The most arduous period was about to begin. Rick would have preferred to mope and complain, but he had to grin and bear it. The administrator wouldn’t let a little gravity bring him to his knees!
Only one month to go, and they would transform from astronauts to colonists. He would be the one to lay the cornerstone for Mars City. The administrator would become the mayor and finally the president. Those of his subordinates who were the most important at this point, the pilots and navigators, would become worthless. The front lines in the construction of their new homeland would be taken over by the technicians, manual laborers and even farmers, the people who could create things with their own hands.
Rick was well-positioned where these folks were concerned. He would need their support above all, and they were grateful supporters, as he had already noticed. They didn’t ask as many questions as did the scholars and scientists. The manual laborers were hardly needed on board, which meant they were burning with ambition to show what they could do. Rick was going to give them that opportunity. And he was going to speak to their sense of justice, which they seemed to possess in spades.
Rick straightened up in his seat on the bridge and gave Maggie a sign. As agreed, the flight manager switched on the microphone to broadcast.
“Dear fellow citizens,” Rick said quietly. Speaking at low volume was a sign of power. Anyone who wanted to hear him would have to be still. Those who didn’t want to listen would lose the opportunity.
“In a few seconds, I will give the ship’s pilot the command to once again activate the engines. We are reducing our speed to enter Mars’s orbit and to then land at the spot where our new home, Mars City, will take root. This city will become the nucleus of the new human race. This will be your city; you will be its patriarchs and matriarchs. You will go down in history as the First One Hundred.
“The planet from which we came no longer exists the way we once knew it. Let us grasp the inexplicable events there as a mandate! Let us create a new order. As a sign of this, the old salary structures will be abolished as soon as we land. Every productive member of this society will be granted the same salary. Farmers, manual laborers, nurses, technicians, and scientists will all be equally involved in our success, since each of them will be equally important in their assigned positions. Even the smallest wheel will be indispensable in driving the operations of our society.
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart that, along with me, you will make the most of this chance. And now, Maggie, please engage the engines.”
Rick was satisfied. The bridge crewmembers were concentrating on their tasks. This message of his hadn’t inspired ship-wide applause, but his speech would have its effect on every listener whether they wanted it to or not, just like how the insistent power of gravity would influence everyone on the ship, demanding a reaction from their muscles. The smart people wouldn’t even try to fight it. Gravity never showed mercy or granted exceptions, and he, Rick Summers, was the one who had command over it, who had activated it by his orders.
A shiver ran down his spine. He was trembling at his own greatness, taking joy in the years that stretched before him.
Sol 115, NASA base
“Welcome to my greenhouse,” Sarah urged cheerfully.
Ewa stood up. Today was supposed to be her first day of work. As Gabriella had warned, her left side still ached, but her muscles had calmed down some. For the time being, Ewa had decided to remain at the NASA base. Maybe this would make it easier for the three people who had voted for Friday’s death. The three votes must have come from the MfE project, because she had watched the second vote. Ewa still didn’t want to know who had voted that way.
The NASA astronauts were glad to have the extra help. For the past two days the base had been airtight again, but it would still take about a week to fix the damage to the interior and exterior.
Sarah and Ewa crawled through the low hatch into the garden. It looked quite pitiful. Shriveled brown leaves were scattered across the beds. The frost had killed everything that had once been living here. The roof was resealed, and the heating system had been repaired. They took dirt samples, since Sarah hoped that a few bacteria might have survived the damage. If so, they wouldn’t have to start completely over with turning sterile dirt into fertile soil.
“I’ll take these to the lab,” Sarah said. “Could you work the dried plants into the dirt, please? That way we won’t lose any nutrients.”
“No problem,” Ewa said.
Sarah was sweet. Her baby belly was now quite visible. Ewa gladly accepted her as the boss, not taking offense at the fact that Sarah sometimes forgot that Ewa had been trained as a farmer. She missed her animals and hoped the MfE crew was taking good care of them. She found the gardening tools and began carefully turning the soil in the beds, incorporating the dead plant matter. She soon realized that the work was doing her good, since it was keeping her from brooding too much.
Sol 145, NASA base
“And... now!” Mike called.
Ewa braced herself against the ground and tugged on the pulley system’s rope. Slowly, almost in slow motion, the tower rose upright. All by herself, she had the thirty-meter steel structure under control. It was impressive what her suit’s muscle amplifiers could achieve when combined with the low Mars gravity and the pulley system’s mechanical magic. She pulled and pulled. The trick with pulleys is that she was moving much more rope than was actually pulling the tower upright. Ewa broke into a sweat, but the effort wasn’t so great that she had to worry about wimping out.
They had taken time with the project of erecting the drill tower at a different spot. They had welded together a new tower from the material from the old one and repaired the suspension bracket for the drill head. Sharon had proved right. The damage had been reparable. In the meantime, the NASA base was back to full functionality. In the garden, Sarah was expecting the first modest harvest to be ripe in the next few days. The unsuccessful drilling had cost them, all told, a good month of work. Considering that they still had many years to spend here, that wasn’t all that much time.
“Watch out,” Mike called by radio. “A short break in three... two... one... Now!”
Ewa held the rope taut and studied the tower. It wobbled very briefly, then stood solidly on its four legs. It wasn’t completely vertical because the surface wasn’t even, but that wasn’t particularly important. They only wanted to load it onto the transport vehicle. The tower didn’t exactly fit when upright, but Lance had come up with the idea that the transporter could simply drag the tower’s legs across the Mars surface, the way a not-so-strong man might haul along his heavy, completely intoxicated drinking buddy by looping his arms under the drunken man’s shoulders.
“Slowly, slowly,” Mike called over the helmet radio.
Ewa had changed her position. She was now located about halfway up the slope and was simply holding the rope taut against the gravitational pull that wanted to drag the tower downward. Lance had used a hydraulic jack to lift the foot of the tower until the entire structure tipped over. All that was left for Ewa was to make sure that the top of the tower landed softly on the vehicle. The exertion level was the same as before, but this time she had a better view.
As she slowly let the rope slide through her hands, she studied the horizon. Although the sky was generally low in dust, three dust devils were on the move to the east of them, one of which was larger than the others. She thought about the measurements she had taken. What had happened to her measurement pole? Would she ever be able to wander around Mars again as a scientist? She was glad to help out the NASA crew with their work, but she would prefer to spend her time trying to solve a scientific problem. In the long run, people wouldn’t be able to live on Mars without solving its mysteries. At least that was her hope.
“And that’s it!” Mike called.
At that moment, she felt the tension in the rope vanish. The tower was now resting on the cargo area.
Sol 152, NASA base
&nb
sp; Ewa was sweating. Every day she used the path to her work site as a jogging stretch. With the additional muscular strength from the suit, she practically flew across the dusty Mars surface. Of course, she was slower than she had been under Friday’s control a while ago, but she was still delighted with it. It took her less than thirty minutes this time to cover the eight kilometers.
Her destination was the drill tower, which now stood west of the base. With their ground-penetrating radar, they had discovered a layer of groundwater at a depth of about seven hundred meters. Yesterday evening, when she ended her shift and Lance took over, the drill head had reached six hundred meters. Since the cab had been completely destroyed, they had to control the drilling process from outdoors, swapping shifts to do that. This wasn’t a problem, though, since there were five of them. The drilling ran around the clock. Light, after all, played no role beneath the Mars surface.
Lance was pacing up and down beside the drill tower. He had already notified everyone via radio that he expected to hit water shortly. Ewa hoped that she reached him quickly enough since she would like to witness this moment.
She reached Lance out of breath. “How does it look?” she asked.
“Good morning, Ewa.”
“Good morning. Now tell me!”
“Maybe fifteen minutes or so,” Lance replied, handing her the plastic-wrap-covered tablet that they were using to guide the drill.
Ewa examined the schematic. The fat point that represented the drill head seemed to already be scratching the water line. She zoomed in. Lance was right. It shouldn’t be any longer than fifteen minutes. “If you want to go back to the base...” she said.
Lance chuckled. “No way. I might be tired, but I really want to see this. We’ve waited so long.”
That was true. Moving the drill vehicle had been no easy task. In reality, dragging the multi-ton tower across the uneven Mars surface had proved to be complicated. But the tower had been standing for five days now, and the drill turbine was slowly driving the drill head deeper and deeper into the planet. Nobody was worried about encountering another artifact. Andy had calculated the odds. It was more likely that a meteor would fall on their heads.
Nonetheless, Ewa felt unsettled. With her luck, a rock from space really would plummet onto the drill site at the decisive moment. She glanced up at the sky, but of course, there was no sign of an impending meteorite strike.
“Just keep cool, Ewa. Nothing will happen,” Lance said.
Was her tension really so evident? “I’m peace personified.” Ewa handed the tablet back to Lance before glancing around. She discovered a large stone and took a seat on it, swinging her feet impatiently.
“Um, Ewa?”
She jumped up.
“Just joking,” Lance said.
Ewa laughed nervously as she sat back down. Lance the scoundrel, she thought. She would pay him back soon enough. Ideally, in a few months when he was waiting on pins and needles for Sarah to have his child.
“But now, it’s for real,” Lance exclaimed.
She leapt back up, her heart racing.
Lance showed her the tablet. “Look,” he added.
The drill head had crossed the line. Ewa switched over to the page with the measurement data. The conductivity had changed in its order of magnitude. She verified which metallic ions the sensors had detected: sodium, potassium, magnesium, and several others. Everything checked out. A very salty liquid was flowing down there. It could only be water. They’d done it!
“How is the pressure?” she asked.
Lance walked over to the drill tower and shifted a few levers. “Looks good,” he replied. “I’ve shifted the drill speed down to its lowest level so it won’t freeze up on us.”
“I’ll tell the others,” Ewa said.
There was rejoicing at the base. Mike, Sarah, and Sharon wanted to set off right away in the rover to celebrate on the spot. Ewa couldn’t wait that long. She walked up to Lance and jubilantly embraced him. They had done it, after all!
11/3/2042, Spaceliner 1
Terran looked around. The corridor was empty. He opened the right panel of the double door with his key and let Isaac inside, before entering the machine hall and closing the door behind them.
“Do you have the frequency?” he asked.
Isaac nodded. Their little group had spent a long time considering how they could contact the NASA people on Mars. Then Chad had come up with the idea of using the radio on board one of the vehicles in the machine hall. Chad couldn’t be present for this, but Terran also knew how the technology worked. The range wasn’t sufficient to reach the NASA base directly, which was why they needed the frequency of Mars Express 2. If everything worked well, the satellite would send their message on to the NASA station.
Terran glanced up at the ceiling. He didn’t see any surveillance cameras. It looked like the administrator didn’t have his eyes on absolutely everything, as they all had assumed he did. Terran grabbed Isaac’s shoulders and gestured toward a specific vehicle, a backhoe, that was standing against the space’s right-hand wall. Back on Earth, Terran had once driven something like this for the army. It was obviously a model that the company had purchased from military inventory.
They were trying to be quiet. Despite the absence of cameras, Summers might have mounted a bug somewhere that they hadn’t found. Terran climbed up the ladder that led to the driver’s cab and opened the door. He slid across the wide front seat so that Isaac had enough room. Terran then pointed at the door. The biologist understood the gesture and shut it carefully.
Terran leaned over the control panel. He had to activate the main breaker so that the radio could pull power from the battery. It worked. The control console indicated to them that the battery was almost empty. This usually wouldn’t have been a problem. They only needed to let the engine run for a while. However, backhoe motors weren’t quiet.
For Terran, nothing indicated that this vehicle was furnished with a methane fuel cell, as were most of the others in here. “We need to be quick,” he said quietly, pointing at the battery gauge.
Isaac nodded as he placed the prepared message on the console. He lined out particular words and entire nonessential sentences throughout. “Ready,” he said.
“The frequency?”
Terran entered the number Isaac gave him, before saying, “You may begin.”
Isaac nodded. “Isaac McQuillen here from Spaceliner 1,” he said.
Terran noticed that he was trying to articulate clearly.
“Here on board, there are still a few decent people, the majority of whom are former NASA members who are seriously concerned. In our opinion, the ship’s administrator is pursuing an agenda that doesn’t correspond with the values of a democratic system. This is why we want to send you, as former colleagues, this frank warning. Once this ship lands, the administrator will attempt to embroil you in his plans. He is very clever and isn’t above trying to recruit spies from your ranks. Please be careful and resist him. And perhaps we will eventually reach the point when we will need your help.”
The battery gauge was hovering just above zero. Terran moved his right hand back and forth across his throat.
“Please don’t try to contact us. That would—”
Isaac saw that the battery was empty, so he didn’t finish his sentence. Terran was satisfied. The final words would have to remain unspoken, but he hoped the essential part of the message would reach the NASA base.
Sol 159, NASA base
“Mike? Someone left us a message,” Sharon said.
“What do you mean?”
“Mars Express 2 received a message that was obviously meant for us.”
“From whom?”
“The sender seems to still be far away according to the transmission capacity.”
“The Chinese?”
“It’s possible, but how would they have the relay frequency of the Mars satellite?”
“Then it must be from Spaceliner 1. It should be landing in
eleven days. Why wouldn’t they be contacting us like usual, and why would they use such a low capacity?”
“I suggest that we listen to it,” Sharon said.
“We need to tell the others about this,” Mike declared as Isaac’s voice died away.
“I didn’t like that administrator from the get-go,” Sharon said. “But do you think that he’s managed to bribe one of us to be his spy?”
Mike shook his head. “I can’t imagine that. But, perhaps someone on the MfE crew...”
I hope Mike’s not wrong, Sharon thought. How well did she know her colleagues whom she had long viewed as friends? Nonetheless, she wasn’t going to waste any time on suspicions.
The four were gathered on the bridge. Ewa had just awakened, Lance was sweaty from his workout, and Sarah had needed the longest to get there because she had been working in the garden.
Mike played the message for them.
“That’s not good at all,” Sarah said afterward. “I have the feeling that we’re being pulled into something that isn’t really our business.”
“Spaceliner 1 is carrying one hundred people who will soon be establishing a colony on Mars. They have at their disposal many more resources than we do,” Lance reminded her. “One way or the other, we’re going to have to live with them, so this absolutely means that their problems will have an impact on us.”
“Yes, but since we’re so few compared to them, we need to stay out of things as much as possible. Just imagine what would happen if that administrator decided that there shouldn’t be any small settlements except his own. He would come here with twenty-five loyal crew members and annihilate us. We wouldn’t stand a chance,” Sarah said.
Mars Nation: The Complete Trilogy Page 55
