Species II (3 page)

Of the three huge screens that dominated the room, two of them showed a live feed from the landing. The massive room was alive with applause and yelling, the workers and technicians at a hundred and ninety-seven work stations slapping each other on the back with glee and spinning foolishly in chairs before their consoles to celebrate the culmination of years of work. In a glass-paneled viewing room behind the main control area, a smaller but no less elated group laughed and raised glasses of champagne to toast each other and the space-suited figure on the screen as newscaster Peter Jennings supplied them with the media viewpoint via a small television set off to the side:

The
Excursion
voyage to Mars is one of these occasions. Today, America is proud!

Impeccably dressed in a deep blue suit, every silver hair in perfect place, Senator Judson Ross put his arm around Melissa Evans and gave her a gigantic, fatherly hug. “He did it, Missy!” He let go of her and began shaking hands with the NSEG officials milling happily around the room, his mouth stretched in a beaming smile. Excitement made his words slip into the slight southern drawl that he’d worked to shed, but right now that was okay. This was his grand moment, the day that brought the United States success in the Mars Space Program that he himself had pioneered, the red planet conquered by none other than his own son Patrick. “Look at him up there,” he exclaimed. “He’s on
Mars!”

“Your son’s a hero, Senator Ross,” an NSEG official whose name he couldn’t recall told him. “A true-blue hero—congratulations!”

Senator Ross nodded, delighted at the response, relieved that Patrick was up there and seemed to be doing okay, safe as you please; he never would have told anyone how scared he’d been at the prospect of his boy traveling over thirty-five million miles—a distance nearly inconceivable to him—and stepping out of his spacecraft. But it was okay, he was there and safe, and everything was fine. Thank God.

The smile plastered to his face, he made his way around the room again, downing a glass of Dom Perignon on the way.

T
he Garberville Psychiatric Institute in Maryland was lovely, a top-of-the-line facility reserved for special people thrust into “special” situations. From the outside, the Institute looked like a New England mansion: quaint red brick; shutters painted bright white framing lightly tinted windows; petunia-filled flower boxes even adorned the windowsills above neatly shaped hedges. A long, curving drive flanked by marigolds led to a locked—discreetly, of course—double front door next to which was a small brass doorbell and an inconspicuous sign that read “Visitors By Appointment Only.” The grounds were quiet and peaceful, intentionally inviting.

Inside, the environment did an about-face.

Beyond the scrupulously decorated and maintained entry foyer, reception area and receiving offices, the walls were pitted and cracked, both from age and the force of blows thrown by residents for one reason or another. Well hidden behind the exterior’s solar tint on the windows was a layer of steel mesh embedded on the inside of the glass. Furniture was sparse and strictly functional: hard-cushions on the couches and chairs that couldn’t be used to smother a fellow inmate, steel legs and arms on the tables that couldn’t be broken off and used as a club. The Institute was old enough so that the bare tiles on the floors were asbestos-based, but the directors and big-armed orderlies didn’t care. They had enough to worry about just trying to keep the residents’ behavior at a level vaguely approximating acceptable control.

In the game room—checkers and cards only, no sharp objects allowed—the television was mounted high at the juncture of the wall and the eight-foot ceiling and turned on. Only a few of the ten or twelve men and women in the room were paying any attention to the running report of the Mars space landing; many were tranquilized to keep them quiet and to ensure the safety of their fellow residents. The television was, quite simply, something with movement and noise on which they could focus beyond the misery surrounding them. One of the orderlies—Joey—had tried unsuccessfully to find a sports game, but the Mars landing was on all the main channels, and the Institute wasn’t about to spend good money on cable television.

One of the residents, a patient named Herman Cromwell, had pulled a chair to a position directly in front of the television, he could focus completely on the screen without having his view obstructed by any of the others in the room. Joey watched him suspiciously, but he seemed okay, doing nothing other than listening intently to that Peter Jennings guy on the tube—

Patrick Ross. Son of a senator, football star at Yale, and now the first man on Mars. Intelligent, dependable, caring—a perfect hero for these imperfect times.

Cromwell leaned forward on his seat, his face straining toward the screen. It was chilly in the game room—it was chilly everywhere at the Institute—but perspiration gleamed on his shaved head. His eyes, a disturbingly intense cobalt blue, were wide and anything but vacant. When he spoke, it was with such conviction that everyone in the room, drugged-out or not, turned to stare at him.

“I told them not to go!”

Aw, Christ, Joey thought as he saw Cromwell’s fingers dig into the armrests of the chair.

Here we go again.

On the Surface of Mars

“H
ow’s it going out there?” Anne Sampas asked. Beneath the radio headset, her gaze was fixed on the video feed, watching the diamond-tipped mechanism on the Land Rover plow into the sandy red surface of Mars. The picture had deteriorated, then straightened out again, fading back and forth as it fought against unseen pulses of solar interference. Right now it looked pretty good, and she could see Patrick using a small scoop to fill the second of the three sample canisters. At the navigator’s console a few feet away, Dennis was keeping his usual close eye on the
Excursion’s
orbit position relative to the location of the landing module on the planet’s surface.

“Not bad,” Patrick answered. “The soil is loose but the drill is still showing signs of wear and tear.”

“One more area,” she noted. “Sector one twelve. It looks like it might’ve been a canal bed.”

Dennis looked over from the control chair and smiled. “Signs of water?”

“That’s what we hope to find out.”

Patrick’s voice came over the radio again, fuzzy at the edges but understandable. “Eight years of training and I’m a Martian ditch-digger.”

Dennis pressed the audio button on his own headset so he could join the conversation. “Quit complaining. I thought you said you liked making mud pies.”

“Like Anne said,” Patrick came back, “there’s no water.”

Anne smiled. “Sorry, pal. Mining is part of the job description.”

Dennis glanced over at the LED display that was synchronized with the one in Patrick’s landing module: 4:27:38 and counting. “You’ve got about an hour and a half of surface time left, Patrick.”

“Roger that.”

“Don’t push it, Patrick. You need to be off-surface well before Martian nightfall. If you think it’s cold now, try dropping to a hundred and thirty degrees Kelvin,” Anne said.

“For the temperature challenged like you,” Dennis interrupted with a smirk, “that’s two hundred and twenty-five below zero.”

“Gee,” Patrick responded. “Thanks so much for your help. I couldn’t function without you.”

“L
ook at him down there,” Dennis said an hour later. He and Anne studied the wide-angle video feed from the landing module, which showed Patrick taking halting steps across the rock-strewn surface, moving carefully around the jagged edges of large, dark stones. “He’s just like a speck of . . . I don’t know . . . dust.” He followed his friend’s movement, his forefinger tracing the screen. “See? A little dot moving across the horizon.”

Anne leaned toward the display. “Wait—what’s he doing? Why did he stop?”

Dennis thumbed his voice feed. “Patrick?”

The barely recognizable form on the screen paused for a long moment. Finally, Patrick spoke. “Did you know that Mars got its name from the Roman god of war?” he asked. “But I can’t figure out why—I’ve never felt such peace. It’s like I’m here with God.”

Anne smiled. “Perhaps you feel that way because the Roman god Mars was not always so destructive. He was originally the god of spring vegetation, Mars Sylvanus. Among other things, Mars was also known to be the lover of Venus.”

“Patrick,” Dennis broke in, “I’m afraid it’s time for you to leave your gods behind. Shake your legs and head on back to the module. ET until module liftoff is thirty-five minutes and counting.”

On the display, Patrick gave them a choppy-looking salute. “Copy that, Dennis. I’m on my way.”

A
n hour and ten minutes, no more—

And Dennis Gamble and Anne Sampas turned to stare as the airlock door to the docking bay slid open. Patrick Ross grinned at his cohorts but didn’t say anything, and for a long moment, neither did they.

Then they all started whooping and hugging at once.

“You are the
man!”
Dennis shouted. He whirled a laughing Patrick around the small control area, then gave him a push that sent him toward Anne.

She caught him in an amiable hug, then ruffled his dark hair like a schoolboy’s. “Great job, Patrick. You’ve done us proud, young man!”

“Aw, knock it off, you two,” Patrick said. “It was no big deal, not really.” He took a step back to the docking-bay door and retrieved the rack of sample canisters, then snapped it into its holder on the rear wall.

“No big deal, huh?” Dennis rolled his eyes. “If that’s so, then why is the President of the United States waiting to talk to you?”

“Oh, boy—why the heck didn’t you say so!” Patrick hurried over to the command chair and fumbled on the headset, pushing the switches to bring up the audio and video feeds. “Commander Patrick Ross here, Mr. President,” he said respectfully. “I apologize for keeping you waiting.”

A few beats, then the President’s smooth, practiced voice rolled into the
Excursion’s
cockpit, and the three astronauts could tell by his words that the rest of the world was hearing him at the same time. “Captain Ross, this is a tremendous achievement that once again proves to the world that if we rise above partisan politics, America can climb to the heavens.”

Patrick smiled at the clearly rehearsed speech, pleased nonetheless. “Thank you, Mr. President. But the credit should go to my crew. I couldn’t be up here without them.”

“The three of you definitely make an excellent team. Please accept my invitation to be my guests at the White House.”

“We’d be honored, sir,” Patrick replied. He glanced at his two partners, an impish grin tugging at his mouth. “But I’m afraid you won’t change my mind. I’m still a Democrat.”

Rich laughter filtered over their headsets. “Come home safe, Commander Ross. Our prayers are with you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Dennis hit the cut-off switch and turned to his companions. “Ready to head home?”

For a moment, neither spoke. Then Anne exhaled. “Wow, I can’t believe it’s over. All those years to prepare, and now—already it’s just a memory.”

Dennis chuckled. “Then let the memories begin. We’ve got a lot of those to go through when we hit home, not to mention the flight time back to Earth.”

“Yeah, but the actual Mars walk—” Patrick began.

“Oh, quit your griping,” Dennis said lightly. “We’ll walk with the Martians again sometime. You’ll see.”

Anne smiled. “Little green men?”

“I thought you said they’d be red.”

“Whatever.”

Patrick snickered and bent to his work. “Knock it off, you two. Let’s get down to business.”

Unnoticed against the aft wall, bright beads of condensation had begun a slow drip down the outside of the last of the sample canisters.

T
hirty minutes later, the three astronauts had finished their final checks and were strapped into the harnesses of the cockpit chairs. Dennis’s expression had slipped into his standard mask of concentration, a sure sign that what was uppermost in his mind was getting the
Excursion
free of the Mars orbit and on her way home. His gaze tracked the readouts on the system monitors, his fingers ran confidently over the switch panels. “Control, this is
Excursion,”
he said briskly. “All systems are go. Request update on the ETD.”

The response was nearly instantaneous.
“Excursion, this is Control. You are a go for de-orbit burn. Activate main thruster panel, over.”

“Thank you, Control. De-orbit burn sequence completed . . . now.” Dennis snapped the final toggle switch to the GO position. “We are homeward bound.”

“Roger that, Excursion. Starting propulsion engine countdown. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen . . .”

Dennis looked oyer at Patrick and Anne. “We’re in the money, folks.”

“Seventeen . . .”

He grinned and stretched a hand toward Patrick, who slapped it, then grabbed it in a homeboy shake.

“Sixteen, fifteen, fourteen . . .”

Beneath them,
around
them, the engines began to pulse with power. Anne gave the other two a thumbs-up, knowing that the low, throaty hum would effectively wipe out all conversation until the
Excursion
had pulled them out of orbit and set herself into a steady cruising speed. As the ship began to vibrate, Anne turned her attention to the mainframe computer, intent on entering the final log notations for the trip. Only a few feet behind her chair and despite the perfectly monitored, low-humidity air of the small control center, water was now dripping freely off the third orange canister and forming a small puddle on the metal floor.

“Thirteen, twelve, eleven . . .”

Hunched over their tasks and momentarily deafened by the increasing roar of the thruster engines, none of the crew heard or saw the metal band cinching the edges of the sweating sample canister release with a snap, nor did they notice the still tightly sealed lid as it began to bulge.

“Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .”