The Man Who Sold Mars

by K Anderson Yancy

  Selena sat reading a tome on art history, while I took a break from a technical manual to massage my eyes. Smiling, she began to massage my neck. “Se, that feels good. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.

  “When are Patricia and Catherine arriving?”

  “In a couple of months. I would have loved to have brought Patricia here from the beginning, but I didn’t want to interrupt her schooling. I’m flying back to visit next week.”

  I wiped at my nose, felt something wet and kept my hand there hiding it. I knew what it was. “Please hand me a tissue. My nose is running.

  Selena handed me one. I carefully wiped my nose, tightly crumpled the tissue and placed it on a stand beside me, blocking Selena’s view of it with the base of the light.

  She continued massaging my neck. “Hon, you know, we need to build schools and housing and parks and everything, so that people can come here and make a life, not just an occupation.”

  “Aren’t you the Chairman of The Board and Chief Executive Officer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Than Madame Chairman, this lowly employee thinks that is a fine, fine, fine idea and you should make it so.”

  “Done.”

  The tension of the uncrumpling tissue launched itself onto the floor and both Selena and I watched the bloody spots on it unfurl. She glanced at me just in time to see a drop of blood fall on my shirt.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  She handed me a tissue.

  Knowing way more than I wanted to let her know, I said. “Really?”

  I accepted the tissue from her and rose to look in a mirror as I wiped my nose. “It’ll stop.”

  I said too much. Suspicious she asked, “How do you know?”

  Quick and dismissive I told her, “I used to get them as a child when I was stressed.”

  The bleeding didn’t stop. It worsened.

  In charge she told me, “We’re going to the hospital right now.”

  “No.”

  Beyond firm, “Now.”

  Knowing it was futile to resist her when she was committed to anything, I yielded and we found ourselves walking into the emergency room of the Young Stellar Resources’ Hospital. And following a battery of test and an MRI, awaited their results until Selena, I, and the Mars mission flight surgeon found ourselves listening to a neurosurgeon, pointing at areas on my brain scan displayed on a light board.

  “You’ve had a minor aneurism. From your brain scan it appears you’ve had a few fairly recently.”

  Selena looked at me for an answer and noncommittal I said nothing.

  With no answer from me, she returned her attention to the neurosurgeon. “How can you tell?”

  She answered Selena and while speaking used my brain scan to illustrate her points. “These are areas of fresh scaring.”

  Selena asked her. “How many are a few?”

  The flight surgeon said. “Too many.”

  Selena made a decision. “Stephen you are not going.”

  “I am OK.”

  The neurosurgeon continued with her diagnosis and a prognosis. “These nose bleeds, are they coming with increasing frequency?”

  Soft I admitted it. “Yes.”

  “Volume?” The flight surgeon asked.

  I sat silent.

  They knew that meant “Yes.”

  The neurosurgeon asked, “Duration?”

  My silence remained unbroken. The answer was “Yes”.

  The neurosurgeon answered with hope and the devastation I knew would come. “Stephen, you’re pushing your body way too hard. Rest. I think the aneurisms will stop with rest. But, Mars is out of the question.”

  “That is out of the question.”

  The flight surgeon spoke in support of her. “Stephen, the stresses of take off, the g-load you pull will be so high that with the condition of your brain, you will die during the takeoff to Mars.”

  “Nothing’s certain.”

  The flight surgeon said. “It could be you just have a stroke and end up in a vegetative state. The end results in any of the options I can foresee aren’t pleasant.”

  “Carl—“

  “Stephen—-“

  With finality Selena said, “Stephen, you are not going.”

  As far as I’m concerned, she wasn’t final enough.

  Frustrated the flight surgeon said, “You are NOT going. Stephen, do you understand? There’s a chance, a very, very significant chance you may not survive take off.”

  “But, there’s a chance I will.”

  The neurosurgeon supported the flight physician, “That chance is slim to non-existent.”

  “Ok. I can live with those odds.” They did not appreciate my humor.

  Selena was incredulous. “Did you hear them? They said you will die.”

  “Might. They said I might die. There’s a difference.”

  Selena, on a mission of her own, rallied our cadre of close friends at my apartment. Together, George, Kevin, Gardner, Tot, Selena, and Hemmingson talked with me.

  “They said I might die. So there’s a chance I might live.”

  Hemmingson finished off his wine. “And there’s a chance Elton John might be straight.”

  Kevin agreed with him. “You can’t go.”

  “I will.”

  In unison Tot and Gardner said, “You can’t.”

  Frustrated, Selena paced the floor. “Stephen, you may not survive lift off. Do you understand? I’m talking death.”

  “I know death well. Very, very well. I will or I won’t. If I die, they can dump me on Mars and toss seeds on me. I’ll be part of the first terra forming project.”

  My joke just made her madder. “Stephen—“

  “I did not work this hard to sit on the sidelines of the greatest event in my history. I made a lot of promises when I started this and I will keep them.”

  In charge Selena said, “Yes. And that includes us and the investors. No. No. No. You are not going to Mars.”

  “I am.”

  Selena screamed in frustration. “Argggggggggh. Talk to him.”

  Gardner spoke to me, as frustrated Selena sat on the arm of a couch by Tot, who was sitting next to Kevin, who at that instance spilled a few mixed nuts on the sofa. Reaching in between a cushion to retrieve them, he felt something else and retrieved an earring while Tot and Selena saw him pull it out.

  Tot embarrassed said, “That’s mine.”

  Feeling her embarrassment and Selena’s and not knowing what to say, Kevin handed it to her in silence.

  He reached back in to retrieve the nuts and pulled out another earring, totally different in design from the other and embarrassed handed it to Tot. “Here.”

  Selena embarrassed said, “That’s mine.”

  Selena and Tot looked at one another and in silence said much of life and love and longing and pain and I felt their angst. The three of us, well four including Mars were in an involvement, and three of us in an emotional place that words could not convey.

  Unnoticed by the group, Tot gave Selena a sad silent toast with her glass of wine. Selena accepted it and returned an equally sad one. They each started to drink, simultaneously stared at their glass as the same idea came to them at once. They glanced at one another then flushed. Swift, blushing, and embarrassed, they put all their focus into drinking their wine.

  Hemmingson finished off another glass of wine, “Stephen, I really am an all things to excess kind of guy and I have to agree. You stay here.”

  “No. No. No. I’m going.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  OK, Mike. What if they told you, that if you slept with another woman you might die?”

  “Go to Mars. Enjoy yourself. Hey. Visit all the planets. OK.” He said as he poured himself more wine.

  Selena starred at Hemmingson, “I can’t believe you.”

  “He said might.”

  Selena launched her nuke. “George. Talk to him.”

  He did. “Stephen—“

  “I
’m going.”

  “One moment. That’s all I ask.”

  In silence, I weighed his request. Then acquiesced. “OK.”

  “When I was a child I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I never told you. I never spoke of it after high school. I did all the things I needed to guarantee acceptance. Studied hard, became class valedictorian, captained the football and track teams. Had over 600 hours of flight time. Bagged a lot of groceries to pay for that.”

  I laughed at my own memories of those times. “I had those days too.”

  “When I took my medical entrance exam for The Academy, they told me I was not physically qualified to attend the Academy because of a curvature of my spine. If I ever ejected out of a jet, my spine would snap and I would die. Years later as a J.D./MBA, corporate raider with more money than brains, I learned Russian and paid them a lot of money to go through their jet training program, followed by type aircraft training. I became a fully qualified MiG 25, Foxbat, pilot. I flew a supersonic jet interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft. The second fastest and second highest-flying military aircraft ever fielded after the US’ SR-71, the Blackbird. During my training, due to mechanical issues with the jets, I ejected twice.”

  George stood up and spent completely around.

  “I’m certainly not dead. Nor am I crippled. Nor did my spine break. I turned down the Co-Chairman of the board position because I will be very busy planning the second Mars mission. Mine.”

  “Oh, God. Two of them.” Selena said under her breath.

  George joked, “I heard that.”

  “Me too.” As did I.

  The group laughed.

  George continued. “Stephen, you may very well die on lift off or somewhere between Earth and Mars. You could be hit by a bus. Get e-coli poisoning at a fast food restaurant. Get shot at an ATM. Anything—“ Beyond excited, he asked me. “Have you ever piloted a tactical jet inverted, 100 feet above the runway at over 600 knots?! My God!”

  I jumped up and sang. “We’re going to Mars.”

  “Damn right!”

  With a frustrated sigh, Selena went “Argggggggh!”

  Beyond frustration and anger, Selena vented her displeasure and acquiesced in her battle to keep me Earthbound, but not the war.

  27. I’m A Dead Man

  I got up from my kitchen table, leaving my texts behind, to walk to the door to let Selena and Tot in and said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  Tot kissed me on the check as she came in with two bottles of wine.

  And so did Selena also carrying two bottles.

  Friends and ex-boyfriends get kissed on the cheek. Here comes goodbye. They’re breaking up with me. I deserve it. But it still hurts.

  Selena asked me, “Did you eat?”

  “Yes.”

  Tot grinned, “The correct question to ask him is, “Did you eat right?””

  We laughed, they ushered me into the kitchen and placed the wine on the table.

  Worried, I sat at it, while they made themselves at home. They’d come with wine, lots of it, and I got a kiss on the cheek. That was not a good thing. I could feel my stomach tying in knots and I wondered how long it would take before they let me go.

  Selena opened the refrigerator door and announced to Tot, “There’s food.”

  She walked over; they exchanged some words and started pulling ingredients out.

  They were making me nervous. I knew this was not going to be a good night. How could it be? I was involved with both of them, they’d brought over a lot of wine and they were cooking me a meal. I knew I was on death row, walking the last mile of my relationships with them and they were making me one last meal.

  While Selena cooked, Tot came over with a wine opener and glasses. She picked up the bottle, removed the cork and poured.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t drink. I have a training hop tomorrow. Zero dark thirty. And it’s eight hours from bottle to throttle.”

  “I know. I’m only pouring two.”

  She took a glass to Selena and she a little embarrassed and a little guilty downed it at once and Tot gazed at me, studying me as she drank. Every time, every single time I was with either of them and they drank like that, it was followed by something, some things, lots of things I did not want to hear. I was starting to feel like Iraq with the coalition forces at my border. This was not good. I was a dead man.

  It was still zero dark thirty. My hop did not go well at all and my instructor let me know it as we were returning to base, flying the Training version of the single seat Fighter Attack F/A-18 Hornet, which differed from the single seat version in that it had a cockpit for the student in the front and a duplicate one in the rear for the instructor.

  In the still black morning sky, I was embarrassed. As a Marine, I had thousands of hours of flight time in that jet and today I was horrendous. My mind was on Tatyana and Selena and not where it needed to be. I was always behind the aircraft instead of in front of it and my SA, situational awareness and air sense were non existent.

  “That was not one of your better hops, Stephen.”

  “I know. I was up all night studying.”

  “You have to lighten up on your training schedule, give your mind a chance to arrange, order, and own the information. It’s Sunday. When was the last time you took a day off?”

  “I don’t take days off. There’s not enough time.”

  “There’s time enough for everything if you arrange it properly. I’m making a command decision. A compromise. Sunday is a no fly day.”

  “I can’t—“

  “I can’t let you go alone to Mars unprepared.”

  “Last night was just long.”

  “You’ve been tired and dragging well before last night. Well, well, well before last night and the quality of your hops are disintegrating. I’m speaking with your training coordinator, from here out Sunday is for rest—“

  “And review.”

  “So be it Stephen, but you will not have class.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  I returned to my apartment still dark in the early morning and walked into my bedroom. There sound asleep was a compromise of a different sort . . . Tot holding Selena, the two spooning together with a look of calm resolution . . . of sorts. It was hard on them dancing around one another to see me when they could instead of when they wanted. I knew it was, but I didn’t know how to deal with the place we were. And faced with the news about my health and the possibility that when I launched, they would not see me for nearly three years or ever, they decided to move in and mistress me. They said it worked for Hemmingson, it would work for us.

  Once they found out I had a full day “off” once a week, I was a dead man.

  28. Death In The Skies

  In Selena’s new New York Penthouse Condo, a jewel sparkling with incomprehensible brilliance as if she dared the U.S. government to take this one, her sister Catherine stood with her cell phone to her ear. “Hi!”

  And, in Eden, in our home, every bit as elegant as the one in New York, Selena stood with her cell phone to her ear. “Hi!”

  “We’re on our way to the airport. The limo’s downstairs.”

  Patricia very excited danced around her aunt. “Let me talk to mom. Let me talk to mom.”

  “Patricia wants to talk to you.”

  Catherine handed the phone to Patricia.

  “Hi mom, I Love you.”

  “I love you too. See you soon.”

  “C ya soon. Bye.”

  Patricia handed the phone back to Catherine. “I’m back.”

  “Call me when you’re half an hour out of Cebu. I’ll come on one of our corporate jets to pick you up.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

  “OK.”

  In my Philippines office, Hemmingson, George, Kevin, Gardner, Selena, Tot, and I watched a news broadcast of a rocket attempting to take off. It climbed about ten feet, then, as if sucked back by the launch pa
d, crashed tail first, exploding with a brilliant display.

  Hemmingson tossed some mixed nuts in his mouth. “Guess they won’t be stealing anymore of our technology soon.”

  Selena was livid. “You did not sabotage their rocket?!”

  We sat in silence.

  “I want an answer. People could have died.”

  I answered for the group. “No, we didn’t.”

  Kevin reached for a few nuts. “We just made certain the only plans or technology relatively, easily stolen are flawed in ways they will never know.”

  “Until”, Hemmingson said as he reached for a sandwich.

  Gardner said. “SOP.” Then bit into a corned beef sandwich.

  Hemmingson translated, “Standard Operating Procedures.” Then bit into his sandwich. “Oh gross. This is tongue. I thought it was roast beef.”

  Tot keyed her notebook computer. “I read three other groups are using the world’s capital markets for space exploration and dozens more for the seas.”

  “Let them.” Kevin pointed at a sandwich. “Roast beef.”

  “Muchas Gracias.” Hemmingson said then picked it up.

  Gardner reached for more nuts. “It makes our shares more lucrative.”

  George lifted some slaw with his fork. “Proven versus unproven.”

  I picked up a pickle spear. “Non speculative.”

  Selena glared at us fuming. I understood why. She was an angel. But, I had to protect us. “Selena, I know you’re mad. But we will not be the technological fluffer for the world again. Ever. Ever.

  Hemmingson corrected. “We were more like its cabin boy.”

  Tatyana was shocked. “That’s what they used to do to cabin boys! Those poor kids.”

  Hemmingson added, “And we think altar boys have it rough. At least they can go home. For a cabin boy, his home was the ship’s captain’s cabin.”

  Joshua entered with his laptop, sat at a table, and turned it on.

  I glanced at him. “Are you hungry?”

  “No thanks.”

  I then addressed the group. “Joshua’s been working on a program for us. We have military might to prevent one form of hostile takeover. And to a degree we are very vulnerable to another.”

  George added more potato chips to his plate. “We have so much stock out there, that someone really motivated could amass enough to launch a hostile corporate takeover. In fact, I think they’re working on it.”