Mars

"But I thought it was Joa

Reed looked into her tawny eyes. "Ah, that was merely a pastime. A game."

"A game that you lost."

"The game isn’t over yet," Reed said, miffed.

Ilona laughed. "If you can get her to bed with you after she comes back from being with our red man for ten solid days…"

Reed cut in, "And what will you be doing for the next ten days? And nights?"

She drew herself up to her full height, almost equal to Reed’s. "I intend to be a good scientist and to behave myself properly. A field trip is no place for game playing, Tony."

"No. I suppose not."

"Definitely not."

She walked away, leaving the wardroom, leaving Reed standing there as the microwave beeped that his breakfast was ready and Monique tried to make it clear that she had not been eavesdropping.

They’re both leaving me, Reed said to himself as he took his tray to the table. Ilona and Joa

Monique smiled at him in her dimpling motherly way, then excused herself and left. Reed sat alone, picking listlessly at his food, feeling as abandoned and lonely as the time he had been left in the hospital to have his tonsils removed.

SOL 34: AFTERNOON

Pete Co

Vosnesensky’s face was on the display screen in the center of the panel. "How high will they go?"

"Eighty, eighty-two."

Sitting beside the astronaut, Jamie tried to keep the worried impatience tingling inside him from showing to the others. We can’t put off the departure because the air circulation fans won’t run up to max. That’s no reason to delay the traverse.

Vosnesensky’s eyes went down to the checklist in front of him. "Eighty percent is within tolerable limits," he said doubtfully.

"I don’t think it’s go

"You can increase the oxygen ratio if necessary," Vosnesensky said.

"Right. Let’s go with it. We’re ready to roll."

Co

Ilona was standing behind Jamie’s chair, her hands on the seat back. Joa

Come on, Jamie urged silently. Let’s get this show on the road.

Vosnesensky’s face pulled together in a morose little frown. He puffed out a deep breath, more of a snort than a sigh. "Very well," he said at last. "You are cleared to proceed."

Jamie let his own breath out as Co

"Dahsvedahnya. Good luck!"

"Thanks, Mike," Co

"We’re off," Ilona murmured.

"Next stop, Tithonium Chasma," said Co

Their excursion plan called for them to go directly to the canyon, stopping only at sundown and starting again at the next sunrise. There were to be no EVAs, no stops along the way to go outside and explore. Their goal was Tithonium Chasma and nothing less. Jamie wanted them to have as much time and as much food and water and other consumables at the canyon as they possibly could.

The impromptu maps that had been stitched together from the photos taken by the remotely piloted airplanes had shown that it might be possible to descend to the canyon floor along the slope of an ancient landslide that had partially filled in one section of the canyon’s cliff wall. It would be tricky going at best. Most of the old landslides had slumped down below the canyon rim, leaving a drop too steep for the rover to handle. Some of the avalanches completely filled in the canyon floor and even rode up the southern cliff face.

This one, though, seemed usable, and was within the range of their rover. Not too steep, it extended from the lip of the cliff wall down to the bottom without totally covering the canyon floor. It was narrow, compared to most of the others, barely a kilometer wide. But that would be plenty of room for the rover. If the rubble was firm enough to ride over without getting bogged down. If the slope was gentle enough all the way to the bottom; the aerial photos could not catch all the details of every inch of the slide.

To Jamie it looked like a recent landslide, newer and fresher than the older, bigger ones that had gouged huge alcoves out of the canyon walls. Recent, he knew, meant that it might be only a few million years old.

"Looks like a nice day," Co

The sky was a delicate salmon pink and as cloudless as always.

Jamie cracked back, "I don’t know. Might rain in another hundred thousand years or so."

"Damn! I left the umbrella back in Houston."

Joa

"How does he define unusual?" Ilona asked.

"Compared to satellite observations over the past ten years, I suppose."

"No storms this close to the equator, though," Jamie said.

"Not so far," Joa

"Or stop," said Ilona.

Co

They stayed precisely on schedule, stopped when the shrunken sun touched the red horizon, and called in their position to Vosnesensky back at the dome. Some of the old strangeness seeped into Jamie’s soul as the four of them ate their precooked di

They sat on the padded benches that unfolded into bunks, two by two, the men on one side of the narrow table and the women on the other. Jamie took the first turn on the cleanup detail while Co

Once all four bunks were unfolded the rover’s compartment became impossibly crowded. The two women took the uppers, leaving Jamie and Co

A sudden thought pulsed through him. Suppose Ilona tells Joa

Ilona wouldn’t do that, he told himself. It doesn’t make sense for her to talk about that. Why would she tell Joa

But there’s a strange streak in her, he realized. She has a weird sense of humor. Maybe she thinks it’d be fu

Jamie strained his ears but could hear nothing except the wind sighing outside. The women had gone to sleep. Or at least stopped talking. It took a long time before Jamie fell into a troubled sleep, dreaming of school all over again.

Li Chengdu felt relaxed for the first time since they had taken up orbit around Mars.