The Solar Sea

by David Lee Summers

  "Ever since Tom left for college, I've been emailing him—keeping in touch, asking him for help with my homework, that sort of thing.” He returned the paperweight to the desk. “I think we may be closer now than when he lived here."

  Jerome nodded at his son and prompted him to continue.

  "It's just that this semester, his emails have become erratic. It's like he's really preoccupied. I know he's busy at MIT, so I wasn't all that concerned until today. I wanted to talk to him about Massachusetts since I'm thinking about applying to Babson. I realized he never sent me his new phone number, so I called the MIT switchboard.” Henry licked his lips. His mouth was suddenly dry. “Dad, they say he left last semester. There's no Thomas Quinn registered this year."

  "I know,” said Jerome. He wanted to tell his youngest son that Thomas was perfectly safe, but the words wouldn't quite come.

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  Chapter 12

  Halfway to Mars

  Three months into the voyage, Angus MacDonald, Daryl LaRue, Vanda Berko, and a mechanic named Randal Hoffman had gathered in the ship's galley for a game of cards. Angus retrieved a hidden bottle of Scotch Whiskey for the occasion. He lifted a toast to the others. “Halfway to Mars.” The others lifted their glasses with the cook.

  As the evening wore on, the four crewmembers drank more and more of the scotch as they played cards. Daryl LaRue won far more often than he lost and somewhere around midnight, ship's time, he pulled a large stack of coins toward himself. “Gentlemen,” he said, then noticed Vanda Berko glaring at him, “and lady. I think it's time for me to call it a night. I'm expected at my post early in the morning."

  Angus MacDonald scowled at LaRue. “I think you owe me a chance to win back some of my money."

  "You know, it is getting awfully late,” said Hoffman, looking at his watch. “I think it's time to call it a night."

  Vanda Berko sat with her arms folded across her stomach, waiting to see what was going to happen.

  "I'm sorry, Angus,” said LaRue. “The way you've been playing tonight, you'd just lose more money to me. You're just a cook and not too good with figures, and your poker face ain't so good when you've been drinking."

  MacDonald reached up, touched his face, then dropped his hand and sneered at the tech manager. “Some men may be lucky, but no one's as lucky as you were tonight.” The cook leaned forward, across the table.

  "Are you accusing me of cheating?” said LaRue dangerously. MacDonald nodded and the tech manager's face turned beet red. He tried to shove the table aside, but couldn't because it was bolted to the floor. When that didn't work, he just leapt across the table at the cook.

  * * * *

  John O'Connell and Lisa Henry strolled through the corridor hand-in-hand after watching a movie. They decided a trip to the galley for some tea or hot cocoa would be the perfect way to end the evening. When they opened the door, they found Angus MacDonald on the floor with Daryl LaRue sitting atop him, trying to hit him. Vanda Berko had LaRue's arm and Randal Hoffman held Daryl around the chest. When he saw John and Lisa step in, he called, “Get some help!"

  Lisa ran to the nearest comm port, and called command and control. “Get the captain down here, fast."

  * * * *

  A few minutes later, Captain Jefferson appeared, running down the corridor from the direction of the C-and-C. He took in the situation and with the help of those on hand, was finally able to subdue both LaRue and MacDonald.

  "All right, what happened?” demanded Jefferson.

  Several voices spoke at once.

  "One at a time,” growled Jefferson.

  Hoffman spoke up and told about the card game and how MacDonald had accused LaRue of cheating. Lisa Henry looked at the table, retrieved a bottle, and took it to the captain.

  Jefferson took the mostly-empty bottle and looked at it, then shook his head. “Alcohol is prohibited aboard this ship, gentlemen,” he said. “So is fighting.” He set the bottle down on a nearby table and clasped his hands behind his back and paced. “Mr. LaRue, Mr. MacDonald, you're both confined to your quarters for a week. All computer and video access will be denied. Perhaps some quiet time on your own will help you both cool off."

  While Jefferson spoke, Pilot appeared in the doorway. “Captain,” he said, almost frantic, “you can't do that. We need both of these men on duty. We can't confine crewmembers."

  "Why not?” Jefferson's voice rose. “We have the volunteer cooks to take MacDonald's place. You and several of the other techs can run the thrusters in LaRue's place. If we don't set an example, there could be more trouble."

  As they continued to argue, Neb O'Connell looked at Lisa. “Maybe you should get Captain Freeman down here.” Lisa nodded agreement and quietly stepped out of the galley. A few minutes later, she returned with Natalie Freeman. Lace poked up over rumpled coveralls as though she had hastily thrown the uniform on over a nightgown.

  "Sir ... Mr. Alonzo,” she said, her arms folded. “What's going on?"

  Jefferson took a deep breath and explained his side of the story.

  "But we only just have enough crewmembers to handle the ship as it is,” countered Pilot. “We can't afford to confine them to quarters for a week."

  Captain Freeman looked at MacDonald and LaRue, who were both looking at the floor, partly out of shame for what they'd done and partly to avoid the iciness of Freeman's gaze. MacDonald's right eye was turning purple and swelling shut.

  Freeman turned on her heel and looked at Pilot. “Jonathan Jefferson is the captain of this vessel,” she said coldly. “If you have a disagreement with him, you take it out of the crew's view. Do I make myself clear?"

  Pilot sputtered for a moment, but then finally took a deep breath. “You're absolutely right.” He looked at Jefferson, who stood very straight, looking very self-satisfied and offered his hand. Jefferson took it and the two men shook.

  With that, Freeman led both men out into the corridor. In a whisper that was even harsher than her reprimand of Pilot, she said to Jefferson, “Pilot's right, Captain. We can't take these men off duty. Did you consider that?"

  Jefferson's self-satisfied grin vanished. “No, I hadn't."

  "Perhaps a few shifts of watch-on-watch would be a more appropriate punishment under the circumstances,” said Freeman.

  Pilot started to interrupt, but stopped when she glared at him. She let Jefferson go into the galley to announce the compromise.

  * * * *

  In the weeks after the fight, the crew became very subdued. Arguments occasionally flared up, but they died down just as quickly. No one wanted to do sixteen hours on shift, followed by eight hours for sleep, then do it all over again for a week.

  A week after the fight, Jefferson ascended the ladder into the ship's hub. He found Pilot staring out the window. The captain drifted over, joining him. Mars had grown bright, casting shadows through the ship's central section, even though the lack of gravity in the ship's hub was disconcerting, Jefferson was grateful it was surrounded by motorized bearings, allowing the rest of the ship to rotate while the hub remained stationary. Jefferson couldn't imagine working in the place if the walls and consoles rotated relative to the outside. The hub itself was partitioned into two separate rooms with a gap between.

  "I'm sorry I didn't listen when you told me we needed to keep LaRue and MacDonald on duty,” said the captain, quietly. He looked back toward the gap between the hub's two halves and watched the ladder slowly rotate.

  "You were right, too,” said Pilot, breaking Jefferson's reverie. “You were right at the beginning. We should have trained longer before starting."

  Jefferson nodded. “Maybe ... but we've had far fewer troubles than I would have expected. You did a good job putting this crew together."

  "Thanks.” Pilot looked up at Jefferson. “Although, I didn't put a lot of thought into compatibility. I just wanted the best people for the jobs."

  "You got them,” admitted Jefferson.

  Pilot sm
iled a little at that, then looked forward, out the window. “I've been double checking calculations. Given our approach and escape vectors, we're only going to get four orbits of Mars, about twenty-four hours, then we'll reach escape velocity and be on our way to Jupiter."

  "I know, I've been checking, too,” said Jefferson. He'd been disappointed on the Moon when he first heard they'd only have a day at Mars. He and Pilot had agreed to revisit the calculations to see if they could buy even a few more hours.

  "Have you chosen a landing site?” asked Pilot. “Better make it a good one."

  Jefferson had been reading up on the specs of Aristarchus' landers. There were surprisingly few limits to their abilities. “If I had to pick one place to go on Mars, I know just where it would be.” Jefferson looked toward the red planet.

  * * * *

  Aboard the Aristarchus, it was easy to forget about the passage of time back on Earth. The lights in the corridors were on all the time and the seasons did not change outside the windows. For that reason, Angus MacDonald maintained a calendar in the galley. Near the beginning of December, Vanda Berko brought out a small menorah and set it up to mark the days of Hanukah. “Surrounded by darkness as we are, it's important to remember the miracle of light,” she said.

  Around that time, Jonathan Jefferson and Pilot met to decide who should go down to Mars. Kurata Nagamine, the planetary astronomer, was an obvious choice. After some discussion, they decided that Myra Lee should also go to the planet. As a biologist, she was the most likely aboard to notice any fossils or other evidence of life.

  "Daryl, Vanda, and I are the most qualified mechanics to repair the shuttle should problems occur,” said Pilot. “I should probably sit this trip out."

  Jefferson blinked back surprise. He'd expected Pilot to come along on all the planetary missions. “As senior Quinn Corp official aboard, wouldn't it be fitting for you to accompany us?"

  "Believe me, when we get to Jupiter and Saturn, I'll be there.” Pilot grinned. “However, given the short time we have at Mars, I should stay aboard to make sure we execute the slingshot out of orbit correctly. If we don't, we'll still make it to Jupiter, but it could add a year to the trip. Maybe I'll go down when we return."

  "Okay,” said Jefferson. “If you stay with the ship and I'm piloting the shuttle, that means Daryl LaRue is the only other qualified pilot. He should stay behind in case we need a rescue."

  "Agreed,” said Pilot. “That leaves Vanda to accompany you as mechanic."

  That left two seats on the shuttle. After some consideration, they decided that Neb O'Connell and Lisa Henry should go along. Though both were technicians, each had logged more hours with cameras and recording equipment than either Nagamine or Lee. That made the astronomy and biology teams complete.

  Training for the trip to the Martian surface helped break the monotony of shipboard routine, not only for the six scheduled to go to Mars, but the rest of the crew as well. Six others were picked to be a rescue team in the event of a planetside problem. They included Pilot, Dr. Garcia, and Daryl LaRue. The remaining thirteen members of the crew worked on mission support and prepared for the very worst-case scenario—two lost shuttles and no pilot, which would mean a short-handed return to Earth.

  During one of the landing crew meetings around the conference table in C-and-C, Jefferson looked at the assembled group. “I'm very impressed with how well this team is coming together. I have no reservations about this mission. That said, I need to know if any of you have questions or issues you need to raise."

  Myra shot a glance at Lisa, then raised her hand. “I'm a little concerned about our landing site—Olympus Mons,” she said. “Both Lisa and I have done search and rescue training at the Oceanographic Institute and helped with rescues at sea and in the mountains. Isn't landing atop the solar system's tallest mountain going to be a tricky proposition?"

  "It won't be as bad as you might think,” said Jefferson. “Olympus Mons isn't really built like the tallest mountains of Earth. Even though it's over twice the height of Mt. Everest, it's much wider—bigger around than Texas. There's only about a ten-degree grade near the summit. Conditions are more like Bolivia's alto plano than Alaska's mountain peaks."

  "Will it even seem like we're on a mountain?” asked Neb

  Jefferson shrugged. “It certainly won't be the same dramatic view as on an Earth mountain. The base of Olympus Mons is over the horizon line from the summit.” He folded his hands on the tabletop. “I won't kid you, the landing will be challenging, but it won't be anything like trying to land a helicopter on Mt. McKinley."

  "I'm almost tempted to ask why go there,” said Myra, “but I know the only answer is the one Sir Edmund Hillary gave when asked about climbing Mt. Everest.” With no other questions or concerns, Jefferson adjourned the meeting.

  As the month progressed, Angus produced a tiny artificial tree and set it up on one of the tables in the galley, decorating it with bits of tin foil. On Christmas morning, several members of the crew gathered around the tree and sang carols. When the ship's clock marked noon, Angus, dressed in his finest kilt, brought out a roast turkey with all the trimmings. Natalie Freeman, sipping a cup of hot cocoa, noticed Daryl LaRue was at the party, though he took care to sit at the opposite side of the room from Angus.

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  Chapter 13

  Mount Olympus

  As Aristarchus approached Mars, members of the crew went up to the hub to look out at the sight through the great forward window. Lisa Henry and Neb O'Connell went up together and spent over an hour staring at the rust-colored planet as it grew slowly larger.

  "I thought seeing Earth from space was the greatest thing,” said Lisa. Her voice was little more than a whisper. “But I think this is even better."

  Neb inclined his head. “I've seen the planet through telescopes, but seeing it in person isn't quite like I'd imagined. Somehow, it seems more real, like I can reach out and touch it, especially from here, where you can really see the polar ice caps and clouds drifting over the surface, just like Earth."

  "You know what it makes me think of?” mused Lisa. “My grandmother used to show me these old black and white photographs that were kind of reddish-yellow with age. She called it sepia. The people in the photos were all relatives—long gone. Mars kind of looks like what Earth would if it were in one of those old sepia-colored photos. It's almost like Mars is some long lost ancestor of the Earth, waiting for us to come and visit."

  Neb smiled at the idea. Just then, he caught sight of a potato-shaped rock, with one deep crater that took up almost a third of the surface. “Hey, it's Phobos,” he said, “one of the two moons of Mars."

  "It looks more like an asteroid than a moon."

  "They think it was an asteroid, at one time. It got too close and Mars captured it.” As he spoke, Lisa leaned in close. Surrendering to fate, he kissed her by the light of the silvery moon.

  * * * *

  The night before the landing, Myra found it virtually impossible to sleep. She tossed and turned until about two in the morning. She woke up, frantic, afraid she'd overslept only to discover it was just a little before three. With a deep breath, she lay down and tried not to count the minutes until her six o'clock wake-up time. Somewhere before morning, she finally did drift off to sleep.

  When her alarm rang, Myra was surprised how rested she felt given that she'd had so little sleep. She threw back the blankets, padded to the shower, got dressed, and went to the galley to meet the rest of the landing party.

  She found Dr. Nagamine already in the kitchen, drinking coffee and making notes in a journal. She filled a cup and joined him. Soon after, the others arrived. Jefferson's veneer of professional calm barely concealed sheer joy. Neb O'Connell and Lisa Henry looked like star-struck teenagers about to embark on the greatest adventures of their lives. Vanda Berko plodded into the kitchen, looked around and said, “Where the hell is MacDonald with our chow?"

  Angus MacDonald showed up a fe
w minutes later and assembled a large breakfast of eggs, potatoes, sausage, fruit, toast, and juice.

  "I don't know if I could eat all that,” said Myra, aghast at the size of the breakfast that was laid before her.

  "I want us to have a large breakfast,” said Jefferson. “It's going to be a busy day."

  "Won't do me any good if I lose it on the way down,” complained Myra.

  "I have some motion sickness pills.” Lisa patted a pocket on the arm of her coveralls.

  After eating, the team of six made their way to the launch bay that contained the Mars lander. The sleek craft was painted metallic red. The name Ares III had been stenciled on the side. After suiting up in their survival gear, Jefferson opened the hatch and the crew boarded the shuttle. Once again, the captain found himself sitting next to Dr. Nagamine.

  "Jefferson to command and control,” called the captain. “Requesting permission to launch this bird."

  "Stand by,” came the voice of Natalie Freeman. “We're opening the bay doors and Pilot is setting up the counterthrust maneuvers."

  The shuttle bay door opened in front of them, revealing the red planet ahead. Once the door was fully open, Freeman's voice came over the intercom again. “Ares III, you're clear to launch."

  Captain Jefferson carefully pulled the joystick back and applied thrust, taking the small shuttle-lander out of the bay. He maneuvered slowly away from the ship, both getting the feel of the controls after six months away from them and making sure they didn't collide with the ship. Once fully clear, he called C-and-C. “We're heading down."

  "See you in eighteen hours,” said Freeman.

  Dr. Nagamine shook his head. “It's so different from the Earth, so lifeless."

  "I think it's like coming home.” Jefferson grinned broadly. He pushed the joystick forward and began the descent to the surface. Crossing the terminator to the night side of the planet, he gently brought the shuttle into the atmosphere. Even so, the tiny ship rocked and bounced violently and the stars outside the window vanished, replaced by a raging inferno. Myra nearly did get sick, but a pill from Lisa helped calm her stomach.