This is a fan translation of Road to Mars (Дорога к Марсу) by fifteen Russian science fiction writers.
This chapter was written by Maxim Khorsun.
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Note: I'm aware that there's an inconsistency between the identity of Yun's father in chapter 29 and this one. I can only assume the two authors were given conflicting information.
Note: Footnotes can be found at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 39
The Finish Line
"Something's wrong again," Zhang Li's tired voice rang out. "I'm picking up a rotation on two axes."
"Check again," Hu Jun replied. "I'm not feeling anything of the sort."
The Commander threw a glance at the window. Only the brightest stars were visible against the orange glow of Mars. Indeed, the stars were crawling up and to the side. Hu looked at little Yun; the girl was standing behind Zhang's seat and holding on to its back with both hands. Weightlessness didn't affect ghosts.
"The speed of rotation is small for now, only seven degrees per second," Zhang reported after checking the instruments.
Seven? And little Yun was seven. Short, very thin, with a pale face and bright, beautifully framed eyes. While her father was crossing the thousands of li separating the orbits of two worlds, she'd completed first and started second grade. She was also dreaming of being a taikonaut; all her drawings were showing her dad, mom, and herself — all three in spacesuits. Floating in the void under the gaze of the occasional stars drawn in yellow pencil, somewhere between a ringed planet (apparently Saturn) and green Earth. Or Mars, if it were green.
"Hu, we have four minutes to atmospheric entry," Zhang said. "We need to get rid of the rotation."
Hu mentally asked Yun to leave.
"I want to stay with you, Dad," the girl replied and gripped the back of the seat harder. Hu saw her thin fingers go white.
It's dangerous, my dear, the Commander once again addressed the ghost of his daughter. Mom will be very sad if something bad happens to both of us.
"Scrub the landing program," Zhang suggested. "Adjust the descent and re-initiate the sequence. While we have time," Zhang turned to his commander, but he was looking away with an absent expression. "Hu… We're at the finish line…" he said with reproach. "And if make a mistake now, then we're both going to Yanluo Wang. [Footnote 1] Or will spend eternity flying between Earth and Mars with the ghosts."
We're at the finish line, Yun, Hu continued the dialog with his daughter. In our case, the finish line is the point of no return. There's Mars, red and hard. And here were are, flying at interplanetary speeds. The reactor and the hab module are in free flight as separate units. What else can I add? It's the finish. We're the first.
"I'll be here, Dad," Yun promised.
You look so much like your mother… Tell her… Then again, you can't.
"The spin is increasing. Nine and a half degrees. We're going to fall apart in the upper atmosphere."
"Scrub the sequence," the Commander agreed; his voice came off colorless. As if it was only real when talking to Yun's ghost. "Begin!"
The taikonauts started flipping the switches on their consoles. The onboard computer produced an offended beep.
Zhang grabbed the lift-off control stick. A pair of correcting pulses to one side, and a pair in the other. The rotation ceased. They were once again flying towards the Martian atmosphere at the angle necessary for aerobraking. Zhang wanted to express his opinion on the cause of the sudden "carousel," but the Commander interrupted him.
"The shield is heating up. It's too soon," Hu grumbled. "Re-initiating the landing program. Ready?"
"Go," Zhang sang randomly, hurriedly flipping switches. "Program resumed, Commander."
NASA had never managed to send an orbital probe to study the Martian atmosphere. Even after the triumph of the Curiosity rover, they could still only guess at the many characteristics of the gaseous environment that was causing spacecraft so much trouble. That was why, when the thermal shield had started heating up half a minute earlier than expected, there was nothing anomalous about it. In fact, the edge of any atmosphere was an ambiguous concept.
"No comms," Zhang informed him, whose earphones were emitting nothing but static.
Now, if the fate willed it, they would only be able to contact China from the surface of Mars.
To report that the task entrusted to them by the party and the government was complete.
A shudder ran through the landing module's hull. Both taikonauts glanced out the window. A plasma glow appeared on the other side of the thick quartz glass that was holding back the monstrous load and temperature changes.
Almost immediately, Hu and Zhang felt weight return to the cramped world of the Millennium Boat's landing module, along with the concepts of up and down.
Correction thrusters kept engaging, keeping the module positioned in order to get through the atmosphere. The plasma glow was growing brighter, and it now seemed that there was a sun glowing in each of the three windows. The beep of the radar that was picking up the signal reflected off the Martian surface was getting more frequent.
The shaking was growing stronger, as were the g-forces. The taikonauts were ready for that. Hu wanted to glance at little Yun, but the pressing weight kept him from moving. He felt as someone was pouring concrete on him. There was already plenty of it, and yet it was still pouring and pouring, squeezing the air out of his lungs and stretching the skin on his face painfully.
Hu saw alarming red lights appear on the console one after another. The heat shield's temperature was now up to the critical mark, even though they were still at the initial leg of the descent. It was good that the engineers on Earth had anticipated a thousand-degree safety margin, otherwise the taikonauts would never have been able to get to the surface of the fourth planet…
The speed was reducing faster than expected. In fact, it looked a lot like the atmosphere of Mars was… very different. The computer kept giving them one warning after another. Apparently, far too many parameters in the landing program were failing to match reality.
Hu felt like a mechanical doll with a poorly wound spring. The monstrous g-forces were crushing the panic and fear for his life that were staring to take root. The reflexes he'd gained over the years of training were working.
Was the computer confused? Then he'd switch to manual!
The Commander reached for the console illuminated by red lights. Zhang followed suit. The heard the roar outside… was it the air they were cutting through? The beeping of the radar was overlaid over the sound at a growing frequency, like a heart monitor picking up an increased heartbeat.
If the thickness of the atmosphere was several times what had been planned, then the landing module was never going to reach the surface. It would burn up like a meteorite. Flare into a fiery spider that looked like the Chinese character "Yong" — "eternity."
But the module was holding for now. The computer was outputting the data on the landing trajectory, and all they had to do was maintain the ship's orientation with brief thruster pulses.
"You're doing everything right, Dad," the Commander heard his daughter's voice. "I will always be with you. You're on the final li of your path."
Hu glanced out the window. The line of the horizon was tilted, he could make out the outlines of a lengthy mountain ridge. Details of the landscape were starting to appear on the monotonous canvas of the wasteland, like an image on photo paper. Red dunes, large craters, dry beds of ancient rivers… Where was the flowering Mars they'd come to see? Had the shapeshifting star Huǒxīng deceived them? So unfair!..
And then it was as if a red filter had been removed from every window. The sky and the approaching planetary surface changed. It was both alien and familiar at the same time.
As if the entire flight had been a hoax, and the Millennium Boat never left a low Earth orbit. As if the crew was now returning in a lander, and they would touch down in the steppe part of China, somewhere in the northwest.
The Commander gasped in amazement and immediately felt his chest being squeezed even more. Hu released the control stick, stopped fighting the g-forces, and leaned back in his seat. Only the stubborn and, as it turned out, more psychologically suitable for space work Zhang was still trying to save the module.
Darkness was gathering over the horizon, lightning flashed between the storm clouds that looked like twisted towers. Green spots now spread over the surface that had looked like a lifeless desert only a few seconds ago. The dry riverbeds were full of water, and the Sun glinted off the small waves.
Only the cabin remained unchanged, an inescapable stifling cage smelling of sweat and warm plastic.
The module tilted.
This is it, Hu thought. Now the return tanks will blow up.
"A city!" Zhang coughed. "Look, Hu! Such a beautiful city!"
The Commander shifted to a window. The city really was beautiful.
Concentric rings of streets. Skyscrapers shaped like cylinders and cuboids. Green patches of parks, gray-blue lakes. Against the backdrop of the clouds illuminated by the thunderstorm, against the backdrop of the brown and green steppe, against the backdrop of distant mountains covered in glaciers.
Undoubtedly, the city had been abandoned long ago. Most skyscrapers looked like weathered cliffs, overgrown with climbing plants, while the parks were encroaching on streets.
But it was still a miracle.
An actual city. A city on Mars.
They'd reached their goal! They were the first. It had cost them their lives, but they were the first humans on Mars. And this flowering planet, not the frozen lifeless ball, would from then on belong to China.
And then the g-forces rose, and the eyes of both taikonauts were covered in a bloody fog.
"If the higher power is asking me for details…" Mark Kozlowski reached for a pack of cigarettes on his nightstand. "And also the details of the mission that has been meticulously illuminated by the global media…" he said, lighting up," then, if you'll forgive me, it's not a higher power, it's some trickster from a small office. Damn state employees getting involved in something that's none of their business…"
"Give it to me straight, Mr. Kozlowski, why do you care about Mars?" the guest inquired dispassionately.
The problem was that each side behind organizing the flight of the Ares was pursuing its own goal for the Martian expedition. ESA, Roscosmos, and NASA were interested in science. The biomedical aspects of interplanetary travel, testing out new technology, landing a man on the fourth planet and bringing him safely back to Earth. All that was in itself extremely valuable, no less than the fossils supposedly found by the Curiosity rover in the Gale crater. The presidents of the participating nations needed information on the Ghost 5 phenomenon in Valles Marineris. Whatever that object was, it was the reason why they'd sent their people to Mars. The GLX Corporation wanted to reach the more easily accessible and suitable for research Phobos. The Martian moon was no less interesting: the Stickney crater had the Center, a fearsome-looking structure that had supposedly been built by aliens. And wherever there were aliens, there were breakthrough technology and colossal profits. Moreover, it was better for GLX for as few people as possible to reach the finish line. Ideally, a ship without a crew. Forget the Europeans, forget the Russians. Forget everyone, including the agents recruited by Perelman. People meant unnecessary questions and a mess that would have to be cleaned up. A specialized computer with the beginnings of artificial intelligence that had been dormant in the second storage module was capable of establishing contact with the Center. The flight of the Ares had simply been a fortunate opportunity to deliver it.
So each interested party planned to use the Ares and Anikeev's crew for their own purposes. But explaining all that to the annoying guest… no! Kozlowski shook his head.
In the glow of the nightlight, the guest's face looked dead.
"More details on the Center, please," the emotionless voice rang out again.
Kozlowski scratched his hairy ankle, looked up at his guest, and blew out a cloud of smoke.
Was he reading his mind? Possibly. Intelligence agencies always tried to recruit unique individuals. And yet they'd managed to miss 9/11. And 2/24…
What could Kozlowski know of the Center?
More than any other person on Earth but, at the same time, very little. It was always this way with Mars. It was a changing planet. The aliens were major tricksters…
The structure looked as if something from an illustration to H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. It was discovered when they compared Phobos's landscape on photos to the radar map. The anomaly was disguised well and could barely be seen in the visible spectrum. A skewed pyramid with ribbed sides. Like a curved, jagged fang growing in the black mouth of Phobos. Definitely metal. The anomaly was given a simple but comprehensive name: the Center.
"Who else knows about the Center?" the guest asked another question.
Kozlowski flicked the ashes away and blew out a cloud of smoke in the guest's direction. He'd forbidden installing security cameras in his bedroom. But there was a smoke alarm; and the red LED was already blinking. This meant that security—a pair of experienced veterans, having gone through Iraq and North Korea—was already on the way.
The guest twitched. He obviously didn't like Kozlowski's thought. A moment later, he dashed forward.
Kozlowski jerked back and shielded himself with his arms. His cigarette fell out of his fingers and burned a hole in his underwear. The guest was already towering over him; his lower jaw split in two, turning into a spider's chelicerae.
Damn it, where was security?..
And then it was as if someone poured slop all over him. Warm, slimy slop that smelled of iron.
The head of the board opened his eyes and saw gray slime spread on the hardwood floor where his guest had just been standing. The same crap was covering Kozlowski's bed and himself…
The door opened. A security guard, a tall black man, burst into the bedroom. His face was grayer than the slime. He looked at Kozlowski with his mad eyes, then at the puddle under the bed. Kozlowski realizes that the veteran was also not fine.
"Boss, it's Jenkins." The guard waved in the direction of the door. "Splash! And he was gone! Just the walls are covered in some snot. God, never seen anything like this! And here too… What the hell is this crap, boss?"
Kozlowski quickly wiped his hands on the bedcover. His guest had wanted to find out who else knew about the Center. Was he somehow connected to the Center? An agent… from Phobos? An agent of the Center's owners? It was nonsense at first glance, but what if?
The head of GLX Corporation's board of directors raised his gaze on the security guard.
"Are you okay, boss?" he asked, stepping away from the edge of the puddle. "What happened here? And where's the fire?"
Why had the guest suddenly turned into a liquid? What had happened on Phobos? What had happened to the Center?..
"Boss, look," the guard indicated the wall. That damned gray slime was seeping through the outlet and some tiny cracks and pores in the drywall.
Mother of God! They were everywhere! Kozlowski realized.
He reached for his phone.
…In one of the antechambers of the English National Opera, security and secretaries were hurriedly cleaning Lord Quinsley's slime-covered suit. Engrossed in listening to Mercédès's aria performed by Daria Zykova, the Lord had missed the moment when his brilliant companion Clarity Page vanished, splashing all over the floor as strange gelatinous mass.
Fortunately, the reporters that were probably present in the audience hadn't noticed it. At least he thought they hadn't.
The phone in the inner pocket of his wet jacket started to vibrate. Lord Quinsley gestured for the others to leave him alone, pulled out the device, and tapped a well-manicured tail at the screen.
It was Donovan, advisor to the President of the US.
"It's bad, Lord Charles," the advisor began without a preamble. "Kozlowski was attacked."
"By whom?" Quinsley asked in an irritated tone. He was still in shock at what had happened to the beautiful Clarity, so his thoughts were still in a jumble. "Is the rascal still alive?"
"They've been on Earth this whole time, Lord Charles! It's incredible!"
"Who, Don?"
"Aliens, damn it! Aliens!"
The separation went through without any issues.
The elongated bulk of the Ares melted away against the Milky Way. The blurred tail cone of Givens's comet, like an arrow on the map, for a short while told Anikeev's crew where to look for the ship that had served them well for the duration of this long and restless interplanetary flight.
"Ed…" Bull sighed, staring out the window at the black field covered in diamond sparks.
Anikeev scratched his chin and said, "John, write up another report to ground control, this time a brief one. Say we're all right, undocked successfully, and, by the time they get this message, we've have already entered upper Martian atmosphere."
And there it wouldn't be great for them. Unless the linking made up of the Orion orbital craft, Altair landing module, and Rigel science lab transformed into something… something very different. Something capable of landing on a planet with a thick atmosphere.
Suddenly, they realized that the transformation was already underway.
The sealed volume of the landing module widened smoothly and unnoticeably. The ceiling rose higher, the bulkheads spread out, as if the Orion was being blown up by internal pressure.
The external cameras were showing that the linking was becoming more streamlined, that wing surfaces were growing as if they were alive. All devices, antennae, docking nodes, external fuel tanks — all that was now hidden under a black hull that looked like the skin of a dolphin.
Anikeev swore when the Orion's control panels suddenly flowed as if made of liquid metal, like in that old science fiction movie, and then froze, forming several consoles. No more rows of switches, keyboards, levers, or multicolored indicators… Nothing the crew had ever worked with. Only a pair of silver touchscreens.
And then bright rays of light appeared, and a hologram appeared over the new consoles. It was the face of a dark-skinned man with his eyes closed.
"Givens!" Anikeev slammed his armrest. "So this is what you meant by 'transformation'!.. But how?"
The hologram's eyes opened.
"A universal controlled environment, Commander," the familiar voice said. "A swarm of nanosized robots that recycles any material and builds new structures. Ancient Martian technology. We've managed to figure it out and use it for our purposes. But the swarm needs an intelligence to adequately respond to any situation. It needs a Caretaker. It needs me."
"We're happy to see you, Ed," Bull said.
"Very happy," Piccirilli added. "How are you?"
"The transformation is complete," the hologram replied dispassionately. "All ship systems are functional. What are you orders, Commander?" Givens's phantom swept everyone with his gaze. The next phrase sounded more like the former Givens, "So are we going to Mars or not?.."
Footnotes
1) King Yan or Yanluo Wang is the king of Hell in Chinese mythology.