Geoffrey Landis - Mars Crossing

“You, too,” Tana said.

Ryan fetched a blanket, and then stripped. He hesitated for a moment at his underwear, and then turned his back and stripped them off. He quickly stepped behind Estrela and pulled her close, and then wrapped the blanket around the three of them.

But Tana had seen.

Christ almighty, how could he have a hard-on in a place like this? Tana thought. This is not an erotic situation. Just as quickly, she thought, I shouldn’t judge, it’s not as if he could help it. And at the same time, she thought, he got that from looking at Estrela, not me. I wish my body had an effect like that.

And then: It must be difficult for him, I guess.

“Come on, Estrela,” she said under her breath. “Warm up. Start to shiver. Come on, you idiot, you fool, you mad goose. Don’t die on us. Come on!”

She was still muttering it when she fell asleep.

After a full day powered up, the habitat was slightly warmer, but their breath still was visible in the air. Tana had spent the entire day inside, tending to Estrela. Ryan had spent it melting ice away from the rocket. Jesus do Sul now protruded vertically upward through the center of a deep shaft through the ice.

“I checked the rocket the best I can,” he said. “It’s in pretty remarkable shape for something that’s been sitting on the surface for so long. If there’s something wrong with it, it’s beyond my ability to diagnose.”

“Don’t tell me about the rocket,” Estrela said. She had mostly recovered from her episode of hypothermia, but she still looked pale. Spent. “I don’t care about the rocket. I want to know about João. What happened to João?”

Ryan shrugged. “Does it really matter?”

“It does matter!” she shouted. Her voice was hoarse, and it came out as a harsh whisper. “Tell me how João died!”

Ryan looked away. “They were poisoned.”

“What?” Estrela whispered hoarsely. “Tell me.”

Ryan sighed. “It was a simple mistake. Their fuel manufacturing plant made methane out of hydrogen, and it released carbon monoxide. No big deal; carbon monoxide is a natural component of the Martian atmosphere anyway. Do you remember that I had an episode of anoxia? The same thing happened to them. The sensors on their breathing electrolyzers were poisoned with sulfur contamination. But they were making fuel on the spot, so there was an excess of carbon monoxide. When their oxygen sensors failed, what got through was carbon monoxide. It poisoned them.”

“How do you know this?” Tana asked.

“Whose fault was it?” Estrela asked.

Ryan shrugged. “Once I knew what to look for, it wasn’t hard to see the evidence.”

“But whose fault was it?” Estrela insisted.

Ryan shrugged. “Nobody’s fault, really. It was an oversight.”

“An accident? It was just an accident?” She sat clown and looked away. “That’s all?”

“It was an accident. The same thing almost happened to us.” He looked up at her and saw that she was crying. “I’m sorry.”

Tana patted her on the back and echoed what Ryan said. “I’m sorry.”

It’s time,” Ryan said. “We have to choose.”

Everyone was silent.

Ryan held out his fist. The ends of three strips of paper protruded. “Pick a strip. One of the strips is shorter than the rest. The two long ones go home.”

Estrela shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’ve made my decision already. It doesn’t matter who draws which slip of paper. I’m staying.”

“What?” Ryan and Tana said, at almost exactly the same time.

Estrela smiled, a wan smile. “I surprised you, didn’t I?”

Ryan was gripped by a contradiction of emotions. His heart was telling him, let her stay here, let her stay, I’m going home. But his conscience told him that they couldn’t let her kill herself, not after all this; they were in here together. He said cautiously, “It’s a surprise, yes.” Then added, “But it wouldn’t be fair to have you make the sacrifice. We’ll all take the same chance.”

Estrela shook her head. “It doesn’t matter whether you go back or not. I’m staying here.”

“How would you survive?” Tana said.

Estrela tossed her hair, and for a moment a spark of her stubborn vitality showed through. “I can survive. I’ll go back to the American base; plenty of food and water there, plenty of supplies for the expedition that did not stay. Even a greenhouse.”

Ryan was startled. Yes, he thought, it might be possible. Maybe. “You can’t count on a rescue,” he said.

“In two more years they will send a ship,” she said. “Or maybe four. They will send the fourth expedition, and it will rescue me.”

She sounded so perfectly confident that for a moment Ryan believed it. Of course they would rescue her. Why had he ever thought they wouldn’t? And then common sense took over. “You can’t count on that,” he repeated.

Estrela shrugged. “Or six years. Or, maybe I won’t even wait for a ship. I’ll live here.”

“But, why?”

“I like it here,” Estrela said. “I’ve decided to stay.” She looked at them, looked at their surprised expressions, and laughed. “I know. You thought that I was a survivor, that I would do anything to get on the return trip. I thought that too. That’s why I killed Trevor, to take his spot.”

Tana looked up in surprise. “You—”

Estrela had a distant smile. She nodded. “Yes. That’s right. I killed him.”

Ah, Ryan thought. That should have been obvious. His death was too convenient. “Why?” he asked.

“Why do you think?” she snapped back. “Because only two of us could return. Because he was one more person who might make it back in what should have been my place. And because he was a liability to the expedition. That’s why.”

“What did you do?” Ryan asked.

Estrela looked him right in the eyes. “I stole the battery out of his emergency beacon,” she said, “and then I made sure his gyro compass was miscalibrated. And a couple of other little things like that. I wanted to make sure that if he got lost, he would stay lost. He was always sloppy in checking his equipment; I figured it would only be a matter of time before he got lost.”

“But why?” Tana said. “Are you sorry?”

“I told you. Somebody had to die. I decided it would be him.”

“I thought it was an accident,” Ryan said.

“Call it an accident, then,” she said. She shrugged. “I didn’t force him to wander around and get lost, I guess. You can call it an accident, if it makes you feel better.”

“And Commander Radkowski, too,” Ryan said, suddenly realizing. “You thought he wouldn’t pick you. So you killed him. It wasn’t Brandon at all; it was you!”

Estrela shook her head. “That was an accident. Sure, of course I wanted to kill Radkowski, didn’t you? But I’m not stupid. I was frantic when he died; I didn’t think we could make the pole without a leader.”

“An accident,” Ryan said slowly.

Estrela nodded. “He switched ropes at the last moment. He took the rope Trevor was supposed to use, and rappelled off the cliff before I could think of an excuse to stop him.”

“Shit,” Ryan said. “So what the hell are we supposed to do now?” He paused for a moment, and then asked, “and why are you telling us this? You were home free now. Why didn’t you just kill one of us? We never would have known.”

Estrela smiled. “I changed my mind.”

Tana used the day to continue her inventory of the supplies left at the Brazilian base, and Ryan checked out the snow rovers left behind by the Brazilian expedition. Regardless of what had happened on the long road since they had left Felis Dorsa, or who would stay behind on Mars, Estrela’s idea to return to the American base at Agamemnon was clearly a sound plan. And the one who stayed behind, whoever it would be, would need supplies and a working snow rover.