“Well, my uncle Phil tried to kill himself when my mom was on the space station.” Mireille is not looking at Luke, and her voice is controlled, thoughtful. “He overdosed. My mom didn’t know until she got back. It was my grandmother’s decision not to tell her, and there was this sort of family conference—my father and I weren’t involved, I only learned about it later—about how to keep my mom’s liaison at the time from knowing, or anyone at NASA. And apparently when Phil found out that they didn’t tell her, he was completely pissed. He was like, ‘I almost died but nobody wanted to disturb Helen.’ He didn’t speak to my mom for a couple of years. He still doesn’t, much. But it wasn’t her fault. She always wants to be informed of any family illness or emergency.” Mireille pauses, clears her throat. “That’s actually even harder to deal with than the idea that she wouldn’t want to know. Think about it: if I die, my mom wants to know about it.” She looks directly at Luke, through the ruins of her makeup. “If I die, if I’m lying in a hospital having just overdosed, if I get raped, if my life hangs in the balance, my mom wants to know. Which means that she knows it won’t impair her ability to do her job. It won’t trip her up. She won’t miss a fucking beat.”
Mireille stares at Luke, daring him to soothe her, triumphant in the powers of her own delivery—resentful, greedy, and not a fool. At the moment, he cannot think of a single thing to say that would satisfy her, make her feel better, make her be better. After seven months of watching astronauts, it is literally stunning to watch someone fall to disorganized pieces, and then deliberately present rage and resentment, hand it to him on a silver platter, fully cooked, like it’s a gift.
He watches Mireille look smug, then ashamed, then sad. You can see everything on her face, everything.
“You don’t need to say it.” Mireille scrubs punitively at her face. “I know she’s a much better person than me, in pretty much every way you can measure. And that’s why I’m constantly trying to prove that she isn’t. I should just be proud. I’m proud too, you know. It’s all very stupid. God, those poor Chinese.”
Mireille turns her head, occluding his view of her eyes, and effectively drawing down the curtain. In profile, she resembles her mother more strongly.
HELEN
For thousands of years we have wondered about this red disk in the sky, and today, humans take our first steps on the planet Mars. That is what Helen is going to say. She repeats the line in her head. She didn’t write it.
Thousands of years was imprecise, the line would need work.
It was good to mention the color. Across cultures, it was the redness of the thing that had impressed. Ancient Egyptians named it Horus of the Horizon and the Red One, and the Babylonians said it was the Star of Death and called it Nergal, after their deity of fire. In Hebrew it was Ma’adim: one who blushes. Some variation of Fire Star for the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese.
The word wonder was also good. It wasn’t only the color that suggested war to the ancients—it was the strange motion of Mars and the other visible disks that did not behave like the stars, seemingly fixed in the firmament, but advanced and retreated and advanced again along their paths. These disks were given the name planets, meaning wanderers.
And so, yes, for thousands of years we have wondered about this red disk in the sky, and today, humans take our first steps on the planet Mars.
? ? ?
THEY HAVE ARRIVED.
They can see nothing.
Yoshi is working on restoring the feeds from their external cameras, but just now they have no view. They are three people strapped down inside a tuna can. But otherwise, they are very good: less than a hundred yards east of the landing site, not a bull’s-eye but, considering the distance between thrower and dartboard, a huge success.
Their descent to the Red Planet had not been without a few thrills. They hadn’t been treated to This Is Extremely Bad, but they hadn’t been allowed Best-Case Scenario either, and their entirely automated craft had required manual overrides. In the end, they’d gotten one hell of a yo-yo experience that went by the name Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator, a lot of noise, the great sharpening of focus that the feeling of compression gave you, and then, with an almost comical clunk, they were down. Helen cannot touch her face yet since she’s still helmeted, but would like to, would like the reassurance that she still has a face.
It had been sweet, in their first communications, to hear a wild cheering going on in Mission Control. It had been the thing that made Helen and Yoshi and Sergei cheer. Sometimes it took other people going bananas to make you feel something, because you were locked into the groove of hyperalertness and it was all about the next thing, and tumultuous joy wasn’t on the list. There was a practical component to not scheduling exultation. Even when they Gofer, Mission Control will want to hear “Prime, Primitus is on the surface, landing site is secure, all systems are nominal,” and not sounds that could quite easily be misinterpreted as death throes. Whatever portion of the world that will be watching humans land on Mars (and one hopes for at least Super Bowl or Eurovision Grand Final numbers) will need Mission Control for experiencing the landing in emotionally representative terms because they—Helen and Sergei and Yoshi—will be just three calm voices inside spacesuits, confirming systems. Mission Control will be a room full of human beings who have been visibly thumb-bite-y and arm-fold-y and brow-knitted, pale, sweaty, pacing, hollow-eyed. They will say things into a camera like, “This is probably the most significant moment of our entire species” and “Everything I have ever worked for in my life is about this moment right here.” The tension will be almost unbearable. And then, imagine. Imagine the cheers and the turning to one another, hugging, tears on faces, thumping one another on the back, or just leaning back exhausted in their chairs, covering their faces with their hands. Sometimes it’s seeing how much other people care that makes you care. Often, it is that.
It was generous of Mission Control to cheer for them, since no dreams had been achieved yet, and the cheerers have a seven-month-long case of jetlag.
Helen begins to relay a message of gratitude back to Mission Control, but is interrupted by an explosive sound, a deep and very loud cracking boom. Outside their craft, impossible to tell from which direction or how close, but they all look up. Helen discovers that when you are strapped into a seat and cannot move, or run, or see very much, and you think something might be about to fall on your head, your body does a funny accordion bellows–type thing. Shrinking in fear and expanding in defense. Also, she had instinctively tried to stretch out both arms toward Yoshi and Sergei, as if they were passengers in her car.