Mars Nation 1
Hard Science Fiction
Brandon Q. Morris
Contents
Mars Nation 1
Author's Note
Also by Brandon Q. Morris
Mars – A Guided Tour
Glossary of Acronyms
Metric to English Conversions
Mars Nation 1
Sol 3, NASA base
The sun floated right above the horizon in a rosy sky. Lance squinted at it. It looked much smaller from here than it did from Earth, but its light could still blind him if he gazed right into it. After a few more arc minutes around the sun, the sky shifted to blue. Sharon, the pilot whose studies had also included meteorology, had told him about this, but he hadn’t believed her. He needed to apologize to her, even though the others knew by now that he was one of those who had to see such things with his own eyes.
“Everything alright?” he heard Mike’s voice say over his helmet radio.
“Yes, Commander. It’s very romantic.”
“You have things to do.”
Thanks, Mike, he thought. Like I didn’t know that already. Lance took his time anyway. It was to be his first step onto the new planet that would be his home for the next six months. Until now, all he had done was travel across the Mars surface from the landing site of the Endeavour to their quarters inside the Rover’s pressurized cabin, which he reached via a pressurized tube.
He squinted again at the distant sun. It looked white from here, not yellow like from Earth, which might explain why it felt less warm. Of course, that wasn’t the fault of the color, but rather the distance. “We need to optimize the disembarking process,” he said. “If it takes us six hours every time, we’ll never get any work done.”
“Don’t worry,” Mike replied. “Even after the sun sets, it will stay light for a while. The dust in the atmosphere will keep reflecting the sunlight even after the sun has dropped below the horizon.”
“No shit,” slipped out before Lance could catch it.
The commander’s know-it-all commentaries always rubbed Lance the wrong way. They had received more than enough information about what a day was like on Mars during their intensive training. However, it never paid to let himself get annoyed. He was lucky Mike was always insensitive to stuff like this. And, there were the times when no one except Mike had a handy answer for something. It wasn’t a surprise to find out that the man had finished his college physics degree by the age of nineteen.
Lance braced his hands against the roof to their quarters and pushed downward. Ninety percent of the base was buried under the Martian surface to protect its residents from radiation. The roof was composed of the now unneeded heat shields that had once belonged to the explorer robots that had built the base prior to the humans’ arrival. A thick layer of Martian dirt was spread across the metal. Lance finished pushing his torso up through the hatch. He pulled his legs out, knelt on the roof, and finally stood up. His breathing was heavy. After so many months of weightlessness, every activity seemed astonishingly difficult. What had been the point of pedaling like crazy on that exercise bike all the time?
“Okay, I’m out,” Lance said.
“Looking good,” Mike answered. “At least from what I can see on the screen. But your heart rate! You’re really out of shape, aren’t you?”
“Watch it, boy, or I’ll show you what shape I’m in at arm wrestling later on.”
Diplomatically speaking, Mike was notably underwhelming in terms of physique. It was nothing short of a miracle that he had made it through the training process. His intellect probably compensated for everything else, but he didn’t stand a chance beating Lance at arm wrestling. Lance took a cautious step away from the hatch toward the sunset. He expected to hear a hollow tone as he moved forward, but the air was probably too thin and the sensitivity of the external microphone too low for that.
“You know you’re supposed to wait, right?” Mike asked.
Of course, he knew that. The airlock was so narrow that only one person in a spacesuit could fit through at a time. Once outside, they were always supposed to move around in pairs, which was why Sarah, his buddy for this walk, would emerge through the hatch in a minute or two. But it wouldn’t hurt if he looked around a little, would it?
He walked over to the edge of the roof. From here, it was only about twenty centimeters down to the Mars surface. Should he? He had yet to feel like he was actually standing on the planet. What would happen? The ground looked dry and stable. The area right around the base had been reinforced during the construction process. Lance glanced back toward the airlock, but Sarah was still nowhere in sight. He slowly extended his right leg, scooted it forward, and lowered it—and himself—toward the ground. He gingerly placed his foot down, beginning with his heel, and had to burst out laughing. The situation was hardly humorous, so the outburst had to be a subliminal overreaction. He was the first person to ever set foot on Mars! Although he didn’t feel up to celebrating, he couldn’t stop the laugh. Lance shifted his weight onto his right leg before bringing the left one down to the ground. He stood there then, and laughed again.
“Are you feeling okay?” Mike asked. “I assume that, despite our agreement, you didn’t wait for Sarah. We’re lucky we’re the only ones here. How would it look to the bigwigs if they knew you disregarded my direct orders about the exiting process?”
“But I didn’t, Mike, promise,” he replied.
“Earth is asking how everything’s going with the suit,” Mike said.
By this point the first images had been transmitted home. That meant twenty minutes had gone by, assuming that Earth had responded immediately. Lance gazed at the glowing numerals on his wrist. Exactly. However, that also meant that one-twelfth of their maximum shift of four hours was already gone. Sarah should be here any minute. The mission’s doctor was supposed to help him clear the dust from the top of the base so that everything would look in tip-top shape for the TV transmission. Mission Control never left anything to chance. The international mission had cost too much to open it up to criticism.
Lance looked down. The suit was very form-fitting, and it looked quite good on him if he did say so himself. But that was definitely not what Mission Control wanted to hear. Although... maybe. Compared to the older models, which had ballooned around the astronauts’ bodies, the new suits were significantly more photogenic. The only part still pressurized was the inside of the helmet, while the suit’s elastic material was wrapped tightly around his body. He had noticed how agile he felt when he climbed out of the hatch. During the training on Earth, he had gotten to know—and to hate—the old, stiff spacesuits.
“I really like it. Kudos to the developers!” he said.
He then tapped the glowing numerals on his arm, thus activating the projection screen inside his helmet. Earth would soon be bombarded with data, the extent of which blew his mind. Locational and directional specs, temperature, pressure, wind direction, the composition of the stone on which he was standing. It was too much, within the confines of a space helmet. He tapped his arm again, and the digits and arrows gradually vanished. He really didn’t need to know anything else besides the cardinal direction in which he was looking at the moment.
“The data stream on my screen is a little much,” he said.
“Oh, the suit is tracking your position. Don’t worry,” Mike replied.
“Lance?”
He turned around at the sound of Sarah’s voice. Her head was just emerging from the round hole in the roof. He couldn’t make out her face due to the reflection of the setting sun in her visor.
“Need some help?” he asked.
“I’ve got it, thanks,” she assured him.
Her English was spoken with a faint accent.
Sarah hailed from Switzerland. Nobody on board had yet managed to pronounce her last name correctly. Jaeggli sounded a little like Jacqueline, but in Sarah’s mouth, it was something completely different. Lance enjoyed teasing her that she didn’t look anything like the stereotypes about her country. After all, people always imagined Swedes as tall and blonde, but she was short and dark-haired. She calmly kept reminding him that she came from Switzerland, not Sweden, which she knew were hard for an American to keep straight.
As a precaution, he climbed back onto the roof. They didn’t know yet how well Sarah would adjust to the unfamiliar gravitational pull.
“Are you both ready?” Mike asked from inside.
“Looks like it,” Lance said.
“Alright, then. You know where the tools are.”
They had already been through this. There was a crate of sorts on the northern edge of the building. Lance let Sarah lead the way. Her muscles strained slightly against the suit’s elastic material. Yes, they are definitely suitable for TV. He gave himself a mental shake. Lance had vowed to not get involved with his female colleagues. His girlfriend was waiting for him at home, after all. If he made it back in the next twelve months, they wanted to start trying to have children. Before departing for Mars, he had arranged for extra sperm to be frozen because of the potential radiation damage.
“Opening the crate,” Sarah said.
The Swiss woman leaned down, while Lance watched from a safe distance of about three meters. She undid first the left latch and then the right, before reaching for the center of the lid and lifting it.
“Oh!” she cried, springing backward.
“What is it?” Mike shouted nervously.
Lance covered the distance to Sarah in long strides, but there was nothing to see.
“Gotcha!” she crowed with a laugh. “What were you two thinking? That there was a spider in the box?”
Sarah had a good sense of humor, he had to give her credit for that. He looked around inside the box. It was stuffed full of objects whose purposes weren’t immediately evident.
“Thanks, Sarah. I almost had to change my pants,” Mike said over the radio.
The doctor chuckled as she leaned back into the crate. It looked like she knew precisely what she was doing, although it was more likely that she was just following the instructions on her helmet screen. Sarah pulled out a tube about one meter in length.
“Here. Hold this,” she said, pushing it into Lance’s hand. She then looked back inside, reaching down along the right edge of the crate. She tugged out a round tank.
“There it is,” she declared. “Okay, give me that back.” Lance returned the tube to her, and Sarah stuck it into one end of the tank and handed the assembly to him. “Turn around,” she instructed, making a little circling motion with one hand. He obeyed, and she rummaged around in his backpack. He could guess what she was doing as she pressed a cable into his hand. “The outlet is on the side of the tank.”
After locating the small slot, he connected the cable. The old-fashioned vacuum cleaner in his hands was being powered by the life support backpack strapped across his shoulders.
“Get going,” Sarah said. “I’ll take care of the measurements.”
“Sure,” he said as he started to suction the dust off the base’s roof.
“How about a little light?” Lance asked over his radio.
The light was fading faster than they had expected. This was probably due to the high density of dust in the atmosphere. Thanks to the low gravity and the lack of rain, the dust remained in the air for quite some time after a windstorm.
In lieu of an answer, several strips of lights flashed on along the roofline. The result looked spooky. A paler corridor now glowed around the base. In the sunlight, the dust hadn’t been nearly as visible as now. In fact, it had taken on a resemblance to fog.
“Will you be done out there soon?” Mike asked.
“We’re almost finished with the spring cleaning,” Lance replied.
A pail full of water sat beside him. He had just finished washing the portholes, and he only had one more thing to take care of. He opened the lid on the pail, and steam swirled around him. In the thin air, only one-thousandth as dense as that on Earth, the heated water inside the pail evaporated very quickly. Hence, the lid. He submerged his sponge and had to hurry or risk losing the moisture. The dampness vanished as quickly as alcohol on Earth. At least he didn’t need to dry the glass.
Where was Sarah?
“Sarah?” he called.
The doctor didn’t respond.
“Can you see Sarah on your screen?”
“Yes, Lance. She is about two hundred meters south of your position.
He turned around and gazed into the specified direction, but he couldn’t see anyone. The light, however, only reached about fifty meters by this point.
“Sarah?”
Nothing. Should he be concerned?
“Can you see her readings?”
“Yes, but based on privacy laws, I can’t—”
“Mike, don’t be stupid,” Lance said impatiently.
“Okay. She’s doing just fine. Her heart rate is a little elevated, but other than that, everything’s good.”
“You’re not worried about anything?”
“We’d see if something happened.”
“Hmm,” Lance said. “I’m going to check it out, anyway.”
After depositing the sponge on the pail lid, he stood up. He then called up Sarah’s position on his helmet screen. After walking twenty meters it was so dark that he could only see the vague outlines of his feet.
He tried contacting her again. “Sarah? Are you there?”
What a dumb question. The instruments were clear in their readings. Lance felt himself growing increasingly concerned. How could his colleague have gotten lost out here? Even if a dust storm had hit them, they never would have been in real danger, thanks to the thin atmosphere.
Was he scared of little green Martians? Lance’s screen told him that he should have just reached Sarah. A bulky black shadow materialized right in front of him. He was startled, but it only took a moment for him to realize that it was just a boulder. He really was seeing ghosts. He strode around the rock and almost stumbled over something soft. It was Sarah’s leg. She pulled it back and jumped to her feet, though she still didn’t say anything. However, she looked almost as surprised as he did.
“I turned off my radio,” she said breathlessly. “What’s wrong? Why are you here?”
“To find you.”
“What for? The base has my vitals. Or did I suffer a heart attack without noticing it?”
“No, I just thought... ah, forget it.”
“You were worried about me. How sweet,” the doctor said. “I simply wanted to be alone for a minute. We’ve just spent seven months sharing the same forty cubic meters and were together for a long time during our training. I really needed this.”
“Got it. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Next time I’ll let you know.”
“Greetings, turtle doves,” Mike interrupted from the base.
Haha! ‘Turtle doves,’ my ass, Lance thought. Sarah was thirteen years older than himself. There was no way she’d be interested in a kid like him.
“What is it?” she asked Mike.
“You should head back to the base.”
“Why? Don’t we still have about an hour? It feels marvelous out here.”
She’s laying it on a bit thick, Lance thought. At that moment, his suit heater cut on. The surface temperature had dropped to minus 30.
“It looks like I need you back here.”
“Has the TV ceremony been postponed?” Lance asked. One of the presidents of the mission’s sponsor nations had probably just called in at the last minute with a special wish or something.
“No, there’s a problem. A distress signal has come in,” Mike replied.
“What does that have to do with us?”
“A who
le lot, Lance. It’s coming from close by.”
“The crazies.”
“You guessed it.”
May 23, 2042, MfE ship Santa Maria
“Get it started!”
Henrik shouted so loudly that Ewa covered her ears as he slammed his fists onto the silvery console in front of him. This was now the second time that the pilot had lost his temper. Ewa shook her head disapprovingly, but she didn’t say anything. Something like this didn’t typically happen. However, there was nothing typical about this flight, which had seemed to be ill-fated from the start. It was understandable that patience was in short supply among some of them, especially considering they only had three or four days to get the engine repaired. If they failed to do so, they wouldn’t reach their orbit around Mars, and they would have to make another full loop around the sun.
“Just calm down,” Chuck said. The Brit, a former bomber pilot, was their commander.
He stopped beside Henrik and rested an arm across his shoulders. Ewa found this an odd picture, knowing the two of them as she did from the selection procedure in which they had competed against hundreds of other applicants from around the world. Henrik, the slim, intellectual Dutchman, had maneuvered their group through many trials with his calm, thoughtful demeanor. On the other hand, Chuck had always shot ahead, trying to solve problems in a hands-on manner and failing along the way. But now he was the one holding the crew together. It was amazing how wrong you could be about people! If it had been up to their group, Chuck wouldn’t have been named commander. However, a volunteer team of psychologists had made the decision. This was in keeping with the other aspects of the trip, which were also being handled by volunteers.
And that was increasingly proving to be a problem.
“This fucking engine! Who conned us into buying it?” Henrik demanded as he spun his seat around to face Chuck.
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