Red Thunder

It took them a little over an hour. Then the lock door opened, a ramp was deployed, and a single cosmonaut came down it and, with no ceremony at all, stepped onto the Martian soil and set up a television camera on a tripod.

“I think we’re witnessing a little white lie,” Kelly said.

“How you figure?” Travis asked.

“That camera, they’re going to send the picture from that as they all come out at once, and say that is the first human steps on Mars.”

“I think you’re right. Well, it worked for Douglas MacArthur.” He saw our blank looks, and shook his head, as much as you can in a space suit.

“We know who Douglas MacArthur is,” Kelly said-and she could speak for herself, as far as I was concerned, I had only a vague idea he was a general. “What’s the story, that’s what I don’t know.” So Travis told us how the general reenacted his “first steps” wading onto Philippine soil during the Second World War. He’d apparently made a promise, something like, “I’ll be back.”

Sure enough, five minutes later the door opened again and all four Chinese cosmonauts got together on the ramp… and just as we had done, kicked off in step so their feet touched the ground at the same time.

[346] “Time to saddle up and go,” Travis said. “Dak, you got a good idea where their camera is aimed?”

“No sweat, Captain.”

So we boarded and Dak drove down the gully to a spot that ought to be right in the center of the Chinese camera’s field of vision. Then he gu

Blue Thunder was a little friskier than he’d counted on. We left the ground with all four wheels as we topped the rise, then settled back easily in the low gravity, and the Chinese cameras caught it perfectly. “Sorry, Captain,” Dak said.

“What the heck. Go for it.”

The terrain was almost free of rocks, so Dak moved at a speed he hadn’t attempted before. He drove to within a hundred feet of the assembled Chinese and skidded to a stop. Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, slashed back and forth from its mount on the end of our fifteen-foot radio ante

Their backs were to us, they were lining up to salute the flag they had just erected, when something told one of them we were behind them, maybe a reflection in his ship’s shiny metal skin. He turned, jumped right into the air in surprise, and almost fell over coming down. He must have shouted, because the others turned, too, in time to see us clambering down from Blue Thunder.

Travis was in the lead, holding up a sign he had made that said cha

“Welcome to Mars!” he said, extending his hand. Xu was still suffering from shell shock. He let Travis shake his hand, and then took my hand when I offered it.

It was at that point that the live television feed was cut, back on Earth… cut in China, anyway. But all of the television networks in the rest of the world were still sending out the signal for all to see. We lost a billion viewers at one stroke. That left only three billion watching…

[347] And that’s what Travis meant when he said we were going to hijack their expedition.

AFTER THAT, RELATIONS between the two crews were surprisingly cordial.

The Heavenly Harmony crew had not been informed about the launch of Red Thunder, and they were furious about that. Not that they could do anything about it, or even dare mention it when they got home, but with us they could express their frustration.

After introductions were made we got down to the serious business of taking pictures of each other. Kelly used four rolls of film and Kuang Mei-Ling, the exobiologist who spoke a little English, shot at least that many. Then we were invited in for lunch.

The decks of the Heavenly Harmony were a bit wider than ours, but there weren’t as many of them. Basically, it was command and control on top, common room one floor below, and sleeping quarters below that. They did have a tiny shower, which Kelly eyed hungrily as we were given the tour, but their toilets were chemical like our own, if a bit fancier.

So we sat down together and we were treated to some sort of noodle soup with chunks of pork and vegetables in it, along with bowls of rice. Luckily, there was no bird-nest soup or thousand-year-old eggs or sauteed ducks heads, or anything gross like that. We all cleaned our plates.

Travis then asked Captain Xu if we could send some short messages to our families back on Earth, since our own long-range radios were no longer working. Xu said he’d be happy to, but as we approached the television transmission desk one of the crew, Chun Wang, seemed to object. A few intense words were exchanged as we Americans busied ourselves looking around, not wanting to witness a family squabble. Xu won, though we weren’t exactly sure what it was he won, and we all broadcast simple messages; we’re safe, we’re happy except we miss you… and we were the first!

Then we all boarded our separate chariots and headed south in search of the Grand Canyon of Mars.

[348] The Chinese were awed by Blue Thunder, as who wouldn’t be? It dwarfed the Chinese rover, which looked a lot like the Apollo lunar rovers, but with bigger wire-weave tires. There were four seats, all occupied. They trusted their automatic systems to handle things while they were away, and I couldn’t argue with them. After all, the computer had landed their ship.

But we did have to pause a few times as the Chinese driver had to find a way around big rocks. Dak waited patiently for them, a smug smile on his face.

When we got there the Chinese geologist, Li Chong, leaped from the rover like an excited puppy and started banging on rocks with a hammer. He tried to be five places at once, dropping samples he was trying to stuff into plastic bags, picking up new ones. It must be incredible, I realized, to have an entire planet to study… and in this case, he was the first. The first rockhound on Mars.

As for the rest of us…

Never having been to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, or to any canyon, for that matter, I had nothing to compare it to. I saw incredible desolation. Incredible colors. Incredible immensity. I picked up a rock and hurled it out into space, and we all watched as it fell, and bounced, and fell some more, and bounced, until we lost it.

I noticed Chun Wang didn’t seem to have much to do. Kuang Mei-Ling and Li hopped about like excited sparrows, and even Captain Xu seemed to have some geological training, helping gather samples. I didn’t say anything about it, since we were all on the same suit cha

“Political officer,” he said. “Commissar, or whatever the Chinese call it. He’s a Party member, here to keep the others in line. Standard operating procedure on a Chinese vessel. Did you see how nobody talked to him much, at lunch?”

Now that he mentioned it, I had noticed that. Chun seemed to sit off to himself somehow, even at the crowded table. The other three had virtually ignored him.

“Some sort of social dynamic going on there. Mei-Ling is married to Captain Xu, and I figure that’s put a lot of strain on Chun and Li. And [349] Chun seems to be largely frozen out by the others. People problems, Ma

GOOD MANNERS DICTATED that we invite the Chinese aboard for a meal, so Travis did. We arranged it for Day M3, our third day on Mars, the second day for the Chinese. I drew the short straw that day and watched through the ports of the cockpit deck as the two vehicles headed off for the Valles again a few hours after sunrise, feeling a bit lost and abandoned. They would be back around midafternoon, a time dictated by the capacity of the suit oxygen tanks, and our stamina.