Colony Mars Ultimate Edition

by Gerald M. Kilby

  “How do we know they’re not full of weapons?”

  “We don’t.”

  “Well, we can’t risk them bringing in concealed weapons.” Jann stepped forward towards Jing Tzu, and flipped her comms to broadcast. “Commander, it was agreed that we cannot allow weapons inside the colony. Once we are there you will allow us to conduct a thorough and complete search of your equipment. Is this acceptable to you?”

  Jing Tzu nodded. “Yes of course, we understand.”

  “Very well. When you’re ready we can move out.”

  Jing Tzu turned back to his crew and looked to be explaining this new procedure to them. It was met with confusion by the others, like they were trying to decide something. Then they removed two boxes from the stack and returned them to the craft. Jann and the other colonists watched all this unfold. When the cart was repacked, Jing Tzu signaled that they were ready. Nills climbed up to the cockpit of the bed and fired it up. He waved to Jann.

  “I’ll see you all back there.” With that, the thrusters fired up a great plume of dust as it rose into the air and flew off across the crater. Jann stood beside Xenon as they watched the Chinese board the waiting rovers.

  She turned to Xenon, her back to the rovers. “Did you see them putting those boxes back in the craft?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Weapons. And lots of them.”

  “It would seem so.”

  Gizmo whizzed by them, with the Chinese robot Yutu following close behind. Jann was not sure what they were doing, racing? Seeing how fast each other could go? Or was Gizmo being chased? It was hard to know what went on in the mind of a robot.

  Yutu broke away and joined the Chinese contingent. Gizmo looped around and headed over to where Jann and Xenon were.

  “I see you’ve found a new friend. Gizmo.”

  “That machine is not my friend, Jann. It is a feebleminded conglomeration of spare parts. I do not like that robot.”

  6

  AsterX

  Xaing Zu Industries and the Colony One Mars consortium were not the only corporations planning missions to the red planet. But of the others, only one stood any real hope of achieving such an enormous undertaking, and that was the asteroid mining company, AsterX. It was headed up by the charismatic tech billionaire, Lane Zebos, who was currently looking out a window in the giant rotating torus of the AsterX space station. From this vantage point, he could see the central axle of the mining facility stretch out above him, and the dark brooding form of the kilometer wide asteroid that was grafted onto its terminus. All across the surface of this primeval rock was dotted robotic mining installations, like spiky metallic carbuncles.

  Some years ago, his company had conceived of an audacious plan to capture a near-earth asteroid (NEA) and park it in orbit around the planet where it could then be mined for all it was worth—which turned out to be a considerable amount, as it had a core rich in platinum.

  But that was then, and soon Lane Zebos was looking around for the next challenge. His searches kept returning him to that great swath of rubble that spread itself out between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter—the asteroid belt. But this would be a mammoth undertaking, a bridge too far, even for an asteroid mining company with the skill and experience of AsterX. It was only when the colony on Mars popped back onto everyone’s radar, revealing itself to be very much alive, that a mission strategy began to formulate in his mind. One which might just be possible. And the first leg of that strategy was get to the red planet.

  Lane looked up at the central truss of the mining station. Attached to it, and now coming into full view as the torus rotated, was the AsterX Mars transit craft, ready to embark. All they needed was the official mission authorization from the State Department, so that they would be in compliance with the Outer Space Treaty. Lane glanced at his watch, this is cutting it very fine, he thought. To take his mind off the waiting, he pulled a cigar canister from the top pocket of his shirt, unscrewed the cap, and slid a thick Cuban Cohiba out into the palm of his hand. But he didn’t light it. That would be later. Instead he brought it up to his nose and inhaled the deep redolent aroma.

  “You’re not planning on lighting that up?”

  Lane looked over at Chuck Goldswater, his chief technical officer, and gave him a wink. He slid the fat smoke back into its metal sarcophagus and returned it to his top pocket.

  “Well now, that depends.”

  “You think the scrubbers will handle the heart attack they’re going to get if you kick that thing off in here?”

  Lane smiled. “When I actually get to light this bad boy up then I couldn’t give a damn about what the systems think of air quality.” He raised an extended finger at Chuck. “That’s one of the great things about being the boss. I get to do what I like.”

  Chuck laughed. “Ha, maybe so, but it’s still a filthy habit.”

  “And you’re a philistine, with no understanding of the deep pleasures of smoking tobacco. Granted, it’s a dying art form, practiced now only by the true connoisseur.” He made a kind of a flourish with his hand.

  “You’re full of shit, Lane.”

  “Anyway, you know I only partake when something truly worthy merits it.” Lane sat back down into a well upholstered white leather seat, and swung it around a few degrees to get a better view of the universe gently rotating outside.

  “You think we’ll get the oversight we need?” Chuck slumped back into his chair.

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  “It’s ridiculously antiquated when you think about it, the Outer Space Treaty and the need for private operators to get some government rubber stamp before we can do any mission.”

  “Yeah, I know. It frustrating. As far as I can see, it just gives them an opportunity to meddle and look important.”

  “Life was easier before COM went and sued the ISA. Back then this would just have been a formality. Now everybody is running scared.”

  “Yeah, Mars has turned into a political and legal minefield.”

  Chuck looked at this watch. “What’s keeping them? How long do they need?”

  “Patience. We’ve waited this long, a half hour more isn’t going to make any difference.” Lane stood up, walked over to the window, and looked out at the massive asteroid that they had tamed. He considered the problems with the Outer Space Treaty, of which there were many. Under its current guise, there was nothing to stop another company just attaching itself to the far side of the AsterX asteroid and mining it. Not that anybody would, they were an exclusive club and had all, more or less, agreed on a set of unwritten rules. Nevertheless, everyone conceded that the treaty was grossly out of date. Formulated back in the late 60s, before Armstrong even put a boot print on the moon, it served, at least, to establish some international rules for the exploration of space and, more importantly, for the exploitation of its resources. But back when it was signed, the concept of a private company making it into space was laughable. But, to their credit, they had to consider that the possibility could exist sometime in the future, even if it was fanciful.

  In short, no country could lay claim to any object in space. So when the US flag was hammered into the surface of the Moon, it wasn’t to proclaim it as the fifty-first state. However, under the terms, you could dig a hole in it, and whatever you dug up you could keep. This was the basis that AsterX, and a bunch of other companies like them, operated under. The problem for private companies, though, was they needed oversight from a national government before they could do anything in space. So politics entered the arena. In Lane’s mind it was almost medieval. To venture forth and explore needed the equivalent of a royal seal.

  Of course private corporations were lobbying hard to remove the need for national oversight, but after all the shenanigans up on Mars, and the subsequent high-profile court case by COM, there were those who argued that national oversight was needed now more than ever. Others countered that what was really needed was a truly independent body to be set up to oversee and arbitrate
all space exploration. With the rush to Mars now in full swing, the need to get clarity was even more urgent. To this end, a revision to the original 1967 Outer Space Treaty was to be discussed, and hopefully ratified, at a special UN session due to take place in a few months time.

  But this was of no use to Lane Zebos and AsterX. They had to do it the old fashioned way, and that meant greasing the palms of a select number of gray and anonymous mandarins in the key positions in government. A slow and frustratingly tedious process whose ultimate climax was, this very moment, being played out behind closed doors in the State Department.

  So all Lane could do was wait until the session ended and the fate of the AsterX Mars mission would be revealed, but he wasn’t expecting any surprises. The right moves had been made, so it should be a simple rubber stamping. Yet, you never truly knew for sure. Something might yet upset the fall of the dominoes that AsterX had so carefully set up.

  So, for now the cigar was staying firmly in his top pocket.

  Lane glanced over to the far side of the room to see Dr. Jane Foster, the chief medical officer, step onto the floor from the ceiling tunnel connecting this section of the torus with the central body of the mining station. It was a tricky transition from zero gravity at the center to one third G at the outer edge of the torus. The connecting tube was one of four spokes, with a ladder running inside its length. The trick was to enter it feet first at the start so you were oriented correctly when the centrifugal force began to kick in. Some people would make the mistake of entering head first, like climbing a ladder, only to realize they were effectively upside down when it was time to exit. It was a mistake you only made once.

  Lane nodded to her as a greeting. She nodded back, then moved over and began to fix herself a coffee from the small galley. Finally she sat down beside them in one of the luxurious leather seats, tucked her feet up under her and sipped her drink. “Any word?”

  The both looked at her in silence.

  “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

  Lane simply nodded.

  “Oh, a bit of news for you. Xaing Zu Industries just landed on Mars.”

  “When?” said Chuck.

  “About six hours ago. The news just came in, direct from Colony One. It’s on their feed.”

  “How is that going down with them?” said Lane.

  “Hard to say, it was just a one line announcement.”

  Chuck jotted down a quick calculation on the tablet he was holding. “If that’s the case then COM will be… let’s see… fourteen days behind, give or take.”

  “Should that not be sols?” Lane gave him a sideways grin.

  “Sols, days, who cares. It just means we’re going to be very late to the party.”

  “Well, that might be a good thing. Plenty of time for the other guests to get acquainted.”

  Chuck laughed. “Ha, that’s one way of putting it. I would say, at this rate there may be nothing for us to visit, even if we do get the go ahead.”

  Lane said nothing, just extracted the cigar canister from his top pocket again and repeated the same examination procedure as before.

  “You’re not thinking of lighting that up in here?” said Dr. Foster.

  Lane just gave her a sideways smile.

  “As the medical doctor assigned to this mission I would be negligent in my duties if I didn’t inform you that inhaling tobacco smoke is a serious health risk.” She sipped her coffee.

  “I would say that going to Mars is a serious health risk.” Lane held up the cigar. “This, on the other hand, is an art form.”

  Before the merits of cigar smoking could be discussed any further, an alert flashed on the main lounge monitor. They all stopped talking and focused on the screen. A head and shoulders materialized. It was Jake Lester, from the legal team, sitting at his desk back on Earth.

  “Good news, the mission to salvage the ISA Odyssey Mars transit craft is a go.”

  The executive lounge on the AsterX mining station erupted into cheers, and high-fives, and hugs.

  “Do we get to land?” Lane broke away from the celebrations and directed his question to Jake. There was a slight time delay as the message wound its way back to Earth.

  “Yes.”

  More cheers and air punches ensued.

  “There’s just one caveat.”

  They stopped, and looked at the screen.

  “You must do everything you can to bring home the ISA crewmember, Dr. Jann Malbec.”

  7

  Search

  After a brief period of stilted pleasantries, the Xaing Zu expedition was assigned to an accommodation pod and left to themselves. Nevertheless, the pod was monitored by hidden cameras that fed back to the workstations in the central dais of the biodome. Gizmo had been charged with the task of monitoring their activity. So far, it all looked to be innocuous, at least on the surface. During the sols that followed, the Chinese settled in to a routine of survey and analysis of the colony’s biology and infrastructure.

  They had initially left two of their crew still onboard the landing craft, and from Jann’s discussions with their commander, Jing Tzu, she ascertained that this was to ensure the craft was manned and ready to take off at any time. Of the six that now resided in the colony Jann had reckoned that two were geneticists/biologists and the rest seemed to be more military. This latter group spent their time surveying the facility, checking layouts, airlocks, power, operations, life support and a host of other inventory tasks. The biologists had taken up residence in the medlab where Jann had given them some space to work in. She had also gone into great detail with them about the various genetically engineered biomes that populated the colony and made it function. But it was clear to all that what they were truly looking for was the genetic understanding of what gave Jann and all the other colonists their remarkable healing abilities and youthful demeanor.

  The Chinese, to their credit, had tried to work within the restrictions placed on them by the colonists, but with each passing sol they pushed at the boundaries. There had been a lot of friction and even a punch up or two, but for the most part they tried to do what they came here to do without killing anyone, at least so far. Nonetheless, time was running out for them. No doubt there were powerful people behind this enterprise applying pressure on Jing Tzu to come up with the goods. And the situation was going to get increasingly more difficult for all concerned once COM set foot in the colony. Because as soon as that happened, they would legally own it, and everything belonging to it. Jing Tzu and Xaing Zu Industries would be booted out and their mission would fail. All this Jann knew, but she also knew that a cornered rat was a dangerous animal, ready to strike out. And Jing Tzu was being backed into an impossible corner.

  Jann was currently in the medlab, checking on a new data set she had recently received, when Jing Tzu entered. He looked over at one of the Chinese techs and said something in Mandarin that Jann could not understand.

  “You’re wasting your time, you know.” Jann directed her comment at the commander. He looked at her with an air of disdain.

  “I keep telling you,” Jann continued, “the knowledge you’re looking for no longer exists.”

  “So you keep saying.” Jing Tzu finally managed.

  “Yet you keep looking. And now time is running out, isn’t it?“ Jann was baiting him.

  Jing Tzu stood for a moment and considered her, then sat down on the other side of the bench where Jann was working.

  “You could help us. You could let us conduct some tests on the colonists here.”

  “That’s not going to happen. You know that. If you were to start that, then all hell would break loose. Remember these colonists have already been through one tough fight to get their freedom so they don’t take kindly to being pushed around. As it is there are those who are itching to kick you all out onto the planet’s surface and leave you there.”

  Jing Tzu sighed. “They must understand that we are here to help you. We are not the enemy.”

  Jann laug
hed. “Bullshit. You’re here for one thing and one thing only. We all know that.”

  “Then help us.”

  “By letting you experiment on the colony population?”

  “Just tests, to get an understanding of the underlying physiological changes that have occurred here.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you? This will not help you find what you are looking for. The Janus bacterium that causes this… physical transformation was eradicated a long time ago.” Jann waved her hand in the air. “Which is lucky for you because if it did then some of your crew would be raging psychopaths, out to kill everyone in their path.”

  Jing Tzu abruptly stood up and pointed a finger at Jann. “You are a fool if you think this is all there is to it. COM are landing in less than a week, don’t think they will be as accommodating as we are. You are going to need some friends when they get here, because they are going to find it with or without your help. So I suggest you go and think about that for a while.” He walked out of the medlab leaving Jann to contemplate the shit storm that was coming down the track.

  This encounter with Jing Tzu had left Jann feeling distracted, but she tried to put it out of her mind and focus on her work. For a long time she had been cataloging the many GM bacteria that were utilized within the colony environment, everything from soil processing to fuel manufacture. A good deal of this work had been done already, with the help of scientists back on Earth. Jann had built up an extensive network of academics interested in the development of the Mars colony. She had just received a theoretical analysis on how a particular bacterium could be modified to improve CO2 breakdown. She tried to reread the paper but could not keep her concentration for long.

  It didn’t help that Nills had had to return to Colony Two. Some technical emergency with one of the thermal heat exchangers that only he could fix. Perhaps that’s what made her so tetchy, made her bait Jing Tzu like that. Nills had left that morning, on the bed, flying off across the crater in a cloud of dust, leaving Jann to contend with the ever invasive investigations of the Chinese crew. He vowed to return before COM landed, as that would be a pivotal moment. In accordance with the ruling from the International Court of Arbitration, once they set foot in the colony it would automatically return to their ownership. Since the Chinese were currently operating under the public domain legality that had been established by the ISA, they were going to get booted out by COM—first item on the agenda. How would they react to this, considering the pressure they were under to source the Janus bacteria? This was a question that greatly troubled the entire colony. Would they go quietly? Would they try and negotiate with COM? Or would a fight begin? And where would the colonists fall in all of this? What would happen to them?