Phobos: Manned Mission

By J. M. Fisher

The science fiction novel Phobos: Manned Mission explores the basic cycle of emotions that drive scientific discovery--curiosity, pride, and fear--through the example of five astronauts in their fifties sent to recover an alien artifact found on Mars. Mankind’s curiosity demands the mission; pride endangers it; fear dominates it.
Told from multiple points of view, the story presents conflicts among the multi-national crew of three men and two women sharing close quarters for the three-year journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. M. Fisher
• Release date: Feb 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466031876

J. M. Fisher

Author Joni M. Fisher is a reformed Yankee with journalism degree from Indiana University in Bloomington who lives in central Florida and North Carolina. When she isn’t writing, she can be found flying, hiking, writing for aviation magazines, reading, or at church. An active member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, the Romance Writers of America, and the Florida Writers Association, she is hard at work on her next novel in the Compass Crimes Series.

Book preview

Mankind has a neurotic disorder, an intense, irrational phobia—if you will—regarding the planet Mars. To the Babylonians who called it Nergal, Mars represented the home of the god of death and pestilence. The Romans named it after their god of war, as did the Greeks. But aside from one little meteorite that killed a dog in Nakhla, Egypt in 1911, Mars has done nothing to earn our fear.

Geologist Travis Chancellor Whitcombe (1986- )

On December 7, 1986, Dr. Dmitri Rykov ached for a few hours of sleep before facing the media. On this his first field assignment, he had spent the flight from El Segundo, California, studying engineering specifications and memorizing vital information. He clipped his CORDS ID badge on his jacket pocket, grabbed his small duffle bag and climbed down steep metal stairs to the tarmac. With his ears still ringing from the flight, Dmitri decelerated at last on solid ground. He took in a deep breath of humid air that smelled like melting tar. Palm fronds flapped in the breeze.

Welcome to Tyndall, sir, said a young soldier wearing a Canadian Forces uniform.

Disoriented, Dmitri kept his questions to himself. Thank you.

This way, sir. The soldier pointed his open hand toward a hangar door flanked by two armed soldiers.

Dmitri kept pace with the soldier. Do you like living in New Orleans?

New Orleans is two-hundred forty nautical miles due west, sir.

Then where am I?

This is Florida, sir.

Of course, the soldier could neither confirm nor deny the plans he was not privy to. Dmitri was quite irritated. Why had he been deceived? When he reached the doors of the hangar, an armed soldier took his bag. The guards patted him down and searched his overnight bag before they slid one creaking mammoth metal door sideways far enough to create a man-size opening. One soldier hefted the bag and led Dmitri into the hangar. Keeping the bag between them, the soldier carried the bag in his left hand while his right hand swung freely past his hip-holster with each step. Dmitri believed in his bones that this serious young man would shoot him on command without hesitation. Remorse might follow, but history had repeatedly proven that bullets moved faster than a man’s conscience.

Dmitri kept pace with the young soldier. Despite his work with a speech pathologist, his Russian accent persisted, an accent that tended to attract unwanted questions. Dmitri took long strides toward a mountain of equipment and the dozen camouflage-dressed soldiers in the middle of the otherwise empty hangar. Their footsteps echoed off metal and cement surfaces of the massive hangar attracting the attention of the waiting group. They turned toward Dmitri and his armed escort.

The escort set down the bag and saluted the black U.S. Air Force major who smartly saluted back. Dmitri had grown up in a predominantly Caucasian region of the Ukraine, so he was unaccustomed to meeting blacks. His curiosity, he had learned, could be mistaken for discrimination. Dmitri estimated the major stood under two meters. He remembered that in all the world only America and Burma did not use the metric or Standard International system. I must practice thinking in American. Two multiplied by 3.281 equals 6.562. Less .5, I think. Six feet tall.

The escort spoke in a loud, clear voice. Major, this is Doctor Dmitri Rykov.

Dmitri extended his right hand. Major Hudson of Langley?

Hudson shook Dmitri’s hand. Yes. Please join us for the briefing, He dismissed the escort with a nod.

The escort executed a pivot turn and marched back to his post outside. After the hangar door squeaked then clanged shut, Hudson addressed his team.

NORAD headquarters has asked us to bring along a specialist to handle the media. Dr. Rykov works for the Center for Orbital Reentry Debris Studies, also known as CORDS. Basically, that organization keeps track of the trash we leave in space.

Dmitri stared at Hudson’s mouth. He estimated it was seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit yet he could see the man’s breath against his dark skin. Such humidity seemed to defy the natural order of things. Yet there it was, this phenomenon demonstrating itself in front of him like magic, like dragon’s breath.

Hudson stared back. Hudson reacted with a raised eyebrow. Dmitri snapped out of his reverie on the physics of the temperature and dew point spread. He looked down and watched his own breath cloud up.

As far as the outside world is concerned, Hudson said, this is just another chunk of space trash coming home. Remember Skylab in ’79? Well, this reentry is being attributed to a booster rocket.

A hand rose from the cluster of seated soldiers.

Hudson’s head swiveled toward the hand. Question?

Major Hudson, sir? the soldier said in an Alabama drawl, elongating his vowels. Was Skylab really Skylab?

Hudson flashed bright straight teeth. Yes.

The soldier, seemingly satisfied that the world was safe again, slouched back into the pile of duffle bags.

The object’s ETA is twenty-four hundred hours. We will be airborne at eighteen hundred hours, so please fit yourselves with a gas mask. To Dmitri, Hudson said, We wear them as a precaution against back contamination. Hudson checked his watch. Mess will be served at seventeen hundred. We are under a communications blackout. Understood?

The soldiers answered in unison, Understood, sir.

Dmitri scowled. The booster rocket would land around dusk in swamp land. There were alligators in the swamps that fed at night, or so he’d read in National Geographic magazine. He glanced at the mountain of equipment, tools and duffle bags. There sat a stack of canvas rifle cases. Excellent.

Dr. Rykov, Hudson said approaching him. Here’s your briefing packet. You have temporary clearance. Please sign the disclosure statement at the end of the packet and return it to me.

Dmitri reached into his jacket pocket for his pen and noticed that it had been moved. The fact that his pen had been moved from one side of his pocket to the other without his notice instilled in him a deep respect for the soldiers who had so quickly searched him. He pulled out the pen with one hand while he took the TOP SECRET folder in the other hand. Why all this fuss for a booster rocket? Did it contain a secret spy camera? He sat on his overnight bag and opened the folder.

Is he Russian? one of the soldiers whispered to another.

Dmitri answered in a matter-of-tact tone, Since the breakup of the U.S.S.R., I call myself Ukrainian. You may call me Rykov, or doctor. I do not answer to Smirnoff, Ruskie, or Red. And may I ask your nationalities?

The soldiers introduced themselves by name and rank representing an even mix of U.S. and Canadian soldiers working for NORAD.

And NORAD is an acronym, yes?

The soldiers nodded.

What exactly does it represent? Dmitri tugged his trim beard, smoothing it to his chin.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, said a Canadian.

Dmitri raised his eyebrows and said, My English is poor but how does one get N-O-R-A-D from this?

It’s a government thing, the Alabama soldier said pronouncing ‘thing’ as ‘thang’ which further confused Dmitri who returned to reading the report.

The report began with paragraphs warning about unauthorized reading of the document and details of the criminal charges that could be pressed against anyone other than the intended reader who happened upon the report. Following the warnings was a descriptive timeline starting with a call from an astronomer in the Hawaiian Islands and continuing as the news of the discovery of this object traveled up the chain of command and back down naming every hand it passed through except the writer of the report. Dmitri read to the fifth page before he realized why the report had been stamped TOP SECRET. He read the fifth page twice. Ultimately, the regular stages of deceleration signified that the object could not be a booster rocket. Dmitri felt his heart rate quicken. He stood and looked for Major Hudson.

A soldier handing out gas masks nudged the Major and jutted his chin toward Dmitri. Hudson turned to face Dmitri.

Dmitri pointed to the report.

Hudson walked over to him. Yes?

Perhaps there is a mistake, Rykov spoke softly. Deceleration is not possible.

We’re investigating a UFO.

Dmitri quieted the storm of questions in his head by tightening his grip on the papers in his hands.

Major Hudson’s voice rumbled soft and low like distant thunder. Your job will be to tell the media everything they want to know about booster rockets.

I understand.

The soldiers watched the exchange with amusement, some snickering. It was official. Dmitri was the last to know.

The soldier with the Alabama accent announced, Hey, doctor, how about a few rounds of poker while we wait for supper?

The soldiers broke into laughter. Hudson cleared his throat.

Dmitri had not played this game of chance before but he understood that bluffing was one of the key skills involved. He could lie when he had to, but the game foremost on his mind at the moment was Russian roulette. He had fled the Ukraine in May to protect himself and his daughter from harm. But for the grace of God, he and his daughter would have died with his wife if they had gone along with her to visit relatives in Pripyat that day. Fortunately, they had been spared because five-year-old Valentina had a cold. Dmitri had so enthusiastically volunteered to stay at home with her that he was accused of embracing any excuse to avoid his wife’s relatives. The accusation was true enough to drive a small emotional wedge between Dmitri and his beloved wife, a wedge that irritated him enough to call Pripyat the next day at great expense to apologize. The man who answered the phone was hysterical, shouting and weeping at once. Dmitri identified himself and tried to calm the man who cried out that unit number four was leaking and that death was overtaking them in the form of dark clouds. Dmitri shouted that he wanted to speak with his wife and the man spit out between sobs that she was vomiting like the others and her skin had turned red. He said birds fell from the sky.

Dmitri remembered his last visit to Pripyat. The nuclear reactor of Chernobyl dominated the view from the backyard.

He wanted the border patrol to believe that he and his daughter were taking an overnight trip to visit a doctor so he packed only a handful of toys to take along. He had left behind all his belongings, his house, a good job, his dying wife and the deadly radiation caused by human arrogance and carelessness. Once the news of the radiation leak spread the borders were closed. Dmitri could not have returned even if he had wanted to.

Sitting on his overnight bag in the hangar, Dmitri felt the full weight of his loss as if the last eight months had been a single long heartbreaking day.

He read the disclosure agreement that asked him to perpetuate a lie about this ‘recovery expedition’ or go directly to jail. What was a scientist to do after being welcomed into the land of the free and the home of the brave? If this event had happened in the Ukraine the government would have, no doubt, also disseminated comforting lies instead of truth. The Ukrainian government had never listed his wife’s death on the official records despite the coroner’s report. Rykov resigned himself that it was better to be on the inside of a secret than outside it, so he scribbled his signature and the date on the disclosure agreement. He stared at the date, December 7, 1986, until the ink dried. Of course he could keep such a secret. He had no one to tell who would believe him anyway, except his daughter Valentina who believed her mother was watching her from the clouds because he had said so. Forgive me, Valentina. I do the best I can.

Chapter 1 - ALH84001, August 1996

The rock formed 4.5 billion years ago when Mars solidified. Ejected into space by a meteor impact, it became a meteor. It found its way to earth after a 16-million-year journey. By the time it slammed into Earth’s southern ice cap, the meteorite had burned down to a mere potato-size 2.025 kilograms. There it sat undisturbed on the frozen tundra for thirteen thousand years. In 1984 a team of scientists, out joyriding on snowmobiles, found it and named it ALH84001; ALH for the Allan Hills ice field where it was found, 84 for the year and 001 because it was the first sample curated back in the Houston lab that year. Roberta Score, the woman who found the meteorite, said it looked bright green, though it turned out to be a dull gray. Scientists examined it for years. In August 1996, just before the peak of the annual Perseids meteor shower, a few renowned scientists bravely held up ALH84001 declaring they had found within it evidence of biogenic microfossils—the remnants of once-living matter.

Geologist Travis Chancellor Whitcombe (1986 - )

Ten-year-old Travis Chancellor Whitcombe bolted through the house and skidded to a stop on the polished wooden floor of his father’s study. Dad! Dad! Scientists just found proof of life on Mars!

Ray Whitcombe looked up from colorful topographic world maps spread on his desk. One National Geographic map had circles drawn on the deepest green areas of South America, Africa, China, and New Zealand.

Three couples stood behind his father. At a glance, they resembled a family. Long-haired, tall and pale, they swayed on their feet and stared.

Sorry. Chance stared back at the strangers with fears of his own. His parents’ guests represented the oddest of the odd. Today’s strangers were so thin they looked like his grandfather had after chemotherapy. Their expressions showed a haunted quality. When they looked at him he noticed a similarity that reminded him of recessive genes that he’d read about in his father’s biology book. They all had light-golden eyes.

They found proof, eh? His father’s gentle tone comforted him like a hug.

Chance took a deep breath and blurted out the news that had interrupted television programs. They found a meteorite with microfossils inside it. It’s named ALH84001.

Ray walked around the desk and dropped his hand on Chance’s far shoulder. Chance looked up in his father’s deep blue eyes. This display of intimacy seemed to calm the six strangers who had been holding hands in pairs. They relaxed their tight huddle.

Microfossils, well, that’s exciting. As soon as I’m done I’ll come out to watch. This is the Smith family. I’m helping them plan some trips.

His father introduced him to his study subjects for only two reasons—either they were important in the field or they were dangerous. Chance figured that the Smiths were important for some reason because they didn’t look at all threatening in the have-to-get-another-restraining-order kind of way. Years of college baseball had shaped Ray Whitcombe into the wrong man to mess with in a physical struggle, so Chance didn’t worry about his father the way his father worried about him.

Hi. He gave the Smiths a friendly wave.

The Smiths didn’t respond which confirmed Chance’s suspicion. Skittish and harmless.

Can I go, dad? Wherever dad went, Chance wanted to go.

Sorry, these trips will take years.

Chance jammed his hands in his jean pockets. Embarrassed and jealous, he looked up into the collective gaze of the strangers. When he made eye contact with the tallest man his whole scalp tingled. He felt like glass, like something they looked straight through.

His father stepped in front of him breaking Chance’s line of sight. Chance excused himself and ducked out of the room.

His mother bumped into him in the hallway. Honey, you left the television on.

He nudged past her and tromped upstairs to his room. Once inside, he shut the door and leaned against it. He tried to rub away the burning sensation that welled up in his eyes. Later. Yeah, wait till Dad finds out how important that meteorite really is. Geez. Ya gotta get kidnapped by aliens to get any attention around here.

A rapping vibrated the door. Chance stayed put. I’m sorry I interrupted Dad’s meeting. He emphasized the word ‘meeting’ with as much sarcasm as he could manage.

He doesn’t mind.

Why don’t you have normal jobs? Chance’s voice creaked under the strain of frustration.

There came a sigh from the other side of the door. He opened the door for her and walked over to his bed where he moved the largest of several boxes of his rock collection to the floor. He leaned against his headboard and pillow. His mother took her usual place at the foot of the bed.

Are you ashamed of our work?

He would have been proud to be the son of a pro baseball player. No.

His mother tucked her long brown hair behind her ears and flipped the ends over her slender shoulders. She would wait all afternoon for the truth, staring at him, challenging him to speak his mind.

It isn’t fair. Not at all. He crossed his arms over his chest. I mean, those people are so spooky. They creep in at all hours. Most of them act like everyone’s out to hurt them and they freak out over stupid stuff.

Some of them, like the abductees, have been through terrible experiences so they become fearful even paranoid. It takes time to build their trust because most people treat them like they’re crazy.

Maybe they are.

Chance, she warned.

He continued, Why would anyone think aliens with super-advanced technology would travel hundreds of light years just to look up their butts?

Watch your mouth. Her eyes narrowed at him. Have you discussed our visitors with your school friends?

Like I would? God, Mom. Chance slouched. I’m lucky to have any friends. He waited for her to argue.

She picked up a rock from a shoe box on the bed. Where did this one come from?

Peru. You know, where we flew over the giant drawings on the desert.

Geoglyphs.

Geoglyphs.

You took this from the desert?

Chance bit his lip. Of course, he had been told not to touch the rocks, but since everyone else was so impressed by them he wanted one. The only thing that made the rock special had been the mystery behind how it came to be lined up with so many others in a pattern visible only from the air. The rock itself was ordinary.

She dropped the rock in the box and pushed the box to the edge of the bed. Did you consider that it might be radioactive?

Uh, oh. He had carried it in his pocket back from Peru. Is it?

I don’t know, she said grimacing. Until we check it, leave it alone, okay?

Okay.

She picked up a tube-shaped object from another box and shook it accusingly. Is this also a contraband rock?

Hopeless. Mom and Dad are hopeless when it comes to regular sciences, the real kind taught in school. That’s not a rock.

Oh? She examined it closer. Her eyebrows bunched up above her nose. She rotated the specimen, manipulating it gently in her long fingers.

That’s coral from Easter Island. He selected a pink reticulated quartz stone from the box. That’s a rock.

Replacing the coral in its box, she said, If we had normal jobs like our neighbors, I suppose we’d go to the Grand Canyon for vacations.

Though she tried to sound disappointed about missing the Grand Canyon, Chance knew what she meant. His family had traveled to parts of the world most people never visited, like Stonehenge in England, the Egyptian and Mayan Pyramids, and Ayers Rock in Australia. They spent vacations at paranormal hot spots, the kind of places that brought out more questions than answers. Guilt fell heavily on him. The whole world mocked his parents.

Is Dad going with the Smiths?

Who knows if they’ll go? They don’t speak.

At all?

No.

See? They’re total freaks.

She closed her eyes. Opening them, she said, They communicate by drawing. So far all we know is that they want to explore old-growth forests.

I like our vacations.

She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Me, too. Her long brown hair tumbled over her shoulder and swept against his face. She smelled like roses.

He knew his parents were world-famous UFO experts, but he didn’t understand why. He sat up slightly. How did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up?

Desire is destiny, she said. Follow your heart.

Teachers gave the same kind of vague responses to important questions. It was an answer, but not an answer. What freakish desires his parents must have had when they were young! He imagined them filling out questionnaires--reading down the list of common careers from Accounting to Zoology and penciling in OTHER.

His mother stood, headed for the door, and paused. Come down for dinner.

Can we watch the news together?

Fine. Remember we have the Perseids this weekend. She closed the door on her way out.

Mom was all right for a girl. The Perseids meant sleeping outside all night at his grandparent’s farm. Chance dug through his rock boxes for a book. He wanted to catalogue his collection and did not know whether to arrange the rocks by igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary or by their original location.

The phone rang and stopped. His mother’s voice carried down the hallway.

It’s Valentina.

Thanks! He picked up the phone off his nightstand and slid to the floor between his bed and his window. Hey, Val.

The line clicked.

Chance?

I’m here. That was mom hanging up.

Oh. I thought maybe you had a wiretap. So how are the looney magnets? Being five years older than Chance, Valentina spoke her mind exactly as she pleased. He could take teasing from her because her father was also indirectly in the UFO business. He was a physicist who worked for some space agency. As they were both only children whose parents were friends, they shared a common bond that transcended the five-year age difference. Outsiders.

They’re good. This week’s lineup of the freak parade features the Smith family. Chance swung the curly phone cord like a tiny jump rope.

Albino midgets?

No.

Psychics?

Wrong.

Crop circle spotters?

Give up? Chance smirked.

Yeah.

Abductees.

Psychotics. All of them. Read about them in Psych class. There are medications available to counteract such delusions.

They have yellow irises, Chance taunted.

Flower-carrying psychotics are still psychotics.

Valentina had street smarts, but often tripped up on her studies. Her father, Dmitri, blamed hormones, claiming their onset rotted the teen brain. Irises, as in the colored part of the eye.

I knew that.

Liar. They don’t speak. Not a stinking word.

Then I want them on my team for charades.

Chance laughed. Valentina hated losing. Did you see the news about the Martian meteorite?

No.

Watch the news tonight.

Like is it going to hit us?

Nah. Just watch the news.

Okay. Valentina sounded vaguely impressed. Say, dad has a meeting in Madison and he says he doesn’t want me hanging around the university like jail bait, sooooo--

When?

Thursday. Can I stay until Tuesday?

Sure, but you’re gonna have to sleep outside.

I don’t think so. The way Valentina said meant she had one hand on her hip for emphasis.

No, really.

Why?

We’re camping out to watch the Perseids.

Who are they?

He rolled his eyes just as if she could see them. A whole year of high school and you haven’t learned a thing.

No, really. Is it a bluegrass band or something?

The Perseids meteor shower. We watch it every August. In the fall we watch the Leonids.

I’ll bring bug spray.

It’s fun. We ride the horses then we make a bonfire and cookout, the works. You’ll meet my grandparents. They’re normal people.

Valentina laughed. Normal by your standard means what?

You’ll like them.

See ya, Thursday.

See ya.

Chance set the phone in its cradle and crawled back onto his bed. He decided to tell his parents about Valentina’s visit at dinner. They liked her and her father, Dmitri. He plucked a clear rhomboid-shaped calcite sample from a box. The Audubon Society’s Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals called calcite double-refracting, so Chance tested it. Holding the magnifying glass over a page of his field guide, he looked through it. The letters on the page doubled as if seen cross-eyed.

Cool.

His mother said ‘desire is destiny.’ He thought about the things he desired. He placed the calcite in its box and picked up a baseball-size geode. He wanted to be a real scientist, like Doctor Rykov. How about Oceanography? Astronomy? His parents called their work science, but that’s not what the rest of the world called it. Chemistry? Biology? He opened a pre-cut geode revealing the amethyst crystals inside. Ugly on the outside; filled with gems on the inside. Geodes always surprised him.

Chapter 2 - Moon Walk with Zach

Hypoxia, drugs, insanity, pride, and carelessness are the leading causes of death on the moon.

The Lunar Mining Handbook

Chance awoke thrashing in his thermal hammock. He forced his eyes open to separate himself in time and space from his nightmare. Nearing the end of his six-month term on the moon, haunted in sleep, he routinely remained awake as long as possible until exhaustion conquered willpower. Remembering a tidbit of information from an undergraduate psychology class, he performed a quick sanity check. Do I know who I am, where I am and what year it is? My name is Travis Chancellor Whitcombe, Ph.D. I’m here on the moon where I belong in the year two-thousand twenty-four.

Still sane. Dammit.

Lights. Immediately the small metal room glowed with artificial light. Chance crossed off another day on the paper calendar taped to the wall. Other than that he prepared for the day by putting on his loafers, combing his hair with his fingers and clipping on his ID badge which had a built-in radiation meter.

On his way to the cargo bay, Chance spotted a newcomer. From the far end of the corridor, a man waved a pudgy, callous-free manicured hand. He radiated the first-timer nervous enthusiasm that made Chance cringe. Chance nodded and continued walking to the dispenser. The man’s wide round face smiled like the moon, with the same fixed expression. While Chance tugged a fresh disposable diaper from the dispenser in the wall, the newcomer waddled up and looked at Chance’s ID badge.

Whitcombe, sir, what’s it like to work on the dark side of the moon?

Glamorous. Can’t you see? Chance swung his diaper behind his back. He glanced at the moon-faced man’s ID badge. Xuchang, Chinese Media. Mr. Zoo Shang--

It’s pronounced Shoe Chang.

"Okay, Mr. Shoe Chang, first of all the far side isn’t always dark. And second,