by Ben Bova
“And lose thousands of jobs in Texas.”
Donaldson looked up and down the table. Pretty much as I expected, he told himself. States with NASA facilities don’t want to lose their federal funding. States without NASA facilities couldn’t care less.
He folded his hands on the table top and looked his Texan adversary in the eye. Time to be magnanimous, he told himself. Time to make a gesture.
“I see your problem, Judine,” he said. “I understand the difficulties you face. Maybe we can work out a compromise.”
The senator from Texas looked surprised, then hopeful. “A compromise?”
Over the next hour the subcommittee wrangled over several different possibilities. In the end, they decided not to recommend cutting NASA’s entire human spaceflight program. But they did agree—decisively—to cut all funding for the planned follow-on mission to Mars.
“All right,” Donaldson told them at last. “I think we’ve come to a good decision. There will be no more human missions to Mars. One disaster is enough.”
Nods of agreement up and down the table. Some were reluctant, others wholehearted. Donaldson sank back in his chair and put on a look of weary acceptance. He had gotten what he’d come for. There won’t be any more human flights to Mars, he said to himself. That’ll gut NASA’s human spaceflight program. Once I’m in the White House we can cancel the whole program. Screw Texas!
October 25, 2035
Mars Arrival Minus 1 Day
18:11 Universal Time
The Arrow
This was as close to heaven as Hiram McPherson could imagine. He was huddled in the Arrow’s observation blister looking out at Mars in all its ruddy glory, his arms wrapped around Catherine, holding her close.
His senses were on overload as he simultaneously saw what no other human being had ever seen so close, the planet Mars, and held the woman he’d come to hold so dear over the past two and a half years.
“It’s beautiful,” Catherine murmured, her head leaning back on his shoulder as she stared out at the red planet.
Hi nuzzled her neck with his beard. “Not as beautiful as you.”
“No,” she agreed lightly. “Perhaps not. Now, if there were canals, that would be different, non?”
“There could be cities and palaces,” he said, “but they still wouldn’t compare to you.”
“You’re very sweet, Hi.”
He looked out at the world they were rapidly approaching. “Is this how Adam and Eve felt, do you think?”
She glanced up at him. “I don’t know. I’m not particularly religious.”
“I don’t consider myself to be overly religious, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God,” McPherson admitted. “To me, that planet out there is proof that God exists. And what I feel for you is proof positive.”
Catherine thought that over for a moment. “I suppose I would call myself a deist. I believe that there is a God, but I doubt very seriously that a God who could create something as vast and majestic as the universe could possibly take an interest in you or me, or anyone, for that matter. Even Jesus.”
“You don’t understand the concept of infinity. An infinite God can handle all that, and more.”
“Perhaps,” she conceded.
“I mean, I’ve had too many things happen in my life that I’ve attributed to God—good things and bad. I just can’t believe that we’re here on our own. Love, music, art, even science stare us in the face every day; I can’t believe that God didn’t have a hand in their existence. Let alone our self-awareness, our ability to do good and to do evil.”
“But what about the evil in the world, Hi? What about the evil out there? What happened to Ted, the loss of his wife and son, was that an act of your God? Was the rock that nearly killed us all part of some grand plan? How could an all-knowing, all-loving God possibly have allowed such things to happen?”
He shrugged, almost like a Frenchman. “You know, people have been debating those ideas since there have been people. We aren’t going to resolve them now and I’m not going to let this get between you and me while we’ve got Mars to look at.”
Catherine snuggled closer to him. “I agree. God or no God, this is a time to relish.”
“Look.” McPherson pointed. “That’s Olympus Mons. The biggest mountain in the Solar System.”
For long moments the two of them watched silently staring at the huge volcano and the trio of smaller ones lined up near it. Each one of them was taller than Everest.
“Look at Olympus’ base,” McPherson murmured, his geologist’s instincts aroused. “It’s bigger than the state of Idaho!”
But Catherine asked, “Hi, do you think we’ll make it home?”
Her sudden change of the subject caught him by surprise. But it shouldn’t have, he told himself. That question is staring us in the face, just like Mars is.
“I honestly don’t know, Catherine. I’d like to think so. Mission Control seems to think the truss repair will hold up when we go into orbit. We’ll find out tomorrow when we make our MOI burn.”
“Aren’t you frightened?”
McPherson blinked at the question. “Frightened? No. I don’t think I am. Concerned, sure. I don’t want to die. I don’t want any of us to die. But if it happens, I’m glad I’ll be with you when it does.”
She reached up and kissed him gently on the lips. McPherson held her close enough to feel the beat of her heart.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to die.”
“It all depends on the water and propellant problems,” he said. “If we can bring up enough water from the surface. If we can fix the recycling system.”
“Who’s going down to the surface? Has Bee told anyone yet?”
“He hasn’t told me. I suspect he’ll tell us all together, after we’ve established ourselves in Mars orbit.”
“We should both go,” Catherine said, more firmly. “We are the geologists, non? What good would it be to return to Earth without any samples? We are the obvious choice.”
“Adam and Eve on their new world,” he said.
But he was thinking, the first thing we’ve got to do down on the surface is figure out how to get the water in the habitat up here for the return flight. Rock samples are important, but survival comes first.
October 26, 2035
Mars Orbital Insertion
13:15 Universal Time
Command Center, the Arrow
“Here we go.” Ted Connover spoke the words quietly, almost as if talking to himself, as he touched the keyboard buttons that unlocked the ship’s nuclear thermal system.
Sitting beside him in the command center, Benson nodded. This was Connover’s task. I’m strictly a bystander, he told himself. Unless something goes wrong.
The Arrow’s computer was now in control of the Mars Orbital Insertion burn: Connover’s touch of a finger had removed any human override by turning off the inhibitor. The timing required to put the ship in orbit around Mars was complicated, the necessary maneuver was so precise that only the computer could make it happen with a minimum expenditure of precious propellant.
Scanning the status screens on the display board in front of him, Connover saw that they were all in the green. They’d start to feel the tug of acceleration in a few seconds, he knew. Benson had made certain that the rest of the crew was firmly strapped to their chairs in the galley.
“Houston, Arrow here. MOI burn initiated.”
It will be thirteen minutes before Houston gets the message or sees our telemetry stream, Benson thought. By then we’ll either in orbit around Mars or dead.
Connover looked intent, all business. But he was smiling, grinning actually. Like a kid running his favorite computer game, Benson thought.
Down at the other end of the ship, thousands of pounds of liquid hydrogen were being pumped through the activated nuclear reactor, where they were heated into gas and fired out the rocket thruster cones.
“This is it,” Con
nover said as the acceleration pressed them back in their seats.
The ship shuddered and began to vibrate.
“What the hell is that?” Connover blurted.
Benson heard a low-frequency hum. It grew louder and the vibration got worse. Benson felt as if somebody had attached a tuning fork to his bones, making them quiver and tickle at the same time. And it continued to grow in intensity.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Connover replied, his eyes flicking across the status board, looking for the cause of the vibration.
It kept getting worse, a full-blown tooth-rattling tremor.
“Ted, amber lights!” Benson pointed a shaking finger at the status board. “The radiators are close to their transient acceleration limits.”
Connover’s lips were pressed into a thin line. “Amber alerts in the sensor attachments, too,” he muttered. He began to use his right index finger to pull all the various sensor readings and camera views of the ship’s exterior onto the central screen from which he could control virtually every aspect of the propulsion and other critical systems. Tap, drag, double tap, finger-flex, reduce—all almost too fast for Benson to follow.
“Damn! I think I understand what’s going on, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.”
“Fill me in!” said Benson. The shaking was so bad now that his vision was blurring.
“It’s the replacement spars we printed. They’re not as good a fit as the original spars. We had to attach them well beyond the point where the originals were bonded to the truss structure.”
“I know that.”
“They changed the natural frequency of the truss,” Connover said, his voice rising slightly, “and now we’re getting harmonics induced by the thruster burn. It’ll keep on building to some equilibrium point as long as we’re firing the engines.”
“How long before we’re at equilibrium?”
“Better be damned soon. Otherwise we’ll shake ourselves apart—probably at the seam itself. That’s the most vulnerable part of the ship right now.”
The intercom squawked. “Hey, what’s happening?” Hi McPherson’s voice, loud and impatient.
Benson tried to keep his own voice even as he responded, “Some vibration from the repaired section of the truss. Should be ending soon.”
Connover nodded grimly.
Red lights began popping up on the board. “Ted, the radiators are well beyond their design acceleration loads.”
“Nothing we can do. We have to brake into orbit, if we don’t we’re dead. If the ship breaks into two pieces during the burn, we’re dead. I may be ready to join Vicki, but I don’t want you guys coming with me.”
Benson stared at him. “After we’re out of this mess, you’ll have to explain that one to me.”
Connover tapped on the screen. “Never mind. Nobody’s going to die today. Look.”
Benson felt the vibration easing away.
Connover grinned. “Bingo. We’re past the danger zone.”
“God, I hope so.”
“Me too!”
October 26, 2035
Mars Orbital Insertion
13:42 Universal Time
Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
The screen at the front of the room dominated the wall on which it was mounted. On the screen was the time-delayed broadcast from the Arrow as it entered Mars orbit.
Commander Benson was smiling as he sat in the command center and announced to his crew, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are in orbit around Mars.”
The whoop that erupted from the Arrow’s galley was swallowed in the much bigger roar from the Mission Control team and the invited guests seated behind the team’s rows of consoles.
The Mission Control engineers and technicians were hopping up and down, pounding each other’s backs, laughing with wild relief. The flight director, the trajectory lead, the newly constituted accident recovery team all erupted in their own outpouring of delight.
No matter that what they were seeing on the screen had actually happened thirteen minutes earlier. No one seemed to notice that Benson was perspiring visibly.
Administrator Saxby let out a relieved sigh as he rose from his seat and walked carefully to the podium that had been placed in the only open corner of the huge room. He tapped on the microphone to make certain it was on and waited for the celebration to die down.
News cameras turned to him as he cleared his throat and the celebratory uproar quieted.
“Clearly,” he said, “this is a momentous day in human history. A multinational team of Earth’s finest men and women are now in orbit around our sister planet, Mars, after a harrowing trip that nearly ended in disaster. Thanks to the efforts of the crew and many of you right here in this room, the Arrow has arrived safely at Mars and its crew can now go about exploring the planet and preparing for a safe trip home.”
Saxby closed his eyes and resisted the urge to massage his chest. He had memorized that little speech. And another one that he would have used if the MOI burn had failed.
Then he added, “While we continue watching our friends and colleagues do their jobs and begin preparations for sending a skeleton crew to the planet’s surface to replace their lost water and other consumables, let’s not forget how far we’ve come. Let’s thank our international partners, without whom this mission might never have happened.”
Everyone in the room applauded heartily. Saxby basked in their approval. Just a few weeks ago it looked like the mission was ruined and the Arrow’s crew was doomed. Now they had a chance, a slim chance but a chance nonetheless.
He knew that Prokhorov had been stricken by cancer, but that information had been carefully hidden from the news media and the public. Benson and his people have enough on their hands without a bunch of bloody vultures doing a death watch.
Saxby pressed the keyboard button that activated the communications link with the Arrow.
“Commander Benson and the crew of the Arrow, this is Administrator Saxby. On behalf of the nations that have joined us in this mission, on behalf of all the grateful people of planet Earth, I would like to thank you for your sacrifice and your heroism in making the momentous journey to our sister planet. We are with you. And we’ll see that you get safely home, so help us God.”
Words are tools, Saxby said to himself. Words are weapons. He remembered from his history books how, at one time, Winston Churchill’s words were practically all that Britain had to stand against Nazi Germany. That and the English Channel.
Right now, all we can do for those eight people at Mars is send them words that might help them. They have a much wider gulf to cross than the Channel. I hope our words can help them make it.
* * *
Steven Treadway was sitting in the barber’s chair while a trio of makeup artists hid the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and carefully brushed his dark brown hair. His open shirt collar was covered by a recyclable paper bib.
“So they made it to Mars?” asked the chief of the makeup team, a middle-aged Italian American with a heavy Bronx accent.
“Less than half an hour ago,” Treadway said. “That’s why we’re going on the air at this time of the morning.”
“Something special, eh?”
“Something very special.”
The door banged open and a trio of three-piece suits marched in, led by Elmer Quinn, the network’s chief of programming.
“Out,” snapped Quinn and the three makeup people disappeared as if by magic.
Treadway frowned, despite his botoxed brow. “Hey, I’m on the air in—”
Quinn silenced him with an upraised finger. The network executive looked like a pugnacious leprechaun: short, wiry, thinning reddish hair and an expression that could curdle milk at twenty paces.
“Steven, how do you plan to play this broadcast?” he asked, his voice sharp and nasal.
“Play it?” Treadway felt suddenly alarmed.
“What’s your approach going to be?”
Behind Quinn, his two flunkies looked as bleakly dismal as their boss.
Shifting uncomfortably in the barber’s chair, Treadway said, “They’ve made it to Mars, for chrissakes! It’s a hell of an accomplishment.”
“So you’re going to do the rah-rah bit?”
That was a trap, Treadway knew. “I’m going to play it straight. They’ve made it to Mars, despite the damage to the ship. They deserve some congratulations.”
Quinn folded his arms across his chest. “You know they’ll never get back to Earth alive.”
“That’s not for certain. If they can bring up the water that’s—”
“I don’t want this network to be a cheerleader for NASA,” Quinn snapped.
“But those poor saps on board the Arrow can hear and see everything we broadcast. We owe them—”
“We owe them fair and impartial reporting. The fact that they made it to Mars doesn’t mean shit compared to the problems they’re still facing. I’ve had experts from three different universities looking into this, and they all agree that the chances of those people getting home alive are practically nil!”
“But if they can bring up the water from the surface—” Treadway tried to argue.
“If they can do that, it’s a step in the right direction,” Quinn granted. “But I don’t want you to build up the public’s expectations too high. I won’t have this network take part in a NASA coverup.”
“There’s no coverup,” Treadway said.
“See to it that you give the public the full story. No cheerleading. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Quinn nodded once, apparently satisfied despite the scowl on his pinched face. He turned and left the makeup room, his two flunkies at his heels.
Treadway watched them sullenly. If Quinn stops suddenly, the two of them will go right up his ass, he thought.
The makeup crew came back in and Treadway tried to make himself relax in the chair. Bad enough we have to hack and splice our way around the damned thirteen-minute delay between here and Mars, he grumbled to himself. Now this.
