10: There's no place like 127.0.0.1

Mars, Endurance Base-

Earlier, at the newly-dug comm center:

"Houston, Endurance. We've got some, uh… got a couple of 'updates', for you."

"Endurance, this is Houston. Go ahead, Pete."

Although they probably knew, already…

"Yeah. You aren't, uh… sitting down, by any chance, are you, Gene?"

A few hours later, in the space craft-

With tasks accomplished, for the moment, and supper not yet prepared, the Ares III crew gathered 'upstairs', in their scanner-shielded storm shelter. There, amid the familiar creaks and pops of Endurance, the greenish lighting and (dry) duct-taped upholstery, five worried astronauts met to confer. Standing before them, Pete led off.

Scrolling down through a data-pad list, the sandy-haired mission commander shifted his gum from one cheek to the other.

"Okay… third official meeting of the Argyre Basin Country Club is now in session. Lot of stuff to cover, here…."

Down he scrolled, with a deep scowl and impatient finger jab.

"Yeah… blah, blah, blah… let's cut to the chase."

The data-board, carelessly tossed, clattered onto a low table and cut itself off. Pete McCord pointed at Linda, specifically, her still-flattish stomach.

"We need to make a decision about Junior, and I mean now. Hang on…!"

The mission commander lifted a quieting hand, as everyone but John started talking at once.

"I'm looking at this from the standpoint of safety; namely, Dr. Bennett's."

Pete's arms folded across his chest. He was casually dressed in blue sweat pants and a Navy P.T. shirt, but would have retained his authority in just about anything.

"No offense, Doctor, but you picked about the worst damn time and spot in the solar system to turn fertile on us."

His gum chewing speeded up as Linda sank lower in her chair, and John (who stood a little behind her) stepped closer.

"I mean… we got toxic gases, radiation, alien microbes…"

"Perfectly harmless thus far, Pete!" Doctor Kim cut in anxiously. The Blue Stuff and Brown Strain (christened Exobacter Cyanococcus and Exobacter Ferrospirillum) were pure wonder to Kim Cho. The exobiologist saw, not slime, but life; amazing, tenacious, struggling life.

"Glad to hear it, Cho."

Pete resumed control, his blue eyes scanning the faces ranged before him.

"…but, even if we manage to keep our bun in the oven, what the hell happens when it's time to go home?"

He leaned forward now, terribly serious.

"Linda, in five months, which is too damn early to safely deliver a kid, we're gonna be shake-and-baking our way through goddam re-entry! With a delicate preemie or a pregnant crewman, take your choice! Either way, someone's gonna get hurt… or killed. For the safety of my crew, which I am entirely responsible for…"

"Pete, stop." John had stepped around Linda's chair. He was… not angry, exactly… but very focused.

"There's another… two other, actually… possibilities. I haven't had a chance to really…"

He looked over at the doctor, who was huddled up, arms wrapped around herself. Her face was blank, her brown eyes very wide. Wounded people looked like that, sometimes, before they realized quite how badly they'd been hurt.

Not sure what she needed from him, John put a hand out and pushed some of the hair off her forehead, like Grandma did, sometimes, with him. Linda reached up, took his hand and brought it down, squeezing almost hard enough to crush bone.

Turning back to the mission commander, John resumed talking.

"Anyway, I… I know some people who can get here in a damn quick hurry. Less than 24 hours after calling them, the d…"

He glanced at her, again, a little uncertainly.

"Linda could be evacuated back to Earth, with a much gentler, definitely survivable re-entry process."

Pete shifted stance and gum, blasting the scent of Juicy Fruit throughout the small cabin.

"You're talking about International Rescue?" he demanded.

A second or two passed, during which John weighed matters. Then, he nodded.

"Yeah. They'll come," the pilot insisted quietly, eyes on the padded deck. "If that's what she wants to do, but there's… um, a third option. We've got all that frozen embryo equipment. I'm not a biologist… but it seems like we could interrupt the pregnancy, store the baby in one of those embryo thermoses, then put it back and start the clock again, once everyone's safe on Earth."

Pete stopped chewing. He looked over at Cho.

"Professional assessment; would it work, Doctor?"

The exobiologist frowned consideringly. She was standing beside her fiancé, Roger Thorpe, who dwarfed her. By way of support, the Marine had placed a big, warm hand on Kim's uniformed shoulder (what if, instead of Linda and John, it had been them?) With a slow nod, she said,

"I believe yes, Pete. As John has suggested, the equipment and procedures exist, and I am well qualified to perform surgery. There would require to be hormonal therapy, to maintain Linda's body in a pregnancy state, but such things can be artificially mimicked. The child, held in cold storage, would be safe from harm, until re-implantation. It could be done, I am certain, without significant risk to the mission, the crew, or the child."

"Okay," Pete grunted, visibly more relaxed. He could be a hard-ass when he had to be, but seemed genuinely grateful to have been given an out. Running a hand over his thinning hair and shiny scalp, the mission commander looked around at his crew.

"So… it's a vote, then, because this affects us all, junior crewman included, and no one abstains. We clear?"

Everyone nodded, Linda Bennett mouthing, 'clear', as she released her grip on John's hand. Pete continued,

"All right, I'll go first. The options are: Direct abort, which costs us Junior, but has Linda up and running almost immediately, and poses the fewest complications…

"Evacuation, which costs us a valued crewman (I'm assuming that your 'friends' would be willing to ship someone in from the back-up crew, Tracy…? Good.) Like I say, we lose Dr. Bennett for the rest of the mission this way, but we know that she, and Junior, are as safe as can be arranged. Then, option three…

"Cold storage. We keep Linda, Junior's put on ice, and the pregnancy resumes when we've wrapped up the mission."

McCord rubbed at the back of his own neck, then puffed out a gusty breath and said,

"I vote to evacuate. Sending you home seems like the safest option to me. Thorpe?"

The Marine had placed both hands, one at each shoulder, on Dr. Kim. Speaking slowly, and with many apologetic glances at Linda Bennett, he said,

"I have to go with the skipper, on this one… evacuate. I know that if it was Cho we were talking about, here… there'd be no question. The fewest potential problems gotta top the stack, which means we advance in the opposite direction." (AKA: retreat, though, as a Marine, Roger didn't like that word.)

Kim Cho looked at her friend, trying to decide what Linda wanted her to say. Her ponytail was giving her a headache, so she loosed it with a quick, nervous jerk. Black hair tumbled down around her shoulders.

"I… if Linda wishes to remain…" (the other doctor, her best friend, nodded tightly). "…then I will vote for interruption and storage. It need not be seen as very dangerous. I can do this. Safely, and with no one lost to us."

And then it was John's turn. Both Pete and Roger seemed to expect that he'd vote with them, to get the endangered woman the hell out of Dodge, but… John hesitated. Once again, he wished that he better understood the language of facial expression and gesture. She wasn't looking his way, but her hands were twined very tightly together in her lap, and a small muscle twitched at the side of her face. Also, she'd nodded at Dr. Kim's question. Meaning…?

She'd want to complete the mission, he decided, and (weird notion, this) to stay with him. She'd want the baby safe, as well. Three inputs: mission, proximity and Junior. One choice.

"Embryo storage," John announced. "I vote, if Linda agrees, to temporarily interrupt the pregnancy and resume it on Earth, at end of mission."

He had a second idea, as well, but decided that it might be advisable to ask, first.

Pete nodded, and everyone turned to regard Dr. Bennett. She'd un-hunched just a little. Lifting a hand with two fingers raised, she said,

"I get two votes. For myself, and the 'junior crewman'. We may be barely past the hollow ball stage, but he's in this deeper than anyone else, so he counts."

Pete blew and snapped a bubble (very hard to do with regular chewing gum, but he was a talented guy).

"One and a half," he clarified, semi-seriously.

(Not that it really mattered. Even with one vote, she'd have broken the tie.)

"I have yet to see Junior on the duty roster, and you don't get a full vote around here till you start pulling your own weight."

"Fair enough," she smiled a little, adding, "If it can be done safely… then we vote for interruption, storage and reinsertion, back on Earth."

Tie broken.

Pete brought his hands together with a sharp clap, then rubbed them briskly before him. All through the cabin, tension faded like a bad dream.

"It's settled. 3 ½ to 2 in favor of putting Junior in storage, and completing the mission. Meeting adjourned."

McCord grinned suddenly, strolling over to slap Dr. Bennett on the shoulder.

"Guess it's okay to pass on Houston's message, then," he told her. "The boys back at bio-med wanted to say: Congratulations, it's a girl."