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Mars Frontier THE MARS FRONTIER Vol. 12 Voyage of Discovery Copyright © 2009 Robert H. Stockman All rights reserved Contents 1. Ball Game 2 2. Stamford 20 3. Washington 40 4. Houston 51 5. Beijing 73 6. Paris 81 7. Kourou 94 8. Outbreak 105 9. Tie Your Camel 126 10. Conflagration 142 11. Arrival 157 12. Welcomes 173 13. Looking to the Future 193 14. The Prize 208 15. Dawes 219 16. Trials 230 17. Crises 248 18. Uzboi 267 19. Dedication 287 20. Equinox 296 1 1. Ball Game early Jan. 2059 “La vostra partecipazione a Progetto del Nuovo Mondo porterà grandi benefici a tutta l'umanità. Grazzi.” Will Elliott repeated the last sentence of the Italian version of his “stump speech” slowly, carefully, deliberately. Reading the speech at about one third his usual speed, his accent really wasn’t bad. Computerized editing would take his ploddings, squeeze out the extra time, add rhythms and intonations from his English version, and produce something that made him sound almost like a native speaker. Such was the power of mid twenty-first century computer technology and the cultural expectations that drove it. He paused to look at the 3-d screen on the wall near his desk. It was set on “porthole” mode; he could see Earth in the middle, about a third the diameter of the moon as it appeared from Earth. They were still a million kilometers out, a day from aerocapture into an elliptical orbit around the home world. The image looked real; the half that was illumined by the sun was even so bright that it made his eyes water slightly. He wasn’t in the mood to tape the German version of his speech. It all felt slightly dishonest to him; never mind it was now standard procedure. As someone had recently quipped, even the President of the United States now had to look like he could make speeches in perfect French, and the President of France reciprocated with speeches in excellent English, usually without computer assistance. The Commissioner of Mars, representing most of the cultures of the world, could do no less. 2 But instead he glanced around his small room that had been the Commissioner’s bedroom and office for the last 184 days. It wasn’t much to look at; it was three meters deep and four wide. On the voyage home he’d have even less space because the vehicle would have five times as many passengers. It had a bed over the desk, which had drawers for his clothes as well as for office items; in addition to his chair, the room had a folding chair for a guest. A tiny closet held his six changes of clothes. That was it. The videophone beeped, indicating an incoming call from Earth. Now that they had passed the million kilometer mark, round trip communications had dropped to six seconds, allowing easy, spontaneous calls. He activated the videophone and could see that Louisa Turner, the Mars Commission’s Director of Media Relations, was calling. She was perfectly quaffed, as always, looking much younger than her 70 years. “Hi Louisa,” he began. “Hi Will. Boy, the time delay is almost something one can ignore. But I had better continue to talk in big blocks, so we don’t interrupt each other. We’ve added three more sentences to your standard speech based on your comments yesterday. Don’t worry if you’ve taped one or more language versions; you can tape the addition and we’ll edit it in. Most of the time the press will only select a few sound bites anyway; you’ll deliver your speech in English and they’ll play your translation of the pieces they want. “The interview with Ted Chappel has been delayed; he’ll be calling you at 6 tonight. This is a major late-night news analysis and interview program with about thirty million viewers in the U.S. and Canada, with another million in South Africa over a cable station. It’ll be broadcast the night after you land at Kennedy. I sent him the suggested questions and he was touchy about them, but a friend of mine who arranged for an 3 interview with a political candidate told me he’ll end up using a lot of the questions anyway. A lot of reporters, even good ones, are lazy. It makes my job easier. “We have three requests for interviews with Marshall. I’ve explained that you don’t want him interviewed, but that hasn’t worked; the media smells a big human interest story. We’re talking about a handsome, articulate 19 year old who was the first child born on Mars, especially when you consider that practically every sleezy tabloid on Earth ran a story about his birth that implied he was genetically deformed or the offspring of an alien. Marshall’s stuck; he has name recognition. So you need to tell me how we’ll manage that. “As for diplomatic meetings, it appears the White House invitation will fall in the middle of your vacation in Stamford and there’s nothing we can do about it. The President’s schedule is less flexible than yours. “Over to you now.” Will had to smile at her “over.” “Thanks, Louisa, but with a six second round trip, let’s not use ‘over’! I’ll tape the additional sentences. I completed the French and Italian versions. Okay with the Ted Chappell interview and the meeting with the President. But I really want to protect Marshall as much as possible. He has no idea what to expect. I’m willing to have him in some interviews with me, but not separately. Maybe that will work. I know MIT has agreed to protect him from the media as much as possible, and I hope that will be good enough. “Do I have to tape these silly multilingual versions of my speech? This entire effort has the feel of a political campaign. Can you be sure to label the French, Italian, German, and Spanish versions as ‘computer edited’ or something? It just feels wrong. 4 I’ve been watching foreign leaders speak in clear English for several years and never noticed that it wasn’t spontaneous. Back to you.” He waited a few seconds, then she replied with a laugh. “Will, you and a few old people and everyone under age 5 think the English is real! Everyone else on Earth knows it isn’t. There’s no need to tell people. We have to collect together all these cultural differences between the worlds and publicize them; they’re great human interest material. “As for this sounding like a political campaign, that’s how publicity trips are arranged. The coordinator of your trip was an assistant director of the Democratic Presidential campaign some time ago; a campaign they won. Everyone has a standard speech that they use and reuse, a speech that reiterates the basic points they want to make. Your standard speech does exactly that: Mars is humanity’s future, Mars will take us to the stars, Mars is a family-friendly, moral and just place with no poverty or war, Mars has vast natural resources, Mars will teach us how to live together as a species, Mars will usher in a new civilization, every nation must send a proportional number of colonists; it’s a great, upbeat, optimistic message, and like a typical political speech it has elements of truth in it. Yes, it practically makes you sound like you’re running for President of Earth, but don’t worry, they won’t create the position for you, and meanwhile Mars will end up with billions of dollars of more support long term. And that’s the point. You’re meeting at least twelve heads of state, several hundred government officials, representatives of twenty space agencies, you’re attending a special Mars Exploration Society conference, you’re convening the Mars Landowners Assembly in Houston, you’re hosting a Mars Development Conference in Berlin. all to sell Mars. 5 “As for Marshall appearing in interviews with you, that has a lot of potential. I’ll work with it. It’s a reasonable compromise and will give him some experience if the public interest continues after you leave. “That’s all I had for you. Anything else for me?” “No. Thanks, Louisa. You’re a million.” “Thanks Will. I’m looking forward to meeting you for the first time in about forty-eight hours. Bye.” “Bye.” Will closed the circuit and paused to reflect about how money was an unfortunate necessity for everything. At least the optimistic, almost utopian speech reflected his own vision of Mars’s future; it was the reason he could sell the place. Marshall popped into the doorway suddenly after jogging down the hallway. “Dad, the last zero-gee volleyball game of the voyage starts in ten minutes. The gym closes at 4 p.m. so that it can be stowed for aerocapture.” “Oh?” Will glanced at his chronometer; it was 1:49 p.m. “Okay, I’m on my way. I can’t pass up that opportunity.” He rose from his chair, closed the door, and quickly changed into gym shorts and a t-shirt, put on sneakers with velcro soles, then took the elevator up to the hub of the rotating spacecraft. The elevator moved slowly so that he could adjust to the waning gravity. When the door opened he was virtually weightless. He leaped along the wall to the docking module, where he could enter the zero-gravity gym.
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