Mars

The news conference filled the building’s largest auditorium, even at midnight. Television crews elbowed one another for choice spots up front. The lights were blindingly bright, but nobody seemed to mind. Phalanxes of microphones and tape recorders were propped up on the long table at which the gri

Edith took a folding chair set up by the side wall, next to an emergency exit. She smiled to herself. She had her story, and she would continue to gather in all the details of the human side of this fantastic night. Even if she had to finish the job in bed with Brumado. That might not be such a bad way to end a night like this, she thought.

Although stodgy gray-haired NASA administrators officially broke the news to the goggle-eyed reporters, it was Alberto Brumado who ended up doing most of the talking. The soul of the Mars Project had his hour in the limelight. His smiling, triumphant face and voice were broadcast all across the world.

Life on Mars.

While Brumado answered the reporters’ myriad of questions and bantered happily with them, no one noticed that the physician in charge of the medical section sat at the very end of the table of NASA officials, looking tired and grim. No one asked him a question. No one paid him any attention at all. Which was just as well, because he had made up his mind to remain absolutely silent, no matter what. He was not the kind of man to rain on the organization’s parade.

SOL 37: EVENING

Dr. Yang Meilin gave a disdainful snort at the data on her display screen. Pushing her chair away from the tiny desk, she got to her feet and opened the accordion-fold door of her infirmary.

Dr. Li was up in the command section, of course, in the middle of a three-way conversation with the excursion team down at Tithonium Chasma and the mission controllers at Kaliningrad.

So they have found life on Mars, Dr. Yang said to herself. And they are all sick, perhaps even dying. Could there be a co

The passageway was empty, silent except for the hum of machinery. Everyone in the craft is packed into the command module, Yang realized. No one is paying any attention to this medical emergency. No one is paying any attention to me.

When she reached the command module, Dr. Li was at the comm console. Every one of the display screens was lit up. Alberto Brumado himself was beaming happily from the main display, while the other screens showed bigwigs in Kaliningrad, Houston, and what appeared to be Tokyo. Men, all of them. The TV link to the excursion team was out due to the storm, but Joa

She is beautiful, Yang thought, and the daughter of Alberto Brumado. Now she has found life on Mars. The center of everyone’s attention, everyone’s desires. I am nothing but a nondescript physician, the bearer of unhappy news. No wonder they want to ignore me.

Does Brumado know that his daughter is ill? Yang thought not. The mission controllers knew, of course, but so far they regarded the malady that was affecting the entire ground team as nothing more serious than a bout of flu.

It is more than flu. Yang was sure.

What if there are Martian organisms in the air? Viruses or microbes so tiny or so different that they escaped notice when the air was tested. What if they can infect human cells?

She shook her head, a motion that set her severely straight bangs whisking back and forth. Nonsense! Alien organisms ca

And yet, from the little that she had been able to glean about the lichenlike creatures Brumado and Malater had discovered, they were remarkably similar to terrestrial organisms. They must do a DNA workup, Yang thought. And a thorough chemical analysis.

A Martian plague. The very idea was too outlandish even to consider seriously. It was as unlikely as… as — she felt a tremor race through her body — as unlikely as being hit by a meteoroid.

Then she realized that she was standing in the hatch of a spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars, standing on tiptoes to peek over the shoulders of the crowd clustered around their leader, who was being congratulated now by the directors of the Mars Project for successfully finding the first extraterrestrial life forms ever discovered by humankind. What can be considered outlandish? she chided herself. What might be likely or unlikely?

How happy they all looked. Even Li, the human scarecrow who never allowed himself to relax, was smiling joyfully at the multiple screens facing him. They were all congratulating each other, man to man, like an overaged athletic team that had just won an unexpected victory, confident that this discovery would assure their futures.

But not if the people on the ground die. That will terrify everyone. And they are dying. Despite Reed’s assurances, the data showed that something was debilitating all the men and women on the surface of Mars. They are growing weaker. They are dying.

It had been a momentous day. Despite their fatigue and pain the foursome in the rover had spent the entire afternoon on the radio with the dome, with Li and the other scientists in the orbiting ships, with the mission controllers in Kaliningrad and then Houston, and finally with the project directors in Moscow, Washington, Tokyo, and six other capital cities on Earth.

"You might know this is the one time the goddam TV link is down," Co

The TV ante

Joa

It was well after sundown before all the radio calls were finished. They would still have been talking, but Jamie begged off, claiming that they had to eat and rest so they would be fresh the next morning. Dr. Li had quickly taken the hint.

"I will handle all communications until you are ready for the morning’s work," he said.

They had made no mention of their illness to the project brass in the various capital cities. Neither had the mission controllers, who knew as much about their condition as Li did. No one wanted to tarnish the triumph of the moment.

Now the four of them were gathered around the rover’s narrow table, seated as usual, the two men on one bench, the two women opposite. Ilona seemed slightly better for the few hours’ sleep she had obtained; still, she looked pale and drawn. Joa

Co

"We’ve got to have a toast," the astronaut said, sliding out from the bench and heading toward the refrigerator built into the galley bulkhead. "A toast to the discovery of extraterrestrial life."

Jamie felt dull, achy. Co

"Damn! There’s nothing in here to toast with," Co

"Is there any orange juice?" Joa

"Yeah. Still got a half a quart of it."

"Let’s use that, then," said Jamie.