May 20, 2035
Earth Departure Plus 36 Days
19:30 Universal Time
The White House
Normally, Sarah Fleming seemed as cool as the proverbial cucumber. But at this moment, the red-haired chief of the president’s staff looked concerned, even alarmed.
“Mr. President, there’s been an accident at the International Moon Base. We don’t have many of the details yet, but at least two people have been killed.”
President Harper sagged back in his desk chair. “What happened?”
“We’re not certain. But the news media claim there was a fire in the main habitat, fed by an oxygen leak.”
“My God!”
Harper had just spent a testy half-hour with the Peruvian ambassador, wrangling over that country’s drug problems and its impact on mining rare earth metals in the Cordillera Blanca Mountains there. The ambassador wanted the U.S. to give drone aircraft to the Peruvian national police.
One of the successes of Harper’s first term had been negotiating a favorable agreement with Peru for American companies to mine ores containing erbium, lanthium and cerium. These rare earth elements were vital ingredients for the electronics industry and China had a monopoly on the world’s supply—until Harper’s deal with Peru.
Now a drug cartel was waging an undeclared war on the American mining operations, probably bankrolled by China. Harper was willing to send drones to Peru, but only under operational control by the American military. The ambassador wanted the drones, but not the Americans.
Harper had been elected president on his promise to reverse two decades of American decline in international power and prestige. His re-election in 2032 was based in part on his space program: support for the International Moon base and—more importantly since the Chinese one-upped the west with their Mars Sample Return Mission—the American-led Mars mission.
And now two killed at the Moon Base. Maybe more.
Sarah Fleming sat tensely in one of the commodious armchairs in front of his desk, unconsciously smoothing her skirt over her knees. He saw that she had a comm bud in her ear.
Glaring at his chief of staff, the president demanded, “How come the goddamned news media knows more about this than we do?”
“The goddamned news media has two reporters at the base, and neither one of them is constrained to know the facts before they shoot their mouths off,” Sarah Fleming retorted.
“Two killed,” the president muttered.
“We’ve got calls in to Saxby, at NASA, and the commander of Moon Base. I think it would be a good move for you to personally call the Russians, Europeans and Japanese.”
“Do we know if Americans were killed?”
“Not yet. This just happened fifteen-twenty minutes ago.” She reached up to touch the comm bud in her right ear. “I’m calling Saxby’s deputy administrator, she’s the one in charge of the Moon Base operation.”
President Harper wanted to jump up from his chair and pace the Oval Office. Instead, he sat gripping the armrests of his chair, staring at his chief of staff. Sarah Fleming was exceptionally intelligent and very attractive, a potent combination. Most men found her totally intimidating, but the president had known her for too long to be cowed. They had been colleagues and friends since their first terms in Congress together. She had directed the campaign that got him elected president. When he was re-elected, and most of his cabinet and staff had put in their pro forma resignations, the one Harper did not consider even for a moment was Sarah Fleming’s.
One hand on the comm bud, she raised a finger of her other hand. “One of those killed was an American. The other was Belgian.” She listened some more, then reported, “There was no fire: that’s just a news media fabrication. The two killed were working on excavating ice from a newly discovered vein at the bottom of Shackleton Crater when one of the drills failed.” Uncharacteristically, Fleming winced. “It shattered and the debris shredded their suits. Explosive decompression. They were dead in seconds.”
“Aw, shit,” the president said fervently.
“Three others injured,” Fleming went on, “but none severely.”
She went on with other details, but Harper was already running through the possible scenarios that might play out in Congress and the news media. Donaldson and his ilk will take up their old yell that space is too dangerous to risk human lives, he thought. They’ll say that my programs for mining on the Moon and sending people to Mars are too risky. And too expensive.
How can I counter that? he asked himself. Tell the people that the dangers and the risks are worth the rewards? That no frontier was ever settled without fallen heroes? Yeah, try that line when the media will be parading the weeping widows.
“Sarah,” he commanded, snapping her attention away from the voice buzzing in her ear. “Get me the names of the people killed and injured. And their bios. I’m going to have to make a statement, probably within the hour. Write one up for me. Fallen heroes. You know the line.”
She nodded and rose slowly to her feet.
Harper tapped his intercom key. “What’s next?” he asked his appointments secretary.
“The delegation of Four-H Clubs,” came his secretary’s reedy voice. “They’re been waiting for ten minutes.”
“Give ’em my apologies and send them in. And get me the chairs of the space committees, Senate and House. Squeeze them into the schedule for later this afternoon.”
On the screen, it looked as if Treadway were standing in the galley of the Arrow.
“Steven Treadway,” he said into the camera, “reporting virtually from the Arrow spacecraft as it carries its crew toward Mars.”
Arrow was already so far from Earth that it took a noticeable several seconds for communications transmissions to cover the distance between the ship and Earth. So this interview was not quite live. Editors had cut out the lags between questions and responses, so that to the TV audience it all appeared as if Treadway were actually aboard the spacecraft, conversing with Ted Connover.
“Today the Mars crew learned about the tragic accident at the International Moon Base,” Treadway went on, “in which two lunar technicians were killed—including an American. The crew took the news hard; two on the team here had been to the lunar base during their earlier careers and know several of the people currently living on the Moon, although neither of those killed were personal friends of any of the Arrow’s crew. Still, news of the accident struck like a hammer blow here aboard the Arrow.”
Treadway turned to face Connover, who appeared to be standing immediately in front of him in the confines of the ship. In reality, an unbeknownst to the viewers, Treadway was standing in a replica of the Arrow constructed in the basement of the New York City studio. VR mesh on his head, he was busily talking to an empty spot that roughly corresponded to one directly in front of where Connover was looking onboard the real Arrow.
Connover, his face deadly serious, said, “Steve, you trained with us. You know the risks involved in space flight as well as any of us. It’s a dangerous business, but an important one. Those guys knew the risks and I’m sure they wouldn’t want their deaths to jeopardize the work we’re doing, any more than I’d want an accident or tragedy aboard our ship to imperil that next flight, that next mission. What they did is important. We need to figure out what went wrong, fix it, and make certain that that particular event never happens again. We need to keep going forward.”
Treadway started to ask a question, but Connover wasn’t finished.
“Abraham Lincoln said it in his Gettysburg Address,” the astronaut continued, “’It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.’ That’s our job. That’s our mission.”
Treadway shook his head slightly. “No one could have said it better,” he said, softly. Turning back to face the camera squarely, he finished, “That was the Arrow’s pilot, Ted Connover. I’m Steven Treadway, wishing the men and women of the Arrow well from somewhere in space between the orbit of Earth and the planet Mars.”