11
Construction
A week after the Alba returned from orbit with the first cargo pallet, the Apollonaris roared aloft to chase the second automated cargo vehicle. It rendezvoused, transferred the cargo to the ACV, picked up the second cargo pallet, and landed, all under remote control from Habitat 2. Shortly thereafter a Lifter, holding fifty-five tonnes of methane and oxygen from Phobos, rendezvoused with it, fired its engines, and they headed outward from the sun into the asteroid belt on an orbit that would take it and the ACV back to Earth in about twenty months.
The second cargo pallet included another nuclear reactor, another ranger, another greenhouse, and supplies of all sorts. The crew redoubled their efforts to set up everything and to test the vehicles and reactors. Within two weeks, the second reactor was putting out 75 kilowatts of power, while the first, which had proved as reliable as hoped, was hitched up to the Stirling engine early to generate 150 kilowatts of power. The Outpost badly needed every bit of power it could get; the shuttles were all empty and one needed to be refueled to retrieve the last ACV; production of iron and plastic increased to prepare for construction of their building; and there were now eight greenhouses and four habitats to heat and power. Consequently, all three solar power units were putting out 150 kilowatts of power and the solar panels—including two of the Sunwings—were deployed to generate 100 more, on top of the output of the reactors.
A month after the Apollonaris returned, the Elysium,
fully refueled, blasted off to
obtain the last cargo pallet and load the last ACV with fifteen tonnes of
rocks. When it returned five sols later, the conestoga and greenhouse had been
deorbited and the rest of their supplies had arrived. The third ACV
rendezvoused with a Phobos-based Lifter and headed for a rendezvous with Earth
twenty-two months later. Excitement rose at the Outpost because shortly after
the ground was broken for their building, the first expedition would depart.
Four sols
later—after the bulk of the unpacking was done and Greenhouse 9 was set
up—Will, Pavel, and the first contingent of workers headed for the construction
site to get started. After a brief ceremony—very brief, since pressure suits
were not conducive to them—three rangers with steel-reinforced bulldozer blades
got started excavating the foundation hole.
Will watched the rangers do their laborious work.
The building they would be working on for the next year—for it was quite an
ambitious long-term project, considering their human and manufacturing
resources—would be twenty meters long, ten wide, and two stories high, with
walls of nickel-iron reinforced duricrete a meter thick, punctuated by small
windows every five meters. Its four hundred square meters would be equivalent
to two habitats. While the habitats were designed to accommodate six people,
the building was being designed with larger rooms and would be able to
accommodate eight rather than twelve. They would probably need to complete two
of them in order to provide quarters for Columbus 4.
Will turned
to Pavel. “How big are the windows in this building going to be?”
“Don’t
think of making them any bigger! You’ve already suggested a dozen changes,
small and large. Reorienting the building’s axis to run north-south required a
lot of redesign.”
“No, I’m
thinking about another project. They’re forty centimeters across, right?”
“Correct.
Bigger than portholes, and oriented to let in morning and evening sunshine.”
These were the issues Will had raised a few weeks earlier, which had been
accommodated.
“Good. And
we could make them completely ourselves.”
Pavel
nodded. “We’ve got plenty of weldalite alloy from the three automated landers
we’re dismantling; it’s of a more uniform, reliable quality than the nickel
alloy steel we can make here, and that’s important for the window frames. But
don’t think we can make a lot of windows, because the weldalite will be mostly
used up by this building. The panes are glass imported from earth, but we could
make slightly translucent polyethylene panes using the new plastic making unit,
which can turn out high quality, straight-chain polyethylene.”
“I ask
because I’m thinking about greenhouses. Could we excavate a trench in the reg,
line the bottom and sides with duricrete—which is pretty air tight all by
itself—and glue together the meter-wide sheets of polyethylene we can make here
to form a continuous transparent roof strong enough to hold in significant air
pressure?”
Pavel was
startled. He began to think. “The trench greenhouse design is on the website;
that part is not a problem. They could do experiments on the polyethylene made
by the duplicate plastics unit in Houston to determine whether it’s strong
enough. But straight-chain polyethylene is incredibly strong—almost as good as
Kevlar. I suppose the question really is whether we can make the polyethylene
thick enough, and I suspect we can. We can extrude polyethylene that is up to
half a centimeter thick, in addition to a meter in width. Of course, it’s
translucent, not transparent.”
“Plants
don’t care about that. We’d have to overlap sheets, stretch them a bit to make
sure they’re tight, and glue them together to hold an airtight seal,” added
Will. “We don’t have equipment for that step.”
“We could
jury-rig something. It’d be simpler importing the plastic from Earth, and would
have better transmissivity.”
“But I want
to keep down our import mass as much as possible; otherwise, we can’t keep
expanding the population here.”
“You’re
probably not saving that much mass. Greenhouses have two tonnes of machinery
and two tonnes of plastic structure; you’re saving maybe 1.2 tonnes of the
latter.”
But every
bit helps, Pavel. I suspect we can cut down on the mass of the equipment as
well; we can probably make some of the outsides of the equipment here. How wide
could be the home-made greenhouse be, I wonder?”
“An
experiment will tell us. But the greenhouse sides could also lean toward each
other, with metal braces between them to keep them from falling over. You could
have a three-meter width at top and maybe a six-meter width at the bottom, and
use silvered plastic mirrors to reflect additional light in.”
“Then the
design should be possible, especially if we used a lower air pressure. I’ll
talk to the Cap Com about it.”
“The
designers are still busy helping us with the building!”
“They can
turn to this problem when they have time. Or maybe the Mars Exploration Society
can help.”
“Perhaps. .
. but I’d be careful using them. Their dome proposal is getting a lot of
criticism.”
“And
they’re fixing it. They’ve got a year to get NASA approval for it.”
“We’ll
see.” Pavel was skeptical.
“I’m taking a wait and see attitude. I’ve got to go inside now, but you can reach me easily enough.”
“Bye.”
Will turned and walked to the airlock. In twenty minutes he had peeled off his pressure suit, hung it in his locker, and walked to the apartment to check on Marshall, now almost six months old. The baby smiled when he saw his daddy, and said “da.” Will gave him a big kiss.
“He’s been a good boy?”
Madhu nodded. “He ate up all his apple sauce and rice. He’ll be taking a nap pretty soon, so you should be able to get some work done.”
“Good. The laundry?”
“There are some diapers that need hand-washing, but I have a load in the drier right now. I’ll go get it right now.”
“You’ve got time?”
She glanced at her watched and nodded. “Sure. Cooking lunch takes ninety minutes. But this sol I need to prepare a lot of frozen vegetables for the expedition, and this afternoon I’m baking an extra batch of bread to freeze it for the expedition as well.” She rose slowly and stretched. “Wow, I’m getting stiff.”
“Maybe you need more exercise.”
Madhu laughed. “No, nothing simple like that.” She looked at him. “I told Ethel this yestersol. I think I’m pregnant.”
“Really? How exciting and marvelous! Congratulations! What does Roger think?”
“He grumbles about it, as you can imagine, but I think his heart is in staying here anyway. Once he gets used to the situation, he’ll love having a baby as part of our family. I know Roge.”
“You’re right; under that crusty exterior is a heart of gold. When’s the baby due?”
“I think in about seven and a half months.”
“Wow!”
“It’s still early in the pregnancy. Marshall needs someone to play with, after all!”
“We’ve got to think about releasing the information. You and Roge have to decide when we’ll let everyone know.”
“Give us a few more sols before doing anything.”
Will nodded. Madhu headed out of the apartment; he put Marshall in a baby carrier and walked around the outpost to see how various tasks were going, especially manufacture of nickel-iron parts for the new building. The five additional greenhouses were all being set up at once, also, which was an impressive effort. When he stopped at the spacecraft control room in Habitat 2, he noticed that the atmosphere was tense.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“Damned if I know,” replied Rick. “Érico just called me in from the construction work outside, and we’ve called in Karol as well. We can’t get Lifter number 2 to dock properly. That means we can’t reconnect it to the fuel making unit or refuel it.”
Will was surprised. “That’s a real problem. Is it a problem on the vehicle or the docking platform?”
“We still don’t know. We’ve alerted Houston. This should be fixable in a sol or so.”
“Keep me apprised, okay?”
“Of course,” replied Rick.
Will headed back to his apartment. By then Marshall was falling asleep, so he put the baby in his crib, pulled it to the door of the bathroom, and washed diapers by hand for half an hour. One regret of having a child on Mars was the lack of disposable diapers, and the need to clean them as much as possible before putting them in the washing machine. Finished with that chore, he sent an update to Harold Lassen, exchanged emails with the current commander of Shackleton Station on the moon, and checked the Outpost’s inventories.
At noon he brought Marshall to Habitat 3’s Great Room, where everyone ate lunch. Marshall loved the hub-bub of people at mealtimes. Ethel nursed him, then fed him some baby food Madhu had made. After lunch she watched him while Will drove a ranger to bulldoze the foundation hole for the building.
Supper that Frisol evening was a bit larger than usual, and people lingered. Satursol was a work sol until 1 p.m. only; they worked ten hours a sol, five sols a week, and five hours on Satursol, a total of fifty-five hours, but in turn had no work to do in preparing meals and washing up afterward, so the schedule was not as difficult as it sounded. A group of people sat down afterward to play cards as others went to visit friends or watch television in Habitat 2.
Will and Ethel entertained the Strogers that evening; they were systematically going through the crew and inviting everyone. When Rosa and Neal left, Will went to the Great Room to grab a snack. He was startled to see Lisa, Pavel, Patrice, and Karol sitting around playing poker, with two empty bottles of brandy on the table.
“Did you all drink those bottles tonight?” he asked.
They immediately looked embarrassed. “Don’t worry Commander; we’ll be fine tomorrow,” replied Karol, but the slight slurring of his speech belied his defense.
“I don’t think so. That stuff’s high in alcohol. You won’t be sober enough to go outside in the morning.”
“Commander, I have to go outside tomorrow; I’m in charge of the work,” protested Pavel.
Will shook his head. “The safety rules are clear. No consumption of alcohol within twelve hours of suiting up. I’m not going to change those rules; we have to be very careful here. All of you are grounded until at least 11 a.m. tomorrow. I suggest you relax in the morning and work one to six tomorrow afternoon.”
“But I’ve got plans tomorrow afternoon!” exclaimed Patrice.
“The time to drink, if at all, is Satursol night, not Frisol. You don’t have to work on Sunsol at all, after all,” replied Will, raising his voice. “I want all of you to take a breathalyzer test tomorrow morning. As soon as you pass it, you can go outside. Maybe you’ll be lucky and the alcohol will clear out by 10 a.m., so that you can finish by 3 p.m. This situation’s your choice. A single serious accident can cost us a hundred million dollars in political and financial support. It’s nothing to shrug off. Safety is of paramount importance here and has to be. I have said that on several occasions already. And I’ve already warned some of you that you can’t go outside until you pass the rigorous standards of absolute sobriety that the space agency has set. So this shouldn’t be surprising to you.”
Pavel and Patrice stared at him, angry, but not daring to say anything. Will shrugged. “Sorry, but those are the rules. Good night.” And he headed back to his apartment.
-----------------------------
The next morning the three rangers were busy excavating again while two other astronauts did routine repairs on the drilling equipment and two others completed interior work on the new conestoga. Toward the end of lunch, Will overheard a table nearby debating the first major expedition’s destination, so he joined them.
“I suppose I sound like a broken record, but I want us to head for Candor Chasma,” said Lal. “It has more extensive sedimentary deposits than you’ll find anywhere else, igneous layered complexes appear to be exposed in some of its walls, and the fact that it is a parallel chasm is tectonically intriguing.”
“I doubt it’s that different from what we’ve already seen,” replied Roger. “Especially Gangis, which is a tectonic continuation of Candor, even if they aren’t directly connected.”
“I’d favor Noctis Labyrinthus,” exclaimed Neal. “The tectonics and volcanism in the area are fascinating. It’s essentially a piece of the Tharsis Plateau.”
“And I favor the North Pole,” replied Érico. “If anyone will sound like a broken record, it is I! A three-month expedition there in the height of midsummer would be an incredible opportunity. It’s just about the first sol of summer right now.”
“It’s an ideal time, I agree,” said Jerry. “But the first expedition is scheduled to take the new rangers, the new conestoga, and a nuke, and I don’t think they should travel that far away for three months yet.”
“But we’ll lose our chance to head north if we wait too long,” replied Érico.
Jerry shook his head. “Not if we made a six-week expedition to the west. Summer will last six months, and it just started. In six weeks the water-ice will be further sublimated from the north pole anyway, which is better for the vehicles, and the temperatures will be higher and more optimal.” He looked at Will.
“Oh, I agree,” said Will, not wanting to undermine Jerry, since he was in charge of exploration.
Jerry looked at Lal. “My suggestion is that we head west, plan a two-week visit to Candor, then continue on to Noctis, extending Route 1 to the end of the canyon. If Candor is uninteresting, we head to Noctis earlier; if it’s interesting we extend our stay.”
“I can easily lay out a four-week plan, though.”
Jerry hesitated. “Let’s lay out a two-week plan plus a two-week extension.” He looked at Neal. “Same for Noctis.”
“Okay,” said Neal, satisfied. But Lal did not look so happy.
Just then Shinji came up to Will. “Can I talk to you privately?”
“Sure.” Will followed Shinji out of the Great Room, toward the airlock leading toward Habitat 2.
“I just tested Karol again. He still doesn’t pass a breathalyzer test.”
“Still? It’s after 1!”
“After you argued with them, he must have had more to drink. He still has too much alcohol in his bloodstream to go outside.”
Will shook his head. “Can you come with me to talk to him?”
“Sure. I think he went to his room.”
Will nodded and they turned toward the airlock. Beyond it was a “docking unit,” a metal cube with doors in all four sides. Straight ahead was the greenhouse to Habitat 2, but to the right was the new pressurized tunnel to Habitat 4. The tunnel was unheated and frigidly cold, but it was only a few meters long. They entered the docking unit of Habitat 4 from it, then the habitat itself. On the left was a semi-circle with four private rooms; on the right, the area that would be the Great Room was subdivided into two halves, used to control the various Prospectors on the Martian surface and for construction coordination respectively. Upstairs was the Strogers’ two-room apartment; downstairs was a mechanics workshop and storage for spare parts. Connecting the bedrooms, the work areas, and the stairs was a small lounge with a television screen on one wall.
The bedrooms on the left all had names on their doors, so they walked straight to Karol’s and knocked. A moment later he opened it, saw Will and Shinji, and frowned.
“Can we talk a moment?” Will asked. The tone of his voice indicated it was more than a request.
“Ah, I guess.”
“I guess Shinji explained to you that you failed the breathalyzer test. The only way that is possible, unless you have an unusual metabolism, is that you drank more after we talked last night. Is that the case?”
Karol looked at Will. “Commander, is this really necessary? My bloodstream still has traces of alcohol in it, but my reflexes are not impaired at all. I can go out and work and I want to.”
“These levels are not traces,” replied Shinji. “Yes, you are not legally drunk based on the vehicle driving laws on Earth. But our standards to work in a pressure suit, as you know, are much tougher. That’s true everywhere.”
“Did you drink more after we talked?”
Karol shook his head. “No Commander, I didn’t.”
Will stared at him; the evidence was against Karol and Will did not believe him. “Well, it’s too late to go outside this sol, and no one will be going out tomorrow. You can’t go out by yourself, even if you’re excavating. But there’s plenty of work to do inside. You’re now in charge of cleaning all four habitats for the next month. If you spend the next five hours on the task, you can get at least two of them done this sol.”
“Commander, are you trying to humiliate me? I have a doctorate in mechanical engineering!”
“And I have a doctorate in geology and have published more papers than you, and I’m Commander. You’ve already seen me cleaning around here. Everyone has to clean some time, and if people are going to drink excessively they’re going to do a lot of cleaning. Most of it, in fact. Have you got anything else to say?”
Karol shook his head.
“If you don’t know where the vacuum cleaners are, I’ll be glad to show you. Don’t forget to clean the bathrooms twice a week. I suspect you will lose half your evening free time, two nights a week.”
“Okay, okay,” said Karol.