15
Breakthrough
“That is a remarkable and strange stratum,” said David, looking over Will’s shoulder at the television image from Gangis Chasma. A Prospector telerobotically operated vehicle was sitting as close to the talus pile at the base of the cliff as it could get, a mere fifty meters from the spot where they had deployed it yesterday. Its two cameras were trained upward at the cliffs, which exposed two thousand meters of lake deposits. It was zoomed in on a blackish layer pat way up.
“It sure looks like carbonaceous shale,” exclaimed Will. “It seems to be about ten meters thick, too. That’s a lot of carbonaceous shale.”
“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions too fast. The low albedo—it is pretty black—could be explained by magnetite or some other unrusted iron mineral. Carbon would imply life, after all.”
“Not necessarily. Maybe inorganic process or organic but non-biotic processes could fix carbon in the clays.”
“We don’t even know whether it’s clay, though.”
“No, we don’t. I think we should send the Sunwing back with a laser. A few zaps, and we’d know.”
David considered, then nodded. “That’s be pretty easy to do. It’d take a day to get there and a day back. While the Sunwing’s there, it could take detailed photos of the talus as well, and using them we could see whether any black rocks are within reach of the rover.”
“A shame it can’t climb rocks.”
“Well, all this automation and our robotic explorers still can’t accomplish simple walking tasks that six-legged insects can do. Maybe another decade. Meanwhile, we humans are still needed to run things.”
“And we can be grateful for that.” Will looked at the images. He magnified the stereoscopic images to their maximum again. The black layer, about two hundred meters up the cliff, was simply too far from the cameras to resolve in detail. “The Sunwing’s cameras can get a lot closer, too.”
“Yes, there will be much more to see. The photographs I took of the Gangis South Escarpment the other day still have the guys in mission control in ecstasy. We need to photograph this entire pile of sediments in great detail, centimeter by centimeter. We’re talking about a two-kilometer pile of lake sediments, after all; it’s an incredible opportunity.”
“It’s a high priority for a visit.”
“Definitely for Columbus 2. They wanted to put the outpost there, but the canyon was too deep and narrow for automated cargo landers and the floor was too rough.”
“It’s a thousand-kilometer drive,” said Will, his voice drifting off. But Columbus 1 wouldn’t be going there; it was too far, and they were too busy.
He moved the rover along the edge of the talus pile, stopping to look at rocks in great detail, placing an alpha backscattering instrument against the surface of a rock to see what its chemical composition was, zooming in so that crystals as small as one millimeter in diameter were clearly visible, activating an infrared light, then an ultraviolet light to capture an image of the rock in those wavelengths so that the crystal compositions could be determined. Much of the actual analysis would be done on Earth; the outpost’s computers did quick, crude analysis for him so he knew more or less what he was looking at. That enabled him to make informed decisions and move on to another rock quickly. He could move the rover five hundred meters a day, five to ten times as much as a trained driver on Earth, and make a far more thorough examination as well. It was almost as good as being there in a pressure suit.
The intercom beeped. “Attention all staff,” said Laura. “I want everyone to assemble in the Great Room immediately. Thank you.”
“Immediately?” said David. “What does that mean? Sergei and Ethel are outside; it’ll take them at least fifteen minutes to get inside.”
“I know. Well, let’s go find out.” Will turned to the controls and switched the rover to automated operation; in that mode it would examine rocks itself, running through a pre-programmed examination sequence, then use its software to select another rock, roll to it, and repeated the procedure.
They rose and headed for the Great Room. Laura was waiting. “You guys can come back when everyone else arrives. I just told Shinji that, too.”
“Oh, okay,” said Will. Uncertain what to do, he and David headed to Greenhouse 1. There they could admire the greenery while watching for Ethel and Sergei.
Much of the greenhouse was now growing, in spite of its poor soil. Shinji had had quite a collection of seeds of plants able to grow in very sterile soil, and some had done reasonably well in Martian clay; others had failed to thrive because of the salinity, or the low nitrogen or phosphorous, or some other factor. Each square was labeled and a camera mounted in the ceiling allowed close-ups to be sent back to Earth continually, allowing the team of twenty biologists to monitor the experiments. A few squares were positively lush; Shinji had explained to David that those squares had received sewage sludge and ground up plant matter. Gradually they were learning what grew well under Martian conditions, and what did not. But no square was growing vegetables yet; they were still relying on the plant growing cabinets for them.
“This must be a pretty important development,” said David. “Laura hasn’t called a staff meeting in two weeks.”
“Not since she and Sergei broke up,” agreed Will. “This is important enough to override that.”
“Important enough for her to function as Commander again! For the last two weeks, the four of us have been setting the priorities together, then she and Sergei have plugged in, but in such a way that they don’t have to work together. It’s been very strange.”
“It has been. If I were in Mission Control, I would not be pleased by the situation.”
“It’s what they get for having an affair in a small place and with only a few others around,” said David. “At least the other four of us have been knit together more tightly.”
“Yes; it’s ironic!” agreed Will.
David pointed. “Here comes Ethel and Sergei.” Through the transparent plastic they could see the other two members of the team approaching the outpost. They waved; Sergei and Ethel waved back. They walked over to the airlock to greet the others when they entered the outpost.
A few minutes later the airlock opened and Sergei and Ethel entered.
“What’s this all about?” asked Ethel.
“We don’t know either,” replied Will. “It must be important.”
“It better be; we’ve just about got Sunwing 2 set up and ready for its maiden flight!” exclaimed Sergei, angry.
The four of them headed inside Habitat 1. Shinji, hearing them enter, came out of his room. Laura was waiting for them in the great room.
“I just got this from Earth,” she exclaimed. Then she pushed a button and a text appeared on the main screen. The title was “Why NASA Can’t Get Anything Right” and as they all read, they quickly saw that it was an attack on the Mars exploration program.
“Ouch!” exclaimed David. “‘NASA is chronically unable to screen a crew psychologically, with the result that we see a dysfunctional team trying to explore Mars.’”
“It gets worse,” replied Laura.
“‘A team riven by personal jealousies and punctuated by soured love affairs’; this person had access to some misunderstood insider information,” noted Will.
“Except he says you and I have been sleeping together!” exclaimed Ethel to Will, outraged.
“He does; oh, yeah,” said Will, reading further down.
“Y’all should have slept together after all,” commented Laura, wryly. “The article implies I’ve been sleeping with more than one man, too, and that I dislike everyone now.”
David wasn’t going to comment on that. He kept on reading. Laura asked if everyone was ready for page 2; she switched to the second page.
“And the conclusion to all this is what; stick to robots!” exclaimed Ethel, shocked when she got to the punch line.
“The idiots; in a sense we are,” replied Will. “In another few weeks we’ll have six automated rovers scattered across the Martian surface, and all of them can run about ten times faster when someone on Mars is running them than a team running them from Earth. We’ll be sending something like a hundred times more data than a single machine controlled from Earth.”
“Not to mention the excitement of people on Mars,” added Ethel. “Has the writer no appreciation of the importance of that?”
“Oh, certainly not!” replied Laura. “Psychological motivations, as far as this author is concerned, are all wrong.”
“Where did this appear?” asked Will.
“The Washington Post.”
“Wow,” said Will, surprised.
“This author has access to a lot of insider information,” said Shinji. “It looks to me that this is a response to our campaign of media interviews to strengthen Columbus 2.”
“An insider reaction,” said Will, nodded. “Yes, that makes sense.”
“I agree,” said Laura. “This is retaliation. The author is one of the Post’s regular space correspondents, though he has been a critic of NASA most of the time. Someone is playing hardball with us.”
“So what do we do?” asked David. “We can deny some of this, but some of this may be a bit hard to deny!”
“And lying may not work; we have no idea what audio tapes or videotapes the critics might have,” said Shinji.
“I hate to suggest this, but maybe we should try to get this team back to normal,” suggested Will. “The best response probably is to clean up our act.”
“How will we do that?” asked Laura, sensitive to the implied criticism.
“Let’s get back to regular planning meetings,” said Ethel. “More mealtimes when we’re having fun together. And we could meet with some psychologists by video.”
“How would that work?” asked Sergei, scowling.
“Not well,” replied Laura. “Interplanetary meetings are torture because of the time delays. Trust me; I have to sit in on lots of them.”
“I think we should give it a try,” replied Ethel. “Look, this report makes Mission Control look bad, too. They’re going to have to do something.”
“That’s true, they’ll be under pressure to act,” agreed Shinji.
“I wonder whether this could result in the cancellation of Columbus 2.”
“It’ll make a skeleton crew a lot more likely,” growled Laura. “We’re going to land on Mars, then abandon it, just like with Apollo.”
“Let’s not jump to hasty conclusions,” replied Will. “The manned exploration of Mars now has a lot of political and economic momentum.”
“But this doesn’t help the momentum!” said David.
“No,” agreed Will.
“Let’s face it; we are not a very good team,” said Ethel, looking at the others. “We’ve had our tensions. We’ve been together ten months, four on Mars. We really have not gelled very well as a team. Maybe we can do something about it.”
“Like what?” asked Laura.
“Let’s talk through some of the troubles. Maybe we can let go of some of them; they happened a long time ago. Shinji and I both have some psychological training.”
“And some of this is common sense.” added Will. “We need to work through things. Some of it can be resolved one on one, or with one other person to serve as a kind of arbitrator. This article is a wakeup call; we have to do something.”
Laura looked at Sergei. She seemed terrified that their relationship would be discussed. “I don’t know. This is getting pretty complicated.”
“Well, if neither the Commander nor the Assistant Commander can do this, they are not fit to command,” replied Shinji. “And I’m the mission physician; I can certify them unfit to command. The fact is, over the last two weeks, neither of you have been commanding. The four of us have been meeting every morning and dividing up the tasks, and the two of you have then plugged into that effort in such a way as to minimize your contact with each other. This is a ridiculous way to run Columbus 1.”
“The mission physician does not have the authority to declare someone else Commander,” said Laura, pointedly. “That’s the responsibility of Mission Control.”
“Maybe the Mission Physician should call Mission Control and express his opinion, then,” replied Shinji.
“You wouldn’t dare!” Laura was mad.
Shinji shrugged. “Try me.”
“I’ll assign you kitchen duty for the rest of the mission!”
“You can’t,” replied Will. “Because no one else can do the tasks Shinji does.”
“Besides, you haven’t been assigning anyone tasks, lately,” exclaimed Ethel. “And if you start assigning tasks arbitrarily, Mission Control would relieve you of command.”
Laura said nothing; she knew Ethel was right. “Well, maybe I should resign as Commander, then.”
“I think that’s too drastic,” replied Will. “Remember the conversation we had at the Escarpment, when I talked about all your leadership qualities? I meant every word of that. You can lead, Laura.”
“Then I guess it gets down to courage,” said Laura. She looked at Sergei. “Maybe you and I need to talk about a few things.”
He nodded.
“Maybe all six of us need to talk, too,” suggested David. “Not now; I think we need to think. Can I suggest that Ethel coordinate that discussion? She seems really good.”
Laura looked around. “Okay, let’s do that this evening. I’d better call Mission Control, too. I suggest we take the rest of the afternoon off. We’ve got other things to work on.”
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Mission Control couldn’t be ready for a big meeting by the evening; they wanted two psychiatrists to sit in by video. The crew agreed to postpone their meeting to the next morning. Meanwhile, Laura and Sergei talked for several hours. Afterward, they were in the position to sit near each other comfortably.
The next morning the psychiatrists were ready, so the crew sat in the Great Room and Ethel coordinated the discussion. They were uneasy; they could not be sure who might see the video, either live or as a tape later. Mission Control assured them that the signal was going to one room where the psychiatrists and the two Cap Coms—Heather Kimball and Jerry McCord—sat to watch and comment.
“My impression is that over the last eighteen hours, we’ve already made progress,” said Ethel. “Maybe we should start by letting people speak their mind, if they have anything to say.” She knew Laura did. Sure enough, Commander Laura Stillwell raised her hand. Ethel nodded.
“Well, I’m not sure what I want to say. It isn’t easy to speak at all, frankly. I’ve felt like I was in a pretty difficult position. I suppose I can’t blame anyone but myself; maybe it’s all in my head. But as you know, NASA was under a lot of pressure to send a woman as well as a man, and Will, everyone says, was a natural to be sent because of his incredible geological talent. So I’ve always felt like I was second choice. And as Commander, and a woman, I’ve felt tremendous pressure. It’s been very difficult.” She shook her head, then looked away in order to hide the tears.
Everyone looked at her with great sympathy. “Laura, the decision to choose me as the American man to fly has nothing to do with their decision to choose you as the American woman to fly. You’re clearly an immensely talented woman.”
“Yes, but if NASA could have chosen two men, someone else would have flown and been Commander, not me.”
“You don’t know that,” said Ethel.
“Besides, you’re Commander now,” added Sergei. “Never mind speculating about what might have been.”
“It’s easy for you to say that,” replied Laura.
“This is something to let go of, I think,” added Shinji. “Or maybe it’s something Mission Control should apologize for. We’ve got thirteen and a half months left here on Mars. You’ve got plenty of time left to be our Commander.”
“You are our Commander, and no one has said they think that should change,” exclaimed Will.
“Shinji suggested that a change might be necessary.”
“If you continued to let things drift; but it appears that you aren’t,” replied Shinji.
“Let me ask a question,” said Ethel. “Will, David, and I get along quite well. We get along well with Shinji, too, though socially we haven’t been as close. We get along with Sergei as well. I haven’t talked to Will or David, but I can say, speaking for myself, that I don’t want us to be a little clique inside this team. So, what can all of us do to prevent the formation of a clique?”
“Keep including everyone,” said Sergei. “You and Will have made real efforts to pull us together as a team, with the dinners and the movies. I’ve really appreciated it.”
“And I think it’ll work better, now,” added Laura.
“We’ve all gone through a common traumatic experience,” agreed Shinji.
“I would hope that Sergei and David would feel comfortable moving back to Habitat 1,” said Will. “It makes the place a bit crowded, but I think there’s a wisdom to all six of us sleeping in the same area. It’s part of the team building.”
“We’ll move back,” agreed Sergei. “I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
“David?” asked Ethel.
“Yes, I agree with Sergei. I moved when he moved because I thought that otherwise it would look like he had abandoned us or that we had abandoned him.”
“What do you think we have to do to build a stronger team?”
“I agree that we all need to be in one place. And I agree that the team spirit that some of us have—I wouldn’t call us a clique—needs to spread out to everyone. And I don’t know why it can’t spread out, if all of us try to do it.”
“What’s been the problem, up to now?”
David looked at Ethel, alarmed. “Well, Laura has been quite eloquent about her difficulties, and I’m very appreciative of that. She and I haven’t gotten along so well, sometimes. I’ve tried and it hasn’t always worked. Laura has tried, too. Maybe now we can close the gap.”
“I think that’s important,” agreed Laura.
There was a silence. The videophone light was on; the psychiatrists at the other end had asked a question, probably back at the very beginning of the discussion. Ethel reached over and pushed the play button.
“So far, we’re very impressed by your open communication,” said one doctor. “But we hope that the question of the various romantic relationships can be discussed. How have all of you felt the relationships have interfered with the creation of a team? What can be done?”
Laura and Sergei looked at each other awkwardly. “There isn’t much to say,” said Laura. “Sergei and I have had a romantic relationship from shortly after we left Earth. It has occasionally distorted our judgment, I think; the time the two of us went to the Olympus overnight was probably the worst example.”
“It was a difficult time for us,” said Sergei. “My wife had just divorced me because I was going to Mars and Laura felt enormous pressure as Commander. The relationship really helped both of us. But it’s over now. Isn’t it?”
Laura looked at him and nodded. “But we’re adults, and we can deal with it professionally.”
“Let me know whether I can help; I have professional training, remember,” said Shinji. “Ethel and Will, you need to answer the question as well.”
“I’m not sure we have a relationship,” said Will. “After all, Ethel and I have not had a romantic connection. One reason we haven’t is because we felt what Laura and Sergei was doing was unprofessional. I suppose that means we felt excessively righteous, and I apologize if that has come across.”
“I think it has,” said Sergei.
“How would you characterize the relationship the two of you have?” asked Shinji.
“Well. . . I really like Ethel, deeply admire her character, and would like to get to know her better.”
“I’ll say this,” exclaimed Ethel, looking at Will. “I think I love you, Will. And I suppose that has shaped the dynamic of the six of us; if it has been a problem, I apologize. It was the main reason I pushed to organize the birthday party for Will, and arranged for the two of us to do meals together.”
Will looked back at her, startled. The others didn’t looked startled; they knew.
“I appreciate your honesty,” said Shinji. “Because it isn’t easy. You’ve made yourself vulnerable.”
“I suppose I have,” she replied.
“And I think it has been a tension among the six of us,” added David. “I’ve felt a sort of competition for Will’s attention. We’re really old friends, after all.”
“In a way, that’s been a tension as well,” said Laura. “Because I’ve always known that if either you or Will suggested a geology effort, there was a very high likelihood the other one would agree immediately. I’ve always felt it was two to one, whenever I’ve had to deal with you guys.”
“I think this shows the limitation of this line of discussion,” said Sergei. “Because we will never all like each other equally. It’s impossible. I’ll always have a warm spot in my heart for Laura. Will will always have a warm spot in his heart for Ethel and for David. But that’s alright. We have to accept that.”
“I agree,” said Shinji. “Our goal cannot be to make us all equally friendly. We’ll always have stronger or weaker ties. I am not very close to any of you, and I feel sad about that, but there are cultural and personality differences. The old doctor, clearly, fit into the team better, and I’ve always felt like I was trying to fill someone else’s shoes.”
“I agree, some differences like this are inevitable,” said Ethel. “But when the differences cause friction, we have to talk them through. That’s what we haven’t been doing. Thank God we’re doing it now.”
“Maybe we need to get together and let our hair down every month or two,” agreed Laura. “It was hard for me to get to the point where I could do this, but now I’m glad we did it. We’ll all be a lot more comfortable together.”
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They ended up talking all morning and half the afternoon. The psychiatrists were sometimes helpful by asking questions that kept the discussion focused on specifics; but they were unable to ask the questions at the right time, and sometimes the specific question disrupted the trend of the discussion among the six of them. The time delay meant that everyone had to be patient.
It was 2 p.m. when they finished lunch and their discussion. Will and David headed to the GeoBio Lab to resume control over the Prospector in Gangis. Since they had stopped working twenty-four hours earlier, terrestrial geologists had managed to move it twenty meters.
“I’m glad to be back to work,” said David. “This intimate chat stuff is hard on me.”
“It was hard on all of us, especially Laura. She had more to fess up to.”
“Note that she still hasn’t apologized to me.”
“No, but I think that’s all water under the bridge, now.”
“I hope so; I am planning to try to relate to her better. It’s hard; our personalities are not well suited. And it sounds like you and Ethel have to talk more, together.”
“Yes, but I’ve got to think about what she said, first. I’m still surprised.”
“The two of you relate to each other very well, I think.”
“I think so, too. Hey, I could fall in love with her. But she and I have to talk, some time. And now we have to open the communications line to the folks on Earth, so let’s switch topics.”
Okay.”
Will pushed some buttons and opened the communications line to Earth; a two-way audio and a simple, ten frames per second video connection, sufficient to see expressions. “Where’s the Sunwing?”
David checked the console. “About a hundred kilometers east of here. Sergei’s scheduled to land it here in three hours, then Ethel goes out and installs the laser. With any luck, that’ll be done before sunset and the Sunwing can start back to Gangis.”
“Good. I wonder whether we can get at this black rock here?”
David looked at the aerial photo taken by the Sunwing. “Doubtful, but give it a try.”
“I will.” Will turned to the Prospector’s controls. At least the last twenty-four hours of diminished activity had recharged the electrical system. He got himself oriented; the black rock was sitting on the edge of the talus slope about fifteen meters away, but not yet visible because another rock blocked the view. Will moved the Prospector along the edge of the debris pile, occasionally steering around rocks that had fallen all the way down onto the rough ground. Finally he spotted it. “I don’t know,” he said doubtfully.
“It’s too far up slope, I think,” said David.
Will rolled toward it, stopping just two meters away at the base of the slope of rocks and boulders. He looked for a way up, but there were too many loose rocks and obstacles.
He maneuvered a bit closer, bumping the front of the Prospector against a rock. He zoomed the two stereoscopic cameras close. “God, even this close and there’s nothing to see!”
“It looks like a fine shale. It must be a quiet water deposit. It reinforces the theory that Gangis was once filled with a lake.”
“One with quiet water, alternating with alluvial fans and maybe debris flows off the escarpment,” said Will, nodding. “This layercake of strata, I see, has five blackish layers, not three like we thought yesterday.”
David looked at another screen; the terrestrial team had prepared a preliminary map based on the Sunwing’s horizontal photos taken three days ago. He nodded. “You might be able to reach the rock with the arms.”
“I was thinking of that.” Will stretched out the left-hand arm; it was slightly closer to the black rock than the right side. But it fell short by several centimeters. “So close, and yet so far.”
“I wish we were there instead of a Prospector.” David projected a false-color image of the area onto a screen near him. It had been set to emphasize compositional differences between the rocks, based on their ultraviolet reflectivity. “It looks like the next rock on the edge of the slope is at least a hundred meters away; I don’t see any in this frame, do you?”
“No. We should probably concentrate on the other sedimentary rocks, then, and see what we can see.”
David frowned, then pointed to a small rock about twenty-five meters from the talus slope. “Look at this. It seems to have the same spectral response as the other black rocks.”
“But where did it come from? It couldn’t have rolled down the slope.”
“No; it’s float. But at least it’s a sample.”
“Well, yes, maybe it’s a good start.” Will looked at the image closely, popped up the GPS coordinates for the rock, then turned the Prospector around and headed around a few rocks on the bumpy ground to move toward the small sliver of black material. It was only twenty centimeters long and half that wide, and might be partially buried. The Prospector’s cameras were about as far above the ground as the head of a man, so that helped orient them to the scene; but a Prospector could roll only about a kilometer per hour—a fifth walking speed—so it was slow to maneuver. A twenty-five meter roll, also, used up a significant amount of power, and since they were rolling northeast, partially toward the sun, the Prospector’s solar panels were not well exposed.
It took a few minutes to cover the distance, slowly, threading around rocks as they went. Several rocks they passed appeared worth a return visit, also. Finally they spotted it. Will rolled the Prospector right up to the rock and lowered the rock examination unit until it touched the surface. “Very nice,” he said. He activated an alpha backscattering instrument to measure its composition and a microscopic camera to peer at it closely.
“Black flakes; it sure looks like unconsolidated carbonaceous shale to me,” said David.
Will nodded. He zoomed closer. A few scattered grains began to become visible; they appeared to be sand grains mixed in with the ancient mud. That was to be expected. He zoomed in even closer; the camera was able to reveal objects as small as a fortieth of a millimeter across, or about a thousandth of an inch. Unfortunately, at that magnification it had very little depth of field; most objects were out of focus. But as they moved the minutely focus around the rock, it would autofocus constantly, so that a small area in the middle was always sharp.
At full magnification they could see some of the larger clay particles; the rock surely was a clay of some sort. But there were also blackish flecks that presumably were carbon particles; they gave the sample its dark color. And when Will zoomed in on one of them at maximum magnification, it looked like a puckered ball. “What the heck is that?” he said. A chill ran down his spine and he looked at David. Shocked, David looked back at him.
“Find another one.”
Will nodded and moved the focus toward another dark blob. It popped into focus as well. It was squashed between two clay grains like a flattened football. It had some broken plates on the outside. “My God,” Will said. “That could be a dried up, partially fossilized cell membrane.”
David nodded. “Let’s not forget that there could be nonbiological explanations,” he said, calmly.
They wandered around the rock another twentieth of a millimeter and focused on a third dark fleck. It appeared to be better preserved; it was a sphere with vague geometric patterns on the outside, like it was a tiny geodesic dome. “Amazing,” said Will.
A light began to flash on David’s console. The alpha backscatterer was finished with its analysis. David pushed a button and pulled up the data. “Look! This rock is eight percent carbon and 0.25 percent nitrogen!”
“What?” Will looked at the screen. The figures were unmistakable. The oxygen figure—about fifty percent of the atoms—said nothing, since clays always had plenty of oxides in them. The hydrogen figure was also of little use because the clays were hydrated, but it was notable anyway; three percent. But eight percent carbon!
“I think we had better call Laura and the others,” said Will. “This is a historic moment.”