Voyage n-1

by Stephen Baxter

  Beyond the heat haze of the freeway, the downtown skyscrapers thrust out of the plain like a collection of launch gantries, isolated, crowded. There were water towers, big oval tanks, like the Martian fighting machines from The War of the Worlds. They passed roadside neon thermometers, which read high nineties or low hundreds, even so late in the day.

  Houston was going to be very different from the older cities she’d grown used to. Do I really want to live here?

  All the other candidates were talking about the death of Elvis, a few days earlier. She had nothing to say to that — in fact the endless, obsessive coverage bored her — and she was glad when they got to the hotel.

  The Nassau Bay Hilton was a tower block by the shore of Clear Lake, a few minutes from JSC. The receptionist’s voice contained a strong Texas twang, and there was a gift store in the lobby, with ten-gallon hats and cowboy boots. Her room, a single, was plush. It had a view of a marina, and a bright blue swimming pool, which she wouldn’t have time to use.

  In the morning she was up at five-thirty. Three-thirty, Berkeley time. The sun was already high.

  Her interview was directly after breakfast. And so there she was, with the time not yet seven-thirty, being driven in a limousine west along NASA Road One.

  The cow pasture to her right, along the north side of the interstate, had been fenced off. Blocky black-and-white buildings were scattered across the plain, each numbered with big black round figures, like toys from some giant nursery.

  The driver — a beefy, sweating man called Dave — took a right into a broad entrance. On the right was a granite sign saying “Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.” And on the left a Saturn V lay on its side, its stages separated and mounted on wheeled trailers.

  Dave grinned when he caught her gawping at the Saturn. “That’s just a test article,” he said. “The first one built. The story is that when it looked as if we might be canning Apollo altogether, there was talk of taking one of the flight articles and putting it on display here, or maybe at the Cape. A man-rated moon rocket as a lawn ornament.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Can you believe it?”

  It seemed to take forever for the limousine to drive past the grounded Saturn. The booster was aging. York could see corrosion around its big rivets, cobwebs on the big A-frames which supported it, and some of the fabric parts around the engine bells were stained with lichen. The Stars and Stripes painted on the flank of the fat second stage was washed out, the red of the stripes running down toward the ground.

  Beyond the Saturn there was a small rocket garden. York recognized a Redstone, the slim black-and-white pencil which had thrown the first Mercury capsules on their suborbital hops. The Redstone was upright, but held to the ground by wires, like Gulliver. And she saw a Space Shuttle, a wind-tunnel test article, a scale model of a ship which had never been built; it was an airplane shape, upright against the gleaming white of a big external fuel tank.

  The Shuttle’s body looked chunky, clumsy. But York was entranced by the curve of the wings, set against the crude cylinders of the throwaway rockets around it; the spaceplane looked elegant, a stranded relic of a lost future.

  She was checked into security, in Building 110, and given a photocopied map and directed toward Building 4. She set off on foot.

  The buildings were black-and-white blocks. Many of them were clustered around a kind of courtyard, where thick-bladed grass shone in the sunlight, bright green. There were cherry trees, and a duck pond with an attractive stone margin. But no ducks: Ben Priest had told her how they left too much mess, and had been chased away. We’re not here for ducks. There was a flat tropical heat, the air still, suffused by the chirp of crickets. It was hard to move around; she could feel the heat drain energy out of her.

  She tried to imagine working here.

  Bicycles leaned up against every building, and there were big sand-filled ashtrays by the doorways, with stubs sticking out of them.

  There was an air of calm. The blocky buildings didn’t have the feel of most government establishments. It was more like a university, she thought. In fact, Dave, her driver, had called it the “campus.”

  JSC had its own Martian water towers. There was an “antenna farm,” a fenced-off field of big white dishes, turned up like flowers. And, here and there, huge tanks of liquid nitrogen gleamed.

  Inside Building 4, the air-conditioning was ferocious; it must have been thirty degrees cooler than outside. The building was actually quite gloomy, even cramped; it had small ceiling and floor tiles, and the walls were painted a 1960s corporate yellow-brown. She felt her spirits dip a little. It was like an aging welfare office.

  She took the elevator. The interview was in the “astronaut library.”

  When she knocked, the door opened, and a man greeted her: tall, wire slim, with gray-blond hair and blue eyes. He wore jeans and a Ban-Lon shirt. He smiled at her easily and shook her hand.

  She recognized him. He was Joe Muldoon. A moonwalker was shaking her hand.

  It hit her suddenly, a change of perspective, in a surge. It really was the space center. There were astronauts there, for Christ’s sake. Veterans.

  She tried to look at Muldoon, but found it impossible to face him directly; her vision seemed to moisten up, and it was as if he was glistening, shining.

  But now I’m applying to become one of these people. My God. Will people look at me the same way? How the hell will I cope with that?

  Joe Muldoon guided her to her seat, a chair stuck in the middle of the room.

  There were hardly any books in the “library.” On the wall behind her chair was a row of photographs: portraits of dead astronauts, Russian and American. Jesus. Put me at my ease, why don’t you. There was a big TV running in the corner, the sound turned down low. It ran a continuous feed from the crew up in orbit in Skylab A; the split screen showed a shot of the Earth, taken from Skylab, and Mission Control ground track displays. Occasionally she heard the controlled murmur of the air-to-ground loop.

  The panel was seven people: seven white males behind a long oaken desk. Many of the faces were familiar to her from TV and newspaper coverage of the space program: astronauts, senior NASA science managers, administrators.

  And there at the center of the table — she recognized with a sinking heart — was Chuck Jones. He nodded at her, dark and squat, his graying black hair a fine bristle.

  Christ. Chuck Jones. She hadn’t seen him since Jorge Romero’s ghastly field trip in the San Gabriel Mountains, all those years ago. She wondered if Jones remembered her.

  Jones rapped on the table and called the group to order. “Thanks for coming in, Natalie. We’ve all seen your application, and it’s very impressive.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So we can skip all of the stuff you’ve covered before. Now we want you to tell us about your scientific studies, and how they are going to help us get to Mars. In your own time.”

  Suddenly, her mouth was dry as the sands of Jackass Flats. What a question. It was so loaded.

  Slowly, she began her answer.

  She summarized the main thrust of her work, the geological surveys based on Mariner data, and how she’d helped formulate a hypothesis that maybe Mars had once had surface water, in liquid form, and maybe that water was still there, under the oxidized soil. And how, if the first crew could find incontrovertible evidence of that water, it would all but assure the continuation of the exploration of Mars. Find water, and there will be lots more flights, guys. Seats for you all. But you need me to find the water.

  Chuck Jones was staring at her. She was sure he remembered her from that field trip.

  She tried to seem relaxed, to smile, to meet their eyes. All she got back were cold stares. But as she spoke about her work, she grew in confidence; some of her awe rubbed away. The men were just that: men. Even Joe Muldoon. And, looking at them that way, she became aware that three of them, at least, were discreetly checking her out, glancing at her chest, and following the line of her legs.


  She was asked follow-up questions. Then Jones asked what criteria she would use to select a Mars landing site. Another loaded question, but she was getting more confident. She smiled at the panel, from one end of the long table to the other.

  “My goal, obviously, will be a successful science program on the first mission,” she said. “And the scientific worth of a site will be a key criterion. But it’s also obvious that the first landing is going to be extremely difficult. So we must primarily choose a site which will enable the crew to land in safety.” She rattled through a brief checklist: the site ought to be on a smooth, unbroken plain, with no highlands nearby to interfere with the final landing approach, and the winds should be low, and the season should be chosen to minimize the prospect of dust storms, and so forth.

  “We need to get a scientist on Mars. But a dead scientist on Mars wouldn’t do anybody any good.”

  That actually got a smile. As well it might; it was a deliberate echo of Deke Slayton’s famous justification of his policy of keeping scientists off the early Apollo missions. It was all part of the message she was cumulating for them, in word, gesture, and subtext. I’m a scientist, and a good one, with very relevant experience. But I’m prepared to help you guys achieve your own dreams. More than that — you need me, in order to achieve those dreams.

  Now, tougher questions started to hit her.

  “Doctor York, would you submit to a two-year journey to Mars?”

  “I… Sure. I’d want a reasonable chance of success. But I would love to go, for scientific reasons. And I feel I could maybe articulate the experience better than—”

  “Is that a yes or a no, Doctor?”

  “Huh?”

  “I asked you a question. Would you take the trip to Mars?”

  “I guess so. Yes.”

  “Doctor York. Suppose I tell you that the chances of surviving the trip are one in two. Do you go?”

  “You can’t know that. The statistics are so uncertain, the analyses—”

  “Assume I know it. Do you go?”

  “One in two?” Tell the truth, Natalie. “Absolutely not. I might accept, say, one in twenty, if it could be demonstrated.”

  “One in ten?”

  “If it could be demonstrated.”

  “How are you going to balance your two careers, as an astronaut and a scientist? Won’t there be incompatibilities?”

  “Sure. But the opportunities are so great.” On Mars, you would only have to look around to make discoveries. You’d be Darwin in the Galapagos… “But I need to keep some momentum in my career. I’d be looking for some kind of split.”

  “What kind of split?”

  “Maybe one-third to one-half of my time should be spent on my own research.”

  Chuck Jones leaned forward. He had black eyes that seemed to peer right into her. “Dr. York. You aren’t married.”

  What the hell now? “No, I’m not.”

  “What is your view of the forthcoming National Women’s Conference?”

  “…What about it? I’m sorry, I don’t follow—”

  “You must know it’s coming here to Houston in November. I understand there’s going to be a parade through Houston — the First Lady, Billie Jean King… If you’re here then, working with NASA, will you be attending?”

  “Perhaps. I doubt it. I’m a little passive about such things, I’m afraid.”

  “Will you be supporting it — passively or not, Dr. York?”

  Are you one of these newfangled feminists? Jesus Christ. Do I have to answer this? She let her anger show in her voice. “I support the Equal Credit Act of 1974, and I’d like to see it enforced. I support full employment, flexible child care, other basic provisions. Hell, yes, I’ll support the conference, if you want to know.” She glared at them, challenging. And if that counts against me, to hell with you, you assholes.

  “Would you like to tell us about your relationship with Michael Conlig?”

  She felt a cold sweat break out across her palms. My God. It gets worse. It was just outrageous. For a half minute, she considered walking right out of there.

  Then, slowly, she gave them a brief, factual account of her on-off relationship with Mike.

  “And you’re together now?” Jones asked.

  She thought of bluffing through. What would be a better answer? Yes or no? She could probably get Mike to back her up later…

  Ah, the hell with it. “I don’t know, sir. It’s complicated.”

  Jones held her stare for a few seconds. Then he leaned back in his chair. “Okay, Doctor. Michael Conlig works for one of our main contractors, on the NERVA 2 project. As you know. You could well find yourself working together.”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you feel your complicated relationship would cause you any problems?”

  Her anger flared, and she let them see it. “No, I don’t. Frankly I resent the implication, sir. Mike is dedicated to his work. In fact he has tunnel vision about it. As I do about mine.”

  Jones’s eyebrows went up. “Is that the source of the complications?”

  Screw you. “We both have goals to pursue. We would both do our jobs, to the best of our ability, whether we worked together or not.” She glared around at the panel defiantly, as if daring them to ask more follow-ups.

  But that seemed to be an end of it. The next question was for more detail about water on Mars.

  When they were done, she felt a cold satisfaction.

  She had no idea whether she’d won through or not. There were too many factors beyond her control, including the culture and politics of NASA; too many things over which she, with all her qualifications and experience and persuasiveness, could exert not the slightest influence. But she felt, at least, that she’d done her best.

  She felt kind of soiled, though. Those damn questions about Mike. She wished she’d found some way of not answering.

  But the only choice had been, answer or quit right out. She’d chosen to answer. As the adrenaline rush faded, she felt as if she’d somehow let herself down. She’d made the first of many compromises she’d have to accept, she suspected, if she got into NASA, and she was to survive there.

  As she got up to leave, the moonwalker winked at her, long and slow.

  The response from NASA arrived — at last — just after Christmas.

  She stood in the hall of her Berkeley apartment, looking at the crisp white envelope, with its blue NASA logo.

  It was suddenly one hell of a moment in her life. A real branch, a fork in her destiny. One way lay the space program. Maybe even Mars. The other -

  Somehow she couldn’t visualize what might lie down the other track, what might follow if that letter, that slim, high-quality white envelope, turned out to contain a rejection.

  She put it down on her desk, unopened.

  She went to make coffee, to open her other mail. Somehow it didn’t seem right to open The Letter just like that.

  Mike was out at Santa Susana, buried in the latest test runs. York hadn’t even heard from him for a couple of weeks.

  His absences seemed to matter less and less to her. They’d never finished the conversation they’d started, that night in the L.A. motel. Christ, it was January. Nearly a year ago. She didn’t know where her life was going. York hadn’t even told Mike about her application to join the corps, her visit to Houston, her ordeal at the Air Force base. Ben Priest knew, of course, but she’d asked him not to mention it to Mike. Ben had been puzzled — in fact, she was a little puzzled at herself — but she’d insisted.

  She didn’t expect her application to succeed. Not really. But she wanted to see how far she could get. And in the meantime she wanted it to be something she achieved for herself, without the approval, or otherwise, of Mike or anyone else.

  She’d tell Mike all about it, when she failed.

  If she failed.

  And if she succeeded? How would she raise the subject with him then?

  Oh, hi, honey, it’s me. Oh, nothing speci
al. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. I miss you, too. Oh, by the way. I’ve had a complete career reversal, I’ve joined NASA, and I’m going to Mars, and my ovaries will be zapped by cosmic rays in outer space. Why didn’t I tell you about it? Oh, you know how it is. We’re both so busy busy busy!… Mike? Mike?…

  She opened the envelope.

  She’d failed. She wasn’t going to be selected. In the end, she’d failed the damn NASA physical.

  She groped her way to a chair, and sat down. Something melted inside her, softening and guttering and flowing away.

  It’s not going to happen. Maybe I’ll get to look at a couple of pounds of samples, under glass, in some sterile receiving laboratory in Houston. But someone else is going to walk on Mars, to run his hands through the rusty dirt. Not me.

  Now that it had happened, it was remarkable how much she cared. Looking back, she saw that the dream of Mars had been like a beam of ruby red laser light lancing through her life, linking everything she’d done. She’d clung to her cynicism about the space program: its culture, its impact on the society of her country. Well, hell, she did disapprove of it. The whole thing was crass and wrong and a waste of money, and there were much more effective ways of achieving the scientific goals without sending up ill-trained human beings, in overweight craft riddled with leaky plumbing…

  But as long as it existed, that precarious ladder off the Earth, she’d wanted to climb it. Yes! I admit it! I wanted this! I wanted it more than anything!

  She crumpled up the letter and threw it to the floor.

  She was glad Mike wasn’t there.

  Ben Priest phoned a couple of times, leaving messages on the answering machine. He was sympathetic.

  She didn’t return his calls.

  Jorge Romero called. He was boiling mad.

  “Do you realize that not one geologist made it through the final cut? Can you believe that? Jesus Christ. How can you go to Mars and not take a single geologist? I’m telling you, Natalie, I’m going to fight this.”

  York didn’t really want to hear it.

  It had been a week, and she’d been trying to put the whole thing behind her. Mostly she preferred her own company, but this was one time she’d have kind of liked someone to talk to. Even her mother might have served.