Voyage

by Stephen Baxter

  His people made attempts at good-byes, at more eulogies.

  He chased them out of his office.

  When they’d gone he stood there for a while, looking at his big metal desk. It looked like a piece of a wrecked battleship, stranded in the middle of a sea of blue-gray corporate-colors carpet.

  Suddenly he couldn’t stand it any more.

  He went out, closing the door behind him. He asked Bella, who was sobbing openly, to pack up his effects and send them on.

  Outside, Jack Morgan was waiting. ‘Come on,’ Morgan said. ‘I could use a day off. Let’s get down to the Balboa Bay and drown in Lemon Hart.’

  It sounded like a hell of a good idea to Lee. But, there in the middle of the car park, something slowed him, snagging at him like a trapped thread.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Jack, but no.’

  ‘Huh?’ There was the concern of a doctor mixed in with Morgan’s surprise.

  Lee grinned. ‘I’m fine. It’s just that –’

  Morgan clapped his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it Next time, huh.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Lee walked to his T-bird. He guessed Morgan understood.

  It’s just that today, I think I should go on home to Jennine.

  Monday, August 13, 1984 Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston

  Bleeker, in blue coveralls, sat in a small padded chair, opposite Muldoon’s desk. Bleeker’s eyes were large and pale, and had always seemed somehow calm to Muldoon. Like windows to a church. But now little creases bunched up around those eyes, and the color drained out of Bleeker’s face.

  When Bleeker spoke his voice had tightened up, but it was under control. ‘So tell me, Joe. I did something wrong?’

  ‘No. No, of course not. You know that.’ Muldoon tapped the fat brown card folder on his desk, it’s just surgeon shit … Listen. You want a drink?’ He opened the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. ‘I got a bottle of sour mash down here, and –’

  ‘No thanks, Joe. Just tell me, will you?’

  Muldoon opened the folder on his desk. It was the preliminary surgeon’s report from Bleeker’s D-prime mission post-flight checkup. He started leafing through it, through the metabolism graphs and radiation dosimetry charts and countersigned forms and all the rest, wondering where to begin. ‘Hell, Adam. You know how it is with surgeons. You only walk out of their office two ways: fine, or –’

  ‘Or grounded. And I’m grounded. Is that what you’re going to tell me, Joe?’

  Impatient, Muldoon banged the folder closed with the palm of his hand. ‘Adam, you’ve spent a hell of a lot of man-hours in space, in Skylab, Moonlab, and now D-prime –’

  Bleeker ducked his head.

  ‘In fact, that’s one of your main qualifications to be on Ares. Right? We know you can cope with long-duration missions, because you’ve done it already. And now you’ve got experience with the MEM, the new technology … But you know that space exposure gets to you in the end.’

  ‘So what’s the problem? Muscle wastage?’ For the first time Bleeker looked vaguely alarmed. ‘Is it my heart?’

  ‘No,’ said Muldoon quickly. ‘As far as I can tell from this crap, your heart is fine. Adam, you’ve always been outstanding in adhering to your exercise regimes. Your muscle decline has been small, every trip, and you’ve recovered quickly.’

  ‘What then? Calcium loss?’

  ‘Not that. Adam – it’s radiation exposure.’

  ‘I’m within the limits,’ Bleeker said quickly.

  Muldoon tried to suppress a sigh. ‘Yes, but they changed the rules on you, pal. To be fair to the surgeons, they keep on learning; they still don’t know much about the effects of long-term low-level radiation exposure, and they keep on coming up with new ways for you to get hurt … Listen: what do you know about free radicals?’

  Bleeker frowned.

  ‘Free radicals are bits of molecules. Highly energetic. Like ions – with charges knocked out of their atoms – only with more horse power. They’re highly oxidizing, which means they got a taste for hydrogen. They’ll strip hydrogen atoms out of nearby molecules, even. And that can cause havoc if it’s happening inside your cells.

  ‘Now, we all got free radicals in our bodies. We need them for the operation of the metabolism. But there’s a balance. Your body produces them, and absorbs them, and keeps everything together. But if you’re exposed to high energy radiation, or light, or extremes of temperatures –’

  ‘You get more free radicals.’

  ‘Right. The balance is lost.’ Muldoon looked over the report once more. ‘These babies propagate. A free radical will return to normal by stealing its neighbor’s electron. But that makes that neighbor into a free radical in turn. Your body has a scavenger system to fight these things, but it can get overwhelmed or inactivated. And then the damage you suffer depends on what gets hit. You can get radiation-induced cancers if a DNA base is damaged, or your system loses control of its functions if protein is damaged, or you can get internal bleeding if membrane lipids are broken.’

  Bleeker frowned. ‘Membrane lipids, Joe?’

  Muldoon tried to put together an answer in plain English: how free radicals contributed to aging, and cancers, and degenerative diseases of the heart, liver and lungs; how the loss of free radical balance contributed to a lot of other microgravity problems like disturbing the inner ear’s balance mechanism, and bone degeneration …

  ‘Look, Adam, you ever left a slab of butter out in the sun?’

  Bleeker thought about it. ‘Gets rancid.’

  ‘Well, there you are. That’s free radical damage.’

  Bleeker, his eyes locked on Muldoon’s, started pulling at his cuff, in a precise, apparently unconscious gesture.

  Bleeker really did seem to have a kind of inner calm, an even temper. It had evidently got him through all that A-war shit he’d trained for, Muldoon supposed. Maybe the psychos were right, that Bleeker had a lack of imagination.

  But now Muldoon could see the tension building in him, under the surface. How was he going to react to this, the worst news of his life?

  ‘Look, Adam. You got to understand. You’re not ill. It’s just that because of this kind of study, they’ve tightened the limits. On everybody. And you, with all your exposure to space, have finished up outside the limits. If the free radical study had come in a couple of months earlier you probably would have been bumped off D-prime too. Look – you might have suffered some of this free radical damage. Or not. Or something else –’

  ‘I’ve proved myself in space, Joe, and on the ground, time and again. Look how I pulled off the D-prime flight. I deserve this goddamn trip.’

  ‘I know that, but –’

  ‘And I know about surgeons’ reports. They talk about risks. Likelihoods and percentiles. Not certainties. And besides, it isn’t logical. The Ares crew is going to run up a lot more time in space than I’ve accumulated anyhow.’

  ‘But starting from a lower base, Adam. Even Phil Stone.’

  ‘Joe, I don’t care about the risks. I want to go anyhow.’

  ‘If it costs your life?’

  ‘Even so.’

  Bleeker lifted up his head, and there were those wide, church window eyes looking right into Muldoon, open, honest, committed.

  I have to kill this, here and now. I can’t leave him with any hope. And he didn’t intend to tell Bleeker about the pressure he’d been under: from the flight surgeons, even from Administrator Josephson himself. He wasn’t going to hide behind any of that.

  ‘That’s not the point, Adam,’ he said, and he tried to get some steel into his voice. ‘I can’t risk having you fall ill, half-way to Mars. I can’t risk sending you. Because you would endanger the mission.’

  Bleeker smiled, a small motion of the muscles of his cheeks. Then he stood up, stiffly, still tugging at his cuff. ‘I appreciate the way you’re handling this, Joe.’

  ‘Oh, God. Don’t be kind to me, for Christ’s sake. Adam, we’ll talk
later. You know I need your help now. We haven’t got a lot of time to recover from this. And later – hell, there are still good careers here, on the ground.’ He laughed, a little hollowly. ‘Look at me. You’re still in the team, Adam.’

  ‘Sure. I know my duty, Joe. I’ll do everything I can.’

  Goddamn this job. This is the most competent man in the Office, and I have to bump him. ‘Yeah. I know you will.’

  Bleeker turned back. ‘By the way. Who’s replacing me? You decided yet?’

  Joe Muldoon hesitated.

  His orderly crew rotation system had gone out of the window, first with Curval bombing out, and now this bad shit from the surgeons about Adam. He felt an unreasonable anger at the doctors, the managers, the psychologists, all the rest of them who wanted a piece of his decision.

  He felt like shocking them all, taking back the responsibility in his own two hands.

  He’d already spoken to Phil Stone, the Ares mission commander. Stone had defended Bleeker to the hilt. But when he’d come to accept Bleeker was off the mission, Stone had been surprisingly clear about who he wanted to replace Bleeker.

  Well, Joe, you got to pick the best Mission Specialist. The most knowledgeable: more so than Adam, for sure. And the most committed: the one who’s been spending time in the sims, and trailing around trying to train the prime crew, and all of that. And –

  What?

  And someone who can maybe see things, the mission, in a way old jocks like you and me can’t. A different perspective. Someone who can articulate it better, maybe …

  Rookie or not, Phil?

  Hell, yes, Joe. Rookie or not.

  Muldoon found himself grinning. He knew that the candidate he had in mind had spent a lot of time working with Ralph Gershon, in the MLTV and various sims and survival exercises. But only because they were both outsiders, pushed together by circumstance. Still, they’d proved they could work together, although they would never be bosom buddies. The goddamn shrinks will jump up and down, over having two dipsticks on one flight, with only Phil Stone to keep ‘em apart …

  So, fuck ‘em.

  ‘Yes,’ he said to Bleeker. ‘Yes, I’ve decided. But, Adam –’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘She doesn’t know yet.’

  Monday, August 13, 1984 Ramada Inn South/NASA, Houston

  Vladimir Viktorenko had his shoes off, and he was sipping at a miniature bottle of mini-bar malt whisky. He was in Houston to work on more aspects of the Ares training program. Right now, he was listening desultorily to the evening news and wondering what to do with the evening.

  The newsreader – a stunningly beautiful young woman – said that the crew for Ares had just been announced.

  Viktorenko coughed, and dropped the little bottle.

  He sat up, wiping a fine spray of the liquor from his upper lip. He couldn’t have heard correctly.

  But no: there was a picture of Natalie herself, an official portrait in which she sat before a nondescript background, staring past the photographer’s shoulder, nervously clutching a long-obsolete model of a biconic MEM.

  He picked up the phone and dialled York.

  ‘Marushka! I just heard! You are going to Mars!’

  York’s voice was flat, unemotional. ‘It isn’t true.’

  ‘What? But I have seen the news …’

  ‘Yeah. Me too. But I haven’t heard anything from NASA. Until they call me, I don’t know anything about it.’

  Viktorenko felt his mouth opening and closing, like a fish’s. You are going to Mars! You should be dancing, singing! The silence on the line stretched out.

  ‘Marushka. You are alone?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  Of course you are. ‘Do I have your permission to come wait with you, until the phone call comes? Perhaps this will help you.’

  ‘If you like. You don’t have to. I’m fine, Vladimir.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  Viktorenko hung up, swept up six of the miniatures from the mini bar, and ran out of the room.

  In her rented apartment York was sitting on the couch, alone, with the TV running in the background. She wore a sports shirt and slacks. On the living room walls she had pinned up her old Mariner pictures, and there was work scattered over the small desk, half-finished: a new paper, evidently, on the surface properties of some obscure region of the planet Mars.

  Viktorenko busded in. ‘I bring you a present.’ He dug the six miniatures out of his pocket, and set them up in a row along the top of the TV set.

  ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘For when you get the right call. Or, perhaps, in case you get the wrong one.’

  He sat beside her, then, and held her hand, and they watched the TV together, without speaking. At first her hand was stiff in his, but after a couple of minutes she clung to him, and he could feel the cold dampness of her palm.

  The phone rang, startling Viktorenko.

  York let it ring a couple of times. Then she unwound her hand from Viktorenko’s and walked to the phone. Her steps were slow and deliberate, as if she were wearing some invisible pressure suit.

  ‘York.’

  He heard her exhale, softly.

  ‘Oh, hi, Mom. No. It’s not true. Well, maybe. I’ve only seen the TV news, like you. NASA haven’t called me. Until then I … No, I don’t think I should call them. They know where I am. I’ll just wait here until – yes, maybe you should get off the line, Mom. I’ll call as soon as I know. Bye. Yes, me too. Bye.’

  She hung up. She turned to Viktorenko and shrugged.

  On the TV a rerun of some awful dated sitcom was showing; Viktorenko could barely follow the quick-fire accents, and found the visual business of the show cheap and unfunny.

  York sat silently, trembling a little. He doubted that she could even see the TV images.

  The phone rang. York got up again.

  ‘York.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  She fell silent, then, for long seconds.

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you. I’ll do as best I can. Sure. Goodbye.’

  She hung up the phone. Viktorenko did not dare to speak.

  York walked to the TV, where the canned laughter was still rattling from the inane sitcom. She picked up one of Viktorenko’s miniatures, twisted it open, threw the cap across the room, and downed the draught in one gulp.

  Viktorenko couldn’t contain himself. He got off the sofa and crossed the room in one great stride; he got hold of York by the elbows. ‘Well? Well, Marushka?’

  She looked up at him, her eyes vulnerable under those peculiar big eyebrows. ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘Vlad, it’s true. That was Joe Muldoon.’

  Viktorenko wanted to dance, shout, pick her up and whirl her around! … But she just stood there, looking up at him, fiddling with the empty bottle; he told himself to be calm, and wait on her needs.

  She picked up the phone, and called her mother. Then she suggested that they should wait a while, in case there were any more calls.

  So, bizarrely, Viktorenko found himself back on the sofa, holding York’s trembling hand, and watching the stupid sitcom run its meaningless course.

  After a time, York said: ‘I can’t stand this, Vladimir.’

  ‘What?’

  She made a small gesture; he guessed she was holding herself in, tight. ‘The uncertainty. The roller-coaster ride. The lack of control I have over my own life. My God, Vlad, after the space soak mission was canned I thought I was further from Mars than ever. And now – out of nowhere – this.’

  He squeezed her hand. ‘You were never in the military, Marushka. This is the military way to do things. In the military, you have no choices, no control. Perhaps your civilian NASA has more of a military streak than many care to admit.’

  The phone rang. It was Adam Bleeker, whose seat York had taken. York spoke to him briefly, quietly.

  ‘How is he?’

  She shrugged.

  They sat a little longer, but there were no more calls. No doubt those i
diots in the Astronaut Office were closing ranks, punishing York – and Gershon, probably – for ousting their buddies, their preferred candidates.

  Eventually Viktorenko decided enough was enough. ‘No more of this! We would handle matters so much better in Russia. Come. We will go out. We will eat, we will go to a barbecue pit or a Pizza Hut or a Mexican drive-in, or whatever you like. My treat! The treat of the Soviet Union, Marushka!’

  At first she demurred, but he insisted.

  As they left the apartment, a fat young man with a tape recorder came running up the hall; a spotlight glared over his shoulder.

  ‘Miss York! KNWS-TV News. How does it feel to be the first woman on Mars?’

  Book 5

  ARES

  Mission Elapsed Time [Day/Hr:Min:Sec] Plus 369/09:27:26

  Ochre light, oddly mottled, shone down through the little Command Module window beside her: Mars, grown so huge it no longer fit into the window; Mars, sliding like oil past the glass.

  ‘Three minutes to loss of signal,’ capcom John Young called up.

  ‘Roger,’ Stone replied.

  The crew sat side by side in Apollo. York’s pressure suit felt hot, bulky, the angular acceleration couch uncomfortably restricting after so long in the Mission Module’s shirt-sleeve environment.

  ‘Ares, Houston, we read you as go for Mars orbit insertion. Everything is go for MOI. Two minutes to loss of signal. Be assured you’re riding the best bird we can find.’

  ‘Thank you, John. We appreciate that.’

  Sure. But Young’s assurances weren’t all that comforting, York thought.

  Right now, Ares was free-falling past Mars. Even if the big MS-II engines failed altogether, they still had enough speed to escape from Mars’s gravity well, and emerge on a free return trajectory back to Earth.

  But if Stone, and Mission Control, decided to commit to MOI, this Mars Orbit Insertion burn, then their final abort option would be gone. They would be committed to Martian orbit.

  MOI really was the moment of truth, the moment when Ares finally cut the long, fragile ties of gravity and celestial mechanics that could draw it home to Earth again.