by John Olson
“Be well, guys,” Josh said. “We’re gunning for you down here. Over and out.”
“We love you too,” Bob said.
Valkerie had a big smile on her face. “Talk to you tomorrow. Over and out.” She turned off the radio and shut down the computer. “Let’s get to those breathers.” She pushed off and floated toward the stairwell.
Bob followed her, wondering what in the world she was smiling about.
* * *
Thursday, June 19, Year Three, 10:00 A.M.
Nate
Nate studied the laptop carefully. “You’re sure about this, Cathe?”
Cathe Willison nodded. “The telemetry data is super slow and flaky, but it’s consistently flaky. The primary aerobrake-deployment system is showing a busted hydraulic line.”
Nate stared at the big wall calendar. Two weeks till landing, and now this. “Does the crew know?”
“They haven’t had time to run diagnostics in weeks. Bob’s a week behind in his exercise regime, Kennedy’s about ten days behind, Lex is still totally out of it, and Valkerie is mothering them all, like, twenty hours a day.”
“Okay, Josh, what’s the crew’s mental state?” Nate said. “What do we tell them and when?”
Josh studied his hands. “It’s a question of whether they need to know,” he said slowly. “If the backup system is good, then we tell them to go with the backup and explain why.”
“What’s the scoop on the backup?”
Cathe shrugged her shoulders eloquently. “No way to know. The diagnostics on it are powered down.”
“Which means ...”
“Not much. Everything on that ship is powered down.” Cathe shook her head. “It’s anybody’s guess if that backup is functional.”
“I don’t want guesses. I need an answer!” Nate stood up and began pacing. “If they can’t deploy an aerobrake, then they’re dead. If so, we’ll have to let Perez know about it.”
“But not the press,” Josh said.
“That’s his call,” Nate said. “He’s the one always going on about free and full flow of information.”
“If the press knows, the crew’s going to find out,” Cathe said. “They get e-mail.”
“They’ll find out eventually, when they try to land and go splat,” Nate said. “The question is, do we tell them?”
“Can they fix it?” Cathe asked.
“They’d have to do a spacewalk,” Josh said. “And normally, that’s a two-man job. Lex can’t go. And Bob and Kennedy aren’t up to snuff yet.”
“How long would it take Valkerie?” Cathe said.
“At least six hours of EVA, but her suit’s way short on oxygen. She already did two EVAs.” Nate blew his nose. “The system’s almost inaccessible—that’s why we have a backup. The point is, we need to find out if that backup is working. If so, then it’s all a mute point.”
“Moot point,” said Cathe.
“Whatever.” Nate pointed to Josh. “On the next comm link, get them to power up diagnostics on that backup. But don’t alarm the crew. This is important. We don’t want them to panic.”
“So you’re just going to leave them in the dark?” Cathe said. “Let them think they can land it, even if you know they can’t?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we fall off of it. When’s the next comm link, Josh?”
“A couple of hours.”
“You should tell them,” Cathe said. “Tell them everything.”
“Duly noted, Miss Willison.” Nate waved Josh toward the door. “Okay, Capcom, go find out whether we have a problem. And this time—bring me some good news.”
* * *
Thursday, June 19, Year Three, 11:00 A.M.
Valkerie
Valkerie clipped the panel back in place and checked the Sabatier scrubber fixes off her to-do list. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve and let herself relax into a zombie position. Someone was definitely trying to kill them, but it wasn’t some faceless saboteur. It was Josh and Nate and a team of five thousand engineers. She had seven more tasks on her list before check-in—and check-in was in less than five minutes. Valkerie shook her head and grabbed Bob’s tool bag. A visual check of the bioreactor was a small job. Maybe if she hurried, she could squeeze it in before her report.
“Valkerie!” Bob’s voice echoed down through the stairwell.
Great. So much for the bioreactor. She hurried upstairs and found Bob struggling with his penguin suit. He didn’t seem to be struggling very hard. “Finished your run already?” she asked.
“One point four miles.” Bob grinned triumphantly. “Can you give me a hand with this suit?”
“That’s great!” Valkerie helped him pull his arms out of the bungee-corded sleeve of his exercise suit. “I’ve got to run. I want to look at the bioreactor before check-in.”
“Uh, Valkerie?”
Valkerie swiveled to face him. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Bob’s face and neck were flushed. His eyes locked with hers.
“Thank you.”
Valkerie searched Bob’s face, losing herself in the mystery of his expression. Bob caught his breath and stared steadfastly back.
“I, um ... you’re welcome.” Valkerie turned slowly away. She had work to do. Had to fix the ... what was it she had to fix? Whatever it was, it would have to wait. Nature called.
Valkerie pulled her way around the stairwell. Yuck! The boys had been awake only four weeks and the place was a wreck. She picked a jumpsuit, some sweats, and a pair of damp socks out of the air and opened the door to Bob’s cabin. If he thought she was going to repair the ship and provide maid service too ... Her hand closed around a pencil-shaped object in the jumpsuit. Engineers. She opened the pocket and pulled out ... a syringe.
Valkerie gasped. It looked like ... sodium pentothal. Why ... ? Valkerie felt suddenly queasy. No wonder he had been acting so weird. He hadn’t been afraid of being put in a coma. He had been planning—to put her in a coma instead? Valkerie stared at the syringe, letting the revelation sink in. He really had believed that she was the saboteur. That she would kill him in his sleep. What had happened? Why didn’t he follow through with it?
Something creaked behind her. She threw the dirty clothes in Bob’s cabin and hid the syringe in her pocket. Pushing through the corridor, she drifted over to the CommConsole. Bob sat at the conference table, watching her with haunted eyes.
All those questions. He had learned every detail of how the drugs were administered. He could have easily overpowered her—but he didn’t. In his mind he was risking death rather than force his will on her. Valkerie shook her head. It was unbelievable. It was ... She checked her watch. Check-in time. They were two minutes early, but there was no point wasting time. She switched on the transmitters.
“Houston, this is Valkerie reporting in. We have successfully repaired the Sabatier scrubber and verified the StarTracker. Um ... we have deferred checkups on the coolant loops, Nav software, and all avionics diagnostics. I’m sorry, but I just don’t have time to do everything on your lists. Over.”
Bob floated up alongside her and braced himself against the console.
Valkerie turned away from him. They waited in awkward silence.
“Ares 10, this is Houston. Copy on that progress report. We’re updating your task list. Things are going smoothly down here. Real smoothly. How are you guys doing with the exercise?”
“Hi, Josh. This is Bob. We’re doing great. Kennedy is up to a mile per session, and I’m almost up to a mile and a half. Valkerie is a drill sergeant, but we’re hanging in there.”
“Don’t listen to him, Josh,” Valkerie said. “I only had Bob scheduled for a mile run. I’m so easy on them that they’re doing extra just to keep from being bored.”
“Sir, yes sir. Whatever you say, sir!”
Valkerie smiled awkwardly and scooted farther away from Bob.
“Speaking of drill sergeants, what else do you have for us to do? We’ve still got a ton left on the list, but I don
’t suppose that’s going to stop you from giving us more. Hugs to all you guys. Over.” Valkerie looked up at Bob.
Bob studied her with a puzzled look and brushed his fingers through his hair. “You really like him, don’t you?”
“Who? Josh?” Valkerie bit her lip. What could she say? A few months ago she wouldn’t have hesitated, but now ... now she wasn’t so sure. “Of course I like him. He’s a great friend.”
“A friend?” Bob raised an eyebrow.
“Of course. Don’t tell me you don’t trust him anymore.” Valkerie looked down at the console. What was she supposed to say? Bob was getting so ... personal.
“I ... well, I trust the people on this ship a whole lot more than anybody down there.”
Valkerie didn’t reply. If he was going to get paranoid again, she didn’t want to encourage that kind of thinking. The minutes ticked by in silence.
“Ares 10, sounds like you’re having a great time. Wish I was there. We’re e-mailing you a new schedule that should take some of the load off you. These are some routine system checks we want to make remotely. No big deal. Just routine. We need you to power up some of the diagnostic systems just before the next check-in, and we’ll scan them by telemetry. That should save you guys a big block of time and get you ready for Mars entry. Next check-in time is in three hours at fourteen hundred hours. Have everything ready and we’ll get these routine checks done and then you can power them off again. Please confirm.”
Bob reached for the mike. A frown creased his face. “Josh, what’s going on?” His expression changed. “Um ... going on down there? You didn’t give us any baseball scores. Anyway, we’re confirming check-in at fourteen hundred hours. Out.” He powered down.
“What’s wrong?” Valkerie asked.
“Didn’t you hear him? Something’s wrong. He used the word ‘routine’ at least twice. Maybe three times. Bring up that e-mail.”
Valkerie brought up the message and scrolled down to the end. “Wow, look at all the stuff on this list. Can we afford to power all those up?”
Bob scanned the list. “Most of these are just small sensors—a few watts apiece. Coolant loop sensors. Heat-exchanger diagnostics. The bioreactor time-history data analyzer. We can afford to bring them up for a few minutes.”
Bob froze. “Wait a second ... this one doesn’t fit the pattern.”
“What pattern?”
“Most of these things are diagnostic only. All of them are, except one.” He pointed at the middle of the list. “They want us to power up the backup aerobrake-deployment system.”
“The aerobrake has a backup? I must have missed that one somewhere along the way.”
“Not the aerobrake—just the deployment system. There’s a hydraulic line that moves the whole aerobrake system out of the solar panel bay on a mechanical arm and prepares the inflatable shell for deploy—” Bob’s face froze in an expression of horror. “Oh no!”
“What?”
“If someone were to deploy the aerobrake system right now, it would knock out what remains of our solar panel.”
“But they can’t do that. There’s got to be some kind of a fail-safe, right?”
“The fail-safe for the backup system was damaged during launch. I mentioned that to Houston before we left Earth orbit, but it’s not mission critical, so nobody worried about it.”
“Could somebody on the ground initiate the backup aerobrake-deployment system right now?”
“No, we have it powered down.”
“But now Josh wants us to power it up.”
“Somebody wants us to power it up,” Bob said. “We don’t know who put it on that list.”
“What are we going to do?”
Bob scratched his chin. “We’ll give them what they want, with a little surprise. We’ll power up the system but pull the controller board. Then we’ll see what they do. We can watch their commands in real-time on the monitor.”
Bob pushed off and floated over to a wall panel. He unlatched it and reached far inside. “Okay ... got it. I’ve pulled the board.” He held it up for Valkerie to see. “Now we’ll see what our little saboteur does, whoever he is.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Thursday, June 19, Year Three, 1:30 P.M.
Bob
BOB LUNGED TOWARD KENNEDY AT top speed. Kennedy threw up both arms. Bob piled into him, spun his legs up and around, kicked off the wall, and flung his missile—right through Kennedy’s arms and into the makeshift goal.
“Score!” Bob shouted. “Fifty-four to fifty-two! Woo, woo, woo!”
They were playing space hockey in the stairwell, a game Valkerie had invented to take some of the tedium out of getting back in shape. They liked it so much, she usually had to force them to quit.
Kennedy picked up the “puck”—a large round mesh bag stuffed with sweaty clothes. Bob retreated to cover his own goal. Kennedy eyed him for a moment, feinted left, right, left again. Then he launched himself.
Bob didn’t move. Kennedy had accidentally given himself a bit of cartwheel. Sorry, you lose, Hampster.
Halfway across, Kennedy’s foot lashed out, caught the side wall, and spun him back toward the center—feet first into Bob. Bob grabbed his feet, but that gave Kennedy leverage to swing around him and dunk the puck into the net as softly as a butterfly kiss.
“Score!” Kennedy shouted. “Watch out, Kaggo, I’m on your tail.”
“Boys!” The door swung open and Valkerie floated in. “Time to quit for the day. Houston’s going to call in half an hour, and we need to get all those sensors powered up.”
“Who’s on Capcom shift right now?” Bob floated up the stairwell and past Valkerie into the common area. Kennedy followed, dribbling the puck ahead of him.
“Still Josh.” Valkerie floated in and took up a station at the CommConsole. “It’s only been three hours since we talked to them last.”
“Okay, let’s all keep our story straight,” Bob said. “We’ll tell them that the backup aerobrake-deployment system is down and we’re working on it, but we don’t think it’ll be up in time.”
“Here’s the list,” Valkerie said. “Get busy powering these sensors up.”
They each worked rapidly for the next twenty-five minutes.
“Ares 10, this is Houston, come in.”
All three of them turned to stare at the radio. Nate’s voice! Why was he coming on the air? He wasn’t a Capcom.
Bob keyed on the mike. “Nate, this is Bob, how are you today? Where’s Josh? Hope he’s not sick.” He turned off the mike and looked at the others.
“Must have a pretty big announcement,” Kennedy said.
“He sounded kind of uptight.” Valkerie’s eyebrows knotted.
“He’s always uptight.” Bob switched on the computer so Houston could do their data uplink. “That’s his job, to be—”
“In case you guys are wondering, Josh is fine and he’s here with me now. Say hello, Josh.”
“Hey, guys, who’s ahead in the space hockey wars?” Josh asked.
“Okay, crew, listen up,” Nate said. “You’ll be landing in a little under two weeks, and we just need to go over procedures.” He cleared his throat. “Protocol, and all that. Kennedy, you may not remember this, but there’s still the question of who’s going to be first on Mars. I’ll need your decision in the next few days, or those reporters are going to eat me for lunch.”
Bob relaxed a little. Okay, that was typical of Nate, to be sweating over the TV jerks. Let him sweat.
“Second, we’ll be wanting to do a show with you as soon as possible after landing. The president will want to give you her congratulations, and if you can possibly get us a video feed, it would ... make my job easier. I’d kind of like to get the ratings high enough so we can afford to bring you back.” He gave a brittle laugh. “Just kidding.”
Sure you are. Bob kept his eyes on the computer console. He had set things up to intercept and display the commands in real time as they came across the monitor. Query p
ower level. Query CO2 level.
“Well, that’s enough about protocol, kids,” Nate said. “I’m proud of what you’ve done so far. Bob, could you go get Lex? I’d like her to hear this next announcement. I’ll give you about three minutes. Meantime, Josh has a message to Valkerie from her father.”
Bob didn’t move. Lex had gone to sleep less than an hour ago, and he didn’t want to wake her up. And besides, he wanted to watch the command stream.
“Hey, Valkerie,” Josh said. “Your dad says you don’t have to name any more bugs after him. I guess the National Enquirer found out about that bacteria you found in Alaska, and they ran a big story on your dad. Quoted him out of context, ran a bad photo, the works. Over.”
“Daddy thinks all his pictures are bad. Send him my love. Okay, here’s the report ...” Valkerie began giving a rundown of what she’d done for the last three hours.
Bob squinted at the monitor. What was that command? Activate backup aerobrake hydraulic arm. He stared at the screen for several seconds, unable to believe it was really happening. Someone was trying to destroy their ship. He’d been afraid of it, had suspected it, but he hadn’t quite believed it. Until now. Kissinger was right. Even paranoids have enemies.
Bob reached forward and cut the data link.
Valkerie kept talking for a few seconds, but then her voice trailed off and she stopped speaking in midsentence and turned to stare at Bob.