8

Vistas

 

“Be careful not to scratch the new wall!” Will warned. Roger nodded and adjusted the position of the mattress slightly. They slid it into the bedroom pretty easily and stood it up against the wall.

“Such a big room,” said Roger, looking around.

“Five by six meters; you’ve got the same.”

“Yes, but right now you and I have four by four meter bedrooms! This will be really nice.”

“It’ll be great. I like the window, too, and the morning sunshine.”

“Ethel got her window. Come on, let’s get the rest of the stuff; Madhu wants me to be packing.”

Will nodded. They hurried out the door and up the stairs to the tiny lobby, then outside where a trailer was full of furniture. They picked up a fully loaded dresser—in Martian gravity, it could be moved pretty easily—hauled it through the building’s wide open airlock, then down the stairs and into the bedroom. They went back to get the other dresser, then the clothes cabinet.

“Dad, when are we going up on the roof?” asked Marshall, who had been running around the yard with Sam.

“Roger and I have to finish first.”

“Oh, I want to go on the roof! Go on the roof! Go on the roof!”

“I know. Wait and be patient. We have one more piece to move.” Will turned away; he and Roger grabbed Marshall’s mattress—still wrapped with sheets and blankets—from the trailer and quickly carried it downstairs. “I’ll take Sam with me and start loading the trailer,” said Roger. “You can run up to the roof with Marshall quickly, then join me.”

“Okay, that’ll work. Thanks.”

They put Marshall’s bed on the floor of his bedroom—at 4 meters by 5, it was twice as big as his old room—and started out when Marshall and Sam came in. “Do you like your new room?” Will asked.

“I guess,” Marshall said, reluctantly.

“Come on, Sammie, we’re going back to get another load,” said Roger, taking his son’s hand. He led the little boy out of the house.

Marshall looked at his bed, then looked at his window. It was much bigger than his old window, but there was no view; a meter beyond the window was the bubble edge, then the outer duricrete wall of the biome, covered with white plastic to reflect in as much light as possible. He pointed. “There’s nothing to see!”

“No, but there’s something else. Watch.” Will grabbed the window handle, turned it, and pulled. The window, which was a meter wide and a meter and a half high—from the ceiling to his knees—opened inward. “Look, you can step out here if you want.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” Will picked up his son and put him down outside the window on the vinyl floor. Then he stepped out himself. There was barely enough room for both of them.

“I have my own porch!”

“And so does Lizzie. We can plant some flowers and vegetables out here, if you’d like.”

“That’d be fun!”

“I thought you’d like that. And I can put my roses out here—”

“No, not your roses!”

“Oh, Marshall! I have to put them somewhere.”

“Put them on Lizzie’s porch!”

“But she’s small and the roses are covered with prickers—”

“No, not here, daddy! Put them in your bedroom!”

“They won’t get enough sunlight there.”

“Well, they can’t go on my porch!”

“Alright, alright. But no shouting out here, because the people above us have balconies opening onto the light well also, and you’ll disturb them.”

“Will Sam’s bedroom be up there?”

“Yes, I think his will be right above yours.”

“Oh, good!”

“No shouting back and forth at night! Come on, you wanted to go up on the roof.” Will took his son’s hand and they walked back into his room, closed the door, then returned to the building’s lobby and went up the stairs. At the top, Will pulled out his swipe card and was pleased to see that it opened the door; he wasn’t sure it would.

They stepped into a sea of green. The metal sides of the garden squares were over Marshall’s head so he reached up and his dad picked him up, placing him on his shoulders. Will was always amazed how light children felt on Mars; it made him wonder whether he’d be carrying Marshall when the boy was ten. Marshall was immediately surprised to see rice on his right, with a few fish swimming underneath; a paddy that covered almost half of the roof. On his left was a corn patch with corn rising way above his head. “Wow!”

“It’s really something, isn’t it?” said Will. “I’m impressed that it’s growing so well. The sunlight isn’t completely back to normal levels, with all the dust in the air.”

“I guess it’s enough,” said Marshall.

Will walked along the trail between the two gardens to the edge of the roof overlooking the yard and they looked down at the trees, grass, flowers, and vegetables growing below. Then Will walked to the left past the corn to several squares of vegetables. They didn’t look quite as vigorous; Will knew that there had been major problems with the soil microorganisms in their plots, and some of the species required full sunlight. Even so, the tomatoes were beginning to bear, and a six-legged robotic picker was striding among the vines, picking ripe tomatoes and loading them into a pouch. Father and son came to the western end of the roof and looked at squash vines climbing a trellis placed against the outer bubble. Marshall pointed. “Look, it’s the outside!”

“Of course. Up here you can see out. But, our apartment windows look inward on the flowers and trees.”

“Oh, there’s the escarpment!” Marshall pointed northward and Will looked.

“You’re right! This is the first sol we’ve been able to see it in almost three months!”

“It’s good to see it again. But daddy, I liked being able to see it out my window.”

“I know. But we have a much bigger and more comfortable house, now. And you have a porch instead.”

“That’s true.” Marshall stared. “Daddy, you said you’d take me to the escarpment some time in a ranger, remember? I want to go see it.”

“I remember. Well, I suppose now that you’re five we can do that. We should wait a little while longer, though. Right now there’s so much dust in the air, there’s nothing to see. In another month it’ll be much better.”

“You’re right,” agreed the boy. “And my party’s next weekend, right?”

“Right, the party with the family. I’m sorry we had to wait, but everyone’s moving right now. We want to get the house set up first.”

“I know, but at least I had a party with Sam and Lizzie and Corazon the other sol. That was fun.”

“Yes, that was nice,” agreed Will. “Come on, we’ve got to get back to work. We have to get everything moved this sol, so we can sleep in the new house tonight. And then we have to help Roger and Madhu move all their things tomorrow.”

-----------------------------

Will hadn’t visited the Mars Biological Facility for several months and was struck by how cramped it was. All four staffers were there to brief him: Shinji Nagatani (who was in charge), Tang Enlai, Jacques Deschanel, and Kim Irion. The twenty by six meter facility was stuffed with x-ray machines, high-powered microscopes, and chemical analysis units. One area was filled with clay models they had made of some of the organisms. Rocks littered the place and covered groaning plastic shelves. But they had cleared their central conference table and spread out ground-penetrating radar images for Will to examine.

“This is the spot,” said Shinji, pointing to a ghostly ring in one radar map. “We’ve named it Mendel Ring. It’s a wide, shallow basin under 400 meters of oceanic sediments about forty kilometers across and 500 meters deep. Neal looked at the image and consulted with some folks at Brown University. They think Mendel was formed in the early Noachian when the Borealis Ocean was about four to five hundred meters deep at that spot. The asteroid was 2,000 meters in diameter and evaporated a vast amount of water. The steam explosion produced a big, shallow crater, rather than the standard bowl type.”

“So, this is up to seven hundred meters below the surface?”

“Actually, more. Look here.” Shinji pointed to a smaller ring inside the big one. “This is a fairly standard bowl crater about five kilometers across and 400 meters deep. It seems to represent a hundred-meter diameter chunk of the asteroid that broke off before impact, probably from Mars’s gravity after the body passed inside Roche’s limit. Apparently the crater formed within seconds of the first, before the ocean had flooded back. The bottom of this little crater is about a kilometer below the surface. That’s where we’d like to drill. Not only will we penetrate a kilometer of ocean sediments, but when we get through the crater floor we’ll be deep under the ocean, either drilling through the pre-oceanic crust or the earliest oceanic sediments.”

“Perfect for finding the earliest Martian life,” added Enlai.

Will nodded. “So, we’re talking about drilling over a kilometer into Mars; maybe 1,500 meters. What did Alexandra say about that?”

“Her team can modify a driller to do it in about six weeks,” replied Shinji. “The plans for such a modification were drawn up in Moscow about three years ago. With our improved ability to make alloys and plastics, the plan needs some refinement. We’d case the shaft, rather than leaving it open. Based on our known drilling rate in Boreal ocean sediments, the shaft should proceed at twenty meters per sol. In two months we could get as far as we need to go.”

“We’d need three or four people, a ranger, a buggy for back-up transportation, and a conestoga or mobilhab,” added Enlai. The mobilhabs were their new, super-large vehicles eight meters long, 4.75 meters wide, and two stories high, suitable to serve as temporary housing and work space for six to eight people for months. “This site is four hundred kilometers east of the Polar Trail, so we’ll have to clear a side route to it, the ‘Mendel Trail.’”

“Good name. I don’t think a mobilhab will be available, though. Both are committed to expeditions already. Same with the Conestogas. Even a ranger will be hard to obtain, but we can find that. We do have three porthabs; you could take one of them. They can be covered with vinyl sheets and buried under regolith to reduce the radiation exposure. You’ll need a nuke, right?”

“Definitely. Drilling is energy intensive,” said Enlai.

“When do you want to go?”

“If Alexandra can get the drill modified, early May,” replied Enlai. “I’ll go with Kim and Jacques, if Therese will let him go.”

“The baby will be just six months old then. Otherwise, who?”

“Qingtian is willing.”

“Okay. His geological experience would be quite valuable.”

“I’m sure Therese won’t let me go,” added Jacques.

“Michiko as well,” Shinji added, speaking of his situation. “She says I’ve been exposed to enough radiation already.”

“And she’s right,” added Will. “I’ll tell you, normally I’d say we’d have to plan this months in advance. But we’ve all been stuck here for three months and we’ll be struck here at least another month, it appears. The main construction is over and we’re now doing supplemental work. Everyone wants to get out ‘on the range,’ as it were. So I guess we will. The questions that have to be resolved are two: when can Alexandra’s team prepare the driller? And when can we schedule the ranger? We may want to coordinate the trip with another expedition as well; Érico plans to lead an expedition up the Polar Trail about that time to circle the north pole at about 45 to 50 degrees latitude, clearing the Vastitas Borealis Trail. They’ll pass in and out the polar deposits and stop at the Viking 2 landing site. They could add Mendel to the trip, help clear the trail to it and the landing strip there, then set off on their expedition. A sunwing could connect the two expeditions together and allow each to provide some backup to the other; they’d never be more than five or six thousand kilometers from you.”

“How long will the Borealis expedition last?” asked Shinji.

“Eight months; longer than you’re planning to go. But the driller could be left and run remotely, with occasional maintenance visits by sunwing. Possibly a team could drill at another location, too. I’m sure there are other possibilities.”

“Oh, definitely,” replied Shinji. “If we could find the people to run it, we could select another site.”

“Let’s talk about it.” Will looked around. “You need a bigger facility. The entire top floor of Renfrew will be empty soon, and it’d give you fifty percent more space.”

“Could we have it?” asked Shinji, surprised.

“I think so. The top floor of Joseph will be converted into an expanded machine shop. Lower Renfrew will become a crafts area. We can use the old docking units and this inflatable bio lab elsewhere on the planet. There’s talk about setting up some semipermanent facilities; maybe one in the north polar areas, maybe one in southern Hellas, maybe one in Isidis or Tharsis. We’ll see.”

“I’d favor more Mobilhabs,” replied Shinji. “They’re portable bases.”

“We need much faster air transport, too,” added Will. “The Commission’s looking into that problem.” He sighed. “There’s so much to do. And I’ve got to run; we’re having my mother, sister, and brother in law over electronically for Marshall’s fifth birthday party.”

“Thanks, Will,” said Shinji, with a smile.

“Any time.” Will rose from his chair and headed out of the lab.

He walked through Habitat 3 on his way home and passed Martha Vickers going the other way. “How’s Charles?”

“Oh, tired of Deimos! But I think they’re all enjoying the work, in spite of the duration.”

“They have accomplished our only significant science so far, and they’ve reconfigured the drillers to make a lot more fuel for us, so it has been a successful expedition. Don’t worry; I think they’ll be landing in four to six weeks. The dust storm activity is waning.”

“I know. He’ll be here for the baby, at least.”

“Definitely. How are you holding up?”

“Alright. We definitely need another psychiatrist here. But I’m happy to say one couple considering marriage is in counseling and it’s going well, and I think another marriage is getting off the rocks.”

“That’s not easy to accomplish; congratulations.”

“Thank you. They’re working pretty hard. As for your ‘conversations’ with various people; Will, keep encouraging John Hunter. He’s coming out of a shell of some sort. And keep working on Ruhullah, he’s beginning to make some friends here.”

“I’ve noticed, and he’s more comfortable around me as well. I’ll keep up my efforts.”

“You should consider counseling if you ever need a second career.”

Will smiled. “Thanks.” He continued on his way across the tunnel between Habitat 3 and 4, then he entered another tunnel that connected to Clarke Dome. It looked relatively bare now that many of its trees had been moved to Yalta, and the once “huge” space looked small by contrast with their first biome.

After crossing the dome he entered another short tunnel that sloped downward to the east end of Yalta biome. He crossed the patio and paused in the yard long enough to watch some of the work being done on the swimming pool. Then he entered building 1 and went down the stairs to his new apartment in the garden level.

The house was immaculately clean, nicely arranged, and full of people. In addition to Marshall’s closest little friends—Sam and Corazon—a few adults had been invited: Roger, Madhu, Érico, and Carmen, who were their closest friends by default and seniority. Michiko, Shinji’s young wife, was there as well; Shinji was still on the way, since Will had just seen him at the Mars biology lab. The large screen on the living room wall had two images on it; one of Will’s mother Katherine, his sister Molly, her husband Taraz Nuri, their fifteen-year old son Paul, and a five-year old neighbor of Katherine’s, Jerome Case; the other was of Ethel’s father James McGregor, her sister Gina, and Gina’s eleven year old daughter Karie. Marshall’s deferred birthday party was proceeding on two terrestrial continents and two planets.

“Where have you been?” asked Ethel. “We had to delay the cake.”

“I’m very sorry, I had a meeting and it started late.”

“We’re really happy you liked the adventureman set, Marshall,” exclaimed Katherine suddenly over the video link. “We thought you would! It seemed perfect.”

Marshall walked to the videophone controls and pushed a button. He looked at the screen. “Thank you again, grandma. Sam and I are already playing with it; it’s great!” He looked at his father. “We opened their present a little while ago, daddy. She gave me the whole adventureman set!”

“Oh, that sounds like fun.” Will patted Marshall on the back. The boy was about to hurry back to Sam to play more when Jerome stepped up to the screen. “Marshall, I have an adventureman too! I love it! I wish we could play with it together.”

Will was startled to see Marshall’s response. He looked thrilled, like he was talking to an identical twin. He reached over to push the respond button. “Thanks, Jerry, I wish I could play with you, too!  Maybe we can play over the video screen some time.” Then Marshall headed back to Sam, seemingly a bit reluctantly.

Will turned to the video controls and pushed the respond button. “Hello, everyone. It’s good to see you; I’m glad you were able to attend Marshall’s party. Paul, you’re getting really big! You could come here to Mars in about a decade if you want; keep that in mind. Jerry, I’m so glad you’ve come to the party. Marshall needs a friend his own age; as you may know, he’s the oldest kid here on Mars. Mom, I really like your new haircut. Yes, I did notice; Ethel hasn’t said anything to me! I’m sorry I’m a bit late. I was meeting with the biologists, who are making a plan to head north to a particular site where the drill might get them some good samples. We’re also talked about rearranging the entire Outpost, because with almost everyone moved into Yalta, half the rest of the Outpost is empty! It’s kind of errie walking through the Habitats at night when no one is working in them. We’ll end up using a lot of the space for storage and as emergency backup housing if we have a problem with Yalta. Of course, work will start on Catalina pretty soon as well. Anyway, let me know how you all are doing. I’m looking forward to hearing.”

He pressed send; they were basically sending video mails back and forth, with cameras at all three locations continuously sending five frames a second in black and white unless someone was sending an audio message. It gave them a jerky, grainy view of each other, punctuated with sharp, high frame color transmission every minute or so.

Will turned to Marshall. “What’d you get from grandpa?”

“A new computer game; it’s the latest Dungeons and Dragons of Mordila.”

“Oh?” Will was not sure he approved of his son’s interest in such games, but software was easy to give between planets. He turned to the video controls and sent a message to Scotland. “Good sol, Grandpa James! Marshall loves that software series, as you know, so thank you very much. I see you have quite a birthday cake there. I think I’d like your cake more than ours! We’re getting out our cake now, so get ready to light your candles.”

The birthday cake came out, with five candles—real candles!—on top. It was just about the first birthday candles used on Mars; Ethel had made a batch just last week, now that Yalta’s large volume of air was available to handle the smells and pollutants. Candles were lit in Connecticut and Scotland as well, though they would not see them for another half hour. Marshall was clearly delighted and quickly blew them out. “Did you make a wish?” asked Ethel.

“That you can light them again, so that I can blow them out again!”

“Sorry, I don’t have another match; we didn’t make many.” She did have another match, but she didn’t want Marshall to keep asking to have candles lit. “What’s your other wish?”

Marshall smiled. “That daddy will take me up to the top of the escarpment in a ranger!”

“You still want that birthday ride?” asked Will. “Okay. I think next Satursol the dust storm will have cleared away enough. We can go up then.”

“Can I go too?” asked Sam.

Will looked at Roger, who seemed interested. “Maybe both boys and their fathers can go,” he replied.

-----------------------------

Satursol morning was rather busy, but the trip to the escarpment was scheduled for the afternoon. Right after lunch Will was running home with Marshall so the boy could use the bathroom—he didn’t want to pee in the ranger—when John Hunter saw them and waved. “Commander, have you a moment?”

Will looked at his son. “Why don’t you run home to use the bathroom; you don’t need my help.” Marshall nodded and ran off. Will turned to John. “How have you been doing, lately? I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“Thank you, that’s kind of you. My geochemical research has been postponed somewhat by the situation; not directly because of the storm, but indirectly, because the geologists I usually would collaborate with are doing construction or are exploring by Prospector, and because the increased number of people doing construction also increase the demand for industrial chemicals. So I’ve been busy lately synthesizing ammonia, hydrochloric acid, polyvinyl chloride, vinyl, and a dozen other compounds. But I have made some progress studying the chemistry of Martian magmas in the upper mantle; that work is being done in collaboration with geochemists at the University of Hawaii, who have the equipment to synthesize conditions in the upper mantle.”

“You’ve been teaching there, too.”

“Yes, one course a semester by video, with videomail exchanges with the students and a lot of support provided by a capable graduate assistant. But I wanted to ask you something. Can you step into my apartment for a moment?”

“Sure, of course.” Will followed John downstairs. He was their closest neighbor, sharing the other half of the garden level of building 1. John swiped his card in the door and pulled it open. They entered his living room, a space four meters by five. It had a locally machine-woven polyester rug of his own design with a thunderbird in the middle. A couch ran along the right wall with large pillows, also locally made; he had an easy chair as well. The wall had several large pictures of the Bad Lands and the Black Hills of South Dakota. A door in the back of the living room in the middle led to John’s bedroom, bathroom, and to a second exit that took him straight to the tunnel to Joseph Hall. A window on the left side of the rear wall two meters wide ran from floor to ceiling and let in natural light, which flooded down the light well beyond and poured into the room.

“My question has to do with the light well. I love it; not only do I have this window, but the bedroom has a huge picture window onto it and the hallway to the bedroom includes a door giving access to it. As you can see, I usually leave it open.” He pointed. “For me, having a place that actually includes a piece of ground is a blessing I never expected to have on this planet. Now, the wall opposite my bedroom is the wall of your daughter’s bedroom. I don’t know whether that means I should consult with you about it or not.”

Will interrupted. “I am happy to hear your ideas, but I regard this light well your property, so you can use it as you wish. Lizzie’s windows face the other way, so she can’t see into most of your area.”

“I understand that. What I’d like to do is obtain some plastic trellises and plant climbing plants in pots; morning glories, for example. No one would object to that?”

“I don’t know why they would, but you can ask your neighbors above whether they’d like to look out their windows at flowers or not.”

“I plan to do that. I know I can get the pots and seeds from Ecology. But I have a more delicate question. I’d like to plant a few other species in my light well. I brought seeds of traditional tobacco with me, the kind grown by my people for centuries. I also have some gourds, beans, and maize. The gourds would enjoy climbing up the wall as well.”

“Have you spoken to Lisa about this?”

John hesitated. “No. So far, I’ve kept the seeds in hermetically sealed pouches. If they have any microorganisms—germs—they haven’t been able to escape. I know that will be her concern. Of course, the light shaft is wholly inside building 1’s bubble, so nothing in my garden can get outside.”

“Except on your hands. You’ll be handling soil, then walking outside.”

“I can always wash my hands very carefully.”

“John, if the wrong species were to get loose in the biome, it could cause a cascade of problems. It could cut food production ten percent, which would cause quite a problem for us.”

“I understand all that, of course. I’m just hoping we can find a way. The seeds were packed a bit over a year ago; I need to plant them pretty soon, or it’ll be too late for them.”

“I see.” Will considered. “Let’s you and I schedule a meeting with Lisa about this. I think she can look at the seeds under a powerful microscope and make sure we only have tobacco, and she can apply a germicide to them to kill fungi and other undesirables. We can find a way.”

John smiled. “That would be marvelous, Commander.”

They turned and headed back to the front door. “I’d like to ask you a question, if I may,” said Will. “Is John your real name?”

“Yes and no. My parents gave me a Christian name—they’re Catholics—and a Lakota name. Depending on the situation, I use one as my first name and the other as my middle name.”

“Why don’t you use your Lakota name here?”

John was surprised. “I’ll think about that.” He opened the door.

“I had better go find Marshall. He’ll wonder where I am. See you later.” Will headed out of John’s apartment and entered his own. Marshall had obviously used the bathroom; the toilet seat was up. But the boy wasn’t there. Will checked the water closet, which had their second toilet, an essential when one had small children. No Marshall. He went back out and up the stairs. Marshall was with Roger and Sam in the courtyard.

“There you are!” Marshall exclaimed.

“Let’s go,” replied Will.

The four of them headed back inside the building and through a tunnel across it to another tunnel that took them to Joseph Hall. A ranger stood waiting for them in the garage. Will and Roger grabbed their spacesuits and took the two smallest ones on the rack; both were much too large for Marshall and Samie, but in an emergency they’d keep the boys alive and the fathers could carry them. They loaded up the ranger with everything they needed for the trip or checked it for supplies. Then they closed the doors and began to lower the atmospheric pressure slowly, because the ranger used a pure oxygen atmosphere, rather than the Outpost’s 0.33 atmosphere, 60% oxygen and 40% nitrogen.

They drove into the airlock, then outside. The boys were sitting in the front right seat; Roger was in the middle seat; Will drove. The boys began to jump up and down with excitement as they looked at the terrain; Roger calmed them. Will took the main route to the escarpment and the boys watched the wall of rock grow larger and higher by the minute. They stopped at a nice overlook for a few minutes, then drove toward the Little Colorado Trail. Marshall and Sam both expressed surprise when the ranger headed straight to the talus slope, then diagonally up the rock pile on a roadbed of frozen dirt. In a few minutes they were at the bottom of a canyon so narrow and deep that it was surprisingly dark. But after they drove in, it began to widen a bit and rose steadily upward. Where the canyon bottom originally had had waterfalls there were now ramps blasted into the canyon side; over the last five years the trail had been steadily improved and was now pretty wide and good.

Will drove prudently at a reasonably slow speed; he rarely went over thirty kilometers per hour. But for boys who had never been in a vehicle before and had never been outside the Outpost before, it was incredible. Roger pointed out brightly colored layers as they went; the 1,500 meters of cliffs contained a billion years of volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts, sand storms, floods, mini-glaciations, and tectonic shifts. The boys were too young to understand, so he stuck to the colors; the canyon was one of the more spectacular areas on Mars.

After half an hour they drove up one last steep ramp and were suddenly on a rolling plateau. The boys were startled by the sudden change. Roger pointed Will toward a faint dirt track and he turned onto it. It snaked southward along the rim of Little Colorado Canyon for twenty minutes until Will slowed as they approached the top edge of the escarpment.

“Go over here,” said Roger, pointing toward a prominence sticking southward from the rest of the cliff. “I’ve walked the area; it’s solid.” Will nodded and drove toward the prominence, very slowly, until he stopped the ranger just two meters back.

“Take a look,” Will said, with a smile.

“Wooooowwwww!” exclaimed Marshall. He pressed his nose against the windshield. The dust storm had cleared fairly extensively; Roger pointed out the Outpost about fifteen kilometers away.

“This is a great spot,” said Will.

“I’ve got to tell Jerry about this place!”

“This is the place I was suggesting we put the dacha,” exclaimed Roger. “See the shape of the cliff? It’s crescent-shaped, just like our buildings. From the third floor the view of the vallis would be incredible.”

“It would be.” Will looked around. “The hike along the edge would be pretty interesting.”

“It is; I’ve done it. And if you walk about a kilometer northward along Little Colorado’s rim, there’s a wide landslide scar and one can go down the cliff face pretty easily. It gives access to a series of ledges on the escarpment face.” Roger raised his voice to be heard above the boys. Then he grabbed Sammie. “Hey, calm down, and don’t shout! Just look!”

“Daddy, can we go outside in a space suit?” asked Sam.

Roger scoffed. “Get real, my boy. You have a few years to go for that!” Sammie looked crushed; Marshall looked at Will, who shook his head.

“So, we’d put one of the two bubbles here. It looks to me that the floor of the bubble would lap over the cliff in a few spots.”

“It could. I was thinking that we’d build half or two thirds of the bubble and leave part of it as a garden or an open spot. We’d want a pool, sauna, and Jacuzzi if possible.”

“That’d be nice. Let’s push this idea. I think it’s time we have a little vacation spot, and we’re not talking about an excessive amount of work. This is a spectacular choice.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying for months.”

---------------------------

David Alaoui glanced at the environmental controls in the bridge. “Have we moved control over both interplanetary transit vehicles to here?”

“Affirmative,” replied Sally Greenleaf. “Ludwig just transferred them over ten minutes ago.”

“Excellent. Magellan Station is fully reintegrated, then.”

“Which means we’ll be able to proceed with set up of the hydroponics pretty soon,” noted Juliette Delafontaine, with a smile. As the mission horticulturalist, she was looking forward to setting up the first greenhouse in interplanetary space.

 How long before docking with the automated cargo vehicle?” asked David.

Sally checked the chronometer on a screen. “About twenty-two hours.”

“Good.” David looked at his watch; it was 2 a.m. local time, which meant it was also 2 a.m. in Europe. “I say, let’s all go to bed.” He turned to the communications panel near his elbow and opened a line to Magellan Mission Control. “Everything here in Venus orbit is nominal, so we’re going to bed. Talk to you in the morning. Out.”

They all wished each other good night. Sally floated up the shaft connecting the Guineviere to the Amazonis; like Ludwig, she slept in the other ITV. Juliette headed up the shaft as well to her bedroom on the third level. David tarried a moment to set the controls on autopilot and to transfer emergency communications to his attaché; if something happened, he would be awakened immediately. About twice a week some sort of glitch was sufficiently significant for the ITV’s computers to awaken him. Then He glanced around the tiny bridge and the small common room on the ITV’s second level where they shared their meals and meetings and did much of their work. For three and a half months they had put up with cramped quarters; the bottom level of each ITV was a large cargo bay, the fourth level was occupied by a liquid methane tank, and the fifth level was stuffed with food, leaving them the third level for two bedrooms and the second level for everything else. But now that they had arrived, the cargo bays could be emptied and converted into living space. That would be a welcome development.

David pushed himself across the room to the shaft and then up it to his bedroom on the third level. Once in his room, he glanced out the window at Venus, huge and so bright it made his eyes water. He’d have to close the window’s shutter before going to bed, it was so bright. But first he secured his attaché on his desk, turned it on, and wrote an email to his friend Will Elliott, Commander of Mars.

Dear Will: As I’m sure you know, fifteen hours ago we aerobraked into orbit around Venus. Both the Guineviere and the Amazonis performed flawlessly. The ACV arrived a few hours ago and it aerobraked according to plan as well. So here we are! Four human beings, two interplanetary transit habitats, and about sixty tonnes of stuff—everything from frozen dinners to hydroponics to airplanes that fly in the atmosphere of Venus. We’re really well equipped and should be extremely safe, since we have so many redundant systems.

I can’t help but think back to Columbus 1 and make comparisons with our flight to Mars almost ten years ago. It’s hard to believe it’s been so long! In both cases it was a flight to the unknown. But the differences strike me more sharply than the similarities. Columbus 1 went to the surface: Magellan can never do more than orbit Earth’s sister world. When I look out the window at Venus I have a wholly different feeling than when we were orbiting Mars. The latter world is inviting; you look at its old, cratered surface and you think about the water and other resources available to you and wonder whether the day will come when millions live there and build a great nation. But when I look at Venus I think: smog, poisonous clouds of sulfuric acid, heat greater than any oven, heat that can melt lead and aluminum, pressure equal to the ocean depths. In short, I see death instead of life. Even searing Mercury would seem more inviting than this place. I shutter in spite of our safety features.

“And those differences have profound implications for the futures of these missions and these worlds. Our presence in Venus orbit is controversial; many more people cannot imagine that the advantages of science outweigh the dangers to us. We will accomplish ten times as much as could be accomplished from Earth alone; that is indisputable. But ten times does not seem enough. Even if we are able to leave the Guineviere here to serve as a nucleus of a permanent station, there is no guarantee people will keep coming here. None of the four of us plan to stay and cover the five-month gap between Magellan 1’s departure and Magellan 2’s arrival. I suppose eventually this place will acquire several ITVs and the resources to make a permanent crew safe, but it is not clear that even then, a crew will remain. I look at the romance sprouting between two of the crew members here and think that they will never stay in consequence, like they might on Mars. I may even recommend to them that they apply for Columbus 7; Mars is the place for married couples in the astronaut corps to go, after all.

“All these thoughts weigh on me as we start our mission here. It is immensely exciting, but it will never be the same as Mars. With any luck, we will achieve some very important breakthroughs. Each ITV has an inflatable greenhouse patterned after the prototypes used in low Earth orbit and at Gateway. With very efficient recycling we will make possible an expansion of Magellan 2 to six crew. The various telerobotic rovers on the Venus surface—all dead, at the moment—have collected thirty kilograms of very interesting samples, and the Samandar 2 Sunwing still flying has another thirty kilos of samples on board. If we can get them and another forty kilos up into orbit, we will have achieved a particularly remarkable milestone. It means Magellan 2 can bring a geology lab to orbit and samples can be studied actively here, which will greatly speed up exploration of this place.

“And who knows, maybe a permanent orbital population will be possible here. If we can bring geological samples up, we can haul up other things as well, like deuterium. As the cost of sending things from the Earth’s surface to interplanetary space keeps dropping, it’ll be cheaper and cheaper to build a really large station up here. So perhaps my pessimism is misplaced. Long term, this world may have a human future.

“I’m looking forward to hearing from you, sister world to sister world. I hope all is well on Mars, as well as with you and your family. Kiss Ethel for me. David.

 

© 2004 Robert H. Stockman

 

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