by Ben Bova
The tension was palpable. Sixteen men and women sitting at their consoles, screens flickering, not a word spoken. In the visitors’ gallery, above and behind them, sat four dozen NASA administrators, White House executives, senators and congresspersons, and a quartet of news media types.
On the ceiling-high wall screens an animated CGI image showed the Fermi habitation module descending toward the red Martian desert, tail first, its rocket thrusters firing fitfully.
Even José Aragon, NASA’s official “voice of Fermi,” was silent, nervously fingering his generous black moustache as the descent continued. A camera from the module showed the rock-strewn rust-red sand getting closer, closer.
Then the automated descent monitor intoned, “Five thousand meters. Trajectory nominal.”
One of the mission controllers glanced up from her console for a brief peek at the wall screens. Before the chief of the monitoring crew could move or even speak, she focused on her console again.
“Four thousand meters. Trajectory nominal.”
Bart Saxby, NASA’s chief administrator and a former astronaut, wiped perspiration from his upper lip.
It all depends on this, he told himself. If Fermi doesn’t land safely, the whole mission is ruined. The crew’s going to live in that hab module for six months, once they reach Mars. No hab module, no humans on Mars.
“Two thousand meters. Final trajectory correction burn.”
The view of the Martian surface from the ship-mounted camera blurred momentarily as the thrusters fired.
Saxby wished he were there, aboard the Fermi, personally guiding her down to the ground himself instead of the autopilot. Look at all those damned stones, he said to himself. It’s like a rock garden down there.
He thought about Neil Armstrong piloting the Eagle to the first manned landing on the Moon. The bird was descending into a rockpile, so Armstrong took over manual control, jinked the lander over a few dozen feet, and put her down safe and sound.
Everybody knows Armstrong’s first words from the surface of the Moon: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
But Saxby knew Houston’s reply. “We copy you down, Eagle. You got a bunch of guys turning blue down here.”
“One thousand meters . . . five hundred meters . . .”
The frozen sands of Mars were rushing up now. Saxby clenched his fists so hard his fingernails cut into his palms painfully.
“Touchdown,” said the loudspeakers.
The whoop of relieved happiness was more heartfelt than any football crowd’s.
The animation screen showed the Fermi module standing on the Martian surface, three stout landing legs supporting it. The camera on the module’s outer skin showed plenty of rocks, but none of them big enough to upset the lander.
Everybody was jumping and shouting. Down on the floor of the control center the chief of the monitoring team was handing out cigars, even to the women. Saxby sat silently, unmoving in the midst of the uproar, his eyes misting, rubbing away the lump that he felt in his chest.
Fermi’s made it, he thought gratefully. Now we can send the human team and find where those microbes are hiding.
8 November 2034
Earth Departure Minus Five Months
20:00 Universal Time
The White House
President Harper never liked wearing a tuxedo; he felt much happier in a sweatshirt and dungarees. But Washington’s inexorable social protocol demanded formal dinner wear so often that he had long ago surrendered to the inevitability of wearing “the uniform.”
This evening he was to preside over a cocktail party in the White House’s Blue Room in honor of the Russian ambassador’s sixtieth birthday. The party’s real purpose was to show the news media and the world that Russia and the United States were closer than they had been in decades. And the keystone to this newfound amity was the Mars project.
While there had been powerful opposition in Congress to revitalizing America’s space program, even the narrowest minded politicians couldn’t ignore that the Chinese rover had found powerful evidence that the chemicals of life existed on Mars. Washington politics simply wouldn’t allow this historic discovery to belong only to China. Harper had put every ounce of the White House’s prestige and power into the mission to Mars. The votes in Congress had been close, but one of the telling factors in favor of Mars was the obvious benefits of partnership with Russia—instead of distrust and tensions.
The Cold War had been over for fifty years and if it took organic chemicals on Mars and the possibility of the discovery of life beyond Earth being credited to China to bring the two world powers closer together, then so be it, thought the president.
Of course, Harper had offered a pro-forma invitation to the Chinese government to join the U.S. and its partners in the manned Mars mission. Beijing had refused, pointing out that China had its own plans for exploring Mars.
At the moment, Harper was sitting upstairs in the sumptuous Yellow Oval Room, a slim-stemmed martini glass in one hand. Sitting on the delicately ornate Louis XIV chair opposite him was Valeri Zworykin, head of Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency.
“I’m glad you had the chance to come early,” said Harper, absently tugging at his tight collar with one finger.
“It was good of you to invite me,” Zworykin replied diplomatically, in a deep bass voice.
No one else was in the room; this was a strictly private meeting. Zworykin was built like a scarecrow: tall but very thin, all long legs and skinny arms. Harper was more like a hedgehog, short, thick, stubby limbs. Zworykin’s hair was dark and long, tickling his collar; flecks of gray peppered it. Harper was silver-gray, his hair luxuriantly thick and carefully brushed back off his high forehead.
Raising his snifter of vodka slightly, Zworykin said, “I congratulate you on the safe landing of the Fermi module.”
Harper smiled warmly. “Thanks, but the real congratulations should go to all the men and women who made the mission a success.”
“Indeed.”
“And to your nuclear rocket. It worked flawlessly.”
Shrugging nonchalantly, Zworykin said, “A few dozen engineers won’t be sent to Siberia, after all.”
Harper felt a pulse of alarm, then he realized that the Russian was joking. “Your launch went well, I’m told.”
Zworykin closed his eyes briefly, his version of a nod. “Extremely well. The propulsion module is safely in orbit, waiting to be mated with the other components of the Arrow.”
“Good,” said Harper. “Good.”
The technical people’s insistence on using nuclear rockets had given Harper the opportunity to create warmer relations between the United States and the Russian Federation. Seventy years ago the U.S. and the old Soviet Union had brought the world to the edge of nuclear Armageddon. Even after the USSR was dissolved and the Cold War officially ended, relations between the two giant nations remained tense, frosty.
It was Harper’s administration that realized the Mars program could create a bridge of cooperation and even trust between them—thanks to the Chinese.
Trying to build and launch a nuclear rocket in the U.S. was political suicide. The anti-nuke lobby was too strong, too vociferous, and Congress would knuckle under to their obstinate “no nukes” demand.
But in Russia, the anti-nuclear movement faced a government that either ignored or destroyed any opposition. Over the years, scores of Russian satellites had been powered by nuclear electricity generating systems. Although there were protests against these nuclear power systems in the United States and elsewhere, there were none inside Russia.
Building a nuclear rocket took advantage of decades of Russian experience. And there would be no demonstrators at the Plesetsk cosmodrome when the nuclear propulsion system was launched.
So serious talks began between Russian and American scientists and politicians at the very outset of the Mars program. The scientists had always gotten along well together. This time, even the poli
ticians managed to find common ground.
The price was negligible, Harper thought. The U.S. paid most of the cost of developing the nuclear propulsion system. And one Russian scientist was included among the team making the journey to Mars.
With a genuine smile, President Harper raised his stemmed martini glass and toasted, “To a successful Mars mission.”
“To Mars,” Zworykin agreed.
Once they had drained their glasses, Harper put on a resigned face and said, “I suppose we should get ourselves downstairs and join the others.”
Zworykin sighed dramatically. “Yes. It wouldn’t be right to let the ambassador celebrate his birthday without us.”
They got to their feet, the Russian towering over the American president.
Harper gestured toward the door, but Zworykin hesitated.
“May I ask a favor?”
With a mischievous grin, Harper replied, “You can ask.”
Looking uncomfortable, Zworykin said, “My daughter is a fan of some musical group called Angels of Destruction.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Apparently they are quite popular among the young. My daughter is fourteen.”
“Oh.”
“They are giving a concert tomorrow evening in the baseball park. It seems there are no more tickets available.”
President Harper pursed his lips. “I think we ought to be able to get her a ticket.”
“Three tickets? I won’t let her go without some security to protect her.”
“Three tickets,” said the President. “I’ll see to it.”
“Thank you very much. She is my only child, you know, and—”
“Think nothing of it,” Harper said, gesturing him toward the door. “I have three kids. They were all teenagers once. I wouldn’t go through that again for the world!”
January 4, 2035
Earth Departure Minus Three Months
14:00 Universal Time
Clear Lake, Texas
McGillicudy’s Pool Salon and Games Arcade was less than a half-hour drive from the main gate of Johnson Space Center. It was a strange place for a meeting of the team of scientists and astronauts who were to make the voyage to Mars.
Benson Benson took his responsibility as command pilot very seriously—so seriously that he had called this furtive meeting of the flight team in this unlikely place. No photographers, no news hounds—not even Treadway—and no NASA suits. Just the eight men and women who would be spending the next two years living together.
One by one they came in, looking puzzled, even suspicious as they stepped into the nearly empty poolroom. At ten in the morning, McGillicuddy’s was almost devoid of customers: just a couple of truck drivers clacking balls across one of the pool tables, a lone pimpled teenager intently working one of the pinging digital game consoles, and three fairly disreputable-looking regulars drinking morosely at the bar.
Benson had come early enough to push a couple of tables in the restaurant area together, so that all eight of them could sit together.
Catherine Clermont arrived first, looking as if she had just stepped off the pages of a sophisticated magazine—as usual. The French geologist had an impeccable sense of style. She was petite, fine-boned. Her face looked almost ordinary until she began to speak: then it took on an animation and liveliness that sparkled.
She stood at the entrance, blinking at the unfamiliar surroundings, until she spotted Benson standing among the tables. With a slightly bemused smile, she headed swiftly toward him.
“Bee, am I the first?” she asked as she approached, her French accent barely noticeable.
“By a hair,” Benson said, pointing toward the door. Virginia Gonzalez, their communications specialist, pushed the door open and came striding toward them. Tall and slim as a fashion model, as she passed the bar even the bleary-eyed regulars turned on their stools to stare at her.
Hiram McPherson, the team’s other geologist came next, followed by Amanda Lynn, the biologist. A thickset African American, Amanda scowled at the barflies almost belligerently.
“Do you want something to drink?” Bee asked them as they sat along the table. “Or to eat?”
McPherson, tall, rangy, sporting a thick dark beard, grinned wryly. “Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch.”
Benson nodded. “The others should be here in a few minutes.”
Taki Nomura, their medical doctor, was next, with Mikhail Prokhorov, the meteorologist, right behind her. They made an unlikely pair: Taki was short, stocky, her round face almost always smiling pleasantly; Prokhorov was not much taller, but gave the impression of size and strength even though his normal expression was dour, downcast.
“That’s all of us,” said Gonzalez, “except for Ted.”
Benson nodded tightly. “We’ll give him another couple of minutes.”
“Not like Ted to be late,” McPherson noted.
“He’ll be here,” Benson said, with a certainty that he did not really feel.
Connover’s ticked that he wasn’t named command pilot, he thought. Is he going to be a soreheaded prima dona? We can’t have that. We just can’t.
At that moment, the door swung open again and Ted Connover stepped in, took a swift look around, then walked jauntily toward them. He looks unhappy, Benson thought. But at least he came.
“The gang’s all here,” Connover said as he approched the rest of them, pulled out a chair and swung it around backwards. Then he squatted on it, resting his forearms on the chair’s back.
“The gang is all here,” Benson echoed, gratefully.
Still standing while all the others were seated, he began, “I know this is a kind of strange place to have a meeting—”
“We can shoot some pool afterward,” chimed McPherson.
“Put time to good use,” Prokhorov suggested. “Study Newton’s laws of motion.”
Gonzalez giggled, “A body in motion stays in motion . . .”
“Until acted upon by an outside force,” said Amanda Lynn. “Basic physics.”
“Physics isn’t the subject of this meeting,” Benson said. He tried to make it light, he didn’t want to sound like a taskmaster.
“Then what is?” Connover challenged.
Benson hesitated a moment. Then, “This is going to sound corny, I know, but I thought we ought to get together without anyone looking over our shoulders—”
“Except for them,” said Catherine Clermont, pointing a lacquered fingernail at the barflies.
“They’re not paying any attention to us,” Benson said. But he lowered his voice a notch to say it.
“They could be spies,” Prokhorov muttered. “Secret agents.”
“Look,” said Benson, trying to regain control, “I wanted to have this chance for us to be together so we could talk freely.”
“About what?” asked McPherson.
Benson had rehearsed his little speech to himself a dozen times. But now it all seemed so trite, so tacky.
“Look,” he started again. “We’re going to be living cheek by jowl for the next two years. If any of you have developed any problems with the other, now’s the time to bring it out into the open.”
There. It was said. Benson looked at the seven of them, arrayed along the double table. Some frowns, some blank looks. No one was smiling.
“Well,” said Clermont, “I for one am looking forward to the mission. We have all trained for more than two years, non? I think we know each other well enough to make the voyage to Mars and back quite well.”
Taki Nomura said, “I’m always available for psychological counseling.” Grinning, she added, “You know, talk to your friendly neighborhood shrink whenever your homicidal instincts start to bother you.”
A couple of chuckles.
Amanda Lynn almost glowered at Benson. “This isn’t about sex, is it?”
“You tell me, Amanda.”
Her dark face looking almost troubled, Amanda said, “Well, like you say, we’re gonna be locked t
ogether for a lotta months. Four men and four women.”
“Like Noah’s Ark,” said Gonzalez.
“We are all adults,” Clermont pointed out.
“That’s the problem,” said McPherson, his bearded face dead serious.
Amanda looked as if she wanted to make a comment, but she had second thoughts and kept her mouth shut.
Nomura said, “As ship’s doctor and psychologist, I’ll have a supply of pharmaceuticals to dampen the sex drive, if any of you feel you can’t control yourselves.”
“Modern medicine at its best,” McPherson mock-growled.
“This is a serious matter,” said Clermont. “We have all been screened psychologically, have we not? We are all responsible persons, not teenaged maniacs.”
“I hope so,” Amanda Lynn said, with a sigh.
Ted Connover piped up. “Hey, I’ve got a loving wife waiting for me. I’m not going to screw around.”
“I am married also,” said Prokhorov. “But two years . . . that is a long time.”
Benson thought of his own wife, who had not bothered to move to Houston with him. They had been separated for more than two years now, ever since he’d started training for the mission.
Pushing such unhappy thoughts from his mind, he told his teammates, “We all know how to behave ourselves. At least, I think we do. And, as Taki said, if you feel the need for it, there are medications that can help.”
“I guess,” Amanda agreed, weakly.
McPherson got to his feet. In his plaid work shirt and Levis he looked more like a bearded lumberjack than a scientist.
Very seriously, he said, “We’ve all been training for this mission for more’n two years. Hell, I’ve been training for it most of my life. I lost two toes to frostbite in Antarctica and damn near broke my neck in that truck wreck in the Atacama desert. I’m not going to do anything that’ll jeopardize this mission. We’re going to explore Mars, for Pete’s sake! That’s not the most important thing, it’s the only thing that matters.”
Silence settled around the table as McPherson sat down again. Then Amanda Lynn clapped her hands together and in less than a second they all applauded.