Glory on Mars (24 page)

"We have more bays ready to open." He ignored her
whine. "We're just waiting to build up the minimum required
atmosphere."

"It's going faster than ever," Yang said. "Ruby's
flying the stone blocks for us with that remote control jumpship of
yours, as fast as we can manufacture hydrogen and O2 for fuel."

"I'll put up with the cold if I get to fly," Ruby
said, a rare smile spreading over her brown face. Emma looked down
at her own arms, nearly translucent white after so much time away
from the Sun's warm rays.

"You weren't here when we lived in nothing but the
ship modules," Daan said. "They were so cramped and claustrophobic
we made building bays a priority."

"Great, but no one can use your bays because you
can't get heat or light installed." Emma poked at her potato in
annoyance.

"I'm allocating the components we have the best way I
can," Daan said with an edge in his voice.

"I don't even have all the parts I should have from
your knarr, thanks to the crash." He stabbed his own potato.

"Like we crashed on purpose, just to annoy you? Who
knew Yin and Yang would be so far ahead of schedule, anyway?"

"Hey, don't drag us into this," Yang said.

Emma and Daan both shot an angry look at him.

"Don't snarl at Yang," Ruby said. "Construction's
gone without a hitch, which is more than I can say about the joints
on your walkabouts."

"I have a walkabout ready for a camping trip - a
couple nights out with a mule." Emma looked around angrily. "Trips
are in our protocol from Colony Mars, you know."

"You can't possibly want to go back out there."
Melina shuddered. Her shoulders collapsed forward as she hugged
herself.

"Do what you want," Ruby said. "Just don't expect me
to fly out to rescue you the minute you get into trouble."

"I'd think you'd be fine with any jumper flight. You
seem to enjoy hauling construction blocks around while the rest of
us work inside."

"I'm proving that remote-controlled ship is worthy.
I've sent MEX the telemetry from all my flights. Oh, they'll fart
around before they sign off, but that ship is ready to jump to
orbit. There's no excuse to cancel the Settler Four mission and
Daan's precious heaters."

"Stop bickering." Melina dragged herself out of her
chair. "Come on Sanni. Bring the cat."

"Oh, Melina, don't leave." Liz put a hand to her
mouth.

"I thought she was feeling better tonight," Sanni
said with a sigh, pulling the cat out from under a chair and
following Melina. Emma got up and slammed the airlock door closed
behind them, shutting out the cold draft.

Chapter Thirty:
Aloe

There were no more lights or heaters available, so
the new greenhouse bay stayed cold and dark. But the old alfalfa
beds had to be turned over so Emma returned to the greenhouse to
help Liz. Spading the old roots and stems into the sand felt good.
It should tire her out and help her sleep.

"It's starting to look like healthy soil," Liz said
when they finished the first bed.

Emma paused to admire their work, shifting the
spading fork to ease her sore shoulders. Bits of chopped alfalfa
stuck out of the sand here and there, water gave the sand a brown
hue, and a worm wriggled away to hide. It did look something like
proper soil.

"The next vegetables we plant here should do better
than before." Liz consulted her pad, looking at the planting
rotation schedule. "Potatoes here next, and alfalfa where the
veggies were."

"Liz, Emma." Governor's voice sounded tinny over
their pads. "Please open the airlock from the Spine. Someone wants
to come in."

Puzzled, Emma hopped to the airlock. As soon as the
door opened a crack, the cat slithered in and rubbed against her
leg. She picked him up and, ignoring his attempt to wriggle free,
carried him to Liz.

"Governor, you had me open a door for the cat?"

"Yes, Emma. He cannot open the door and needed your
assistance."

"No point arguing with Governor over who's a
settler," Liz said with a laugh. Emma dropped the cat. He leaped
into the freshly turned soil and started to dig, scattering sand
into the aisle.

"Hey, get out of there." Emma shooed him. The cat
made a display of crouching in the bed with his ears back, and then
leaped into the next bed.

"He uses his litter box, doesn't he?" she asked
Liz.

"He's got the same germs we all have." She
shrugged.

"Melina's been trying to keep him with her, but he
likes it here."

"Of course he does. It's warm in here."

"Let's take a break." Liz dropped a knife she was
using to chop the dry alfalfa.

Emma flopped down on the stone edge of the bed.

"I'm beat..." She tossed her spading fork at the
pile.

The fork hit Liz's knife and a spark flew. With a
whoosh the pile erupted into flames higher than Emma's head. She
shrieked as flame jumped to her arm.

Liz knocked her flat and scooped sand over her.

"What the hell!" Emma stared at the bed. The flames
were gone. Liz stirred the smoldering ashes with the fork. A thread
of orange ran along some crushed leaves. Emma grabbed a bucket by
the closest fish pond and dumped water on the pile. A few
fingerlings flopped on the wet sand.

"What the hell?" She was shaking and her heart
pounded in her head.

Liz touched the side of her face.

"Red as a sunburn. But it doesn't look too bad. I
need to check your arm for burns."

"Dammit. What's the oxygen level in here?"

"I don't know. It must be high."

"I thought you were using a surface suit pack to take
readings," Emma said.

"Yang needed it back, so I haven't checked in a
while."

Emma winced as she lifted the blackened edge of her
shirt.

"I'd replace your mystic crap with a couple good
analytical meters."

"Hurry up - let's get clean water on that arm right
away."

***

Emma tossed her ruined shirt on the table. Most of
the synthetic fibers had simply vaporized, but the edges were
curled and melted. A thin line stuck painfully to her skin.

Liz wrapped her arm in wet towels.

"How much does it hurt?"

"Not too bad." Emma grimaced.

"I'll get you some pain meds. Don't pull at those
globs on your skin - let it slough off on its own." She shook her
head. "You'll have a scar there where the synthetics stuck."

"Pass me a dry towel, will you?" Emma draped it over
her shoulders. "And, make me some tea? Please?" She gave Liz an
exaggerated pouty look and they both laughed.

"Here." Liz set a jar of clear gel on the table. Emma
wrinkled her nose at the oniony smell - something Liz made from the
garden.

"I'm glad I brought a few aloe plants. Smear that on
your face while I brew tea."

"What are you going to do about the oxygen level?"
Emma wrinkled her nose as she dipped out some goo.

"We burned all the packaging already."

"I could burn old plants as I cut them down." Liz
paused with a cup in one hand.

"I hate to lose the biomass, though."

"Yang can fill a cylinder with hydrogen," Emma said.
And rig up something like a Bunsen burner, something you could use
routinely. Burning hydrogen will consume oxygen and leave you with
water, which you need anyway."

"I don't want an explosion." Liz bunched her eyebrows
together above a worried frown.

"Governor can model the reaction, or MEX could run a
test. Is Yang still bringing up carbon dioxide?"

"Yes, regularly. The plants are growing thirty
percent faster than projected. I suppose that's why the oxygen
built up. See - I use science along with my mystic crap."

Ouch, Emma thought.

"There's an air monitor up on the habitat's life
support. Since we equalized the habitat with the Spine, it's
redundant. I'll ask Sanni to help me move it to the greenhouse.
Once I know the percentages in the greenhouse, Governor can
calculate how much gas you'll need."

"Great, but first I need to finish bandaging your
arm."

They were still alone in the north habitat, sipping
tea, when the habitat link beeped with an incoming message.

"Now what." Emma plugged her pad into the table's
outlet.

"Malcolm." She frowned as she read the header and
selected text-only.

I guess you know, after the jumpship crash, the
doctors made me take medical leave. I remember watching the crash
and waking up in hospital. I don't know how I got there. You should
have talked to me in hospital.

I couldn't send you messages while I was on leave -
you don't have me on your friends list. But you don't have to fix
that now. I'm back in the control room today, so my access codes
are enabled.

The jumpship shouldn't have crashed. No one should
have been hurt. I warned you.

The Colony doctors are all against me, but I showed
them. I passed the fitness tests.

I want to hear from you. Message me. Tell me how you
are.

Emma opened MEX's shift schedule. Malcolm was listed
as active, a controller for the GPS satellite system.

"Is something wrong?" Liz asked. "You look
worried."

"No, it's nothing." Emma tapped out a text reply.
Glad you're feeling better. I'm fine, thanks. Things here are
fine. I'm working now, so gotta go.
She read it over. It
sounded polite and non-committal.

Malcolm wasn't coming to Mars and Emma wasn't
directly involved with the satellites. She shouldn't have any
settlement business with him. Good enough. She hit send.

***

"Well, guys. MEX did it." Yin watched an image from
Collins Dock on the habitat screen. "Settler Four broke out of
Earth orbit."

Liz had summoned them all for an early supper to
watch the transport ship. She called it their cocktail hour and
laid out a selection from the dwindling specialty foods - the
dehydrated shrimp was gone but they still had some dried fruit -
along with a batch of bhang tea and toasted mealworms.

Yin ladled out a cup of tea for himself and settled
into a chair contentedly. The screen switched to an animation,
which was more exciting than the actual image. MEX enhanced the
thruster burn into a flaming plume. But they couldn't do much to
enhance a diagram projecting the ship's trajectory to the orbital
transfer point.

"We're going to get our next shipment of parts right
on schedule." Yang smiled with satisfaction.

"And more settlers," Liz said.

"Good, I need them. We're getting behind on
preventative maintenance. And in the medical bay..." Daan leaned
his head against a hand, gripping his hair. "I found a length of
electrical conduit joined to a water pipe. It's a damn good thing
the water's not hooked up yet. We need to go over the whole
installation again."

Ruby snorted one of her mocking laughs.

"Geeze," Emma said. "Are you going out of your way to
be stupid?"

She thought she was done with utilities for a while.
It felt like a conspiracy to keep her from her walkabout trip.

"Fix that one line and be done with it."

"It's a line you installed," Daan said angrily. "So
you should fix it."

Emma glanced around for Claude. Surely he'd support
her. But he wasn't in the habitat.

"Well, guys, maybe a fresh set of eyes will help."
Ruby turned to Yin and Yang. "You don't have any blocks ready for
me right now, so I suppose I'm stuck inside, too, don't you
think?"

Emma swallowed the sour taste in her mouth.

They would spend weeks going, line by line, over the
utility systems. Daan, who hadn't had time to work the
installation, had time to supervise and criticize now. In addition
to the screwed up conduit, they corrected a few backwards valves
and rewired some LED panels.

***

Three months dragged by until the Settler Four
transport ship fired its mid-course correction. In the time-honored
tradition of twice before, Liz declared a Kamp holiday. She brewed
bhang tea and they all raised a cup.

"Go on Daan. Say it." Liz took him by the shoulders
and turned him towards the imager.

"Aw, it's too late. A transmission takes so long to
reach them."

"Send it. It's a time-honored tradition."

"Okay. Governor, send a message to the S-4 crew.
Congratulations guys. You have 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth;
And dance the skies on laughter-silvered wings.'"

The transmission lag precluded conversation, so after
S-4 returned their thanks, Ruby terminated the feed.

Emma was too tired to eat the fish stew Liz was
stirring in the galley. Her eyes felt hot and achy. She ladled out
a second cup of bhang to dull the ache and maybe give her an
appetite. It was months since she'd been outside and thoughts of
the walkabouts, hanging limply from their mules in the maintenance
bay, haunted her. She hadn't heard from her father in weeks and her
mother was busy at some retreat in the Rocky Mountains. Even Claude
disappeared most afternoons. There was no one to talk to. Mars was
a lonely place.

The mid-course celebration was winding down when
Emma's pad beeped a message from Malcolm. He rambled about
satellite systems for a few lines, then,
when Settler Four
achieves orbit around Mars, what if the ship's disassembly
failed?
He said, no one else cared, but he did. The ship could
be refueled and he'd written a navigation program to bring it back
to Earth - to bring Emma back to Earth.

Talking about ship malfunctions gave Emma a funny
feeling. It reminded her uncomfortably of the jumpship crash, of
James and Luis being killed.

She slipped through the flap to her bunk to get a
moment alone. There was a tap at the door and Liz poked her head
in.