The Mountain Cage

by Pamela Sargent

  “You got it, Dan-o.”

  The President made his announcement, and Dan went on an hour later to show that he was still able to function. He had no prepared speech, but the most important thing was to look calm and not hysterical. He succeeded in that, mostly because he felt too stunned and empty to crack up in front of the hundreds of millions who would be viewing him from Earth.

  Sallie spoke to him after his appearance. Ashana Washington’s parents and brother had already retained counsel, and there was talk of massive lawsuits. He might have known that the lawyers would get in on this immediately.

  “The most important thing now,” Sallie said, “is to bring you home as fast as possible. You’ll reach your destination four days from now.” She narrowed her eyes. “The Burroughs is already programmed to orbit Mars automatically, so all we have to do is let it swing around and head back to Earth. You can get back in—”

  “I’m not going to land?” he asked, and waited even longer.

  Sallie sat up. “Land?”

  “I want to land, Sallie. Don’t you understand? I have to now. The others would have expected me to—I’ve got to do it for them.” He searched for another phrase. “It means they won’t have died in vain. I can do it—you can program the lander, and I can go down to the surface. Maybe I can’t do the experiments and stuff they were going to, but I can set up the cameras and bring back soil samples. It wouldn’t be right not to try. And if I’m going to die, I might as well die doing something.”

  He waited for his words to reach her. “Dan,” she said at last, “you surprise me.”

  It would probably surprise the hell out of the President, too. “I’ve got to do it, Sallie.” He frowned, struggling with the effort of all this thinking. “Look, if I land, it’ll inspire the world to bigger and better space triumphs. We’ll get that bigger space station built and the more advanced ships, too. But if you just bring me back, all the nuts will start whining again about what a waste all this was and how four people died for nothing.” He waited.

  “I’ll do what I can, Dan.” She shook her head. “I don’t have much to say about this, but I can speak up for you. In the end, though, it’s probably going to be up to the President.”

  “Then put me through to him now.”

  He hashed it out with the President in the slow motion of radio delay, listened to the objections, and replied by invoking the memory of his dead comrades. When the President, looking tense and even more hyper than usual, signed off by saying he would have to consult with his advisors, Dan was certain he had won. He felt no surprise when word came twelve hours later that he would be allowed to undertake the landing.

  After all, if the President didn’t let him go ahead, it was like admitting publicly that he had put an incompetent without adequate training aboard the Burroughs. The President, having finally salvaged his place in history, wasn’t about to go down in the record books as a doofus.

  David Bowie was singing about Major Tom and Ground Control. Kiichi had been a David Bowie fan, so a lot of Bowie’s music, everything from his Ziggy Stardust phase up through Tin Machine, was in the Burroughs’s music collection. Dan had never been into David Bowie, who struck him as being kind of fruity, but now he felt as if he understood this particular song.

  Sometimes, during his work with the President’s Council on Space, Dan had wondered why some early astronauts had gotten kind of flaky after returning to Earth. These were macho test pilot guys, not the kind of men anyone would expect to get mystical or weirded out. But as he moved around the ship, which was usually silent except for the low throbbing hum of the engine and an occasional beep from the consoles, he was beginning to feel a bit odd himself, as if his mind had somehow moved outside of his body.

  He had never thought all that much about God. He had, of course, never doubted that God was out there going about His business; he had simply never thought about the Lord that much, except when he was in church or saying a prayer. When he was a boy, he had imagined a God something like his grandfather Pulliam, an angry old man ready to smite all those liberal Democrats, Communists, and other forces of darkness. Later on, when he was older and more mature, God had seemed more like a sort of basketball coach or golf pro.

  Now, when he gazed at the image of Mars on his screen, a rust-red dot surrounded by blackness, he had the strangest feeling that he had never really understood the Lord at all. God had created all this, the planets and the space between them and the stars that were so far away he could not even comprehend the distance. God, in some ways, was a lot like the NASA computers, but there was even more to Him than that. Dan wasn’t quite sure how to put it; things like that were hard to explain. He supposed that was what it meant to be mystical—having weird feelings you couldn’t quite put into words. And faith was believing what no one in his right mind would believe even though it was true.

  NASA kept him busy during his waking hours programming the Mars lander and checking out its systems. After supper, he usually worked on his speech, with some suggestions NASA was passing along from his speechwriters. They had given him another speech earlier, but he couldn’t use that one now. With what had happened, this one would have to be really inspiring.

  Yet he still had his moments of solitude, the times when he felt, for the first time in his life, what it was like to be utterly alone. He couldn’t actually be alone, he supposed, since God had to be somewhere in the vicinity, but there were times when it seemed that the emptiness of space had seeped into him.

  Mars swelled until it filled the screen, and then his ship was falling around the planet. There was no way to avoid weightlessness now; the Burroughs had begun to decelerate after the halfway point of the journey, and its engine had finally shut down. Dan put on his spacesuit and floated through the tunnel that connected the crew’s quarters with the module holding the base assembly. He wouldn’t be setting up a Mars base, though, since NASA didn’t want him fooling around down there for very long. He entered the last module, which held the lander.

  He pressed his hand against the lander’s door; it slid open. The lander had food, a small lavatory, and equipment for experiments. There was even a Mars rover on board so that he could ride around on the surface. He wouldn’t be doing much, though, except for shooting a bunch of stuff with the cameras and gathering soil samples. The important thing was to land, make his speech, mess around for a little while, catch some shut-eye, and then get back to the Burroughs.

  He strapped himself into one of the chairs. The four empty seats made him feel as if the ghosts of the others were with him. NASA had allowed each of the astronauts to bring along a small personal possession to take down to the Martian surface, and Dan had his companions’ choices with him in the lander. Ahmed had brought a Koran, Kiichi a vintage Louisville Slugger with Joe DiMaggio’s signature engraved on it, Sergei a set of Russian dolls, and Ashana a pair of Nikes personally autographed by Michael Jordan. A lump rose in his throat.

  The doors to the outside were opening; he tensed. The President had spoken to him just a couple of hours ago, telling him that everyone in the world would be waiting for his first transmission from the surface. In spite of the tragedy, Dan’s determination to carry out the landing had inspired everybody in the country. Having come so far, humankind would not be discouraged by this setback; the Vice-President had shown the way. Construction of the next ship was moving along; it would probably be spaceworthy by spring, and a follow-up Mars mission would give an even bigger boost to Dan’s candidacy. At this point, he would probably carry all the states, and even D.C., in the general election.

  “Asteroids,” the President had said. “Lotta resources there. Just get one of those things in Earth orbit, where we can go into, uh, a mining mode, and supply-side economics can work.” It was nice for Dan to think that, when he finally became President, things might be moving along so well that he’d have plenty of time for golf, the way Eisenhower had.

  The lander glided forward toward the new world belo
w.

  Mars filled his screen. Dan, pressed against his seat, braced himself. He had known what to expect; his training had included maneuvers with a model of the Mars rover in areas much like the Martian surface. Yet actually seeing it this close up still awed him. It looked, he thought, like the biggest sand trap in the universe.

  His chair trembled under him as he landed. Dan waited, wanting to make sure everything was all right before he got up. Time to contact Earth, but in the excitement of actually being on Mars, he had forgotten what he was supposed to say.

  He cleared his throat. “Guys,” he said, “I’m down.” That ought to do the job.

  Over four minutes passed before he heard what sounded like cheers at the other end. Sallie was saying something, but he couldn’t make out the words. By then, he was rummaging through the compartments of his spacesuit looking for the cards that held his speech.

  “—all ecstatic,” Sallie’s voice said. “Congratulations, and God bless you—you don’t know how much—”

  He sighed, realizing at last that he had forgotten the cards. He might have known that, during the most important moment of his life, he would have to ad lib.

  Dan waited in the small airlock until the door slid open. Above him was the pinkish-red sky of an alien world. A rust-colored barren landscape stretched to the horizon, which, he noticed, seemed closer than it should be, then remembered that Mars was smaller than Earth. He felt a lot lighter, too, since Mars, being a smaller place, didn’t have as much gravity.

  He made his way down the ladder to the surface, then inhaled slowly. “Whoa,” he said aloud, overcome with awe at the immensity of this accomplishment and sorrow that his dead comrades could not share the moment with him. “Jeez.” He pressed his lips together, suddenly realizing that history would record man’s first words on the surface of Mars as “Whoa” and “Jeez.”

  “Well, here I am,” he said, knowing he would have to wing it. “I almost can’t believe I’m here. Man, if anybody had told me when I was a kid that I’d go to Mars, I would have thought—” He paused. “Anyway, the thing is, I wish the others were here with me, because they’re the ones who really deserved to make this trip. What I mean is, I’m really going to miss them, but I can tell you all I’m not ever going to forget them. It’s why I’m here, because of them. In other words, I figured I had to come down and stand here for them.” He remembered that he was supposed to plant the United Nations flag about now, and took the pole out from under his arm. “Now we’ll go forward.” The words he had planned to say at this point were something like that. “And someday, other people will come here and turn into Martians.” Dan cleared his throat. “Guess I’ll show you around a little now.” He scanned the landscape with a camera, then went back to the lander. By then, the President had given him his congratulations, and Marilyn had gotten on to talk to him after that. He was happy to hear his wife’s voice, even though, what with having to wait a few minutes until she heard him and could reply, it wasn’t actually possible to have what he would call a real conversation. This far from Earth, the signals had to work even harder to reach him.

  The rover had been lowered from another side of the lander on a platform. Since about all he could do was take pictures and gather soil samples, NASA wanted him to drive around and take them in different places. They didn’t want him to go too far or take any unnecessary risks, and maybe, now that he’d given a speech of sorts, he could let the images of the Martian surface speak for themselves.

  He rode around, careful not to drive too fast since there were some nasty-looking rocks and rims of small craters nearby, until the orange sky grew darker. By the time he got back to the lander with his samples, the sky was nearly black and the sun a bright swirl on the horizon.

  I actually got here, he thought, then remembered the others with a pang.

  He slept well, then got up to say his farewells to the Red Planet—although Rusty Planet might be a better name for it. Another ride, some more pictures and samples, and he was ready to go. He hoped the NASA scientists weren’t too unhappy with his answers to their questions about what unusual things he might have observed. Hell, everything seemed pretty unusual here, when he stopped to think about it.

  He went inside, then strapped in. “Ready to go,” he said. There were just a couple of buttons to push, and he had practiced a lot during the last days aboard the Burroughs to be sure he didn’t make a mistake. He pressed one, waited for it to light up, then hit the next. For a few moments, he wondered why he couldn’t feel the lander taking off, then realized that it wasn’t moving.

  “Uh, Mars to Houston,” he said, then waited until he heard Sallie’s voice respond. “I hate to say this, but I’m not going anywhere. Should I hit those whosits again, or what?”

  Nearly ten minutes later, he heard Sallie’s reply. Her first word was, “Shit.”

  No matter how many times he activated the controls, nothing happened. Mission Control had various theories about what might be wrong, none of which were doing him any good. Gradually it dawned on him that he might be stranded. Twenty-four hours after he reached that conclusion, Sallie confirmed it. They could not pinpoint the problem at that distance. They did not want to take any risks with the lander. He was reminded of which buttons to push in order to bring down the Mars base assembly.

  It could have been worse, he told himself. There were enough provisions in the lander alone to last him more than a month, since his companions weren’t there to share them. With the supplies the base assembly had, he could survive until a rescue mission arrived.

  There would be such a mission. The President assured him of that, as did Sallie. Another ship would be on its way to him within a few months. The wonderful thing was that his mission, despite the tragedy, was in its own way a success, even if he wasn’t in the best position to appreciate that fact. A man had made it to Mars and was now on its surface, and the fate of his fellow astronauts had only temporarily stemmed the rising tide of optimism and hope. Humankind would return to the Moon and reach out to the other planets. Dan, who had insisted on landing instead of turning back, would be remembered by future generations of space explorers.

  How his present predicament might affect the elections was not discussed. The President had said something vague about getting him back there in time for the convention. Now that Dan was a true hero, it didn’t look as though there would be any opposition in the Republican primaries anyway.

  Dan tried to feel comforted by this, but the campaign, and everything else, seemed awfully far away.

  A distant object shaped like a shuttlecock dropped toward the cratered plain. Its engines fired; the object landed two kilometers away.

  Dan sighed with relief at the sight of the base assembly. He had been worrying that something might go wrong at this point; one disadvantage of being a hero was that sometimes it required you to be dead. Now he would be safe, and could keep busy making observations, watching movies, working out, and in general keeping himself together until the rescue mission arrived. It was sort of depressing to know he’d miss Thanksgiving and Christmas, although fortunately there were some turkey dinners among the provisions, and Mission Control had promised to sing carols for him.

  He climbed into the rover and started toward the barrels of the base assembly; he’d check it out first, then come back another time to load up on whatever he might need from the lander. His staff had promised to transmit the text for the official announcement of his candidacy in a few days, and he supposed they would want him to make some speeches from Mars later, during the primaries. Maybe being on Mars, whatever the disadvantages, was better than having to trudge through New Hampshire.

  He had to admit it; life in the somewhat more spacious quarters of the Mars base wasn’t too bad in some ways. He was getting used to the desolate orange landscape and the way the sun set so suddenly. There were movies and records enough to keep him occupied, although he was beginning to see that there were limits to how many times he could watch
some movies, even ones as great as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

  But there were times when the solitude, even with all the messages NASA was relaying from Earth, really got to him. There wasn’t a whole lot a guy could do all alone, except for stuff it was better not to think about too much. He had spoken to Marilyn and the kids a couple of times, but having to speak and then wait long minutes for the response made him realize how far he was from everything he knew.

  Maybe things would pick up when he really got into his campaign. There was plenty he could do, even out here. His staff was already trying to set him up for a Nightline appearance, which would probably have to be taped so that the delay between Ted Koppel’s questions and his answers could be deleted. His staff should be transmitting the text for the official announcement of his candidacy any day now.

  Dan had finished struggling into his spacesuit and was about to put on his helmet when the com started beeping at him. Maybe his speechwriters had finally gotten their act together. He sat down and turned on the screen.

  The President’s face stared out at him. “Uh, hello, Mr. President,” Dan said. “I was just about to take a drive over to the lander—there’s some stuff I want to move here.”

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, Dan,” the President said. “Something’s gone, well, a bit awry. Might have known the Democrats would think of some devious—see, we’re going to have to postpone your announcement for a while.”

  “But why?”

  He waited a long time for the President’s answer. “The Democrats—they’re saying you have to be on Earth to make your announcement. Somebody found some loophole or other in the law, and they’re arguing that you can’t declare and run for President while you’re on Mars. Got our guys working on it—think they can beat those bastards in court—but by the time they do, it may be too late to file and get you on primary ballots. Could try to get write-ins, but the rules are, uh, different in every state.”