4

Dilemmas

Will had to smile when he saw Nandan hold up his right arm. “Mr. Commissioner, I think I’m in better shape than you are right now. As you can see, the burns are pretty much healed. It’s not clear to me that I had to miss two months of construction work. But at least we’ve repaired the damage done by the fire. The fire suppression system worked, though it’s clear it would not have worked anywhere nearly as well if the fire had happened at 3 a.m. in a section filled with sleeping passengers who needed five or ten minutes to evacuate. If we don’t fight a fire like this fast, it could do serious structural damage to the ship. So the permanent safety committee needs to look into that problem carefully.

“Otherwise, I’m relieved to say that we’re getting pretty close to being back to normal. By the time the Intrepid reaches Earth, we’ll be very close to the original construction schedule. Perhaps a slight reduction in passengers would be wise; I think we need to consider seriously scenarios where we have to accommodate damage to two of the caravel’s six sections rather than just one. But the safety committee must make that recommendation. Bye.”

Will hit reply. “Thanks for the report, Nandan. Perhaps, when I videomailed you a half hour ago asking for a report, I should have offered an explanation: I just had a cataract operation yestersol, so I’ll be wearing this eye patch for a few sols. I’m actually fine and have no intention of looking like a Halloween character forever. I’ll have the other eye done in a few months when this one has healed.

“I’m glad to see your arm has healed. Congratulations to you and your team for such a steady recovery from the accident. Accidents will happen, even in deep space. Our decision to send a fully certified flight surgeon with a well-equipped sick bay on the mission has been fully justified. Frankly, this accident is the strongest argument yet that missions to the asteroid belt and beyond have to be large enough to provide complex medical care. The Venus-Mercury Commission has been reviewing their staffing levels at both planets as a result.

“I’m amazed that we will be able to send nearly or just as many people to Mars on the caravel as planned. We can afford to reduce the caravel’s passenger manifest ten or twenty percent if it proves necessary; both United Spacelines and Lufthansa Space Express are flying passengers and cargo here, and their plans are remarkably sophisticated. So you and your team should not feel discouraged or guilty in any way. The work has been of excellent quality and the freak accident has given all of us an opportunity to learn. We’re looking forward to seeing most of you back here in less than a year. Bye.”

Will pushed a button and sent the message to Nandan. He noticed that meanwhile, a message had arrived from Pete Theodoulos, a Mars resident during Columbus 5 who was now the Commission’s director of Project Columbus. He had promised a report as well. Will played it.

“Good sol, Will. I’m rather ticked off today, so excuse me if I am ‘too’ frank. Gateway has become chaotic and may be an accident waiting to happen. There are too many terminals there, even if they are a minimum of ten kilometers apart. I had to call Roy Davison of United Spacelines earlier today because our terminal and the ion tugs docked to it are being shaded by the solar arrays of their ion tugs. Roy apologized and said he’d get the tugs moved a bit, but he was mad because he had informed the Lunar Commission of the problem and they hadn’t said anything about it. Someone has to be in charge; either the Mars Commission or the Lunar Commission, or maybe a jointly organized ‘Gateway Commission.’

“Roy also told me that they were flying another twenty tonnes of cargo to Mars for the Green Earth Community; that’s the fifth ACV they’re sending. He asked for a quotation for deorbiting it. I reminded him that he needed to email Érico Lopes about that, and he wasn’t happy; it’s clear he prefers to be able to conduct a face-to-face negotiation. I gather Érico feels we should use the maximal accounting figure for shuttle costs, which is about 500 euros per kilo. I disagree. It’d be better to keep it under 300 euros per kilo, which is the cost we’re aiming for if we plan to fly Martian goods to low Earth orbit and compete with the Swift Shuttle. Frankly, I think our costs can be calculated legitimately to be about 200 euros per kilo if the shuttles are fully loaded both up and down. Remember, United Spacelines is considering competing with us in the Mars-to-low-Mars-orbit market. They can’t right now, but eventually they could go to court to force the market open under reasonable rules of competition. Érico has to anticipate that.

“But here’s what really has me ticked off. I got a call from Klaus Herron at Lufthansa this morning expressing to me his concerns about the upcoming shadowing of his terminal—as if there were something I could do!—and he then mentioned that they plan to fly three annexes to Mars, one to serve as an axis and zero-gravity gym—and as backup accommodation—and two as rotated modules with gravity. I asked him about their pricing and he said they figure they can sell tickets for six million, and apparently that includes two million for margin and profit. I ran some quick calculations and figured that no matter what cost-cutting measures we implement, the cheapest we could fly passengers to Mars is 5.5 million each. So Lufthansa’s really squeezing costs somehow. I think we have to request a full safety audit. It strikes me as grossly unfair competition. I admit, if we ask for a safety review, we’ll generate terrible anger and resentment at Lufthansa; they’ll think we’re playing hardball and may retaliate in some other way.

“That’s it. Bye.”

Will stared at the screen, uncertain who to be angry with. Certainly not Pete; he was in the dark about a lot of things. He hit reply. “Thanks, Pete, and good sol. We received a full report from Lufthansa last month about their flight plans; didn’t someone copy you? I bet they didn’t. It was provided to Pierre Messier and he copied it to me, Érico, and a few others. Call him and get it. Lufthansa’s planning to accommodate forty-eight passengers in its vehicle. It’ll be very crowded. When Pierre expressed surprise he was told the accommodation would be better than on nineteenth century transoceanic passenger sailing vessels. Lufthansa also sent a cost breakdown that showed how they planned to achieve four million euros of costs per passenger. We’re skeptical, but they will do better than us, mostly because they’re doubling the passenger density. We do not plan to raise our density; if anything, the fire on the caravel will necessitate lowering it. Besides, with United flying twenty-four here and Lufthansa forty-eight, Mars appears set to receive over 250 people! Even with all the cargo coming, and three more Mars shuttles, we have our doubts we can comfortably accommodate all these folks. We’re beginning to tear our hair out; construction of the caravel Courageous has been stretched out even more so we can get at least one more agricultural biome going in time. We may have people camping in tents for six months!

“But you have raised another issue that must be dealt with: this rapid expansion in transportation necessitates that we appoint a Director for Transportation. It used to be the Director of the Columbus Vehicles was in charge of what came here on the ITVs and the automated cargo vehicles and therefore coordinated everyone’s use of Gateway for the ten months before launch. Moon transportation slowed down to accommodate us during that time. But that arrangement doesn’t work with this greater scale of operation and with the continuous tourist flights to the moon. Too many different tasks are being done and too little information is flowing. You and Érico can’t coordinate the deorbiting anymore, either; there are three entities shipping things to Mars orbit that need deorbiting, and potentially three that will want to launch exports during a short launch window. It’s crazy. We’ll have to meet tomorrow and straighten that out; I’ll ask my secretary to schedule the meeting.

“Call me back with any comments. Bye.”

Will sent the message, then copied it to Érico with comments about the problem of coordination; copied it to Pierre with an admonition to get the Lufthansa report to Pete; and copied it to his secretary in Houston with a request to plan the meeting and invite the attendees, which he listed. He had to figure out how to resolve some difficult issues of territoriality and to overcome Pierre’s dislike for Pete, who was at least as ambitious, younger, and a dual citizen of Canada and Europe. Then he turned to message number three, from the Director of Personnel, Jane Cairncross.

“Will, I can’t communicate adequately with Tariq Omar, coordinator of the Wahhabi group. They are insisting that only the men can work outside the home and that the women, if they work at all, will have to be either at home or in an all-women’s environment. As you can imagine, it is rather difficult for a woman to argue against this; he keeps insisting to talk to my boss, and when I say that’s you, he gets upset and stubborn. I’d favor giving them an ultimatum and dropping them from Columbus 10 entirely. Their position, in my opinion, is utterly unreasonable, besides being medieval, barbarous, misogynist. . . oh, and did I say I don’t agree with them? Advise, please. Bye.”

Will collected his thoughts, then replied, copying Hosni Hijazi, their local Saudi geologist and Arab hero as well. “Good sol, Jane. Our position is clear: everyone here works unless they have medical or maternity leave. Of course, if they want to go off and found their own community in the wilderness, they can do anything they want, but even then they’ll have to figure out how to cover their costs and fill their needs, and everything here is ridiculously expensive. We have the same issue with the Mormons.

“You call him back and lay down the law. Tell them they don’t have to come to Mars if they don’t feel it’s religiously appropriate. Tell him there is no one to appeal to. I’ll leave the communication to you. But I will ask Husni to give Dr. Omar a courtesy call in a few sols, since they know each other. Husni will reinforce your position and message. Bye.”

He sighed at that problem. He would prefer that the Wahhabis not come. They didn’t want to speak to him at all as a Bahá'í “apostate” even though he had never been a Muslim; they wanted to keep their women completely separate and cloistered; they tended to push their religion too much. No doubt if they came their presence would generate ill feelings.

Then the videophone icon beeped; it was Érico. “Will, Pierre was supposed to copy that Lufthansa memo to Pete. And this is the first time I’ve heard of United’s fifth ACV. Maybe Pete should start copying memos and messages as well!”

“Really?” Will shook his head.

“This makes a very bad situation worse. We’ll be landing cargo for six months. A lot of folks will have to wait a long time for their stuff. And that’s assuming we have no disasters.”

“The situation has gone beyond ridiculous; it’s become dangerous. I’m calling a meeting for tomorrow so we can coordinate the upcoming opposition better. I thought we had worked out the lines of authority and communication very clearly, but I guess not.”

“No, things are broken.”

“We need a director of Space Transportation, with everyone else reporting to him or her.”

Érico raised an eyebrow. “The trick will be avoiding a revolt, or making personality clashes worse!”

“I know, but the alternative could be loss of a vehicle.”

“That’s true.” Érico pondered the situation. “We’re really running into difficult import problems. Alexandra was telling me yestersol that production of nomex and kevlar is inadequate to make enough B-160s to feed everyone, and if they switch to B-75s they can produce enough plastics to fabricate the domes but they won’t have enough manpower to set them up! So it sounds like Bioarchive will get squeezed yet again. The hospital has increased its orders of basic supplies to maintain minimum per capita quantities. Everyone around the planet is increasing their orders about twenty-five percent to accommodate the larger population.”

“I know. As you said, we’ll be deorbiting cargo for six or seven months. We’ll have to plan the landing schedule carefully; surplus supplies for the second half of the columbiad can be landed last.”

“We’re trying that, but a lot of supplies were lifted to Gateway months ago and weren’t packaged that way. We may have to maintain a crew at Embarcadero full time for a year to repackage supplies. The new communities keep raising their imports, too. The Green Earth Community just scheduled an entire second ACV for their supplies, though I understand they’ve resold some of the space to the Zen Monastery, with whom they’re working closely. Part of the problem is that United Spaceways lowered their per-kilogram price for cargo, and that generated more demand. But that increases our work here!”

“I know. Silvio told me when he saw United’s prices, he ordered two more tonnes of stuff for the store. I was disappointed; he had always been flying cargo with us.”

“I can’t blame him. United’s got a lot of cargo flexibility with all its tourist flights to the moon, and they decided to launch four to six months earlier than everyone else and shuttle everything to the Earth-Sun lagrange 2 point, then fly it back past the moon and earth for a double gravity assist. They slashed chemical propulsion costs to a quarter of ours. We’ve got to adopt that trick next columbiad.”

“Write up a report for the meeting tomorrow. I want figures, details, and recommendations.”

“Alright, I can do that.”

“Good, thanks. Bye.”

“Bye.”

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

Everyone’s schedule accommodated a meeting best in the early afternoon, Aurorae time. After lunch, Will walked the kids back to school and then headed for his office. He was about to walk to the conference room when the videophone rang. It was Arieh Feldman, the hospital’s oncologist and chief surgeon. His heart sank; Ethel had just headed to the hospital for a mammogram.

“Good sol, Will,” he said. “Can you come over? Ethel has some decisions to make.”

“Oh? I have a meeting, but I suppose I can cancel it.”

“I’d advise it. They’re doing a scan now to collect additional data, and I suspect we’ll want to run a biopsy later this afternoon.”

“I’ll be right there.” Will closed the circuit and jumped out of his chair. The c-word: cancer. No one wanted to hear that. He grabbed his attaché so that he could call Ruhullah while hurrying over. The meeting would have to wait a sol.

He reached Mariner Hospital, located in Catalina’s North Building, in a minute, and headed downstairs to the testing area. Ethel was just coming out of the scanning room. Arieh Feldman and Eve Gilmartin were in the next room looking at the detailed microscopic images the new technology created.

“That doesn’t look good,” Arieh said to Eve, who nodded.

“At least it’s extremely small.”

“True.” Arieh looked at Ethel. “You should have a biopsy, and there’s no medical reason to wait. We can extract cells by aspiration; you know, with a needle.”

“Is it cancer?” she hesitated to say it.

“We don’t know yet. But it looks like ductal carcinoma in situ. The most common type of breast cancer starts in breast ducts; if it’s ‘in situ’ that means it hasn’t spread yet, which is good. We can pull out some cells and take a look at them tonight. We’ll send the images to the medical support facility in New Delhi and they’ll check our diagnosis. If it’s DCIS, we’ll biopsy the whole thing and remove the sentinel lymph nodes to make sure it hasn’t spread; in popular language, a lumpectomy.”

“When?” asked Ethel.

“Two sols.”

“That’s what Lisa had last year, right?” asked Will.

“And what I had three years ago,” added Eve. “Statistically, it appears that one fifth of the women here will get breast cancer.”

“And on Earth?” asked Will.

“One seventh,” replied Arieh. “The incidence is higher here—forty percent higher—but so far there have been no fatalities because we catch it earlier. Even our use of chemotherapy is less.”

“How much more cancer are we getting?” asked Ethel.

Arieh hesitated. “It’s hard to say; not everyone has been here the same length of time, and our population is too small for drawing statistically significant conclusions for many medical conditions. Breast and lung cancers are definitely more common and colon cancer appears to be more common. I’d guess we’re getting twenty or thirty percent more cancer for a population aged 25 to 50. We don’t have enough people older than 50 to draw statistically significant conclusions, but the computer models based on the younger population are not encouraging. At least it appears we have lower cardiovascular disease; everyone exercises and watches their weight pretty well.”

“This isn’t the time for a cancer analysis, though,” exclaimed Eve. “Shall we do the biopsy?”

Ethel looked at Will, then nodded. “Yes, let’s pin this down.”

“Alright,” said Eve.

The physicians left in order to prepare. Will put his hand on her shoulder. “How are you doing?”

She shrugged. “A little angry and a little scared.”

“This sounds like something they can handle.”

She took in a breath. “Yes, it does. We’re quite a pair, aren’t we, me with a bad boob and you with your eye patch!”

He laughed. “Yes, I guess we are. I suppose I can’t complain any more about my body falling apart.”

“No, that’s my line, now. We did this to ourselves. Both conditions were probably caused by radiation.”

“Yes. I guess I had better buy you one of those big, ridiculous-looking women’s hats with feathers and fake flowers covering ten kilograms of hydrogen-rich polyethylene. And a big, oversized radiation vest with huge shoulder and chest pads that’ll make you look like one of those huge Wagnerian valkyries.”

“Or a football player. Make sure the hat has one of those wide brims that turns up and hides four centimeters of polyethylene over the eyes. I don’t want cataract surgery.”

“You should have bought me one of those radiation-protecting fedoras. They actually look pretty good.”

“Well, let’s hope we influence fashion on Earth, so people here won’t feel silly wearing these things,” exclaimed Ethel.

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

The biopsy was complete before suppertime, though Ethel had no appetite, so she went straight home. The next sol the results were complete: it was DCIS. The surgical team prepared, Ethel went to work to plan the carbonyl separation team for a week without her, and Will held the major meeting of selected staff to review the Columbus 10 plans.

The next sol Ethel was at the hospital from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. for the ninety-minute operation, then home and sleeping. The sol after Will went back to the office to finish the major meeting. He brought them both lunch.

“Where are the kids?” asked Ethel, surprised he hadn’t brought them as well.

“Marshall’s eating with Rahula and his friends, much to his delight, and Lizzie’s with Carmen and Corazon. How are you?”

“Feeling kind of hungry! Did you get the soup?”

“Yes, and it’s delicious, so I got some for me as well.” He sat on the couch next to her, spread out their meals, then gave her a kiss. “Pain?”

“No, not bad; I took the pills.” She sipped some. “Yes, this is perfect.”

“Did you get some rest, or watch t.v.?”

“Not much of either. Eve stopped by to check in on me, change the bandage—it was fine—and give me the results of the pathology tests so far. They need another sol or two for some of them. They think they did get it all and the lymph nodes are indeed negative. With radiation treatments, the recurrence rate is pretty low.”

“How low?”

“On Earth, three percent. Here it might be five. I commented that radiation ‘treatment’ had gotten me this far and wondered whether radiation was what I need, and she replied that everyone on Mars says that. Then she left and Martha stopped by to make sure I was doing okay. She invited me to the cancer survivors group; I was only vaguely aware we had one until this sol! Then Father Greg called to make sure I was doing okay and assured me his pastoral care was universal, not Catholic in the narrow sense. We had a good laugh and he made his own cup of tea. Then there were the calls, most of which I didn’t answer. I listened to the messages later.”

“Everyone’s concerned.”

“How was your meeting?”

Will shrugged. “I think we worked through the issues, personal and otherwise. Pete Theodoulos will be in charge of ‘Cisterrestrial Operations’ and Érico Lopes of ‘Cismartian Operations,’ with Pete as overall Director of Transportation. If something flies from here to Earth, Érico has to get it to Embarcadero and Pete has to get it from there to Earth. If something flies from here to Venus, Érico’s in charge and Pete has to know what’s happening. If Yevgeny wants to export something to Earth, he has to talk to both of them in order to get it from here to there.”

“What does Érico feel about that?”

“He’s hurt; he has the seniority. But people on Earth can’t talk to him live, and that’s the big problem. They can talk to Pete, so Pete’s overall coordinator.”

“Érico will get over it.”

“Let’s hope so. There’s another interesting bit of news this sol. Brian Stark called just before I came over here to tell me that at New Hanford they just created their first reactor-grade uranium this sol.”

“Oh? Good news, I guess.”

“Exactly. It will be greeted ambiguously. Overall, I think we’ll see that it was good.”

“I hope we can say the same about the entire last week!” added Ethel.

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