“They’d just taken more images of Tharsis and Syrtis Major, and the pictures were on the tape; but then Mariner had to position itself to point its high-gain antenna at Earth to play back the pictures, and — zippo. Nothing. Out of attitude gas. So we lost fifteen pictures.

“But what really pisses me,” he growled into the phone, “is that Mariner still has fuel on board; it’s just in the wrong place — in the retrorocket tanks, not the attitude control tanks. We could have run tubes to carry the retro stuff to the attitude control jets. If we’d done that, we might have another year of useful life out of Mariner.”

“But…”

“But it would have cost another thirty thousand bucks. Out of a hundred-rnillion-dollar mission. So we didn’t do it.”

“Oh, well, Ben. I guess nobody figured that Mariner would last so long anyhow. The basic mission plan was only ninety days.”

“Maybe. But if I’d known, I’d have paid up the thirty grand myself. And then the fuckers axed Viking!”

She had to laugh. “Come on, Ben. This isn’t like you. You’re the great Man-In-Space hero. That thirty thousand bucks has probably gone to pay your salary anyhow.” That was basically true; the unmanned scientific exploration of Mars had been scaled right back, with the savings being pulled into the manned effort.

“Well, I sometimes get my sense of priority back, Natalie. It’s not the lost year that bugs me, you know; it’s, just those fifteen pictures. There they are, sitting on that tape, even now…

“We had to send up a last command. To make Mariner turn off its radio transmitter.”

Oh, God. The poor, brave little probe. She pushed her pillow against her face until she was sure she wouldn’t guffaw. After all, it was only a couple of days since she’d called Ben in a similar mood herself, after an evening spent poring over the latest polls showing Nixon heading for a landslide over McGovern. “How long before Mariner’s orbit decays?”

“Oh, fifty years.”

“Well, maybe we’ll have a manned mission by then. You’ll get there yourself, Ben. Maybe you’ll be able to retrieve your pictures. And maybe pick up the old spacecraft itself; who knows?”

She heard him laugh. “Sure. Why, we’ll bring it back and hang it up in the Smithsonian where it belongs.”

“What next for you, Ben?”

She heard him sigh. “Apollo-N. The test flights for the NERVA. Some time in Tomorrowland.”

“At least you and Mike might get to see more of each other. Maybe I’ll see more of the two of you, in fact.”

“Perhaps. But the flights are looking a long way off, Natalie.”

“Now I think I ought to get some sleep, Ben.”

“Okay. Good night, Natalie.”

“Yeah. You, too, Ben.”

She lay in the darkness, wide-awake.