Mission: Tomorrow - eARC (34 page)

She talked a while longer, departing from her usual lecture notes, but she had lost some of the audience. People began standing, gathering their coats. Later, when she stepped out into the evening air, Jonah Brennerman was waiting for her.

“Mr. Brennerman.”

“Can we talk?”

“Go ahead.”

“I meant over dinner.”

“I’m headed straight to the airport to catch the red-eye.”

“Then let me drive you. You stood me up, you know.” He smiled.

“On the orbital? After talking to your father there didn’t seem to be any point.”

“Let me try to convince you otherwise. Please.”

She hesitated then said, “The university provided a driver. I’ll have to tell her.”

In the backseat of the limo, Jonah offered her a drink.

“No, thanks.”

“My father was pushing you.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“You understand, it’s about me. You represent a threat.”

“A threat! He’s Alistair Brennerman. I can barely fill a lecture hall.”

“That’s not the point. I’m in your camp. I believe we need to extend the frontier. Dad interprets that as almost traitorous. We’ve locked horns on this since I was a kid. Now he’s old and he wants to groom me to take over Nova Branson. The corporation means everything to him. Instead, I want to fly to Mars with you.”

“I’m a bad influence.”

Jonah laughed. “In his eyes, absolutely.”

“So why are you here?”

“This is the good part. Dad’s changed his mind, or I changed it for him, or I’m not even sure what.” Frowning, Jonah scratched his head. “To be honest, I’m a little baffled myself.”

“Wait a minute. He’s agreed to fund the mission, his
tribute
mission?”

“Yes, provided I can persuade you to his terms.”

“Let me save you the trouble of trying: you can’t.”

“Hear me out. He’s agreed to back off on the more extreme elements. No ghost-written paeans to orbital resorts, no public lectures recanting your position. We’re talking about a one-time public statement of support, a willingness to play nice with the press, and passive participation in a program of advertising revenue. And, Karie, he’s agreed to a landing, not just a bullshit tribute orbit.”

Karie held back her elation. A Mars landing! A real chance at exploration. “I can live with those terms. But why is he doing this? I don’t get it.”

“I pledged my loyalty to the status quo, promised when I took over I would adhere absolutely to Dad’s vision, without, as he put it, romantic deviations. Look, our relationship has always been rocky.” His face made an ugly grimace, an unintended glimpse of just how hard “rocky” had been. “Now time’s running out. He wants us to reconcile, he wants his legacy carried forward. We’re compromising around Mars.”

“He didn’t strike me as the compromising type.”

“Maybe in this case we’re both wrong about him.”

“Maybe. Are you really willing to come back and spend the rest of your life pampering rich tourists?”

“Of course not.”

Karie gave him a skeptical look. “But Alistair believes you?”

“He believed me after I signed a legal document binding me to the terms.” Jonah poured himself a scotch. “Of course, there’s no such thing as a contract that can’t be broken.”

The driver spoke. “Coming into the airport now, sir.”

“There’s something off about all this,” Karie said.

“The point is,” Jonah said, “do you want to go to Mars or not?”

Seventeen months later, at a prelaunch photo op, Karie turned to Jonah and said, “We look like NASCAR drivers.”

“
You
look great,” Jonah said.

Joining them were James Krueger and Treva Hilgar, NASA-trained astronauts and early defecters to Nova Branson. They wanted to fly. Krueger was six feet of lean muscle mass and smiling optimism. Hilgar was compact, emotionally self-contained, and fiercely competent. She wore a small gold cross around her neck. Karie was happy to have them along. All their flight suits were emblazoned with advertising patches. Especially annoying was the wearable GIF touting Nova Branson Orbital Resort, winking and shifting like Vegas casino signage.

“Put on your smile,” Krueger said. “We’re going to Mars.”

Later, riding the elevator up the gantry, Karie said, “The last few months, it’s like launching a circus, not an interplanetary mission.”

“Apollo wasn’t about exploration, either.”

“I know. It was about beating the Russians.”

“But exploration was a byproduct of that competition. And this mission isn’t about the NASCAR suits or your endorsement. So cheer up.”

Jonah laughed. “I can’t believe you two are even debating about something that’s already a done deal. Enjoy yourselves, for God’s sake.”

Treva Hilgar, as always, kept her thoughts to herself and watched the booster slip by.

Mars rolled out beneath them. After seven months in space, it was time. Karie opened the hatch between the main body of
Pilgrim 3
and the landing module attached to its belly. “Go ahead, Jonah,” she said.

Smiling, bearded, excited, Jonah moved toward the hatch. They had really done it. In a few hours they would be examining the
Pilgrim 1
habitat, reporting on its readiness for future missions to occupy. If there ever
were
any future missions. Karie wished what they were doing felt more like a beginning and less like a swan song—or, worse, a
tribute
.

She followed Jonah into the LM. Krueger had already begun the power-up procedures. Treva would remain in orbit.

“Here we go, huh?” Jonah said.

“Here we go.”

They were all grinning like kids.

Karie separated the LM from the main body of
Pilgrim 3
. This is where trouble had struck her brother’s mission.
Pilgrim 2
’s separation maneuver had failed, trapping the entire crew in a landing module that couldn’t land.
Pilgrim 3
’s separation was flawless. A short burn took them to the edge of the atmosphere. Their speed increased exponentially. Seven miles up, the supersonic chute deployed. Karie and Jim Krueger watched their instruments. A mile from touchdown, the chute separated and the retro rockets fired. Then it began to go wrong. The retros fired too hot, sapping fuel reserves. Still thousands of feet above the surface, the LM doggedly hovered.

“Damn it,” Karie said. “Switch me to full manual.”

“I’m on it.”

Seconds ticked by, then minutes.

“Jim?”

“Problem. Hold on.”

Karie watched the fuel gauges drop. They were already depleted below what was necessary to achieve orbit and rendezvous. Being marooned a given, soon they wouldn’t be able to land at all.

“Jim, come on.”

“
There
. The damn thing wouldn’t let go.”

Karie took them down, radically angling the descent, going for a hard landing while she could still control it. But it was too late. Sixty feet above the surface the fuel gauges flashed red, the engines quit, and they dropped like a stone.

“Brace!”

The desert plain came up like a wall and swatted them.

Karie dragged Jonah from the wreckage. Her knee collapsed and she fell over, cursing. The landing module loomed against the butterscotch sky, a mangle of abstract junk. Krueger’s severed arm hung from a gash in the bulkhead. There was no need to pull him out. Adrenalin, fear and pain routed Karie’s rational response. Gasping, she fumbled at her helmet. Then made herself stop. The readouts on her sleeve display indicated all was in order. She bore down, forcing calm, taking deep, slow breaths, then put her attention on Jonah. Behind his faceplate his eyes fluttered. Blood crept from his hairline.

“Jonah.”

He groaned.

She shook him. “Jonah, can you stand?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re going to stand.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be sorry, just stand up. If I can do it, you can do it.”

They both stood up, leaning on each other. A wave of dizziness swelled through Karie. She swayed, almost fainted, but held on. The
Pilgrim 1
habitat was a mile away. Packed inside was everything they needed to survive—if they could reach it.

Except for the lighter gravity, Karie would never have made it. By the time they came upon the habitat, her knee was screaming and her body was drenched in sweat. Jonah, who had recovered quickly, all but carried her the last hundred yards. The habitat was roughly the size of a shipping container. They passed through the airlock, initiated life support. Kari stripped off her helmet and gloves. She powered up the communications rig and sent a message to
Pilgrim 3
. Treva did not reply. She tried again. Still no response.

“What’s wrong with that thing?” Jonah said.

“I don’t know.”

“Does Treva even know we crashed?”

“She tracked our descent. She knows.”

Karie slipped the headphones on and tried again.

“Anything?”

“Quiet.”

Karie thought she heard something—a voice, so faint and submerged in static she couldn’t be sure it was real. She adjusted the radio, fine tuning, but the voice was gone.

“What?” Jonah said.

“I thought I heard a voice.”

“What did she say?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure it
was
a voice.”

“Let me.” Jonah took the headphones and began broadcasting, listening intently for a reply, broadcasting again. Then his expression changed. He closed his eyes, appearing almost in pain as he listened. After a while, looking disappointed, he removed the headphones. “I thought I heard something.”

For the next hour they traded off on the radio, trying to contact both Treva in orbit and Mission Operations back on Earth, sometimes with the headphones on, sometimes allowing the wash of hopeless static to pour out of the speakers.

“We both heard the voice,” Jonah said.

“We heard something.” Karie’s mind was moving off the radio. There was so much to do.

Day three.

A dust storm came howling out of the desert. They huddled inside the habitat. Dust and grit hissed against the shell. Karie had been working on a protective shield for the life support unit’s loader. Attached to the outside of
Pilgrim 2,
the loader shipped Martian soil into a chamber, where it was heated and the evaporated water captured. LS apparatus then divided the water into hydrogen and oxygen, adding nitrogen directly from the atmosphere. It produced drinking water and breathable air and was designed to support five people. But the equipment proved balky, in need of constant attention. And then the dust storm drove them back inside before she could fix the shielding in place. What would be left after the storm? Feeling her optimism fray, Karie said, “I’m beginning to think people like your father are right.”

Jonah scooped fruit paste out of a ration cup and sucked the spoon clean. “Dad’s always right about everything. Just ask him.”

“
Phoenix
was a disaster—my pilot killed, the mission aborted.
Pilgrim 2
up there right now with five dead, including my brother. And now Jim Krueger. You want to talk about a stupid waste, there it is.”

“Karie.”

“You know, when Danny said that stupid waste thing, he was talking directly to me. He was saying, I know you’re going to try to find a way to come out here. Don’t do it.”

“Well, you did it anyway.”

They stood by the loader. Dust and grit had wind-blasted through the mechanism, tearing rubber seals, clogging the armatures and servos.

“We’re going to have to break it down, clean everything, replace the seals, and put it together again. Otherwise we can manually ship the soil, which is more labor than we want.” Karie’s knee throbbed. She ignored it. In the direction of the crashed landing module, something moved. She paused, holding her wrench. A dust devil tracked across the desert, like a fleeing ghost.

Day nine.

By now Treva had left orbit, headed back to Earth. Karie had tried everything she could think of to make the radio work, to no avail. There didn’t seem to be anything
wrong
with it. Possibly their outgoing messages were being heard. There was simply no way to tell. She turned to the hydroponics and other matters demanding attention. Jonah, meanwhile, spent too much time monitoring the useless radio. One morning he shouted, “There’s somebody! I heard somebody.”

Karie, already suited up, was about to enter the airlock. Dust accumulated on the solar panel array if they didn’t keep it wiped off. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes. I was broadcasting to Earth, and then there was a voice. I couldn’t hear what it said, but it was real. I heard it. This time I’m positive.”

Karie switched to speaker. She cleared her throat and spoke into the microphone, “
Pilgrim 1
habitat, this is
Pilgrim 1
habitat. Please respond.”

Jonah leaned in eagerly.

“Relax,” Karie said. They both knew it would be at least twenty-eight minutes before they received a reply. She was about to stand up when, faintly, a voice spoke through the static. Karie tweaked the noise reduction filter. The voice became slightly clearer.
Pilgrim 1 Habitat, this is Pilgrim 1 habitat. Please respond
. . .

An echo.

Like calling into the mouth of a deep, black, empty cave. Jonah looked stricken. After that, he rarely wasted time with the radio.

Day seventy.

Karie lay on her thin mattress. Many nights she and Jonah shared a bunk, but Karie had been sleeping poorly for weeks and wanted her own space tonight. An amber panel near the airlock provided minimal illumination. Tired as she was, she couldn’t let go, her mind constantly worrying at the myriad of tasks. The hydroponics required constant attention. In nightmares, Karie awakened to discover the plants withered and dead. In reality the radishes, lettuce and green onions were thriving under carefully controlled conditions. Still, they were a long way from a bioregenerative life support system.

From where he lay in his own bunk, Jonah said: “We’re never leaving this planet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My father’s not sending a rescue ship.”

“And you know this how?”

“Somebody reprogrammed the LM computer. Reprogrammed it to burn all our fuel, making sure we’d crash. If Jim hadn’t managed to override it and if you hadn’t been at the controls, we would have all died.”