First Landing

by Robert Zubrin

  Then they ate, and ate, in the manner of men who had put in a very hard day’s work. It was several hours before they finished.

  CHAPTER 23

  NASA JSC

  OCT. 30, 2012 15:20 CST

  IT WAS LATE that night Valles Marineris time, mid-afternoon Houston time, that some strange events began to unfold at the Johnson Space Center.

  In Mission Control, Al Rollins got the initial readout that set things in motion. He waved Phil Mason over to get his attention. “Chief, I just got a report from the DSN station at Goldstone. They say that the propellant level monitor on the ERV Homeward Bound is flickering erratically.”

  “That’s strange.” The well-dressed Chief of Operations scowled. “There is no propellant in that ERV. It was emptied the same night as the Retriever.”

  Tex Logan called across the room. “Let me have a look at that telemetry.”

  Rollins threw a switch, and an oscilloscope trace appeared on Tex’s monitor. The old veteran stared at it for a few moments, searching for some kind of pattern, and then it was obvious. Tex looked up and grinned. “It’s Morse code. See, these long bumps are dashes, and the short ones are dots. It says:

  L,O,J,S,C,C,A,R,D,G,O,O,D,A,L,L,F,I,N,E, T,A,N,D,M, H,E,L, and then repeats.”

  The other flight controllers scribbled down the letters as Tex read them off. Rollins was first to spot words. “Good all?”

  Alicia Castillo went further. “I get ‘Card good all fine.’ ”

  Comprehending at last, Mason’s eyes went wide with joy. “They made it!” he shouted.

  The Mission Controllers cheered madly. Though they had remained comfortable and safe in Houston, they’d been nearly as psychologically drained by the ordeal of the past year as the crew on Mars. For months, they had been wound like springs, watching hope ebb, measuring growing disaster on their dials. Suddenly, the Beagle crew had a fighting chance again. The whooping and hollering lasted over a minute.

  Finally, things settled down enough for Mason to continue. He straightened his tie and smiled. “And the rest of the message?”

  Tex had more of the puzzle worked out. “This part is a wraparound of ‘Hello JSC,’ but I still don’t get ‘TANDM.’ ”

  “TANDM,” Mason mused. “T and M? Townsend and McGee.”

  Again the flight controllers cheered.

  Special Assistant Darrell Gibbs wandered over, looking oddly nervous. “Why don’t we send them a reply, Phil?”

  Mason hesitated, “Do you think we should? We’re not budgeted for DSN transmission time right now.”

  Gibbs smiled. “Now really, what’s a few bucks at a time like this?”

  Mason nodded. “You’re right. Sure, go right ahead.” He rubbed his hands together happily. “This is great. This is great.”

  As Alicia Castillo leaned over and typed rapidly at her keyboard, Gibbs looked up at the NASA Select TV monitor. I hope you’re watching this, Holloway, he thought.

  From his flat in Clear Lake, Craig Holloway gazed listlessly at his TV, feeling bored. Though he watched the channel, NASA Select was so dull, just endless dead time depicting nothing happening at Mission Control. It was amazing that a heavily subsidized TV network with a $14 billion per year special effects budget would produce such low-quality programming, day after day, month after month, year after year. If anyone with brains were running NASA Select, the channel could serve as an enormous educational tool and a means of growing support for space exploration. Evidently the space agency’s PR hacks either didn’t care or were brain-dead.

  In the nine months since he’d been fired, Holloway had become a first-class TV watcher. Though uninteresting, NASA Select gave him all the information he needed to keep tabs on every aspect of the mission. And it did so on an hour-by-hour basis. From February through July, there hadn’t been much reason for him to do anything, since the crew was doing a good enough job of making their own situation worse. Their efforts to dig enough moist dirt to fuel the ERV were obviously hopeless.

  Then they had changed tactics to searching for subsurface water with radar and drilling. That was another matter, as it had opened the possibility that a lucky strike might provide the means for them to return and contaminate the Earth with a horrible alien virus, or ruin its remaining desert wildernesses with designer Frankenplants. Thus Holloway had been forced into action.

  He had tried to be subtle; the rover fan malfunction had been a tour-de-force. Who would have expected Major Llewellyn to be able to fix it real-time? And no one should have been able to catch the helium oxygen purge of the Beagle in time. Bad luck that Rebecca had been playing with her rabbit at that exact moment, which acted like a canary in a coal mine and warned the doctor in time.

  Then, before he could try anything else, the crew had gone off and struck water, just like that. Incredible!

  Once that happened, Holloway had no more room for subtlety. Even with a risk that he might be caught, he had to save the Earth. Drastic measures had been called for. So, as soon as Townsend had reactivated the flight control telemetry receiver on the ERV, Holloway had found a way to fry the card. Backdating the blowout to January 28 had been a really cute idea, though, since it threw the event into the same bag as his successful propellant-dumping action. Since he had covered his trail perfectly, NASA had already been forced to drop charges with regard to that, and no court would charge him twice. Provided nothing else was required of him, he was free and clear.

  It was interesting, that business about NASA letting him off without a trial. At first he’d thought no one in the government had a clue as to what he’d done. It had come as a bit of a shock, then, when he’d hacked into Darrell Gibbs’ computer and discovered that the Science and Security Advisor knew everything—but wouldn’t tell NASA in order to keep the existence of self-erasing nano-encryption top-secret! Apparently, Holloway wasn’t the only person who recognized that there were more important things than the lives of a few adventurers.

  But now something was happening on the tube. While everyone at Mission Control cheered, Holloway sat at home and cursed. The colonel must have made it to the backup ERV Homeward Bound. So now the crew had gotten themselves another computer card. He clenched his fists in frustration. It seemed like whatever he did, those bastards always found an answer. If Townsend got that card back to the ERV Retriever, Holloway realized, the colonel might cut off its engineering telemetry receiver from the DSN. If he did that, he would be home free. That couldn’t be allowed.

  On NASA Select, he saw Darrell Gibbs step over to talk with Phil Mason. The Chief of Operations nodded, and little Alicia Castillo started to type. Then Gibbs looked into the camera, on purpose. In a strange way, Holloway felt that the SSA Special Assistant was looking directly at him. What are you saying to me, Mr. Gibbs? Then Holloway realized what was going on. He’s getting them to send a message to the ERV. This is my chance! Thank you, Mr. Gibbs!

  He had no time to create any new programming, so he pulled up one of his former tricks—activating the onboard fire-suppression oxygen purge. That attempt had failed in the Hab, but Townsend and McGee had no inconvenient rabbits in the ERV. For good measure, he added a time delay. This time the purge would occur while they were sleeping. It was a very humane way to kill. The two men would simply never wake up.

  Holloway typed furiously and hit the Send key. In seconds his modem was activated, and with the help of the Trojan Horse program he had left behind at Mission Control, his computer found all the required passwords and was past the obsolete security gate of the JSC computer system.

  “Good night, boys,” he said. “Sleep well.”

  At Mission Control, Alicia Castillo had finished typing out a message of congratulations addressed to Townsend and McGee from all the folks at JSC. “That’s excellent,” Gibbs murmured. “Phil, shall we send our greeting to the conquering heroes?”

  Mason nodded, and Alicia began to input the transmission codes.

  Tex watched the proceedings with dismay. Why did th
ey have to transmit anything? They could be giving the hacker access to the ERV! Why would Al Rollins go along, when the stakes were so high? Was he only humoring me last night? Or did he think that just because Alicia was writing a simple message in clear view, it couldn’t be dangerous. Tex wasn’t so sure.

  “Ready to transmit, Phil,” Alicia said.

  “Very well, proceed.”

  Was that a smirk of satisfaction that crossed Gibbs’ face? Why did the SSA man want to send Townsend a message so badly? What did it matter, unless—

  As the diminutive Hispanic woman reached for the transmit switch, Tex yelled, “Alicia, stop!”

  Her hand recoiled as if she had touched a hot oven. Confused, she looked to Mason, who glowered at the veteran. “Tex, what do you think you’re doing?”

  For a moment, the old Texan was at a loss, knowing Mason would discount any hunch or conspiracy theory he had to offer. Then suddenly he had an idea. “The simulator. We should send the message to the software simulator first.”

  The ERV simulator was a computer programmed identically to the one on the Homeward Bound. Standard procedure was to send any engineering software uploads to such a simulator before transmission to an actual spacecraft. Years ago, the Soviets had lost two spacecraft because they had not followed this sound practice.

  Gibbs frowned and said quickly, “That’s hardly necessary. It’s just a text message.”

  For Tex, that clinched it. He looked Gibbs square in the eye. “Why are you in such a hurry to send the message?”

  The SSA man did not condescend to answer him. Instead he turned to the Chief of Operations. “Phil, are you going to let Mission Control be directed by a senile old crank?”

  “Certainly not,” Mason answered. Gibbs had hit him in a sensitive spot.

  Al Rollins spoke up. “Chief. The telemetry to the ERV will be received on an engineering channel. Technically speaking, procedures do require that it be sent to the simulator first.” He winked at Tex.

  Gibbs smiled, looking very reasonable. “Oh, come on! Since when do we mindlessly follow the book around here?”

  That comment did not sit well with Mason. True, the Beagle crew had violated plenty of procedures; occasionally in the heat of action, Mission Control had taken a few shortcuts, too. But there was no reason to make a practice of it. “I see no need to bend the rules when we don’t have to, Darrell. If the procedures dictate simulator testing prior to transmittal on this frequency, then that’s what we’ll do . . . even if it might seem pointless.” He nodded to Rollins. “Send it to the sim.”

  Rollins punched buttons on his panel. “Re-routing to simulator . . . There, message sent.”

  Mason turned to the old-timer. “Tex, do you have the simulator up and running?”

  “On the board.” The screen above his desk displayed numerous systems diagrams: propulsion, life support, avionics, all glowing red, green, and blue.

  To the manager’s eye, it was incomprehensible. “What’s happening?”

  Tex ran his tongue over his teeth thoughtfully. “The clock was updated when the message was received. Other than that . . . not much.”

  Gibbs wore a knowing smile of vindication, clearly exasperated by the fuss. “Now can we go ahead and send?”

  Once more, Mason signaled to proceed, but as Alicia reached for the Send switch, Rollins gently moved her hand aside. “Chief, this is a low-priority message, so if you don’t mind, just as an exercise, I’d like to run it through the backup simulator at Lockheed Martin as well.”

  The suggestion surprised even Tex, but then he thought, Of course. The hacker could have screwed up our simulator too. Good thinking, Al.

  Gibbs’s reaction was less favorable. “That’s ridiculous!” But before he could continue, his cell phone rang. He opened it. “Gibbs here.”

  The SSA Special Assistant was shocked when he heard Craig Holloway’s voice on the other end. “Gibbs, I know you’re on my side. Listen to me! Whatever you do, don’t let them run that message through the Lockmart simulator. The fate of the Earth is at stake!”

  Rattled, Gibbs instantly terminated the call. He looked around the room, thinking fast. How did Holloway know? What should I do? No choice, now I’ve got to pull it off.

  After he folded his cell phone again, Rollins looked at him curiously. “What’s so ridiculous about running a sim, Mr. Gibbs?”

  Regaining his composure, the SSA Special Assistant faced Rollins with all the superiority he could muster. “It’s ridiculous because this is a two-sentence text message that we all just wrote right here. It was idiotic to simulate it in the first place. Now you want to send it to the backup simulator, which we haven’t used in three years, even for executables. You don’t think that’s absurd?”

  “Message sent to Lockmart sim,” Tex announced.

  Gibbs exploded, drawing stares from the others in the room. “Hold it! No one gave you permission to do that!”

  The open hostility alarmed Alicia. “Hey, hold the machismo, boys. It’s just a sim.”

  “Yeah,” Tex smiled broadly at Gibbs and gave an innocent shrug. “It’s just a sim. What could you possibly be worried about?”

  “Well, as long as we’re running it, let’s see what we’ve got,” Mason said. “Al, put it on our board.”

  The operators eyed the displays; there was no change.

  Gibbs looked around the room. “Okay, what a waste of time. We’ve run the backup sim. Now can we transmit?”

  “Proceed,” Mason said.

  Alicia began to reach for the switch, but was again blocked by Rollins. “Alicia, wait,” he said, staring at the simulator board intently.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Rollins’ voice was calm again. “I thought I saw a change in the power distribution in the life-support system, but if it was there, it was just a little shift, too small to matter.”

  Though edgy, the Chief of Operations was not so dismissive. Software was every mission manager’s nightmare; the smallest error could mean disaster. Little shifts could grow in time. “Tex, try accelerating the time vector on the simulation.”

  Tex quickly typed a few keystrokes. “Okey-dokey. Taking her to warp one, an hour a minute.” He stood up, wearing an expression that was a mixture of horror and vindication. “Now, this is mighty interesting.

  Al Rollins leaned closer. “Wow!”

  “What’s interesting?” Mason asked nervously.

  “It seems that our little letter of congratulations—you know, the simple two-sentence text message we all wrote right here—caused the ERV to replace the oxygen in its air with helium.” The Texan grinned, showing impossibly bad teeth. “Funny thing about friendly letters, they can do the darnedest things.”

  Rollins shouted at Gibbs. “So it was you! You were the one who caused the malf in the Beagle’s air system. You tried to kill our people!”

  Mason looked accusingly at Gibbs, whose skin paled a bit.

  “Phil, be realistic. How could I do anything? I never touch any controls around here.”

  For a moment, Mason was stumped. Then Tex interjected. “Al, do you have anything?”

  Rollins typed a few commands and then peered at his computer screen. “Yes, it seems our system here in Mission Control has just had a visitor. Phone number 281-406-3647.”

  Alicia looked up. “That’s Craig Holloway’s number!”

  Mason blew his stack. “Holloway! That nut has been doing this to us! He should have been in jail months ago.” He turned to Gibbs. “And your people said there was no evidence against him!”

  “Hey, Gibbs,” Tex called, “that phone call you just got. Who was that from?”

  Mason stepped closer to the SSA Special Assistant. “Let’s see that phone, Darrell.”

  Gibbs backed away. “You can’t have it. This phone uses White House encryption technology. None of you are authorized to carry it.”

  As Mason closed in on Gibbs, Rollins and Tex approached him from eith
er side. From her desk, Alicia Castillo pulled out a pair of scissors, and snapping them in a nonchalant manner, started walking in the SSA man’s direction. He quickly handed Mason the phone.

  Mason punched the instant recall button, and the same incriminating number appeared. He turned the little screen so that Gibbs couldn’t deny it.

  “He called me. I never called him.” That’s right, Gibbs thought to himself. They don’t have anything on me. Furthermore, in less than a week, the Administration would be a lame duck, and his own friends would be in power. I’ve nothing to fear from this pack of nerds. His courage restored, the SSA assistant faced the Mission Control boss with a superior smirk.

  Mason looked him in the eye. “From the beginning wasn’t it? The rover failure, even the pyro bolts for the tether separation? And the ERV propellant tanks’ draining, and the burning of the computer card? You did those, too?”

  As if enjoying the manager’s hysteria, Gibbs just smirked.

  His tie askew, the Chief of Operations fought down the urge to strangle the arrogant young man. “Why? You’re not a Stetsonite.”

  Gibbs chuckled. “No, certainly not.”

  The preppie’s attitude was maddening. Mason took another step forward. “Then why?” he demanded again.

  “Let’s just say that the laws of cause and effect in these matters are a bit above your head. And well above your labor grade.”

  Above my labor grade, eh? Mason thought. Ah, politics! I should have known. “Let me guess,” he began. “It’s no secret that you have powerful friends.”

  “You might say that.”

  The whole business was now becoming clear. Mason began to relax a bit. “And some of these so-called friends told you they would appreciate it if our astronauts did not return?”

  Gibbs just smirked again. To Mason, that was as good as a confession.

  There’s just one question left, Mason thought. Maybe the ass will blurt the answer. “In the Administration or the opposition?”