Volume XIX, Issue XVI: Special Book Section
Apollonius
By Bob Kirchman
Copyright © 2020, The Kirchman Studio, all rights reserved
Chapter 13: The Long Road Home
A new crater now scarred the Martian surface. The colony was gone! In the shadow of some rock formations there remained some greenhouses and solar panels but it was clear that the missile intended for Great Northern had fallen and detonated so as to kill the colonists instead. Sarah wiped her eyes frequently as she manned scanning equipment. “Had ANYONE survived?” she wondered. But if they did, what would become of them. All of the landing craft appeared to have been destroyed along with the colony and as this was a contingency unforeseen, there was no landing craft left with the Great Northern capable of going to the planet’s surface and returning. If indeed anyone had survived the blast they would be marooned. It would be two years before Great Northern could return and if a smaller craft were readied it would probably take six months to do so. Sarah anxiously scanned the surface each time the ship orbited above. Nothing! No sign of life appeared. No radio call for help ever came. The radiation readings from the planet suggested there would be little chance of survival anyway. Finally, with great regret, Ben-Gurion gave orders to burn the main engine and insert Great Northern into Earth Return Trajectory. It was a lonely feeling as the craft slowly gained escape momentum. Sarah was reminded of a similar moment portrayed in the movie version of an old James Michener novel where an apocryphal Apollo 18’s lunar lander crashed into the lunar surface and the command module pilot returned to Earth alone as James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James” played as background music. In reality the lunar program had ended with Apollo 17 and LEM pilot Gene Cernan, aware of the risky nature of this craft, uttered the last words spoken from the surface of the moon: “Let’s get this mother out of here.”
If the truth be known, Abiyah Ben-Gurian must have said something similar as he eased the starship out of orbit. Only his wife knows what he said though. In communication with Earth he was cool and emotionless… but his eyes flowed with the emotion his voice covered. Sarah and Abiyah could read each other’s subtle voice inflections and facial expressions. They mourned together unashamedly.
Although their communications with Earth were crisp and professional, life aboard Great Northern eased into a relaxed sort of waiting. Sarah’s female colleagues surprised her with a baby shower and their inventiveness in creating infant clothing and toys from space supplies knew no boundaries. The good doctor moved out of the crew quarters so a nursery would be created. All would be found out upon return docking anyway so the sparse cabin became a study in pink and blue. Major Johnson even painted a little mural of children running and doing cartwheels under an apple tree as birds flew overhead. The good doctor started experimenting with a concoction of a sort of formula made from space foods should it become necessary. The due date approached as the ship traveled along the free return trajectory. Abiyah and Sarah actually enjoyed the suspense of not knowing the gender of their baby. Then one day Sarah, after a long and difficult labor, laid eyes on her son! The boy was a good nurser and the formula concoction was not needed. The two decisive pilots had discussed names, but now they gave themselves the luxury of time in deciding what to call him. Abiyah even jokingly assigned him a number but his wife ended that with one look. Now the crew flowed in the sequence of tasks necessary to begin braking into the same orbit they had left from. ‘Katherine,” their faithful trajectory computer whirred and spit out instructions to the retro engines. Soon the great mission to Mars would be over. Debriefing was planned to take place at Cape Lisbon and extended debriefing would occur at the town of Shalom inside the biosphere complex at Big Diomede. This would provide the astronauts with some privacy as they tried to make the transition back to Earth life. No doubt, there would be ticker tape parades and tours to be done but that could wait. A fairly curt press release would suffice for now.
After Apollo 11 returned from the moon, the press became bored with space exploration and did not even bother to cover the shuttle missions. They remained in this frame of mind until two shuttles were destroyed in terrible accidents and then they pretty much lobbied the shuttle program out of existence. Cape Lisbon’s linear induction launcher marked the true beginning of regular and safe transfer to orbit even though its Northern location meant that the heavy unmanned payloads and parts of space stations were still delivered by large boosters from launch sites closer to the Equator. Being sequestered on Big Diomede would give the astronauts time to think. Book contacts were already put forth and the crew would be hard at work for the next year to meet them. Sarah wondered to herself about the change. Abiyah would not take well to retirement. She was now taking on motherhood with the same energy she had poured into her work as a pilot and astronaut. What bothered her was the probability that once they stepped out of the biosphere they would be living in a fishbowl.
The Lindberghs could travel in the end and get away from it all for at least a while. Anne was able to raise five children. I just don’t see how though.” Sarah opined.
Ben Gurion thought for a minute: “The only thing left for us really is to somehow find a way to quietly pass along the things we’ve learned. Please note my emphasis on QUIETLY, if you will dearest.”
I sure don’t want to end up in some walled compound full of diplomats!” Sarah answered. “I do think there is a place where we might be useful, but not on public display.”
Sarah was ambivalent, however, about the possibility of assignment to Cape Lisbon, though that was certainly isolated. She had a child now and that changed her desires as to where she would live. Childless, she would probably not have thought twice about herself and her husband joining the ‘Baltimore Gun Club,’[1.] as the linear induction launch team called themselves. This was not a reference to their love of outdoor sports. The name came from Jules Verne’s novel ‘From the Earth to the Moon’[2.] [3.] and it referred to the munitions experts who built the large cannon from which Verne’s fictional spacecraft was launched. The Cape Lisbon team lived in a fairly austere environment. “No place to raise a child,” she mused to herself.
Between the little college with the community church and parsonage and the Zimmerman family compound there were some as yet unoccupied faculty houses for the college. Here the astronauts were to finalize their debriefing and writing. Ben-Gurion and his wife were given the one closest to the college where they would have access to people and resources as they finished their work. Sarah carried her infant son into the garden to calm his crying one afternoon. She was at first startled when a lady filling her hummingbird feeder with clear nectar looked up and saw her from the adjoining yard. “May I try holding the little fellow?” the neighbor asked… “Oh, please excuse the paint on my hands… I assure you it is dry and nursery-safe non-toxic. Mural painting today, if you must know”
And so, the copilot of the Great Northern happily surveyed a little place with very down to earth beauty and simplicity and thought: “I think I might just like it here.”
(to be continued)
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Copyright © 2020, The Kirchman Studio, all rights reserved
