Mars Read Free Page A

expedition commander up in the orbiting spacecraft, his deep voice more excited than Jamie had ever heard before. Connors was checking the TV camera perched up at the front of the stilled robot construction vehicle.
    Finally Vosnesensky spoke to his five charges as they arranged themselves in a semicircle around him. “All is ready. The words we speak next will be heard by everyone on Earth.”
    As planned, they stood with their backs to the landing vehicle while the robot’s camera focused on them. Later they would pan the vidcam around to show the newly erected dome and the desolate Martian plain on which they had set foot.
    Holding up one gloved hand almost like a symphony conductor, Vosnesensky took a self-conscious half step forward and pronounced: “In the name of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, of Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin, and of all the other pioneers and heroes of space, we come to Mars in peace for the advancement of all human peoples.”
    He said it in Russian first and then in English. Only afterward were the others invited to recite their little prewritten speeches.
    Pete Connors, with the hint of Texan drawl he had picked up during his years at Houston, recited, “This is the greatest day in the history of human exploration, a proud day for all the people of the United States, the Russian Federation, and the whole world.”
    Joanna Brumado spoke in Brazilian Portuguese and then in English. “May all the peoples of the Earth gain in wisdom from what we learn here on Mars.”
    Ilona Malater, in Hebrew and then English, “We come to Mars to expand and exalt the human spirit.”
    Antony Reed, in his calm, almost bored Oxfordian best, “To His Majesty the King, to the people of the United Kingdomand the British Commonwealth, to the people of the European Community and the entire world—today is your triumph. We deeply feel that we are merely your representatives on this distant world.”
    Finally it was Jamie’s turn. He felt suddenly weary, tired of the posturings and pomposities, exhausted by the years of stress and sacrifice. The excitement he had felt only minutes ago had drained away, evaporated. A hundred million kilometers from Earth and they were still playing their games of nations and allegiances. He felt as if someone had draped an enormous weight around his shoulders.
    The others all turned toward him, five faceless figures in hard suits and gold-tinted visors. Jamie saw his own faceless helmet reflected five times. He had already forgotten the lines that had been written for him a hundred million kilometers ago.
    He said simply, “Ya’aa’tey.”

EARTH
    R IO DE JANEIRO : It was bigger even than Carnival. Despite the scorching midafternoon sun the crowds thronged downtown, from the Municipal Theater all the way up the mosaic sidewalks of the Avenida Rio Branco, past Praca Pio X and the magnificent old Candelaria Church, out along Avenida Presidente Vargas. Not a car or even a bicycle could get through. The streets were literally wall-to-wall with
cariocas
, dancing the samba, sweating, laughing, staggering in the heat, celebrating in the biggest spontaneous outpouring of joy that the city had ever seen.
    They jammed into the tree-shaded residential square where gigantic television screens had been set up in front of high-rise glass-walled apartment buildings. They stood on the benches in the square and clambered up the trees for a better view of the screens. They cheered and cried and shouted as they watched the space-suited explorers, one by one, climb down the ladder and stand on that barren rocky desert beneath the strange pink sky.
    When Joanna Brumado spoke her brief words they cheered all the louder, drowning out the little speeches of those who followed her.
    Then they took up the chant: “Brumado—Brumado—Bru-ma-
do
! Bru-ma-
do
! Bru-ma-
do
!”
    Inside the apartment that had been lent to him for the occasion, Alberto Brumado smiled ruefully at his