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features, “you would be an entire generation behind.”
    Jamie forced a returning smile. “I’m being upgraded. I’m requalifying on all the physical tests,” Jamie assured them, “and putting all the latest programming into my long-term memory. I won’t crash or succumb to bytelock, don’t worry.”
    The others laughed politely.
    Fuchida dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “Only joking,” he said, a bit sheepishly.
    “Nothing to it,” Jamie said, smiling genuinely now.
    “Well, I don’t know about the rest of y’all,” said the stubby, sad-faced geochemist that Jamie knew as Peter J. Craig, “but I’m damned glad we got an experienced man to come along with us.”
    Craig had a bulbous nose and heavy jowls dark with stubble.
    “Lemme tell you,” he went on, pronouncing you as yew, “I been out in the field a lotta years and there’s nothin’ that can replace real experience. We’re lucky to have Dr. Waterman headin’ up this rodeo.”
    Before anyone could say anything more, Jamie spread his hands and told them, “Look, I didn’t come here this afternoon to talk about me. I just wanted to meet you all in person and sort of say hello. We’ll be talking to each other individually and in smaller groups over the next few weeks.”
    They all nodded.
    “You people are the best of the best,” Jamie went on. “You’ve been picked over thousands of other applicants. The research proposals you’ve presented are very impressive; I’ve studied them all and I like what I’ve seen, very much.”
    “What about the cooperative studies?” Trumball asked.
    While on Mars, each of the four scientists would carry out dozens of experiments and measurements under direction from researchers back on Earth. That was the only way to get the full cooperation—and funding help—from the major universities.
    Jamie said, “I know they’re going to cut into the time you have for your own work, but they’re part of the mission plan and we’ll all have to pitch in on them.”
    “You too?”
    “Certainly me too. I’m not going to spend all my time on Mars at a desk.”
    They grinned at that.
    “And listen: If you run into problems with scheduling, or the demands from Earthside get to be troublesome, tell me about it. That’s what I’m here for. It’s my job to iron out conflicts.”
    “Who gets priority?” Craig asked. “I mean, if it comes down to either doin’ my own stuff or doin’ what some department head from Cowflop U. wants, which way do we go?”
    Jamie looked at him for a silent moment, thinking. This is a test, he realized. They’re sizing me up.
    “We’ll have to take each case on its own merits,” he told Craig. “But my personal feeling is that in case of a tie, the guy on Mars gets the priority.”
    Craig nodded agreement, acceptance.
    Jamie looked around the table. Neither of the two women had said a word. Shektar was the medic, so he wasn’t surprised that she had nothing to say. But Trudy Hall was a cellular biologist and should contribute to the discussion.
    Hall looked to Jamie like a slight little English sparrow. She was tiny, her thick curly brown hair clipped short, her coral coveralls undecorated except for her name tag. Alert gray-blue eyes, Jamie saw. She had the spare, lean figure of a marathon runner and the kind of perfect chiselled nose that other women pay plastic surgeons to obtain.
    “Any questions?” Jamie said, looking directly at her.
    Hall seemed to draw in a breath, then she said, “Yes, one.”
    “What is it?” Jamie asked.
    She glanced around at the others, then hunched forward slightly as she asked in a soft Yorkshire burr, “What’s it like on Mars? I mean, what’s it really like to be there?”
    The others all edged forward in their seats, too, even Trumball, and Jamie knew that they would get along fine together. He spent the next two hours telling them about Mars.

 
ARRIVAL CEREMONY: SOL 1
     
    THEY HAD LANDED ONLY MINUTES AFTER LOCAL DAWN, TO