This is a fan translation of Road to Mars (Дорога к Марсу) by fifteen Russian science fiction writers.
This chapter was written by Paul Amnuél.
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Chapter 6
Ghost of Space
"Actually, so did I," Anikeev said after a brief pause.
"You?" Givens asked in amazement.
"If something really exists, then why wouldn't two people, or even everyone, see it?" the Commander noted reasonably. "Assuming, of course, that we saw the same thing. So?"
"Well…" Givens drawled. "I only saw it out of the corner of my eye, so… A human figure… in dark clothes… just a silhouette, really… I could barely see due to the g-forces, had green spots in my eyes, and when the silhouette appeared, I thought… Shit, I didn't have time to think anything, lost consciousness right away. He… if that was a man and not a figment of my imagination… quickly went towards the airlock…"
"Why didn't you report it right away?" Anikeev inquired dryly, peering into the face of Givens Jr. and trying to understand what the man had been feeling them… and what he was feeling now while telling him. It was important to understand that, as one's sensations when losing consciousness (and who but him would know better?) had a strong influence on the way the brain interpreted what could possibly be fairly trivial visual impressions.
"I wasn't going to report it at all," Givens spat out, and Anikeev gave a barley perceptible nod, knowing he'd have probably done the same. "I apologize… Who knows what could… But then the computer froze, so I decided to report it. I figured you'd reprimand me, but…"
"That was the right decision," Anikeev said. "And it seems both of us saw the same thing, which means the phenomenon was probably an objective one rather than a figment of our imagination."
"So you…"
"It seems I remained conscious longer than the others," the Commander went on. "I just have more experience… A dark silhouette, yet… Went in the direction of the passage to the airlocks. But, even before losing consciousness, I decided it was just an illusion, which was why I didn't want to bring it up."
"But why?.."
"Why did I decide it was an illusion? You see, the silhouette appeared from inside the wall, not coming through the door."
"Damn!.."
"And it also left through the wall, not the door…"
"Like in some horror movie," Givens muttered.
"Not quite," the Commander shook his head. "I've seen plenty of movies about ghosts, my wife loves them, but I've had to see them sometimes… No, that… hmm… person didn't disappear in the wall gradually, the way a normal ghost would, it disappeared in an instant, as it had been turned off."
"A hologram?"
"That's what I thought later, at the moment, I merely noted it."
"You think it's real?"
"The hologram? I don't know, I'm not a holographic or 3D projection specialist. The question is, if that's the case, then why? Who needs it? One of us, by the way. And what's the point? A hologram can't affect material objects, that would be ridiculous."
"Maybe," Givens offered an assumption, "someone else saw it and is keeping silent. I'd keep silent too, just like you, Commander."
Anikeev nodded.
"Later," he said, "I'll ask around. For now, let's just make a note of it. One other thing… Ed, if you see it… out of the corner of your eye…"
"Of course, Commander. I'll report it right away."
Bykov was raised out of his bed at 3am. The duty officer's defiantly cheerful, and Bykov thought in irritation that he'd been the one to approve the duty schedule that placed "night owls" on those shifts. Then he wondered what had happened.
He even had a third thought that maybe the telemetry from the Ares had been picked up. After all, what else would make the duty officer waken up the head of the research program at such a… hmm… early hour?
"I'm reporting," the duty officer was saying, "that the Ghost 5 object has activated. According to observations in near-infrared, as well as two radio bands, the object has moved after the last activation by—"
"Stop," Bykov said after finally waking up. "I got it. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Send all the processed data to my console."
"Yes, sir," the duty officer reported.
Only the night shift was sitting at the screens in the central room of Mission Control Moscow. Eight operators, each of which was analyzing their own portion of the telemetry data that was coming through the antennae.
"How's the Ares?" Bykov asked Vedeneev on the way to his workstation.
Vedeneev, one of the best space communications operators, who'd first worked with the Mir program and then with the ISS, replied, not looking away from the screen that was showing a crawling column of numbers, as if they were an army formation. Maybe even their own, if the data was good.
"Zero," Vedeneev said. "No incoming data since 11:37pm, not even on the emergency channel. And that's optimistic."
"Optimistic?" Bykov asked suspiciously, pausing and peering at the numbers. Those weren't all zeroes, but Bykov couldn't figure out what each number corresponded to at a glance.
"Of course," Vedeneev said confidently. "This means that the telemetry wasn't cut off as a result of a malfunction or a larger emergency aboard the ship. The full packet can only be kept from transmitting from the controls of the onboard central computer, and no one can do it without the commander's direct order. Which means—"
"What's on the visuals?"
The Ares is within sight of sixteen telescopes, including three orbital ones. It's moving almost exactly on course."
"On course for…"
"Mars, of course. If going purely by the visuals, then everything is fine. We saw the main thrusters work for exactly as long as they were supposed to."
"The refueler?"
"Well, you saw it…"
Bykov nodded. Yes, he'd seen it for himself, the question was unintentional. The refueler that had almost rammed the Ares couldn't threaten the ship anymore after it had gone hyperbolic.
"Visually," Vedeneev went on, repeating the data from the evening's report that Bykov already knew well, "no explosions, optical flashes, or anything of the sort was observed on the Ares. That's why I'm saying that the complete lack of telemetry is the work of the crew that, for some reason—"
"Some reason?" Bykov exclaimed. "The reasons are pretty clear, damn it! They wanted to go to Mars, that's why! We were going to remove them from orbit and bring them back to Earth, so they decided—"
"So that's what it was!" Vedeneev couldn't keep from blurting out. He, of course, had no idea what had been going on in the top management offices over the past several hours. "But then… But it's still a huge violation… When they get back, they'll be tossed out onto the street!"
"If they get back," Bykov corrected him automatically. "If they get back, no one is going to say anything. Victors don't get judged. And they'll be heroes."
"Hmm… yes," Vedeneev had to agree. "But still, I—"
"Excuse me," Bykov interrupted the operator and went to his own console, where Nina Stroeva, a graduate student working on her dissertation on optical illusions on the Martian surface, awaited him. Over the last several decades, plenty of material had been accumulated for several doctorate theses, especially after the flights of the first stations, whose equipment had sufficient resolution to allow human imagination to see something unusual in natural phenomena but insufficient for analysts to definitively identify the phenomena as nothing out of the ordinary.
"Good evening," Bykov greeted her.
Nina freed his seat, he sat down, while she made herself comfortable on a low chair that let her see the screen but kept her from getting in the operator's way.
"Good morning," she said, and Bykov had only then realized that it really was morning already, 5 am.
"Oh, right," he muttered. Have you been here all night? You shift isn't today."
"All night," Nina nodded. "It's almost like a premonition, you know… I was about to go to bed, and then something pushed me to stop by here and take a look. And then—"
"All right," Bykov switched to an official tone, "what's going on with Ghost?"
"Take a look," Nina reached under Bykov's elbow and pressed a few keys. A set of images appeared on the screen with a column of numbers in the right corner that indicated the data on radio flux variability, quasi-periods, amplitude bursts…
Bykov pulled out his glasses from a side pocket, placed them on his nose, and zoomed in on the first image.