Rescue Mode - eARC

by Ben Bova

  “It’ll be like a burial at sea,” said the NASA flight director, “except that you don’t let go of the body. You put him in an EVA suit, take him outside and put him in the cargo module, where the lander used to be. There’s plenty of room and he’ll be shielded from sunlight. The cryogenic cold in there will preserve the body so that our medical people can examine him when you bring him back.”

  Benson didn’t like it, but he knew it made sense. Once the Arrow had established itself in orbit around the Earth, transfer vehicles could bring the crew back to the ground—both the living and the dead.

  So now Benson and Virginia Gonzalez wrestled Mikhail Prokhorov’s dead body out of the Arrow’s main airlock, while Taki Nomura stood by in the control center.

  “I feel like a damned ghoul,” Benson complained as they began towing the spacesuited body toward the empty cargo module.

  “No,” said Virginia, “this is the right thing to do. Now we can return him to his family and they can give him a proper funeral and burial.”

  “After a couple of dozen pathologists get finished tinkering with him.”

  “Still, it’s better than letting him drift off into space, alone forever,” Virginia insisted.

  “Maybe.”

  “He should be put to rest with his family. That’s what I would want.”

  “Mikhail was divorced and I don’t think he had any children.”

  “Are his parents still living?” Virginia asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Virginia said, “He’ll probably get a hero’s funeral when he’s returned to Russia.”

  “Right. Well, he’s got one main qualification for being a one hundred percent hero, that’s for sure. He’s dead.”

  November 21, 2035

  04:00 Universal Time

  Mars Landing Plus 16 Days

  New York City

  Contrary to the sneers of her many critics and detractors, Deirdre Wilcox was not a flake, nor was she a close-minded mouthpiece for the lunatic fringe. She had won a university degree in moral philosophy, she was bright, intelligent, and vivacious on camera: a dark-haired, green-eyed beauty who had been smart enough to augment her natural figure judiciously and to dress well enough to show it off without being blamed for exhibitionism.

  Steven Treadway loathed her. While he had laboriously worked his way to the top of the network’s news staff by hard-edged reporting and unbiased interviews, Deirdre Wilcox was just a rung below him, always reaching to scramble higher. If she had slept her way up the ladder, as was rumored, Treadway was unable to find with whom, despite considerable digging.

  The two of them were sitting side by side in a pair of comfortable leather armchairs in the TV studio, flanked by a pair of guests. Sitting next to Treadway was the chief of the NASA Johnson Space Center’s medical division, Dr. Lencio Ochoa. Next to Wilcox was Ulan Quinn, the author of a moderately successful book claiming that astronauts had discovered the remains of an alien spacecraft on the Moon, but NASA’s bureaucracy had hushed up the find.

  “This is a sad day,” Treadway began the double interview. “Two weeks ago Commander Benson, aboard the Arrow Mars spacecraft, performed a wedding. Today, he interred the remains of Russian meteorologist Mikhail Prokhorov outside their spacecraft. The Arrow has become a sort of interplanetary hearse, bearing the dead body of one of the ship’s crew back home.”

  Flashing a considerable amount of leg, Deirdre Wilcox jumped in with, “It’s truly unfortunate.” She smiled sadly and asked Dr. Ochoa, “I understand he died of cancer. Is that right?”

  Ochoa was short and blocky, with slicked-back dark hair and a pencil-thin moustache. He nodded somberly. “Cancer of the stomach.”

  “And it was caused by the radiation he’s been exposed to in space?”

  The physician’s deep brown eyes went wide. “No! That doesn’t seem to be the case. Of course, we won’t know for certain until we’ve examined the body.”

  “You’ll perform an autopsy,” Deirdre said.

  “Yes. Certainly.”

  “But he didn’t have cancer when he started the trip to Mars, did he?”

  Ochoa squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “That’s not certain. His physicians in Russia passed him for the mission, but he might have been carrying the first stage of a tumor that they didn’t detect.”

  “And that tumor was made worse by the radiation in space.”

  “That’s . . . a possibility,” Ochoa said weakly.

  Treadway tried to regain control. “The team that’s been monitoring the Arrow’s flight from the very beginning reports that radiation levels have been well within what they expected, not dangerously high.”

  “Coverup,” snapped Quinn. He was middle-aged, his shoulder-length light brown hair just starting to show streaks of gray. His face was lean, sallow, with narrow suspicious eyes. He wore a suede jacket over unpressed Levis and clasped a slim notebook computer on his knees with both hands.

  Treadway bristled. “You can’t accuse—”

  But Deirdre leaned forward enough to block the camera’s view of Treadway and turned to Quinn. “This wouldn’t be the first time NASA’s covered up news they didn’t want the public to know, is it?”

  Tapping on his notebook, Quinn said, “I have documented evidence here of seventeen NASA coverups, including the Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986.”

  “Now wait—”

  “And of course there’s the coverup of finding that alien spaceship on the Moon.”

  And so it went, until the break for the first commercial.

  Treadway jumped up from his chair and shouted to the program’s director, “I am not going to allow this man to turn the show into a UFO nuthouse!”

  The show’s producer, in the booth above the set, spoke coolly into Treadway’s ear bud. “Steve, calm down. The switchboard’s swamped with calls.”

  Furious, Treadway yanked the communications bud out of his ear and leaned over Quinn. “This show is about the death of Mikhail Prokhorov. Period. Confine yourself to that subject or get the hell off the set!”

  Quinn looked up at him like a child wrongly accused of stealing cookies. “If that’s what you want,” he said softly.

  Turning to Deirdre Wilcox, Treadway added, “And stop upstaging me.”

  She merely smiled and crossed her long legs.

  The interview resumed with Treadway asking Dr. Ochoa, “Is the radiation in space really dangerous, Doctor?”

  Ochoa nodded somberly. “Of course it is. Interplanetary space is drenched with high-energy particles of the solar wind, plus cosmic rays from beyond the solar system.”

  “But the Mars crew is protected, isn’t it?”

  “We wouldn’t have sent them to Mars if we felt they were in serious danger.” Ochoa glanced at Quinn as he continued, “We’ve had experts studying this problem for years. We know the levels of radiation to be expected and we’ve seen to it that the spacecraft is adequately shielded. There is no danger of its crew being exposed to lethal levels of radiation. None whatsoever.”

  “Even in that shelter on the surface of Mars?” Wilcox asked. “It was designed to be occupied for only thirty days, wasn’t it? And now those four men and women will have to stay in it for a year or even more.”

  “The Fermi habitat is adequately shielded,” Ochoa insisted. “As is the Arrow spacecraft.”

  “But those people on Mars will be working outside the habitat, in the open, protected by nothing but their spacesuits,” Wilcox prodded. “Won’t that be a problem?”

  Beside her, Quinn was nodding vigorously. Treadway glared at him.

  Dr. Ochoa replied, “The crew on the surface of Mars may incur a slightly higher dose of radiation when they work outside the habitat, but not enough to endanger them.”

  “Is that true?” Wilcox insisted. “Surely that much radiation must have had an effect?”

  Frowning slightly, Ochoa replied, “Oh, their risk of eventually contracting cancer in their later years mi
ght be increased by a few percent. Nothing more.”

  Looking somewhere between shocked and angered, Wilcox said, “They’ll be killed by cancer?”

  “I said their chances of contracting cancer might be a few percent higher. In their later years. When they’re seventy or eighty.”

  “Not before then?”

  “Even if it happens sooner, most cancers can be handled if they’re caught in their earliest stages.”

  “Most,” Wilcox murmured. “If.”

  Quinn couldn’t contain himself any longer. “How many former astronauts have already died of cancer?”

  Ochoa looked surprised. “Why, I don’t know.”

  “I’ve got the figures right here.” Quinn began tapping on his notebook.

  “Hold it,” Treadway said firmly. “I’ve seen those figures: former astronauts have come down with cancer at just about the same rate as the rest of the population. And, as Dr. Ochoa just said, most cancers are treatable if you catch them early enough.”

  “That’s right,” Ochoa agreed.

  Wilcox looked unconvinced.

  Before she could say anything, Treadway said to Ochoa, “So the reality is that the spacecraft and the Fermi habitat on the surface of Mars give adequate levels of protection against radiation.”

  Ochoa nodded vigorously. “Yes. That’s true.”

  “Even against solar flares?” Wilcox asked.

  Ochoa sighed before replying, “Both the Arrow and the Fermi have special storm cellars to protect their crews against the elevated levels of radiation during a CME event.”

  “CME?” Treadway prompted.

  “Coronal mass ejection. What’s popularly called a solar flare.”

  “Radiation levels get very high then, don’t they?” Wilcox asked.

  Nodding again, Ochoa said, “For a day or two. The crews will have to stay inside their storm cellars until the radiation level goes down to normal.”

  “No going outside on the surface,” Treadway said.

  “Goodness no!”

  Wilcox asked, “What if someone is caught out on the surface when a flare strikes?”

  Ochoa actually chuckled. “That won’t happen. We have satellites and telescopes on Earth monitoring the Sun constantly. When a CME occurs we have many hours, sometimes even days, before its radiation cloud reaches Earth—and even longer before it gets to Mars.”

  “If the flare is detected in time,” Quinn said.

  “We detect them whenever they occur,” insisted Ochoa. “No problem. The astronauts get plenty of warning time.”

  Quinn looked doubtful. “So you say.”

  December 5, 2035

  14:56 Universal Time

  Mars Landing Plus 30 Days

  Fermi Habitat

  Amanda Lynn stared at the jumble of curves glowing on her display screen. The biology laboratory in the Fermi was even smaller than the one aboard the Arrow, but its equipment was first-rate.

  The tip of her tongue peeking out from between her lips, she traced one of the lines with a trembling finger.

  “Gotcha!” she whispered.

  She had spent the morning digging in the arroyo out on the plain of Elysium, as usual, and as usual took samples of the soil to the bio lab for analysis.

  The latest samples had been placed in a small, specially designed containment cell with nutrients that any Earth-based bacteria would immediately begin to eat. If the sample contained anything remotely resembling Earth life, then she would know it.

  An LED above the sample container turned yellow and then green.

  Amanda’s fingers player across the keyboard in rapid fire, telling the computer to bring to the screen plots of various sample parameters, including the measurement of methane gas within the container. One of the plots, showing the concentration of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere above the sample showed a marked increase in both. On Earth, this would be an early indicator that something in the sample was eating and producing waste gas.

  “The little bugger is eating lunch,” she said to herself, her eyes still riveted on the display screen. “No doubt about it.”

  This was not conclusive proof that the sample contained life, she knew, but she considered it strong evidence that they had found what they were looking for.

  Amanda sat there grinning for several minutes. She could see the reflection of her face in the display screen: round and chocolate dark, with a gleaming bright smile, like a little girl opening her Christmas presents.

  Abruptly, she snapped out of her happy daze and began tapping furiously on her laptop computer, composing a report to be sent back to her fellow biologists at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

  Half an hour later she stepped out of the closet-sized laboratory, into the habitat’s central area. Nobody in sight.

  She walked past the rolled-up hammocks pinned to the walls and into the control center. Catherine Clermont was sitting there in a slightly pink and brown excursion suit, helmet on the floor at her feet. Her face was half covered with a breathing mask.

  Amanda immediately knew what was going on. Ted and Hi must be outside; Catherine’s prebreathing low-pressure oxy in case they need her out there.

  Clermont sensed Amanda’s presence and turned from the screen that showed the two men in their suits and helmets working outside.

  “Amanda,” Clermont said, through the breathing mask.

  “What’s going on?”

  With a Gallic shrug, Clermont replied, “Hi and Ted are moving the core sampler.”

  “Again?”

  “They are hoping they will hit ice a little farther from the habitat.”

  “They’ve already sunk four dry holes.”

  “Yes.”

  The elation of her discovery leached out of Amanda. She plopped herself down on the chair next to Catherine’s, muttering, “Fifth time’s the charm . . . I hope.”

  “As my Jewish mentor often said, ‘From your mouth to God’s ear.’”

  “Y’know what I think,” Amanda said. Without waiting for a reply, she said, “I think they ought to be drilling in the arroyo.”

  “That’s the first site they tried.”

  “They should try a couple more sites in the arroyo.”

  “But we agreed not to disturb that area, so you could study it.”

  Amanda flashed her brightest smile. “I found what I was looking for.”

  “A fossil?”

  “No, not that. I think I’m about to confirm the Chinese discovery.”

  “You found biomarkers?”

  Amanda, nodded, barely able to contain her excitement. “I just sent the data back to Ames for them to cross check. In about an hour I’ll be able to go back and run more tests, but I think we found what we came to find.”

  “That’s great, and I am sure the news will elate everyone back home, but quite frankly, I think I’d rather we’d found water.”

  Outside, Connover and McPherson had spent the past three hours toting the core sampler to a new location, farther from the habitat.

  Ted looked back and saw their bootprints in the rusty sand. Each hole they had drilled was farther away from the habitat. If we don’t strike water soon, we’ll get so far from the Fermi that we won’t have enough piping to carry the water back to the habitat.

  “So what do you think, Ted?” McPherson asked. “Is there really any water around here?” His voice sounded tired, dispirited, in Connover’s helmet earphones.

  Ted lowered himself to the ground. “Take a break, Hi. Don’t get yourself overheated.”

  The geologist sat down beside him. Both their excursion suits were spattered with pinkish dust: the boots and leggings, their gloves and sleeves, their backsides. Connover knew that if the gritty dust worked its way into their backpacks, their life support pumps might be damaged. That’s why he insisted on a thorough vacuuming whenever they returned to the habitat. Time to open up the backpacks and inspect the equipment inside them, he thought.

  “Do you think there
’s really any water here?” McPherson repeated.

  “You’re the geologist, Hi. You tell me.”

  Reflexively, McPherson went to scratch his beard. His hand bumped his helmet visor instead.

  “All the observations show permafrost belowground,” he said.

  “But how deep? That’s the question.”

  “Deeper than our core sampler’s been able to reach.”

  Connover nodded wearily. “It doesn’t do us a damned bit of good if there’s an ocean of frozen water beneath us, if it’s too deep for the mole to reach.”

  “We could die of thirst while we’re sitting on top of a frozen ocean.”

  “Poetic.”

  McPherson took a deep breath, then clambered to his feet. “Well, we’re not going to find any permafrost by sitting on our butts.”

  “You’re right,” Connover agreed. As he got to his feet, he giggled softly.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I never thought that being an astronaut would mean drilling goddamned holes in the ground.”

  McPherson grinned back at him. “We’ll make a geologist out of you yet, Ted my boy.”

  December 7, 2035

  02:07 Universal Time

  Mars Landing Plus 32 Days

  The Arrow

  The klaxon jolted the three people on the Arrow out of sleep. Benson snapped awake and immediately scrambled to unstrap himself from his sleeping bag.

  “SOLAR STORM ALERT,” the loudspeakers blared. “REPORT TO THE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

  Fortunately, the shelter was their sleeping area, so there was no need for them to go anywhere. Still, Virginia and Taki tumbled out of their cubbyholes in nothing more than their shapeless tank tops and panties, wide-eyed with sudden fear.

  “It’s all right,” Benson immediately reassured them, shouting over the klaxon’s wail. “We’re safe in here.”

  He went to the communications panel on the bulkhead and shut off the klaxon. The sudden silence was palpable.