We are royally screwed,” Boyle said, pacing around the room, still trying to come up with passwords.
They’d tried everything he could think of—combinations of the team name and the year, famous rover names, and last names of the team members themselves. She’d contributed “password” and “Mars” with the date Station 3 had become operational. But none of them had worked and really it could be anything.
“At least they don’t have a password limit set up, or we’d have been locked out a hundred tries ago,” she said, trying to look on the bright side.
He grunted, but kept pacing.
Jack Boyle was an interesting guy, part scientist, part explorer, part warrior. She felt comfortable with him, even though they’d had a rough start.
“We could eat,” she suggested, realizing she was hungry.
“We can only stay here through the morning, tops, before we have to leave. If we miss the shuttle, we’re stuck here until we starve to death.” Boyle went through the stack of paper on the console, flipping pages aggressively. Then he put his hands on his hips and sighed. “But we aren’t accomplishing anything right now, so let’s eat.”
“I’ll get the pack,” she said, starving now all of a sudden. She slipped outside quickly to release as little of the increasing pressure inside the main building as possible. Once it had risen to Earth’s oxygen level, they’d be able to take off their suits. She trudged across the space, feeling the drive catch up with her. She was pretty damn tired. Perhaps she should lie down and sleep after grabbing a quick bite.
The sun was setting and for a moment she watched it in awe, then she scanned the sky for the Russians. Nothing greeted her except red golden rays bathing the broken landscape.
Then it hit her. She’d be spending the night alone with Jack Boyle. The thought made her shiver.
Jack stared at the password prompt, hearing Goldie come back in behind him.
He wondered if this was it, if they’d come all this way, only to be met with such a simple roadblock.
Fabric crinkled and rustled behind him. “I think the oxygen level is high enough now to take off our suits.”
From out of nowhere, he suddenly wished he’d had a more normal life. With a wife. And kids, maybe. A home filled with pretty rocks and sunlight that wasn’t red except at the end of a glorious day. He’d never wanted these things before, but now faced with his own mortality, he found he did.
For all that he’d wanted to be on Mars, he didn’t want to die here.
“I’m going to see if their cleaning unit is still up and running and try to get some of the spacesuit ick off me.”
He should do that too. He knew time in a suit made him smell atrocious. It usually didn’t matter but he found he didn’t want Goldie smelling him that way.
He typed in a series of his favorite old school astronauts—Armstrong, Aldrin, Gene Cernan who did the longest moon walk ever at twenty-two hours. The list went on and on.
“We should eat,” she said, resting a hand on his shoulder, the touch adding to the strange melancholy that had swamped him. “This seems harder than it really is because we’re hungry.” The gesture was oddly comforting, though. And it occurred to him he’d been waiting for someone to touch him just like that his whole life. He wanted to turn and capture her hand, pull her close for a hug. Or more.
He tapped his finger on his leg, trying to focus on the password again, but he knew they needed to shake it up and stop doing the same things over and over, getting the same results. “You’re right. We’d planned to spend the night here anyway and it will be dark soon.” He stepped out of his suit. “The cleaning unit still work?”
“Yep, seemed to.”
“I’ll go take my turn in it. Be right back.” His last glance over his shoulder showed her unpacking their meager provisions. He found the sight strangely comforting.
When he returned, she had meal kits warming on the now working stove. He helped her set the table, then they sat down and ate in an awkward silence. He tried to come up with something to talk about but had no interest in rehashing their impending deaths and didn’t think any other subject would come across as normal.
“It feels nice to be out of the suits,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, feeling stupid. Why was he struggling to talk to this woman? He’d had no problem until she touched him and brought up all sorts of weird emotions. He’d never wanted to live like a civilian before.
“I’m trying to come up with a topic that doesn’t include Russians or death,” she said.
He sputtered a laugh, realizing that they were similar thinkers. “Yeah. I’m sick of thinking about that too. Russians and death are off limits for the duration.”
They lapsed back into silence, but the tension had eased, with nothing below the surface. It was the same silence he had at mealtime most nights, only better because he had a gorgeous sexy scientist across from him.
“Did you get an endowment for Station 7?” she asked.
“Nope. I did the whole thing with grants.” It had been a complete bitch.
“Wow. How many did it take?” From her voice, she understood completely the enormity of what he’d done.
“Fourteen.”
Her mouth dropped open. “So many. How many from the government?”
“Six.” He watched the horror grow on her face. This was a woman who had done her share of government grants.
“Oh my God. The work must have been crushing.”
With the amount of documentation required, government grants tore your soul from your body.
He nodded. “Total hell, and I’m almost out of money again.”
“You didn’t go the sponsor route?”
“Maybe I made a mistake there, but I didn’t want some battery company using me as a spokesman and making this into a money machine for them.” Not that he hadn’t had a ton of offers. Sports cars and watch companies, health insurance and video games, they’d all wanted a piece of him. He regretted now that he hadn’t taken the easy money.
“Changing your mind now?” she asked.
“I’m leaning in that direction.”
“I would have broken long ago. You must be one stubborn person not to fold under that pressure.”
“This reality TV thing was my first step into selling out.”
She shook her head. “You aren’t selling out. Compromises have to be made to get things accomplished. That’s just life. Mars is worth some sacrifices.”
“Mars is worth everything.” He met her gaze and they shared a moment of complete accord. He was pretty sure no one understood exactly what he’d given up—and gained—when it came to Mars. Except maybe this woman.
Seemingly caught up in this moment of realization herself, she cleared her throat to break the silence and intensity of their shared experience. “For me too, obviously. You might have to put up with us for a month, but I had to squeeze into a ball gown and accept a rose from some a-hole who only kept me around to get back at Lynette.”
“Who’s Lynette? The women who’s running things?” he guessed, realizing that he hadn’t been properly introduced earlier.
“Yeah. Don’t underestimate her. She might have had a small breakdown after those people died, but she’s a ballbuster at heart.”
“You sound like you like her.”
“I do. She’s got the toughest job on the planet I think.”
“Huh.” Not that his job was hard, not the geologist part anyway. He’d always found his work a joy. “Did you have a sponsor for the rover? Or did the university support you?” He took the last bite of his meal.
“Are you kidding? We’re a public university. Funding is nonexistent. And I haven’t found a sponsor who is even remotely excited about a climbing rover. But NASA paid a large chunk with the understanding I’d share my design.”
“Ouch.” That meant NASA would not need to buy rovers from her in the future. They could make their own, cutting out her ability to sell her design to a manufacturer and make a large amount of money.
“Not really. The knowledge I’ll gain is going to set my research so far ahead, they’ll struggle to catch up when I give it to them. I made my delivery date much further out than I needed to.”
“I’m surprised they let you.”
“They didn’t have a choice. I know my worth.”
It was nice, really, to talk to someone who understood what his world was like. They finished their meal and recycled their meal packs, then the hunt was on again for the password. It had to be here somewhere and with food in their bellies, they were focused and on top of their game.
Jack wasn’t a person to give up, but time was running out and he needed to get into the computer. It was already dark outside, the atmosphere through the portholes fading to the dusky red that signaled the end of the day. Too bad he wasn’t some sort of hacker. But computers had never held the allure like rocks had.
Goldie sat nearby, going through a stack of what looked like daily logbooks that were handwritten. Which was odd. He would have thought they would either be computerized or taken back to Earth when the team left. Perhaps they’d been too ill to pack properly.
Margaret Carson was an interesting woman, one he hoped to get to know better. What he liked most was that she understood the trials of his world and she respected his research. She didn’t question why he would be on Mars. Sure, it sounded sexy at first, but the reality was, he was camping out here, living a rustic existence, and he would live like this for as long as he could. Mars had always been his first priority and no significant other would come first. He’d never met a woman before who understood his devotion to the red planet.
Until now.
Margaret had made her own sacrifices. Six months ago, he would have looked down on her for them, but now he understood. Hell, he’d jumped on the chance to have Hank Carson film at Station 7.
The more he thought of it, the more he admired her for taking the opportunity to come, even if it meant she had to be on a reality TV show.
As he stared at her, an odd thought filtered through his mind. What if he wasn’t alone at Station 7? What if someone else was there with him? Someone doing their own experiments? Someone like Margaret Carson?
Thoughts of what it would be like to have another person in his living space didn’t repel him as they usually did. In fact, they were… pleasant.
“What about this?” Margaret asked, pointing at a page in the journal.
He leaned down close to her to look. She smelled like machine oil, Mars dust, and vaguely like herbal shampoo. He wanted to move closer for a deeper sniff.
“There,” she said, pointing to the top corner, where Spac3junky3! was written.
“Looks like a password for sure.” Feeling oddly reluctant to stop sniffing her, he went to the console. “You have the honors,” he said, holding out a chair.
She sat, letting him roll her a bit closer. Then she typed it in.
They waited, wondering if it would work.
The monitor flashed off, then on again, and for a second he thought they’d blown it, but then it read, WELCOME TO STATION 3.
“We’re in,” she cried, victorious, leaping to her feet.
He grabbed her arm and swung her to his chest, planting a kiss on her lips. It was closed mouthed and chaste, but he felt the shiver of need for the first time in so very, very long.
He knew she felt it too, as her arms threaded around his neck, their kiss deepening as her lips parted.