I have to kill this, here and now. I can’t leave him with any hope. And he didn’t intend to tell Bleeker about the pressure he’d been under: from the flight surgeons, even from Administrator Josephson himself. He wasn’t going to hide behind any of that.

“That’s not the point, Adam,” he said, and he tried to get some steel into his voice. “I can’t risk having you fall ill, halfway to Mars. I can’t risk sending you. Because you would endanger the mission.”

Bleeker smiled, a small motion of the muscles of his cheeks. Then he stood up, stiffly, still tugging at his cuff. “I appreciate the way you’re handling this, Joe.”

“Oh, God. Don’t be kind to me, for Christ’s sake. Adam, we’ll talk later. You know I need your help now. We haven’t got a lot of time to recover from this. And later — hell, there are still good careers here, on the ground.” He laughed, a little hollowly. “Look at me. You’re still in the team, Adam.”

“Sure. I know my duty, Joe. I’ll do everything I can.”

Goddamn this job. This is the most competent man in the Office, and I have to bump him. “Yeah. I know you will.”

Bleeker turned back. “By the way. Who’s replacing me? You decided yet?”

Joe Muldoon hesitated.

His orderly crew rotation system had gone out of the window, first with Curval bombing out, and on top of that came this bad shit from the surgeons about Adam. He felt an unreasonable anger at the doctors, the managers, the psychologists, all the rest of them who wanted a piece of his decision.

He felt like shocking them all, taking back the responsibility in his own two hands.

He’d already spoken to Phil Stone, the Ares mission commander. Stone had defended Bleeker to the hilt. But when he’d come to accept Bleeker was off the mission, Stone had been surprisingly clear about who he wanted to replace Bleeker.

Well, Joe, you have to pick the best Mission Specialist. The most knowledgeable: more so than Adam, for sure. And the most committed: the one who’s been spending time in the sims, and trailing around trying to train the prime crew, and all of that. And -

What?

And someone who can maybe see things, the mission, in a way old jocks like you and me can’t. A different perspective. Someone who can articulate it better, maybe…

Rookie or not, Phil?

Hell, yes, Joe. Rookie or not.