by S. J. Morden
The boy took the other side of the roll from Frank and together they dumped it on the floor.
“Check for rocks.”
“There’s no rocks,” said Demetrius.
“On Mars, there will be. You walk along the route, and you pick up all the rocks that might work their way through the mat and you kick them to one side. Or you hammer the sharp edges off if they’re part of the bedrock. Go on. Look, I know there aren’t any rocks, because this is graded sand. But this is training. Every time we put out a new module, this is going to be your job. Walk the route, check it’s clear. Got that?”
He was malleable enough that he took the instruction without complaint. He trod over the sand, scuffing it up as he went, turned round at the end and scuffed it back.
“It’s clear.”
“Good work. Now let’s roll the mat out.” They did, and Frank noticed that there was a nozzle that would take air. Or any other pressurized gas. Or water, even.
When the rings at both ends had been completed, the outriggers assembled, and the airlock bolted on, they tied ropes to the structure and walked it into position. It was—aluminum and plastic—straightforward. The module still needed to be anchored down, but it was up, in something under the two-hour mark. It’d take longer in a spacesuit, of course. He should get them all practicing in the gloves at least, and see how cocky they were then.
That wasn’t right. He didn’t want them to fail. He wanted them to succeed. He just wanted them to be realistic about what could be accomplished and how long it would take them. If they could get a couple of sections up, join them together, and pressurize them in a day, that’d be a start.
No obvious friendships had formed. Alice seemed to hate everyone. Zero had taken his chance to bully Demetrius. Zeus’s ink made it all but impossible for him to get close to anyone. Declan—still no sign of him. Marcy. Him and Marcy. They got on well enough. So not fucking up there would be good.
While he toured the completed module, checking the rings at each end and the attached legs, the hangar door opened up. The crack of light flashed on and off. A shadow was briefly visible in the glare. Declan. Frank met him halfway.
“I was expecting you here already,” said Frank.
“I wasn’t told until now. They had me running up and down that hill.” Declan was wetter than usual. Dark stains mottled his T-shirt, and he rubbed his hands over and over again. He looked past Frank at the five others standing around the newly minted habitat. “This your team?” he asked.
Frank turned to look, and goddammit, yes. In the presence of a newcomer, they’d instinctively moved closer together.
“That’s right,” said Frank. “This is the rest of my team. Come on over. I’ll do the introductions.”
7
From: Bruno Tiller
To: Michelangelo Alvarez
Date: Sun, Sep 14 2036 00:03:29 +1000
Subject: Re: the Project
I’ve just filed the official documentation on the server, ready for Monday morning’s meeting. It gives an outline of everything we’ve done so far: I’ve included the specs for the vacuum chamber at Gold Hill, but not the full tech report. I wanted to talk to you about this over the back-channel.
You know my concerns: we’ve promised this vast open space, some five times larger than the SPF, and it’s as expensive as fuck. The tech report says we can build it, but I don’t think we *need* it. Something with twice the footprint of the SPF—in the region of 150–200 ft—will do, and it means we’ve got more in the war chest when we inevitably run down to Launch Day and have to throw money at problems to make them go away.
I want to emphasize to you that we cannot, must not, go over budget on this. The shareholders will crucify us, and all the stock we hold won’t be enough to buy a pot to piss in.
I want you to come to the meeting with proposals for a smaller vacuum chamber, and the justification for it. There’ll be some kickback, most likely from Castor on the Hab team, but I’ll take the heat and come down on your side. Hab will just have to suck it up.
Don’t let me down.
B
Building Fifteen was bigger on the inside. The back wall, which abutted the side of the mountain, was hollowed out and tunneled through. The electric carts they were in—sitting on rear-facing seats, wearing their spacesuits—drove all the way, then stopped. The voice in their ears told them to get out, and prepare for a live test.
When they turned round, they were confronted by a door that looked like it belonged in one of those apocalyptic movies, behind which the generals and the president shut themselves to escape the oncoming disaster.
“Well, damn,” said Marcy. It was almost too difficult to look up to the top. “What the hell do they do here?”
A klaxon sounded and the door ground open, slowly and inexorably. It was huge, and very thick. It opened inwards, powered by massive hydraulic rams that glistened and growled. Inside, across a threshold that was high enough to need steps to get over it, was a gray empty space. Something rattled against the lip of the door, and two white-covered technicians slowly appeared in the doorway as they climbed up. They came down on the outside, and stood at the base of the steps.
Then Brack pushed through them all and mounted the steps, facing them as if he was some kind of general, addressing his troops.
Frank could hear the others groan through the open circuit.
Brack was wearing a headset: they couldn’t block him out. “Get moving. We’re on the clock.”
One by one, they filed past Brack and into the dead area beyond. Concrete floor, curved concrete walls, louvered openings high up in the ceiling. On the floor, several items drew Frank’s eye. One was a long white cargo cylinder, like they’d been playing with in Building Ten. The other things were two igloo-like structures. They had the domed shape, but instead of an entrance tunnel there were hatches that looked like airlocks.
“Listen up, you retards. This is different. This is for real. You can die in here, and there’s jack anyone can do about it. In that tube is everything you need to build and pressurize one module. Against my advice, you have been provided with a couple of lifeboats. Use them for anything other than a medical emergency and you will be canned. Use them at all and I’ll get you canned anyway.
“When I step out of this facility, the door will close and the air will be sucked out. It takes half an hour to pump down, twenty minutes to refill so you don’t explode. After that first thirty minutes is up, you will get to work. You will be working in total vacuum, and you are on your own. There are cameras. Don’t interfere with them. But there will be no help except what you can provide for yourselves.”
He stood on the thick concrete sill and kicked the stairs away. They rolled across the smooth floor and eventually stopped.
“You’re the most useless bunch of fuck-ups I have ever had the displeasure of working with. I’m kind of hoping that when they open this door again, you’ll all be dead or mad. You get out of this coffin when you’ve done. Not before. You got that?”
Those who weren’t already looking at him shuffled round so that they could.
“I asked you a question.”
“We got it,” said Frank. “We know what to do.”
The klaxon sounded and the door began to creep shut again.
“And do not start until you are told. Or I’ll can you.”
The huge door obscured his body, but they could still hear him.
“I got fifty bucks on you fucking up.”
The reverberation when the door finally closed was profound. The echo seemed to go on and on. Then distant fans in the ceiling started to take the air away. Frank walked over to the discarded steps and locked the wheels using the brake. He sat down on the third flat, like they were bleachers, ready to wait out the half-hour.
Zeus lumbered over, climbed past Frank and perched on the very top step.
“We going to go early?”
“Temptin
g, but cameras. We know what we have to do. We know we can do it.” Frank felt his suit begin to stiffen. “We’ve done this before. We’ve got suit time. Just another day at the office.”
“Any idea how long we got to do this?”
“That’s probably something Brack should have said. It’ll take less time than we have air for. We’ll be fine.”
The others drifted over. Alice took the seat next to Frank, effectively blocking the rest of the structure to those still standing.
“Anyone feeling light-headed, got cold spots, feel like they’re struggling for breath?”
“I’m good,” said Zero. “You good, Marcy?”
“Chill. That is, I’m fine. Dee?”
Demetrius nodded inside his suit, and unless anyone was watching, he didn’t look like he was moving.
“You got to speak to us, Demetrius,” said Frank. “Let everyone know you’re OK.”
“I’m good,” he blurted, too abruptly for the compression to cut out the initial volume. “Sorry. I’m good. This …”
“Feels like the real deal?” said Declan. “Marcy’s right. We should chill. It’s nothing we haven’t done before.”
Frank flipped out his control box and peered down at it. He had solid green lights, all the way. The situation was novel enough that he’d rather trust them than his own impressions. “I’m doing OK. Zeus?”
“Don’t worry about me. Just enjoying the view.”
Frank closed his controls. He knew it had just clicked shut, but he hadn’t heard it. He raised his boot and tapped at the steps. He could feel the vibrations, but other than that, it was silent. Sound simply wasn’t traveling. He thought about the consequences of that, being on a building site. If he was driving around in a buggy, no one would hear him coming. If he was reversing, he could run someone over. In fact, he could run them over lots of times, and unless they were on the same frequency, he wouldn’t know until he actually checked.
He could be standing right behind someone, and they wouldn’t know. And they could be right behind him …
The suits had decent enough vision out of the front, but didn’t allow more than maybe ten o’clock to two o’clock to the sides. He could stand beside someone, and unless they turned towards him, he’d still be in their blind spot.
Which was all pretty bad news.
“I want to change the rules some,” he said.
“Oh, God. Here we go.”
“Shut up, Alice.” Frank paused, but she’d finished lodging her objection. “We’ve got limited vision, and limited hearing. All the usual things that keep us out of trouble aren’t there, and we have to do this differently. So one of us—we’ll take it in turns—stands to one side and watches out for the things that no one has spotted. Things that might drop or fall or crush or impale. People about to get in each other’s way. That sort of shit. They just have to call it before it happens.”
“And you’re taking first watch, right?”
“I won’t be taking any watches. Declan? You’re up first, if that’s OK. Just sit up here and keep an eye out. We’ll swap it around every fifteen minutes or so, so we stay fresh.”
“W-will we really explode?” asked Demetrius.
“No,” said Alice. She sounded bored. Bored with even having to think about nursing any of them, now or in the future. “You’ll be unconscious within ten seconds, less when you inevitably panic. You’ll have a double pneumothorax and you’ll go into cardiac arrest within a minute. There’s a window of about thirty seconds where, if you’re repressurized, you’ll live. Probably.”
“No one’s dying today,” said Frank.
“Accidents happen,” she said.
Frank exchanged a look with her. “Preventable accidents happen. So let’s prevent them.”
They waited, and after what seemed an age, the voice told them to start.
Stirring himself, Frank got to his feet, feeling the drag of the life-support system on his back as he stood. The steps wobbled, but didn’t rattle. Strange how things that he’d taken for granted were so important in building up the environment around him. All he had was the sound of his breathing.
“OK,” he said, and started walking towards the cylinder. He had no idea if anyone else was following him, because he couldn’t see them. It was just him, the few inches to his faceplate, and on the other side of that, pretty much instant death.
He was going to a planet where that was the rule, not the exception.
They cracked open the cylinder—the air trapped inside made the hatches pop out—and they started dragging the drums out, lining them up, ready for Frank to give them the once-over.
Declan made what sounded like a yawn, and Frank wasn’t having that. “Stay frosty, man,” he said, belatedly remembering that everyone would hear him equally loudly. “Declan. We need you alert.”
“I am alert. No one’s done anything stupid yet, that’s all.”
The first drum he opened contained the nut runners, and spare batteries. He counted them out, checked them all, and handed them round. He tapped three drums. “This, this, and this. Let’s do it.”
The mat went down first, rolled out with what should have been a loud slap and a gust of wind, but instead done in total silence. Then the airlock was carried into position—it took four of them—and placed face down on the concrete. Frank checked it, and got Marcy to check it as well: he didn’t want the thing going on backwards.
He swapped Marcy out for Declan. They unrolled the plastic from the airlock surround, and started building the inner ring. All in absolute, uncanny silence.
“This is weird as fuck,” said Declan.
“Makes it difficult to concentrate. You expect the tool to make a noise. It doesn’t. You wonder if it’s working, when it obviously is. That’s OK. It’s a test. We’re supposed to find things out so it doesn’t freak us when we’re up there.”
Up there. Mars was no more up than the Sun was down, but soon it would be Earth that was up there, just a pale dot in a pink sunset.
The first inner ring was done. They tied the airlock to it with tensioned cables. They lifted over the main plastic tube and positioned it. They started work on the first outer ring.
And Frank was tired. He was tired in a way that he shouldn’t have been. Every move, deliberate and precise, needed additional effort: not much, just a little, but all those added up. His timer told him they’d been working forty-six minutes.
They could go to the hour, and everyone then take ten minutes. They couldn’t eat anything, but there was water in the suit, supplied by a little sippy straw.
Frank swapped out Zeus for Alice, because she was as old as he was, and likely to be feeling the strain as much as him. Not that she would ever admit to it. So he cycled her to be on watch.
And people were starting to drop things, misthread and misalign bolts, and get on each other’s nerves. Without suits, they’d be halfway done by now, but they were barely a quarter of the way through.
The last section of the outer ring went into place. Zero secured it in position, and stood slowly, wearily. He was almost reeling. Frank had had enough. It was starting to get dangerous.
“OK. Let’s take a break.”
No one complained. They were that exhausted. They put their tools down—and there was no way they could do that on the Martian surface, so Frank had them all pick them up again and stow them on the belts that went around their waists, and only then could they rest.
Except finding a position to rest in was awkward. Lying on his back wasn’t an option, due to the hump of the life support. On his front, there was the bulge of the faceplate. On his side was possible, but sitting, slumped forward, forearms on thighs, head bowed, was about the best any of them could get. Four of them could fit on the steps. Small folding stools would be a bonus, but there weren’t any. The remaining three—Frank, Zeus, Marcy—stacked the drum lids up until they reached a respectable height, and sat down.
The cooling air blowing around Frank’s fac
e was drying him out even while it cleared his faceplate of fog. His eyes felt scratchy and his skin was tight. He couldn’t even rub some life back into his features, so he pulled faces for a while and drank some water.
How bad would this have been if they hadn’t forced him up and down the Mountain every day, or made him spin on the static bike until he couldn’t feel his legs? He could grudgingly admit to the point of it, while still disliking the actual effort. No, it wouldn’t be this bad on Mars. It’d still be grueling, but the suits were designed to work there, not here.
They sat, mostly in silence, or exchanged one or two words that required little in the way of reply. The clock ticked on, numbers on his console that slowly accumulated like falling dust. He could feel the ache in his muscles slowly dissipate, to be replaced by a general fatigue.
He let the timer run past the ten-minute mark, then decided that they should start again.
“You heard what the man said: we don’t get out of here until we’re done, so let’s get it finished.”
No one moved until he did. He took his nut runner back off his belt, and while three of them built the next ring, the others assembled the outriggers.
It was still surreal, as if everything that was happening outside of his suit was being played on a screen with the sound turned off. Disassociative. Mute images of people working. A silent film.
Music. That was what they needed. Anything, maybe without words, but something other than their breathing to measure time by. When they were on Mars, that was what he was going to do. Get Demetrius to load up some music, if they had any, and play it out over the headphones. It was what the chain gangs used to do. Sing. And what were they but a high-tech chain gang? They might be wearing spacesuits rather than shackles, but that didn’t fundamentally alter what the relationship was.
He wasn’t the only one to think that. He heard someone humming. There was a threshold of volume below which speech wouldn’t be broadcast. It often clipped the first word of their conversations if they didn’t precede it with an opening sound. That made it difficult now to pick out the tune, but after a few bars it became clear:
