“But they were wrong,” Ivers blurted. “They forced Galileo to admit that the Sun goes around the Earth. That isn’t the way it is.”
Overmire replied, “No, the Church was not wrong. Galileo was put on trial not for his astronomical discoveries, as the secularist scientists would have you think. He was put on trial for disobeying the authority of the Church. And he was manifestly guilty of that, I assure you.”
Ivers fell speechless.
The archbishop went on, “We will not try to stop this renegade priest from spewing his heresy. We will simply make certain that his views are ignored by the public.”
Everyone around the gleaming table nodded agreement.
“True power,” said the archbishop, “can accomplish wonders. In two years’ time, when we have put our own man into the White House, then we can take off the gloves, so to speak. Then we can show everyone how much power we have to wield. Everyone, including the secularist scientists.”
Tithonium Chasma: Morning
From up in the cockpit Hasdrubal heard water running in the lavatory. Turning, he saw Rosenberg shuffling through the narrow gap between their two bunks.
”Lookin’ kinda bleary this morning,” he said cheerfully.
Still in his skivvies, Rosenberg plopped into the right-hand cockpit seat. And winced. “It’s cold,” he said.
“Put on your coveralls, you’ll warm up.”
Rosenberg nodded glumly. “Had breakfast?”
“Nope. I been waitin’ for you.”
“I’ll boil some water.” Rosenberg got up from the seat, the bare skin of his legs making a soft sucking sound against the pseudoleather.
“The solar cells are recharging the batteries,” Hasdrubal called back to the galley.
“Good,” said Rosenberg.
“Thought you’d wanna know. Make you feel better.”
“Thanks.”
While Rosenberg dressed, Hasdrubal checked in with the controller back at base. Once he started smelling the instant coffee, Hasdrubal ended his call and, turning, saw that Rosenberg had pulled up the table between their bunks. He got up and went to his bunk as Rosenberg put down two bowls of boiled oatmeal and a pair of steaming mugs of coffee.
“When do we start back?” Rosenberg asked, sliding onto his bunk.
“Base wants us to bring back some of the hopper’s wreckage.”
“For diagnosis.”
“Yeah.”
Looking forward through the camper’s cockpit windows, Rosenberg said, “There isn’t that much to retrieve.”
“Accident investigation people back Earthside want as much as we can show ’em. Help them nail down the cause of the explosion.”
“But we already know that, don’t we?”
“Not officially.”
Rosenberg frowned and muttered something too low for Hasdrubal to hear.
“I’ll do it,” the biologist said. “You don’t have to go out.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“I want to. I shouldn’t let this get to me the way it did last night.”
“Hey, we all get the spooks, one time or another.”
“You didn’t.”
“I got my troubles, man.”
“Such as?”
Hasdrubal grimaced. “Don’t tell anybody.”
Rosenberg looked up at him. “Of course not.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, certainly. What is it?”
“I’m scared of spiders.”
“Spiders?”
“Saw some dumb-ass video when I was a kid, about giant spiders eatin’ people. Scared the shit out of me. Still does.”
Rosenberg broke into a gentle smile. “Well, in that case, my friend, I suggest you stay on Mars. The nearest spider is millions of kilometers away.”
Carter Carleton felt nervous in the flimsy nanosuit. He had to admit that it was lighter and much more flexible than the hard-shell he usually wore to go outside the dome, but still—there was nothing between him and the near-vacuum of the Martian atmosphere except a layer of nanofabric no more than a few molecules thick. He knew it was his imagination, but he could feel the hard radiation from deep space slashing through the transparent fabric and tearing apart the DNA in his body’s cells.
Walking beside him, Doreen McManus asked, “Isn’t this better than that clunky old hard suit?”
“I suppose,” Carleton said, without his heart in it. The things a man will do just to get laid, he told himself. Not that Doreen’s made an issue of it. She’s damned persistent, though.
They had spent the day at the dig, as usual, Carleton wearing his hard suit. But once they came back inside at the end of the long hours and vacuumed off the dust they’d picked up, Doreen had quickly peeled off her nanosuit and started to help Carleton with his more cumbersome outfit.
“It’s like a knight’s armor,” Doreen said as she helped Carleton lift the torso up over his head.
“That’s one of the things I like about these old suits,” Carleton rejoined. “The romance of it all.”
She laughed. “You’re just a fuddy-duddy.”
“I’m glad you didn’t say an old fuddy-duddy.”
Once they had tucked the various pieces of his suit into its locker, Carleton started toward the cafeteria.
But Doreen reached for his arm. “Carter, wait.”
“You’re not hungry?”
“No. Not now.”
“I’m starving. How can you spend all day out in the field and not work up an appetite?”
Suddenly she looked pained. “Carter… we’ve got to talk.”
A twitch of alarm flashed through him.
“Talk?” That means trouble, he knew. Always.
Doreen said, “Let’s go outside.”
“Outside? Again? We just got back—”
“Please. Just for a few minutes. You can wear a nanosuit; it won’t take you more than a minute or two to get into it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“For me, Carter. Please?”
He stood there gazing into her big gray-green eyes. They were troubled, he saw, even though she was trying to smile for him.
“All right,” he said, wondering if this was just a ploy to get him to try the damned nanosuit.
Now they stood a dozen paces outside the main airlock, Carleton feeling decidedly edgy in the flimsy suit, with the ridiculous inflated balloon of a helmet over his head. Doreen stood in moody silence beside him. It was nearly sunset. Temperature must be down to fifty below, Carleton groused to himself. Still, he had to admit, it’s comfortable enough inside this glorified raincoat. Except for the radiation. The thought made his skin crawl.
To their left rose the towering cliffs of the canyon, the slanting rays of the setting sun casting shadows that brought out every seam and wrinkle in the ancient rocks. The glowing disk of the sun hung above the horizon on their right, small and wan, reminding Carleton that they were a long, long way from home.
“All right,” he said, with a cheerfulness he didn’t really feel, “I’m wearing the suit. Are you satisfied?”
“Carter, we have to talk.”
That again.
Doreen reached into the pouch on her right thigh and pulled out a hair-thin wire. Plugging it into a hardly visible socket on the collar ring of her suit, she held the other end out to Carleton. He stepped closer and let her plug the wire into his suit’s receptacle.
“There, now we can talk without using the radios.”
So no one can overhear us, Carleton realized. Her voice sounded different over the wire, edgier, brittle.
Trying to hide his growing irritation, Carleton asked, “What’s this all about, Dorrie?”