Mission: Tomorrow - eARC

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  Hand straps festooned the padded walls. The northern hemisphere of Earth appeared in a circular view port.

  “Hello?” Karie said.

  A holographic projector flickered on. A man, aged sixty, appeared. Athletically fit, virile streaks of gray. In reality the head of Nova Branson Corporation was pushing ninety and had been out of view for decades. Karie checked her temper. A little seeped out anyway.

  “Mr. Brennerman, you insisted on a face-to-face meeting.”

  “And here we are.”

  “Actually, here I am.”

  “Alas, my physical limitations preclude me from space travel. But I wanted you to enjoy my orbital firsthand, encourage a change in perspective.

  “I’ve been in space before.”

  “Perspective in the sense of attitude, Ms. Chen.”

  Karie tried to make her smile look natural. She was here for something only a man like Alistair Brennerman could afford to give. “Of course I’m grateful. Getting into space isn’t easy these days—not without a funded mission.”

  The projection wobbled. For a moment Brennerman’s voice fell out of sync with his lips. “Tell me why, exactly, you want to go to Mars.”

  “To fix what my brother helped break.”

  “A morbid contest of sibling rivalry?”

  “It has nothing to do with sibling rivalry. The Pilgrim 1 habitat is still on the surface, waiting for someone to unpack it. The crew of Pilgrim 2 is dead, but that shouldn’t invalidate the mission goal: a self-sustaining beachhead on Mars. Mr. Brennerman, America is squandering its potential by playing around in Earth orbit. Until the Chinese last year, no one had even stepped foot on the moon since 1972—eighty years, for God’s sake.”

  “Nova Branson is not America.”

  “It is, actually. Along with every other global corporation with roots in the United States. You run everything. I’m just asking you to invest in the pioneering spirit that used to define us. You can push the frontier.” She was talking too much. Worse, she sounded like a used-car salesman. Karie’s pitch lacked the sincerity she genuinely felt.

  She tried again: “Listen. After the Pilgrim disaster and congressional defunding, NASA mothballed Pilgrim 3 and 4. But they are viable spacecraft. You could get one at a fire-sale price and cut expenses further by reducing the crew.”

  “Are you quite sure you’d be up to the rigors, Ms. Chen, in light of your injury and, excuse me, your age?”

  “I’m perfectly fit for the mission.”

  “Of course. And Jonah insists on you. I think he’s star-struck by your celebrity. Hero of the Phoenix debacle.”

  “Jonah? I don’t understand.”

  The holo wobbled out of sync again. “You are not in the least bit impressed by my resort, are you?”

  Karie sighed. “It’s an impressive technological achievement.”

  “But?”

  “But it doesn’t accomplish anything.” Okay, Karie thought, stop talking. “Earth orbit used to be the frontier. You don’t even do any science here. We have to keep pushing outward.”

  “Yes, as I’ve often heard you say. I think you must wake each morning with the words already on your lips. Have you ever, for a moment even, considered you might be mistaken? Because you’re wrong about the frontier. This is the greatest business frontier in history.”

  “Not my field.”

  “Can you conceive of any circumstance under which you might modify your obvious disdain for Nova Branson and the profitable future of orbital recreation?”

  “I’m not disdainful. I’m impatient.” Karie had drifted too close to Brennerman’s holo. Her shoulder interrupted the projection, fracturing organized light. She looped her wrist into a hand strap, pulled back, and the holo resumed its integrity.

  “For a round-trip ticket to Mars,” Brennerman said, “will you be capable of recanting your impatience?”

  “Recanting how?”

  “Renounce your current and often-stated opinion about orbitals. Lend your unqualified endorsement of orbital recreation, Nova Branson in particular. Participate in a public campaign which will include interviews, public forums, ghost-written books, and so on.”

  Karie stared. “I thought not,” the holo said.

  “Mr. Brennerman—”

  “My son wishes to go to Mars. He wishes to go to Mars with the hero of the Phoenix. He admires you. Which suggests a lack of admiration for his own inheritance, since you and I are very much at odds. So this is my price for a trip to Mars. You vigorously and publicly embrace what I’ve accomplished, and intend to go on accomplishing, with Nova Branson. Do so and you may orbit the Red Planet as a tribute to your brother. That’s how you will put it. A tribute to your brother. And that will be the end of it. If the Chinese want Mars, let them have it.”

  Karie was quiet, then said, “You know what it is, Mr. Brennerman?”

  “Eh?”

  “This kind of wasteful development of Earth orbit. It’s like the prairie towns that sprang up after the frontier moved west. Those towns were mostly saloons and bordellos, places to get drunk and get laid while pretending you were in the midst of something wild. The difference between then and now is the wealth of the customers.”

  “Nova Branson has been in business a very long time, Ms. Chen. My grandfather started it, my father developed it, and I have been a loyal steward of the legacy. We did not succeed by indulging romantic notions such as your ‘pushing the frontier’ mantra.”

  “So you brought me up here just to slap me back down.”

  The Brennerman projection smiled. “I’ll tell Jonah you weren’t interested.”

  She worked the lecture circuit. People still paid to hear her talk about Phoenix. She had been in command. Mission: to rendezvous with a robotic vehicle that had successfully captured a small asteroid and established itself in lunar orbit. One of Phoenix’s fuel cells ruptured. The explosion crippled the ship and killed Karie’s pilot. Despite her shattered knee, Karie babied the spacecraft back to Earth, saving herself and the three scientists on board. Her knee never healed properly. NASA declared her unfit to fly, even as they praised her heroism. That was ten years ago. Pilgrim 2 should have been Karie’s mission. Instead they selected Danny, the public relations star with no flying experience, two fully functioning knees, and a popular following in the millions. Privately, Danny told Karie he was glad she was grounded. Watching her almost die on Phoenix had been unbearable. When he saw the hurt look on her face, he immediately took it back. “Hey, I didn’t mean it that way.” But it stung. Sibling rivalry, Alistair had suggested. But it wasn’t that simple.

  Now, during a Q & A session at Wyoming State University, an old guy in the second row stood up and the usher handed him the microphone. Karie pegged him right away. Leather jacket, cap with “US NAVY Ret.” blazoned across it: aging space buff. Mostly that’s what she got these days.

  “I have a comment and a question,” he said. “The comment is: We need NASA back. The real NASA!” Applause rippled through an audience who wouldn’t be there if they weren’t already in the same nostalgia camp. They always wanted to hear about Karie’s heroic save of the stranded Phoenix scientists. She complied, then switched to her message about the future of exploration. At that point she usually took a few jabs at Nova Branson, among others. Tonight she skipped the jabs. Karie had been thinking a lot since her return from the orbital resort.

  “And the question is,” the old space buff continued, “how do we get it back?”

  More applause. Karie’s anger surged—more at herself than anyone else. The applause wound down. She raised the microphone. “NASA isn’t coming back.” Microphone feedback whined through the hall. Karie winced, held the mic farther from her lips. “The agency that took us to the moon is dead. You should get over the idea that NASA can—or needs to—happen again. Because it won’t.” She paused and let them grumble. “And we don’t need it to come back. The future of manned space flight exists right now, the technology, the infrastructure.
The privatization of space flight is here right now. What our entrepreneurs lack is a vision without dollar signs.”

  She talked a while longer, departing from her usual lecture notes, but she had lost some of the audience. People began standing, gathering their coats. Later, when she stepped out into the evening air, Jonah Brennerman was waiting for her.

  “Mr. Brennerman.”

  “Can we talk?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I meant over dinner.”

  “I’m headed straight to the airport to catch the red-eye.”

  “Then let me drive you. You stood me up, you know.” He smiled.

  “On the orbital? After talking to your father there didn’t seem to be any point.”

  “Let me try to convince you otherwise. Please.”

  She hesitated then said, “The university provided a driver. I’ll have to tell her.”

  In the backseat of the limo, Jonah offered her a drink.

  “No, thanks.”

  “My father was pushing you.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “You understand, it’s about me. You represent a threat.”

  “A threat! He’s Alistair Brennerman. I can barely fill a lecture hall.”

  “That’s not the point. I’m in your camp. I believe we need to extend the frontier. Dad interprets that as almost traitorous. We’ve locked horns on this since I was a kid. Now he’s old and he wants to groom me to take over Nova Branson. The corporation means everything to him. Instead, I want to fly to Mars with you.”

  “I’m a bad influence.”

  Jonah laughed. “In his eyes, absolutely.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “This is the good part. Dad’s changed his mind, or I changed it for him, or I’m not even sure what.” Frowning, Jonah scratched his head. “To be honest, I’m a little baffled myself.”

  “Wait a minute. He’s agreed to fund the mission, his tribute mission?”

  “Yes, provided I can persuade you to his terms.”

  “Let me save you the trouble of trying: you can’t.”

  “Hear me out. He’s agreed to back off on the more extreme elements. No ghost-written paeans to orbital resorts, no public lectures recanting your position. We’re talking about a one-time public statement of support, a willingness to play nice with the press, and passive participation in a program of advertising revenue. And, Karie, he’s agreed to a landing, not just a bullshit tribute orbit.”

  Karie held back her elation. A Mars landing! A real chance at exploration. “I can live with those terms. But why is he doing this? I don’t get it.”

  “I pledged my loyalty to the status quo, promised when I took over I would adhere absolutely to Dad’s vision, without, as he put it, romantic deviations. Look, our relationship has always been rocky.” His face made an ugly grimace, an unintended glimpse of just how hard “rocky” had been. “Now time’s running out. He wants us to reconcile, he wants his legacy carried forward. We’re compromising around Mars.”

  “He didn’t strike me as the compromising type.”

  “Maybe in this case we’re both wrong about him.”

  “Maybe. Are you really willing to come back and spend the rest of your life pampering rich tourists?”

  “Of course not.”

  Karie gave him a skeptical look. “But Alistair believes you?”

  “He believed me after I signed a legal document binding me to the terms.” Jonah poured himself a scotch. “Of course, there’s no such thing as a contract that can’t be broken.”

  The driver spoke. “Coming into the airport now, sir.”

  “There’s something off about all this,” Karie said.

  “The point is,” Jonah said, “do you want to go to Mars or not?”

  Seventeen months later, at a prelaunch photo op, Karie turned to Jonah and said, “We look like NASCAR drivers.”

  “You look great,” Jonah said.

  Joining them were James Krueger and Treva Hilgar, NASA-trained astronauts and early defecters to Nova Branson. They wanted to fly. Krueger was six feet of lean muscle mass and smiling optimism. Hilgar was compact, emotionally self-contained, and fiercely competent. She wore a small gold cross around her neck. Karie was happy to have them along. All their flight suits were emblazoned with advertising patches. Especially annoying was the wearable GIF touting Nova Branson Orbital Resort, winking and shifting like Vegas casino signage.

  “Put on your smile,” Krueger said. “We’re going to Mars.”

  Later, riding the elevator up the gantry, Karie said, “The last few months, it’s like launching a circus, not an interplanetary mission.”

  “Apollo wasn’t about exploration, either.”

  “I know. It was about beating the Russians.”

  “But exploration was a byproduct of that competition. And this mission isn’t about the NASCAR suits or your endorsement. So cheer up.”

  Jonah laughed. “I can’t believe you two are even debating about something that’s already a done deal. Enjoy yourselves, for God’s sake.”

  Treva Hilgar, as always, kept her thoughts to herself and watched the booster slip by.

  Mars rolled out beneath them. After seven months in space, it was time. Karie opened the hatch between the main body of Pilgrim 3 and the landing module attached to its belly. “Go ahead, Jonah,” she said.

  Smiling, bearded, excited, Jonah moved toward the hatch. They had really done it. In a few hours they would be examining the Pilgrim 1 habitat, reporting on its readiness for future missions to occupy. If there ever were any future missions. Karie wished what they were doing felt more like a beginning and less like a swan song—or, worse, a tribute.

  She followed Jonah into the LM. Krueger had already begun the power-up procedures. Treva would remain in orbit.

  “Here we go, huh?” Jonah said.

  “Here we go.”

  They were all grinning like kids.

  Karie separated the LM from the main body of Pilgrim 3. This is where trouble had struck her brother’s mission. Pilgrim 2’s separation maneuver had failed, trapping the entire crew in a landing module that couldn’t land. Pilgrim 3’s separation was flawless. A short burn took them to the edge of the atmosphere. Their speed increased exponentially. Seven miles up, the supersonic chute deployed. Karie and Jim Krueger watched their instruments. A mile from touchdown, the chute separated and the retro rockets fired. Then it began to go wrong. The retros fired too hot, sapping fuel reserves. Still thousands of feet above the surface, the LM doggedly hovered.

  “Damn it,” Karie said. “Switch me to full manual.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Seconds ticked by, then minutes.

  “Jim?”

  “Problem. Hold on.”

  Karie watched the fuel gauges drop. They were already depleted below what was necessary to achieve orbit and rendezvous. Being marooned a given, soon they wouldn’t be able to land at all.

  “Jim, come on.”

  “There. The damn thing wouldn’t let go.”

  Karie took them down, radically angling the descent, going for a hard landing while she could still control it. But it was too late. Sixty feet above the surface the fuel gauges flashed red, the engines quit, and they dropped like a stone.

  “Brace!”

  The desert plain came up like a wall and swatted them.

  Karie dragged Jonah from the wreckage. Her knee collapsed and she fell over, cursing. The landing module loomed against the butterscotch sky, a mangle of abstract junk. Krueger’s severed arm hung from a gash in the bulkhead. There was no need to pull him out. Adrenalin, fear and pain routed Karie’s rational response. Gasping, she fumbled at her helmet. Then made herself stop. The readouts on her sleeve display indicated all was in order. She bore down, forcing calm, taking deep, slow breaths, then put her attention on Jonah. Behind his faceplate his eyes fluttered. Blood crept from his hairline.

  “Jonah.”

  He groaned.

  She
shook him. “Jonah, can you stand?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re going to stand.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be sorry, just stand up. If I can do it, you can do it.”

  They both stood up, leaning on each other. A wave of dizziness swelled through Karie. She swayed, almost fainted, but held on. The Pilgrim 1 habitat was a mile away. Packed inside was everything they needed to survive—if they could reach it.

  Except for the lighter gravity, Karie would never have made it. By the time they came upon the habitat, her knee was screaming and her body was drenched in sweat. Jonah, who had recovered quickly, all but carried her the last hundred yards. The habitat was roughly the size of a shipping container. They passed through the airlock, initiated life support. Kari stripped off her helmet and gloves. She powered up the communications rig and sent a message to Pilgrim 3. Treva did not reply. She tried again. Still no response.

  “What’s wrong with that thing?” Jonah said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does Treva even know we crashed?”

  “She tracked our descent. She knows.”

  Karie slipped the headphones on and tried again.

  “Anything?”

  “Quiet.”

  Karie thought she heard something—a voice, so faint and submerged in static she couldn’t be sure it was real. She adjusted the radio, fine tuning, but the voice was gone.

  “What?” Jonah said.

  “I thought I heard a voice.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not even sure it was a voice.”

  “Let me.” Jonah took the headphones and began broadcasting, listening intently for a reply, broadcasting again. Then his expression changed. He closed his eyes, appearing almost in pain as he listened. After a while, looking disappointed, he removed the headphones. “I thought I heard something.”

  For the next hour they traded off on the radio, trying to contact both Treva in orbit and Mission Operations back on Earth, sometimes with the headphones on, sometimes allowing the wash of hopeless static to pour out of the speakers.