Mars Wars - Abyss of Elysium

by Abyss Of Elysium (Lit)

  "How's the coffee?" Rat asked.

  "Great."

  "Good. When I saw you coming, I slipped in a pot of decaffeinated, no offense."

  “Now that I DO take offense to, Rat! Go get me some real coffee," Peter barked sternly, looking with revulsion in his cup. "I haven't had any sleep. How do you expect me to function?"

  "You don't need all that caffeine, Dr. T."

  "Don't call me that, and go get me some real coffee!" Peter shouted, feeling the rush that comes with an uplifted spirit.

  Francis walked in as Peter was shouting after Rat.

  "What? Rat's coffee no good?" he asked. “How can this be?”

  "Rat's coffee is fine. He slipped me a decaffeinated Mickey," Peter explained.

  "Other than that, just how are you this morning? For real, I mean…" Francis asked somewhat clumsily, sitting beside him, expecting the worst.

  "I’m fine," Peter replied. "After some relevant counseling with the local barkeep, no problems," he said, nodding his head toward Rat.

  "Don't tell Freidman the Rat's moving in on her shrinkdom. She'll get upset."

  "She's already upset," Peter said, instinctively rubbing his cheek where he still felt a subliminal sting.

  "I saw," Francis said with a sly smile. "What do you think brought all that on?” Then he repeated a line from a classic cartoon character: “Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?”

  "I don't think I want to know," Peter said candidly, then asked, "Did Toon interrupt Lipton's program?"

  "No. It actually completed its processing before he arrived. I asked him to verify the integrity of the geology files, and they’re intact."

  "Good," Peter replied with some relief. "Any word on what Lipton was up to?"

  "No. When we can cut Toon loose, I'll ask him to see if he can trace it all down."

  "Did Lipton leave any kind of note or a message of any kind regarding his suicide?" Peter asked.

  "I couldn't find a thing. It looks like he just pulled the plug, like Cartwright," he said slowly, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. "It's like a house of cards... tragic beyond belief. And those were just two layers. There must be more…"

  "Cut it off, Francis," Peter said in a loud whisper. "It's all behind us. If we expect to make it out of this, we have to force ourselves to look ahead. And somehow, we have to translate that to everybody else. Friedman is right. The morale of the community must take top priority over everything else."

  Rat delivered two cups of hot, steaming coffee.

  "…this the good stuff?" Peter asked.

  "Blow your head off, no offense," Rat said with a wink.

  "Good for you, Rat. Take the rest of the sol off," Peter said in jest.

  "No thanks. I want to be around here when you drop dead of a triple myocardial infarction. I’ll personally spread the word far and wide, I told him so."

  "Then you can be boss," Francis offered.

  "No way," Rat replied walking away to his kitchen.

  "What now?" Francis sputtered after taking in a slug of the searing coffee. His eyes widened as the molten liquid ignited everything in its path on the way down.

  "We're going to organize a party, Francis," Peter said without even a hint of a smile.

  "Pardon me?"

  "A party. A significant distraction. A merry lighthearted event so that a little fun will be had by all."

  "Oh, I see," Francis said, nodding his head "That will be some slight of hand. Kind of like a Chinese funeral, no? I suppose we'll take old Lassiter's body, freeze dry it, put a party hat on it and set it outside for all to celebrate? Maybe we can stand outside, wait for the lander to reenter and all kiss and make a wish when it comes flaming over the horizon."

  "Right idea, wrong approach," Peter replied, not amused by Francis' misdirected humor.

  "Okay, so how are we going to turn this train around, pal? In case you haven't had enough sleep and missed the key events, we're in a runaway locomotive, down a long steep hill and the bridge is out at the bottom. I fail to see a party in all that, although I can think of some fairly clever invitations."

  "Cut the crap. We've got to execute a plan today," Peter said, passionately jabbing at the table. "Today. Tomorrow will be too late."

  "Okay, I'm sorry," Francis answered, setting his coarse humor aside. "What's the plan?"

  Peter looked at Francis and pointed over head. "Our orbiting astronaut is going to turn it around, if we can talk him out of running back home."

  eter's idea was centered around the spirit of the community. An irrefutable depression had beset BC1 tangible enough to flow down the passageways like the Pharaoh's creeping fog of death. Beyond that lay memorial services for eleven of their number who had perished under less than natural circumstances. Ahead of that lay the uncertainty of a future with barely enough life support to sustain them through winter and only enough to make it another several months beyond. If asked, the computers could give them the numbers to the last hour, totally without any emotion. No one had yet asked, but soon even that would be necessary.

  No group of human beings could survive long without some kind of hope for the future. Many of them would not even make it to the Last Desperate Hour if all they had to look forward to was death by suffocation, starvation, freezing or suicide. Perhaps the community would even tear itself apart before then.

  Peter planned to feed them hope, above and before all else: some kind of promise that they were not living out their final hours. He was determined that his leadership would be positive, full of promise, vitality, satisfaction and hope, or he would not lead at all. His path to recovery would begin by giving them all a reason to celebrate and minimizing the reasons to focus on a death that seemed more inevitable than not with every passing sol.

  Francis and Peter met an hour later in the Meteorology cubicle in one corner of the control center. It was enclosed by transparent plastic partitions that ensured at least some privacy. Peter ordered that Lieutenant Kerry be brought up on a classified circuit.

  "Command Center, this is the Goddard, go ahead," Kerry responded without delay.

  "Lieutenant Kerry, this is Peter Traynor. We need to discuss your status."

  Silence.

  Peter took a deep breath and looked at Francis with concern.

  "Lieutenant Kerry, what are your intentions?" Peter asked bluntly.

  "I want to talk to Lassiter Lipton," Kerry replied.

  Peter paused, then said, "Lassiter Lipton is dead."

  The silence was total. As the seconds swept by into the first full minute of quiet, Peter began to fear that his plan would not work.

  "What happened to the Director?" Kerry asked, his voice permeated with suspicion.

  "Dr. Lipton took his own life last night."

  More silence.

  "I haven't yet decided on my course of action," Kerry said, stunned at the news of even more death, stalling for time. "I'll get back to you."

  "Wait!" Peter said before Kerry could disconnect. "Let's discuss it together."

  Kerry’s voice flashed into anger. "Discuss what, Traynor? It's my decision. It's my choice, not yours."

  "We know that, Lieutenant Kerry," Peter replied calmly, sympathetically. “Just wanted you to understand..."

  "Understand what, Traynor? I understand that people tend to get dead around there. I understand that you want me to come dropping into the local circus after you and your merry band have conveniently disposed of a United States Marine, the Director of the facility, trashed the launch pad and who knows what else? What I can't figure out is, why? Why do you all of a sudden need me?"

  "Your impressions of what happened here are wrong. If you'd like a more detailed explanation from Robert Hernandez, Lipton's assistant or from our staff psychiatrist, I'd be happy..."

  "You can blow that out your rosy cheeks, Traynor," Kerry continued hotly. "I don't know any of those people. Just give me one good, straight answer as to why you want me to drop in."

&
nbsp; "Because we need you," Peter replied evenly and truthfully.

  There was a long silence as Kerry was obviously entertaining his options.

  "I suppose that you’re about to tell me why you need me," Kerry finally said very slowly, drawing out the intonation as though he was being fleeced by the local snake oil peddler.

  Peter himself was discouraged by the pace and direction of the conversation. He felt and sympathized with Kerry's distrust. His mind hastened to find the words to give Kerry some acceptable reason to understand and believe him.

  "Lieutenant Kerry, I understand your suspicions," Peter began carefully. "If I were in your position, I would feel exactly the same way. So I'll give it to you how I would want it, as straight as I can.

  “I listened to your handling of the emergency during the launch. I thought it was brilliant and flawless. In short, we’re going to need all the genius we can possibly assemble to survive. Your mind may just make the difference between success and failure here.

  “Reason number two: everyone heard your effort to save the lander. To be frank, you're something of a hero here.

  “Reason number three: the morale here is as about as low as it can get. We need you to ‘drop in’ so that we’ll have cause to celebrate something, anything. We need a new face among us; we need to see a new human added to our population who can offer even the smallest edge to our chances of survival.

  “That's all I can offer you, Lieutenant."

  Kerry's anger was gone. If Traynor was a snake oil salesman then he had just been fleeced and felt really good about it besides. The belligerence was gone, but the core of his suspicion was still there, clearly embedded in his voice.

  "Okay, Traynor, give me the whole story, all of it. Tell me everything as far back as you can remember. And don't lie to me. The very first lie I catch you in, I'll cut the circuit and blow out of here so fast I won't even leave a memory."

  ater that afternoon, they buried Lassiter Lipton and Marine Lieutenant Micah Quinton beneath the sands of Mars, the first humans ever to be interred on the planet. A memorial service was called after the dinner hour in remembrance of the two men. The services were conducted in the dining hall and were presided over by Bryce Gates, a power systems engineer and the community's most devoutly religious member, often called the Chaplain by his friends. That evening, the title was made permanent.

  Gates' ceremony was touching and beautiful. Peter had discussed with Gates the necessity of making it as uplifting as he could, and Gates succeeded. Peter risked much in even daring to make a personal appearance, but he insisted that no one should miss except those on watch. And to the surprise of everyone, including Peter, he was asked to read from the Bible by the chaplain in the passages he had marked. Peter stood, clearing his voice, and read,

  Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?

  Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times but seventy times seven."

  The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

  The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

  Peter sat down to a hushed silence as Gates prayed for God to embrace the souls of the departed and deliver from harm the souls of those who lived. But Peter's mind was concentrating on making the highway in the desert. And as he shut his eyes in reverence, he clenched his teeth in determination to make it a highway to survival, and not just straight, but a superhighway to life for the living.

  17

  ieutenant Kerry was fastidious to begin with. But when it came to preparing a spacecraft for dormancy, he was meticulous to a fault, bordering on obsessive-compulsive neuroses. Kerry ran down the NASA checklist, and then his own which was three times as long. He stowed the ship as though it were going into the Smithsonian Institution. He wiped the walls with a damp cloth, then came back with a dry cloth to remove the lint left behind from the first cloth. When they told him at Pensacola's Naval Flight School that the Navy was fanatical about cleanliness, Kerry breathed a sigh of relief. He was probably the only man in the facility, including the drill instructor, who actually fully understood and appreciated the absolute necessity of wiping the barracks floor with the palm of his hand.

  He had strong reservations about dropping in at BC1. Like all other human encounters, Kerry did not trust Peter Traynor. Indeed, although he acquired a hint of trust from Peter's voice and the forthright way he related the events at BC1, he had been flimflammed before by real con-artists.

  Kerry made his decision to stay on Mars based on a rational evaluation of all the information he had. He was hardly dropping into BC1 to save the community. Indeed, his true motivation was more one of self preservation. To travel back to earth now, to endure the long voyage without the benefit of human company, to risk being stranded in orbit above a radioactively contaminated planet - in short, to run toward the unknown based on the logic of wishful thinking - not only went against the grain of his ordered mind but was also asking for trouble. At least here he had some idea of what he was up against. He also knew that if conditions on his home planet were recoverable, that in time, he would get his ride home. On Mars so far, he knew the names of the players and the story they wanted him to hear. In less than two hours, he would also know the real truth.

  eter's decision to hold a double memorial service and get it out of the way as soon as possible was a deliberate effort to turn the corner quickly. Today would be Lieutenant Bob Kerry's day. He was slated for reentry at mid-morning, BC1 time.

  The calculations for the landing were already completed. The ability to target the precise landing point of something as simple as an escape pod was almost insignificant compared to most spacecraft trajectories. Indeed, something as elementary as Kerry's "drop" into BC1 was considered primitive. They had his landing position pinpointed, within an accuracy of 10 meters, not far from them.

  The anticipation of Kerry's arrival grew at BC1. He had the respect of every person there. They had all witnessed his heroic actions to save the lander and its passengers. Just as Peter had predicted, the collective thought of something positive happening after so many tragic incidents compounded with the wait for Kerry’s arrival until the community's response took on an almost festive air.

  People were actually smiling, something that seemed to catch on despite the pain of the recent past. An electronic banner welcoming Kerry was scrolled across the displays in the dining hall. On instructions from Peter, Rat was preparing a banquet for everyone in Kerry's honor. After seven sols of near chaos, there was at last something to be happy about. Peter’s plan was working.

  As they prepared for the Big Event, Peter and Ashley continuously bumped into one another in Peter's crowded quarters.

  "When are we going to move up in life?" Ashley asked. "We need a bigger place."

  "Agreed," Peter said, tugging a sweater over his head. "NASA never dreamed two people would be sharing these quarters."

  "Well, the planners probably discussed it but you can almost hear the bureaucrats addressing cohabitation in red-faced whispers behind double-locked doors," she added.

  "You're absolutely right. If they’d ever seriously discussed it in an open forum, Congress would have sent robots."

  "So my quarters go unused and we jam everything in here," Ashley said, brushing her hair back in front of the mirror.

  "We pay the price of poor planning and naive engineering on their part," he said, kissing the back of her neck. "But some things are just worth the price, don't you think?"

  She turned and put her arms around him and smiled. "It may be fine for us now, but as we start to get used to actually living together, I'm definitely going to want a single square meter of space I can call my own to get dressed in." Then she smiled her sweetest smile.

  Peter looked at her beautiful hazel eyes, the light spray of freckles across he
r nose and loved every part of her face. The past week had been excruciatingly painful for all of them. It was wonderful to see things on the upswing again. Already she was talking about tomorrow and better things. He desperately hoped the same kind of reasoning was working its way throughout BC1.

  She tenderly kissed him on his lips, but gently pushed him away when his response immediately grew ardent. "Later," she said. "We've got important stuff to attend to."

  "Certainly...mon ami," he responded with a fake French accent under his breath.

  "Huh?" she queried.

  He returned his best toothy Garfield smile.

  t that same instant in orbit, Kerry stuffed a single small bag into the gaping hatch of the escape pod. He turned around for a last look at his orbiting spacecraft. His trained eyes meticulously covered every square centimeter, instrument by instrument, line by line. All was in order, which was not a trivial condition for an object under Kerry's direct scrutiny and control.

  Kerry had put on his cleanest blue flight coveralls. It was required by regulation to wear a full pressure suit, but he decided to waive that requirement. To suit up alone in zero-G was nearly an impossibility anyway. Besides, he reasoned, as far as he knew, there had never been a loss of pressurization in one of these Apollo-legacy capsules in all of their history. And if today was the day for the first anomaly, “… oh well,” he reasoned, “At least I’ll die in comfort.”

  Kerry was slender and short, which made him particularly agile in small spacecraft. He had the build of a gymnast and kept his tone by rigorous exercise when in space. His very light blond hair was close cut, a condition he kept by the liberal use of electric "space shears.” His eyes were brown and close set, which gave his handsome athletic face the appearance of constant, intense analysis, even though he was about as easy going as the next person when face to face. But his intelligence instinctively commanded his speech and movements. A few minutes with Kerry was all it took to know he was brighter than most.