“Take it that the burn was good.” the SimSup said. “Your residuals are three-tenths, and your pitch maneuver was successful.”

“Okay,” Gershon said.

Gauges flickered and acronyms scrolled across the CRTs before York.

“We’ve dumped our forward RCS propellants,” she told Gershon. “OMS and RCS post-ignition reconfiguration complete. Auxiliary power unit start. We have two out of three APUs running, and that’s nominal.”

Gershon flicked at a gauge. “SimSup, I’ve got a poor correlation with the attitude reading on the inertial ball. I’m going to center the readings manually. You got a problem with that?”

“No problem, Ralph. We agree with that.”

“Entry interface,” York said. “We’re in the atmosphere, Ralph. A hundred and fifty-eight thousand feet. Nose up at forty degrees.”

Gershon said, “Let’s see what they’ve got to throw at us this time.”

“You’re getting paranoid, Ralph.”

“Tell me about it.”

Then the plaster of paris was scrolling past the window more rapidly.

“Frictional heating,” York said. She watched sensors telling her how the temperature was climbing over the lower surface of the craft.

The biconic, based on Rockwell’s current draft design, was the most advanced MEM configuration being studied by the various contractors. The four-man craft would fall into the atmosphere belly-first, and then fly down like an airplane, so the whole of the underside was tiled with heat-resistant panels, forming a heat sink which absorbed the energy of the sparse Martian air molecules.

“Get ready for your comms blackout,” the SimSup said drily. “See you on the other side, guys.”

“I hope so,” Gershon said.

Beyond York’s window a pinkish plasma glow built up.

Gershon grunted. “What a fake.”

“I kind of like it,” York murmured.

York and Gershon began to monitor the systems displays before them, checking them against checklist cards taped to the consoles. Then the work of the sim became routine, almost dull…

Except that, York knew, if this was for real, she would be feeling the first tug of deceleration in earnest, as the craft dug deeper into the Martian atmosphere. She could feel her pulse rising, beating at her throat. This simulation, designed more for engineers than astronauts, was crude: not even motion-based, it was a shadow play, mimicking life. But there was just enough in the sim, inside this static cabin, for it to catch at her imagination, to give her a taste of how it would be, really, to fly down from orbit to the surface of Mars.

She wished — suddenly, childishly — that this was for real. That she could somehow fast-forward through the years of training and uncertainty that lay ahead.

Oh, I want this. So badly.

Even if I have to get there with Ralph Gershon, she thought.

“A hundred and thirty thousand feet. Coming up to aerosurface control initiation.”

“Yo,” Gershon said. He began to work his stick and pedals.