Rescue Mode

by Ben Bova

  Taki Nomura said nothing, but Connover saw she looked grim, uptight.

  Taki’s been in orbit before, he told himself. She’ll be okay. It’s just the first few minutes of weightlessness, when all the fluids in your body start shifting around. She’ll be fine.

  But she said nothing as she sat rigidly in her seat and gave a short, slow nod.

  Thirty-two hours of weightlessness, Connover thought. Once we break orbit and start the Mars trajectory we can spin up the Arrow and get some feeling of weight. Until then, though, it’s zero-g.

  He grinned. He enjoyed weightlessness. He had always wondered what it would be like to make love with Vicki in zero-gee.

  April 4, 2035

  Earth Departure Minus 32 Hours

  5:07 Universal Time

  Earth Orbit

  As their ferry module approached the Arrow, Benson glanced at Connover, sitting beside him. The American astronaut seemed outwardly at ease, his arms floating languidly almost at shoulder height, a relaxed grin on his face.

  Leaning forward, holding both armrests firmly, Benson focused on the control panel’s central display screen. It showed the Arrow’s tubular docking station, a big crosshairs painted across its middle.

  “Down the pipe,” Benson muttered.

  Mission Control picked up his words. “On course. Docking in seventy-five seconds.”

  “Confirm,” said Benson.

  The docking maneuver was fully automated, although Benson was ready to grab the controls if anything should go wrong. Mission Control was reading off the distance separating the two spacecraft:

  “Fifty . . . forty-five . . .”

  Connover said, “Nothing for us to do.”

  “They also serve who stand and wait,” Benson quoted.

  “Sit and wait,” Connover quipped.

  The painted “X” was rushing toward them.

  “Fifteen,” counted Mission Control. “Ten, five . . .”

  The screen went blank and they felt a slight lurch. Green lights sprang up on the control panel.

  “Docking complete.”

  “Confirm docking complete,” came the disembodied voice. “Nice work, fellas.”

  “Trained chimpanzee could’ve done it,” Connover muttered, with a smile.

  Benson turned to him, made a little grunting sound and scratched under his armpit. Connover looked stunned with surprise. Humor? From Bee?

  “Okay,” Benson said to the scientists as he unbuckled his safety harness. “Get up slowly. No sudden moves. Don’t turn your head if you can avoid it.”

  Connover floated up from his seat and edged into the aisle behind. The six scientists were unbuckling and getting up slowly, warily.

  Connover swam past them to the hatch set into the compartment’s floor, opened it, and pulled himself down into it.

  Catherine Clermont moved slowly into the aisle, bumping into McPherson, who flinched back from her.

  “Pardón,” Clermont said.

  “My fault. After you.”

  Amanda Lynn pushed herself up out of her chair too hard and she sailed upward, bumping her head against the ceiling panels. “Damn!” she snapped. Virginia Gonzalez, tall and graceful where Amanda was built more like a fireplug, grabbed the biologist’s belt and pulled her gently down to the aisle’s matting.

  “Thanks,” Amanda mumbled, her dark face looking embarrassed.

  “De nada,” said Gonzalez.

  One by one they made their way to the floor hatch and pushed themselves through, Benson last. Huddled together in the narrow access tunnel, they watched Connover check the small display panel set into the bulkhead that held the main hatch. On its other side was the hatch of the Arrow. Its trio of indicator lights were all green.

  “Ready to pop the main hatch,” Connover said.

  “Open it,” Benson called, from the end of the line of crew members.

  McPherson realized he was holding his breath.

  Don’t be such a goofball, he admonished himself. If there’s a leak between the two hatches, we’ll all be dead in a few seconds. Holding your breath isn’t gonna help.

  Connover pulled the hatch open, then opened the hatch of the Arrow. McPherson felt his ears pop, but there was no other remarkable sensation.

  Connover pushed himself through the hatch, then turned back to face the others. “All clear,” he said. “Come on over.”

  Prokhorov, hovering at the head of the line, called to Benson. “Bee, come up here. You should be the first. You are mission commander.”

  Benson cracked a mirthless smile. “We won’t stand on protocol, Mike. You go right ahead.”

  Already inside the Arrow’s airlock, Connover said, “Well, make up your minds. Who’s going to be first?”

  Prokhorov shrugged and pushed himself through. “That’s one small step for a Russian,” he said.

  “And one giant wait for the rest of us,” Amanda Lynn wisecracked, with mock impatience.

  They all laughed. All except Taki Nomura.

  Slowly they made their way up from the airlock to the interior of the habitation module, drifting weightlessly, like wraiths or newborns floating in the womb.

  “Home sweet home,” said Virginia Gonzalez, her voice hushed.

  “For one hundred and seventy-eight days,” Prokhorov said.

  Then we go down to Mars and live in the Fermi module, Connover told himself. And I finally get my chance to fly.

  Although each of them had shipped up to the Arrow before, to stock the individual privacy cubicles with their personal belongings, now it was different. Each realized this was the real thing. Tomorrow they started for Mars.

  Taki Nomura swam weightlessly to her own cubicle and slid the screen shut. Alone, with no one to see her, she began to shudder uncontrollably. Stop it! She commanded herself. You’ve worked for years to get here, don’t let stupid fears overwhelm you. You represent your family’s honor, the honor of Japan. You will not succumb to irrational fear.

  It is illogical for you to feel claustrophobic. All your life you’ve lived in small chambers, surrounded by others: family, college roommates, coworkers. This is no different. Get a grip on your foolish emotions.

  The tiny privacy cubicle seemed to close in on her, like a coffin, like one of those old horror films where the walls crush anyone inside the chamber.

  Fists clenched, body doubled over, Taki fought her inner demons. I am here as part of my family, I will not disgrace them. Of all the Japanese who applied for this mission, your government chose you. Do not fail them. Be brave. Be like a Samurai.

  Suddenly she laughed out loud. It was ludicrous. A Samurai? I am the team’s physician and psychologist. I am here to look after the physical and mental health of my crewmates. And it seems I’m the one who needs a therapist.

  “What’s so funny?” Virginia Gonzalez’s voice called from the other side of the compartment’s screen.

  Taki took a deep breath, then slid the screen back. “I am,” she said. “I was thinking of my parents, back in Osaka, and how proud they must be of me.”

  Gonzalez arched a finely sculpted brow at her. “And that made you laugh?”

  Bobbing her head hard enough to make her rise off the floor, Taki said, “I have a strange sense of humor, I suppose.”

  Up in the command center, Benson scanned the indicator lights and display screens of the control panels that stretched in a semicircle around his seat. Connover hovered behind him.

  “Everything in the green,” Benson said. “We’re good to go.”

  Connover said, “Not until we check out the lander.”

  “Right.”

  “No sense going all the way to Mars and finding the thing won’t work.”

  “Right,” Benson repeated.

  Mission protocol called for Connover, who would pilot the lander to the surface of Mars, to check the craft before they broke orbit and started their Trans-Mars Injection burn. That meant that Connover had to get into a spacesuit and pre-breathe its low-pressu
re oxygen for two hours before he went EVA and worked his way down to the module where the lander was housed.

  Pointing to one corner of the control panel, Benson said, “All the lander’s systems are in the green.”

  Connover nodded. “Yeah, but I’ve got to do a visual check.”

  “I know,” Benson said. “We’d better get suited up.”

  Another provision of mission protocol was that no one went EVA without a backup crewmember also suited up and ready to go out, should a problem arise. Each of the scientists was trained for space walks, but neither of the astronauts wanted to rely on what they considered amateur talent of the others.

  Six hours later, Ted Connover emerged from the payload module that contained the landing vehicle and carefully sealed its hatch.

  He attached his spacesuit’s tether to a cleat by the hatch and started back along the gridwork truss that formed the backbone of the Arrow.

  Gliding out and away from the spacecraft as far as his tether would allow, Connover looked up and down its length. Rocket nozzles at the rear, then the bulk of the nuclear propulsion system and its shielding. Big, bulbous tankage holding the hydrogen propellant. The payload module, a combination warehouse and hangar for the lander to protect it from any stray micrometeors that might ping the ship.

  Looking forward, up the central truss, Connover saw the rectangular radiator panels that distributed the ship’s excess heat, then the much bigger, square dark solar panels that provided the ship’s electrical power. The habitation module was half-hidden by the solar panels. From this distance it looked pitifully small.

  “You okay out there?” Benson’s voice sounded in his helmet earphones.

  “Fine,” Connover responded. “Everything’s hunky-dory.”

  He heard Benson chuckle. “Haven’t heard that expression since I was a kid at my grandmother’s house.”

  Connover grinned inside his helmet and started working his way up forward. But he stopped halfway there and gaped at the splendor of the Earth, sliding by below him. Deep blue ocean, flecked with purest white clouds. On the curving horizon stretched a thin brown area.

  Christ, Connover realized, that’s South America. Those are the Andes Mountains. They looked like furrowed little wrinkles from this height.

  “Are you going to stay out there all day?” Benson said. But his tone was light, almost bantering. He’d done plenty of EVA work and he knew how hypnotic the view could be.

  “I’ll be home in time for dinner, Daddy,” Connover kidded back.

  April 5, 2035

  Earth Departure Day

  12:15 Universal Time

  New York City

  Steven Treadway stood in the middle of the nearly empty television studio, in front of a blank green wall. In the 3D monitor sitting alongside the camera crew, he saw his image in the command center of the Arrow, standing between Bee Benson and Hi McPherson. He had thought about wearing sky-blue coveralls, like the crew, but his producer had insisted on his trademark white shirt and slacks.

  “Less than an hour to go,” Treadway was saying.

  Benson nodded solemnly. Pointing to the digital clock on the control panel, he said, “Fifty-two minutes and six seconds.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  Benson looked surprised. “Nervous? No. I don’t think so.”

  “Did you get a good night’s sleep?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I’m excited,” McPherson said, grinning through his thick dark beard. “I’ve been working all my life for this, and now we’re really going to Mars!”

  “Did you get a good night’s sleep?” Treadway asked the geologist.

  “Like a kid on Christmas Eve,” McPherson replied. “You know, if you don’t get to sleep Santa Claus won’t come.”

  Treadway chuckled tolerantly, then turned back to Benson. “How important is the timing for your launch?”

  “Actually, we have a two-day window for TMI.”

  “The Trans-Mars Injection burn,” Treadway explained. More NASA alphabet soup, he complained silently to himself. “That’s when you fire the rocket engines that start you on your trajectory to Mars.”

  McPherson interjected, “Mars and Earth are optimally positioned in their orbits right now. If we miss this window, the two planets won’t line up in this way again for two years.”

  “So it’s now or never,” Treadway said.

  McPherson corrected, “Now or two years from now.”

  “Yes. Right.”

  “We’re ready to go,” Benson said, quite seriously. “We’ve checked out the spacecraft and all its systems.”

  Treadway said, “So, in less than—” he peered at the digital clock—“fifty-one minutes, you’ll light off the nuclear rocket and start for Mars.”

  Benson nodded.

  “Does it worry you that you’re so close to a nuclear reactor?”

  “We’re fully protected by the shielding,” Benson said, matter-of-factly. “Actually, we’ll be exposed to more radiation from the cosmic rays in interplanetary space than we’ll get from the reactor.”

  Treadway thought that trying to provoke an interesting reaction from Benson Benson was like trying to get an elephant to fly.

  Looking straight into the camera, Treadway said, “In fifty-some minutes this spacecraft’s pumps will start tons of hydrogen propellant flowing through the ship’s nuclear reactor. The hydrogen will be heated to several thousand degrees and stream through the rocket nozzles with more than twenty-four thousand pounds of thrust, pushing this enormous spacecraft into a trajectory that will take it to Mars.”

  Benson said, “We’ll coast most of the way. The TMI burn will only last forty minutes.”

  “And that’s enough to send you all the way to Mars?” Treadway asked.

  McPherson said, “It’s like throwing a baseball. You heave it as hard as you can and then it coasts.”

  “All the way to Mars,” Treadway repeated.

  “All the way to Mars orbit,” Benson corrected.

  Looking directly into the camera again, Treadway said, “And I’ll be with you every mile of the way—virtually.”

  Benson broke into a genuine smile. “Glad to have you aboard, Steve—virtually.”

  * * *

  Ted Connover sat strapped into the pilot’s seat in the command center, marveling at how the ship responded—no, how it felt—as they went through the final moments before TMI burn. She’s alive, he said to himself. He could feel the pumps chugging, the hum of electric power flowing through the ship’s miles of wiring, her air ducts softly sighing. She’s alive.

  Benson floated into the compartment and strapped himself into the left-hand seat.

  “Everything okay back there?” Connover asked.

  “They’re all strapped down in the galley, watching the TV screen.”

  “They’d get a better view from the observation blister.”

  “Can’t squeeze all six of them into the blister.”

  “Yeah. Well, anyway, we get a good view up here,” Connover said, pointing to the thick quartz window that curved atop the control panel.

  Benson agreed with a nod.

  The speaker grill on the control panel squawked, “TMI in two minutes.”

  “Copy TMI in two,” Benson replied.

  Looking through the window, Connover saw the blue-and-white curve of Earth and the narrow strip of blue atmosphere hugging it.

  So long, Earth, he called silently. See you in a couple of years.

  And he thought of Vicki and Thad, watching their TV set at home. Wish they had a 3D set, he thought. I should have bought one for them. Are they nervous? Frightened?

  Nah, he told himself. They know we’ll be okay. But two years is a long time. Thad’ll be graduating high school by the time I get back.

  “TMI in one minute,” Mission Control announced. A row of lights on the control panel flicked from amber to green.

  “Reactor powering up,” said Benson, his voice flat, emotionless. Conn
over marveled again at how self-contained Bee could be. It was taking all his self-control to keep from fidgeting like a kid on his first roller-coaster ride.

  “Reactor core temperature nominal.”

  “Copy nominal core temp.”

  “Pumps starting.”

  “Copy pumps.”

  Thirty seconds to go, Connover saw. He licked his lips. Time seemed to stretch like taffy. Einstein was right, he thought. Time is relative.

  “Thirty seconds.”

  So long, Vicki. So long, Thad. I’ll bring you back your own personal Mars rocks.

  “Fifteen seconds.”

  Connover listened to the automated countdown, his pulse thumping in his ears. He glanced over at Benson. Cool as an iceberg. Maybe that’s why they picked him over me; Mr. Cool instead of the cowboy.

  More than six hundred feet down along the ship’s gridwork backbone, tons of liquefied hydrogen began to flow through the nuclear reactor and, superheated, out the rocket nozzles.

  “TMI burn,” said Mission Control.

  Connover felt the push in the small of his back, felt the ship vibrating, felt a totally surprising pang of remorse, regret. He barely heard Bee’s clipped acknowledgement that TMI burn had started. He knew he was leaving Earth to travel farther than any human being had traveled before. He’d thought he would feel triumphant. Instead he felt a sense of—what? Disappointment? Fear? No, what he felt was loneliness.

  “Good luck, Arrow,” said Mission Control.

  The ship was thrumming. Not the bone-rattling roar of a liftoff from Earth, but a gentler, smoother surge of thrust that was starting them off on their long, long journey.

  Connover turned to Bee, who looked distracted, almost perplexed. And he understood why. The mission timeline called for the ship’s commander to make some pithy, quotable, optimistic statement for the benefit of the media and the history books. If he didn’t come up with something soon, the moment would be lost. Connover knew that Bee had been rehearsing whatever the hell it was he wanted to say, but now he seemed tongue-tied with stage fright. He grinned inwardly at Bee’s discomfort, and immediately felt guilty at his reaction.