“Earth-crossers, or Apollo objects, orbit in a path around the Sun and towards the Earth, then back again, in a journey of about five years. There are about 40 of these known Apollo objects. Some, such as Hermes, have come to within twice the distance to the Earth’s moon, about 770,000-kilometers, of our planet. A direct hit on the Earth may happen only once in 250,000-years, and some experts feel such a collision might happen only once in a million years. Such an impact, however, would produce an explosion as great as 20,000-megaton hydrogen bombs. Scientists feel it was this kind of meteor strike that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65-million years ago.”
---‘Our Universe’ by Roy A. Gallant, National Geographic, 1980
Two weeks before the US-Mars Defense Plan Task Force met at Fort Hunter-Liggett, in California, where it was warm all year, dry, and oak trees everywhere, along the sides of gently sloping brown hills---away beyond the cusp of awareness, also hidden, in another land, so different and far-off as to almost be viewed as ‘another planet’, or ‘another world’, which was the Southern Ukraine region, formerly a part of Mother Russia, and the vast USSR before that---here it was that the Russian-Islamic space-program, for at least a small part of their various efforts off-world, held court, made their plans, and dreamed their dreams. It was cold here, often with snow on the ground, and high, rocky mountains, and woods very different and deeper or darker than those of California. To those who knew where to find it, a Space Port known as KK-F/Region Six, had been built years past, and now rested, there among the woods, mountains and snow.
Somewhere among them, inside the facility, their own team had assembled, this for the eighth or ninth time in a period of several months, with the same set of science-facts and research, as the US-Mars Program had. Among them were four of their regular space-flight pilots, all husky, large men, pink-skinned with dark whiskers, or shaven, dressed for warmth, in casual uniforms. The Commander was Rudolph Terchenko, an older, mature man, and veteran of Russian space-flights for many years. In addition, the on-going Russian-Islamic ‘think-tank’ participants included so-called Islamic Renaissance scientists, and Resource Managers from Saudi, Iranian and the Northern Indian sub-continent.
This alliance for space-research was much different than the American program, and formed itself from a wide pattern of states, nations, science-Universities, military bases and space-ports. In an odd way, the Russian-Islamic space-program was far more resourceful and ‘tougher’ than the US program---they managed the same accomplishments and feats in space as the US-side, but working with less. Longer space-walks, greater distances beyond the moon, faster launches, and rougher landings, were the rule, and a matter of great pride among the men working in that team.
Commander Terchenko laughed and rolled back his chair from a long wooden desk. It was a chamber for his rule over the space-program arena he was in charge of, and he had himself very well-equipped with comforts many of his countrymen did not have: food and drink, plenty of vodka, warm heaters, computers and communications, servants, and a real wood fireplace. His assistant, a slender young woman with a stiff laugh and dark hair, gathered his papers and books, and laptop computer. She knew where he was headed.
“No, Milana, it’s not true, what he told you. It never was that way. They tested the bombs, yes, and then the areas were sealed for contamination. But anyone who lived in the region was evacuated,” he said.
“But he said there were deformities, and still-births, and cancer, and diseases, from the nuclear tests, Commander,” Milana replied. “I’m sorry to repeat it again, he was very insistent.”
“Do not believe lies,” he answered. “Unless they are mine.”
They left his chamber, and proceeded down a hallway. This was a simple complex of offices and administrative centers, and also research-and-science, associated with the Russian leadership portion of the Eastern space-program alliance. Terchanko talked as Milana walked with him, toting his stuff.
“I was only curious, sir,” Milana said.
“Nevermind,” Terchenko said. “This meeting ahead will decide our final choice about the US Mars-base. That is, if we plan to take it, or not. You understand. So please, keep yourself quiet about anything, and just take notes, or get my meal. It will be a long meeting.”
“Yes, sir,” Milana said.
“The Iranian military space-program leadership will be present. They have great power, and very specific equipment, and also trained men, and clearance. Also, my entire staff. We have trained our teams for months, but there is no command to launch. If we launch, it is war. A space-war. You must not discuss this sort of thing with anyone, dear Milana,” Terchenko said.
“Never,” was her terse reply. They continued down the hallway. Ahead were double-doors to a large meeting-room. Soldiers nearby in uniforms, and armed, kept watch---a needless guard, given the obscurity and hidden location of the KK/F-Region Six space-port facility. You would have had more luck passing bodily through the Wailing Wall in Old Jerusalem, then entering here, un-welcomed.
The double-doors opened, and they passed inside. The room was a busy place, with an entire complex of long work-tables, perhaps ten or twelve long areas, with seats, name-plates, computers, and covered in long sheets of dense white-blue cloth. Each man at his seat had papers and books, and beyond the back of the room was a large projector screen-image, where data, statistics, and graphs-and-charts, could be viewed by them all. Commander Terchenko and his assistant, young Milana, took their place at one of the tables. A plate of dried apples and cheese, with hot black coffee and brandy, was at his left hand.
At once as Terchenko settled, a small Eastern-looking man with dark skin and a gray beard walked nearby toward him, much like a scientist but perhaps ‘some sort of egg-head’, as Terchenko mused within himself. “Commander,” the man said. “Please, just a moment. Before we start.”
“Yes,” said Terchenko. “ You are---??”
“Doctor Martin-Sarcasian, with Central Planning. You don’t believe me? Here.” He produced a small leather-bound packet with his immediate ID inside, on a nylon cord around his neck. Terchenko viewed it briefly.
“Yes, I know you,” Terchenko said. “An egg-head.”
“Just a word, sir, before the meeting. I’m troubled by the direction we are going, on the council team. There is an aspect of reality here with the planners, it has been discussed, but I think there was no fair hearing about the matter. I want to review it again. But it is very sensitive. I don’t even know if there is time for a full review. I’d like yourself as local program Commander to---maybe---just bring it up, with the group---at the right time.”
Now Terchenko had seated himself and was having his coffee. “Well, fine. Tell me first, and I will decide.”
“You already know,” Doctor Martin-Sarcasian replied.
“The meteor? Yes, we know,” Terchenko said.
“No, no,” said Sarcasian. “I’m talking about the Edinberg Society contact we’ve had. The Scottish group. What the panelists don’t recognize is the long-term motivation for taking control of the base on Mars.”
“To survive the meteor strike,” Terchenko said. “Is it not?”
“Well, yes, on the face of things. But we can’t survive on Mars forever.”
“With our men on Mars, after the meteor hits, if it ever does, we can send survivors back to rebuild, or work recovery, and so on,” Terchenko said.
“You are not familiar with the Edinberg group. Our people have been considering off-world information---off-world, I mean, from other planets. Not Mars. Worlds far out into our galaxy. Inhabited places. That is, you would say---aliens.”
Terchenko paused. He refreshed his coffee. “Go ahead, Doctor Martin. Please be brief. I don’t believe in aliens. They don’t exist.”
“The planning team has not recognized that once we take the Mars-base, and if Earth is smitten of the meteor, with heavy damage, that the contacts through Scotland, would be re-established in the future, on Mars, with our people who survive there. In other words, the human race could survive. We’d go on. I know it’s far-fetched. But you see---I have studied this aspect. I know a lot about it. It has a high level of probability. The information is secure.” Sarcasian continued.
Terchenko laughed again. He had a big jovial laugh, spreading his hands widely on the table. “Maybe we just want to survive, anyway!” he said. “Maybe we just want to survive the damn meteor and the hell with your aliens!”
Doctor Martin-Sarcasian seemed angry. “That’s not the point,” he said. “Of course we want to survive. If the meteor hits, we want people on Mars. That’s not the point. What I’m saying is, we need to plan ahead for this aspect, so that when-and-if we arrive on Mars, or take the base from the Americans, that we will be prepared to deal with the Edinberg Society findings and radio-telescope deep-space communications---for the survival of all mankind! We need to plan ahead so that we can accommodate this---it’s important!”
“Even if it’s all horse-shit?”
“Damn you, Terchenko! I’ll bring it forward myself! Good day to you!” Sarcasian now walked away. Terchenko smiled. He had been a part of the Russian space-program a long time. Men like Sarcasian had big ideas, big dreams, and radio-telescopes to listen to for years on end. But it almost always meant nothing, so as a practical person he never trusted them at all, or their information. He made a mental note, and felt the man’s idea would probably come up again. It had already been discussed. Sarcasian seemed unsatisfied that the planning team was thinking ‘his way’ about it. He probably wanted to be assured that any future Russian-Islamic stake on Mars, would include the gear, technology, man-power, and resources, needed to re-establish whatever his so-called Edinburg Society had accomplished. As if Terchenko could plan ahead to build him a radio-telescope on Mars, at the same time they were over-powering the US-Mars forces, and taking control of the base, with as little loss of life and damage to the Mars-facility as possible. And also, Terchenko himself had no real faith in the Edinburg Society, and certainly no faith in talk of any aliens. For real space-men in 2075, it was a joke.
The rest of the meeting proceeded as planned. They wrangled over the issues and topics for hours, shouting each other down in native Russian, or sometimes other languages. The ships and men were trained for the mission. The plan-of-attack was prepared. Some members felt an attack on the Mars-base was premature---the meteor was still years away, and might never even hit the Earth at all, or be deflected. Others saw it as an opportunity, but the political-wing fully understood the ramifications for Russia and her alliance-in-space, when they had to explain to the global community what they had done.
Later it became clear that the fear-based military side was winning the argument. The game was played such as to launch or not-to-launch, and when. By giving themselves a year’s advance at the base on Mars, or longer, well ahead of any meteor---which well they knew about, and were tracking as closely as the rest of the world---the notion was that they could secure their goals, made to sound lofty and noble, or in terms of saving humanity---when it was true enough they also wanted to save their own skins, and avoid a future-life on a dead-Earth, smitten by the meteor, with untold damages, a new Ice-Age, an unlivable world, the environment uninhabitable. Even if only a few hundred---at least it would be ‘their side’.
A secret vote passed from table-to-table, hand-written on scraps of paper. It was late, they were all exhausted. They were collected and tallied. The results were brought to Terchenko, who as Commander of the local space-program was placed in the role of meeting co-ordinator---and announcer of colossal mistakes.
“Thank you,” Terchenko said to the Aide, after the tally was gathered, and the vote was done---yes-or-no to launch, and also yes-or-no on a spectrum of launch-dates, which had to be arranged in harmony with the position of both planets, within the coming year. The Commander’s smile evaporated.
“All right then,” he said. “The vote is done. The answer is to launch our forces, to the US-Mars base location, in three months, which is in May, to accommodate the position of the planets. So that is the vote. We will launch. Done is done. Thank you.”
The room descended from anxious silence into hushed chatter in every corner. With all their brain-power and egg-heads, all their information and data, and the space-ships, they had chosen to attack. For the good of all mankind, of course.
“Get me another plate with the apples and cheese,” Terchenko told his assistant Milana. “And more coffee.”
She looked down as she scurried off quickly towards a facility kitchen.
---Julian Phillips
Dec. 2, 2009
For Tom Luong Films
2210-words
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