The Far Shore

by Glenn Damato

  “All I’m saying—”

  “Shut it and listen.”

  “Can’t I—”

  “Shut it!” I bark at her. “Or I will pound your face.”

  TWELVE

  The ship’s rocking motion goes from bad to ridiculous. By noon we can’t sit without swinging left and right. I’m dizzy and queasy, like a bad stomach flu. David braces his body against the wall and never stops teaching us.

  A big roll sends Shuko’s juice bottle sliding across the table. His face is pale. He murmurs, “Can we take a break, get some fresh air? It might help those not feeling well.”

  Paige clutches a trash container under her chin. “Taking this with me.”

  The view outside is magnificent, the ocean a menacing shade of dark metallic gray. Huge round waves roll alongside the ship, and the wind whips up tufts of foamy water. The fresh breeze, plus the change of view, calms my tummy-flutters.

  David shields his eyes from the pelting raindrops. “Low pressure system ahead of us. Increasing swells and high winds over the next thirty-six hours.”

  When we return to the classroom, a heavyset orderly has set up a food cart. His chubby cheeks show the remnants of acme and I doubt he’s much older than we are. “Call me Zach. If you can get something down, there’s chicken soup, scrambled eggs, crackers, hot tea.”

  Only Ryder and Mikki approach the cart. Their paths zigzag as they stagger across the pitching floor. Dr. Ordin sticks her head through the doorway. “Try to eat. This is the last regular food you’ll get. I’m switching everyone to a low-fiber, high-protein diet to acclimatize you to printed meals.”

  We eat and David resumes talking. Every aspect of the flight plan will be regulated by the Guidance, Navigation, and Control system, GNC for short. The technology evolved from the guidance systems used on the Chēngzhăng and Apollo flights.

  “My first post-doc position at JPL was with the spacecraft systems group. We managed the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers and the InSight lander. Those spacecraft navigated to Mars with essentially the same GNC system you have aboard Liberty, except yours is modified for a faster and heavier landing profile.”

  He warns us: The systems are reliable, but expect the unexpected.

  “Emergency actions! This is the most critical part of today’s material. Before you go to sleep tonight you’ll know what to do for all ten alarms. We’re gonna drill until you’re dreaming about emergency actions.”

  An image of the Caution and Warning Panel appears.

  “First alarm, low cabin pressure. Nominal air pressure is thirty-five kilopascals, a little more than a third of an atmosphere. Normal cyclic range is thirty-four to thirty-six, but if it drops below thirty-three point five or it drops at a rate greater than one kilopascal per minute, you’ll get the low pressure alarm. If the rate exceeds two kp per minute, it will trigger the decompression alarm.”

  Everyone learns how to use an Emergency Oxygen Breather, or EOB. They’re soft green cups that fit over the nose and mouth. There’s a little tube worth fifteen minutes of pure oxygen. We practice the proper technique to get an EOB on our faces fast.

  He warns us, “Under no circumstances are you to rely on your EOB if the cabin pressure even approaches ten kilopascals. It won’t help you. At seven kp your blood boils.”

  Blood boiling. That can’t feel good.

  David adds, “This is why it’s critical to distinguish the low pressure alarm from the decompression alarm. Your immediate action for a decompression alarm is to enter the hygiene compartment, which doubles as a pressure-tight shelter.”

  Ryder asks, “Why not the airlock?”

  “The airlock will hold only two people at a time. The hygiene compartment has access to your BioSuits, which are designed for vacuum and the Mars surface. You can depressurize the compartment and rectify the problem. Worst case, you can wear your BioSuits for the entire flight, pressurizing the hygiene department every twenty-four hours in order to eat and evacuate waste products.”

  Mikki asks, “Evacuate our waste, take a shit, with everybody crammed into that tiny space?”

  “Yeah,” mumbles Paige. “That is truly a worst-case scenario.”

  David smirks. “Seventeenth century immigrants crossing the Atlantic in wooden ships had it a lot worse.”

  Next is the solar particle event alarm for a proton storm coming from a solar flare. That means deadly radiation. Everyone must squeeze into the hygiene compartment for the duration, generally several hours. The shielding is food stock and water tanks.

  There’s a bus undervolt alarm. Everyone practices manually placing batteries on line and isolating faulty buses using a simulated power panel.

  The high carbon dioxide warning activates at 0.3 percent, the alarm at 0.5 percent. We learn how to clear the alarm, isolate the cause, and if necessary use the hygiene compartment as a safe haven.

  There’s a toxic gas alarm.

  Low oxygen partial pressure alarm.

  Loss of GNC alarm.

  Airlock breach alarm.

  David walks us through the procedure for each alarm. He fires off questions on actions he previously covered.

  “Low oxygen partial pressure. Paige, what’s the set point?”

  “Eighteen kp.”

  “What do you do, Cristina?”

  “On the warning panel, verify all three channels. On the master control panel, verify all six regulators in auto. Take one alpha and bravo to manual and open two-thirds. Verify they are open.”

  “Show me.”

  I bend over the panel simulation and find both control sliders.

  “That’s three alpha and bravo but that’s close enough for now. You’re inverted.”

  I close my eyes. “Sorry.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Check for positive flow. If the partial pressure doesn’t rise above twenty, verify all indicated bank pressures.”

  “How do you know there’s bank pressure without even looking at the master panel?”

  I shrug. “You didn’t tell us that.”

  “Anyone?”

  Ryder answers, “The regulator should start hissing when you override it.”

  “Good! Plus, you can feel the flow if you put your hand over the outlet.”

  Procedures, statuses, endless advice. Power supplies, set points, alternate configurations, routine operations. David describes the technical documentation available for research and troubleshooting purposes. There’s a tech catalog and knowledge base for searches, but he advises us to use it sparingly and memorize everything backwards and forward.

  Nobody had much dinner except for Ritz crackers and sips of juice or tea. The act of resisting the constant rolling motion saps my energy. The rain-splattered window at the end of the corridor has been completely black for hours. David talks about amine charges and HEPA filters but it makes no sense.

  “That’s enough for today. Now I want you to get a full night’s rest, because tomorrow will be another long, tough day.”

  Shuko mumbles, “Weather?”

  “This is what the meteorologists call a pineapple express. Big, nasty system traveling eastward. Happens this time of year. The storm is fast-moving and things should calm down tomorrow afternoon.”

  I follow Alison into our cabin. Someone has cleaned up. The bathroom is returned to its pristine state with fresh soap and towels.

  There’s a soft knock on the door. Alison calls out, “Leave us alone.”

  It’s Ryder. He thrusts an index finger in my face. “Bus one undervolt! What do you do?”

  I shut the door.

  Sweet, sweet darkness. The sheets and covers feel wonderfully delicious. My stomach calms as soon as I’m horizontal. The constant creaking of the ship’s structure becomes lyrical. The swaying cradles me to sleep.

  ◆◆◆

  I open my eyes. How long was I out? An hour? Something’s happening. Footsteps and voices, in a hurry, from above, below, all over.

  I drift back to sleep.
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  Light! I blink back the painful glare. Dr. Ordin stands at the door. “Get up. Briefing in five minutes.”

  I throw off the covers. “What? Why?”

  “You’ll be briefed in the common area.”

  Alison sits up and stares at me. I tell her, “Probably another stupid test or something.”

  She swings her legs off the bed, but instead of standing she leans forward and holds her face in her hands. “I just can’t anymore.”

  I pull on my coveralls. “Play the game and maybe they’ll let us go back to bed.”

  She falls over sideways with her feet on the floor but head on the mattress and eyes shut. Dr. Ordin comes back, struts to the bed and tosses a cup of water into Alison’s face.

  “Awake now?”

  I tell her, “That was totally unnecessary.”

  Dr. Ordin throws the cup to the floor. “Get her up.”

  The others are seated at the kitchen table, faces downcast. Mikki rests her head on Ryder’s shoulder. The ship’s rocking has subsided to a leisurely but still sickening roll.

  David enters from the corridor. Paige asks him, “What time is it?”

  “A little after two.”

  I clear my throat. “What’s going on?”

  David taps a tiny black box clipped to his shirt near his right shoulder. He points his mouth toward the box. “Status on IMU alignment and OPS-one load.”

  The black box crackles. “IMU alignment complete, OPS-one load waiting log reset.”

  “Copy.”

  Mikki raises her head. “You are not gonna tell me what I think you’re gonna tell me.”

  “Don’t know yet,” David answers, voice barely audible. The only sound is intermittent hissing from the little box and the creaking of the rocking ship.

  Ryder takes a bottle of frap from the refrigerator.

  David tells him, “You probably want to lay off the beverages.” Ryder replaces the bottle and collapses into his chair.

  There’s a thin red ribbon around David’s neck. A plastic card dangles at stomach level—a pic of his face, much younger, with some printing.

  I point to the card. “What’s that?”

  He strokes it with his fingers. “My JPL access I.D. A minor memento from the past.” He sweeps his eyes over the six of us bunched around the table. “I’m going to tell you everything I know. Around midnight we identified two swarms of spotters following our convoy. Military swarms.”

  The door opens—it’s Zach the orderly. He looks at David and receives a head shake as a response. At least four soldiers are near our door, with huge weapons and full military gear.

  “Anyhow,” continues David, “We anticipated the possibility of getting checked out at some point. There’s nothing they would see that would arouse suspicion. These types of ships run themselves, and sometimes they carry maintenance technicians and sometimes they don’t.” He runs his hands over his face and massages his eyes. “Genesis. That’s what we call our project. Almost everyone involved with Genesis is on board a ship. A handful are ashore in order to provide advance warning of discovery. They’re supposed to transmit an all clear code every thirty minutes on the UHF band. The code has to be transmitted manually, so when it stops—”

  I finish the sentence. “They’re gone. Arrested.”

  “The last code received at twelve twenty-eight was a suicide signal. They ended their own lives before being taken into custody.”

  So the Autoridad couldn’t torture them and find out everything.

  Ryder asks, “Are the swarms still out there?”

  “Affirmative. We don’t know for sure if the spotter swarms and the suicide signal are related. We have to assume they are.”

  The box crackles. “Systems, OPS-one, GPC, BFS complete.”

  “Copy.” He faces us. “The decision won’t come down unless there’s no other option.”

  Mikki lowers the left side of her face to the table. “We aren’t trained. We don’t know shit.”

  Ryder says, “Better now than never.”

  “They screwed this up,” Mikki informs us, her words distorted from having her face against the table. “They screwed it all up, and we’ll be the ones who get fucked.”

  Alison says, “We need to stop, think, figure out exactly what we’re doing.”

  I squeeze her wrist.

  A burst of static from the box. “Systems, launch control.”

  “Systems. Go ahead.”

  “Tanking commenced at zero two thirty-six. Event timer started. Predict tower rotate at zero seven fifty, launch at zero eight twenty.”

  I stroke Alison’s hair. Mikki buries her head in her arms. Ryder sits back and stares at the ceiling.

  The communications box spits out more information. “Winds eighteen knots, gusting to twenty-five. Swells five to six meters from the northwest.”

  “Copy. Systems out.”

  Mikki raises her face to David. “You told us eight days of training. We got one.”

  He runs his fingers across the card dangling from his neck. “Forget about that. We’re on a contingency cycle now, everything’s focused on getting you on your way. Once we begin stage tanking, we’re committed. The tanks aren’t designed to be filled more than once.”

  “Look how this thing’s rocking,” Mikki responds, a note of pleading in her voice. “At least wait for it to stop!”

  Paige says, “They have no idea if this has any chance of working.”

  Shuko asks David, “You didn’t plan for a launch in this kind of weather, did you?”

  This is bullshit. What did they expect? I slap my palm on the table.

  “I’m sick of this place! Sick of swinging back and forth. Sick of being told what to do. I can’t take another week.” I look at David. “Can you launch us?”

  He gazes back and nods his head.

  “Then launch us!”

  THIRTEEN

  Zach gets down to business. He tosses each of us a blue plastic box labeled with our names. Another orderly enters, a petite woman with a hair clipper.

  “Yeah, we’re gonna cut your hair,” Zach announces. “We’ll leave you a couple of centimeters. In space, hair is just a nuisance that clogs filters.”

  The female orderly throws a towel around my shoulders and goes to work.

  Zach’s voice competes with the whine from the clippers. “Pay attention, because I don’t want to repeat myself. As soon as your hair is cut you’re gonna shower.” He holds up a plastic packet from my box. “This is your soap. Wash your skin and hair and rinse thoroughly.”

  Ryder asks, “Wouldn’t it save time to do a group shower?”

  David snorts.

  “Disinfectant!” Zach calls out, holding up two brown packets. They’re labeled Hibiclens. “You will cover your body with this substance, keeping it away from your mouth, eyes and genitals.”

  Ryder can’t keep his mouth shut. “What if we want to try it on our genitals?”

  “Go for it!” Zach snaps. He holds up a brush. “Scrub for five minutes. Five minutes! Then rinse.”

  “Then repeat,” adds Shuko.

  “You got it, Doc. There will be sterile towels by the time you’re done.” He holds up a tightly rolled cloth sealed in clear plastic. “Maximum Absorbency Garment. Do I need to draw you a picture? Don’t even think about not wearing this. Good chance you’ll need it."

  The ship rolls and David braces himself. “What, no joke?”

  “Hell, no!” Ryder answers. “I fully expect to piss myself at least once before this day is over.”

  Zach pulls out two final items, a white package and a pair of blue plastic slippers. “Flight suits!” He looks at Ryder. “These go on over your MAG. Last, booties on your feet. When you’re done, return straight to this table. Try not to touch anything. We should accomplish all this in one hour.”

  Dr. Ordin calls from the doorway, “Don’t skimp on the Hibiclens. We want to limit the total biological spectrum introduced to Mars. Extraneous mold, fungi, s
pores, bacteria, mites. Itty-bitty critters can wreak havoc on your crops and ecology.”

  I take my shower but I can’t look in the mirror. So little hair is unnatural. The orange disinfectant leaves a revolting stink everywhere. A headache comes on. Is it from the lack of sleep? The perpetual rocking? The nausea? The stupid haircut? The disinfectant? All five combined?

  The absorbency garment is just a big diaper. I pull the top edge above my waist. Comfortable! Would have been useful at SERCENT. The so-called flight suit is a one-piece, long-sleeved coverall with lots of pockets and thick gray socks built into the legs. The seams and cuffs close with Velcro. The soft white material feels like it’s supposed to hold up against wear for a long time.

  Somebody covered the chairs and floor of the common area with obnoxious-smelling yellow plastic sheeting. Mikki fingers her flight suit and asks, “So we wear plain white forever?”

  Dr. Ordin responds, “After you get there, print your own garments any damn color you want. Purple, yellow, turquoise with green stripes.”

  Zach passes out EOB’s encased in clear plastic pouches. “Put these in your right-side leg pockets,” he instructs. Next comes a beige envelope. “Air sickness bag. Or space sickness? Two each. Place in your right or left chest pocket.”

  My rosies are in my right chest pocket. Everything else could go on the left.

  Zach has more stuff for us. “Ear plugs and sleep mask. Use the earplugs when you sleep even if you don’t think you need ’em. You’ll hear alarms. The tone won’t be blocked.”

  We each get a hydration pouch, 380 milliliters of electrolyte fluid.

  “Sip it gradually, especially if you vomit. I recommend you keep it in your front left leg pocket. On your chest, it may get under your seat restraint and burst.”

  David tells us, “It will take a day or two to adjust. Stay seated and minimize head movement. I’d just put on my mask and earplugs and sleep.” He checks his wrist. “We can’t speed up tanking, but we’re bypassing most pre-launch checks to get you on your way the earliest we can.”

  Paige mutters, “More spotters.”

  “Correct. And now there’s a military cruiser shadowing us ten kilometers off. Every ship has a swarm of spotters buzzing the decks. They’re hailing us on the emergency channel.”