His anger seemed to recede. He sat on the Rover, small beside her ballooning white suit. “Natalie. I guess you should know. I’m resigning from the program.”

She was startled. “You can’t.” Romero was a principal investigator for Martian geology. If he was lost to the program, its scientific validity would be greatly diminished. “Come on, Jorge.”

“Oh, I mean it. I’m almost sure I’m going to do it.” He looked around at the sandpit sourly. “In fact, I think today has made up my mind for me. And if you had any integrity left, Natalie York, you’d quit, too.”

“Jorge, are you crazy? You’ll have a geologist on Mars. What more do you want, for Christ’s sake?”

“No. You’ll be a technician, at best. Natalie, Ares is a marvelous system, operationally. Scientifically, it’s Apollo all over again. Look at this.” He waved a hand around the sim site. “All the stuff you’ll actually use to explore Mars. Pulleys and ropes. The MET. That damn beach buggy, the Rover, with its carrying capacity of, what, a few hundred pounds? And the way you fumble with those gloves and that ludicrous handling rod.” His voice was tight, his color rising; he was genuinely angry, she saw “Natalie, all you have to do is look around you to see where the balance of the investment has gone. Did you know they’ve spent more on developing a long-lasting fabric for a Martian Stars and Stripes than on the whole of my SEP?”

Operational. Romero had used the word as if it was an obscenity. Once, York thought, she would have, too. But maybe she saw a better balance. A space program, especially something right out on the edge like the Ares shot to Mars, had to be a mix of the operational and the scientific. Without the operational, there wouldn’t be any scientific anyhow.

She tried to explain some of this to Romero.

“Save it, Natalie. I’ve gone over it all a hundred times. I’ll not be convinced. And as for you—” He hesitated.

“Yes? Say it, Jorge.”

“I think you’ve sold out, Natalie. I supported your application to NASA. Damn it, I got you in here. I hoped you could make a difference. But you’ve gone native. Now we have Apollo all over again, the same damn mistakes. But this time — in part, anyhow — it’s your fault. And mine. And I’m sorry.”

He climbed off the Rover, stiffly, and walked away.

York found herself shaking, inside her pressure suit, from the ferocity of his attack.

January 1985

LYNDON B. JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON