"I must speak with you, privately, in your official capacity." Joanna’s voice was trembling.

Antony Reed looked up from the computer screen. She was standing in the doorway of the dispensary looking as if she would burst into tears in another moment.

"Come in," he said, rising from the desk chair. "Close the door and sit down."

Joanna was dressed almost formally, considering the lax standards of the base: tailored white blouse and snug whipcord jeans that emphasized her hourglass figure. She sat tensely on the wooden chair in front of the desk, biting her lower lip.

"I assure you that anything you tell me will remain strictly confidential between us," Reed said, leaning back in his swivel chair. It creaked slightly.

She was terribly upset, he saw. Nervous and fearful. He realized that Hoffman had gone after her at last. The Austrian has nibbled at the bait.

"What I have to say may have a bearing on our work, on the personnel selected for the mission," Joanna said.

Reed kept his face perfectly serious.

"I must have your promise that you will not reveal anything I tell you to the project administrators."

Leaning forward and placing his forearms on the desk, Reed said in his best professionally grave manner, "If what you are about to tell me actually does have a serious bearing on the mission, then you are placing me in an ethical dilemma."

She nodded and drew in a deep breath. Reed admired the way her blouse moved, even though it was buttoned up to the neck.

"I must be free to speak with you off the record," she said. "When I have finished we can decide what is important for the mission and what is purely personal. Is that all right?" Her voice was almost pleading.

Leaning back in the complaining chair again Reed said airily, "Yes, yes, of course. That will be fine. I want you to feel free to speak openly."

Joanna stared at the computer on the desk. Reed smiled, reached over, and turned it off.

"Now then," he said, "what seems to be the matter?"

She hesitated. Then, "A… a certain member of the group…" She went silent.

Reed waited for a few moments, then prompted, "A member of the group did what? Insulted you? Attacked you? What?"

Her eyes went wide. "Oh, nothing like that!"

"Really?"

She almost seemed relieved. "One of the men tried to make advances, but that was no problem. We have all learned how to deal with that."

"We?"

"All the women in the group."

"You’re saying that some of the men make improper overtures to you?" Reed asked.

Joanna actually smiled. "Of course they do. We can handle that. It is not a problem."

"The men don’t persist? They don’t become threatening?"

She dismissed that idea with a feminine little shrug. "There is only one who makes a real pest of himself."

"Dr. Hoffman," Reed prompted.

"How did you know?"

"Has Hoffman bothered you?"

"He has tried. I was a bit concerned at first; he seemed so insistent."

"And?"

"I have learned to deal with him. We women help each other, you know."

Reed fought to keep himself from frowning. "What’s your problem, then?"

Joanna’s faint smile disappeared. She looked troubled once again. Glancing around the room before replying, she finally said, "It is Dr. Waterman."

"Jamie?"

"He has given up his chance to go on the mission in order to help me."

"As I understand it," Reed said stiffly, "he did not volunteer for that. Dr. Li ordered him to do it."

"Yes, I know," Joanna said. "But still — he is very kind, very helpful. Under other circumstances…"

"Good lord, young lady, you’re not telling me that you’ve fallen in love with him!" Reed was aghast.

"No, no, of course not," she answered too quickly. "We have only been together a few days. But…" Her voice trailed off again; she looked away from Reed.

Feeling a puzzling confusion roiling inside him, Tony said, "It would be extremely unwise to become emotionally involved with a man you will probably never see again, once your tour here at McMurdo is finished."

"I know. I understand that."

"Then what is your problem?" Reed demanded.

"I feel terribly guilty that he is giving up his chance to make the mission because of me."

"I see." Reed relaxed, leaned back again and steepled his fingers. "Of course you do. It’s a perfectly natural reaction."

"What should I do?"

He spread his hands vaguely. "Do? There’s nothing for you to do. The decision to keep Waterman here was not made by you; you’re not responsible for his fate."

"But I am! Don’t you see?"

Pointing to the computer screen and smiling, Reed said, in his most persuasive doctor-knows-best manner, "My dear young lady, Waterman was picked to help you — and the others, I might add — because Li and the selection board had already decided he would not be included in the Mars team. Do you think for one moment that they would take someone already chosen for Mars and scratch him from the roster merely to help you here? No. Certainly not. Waterman’s fate was already decided. You had nothing to do with it."

Joanna stared at him for a long wordless moment. Finally she asked, "You are sure of this?"

Nodding toward the silent computer once more, Reed said, "I do have access to all the personnel files, you know."

She breathed out a deeply relieved sigh.

Watching her blouse, Reed felt seething disappointment burning in his gut. Hoffman’s so inept that he doesn’t frighten her. And now she’s allowed herself to form a romantic attachment to this red man from the wild west. This isn’t what I had planned for her. Not at all.

Standing out in the open, Jamie realized once more how much Mars reminded him of the rocky, mountainous desert of northwestern New Mexico. In the dawn’s slanting light the cliffs to the west glowed red, just as they did at home.

But the sky was pink, not blue, and the rock-strewn ground was utterly bare. Not a twig or a leaf. Not a lizard or a spider or even a patch of moss to break the endless rusty reds and oranges of the desert. The sun was small and weak, too far away to give warmth.

Magnificent desolation. An astronaut had said that about the moon, decades ago. Jamie thought it more appropriate for Mars. The world he saw was magnificent, beautiful in a strange, clean, untouched way. Proud and austere, its desert harsh and totally empty, its cliffs stark and bare, Mars was barren yet splendidly beautiful in its own uncompromised severity.

Looking out to the horizon, Jamie felt an urge to walk out as far as he could, just keep on going forever across this magnificent landscape that was so alien yet so much like home. He snorted angrily to himself. Leave the mysticism behind you, he chided himself. You don’t want to be the first man to die on Mars.

Yet it looked like a good place for dying — a dead world. On Earth life has crawled into every crevice and corner it can find, from pole to pole. Even in the dry Antarctic deserts there’s life hidden inside the rocks. But this place looks dead. Dead as the moon. If any life at all exists here it should have changed the way the place looks.

Jamie recalled tales of creatures made of silicon and green-skinned Martians with six limbs. Don’t judge without evidence, his scientific conscience warned. Be patient, said a deeper voice within him. The rules of life may be different on this new world.

He shook his head inside his helmet as if trying to clear away the argument within. The suit had acquired that faintly acrid, not unpleasant odor of his own body now. We’ve personalized our suits, Jamie thought, as he carried another bulky crate of medical supplies from the lander to the airlock hatch of their dome, balancing it on his shoulder as if it weighed no more than a sack of cornmeal.