Mars Life by Ben Bova Read Free Book Online Page A

architect was swiveling slightly on the stool to one side of him; on the other was an old friend of his late father’s, a dimwitted old coot who thought that anyone under the age of eighty was a flighty kid who needed firm direction from his elders.
    “You still involved in this Mars business?” the old man asked. Dex thought that a century ago he would have been a poster boy for communist propaganda about bloated capitalists: the man was bald and corpulent, several chins lapping over the black tie of his tuxedo. His eyes were narrow, squinting, piggish.
    Nodding, Dex said, “The Trust funds the Mars Foundation.”
    “Damn luxury we can’t afford anymore,” the old man said, his voice grating, harsh. “Cut your losses, Dexter, and turn your attention back here to Earth, where it’s needed.”
    Dex bit back his first impulse to tell the old fart to go to hell. Instead, he replied mildly, “Mr. Younger, you could afford to fund the entire Mars operation out of your own pocket, you know that?”
    “What? Me?”
    “The team we’re supporting on Mars costs a lot less than one of the cities Ms. Battista here wants to build.”
    “But people need my cities!” cried the architect.
    “Sure they do,” Dex said. “And we need to continue exploring Mars, too.”
    He wished he believed his own words.
    * * * *

    It wasn’t until he and Vijay were sitting together on the sofa and the dishwasher was chugging away in the kitchen that Jamie said, “Pressure’s building to shut down the program.”
    “Close it? You mean bring everybody home?”
    He nodded, tight-lipped. “We’ve already had to shut down the new base at Hellas.”
    Varuna Jarita Shektar had been the physician on the Second Expedition. She and Jamie had met in training, traveled to Mars together, and slowly but irrevocably fallen in love. The two of them stayed alone on the red planet for four months after the rest of the team had left for Earth and before the replacement team had arrived, Adam and Eve in a barren, frigid new world that was to them a Garden of Eden.
    “But they can’t shut down the entire operation,” Vijay said, her luminous dark eyes blazing with indignation. “They simply can’t. They mustn’t!”
    Jamie wished he could work up such righteous wrath so easily. But he couldn’t. It was all bottled up inside him. Everything. Including Jimmy’s death. Especially Jimmy’s death.
    “Vee . . .” he started to say. But the words caught in his throat.
    She was still incensed. “How can they even think about shutting down the program? After all you’ve done, all you’ve discovered.”
    “Vijay,” he said, grasping her by the shoulders. “If I hadn’t been on Mars. . . if I’d been here with you . . . and Jimmy . . .”
    She stared at him, her eyes wide with sudden understanding. “Jamie, no.”
    “If I’d been here, the way a father should’ve been, he wouldn’t have — “
    “No!” she snapped. “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it!”
    “But-”
    “It’s not going to bring him back.”
    “I know. But still ... I feel responsible. It’s my fault.”
    It had taken him nearly two years to say those words.
    “It’s not your fault any more than it’s mine,” Vijay said.
    “Yours? How could it be your fault?”
    “I was here. I should’ve kept a better watch on Jimmy. I should’ve .. .” Her voice faltered and tears misted her eyes.
    He pulled her close, heard her sobbing softly, her head on his shoulder.
    “Vee, we’ll get through this. Together. The two of us.”
    “That’s all that’s left, isn’t it? The two of us.”
    “I don’t want to lose you, Vijay.”
    “You’ll never lose me, love. We’re one person, the two of us. Together always.”
    “You’re all I have in the whole world.”
    She pulled away from him slightly, blinking tears away as she smiled sadly and said, “No, Jamie. That’s not true. You have Mars, don’t you, love?”
    He couldn’t reply to that. But inwardly he