CHAPTER 4 – THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT
13 June 1970
He met them at John’s Lunch on the Dartmouth side at noonish, not because of some military principle or protocol, but rather because the halibut tips and deep fried clams were great and the beer, Keith’s of course, was served icy cold. They filled the booth and needed an additional chair. The staff, friendly as always, noisily accommodated them. For a well-founded reason he looked at the diners in the adjoining booth and across the row. Locals. What could go wrong? Seriously?
It was planned for the three of them to leave together the day after tomorrow. He would follow a couple of days later.
Of course they had not seen each other since their return from the course and it took a few formal minutes getting reacquainted. And as usual, they insisted upon calling him sir or LT. It took a few tries and minutes but eventually they seemed OK with just ignoring the need to refer to him in any military way. From experience he knew that when needed it would resurface and indeed, would push its way to the front. He knew their names, their units and jobs or at least, he thought he did. One was Navy, a Master Seaman Radio Technician; the other two were Radar Technicians (Nav Aids) Master Corporals from the air base at Dartmouth. All, to use a newish sort of phrase – were journeymen tradesmen. All newly promoted. All three had been expecting postings to units where their new skill sets would have been employed. So much for that. And all three had accepted the offer from their respective superiors, conditional upon passing medicals, etc. The usual.
They talked a while about the dead Americans. A couple of them had been nice guys, good drinking buddies, good story-tellers, hockey fans even - but not the Leafs or Habs, of course - who paid their share of the bar bill and had helped them eagerly when required with some of the more difficult and obscure details of the systems they’d encountered on the course. The others? They were about what you’d expect, eh?
Returning to themselves they told him something that was known to him, that none of them had ever worked on the APD and FPS radars, nor the somewhat weird communication equipment they had just seen. But as Alain - or Brain, as he preferred to be called for some reason – said, electronics is electronics, a tube is a tube, a magnetron is a magnetron, a servo is a servo, an ACU is an ACU, until Bruce, mercifully, put him in his place by reminding him about the existence of transistors and integrated circuits.
He hoped they were right. His own specialty was computer systems engineering, not radar and comms. And he hoped they would never learn that his nickname in military college had been Punch-card Hinnie. Who needed that? Really?
He’d better not get drunk with these guys; he might tell them himself just to get them to stop calling him LT, at least in bars.
The conversation stayed away from the personal, but he knew from reviewing their pers files that the Navy lad Alan was single with no personnel issues ID’d, so far. Alain was married; no kids; no issues obvious, so far. Bruce too was single and had no issues. Too easy. So much for them.
He shared nothing about his own experience in dealing with the Admiral’s offer that had, unlike theirs, not been held out before him to accept or reject, but rather been jammed down his throat. Swallowing it whole meant yes. Gagging and throwing it up in the Admiral’s face, a face he had served under before on the Cree meant ‘No, I accept that my career is over’. Yes.
The Admiral was not known for a kind, compassionate approach to personnel selection. Part of the price.
Not surprisingly, like him, they knew little of Orion, especially the means of propulsion, the mission and the duration. None of them seemed too concerned at this shortfall of possibly important information and frankly, as they reminded him cheerily, it was not their job to fly the ship, clanking bottles together at the end for emphasis. They were there to take care of the radars and communications systems and had been relieved to learn, as he had only recently learned, that they would be working on the ship with USAF techs, aka specialists, whatever that meant, on the systems they had just seen in Syracuse.
None seemed too interested in what would be his main job, the programming, care and feeding of Orion’s two D-37C mainframe computers.
“So what do you know about Mars?” he asked from mere curiosity.
“Red, dead and dry, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica,” offered Desharnais. “For a long time, too. Millions of years.” Heinz nodded in agreement.
But it went on, of course. How could it not. Beer!
“Yeah. Things are different ever since that Mariner 3 thingy went by and took those pictures. No vegetation, no water even. Just cold thin air and lots of ice. No canals. Nothing to support life. Just like Medicine Hat. In February!” Desharnais
“BS! That’s BS. There’s a cover-up going on. The government wants you to believe there’s no life there because of religion. But it’s everywhere on Mars. Wait and see. You’ll see I’m right.”
“Bruce!” Desharnais sneered, “Give me a break. That’s BS and you know it. It’s about the money.” Mackenzie held his piece. Amused, so did Heinz.
“No, dude! Politicians are afraid of losing votes if they support looking for life. Not just Mars. Anywhere. There’ve been lots of radio stations set up to listen and communicate with the Martians. And even far away stars. Jupiter, too. Look it up!” Swinemar. Of course.
“Look it up where? Up yer ass?”
“The National Host. The Gloom and Doom. The New Gawker.” Swinemar laughed, “Look. I’m just ‘effing kidding guys. I can’t believe you got sucked in by that shit. The oldest trick in the book and you fell for it. What a goof! Dummies. ‘Effing dummies. But not you LT!”
“Thanks Bruce. But that Mariner 3 thing never happened. They faked the whole thing.” They looked at him the wrong way. All of them.
“What? I mean what, LT?”
“Just kidding.” They had a laugh over that. Beer: The great intellectualiser.
Finished with the food and the basics they paid their respective bills and went outside. They parted with hand-shakes, followed by hand salutes and goodbye LTs. Ah, tradition.
***
The next step for him? Pack a kitbag, sign his new will, pick up his papers and travel advance, say a final round of good byes and get to the airport. Simple enough.