12
Emergency
Will used a small hammer to pound a nail into the wall of the Geology Storage Facility. It went in quite easily; the duricrete had a hardness more than plaster of Paris, but less than concrete. He stopped when a centimeter still protruded. He unscrewed the top of a plastic jar and reached inside with his gloved hand to pull out a brush covered with a transparent, glue-like substance. He painted it around the base of nail very carefully to seal the hole he had made in the plastic sealant coat covering the wall. He watched it carefully a moment; he could see no evidence of a gas leak around the nail. He let the sealant set a moment, then hung a 2024 calendar on the nail. It was printed on the same electronic paper as the 2023 calendar had been; he had put the latter into their electronic paper printer to reset the pixels embedded in the paper.
It hung over his “desk,” a dark green plastic table with drawers in the sides next to his feet. He wondered when he’d be able to sit at it without a partial pressure suit. So far the facility had been pressurized two weeks, but only with Martian air. The first few days they spotted quite a few minor leaks—mostly cracks in the duricrete—and sealed them. Lately, air leakage had been very little; the duricrete walls were surrounded by a frozen shell of regolith three meters thick, after all. The one big disadvantage of the facility was its complete lack of windows, a disadvantage reinforced by its ugly orange-brown walls. But Ethel was promising paint in another month, a paint with plastic sealant in it to strengthen and thicken the sealant they had already applied. They also planned to manufacture a linoleum-like tile to adhere to the duricrete floor.
Will glanced at the shelves filling half the storage facility. He had spent much of yestersol and that morning finishing the job of transferring samples from the basement of the three habitats, where they had been scattered across the floors in numerical order. Now parts of the basements could be converted into rooms to make sure they had space for the additional people. The storage facility was a very convenient arrangement; it had already saved them time finding samples for analysis.
And now that the building was finished, he was leaving it; the next exploratory mission began the next day. He walked around the facility one more time, admiring all the work they had done. It had been very difficult to build. Then he headed outside.
He was about to go inside the outpost when he saw motion out of the corner of his eye. Madhu was working on her art. Will headed over to see her work instead.
“What do you think?” she said as he approached.
He stopped to admire the giant image of a thunderbird, as she called it, a mythical creature that looked part American Indian and part India Indian, reflecting her two citizenships. She was placing pieces of red sandstone to make the stylized feathers; the black parts of the wing had already been made using fresh basalt, yellow parts with yellow sandstone, white parts with salt. Green copper ore and brown shale had been used to make an olive branch in his talons.
“Madhu, it’s really beautiful. I had no idea you had such a talent!”
“I’ve never had a chance to do this before, either. It’s a lot of fun.”
“I bet. I’m glad we’ve got some art here, also.”
“It’s very important. I have a plan for the entire slope up here, with a sculpture garden and more mosaics.”
“What about between the greenhouses?”
“I’m working on it; I need a design first. People can’t walk between the greenhouses; it’s off limits. But here they can stroll and look.”
“Interesting. This sounds like a long-term plan!”
“I guess it is. We’re staying at least two more years, after all.”
“Ten years from now, they’ll have to declare this a public park.”
“Well, I don’t think we’ll grow that fast! But I do wonder what this place will look like, a century from now.” She stopped and looked northward over the rolling, stony plain to the escarpment twelve kilometers away.
“I guess we’ll be sitting in our retirement homes and see some of it on television. Are you going inside?”
“Sure; I guess it’s just about time for supper.” She grabbed some tools and came down the slope to him, and they both walked to the nearest airlock. It was easiest going inside in pairs; it helped to have someone take one’s life support unit off one’s back. Ten minutes later they walked into Habitat 3’s Great Room.
“I’m still not convinced we have to change it,” said Ethel, shaking her head. She was sitting at the table with Sebastian; they were pouring over a computer screen covered with readouts.
“We can always test it,” said Sebastian. “But when in doubt, I’d change it. Shuttle pumps are too important; you can’t afford a failure.”
“You’re an expert at changing these things, too,” said Ethel. “My experience with pumps is general.”
“I’ve changed one on the moon. It was a Lifter, but the Lifters’ pumps and engines are just a small version of the Mars shuttles’. I’ll show you how to do it; a useful skill, since I’m leaving.”
“True.”
Will approached them. They looked up. “I guess it’s suppertime,” said Sebastian, surprised.
“You’re changing a fuel pump?” he asked.
Sebastian nodded. “In the Hadriaca. The readouts indicate there’s an electrical irregularity.”
“Didn’t I hear a faint alarm bell, an hour ago?” Alarm bells were broadcast over a common radio channel and often were picked up by people in pressure suits, if they were close to the Outpost.
Sebastian nodded. “Slow pressure loss in Greenhouse 3. Paul’s inspecting the outside for the leak right now.” Air leaks tended to leave a frost deposit around them, so were relatively easy to spot.
“Oh, there’s a bit of news,” Ethel said. “India has declared a desire to fill the fourteenth slot in Columbus 3’s crew. So they now have a full complement.”
“Amazing! So, this place really will have twenty-two people, next year.”
“It’s going to be crowded!” said Sebastian. “Even I’m beginning to wish I could stay. Maybe I’ll apply to come back when my boys are in university.”
“It is going to be crowded,” agreed Ethel. “And after almost three years, I’m beginning to miss forests, swimming pools, beauty parlors, and a few other things.”
Will nodded. “Coca-Cola and pizza. That’s what I miss that I never expected to miss. Skiing, too. I almost was tempted to try skiing when we were up near the North Pole, but I knew it wouldn’t work.”
“I miss my wife and boys,” said Sebastian. “Roger misses golf and plans to import a set of clubs on Columbus 3. The big problem here is the confined spaces. You have to go outside almost every day to avoid cabin fever. But there’s always exploring. Is the expedition ready to go?”
Will nodded. “We packed this afternoon; everything’s in the vehicles except us and our personal belongings. We’ll be ready to roll after breakfast. Houston sent a revised route map this sol that extends all the way to Nirgal Vallis. Sunwing 2 is still photographing the area so that the route can be extended and supplemented.”
“I wish you were rotating back to the Outpost,” said Ethel.
“Even if there’s no duststorm, we’ll be back in less than three months,” replied Will. “We aren’t going any farther than Argyre.”
“The Sunwings don’t do as well at the altitude of the highlands,” noted Sebastian. “They can carry only one passenger at a time, or no more than 200 kilos of cargo. Rescues will have to rely on a Mars Shuttle. We may want to use automated rovers to deliver supplies, too; they’re less affected by the weather.”
“I love the idea of your reaching Argyre, especially if you bring back the broken Prospector there,” said Ethel. “But three months is a long time, Will.”
“I know, dear. But it’s still less time than a tour of duty at ISS or Shackleton, and the dust storm season may make it shorter, anyway.”
-----------------------
The next day Will, Shinji, Érico, Carmen, Roger, and Paul set out in pairs in the two rangers and the conestoga, respectively, heading south across Aurorae Chaos. The first day they followed an existing route they had cleared about a year earlier across the wide, flat valley and into the broken, chaotic southern borderlands of Aurorae. The next two weeks were the hardest ones they had ever experienced because the ground was so rough and difficult to cross. The bulldozer blades, already battered and repeatedly repaired, were badly damaged and required frequent welding to keep them working. One kilometer-long stretch of boulders took a day to pass through; Sunwings could identify individual rocks down to five centimeters in diameter, but had no way of knowing which rocks were bedrock or frozen in place and which were loose enough to push easily. That stretch had a lot of rough rock that simply could not be cleared, a serious obstacle for automated vehicles. Astronauts at the Outpost would have to take over and drive the unmanned vehicles through several spots in the chaotic terrain.
The biggest challenge was getting out of the chaos and up onto the highland terrain. Three days of pushing rocks by conestoga and by hand, swinging a pick, and ultimately setting a few explosive charges, proved necessary to clear a roadbed up a low cliff. But at the end they were on the rolling central highlands of Mars, ground formed over four billion years ago and battered into a bumpy mass of overlapping craters and sequential ejecta blankets, then eroded by snow, rain, wind, floods, and more meteors.
They spent three days exploring runoff arroyos formed by snowmelt just a few hundred thousand years earlier when Mars had had a steeper axial tilt, warmer poles, and a wetter climate. They found evaporite deposits and occasionally shale strata with microfossils. They hiked to the bottoms of craters to study the exposed layers in the crater walls and sample buried environments. They spent a week crossing Holton Crater, a huge ancient lakebed, and studied the sandy terraces left by waves pounding an ancient beach. They stopped one day a week to rest a bit and repair broken equipment; there were constant maintenance problems with all machines, especially the two rangers, which were now older and in need of more care.
By mid February they reached the mouth of Nirgal Vallis, as hoped. It was the beginning of the dust storm season, but no storms were threatening them yet. They stopped to set up the solar power unit and clear a Sunwing landing circle, which took two days. Two Sunwings landed in close succession, bringing them water, fresh food, and spare parts, then departed with samples. Monika was anxious to get started with her study of the fossiliferous rocks.
They explored up Nirgal Vallis for a hundred kilometers or so, studying fresh gullying on the pole-facing slope—some of which still had buried residual snow from the last Martian high-tilt epoch—and identifying deposits that could help them date successive floods that had coursed down the canyon, which had cliffs up to a kilometer high and which was up to ten kilometers wide. Since there was no way to pass over the cliffs, they returned to Nirgal Station, then retraced their route northward for a dozen kilometers to investigate some low areas that had received sediment from Nirgal; it, too, would help them reconstruct the history of the feature. Then they returned to Nirgal Station to refuel; the solar power unit had made a fair amount of methane and oxygen fuel, and an automated rover drove up Route 2 from the Outpost with a tonne of additional fuel and 500 kilos of solar panels. They now had enough to push on to Argyre Planitia and, with modest refueling by automated rover, return to Nirgal Station.
The six of them had a big dinner that night, as was the custom when they were about to leave a station. Will called Ethel, as he did every night, then a bit before eleven he and Shinji headed to the portahab and turned out the lights to sleep.
At 4:15 a.m. the portahab’s interior lights suddenly came on and the alarm began to blare loudly.
“What the hell?” said Will, bolting upright from a sound sleep.
“Depressurization alarm!” said Shinji. “Head for the conestoga!”
“Right!” Will jumped out of bed and nearly collided with Shinji, who was sleeping in the bunk under his. They were both in their underwear, but there was no time to dress. Will could feel pain in his eardrums; the pressure inside the portahab was definitely dropping, even though the computer would have activated an emergency cabin flood with life-saving oxygen. Without oxygen, one had about fifteen seconds of useful consciousness.
They tumbled into the tunnel in the back of the portahab and pulled the hatch shut. The air pressure in the tunnel stabilized immediately; they had not jumped into the source of the leak, fortunately. Shinji opened the other hatch and they entered the conestoga.
Almost simultaneously, Roger and Érico had jumped out of their beds and reached the airlock door. “You guys alright?” asked Roger.
“Just shaken,” replied Will. “Do you have something we can put on?”
“Sure,” said Roger. He led them into the cabin and opened a cothes locker. Paul was already sitting in the cab in his underwear, checking out the portahab remotely.
“I saw you guys got out right away; thank God,” he said. “I’ve turned off the oxygen flood. Interior pressure has already halved.”
“A seal must have suddenly given way,” said Will. “I’m surprised it went at night, and not when we were bouncing around and bulldozing.”
“It’s about minimum temperature outside right now,” replied Paul. “That might have been a factor.”
The videophone light began to beep; it was an urgent call from the Outpost. Sebastian would have been wakened automatically by the computers. Roger reached over and pushed the activate button. “We’re here, Sebastian. We’ve had a catastrophic air leak in the portahab, but Will and Shinji got out just fine.”
“Is the situation under control?”
“No; the portahab’s still losing air, and pretty soon the water inside is going to start boiling.”
“I’m overriding the life support controls to pump in carbon dioxide from outside,” noted Paul.
“Look, first step is to suit up and go inside,” said Will. “We need to secure the inside so that it can be depressurized, then get clothing and pressure suits for Shinji and me. Then we have to find the leak and seal it up.”
Roger looked at him. “That could take a while.”
“Yes, it could. But we can’t abandon the portahab. This should be fixable.”
“Should we scramble a shuttle?” called Sebastian.
“Negative,” replied Will. “It’s just an air leak. There are no injuries.”
“You should be checked out by Shinji.”
“Sebastian, there’s nothing to check out,” replied Shinji. “We got out when there was still plenty of air.”
“We’ve got to fix the leak,” repeated Will. “That’s one hour of work, maybe a day of looking if we can’t find the leak.”
“And then what?” asked Shinji.
“Push on southward,” replied Will. “We’ll have trouble sleeping for a few days, no doubt. But if the leak is fixable in a reliable fashion, there’s no reason for it to stop us.”
The others stared at him, digesting the situation. “Look, this isn’t our first accident. All of us have fallen over on EVAs. Paul fell two meters off a rock outcrop in Chryse. Two years ago I even cracked a helmet when a sample shattered under the blows of Laura’s rock hammer. All the vehicles have had problems, with carbon dioxide scrubbers, frozen waste tanks, failed motor brushes, or bad bearings. We’ve had problems with the systems on suits partially failing as well. This is a dangerous job. That’s why we train. We’ll work our way through this one, too.”
“Yes, he’s right,” said Roger, reluctantly. “Let’s at least pretend to try to go back to sleep.”
“I agree,” said Will. He looked down at his right hand and noticed for the first time that it was shaking. It would be hours before the adrenaline was flushed from his system He moved the hand behind his back and grabbed it with the other hand, so they would stop each other from shaking.