In one of those windowless buildings the “shadow” mission control center was located. It was slightly after eight P.M. on a quiet, warm Texas evening when the inquiry came from Kaliningrad.
Here too, the top decision makers had left for the day and scattered to their suburban homes. The desks and consoles were thinly staffed by only a handful of men and women, most of them young and new to their responsibilities.
The man in charge, a middle-aged systems analyst, was munching on a bag of cheese-flavored tortilla chips when his “red” phone buzzed. With a mixture of pique and puzzlement clouding his fleshy face, he picked up the phone.
It was pure chance that the American controller in Kaliningrad was someone he knew personally. They had gone through several semesters together at CalTech.
“Josie, how are ya?” he said to the tense face that appeared on his display screen. “Those Russkies treating you okay?”
Almost a heartbeat’s delay, as the electronic signal bounced off a communications satellite, before her answer came to him.
“Sam, we’ve got a problem here.”
He lurched forward in his chair. “Whatsamatter?”
“Dr. Li has okayed an extension of the rover excursion without checking with mission control first.”
“Jesus Christ!” He placed a chubby hand over his heaving chest. “I thought there was real trouble. Don’t scare me like that, Jo!”
“This is trouble-it’s a violation of the command decision-tree protocol.”
“Aw, crap. If the goddam rover broke down or somebody got stranded out there, that’s trouble. This is just paperwork.”
She would not be put off. “You’ve got to get Maxwell and Goldschmitt on the phone. They’ve got to know about this right away.”
“The hell they do.”
“The hell they don’t! Either you call them or I’m calling their Russian counterparts here in Kaliningrad.”
Glancing at the clock displays on the far wall, “Christ, it’s four in the morning over there.”
“This is important, Roscoe.”
“Don’t call me Roscoe!”
“Call Maxwell and Goldschmitt. Do it now, before they get too far.”
“They’re probably having their dinners.”
“Which would you prefer: interrupting their dinners or having them find out tomorrow that two of our ground team are off on an unauthorized toot because you didn’t inform them in time to stop them?”
WASHINGTON: It was no coincidence that Alberto Brumado was attending the formal dinner where the Vice-President was the guest of honor. Brumado knew that this woman was in an excellent position to become the next president of the United States, and her views could very well determine when-or even if-the second expedition to Mars would be launched.. Brumado had met her many times before, and although they had drastically different opinions about the importance of space exploration they had become friendly in the polite, grudging way that political opponents often find necessary. Washington’s social circle, after all, was too small to fight battles at cocktail parties and dinners. Better to smile and agree to disagree-in social settings.
So Brumado had no intention whatever of even mentioning Mars to the Vice-President. This was a social evening, a time to be charming and witty and build the amity that might smooth personal differences in the daylight hours of political business.
The Vice-President’s after-dinner speech was a clear signal that she was seeking her party’s nomination. She spoke of America’s greatness, of the growth of the nation’s economy, of how her efforts as leader of the urban revitalization task force were changing the face of cities from coast to coast.
“And the key to all this,” she told her audience of dinner-jacketed men and gowned, bejeweled women, “the key is synergy, the way we have brought together people from many different walks of life and gotten them to work together, to add their energies to each other until the totality of their achievement is far greater than the mere sum of their individual efforts. Synergy works! And this administration intends to use synergy to solve the problems that still plague us….”
Brumado listened carefully as he sat at one of the five dozen round dinner tables with nine strangers. She speaks about the economic contribution of high technology, she even mentions the success of orbital manufacturing, but she does not mention Mars or space science at all. Yet when the explorers return from Mars, he knew, she will be there to greet them in full view of the world’s media.