As the President and First Lady emerged from the gate, the crowd greeted them with an enormous cheer, which they returned with hands raised, forefingers pointing to the sky in an "Onward!" salute that had come to symbolize the Mars program.
The crowd increased its cheering, and the President and First Lady smiled and beamed, basking in their unearned applause.
CHAPTER 4
OPHIR PLANUM
OCT. 27, 2011 07:10 MLT
TOWNSEND LOOKED OUT the cargo bay window at the dawn of a new day on Mars. The sky showed bright pink in the east, and the rising limb of the Sun cast long shadows on the rapidly brightening but dark-red ground.
The crew had spent a restless evening checking the Beagle for damage after the hard landing, following which the commander had ordered a full night's sleep before the first sortie on the planet's surface.
Now it was time: Soon the first human footsteps would be made on Mars.
Townsend turned to face the crew. They were all outfitted in Marsuits with their helmets off, looking uneasy. Strange, the way people reacted when they knew they'd be participating in a historic moment.
He rapped on a crate to attract their attention. "Everyone ready for a walk outside? Time to make a few footprints where no one has gone before."
No answer. They all shuffled nervously, looking at their feet.
"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, is there some kind of problem?"
He might as well have been talking to statues. Finally, Kevin McGee looked up and met Townsend's eyes. "Why don't I just slip out first, Colonel, to set up the camera and record your step onto the surface? You can be the official first man on Mars, I'll just be the anonymous cameraman there ahead of you. Nobody needs to mention it in the documentation."
Townsend couldn't believe his ears. But he had no time to react before Luke drawled, "I should really test for soil toxicity first, Colonel. We don't know for sure if superoxides on the surface are hazardous to the EVA suits. Those Viking landers indicated pretty exotic chemistry from all that solar ultraviolet zapping down on the regolith, and the products they found didn't exactly meet Environmental Protection Agency standards..."
As the geologist droned on, Dr. Sherman stepped forth, beaming. "How about ladies first?" she asked sweetly.
Major Llewellyn didn't miss a beat. "Ladies first? I guess that means me."
This was ridiculous. Townsend rapped the crate again to shut them up.
"Enough!" he said, in his most commanding tone. "The descent will be in order of rank. I will be first, followed by Major Llewellyn, then Dr. Sherman, Dr. Johnson, and Professor McGee."
"Now just a gosh-darned minute," said Luke. "Since when does Rebecca Sherman outrank me?"
More bruising for a delicate ego. Too bad. Rank had its privileges, and the geologist would have to get that straight. "She's ship's doctor, which makes her essential. You're just a researcher. In my book, that means she outranks you."
Luke started to talk back, but apparently thought better of it and glared instead at Rebecca, who further silenced him with a devastating smile of superiority.
"Okay," Townsend concluded with a knowing smile, "let's go."
The crew put on their transparent helmets and tightened them. They stood in silence for a minute while the humming pumpdown units did their work. Then the outer airlock door opened, revealing a spectacular sunrise over the red desert landscape. The Beagle's ramp lowered and Townsend descended, the rest of the crew following one at a time.
At the bottom of the ramp, Townsend felt a thrill run up his spine as his boot crunched down in its first step on the dry Martian soil. The first human footprint on Mars, and it's mine. Am I supposed to say something historic now? "One giant leap" or something like that? No, I'll wait until we raise the flag. He scanned the horizon. Red sky, red cliffs. Impressive. The wind caused a faint low-pitched whistling sound in his helmet. The sound of Mars, Townsend thought. Not unpleasant. Then he heard metallic sounds, crunching sounds: the rest of the crew coming down the ramp.
McGee moved out and set up his video camera on an autotracking tripod, then ran back to join the rest of the crew flanking him on either side. "Okay, everyone," the professor said, "face the camera and smile."
This would be the photograph for the books, Townsend knew. Not the first man on Mars, but the first team. His team. Townsend felt a surge of pride. He turned and faced the camera, giving it a cocky fighter pilot's thumbs up, knowing as he did so that he had just created an image as immortal as Washington crossing the Delaware. He thought briefly of his wife and kids. Hey, Karen, how'm I doin'? Hey, Mike, Petey, look at your daddy now!
Now for the flag. He indicated a hillock thirty yards off to the right. That would do nicely. Gwen climbed the slope carrying an aluminum cylinder, which she opened to reveal a telescoping flagpole that bore a wire-stretched American flag.
With a glance at the mission commander for permission, Gwen planted the pole, throwing Luke one of the stays while she spiked down the other two herself. Townsend frowned as Dr. Sherman ignored the ceremony preparations, instead stooping to examine a rock. There'll be time enough for that, Doctor. First things first.
Finally the flagpole was ready; Gwen grasped the hoist.
"Crew, attention!" barked Townsend.
All stood, although not really in the military pose of attention. Townsend signaled with a chop of his hand, and Gwen slowly raised the flag. As she did, Townsend switched on a recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner," which played inside everyone's helmets. As the long anthem played out, Townsend and Gwen stood with respect, overcome with the moment, but the attention of the rest of the crew began to wander. Rebecca surreptitiously resumed her examination of the rock in her hand, while Luke started scanning distant cliff faces with binoculars.
We'll be here for a year and a half, Townsend thought, wanting to scold them. There'll be time for all that later.
McGee kept his camcorder focused on the ceremony, but his eyes wandered to the other members of the crew. He muttered into his personal recorder: "The Stars and Stripes now wave over Mars. For our officers, this moment is the climax of the mission. For the scientists, it is an irrelevant delay that must be endured before the real mission can begin. Which of them is right? Let history judge."
When the music ended, Townsend began his prepared speech. "Four hundred years ago, the first pioneer settlers arrived on the eastern shores of North America. Together with those who came later, they turned a wilderness into the greatest nation on Earth, a beacon of hope and a temple of liberty for all mankind. Today we have brought the flag representing everything they fought for, hoped for, and died for to a distant place, so that this planet, when peopled, will also be a land of the free. And so, with both humility and pride, in being the bearers of so great a symbol, carried by our ancestors over the fields of revolution, 1812, Mexico, and the South, carried by our grandfathers through the bloody trenches of World War One, carried by our fathers to the cruel beaches of Normandy and Tarawa, carried by our brothers through the jungles of Vietnam and the deserts of Iraq, we..."
Something was wrong, or missing. The speech was dull, rambling. Townsend paused, letting his eyes flicker over the vast windswept landscape, the distant cliffs and towering mountains. He was finally hit by the spectacular reality of it all. "My God, this is a whole new world we're on now!"