by Ben Bova
17:28 Universal Time
Mars Arrival Plus 9 Days
The Galley
McPherson was trying to stand straight and tall. In zero gravity the human body tends to curl slightly and the arms float up to chest level, like a person doing a dead man’s float in a swimming pool. He forced his arms down by his sides tried to look reasonably dignified.
The geologist had rummaged through his personal clothing and found a gray turtleneck pullover that he hadn’t worn before.
Not a tux, he thought, but it’ll have to do.
Now, standing in the galley between Benson and Connover, he stared at the open hatch and tried not to fidget as he waited for his bride.
Prokhorov hovered by the hatch with one of the surface imaging cameras in his hands, ready to act as the official photographer by taking pictures with a camera designed to perform surface science, not take portraits. Mikhail looked pale, drawn, but he broke into a grin as Virginia Gonzalez floated through the hatch, looking quite solemn, followed by Amanda Lynn and then Taki Nomura. At last Catherine glided through, wearing a white short-sleeved blouse and sharply creased white slacks.
Benson had searched the nets for a wedding ceremony and finally found one from an Anglican liturgy. Connover and Prokhorov had used the 3D printer to fashion a pair of plastic rings that looked somewhat silvery.
Catherine floated to McPherson’s side. She had to put out her hand and grasp his arm to stop herself. She was smiling gracefully; Hi was grinning from ear to ear.
Looking down at his printout, Benson began, “We are gathered here in this company and in the eyes of God . . .”
The ceremony was brief and simple. At its end, before Benson could say, “You may kiss the bride,” Hi wrapped Catherine in his arms and kissed her so hard that Connover whistled and shouted, “Okay, break it up!”
Dinner was raucus, edging toward the racy. Jokes about honeymooning on Mars. To everyone’s surprise, Benson produced a small bottle of cognac.
“I was saving this for when we returned to Earth, but this is an even happier occasion,” he told the crew.
He left unsaid the fear that none of them might make it back to Earth.
There was barely enough for each of them to have one small drink, but somehow the occasion got even noisier after it. Even Prokhorov joined in the cheer as he told outrageously smutty jokes about wedding nights.
Catherine took it all with smiling grace, while McPherson blushed through his beard.
At last Benson announced, “Time to retire. Big day tomorrow.”
“Big night tonight,” said Virginia. Turning to Catherine, she revealed, “Taki and Amanda and I have moved your sleeping bags to the cupola. That’s your wedding night suite, Catherine.”
Unexpectedly bold, Nomura said, “It’s far enough from our privacy quarters so that you won’t disturb us.”
Prokhorov brightened. “I can bring the camera!”
McPherson pushed himself up from his chair and reached for Catherine’s hand. “No thanks, Mikhail. To all of you, thanks for everything. This has all been . . . well, kind of overwhelming.”
Catherine stood up and smiled a soft, “Tres merci.”
Benson watched them slip through the hatch on their way to the cupola. Once they were gone, he turned to the rest of the crew.
“Big day tomorrow,” he said tightly.
Connover nodded. “We tell Houston what we’re doing.”
“Right,” said Benson.
But Prokhorov fished his phone from his breast pocket and, waving it over his head, proclaimed, “Not before I send the wedding pictures to our friend Treadway.”
Benson said, “Send it to mission control, Mikhail. Let them decide if they want to break it to the news media.”
Prokhorov grinned crookedly. “Mission control first. Then to Treadway. He is one of us, is he not? Our virtual crew member. He would want to be part of our happiness.”
Benson thought it over for a second or two. “Okay, Houston first, then Treadway.”
He realized that Houston—and Washington—were going to go apeshit once they realized what Connover was doing. The wedding would be down in the noise as far as the NASA brass was concerned.
In the command center all by himself, Benson put in a call to Nathan Brice, the mission flight director. After a nearly fifteen-minute wait, Brice’s lean, sharp-eyed image appeared on the communication’s system display screen.
Nathan’s lost weight, Benson thought as Brice impatiently asked, “What is it, Bee? You said it was urgent.”
Benson glanced at the digital clock that showed the time in Houston. Half-past noon. I must have dragged him away from his lunch.
Thankful for the time lag between messages, Benson said, all in a rush, “Ted’s going down to the surface with McPherson, Clermont and Lynn. They’re going to ship the habitat’s water up here to the Arrow and then remain on Mars while we start back to Earth.”
But Brice was already saying sourly, “This isn’t about that wedding you performed, is it? You ought to know better than that, Bee. You’re not empowered to marry people. Our legal people are up in arms about it.”
Benson almost smiled as he thought of their messages passing each other in opposite directions, zooming through interplanetary space at the speed of light.
Light travels faster than sound, he remembered the old adage. That’s why some people appear to be bright, until you hear them speak.
“Connover is what?” Brice erupted. “Who the hell authorized that? What are you doing, Bee? Have you gone nuts? You can’t let them go down to the surface, they’ll die down there!”
Very patiently, Benson explained the entire plan while Brice fumed and fulminated.
“I absolutely forbid it!” Brice was shouting. “You don’t have the authority to change the mission plan! You can’t do this!”
All the while, Benson calmly ticked off all the details of their plan. He ended with, “They’ll live on Mars until the follow-on mission gets there to pick them up and return them home.”
“Follow-on mission?” Brice demanded. “What follow-on mission? There isn’t going to be—”
Benson clicked off the transmission. I won’t need the comm link, Benson told himself. Once Nate tells Washington, I’ll be able to hear the explosion all the way from Earth.
November 4, 2035
23:00 Universal Time
Mars Arrival Plus 9 Days
New York City
The “Mars wedding” was the lead-off story for the network’s evening news. Steven Treadway appeared to be standing with the crew as Catherine Clermont and Hiram McPherson exchanged their vows aboard the Arrow.
“Even in adversity,” Treadway intoned, over their muted voices, “love blooms and endures. Today, from the Arrow spacecraft in orbit around Mars, came the surprise news that the crew’s two geologists, Hiram McPherson and Catherine Clermont, were to be married. The ceremony was conducted by the spacecraft’s captain, Commander Bee Benson, with the entire crew in attendance.”
The camera tightened to a close-up of Treadway’s smiling face. “I must admit that I should have seen this coming. Hiram and Catherine have become very close in the months of their voyage to Mars. No other wedding ceremony in human history has been performed in such an environment and in such circumstances. I daresay it will likely be many years before there’s another like it.”
“Many of you are probably wondering about why they would bother getting married at all. To many, the idea seems rather quaint and old fashioned. It turns out that Hiram is quite old fashioned. In fact, he’s a practicing Christian from a rather conservative church and told me that he not only wanted to marry Ms. Clermont, but quote, ‘spend the rest of my life and eternity after that with her.’ A nineteenth-century man with a twenty-first century problem, so, of course, they were married virtually.”
Treadway’s face grew more somber. “But what about the legality of such a marriage? I spoke with several legal experts and got,
as you might expect, a variety of views. Professor Maxine Chiemeka of Georgetown University had this to say.”
The image of a graying, round-faced African American woman appeared on the screen, with her name and affiliation spelled out beneath it.
“Strictly speaking,” she began, in a softly pleasant voice, “ship’s captains cannot perform marriages at sea, on dry land, or by extension, in deep space simply by their virtue of being the captain of a ship. And no state in the Union has enacted a statute explicitly authorizing ships’ captains to officiate at marriages. If Commander Benson happens also to be a member of the clergy or has some state license that otherwise gives him the authority to perform a marriage, then they are good to go. Otherwise, I would recommend the couple renew their wedding vows in a more traditional setting when they get back home.”
Treadway reappeared on-screen, sitting behind a news anchor’s desk. “Thank you, Professor. So while their marriage may not be legally recognized here on Earth, I suspect the happy couple doesn’t much care. After all, what laws really apply at Mars? The more important question is, will they be able to get back to Earth alive and well?
“In the meantime, we wish Catherine Clermont and Hiram McPherson all the best.
“Steven Treadway, reporting.”
November 4, 2035
22:28 Universal Time
Mars Arrival Plus 9 Days
Geology Laboratory
Ted Connover figured the geology lab would be the one place where he could have some privacy. Hi and Catherine weren’t going to barge in on him; they were tucked into the cupola. The rest of the crew were in their privacy cubbyholes, which provided about as much privacy as an airport’s men’s room.
Nobody would bother him here, he figured. He felt tired and nervous after the long day and the evening’s festivities. He also felt a mounting excitement: tomorrow morning we leave the Arrow. Tomorrow we land on Mars.
He propped his compupad on the lab’s one desk and touched the video recording feature.
“Hi, Vicki,” he said, very softly. “Yeah, it’s me again recording another message for you that I know you’ll never receive. But if ever there was a time when I needed you and your advice, this is it. Am I doing the right thing? Should I just take the lander to the surface myself and not bring the others along?”
He tapped the pause button.
Despite his outward show of self-assurance, Connover had deep-seated doubts about his plan.
Connover shrugged. What was that line from Shakespeare, something about the idea that we owe God a death, if you give it this year you’re quits for the next.
Well, he thought, if I’ve got to die I’d rather die on Mars. Better to be a lion than a lamb.
He resumed recording.
“Catherine married Hi today. Bee performed the ceremony. The flatlanders back on Earth say it isn’t really legal, but it was official enough for Hi. He’s a Christian, he claims, and he didn’t want to consummate his relationship with Catherine unless they were married. Just an old-fashioned guy, on his way to Mars. Catherine seems quite content with it. She must be Catholic, but I don’t think she’s a fanatic about it. Well, I hope their feelings for each other are as deep as the feelings you and I shared. I’d hate to think they rushed through a jury-rigged ceremony just because we’re in a crisis situation. But from the looks on their faces it was more than that.”
He hesitated, then said firmly, “Vicki, staying on Mars is the right thing to do. I’m certain of it. We’ll survive and we’ll keep Mars exploration alive while we do it. After your death, well, I almost gave up. But now my life has meaning again, a purpose. I’ll make you and Thad proud of me. But, Christ, how I miss you!”
Connover felt tears coming. He forced them away and ended his message. “One day I’ll join you, honey. But not this day.”
He shut down the compupad thinking, Not this day. Unless those idiot politicians refuse to send the follow-on.
November 5, 2035
14:08 Universal Time
Mars Arrival Plus 10 Days
Johnson Space Center
Nathan Brice stood behind the last row of consoles in the mission control center, gnawing on a fingernail. He hadn’t told anyone about his conversation with Benson the afternoon before; he had marked the communication PRIVATE to keep it out of the comm log that anyone could see.
If Bee goes through with this crackbrain scheme, Brice was saying to himself, the shit’s going to hit the fan big time. And I’ll be the first one to get spattered.
The mission control engineers were at their consoles, monitoring everything going on in the Arrow, from the environmental control system’s air pressure to the stores of food remaining in the freezers, from the latest medical files beamed down to them by Taki Nomura to Commander Benson’s morning report, which was due in a few minutes.
On the Arrow it was a little past two in the afternoon.
The engineers at their consoles were not known as the most socially astute people in the world, but they were among the brightest. They had watched McPherson and Clermont’s wedding with detached amusement, cracking a few obscene jokes until Brice had reminded them that the newlyweds might never get home.
That had been yesterday. Then Benson had dropped his bombshell in Brice’s lap and the flight director had tossed sleeplessly all night, wondering if he should buck the news up the chain of command.
He had decided not to. If Bee has second thoughts, if one of the crew balks at this crazy-assed idea of Connover’s, nobody had to know what they had planned. But if they went through with it . . . Brice shook his head and tried to ignore the consequences.
A few of the controllers had mentioned the fact that the crew hadn’t been following mission protocol for the past few days, but they put that down to the fact of the impromptu wedding. The crew psychologist had mentioned to Brice that the crew seemed strangely focused on some goal that she couldn’t fathom. She had put it down to their predicament, their preparation for sending Connover down to the surface to bring back the water that they would live on during their return trip to Earth.
A supply of water that would run out long before they got to within a million miles of home, Brice knew.
And then Benson had told him about Connover’s plan, and the crew’s agreement to it.
Now Brice stood, a bundle of aggravated nerves with a pot belly and ragged fingernails, and waited for the inevitable.
Several of the mission controllers sat up straighter in their chairs, all at the same time.
“My God,” the deputy flight controller yelped, “it isn’t just the two of them going down to the surface. It’s half the crew!”
Brice squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that what his controllers were seeing on their screens had happened more than thirteen minutes ago. He found himself whispering, “Good luck, you guys.”
For all during his sleepless night he had played over in his mind every scenario he could think of that might get the team home safely. And for all his deliberations, he had to agree that Connover’s scheme was the only one with half a chance of succeeding.
Half a chance, he said to himself. Better than none.
Most of the controllers were turning around in their chairs, looking at him, expecting him to do something, to change what had happened thirteen-some minutes ago.
Fingering the microphone clipped to the collar of his short-sleeve shirt, Brice asked crisply, “Commander Benson, what’s going on? Why are half the crew going down to the surface? That’s not in the mission plan.”
That should cover my ass, he thought. Unless some bozo digs into my private communications.
The mission psychologist tore her Bluetooth off her ear and ran up to Brice. “They’re doing the Lifeboat Scenario! Those four going down to the surface have decided to sacrifice their lives so that the other four might live!”
Brice suppressed an urge to laugh in the woman’s face. Instead, he said very calmly, “I don’t think so. Connover’s not the martyr
type.”
“But they’ll die down there!”
Raising one bony finger, Brice said, “Let’s hear what Benson has to say about this before we jump to any conclusions.”
“Connover’s suicidal!” the psychologist insisted. “He’s been depressed since his wife and son died.”
Brice snapped, “So what do you want me to do about it? Whatever they’re up to, they’ve already done it. We can’t stop them.”
Then he pulled off his microphone so his words would not be recorded.
Crooking a finger at the deputy flight controller, he ordered, “Mack, get the logistics team together right now. I need to know how long those four can survive in the Mars habitat. If they’re going to try to live on Mars we need to give them the best advice we possibly can from day one.”
The deputy flight controller said, “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, Nate. But why? We both know there won’t be another mission. It’s been cancelled!”
For the first time in more than twelve hours, Brice smiled. “Mack, those people are type Alphas. The kind of people who sign on for a two-year trip to Mars. But they’re not suicidal. They’re going down to the surface of Mars, not out the airlock. They think they can survive. And that Washington won’t cancel the follow-on and let them die. It’s brilliant!”
“Yeah, brilliant,” the deputy flight commander said shakily. “Let’s just hope they don’t end up dead heroes.”
“That’s why I need the logistics data. Now!”
Mack said, “Yeah,” and scurried away. The psychologist looked worried, perplexed.
Picking up his microphone and repinning it to his collar, Brice called for the communications director. “Sandra, put me through to Saxby in Washington. He needs to know what’s going on here.”
“What is going on here?” Sandra asked.
“A stupendous act of bravery and stupidity, rolled into one.”