And Now For Something Completely Different

by Jodi Taylor

  ‘Safety was your first priority?’ echoed Commander Hay, disbelief dripping from her voice faster than a politician trousering the rewards of one of his more imaginative expenses claims.

  ‘Well, yes, obviously. And what a good thing that turned out to be, don’t you think?’

  Commander Hay gripped her desk for patience. ‘Can we return to the point, please? You’re at St Mary’s, collecting Peterson and Maxwell.’

  ‘Yes. Dr Bairstow graciously granted permission for us to borrow two of his people, we drank a swift toast to success and departed with, I have to say, two very excited historians on board. They both insisted on making personal contributions to the radiation protection equipment. I daresay they meant well but sadly, a significant amount of Dr Peterson’s missed the container completely. Dr Maxwell’s overly harsh criticism had upset his aim, he said, and it turned out Dr Maxwell had been before she left so nothing was forthcoming there, but we thanked them anyway. We kitted them out, gave them basic instructions on how to operate their suit and what to do in an emergency, and climbed into our pod. Everyone turned out to wave us off which was kind of them, don’t you think?’

  Commander Hay appeared slightly dazed. ‘And then you just ... jumped to Mars?’

  Director Pinkerton nodded. ‘That’s about it, yes.’

  Since his commander seemed temporarily without words, Captain Farenden deemed it appropriate to pick up the conversational baton. ‘Can I ask, Director – how long did the journey take?’

  ‘Slightly quicker than to 1st-century Rome but slightly longer than to Doggerland.’

  He nodded. ‘ And your landing site?’

  ‘Gale Crater. About two hundred yards to the west of the habitation domes and three hundred yards north of the fuel manufactories.’

  ‘And they didn’t spot you?’

  ‘Camouflage device,’ she said shortly.

  Commander Hay re-entered the conversational fray. ‘Thank God you retained slight vestiges of common sense.’

  ‘Well, obviously,’ said Director Pinkerton indignantly. ‘We didn’t just throw the assignment together over a mug of tea and a chat by the photocopier, you know.’

  Commander Hay glanced at Captain Farenden who again knew his duty.

  ‘It’s an accepted phenomenon, ma’am. People gather around the photocopier to talk. There’s gossip, an update on who’s sleeping with whom, new ideas, suggestions, and so on. It’s a kind of informal brainstorming session. There are all sorts of topics covered and it can be extremely productive.’

  ‘Don’t we have meeting rooms for that sort of thing?’

  ‘We have many meeting rooms, ma’am, but standing around a photocopier with a mug of coffee is generally thought to be more conducive to creative thought.’

  ‘And that happens here?’

  Captain Farenden thought quickly. ‘I think, Commander, with respect, you should select the answer you will be most happy with and go with that.’ In what he was almost certain was an effort to be helpful, Director Pinkerton kindly added that they might find the installation of a vending machine alongside the photocopiers to be most beneficial.

  Leaving his employer to grapple with these novel concepts, Captain Farenden proceeded to satisfy his own burning curiosity. ‘So – how did you get there? What was it like? What actually happened?’

  ‘Well, getting there was easy enough. Once everyone was on board and settled, I laid in the coordinates and we ran a few quick tests. Everything seemed to be working properly so I said, “In your own time, Chief,” and away we went. It really is going to make future space travel as easy as nipping down to the shops, you know.’

  Captain Farenden intervened again before Commander Hay could outline her own plans for the future of space travel in general and Director Pinkerton in particular.

  ‘But what was it like? When you got there, I mean?’

  ‘Gale Crater? Perfect landing site. Evidence of possible geothermal energy, plenty of lava tubes to provide shelter from radiation and micrometeors, and nowhere near as rocky as we had thought it might be. We’d strengthened the hydraulic legs just in case we hit a patch of rough ground but it turned out we didn’t need them. We were very familiar with the area in any case because ESA had been sending out equipment and modules for five years beforehand – you know, the MAV, habitats, rovers, 3D printers, life support systems, the fuel manufactory ... There were several living units already connected up and ready for use. We could see storage areas and what we thought was probably the science block and work area. Next door to them were the hydroponics and food production areas. We assumed the unopened modules contained drilling equipment, aircraft, drones, and other odds and sods. Obviously, we’d carefully studied everything in the public domain and we were able to locate and identify nearly everything.’

  ‘Why confine yourself to the public domain?’ asked Commander Hay, grimly. Why not hack your way into their data records?’

  ‘That would be illegal,’ said Director Pinkerton, gently reproving. ‘Anyway, everything was all there, all ready and waiting to be connected by tunnels and airlocks. In the event of an emergency, everything can be sealed off and each module can run independently. Well, it has to, doesn’t it? If anything goes wrong, they’re completely on their own and it’s not as if they can ring and ask the engineer to pop round. But, most importantly – for them and for the sake of my story – the underground radiation shelter had been completed.’

  ‘Protection from solar radiation,’ said Captain Farenden, knowledgeably.

  She nodded. ‘Unlike Earth, Mars has no protection from solar or cosmic radiation. And, as we all know, they’d barely set foot on the surface before all hell broke loose, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We watched the module land and ...’

  Commander Hay stiffened. ‘You were there to see the landing?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said patiently. ‘That was kind of the point.’

  ‘So you were actually on Mars when the first people arrived?’

  ‘Yes. All ready and waiting. Recorders running. It’s what we do.’

  ‘So you were the first people on Mars?’

  ‘Were we?’ she said, vaguely uninterested. ‘Yes, I suppose we must have been.’

  Captain Farenden was very careful not to catch his employer’s eye.

  ‘Well, anyway, we watched the module land and as far as we could see through all the dust, it was spot on. Textbook stuff. Quite a tricky manoeuvre, you know,’ she said with enthusiasm and sitting forward in her chair, all the better to demonstrate. ‘Because, while Mars has enough atmosphere to cause a module to burn up on entry, there’s not enough to make parachutes particularly effective, so they’d gone for a combination of retro rockets and parachutes combined. Their landing was a touch bone-jarring, perhaps, but nothing fell off and I always think that’s a good sign, don’t you?’

  She didn’t bother waiting for a reply.

  ‘We’d been expecting it, of course, but Mars is very, very dusty. Everything was coated with the red stuff and the lander had kicked up a fair amount of it as well. They were going to have a hell of a job keeping the solar panels clean and so on. I’ve no idea what it was going to do to the machinery but presumably they’d taken all that into account. I don’t know whether they were waiting for it to settle, or whether they were working through their shutdown procedures, but it was about forty minutes before anyone appeared outside. They were a little bit weak and wobbly, but after seven months in space they would be, wouldn’t they? From their chatter, we gathered they’d set aside an hour for learning to walk properly again and satisfying their natural curiosity. They split up and began to explore. Obviously, they should get themselves organised as soon as possible, but I don’t think anyone could blame them for wanting to have a look around first, could they?’

  Receiving no response, she swept on. ‘We were so excited. We’d broken out the champagne and ...’

  ‘You drank alcohol on a jump?’

  ‘We certa
inly did,’ she said with enthusiasm. ‘After all, they’d overcome the Mars Curse.’

  ‘The Mars Curse?’

  ‘Yes. Anyway

  ‘What is the Mars Curse?’

  ‘Well, they don’t call it that, of course, in fact I don’t think anyone ever mentions it at all, but a significant number of missions to Mars have been unsuccessful. I always imagine hundreds of Martian teenagers crouching in foxholes and taking pot-shots at landing satellites, although that’s probably not very likely. I think nearly all the Russian attempts failed. NASA lost five out of their twenty missions, I think, which is a lot for them. The Beagle Two reached Mars and promptly vanished. The Schiaparelli failed on descent. The list goes on and on.’

  Commander Hay, possibly fearing that the list would indeed go on and on, said, ‘Shall we return to your drinking on the job?’

  ‘Of course, since you attach so much importance to it, but before you pay a disproportionate amount of attention to our flagrant breach of the rules, there were five of us and one bottle of champagne equalled about half an inch of alcohol each. We toasted the success of their mission and barely had we done that than the door to the lander opened and out they came.

  ‘We had the cameras on maximum zoom and were able to identify each of them as they emerged. Helpfully, they had their names emblazoned on their helmets, front and back so it was quite easy.

  There was Commander Koshnazar. As the Big Cheese, he made a short speech as he stepped out. Actually, we thought he rather went on a bit. Nowhere near as punchy as ‘One small step for man ...?’ Followed by Technicians Zelazny and Baxter, our old friend – as he was about to become – First Officer Lewis, and scientists Bradbury, Carpenter and Verhoeven.’

  Captain Farenden found he could restrain himself no longer. ‘But what was it like? To be there? To see it for yourself?’

  Director Pinkerton regarded him with approval. ‘Have you considered applying to the History Department? You’re asking all the right questions.’

  ‘Kindly refrain from attempting to poach my staff, Director.’

  ‘Sorry. Well, I know Mars is smaller than Earth, but actually, it seems much bigger. Apart from the occasional dust devil, nothing moves. And it’s silent. But mostly – and we were very conscious of this – it’s empty. We were the only life on an entire planet. It’s harsh. And unforgiving. Make just one mistake and Mars will kill you. But it’s also our hope for the future. Our second home. It’s ironic, don’t you think? I belong to an organisation that spends almost its entire life looking at the past and there we were, that day, looking at the future.’

  She seemed to drift off for a moment. Accustomed to the tendency of senior managers to experience these momentary lapses of concentration and experienced in dealing with them, Captain Farenden rattled his scratchpad. She came to with a jerk.

  ‘Well, everyone knows what happened next. There was a lot of excited chatter. Walking about. Pointing. Bending to pick up rocks. Pointing at Mount Sharp. Looking around. Trying to find Earth in the sky. Lovely, normal stuff. And then – literally out of the blue, although I suppose we should say pinky-brown on Mars – came the warning.’

  Commander Hay was caught up despite herself. ‘The oncoming solar flare.’

  Director Pinkerton nodded. ‘Ironic, wasn’t it? They’d barely been there an hour when this monster came ripping through space and then there were no more for the next two and a half years. Everyone knows the story, of course. The flare was picked up by the Radiation Assessment Satellites positioned around Mars. And it was a big one. Eighteen minutes out. They probably had nearer twenty-five minutes before it arrived, but eighteen was always the number they worked on. Everyone knew what to do. They stopped what they were doing, dropped everything and headed straight towards the underground shelter which would be their only protection. We were picking up their chatter. Their commander was counting heads and one was missing.’

  Commander Hay said bleakly, ‘And he was missing because ...?’

  There was rather a nasty pause and then, with the air of one marching to the dentist’s chair, Director Pinkerton said, ‘Because he ran slap into the side of our camouflaged pod and knocked himself out cold.’

  ‘And this was their First Officer? Lewis?’

  She nodded. ‘And now we had a problem, of course. If it wasn’t for the solar flare we could have left him to come round and return to base under his own steam. Or be found by his colleagues as soon as they realised he was missing. It wouldn’t have been a problem. But there was a solar flare on its way and if we left him where he was then he would die.’

  Commander Hay intervened. ‘Setting aside the unfortunate Lewis for one moment, were you safe?’

  ‘Well, we weren’t too sure about that, either. General space radiation – yes. Something as energetic as a solar flare ... not too sure. We hadn’t planned to stay much longer than an hour, anyway. Our thinking was that we would witness the landing and then jump away. Before the solar flare turned up. But now we couldn’t, because of First Officer Lewis. It’s a shame really, because we thought everything was going rather well right up until that moment.’

  ‘Well, you got that wrong,’ said Commander Hay with some satisfaction.

  ‘It was unfortunate, obviously.’

  ‘Unfortunate? You all but wrecked the mission not one hour after their landing.’

  ‘I do think that might be overstating the case a little. But anyway, having, to some extent, been implicated in his unfortunate accident, we felt we should do something, but we also knew we couldn’t hang around.’

  ‘Lost faith in your own urine, had you?’

  Director Pinkerton said carefully, ‘There was a possibility that, at that very moment, I wasn’t quite as confident as I had been. And Maxwell said she had no confidence in Peterson’s urine at all. And even if the flare didn’t damage us it probably wouldn’t do the pod a lot of good. And Dr Peterson said he hadn’t yet been granted the opportunity to pass on his genes to the next generation. For which, said Dr Maxwell, the next generation had asked her to pass on their grateful thanks.’

  ‘For God’s sake tell me this discussion didn’t take place over the unfortunate Mr Lewis’s unconscious body?’

  ‘A little bit before, actually, because we were just gearing ourselves up for the return jump when Chief Rice, who was monitoring the cameras, shouted, “Look out,” and there was a bit of a thud.’

  Silence fell in the room and then Commander Hay repeated, ‘A bit of a thud.’

  Director Pinkerton nodded.

  After a while, it became apparent that no further information was to be forthcoming.

  ‘Would it be safe to say that without your presence – your unauthorised presence – First Officer Lewis would not have been injured?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know that, obviously. Even if we hadn’t been there, he could have tripped. Or fallen. Or twisted an ankle.’

  ‘But he actually ran into your pod?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘I am saying that. He was unconscious, on the ground, and with only minutes before a deadly solar flare was due to hit.’

  ‘Actually, believe it or not, that wasn’t his greatest problem.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this ...’

  ‘Let us assume that I am not.’

  ‘Well, he was in some danger of drowning.’

  ‘On Mars.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The planet with no water.’

  ‘Well, that’s still open to massive speculation of course. In fact, after recent discoveries at the poles, current opinion has veered back to ...’

  ‘Never mind current opinion. Get back to the poor sod you’ve just assaulted with a blunt instrument – to whit – one pod.’

  ‘There’s no need to shout.’

  ‘There’s every need to shout. Not only did you make an unauthorised jump to a ... sensitive ... location, but your actions directly
interfered with ...’

  ‘With History, commander. Not time. You appear to be experiencing some difficulties in telling the difference.’ She sat forward eagerly. ‘Allow me to explain.’

  Commander Hay’s adjutant, a young man with a chestful of ribbons for conspicuous bravery, realising that some of the most dangerous moments of his career might be occurring before his eyes, took a deep breath and got casually to his feet, saying, ‘Shall I order some coffee?’

  It was only a small intervention but it was sufficient. Both protagonists hauled themselves back from the brink. The world breathed again.

  ‘How could he possibly be in danger of drowning?’

  ‘Believe it or not, this sort of thing has happened before. An astronaut nearly drowned once when his water dispenser malfunctioned and caused his helmet to fill up. We couldn’t take the chance of that happening again. We angled the cameras for a closer look and there was the unfortunate Mr Lewis stretched out on the ground with a nasty splat of blood on the inside of his visor. And still out cold, of course.’

  ‘Could his colleagues get to him in time?’

  ‘Probably not. Say five minutes had elapsed while they tried to raise him. Five minutes to get to him. Slightly longer to get back because they’d be carrying him. Too close for comfort. They just didn’t have enough time.’

  ‘So he was going to die.’

  ‘Well, that’s just it, commander. No one died on the first Mars mission. You know that. Yes, the second mission was a bit of a catastrophe but the first one was perfect.’

  ‘But he should have died.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure the word should applies to anyone’s dying. No one should die.’

  ‘Lewis should have.’

  ‘I don’t think you quite understand, Commander. It was vital the mission did not end in catastrophe or disaster. And it didn’t.’

  ‘I think, in this instance, our ideas of catastrophe and disaster might be entirely different.’

  ‘Commander, decades of planning and effort had gone into this manned mission to Mars. There had been unprecedented international cooperation. The Chinese, the Japanese, the Europeans, even the Americans had contributed in some way. A disaster to the mission would have been far more than a disaster to the mission. If you get my drift. There was no way we could allow that to happen.’