Luke and Rebecca looked at each other in alarm. They barely had time to scramble to their chairs before Townsend hit the retros.
Kevin McGee sat in front of the camera in the Beagle's galley with as many butterflies in his stomach as he'd ever experienced at any college tenure hearing. He had written his speech, rewritten it, practiced it a thousand times, until Gwen just told him to be himself.
The transmission had to be timed perfectly, so it would arrive at Earth just before the Retriever began its descent. He had learned not to leave well enough alone with politics on Earth. Despite the Administration's victory in the election, there was still a great deal of public hysteria over the bogus back-contamination issue. Wexler had filled him in on the deal the Administration had struck to mollify that sentiment, and the "contingency plans" that had accordingly been put in place—plans that could easily cost the lives of the returning crew. The only assistance the pair on Mars could give their former crewmates now was that delivered by the power of their words. It might not be enough, but they had to try. Townsend, Rebecca, and Luke were going to need all the help they could get.
Gwen set the recorder running before he even gave her a signal, and McGee had no choice but to start. "Hello, I'm astronaut Kevin McGee and this is my wife, flight engineer Major Guenevere McGee. I'm sure by now our faces are familiar to many of you."
Gwen sat next to him, holding the ten-month-old child in her lap. "And this is our baby daughter. Say hello to the people, Virginia." She waved one of the little girl's arms.
McGee cleared his throat, decided that sounded too stuffy, and continued. "As our crewmates approach Earth, we're making this broadcast to let all of you know why we have stayed behind. We understand some people have said that we've been abandoned here so the President can use us as an excuse to request funding for more Mars missions. Those stories are entirely false. In fact, the President both begged and ordered us to return to Earth with the rest of the crew, and we refused. Tonight, we're going to tell you why."
He looked at Gwen, then back at the camera eye. "I'm a historian, and I know that a society cannot have progress, or growth, or hope, unless there is an open frontier. That's what made America in its frontier days such a powerful engine of progress for all of humanity. It was a place where people could write their own rules, where stupid old habits could be thrown away, and newer and better ways could be tried. Before the discovery of America, the old world was like a play that had already been written, and all the leading roles assigned.
"But the American frontier created a stage where the actors could make up their own parts and their own script. We became the most creative nation in history, because we could see the infinite potential of the human mind, if only it's given a chance.
"Now, though, we're slowing down. We have bureaucratic regulations for everything. It's become much harder to find a place where we can try new things, so fewer new things get tried. In most fields that seem to involve risk, our technological progress is grinding to a halt. We don't build new cities anymore, and so we've begun to think of ourselves not as builders of our country, but as mere inhabitants.
"Our frontier has been gone too long, and now our nation is losing the spark. We can't let that happen. Here on Mars, we have a chance to open a new frontier that can breathe life back into our civilization. That's why I have to stay here, to make sure we don't lose this chance for renewal."
He turned to his wife, and the baby gave him a gushing smile in return. "Look, I'm a scholar, not a hero. What gave me the strength to put myself on the line for these ideas is the fact that I'm head over heels in love with the bravest and finest woman ever born—and she's staying."
Gwen blushed a deep red.
"It was Gwen who first saw the truth of why we can't leave Mars behind. I'll let her tell you in her own words why."
She handed little Virginia over to McGee, who bounced the baby on his knee. She seemed nervous as she started speaking. "Before I came to Mars, I thought this place would be a dead world, a big barren rock, like the Moon. And while the only living things we've found were little one-celled plants, the place didn't seem dead to me. Instead it seemed more like a place that was waiting, waiting for something.
"Kevin and I went out together on the first rover trip, and we drove all over the place and saw the most amazing things. We saw dry lakes and riverbeds, deep canyons, and towering mountains, and for a while it was hard for me to tell what it all meant. But on our second day out in the rover, we watched the Sun come up, the most beautiful sunrise you ever saw. The land lit up, and I knew that Mars wasn't just a rock. It's a world, a world that deserves to be filled with people and with life, with the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea. Why else would God have made such a wondrous place, if not to be a new home for all his creatures?"
The Retriever's course change did not go unnoticed by the many radar stations of NASA's Deep Space Tracking Network or the Near Earth Tracking Network. Reports from these systems were rapidly relayed to Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center.
Within three minutes of Townsend's action, Alicia Castillo passed Phil Mason a sheet of paper. For a long five seconds, the flight director could only stare at the message in disbelief. Mastering himself, Mason picked up his microphone. "Retriever, this is Houston. Radar tracking has you way off course. You are coming in too steep. You could burn up. You are going to miss the quarantine zone."
After a few seconds of anxious silence, Townsend's voice came through crackly static. "No time for that. Out of air."
The crazy flyboy was going to try to evade quarantine! "No! Negative. You can't do that. Colonel Townsend, respond."
"What do you want us to do?" the radio voice responded. "Hold our breath?"
The Chief of Operations gripped the microphone. "You don't understand, Colonel. The President's deal with the opposition calls for shooting you down if you are off-target for quarantine."
This time, despite all the static, Townsend's voice came through loud and clear. "Let them try. We're coming in. Retriever out."
Mason slammed his fist down on the control console. "Dammit!" He stood staring at the huge map of the Earth displayed on the opposite wall. Across the map a light moved, showing the present and projected course of the Retriever.
All eyes in Mission Control were on the flight director. Everyone knew what he knew. Alicia was at his side. "What are you going to do?" she asked softly.
Mason swallowed the lump in his throat. "What I have to." As if in pain, Mason reluctantly picked up his phone. "Get me the White House."
The silence in Mission Control was like death.
Strapped in their chairs, the three returning Martian explorers endured significant g loads as the Retriever shook with the vibration of reentry. Rebecca wore a pair of headphones and turned dials.
"Colonel!" she shouted above the din, "I'm picking up a series of high-frequency radio bursts coming from the continental United States."
Townsend's gaze did not shift from his dismal control readouts. "Play it!" he yelled.
Rebecca threw a switch and a series of very high-pitched pings erupted from the loudspeaker in staccato repetition.
The pilot could not believe his ears. "That's BMDO targeting radar! The bastards are painting us."
Luke's depression instantly turned to panic. "What are you going to do?"