With thankful heart and joyful mind
The shepherds went this Babe to find
And as God’s angel had foretold
They did our Savior Christ behold
Within a manger He was laid
And by his side the Virgin maid
Attending on the Lord of Light
Who came on Earth to end all strife
Jeff glanced at Gabe, there were tears running down her cheeks.
Good people all, this Christmas time
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending His beloved Son
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas day
In Bethlehem upon that morn’
There was a blessed Messiah born
Jeff, choked up, said, “Thank you both. That was beautiful beyond compare. Merry Christmas to us all.”
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
MSD 50844.691 (Sol 94)
“Hey,” came Abby’s voice from behind him.
Jeff glanced around from the computer. “What?”
“It’s ready. Come on.”
“What’s ready?”
“The hot tub.”
“It’s all done?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
“Cool. On my way.”
He followed her into the greenhouse, and stood staring at the medical transport case now full of bubbling, churning water. “I’ll be damned, it works.”
Gabe sighed and shook her head. “Of course it works. It was designed and constructed by the three finest minds on this planet.”
He laughed and nodded. “Right.” He stared at the tub for a moment. “It’s not quite as big as the one at home.”
Abby rolled her eyes. “You think?”
Jeff frowned. “Looks like a pretty tight squeeze.”
“Gabe did the math. According to our Body Mass Indices, we’ll all fit.”
He chuckled. “Oh great! Sounds like a tin of smoked oysters. Gabe, once we’re all in, will there be any room left for water?”
She shrugged. “I think so. A couple liters.”
Abby glanced at her and grinned. “What if once we’re in he brings up oysters again.”
Gabe frowned at her. “If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, the volumetric increase would be inconsequential.”
Abby and Susan howled with laughter.
Jeff shook his head. “Oh gee, thanks.”
Gabe continued to frown while staring at the floor. “Um, I don’t think that came out the way I meant it.”
“Really?”
“What I meant was...”
“Never mind.”
Susan got her laughter under control, then pointed at the tub. “Okay, it’ll feel a bit cooler than you might expect. Boiling Gabe in her present state would be a very bad idea. So, the thermostat is set to 98ºF rather than the usual 104º. We do not want her body temp going above 102º, and keeping it well below that would be much better.” She glanced at Gabe. “And for the time being, you’re limited to 10 minutes. Hot tubs are not recommended for pregnant women, certainly not in the first trimester. And don’t think I won’t be watching the clock.”
Gabe groaned. “I know, you already told me.”
“And I’ll probably tell you again. Until I tell you otherwise, before you get in, always check the thermometer and thermostat. If either is above 99ºF, keep out. And once you step in, you’re on the clock.”
She sighed. “Got it.”
Abby grinned and glanced at each of them. “Well, now that we have all that settled, shall we?”
Jeff stepped back, leaned against the wall, folded his arms, and smiled. “Ladies first.”
Gabe frowned at him. “And what are you doing?”
“Watching.”
“Watching what?”
“The three of you strip.”
Susan glanced at Gabe and Abby, and shook her head. “We could just kill him. No one would ever know.”
Abby sighed. “Yeah, but then there wouldn’t be any men on the planet.”
Susan shrugged. “Good point.”
Jeff grinned. “Well?”
Abby rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” and began undressing. Gabe and Susan followed suit.
When all three were naked, Gabe gave Jeff a smirk. “Happy?”
He grinned. “Oh yeah. Very.”
“Well?”
He nodded, and likewise began undressing.
Gabe pointed at the tub. “Now, the overflow line has limited capacity. We need to get in one at a time and let the water level settle. Otherwise we’ll flood the greenhouse.”
“Alright,” said Abby, as she climbed into the tub. “Ahhh. Oh my god, this is great.”
Then Susan climbed in, followed by Gabe.
Gabe moaned. “Mmmm. Oh gosh, this is wonderful.”
Jeff climbed over the rim, squeezed in between Gabe and Susan, and tried to find a place for his legs. “Uh, this is cozy.”
Susan smiled. “Isn’t it?”
He twisted and turned for a moment, trying to find a little more shoulder room. He gently elbowed some flesh out of his way. “What’s that?”
Susan giggled. “What do you think?”
He groped around for a second. “Oops. Sorry.” Once comfortable, he leaned his head back and sighed. “Ohhh, that’s great. You guys placed this jet at just the right place for my back. Mmmm.”
“Actually,” said Abby, “we put it there for another reason.” She smiled. “But glad you like it.”
“Dare I ask what that other reason might be?” He held up his hand and chuckled. “Um, never mind. I think I know.”
She grinned.
Jeff nodded, then glanced at Gabe. “Did this involve an engineering study?”
She smiled sheepishly. “Um, not exactly.”
Abby wiggled around a bit and smiled. “Mmmm, that’s, uh… nice.”
Gabe glanced at her. “What?”
“Well, there’s this big hard thing pressed between my boobs.”
Gabe’s jaw dropped. “Huh?” She glared at Jeff.
He shrugged. “What?”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. It’s my left knee. There’s no place else to put it.”
She glanced back and forth between he and Abby. “Uh, if your left knee is there, um, where’s your left foot?”
Jeff chuckled. “You don’t want to know.”
Abby grinned. “Wiggle your toes.” Her head suddenly snapped back. “Oh! Yeah! Just like that.”
Gabe gasped. “Would you two stop that!”
Abby laughed. “Just kidding.” Then she glanced at Jeff and whispered, “A little to the left.”
Gabe cocked her jaw and growled at Jeff.
He laughed, shook his head, and looked at Abby. “You know what’s gonna happen if you make her mad?”
“She’s already mad.”
“No, the other kind of mad.”
Gabe punched him in the shoulder, hard.
“Ouch!”
She glared at him and bared her teeth. “You mean, that kind of mad?”
Jeff rubbed his shoulder and groaned. “Uh, yeah. Ow.”
Gabe looked off into the greenhouse, frowning. “Do we have any wine thawed?”
“Yes, there’s a couple liters of Chablis in the fridge,” said Susan. “But you can’t have any.”
“Not even a little?”
“No. You’re pregnant.”
Gabe raised her voice a notch. “Thank you! I know I’m pregnant.”
Jeff turned to her. “Hey, what’s your problem?”
She leaped to her feet, glared down at him, and screamed, “You’re my problem! You got me pregnant!” She started crying. “And I’ve got morning sickness all day long, my whole body feels weird, I can’t think, a month ago I thought we were all going to die, Abby wants to have sex with you, you all think I’m crazy, I’ve got a Mart
ian growing in me, and you’re not going to want to make love with a fat pregnant lady whose boobs are hanging down around her waist, Susan treats me like a child, the nearest hospital is 150 million miles away, and I can’t even have a drink!”
He stood and reached for her.
“No! Don’t touch me!” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
He gave Susan a questioning glance.
She shook her head. “It’s her hormones, they’re raging. She probably hasn’t felt like this since she reached puberty.”
Gabe glared at her. “And we all know what happened then.”
Jeff snapped at her. “Gabriel! That wasn’t hormones. You were driven to that, and you know it.”
She looked away.
He softened his tone. “Gabe, look at me.”
She slowly looked up into his eyes.
He held his arms out to her. She stepped into them and pressed against him. He held her tight. “Do you really believe I would have brought a crazy person on this trip?”
She sniffed. “No. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can do this.”
He smiled softly and kissed her cheek. “Of course you can. What you’re feeling will pass. It’ll get better.”
She rubbed her cheek against his. “When?”
He glanced at Susan.
She shrugged. “Oh, another three or four weeks. It’s the first trimester that’s the hard part, particularly with a first pregnancy. Gabe, Jeff’s right, it will pass.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. You’ll be feeling much better before you know it. In a month you’ll be used to the hormonal increase, the morning sickness will subside, and as your estrogen and progesterone levels continue to increase you’ll be a lot more comfortable with the pregnancy, and happier with yourself. A month or so after that you’ll start to see a little baby bump, and you’ll get used to the idea of motherhood, and you’ll like it.”
“You promise?”
“Yes. Oh, and you’ll just be pregnant, not fat, I won’t allow that. And your boobs won’t be hanging down around your waist. They’ll look about like they do now, just a bit bigger.” She chuckled. “Until the baby’s born and you start breastfeeding, then they’ll get a lot bigger. You’ll probably be at least a D cup, maybe a double-D by then.”
Gabe gasped and glanced down at her breasts, then back into Jeff’s eyes, and smiled softly. “I guess having a little bigger boobs wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
He chuckled, and stared at her breasts. “Double-D? Wow.” He kissed her and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “No, not a bad thing at all. And by the way, I’ve heard that pregnant women are really hot lovers.”
She bit her lip and giggled. “Okay.”
“There’s one way to find out.”
She kissed him. “Yeah.”
“Okay. You better now?”
“Uh huh.”
“Alright then. Why don’t you sit back down and enjoy your bubble bath before Sue kicks you out of the pool.”
She smiled and nodded. “Okay.”
They retook their seats.
Susan stood and climbed out of the tub. “Nature calls, back in a minute.” She toweled off, headed inside, but paused at the hatch. “And Gabe, I’m not treating you like a child. I’m treating your child like a child, because he or she is.”
Gabe nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Susan winked at her and went inside.
Gabe looked at Abby. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
“Don’t worry about it. And…” she yawned and stretched, “… as long as Jeff keeps wiggling his toes, I’ll be fine.”
Gabe giggled and nodded.
Jeff sighed. “Eh, we’ll work something out.” He wrapped his arm around Gabe’s shoulders. “We’re all in this together, aren’t we?”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Yes.”
Five minutes later Susan returned, carrying a tray with four plastic cups and a plastic jug. “Gabriel, out of the pool.”
Gabe whined, “Oh, just another couple minutes.”
“No, now.”
“Damn. Um, can I sit on the edge and dangle my legs in the water?”
“Oh, alright. I suppose that won’t hurt anything.”
Gabe stood, sat on the edge next to Jeff, and dangled her legs.
Susan set the tray on a garden counter near the hot tub and poured four cups, then passed them around.
“What’s this?” said Gabe.
“Chablis.”
“I thought you said I couldn’t have any.”
Susan sighed. “Well, my guess is Martian’s are pretty rugged. And it’s only half a cup. That probably won’t hurt you. Enjoy.”
Gabe gave her a broad smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Just don’t ask for seconds.”
“Okay.”
“And attitude counts.” Susan shook her head. “Blowing up like that isn’t good for you, and it isn’t good for your baby. You need to maintain.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“You’ve got a wondrous thing growing in your belly. Enjoy it. Be happy about it. You’ll feel a lot better, and your baby will feel a lot better too.”
Gabe hung her head. “I’ll try.”
Susan nodded. “Okay.”
Monday, January 16, 2017
MSD 50849.818 (Sol 100)
By Martian standards it was a pretty small crater, a mere sixteen miles across and 4,000 feet deep, but it was the biggest one they’d yet seen close up and Jeff and Abby were excited. Jeff had hoped to cover the thirty miles from the station to the crater in around three hours; it took six. The last ten miles had become a dune sea intermingled with vast rock fields and Jeff had to delicately pick his way along, carefully avoiding getting stuck in the sand or high-centered on the rocks. It was a challenge. All the desert testing they had done on Earth with the rovers and the Genesis trailer had not adequately prepared them for this. Late in the afternoon Jeff finally pulled to a stop in a small level area about a kilometer south of the rim.
They both disconnected from the rover’s life support system and reconnected to their PLSSs. Abby climbed out and stretched. “God Almighty! Maybe we should have gone to Gusev.”
“Yeah, well, at least it’s not as bad as the Viking landing sites. We would have been stuck right where we landed at either of those.”
“Jesus, look at that slope. That’s got to be, what? A hundred meters?”
“Yeah, must have been quite a rock. And this is the low part, the west rim is probably three times as high.”
“Do we have enough daylight left to make it up there? I want to see it.”
“Um, I suppose. We may be coming back in the dark, but no big deal. You sure you want to? We’ve been in these suits for seven hours.”
“My diaper’s not full yet, let’s go.”
“That was more information than I needed.”
“Come on, slacker.”
“Okay.”
Jeff climbed out of Amos and they hiked to the top of the rim.
Abby gasped, “Oh my God! If this were much bigger you wouldn’t be able to see the far rim.”
“Yeah. And this is a little one.”
“How old is it?”
“I dunno. It’s too small to be named and, except for the THEMIS images and that one MOC image, I don’t think anyone’s every studied it. Look at the chaos on the floor; this must have had water in it at some point. It remind you of anything?”
“Yeah, looks like kind of a miniature of the Aram Chaos. God, look at that wedge-shaped block on the north side. It looks like somebody laid it out with a ruler and cut it with a knife. How high do you think the walls are on that?”
“I dunno, maybe a hundred meters. These down here,” he pointed to the crater floor just below them, “could be a couple hundred meters.”
Abby pointed northeast. “You still don’t think that notch in the rim is a water breach?”
“No, there’s n
o channel. Besides, it’s on the wrong side. That’s the high side. If there was an outflow, it should be right about where we are. I still think that was made by a meteor that just nicked the rim.”
“The one that made that small crater on the floor?”
“I don’t think so. It looks too new and too small, and the ejecta is on the wrong side. But look just below and to the right of that crater. That round depression? That could be an old crater. Or it could have hit when this was full of water and just made a big splash. That notch is pretty weathered. It’s old.”
“God, what went on here?”
“I dunno, one of the great mysteries of the universe. You know, it took the Colorado River seventeen million years to dig the Grand Canyon and it took a rock from space all of about half a second to dig this hole.”
“Makes you feel kind of small, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Abby took Jeff’s gloved hand. “You think this is how the Apollo astronauts felt?”
“Probably, but they never had a view like this.”
“Nobody has ever had a view like this. Thanks for bringing me along.”
Jeff chuckled. “Thanks for coming.”
#
Jeff glanced up from the table as Abby came out of the bathroom looking a whole lot fresher in a pale blue tank top and grey sweat pants. “Feel better?”
She stuck out her tongue in a little pant, “Yeah. That is just too much time to spend in a suit.”
“Yeah. It’s only thirty miles, but it probably needs to be a two-day trip.” Jeff turned a rock over and over in his hands. “Hey, look at this.”
Abby sat across the table. “What?”
“A rock I picked up just outside. I think it’s pallasite. Look at that crystal, that look like peridot?”
“Yeah, it does. Or olivine.”
“Pretty much the same thing.”
“Meteorite, huh?”
Jeff nodded. “That’d be my guess. This stuff’s really rare on Earth. Kind of weird to just be picking it up on the ground here.”
Abby brushed her hair back and leaned in for a closer look. “You think maybe that’s part of the meteor that made the crater?”
Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) Page 84
