Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1)

by Gregory Gates

  He grabbed her shoulder. “It’s okay Gabe. As long as it finds a flat spot, it’ll be okay. We’re not that far off.”

  “I think we may be down near the crater.”

  “Well, so long as it doesn’t land on the rim and tip over, that’d be okay. Just relax, there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  Gabe was looking very unhappy.

  “Come on, Gabe, you got us there. We’ll be on the ground in a minute. Let’s just be thankful for that.”

  “Okay.”

  PAO, “Pathfinder’s parachute has deployed, and the craft is rapidly slowing and descending.”

  GUIDANCE, “Heat shield jett.”

  FLIGHT, “Rog.”

  GUIDANCE, “We have radar. 3,900 meters, 133 meters per second. Legs deploying, 30 seconds to backshell jett.”

  FLIGHT, “Rog. Radar and 30 seconds.”

  The image from Pathfinder now only showed a distant Mars horizon as the craft hung vertically from its parachute.

  Gabe shook her head. “God I wish we could have come up with a way to get a real-time view from the descent camera.”

  Jeff nodded. “Yeah, would have been nice, but we’ll just have to wait. Don’t worry about it.”

  GUIDANCE, “1,200 meters, 24 meters per second and… we have chute and backshell jett.”

  PROP, “Ignition on all landing engines.”

  FLIGHT, “Rog. Ignition.”

  Images and telemetry suddenly ceased as Pathfinder’s approach camera in the backshell lost power on separation and the lander switched to an onboard antenna.

  PAO, “Pathfinder is now in powered descent. We should reacquire telemetry in about 10 seconds, touchdown in 40 seconds. We should begin receiving images from one of the two scan cameras about 30 seconds following touchdown. Images from the descent camera are being stored at this time and will be transmitted later. Those images will be the best indicators of Pathfinder’s exact landing site.”

  INCO, “We have a signal on S-band.”

  FLIGHT, “Rog. S-band.”

  Telemetry reappeared.

  GUIDANCE, “50 meters, 20 seconds to touchdown. Horizontal velocity is zero.”

  FLIGHT, “Copy, 50 meters, zero horizontal.”

  Jeff held his breath.

  GUIDANCE, “25 meters. 10 seconds.”

  FLIGHT, “Rog.”

  The entire room collectively held its breath.

  PROP, “Shut down!”

  GUIDANCE, “And… CONTACT!”

  The room went crazy. Jeff leaped out of his seat and, grinning broadly, shook his fists.

  FLIGHT, “Rog. On the ground.”

  PAO, “Pathfinder has landed on Mars!”

  Gabe leaped up and hugged Jeff. “Oh my god! It’s there!”

  Jeff kissed her. “Told you it’d be okay. She’s on the ground, alive and well. That’s close enough. Good job.”

  “Thanks.”

  Abby and Susan jumped up and joined them.

  Jeff gazed into the eyes of each of them in turn, then nodded and smiled. “We’re going to Mars. We can do it, I know we can. We’re gonna turn a page in the history books that others have only dreamed of.”

  All three returned smiles and nodded in agreement.

  Abby pointed at the screen. “First image is coming in.”

  Jeff looked up at the screen and watched as the scan lines made up Pathfinder’s first image of the Basin. “Good god!”

  Susan gasped. “The sky’s pink.”

  “Yep, it sure is, so’s the ground. And, we’re in the plain.”

  Abby shook him. “Home run, boss! Dunes, small rocks, relatively flat. God, we can navigate that.”

  “Yes we can.”

  “What direction are we looking?” said Gabe.

  “Um,” he squinted, “it’s nine-thirty in the morning there so… let’s see, from the shadows looks like maybe northwest, more or less. See anything you recognize?”

  “No, not much to see in that image. Foothills on the horizon, but I can’t tell what they are. Is that a small hill out there on the right edge?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “How far is that?”

  “I dunno. Maybe a thousand meters.” He called across the room. “FLIGHT, just put ‘em up as they come in, then get somebody to stitch ‘em together into a panorama.” He shrugged. “Try and figure out where the hell we are.”

  Heidi nodded. “DIPS, you got that?”

  DPS, “Got it FLIGHT. Next image coming up.”

  The next image appeared.

  Gabe grinned. “Yeah, that’s a hill alright. There’s the rest of it. It’s by itself, so probably not part of the two southern ridges.”

  Jeff laughed. “Don’t worry about it, we’ll figure it out. For now, we’re doing just fine.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and grinned. “You did good. You got us there.”

  She grinned. “Thanks.”

  “Once we get the full pan, we should get some shots of the ground. It looks really level.” He glanced over at the Pathfinder telemetry. “Inclinometer is reading about two degrees of slope. That’s nothing. Looks like it may be sitting on bedrock between some dunes.”

  Gabe nodded. “The radar did a great job of finding a flat spot. That’s good news. God, that terrain looks a lot like what Spirit imaged in Gusev.”

  “Uh huh. Thank god it doesn’t look like the Viking sites. I’ve had nightmares about that for two years.”

  Abby leaned her head on his shoulder. “Maybe you can finally sleep well tonight.”

  Jeff kissed the top of her head. “Maybe I can at that.”

  She wrapped an arm around his waist and hugged him, then whispered in his ear. “Meet me in the hot tub later and I’ll make sure of it.”

  He glanced at her and chuckled.

  Gabe shook her head. “Look how dark the rocks are compared to the regolith.”

  Jeff nodded, trying to get his mind off Abby’s proposal and back on the subject at hand. “Yeah, seems to be the norm planet wide.”

  The next image appeared.

  “God, Jeff, look!” said Gabe. “There’s another hill, farther away, maybe two kilometers. See it?”

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  “We’re looking just about due north now, aren’t we?”

  “Maybe a few degrees east of north.”

  “Okay, so if we’re on the southern edge we shouldn’t see much in that direction, we’re looking out across the plain, and we don’t. I think we’re down near the crater. Maybe just a little northeast of it.”

  “That’d be close enough for me. It’s not an entirely bad spot.”

  “Yeah.”

  He kissed her cheek. “You did it, Gabe. It’s close enough.” He turned to Abby. “Now, it’s your turn. You need to get us there.”

  She nodded. “I will. If Gabe and Heidi can build it, I’ll fly it.”

  Jeff wrapped his arms around Gabe, Abby and Susan. “Until now it was just a dream. But now I’m convinced it’s a reality. We’re gonna do this. We’re gonna mail home images of our footprints in that sand.” He glanced at each of them. “And in 735 days, the world will look up in the night sky and know that we are there.”

  They all nodded.

  Thursday, October 2, 2014 (T minus 537 days)

  At the tap on his office door, Jeff glanced up to see Gabe peeking in. “Hi, come on in.”

  “You’re not busy?”

  “Don’t be silly. When have I ever been too busy for you?”

  She slowly crept up to his desk. “The descent camera images arrived.”

  “And?”

  She handed him a THEMIS IR image and pointed. “X marks the spot. We’re right there, 13.72º south, 21.66º west. We missed by 12.14 kilometers.” Gabe grimaced and hung her head.

  Jeff stared at the image for a moment. “Wow. Right between those two ridges. Nice shot.”

  She groaned. “Only about a thousand meters from the western one.”

  “Well, a thousand m
eters is a thousand meters. We missed it.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. But we’re so far south, we’re on the THEMIS VIS image.”

  “Really? Let me see.” She handed him the image. “Whoa, cool.” He whistled softly. “Okay, that explains why we can’t see much beyond a couple kilometers east or west. We’re in that valley.”

  She whimpered. “Yeah.”

  He looked up her. “Gabe, I don’t know what you’re whining about. We’re on the ground, it’s not a bad spot, we missed the obstacles, and everything’s working. What’s the problem?”

  “I missed by over twelve kilometers! We’re more than two kilometers outside the landing ellipse. That’s the problem.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Who cares?”

  “I care.”

  “Well, stop worrying about it, we’re there. Gabe, one of the reasons we picked the site was because there was room to spare. This will do.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She shrugged. “It’s gonna take me a while to go over all the telemetry and figure out what went wrong.”

  Jeff shook his head and groaned. “Why are you wasting your time with that? Who cares what went wrong? This was a one-time mission. It’s done. Well, at least that part. Two weeks from now, when Columbus gets there, it’ll have a target – a nav beacon – and my concern won’t be missing it, it’ll be dropping 850 kilos of payload right on top of it.”

  She looked at him, pouting. “But, Jeff, I missed. I need to know why.”

  He sighed, stood, stepped around the desk, and started toward her.

  Gabe took a step back and held her hand protectively in front of her face. “You’re not going to hit me, are you?”

  Jeff froze, staring at her in astonishment. “Hit you? Jesus, Gabe, of course I’m not going to hit you. Why would you think that?”

  She looked down, clearly upset.

  “Gabe, look at me.”

  She glanced at him, nervously.

  “Who hit you?”

  She grimaced and sniffed. “My mother used to hit me when I was bad.”

  “When you were… bad?”

  “When I’d make mistakes.”

  “Your mother hit you when you made mistakes?”

  She nodded.

  Jeff frowned, shook his head and bit his lip. “Oh god. Gabe, come here.”

  She slowly stepped up to him.

  He wrapped his arms around her. “I would never hit you, and neither will anyone else. I won’t allow it.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder.

  He kissed her forehead. “Gabe, starting with nothing more than some 40-year-old drawings, you put this entire mission together in 17 months. You designed the hardware, the software, and you did what no one else has done. I doubt NASA, with 18,000 employees could have done this.” He lifted her chin, gazed into her eyes, and said softly, “Do you have any idea how proud I am of you?”

  She shook her head as tears welled.

  “Well, I am. Even if we never take another step, we’ve already accomplished what the critics said was impossible.” He grinned. “And, in the history of space exploration, your name will be mentioned prominently.”

  Gabe clutched him and sobbed.

  Jeff chuckled softly. “Oh, there you go again. What are you crying about now?”

  She slowly lifted her head. “Because, Jeffrey… I love you, and I want to get it right for you.”

  He leaned his forehead against hers, touched her cheek with his hand, and spoke softly. “Gabe, you did get it right. You got us there and… I love you too. I really do. But it’s not time for that yet. We’re going to Mars.” He kissed her. “You and I will get around to loving when the time is right. Okay?”

  She whimpered, “Do you promise?”

  He gently placed his hand on the back of her head and pulled her tightly to him. “Yes, I promise.”

  She sniffed. “Jeff, I don’t want to live without you.”

  He nodded. “Okay, wait right here. Don’t move.”

  “Okay.”

  Jeff went back around to his desk and punched the ‘Do Not Disturb’ button on his phone, then turned off the lights. “Come here.” He took Gabe’s hand and led her to the sofa in front of the fireplace and sat. He patted the seat beside. “Sit down, Gabe.”

  “Okay.” She sat beside him.

  He put his arm around her shoulders. “Gabriel, I think it’s time you and I had a little talk.”

  “About what?”

  “You.”

  She looked at him nervously. “What about me?”

  “Everything.”

  “Huh?”

  “Gabe, I want you to tell me everything. What went on in your life? What makes you tick?”

  She stared at her hands, nervously clenched in her lap. “Do I have to?”

  “Yes. It’s time.”

  Gabe hung her head and sighed. “Alright.” She took a deep breath. “My mother started me on the piano when I was three, just to see if I was any good. I was. I picked it up right away, and I could instantly memorize any music mom set before me. But that didn’t mean I could play it. That frustrated her, she expected instant perfection. Also, I didn’t do well in school when I was young. It bored me. It was way too easy. I was the poster child for ADHD. One of my teachers told my parents she thought I was retarded. Dad and mom took me to a child psychologist. He thought I might be an idiot savant. I was great at the piano, for my age, but pretty worthless for anything else.” She paused and shook her head. “I was always very emotional, and would throw tantrums, fall down on the floor kicking and screaming. Mom figured there wasn’t much use in trying to reason with me, so she trained me like you’d train a dog – reward and punishment.”

  Jeff grimaced. “Oh god.”

  “She’d give me a piece of candy when I’d do well, and beat me when I didn’t. Dad didn’t find out about her, uh… technique, until I was twelve. When he did find out, he divorced my mother and got custody of me. I didn’t know any better, and I hated him for leaving mom. He couldn’t handle me either and, with his busy career, didn’t have time to fool with me, so he sent me off to a private boarding school. I hated it and kept running away.”

  Jeff pulled her close.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Then one day I convinced myself that I was insane and everything was my fault, and I tried to kill myself by jumping off a bridge.”

  Jeff gasped.

  “Fortunately, I hadn’t had much of a background in physics at that point, and didn’t realize it wasn’t high enough. So all I managed to do was get cold and wet. Following that, my father also thought I was insane, and had me committed. Counseling, shock therapy, drugs… more reward and punishment. They had a piano there. I wasn’t supposed to be in that room, but one night I snuck in and played. A psychiatrist caught me, but didn’t say anything. I guess a thirteen-year-old playing Rachmaninoff from memory impressed him. He took an interest in me and over the next couple months hit me with every test in the book, and some I think he made up. Then one day he sat me down in his office and explained to me that I wasn’t insane. Quite the contrary, I was a genius, a genius like he’d never even heard of. He eventually talked to my father and got me released and sent back to school.

  “After that it was different, suddenly things were clearer. I could do things. I started using my brain.” She paused and chuckled. “There was no test I couldn’t ace. I could remember every word of a lecture, and every page of a reading assignment. When it came time to take the test, all I had to do was look up the answer in my head. And the more I did it, the better I got at it, to the point where I could all but instantly recall almost anything. I really liked math, because I could see it, like music. I can see the notes on the staves, and I can see math equations the same way. Doesn’t matter how complex… calculus, differentials, fractals, complex analysis, it’s all there. When I started college, the piano was all I had any experience with, so that’s what I majored in. But, they required us to have a math class. So, I looked over
the catalogue and decided I wanted to take a class in multivariable calculus. They wouldn’t let me take it, cause all I’d had was high school math through trig. I begged the professor to let me audit the class. He finally relented. By the end of the semester he’d convinced me to major in math. So I switched to a double major and made a career of school and living on scholarships and grants and loans, because I was good at it. And then one day this lunatic that’d won the lottery and decided to go Mars knocked on my door.” She grinned. “And the rest, as the say, is history.”

  Jeff nodded and chuckled. “Yeah. Gabe, when was the last time you saw your parents?”

  She sighed. “I haven’t seen my mother in fifteen years. I haven’t seen dad since I graduated from Oberlin. He came to that. He writes me every now and then. Sends me some money… well, he did when I was in school.”

  “Gabe, you’re kind of famous now. As you noted, you’ve been on the Tonight Show, given congressional testimony, dined with the President, had you picture on magazine covers… have you heard from your parents at all?”

  “No. I think all this has just convinced them that I am insane.”

  “Don’t you think maybe it’s time you saw them?”

  She shook her head.

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know them, and aren’t sure I want to. I wasn’t the child they wanted; I was too much trouble, too much work. They were glad to be rid of me, and I’m content to leave it at that.” She snuggled against Jeff and whimpered, “I like where I am now, please don’t make me go back.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He grabbed an afghan off the back of the sofa and covered her. “I want you to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “Go to sleep.”

  She rubbed her cheek against his chest. “Why? It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

  “Two reasons. First, because you need it. And second, to make a point.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When you wake up, you’ll find I’m still here.”

  Gabe took off her glasses and nestled into Jeff’s arms. She was asleep in minutes. And hours later when she awoke, Jeff was still there.

  * * *

  A week later, Gabe peeked into Jeff’s office. “You wanted to see me?”