She made a small gesture; he guessed she was holding herself in, tight. “The uncertainty. The roller-coaster ride. The lack of control I have over my own life. My God, Vlad, after the space soak mission was canned I thought I was farther from Mars than ever. And now — out of nowhere — this.”

He squeezed her hand. “You were never in the military, Marushka. This is the military way to do things. In the military, you have no choices, no control. Perhaps your civilian NASA has more of a military streak than many care to admit.”

The phone rang. It was Adam Bleeker, whose seat York had taken. York spoke to him briefly, quietly.

“How is he?”

She shrugged.

They sat a little longer, but there were no more calls. No doubt those idiots in the Astronaut Office were closing ranks, punishing York — and Gershon, probably — for ousting their buddies, their preferred candidates.

Eventually Viktorenko decided enough was enough. “No more of this! We would handle matters so much better in Russia. Come. We will go out. We will eat, we will go to a barbecue pit or a Pizza Hut or a Mexican drive-in, or whatever you like. My treat! The treat of the Soviet Union, Marushka!”

At first she demurred, but he insisted.

As they left the apartment, a fat young man with a tape recorder came running up the hall; a spotlight glared over his shoulder.

“Ms. York! KNWS-TV News. How does it feel to be the first woman on Mars?”

Book Five
ARES

Mission Elapsed Time [Day/Hr:Min:Sec] Plus 369/09:27:26

Ocher light, oddly mottled, shone down through the little Command Module window beside her: Mars, grown so huge it no longer fitted into the window; Mars, sliding like oil past the glass.

“Three minutes to loss of signal,” capcom John Young called up.

“Roger,” Stone replied.

The crew sat side by side in Apollo. York’s pressure suit felt hot, bulky, the angular acceleration couch uncomfortably restricting after so long in the Mission Module’s shirtsleeved environment.

“Ares, Houston, we read you as go for Mars Orbit Insertion. Everything is go for MOI. Two minutes to loss of signal. Be assured you’re riding the best bird we can find.”

“Thank you, John. We appreciate that.”

Sure. But Young’s assurances weren’t all that comforting, York thought.

Just now, Ares was free-falling past Mars. Even if the big MS-II engines failed altogether, they still had enough speed to escape from Mars’s gravity well and emerge on a free return trajectory back to Earth.

But if Stone, and Mission Control, decided to commit to MOI, the Mars Orbit Insertion burn, then their final abort option would be gone. They would be committed to Mars orbit.

MOI really was the moment of truth, the moment when Ares finally cut the long, fragile ties of gravity and celestial mechanics that could draw it home to Earth again.