by Ben Bova
Thrasher thought the question was pretty lame, but he grinned and answered, “Terrific. I’m rarin’ to go.”
One of the other reporters shouted, “Isn’t it a little scary?”
“I’m kind of nervous, naturally,” Thrasher replied. Turning toward Polk he added, “But I’m in the best of hands. I’m looking forward to the adventure.”
Vicki asked, “When will you let a reporter to go up to Mars One and experience zero gravity?”
He saw the suggestion in her eyes. Vicki knows I’m a married man now, but she can’t help playing the sex kitten.
“Reporters will have full access to Mars One through our virtual reality system. You’ll experience the mission without having to leave the ground.”
“That’s not really the same, though, is it?” she said.
“It’ll have to do.”
Another reporter took up the theme. “Is that for safety reasons? Are you afraid that the mission is too risky for a news person?”
“If I was worried about safety, would I be going up there?” Thrasher countered.
“Yeah, but you’re only going up to Earth orbit, and only overnight. The real mission goes all the way to Mars. They’ll be out there for a couple of years, all told.”
“You just answered your own question,” Thrasher said, with a big smile.
Polk made a shooing motion with his gloved hands. “We’ve got a schedule to stick to, folks.”
The news people parted before him like the Red Sea. Vicki Zane called, “See you in orbit!” Thrasher felt his brows knit. What does she mean by that?
Thrasher followed Polk out to the white SUV that was waiting to carry them to the launch stand. It was early April, not overbearingly hot yet, but a crisp breeze was blowing dust across the desert. Thrasher saw a tumbleweed roll past.
Two other astronauts were already in the SUV, technicians who were installing some of the equipment for the mission. They had plugged their suits into the oversized air-conditioning unit in the back. Polk and Thrasher clambered in, took their seats, and plugged in their suits as well.
“Damned awkward in these chairs,” Polk complained as the driver put the van in gear and started toward the pad. “They weren’t designed for guys wearing space suits.”
“You should have told me,” Thrasher said. “I could’ve found somebody to design a better seat.”
“For a four-minute ride?” Polk said. “That wouldn’t be cost-effective.”
So the four of them sat precariously, bundled inside the bulky space suits, as the SUV drove out to the launch pad. Through the van’s window Thrasher saw the waiting launcher, four big solid-rocket boosters strapped around its base, the slim winged crew module at its top. Looks like a mini-shuttle, Thrasher thought. More streamlined, though. Racier.
They climbed laboriously out of the SUV and up the metal stairs to the deck of the launch pad, then the four space-suited men squeezed into the elevator that lifted them up to the top of the slender rocket and the crew module. Thrasher had gone through this routine a dozen times in his training, but now he kept thinking, this is real. This is the real thing. I’m really going to ride this firecracker and go up to orbit.
More than anything else he wanted to avoid getting sick in zero gravity. He had slapped an anti-nausea patch onto his neck, as the medics had prescribed. Hope it does the trick, he said to himself.
“You okay?” Polk asked as the elevator stopped and its grillwork door slid smoothly open.
“Sure,” said Thrasher.
As the two space-suited technicians stepped out of the elevator, Polk eyed Thrasher carefully. “Last chance to back off.”
Thrasher grinned at him. “I wouldn’t miss this for all the gold in Fort Knox.”
Polk nodded curtly. “Let’s do it, then.”
The two technicians ducked through the hatch, got into their acceleration couches, and began plugging in their suit connections. Just as he had in training, Thrasher squeezed through after them and crawled across an empty acceleration couch into his assigned seat, Polk right behind him. The crew capsule was cramped, narrow, not a centimeter of wasted space. They had to lie on their backs on the acceleration couches. Damned uncomfortable, he thought as Polk settled in beside him. Thrasher followed Polk’s lead and plugged in his electrical power, communications, and life support cables.
The mission communicator’s voice came through his helmet speaker. “Message for Mr. Thrasher.”
“Message?”
“From Mrs. Thrasher: Good luck, darling. Love, Linda.”
Thrasher felt his cheeks coloring as Polk and the other two chuckled tolerantly.
“Ten minutes and counting,” said the mission controller.
Polk leaned close enough to Thrasher so that their bubble helmets touched and they could talk without using the radio. “This is the toughest part, the waiting.”
Thrasher nodded inside his helmet.
“I always feel like I have to pee,” Polk confessed. “Just nerves.”
Thrasher felt suddenly grateful. His bladder was sending him uncomfortable signals, too.
What did Vicki mean when she said she’d see me in orbit? Thrasher asked himself. Then it hit him. He was scheduled to do an interview using the virtual reality set in the Mars One vehicle. She’s wangled the job of doing the interview! he realized. I wonder what else she’s been up to?
2
LAUNCH
“. . . seven . . . six . . .”
Thrasher realized he was biting his tongue. With a conscious effort he tried to relax. Hard to do, with pumps gurgling and lights on the control panel flicking on. The cramped compartment seemed to be vibrating, humming with electrical currents.
“. . . two . . . one . . . ig—”
The mission controller’s voice was drowned out in the sudden bellow of ten thousand dragons. Thrasher felt an enormous fist pushing against the small of his back, and the whole compartment began to shake hard enough to rattle his bones.
Turning his head, he saw Polk eying the control panel intently. The roar of the engines wouldn’t stop, and Thrasher felt as if his insides were being mashed into a puree. His vision blurred. His chest felt tight. He was gasping for air. He couldn’t lift his arms off the seat rests, they weighed six hundred pounds apiece.
How long does this go on? he asked himself. He knew the answer: Three minutes and twenty seconds to first-stage cutoff, then another two minutes for the second-stage burn.
But we’ve already been going for six hours, feels like.
A bang and a lurch so hard Thrasher bumped his nose against his helmet’s face plate. How long? How long?
And then the noise and vibration stopped. Just like that. One moment he was being pressed flat and shaken like a rat in a terrier’s jaws, the next his arms were floating up off the seat rests and his insides were falling down the longest elevator shaft in the universe.
Zero gravity, Thrasher told himself. We made it! We’re in orbit!
His helmet speakers crackled. “Don’t make any sudden moves with your head,” Polk’s voice advised. “Stay loose.”
Thrasher started to nod, then caught himself.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I’m falling.”
“Normal. Your inner ear interprets microgravity as falling, but your eyes are telling your brain you’re tucked inside the compartment. The brain gets confused.”
“My head feels stuffy, kind of.”
“That’s normal. Just relax and keep still. You’ll be okay. You’ll be fine.”
“Right.”
“We’ll be linking up with Mars One in half an hour,” Polk said. “Piece of cake.”
Relax and keep still, Thrasher told himself. I can do that. Nothing else to do, really.
Except think.
Yojiro Shima. Professor of something called forensic linguistics. Sounds like hoodoo, Thrasher thought. The deeper we get into trying to track down the man responsible for the accident, the weirder everythin
g becomes. Frankenstein picked out Chandrasekhar and the kid finds this Japanese language specialist.
The voice on the CDs that Vince Egan had surrendered to Thrasher was generated by a computer. “There is no way that I can get anything for you from a machine,” Chandrasekhar had said gloomily. The kid had actually put on a clean T-shirt and reasonably creased Levis to come to Thrasher’s office and admit his frustration. He was even wearing Reeboks; they looked brand-new.
Sitting unhappily behind his desk, Thrasher had asked, “There’s nothing you can do?”
Chandrasekhar shook his tangled mop of hair. “It is not a human voice.”
“Then we’re stumped.”
The kid broke into a sly grin. “Maybe not.”
Thrasher said, “What do you mean?”
“There is a professor at Georgetown University—”
“In Washington?”
“D.C., yes. He is a specialist in forensic linguistics. A very clever man.”
“Forensic linguistics? What the hell is that?”
“He analyzes the words that a message contains. No two people speak or write exactly the same, you know.”
“But the messages we’ve got to work with are spoken by a computer, not a man,” Thrasher objected.
“Yes, certainly so. But the words were originally written or spoken by a human being and then transferred into the computer. Perhaps Professor Shima can analyze those words and identify the person who originally wrote them.”
It was a very slender thread, but the next time he went to Washington, Thrasher had Linda set up a visit to Professor Yojiro Shima at Georgetown University.
His office was immaculate. Shima’s desktop was clear, except for a phone console and computer keyboard. Bookcases lined the walls, each neatly filled with books, although some of them looked well used. The office’s one window looked out onto trees and paved walkways that wound through tidily clipped grass and cheerfully flowering bushes.
Shima himself was round, big-bellied, bald and jovial. He doesn’t look like a detective, Thrasher thought. Looks more like one of those statues of a fat, laughing Buddha.
“And to what do I owe the honor of this visit from such an illustrious captain of industry?” Shima asked, in a smooth, strong voice.
Thrasher thought he heard a note of sarcasm, but he ignored it and explained his problem.
Shima’s smile melted away as Thrasher spoke. His expression became more thoughtful. At last he said, “If the sample you have is large enough, I can undoubtedly establish a pattern for you. Then, if you have samples of individual persons’ writings, I can match them to the pattern. Will that be satisfactory?”
“Very much,” said Thrasher.
Shima’s cheery smile returned. “You see, Mr. Thrasher, no two people speak or write exactly the same way. Their choice of words, the order in which they place the words, the expressions they use—all are as individual as fingerprints or DNA samples.”
“So I’ve been told,” Thrasher said, wondering if he actually believed it.
“I have been called as an expert witness in many court trials. I have helped to identify terrorists and kidnappers, extortionists, and even murderers.”
Thrasher nodded.
With a chuckle, Shima pointed a chubby finger at Thrasher and said, “I can tell from your choice of words—and from your silences—that you don’t believe a word that I’ve said to you.”
Thrasher grinned ruefully back at him. “I’m afraid that’s pretty close to true.”
Leaning his forearms on the desktop, Shima said, “You are a gambling man, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Oh no? The man who is sending an expedition to Mars is not a gambler?”
“There’s a risk, of course. But I wouldn’t call that gambling.”
Shima tilted his head back and guffawed. “You see? You use different words!”
Thrasher started to reply, then caught himself. “I get it,” he admitted. “I understand.”
“Let me offer you a proposition,” Shima said genially. “If I fail to identify your culprit, you pay nothing.”
“Sounds fair.”
“But if I do identify the person, then you will sponsor an endowed chair of forensic linguistics at this university.”
“An endowed chair?” Thrasher protested. “That could cost a million dollars!”
“Two million, actually.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
Shima pursed his lips. “Very well. Let’s say you will establish a scholarship fund for the linguistics department. Say, five hundred thousand dollars?”
Thrasher studied the man’s face. He’s playing a game with me. He’s enjoying this!
“Say two hundred fifty thousand,” he offered.
“Three?” Shima asked, grinning.
Thrasher nodded. “Three hundred thousand—if you find the guy who wrote those messages.”
“Done!” said Shima, sticking his hand out over his desk.
“Docking in three minutes,” said Bill Polk.
Thrasher snapped his attention to the confines of the spacecraft’s crew module. I’m in a space suit, he reminded himself. I’m in zero gravity. My head is stuffy and my stomach wants to heave but I’m okay. Everything’s fine. Almost.
Sitting beside him, Polk was intently eying the control console’s displays. There were no windows in the module, so Thrasher focused his attention on the screen in the center of the console. He saw the docking port of Mars One coming closer, closer.
Too fast! he thought. We’re going to crash into it!
He sat up straighter and started to reach a hand toward Polk, but a wave of nausea swept over him. His stomach convulsed and he tasted burning bile in his mouth. Don’t throw up! he commanded himself. Don’t make an ass of yourself!
But he gagged and upchucked anyway.
3
IN ORBIT
Vomit spattered across Thrasher’s bubble helmet and the smell made him truly sick. Polk glanced at him with a sardonic grin, then turned his attention back to the control console. Thrasher really didn’t care if they crashed and died, he felt so miserable. And ashamed.
One of the technicians, sitting behind him, leaned across and grabbed his left wrist for a moment, then let it go. Thrasher’s arm floated weightlessly while he fought down another urge to upchuck.
“I turned off your radio transmitter, Mr. Thrasher,” said the technician. “The noises you’re making are turning our stomachs.”
“Sorry, fellas,” he said weakly. No response from any of them.
He felt a weak thump, and before he could panic Polk said, “We’re docked.”
Then Thrasher heard in his helmet speaker the voice of the mission commander, back on the ground, “Confirm docking. Good job, Bill.”
“The auto system works fine,” Polk said. “I didn’t have to lift a finger.”
“Everybody okay up there? I thought I heard some distress.”
“Naw. We’re okay,” said Polk, turning to eye Thrasher’s vomit-spattered helmet. “We’re transferring to Mars One now.”
Miserable as he was, Thrasher felt immensely grateful that Polk didn’t let the mission controller know that he’d upchucked. The news would be flashed all across the world in a nanosecond, he thought.
With the help of Polk and the two technicians, Thrasher got up from his seat and floated through the hatch that linked their spacecraft with Mars One, his stomach full of butterflies.
“Just a few more feet,” Polk said encouragingly as they led him along the passageway that connected with the rotating wheel.
It was awkward getting through the hatch with the wheel sliding slowly past. Thrasher remembered his tumbling, flailing fall back when the vehicle was still on the ground in Portales.
“Careful now,” Polk instructed. “We move on the count of three. One, two, three.”
And they lifted Thrasher through the hatch and deposited him none too gently on the s
lowly moving floor of the wheel. The sudden feeling of weight made his knees buckle, but he leaned on the bulkhead and stayed more or less erect. Polk skipped lightly through the hatch and reached for him. The other two followed him.
“How you doin’, buddy?” Polk asked.
“I’ve been better,” Thrasher said.
“Let’s get you down to the infirmary.”
“Can I take off my helmet? It stinks in here.”
With a soft chuckle, Polk said, “Sure. Good idea. But you’ll have to wash it out yourself. That’s an unwritten rule.”
Thrasher nodded and realized that it didn’t make him woozy. He knew the wheel was rotating but he couldn’t sense the motion. It seemed he was standing on a solid floor, feeling normal weight. The floor curved upward farther along the passageway, but that didn’t bother him. He clicked the lock on the neck ring of his suit and lifted the begrimed helmet over his head.
Polk’s nose twitched. “It does smell pretty bad.” Turning to the two technicians, he said, “I’m going to take him down to the infirmary. You guys get on with your schedule.”
He offered an arm to Thrasher, but Thrasher shook his head. “I’m okay now. I can walk normally.”
“Good,” said Polk. Pointing down the passageway, he said, “The infirmary’s down there. Judine’s there, she can look you over.”
“I’m all right,” Thrasher insisted. “I just feel silly, making a fool of myself like that.”
“It happens. You’re not the first one. We had a U.S. Senator from Florida on one flight in the old shuttle. He spent the whole damned mission tossing his cookies. And he was on the Senate space committee.”
Dr. McQuinn pronounced Thrasher hale and fit for normal duty, then pointed him to the infirmary’s minuscule lavatory. “You can wash up in there.”
The cold water felt good on his face, and Thrasher even got his helmet scrubbed out without gagging again. Then he clomped back to the locker area and spent nearly half an hour removing his space suit.
Polk showed up to help him disrobe. Once Thrasher was standing in his standard-issue powder-blue coveralls, Polk said, “You’re scheduled to do a media interview in twenty-two minutes.”
