They arrived in the vicinity of Target 37 right around the time Bruce predicted, but the next several days had to be devoted to unloading the rover and setting up a base camp before they could even think about searching for the alien ruins. The most pressing business was to bury the extra fuel tank they'd brought from Pirate in order to provide the container with insulation and keep leakage down. They'd probably lose some of the fuel to outgassing, no matter what they did, but this way the loss would be minimal.
Once the fuel was hooked up to Thoat's generators, they were assured of months of refrigeration and compression. Hopefully, they'd be rescued before they had to return to Pirate for more fuel.
Even more hopefully, the extra fuel they'd brought from Pirate would never be needed at all, much less a return trip to the lander. It would simply remain there as an emergency backup. As soon as the fuel tank was buried, they started setting up the most critical pieces of equipment they'd been carrying in the rover-the reactors initially developed by Ares Project which would use Martian raw materials to manufacture the water and oxygen they'd need, along with providing them with a self-sustaining fuel supply in the form of methane.
The reactors they'd brought with them, of course, were considerably more sophisticated-not to mention expensive-than the "Ruth, Ferris, Porky, and Ethyl" prototypes originally built by Project Ares. After NASA had more or less absorbed Ares into the drive to reach Mars as soon as possible, the powers that be at NASA had wisely decided to simply adopt Ares' designs rather than start from scratch. But, with the money NASA had available to throw at the problem, by the time Nike left orbit the reactors it carried on board were at least three generations more advanced than the originals.
Within two days, the reactors were up and running with no hitches-and all six of the humans on Mars heaved a collective sigh of relief. So, just as heartfelt, did the crew of the Nike. Whatever happened now, so long as Nike could figure out a way to provide them with food, the people stranded on Mars could survive indefinitely.
The next task was to set up the "bubbles." Those were the aerogel-insulated hemispherical tents that would provide them with far more living space than they'd had aboard the rover. They'd continue using Thoat's kitchen and sanitary facilities, of course, since the bubbles had no cooking provisions at all and "toilets" that were essentially just very high-tech chamber pots. But they'd have far more room and, even more importantly, personal privacy.
Finally, they removed the rest of the equipment and supplies and stored them in the bubbles. Only then, after working like beavers for five days after arrival, did they enjoy the little party they'd promised themselves.
By that time, Nike was relaying down what seemed to be a veritable avalanche of congratulatory messages from Earth. Most of them were not even from people and organizations directly connected to the space program.
After reading one message, sent by the faculty and student body of a university in a Chinese city that Helen had never even heard of, it dawned on her that they were famous. And not "famous" as in "tabloid meat."
Famous.
When she said as much to Ken Hathaway, in one of their conversations, the brigadier general just laughed.
"Are you kidding? Helen, I don't think you have any idea. The crash-landing of John Carter and your subsequent trek to safety at Target 37 has been the lead story in every media outlet on the planet since it happened. NASA tells me they think more people in the U.S. are watching the news about it every night than watched the Super Bowl."
"You're kidding." She stared at the screen, an empty feeling starting to come to her stomach.
Famous… Really famous…
"Nope, not kidding in the least. We're only sending down a smidgeon of the messages that are pouring in."
God help me. The tabloids were bad enough.
She had a sudden nightmare image of herself trying to conduct a dig somewhere in Montana-with a crowd of spectators surrounding the site.
"I'm a paleontologist," she half-wailed. "How will I be able to keep doing my work?"
"Um. Well, as to that… I can tell you, for sure, that at least you won't have to worry about collecting a salary any more. I haven't sent them down, since it seems pointless at the moment. But I can tell you that what looks to be every major garment manufacturer in the world is engaged in a bidding war to get you to be their spokesman. Last I saw, the top offer was fifteen million dollars."
He paused, momentarily. "Well, 'spokeswoman,' I guess I should say. Emphasis definitely on the gender. Seeing as how the main interest seems to be-"
"Nooo-"
She did wail, that time-and felt her stomach fly south for the winter.
"Yup. Their new projected lines of swimwear."
"I'm almost forty-three years old, for God's sake!"
"Yup," Ken's cheery voice continued, relentlessly. "I guess that explains why-near as I can tell-every cosmetics company in the world launched their equivalent of World War Three too. Women entering into middle age are apparently the biggest clientele for cosmetics, at least measured in terms of the money they spend-and you just became the poster girl for all half a billion of them. Last I heard, the cosmetic companies' bids were up to-hold on, I'll check with Jackie-"
He was back in seconds. "Eighteen and a half million, she says. She asks me to pass on that she recommends the offer that wants to market the stuff under the title 'Helen of Mars.' I do agree with her that they came up with the niftiest slogan: the face that launched the greatest ship of all."
"I'll kill her," Helen snarled. "And you're next!"
"Under the circumstances, that's a pretty idle threat," Ken pointed out, as cheerily as ever. "Jackie also wants to know what you'd like for your birthday coming up. She warns you she can't afford anything fancy, even if you are on the verge of becoming richer than Croesus."
"I want a cave in a desert somewhere!" Helen half-shouted. "Where I might get my privacy back!"
Ken laughed again. "Why bother? Just stay on Mars."
Helen's eyed widened.
And widened. Her stomach paused in its headlong flight.
She looked at A.J. He was sitting nearby in the rover, obviously doing his level best to keep from laughing himself.
His level best wasn't nearly good enough, so far as she was concerned. "One chuckle out of you," she hissed, "and you can look forward to a completely celibate stay on Mars."
That sobered him up, some. The threat wasn't idle, either. Not since they'd set up the bubbles and had some personal space again.
"Wouldn't think of it," he managed to get out.
"Good." After a moment, though, her glare started fading. "What do you think, A.J. Is it possible?"
He shrugged. "Maybe. It's certainly feasible, from a technical standpoint. The real question-what else is new?-will be the funding. At a guess, I'd say that depends mostly on what we find-or don't find-at Target 37. If there's a real dig to be done there… You know what I mean. A major one."
"A real dig," she mused. "A major dig. Major digs take years.. ."
Somewhere far to the south, Helen's stomach wheeled around and start flapping back.
Since A.J. managed to keep from chuckling-barely-Helen didn't carry out her threat that night. Rather the opposite, in fact.
"I love you," she murmured, contently exhausted and lying sprawled across him. "Would you stay here with me?"
"Don't ask silly questions. I came here looking for one dream, and found two. Of course I will."
She could feel a suspicious rumble, with her palm spread across his bare chest. "What's so funny?"
He was practically choking, now.
"What's so funny?"
"Well, I just got to thinking about funding. And it occurred to me-"
"You even finish that sentence, mister-!"
"Let's see what we can find," Helen said. "And stop whining, Joe. Paleontologists always start work at the crack of dawn, you know that. It's not my fault-"
She broke off abruptly, realizing she might be treading onto delicate ground.
Joe wouldn't be coming with them, naturally, with his leg broken. He and Bruce and Rich would stay behind in the camp and finish setting it up, while the other three started scouting for Target 37.
Helen had decided to leave Bruce and Rich behind also, because neither of them had any skills that would be of particular use in this initial scouting expedition. A.J. was coming along for his sensor expertise, which would almost certainly be needed to find ruins that were sixty-five-million years old. Helen, of course, was the only one except Joe with real experience at this work. Finally, she'd chosen Madeline because three would be safer, and Helen had a great deal of confidence in the security official's general competence.
So there was really no reason for Joe to be up this early. Helen assumed that Madeline had woken him up when she arose. Which wouldn't have been hard to do, since she'd been sleeping with him.
Madeline Fathom had apparently decided that their safe arrival here was an omen, or a signal-or whatever it was that mattered to her Inner Self, which Helen still found somewhat mysterious. As soon as they'd started erecting the bubbles, she'd quietly and matter-of-factly explained that she and Joe would share one, so they only needed to put up four instead of five for living quarters.
The look on Joe's face when she'd made that announcement had been
… priceless. It was blindingly obvious that it had come as a surprise to him, too.
The look on his face this morning, on the other hand, was that subtle, hard-to-define-but-unmistakable expression that characterized civilized men trying to suppress their cruder impulses. A combination of smugness and exultation kept under tight restraint, so that the barbarian within didn't start leaping about the landscape and shouting "Boy, did I score last night!"
But he also looked inexpressibly happy, so Helen forgave him his male sins. When all was said and done, she approved of Joe Buckley. Very highly.
"It's not my fault," Madeline said, smiling that million-dollar smile. "He insisted I wake him up before we left. I felt bad about it, since I didn't let him sleep much in the first place. Broken leg be damned, he got no mercy from me last night."
Okay, then. Not delicate ground.
Putting on his helmet, A.J. glanced over at Joe in admiration. One of the things he'd always liked the most about his friend was his very solid ego. It just didn't seem to faze Joe at all that he'd gotten himself a woman who could probably outdo him in almost anything except engineering and cooking-and maybe not the cooking. At this point, A.J. wouldn't really be surprised to discover that Madeline Fathom was a Cordon Bleu graduate, on top of everything else. She seemed to pull out new skills the way a magician pulled rabbits out of a hat.