Meanwhile, after Debbie jumped, Abu was trying to get Brandon in the door to the Geronimo, trying to keep him out of the way. As I’ve said before, Brandon was a former boxer, and there was a lot of space suit wrestling going on just inside the air lock, which was worse than two-year-olds in snow pants going after each other, until Abu noticed that Brandon had a tear in his suit, which probably had to do with standing too close to Debbie when she lifted off. His suit must have partially ignited, even though they are meant to be heat resistant and flame-retardant. Abu was thinking that Brandon was just being unruly, when in fact the guy was probably suffocating, or maybe he was about to freeze to death, which you could do with even the tiniest rip, even though there are twenty-four redundant layers of Mylar. Once they got inside the hatch, well, wait—
Did I mention the monologue that someone recorded of Steve going after Debbie, which also got broadcast on the Net? It must have been recorded by the Geronimo itself, in the black box, where almost everything is preserved, unless you’re really smart with the application of the cough button. And no one is that smart during an emergency. Effectively, nothing happens on the Mars mission without Houston knowing. Which means that eventually you will know, all of you. So in case you haven’t heard it yet, here’s what Steve said, according to the official record, while sailing out into the vacuum after the retreating figure of Debbie Quartz: “Debbie, listen to me, listen, please, don’t do this, Debbie. Debbie, what are you doing? It’s not worth it. Debbie. Come on! Debbie, we came into this together, and we’re going out together.… Listen, please! We dreamed the same dream, think about it, and if that dream isn’t going to happen, if it isn’t going to come to pass, it’s going to be because we all bungled it together! We’re family, Debbie, we all care about you.… One team, Debbie, one family… your problems, Debbie, my problems.… Listen to me, Debbie… whatever your bad feeling is, we can help. Your doubt and uncertainty about the mission, I have it too, Debbie.… Don’t leave us here worrying about what’s become of you. Don’t leave us thinking about you drifting out here.… Let us take care of you, for godsakes, let us love you back into shape, Debbie.… Please, please, please, don’t do this, Debbie. You’ve got the eight hours of oxygen, that’s it. Come on back, please. You don’t need to take it all so seriously, Debbie… just answer me, get on the intercom and answer me.… Please! Nothing is worth this. Think about your friends back on Earth, the people who care about you. Think about us, think about Abu and me, and the rest of the crew.… Think it over.… Debbie, Mars was supposed to be how we showed everyone back home that it wasn’t just about the petty infighting, the religious conflicts, the relentless war and hemorrhagic fevers and all of that, Debbie.… Mars was supposed to be when we thought big and acted big.… Debbie, please… you can use the left-hand thruster, make a big slow arc, Debbie, and I’ll meet you.… Nothing is worth this. I don’t care what you did, Abu doesn’t care, it’s nothing so bad that you aren’t always my teammate and my friend, please, Debbie!” At which point Steve got as far as he felt he could safely go, about a thousand yards. Up ahead of him was a white speck drifting off, a white silent speck, a stilled voice. Then Steve turned back to face the ship, gulped down a big throat full of bile when he saw how far out he was, how far a thousand yards is when you have gone from everything that was, the little tin can of night sky dreams, into everything that is nothing. Nothing at a degree or two above absolute zero. It took Steve another twenty minutes to get back onboard the Geronimo, and if you think Planetary Exile Syndrome is bad, kids, wait till you get a look at the disorder they refer to as Space Panic, which the psychiatrists think is related to earthbound agoraphobia, but worse. When an astronaut gets a good look at the infinite space of space and the size of himself in relation to it, that’s Space Panic. The void looks back into the astronaut; that’s what happens. And it happened to Steve. He just couldn’t really talk for a long spell.
Oh, and when Steve did get back, Abu had a knife to Brandon’s throat and was saying, “What did you say to her, you piece of shit? I can kill you right now and say that it was the tear in your space suit. I can throw your worthless body out of the ship. No one will give it a second thought. No one will mourn for you, not your own family. You’ll just be drifting out toward Planet X, for nine hours, when your O2 runs out and you suffocate on your own frigging carbon dioxide, and we’ll be eating dinner and forgetting you were ever here. Is that what you want?”
Out of the air lock, Steve drifted by them like nothing was happening at all. He took off his suit and paused to watch as dollops of blood floated past, blood that must have come from fisticuffs between Abu and Brandon. Normally, we clean up blood and fluids if they’re floating around, crumbs, any of that kind of thing. Sometimes you’ll see a spilled teaspoon of orange juice or water, rolling around in little liquidy balls, and you’ll chase after it and try to swallow it or herd it into a plastic bag, just so that it doesn’t get into a computer motherboard somewhere. Anyway, Steve didn’t pay much attention to Abu and Brandon as they pounded on each other, cartwheeling down the hatch to the cargo bay, Did you tear my suit on purpose? You dog! You trying to—, colliding with the handles on the containment closets. Instead, Steve took a syringe from the first aid closet, and then he tied off his arm, and he loaded himself up with enough lights-out for days. Which meant that Abu and Brandon, though they didn’t trust each other at all, though they were trying to beat the shit out of each other at that very moment, would end up having to negotiate restarting the engines, as Arnie and Laurie had just done, with coaching from Houston. We were all finding out: on the Mars mission you did some things because there was just no one else available.
That night, the head of NASA, Dr. Anatoly Thatcher, came on-screen, all three ships, to give us the pep talk. Now, this was a laugh riot. The conference took place when José was meant to be asleep, but like every other NASA communication, it would get saved for him. Jim and I were at the kitchen table, attempting to play a strategy game, Martian Invasion. Jim had brought the cartridge himself from home. We were up to level eight, where the tripod creatures from the South Pole manage to slingshot themselves around Phobos. They were heading back to Earth: for Vancouver. It’s a full-scale Martian invasion!
The screen on the instrument panel went blue, as it did before all messages from Houston, and there was the NASA seal, and then Thatcher came on, with his tortoiseshell glasses, and his shaved head, and big white eyebrows. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said he, “I know it’s been a rough day, perhaps one of the roughest days in the history of the American space program. I know some of you would rather take time to recover from your labors before watching this communication, and that’s fine with all of us. Here on Earth we’d like to talk about what we think has been happening there. We’d like to try to remember Debbie Quartz, a valued member of the Mars mission team. We’ll be reporting on all of this for the media on Earth, as you know, and these thoughts will therefore be excerpted in the press….”