Keystone

by Talbot, Luke

  “Happy Birthday, Captain Marchenko,” Montreaux said as he glided across the room, extending his hand to the Russian. They had, of course, already greeted each other that sol, but it seemed appropriate to repeat the congratulations given the festive appearance of the crew.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Marchenko replied gracefully.

  Montreaux was glad that the Clarke’s official language was English, as his Russian was worse than his Chinese. While Marchenko’s accent was not as good as Su Ning’s, his English was similarly impressive.

  “S Dnyom Rozdyeniya, Danny!” came a voice above Montreaux’s head.

  It was bad enough that the crew did not follow the regulatory naming convention of rank and surname, thought Montreaux, but if there was one person who would reliably break any possible protocol, including that of official language, it was Dr Jane Richardson, the mission’s civilian scientist. She was the only crew member without a military background, a fact that was usually reflected in both her attire and attitude. The Captain glanced up at her and tutted.

  The Lounge was the main social hub of the Clarke. A huge spherical room, it was fifty feet wide, with slightly flattened poles like a beach ball that was being pressed against the ground. Two cylindrical tubes connected the Lounge to the other parts of the ship, and four small windows, identical to the one in the Captain’s quarters, were placed at regular intervals around the equator. Between two of the windows and directly in front of Montreaux, who had approached from the sleeping area, was the Lounge’s red sofa, sixteen feet long with four backrests. It was designed for everyone to sit facing the low coffee table in front. Lieutenant Su Ning and Captain Marchencko had used the sofa’s straps to stop themselves from floating away from the drinks and meals that stuck magnetically to the table’s surface.

  Behind Montreaux’s head, on the wall above the entrance, was a large recessed television screen, protected by thick Plexiglas against out of control floating astronauts. Every night they would be able to sit in front of the screen and watch a variety of programmes and movies, held in the Clarke’s library. It was also where the crew would get regular video broadcasts from Earth. Private communications would invariably be played on the smaller screens, inside their own quarters.

  The sofa and coffee table formed the logical ‘floor’, while the small recessed cupboards and drawers on the opposing side of the sphere were the ‘ceiling’. However the lack of gravity meant that the Clarke’s crew were by no means restricted to such definitions.

  It would be another month and a half before they would need to get used to an actual feeling of down and up, but even on Mars it would be at a third of Earth’s oppressive gravity.

  For this reason, he was unsurprised to see Dr Richardson sitting quite comfortably on the ceiling above him, sipping through the straw of her drink.

  “Hi, Yves!” she waved.

  “Good evening Dr Richardson,” he said quite politely. “I would remind you that the official language of this vessel is English.” He knew he was perhaps being a little harsh, given the circumstances, but his upbringing had been one of utmost respect for seniority and rank, none of which was forthcoming from the doctor. He reached the sofa with a push and strapped himself in. Pulling a drink from the table, he forced himself not to look up at the scientist. “Will you be joining us today?”

  “Actually, yes, I will,” she replied.

  She suddenly appeared on the seat beside him thanks to a perfectly judged push against the room’s wall. She clipped herself in and raised her drink for a toast. Some people took a long time to get used to zero gravity, and simply moving from one place to another was a chore. But not Dr Richardson; Jane was a natural, and it annoyed him no end.

  “To Danny!” she said with a grin.

  The light-hearted party had lasted three hours, during which special congratulatory messages from Earth had been played on the Lounge’s television screen. It had finished when it became evident that both Captain Marchenko and Dr Richardson had clearly consumed too much alcohol, a dangerous situation in space. The Russians had a far more relaxed attitude to alcohol than their western counterparts, and had lobbied hard to allow some drinks on the mission for special occasions. But Montreaux been had brought up under the NASA doctrine, where alcohol was a complete no-no.

  As a consequence, he had called an end to the night slightly earlier than planned, with Marchenko retiring merrily to his quarters to watch the more personal greetings that his family had transmitted during the day.

  Back in his own room, Montreaux placed the headphones carefully over his ears and pressed them down firmly with his hands, before touching the screen lightly. As the music began to play, he lay back and let his mind wander.

  On the wall opposite was a framed picture: a three dimensional rendering of the Clarke, set against the backdrop of Mars. The Sun shone from the left of the picture, casting the Clarke’s shadow over the Red Planet.

  He closed his eyes and put his hands behind his head as Barber’s Adagio for Strings reached its first climax in his headphones. Sudden silence, then a lone double-bass mournfully recited the American composer’s melody.

  Montreaux’s imagination took him through his quarters’ small window and he sailed out into space. He felt himself rotating slowly in the vacuum, before coming to rest in a reclined position, his eyes wide open.

  Before him lay the Clarke.

  Chapter 13

  The Clarke slid through space effortlessly and silently at just over eight kilometres per second. The bright blue beam of charged ions escaping the spaceship’s exhaust, powered by a nuclear particle accelerator, made it the fastest manned craft ever built. Despite this, the gradual acceleration over eight weeks made the sensation of incredible speed practically imperceptible to its crew, who continued to float inside.

  The ion drive and particle accelerator were housed within a large grey oblong structure to the rear of the Clarke, narrowing at the end to a slit through which the ions were forced. The structure was connected by a one hundred feet section of titanium scaffold to the main living quarters. Running the entire length of the scaffold, through its centre, was a series of thin metallic tubes containing xenon gas, the fuel for their entire journey. On their arrival in Mars orbit, the spent canisters would be jettisoned carefully in space, away from the planet, to save on mass for the return journey; mass still had the same effect on objects as it did on Earth, even in the weightlessness of space.

  Closest to the ion drive was a group of four cylindrical pods bunched together in a circle, each one fifteen feet high and ten feet in diameter. There was one pod for each crew member, containing a bunk, computer, cupboard and drawers for personal items, and a small desk and chair with strap to retain its occupant. The remaining space was used for storage; enough food for one person for eight months.

  These personal quarters all led to a single cylindrical pod, ten feet high and twenty feet in diameter. Known to the crew as the ‘Hygiene Bay’, it housed the toilet and cleaning facilities. From the inside, it was a long way from a normal domestic bathroom; the walls and floors were made of thin stainless steel plates and fibreglass moulds. Any water used whilst cleaning would go through a purification process and return to the water canisters housed around the outside of the pod. Similarly, all bodily fluids were also recycled and returned to their reserve supply.

  From the Hygiene Bay a small opening led to the southern pole of the Lounge.

  The Lounge was designed to be a multi-purpose living area in which the crew would spend most of their time. Recessed cupboards opened out to reveal exercise mats and treadmills, and along one wall a complex scientific laboratory could be assembled. The Lounge’s sheer scale allowed it to perform several functions at once, meaning that the crew of four could all use the space at the same time while not being restricted to the same activities. The flexibility had been deemed indispensable by the mission psychologists, who had also made efforts not to separate the crew. For this reason, aside from emer
gency airlocks between each pod, there were no closable doors throughout the ship.

  Attached to the northern pole of the Lounge was the ten-foot long Command Module, containing four bucket seats in which the crew would be strapped during any navigation or propulsion changes. Surrounding the seats, an array of computer screens and old-fashioned flick switches covered every possible surface. Several portable fire-extinguishers were fastened to the walls.

  Whereas the other modules, with the exception of the Hygiene Bay, were designed to be welcoming and friendly, using pastel colours and soft lighting, the Command Module was exactly the opposite; from its grey rivet-covered walls to the un-enticing control panels, entering the pod felt like getting into a World War II submarine. It was designed for functionality only, and doubled as the Clarke’s optimistic emergency escape pod. Optimistic because everyone knew that save for incredible good fortune, to enter the Command Module and leave the Clarke mid-mission was a one way ticket, as if they did so at any appreciable distance from Earth, it simply couldn’t sustain life for long enough to allow a rescue party to reach it.

  A single, closed hatch left the Command Module.

  The final element of the Clarke interplanetary spaceship had been the subject of years of debate and research between the participating nations: the Mars Lander Pod. The MLP would be the first manned landing craft ever to touchdown on another planet. Larger objects had been placed on the surface of the Moon, but its lack of any substantially abrasive atmosphere naturally meant that aerodynamics did not need to be factored in; any sufficiently powered and controlled town house could be placed on the surface of the Moon with relative ease. Only the relatively small return modules needed to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

  The MLP had eventually been developed as a compromise between volume, mass and form. At thirty feet in diameter and ten feet tall, shaped like two shallow soup bowls, one upside down on top of the other, it bore more than a passing resemblance to a nineteen-fifties flying saucer. Despite this, its method of entry into the Martian skies would be very conventional, sliding in like a Frisbee at such an angle as to ensure friction did not destroy it, but not so shallow as to cause it to bounce off the atmosphere and back into space.

  Montreaux opened his eyes. His personal music player had stopped shuffling through his favourites list, and the ship’s lighting had auto-dimmed, which told him it was Nightmode. Glancing at his watch, he noted with interest that he had been sleeping for nearly four hours. Lifting the headphones from his ears, he listened intently for voices.

  Silence, save for the gentle hum of the Clarke’s air circulation system.

  Although the ship was in Nightmode, thin strips of light ran along the edges of his door, and along all of the passageways outside it, throwing an eerie blue glow across his room. Looking round in the dim light, he unclipped himself and moved carefully through the door and into the Hygiene Bay.

  The sound coming from Captain Marchenko’s quarters was proof that it was possible to snore in zero gravity, and Montreaux smiled as he headed for the Lounge.

  He reached for a small sliding switch on the inside of the connecting tunnel and the lights inside the Lounge turned on, faintly at first, then more brightly, until it was bathed in a soft, day-like warmth that reminded him of a summer afternoon in California. Were it not for the fact that he was now floating three feet above the sofa, he could almost imagine he was there, on the porch of the beach house, the sun touching his face gently.

  “Couldn’t sleep, Sir?”

  Due to the lack of gravity he didn’t so much jump as contract in surprise. He also couldn’t stop a small gasp of shock from leaving his mouth.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Su Ning apologised.

  He looked up and saw her, lying flat on the ceiling, on her stomach, looking out of one of the Lounge’s four windows. Her body and legs, held against the curved hull of the Clarke, made it look like an impossibly uncomfortable position.

  “That’s OK, Lieutenant. No, I had no problem sleeping, If anything I overslept! I’m just doing my rounds to make sure things are ticking along nicely, albeit a little later than usual. You?”

  She continued to look into space. “I come up here every night, for an hour or two; when the ship goes into Nightmode, there is no reflection in the Plexiglas, and I can see all of the stars.” Her voice drifted off, almost to a whisper.

  “I had no idea you did this.”

  Su Ning arched her head up to look down at him. “You may be the Captain, Sir, but with respect you don’t know everything.”

  She had spoken in her usual, kind voice. But something about the choice of her words, possibly her intonation, raised his suspicions. He was, after all, the commanding officer of the first manned mission to Mars. The mission’s most valuable asset was its crew, and their wellbeing was always his highest priority. The revelation that Su Ning stared out into the depths of space every night wasn’t concerning on its own, save for the fact that the controllers on Earth should have alerted him in his weekly psych report. However, the way in which she’d addressed him did seem a little out of sorts.

  He pushed against the sofa and made his way to her, anchoring himself on the rung beside the window and lying down opposite her. He looked into space with her for several moments. She was right: with the light on, the window was more like a mirror. In it, he saw her worried look.

  “Lieutenant, is everything OK?” He pushed away from the window to face her.

  She looked away quickly.

  The Captain allowed a long, uneasy silence to play out before opening his mouth and drawing breath. Before the words could come Su Ning continued, speaking quietly as if she did not want anyone to overhear.

  “I am not sure if it is an issue, Sir,” she whispered. “I would not worry you with anything unless I was certain.” She took a final look out of the window, before pushing off towards the door. “I am very tired, Sir, please excuse me.”

  Montreaux lay confused for several seconds before turning quickly. “Wait, Su Ning!”

  He was alone.

  Her parting words echoed in his head for minutes, although he decided to let her be. He could easily have reached her pod and confronted her; after all there was no door to close between them. But his experience told him that people, and none more so than astronauts, cosmonauts and taikonauts cooped up for months on end, sometimes needed their own space.

  He launched himself from the wall to finish his inspection of the Clarke.

  Chapter 14

  Jane sighed and looked towards the small window on the opposite side of the Lounge. Danny Marchenko sat beside her, his bottom lip curled upwards in an amused smile.

  “The United States is no longer a superpower, Jane,” he said calmly, enjoying every minute of their debate.

  She unclipped herself and launched towards the Lounge’s ceiling. Halfway there she expertly twisted her lower body round so that she was facing him, while at the same time holding her arms outstretched to catch the edges of two metal rungs attached to the wall. Wedging her arms behind the rungs, she crossed her legs and looked him in the eyes.

  “Danny, whilst I am all for the International nature of this mission,” she said sarcastically, “NASA remains the main stakeholder in Clarke.” From where she was now perched, she could see both entrances to the Lounge. She squirmed as she saw Captain Montreaux enter from the direction of the living quarters.

  He glanced up at her and laughed at the look on her face. “Captain Marchenko, are you winding Dr Richardson up again?” he said as he made his way to a small drawer recessed into the opposing wall.

  “I know I shouldn’t, but she bites so easily,” Danny laughed.

  She scowled at them both before returning her eyes to the darkness of space with a flick of her chin.

  “Like it or not, Dr Richardson, this isn’t an American expedition.” He opened the drawer in front of him and removed a writing pad and pen. “This is the twenty-first century, and no mat
ter how much lobbying goes on in Washington, this mission will not be putting the Star Spangled Banner into the soil of another planet.”

  Captain Danny Marchenko found himself in the unusual position of being in complete agreement with his American counterpart. “Absolutely,” he made himself say. He had been leading Jane on for a quarter of an hour on the subject, as was their almost-weekly ritual, but while he did it purely for the look on the doctor’s face, he recognised that sometimes things did get out of control. Twice already there had been heated arguments on board the Clarke, arguments that Earth had been quick to reprimand.

  Today was one of those days, and Jane was taking the subject particularly badly.

  “I don’t see why we can’t put all of our flags on Mars, that way everyone is happy!” she complained without looking away from the stars outside.

  Montreaux closed the drawer and pushed himself towards the living quarter’s entrance. “And can we put a Canadian flag, also?”

  “Why not?”

  “How about Japanese? I believe that Su Ning’s Grandfather is from Kyoto,” Captain Marchenko added.

  “Naturally,” she pursed her lips.

  “Oh, wait a minute,” Montreaux said theatrically. “My Grandfather was French, so how about a Tricolore? And a European Union Flag, so as not to upset everyone?”

  Jane did not reply.

  “Dr Richardson, this is part of our mission brief, and it does not matter how strongly you feel about the matter, the Clarke mission will be planting no flags in the Martian soil.” He waited for a response, but none came. “Furthermore, whilst I happily encourage topical debate, I do believe that we have already covered this subject several times.”

  He had reached the door and was about to pull himself through the tunnel to leave the Lounge when Jane shouted out in his general direction. “You’re an idealist, Yves,” she made no attempt to mask her sentiment. “The world you dream of can’t exist, and never will!”