[344] Once outside we removed the heat blankets from the tires and inspected them all very closely. They seemed to have come through the incredible cold of the night without any trouble. All systems checks were nominal, as they say at NASA, all six fuel cells humming-or gurgling?-along most satisfactorily. We boarded, Kelly and I in the back again, and took off in search of the Chinese pathfinder landers.
They weren’t hard to find. Our map was spot on, and we had marked the valley where we needed to be, a bit over four miles to the east of us. Dak got us there in no time, dodging around all Buick-sized rocks, as he had promised. We retired to a spot a few gullies back, parked, and waited.
We knew when the Chinese landing was to be, just about an hour from the time we parked. We hadn’t been in contact, so we couldn’t be 100 percent sure they’d be on time. That they would land here was a total certainty; that they would land at the appointed time about 98 percent certain, according to Travis. I had no reason to doubt him. But it was a nervous hour.
Actually, fifty minutes, because we spotted the ship with ten minutes of retro-fire still to go, way, way up there in the beautiful sky. It was leaving a faint contrail in the icy air, and it was an awesome sight. I choked up, thinking about four frail human beings in that little ship, descending into this awful vastness.
We had a surprise prepared for them. I almost felt sorry for them… I did feel sorry for them as fellow humans, but I had no sympathy at all for the cynical old men who had sent them here and who had arranged a riot that had killed a fellow American. May they all choke on their moo shoo pork.
“Come on, come on, baby.” I don’t think Travis was aware he was coaxing the descending rocket to a soft landing. Politics are forgotten at a time like that.
The ship was a simple cylinder, wider than any of our seven tank cars, but not much taller. The rocket drive would take up a lot of the bottom part. Those guys expected to be staying a long time in a habitat smaller than some jail cells.
It came down frighteningly fast for a long time, then put on a burst [345] of energy that must have subjected the crew to a lot of gees, hovered at about fifty feet, then started easing down at about three feet per second. Another pause at the five-foot level, then it was bouncing on its big springs. We all looked at each other, and let out a cheer.
“I gotta hand it to him, that was one sweet landing,” Travis said. “Yessir, whoever wrote that landing program was really good.” And he laughed.
We set up a television camera with a long lens, so that it was just peeking over the slight rise we had hidden behind. We moved back to Blue Thunder and waited again, this time watching the image on the television screen, which showed the lower part of the Chinese ship. We figured they had orders to get out and onto the planet soon, just in case those lousy Americans actually existed and had not blown up halfway into their journey.
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 gunned it.
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 antenna.
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 channel 4 in English, Russian, and Chinese. The first guy-who turned out to be the leader of the expedition, Captain Xu Tong-switched channels. Almost at once I could hear excited chatter in Chinese, then Travis’s voice booming over it…
“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!