Outward Bound

by Juanita Coulson

  The four less important dignitaries looked expectantly at Carissa in a masterpiece of stage management. They were looking at cue spots, not at her. The effect, though, was respectful deference to the group's most honored member.

  Carissa took a half-step forward and spoke. "President Grieske, members of the Governing Body, and all the brave citizens of Mars—on behalf of the peoples of Earth, we send you congratulations on this thirtieth anniversary of Colony Day. The commemoration of that pioneer ship's initial touchdown, April 20, 2045, will live forever in the annals of human history..."

  Brenna was glad the semi-darkness surrounding the theater hid her expression from the other spectators. Derek picked up her emotions, however. He leaned toward her and whispered, "You're letting her bother you—again."

  "God! Just look at her!" Brenna moaned. "Acting like she's the dowager empress of the whole damned human species."

  Brenna's aunt beamed at her unseen audience. Her fellow leaders politely seconded the platitudes she was spouting.

  Carissa Saunder blushed with becoming modesty. Her costly, fashionable clothes, her soft ash-blonde hair arranged in the latest style, her elegant gestures—everything fitted the role: the martyr's widow. Patrick Saunder's sacrifice in stopping Jael Hartman Saunder's crimes had turned public fury into worship of the fallen hero. "Poor" Carissa was left to carry on Patrick's unfinished work and bear his posthumous son. She had devoted herself to the part ever since, clutching her widow's weeds, never remarrying, until she was now an aging, well-preserved, tragic madonna.

  Smiling, always smiling, Carissa went on. "Earth sends you her fondest hopes for a prosperous and peaceful future, a future we will all share, a future Fairchild and Dabrowski and those who have gone before gave so much to bring into being." Thin ice. Fairchild's Peace was a "golden age" that had followed the Crisis of 2041—Jael Saunder's treachery and the hysteria surrounding Todd Saunder's contact with the Vahnaj star empire. But now a few grumbles were starting among certain political factions on the home world. There were those who complained that the twenty-five years of Irene Fairchild's Peace, led by her Third Millennium Movement party, had really been stagnation. Carissa Saunder was one of Fairchild's protegees, one who had worked with the elder stateswoman to hang onto that long period of slow growth—and no wars. Possibly no other retired world leader could get away with what Carissa was saying. She was trading on her public image, and on her power as a Saunder.

  "...we salute Mars Colony. On this glorious occasion, we pray to the Spirit of Humanity that..."

  That voice! Brenna slithered down in her seat, cringing. Media columnists described her aunt's voice as "sweet." Carissa's son, Stuart, made that into an insult—"Sweet Mother Carissa." But audiences doted on the sound. Carissa's voice was sham little-girl demure, vulnerable, trembling on the edge of tears even when she was smiling. Brenna loathed it.

  Mercifully, from Brenna's point of view, Carissa kept her speech short. There were other delegates eager to take their place in the spotlight. They, too, were brief in their remarks, though it was plain they would have liked to turn the congratulatory messages into a political forum.

  After the first five world leaders had their say, the holo-mode image blinked and five more appeared. They offered their predictable wishes for a continued progress. Five more. Five more. Running through the schedule quickly, precisely on time. Not only Earth's leaders were shown. Messages from other colonies were arriving now. Governor Ma Jiang of Goddard Colony and Luna expressed regrets that he could not attend the gala personally, but sent congratulations. General Norris Joslyn, commandant of Kirkwood Gap Space Fleet Base, relayed formal hopes for a successful future. Administrators Gabrielle Krowa, Matsumoto, and Gokhale of Kirkwood, Jovian satellites, and Venus outposts added their felicitations.

  "Congratulations...

  "Many years..."

  "May Mars Colony endure as long as human civilization exists..."

  "Our children in space, we wish you well..."

  And, occasionally, from Earth, a poignant note: "Do not forget us, you adventurous pioneers. You are still part of us, and we of you."

  There was a flood of messages, but only the most important received show time in the holo-mode theater. When those were completed, ComLink engineers shifted to a recap of past events, explaining how and why Colony Days had come to be.

  Images ticked off in tenths of seconds. Some scenes were crude, some were you-are-there sharp and vivid. There was no pretense, in most instances, that the viewers were seeing these things happening live, however. This was history condensed, a swift run-through, but not too fast for this fifth media-raised generation to absorb.

  Scene: Goddard Habitat. Early in the year 2043. The great space station wheeled against the black void. In the distance, Earth's Moon was a silvery crescent pinned on eternal night. Earth lay "below," a lovely blue and brown globe, cloud-chased.

  Close-ups on one of Goddard's orbiting construction shacks.

  An explorer ship was tethered to the drydock, ready for launch. Cameras zoomed, focusing on the loading bay. Ceremonies. People parking shuttle craft and gathering at the open port. Grinning faces, peering out of spacesuit helmet visors. There were clumsy handshakes, hampered by pressure gloves. This crew was dressed for deep space. Cheers sounded tinnily through the audio systems.

  Then the focus shifted, drawing back, encompassing the dock and the surrounding emptiness for the historic moment. The explorer ship eased away. Incandescent fire lit up her tail, old-fashioned fusion engines kicking her away from Earth orbit, slinging her out onto her months-long journey to Mars.

  Time telescoped, through the magic of the holo-mode pictures. A succession of scenes flashed by. Brenna's attention divided between the familiar images and the expressions on the audience's face. President Grieske was nodding, appearing very moved. He had been a young man aboard that explorer craft, and was seeing his own life replayed. Dian sat between Morgan and Todd. Now and then one of the three would point out something in the theater and make a comment to the others. Brenna saw their lips move, but couldn't hear what they said. Ambassador Quol-Bez seemed absorbed in the holo-mode's recreation of recent human history, the scenes reflecting in miniature off his contact lenses.

  Within the cube, the explorer reached her destination. The dusty red planet hung beneath the orbiting spacecraft. The broadcaster's voice-over explained all the careful prelanding, mapmaking procedures and other preparations. This big ship was a single-stage vehicle, a special craft. She could make plan-etfall and would serve as a warehouse for the pioneers. Other explorer craft were coming in her wake. Humans were here to stay. The bays opened and the big ship dropped a series of robot scouts, readying for the big event.

  Interior shots. Scenes of the famous crew.

  First Pilot Noah Olmsted. (He had died in a sub-orbital crash eight years ago, when his Mars supply ferry came in too low and too fast. There was a large monument dedicated to him at windswept Amazonis Planitia Spaceport.)

  Geologist Zahra Kisongo. (She was presently the head of Chryse Scientific Research Installation. No doubt she was watching herself now on another holo-mode cube, on the opposite side of Mars.)

  Historian Fred Grieske. (He sat a few meters from Brenna, being teased by his fellow legislators. They told him how much younger and handsomer he had looked back then, before he had decided to go into politics.)

  Navigations Specialist Yan Bolotin. (Now a member of Terran Worlds Council and a high-ranking sponsor of Hiber-Ship Corporation—still doing his part to help humanity colonize the universe.

  Second Pilot Mariette Saunder. (A tall, lovely, dark-haired woman with eyes like pale blue fire and a smile that trapped one's soul. Dead. Killed in Breakthrough Unlimited's first catastrophic attempt to shatter the light-speed barrier.)

  Expedition Commander Kevin McKelvey. (The block off which Morgan had been chipped. Those craggy McKelvey features had been passed on nearly intact. Morgan's father, like his son, was a big ma
n, tousled sandy-blond hair, a cocksure grin. Dead. He had died with Mari Saunder and expert navigator Cesare Loezzi in that FTL Prototype ship three years ago.)

  Within the holo-mode cube, Kevin McKelvey was giving Pilot Olmsted the go-ahead. "Take her down! Mars, here we come!"

  Involuntarily, Brenna searched the shadows cloaking the audience. Todd Saunder's head was bowed. He huddled in his seat as if shaken by a powerful blow. Dian was comforting her husband, her arm around his shoulder. Their heads touched. Brenna longed to join them.

  Oh, God, it hurts, doesn't it, Dad? We were so proud of them, so terribly proud. We loved them. And every time we see Aunt Mari and Uncle Kevin, it's like a laser burn ripping at us...

  They hadn't needed the holo-mode to remind them of the past. Todd glanced at his nephew, his expression distraught. Kevin and Morgan. Father and son. So much alike. That resemblance was a solace, and a sad reminder of what they had lost.

  Most of the audience wasn't interested in the myriad program checks and redundant operations pilots had to go through during such a flight, so the record skipped over those. But when the sphere of Mars loomed in the ship's lenses, the musical theme swelled anew.

  Robot scouts had been dropped ahead of the shuttle to check the chosen touchdown site. Their signal beamed back: all clear. Preliminary work completed, the robots tilted their cameras up to capture the manned ship's final descent. The audience saw the landing as it would have looked to someone standing on Mars, though there had been nobody there, merely robots, on the historic date.

  Mars. Barren. Alone for billions of years.

  Now retro rockets, manufactured on another world, kicked up the dust that only the Martian wind and unmanned vehicles had ever touched. The sound of powerful thrusters broke the momentary silence, rushing out of the holo-mode cube and engulfing the audience. Gently, Goddard's Mars Probe I settled onto the rocky soil of the fourth planet.

  There were scenes of the crew surveying, confirming exterior conditions, and checking each other's suit integrity. Then the hatch dropped open, forming a ramp. The watching robot scouts tightened focus to be sure of recording this moment for posterity—human posterity—and for alien species like the Vahnaj, which mankind had just begun to speak to across the light-years.

  By mutual decision, the six crewmen stepped onto Mars together. Their names entered the history tapes side by side. Cameras relayed the once-in-a-lifetime moment to the anxious stay-at-homes waiting more than seventy-five million kilometers away.

  Mankind, taking its first really gigantic step along its pathway to the stars.

  Long overdue, as Mariette Saunder had often griped. Without the insane wars and economic collapses and plagues, humans should have made manned landings on Mars in the Twentieth Century and not had to wait until the mid-Twenty-first Century to fulfill that destiny! But at last, it had happened! A manned landing, the start of what was going to be a thriving Martian Colony.

  Kevin McKelvey spoke to Earth. "We have touchdown. All personnel safe. We are on the surface, will begin initial exploration immediately. Our position is one hundred and thirty-five degrees west, eleven degrees three minutes north. Landing was at 0830, GMT. In the name of Homo sapiens, we claim this planet..."

  A spontaneous shout rose from the audience. They were sophisticated but not immune to the thrill of this memorial. "Colony Day! Colony Day! 2045! Touchdown! Mars is ours...!"

  Glasses clinked together. Laughter and cheers mingled. Many guests stood up, too exhilarated to remain in their seats. All around the domed room, people gave themselves over to holiday enthusiasm.

  Brenna was one of the few who sat through the final wrap-up. The holo-mode show ended on a high note. The newscaster recapped the program, adding the good wishes of the media staffers who had participated in this impressive airing. But Brenna didn't see or hear any of that. Her mind was locked on the earlier scenes, on those people whose names had gone into the histories forever.

  Leif Ericsson ... Columbus ... Magellan ... Cook ... Byrd ... Armstrong ... McKelvey ... and Saunder...

  The Saunders were making a lot of entries in the historical ledgers in this century. First Ward Saunder, who had invented so many things the modern world now depended on. Jael Hart-man Saunder, who had earned her own sort of immortality, for all of her evil actions. Patrick Saunder, who'd saved the home world from destroying itself and stopped a civil war between Earth and Goddard Colony. Todd Saunder, Brenna's father, the man who had reached out and touched the stars and introduced humanity to the Vahnaj. That was immortality indeed, and damned hard to five up to if you were part of the next generation of Saunders and McKelveys!

  But what of the failures? What of the would-be immortals who had never made it, who had died attempting to reach the unknown? Their names were lost. It was worse than never having lived at all, to have lived and failed. What about Mariette Saunder and Kevin McKelvey? History would remember them as members of the first Mars Colony ship, true. But Mari and Kevin had wanted to be remembered for something more vital— for giving faster-than-light drive to mankind. They had failed. Their only chance for immortality, regarding FTL, depended on their niece and son's carrying through and Breakthrough Unlimited's succeeding.

  And if it didn't...

  The threat of failure was a terrible nightmare, lurking in the back of Brenna's consciousness no matter what else was taking place. Couldn't she ever shake it?

  Yes, she could! By being there when Morgan took the ride, watching him win, canceling out the defeat her aunt and uncle had taken—a defeat that had cost them their lives.

  Sudden death. A possibility. Always there. Test pilots lived with it. Failure, though, was the ultimate disaster in more ways than one.

  A hand touched her face, very gently. Derek was bending over her, his expression deeply concerned.

  "Bren? You all right?"

  She blinked several times, orienting herself. Colony Days. The rotunda. The holo-mode show.

  "Yes, fine. I was just... somewhere else."

  "I saw that. A million parsecs away." Brenna trembled, and Derek cuddled her hands against his chest, chafing her skin until it began to warm. After a few minutes, he helped her to her feet, his arm supporting her. She didn't shake it off, appreciating his closeness. The nightmare was receding a little, going back into its dark cubbyhole in her brain. "It was that damned holo-mode program, wasn't it?" Derek guessed. "It hit a nerve. Those cretins at ComLink shouldn't have . .

  "No, I'm glad they did. How could they celebrate Colony Days without..."

  "It was damned insensitive, nevertheless. Didn't you have any warning of what they were going to show?"

  "We'd seen the tape before, or versions of it," Brenna said. She glanced along the tier of seats, seeing her parents standing side by side, talking softly. Brenna wended her way toward them, Derek's arm still around her and supporting her. When they drew close to the older couple, Brenna saw that her father's eyes were swollen, though now dry. He must have been crying, there in the semi-darkness, watching the show. Brenna reached out to him.

  "No, it's okay, kitten," Todd Saunder said, looking somewhat embarrassed at his display of emotion.

  Derek repeated his comments about ComLink's insensitivity. Dian shook her head as she watched her husband anxiously. "There's a bit more to it than that. Nostalgia getting out of hand, you might say."

  Brenna's father peered up at the rotunda dome. His voice shook. "Years and years ago. Hadn't thought about it until ... until now. The old place at Saunderhome, that night we broke the news about the Vahnaj robot messenger, Dian. Remember?" Dian was nodding, sighing. Clearly she wished he wouldn't open his old wounds in this way. "Watching the holo-mode images of my father ... he'd been dead for years by then, kids," Todd explained to Brenna and Derek. Like Dian, they nodded politely, not sure how to cheer up the older man and bring him out of his sad mood. "The old place had a dome, too, a much smaller one, of course. I kept thinking about that night, and about all the good people I k
new then who are ... Roy and Beth and Ed and Mikhail..."

  "They're preserved cryogenically," Dian reminded him. "And someday the doctors will revive them. The technique's perfected now, not like it was when—" She broke off, not wanting to bring up anymore thoughts of the past. "Come on. Let's get you a drink and talk to some old friends, huh?"

  Dian led him away slowly, heading toward a knot of older guests several meters from the holo-mode theater. She obviously meant to distract him with conversation and the living presence of friends he hadn't lost to time and death. Brenna watched him go, then allowed Derek to work the same trick on her. She went along willingly. The show was over. Guests were gathering in many little groups, usually along generational lines. Near Brenna and Derek dance music was flowing from the overhead audio systems—a fast, drumming rhythm. The younger guests were drawn to it as if by a magnet. The sound baffles confined the raucous music, so that others who wanted to talk nearby wouldn't be disturbed.

  "Come on, you two!" Morgan shouted to his cousin and Derek. In moments Brenna was swept up in the gaiety, her worries about her father scattering as laughing companions surrounded her. Intense lighting played over their faces and pulsed with the music. Brenna linked arms with the other women and they circled, running, kicking, and bowing in unison. Their clothes flew in the breeze they were creating.

  The melody ended its first phase and changed, and the women stooped, their hands still linked. The men leaped over them, shaping an inner circle. This part of the dance was much more athletic, a challenge stunt. When the men galloped around the circle, it was a test of stamina—who could run the fastest without losing his balance? Mars' gravity seemed feeble to these children of Earth. The men jumped high into the air, soaring. Any of their leaps would have won prizes on the home world, but not here.