York wished she had something to drink. Even with all the windows open, the sun beating down on the roof made the car as hot as hell. Her sunglasses kept slipping down her nose, and every time she rested her arm on the sill of the window frame she burned her skin.

She rattled her nails on the steering wheel, waiting for Ben Priest.

In the middle of the aimless mess of her life, she seemed to be regressing, to some kind of childhood.

She’d had a huge image of Mars taped to her bedroom wall, a black-and-white photomosaic compiled from fifteen hundred Mariner 9 photographs, with the scar of Olympus Mons square at the center. At least, she’d had it there until Mike had made her take it down. He said Olympus Mons looked like a huge nipple.

And here she was hanging around at the gates of JPL — without a security pass — like a goddamn groupie, hoping to get an early look at the Soviets’ new pictures from the Martian surface.

At last, here was Ben Priest. With his graying crew cut he looked every inch the military man. He was carrying a fat cardboard folder with a blue NASA logo stenciled on the front. He was moving at a half trot, despite the heat, but he showed no signs of sweat; his crisp short-sleeved shirt glowed white in the brilliant noon light.

This time he hadn’t been able to get her into the lab itself. Nobody was supposed to see the stuff the Soviets were sending back from Mars.

Ben clambered into the car beside her. “Got it.”

She reached over. “Give.”

“Hell, no. Is that any way to greet an old friend? Let’s get out of this heat first. Mars can wait a few more minutes.”

She suppressed her eagerness. Be polite, Natalie. And, after all, it was Ben. She started the car. “Let’s find a bar. Do you know anywhere?”

“Only the water holes where the JPL hairies hang out, and I’d rather take a break from them.”

“I’m staying at the Holiday Inn. It’s only a few minutes from here.”

“Go for it.”

She pulled out.

“I was expecting to see Mike, too,” Ben said.

“Oh, in the end he couldn’t get away. He has his head shoved much too firmly up a NERVA 2 exhaust pipe.” Or up his own ass, maybe, she thought sourly.

“You know the NERVA thing still isn’t going too well. My flight on Apollo-N has been delayed again, and—”

“Mike doesn’t tell me anything. Half of it’s classified, anyhow.”

“Well, that’s the word in the Astronaut Office. So how’s life for my favorite girl-geologist?”

She grunted and pushed her slippery sunglasses back up her nose. “Shitty, if you want the truth. My professor at Berkeley — Cattermole — is a jackass.”

Priest laughed out loud. “I wish you’d say what you mean.”