A brief hesitation. “Actually, it might be more than a few minutes. The storm’s intensifying and I can’t see very well—”
“Ian, why did they send you?”
A deep breath. Or a sigh. Or a puff, louder than the others. “You ask a lot of questions,” he says. Not for the first time.
“Yeah. But they’re pretty good questions, so I’m going to keep on asking more. For instance, how the—”
“As long as I can ask some, too.”
I nearly groan. “What do you want to know? Best concert? Favorite concert? An overview of the amenities of the crevasse? It offers very little in terms of nightlife—”
“I need to know, Hannah, if you are doing okay.”
I close my eyes. The bite of the cold is like a million needles wedged under my skin. “Yes. I . . . I’m fine.”
Suddenly, the call drops. The static, the noise, they all disappear, and I can’t hear Ian anymore. I glance at my satphone and find it still on. Shit. The problem is on his end. The snow’s getting thicker, it’ll be pitch-black in minutes, and on top of that I’m almost sure that Ian has been attacked by a polar bear. If something happens to him, I’ll never be able to forgive myse—
I hear steps cracking the snow and look up to the rim of the crevasse. The light is dimming by the second, but I make out the tall, broad outline of a man in a ski mask. He is looking down at me.
Oh God. Is he really . . . ?
“See?” Ian’s deep voice says, just a little out of breath. He lowers his neck warmer before adding, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Six
Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
Six months ago
I am surprised by how much the email hurts, because it’s a lot.
Not that I expected to be happy about it. It’s a well-established fact that hearing that your project has been denied funding is as pleasant as plunging a toilet. But rejections are the bread and butter of all academic journeys, and since starting my Ph.D. I’ve had approximately twelve hundred fantabillions of them. In the past five years, I’ve been denied publications, conference presentations, fellowships, scholarships, memberships. I even failed at getting into Bruegger’s unlimited-drinks program—a devastating setback, considering my love for iced tea.
The good thing is, the more rejections you get, the easier they are to swallow. What had me punching pillows and plotting murder in the first year of my Ph.D. barely fazed me in the last. Progress in Aerospace Sciences saying that my dissertation wasn’t worthy of gracing their pages? Fine. National Science Foundation declining to sponsor my postdoctoral studies? Okay. Mara insisting that the Rice Krispies Treats I made for her birthday tasted like toilet paper? Eh. I’ll live.
This specific rejection, though, cuts deep. Because I really, really need the grant money for what I’m planning to do.
Most of NASA funding is tied to specific projects, but every year there is a discretionary pot that’s up for grabs, usually for junior scientists who come up with research ideas that seem worth exploring. And mine, I think, is pretty worthy. I’ve been at NASA for over six months. I spent nearly all of them in Norway, at the best Mars analogue on Earth, knee-deep in intense fieldwork, equipment testing, sampling exercises. For the past couple of weeks, ever since returning to Houston, I’ve taken my place with the A & PE team, and it’s been really, really cool. Ian was right: best team ever.
But. Every break. Every free second. Every weekend. Every scrap of time I could find, I focused on finalizing the proposal for my project, believing that it was a fucking great idea. And now that proposal has been rejected. Which feels like being stabbed with a santoku knife.
“Did something happen?” Karl, my office mate, asks from across the desk. “You look like you’re about to cry. Or maybe throw something out the window, I can’t tell.”
I don’t bother to glance at him. “Haven’t made up my mind, but I’ll keep you updated.” I stare at the monitor of my computer, skimming the feedback letters from the internal reviewers.
As we all know, in early 2010, the rover Spirit became stuck in a sand trap, was unable to reorient its solar panels toward the sun, and froze to death as a consequence of its lack of power. Something very similar happened eight years later to Opportunity, which went into hibernation when a maelstrom blocked sunlight and prevented it from recharging its batteries. Obviously, the risk of losing control of rovers because of extreme weather events is high. To address this, Dr. Arroyo has designed a promising internal system that is less likely to fail in the case of unpredictable meteorological situations. She proposes to build a model and test its efficacy on the next expedition at the Arctic Mars Analog in Svalbard （AMASE）—
Dr. Arroyo’s project is a brilliant addition to NASA’s current roster, and it should be approved for further study. Dr. Arroyo’s vitae is impressive, and she has accumulated enough experience to carry out the proposed work—
If successful, this proposal will do something critical for NASA’s space exploration program: decrease the experience of low-power faults, mission clock faults, and up-loss timer faults in future Mars Exploration missions—
Here is the issue: the reviews are . . . positive. Overwhelmingly positive. Even from a crowd of scientists that, I am well aware, feeds on being mean and scathing. The science doesn’t seem to be a problem, the relevance to NASA’s mission is there, my CV is good enough, and . . . it doesn’t add up. Which is why I’m not going to sit here and take this bullshit.
I slam my laptop closed, aggressively stand from my desk, and march right out of my office.
“Hannah? Where are you—”
I ignore Karl and make my way through the hallways till I find the office I’m looking for.
“Come in,” a voice says after my knock.
I met Dr. Merel because he was my direct superior during AMASE, and he is . . . an odd duck, honestly. Very stiff. Very hard-core. NASA is full of ambitious people, but he seems to be almost obsessed with results, publications, the kind of sexy science that makes big splashy news. Initially I wasn’t a fan, but I must admit that as a supervisor he’s been nothing but supportive. He’s the one who selected me for the expedition to begin with, and he encouraged me to apply for funding once I went to him with my project idea.
“Hannah. How nice to see you.”
“Do you have a minute to talk?” He’s probably in his forties, but there is something old-school about him. Maybe the sweater-vests, or the fact that he’s literally the only person I’ve met at NASA who doesn’t go by his first name. He takes off his metal-rimmed glasses, sets them on his desk, then he steeples his fingers to give me a long look. “It’s about your proposal, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t offer me a seat, and I don’t take one. But I do close the door behind me. I lean my shoulder against the doorframe and cross my arms on my chest, hoping I won’t sound the way I feel, i.e., homicidal. “I just got the rejection email, and I was wondering if you have any . . . insight. The reviews didn’t highlight areas needing improvement, so—”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he says dismissively.