Rescue Mode - eARC (31 page)

“Thad, too?” she asked.

“Thad, too. He got his first cactus stab before he was four years old,” Ted remembered. “Anyway, one of the setup routines with those campers is connecting the camper’s power cord to the outlets at the camp site. What we’re carrying here doesn’t look so different from what we carried back in those days, and the
Fermi
sort of looks like a big-assed camper to me. We’re camping on Mars!”

Catherine began laughing too, she couldn’t help herself. And it felt good, a relief from the tension.

They reached the habitat and Ted connected the cable, then carefully toggled the switch just above the connection that transferred the habitat from internal to external power.

“Let’s go check out our camper,” Catherine said, still chuckling.

November 6, 2035

01:00 Universal Time

Mars Landing Plus 1 Day

New York City

It was eight p.m. in Manhattan and a time when millions of viewers would be watching television, streaming their favorite 3D movie, or catching up with friends online.

But like all the other media and content providers, Steven Treadway’s corporation was pre-empting their regular programming (a reality series set on the Moon) for a news special about the Mars landing.

Treadway sat in a comfortable armchair on the set, flanked by Ilona Klein, the White House public affairs director, NASA’s Bart Saxby, and Senator William Donaldson.

The floor-to-ceiling green screens surrounding them on three sides showed views of the
Arrow
in orbit around Mars, the
Hercules
lander on the surface, and the
Fermi
habitat.

Treadway looked properly serious, Klein was visibly nervous, Saxby taut. Senator Donaldson resembled a thundercloud about to spit lightning.

Treadway heard the traditional, “Four . . . three . . . two . . .” in his ear button, then the floor director pointed his forefinger like a pistol.

“Good evening,” he began. “I’m Steven Treadway, reporting from our studios in New York and, thanks to the wonders of virtual reality, from the
Fermi
habitat on the surface of Mars, where four human explorers landed earlier today.”

The first segment of the show was boringly predictable, Treadway thought as he solicited statements from the White House PR chief, then Saxby and finally Senator Donaldson. They all—even Donaldson—offered congratulations to the four men and women on Mars.

Things became more interesting once they cut to the interviews that had been recorded earlier from the Mars habitat. The interview had already been spliced together by technicians so that it appeared that Treadway and the Mars landing team were conversing in real time.

He appeared to be standing in the airlock section of the
Fermi
habitat, with the four explorers crowding around him in the cramped space.

Catherine Clermont and Hi McPherson talked about how eager they were to go out and start studying Martian geology firsthand.

“There are signs here that water once flowed across this plain,” Clermont said, while McPherson nodded vigorously behind her.

“Water means life, doesn’t it?” Treadway prompted.

“It might,” said Hi. “We know that on Earth all forms of life require water. That’s why it’s so important to see if there was once liquid water flowing on the surface of Mars.”

Turning to Amanda Lynn, Treadway asked, “You’re the team biologist. Do you expect to find life on Mars?”

Her dark face splitting into a gleaming smile, Amanda replied, “There
is
life on Mars. Us. We’re here now.”

Treadway quickly covered his surprise. “Yes, of course. But I mean Martian life. Life-forms that are native to Mars.”

Amanda’s smile dimmed noticeably. “We don’t know. Not yet.”

“The Chinese robotic mission found traces of chemicals in the soil that might be prebiotic.” Before Treadway could ask, she explained, “The kind of chemicals that led to the development of life on Earth.”

Treadway prompted, “And you believe those chemicals mean that life once arose here on Mars?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out. Maybe there are still the Martian equivalent of bacteria surviving underground, living off the water from the permafrost.”

“Well, good luck searching for Martians,” Treadway cut Amanda off.

Then he turned to Connover. “And here,” he beamed his broadest smile, “is the first human being to set foot on the planet Mars, astronaut Ted Connover. A big day for you, Ted. A really big day.”

Grinning back at the reporter, Ted countered, “A big day for the human race, Steve. It wasn’t just me that set foot on Mars. It wasn’t even just the four of us. It was the thousands of people who built our spacecraft and all that went into that endeavor. It was the whole crew of engineers and scientists from half a dozen countries who guided us and monitored our mission. It was the entire human race, reaching across thirty-five million miles to extend the human frontier to another planet.”

Treadway actually swallowed visibly, looking impressed by Ted’s eloquence. “A great day,” he replied weakly.

“Damned right,” Connover said.

The wall screen that showed the interview went dark and the cameras on the floor of the studio lit up, showing Treadway sitting with his three guests.

Treadway put on his serious face and said, “A big day, indeed. But the question is, will those four brave men and women ever be able to return home again?”

Turning to Saxby, he asked, “What are their prospects, Mr. Saxby? You’re the head of NASA. What lies ahead for those four men and women on Mars?”

With a quick glance at Senator Donaldson, Saxby answered, “They have food and supplies enough to last them two years, maybe a little more.”

“Water?” Treadway asked.

“They’re going to send the water that the
Fermi
habitat has stored up to the
Arrow
, so that Commander Benson and the rest of the crew will have enough water to get back to Earth.”

“And what happens to Connover and the others on Mars?”

“
Fermi
has equipment to mine water from the permafrost beneath the ground’s surface.”

Ilona Klein interjected, “They should have plenty of water.”

“But their food will only last for two years?”

She nodded tightly. “That’s right.”

“And then what happens?”

Saxby said, “We had planned to send a follow-on mission to Mars next year. The hardware is almost complete. We can send a skeleton crew on that flight and bring our people home.”

Klein said, “But funding for the mission has been eliminated.” And she cast a stern eye at Donaldson.

The senator stirred himself and said, “Congress has voted to cut the funding for the follow-on mission, that’s right.”

“But why?” Treadway asked.

Donaldson unconsciously ran a hand through his dead-white hair. His face was pinched, hard-eyed as he leaned toward Treadway.

“Human spaceflight is not only incredibly expensive, Steve, it’s incredibly dangerous. We’re risking the lives of those astronauts. Haven’t we killed enough people in space? When do we admit that it’s just too risky for people to go flying off into such danger?”

Looking plainly exasperated, Saxby asked, “So you want to leave those four people stranded on Mars? Let them die there?”

“The scientists tell me that the four of them will probably get so much radiation on Mars that it’ll kill them. You send a rescue mission and you’ll find four corpses when it gets to Mars.”

“That’s not so!” Saxby snapped.

“That’s what the scientists tell me,” said Donaldson. “I’m sure they’ve told you the same thing.”

“They have
not
! The
Fermi
habitat protects them from harmful levels of radiation.”

“And what protects them when they’re outside the habitat, working on the surface? What protects them if there’s a major solar flare?”

Saxby was getting red in the face. “The radiation they’re exposed to will do nothing more than raise their chances for cancer by five percent or so.”

“So they’ll die of cancer.”

“Maybe. When they’re in their eighties or nineties.”

“If they live that long.”

“They won’t live that long if we don’t send the follow-on mission to rescue them.”

“More billions down the rathole.”

Ilona Klein raised both her hands and made a shushing gesture with them. “Let’s not lose our tempers, gentlemen.”

Treadway was delighted to see the two men losing their tempers on his show. But he nodded agreement with Klein.

“I see that we’re running out of time, people. Maybe we should just wrap up this discussion with a final statement from each of you. Senator? Your thoughts?”

Donaldson closed his eyes briefly, then said, “We’re witnessing a tragedy in the making. Those four people on Mars decided for themselves to go down to the planet’s surface. Mr. Saxby, here, and the rest of the NASA hierarchy didn’t even know about it until they were on their way down to the surface.”

Saxby started to object, but Treadway silenced him with a murmured, “You’ll have your turn next, sir.”

Donaldson went on, “Sending humans into space is expensive and very, very dangerous. We shouldn’t do it. Those four people on Mars are very brave, of course, but they’re also very foolish. The overwhelming chances are that they’ll never get back to Earth alive. Sending a rescue mission will simply endanger the lives of another group of fine, brave, but misdirected young men and women.”

Treadway waited half a second to make certain that Donaldson was finished, then turned to Saxby.

His face gray, grimacing with pain, Saxby said, “We can’t sit by and let those four men and women die on Mars. That’s all there is to it. We’ve got to save them. Period.”

Treadway saw that the floor director was frantically slicing his forefinger across his throat, the signal that their time was up.

He looked into the camera and said, “Should we try to save the explorers on Mars or would we be endangering more lives? That’s up to you, the people, to decide.

“Steven Treadway reporting.”

November 5, 2035

21:36 Universal Time

Mars Landing

Fermi
Habitat

“It is much smaller than I thought it would be,” said Catherine as she stepped from the airlock section of the habitat into the living quarters that would be their home for the next year or more.

The four Mars explorers had just finished their brief interview with Steven Treadway, an awkward session made tedious by the quarter-hour lapse between questions and answers.

Now they were going into their new home.

Connover said, “Don’t forget that this is only the basic part of what’s been designed to be a modular, expandable camp. This is only the habitation module. The science modules are supposed to come on the follow-on.”

“It’s still pretty small,” Amanda said. She looked down, doubtful, the adrenaline from their landing and interview gone, spent.

They had all removed their helmets and gloves for the interview with Treadway. Now they forgot about mission protocol and moved into the living quarters still in their dust-spattered surface suits, tracking a fine layer of red grit wherever they stepped.

This central part of the habitat resembled one of the modules of the International Space Station. It was a hard-walled cylinder that contained their sleeping quarters, the galley, and the computer and communications hardware. Like the
Arrow
, this section of the habitat would serve as their radiation shelter; it, too, was lined with water to absorb incoming cosmic rays.

The inflatable wings outside the central module deployed once the habitat signaled that it had landed intact. The wings, made from an amorphous material kept warm until it was deployed, hardened in the cold atmosphere of Mars, self-rigidizing so that they would not need air pressure to maintain their shape.

Catherine asked, “Ted, where do we start?”

“You three start unlatching the boxes and moving them into the wings. I’ll check out the life support, power and communications systems. I want to make sure everything’s working the way it should before we give Bee the ‘all clear’ for departure.”

McPherson nodded. “Yeah. I’d hate to find out we had a plumbing break after Bee’s left orbit.”

Amanda complained, “Ted, it’s cold in here. Can you turn up the heat?”

Remembering that Amanda had spent a good part of her career studying extremophile life forms in Antarctica, Ted grinned as he replied, “Don’t want our South Pole explorer to feel cold. The habitat’s been running on minimum power for two years. The heat will come up soon, now that the reactor’s been activated.”

Pointing to their boots, he added, “First of all, though, let’s get these boots off and stored in the airlock. See the dirt we’ve already tracked in? Somebody’s going to have to vacuum that up.”

“Not me,” Catherine and Amanda said in unison.

McPherson laughed. “A man may work from sun to sun,” he quoted the old adage, “but a woman’s work is never done.” Then he added, “Because they wait for a man to do it for them.”

Catherine gave him a fierce scowl, but she could only hold it for a second. “I’ll do the vacuuming,” she said. “This time. Then we take turns.”

Ted nodded.
Home sweet home,
he thought.
One big happy family.

But he heard the wind of Mars sighing past outside, and he knew that once the Sun went down the temperature out there would begin plummeting toward one hundred degrees below zero.
I’d better check out the heating system first of all.

November 7, 2035

16:15 Universal Time

Mars Landing Plus 2 Days

Arrow
Command Center

Sitting alone in the command center, Benson watched the surface of Mars sliding beneath his orbiting ship, waiting to see the thin blue layer of atmosphere become visible just before the Sun dipped below the horizon. Thin as an onionskin, he thought, remembering that Earth’s atmosphere didn’t look much thicker from orbit.

The sight reminded him of how fragile their existence was. On Earth that thin film of atmosphere was a protective sheet that nurtured and sustained life. But here on Mars it was another part of an alien environment that could kill an unprotected human, too thin to breathe even if it was pure oxygen, which it was not. Mars’ atmosphere—what there was of it—was almost entirely carbon dioxide. Unbreathable. And too thin to protect the surface from incoming meteoroids.