“Okay. I’m at the foot of the ladder. The MEM’s footpads are depressed in the surface a couple of inches, maybe three; the sides of the depressions they’ve made are quite distinct, sharp and clear. There’s little water here, of course, and I guess the soil’s cohesion is electrostatic…” Don’t analyze, York; tell them what it looks like. “The surface soil looks a little like beach sand. Wet sand. But as you get close to it it’s actually much finer-grained than sand, and it’s evident that it bonds well together. Here and there it’s very fine, powdery.” She reached out her leg and kicked gently at the regolith, leaving furrows in the soil. “It’s easy for me to dig little trenches with my toe. I have the impression that the surface material is a duricrust. That is, dust particles cemented together by the upward seepage of water in the soil, with salts being precipitated out on evaporation.”

There had been a little Martian dust on the footpad, she saw, and when she lifted up her boot, she could see that a little of that had already transferred itself to her. “The dust is clinging in fine layers to the sole and sides of my boot. So it’s both cohesive and adhesive. It looks as if it will take a slope of around seventy degrees…”

Now Ralph Gershon said, “Natalie, I need you to get back facing the TV camera for a minute please.”

“Say again, Ralph.”

“Rager. I need you facing the field of view of the camera. Natalie, Phil, the President of the United States is in his office now and would like to say a few words to you.”

Stone replied for her. “That would be an honor, Ralph.”

She checked her cuff checklist. Reagan was right on cue. Trust an old actor.

She turned toward the MESA.

She imagined the TV pictures of herself on their way to Earth: she would be a stiff, angular figure, posed on the footpad, her outline fuzzed by false colors against the crimson of Mars.

She took a still Hasselblad camera from the MESA platform. After some fumbling, she fitted the camera to a mount above her chest panel.

She turned around slowly, letting the camera snap a panoramic mosaic. Then she picked up a small TV camera, and fixed that in place on her chest, beside the Hasselblad.

The quality of the radio link changed; a Houston capcom came on the line. “Go ahead, Mr. President. Out.”

Natalie and Phil, I’m talking to you by a radio linkup from the Oval Office at the White House.

Reagan’s gravelly voice was lively, interested. He sure plays the part well. She found herself drawing a little more upright, as if coming to attention.