Glory on Mars (9 page)

Detached and off to one side was a large bay for the
construction bot squad, where they could be taken for repairs or to
hunker down during sand storms.

As they admired their new home, Emma's pad, which
floated at the end of its power cord, beeped. She reeled it in,
tugging it away from the cat.

Emma gave Liz an aggravated look to tell her it was
Malcolm.

She looked at the text, something about refueling
from the base on Phobos to return to Earth.

That wasn't even possible, Emma thought. Phobos Base
was designed to refuel jumpships during satellite maintenance, and
the little moon barely had enough water ice in its regolith for
that. It would take months and months to manufacture fuel for the
transport -but then, it would be well over a year before there
might be a launch window to Earth. There was extra food in the
nutrient cylinders, but not that much - Emma was sure. Could
Malcolm be serious?

That joke's not funny,
Mal
, she texted
back.

A second message came in - there hadn't been time for
her response to reach Earth.

"What's MEX want?" James asked, recognizing the beep
tone.

Earth."

"Nothing, just a friend of mine." Emma didn't read
the text out loud.

Don't let them disassemble the ship. I'll be back on
shift after the weekend to convince people here.

Emma rapped the message closed in annoyance. She
hoped no one at MEX saw what he sent - she didn't want to be
singled out because of his weird message. Thankfully, everyone was
too enthralled with the view of Kamp to bother about the message
further.

"I'm receiving a transmission from Earth," the ship's
AI announced. "Lead Controller Filip Krast sends your schedule for
disembarking."

Claude frowned at his pad. "We're scheduled to rest
for three days before landing."

"It's more like MEX is scheduled to rest, so their
controllers will be sharp," Emma said.

"Hurry up and wait, as always," James said. He tapped
out a sentence on his pad and held it angled away from the imagers
for the others to read.

Let's ask Kamp what they think.

"Ship, can you give me a private channel to Kamp?" he
asked out loud.

"Standard channels are recommended for all
communications."

"I thought so." James held up his pad again.

Tonight
.

Chapter Twelve:
Disassembly

"You don't need a big conspiracy," Emma said to
James at supper. "We're free agents now." Colony Mars controlled
all the operations on Earth, but insisted they merely advised the
settlers once they arrived at Mars. Perhaps they could coerce
obedience by threatening to stop future missions or restrict the
communications link, but coercion would violate their own vision of
an independent, self-sustaining colony, and certainly wouldn't
improve fundraising.

"You don't know how to be a rebel," James said. "Day
shift is over on Earth, so no experts to talk us out of what we
want to do. You're all with me, right? Anyone want to cool your
heels in orbit for three days?

"Okay ship - open the Kamp channel.

"Hi guys. We don't need a three-sol rest up here. Are
you ready to bring us down in the morning?"

In a few exchanges, they planned the landing. Emma
glanced up at the Earth Scan sphere. It would be half an hour
before it reflected any earthly reaction to the change in plan. As
James predicted, MEX controllers on the night shift offered no
argument that changed their minds.

***

The crew woke before the Sun rose over the Tharsis
Plain and secured everything in the galley. They sent a message to
MEX to confirm the ship's telemetry was being received. By the time
a quick breakfast was finished, the response came back: all systems
nominal.

"Let's get into our suits," James said when the
ship's AI announced that both Kamp jumpships had taken off.

Colony Mars provided
one suit for each of them. The suits were designed for use on the
Martian surface but they would provide some protection if a
jumpship lost pressure, so suits were a safety protocol
requirement. Emma opened her bunk, slid away the back panel, and
pulled hers out. It was designed for short jaunts outside Kamp,
azure blue for visibility against the red Martian sand. She
struggled into the
surface suit
, leaving her helmet
off for now.

Ruby and Luis piloted the jumpships and docked at
airlocks on opposite sides of the habitat. Claude and Liz opened
the inner doors and Luis entered first. They collided against each
other in a group hug, the cat clambering across their backs,
meowing for attention.

Ruby entered, holding onto the door frame and hugging
her helmet to her chest, precluding any hugs. Her black eyes were
set in a wide brown face and, Emma thought enviously, she retained
her color even after years living shielded from sunlight. Straight
black hair, knotted in a bun, didn't soften her expression a
bit.

"What a singular aroma you've created in here." She
wrinkled her nose. "Sort of a mix of antiseptic and garbage."

"No one's fault - it's space funk," said Luis, who
ducked his head with a laugh.

"Are your eyes stinging?" Liz asked, laughing back.
"I don't smell it anymore."

"Let's get all your gear stowed in Ruby's ship," Luis
said. "I'm taking your habitat module to Phobos Base, so don't
leave anything you want behind."

Emma pulled the fish canister out of life support
first. The tiny fingerlings were full grown now without any extra
room, so she started the external filter system to keep the water
oxygenated and pH neutral. Next came the mealworms which had barely
changed in their chilled container, and the box of lunar cat
food.

Liz carefully closed the plants inside individual
plastic sleeves while Emma uninstalled the litter box - she hoped
the cat would continue to use it on Mars. Claude passed along cases
of seeds and the rest of their gear.

Liz lured the cat with a packet of food and
unceremoniously shoved him into the carrier.

"Here Emma," she said, adding the carrier to the
duffle bag straps looped over her arms. "Ruby already took my
surgical kit to the jumpship. Luis wants you to go with Ruby and
all the live cargo. He'll take the rest of us."

"Ship, close the Earth Scan display now," Claude
said. The spinning sphere disappeared. "Have you linked up with the
Kamp AI?"

"Yes Claude. Our merger was successful. I'm part of
the nederzetting."

"You all can log in with Governor now," Ruby said.
She paused and looked around. "The ship's imagers are streaming
live, aren't they?" She turned to look straight into the closest
one but didn't smile.

"It's a bit of a joke, naming our Artificial
Intelligence 'Governor.' We're a self-directed group and this
colony will never have a governor, so there's no chance of
confusing the name when we call the AI."

"Hi, Governor. I'm Emma. And this is the cat." She
swung the carrier up, not sure which sensor the AI was using to
read their transponder codes.

"Welcome to Mars, Emma. Welcome, Cat."

The others logged in and Governor greeted them.

"It's time to blow this ship apart," James said
happily.

Emma snagged her helmet with her fingertips and
followed Ruby to Jumpship One. From S-3's airlock she entered the
smaller jumpship airlock, mid-cabin between the life support
systems and passenger compartment, with four seats in two rows.

The rear seats were quite conventional. The pilot and
co-pilot seats were somatic exoskeleton control systems. They stood
like rigid chains of overlapping metallic scales the width of a
spread hand, supported just below the shoulder blade by a pillar
bolted to the floor. If Ruby took over from Governor, she'd control
the ship with her whole body.

They strapped the cat carrier in one seat, the plant
cabinet in a second, and stowed the rest of the cargo wherever
there was empty space. Ruby waved Emma to the co-pilot seat.

If Ruby was trying to make her uncomfortable, she
failed. Emma used a similar system in the limbs of her walkabout
exploration suits. She propelled herself with fingertips along the
ceiling of the cabin to her seat, slipped into the five point
harness, pushed her back against the scales and tightened the
straps. As her hands slid into the control gloves and the seat
sprang to life, conforming to her back and arms. She wiggled her
legs against the scales that ran down the back of her thighs and
calves and curled around her heel to support her feet.

"Don't worry about your movements," Ruby said. "I've
got the jumper set to accept only my commands."

Emma pulled her hands loose to seal her helmet in the
shoulder ring, twisting it till it clicked. She gave a little tug
upwards to check and was proud of how well she handled that until
her nose began to twitch.

"I'm going to sneeze."

"Oh, hell, woman. Tip your head forward and sneeze
into your chest or you'll splatter the visor."

Her advice came just in time. Emma half-swallowed the
sneeze, then tilted her head back and sniffed vigorously for a
while.

Ruby activated her seat - her movements would control
attitude and speed as intuitively as walking. During the high-g
portion of descent the AI would take over and stretch the seats out
to support them, but otherwise it would follow Ruby's lead.

Ruby undocked and the jumpship floated away from the
transport with a puff of its engines.

Unlike the transport, the jumpship had windows. The
cabin sat on one side of a square frame big enough to surround a
ship module, with an engine at each corner. The jumpship was a sky
crane.

"I'm clear," Ruby said over the jumpship channel.
"Ready for disassembly."

"Jumper One is clear. Go ahead Governor."

Emma got her last look at S-3 as a spacecraft, a
white cylinder studded with protruding airlocks and skirted with
photon collectors. Puffs of gas jetted out at the module bulkheads
as the frangible nuts detonated, connecting struts folded back, and
the modules drifted apart. The photon collectors uncoupled and
floated away. In a few minutes, the ship was an expanding formation
of individual components.

"Perfect separation." Luis' voice sounded inside
Emma's helmet. Someone, probably James, was chattering in the
background.

Ruby couldn't help but smile with satisfaction.

"It's quite a sight, isn't it?"

"You grab collectors three and four," Luis said.
"I'll take one and two."

Ruby unfolded the jumpship's articulated grappling
arms and pulled her hands from the control gloves to let the AI
grab the fragile photon collectors.

As the jumpships approached the orbiting power
station, Emma had a good view of the satellite that powered Kamp
Kans. It was an elegant solution to the limitations of solar power
on the surface. The orbiting station was always in sunlight, in a
stationary Clarke orbit above Kamp. It beamed energy down to
receivers that converted microwaves to electricity. Settler Three
and every transport ship that followed would add their collectors
to the orbiting station. Kamp Kans was short of many things, but
there was plenty of power.

From the angle of their approach, Emma couldn't see
the satellite's central generators, but the deeply colored,
iridescent collectors spread out before her. Ruby maneuvered the
jumpship to the end of a long cylindrical strut. A robot crawled
around the strut and into view, one of two long, multi-limbed tool
boxes that maintained the power station. Ruby passed the collectors
one at a time to the bot, and across the shimmering station Luis
was doing the same with his load.

"There," Ruby said as she relaxed in her seat. "The
bots will weld those collectors into place, wire them up, and we'll
have more power to draw on."

"You did a great job," Emma said. Ruby snorted
without reply and modified their trajectory. The jumpship caught up
to the S-3 modules in less than an hour.

The modules had drifted quite far apart.

"Right behind you." That was Luis' voice.

"You go first," Ruby said over the ship channel.

"Luis is very good at this. I like to watch," she
added without glancing at Emma.

Jumpship Two maneuvered to the habitat module,
reached out its arms, and grabbed the lifting lugs at the forward
end.

"This'll take a few hours. See you later," Luis said
as he towed the module away, accelerating to match the speedy
little moon when Phobos caught up with him.

"Thanks, Ruby," Emma said. Psychologists had trained
her on how to form relationships so she grasped for something
positive to say. "I appreciate getting such a good view."

"We're taking the empty fuel module down," Ruby said,
ignoring her attempt. "Luis will drop the habitat module on Phobos.
The bots there built a pad for it. You know there's a squad of
construction robots on the moon, don't you?"

Of course I do, Emma thought with irritation. But she
mumbled some thanks out loud, which sounded stupid.

"Once he sets the habitat in place and the
construction bots hook up the Phobos power station, we'll have a
handy little maintenance base." In addition to maintenance, Phobos
Base was a lifeboat of sorts for Kamp Kans, an evacuation base in
an emergency. Emma knew that, but thought saying it out loud might
be unlucky.

"Time for us to grab the empty fuel module."

Emma had viewed simulations, but watching Ruby
capture the module was still fascinating. She matched the
jumpship's attitude to the forward bulkhead of the module, deftly
closed the grapplers' fingers around its lugs, and reoriented so
the module hung in the center of the jumpship's square frame. The
engines pivoted and they slowly lost altitude.