Red Hope (2 page)

“Great, now there are
two
things I don’t
understand,” complained the president.

“Um, think of the RTG as a tiny nuclear reactor that
generates electricity for the Curiosity. As with all nuclear power sources,
RTG’s eventually decay to a point where they simply stop working.”

The president was incredulous. He walked over and dropped
into his chair.

“You mean it sent pictures of the first intelligent
life we’ve ever encountered in the universe and then it just died?”

Chris shrugged his shoulders and he replied, “I know. I
realize it’s a crazy coincidence, but it was already a few years past its
expected service life. That final transmission took a lot of power. We’re lucky
that we got what we got.”

“I almost can’t believe the unfortunate timing,” said
the president as his head slumped. He continued, “Well, I guess we don’t have many
choices available now do we?”

“I agree, Mr. President. I agree,” said the NASA
director.

The president leaned forward in his chair. He put one
hand on Chris’s shoulder and said, “I guess we're going to Mars.”

Chris nodded with a large grin.

“I was hoping you would say that. And we’re going to
need more than just a machine. We need to send people. Definitely a geologist
and a paleontologist.”

President Jennings stared down at the photograph of
the skeleton hand holding the rectangular object with the precise yet simple
symbols on it. He smiled and started laughing out loud. Chris couldn’t help but
mimic with his own smile.

“So why exactly are we laughing?” asked Chris.

The president leaned back and stared at the NASA
director.

“This is really huge, Chris. I think you just saved my
presidential legacy from mediocrity.”

They both shared a laugh that broke the tension. The president
set the photo down on the table and took another sip of coffee. Then he looked
at the NASA director with concerned eyes.

“Chris, I
am
worried about something. I think a
discovery of this magnitude might affect my voter base in, well, unpredictable
ways? Some may be afraid. Some may be excited. And some, I just can’t predict.”

The NASA director held his hand up to pause the
president.

“I get what you’re saying, but keep in mind these
aren’t pictures of some grinning alien staring back at us. The culture that we
found seems to be long extinct.”

The president nodded in agreement.

“Yes, but what about my voters that say this will
somehow diminish the importance of humans in the world? You know, on a
spiritual level?”

The president leaned toward Chris and asked, “How
about you, Chris, are you a religious man?”

The elated look on the NASA director’s face slowly
changed to a more solemn emotion. He gathered up the photographs on the table
and glared at them while pondering the president’s question.

“Yes, I am,” he said. “Well, I always have been for
the most part, you know? However, in
my
profession, it’s useful to be
quiet about such things.”

Then he looked straight into the president’s eyes and
admitted, “But I am afraid that what we find on Mars could change everything.”

The Sun’s heat cooked the flimsy rooftop on the test station trailer. It
made occasional popping sounds as it flexed. The vehicle sat parked in the
middle of the Mojave Desert with wires stretching up to an ancient telephone
pole. The towering lumber had stood there so long that the protective tar coating
had all dripped off.

Two people stood in front of the trailer with their
feet firmly planted on the rock-hard dirt. Hats protected their heads from the
broiling sunshine. Each had binoculars. One was a red-headed Russian woman
named Tatyana. She kept switching from examining her watch to scanning the sky
with her binoculars. The other was a clean-cut engineer named Tommy. He kept
switching from examining his binoculars to examining Tatyana.
Flight Test
Engineer
was embroidered in golden letters on his black baseball cap.

Although they’d only known each other for a few hours,
Tatyana had already formed the impression that this Flight Test Engineer was
smart and had subpar social skills. After all, Tatyana thought to herself, he’s
an engineer.

Tommy wore a white button-down shirt with a tie. The Sun
and heat had caused his nice white shirt to show massive sweat stains. The
blowing desert dust was sticking to that now; he looked like a cross between a
man in a dirt tuxedo and a giant skunk. You could barely see the label on his
shirt:
Murch Motors Corporation: Lift Happens.

The two were looking eastward toward the uniquely
shaped Saddle Mountain. They were waiting expectantly for a magical flying
machine to pop up over the ridge. It was nowhere to be seen.

“To be honest ma’am, I don’t understand why we haven’t
seen it yet. He’s been flying around out there for almost an hour,” said Tommy
as his eyes were pressed to the binoculars.

She looked at him and said with a Russian accent, “Please.
Just call me Tatyana.”

Tommy nodded in agreement, nodding his binoculars too.

“Okay ma’am. Ah, crap! I mean Tatyana. I can do that.”

On occasion he caught a long glimpse of Tatyana.
However, he also saw the ring on her finger and knew better. He told himself he
was a good man so he gawked politely.

Tommy followed up with the unbreakable honesty of an
engineer, “Of course, I assume he hasn’t crashed yet. Remember, the new Murch
rocket motors are very reliable and can run nonstop for at least half a day.”

His tie blew up and over his shoulder. The wind was
getting worse. Tatyana’s long hair was now sticking to the sweat on her
forehead.

She lowered her binoculars to wipe the hair out of her
eyes. Tatyana tried hard to mask her Russian accent when she spoke, often using
American lingo to help hide her native tongue. She’d been around Americans for
many years and had developed an extensive vocabulary of American English,
including wonderful slang. However, much to her chagrin, Tatyana couldn’t
completely cover up her Russian accent which used to be thick as molasses.

“Tommy, if he crashes today, then I am afraid there
will be no deal. Well, okay, as long as the motors survive the crash. That
would be acceptable.”

To calm her concerns Tommy said, “No need to worry
about that ma’am, uh, Tatyana. The CEO of our company, um, Mr. Murch, is a top
notch airplane pilot. He won’t crash it today.”

Tommy felt more comfortable on the technical side of
Murch Motors Incorporated. He detested the sales side of their business where
embellishment was almost expected. It always felt to him like he was being
dishonest. His boss normally handled all sales and customer interaction. Not
today though.

The engineer in Tommy kicked into full gear and he started
to contradict his own calming attempts, “To be honest, I wish Mr. Murch
would’ve let our test pilot demonstrate it today, but he insisted that he fly
it himself to show you how safe and reliable the engines are.”

Tatyana lowered her binoculars and asked sincerely,
“Can you tell me more about how the engines can run for so long on so little
fuel?”

Tommy panicked. His boss told him to avoid any
specifics about how the engines work.

“To be honest, I’m not supposed to discuss that much
detail. Rest assured that these are the most efficient rocket engines ever
designed. They are ideal for providing hover capability for lightweight
vehicles.”

Quietly, Tommy was terrified that the ship, his boss,
and his career were all sitting in a smoking crater somewhere on the other side
of Saddle Mountain. He had told his boss that flying the ship himself was a
terrible idea and that he was simply not replaceable. Mr. Murch dismissed his
worries by telling him, “Cemeteries are full of irreplaceable men.” Tommy was
not amused.

Tatyana lifted the binoculars to her eyes again and
said, “Yes, I assume he is a good pilot, but he is riding the only working
prototypes of the MM10 engines from Murch Motors. You can replace an arrogant
CEO, but you cannot replace those engines.”

She looked down at her watch and said, “And now, I
feel that he is wasting my time.”

Tommy had to calm her frustration. According to his morning
meeting with Mr. Murch, keeping her happy was his number one task today.

“Like I said, he’s not going to crash the only working
prototypes of our flagship product. Don’t worry, the Russian Defense Bureau
will have its hands on these rockets in no time.”

Three miles away in a valley carved out by years of ancient
erosion, a rocket-powered hover ship was spinning out of control towards the
ground. Keller Murch was about to die. He was holding on for dear life making a
full conversion to religion. Any religion.

In prior flight testing, the prototype hover ship was
very sensitive to every small movement of the joystick. To fix that problem,
Keller’s engineers installed a special stabilization circuit in the flight
control computer. During high-speed flight over the ground, this device would
take his erratic joystick movements and turn them into smooth command signals.
This little switch would lead to a super smooth flight; almost pleasant. He
could turn it on and off by flipping a big yellow switch.

“Shazbot! They must’ve hooked it up backwards!” he
screamed out loud.

Now even tiny joystick movements caused the external
control fins to twitch wildly sending the hover ship spiraling out of control.

With all his strength he tried to reach the yellow switch
to turn it back off again. The centrifugal forces kept him slammed down in his
seat; he couldn’t get to the switch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out
his Blackberry and swung it hopelessly at the switch. The ship started spinning
the other way and the phone fell from his hand; it was now stuck to the floor
by the spinning forces.

Keller reached into his other pocket and pulled out an
iPhone. The ship was starting to buck and he couldn’t focus his eyes. He swung
the iPhone and instead hit the bulkhead sending a spray of glass from the
cellphone.

“That’ll be another two hour wait at the Apple Store.”

The phone flopped out of his hands and onto the floor
near the Blackberry. Looking around, he reached into his jacket and pulled out
his backup Android phone.

He proudly said, “I am
so
Type A!”

Keller held the final cellphone tight and swung it at
the switch. He missed. He swung again and hit the bulkhead knocking the battery
cover from his phone. A look of horror came across his face. With a quick
squeeze he pushed the power button on the phone; it still worked.

He reached back as far as he could and swung it one
last time. It hit the poorly wired stabilization switch and finally turned it
off.

The ship stopped spinning. He pulled back hard on the joystick.
The vehicle pitched up and started climbing away from the valley floor.

Keller found himself skimming along the tops of the
cacti with loud boom-boom-bang-thump sounds that got noticeably quieter as the
ship started flying upward. He started breathing again. After a few seconds he
was high enough to see a little trailer just on the horizon over Saddle
Mountain.

Tatyana and Tommy heard what sounded like
high-pressure air leaking from a bicycle inner tube. It was getting louder as
they swiveled their heads around to locate the source. A sudden high-pitched
roaring noise made them drop their binoculars and cover their ears.

The prototype hover ship came racing over the trailer
at nearly 100mph, tilted only slightly away from vertical. It was a white capsule
with thin vertical blue stripes and large black X’s all over it used for camera
tracking. The MM10 engines were spraying out what looked like high-speed steam.
Tatyana thought the entire hover ship looked like the nose cone from any of the
classic NASA moon rockets. The MM10 motors looked like long golden bells with
two placed at each of the four corners.

As the ship slowed down, the control fins moved less,
but the golden bell engines began moving more.

The ship circled back around, as deafening as ever,
and came to a hover about 20 yards away from the trailer. It levitated there
motionless several feet off the ground. It was an awesome sight that didn’t
make sense to the brain. Things like that shouldn’t float.

Tommy yelled out, “It gets me every time seeing it
hover like that. And to think that it’s using so little fuel. It’s amazing!”

He squinted and looked at the hover ship closely. Hanging
from the landing gear was a needle-filled mash of what used to be the top of a
large cactus.

The vehicle started to lower and come toward them at
the same time; much closer than Tommy had anticipated. The cloud of dust below
was swirling wildly, now with rocks and debris hitting Tatyana and Tommy in the
face. Still covering their ears, they had to turn away and lean down to avoid
being knocked over by the wind blast. The ship settled down onto four
spring-loaded feet and the whooshing roar stopped almost immediately.

Tommy and Tatyana stood up reluctantly uncovering
their ears and wiping off the dust and debris that had coated their clothing.
They began walking through the short scrub grass toward the hover ship. It was
silent now except for the occasional ping and snapping sounds similar to what a
car makes when turned off after a long drive. They arrived at the hover ship
and waited for the main hatch door to open. There were noises of switches being
flipped inside and the sound of a small fan turning on.

The handle on the door spun and the hatch opened. A
tall skinny man with a huge smile on his face looked out; sweat was pouring
from his head. Keller was wearing, of all things, a business suit. He hopped
out and landed super-hero style with one hand down in the dirt holding him up.
He stood up clapping his hands together to wipe off the dust. Then Keller stuck
out his hand toward Tatyana in the gesture of a handshake and said with a
smile, “Preevyet Tatyana!” They shook hands.

Then he turned to Tommy and shook his hand too saying,
“Preevyet to you too! That means
hello
in Russian. Wow, that was quite a
ride!”

At that moment Keller saw the top of the ancient
Socorro cactus jammed into one of the landing gear struts.

He turned toward Tommy and whispered, “Do me a favor Tommy,
get rid of that cactus on the landing gear. I think that’s a ten thousand
dollar fine from the Feds. We don’t need any attention from them right now,
okay?”

Keller turned his attention back to Tatyana.

“Hi Tatyana, I’m glad you could make it out here
today. We finally get to meet in person, right? The telephone can only do so
much justice to a business transaction. It’s good to meet.”

“I agree Mr. Murch. That was an impressive arrival.”

He winked at her and replied, “I know.”

After Tommy pried off the cactus, he climbed in the
ship and opened a panel that had tools in it. He began to check the vehicle and
do some routine testing. He scratched at his chin when he noticed two
cellphones jammed in a floor panel. As Tommy worked, Tatyana and Keller walked
back toward the trailer. She was the first to break the silence.

“It is good to be here. I am quite amazed at the MM10
engine. Murch Motors has pulled off an engineering triumph,” she said trying to
avoid stepping on the quills of a prickly pear cactus.

She continued, “Is this rocket engine really as fuel
efficient as you and Tommy say? Will that machine hover for hours?”

Keller thought for a moment and stopped walking to
focus on his words.

“Yes, it
really
is that fuel efficient and our
newest versions run all day long. Did I ever tell you how they came to be?” he
asked.

“No, you have not. And Tommy wouldn't tell me either.”

Keller started using a lot of body language, “The
clever idea behind them was the product of three poor graduate students working
on the concept of hypersonic plasma at Stanford. But they were spinning their
wheels trying to get industry interested in their invention. I saw it. I liked
it. So I bought the patent and then I bought them. They work for me now. All I
had to do was ask them if they wanted to change the world.”