Robert Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land

The prime contractor suggested lowering the compatibility figure-of-merit; the Institute stiffly offered to return its one dollar fee. In the meantime a computer programmer whose name was not recorded had the machines hunt for three-couple rump crews. She found several dozen compatible combinations, each of which defined by its own characteristics the couple needed to complete it. In the meantime the machines continued to review the data changing through deaths, withdrawals, new volunteers, etc.

Captain Michael Brunt, M. S., CmDr. D. F. Reserve, pilot (unlimited license), and veteran at thirty of the Moon run, seems to have had an inside track at the Institute, someone who was willing to look up for him the names of single female volunteers who might (with him) complete a crew, and then pair his name with these to run trial problems through the machines to determine whether or not a possible combination would be acceptable. This would account for his action in jetting to Australia and proposing marriage to Doctor Winifred Coburn, a horse-faced spinster semantician nine years his senior. The Carlsbad Archives pictured her with an expression of quiet good humor but otherwise lacking in attractiveness.

Or Brant may have acted without inside information, solely through that trait of intuitive audacity necessary to command an exploration. In any case lights blinked, punched cards popped out, and a crew for the Envoy had been found:

Captain Michael Brant, commanding-pilot, astrogator, relief cook, relief photographer, rocketry engineer;

Dr. Winifred Coburn Brant, forty-one, semantician, practical nurse, stores officer, historian;

Mr. Francis X. Seeney, twenty-eight, executive officer, second pilot, astrogator, astrophysicist, photographer;

Dr. Olga Kovalic Seeney, twenty-nine, cook, biochemist, hydroponicist;

Dr. Ward Smith, forty-five, physician and surgeon, biologist;

Dr. Mary Jane Lyle Smith, twenty-six, atomics engineer, electronics and power technician;

Mr. Sergei Rimsky, thirty-five, electronics engineer, chemical engineer, practical machinist & instrumentation man, cryologist;

Mrs. Eleanora Alvarez Rimsky, thirty-two, geologist and selenologist, hydroponicist.

The crew had a well-rounded group of skills, although in some cases their secondary skills had been acquired by intensive coaching during the last weeks before blast-off. More important, they were mutually compatible in their temperaments.

Too compatible, perhaps.

The Envoy departed on schedule with no mishaps. During the early part of the voyage her daily reports were picked up with ease by private listeners. As she drew away and signals became fainter, they were picked up and rebroadcast by Earth’s radio satellites. The crew seemed to be both healthy and happy. An epidemic of ringworm was the worst that Dr. Smith had to cope with—the crew adapted to free fall quickly and no antinausea drugs were used after the first week. If Captain Brant had any disciplinary problems, he did not choose to report them to Earth.

The Envoy achieved a parking orbit just inside the orbit of Phobos and spent two weeks in photographic survey. Then Captain Brant radioed: “We will attempt a landing at 1200 tomorrow GST just south of Lacus Soli.” No further message was ever received.

IT WAS A QUARTER of an Earth century before Mars was again visited by humans. Six years after the Envoy was silent, the drone probe Zombie, sponsored jointly by the Geographic Society and La Société Astronautique Internationale, bridged the void and took up an orbit for the waiting period, then returned. The photographs taken by the robot vehicle showed a land unattractive by human standards; her recording instruments confirmed the thinness and unsuitability of the Arean atmosphere to human life.

But the Zombie’s pictures showed clearly that the “canals” were engineering works of some sort and there were other details which could only be interpreted as ruins of cities. A manned expedition on a major scale and without delay surely would have been mounted had not World War III intervened.

But the war and the delay resulted eventually in a much stronger, safer expedition than that of the lost Enemy. The Federation Ship Champion , manned by an all-male crew of eighteen experienced spacemen and carrying more than that number of male pioneers, made the crossing under Lyle Drive in only nineteen days. The Champion landed just south of Lacus Soli, as Captain van Tromp intended to search for the Envoy. The second expedition reported to Earth by radio daily, but three despatches were of more than scientific interest. The first was:

“Rocket Ship Envoy located. No survivors.”

The second worldshaker was: “Mars is inhabited.”

The third was: “Correction to despatch 23-105: One survivor of Envoy located.”

CAPTAIN WILLEM VAN TROMP was a man of humanity and good sense. He radioed ahead: “My passenger must not, repeat, must not be subjected to the strain of a public reception. Provide low-gee shuttle, stretcher and ambulance service, and armed guard.”

He sent his ship’s surgeon Dr. Nelson along to make sure that Valentine Michael Smith was installed in a suite in Bethesda Medical Center, transferred gently into a hydraulic bed, and protected from outside contact by marine guards. Van Tromp himself went to an extraordinary session of the Federation High Council.

At the moment when Valentine Michael Smith was being lifted into bed, the High Minister for Science was saying testily, “Granted, Captain, that your authority as military commander of what was nevertheless primarily a scientific expedition gives you the right to order unusual medical service to protect a person temporarily in your charge, I do not see why you now presume to interfere with the proper functions of my department. Why, Smith is a veritable treasure trove of scientific information!”

“Yes. I suppose he is, sir.”

“Then why—” The science minister broke off and turned to the High Minister for Peace and Military Security. “David? This matter is obviously now in my jurisdiction. Will you issue the necessary instructions to your people? After all, one can’t keep persons of the caliber of Professor Kennedy and Doctor Okajima, to mention just two, cooling their heels indefinitely. They won’t stand for it.”

The peace minister did not answer but glanced inquiringly at Captain van Tromp. The captain shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Why not?” demanded the science minister. “You have admitted that he isn’t sick.”

“Give the captain a chance to explain, Pierre,” the peace minister advised. “Well, Captain?”

“Smith isn’t sick, sir,” Captain van Tromp said to the peace minister, “but he isn’t well, either. He has never before been in a one-gravity field. He now weighs more than two and one half times what he is used to and his muscles aren’t up to it. He’s not used to Earth—normal air pressure. He’s not used to anything and the strain is likely to be too much for him. Hell’s bells, gentlemen, I’m dog tired myself just from being at one-gee again—and I was born on this planet.”

The science minister looked contemptuous. “If acceleration fatigue is all that is worrying you, let me assure you, my dear Captain, that we had anticipated that. His respiration and heart action will be watched carefully. We are not entirely without imagination and forethought. After all, I’ve been out myself. I know how it feels. This man Smith must—”

Captain van Tromp decided that it was time to throw a tantrum. He could excuse it by his own fatigue—very real fatigue, he felt as if he had just landed on Jupiter—and he was smugly aware that even a high councilor could not afford to take too stiff a line with the commander of the first successful Martian expedition.