Rescue Mode - eARC (28 page)

Treadway’s face grew more somber. “But what about the legality of such a marriage? I spoke with several legal experts and got, as you might expect, a variety of views. Professor Maxine Chiemeka of Georgetown University had this to say.”

The image of a graying, round-faced African American woman appeared on the screen, with her name and affiliation spelled out beneath it.

“Strictly speaking,” she began, in a softly pleasant voice, “ship’s captains cannot perform marriages at sea, on dry land, or by extension, in deep space simply by their virtue of being the captain of a ship. And no state in the Union has enacted a statute explicitly authorizing ships’ captains to officiate at marriages. If Commander Benson happens also to be a member of the clergy or has some state license that otherwise gives him the authority to perform a marriage, then they are good to go. Otherwise, I would recommend the couple renew their wedding vows in a more traditional setting when they get back home.”

Treadway reappeared on-screen, sitting behind a news anchor’s desk. “Thank you, Professor. So while their marriage may not be legally recognized here on Earth, I suspect the happy couple doesn’t much care. After all, what laws really apply at Mars? The more important question is, will they be able to get back to Earth alive and well?

“In the meantime, we wish Catherine Clermont and Hiram McPherson all the best.

“Steven Treadway, reporting.”

November 4, 2035

22:28 Universal Time

Mars Arrival Plus 9 Days

Geology Laboratory

Ted Connover figured the geology lab would be the one place where he could have some privacy. Hi and Catherine weren’t going to barge in on him; they were tucked into the cupola. The rest of the crew were in their privacy cubbyholes, which provided about as much privacy as an airport’s men’s room.

Nobody would bother him here, he figured. He felt tired and nervous after the long day and the evening’s festivities. He also felt a mounting excitement: tomorrow morning we leave the
Arrow
. Tomorrow we land on Mars.

He propped his compupad on the lab’s one desk and touched the video recording feature.

“Hi, Vicki,” he said, very softly. “Yeah, it’s me again recording another message for you that I know you’ll never receive. But if ever there was a time when I needed you and your advice, this is it. Am I doing the right thing? Should I just take the lander to the surface myself and not bring the others along?”

He tapped the pause button.

Despite his outward show of self-assurance, Connover had deep-seated doubts about his plan.

Connover shrugged. What was that line from Shakespeare, something about the idea that we owe God a death, if you give it this year you’re quits for the next.

Well,
he thought,
if I’ve got to die I’d rather die on Mars. Better to be a lion than a lamb.

He resumed recording.

“Catherine married Hi today. Bee performed the ceremony. The flatlanders back on Earth say it isn’t really legal, but it was official enough for Hi. He’s a Christian, he claims, and he didn’t want to consummate his relationship with Catherine unless they were married. Just an old-fashioned guy, on his way to Mars. Catherine seems quite content with it. She must be Catholic, but I don’t think she’s a fanatic about it. Well, I hope their feelings for each other are as deep as the feelings you and I shared. I’d hate to think they rushed through a jury-rigged ceremony just because we’re in a crisis situation. But from the looks on their faces it was more than that.”

He hesitated, then said firmly, “Vicki, staying on Mars is the right thing to do. I’m certain of it. We’ll survive and we’ll keep Mars exploration alive while we do it. After your death, well, I almost gave up. But now my life has meaning again, a purpose. I’ll make you and Thad proud of me. But, Christ, how I miss you!”

Connover felt tears coming. He forced them away and ended his message. “One day I’ll join you, honey. But not this day.”

He shut down the compupad thinking,
Not this day.
Unless those idiot politicians refuse to send the follow-on.

November 5, 2035

14:08 Universal Time

Mars Arrival Plus 10 Days

Johnson Space Center

Nathan Brice stood behind the last row of consoles in the mission control center, gnawing on a fingernail. He hadn’t told anyone about his conversation with Benson the afternoon before; he had marked the communication
PRIVATE
to keep it out of the comm log that anyone could see.

If Bee goes through with this crackbrain scheme,
Brice was saying to himself,
the shit’s going to hit the fan big time. And I’ll be the first one to get spattered.

The mission control engineers were at their consoles, monitoring everything going on in the
Arrow
, from the environmental control system’s air pressure to the stores of food remaining in the freezers, from the latest medical files beamed down to them by Taki Nomura to Commander Benson’s morning report, which was due in a few minutes.

On the
Arrow
it was a little past two in the afternoon.

The engineers at their consoles were not known as the most socially astute people in the world, but they were among the brightest. They had watched McPherson and Clermont’s wedding with detached amusement, cracking a few obscene jokes until Brice had reminded them that the newlyweds might never get home.

That had been yesterday. Then Benson had dropped his bombshell in Brice’s lap and the flight director had tossed sleeplessly all night, wondering if he should buck the news up the chain of command.

He had decided not to. If Bee has second thoughts, if one of the crew balks at this crazy-assed idea of Connover’s, nobody had to know what they had planned. But if they went through with it . . . Brice shook his head and tried to ignore the consequences.

A few of the controllers had mentioned the fact that the crew hadn’t been following mission protocol for the past few days, but they put that down to the fact of the impromptu wedding. The crew psychologist had mentioned to Brice that the crew seemed strangely focused on some goal that she couldn’t fathom. She had put it down to their predicament, their preparation for sending Connover down to the surface to bring back the water that they would live on during their return trip to Earth.

A supply of water that would run out long before they got to within a million miles of home, Brice knew.

And then Benson had told him about Connover’s plan, and the crew’s agreement to it.

Now Brice stood, a bundle of aggravated nerves with a pot belly and ragged fingernails, and waited for the inevitable.

Several of the mission controllers sat up straighter in their chairs, all at the same time.

“My God,” the deputy flight controller yelped, “it isn’t just the two of them going down to the surface. It’s half the crew!”

Brice squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that what his controllers were seeing on their screens had happened more than thirteen minutes ago. He found himself whispering, “Good luck, you guys.”

For all during his sleepless night he had played over in his mind every scenario he could think of that might get the team home safely. And for all his deliberations, he had to agree that Connover’s scheme was the only one with half a chance of succeeding.

Half a chance, he said to himself. Better than none.

Most of the controllers were turning around in their chairs, looking at him, expecting him to do something, to change what had happened thirteen-some minutes ago.

Fingering the microphone clipped to the collar of his short-sleeve shirt, Brice asked crisply, “Commander Benson, what’s going on? Why are half the crew going down to the surface? That’s not in the mission plan.”

That should cover my ass, he thought. Unless some bozo digs into my private communications.

The mission psychologist tore her Bluetooth off her ear and ran up to Brice. “They’re doing the Lifeboat Scenario! Those four going down to the surface have decided to sacrifice their lives so that the other four might live!”

Brice suppressed an urge to laugh in the woman’s face. Instead, he said very calmly, “I don’t think so. Connover’s not the martyr type.”

“But they’ll die down there!”

Raising one bony finger, Brice said, “Let’s hear what Benson has to say about this before we jump to any conclusions.”

“Connover’s suicidal!” the psychologist insisted. “He’s been depressed since his wife and son died.”

Brice snapped, “So what do you want me to do about it? Whatever they’re up to, they’ve already done it. We can’t stop them.”

Then he pulled off his microphone so his words would not be recorded.

Crooking a finger at the deputy flight controller, he ordered, “Mack, get the logistics team together right now. I need to know how long those four can survive in the Mars habitat. If they’re going to try to live on Mars we need to give them the best advice we possibly can from day one.”

The deputy flight controller said, “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, Nate. But why? We both know there won’t be another mission. It’s been cancelled!”

For the first time in more than twelve hours, Brice smiled. “Mack, those people are type Alphas. The kind of people who sign on for a two-year trip to Mars. But they’re not suicidal. They’re going down to the surface of Mars, not out the airlock. They think they can survive. And that Washington won’t cancel the follow-on and let them die. It’s brilliant!”

“Yeah, brilliant,” the deputy flight commander said shakily. “Let’s just hope they don’t end up dead heroes.”

“That’s why I need the logistics data.
Now!
”

Mack said, “Yeah,” and scurried away. The psychologist looked worried, perplexed.

Picking up his microphone and repinning it to his collar, Brice called for the communications director. “Sandra, put me through to Saxby in Washington. He needs to know what’s going on here.”

“What
is
going on here?” Sandra asked.

“A stupendous act of bravery and stupidity, rolled into one.”

November 5, 2035

16:00 Universal Time

Mars Arrival Plus 10 Days

Crew Transfer Vehicle

Sitting at the controls of the crew transfer vehicle, Ted Connover turned as far as he could inside his bulky EVA suit to look at the three people squeezed into the narrow little compartment behind him, the people he would be spending the next few years with in the cramped habitat waiting for them on the Martian surface.

The crew transfer vehicle was not pressurized. Connover thought of it as more of a flying broomstick than a real spacecraft. It had room for four spacesuited astronauts, lined up along its skinny spine like riders on a tandem bike, a few bottles of nitrogen gas, and minuscule thrusters. That’s all. The CTV was designed to move people back and forth among the various modules of the
Arrow
, nothing more. It would have been useless, for example, for Benson and Lynn’s repair EVA.

In their white fabric pressure suits and bulbous helmets, Connover’s teammates looked like three imitations of Frosty the Snowman. They were about to ride from the
Arrow
’s habitation module down along the truss to where the lander was stored, close to the nuclear reactor.

Even inside her EVA suit, Catherine looked as lovely as ever, smiling gently as she went through their departure checkout list.Behind her sat Hiram, who was going to be the envy of every fantasizing male back on Earth for being stranded on another planet with such a good-looking wife; he looked equally happy to be departing for the surface. He was alternately looking at his own checklist and at his bride, as if to make certain she hadn’t changed her mind and decided not to go with him after all. Ted didn’t think that would be possible.

He paid particular attention to Amanda, last in the row. He had been very polite and professional with her, and had tried to make it clear that he had no physical designs on her. As far as he was concerned, he was still a married man and he intended to remain true to his wedding vows. Yet Ted also understood that two to three years of isolation was a long time to go without some sort of physical release, but he had no intention of allowing himself to go down that path.

Checklists complete, Ted received word from Benson that he was clear to undock and depart. But before doing so, he wanted to give everyone one last chance to change their minds.

“Anyone having second thoughts about this?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” McPherson said. “We’re about to become the first residents of another planet! Whoo-ha!”

Connover winced: Hi’s boisterous shout almost melted his helmet’s earphones.

“And the first married couple,” Catherine added, more softly.

“Let’s go,” said Amanda, her face set in sheer determination.

“Okay,” Connover said, grinning as he turned his attention to the CTV’s controls. “Here we go.”

He started the unlocking procedure that would allow them to fly down the length of the ship to the lander.

They all felt the thud of the docking mechanism’s release and the transfer vehicle floated free. Connover tapped the forward cold-gas thrusters to give the little ship a small kick up and away from the habitat, then slowly turned the ship to point it aft and gave the rear thrusters a squirt to give them the velocity they needed to reach the rear of the
Arrow
, where the lander was housed.

They could see the damage to the truss and the makeshift repair. The payload module that housed the lander loomed large and bulbous as they approached it.

All onboard the CTV were awestruck at the sight of Mars almost completely filling their field of vision as they cleared the broken truss and moved away from the habitat. The orange desert-like terrain stretched as far as their eyes could see, ending on a hint of white that was a polar ice cap. Like Earth, there was a thin atmospheric envelope visible, but instead of being a softer shade of blue, it, too was orange/brown in color. It was truly an alien world and they knew it would soon be their home.