Free Rescue Mode - eARC by Ben Bova, Les Johnson

instead of the cowboy.
    More than six hundred feet down along the ship’s gridwork backbone, tons of liquefied hydrogen began to flow through the nuclear reactor and, superheated, out the rocket nozzles.
    “TMI burn,” said mission control.
    Connover felt the push in the small of his back, felt the ship vibrating, felt a totally surprising pang of remorse, regret. He barely heard Bee’s clipped acknowledgement that TMI burn had started. He knew he was leaving Earth to travel farther than any human being had traveled before. He’d thought he would feel triumphant. Instead he felt a sense of—what? Disappointment? Fear? No, what he felt was loneliness.
    “Good luck, Arrow ,” said mission control.
    The ship was thrumming. Not the bone-rattling roar of a liftoff from Earth, but a gentler, smoother surge of thrust that was starting them off on their long, long journey.
    Connover turned to Bee, who looked distracted, almost perplexed. And he understood why. The mission timeline called for the ship’s commander to make some pithy, quotable, optimistic statement for the benefit of the media and the history books. If he didn’t come up with something soon, the moment would be lost. Connover knew that Bee had been rehearsing whatever the hell it was he wanted to say, but now he seemed tongue-tied with stage fright. He grinned inwardly at Bee’s discomfort, and immediately felt guilty at his reaction.
    Benson seemed to suck up his gut. Lifting his chin, he said, “Houston, Darmstadt, Moscow, Tsukuba. The Arrow is away. Our next stop is Mars, where we will take humanity’s first steps on a truly alien world for the benefit of all the people of Earth. Wish us luck.”
    Then he blew out a long, sighing breath.
    “Good luck, you guys,” mission control repeated.
    Connover realized that Bee had touched all the bases by addressing the American operations center first, since the United States was footing most of the bill for the mission, and then other three key partners’ operations centers: Darmstadt for the European Space Agency, Moscow for the Russians and Tsukuba for the Japanese.
    Clicking the microphone off, Benson turned to Connover and said, “Ted, can you believe it? We’re really on our way. I was actually starting to wonder if this day would ever come.”
    Connover grinned at Bee. Underneath that layer of ice he’s as excited as I am, he realized.
    “I knew it would happen,” Connover said. “I just wasn’t sure it would come along during my lifetime. It’s been more’n sixty years since Apollo. Hell, von Braun thought that we’d go to Mars in the nineteen eighties. He was off by damned near half a century.”
    “Better late than never,” Benson said, with some fervor. “Did you hear that they’re going to announce the crew for the next mission later this week? We’ll get back about a month before they depart. We might even be out of quarantine in time to shake their hands.”
    “Maybe Senator Donaldson wants to cut out the manned space program altogether,” Connover said.
    “That’s crazy.”
    “You know that and I know that. But there’s a lot of people who think the same way he does.”
    Benson tilted his head slightly. “Well, our going to Mars ought to take the wind out of his sails.”
    Connover brightened. “Yeah, that’s right. ‘Specially if we find something really big. Like life-forms.”
    “Amanda says the best she’s hoping for are maybe finding organisms that have survived from when Mars was a lot warmer and wetter than it is now.”
    “Martians.”
    “Microscopic things. Bacteria, something like that.”
    “But they’ll be Martian, just the same,” Connover insisted. “We’ll be big heroes when we get back.”
    Benson smiled patiently. “We have to get there first.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Let’s take it one step at a time.”
    Connover said, “Well, the first step has worked out all right. We’re on our way.”
    “Right. We’re on our way.”

April 5, 2035
    Earth