The Mountain Cage (19 page)

He admitted it to himself; if he had to be a hero to win the election, this was the way to do it. His crewmates were the real experts, so he could leave all the major decisions to them. He would, of course, do his best to be helpful. Sergei would use him as a subject in some medical experiments, and he could also help Kiichi sort his soil samples. That would be great, if they actually found life on Mars, even if it was only something like the mildew that sometimes showed up in the Vice-Presidential mansion.

People were really getting psyched about this mission. After all the economic bad news of recent years, putting people to work on the ship, now called the
Edgar Rice Burroughs,
and its systems, as well as expanding the size of the Russian and American space stations to house those who had to work on the
Burroughs
in orbit, had given the economy a boost. Part of that was the new jobs, but most of it was simply that the country was regaining its confidence. This Mars thing would propel him into the White House on a wave of good feeling, and he would lead the country into the next century during his second term. By then, the economy would be booming along under the impetus of a revived space program. Dan wasn’t exactly sure how this would happen, but would let his advisors figure that out when it was time for them to write his speeches.

It was, when he thought about it, amazing that the Mars mission had won such widespread support. There were, of course, some people who had to bitch, like those protestors who showed up at the Johnson Space Center or Cape Canaveral to protest the ship’s technology, but they were the kind who panicked whenever they saw the word “fission,” especially if “fusion” was sitting right next to it. A comedian on David Letterman’s show had said something about how a dopehead must have thought of putting the Vice-President aboard, and so maybe they should have called the ship the
William S. Burroughs.
Dan didn’t see what was so funny about that, but it didn’t really matter. Most of the clippings Marilyn brought to him on her visits had optimistic words about the mission and comments from various people about his bravery and increasing maturity.

Almost before he knew it, he and his fellow astronauts were being flown to Florida, where they would spend their final days before liftoff; a space shuttle would carry them to the
Burroughs.
The President would be there, along with several ambassadors and any other dignitaries who had managed to wangle an invitation. A whole contingent of family and friends were coming in from Indiana to view the launch, which would be covered by camera teams and reporters from just about everywhere. Everything had gone basically without a hitch so far, although they were going to be late taking off for the
Burroughs;
the shuttle launch had been postponed until October, what with a few small delays on construction and testing. Still, the Mars ship and its systems had passed every test with flying colors, and this had inspired a number of articles contending, basically, that American workers had finally gotten their shit together again. More kids were deciding to take science and math courses in school. There was a rumor that Time magazine had decided early that Dan would have to be their Man of the Year.

Only one dark spot marred his impending triumph. That creep Garry Trudeau was now depicting him as a feather floating inside a space helmet and referring to him as “the candidate from Mars.”

The
Burroughs
wasn’t exactly the kind of sleek ship Dan had seen in movies about space. Its frame held two heavily-shielded habitat modules, the lander, and the Mars base assembly. The large metallic bowl that housed the pulse engine was attached to the end of the frame. The whole thing reminded him a little of a giant Tootsie Roll with a big dish at one end, but he felt confident as he floated into the crew’s quarters through an open lock. The President and Barbara had wished him well, and Marilyn and the kids had looked so proud of him. If he had known that being courageous was this simple, maybe he would have tried it sooner.

Inside the large barrel of this habitat, five seats near wall screens had been bolted to what would be the floor during acceleration. He propelled himself toward a seat and strapped himself in without a qualm. The
Burroughs
circled the Earth, then took off like a dream; Dan, pressed against his seat, watched in awe as the globe on the screen shrank to the size of a marble.

The ship would take a little while to reach one g, at which point the crew could get up and move around. The
Burroughs
would continue to accelerate until they were halfway to Mars, at which point it would begin to decelerate. The faster the ship boosted, the more gravity it would have; at least that was how Dan understood the matter. Even though it might have been kind of fun to float around the
Burroughs,
he had been a bit queasy during the shuttle flight, and was just as happy that they wouldn’t have to endure weightlessness during the voyage. He had heard too many stories about space sickness and the effects of weightlessness on gas; he didn’t want to puke and fart all the way to Mars.

Dan had little time to glance at the viewscreens when he finally rose from his seat. The others were already messing around with the computers and setting up experiments and generally doing whatever they were supposed to do; his job now was to monitor any transmissions from Earth.

He sent back greetings, having rehearsed the words during the last few days. He didn’t have anything really eloquent to say about actually being out in space at last, but a lot of astronauts weren’t great talkers. When he was about to sign off, the NASA CapCom patched him through to Marilyn.

She had cut out James J. Kilpatrick’s latest column to read to him. The columnist had written: “Lloyd Bentsen once said of the Vice-President, ‘You’re no Jack Kennedy.’ This has been verified in a way Senator Bentsen could never have predicted. This man is no Jack Kennedy. Instead, he has donned the mantle of Columbus and the other great explorers of the past.”

That was the kind of thing that could really make a guy feel great.

There was little privacy on the
Burroughs.
What with the shielding, the engine, the Mars lander they would use when they reached their destination, and the base camp assembly that would be sent to the Martian surface if NASA deemed a longer stay worthwhile, there wasn’t exactly an abundance of space for the crew in the habitat modules. The next ship, which was already being built, would have the additional luxuries of a recreational module, along with separate sleeping compartments, but NASA had cut a few corners on this one.

The bathroom, toilet and shower included, was the size of a small closet; their beds, which had to be pulled out from the walls, were in the adjoining module, with no partitions. The whole place smelled like a locker room, maybe because the modules had been part of the Russian space station before being recycled for use in this mission. The food tasted even worse than some of the stuff Dan had eaten in the Deke house at DePauw.

But their comfort was not entirely overlooked; the
Burroughs
had a small library of CDs, videodiscs, and books stored on microdot. Within twenty-four hours, Dan and his companions had worked out a schedule so that each of them would have some time alone in the bed compartment to read, listen to music, or take a nap. There was no sense getting on one another’s nerves during the voyage, and some solitude would ease any tensions.

Dan went to the sleeping quarters during his scheduled time on the third day out, meaning to watch one of his favorite movies
, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
. He could stretch out on one of the beds and still see the screen on the wall in the back. He nodded off just as Ferris Bueller, played by Matthew Broderick, was calling up his friend Cameron on the phone; he woke up to the sounds of “Twist and Shout.” Matthew Broderick was gyrating on a float in the middle of a Chicago parade.

Dan had missed most of the movie. He must have been more tired than he realized, even though he didn’t have as much to do as the rest of the crew. Sergei had said something about doing some medical tests on him. He looked at his watch, set on Eastern Standard Time, which they were keeping aboard ship, and noticed that it was past 8:00 P.M. He stared at the screen, not understanding why the movie was still on until he realized that the player had gone back to the beginning of the disc and started running the film again. It was Ahmed’s time to use the compartment now, so why wasn’t the Prince here bugging him about it? On top of that, nobody had come to get him for dinner.

He sat up slowly. A weird feeling came over him, a little like the nervousness he had felt before calling his father about trying to get into the Guard. He got to his feet and climbed the ladder through the passageway that connected this module to the next.

The hatch at the end of the short passage was open as he came up. His shipmates were slumped over the table where they usually ate, their faces in their trays. Dan crept toward them, wondering if this was some kind of joke. “Okay, guys,” he said, “you can cut it out now.” They were awfully still, and Sergei had written something on the table in Cyrillic letters with his fingers and some gravy. “Okay, you faked me out. Come on.” Dan stopped behind Kiichi and nudged him, then saw that the Japanese had stopped breathing. Very slowly, he moved around the table, taking each person’s pulse in turn. The arms were flaccid, the bodies cold.

“Oh, my God,” he said. “Oh, my God.” He sank to the floor, covered his face with his hands, and sat there for a long time until a voice called out to him from the com.

“Houston to
Burroughs.
Houston to
Burroughs.”
He got up and stumbled toward the com. “Come in,
Burroughs.”
He sat down and turned on the com screen.

Sallie Werfel, the CapCom, stared out at him from the screen.

“They’re dead,” he blurted out. “They’re all dead.” Not until after he had said it did he remember that NASA had planned a live broadcast for that evening. “Oh, my God.”

Sallie gazed back at him with a big smile on her face; it would take a while for his words to reach her, since signals had to work harder to get through all that space. Then her smile disappeared, and she was suddenly shouting to somebody else before turning to the screen once more.

“We’re off the air,” she said. “All right, what the hell do you mean about—”

“They’re all dead,” he replied. “At the table. Turn on the cameras and take a look. Sergei wrote something next to his tray, but it’s in Russian.”

Sallie was whispering to a man near her. Some more time passed. “All right, Dan,” she said very quietly. “I want you to stay right where you are for the moment. We’ve got the cameras on the others now. You’re absolutely sure they’re, uh, gone.”

“Yeah.”

A few more minutes passed. “We’re looking at Sergei’s message. A couple of our people here know Russian, so we should have a translation in just a little bit. While we’re waiting, I want to know exactly what you were doing during the last few hours.”

“Not much,” he said. “I mean, it was my turn for some private time—we had, like, a schedule for times to be alone, you know? So I went to the other module thinking I’d catch a movie.” He was about to say he had been watching
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,
but thought better of it. “What I remember is that Ashana was on the treadmill working out, and Sergei and Ahmed were checking some numbers or something. Kiichi was in the can—er, bathroom. I fell asleep, and when I woke up and looked at the time, it was past dinner. Then I came out and—” He swallowed hard. “Oh, my God.” He waited.

“Take it easy, Dan,” she said finally. “We’re opening up a line to the White House right now.”

An alien, he thought. Some creepy blob thing, the kind of creature they showed in old sci-fi movies, had somehow found its way aboard the ship. He imagined it oozing out to kill his companions during dinner, then concealing itself somewhere aboard the
Burroughs
to wait for him. Except that it wouldn’t find too many places it could hide in the crew’s quarters. Maybe the alien was concealed in the Mars lander by now, waiting for him. He shuddered. It couldn’t be an alien. There wasn’t any way for one to get aboard.

“We’ve got a translation,” Sallie was saying. Dan forced his attention back to the screen. “We know what Sergei wrote.” Her eyes glistened; he held his breath. “Not the food. Fever. Feels like flu.”

“What?” He waited.

“Flu. Influenza.” She lifted a hand to her temples. “He’s telling us it wasn’t anything in the food, that it felt as if they were coming down with something.”

Everything had happened awfully fast. The whole business might be some sort of weird assassination attempt; maybe someone had figured out a way to poison the main module’s air system. It was pure chance that he had not been sitting there with the others. But why would anyone want to assassinate him? Only the Democrats had anything to gain from that, and they had so many loose cannons that somebody would have leaked such a plot by now.

He didn’t know whether to be relieved or not when Sallie contacted him an hour later and gave him NASA’s hypothesis. They suspected that his comrades had been the victims of an extremely virulent but short-lived virus—virulent because the others had died so quickly, and short-lived because Dan, in the same module breathing the same air, was still alive. They had come up with this explanation after consulting with the Russians, who had admitted that milder viruses had occasionally afflicted their cosmonauts. The closed ecologies of their modules had never been perfect. What that meant was that things could get kind of scuzzy in there.