"Well, what are we going to do about it? If we let the media have that videotape interview he’ll look like a goddammed saint. If we refuse to release it to the media we’ll look like bastards."

The President winced at her choice of words. He was essentially a gentle man. He felt relaxed among the luxurious burgundy draperies and lustrous Chippendale furnishings of the Map Room. Even the huge Persian carpet soothed him with its glowing colors and intricate geometric designs.

"I saw the video," he answered. "The young man simply said he wasn’t involved in politics. I don’t see how that can hurt us."

"He’s become a hero to the Indians," the Vice-President snapped. "And if we release that tape he’ll become a hero to every minority group in the nation."

"But those are our own people…"

"Yes! Right! Our people. But if we let the media turn him into a hero, how long do you think it’ll take Masterson and those other bastards to turn him into a front man for their own organization?"

The President shook his head. "I don’t think so."

"Sure! You’re retiring after next year. I’ve got to face all the primaries. It’s tough enough being a woman without having to deal with a Native American who’s been to Mars!"

"But he’s not interested in politics," said the President.

"Then why did he start that Indian crap?" The Vice-President was fuming, her lunch lying before her untouched. "He’ll be getting back from Mars just in time for the first primaries. I don’t want him being used against me!"

The President, who understood something of politics, thought swiftly. "Suppose he becomes one of your supporters?"

She shook her head doggedly. "Masterson’s in tight with the high-tech crowd. He’ll grab this redskin before we can; you know that. Remember, I was the one who got the Space Council to vote against funding for further Mars missions until we get the results back from this one! Masterson will crucify me for that! And this Indian will help him. He’s already helping him!"

Pushing his chair back slightly, the President gazed around the room for support. None of the portraits offered a bit of help, not even the one of FDR in his Navy cape.

"Well, what can we do about it?" he asked.

"Muzzle him," the Vice-President replied immediately. "Get him off the team on the ground there on Mars and put him up in one of the orbiting ships. That way he’ll be ignored by the media. They’re only interested in what’s going on, on the ground."

"But won’t people think that we’re hurting this scientist for political reasons?"

"We can find a reason to get him off the ground team. Not right away, of course. In a week or two. That will be plenty of time. The media might squawk, but I’d rather have them squawking now than a year from now when he gets back here."

"Do you think we can get away with that?"

"A year from now he’ll be forgotten. Nobody’s got an attention span that long."

The President smiled gently. "You do."

His Vice-President grimaced back at him. "In our business you need a long memory. And claws."

"And the video?"

"Tell the media he refused to be interviewed. Make him look like a stuck-up scientific type instead of a noble Indian trying to call attention to his people’s plight."

The President nodded slowly. It might work. And this power-hungry woman sitting across from him might just make herself the first female President of the United States. She had the fire in her gut for it. And the claws.

During the long years of training, Jamie had traveled so much that he often awoke in the morning with the feeling that he had never really left Houston; some mysterious organization had merely changed the city outside his hotel window. The cities out there were gigantic stage sets and all the people in them were hired actors. Or perhaps very clever robots.

After several weeks aboard the Mars 1 spacecraft coasting toward its distant destination, Jamie began to think that all spacecraft were stage sets, too.

They all looked alike from the inside. The space stations in Earth orbit, the shuttles that carried the Mars explorers to them, the Mars-bound craft themselves — their interiors were all almost identical. Cramped compartments, narrow passageways, the constant hum of electrical equipment, the glare-free, shadowless, flat lighting, the same smell of cold metal and canned stale air. The packed-in feeling that someone was waiting in line behind you, even in the toilet.

Now that the two spacecraft had been spun up, though, there was at least a feeling of gravity. One could walk down the central corridor, sit in a chair, sleep with the solidity of a mattress and blanket that did not float away when you turned over.

There was only one place on the Mars 1 craft that was not claustrophobic: the observation port that looked out on the universe. Jamie found himself going there more and more often as the long wearisome weeks passed by. It would take more than nine months before they reached the red planet and established a safe orbit around it. Nine months of inactivity, living cheek by jowl like a dozen sardines inside an aluminum can. No, not a can, Jamie said to himself. A pressure cooker.

There was work for them to do, of sorts. And a strict schedule of physical exercises in the closet-sized gymnasium. But it was all perfunctory. Jamie put in his required hours on the exercise machines; they kept his muscles in shape, but his mind wandered — he was bored, moody, dull.

Every two or three days he received a call from DiNardo, recovered now from his surgery. The Jesuit reviewed the work going on in several terrestrial laboratories, further analysis of the rocks and soil samples returned from Mars by the unmanned robot exploratory vehicles. The various analyses differed only in the minutest details: the soil samples were sterile, although a few of the rocks contained traces of organic material, carbon-rich chemicals that might be the precursors of living organisms.

The chemicals of life might exist in those rocks, but that’s about as exciting as looking at the bottles of aspirin tablets in a drugstore display case. They haven’t found anything alive in the samples, not even an amoeba.

Nearly four months into the flight, Jamie suddenly asked, "How is Professor Hoffman? Is he involved in these analyses?"

It took several minutes for messages to travel the distance between the spacecraft and Earth. As he watched the little display screen of the communications console Jamie saw DiNardo’s swarthy face register surprise, then something else. Guilt? The priest ran a hand over his shaved scalp before answering.

"Professor Hoffman has apparently suffered a nervous breakdown. He is in a rest home in Vienna for the present."

Jamie felt the same surprise flaring into guilt that seared his guts.

"I have visited him myself," DiNardo went on. "His doctors assure me that he will be fine in a few weeks or so."

I wonder how I’d have reacted to being yanked off the mission at the last minute, Jamie asked himself. He changed the subject back to geology and concluded his conversation with the priest as swiftly as he could.

He left the communications console up on the flight deck and rushed down the length of the habitat module toward the observation port. By common custom the section housing the port was considered private. Whenever someone entered it and closed the hatch that separated it from the rest of the module, no one else in the crew would enter. It was the one place aboard the Mars spacecraft where a person could be alone.

Jamie needed to be alone, to be away from all the others. Yet as he hurried down the narrow passageway he felt a sullen tide of anger rising within him. Not guilt. Not pity. Anger. They always have to take something away from you, he heard a voice in his mind complain. They can never let you have the whole cake; they always lick the icing off first. Or piss on it. So I’m on my way to Mars and Hoffman’s in a funny farm. Great.