by Jim Melanson
There were three sleeping units, plus a linen cupboard and a small but very, very efficient washer and dryer in the lower level. The rooms were not large, but they were designed for efficiency and comfort. The main bedroom (and the largest),was at the back of the Hab. It was designed with a double bed. There was plenty of closet space with below bed and overhead storage. There was a dresser; one section of wall was drawers from top to bottom. There was also a small desk. To the designers’ credit, they had gone to great lengths to not only make things functional and utilize all the available space; they had also gone to great lengths to make the rooms practical, comfortable, and appealing.
On the front of the L-Hab sleeping level, the second largest bedroom was similar to the larger one, but it had no wall of drawers, and no dresser. There was lots of shelving and hanging baskets in one of the storage cupboards though, so you could get by without drawers. Both the front and back sleeping quarters had portals looking out over the austere but beautiful Martian landscape.
The final bedroom, on the side of the L-Hab directly underneath the passive breezeway, was a smaller bedroom with bunk beds. There was one big closet, a small dresser, a desk, under bed storage and overhead storage. The bed was a bit wider than I had originally expected, so it looked like it would be comfortable. All the beds had thick memory foam mattresses, wrapped in plastic. I unwrapped the mattress in the small bedroom on the lower bunk then unclipped all the doors and drawers. I had decided this would be my room. It had no portal but that was okay. I didn’t have to worry about waking-up in the night and seeing someone staring in at me, ha ha ha! Above the desk was a large removable decorative panel. Behind it was this Habitat’s emergency egress point. The walls for the small bedroom were a bit thicker than the others; and the door was a proper airlock door. I thought about this choice for a few minutes, but realized that when Colony 1 arrived, they would need the two other bedrooms. That mission of four people was two women, two men; two couples. I might as well get used to batching it in the pseudoairlock from day two.
I spent the next 15 minutes grabbing my duffels and two foot lockers from upstairs; and unpacking my clothes and some personal items. I had brought three fleecy blankets, three crochet afghans, and three thick down pillows with me: all in vacuum bags. I had to fight hard to bring those with me. I was told the provided sleeping bag and environmental controls would be enough. My counterargument was these things made me feel comfortable and at home, and I needed them for the days when I was having a hard time handling that fact that I was all alone on Mars. I probably played that card more times than I should have, but in the end Jayden relented and basically said I could bring anything I wanted, so long as it fit in the available space and didn’t put us over the weight limit. Now I just had to find which of the transport mission units had my guitar in it! The last item I took out of the third duffel bag was a cardboard box. I opened it and slid out the faux leather bound Holy Bible that had belonged to my mother. Well-worn and a bit frayed on the edges, I held it for a few moments, thinking about the woman that had so long ago, gone home to Glory. I smiled and wiped a tear from my eye as I imagined her face in laughter at some stupid joke I told. She always laughed at my jokes, no matter how bad they were. She always loved me, without reservation, no matter what I had done or what decisions I had made. I could only imagine how she would have reacted to Mars, but I know in the end she would have supported me. I smiled and said, “I brought you with me Mom. Welcome to Mars.” I opened the bible, and in between the pages was her picture. I smiled at her smiling at me. I flipped forward a few pages and found the picture of my son and his wife on their recent wedding day. I flipped forward a few more pages and found the picture of Loreena, taken the day I proposed to her. I put the snapshots back in between the pages. I put the Bible under my pillow. Its words would bring me a lot of comfort in the coming years.
I spent the rest of the morning on that first full day unpacking and setting up the other computers and getting them hooked up to the servers; which I also had to unpack and setup, in the W-Hab. Luckily computers and software were one of my strengths so it was pretty mindless work. To make it go easier I launched the music app on my tablet and worked along to the tunes of Canned Heat, and then zoned out to some Yngwie Malmsteen. Listening to him shred arpeggios was blissfully relaxing when you listened to it loud enough. At some point I even played the very first, ever, Martian Air Guitar. Thank you. Thank-you-very-much.
Once the computers were set up, networked and working as intended, I moved on to unpacking the kitchen and living space. The L-Hab had three months’ worth of food supplies so getting food out of the supply drops was not a priority at present. I finally found the small Bullet Blender, and was able to mix up a chocolate protein/meal replacement shake for lunch. I put in some water, peanut butter and a bit of cinnamon and stood at the living room portal, sipping it slowly. It was a bit of a surreal moment. I was on an alien planet, by myself, and sipping food that was familiar and comfortable to me.
While getting a hydroponic facility up and running was on the to-do list, it was going to be a slow process just here by myself, and I was going to have to wait until the beginning of the next Martian summer to do it. It was too close to winter for that work to begin. That meant I had to bring all my food with me. In fact, I had brought four years’ worth of food, spread out amongst all the supply drops. I was going to get another two years’ worth of food every two years until Colony 1 arrived. This was one of my deals with Jayden. This food was all, of course, protein shake powder and meal replacement bars. It packed into a smaller space than prepackaged food and the weight, per meal, was comparable. I had used this stuff for years back on Earth to maintain a good weight and health. I was perfectly happy for it to be my diet. Another one of my battles though was peanut butter. The stuff is so damned heavy. However, we got the Kraft company to foil package individual 1.5 tablespoon servings, so we cut down on the weight of the packaging. I had enough of these food supplies for four shakes and four meal replacement bars per day. That would be too much in the winter when I would be fairly sedentary, but in the summer, when I would be outside and busy; it gave me a bit extra for the days where I really worked up an appetite. As I emptied these packages from a transport container into one of the kitchen area cupboards, I found a small cardboard box in the bottom of the container. I opened it up and there were six triple-packs of Twinkies and a note. All it said was, “Love, Carrie”. Bless her. I stashed them in my room downstairs.
I was feeling so peaceful, happy, and in the moment, that I made a second meal-shake and went to the kitchen portal to look at the distant ice fields. I looked out over the topography between the colony site and the ice wall in the distance. Calmness and pure, simple happiness settled over me. This was it. I was here. I was on Mars. We had done it! I looked at the play of the dust in the wind and the diamond like sunlight glinting off of the reds and grays on the ridge of the ice wall. I was doing something special. I was doing something that was going to benefit humanity. I was making a sacrifice to begin a long journey that the human race would embark on. It wasn’t pride I was feeling at the moment, it was gratitude. I was grateful that I was making a difference, and that I could make a difference. I was grateful I had been chosen. When I first applied for this adventure, I had the thought in the back of my mind that I might be running away from something. Standing here today and looking out over Mars’ surface, I realized that perhaps, instead of running away, I really was moving towards something: towards a new life, and towards a new chance to find simple happiness.
I focused my attention back on the beautiful sand coloured striations on the ice wall in the distance. The ice wall was both gray and red at the same time. The colours coming from dust from the Chasma plains permanently embedded on the ice wall face. I looked up at the sky that wasn’t blue. During the day time, the sky was a scarlet or bright orange-ish colour (from the iron oxide in airborne dust particles); and in the evening, even though it was still
the time of year for a midnight sun at this latitude, the sky became blue-ish. The Martian sky colouring ran almost opposite to when you would see those colours on Terra. Regardless of the colour, the atmosphere was always crystal clear and would remain so until the winter humidity started forming, or there was a sandstorm. While the Martian atmosphere has ozone layered into it, there is no protective ozone layer like we have on Earth. No proper ozone layer, no blue skies.
I was still amazed at how bright the sun was here on Mars. Being so much farther from the Sun than Terra was, I wasn’t really sure what I had expected, but it was nice. It was like a bright but cloudy day on Terra. During the North Polar summer, there were no clouds. In the winter time, this place would be a cloud factory. Hence, the need to get a wind farm up and running was one of the more pressing items of construction. Beginning that installation was on this week’s work manifest; but not on today’s.
I smiled to myself again. I was on Mars. My dream and hard work of the last few years had paid off. I used to be a very large man. Life curves, a couple back injuries, and some depression had taken its toll. When the Corporation first announced its plans, I weighed over 300 pounds, had high blood pressure, and was diabetic. I lived a sedentary life and was a bit of a hermit. The whole idea of being selected to go to Mars and of having a purpose really changed my life overnight. I started hitting the gym six days a week, and with careful guidance and assistance from the doctors, I lost 120 pounds in eleven months. I got my blood pressure back to normal without medication, and the Type II diabetes went away with the weight loss. I did miss out on the first round of selections by the Corporation, but I made it through when they opened the second application process. A few short years later I was sitting and listening to Jayden’s pitch for the proof of concept mission. Now here I was, on Mars, sipping my lunch, and looking out over the …
What the frak? Something just moved on the ground.
I squinted my eyes and looked just off axis and to the right. There was a shadow on the ground and it was moving slowly towards me. I pressed my face closer to the portal glass and peered upwards. I didn’t see anything at all in the sky. I was expecting a floating piece of cloth or something from yesterday’s Lander explosion. Was that only yesterday? So much had gone on, it seemed longer.
I watched the shadow as it slowed down and then stopped. Freaky man, really freaky. What was causing it? I had found the small binoculars while unpacking, so I went over to the first workstation’s top drawer and took them out. Back at the kitchen portal I opened the mini-binoculars and found the shadow, refocused and then slowly panned up and down around it. After a few moments, I finally found something. It was chunk of air that was distorted. It looked like a mirage. You know when you are driving on a hot summer day, and on a rise in the road ahead, the heat makes the air shimmer? That was what it was like. Looking directly at that spot, it was like heat was shimmering the air. I looked over at the environment controls and it was -23 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t heat shimmer at that temperature, but maybe something was causing a severely localized temperature inversion which would mimic a heat shimmer. Could the solar collectors focus enough heat on one spot to cause this? I set the binoculars down and looked through the portal again as I tried to make sense of this. It must be some really weird weather phenomena. I’d have to see if the cameras picked it up. I’m sure the planetologists and climatologist back on Terra would be interested in this.
On a lark, I grabbed my tablet and hit the key sequence to bring up the Jalopy-Sat controls. Much to my surprise, the Targeting Camera was active and focused down to a 50 metre resolution on the shadow, on the ground. It seems that this shadow had also piqued the interest of the onboard targeting system. While it would usually ignore anything within 500 metres of the Habitats, it would relentlessly track anything moving into the 500 metre exclusion zone if it originated outside that zone. This was just getting weirder and weirder. I could accept a momentary weather phenomena creating some ice-world version of heat shimmer; but how was something, ostensibly translucent, casting a shadow? Furthermore, how did it have enough substance to activate the advanced weapons tracking system of the Jalopy-Sat? Perhaps this shadow simply had enough definition to be targeted?
I looked up and out through the portal again. I watched the heat shimmer as it disappeared and a round grey ball about the size of a large cargo van shot straight up in the sky. I pressed my face on the portal glass and tried to follow it. I didn’t even bother trying to suppress the rather loud, “FRAK ME” that came out of my mouth. Those Frakers at the U.S. Air Force weren’t full of shit after all. I stood back from the window, fighting the nausea and the greying periphery of my vision, I looked around for a chair and then thought, as the greying field of vision grew smaller, “Frak it”. I fainted where I was standing.
Jayden’s Office: 134 Days Before Launch
I had been called to Jayden’s office at 4 A.M. I guess the term “called” is a bit misleading. I was sound asleep in my apartment, buck naked on the bed, and probably drooling on the pillow to the sound of my heavy breathing. I was rudely woken by a rough hand shaking my shoulders, and was blinded by the glaring ceiling light just switched on. My right arm came up swinging with a clenched fist on the end of it. The smile on Karl’s face changed to one of surprise as I punched him squarely on the jaw, making him stagger backward a bit - more from surprise than power. Karl and his brother Johann stood by the bed making placating gestures and telling me in their thick German accents that “alles in Ordnung ist”, that everything is okay, that I had to “beruhige dich bitte”, to please calm down. I was standing on the other side of the bed in a fighting stance by the time I realized who was standing in my bedroom in the middle of the night; and that yes, indeed, everything was in Ordnung. Their security uniforms were jet black, but their faces were friendly and neither one had drawn their weapons.
I looked at Karl rubbing his jaw and instantly felt bad. I really liked the guy. I just really, really didn’t like anyone touching me when I was asleep. Even my ex-wife knew to get out of the bed and step back before waking me up. I considered it an autonomic response, based on conditioning from a childhood event.
After my heart stopped trip-hammering in my chest, I had a quick wash-up, and threw on some clothes from the day before. They said I was needed in Jayden’s office most Riki-Tik (Johann’s favourite expression from American TV), and I didn’t have time for a shower and jah, ve vere, in a hurry.
Now semiawake, and holding a coffee that Johann had picked up for me on the way to my apartment, the brothers sped me to the Corporation’s headquarters. The lack of traffic at that time of the morning made the trip very quick. Karl and Johann were good guys, and I felt even worse about punching Karl. I kept apologizing - and he kept saying it was okay. They were two members of the security team that had been assigned to me two weeks ago, after the meeting in Jayden’s office. They were also twin brothers. Standing almost 2 metres tall, and each one weighing in around 240 lbs of solid body builder, I always felt very safe with them. The SIG Sauer that each carried on their hip helped as well. There had been a few threats from nut-jobs ever since the project started. I was glad they were so forgiving about the sucker-punch; or else I would have been in a world of hurt. I was no stranger to the gym, but these guys were the true embodiment of the term, “built like a brick shithouse”. I had heard others refer to them collectively as The Berlin Wall.
They drove onto the apron at the front of the building, the building still mostly in darkness. It was still too early for sunrise. When I got out of the car, I did that same thing I did every morning after waking up. I would walk outside in my housecoat and take a deep, lung filling breath of crisp, clean Swedish air. For some reason, the air was just different here. I could never define it. Maybe it was the local vegetation aromas, or something to do with the temperature, or the latitude. I just know that taking that first deep breath of Swedish air in the morning was like a lightning bolt of feeling awesome.
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Johann swiped his card in the door and they hustled me inside, and straight to the elevators. They hadn’t said much on the way except that I was needed, immediately. Aside from my apologies, we drove in silence. I was sipping my coffee, Karl was rubbing his jaw from time to time, and Johann was trying not to snicker at Karl every time he rubbed his jaw.
The elevator stopped on the third floor and we walked down the long hallway to Jayden’s office. Karl and Johann stopped in unison on each side of the office door, executed a crisply perfect about face, and then both stood at ease; hands folded behind their back, looking straight ahead. I looked closely at them to see if they were having me on. “Please enter ze office Herr Lane, you are anticipated,” said Karl very formally.
Suddenly, my stomach started feeling a bit queasy. I got rid of the final sleepy cobwebs, downed the last of the coffee in my styrofoam cup, and started being very curious. I opened the door and walked in without knocking.
Jayden and Hans both stood up, as did their guest. “Good Morning Mike, I’m glad you could join us so early.” I looked at Jayden who wasn’t smiling, neither was Hans. Their guest, a woman in her 60’s wearing the blue uniform and decorations of a Lieutenant General in the U.S. Air Force was standing on the other side of the table. Oddly, she had no Aide-de-Camp or other hangers-on with her that one would expect a Staff Officer to have.
I walked over to the table, set down my empty coffee cup, and shrugged off my jacket. Jayden made the introductions. “Mike Lane, this is Lieutenant General Gilda Rosewood of the United States Air Force. General Rosewood, this is the man we are sending to Mars, Mike Lane.”
