Mars

by Ben Bova

  In orbit the entire assemblage of vehicles and human beings was effectively in zero gravity, weightless. Jamie felt his guts dropping away the instant the shuttle rocket engines cut off. His inner ears were telling him that he was falling, falling endlessly. Yet he could see that he was strapped firmly in his seat down in the crowded middeck compartment of the shuttle, jammed in with five technicians on their way to a week’s work. Their coveralls were stained and frayed from hard use; Jamie’s were so new there were still creases on his sleeves.

  All the scientist-candidates had spent at least a few days in orbit during their years of training. Jamie had also flown three flights on the Vomit Comet, the big jet transport plane that simulated zero g by diving from high altitude, then pulling up into a long parabolic arc that produced about half a minute of gut-wrenching weightlessness. He knew what to expect and he did not panic. Still he could feel his stomach churning and his head going woozy.

  Jamie felt all the classic symptoms of space adaptation syndrome as he followed the veteran technicians past the shuttle’s hatch, through the narrow metal chambers of the Mir, and into the more spacious receiving area of the huge shuttle tank. It was not like seasickness, not exactly. His head felt stuffy as his body fluids shifted within him, free of gravity’s pull. He felt slightly nauseous, disoriented, almost dizzy. As if he had come down with a heavy dose of flu.

  Medical personnel took him in tow, literally, and after a perfunctory examination cheerfully pronounced him normal. They gave him a slow-release medication patch to stick behind his ear and told him that all the Mars scientists were assembling in the main briefing area. Jamie started to nod, found that the head motion made him feel as if he wanted to upchuck, and settled for asking directions to the main briefing area.

  He knew enough to go slowly up the central passageway, pulling himself along easily on the ladder rungs that studded all four walls, like a swimmer working his way along the hull of a sunken ship. It was difficult to think of ceiling and floor when up and down had no objective meaning. Jamie began to think of the passageway as a deep well with metal wails that he was climbing, floating weightlessly as he made his way in dreamy slow motion toward the top.

  “Ah, there you are! You made it.”

  Jamie turned at the sound of the voice behind him and instantly wished he hadn’t as his stomach lurched uneasily.

  It was Tony Reed, smiling as if he had been born in zero gravity, gliding effortlessly along the passageway like a grinning dolphin.

  Jamie tried to smile.

  “Glad to see you here,” Reed said, extending his hand as he rose to Jamie’s level, “even though you do look a bit green.”

  “I’ll adjust,” Jamie said, hanging on to one ladder rung while his feet floated free.

  “Of course you will. We’re all delighted that Brumado talked the powers that be into giving you the geology slot.”

  Reed started off along the passageway again and Jamie pushed against a rung to keep up with him. “I’m still kind of dazed … it all happened so fast.”

  With his slightly crooked smile Reed said, “You can thank Joanna for it. She led the revolt against Hoffman.”

  “Joanna did?”

  “Yes. Got her father to support it, actually. She can be quite the little jaguar when she wants to be.”

  There were others gathering at the far end of the long passageway, Jamie saw. And more coming behind (below?) them.

  Lowering his voice, Jamie asked, “You mean Joanna was the one who forced Hoffman out?”

  “She was the ringleader. We all had something of a hand in it. Once it was clear that DiNardo was gone, we suddenly realized that we were facing two years locked up with that Austrian martinet.”

  “He wasn’t so bad,” Jamie mumbled.

  “Most of us thought he was, rather. And Joanna apparently wanted him off more than any of us.” Reed’s expression turned canny. “Or perhaps she wanted you to be on with us. I feel rather jealous, you know.”

  Jamie bit back a reply. They were too close to the others now to continue the conversation. He wondered how much truth there was in Reed’s words and how much of what he said was joking exaggeration.

  The scientists were not expected to do any work for the first few days in orbit; the mission planners had expected them to be suffering and useless for that long. But they could attend briefings. The psychologists even claimed that activities that required mental rather than physical exertion would take their minds off their queasiness.

  Jamie followed Reed through a hatch set into the bulkhead that ended the long passageway. He found himself gliding weightlessly into a large open area, rising like a bubble into a cavernous chamber in the nose of the former propellant tank. The briefing center’s domelike interior had been painted with stripes of black and white that converged on the point of the nose cap. Jamie hovered in midair, blinked several times, and realized that the “wall” he had come through had become the “floor” of the briefing center.

  The flat surface was studded with plastic foot loops, further defining it as the floor. The black and white stripes provided strong vertical orientation. With up and down clearly defined, Jamie felt somewhat better. He reached out a hand as he approached the curving wall and pushed himself lightly back toward the floor. Anyone can be an acrobat in zero gravity, Jamie realized. Or a ballet dancer.

  Slowly sixteen queasy, faintly green scientists gathered on that floor, anchoring their boots in the foot loops, their bodies hunched forward slightly in what was called “the zero-g crouch,” their arms floating weightlessly up around chest height. Like polyps attached to the sea bottom, Jamie thought, weaving back and forth in the currents.

  Dr. Li, clad in sky-blue coveralls with a stiff collar, stood on a slightly elevated platform at one side of the circular area. Not that he needed a platform, with his height. In contrast, most of the astronauts and cosmonauts gathered around him were quite short, Jamie saw; American or Russian, most of the fliers had the sawed-off physiques of fighter pilots.

  Li looked pretty green himself, Jamie thought. The expedition commander waited a few moments for the assembled scientists to quiet down. Then he began, in his thin, high-pitched voice, “Believe it or not, we are now going through the most difficult part of our mission.”

  “I believe it!” someone muttered loud enough for everyone to hear and laugh at.

  “In a few days more we will become accustomed to microgravity. In a few weeks more we will transfer to Mars spacecraft, which will eventually be spun up to simulate terrestrial gravity—and then de-spun as we approach Mars to acclimate us to Martian level of gravity.”

  Li looked pallid, drawn. Yet his face was puffier than it had been on Earth, his eyes seemed narrower. It struck Jamie that if they maintained zero g all the way to Mars they could save tons of food; no one would have much of an appetite. But we’d be in no condition to work on the surface once we got there.

  “In a moment I will introduce our astronauts and cosmonauts to you. Then we will break up into smaller groups to become better acquainted. However, first I wish to remind you of a very sensitive and very important point, a subject that you have all discussed individually with the physicians and psychologists. It is mentioned, but only briefly, in your mission regulations books.”

  Li took a deep breath. “I refer to the subject of sex.”

  Everyone took a breath, like a collective sigh wafting through the group. Jamie could not see the faces of the other scientists without turning his head—which would bring on a wave of nausea. But the astronauts and cosmonauts were facing the scientists, and Jamie saw a couple of grins and even a frown.

  “We are all adult,” said Dr. Li. “We all have healthy sex drive. We will be living together for nearly two years. As your expedition commander I expect you to behave in adult manner. Adult human beings, not childish monkeys.”

  No one said a word. There was no laughter, no giggling, not even a cough.

  “Men outnumber women among
us by four to one. I expect you men to behave sensibly and to keep the goals of the expedition above your personal desires. Dr. Reed and Dr. Yang, our two physicians, have medications that will suppress the sex drive. You can go to them in complete privacy and confidentiality if you need to.”

  Jamie wondered how much privacy and confidentiality there could be among twenty-five men and women locked inside a pair of spacecraft for nearly two years.

  Li looked over his assembled team members, then added, “I want to make it quite clear that neither I nor mission controllers will permit sexual problems to interfere with success of this expedition. If any one of you cannot control his sex drive, he will be, required to take medication. Is that clear?”

  What about the women? Jamie wanted to ask. But he did not. The image of Edith flickered in his mind, but he found himself turning his head ever so slightly to look at Joanna, standing just off to his left in the row ahead of him.

  “Very well then, I will now introduce the men who will pilot our spacecraft and be in command of our various teams once we reach Mars.”

  As Li began to introduce the astronauts and cosmonauts, Jamie wondered what would happen if a man made trouble and then refused to take the medication he was ordered to take. What can they do when we’re millions of miles out in space?

  2

  After the introductions the group broke up into smaller units. Jamie joined his fellow scientists and the two men who had been appointed their pilots and commanders. They were assembling along the curving wall at one end of the platform where Dr. Li remained.

  The scientists moved cautiously across the loop-studded floor, like men and women in a dream, or drunks who were trying to maintain their dignity and self-control. Jamie saw the astronauts and cosmonauts casually pushing themselves off the walls or the floor itself to glide effortlessly toward the little knots of scientists gathering to talk with them. Insolent grace, Jamie thought. It was a line from a story he had read years ago, in freshman English. One of the Russians floated by overhead, grinning wolfishly as he looked down at the lurching, wobbling scientists. Insolent grace.

  Jamie made an effort to reach Joanna. He came up to her side and touched her on the shoulder of her coveralls. She jerked with surprise, then paled noticeably and put a hand to her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie said in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Joanna swallowed hard, the hint of tears in her eyes. “One moment … I will be all right …”

  Jamie said, “I just wanted to thank you for helping me to get here. I’m very grateful to you.”

  Her face still pale, she replied, “It was necessary to remove Professor Hoffman. He would have been impossible.”

  “I’m very glad to be here,” Jamie repeated. “For whatever part in this you played, muchas gracias.”

  She smiled, faintly, and replied in Portuguese, “Por que?”

  Then she turned away from him and went to stand beside Ilona Malater, tall and regal-looking even in plain beige coveralls. The scientists attached their feet to the loops on the floor with the clumsy care of newcomers. The Russian cosmonaut and American astronaut, both dressed in tan slacks and pullovers, hovered effortlessly before them.

  The four scientists—geologist, microbiologist, biochemist, and physician—finally got themselves settled in the foot restraints and focused their attention on the astronaut and cosmonaut who would be their team commanders.

  “I am Mikhail Andreivitch Vosnesensky,” the cosmonaut introduced himself. “I am command pilot of the first landing team.” He spoke English perfectly, without any trace of an accent, in a heavy voice almost in a bass register.

  He looked to Jamie like Hollywood’s version of a Russian. Short, thick torso and heavy limbs, dark reddish-brown hair, beefy face with skin so fair it was almost pink. He reminded Jamie more of a stubby character actor than a hotshot rocket jockey. I’ll have to check his biography in the mission records, Jamie said to himself. While Vosnesensky’s eyes were the clear bright blue of a summer sky, innocent, almost childlike, the expression on his chunky face was dour and brooding.

  “And I’m T. Peter Connors,” said the black American astronaut, with a good-natured grin. “My official position is pilot, safety officer, and second-in-command.”

  Connors’s smile was charming, but his red-rimmed eyes looked somehow sad, wary. Not more than a centimeter taller than the Russian, Connors was much slimmer, sleeker. It made him look almost lanky compared to Vosnesensky. Like a racing thoroughbred standing beside a plow horse. His voice was not as deep as the Russian’s, but richer, more resonant, like a singer’s.

  “I want to make one thing clear at the outset,” Vosnesensky told the four scientists, almost growling. “I am not here to be your friend. I will be in command of your group from the instant we enter the Mars 1 spacecraft here in Earth orbit until the instant we leave it, once safely back here in Earth orbit. Especially during the time we are on the surface of Mars my responsibility will be to see that all mission objectives are met and no one is hurt. I will, expect my orders to be carried out without delay and without argument. Mars is not a university campus. We will maintain military discipline at all times. Is that clear?”

  “Quite clear,” answered Tony Reed.

  “Any questions?”

  No one spoke. No one even moved as they stood anchored to the floor by the foot restraints.

  “Good,” said Vosnesensky.

  Connors added, “If you have any problems, we can always talk them over. We’ll be in transit for more than nine months. That’s the time to go over the mission plan in as much detail as we can and hash over any changes you want to make.”

  So they’re going to be good cop and bad cop, Jamie thought. I wonder if they’ve planned that out or if it’s just their natural dispositions?

  The four scientists glanced uneasily at each other. Vosnesensky motioned to Connors and the two pilots glided off, heading toward the hatch.

  “Well,” said Reed once they were out of earshot, “it looks as if we got rid of Hoffman only to get the Russian version of a drill sergeant.”

  3

  Jamie was surprised at how difficult it was for him to make the mental transition. His body became accustomed to zero gravity in a couple of days. But he still had a hard time convincing himself that he was really going to Mars, actually part of the first team.

  It did not help when all the Mars mission members began sneezing and coughing and blaming it on him.

  “The rest of us have been confined together for more than two weeks at Star City,” Tony Reed explained, almost jovially. “You’re the serpent in our garden; you’ve brought some new cold viruses with you that we haven’t grown accustomed to as yet.”

  Jamie felt miserable, more from the accusing stares his bleary-eyed comrades gave him whenever they sneezed than from his own stuffed head and wheezing chest.

  Like the first week of school, he told himself. Everybody catches everything. Yet it made him feel more the outsider than ever before. Even after the colds ran their course and everyone returned to good health Jamie still kept mostly to himself, alone and unhappy—until he remembered that he was going to Mars.

  4

  Space and time are two aspects of the same thing, dimensions of the universe. There was a keyhole in spacetime, or as the engineers of mission control phrased it, a window. The two Mars craft had to be launched out of Earth orbit through that keyhole, through that window, at a certain time and in a precise direction with exactly the proper velocity, if they were to reach the moving pinpoint of light that was their destination.

  For twenty-three days the two dozen men and women of the Mars mission, plus their expedition commander, Dr. Li, checked and rechecked every piece of equipment stowed aboard the long sleek Mars spacecraft. While they did so, specialist teams of technicians and robots attached bulky ovoid tanks of propellants around the aft end of each craft. The spacecraft began to look like thin white pencils surrounded
by clusters of matte-gray lozenges at their eraser end.

  The propellants had been manufactured on the moon and catapulted from the airless lunar surface to rendezvous with the spacecraft waiting in Earth orbit. The mission to Mars required not only Earth’s resources, but the mining and processing centers on the moon as well.

  On the twenty-fourth day the Mars-bound personnel left the assembly station for good and transferred their personal gear to the spacecraft. Twelve men and women aboard the habitat module of Mars 1, twelve plus Dr. Li in Mars 2. No one made a single mention of the fact that there would be thirteen aboard Mars 2. None of the scientists or pilots would admit to being superstitious; still, no one spoke the word “thirteen.”

  Space-suited technicians attached the long tethers that connected the two assembled spacecraft. Manufactured in the microgravity environment of a space station facility, the tethers had a tensile strength many times greater than that of any material that could be made on Earth.

  Once they were on their way to Mars, tiny cold-gas thrusters would spurt in a precisely programmed order and the spacecraft would begin to spin up in a stately, graceful rotation. The tethers would stretch to their full five-kilometer length, and inside the connected Mars spacecraft a feeling of normal gravity would return, while the universe outside would start to revolve slowly past their observation ports.

  A cluster of astronomical telescopes and high-energy radiation sensors was carefully placed at the midpoint of the long tethers, where they would be effectively weightless and could maintain precise pointing accuracy for the astronomers who would operate them remotely from Earth.