One Way

by S. J. Morden

  “Outside of that.”

  “When?” Frank frowned. “At night?”

  “Just log it for me, will you?”

  “OK.”

  Declan pulled back and Frank could hear his footsteps recede. There were always tire marks on the ground around the buggy park, but the buggies themselves were always pretty much where he’d left them. Or so he thought. Were there trackers on the buggies? He didn’t know. There were on the suits—or was it just the medical implants, working off … what? Some sort of Martian GPS? He hadn’t really given it much thought, and just assumed that it was a standard set-up, just like it was on Earth.

  But driving around at night didn’t make much sense. Firstly, it was dark, and while the buggies had lights, it was still dangerous enough in the day with the potential for hitting something sub-surface. And secondly, going solo where no one knew where you were and no one was in Comms to take your emergency call?

  Unless they weren’t going solo? That would mean two people keeping a secret, and that didn’t seem likely. If it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t Declan, then who? Brack had no need to sneak around. If he wanted a buggy, he’d just say so and take one. That left Dee, Zero or Zeus, and Zero didn’t seem to want to leave the greenhouse, let alone the base.

  Was it actually a problem? Joyriding a buggy during the freezing night was pretty stupid, but as long as they brought it back in one piece, where was the harm? When he took a buggy up the Santa Clara, wasn’t he doing the same thing?

  Yes and no. He was authorized. They weren’t.

  And it was all assuming that Declan was right, and his over-zealous protection of their power consumption hadn’t got to him. Frank decided that it wasn’t up to him to call this one: he had enough on his plate as it was, doing two people’s jobs. He pulled the levers and pressed the buttons, washed up and zipped.

  The expansion and contraction of the base’s exterior also translated inside. He had hundreds of bolts to check in each section, often, now they’d fitted out the habs with their floors and ceilings, involving accessing hatches and lifting panels. It was long and laborious and done on a strict schedule so that he didn’t miss any of them out from one inspection to the next.

  No one was pretending it wasn’t monotonous work. It was, however, monotonous work on Mars. He worked his way along the top floor of the cross-hab, before climbing down the ladder to the first floor. No one but him went there now. The red dot on the three-sixty camera on the ceiling had been disabled by Declan (less than half a watt, but he wasn’t having it), but he could still be seen. He did his rounds: things inside did seem to be settling down now they had a more constant temperature. He could probably even scale his duties back and check less often.

  And still his personal effects were nowhere to be found. None of their stuff had turned up. His books, his letters, were gone. He’d been through every inventory himself, and they weren’t listed. One possible explanation was that there was a missing cylinder, either burnt up on entry, or still spinning around in space. However, that was difficult to reconcile with the fact that they’d eventually located pretty much everything for the base.

  He moved from the cross-hab to the med bay. He pressed his hand for a moment against the skin of the module. The light that seeped through turned his splayed fingers into silhouettes, and the coldness of outside stole in. The base needed better insulation. He could shovel dirt against the sides, building it up over the days and weeks until each section was half-buried. Not completely covered, though, because it was only the rings, not the plastic, that were weight-bearing. Even then he’d have to worry about sharp edges.

  Use the cargo cylinders as formers? Something to ramp the soil against? He might suggest it, but to shovel that amount of soil, he’d require something like a bulldozer attachment to the buggy. He had a half-formed memory somewhere at the back of his mind, about turning soil into bricks, like adobe. That would be easier. More permanent, too.

  He checked the fixings on the floor joists, lifting the panels and peering into the voids, working his way down through the yard to the far end, then as before, down the ladder to check the first floor. Nothing needed doing. Which was good. He was proud of the way the base had gone up, how they’d struggled and how they’d fixed things.

  “Boredom is your enemy, Kittridge.”

  Frank felt his heart rate spike and he involuntarily raised the nut runner, ready to lash out. Brack was just sitting there, among the unopened boxes that were … what? Lab equipment? Medical stuff?

  Brack reached out and pushed Frank’s arm down. “Easy there, tiger.”

  “I’m doing my work. I don’t want to miss anything off my itinerary.”

  “I know you don’t. I keep an eye on all of you. That’s my work. Best you remember that.”

  If he did, then either he already knew who was taking the buggy out, or he was lying about being able to keep an eye on them all, and he had no idea. Either way, he didn’t need Frank to tell him what was going on. The cons could sort this between themselves. This wasn’t so important that they needed to rat each other out to Brack.

  “I’m not getting bored,” said Frank.

  “You didn’t see me there because you were bored and you stopped paying attention. Let’s not go down the rest of that road. Each day’s going to throw different stuff at you. You got to be ready for that.”

  Frank wasn’t sure what Brack meant. Unless this was a test? To see if Frank would inform on the others? “I’m ready,” he said.

  “Well, I’m mighty glad to hear that. Because I don’t want to lose you.” Brack laughed, just the one little giggle.

  Then he was gone, climbing back up the ladder.

  Frank gritted his teeth, and waited until he was calm. Brack was right, and wrong. Yes, he hadn’t been paying attention, but no, he was certain that if he’d caught sight of something out of the ordinary, he’d have reacted to it. OK, so he was getting maybe a little sloppy with his daydreaming. What was it they said to each other? Stay frosty?

  The thought that a stray spark could immolate him and potentially burn the entire base to the ground in a matter of seconds should have kept him frosty enough, but it was easy to forget. This life was now normal. As normal as being ruled by buzzers and bells and the sound of cell doors slamming, and he’d surprised himself how quickly he’d got used to that.

  He was about to leave the hab himself, when he got curious about what Brack had been doing there. He looked up at the camera. He could go and check the boxes and try to work out what had been disturbed. But then Brack might be able to observe him while he did. What was he going to do?

  Frank left the boxes alone for now and climbed the ladder.

  Dee was in the Comms room. Frank looked in and nodded. “Brack?”

  Dee gestured below. Control wasn’t out of bounds, but that was where Brack spent most of his time. None of the cons wanted to share a space with him, and it was unfamiliar territory to all except Dee, who’d had the job of setting all the consoles up.

  “I’m pretty much done with the transmissions for today. Data’s loaded up. New pictures of Mars. Looks big.”

  “Because it is big. Can you give me a hand? Need some help shifting things.”

  Dee pushed back his chair—they had chairs now, formed from one piece of cast plastic, lightweight and disturbingly flexible—and followed him from the room. They crossed through the yard and the galley to the connector, then into the med bay. Frank slid down the ladder, stepped back, and Dee joined him in the gloom, surrounded by boxes.

  “What needs doing?”

  “Just start moving these around.” He gave a box to Dee, and under the cover that gave him, he quickly checked the crates where he’d first spotted Brack. Most were still sealed. Two were not.

  “What’s going on, Frank?”

  “There’s some weird shit going down.” Frank was going to keep Declan’s name out of it for the moment. He casually flipped up the lid of one of the crates and peered inside.
“Someone’s been taking the buggies for a ride. I need them to stop, because the heat’s coming back on me.”

  He had no idea if it was Dee, but he’d have the exact same conversation with Zeus and Zero, and warn them all off.

  “And you think I know something?” Dee glanced at him, then went to pick up another box.

  “I don’t know. I sleep hard at night. Maybe you don’t, and you’ve woken up because of something.” Frank was looking at blister packs of pills, all different shapes and sizes. OK, that was interesting.

  “They’re doing it at night? Are they nuts?”

  “It’s possible. It’s also the last thing we need, because if someone busts one up, we’re half-screwed. Anything you might have seen, heard?” Frank flipped the lid shut again and moved the container over to the opposite rack.

  “I … no. I can’t think of anything.” Dee put his box down on the shelf and slid it along. “Does you-know-who know?”

  Frank shook his head. “Don’t know. But we need to sort it first.”

  “I’ll be your crow.”

  “Thanks for your help,” he said, loudly. “I can take it from here.”

  Dee stopped moving cargo, and Frank got on his hands and knees to shift a newly exposed floor panel. He peered into it, and extended the nut runner into the void.

  “I’ll go then,” said Dee.

  “Thanks again.”

  That was always going to be the problem with a bunch of cons. Trust, that had been difficult to build up, was so easy to destroy. Drugs. Joyriding. Just when everything seemed to have settled into a decent, quiet routine. Whoever was responsible, Frank wasn’t going to risk them jeopardizing his ride home.

  19

  [Internal memo: Mars Base One (Power) to Mars Base Knowledge Bank 10/20/2038]

  Power team

  Just to confirm the power inputs with everyone.

  The base load will be provided by one (1) RTG, producing three kW (3000 W) of continuous power. This value is not expected to fall below two point eight kW (2800 W) for ten (10) years.

  Variable load will be provided by three (3) twenty-four kWh (rated at 2,000 W) closed-cycle fuel cells.

  The fuel cells will be recharged during the twelve (12) hour Martian day by a solar array capable of operating at fifteen kW (15,000 W).

  The total power consumption of the initial base is not to exceed ten kW (10,000 W). Extra solar units and fuel cells can be integrated as the power requirements increase, and aresthermal sources (boreholes/heat pumps) come online.

  Note that the RTG will provide power for the minimum LS—base heat and atmospheric CO2 scrubbing—indefinitely, but will not provide for full functioning of environmental factors. RTG cannot be used to charge fuel cells without degrading LS.

  We do have a problem with the build phase, though. The specs on the assembly robots indicate that their daily power expenditure will exceed the initial base power budget by a factor of three. We need to be able to supply some thirty kW (30,000 W) continuous load in order to keep all of the machinery running. This will require an additional sixty kW (60,000 W) of solar array if all applications are to be run simultaneously: the battery packs for each robot are internal, so no additional fuel cells are required.

  That someone was using the buggies without telling Frank was such a little thing. The power consumption was low, and Declan had managed to cobble together another couple of panels from the broken pieces, which gave them most of a kilowatt extra. It wasn’t really an issue of balancing those needs any more.

  He’d discovered that Declan had been right by logging the gas and water volumes in the fuel cell, and they’d shown slight differences more than once, indicating that the distances involved were small. He’d also drawn thin lines in the sand behind each wheel, which were impossible to spot in the utter darkness of the Martian night.

  Each morning, the marks had been smudged, and were no longer in position under the buggy. He’d scuff them out, and think back to the night before, trying to work out if any of the noises aside from the creaks and groans of contracting metal could have meant anything. This had gone on for a week now.

  The buggies had no keys, no locks. They were company property, just like the crew. No one had any need to sneak around, and yet they were.

  He’d had a quiet word with everyone. None of them had felt the need to own up. Or stop, for that matter. There were a limited number of possibilities. Someone suiting up and driving around in their sleep was one he’d considered, and discounted.

  Brack was another. And it was the one he kept on coming back to.

  Because there was literally only one place to go to. The ship. There was nothing else for miles around, and as the numbers on the dials showed, the mileage wasn’t anything extraordinary. A couple of miles across the Heights and a couple of miles back would account for most of the consumption. The cold—he hadn’t tried it himself—might account for the rest.

  He didn’t think there was anything in the ship that any of the cons needed. So, if it was Brack, what was it that he did there, secretly, that he needed most nights to do?

  The drugs? That bothered him a whole lot more. There was a whole pharmacy just lying around that any one of them could help themselves to. To the best of his knowledge, no one had inventoried the medical supplies. Alice would have done it, if she hadn’t sampled some of the wares. Zeus was Alice’s second, but he hadn’t had the time, or the inclination, for such a tedious, persnickety task. So the pills had been just left there. And someone had, at the very least, opened up two of the sealed boxes. If they hadn’t then gone on to pocket some of the contents, then Frank would color himself surprised.

  And Brack knew about that. He’d been clearly doing his own poking around. Did he know who it was? If he did, why hadn’t he done anything about it? Frank was having suspicions that Brack’s claim to be all-seeing and all-knowing was just a crock. But then again, Brack refusing to eat anything but shipped-out food was beginning to make more sense.

  It made Frank uneasy. He hadn’t really considered Brack at all for weeks. He was like a ghost in the background—odd noises, shadows outside, things getting moved, that was just Brack doing stuff. Maybe there was more to it. Frank didn’t know what, though.

  But on the assumption that it was Brack driving to and from the ship at night, he needed to warn Declan off from poking around further.

  Frank arranged things so that both he and Declan were outside at the same time: checking the buggies and tilting the panels. He motioned to him that he was turning his microphone off, and waited for Declan to finish cleaning the array as it turned towards the midday sun.

  They touched helmets.

  “It’s Brack?”

  “It’s none of us.”

  “What is it that he’s hiding from us? And why?”

  There was dust between them. It grated and crackled against the faceplates.

  “We don’t need to know. And we probably don’t want to know, either.”

  “Well, I want to know,” said Declan.

  “You ask him, then. I’m sure as hell not.”

  “Of course you won’t. Why not? Because it’s not part of your mindset. He’s the boss, the mighty whitey, and you’re not to question what he does. You’re still a prisoner.” He tapped Frank’s helmet with his index finger. “Up here. My guess is that he’s talking to XO.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. We’ve got the Comms center right there at the base.”

  “So he’s talking to XO about stuff he doesn’t want us to overhear.”

  Frank shrugged. “Why would that be unusual?”

  “Don’t you want to know what it is he’s saying to them?”

  “No. Not really. Because it hasn’t got anything to do with us.”

  “Jesus, Frank. It’s going to be about us. Aren’t you curious? At all?”

  “Maybe, on some level. But this is just causing trouble we can do without. Look, we’re doing fine. We’re doing what we came here to do. NASA
’s going to turn up, and we get to hang out with astronauts. Let’s not rock the boat.”

  “Frank, listen to yourself. You’re institutionalized. We need to know what Brack’s up to, in case it does rock that boat. I’ll talk to Dee. See what he can find out.”

  “You’ve got to leave the kid out of this.”

  “We can’t hear what Brack’s saying to XO, but maybe we can get the other half of the conversation as it’s beamed back.”

  “I’m serious, don’t drag Dee into this. He doesn’t need it.”

  “What he does is up to him. He’s an adult, Frank. And you’re not his father.”

  That hurt. Hurt like a stab to the heart, even though Declan could have no idea why. Frank pulled back, almost reeling away, and Declan regarded him coolly. The electrician pressed the buttons on his suit control, and the conversation was over. Frank was left to walk away, to the other side of the base where the RTG sat, silently infusing the tank of water above it with life-giving, free, heat. He made a perfunctory pass of it, remembered Brack’s words about boredom, and decided to make a better job of checking it, in a minute or two.

  He turned his microphone back on and stared out over the Heights, down over the tops of the Beverly Hills, towards the distant crater wall. It was always hazy, to some degree or other. There were days on Earth, just after it had rained, when the air was clear and the horizon pin-sharp. Mars didn’t do that: there were just shades of haze, from distant to near. In a dust-storm, visibility would be effectively zero, and they’d get no power from the solar farm at all, for days, possibly weeks.

  That would be interesting.

  He was still thinking in the long term. But this wouldn’t be for ever. Brack would take him home. Eventually.

  What was he going to do? Was he going to tell Brack that they’d worked out that he was making nocturnal visits to the ship, and some of them—Declan, mainly—were more interested in that than they ought to be? He still had to live with the man, rely on the man, and work with the man.

  What he was going to do was go back and check the water heater properly, all the pipework, and the fixtures into the rear airlock of the greenhouse.