Analog SFF, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Back came the news that Mars Petro had gone into bankruptcy. Obligations outnumbered funds and future delivery contracts on cargoes expected from Mars—which included several not yet on the way—had already been sold. That meant no new funds would come and therefore that no help could be sent. The Lowell, for lack of a synch to dock to, warped course for a return to Earth while the Bradbury jettisoned its cargo module, leaving it lost in orbit around the Sun. By thus reducing mass and forcing its magnets beyond design specs, the Bradbury then was able to change course and intercept Mars Synch's decaying orbit. With computational power, a dock by eyeball maneuver, and a piece of luck, the Synch personnel were rescued.

  For the people down at Toehold, no such rescue was possible. No existing ships but Mars Petro's could reach Mars, and even those could not land. Now Mars Petro was out of the game. Toehold's situation was nobody's job.

  That should have spelled the end. All that remained, the playing out of an unwinnable game of solitaire.

  What happened then...

  Jeni had told him once how bureaucracies, whether government or corporate, seemed automatically to extend their reach. It was something in the human psyche, as natural as food, breath, or the reproductive urge. They seemed to need always new missions, new realms to administer.

  Ego aggrandizement, she'd called it.

  Perhaps, therefore, it was inevitable that, in Space Administration, some unidentified functionary would decide it was Space Ad's job to do what no one else seemed interested, ready, or able to do. That its activities would expand to the vacuum beyond the Earth-Moon system—possibly someday to the outer planets and even to other stars. Well, that was just fine also.

  Congress, master of the purse strings, could have stopped it cold. Some members loudly opposed taking on Mars Petro's failed responsibilities. The plight of the people up there—regrettable, yes, and dire—did not call for government action. Surely they'd known the risks. Why should taxpayers be expected to pay? The Mars Relief Program would take years. Maybe forever. Billions and possibly trillions of dollars drained from the public treasury. For what?

  Five or six hundred men and women who had knowingly put themselves beyond reach of practical aid.

  Practical, that is, dollar-wise.

  What deals got made outside of public sight, Don never heard. Nor any of the hows and whys. Mentioned names became a muddle and the remarks of commentators outside of government were ripe with cynical pontification. Politicians, some said, rarely objected to a new initiative; it's the old ones that get left to languish and, ultimately, terminate. That parties in and out of government might meanwhile gain from the effort, well, un-American to bring that up. Anything government did meant a profit for someone. Let it go to our friends.

  Therefore, somehow, legislation moved, and the president, with a cautious, clear statement of misgivings, signed.

  The bankruptcy trustees gladly sold two of Mars Petro's magnet ships. Archives were ransacked for the scraps of obsolete technology that would make possible delivery of cargo pods close to Toehold. Squads of engineers were employed to translate antique designs into modern hardware. After only slightly more than half a year the Giovanni Schiaparelli hove forth with a load of robot landers which—so it was hoped—would be released at the proper moment to intersect the rotating world that was Mars, fire solid-fuel retrorockets at the exact right instant for the perfect duration and vector to fix time of arrival at atmosphere entry precisely when Toehold lay below, at which moment ablative heat shields of water ice would slow their fall to a speed that would allow huge parachutes to deploy and further arrest descent through the thin atmosphere until, as the ground was approached, fat bladders would inflate to soften the jolt of touchdown. Somewhere in all that, the holy name of Rube Goldberg would be called upon.

  The Schiaparelli took seven months to reach the vicinity of Mars. As it approached, it released twenty-seven pods. Well, that is, release was attempted. Three failed to separate. Of the twenty-four actually launched, six either failed to ignite their retrorockets, had their direction of thrust incorrectly oriented, or burned either less or more than the correct duration. On Mars itself, an erupting dust storm with erratic winds increased the confusion. Heat shields were inadequate, guidance systems were unable to adjust, parachutes failed, and bladders deflated prematurely. Of the twenty-four pods launched, four came down inside the retrieval zone. One of those hit hard, burst, and only part of its load could be salvaged.

  Not bad for a first try.

  Already the Edgar Burroughs was on its way with twenty-seven more. Anticipating problems, technicians had been put aboard to make adjustments and design corrections, but time was short and some modifications would have required tools or materials not on hand. The score, Toehold retrieved five intact. Two others crashed. One, having come down outside the optimum zone, was finally recovered three Earth years later. Though air pressure had been lost and the arid cold of a Martian winter had also made damage, most of the food was edible and some of the other cargo could still be used.

  Par for the course. From the outset Don had known all would not go smooth. Also that whatever food came would not last forever. Therefore, though he allowed the commissary to serve a celebratory meal when the first pod was brought in, he didn't otherwise relax the rationing rules. A few people grumbled, but even they understood the necessity. That the pod had included, unexpected, a cache of peppermint ice cream helped ease things. It carried the message that somebody down home truly cared.

  That someone down home had taken thought was also evident when inventory of what had come showed that each pod had been loaded with assortments instead of just one thing. Rice and soybeans, powdered milk and eggs, powdered coffee, and dehydrated potatoes. Baking flour, yeasts, and flavorings. Frozen peas, carrots, fruit juice concentrate, and corn. Numerous varieties of hybrid food crop seeds to be tried, computer core replacements, machine and pressure suit parts. Pressure suit sealant gel and patching tape. Lubricants, some types usable inside the habitat and others for outside. Solar panel replacements and energy charge spares, medical supplies and equipment. Basic clothing and footwear. Algae spores. Remnants of the massive heat shields, usually found not far from the pods they had protected, would help replenish the water supply.

  Down home, someone had taken into account that not all the shipments would get through.

  Also, each pod had a number. Beamed back down home, they told which had made it and therefore, matched against manifests, what supplies had not and therefore still were needed.

  Each pod also had a surprise. The ice cream in the first was followed by an immense stock of frozen strawberries in the second. A third had chocolate bars, some of which included nuts, dried fruit, or crunchy nuggets. The last of the first four—the damaged one—yielded a vast assortment of nuts. Every kind Don could think of, roasted, shelled, and salted. For people malnourished and half starved, fine dining. Knowing to expect food crop seeds, Don had ordered an aboveground greenhouse built beside the algae vat housing. Like the algae vat, though, it would have to be kept warm. That meant more solar panels would be needed. Attempts to make them from local materials failed. Don tinkered with the fabrication process; he knew a few tricks that, down home, the bean counters wouldn't have allowed. Some of the science guests had tricks also, as did the repair shop staff. Ultimately, though, output was still not good. Panels were scavenged from the idled mine's machines and added to the field until the reserve of electrical cable ran out.

  Meanwhile, bearings fouled by abrasive grit, the windmill turbines were failing. Don let them go. Sure, windmills had been worth a try; Martian winds blew swift, and those tall, knob-topped pylons had stood on the ridge above the mine like five—armed, cyclopian giants. At that height, though, Martian air was too thin. The energy content just wasn't there. Don had them pulled down. Their electrical cables could be salvaged and used elsewhere, and the pylons could be scavenged for metal that the machine shop could convert into things needed
more.

  But then, planted in tubs of Martian soil, most of the seeds didn't sprout. Many hadn't survived the trip from down home, nor was the soil right. It lacked organic material. The chemistry was wrong other ways, too. Though he himself had never grown so much as a potted geranium, Don wasn't surprised. Deeply aware of his own incompetence, he went around, talked to people, and found out who understood the work of keeping a garden. He gave them the job. On a hunch, though, he also assigned several from among the science guests as inexperienced as himself, but who knew the value of keeping records. Which seeds in soil of what chemistry, and what resulted from how much water with what impurities and acidity. How much light. What pollination methods worked best for what type of plant in the absence of bees.

  Similarly, thinking ahead, he'd held back something more than half the seeds for a second try. Sludge from the algae vats—dead algae—mixed into the soil helped, as did matter from the septic tank. Dryland irrigation techniques also brought results, but even with all that more than a few plants grew sickly or strange. Stalks lacked stiffness. Leaves were chlorophyll deficient. Blossoms withered in the bud or unfolded wrong. Martin Magnusson of the science guests found that the sunlight coming through the homemade glass had too much ultraviolet and, otherwise, not strong enough. Trials with glass made from carefully selected base material, and translucent rather than transparent, stopped the ultraviolet but also filtered out other, beneficial wavelengths. Systems of reflector panels had to be devised. As for cosmic rays, hopeless to stop them. Some types of plant, though, or certain strains, would be affected less than others. Observe with a critical eye. Keep records. Do not fear to play a hunch.

  Gradually, over several cycles of growth, productive types of soil and breeds of plant were identified. The garden began to produce. Then, in the slighter gravity of Mars, the maize and sugar cane grew too tall. A second greenhouse had to be built with a loftier canopy.

  Somewhere in all that, unforeseen, oxygen production began to outstrip the need. The problem became fire prevention; measures had to be taken to keep the habitat's oxygen concentration from getting too high. Scale back the algae tanks.

  So it went.

  After the Burroughs had made its flyby the wait for more supplies stretched long. Both ships took months returning to Earth, after which something like an Earth year passed before orbital positions made another pair of flights even marginally practical. For Don and the people of Toehold it meant month after month of making do with short rations of beans, potatoes, and cabbage. Never enough of all the things they had to have.

  It gave time, though, for engineers down home to review the results of their first attempts, make changes in hardware design, and refine their guidance system and atmosphere entry programs. To take into account the actual conditions encountered.

  Also, during that long hiatus, Space Administration rethought its long-term plans, bought the Raymond Bradbury and the Percival Lowell, and commenced the studies that, in the end, transformed the Mars Relief Program into the Mars Repatriation Project. A new Mars Synch would have to be built and then a new skein of cable spun. Nothing technically impossible about all that, but the monetary commitment would be huge.

  Neither did anyone know how long it would take. Years for sure, and actual work could not begin until the cause—or causes—of the original Synch's failure were known; the same mistakes should not be made again.

  It promised, though, sort of, that the people of Toehold could hope someday to go home. How, why, or by whom the decision was made, Don never heard, but amid the general rejoicing he merely felt wore down. To go home, they would have to stay alive long enough. That was not guaranteed.

  * * * *

  X

  “It surprised us,” Don said. “Build another Synch...? We had some idea what the first one cost. Never had the brass to ask for it.”

  “Actually,” Scarborough said, “it was somewhere in the thinking from the start. The legislation for the relief program called for a feasibility study. Somebody was thinking a long way ahead.”

  Don adjusted his mind to this new fact. “That's where the commission came from?”

  “Once we had its findings, the possibility of a replacement was clear. Ultimately, less cost than just keep sending supplies, besides.”

  Pops had always grumbled that politicians never thought beyond the next election. Don hadn't been sure, himself; sometimes, once a project got started, Jeni had said, it took years to kill no matter how dumb. He'd seen one or two like that first hand. “Well,” he said, “we're not complaining.”

  “There'd have come a point, also, where there'd be too few of you left to sustain the colony.”

  In his darker moments, Don had thought about that. He'd never been able to think of a solution. “Outpost, you mean,” he said. “As we died off.”

  “Well, yes,” Scarborough admitted.

  * * * *

  From the first, the engineers who planned Mars Synch had known a perfect, utterly stable geosynch orbit couldn't exist. Countless gravitational fields saturated space, resulting in a summed force on every particle, which shifted subtly from one instant to the next as the source masses altered their relative positions.

  For the Brazil and Kenya Synchs, in orbit above Planet Earth, three gravitational fields were dominant. Earth's, obviously, was primary, but also acting on the Synchs were Earth's moon and the Sun. Disturbance from these sources largely canceled in the course of the orbital cycles involved and, for the most part, could be ignored. More troublesome over the long term, Earth's poles—and therefore its equator—slowly and infinitesimally shifted as icecaps, air masses, ocean currents, and the endlessly jostling tectonic plates of its crust slightly changed the world's distribution of mass. Without intervention, therefore, the Synchs could not forever maintain precise locations above specific points on the planet's surface.

  Neither did they have to. Their exact altitude above the respective Ground Zeros could be accommodated by allowing their cable skeins to include several tens of kilometers of slack, to be drawn taut or relaxed as orbital eccentricity took them up or down. Their drift to east and west, north and south, could be corrected for by application of magnetic fields interacting with Planet Earth's, power coming from acres of solar panels and kept against need in cubic megameters of charge storage units.

  From that innovation had the great magnet ships originated.

  For Planet Earth's synchs, that ability to adjust was adequate. For Mars, several additional problems presented themselves.

  First, while Planet Earth possessed a robust magnetic field, Mars did not. Corrections therefore had to be applied primarily against the Sun's field, which, at Mars’ distance, was not nearly as powerful and, further, constantly changed both strength and direction. In consequence, greater energy had to be applied and the Sun's field had to be closely monitored. Similarly, greater energy storage capacity would be needed. Maximum real-time requirements were therefore calculated and incorporated into the designs.

  Second, Mars possessed not one moon but two. Both were small, but nevertheless of significant mass; their gravitational fields could be expected to perturb a synch station's orbit. Even more troublesome, the larger moon, Phobos, orbited the planet in less than a Martian day, which meant its orbit would carry it closer to the planet than the synch station's. An additional complication, the plane of Phobos’ orbit was only minimally inclined to the plane of Mars’ equator, meaning that Phobos could be expected to pass very close—albeit at varying distance—to the skein between the station and the Martian surface. This would mean the station would have to constantly maneuver to prevent Phobos from colliding with the skein. Meanwhile, regardless, with each close encounter Phobos’ gravity would tug at the skein, inducing long, slow vibrations much like the plucked string of a musical instrument. While some encounters might moderate the effects of others, others would magnify.

  All these factors could be dealt with, of course. Enough that they should be taken
into account in the finalized plan.

  Considered negligible and therefore not incorporated in the specifications, the fact that Mars’ orbit was more eccentric than Planet Earth's, which meant its distance from the Sun varied more greatly. Solar energy reaching Mars, therefore, waxed and waned to greater extremes. Also ignored, the tiny influence of Jupiter's gravitational and magnetic fields. Likewise the slight but ever-changing distribution of mass in the asteroid belt. Real-time observation and powered maneuver would correct for any effects from those sources.

  In short, keeping a Mars Synch and its skein in stable orbit could be done.

  Yup. Sure. But capricious Nature has a way of keeping engineers humble.

  The commission charged with understanding what happened came to no firm conclusion. Lost data prevented an exhaustive analysis. That said, the probable cause was found in an unlikely combination of events.

  Mars had been approaching aphelion, its farthest distance from the Sun. Its solar panels, therefore, had been delivering less power than average. A series of close encounters between Phobos and the skein had required energy expenditure both to prevent collision and to damp the skein's induced vibration; this had drawn down the power available from the charge storage units so a few degrees of drift had been deemed acceptable. Further complicating the matter, three pods of cargo had been ascending the skein, contributing centers of mass at random points along its length; their inertia generated secondary, more complex vibrations from the pulses caused by Phobos’ close passages. Another factor, possibly affecting events, an expanding cloud of charged particles from the Sun, technically known as a Coronal Mass Ejection, had been passing within a few thousand kilometers of Mars at roughly that time; it would have distorted the magnetic lines of force in that region of space. Finally, Jupiter had been approaching opposition as seen from Mars; its magnetic and gravitational fields may have contributed additional small disturbances. Members of the commission disagreed on that detail.