| Sometimes playing it safe is not an option…
Illustrated by William R. Warren, Jr.
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David gazed out the station window, searching for a glint of sunlight off the Low-Earth-Orbit MagBeam platform. It was impossible to spot from this distance, especially against the mottled blue and white backdrop of the Earth, but he searched nonetheless. He made out the shape of North America through murky clouds. Three years before, on a day much like this, his father had perished down there, an infinitesimal speck of humanity buried under a mountain of volcanic ash. He turned to see Gin Fukazawa’s face appear on his desk monitor. He grinned at the sight of the Space Transit System’s LEO supervisor, twenty years his junior, and shuffled through the piles of tools on his desk for the connection switch.
“Hey, Gin, couldn’t wait four more hours to see me?”
“You wish. Looks like three weeks before our paths cross again.”
David sighed. “Let me guess. Your boss wants some Martian ice to cool wine at a political function?”
“We all have to please our masters, which is why today you’ll be pleasing me by conducting an inspection tour of the High-Earth-Orbit MagBeam platform with a top official from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.” She wagged a finger at him. “And you’ll be on your best behavior.”
David groaned. “Another VIP shuffling through? Do I kiss his shoes first, or curtsy? I never remember.”
“I’m serious, David.”
“So am I. How often do I get real space work these days? I signed up as an engineer, not a desk jockey or nursemaid. At least give me something worth doing while I’m up here.”
“Well, I’m very sorry your work’s not all fun and games, David, but this is important. This woman wants to tank the appropriation budget for the new colonization shuttles and shut down the Mars colony. Why else the surprise visit? She appeared out of nowhere, stuck her nose into every nook and cranny, requisitioned our manifests and incident reports. She’s looking for trouble—and the way she’s looking, she’ll find it.”
Gin’s serious brown eyes glowered at him from the monitor. She never looked better than when she scolded him. The prospect of weeks away from her made him frown. Soon enough, her promotion to Mars Colony Coordinator would take her from him permanently. David didn’t want to think about spending his retirement on Earth without her.
“You run a tight ship, Gin. I’d sail anywhere with you.”
Gin frowned. “If today is any indication, we’re all about to drown.”
“What’s up?”
“The incoming transport is having computer trouble, so we’re bumping the McAuliffe from the maintenance schedule.” Gin raised a hand to stop his protest. “It’s not like the old boat doesn’t get regular maintenance. You spend half your time on platform tinkering with it.”
“Gin, this is the third time! What’s the point of having an emergency rescue ship and then letting her rot? Tinkering’s one thing, but she needs proper maintenance. Surely the transport can wait a day while the McAuliffe gets a thorough overhaul?”
“No can do. I need to turn it around pronto. Your VIP should just squeeze in before all hell breaks loose. There’s been a little accident on Mars.”
“The control room crew doesn’t need me there to run the magbeam. Or for much else, either. What’s the matter on Mars, anyway?”
“A check valve malfunctioned, and some hydroponic fungicide siphoned into the water supply. A couple of the colonists bathed in it.”
“With what effects?”
“Just irritation and rashes so far, but we’re concerned about long-term health consequences if they’re left untreated. We’re shipping antidote immediately. The sooner they get treatment, the less likelihood they’ll suffer any permanent damage. If we wait a day now, it’ll cost us a week in arrival time.”
“Thank you, Gin. I think I remember reading something similar in Orbital Mechanics for Dummies. All right, the McAuliffe can get her makeover another time. God forbid I should prevent the colonists getting their aspirin.”
Gin’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry you won’t make it to LEO today. I had a bottle of wine cooling.” She sighed. “Run along now; your VIP will arrive in about two hours.” She cut the connection.
David left his office and tramped along looping metal corridors. Outside, the Earth and stars wheeled dizzyingly as the station’s gravity centrifuge revolved slowly. David ignored them. His inspection produced its usual array of irritations, bugs, and blemishes, but nothing dangerous. The whole station needed an overhaul, but with space-hating bureaucrats like Gin’s woman from OSTP sniffing everywhere, no one dared put their head above the parapet to request a budget increase, leaving David to waste his few precious days in space on janitor’s work. His father would laugh; he’d left the old man’s wrecking yard behind for the thrill of space exploration.
He caught sight of a young woman poking inside a wall panel with a voltage probe.
“Ellen! Anything going on I should know about?”
Ellen Francis smiled at her supervisor. Almost impossibly beautiful, but seemingly unaware of it, the redheaded engineer left lovestruck astronauts in her wake wherever she went. David smiled paternally.
“Hi, David. No, just glitches. Nothing worth bothering Maintenance about.”
“Glitches?”
Ellen proffered him her portable toolkit. “The flammable gas sensor flatlines over point four percent concentration. It’s not really a problem: point four percent’s well past the alarm concentration.”
David poked around inside a maze of wires. “Had the same problem with these things in F-15 engines in Saudi a thousand years ago,” he said. “Turned out to be sand contamination of the pellistor sensors. Chances are something’s got in and decatalyzed it.” He kept probing around, occasionally holding out a hand for a new tool.
“So how did Timmy Weaver get along last night? It was his title fight, wasn’t it?”
David nodded. “Yeah. Wyoming Junior Light-Flyweight Championship. I haven’t checked in at the gym, but he ought to have walked it. Kid’s got talent like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Better than you?”
“Way better. Big and strong was plenty in the Air Force championship, but Timmy’s got such fast hands, and instincts to go with it. Pride of the gym, he is.”
“All thanks to you,” Ellen said, with an exaggerated flutter of her eyelashes.
David fixed her with a look. “That’s very nearly insubordination, Ellen. No, I like helping those kids. I don’t know teaching them to box does much good, but anything must be better than spending all day in an orphanage, right?”
Ellen said nothing. Her thoughts were clear enough, though: Aren’t you an orphan of Yellowstone, too?
Delicately holding a pasta-spoonful of tangled wires aside, David extracted a tiny ceramic bulb. “Christ on his cross!”
“What?”
“Serial number 223-BR2Z. No wonder it’s flaky; these sensors were discontinued in 2011. Ten bucks they cost, but the government still gives us equipment nearly fifteen years out of date.”
Ellen yawned and massaged the back of her neck.
“You’re on the mission crew for this medicine run to Mars, aren’t you?” David said.
She nodded.
“Well, go get some sleep, for God’s sake. I’ll finish the maintenance checks.”
“It’s all right, really—”
He cut her off. “Don’t make me order you, Ellen. It makes me twitch. Go catch some Zs.”
She scurried off. David shook his head. More work he’d bought himself. Still, at least it wasn’t paperwork, and at least the outgoing shuttle would have someone competent and wakeful on board during acceleration. He pushed the toolkit into his pocket and continued his inspection, wondering how much of his time this VIP would demand.
David tried to mask his exasperation. He’d shown Gin’s bureaucrat around the platform and been as polite as possible. In return, she’d spoken barely two words, spending their meeting alternately nodding and snorting at his explanations of how things worked, and taking notes on a handheld computer. Not even the magnificent spacescape from David’s office window served to soften her, since she refused to look at anything except her handheld display. After five hours, David could feel a headache building.
Her name was Dr. Victoria Porter. A severe bun of dark hair gave her an older, all-business air, but only the tiniest of lines showed at the corners of her large, dark eyes and pouty mouth, and David guessed she might be in her mid-forties. High cheekbones and an aristocratic nose echoed a tall, willowy figure. With different hair, David could even have thought her attractive—until she’d spoken. Now he only thought her a nuisance. A malignant nuisance. He’d rather have been helping repair the Mars shuttle, not stuck in an office with a bureaucrat firing pedantic questions at him.
“Dr. Porter, occasional minor discrepancies in bookkeeping are unavoidable in any large organization. I can’t tell you why July’s LEO manifest differs from what was loaded onto the Mars pod, but most likely a breakage occurred and the schedule didn’t allow time for a replacement. It’s not economically viable to replace non-vital equipment on an emergency basis.”
A message alert flashed on David’s monitor. Porter made no move to leave, but continued scowling at her handheld screen.
David keyed the message. Gin’s face appeared, worry lines creasing her brow. “Gin, good to hear from you. I’m with Dr. Porter. What can I do for you?”
Her expression tightened. “David, the Mars shuttle has an intermittent short in its navigation system. The technicians are swapping out parts to nail down the faulty component.”
David whistled. “A sequential fault check could take days. No other indication of the origin?”
Gin shook her head.
David understood her frustration. A few days’ delay launching would mean arriving almost two weeks late. “Looks like someone else will have to take the colonists their aspirin. What’s your plan?”
“We’ve no choice. The only other suitable shuttle is twenty days away. We’re sending the McAuliffe.”
“Wait a minute. Six hours ago you bumped the McAuliffe from the maintenance roster, and now you want to send her on an emergency mission? What’s wrong with this picture?”
“Come on, David, this isn’t an emergency, but we can’t afford several days’ delay. The McAuliffe’s in shape, isn’t she?”
David snorted. “No thanks to Maintenance. Who’s going to fly her?”
“We’re transferring the command crew from the Mars shuttle, along with a replacement lander pilot. Karl Masters’ll be flying the front chair.”
“Masters?” David exclaimed. “Give me a break. Just because he’s good in transit shuttles doesn’t mean he can fly an old tub like the McAuliffe. At least send someone qualified.”
Gin’s brow creased further. “I’ve contacted Earth. Ben’s down with the flu, and Seamus just left on vacation. As soon as they locate him, they’ll send him up to take the McAuliffe out. I’d like you to get her ready to fly.”
“Seamus O’Brien? A man who once quit a vacation on Easter Island because it was too crowded? If he’s vacationing within a thousand miles of a launch site, it’ll be the first time. Why not let me take the McAuliffe over to Mars? I’m the best qualified, and I can have her space-worthy inside two hours.”
“David, is that sensible? How many flight hours have you logged since your last assessment?”
“I designed half the ship, Gin. Do you think I’ve forgotten how to fly her? Come on, it’s a milk run. The planetary alignment couldn’t be better, so every minute waiting for Seamus is about three lost at Mars.” David glanced up at Dr. Porter, and leaned close to his monitor. “Let me do some real work for once. May be my last chance.”
Gin threw up her hands. “All right, you’ve convinced me. I’ll change the crew roster, but you be careful.”
“I’m sorry, Gin, okay? But you did say it was important, right?”
She nodded. “Go on, get to work. Here’s the Mars incident report. I’ll see you on the return run.” She gave a weary smile and vanished, replaced on-screen by a document.
David scanned it. “Dr. Porter, I must apologize, but a situation has arisen requiring my attention. We can continue at a later date, or you can address the remainder of your questions to one of my colleagues. If you wish to leave immediately, we can beam your shuttle down to the LEO Platform before accelerating the McAuliffe. Otherwise, you’ll have a four hour delay before the beam is available again.”
She set down her computer. “Mr. Longrie, has the White House been informed of this ‘little problem’ on Mars?”
“Dr. Porter, my understanding is that someone in the colony has spilled a drink, and they need us to deliver them some paper towels, nothing more.”
“I’m sure the director could give me a more detailed explanation. It may have some bearing on my overall evaluation of the program.”
David sighed. “There’s been a minor chemical leak; just the kind of incident you could encounter in any lab. Some fungicide siphoned into the water supply, and a few people bathed in it. A couple of the scientists have a rash, and the colony medical center doesn’t have the medication it needs, so we’re shipping some over. It’s just a routine supply mission with a tight time-limit, so if you’ll excuse me—”
David keyed the number for the shuttle crew station. Ellen Francis’ Botticelli countenance appeared on-screen. “Ellen, you’ve heard the news?”
She smiled. “I’ve always liked riding in vintage cars. I didn’t realize we were getting a vintage driver as well.”
“Thanks a lot. You’ll be hearing about that one in your APR. Look, we launch in three hours, so can you get over to the McAuliffe and start packing her up? The cargo came with the maintenance crew, along with some lander pilot. You can rope him in to help. I’ve got to go through the preflight checklist, so I’ll see you at the loading bay. Okay?”
Ellen nodded. “Sure. I didn’t plan on spending this run in a flying toolbox; I’d better be getting time-and-a-half. You must be mad as a snake.”
David glanced aside as Porter looked pointedly at her wristwatch. “Yeah, of course. I’ve gotta go; see you in a few.” He cut the connection. He wanted to call the gym to check on Timmy’s fight, and he knew he should apologize to Anna for missing the birth of his first grandchild, but he couldn’t spare the time.
When David arrived at the docking bay an hour later, his hackles rose. Gin hadn’t mentioned the name of the lander pilot. Threading between jumbled piles of net bags holding everything from circuit boards to dehydrated fruit juice, and crates of medical supplies, he made his way to the McAuliffe’s loading bay doors. Ellen, her arms full of bags, frowned up at another man dressed in a flight suit with US Navy pilot’s wings on the collar. A shock of blond hair topped over six feet of muscle and sinew, and a pungent cologne pricked David’s nostrils.
Ellen set down her bags. “David Longrie, this is Captain Xavier Beaume—”
“Yes, thanks, Ellen. The captain and I have already met.” Neither man extended a hand. David swept an arm around the chaotic bay. “What is this?”
“We’re loading the supplies,” Beaume replied.
“Loading? It looks like my room in college. Why aren’t you using the pre-packed pallets?”
“They don’t fit on this archaic rust bucket,” Beaume said. “Worthless piece of trash should have been scrapped years ago. Which old geezer are they sending up to fly it?”
David’s hands curled before he restrained himself. One shot was all it would take, he was sure. Beaume was built like a wrestler, but David would have bet a month’s wages he was hiding the glass jaw to end all glass jaws. What had Gin ever seen in him?
“This ship might be old, Captain, but if you treat her with respect, you’ll find she’s more than capable of doing her job. And if you look, you’ll find her cargo bay stacked to the roof with empty pallets made to fit her. I suggest you get a power loader and bring some of them out, because those bags’ll shift so much during acceleration we could end up on Jupiter.”
Beaume’s color rose, but he cut off a retort when Ellen slapped his arm.
“Sorry, David. I should’ve thought. Come on, Beaume, let’s get to it.”
As his two crew members trudged off, David passed a despairing eye over the chaotic loading bay. Why couldn’t they have assigned me someone useful? Beaume, a former test pilot and US Navy Fighter Weapons School trophy winner, seemed to think his star quality extended to areas he knew nothing about. The access door hissed open, and Dr. Porter stalked in, suitcase in hand. The sooner she was out of his hair, the better, too.
“Dr. Porter, your shuttle is waiting in Bay 7. You can depart any time.”
Her face set hard. “I won’t be leaving on that shuttle, Mr. Longrie, I’ll be leaving on this one. I’m coming along as an observer.”
“You’re what? ”
“You heard me, Mr. Longrie.”
David looked at the sprawling pile of supplies, then at Porter’s elegant business suit. “Forgive my asking, but are you space-qualified?”
A genuine smile almost curved her lips. “My office reports directly to the president, and she has personally assigned me to this mission.”
“The McAuliffe isn’t a pleasure barge, Dr. Porter. She’s not got faux-gravity or mod-cons, and it’s sixty days to Mars and back. It isn’t like taking the Atlantic tunnel.”
“I am aware of that. If you wish to protest, feel free to contact Ms. Fukazawa.”
David marched to the nearest communications point.
Gin answered quickly. “I know, David, I know. Instructions just came in from way over my head; there’s nothing I can do.”
“Does she think the McAuliffe’s equipped to haul a passenger to Mars and back? Sixty days with her is not what I need in my life right now.”
“Then this should cheer you up—Seamus is at the London spaceport. We can get him back in eight hours. He says he’ll fly the mission if you want.”
David looked at Porter poking around among the supplies, while Ellen and Beaume struggled to repack them. “Do you really want to leave Seamus alone with Porter for two months? If she wants to can the program already, I’m not sure Seamus ‘Bungee Jump From An Airplane’ O’Brien is the best person to bunk her with. Tell him to enjoy his vacation.”
“You’re sure?”
David nodded reluctantly.
Gin frowned. “Okay, I’ll tell him. Did you call Mike yet?”
“Next on the list. Thanks for keeping quiet about the crew assignment, by the way.”
Gin rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry, David, it slipped my mind. If it makes you feel better, Xavier’s a jerk when I see him, too. Just ignore him.”
“I’ll have to. Or commit the first murder in space.”
She didn’t smile. “Save the jokes, David. Call Mike, then get back to loading. There’s a launch schedule to keep.” The screen washed white.
David searched his wallet for the call code of the Orphans of Yellowstone Gym, then waited several minutes before Mike Parry’s lived-in face filled the screen, blocking out the punching bags and sparring ring behind him.
“Dave,” said the big, black man, “you still in orbit?”
David nodded. “Yeah, something’s come up. I’ve got to fly a rush mission to Mars, so I’m going to be off the map for a couple of months. I’m sorry to spring this on you, but it just fell on me this afternoon.”
Parry grimaced. “Well, I can reschedule the other volunteers to fill the training roster, but the kids are gonna be awful sorry. Especially Timmy, after last night.”
“I’ve been up to my ass in alligators ever since I fell out of bed this morning. What happened?”
“Kid just wasn’t there. Started badly and never came back—lost his confidence. Got knocked down twice in the first round, and I stopped it in the second. Leaned into a right hand he’d normally slip blindfolded, and got cut under the eye. You know the kiddies’ rules when there’s blood on the canvas.”
“Damn! Timmy should have taken that kid to the cleaners. What did you tell him at the end of the first round?”
“Not to go toe-to-toe with the other kid, keep to the center of the ring and not get caught on the inside.”
David shook his head. “Timmy’s not a technical fighter; he’s heart and instinct.”
“What else would I have told him?”
“Go forward, bet it all on one lucky shot. Take the puncher’s chance. It’s what I would’ve done.”
“He’d have got his head knocked off!”
David shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he’d have won. Bet your life he’d have preferred going down swinging, though. How is he?”
“Not too hot. Feels like he let you down. I tried to talk him up, but he went back to the shelter pretty unhappy.”
“Christ, I should’ve been in the corner with him. He’s got all the talent in the world, but he needs help focusing. Tell him—” David looked aside as Ellen gave him a piercing whistle from the cargo hatch. “Look, just tell him he didn’t let anyone down, and I’ll bring him back a Martian rock, okay?”
Parry nodded, and Ellen whistled again.
“Damn. Look, Mike, I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you when I get back.”
“Good luck, man.”
David killed the connection and jogged across the bay to Ellen. Concerns about the mission crowded out the vague sense he was forgetting something.
The clock counted down toward the end of their acceleration phase. The mission clock ticked quietly alongside it, depressing red figures announcing a twenty-six day wait until their arrival in Mars orbit. David, restless after nearly four hours in his seat, checked the voltage and current gauges attesting to the condition of the acceleration magnets on the McAuliffe’s underside. They all registered normal, and the propellant and battery levels glowed green. With the ship’s attitude controlled by the navigation computer, David felt like a fifth wheel, but he kept his hand hovering near the manual override, just in case.
His earpiece crackled. “HEO to McAuliffe, prep for beam shutdown in five minutes, over.”
David thumbed the transmit key. “Copy that, HEO. How’re we looking?”
“We show you at thirty-eight point four clicks per tick, McAuliffe, trajectory five by five. Mars concurs. Range passing two hundred and seventy six thousand kilometers downrange. Right on the money, over.”
David touched the data onto the navigation computer screen. “Copy that, HEO. Remind us to duck when the Moon comes along, over.”
Laughter rang in his ear. “Will do, McAuliffe. Prep for beam shutdown in three minutes twenty. HEO out.”
In a little over three minutes, the magbeam—a three-hundred-thousand-kilometer-long bolt of lightning connecting them to the distant HEO station—would shut down, ending their four hours of acceleration. The cloud of argon gas ionized by the magbeam glowed invisibly in their wake, the thrust it imparted on the McAuliffe’s acceleration magnets pushing David down into his seat with almost a fifth his normal weight. It would be the last time he felt weight for a long while. The Earth’s heartbreakingly beautiful blue and white disk receded in the viewer; Mars still lay invisibly distant somewhere ahead and to the right.
Beaume grimaced in the copilot’s seat, his muscular frame too bulky for the cramped cockpit. He was wearing cologne, and David wondered which of the women it was meant to impress. Even Beaume must have realized Porter was way out of his league, and David smiled as he wondered how long he would take to discover that the preternaturally beautiful Ellen was also gay. He’d warned a few optimistic, young astronauts off her in the past, but looked forward to Beaume finding out the hard way.
David would have preferred to see Ellen in the cockpit, but Beaume needed to get acquainted with the controls. Interplanetary flight protocols just weren’t part of the training for lander pilots, however talented. Besides, Ellen was still orienting their unwanted “observer” to the vagaries of life on the McAuliffe. So far, Dr. Porter hadn’t left the lav for more than fifteen minutes at a stretch, and they weren’t even at zero gee yet. If she didn’t stop heaving soon, he’d order her drugged up until she adjusted. He was tempted to order it anyway, just to keep her out of his way. He ran a hand through his close-cropped grey hair and tried to relax the muscles in his neck and shoulders. His head throbbed.
“Past your bedtime, gramps?” Beaume said.
David shot him a savage look. “Do you intend to do any work on this flight, or are you just gonna park your ass in front of the vidscreen all day like you do on those landers?”
Beaume grinned and stretched expansively, his shoulders muscles rippling.
David ducked aside. “And put your damn restraint belt on. I don’t need you bouncing around the cockpit when they turn the beam off.”
“Ooh, sorry,” Beaume said, not moving. “This is so much more dangerous than flying an F-18. Just imagine what could happen if I got a jolt at a whole point-two gees. It could crush my eyeballs to jelly and snap my spine.”
No, asshole, but I could. “Just put the damn belt on, or it goes in your performance report as a safety violation.”
The radio burst into life. “HEO to McAuliffe, come in, over.”
David touched his earpiece. “We read you, HEO, over.”
“HEO to McAuliffe, prep for beam shutdown in one minute, over.”
“Copy that, HEO. Initiating shutdown procedure, over.” David thumbed the 1-MC control to transmit across the whole ship. “Longrie to all crew. Brace for transfer to zero gee in forty-five seconds.” He slotted his headset into its receiver.
The overhead speaker crackled. “HEO to McAuliffe. Shutdown proceeding in ten, nine, eight—”
David took hold of the jolt bar above the instrument panel and looked levelly at Beaume. He held out until six, then reached for his restraint belt and slotted it deftly home over his chest. On zero, a slight jolt forward signaled the shutdown of the McAuliffe’s thrust. David flicked controls to deactivate the acceleration magnets and propellant feed, set the batteries to begin recharging from the solar panels, then unbuckled his restraint belt.
“Gin said something about you being too cautious,” Beaume said. “Maybe that’s why she asked me onto the crew: girl needs a bit of excitement in her life again.”
David stopped, one hand clenched white into the back of his seat. Restraining himself, he reached for the communications panel. “Longrie to all crew. Magbeam shutdown complete and propulsion secured. Out.”
David shot along the narrow aisle toward the galley area, anger making him push off harder than he intended. He wanted an aspirin and a bulb of coffee. By now he should have been lying next to Gin in her quarters on the LEO platform. Maybe Beaume was right. Maybe he was an old geezer flying an outdated bucket of bolts on a pointless, cover-your-ass mission. Thirty years as an astronautical engineer, and here he was, reduced to flying suitcases of itch ointment to Mars with Gin’s jerk of an ex-boyfriend. He could have been mopping the decks on the platform for all the good he was doing.
He swung into what served as the McAuliffe’s kitchen and common area, hooked a foot into a toehold, and popped the lid on the first-aid kit. A series of racks held an assortment of medicines in single-use packets, all filled to the top—except the aspirin rack, conspicuously empty. Cursing, he slammed the lid closed.
“That didn’t sound good.” Behind him, Ellen guided Porter into the cramped space. The two women glided to the table, and Ellen propelled Porter into a seat. The Assistant Director of Space and Aeronautics at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy looked green.
David rolled his head around to loosen the tension in his neck. “Aspirin supply got left behind. Shipful of emergency medication, and I can’t get a damned aspirin.”
“Just hook your foot under the bar down there.” With her charge anchored at the table, Ellen glided smoothly from the room. She returned a minute later and handed David two aspirin. “I always carry my own, just in case.”
David smiled wryly. “Remind me to give you a raise when we get back. Do me a favor and go make sure Beaume doesn’t accidentally fire off the thrusters or jettison our water supply, will you?”
Ellen gave him a grin and a mock salute. “Yes, sir! And did you remember to tell Anna you’d miss the big day?”
David released a string of profanity. He’d promised his daughter he wouldn’t let space prevent him from attending the most important moment in her life this time. So much for promises.
Ellen arched an eyebrow at him. “I’ll enter that in the logbook as a ‘No.’”
As she floated away toward the cockpit, David rummaged in a supply cabinet for a bulb of coffee. Sleep would have been better than caffeine, but Beaume’s taunt rang like a bell in his head, precluding any chance of rest. He glanced at Porter.
The good doctor hunkered over the table, her knuckles white. The dark, rich chocolate of her hair accentuated the paleness of her skin. Not even her peach lip-gloss could mask a bloodless face. She stared vacantly at the wall, her pupils bare pinpricks.
“Can I get you some coffee, doctor?”
She shook her head without looking up. David tossed his bulb into the galley’s microwave, twisted the dial, and muttered in frustration when nothing happened. He was damned if he was going to spend twenty-six days on unheated STS reconstituted food, so he snatched up a screwdriver.
Porter finally moved her eyes, watching him as he probed around the back of the microwave. “If Beaume isn’t qualified, should you be letting him fly the ship?”
David left the screwdriver hanging in midair and glided across the galley. “I’m not. We’re on an inertial trajectory; just coasting. We can’t even change our course without a magbeam powering us. Nothing much to do now but monitor communications and life support and watch the batteries recharge.”
He returned with a handful of tools. After a few moments poking inside the microwave, he replaced the back, reconnected the power, and smiled as it burst into life. “I take it you haven’t spent much time in zero gee?”
“It doesn’t take a space jockey to decide whether a system is running safely and efficiently, or whether it represents the best use of taxpayers’ money. And I do have a postgraduate degree in physics.”
The microwave pinged, and David extracted his coffee. “If the politicians were worried about safety and efficiency, we wouldn’t be sitting in a geriatric ship headed out to Mars at twelve hours’ notice. We’d have a modern, properly maintained shuttle with a dedicated crew on permanent standby for emergencies.”
She took her eyes off the wall and met his, avoiding the galley’s tiny porthole. “Another fancy toy needing tens of millions of dollars to maintain, just so a handful of ‘special’ people can play at being pioneers.”
“The Mars colony is run for the benefit of everyone, not just the people in the space program.”
“What nonsense. What would you say if there were a catastrophic event like the ’21 Yellowstone eruption, and the government was too busy indulging your pipe-dreams to build safe shelters on Earth? ‘Sorry you died, folks, but we just had to see whether there was life on Mars?’”
What would I say? How about ‘Sorry I abandoned you, Dad?’ Maybe space wasn’t worth it. David threw the aspirin down his throat with a swallow of STS coffee substitute. “My shift’s over. If you’re too sick to go to the exercise suite today, you can skip it, but you’ll need to be in there by tomorrow at the latest. I’m going to get some sleep.”
David swore as the edge of the circuit board sliced his index finger. He scrounged a rag from his back pocket and applied pressure to the cut. The first-aid kit probably wouldn’t have any bandages. Like every ship, the McAuliffe boasted a thousand different subsystems. Half of them he’d upgraded himself during his years of tinkering, but the rest were as reliable as politicians in election year. He’d spent almost every waking hour in the fortnight since launch fixing niggles and glitches.
Ellen glided up and offered him a beverage bulb. “How goes the repair?”
He took a swig and gave her a black look. “What the hell is this?”
“Sorry, boss, it’s the only caffeine we have left. It’s tea with cream, just the way you like your coffee.”
“I take my coffee with cream and sugar.”
“Not on this boat. And you’ll be taking it black tomorrow.”
David sighed. No coffee, no cream, no sugar, but enough chicken soup to feed an army. Heaven only knew what else had been left behind between Beaume’s junk sale and the scramble to make room for the exalted Dr. Porter. At least she had the good grace to stay out of his way. He spotted Beaume swimming along the corridor toward them. If only we could have left him behind instead of the coffee. His shoulders tensed as the pilot drew closer. He wasn’t sure he could make it another eleven days without slugging the guy. Once Beaume realized David’s authority over him didn’t extend beyond the end of the mission, he’d gone from being merely insubordinate to openly offensive.
“Ship still falling apart faster than you can put it back together, Longrie?” Beaume didn’t quite stop in time to avoid bumping against Ellen.
She slid away. “Anything else I can get for you, boss?” she offered. “Need any parts from stores?”
“There aren’t enough parts in the whole system to fix what’s wrong with this piece of junk,” Beaume said. “Gin’s crazy thinking it’ll get us to Mars. I sure ain’t taking it coming back.”
David glowered at the pilot. “You want to jump ship early, the airlock’s just behind you. Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be on watch in the cockpit?”
“Sure, but I came to tell you Gin’s on the horn.”
“You could have used the intercom.”
Beaume raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “You mean it’s working again?”
Ellen gave him a disgusted look. “Give it a rest, you idiot. You broke it in the first place, trying to wire in your stupid music system.”
David gave the petite engineer a glance, wondering if Beaume had finally made his inevitable pass at her.
The pilot snorted. “Don’t talk dumb. I’ve done it a thousand times before, and it’s never caused trouble.”
David pushed himself upright. “This isn’t one of your new commercial landers. You can’t jump into the wiring without checking the layout first. This ship needs care and experience, not some cowboy fumbling around where he’s not qualified to go.”
Beaume stiffened. “Hey, who the—”
David cut him off. “Just keep your damn fingers out of systems you don’t understand, all right? I’ve got enough to do without cleaning up your messes.”
He finished tidying up the circuitry and pulled himself in the direction of the cockpit. Beaume eased a shoulder against the companionway wall, putting himself in David’s path. With no handhold to grab, David cannoned into him and spun away from the pilot’s greater bulk, rolling over and bouncing painfully into the wall. Beaume laughed.
David’s patience snapped. He checked his spin with an outstretched hand, braced his foot against the wall, and thrust himself towards Beaume, right fist first. With two hundred pounds and an amateur heavyweight’s technique behind it, the uppercut sank in under Beaume’s ribs and doubled him up. David took a wild left hook easily on his guard, and responded with a sharp double jab to the bridge of the nose. Beaume’s head went back, setting him up beautifully for the crunching right cross that followed the jab as night followed day.
It didn’t land. Ellen seized his arm on the backswing and, her foot anchored under a trip bar, pulled him around to face her. “Enough, both of you! David, stop acting like a kid and go get Gin’s message!”
Beaume recovered his balance, coughing. “Yeah, get into your stairlift and go see what your night-nurse wants.”
David tried to lunge for him, but Ellen kept him pinned back. “Shut your face before it gets damaged, Beaume,” she snapped. “I’m sick of the pair of you.”
David pushed off for the cockpit. A knot of wiring lay draped across the cockpit deck, vanishing into the back of a homemade stereo box. David yanked the wires unceremoniously loose, booted the stereo into the companionway, and set about reconnecting the intercom. The few minutes’ work gave him time to compose himself before he played the message from Earth. Gin looked years older. Dark half-circles discolored the skin under her eyes, her mouth was pinched, and her hair hung slack and dull.
“Bad news, David. We have new cases appearing by the hour, and much more serious than before. Apparently some of the contaminated water was used to brew coffee. When it’s ingested, it migrates slowly to the nervous system and eventually the liver and kidneys, where it has devastating effects. Two of the early cases are comatose, and the infirmary’s medical supplies are running low. They can keep people stable, but they need the antidote to flush the toxin out of the tissues. We’re sending more antidote on another shuttle, but she won’t arrive until two months after you. Once you dock at the Mars orbital platform, get your supplies to the surface as quickly as possible, to tide them over until the relief shuttle arrives. You’ll need Xavier to fly the station lander down. Both colony pilots are grounded.”
Surprised as much by Gin’s appearance as her news, David took a moment before sending a reply. “Message received, Gin. Don’t worry—we’ll get the supplies there for everyone who needs them.”
David swiveled up from the pilot’s chair and came face to face with Dr. Porter, drifting silently in the cockpit doorway.
“Still think it’s just a milk run?” she asked.
David tossed his soup bulb into the galley disposal and drifted toward the door. It was his turn on the exercise wheel, and he welcomed the diversion. After twenty-five days, they were all on a short fuse. Porter remained sullen and uncommunicative, Beaume obnoxious and cruising for another fight, and even Ellen’s determinedly cheerful humming grated on David’s nerves.
“David?” Ellen’s voice crackled over the intercom.
“Yes?” he barked. What’s broken now?
“You have an incoming message.”
He pushed off and cruised forward to the cockpit. Ellen started to unbuckle from the pilot’s seat, but David waved her down. She snatched her handheld as it drifted away. He could make out enough of the screen to recognize a graphic novel. What happened to the days when people read real books written with real sentences and paragraphs, requiring the reader bring some imagination? Now it’s all picture books with captions.
David switched on Gin’s recorded message. If anything, she looked worse than a few days earlier, when she’d reported three more colonists slipping into critical condition—bringing the total sick to thirty—and informing him the infirmary’s medical supplies were almost exhausted. But this time a wan smile played across her lips. “Congratulations, David! You’re a grandfather! Jodie Melissa Smith was born at 1:42 this morning, weighing eight pounds three ounces. Mother and baby are both doing great. I sent a balloon bouquet in your name. Take care. I miss you.”
Ellen whooped and punched his arm. “Congrats, old man! This calls for a celebration! And I know just how to do it. Follow me.”
She led him back toward the galley, pounding on Beaume’s door as she passed and disappearing inside the cabin where she bunked with Dr. Porter. She emerged a moment later with two Hershey’s chocolate bars and Dr. Porter. Beaume, rubbing sleep from his eyes, drifted sullenly behind them.
They all crowded into the tiny galley, where Ellen announced the happy event. She passed out bulbs of juice, and proposed a toast.
“To Jodie on her birthday. May she have a long and happy life, and follow in her grandfather’s footsteps.” Grinning, she rapped her bulb against David’s and the others followed suit. Even Beaume managed to raise him a convincing smile. After taking a sip, Ellen unwrapped the chocolate and distributed halves around the group.
“Chocolate,” breathed Porter, popping a piece in her mouth. She closed her eyes and a moan issued from her lips. David tucked his own morsel of chocolate into his pocket and watched in amusement while Porter savored the treat. Finally swallowing, she opened her eyes to see them all gaping at her. Flame red shot up her face.
Ellen coughed. “Well, I’d better get back to the cockpit. Still my watch.”
“Don’t forget the battery level check’s due this shift,” David said. “Earth’ll want to know how much we’ve got in the tank.”
Ellen nodded and drifted out of the galley.
Beaume followed hot on her heels. “Hey, I’m claiming the reader.”
Their voices faded as they bickered their way through the length of the ship. David shook his head. Good thing they were only twenty-four hours from the Mars platform, or they might have their space murder yet.
Porter cleared her throat. “If they’re any indication, we won’t arrive a moment too soon. Now that I’ve made this trip, I can’t understand why anyone would put up with it.”
David finished his juice. “It isn’t all like this. Sure, the travel can be a bit uncomfortable, but I warned you the McAuliffe’s not a pleasure barge. The vista on Mars will be worth it, though. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”
“The cost for us to admire that vista is astronomical. How can you defend that when so much remains to be done on Earth?”
David sighed. “It’s not just about admiring the vista on an alien world. Earth’s a dangerous place: war, famine, disease, global warming, asteroid strike, supervolcanoes like Yellowstone. We’re just tenants on planet Earth, and the landlord could evict us any time he likes. The rent’s been rising for decades, and it’s time we took the hint.”
Porter raised an eyebrow. “Is there a point to this poetic aside?”
David tossed his juice bulb into the disposal. “Like you said, the ’21 eruption was a wake-up call. Self-sustaining colonies would ensure the human race could survive another plague like AIDS or the ’09 flu pandemic, or the second coming of the Yellowstone supervolcano when it happens.”
“And how many lives will be saved in your colonies? A few hundred? What about the billions on Earth who’d be better prepared for a disaster if we spent the resources there?”
“I don’t buy that. Our budget wouldn’t save billions of people on Earth. Magbeam’s cut costs enormously. Sure, the colonies aren’t ready yet, but if we put the effort in, we avoid having all our eggs in one basket if the worst happens. That’s worth a little risk and discomfort.”
Porter laughed. “Maybe you space cowboys want to risk your necks out here, but ordinary people don’t give a damn whether we have colonies on Mars.”
David waved his hand at the walls around them. “This ship’s official name is just some six-figure project code, but years ago I rechristened her with a tiny red ribbon and a champagne miniature. She’s named for a school teacher of mine, Christa McAuliffe. She wasn’t an astronaut or an adventurer, just an ordinary teacher with a husband and two children, and an understanding of how space could open doors for a kid like me. She inspired me to quit my dad’s wrecking yard and go to college, and later to leave a dead-end career in the Air Force and go into space. She was one of the seven people who died when the Challenger space shuttle exploded. She never saw space, so I brought her name with me. Ordinary people do care.”
Porter opened her mouth and closed it again. For the first time, David saw her hostility melt, saw a soft, vulnerable woman emerge, felt his own pulse quicken.
Ellen’s leaden voice spoke over the intercom. “David, we have another transmission from Earth. One of the Martian colonists has died.”
David’s heart sank, and Porter turned sharply away.
“We don’t belong out here.”
David came convulsively awake, adrenaline bursting through him as the raucous blaring of the Master Alarm shattered the silence. The lights flickered, and the rotating amber of the alarm indicators turned the cabin into a chaos of shadow and light. David wrenched at his sleeping belt and lunged for the door. The ship lurched, and his head hammered into the bulkhead. Ears ringing, he hauled himself into the corridor. The ship stopped shaking, but the lights continued to wax and wane at half their usual intensity. As he dragged himself toward the cockpit, the other cabin burst open to reveal a half-dressed and disheveled Dr. Porter, naked terror in her eyes. David ignored her, pulling himself forward hand over hand. He wrenched the door open to find the cockpit empty, its darkness punctuated by a flickering aurora of emergency warning lights, flashing urgently in myriad colors.
“What’s happening?” Porter screamed. Her eyes were wide and white, and her hands shook.
“Christ knows!” David yelled back. “Some kind of power failure. Any sign of Ellen or Beaume?”
She displayed enough self-control to shake her head, at least.
David wormed his way into the cockpit and plucked up an emergency headset. Its power lights remained dark. “Damn it! Communications are down. Follow me!” He shouldered Porter aside and thrust himself along the main companionway toward the engineering spaces. At the first connecting hatch, he looked back. Porter clung to the cockpit door, transfixed by the play of warning lights across the control panels.
“Porter! Move your ass, damn it!” he shouted.
Shocked out of her inaction, she followed, fumbling clumsily along in his wake.
As David thumped to a halt against the engineering hatch, a fire claxon burst out, fast and insistent, louder even than the Master Alarm. He seized a fire mask from the wall and pulled it over his head, then grabbed an extinguisher and opened the hatch.
Banks of hulking battery cells stood in rows, electrical relays and monitoring equipment sandwiched alongside. At the far end of the compartment, from between two batteries, fire poured out into the central walkway. Unconstrained by gravity, it dipped and whirled, spreading and splashing outward like a liquid, bright oranges fading to blue. And over the banshee screeching of the alarms a more primal sound issued: the scream of a human being in agony and terror.
David thrust himself forward, arrowing along the central walkway with the extinguisher held out. A quick burst of carbon dioxide dashed away the drifting droplets of flame, and he thudded home against the side of one of the batteries. He sucked in a deep breath and pushed off for the center of the fire, spraying the extinguisher indiscriminately before him. He hammered into something solid, and felt choking heat below him. A globule of liquid fire splashed onto his hand, and he roared in pain.
Another extinguisher opened up, bathing him in white clouds of CO2, and the heat subsided. David spotted Porter anchored a few yards from him, extinguisher in hand and a mask over her face.
Over the blaring of the alarms, he shouted to be heard. “Porter! The fire’s out! Just inside the hatch there’s an emergency venting control—a red handle. I can’t see a damn thing in here.”
She nodded and dragged herself away. David pulled himself down to the deck. Billowing clouds of gas masked everything, forcing him to search by touch, not knowing what he might find. The screaming had stopped. A sudden howl announced the activation of the emergency venting fans—thank God they’ve got a stand-alone power supply—and the clouds whirled away up to the extraction port in the ceiling. After a few moments, the room cleared enough for him to see again.
“Porter! Get over here! We’ve got people down!”
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