Seconders Page 5

  “Assuming they manage to build that dome. No-one’s ever attempted a building one kilometre wide, let alone four!”

  “Well for a start we have Martian gravity to help us. Plus, we have air buoyancy and nano-tube technology to help keep it up. We have a highly professional team on that dome, I don’t expect it to fail.”

  No pressure then, thought Verena with a wry smile, though she was quietly confident of her team.

  “It doesn’t matter how professional they are if Mars won’t co-operate,” countered the reporter. “There have been unconfirmed reports of flaky rock.”

  “We haven’t confirmed it because we are still investigating. The analysis so far is that it’s poorly bonded sedimentary rock, not ‘flaky’. We’re confident that we will be able to stabilise it.”

  Glad you’re confident, thought Verena. I want to go see it for myself and talk to the technicians and geologists there.

  “Hope you’re right,” said the reporter, readying himself for another swipe. “Because if they have a real problem then the Armstrong might not be back in time to help and there will be a hundred dead colonists, not five.”

  Verena flicked the news vid off. She was tired of people attacking the mission. Yes, it was dangerous, and she had never been more aware of it than when she first heard of the deaths on the first team landing, but Pieter and the others knew the risks and had gone anyway. It felt to her like the reporter and the nay-sayers were spitting on their Martian graves. She was quietly determined to prove them all wrong, though the ‘flaky’ rock worried her.

  14th June, The Aldrin, in flight – V. Meier

  Verena’s eyes were already open before the lights brightened for day-mode. She had been willing herself back to sleep but failed. She undid the straps on her vertical hammock and drifted for a few moments before a sudden urge prompted her to reach for a biodegradable bag. Verena threw up in it. She fumbled for a tissue to wipe her mouth before any droplets started to float away – being sick in space is messy – but had to abandon it and pressed the bag to her face again. Cathal appeared and put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Better out than in, so,” he offered. Verena gave him a look that she hoped would say ‘shut up’.

  “I’ll take the bag. Antonio’s team will be delighted: fresh organic waste for their precious plants! Go see the doctor,” he added.

  “Which one?” she managed. “There are about twenty on board.”

  “At least you still have a sense of humour. Go on with you, Sofia will sort you out. You’re probably still reacting to zero-G, but better safe than sorry.”

  Verena sought the sick bay on the rim of the main crew section, where the angular momentum of the spin was most apparent as a weak imitation of gravity. Doctor Philippou was almost unique in having the privacy of a room to herself, yet no one was going to argue that it wasn’t necessary. Medicine required security and patients needed privacy. Verena had no idea how much she was going to be glad of that. The petite doctor busied herself with a variety of tests which seemed increasingly unnecessary and irrelevant to Verena until she raised one dark eyebrow, peering at her patient through a narrow parting in her black hair, and asked her how she felt about being pregnant.

  “…Pregnant?”

  “Yes, you know, expecting a baby.”

  “But… I’ve been taking the pill. That cannot be possible.”

  “Exceedingly unlikely, but not impossible. You finished your course of Rifampin just after we left Earth, didn’t you.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “In a very small number of cases it can interfere with contraception. Zero G conditions have also been known to have unpredictable effects. Both are unlikely, which is why we prescribed the Rifampin to deal with the known threat of infection, but possible all the same.”

  “So, you’re saying I’m just unlucky?”

  “Only if you don’t want a baby. But we are colonists tasked with colonising a new planet and one of the selection questions asked how we felt about starting a family.”

  Verena was floored. Of course, she wanted a baby with Cathal, but not now, not until the safety of the new dome was established. Not when she had so much to do. And what would her colleagues think? “How can I?” she began.

  “Women are capable of having a baby anywhere, so long as there are men to help, or at least some sperm,” she added, lifting the one visible eyebrow.

  “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “I know, sorry. You weren’t expecting to become pregnant until after we landed on Mars and after all your important work was finished.”

  “It sounds silly when you put it like that, but yes.”

  “This is important. In fact, we have been encouraged many times to ‘go forth and multiply’. We are going to Mars to stay, to make our future there. Should you wish to have your baby, they will be a part of our new future.”

  “I know, but not yet!” While the mission controllers could not forbid it, they made it clear that having a child too early would be both dangerous and divert the mothers, and fathers, from their duties in the critical first months of colonisation. ‘Wait until you have a safe habitat and a long-term food supply established’, they had advised.

  “As far as I’m aware you are the first in any of the teams. But you don’t have to be if you don’t want to. I am prescribing you a couple of days off your duties so that you have time to think about it.”

  “But…”

  “I’m serious. This is vitally important. Take a break. Talk to Cathal. Come back and talk to me whenever you want. Actually I want to see you again in two days anyway, so I can keep an eye on you.”

  “Scheiβe!” Verena muttered under her breath as she left. How? Okay she knew how, she meant why now. Why her? She could imagine the attention that she would get, not just on board the Aldrin, but from the whole population of Earth. And what about the attention the baby would get? The first human baby born on another planet: the first true Martian. At some time in the future Verena wanted to have a child with Cathal. She understood that the child would be a Martian and they would represent part of their future on the red planet. But the very first one? Damn it, she thought the first team should have had the first baby by now, not her. The first team: Verena wondered how they would react to the news. They were struggling to survive on rations and the early experiments from their bio-pods. They were not exactly going to queue up to congratulate her, rather they would see the child as a premature burden.

  Scheiβe!

  Verena made straight for her carrel, ignoring several casual hellos, and opened the latest survey reports. The words all made recognisable sounds in her head but none of them made any sense, so she reread the first sentence again and again. She snapped at Santiago when he asked her opinion on the proposed adjustments to the dome anchors. She nearly bit Markus’s head off when he made a perfectly sensible suggestion for an updated tunnel survey. Even poor Cathal was sent away brusquely to fetch a pouch of synthetic coffee. Still the report made no sense, so Verena opened another and started flicking uselessly through that too, so she failed to notice Captain Suárez floating over to her.

  “Please would you indulge me with a little of your time, Frau Meier?”

  Verena jumped, biting her tongue to stop herself from the same curt response that she had given everyone else so far that morning. It would not do to disrespect her Captain, nor did she think he could ever deserve it.

  “I would be very grateful if you came to my office to tell me your thoughts about further surveys.”

  Verena worried that he was going to tell her off, ever so respectfully, for dumping on Markus’s suggestions earlier. “Ja, Captain, of course,” she mumbled

  “Thank you, I promise not to keep you long.”

  As Suárez shut the door, she decided to get her apologies in first. “I think I may have been a little short with Markus Eckenweber.”

  “Really? Why was that?”

  “I don’t know. He just pushes my b
uttons sometimes.”

  “I am aware that Mr Eckenweber can be a little full of his own opinions sometimes.” Verena supressed a smart remark and tried to look neutral while Suárez went on. “He can be a little arrogant. But we all of us have faults, we are only human. Markus is also possessed of a keen mind and a fierce commitment to our mission. So, I tolerate a little arrogance and I even pander to it when it suits me to get his cooperation. Generally, I turn a blind eye unless I am forced to do something about it.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I am unable to turn a blind eye when someone is acting so out of character.”

  “Who?” Verena feigned innocence to hide her guilt. Suárez took off his iSpecs and regarded Verena with his blue-grey eyes.

  “One of your greatest attributes is your empathy, Verena.” She winced inwardly. “So, when you cease to empathise with your team I start to worry. I will respect your privacy if there is some domestic issue involved, but I am here to help if appropriate. We would be superhuman if we did not let pressures upset us now and then. On a long voyage in a confined space, it is a recognised concern that we may become aggressive. Your partner knows that better than any of us. But we have been trained to deal with it. More than that, we have been selected for this mission because we represent the best of humanity: we need to be at our best for the mission.”

  Verena stared at a photograph of Mars on Eduardo’s wall for a while, trying to gather her thoughts. He waited patiently for a reply, stroking his carefully trimmed beard.

  “What do you think it will be like?” Verena asked, trying to change the subject. “Living the rest of our lives on Mars?”

  “That is what we are all committed to finding out. However, you have done more to help us all visualise that than anyone else.”

  “Three-D flythroughs and photomontages are not real life. How will we feel? Will it be home? Will we be happy? Will we look forward to the next sol?”

  “That is up to each of us.”

  “Yes, it is. But what if we can’t make that decision for ourselves?”

  Suárez followed her gaze at the photo and fell silent for a while before answering. “I suspect that you have a difficult decision to make, Verena. And I don’t think that staring at survey reports will help you. You are welcome to come and take a seat on the bridge for the rest of today. I find watching the stars very helpful when I need to reflect.”

  “Did… did Doctor Philippou talk to you?”

  “No, Sofia takes her professional confidence very seriously. I may be a man,” he smiled, “but I am not blind to people, especially when they are my responsibility. Besides, Cathal mentioned to me that you had been sick this morning and since then everyone has been saying how grumpy you are today.”

  “I… sorry.”

  Suárez smiled. “No need to apologise. Come and sit with the pilot and co-pilot for a while.”

  Eduardo led Verena to his seat on the bridge, behind Stefanie van Rhoon and Bernardo Raffellini. He pre-empted any awkward questions by telling them that Verena needed some rest, so they left her to her thoughts. Stefanie was a good enough friend of Verena to know when she needed space and she chattered easily to Bernardo about solar exposure and minimisation of nuclear motor adjustments.

  Verena had a stunning view through the bridge-shield all to herself. Countless tiny jewels sparkled from a velvet backdrop. Few of her generation had ever seen a clear night sky, let alone this. The pursuit of gas and oil had all but destroyed Earth’s benevolent climate and so they suffered endless days of rain and storms, fuelled by overheating oceans. Sunshine was a freak event quickly strangled by storm clouds; clear nights were almost unheard of. Verena wondered if humanity would learn from their mistakes. Would they grow to become careful stewards or careless wreckers of Mars? Would they be happy there? As Suárez had said, that would be up to each of them, just as it had been up to each and every human on Earth. The trouble was that grown-ups made the decisions that children were forced to inherit. She wondered if they would make wise decisions for the future of their Martian children. The children of Earth had been bitterly let down by the selfishness and short-sighted greed of the fossil fuel generations, but at least her child would not be born into a drowning world. Her child would be among the first few to make their mark upon another world and shape a new future, whatever that might be.

  Her child. Verena was already beginning to think of the foetus as a person, not a fertilized egg. Her child would be born on a planet that enjoyed the sun almost every day, albeit a paler and smaller. Her child would see the stars almost every night: the same hypnotic constellations that she was trying to name now. Cassiopeia, Orion, Gemini… Verena was no astronomer, but she didn’t need to understand something to see that it was beautiful.

  Verena lost time gazing at the dazzling clusters. When she woke again, she felt as if she were drifting back into someone else’s body and seeing the universe through their eyes. She noticed the time on the screen in front of her and realised that she had been sitting there for over six hours and it was already ‘evening’. Verena felt guilty and yet immensely privileged to have taken her seat in front of the stars.

  Leo: she recognised the constellation that she was looking at and wondered if that might be a worthy name for the first human child to be born outside Earth. Would that child be a boy?

  4

  Tharsis

  Sol 158, Pavonis Chasma – J. Wojcik

  There was always someone trying to piss you off, thought Jan, even when there was only forty-five of them around. He had pushed himself up off the inflatable mattress, shed the foil blanket and stumbled around his tiny hab compartment, trying to find enough space to shake the dust off his orange work overalls. What came off them ended up all over his bedding. Then he had made his way to the canteen module where he had been hoping to come too slowly over a bad cup of synthetic coffee, when big guy John Shanks came in, grumbling about the lift anchorage that he had just been assigned to help with.

  “Waste of our time and resources,” he moaned to everyone. “Why can’t the shitty second team use gliders, like we did?”

  “You know we need a more permanent solution, John” answered Charlie patiently, beating clouds of red dust off her own overalls. “Besides, they have sensitive equipment to bring down.”

  “Hah! The shit-heads who planned that glider landing cared more about sensitive bloody equipment than they did us first team grunts.”

  “You know full well we can’t rig the space elevator without people on the ground, and how else were we going to do that?” Jan asked. “Throw us all down in inflatable balls like the reccie-drone drops and let us bounce across Mars for half an hour or so?”

  Shanks ignored Jan’s blend of sarcasm and logic, so he could continue his rant, pounding the airlock door with his fist to emphasise his point.

  “They got us sweatin' over that anchorage just to stop a few fucking scientists and their precious instruments from getting bumped. It ain’t fair and it ain’t even worth it.”

  “Damned right!” added Sally Hunter. “Our construction droids are all busy at the elevator when we should be building our new dome.”

  “You know we have to wait until the architect has inspected the site before we do more on Eden One,” argued Charlie, reasonably.

  “The architect! What the hell do we need her here for?” grumbled Shanks, thumping the door again. “We have the design; we know what we’re doing.”

  “We’ve never built something like this before, and not on another planet,” said Charlie. “She might need to adapt the design.”

  “We’re the adaptable ones,” countered Hunter. “We adjusted our glider landings to survive, we adapted our temporary shelters, and we can certainly adapt the dome components to fit the Pavonis Chasma site.”

  “What if we adapt some part of the design we don’t understand?” asked Charlie.

  “Then we’ll cope,” said Shanks, flatly. “We’ve coped on our o
wn so far, haven’t we?”

  “What happened to team co-operation?” Jan asked.

  “You’re a fine one to talk, Wojcik,” said Hunter. “You spend all day digging with your droids and when you get back you hardly say a word.”

  “Yeah, you’re not exactly mister team-builder, are you?” added Shanks.

  “I do my part and I don’t moan about my team-mates.”

  “Yeah, leave Jan alone, guys,” added Charlie, coming to his defence.

  “You don’t have to build this shitty anchorage, Wojcik,” said Shanks, thumping his fist against the wall even harder.

  “No, I have to provide you with the raw minerals to do it, as well as the ice for water to drink and oxygen to breath and hydrogen to power the equipment. In case you haven’t noticed, we all need each other.”

  “Like I said: a shit waste of resources!”

  Jan turned his back on Shanks and carried on prepping his EVA suit. There was no arguing with some people, especially those with a chip on their shoulder like Shanks. He and Hunter were right though, Jan knew he wasn’t the talkative type. Jan enjoyed his own company and maybe that was one of the reasons he had come: plenty of space to be by himself. It wasn’t as if he disliked company, Jan reflected, it was just that he found it tiring in excess. Especially if people wanted him to make small talk or respond to Shanks’s dumb attitude.

  “Don’t pay any attention to Shanks,” said Charlie, quietly, after he had gone. “I met plenty of guys like him when I was growing up in LA: all full of shit and no time for people smarter than themselves.”

  “He must be smart enough to be here,” said Jan, cautiously.

  “Of course, but there’s always someone smarter and that can be a real chip on some people’s shoulder.”

  “Hmm. I never knew you were from Los Angeles, Charlie.”

  “You never asked,” she said with a wide grin on her round cheery face.