Rescue Mode - eARC (27 page)

It wasn’t easy work. He had to hold on to the handlebars every minute of his workout. Even at that, if he let his mind wander his feet might drift up off the treadmill’s surface and he’d be floating weightlessly instead of improving his muscle tone.

Benson glided through the gym’s hatch and hovered before him.

Without breaking stride, Connover asked, “What’s up, Bee?”

“We’re in the home stretch, Ted. I just want to check out a few details with you.”

“Go right ahead,” Connover puffed, glad that he’d been prescient enough to wear a headband. Otherwise sweat would sting his eyes and he’d have to stop his workout to wipe his brow and that would send him floating up off the treadmill altogether.

“Hi and Catherine are set to go with you, right?”

Connover nodded. “And Amanda.”

Benson’s expression tightened. “Is she . . . all right with this?”

“With what?”

Obviously distressed, Benson said, “Well, Amanda’s going to be living in a tin can with you for months on end and—”

“Hey, what’ve we been doing in
this
tin can for months on end?”

“I know, but down on the surface it’ll be different: just the two of you, really. I mean, Catherine and Hi are paired up and that means you and Amanda . . . well, you know.”

The bell on the treadmill chimed and Connover stopped running. “Bee, Mandy’s a grown woman. She knows what she’s doing.”

Benson looked unconvinced.

“I’m not going to attack her, for God’s sake.”

“Do you think I should talk to her?”

“About the birds and the bees?” Connover snapped. “I think she already knows about that.”

“I worry about what Houston’s going to think about it. And the news media.”

“Who cares?”

“I guess I’m too straightlaced,” Benson admitted. “But, well, you’re going to be the first human being to set foot on Mars, Ted. I don’t want some preacher to dirty the moment.”

Connover laughed as he reached for the towel that’d left in midair. “You want me to take a vow of chastity? Or maybe we could rig a chastity belt for Amanda.”

“Be serious, Ted! The first person to step on Mars. We don’t want a sex scandal ruining everything.”

Connover felt a jolt of emotion. “Hey, that’s right. I’ll be the first guy on Mars! I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, you’re no Neil Armstrong, Ted. You’re doing something that’s either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. Maybe both. But you’re going to be the first human being to set foot on Mars.”

His voice lower, Connover said, “It was supposed to be you, Bee.”

Benson tried to shrug nonchalantly. “I’m okay with it. No worries on that score.”

Connover searched Benson’s face for a sign of regret, or jealousy, or perhaps even anger. Nothing. Whatever was going on in Bee’s head, his face wasn’t showing it.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Benson repeated.

Connover was certain that Bee had prepared a statement to make when he first set foot on Mars, something appropriately historic.

“Hey!” he suddenly thought. “What about Catherine and Hi. They’re actually going to be shacking up once we get down to the surface, I bet.”

A pang of alarm flashed across Benson’s face. “That’s right. They’ve been together for so long that I think of them as a married couple.”

Connover couldn’t resist poking, “Maybe you ought to give
them
the morality lecture, instead of Amanda and me.”

Clermont and McPherson were huddled again in the observation cupola, staring at Mars.

“Tomorrow we go down there,” Hi said to her, softly.

Catherine arched a brow at him. “Adam and Eve on their new world?”

“It’s hardly the Garden of Eden,” he said.

“It will have to do.”

Suddenly feeling awkward, McPherson stammered, “Catherine . . . before we go . . . I think we ought to get married.”

Her eyes widened. “Hi, are you proposing to me?”

“Yes. Will you marry me?”

Her smile warmed the Solar System. “Yes. With all my heart and soul, yes.”

He wrapped his arms around her and they kissed passionately.

But then Catherine pushed away, slightly. “How can we be married? There is no priest here, no minister, not even a justice of the peace.”

McPherson grinned at her. “We have a captain, don’t we?”

“Bee? He can marry us?”

“The captain of a ship can. Why can’t the captain of this vessel do it for us?”

Catherine broke into a delighted laugh. “Tonight! Before dinner!”

“Let’s find Bee!”

They squeezed through the cupola’s hatch, only to see Ted Connover coming at them through the narrow passageway. For an instant, Hi’s senses told him that Ted was dropping down the tube toward them. He blinked and registered that he and Catherine were above Ted, and he was rising to meet them.

“Ted, where’s Bee?” Hi asked, a huge grin splitting his beard.

“I just left him, back in the galley. He wants to talk to the two of you.”

Catherine said, “Hiram has just asked me to marry him. And I accepted.”

Ted burst out laughing. “I think Bee wants to talk to you about that.”

“Let’s find him,” McPherson said.

All three of them laughed as Connover started backing weightlessly along the tunnel, with McPherson and Clermont using the handgrips to propel themselves in the same direction. Ted was humming “Here Comes the Bride” loud enough for them both to hear him.

They found Benson in the command center and broke the news to him.

“Me? You want me to marry you?”

“Yes!” the replied in unison.

“I don’t think that’s legal.”

Connover groused, “Come on, Bee, there isn’t a lawyer within thirty-five million miles.”

“But—”

Very seriously, McPherson said, “Bee, legalities aside, we want to be married. It’s the morality of the situation that we’re talking about. We can always do it again when we get back.” Turning to Catherine, he added, “You want to get married in the Vatican?”

Her laughter was delightful. “The mayor of my home town in Normandy will do just as well. And it will be less expensive.”

Benson was just as serious. “You’re certain about this? Both of you?”

“Yes,” said Catherine.

McPherson said, “Even if we die on Mars, I want Catherine to be my wife.”

Breaking into a smile, Benson said, “Right. I’ll be proud to do the honors.”

Connover added, “And you can honeymoon on Mars.”

November 4, 2035

17:28 Universal Time

Mars Arrival Plus 9 Days

The Galley

McPherson was trying to stand straight and tall. In zero gravity the human body tends to curl slightly and the arms float up to chest level, like a person doing a dead man’s float in a swimming pool. He forced his arms down by his sides tried to look reasonably dignified.

The geologist had rummaged through his personal clothing and found a gray turtleneck pullover that he hadn’t worn before.

Not a tux, he thought, but it’ll have to do.

Now, standing in the galley between Benson and Connover, he stared at the open hatch and tried not to fidget as he waited for his bride.

Prokhorov hovered by the hatch with one of the surface imaging cameras in his hands, ready to act as the official photographer by taking pictures with a camera designed to perform surface science, not take portraits. Mikhail looked pale, drawn, but he broke into a grin as Virginia Gonzalez floated through the hatch, looking quite solemn, followed by Amanda Lynn and then Taki Nomura. At last Catherine glided through, wearing a white short-sleeved blouse and sharply creased white slacks.

Benson had searched the nets for a wedding ceremony and finally found one from an Anglican liturgy. Connover and Prokhorov had used the 3D printer to fashion a pair of plastic rings that looked somewhat silvery.

Catherine floated to McPherson’s side. She had to put out her hand and grasp his arm to stop herself. She was smiling gracefully; Hi was grinning from ear to ear.

Looking down at his printout, Benson began, “We are gathered here in this company and in the eyes of God . . .”

The ceremony was brief and simple. At its end, before Benson could say, “You may kiss the bride,” Hi wrapped Catherine in his arms and kissed her so hard that Connover whistled and shouted, “Okay, break it up!”

Dinner was raucus, edging toward the racy. Jokes about honeymooning on Mars. To everyone’s surprise, Benson produced a small bottle of cognac.

“I was saving this for when we returned to Earth, but this is an even happier occasion,” he told the crew.

He left unsaid the fear that none of them might make it back to Earth.

There was barely enough for each of them to have one small drink, but somehow the occasion got even noisier after it. Even Prokhorov joined in the cheer as he told outrageously smutty jokes about wedding nights.

Catherine took it all with smiling grace, while McPherson blushed through his beard.

At last Benson announced, “Time to retire. Big day tomorrow.”

“Big night tonight,” said Virginia. Turning to Catherine, she revealed, “Taki and Amanda and I have moved your sleeping bags to the cupola. That’s your wedding night suite, Catherine.”

Unexpectedly bold, Nomura said, “It’s far enough from our privacy quarters so that you won’t disturb us.”

Prokhorov brightened. “I can bring the camera!”

McPherson pushed himself up from his chair and reached for Catherine’s hand. “No thanks, Mikhail. To all of you, thanks for everything. This has all been . . . well, kind of overwhelming.”

Catherine stood up and smiled a soft, “
Tres merci
.”

Benson watched them slip through the hatch on their way to the cupola. Once they were gone, he turned to the rest of the crew.

“Big day tomorrow,” he said tightly.

Connover nodded. “We tell Houston what we’re doing.”

“Right,” said Benson.

But Prokhorov fished his phone from his breast pocket and, waving it over his head, proclaimed, “Not before I send the wedding pictures to our friend Treadway.”

Benson said, “Send it to mission control, Mikhail. Let them decide if they want to break it to the news media.”

Prokhorov grinned crookedly. “Mission control first. Then to Treadway. He is one of us, is he not? Our virtual crew member. He would want to be part of our happiness.”

Benson thought it over for a second or two. “Okay, Houston first, then Treadway.”

He realized that Houston—and Washington—were going to go apeshit once they realized what Connover was doing. The wedding would be down in the noise as far as the NASA brass was concerned.

In the command center all by himself, Benson put in a call to Nathan Brice, the mission flight director. After a nearly fifteen-minute wait, Brice’s lean, sharp-eyed image appeared on the communication’s system display screen.

Nathan’s lost weight, Benson thought as Brice impatiently asked, “What is it, Bee? You said it was urgent.”

Benson glanced at the digital clock that showed the time in Houston. Half-past noon. I must have dragged him away from his lunch.

Thankful for the time lag between messages, Benson said, all in a rush, “Ted’s going down to the surface with McPherson, Clermont and Lynn. They’re going to ship the habitat’s water up here to the
Arrow
and then remain on Mars while we start back to Earth.”

But Brice was already saying sourly, “This isn’t about that wedding you performed, is it? You ought to know better than that, Bee. You’re not empowered to marry people. Our legal people are up in arms about it.”

Benson almost smiled as he thought of their messages passing each other in opposite directions, zooming through interplanetary space at the speed of light.

Light travels faster than sound, he remembered the old adage. That’s why some people appear to be bright, until you hear them speak.

“Connover is
what
?” Brice erupted. “Who the hell authorized that? What are you doing, Bee? Have you gone nuts? You can’t let them go down to the surface, they’ll die down there!”

Very patiently, Benson explained the entire plan while Brice fumed and fulminated.

“I absolutely forbid it!” Brice was shouting. “You don’t have the authority to change the mission plan! You can’t do this!”

All the while, Benson calmly ticked off all the details of their plan. He ended with, “They’ll live on Mars until the follow-on mission gets there to pick them up and return them home.”

“Follow-on mission?” Brice demanded. “What follow-on mission? There isn’t going to be—”

Benson clicked off the transmission.
I won’t need the comm link,
Benson told himself.
Once Nate tells Washington, I’ll be able to hear the explosion all the way from Earth.

November 4, 2035

23:00 Universal Time

Mars Arrival Plus 9 Days

New York City

The “Mars wedding” was the lead-off story for the network’s evening news. Steven Treadway appeared to be standing with the crew as Catherine Clermont and Hiram McPherson exchanged their vows aboard the
Arrow
.

“Even in adversity,” Treadway intoned, over their muted voices, “love blooms and endures. Today, from the
Arrow
spacecraft in orbit around Mars, came the surprise news that the crew’s two geologists, Hiram McPherson and Catherine Clermont, were to be married. The ceremony was conducted by the spacecraft’s captain, Commander Bee Benson, with the entire crew in attendance.”

The camera tightened to a close-up of Treadway’s smiling face. “I must admit that I should have seen this coming. Hiram and Catherine have become very close in the months of their voyage to Mars. No other wedding ceremony in human history has been performed in such an environment and in such circumstances. I daresay it will likely be many years before there’s another like it.”

“Many of you are probably wondering about why they would bother getting married at all. To many, the idea seems rather quaint and old fashioned. It turns out that Hiram
is
quite old fashioned. In fact, he’s a practicing Christian from a rather conservative church and told me that he not only wanted to marry Ms. Clermont, but quote, ‘spend the rest of my life and eternity after that with her.’ A nineteenth-century man with a twenty-first century problem, so, of course, they were married virtually.”