“The idea of packing over a hundred people into a can and launching them into an uncertain fate. It’s not—” He paused, then chuckled dryly. “It’s not the Martian way.”
As Phobos slipped out of Carter’s office, Lamont remained seated. He watched as the captain leaned back and closed his eyes tightly, pinching the bridge of his prominent nose. Seated behind a desk, his skin cadaver-white in the ghostly blue light of the moon outside, he looked old. He had a sudden and vivid recollection of Rex’s face, deathly pale in the phosphorescent glow of that underground pool. Of Rex’s claw-like hands grasping Francis by the arm and pulling him close to whisper unknown words. He felt a sudden wave of nausea.
Was Rosemary right? Lamont wondered, fumbling for a cigarette in his shirt pocket. Was he really furious at the old astronaut? True, he had rushed the crew into an expedition on the planet before their survey information was complete. But Lamont could see the captain’s reasoning: He had been tasked with leading an historic venture, and had seen an opportunity to set an historic hallmark by planning the expedition around Epiphany day. Certainly, there were risks, but Lamont knew that Carter had spent a lifetime taking risks—it was in his nature. Did Lamont hold that against him? Or was it something else?
“Something’s agitating you,” Francis observed, rising from his chair, but leaning against it for support. He pulled his uniform jacket off, draping the article over a black-sleeved arm.
Lamont finished lighting his cigarette and returned his lighter to his pocket. “Do you think Phobos is holding out on you?” He asked, deflecting the captain’s observation.
Francis sighed. He opened a drawer in his desk, retrieved an ashtray, and set it on the desktop in front of Lamont. “No, not really,” He answered.
“Then why the interrogation?” The newspaperman asked.
“You know,” Francis said, picking idly at the gray and white fabric of his jacket, “He was opposed to this mission from the start. Phobos, I mean.”
Lamont sat back, opting to roll with the subject change. “Why?” He prodded.
“Too dangerous, too many unknowns. The idea of packing over a hundred people into a can and launching them into an uncertain fate. It’s not—” He paused, then chuckled dryly. “It’s not the Martian way.”
“You sound like you’re making a joke when you say that,” Lamont observed.
Francis glanced at the chair in which Phobos had moments ago been sitting. “To tell you the truth,” he admitted, “I sometimes forget he’s a Martian.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Lamont protested.
The captain gestured in frustration, as if he were wading into an argument already in progress. “You can’t—you can’t judge a whole species by one specimen. You can’t do that with humans, let alone a race that maintained civilizations for epochs on end. It isn’t easy for one person to bear that kind of mantle. Especially when he’s not—” Francis hesitated, clamping his mouth shut.
“Not what?” Lamont urged him.
Francis sighed and sank back into his chair. “He’s divided, between two worlds. Sometimes I wonder if even he is aware of how deep that division goes. And I suppose I wonder from time to time on what side of it he’s falling.”