Muldoon found himself grinning. He knew that the candidate he had in mind had spent a lot of time working with Ralph Gershon, in the MLTV and various sims and survival exercises. But only because they were both outsiders, pushed together by circumstance. Still, they’d proved they could work together, although they would never be bosom buddies. The goddamn shrinks will jump up and down, over having two dipsticks on one flight, with only Phil Stone to keep ’em apart…

So, fuck ’em.

“Yes,” he said to Bleeker. “Yes, I’ve decided. But, Adam—”

“Yeah?”

“She doesn’t know yet.”

Monday, August 13, 1984

RAMADA INN SOUTH/NASA, HOUSTON

Vladimir Viktorenko had his shoes off, and he was sipping at a miniature bottle of minibar malt whiskey. He was in Houston to work on more aspects of the Ares training program. He was listening desultorily to the evening news and wondering what to do with the evening.

The newscaster — a stunningly beautiful young woman — said that the crew for Ares had just been announced.

Viktorenko coughed and dropped the little bottle.

He sat up, wiping a fine spray of the liquor from his upper lip. He couldn’t have heard correctly.

But no: there was a picture of Natalie herself, an official portrait in which she sat before a nondescript background, staring past the photographer’s shoulder, nervously clutching a long-obsolete model of a biconic MEM.

He picked up the phone and dialed York.

“Marushka! I just heard! You are going to Mars!”

York’s voice was flat, unemotional. “It isn’t true.”

“What? But I have seen the news…”

“Yeah. Me, too. But I haven’t heard anything from NASA. Until they call me, I don’t know anything about it.”

Viktorenko felt his mouth opening and closing, like a fish’s. You are going to Mars! You should be dancing, singing! The silence on the line stretched out.

“Marushka. You are alone?”

“Uh-huh.”

Of course you are. “Do I have your permission to come wait with you, until the phone call comes? Perhaps this will help you.”

“If you like. You don’t have to. I’m fine, Vladimir.”

“Of course you are.”

Viktorenko hung up, swept up six of the miniatures from the minibar, and ran out of the room.

In her apartment York was sitting on the couch, alone, with the TV running in the background. She wore a sports shirt and slacks. On the living-room walls she had pinned up her old Mariner pictures, and there was work scattered over the small desk, half-finished: a new paper, evidently, on the surface properties of some obscure region of the planet Mars.

Viktorenko bustled in. “I bring you a present.” He dug the six miniatures out of his pocket, and set them up in a row along the top of the TV set.

“What’s that for?”

“For when you get the right call. Or, perhaps, in case you get the wrong one.”