Heinlein's Children

So Mars Observer II (actually a half-dozen smaller, faster, cheaper ones) observed Mars in 1996, and we Dreamers, a lot more cautiously this time, diddled the data on every damned one of them.

With The Face and The Pyramids and The City beckoning Humynkind, We Went.

The first time was two years later, with a small fleet of miniature robot probes, the Purvises. Fixing all that surface-generated data proved a little bit trickier, but we Dreamers and our clandestine data diddling progressed as fast as Establishment Science did, so we were able to provide detailed photos—alien skulls, decayed machinery, tantalizing stuff that whetted the appetites of The Powers That Be. A couple of tragedies—one on the launch pad at White Sands, a tanker mishap—dimmed the glory, but we Dreamers sighed: Pioneers are always at risk, but the Humyn race lives on! We hadn’t planned on the Afrikaan situation, nor the years of sacrifice that broke a couple of nations economically. (The U.S., for one.)

But today, twenty years after it all began, the USNA ships landed just hours before the NippHan fleet, weeks ahead of the ragtag SwAfrikaaners. Nine minutes after touchdown adjacent to the wind-sculpted, Sun-shadowed stone mountain that is “The Face,” the fleet’s video signals reached old Earth here, revealing the truth of Mars for all. (Yeah, I know, the video during the orbital approach kept showing the same old Face and City, etc.; some of us Dreamers kept the charade going up until the last minute.) I didn’t watch the landing, feeling a mixture of joy for the event, a little sickness at my heart for having had to fool the whole world for two decades, trepidation over what the reaction would be, hopes for forgiveness.

Joyce had stayed on to watch them land on Mars, while I settled down in my easy chair on the back patio, waiting for the inevitable reporters, the outrage, finally, eventually, the respect for helping Humynkind achieve a true interplanetary civilization.

Hearing the first accusations, she had come outside to listen to my side; leaving me to return to the video set.

The doorbell rings, followed seconds later by a loud banging on the door. Now Joyce is opening the front door, now she is speaking to someone, now the tromp and tread of the FedPolice echoes through the house. Now they are confronting me on the patio. I lift my beer and smile. Joyce is crying.

“Don’t worry, hon,” I say to her, acting more bravely than I feel. “One day they’ll understand that I did it all for them.” Paincuffs slither from one agent’s hands and lock around my extended wrists. They hurt as much as advertised, but I grit my teeth and continue smiling.

Joyce shakes her head, a mixture of tired sadness and disgust. “No, hon,” she whispers, “It’s you who doesn’t understand. Those men just told me. Your little plot hid the real truth from us all—The Face, The Pyramid, all of it—it’s real!” I look at her, unbelieving.

One of the cops looks at me and nods. “It’s true—you screwed up really bad!” I shrug. So it’s real, so we would have gone anyway. Big deal! Her demeanor leaves me confused.

“You don’t understand, hon,” Joyce is saying. “I finally heard the whole thing, why they’re so mad at you. The Galactic Community of Civilizations built those huge structures there just sixty years ago, when we—the Russians, I mean—launched the first satellites.” I blink at her, not comprehending her meaning.

“They knew we were coming into space, so they got ready to admit us to their community. They have been waiting at The Face all these years, hoping for one of our probes to verify their presence, so they could establish communication. The first Mars Observer, the one you and your people screwed up, would have been the link—twenty years ago! And the data you did erase carried their messages.” My heart is pounding furiously; I think I want to die.

The FedPolicePerson says solemnly, “You are charged with defrauding the human race of over nine hundred billion dollars for a space program that was obsolete before it was built—and you cost our world twenty years of Galactic Civilization!”

Joyce wipes away a tear. “We didn’t have to wait, Arlan! The Galactics have light-speed ships, for God’s sake! They have waited an extra twenty years for an invitation to come here!”

Overhead, the sky dims. Half the size of the sky, a graceful ship from heaven slips down from the clouds, angelic, awesome.