Space Stations

Nevertheless, Eriksen ordered Valkyrie to be detached from Trailblazer and ready for departure for Mars on short notice. Even in the low gravity of Phobos, the inertial mass of Valkyrie was considerable and it was a delicate operation. The heavy work was pretty much automated, however.

“I'm almost certain now a severe local storm is gathering on the surface where Ares will be landing. I've just given Roel van Dijk a second warning but I don't think he'll believe me,” Hoerter said with frustration.

Boutillier was still raring to go. “I'm game for flying down in Valkyrie. Anyone who wants to come along for the ride'll be welcome. I don't insist on being the first to step out of the ship either. We can toss a coin. After planting the flags, we'll head back immediately if the surface condition looks threatening. We can still be the first on Mars.

The rest of us can take turns going down to the surface later.”

Boutillier was obviously trying to avoid the accusation that the reason why he was proposing this quick trip down was to become the very first man to walk on Mars (as Neil Armstrong had become the first man to walk on the Moon in July 1969) and thus to become immortalized in history. He was anxious to be the first, but he was even more eager to make sure that Trailblazer would not be beaten to the first place.

Eriksen was unsympathetic. “No go, Jack. Linde, keep me posted on the gathering storm on Mars. Let's all get back to turning Phobos into a working orbital base first. Even if we don't get to be the first to land on Mars, we are going to be the first to do it right. In the long run, setting up an orbital base on Phobos will be more important in the exploration of the Red Planet than just planting the flags first. Especially, if we are going to terraform Mars someday for serious human exploration.”

Several days later, the business of setting up a habitat on Phobos was nearly complete, but the surface conditions on Mars looked ever more perilous, at least in the opinion of Hoerter. Ares was about to enter Mars' vicinity, taking trajectory to land at a location marked by the transmission beam from their waiting supply ship.

Eriksen offered Ritter a safe haven on Orbital Base Phobos to wait out the gathering storm on Mars, but the gesture was politely declined. The storm had not picked up significant force yet and the Ares team wanted to make it to the surface, get the provisions from the robot ships, and be hunkered down there if indeed a storm should become a threat. If it started looking ominous enough, they could leave the surface after loading up the provisions and get into a Mars orbit and wait for several months until the orbital configuration for Earth became appropriate for the journey home.

The message that Ares was about to land on Mars was received at the Phobos base with mixed emotions, mostly with a sense of frustration and even resentment. Trailblazer could have been the first, but Eriksen would not risk his expedition team. If he did not have complete faith in the scientific predictions of his Martian atmosphere expert, he was nevertheless unwilling to take a chance that Hoerter was wrong.

At the present distance of Earth, those back home would be receiving this epoch-making report in several minutes. What a depressing thought. To be so close to making a genuine historic first and ending up being a second team in. No one will remember us, Boutillier thought furiously.

Some minutes later, back on Earth at the Headquarters of the European Space Agency in Paris, the Director General, Professor Dominique Laget was listening to the live news retransmitted from the receiving station in Villafranca near Madrid. The video screen on the great wall of the conference room would soon be showing the Martian surface from the television camera on Ares. Upon hearing the report that their ship was about to land on Mars, his distinguished face brightened in an inimitable Gaulish smile. He was joined by several dozen ranking officials of the Consortium that included a number from the Russian Federation.

Laget's pert strawberry-blonde secretary from Brittany started filling up the champagne glasses with the finest produce from the Champagne province. The same scene was being repeated all over Europe, with some variations in the choice of beverages. The entire subcontinent of Europe was ready to have the greatest festivities ever.

By design, the landing would take place when the side of Mars with the landing site was facing Earth.

It was only seconds before Ares was actually to make a touchdown that the transmission suddenly broke down. The last scene from the video camera on Ares showed an

immense tornadolike dust cloud rapidly approaching the spaceship over the barren wasteland of Mars. The last vocal transmission received, just before the communication was cut off, said, “We are about to be overtaken by a great tornado. We will…” Ritter never got to complete his sentence.