by Peter Damon
+++++++++++++
Images of Mars filled most of the screens inside the converted coach as it took up a station 1000 kilometres above the planet’s surface. A couple of monitors showed Phobos, the only moon to be within sight of the cameras, as it circled round, low and fast when compared to the orbit of earth’s moon.
“Is it smaller than earth, or is that just my imagination?” Frankie asked, looking at the red planet.
“No, you’re right,” Matt nodded. “Half the size,” he murmured, preoccupied with the analysis of the laser communication system as it handled the additional distance between them and the receiving station on their Arctic positioned satellite. Leanne had requested they modulate the power to the laser to help establish minimum power requirements, and that needed his attention.
“Half in diameter,” Joyce was more precise. “But only 11% the mass,” she explained in detail.
“How can it be half the size and only a tenth of the weight?” Frankie asked thoughtfully.
Joyce stopped herself from answering. “You don’t really want a whole lecture on planetary development and geology now, do you?” she asked instead.
“You’re very quiet, Jerry” Frankie noted.
“Just soaking it all in, Frank,” the American astronaut admitted. Their forthcoming achievement was coming home to him, a dream come true, and one he never really thought would ever occur, suddenly made achievable by the ARC’s technology.
While a part of him was more than glad to be a part of this achievement, and know it was something few could ever aspire to, he couldn’t help but wonder just how much more could be achieved, were the technology available to a country with the resources of the United States.
“Landing site looks good,” Joyce told them, working through her observations. The outside cameras were giving her excellent images of the surface area they were interested in. She was able to compare them with previous images of the same location, a comparison she hoped would alert her to any strong metrological or geological reasons for not attempting to land.
“Let’s send the probe in, Matt,” Frank said.
Matt brought the menu up and selected the icon that would release one of the six probes they had fastened to their roof.
“That’s green” Ricky agreed, watching it move away and head down to the surface.
“Do you actually see the rover?” Jerry asked.
“I see something that could be the Spirit rover. Half buried in the ground,” Joyce told him. She flicked the image towards him so he could look and judge for himself.
“Possibly,” he agreed.
“That’s the best resolution I can get from this distance,” she admitted.
“Ricky, swing around Phobos and bring us down to 100 kilometres above our target position,” Frankie ordered the helmsman.
Rickie made the selection on his screen and watched Mars and Phobos move to one side as he brought the coach around to move behind the low orbiting moon, and then down, to take up station just 100 kilometres above the surface of Mars.
“The probe is giving us data on the atmosphere at zero height. It’s a calm day on Mars. A pleasant -27 degrees Celsius,” she observed.
“And I can see the rover,” Jerry announced as his image resolved into greater detail and clarity. “We’re going to need shovels,” he warned.
“Damn. I knew I’d forgotten something,” Matt said, slapping his thigh.
“He’s trying to joke,” Frankie told the American.
“That’s alright. We have to go back anyway; I’ve forgotten the flags,” Jerry admitted.
“Very weak,” Joyce told him.
“Well executed, timing was perfect, but the script was lacking,” Ricky agreed.
“Anyone see any reason to not do this?” Frankie asked pointedly of the crew.
There was silence as they checked their individual screens and responsibilities, each calling back in affirmation before turning to look at him expectantly.
“Alright,” Frankie nodded, and took a breath. “Ricky, take us down to fifty metres,” he ordered.
“Fifty metres,” Ricky agreed, and put his hands onto the large steering-wheel to begin moving them downward, towards the surface of the small red planet.
They fell silent as they each concentrated on their screens and the details they were receiving, but each of them reserved a monitor for a forward-looking camera on the outside of the hull, watching excitedly as the planet’s surface grew closer and closer.
“Fifty metres,” Ricky confirmed. His six screens showed him the planet in panorama, the derelict rover just 30 metres in front of them, half submerged beneath wind driven sand. The rest of the surface of the planet was empty, devoid of tree or bush, grass and cacti, just the occasional smoothly curved rock on a gently undulating plain that continued for as far as the eye could see. It could have been one of the drier deserts on earth but for the shorter horizon.
“Circle it. Let’s see if we can pick the best place to put us down,” Frankie suggested.
The four watchers moved their images on the screens to those most appropriate, and watched intently while Ricky moved the coach slowly around the rover, examining it and the surrounding ground from all angles.
“Any preferences from anyone?” Frankie asked.
“Down slope to make it easier to roll the rover onto the platform?” Joyce suggested.
“Directly in line with its wheel positions in case we have to drag it?” Matt suggested.
“It would look better with that rise in the background,” Jerry told them, smiling.
“Ok Ricky, let’s choose in line with the rover’s current wheel alignment, but on the lower slope,” Frankie said.
Ricky nodded and moved cautiously into position. “Descending,” he warned everyone, and watched his lower cameras, looking for any jagged rocks among those lying on the surface that might damage their underside.
Slowly, with infinite care, the coach descended onto the planet and stopped, the front angled 5 degrees lower than the back, one side tilted 3 degrees higher than the other. Ricky pressed one of the apps on his screen and the hydraulic suspension moved, levelling the vehicle with the rear doors as low as could be achieved.
“I’m green,” Ricky murmured, moving back from all the controls.
“I’m green,” Jerry affirmed, his checks of the life support complete.
“I’m green,” Joyce grinned, proud of having got them there.
“Green,” Matt confirmed, their communications with the ARC continuing through Leanne’s laser equipment, the system seeming to cope with the additional dispersion the Martian atmosphere was causing to their laser beam.
“Ok, Jerry. Get ready mate,” Frankie told him.
Jerry looked about for his mask, smiling thanks towards Joyce as she handed it to him. She watched him fit it over his head and into the seam around the neck of his suit, taking some pride in noting that he took about as long as she did to put his mask on.
He waited while the suit cycled through its start-up processes, ending with a head-up display on his screen confirming not only that the systems were operating, but his position relative to the coach.
“Looks good,” Frankie verified, purely for the sake of saying something as Jerry fumbled with the straps that tied him to the life support backpack nestling inside his seat.
Jerry stood and took a breath, shaking his head at the difference between the ARC’s suit and backpack technology, and that of NASA’s. Minutes to get in and out of instead of hours, grams of weight to have to carry instead of a bulky and awkward backpack. He couldn’t help but wonder what the USA would do with such technology. Not just one ship, but a legion. No spacemen of gypsy travellers, but of the elite of the armed forces; the best of the best.
“Flags,” Matt reminded him.
Jerry got them down from the overhead bin. Two of them, one of them the flag of the United States of America, the second one, that of the United Nations.
“Go do it
mate. We’ll follow in a couple of minutes,” Frankie told him.
Ricky grinned as Jerry stepped into the circular doorway, the very one he had designed, the one that operated in a different manner, determined by the location of the craft. In this case, having sealed Jerry within a circle of glass, it withdrew the earth-like atmosphere they had been using in the cabin and allowed the external atmosphere to wash in before retracting the arc of the outer door to allow him out.
Jerry stepped down onto the surface of Mars and gazed at the panorama. He had to blink to clear his vision and took another deep breath before taking a couple of steps off to one side, the lighter gravity giving a bounce to his steps, his direction taking him to where the flags would not be in the way of them retrieving the nearby rover.
He pushed them, one at a time, into the soft ground, and then stepped back to salute the American flag. As yet, he’d not uttered a word.
The salute complete, he turned towards the coach and the half dozen cameras that were watching him. “Under sight of God Almighty, and for the good of all Mankind,” he announced.
+++++++++++++
Oliver saw Heather leave her suite of rooms and told Robert to take over while he took the opportunity to catch up with her along the passage-way.
“What’s going on?” he asked her, alone in the passage. Practically everyone who wasn’t on a duty roster was seated in the auditorium where the video and voice feeds from the Mars team were being relayed.
“Going on?” Heather asked.
“With Michael. What’s going on with Michael?”
“I don’t know,” Heather shrugged. “He’s probably still coming to terms with the aftermath of that explosion. It wasn’t particularly nice inside the laboratory,” she explained.
Oliver shook his head. “I think it’s more than that, Heather. Watch him. Watch him like a hawk and let me know the moment he touches a drink,” he urged.
“It won’t come to that,” Heather stated, shaking her head in denial.
“No, of course not. But we need him Heather, more now than before. His continued management of the ARC is paramount to keeping the Howard twins from falling into the hands of the Chinese, Russian and even to some degree the American and British.”
“The British?” Heather asked, surprised he had included them with their adversaries.
“Certainly,” he nodded firmly. “Brian Overton is a weasel of a man with no moral convictions whatsoever. If moving to the left or the right of politics will keep him in office another term, then that’s what he’ll do. It’s the same on an international stage. He’ll lobby behind the scenes for what he’s told is right, but once the vote is in, he’ll move heaven and earth to be viewed as part of the winning team.”
“Oh. I thought he was on our side,” Heather admitted.
“Only for as long as it suits him,” Oliver explained. “Michael’s track record puts Overton in our camp, but only for the moment. If he so much as senses Michael losing control.”
“Michael is not losing control,” Heather told him sharply.
“Well, whatever he’s doing, he’s making people like me think he is,” was Oliver’s response.
October 13th.
Unlike the Spirit rover which had looked in surprisingly good condition, given that it had lost one wheel, a second one was locked, and a thick coating of Mars soil had half buried it; the Opportunity rover had lost one wheel arm altogether and, having toppled over the ridge on which it had been travelling, had tilted its solar panels away from the small and weak sun so that its battery reserves had died. The four men were forced to half carry it to the coach, and even in the weak gravity of Mars, its awkward shape made carrying the 180kg rover difficult.
The four of them finally managed, and sighed with relief when it was finally on the floor of the lower tier hoist. Ricky pressed the button to start up the compressor, and Jerry and Matt got to work with the air jets, carefully blasting the carbon-dioxide rich Martian atmosphere at the rover in order to remove as much dust and grit from the machine as possible before, strapped down to the floor, it was lifted by hydraulics into the body of the coach to slide in beneath the other rover, already positioned on the higher tier.
Jerry took a last look in at them, one beneath the other, and then helped close the large double doors to return the vehicle to looking like a coach once more.
“That’s it,” Frankie called.
“Last one back inside is a Martian!” Matt called, already at the door.
“We should collect some samples to take back with us,” Jerry told Frankie, moving towards the tool cabinet.
“No,” Frankie told him, walking resolutely towards the door. Matt was waiting for Ricky to finish passing through, the airlock only large enough for one at a time.
“It wouldn’t take long,” Jerry told him. “Bring a couple of bags.”
“Not our brief, Jerry. Come along,” Frankie urged.
“I’ll only be a moment,” Jerry persevered.
“No you won’t. One shovel-full leads to two. Then, what about some soil lower down, or some that’s a different colour, or from over there, and over there. No. Get in the coach, now!” Frankie told him.
Jerry made to open the tool cabinet, and suddenly Frankie was right in front of him, the glass of their faceplates practically touching. “Did you hear me?” Frankie asked, his voice little more than a whisper, and yet incredibly threatening.
Jerry looked into Frankie’s stern face and recalled some of the stories the travellers had told of him, back when he’d been an English traveller forging links with other families the only way it could be done; by force. He found himself suddenly able to believe them, and released the tool cabinet door handle to walk to the airlock, disappointed, but compliant.
Frankie took a deep breath and looked about him, waiting patiently for Jerry to pass through the airlock before he spoke. “I hope you managed to edit that, Oliver,” he said, talking to someone over one hundred million of kilometres away.
The short pause was hardly noticeable. “It’s Robert,” Robert answered. “And to answer you; from public viewing, yes. From the eyes of his own management, no.”
Frankie nodded. He then checked the cabinet was properly closed before following the others through the airlock and back into the cabin.
“Let’s go home Ricky,” he said.
“What do you want, ARC, or Pasadena, California?” Joyce asked.
“Pasadena. Let’s give them their trophies as quickly as we can,” he told them, and glanced at his watch to calculate their arrival. Jerry excused himself to use the toilet and Joyce softly hummed to herself as she checked the code on the return apps. Matt glanced towards the toilet and recognised when it was time to remain silent.
+++++++++++++
Michael rubbed his eyes and wondered what to say or do. Oliver, nearest to him at the table looked both concerned and angry while the others, most on video links from their respective locations, just waited, some nervously.
The choices were clear, and yet he couldn’t decide between them.
“Michael?” Oliver prompted, a look of concern in his watery blue eyes.
“As Frankie said. We take those bloody rovers home to Pasadena. Sooner they’re off our hands the better,” he decided.
“And if the Americans spring a trap?” Oliver asked.
“They won’t,” Michael shook his head.
“You know something we don’t then,” Leanne said from the control-room of the ferry. “His message was quite straightforward,” she reminded them.
Had Jerry known that all communication was passed through word recognition systems, he may not have been so straightforward in what he thought had been a private message. But then, people often said things they didn’t mean, and Michael had to consider the implications to their relationship with the USA if they took one individual’s private conversation to represent the position of his country.
Michael shook his head again, his temper beginning to
shorten.
“I’ve told you, haven’t I?” he asked pointedly, looking at the screen and waiting until Leanne looked away. “They wouldn’t dare,” he affirmed.
“Michael,” Oliver tried one more time.
“Enough!” Michael told them firmly, his hand slapping the table with more force than he’d intended. “We continue to Pasadena.”
+++++++++++++
It was 1 am on the morning of the 13th in Glasgow, Scotland, and the temperature outside hovered around 2 degrees Celsius, teasing the locals into thinking it wasn’t going to dip below freezing quite this early in the year. Nonetheless, it was cold enough for the soldiers’ breath to cloud as they moved quietly around the site, guarding the ferry and ensuring everything was quiet and secure.
Allan watched from the control-room of the ferry while he waited for Leanne to slip the mooring lines from the bow, the cowl of her suit drawn up to help camouflage her in the near pitch black of the dry dock.
It had taken her a lot of scrubbing to rid her suit of the luminous paint Maddy had applied to it nearly two weeks previously and the memory made her smile as she worked. She returned grinning and bright-eyed to ease into the seat at the adjoining table, a sweep of the hand waking her display.
“We good?” she asked, glancing hurriedly at her screen.
“I think so,” Allan told her. They had always been careful to only use the HYPORT when the main generators were on. He doubted anyone knew the ferry could lift on just the power generated by a car battery, though they were about to find out.
“The roof is still open,” she confirmed. They had asked that the roof of the dry-dock be opened and that the bright lighting they had used during late evening working schedules be switched off so that they could take star readings from the ferry’s observatory. ‘Tuning’ the star maps, Allan had explained. Their minders, raised on such requirements from science fiction movies, had obliged.
“Ready?” he asked of her.
“Michael’s not going to be happy,” she warned.
