Saving Mars (8 page)

“It’s a shock the first time,” said Mei Lo. “Think of the proverb, though, and it all makes sense.”

“Be as generous as a dog,” murmured Jessamyn.

“Exactly,” agreed Mei Lo. “Put your hand out where he can get a good sniff. Dogs learn from their noses as much as from their eyes. Maybe more.”

Jess extended one hand. Rover leaned in snuffling, blowing, and, incredibly, licking her once again. She giggled this time. Looking at Rover’s black, tan, and white coat, Jess grew curious.
What does it feel like
? She plunged one hand into his thick fur. It reminded her for a moment of her granddad’s bristle-y mustache. But underneath she found a softer silken layer.

“Incredible,” she murmured, pulling her hand back and forth through his fur.

Rover’s muzzle darted toward Jess’s chin and he licked her again.

“Unreal,” she said.

“He reminds me to act with generosity,” said the Secretary. “It’s hard to have a water-grubbing attitude with Rover giving up moisture ten times a day.”

Jess didn’t want to stop pulling her hand through the soft furry layers. Incredibly, she realized she was
petting
the creature. No wonder Ethan liked the planetary dog so much. No wonder Mei Lo was so grateful.
Why don’t I see these things coming?
Jess asked herself. Of
course
saving the dog had been the right thing to do. Of
course
the Secretary would be grateful and not angry. Harpreet’s words of the other day floated through Jessamyn’s mind:
You must learn to see things from more than one perspective.
But how was that even possible when she was stuck inside her own mind? Jess sighed in the quiet room.

Then, with a kind of shiver, Jess realized this was the moment she’d been waiting for: she had the Secretary’s undivided attention
right now
. Like she might never have it again. It made her a bit dizzy, like coming in too hot on a fast ship.

But Jessamyn found, as she considered this waited-for moment, that she did not wish to take unfair advantage of the Secretary’s current state of gratitude.

“Listen, Madam Secretary, there’s something you should know. I wasn’t thinking about you just now when I saved Rover’s life. Or about Mars,” she added. “I saved your dog’s life because I don’t think I could’ve faced my brother otherwise. He’s crazy about your dog.”

“
Mars’s
dog,” corrected the Secretary.

“Yeah, well, Ethan’s the reason I did what I did. I don’t want you having any false ideas about how I was trying to be all noble for the citizenry of Mars or whatever. ‘Cause I wasn’t.” She noticed her fingers gripping tightly to a handful of fur and forced herself to relax. Rover didn’t seem to mind. She spoke again, quietly. “It was all for my brother’s sake.”

“All right,” said Mei Lo, nodding, narrowing her eyes as she examined Jess. “I can still be grateful for the end result, you know, regardless of your motives.”

Jess swallowed and continued before she had a chance to get scared and freeze up. “Listen, I know you want Ethan for some secret assignment, but it won’t work. Eth won’t make it to Earth. You put him in that ship for three weeks, and by the time he comes out the other side, his mind will be destroyed. He’s claustrophobic.
Severely
claustrophobic. And that’s only
one
of his peculiarities that I can put a name to. He’s got other … habits and preferences and quirks that don’t have names. But I can guarantee none of it will look good aboard the Red Galleon.”

“I’ve noticed he is … different,” said the Secretary. “But he seems strongly committed.”

Jess released Rover and straightened up so that she could look the Secretary in the eye. “Let me ask you something. Can you afford for him to fail at … whatever this is?”

The Secretary turned sharply. “Has he told you what I’m asking him to do?”

“No,” said Jess. “And you can bet he never will.”

Rover shook his coat and wandered off to a pillow that had his name on it.

Frowning, the Secretary crossed her arms and looked at Jess. “Why do you ask whether or not I can afford for him to fail?”

“I know my brother. I understand that whatever you want him to do, he’s convinced that only he can do it, and he believes it ought to be attempted. But he’s not sure of himself. Asking my brother to climb inside a small, enclosed space with no escaping for three weeks is like …” Jess struggled to come up with something the Secretary might be able to understand. She saw Rover. “It’s like your dog wanting to be outside. Sure, Rover can survive in his hamster-ball for a short time, but if you left him in the cold for three weeks, what would you find when you went back to collect him?”

“He’d die,” said the Secretary.

“Yes,” said Jess. “Even though your dog
wants
to go outside, it isn’t an environment he can survive in for long.”

“You’re saying your brother can’t survive three weeks in the
environment
of the Red Galleon.”

Jess pinched her lips together then spoke. “Maybe if he had a couple of annums to prepare for it, he might make it. As he stands now? No.”

The Secretary stood as still as one of the ice carvings from the Festival.

Jess felt the long pause that followed as if it were a physical thing pressing down upon her.

“Would you bet the future of Mars on that certainty?” The Secretary’s face blanched as she whispered the question.

“The
future
of Mars?”

The Secretary nodded.

Jess hesitated. She remembered trips with her brother that ended with him rocking back and forth, eyes closed, making a steady humming noise at the same pitch for hours on end. She remembered other times she’d worked hard with him, sitting beside him and feeding him distractions, telling him stories, keeping him protected as best she could from the deleterious effects of an enclosed space.

She looked up and met the Secretary’s eyes. “He can make it if he has me with him. But otherwise, no, Madam Secretary. My brother’s mind wouldn’t be the same by the time he reached Earth. If you need him in his right mind, send me with him.”

The Secretary was quiet for several minutes. Jess stared into the black expanse beyond the large windows.
Ethan would like it here
, she thought. She saw the small moon Deimos and wondered if Earth had risen yet. Beside the window, Rover rested his chin on his paws, lying on his pillow. His eyes darted from the Secretary to Jess, back and forth in clear acknowledgement of the tension in the room.

At last, the Secretary, who’d been staring out the window as well, spoke. “You could have lied to me about your motivation for saving Rover’s life. But you didn’t. Just like the day I hired you: you told me the truth instead of what I wanted to hear. I abhor lying and dissembling, Jess. I’ve seen plenty of both as CEO of this planet.” She turned so as to face Jessamyn directly. “As I’m sure you are aware, raiding parties are formed with five team members.”

Jess nodded, recalling the pang of jealousy she’d felt when she’d heard that a young woman only two orbits her senior had been named captain of the mission.

Mei Lo continued. “What I have not yet announced is that we will be sending two teams of raiders this time—two teams with two separate missions.”

Jessamyn’s heart beat faster, clattering in her chest like storm-tossed pebbles upon a window.

“I need your brother to accomplish a task that I believe only he can complete as a special mission. At present, the board of directors is locked in disagreement about the choice of a pilot for this mission. Obviously we need someone capable of guiding a ship past the Terran satellite lasers in high orbit around Mars.” She smiled softly at Jessamyn. “As you already know, I don’t believe in coincidence. I have the final authority to decide this assignment, but the awarded duty comes with a caveat.”

“I’ll do it,” whispered Jess.

“You haven’t heard me out,” replied the Secretary, her face now sober. “I am sending your brother to hack the control codes of the satellite array, placing them under our direction. That is the top-secret task that falls to the second crew. There is a very real chance he may fail and that some or all of you could be captured with no hope of rescue.”

Jessamyn thought of her granddad’s tales of body-swapping and shuddered.

“The Terrans would certainly re-body you or kill you.” The Secretary paused. “This is a far more dangerous assignment than merely retrieving ration bars.”

Jess nodded. “Send me.”

Chapter Seven

SENSATION OF WEIGHT

Two days later, Jessamyn officially received the assignment as pilot and first officer of the Red Galleon. She wasn’t permitted to divulge the true mission, so her parents, along with the rest of Mars, assumed Jess would be on an ordinary raid with the second crew acting as a safety-net and possibly obtaining additional food.

Lillian glowed with excitement, certain if MCC had ordered double shipments, then the Secretary General was making a commitment to develop a domestic food-source within forty orbits.

“This is everything we’ve worked for,” Jess’s mother said, hugging her daughter.

“We’re deeply proud of you both,” Jess’s father said to the siblings.

At the words of praise, worry creased Lillian’s red-dry face.

“They’ll be fine,” said Jess’s father. “MCC doesn’t make mistakes when they choose a crew.”

Ethan walked back to his room, returning a moment later.

“Here,” he said, handing Jess what appeared to be a piece of clear plastic half the size of his palm.

Jess took the object.

“It is from my collection,” he said.

She looked closely at the clear card and discovered a thin hair enclosed between two layers. “What is it?”

“I obtained a strand of Rover’s hair. Now that you have met, I would like you to have it. For luck.” Ethan smiled.

Jess shook her head. “What about you? Don’t you need good luck?”

Ethan shrugged. “I will have Jessamyn.”

~ ~ ~

Jess’s congratulations from the Secretary General were mixed.

“Having you at the helm of the Galleon gives me great peace,” said Mei Lo as Jess flew her home one last time from a meeting in New Tokyo. “But it also means I’m losing the best chauffeur I’ve ever had.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” said Jess. “I could ask for another couple of days, to get you settled with someone else.”

“
Holy Hermes
, no!” replied the Secretary. “You’ve got a job to do, Pilot Jaarda. I hereby order you to forget my self-indulgent complaint.”

Jess smiled.

“Between you and me, they’re going to ride you extra hard the next four weeks because of the suspension on your record. You may feel less enthusiastic about this assignment before long.”

Jess glanced over at the Secretary, who chewed on her lower lip as she gazed at Mars spinning past below them.

“I’ve thought long and hard over the resolution to destroy Earth’s hold on our planet by seizing control of the satellite array,” Mei Lo said softly. “
Ares
, I hope I’ve made the right decision.”

“I won’t fail you,” said Jess.

The Secretary nodded and then seemed to lose herself in dark contemplation of the red-brown planitia for the remainder of the journey.

Jess piloted the Secretary’s ship into MCC for the last time strictly according to standard protocol, landing with a textbook precision the Academy dean would have been proud of.

~ ~ ~

Jessamyn’s pre-launch training proved both difficult and unpleasant. She consoled herself with the fact that it gave her more time with her brother, whose official function was as the crew communications specialist. Besides her brother and Harpreet, Jess had to learn to work with the payload specialist, a quiet mechanic nicknamed Crusty, and the young captain of their crew, Cassondra Kipling, a woman with political aspirations. “Kipper,” as she was called at MCC, was only four years older than Jess, but within the first week, Jess became convinced there was no world in which the two might have been friends.

“She’s awful,” Jess confessed to Lobster, who would serve on the other ship, as they walked together after a full day’s training. “She has no sense of humor. I asked what she liked to read for fun and she said stories were for children and that she had better things to do with her time. Honestly, I don’t think she likes flying all that much. I wish you were captaining my ship.”

“Kipper’s all right,” replied Lobster. “You’ll get to know her on the flight to Earth.”

“Won’t that be fun,” Jess murmured.

“Between you and me,” said Lobster, “I asked for you on my team. Took it up with Harpreet Mombasu
and
the Secretary General.”

Jess looked hopefully at her red-bearded friend. Everyone knew Harpreet had tremendous influence over the planet’s leader.

He shook his head. “It was no good. It seems Harpreet put a lot of thought into the balance of each team. She spouted about the combination of hot and cold, head and heart and stomach and I don’t know what else. Most of it went right past me, to be honest, but I left that meeting confident she knew what she was up to.”

Jess sighed heavily. “I’ll make it work.” She gave Lobster a quick hug. “But I would have loved flying with you.”

Ethan stood waiting for his sister, already in his walk-out suit, eager to return home. She wondered how he would manage the final week before launch when they were required to live on base. She’d noticed a determination in her brother to meet every new situation as if it were a game he had to win. It made her proud, but even more importantly, it gave her hope for the weeks to come.

“This extra weight makes me feel like I’m tired all the time,” Jess said to Ethan as they climbed into the family get-about. Like the other raiders, she’d been outfitted with weighted garments which she would wear for the duration of her time on Mars. On Earth, she would weigh almost triple what she weighed on Mars. To accustom the team, the weights were increased every three days; the process would continue aboard ship, by increasing its artificial gravity

“I find the sensation of weight pleasurable,” said Ethan.