Jack Dann - Dangerous Games

“Can we do this clean? Can we make it look like we never had plans for the centrifuge, the backout stuff, all that?”

“I’m sure we can arrange something.”

Jere let the silence stretch out. Evan was watching him intently. In the dim light of the office, his weathered features could have been the craggy face of a demon.

“Do it,” Jere said finally, softly. Hating himself.

Wheeling had been easy back on Earth. The training had been out in the Mojave, nice smooth sand and little rocks that you could bounce over easy, and nice and flat as far as you could see.

But Wheeling was a bitch and a quarter here on Mars. Keith Paul gritted his teeth as he came to another long downhill run, scattered with boulders as big as houses and ravines that could catch the edge of the wheel and fuck him up good. He’d already dug the Wheel out twice, once when he swerved to avoid a slope that would pitch it over and ended up in a ditch, and once when he got to bouncing and bounced over a hill into a ravine.

And man, did it bounce! Whenever it hit a rock. Sometimes a foot, sometimes a couple, sometimes ten or twenty feet in the air.

They probably got some good vid of my terrified mug , Keith thought. That wasn’t good. Weakness was never good.

But he was being strong on other things. He was making good time across the desert. He’d been up rolling at the moment dawn’s light made the landscape even dimly guessable.

Other idiots are probably picking their way along like grandma in a traffic jam, he thought, and smiled. Because he was going to win.

And he was strong on the offers, too. Everyone had talked to him. Both the PA idjits, the associate director, Frank, everyone. They’d promised him everything but a blow-job and a hot dog, but the money hadn’t changed.

Almost on cue, the voice. This time it was Frank.

“We’re prepared to make you another offer,” Frank said.

“Shoot.”

“It’s our final offer,” Frank said. “And it’s a very generous one. By air, you have a good chance of being able to pick up the Ruiz team and take the prize as well. You are currently leading the three remaining teams by a fair margin.”

“What’s the offer?”

“Three million. Plus all the gifts and benefits we’ve discussed before.”

Keith shook his head.

“Keith?” Frank said.

“Yeah.”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re very bad at math.” Though the idea was intriguing. With three million, he could live pretty well down in Mexico…

No! Stupid! You’re a winner. You’re in the lead. Three is not thirty.

Frank sighed. “It’s our final offer,” he said.

“No.”

Silence for a time. “Your decision has been noted,” Frank said. He didn’t sound surprised.

Noted?

“What does that mean?” Keith said. Like, were they going to try to disqualify him or something?

Silence.

“Ass! What the hell does ‘noted’ mean?”

Silence.

“Fuck you, then!”

Silence. On and on.

Was it possible that he could run this whole thing and not win due to some technicality? No. No. He was a winner. He was going to win.

And if they tried to take that away from him, God help them.

Evan hadn’t believed Jere about Russia. Now he did. All it took was a couple of days of traveling into the hinterlands in the awful winter chill, grabbing cold-slick vinyl seats as their drivers deftly slid around potholes on the treacherous black-ice roads, potholes that looked as if they could hide black bears, potholes that looked like they could swallow the car, potholes so big and deep and dark they might have gone straight through to some beautiful tropical beach in Brazil.

Now they were standing under the bulk of the main launcher, all four of them, Evan and John Glenn and even Ron Gutierrez, his ever-smiling dad. Not really John Glenn, of course, but that’s what everyone called him. Frank Sellers, another good generic white-boy name. He was a wannabe-astronaut, never really flew anything after his training in the 80s, something about the shuttle blowing up. Now he was training to fly the Mars Enterprise (some money from the Roddenberry estate). Frank was one of the concessions they’d won. The Russians could build it, fine, but it had to be an American pilot. The spikes on the preliminary audience surveys were real clear on that fact.

When Frank first came down, he’d referred to the Enterprise as the Trash Can, and the name had stuck. The comparison was apt. It was squatty and cylindrical, and it did have a utilitarian functionality, and it was even somewhat battered and dirty-looking.

“How goes it?” Evan said, after they’d made their intros.

“Good, good,” Frank said. “We’ve had some problems with the electrical systems, nothing major, just the usual shakedown crap, and they’re worried a bit about the air, but I think…”

“The air?” Ron said. “On a journey this long?”

Frank shrugged. “They’ll make it work,” he said.

“It doesn’t seem very confidence-inspiring.”

“If you could have seen half the stuff I saw behind the scenes at NASA, you wouldn’t worry. These are good guys. They’ll figure it out.”

“If you say so.”

The grand tour was less than impressive. Wires hung from open panels while teams of dirty Russians shot heated phrases back and forth with expressions of deep frustration and anger. There was a steady drip in the cockpit that tick-tick-ticked onto the synthetic material of the acceleration seat. When Ron ran a finger across it and looked up questioningly, Frank just shook his head. “Condensation. Can’t help it with so many people in here. They’ll flush it before we launch.”

When they were back out in the freezing cold again, and well away from Russian ears, Ron turned to Jere and said, “Would you fly in this?”

“Of course,” Jere said. Not a bit of hesitation. Not a bit. He knew how to deal with Dad.

The older man looked up and down the ship. “If you need more money…”

And be even more in your debt? “No,” Jere said.

“You sure?”

I’m sure I don’t want to hear you remind me about how you bailed me out again. Jere nodded and turned to Evan. “We’re on schedule?”

“Unless Frank tells me different.”

“We’ll make it,” Frank said. “No problemo.”

Later, when they were back in the car for another freezing, terrifying ride back to the hotel, Ron spoke again.

“Do you get the feeling that Frank wants this to work a little too much?”

“How’s that?” Evan said.

“He’s an astronaut. But he never flew.”

“So?”

A frown. “So maybe he wants to fly. Really badly.”

“Sometimes a little enthusiasm is a good thing,” Evan said.

Ron turned to Jere. “What do you think?”

Pretend to consider, then answer. “I think it’s good we have someone who loves what he does.”

Silence from Ron. Then: “I hope you’re right.”

Last. Dead last. No denying it now. No excuses. It had taken them way too long to assemble the Wheel that morning, far longer than they had taken back on Earth. Blame it on the cold, or the parts that didn’t want to fit together, but facts were facts.

And yet Glenn was strangely happy, oddly content. Just like that one freeclimb in Tibet, when it was clear they were beaten, hanging exhausted from numb fingertips beneath a thin sun rapidly disappearing behind a front of ominous purple-grey clouds. That moment when he realized they weren’t going to make it, that they would have to go back down. The stress and the worry suddenly lifted from him. And his great surprise when Alena agreed with him. They scrambled down the rock as the icy rain hit.