Mars Life by Ben Bova Read Free Book Online

We do it every day.”
    “Every day,” Samuels repeated, as if it was an accusation.
    Then she turned from Jamie to look squarely into the camera again. “I think we owe it to the courage of those fine men and women struggling to survive on Mars to bring them home, now that the budget for exploring Mars has been cut to a dangerously low level.”
    Jamie sat there with his mouth hanging open while the floor director shouted, “Okay! We’re out!”

ALBUQUERQUE: DURAN CONDOMINIUMS

    It was dark by the time Jamie parked his Nissan hybrid in his assigned space next to Vijay’s convertible. It was late summer, monsoon season: his wife hadn’t put the top down on her car in weeks.
    There were puddles on the parking lot and lightning flickering beyond the Sandia Mountains, flashing against the clouds in the dark brooding sky. That’s something we never have to worry about on Mars, Jamie told himself. Hasn’t rained there in sixty million years, at least.
    When he opened the door to his home Vijay was sitting on the deep leather sofa watching the television news.
    “You’re a popular bloke today,” she said, smiling as she got to her feet. Born of Hindu parents in Melbourne, she had never overcome her Aussie accent.
    Jamie kissed her lightly. “The White House’s gift to me.”
    “It’s a shame, what they did,” Vijay said. “A crime.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You look tired.”
    “I’ve been on the grill all day, just about.” She picked up the remote from the coffee table and clicked off the TV.
    “How about you?” he asked. “How do you feel?” Her bright smile lit up her dark face. “Fine. Worried about you, though.”
    “You want to go out for dinner? Roberto’s maybe. Or that new sushi place?”
    “I don’t really feel up to it, Jamie. I’m sure you’d rather kick off your boots and stay home, wouldn’t you?”
    He shrugged.
    “There’s hot dogs in the fridge. And I think we still have a few bottles of beer.”
    Jamie slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, her rich voluptuous body pressing against his. “Fine,” he said. “Hot dogs and beer. Typical American meal.”
    She laughed. It was an old joke between them: typical Americans, he a half-Navaho and she a Hindu from Australia.
    * * * *

    Dex Trumball was not laughing, He had flown to New York to discuss a tax audit of the Trumball Trust with the director of the Internal Revenue Service’s northeastern regional office. After that grim afternoon he went with his latest trophy wife to sit through a long and boring dinner at the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan, and then endured an even longer and more boring speech by an architect who showed digital images of the new city she was building in the mountains of Colorado. With millions of people driven from their homes by the greenhouse flooding, the federal government was spending hundreds of billions on erecting new cities.
    The speech had ended with a plea for donations, of course. The audience was wealthy: most of them were getting even wealthier on government contracts to build housing and roads and all the infrastructure that was needed to shelter the refugees and start them on new lives.
    Now Dex sat in the plush quiet bar, nursing a scotch and water, listening to the architect drone on and on. His wife had excused herself and hurried off to their hotel. Thinking of her in bed watching TV as she waited for him, Dex wondered why he was going through the motions of being polite to this bore.
    “We’ve learned quite a lot from the life-support systems they’ve developed on the Moon,” she was saying, emphasizing each word with the clicking tap of a manicured finger on the polished mahogany of the bar. She was rail thin and her voice had an irritating nasal twang to it. “We’ll be recycling the water and all the waste systems, turning garbage into electricity.”
    Dex nodded absently, wondering how he could escape her determined enthusiasm without being boorish about it. The