First Steps (Founding of the Federation) (56 page)

Mario
winced. "Poor choice of words Joyce." He gave Wanda a look.
She shook her head.

"It
can take a crew of three, an open rover, and maybe some light cargo
to almost anywhere in the hemisphere. A lot further if we go light on
the cargo," Joyce said, changing the subject. She patted the
side of the craft. "We've got two of them actually, well, when
Mario and Tess finally finish this one and get started on the other,"
she growled. Mario stuck his tongue out at her. Joyce smiled.

...*...*...*...*...

"You
want to what?" Bob asked in disbelief over the vid net. Mario
chuckled. "Luigi, you want to throw away a ton of potential
capital to get the asteroid conglomerate to drop rocks on you? Are
you nuts?" Bob asked, not sure if he was going to drop of a
heart attack or a stroke.

Betsy
grinned. "I could have told him that and saved us all a lot of
headaches," she said smugly. Luigi pinched her. "You'll pay
for that mate," she replied with a growl, eyes flashing.

Mario
shook his head mournfully. "Typical little brother, taking on
more than he can handle," he said. Luigi glared.

"It's
all part of the plan. We drop three more good sized rocks, and maybe
three to four snow balls and the climate will shift. Doctor Asanti
believes it can shift the temp up by four degrees C each, just like
the first rock did. We believe will start out gassing the CO two and
starting a greenhouse reaction. We can turn have liquid water on the
surface in under thirty years. Terraform it to a near breathable
atmosphere in under one hundred fifty..." Luigi started to wave
until his wife caught him and kissed him to shut him up.

When
she let him up she stared into his eyes. "We believe you Hon,
but it is a lot to take all at once. And a bit scary to point a gun
at our own heads."

Mario
nodded. "Yeah, the last impact did mess us up. Playing Russian
roulette is not a fun party game bro, eventually someone gets hurt,”
Mario sighed. “If the reactors shut down as planned and we have
dust storms as bad or worse, there goes the solar power. That leaves
the ethylene generators," he said and waved.

Tess
nodded. "Da. Is not good. We scale back reactors now, down to
eighty percent increase life by another two years, but still not good
if have no power at all," She finished shaking her head.

Luigi
sighed. "Then we'll have to make more. Geothermal is possible,
but it is a finite resource. We were studying building wind
turbines..." Luigi stopped when he saw Mario and Tess shaking
their heads. "What? It'll work, and you can make them here on
Mars!"

Mario
sighed. "It's not that it is the dust. The dust gets everywhere
and gums them up. The alternator's magnetic fields sucks dust in like
a vacuum. The ones you sent are a royal pain, we have to clean them
weekly
to get them to work, and they are working at maybe
twenty percent efficiency compared to Earth," Mario explained.
Luigi sobered.

"Okay
so, maybe we need to think of something else," Luigi said and
sat back deflated.

Mario
chuckled. "Wonder boy finally got some sense knocked into him.
Glad Betsy and Nathaniel are starting to do it," he said. Betsy
smiled then grinned at Wanda. "Yeah yeah, I know, Wanda has had
the same effect on me," Mario chuckled. Wanda smiled.

...*...*...*...*...

"Latisha
is back on the list, I am getting regular e-mails from her. She wants
to return
bad
," Joyce chuckled. "It seems she's
tired of the parades and the bubble wrap."

Luigi
looked at her confused. "Bubble wrap?"

She
nodded. "Yeah, like Commander Bower? He hasn't flown again since
they got home. He said he feels like John Glenn, first American to
orbit, then bubble wrapped so nothing could damage him," she
sighed.

He
nodded. "Yeah I can see that from both sides."

She
shook her head ruefully. "It is hell on a pilot. Being grounded
because you did good?" She shook her head again. "His wife
and daughter love him, but they said he is starting to hit the sauce.
Not being able to fly is starting to eat him alive. Some big wigs
wanted him to run for office, he didn't want it," she sighed. "I
wish we could get him back here."

Luigi
nodded. "I'll talk to Zubrin, but I don't know what good it will
do," he said. She sighed again and closed her eyes.

...*...*...*...*...

Luigi
looked into the camera. "Folks the biggest thing to learn from
this is us." He waved to the assembled people. "We are
representatives of almost every branch of humanity. Black, white,
Indian, Muslim, Jew, it doesn't matter to us in the least." He
tapped his chest. "What matters is here." He tapped his
head. "And here." He held out his hands. "These have
changed a world, changed two worlds. We are inviting you to do the
same. If we can do it here, in the hardest place man has ever called
home, then I bet you can learn from it. We hope you do." He
nodded to Tess, Sergei and little Piotr. "For their sakes if for
no other." The camera tightened in on little Piotr playing with
a model of the SSTO. Little Nathanial watched avidly. "For their
future."

...*...*...*...*...

"My,
we've got quite a stable of cars now," Wanda commented as she
looked around. The colony now had four open rovers, Whinny their
first enclosed rover, four long range enclosed rovers including the
one the Treadwells left behind, two tractors, one general purpose
bobcat, a crane, and a small four wheeled dozer.

"When
do you think we'll get a Porsche or motorcycle?" Joyce teased.
“Or a batmobile?”

Wanda
chuckled. "Never if I have my say. Motorcycles give me hives,"
she shuddered.

"What's
wrong?" Mario asked coming up behind her. "Nothing, just
talking about the vehicles," Wanda replied turning to see him.
She smiled.

"I
see you two gave up on the dirigible." She nodded to the
deflating craft.

Joyce
glanced at the thing. "Yeah, it could only take one or two
people, and was too much of a hassle to fly. We're going to stow it,
maybe someday we can try it again," Joyce sighed. The dirigible
was a clear case of too soon.

"Hey,
it was good idea, just one before it's time," Luigi assured
them. One of the biggest problems was the fear of a solar event while
in flight. Well, that and a rupture.

Mario
chuckled. "Yeah well, the hopper is a better idea. I wish it was
a NIMF though," he growled looking over to the craft.

"NIMF?
Dare I ask?" Wanda looked from one Iron to another.

"Nuclear
Indigenous Martian Fueled. Think of it as a nuclear powered hopper.
It sucks in air, compresses it into a tank, then uses a micro nuclear
power plant to ignite it to create thrust," Luigi explained.
"Bob Zubrin came up with the idea back in his Lockheed days. It
is a donkey as he called it, able to live off the land and still
carry crew and cargo all over the planet."

Wanda
nodded. "But we couldn't get it off the drawing board. Greens
had a fit. We ended up doing some horse trading with it to get the
construction equipment sent," Luigi finished with a sigh.

"Ah.
Well, I have to agree with them. I'm not too keen about a nuclear
powered craft. One failure and we not only have contamination, we get
one heck of a PR black eye," Wanda replied.

"Yeah,
there was that too. But we have the plans, so maybe someday when
people get their heads out of their butts...” Joyce sighed.

Mario
chuckled. "Don't count on it." He shook his head.

"It's
not nice to pop a woman's dreams," Joyce grumped good naturally.
Luigi chuckled.

...*...*...*...*...

"Did
you hear about the funding? Congress is already fighting over it. The
Helium hasn't even landed and it was sold to a conglomerate of energy
companies. They're even trying to buy the gas platform and Santa
Maria." Benny told Luigi. Helium 3 had been added to the stock
exchange. It was now more valuable than any other thing in the world.

Luigi
groaned. "Yeah, I heard. Zubrin sent me an e-mail a few days
ago. They appropriated the money budgeted for future flights to pay
down the national dept. I hate it, but okay. Still sucks though. We
busted our balls getting that thing through congress and into space,
and they yank our funding when we make it pay for itself and
everything else," he sighed, clearly frustrated and annoyed.

"That's
politics for you," Benny sighed shaking his head.

"So
are you two going back on the return flight?" Mario asked
handing each of them a glass.

"No.
Sue and I talked it over. We want to stay. The kids are all in
college now, they don't need us. We'd like to visit them of course,
especially when Mary has our first grandchild," Benny replied.

Luigi
nodded. "Yeah, we can try." He shrugged. "The next
flight may be the last unless Zubrin can work it with the other
nations to fund us."

Mario
grimaced. "Fat chance, with the tsunami, Earthquakes and war
going on in Africa..." he sighed and shook his head. The Earth
was turning its attention inward once more.

"Damn,
I bet they will all want to come here to get away from the nonsense!"
Benny laughed.

Luigi
and Mario looked alarmed. "No thanks! They'll just bring their
crap here! No, if they want to come okay, but leave that crap behind.
We have enough to worry about," he said firmly rubbing his back.
"Well, you and Sue make twenty pioneer settlers. Not bad,"
Luigi smiled. "I wish Bob could come out here, but I doubt his
ticker could handle the lift off," he said and then grimaced. Of
all the people on the Earth who deserved it, Bob, Newman, and Bruce
McKenzie deserved to come. They after all had paved the way for Luigi
and Mario to make it happen.

"I
doubt his wife and family would let him anyway," Benny chuckled.

"Twenty
one settlers, I'm staying too." Billy the kid came over and
pointed his cup to the empty chair. "This seat taken?" he
asked.

Mario
smiled and waved to it. "It's all yours."

The
young man sat. "I never in my wildest dreams really thought we
would do it." He shook his head. "And yet here we are on
Mars." He held up his cup. "To the pioneering spirit. Long
may it thrive!" he said. The others joined in the toast.

"
MARIO!
LUIGI! COME HERE YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
!" The boys looked up,
set their cups down and ran. The others followed. They found Tess
excitedly holding a pair of rocks. Wanda and the others were hopping
up and down.

"What?
What is it?" he demanded. Betsy grinned, hugging her husband.
Wanda was teary eyed. She grabbed Mario's hand.

"Well
first there's this," Wanda said. She waved to Tess who turned
the rocks so they could see through the plastic. Inside was a dark
shape embedded in the rock.

"Is
that what I think it is?" Luigi asked excited. His eyes were
round with wonder. He reached for it then clenched his fingers,
afraid it would crumble if he touched it.

"Yeah.
A fossil. An honest to go
FOSSIL
!" Tess was exuberant and
almost dropped the trophy. Hastily she set it down. "We find in
gully. Sadnire did. It sat in storage till we crack open." She
mimed the action. Wanda nodded. The others were babbling
incoherently, staring at the prize.

"Okay,
so if that is the first what's the second piece of news," Mario
asked looking at his wife a little dazed.

"Honey,
I'm pregnant," Wanda said softly, staring at him as tears began
to flow. He looked at her tear stricken face for a long heart shaking
moment. Then he kissed her tears streaming down his own face. He felt
his brother and sister in law pat them as he crushed his wife to his
chest. She sobbed happily, mouth enveloping his.

"We
get to see past life and new life, all in one day," Luigi
murmured. Betsy hugged herself to his side. He stroked her hair and
their sons.

"Yeah,
but it's the new life that matters to me." Mario kissed his wife
again and then hugged her ecstatic.

The End

My blog:

http://www.cyberforge3d.blogspot.com/

The
following were some of the web based material I accessed and used as
reference material in the writing of this book. My thanks to the
makers of these sites for providing the information. Any
misinterpretation or mistake is mine not theirs.

Mars:

http://www.marssociety.org/portal

http://desert.marssociety.org/

http://www.marshome.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars

http://www.google.com/mars/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,153186,00.html?wh=wh

http://enterpriseforum.mit.edu/network/broadcasts/200509/newman.pdf

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1245

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_for_Less

http://www.newmars.com/forums/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_Mons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars

http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/HumanExplore/Exploration/EXLibrary/docs/MarsRef/addendum/A3.htm