current

Cosmonaut

by David Wright

As Georgi watched the sunrise over Baikanor, his mind soared with anticipation of the glory that was every Russian boy’s dream—to be Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. In the distance, Georgi could see the new Proton SL-217 rising from the pad that originally launched Sputnik, and to the east, the Korolev 1, prototype for the heavy lift rocket that would soon be launching Russia’s Super Shuttle to the newly completed International Space Station. But these great achievements of the new Russian mega-economy paled in comparison to the mission for which he had been chosen. Cosmonaut Georgi Komarov was going to Mars.

Georgi had been one of a dozen test pilots chosen for the Mars Missions. Both Russia and the United States had been sending probes to Mars since the seventies, but no country could really lay claim to the planet without having first set a human foot there. According to NASA’s agenda, first initiated by the Late U.S. President George W. Bush, six American astronauts would be walking on Mars by July 4, 2031. And even though NASA’s mission had already left for Mars a year ago, Georgi would beat them there by a whole month—ETA: May Day, 2031.

“Good morning, Captain Komarov. I trust you had a pleasant weekend with the family. Not too much vodka, I hope. You know, the Americans have a saying. Never buy an edsel built on Monday. The factory workers all have hangovers.”

“Yes. I mean, no.”

“Which is it, Captain? We can’t have our Cosmonauts handcuffed by indecision.” General Goronsky laughed before Georgi could attempt an answer. “The hopes and dreams of Mother Russia go with you, Captain.”

Georgi saluted and continued down the skywalk.

Gorbachev7 was more than two hundred meters tall, roughly four times the height of the original Proton rockets that carried Salyut and Mir into space. And yet it was dwarfed by the enormous launching chamber that stretched from deep underground to the surface of the Cosmodrome two kilometers above. Georgi couldn’t help feeling like an ant that had accidentally crawled into the barrel of a shot gun.

In a way, Georgi was glad he wasn’t Yuri Gagarin. Yuri never went to Mars. He never even went to the moon. The nuclear canon design would have been inconceivable during those first glory days in space. Even the smallest atom bombs would have blown the strongest steel canon to pieces. Russia was fully aware of this engineering limitation when they agreed with the rest of the International Space Community to ban nuclear explosions in space. However, the synthetic molecular alloys of Georgi’s day were just strong enough to make the nuclear canon a feasible idea once again, although not entirely legal. Georgi was lucky to be alive at this great moment in Russia’s history. He was literally at the pinnacle of human achievement.

Fellow Cosmonaut Vladimir Orionovitch was waiting for Georgi at the capsule. He was next in line for the Gorbachev missions and one of Georgi’s best friends. Georgi was glad he would be manning ground communications on this one.

“Here to tuck you in, Cosmonaut,” he said with a very serious expression, and then smiled as he helped the suited Georgi through the capsule hatch. “Go with God,” he said. “I’m not religious, as you know, but I like to exercise my democratic freedoms whenever I can.” When Georgi was seated and strapped into his G-form couch, Vladimir made one last survey of the cockpit and stepped back to close the hatch. “Oh, yes. Don’t forget to stow the LGM before take off.”

“The what?”

Vladimir closed the hatch.

Georgi’s eyes darted wildly around the hundred cubic feet that was to be his home for the next hundred days, but he saw no signs of LGM. In fact, he had no recollection of this acronym in any of his recent briefings. There were acronyms for everything—for the guidance system, the circulation system, the propulsion system, even the urine collection system—but there was no LGM. And then he saw it sitting on the visual reference monitor smiling at him—a Little Green Martian, the kind of thing that Americans hang from their rearview mirrors. Vladimir had bought it in Moscow the day after they had both been accepted for the Mars Missions. He said it would bring them luck.

“Prepare for pre-launch inspection.” It was General Goronski. “Captain Georgi, are you there?”

Georgi quickly stuffed the LGM in with the sealed rations before the scanning onboard cameras could pick it up. “Yes, General, I am ready.”

An hour later and T-minus ten minutes, Georgi was pleasantly surprised to see that his pulse had not risen significantly. The launch date had been pushed back so many times that perhaps he was not even sure that he would ever take off. But so far today they were right on schedule with no major delays. The weather window was acceptable and all systems were good to go. Maybe this was it.

“Captain Georgi, Baikanor Command wants a final confirmation on the LGM.” Vladimir had taken over the com.

“Safely stored.”

“T-minus one minute. Prepare for final count down.”

It was the longest minute of Georgi’s life. When the nuclear canon fired, Georgi felt the G-forces mount exponentially. He couldn’t move or talk or breathe. He watched helplessly as the blood in his vision turned from scarlet to brown to black in just a few seconds. And then, he felt nothing.

Georgi awoke in high Earth orbit. Technically, he should be dead. Gravitational forces in excess of 15 times Earth gravity were generally fatal to the human body if they persisted for more than a few seconds. Georgi was being kept alive by electric shock and tree frog secretions that stimulated the heart and brain at the moment of greatest stress and thus prevented compression. No one knew the long term effects of this treatment, but temporarily, at least, Georgi’s brain and heart could withstand micro-bursts of near forty G’s, thus making him theoretically able to survive nuclear ballistic propulsion. Six other Cosmonauts had died testing the theory, but Georgi was still alive.

“Gorbachev7, this is Baikanor Command. Respond … Gorbachev7, this is …” According to the chronometer, the message had repeated over twenty times.

“Baikanor Command. This is Gorbachev7. Systems operable. I have minor physical injuries to my lower ribs, possibly broken. Request permission to engage secondary separation. Respond.”

Although the message was being sent by standard radio relay via satellite, it was being electronically coded and would be completely unintelligible to American ears for at least a few days. However, the nuclear explosion that was about to send the Gorbachev7 on the next stage of its journey would be visible to the whole world.

“Gorbachev7, initiate secondary sequence.” Vladimir sounded excited. He had Go Fever. “I repeat. Initiate secondary sequence.”

Georgi’s pulse was in the upper nineties. He fought to suppress his excitement, but this was it. He’d survived take-off and he was on his way to Mars. He felt the thrusters adjusting his attitude.

“Baikanor Command to Gorbachev7. Attitude adjustment completed. Confirm.”

“Gorbachev7 to Baikanor. All go here.”

“Stand by for second stage count down …”

Second stage was a much smaller nuclear explosion, but in many ways it caused more physical and psychological stress for the Cosmonaut. For one thing, the initial twenty G micro-burst wasn’t enough to trigger the brain and heart treatments. Instead, Georgi had to endure the sudden pressure on his chest, arms and legs completely on his own. He had been thoroughly trained for this in G-force simulators and his form-fitting, hydraulic couch provided some relief to weak points of his anatomy, but inevitably the pressure would cause blood to cloud his vision, and he would lose consciousness. It was painful and terrifying, but brief.

The explosion that was heard around the world sent the Gorbachev7 over thirty thousand miles in less than an hour. When Georgi awoke, the Earth had visibly shrunk in the rear monitor and the moon was growing fast. Georgi’s left ear was bleeding. He turned his head and heard the sound of Command Station’s hail over the radio.

“Yes. I hear you. Baikanor Command, this is Gorbachev7. I read you.”

“Gorbachev7, what happened?”

“I blacked out. I have a broken ear drum. There’s bleeding from my left ear. It does not appear to be serious. There was a small depressurization in aft compartments two and three. Automatic ventilation corrected the problem. Navigation system appears …”

“What happened to the first stage separation? It came down at the wrong descent vector.” The transmission was weak and Georgi was having trouble thinking. He was feeling nauseous and dehydrated.

“Say again.”

“The second stage module came down at the wrong descent vector. She was thousands of miles long.”

“Wrong descent vector!” Like a jolt, the words registered in his mind.

Gorbachev7 wasn’t Russia’s average modified ballistic missile. It was constructed like an upside-down Russian doll, with five dolls inside each other. When the nuclear canon fired, the second stage module would act as the barrel of the nuclear gun, and the next little Russian doll inside would rocket out like a bullet. At the same time, the second stage module would be thrust back in the equal and opposite direction. It was simple physics. However, if the module came down too fast in the wrong place, this five thousand ton piece of nearly indestructible alloy would create an explosion a hundred times the size of the Hiroshima bomb.

“Georgi, do you read?”

“What happened?” Georgi grunted.

There was a long pause. General Goronski was probably trying to decide how much he could say over the air. In the end, he said nothing.

“Gorbachev7, proceed with stage three.”

Georgi awoke from the third stage separation with a dire thirst and a bad headache. He reached for the intravenous controls with his left arm and was surprised to discover that it did not move. He reported it to Baikanor Command and waited the two minute delay for a response. He’d traveled a hundred thousand miles in less than a day.

“Medical sensors indicate that you suffered a major stroke during the last launch. You’re lucky to be alive. Do you detect any other symptoms?”

Georgi noticed that his vision was blurred and that he was having trouble breathing. He reported this and added, “I guess that’s that. Sorry.”

“Negative. Command advises that it would not be prudent to abort mission at this time. Stage four is a go. Repeat. Stage four is a go.”

Stage four was the biggest of the last three nuclear explosions and accelerated the greatly reduced mass of Gorbachev7 to a whopping 27 000 miles an hour. Georgi did not awake for two weeks. He’d suffered a massive heart attack, his lungs had collapsed, he had numerous micro-fractures throughout his skeleton and he’d lost temporary blood circulation throughout most of his body, but the ship’s medical machinery had kept him alive. When Baikanor Command finally induced consciousness through a remote drug injection, Georgi’s pain was unbearable.

“I read you,” Georgi grunted. He didn’t know who he was talking to and he didn’t care. He used to envy NASA’s policy of using former astronauts to man the Command communications, but he didn’t now. He didn’t think he could bear talking to a friendly voice without it bringing him to tears.

“Hang on there, Cosmonaut. The worst is over.” It was General Goronski. “There’s nothing left to do now but hang on.” And in a way, the General was right. Gorbachev7 had reached maximum velocity. There would be no more nuclear explosions until it was captured by Mars orbit. Georgi had nothing to do but lie there and wait for either death or Mars to take him.

Over the next hundred days, Georgi regained limited movement in his upper torso and right leg. Any movement at all caused extreme pain, but the morphine cocktail kept him asleep most of the time. His ultimate prognosis was still very shaky. His lungs had been slow to recover and his heart was still very weak. At home in Leninsk, his doctor might have given him a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. But here in a cramped space craft with limited medical attention and support, his chances were far less.

A full recovery was out of the question. Even if the return option was a success, and he did see his beloved parents and brothers again, he would only ever be a cripple, a half man. Georgi tried not to let such thoughts depress him, but in the long hours and days of pain and boredom, his mind would always return to dark thoughts of home. The only thing that saved Georgi through those hundred days was the sight of Mars growing ever larger in his view screen. If he never saw home, may he at least see Mars.

Georgi’s unspoken prayer was soon to be answered. Exactly one month before NASA’s six astronauts would arrive at Mars, the Gorbachev7 fired its remaining thrusters to align with the Martian orbit.

“Gorbachev7 to Baikanor Command. Request permission to initiate fifth and final stage separation.” Georgi waited exactly forty-six minutes for a response, but he did not expect to hear one. Over the past ten days, communications with the Cosmodrome had become difficult. Two days ago, they had stopped completely. Georgi had surmised that political conditions on Earth had become increasingly unstable. Perhaps it was no longer safe for Baikanor Command to transmit openly into space. Perhaps there was no longer a Baikanor Command, or even a Russia. It no longer mattered to Georgi. His mission must proceed.

Georgi initiated the automatic attitude computer. This time, the baboushka canon would enter the atmosphere backwards, its molecular alloy frame easily absorbing the heat of reentry. Seconds before final impact, a very low yield nuke would launch the tiny nosecone away from the initial crash site where it would descend harmlessly onto the Tharsis plateau, only a few dozen miles from NASA’s drop zone. This was vital to the General’s escape plan. Not only would the American astronauts find a Russian Cosmonaut had beaten them to their mark, but they would also be honor bound to save him, even if it meant cutting their mission short and reducing their payload. The plan was as ingenious as it was insidious. But there was one small problem. The attitude computer was faulty.

Georgi ran the figures again and checked it against the visual horizon. Despite his poor physical and mental condition, Georgi was sure he was right. He hadn’t noticed the problem before because the computer had always launched his module in the right direction. However, with each separation, the booster modules had been sent off in the wrong direction. The same fault must have caused the error with the first stage’s reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Now he faced the same problem on Mars. Who knows where he would land or at what velocity? If he survived, NASA’s mission might not find him. In fact, he might never be found, not in a hundred years.

Georgi had waited his whole life for this moment. He’d dreamed of the ticker-tape parades and the late night talk shows. He’d dreamed of the glory and the adventure. And now it had arrived. He looked down at the face of Mars from an orbit of only five hundred miles and the brilliance of the reds and browns and oranges washed through him like a flowing stream.

Georgi allowed Gorbachev7 to make two full orbits of Mars before he made his decision, and in the end, it wasn’t glory that bade him follow; it was Mars.

David Wright is high school English teacher living on Canada's majestic west coast. He is married, with two sparkling daughters and over 20 published short stories.

This story originally appeared online in Astounding Tales in 2005.