Seconds later, the cabin shook as the ERV hit water at a terminal velocity of forty miles per hour.
The three explorers stared in amazement at the sight of hissing and steaming seawater splashing over the outside of the porthole. But there was no time to lose. In a blink, the crew was up, madly scrambling for the hatch. Rebecca reached it first and struggled to open the lock, but was too weak. When Luke got beside her, he added his muscle and cranked the wheel a little, but not enough.
Townsend joined in the effort. All of them were on the verge of passing out, suffocating only inches away from fresh, clean air. "OK, together on three. One—two—three!"
The three crew members shoved together, and the wheel rotated a quarter turn, after which the hatch popped open to reveal a patch of blue sky. A blessed whiff of sea air entered the cabin, bringing with it the promise of salvation. Then, as if mocking their renewed hope, the ERV tipped to bring sea level to the bottom of the hatch. Water began to pour in.
"Abandon ship," Townsend shouted.
Closest to the open hatch, Rebecca struggled to get through, but the onrushing water pushed her back. She felt a shove from behind, as the two men pushed her through the opening and into the ocean.
Thrown like a projectile, Rebecca landed headfirst in the sea, then struggled toward the surface. The doctor had once been a fair swimmer, but encumbered with heavy wet clothes, lack of oxygen, and weak from ten months on short rations in zero gravity, she could barely stop herself from sinking farther. She looked upward. Above, light shone on the surface. Air, all the air she could want, was only six feet away.
She kicked and clawed the water with mad desperation, her lungs about to burst. Then she broke the surface, and fresh air filled her stricken lungs. A wave crashed over her and forced her back down, but then she surfaced for another deep breath. She blinked in the bright light and stinging water, but could see nothing except sea and sky. Finally reorienting herself, she turned and saw the Retriever, its inflation collar beginning to fill.
Still gasping for breath, she swam wildly back to the ERV, and, with the help of Luke Johnson, who looked like a big wet Texas rat, hauled herself up on the inflation collar. Then she looked around and saw—the Statue of Liberty!
The ERV had landed in New York harbor on a beautiful spring day! She turned and stared in amazement at Townsend, who answered her with palms out and a self-satisfied grin. She laughed and shook her head, then took a deep breath of the fresh sea air and smoothed back her hair.
A forty-foot sailing yacht came tacking up. "Ahoy there, Martians!" the nattily clad sportsman at her helm called out. "Welcome back. Care for something to drink?"
Rebecca smiled. "A cappuccino would be nice," she said sweetly.
In seconds, the ERV was surrounded by pleasure boats, and a big floating party ensued. On one of the boats, a CD player blared out the song "New York, New York."
Rescue helicopters arrived overhead, instructing the civilian boats to disperse for reasons of quarantine, but were joyfully ignored.
Rebecca kicked off her boots and let them sink as she bathed her bare feet in the water. She sipped her cappuccino and gazed thoughtfully first at the Manhattan skyline, then at the soaring sea gulls, and finally at the infinite sky beyond.
EPILOGUE
NEW PLYMOUTH, OPHIR
PLANUM APRIL 9, 2034 11:45 MLT
AFTER TWENTY YEARS, by now graying and slightly pot-bellied, Kevin McGee sat in a chair in the galley looking at video footage on the monitor. Hanging on the arms and watching along with him were two kids, fourteen-year-old Caitlin and eleven-year-old Dylan. Gwen, her red braided hair also streaked with gray, was cooking, assisted by Virginia, who was now twenty-one.
McGee used the remote to zoom in on a series of video snapshots. "Well, we never saw them again, not in person, but we heard a lot about them. See, here's some footage of their landing on Earth. It was quite a show."
McGee pressed the button on the remote, and the video showed Townsend, Rebecca, and Luke clinging to the hull of the ERV Retriever, which, buoyed by an inflatable collar, bobbed in New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center were visible in the background. Sailboats crowded around the ERV filled with people waving and snapping pictures. In the distance, rescue helicopters were waiting unheeded. Rebecca had taken her shoes off, and was bathing her feet while she leaned back to let her face take in the sunshine. Townsend sat grinning on the hull, returning the cheers with a thumbs up. Luke stood on the highest point of the floating ERV, waving his soaked cowboy hat in the air and whooping it up. Someone from a sailboat passed by and handed Luke a beer.
"They sure picked a dramatic place to make a splash," McGee commented. "The impromptu ticker-tape parade that followed kind of blew away the quarantine issue too." He switched to another image. "Now here's Townsend with his new general's stars, receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor."
Dylan broke in, "Who's the guy with the goofy-looking grin shaking his hand?"
McGee grinned. "That, Dylan, was the President of the United States."
The boy looked puzzled. "I thought Townsend was the President."
"He's the President now, Dylan. This other man was President then." McGee picked another image. "Now here's Rebecca getting her Nobel Prize."
Caitlin was dazzled at the vision of elegance that now filled the screen. "Wow, look at that dress... and look at hers."
McGee nodded. "That's the Queen of Sweden next to her. Now here's Luke on his big spread in Texas. He made a fortune importing industrial gems from Mars."
"Don't we know it," Virginia interrupted roughly.
Gwen scolded her older daughter. "Hush, child! His money has done a lot for this colony."
There was a knock on the lower deck door. McGee called out, "Come in, whoever you are."
To everyone's surprise, a pretty young woman walked in. She wore a doctor's uniform, including stethoscope, and looked very much like a young version of Rebecca.
The girl spoke. "Hi, I just arrived on the ship earlier today. My name's Rachel Sherman. I think you two knew my mother?"
"Well!" McGee stammered, "I thought I heard something about Rebecca having a daughter, but..."
"That's me. She met my father in Stockholm. He was a physicist, getting a Nobel Prize himself for discovering some new kind of particle. I think they were called tachyons, itsy bitsy little things that go faster than light. Mother says there really wasn't all that much to it. I wouldn't know, since I'm not glued onto physics, but anyway it got him to Stockholm. They met, married, and..."
"And you kept your mother's last name," Gwen interjected.
Rachel smiled. "You know my mother. Naturally, she made my father agree that any girls would get her name, and the boys could have his. But I was all they managed to hatch."
McGee nodded understanding. "It didn't last long?"
Rachel shrugged. "When Mother won her second prize for splicing Martian genes with Earth plants to make Arctic Wheat, Father just couldn't drink it, so he lifted off for England to take Hawking's old chair at Cambridge."
"And you?" Gwen asked.
Rachel toyed a bit with her stethoscope. "I spent my entire childhood flying around the world with Mother to conferences and laboratories and stuff, and since that didn't leave me any time for school, she educated me herself. She said school would be a waste of my time anyway. I guess she was right because here I am, eighteen years old, and I've passed all the medical boards."
McGee had to grin. "I'm not surprised. I'll bet you're the best doctor anyone could hope to meet."