AFTERNON: SOL 48
IT HAD COST THE EXPEDITION AN EXTRA ROCKET BOOSTER TO carry the plane and its spare parts to Mars. The unmanned soarplanes were small, light, little more than gliders with solar-powered motors to get them off the ground and up to an altitude where they could ride the Martian air currents.
The manned plane had to be bigger. It had to accommodate two fragile human beings and their life-support systems. It had to carry supplies enough to last them several days. It had to be able to take off and land on rough ground.
And it had to carry enough fuel and oxygen to take them to Olympus Mons and back again without refueling.
“This bird’s a flying fuel truck,” Rodriguez quipped more than once as he tested the plane, checked out its performance, its quirks. “She flies like a fuel truck, too.”
It had taken several days to clear and smooth a runway area for the plane. The expedition’s two little tractors, programmed to run by themselves while monitored from inside the dome, pushed rocks and levelled minor sand dunes until the engineers from Earth were satisfied with the makeshift runway.
Their landing site, atop Olympus Mons, would not be so smooth, although close-up video and still photos from a dozen soarplane reconnaissance flights showed broad areas up at the top of the solar system’s tallest mountain that looked smooth and clear enough to serve as a landing area.
The unexplained crash of one of the unmanned planes had delayed Fuchida’s excursion. Dezhurova, Rodriguez and the mission controllers back at Tarawa spent a week trying to determine why the soarplane disappeared. For the next three weeks they sent the remaining two unmanned planes out to Olympus Mons every day, retracing the missing plane’s route, searching for wreckage, clues, explanations.
Finally Jamie decided they were not going to be able to find out why the plane had crashed. It was either scrub Fuchida’s mission altogether or go despite the mishap. Jamie decided on going. After several days of fevered communications back and forth to Tarawa and Boston, his decision was confirmed.
The final decision about landing on the volcano would be Rodriguez’s, and no one else’s. If he were nervous or anxious about the responsibility, he did not show it one bit.
He looked as happy as a puppy with an old sock to chew on as he and Fuchida got into their hard suits.
“I’m gonna be in the Guinness Book of Records,” he proclaimed happily to Jamie, who was helping him get suited up. Trudy Hall was assisting Fuchida while Stacy Dezhurova sat in the comm center, monitoring the dome’s systems and the equipment outside. Jamie had no idea where Vijay was, probably in her infirmary.
“Highest aircraft landing and takeoff,” Rodriguez chattered cheerfully as he wormed his fingers into the suit’s gloves. “Longest flight of a manned solar-powered air-craft. Highest altitude for a manned solar-powered aircraft.”
“Crewed,” Hall murmured, “not manned.”
Unperturbed by her correction, Rodriguez continued, “I might even bust the record for unmanned solar-powered flight.”
“Isn’t it cheating to compare a flight on Mars to flights on Earth?” Trudy asked as she helped Fuchida latch his life-support pack onto the back of his suit.
Rodriguez shook his head vigorously. “All that counts in the record book is the numbers, chica. Just the numbers.”
“Won’t they put an asterisk next to the numbers and a footnote that says, ‘This was done on Mars.’?”
Rodriguez tried to shrug, but not even he could manage that inside the hard suit. “Who cares, as long as they spell my name right?”
Jamie noticed that Fuchida was utterly silent through the suit-up procedure. Tomas is doing enough talking for them both, he thought. But he wondered, Is Mitsuo worried, nervous? He looks calm enough, but that might just be a mask. Come to think of it, the way Tomas is blathering, he must be wired tighter than a drum.
He was jabbering away like a fast-pitch salesman. Jamie wondered if it was nerves or relief to be out on his own, in charge. Or maybe, Jamie thought, the guy was simply overjoyed at the prospect of flying.
Both men were suited up at last, helmet visors down, life-support systems functioning, radio checks completed. Jamie and Trudy walked with them to the airlock hatch: two Earthlings accompanying a pair of ponderous robots.
Jamie shook hands with Rodriguez. His bare hand hardly made it around the astronaut’s glove, with its servo-driven exoskeleton “bones” on its back.
“Good luck, Tomas,” he said. “Don’t take any, unnecessary risks out there.”
Rodriguez grinned from behind his visor. “Hey, you know what they say: There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.”
Jamie chuckled politely. “Remember that when you re out there,” he said.
“I will, boss. Don’t worry.”
Fuchida stepped up to the hatch once Rodriguez went through Even in the bulky suit, even with sparrowlike Trudy Hall standing behind him, he looked small, somehow vulnerable.
“Good luck, Mitsuo,” said Jamie.
Through the sealed helmet, Fuchida’s voice sounded muffled, but unafraid. “I think my biggest problem is going to be listening to Tommy’s yakking all the way to the mountain.”
Jamie laughed.
“And back, most likely,” Fuchida added.
The indicator light turned green and Trudy pressed the stud that opened the inner hatch. Fuchida stepped through, carrying his portable life-support satchel in one hand.
“Tell Vijay to take good care of the garden,” he called as the hatch was sliding shut. “The beets need a lot of care.”
He’s all right, Jamie told himself. He’s not scared or even worried.
Once they had clambered into the plane’s side-by-side seats and connected to its internal electrical power and life-support systems, both men changed.
Rodriguez became all business. No more chattering. He checked out the plane’s systems with only a few clipped words of jargon to Stacy Dezhurova, who was serving as flight controller.
Fuchida, for his part, felt his pulse thundering in his ears so loudly he wondered if the suit radio was picking it up. Certainly the medical monitors must be close to the redline, his heart was racing so hard.
Jamie, Vijay and Trudy Hall crowded over Dezhurova’s shoulders to watch the takeoff on the comm center’s desktop display screen.
As an airport, the base left much to be desired. The makeshift runway ran just short of two kilometers in length. There was no taxiway; Rodriguez and a helper—often Jamie—simply turned the plane around after a landing so it was pointed up the runway again. There was no windsock. The atmosphere was so rare that it made scant difference which way the wind was blowing when the plane took off. The rocket engines did the work of powering the plane off the ground and providing the speed it needed for the wings to generate enough lift for flight.
Jamie felt a dull throbbing in his jaw as he bent over Dezhurova, watching the final moments before takeoff. With a conscious effort he unclenched his teeth.
You’re more worried about this than you were about the generator launch, he said to himself. And immediately knew the reason why. There were two men in the plane. If anything went wrong, if they crashed, they would both be killed.
“Clear for takeoff,” Dezhurova said mechanically into her lip mike.
“Copy clear,” Rodriguez’s voice came through the speakers.
Stacy scanned the screens around her one final time, then said, “Clear for ignition.”
“Ignition.”
Suddenly the twin rocket engines beneath the wing roots shot out a bellowing blowtorch of flame and the plane jerked into motion. As the camera followed it jouncing down the runway, gathering speed, the long, drooping wings seemed to stiffen and stretch out.
“Come on, baby,” Dezhurova muttered.
Jamie saw it all as if it was happening in slow motion: the plane trundling down the runway, the rockets’ exhaust turning so hot the flame became invisible, clouds of dust and grit billowing behind the plane as it sped faster, faster along the runway, nose lifting now.
“Looking good,” Dezhurova whispered.
The plane hurtled up off the ground and arrowed into the pristine sky, leaving a roiling cloud of dust and vapor slowly dissipating along the length of the runway. To Jamie it looked as if the cloud was trying to reach for the plane and pull it back to the ground.
But the plane was little more than a speck in the light orange sky now.
Rodriguez’s voice crackled through the speakers, “Next stop, Mount Olympus.”