Nothing falls on their heads.
Helen reports the event to Prime, but Prime can give them no explanation. “Maybe we landed on the Wicked Witch of the West,” Helen messages, though the time delays make jokes a little awkward. All their systems are still nominal. It might have been a Prime employee just outside their module, accidentally tipping over a ladder into a metal trash can, the sound magnified, or some ridiculous situation. Helen pictures a sheepish young man in a Prime hoodie, cringing.
It is one thirty in the afternoon, Mars time. Sol one.
Helen is still thinking through possibilities for the cracking noise, when they receive an audio message from Boone Cross. He tells them that, during the Primitus Entry-Descent-Landing stage, Red Dawn II (the real one) landed successfully.
It was perhaps this that Mission Control had been cheering for. Prime had maybe just played them a recording.
If it is true, if Red Dawn II is on Mars, then Helen and her crew just moved one giant leap closer to the moment when it won’t be Utah outside their nonexistent window. The barriers to Mars are falling and soon there will be no more reasons for why not. Mars is waiting. Mars is waiting for them. For her.
Helen is used to telling herself that she will believe she is going to Mars when she is actually going to Mars, and not before. She repeats this to herself now.
But she feels good. This news will lend a vitality and a pleasing consequence to the simulations. Even though this would only be thirty days, and not the full year and a half of Gofer, they’d still get to work with wonderful things. The M-PRIME plant converting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into oxygen. The H2-PRIME plant providing farm-to-table Martian water. Red Dawns I and II, the nuclear reactors of Red Dawns I and II, making propellant. Containers for the greenhouse assembly. Supply pods. Prime’s Rovers, including the one they brought with them in their own lower stage in case they missed their landing site. She will feel something real under her hands, something new. Everything will need to be checked, inventoried, rechecked, tested. This is why she—they—were chosen. Other types of scientists would spend the entire trip frustrated at the limited opportunities that size, weight, and time gave for doing science. Prime had sent diversely educated engineers because whatever else was going to happen in space, things were going to break. Often.
Now that Helen is so close to relief, she allows herself to acknowledge how much need she has. Helen notes that certain conditions—seven months of confinement, for instance—can, when lifted, put you in a state that might be characterized as aggressive. Her impulse, right now, is not to get out and explore, but to get out and conquer. With machines and her bare (well, pressure-gloved) hands. This impulse is probably something Prime should know about, for future crews. Though finding a way to express it without sounding like a scurvy-crazed Christopher Columbus might be challenging. It will probably pass, anyway, the feeling.
Boone Cross’s voice continues—
“I am very sorry to have to tell you that Weilai 3 suffered a catastrophic failure during its launch sequence. A fire broke out in the crew cockpit, and the crew lost their lives. This event occurred eighty seconds after launch. CNSA is not releasing details at this time, though there’s been some suggestion that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit. This event occurred just as you were preparing for EDL stage. The decision was made to follow the contingency protocol regarding the relay of Earth events of this nature.”
There is a pause and then Cross’s voice continues, toneless now, a press conference voice.
“Throughout the history of our exploration of space, we have had to bear the burden of risk. As we strive to minimize this risk in every conceivable way, we must always accept the possibility of the inconceivable. This acceptance in no way lessens our sadness. Prime Space reaches a hand out to our brothers and sisters at CNSA, and shares the burden of loss with them.”
Helen’s first thought is that this news is a simulation. Prime wants to know how the crew will react and handle the news of a major catastrophe.
Wind. Helen can hear the faintest whisper of wind. So faint that it’s more sensed than heard. But that’s not right. You wouldn’t hear Martian wind in the thin atmosphere of the planet, not from inside Primitus.
The Cross recording is followed now by a message from Dr. Ransom in Life Sciences, who tells them that while Prime followed the protocol about communication during critical phases with the crew, her team had immediately reached out to the astronauts’ family members.
This lets Helen know that the disaster on Weilai 3, at least, is real. Prime can push them to the brink in a variety of ways, but they are not allowed to invent super-scenarios involving family members. Prime can’t run a sim in which Meeps dies, or Los Angeles is wiped out by earthquake. They cannot tell Helen that her daughter was “reached out to” if she wasn’t.
“There are no good moments to relay such tragic news,” Dr. Ransom’s voice continues. “And although we are still in a critical stage of operations, we didn’t want to keep you in the dark any longer than we had to. I’m sure you will be anxious for details on Weilai 3, but we’re learning things very slowly. There’s enormous support for the Chinese coming from all over the world. We’re sure you will want to be a part of that. If there is a statement you would like to make as a crew, we will be happy to relay that for you. If there are individual messages you would like to pass on to family members or friends or colleagues, we can do that too. Either now, or in further drops. Over.”