Звезда Пандоры

“I take this step for all of humanity, so that we may walk together as one people along the road to the stars.”

Wilson winced at the words. Lewis sounded incredibly sincere. Then someone sniggered, actually sniggered out loud; he could hear it quite plainly over the general communications band. Mission Control would go ballistic over that.

Then he forgot it all as Lewis took his step onto the surface, his foot sinking slightly into the red sand of Mars to make a firm imprint.

“We did it,” Wilson whispered to himself. “We did it, we’re here.” Another outbreak of cheering went around the cabin. Congratulatory calls flooded down from Ulysses . Jane Orchiston was already clambering into the airlock. Wilson didn’t even begrudge her that; political correctness wouldn’t allow it any other way. And NASA was ever mindful of pleasing as many people as possible.

Commander Lewis was busy taking a high-resolution photo of his historic footprint. A requirement that had been in the NASA manual for the last eighty-one years, ever since Apollo 11 got back home to find that embarrassing omission.

Lieutenant Commander Orchiston was going down the ladder—a lot faster than Commander Lewis. Wilson stepped into the airlock. He couldn’t even remember the time the little chamber took to cycle; it never existed in his personal awareness. Then it was him backing out onto the ladder. Him checking his feet were secure on the rungs before placing all his—reduced—weight on them. Him hanging poised on the bottom rung. “I wish you could see this, Dad.” He put his foot down, and he was standing on Mars.

Wilson moved away from the ladder, cautious in the low gravity. Heart pounding away in his ears. Breathing loud in the helmet. Hiss of helmet air fans ever-present. Ghostly suit graphic symbols flickered annoyingly across his full field of vision. Other people talked directly into his ears. He stopped and turned full circle. Mars! Dirty rocks littering the ground. Sharp horizon. Small glaring sun. He searched around until he found the star that was Earth. Brought up a hand and waved solemnly at it.

“Want to give me a hand with this?” Commander Lewis asked. He was holding the flagpole, stars and stripes still furled tightly around the top.

“Yes, sir.”

Jeff Silverman, the geophysicist, was already on the ladder. Wilson walked over to help the Commander with the flagpole. He gave the Eagle II a critical assessment glance on his way. There were some scorch marks along the fuselage, trailing away from the wing roots, very faint, though. Other than that: nothing. It was in good shape.

The Commander was attempting to open out the little tripod on the base of the flagpole. His heavy gloved hands making the operation difficult. Wilson put out his own hand to steady the pole.

“Yo, dudes, how’s it hanging? You need any help there?” The question was followed by a snigger, the same one he’d heard earlier.

Wilson knew the voice of everybody on the mission. Spend that long together with thirty-eight people in such a confined space as the Ulysses and vocal recognition became perfect. Whoever spoke wasn’t on the crew. Yet somehow he knew it was real-time, not some pirate hack from Earth.

Commander Lewis had frozen, the flagpole tripod still not fully deployed. “Who said that?”

“That’d be me, my man. Nigel Sheldon, at your service. Specially if you need to get home in like a hurry.” That snigger again. Then someone else saying: “Oh, man, don’t do that, you’re going to so piss them off.”

“Who is this?” Lewis demanded.

Wilson was already moving, glide walking as fast as was safe in the low gravity, making for the rear of the Eagle II. He knew they were close, and he could see everything on this side of the spaceplane. As soon as he was past the bell-shaped rocket nozzles he forced himself to a halt. Someone else was standing there, arm held high in an almost apologetic wave. Someone in what looked like a homemade space suit. Which was an insane interpretation, but it was definitely a pressure garment of some type, possibly modified from deep-sea gear. The outer fabric was made up from flat ridges of dull brown rubber, in pronounced contrast to Wilson’s snow-white ten-million-dollar Martian Environment Excursion suit. The helmet was the nineteen fifties classic goldfish bowl, a clear glass bubble showing the head of a young man with a scraggly beard and long oily blond hair tied back into a pigtail. No radiation protection, Wilson thought inanely. There was no backpack either, no portable life-support module. Instead, a bundle of pressure hoses snaked away from the youth’s waist to a…

“Son of a bitch,” Wilson grunted.