Marooned! by Brad Strickland, THOMAS E. FULLER Page A

Jenny said. “I’ll be part of your crew.”
    “The dumb crew?” Sean asked with a bitter smile.
    She touched his hand. “The Doe crew,” she corrected.

CHAPTER 9
9.1
    For one day, Marsport grieved its loss. A brief memorial service for Captain Jappa Nannup was held at noon, and shortly afterward a funeral detail took her body to Marsport Cemetery, where it joined the bodies of a dozen other Mars explorers who had died over the years.
    When Sean told Alex that he and Jenny planned to stay on Mars, Alex immediately joined the Doe Crew, and right after that, Roger came over to add his support. Leslie was next, and then Nickie. Sean tried to see Amanda, but found that she was too busy with official meetings. He could understand that, but he wished he could at least speak with her. All the rest of the day, word spread among the teens, and one by one they came to find him. Before lightsout that evening, nineteen of the twenty Asimov Project kids had pledged to remain in Marsport, whatever happened.
    The following day, the council called an assembly at eleven in the morning. It was an odd kind of assembly, since Marsport had no area big enough for all three thousand colonists to congregate. They gathered in all the common areas instead. Sean’s dorm wing common area could barely hold the twenty Asimov Project kids, and nineteen of them gathered there to watch the holoscreen and hear what the council had decided.
    A grim-looking Amanda Simak appeared on the screen, flanked by Tim Mpondo and Harold Ellman. “I won’t conceal the seriousness of the situation from you,” she said without any kind of formal beginning. “Earth is in deep trouble. All indications from the Luna Colony are that an international war has broken out, complicated by economic collapse, widespread disease, and ecological disaster. I frankly don’t know whether there is anysafe area on the face of the Earth at this moment.
    “Our state of affairs is not promising. We are still dependent on twice-yearly shipments of food, medical supplies, and other necessities from Earth orbit. We are on the verge of being self-sustaining. Whether we can become so immediately is an open question.”
    She paused, letting this sink in. The young people gathered in the common area murmured among themselves, “Maybe she’s going to say we might as well stay on,” Alex said hopefully. Jenny shushed him.
    With a weary, strained expression, Dr. Simak continued: “The council has decided that it’s unfair to ask colonists to remain here on Mars, given our uncertain future. Tomorrow, beginning at 8:00 hours, the council will begin accepting applications for a return to Earth. These will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis. I have asked the crew of the
Argosy
to prepare to take as many people back to Earth as they can. When you arrive there, in morethan a year’s time, you will be ferried down to the surface if that is practicable. If not, Luna Colony has reached self-sustaining status, and they will accept you as refugees. I am told that, at a maximum, the
Argosy
can transport slightly more than six hundred passengers. That gives the ship no margin for error on food and supplies. Even at that, rationing will be tight. I want you all to think about the situation for the rest of the day. Ordinary duties are suspended.”
    She glanced at Ellman, who stood beside her, his face rigid, showing no emotion. Then, looking back into the camera, Dr. Simak said, “I should have said that one group of colonists will return to Earth whether they apply to go or not. This one exception will be the twenty young people in the Asimov Project. Dr. Ellman has made a strong case that we have no right to expose these colonists to the uncertainties and risks that the rest of us will have to face for at least one full Martian year, until the
Magellan
can reach us and takeperhaps another thousand colonists home.”
    “Home?” exclaimed Leslie. “This is home!”
    “Therefore,”