One Step From Earth

"Ready for the first man," Dr. Thurmond said, his voice squeaky and distant in the thin atmosphere.

For the first time Ben looked at the shining black disc of the matter transmitter set into the far wall. One of the dressers tossed a test cube into it as Ben lay face down on the table. While they were rolling the table forward the report came in. Everything in the green.

"Hold it," Ben said, and the table stopped. He turned to look at Otto Thasler who was sitting rigid, facing the opposite wall. Ben could imagine the terrified expression on the hidden face. "Relax, Otto, it's a piece of cake. I'll he waiting for you at the other end. Relax and enjoy it, man, we're making history."

There was no answer, nor had he expected one. The quicker this part was over the better. They had been practicing the maneuver for weeks and he automatically took the position. Right arm straight forward ahead of him, left arm tight at his side. The matter transmitter screen grew like a great dark eye as the table rolled forward, until it was all he could see in front of him.

"Do it," he ordered, and they pushed smoothly against his feet.

Sliding. Hand wrist arm vanishing. Feeling nothing. A moment of recoil, of twisting pain, as his head went through, then he was looking at the coarse pebbles on the ground. He pushed aside the test cube and put his hand flat to break his fall. Then his other arm was through and his legs. Falling sideways in an easy roll his hip struck something hard.

Ben sat up, rubbing the sore spot and looked at the plastic container that he had landed on. Inside was a dead rat, rigid, wide-eyed, and frozen. A nice omen. He turned quickly away and went through the rest of the drill. The microphone was hanging in the same spot as on the mockup and he switched it on.

"Ben Duncan to control. Arrived okay. No problems." He should say more than that on this historical moment but his brain was empty of inspiration. He looked around at the low, dark hills, the crater nearby, the tiny, bright sun. There was nothing that really could be said.

"Send Otto through. Over and out."

He stood, brushing some dust from his side, and looked at the shining plate. Minutes passed before the loudspeaker rasped, the voice so distorted he had to strain for the meaning.

"We read you. Stand by for transmission. Thasler coming through."

Otto's hand appeared even before the voice ended. It took the radio waves nearly four minutes to reach Mars, but the matter transmission was almost instantaneous since it went through Bhattacharya space where time, as it is normally constituted, does not exist. Otto's arm dropped limply and Ben took him by the shoulders, a dead weight that he eased to the ground. Rolling him over Ben saw that his eyes were closed. But he seemed to be breathing regularly. He was probably unconscious. Transmission shock they called it. It wasn't uncommon. He should come to in a few minutes. Ben dragged him to one side and went back to the radio.

"Otto is here. Out cold but he okay. Send the junk through."

Then he waited. The wind made a thin whistling noise as it blew against his mask, and he felt the cold of it touching his cheeks. He did not mind: there was something almost reassuring that the wind could blow, the hard ground push against his feet, that the sun still shone. For all the evidence of his senses he could still he on Earth, perhaps on one of the high plateaus in Assam that he had so recently left. Consciously he knew that the sunshine here was half as strong as back on Earth. But he could remember cloudy, misty days with far less sun. Gravity? With all the equipment he was burdened with he was aware of no difference. Rounded, red hills in the distance, thin bluish clouds drifting across the sun. A remote corner of Earth, that's all it was. He could not grip the reality of Mars. If he had crossed space in a ship, taken weeks or months, he would have believed it. But a few minutes before he had been standing on Earth. He scuffed at the gravel with his boot and saw the second plastic tube that had been sent through with the struggling rat inside.

It was cold, freezing to death. It would scratch pathetically at the containing walls, then huddle up and shiver. And it had its mouth open, gasping. It appeared to have an even chance of running out of air or freezing. Just a laboratory animal; thousands like it died every day in the cause of science. On Earth. But this one was here, perhaps the only other living thing on the planet. Ben knelt and twisted the lid off the tube.