Glory on Mars (8 page)

Emma laughed with the others, but her fingers rubbed
the spot on her upper arm where her contraceptive chip was
embedded. She couldn't feel it, but it was there, reliably tweaking
hormone production until she shut it off with the little device in
her duffle bag. That was one personal electronic device she got to
keep. But Colony Mars hadn't scheduled the first Martian pregnancy
for another five years. That allowed time for S-4, the Doctors'
Mission, to arrive with a test batch of frozen embryos.

S-4 would have been Malcolm's mission, Emma thought
dryly. He'd cross-trained as a physician's assistant, but Colony
Mars replaced him with a full-fledged doctor who had a psych
specialty. A replacement for Malcolm and for Ingra.

All the research said Colony Mars' chosen cryochamber
design was impervious to the dangers of space flight, but with
abundant of caution, S-4 would confirm the embryo viability and set
up a medical bay. And after the Doctors would come Settler Five,
the Kinderen mission.

S-5 was the only all-female mission, a chance to
jump-start the settlement's first generation. Colony Mars never
used the term "breeders" in their PR - it was too harsh, too
clinical. They preferred to keep the public's attention focused on
the future children. That's why, they explained once when Emma
asked, S-5 was the Kinderen Mission and not the Mothers'
Mission.

Colony Mars was scheduled to announce finalists for
the S-5 crew and, ironically, the cat would be neutered that same
afternoon. Liz used a specially prepared surgical kit and he
recovered quickly. James sagely observed that his behavior remained
as objectionable as ever.

***

The ship's AI announced the engine burn an hour in
advance and, tracking his transponder, helped Liz and Emma find the
cat wedged between some pipes in a particularly warm spot in life
support. He protested as Emma pulled him out, stuffed him into the
carrier Liz held waiting, and sucked at the scratches on her
hand.

They tipped the bunks into acceleration position and
strapped in. Emma's hair had grown long enough to put back and she
twisted on a stretch-tie. They were secure far enough in advance
for James to complain about the wait before the AI began the final
countdown.

Despite being ready for acceleration, Emma could
hardly breathe through the burn. The cat meowed pitifully. Emma was
beginning to worry the ship would send them into the asteroid belt
when the pressure evaporated and she sucked in a deep, shaky
breath.

"The course correction is completed," the AI
announced. "Engine performance was within parameters."

Emma glanced at the Earth Scan sphere, which was a
soft orange. Apparently news of the successful burn hadn't
registered on Earth yet.

"Yee ha!" James pulled his straps loose. "Next stop
Mars."

Chapter Eleven:
Arrival

Shortly after the mid-course correction, a video
transmission arrived from Mars. The vid showed the seven settlers
watching a screen displaying an animation of the Settler Three
ship. Engines on the animation fired, the blast lasting much less
time than Emma remembered, and then cut off. An orbital diagram
superimposed over the image showing a curved path catching up to
the red dot indicating Mars. The settlers cheered, hugged, and spun
around to face the imager.

"You are now closer to Mars than to Earth." A man in
the center of the group shouted and waved. "More Martian than
Earther."

Daan von Berg would stand out even if he wasn't
waving. He was fairly tall like most Dutch men, with blue eyes and
a dirty blond mop of hair. He was a "builder", as the S-2 crew was
designated, and Emma had met him and his crewmates on Earth. She
also knew Luis, the dark wiry Belgian who piloted Jumpship Two,
Melina from Greece, and Sanni from Finland who stood in the
background. Settler One's crew, the Pioneers, she recognized from
messaging. Ingra had been a Pioneer and now three remained.

"In a time-honored tradition of once before, we
declare a holiday for each settler mission's mid-course
correction," Daan said. He raised his cup.

"To quote the poet - Where never lark or even eagle
flew,

"With silent, lifting mind you tread

"The high untrespassed sanctity of space."

A little thrill ran through Emma.

"It's a Christmas present eight days early for us,"
James said back to the screen. Emma and Liz passed out squeeze
bulbs of wine as the message was transmitted to Mars and a reply
came back.

"Days!" The Belgian scoffed. "You sound like an
Earther. This is sol three thirty-two of jaar one hundred six.
Though why we use an old NASA numbering instead of starting over at
jaar zero, I'll never understand."

"Jaar one! Starting over at jaar one," someone
called. People argued how to number the first year with passion.
Maybe that's good, Emma thought - we need something safe to argue
over, since we must cooperate to survive.

"And that's why we stick with jaar one-oh-six," Daan
said with a laugh.

"Forgive me," James said, bowing to the screen as he
braced on the table. "I'm only half Martian this sol."

Minutes passed again.

"I'm sure the 'American Mission' knows best," said
Ruby, a Polynesian Kiwi from New Zealand, the jumpship pilot from
the S-1 Pioneers. "Coming to show us how to run Kamp."

"Come on, Ruby," Daan said, his mouth ticked up at
one corner. "This is a party."

Emma turned away. "Where did that come from?" she
whispered.

"Liz is Canadian," Claude said indignantly, straight
into the imager. "And I'm German."

"Shtart schpeaken vith a zicker accent," James said.
"Zo people know." Claude glared at him.

"Joke, Herr Professor. It's a joke."

"Be pleasant everyone," Liz said, looking down and
running a hand across her mouth as she whispered.

James turned back to the imager with his grin
intact.

"Okay, so New Year's Eve for us Martians isn't two
weeks away. It's only mid-jaar for Mars and our next New Year's
is..." James calculated in his head. "Ten months... Can we use
months when Deimos orbits once a sol and Phobos three times faster?
The year - 'scuse me, the jaar - on Mars starts on the northern
spring equinox, orbital designation Ell Sub Ess Zero degrees... sol
zero..." He wrote with a finger in the air in exaggerated
sweeps.

"Over three hundred sols away. That's a long time
without a holiday. When's the next party?"

They waited quietly through the transmission lag,
sipping from their wine bulbs.

"We still use months." Asynchronous communications
were hard to keep track of. Daan's response was from a few comments
back.

"And weeks. They're just too handy to drop. Seven
sols a week, four weeks a month, twenty-three months a jaar, plus
one short month..." Daan stopped, listening again. Ruby stood
behind him, arms folded across her chest. Emma thought someone was
cajoling her from off-screen.

"You'll like month twenty-four. We figure the last,
odd-ball week to be three and a half sols of festival before we
reset the calendar at Elle Sub Es Zero.

"It'll be easier to talk when you drop into orbit.
For now, congratulations on the engine burn." The two groups of
settlers went back to their separate parties.

***

"I've been wasting time," Emma said the next sol at
breakfast. "I should be viewing the Mars feeds, not Earth net
entertainments."

"We all read Kamp's daily summary," Liz said.

"Not the same thing at all." Emma shook her head. "I
should know more than an Earthside fan. For example, each bay is
constructed with a pond. That's for independent water storage in
case one pond leaks, and they're all part of the recycling system,
but we'll also use them to raise fish. Which pond should we start
with? It's an engineering question as much as a farming
question."

"I see what you mean," Liz said.

"Maybe we've all gotten numb on this trip," Claude
said. "It's time to be proactive. I'm going to pull up the wiring
status in Kamp's Spine." He unwrapped his feet from the chair legs
and drifted to a hull outlet to plug in his pad. He floated there,
one foot hooked under a handhold, as he scrolled through the
records.

"I'll send my jumpship simulations to Ruby and Luis
and get their evaluations," James said.

Emma opened the detailed Kamp logs, but didn't look
at fish ponds first. The settlers were well ahead of Colony Mars'
building schedule and she studied how they'd optimized the
construction robot squad.

Kamp Kans was sited on the Tharsis Plain, near the
equator, because the surface there was covered with a thick layer
of fine-grained regolith - sand that proved easy to scoop up and
fabricate into stone building blocks. They were recovering water at
a decent pace, harvesting a pint or two from each cubic meter of
regolith. But warming the heavy-walled bays took longer than
expected. They were still very cold, and the ponds were still
filled with ice.

"Look here, Liz. The greenhouse bay is colder than a
Canadian winter."

"Yeah, I saw that. I'll have to keep all the live
cargo in a habitat module until the bay warms up."

"But the bananas are already pot-bound, aren't they?
And the fish will be so big they'll be gill-to-gill in that
transport canister."

"You've got an idea, don't you?"

"Not really my idea. The habitat simulation team in
Holland suggested they leave parts of the nederzetting dark and
consolidate the heaters they have into the greenhouse."

Liz bunched her eyebrows.

The settlers' reluctance to follow Colony Mars'
recommendation was perplexing.

"I'm going to work it out directly," Emma said.
"Settler to settler, without mentioning Earth."

She fretted over crafting a text message, and finally
sent an upbeat text to all the settlers. She got an answer from
Daan.

I'm involved with the utilities right now
,
along with Melina and Sanni,
he sent.
Melina says she
wants a meal of real food as soon as you can grow it. So what do
you want us to do?

The empty fuel module that's attached to the Spine
is ready to use, right?
Emma sent back.

Every bit of each ship was cannibalized and
incorporated into the settlement. That included an empty tank, as
big as a ship's habitat module, which had fueled the heavy-lift
rockets. It now connected the Spine to a stone bay.

I see you've vented it clean and the greenhouse bay
attached to it is complete. If you close it off from the rest of
the nederzetting, it should be easy to warm up. Pull enough lights
and heaters from other areas to achieve the optimum
environment.

By the end of the sol, they had worked out a plan to
let Liz start growing her plants, fish, and mealworms as soon as
she landed. Emma smiled with satisfaction. She'd already proved
herself useful and discovered Daan was fun to work with.

***

Their efforts grew more urgent as the transport ship
coasted closer to Mars. Emma counted down the sols until MEX and
the ship's AI maneuvered them into Mars orbit, pacing the solar
power station. They were right on schedule and well before the
planet's storm season. The crew could have tapped into the Martian
satellite imagers at any point in their journey, but knowing they
orbited the planet made the habitat screen feel like a window.

MEX used the classic, twentieth-century Mars charting
system that divided the planet into thirty quadrangles. Claude
transferred to an image over the Tharsis quad.

Olympus
Mons
was easy to spot. It was the largest volcano on
Mars and marked the western edge of the bulging Tharsis Plain. The
volcano was clearly visible from orbit, and ragged white clouds
streamed from its peak. Southeast of Olympus was a string of three
more massive volcanoes. The center peak, right on the equator, was
Peacock Mons, and off its flank, still invisible at this
magnification, sat the tiny handful of habitable structures that
made up Kamp Kans.

Emma's fingers went cold and she held her breath. The
enormity of it hit her. She was orbiting Mars. Home would never be
closer than sixty million kilometers away. But Earth wasn't home
anymore. She'd traded that warm, wet, beautiful world for the rusty
sands below.

"Zoom in on Kamp," Claude said, and the ship's AI
obediently brought Kamp into focus.

"
Onze nederzetting
," Claude said. "Our
settlement."

"Camp Opportunity," Liz said thoughtfully, calling
the settlement by its English name. "Sometime we'll have to track
down the Opportunity rover and bring it to its namesake. It's south
of the equator someplace, isn't it?"

"Yes, but almost half way around the planet," Claude
said.

"It would make a nice sculpture for the center of the
plaza bay," James said, grinning. "Turned it into a fountain or
something. I could bring it back with a jumpship."

The Earth Scan sphere was spinning, large and green,
as they eagerly examined Kamp Kans.

A mound of protective regolith sand covered the
modules from the Settler One ship, now strung together via their
airlocks in a row at the south end of the settlement. Only the
first ship's power receiver was visible at that end.

The Pioneers had lived in those three modules while
they constructed the adjoining Plaza. Running north from Plaza was
the Spine, a long narrow structure that would house utilities and
interconnect future bays - three bays were already complete and
their barrel-arched roofs protruded from the dunes. Settler Two's
habitat module was attached at the north tip with a second power
receiver.