Mars

"You feel danger?"

Joa

Jamie finally understood that her memory of McMurdo was his fumbling attempt to kiss her the evening after their first trek on the glacier. It meant a lot to her, he realized. And I thought it made her angry. She’s taking it for granted that I’m in love with her.

Am I? He thought of Edith, smiling blonde and Texas beautiful and millions of miles away. Christ, I’ve had her tape sitting in my cubicle for two days now and I haven’t even answered her. Joa

Then he wondered, Does she know about Ilona? What would she think if she did?

Her hand was still clutching the cuff of his sweatshirt. Jamie covered it with his other hand.

"I guess you’re right, Joa

"For now," Joa

"Yeah. Sure."

"It is the only way. We ca

He nodded, not caring if she could see it or not.

Joa

He almost blurted, This is my home. Here on Mars. Instead he replied softly, "Not really. Have you?"

She made a sighing sound. "My father has already been asked by the National Geographic Society to write an article about this expedition for their magazine. I suppose I will do most of the writing for him. I have been his ghostwriter for many years."

"That shouldn’t take long."

"Then lectures, I suppose. The two of us. All around the world. And a book, of course."

"I guess I’ll pick a university and spend the next few years analyzing the samples we bring back. And the data we’re amassing."

"That could be a lifetime career."

"Maybe."

She fell silent.

"What about the next expedition?" Jamie asked. "Isn’t your father going to push for a follow-on mission?"

"He is already. As I understand it, though, the politicians want to sec what the results of this mission are before they commit themselves to another."

Jamie leaned toward her, sudden urgency burning in his blood. "Joa

He sensed her smiling in the darkness. "Ahh, but suppose we find that your village is nothing more than a natural rock formation? What then?"

Her voice was sad. Jamie had no answer for her.

SOARING

Pete Co

He leaned back in the cockpit seat and looked out at the pink and red landscape gliding by nearly ten miles below. The little soarplane was flying like a dream, as deftly responsive to his hands as a loving woman.

She was a tiny gossamer aircraft, as light as plastic ribs and Mylar skin could make her. The heaviest part of the soarplane was the miniature electric engine that drove her lazily purring propeller. The engine was powered by solar cells of plastic and silicon that hugged the curves of the soarplane’s broad long wings, converting the plentiful Martian sunlight into electricity steadily, noiselessly, as she flew through the clean, bright, thin atmosphere of Mars.

The soarplane’s official designation was RPV-1. There was an RPV-2 stowed in the cargo bay of one of the unma

To him, Little Beauty was a thing of delight. Co

One section of the view suddenly went blank. The video screen there hinged upward and Paul Abell’s frog-eyed face appeared, high forehead wrinkled quizzically.

"Aren’t you coming out for lunch?" Abell asked his fellow astronaut.

Co

Abell glanced at the control panel and the other video screens with their views of the distant Martian landscape. "Okay. But I want a turn with her, too, you know."

"Later," Co

Abell looked doubtful, but he lowered the screen back down into its place. Co

In an electronic sense Co

The engineers called it teleoperation, the technique of linking man and machine electronically even though they were not physically together. Thanks to teleoperation, an aircraft could range thousands of kilometers across Mars without the need to carry a pilot and all the life-support equipment that a human operator requires. The pilot could remain safely on the ground or in one of the orbiting spacecraft while the plane braved the unknown dangers of the unexplored planet.

Deep in his mind Co

Never mind. He smiled boyishly to himself. This is as good as it’s going to get here on this rust ball. Good enough for now. Not bad for a minister’s son. He remembered his first flights in the backseat of an ancient crop duster’s biplane over the flat wheat fields of Nebraska. Everything square and neat, precise. The barren red ground below him now had never known the touch of human purpose.

Abell opened the hatch abruptly and stuck in a badly made sandwich as he asked again for a turn at the controls. Co

Far down below he saw a shadow of darker red inching across the barren land. He banked the little plane slightly to get a better view of the ground.

A dust storm. Big one. Must be several hundred kilometers across its front. Co