Panspermia Deorum (9 page)

*

Brandt’s bugle
call to the human race was well received, and particularly within
the scattered family of Julien Delacroix. Eugene rang his father
and asked if there was anything he could do, such was the
inspiration he felt from Volker Brandt.

“Dad, before
you lecture me about the good job I have in microbiology, I feel
useless because I’m not doing anything which will help with
neutralising this death sentence in 2039. You’re going to be the
boss in a few days, so there must be lots of support work to do for
both of the tasks Mr Brandt spoke about. If you think I can be
useful in any way, let me hear it and I’ll be on the next flight. I
think it could be pretty cool working with my father on a project
with such a potential payoff. But remember, I don’t come
cheap.”

“I don’t know
what to say, Eugene. I’m actually a bit overwhelmed emotionally,
but I’d love to work with my son in some way or another, let me
give it some thought. In any case, if the worst happens, we
shouldn’t be spending the next few years apart. Sophie is really
happy here. In some respects it’s like a step back in time, but
people interact with each other much more than in Western Europe.
We have to think about your mother though. We don’t want her to be
on her own.”

“Leave that to
me, Dad. I think she could be talked around to our way of looking
at this after hearing Brandt. Helping the entire species, surely
she can see it isn’t all about the Delacroix family.”

“Ok, son. You
have no idea how much I appreciate your offer. I’ll definitely get
back to you soon. Bye.”

When Sophie
heard about Eugene’s intention, she also volunteered to speak with
Elise. Julien hadn’t felt so good in years.

*

Volker Brandt
had one more outstanding issue to take care of before setting off
for Mars. He asked Julien to join him in the ‘flight deck’. This
time
every
screen was turned on, and the shock, blatantly
reflected on the face of the new boss of VB Aerospace, temporarily
rendered him speechless. When he fully realised what was happening,
he spoke.

“Volker, how
long have you been able to tap into the activities of other
organisations to this degree?”

“A long time,
and this is why I want to speak about how it must continue like
this. You would be naïve in the extreme if you believed they don’t
try to spy on us. So far, I believe we’ve managed to thwart them,
and that responsibility now falls to you. As I told the world, I
would dearly like to return to Earth, but I owe it to the crew to
see out the establishment of survival and beyond on Mars. I have
therefore decided to transfer my stock in the company to you. I
have never been married, have no children, and therefore no heir.
So, you are the new owner of VB Aerospace as well as the boss. Now,
take this card, he is the only other person who knows about our
espionage activity. He set up the system and smooths out glitches
every once in a while. He is only known by this reference –
‘Cyclops’. It’s the only way he works, and I’ve asked him to
contact you after the launch. You are the only person I can trust
to see things through at this end, Julien. I know you recoil from
such underhand practices as a matter of principle, as do I, but you
will come to realise that the gloves are already off as far as our
competitors are concerned. This setup will convince you more than
any words I can muster. It’s very sad that the people we cooperate
with are actively planning to take us out. I learned this the hard
way and I’m sure you will be astonished when you get the time to
view these screens regularly. You are a man who has never coveted
wealth, but in order for this organisation to protect its moral
code, such wealth is an essential enabling tool. In fact, in most
organisations around the world, corruption is rife, simply because
individuals with the responsibility for running them do little else
but feather their own nest. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“I’m no Volker
Brandt, I’m not even a business man. You’re right, I don’t crave
wealth, I recoil from accumulation of money purely as a measure of
my success, and I’m not driven simply by outperforming competitive
organisations. I get my fix by solving problems which others can’t.
I have to ask, are you really sure about all this? I have never
seen myself as your successor.”

“That’s
precisely why you are the right man, Julien. I know that you will
always go the extra mile to solve this wretched asteroid problem,
and all I’m saying is that you need a helping hand. Knowing exactly
what the other members of the clique are
really
doing, as
well as hearing what they
say
they are, is an absolute
necessity, even if you decide to go along with what they tell you.
Wish me well my friend, we may never see each other again.”

T
he launch itself went smoothly, but for billions of
people it was a bittersweet image they witnessed on TV. Christopher
Columbus had set off on his historic journey with only one aim, but
he discovered something of much more importance in shaping the
world he lived in. Brandt already had two objectives, but both were
tied to a single cause. Danger was implicit for both of these men,
but at least Columbus knew that if he failed, he would simply
revert to being a person of little notoriety. He didn’t have the
end of the world as his primary taskmaster.

The onlookers
seemed to struggle with Brandt’s personal sacrifice, his no-win
situation. He had bequeathed everything he’d built during his life
to give the species a second chance – one which demanded a lot more
respect for the planet which had sustained the lives of its
inhabitants. He was sixty-seven years old, and the odds were
seriously stacked against him surviving the trip to Mars, let alone
seeing the Earth prevail, if that was indeed achieved. They didn’t
want him to leave. He’d counted on that.

The Crew

Arnold Muller,
at thirty-nine, had edged out a host of superbly qualified
astronauts to be given the nominal captaincy of the mission. He was
respected without being particularly popular with the rest of the
crew. Brandt had been a little surprised at the choice himself, but
had agreed to the final decision being left in the hands of
experts. Muller simply topped the overall ratings and scored
exceptionally well when placed under psychological stress. He then
had a certain amount of input into the selection of the remaining
crew.

He stressed his
need for a first officer with the backbone to challenge his
decisions when necessary, subjecting all alternatives to the
rigours of logic – nothing more and nothing less. He was a man who
had difficulty with subordinates resorting to emotional judgements,
even in situations of extreme stress. However, he was as
compassionate as any father could be in dealing with aberrant
juvenile behaviour in his family life. Apparently this equated to a
potentially unruly crew in the eyes of the selection committee.

Deborah
Winchester wouldn’t have been Muller’s first choice, but then
neither would he have been the obvious captain for Brandt. She
could at times appear to be devoid of sensitivity when there were
changes in plan, to the point of being attributed the mind of an
android. She’d never married, didn’t want children, and as far as
anyone knew she’d never had a serious ‘relationship’ with another
human. This fascinated Brandt, as he had never married, but later
in life admitted that he missed not having any children. He was
slightly concerned that his experts had got this one wrong.

The role of
chief engineer had been a much easier decision than the rest. Hiro
Kenji was the outstanding candidate, matching electronic genius
with a surprising hands-on ability to conjure up mechanical
solutions to hardware problems. A cutting sense of humour was never
far away, and he’d dreamt of stepping on another planet since he
was able to talk; he had allegedly talked about nothing else as a
kid. He wasn’t the tidiest person in the world but remembered where
everything was at any given time.

In terms of
knowledge, Nina Knudsen had been second in the rankings for the
science officer’s position. She was elevated to the crew because of
a serious infection suffered by Martin Cooper-Levey. Because of
Nina’s mother being Russian, Brandt had insisted that a second
clearance procedure was conducted without her knowledge. The
possibility of connections to Soyuz had been in Brandt’s mind ever
since he’d known of their attempt to beat him to Mars. All was
well, and Nina relished the opportunity to employ her considerable
biochemical skills on Martian dust and rocks.

Both software
expertise and routine communications were to be under the control
of Hans Back. Half Swiss and half Swedish, he surprisingly beat
other more experienced candidates in the tests. The speed of his
mental processing ability shaded him ahead of many disappointed
rivals. The only concern had been his ability to explain the
reasons for certain decisions he took. He found difficulty dumbing
down the technical explanations to other crew members. He seemed to
be allergic to layman’s terms. He found it irritatingly tedious to
continually translate his byte-speak, yet he had undergone
intensive extra training to improve this aspect of his profile. In
the final analysis, the positive aspect of getting to the core of a
problem much quicker than his main rivals won over the
selectors.

And then there
was Brandt himself. He offered no expertise other than reminding
everyone else in the crew that he was aware of his limitations,
physically and technically. He wanted no special treatment and
would see that nobody else did either. He basically asked to be
ignored, except when he had need to communicate with Julien
Delacroix, in which case he would require priority and privacy.

Altogether, an
eclectic mix of personalities to establish the first human
bridgehead on an alien world. During the years of intense training
following their selection, none of them wanted to be kicked off the
mission or get anyone else into trouble. But that was to be a
simulation exercise. Brandt wondered about how they would gel in
reality, especially in the face of adversity. He took it upon
himself to become the ‘go to’ psychologist, not by any
announcement, but by encouragement and arms-length mentoring.

*

Something
Brandt hadn’t counted on winged its way through near Earth space to
the vessel, aptly named Kepler. The password protected video
transmission was from Julien.

‘Volker, sorry
to trouble you with housekeeping issues, but we have picked up
telemetric and system checks which indicate propulsion data of
Kepler is not quite what we expected. It’s still within nominal
specification, and maybe it will settle down once the vessel
recedes from Earth gravity. The curve of velocity relative to
mission time will be further evaluated at the prescribed
coordinates. You might want to get Kenji to send us your readings
as soon as you can, just to make sure that we still have
correlation. I know you guys have only just pulled out of Earth
orbit, but better safe than sorry. I’m also aware of your concern
about outside influences, and I’ve seen nothing on your office
‘flight deck’ here to worry about, so I believe the marginal
variation will self-correct. Julien.’

*

Before Brandt
could shake off the G-force effects, Kenji and Captain Muller asked
to speak with him. Brandt got in first.

“I assume the
urgency is because Hans Back has done what I asked and made you
aware of the gist of Delacroix’s message. I have to confess, I
don’t fully understand what he said. I’m a simple man and I tend to
think in black and white. Either there is a problem or there isn’t.
But he said he wasn’t sure. What do you make of his concern?”

Muller told
Kenji to explain.

“Well, sir,
he’s probably right insofar as we used more fuel getting through
the bumpier weather when we blasted through the atmosphere.
However, the propulsion unit is well over-specified, and anyway,
fuel consumption is one thing, engine efficiency is another. I’ve
already started my own diagnostics and we’ll soon have solid
information to assess. That is important because there is a slight
possibility that a minor problem can develop into a more serious
one. We need to know if our diagnostics match up with those of
mission control.”

“Right, so what
if they do?”

“We will need
to do specific checks, some of which could require an EVA, sorry…
that means extra vehicular activity.”

“And if they
don’t?”

“If there isn’t
agreement we either have a software problem in mission control or
on Kepler. I would prefer it to be back home.”

“So, which
checks would require an EVA?”

Muller
intervened.

“This is all
speculation at present, sir. However, if we find a problem which
justifies an EVA, it would almost certainly indicate a hardware
glitch. That’s something we really don’t want to contemplate at the
moment, because if propulsion efficiency becomes highly variable we
would find it difficult to arrive at Mars orbit insertion
coordinates at the optimal time. If we were to miss that window
completely we could risk heading on out of the solar system over
the next few years. Thrust is the only way we can adjust velocity.
Kenji can elaborate on this.”

Hiro Kenji
began nervously.

“Yes, if we
have a problem it’s crucial that we know as soon as possible,
because we would have to calculate a new burn schedule and
implement it, hoping the propulsion problem does not get worse. We
have scope to increase and decrease thrust to reset the velocity
curve as long as the engine efficiency stays within specification.
My primary concern would materialise if we suffer permanent serious
under-thrust capability. We wouldn’t then be capable of making up
lost time. Anyway, the sooner we know if there is a problem, the
easier it will be to get back on the correct trajectory. Because if
we don’t, we could…sorry, I don’t want to think about that. We
don’t have sufficient life support commodity to survive an
effectively rudderless journey which doesn’t meet up with Mars.
However, if that did happen, we may get lucky and collide with
something in the asteroid belt, which would truncate the anxiety,
you know, instant lights out.”