The music fell silent, and Sarah came to a stop. Lance had no idea how much time had passed.
“That was lovely,” she said.
“I thought so, too.” Thanks a lot, he thought, but the words stuck to his tongue. It truly had been lovely. They had danced, no more, no less.
“How much longer, Mike?” he asked over the communications channel.
“The answer should be here in ten minutes.”
“And who was right this time?”
“You.”
“Was it a good idea to check in?”
“It was, Lance.”
Maybe he should check on the camera again. Lance moved toward the airlock. The camera was an older model, but it was particularly durable and suitable for something like this. The newest chips had such small electronic structures that under the cosmic radiation they produced digital artifacts. The good news was this old model functioned everywhere. He wondered from which museum NASA had taken this camera.
Lance unscrewed it from the tripod and pointed it at the sun, which was considerably smaller-looking here than it was on Earth, but if he looked right at it, it could still blind him. He observed it on the small screen on the back side of the camera. He then zoomed in as far as he could. The image grew blurry, probably because of the movement in the atmosphere.
He focused the camera on Sarah. In the encroaching dusk, her silhouette looked like a paper cutout. She was just standing there. Had she ever pursued any competitive sports? She looked relaxed and tense at the same time. He might be physically fit, but he would never get this combination. People could always tell when he was getting close to his limit.
“Lance? Sarah?”
It was Mike’s voice. It sounded breathless. He had probably just climbed off the stationary bike after his workout. Lanced fastened the camera back onto the tripod. Sarah started to run toward him. It should be starting any minute.
“Did you finally get the questions?” Lance asked.
“Uh... I can’t exactly answer that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I don’t have them. Why don’t the two of you come in first?”
Mike sounded extremely tense. Lance had never heard him like this.
“They’ll be calling in in five minutes. I know these press idiots. First, they make sure everyone is on pins and needles, and then they make you wait. We should just wait out here for the interview.”
“You’re not listening, Lance.”
“What am I supposed to make of your cryptic comments?”
“I want to tell you something inside, face to face.”
“What’s going on, Mike? All this secrecy isn’t helping anything. What’s wrong? Did someone die or start a revolution?”
Lance was slowly getting upset. Why was Mike making such a huge fuss?
Sarah placed a hand on his shoulder.
“There won’t be a fucking interview. So just get back inside.”
“Mike, your tone is out of line. Can’t you hear yourself?” Suddenly, Lance was calm again. Was that because of Sarah’s hand?
“Fuck my tone, Lance. This is about Earth. They aren’t transmitting, not even a peep. If it were a living creature, I’d say that it was dead.”
“What does that mean? Is the line dead? Is one of the satellites defective?” Lance couldn’t grasp what Mike was saying.
“No, it’s Earth. It isn’t responding anymore. Nobody’s there. Something terrible must have happened, but I don’t know what,” Mike said quietly.
Lance suddenly sensed how cold it actually was on Mars. The thermometer hadn’t dropped down to zero yet. The cold spread through him, and he lifted his foot because the chill seemed to creep along his leg like a disgusting, damp worm. It reached his hip, chose a path along his spine, and reached his head. And then he stopped feeling anything.
Mike was shivering all over. Lance wished he could give him a hug. Wished? That was nonsense. He stood in front of Mike and wrapped his strong arms around his commander. The trembling slowed down. Lance could feel Mike’s muscles go limp.
“I’m going to let you go now,” Lance said as he nudged Mike lightly in the abdomen.
“Thanks,” Mike said.
And just like that, everything had been said. Lance felt hollow. Shouldn’t he miss his girlfriend, their mutual plans, the children they planned to have? Had his entire future just dissolved into thin air? It was still too early to sense that, and he wasn’t upset yet. If there was anything he needed right now, it was to keep a cool head. It might be that all of this was nothing more than idée fixe. Ideas change, mutate, disappear into nothingness. No conservation laws applied to them.
“I still can’t believe it,” Sharon said, her back against the wall. She was sitting on the floor and scraping her feet against it.
“You’ve really checked everything?” Sarah prodded.
“Yes, everything. Every little cable. There’s nothing from Earth. Nothing from the four orbiting satellites, either.”
“Why didn’t we pick up on this earlier? Maybe we could’ve done something?”
“No, Lance. The twenty-minute transmit time. We didn’t expect anything. Why would we’ve been upset if nothing came in?” Sharon said.
“And the satellites?” Lance asked.
“We wondered about them. MRO 2 and ExoMars 3 came into view first, and then the others, once they emerged from the dead zone behind Mars. But this incident fell beyond all expectations. The satellites weren’t programmed to report to us in the case of a total communication collapse. On the other hand, if we were to stop reporting in, they would raise an alarm.”
“And there weren’t any warning signs?”
“No, Lance. Yesterday evening, I received the next day’s briefing from Earth,” Sharon said.
Mike scuffed back and forth through the room, and finally decided to take a seat next to Sharon on the floor. Sarah stood very quietly beside Lance, who didn’t know what to do next.
“We have to find out what happened on Earth,” he said.
“But how?” Sharon asked. “We don’t even have a telescope. Earth is damned far away. The observation satellites in orbit are watching Mars, not Earth.”
“Couldn’t we send one of the satellites back to Earth to try to see what’s going on?”
“Yes, but we don’t have enough fuel for that. And the next start window won’t open for six months. That’s our flight window to get one of them into Earth-bound trajectory.”
“We can’t just give up on Earth. Maybe they need help.”
“And we’re supposed to be the ones to help?”
“Who else?”
“We won’t need to discuss that before the next start window opens,” Sarah cut in. “Until then, we have other things to do. We have to help ourselves.”
Nobody replied. Lance wanted to just shut his eyes, but he did all he could to keep them open. He wasn’t willing to give up yet. Or was Sarah correct? Did they need to take care of themselves first? They had enough resources to last them for just under three years, but they wouldn’t stretch forever. If Earth didn’t reply before the next start window, they would have to stay up here longer than expected. Sarah had made an important point. They had no time to waste. They had what they needed to survive, but they would have to use their tools and wits, too.
“That’s true, Sarah,” Lance replied. “It looks like we might be here longer than we’d thought. It’s time to start planning for that.”
Sol 10, MfE base
“Are you coming? Mike’s waiting.”
Ewa heard Ellen’s call, but she couldn’t instantly stop what she was doing. It had taken her a long time to calm Germaine down. Now she was sitting behind her against the wall, holding her tightly. The woman from Cameroon was still weeping quietly, but it was no longer the hopeless sobbing from before. And she wasn’t the only one who had broken down when the NASA base had informed them that Earth had fallen silent.
“Ewa? Should I put hi
m off for ten minutes?”
Put him off... No. At this point, that would go down about as well as a slap to the face, she told herself.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll be right there.”
Somehow they would have to keep going. Frankly, nothing much had changed for her own crew. They had each punched a one-way ticket. They had known, every one of them, that they would never again see their parents, their siblings and other relatives, or any of their friends—they had told them goodbye forever. Why was it that for some of them this news still made such a great difference? Their farewells on Earth had already been for eternity. They really shouldn’t kick up such a fuss! It was quite possible that all of this would prove to be a big misunderstanding. However, the situation was too puzzling to make that likely.
She gently pushed Germaine away and got up from her spot. Your work isn’t done, a voice deep inside her warned. It sometimes took her by surprise, but at this moment its timing was perfect. Despite the loss of half their cargo in the bowels of the Santa Maria, they still had everything they needed to set up their settlement. However, they required the NASA crew to do that, and that was why she was now at the video console.
Ewa brushed a few strands of hair out of her face. It never hurt to look your best for whomever you were talking to. She had a sense that Mike found her interesting.
“Hi, Mike,” she said. “Nice to see you. Please excuse the delay. The situation has been a terrible shock for some of us.”
“Understandable,” Mike said. “I’m pretty upset myself. My mother...”
“I’m sorry. Should we postpone our conversation?”
“I’m keeping it together. Have to keep going.” Mike sniffed slightly. “Do you have...”
“I don’t have any living relatives on Earth. I didn’t have any, I should have said. It will take some getting used to. And I purposely avoided making any close friends once I’d applied for MfE.”
“Now I’m the one feeling sorry.”
Ewa was annoyed. Why should he feel sorry? It had worked out well for her. That was probably why she felt so calm. Everything was still running as planned, despite a few small bumps in the road. The silence from Earth wasn’t any kind of loss for their mission. In reality, she hadn’t expected any support or contact from there anyway.
“Thanks,” Ewa said. “I’d like to chat about our collaborative work. It looks like we’ll have to put up with each other longer than we’d expected.”
“I’m not sure that we’re quite willing to accept that yet. I honestly think there’s some kind of temporary problem going on. However, I’m also aware that we need to be prepared for anything.”
“Good. Will it still be alright for us to borrow the robotic drill from you?”
“Yes. But we would like to agree to terms in a signed contract. Our food production will be fairly low over the coming months.”
“Understood. You’d like guaranteed deliveries. I can offer you four-nineteenths of everything we cultivate on Mars. That corresponds with the relative sizes of our crews. Along with your own produce, your provisions will be larger than ours.”
“Agreed,” Mike said. “And you’ll return the robot to us as soon as you’re able to meet your own nutritional needs, right?”
“Mm-hmm. There is one other problem, though. We would like to build as close as possible to an ice deposit. However, the direct sunlight in the northern zone is lower than down here. We’ll need an energy source that will function independently of the sun.”
“Are you thinking about a KRUSTY?”
Yes, she was thinking about a KRUSTY, the NASA acronym for a Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology. “I know that you have more than one KRUSTY,” Ewa said.
Actually, she wasn’t sure of that fact, but she had to try at least. The current model produced one hundred kilowatts of power, and it was maintenance-free for the first ten years. That would be a fantastic treasure for the settlement. However, when ten years had passed, all the fuel would be gone. If Mike was thinking strategically, he would keep all the KRUSTYs he possessed for as long as possible. Even if there were no children, the adults could expect to spend at least fifty or sixty years here.
Ewa could hear Mike whispering. He was probably discussing her request with the others.
“Fine, we’ll agree to that,” Mike said finally.
She was surprised. Mike had struck her as having a cool, calculating head on his shoulders. She had been wrong about him, which was why she now allowed herself a smile.
“Oh, you’ve taken a load off my shoulders,” she said. “You have no idea how much better I feel now. We will return the favor as soon as we can.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing how you do that,” Mike said.
“Well, we have something you definitely don’t.”
“The animals? A little fresh goat milk would be welcome.”
He was assuming that she meant the animals. He was mistaken! Ewa felt her spirits rise. “I didn’t mean them,” Ewa said. “We have guns—three pistols and ammunition.”
“You have what?”
“You heard me correctly.”
“But I always thought that MfE was a nonprofit organization that wanted to build a just, new world.”
“We might be a little disorganized, but we’re not stupid. We always wanted to survive on this planet. And at some point, other people will come. That’s always been obvious. So we have to be able to defend ourselves. If that ever happens, you can count on us.”
Mike didn’t look all that pleased at her promise. He was probably one of those people who rejected violence in general. He might have also interpreted her offer as a threat. She wouldn’t mind if he did.
Sol 11, NASA base
“Is it possible that the blonde Ms. Ewa and her charming smile have pulled the wool over your eyes?” Lance asked.
Mike shook his head. “We have to find a way to get along together,” he said, defending himself.
Lance was pissed off. Mike might be the official mission commander, but all fundamental decisions were supposed to be made as a group. It bothered him that Mike had practically given away a robotic drill and a KRUSTY without adequate compensation and without previously seeking the other NASA crewmembers’ agreement. That was why he had spent the previous night inventorying their supplies.
“I’m afraid that the mere presence of MfE is going to jeopardize our own survival,” Lance declared. “Take a look at this list.”
He displayed the results of his survey on the monitor.
“Per person, we need a daily supply of 0.2 kilograms of oxygen, assuming that you can rely on a rate of eighty percent reprocessing. Besides this, you can plan on a half kilogram of dehydrated food, one kilogram of canned food, and four liters of drinkable water, of which we can recycle about 3.2 liters.”
“Those are the known NASA figures. What are you trying to say?” Mike said.
“Just a second. You seem to be ignoring the fact that the situation has drastically changed. There were only four of us, and we’d planned for two years, including unexpected emergencies. But now we have to project ahead to the end of our lives.”
“But we have plenty of time to do that.”
“You think so? It’s no longer just the four of us. We’re now providing for nineteen people.”
“We can cultivate most of our resources here.”
“To a certain extent, yes. We can get oxygen by splitting the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but we need energy to do that. And you’ve now given away one of our KRUSTYs. We also need power to produce methane as fuel and to grow the plants. The hundred kilowatts that one KRUSTY can produce isn’t really all that much.”
“You’re exaggerating, Lance. Since when have you been so skittish?”
“Since learning that we’re never going to receive new supplies again. Follow these figures. We have about 650 kilograms of oxygen in bottles. That will last about 800 days for four people. But for nineteen people, this will barely cove
r 168 days. Less than six fucking months! And this doesn’t even take into consideration the spiked usage, such as when we have to vent the Rover cabin.”
“We can extract the oxygen from the Endeavour’s drive system,” Mike assured him.
“Which will make it incapable of future flight. But I’m not done yet. Let’s get back to the food situation. We have just under five tons of food that were also supposed to last for two years. At least for four people. If we share this with the MfE people, we’ll run out completely before we hit the six-month mark.”
“They brought their own provisions along.”
“Really? We transported all their worldly goods in our Rover. That was less than a ton of stuff.”
“Some of their supplies came on the Endeavour.”
“Have you forgotten everything you learned in math? There are almost four times as many of them as there are of us. Just for themselves, they wouldn’t need five, but rather twenty tons of food for a two-year period.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Mike said glumly.
Lance looked at him. Mike looked like a little kid whose balloon had been stolen. Sarah and Sharon were simply watching.
“It’s time for the two of you to say something,” Lance declared.
“What should I say?” Sarah replied. “You’re right, Lance. But Mike is, too, somehow.”
“We can’t both be.” Lance was slowly getting angry. “Should I bother you about the water, too? Just the four of us each need 3.2 liters of fresh water a day. Not to speak of the plants. At this point, we’re only getting two liters a day from the minerals.”
“The MfE folks plan to build their settlement close to ice deposits. They could provide us with water.”
“Deposits they haven’t even found yet. And if they do, we’ll have to transport that water over a thousand kilometers.”
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