Glory on Mars (6 page)

"What's that?" Liz asked as yet more cat supplies
arrived, this time a stack of stiff knobby fabric squares floated
in through the airlock.

"These go on blank spots on the hull," the cat man
said. "He needs places to grip with his claws and to scratch. Sorry
the color doesn't match your hull, but we didn't have time to bring
up anything else from Earth."

"Damn cat has a bigger gear allotment than I do,"
James said as the dockhands glued the squares around the hull,
leaving it crudely checker-boarded with green on beige.

"Tell me again why we're taking this creature."

"Because Ingra is dead and who's going to say 'no' to
the survivors?" Claude looked as dubious as James sounded.

"Cats are a wonderful diversion," the cat man said.
"You'll be pleased to have him. Space is deadly dull most of the
time."

"I'm already pleased," Liz said.

Emma was fairly sure James was feigning annoyance,
and she hoped the cat man was right. Psychologists had warned her
it would be a tedious journey so any diversion was welcome.

Once everything was stowed, the Collins Dock team
wished them luck, said good-bye to the cat, and double-checked the
airlock seals as they left. The spaceplane and the Collins shuttle
undocked with a few clunks.

There wasn't anything else to do. Settlers were
passengers. The ship's AI system and controllers at MEX would pilot
them to Mars.

"Hold this so I can unzip it," Liz said to Emma. The
meowing stopped and a small striped head poked out. Liz cooed and
inside the Earth Scan sphere at the ceiling the silver earnings
hoop spun happily.

"He's awfully small." James held out a finger for the
cat to sniff.

"He's only a kitten. Besides, there are limited
resources in space so Loonies breed small cats. They don't expect
him to be more than half the size of typical house cat, full
grown."

Suddenly the cat rocketed out of the carrier, sending
Emma floating backwards. He bounced off the hull like a ping-pong
ball, flailed his legs towards a fabric square, and clung there. He
was an orange tabby with closely spaced tiger stripes, white paws,
and a wild look in his yellow eyes.

"We should be named the biophilia mission," Liz said.
"Life-loving. There's a theory, you know, that human beings need to
be surrounded by nature to thrive, that we understand that on an
intuitive level. The cat, the fish, and the plants we're bringing
should raise morale."

She shook her head sadly.

"Too late for Ingra."

The cat shot across the module.

"Kittens can fly, even on Earth," Emma said. "This
guy will be quite an acrobat in zero-g."

***

Since the weather had cooperated and the spaceplane
took off on the first scheduled attempt, they had a week before the
transport ship would leave orbit. They elected to immediately go on
a standard Martian day - a sol - twenty-four hours, thirty-nine
minutes and thirty-five seconds long. MEX was staffed full-time
while their ship was in flight, so allowing daybreak to drift
through the Earth day was manageable.

"Time to adapt our circadian rhythms to a Martian
day," Liz said. "Ship - initiate our light therapy routine."

"Done, Liz," the ship said pleasantly.

"You've all experienced this in training, so it
should be easy. The ship will shift the module's light level at the
end of our day."

"I know what the experts say," James said. "Make the
light bluer in the evening to reset our body-clocks. I'm not sure I
need that - I never had trouble staying awake into the night."

"I bet you overslept the next morning. Without light
therapy, the extra-long day on Mars is like a little jet-lag every
day."

"We'll be living inside a sealed habitat. Who cares
if our body-clocks are out of synch with the Sun?"

"I care, once we start prospecting," Claude said. "If
the colony stays on Earth time, habitat-morning and surface-morning
won't line up. I want full days to work."

"Just as importantly, you're going to be a Martian."
Liz was exasperated by James' contrariness.

James raised his hands in surrender. "I'm not
objecting. Let's add the extra forty minutes every day to the
cocktail hour."

Emma suppressed a laugh at the disapproval on
Claude's face.

"The extra minutes will be productive time, once we
get to Mars," she said. "But maybe James has a good idea for
Saturdays."

"Every day is Saturday now." He gave her a wink.

He was right, since they didn't have any work to do
while MEX waited for the perfect instant to break orbit. Emma
practiced maneuvering in zero-g and began to enjoy gliding
magically up and down the ladder. James preferred superhero leaps
which often ended in tumbling crashes.

"Look there," he said to Emma with a nudge as they
both clung to the ladder after one spectacular save. Claude was
turning somersaults above the table, towing the cat in a wide
circle as it clung to his arm.

"In zero-g, even a serious old curmudgeon will
play.”

Emma giggled.

They spent a lot of time on the net link to Earth -
from orbit the transmission delay was barely noticeable. Emma still
occasionally felt a sensation of falling and had to suppress the
urge to flail around looking for "down".

When MEX announced they were ready to break orbit,
the crew tipped their bunks to the proper orientation for
acceleration and strapped in. Liz cajoled the kitten back into his
carrier and held it next to her.

As they waited, Emma plugged her pad into the bunk
outlet and found a message from her mother, wishing a safe
journey.

She must have checked the mission site for our
departure time, Emma thought with a smile.

"Ready guys?" Filip Krast's voice rang through the
module - cheerful and confident. "Here we go." And the engines
fired.

Colony Mars used a standard transfer orbit for their
missions. The ship was already in a high Earth orbit so a
relatively small amount of thrust was needed. Even so, after a few
days in zero-g the acceleration was uncomfortable. Vibrations
rumbled through the ship and into the bunks, and the constant hum
from life support seemed to push harder against Emma's ears. The
kitten yowled and Liz made comforting shushing sounds. The engines
continued and Emma couldn't hold her breath any longer. She closed
her eyes, breathing out slowly, practicing her meditation routine.
The minutes ticked by.

Then it was over. The engines cut out and zero-g
returned. A small shift indicated thrusters had aimed the tail of
the ship towards the Sun, so the packed knarr module would provide
extra shielding against solar radiation. The trajectory would
stretch their orbit into a long ellipse where, mid-course, a short
engine burn would send them to Mars.

Emma floated loosely against the straps. Liz unzipped
the cat carrier and the kitten rocketed out and up to the life
support deck.

James shocked them with a shout.

"Breakaway! Come and get me, Earth. You can't, can
you? Cause I'm a spaceman. I'm a god."

"You're Wodanaz, the crazy lord from mythology."
Claude shot out his bunk and caught James around the waist. They
tumbled together, laughing.

Emma snagged Liz under one arm and launched towards
the spinning men.

"Ow, ow." James laughed as they bounced him into the
hull.

Emma wanted to run and jump, but there was nowhere to
go. After a few somersaults in the restored zero-g, following
Colony Mars' recommendations seemed the only thing to do. They
gathered in front of the galley imager, floating arm-in-arm in
semblance of standing together, grinning like fools, and took turns
describing the start of their journey. At MEX, controllers reviewed
the ship's diagnostics and quietly confirmed they were on course to
Mars.

"We've got enough vid," Filip said. "You can turn off
the live stream. Thanks, guys."

Claude plugged in his pad.

"I've got a personal message. Mind if I play it on
the main screen?"

The others turned to their own pads, offering him
what little privacy they could, but he caught Emma's eye.

"I wanted to show you my wife, Emma," Claude said.
"Come watch."

He opened a vid of a slender lady dressed in a red
parka, standing on a windy shore.

"That's my wife," he said. His face was impassive,
but tears spread a sheen of moisture across his face.

The vid must have been taken from a boat. The camera
pulled away from the lady and, as she grew small on the screen, she
waved. Claude cleared his throat and wiped his face.

"We're going to stay married," he said. "There're
benefits from Colony Mars for a spouse, and she deserves them."

"It must be hard to leave her behind," Emma said.

"Since I was selected, we've been like kids. Sophia
moved back to Germany, and every day I had off we met somewhere,
every place in the world we said we wanted to visit. It's been
great." He wiped his face again as the vid ended and the screen
went blank.

Chapter Eight:
Journey

The journey was not fun. Emma knew she wasn't the
only one to think so, because the Earth Scan sphere, which
continued to float at the habitat ceiling, shrunk and glowed a
sedate orange.

Emma expected a lot of things would set her teeth on
edge. There was the constant hum of life support pumps and
compressors, more noticeable than the ventilation systems in
earthly office buildings. There was vibration, a tremor always
present, that she noticed whenever she touched fingertips against a
surface. There was the repetitive sound of the flexion machine;
since MEX scheduled each of them for two hours of exercise every
day, the machine was in use half the time she was awake. But
mostly, she was sealed in a can with three other human beings,
which was deeply annoying.

Meditation helped her manage. Every afternoon the
crew meditated together, which was supposed to build a community
bond. Emma would open an eye to peek at the others. James preferred
to place himself, cross-legged, upside down in relation to everyone
else. He often had a sly smile on his face as he floated in classic
lotus position, a novice achieving the yogic levitation that eluded
gurus on Earth.

Emma paid careful attention to her exercises, her
sleep schedule, and her meals. Every day experts sent an evaluation
of her recreational time on the net, looking for any negative
psychological patterns, and biometrics right down to analysis of
her breathing rate.

But MEX didn't have access to everything. Personal
messages remained private and the AI relayed them automatically
without any interference from MEX controllers. Too much
surveillance, psychologists noted, led to paranoia.

***

The settlers weren't employees anymore and their
salaries stopped when they left Earth orbit. But even though the AI
flew the ship, they weren't simply passengers either. The ship
needed maintenance.

Emma volunteered to monitor the life support systems.
Every day she towed herself up the ladder to spend an hour
listening for any changes in the hums and whirs, touching equipment
cases to feel their vibrations, torquing fittings, changing
filters, and confirming the AI's readings.

She heard the rattle in a fan before the ship
reported the problem and pulled its shroud off.

Every piece of equipment generated heat and, in
zero-g, the hot air hung motionless. Without fans, everything would
overheat and eventually burn out.

I wonder if I can repack bearings in zero-g? Emma
thought as she flipped off the fan. Until she found out, there was
a cabinet of spares and her training included replacements. Emma
hummed happily to herself while she worked.

Fans didn't solve all their air circulation
problems.

As Liz observed, wherever human beings go they take
billions of microbes with them, and even organisms that are
beneficial to life can damage sealed systems. Once a week they
opened all the hull panels to release any damp stagnant air and
spray biocide if anything was starting to grow. Colony Mars put as
much development into waste handling as it did into rockets and
engines. Nothing was actually wasted, so they had to compact or
compost everything and carry it on to Mars. They rotated
responsibility for cleaning the sanitary unit in life support.

"Just think," James said as he pulled himself up the
ladder hand-over-hand for his turn. "Colony Mars spent billions to
turn me into a toilet attendant."

"They couldn't have picked a better person for the
job," Claude said.

They grinned at each other.

Emma chuckled. James had a knack for cheering
everyone up, even Claude when he had a gloomy spell.

***

As recommended, Emma respected her crewmates'
privacy. Meals were the designated communal time, when conversation
was encouraged. But sometimes news couldn't wait.

Liz, I got a message from Malcolm,
Emma texted
across the module. Claude was exercising and wouldn't notice, but
James sat at the table, deeply involved in something on his pad,
and she didn't want to disturb him.

Rather than text back, Liz raised an eyebrow from
across the module.

S-4 isolation eval is done and Malcolm washed out -
dropped as a settler.

Liz drifted over to Emma and they turned their backs
to the imagers. Emma glanced up at the Earth Scan sphere which had
brightened to a golden yellow this morning. Perhaps MEX had
released a new infotainment on S-4's final crew selection.

"Oh, Emma." The white noise that filled the habitat
easily concealed Liz's whisper.

"You were counting on him following you on the next
mission. Are you okay?" She reached for Emma's arm with a
sympathetic touch.