Blue Hope: (Book 2) (Red Hope) Read online

  Connie and the kids looked confused too, but they stayed in the float. She raised her hands, palms up, to tell the kids she had no idea what he was doing.

  Adam wiped the ticker tape and glitter from his space suit. He was consumed by the crowd as he struggled up the limestone stairs toward the old wooden church doors. He pulled on them and they creaked open. The outside roar muffled itself as he closed the doors behind him.

  A security guard followed him in. “Captain Alston,” he said as quietly as possible.

  “I’m fine,” Adam said. He looked like a man on a mission.

  Unable to stop Adam, his security guard spoke into the headset to let the other security detail know what was happening.

  Adam walked right up to the back of a line of people who were waiting for the confessional. He tapped his fingers nervously on the wooden railing. Frustrated, he walked past the entire line and approached the woman standing at the front. He held up a $20 bill in front of her.

  “I’m in a hurry, would it be okay if I cut in front of you?”

  The woman looked at the money and then nodded to him without saying a word. She grabbed the money, then turned to the woman behind her and shrugged her shoulders. Adam opened the confessional door and stepped inside the tiny room. He sat down on the wooden seat.

  I don’t remember it being this claustrophobic, he thought.

  The priest on the other side of the wall gave a cough that implied he was ready to begin.

  “Hello,” Adam said.

  “Hello, my child,” the priest said in a compassionate tone.

  “So, would it be okay if I talked first?”

  Silence.

  “Young man, are you Catholic?” the priest asked.

  “I was when I was a kid,” Adam admitted. “I went to Catholic school for a few years.”

  “Okay, well, let’s just say you’re a bit rusty. That’s okay. What’s on your mind?”

  “Well, I’ve sinned and I’m looking for any type of forgiveness I can get.”

  The priest contemplated a good answer.

  “Well, what is the nature of your sins?”

  Adam swallowed hard before speaking.

  “I killed a man and, technically, a woman, too.”

  “Oh my,” the priest said.

  “On Mars,” Adam added.

  The priest furrowed his brow and smiled a bit.

  “I see. So you were on Mars and killed a Martian?”

  “No, no, no. I was on Mars for a few days and I killed a human. The woman happened later on.”

  The priest let out a sigh.

  “Well, my son, those are very serious sins against all that we stand for in Christianity. Have you considered turning yourself in to the authorities?”

  Adam pondered the question.

  “No, not really. In a way, one was self-defense and the other was mercy.”

  “Even mercy killing goes against…”

  “I know,” Adam cut him off. “Nobody seems to know about it here on Earth. I’m just stewing in my own pot of guilt.”

  The priest rotated his wrist to look at his old Timex watch. Another kook, he thought. “Just because nobody knows you have committed these crimes — that doesn’t make it all right to go unpunished. I think you know deep down what you have to do.”

  The security guard walked toward the confessional door, prompted by a group of new security guards who’d followed him into the church. The guard knocked on the door and explained, “Captain Alston, we have to return to the parade if we want to stay on schedule.”

  The priest was shocked back into reality. He jumped out of his confessional and opened the door to Adam.

  “Wait a second, are you the Adam Alston?” asked the priest. “Hey, everybody, this is the first person to walk on Mars. And he’s in our church!”

  The priest shook Adam’s hand as the security guard led him away and back to the parade. The priest smiled, pointed his finger at the front door and said, “Now there’s a true American hero.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Alston family home

  Fort Worth, Texas

  (Three days later)

  “No man can step in the same river twice,” Adam said as he walked into his living room for the first time in nearly half a year.

  “What are you talking about, sweetheart?” Connie asked.

  Adam looked around, soaking in the ambience and feel of the house. It was just like he’d remembered it, but with enough subtle differences to make him know that, from this point on, it was not the same house.

  “It’s an old saying that means time is constantly flowing by, so if you revisit someplace from your past,” he paused. “It’s in a different location in time. It can never be the same.”

  “Your adventure has made you introspective. Are you saying we’re in your past too?”

  Adam laughed — snapping out of his nostalgic mood.

  “You are my past, present and future,” he smiled, giving her a kiss. “Hey kids, let’s go out to the swingset. I assume you didn’t throw that out?”

  Connie gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder as the kids and Adam ran into the back yard. Connie joined him and they stayed outside until sunset.

  On the following Sunday evening, Adam drove to Dallas to give an informal talk to the Mars Exploration Society. Even before the mission, they’d asked him to come speak, but he felt he had nothing productive to share yet — he hadn’t earned the right to speak. Now, back from Mars, he was ready. He asked them to not make a public announcement. Adam just wanted to speak to a group of manned space-travel enthusiasts about his experiences on the Red Planet.

  After a fine dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse, Adam stood up at the front of the meeting room and gave a heartfelt talk about the nitty gritty details regarding everyday life during the trip. He went into the awe and wonder of what they found while exploring the Martian temple.

  At the end of his talk, one member of the audience, a retired engineer, asked, “What really happened to the crew?”

  Adam looked down at the lectern and thought quietly for ten awkward seconds.

  “You know, that’s a really good and fair question. We faced challenges that were life and death. Keller gave up his life to save mine and, well, I’m just not ready to go into the details about it. I’m sorry about that.”

  The club president stood up, saying, “That’s okay Adam. Everybody, let’s thank Captain Alston for coming here tonight. It’s a long drive from Fort Worth.”

  “And a long flight from Mars!” another engineer yelled over the applause.

  The sound of that clapping, which he heard a lot these days, felt awesome and strange during the drive home from Dallas that night.

  Adam kept thinking about the lie he perpetuated about Keller’s heroic behavior. Like all big lies, he hoped that if he told it enough, he’d soon remember it as the truth.

  A message was waiting for him when he got home. Connie handed him a Post-it note telling him to call a man named Oliver Woolie.

  “He said he has some paying jobs for you,” Connie said.

  “I’m not going to call him,” Adam lamented. “He’s just one of those leeches that got our phone number.”

  Connie looked panicked.

  “Adam, sweetheart, please call him. He sounded legit. And we need the money.”

  Adam chuckled.

  “We should have plenty left over from the Keller Murch bonus. Your surgery was only half a million.”

  “Not… exactly,” she admitted. “There were extra expenses and taxes and physical therapy.”

  “How much is left?” Adam asked, now concerned.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Adam said incredulously, his voice rising.

  “Actually, less than nothing. Not counting the mortgage, we’re in the hole by eighty thousand dollars.”

  Adam’s jaw fell open in astonishment.

  “We’ve got debt collectors calling us,” Connie grimaced. “They even cal
led my mom to get to me. It’s very embarrassing. I’ve been trying to hide all this from you, but we’re all maxed out.”

  Adam slumped down in his seat.

  “I’m sorry,” Connie cried. “I thought you wanted me to get the operation.”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Adam admitted. “You did the right thing. It’s just that, when I left for Mars, we were struggling and when I got back, well, we’re still struggling.”

  Adam sighed.

  “But in between,” he said with a grin. “You got your independence back and you kept our kids alive and happy.”

  Adam gave her a big hug.

  “We’ll get through this,” he said.

  “Call him,” Connie said. “You should all him.”

  After breakfast the next morning, Adam dialed the number for this Oliver Woolie person. It rang and rang.

  “Hey Adam!” a high-energy voice answered.

  “Is it too early?” Adam asked.

  “No, no. I’m on the east coast,” Oliver replied. “I’m an hour ahead of you.”

  “I got your message. What’s up?”

  “Look, Adam. I want to help you,” Oliver said, sounding like a used car salesman. “I work in the NASA public relations office — I’m actually handling all of the press releases regarding the Mars mission. But I’ve got a deal I’d like to talk with you about.”

  Here we go, Adam thought, rolling his eyes.

  “Look here, Adam, I am willing to go rogue and be your manager. You know that speech you gave last night at the Dallas Planetary Society?”

  Adam could not figure out how he knew about that.

  “Don’t worry,” Oliver laughed. “I don’t have spies. Your wife told me.”

  Adam laughed in relief.

  “Adam, how would you like to give that same speech over and over, but get paid fifty thousand dollars every time?”

  Adam took a deep breath, nearly jumping out of his skin with excitement.

  “That would be nice,” Adam said, trying to hide his true emotions.

  “You’re right, that would be nice. It would be damn nice. And I’ll only take twenty percent as my commission.”

  Silence.

  “Do we have a gentlemen’s agreement?” Oliver asked.

  Adam nodded his head.

  “Are you nodding your head, Adam? Because I can’t see through the phone.”

  “Yes, it’s a deal,” Adam said, laughing.

  “Great! Let me get a schedule together so you can start making some serious money.”

  “And you’ll make money too,” Adam said sarcastically.

  “Adam?” Oliver said softly. “Don’t make this about me. This is about you. You’re about to become a very rich man.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Conference room

  NASA Jennings Manned Spacecraft Center

  Fort Worth, Texas

  “I think we’ve confirmed the reference starting point for longitude,” MapGuy said to the room full of engineers.

  Chris looked around the table and stopped at Alexis. Her stare turned into a smile.

  “Well? Go on,” Alexis said, leaning back into her chair.

  MapGuy was very animated. He hopped out of his seat and started pacing.

  “We’ve been eliminating a lot of false starts and poor choices, but I think the Martians chose the one single point on the planet that could not be confused for any other. One point that would be here for a long time.”

  He nearly jumped up and down with excitement.

  “Anybody want to take a guess?”

  “No,” Alexis said. “Just do your job and tell us.”

  MapGuy’s balloon of excitement popped.

  “It’s Mount Everest!” he yelled. “We think the Martians would’ve chosen the highest point on the planet.”

  Chris shook his head. “But that’s way too far north of the equator.”

  “Yes, but this isn’t about the lines of latitude, Mr. Tankovitch. We’re talking about the vertical lines of longitude. Draw a line from the top of the earth to the bottom of the earth, passing through the top of Mount Everest — that is the Martian line for zero longitude. It’s almost too obvious, right?”

  Alexis spun to her laptop and started to type, but then stopped. She shook her head.

  “I can’t just type the Martian coordinates into Google Earth as is, can I,” she stated.

  “Right. You’ll need to shift them using Mount Everest as the starting point. Type in the following. Latitude is the same at 15 degrees South, but type in the shifted Longitude of 172 degrees West.”

  “You mean East?” she asked.

  “No, it’s West. Trust me, I did the math for you.”

  Alexis typed furiously.

  “Well, look at that. The Tonga Trench. One of the deepest locations on Earth.”

  “Exactly,” MapGuy said, nodding his head up and down. “The coordinates point to a hill near the bottom of the Tonga Trench. Perhaps that was the deepest part of the ocean back then — perhaps tectonic movement has changed things.”

  Chris shifted in his chair.

  “I doubt tectonic movement could change things that much over just two hundred thousand years,” Chris said with a skeptical expression. “Besides, if I was going to build a laboratory on a foreign planet, why would I build it thousands of feet below the ocean? That seems like way too much work.”

  MapGuy shrugged his shoulders. “Tens of thousands of feet. And we don’t know. Perhaps they did it to minimize their interaction with earthbound flora or fauna or bacteria.”

  “What do you recommend we do now?” Alexis asked.

  “Well, let’s see,” he said arrogantly. “You get a research sub and a crew and you go down there. But here’s the catch. I think you should do this carefully and quietly. At a minimum, do not release the coordinates. You’ll have every treasure hunter and James Cameron wannabe trying to get there first. Take your time. Get a machine that can work at that depth. Then go exploring.”

  Alexis nodded in agreement.

  “We must be careful with this,” she said, staring at each person in the room. “No leaks, people. Got it?”

  MapGuy sat down, his hand curled tightly into a fist, to celebrate having given a perfect presentation.

  He tapped the table with this other hand.

  “Do not,” he paused for effect. “Release those coordinates.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The large banquet room

  Cleveland Energy Club

  Cleveland, Ohio

  Adam stood frozen in front of the microphone. He looked down at his notes on the lectern, but only managed a cough to clear his throat. Eight hundred people paid $500 to listen to Adam recite his Mars adventure. The sea of people sat in front of him, staring at him. They wanted their money’s worth. This was the first in a series of marathon speeches scheduled every day for the next month. His take, after manager and facility fees would be just over $150,000 per night. This talk alone would eliminate all of his debt. The clock was ticking. He reached out his clammy hand and took a drink of water.

  His manager, Oliver Woolie, sat offstage behind the curtain and gave Adam a look that said start talking! Unable to speak off the cuff, Adam simply started to read from his notes. It wasn’t very professional, but it was better than being mute.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, wonderful citizens of Cleveland, thank you for having me here tonight. Normally, I would ask who travelled the farthest to this talk, but I’m afraid that answer would be me.”

  A few people laughed.

  Remember to remove that joke, Adam thought.

  “Tonight I want to tell you a story. It contains excitement, drama, and sadly — tragedy. That last part is the tough part and, thankfully, it is at the end of the story. When NASA asked me to be the leader for the Mars mission, it was the proudest moment of my professional career. It wasn’t easy. It meant being away from my family, training for the mission in California. It meant spending time away from my family.�
�

  Oh man, I just said the same thing twice, Adam thought.

  “I mean, it meant taking a risk that I might never see my family ever again.”

  Adam gulped more water.

  “Our crew of four astronauts launched up to the International Space Station, we called it the ISS, where we prepared for final departure on the Little Turtle spacecraft. Little Turtle had been launched up to the ISS previously and awaited our arrival. We transferred over to the Little Turtle and with a mild clunk, we left for Mars.”

  Oh crap, I’m saying Little Turtle too much, Adam thought.

  “No big rocket boom or anything. The amazing Murch rocket motors gently pushed on the spacecraft and never stopped pushing. We accelerated almost all the way to Mars. However, we turned around and ignited traditional rockets to slow us down. Our final descent into the Martian atmosphere was done with the emergency parachutes. I say emergency, but they weren’t really. They were designed to slow us down in the Earth’s atmosphere on the return voyage. However, we were going too fast and it was our only option. Without those parachutes, we would’ve all perished.”

  A mumble went through the crowd. After all, the rest of his crew did eventually die under his leadership.

  “After putting down our grounding cables to make sure we didn’t have any dangerous buildup of static electricity, we went about setting up both the Little Turtle and the larger ship that arrived previously — we called that one the Big Turtle. I love those names, don’t you?”

  The crowd gave a brief, forced chuckle.

  “We lowered the ground transport vehicle, which I will call the Golf Cart here and we were ready to go. Myself and cosmonaut Yeva Turoskova, exited the Big Turtle and went to the edge of the ramp. As we had agreed, I took the first step.”

  Sweat dripped from Adam’s forehead — this was the first time he’d told that lie in public.

  “I can’t lie to you good people — it was amazing to set foot on Mars. To be the first human to ever walk on a foreign planet.”

  Adam felt it — his character. His public character was forming before his eyes. Be a confident explorer, he thought. They will eat it up.