The Martians(16)

Suddenly John appeared at her side, standing too close to her, shoulder to shoulder, his arm rising, as if with a life of its own, to circle her waist. “Hike'll be over soon,” he said. She didn't respond. He was a very handsome man; aquiline features, jet-black hair. He didn't know how tired Eileen was of handsome men. She had been as impetuous in her affairs as a pigeon in a park, and it had brought her a lot of grief. Her last three lovers had all been quite good-looking, and the last of them, Eric, had been rich as well. His house in Burroughs was made of rare stones, as all the rich new houses were: a veritable castle of dark purple chert, inlaid with chalcedony and jade, rose quartz and jasper, its floors intricately flagged patterns of polished yellow slate, coral, and bright turquoise. And the parties! Croquet picnics in the maze garden, dances in the ballroom, masques all about the extensive grounds. . . . But Eric himself, brilliant talker though he was, had turned out to be rather superficial, and promiscuous as well, a discovery that Eileen had been slow to make. It had hurt her feelings. And since that had been the third intimate relationship to go awry in four years, she felt tired and unsure of herself, unhappy, and particularly sick of that easy mutual attraction of the attractive which had gotten her into such painful trouble, and which was what John was relying on at that very moment.

Of course he knew nothing of all this, as his arm hugged her waist (he certainly didn't have Eric's way with words), but she wasn't inclined to excuse his ignorance. She mulled over methods of diplomatically slipping out of his grasp and back to a comfortable distance. This was certainly the most he had made so far in the way of a move. She decided on one of her feints—leaning into him to peck his cheek, then pulling away when his guard was down—and had started the maneuver, when with a bump one of Roger's panels knocked aside and Roger stumbled out, in his shorts, bleary-eyed. “Oh?” he said sleepily, as he noticed them; then saw who they were, and their position—"Ah,” he said, and stumped away toward the latrine.

Eileen took advantage of the disturbance to slip away from John and go to bed, which was no-trespass territory, as John well knew. She lay down in some agitation. That smile, that “Ah"—the whole incident irritated her so much that she had trouble falling asleep. And the double star, one blue, one white, returned her stare all the while.


The next day it was Eileen and Roger's turn to pull the wagon. This was the first time they had pulled together, and while the rest ranged ahead or to the sides, they solved the many small problems presented by the task of getting the wagon down the canyon. An occasional drop-off was high enough to require winch, block, and tackle—sometimes even one or two of the other travelers—but mostly it was a matter of guiding the flexible little cart down the center of the wash. They agreed on band 33 for their private communication, but aside from the business at hand, they conversed very little. “Look out for that rock.” “How nice, that triangle of shards.” To Eileen it seemed clear that Roger had very little interest in her or her observations. Or else, it occurred to her, he thought the same of her.

At one point she asked, “What if we let the wagon slip right now?” It was poised over the edge of a six- or seven-meter drop, and they were winching it down.

“It would fall,” his voice replied solemnly in her ear, and through his faceplate she could see him smiling.

She kicked pebbles at him. “Come on, would it break? Are we in danger of our lives most every minute?”

“No way. These things are practically indestructible. Otherwise, it would be too dangerous to use them. They've dropped them off four-hundred-meter cliffs—not sheer you understand, but steep—and it doesn't even dent them.”

“I see. So when you saved the wagon from slipping down that slope yesterday, you weren't actually saving our lives.”

“Oh no. Did you think that? I just didn't want to climb down that hill and recover it.”

“Ah.” She let the wagon thump down, and they descended to it. After that there were no exchanges between them for a long time. Eileen contemplated the fact that she would be back in Burroughs in three or four days, with nothing in her life resolved, nothing different about it.

Still, it would be good to get back to the open air, the illusion of open air. Running water. Plants.

Roger clicked his tongue in distress.

“What?” Eileen asked.

“Sandstorm coming.” He switched to the common band, which Eileen could now hear. “Everyone get back to the main canyon, please, there's a sandstorm on the way.”

There were groans over the common band. No one was actually in sight. Roger bounced down the canyon with impeccable balance, bounced back up. “No good campsites around,” he complained. Eileen watched him; he noticed and pointed at the western horizon. “See that feathering in the sky?”