The Man Who Sold Mars (16 page)

I said too much.  Suspicious she asked,
“How do you know?”

Quick and dismissive I told her, “I used
to get them as a child when I was stressed.”

The bleeding didn’t stop.  It worsened.

In charge she told me, “We’re going to
the hospital right now.”

“No.”

Beyond firm, “Now.”

Knowing it was futile to resist her when
she was committed to anything, I yielded and we found ourselves walking into
the emergency room of the Young Stellar Resources’ Hospital.  And following a
battery of test and an MRI, awaited their results until Selena, I, and the Mars
mission flight surgeon found ourselves listening to a neurosurgeon, pointing at
areas on my brain scan displayed on a light board.

“You’ve had a minor aneurism.  From your
brain scan it appears you’ve had a few fairly recently.”

Selena looked at me for an answer and
noncommittal I said nothing.

With no answer from me, she returned her
attention to the neurosurgeon.  “How can you tell?”

She answered Selena and while speaking
used my brain scan to illustrate her points.  “These are areas of fresh
scaring.”

Selena asked her.  “How many are a few?”

The flight surgeon said.  “Too many.”

Selena made a decision.  “Stephen you are
not going.”

“I am OK.”

The neurosurgeon continued with her
diagnosis and a prognosis.  “These nose bleeds, are they coming with increasing
frequency?”

Soft I admitted it.  “Yes.”

“Volume?”  The flight surgeon asked.

I sat silent.

They knew that meant “Yes.”

The neurosurgeon asked, “Duration?”

My silence remained unbroken.  The answer
was “Yes”.

The neurosurgeon answered with hope and
the devastation I knew would come.  “Stephen, you’re pushing your body way too
hard.  Rest.  I think the aneurisms will stop with rest.  But, Mars is out of
the question.”

“That is out of the question.”

The flight surgeon spoke in support of
her.  “Stephen, the stresses of take off, the g-load you pull will be so high
that with the condition of your brain, you will die during the takeoff to
Mars.”

“Nothing’s certain.”

The flight surgeon said.  “It could be
you just have a stroke and end up in a vegetative state.  The end results in
any of the options I can foresee aren’t pleasant.”

“Carl—“

“Stephen—-“

With finality Selena said, “Stephen, you
are not going.”

As far as I’m concerned, she wasn’t final
enough.

Frustrated the flight surgeon said, “You
are NOT going.  Stephen, do you understand?  There’s a chance, a very, very
significant chance you may not survive take off.”

“But, there’s a chance I will.”

The neurosurgeon supported the flight
physician, “That chance is slim to non-existent.”

“Ok.  I can live with those odds.”  They
did not appreciate my humor.

Selena was incredulous. “Did you hear
them?  They said you will die.”

“Might.  They said I might die.  There’s
a difference.”

Selena, on a mission of her own, rallied
our cadre of close friends at my apartment.  Together, George, Kevin, Gardner,
Tot, Selena, and Hemmingson talked with me.

“They said I might die.  So there’s a
chance I might live.”

Hemmingson finished off his wine.  “And
there’s a chance Elton John might be straight.”

Kevin agreed with him.  “You can’t go.”

“I will.”

In unison Tot and Gardner said, “You
can’t.”

Frustrated, Selena paced the floor.  “Stephen,
you may not survive lift off.  Do you understand?  I’m talking death.”

“I know death well.  Very, very well.  I
will or I won’t.  If I die, they can dump me on Mars and toss seeds on me. 
I’ll be part of the first terra forming project.”

My joke just made her madder.  “Stephen—“

“I did not work this hard to sit on the
sidelines of the greatest event in my history.  I made a lot of promises when I
started this and I will keep them.”

In charge Selena said, “Yes.  And that
includes us and the investors.  No.  No.  No.  You are not going to Mars.”

“I am.”

Selena screamed in frustration. 
“Argggggggggh. Talk to him.”

Gardner spoke to me, as frustrated Selena
sat on the arm of a couch by Tot, who was sitting next to Kevin, who at that
instance spilled a few mixed nuts on the sofa.  Reaching in between a cushion
to retrieve them, he felt something else and retrieved an earring while Tot and
Selena saw him pull it out.

Tot embarrassed said, “That’s mine.”

Feeling her embarrassment and Selena’s
and not knowing what to say, Kevin handed it to her in silence.

He reached back in to retrieve the nuts
and pulled out another earring, totally different in design from the other and
embarrassed handed it to Tot.  “Here.”

Selena embarrassed said, “That’s mine.”

Selena and Tot looked at one another and
in silence said much of life and love and longing and pain and I felt their
angst.  The three of us, well four including Mars were in an involvement, and
three of us in an emotional place that words could not convey.

Unnoticed by the group, Tot gave Selena a
sad silent toast with her glass of wine.  Selena accepted it and returned an
equally sad one.  They each started to drink, simultaneously stared at their
glass as the same idea came to them at once.  They glanced at one another then
flushed.  Swift, blushing, and embarrassed, they put all their focus into
drinking their wine.

Hemmingson finished off another glass of
wine, “Stephen, I really am an all things to excess kind of guy and I have to
agree.  You stay here.”

“No.  No.  No.  I’m going.”

“Yes, you are.”

OK, Mike.  What if they told you, that if
you slept with another woman you might die?”

“Go to Mars.  Enjoy yourself.  Hey. 
Visit all the planets.  OK.” He said as he poured himself more wine.

Selena starred at Hemmingson, “I can’t
believe you.”

“He said might.”

Selena launched her nuke.  “George.  Talk
to him.”

He did.  “Stephen—“

“I’m going.”

“One moment.  That’s all I ask.”

In silence, I weighed his request.  Then
acquiesced.  “OK.”

“When I was a child I wanted to go to the
Air Force Academy.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I never told you.  I never spoke of it
after high school.  I did all the things I needed to guarantee acceptance. 
Studied hard, became class valedictorian, captained the football and track
teams.  Had over 600 hours of flight time.  Bagged a lot of groceries to pay
for that.”

I laughed at my own memories of those
times.  “I had those days too.”

“When I took my medical entrance exam for
The Academy, they told me I was not physically qualified to attend the Academy
because of a curvature of my spine.  If I ever ejected out of a jet, my spine
would snap and I would die.  Years later as a J.D./MBA, corporate raider with
more money than brains, I learned Russian and paid them a lot of money to go
through their jet training program, followed by type aircraft training.  I
became a fully qualified MiG 25, Foxbat, pilot.  I flew a supersonic jet
interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft.  The second fastest and second highest-flying
military aircraft ever fielded after the US’ SR-71, the Blackbird.  During my
training, due to mechanical issues with the jets, I ejected twice.”

George stood up and spent completely
around.

“I’m certainly not dead.  Nor am I
crippled.  Nor did my spine break.  I turned down the Co-Chairman of the board
position because I will be very busy planning the second Mars mission.  Mine.”

“Oh, God.  Two of them.”  Selena said
under her breath.

George joked, “I heard that.”

“Me too.”  As did I.

The group laughed.

George continued.  “Stephen, you may very
well die on lift off or somewhere between Earth and Mars.  You could be hit by
a bus.  Get e-coli poisoning at a fast food restaurant.  Get shot at an ATM.  Anything—“ 
Beyond excited, he asked me.  “Have you ever piloted a tactical jet inverted,
100 feet above the runway at over 600 knots?!  My God!”

I jumped up and sang.  “We’re going to
Mars.”

“Damn right!”

With a frustrated sigh, Selena went “Argggggggh!”

Beyond frustration and anger, Selena
vented her displeasure and acquiesced in her battle to keep me Earthbound, but
not the war.

I got up from my kitchen table, leaving
my texts behind, to walk to the door to let Selena and Tot in and said.  “What
a pleasant surprise.”

Tot kissed me on the check as she came in
with two bottles of wine.

And so did Selena also carrying two
bottles.

Friends and ex-boyfriends get kissed on
the cheek. 
Here comes goodbye.  They’re breaking up with me.  I deserve
it.  But it still hurts.

Selena asked me, “Did you eat?”

“Yes.”

Tot grinned, “The correct question to ask
him is, “Did you eat right?””

We laughed, they ushered me into the
kitchen and placed the wine on the table.

Worried, I sat at it, while they made
themselves at home.  They’d come with wine, lots of it, and I got a kiss on the
cheek.  That was not a good thing.  I could feel my stomach tying in knots and
I wondered how long it would take before they let me go.

Selena opened the refrigerator door and
announced to Tot, “There’s food.”

She walked over; they exchanged some
words and started pulling ingredients out.

They were making me nervous.  I knew this
was not going to be a good night.  How could it be?  I was involved with both
of them, they’d brought over a lot of wine and they were cooking me a meal.  I
knew I was on death row, walking the last mile of my relationships with them
and they were making me one last meal.

While Selena cooked, Tot came over with a
wine opener and glasses.  She picked up the bottle, removed the cork and
poured.

“I’m sorry, I can’t drink.  I have a
training hop tomorrow.  Zero dark thirty.  And it’s eight hours from bottle to
throttle.”

“I know.  I’m only pouring two.”

She took a glass to Selena and she a
little embarrassed and a little guilty downed it at once and Tot gazed at me,
studying me as she drank.  Every time, every single time I was with either of
them and they drank like that, it was followed by something, some things, lots
of things I did not want to hear.  I was starting to feel like Iraq with the
coalition forces at my border.  This was not good.  I was a dead man.

It was still zero dark thirty.  My hop
did not go well at all and my instructor let me know it as we were returning to
base, flying the Training version of the single seat Fighter Attack F/A-18 Hornet,
which differed from the single seat version in that it had a cockpit for the
student in the front and a duplicate one in the rear for the instructor.

In the still black morning sky, I was
embarrassed.  As a Marine, I had thousands of hours of flight time in that jet
and today I was horrendous.  My mind was on Tatyana and Selena and not where it
needed to be.  I was always behind the aircraft instead of in front of it and
my SA, situational awareness and air sense were non existent.

“That was not one of your better hops, Stephen.”

“I know.  I was up all night studying.”

“You have to lighten up on your training
schedule, give your mind a chance to arrange, order, and own the information. 
It’s Sunday.  When was the last time you took a day off?”

“I don’t take days off.  There’s not
enough time.”

“There’s time enough for everything if
you arrange it properly.  I’m making a command decision.  A compromise.  Sunday
is a no fly day.”

“I can’t—“

“I can’t let you go alone to Mars
unprepared.”

“Last night was just long.”

“You’ve been tired and dragging well
before last night.  Well, well, well before last night and the quality of your
hops are disintegrating.  I’m speaking with your training coordinator, from
here out Sunday is for rest—“

“And review.”

“So be it Stephen, but you will not have
class.”

“Aye, sir.”

I returned to my apartment still dark in
the early morning and walked into my bedroom.  There sound asleep was a
compromise of a different sort . . . Tot holding Selena, the two spooning
together with a look of calm resolution . . . of sorts.  It was hard on them
dancing around one another to see me when they could instead of when they
wanted.  I knew it was, but I didn’t know how to deal with the place we were. 
And faced with the news about my health and the possibility that when I
launched, they would not see me for nearly three years or ever, they decided to
move in and mistress me.  They said it worked for Hemmingson, it would work for
us.