Mission Mars

by Janet L. Cannon

  “I just wish the results would come in already, so I would know what the next few years are going to be like.” His voice was muffled as he reached under his bed and managed to snag a fallen sock. He backed out from under the bed directly into the door of the tiny room.

  North was prepared. “Well, you know what they say: ‘When a door closes, a window opens’.”

  “That’s generally a bad idea in space,” he replied.

  Just then, a light electrical charge tickled Steve’s wrist. He looked down at the tiny computer that was trying to get his attention. He yelped as he saw the subject. “The results!”

  North was immediately quiet and watched her friend’s face. “I’m sure you did fine, Steve.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Well … it can’t be that bad. Can it?”

  “Yes, it can. Apparently I am average, academically speaking, that is, but have an exceptional knowledge of rules and regulations.”

  “That sounds promising.”

  “I am most suited to sewage system engineering.” He looked at North, whose face was straining to find a middle ground between sympathy and entertainment.

  “I’m so sorry, Steve. That … well … that really stinks.”

  M301 slid into orbit above Mars. Steve, along with the rest of the passengers, boarded the shuttles that would carry them to New America. As he descended into the thin atmosphere, he could see the lone Iron Castle tower that soared above the smaller towers of the inner city and the utilitarian buildings that formed the colony. The transition from the heavier but graduated gravity of the transportation ring, to the lighter but evenly distributed gravity of Mars, left him nauseated. He took a deep breath in hopes it would settle his stomach. At least in the Martian gravity his baggage would be easier to carry.

  While the shuttle was cleared to land, Steve refreshed himself on the conditions of his employment. No matter how dreadful ‘Sewage System Engineer’ sounded as a job title, it was considered important and meant that he would work directly under a member of the Castle family—Cynthia Abilene Castle. Thus, his assignment afforded him premium quarters nearly two-thirds of the way up Iron Castle tower itself, in one of the nicest sectors.

  Feeling slightly lighter on his feet, Steve disembarked the shuttle. The signage was simple but clear, and he found his quarters easily enough.

  Although he packed light, it still took him a few hours to organize his belongings to his satisfaction. He was putting away his last pair of socks when the view screen on the wall buzzed. He answered the call and was greeted by North’s smiling face. “Hey, Steve! How far are you from Iron Castle?”

  “Are you kidding? I live in it!”

  North looked genuinely impressed. “Wow. Well, then, on your way up did you pass a bar called Lone Crater?”

  “Yeah. You should see the prices. They may not be out of this particular world, but they certainly aren’t down to Earth!”

  North chuckled. “I know, but it’ll be our last night before we begin work tomorrow, so we should celebrate. My boss provides the bartender with fresh botanicals from time to time, and in return, he gives us a special discount. You don’t mind me buying the drinks, do you?”

  Steve grinned and agreed to meet North in the bar within the hour. As he finished reorganizing his socks a final time, the view screen buzzed again. This time it was only a simple text message from his boss. “No ned to arrriv eerly. Come aruund 1300.”

  Considering the content of the message, Steve assumed computer problems were the cause of both the misspelling and the request for him to come in late. He closed the message, pulled on two black socks, hoping no one would notice that they didn’t match, and headed down to meet North at the bar.

  Lone Crater was one of the few places in the colony that didn’t feel obviously like Mars. For the most part, the bar was frequented only by those affluent individuals who didn’t care that the price of a drink on Mars was truly astronomical. As Steve walked into the bar, it took him a moment to notice North sitting at the bar talking with the bartender. He made his way across the room and slipped onto a stool. The stools were much higher than they were on Earth, but with the gravity just over a third of what he was used to, it was easy to lift himself to sit next to North.

  Several shot glasses were spread before her, sparkling with different colored liquids.

  “You must be Steve? I’m Frederick.” The guy dried his hands and reached over to shake Steve’s. “Welcome to Lone Crater.” Steve returned his hand. The bartender had an easy attitude that Steve knew would always earn him early access to the best gossip in the colony.

  North examined one of the glasses in front of her and turned to Frederick. “He’ll need an introduction to your unique methods. Make him a cocktail heavy on the bitters.”

  Steve feigned indignation. “You don’t think I can order my own drinks?”

  Frederick smiled and came to North’s defense. “It’s standard procedure for new guests.” Seven shot glasses were placed on the counter in front of Steve and each were filled with carbonated water.

  The bartender spoke as he worked. “When I arrived here, I didn’t want to have just another bar. I wanted to serve something special. Susan Canton, the director of Botanical Technologies, provides me with these unique bitters, thereby making my drinks a cut above what you can get anywhere else.”

  Frederick put several drops of various extracts into each of the shot glasses, and the carbonated water revealed the unique color of each bitter.

  Steve and North enjoyed the unique characteristics of each flavor as quickly as they dared and described to the bartender what they liked or disliked about each. Once he was satisfied that he understood their tastes, he busied himself constructing a drink to suit each of their tastes, then left the two of them to talk.

  Eventually, North signaled Frederick that it was time to close the tab.

  Steve glanced at the clock above the bar. “It’s getting late; are you sure you’ll be awake in the morning?”

  North grinned. “My boss told me to get a good night’s sleep and come in around 1300.”

  “Oh, that’s good. I don’t have to go in early, either. I’m not sure why, though.”

  Absently, Steve brought up the message from Cynthia on his wrist. “I guess some kind of technical problems.”

  As Frederick handed North her receipt, his sharp eyes caught the name attached to the message. “I suppose you could call being outrageously hung over a technical problem.”

  Steve frowned at the bartender, and considered how much he was willing to trust his inside knowledge. Frederick continued, “Cynthia Castle is well known to the bars. She loves to drink. Frankly, she loves to drink more than she can handle. But you see, she has a system. If she’s drunk before a certain time, she’ll send out a message, just like the one you see there.” He motioned at the small screen on Steve’s wrist.

  “The idea is that she won’t look so rough when you arrive at work in the morning. I’ll give you some advice: pretend you don’t notice. I’ve seen more than one skilled engineer end up on her wrong side for noticing—and that’s a place you do not want to be.”

  Steve downed the last of his drink and decided that if the bartender’s advice was half as good as the drinks he made, he would be wise to listen.

  Steve woke up early, despite the apparent reprieve he had been given. He wanted to explore his new surroundings and find out more about his new home. He had intended to take the equivalent of the scenic route to his office, but quickly discovered that wasn’t an option.

  Inside the central tower, apartments were small and hallways were narrow, but it was clean and the various warning signs were subdued to give an impression of false safety. Though much smaller, the cluster of towers that would one day form the downtown of New America were connected by familiar transportubes.

  The transparent aluminum tubes were light, strong, and crystal clear. Steve knew the thick coatings required to absorb the solar radiation
made tubes like this particularly expensive. Still, the transparent tubes offered him a unique opportunity to watch the rising sun glint off the Martian skyline.

  As he traveled out from the center of the city, the rising sun that glinted off the Martian skyline mesmerized him. It was a sight as breathtaking as the thin air outside. In the distance, the mountains glowed with morning light and the red sands of the desert blazed, as if on fire.

  The further away from the city’s center Steve traveled, the more he realized just how early in the process Martian colonization really was. Instead of the costly transparent aluminum, the transportubes outside the heart of the city were simple ceramic, formed from the Martian sands. With only the occasional small window, walking these transportubes gave Steve the heavy impression of being trapped beneath the Martian surface. Plus, the air in the outer buildings was filled with the sounds of equipment pumping air and other resources through the walls. There were frequent warning signs, no longer subdued—stick figures representing the dire consequences of not following the rules. Outside the safety of the inner city, such things were constant reminders that it was only the airlocks and outer walls that separated you from the harsh alien environment. Against his will, Steve’s mind wandered to his lessons aboard M301. He was distracted from such morbid thoughts when the viewscreen on his wrist tingled, reminding him to head back for his first day of work.

  At 1240, Steve arrived outside the office of Iron Castle Waste Management and examined the sign outside the door. It was emblazoned with the ICWM logo, and the subtext beneath it informed him that this was a subsidiary of Castle Infrastructure, as well as a joint venture of Castle Corporation and Castle Investments.

  At 1300, he walked through the door. The secretary immediately recognized him, and with little more than, “Steve Meritt? Follow me, please,” she led the way. The office itself was a single room, relatively large, and packed with dozens of engineers. As Steve followed her toward the back of the room past the workers, he took note of their engineering designs, which covered everything from recycling routes to septic tank design, both a challenge to adapt to the infrastructure and lower gravity of the red planet.

  Scanning the room, trying to identify an empty desk he might be assigned to, Steve stopped short as the door along the back wall swung open and nearly hit him. The woman who stood framed in the doorway might have been considered attractive by some standards, Steve thought. She was tall and had the classic hourglass shape, but she didn’t look natural. Maybe it was because her clothes fit her in just the right way to exaggerate her every womanly feature. Even her obviously silicon breasts, in the reduced gravity, were lifted to impressive proportions.

  Still, the makeup could not hide her deeply shadowed, bloodshot eyes. And her mouth was stuck in an uncomfortable grimace, as if it were a struggle to lift the corners of her permanently red lips. Frederick was right.

  “I am Cynthia Abilene Castle,” she said without extending her hand. “We are running behind on a project, and I want you to finish it as soon as possible. Monday, actually.” It was a command, not a question.

  As he followed her into her office, he began to understand her reputation, and the enormity of her family fortune. The room was large and airy, expansive. And the view overlooking the colony her family had built, at the same time it had built its fortune, covered an entire wall. Her desk and chair were raised on a platform, like a throne, and the desk was supported with a transparent sheet of glass that curved around three sides, instead of on individual legs. The result was that Cynthia Abilene Castle could look down her nose at anyone who sat in front of her, while they looked directly up her skirt. Steve had no doubt that this was intentional.

  Cynthia walked over to the window, her back to him. Abruptly, she put her arms behind her back and turned around. “I run this company. I’m here to make sure this colony becomes a city, a very large city. And when it does, it will be clean.” She gave him a look that dared him to disagree. “I gave you this job, and just as easily, I can take it away. Do we have an understanding?” The queen walked over to her desk, sat down, and crossed her legs. Slowly.

  “Yes. Absolutely.” He stopped himself from adding “your majesty.”

  Cynthia nodded and leaned forward to poke a few items on her display. Over the next hour, she caught him up on the work he would have to continue. He noticed she only continued talking as long as she could see her computer display, and frequently, she halted as if she were reading from a script. Steve had a strong impression that the introduction had been prepared by his predecessor. He noticed, too, that her speech at times slurred, and she had trouble pronouncing words, such as ‘polypropylene’. He decided not to bring it to her attention, which, as it turned out, he couldn’t have done anyway. As soon as Cynthia Abilene Castle finished reading her script, she sent for the secretary.

  “Show him to his desk.” The secretary appeared in the doorway and motioned Steve to follow her.

  The desk itself turned out to be recessed in a sterile little alcove directly across the hall from the bathroom. He sat down, shifting the screen so that he wouldn’t have to see every time someone went to add more sewage to the pipes. The screen turned on, revealing a solitaire game that covered the entire desktop. Steve minimized it, and immediately recognized a familiar icon in an odd place. Right in the center of the desktop sat a file – README.md

  Steve tapped the icon. The message was short and to the point.

  If you’re reading this, you’re probably my successor. Do not cross Cynthia Castle!

  She is only here because it is the place she can do the least damage to her family fortune—and to the Mars community. She does not understand the nature of mistakes. She does not understand the nature of success. But one thing she does understand—if you make her life difficult, she’ll make yours miserable. And, if you do, you’ll find yourself back on a transportation ring, just like me.

  Steve noted that the message was followed by not one, but three names. He swallowed. How many engineers had she fired? His apprehension growing, he left it on the desktop while he reviewed the state of his assigned project. Cynthia had asked—no, told—him to finish the proposal in a week, and deliver it Monday. As he began to digest the work done by those before him, he realized more than a few late nights would be required to meet the deadline.

  The drink in front of Steve was the color of the red planet’s sand. The drink in front of North was the color of the Martian sunset. It was Thursday night, and Steve had finally finished the sewage project for Cynthia. As a celebration, North had offered to treat him to drinks at Lone Crater.

  “I swear to you,” Steve said, “My desk is right next to the bathroom. It’s like they think putting me closer to the source of sewage will help me know better how to dispose of it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the project is one of the most boring I’ve ever had to work on. It amounts to nothing more than a pipe that will dump sewage into a crater a safe distance away from the center of the colony.”

  North raised her eyebrows. “You’re dumping sewage away from the colony?”

  “Yeah, of course. What else would we do with it?”

  “Do you realize how valuable that sewage is? It’s one of the most concentrated sources of nutrients available on this planet. You of all people should know that. With the right treatment, it could—it should—be routed to the gardens we’re trying to establish around the downtown area.” North glared into her drink. “Apparently, this isn’t new. When I told Dr. Canton where you worked, she went on a short rant about how Cynthia never listens to her requests.”

  Steve mulled over the new information. “What exactly do you need all the nutrients for?”

  “You’re kidding, right? And you called yourself a farmer? Well, why do you plant soybeans in places you used to grow other crops?”

  “Soybeans are legumes. We plant them where other plants used to grow, because a symbiotic bacterium that lives in their roots helps fixate nitrogen back into the soil.
Nitrogen is an important nutrient for plants to grow.”

  “Right. But rhizobium don’t really flourish here on Mars,” North retorted “Right now, we’re doing the best we can with limited nutrients. Small gardens housed in domes may look nice, but they’re not very efficient, they’re difficult to maintain, and they certainly aren’t helping process the atmosphere for the longer term terraforming plans.”

  North took a sip of her drink, letting the chilled alcohol soothe both her throat and her indignation. “To that end, Dr. Canton and I have been working on creating genetically engineered plants that can actually thrive in the native Martian conditions. The problem is that they require abnormal amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous in order to grow, far more than we could get from enriching small amounts of soil with soybeans in the lab.” Now she looked at Steve with a pointed expression. “If only there were a readily available source of those nutrients.”

  A grin began to spread across Steve’s face. Thinking back to how his parents used the animal waste on the farm, a plan began to take shape. “Those nutrients can be extracted from the sewage relatively easily,” he acknowledged.

  North nodded and returned the grin. “Now you’re catching on. If you look at the plans for city growth, we have plans for a large garden out to the west. What’s keeping us from starting work on it is that it will be exorbitantly expensive to build the enclosure. If we could extract the nutrients from the sewage system, we could use the outdoor plant varieties for much of the space.”

  “Exactly,” Steve replied, “but ICWM keeps dumping the sewage to the east because it’s easier to deal with the safety regulations where there is less population. No nutrients, no outdoor plants, no park, and most importantly, easy for Her Majesty to understand.”

  Finally satisfied that Steve understood, North said, “Why are you looking at me like that? You’re grin is wider than Hellas Planitia.”