6
Landings
Will saw the flashing icon on his attaché indicating he had received a message, but he was too busy to do anything about it, at first. With all the preparations to finish for the impending arrival of Columbus 3, it was not possible to handle messages promptly. He had to reload all the various machines with samples: the x-ray crystallography unit needed a new slide of rock to analyze; the mass spectrometer needed a small sample of solid rock to measure, among other things, the potassium-argon ratio and pin down a formation date; the microscope camera needed another sample of fossiliferous rock because it was counting microfossils automatically using shape recognition software; the alpha-scattering unit was making a crude elemental analysis on another sample. There was never enough time to run thousands of samples through these machines, generating data for a doctoral dissertation, a geological article, or a website. Alas, they could only analyze to the part per million range; very sensitive equipment on Earth could do a thousand times better.
Once everything was loaded, he walked over to his attaché and pushed an icon to play messages. Jerry McCord had called.
“Good afternoon, Will. I’m sure you’re getting as excited as we about aerobraking. Eight hours to go! It’s hard to believe. We’re looking forward to visiting with the Elysium tomorrow, then heading to Deimos and Phobos for routine maintenance. And then finally landing at the Outpost and getting to work!
“Say, I’m going to need your help once we arrive there. I think you’ve heard that there has been some friction up here, in the tight quarters. The French have been the chief problem. They eat most of their meals on board the Amazonis, which I suppose you’ve heard is owned by the French government. They speak French all the time and socialize or interact with everyone else relatively little. Frankly, it’s been a huge problem, and we’ve retaliated a bit, I’m afraid, by giving the cold shoulder to them as well.
“But your social skills are legendary. Everyone says that if anyone can resolve the ‘French problem,’ it is you. So as soon as we get down there, I hope you can make this a priority. It’s the only way we can make this a unified community.
“Thanks for listening. Looking forward to working with you. Bye.”
Will stared at the screen, peeved by the message. McCord clearly was assuming that he, and not Will, would be Commander of Mars Operations. Nothing had been announced; what did he know that Will didn’t? Jerry certainly had better contacts; Will hadn’t had a face-to-face conversation with a NASA official, or drunk a cup of coffee with one, for over four years, while Jerry had been the capcom for Mars operations and one of the mission’s chief behind the scenes people in Houston. If anyone had access to advance information, it was he.
A bit upset, he walked upstairs to find Ethel. At the moment Marshall was asleep. He found her on the couch napping as well. In the last month she had been so seriously depressed she had not been able to do almost any work at all. At least she was still able to watch Marshall, though at times that had proved difficult as well.
She sat up when he entered their living room. “I just got a call from McCord,” he explained. “He said that after Columbus 3 landed, he would need my help with the French delegation to integrate them into the crew better. They’re always eating in their own ITV and speaking French together.”
Ethel considered. “Well, Jerry shouldn’t have let the Columbus 3 crew plan their own breakfasts and lunches and disperse for supper if they wanted. The Great Room can hold fourteen people; that shouldn’t be an excuse.” She looked at him. “Oh, but that’s not what you’re referring to. Do you think he has inside information about the selection?”
“Maybe. Who knows. He has much better contacts than me.”
“This has been the roughest six weeks of your command.”
“The Aurorae Declaration really did not sit well with the space agencies. It’s amazing how little people listen and how much they can cast aspersions on your name.”
“We should have been wiser. Some agency officials are paranoid about issues like ownership of land, and we knew it.”
“True. But we couldn’t have anticipated the furor over the statement that the civic authority should be responsible for ensuring availability of oxygen, food, water and other necessities of life. How many times have I had to announce that we were not complaining about the services NASA provides?”
“It was a slow news month on Earth. That worked to our disadvantage; though, in the long run, it many work out alright.”
“True, it has gotten discussion of the space treaties going again, and negotiations for a Mars Commission, and the public seems to like the idea that Martian real estate might be on the market soon. But from the point of view of NASA, I look like some kind of unpredictable wild card.”
Ethel chuckled. “That’s because you are, Will. What all nine of us did quite spontaneously and naturally reflected a set of common views and attitudes that developed here over the last nine months.”
“Everyone here was upset about the reaction.”
“Even Roger! And he shouldn’t have said anything; he may have shocked his friends in Mission Control more than you did. But the furor will die down, now that fourteen more people are arriving here. And once everyone sees that we don’t actually do anything—other than issue a birth certificate—they’ll calm down anyway.”
“I hope so.”
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It was quite late that night—about midnight—when the five vehicles making up Columbus 3 separately hit Mars’s atmosphere at about 26,000 kilometers per hour. In just a few minutes they burned off their excess speed and went into an elliptical orbit around Mars that took twenty-four point six hours to complete one revolution. After emerging from Mars’s upper atmosphere, the vehicles were quite close to Embarcadero Station, which was in the same orbit.
Everyone but Ethel was awake at the Outpost. Will quickly sent congratulations to Columbus 3, expressing their great excitement to have so many people arrive safely. The only awkward problem was who was in charge; no guidance had yet arrived from Mission Control designating a commander of Mars Operations. That meant that Will by default was the boss, a position that surprised him and seemed to irritate McCord.
It wasn’t until the next morning that Will awoke to find a message from Dr. Harold Lassen. “Good sol, Will. We are pleased to appoint you Commander of Mars Operations until the departure of Columbus 3. I should probably be frank with you, however, about the delay in finalizing the appointment. In the last nine months you have shown strong innovation. We’re thrilled about the extension of Route 2 across Argyre and of Route 1 to Noctis Labyrinthus, the clearing of Little Colorado Trail, the construction of a piece of Route 3 along the top of the escarpment, the pressurization of the Geology Storage Facility with an oxygen atmosphere, the creation of enough soil to fill five new greenhouses, the manufacture of construction materials to complete Habitat 4, and the construction of new rooms in the other habitats. We’ve even come to be happy about the export plan. After four years, we’re about eight years into our master plan in some areas and way beyond it in others.
“Needless to say, we are not amused by the establishment of a civic authority and the issues it raises. You were out of line to encourage that. It has thrown a shadow over everything we’ve done on Mars. And it is not even clear that the result is a legal birth certificate for your son.
“We debated long and hard about who to appoint Commander. You barely won out as our choice. I think you deserve to know that. If it weren’t for strong support from the Europeans, you wouldn’t be Commander, and as you probably know, we’re in a weak position right now. We are looking forward to the innovation and wise guidance you bring to Mars operations over the next year and a half. Goodbye.”
He looked at the screen and said “Huh.” He had given up on receiving the appointment. He sent a quick thank you back to Lassen, pledging to do his best to lead Mars “from success to success.” He sent a quick memo to the Outpost staff—not to the personnel in orbit, though, lest McCord had not yet been informed—letting them know of the appointment. Then he started to think about changes in the mission plan he would want to consider; Mars had been put in an awkward position in the last nine months, with no one official to bargain with Mission Control over the priorities. Will had wanted to work with McCord to craft a common position so that it would not matter who would be Commander, but somehow that had never worked out.
The first task was to dock the three ITVs and two shuttles together at Embarcadero and transfer all people and movable equipment and furniture from the Amazonis. That finished, the Amazonis detached and flew to one of the Lifters; three were waiting a hundred kilometers away, each filled with liquid oxygen and methane, one from Deimos and two from Phobos. It docked to the Lifter which, the next sol, fired up its engines to propel the Amazonis onto a trajectory that would return it to Earth in eighteen months. The two vehicles then separated and the Lifter fired its engines to slow itself down, so that it could return to Deimos. The Amazonis would fire its small ion engines to advance its return to Earth by two months.
While those maneuvers went on, the Elysium blasted off unmanned and docked to Embarcadero. Columbus 3’s two shuttles—the Pavonis, refurbished from Columbus 1, and the Alba—docked with the other two Lifters and refueled. Once the Elysium had fueled up as well—so that it could mount a rescue mission to either moon—the Pavonis headed for Deimos and the Alba for Phobos, each with a team of three. For five sols they carried out routine maintenance on the fuel-making facilities, moved the drills so that they could drill new shafts into the moons, explored new areas on the moons, and set up new scientific instrument stations.
Once the work was done, it was time for everyone to descend to the Outpost. The Pavonis and Alba both returned to Embarcadero—which now sported a new docking module, a remotely controled arm, and an ion engine—and took on two additional crew; the other four entered the Elysium. All three vehicles fired their engines to dip their orbits into the Martian atmosphere, but they staggered their landings by four hours in order to avoid emergencies.
Jerry McCord was on the Pavonis, the first to land, along with Rick Page, an American who was a pilot and vehicle engineer; Lisa Kok, a Dutch horticulturalist; Linda Dubois, a Canadian exobiologist; and Lal Shankaraman, an Indian geologist. Will and Paul drove two portahabs out to the landing pad to pick them up. The portahabs were crowded with pressure suited persons and their luggage for the ten-minute drive to the Outpost. At the airlock, a crowd greeted them and helped haul the luggage to everyone’s new room. For half an hour the new arrivals circulated round and round the Outpost, exploring the different habitats and poking around the greenhouses. Will was in the bridge when Jerry McCord stopped by.
“Shall we talk?” asked Jerry.
“Sure; come in! And welcome again to Mars, Jerry.” Will rose and offered his hand to McCord, who shook it with a bit of hesitation. Will gestured that he should sit, and sat himself. Jerry sat and looked around the bridge, as if wondering how it would feel if it had been his instead.
“Thank you, Will. We all delighted to be here. Did you see the little jig Linda did when she stepped out of the shuttle and onto Mars?”
“Yes! She was delighted. And I talked to Lal in the portahab. He’s thrilled; he said after brief visits to the moon and Deimos, he’s ready for the kind of geology he’s used to: sedimentology, stratigraphy, and glaciology.”
“Yes. He’s brilliant, from what I can see; he’s made major contributions to reconstruction of the glacial history of the Himalayas, you know. Until the Columbus 3 training flight to Shackleton, he had never left the Earth.”
“Our first resident who had never visited the moon before the training exercises. He’ll have to be on the north polar expedition; the layered terrains will fascinate him. What about you, Jerry? How do you want to devote your time here? We’ll be running two expeditions simultaneously much of the time, so there will be plenty of opportunities for exploration and being the boss.”
“Well, that’s what I stopped by to talk to you about. As you probably know, I’m twelve years older than you; 51, and when I return to Earth I’ll be 53. I doubt I’ll be able to get to the moon much more because of my radiation exposure. So this is my big mission; possibly the culmination of my career. I had hoped that would mean I’d be the fourth Commander of Mars operations. That didn’t happen, but I still hope I can be given fairly large assignments.”
“I think your experience necessitates it. Frankly, Jerry, I’m uncomfortable being your boss. You were my boss at Shackleton on two occasions! And you know this operation inside out and backwards; you were the chief capcom for about three of the last five years, when you weren’t running Shackleton or clearing the Aristarchus Highway. So I’m in favor of you taking on big expeditions.”
“What about around the Outpost?”
Will hesitated. “I’m not sure there will be big jobs around here. We’ve now got twenty-three adults on Mars, assuming the next two shuttles land safely. All of them are experts in something and all of them have a lot of experience. So I don’t want to set up a structure where a few people give everyone else orders. That doesn’t work here. We have to get to know each other well, trust each other, and want to work closely together. In most cases we’ll be divided into teams of two or sometimes three; and if Dr. A is in charge of Task 1 and Dr. B is the assistant, in Task 2 Dr. B will be in charge and Dr. A will assist. So most people will report to me about one sphere or another, and we’ll have inter-team meetings sometimes when six or eight people get together to plan some tasks together. The exception is expeditions; each one will involve three vehicles and five or six people, and there will be a definite boss. But even then the job of boss will change every month or so.”
“I see. Is there any possibility I can run the expedition to the North Pole?”
“That’s an ongoing effort involving a lot of people who have already cleared most of the road. Either Érico or Roger has to be put in charge of that. But I think we can manage a dash to the South Pole about a year from now; if you want that mission, it’s yours. We will also be extending Route 1 around Mars and someone will probably have the chance to explore the Tharsis volcanoes, possibly to the top of one of them.”
“And I’m a volcanologist, among other things. That intrigues me.”
“Good. Then maybe we’ve found the mission for you.”
“It may have to be sufficient.” Jerry stared at Will closely, then shook his head. “You know, I really don’t understand what’s happened here in the last nine months.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you know what I mean. The nine of you have become. . . different. We’re supposed to be scientists here, not settlers.”
“You’re right, we have become settlers; that’s a good way to characterize what has happened. But I’m not sure I’d contrast ‘settler’ with ‘scientist’ because we can be both, and are. This isn’t the moon, Jerry; it’s more isolated and more Earth-like. This place is going to be settled eventually. It just started sooner than anyone anticipated.
“The big shift has been caused by Marshall. Ethel and I now look at this place and we see home for twenty years of our lives; not eighteen months, like most of Columbus 3, but twenty years. You look at a place very differently when you plan to stay that long. You think about it differently. And that’s rubbed off on the others. It may not be long before Marshall won’t be the only child here.”
Jerry’s eyes opened wide, surprised. “And I suppose it won’t be an accident this time, either.”
“No, apparently not. No one is pregnant yet, but let’s just say that Ethel and I aren’t the only couple looking at this place long term. Some of the dynamic here has come from the fact that in addition to Shinji, the residents consisted of four couples.”
“Oh? Paul and Monika?”
Will nodded. “It’s hardly secret. Paul’s divorce decree came through some months back. Last month he and Monika came to me and asked to be assigned a single, large room instead of two smaller rooms, and I granted their request. We combined three small bedrooms together to make one larger room for them.”
“I see. I can imagine that four couples really do give the place a social energy and a long-term perspective. Are they all planning to stay?”
“Almost certainly for Columbus 4.”
And I bet Marshall has changed the social atmosphere.”
“Oh yes, as you will see! Having a baby around has made everyone happier. The exception is Ethel; she has had serious post-partum depression and hasn’t been able to take any medications, because Marshall is dependent on her milk for his nutrition. But now that you’ve arrived with infant formula, not to mention a few dozen other things, she will have a much easier time and will be able to take some medications.”
“I’m sorry to hear about the difficulty.” He sounded genuinely sympathetic.
“Thank you. But it has been manageable because everyone else has pitched in. The birth and her depression have been trials for all nine of us, and they have brought us closer together.”
Jerry nodded. “Well, that helps. But there’s one other thing: it’s a shame you all never consulted with the fourteen of us about the Aurorae Declaration. When we read it, we didn’t know what to think, except something had been usurped from us without out input. Of course, we’re really not sure what was usurped, but that has made us feel even more suspicious and puzzled.”
Will was startled by Jerry’s remark. “I’m sorry, it never occurred to us to ask you for input, because you were still tens of millions of kilometers away. You hadn’t arrived yet and you hadn’t gotten accustomed to this place yet. And if we had waited, it would have been for a year; that’s how long it takes to get up to speed about this place.”
“I see. But couldn’t the matter have waited a year? Does Marshall need a birth certificate that badly? Because to us the birth certificate looked like an excuse to rush something through; probably a scheme to claim and sell land.”
“That question has come up again and again. The Declaration gives the civic authority the right to regulate transfer of existing property, but not to declare land eligible to become property. A separate resolution is needed for that. And you’ll be here when the matter comes up, if it comes up.”
“I hope so; we’ll have things to say about the matter, I’m sure. What do all of you think about the situation with NASA?”
“We’re worried about the reduced budget, obviously. NASA says it’ll launch the Mars shuttles and ITVs for Columbus 4 anyway, since the EELVs are already at Canaveral. But they have no money for launching cargo. It’s crazy.”
“They’ll have to accept the Swift. It’s a matter of time. You’ll see,” replied Jerry.