Sergei gives his attention now to the young man at the front of the room: one of the people who will be monitoring Sergei’s psychological health during Eidolon. The astronauts don’t usually attend this lecture series; the presence of Sergei is going to make the young man self-conscious. Sergei knows this and thinks it’s a good thing. He likes this guy, Luke, but you never want these psych types to feel that they have an advantage.
“All the data we have tells us that crews that share a common language and cultural background tend to do better than less homogenous teams,” Luke is saying. “And more data shows us that mixed-sex teams do better than all-male teams, and that all-male teams do better than all-female teams. But there are gaps in what we know. You have to go outside space exploration to get numbers about sex makeup because there’s never been an all-female crew in space, or even in any analogue environment. And you have to be careful, with these small-sample pools, about your conclusions. For example, some of the problems that came up when mixed-sex crews were integrated didn’t speak to a systemic problem. It was lack of maturity of certain individuals.”
When Sergei makes an appreciative noise, several people turn to him and smile. They are all aware of him, not just Luke. He is used to this. Being antisocial is not the same as being introverted. Perhaps he was introverted as a child. His father had called him meek. Sergei would never use such a word on his sons. His boys are not meek, but even if they were, he would not shame them with the word. Sergei thinks of Dmitri’s intelligence, his sensitivity, his strength of character. He thinks of Ilya’s athleticism, his grace, his determination. He could not be more proud of his sons. When he thinks of them like this, it is easy to become emotional. This emotion is another source of Sergei’s power. He would not be able to hold his head up if he thought his children could not respect him. To be someone they would look up to guided his actions, in the way God had once done. (He had been a religious boy too.)
Sergei still loved God, he just didn’t believe in him. He didn’t understand how you could believe in God and still love God. But he was a spiritual person, not a religious person, so he could think with more subtlety on this subject, and still be strong.
The young man, Luke, has a new image on his screen: a lineup of a dozen humans, snow-suited in blue and red, arms around one another, posing in front of a cylindrical building set against an Arctic tundra.
“Dome C,” Luke says. “Concordia Station, Antarctica. The largest desert on Earth. At the peak of summer the temperatures barely reach a balmy minus twenty-five degrees Celsius. A cold winter will fall below minus eighty. There are months when the harsh weather conditions mean communication is interrupted by radio static and planes are unable to land and deliver supplies. Months of darkness. Typical winter population: four technicians to maintain the station, nine scientists, a chief, a cook, and a medical doctor.” Luke begins explaining how winter-over expeditions have served as good analogues for long-duration space missions.
Sergei has never been to Antarctica, but he participated in a training expedition in the opposite direction, Devon Island in the Arctic Circle, also somewhat Mars-like, in terms of terrain. He almost shot a polar bear during that campaign. He was out with a small team, testing a prototype Mars Hopper, nicknamed Bugs. As was protocol, an extra crewmember rode along in the truck with the sole task of keeping an eye out for polar bears, handling the bear bangers and, if necessary, firing the large-caliber Springfield rifle. In the past, one could divide the Arctic bears one encountered into four categories: curious bears, hungry bears, irritated bears, and defensive bears with cubs. Now, the Arctic bear was never merely curious, curiosity being a luxury reserved for those who are not starving. A sharp eye and vigilance were required, due to the white-on-white situation of polar bear spotting in the snow.
There was a problem with Bugs the Hopper. One of its four legs snapped out during a maneuver, narrowly missing Jacqueline’s head, and tipping the whole vehicle at a dangerous angle. Paul, who was on bear duty in the AT38, thought Jacqueline had been hit, and climbed out of the truck in a panic, leaving his rifle on the seat. As soon as Sergei assured himself that Jacqueline was unhurt, Sergei saw Paul standing there empty-handed, and then Sergei saw the bear.