Ben Bova - Mars Life

But Dex went on, “With the new fusion torch ships the transportation costs wouldn’t be so bad, I bet.”

“Dex—”

“I know, it’s just crazy enough for some politicians in Washington to go for it. Send the refugees to Mars! A trillion-dollar boondoggle.”

“It’s not funny,” Jamie insisted.

“Yeah,” Dex admitted. “I guess not. Wouldn’t work anyway. Even with the fusion rockets it’s too damned expensive to ship millions of people off-planet.”

“So can we get a better break on the revenue income?” the president asked, returning to her point.

“I don’t see how,” Dex replied immediately. “Besides, we’ve got a bigger problem now.”

“Bigger?” asked Jamie.

“With Washington backing out of the program, the Foundation’s going to have to carry the funding load pretty much alone.”

“But there’s the Europeans, the Chinese—”

“And the Russians, I know. They’ll all back away, you wait and see. Besides, what they’re putting into the pot now isn’t enough to lake up the slack.”

“So it’s up to the Foundation,” Jamie said.

“Yeah, but the donations are getting harder to come by. The big money’s going into reconstruction, restoring the electric power grid, new housing for the refugees. Everybody and his brother has their hands out. It’s endless.”

“And Mars is a luxury,” the Navaho president murmured.

“Worse than that,” said Dex. “The religious nuts want to close us down. They don’t want us finding anything else about the Martians. They don’t even want to think that there was another intelligent race on Mars.”

“The New Morality?”

“And the Holy Disciples in Europe and all the rest of them. They don’t like us finding anything that conflicts with their twelfth-century view of the world. They want to forget about Mars. They want everybody else to forget about Mars, as well.”

Jamie sank back in his desk chair. “So they’re putting pressure on you.”

“Not just me. On our donors, our backers. Spend your money here on Earth, they say. Help your fellow human beings instead of poking around on Mars.”

“That’s a strong argument,” said the Navaho president.

Searching for a ray of hope, Jamie said, “But the universities want to continue the exploration.”

“The universities are under pressure, too,” said Dex, with a shake of his head. “And now that the White House has skunked us, it’s going to be tougher than ever to raise new funds.”

“So how can you possibly keep your team on Mars now that the government has canceled its funding for the program?”

Jamie stared at the interviewer. He had spent most of the day answering questions from reporters. He had appeared on four different network news shows, skipping lunch to sit before their cameras and answer the same questions over and over again.

Normally Jamie enjoyed interviews. He got a kick out of the cut-and-thrust, where the interviewer was trying to dig out something sensational and he was doing his best to get across the points he wanted to make despite the interviewer’s loaded questions. But now, after this long day of interrogation, Jamie felt tired and irritable.

They’re ready to bury us, he realized. Half of them don’t even know that most of our funding comes from private sources, and has for nearly twenty years. Washington pulls out and they think we’re dead.

This interview in the studio of a local Albuquerque affiliate of a major network was being aired live across the nation. Jamie had postponed his dinner to appear in the studio. He had phoned Vijay at home twice to tell her he’d be late and twice gotten the answering machine’s bland response. Has she heard the news? he wondered.

His interviewer of the moment was in Los Angeles, speaking with Jamie over a closed video circuit. Rhonda Samuels was a crafty middle-aged woman with a practiced smile and a cobra’s eyes. Her ash blond hair was so carefully coiffed that Jamie thought it could have been a helmet. Her beige suit fit her trim figure without the slightest wrinkle. Jamie felt distinctly grungy in the shirt and jeans he’d been in since early morning. He was glad he’d worn the onyx bolo.

How can we keep exploring Mars without money from Washington? Jamie fingered the bear fetish in his pocket as he framed his answer.

He remembered how his grandfather Al would sit in silence for long moments while he was dickering with one of the artisans who produced the jewelry and hand-painted pottery that Al sold in his shop on the Plaza in Santa Fe. Al was never in a hurry when he spoke to his fellow Native Americans. “Take some time, Jamie,” he would advise his grandson. “Size up the person you’re talkin’ to. Get the feel of the situation before you open your mouth.”

But this was television, where five seconds is an eternity.

Rhonda Samuels interrupted his silence.

“I mean,” she said, her voice low but hard-edged, “without government funding you won’t be able to keep the exploration team on Mars, will you?”

“Actually, Ms. Samuels,” Jamie said, trying to make it bright despite his inner weariness, “the government was only contributing about a tenth of our total funding. Most of our support comes from private sources.”

Her brows shot up. “Private sources?”

“The Mars Foundation, which is based here in New Mexico,” Jamie explained. “One of our major backers is the Trumball Trust, in Boston. Then there’s—”

“But without the government’s contribution, can you afford to keep those men and women on Mars?”

“I think so. We’re doing the math. And we’re looking for additional donors.”

“Additional donors?” she asked.

“People or institutions that want to help us carry on the exploration of Mars.”

“But in the meantime, if your budget is strained by Washington’s decision, won’t that have repercussions for your exploration team?”

“Repercussions?”

“On their safety,” Rhonda Samuels said. “If you have to cut your budget, won’t that affect the safety of the explorers on Mars?”

Jamie forced a strained smile. “Safety is always uppermost in our minds.”

“Ahead of everything else?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Were you thinking safety first when you were on Mars and you pushed your superiors to allow you to make the first excursion into the Grand Canyon?”

“Nobody died,” Jamie said tightly.

“But there certainly were dangers involved.”

“There are dangers involved in all exploration. You learn to deal with them. We have an excellent safety record.”

“But what if someone was seriously injured, or came down with an illness you’re not equipped to deal with on Mars. What would happen, with the nearest hospital a hundred million miles away?”

Jamie smiled gently. “We’d send a fusion torch ship to take the patient back to Earth. It’s not like the old days, when it took months to travel to Mars. Fusion torch ships can make the trip in less than a week.”

Sharply, she asked, “Why aren’t you on Mars, then?”

Jamie cursed himself for not expecting that one. He lifted his chin a notch and replied, “Personal reasons. Family reasons.”

“Your son’s death.”

Nodding, he said, “He died on Earth, not Mars.”

Shifting slightly in her chair, Samuels asked, “How old are the members of the exploration team? What’s their average age?”

She must think I keep all the personnel files in my head, Jamie said to himself. Aloud, he replied “Mostly pretty young. Postdocs in their late twenties, thirties, for the most part. I guess the oldest person on the team right now is Carter Carleton.”