Olympus Mons (32 page)

“Mr. Jesperson,” intoned Scheiermann, his sarcasm unveiled, “why do you believe it needful to resort to that impassioned plea? By all reports, despite the council's proscription of further activities aimed at forwarding your . . . mountaineering ambitions, you have defied the directive and gone right ahead marshaling men and equipment, preparing for your impossible expedition to the heights of Olympus Mons, and have gone so far as to tear apart several crawlers to build your, uh . . . sleighs. In essence, you've pitted your own self-interest and personal recipe for averting disaster against that of the enclave's authorized leadership.”

Doc Yokomizo had been listening attentively, head cocked, his features frozen in a solemn, unsmiling expression that looked unnatural. “Mr. Director,” he interjected, “I'm unable to find fault with retaining a fallback position. Why is it necessary for Mr. Jesperson's strenuous efforts on behalf of the enclave to be truncated?”

“Because,” put in Franklin, taking the words out of Scheiermann's mouth, “scaling the heights of Olympus Mons is not merely impractical, it is a stark impossibility.”

My partner occasionally flies into his feral wolverine act, but nowhere is it written that a wild wolverine can't also be very smart, very cagy. Among his other virtues, faults and attributes, Jesperson has a well developed sixth sense about when to yell, and when to keep his yap shut. Eyelids drooping pensively, he stared at Yokie, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Our deputy director dipped his head in Franklin's direction, a cool acknowledgment of his interruption. “Your opinion may be accurate or inaccurate, sir. Either way, I have come to regard Mr. Jesperson's endeavors on behalf of the enclave as anything but self-serving. The willing, strenuous contribution he and his associates have made toward solving our potentially lethal problem has been absolutely selfless. He has acted in exemplary, inventive, energetic fashion by seeking to devise a solution to the situation that threatens our very existence. I therefore move that a council resolution be adopted to direct dual activities: one sanctioning the proposed search for water ice, and another endorsing those activities leading to the prospective physical repair of the aqueduct.”

The director blanched, unable to believe heresy could possibly be uttered by his deputy. He raised his gavel just as Vic Aguilar said, “I second the motion.”

Scheiermann went ahead and rapped his gavel anyhow. “Mr. Aguilar, you are out of order. You were invited as an adviser, and are not eligible to . . .”

“A motion's been made and seconded,” declared the one and only, much brighter than average councilwoman.

Finding himself painted into a corner, Scheiermann reverted to his long standing love affair with parliamentary procedure. He
harrumphed!
looking flustered. “A motion is before the council to support the parallel efforts sponsored by Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jesp . . . er, by the action committee headed by . . . that gentleman. The Chair will hear discussion.”

The “discussion” amounted to a brief rehash of all the preceding arguments, pro and con, voiced in turn by Franklin and then Jesperson, except in a much less confrontational but equally determined way. In the end, the vote in council went two-to-three against passage, defeating Yokie's motion.

Seething inside, though outwardly stone-faced, Jesperson didn't hang around to hear any more. He summoned me, Vic, Gimp and the others with his eyes and led us in filing out of the meeting area.

Owl-eyed, Scheiermann did not attempt to hide his self-satisfied expression as he silently watched our procession depart.

Yokie surprised us by deserting the podium and following our defeated bunch outside the partitioned area. “My deepest regrets, Mr. Jesperson,” he said by way of apology.

Torn between anger and his own regrets, Jess said, “You did all you could, Doctor. Thank you. We appreciate it.”

***

Having again lost a battle, Jesperson refused to slack off on waging no-holds-barred, all-out warfare. Two mornings before the scheduled departure of Franklin's two-crawler junket to the distant, “ice-rich” Lycus Sulci badlands, I met Jesperson and Black-like-me outside North Tunnel. As usual, my partner completely ignored the council's commandment to cease and desist. He told us he wanted to do a test run by having the glassblower and me haul a burdened sledge up our favorite exercise ground.

I helped Black-like-me lay fiberglass matting over the flimsy looking weldment and tie it in place. We loaded it with rocks until Jesperson estimated the total weight to be close, or slightly more than that of the gear slated to be packed aboard one sledge if our climb ever got off the ground, which at this late date seemed unlikely.

The glassblower and I stepped into harness
—
dual webbed-fiberglass horse collars with a loop big enough to slip over a pressure-suit's bulbous shoulders and buckle across the chest. Us draft animals bent forward and made as if to start dragging the sledge uphill.

“Hang on!” Jesperson's transmitted command grated in my headpiece. “Not up the trail, you two; that'd be too easy. No pathway where we're heading, so take it a distance along the base of the ringwall, then try pulling it up the raw incline. It's steeper than the real thing, but the best and only simulation we can manage. Rough and rugged the going may be. However tough it is, I guarantee it'll be a stroll in the park compared to what we'll run into up on the volcano.”

It's awkward and frustrating to try and pull a burdened sledge when you're encumbered in vacuum gear, nor can a pair of bo's hardly ever pull with equal force. Doing it the right way takes trial-and-error-practice, especially since we were dumb enough to think we already knew how. According to Jesperson, four-legged draft animals have the same problem.

The damn sledge tended to yaw back and forth while being tugged uphill. Black-like-me kept shooting mean, accusative glances my way for being at fault. We fumbled and stumbled and experimented, trying out different moves, and finally got the hang of marching in lockstep, taking strides of equal length. What surprised me was the moderate physical strain involved in dragging the load up to the ringwall's rim. Day after day of foot-sloggin' up and down the trail was paying off. Both of us were puffing lightly, no more than barely winded when topping out at the crest. I knew we could've gone on a whole stretch farther without needing a rest stop.

Going back down was easy, then we turned around and did the deed a second time, coming uphill by a different route, dodging the sledge around boulders of middling size, skirting healthier chunks of ejecta. The doubled runners skidded over the smaller rocks, and the sledge slid smoothly in sandy stretches. Jesperson climbed behind us, gauging our progress.

“Take ‘er back down?” asked Black-like-me when we crested again.

Jess pondered. “No, I'm satisfied. Besides, we shouldn't abrade the runners more than is necessary. Dump the rocks, and then you strong, silent types can pick up the sledge and tote it down the maintenance trail.”

“Bless you, Bwana!” I made show of shedding tears of relief.

Approaching the entrance to North Tunnel, we plopped down our light, empty burden. The glassblower charged inside and punched for entry, while Jess and I waited outside the tunnel mouth for pressures to equalize in the lock chamber. I commented on how well the contraption had performed.

My partner wasn't listening, however. His head canted back against the quilted padding at the rear of his headpiece, he was studying the eastern sky. “Crunch time,” he said, overtones of anxiety in his transmitted voice, “is upon us.”

“What was that?” Alarmed without knowing why, I asked again.

He disregarded my questions. “Barney, the minute you're back inside pressure call Gloria. Tell her to meet us at my place pronto, and I mean now, now, now! Tell her it isn't just important, it's
vital.
Got that?”

“Yeah, okay; vital says it all. But shouldn't we at least
—
”

“Just do it!” he insisted. “Once you give Gloria the word, call Vic with the same message, then do the same by ringing Gimpy. Say it'll be vital for them to rush over to my place.”

“Sure. So open up, Bwana. Why'd ‘vital' all of a sudden rise up and bite you?”

Again there was no reply. Jess hustled into the tunnel and slipped into the lock chamber almost before the doors slid apart far enough to admit his bulky pressure-suit. The glassblower and I exchanged curious glances and manhandled the sledge inside, where Jesperson started removing his vacuum gear before the airlock's pressures equalized and the readout winked green.

Half an hour later Gimpy limped up and tapped on the door of Jesperson's quarters. Gloria let him in. He glanced from one familiar face to another, and asked no one in particular what the “vital” crap all about.

With all principals present and accounted for, Jesperson skipped the preliminaries. “As I mentioned to Barney outside North Tunnel, crunch time is here, people. What's vital is that we have to go, and we have to go
now!
If we don't, I seriously doubt if we'll ever get the chance.”

“Explain,” was all Gloria had to say.

“Not one, but two conclusive reasons obtain,” said Jesperson, tightlipped, serious. “The Franklin ice expedition is due to roll tomorrow morning. We cannot, repeat
cannot
allow that disaster in the making to take place. The obstinate SOB must not be permitted to waste precious time and water chasing a chimera, nor of equal or greater importance can he be permitted to risk losing another vehicle. We desperately need all five remaining crawlers to haul ourselves and the stockpiled supplies out to Olympus Rupes. The priority hurry-up reason,” he added, “is that it's crunch time with a capital cee. No looking back now, no second-guessing, waffling, or arguing about what's right and what's not.” He turned to me. “You got a look at the eastern sky before we came inside pressure, right, Barney?”

“Uh-huh, but aside from wondering why you were —”

“You didn't glimpse the high haze forming way off to the east?”

I pleaded ignorance of any hazes, high or low, near or far.

“Aerosols, my unhappy friends and associates.” Jesperson smacked his lips. “A haze like that is made up of micron-sized dust particles lofted high into the stratosphere, or here in Mars possibly even the mesosphere. It's usually the harbinger of a coming blow.”

Gimpy's brows contracted. “Sandstorm . . ?”

“Sandstorm,” said Jesperson, a ring of finality in the utterance. “If what I'm fairly certain is on its way turns out to be a major blow lasting weeks,” he said grimly, “Burroughs has had it, and so have we. We'd be history long before the winds began to slack off.”

The silence in the lovebirds' domicile dragged on for extra-long seconds. Gloria asked her man if he was sure.

“Not one hundred percent, no,” he admitted. “There isn't any way to make an accurate prediction this early in the game. During the E-years I've spent here, that signpost in the sky has presaged every large, small and medium-sized blow that's come our way. Many storms, if not most, kick off in the eastern hemisphere.”

“How soon?” asked Aguilar.

“Best part of a week to ten days would be my guess. Really tough to estimate. The bigger, longer lasting storms take a while to build up a full head of steam. We won't know when, or how large, the coming blow is until it gets here. Mars is close to perihelion, however, which equates to the height of the storm season. I'll take a deep breath and say I think there's roughly a seven in ten chance of a major blow in the offing. If we don't go tomorrow, and get to the brink of the scarp in the next few days at the latest, we may never get the chance.”

More silence. Thick, pregnant silence.

Moving closer to Gloria, Jesperson bent down and intercepted her troubled gaze. “I cheated, Dear Darling Doctor of mine, and looked up your mystery word. To put it crudely, the time to crap or get off the pot is right now, this minute, no later. I'll listen to no argument on that other matter we discussed. If you don't see the situation my way, say so and all bets are off.”

Gloria grimaced unhappily. “It will mean . . . violating an oath.”

“Which particular evil do you prefer?” he wanted to know. “Bearing false witness to long-departed Hippocrates, or dying of thirst?”

Gloria puffed her cheeks. “I'll need some kind of . . . distraction.”

“Name it, and you've got it. All you have to do is tell us when and where it will do the most good. Over at the medicenter pharmacy, I presume.”

“No, doing it that way would take too long, and would involve other people. Does he live alone?”

“Solo. The ‘executive mansion' on the East Slope rise overlooks the crater floor.”

“Will I have time to become familiar with his movements?”

“All taken care of; I checked him out personally,” assured Jess. “Spends his mornings at the office, then usually trots home for lunch. In the afternoon he
—
”

“That will do,” she said. “He has to be kept away from home in late morning.”

“No problem. Barney and the glassblower can see to it.”

Black-like-me nodded darkly. He had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, nor did I for that matter. Yet catching the general drift was a cinch.

Glorious Gloria Steinkritz, M.D., Ph.D., et cetera, loosed a heartfelt sigh. “Dear Darling Volcano Climber of Mine, authentic do-or-die problems sometimes demand authentic do-or-die solutions. Consider it done. Round up your troops and have everything ready. You'll need Dr. Yokomizo standing by to make it legal.”

Legality is not, has never been, nor would ever be the keystone of Jesperson's live-on-the-edge existence. He kissed Gloria soundly, turned and was out the door like the first breeze of that sandstorm he was worried about.