Copyright © 1992 by Pamela Sargent, All rights reserved. First appeared in Asimov's
Science Fiction , October 1992. For the personal use of those who have purchased the
ESF 1993 Award anthology only.


                        DANNY GOES TO MARS

                                 Pamela Sargent

        "Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as Earth]. Mars is somewhat the
    same distance from the sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures
    where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means
    there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
       —J. Danforth Quayle, Vice-President of the United States, as quoted in
    Mother Jones, January 1990


    The Vice-President had known that this White House lunch would be different.
For one thing, the President's voice kept shifting from his Mr. Rogers pitch to his
John Wayne tone, and that always made Dan nervous. For another, the former Chief
of Staff was there as a guest, and that bothered him.
    John Sununu might have mouthed off in public about how much Dan had learned
on the job, but away from the cameras, his big M.I.T. brain couldn't be bothered
with even saying hello to the Vice-President. Not that it really mattered, since Nunu,
as most of the White House staff called him behind his back, had pretty much
treated everybody that way, except when he was having a temper tantrum. Almost
everyone had been relieved when the former Chief of Staff had been eased out of
that position.
     Now, here he was in the White House again, sitting around at this intimate lunch
as if he still had the President's full confidence. Maybe the President needed Big
John's help on some scientific deal or other; Dan hoped it was that, and not
something political. He squinted slightly, thinking of Robert Stack. That was the
ticket, putting on that Robert Stack I'm-a-nice-guy-but-don't-mess-with-me kind of
expression.
    "A squeaker," the President said, "a real squeaker. Almost didn't pull it out.
The Democrats—bad. Attack from the right—even worse. Got something up our
sleeve, though—they'll say Never saw that coming."
    The Vice-President tried to look attentive. Sometimes he couldn't figure out
what the President was talking about. Once he had worried about that, before
discovering that many members of the White House staff had the same problem.
    "Council on Competitiveness, and, uh, the space thing, too—you're our man
there," the President was saying now. Marilyn had guessed that the President might
be toying with the idea of a space spectacular, and Big John, whatever his lacks in
the political arena, was one of the few advisors who could understand the scientific
ins and outs. It made sense, what with that big breakthrough in developing an engine
for space travel. Dan didn't know exactly how it worked, but it could get a ship to
the Moon almost overnight—if there was an "overnight" in space.
    "Mars," the President said. "About time."
    "Mars?" Dan sat up. That was an even better idea than going to the Moon.
    "We're sending out feelers." The former Chief of Staff adjusted his glasses,
looking as if this project was his idea. Maybe it was; maybe that was how he had
gotten back into the President's good graces. "The Japanese have hinted they might
foot most of the bill if one of their people is among the astronauts. The Saudis'll
pick up the rest if we get one of their men on board. The Russians would do almost
anything to take their people's minds off the mess over there, and we can use one of
those long-term habitat modules they've developed for the crew's quarters. Putting a
cosmonaut on the crew in return for that would be a hell of a lot cheaper than
sending more aid down that rathole."
    "Impressive," the President said. "Won't cost us."
    "We can get this going before the mid-term elections," Big John muttered.
"America's reaching for the stars again—that should play pretty goddamned well,
and you can use the brotherhood angle, too." He shifted his stocky body in his
chair. "A crash program for building the ship will create jobs. The crew can be
trained, and the ship ready to go, by the summer of '95. Two weeks or less to Mars,
depending on where it is in relation to Earth's orbit, and back in plenty of time for the
Presidential primaries."
    "With the new nuclear fission-to-fusion pulse engine," Dan said, "that's
possible." He'd picked up a few things during his meetings with the Space Council.
He was a little annoyed that no one had even hinted at the possibility of a Mars trip,
but then he was usually the last guy to find anything out. "With that kind of engine,
we could cross from, say, Mercury to Jupiter in less than a hundred days." He had
heard one of the NASA boys say that. Or had it been less than thirty days? Not that
it made that much difference, at least to him.
    The former Chief of Staff lifted his brows in surprise. Sununu had a habit of
looking at him like that sometimes, the way Dan's high school teachers and college
professors had looked at him when he actually managed to come up with a correct
answer.
    "But you know," the Vice-President continued, "you could take longer to train
the crew, and have this whole Mars deal going on during the primary season. That
might actually help me more, having it happen right while I'm running."
     "Two terms," the President said, sounding a lot more like John Wayne than Mr.
Rogers this time. "Straight line from nineteen-eighty. I want a Republican in the
White House in two-thousand-and-one. Maybe the Navy band could play that music
at the inauguration, you know, the piece in that movie—"
    "Also Sprach Zarathustra," the former Chief of Staff said, then turned toward
the Vice-President. "The theme from 2001." He had that funny smile on his face,
the one that made his eyes seem even colder.
     "What I was thinking, though," Dan said, "is that people have short memories."
That was a piece of political wisdom he had picked up, partly because his own
memory wasn't so great. "So it might make more sense to have a ship on Mars right
in the middle of the primaries. It'd sure be a help to be able to make speeches about
that, and—"
    "Unless something goes wrong. That could really fuck up the campaign, a big
space disaster." Big John folded his arms over his broad chest. "But we'll just have
to see that doesn't happen. Besides, that sucker has to be back before the
primaries." His smile faded. "See, the thing is—"
   "On the crew, Dan," the President interrupted. "Still young, and you're in good
shape—think it'll work."
    The Vice-President set down his fork. "What would work?"
    The former Chief of Staff unfolded his arms. "The President is saying that he'd
like you to go to Mars."
    Dan was too stunned to speak.
    "If you'll volunteer, that is," the President said.
    The Vice-President steadied himself, hoping his eyes had not widened into his
Bambi-caught-in-the-headlights look. Big John might be willing to shove him aboard
a ship heading for Mars just to get back in the good graces of the White House, but
the President, for a guy without a whole lot of principles, was a gentleman. A man
who never forgot to write thank-you notes wasn't the kind of person to force his
Veep on a risky space mission.
    "Well." Dan frowned. "Do I really have to do this?"
    Big John said, "It may be the only way we can get you elected. It sure as hell
would give you an edge, and you're going to need one. The President was getting it
from the right, but you're going to be getting it from the moderate Republicans." He
sneered. "We're only talking a two or three week trip, hardly more than a Space
Shuttle flight. Come back from Mars, and you wouldn't just be the Vice-President—
you'd be a hero." He said the words as if he didn't quite believe them.
    "Hard to run against a hero," the President said. He pressed his hands together,
then flung them out to his sides. "Moderates—trouble. But it's up to you, Dan.
Think you can handle this Mars thing—make sure there's good people on the crew
with you—but you gotta decide."
   The Vice-President swallowed, trying for his Robert Stack look once more. He
was about to say he would have to talk it over with Marilyn, but Big John would give
him one of his funny looks if he said that.
    "I'll consider it very seriously," he said. If Marilyn thought this was a good idea,
he might have to go along with it.
    "You do that," the former Chief of Staff said quietly.
                                            ###
     He explained it all to his wife after dinner. There would be the months of
training, but a house would be provided for him, and the family could visit him in
Houston. They could even move there temporarily, but Dan wasn't about to insist
on that. His son Tucker was in college, so it wouldn't much matter to him where
they lived, but the move might be disruptive for Corinne and Ben.
    "I can see it, in a way," he said. "If I do this, I might be unbeatable. On the
other hand, it didn't work for John Glenn."
    "But this is Mars, honey," Marilyn said. "John Glenn didn't go to Mars." She
brushed back a lock of brown hair, then frowned. Dan had the sinking feeling that
this whole business had already been decided. Whatever his fears about the journey,
he was more afraid of facing the President and telling him he had decided not to
volunteer. Besides, this space stuff might finally put an end to all the mockery.
Maybe there wouldn't be any more jokes about his lousy grades and his golf trips
and being on beer duty during his stint in the National Guard. Maybe that bastard
Garry Trudeau would finally stop depicting him as a feather in his Doonesbury
comic strip.
    "I'd miss you a lot," Marilyn said.
    "I'd miss you, too." He slipped an arm over her shoulders. "But it isn't like it's
going to be one of those three-year-round-trip deals. If that's what it was, I would
have said no right on the spot. They said it would be safe."
   She rested her head against his chest. "Nobody could top this, you know. I
doubt you'd have any challengers in the primaries afterwards, and the Democrats
won't have the easy time they expected against you. Even then—"
    He owed it to Marilyn. He wouldn't have gotten this far without her; in a way, it
was too bad she couldn't go to Mars with him. She'd had to give up her law
practice in Indiana when he was first elected to Congress, and later, her hopes of
finding a job when he was running for Vice-President. She had wised him up after
his election to the Senate, after the story about his colleague Tom Evans and that
Parkinson babe broke; if he had listened to Marilyn in the first place, he wouldn't
have been in Palm Beach with them that weekend. She had given him good advice
and sacrificed plenty for him. The least he could do was make her First Lady.
    "What should I do?" he asked.
   Marilyn drew away from him and sat up. "There's only one thing to do," she
murmured. "This is too big for us to decide by ourselves, so we have to put it in
God's hands. He'll show us what's right."
    He folded his hands, bowed his head, and tried to summon up a prayer. He
definitely needed the Lord's help on this one, but had the feeling that God was likely
to agree with the President.
                                            ###
     When Dan agreed to become an astronaut, it seemed that a great weight was
lifted from his shoulders. The announcement brought the expected press and
television coverage, along with varying reactions from stunned commentators, but
the conventional wisdom was that he could probably handle his Vice-Presidential
duties as well in Houston or on Mars as he could anywhere else.
    There was a press conference to endure with his four fellow crew members, and
the interviews, but he got through them all without any major gaffes, except for
calling the moons of Mars Photos and Zenith. That snotty nerd George Will had
tried to get him on some old remarks he had made about the Red Planet having
canals, but Dan had muddied the waters with a bunch of memorized statistics he had
mastered in the years since, along with a comment about having been under the spell
of some Ray Bradbury stories. It was smart of his staff to feed him that stuff about
Bradbury's Martian Chronicles along with the other information. Dan had not only
made Will look like a bully, but had also given viewers the impression that the
Vice-President actually read books.
    In Houston, at least, he would not have to do many interviews, on the grounds
that they might interfere with his training. This did not keep some reporters from
trying to get leaked information about his progress.
    There was little for them to discover. Surprisingly, the training was not nearly as
rigorous as he had expected. The other American on the crew, Ashana Washington,
was both a physicist and an experienced pilot; she would technically be in command
of the expedition. Prince Ahmed was also a pilot, although the ship itself would be
piloted automatically during the voyage. Sergei Vavilov and Kiichi Taranaga each
had a string of degrees in various subjects requiring big brains, and since they, like
Prince Ahmed, spoke fluent English, the Vice-President, to his great relief, would not
have to try to learn a foreign language.
    Basically, Dan knew, he would be little more than a passenger. Learning about
the Mars vessel and its capacities was more interesting than Cabinet meetings, and
messing around with the NASA computers was a little like those video games he had
sometimes played with Tucker and Ben. The crew had to be in good shape, but he
had always jogged and played a fair amount of tennis. He often missed Marilyn and
the kids, but they had been apart for extended periods during political campaigns in
the past, and their weekends together more than made up for it. He didn't have to
talk to reporters, although occasionally he didn't mind posing for photographers in
his NASA garb with a Robert Redford grin on his face. Once a week, some of his
staffers and the President's would fly down to brief him on various matters, but
Washington often seemed far away.
    He had wondered if his fellow astronauts would take to him, since they would
have to spend at least a couple of weeks in isolation with him—longer if NASA
decided they should remain in a Martian base camp for a while, which they might
have to do if they found anything really interesting. Within three weeks after his
arrival in Houston, however, he was golfing twice a week with Kiichi, jogging in the
mornings with Prince Ahmed after the Saudi's morning prayers, and playing tennis
with Sergei, who, despite his small size, had one hell of a backhand.
    Only Ashana had intimidated him just a little. The tall, good-looking black
woman was too damned brainy and formal for him to regard her as a real babe—not
that he, as a married man and a future Presidential candidate, was inclined to dwell
on her apparent babe qualities anyway. Maybe Ashana thought that she was
commanding this expedition for the same reason Clarence Thomas was on the
Supreme Court. That was another reason to keep his distance. It wouldn't help his
chances for the White House if Ashana turned into another Anita Hill.
     He might have gone on being distantly polite to her if, a month and a half into his
training, he hadn't been drawn into a pick-up basketball game with a few of the
NASA staffers. Ashana came by, and before he knew it, she was giving him some
good advice on how to improve his jump shots.
   Basketball was the glue that sealed their friendship, but Dan had nearly blown it
when Ashana had come to his house one weekend to meet his family and watch a
game. "I should have known," he said as he settled into his chair, "that you'd be a
hoop fan."
     Ashana's face suddenly got very stiff. Next to her on the sofa, Marilyn was
rolling her eyes and giving him her I-don't-believe-you-just-said-that look.
    "Exactly why should you have known?" Ashana asked in a small but kind of
scary voice.
   "In your official biography—I mean, you grew up in Indiana, didn't you?
Everybody's a fan there."
    Ashana relaxed, but he didn't quite understand why she had laughed so hard
afterwards.
                                            ###
     He admitted it to himself; if he had to be a hero to win the election, this was the
way to do it. His crewmates were the real experts, so he could leave all the major
decisions to them. He would, of course, do his best to be helpful. Sergei would use
him as a subject in some medical experiments, and he could also help Kiichi sort his
soil samples. That would be great, if they actually found life on Mars, even if it was
only something like the mildew that sometimes showed up in the Vice-Presidential
mansion.
    People were really getting psyched about this mission. After all the economic
bad news of recent years, putting people to work on the ship, now called the Edgar
Rice Burroughs, and its systems, as well as expanding the size of the Russian and
American space stations to house those who had to work on the Burroughs in orbit,
had given the economy a boost. Part of that was the new jobs, but most of it was
simply that the country was regaining its confidence. This Mars thing would propel
him into the White House on a wave of good feeling, and he would lead the country
into the next century during his second term. By then, the economy would be
booming along under the impetus of a revived space program. Dan wasn't exactly
sure how this would happen, but would let his advisors figure that out when it was
time for them to write his speeches.
    It was, when he thought about it, amazing that the Mars mission had won such
widespread support. There were, of course, some people who had to bitch, like
those protestors who showed up at the Johnson Space Center or Cape Canaveral to
protest the ship's technology, but they were the kind who panicked whenever they
saw the word "fission," especially if "fusion" was sitting right next to it. A comedian
on David Letterman's show had said something about how a dopehead must have
thought of putting the Vice-President aboard, and so maybe they should have called
the ship the William S. Burroughs. Dan didn't see what was so funny about that,
but it didn't really matter. Most of the clippings Marilyn brought to him on her visits
had optimistic words about the mission and comments from various people about
his bravery and increasing maturity.
    Almost before he knew it, he and his fellow astronauts were being flown to
Florida, where they would spend their final days before liftoff; a space shuttle would
carry them to the Burroughs. The President would be there, along with several
ambassadors and any other dignitaries who had managed to wangle an invitation. A
whole contingent of family and friends were coming in from Indiana to view the
launch, which would be covered by camera teams and reporters from just about
everywhere. Everything had gone basically without a hitch so far, although they were
going to be late taking off for the Burroughs; the Shuttle launch had been postponed
until October, what with a few small delays on construction and testing. Still, the
Mars ship and its systems had passed every test with flying colors, and this had
inspired a number of articles contending, basically, that American workers had finally
gotten their shit together again. More kids were deciding to take science and math
courses in school. There was a rumor that Time magazine had decided early that
Dan would have to be their Man of the Year.
   Only one dark spot marred his impending triumph. That creep Garry Trudeau
was now depicting him as a feather floating inside a space helmet and referring to
him as "the candidate from Mars."
                                             ###
    The Burroughs wasn't exactly the kind of sleek ship Dan had seen in movies
about space. Its frame held two heavily-shielded habitat modules, the lander, and the
Mars base assembly. The large metallic bowl that housed the pulse engine was
attached to the end of the frame. The whole thing reminded him a little of a giant
Tootsie Roll with a big dish at one end, but he felt confident as he floated into the
crew's quarters through an open lock. The President and Barbara had wished him
well, and Marilyn and the kids had looked so proud of him. If he had known that
being courageous was this simple, maybe he would have tried it sooner.
     Inside the large barrel of this habitat, five seats near wall screens had been bolted
to what would be the floor during acceleration. He propelled himself toward a seat
and strapped himself in without a qualm. The Burroughs circled the Earth, then took
off like a dream; Dan, pressed against his seat, watched in awe as the globe on the
screen shrank to the size of a marble.
    The ship would take a little while to reach one g, at which point the crew could
get up and move around. The Burroughs would continue to accelerate until they
were halfway to Mars, at which point it would begin to decelerate. The faster the
ship boosted, the more gravity it would have; at least that was how Dan understood
the matter. Even though it might have been kind of fun to float around the
Burroughs, he had been a bit queasy during the shuttle flight, and was just as happy
that they wouldn't have to endure weightlessness during the voyage. He had heard
too many stories about space sickness and the effects of weightlessness on gas; he
didn't want to puke and fart all the way to Mars.
    Dan had little time to glance at the viewscreens when he finally rose from his
seat. The others were already messing around with the computers and setting up
experiments and generally doing whatever they were supposed to do; his job now
was to monitor any transmissions from Earth.
    He sent back greetings, having rehearsed the words during the last few days. He
didn't have anything really eloquent to say about actually being out in space at last,
but a lot of astronauts weren't great talkers. When he was about to sign off, the
NASA CapCom patched him through to Marilyn.
    She had cut out James J. Kilpatrick's latest column to read to him. The
columnist had written: "Lloyd Bentsen once said of the Vice-President, 'You're no
Jack Kennedy.' This has been verified in a way Senator Bentsen could never have
predicted. This man is no Jack Kennedy. Instead, he has donned the mantle of
Columbus and the other great explorers of the past."
   That was the kind of thing that could really make a guy feel great.
                                           ###
    There was little privacy on the Burroughs. What with the shielding, the engine,
the Mars lander they would use when they reached their destination, and the base
camp assembly that would be sent to the Martian surface if NASA deemed a longer
stay worthwhile, there wasn't exactly an abundance of space for the crew in the
habitat modules. The next ship, which was already being built, would have the
additional luxuries of a recreational module, along with separate sleeping
compartments, but NASA had cut a few corners on this one.
    The bathroom, toilet and shower included, was the size of a small closet; their
beds, which had to be pulled out from the walls, were in the adjoining module, with
no partitions. The whole place smelled like a locker room, maybe because the
modules had been part of the Russian space station before being recycled for use in
this mission. The food tasted even worse than some of the stuff Dan had eaten in
the Deke house at DePauw.
    But their comfort was not entirely overlooked; the Burroughs had a small library
of CDs, videodiscs, and books stored on microdot. Within twenty-four hours, Dan
and his companions had worked out a schedule so that each of them would have
some time alone in the bed compartment to read, listen to music, or take a nap.
There was no sense getting on one another's nerves during the voyage, and some
solitude would ease any tensions.
    Dan went to the sleeping quarters during his scheduled time on the third day out,
meaning to watch one of his favorite movies, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He could
stretch out on one of the beds and still see the screen on the wall in the back. He
nodded off just as Ferris Bueller, played by Matthew Broderick, was calling up his
friend Cameron on the phone; he woke up to the sounds of "Twist and Shout."
Matthew Broderick was gyrating on a float in the middle of a Chicago parade.
    Dan had missed most of the movie. He must have been more tired than he
realized, even though he didn't have as much to do as the rest of the crew. Sergei
had said something about doing some medical tests on him. He looked at his watch,
set on Eastern Standard Time, which they were keeping aboard ship, and noticed
that it was past 8:00 P.M. He stared at the screen, not understanding why the movie
was still on until he realized that the player had gone back to the beginning of the
disk and started running the film again. It was Ahmed's time to use the compartment
now, so why wasn't the Prince here bugging him about it? On top of that, nobody
had come to get him for dinner.
    He sat up slowly. A weird feeling came over him, a little like the nervousness he
had felt before calling his father about trying to get into the Guard. He got to his feet
and climbed the ladder through the passageway that connected this module to the
next.
    The hatch at the end of the short passage was open as he came up. His
shipmates were slumped over the table where they usually ate, their faces in their
trays. Dan crept toward them, wondering if this was some kind of joke. "Okay,
guys," he said, "you can cut it out now." They were awfully still, and Sergei had
written something on the table in Cyrillic letters with his fingers and some gravy.
"Okay, you faked me out. Come on." Dan stopped behind Kiichi and nudged him,
then saw that the Japanese had stopped breathing. Very slowly, he moved around
the table, taking each person's pulse in turn. The arms were flaccid, the bodies cold.
    "Oh, my God," he said. "Oh, my God." He sank to the floor, covered his face
with his hands, and sat there for a long time until a voice called out to him from the
com.
    "Houston to Burroughs. Houston to Burroughs." He got up and stumbled
toward the com. "Come in, Burroughs." He sat down and turned on the com
screen.
    Sallie Werfel, the CapCom, stared out at him from the screen.
    "They're dead," he blurted out. "They're all dead." Not until after he had said it
did he remember that NASA had planned a live broadcast for that evening. "Oh, my
God."
    Sallie gazed back at him with a big smile on her face; it would take a while for his
words to reach her, since signals had to work harder to get through all that space.
Then her smile disappeared, and she was suddenly shouting to somebody else
before turning to the screen once more.
   "We're off the air," she said. "All right, what the hell do you mean about—"
    "They're all dead," he replied. "At the table. Turn on the cameras and take a
look. Sergei wrote something next to his tray, but it's in Russian."
   Sallie was whispering to a man near her. Some more time passed. "All right,
Dan," she said very quietly. "I want you to stay right where you are for the moment.
We've got the cameras on the others now. You're absolutely sure they're, uh, gone."
   "Yeah."
    A few more minutes passed. "We're looking at Sergei's message. A couple of
our people here know Russian, so we should have a translation in just a little bit.
While we're waiting, I want to know exactly what you were doing during the last few
hours."
    "Not much," he said. "I mean, it was my turn for some private time—we had,
like, a schedule for times to be alone, you know? So I went to the other module
thinking I'd catch a movie." He was about to say he had been watching Ferris
Bueller's Day Off, but thought better of it. "What I remember is that Ashana was on
the treadmill working out, and Sergei and Ahmed were checking some numbers or
something. Kiichi was in the can—er, bathroom. I fell asleep, and when I woke up
and looked at the time, it was past dinner. Then I came out and—" He swallowed
hard. "Oh, my God." He waited.
   "Take it easy, Dan," she said finally. "We're opening up a line to the White
House right now."
     An alien, he thought. Some creepy blob thing, the kind of creature they showed
in old sci-fi movies, had somehow found its way aboard the ship. He imagined it
oozing out to kill his companions during dinner, then concealing itself somewhere
aboard the Burroughs to wait for him. Except that it wouldn't find too many places
it could hide in the crew's quarters. Maybe the alien was concealed in the Mars
lander by now, waiting for him. He shuddered. It couldn't be an alien. There wasn't
any way for one to get aboard.
    "We've got a translation," Sallie was saying. Dan forced his attention back to the
screen. "We know what Sergei wrote." Her eyes glistened; he held his breath. "Not
the food. Fever. Feels like flu."
   "What?" He waited.
   "Flu. Influenza." She lifted a hand to her temples. "He's telling us it wasn't
anything in the food, that it felt as if they were coming down with something."
                                           ###
    Everything had happened awfully fast. The whole business might be some sort
of weird assassination attempt; maybe someone had figured out a way to poison the
main module's air system. It was pure chance that he had not been sitting there with
the others. But why would anyone want to assassinate him? Only the Democrats
had anything to gain from that, and they had so many loose cannons that somebody
would have leaked such a plot by now.
    He didn't know whether to be relieved or not when Sallie contacted him an hour
later and gave him NASA's hypothesis. They suspected that his comrades had been
the victims of an extremely virulent but short-lived virus—virulent because the others
had died so quickly, and short-lived because Dan, in the same module breathing the
same air, was still alive. They had come up with this explanation after consulting
with the Russians, who had admitted that milder viruses had occasionally afflicted
their cosmonauts. The closed ecologies of their modules had never been perfect.
What that meant was that things could get kind of scuzzy in there.
    The next order of business was to dispose of the bodies. Dan put on his
spacesuit and tried not to look at the food-stained faces of his dead comrades as he
dragged them one by one into the airlock.
    They deserved a prayer. The only ones he knew were Christian prayers, but
maybe Kiichi and Ahmed wouldn't mind, and he suspected Sergei was more
religious than he let on. He whispered the Lord's Prayer, and then another he had
often used at prayer breakfasts. Too late, he realized that a prayer said at meals
might not be the most appropriate thing, given that his companions had died over
their chow.
    He looked up from the bodies as the outside door slid slowly open to reveal the
blackness of space. His comrades deserved a few more words before he consigned
them to the darkness.
   "You guys," he whispered, "you were some of the best friends I ever had. You
were definitely the smartest."
    It took a while to get the bodies outside. As he watched them drift away from
the ship, tears rose to his eyes. He was really going to miss them.
                                            ###
    Sallie contacted Dan an hour before the President was to address the nation and
the world. The most important thing now was for Dan to seem in control of himself
when it was time for his own broadcast. The NASA scientists were fairly certain
that Dan wouldn't suffer the fate of the others; there was only a slight chance that the
mysterious virus would reappear to infect him. He didn't find this very consoling,
since there had been only a slight chance of such a thing happening in the first place.
    "Do me a favor, Sallie," Dan said. "If I do kick off, don't let the media have
tapes of it or anything. I mean, I don't want Marilyn and my kids watching that stuff
on CNN or something." He waited. The time for round-trip signals was growing
longer.
    "You got it, Dano."
    The President made his announcement, and Dan went on an hour later to show
that he was still able to function. He had no prepared speech, but the most
important thing was to look calm and not hysterical. He succeeded in that, mostly
because he felt too stunned and empty to crack up in front of the hundreds of
millions who would be viewing him from Earth.
    Sallie spoke to him after his appearance. Ashana Washington's parents and
brother had already retained counsel, and there was talk of massive lawsuits. He
might have known that the lawyers would get in on this immediately.
   "The most important thing now," Sallie said, "is to bring you home as fast as
possible. You'll reach your destination four days from now." She narrowed her
eyes. "The Burroughs is already programmed to orbit Mars automatically, so all we
have to do is let it swing around and head back to Earth. You can get back in—"
    "I'm not going to land?" he asked, and waited even longer.
    Sallie sat up. "Land?"
    "I want to land, Sallie. Don't you understand? I have to now. The others would
have expected me to—I've got to do it for them." He searched for another phrase.
"It means they won't have died in vain. I can do it—you can program the lander,
and I can go down to the surface. Maybe I can't do the experiments and stuff they
were going to, but I can set up the cameras and bring back soil samples. It wouldn't
be right not to try. And if I'm going to die, I might as well die doing something."
    He waited for his words to reach her. "Dan," she said at last, "you surprise me."
      It would probably surprise the hell out of the President, too. "I've got to do it,
Sallie." He frowned, struggling with the effort of all this thinking. "Look, if I land,
it'll inspire the world to bigger and better space triumphs. We'll get that bigger space
station built and the more advanced ships, too. But if you just bring me back, all the
nuts will start whining again about what a waste all this was and how four people
died for nothing." He waited.
    "I'll do what I can, Dan." She shook her head. "I don't have much to say about
this, but I can speak up for you. In the end, though, it's probably going to be up to
the President."
    "Then put me through to him now."
     He hashed it out with the President in the slow motion of radio delay, listened to
the objections, and replied by invoking the memory of his dead comrades. When
the President, looking tense and even more hyper than usual, signed off by saying he
would have to consult with his advisors, Dan was certain he had won. He felt no
surprise when word came twelve hours later that he would be allowed to undertake
the landing.
    After all, if the President didn't let him go ahead, it was like admitting publicly
that he had put an incompetent without adequate training aboard the Burroughs.
The President, having finally salvaged his place in history, wasn't about to go down
in the record books as a doofus.
                                            ###
    David Bowie was singing about Major Tom and Ground Control. Kiichi had
been a David Bowie fan, so a lot of Bowie's music, everything from his Ziggy
Stardust phase up through Tin Machine, was in the Burroughs's music collection.
Dan had never been into David Bowie, who struck him as being kind of fruity, but
now he felt as if he understood this particular song.
    Sometimes, during his work with the President's Council on Space, Dan had
wondered why some early astronauts had gotten kind of flaky after returning to
Earth. These were macho test pilot guys, not the kind of men anyone would expect
to get mystical or weirded out. But as he moved around the ship, which was usually
silent except for the low throbbing hum of the engine and an occasional beep from
the consoles, he was beginning to feel a bit odd himself, as if his mind had somehow
moved outside of his body.
    He had never thought all that much about God. He had, of course, never
doubted that God was out there going about His business; he had simply never
thought about the Lord that much, except when he was in church or saying a prayer.
When he was a boy, he had imagined a God something like his grandfather Pulliam,
an angry old man ready to smite all those liberal Democrats, Communists, and other
forces of darkness. Later on, when he was older and more mature, God had seemed
more like a sort of basketball coach or golf pro.
     Now, when he gazed at the image of Mars on his screen, a rust-red dot
surrounded by blackness, he had the strangest feeling that he had never really
understood the Lord at all. God had created all this, the planets and the space
between them and the stars that were so far away he could not even comprehend the
distance. God, in some ways, was a lot like the NASA computers, but there was
even more to Him than that. Dan wasn't quite sure how to put it; things like that were
hard to explain. He supposed that was what it meant to be mystical—having weird
feelings you couldn't quite put into words. And faith was believing what no one in
his right mind would believe even though it was true.
     NASA kept him busy during his waking hours programming the Mars lander and
checking out its systems. After supper, he usually worked on his speech, with some
suggestions NASA was passing along from his speechwriters. They had given him
another speech earlier, but he couldn't use that one now. With what had happened,
this one would have to be really inspiring.
     Yet he still had his moments of solitude, the times when he felt, for the first time
in his life, what it was like to be utterly alone. He couldn't actually be alone, he
supposed, since God had to be somewhere in the vicinity, but there were times when
it seemed that the emptiness of space had seeped into him.
                                            ###
    Mars swelled until it filled the screen, and then his ship was falling around the
planet. There was no way to avoid weightlessness now; the Burroughs had begun
to decelerate after the halfway point of the journey, and its engine had finally shut
down. Dan put on his spacesuit and floated through the tunnel that connected the
crew's quarters with the module holding the base assembly. He wouldn't be setting
up a Mars base, though, since NASA didn't want him fooling around down there for
very long. He entered the last module, which held the lander.
    He pressed his hand against the lander's door; it slid open. The lander had food,
a small lavatory, and equipment for experiments. There was even a Mars rover on
board so that he could ride around on the surface. He wouldn't be doing much,
though, except for shooting a bunch of stuff with the cameras and gathering soil
samples. The important thing was to land, make his speech, mess around for a little
while, catch some shut-eye, and then get back to the Burroughs.
     He strapped himself into one of the chairs. The four empty seats made him feel
as if the ghosts of the others were with him. NASA had allowed each of the
astronauts to bring along a small personal possession to take down to the Martian
surface, and Dan had his companions' choices with him in the lander. Ahmed had
brought a Koran, Kiichi a vintage Louisville Slugger with Joe DiMaggio's signature
engraved on it, Sergei a set of nested Russian dolls, and Ashana a pair of Nikes
personally autographed by Michael Jordan. A lump rose in his throat.
    The doors to the outside were opening; he tensed. The President had spoken to
him just a couple of hours ago, telling him that everyone in the world would be
waiting for his first transmission from the surface. In spite of the tragedy, Dan's
determination to carry out the landing had inspired everybody in the country. Having
come so far, humankind would not be discouraged by this setback; the
Vice-President had shown the way. Construction of the next ship was moving
along; it would probably be spaceworthy by spring, and a follow-up Mars mission
would give an even bigger boost to Dan's candidacy. At this point, he would
probably carry all the states, and even D.C., in the general election.
    "Asteroids," the President had said. "Lotta resources there. Just get one of
those things in Earth orbit, where we can go into, uh, a mining mode, and
supply-side economics can work." It was nice for Dan to think that, when he finally
became President, things might be moving along so well that he'd have plenty of time
for golf, the way Eisenhower had.
    The lander glided forward toward the new world below.
                                            ###
    Mars filled his screen. Dan, pressed against his seat, braced himself. He had
known what to expect; his training had included maneuvers with a model of the Mars
rover in areas much like the Martian surface. Yet actually seeing it this close up still
awed him. It looked, he thought, like the biggest sand trap in the universe.
    His chair trembled under him as he landed. Dan waited, wanting to make sure
everything was all right before he got up. Time to contact Earth, but in the
excitement of actually being on Mars, he had forgotten what he was supposed to
say.
    He cleared his throat. "Guys," he said, "I'm down." That ought to do the job.
    Over four minutes passed before he heard what sounded like cheers at the other
end. Sallie was saying something, but he couldn't make out the words. By then, he
was rummaging through the compartments of his spacesuit looking for the cards that
held his speech.
    "—all ecstatic," Sallie's voice said. "Congratulations, and God bless you—you
don't know how much—"
    He sighed, realizing at last that he had forgotten the cards. He might have known
that, during the most important moment of his life, he would have to ad lib.
                                           ###
    Dan waited in the small airlock until the door slid open. Above him was the
pinkish-red sky of an alien world. A rust-colored barren landscape stretched to the
horizon, which, he noticed, seemed closer than it should be, then remembered that
Mars was smaller than Earth. He felt a lot lighter, too, since Mars, being a smaller
place, didn't have as much gravity.
    He made his way down the ladder to the surface, then inhaled slowly. "Whoa,"
he said aloud, overcome with awe at the immensity of this accomplishment and
sorrow that his dead comrades could not share the moment with him. "Jeez." He
pressed his lips together, suddenly realizing that history would record man's first
words on the surface of Mars as "Whoa" and "Jeez."
    "Well, here I am," he said, knowing he would have to wing it. "I almost can't
believe I'm here. Man, if anybody had told me when I was a kid that I'd go to Mars,
I would have thought—" He paused. "Anyway, the thing is, I wish the others were
here with me, because they're the ones who really deserved to make this trip. What I
mean is, I'm really going to miss them, but I can tell you all I'm not ever going to
forget them. It's why I'm here, because of them. In other words, I figured I had to
come down and stand here for them." He remembered that he was supposed to
plant the United Nations flag about now, and took the pole out from under his arm.
"Now we'll go forward." The words he had planned to say at this point were
something like that. "And someday, other people will come here and turn into
Martians." Dan cleared his throat. "Guess I'll show you around a little now."
                                           ###
    He scanned the landscape with a camera, then went back to the lander. By then,
the President had given him his congratulations, and Marilyn had gotten on to talk to
him after that. He was happy to hear his wife's voice, even though, what with having
to wait a few minutes until she heard him and could reply, it wasn't actually possible
to have what he would call a real conversation. This far from Earth, the signals had
to work even harder to reach him.
    The rover had been lowered from another side of the lander on a platform.
Since about all he could do was take pictures and gather soil samples, NASA
wanted him to drive around and take them in different places. They didn't want him
to go too far or take any unnecessary risks, and maybe, now that he'd given a
speech of sorts, he could let the images of the Martian surface speak for themselves.

    He rode around, careful not to drive too fast since there were some
nasty-looking rocks and rims of small craters nearby, until the orange sky grew
darker. By the time he got back to the lander with his samples, the sky was nearly
black and the sun a bright swirl on the horizon.
   I actually got here, he thought, then remembered the others with a pang.
                                           ###
    He slept well, then got up to say his farewells to the Red Planet—although Rusty
Planet might be a better name for it. Another ride, some more pictures and samples,
and he was ready to go. He hoped the NASA scientists weren't too unhappy with
his answers to their questions about what unusual things he might have observed.
Hell, everything seemed pretty unusual here, when he stopped to think about it.
    He went inside, then strapped in. "Ready to go," he said. There were just a
couple of buttons to push, and he had practiced a lot during the last days aboard
the Burroughs to be sure he didn't make a mistake. He pressed one, waited for it to
light up, then hit the next. For a few moments, he wondered why he couldn't feel the
lander taking off, then realized that it wasn't moving.
    "Uh, Mars to Houston," he said, then waited until he heard Sallie's voice
respond. "I hate to say this, but I'm not going anywhere. Should I hit those whosits
again, or what?"
   Nearly ten minutes later, he heard Sallie's reply. Her first word was, "Shit."
                                           ###
    No matter how many times he activated the controls, nothing happened. Mission
Control had various theories about what might be wrong, none of which were doing
him any good. Gradually it dawned on him that he might be stranded. Twenty-four
hours after he reached that conclusion, Sallie confirmed it. They could not pinpoint
the problem at that distance. They did not want to take any risks with the lander. He
was reminded of which buttons to push in order to bring down the Mars base
assembly.
    It could have been worse, he told himself. There were enough provisions in the
lander alone to last him more than a month, since his companions weren't there to
share them. With the supplies the base assembly had, he could survive until a rescue
mission arrived.
    There would be such a mission. The President assured him of that, as did Sallie.
Another ship would be on its way to him within a few months. The wonderful thing
was that his mission, despite the tragedy, was in its own way a success, even if he
wasn't in the best position to appreciate that fact. A man had made it to Mars and
was now on its surface, and the fate of his fellow astronauts had only temporarily
stemmed the rising tide of optimism and hope. Humankind would return to the
Moon and reach out to the other planets. Dan, who had insisted on landing instead
of turning back, would be remembered by future generations of space explorers.
    How his present predicament might affect the elections was not discussed. The
President had said something vague about getting him back there in time for the
convention. Now that Dan was a true hero, it didn't look as though there would be
any opposition in the Republican primaries anyway.
   Dan tried to feel comforted by this, but the campaign, and everything else,
seemed awfully far away.
                                          ###
   A distant object shaped like a shuttlecock dropped toward the cratered plain. Its
engines fired; the object landed two kilometers away.
    Dan sighed with relief at the sight of the base assembly. He had been worrying
that something might go wrong at this point; one disadvantage of being a hero is that
sometimes it required you to be dead. Now he would be safe, and could keep busy
making observations, watching movies, working out, and in general keeping himself
together until the rescue mission arrived. It was sort of depressing to know he'd
miss Thanksgiving and Christmas, although fortunately there were some turkey
dinners among the provisions, and Mission Control had promised to sing carols for
him.
    He climbed into the rover and started toward the barrels of the base assembly;
he'd check it out first, then come back another time to load up whatever he might
need from the lander. His staff had promised to transmit the text for the official
announcement of his candidacy in a few days, and he supposed they would want
him to make some speeches from Mars later, during the primaries. Maybe being on
Mars, whatever the disadvantages, was better than having to trudge through New
Hampshire.
                                          ###
     He had to admit it; life in the somewhat more spacious quarters of the Mars base
wasn't too bad in some ways. He was getting used to the desolate orange landscape
and the way the sun set so suddenly. There were movies and records enough to
keep him occupied, although he was beginning to see that there were limits to how
many times he could watch some movies, even ones as great as Ferris Bueller's Day
Off.
     But there were times when the solitude, even with all the messages NASA was
relaying from Earth, really got to him. There wasn't a whole lot a guy could do all
alone, except for stuff it was better not to think about too much. He had spoken to
Marilyn and the kids a couple of times, but having to speak and then wait long
minutes for the response made him realize how far he was from everything he knew.

    Maybe things would pick up when he really got into his campaign. There was
plenty he could do, even out here. His staff was already trying to set him up for a
Nightline appearance, which would probably have to be taped so that the delay
between Ted Koppel's questions and his answers could be deleted. His staff should
be transmitting the text for the official announcement of his candidacy any day now.
    Dan had finished struggling into his spacesuit and was about to put on his helmet
when the com started beeping at him. Maybe his speechwriters had finally gotten
their act together. He sat down and turned on the screen.
   The President's face stared out at him. "Uh, hello, Mr. President," Dan said. "I
was just about to take a drive over to the lander—there's some stuff I want to move
here."
    "I don't know how to tell you this, Dan," the President said. "Something's gone,
well, a bit awry. Might have known the Democrats would think of some devious—
see, we're going to have to postpone your announcement for a while."
    "But why?"
    He waited a long time for the President's answer. "The Democrats—they're
saying you have to be on Earth to make your announcement. Somebody found
some loophole or other in the law, and they're arguing that you can't declare and run
for President while you're on Mars. Got our guys working on it—think they can
beat those bastards in court—but by the time they do, it may be too late to file and
get you on primary ballots. Could try to get write-ins, but the rules are, uh, different
in every state."
    Dan tried to recall if there was something in the law the Democrats could use to
pull a stunt like this. He couldn't think of anything, but then he hadn't been exactly
the biggest brain in law school. Maybe the Democrats would drag out John Glenn,
however old he was, to run this time. They'd probably use Ashana's family in the
campaign, too; they had plenty of reason to be pissed off at the Administration.
    "You said I could get back by the convention," Dan murmured. "I mean, aren't
the delegates free to switch their votes if they want?"
    The minutes passed. "Well, you're right on the money there, and no question
they'd turn to you, but—see, NASA's got sort of a little problem with the new ship.
Nothing for you to worry about, just some bitty technical thing they can definitely
iron out, but they're certain they can have you back here next fall."
     Dan was beginning to see more problems. The Democrats might use his
predicament against the Republicans. They would say he wouldn't be stranded there
if the Administration had thought more about real science and space exploration and
less about politics and publicity stunts, if they hadn't been rushing to put him on
another planet. He wouldn't be on the campaign trail to inspire people and to invoke
the names of his comrades; he would be only a distant voice and grainy image from
Mars. The whole business might turn into as big a bummer as the end of the Gulf
War.
    "What are we going to do?" Dan asked.
   When the President replied, he said, "Well, there's a lotta sentiment here to make
Marilyn our candidate."
     That figured. The idea was so perfect that Dan was surprised he hadn't thought
of it himself. The Democrats would look mean-spirited slinging mud at a hero's
wife, one waiting and praying for her husband to return safely.
    "All I can say," Dan said quietly, "is that she has my full support."
                                            ###
    Dan finished loading the rover, climbed in and drove slowly toward the scattered
Tootsie Rolls of his base. He had not had to talk to Marilyn very long to convince
her to run; in fact, he had expected her to object a lot more to the idea. She would
make a pretty good president, though—maybe a better one than he would have been.
    He had packed up the personal items of his comrades— Ashana's Nikes,
Ahmed's Koran, Kiichi's bat, and Sergei's dolls—feeling that he wanted his dead
friends' things with him. He had also brought his golf balls and his favorite wood.
The club, which had a persimmon head, had cost him a pretty penny, but he liked a
driver with a solid hardwood head.
    An inspiration came to him. He stopped the rover, climbed down, then took out
one of his balls and the wood. Stepping over a small crater, he set down the ball,
then gripped his club. Getting in a smooth swing was going to be rough with his
spacesuit on, but he thought he could manage it. Alan Shepard might be the first
guy to tee off on the Moon, but Dan would be the first to do so on another planet.
    He swung his club and knew the head's sweet spot had met the ball. The small
white orb arched above the orange cratered landscape and soared toward the distant
pink sky.
                                         End