Gateways (55 page)

“Jamaica . . . That was where I picked up Cauley. How she put up with me I don’t know.”

“It’s a woman’s job,” said Syril. He and Gadramm chuckled about that. “They’re a different species.”

“I was born on Jamaica,” said Leen. Leen was Gadramm’s eldest son. “Good swimming there. I could swim before I could walk.”

“Try and find a place to swim here,” said his father sarcastically. “Anyhow, you was more trouble than you was worth.”

“Fadrum and me looked after Ma this time, when she was in labor—more than you ever did.”

Gadramm gave a snarl. “I was busy down here, wasn’t I? No more lip from you, boy. You never been through what I been through. I’m reformed. That’s what I owe the Tampa guys . . .”

Other men were laughing, shouting, trying on equipment. Gadramm went on talking but Fadrum could hardly hear what he was saying. Gadramm swore he would kill the man who had seduced his wife and made her pregnant. His violence was frightening.

“You should have got someone else to guard the door,” Fadrum said. “You shouldn’t have left your wife alone in bed.”

Gadramm went on about Cauley having the only proper bed in Tampa. He had made it himself from the wooden packing cases dispatched from Earth.

His son was frightened. “Yes, yes, it’s a good bed, but I can’t help it . . .”

“This swine got your ma pregnant and then the bastard child makes news all over Earth! How you think I feel about that? I’ll suss him out, I’ll cut his motherfucking throat. You understand that, boy?”

He thrust his big enflamed face at Fadrum. Fadrum ran off.

Earth. USA. Florida. Daytona. A big white building slumped not far from the shoreline. Administration Center for MSS, Martian Settlement Scheme.

Chancellor Professor Eddie Skelton arrived early on his cyclemotor, clipped it into a rack along with other bicycles, many with the motorized rear wheel. The uniformed lackey who used to check identities and welcome visitors was long gone in these recessional days. Skelton punched in his code and entered the building . . . Many people of all races were lingering here, or walking about. There was much consultation of watches and whispering into mobiles. This was the day of the International Consultation of Martian Mortality, called because of the death of Snooks Cauley Gore, many thousands of miles away.

The elevators had long been closed. Skelton made his way slowly up the great curving stair. Aware that he was dragging his feet, he recalled his wife’s sneer that he was just an old crock. He diverted his mind to the forthcoming debate; his advisory team had reached no conclusion as to what damage light gravity did to the fetus, and how it could be remedied. Somehow he must put a positive sheen on the failure.

He would speak of a mother’s grief when her son dies, and of scientific research regarding strengthening bone structure.

Skelton entered the offices allotted to the US delegation. The windows looked out across the celebrated beach to the ocean.

“The oceans of ignorance man has to fight against. After the triumph of men reaching Mars and establishing themselves there, who would have suspected this wretched womb-predicament would confront us?” So ran his thought—but then his second secretary, Niccola Bell, was smilingly coming to him. Had he ever known anyone so gorgeous, so kempt, so becoming?

“The Chinese and European delegations are already beginning to assemble,” Niccola said. “Our two colleagues have already gone ahead. May I escort you in? I have a note from the president for you.”

“I’ll love to have you with me,” he said.

Fadrum was in hiding when the Hecates expedition set off the next day. With an enormous clatter the men left, loading food and equipment into the exo-crawler, hauling themselves aboard the tracked bus, laughing, jeering, some coughing. Despite the electrosealing overhead, the atmosphere contained beneath it was thin.

It took over an hour before the expedition was ready to move. It went at a walking pace over the regolith, throwing up grit behind it, and dust that was slow to settle.

The team fell silent. Several preferred to walk beside and slightly ahead of the vehicle, since walking was not demanding in the lighter Martian gravity. Hecates Tholus was a distorted region, where ancient impact craters were often linked by fretted fault lines. There were channels, some as much as thirty kilometers across. The vehicles used them as roads, engine noise being thrown back at them by crumbling walls. Ice debris formed a kind of rock.

They moved along an incline to a site Tampa HQ had designated, following an old Viking Orbiter photograph. What the photograph did not show was the severely ravaged desolation of the area.

A section of three men worked by one of the natural walls, where there were indications of water having run at some period in the distant past. This section was led by Dak Doran, a loud hot-tempered man in his early thirties.

“If Tampa says do, so we sodding do,” he said. “Anyone’d think we was archaeologists, not just a bunch of down-and-outs.”

A short distance farther on, where a narrow stretch of ground was choked between two close-lying mesas, the other section went to work.

Gadramm was in charge here. Presently, he was back at the crawler, looking for a lever stowed in the rear locker. He needed it to split open an obstructing boulder. The other two members of his section were painstakingly sorting and dusting slices of shalelike rock when a call came from the opposite party.

“Hey, you suckers!,” shouted Dak Doran, “Come here see what we found! This will really make our names—or mine, at least!”

Directly the team had set off for Hecates Tholus, Drina and her boyfriend started to tease Fadrum. Fadrum was working at his computer on Twister, concentrating on “Space Birth,” an article full of technical and medical jargon.

“Why don’t you live, you weed?” Drina said. “Always got your nose on that screen. . .”

“Get lost, you dreary thing!” he said, wearily.

“You’re the dreary one,” said Brunce, the boyfriend. “Show your sister some respect.”

“You keep out of this,” shouted Fadrum, jumping up, ready to fight. But Brunce got in first and gave Fadrum a hearty push. Caught off balance, Fadrum fell back over his stool, to sprawl on the floor.

“Serve you right!” exclaimed Drina, laughing.

“Cow!” he yelled at her.

Brunce blew on his nails and polished them on his uniform. “Now those guys are away, we two are going to have a nice bit of nooky some place. You’re too joov for that kinda stuff, I guess!”

Fadrum gave a bitter laugh. “Little you know about it, big head!”

Brunce grabbed Drina’s arm and pulled her away.

Later, when Drina was alone, she bumped into Fadrum. “You oughtn’t to annoy Brunce, you know,” she told him. “He’s a bit hot-tempered.”

Dak Doran’s section were clapping their gloved hands. “Radio our find to Tampa HQ right now,” one man suggested. But his mate knew that the Martian orbit was such that the bulk of the planet was between them and Earth, making contact temporarily impossible.

Gadramm came over, clutching his lever, followed by his two workers. “What you found?” he asked Doran.

“I hear you’re a Christian,” Doran said, by way of reply. “Then you’re gonna like this. It’s a Christian sign.” He went to the patch they had cleared by the ice wall and flashed his torch.

“Look at this, boyo!”

Gadramm went closer and squatted. The ground was as full of wrinkles as a creased sheet. He stared and shook his head.

“For God’s sake!” exclaimed Dan Doran. “Show him, will you, Chez?”

The member of the team, Chez, squatted by Gadramm and pointed with a gloved finger to the outline of what appeared to be a fish.

“It’s a fish, clear enough. Can’t you see that, Gad?” said Doran impatiently. “Fish—a Christian symbol.” He gave a curt laugh. “Maybe Christ walked here in better days. Maybe he came over in a spacesuit. . .”

Gadramm said, “It’s not a fossil. It’s just a random shape in the rock. This whole patch is full of striations. Sure it looks a bit like a fish but it’s nothing. Just a pattern, Dak, sorry.”

“Look. It’s a fish. I’m the guy who has found there was life on Mars. When the news gets out, maybe they’ll take us off of this dump and back to Earth. If I turn up more fish, will you see sense then?”