First Landing

by Robert Zubrin

  Taking a quick glance at McGee before she ushered Townsend out of the room, Rebecca rapidly sized up his condition. She reached over and tousled his hair.

  “Oh, Kevin’s okay,” she said with a smile. “Come on, Colonel. That arm needs treatment, stat.”

  After Luke had helped the doctor escort Townsend into the lab, Gwen pulled some ice from the refrigerator, wrapped it in a cloth, and handed it to McGee.

  “Here’s some ice for those bruises, McGee,” she said softly.

  He took the ice and applied it to his bruised arm. “Thanks, Gwen.”

  McGee looked up and saw Gwen regarding him with deep concern, and he noticed that she had almost begun to cry. Their eyes met and she quickly looked away.

  What can that mean? McGee wondered.

  CHAPTER 25

  NEW YORK CITY

  NOV. 1, 2012 21:58 CST

  THE HOUR WAS growing late at Madison Square Garden as the final presidential debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters neared its close. The night had not been a good one for the Administration. As he entered his summation, Senator Fairchild looked out over the vast audience with confidence.

  “And to conclude,” the opposition candidate thundered, “nothing proves the irresponsibility and ineptitude of the current Administration more than how they have seen fit to throw away the lives of five fine Americans on a grandiose but hopeless mission to Mars. When he launched the mission, the President knew there would not be funds for follow-on or resupply flights. He knew he was sending a crew out without the necessary backup . . . but he chose to do it anyway. And now, perhaps to create martyrs in the days before the election, he has sent the brave mission commander and a crew member on a suicide trek into the deepest canyon in the solar system.”

  The President paled visibly, but was forced to keep his response in check.

  “My friends,” Fairchild continued triumphantly, “I enjoy great national accomplishments as much as the next person, but we all must realize that our goals must be conditioned by our means. To foolishly expend the lives of five of our finest citizens in a desperate bid to revive the glory days of Apollo can only be characterized as an action so ill-conceived that . . .”

  As these final nails were being driven into the coffin of the Administration’s political hopes, Media Chief Sam Wexler slipped into the podium area from off-stage and handed the President a note. Fairchild continued to talk, focused on his own words, but the audience watched the subtle distraction, curious. The President’s eyes went wide. He looked to his wife sitting in the front row of the audience, and something incandescent passed between them. The audience began to murmur.

  Fairchild faltered for a moment, and the President picked up his microphone to interrupt his opponent. “Excuse me, but I have an important announcement. I have just received word from NASA that Colonel Andrew Townsend and Professor Kevin McGee have just returned from their heroic journey to the bottom of the Martian canyon. They have successfully retrieved the spare flight computer from the backup return vehicle. It works!” He raised his voice. “The crew is coming home!”

  The audience broke into mad cheers.

  The President grinned from ear to ear. He called to the crowd: “Do our boys have the right stuff or what!”

  The cheering and applause became overwhelming.

  “The crew is coming back,” the President bellowed, “and let me say this, ladies and gentlemen, our America is coming back! We’re back. Let the whole world see it. America is back!” He held up his hand, pointed forefinger above looped middle finger in the “Onward!” gesture that had come to symbolize the Martian mission. Keeping his victory sign in the air, the President waved joyously to the crowd. “God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”

  Not missing a beat, the First Lady ran up on stage and gave the President a joyous hug, then turned to face the cheering crowd, joining her Onward sign to that of her husband. Seizing the moment, knowing no one would dare interrupt her, she began singing spontaneously: “Oh beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain . . .”

  The President joined in, then more and more people added their voices to the chorus. As the patriotic reverie swept over the audience, Senator Fairchild stood in impotent rage at his podium. Peering down at the front row, Fairchild saw Science and Security Advisor Kowalski, who looked as if he’d just been shot. Then the full nature of the situation became apparent, and Fairchild’s own expression involuntarily transformed to one of deep uneasiness, then terror.

  The change in Fairchild’s face did not escape the notice of Wexler, who exchanged a nod and a knowing glance with NASA Administrator Tom Ryan. Both men locked their eyes on the senator’s.

  Oh, my God, Fairchild thought, they know. They know everything.

  In the back of the hall, Reverend Stone made a discreet exit, with Gary Stetson anxiously following him. “Where are you going?” Stetson called in a hoarse whisper. “We can still stop them.”

  Stone turned and put his arm around Stetson’s shoulder in a fatherly way. “Son, there’s been a little change of plan.”

  “Oh?” Stetson glowered, trying to cling to his position.

  “Yes, I have had a revelation. Starting tomorrow, my focus will shift to ensuring the health and safe return of America’s heroes, who are doing God’s work by staking the claim of this great nation to our neighbor planet.”

  “What?” Stetson was floored by this betrayal. “What about the enthalpic impact? You can’t just change our line like that.”

  “Son, my only line has always been the bottom line, and I think it’s time for you to move on.”

  “But what about money for my legal defense for the damage to JSC?” Stetson whined as the implications began to sink in. He was out on a limb. Without the support and popular base of this powerful, charismatic ally, he would be lost.

  A well-practiced smile crossed the evangelist’s face. “Try some management seminars,” he advised helpfully. “Think like a tree.”

  CHAPTER 26

  OPHIR PLANUM

  NOV. 14, 2012 17:12 MLT

  THE MEETING IN the Beagle had dragged on for several hours, toward evening. The discussion had not gone well for Gwen, who stood with her back to the door, tearful but defiant.

  Townsend, his arm in a sling, continued to press the issue. “You know the medical necessity, Major. You know the consequences. And you still won’t agree to an abortion?”

  Gwen backed up tighter against the door. “Never! How many times do I need to say it? Never, never, never, never, NEVER!”

  Rebecca tried to reason with the flight mechanic. “But you don’t understand, Gwen. Your baby won’t have the bone and muscle structure it needs to live on Earth. It’ll be a helpless cripple its entire life. It probably won’t even be able to survive on Earth, since its whole body will be adapted for the one-third gravity environment of Mars.”

  “Then it won’t go to Earth,” Gwen said hotly. “It’ll grow up here on Mars. I’ll stay here and bring it up myself.”

  Townsend was shocked by his subordinate’s irrationality. “What are you saying? Major, you’re sentencing yourself to lifelong exile.”

  Luke said, “I’m the father, you know—don’t I have a say in this? You can’t expect me to go along with a crazy idea like that.”

  Gwen sneered at him. “I don’t expect you to.” Then she looked around the room and continued in a somewhat more civil tone, “I don’t expect anyone to. I’m the one who sinned, and I’m willing to pay the price. But abortion, never. That’s murder, and eternal damnation. You’ll have to kill me first.”

  Rebecca turned to Townsend. “Colonel, you’re going to have to deal with this.”

  Townsend shook his head. “I can’t order an involuntary abortion.”

  “You’ve got to!” Rebecca slapped her hand on the table. “You know there’s no way NASA will agree to our leaving a member of the crew behind. We fought our way out of this mess. We found the water, we go
t the computer card. That news just saved the Administration in the election, so now the President owes us big time. But if we disgrace ourselves by abandoning a member of the crew, it . . . it will destroy the entire space program, forever.”

  Still the colonel remained indecisive. “Yes, I know that. But there is no legal basis for—”

  “Yes there is!” The tone of authority in Rebecca’s voice was absolute. “I’ve looked up the mission regulations. Volume 43, section 12, paragraphs 881 through 912. They’re very clear. In case of an inadvertent pregnancy, the fetus is to be aborted.”

  “NASA foresaw such a contingency?” Townsend asked.

  “Yes, and their reasoning is crystal-clear too. It’s obvious that no member of the crew can perform her duties to the best of her ability if she’s pregnant, and the presence of a baby would disrupt the entire mission, impair the performance of every crew member, thus enhancing the probability of mission failure.”

  Townsend began to relax. He wasn’t sure whether it was right, but at least the regs gave a solid basis for a decision. “I guess when you step back from the problem like that, the decision becomes pretty clear.”

  Rebecca pushed her point. “Yes, it does. I suppose that’s why it’s best that regulations are written away from the heat of battle, so that cool heads can prevail. Colonel, you know what you have to do. The mission is at stake.”

  Rebecca could see the man was still reluctant, but almost convinced. She had to give him the strength to act. She fastened on Townsend with her beautiful, morally certain eyes. When he sheepishly nodded, Rebecca rewarded him with a hint of a smile. Good. We’ll save this mission yet, she thought.

  Suddenly there was an interruption. “Rebecca, turn it off!” McGee snapped at her.

  She was stunned. “What?”

  “I said, ‘turn it off,’ the eyes, the charm, the sweet reasoning—all of it.”

  Rebecca hadn’t expected opposition from this quarter. “Kevin, please!” she begged. Surely McGee must know what is at stake.

  Townsend was irritated. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Professor. Dr. Sherman and I were debating the logical options available in the situation, and while I didn’t agree with her at first, it now seems pretty clear that . . .”

  “Colonel,” McGee smiled sardonically, “with all due respect, you are no more capable of debating with Rebecca than a mouse is with a cat.”

  Townsend blanched. “Professor, that remark is an intolerable insult.”

  “Call it what you like, it’s the truth.” McGee looked the commander in the eye. “Colonel, she’s much smarter than you are, she understands completely how you think, and she has an enormous emotional edge over you.”

  Townsend was puzzled. “What do you mean, emotional edge?”

  “I mean that you are a lonely man, in command of a difficult situation that’s way above your head, and you desperately need the approval of her wise eyes and lovely smile. She knows that, and can use it to yank you around any way she wants. Haven’t you noticed how she always gets her way about anything that really matters to her? Remember how easily she convinced you to break the rules and give her the rover for that Maja Vallis sortie?”

  Now it was Rebecca’s turn to be offended. “But I was right!”

  “True,” McGee acknowledged, “you were right—incredibly, totally right when nearly everybody else was wrong. In fact, you’re almost always right, and this mission would have failed to achieve its primary science objective if you hadn’t used your magic to get your way. But you can’t use it now, because this time you’re not right.”

  This is unbelievable, Rebecca thought. “Kevin!” she pleaded, “surely you can’t agree with this primitive religious nonsense.”

  “No, of course I don’t agree with Gwen for those reasons,” McGee said, “but I think I understand her. You don’t. With that brilliant mind of yours, you can see right through me, or Townsend, or Luke—but to you, Gwen Llewellyn is a complete blank. In fact, you think she’s insane. Gwen’s not insane, she just thinks differently than you do.”

  “The sanity of religious ideology can be measured scientifically by its appropriateness as a guide for action in real situations,” Rebecca pronounced. “By that measure, she is insane.”

  McGee shook his head. “No, she’s not. Get this through your head, Rebecca: There’s room on the sea of thought for more than one sail. You’re one of those people always yakking about cultural diversity, but when confronted with the real McCoy, you recoil in horror. Maybe you should have read the Bible at Radcliffe. At least it would’ve given you some insight into what’s going on here.”

  Rebecca’s face turned beet red, and she spoke in a low voice: “Kevin, you can forget about anything happening between us on Earth. We’re through.”

  McGee looked at her sadly. “Yes, I know, and part of me is crushed to hear you say it. Rebecca, in so many ways you’re all I’ve ever hoped for in a woman. But this is where I draw the line.”

  After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence in the cabin, Townsend cleared his throat. “Professor, how you and Dr. Sherman work out your personal problems is your business. But NASA mission regulations and the logic of those who wrote them are very clear.”

  McGee turned to face the colonel. “Screw the logical mission regulations. We’ve got something with us here on Mars that overrules them.”

  “And what might that be?” Townsend asked.

  “That!” McGee pointed out the window. Everyone looked. The American flag raised on the day after the landing was visible, still hanging on its telescoping pole, vibrating in the dusty Martian wind. A shock of recognition grew on Townsend’s face as the flag reflected in his eyes.

  McGee saw comprehension dawn in the commander and pressed his point home. “That, that ‘glorious banner carried by our fathers over the cruel beaches of Normandy’ says that she has rights!”

  As Townsend glanced down at the flag shoulder-patch that adorned his bomber jacket, Gwen started to sob.

  “And as long as it flies here,” McGee continued, “that’s the law we are going to follow. Mars will be free!”

  Luke, however, remained unconvinced. “But what she wants to do makes no sense.”

  “Yes it does,” McGee answered. “She may not understand it consciously, but what she’s doing makes perfect sense. In fact, it’s the only thing in this whole stupid mission that makes any sense.”

  Townsend was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Look, Colonel,” McGee explained, “we didn’t come here to look for pretty rocks, or even to search for evidence of life. We may have fooled ourselves into thinking that’s why we came, but it isn’t really the reason. Gwen knows—unconsciously perhaps, but she knows.”

  Townsend leaned back in his chair in exasperation. “Well, since none of us knows, Professor, and the major is not conscious of what she knows, but you are, why don’t you enlighten the rest of us?”

  “Gwen knows instinctively what I know as a historian. She knows that we came here to conquer a frontier, and that no frontier was ever truly conquered until some woman had the courage to go there, and raise children there.”

  The commander shook his head. “One woman with a child does not make a colony.”

  “But one family, with father, mother, and child, does.”

  Luke exclaimed, “But I’m not staying!”

  “But I am,” McGee said flatly.

  A shocked silence filled the room. Then Gwen burst out crying.

  Rebecca was the first to regain her composure. “Kevin, are you mad?”

  “No, Rebecca, I’m not mad.” McGee’s voice carried a new firmness. “It’s just that there comes a time when a man has to stand up and put himself behind what he believes. I’ve spent my whole adult life lecturing people about the importance of opening up new frontiers. I can’t go back. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”

  Gwen looked at him with amazement. “You’re willing to spend the rest of your lif
e here with me?” she sniffled.

  “Yes,” McGee said tenderly, “if you’ll have me.”

  Gwen’s eyes were wide. “You’ll be my husband?”

  “Yes . . .” McGee smiled. “My princess.”

  Gwen smiled tenderly in return. “My chieftain,” she said softly.

  McGee was astonished by the response, and his face showed it.

  Seeing his astounded expression, Gwen had to laugh. “Don’t look at me like that, you old egghead. You’ve been talking about those Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars books for the past year. Don’t you think I’d take the trouble to read them?”

  With a new lightness in her step, Gwen skipped over to McGee and landed in his lap. She kissed him warmly on the lips, and then pulled back to smile at him with love in her luminous eyes. McGee could only smile back.

  Gwen gently tousled his hair. “My chieftain,” she whispered, and kissed him again.

  OPHIR PLANUM

  DEC. 16, 2012 15:00 MLT

  “Are you ready yet, Dr. Sherman?” Townsend called from the galley.

  “Just a minute,” Rebecca responded from inside the lab. “Okay, you can start now.”

  The commander looked to McGee, who was standing to his right. “Are you ready, Professor?”

  “You bet. Let’s do it.” McGee seemed nervous. Townsend smiled and pointed to Luke, who stood behind the historian. “Begin.”

  Luke threw a switch, and music began to play, filling the cabin with the joyful strains of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.

  McGee’s eyes shifted to watch Gwen make her entrance. She appeared, wearing a white lab coat that had somehow been modified to resemble a wedding dress. Her face was lit up by happiness, and a garland of greenhouse flowers adorned her head. She looks like spring itself, McGee thought.

  Rebecca followed her, holding a bouquet. As the two women made their ceremonious advance, McGee marveled at his bride-to-be. What a gem you are, Gwen. Why did it take me so long to see you?