The Trikon Deception

15 AUGUST 1998 THE MARS MODULE

After leaving Tighe and Lorraine in the command module, Kurt Jaeckle made his way down the station’s central tunnel until he passed through the double hatch marking the boundary between Trikon Station proper and the Mars module.

The Mars Project was a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency to test humans for a planned flight to Mars. Twelve men and women had been selected to spend two full years in space. The original purpose of the project was to simulate the rigors of an actual flight to Mars. This gradually metamorphosed into a study of the subtle stressed microgravity places on the human body and the not-so-subtle conflicts that can arise when people live in close quarters for extended periods of time. Finally, it degenerated into a hodgepodge of conflicting and overlapping experiments as different factions within the two space agencies overlaid their pet projects onto the original scheme.

The greatest conflict centered on the role of the Martians within the Trikon Station community. “Purists” contended that the Mars facility should be a self-sufficient module and the Martians completely segregated from the other people on the station. “Realists” believed that total separation was logistically impossible. Besides, they argued, interaction with outsiders would not invalidate the results because the actual Martian travelers would be able to communicate with Earth, albeit electronically.

The philosophical argument raged for months, and in the end both sides won—and lost. The Martians were divided into two groups of six persons each. One group was allowed to interact with the general station population. They slept in the habitation modules, ate their meals in the wardroom, and spent their leisure time in the exercise and recreation area. The other group never left the Mars module and were shielded from any visitors. In the first six months of the project, no serious differences between the two groups had emerged.

The Mars module was a shuttle external propellant tank adapted for scientific use by a technique known as the “wet workshop.” Unlike the station’s lab and hab modules, which had been completely outfitted on the ground and transported to the station on heavy-lift boosters, only the major structural elements of the eventual Mars module—flooring, workstation wells, bulkheads, internal tunnel—were built into the tank’s two internal sections. The tank was then filled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen; these powered the Constellation’s engines as the shuttle flew into orbit. Since safety considerations required the shuttle engines to shut down before the fuel was completely expended, small amounts of these propellants remained floating weightlessly inside the tank after it achieved orbit.

The liquid hydrogen was removed by a clever pumping device conceived by a former Apollo astronaut working for Trikon as a consultant. The liquid oxygen was simply heated by sunlight until it turned into its gaseous, breathable state.

On subsequent shuttle flights, teams of mission specialists brought up the office facilities, compartments, galleys, and workstation equipment; they installed them in the larger of the ET’s two sections, the huge volume that had contained liquid hydrogen fuel. The former liquid oxygen volume, located at the tapered front end of the tank, was converted into an observation blister. The ET was then attached to the trailing edge of Trikon Station’s skeleton, its own internal tunnel an extension of the connecting tunnel that ran the length of the station’s main horizontal truss.

The Martians themselves were payload specialists from several different scientific disciplines. Their workdays were devoted to Mars-related experiments. A meteorologist studied Martian weather patterns using data gathered by satellites orbiting the red planet. Two biochemists searched for signs of life in soil returned from Mars in the US-USSR robot probes landed on the Martian surface a few years earlier. A geologist examined rocks for clues to Mars’s distant past. All the while, the participants were tested, probed, and analyzed by physicians and psychologists on the ground.

Kurt Jaeckle was the leader of the Mars Project. An internationally renowned astronomer on permanent leave from a professorship at Johns Hopkins University, he had defeated an equally famous French exobiologist in the contest for project leader. Then, through shrewd negotiating, he had arranged for the Mars module to be attached to the privately owned Trikon Station rather than to Freedom, the United States’ space station. The main reason for the switch was that Jaeckle had secretly cooked up a live-television contract with TBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

Jaeckle swam down the Mars module’s internal tunnel, heading for his own office. The tunnel had been a hasty design addition, its purpose to provide all station personnel with direct access to the module’s elaborate observation blister without chance encounters with the segregated Martians. The tunnel was two meters in diameter, its flat gray walls a dim contrast to the brighter Trikon connecting tunnel. Several doors along its length opened into the module’s working and living areas.

Jaeckle entered through the first access door and directed himself across the spacious open expanse of the module’s laboratory section toward his office, located in the fore starboard corner. All of the Martians were busily at work and only one, Russell Cramer, noticed Jaeckle’s entry. Cramer stared at Jaeckle from his workstation five meters away. His jowly face was expressionless, but seemed to demand an acknowledgment. Jaeckle obliged with a wave. Cramer, without responding, returned his attention to his microscope.

I must have a word with him, thought Jaeckle. He stopped at his office door and consulted the blister reservation list attached to the bulkhead. Carla Sue Gamble was in the observation blister now. As usual, none of the other Martians had reserved the following hour. Jaeckle wrote his name into the next slot.

Inside his office, Jaeckle powered up his communications console and called TBC headquarters in New York City. As Mars Project head, he was exempt from Trikon’s restrictions on secured communications and had a selection of voice encryption chips at his disposal. The chips broke up the voice transmission into meaningless signals that would be reassembled by another chip at the receiving station. Eavesdropping ham-radio operators would hear nothing but Chinese violins. Jaeckle didn’t often use encryption when talking to TBC, but today the language could become dicey. He pressed a chip into its slot.

The link was shunted from receptionist to secretary to executive secretary and finally to Jared Lewis, the vice president in charge of “Good Morning, World.”

Lewis was angry, his fleshy face blotchy red. Jaeckle was exactly one sentence into his explanation of the morning’s event when Lewis launched into a tirade. He railed about confusion in the control room and about the co-anchor who had taken a break from the set during the live broadcast from space and then could not be located when the transmission abruptly ended.

“You think we like showing an empty chair!” shrieked Lewis. He started ranting about advertising dollars and market share.

Eventually Lewis slowed down and Jaeckle had a chance to talk. He used all of his narrative skills to paint a picture of confusion and horror on the stricken space station.

“Jesus,” said the chastened Lewis. “Hey, maybe we can start the next broadcast with a reenactment. I’ll get one of the segment directors to contact you about it pronto. How is Carla Sue doing?”

“Actually,” said Jaeckle, shifting narrative gears, “I think the mission is beginning to wear on her.”

“You know, it’s funny,” Lewis said. “I was thinking the exact same thing this morning. Those legs. I mean, come on. We’re talking anorexic.”

“I’ve explained the fluid shift several times on the air.”

“Words are words. Pictures are what counts,” said Lewis. “We don’t want people coming away with images of anorexic astronauts.”

“Unfortunately, it cannot be avoided.”

“Maybe if you had someone else,” Lewis suggested. “Someone with a little more heft or a little less fluid shift. Paint a prettier picture for our viewers.”

“There is someone,” Jaeckle said slowly, as if the idea had just entered his mind. “But she isn’t a part of the Mars Project.”

“Hey, there’s nothing in the contract that says your assistant has to be a part of the Mars Project. She could be a Venusian for all I care.”

“I don’t know how Carla Sue would react to being replaced.”

“It’ll a rough business, Kurt.”

“This other one may not even want to be on television.”

“Everybody wants to be on television,” said Lewis. “Who is she?”

“Lorraine Renoir.”

“I like it,” Lewis said. “French?”

“French Canadian, actually. She is the station medical officer.”

“Nice tie-in. She could interest the Canadian audiences. Ratings have been low there. Attractive?”

“Well,” said Jaeckle. “Not anorexic.”

“Talk to her and let me know. Have to run.”

The telelink broke. Jaeckle snapped off his communications console. He felt encouraged, expansive. Talking to TBC always was entertaining, especially since Jared Lewis was so malleable.

Jaeckle propelled himself toward the observation blister up at the tip of the module, a dome of strong and perfectly transparent Lexan. The outer surface of the dome was covered by an aluminum clamshell shield that could be closed to prevent damage from meteoroids or debris. Retracting the shield in different ways offered stunning views of the Earth, the night sky, or both.

Everyone on the station was allowed to use the blister for personal R and R on a reservation basis. In the context of the Mars Project, the blister was more than just a place for quiet solitude or spectacular scenery. Since transit to Mars would entail long stretches of time out of Earth view, project coordinators assigned specific viewing privileges to the two groups. The segregated group was allowed to view only the empty night sky; they never saw the Earth. The other group had no restrictions. Psychologists on the ground were eager to see if the two groups differed in long-term adaptation. Carla Sue Gamble was part of the “free” group.

Jaeckle rapped on the metal hatch of the blister. After a long moment, the bolt slid back and the door opened. There was the Earth, immense, breathtaking, sparkling blue and brilliant white, gliding past beyond the Lexan windows. But Jaeckle barely noticed the spectacular panorama. He focused on Carla Sue, long, lean, and angry. He could tell from the tightness of her lips and the knit in her brow that the delay in unlocking the blister hatch had been carefully calculated.

Jaeckle closed the door softly, carefully. Carla Sue waited until she heard the click of its latch. Then:

“If you don’t think I’m beautiful anymore, I’d be obliged if you would tell me before you tell the rest of the world.”

Her voice was deadly calm. Carla Sue was never strident, never out of control. Even when she was angry. Even in the heat of lovemaking. Her mind always ruled her body.

Jaeckle summoned his most sheepish grin.

“Don’t try to mollify me, Kurt. Flabby legs. I know what you were driving at.”

“I was stressing a point, Carla. I told you when I first asked you to be my assistant that I would make comments you might construe as critical. You can’t take them personally.”

“So you think I’m still beautiful.”

“I think you are brilliant and beautiful.”

Carla Sue’s expression changed from an angry frown to a grudging smile. Jaeckle moved forward to kiss her, but his knee struck her hip before his lips reached hers and she tumbled away. He caught up with her and squeezed her lips into a pucker. Those lips. Microgravity had improved them, if nothing else. They were redder, thicker, pouter. They made him want to unzip his fly on sight, and many times he had. He kissed her deeply, then spun her around so that they both faced the Earth.

“I never know where we are,” said Carla Sue.

“The North Atlantic. We’ll cross the Azores soon.”

He felt warm toward her, warmer than he had felt in days. It wasn’t a sign that their relationship was on the rebound. His conversation with Jared Lewis had solidified that decision. He recognized it as the last flourish of ardor before he pulled one of his patented disappearing acts.

“Did I ever tell you what people did in the Azores?” he said, nestling against her from behind.

“Mmmmm,” said Carla Sue.

As head of the North American research team aboard Trikon Station, Thora Skillen should have been respected and admired. Instead, she counted herself the loneliest person on the station.

She walked the treadmill in the ex/rec room, setting herself a blistering pace, working out her fury and contempt for those around her with tireless long-legged strides. David Nutt, she seethed to herself. A good name for him. The perfect name. And Commander Tighe, Mr. Machismo himself. Warning me about Roberts bugging Nutt’s files. As if I didn’t know how irresponsible Roberts can be.

There were five other men and women in the ex/rec room, working the bicycle, the rowing machine, throwing darts in the strangely flat trajectories of weightlessness. No one spoke to Thora Skillen. No one even looked in her direction.

She was a tall, athletically lean woman in her late thirties with severe, chiseled features and prematurely graying hair. Almost a classic face, strong and serious, like a sculpture from ancient Athens. She seldom smiled.

She knew that they called her “Stone Face” behind her back. That, and worse.

She was in the prime of life: a brilliantly successful molecular geneticist who already had taken on heavier responsibilities than women ten years her senior. Everyone predicted a splendid career for her, but Skillen knew better. Her career was already finished. Her life was finished. She was merely going through the motions.

Thora Skillen was dying. No one on Trikon Station knew that except the medical officer. But the males who dominated the worlds of scientific research and corporate politics knew it. They knew it full well.

The only reason they had selected her for Trikon Station, she realized, was to make an experiment of her. They wanted to see what effect microgravity might have on the corruption that was eating away her lungs. Her work, her brilliance, her drive and dedication all meant next to nothing to them. She was a laboratory animal, that’s all. Naming her head of the North American segment was a sop, a meaningless bone thrown to a dying lab specimen.

What they did not know was that she had lost all faith in her own work. The achievements of her science meant nothing to her now. She felt as if she had spent her life working for the enemy. It had taken the death of her sister to awaken her to the awful reality of the world. The death of her sister, and her own impending death.

They’re killing us, she knew. Their factories and automobiles and supermarket foods are killing all of us. Even the scientists are part of it, probing into the secrets of life, releasing all kinds of poisons without even thinking about it. I was part of that. I was one of the guilty ones. It took Melissa’s death to make me see the truth.

So what I’m doing isn’t wrong, she told herself. Of all the people on this station, I’m the only one who does see the truth. The only one willing to act on it. I’m going to die anyway, so what does it matter?

The men aboard the station hardly spoke to her, except when their work required it. Once she had trounced a few of the overconfident oafs at micro-gee handball they steered clear of her and made crude jokes about testicles. The women seemed afraid to strike up an acquaintance with her, as if they thought she would try to seduce them. Skillen had never announced her sexual preferences; her personnel record certainly contained no hint of it. But they knew. As if they could smell it on her. They all knew and they all shunned her.

Lorraine Renoir was the only one on the station she could confide in, and even there Skillen was careful not to reveal the entire truth. Dr. Renoir was sympathetic and discreet, but she also kept her distance.

Dave Nutt was leaving as soon as the shuttle could get to the station and take him away. Good! she told herself as she paced the tireless treadmill. He had accomplished far too much during his six-month stint. Now he could spend the next six months on Earth writing reports instead of making progress.

Skillen watched the others as she strode nowhere. Inwardly she snarled at them. You think you know all my secrets, she silently said to them. You think you can avoid me and crack jokes about me behind my back. Go right ahead! Your day will come. I promise you. And it will come sooner than you think.