When we got to the door and I saw the crowds outside and
heard their cheering, I almost stopped in my tracks. But Don was just behind me,
so I had to keep going, one booted foot in front of the other. You can't hurry
in those suits anyway.
The world looked sharp and beautiful. I love the Indian
tropical greens, the fussing birds waking up. The sky was still dark, but the
rumours of sunrise coloured the western sky a fragile purple-grey. The cool air
carried scents of the damp undergrowth at the foot of the trees, mixed with
diesel fumes. And there was one of my favourite people, Nowal, standing with
two or three of the local higher management or politicos, just outside the
glass wall. She was beaming. Just by looking at her, I couldn't tell that this
whole project had ridden on her shoulders for all these years. She had dressed
most carefully, in the style of the top Indian businesswomen, in a lightly
quilted gold shirt-suit and a stiff ivory-cream jacket with heavy cuffs. Her
headscarf was a warm flame colour that matched subtly with highlights on the
suit. When she saw me she waved, energetically, and the line of her teeth
glistened white. I waved back.
There was the old bus that would take us to the pad, at the
other end of the glass passageway. Asya was standing near the bus, at the
podium, waiting for us. She almost put that suit on by herself, but her helpers
wouldn't let her leave before they had checked every last fixture and seal. As
a mission commander she's very intimidating – not just by the way she talks,
but her example of total competency leaves me feeling like a total beginner,
even after two years of intensive training.
Marco walked up to her and said something, but she didn't
glance at him as she gave a one-word answer. Perhaps she's nervous too. I can't
imagine why. She's a veteran of at least three long-duration flights, which
included two spacewalks. But I don't think she's been in command before. That
must be it.
Spacecraft she rides with a light rein, and endless
procedures she can handle, risks she can juggle like oranges, but maybe people
are beyond her, or beneath her.
Finally when we were all four of us standing at the podium,
Nowal stepped up to a microphone on their side of the glass and spoke. I
suddenly noticed all the cameras trained on her, on us. All I remember from her
speech was that they were totally committed to us, that no matter what happened
they would never let us down, that we were heroes already. It was from the
heart, and the crowd loved it. I drank it down, in my state of extreme nerves,
and felt my rib cage trembling as at the end of a weepy movie. But I had to
keep a brave face up. After the cheers and applause the other VIPs spoke
briefly too, and we all clapped politely.
Then Asya made a short prepared speech to the crowd and the
cameras, from behind the glass that supposedly kept us safe from last-minute
infections. I believe that Nowal wrote most of it for her – the words were
strong and inspirational, and her delivery was good. She actually smiled and
waved as she ended. I think she had a few visitors from Roscosmos, but she has
almost zero family.
Then we got our turns. Marco thanked all the family and
friends who had travelled all the way from Brazil and other places to see him
off, and he praised the teams of support staff at Satish Dhawan, and he cracked
a joke in Portuguese that he had to explain to us later. But you could tell who
the Brazilians were – they were the ones who laughed.
Don spoke calmly about science, humanity, international
cooperation and the future. I could see his aged parents and some others from
the USA. I can't help thinking that he's a tragic figure. He's devoting his life
to discovering Mars, which is the planet that has almost certainly killed his
wife.
Then it was my turn. I knew more or less what I was going to
say: how today we were standing on the shoulders of giants, but many of those
giants were the ordinary people who had made this mission possible. They were
the unrecognised heroes among us. Then I planned to turn that around and speak
directly to the children who are my main following in social media. The poor
inner city kids, the village children who walk miles to get to a school, the
sick ones and the orphans. I wanted to say that maybe one day they could stand
on my shoulders. After all, that is what my life's all about. But it
didn't seem right in my head as I opened my mouth, arrogant somehow, and it
didn't come out right. I think I said that if we can go to Mars, then you can
reach for your dreams too, and I hope you make it. Then the awful thought
flashed through my mind: What if we never make it? There's actually a very
worrying chance, statistically, that the Jamal One won't make orbit.
Then what will happen to their dreams? So I stammered something about keeping
in touch and waved and smiled and we all got on the bus amidst deafening cheers
and shouts. There was a band of some kind too.
When I climbed into the bus and sat down on one of the
specially enlarged, spacesuit-sized seats, I noticed there was a strange man
sitting on the back seat, a bearded man dressed in a round hat a bit like the
Imams wear in Nigeria, and long gold-edged robes. Asya had been talking with
him, I think. But I was too busy riding an emotional rollercoaster to care much
about our quarantine rules. I was leaving the children behind! I had given the
oversight for my Nigerian village project into good hands months before this,
but it still felt like I was flying away from a world that was boiling over
with problems and pain. It felt like treachery, like cowardice. But I was going
to Mars! I really was! But we could all die. But even then, we would make
history! It came on, wave after wave of powerful conflicting impressions. But
mostly the betrayal.
- + - + - + -
Onwards to Launch: Asya
Back to main page: New World Rising
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