The Sunborn (4 page)

Julia carefully put aside her emotions. She focused on Praknor’s face, trying to read it but getting nowhere. Midlength dark hair, rather mannishly cut; the expression in the eyes too solid for a younger person; an open face that told nothing. As Julia opened her mouth to speak, Praknor threw her hair back. It flounced in the light gravity, reminding Julia of all the irritating blondes she had competed with in school. Julia’s hair didn’t work well that way, too fine, and the gesture alone still set her teeth on edge.

She made herself focus on Praknor’s manner, trying to read it. In her previous job this woman must have been used to ordering the scientists around. She had a certain managerial blandness. No tics, no nervousness; just resolve. She wondered if Praknor could be caught off-guard. And where was her enthusiasm?

“We’ve had twelve deaths,” Viktor said simply. “That did not slow us.”

Praknor nodded and then went on and made the expected complimentary remarks. She mentioned how she had as a teenager set out to go into exobiology, a field that came of age with their discovery of the Marsmat. “I hope that will help me improve the program here,” she concluded.

Viktor said warily, “Improve how?”

She gave them a thin smile. “Chairman Axelrod hired me personally. He wants me to impress upon you the necessity to find products for export. We of the Consortium cannot depend upon our product lines and the research investment of ISA to sustain us here indefinitely.”

To Julia this was transparently a prepared speech, and Viktor’s slow blink told her that he thought so, too. “Such as?”

Praknor smiled again, or rather the mouth did; the eyes stayed the same. “Your Marsmat foods idea—well, it hasn’t panned out.”

“Does not taste good,” Viktor said. “And was Earthside idea, not ours.”

“I sent those samples back for scientific purposes,” Julia said evenly. “Not for Axelrod to start a product line.”

“Well, I wasn’t with the Consortium then,” Praknor said, opening her laptop slate and consulting it.

She went into another carefully phrased opening statement about the need for all levels of the Consortium to cooperate in developing new “revenue avenues.” At this point Julia tuned her out.

Mars had some resources, but few that were worth shipping to Earth. The first hit was some “Mars jewels” they found in the volcanic layers dotted around Gusev Crater. Pale, with mysterious violet motes embedded in milky teardrops, they commanded huge prices for a few seasons. Some flecked sulfur-laden stones later became fashionable. The perennial sellers were the “blueberries” the ’04 rovers found, just hematite—but
Martian
hematite, so worth a thousand bucks a gram. Still, novelty only lasts so long.

Viktor had thought of another sideline, one that Axelrod liked especially. He had systematically rounded up all the parachutes that had slowed the dozens of landers, rovers, and provisions carriers that had landed in Gusev over several decades, ever since the first one at Christmas, 2003. The silky parachutes were seared by ultraviolet and solar wind particles, dirtied with red dust—and made grand T-shirts for the fashionistas on Earth.

Later, Axelrod cut a deal with several governments and made an even greater profit by returning to Earth the original rovers and landers still standing on the surface. These went to museums and private collectors. “Think of it as being able to buy the
Niña,
the
Pinta,
or the
Santa María,
” went one of the glossy upscale brochures.

Some lesser billionaires had bought heat shields and other pieces discarded in the era of automated exploration. Apparently they made handsome “found techno-art” displays in the entrance foyers of big corporations. Then Axelrod sold off the Original Four’s actual pressure suits, their houseware (“Dine as they did!”), even their worn-out flight jackets, T-shirts, and jeans. Raoul had reported in a letter that at a cocktail party reception a man had come up to him and proudly pointed out that he was wearing the very loafers that Raoul had used in the hab. They did not go well with the tux he was wearing, but the man didn’t seem to care.

Julia kept her distance as much as possible. At first she had been cheerful about the whole commercialization thing, but Axelrod’s relentless marketing wore her down. Even hundreds of millions of kilometers away, it got to her. She clearly recalled unwrapping supply drone packages and finding plastic supermuscled action figures that bore caricatures of her and Viktor’s faces. Then there was the movie, miscast and scripted by writers who mostly knew four-letter words but no science. The animation series had been no better. Julia recalled all that in a flash, studying Praknor’s assured manner, and wondered what would come next.

“The jewels are still a steady item, but my main effort will be to supervise more studies on the…” Here Praknor slowed, eyes flicking from Viktor to her slate, and Julia knew what she was going to say.

“Mars Effect,” Julia finished for her.

“Uh, yes, I—”

“Does not exist,” Viktor said.

“Our data—”

“Comes from good healthy lifestyle,” Viktor said, following the line they had agreed on. “Plenty work, exercise, light diet, clean air. Also, we were picked because of good health and physical condition. Plus smarts.”

Praknor said, “For years there was excess hydrogen sulfide in the agro domes where you two worked.”

Viktor dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “All filtered out now.”

“Before its effects were properly studied,” Praknor said exactly, “in coordinated trials.”

“Stunk, was its effect,” Viktor said.

“You’re not suggesting that
hydrogen sulfide
confers a health benefit, are you?” Julia asked. Her first experience of high school chemistry had been an experiment that made those rotten-egg fumes. She’d laundered her clothes every day, in the first dome years, to get the stink out.

“Something must explain your extraordinary longevity, as confirmed again in last year’s Maxfield Index study.”

“That index has a huge variance,” Julia said to buy time.

“It is universally recognized as a reliable indicator of expected longevity,” Praknor said primly. “You two have consistently scored very high in”—Praknor began ticking off items on her fingers—“reflexes, physiochem, metabolic rate, endurance, comprehension speed, pre-cancer indicators—”

“All normalized to Earth,” Viktor said. “And for large samples. Here is sample of two.”

“Mr. Axelrod feels it is a powerful indicator. So do a lot of other specialists. Your bodies are not showing the sag and weakening of the general population—”

“Lower gravity,” Julia said.

“—and I’m sure you aren’t dyeing your hair.” To their puzzled looks she said, “No gray.
That
certainly isn’t due to mechanical effects.”

“Genetics,” said Julia. “In my family we don’t get gray until we’re in our eighties.” She turned to Viktor. “What about you?”

He shrugged, a carefully blank expression on his face.

Undaunted, Praknor showed them on her slate a complex, three-dimensional data contour map. It was a tall hill, color-coded so that at the crown a yellow-green spot marked out the Mars
sample
range. “You two, exposed to higher radiation doses and ultraviolet for over two decades, are doing better than 99 percent of the global population.”

“Most of that population is starving in Asia,” Viktor said conversationally.

“Comparison with the Euros shows the same,” Praknor shot back.

“Too rich diet, too little exercise,” Viktor countered mildly.

“Look,” Julia said, equally mildly, “Axelrod has been pushing this idea hard for, what, six, eight years? So he can sell berths and luxury suites in his Mars-Orb.”

“Sales prompted by your own results,” Praknor said, visibly not letting herself get roused. “Starting with the tests
eleven
years ago.”

They had been shrugging off this issue for years. It had seemed just another of the Earthside fads that ran for months and then faded. But now in Praknor’s firmly set jaw Julia could see trouble.

The worst visitors to Mars by far had been the Med Study Team, which had arrived all enthused with testing and “optimizing” the physical conditioning effects on Mars. This was in the days when Earthside still thought 0.38 g was bound to cause physiological damage—a holdover from the NASA programs that had endlessly obsessed over zero g, without ever doing centrifugal-gravity tests. The Med Study Team brought with them stationary bikes, with which they hosted “spinning” competitions, and talked up how much they were all going to learn about the Mars Effect. That awful two years climaxed in a group “spinning climb” called Mt. Everest Week. Everybody in base (a lucky few were out on an extended foray for samples, and spared) gathered in the dining area, which sported Tibetan prayer flags and burning candles. (The effrontery of burning anything on an oxygen-starved world hadn’t occurred to the Med Study Team, of course.) The big screen showed the real Everest views, tracing their imaginary progress with little flags on an inset map. They all pedaled furiously, sweating, spinning, and the Med Study Team made measurements. They were supposed to be making an internal journey, while literally going nowhere. A team member dumped dry ice into buckets of water to simulate Himalayan mists as the team leader announced after four hours that they were “ascending” the peak.

Viktor got there first. Everyone in the team took this as clear proof of the Mars Effect. Julia took it as adaptation, no more. But with Viktor’s victory she had enough clout to do something. The team wanted to stay, but she and Viktor used their immense leverage in Earthside media to leak their irritation. They said they could study any Mars Effect on their own, thank you. The Consortium stalled only a bit. The Med Study Team went back to Earth on the next boost, and she had never been so glad to see the back of anyone in her life.

The Mars Effect talk had surfaced repeatedly after that. True enough, the physical exams showed that she and Viktor were not losing their resilience. The aging Earthside population in the advanced nations had driven a huge industry devoted to prolonging life spans, and their diagnostics now had great predictive value. The battery of tests could warn aging managers when to retire, how to optimize their remaining years, even what genetic markers foretold about their probable death modes.

So the “Mars Effect” had emerged as she and Viktor stood up well in the tests, capturing yet more media attention. Axelrod had seen a profit awaiting and began his orbital retirement resorts. After all, the man had built himself into a multi-billionaire from media empires and real estate. Without him the first Mars expedition would probably never have happened. After NASA’s big blowup on the Canaveral pad Axelrod had seen opportunity where others saw only disaster. He had put together the bones of the Consortium, coaxed money from dozens of lesser billionaires, and used leverage in the U.S. Senate to make NASA sell off their useless surplus—since, as everyone knew, NASA wasn’t going to Mars, anyway.

For such a man, setting the orbital health resorts’ centrifugal gravity exactly at 0.38 g, plus advertising them with vids of Julia and Viktor bounding in joyous, long steps over the Martian plains—well, that was just marketing. It settled the Mars Effect into the collective mind. She almost regretted making those videos. Almost; it had been great fun, especially in their first mad romps without suits inside the first areodomes.

“The Mars Sat is the most profitable sector of all Mr. Axelrod’s innovations,” Praknor recited. “Further tests would strengthen our advertising campaign even more.”

“So how many rich folks
bolshoi
retreats has he now in Earth orbit?” Viktor asked mildly. He tried to be blissfully uninformed of matters commercial.

“Seven. I am here to increase that number by nailing down the physiological studies, and…”

She had caught Viktor’s wary look, eyelids lowering. “And to ask if you would be a…donor.”

There was a long hush in the small conference room. “Of?” Julia asked into the silence.

“Mr. Axelrod ordered a market survey for new Mars products. The number one item, wildly popular in trials, was…sperm donation.”

Julia and Viktor blinked together. At last Viktor said, “From? For?”

“We’ve had some offers from the, uh, Founder’s Movement.”

Julia could not suppress her laugh any longer. It came rolling out in her old brassy Aussie style, a roaring bark that rattled the room and only ebbed into a cackle as her air ran out. “That’s the lot that want ‘genes from the best and brightest,’ right?”

“Yes.” Praknor apparently did not think this was amusing, because, of course, it did involve money.

Julia said, “And Viktor’s gotten some offers?”

Praknor said, “Indeed. Some as high as $50 million.”

“Does that include cost of shipping?”

Praknor did not get it. “Yes. Frozen—”

Viktor joined Julia in gasping, thigh-slapping glee. Praknor sat there staring at them until it wound down. “It is a serious offer.”

Viktor made a solemn face and asked, “How is sample to be got?”

“I’m sure you know,” Praknor said stiffly.

“And you are sent to gather it?” Viktor asked innocently.

Praknor’s mouth took on a stern curl. “If you’re not going to take this seriously…”

“Should we?” Julia shot back. “This man—to whom I happen to be married, I might note in passing—has spent over twenty years in a high-radiation environment, in stressful conditions, and is well past reproductive age—”

“And is desired by many women. He is intelligent, rugged, brave, famous—”

“Ah, is the famous does it.” Viktor grinned.

Julia kept talking right over them. “—and should not be regarded as a profit margin item on anybody’s budget.”

Silence. Looking into the other woman’s face, she sensed how disconnected they were from Earthside’s culture. To pay for famous sperm! The very idea curled her lip. Yet Praknor considered it a reasonable business proposition. Praknor finally filled the hush with, “I can see I am not going to get cooperation from you on improving the margin here—which, incidentally, is negative. Quite negative.”