by Ben Bova
The deputy flight controller said, “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, Nate. But why? We both know there won’t be another mission. It’s been cancelled!”
For the first time in more than twelve hours, Brice smiled. “Mack, those people are type Alphas. The kind of people who sign on for a two-year trip to Mars. But they’re not suicidal. They’re going down to the surface of Mars, not out the airlock. They think they can survive. And that Washington won’t cancel the follow-on and let them die. It’s brilliant!”
“Yeah, brilliant,” the deputy flight commander said shakily. “Let’s just hope they don’t end up dead heroes.”
“That’s why I need the logistics data. Now!”
Mack said, “Yeah,” and scurried away. The psychologist looked worried, perplexed.
Picking up his microphone and repinning it to his collar, Brice called for the communications director. “Sandra, put me through to Saxby in Washington. He needs to know what’s going on here.”
“What is going on here?” Sandra asked.
“A stupendous act of bravery and stupidity, rolled into one.”
November 5, 2035
Mars Arrival Plus 10 Days
16:00 Universal Time
Crew Transfer Vehicle, the Arrow
Sitting at the controls of the crew transfer vehicle, Ted Connover turned as far as he could inside his bulky EVA suit to look at the three people squeezed into the narrow little compartment behind him, the people he would be spending the next few years with in the cramped habitat waiting for them on the Martian surface.
The crew transfer vehicle was not pressurized. Connover thought of it more as a flying broomstick than a real spacecraft. It had room for four spacesuited astronauts, lined up along its skinny spine like riders on a tandem bike, a few bottles of nitrogen gas, and minuscule thrusters. That’s all. The CTV was designed to move people back and forth among the various modules of the Arrow, nothing more. It would have been useless, for example, for Benson and Lynn’s repair EVA.
In their white fabric pressure suits and bulbous helmets, Connover’s teammates looked like three imitations of Frosty the Snowman. They were about to ride from the Arrow’s habitation module down along the truss to where the lander was stored, close to the nuclear reactor.
Even inside her EVA suit, Catherine looked as lovely as ever, smiling gently as she went through their departure checkout list. Behind her sat Hiram, who was going to be the envy of every fantasizing male back on Earth for being stranded on another planet with such a good-looking wife; he looked equally happy to be departing for the surface. He was alternately looking at his own checklist and at his bride, as if to make certain she hadn’t changed her mind and decided not to go with him after all. Ted didn’t think that would be possible.
He paid particular attention to Amanda, last in the row. He had been very polite and professional with her, and had tried to make it clear that he had no physical designs on her. As far as he was concerned, he was still a married man and he intended to remain true to his wedding vows. Ted understood that two to three years of isolation was a long time to go without some sort of physical release, but he had no intention of allowing himself to go down that path.
Checklists complete, Ted received word from Benson that he was clear to undock and depart. But before doing so, he wanted to give everyone one last chance to change their minds.
“Anyone having second thoughts about this?” he asked.
“Are you kidding?” McPherson said. “We’re about to become the first residents of another planet! Whoo-ha!”
Connover winced: Hi’s boisterous shout almost melted his helmet’s earphones.
“And the first married couple,” Catherine added, more softly.
“Let’s go,” said Amanda, her face set in sheer determination.
“Okay,” Connover said, grinning as he turned his attention to the CTV’s controls. “Here we go.”
He started the unlocking procedure that would allow them to fly down the length of the ship to the lander.
They all felt the thud of the docking mechanism’s release and the transfer vehicle floated free. Connover tapped the forward cold-gas thrusters to give the little ship a small kick up and away from the habitat, then slowly turned the ship to point it aft and gave the rear thrusters a squirt to give them the velocity they needed to reach the rear of the Arrow, where the lander was housed.
They could see the damage to the truss and the makeshift repair. The payload module that housed the lander loomed large and bulbous as they approached it.
All onboard the CTV were awestruck at the sight of Mars almost completely filling their field of vision as they cleared the broken truss and moved away from the habitat. The orange desertlike terrain stretched as far as their eyes could see, ending on a hint of white that was a polar ice cap. Like Earth, there was a thin atmospheric envelope visible, but instead of being a softer shade of blue, it, too was orange/brown in color. It was truly an alien world and they knew it would soon be their home.
“Look at Mars,” Amanda breathed. “It’s so beautiful.”
Benson’s voice suddenly boomed in their earphones. “Ted, do you copy?”
“Bee, we can hear you fine. Not a good time for a chat, though: I’ve just cleared the break and we’re about to dock at the payload module.”
But Benson continued, “They’ve just put two and two together down in Houston and the shit is about to hit the fan. For now I think we can talk freely, since our cross-talk isn’t automatically forwarded back home. But once we get home and they review everything, the brass will know that I didn’t try to stop you.”
“Yeah, well, that’s a long time from now, Bee. And besides, the logs will show that you really didn’t have a choice. If we didn’t do this, the Arrow would become a ghost ship for sure.”
As he spoke, Connover touched the forward thruster control to slow their speed as they approached the payload module.
After a moment’s pause, Benson said, “Then let the log also show, for the record, that I think you guys are heroes and that I look forward to hearing all about your stint on Mars, firsthand, when you return home. I plan to be there to greet you.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Connover. “And, Bee, one more thing.”
“Name it.”
“Make arrangements for there to be flowers on Vicki’s and Thad’s graves at the first of every month until I get back. Okay?”
“Deal. And good luck on Mars.”
November 5, 2035
Mars Arrival Plus 10 Days
16:24 Universal Time
Mars Lander Hercules
“Why’d they name this bucket Hercules?” Amanda Lynn asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Looks more like a ninety-eight pound weakling to me.”
The four of them were hovering just inside the payload module’s airlock hatch, still in their EVA suits, even though the module was pressurized. A row of overhead lights lit the cavernous area dimly.
It’s like being inside the belly of a whale, Connover thought. And in its middle sat the Hercules. The lander looked spindly, like a child’s toy.
The bird was simple and functional, not designed for long-duration flight, but for the quick missions from orbit to the ground and back again. Its forward end was a blunt heat shield, from its rear hung a rocket nozzle. Not much in between: a tubular windowless fuselage with bulges forward that contained the parachute packs.
The Martian atmosphere was thinner than Earth’s high stratosphere, but it was still dense enough to burn the ship like a meteor if they came in at the wrong angle.
Weightlessly they glided to the lander. Ted undogged its airlock hatch and one by one they entered the Hercules. Its interior was simple, Spartan, functional. Cockpit and seven seats behind the pilot. Big empty cargo hold, which they would fill with water from the Fermi habitat, waiting for them on the surface. And storage lockers for the rocks and soil samples the explorers would want to bring back with them
.
No bunks, no privacy quarters, only one minimal lavatory. Once on the surface they would live inside the habitat.
Ted had thoroughly checked out the lander over the past two days, while Hi and Catherine carried in the food rations they would need during their extended stay on the surface and stored them in the cargo bay’s lockers. To his enormous relief he had found that the Hercules had not been damaged at all by the meteoroid hit; it was ready for flight.
As the four of them settled themselves in the cockpit, Ted powered up the ship’s electrical system, then pressurized the interior with air from the tanks resting beneath the floorboards.
“You can take off your helmets now,” he told his teammates. Then he added, “But keep them within arm’s reach, just in case.”
As he unfastened his own helmet, Ted looked over his shoulder and saw that Amanda was cradling her helmet in her lap. He grinned at her. “Taking no chances, huh, Mandy?”
“None that I don’t have to take,” she replied.
Placing his own helmet between his booted feet, Ted started the preflight checkout. “We’ll be departing the Arrow in two hours,” he told them. “We’ll be in a powered descent, and the ride will get a little rough when we bite into the atmosphere. But it’s only a short ride. Once we undock and get clear of the Arrow, we should be on the ground in seven minutes.”
“Just get us down in one piece,” McPherson said, with some fervor.
Ted nodded and suppressed an urge to admit to them that the flight was known among the engineers who had planned it out as “seven minutes of terror.”
Instead, he called Bee, in the Arrow’s command center.
“I’m ready to unlatch the CTV.”
“Copy CTV unlatch,” Benson’s voice replied.
“Unlatched,” said Connover. “She’s all yours now, Bee.”
“Right. I have control of the CTV. Autopilot is engaged.”
They heard a small thud. Ted called up the view from the Arrow’s external cameras and saw, on his control panel’s screen, the crew transfer vehicle slowly moving away from the payload module.
“You’ve got her, Bee.”
“No, the computer has her. I’m just here as a backup, in case the computer has a problem.”
“Feeling redundant, are we?” Ted joked.
“Sort of. But that too shall pass. I’ve got to get this crew home safely. I’ll have time to worry about being redundant later.”
Ted looked up and saw through the overhead window that the payload module was splitting in two, as if some gargantuan surgeon were cutting open the belly of the whale. Uncounted stars stared down at him, hard and unblinking. Where’s Mars? he wondered, forcing down a sudden wave of fear.
As they felt the bumps and thumps of their disconnect from the payload module restraints, Ted rehearsed in his mind the steps that the ship would have to go through. Seven minutes of terror.
Once they floated free of the Arrow, the lander’s chemical rockets would have to fire to reduce their orbital speed and let them descend into the Martian atmosphere and not drop like a rock toward the surface of the planet. Friction from the thin air would slow them quickly; then they would deploy the high-altitude parachutes to slow their descent further.
That’s where the greatest uncertainty lay. If the upper atmospheric winds were too strong they might find themselves coming down much farther from the habitat than they had planned. Same thing if the winds were weaker than predicted. It would be up to him, Ted knew, to make last-minute corrections in the ship’s course before they jettisoned the chutes and started the final descent, using the rocket engines. It was his responsibility to use the main rocket engine to hover momentarily and correct for any trajectory errors.
“Starting retroburn,” he announced. Then he added to the three behind him, “Hold onto your hats.”
They felt a brief surge of acceleration pushing gently against them.
“Retroburn complete,” Connover reported.
“Copy retroburn complete,” came Benson’s voice. “Have a pleasant flight.”
“Thanks.”
The lander began to buck and shudder. “All normal,” Ted shouted to his companions, over the growing wail of the wind.
The wind outside was screeching like a wailing banshee. The lander’s vibrations peaked, then began to ease away.
A thump as the parachutes popped out of their containers and then a big lurch when they filled. Ted heard grunts and groans behind him.
“We’re not slowing much!” McPherson said.
“Enough,” Ted replied, his eyes on the trajectory trace displayed on his main screen.
Then he looked up and saw, through the overhead window, the three big, beautiful parachutes billowing brilliant white against the auburn Martian sky. Good chutes, he said to himself. Gorgeous chutes.
But one of the parachutes started fluttering and folding up on itself.
Ted immediately took the ship off autopilot and grabbed the tiny control yoke. He thumbed the buttons on the yoke that would fire the attitude control thrusters. The lander tilted awkwardly and began swaying like a pendulum.
Bang—Bang—Bang. Ted fired the thrusters to get the ship in the upright attitude they needed to land properly. Otherwise the lander would hit the ground at an angle and the landing gear would collapse under them.
Ted’s eyes were riveted on the navigation screen, next to the countdown clock. The pendulum swing was slowing noticeably and the nav graph was showing green again. The clock was counting down the time to estimated touchdown.
“Gonna be a hard landing,” Ted told his teammates. “Hang on.”
The primary rocket engine ignited again and they were pushed into their seats.
“Touchdown in twenty seconds!” he yelled. “Brace for impact!”
WHAM! The Hercules slammed into the surface. The shock of the impact caused Ted to bite his tongue, drawing blood. The ship creaked like an old man settling into a chair. Then all sound, all sense of motion, stopped.
“We’re down,” Ted said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Welcome to Mars.”
VI
On Mars
November 5, 2035
Mars Landing
20:22 Universal Time
NASA Headquarters, Washington D.C.
Bart Saxby sat behind his desk with growing anxiety as he and a handful of aides watched the four crew members suit up and head for the lander.
“Get Brice on the horn,” he growled, rubbing at the smoldering pain in his chest. “Now!”
“But they’re in the middle—”
“Now!” Saxby shouted.
Robin Harkness, the director of human spaceflight, reached for the telephone on Saxby’s desk.
“Won’t he be busy monitoring the lander’s launch?” asked Saxby’s deputy director, a comely middle-aged woman who knew the intricacies of Washington politics better than the engineering of space missions.
“I don’t care if he’s building the Great Wall of China,” Saxby growled. “They’ve torn up the mission protocol and I want to know why.”
Harkness, lean and narrow-eyed with suspicion, reported, “Comm director says Brice can’t be disturbed for another five-ten minutes.”
Saxby fought down the urge to explode. Instead, he sat at his desk, his chest burning, and watched the Hercules lander’s departure from the Arrow and its plunge into the Martian atmosphere.
One of the TV screens on Saxby’s office wall was blank, but the voice of Commander Benson was coming from it.
“Copy retroburn complete. Have a pleasant flight.”
The deputy director said, “Have a pleasant flight? He sounds like an airline steward, for God’s sake.”
Grimly, Saxby said, “That’s Benson’s sense of humor.”
“Trajectory looks good,” Benson was saying. “Hey! One of your chutes spilled!”
Saxby squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath.
“Good stuff, Ted. Correction is on the nose.�
��
He breathed again.
Then Connover’s voice announced, “We’re down. We’re on Mars.”
“Good stuff, Ted,” Benson repeated.
Saxby seethed.
“It looks like four of them went down to the surface,” Harkness said.
“Looks like,” said Saxby.
“That’s not in the mission protocol. They have to clear any protocol changes with Brice.”
“That’s why I’m waiting—”
His desktop phone console buzzed. Saxby snatched up the handset. “Nate! What the hell is going on?”
He punched the speaker button and replaced the handset. Everyone in the office heard Brice’s slightly nasal voice, calm and flat.
“. . . four of them will stay on Mars, Bart. It’s the only way the rest of the crew can get back to Earth alive.”
“Alive!” Saxby snapped. “And what about the four of them on Mars? How long can they last there?”
A heartbeat’s pause. Then, “Until we send the follow-on mission to pick them up.”
As Harkness and the others barked and shouted at Brice, Saxby remembered the letter of resignation he had written when the final propellant stage for the Arrow had limped into the wrong orbit, eight days before the crew left Earth orbit and started for Mars.
I’ll have to get it out of the recycle bin before I see the president, he realized.
It was almost 6:30 p.m. in Washington, cocktail hour, as Bart Saxby’s limousine pulled up at the White House’s entrance. A pair of stone-faced Marine guards in their olive drab uniforms stood at attention as Sarah Fleming watched Saxby climb out of the limo.
He looks like he’s aged ten years, Fleming thought as she studied Saxby’s ashen, drawn face.
“Hello, Bart,” she said, extending her hand to him. “The President is waiting to see you.”
