6
Flight
Will kicked the hardened clay of the runway under his foot. It yielded very little; “scratched” would be a better description of what his boot had done. Several years earlier, when they had had a spare month, they had spread an eight-centimeter thick layer of mud and roasted caliche on the kilometer-long runway, section by section, and covered it with a black plastic sheet to heat it and hold in the water. The chemical reaction had made it hard and the leftover water had frozen. The result was an excellent surface for airplane takeoffs and landings. That was important, because their solar powered “sunwing” aircraft, while capable of vertical takeoffs and landings, saved a lot of energy and mass using a runway.
He looked up at the solar biplane in front of him. The propellers were spinning; it was almost ready to take off. It was their new “supersize” model able to transport half a tonne of cargo or three persons from runway to runway, or two thirds of that with vertical takeoff and landing capability. A big, ungaintly looking thing with two pairs of wings, the lower wings near the bottom of the central pod were 3.8 meters wide and extended 48 meters to either side. The upper pair was attached to the top of the central pod and was staggered two meters behind the first, with numerous diagonal wires holding the biwings together. The wings were divided into six sections, each of which had a propeller; an equipment pod twelve meters from the wing tips held fuel cells, fuel tanks, electrical transformers, and landing gear. The central pod was a pressurized plastic cocoon seven meters long, 2.5 high, and 1.5 meters wide.
“We never had anything like this on the moon,” said Yevgeny to Will.
“No; no air. The wings are so big, you’d think there’s no air here, either!”
“It’s amazing we can build something so large, yet it has so little mass. I’m not sure I’d want to fly in it; it looks too flimsy!”
“It’s a novel experience, believe me. But the sunwings have proved to be excellent aircraft. On two occasions we’ve had some close calls, but in each case it was pilot error, and both times the pilot wasn’t on board. The new software should help. They’ve stayed up for some pretty long periods, too; during the last duststorm season we kept Sunwing 3 up for five months straight.”
“That doesn’t strike me as that unusual; is it? A sunwing model has been flying in the atmosphere of Venus for almost three years, now, and there are other models on Earth serving as aerial communications towers at 30,000 meters that regularly stay up over a year.”
“You’re right. Our sunwings could stay up several years at a time as well if they had to; the solar panels don’t degrade and the thing can fly on four or five of its fourteen motors. But there’s never been a need for them to stay up that long because they’re constantly hauling supplies. We’ve dropped emergency ice blocks and rations at twenty locations along the Circumnavigational and Polar Trails and another dozen along the future routes of the Pisces and Tharsus Trails, and we’re visiting Prospectors every month or two, either to pick up samples or move them to another location. They’ve also photographed about five percent of the surface at ten centimeters resolution, and most of that is with the sensor package that tells us just about everything we could ever need to know about the geology, short of visiting. Their work deploying weather and seismology stations, picking them up for repair, and serving as mobile weather stations has been invaluable.”
“Oh, I know! I’m just not so sure I’d ever want to ride in one!”
“We’re ready for takeoff,” exclaimed Érico over the radio. He was inside the Outpost controlling everything remotely.
“Acknowledged,” replied Will. He looked at the others; everyone began to back away from the aircraft. A moment later the propellers revved up to a higher speed, kicking up dust from around the vehicle. It began to roll down the runway.
They watched as it picked up speed. Will glanced at a display on his spacesuit’s exterior computer screen. While to his eye it seemed to be taking off pretty quickly, the computer summary showed it performing less than expected.
It rose into the air about six hundred meters down the runway and continued to climb. Érico banked it to the north and it flew toward the escarpment, reaching the wall of rock in about four minutes. They could see distinctly that it had climbed higher than the cliff in that time, and the cliff was 1,500 meters above the floor of the valley. The sunwing then banked and flew back to the Outpost, swung around to the east, and headed toward the runway. Some fifteen minutes after takeoff, dust rose from its wheels as it touched back down. It taxied toward them, then stopped thirty meters away.
They all applauded. “Érico, how did the takeoff go?” asked Will.
“That’s the only part that worries me. If the aircraft had been loaded with its half tonne of cargo, it might not have been airborne by the time it reached the end of the runway. We’ve got excess drag somewhere, or less power than expected. Motor 7 was overheating, too; if it had stayed up for an hour we probably would have had to turn it off.”
“Let’s figure out the problem, then,” replied Will. He glanced back at the computer screen. He had videomails from Earth waiting and wanted to go in, or at least get away from everyone else so that he could concentrate on them.
“The data is on its way to Honolulu already,” replied Érico. “I have some ideas, but they can analyze the data better than we can.” Érico paused. “Oh, sorry Will, I’ve got to go! I’m getting a call from sick bay. Carmen’s on her way there now.”
“Really? This is it?”
“It seems to be.”
“I’ll be on my way. Ethel really shouldn’t be far behind. She’s overdue too, after all.”
“Looks like we beat you. Bye.”
“Bye.” Will switched to a general frequency. “I’m heading inside. Bye.”
Various people who were outside responded, then Will headed for a buggy, a small, four-wheeled, one person all terrain vehicle nearby. He drove to the Outpost, about a kilometer to the north, sent the buggy back to the runway slowly on computer autopilot, and entered Habitat 1 through the east airlock. Alexandra and Enrique had been putting together a new wall across the old Great Room. She walked into the docking unit to keep an eye out for him.
“Come look at the wall,” she said, pointing to the Habitat. Will was a bit surprised, but nodded. He walked into Habitat 1 to look at the metal frames they had assembled that defined a series of private rooms along the outer wall, each with its own porthole. The Great Room, kitchen area, bridge, and repair area had been emptied of their contents and plastic divider walls removed. The new walls were sheetrock. Will tapped a panel. “This is good, hard stuff. What’s on the outside; paper?”
“It’s actually a kind of plastic. The panel is a mix of hydrated sulfates—like gypsum, which is used on Earth—clay, and nylon fibers. The sulfates are from Monmouth Crater and are reasonably good quality, so we don’t have to do much to it. Strong and pretty light in Martian gravity.”
“It is; and sound-absorbant. And you’ve reinforced the floor; I can tell.”
“We did that first because we’re putting a tonne of sheetrock on it. The support underneath comes from the metal frame of the walls below. You should see the work down below; the rooms are finished and the new life support equipment’s installed.”
“I’ll look some other time. When will you have the first floor finished?”
“Give us ten sols for this side. Then the three occupants on the other side will move in over here; I think they’ll be much more comfortable. Once they’re over here we’ll remove all the walls in the other half of the Habitat; the divider between the old Great Room and the Geo-Bio Lab, the walls dividing the bedrooms from each other and the sick bay, etc. Then we’ll put in the new rooms. I’m leaving room for four toilets, four shower stalls, and four water closets with sinks. When we’re finished we’ll have an oval lounge in the middle of the Habitat. Then Yevgeny and I will move out of the apartment upstairs and I’ll remodel it as well.”
Will pointed to the Great Room’s high ceiling. “What are you doing with the space up there?”
“We’ll leave it open over the lounge. Over the bedrooms I’ll add a balcony railing and a narrow right of way and build three storage rooms.”
Will looked up, then looked at the metal frames more closely. He frowned. “I thought there were going to be three bedrooms on this side instead of four.”
“I know you wanted three, Commander, but four is the recommended number.”
“Yes, but if you put four here, you have to put four on the other side as well, not to mention the basement and balcony levels. How many rooms will this habitat have?”
“Four below, four on each side, and three above; fifteen total. This habitat was originally designed to provide housing and work space for six. With this design we have a smaller lounge in the middle, but it’s plenty; and we can accommodate eight.”
“Alexandra, I don’t want this habitat to accommodate eight. First, we need more quality space, and that means slightly larger bedrooms, offices, and labs. Second, we can now build plenty of space. We don’t need to cramp ourselves.”
“Will, I understand. But Habitats 1, 2, and 3 can provide quite comfortable housing and work space for eight. Habitat 4 can provide such space for twelve. It’s a question of efficiency, and I love efficiency. When Columbus 5 arrives we may not need more space if we reuse what we already have.”
“But Alexandra, I want another building for Columbus 5. I want to see this place grow.”
“Will, we don’t need another building, believe me. Maybe another habitat—”
“I don’t want another habitat either! That’s eleven tonnes we don’t need to import.”
“Another building will take three or four person-years of work, and we’ll still have to import three or four tonnes of building materials, especially windows. The difference is only six or seven tonnes; maybe twenty million bucks. Spend twenty million more, and you have three or four person-years more work for exploration.”
“But that’s my decision, Alexandra, not yours.”
“I’m sorry; I thought innovation and creativity is what makes this place advance and get better.” Alexandra’s voice quavered a bit; she was getting upset.
“Okay; let’s talk more later. I appreciate your concern for efficiency, and you’re right, we can use our human resources better. I wish we had communicated better about this design. But I can’t talk more right now. Érico just got a call; Carmen’s gone to the sick bay to have her baby.”
“Oh, really! That’s big news!”
“And I need to get Ethel, so I have to go. So with your permission, I’ve got to run. Bye.” Will waved and turned to hurry back into the docking unit, which would take him to the geology building and thence to Renfrew. He was upset with Alexandra. They’d have to sit down when they had both calmed down and talk about the design for Habitat 1, and he’d have to decide whether to ask her to start over.
Will hurried back out of the Habitat and headed for their apartment. Ethel was lying in bed, where she had been for much of the last month. “Carmen’s going into labor,” he said.
“Oh? She beat me.” Ethel patted her stomach. “I can’t wait to get her out of the oven. This one’s been really hard. This is our last child, dear.”
“As you’ve told me almost every sol for the last nine months. I think most people here find two children excessive.”
“Here, yes. There are some women here who regard one child as excessive. But my standards are different. My Scots Presbyterian grandmother had seven, you know.” Ethel lifted her hand and Will helped her up. “Let’s go down.”
“Okay. Where’s Marshall?”
“With Lisa. She’s been doing a lot of child care, lately. I think she’s coming around.”
“Good. I hope she and Karol decide to get married first.”
“No guarantee of that. How was the sunwing flight?”
“Reasonably good. Take off took an extra hundred or so meters.”
Ethel shook her head. “I’m concerned about the aerodynamics.”
“The wind tunnel tests and the atmospheric tests on Earth all worked fine.”
“I suppose I’m old fashioned, then. It looks funny, one wing above and staggered behind the other.”
“If one were directly above the other, only one would get sunlight. The two wings get up to 110 kilowatts of solar electricity, which is essential to keep the plane in the air twenty-four point six hours a sol with a half tonne of cargo.”
“And that kind of capacity will really help a lot.” She shrugged. “And I know, they’ve flown sunwings like this on Earth before, and staggerwings were proven technology a century ago.”
They had crossed greenhouses 8 and 1, and now entered Habitat 2. The great room had a small crowd already. There was no news, so they all sat, drank tea and coffee, and chatted. Érico came out periodically to visit and give the news. After a half hour Will got away briefly to listen to the now three video messages.
“Will, the new timetable for the Phobos-Deimos Mission in March is on the website,” exclaimed Morgan. “Have everyone take a look. I think this addresses some of the concerns about excessive time devoted to maintenance and expansion of facilities, but I wouldn’t minimize their importance. The experimental ‘landing’ of the Cimmerium on Deimos is important; minimizing radiation exposure is definitely more important than maintaining a gravitied environment. Hence the importance of devoting a week setting up the landing facility and moving the Cimmerium’s solar panels.
“Now, regarding Turner’s proposed interview involving you and Liz Gordon up on top of the escarpment: our people think it’s a good idea and should boost land sales. They’ve modified a few of the talking points; I’ve attached the result to this videomail. Please don’t follow her version. Bye.”
Will wondered what they had changed. He opened the email and glanced at it. Then he listened to Louisa Turner’s first videomessage. “Will, regarding the talking points, the Commission’s people are crazy. Sometimes they think you’re a used car salesman and should hock your wares shamelessly. Other times they think you should be diffident and say nothing about land sales at all. The talking points and sound bites had a good balance. You are Commander of Mars Operations and must preserve your dignity, yes, but people know you believe in Mars and that’s one reason you are a celebrity, so they expect you to make mild sales pitches. Ignore their modifications, please. The Commission people can be idiots, frankly. Working with them is not working out well, from my point of view. Thank God I’m working in Denver instead of Houston; I think I’d walk down the hall and kill them. Besides, I hate flat places. The MES people here are sympathetic even if they have no idea what I’m talking about half the time. At least they listen to me. Bye.”
Will had to smile; Louisa knew she was usually right, which was one reason the Commission people disliked her so much. At least Morgan had met with her twice face to face, and Heather Kimball had even managed to arrange a meeting between her and the Chief Administrator of NASA. But before replying, he had to hear Turner’s other message.
“Hi, Will. We’ve got to postpone the interview with Gordon. Carmen’s baby will steal all the headlines. I’ll talk to her later today. Bye.”
That simplified things. He sent her back a quick message saying he’d wait, then sent a similar message to Morgan about the need to wait; that would get him off the hook when he “forgot” to follow Morgan’s request as well, if he decided to do that. Then he went back to habitat 2’s great room. He was most surprised by the commotion he saw.
Kevin Dunbar had just arrived from his work outside, setting up two new one-tonne nuclear reactors. “Look, don’t bother me about my clothes,” he was saying to his wife, Jennie. “There’s no way there’s any radioactivity on them. I don’t climb all over the nukes, remember; we’ve been working on them robotically. Besides, the clothes stay inside my spacesuit.”
“And your hands touch the spacesuit, then touch your clothes.”
“Jesus Christ, Jennie, I know procedures! I’m telling you I would not have transferred radioactive dust to my clothes, and besides, there isn’t any radioactive dust outside anyway!” He rolled his eyes and looked away from her.
“Let’s both calm down, please,” said Ethel, who was seated near the Dunbars.
“Well, she’s always nagging me about one thing or another!”
“Nagging! If you had any common sense, I wouldn’t be reminding you of duties and responsibilities!” she replied, and tears swelled in her eyes. Will looked around. Martha Vickers, their psychiatrist, had arrived just a few minutes ago. He looked at her and she looked back at him; they communicated with their eyes without saying anything. Martha rose. “Come on, you two, let’s go for a walk and cool off. Right now we’re all rather tense because of the situation.” She beckoned them and, after a moment of hesitation, they followed her out of the Great Room. It wasn’t the first time she had taken them out of a socially awkward situation.
Ethel looked at Will, then stood up. “I need to stretch my legs, too.”
“Okay.” Will walked to her side and took her by the arm. They headed in the opposite direction as the Dunbars.
“I can’t stand shouting. I think it’s the pregnancy,” Ethel said to him, once they were out of earshot.
“Everything echoes in the habitats anyway.”
“I wish they could get along. It seems to me when I knew them seven or eight years ago, they were fine together.”
“Well, now they’re on Mars together and see each other constantly. Jennie was never an astronaut either; she’s here to do child care, cooking, and cleaning.”
“And I wish she was doing more of those things!”
“I know. She’s in some sort of crisis. I gather Martha’s seeing her almost every sol and may prescribe some medication.”
“Good!” They walked on in silence for a while. They reached the Mars Dome and lingered briefly; in the last two months it had been filled with plants and was now quite attractive. It also had the smells of greenery, something they craved. They paused around the little fishpond that had been built on one side of the dome. “So far, the thirty-three of us are doing pretty well,” commented Ethel. “The outpost really has a critical mass for a lot of things.”
“Like weekend theatre, and tv nights, and a monthly flea market,” agreed Will. “Not to mention birthdays to celebrate almost every week, and plenty of people to rotate child care among.”
“It’ll be interesting to see how that changes when there are four children to raise.” Ethel turned and headed for the airlock. Will followed. They passed through and entered Joseph Hall. Ethel paused just inside the building. “Oooh.”
“What is it?”
“A contraction.”
“You’ve been having them on and off for a few sols.”
“Yes, but this was bigger. It hasn’t really gone away yet.”
“This is not a good time to have a baby, my dear; someone else is already in labor!”
“I know, but since when can we control when we have a baby.”
“Do you think this is it?”
“Ah. . . . yes, I think so.”
“Then let’s stop at the apartment and get you some clothes and your toothbrush, then head back to sick bay.”
-----------------------
It was a long afternoon, followed by a long night. Ethel had another long contraction half an hour later, followed by a sharper one twenty minutes later. It was indeed the beginning of labor. Shinji and Eve moved another bed into the same room and the two women and their husbands shared the same small space. The rest of the outpost sat in the Great Room; they walked to the cafeteria to get meals, but brought them back to habitat 2 to sit on the floor together and wait. The Mars Commission got permission to broadcast the image from the Great Room on cable television and millions tuned in to see the latest.
It was a strange sort of race. Carmen had been overdue by two weeks; Ethel was right on time. Carmen had gone into labor three hours before Ethel, but it was Ethel’s second child and labor went faster. As a result, Ethel and Will’s daughter, Elizabeth, was born at 5:36 a.m. on Tuesol, October 12, 2027. Érico and Carmen’s daughter, Corazón, was born at 7:03 a.m., an hour and a half later.
It wasn’t until several hours passed before the new mothers were ready for the video arrival of their families on Earth. The round trip communications delay was about a half hour, but the joy of a new baby partially overcame the inconvenience of live, asynchronous conversation. Families essentially lived around each other for a few hours, watching and commenting. When it was over, mothers and babies were ready for a long nap.
It was the next morning when Ethel and Carmen were ready to present their children to the Outpost. Will and Érico were there—everyone had slept in the sickbay that night—and the two couples, their two babies, and Marshall all conferred briefly before walking over to Renfrew Cafeteria.
“Are you sure we have to do a live video feed as well?” asked Érico. “It seems exploitive to me.”
“It’s up to you,” replied Will. “We are celebrities, to some extent, and there are millions of people who want to see the babies.”
“It’s off message, isn’t it?” asked Carmen. “Weren’t you planning to go up to the to of the escarpment and be interviewed about land sales?”
“I was, but that can be done next week or the week after. I think families on Mars are exactly the message we want to convey. We want to show the majority of the middle class people on Earth—the people paying taxes to keep us here—that this place is worth the money and represents an important element in humanity’s future. Settlement, families, and ordinary life are keys to doing that. They encourage people to decide to help in any way they can; and the principal way they can help is to buy Martian land. It’s an investment, after all.”
“Until the real estate bubble bursts, anyway,” replied Érico.
“We’re working to keep that from happening.”
“Another reason to show the baby on television is to minimize the number of articles in cheap tabloids claiming that your baby had an alien for a parent or has two heads,” added Ethel. “The things printed about Marshall were really disgusting. If we are careful to make this whole process seem normal, we’ll minimize the silliness.”
“That’s a good point,” said Érico. He looked at Elizabeth, who was in Will’s arms. “First two boys were born on Mars, then two girls. And I gather Rosa’s pregnant again, and they think it’s a girl as well.”
“Maybe it’ll help balance out the gender ratio here!” said Carmen, looking at Ethel, and they both laughed.
“The more we have, the better,” replied Will.
Ethel hit him. “You’ll have to take a second wife, first, buster.”
“I’ll remember that,” replied Will, teasing her. He cuddled Elizabeth closer to him. “Let’s go meet the crowd.”
© 2004 Robert H. Stockman