April 1, 2035
Earth Departure Minus Four Days
19:43 Universal Time
Johnson Space Center
“These things continue to amaze me. I don’t know why; you’d think that after the hospital bioprinted a new kidney for my sister that I’d be accustomed to just about anything coming out the side of one of them.” Mikhail Prokhorov frowned at the 3D printer.
Hi McPherson grinned through his beard. “It is sorta like something out of Star Trek, isn’t it?”
The two men, together with Taki Nomura and Catherine Clermont, were standing in the workshop section of the habitation module mockup. Nomura had poured a beaker of clear powdered plastic into the blocky, gray device. It had chugged away for several minutes, then chimed. When Nomura slid its lid open, there rested a perfectly formed lens.
Clermont asked, “Will it work?”
“Sure it will,” Nomura replied. She lifted the lens from the printer, held it up to eye as if she were checking its specifications, and then fitted it into the circular housing they had printed a few minutes ago. They then stepped over to the workbench where the body of the telescope they were making rested.
“The objective lens fits here,” Nomura said as she tightened the fitting around the newly attached lens. “Now we’re ready to test our new telescope and it only took us two hours to build.”
“Voilá!” said Clermont happily. “I want to go outside and see the Three Sisters.”
“Not Mars?” asked McPherson.
“Non. We’ll see Mars soon enough. The first constellation I learned as a child was Orion and it is still my favorite. One day we will go there also.”
“Let’s get to Mars first, okay?” said McPherson.
Prokhorov shook his head as if he’d witnessed some sleight-of-hand trick. He said, “It’s no wonder the so-called Chinese economic miracle collapsed almost as quickly as it arose. Who needs megafactories when you can have one of these in your garage?”
“This one is a little more advanced than what most people will have in their garages,” said Nomura.
“I gathered that when we printed the motor for the telescope mount,” said Prokhorov.
“That’s why we’re briefing you on it now,” Taki said. “Bee checked everybody’s dossiers. He wants to make sure none of us has missed anything before we go.”
Still looking unconvinced, Prokhorov asked her, “You can make anything with this device?”
Suppressing a superior grin, Taki answered, “Anything. As long as you have the proper raw materials to put in and what you’re making isn’t too big for the printer to hold.”
Shaking his head again, Prokhorov said, “It’s like magic.”
“No,” McPherson countered, “just technology. Kids are using 3D printers to make everything from model airplanes to electronic circuit boards. And so can we.”
“Magic,” Prokhorov insisted.
Clermont pointed out, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
“Arthur C. Clarke,” said Prokhorov, his brow still furrowed. “I’ve read his work.”
Prokhorov relaxed into a rueful smile. “Perhaps you could use it to build more brains for me.”
The night was dark and clear. The Moon was down and stars glittered across the heavens.
Ted Connover held his wife’s hand as the two strolled along the edge of the lake. From a distance they looked like a pair of college lovers, which they had been—many years earlier. Now Vicki was Johnson Space Center’s head librarian. And he was leaving for Mars in four days.
Vicki murmured, “Five hundred days. And nights.”
“What’d you say?”
Smiling up at her husband’s face, Vicki said, “You’ll be gone five hundred days. And nights.”
He nodded. “Long time.”
“You’ll be busy enough, though.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll have a lot to do, mission assignments and all that. Then you’ll be landing on Mars and exploring.”
He stared at her for a long, silent moment. Vicki was almost his own height, but where Ted was a solidly built welterweight, she was slim and delicate, like a china doll.
“Honey, I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
Arching a brow at her husband, Vicki teased, “Locked away in a tin can for five hundred days and night with four unattached women.”
“You’re not serious!”
“That Clermont woman is French. And Virginia Gonzalez is a real looker—”
“Come on, now. Catherine’s been making eyes at McPherson all through training, and Jinny’s not my type.”
“Tall and tan and young and lovely,” Vicki sang.
“I like ’em short and tiny and altogether beautiful,” Connover insisted.
“For sure?”
“For sure.” Then he realized, “Hey! You’ll be alone for five hundred days, too.”
“Not entirely alone.”
“I’ll tell Thad to keep an eye on you.”
She was laughing openly now. “You’d expect our son to be my chaperone?”
“My watchdog,” Connover said, in a mock growl.
Suddenly her laughter cut off. “I’m going to miss you, Ted.”
He pulled her toward him. “I already miss you, hon.”
They kissed, by the gently lapping water, beneath the silent stars.
“I love you, Vicki.”
“I love you, Ted.”
They pulled apart slightly. Then Connover looked out across the lake. Rising above the blocky buildings of the space center, an unmistakably red point of light gleamed at them.
Connover pointed. “There he is.”
“Mars,” Vicki whispered.
“Mars,” Connover breathed.