4
Quake
Will and his leading heads of staff—Ruhullah, Alexandra,
Yevgeny, Lisa—faced a screen with Douglas Morgan, Head of the Mars Commission,
flanked by his leading heads of staff. On that particular sol—December 2—the
round trip time delay was thirty-two minutes. Discussion of issues tended to
resemble two parallel panel discussions, with a break for refreshments and
other tasks in between.
“This is a good time to review
everything,” Morgan began. “Columbus 7 arrived six weeks ago, the Olympus
four weeks ago, and the last of three automated cargo vehicles one week ago.
Training is over and everyone is at work. Dawes has been founded. All the cargo
has been deorbited except the one pallet that comes down next month with the
Deimos expedition. Finally, yestersol the Syrtis headed for Venus. It is
opportune to begin the plans for the next opposition. Pavel will give you the
preliminaries.” Morgan turned to Pavel Rudenkov, who had been on Mars with
Columbus 3 and was now in charge of the Commission’s office of technology and planning.
“The Commission appointed a
planning committee with members drawn from NASA, ESA, and the Russian and
Japanese space agencies,” he began. “We’ve considered three ideas: use of Venus
gravity assists to shorten the round trip flight time for the Columbus
expeditions; use of LANTR engines to make possible a shorter roundtrip for
special passengers and tourists; and expanding the capacity of the existing
interplanetary habitats. We favor all three options, rather than picking among
them.
“The Lescov Report you sent last
month gives substantial reasons to use the Venus route regularly and to include
a stopover at Magellan rather than a tandem Venus flight for 112 days. The
committee worried about the disadvantage—fuel expenditure—but you have
convinced us that the continued expansion of Mars’s transport and fuel
production capacities tip the balance. Next week we will open negotiations with
the Venus Commission about sending passenger flights via Magellan.”
“Stop the transmission so we can
cheer!” exclaimed Yevgeny. And he shouted a loud “yea!” Alexandra and Érico
applauded.
“Congratulations; you did it,” said
Will, shaking Yevgeny’s hand. Then he pressed play.
“We will also propose a cargo
flight to Venus every 350 days when Mars and Venus are aligned. You can provide
them water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, argon, and food. Eventually the buildup
of mass will provide excellent radiation shielding.”
“Great!” said Yevgeny. “We’re a
natural partnership with them. We’ve got lots of old heat shields and avionics
we can repair, and they can toss them back to us a year later.”
Will nodded. He had hit pause
again; now he hit play. “We also recommend the use of the LANTR engines and
expanded annexes for Columbus 8 in 2035,” Pavel continued. “The LANTR engines have
proved their reliability on the lunar runs, and annexes worked well on Columbus
7. The flight would involve two LANTRs, two shuttles, six ITVs, and six
expanded and improved inflatable annexes. They’ll get to Mars in 120 sols,
aerobrake into orbit—the vehicles will need special heat shields because of the
high entry velocity—stay one month, then return to Earth via Venus in about
nine months. The flight will accommodate, in addition to sixty-two Mars-bound
passengers, ten tourists, two pilots, and two special passengers for the
Commission; they could be a Commission representative or someone who could
provide a medical service, such as an eye surgeon or a cancer specialist. The
round trip will cost each tourist about $40 million. It appears this special
fast flight will only be practical in 2035, not other oppositions in the near
future. It depends on the continued improvement of the technology.
“Finally, we recommend a separate
flight to Mars with an asteroid encounter. It will be designated Elysium
after the Mars shuttle included and will take fourteen personnel to the
asteroid 2021QA. The eight-month flight will reach Mars in January 2036. Thus
we anticipate 62 people flying on Columbus 8 and 14 more on the Elysium,
for a total of 76 people crossing space between the planets.”
“Wow!” said Lisa. “Lots of mouths
to feed in two years.”
“And housing for sardines; they’ll be crushed into
those ITVs!” exclaimed Érico, shaking his head.
“One other question: a flight from Earth to Mars via
Venus in the summer of 2034. We have decided that while the opportunity is
indeed excellent, the plans for 2035 are already so ambitious we will not avail
ourselves of the 2034 opportunity.”
“Darn,” said Érico.
“Some other time; we need to be sure the 2035 mission
will work,” replied Will.
“Let me add we will not be giving
project designations to anything other than the Columbus flights,” said Morgan,
resuming the presentation from Houston. “We’ll designate Venus gravity-assist
flights and flights that visit asteroids after the shuttle or ITV serving as
the flag ship. We wish to avoid the appearance of competition with NASA or
anyone else. Mich, say something about passenger accommodations and cargo
capacities. I’m sure our friends on Mars are worrying about sardines in a can
and rats in a cage right now.”
“It won’t be that bad,” replied
Mich Dvorkin, the Assistant Commissioner for Exports. “As you probably know,
the annexes on Columbus 7 increased the volume of the ITVs by 150%. The ITVs
required a heat shield twelve meters across instead of ten so that they could
aerobrake more mass safely. The bottom three levels will have storage for
twenty-four to thirty tonnes of cargo surrounding six staterooms and three bath
facilities; during a solar storm, they become a storm shelter with double
rooms. The fourth level will have a galley and the life support equipment for
the ITV and annex. Docked to the top of the ITV will be a cube three meters
across that can hold an inflatable annex six meters in diameter and ten meters
long, larger than the entire ITV in terms of interior volume. It can extend the
length of the ITV from 13 meters to 23, adding three more decks into which
furniture and life support equipment can be moved. The shuttles accompanying
the flight will transport docking units, allowing everything to dock together
and rotate for artificial gravity. They’ll carry a spare annex as well to
provide a zero-gee gym or emergency accommodation.
“We will launch the ITVs with their
annexes deployed. A few sols before reaching Mars, however, all furniture and
people will move out of the annexes and into the ITVs. The annexes will be
deflated and packed back into their boxes. If one won’t go in its box, it can
be jettisoned; it’s just a six-tonne plastic shell. The last few sols of flight
will be very cramped and busy, but it’ll end with arrival at Mars.”
Will hit pause because he could see
everyone wanted to talk. “The bottom line is always important,” noted
Alexandra. “But this should indeed be cheaper.”
“Not a very elegant solution,”
noted Érico. “If they can make the heat shield two meters bigger, why not the ITV
itself? That would double the size as well, and protect it all from
aerobraking.”
“No, Érico,” replied Alexandra.
“For the sake of artificial gravity, you want a long, thin design.”
Érico shrugged. “Perhaps. I wonder
what the mass of this new system is?”
“Thirty-six tonnes,” replied Will,
looking at a file on his attaché. “They’ve sent the specifications along.
That’s actually not much better per person than the old design. But the old ITVs
cost half a billion each, and the annexes cost less than $100 million. That
explains why they aren’t starting from scratch, Érico.”
The others turned to the report as
well and read the details. Will reactivated the transmission so they could
listen and read at once.
“That’s everything we’ve got at
this end,” said Morgan. “I’m sure you’ve got questions, so let us know. We look
forward to your report. Over to you.”
“Their report doesn’t deal with
visits to near-Mars asteroids,” said Érico, irritated. “They have just looked
at the Earth side.”
“Then we’ll cover that; are you
prepared to give that report?” replied Will.
Érico nodded. “I’ll cover Dawes and
surface exploration, since Roger’s already out in the field,” continued Will.
“Yevgeny will cover exports, Alexandra construction. Are we ready?”
The others nodded, so Will
activated their microphones. “Good sol to all of you, and thank you for the
reports. Several of us have started reading the technical details in the
electronic text attached to the message and we’ll send emails with questions as
we go. Overall, we are very pleased by your proposals, as you can imagine. We
have wanted to send cargo to Venus for some time because we see Phobos and
Venus as having a natural synergy. We have wanted the LANTR system; it may mean
some of us with children can go back to Earth if we ever decide to do so. The
annex system is an important augmentation of the ITVs and we are happy it has
worked so well.
“Our news is mostly good, as you
know, and we have some requests as well. Two expeditions have set out. One went
to Dawes, and once it has helped to set up the outpost there, it will explore
the borough thoroughly, then head southward to Hellas and Argyre, an area we
still have explored inadequately. The other is heading for the southern Tharsis
region, which is also little explored. The Pisces trail, which will circle Mars
at the 25-degree south latitude—the Tropic of Pisces—is relatively unfinished,
and together the two expeditions will complete it. They will also complete
three more connections between it and the Circumferential Trail, and one more
to the Virgo Trail circling the northern hemisphere.
“Dawes is the point of frustration
right now. Setting up the biome there has been complicated by a dry well,
several major repair problems with the excavation equipment, and a serious air
leak in the Mobilhab housing half the crew. I think those problems are behind
us now, and we hope the biome will be inflated in two months and completed in
eight, as scheduled. The new robotic truck based on a mobilhab chassis and
ranger power systems is already making runs from here to Dawes, to Cassini, and
then back here, in two thirds the time it used to take; the obstacle avoidance
software is very, very good. It’s hauling eight tonnes of cargo each time, and
with trail improvements and greater confidence that should double or even
triple eventually. We should have a Sunwing D ready to fly next month, though
we won’t have enough silane for its engines for four more months. It should be
helpful to the transportation system even without silane engines, though.
Turning now to exports, Yevgeny will update you.”
“Our problem is a lack of heat
shields,” said Yevgeny. “We are now in a position to export a lot more than we
are able. Gold production is increasing, though slowly. With crews twice as
large as last columbiad, Muller and Consolidated should be able to produce
fifty percent more gold, or 210 tonnes in 26 months. They’d like to produce
twice as much, but the richest deposits of nuggets are now exhausted. Sibir can
only guess at its output; probably about seventy tonnes. So we are looking at
exporting 280 tonnes of gold in the next two years; at the reduced price of ten
million per tonne, that’s still $2.8 billion, and roughly half goes to the
Commission. Mars will be covering almost a quarter of its operating expenses at
that point.
“The problem is that we need a lot
more aerobraking capacity. Phobos and Deimos could export two to three hundred
tonnes of methane per columbiad, enough to cover the cost of all our hydrogen
and oxygen fuel for the LANTR launches. But we can’t even aerobrake 280 tonnes
of gold with our current equipment; we are dependent on more equipment arriving
two years from now. We’d like permission to manufacture simple ablative heat
shields. We think we can make then pretty easily and cheaply. They’ll be ten
meters in diameter, designed so they can be launched in sections and bolted
together on Phobos, and thick enough to aerobrake fifty tonnes of gold. You’ve
already seen some of the design; we’re attaching more details to this message.
If we could make five per year we’d be able to export all our gold and about
two hundred tonnes of ice as well. It’d be a significant increase in our
capacity.” Yevgeny, finished, looked to Will.
“Thanks. Alexandra will update the
construction situation.”
“Thank you, Will. Here at Aurorae,
the hole has been dug and prepared for our fifth biome, Huron, which as the
name implies, will have a central North American climate with cold winters and
hot summers twice per annum. It’ll be our first temperate-climate biome and an
important experiment supporting bio-archive. It’ll be interesting to see
whether we have trouble selling the condominiums in Huron. Cassini’s getting
its second biome, Sutter, which will have a Mediterranean climate, like its
first biome. Dawes gets Orinoco, a tropical biome. We’re building all three at
once, which is quite a feat for us. We’ll also build our first microwave power
relays from Aurorae and Cassini to Phobos, allowing us to beam power between
the two boroughs when Phobos is high enough in the sky at both, which occurs
three times a sol for ninety minutes each time. We also have to make new
methane and liquid oxygen tanks for all three boroughs, Phobos, and Embarcadero.
“Industrialization is less flashy,
but in many ways it’s more important. The new equipment just imported will
allow us to make kevlar, nomex, and several other important plastics. We can
now make silane and better quality fiberglass. The new computerized metal
working lathe will allow us to create much more complex metal objects. With
additional workers we can put out a larger quantity of items as well. In
another columbiad or two we should be in the position to export equipment.”
“Thanks, Alexandra,” said Will.
“And now to Érico and the most challenging set of goals.”
Érico nodded. “We now have six Mars
shuttles here, which are needed when interplanetary vehicles arrive or depart,
but are not in between. We have six Lifters stationed on the moons. We also
have four functioning cargo landers from a decade and a half ago out of the
nine that were originally dropped here with cargo. Some have fuel and oxidizer
tanks transferred from the other five. They can be packed inside a shuttle
cargo hold and hauled to orbit, where they can be used as asteroid explorers.
“And that is what we propose to do.
Columbus 7 has arrived with a dozen remote sensing packages designed to be
placed on Mars, and a dozen Prospectors to explore the Martian surface. All of
them can be used in an asteroid context as well with some modifications.
“In the next two years we would
like to launch two former cargo landers with Prospectors and a remote sensing
pack to specific near-Mars asteroids. The first launch, in three months, will
go to 2019XA, a 1,200 meter M-class nickel-iron asteroid that will pass about
ten million kilometers from Mars. The flight will take about three months. If
the equipment functions normally, after two years we can pack it up and fly it
back here, or we can send it to another asteroid; the lander will have enough
methane and oxygen for two delta-vees of about two kilometers per second each.
“The second automated mission will
go to Eureka, one of Mars’s trojan asteroids, flying in the same orbit as us
but sixty degrees behind us. We propose to launch in June—six months from
now—but the launch can occur at any time. The flight time will be 779 sols; 1
1/6 of an annum. Determining Eureka’s origin and composition are valuable
scientific goals. It probably formed in its present location and has been a
Mars trojan since the beginning of the solar system, in which case it would
represent material that came from the same part of the solar nebula as Mars.
Eureka may prove useful as a telecommunications relay point when Mars and Earth
are at conjunction. It’s two kilometers in diameter and should be easy to
explore by Prospector over two years. More information is in the document we
emailed earlier.
“Most exciting, however, would be
the Hadriaca mission to 2028CJ12. Four to six crew would fly to the
three kilometer object, which appears to be a sliver of Vesta, has a
half-kilometer moon in orbit around it, and which passes within six million
kilometers of Mars in mid 2035. The shuttles Hadriaca and Tharsis,
with crew compartments in their cargo bays, would fly to 2028CJ12 in about
three months, remain a month, then fly back in a week. The flight would involve
one deep-space delta-vee of 3 kilometers per second and a return delta-vee of 2
kilometers per second. The shuttles would start at Embarcadero Station and fill
up with fuel. A very thorough survey of 2028CJ12 is possible, and we will leave
a Prospector and scientific package on the surface for additional exploration
later. As you know, Vesta is the most thoroughly differentiated of the large
asteroids and the sliver appears to be a chunk of solidified magma broken off
when the south polar impact basin formed. We should be able to verify the
asteroid’s origin from Vesta and possibly even verify where on Vesta it came
from. Since our data about Vesta is still limited to automated orbital
reconnaissance and remote sensing, this will give us ground truth quickly and
cheaply. Success with this mission will pave the way for future efforts that
could be more ambitious and involve longer flights.”
“Thanks, Érico,” said Will. “Let me
add that we have already heard some criticism of Mars diverting its miniscule
resources into asteroid exploration. True, this effort will absorb at least ten
of our people full time and a hundred or more in Houston. We want to do this
because we are, by nature, explorers. I can’t tell you the enthusiasm we feel
for this project. About one third of our adult population is involved in
surface exploration as geologists, mechanics, and biologists. All of them—even
the biologists, who have acquired a lot of geological expertise—want to be
involved in this effort, which they see as a natural expansion and complement
to their current duties. We are not trying to upstage Project Argo, which will
reach its first asteroid before we do. We just want to do our job: push the
boundaries of human experience outward.
“That’s our report, we’ve heard
yours, and everyone has received the details electronically, so now we can
switch to question and answer. According to my chronometer, we should start
getting your comments about your plans any minute. I know some of us have been
emailing questions to you during our reports. We look forward to the
exchanges.”
Érico raised his hand and asked
what was the likelihood the inflatable annexes would be able to fit back into
their storage cubes at the end of the trip. This had been a problem with the
zero-gravity annexes. Alexandra noted that the answer—95%—was on page 24. By
then comments and questions were arriving from Houston about their own reports,
then about the reports from Mars.
For the next hour they read emails
and wrote responses, or received video comments and replied. Some discussion
was a bit strongly worded; in other cases there were very useful suggestions
from both sides. Then after a break there was panel discussion to summarize.
With some modifications to the plans, everyone was pleased with the results.
The meeting ended at 4:20 p.m.,
three hours after it began. Will returned to his office for a half hour of
emails and videomails, then headed for the patio in Yalta to meet the kids, who
were playing with their friends there. All twenty-four kids were there at once,
mostly running around and shouting. It was the most chaotic time of the sol;
they were tired, parents were arriving, and people were beginning to gather to
eat dinner.
After hugging dad, Marshall and Lizzie
dashed off to play more with their friends. The play area featured an overhead
bar five meters long and Marshall could go all the way across hand over hand,
turn around, and go back; the low gravity helped quite a lot. Will watched,
impressed, and praised Marshall for his strength. Fortunately, small children
were so active that they developed almost as much muscle on Mars as on Earth.
A crying child nearby caught his
attention. It was Patrick O’Hare, aged 4, the eighth child born on Mars. He had
been chasing his twin sisters, aged two and a half, and had fallen. Irina came
over to comfort her son, carrying her four month old baby. “Is he okay?” Will
called out.
Irina didn’t respond at first; she
was twenty meters away and Will had not raised his voice very much. The one
third atmosphere in the biomes did not transmit sound as well as Earth’s
thicker air and Will had not compensated. But then she figured out what he had
said. “Yes, he’s fine,” she replied. Just then Patrick dashed across the yard
again, after the girls again.
“He loves to chase them,” Will
said.
Irina nodded. She walked over to
him. “Yes, and they love his attention, too.”
“Did I hear Fatima say he’s writing
already?”
Irina nodded. “Yes, he’s good at
that and ahead of average. Of course, he can’t write much.”
“Marshall wasn’t writing anything
other than his name until he was almost five.”
“They get good attention here, and
they’re learning pretty fast.”
“How’s Mary?” Will looked at the
little one she was carrying, now an arm’s length away.
“Oh, she’s doing pretty well. She
just had a late afternoon nap and has nursed, so she’s happy.” Irina looked at
him. “Commander, I thought you should know I won’t be going back to work very
soon. I just saw Eve this sol. I’m going to have another baby. In August.”
Will was surprised. “Wow, that’s
fast. A year after Mary.”
“Eleven months after Mary,
actually. I was surprised, too.”
“Well, at least you’re raising our
average family size! Most couples here want one child, two at the most. You and
Eammon will have five.”
“I’m feeling a bit guilty about it;
it’ll be five years before I can go back to work, I think!”
“Don’t worry about it. The outpost
now has over 100 residents; it’s not like we need every person desperately. You
and Eammon are traditional Catholics. We can accommodate that.”
“I’m grateful for that, Commander.
Actually, I’m not quite as traditional as Eammon, and I think four kids are
enough, certainly five! But I’m not sure we’ll do much to limit our family.”
“I understand. Like I said, Irina,
I don’t think the Commission should take a position about family size. If
anything, we should encourage large families; it’s cheaper than importing
people! We’ve got a planet to settle. So I certainly wouldn’t feel guilty.”
“Thank you, Commander.” Irina
smiled, and she looked a bit guilty anyway.
“What would this place be without
the kids?” asked Will.
Irina smiled playfully. “Quiet!”
They both laughed. They turned
toward the patio; it was filling up. Just then Skip Carson entered. He saw Will
and waved, then walked over. “I’d like to interview you, Commander, about the
philosophy of exploration,” he said. “It’s part of a new project I’m
conceiving.”
“Sure; tomorrow may be busy, but I
could give you some time the sol after. So, is the muse sitting on your
shoulder again?”
Carson shrugged. “Not always, but I
think my creativity will surge soon. That’s how it usually works.”
“I hope so. I wouldn’t want you to
regret your decision to stay.”
Carson looked shocked. “Definitely
not! I’m very grateful you consented to let me stay until Columbus 7,
Commander! I had no idea Mars would be so fascinating, and a safe place to work
and interact.”
“No papparazzi.”
“Exactly. Maybe when I return to
Earth in two years I’ll be forgotten enough to be able to live a partially
normal life.”
Will shook his head. “I don’t think
so, Skip.”
“You’re probably right.” Skip
shrugged, then turned and headed to the food line.
Ethel walked into the biome. “Okay
Marshall, Lizzie, let’s go! Time to eat!” shouted Will.
The kids looked up. “Mom!” they
shouted, and hurried over to greet Ethel. She picked up Lizzie, six, and gave
her a hug and kiss. Marshall, now almost nine, no longer wanted to be picked
up, so she just kissed him. The four of them got into line to fill their
plates, then headed for their usual table for supper.
“How was the meeting?” she asked.
“Long, but it went well. Everything
was approved.”
“So we’re sending the Hadriaca
to the asteroid?” Ethel was excited.
Will nodded. “To Gradivus. It
needed a name, so we named it after Mars Gradivus, ‘Mars the Grower.’”
“That’s appropriate.” Ethel looked
around, then smiled and nudged Will. “There’s Greg and Anna, eating together
again.”
“You’re more of a matchmaker than
I.”
“Well, Anna and I talk a lot. They
seem perfectly suited for each other. She just told him yestersol that she was
a former nun. Apparently he was pretty startled.”
“Anna used to be a nun?” Will was
surprised as well.
Ethel nodded. “Yes. Ex-nun meets
ex-priest.”
“Like I said, they’re suited for
each other; they both have a very similar approach to life and to serving
others. Eammon’s pretty nervous about it.”
“Of course, he doesn’t want to lose
Mars’s only priest! Who would baptize his horde of kids?”
“That would be a problem for him,
but I think it’s delightful.” She smiled slyly.
They had to stop talking to help Lizzie
with her plate. Then they headed for the table. They were beginning to sit when
they heard a rumbling. Startled, they looked up. The ground began to sway
gently, like someone was driving a very large piece of construction equipment
by.
“What’s that?” asked Marshall.
“I don’t know,” replied Will,
trying to look out the window, even though he couldn’t see anything.
“Earthquake,” exclaimed someone at
a nearby table.
Then it hit Will. The ground was
indeed rolling a bit. “It’s a quake,” he said. “It is an earthquake.”
“What do we do?” asked Ethel.
Then the depressurization alarm
went off; not loudly and insistently, but it began to chirp like a fire alarm
with a low battery.
“Head for the tunnels!” exclaimed
Will.
There were screams and cries of
children as everyone began to run to the nearest tunnel. Someone opened the
door to the airlock and kept it open as the crowd—probably 75 of the Outpost’s
100 people—began to enter. Someone else overrode the other airlock door and
forced it open as well, as was the procedure to evacuate the biome. The tunnels,
encased in concrete and steel, were deemed the safest.
But the connecting tunnel had a
chirping alarm as well. “Everything’s depressurizing!” exclaimed Ethel.
“Not very fast, though,” said Will.
“And the shaking has stopped.”
“Where do we go?” exclaimed
someone, fear rising in her voice.
“Don’t panic, everyone!” exclaimed
Will. “My ears aren’t popping; the pressure’s not escaping very fast at all.
We’ve got time.”
“There’s no alarm in Clarke Dome!”
said someone. It was the next unit over, so the crowd began to move that way.
The intercom crackled. “This is
emergency control,” said Kent Bytown, who was in charge of environmental
control and was in the bridge at the time. “Aurorae has experienced a mild
earthquake. Or perhaps should say a marsquake. Yalta and Riviera Biomes both
have very small air leaks. Catalina and Shikoku do not. None of the buildings
in the biomes have leaks. The habitats do not, except habitat 2. We are not in
any serious danger. We ask emergency workers and volunteers to report to Joseph
Hall immediately. Everyone else should go back to Yalta, get their supper, and
take it home to eat. Yalta is safe for transit, but we ask that people not
remain in the open for very long.”
That calmed everyone down. Will
looked at Ethel. “I better get to the bridge. Take the kids and the suppers
home.”
“If they’ll eat. Do we know the
buildings are safe?”
“They should be. This was a
magnitude 3 or 4. The steel structure is designed to support the gardens
through a magnitude 6.”
“I wonder when we’ll have one of
them,” said Ethel, turning back to Yalta.
Will hurried into Joseph Hall—where
the chirp was mild—and into Renfrew Hall, an older construction, where the
alarm was louder. The geology building had quite a loud alarm and Will didn’t even
try to go through it; the airlock door refused to open. So he hurried through a
greenhouse to Habitat 1, where Kent had commendeered the three Prospector
drivers across the hall to help coordinate response.
“What’s the status?” Will
exclaimed.
“You heard the intercom? The habs
are fine. Yalta and Riviera have very slow leaks; about 0.005 atmospheres per
hour.” The geology facility is worst; 0.08 atmospheres per hour.”
“It was our first construction from
native materials. How strong was the quake?”
“I don’t have that data yet, but it
wasn’t much of a shaker. I’d go on the intercom and calm everyone, Will. Right
now, no danger.”
“Kent, how strong was the shake?
You told people they could go in their buildings. Those buildings have
600-tonne gardens on their roofs. I wouldn’t confirm anything until we’re sure
the buildings are safe.”
“It was 3.9,” exclaimed Zach
Hersey. He pointed to a screen where he had projected the seismic waves.
Will looked, then nodded. “That’s
not too bad.”
“Of course, this area’s supposed to
be aseismic!” noted Zach. “This must be one of the biggest temblors Mars has
experienced in a few years!”
“Wouldn’t you know it,” said Will.
Anything else damaged?”
“We’ve got a LOX tank leaking a
little bit, the pressure in one of the wells is dropping. . . we’ve got a
zillion little things,” replied Kent.
Will rolled his eyes. “Two or three
months of repairs.”
“And two or three months of
uncertainty!” added Kent.
© 2004 Robert H. Stockman