NASA JSC, HOUSTON
OCT 29, 2012 22:30 CST
Tex Logan stared at the Mission Control records, examining the files over and over.
Logically, the data made no sense. There had been too many critical failures to explain away as "accidents." There had to be a saboteur, someone who continued to act long after Craig Holloway had been booted out of the picture. The old NASA veteran knew that some of the crew members suspected a wrecker in their midst, but that couldn't be true, since every single person on Mars had been targeted in apparent acts of sabotage. And even if that were not the case, a saboteur among the crew was just impossible. Tex knew them personally, every one. They all had rough edges, it was true. But they were all great people, real troopers. None of them could possibly betray the team.
And now there was this new mystery, the burnt-out computer card in the Retriever. Mission Control logs said the card had been destroyed months ago, on the same night the propellant had been dumped. But Tex was sure he'd checked the ERV flight control CPU the following morning, and the health-monitoring system had shown green.
After the fuel loss, Colonel Townsend had deactivated the reportage system for the ERV flight systems health-monitoring unit, since that data was no longer of any interest. Here at JSC, Tex had had no opportunity to check it for the past nine months. But no matter what anyone said about his memory, the old NASA veteran was sure of it. On the morning of January 29, that subsystem had read green. But now, according to the data logs, it had shown red.
Something very fishy was going on around here.
It was 10:30 P.M., and given the late hour, the only other leading member of Mission Control still present was Rollins. The others had gone home or to the bars; to their families, their hobbies, their so-called lives. Tex and Rollins had been the butt of considerable ribbing about their workaholism. According to the others, they could be found at Mission Control at all hours, because they had no "lives." Well, Tex had a life, and it was Mission Control.
He had joined at the age of twenty-one in December 1968, one week before the Apollo 8 launch. He'd been here when that crew first rounded the Moon at Christmas and read Genesis aloud to a marveling world. He'd been here the following July and cheered madly with the rest when Armstrong and Aldrin had first walked on the Moon. He'd been part of the team that helped save Apollo 13. He'd been there for Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz, and the first launch of the shuttle Columbia in 1981. He was at Mission Control when Sally Ride flew in 1983; he'd been there to cry out in agony when Challenger exploded in 1986. He'd been there when Hubble was launched, and when it was fixed—all three times. He'd worked the Mir missions and the Space Station missions, and the launch of the Retriever, the backup ERV, and the Beagle.
And he would be there when the Beagle's crew returned, dammit! Because they would. He would see to it. No matter what it took.
Al Rollins was a much younger man, who had been posted at Mission Control for only a decade. But despite his youth, Rollins was old-school too. He would have fit in during Apollo.
Let the rest of the bunch enjoy their so-called lives. Al Rollins and Tex Logan had more than lives: They had a mission.
He called Rollins over. "Al, somebody has been screwing with this computer."
"Why do you say that?" Rollins liked the old guy, loved his colorful stories of the early NASA. In a way, Tex Logan was his model; but Tex's proclivity for conspiracy theories was legendary.
"Look. Remember the morning after the riot here? When the news came in that the ERV propellant had been dumped, I checked through all its flight systems. I remember it clearly—the primary flight CPU indicator read green."
Rollins felt a surge of pity. Tex obviously felt guilty for having missed the indicator. Well, no one else had caught it either. "Are you sure? It could easily have been missed in the confusion—"
"It wasn't missed, because it wasn't there. I know what I saw. Both the JSC and ERV computer logs are lying." Tex stared at his partner with certainty.
The younger man decided to take the matter seriously. "Well, then, unless you're willing to believe that there are saboteurs both at Mission Control and on Mars, there's only one answer. Our system has been hacked."
"Hacked?"
"Broken into from the outside by computer wizards who are sending mission-wrecking commands through our system."
Tex didn't know much about computers, having been born too soon. But he had heard about such things. He had only one question. "What can we do about it?"
"We need to be very careful about what we uplink to Mars. Everything containing an executable code should be sent to the simulator first. And I can try setting some traps, to see who modems into the system at key moments."
"Traps, huh?" Tex liked the idea. "In that case, we better keep it a secret. Don't even tell Phil. You know how he is about stuff like this. He'd never believe it."
Rollins nodded. It was clear that Chief of Operations Mason viewed Tex Logan as eccentric and semi-senile, especially when he talked conspiracy.
"And besides," Tex said, "the fewer people who know about the traps, the better the odds are that word won't leak out. I want to catch that bastard."
CHAPTER 22
OPHIR PLANUM
OCT. 30, 2012 06:05 MLT
THE CREW AWOKE while it was still dark and began preparations for the sortie that would decide their fate. By dawn, it was time for the rover to depart. As the Sun's edge peeked above the horizon, bathing the entire landscape in an eerie red glow, Townsend and Gwen put the vehicle through its final checkout. Moving quickly, they spoke to each other only in clipped, businesslike phrases.
In the lower deck of the Hab, McGee worked with Rebecca to assemble a formidable array of mountaineering equipment into two large backpacks. Finally, he shouldered one of the packs, and Rebecca handed him the other for the colonel. "So it looks like you're finally going to get to do some mountaineering on Mars, Kevin."
Slightly embarrassed by the intimacy of her tone, he answered, "Maybe a bit more than I bargained for. The Valles Marineris is three miles deep. We'll have to rappel down in stages, and hope we can leave enough ropes in place to enable a climb out."
The doctor stepped closer to him. "Kevin, I..."
Her eyes were luminous, her gaze beautiful. McGee felt choked for words. "Yes?" was all he could muster.
But the moment was interrupted by the crackle of Townsend's Marsuit radio. "Hey, what's taking so long? We've got to get going."
Rebecca smiled and put one hand behind McGee's neck. "Kevin, be careful," she said, and kissed him softly on the lips.
McGee was awed.
Her big brown eyes searched his. There was affection in those eyes. Warmth. "Besides, if you were to kill yourself..." She paused, leaving McGee speechless.
Then she grinned broadly. "I don't know what I'd do for a game of Scrabble around here."
Her sudden flippancy enabled him to talk. "Don't worry. We'll be back home as soon as—"
Rebecca kissed him again, a long kiss, but as soft as the first. It was the kind of kiss a man remembers for decades—a statement, a farewell kiss that is almost a vow, a woman's final approval of a man's worth, a warrior's sendoff.
Her eyes searched his once more. "Take care." Then, stepping back into the lock that led to the upper deck of the Beagle, she closed it softly behind her, giving McGee a parting smile in the process.
It took him a moment to swallow the lump in his throat; then he snapped down his helmet, switched on the Marsuit respirator system, activated the pumpdown, and opened the airlock outer door. As the door opened, his eyes were greeted by the red-lit landscape of a spectacular Martian dawn.