Panspermia Deorum (10 page)

Brandt forced a
smile and patted Kenji on the back. Muller wagged his finger at the
Japanese engineer, indicating he should not be so frivolous. Brandt
eased the tension.

“Fine, let’s
respond when we know the facts, Hiro, and keep me posted through
Captain Muller.”

They parted,
each of them looking considerably calmer than they felt.

*

Julien had
expected an immediate response of some kind, even a simple
acknowledgement, surely. The delay created an annoying mental void,
which set off an altogether different train of thought. He couldn’t
help regurgitating the moment when Brandt told him that he was now
very rich, in control of his own destiny, except for him now being
totally responsible for prolonging the longevity of the species. He
hadn’t told Elise or the kids exactly how much wealth he’d
inherited. He somehow thought it would devalue his stock with them.
He’d always made it clear to them that his life was never going to
be about materialism. That wasn’t going to fit well with a
disclosure that he was now
the
richest person on the planet,
no matter how much he pleaded that Brandt had given him no choice.
It was bound to alter many aspects of the rest of their lives,
whether that was fifty or a meagre ten years. 2039 had become a
double-edged sword of Damocles, neither side less sharp than the
other.

Being jolted
back into action mode, he sent a repeat message, asking for
confirmation of receipt, because there should have been little or
no time delay with communications. This time it went direct to
Muller. Settling back into Brandt’s leather swivel chair, he
engaged with the screens, feeling decidedly out of his depth with
his additional inherited remit of espionage.

M
uller’s response to Julien was prompt but
concise.

‘I’d be
grateful if you would address all communications to me, Delacroix.
I’ll make sure that Volker Brandt sees all relevant transmissions,
but I have to remind you that the safety and command of this vessel
rests with me. Herr Brandt is basically a passenger, even though he
called the shots on Earth. You also need to remember that he took
the place of a person with expertise from whom we could have
benefitted. I may need to authorise an EVA if your data correlates
with Kenji’s diagnostics. I can’t send Brandt out on that one. I
hope I make myself clear. As soon as we have full diagnostics you
will be apprised. Muller out.’

The tone of
this written riposte worried Julien and he contemplated asking
Brandt to muzzle Muller, but he took a deep breath and decided it
was time to let Elise know of the change in his financial status.
Her phone rang interminably and he was about to put the receiver
down.

“Hello,” said a
breathless Geraldine.

“Hi, it’s
Julien, is Elise there?”

“Yes, she’s
just getting the shopping from the car, I’ll get her.”

Eventually he
heard the patter of shoes on the wooden floor of the hallway.

“Julien, hi, I
was going to call you. Both Eugene and Sophie told me that you have
been promoted by Herr Brandt and you are now the senior executive
of VB Aerospace. Congratulations.”

“Well, that’s
only half of the story. I’m afraid you won’t like the other part,
so I’ll just say it straight out. Brandt doesn’t expect to return,
and he insisted on leaving VB Aerospace to me, all of it. I
refused, but he is a very persuasive man and he wore down my
objections to his intent. It still grates with my conscience, such
obscene wealth, but he made me promise to run the operation in
exactly the way he had. He wasn’t really interested in money
anymore. So, I wanted to talk to you about the possibility of the
family being reunited once more. I know you had problems with the
climate here, and there were other issues, but now that our vessel
Kepler is on its way to Mars, the countdown to 2039 begins in
earnest. Even if you can’t face being here permanently, we should
be together when crunch time comes, especially if I fail to blow
the asteroid off course. My salary alone now means you can afford
to fly in the comfort of first class, and I’m thinking of having a
property built with every mod-con imaginable. I know that the kids
were going to ask you to spend more time with us but they don’t yet
know just how much this ‘unwelcome fortune’ I’ve inherited amounts
to. Workwise, I have a great new opportunity for Eugene to
consider, and I think Sophie could use some help with getting her
talent back to its best. Could you think about this please? And if
you think it’s appropriate, tell Geraldine that she’s included.
Well…I mean if that’s something you would both like to do
together.”

“There’s
something you need to know, Julien. I’ve been dreading…well,
worrying about how to bring it up. I’ve met someone. I wasn’t
looking… you know. Damn, I’m just hopeless with stuff like this.
It’s just a casual friendship at the moment, but I do like him and
I was going to tell you the next time we were face-to-face. Perhaps
it would be good for me and my sister to come to see you and the
kids pretty soon, and we can talk more… more openly than using the
phone. How about that?”

“Uh, yes, I
err, well, that would be fine with me. Do the kids know about this
guy?”

“No, even
Geraldine doesn’t know, at least I don’t think she does. It’s
better that way, at least for now.”

“Right, well, I
hardly know what to say. I suppose I’m trying to believe you
haven’t actually told me. It suddenly feels as if I’ve brought this
on myself. Anyway, as you said it’s difficult to talk about it on
the phone, I need to be close to you. So, in that case, can you let
me know when you’d like to come and I’ll fix up the accommodation.
Then I’ll tell Eugene and Sophie to make sure they can be free when
you arrive.”

“Ok, I really
feel ashamed now, but either I had to…end it or get it off my
chest. It has been like living a lie. I don’t know what else…maybe
I should have waited until I got there, I’m so confused. Anyway,
I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Take care.”

He felt
disoriented, Elise had never seemed so detached. Julien Delacroix’s
hand began to shake as he reached for his pen. All of a sudden it
hit him. The life he’d led had imposed the self-same detachment on
his incredibly tolerant wife. Elise had accepted his dedication to
his work for decades without ever complaining. He belatedly felt so
selfish, never having asked her what she would like to dedicate her
life to, other than the kids. She had always just got on with all
of the mundane stuff like paying bills, keeping the place neat and
tidy, tending to the garden and socialising with her unmarried
sister. She was right to have reminded him that she could have been
a professional dancer, but he’d stupidly rationalised that as
frivolous compared to charting rocks floating around the Cosmos. He
hoped this was a wake-up call rather than an irreconcilable
situation. And yet he had previously dismissed her hints about
wanting a divorce.

*

Hiro Kenji
stared blankly at his diagnostic readouts. Everything was normal.
He grabbed those transmitted by mission control and scratched his
head while mumbling to himself. ‘This is crazy, the skipper is
going to think I’m crazy. We are using the same equipment, well,
the same kind of equipment, so this has to be a software
malfunction, hiccup, or corruption at one end. But which end? I’ll
have to run the test again and ask Delacroix to do the same, so
that we each have two dots on the chart to compare’.

He went to
Muller, who was equally puzzled. He told Kenji to run another scan
while he went to talk with Hans Back.

“It’s just as
well you are handling communications and software, Hans. Hiro is
doing another diagnostics right now, but we don’t seem to have the
same data output as mission control. I’d like you to think about
software glitches before we send our data back to Earth. Let’s just
keep this under wraps for now. There’s no point in panicking
everyone if there isn’t really anything wrong.”

“Ok, boss, I’ll
get on it immediately. Give me a couple of hours. I know, two hours
is a pisser but we have a pretty complex system to check out
thoroughly.”

*

Julien’s mind
was constantly shifting from saving the planet to saving his
marriage, when something on one of his spy screens caught his
attention. A flashing red signal was followed by the appearance of
Ivan Kolorov. He turned up the volume.

‘Ok, Delacroix,
things didn’t turn out the way I was told they would by Brandt. It
was unfortunate for me, but convenient for VB Aerospace. You got
valuable information without having to pay the bill. Now I have
something of even more importance to you. But this time I won’t
accept promises, it has to be action, backed up with legal
documentation. Call this number from a public phone if you want to
know more, then if you want to take it further, I can come to
Guiana.’

The
transmission ended and the screen went black. Julien’s first
inclination was to check this out with Brandt, but then he sensed
that this could either be genuinely important information or
payback for reneging on the previous arrangement which had been
offered to Kolorov. Perhaps he should take advantage of starting a
new relationship with Kolorov. He could always tell Brandt later,
but he could never undo telling him now, if that proved to be a
mistake.

*

A three-way
meeting between Muller, Kenji and Back concluded that it wasn’t
acceptable to authorise an EVA until mission control ran another
check on the software at their end. They asked Brandt to join them
and Muller briefed him.

“So, we should
ask Delacroix to get on to this without delay. An EVA is a last
resort as far as I’m concerned.”

Volker Brandt
stared at the floor, appeared to wince and nodded slowly.

“Very well,
Captain Muller, go ahead and while you’re at it ask Julien to give
me an update on other projects in a password protected zip
file.”

“Thank you,
sir. I’ll send our response with the relevant software data through
to him now, he should receive both sets of our diagnostics within
the hour.”

Brandt knew
that Julien would handle the request with utmost urgency but it was
difficult to predict how he would chase down any infiltration of
the mission control system if their second scan came up with the
same concern over propulsion efficiency as the first sweep. He also
pondered the possibility of false results having been orchestrated
on board Kepler. He had to engage with each crew member
individually, but in an innocuous, paternalistic way.

He began with
first officer Deborah Winchester. The fact that Volker Brandt even
had an opinion about the captaincy of the mission was perceived as
derisory by many of the candidates, including the one who’d landed
the job. Brandt had already noted that Muller was less than
overjoyed at the appointment of Deborah Winchester as his prime
confidant within such a small crew.

“Hello, first
officer, don’t mind me, I’m just filling in time. Unlike the rest
of you, I don’t have a long list of responsibilities. What is it
you are doing at the moment?”

“Well, sir, it
would take a long time to explain and I must concentrate; it would
be better if you came back to see me when I’m finished. If you have
nothing to do, why did you take up valuable space and life support
function which could have been better allocated to a person of
relevant expertise?”

“As you quite
rightly suggest, I’ll come back later. But you may want to think
about what I can authorise mission control to do that you cannot.
Expertise is crucial, that’s why I want to see what it is that
you’re doing, but it can wait.”

He struggled a
little with the artificial gravity and literally bumped into Nina
Knudsen. She apologised, knowing it was his fault.

“Thank you,
Nina. It is Nina isn’t it? Are you in a hurry? I’m trying to
familiarise myself with all the tasks on board and who exactly does
what. But if it’s inconvenient, just tell me and I’ll pester
someone else.”

“No, it is not
a problem for me. You see, as I am a microbiologist, my real work
will only begin when we are on Mars. I am making sure all
calibrations are correct and ready for when we get there. I can
show you what equipment we have and how it can help us. I hope I am
saying it right, my English is not the best.”

“Your English
is fine. I’d like to see how you calibrate the equipment. I do,
however, need to be aware of the crew’s schedules, as the first
officer has just reminded me.”

“Oh, yes, Miss
Bossy. Excuse me, I should not be saying such things. I did not
mean it in a bad way, she is very good at her work, but she asks or
answers questions without discussing things too much. Everything is
yes or no, well almost all of the time. She needs no small talking,
but I must say she is very good. She could easily be captain if
Muller was ill.”

“Well that is
comforting to know, Nina. Knudsen is a Swedish name isn’t it, where
is it you live?”

“I was born in
Russia, because my father worked there when he married my mother.
She was at the same company in St. Petersburg and they stayed until
she had me. The family moved to Malmo before my brother was born,
and we still stay there. Ok, should we begin the calibrations?”

Please do, and
tell me if I’m asking too many questions.”

J
ulien had a wad of printouts in his hand and they all
said the same thing – ‘the propulsion efficiency of Kepler was not
as it should be’. He wasn’t normally as touchy about forwarding
results, no matter what they implied. They had to be verbatim –
exactly as they were generated, and had been checked several times.
There should never be any leanings toward ‘sanitising’ information
just to make the implications easier to deal with.