by Ian Sales
Elliott’s mind blanks. He sits there and gazes at the MRV’s broken wheel. This vehicle’s not going to move any further, and it’s a four mile hike back to the MM. For the first time since launching from the Cape, since arriving on Mars, he feels real fear. He puts the MRV in reverse and gently pushes the T-bar forward, but it’s not going to work, that bent wheel just jams against the chassis. Maybe he could fix it with the hammer, but he left the hammer down by the alien disc and he’s not sure he has the strength to go up and down that ramp again. Nor does he have the time to spare trying to fix the MRV.
He has to walk.
He clambers off the MRV and turns until he faces due north. He can’t see the MM, it’s over the horizon. He can’t even see the Face. Just a red desert of low dunes, scattered rocks, striped and scalloped hills in the distance blurred by a pink haze beneath a pastel sky. He’s used to the red now, it’s like his eyes are filtering it out and for one brief moment he sees an Earthly desert and he forgets he’s weighed down by an A7LB and PLSS. It’s almost as if he can feel a hot sun beating down on him and his mouth turns dry at the thought of it. There’s the track through the sand he made when he drove here. He just needs to follow that. He can do it, it’s only three and a half, maybe four, miles, he’s got three hours of air left in the PLSS.
He starts walking, but how it hurts. This spacesuit has no range of movement in the knee, it’s all in the hips and ankles. He’s used to it, but it’s hard work, the 0.367 G is no help, and after a week on Mars his muscles ache almost constantly. Soon he’s on autopilot, his mind drifts off somewhere, he moves his legs but he’s not conscious of doing so. His ankles are sore, his hips ache, his bruised hands pain him, it’s like he can feel his bones grating against one another. The MRV is now so far behind him now he can’t see it, he’s surrounded by lifeless desert and he shuffles through it like it’s the spacesuit doing the walking and not the man inside it.
The excitement of his discovery has gone, blown away, and he’s so weak now he doesn’t know if he can keep on moving. It’s like walking on fire with broken ankles and hips. The red sand is a bed of flames, he’s so hot he’s starting to boil, he’s walked so far he’s walked clean off Mars and into Hell. He’s not going to make it, he’s going to collapse in the sand, he’ll never make it to the MM. Tears run down his cheeks and he slides one foot forward and then the other. He closes his eyes and he can see Judy. She’s standing in front of the French windows and she glows with light like an angel. It’s the photograph he has back in the MM, it’s there in front of him, just out of reach. No, she is just out of reach, and she’s beckoning him to her. He roars through the pain, he can’t lift his arms to embrace her, but he stumbles on, drawn toward the presence of her, the light of her…
1999
Elliott is in the cupola when the Robert H Goddard arrives at Gliese 876. The pearly shell which encloses the asteroid abruptly vanishes and the universe rushes in, a sudden blackness which leaves spots before his eyes. Then a river of stars spreads across the sky in an eyeblink as if thrown by some Jackson Pollock of the heavens.
Gliese 876 is a dim red furnace about two million miles distant. The Goddard rotates, and Gliese 876 d, Earth Two—Hell—rolls into view. It’s a huge world, three times the size of Earth, and it just plain looks hot. Beneath the crimson light of its sun, the land resembles a planet-spanning brushfire, the edges of hills and valleys limned in blood-red. He’s seen the PBS specials, but the one thing those shows can’t capture is the world’s sheer presence. There is nothing like it in the Solar System—it’s as barren as the Moon, but it has air and clouds and a climate. And that red light…
Up near the north pole, where Phaeton Base is located, they say it’s like a hot day in north Africa. Elliott is not convinced. Surface gravity is 1.5G—that and the red light is not going to feel like Africa to him. He’s been told he’ll get used to it.
He somersaults and dives down from the cupola. Another somersault as he approaches the deck, and he hits it with both feet and locks the triangular cleats on his shoes into the gridwork.
Finley is standing behind the pilot and flight engineer, one hand on the back of the pilot’s chair. His other hand he has up to one of the earpieces in his communications cap and he is talking slowly and clearly into his microphone, saying, Phaeton Base, this is the Robert H Goddard, please respond.
Elliott glances across at Stewart at the navigator’s station. No response? he asks.
We can’t even find the damn base on the remote telescope, Stewart replies. He grimaces. Can’t get the radio beacon either, he adds.
This is what Elliott was sent here to investigate. And it looks like Phaeton Base really has vanished. But if it has disappeared, where has it gone? And what caused the disappearance?
Later they gather round the galley table in the rec area. A pilot and flight engineer remain on duty in the command centre, but everyone else is here. It’s crowded. The table can only comfortably fit six, so the other six are scattered about the area at different heights and in different orientations. Elliott is at the table, shoes firmly cleated to the deck. He’s sort of in charge.
The base is not responding, Finley says, not on S-Band or VHF.
From four hundred miles up, the base should be visible. They keep it brightly-lit at all times—the dim red sunlight badly affects morale. There is also an extensive greenhouse, and that splash of green would certainly stand out against the relentless red of Earth Two’s surface.
I don’t get it, says one of the systems engineers, McKay.
You think maybe it’s aliens? asks Stewart. He looks pointedly at Elliott, and adds, That’s why they sent you, right? You’ve been to Area 51, you’ve seen aliens there. Right?
There are no aliens and no UFOs at Area 51, Elliott responds. He holds up a hand, and continues, But that doesn’t mean we can’t rule out an extraterrestrial cause here. We’re fifteen light years from Earth, after all.
That last fact means they’re on their own. There’s no way of communicating with Earth. A radio message would take fifteen years to reach home, assuming they had equipment powerful enough.
I have to go down there, Elliott says. Maybe there’s clues on the ground to what happened.
Too dangerous, replies Finley.
Dangerous? scoffs Elliott; It’s a dead world. Fifteen years we’ve had a base there and they’ve found zip.
Yeah, but now the base is gone. Maybe they did find something, maybe that’s what happened to the base.
All the more reason for me to go down there, insists Elliott.
The rest watch impassively as he and Finley argue it out. The major may command the Goddard, but this is Elliott’s mission and he knows it. Elliott calls the shots.
Goddamnit, Finley snaps. Why? Going down there is dumb. If you can’t find the base, there’s no way back up.
We have to know what happened, Elliott says mulishly.
Is this why they picked you for this mission? Finley sneers.
That’s classified, Elliott says.
And that’s it: argument over. Finley has no comeback to that. Reluctantly, he agrees to Elliott’s plan. One of the flight engineers is sent to prep a Command Module for a descent. They will also load it with plenty of supplies.
Elliott returns to his compartment to dress in his spacesuit. He floats beside the sleeping bag attached to the wall. From his PPK, he pulls out a photograph of his wife and gazes at it. This is not the picture he took to Mars. A couple of years ago, he and Judy visited the Grand Canyon, and he snapped this photo in the car park by the Hopi House. He remembers telling Judy about Valles Marineris, and though he never visited the Martian canyon it struck him he’s as much an historical artefact as the Hopi House. He’s the only man on Earth who can talk about Mars and its scenery as someone who has visited there.
In the photograph, Judy is smiling, and it’s one of her rare unguarded smiles. He married her because of that smile—something during her childhood, she never to
ld him what, made her wary and undemonstrative as an adult. But sometimes he surprised her in a display of real happiness, and he treasured those rare genuine smiles. He profoundly regrets he did not make her happy more often. During his darker days, and he has them like anyone else, he wonders if he would have sacrificed Mars for those smiles.
He’s not spoken to her for over a month, not since leaving the house for the Cape, and this photograph is the only one he has. When he went to Mars, they spoke regularly, and her voice kept him going during those 667 days travelling through emptiness. Later, she admitted she’d hated every minute she’d spent in the public eye, hated her own complicity in the media circus, hated herself for believing she was doing it out of loyalty to her husband, and to NASA. One night, she even confessed she’d believed she needed to be loyal to safeguard him during the mission. He has never told her about his long walk back to the MM after he broke the MRV, he has never said how close he came to dying on Mars. It was a poor reward for her loyalty, his dishonesty. But she’s not loyal now, she’s probably already packed up and left. Perhaps he deserves it.
He shoves some clothes into his kitbag and dresses quickly in his spacesuit. He returns to the rec area on the deck above, where Finley waits for him. The major leads him up to the docking adaptor at the top of the module, where the hatch to one of the Command Modules gapes wide. Elliott swims into the CM and brings himself to a halt on the bank of seats. Turning about, he sees Finley hovering in the open hatch.
You sure about this? the major asks.
Elliott nods. He pulls himself about and, holding onto the seat’s struts, pushes himself down until his rear touches canvas. It’s a struggle to get the harness fastened, and so Finley enters the CM to give him a hand. This involves the major putting a foot to Elliott’s chest and pressing him down and then clipping the harness together and tightening the straps. Elliott says nothing about the triangular cleat on Finley’s sole pressing into his sternum, though it’s painful. It feels like the pain is deserved.
Crossfield has loaded up the landing program, Finley says as he returns to the hatch; You shouldn’t have to do anything.
Thanks, says Elliott.
There’s also a radio with the food and water and oxygen in the Lower Equipment Bay. You’ll not want to wear your spacesuit down there, it’s pretty damn hot.
They told me to pack some light clothes, Elliott replies.
Finley laughs. Yeah, he says, Light clothes. He has reached the hatch. He exits, turns about and peers back in. If you want, he says, we can parachute you down an Atlas V. It’s no good to you without a launch pad but, hell, we got boosters to spare.
Elliott shakes his head. If I need one, he replies, I’ll let you know. Let me see what it’s like on the ground first.
Fair enough, Finley says. He pauses a moment, and then adds, Godspeed. If you find them, it could be one day I can say I met the first man to meet aliens.
Even if I don’t find them, says Elliott, you can still tell people that and it’ll be true.
1981
In Moscow, the First Man on Mars meets the First Man on the Moon. They shake hands and exchange pleasantries through interpreters for the watching dignitaries and press. Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov is courteous but guarded. Later, over vodka and caviar, through an English-speaking comrade, Leonov confesses that the lunar landing instruments in his LK threw a persistent error.
I make manual landing, he tells Elliott.
Elliott wonders what would have happened if Leonov had aborted and Armstrong had not. An American would have been the First Man on the Moon.
He toasts the Soviet cosmonaut, and glances across the room at his wife. Judy is speaking to a handsome and well-dressed woman with carefully-coiffured brown hair. It is a moment before he identifies her as Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.
And over there, Bob Walker is talking—via an interpreter—to Oleg Grigoryevich Makarov, the LOK pilot for the second Soviet lunar landing. Bob’s wife, Valerie, is by his side, one arm hooked through his.
This world tour has been hard, but it has been good for the Elliott marriage. The Ares programme almost killed it. Days smiling for the camera, pills every night or she could not sleep. She came so very close to walking away; she has made that abundantly clear to him.
But travelling about the world, parades in every major city, meeting important people, seeing the sights: it’s been… fun. The interminable receptions and banquets, the endless parade of self-important faces—perhaps not. But in the moments they’ve stolen from their busy schedule, they have rediscovered each other.
They have visited Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janiero, Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Oslo, West Berlin, London, Rome, Ankara, Kinshasa, and now Moscow. It has been hectic but at least they are travelling in style: the President has lent them one of his Boeing VC-137C airliners. Elliott refers to it jokingly as “Air Force One”, though it uses that callsign only if the President is aboard.
Elliott feels profoundly grateful, and not just to the President and NASA. He’s not only lucky to be here, he’s lucky to be alive— No, not luck. It wasn’t luck that got him back to the Mars Module after he broke the wheel on the MRV. He did it himself. He was on reserve air by the time he reached the MM, and he spent his last day on Mars too tired and in too much pain to do anything but lie in his hammock. Then there was the 537-day free-return trip to Earth—and once the high from reaching Mars had gone and the boredom set in, he and Walker carefully avoiding each other, trying to find a way to live together in such close confines during those long days drifting through the lifeless dark, conflicted by disappointment at the mission’s imminent end and a yearning for home and an end to this limitless night…
Re-entry. Splashdown. Lying in their seats unable to cope with Earth gravity. Weak and wasted from over two years in freefall. They had to lift the CM onto the deck of the recovery ship while he and Walker remained inside.
And as soon as they had recovered, off they were sent on this round-the-world press junket.
Afterwards, back in the US, Elliott returns to his military career. Given what he discovered on Mars, the government wants him out of the public eye. Although he’s the only human being to have set foot on an alien world, he is quietly asked to retire from NASA and go back to the Air Force. By 1983, Elliott is flying F-15s out of Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Judy loves Europe. She no longer likes being an Air Force wife, but she can’t get enough of the “old world” charm of nearby German towns like Saarbrücken, and she frequently visits further afield in Europe.
Elliott has imagined the space programme would gradually wind down now that NASA has met its objective. And so it does for a couple of years. There’s still the flyby simulator, now dubbed “Skylab”, still in orbit and continually manned. It even has a space telescope fitted to it. But then there’s a flurry of activity, more Saturn Vs ordered, North American and Grumman with full order books, and Skylab is moved out to one of the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points. It’s used as a staging post to a Near-Earth Asteroid, which is captured and returned to L5. Elliott makes quiet enquiries about returning to NASA—this stuff sounds real interesting and he wants to be involved—but he’s firmly rebuffed.
Each year, Elliott is visited by agents from the NSA, who remind him of the consequences should he discuss the Cydonia Codex, which is what they’re calling the disc with the alien writing on it. Five years after the mission, they tell him scientists working at Area 51 have had a breakthrough and Elliott has done his country a service it can never repay.
In 1988, the President reveals the US has a manned base on an exoplanet and has been making secret test flights to nearby stars for four years. A NSA agent confirms to Elliott the faster than light engine came out of Area 51 and was based on the maths on the photos of the disc Elliott brought back from Mars.
Elliott is deeply disappointed at what he has missed. His achievement, landing on Mars, the only man ever to do so, feels as though it has been trivialised,
as though the giant step he made has been rendered foolish and of no consequence.
Perhaps Pete Conrad felt the same on the day Elliott stepped down from the MM.
The interstellar test flights announcement results in a fight with Judy. She leaves him, and it is a week before he learns she has gone to Paris. She rents a small apartment in the 20th arrondissement, and does not return for two months.
In 1989, Bob Walker dies of cancer after a long, protracted illness. His doctors are unanimous in blaming the flight to Mars as the cause. Though Elliott undergoes regular checks, his health remains good. Whatever stray cosmic ray triggered cancer in Walker, it missed Elliott.
In 1993, Elliot is promoted to brigadier general and given command of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB. He and Judy settle in California for what they imagine will be the twilight of Elliott’s career. Humanity has visited the stars—thanks to Elliott, though he received no credit for it—and found the universe wanting. More than a decade after the first interstellar flight, there is still only a single US scientific station on an exoplanet, a world orbiting the star Gliese 876 fifteen light years from Earth. The universe has been revealed as a pitiless and hellish place, too dangerous and expensive and difficult to exploit—at least for the time-being, given current American technology.
Elliott’s mission to Mars is all but forgotten, mentioned only on PBS science programmes, public access shows about UFOs and the Face on Mars, or in nostalgic sci-fi novels. He has almost forgotten it himself; he is a career military officer now, and feels as though he always has been. The 130 days he spent in space, hurtling between the Earth and Mars, the nine days on the Martian surface, the 537-day return flight—they might never have happened.
He loves flying, he has always loved flying; and as commander of the Flight Test Center he gets to fly whatever and whenever he wants. But some days he sits at his desk and hears another muffled roar as somewhere in the distance a F-5E or a B-52 takes off, and he remembers sitting atop a Saturn V as far below him five F-1 rocket engines ignite, their basso profondo roar, their infernal power pushing him faster and faster and faster. He remembers days spent in an Apollo Command Module and a hab module made out of a S-IVB, he recalls the descent to Cydonia in the MM. He wishes he had been allowed to stay an astronaut, to perhaps work on the interstellar spacecraft USAF now operates.
