by Ben Bova
Benson returned the salute and said, “At ease, Mikhail,” going along with Prokhorov’s parody of military etiquette.
The Russian relaxed, floating weightlessly off the deck a few centimeters.
“How do you feel?”
“Not quite ready for the Olympics,” Prokhorov answered. “But I can work.”
“Fine. We’re leaving in two days and I can use all the help I can get. We’re shorthanded for the return trip, you know, with Ted and the others down on the surface.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Benson handed him a thick sheaf of checklists. “I need you to check out every item on these lists before we break orbit and start for home. It’s dog work but it needs to be done. Can you do that?”
Prokhorov glanced at the lists. “Aye-aye, sir!”
Benson grinned at him. “Right. Then get to work, sailor.”
November 16, 2035
Mars Landing Plus 11 Days
10:56 Universal Time
Elysium Planitia
Amanda Lynn slowly turned three hundred and sixty degrees, surveying the terrain with eager eyes.
“Pirouetting?” asked Connover.
“Yeah,” she teased. “Want to dance?”
This was Amanda’s third excursion outside the habitat, but the first she’d done with Connover. Mission protocol prohibited anyone going outside alone. Even so, one of the two people remaining inside had to suit up and pre-breathe low-pressure oxygen, in case there was an emergency that required an extra pair of hands.
“I’m no Fred Astaire,” he wisecracked back at her, “but I bet I could do pretty well in this low gravity.”
“Or on the Moon, even better.”
Connover got a sudden flash of himself dancing with Vicki in the Moon’s one-sixth gravity. Fred and Ginger, he said to himself.
Amanda started walking toward the desiccated stream bed that Catherine and Hi had discovered. Connover trudged along behind her, carrying the core sampler over one shoulder.
“We should have placed the habitat farther north, up by the edge of the ice cap,” she complained. “Better chance of finding something there.”
“Something alive, you mean?” Ted asked, trudging along beside her.
“Or like the chemicals the Chinese found. Amino acids, PAHs, stuff like that. But what I’d really like to find are fossils. That would be a clear sign that more complex life once existed here.”
He felt his brows knitting. “How could you tell something’s a fossil when you don’t know what Martian life-forms might look like?”
Amanda went silent for a few steps. “Well,” she said at last, “if it’s got legs, that’s a pretty good clue.”
“But what about microbes? Bacteria, single-cells organisms? They don’t have legs.”
“They leave chemical traces, like an elevated level of carbon twelve, or PAHs.”
“PAHs?”
“Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. They’re precursor compounds, tarry, sticky stuff that helps to glue bigger molecules together. It’d be hard to build up really big molecules, like amino acids or proteins, without them.”
“And carbon twelve?”
“The lightest isotope of carbon. Living organisms take up carbon twelve, in preference to the heavier forms of carbon. Find rocks or soil samples with a higher level of carbon twelve than normal, you’ve probably found the remnants of life.”
“Yeah, but how do we know what’s normal here on Mars?”
Even through her helmet visor, Ted could see the flash of Amanda’s grin. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
Connover shook his head inside his helmet. “Well, anyway, I’ll settle for finding water.”
“Ice,” Amanda corrected.
“Yeah, right.”
“This is the fossil stream bed Catherine marked out,” she said.
“The arroyo, yeah,” said Ted, as he began to unlimber the core sampler. “Time to get to work.”
The sampler was a piece of specialized, Mars-unique engineering. Unlike a bulky, heavy traditional drill that would grind its way through the surface layers of sand and rock, the sampler was more like a mole. Only about a foot long, it looked like a mechanical bean bag.
Ted set it upright on its built-in mount and worked its head about six inches into the sand. Motioning Amanda to stand back, he thumbed the button that activated the tool.
Bam bam bam! Bam bam bam! The sampler began to alternately shorten and lengthen itself as it burrowed into the ground. In less than a minute it disappeared from their view.
“So this is one of the toys our geologists play with?” Amanda asked.
“Once it’s gone down a couple of meters it’ll take samples and wriggle its way back up to the surface so we can pack ’em away.”
“Just warn me before it comes back so I don’t jump out of my skin.”
“It’s worked fine for Hi and Catherine,” he said.
“Except that it hasn’t found any ice.”
Connover stared at the hole in the ground. Water, he thought. The maps generated from satellite sensors claimed they were sitting on a veritable ocean of permafrost. But their core samples hadn’t turned up any ice yet. If we don’t find ice in the next month or so, we’ll run out of drinking water.
And die, here on Mars.
Briefly he thought about their odds of survival. Too late to worry about that now, he knew.
“So it’s going six feet down?” Amanda asked.
“Two meters,” Connover said. Six feet deep, he thought. Deep enough for a grave.
“You think this is a likely spot to find the ice?” he asked as he waited for the mechanical mole to reappear.
“Maybe. Some of the unmanned landers squatted down right on top of permafrost. Their landing rockets blew off the top few inches of dust and there was the ice, right underneath.”
“It’s not right underneath here,” Connover complained.
“That’s why I said we should have put the Hercules down farther north. For all we know, this area is a total desert.”
“But the satellite sensors—”
“Ground truth, Ted,” said Amanda, almost wistfully. “The sensors detect emissions that the geologists interpret as due to buried permafrost. But until you actually dig up ice, the sensor readings have to be taken with a grain of salt.”
“Ground truth,” he muttered.
At last the mole returned. Connover removed the chips of rock from its mechanical teeth and handed them to Amanda.
“Doesn’t look like ice,” he said.
“No, they don’t.”
“You think there might be ice inside them?”
“Don’t know until I get them under the microscope and do some chemical tests.”
As they started back toward the habitat, Connover asked, “So what’s on your schedule tomorrow?”
“Pretty much the same as today: dig in the morning, then spend the afternoon analyzing what we’ve dug up.”
“With a shower in between.”
“Dream on.”
Connover thought about the shower. It would feel good to get the sweat off. They were recycling over ninety percent of the water they used—not good enough to permit showering too frequently.
Maybe we could conserve water by showering together, he thought. And immediately rejected the idea. Don’t be a jerk, he told himself. Besides, Amanda would probably sock me in the nose if I suggested it to her.
November 17, 2035
Mars Landing Plus 12 Days
12:41 Universal Time
The Arrow
Benson watched the digital clock on the control panel counting down the final seconds to ignition.
He was alone in the command center. The three others were in the galley, strapped into their chairs. One of the display screens before him showed an animation of Mars and Earth swinging in their orbits to the precise spot where the Arrow would light up its nuclear engine and launch itself out of orbit around Mars to
start its year-long flight back home.
As the clocked ticked toward zero, Benson tapped his communications console. Ted Connover’s face appeared on the screen.
“Thirty seconds and counting,” Benson said tersely.
Connover nodded. “Good luck, pal. Safe journey.”
“We’ll be back for you, Ted. We’ll be back if I have to walk the whole way.”
Grinning tightly, Connover replied, “Just get yourself home, Bee. We’ll be okay here.”
“So long.”
“Bon voyage.”
The clock showed zero and Benson heard the muted growl of the rocket engines lighting up. He felt a gentle push on his back, nowhere near the kind of acceleration he was accustomed to launching from Earth.
Tapping the intercom icon, he announced, “We’re on our way, people.”
In the galley, Virginia Gonzalez smiled at Taki Nomura and Mikhail Prokhorov. “Next stop, Earth,” she said.
Taki smiled back at her, but quickly turned to look at the Russian. He was perspiring visibly, and grimacing.
“Mikhail, are you in pain?” she asked, alarmed.
He made a weak smile. “Only when I breathe.”
“Bee,” she called, “I’ve got to get up.”
“Wait a few minutes,” came Benson’s voice from the overhead speakers. “Once the thrust cuts off you can move around again.”
“No,” Taki said, as she started unbuckling her safety harness. “Now.”
It actually felt easier to move, she found, with the slight acceleration giving a feel of some gravity instead of weightlessness.
“You sit there,” she said to Prokhorov. “I’ll get some painkillers from the pharmaceutical stores.”
Prokhorov nodded. Virginia asked, “Is there something I can do?”
“Stay with Mikhail. I’ll be back in a minute.”
It felt unusual, after all the weeks in zero g, to have some weight again. But it was also disorienting. Down seemed to be in the direction of the compartment’s rear bulkhead, not the floor.
Nonetheless, Taki made her way to the ship’s tiny infirmary and pulled a bottle of pills from its storage rack. More than half-gone, she saw. She popped the lid and the bottle slipped from her hands, pills spilling out languidly and peppering the infirmary’s rear wall.
“Damn!” Taki snapped.
She scooped up a handful and “climbed” uphill back toward the galley. Virginia and Mikhail were still in their chairs. He looked pale and sweaty; she was worried.
“Are you all right?” Virginia asked her.
Taki nodded tightly, grabbed a bottle and went to the water tap. She was in such a hurry, she didn’t check the seal the bottle’s lip made around the tap before she turned on the water. The damned water went everywhere, splashing off the bottle and spattering toward the rear of the galley.
“Damn!” she said again.
“What’s going on back there?” Benson’s voice demanded.
“Everything’s under control, Bee,” Virginia half-lied. Taki had managed to get some water into the mug and brought it and the pills to Mikhail.
“Thank you,” Prokhorov said, weakly.
“Acceleration cutting off in ten seconds,” Benson announced.
Sure enough, the feeling of weight disappeared and Taki felt herself floating in midair. She welcomed the sensation.
Benson’s voice told them, “We’re through the keyhole, on course for home.”
Good, Taki said to herself. Now if only we can keep Mikhail alive long enough to get him there.
Benson awoke with a start. Something had disturbed him from a deep sleep and he wasn’t sure what it had been. Enmeshed in his sleep cocoon, he listened to the gentle hum of the air fans, thankful that they were working. That meant the ship still had electrical power. No alarm klaxons. Everything seemed to be normal.
There it was again! A gurgling sound, coming from outside his privacy compartment. Somebody’s strangling, he realized.
Moving faster than he thought possible, Benson wriggled out of his cocoon and pushed through his cubicle’s flimsy privacy screen.
The noise was coming from Prokhorov’s cubbyhole, and it didn’t sound good.
Launching himself into the Russian’s cubicle, Benson flicked on the overhead light. Mikhail’s eyes were rolled back in his head and a mixture of vomit and blood was spraying from his mouth. Benson fought back a surge of nausea.
“Taki!” he yelled. “Mikhail’s in trouble! Wake up!”
Ignoring the grotesque spherules of blood and vomit floating in the air, Benson reached for Prokhorov’s mouth and pried it open, hoping to see if something was blocking his airway that might be cleared to prevent him from choking to death.
Taki appeared at his side, blinking sleepily, as Benson’s fingers found Prokhorov’s tongue twisted and lodged at the very back of his throat. He quickly curled his finger around it and pulled it forward. Prokhorov made another sick gurgling sound and spewed out more blood.
“Bee, move aside,” said Taki, wide awake now. “I’m here. Let me check him out.”
Benson edged away and Taki hovered over the sick man. Bee saw that his hands were covered with blood and, looking down, so were the skivvies he’d been sleeping in.
Virginia was holding the compartment’s privacy screen to one side, her face tense, wide-eyed. “Is he going to be all right?”
“Doesn’t look good to me,” Benson said. “But we’ll have to wait for Taki to tell us, once she’s finished checking him out.”
He drifted into the narrow central area of the crew quarters and saw that somebody—probably Virginia—had turned on all the lights.
Gesturing toward the obscene blobs floating through the area, he said to Virginia, “Let’s get this mess cleaned up before it spreads all over the ship.”
She nodded and went to the storage compartment between her bunk and Taki’s to pull out a handful of cleaning wipes. Wipes and barf bags had been stored in every section of the ship to deal with the possibility of nausea that can come from space sickness.
Benson realized that the gag reflex that comes from smelling someone’s vomit still existed in zero gravity. But he fought it down as he and Virginia cleaned up the mess. We could have used one of the hand-held vacuum cleaners, he thought. But then he wondered if so much vomit and blood would have fouled up the hand-held.
Taki floated out of Prokhorov’s compartment, looking grim.
“Bee, we need to tell Mission Control that Mikhail’s condition is getting worse and there’s nothing I can do. I don’t know why they didn’t detect the cancer before we left home, but it must have been in its earliest stage and the medics back in Russia just missed it.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Taki. It isn’t your fault. I bet the team is scouring his records to see how his condition slipped past them.”
“I know, but still . . .” Taki shook her head. “I was expecting space sickness and maybe a broken bone once we landed on Mars, but nothing like this. Bee, I’ll be surprised if he lives another week!”
“A week?” Benson asked, alarmed. “But he seemed so much better just a couple of days ago. How could he decline so quickly?”
“It happens. Sometimes even the sickest people rebound near the end. Just ask hospice workers. Patients who seem to be at death’s door suddenly perk up and get better—for a few days. Then they sink away and die.”
Virginia asked, “Can we do anything for him?”
Taki bit her lip before answering, obviously trying to come up with something positive. “I think the pain medication I gave him made the seizure he just experienced worse, so I don’t dare increase the dosage. I need to stay with him and one of you will have to relieve me when I’m sleeping. Otherwise he might seize again and choke himself to death.”
“Right,” said Benson, grimly.
“I’ll do whatever you need me to,” Virginia promised.
As he headed back for his own cubbyhole, Benson started to think about
conducting a funeral in space. I’ll have to talk it over with the experts back home, he said to himself. Once Mikhail dies we’ll have to do something with the body and we don’t have many options. We don’t have a morgue on the ship, or even a freezer big enough to take his body. We can’t just put him in a sample bag and leave him here in the cabin, for sanitation reasons if nothing else. And there’d be plenty “else.” I don’t want a dead body hanging around the place.
As he pulled off his blood-soaked skivvies and reached into his storage locker for a fresh set, Benson thought, We’ll probably have to send him out the airlock and bury him in space. He’d probably like that. If he regains consciousness, I’ll ask him.
He didn’t want to make that decision by himself.
A day later, Mikhail slipped away peacefully in his sleep.
November 20, 2035
Mars Landing Plus 15 Days
19:48 Universal Time
Washington D.C.
“So he died of cancer,” said Senator Donaldson. It was not a question.
His chief of staff nodded somberly. “Poor bastard.”
The two men were sitting in the Senate dining room, lunching on she-crab soup and scotch. It was nearly three p.m. in Washington, the dining room was quiet, almost empty. Donaldson preferred to have his meals in near-privacy. Nothing was worse, he thought, than interrupting a fine lunch by being forced to get up and gladhand some supporter—or rival.
“And he got the cancer from space radiation?” This time it was a question, but there was hope in Donaldson’s voice as he asked it.
His chief shook his head. “Nobody knows. The Russians claim their medical records don’t show any cancer, otherwise they wouldn’t have cleared the man to go on the mission. But you know how the Russians can be . . . well, slipshod, sometimes.”
Donaldson put down the spoonful of soup he had brought halfway to mouth.
“They weren’t slipshod this time,” he said firmly. “The man did not have cancer when he left the Earth.”
“You can’t know that for sure, Bill.”