So who needed the Marines?
And that, Garroway was increasingly convinced, was what had been responsible for his ROAD-like behavior, his determination to put in his time and get the hell out. He could do a lot better on the Outside; hell, he had a standing job offer from Vince Mayhew at Moravec. He didn’t need this shit.
Only now he was finding that he did…and that his dedication to the Corps had less to do with his oath to the country or the reason the Marines existed than it did with the people who were depending on him for leadership right here, right now.
Maybe the country didn’t need the US Marines, but he did.
The entire group was gathered once again in the main room of the Heinlein Station hab, the Marines in rows seated on the bare floor, the five scientists by themselves off to the left. Garroway had started, an hour earlier, to try to put together some sort of inspirational speech, but nothing he’d written down had worked. He would just have to ad-lib this one.
“People,” he said. “In the absence of specific orders from the military command authority, we have to assume that, as of this morning, we are at war.”
He had their full attention now. There was not a sound in the hab, and every eye in the room met his.
“Our orders were to safeguard American interests on Mars and, specifically, to protect the civilian research outpost at Cydonia, which, as I’m sure you all know, was somewhat, ah…controversial in certain quarters. That outpost has now been taken over by the UN. Two of our people were hurt. In the absence of specific orders from Earth, I must assume that that action was a hostile one. By capturing the Mars cat this morning, we have made our first strike back against the enemy. We now have the means to leave our prison and to carry the battle to the UN forces occupying our facilities.
“I’ve discussed my intentions with a number of you this morning, so you know what I have in mind. It is my intention to take the Mars cat and march on Candor Chasma, 650 kilometers east of here. I intend to leave this afternoon, within the next hour, if possible.”
A babble of voices rose from the Marines and from the scientists as well. Garroway raised both hands, motioning the room to silence. “The march,” he continued, “will be difficult…and dangerous. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before, and we have only a very spotty knowledge of the terrain between here and there. Our biggest problem is going to be water, because, as I understand it, permafrost tends to be kind of patchy along the Valles Marineris, and we can’t count on finding drill sites that will come up wet. We’ll carry as much water as we can manage, but I’m afraid we’re going to be on short rations for most of the trip.”
“Now just a damned minute!” The protest came not from one of the Marines, but from Dr. Kettering, standing off to the side with the other scientists. “You can’t seriously be thinking of dragging us all across four hundred miles of Martian desert!”
“You are welcome to stay, Doctor,” Garroway replied. He turned to face the Marines. “In fact, this is strictly a volunteer-only mission. Any of you who want to stay behind may do so. There’s plenty of food, and we’ll leave the drilling equipment.”
That brought a startled reaction from some of the Marines. “Sir!” Ostrowsky said, raising her hand. “You mean we’re crossing the desert without water?”
Garroway exchanged glances with Devora Druzhininova, who silently nodded. “I’ve discussed the plan with Dr. Druzhininova,” he said. “Maybe I should let her tell us about that.”
Druzhininova didn’t leave the group of scientists. She simply folded her arms and began addressing the entire group. “You all know that most of Mars’s water—a whole ocean of it, in fact—exists beneath the planet’s surface as permafrost…essentially frozen mud buried beneath anywhere from two to twenty meters of regolith.
“The permafrost layer is not uniform over the entire planet, however. It’s much thicker in the north polar regions, especially north of about forty degrees north latitude, where the Boreal Sea existed once. Cydonia Prime depends on the permafrost left when that sea froze, billions of years ago. It’s almost nonexistent around the equator, though. Here in the Mariner Valley, most of the ice was melted a billion years ago by the raising of the Tharsis Bulge to the west.”
“We’ve got water wells here,” Lance Corporal Julia Higgins called out. “What do you think that drill out back is for?”
“Subsurface fossil water. There are deep pools kept liquid by volcanism, even yet. Heinlein Station and Mars Prime are both positioned over fairly large water traps, but we can’t expect to find more between here and there. I’m afraid we’ll be limited to what we can carry…and what our suits and the life-support gear on the Mars cat can recycle.” She looked at Garroway. “I wish I had happier news.”
“That’s okay, Doctor,” he replied. “Lieutenant King and I have gone over the numbers. We’ll be able to carry enough with us to last, if we’re careful.”
He paused a moment, taking the time to study the expressions on the faces of the men and women before him. Some looked afraid or worried, some determined. Most simply looked attentive, as though this were simply another briefing at the start of a rugged but routine training exercise.
He suddenly felt incredibly, inexpressibly proud of these people.
“I need to know,” he told them, “how many of you are coming along.”
Almost as one, people began standing up…Ostrowsky and Jacob making it to their feet first, but the rest within a second or two. They stood before him at attention, as though on the parade ground, and Garroway felt his pride swelling even more.
David Alexander and Dr. Druzhininova both crossed the floor and joined the Marines, followed a reluctant moment later by Edward Pohl; Craig Kettering and Louis Vandemeer remained where they were, arms folded, expressions shuttered.
Well, he hadn’t expected the civilians to embrace this madness. He needed either Alexander or Druzhininova—he’d discussed the matter with them an hour ago—and was pleased that both of them, and Pohl, would be coming along. The other two should be safe enough here until someone came by to pick them up.
He did know that he wanted no one along who wasn’t committed to the mission’s success.
“Thank you, everyone,” he said. “I knew I could count on you all. Be seated.”
“What we’re about to do,” he told them as they resumed their places on the floor, “is going to be difficult. It’s never been done. But it’s also not without precedent. How many of you remember Presley O’Bannon?”
Perhaps a dozen hands went up—mostly those of the older Marines, the NCOs and senior people. Some of the younger ones looked uncertain. Others wore blank expressions that suggested they’d read about the incident in their Corps manuals and promptly forgotten it. The O’Bannon saga was required reading for every Marine.
“Lieutenant Presley Neville O’Bannon was a twenty-year-old Marine from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Kentucky who, in 1805, commanded a detachment of seven US Marines on a march from Alexandria, Egypt, to Derna, in what is now the People’s Glorious Jihad of Islamic Revolution. The march was led by Thomas Eaton, the US consul to Tunis and, besides the Marines, included about five hundred Arab revolutionaries and Greek mercenaries.
“That was during our war against what were then