Almost there.
When lava courses in flows underground, you have the possibility that when it subsides it will leave tubes. This has happened on Earth, and it appears to have happened on Mars. Some of the roofs of these tubes on Mars are meters thick, and many of them are much larger than the ones found on Earth. Caves! For the geologists a lava tube is an excellent opportunity to examine unsullied bedrock kept safe from the shock modifications and dust storms on the surface. It is the kind of environment congenial for chemosynthetic organisms. You might find biosignatures: the handwriting on the wall, the graffito of life. For a man, it is the place for him to get away from solar proton event radiation, and the cold, and all this fucking dust. If man wants to come back to Mars and stay a while, and have nice things, he will need something a little better than his own poop to shield him and his instruments, or bags of Martian regolith on top of a Hab. And it would be good if the place were protected from the dust, because dust is not great for scientific equipment or the mood of the scientist. A lava tube is just smart camping. Why bring heavy payloads of shelter materials all the way to Mars when there are possible underground shelters just waiting for someone to come inside?
Always, man has desired entrance into a dark hole.
Dena, Chloe, Wendy, Annie, Abbey, Nikki, Jeanne, and—more recently discovered—Marnie. The names for the skylights around Arsia Mons, the dark holes that lead to something warm and wet and safe. Well, not really any of those things, ha ha.
It is not lost on Sergei that Prime has prescribed him a daily ingestion of liquorice tea. In women, it seems that liquorice is a natural aphrodisiac, but it has the opposite effect on men. Well, it is all very up front. He does not have to wonder if Prime is slipping potassium bromide into his dumplings; they would tell him if they were. He has noticed that Yoshi is not drinking liquorice tea, so it is to be supposed that RoMeO is not reporting elevated levels of Yoshi’s testosterone. If someone were seen drinking liquorice tea on the space station, everyone else would drink it, whether or not it was prescribed for him. No one wants to be the guy with less testosterone, or fewer morning erections. But Yoshi, if he noticed Sergei’s new regimen, is either not bothered or too honest.
Soon they will reach their first major site. Then a two-kilometer (real!) walk to Marnie. She is a promising skylight. They will be able to conduct science. Exploration without science is merely adventure. Not that the distinction bothers him.
Sergei will be happy to get out of the Rover. He wants to walk. Sitting in the Rover and looking at the sims and doing a little work is exhaustively boring. The Rover does not have an exercise machine. Sergei is storing too much internal energy and it is tiring him. It is not a terrible feeling, he is repressed, not depressed. Anything can be borne when you know you have a release waiting. Sol-morrow he will have a good walk. Get things out of his body.
“The first one is for you; the second one is for me.” That’s how Talia always characterized their having sex after he had been away. She had that division, anyway, that there were sex things for her and ones for him. He could point out that doing things for her also made him feel good, but he doesn’t think she ever believed him. There were good and bad points to her being so practical about sex.
“If you want to do something with my ass, please just let me know beforehand. A few hours.”
She was funny that way. He wasn’t sure what happened in those hours. Some sort of preparations, hygienic or otherwise. She was also specific with his technique.
“It doesn’t do anything if you touch it like that,” she might say.
It could be exciting, scorn. It gave you something to do.
“I suppose you want to have sex,” Talia had said in Utah.
She was not an idiot. He had strawberries in his room. It was her favorite thing, to lie in his lap and have him feed her strawberries. Any kind of food, but Sergei particularly liked the way Talia’s mouth had to work on a strawberry. That was a good example of something that pleased them both, but he’d never told her, as it might have ruined it.
“Of course I want to,” he said. He had thought about saying “But I respect Alexander.” Actually, he did respect him, liked him. It was a thing to remember, though, that a man could not seduce a woman. You couldn’t be upset with a man, even a friend, if your wife slept with him. Yes, the man could say no, but everyone had a different idea of loyalty. You shouldn’t be upset with your wife either. Only blame yourself in these situations.
“Come sit with me,” he said to Talia. He had put a pillow in his lap and given her the look.
Interestingly, his ex-wife had done two new things when they had sex, so these would be things she had learned from Alexander. She made specific requests, and she moved her hips more aggressively. Was more aggressive altogether. In bed, Talia was indolent, but she hadn’t been in Utah. Perhaps she missed him.
“Did you miss me?” He had been a fool to ask. Such a terrible question, at any time.
“Not anymore,” she said, which could mean different things, considering the ring on her finger from another man, or the fact that when she said it, he was holding that hand.
Talia hadn’t stayed all night with him, because of the boys, because of everything. They’d had a laugh, and he thanked her, which made her make a funny face. Such a generous woman.