Rocket Dawn

by Richard Tongue

  “We’re the ones who are going to have to live with this, Raul,” Murphy said. Turning to Knox, he said, “What do we do now, boss? We’re a little late in the day to set up some EVA training, but that might be an option for tomorrow. Maybe Raul’s right. We could take over one of the briefing rooms and go over the landing plan again.”

  Knox looked around, shook his head, and said, “I need some air.” He walked out of the hangar, looking around the outer limits of the spaceport, a dozen hangars scattered seemingly at random with tall office buildings on the perimeter, the only sign of their real purpose the reinforced, toughened windows to resist sonic shockwaves. A cluster of communications antennae sat on top of a nearby hill, dominating the landscape, and the gleaming sheen of solar cells was everywhere around, soaking power from the sun to support the entire complex.

  The launch tower was the tallest building for a hundred miles, perhaps more, rising as high as a skyscraper from the desert floor. CosmoTech had been launching unmanned rockets from here for a couple of years, and they’d now finished the gantry and support structures that would transport a crew of astronauts to a waiting capsule. A legion of technicians was working on last-minute adjustments, preparing for the imminent arrival of the rocket that would send the Icarus One capsule on its voyage.

  It was almost too incredible to contemplate. He turned back to the hanger, then spotted Baker walking towards him, with a tall, aristocratic woman behind him, wearing smart, obviously newly-purchased hiking gear. “I heard about your little problem….,” he began.

  Nodding, Knox said, “We were just about to hit the mission plan again, see if we can streamline anything.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” he replied. “I think the four of you need to get some fresh air for a while, get out of the lecture rooms and the simulators and out onto the desert. We were hoping to fit in a field trip anyway, so consider yourselves banished from the base for the next sixty hours. That should give us enough time to work at least some of the bugs out of the simulators.” Before Knox could protest, he added, “I don’t want you sitting over Raul’s shoulder while he works the problem. You’ll make everyone nervous. Go get your clothes dirty. That’s an order.”

  “Right now?” Maxwell asked, walking over to Knox.

  “No time like the present, Doctor. The training schedule is tight enough as it is, and we’ve got to squeeze as much as we can into the time we’ve got. Just be grateful that I’m the only one signing off on any of this.” He cracked a smile, then added, “Wish I could go with you. Good hunting!”

  Baker walked away, heading towards the computer technicians, and the woman shook her head, holding out her hand to Knox and saying, “Well, there goes the first impression. My name is Deborah Cruz. I teach planetary geology out at Caltech. Though thanks to you, I’m getting a nice short sabbatical.” She looked over the four of them, and said, “Let me guess that none of you are particularly interested in geology, and you’ve only agreed to take any classes at all because you’re scared someone will force a geologist into one of your seats.”

  “Professor…,” Knox began.

  “Don’t worry, it’s fine. I get it. We do these missions to brave new worlds, and the scientists always have to sit back and watch.” She sighed, then added, “I understand there’s the prospect of a few follow-up missions anyway, so you’re only going to be doing the preliminary work. All of you should be trained observers by now, one way or another, so what I’m going to do over the next few days is show you just what to look for.” She looked at Knox, then said, “You look kinda familiar. Moonwalker?”

  “That’s right. I took six months of geology, Professor, and did a couple of distance learning courses while I was in training. Believe it or not, I got a kinda kick out of going through the story of the rocks.” Gesturing at his crew, he added, “They’re along for the ride, and I’ll personally see that they take the scientific aspects of this mission seriously.”

  “I hope so, Colonel, I damned well hope so. That’s why we’re sending human beings up in the first place, rather than a collection of robots at one-tenth the price.” She paused, chuckled, then said, “I guess I’ve got a better time of it than the poor bastard trying to train the NASA team.”

  “They’re giving him trouble?” Maxwell asked.

  With a shrug, she replied, “The commander sets the tone of the mission. That’s all I’m saying.” She turned to lead the group out of the hangar, walking towards a brand-new jeep that was being hastily loaded with supplies, and said, “Everything we’ll need for two nights in the wilderness. There are some good formations about a hundred miles away, out in the deep desert. That’s where we’re going.”

  “You’ve been out there before?” Murphy asked.

  “Sure, I take field trips out there three, four times a year. I think that’s why they asked for me to take on this assignment. I know these rocks about as well as I know my grandkids.” She chuckled, then added, “Not that their parents would ever let me take them on one of these trips. City folk.” She looked down at her clothes, and said, “Ah, these. Sure I bought all new kit for this trip. When the government offers to pay all expenses, you don’t turn them down, and some of my gear was getting a little on the old side. Nice to have the chance to hit the shops with Uncle Sam’s credit card in my hand.”

  “Should we change?”

  “No need. We’ve got a good two-hour drive, and I’ve arranged for you to have some good desert gear in the back.” The last three cases were loaded onto the jeep as they scrambled in, the workers stepping back, clear of the vehicle, as Cruz slid in behind the wheel. “I’ve been planning to take you out here anyway. No point making you sit through hours of dull lectures and slideshows when I can show you the real thing. Tough part was getting it fitted into your schedule, and when the General told me that you suddenly had some unexpected free time, I jumped at the chance to make use of it.”

  “Professor,” Murphy replied, “I’m really not sure about this. I should probably be helping the computer guys with the simulator. I helped program the thing, and if there are any bugs…”

  “There are dozens of people on this base that can handle that, Commander. None of them are going on the mission. I get that this isn’t your field of interest, I really do, but this is important. Damned important. You’re going to have a chance to bring back hundreds of pounds of samples. You know how much we’ve got from sample returns up till now? Less than twenty grams. And all that subject to possible contamination during the landing phase. You’re going to give us the keys that might unlock the secrets of the universe, of how Earth itself was formed, billions of years ago. I don’t care about the prestige. Nobody will care in five years. But if you get this right, scientists will be blessing your names a century from now.” She turned the key, gunning the engine and abruptly starting down the road, the others hastily fastening their seatbelts to avoid being thrown out of the open-topped vehicle.

  Maxwell looked at his phone as they drove through the complex, saying, “Weather forecast isn’t great. High winds in the next few days. Maybe we should…”

  “Quit it,” Knox said. “We’re going out onto the desert to look at rocks. Make peace with it. This is a critical part of the mission, and it’s not as if we can do any other training for the next few days anyway. Think of this as a chance to do something a little lighter on stress than normal. When we get down to the last couple of weeks, you’ll look back on this with a smile.” He paused, then added, “Assuming, of course, that you brought the beer, Professor.”

  “Never gone on an expedition without it,” she replied with a smile.

  Looking at the others, Knox said, “Come on, cheer up. This is going to be fun.”

  “I think we’ve got different definitions of that word, Colonel,” Murphy said, gloomily.

  “Enjoy it, pilot. That’s an order,” Knox replied. The jeep raced through the gates, a pair of guards belatedly standing to attention as they roared into the desert. He g
lanced up at the sky, already beginning to grow dark. They’d been in the simulator for hours, and he stretched out in his seat, allowing himself to relax. A few days in the desert. A chance to have a break, to relax a little. And yet in the back of his mind, warning bells were still ringing.

  The simulator teams were good. Damned good. He might buy that there could be a glitch somewhere, but not anything as extensive as that. There was only one explanation. Despite all their precautions, the infiltrator had managed to strike again. He glanced across at Cruz, who returned his gaze with a wry smile.

  “You figured it out, huh,” she said.

  “The General wants us out of the way?” he asked.

  “Something like that,” she replied. “I don’t know what he’s planning, but he wanted you out in the desert when it happens.” He glanced back at the base, and she continued, “Like you said earlier, you’d better make peace with it. We’ve got a job to do, just as important as the one he has back there.”

  “You’re missing something, Professor,” he replied. “You’re assuming we’re not a part of his plan already.” He grimaced, then added, “While we’re out there hunting rocks, something else could easily be hunting us.”

  “Not a problem, I thought of that too,” she said, popping open a concealed compartment to reveal a quintet of pistols, shiny and new, nestled in a custom rack. “Peace through superior firepower.”

  “Professor,” Knox said, a smile on his face, “I like your style.”

  Chapter 13

  The group scrambled out of the jeep, onto the desert floor, Cruz leading the way as they walked across the endless expanse of sun-bleached dirt, towards the beginnings of a deep arroyo, cut into the rock by centuries of now-forgotten erosion. It was a beautiful sight, but nothing that Knox hadn’t seen a hundred times before. Looking at Cruz, he presumed that was the point.

  “Tom, you’re going to be a little ahead of the game here, but for the rest of you, I’ll explain what you’re going to do first. I want you all to collect a suite. Ten rocks that tell the story of the landscape, that can be used to uncover the hidden secrets of the earth. In the old Apollo days, you’d have ten minutes to get them, but I do things a little differently. I’m giving you an hour.”

  Maxwell smiled, and asked, “Sounds easy.”

  “Except that I expect you all to fully document every sample you take. That means pictures of the sample in situ as well as the surrounding area, as well as written notes that I will be grading when you get back.” She smiled, then said, “If it makes you feel any better, this is how I start every freshman field trip, and you’ll really be working hard to screw up as badly as some of the students I’ve brought out here.”

  “An hour, then,” Knox said.

  “After a fashion. Each of you takes a cardinal compass point. I don’t mind which. Then you walk for ten minutes in that direction, which should take you about a mile away from camp, and you start your sampling there. That means I’ll expect you home in an hour and twenty minutes, and the last one back does the washing up tonight. While you’re having fun out there, I’ll get our camp set up. It’ll be getting dark by the time you get home.”

  Looking around, Murphy replied, “Not that much light now, Professor. Can’t we do this tomorrow morning?”

  “Sure we can, and you will, and I hope with greater skill than you’re likely to demonstrate tonight. I want a chance to go over everything while we’re eating supper, and besides, we don’t have much time. The General wants you back in sixty-three hours from now. He was quite specific. We’re going to use every single damned moment of that, because I’ve got to find a way to turn you into trained observers. You aren’t going to become geologists. Not in that amount of time. I wouldn’t expect that. We’ll have people in Mission Control to help, but you’re going to have a long enough transmission lag that you’ll be largely on your own resources out there.”

  “Come on, gang, let’s get moving,” Knox said. He glanced at his watch, and said, “I make it ten minutes to seven. Professor, make sure you start a fire. Just in case anyone gets themselves lost in the canyons.”

  “All you’ll have to do is follow the smell,” Cruz replied. “My trail stew is legendary.”

  “Keep talking this way, Professor, and we’ll take you up to the rock.”

  Raising her eyebrow, she replied, “They never told me that when I applied to NASA.”

  “Special astronaut secrets,” he said with a smile. “I’ll head west.”

  Looking in the indicated direction, Maxwell replied, “There’s nothing out there, boss.”

  “Not to the naked eye,” Antonova said. “I believe that is what the Colonel is hoping for. I choose south.”

  Without waiting for the rest, Knox snatched a canteen from the jeep, clipping it onto his belt before heading in his chosen direction, away from the arroyo to a cluster of low hills in the distance, the terrain slowly rising. Cruz flashed him a wry smile as he started to walk, and he frowned, wondering just what she knew about the landscape that he didn’t. Behind him, the rest of his crew scattered across the desert, beginning their scientific errand.

  During his lunar training, he’d taken half a dozen field trips like this, all across the world, from the depths of the Gobi Desert to the icy wasteland of Antarctica, a pack of NASA geologists attempting to prepare him for his mission the best way they knew how. Then he’d spent a month on the moon, most of that time spent gathering rock samples and conducting surface experiments, collecting almost half a ton of samples for analysis. It would take years just to begin to examine them, and there were many in the scientific community that far more money was being spent gathering rocks than was being spent in studying them.

  That was probably a mistake. The Altair program was political as much as it was scientific, begun as a mad dash to return to the Moon when it became clear that the Chinese had ambitions in that area. They’d hoped for five years. It had taken almost nine, but now NASA’s lunar landings were becoming regular annual events, used as much for political gain as anything else. This time they’d established a true, largely reusable infrastructure, and were able to amortize the costs over far more missions. Sooner or later, of course, there would be an accident, hopefully non-fatal, and the program would come to a close for want of the money and will to continue.

  Walking on the moon should have been the climax of his life. Strangely, it hadn’t felt that way, even while he was up there. Exciting, certainly, the greatest adventure he had ever known, but he couldn’t quite get past the fact that dozens of others had reached the lunar surface before him. He’d dreamed of Mars, of taking those first footsteps on the Red Planet, but NASA’s limited budget and lunar commitments had rendered that an impossibility. Now, perhaps, he’d get to satisfy his boyhood dream after all, in a manner he could never have expected.

  He looked around, glancing at his watch again. Almost there. Then he spotted the terrain feature Cruz must have known about, over to the right, a shallow, well-worn crater, the legacy of some long-ago impact from the heavens, the final remnant of an asteroid not unlike the one upon which he would soon walk. With a beaming smile on his face, he pulled a tape measure from his pocket, quickly determining the size and depth, scribbling notes in a battered notebook as he went.

  The site had obviously been disturbed in the past, probably some geology student doing precisely what he was now doing, perhaps years ago, but he could still learn a lot from it, and he spent a few minutes looking around the perimeter, hoping to find some meteoric shards, some trace of the long-lost meteorite that had carved out this crater. As the light continued to dim, he found something that just might be meteoric iron, a shard of dark rock, far darker than anything surrounding it, and he pulled out his phone to take a few shots before gathering it for his sample bag.

  He gathered the sample, tucking it safely in his pocket, then scribbled some more notes on the surrounding area before looking up. There was a single star in the sky, and for a moment, its pres
ence didn’t quite register with him, before he realized that it was moving. For a second, he thought it a shooting star, another herald from the heavens, but he reached for his binoculars, raising them to his eyes, and realized that it was a drone, hovering far overhead, watching their every move.

  It might be a security precaution. Indeed, it would be a sensible step to take, to watch the crew while they worked, as well as perhaps gather some footage for later publicity, except that he hadn’t been notified of its presence. He reached for his phone again, clipping it to the binoculars to feed the image through to its database, running a comparison check for all drones in use by either the Space Force or CosmoTech. His worst suspicions were realized when he determined that it didn’t match. Someone was spying on them.

  The General had likely hoped that sending the team out into the desert would draw out their infiltrators, and it looked very much as though he was right. He quickly slid his binoculars back into his pocket, hoping that the cameras flying overhead hadn’t been watching him when he’d made his discovery, and that he could fade back into the landscape. While they were simply observing them, they wouldn’t be seeing anything interesting, and he attempted to continue with his work, moving on to the next likely site for sample collection, hoping to trick their hidden voyeur into thinking that he continued undetected.

  Then, in the distance, he heard a noise. Another car, heading their way, coming in from the north. There was no point continuing the pretense any further, and he snatched out his binoculars again, scanning the horizon, finally spotting a beaten-up truck in the distance, skidding and sliding across all-but-forgotten roads, racing towards them as fast as it could. There were no villages for miles around, just a few farms, many of them abandoned over the years, their land bought out by CosmoTech to maintain a secure area. The chance that another group of people just happened to be in the area was remote enough to dismiss out of hand.