Prep Work
9 February 1997
Pe-Te's Cajun Barbeque House
Clear Lake, TX
29° 35' 40.6" N 95° 10' 24.3" W
Cynthia had gotten caught in traffic, so by the time she walked in, they already had food on the table. She put her purse down over the back of the chair and sat.
“Didn’t think you liked the food here, Cale,” she said.
“I never said that. I just said it’s not barbeque,” he replied, directing a fork into his plate.
“Don’t get him started,” Sally said.
“It’s barbeque,” Cynthia said. “Says so right on the sign.”
“I’m begging you…” Sally started.
Cale took a tone like a professor at a lectern, “Barbeque is shredded pork. Depending on where you are in the world, they serve it with sauce. Those sauces can be…”
Sally put a hand in front of him, “No! We did this back in Dallas. We did this in Chapel Hill. I can’t listen to this bit again.”
Cynthia laughed, “Remind me to be careful with my menu selections for the flight.”
Sally Ride almost managed not to roll her eyes, “Why do men take this so seriously?” she said.
“This isn’t barbeque, it’s brisket,” Cale Fletcher said, holding up a forkful of meat.
“Then why are you eating it?” Sally asked.
“I said it wasn’t barbeque. I didn’t say it wasn’t good,” Cale said.
“Okay,” Cynthia said, taking a hush puppy off Fletcher’s plate and biting into it.
“I want to get this sorted out now,” Cale said, changing the subject.
Sally sipped a glass of tea, “When does Judy want the name?”
“She said by the end of the week, but I want to go ahead. This is all prep time,” he said.
“It’s your call,” Cynthia said.
“Technically it’s IASA’s call,” Cale said.
“They’ll go with our recommendation,” Sally said.
“I agree. I’m just saying it’s not a mortal lock,” Cale said.
“At any rate,” Sally said.
Cale tipped his glass towards Cynthia, “Cyn, you’re the geologist, who’s my best choice?”
“Sergio,” Cynthia said.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
She nodded, “They’re all good. There isn’t a bad choice among ‘em. But Sergio is my pick. His work on subsurface water detection is excellent. He’s already trained on the deep core drill. He knows Mars well enough to be a navigator up there. Hasegawa and Winters are both fine, but Sergio is the best.”
He nodded, “Okay, I want a little more than that though.”
“What do you mean?” Cynthia asked.
“If someone asks, I want to be able to tell them why we didn’t go with Winters or Hasegawa,” he said.
“You think someone is really going to ask that?” Cynthia asked.
Cale shrugged.
“Tell ‘em that Hiroshi Hasegawa’s work on primordial volcanism is excellent, but we’re looking for water, not magma. Tell ‘em that Laura Winters isn’t as good mechanically as Sergio Ortona, and this is a flight that will have a lot of engineering work.”
“But Laura’s English isn’t a factor. Sergio can be a little hard to follow sometimes,” Sally said.
“Laura
is English, so yeah, she’s easier to understand. But Sergio’s accent isn’t that bad. He just talks fast when he’s excited,” Cynthia says.
“And he dips into Italian,” Sally said.
Cynthia pointed the back end of a hush puppy at Cale. “’Cause everything
he says is flawless.” She added, “You want to hear more about barbeque tonight?”
“Dear God, no.” Sally said.
“I’ll make a point to recommend Winters for Athena II, but I don’t think she’s the one for us,” Cale said.
“We’ve got time to train her on the engineering,” Sally said.
“It’s not that,” he said, cutting himself off intentionally.
“Then what?” Cynthia said.
“I don’t want it to look weird to people,” he said, looking down at the table.
“What do you mean?” Sally asked.
“Me flying to Mars in command of an all-woman crew? It’s like a bad Star Trek episode or something. The late-night guys would have a field day,” he said.
“That can’t be a factor,” Sally said.
“It’s not. If Cyn had said ‘it’s got to be Laura’ then that’s what I’d say,” Cale said.
“It’s got to be Sergio,” Cynthia said.
“Then there we go,” Cale said.
Sally paused, “Agreed.”
“Okay, now that that’s settled, can I get the bourbon chicken without you doing ten minutes on what does and does not constitute soul food?” Cynthia asked.
“That’s just a risk you’ll have to take,” Cale said.
5 May 1997
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
29° 33’ 20” N 95° 05’ 38” W
Ryan Grimm sat on the bench, looking across the manicured lawn at the arrayed components of the old Saturn V booster. The floodlights reflecting off the white outer casing were his only source of illumination. His tie was loose, and his feet ached. A half-drunk can of Pepsi sat on the bench next to him. He looked up at the stars, spotted the slim crescent moon, barely even a curved sliver of light.
“I thought I’d find you here,” she said, coming around the corner of the trail. He jumped at the sound, startled out of his contemplations.
“Sorry,” she said quietly, seeing the moment of fright she’d inadvertently caused.
“I wanted to walk the trail one more time,” he said.
“Have you slept?” she asked.
“I’ll sleep tomorrow,” he said, rising from the bench. He turned and continued his stroll. She fell into step.
“You should sleep a little. You really want to be red-eyed when you meet the President?” she asked.
“I’m not gonna meet the President,” he said, waving the concern away.
“What are you talking about? Of course you will,” she said.
“Three photo-ops. POTUS cutting the ribbon. POTUS shaking hands with the controllers. POTUS with the Athena I crew,” he said, ticking off each on a finger.
“I imagine he’ll find his way to you,” she said, “He likes to highlight other black men in powerful positions.”
“Head of NASA PR isn’t exactly cabinet-level,” he replied.
Angela rolled her eyes at him.
Under a blanket of silence and stars, they walked through the rocket garden. Together around the Gemini spacecraft and the tight, enclosed seats that showed visitors just how cramped it was for the astronauts who flew that ship. Amanda always marveled that anyone could occupy such a small space even by themselves for much time, let alone with another pilot at your elbow.
The path winded and branched, with little brass placards marking the appropriate names and dates and thrust figures. Here an old Apollo command module, there a Redstone rocket aimed at the sky. The path split to let tourists walk through an old gantry ingress arm. The two of them took the other direction, admiring the Pegasus cluster with its deployed wings.
Off to the left was the jewel of the rocket garden.
Horizon, the life-sized Clipper mock-up, surveyed her kingdom from a position of honor. She sat upright, nose to the sky, her white wingtips presenting the red, white, and blues of Old Glory, and the newly updated NASA logo.
Before reaching the side entrance, they were confronted with the lofted form of the X-20, mounted on a steel pedestal that would have gleamed had there been any daylight. The old Dyna-Soar presented a stark black triangle, backlit by the muted yellow-gold light of the new building. The artist had chosen to present the aged spaceplane at an angle, as though she was ascending the slope of the edifice. The angles of aviation and architecture paired very well in the night.
As they entered the new building, the atrium greeted them with a riot of color. This entrance, though technically a side door, marked the start of the self-guided tour of the museum. The ground floor of the Webb Operations Center, the largest of its ten stories, was devoted to exhibits from the history of the space agency.
Ryan paused here and there, perusing a name placard, or straightening a stack of pamphlets. Angela watched him make his way past priceless relics of the space age. Alan Shepard’s golf club, Jack Schmidt’s shovel, a piece of
Constellation’s left wing; none were enough to garner a second glance. He was focused on the little things. Searching for flaws amidst a forest of diamonds.
The supine corridors eventually funneled visitors to the building center. There, in all her magnificence, was a perfect copy of
Freedom, Apollo 11’s LEM. At the base of her forward leg, with foot pressing into the lunar surface, was Frank Borman, or, more accurately, an exact replica of his suit held up by an internal reinforced mannequin. It was the crown jewel of the museum, marking the end of the exhibits.
Ryan walked around the LEM, unimpressed by it, or the grand terraced architecture above him. The lofted ceiling was bordered by concentric balconies that looped around the upper floors. The upper floors were occupied by proper offices. Various administrators and astronauts were already staking claims. The top three floors were already reserved for the upper echelons of the agency.
They left the center of the building, moving to the rear. Ryan quickstepped his way over and she trailed along behind.
Angela crossed her arms over her elbows as she watched him rearrange tables and chairs in the restaurant. “The Lunch Pad” would serve hundreds of meals per day to hungry tourists who had just burned calories in the long walk through the rocket garden and museum. The general public wouldn’t come in until next week, but she could already hear the cacophony of schoolchildren, tired parents, and smiling docents. The architects had made assurances that sound wouldn’t carry up well from the first floor. She had her doubts.
“I can’t believe Chick-Fil-A turned us down,” she said, nodding to the bespectacled, space-suited chicken statue that stood by the cash registers.
“Golden Chick is better anyway,” he said.
“No argument here,” she replied.
A beat passed as she watched him contemplating the positioning of the carpet.
“Ryan, it looks fine. Go to bed.”
“Not done,” he said, heading for the gift shop.
He wound through each aisle, at one point stopping to reorganize the display of astronaut biographies. She groaned as he rearranged the model kits. He was gripping this much too tight.
She tugged his collar before he could start in on the keychain rack. She dragged him through the giftshop doors and into the simulator deck.
The last room before the exit to the tour buses had a small collection of arcade games, dressed up to look like proper simulators. One corner had a lunar lander game with mechanics that would have been familiar to anyone with an old Atari. The fact that one played it while looking through the windows of a LEM mock-up did nothing to enhance the complexity, but the kids would eat it up. At the end was their finest piece of machinery, a Clipper cockpit, reproduced, of course, that allowed players to land one of NASA’s ships with a hand on a real flight-ready control yoke.
For a time, she had thought the video game a bit ludicrous. After all, NASA was an agency that was marked by its seriousness. But that opinion had been shattered last week when she caught three guys from the Guidance backroom trying to beat each other’s high scores after hours.
They’d invited her to try it out herself. She had managed to make a bumpy landing on a simulated strip at Edwards Air Force base but had almost plowed
Horizon into the VAB on the Medium difficulty, and she didn’t even try to bring the ship down during the hurricane that confronted players choosing the Extreme level.
“Are you going downstairs?” she asked him.
“No, Sapphire team is already working down there. Whatever they’re moving around, it’ll look good for the cameras,” he said.
She nodded. While the ten stepped stories of the Webb’s architecture were sure to become iconic, the soul of this building was in the basement. Twenty feet below, protected by bedrock and security guards, the new Flight Control Rooms were already operating. Four of the rooms were already in use, talking to astronauts in orbit and on the Moon. Two more spaces were reserved for future mission needs.
The massive windowless complex under the Webb Operations Center was now the place to be for every aerospace engineer in the country.
A twenty-first-century control center for a twenty-first-century space program. That was the line President Powell would deliver before cutting the ribbon today. His speech would also allude to the idea that it was likely that the next NASA mission control facility might not even be on Earth.
Determined to get him to a bed before sunrise, Angela pulled Ryan past the security office and through the front door.
They exited only to be blocked by a stern phalanx of Secret Service agents. The President’s advance team was prepping for his arrival just as the two of them had. They politely moved around the roped off cordon and headed for the press office in Building 16.
Ryan paused to give one last look, taking a long moment to watch the flags flutter. United States, Texas, and the one with the new NASA logo.
“He would have hated that,” Ryan said, nodding at the white flag with the stark blue circle at its center.
“Which part?” she asked.
“The new font. He told me they tried to get him to use it back in the ’70s. That very same font. Said it looked like a space agency run out of a bait store.”
“I think it looks good in the meatball.”
“You mean the wormball?” he said, smirking.
“You said not to call it that,” she chided him.
He shrugged, “It’ll sell t-shirts either way.”
She waved to indicate the whole structure, “I think you’ll get some t-shirts out of this whole look.”
“The Ziggurat?” he asked.
She nodded. “More catchy than ‘the James Webb Operations Center,’” she said, giving embellished gravitas to the official name.
He drank in the view. The concrete and limestone sometimes seemed like an architectural joke. Housing humanity’s greatest scientific enterprise in a design that dated back to Babylon.
“It would look great as a logo. Maybe with a Clipper taking off over it,” he said. She resolved to stop his train of thought before it could leave the station.
“Enough. Go to bed,” she checked her watch, “POTUS lands in five hours.”
30 July 1997
Eagle 14
Orbital Inclination 86°
Altitude: 25 NM
“Sally, toss me our descent plan, please,” Cale said.
Sally Ride reached into the box on the right side of her station. The RAD case contained a large assortment of plastic squares, most marked with a letter and number designation. She produced a thin red square and gave it a gentle, frisbee-style toss towards Fletcher. The disc spun along its center in flight, turning like a ninja throwing star until he snatched it from mid-air.
“Careful. If we break this, we only have about four backups,” he said, smiling as he plugged the three-and-a-half-inch square into the slot on the center of the console.
“Why are we still calling them ‘floppy disks’?” Cynthia asked from the seat behind them, “They haven’t been floppy in years.”
“Tradition, I suppose,” Sergio said.
In his position at the controls, Fletcher checked his watch. The program took a moment to load, which gave him time to compare his Speedmaster to the computer’s internal clock. Sally did the same with her watch.
“Looks good to me,” she said.
“Me too. Houston, this is Eagle Fourteen, requesting permission to initiate Descent Prime program, over,” said Fletcher.
“Eagle, Houston, you are go for descent. We expect loss of signal in about two minutes. We hope to pick you up again on the south side. If you lose omni, try us through Moonbase’s relay. Safe travels.”
As the lander came over the lunar north pole, Fletcher felt the sun on his face. It was soothing, despite knowing that, on some level, it meant slightly more radiation was hitting him. The crackle in his headset told him that they’d slipped over to the far side and that contact with Earth was lost.
He used the third button on the left side of the screen to activate the descent program. It was a little bit like working an ATM back on the ground, only this screen dispensed rocket exhaust instead of cash.
The computer behind the console clicked and whirred. He looked over at Sally and they both shrugged. She checked her watch.
“Four minutes,” she said.
“Acknowledged,” he replied.
The little red disk would execute its program based on the ship’s clock, a few star sightings, and physics that had been calculated ad nauseum back on the ground.
One of the nice things about going to the Moon these days was that it had been so thoroughly mapped. Any place that saw sunlight had been photographed. Around Moonbase especially, the terrain was accounted for to the last detail. Today’s flight would throw most of that information out of the proverbial window.
Eagle Fourteen, and its revered crew, the crew that would undertake Athena I next year, were not heading for Moonbase. Their target was seventy miles downrange. They would be landing in a largely unexplored area. A pristine section of Earth’s neighbor, rarely visited by astronauts.
Coming over the lunar southern horizon, Fletcher got a first look at their landing sight: Malapert Mountain.
They were well into the descent program when Houston reacquired them. “Eagle, we’re seeing you coming around now. Telemetry looks good. Anything to report, over?”
“Negative, Houston. We’re locked on to the HAB beacon,” Fletcher said. He spoke quickly, focused on the instrument display. He hoped Houston would understand the unspoken
leave me alone tone he was trying to convey.
The dull roar of the main engine gave a steady stream of noise as they came down. Sally kept one hand over her control yoke and the other hovering near the abort switch. With any luck, she wouldn’t use either.
“Coming through eight thousand. HAB still talking to us. Radar doesn’t have a lock yet,” Sally said.
“Copy,” he said.
He let the computer run its course, literally. The main curve of the descent profile was fine until about a thousand feet up. Nothing looked quite right. This was his third trip to the Moon, but he’d only landed at the base. Now he was well past it, heading North. The program that was guiding his ship was based off landing trajectories that would put you down at the base. They’d been adjusted based on maps and physics.
The ship’s computer knew that HAB was sending a signal from the southern side of Malapert. It also could get readings from the relay at the peak of the summit. And, theoretically, there shouldn’t be any significant obstacle that would impede Eagle’s path, but that was different from looking out of the forward window and seeing long shadows over grey terrain.
“You okay?” Sally asked.
“I need the radar,” he said.
“Are you going to manual?”
“Yeah. Not wild about this view. You gotta find me a flat.”
“Look for the tracks,” she said.
“Too far out,” he said.
“Don’t get greedy,” she admonished.
Malapert Mountain was on a line that connected Earth and the Moon’s south pole. As such, it was an ideal location for a radio relay. Cale Fletcher had been jealous, eleven years ago, when Sally had ventured out here in a rover, as part of Expedition 6. The tire tracks from that excursion were still present, more than a decade later.
Once a year, at minimum, Moonbase sent a crew up here in a rover to maintain the equipment at the top of the mountain. They used the same trail that Sally had cut back in ’86 because it was known to be safe. It was also somewhat far from their intended destination.
“Three-thousand feet,” she said. “If you’re gonna go manual, this is the time,” she said.
He nodded and flipped a switch to kill the navigation program. The black and green screen between them went dark.
Sally pressed a few buttons and frowned, “Still no radar lock.”
“So I see,” Fletcher said, indicating the still-dark screen. If the radar had good data, it would be displayed here.
He silently cursed himself for not insisting on that new lander for this little jaunt. The mission planners refused to take away from training time to teach him how to operate a Luna. Understandable as it was a completely new spacecraft that wouldn’t be used on Athena. Instead, for this little excursion, they found themselves in an Eagle, which was familiar, but prone to little bugs when it was time to improvise.
Fletcher looked out at the landscape before him. Even though there were scattered portions where the sunlight managed to sneak past the ridge of Shackleton, it was like looking at a patchwork quilt of day and night.
“You gotta go east. I can’t get a read on slope angles,” Sally said.
“Walking that far every day is gonna eat up our schedule,” he said.
“Then it does,” she replied.
“Cycle the radar,” he ordered.
She pulled the circuit breaker out of its slot and pushed it back into place. There was a clicking from the control panel.
“Eagle, Houston, we recommend…” the voice over the radio cut out.
“We’re below the summit now,” Sally said.
“All by our lonesome,” Cale said, calmly.
The radio relays on the Malapert peak were only useful if you had line-of-sight. Now that they were approaching the southern slopes of the mountain, they could no longer see the peak… or talk to Earth.
The radar came up, at first a flash of green light across the monitor, then it stabilized into an array of green lines that presented the occasional bump or angle.
“There we go,” Cale said. His boyish grin went from slight to goofy.
“I’ve got visual on HAB,” Sally said. “Ten degrees left.”
“Left? Who’d have thought? Okay, let’s get closer,” he said. Sally saw him angling the control yoke. She felt the angle of motion travel through the balls of her feet.
The HAB module had landed on an automated program four weeks ago. In the final stages, its computers, out of sight from Earth, had reverted to a safe alternate program that had brought the big cylinder down safely, but about a quarter of a mile from its intended destination.
Cale Fletcher was determined to do better.
At fifteen hundred feet, he leveled off. She took another sighting as he began to descend.
“About five hundred yards from HAB. Can you live with that?”
“Let’s get a little closer,” Cale said.
He angled again, putting the Eagle into a bank.
“Are you gonna go right over it?”
“Just skirting around,” he said.
She tilted her head slightly, mentally trying to picture how close he was to the top of the HAB.
She heard a crackle in her radio headset again and looked up. Just over the crest of the ridge was Earth. Before she could process that, he was bringing them down again.
“Five hundred, down at seventeen,” she said.
He was laser focused on the window in front of him.
“Four hundred, down at ten,” she said. Fletcher had gone into that space where he was taking in everything but giving nothing. She’d seen it in the simulator dozens of times. She kept feeding him.
“Three fifty, down at five. Three hundred, down four, forward two. Watch our shadow there.”
“Easy there,” he said, more talking to the ship than her. His voice barely more than a whisper.
“Two fifty, down at four. Pushing left a bit. One-twenty,” she said.
“Gas gauge?” he asked.
“Sixty-three, don’t worry,” she said. Moonbase had filled the tanks before dispatching Eagle fourteen to orbit. He had mentioned on the flight out that he didn’t want to waste too much fuel as it was expensive to resupply Moonbase’s tanks.
“Seventy-five. Down at one. Two forward. Two forward. Thirty feet, you killed the drift. Twenty. Bring it home.”
“Contact!” Fletcher said, coming out of his trance as the little blue light on the center of his board lit up. He killed the engine. The lander gave a slight lurch and went dead silent. Sally listened for outgassing or any signs of trouble. Nothing came. She started the sequence to safe the engine. Cale reached over and closed the block-out panel over the abort switch.
Cale Fletcher put the bulky Eagle lander down at the base of the slope that extended up the mountain. Sally checked and determined that he’d placed them, ever so gently, within twelve yards of where HAB was supposed to have landed.
“Didn’t want to use the LPD?” she asked him.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Fletcher said.
“They’re sending me to Mars with a crazy man,” Sally said, smiling and giving him a shake on his right shoulder.
“I had it,” Fletcher said.
“You’re out here like the aeronautical version of John Henry, trying to beat the damn computer.”
Fletcher keyed the comm pack on his belt and toggled a switch, “Houston, this is the Eagle. Be advised: before I let your computers beat me down, I’ll die with a hammer in my hand.”
31 July 1997
GNN NewsNight
The screen behind Van Pelt’s desk showed the crisp mission patch of Athena I. It sat over his shoulder as he looked into the camera. With practiced tone and diction, he brought the show back from commercial.
“Welcome back. Before we wrap up this evening’s broadcast, we have quite a treat for you. On tonight’s edition of Person To Person, speaking to us live from the Moon, we have the crew of Athena I. Commander Fletcher, good evening to you. Can you hear me there?”
“Yes, I can, Nick. Are you seeing us downstairs in Philly?” Fletcher said.
The screen now showed the four crew members gathered together. Fletcher occupied the left-hand seat of the cockpit and the other three took up residence over his shoulders. Collectively, the group looked a bit disheveled. Today’s seven-hour EVA had been a hot, sweaty affair and of all the amenities that the Eagle landers offered, a shower was not among them.
“Yes, we can see you here. Tell us about your current mission,” Van Pelt said.
Fletcher spoke for the group, “Well, Nick. We’re doing a field test of our HAB module, which is going to be our home on Mars. This mission is a dress rehearsal of our first three weeks on Mars. For the next few days, we’ll be setting up the HAB module here, on the Moon, and that will give us a good practice for when we have to do it during Athena I.”
“Do you have any concerns about setting up a HAB module on the Moon?” Van Pelt asked.
“Well, this’ll be our fourth time building one. I think we’ve got it down pretty good by now, but we’ll see.”
“Can you give us a sense of how the process goes?” Van Pelt asked.
“Sure. The HAB comes down on four legs. It’s essentially a cylinder with kind of a domed top. First thing we do is to clear out any rocks from underneath it. Then we dig a footprint under the cylinder, so we’ve got a level floor to work with. That was most of today’s work. Once we’re happy with the foundation, we lower the cylinder down to the surface. Then it’s a few days of attaching various bits that are packed up inside. We’ll bring them outside. That’s stuff like communications gear, airlock components, welcome mats.”
“Welcome mats?” Van Pelt asked.
“We don’t want to track a whole bunch of Mars dust into our nice clean habitat, now do we, Nick?” Cale said.
“I suppose not. Dr. Ride what will happen to this particular HAB after you’re done with it?”
Sally seemed a little surprised to be called on, but she responded quickly, “Just like our habitat on Mars, this will be the start of an outpost that will be used by astronauts in the future.”
“Another Moonbase?” Van Pelt asked.
“Not exactly. This site will be an outpost for a new observatory. In the next couple of years, crews will come here to set up radio telescopes. When they come, they’ll be able to stay in our HAB instead of having to live out of their rovers. Over time, this new facility will be the home of a great radio astronomy facility.”
“Like in
Contact?” Van Pelt asked. The new film, just released earlier in the month, was getting critical acclaim, and introducing many people to the concepts of radio astronomy.
“Exactly right,” Sally said.
“Dr. Ortona, you are the international representative for this flight. Italy has embraced you as a modern-day Christopher Columbus. How do you respond to that?”
Sergio’s modesty was apparent from a quarter-million miles away, but the red, white, and green patch on his jumpsuit was prominently displayed. “Well, that’s a bit like comparing an American statesman to Thomas Jefferson. Something of a double-edged sword. For now, my thoughts are only on the mission and its success. After all, Columbus is only remembered because he returned home. As long as our flight leads to more flights in the future, I’ll accept that comparison.”
“Dr. Flat, you were on the long-haul excursion that traveled around the Moon from the ground. You’ve seen more of the Moon than almost anyone. How do you expect Mars to compare?”
“I think one thing that will really mark the difference is the role that water has played in shaping Mars. On the Moon, we only have small pockets of ice in the polar regions. Lunar geology is defined by seismic events. Impacts, eruptions. On Mars, we haven’t yet found any water on the surface,
yet. But everything we see tells us that it once must have had vast water systems. We see riverbeds, lakes, canyons, all showing signs of water’s influence. Mars has a different story to tell.”
4 August 1997
Expedition 31B
HAB 1 – Sagan Observatory
85° 4' 22.1" S 0° 6' 17.1" E
“Couldn’t sleep?” Cale asked, emerging into the common area.
Cynthia shook her head, “Just wasn’t happening. I dunno. Maybe it was the coffee this morning. First cup in two weeks. It might have hit me harder than I thought.”
“You could switch to decaf?” Fletcher said, with a cheshire cat grin.
Cynthia gave a small smirk, “Oh you go straight to Hell, Fletcher. You do not pass go. You do not collect two hundred dollars.”
Fletcher laughed, “You’re still not over that? It’s been like a year.”
“You know what, you hillbilly hack? You mess with a woman’s coffee, and you bring down her almighty wrath,” she said, smiling back.
“You gotta admit it was funny. Snored all through that Chamber of Commerce breakfast,” he said.
“I’ll get you back one of these days,” she said.
“Promises, promises,” he said.
He filled the cup from his personal kit with water from the small sink on the wall and then sat across from her. She broke off a piece of the Hershey bar that sat between them and then slid the rest on its wrapper across the table. He gratefully accepted the chocolate treasure.
“Breaking into the good stuff?” he said, taking a bite.
“I’m not leaving chocolate for the stargazers,” she said, enjoying another piece. “We unpacked the boxes. We get first dibs.”
“No argument from me,” Cale said.
Cynthia was perusing her APK and had a bunch of items from home out on the table. He picked up one of the family photographs that Cynthia had on the table.
“That’s a nice one of Marshall,” he said, holding it up to the dim overhead light. It showed a teenager, resplendent in a red football uniform, celebrating a touchdown with two teammates. He saw writing on the back as he turned over the photograph:
Redmont – 41 Mathis – 35, 11/5/94, First Touchdown
Cynthia took the card stock and smiled at the memory. The silence kept that moment fresh. She exhaled.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I miss John snoring in the bed next to me. Weird the things you get used to,” she said.
“You want to trade? Sergio snores like a cartoon bear,” he said, smiling.
“No, I got enough of that on the way out,” she said. A beat passed and she gestured to the strewn photos between them, “We’re only up here a month. Why did they have them send along all this stuff?”
“Part of the simulation,” Cale said. “Gotta get the weight right.”
He gestured to the small box at the end of the table. It sat next to her APK box. It was blank, black, and square.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s Sasha’s latest,” she said, putting the photos away and sliding the box between them. “One of her teachers told her about it.”
“She sent up a chess set?” Cale guessed, knowing the love of the game that Cynthia’s daughter had.
“Not quite. This one is new,” Cynthia said.
“What is it?” he said.
She started to unfold a thin square game board. The green and white pattern had the appearance of a chessboard, but as he looked closer, he noted that this field was ten by ten with four additional squares at the corners.
“It’s called ‘Omega Chess’. Bigger board and they added two new pieces.” She placed a couple of plastic figures in the middle of the board. Fletcher picked up the first one. It looked like a crescent moon on a small table. His face asked the question.
“That’s called a Wizard. He moves kind of like a knight, but farther out. He can also step diagonally. You get two and they start in the corners.”
He put down the piece and picked up its companion. “Kind of looks like that black knight from Monty Python. You know, the guy with his arms chopped off?” he said.
“That’s a Champion. They can move two spaces in any direction and one space as long as it isn’t diagonal,” she moved the piece back and forth to show him.
“Neat,” he said, turning the piece over, admiring the crusader helmet at the top. He considered the board, “Changes up what can mate and what can’t.”
She nodded, “We’ve been learning it on weekends. Trying to figure out strategies. She smiled, “It’s the only way I can beat her at chess anymore.”
“You’ll have to teach me on the way out,” Cale said, handing the piece back to her.
“We’ll have time,” she said, storing the game away for later.
“We should sleep. Tomorrow might be indoors, but it’ll still be heavy,” plans called for them to unpack the containers for the lab downstairs.
Cynthia nodded and rose from her seat. Together, they stowed the table and chairs on the wall rack and headed to the alcoves on either side of the common area that the engineers had genuinely described as “crew quarters.”
“Did you pick something for the real one?” Cynthia said, pointing to the small brass plate on the wall.
He sighed, “Not yet. Why is that my call, anyway? It feels like something the President should choose.”
“You’re the commander,” she said, shrugging.
“Having a hard enough time with the first words,” he said.
“Frank Borman kinda screwed you there, didn’t he?”
Fletcher shrugged.
“It’ll come to you. Sleep tight, you big hillbilly,” she said.
“Night night, you rockhead,” he replied.
She shut the curtain to the room she shared with Sally. Fletcher took a moment to ponder the image of Sagan and the words on the plaque:
The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
28 March 1998
FarSight VII
Low Martian Orbit
Orbital Inclination 81°
Day 1478 – Diagnostic Check 3
Internal Temperature Readings: NOMINAL
Battery Temperature Readings: NOMINAL
Backup Battery Temperature Readings: NOMINAL
Power Levels: NOMINAL – 27%
Solar Panel A: 81% of MAX
Solar Panel B: 84% of MAX
Solar Panel C: 97% of MAX
Solar Panel D: 38% of MAX
Primary Scanner Integrity: 91%
Secondary Scanner Integrity: 96%
Radio Temperature Readings: NOMINAL
Hi-Gain Signal: ONLINE
Omnidirectional Beacon: ONLINE
Receiver Strength: NOMINAL
RCS Remaining: 3%
CMG Subsystem……..
***INCOMING SIGNAL DETECTED***
***PRIORITY OVERRIDE – A4***
Signal Source Origin: Surface Grid Reference 20x3N
Signal Source Designation: A1 HAB
**RELAY DIRECTIVE INITIATED**
A1 HAB Override of data downlink – Authorized through A4 priority
Transmit through Hi-Gain – Power rerouted.
Secondary Scanner – Low Voltage
Secondary Scanner OFFLINE
Transmit time to Earth: 358s (predicted)
Message Banner: A1 HAB Post-Landing Diagnostic 1
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