His eyes flicking from the descending hopper to the displays on the control panel, Hasdrubal touched the joystick with a fingertip.
“Just a smidge closer…”
The rocket nozzle flared bright hot gas for a flash of a second. From inside the camper’s cockpit they heard it as a thin shriek. The hopper seemed to hesitate in midair, then slowly descended, like an old man settling into an invisible chair. Smaller methane gas jets puffed from around the edges of the octagon and then the hopper touched down, its insect-thin legs bending slightly.
“There y’are,” said Hasdrubal grandly as he shut down the controls. “Easy as pie.”
Rosenberg grinned weakly at his partner.
“I told you—”
The hopper blew up in a bright explosion of white-hot flame billowing into the thin air. The shock wave rocked the camper.
“Holy shit!” yelled Hasdrubal.
Rosenberg closed his gaping mouth with an audible click, then tried to speak, but found his throat was too parched and constricted to get out any words.
Tithonium Base: The Garden
Jamie was in the greenhouse dome with Kalman Torok, kneeling in the reddish sandy strip between rows of string bean and pea plants. Most of the dome was devoted to long hydroponics trays, where soybeans, cereal grains and fruits were being grown without soil. But this little patch of a garden was Torok’s work. Sunlight poured through the transparent wall of the dome; it felt pleasantly warm inside.
“You should have seen the look on Chang’s face when I asked him for a shipment of beetle grubs and earthworms,” Torok was saying, his round face split into a happy grin. “The old sourpuss looked as if I’d suddenly grown horns.”
Jamie smiled back. “But it’s worked. You’ve turned this sterile ground into productive soil.”
Digging his fingers into the faintly pinkish dirt, Torok corrected, “It wasn’t sterile, not completely. Damned little organic material in it, but there was some. We had to bake all the oxides out, of course.”
He held a palmful of dirt up to Jamie’s face. “Smell it. Go ahead, take a whiff.”
Jamie sniffed. “It… it almost smells like dirt back home.”
“Almost,” said Torok, still smiling. “It’s taken two years of work, but we’ve almost got a plot of terrestrial soil here on Mars.”
Jerking with surprise, Jamie saw a tiny black beetle push its way out of the dirt and crawl feebly across the clump in Torok’s hand.
The biologist laughed. “One of my assistants.”
Jamie grinned back at him as Torok gently deposited the handful of dirt back on the ground and patted it smooth. Both men straightened to their feet.
“The next resupply mission will include a shipment of genetically engineered bacteria that can fix nitrogen for cereal grains,” Torok said. “If that works we’ll be able to grow our own wheat!”
Looking over the tiny garden, Jamie asked, “Do you think you could grow enough food to feed the whole team here?”
Torok’s smile faded. “It’s not worth the effort. The hydroponics system is cheaper.”
“Really? I thought—”
“Hydroponics takes a lot of water and nutrients, yes. But we recycle the water, and to turn Martian ground into productive soil you’d need to start by baking the oxides out, then bring in earthworms and beetles and such to aerate the dirt, and pump in nutrients by the ton to make up for the lack of organics, and—”
“We can build solar energy farms to provide electricity for baking out the oxides,” Jamie interrupted. “And power the lamps, as well,” he added, glancing up at the rows of full-spectrum lights hanging from the dome’s superstructure. “That’s what they do at Selene.”
“You’d also have to seal the entire area, lay a concrete slab under it with a bioguard sheet to prevent back contamination into the Martian environment, surround it with more concrete and bioshields.”
“That adds to the expense.”
“And how,” Torok said. “In time, though, I suppose you could make a garden big enough to be self-sufficient, recycling organic wastes the way they grow crops at Selene.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Raising his heavy dark eyebrows, Torok said, “Well, as I said, the big problem is back contamination. You don’t want terrestrial organisms getting loose out in the Martian environment.”
Jamie looked through the dome’s transparent wall at the frigid, barren desert outside. “Earth plants couldn’t survive for five minutes out there.”
“Plants, no,” said Torok. “But the microorganisms that live on them and in them—maybe yes. Those microbes are tough, and a lot of them are anaerobic. They don’t need oxygen to survive.”
Jamie nodded. “You’re afraid they’d infect the Martian environment.”
“It’s a long shot, I admit. But we’ve got to protect the local environment against back contamination. Remember, it wasn’t gunpowder and cavalry that destroyed the Native Americans; it was the microbes the Europeans brought with them that killed off men, beasts and plants.”
Jamie nodded, thinking, We’re aliens here. Visitors. We’re not Martians and we never will be, no matter how much we want to be. If we’re not careful we could wipe out what’s left of Mars’s native species, just like the whites decimated the Native Americans.
“But if we could protect the environment from contamination?” Jamie asked. “What then?”
With a shrug, Torok replied, “Building farms big enough to feed the whole crew here will take a lot of time. And money. In the beginning you’ll have to bring in the nutrients and aerators and every gram of everything else you need from Earth. That’s expensive.”
“It’s a project worth doing, if we’re going to stay on Mars.”
Torok’s smile returned, but it was melancholy now. “If, Dr. Waterman. If.”
“Can you do it?” Jamie asked.
“It can be done, I suppose. But I won’t be here to carry it through.”
“You’re leaving?”
“My term ended two months ago. I’ve told Chang I’ll leave on the next resupply flight.”
Jamie stared at the biologist for a silent moment, then spread his arms. “But all this… you’d leave this behind you?”
With a dejected shake of his head, Torok replied, “My wife is suing for divorce back in Budapest. If I don’t get back she’ll win custody of my children.”
“Oh,” was all that Jamie could think to say. But then he heard himself suggesting, “Maybe she could come here to be with you…
“Two sons, ages four and six. And she won’t leave Hungary, let alone travel to Mars.”
“But what about this farm? What’s going to happen to your work?”
Torok’s brows contracted almost into a solid line. “I’ve asked several of my colleagues to look after it. That black giant, the American with the odd name, he showed some interest.”
“Hasdrubal,” Jamie said.
“Yes, Hasdrubal. He said he’d tend my garden—when he’s not busy with other responsibilities.”
Jamie realized there was nothing he could do. Torok was leaving, and his experiment would die of neglect without him.
His pocket phone buzzed. Jamie was glad of the interruption.
“Dr. Waterman, you have an incoming message from Mr. Trumball in Boston.”
Looking at Torok’s glum face, Jamie said, “I’ve got to get back to my office.”
He hurried to the tube that connected the greenhouse dome to the main structure of the base.
Dex Trumball was excited, Jamie could see even on the small wall screen.