Helen smiles, which is good because in his relief he has made a woman-joke and while Helen’s reputation is of being a person who does not have problems with man-woman things, it’s better not to call attention to this. And he wasn’t thinking of someone like Helen when he said woman; he was thinking of someone like his wife.
“It will be a little easier for you,” she says, “with your sons in the States. I mean, before we start Eidolon. Less of a time difference for communications. And they won’t have to travel as far if they can come to Utah.”
“Yes.” Sergei would have been happiest if Alexander and Talia took his children to someplace like Norway, or even Canada, but the advantage to America is that all the evils of the country are known, and his boys will be living in a town in New Jersey that is number three of most safe America towns.
He appreciates the vote of confidence that his divorce will make no difference to his candidacy for the mission. He does not think it will, but until he is strapped into a seat on top of a rocket that has launched for Mars, he cannot be sure he is going to Mars.
“So, I will inform Prime tomorrow. I have not lied,” he says. “I thought it would come up in psychological examination. But for me, so far, that has all been tests with hypothetical situation.”
“Yes,” Yoshi says. “For me as well. I assume there is more to come.”
“Seventeen months of it,” Helen says, with a small smile.
It is good, it is over, they are going to be able to talk of other things.
“Okay,” Sergei says. “Crew meeting.” He makes a joke show of looking around at all the empty tables and underneath their own, taps one end of a chopstick as if testing for a microphone. “Yes. Okay. We are alone. So. Do you think we’re going to Mars?”
The astronauts laugh.
“Oh, well, of course we are,” Helen says.
This is a good tone to take. “Hey, why not? Maybe we won’t, but let’s say we will.” Helen can say this because she has the least to lose of any of them. She is retired from NASA’s astronaut corps, and she’s American, so it is natural for her to be optimistic. Sergei is forty-five and Yoshi is thirty-seven. The space station was nearing the end of its already extended life, and for guys like them it was all about getting tagged for a lunar mission now that the moon is back in play. A single failure in any number of MarsNOW scenarios could mean that all Eidolon will signify is that the three of them are capable of spending seventeen months together in a tin can playing virtual reality games.
Or they could be the first crew to go to Mars, so there is that little thing. And both he and Yoshi are men from countries whose space agencies are facing the same difficulties and have ties to Prime that they wish to tighten. If the MarsNOW mission gets scrubbed, they will still be the astronauts Prime most knows and trusts, the ones most familiar with Prime systems, the inside-track guys. So, the decision was not so difficult, but he would still like to hear what the others have to say.
“Yoshi, Mars?”
“One has gotten so used to speaking with caution on the subject.” Yoshi folds his arms and leans back in his chair. “People ask about a crewed mission to Mars and one says, ‘Yes, yes, it is very exciting to contemplate,’ ‘There are many difficulties,’ ‘We are not quite ready,’ ‘For such a mission we need to consider,’ and so on. You sympathize with the difficulty of getting funding for less glamorous projects. And now, of course, the conversation is about the moon.”
“There is a lot of paranoia in the United States,” Helen says, “about the Chinese lunar missions. I can’t tell if it’s real paranoia or media hysteria.”
“Like fear of clowns,” Yoshi suggests.
“Exactly.” Helen raises an eyebrow. “The official NASA statement is that it’s good for all humankind if China lands on the moon. But we know almost nothing about what is happening, or what their intentions are.”
“They will land,” Sergei says. “US landed with technology that was not so good as my toaster. But let us not be kidding ourselves—China is not going to shoot golf balls and pick up rocks. They will mine. And they will not be mining for all humankind; they will be mining for China. We are about to be in a big mess, no?”
“The politics are upsetting,” Yoshi agrees. “This isn’t what we do.”
“No,” Sergei says. “This is why Prime Space is future. Future with explorers, with scientists, not countries.”
It will never be this simple, of course, but if they are to do this thing, they must not be countries, the three of them. He will not be the “Russian guy.” For holidays, and a joke, yes, but this is his first act as a commander: let us be our own crew, let us be free.
“Yes,” Yoshi says. “One must not be naive about the motivations of Prime Space—they are a commercial enterprise. But it would be unwise, I think, to be cynical about this. I have always been impressed with the program: the efficiency and the vision.”
“Everyone I know from JPL who went over to Prime says the same thing,” Helen adds. “It’s the direction we should have been moving in all along.”
“So,” Sergei says. “We’re in the right place.”
It is cooler in the shade of the pavilion. The astronauts eat misokatsu from zero-waste bowls. The couple in wedding clothes on the art deco bridge have been replaced by another couple, and a photographer. Sergei picks up Helen’s binoculars. The woman wears a dress with fringe and a feathered band around her head, the man a three-piece suit. The woman is not smiling, but the man is, until the photographer raises his camera and the facial expressions of the bride and groom are reversed. Sergei places the binoculars back on the table, catches Helen’s eye. She is maybe looking at him with sympathy. Perhaps he sighed.
“So, Helen,” Sergei says. “Was it always your dream to go to Mars?”
“I remember my science teacher in grade school saying that everything we could see in the sky was so far away that it might as well be infinitely far,” she says. “With the exception of the moon.”
“Ah, did you dream of the moon?” Yoshi asks.