Red Hope (10 page)

While Adam was getting Connie a glass of wine,
somebody walked up to him to discuss the mission. The stranger lifted up a copy
of Adam’s space shuttle book and then asked him to sign it.

He told Adam, “I bought your book used. Got it really
cheap.”

“Oh, okay. Well, thank you,” answered the confused
Adam as he signed the front cover.

Adam and Connie held hands and wandered through the
mazelike mansion. For fun they counted the bathrooms. So far, they’d meandered
past five of them. She was using a new pair of leg braces that allowed her to
walk without the crutches, albeit awkwardly. Each room had the skin of an
exotic animal lining the floors; the walls had a lot of decorative redwood
burl.

They eventually pushed through some doors and out onto
a large wooden patio overlooking the side of the mountain. Below them they
could see the tennis court and swimming pool that accessorized this mansion.

However, they were not alone. On the porch was a folk
music group hired to entertain at the party. The band members handed out
maracas and tambourines to the guests so they could become part of the music.
Connie was the tambourine goddess for two songs.

“That was fun,” she said as she handed back the
instruments.

Adam and Connie stood outside overlooking the display
of wealth and listening to the surreal sounds of the folk music echo off the
nearby mountain slope.

“I could live like this,” said Adam to Connie.

“Where’s Molly and Keller?” asked Connie.

Adam stared blankly into his drink.

“Good question. We don’t ask anymore.”

Adam and Connie spent the rest of the evening out on
that patio avoiding the awkward guests as much as possible. The sky was full of
brilliant stars. Adam pointed out which red dot was Mars.

It was now late spring. Everybody involved in the
mission in California flew east to prepare for the manned launch.

This would be a first of sorts. The Russian Soyuz
rocket had been transported across the Atlantic Ocean by barge and would be
launched from a remote platform near the edge of the Kennedy Space Center. This
was necessary because the regular NASA launch sites were being used by the
Viper9 heavy lift rockets taking supplies up to the Storage Wart on the
International Space Station.

The crew arrived at the Kennedy Space Center and
quickly acclimated to the pleasant Florida weather. They felt right at home
getting ready for the big launch day, but then one of the crew members
vanished.

“Where on God’s green Earth is our mission leader?” demanded Chris
Tankovitch. “The Soyuz crew capsule is launching in four hours!”

Unlike previous directors, he had taken a very
personal role in this entire project and wanted to make absolutely sure nothing
went wrong.

Last night all four astronauts were in their
sequestered hotel rooms, but this morning Adam was gone. A panic call went out
to all security personnel. They searched the security camera recordings and
found video of him going for a morning jog out through the front gates and
getting into a minivan just after 5:00 a.m.

The rest of the crew gathered for breakfast along with
Chris and tried to make things look normal for the press. One of the journalists
soon yelled out, “Hey, where’s the team leader?”

Chris smiled to hide his anxiety and said, “He’s just
sleeping in a little more. He needs his energy.”

Chris was taking a mad rush of phone calls. On some he
barked orders. On others he cowered.

Four miles away at a lush suburban green park, a
little boy was being pushed on his bicycle through the morning mist by a very
proud father.

“Okay, you got it. Gotta let you go! I can’t keep up!”

His voice was loud, but the echo melted into the fog.

“No, don’t let go of me Daddy!”

“I already did, it’s all you Cody!”

The little boy rode his bike very wobbly down the
rolling grassy hill and reached the bottom. The bike slowed and he fell over
sideways.

The boy yelled out, “I did it Daddy! I did it!”

Adam Alston developed an unfixable grin. He picked up
Cody’s bike and pushed it back up the hill. When he got to the top, he saw his
wife Connie waving her arm from the bench next to the parked minivan. She held
the cellphone up high while yelling a message at him through the humid morning
air.

“NASA wants to know where their team leader is!”

Adam sighed. He took his time getting to the parking
lot; one hand on the bike and the other holding Cody’s hand. He waited until
Catie rode her tricycle up next to them and then they ambled back toward the
car as a group. Adam grabbed the cellphone and put it to his ear. His wife and
kids only heard one side of the conversation.

“Yah, Adam here. Yes, I understand. No, I wouldn’t
want that to happen. Don’t worry, you won’t be the laughing stock. I’m on my
way.”

Adam shrugged his shoulders to Connie and admitted,
“Guess we gotta go back.”

They piled into the minivan and rolled out of the
parking lot; the sound of crushed gravel was replaced by the surging engine and
then absolute quiet. A silver snake slithered across the desolate road followed
by a cloud of billowing fog.

The Alston family headed South onto the main road
which led straight to the launch facility. After just a few minutes they reached
the main entrance guard shack. A man holding an M-16 rifle leaned over to check
Adam’s badge.

“Welcome back Captain Alston, we’ve been wondering
where you went.”

The gate opened and the vehicle eased through. It
followed the winding road that took them to the large limestone-clad main
mission prep building. This is where the families had to separate from their
astronauts. Adam hugged each member of his family and then whispered something
to his wife; she laughed out loud. He leaned down to look into the back row of
seats where the kids were sitting.

“I need you guys to take good care of your Mommy while
I’m away, okay? Tell all your friends that your Daddy is on a rocket to Mars.
It’ll be so cool.”

“Okay, Daddy, just remember the Space Ice Cream that you
promised us.”

Adam leaned in and hugged each one again before
closing the sliding door. He waved to them through the tinted glass and then
walked toward the building. He disappeared through the industrial gray doors.

In just a few hours, he would no longer be an
Earthling.

The Soyuz engines ignited with a loud grinding roar; every car alarm
within ten miles screamed. During the initial bump the astronauts looked at
each other in disbelief at the ride that lay ahead. They held their breath
waiting for the launch tower to release the rattling rocket. Suddenly, it
lifted and they were rammed back into their seats. Mission Control announced
speeds every ten seconds, but after just one minute the numbers being said were
too big to comprehend.

Subtle at first, the view out the window showed the
curvature of Earth growing by the second. The deep black of space and the
brilliant blue and white of Earth created intense contrasts.

Adam was feeling nauseous.

“Don’t puke! Don’t puke!” he repeated to himself.

The rattling was just slowing down when Adam turned to
look at his crew. Keller gave him a thumbs up. Yeva smiled a stressed grimace.
Molly was invisible. She vomited in her helmet and it coated the visor.
However, she wasn’t flailing for help so Adam assumed she was okay.

Aside from the nausea and vomit, the launch of the
Soyuz up to the International Space Station went like clockwork. It took the
better part of two days for the Soyuz capsule to catch up with the racing Space
Station and dock with it. When the door opened, a hand reached into the ship
followed by a voice.

“Welcome to the International Space Station!” yelled an
astronaut with a Texas accent.

During the next four hours, they readied the Little
Turtle and double-checked all of the systems. After transferring the last of
the supplies from the Storage Wart to the Little Turtle, the crew strapped in
for the final leg of this two-stop flight to Mars.

The commander of the Space Station was the last to
check on them. He made sure their belt restraints were all locked down. As he
was about to leave the Little Turtle and lock the hatch, he spoke with the
crew.

“Good luck on this mission. Wish I was going with
y’all.”

Adam replied, “You just keep those antennas pointed at
Mars so we can maintain communication.”

“Will do.  Godspeed.”

He floated back through the hatch to the safety of the
International Space Station. Then he closed the door. A clunk sound finalized
what their future had in store. The countdown started for the release of the
Little Turtle and the ignition of the MM10 motors. Instead of the gut-wrenching
roar of the Soyuz rockets, the MM10’s started up with a gentle push that never
stopped. No real noise to speak of. And that was it.

Days passed and daily calls to home were helpful with
the inevitable cabin fever. Adam especially cherished his family video calls.

“It’s like being in an elevator that is falling faster
than it should, but not
quite fast enough
for you to start floating.”

Adam was talking directly to the iPad video conference
software. On the other end of this video call was his family who were very
excited to get their daily 15 minute call to Dad on the Little Turtle. The
astronauts were hurtling through space towards Mars. As of today they were far
enough out for there to be a twenty second delay between when Adam spoke and
when he would hear a reply.

Adam’s daughter Catie laughed and asked, “But I
thought you floated in space ships?”

Adam grinned proudly. 

“Normally that’s true, but this space ship is special.
The motors never shut off. They just keep pushing, making us go faster every
second. It’s just enough to keep us planted against the floor of the ship. It’s
like walking on Earth if you barely weighed ten pounds.”

Adam laughed and continued, “The launch from Earth to
the International Space Station went great aside from Molly and me getting
motion sick. The launch from the Space Station toward Mars was a snap.”

Over the next twenty seconds, Adam’s message would
travel from their long-range antenna through the inky blackness of space to the
antenna on the Space Station. At that point it would then be relayed to Mission
Control in Houston. They would hear his message and then reply.

As the mission went on, the time lag would get longer
and longer. Once they were on Mars it would take a full ten minutes for the communications
round trip (five minutes each way). Radio waves move very fast, but Mars is
very
far away.

“Okay Dad, we’re going to the park after this call.
We’ll talk with you tomorrow,” announced Adam’s son Cody.

Adam looked down and then back at the screen. He said,
“Okay guys. I’ll talk with you all tomorrow. Love you.”

The screen went blank.

Adam closed his eyes for a few seconds and thought of
being home. Then he put on a fake smile, thought about the million dollar bonus
and opened his eyes. He put the iPad back in the cabinet and climbed up the
ladder to the command capsule at the front of the ship.

The small amount of fake gravity they were feeling due
the MM10 rockets altered the way Little Turtle was designed. The space shuttle
had the advantage of its occupants floating all of the time. There were panels,
controls and knobs everywhere on the shuttle because the occupants could reach
them at any time. If the astronauts were near the floor, they could push off
and float to the ceiling.

Little Turtle was arranged more like a ship on Earth.
There were still controls on the ceiling and walls, but nothing on the floor
because they were still walking around the ship. To make sure the crew could
reach the ceiling knobs, it was lowered to only six feet above the floor.
Little Turtle was a very cramped workspace that could’ve been designed by Frank
Lloyd Wright.

The only noticeable noise on Little Turtle was the
hissing sound that was being transmitted by the MM10 rocket engines through the
structure and into the cabin. The Moon and the Earth looked to be about the
same size now, but both were behind them. Mars still looked like a red dot far
away.

Adam stuck his head up into the upper module and
commanded, “Okay folks, it’s 9:00 a.m. Let’s take care of the morning
checklists.” Then he climbed back down grabbing his checklist, pushing buttons,
and turning knobs.

Molly was already checking the oxygen supply and
carbon dioxide filters. After that she would check the food supply for any
signs of spoilage or damage. Yeva was looking at the chemical supplies that
would be used during the exploration phase. It included some acids and other
volatile substances that needed human tending.

Keller was still sitting in the command chair in the
upper room.

After the checklists were done, they hung them back up
on their Velcro hooks and started preparing lunch. Although they had some fake
gravity, they still ate typical space food as a cost savings. It was the normal
stuff. Mashed potatoes, pureed steak, etc. all squeezed out of tubes or bags.
Adam popped up the table and sat down next to it. Molly and Yeva joined him. As
they ate, Molly said, “Adam, tell us one of your stories where you almost died.”

“Hmmm, a challenge,” he said as he took a bite of the
steak puree instinctively chewing even though that wasn’t necessary.

“Did I ever tell you about the time that I got hit in
the cuzzif?”

The two women looked at each other laughing.

“No, you did not,” said Yeva.

Adam started, “Well there was this time. Wait, hey
Keller! Are you coming down here to eat or what?”

“I’ll be there in a minute. Just finishing up,” said
Keller as he sat in his chair shaking.

Adam returned to his story. “Okay, so when my friends
and I were in high school we were hired by a farmer to remove some large rocks
from a newly ploughed section of his field. So we got some shovels and pry bars
and went to work.”

He looked at them to see their anticipation and took
another drink of steak.

“So we removed all the rocks except for a huge one,”
he said as he lifted up his arms to show how big it was.

“I put my shovel under the edge of that rock and pried
and pried. It wasn’t budging. So I put the shovel all the way under it and the
handle was sticking out, you know, like at a 45 degree angle? The plan was to
jump up on the shovel handle. Well, I jumped and I did get onto it, except once
it flexed down to the ground, my feet slid off and it came up and smacked me right
in the testicles. Can I say testicles?”

Molly was laughing so hard that liquid steak sprayed out
of her nose. Adam grabbed Molly’s shoulder and asked laughingly, “You’re not
going to puke, are you?”

She laughed even harder.

“So anyway, it hurt so bad, I was sure I broke my
pelvis and there was probably blood involved. So I yanked down my shorts and
asked if my cuzzif was bleeding.”

Adam was laughing himself now.

“So my friends are all on the ground laughing and one
says, ‘No, but my eyes are bleeding from laughing so hard’.”

Yeva was laughing quietly and asked, “So what is a
cuzzif?”

“It’s called that ‘cuzzif’ it wasn’t there, my guts
would fall out the bottom.”

Yeva started to laugh out loud now.

Some rustling noises came in from above. Keller climbed
down the stairs and without saying anything he rushed into the latrine and shut
the door. They heard the rattling of a pill bottle and then the sound of the
vacuum-powered sink.

After a few minutes, the door opened and a relaxed
Keller emerged.

“Come join us for lunch,” commanded Adam.

“Oh, I’m not hungry just yet,” answered Keller.

Adam looked at Keller and saw he was covered in sweat.

“Are you feeling okay? What’s going on?” asked a concerned
Adam.

Keller didn’t say a word and walked toward the ladder
to climb upstairs. He got to the second rung when a prescription bottle fell
out of his pocket. It slowly flew across the room heading toward the ground.
When it hit, the lid popped off and pills sprayed everywhere.

Keller’s eyes were wide open. The ladies didn’t know
what to think. Adam lurched for the bottle, but Keller pushed off the wall with
his feet and reached it first. Adam tried to grab it from his hand. A struggle
ensued as each tried to grab the bottle from each other. Finally, Keller punched
Adam in the stomach and wrenched the bottle away and ran over to the ladder. He
stood still.

Keller was still breathing heavy. He warned ominously,
“We have to collect all of those pills.”

Adam could barely breathe as he screamed, “What is
wrong with you! What is going on? You’ve been squirrelly ever since we left
Earth!”

Keller closed his eyes. With them still squeezed shut,
he said, “Let’s just say that I have extreme claustrophobia, okay? This
medicine helps when I need it. Being in this ship though… I need it constantly.
I tried to go without it, but that didn’t work. If we find them all, then I may
have just enough for the trip there and the trip home. Without them, well,
it’ll be bad for everybody.”

Adam was still filled with anger and catching his
breath. “You gather them up yourself. Why didn’t you tell us about this before
we even started the mission?” he demanded.

Molly felt the urge to talk it over with him, but
stopped short.

Keller walked back across the room and meticulously
picked up each pill and dropped it in the bottle. Molly joined him. She noticed
that several had fallen through the cracks in the floor panels and would not be
retrievable. She said nothing. When they had found all of the visible pills
that could be picked up, Keller tightened the lid and stood up to talk.

“Look, if I would’ve told you guys about this before,
you would’ve booted me off this mission.”

Adam calmed down and said, “You’re right. But you’re
here now. You’ve got enough to last?”

Keller paused; he noticed that the bottle was less
full.

“Possibly. I’ll go upstairs and get to my checklist.”

Keller climbed up the ladder and started his morning
checklist in seclusion, albeit a few hours late.

In just one hour, the crew would have a classified
video conference with the head of NASA who would reveal Photo D and what it
meant to both the mission and mankind.