight left in the day. Besides, the resupply hopper is due in fifteen minutes. By the time we set it down and transfer the supplies to the camper the sun will be on the horizon.”
“Recharge ’em tomorrow, then, first light.” Hasdrubal started walking toward the camper.
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“The fuel cells’re okay, aren’t they?”
“So far.”
Frowning inside his collapsible bubble helmet, Hasdrubal snapped, “What th’hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Rosenberg answered, “I don’t like going through the night without the batteries to back up the fuel cells.”
Yanking open the airlock’s outer hatch, Hasdrubal smiled as he said, “Don’t be chicken, Izzy. We got plenty of power.”
“I suppose so.”
“You’re a worrywart, Izzy,” said Hasdrubal, climbing into the coffin-sized airlock. He sealed the outer hatch and touched the keypad that started the pumps chugging. “You oughtta relax, enjoy life, like me.”
“Extraordinary.” In Hasdrubal’s headset, Rosenberg’s voice sounded halfway between astonishment and disgust. “We’re two days’ ride from the safety of the base, alone out here in a glorified omnibus without a working backup power system, the temperature outside is already twenty-nine below zero, and there’s nothing between us and this near-vacuum that’s pretending to be an atmosphere except a few millimeters of metal, and you say I should relax. Extraordinary. Simply extraordinary.”
The airlock panel cycled from red light through amber and into green. Hasdrubal chuckled as he popped the inner hatch. Izzy’s twitchy today. Wonder what’s really bothering him?
He pulled his nanofabric bubble helmet off his head and unsealed the torso of the suit.
“What’s itchin’ you, buddy? Your shorts twisted or something?”
From up in the cockpit Rosenberg answered, “The supply rocket’s due in eleven minutes. I just got a confirmation from the base.
“Okay,” said Hasdrubal as he stepped past the folded-up bunks and slipped into the cockpit’s right-hand seat. “I’ll bring her in, no sweat.”
Rosenberg wasn’t perspiring, but he looked decidedly edgy.
“Relax, pal.” Hasdrubal tapped at the control panel’s keyboard, changing the touchscreen displays from their usual configuration to the setup for guiding the resupply hopper down to a soft landing.
“Base says the hopper’s oxygen tank pressure is low.”
Hasdrubal peered at the displays that sprang up on the panel. “Yeah, so I see. A smidge. Nothing to worry about.”
“It’s dropping,” Rosenberg said, pointing to the graph curves with a shaky finger.
“Yeah, yeah. Still plenty good enough. Damn tank’s prob’ly sprung a pinhole leak. We’ll have to fix it once she’s down.”
“In the dark?”
“Tomorrow. Stop worrying.”
Rosenberg got up from the driver’s seat and headed back toward the lavatory. Hasdrubal studied the displays. Everything nominal except for the oxy tank pressure, and that wasn’t anything to really worry about.
By the time Rosenberg returned to the cockpit the hopper’s radio beacon was sending a strong beeping signal. Hasdrubal leaned back in his seat.
“She’s comin’ right down the pipe,” he said to Rosenberg, as Izzy slipped into the left-hand seat. “I won’t even hafta touch a button.”
Still, he reached for the tiny T-shaped joystick that was tucked into a slot on the control panel and balanced it on his left knee.
“There it is!” Rosenberg shouted, rising halfway out of his seat.
They saw a black dot against the darkening saffron of the Martian sky. As the two men watched, the dot grew and took form: a boxy, octagonal shape with four spindly legs jutting out from corners of its structure and a rocket nozzle hanging from its underside. Adapted from the lander/ascent vehicles of the first Mars missions, the hoppers were now used to ferry supplies and equipment from Tithonium Base to teams in the field.