Glory on Mars (16 page)

Yin and Yang had produced all the nederzetting bays
by digging wide trenches many meters deep and pushing fabricated
floor stones back into the holes. Because the stone was like a
solid foam, with many closed pores sintered for insulation against
the Martian cold, there was excess sand from the dig to fabricate
into blocks for the barrel-arched walls and ceiling of each bay.
Even so, there was left-over sand. Emma could now align the
diagrams and images from reports she'd read with some artificial
looking dunes nearby.

I must ask them, she thought, when they decide to
move the fabricator to the trenches by Maintenance.

The floor extended far beyond the bays, to avoid
excavating near any bay walls. She scuffed her feet along until she
found the edge of the stone apron - future bay floors - that
extended for ten meters beyond the current bays.

"Stop acting like an inspector," Ruby said. "Let's
have some fun."

Emma followed Ruby, gaining speed as she hopped south
along the Spine. Mars' gravity was less than Earth's, but she'd
lost muscle and bone density, so she didn't feel like a superhero.
She skidded and fell to one knee. More carefully she walked around
the buried south modules, bouncing from foot to foot past their
airlocks and power receiver.

She didn't realize how steeply the ground sloped
upwards where a drift covered a new bay. Her feet slid out beneath
her and she fell forward onto hands and knees. Emma held her breath
as she checked the heads-up display. Pressure held constant in her
helmet. She let her breath out all at once, fogging her view.

Ruby helped her up and brushed sand off Emma's suit,
looking for any damage.

"Good on ya," she said, laughing. "Next time, keep an
eye out four or five hops ahead."

"Go arse over tit?" Yin and Yang hopped up next to
them, breathing hard, their grins showing between each
helmet-fogging pant. "Don't worry. We've fallen loads of times. The
suits are tough."

"Little hops, I think, for the rest of the tour."

"Where's Olympus Mons?" Emma asked as they rounded
the drifted hump of the bay.

The Sun was fairly low, a bright blur in the sky
above a thin white cloud where Emma estimated the volcano should
be. The mountain, if its top was even visible from twelve hundred
kilometers away, blended into the fuzzy orange sky.

"I thought you said there weren't any dust storms
nearby."

"No storms," Yang said.

"But there's always dust," Yin said.

"Even a regional storm on the other side of the
planet kicks up dust worldwide."

"The curse of Mars."

They continued along the Spine, Yin and Yang pointing
out where they planned to add more bays, and swung out around the
greenhouse.

At first, Emma didn't recognize the crashed knarr
module. It was partly covered in Yin's ceramic blanket and drifted
sand. Rover One tilted awkwardly, one set of track chains half
off.

I'll worry about that later, Emma thought. She turned
to Rover Two, which sat upright on its tracks, swaddled in
packaging.

"I'll show you how the roof canopy comes off the
rover's power receiver," Emma said.

Emma kept up a monologue about the rover's features
as they removed the cushioned sheets. Finally, Emma hopped
backwards to admire the machine. The front cab had large windows
and hung over a pair of treads that propelled the boxy body. It was
sky blue, Earth sky blue, with Colony Mars' logo on the side.

"That blue coating is glassified; fused to its skin,"
Emma said. "Should last forever."

"It's a beaut, alright," Ruby said. "But will it
run?"

Emma opened a channel to Governor.

"Send the activation code," she said. "Engage the AI
interface.

"There's a start-up diagnostic that will run," she
said. "Just take a minute."

Governor announced the interface was established. "I
have merged with the rover's AI."

"Go dock at the north surface airlock."

A slight shiver ran through the rover. Then it
extended two outriggers and, pushing against the sand, pivoted
itself sideways, retracted the outriggers, and trundled off towards
the docking module.

"Well done," Yin said.

"Is that the remote control you were telling us
about?"

"No. The rover can execute some basic programs, just
like the jumpship can. Governor feeds it parameters, and it can
dock. Watch this."

Emma hopped ahead of the rover and stopped in its
path. The rover stopped, too.

"It won't run into anything. It's waiting for
instructions," Emma said. "Or to continue with its program." She
jumped away and the rover resumed its course.

They followed it to the airlock and watched the
door's static charge drive dust away. The rover extended its short
docking tunnel and sealed against the airlock.

"All set," Emma announced. "The rover was shipped
with a full atmosphere, so as soon as the airlock cycles we can
open it and unpack the cargo. It's packed with fragile items - and
gifts from families."

"Didn't you sneak a peek at the gift manifest before
you left Earth?" Yin asked.

"Nope. It's a big surprise."

"Don't tear the packaging," Yang said. "Save
everything,"

"We need to hop down to the south airlock to let
ourselves in."

"Yeah. Let's get inside and open our rover
pressie."

Excitement was contagious, so Emma was bouncing on
her toes as she waited for the airlock to equalize. But she didn't
know if there was anything special for her inside.

Chapter Twenty-One:
Haiku

Since the rover occupied the north airlock, they
hopped to the south dock. Yin and Yang both changed into striped
shirts and khakis. Emma wore her suit to walk to the north habitat.
The faint burnt smell of Martian dust clung to her despite the
vacuum cleaner in the dock, but she'd left her clothes in the north
airlock and didn't fancy traipsing through the bays in her
underwear. Besides, MEX requested a live stream when they opened
the rover, so the habitat imagers were probably already on.

Emma doffed the suit in her tiny bunkroom, which
would now smell of the Martian surface for sols, she thought
ruefully. She pulled on a striped shirt and cargo shorts. The
habitat was full of chatter and bits of packing material when she
pushed open the privacy flap and stepped out.

The rover was stuffed with cargo. There were imaging
components, servers for Governor, and fragile spare parts, but the
first items they reached were in the rover's airlock. They found
more packages of specialty foods like chocolate, dried fruit,
cheese, hard candies, and powdered drink mixes - even beer and wine
packed in flexible tubes to withstand freezing during the journey
through space. Best of all were the personal gifts.

Colony Mars invited family members to send gifts for
the settlers in each transport and most were surprises. Even Ruby
didn't complain about the live stream, since her family would be
watching along with Colony Mars' premium subscribers.

"Here, Emma. Something for you." Liz passed a box.
Emma didn't think anyone had packed a gift for her. There were two
thick palm-sized disks and a holographic projector - with
batteries
- from her mother, with a note saying she'd loaded
them with favorite sculpture files. And a ratty old stuffed dog
with one eye missing.

I didn't know Mom had kept this, she thought, hugging
the toy under one arm.

She pulled out wads of bright fabric that had been
stuffed in the box as cushioning and laughed out loud. Silk
undies!

Jammed along the box sides were a few of Colony Mars'
super-light, super-strong plastic bags filled with desiccated
toothpaste, and a half-dozen replacement heads for her
toothbrush.

The tooth powder padded a tin with cheese and salami
- since she was a little girl, Mom always got tins like this for
Christmas. She'd had to think ahead and send all this to the
spaceport last June to load in the knarr. Mom wasn't totally
scatterbrained after all.

Tears filled her eyes and Emma ducked into her bunk.
She carefully laid out each item. There were so many little things
she'd never have again.

She ran her fingertips across the bottom of the empty
box. There was nothing from her father - not that she'd expected
anything.

Laughter rang outside so, after wiping her face, Emma
pushed though the privacy flap, zipping it closed behind her.

"I'll share my can of vegemite," Ruby said, waving it
for everyone to see.

"I got something special." Liz caught Emma's elbow
and smiled secretively. "I'll show you next time we're in the
greenhouse bay."

"Ho, ho." Claude held up a double-headed hammer. "A
rock pick. This is the best technology for prospecting and I don't
need fingertips to make it work." He gripped the hammer's handle
with a smile and rummaged through his box. There was a sweatshirt
from his university and a handful of curled and faded clippings -
cartoons that probably once decorated a lab door.

Claude pulled out a clear plastic tube and looked
puzzled for a moment. There was a plant inside, its oval leaves
dried to grayish green and tiny flowers still blue. Claude shook
the tube and small seed pods rattled.

Claude looked up and caught Emma's eye.

"What did you get?"

She showed him her childhood toy dog, but his laugh
sounded hollow.

"I have flower seeds," he said, holding up the tube
before Emma asked. "I'll have to talk to Liz about getting a little
space in a greenhouse to plant them. They're called
forget-me-nots."

Claude cleared his throat.

"I think I should stow these." He stepped into his
bunk, closing the flap behind him.

"Let's have one hell of a party." Daan shouted over
the chatter.

Despite the celebration, Emma couldn't relax. She
slipped into her bunk and zipped the privacy flap. Her mother's
gifts lay on the bunk.

Emma slid the disk into the holographic player and
tapped through the metadata without reading. The image was a
sculpture, a sort of upside-down tear drop balanced on a ball. She
was about to advance to the next image when she noticed an audio
icon and touched it.

"Mars is the stepping stone for humanity's voyage
into the universe." Her mother's voice - her mother had recorded
captions.

She giggled as she recognized the quotation. It was
some inspirational drivel from Colony Mars, maybe from a
tee-shirt.

Next came an image of two naked men warped like a 3-D
funhouse mirror. They were running, one reaching forward to the
other, who reached back. "Mars is the challenge of our age. If the
baton falls from one hand, pick it up."

All the images were inspirational, the originals cast
in glass or steel or bronze. "Passion for exploring the universe,"
"attraction for the unknown," "childhood dream."

"Inspire people everywhere - catalyze growth,
prosperity, knowledge, and unite the people of the world."

Yeah, right. Whoever said that meant the world of
Earth, expecting to gain the benefits without risking their own
sorry necks.

"When the sun expands, Mars will be our spaceport to
the solar system."

Emma snorted. The sun won't expand for a billion
years. What makes anyone think Homo sapiens will still exist? It
wouldn't even take an apocalypse - just evolution into progeny so
far removed we couldn't recognize them.

"An honor to stand on the edge of destiny."

Wait a minute. That was from one of her father's
speeches. She remembered a catch in her throat and tears in her
eyes as she'd listened to him. The line sounded silly out of
context - pompous and effortless for someone who never intended to
step over that edge.

She flipped off the hologram player and, avoiding
anyone's eye as she stepped out of the bunk, slipped to the docking
module. Yin and Yang were there.

"I thought I'd unload a few things..." She noticed a
line of boxes half-circling the module.

"We thought the same thing," Yang said, sliding
another box along the floor.

"We like to get an early start each morning, so we're
gonna empty the rover."

Emma grinned.

"Pass me a box."

***

Before the next sunrise, Emma suited up with Yin,
Yang, and Ruby at the airlock. Since the rover was pressurized,
they opened the door straight away and stepped in.

The rover's onboard airlock ran behind the passenger
seats. Directly opposite the inner door were two narrow hatches
that would mate with the walkabout suits. The passenger cabin was
to the right. Yin turned left.

"I brought bottles of water," he said, dropping them
on a narrow counter. "But the only other thing we have is air. The
sanitary facility isn't charged yet."

"No worries. The maintenance bay has everything we
need."

Ruby's tour of the rover didn't take long. From the
inner door Emma pointed out the tiny galley and hatch to a life
support closet at the rover's rear.

Emma slid into the driver's seat, checking cabin
records for pressure and temperature.

"I'll do a quick-start on life support," Emma said.
"The rover held air pressure fine in the knarr, but this is its
maiden voyage. Better put on helmets."

"So nice," Yin said as the rover undocked. "Driving
to work instead of walking."

"No traffic either," Yang said.

Emma drove across smooth sand, pinkish-gray in the
morning light, towards the maintenance bay a kilometer away. They
passed the bright blue loader. It was no longer needed to unload
the knarr and had returned to scraping up sand.

Emma stopped the rover to watch a bucket of sand dump
into the fabricator's hopper. A screw feeder was currently angled
up to the top of several metal arcs, bypassing the molecular
separators inside the main body and too high for Emma to see
properly through the window.