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relaxed and resumed her stroll around the room. She turned to Crawford again.
"I can see I'll be drawing on your knowledge a lot in the years to come. What do you see as the next
order of business?"
Crawford relaxed. The awful burden of responsibility, which he had never wanted, was gone. He
was content to follow her lead.
"To tell you the truth, I was wondering what to say next. We have to make a thorough inventory. I
guess we should start on that."
"That's fine, but there is an even more important order of business. We have to go out to the dome
and find out what the hell caused the blowout. The damn thing should not have blown; it's the first of its
type to do so. And from the bottom. But it did blow, and we should know why, or we're ignoring a fact
about Mars that might still kill us. Let's do that first. Ralston, can you walk?"
When he nodded, she sealed her helmet and started into the lock. She turned and looked
speculatively at Crawford.
"I swear, man, if you had touched me with a cattle prod you couldn't have got a bigger rise out of me
than you did with what you said a few minutes ago. Do I dare ask?"
Crawford was not about to answer. He said, with a perfectly straight face, "Me? Maybe you should
just assume I'm a chauvinist."
"We'll see, won't we?"
"What is that stuff?"
Song Sue Lee was on her knees, examining one of the hundreds of short, stiff spikes extruding from
the ground. She tried to scratch her head but was frustrated by her helmet.
"It looks like plastic. But I have a strong feeling it's the higher life-form Lucy and I were looking for
yesterday."
"And you're telling me those little spikes are what poked holes in the dome bottom? I'm not buying
that."
Song straightened up, moving stiffly. They had all worked hard to empty out the collapsed dome and
peel back the whole, bulky mess to reveal the ground it had covered. She was tired and stepped out of
character for a moment to snap at Mary Lang.
"I didn't tell you that. We pulled the dome back and found spikes. It was your inference that they
poked holes in the bottom."
"I'm sorry," Lang said quietly. "Go on with what you were saying."
"Well," Song admitted, "it wasn't a bad inference, at that. But the holes I saw were not punched
through. They were eaten away." She waited for Lang to protest that the dome bottom was about as
chemically inert as any plastic yet devised. But Lang had learned her lesson. And she had a talent for
facing facts.
"So. We have a thing here that eats plastic. And seems to be made of plastic, into the bargain. Any
ideas why it picked this particular spot to grow, and no other?"
"I have an idea on that," McKillian said. 'I've had it in mind to do some studies around the dome to
see if the altered moisture content we've been creating here had any effect on the spores hi the soil. See,
we've been here nine days, spouting out water vapor, carbon dioxide, and quite a bit of oxygen into the
atmosphere. Not much, but maybe more than it seems, considering the low concentrations that are
naturally available. We've altered the biome. Does anyone know where the exhaust air from the dome
was expelled?"
Lang raised her eyebrows. "Yes, it was under the dome. The air we exhausted was warm, you see,
and it was thought it could be put to use one last time before we let it go, to warm the floor of the dome
and decrease heat loss."
"And the water vapor collected on the underside of the dome when it hit the cold air. Right, Do you
get the picture?"
"I think so," Lang said. "It was so little water, though. You know we didn't want to waste it; we
condensed it out until the air we exhausted was dry as a bone."
"For Earth, maybe. Here it was a torrential rainfall. It reached seeds or spores in the ground and
triggered them to start growing. We're going to have to watch it when we use anything containing plastic.
What does that include?"
Lang groaned. "All the air-lock seals, for one thing." There were grimaces from all of them at the
thought of that. "For another, a good part of our suits. Song, watch it, don't step on that thing. We don't
know bow powerful it is or if it'll eat the-plastic in your boots, but we'd better play it safe. How about it,
Ralston? Think you can find out how bad it is?"
"You mean identify the solvent these things use? Probably, if we can get some sort of work space
and I can get to my equipment."
"Mary," McKillian said, "it occurs to me that I'd better start looking for airborne spores. If there are
some, it could mean that the airlock on the Podkayne is vulnerable. Even thirty meters off the ground."
"Right. Get on that. Since we're sleeping in it until we can find out what we can do on the ground,
we'd best be sure it's safe. Meantime, well all sleep in our suits." There were helpless groans at this, but
no protests. McKillian and Ralston headed for the pile of salvaged equipment, hoping to rescue enough
to get started on their analyses. Song knelt again and started digging around one of the ten-centimeter
spikes.
Crawford followed Lang back toward the Podkayne.
"Mary, I wanted. . . is it all right if I call you Mary?"
"I guess so. I don't think Commander Long would wear well over five years. But you'd better still
think commander."
He considered it. "All right, Commander Mary." She punched him playfully. She had barely known
him before the disaster. He had been a name on a roster and a sore spot in the estimation of the
Astronaut Corps. But she had borne him no personal malice, and now found herself beginning to like him.
"What's on your mind?"
"Ah, several things. But maybe it isn't my place to bring them up now. First, I want to say that if
you're ... ah, concerned, or doubtful of my support or loyalty because I took over command for a while. .
. earlier today, well. . ."
"Well?"
"I just wanted to tell you that I have no ambitions in that direction," he finished lamely.
She patted him on the back. "Sure, I know. You forget, I read your dossier. It mentioned several
interesting episodes that I'd like you to tell me about someday, from your 'soldier-of-fortune days "
"Hell, those were grossly overblown. I just happened to get into some scrapes and managed to get
out of them."
"Still, it got you picked for this mission out of hundreds of applicants. The thinking was that you'd be
a wild card, a man of action with proven survivability. Maybe it worked out. But the other thing I
remember on your card was that you're not a leader. No, that you're a loner who'll cooperate with a
group and be no discipline problem, but you work better alone. Want to strike out on your own?"
He smiled at her. "No, thanks. But what you said is right I have no hankering to take charge of
anything. But I do have some knowledge that might prove useful."
"And well use it. You just speak up, I ll be listening." She started to say something, then thought of
something else. "Say, what are your ideas on a woman bossing this project? I've had to fight that all the
way from my Air Force days. So if you have any objections you might as well tell me up front"
He was genuinely surprised. "You didn't take that crack seriously, did you? I might as well admit it. It
was intentional, like that cattle prod you mentioned. You looked like you needed a kick in the ass.
"And thank you. But you didn't answer my question."
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