Then, the image faded, and the inside of her sleeping cabin came into focus. She realized she had been dreaming about being dead. Dead! Shouldn’t she have been terrified? But she wasn’t. She was at peace. She was disturbed, both by having such a clear vision of being dead – on board the IME, no less – but also by how little death actually bothered her. There was no scream as she woke up this time; just confusion as her conscious, rational, mind tried to make sense of something that was beyond understanding.
“Computer, put me through to Dr. Barbara Bryan, Department of Psychology, University of California at Irvine.”
The recording started.
“Barb, it’s me. I just had another disturbing dream. I was floating around on board the ship, only I had died and was in some kind of afterlife.”
She paused for a while, as the recording of her sleepy face and messy hair in the half-light of the cabin continued.
“I… I had premonitions when I was young. I saw this kid on my street. I didn’t know him, but I knew with certainty that he was going to be killed in a car accident. The next day, he was killed. Exactly as I pictured – it was a red car. Not two blocks away. It was a hit and run.
“Another time, I foresaw that this kid at school was going to die from a drug overdose. I didn’t even know he was an addict before then. He was dead within a week.
“I’m scared, Barb. I’m scared that I’m having premonitions again. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Bye. Computer, stop recording and send.”
She lay there, not knowing what to make of her experiences. She decided to take her mind off things until the reply arrived, so she put something mindless on TV. One of those shows where stupid people do stupid things and air their conflicts on TV, and the audience alternately cheers and jeers. (This was her guilty pleasure.)
It was the middle of the night in California, too, when her message arrived, but Barbara didn’t miss a beat when it came to answering. Her number one, two and three priorities were to support Alessia and the rest of the crew psychologically.
She made herself comfortable in her study, in her large house in the suburbs of Irvine. She replayed the message again, and then thought about what she could say that would help. Fifteen minutes later, she recorded her reply and sent it.
The computer in Alessia’s cabin said: “Incoming message from Barbara Bryan.”
“Accept.”
Barbara’s kindly tone and warmth were immediately apparent, as she sat in front of the camera in her bathrobe. “Hi, Alessia. First off, I’m sorry you’re having a hard time. The human psyche was never meant to deal with the kinds of stresses that spaceflight presents. Being shot across space, and in some senses time, wasn’t something we evolved with.
“As for premonitions, I honestly couldn’t say if you’re really seeing the future or not. I do know you’re a highly spiritual and psychically sensitive person, so it doesn’t surprise me too much that you’ve had them in the past. Whatever higher power is out there has entrusted you with some of that power. With that trust comes a burden. I know you didn’t ask for that burden, but people who carry a burden rarely do.
“My best advice would be to lean on your faith. Maybe this last dream was God telling you that everything will be alright, whatever happens. We are not always in control of our fate, but I believe that divine love has a plan, and that plan will work everything out so it’s okay in the end.
“Please call any time you want. Try and get a good night’s sleep, and take care.”
Her face disappeared from the screen. Alessia played the message over again, and absorbed what she was saying. She felt comforted. She held onto her rosary and prayed to the Virgin Mary. Afterwards she felt peaceful, but tired. She drifted off to sleep again.
* * *
@KR_IME: GO AHEAD AND USE THAT PLASTIC CUTLERY, PEOPLE. IF WE TRASH THE EARTH, WE CAN ALWAYS COLONIZE MARS.
47
T-plus 75 days
Kindergarteners everywhere knew that something special was happening; something momentous and unprecedented. Grade-schoolers watched their countdown clocks of time and distance to Mars, wondering at the size of the distance number and how quickly it was dropping as the seconds ticked by: 23,909,437... 23,909,381… 23,909,335. Their crude models of the spindly spaceship hung from ceilings, and adorned classroom shelves, along with papier-mache models of Mars itself. They handed in written assignments about living and working in space.
High schoolers also watched the countdowns, as beautifully-constructed ten-foot-long models took prominent places in auditoriums and school lobbies. They completed papers on the physics of space travel, the mathematics of orbits, and the history of Mars exploration.
University students wrote papers on the astrobiology of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Others wrote elaborate computer simulations of walking on the moons. Clergymen and philosophers pondered the deeper meaning of man’s first foray beyond the environs of Earth. Presidents watched. Ordinary people talked about it in shops, bars, and restaurants, following the mission closely on television.
On board, Martin craned his head as far as it would go into the port side dome window, to look towards the rear of the ship. “Holy crap! Come here, you guys!” The others floated over, jostling for position at the window. They immediately saw what he saw: Mars was no longer just a dot.
“We are the first human beings ever to see the disk of Mars with the unaided eye,” Alessia said, marveling at the sight.
“Yeah,” Martin replied. “There’s Phobos, too.” The moon was a barely-visible dot to the right of Mars. Deimos was too small to be seen yet.
“Oh yeah, baby, this is what it’s all about,” Christopher said.
“We’ll enter the Mars system going about five kilometers a second, around 87,000 kilometers from the planet,” said Nikita. “Then, we’ll steadily reduce our orbital altitude until we match Phobos’ altitude of around 6,000 kilometers. That’ll require losing about another three kilometers a second of velocity. Hopefully we’ll end up in its orbit where it is in its orbit!”
He continued, “We have to enter Mars orbit from the side away from the Sun, to match Phobos’ counterclockwise orbit. The navigation is completely automatic, but you better believe I’ll be keeping a close eye on it, especially as we approach Phobos.”
* * *
@KR_IME: I WANT TO ORDER A PIZZA. CHEESE, HAM AND PINEAPPLE ONLY. NO, I DON’T WANT GARLIC BREAD. DELIVER TO SOLAR ORBIT, 23 MILLION KM THIS SIDE OF MARS. DOES THE HALF-HOUR DELIVERY GUARANTEE STILL APPLY?
48
T-plus 78 days
The FBI and the CIA had been watching the compound for weeks, using airborne micro-drones. Every movement had been logged and recorded. Everyone entering and leaving had been surreptitiously tagged and monitored.
The occupants were smart enough to be off the grid completely. No electricity, telephone or cable. (In such a remote location in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennesee, such services were not available anyway.) The compound contained a bunker, only visible from the air, surrounded by a tall pine forest. No radio signature was given off, so no signals intelligence had been possible. It did produce some heat, however, suggesting that it was occupied.
Its very existence would hardly have been noticed had it not been for the couriers that visited. They stayed for an hour or two, and then left. They only ever walked there through the forest. They rode a motorcycle to somewhere within a few miles, then hid it in the undergrowth and walked. No tracks leading in or out, hence total secrecy. The Feds were sure this was it.
Snipers, almost completely invisible, lay in the undergrowth a hundred meters away. They had spent the last two days moving into position, about as slowly and carefully as it is possible to move, in order to avoid any hidden trip wires or sensors. None, as far as they knew, had been discovered. The snipers were well aware of the importance of their roles: they were at the center of one of the biggest manhunts in history, and were looking straight at the nerve center of the Workers’ Fron
t.
The sun set slowly behind the mountains. The shadows grew long. Sunlight slanted in between the trees, illuminating small clouds of gnats and airborne dust particles from the forest floor. Time seemed to lose all meaning. For the snipers, the best of the best, waiting that would have driven an ordinary person to distraction only allowed them to center themselves and become one with their environment.
The sky gave a glow of orange and then a flash of green, before surrendering to night. Dusk gave way to darkness. The temperature dropped rapidly. The stars came out, crystal-clear this far from civilization. The moon was a mere sliver, thus rendering the forest almost pitch-black. Owls, and the scuttling feet of small nocturnal creatures, could be heard.
Suddenly, the highly muffled whirring of stealth helicopter blades was heard overhead, moving in the direction of the bunker. No landing was possible, as there was no clearing, so men were lowered quickly on ropes on either side of the structure as the choppers hovered. Two camouflaged Special Forces soldiers ran in towards the door, while the others took up positions around the perimeter. The two at the door attached an explosive charge, and ran away. It was a smart charge, that would use ultrasound to measure the thickness of the steel and release only the explosive power needed to breach it without destroying what lay beyond. It was also a shaped charge, and could penetrate several feet of steel if it had to.
Ten seconds later, it exploded with a boom that could be heard a dozen miles away as it echoed and rippled across countless mountainsides and valleys. A shower of steel and concrete landed around the doorway. Six commandos ran in, night vision goggles illuminating the path, as the air hung with acrid smoke. They yelled loudly, to further startle and confuse the occupants.
Two-man teams cleared each room. Then they reached a room at the very back. Its metal door was closed. Voices could be heard inside.
They kicked in the door. It gave easily. Their goggles revealed two figures sitting at a table facing them. “Surrender now or die!” the lead commando shouted. The two men instantly put their hands up. Two commandos went to each one to subdue and restrain them, wondering in the back of their minds why they had made no attempt to defend themselves. That's when they discovered the truth: they were not men. They were robots.
The Feds had been taken in completely. The bunker, the couriers, the communications hinting at the existence of the place, had all been a ruse. It was as fake as a wooden storefront façade, propped up by planks at the back, such as one might see in an old Western movie set. The robots had only appeared real because they were covered in an electronic thermal skin that was the exact temperature of the human body. The voices were recordings. A note pinned to the table simply said: “THE JOKE’S ON YOU.” The irony of using robots as the decoys was not lost on a highly embarrassed FBI director.
As soon as it had happened, the whole raid had been recorded by hidden cameras and streamed to sites all over the Internet via a satellite dish on the roof that had previously not emitted a single signal. The cat was out of the bag before they could do anything about it, and the news media had jumped all over it before the government could issue injunctions stopping them from playing the footage. The crew watched the news with a mixture of concern and amusement.
“So, they arrested two robots,” Aleksandr said.
“At least they were the latest models,” Nikita joked.
The news broadcast went on to say that although the Workers’ Front probably still had a centralized leadership and command structure, its location could be in any of over fifty countries and that little could be done now to stop them. Even the poorest countries were now employing robot labor to do farming work, and recharging them via solar panels. This created an excluded underclass even among the poorest, and they were grouping to fight back.
“I am starting to wonder what kind of planet we will be coming back to,” Emile said. “Hopefully it has not torn itself apart.”
“Yeah,” Martin said, with a sigh. “The terrorism seems to be taking on a life of its own, outside of the main cause of keeping humans employed. I mean, the wealth is still trickling up into the hands of the few who run the corporations, but what they’re not seeing is that if nobody has a job there will be nobody that can buy their products. Each corporation is out only for itself; aware of the problem, but hoping someone else will solve it. It’s a race to the bottom. Something is going to have to change in a big way, for society to keep functioning. Where to begin, though?” The question hung in the air.
“You know, they were on about putting robots here, on the ship, to take on mundane tasks,” Christopher said.
“Well, the ship is basically a giant robot, anyway,” Nikita replied. “It just happens to have a large belly in which some humans live. It can fly the entire mission itself. It can't make excursions to Phobos of course, but it could have launched probes and landers…”
“True. What exactly is a robot, anyway? There have been automatic systems for hundreds of years,” Christopher said.
“Well, it was when they became humanoid in form, and smart enough to take on entry-level jobs in the real world, that the problems began,” said Alessia. “And then they got cheap enough to use en masse.”
“Yeah, it's a very different world from the one we grew up in, that's for sure,” Martin replied, with a sigh.
* * *
@KR_IME: IS THE CIA REALLY KEEPING AMERICA SAFE? I HAD A HAMSTER THAT DID BETTER. AS FOR HOMELAND SECURITY, WE HAVE KNIVES AND LARGE CONTAINERS OF TOOTHPASTE ON BOARD, AND NOBODY’S DEAD YET.
49
T-plus 82 days
They had slowed down massively from their record-setting peak speed, and were approaching Mars at a mere seventeen kilometers a second. The engines continued to perform well. The excitement in the air was palpable now, both on board and on Earth, as the hopes and dreams of thousands of years of humanity's gazing at the heavens were being realized.
It was getting late. Emile, Alessia, Tung-chi, and Christopher had gone to bed. Aleksandr and Nikita played a game of chess in the hub, on a chessboard generated by the computer on the floor. They sat cross-legged as the microgravity from the deceleration kept them on the floor – barely. The hub was pretty dark, as the upper half had been set to display the glass wall view of space.
Martin and Kinuko conversed on the other side of the hub. “Do you ever stop and think how funny a thing life really is?” Martin asked.
“How do you mean?”
“Each moment is defined by the people and situations that make it so. Then, it slips away, and you can never create that moment again. In fact, it seems like the harder you try to recreate a particular moment, the harder it is to do.”
“Yes, I guess so,” Kinuko replied.
Martin continued, “I think about my life, all my friends growing up. So much changes, so much passes by, so fast. It's a bit like this trip, when we were still in Earth orbit: every time you looked out at the Earth, it was different. The next second, we'd moved. You can never get the exact same view twice.”
She nodded, and spoke: “I used to hate my dad and little brother, but I don't any more. I've changed and grown. My brother and I made up a long time ago. My dad... well, he's proud of me now. I wish he had been back when I was a kid but, like you said, that's something that's set in time and can't be changed.”
Martin nodded empathetically, and replied: “My dad didn't dislike or shame us, but he was too busy working. The pressure was on people to make ends meet even back then, before things blew up like they have now. Even professional people like him were struggling. We just didn't see enough of him. But, what are you gonna do? There's no band-aid. All you can do is grow, change and move on.”
Spontaneously, she moved over to him and leaned back against him. He put his arms around her, and held her, as he had when they were flying through the bullet-like shards from the comet. They didn’t say anything. Aleksandr and Nikita were too absorbed in their game to pay them any mind. This, too, was a unique moment.
50
T-plus 84 days
* * *
Interactions with the Cosmos – The Blog of the International Mars Explorer
Just over a week to go until Mars orbit capture! It’s so hard to believe. 221 million kilometers behind us, and only 10 million to go. Mars is getting a little bigger every day! Her poles, and mottled surface coloring, are visible even from here. Phobos, too, is visible when the angle of the sun is right. It's tiny compared to Earth's moon, of course, and moves a lot faster in its orbit. Just watching Mars, even for minutes at a time, you don't get a sense of the speed we're going. We're still doing around 15 km/s as we approach Mars. We're going to dive behind the planet as seen from the Sun, to be going in the right direction to sync up with Phobos.
Ciao and blessings,
-Alessia Abbado
* * *
“Tung-chi, can you come up here for a minute?” Aleksandr asked.
Tung-chi followed him up, out of the hub, into the central tunnel. Aleksandr motioned to him to keep following. They floated all the way up, past the side A and B hatches, through the docking adapter and into the airlock suiting area.
“Tung-chi, do you know if China is planning to pull off some kind of stunt at Mars? Something involving that big science mission they supposedly lost months ago?”
Tung-chi was genuinely stunned even at the thought of it. “No... I mean... no, I never heard of such a thing. It was lost. I was there myself, as they tried and tried to reestablish contact with it.”
As he spoke, Aleksandr closely watched his eyes for telltale signs that he might be lying. After a few seconds, Aleksandr was satisfied that Tung-chi was telling the truth. Either that, or he was an inconceivably good liar.
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