Let me describe him for you. Abu was a kindly and burly Asian American kid from Kansas City whose parents were both astrophysicists. He was the youngest guy on the mission, and yet he wouldn’t squash a mosquito if it were sitting on his nose. He was olive skinned and rather aquiline. He had a close-cropped beard and black hair that was kind of curly. At this moment I’m describing, reconstructing it from what I was told, he had a soldering gun about an inch from his eye, and he’d just been accused of plotting to leave Debbie Quartz on the surface of Mars. And he was strapped down so he wouldn’t float around in his sleep, and the only way for him to save himself was to persuade her that her entire imaginary conspiracy was erroneous, hysterical, and part of a bad, bad case of Planetary Exile Syndrome. (Though as with so many other biochemical mental illnesses, it just didn’t do to tell someone with Planetary Exile Syndrome that it was all in her head.)
Abu, recognizing the necessary diplomacy, became as gentle and unassuming as a guy can get: “Debbie, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me what you think is happening. Debbie, think about it. Think about those years of training together. Let’s talk about you and me, and our time of training. Remember when I wasn’t sure about the underwater stuff? I had that phobia about sharks? The atoll wasn’t really shark infested; that’s what you said. That NASA wasn’t going to make us train in a spot that was shark infested, because it was highly unlikely that Mars was going to have sharks on it. And they didn’t want to lose one of us to a shark after all the expense they had gone to, to train us. Do you remember how I wept when you told me that I wasn’t the only one who’d thought about giving up? You said that I wasn’t any less important to the mission because Denny had to give up when his son was diagnosed with whatever that was. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, right? Do you think that I would jeopardize a friendship that had all of those good memories as part of it? Those heartfelt exchanges? Think about it, Debbie, before you put my eye out with that thing.”
This was the kind of stuff Abu said. And he said something about how he was the one who suggested that we use Debbie, because of how plucky she was, as our mission mascot on the night of the big dinner when the personnel had been announced for the various rockets. We went to that Italian joint by the water. We hoisted Debbie Quartz up above our heads, Abu reminded her, and we passed her around like she was a medicine ball, and we all chanted “Olympus Mons, Olympus Mons!” And we told her it wasn’t because she was just lighter than anyone else, it was because she was sweeter than anyone else, and this was why we loved her, because she was sweet, and she was incredibly competent, and for this reason, we did not throw her into the alligator-infested canal after dinner. We honored her request, or this is how I remember it anyhow, and instead I, Colonel Jed Richards, got thrown in, and I think this is because there were people who would have been happy enough if I had been attacked by Floridian wildlife. We knew that throwing Debbie Quartz into the canal was conduct unbecoming, and so I offered myself up, because I know I am an interpersonal challenge, and said that I would be much more a regulation example of horseplay, and sure enough Lepper, that lunkhead, grabbed one of my arms, and before I even got to strip down to my skivvies, I found myself looking up at the lights of the dock from down in the murky depths.
Abu recounted these and other stories to Debbie, while Steve slept. The cough button was depressed. No one in all the infinite expanse of space knew what was happening down in the cargo hold, how two good and reliable officers of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were poised to wreak bloody havoc on each other. No one knew how long this scene played out. Debbie breaking into angry and convulsive sobs, saying, “How can I trust you? How can I trust anyone?” Still, Abu didn’t panic, keeping one eye, wherever possible, on the intercom button that was on the side of the bed. Awaiting the moment when he might free up an arm enough to get at it.
“Debbie,” Abu pleaded, “I don’t have any idea about how the mission got moved to the canyon. I just don’t have any idea about it. I’m as confused by it as you are.”
“Don’t you know what they’re looking for?” Her hands were shaking, holding the soldering gun. “Because I do, and I think you do.”
“I don’t know, Debbie. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here because Denny dropped out. I’m the resupply shift; I’m the extra man. Maybe I pilot one of the ultralights. The guys in the Excelsior and the Pequod have the manpower they need. We’re the third of three vessels, and I’m the third astronaut on the third ship, and all I do is drive people around. I don’t have any idea why we’re going to the canyon. I just do what I’m told. On a need-to-know basis.”
“You’re talking to me like I’m ill.”
“I’m talking to you like you’re a person I’ve known for three years and worked closely with all that time, and I’m begging you not to do anything that’s going to jeopardize the mission, or anything that’s going to get you or me in trouble. Because we’ve known each other for a long time, and I know you know what it’s like for me to be a Muslim on this mission, and how important it is to me to be a Muslim up here. I want to insure that I have done something that I can be proud of. And I know how you feel about being a woman science officer, and how you don’t have a family back on Earth, not the way many of the others do, and you want people to think that’s okay, that a woman can come up here and withstand three years, in the prime of her life, without a husband and kids back on Earth. I know that’s important to you, and in the same way it’s important to me that I can be an American who’s a Muslim, and I am up here, and I’m going to be one of the first people to set foot on Mars. I know you respect that. And I respect why you are here. I wouldn’t jeopardize that for you, and I’m hoping you won’t jeopardize it for me either.”
When Abu finished this impressive speech, he could see that Debbie was moved, because her breathing slowed, and she looked at the soldering gun in her hand, and she was probably really irritated that she was still crying, because she didn’t want to be the kind of astronaut who cried at a time like this, and at last he found the time to free an arm, while with her free hand she clutched her tortured brow, and to depress the intercom button, which did have a red indicator lamp on it. He was hoping that she wouldn’t see the indicator light, and if he could get her to come around the left side of the bed, maybe she wouldn’t see that the intercom light was on, and that he was broadcasting locally back up to where Steve was sleeping.