Chapter 23. Big Bird Gone

By James Prudden

Finn and Fred the Red showed up at NASA medical’s headquarters for their physicals the next day and found Reid already there. He was talking to two NASA astronauts who, it turned out, would be accompanying them on the trip. One was a rather statuesque lady named Nadine, who in addition to being a knockout was a theoretical biologist. It turned out Reid had a pocketful of astronaut jokes he had pulled from the part of his brain that contained memories from junior high and was using them to try to impress her.

“So here’s one. What did the astronaut think of the restaurant on the moon?”

“Dunno, what?” said Nadine.

“He thought the food was fine but there wasn't much atmosphere. What is an astronaut's favorite key on a computer keyboard?”

“Dunno, what?” said Nadine.

“The space bar. Okay, last one: An astronaut in space is asked by a reporter, ‘How do you feel?’ ‘How would you feel,’ the astronaut replied, ‘if you were stuck here on top of 20,000 parts, each one supplied by the lowest bidder?!’”

“Ha ha, that’s very funny, Reid. I can see we are going to have a slapsticky time up yonder during the long months we are traveling to Mars.” And with that she turned away, directing an eye-roll to her astronaut companion, Josef Drudel, a short, stout fellow given to picking at a well-proportioned nose. Captain Drudel is a systems analyst, he would discover later.

“Slapsticky?” Reid wondered to himself just as Finn and Fred arrived. In the far corner of the room he glimpsed Mealon Usk motioning histrionically.

They were called in individually to give blood, undergo a few intrusive probings, and have machines of one kind or another attached to embarrassing parts of their bodies. Fred had a long talk about the wisdom of settling into a sleep-acceleration/time-suspension pod while pregnant, and in the end the medical officer could offer no assurances. “We’ve tested SATS hibernation and the pregnancy cycle on lab mice, dogs, even a chimp, and there doesn’t seem to be a problem,” the doctor said, “but it’s a big leap from those animals to humans, so … good luck.” He smiled hopefully.

That strand of positivity was good enough for Fred.

Just three days later, the flight crew received word that the launch date had been moved up. The weather patterns that had exacerbated with global warming had indicated a severe supercell tornado would be ripping through the NASA campus in three days, so the decision was made to launch in two. That day the Usk-designed spacecraft was outfitted with all the equipment, food, oxygen, water supplies, and 256 PAL 9000s, silver orbs that when unfurled would scan the surface of Mars with greater precision than ever before.

Upon hearing that the launch date was set, Finn, Fred and Reid instantly developed the gastric tension of the nearly airborne. Tomorrow, with any luck, they would be off into the firmament, with Fred carrying the first Martian in her belly.

The sky though has its surprises.

Tomorrow passed and became today, and soon the launch crew all found themselves together in a shuttle bus wheeling towards the spacecraft, a huge beast glowing white in the pre-dawn glare of floodlights. They were accompanied by a launch team who escorted them up the elevator to the top of the second stage of the solid fuel rocket, where they were squeezed into a pod door and strapped down into lush leather seats. Nice and tight.

Everyone but Mealon Usk, who surprisingly wasn’t there. “Yep, called in sick. He’s going to miss the launch,” said one of the launch team members. “Since his presence wasn’t mission-critical, it’s okay though,” he added.

“Not a problem,” affirmed Nadine, while Capt. Drudel thoughtfully tugged his proboscis.

“Well, more room for us then,” Reid offered, eyeing Nadine with interest. “By the way, I call the SATS pod on the right.”

“I want the third one down, the blue one,” said Fred, “And Finn, you take the fourth.”

“Fine with me,” said Finn. He stared out the little window above the instrument panel and assessed the dark gray sky and the snapping American flag down by the base. “Glad we’re launching today and not tomorrow,” he said to no one in particular. “It looks pretty funky out there.”

The hours-long launch sequence dragged inexorably on. Systems were checked, equipment was given a final run-through, fuel temperature was analyzed. All was good to go. “How’s the weather,” asked the launch captain. “Brisk wind, staying at about 25 to 35 mph,” the junior meteorologist reported. “Should remain at that level for another 4 hours, then heavy rain and hurricane-force winds.”

All the more reason to get this bird out of here, thought the launch captain. “Good. Let’s start final sequence at T-minus 5 minutes.”

There’s a strange mix of boredom and incredible excitement for the astronauts as they wait in their lush seats. The hours tick by, but when the final sequence countdown commences, all boredom vanishes.

And then seemingly very quickly, the sequence is just seconds away from blastoff.

“T minus 5, 4, 3, 2, and blastoff of the Mars Multispectral Traveler,” proclaimed Mission Control’s announcer, as the huge engine thundered a second or two and then shuddered heavenward, ice crystals from the cooling units falling off the sides. The big bird was up, clearing the launch tower and pushing away into the gray windy day.

Analysis later would detect an anomaly had occurred just as the first stage rocket engine fell away, a fierce torrent of wind that unsteadied the decoupling and caused the larger first-stage rocket to crash into the second stage, causing an electrochemical combustion that in one grim second overtook the entire spacecraft.

The fire-flower of explosion that lit up the sky included 256 mini starbursts from the PAL 9000s. Someone somewhere might have thought the light-play was beautiful, but the people at NASA mission control, with Mealon Usk among them, watched with mouths agape and no beauty reflected in their eyes.

At that very moment Stacy was stretching for a difficult frontcourt shot with her backhand, which she managed to get, and then flicked the ball high for a nice lob to the back right corner. She had put in a little head fake when she hit, giving her opponent the impression she was going to hit a little trickle boast, so he had to correct himself before getting to the backcourt to get the lob. As a result, his shot was weak and ended up well away from the wall, whereupon Stacy hit a nice low kill. Point to Stacy…

For a woman solidly gripped by the tendrils of middle age, Stacy was surprisingly good at squash. Though not as fast as she once was, her alcoholic inattention to fitness had been overcome by a renewed sense of self, and she had managed to work back into shape with all the fervor of the newly converted. She learned a slightly more treacherous game of squash, employing trickery like head fakes and last second flicks of the wrist in order to increase the amount of running her opponents had to undergo. “Make them run twice for the same ball!” – that was her squash motto.

Stacy’s skills were respected, and she found herself playing on the club’s A women’s ladder, and even helped the overburdened pro teach some of the kids when she had the time. But knowing that Finn was going up in space today, she wanted to escape the nervousness she was feeling, and so didn’t dare watch the tv in the clubhouse or ask anyone about it. She was having fun in her escape, and she was winning. It felt good to be a winner again.

She had told Cav to come directly to her club after his flight and meet down by the squash courts. But when Cav arrived at the club, she knew from his face, which she saw through the court’s glass wall, before he could even say a word, what had happened. She dropped her racket….

Later, NASA research isolated the mechanical problem and a fix was found, and the biological remains of the flight crew eventually were recovered. All except Finn, whose body they couldn’t find. Atomized, they guessed. But it was a puzzle…