I could. Yeah. As the implications penetrated, the coffee slopped over
the rim of the cup. I emptied it quickly and gave it back to her. "How
about a refill?"
She refilled it and gave it back to me. "If we haven't got a chance,"
she said slowly, "I've got as much right to know as you do. Marsh,
_have_ we got _any_ chance?"
I set the coffee down and stood up. I shrugged and spread my hands.
"Ask me that seventy days from now, if you're still around to ask, and
I'm still around to answer. Then maybe I can tell you 'yes.' Right now,
I just don't know. _This_ wasn't included in the plans!"
She didn't answer. I walked forward and stared out over the crushed cab
at the blue-white CO_{2} ice of the Martian north polar cap.
Seventy days. That was the deadline--the physical deadline. It really
didn't matter too much. Mechanically, we'd either make it to the
equator and carve out a landing strip for the other two ships, or we
wouldn't.
We might make that deadline and still miss the other one. The
psychological one.
My wife was dead. So was Helene's husband. So were the Travises and the
Leonards.
That left just me and Helene, and according to the reasonably
well-proven theories of space-crew psychology, she would have to
replace my wife and I her husband. It was supposed to be easy, since
we wouldn't have been in the same crew if we weren't known to be more
compatible than ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the world's
married couples.
I pictured her in my mind and tried to superimpose "wife" on the image.
It didn't work. I gave it up. Maybe later; it had all happened so
fast....
* * * * *
Four days ago, the eight ships of Joint Martian Expedition One had gone
into orbit around Mars.
Four men and four women in each ship; forty of the most stable
marriages discoverable at the present state of the research which had
resulted in using the "stabilizing influence" of marriage to stabilize
space crews.
Three of those ships were equipped with the streamlined nose-shells
and wings necessary to make actual landings on Mars. Number One, my
ship, was supposed to make the first landing, on skis, near the edge of
the north polar cap. We carried a pair of double-unit sand-tractors,
each of which had quarters for four in the front section and carried a
featherweight bulldozer on the trailer.
We were supposed to report a safe landing by radio, proceed overland
to the equator, and carve out a landing strip, in seventy days. If
the radio didn't work, we were to touch off the remaining fuel in our
tanks, after we had everything clear of the blast area.
Right now, a mile or so behind us, the drives and fuel tanks of Number
One were sending merging columns of smoke high into the thin Martian
air. A magnificent signal.
Only we hadn't touched them off.
And they couldn't have ignited on contact and still be going like that.
They couldn't have gone much before Helene and I came to, about seven
hours after we hit.
About half a mile in front of us one of the bulldozers lay on its side,
a short distance from the wreck of the nose section, slashed open where
the tractor had come through it diagonally, missing Helene and myself
by inches. The 'dozer, the wingtips, and the tractor unit, which we had
climbed into, were the only things left remotely intact.
It was a real, genuine, gold-plated miracle.
I didn't know how it had happened, or why. It occurred at the first
shock of landing, and that was the last either of us remembered. Maybe
one of the skis collapsed. Maybe one of the drives surged when I cut
it back. Maybe there was a rock hidden under the ice. Maybe the ice
wasn't thick enough. Maybe a lot of things. We'd never know.
It was small comfort to be sure that according to both the instruments
and the seat of my pants there was nothing wrong with my piloting.
That didn't matter. Sixty more people would very probably die if we
didn't do the probably impossible. The other ships wouldn't have
enough fuel to pull up and get back in orbit if they came down and
discovered that the landing strip wasn't there.
"So now what?" Helene finally broke the long silence. "We've looked
around and picked up enough pieces to maybe get us there. You're the
boss; you know how you want to do it, but I've got to help you. How
about letting me in on the secret?"
I swore silently at the guy who had decided that the younger half
of the crews should be conditioned to look to the older half for
leadership in emergencies. In space you don't want leadership; you
want coordination and automatic cooperation. "Okay," I said, not
turning, "I'll tell you. But are you sure you'd rather not remain in
blissful ignorance?" I regretted the sarcasm instantly.
"I'm old enough to know the facts of death."
"I'll take your word for it, kid. Hell, you already know. Six thousand
miles. Seventy days. With just two of us, it'll probably take thirty of
them to hack out a strip. It's simple arithmetic."
"I know that, Marsh, but what do we _do_ about it?"
"Get some sleep. Then we'll pick up what pieces we can find and jury
rig anything we can't find pieces of. When we find out how much fuel
we've got, we can figure out how fast we dare travel. We should be
able to find all we can carry; the tanks were self-sealing. When we're
sure we've got it all, we take another eight hours sleep and pull out.
From then on we run around the clock; ten hours on and ten off, until
something blows up. If anything does, we're probably done.
"So maybe we've got one chance in fifty. Maybe in a hundred. A
thousand. A million. It doesn't matter much. Let's get our sleep, and
while we're at it, we might try praying a little. This is a time for
it if there ever was one."
She was silent a moment, then said, "You know, Marsh, you haven't told
me a thing I didn't know?"