For a moment, McGee and Luke looked at each other. Both women watched curiously, with similar thoughts. Let's see who stays. The confrontation didn't take long. McGee stood his ground. Luke hesitated and then looked to Townsend, who motioned the geologist to follow him out to the galley.
Seconds after the door closed behind the two departing men, Gwen screamed again.
The scream bespoke a pain that edged on death. McGee was terrified. "What's going on? Is this normal?"
Rebecca's voice was coolly professional. "We've got engagement, descent, and flexion. Internal rotation nominal."
"I'm cold," Gwen said with a violent shiver.
That, at least, was something he could deal with. McGee quickly found a blanket and covered Gwen's chest and arms.
"That's better." She smiled.
"Extension beginning, rotation complete," Rebecca recited.
Gwen yelled in pain. McGee's face went white, but Rebecca was all business. She placed her stethoscope to Gwen's swollen lower section and listened for a few seconds. A trace of alarm flashed through her eyes. McGee caught it and suddenly his fear changed to terror.
"What is it?" he asked.
"The heartbeat indicates fetal distress. That baby has got to come out fast." Rebecca hesitated for a bare moment. "Okay, Gwen," she commanded. "You've got to push now. Push!"
Gwen tried her best, but the pain only increased. "It's no use."
Rebecca reached into the birth canal and felt around for the problem. "Dammit, there's some kind of blockage."
Gwen screamed again, but Rebecca kept probing. "It's the baby's leg. It's caught." She tried to move the small limb, provoking another horrible scream. The mechanic started to twitch wildly.
"Hold her still, Kevin. Hold her still!"
McGee clenched his teeth and pinned his wife as she screamed again, enough to set even Townsend's nerves on edge all the way out in the galley. Luke went deathly pale. Each of Gwen's cries was worse than before. Townsend started to pace. Luke put his hands over his ears.
Again Gwen screamed, telling of pain and agony beyond comprehension.
"I can't take much more of this," Townsend muttered.
Then the most horrible scream of all rang out. The commander looked wildly at Luke. "What's going on? She's dying!" There was no time to lose. Townsend ran and pushed open the door. Stumbling into the lab he was greeted by a new cry. The cry of a baby.
The colonel stopped, shocked. Rebecca held a blood-covered infant, which was crying lustily. A lot of blood. He looked at Gwen, but the flight engineer was alive. McGee was holding her sweaty hand. As they watched, Rebecca toweled off the baby, put drops in her eyes, then handed her to the new mother.
Gwen smiled at her tiny daughter, then announced to everyone, "Her name is Virginia Dare McGee."
"After the first English child born in America," McGee explained. "The first American. She is the first Martian."
Overcome, Rebecca broke into happy tears.
"Rebecca, you were great," McGee congratulated. "I guess all that delivery room experience never wears off."
"This was my first," the doctor sniffled.
Everyone was astounded.
Rebecca held her head up bravely. "But it won't be my last. I never saw it before. This is what biology is really all about. It's about life, and..." Rebecca hesitated for a second, glancing over at Gwen holding her baby. The others looked at her expectantly.
"And life's a miracle!" the biologist concluded triumphantly.
Gwen smiled at her child, and nodded in agreement.
OPHIR PLANUM
JULY 20, 2013, 09:00 MLT
The departing crew stayed for four more days, because they could. But July 20, Space Day, was time to leave.
Final farewells took place on the lower deck of the Beagle. Hands were shaken all around, and Gwen and Rebecca shared an emotional embrace, their differences resolved by much more than words.
Then the Hab's door closed. As McGee, Gwen, and baby Virginia watched through the windows of the Beagle, the departing trio trooped across the plain to enter the ERV. Townsend was the last to climb the ladder; as he prepared to enter the hatch, he turned to give a thumbs up, which Gwen returned. Then the hatch closed.
McGee, Gwen, and Virginia stood by the window and waited. A few minutes later, with the briefest of warnings, the ERV Retriever lifted off with a roar and disappeared into the Martian sky.
Returning upstairs after the departure, the castaways entered the galley. There on the table was a box, labeled in Rebecca's handwriting, "For Gwen."
The mechanic opened the cardboard container. Inside were two toy horses, fine models really, of the Tennessee Walking breed. Gwen could see that they had once been carefully hand painted, but the paint was worn, as if loving hands had petted the horses and played with them, many times over many years.
There was a note in the box. It read "Their names were Misty and Comet..."
With a tear in her eye, Gwen pranced the little horses before the fascinated Virginia.
CHAPTER 28
ABOARD THE ERV RETRIEVER
APPROACHING EARTH
MAY 16, 2014 10:30 CST
EXCEPT FOR THE short rations, the journey back to Earth began well enough. However, the ERV had never been designed for a three-hundred-day transit back to Earth, and during the final third of the flight, subsystems had begun to fail. That was when they really began to miss Gwen Llewellyn.
Fortunately, the ship's life-support system was built out of multiplexed sub-units, so they did not lose all capacity at once. But as one water-purification module after another dropped off-line, the crew had to increasingly put off the washing of clothes, kitchenware, and personnel, until by the 270th day they stopped altogether. The loss of water recycling also meant the loss of oxygen recycling, since oxygen makeup was provided by the water electrolysis units. By the final day of the return flight to Earth, even the compressed oxygen reserves on board had run out.
At his control console, Colonel Andrew Townsend drew shallow breaths of the foul cabin air. To his left, Luke Johnson was floating, peering out through the porthole at the Earth, which was now looming huge. Behind him, Dr. Sherman drifted alongside some medical oxygen tanks, checking the gauges of these last reserves. Townsend assessed his two remaining crew members; both were short of breath, their eyes red, their faces and clothes dirty, their expressions taut with tension. They've almost had it. Do I look that bad, too?
"There it is. We're almost home," Luke mused out the window, but his voice was far from jubilant. The subtext was unspoken, but telling nevertheless. Having come this far, must we die of suffocation now?
The radio crackled with Phil Mason's voice. "ERV Retriever, this is Houston Control. We have you on radar. You are go for splashdown in South Pacific Quarantine Zone number three. ETA ninety-seven minutes."
Townsend picked up the microphone.
"Houston, this is Retriever. We copy. SPQZ 3. Laying in final descent program now." He began typing in the required commands, but was interrupted by a light touch on his shoulder. He turned to discern Rebecca floating behind him.
"Colonel," the doctor said, urgency in her voice, "the last of the emergency medical oxygen is gone. We don't have ninety-seven minutes."
"How long do we have?"
"Blackout..." Rebecca panted. "Blackout in no more than thirty."
The pilot clenched his fist in frustration, then a cool resolution set in his mind. He surveyed his instruments. Very well. He announced his decision with steel in his voice. "Then we'll just have to come in steeper. Fasten your seat belts folks."