by John Read
Now I’d seen enough; I pointed at the holovision then pressed my hands together. The HV obeyed my gesture and the screen went blank.
“Leeth, did I hear that you and Maranda are back together?” I said, referring the COTS shuttle agent who’d welcomed us in Mars’s orbit.
“Yeah mate, we actually think it’s going to stick this time; we even talked about getting engaged.”
“Well congrats, Leeth.”
My watch buzzed for a text: Pickup at the spaceport.
“Excuse me,” I said, getting up, and tapping my watch to summon my vehicle. “Apparently, I have someone to pick up from the spaceport.”
“We’re not in a launch window,” Amelia said.
“I know,” I said. “Excuse me.”
“We’ll come with you,” Kevin said.
“Thanks for the offer,” I said, patting him on the back, “but I’ll meet up with you tonight.”
I left the club, taking the tram to the surface. My SUV pulled up to the curb as I approached. I still couldn’t figure out who sent these texts summoning folks to the spaceport. It also occurred to me that since Mars had a functioning auto-car system, why couldn’t they drive themselves from the spaceport? Tradition, I guessed.
Workers eyed me as I entered the terminal. The last time I was in this part of the spaceport, Avro and I drove a stolen defense force Jeep through a window. They were putting the final touches on the structure’s repair.
A window at the gate provided a panoramic view, and sitting on the tarmac was the most beautiful spacecraft I’d even seen. The underside sported a black heat shield like the hull of a boat. A metallic cabin covered with oval windows reflected the red Martian landscape. The stern housed an array of xenon engines, the type requiring a nuclear reactor as a power source.
The logo on the spacecraft’s side read what was the most boring name for an organization I’d ever heard: “Space Corp”.
“Space Corp?” I said. “What the hell is Space Corp?”
I expected to hear footsteps from the jet-way, as I approached the craft, but all was quiet. Lights around the hatch blinked green. Pressures had equalized on both sides, and the hatch opened with my approach like a door in a horror movie.
I peered into the spaceliner through the open hatch, stepped inside, and looked around. The spacecraft was empty. A chill ran down my spine, as I stepped forward over the threshold. Maybe the occupant was asleep?
The interior was decorated in tan suede that covered the walls, floor, and the doors. A panoramic window granted extensive views of the spaceport. I walked toward the bow of the ship. Suede VR crèches were adorned with augmented reality visors and resistance gloves. I rested my hand on the back of the captain’s chair.
The Martian landscape suddenly vanished, replaced by the image of a man I remembered from a long time ago.
“Norman?” I said. “Norman Kim!”
“John Orville,” he said, forcing a smile. Norman was the flight director during my last day in mission control, the day when the CTS Bradbury destroyed California. Norman was pulled, paralyzed, from the rubble of the Watney building.
“You’re okay!” I blurted. “How are you?”
“Stem cells work wonders, John,” he said.
“But …” I said, “you are …”
“On Earth, yes, I am. Norman is watching with a delay. I am his avatar. Please treat me as if I were him,” he said, and I nodded. “This Turing computer is programed to respond as I would, and I kind of like being in two places at once.”
My mind raced to interpret what was happening: What was a Turing of an ex- NASA employee doing on a corporate luxury spacecraft? NASA had been defunded after the CTS Bradbury impacted California, killing over a million people. What the hell was going on?
“I’ve been watching the news, John. You’ve become quite the celebrity. Congratulations, Mr. President.”
“I really wish people would stop saying that.”
“But you’ve got to admit, it has a nice ring to it,” Norman said.
I snickered. “I’ll give you that.”
“You’re probably wondering why I’m here, why this spacecraft is here,” Norman said.
“The thought had crossed my mind. What is Space Corp?”
“There is no Space Corp. NASA has been reactivated,” Norman said.
I sat on the captain’s crèche, leaning toward the screen. If NASA had been reactivated, either they’d been forgiven for the accident, which was unlikely, or …
“CTS Bradbury’s crash was not an accident,” said the Turing. “The mission was sabotaged to prevent the construction of the orbital colony.”
I was speechless. The CTS Bradbury disaster killed my wife and son. Thousands of people went missing after the ship crashed into California, triggering air-shocks, earthquakes, and tsunamis, as far away as Australia.
“I have something to show you. It’s confidential,” Norman’s avatar said. “Only a few people know this exists.”
“Why keep it a secret?” I said.
“You’ll see …” Norman’s avatar disappeared, replaced by a video feed from several vantage points.
Walter Barrington stood on the roof of his 290 story office tower. A tower he had financed in his younger years for the sole purpose of impressing his fellow New York City socialites. He looked down at One World Trade Center. The old building still glistened, reflecting various diamond shapes from the taller, duller buildings to its left and right.
He paced along the ridge, a knee-high railing separating him from the kilometer-high drop to the street below. Maintenance drones dodged his feet and a cool midnight wind swept over the ledge, tickling his greying beard. He stepped onto the railing, balancing with outstretched arms. Tears traced reflective patterns down his face as he shuffled his feet closer to the edge. He looked to the horizon, and for the first time in years, appeared truly alive as lines softened in his face and his eyes brightened.
Norman spoke above the recording: “That morning, Walter attended his last board meeting, a meeting that would officially dissolve Red Planet Mining Corp., transferring all remaining assets to World Minerals Incorporated. A conglomerate owned by the same group of investors. The transaction did a lot of things; ensuring that any losses incurred by Red Planet during the last two years would be written off the books, and that his family would be taken care of, no matter what happened to him, or the company.”
The video feed showed that Barrington’s balance was precarious, but he made no effort to readjust his footing.
“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” the old man confessed into his watch. “For heaven’s sake, the CTS Bradbury was unmanned!”
This was a man who still couldn’t grasp that it was all his fault.
“The probability of hitting Earth was infinitesimal!” he yelled into the wind.
But it did. And hundreds of thousands of people died.
Walter took a breath as if readying himself to dive into a pool. Despite bouncing off an inclined window on the 280th floor, he was conscious until he hit the ground.
The video feed ended and Norman’s image returned.
My breathing began to accelerate, and I put my hands up to my face.
“World Minerals Incorporated orchestrated the conspiracy,” Norman said. “The ‘debris’ that caused the disaster was a drone.”
“A drone!” I repeated. “Why haven’t we heard about this? Why hasn’t this been in the news?”
“Things are complicated, John. World Minerals Inc. was highly integrated with foreign governments, not all of them friendly. The official story, according to the US government, anyway, is still that the disaster was an accident, but that the investigation is ongoing.”
“So, if I tell anyone, I’ll come off as a nut job. Great.”
“Unofficially, NASA has been pardoned of all faults in the Bradbury disaster, and has been quietly reactivated. There are not many of us old timers left, but we’ve been tasked with rebuilding t
he organization. World Mineral Corp.’s assets are now ours. Well, the space-based ones, anyway.”
“Was H3 involved with the Bradbury’s destruction?” I asked, feeling sick to my stomach.
“As far as we can tell, no, not directly, though he would have profited from it indirectly. Walter Barrington’s confession leaves many things unexplained. We believe H3 might be able to fill in the gaps. We’re forming a special task force to find H3, and bring him back.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Remember that computerized selection process NASA used to screen candidates?”
“Yes, of course.”
“We’re looking for people with deep space experience, NASA background, and for this particular mission, no close family. The computer put your name at the top of the list. In fact, based on our criteria, you’re one of the only people who made the list at all.”
“I see,” I said. “And how, exactly, am I supposed to help?”
“Finding H3 could prove challenging in and of itself, and once we do find him, we’ll need your help to bring him in.”
“Bring him in?” I said. “We should kill him!”
“We're NASA, John, not vigilantes. Knowing H3, he's probably well-guarded. It could take military force to get close to him, and we’ve prepared for that contingency.
“We’re asking you to come back to Earth, and we'll go from there.”
Earth. I thought. Oh my God, I’m going home. My mind filled with images of my wife and son, of waterfalls, forests, and open sky, the freedom to run in one direction for more than a kilometer without hitting a flexi-glass wall. But by the sound of it, there wouldn’t be much time for sightseeing, and I’d probably be sent straight back to space.
“Alone?” I asked.
“No, we'd like you to assemble a team of two, maybe three, others from Mars, people accustomed to long duration spaceflight. People you trust. This mission could take months, or even years ...”
“You’re excluding people from Earth,” I added.
Norman’s Turing paused, almost long enough to confer with the real Norman. Finally, the projection spoke. “As I said, H3’s network runs deep in the government and private sector. You are correct; we want to keep the pool of people who know about this mission as small as possible.”
“I can name a few people who might be in on this adventure.”
Norman smiled. “I thought you might.”
“When do we leave?” I asked. “The next launch window isn’t until …”
“This spacecraft has nuclear ion propulsion. Launch windows are irrelevant. You’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
7
Marie dry heaved into consciousness. Her head throbbed and her stomach wrenched. She tried to get up, but something held her down.
“Hey,” came a voice belonging to a woman perhaps twenty years older than Marie. “Are you awake?” The voice had a Greek accent.
“Diana? Is that you? Where are we? What happened?” Marie’s throat was dry. She coughed; her throat felt like sandpaper.
“Apparently, they gave you some sort of tranquilizer. They said you didn’t want to leave, and tried to attack Hoshi!”
“Well that’s mostly true,” Marie said. “It’s a long story.”
“The crew asked me to keep an eye on you.” Diana sounded angry.
“Where are we?” Marie asked.
“Seriously? On the spaceship.”
“Assholes!” Marie yelled, and then started coughing.
Diana frowned and looked away, as though unsure if Marie was someone with whom she’d want to associate anymore.
Marie tried to press her hand to mouth, but something prevented her fingers from reaching her face. She explored her head’s enclosure with gloved hands, realizing she wore some sort of fishbowl helmet. Marie looked at the other woman; a non-reflective dome, like that of a comic book spaceman, covered her head. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of people in this compartment, all reclined in dentist chair-like crèches. Above her, several more hung in a web of scaffolding.
Marie leaned back and coughed again. “Where’s Branson?”
“Sam called me when he woke up this morning,” Diana said. “We couldn’t find you; not even my watch knew where you were! How could you leave your own son?”
“I …” Marie said, her mind still spinning from being unconscious.
“He’s with the other kids, where he belongs,” Diana answered. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry,” Marie said. “One of the technicians led me to believe I could search for my husband.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and Marie watched as Diana’s anger faded.
The crèche in front of her was within arm’s reach. Marie felt like a slave traveling to the new world in a crate. Fear grew and subsided in waves, her heart beating itself to exhaustion, like an obese man trying to run.
The spacecraft began to rumble. “Launch sequencer is go for auto sequence start,” a male voice said from deep within the vessel.
“Hold on,” Diana said. Marie looked to her left. A window revealed little information other than that they were still underground.
“Main engine start,” said the ship. “Three, two, one.” Marie reached for something to hold onto, but grasped at nothing, so she made fists and held them close against her sides. The rumbling intensified. The window filled with fire, and confused flames danced along the silo’s walls in figure eights. Her helmet rattled with earthquake intensity. A reverberation, like a fog-horn, resonated through her body, the noise so intense it tugged on her insides, as if trying to pry the vertebrae from her ribs. Marie scrunched up her face and flexed her abs, as if it would ease the pain.
“Liftoff,” said the ship, as Marie’s body sank into its crèche like a bowling ball settling into a mattress. They were accelerating. Blinding flames illuminated the silo and Marie watched red hot support beams drop beneath them. In a matter of moments, they were outside where the air swirled grey, like the cyclone in The Wizard of Oz. Marie felt tears wet her cheeks. She was crying. Any chance of finding John was slipping away along with Earth.
Breathing became difficult as the acceleration intensified. Marie gasped, swallowing tiny breaths of air. She tried to scream, but lacked the strength to force enough air past her vocal chords. She tried to breathe, to fill her lunges, but an invisible weight pressed on her chest, forcing her to release what little air she had. It reminded her of being in labor.
“Max Q,” said the ship, indicating the aerodynamic stress had peeked, and the most dangerous part of the launch was behind them.
A minute later, sunlight poured warmth onto Marie’s face. She squinted and turned away. Light rays from a dozen windows traced across dull grey spacesuits; it was like a scene from Cirque du Soleil.
The spaceship jolted as the sky outside turned from grey to black.
“Stage separation,” said the ship.
“Take deep breaths while you can,” Diana said. “You missed the briefing; you’ll want to breathe between stages, like this.” She took a breath as if diving into a pool, released it, and took another.”
Marie forced herself to do the same, watching as spent rocket boosters and fuel tanks plummeted into cloud covered skies. She breathed, submitting to her fear like a child with monstrous shadows on the bedroom wall. Marie concentrated on the crèche in front of her and waited for the acceleration to return.
The spacecraft’s second stage ignited. G forces, even greater than before, returned. When Marie was in labor the contractions were minutes apart. She wasn’t sure which was worse, but she’d rather be in labor than this. She closed her eyes, trying to offset the nausea.
Inside the helmet, she twisted her heavy head back toward the window. Earth appeared white, covered in clouds. She could see the horizon, a dull brown hue accented with patches of grey, smoke from 1,000 fires.
The spacecraft jerked. Crèches rattled and bodies lurched. “Stage separation,” s
aid the ship.
The G forces subsided and Marie cranked her head to the right, looking at Diana. “How many stages are there?” she said, words coming out as a groan. She took a deep breath.
Diana took a breath. “Four …” another breath, “I think.”
The next stage ignited and they were pushed back into their crèches again.
After twenty minutes of sickening acceleration, the spaceship’s engines stopped, and everything went quiet.
Marie felt as if she had been pulled from the trunk of a car and thrown off a bridge, experiencing that moment in freefall before you hit the water. But the water never came. She looked down toward her feet and felt upside down. She looked up, and felt as if she was spinning.
Earth fell away slowly, like a balloon dropped from a balcony. Marie wanted to throw up, but there was nothing in her stomach. She let her hands drift up in front of her face, studying them, letting the gravity of the situation sink in.
Her husband, John, had dreamed of going to space, but chose a career that kept him grounded and behind a desk. She should have insisted John pursue his dreams. Now he’ll never go into space, Marie thought. Tears pooled around her eyes, unable to run down her cheeks for lack of gravity. She tried to wipe them away, but her hand clinked against invisible glass.
Diana reached over, putting a hand on Marie’s shoulder. Other people in the ship talked amongst themselves, creating a moderate din, sticking out their arms and legs to watch them float.
“Take a sip of water,” Diana said. “A button, on your neck.”
Marie found the button, and pressed it with two fingers as if checking her pulse. A stream of cool water shot towards her mouth and she let it soak her dry throat.
“There’s another switch for air, in case you need to evaporate any water inside the helmet.”
Marie tapped the other side and a blast of air swirled inside the enclosure, drying her tears.