Moments later, a young captain approached carrying a red telephone. “General Winters, sir, it’s the White House.”
Winters paused to observe that the systems check was well underway. Then, wearing a mischievous grin, he reached out for the telephone.
When the Reverend Bobby Joe Stone entered his home, he found a group of middle-aged women gathered around the sitting-room television, watching a live broadcast from the three castaways stranded on Mars.
His wife sipped her iced tea and beamed at the image on the screen. “Oh, look at the baby! Isn’t she cute?”
The minister came into the room, gave his wife a chaste kiss on the cheek, but the other women didn’t even notice his entrance. “Hello, ladies. What’s so interesting on TV?”
Charity Stone smiled at her husband. “It’s those astronauts who are staying on Mars. See, there’s the father, and the mother and the baby. Oh, what a cute little girl! And the mother is such a fine Christian girl. Just listen to her, dear.”
Another woman munched daintily on a dish of mixed nuts. “Ooooh, look at that child’s adorable little nose. What a cutie!”
Gwen continued to talk from the television. “Our family is going to stay here on Mars, because it’s God’s plan and because it’s what the baby needs. Eventually, we hope that some of you will decide to come here and join us.”
McGee leaned forward, picking up the thread. “Because we could use some friends here to help turn this planet into a home. Most importantly, though, don’t feel sorry for us. We’ll get by, the three of us, because we have love, we have each other, and a new and beautiful world to explore, live, build, and grow on.”
Mrs. Stone gasped and turned to her husband. He had seen that fire in her eyes before. “Dear, we’ve got to do something to help them. It’s a true mission you could take on.”
The televangelist frowned uncomfortably. “I don’t exactly see how. Those people are millions of miles away.”
Charity Stone gave him a scolding look. “You saw them, dear. Look at them, look at that baby. We can’t leave that family there all alone and in need. We’ve got to start raising money right now for a campaign for a second expedition!”
Now she had the Reverend’s interest. “Raise money?”
“Why, yes! There isn’t a Christian family in America that wouldn’t give one hundred dollars tonight, right now, to help that poor brave little family. All you need to do is ask them.”
The minister blinked. “You really think so?”
The woman with the mixed nuts reached into her purse. “In fact, let me start the ball rolling, Reverend. I’ll pledge a thousand dollars right now. My husband will never even notice.”
Bobby Joe Stone looked at the entranced women watching Gwen and baby Virginia on the television. “Hmm. I do believe you’re right.”
Smoky fumes filled the cabin of the Retriever. The entire ship vibrated massively with supersonic buffeting.
Rebecca coughed. “Cabin temperature 130! Hull temperature . . .”
“Firing drogue,” Townsend announced. He opened two switch covers and then closed both switches. An explosion resounded, signaling that the drogue parachute had been mortared out. Suddenly an enormous jerk wrenched the ERV backward in the air, but then things quieted down as the vehicle dropped swiftly, but at subsonic velocity through the Earth’s atmosphere.
Luke called off the altimeter readings. “Attitude forty thousand feet, thirty-nine, thirty-eight . . .”
Rebecca eyed the life-support monitors. Cabin temperature had begun to drop, but the air composition was lethal. “CO2’s off the scale. Take us down fast, Colonel.”
Townsend’s breathing was heavy. “Roger that.”
The air whistled past the plummeting ERV.
“Twelve thousand . . . eleven thousand!” Luke cried. “You’re coming in too fast. We’re going to smash! For God’s sake, Colonel, release the main chute!”
“No,” Rebecca choked, “get us down.”
Townsend armed the parachute release system. “Just a few more seconds.”
Luke screamed, “Three thousand feet. Two thousand!”
“Firing main parachute.” Townsend threw two more switches and released a huge parasail, subjecting the ship to another enormous lurch. He grabbed a stick to steer the sail. “We’re coming in fast. Better brace yourselves, folks.” He called off the final approach. “Prepare for impact in eight, seven . . .”
Seconds later, the cabin shook as the ERV hit water at a terminal velocity of forty miles per hour.
The three explorers stared in amazement at the sight of hissing and steaming seawater splashing over the outside of the porthole. But there was no time to lose. In a blink, the crew was up, madly scrambling for the hatch. Rebecca reached it first and struggled to open the lock, but was too weak. When Luke got beside her, he added his muscle and cranked the wheel a little, but not enough.
Townsend joined in the effort. All of them were on the verge of passing out, suffocating only inches away from fresh, clean air. “OK, together on three. One—two—three!”
The three crew members shoved together, and the wheel rotated a quarter turn, after which the hatch popped open to reveal a patch of blue sky. A blessed whiff of sea air entered the cabin, bringing with it the promise of salvation. Then, as if mocking their renewed hope, the ERV tipped to bring sea level to the bottom of the hatch. Water began to pour in.
“Abandon ship,” Townsend shouted.
Closest to the open hatch, Rebecca struggled to get through, but the onrushing water pushed her back. She felt a shove from behind, as the two men pushed her through the opening and into the ocean.
Thrown like a projectile, Rebecca landed headfirst in the sea, then struggled toward the surface. The doctor had once been a fair swimmer, but encumbered with heavy wet clothes, lack of oxygen, and weak from ten months on short rations in zero gravity, she could barely stop herself from sinking farther. She looked upward. Above, light shone on the surface. Air, all the air she could want, was only six feet away.
She kicked and clawed the water with mad desperation, her lungs about to burst. Then she broke the surface, and fresh air filled her stricken lungs. A wave crashed over her and forced her back down, but then she surfaced for another deep breath. She blinked in the bright light and stinging water, but could see nothing except sea and sky. Finally reorienting herself, she turned and saw the Retriever, its inflation collar beginning to fill.
Still gasping for breath, she swam wildly back to the ERV, and, with the help of Luke Johnson, who looked like a big wet Texas rat, hauled herself up on the inflation collar. Then she looked around and saw—the Statue of Liberty!
The ERV had landed in New York harbor on a beautiful spring day! She turned and stared in amazement at Townsend, who answered her with palms out and a self-satisfied grin. She laughed and shook her head, then took a deep breath of the fresh sea air and smoothed back her hair.
A forty-foot sailing yacht came tacking up. “Ahoy there, Martians!” the nattily clad sportsman at her helm called out. “Welcome back. Care for something to drink?”
Rebecca smiled. “A cappuccino would be nice,” she said sweetly.
In seconds, the ERV was surrounded by pleasure boats, and a big floating party ensued. On one of the boats, a CD player blared out the song “New York, New York.”
Rescue helicopters arrived overhead, instructing the civilian boats to disperse for reasons of quarantine, but were joyfully ignored.
Rebecca kicked off her boots and let them sink as she bathed her bare feet in the water. She sipped her cappuccino and gazed thoughtfully first at the Manhattan skyline, then at the soaring sea gulls, and finally at the infinite sky beyond.
EPILOGUE
NEW PLYMOUTH, OPHIR
PLANUM APRIL 9, 2034 11:45 MLT
AFTER TWENTY YEARS, by now graying and slightly pot-bellied, Kevin McGee sat in a chair in the galley looking at video footage on the monitor. Hanging on the arms and watching alon
g with him were two kids, fourteen-year-old Caitlin and eleven-year-old Dylan. Gwen, her red braided hair also streaked with gray, was cooking, assisted by Virginia, who was now twenty-one.
McGee used the remote to zoom in on a series of video snapshots. “Well, we never saw them again, not in person, but we heard a lot about them. See, here’s some footage of their landing on Earth. It was quite a show.”
McGee pressed the button on the remote, and the video showed Townsend, Rebecca, and Luke clinging to the hull of the ERV Retriever, which, buoyed by an inflatable collar, bobbed in New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center were visible in the background. Sailboats crowded around the ERV filled with people waving and snapping pictures. In the distance, rescue helicopters were waiting unheeded. Rebecca had taken her shoes off, and was bathing her feet while she leaned back to let her face take in the sunshine. Townsend sat grinning on the hull, returning the cheers with a thumbs up. Luke stood on the highest point of the floating ERV, waving his soaked cowboy hat in the air and whooping it up. Someone from a sailboat passed by and handed Luke a beer.
“They sure picked a dramatic place to make a splash,” McGee commented. “The impromptu ticker-tape parade that followed kind of blew away the quarantine issue too.” He switched to another image. “Now here’s Townsend with his new general’s stars, receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
Dylan broke in, “Who’s the guy with the goofy-looking grin shaking his hand?”
McGee grinned. “That, Dylan, was the President of the United States.”
The boy looked puzzled. “I thought Townsend was the President.”
“He’s the President now, Dylan. This other man was President then.” McGee picked another image. “Now here’s Rebecca getting her Nobel Prize.”
Caitlin was dazzled at the vision of elegance that now filled the screen. “Wow, look at that dress . . . and look at hers.”
McGee nodded. “That’s the Queen of Sweden next to her. Now here’s Luke on his big spread in Texas. He made a fortune importing industrial gems from Mars.”
“Don’t we know it,” Virginia interrupted roughly.
Gwen scolded her older daughter. “Hush, child! His money has done a lot for this colony.”
There was a knock on the lower deck door. McGee called out, “Come in, whoever you are.”
To everyone’s surprise, a pretty young woman walked in. She wore a doctor’s uniform, including stethoscope, and looked very much like a young version of Rebecca.
The girl spoke. “Hi, I just arrived on the ship earlier today. My name’s Rachel Sherman. I think you two knew my mother?”
“Well!” McGee stammered, “I thought I heard something about Rebecca having a daughter, but . . .”
“That’s me. She met my father in Stockholm. He was a physicist, getting a Nobel Prize himself for discovering some new kind of particle. I think they were called tachyons, itsy bitsy little things that go faster than light. Mother says there really wasn’t all that much to it. I wouldn’t know, since I’m not glued onto physics, but anyway it got him to Stockholm. They met, married, and . . .”
“And you kept your mother’s last name,” Gwen interjected.
Rachel smiled. “You know my mother. Naturally, she made my father agree that any girls would get her name, and the boys could have his. But I was all they managed to hatch.”
McGee nodded understanding. “It didn’t last long?”
Rachel shrugged. “When Mother won her second prize for splicing Martian genes with Earth plants to make Arctic Wheat, Father just couldn’t drink it, so he lifted off for England to take Hawking’s old chair at Cambridge.”
“And you?” Gwen asked.
Rachel toyed a bit with her stethoscope. “I spent my entire childhood flying around the world with Mother to conferences and laboratories and stuff, and since that didn’t leave me any time for school, she educated me herself. She said school would be a waste of my time anyway. I guess she was right because here I am, eighteen years old, and I’ve passed all the medical boards.”
McGee had to grin. “I’m not surprised. I’ll bet you’re the best doctor anyone could hope to meet.”
“Yes, I am,” Rachel continued in a matter-of-fact way. “But the problem is, on Earth they have all these asinine laws and regulations, and if you don’t have a degree from an accredited medical school, it doesn’t matter how good you are—the rhinos won’t let you practice.”
Gwen smiled warmly. “Well, I’m sure we can use you here.”
Suddenly Rachel seemed to be hit by a new thought. “Oh, I almost forgot. Here’s a present for you from Mother.” The young doctor reached into her pack and pulled out a bag of seeds. “It’s her latest gene-splicing invention—‘coldberries’ she calls them. She says they should do fine growing outside on Mars.”
Gwen gratefully accepted the seeds. “Thanks to both of you. But you haven’t been properly introduced. These are our younger children, Caitlin and Dylan, and this is Virginia. Your mother delivered her, the first child born on Mars.”
A teenaged boy wandered in and, without noticing the new arrival, started wiping greenhouse dirt from his arms.
“And this is our second, Brendan.”
Brendan looked up and saw Rachel, who, pleased with her obvious effect on the boy, twinkled her eyes at him. “Hello, Brendan,” the girl said.
A little embarrassed at being unexpectedly subjected to the study of a pretty girl, Brendan blushed. “Hello,” he said awkwardly.
Rachel reassured him with a generous smile. “Anyway, I start work tomorrow, and I was wondering if there was any way I could get a chance to do a little exploring first? You know, have a look around the country?” She looked at Brendan to make sure the poor lad got his cue.
For a moment it seemed as if the boy didn’t get it, then suddenly there was a light in his eye. “I’ve got a rover!” he blurted. “I know all the country around here. I could take you for a drive right now.”
“That would be very nice,” Rachel said.
Brendan gestured for the young doctor to follow and headed for the door. But Gwen stopped him with a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Now wait a minute, son, lunch is almost ready, and there’s work . . .”
“Oh come on, Mom,” Brendan pleaded.
McGee saw the stricken expression on his son’s face and was reminded of the desperate and joyful hopes of his own youth. “Let him go, Gwen.”
She nodded, as if understanding, and let go. In a flash, Brendan was across the galley. Taking Rachel’s hand, he was out the door.
Gwen called out after him, “Check the oil, transmission, and battery fluids if you’re planning on taking out that old tin lizzie of yours.”
Already downstairs, Brendan shouted his reply. “I will.”
An instant later, the two young people were running down one of the translucent tunnels that now linked the Beagle to other habs and auxiliary buildings.
As they ran, Brendan held Rachel’s hand in one of his, while using the other to point things out and make animated gestures. Rachel’s eyes were wide.
“And this is my rover,” Brendan explained, as they entered an inflatable garage. “It’s the original one that landed with the Beagle. Everybody says it’s too old for use, but I keep it in shape.”
Rachel walked over and touched the machine. “You mean this is the very same vehicle that Mother used when she made her discovery?”
“Yep. And it’s also the rover that . . .” Brendan leaned over and whispered in her ear, provoking a snicker from the girl.
Rachel regarded him coyly. “But if this rover is so old, how do we know we won’t get stuck?”
“Yes, that would be awful, wouldn’t it?” Brendan deadpanned.
Rachel gave him a playful shove. “Don’t you even think of it, you . . . you, Martian!”
“Don’t worry,” Brendan reassured her. “Come on, let’s go!”
They hopped into the rover, and Brendan c
ycled the airlock door and steered their way outside. As he drove, the young man kept talking animatedly with his hands, while Rachel looked at him, her smile alternating between interest and skepticism.
As they rode out, Rachel got a good view of the old Snoopy on the side of the Beagle, and then the emblems and flags on the dozens of other habs connected by inflatable tunnels. Oddly colored clumps of blue-green grass grew between the habs. Few from Earth had ever seen such grass firsthand, but Rachel had: It grew in the Mars simulation chambers of her mother’s lab.
Then they were out of the base area and onto the planitia, whose endless expanse was beginning to be invaded by scattered tufts of tall blue-green grass spreading out from the base.
McGee and Gwen stood by the window of the Beagle, watching the two drive joyfully across the plain. He squeezed her hand, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. From the depths of his memory came a snatch of a song:
One spark of Reason thy life shall start.
One spark of mind shall make alive thee.
McGee flashed with feeling as he remembered the lyric. The hope had become real. Life, full of play and full of wonder, had come to Mars . . . and Mars was coming to life.
TECHNICAL APPENDIX:
THE MARS DIRECT PLAN
FIRST LANDING PRESENTS a humans-to-Mars expedition not as a venture for the far future, but as a mission for our generation. This is entirely realistic. As I explained in detail in my books Entering Space and The Case for Mars, the United States has in hand, today, all the technologies required for undertaking an aggressive, continuing program of human Mars exploration, with the first piloted mission reaching the Red Planet Mars within a decade. We do not need to build giant spaceships embodying futuristic technologies in order to go to Mars. We can reach the Red Planet with relatively small spacecraft launched directly to Mars by boosters embodying the same technology that carried astronauts to the Moon more than thirty years ago. The key to success comes from following a “travel light and live off the land” strategy similar to that which has well-served terrestrial explorers for centuries. The plan to approach the Red Planet in this way is called Mars Direct. This is the plan used by the crew of the Beagle in the present novel.
First Landing Page 24