Glory on Mars (30 page)

"Sorry - I'm fine. Just dizzy for a moment," he
said.

"That's a normal reaction to gravity," Grace said.
"But I want anyone who notices any strange sensations to let me
know."

"Well..." Hannah looked around the habitat
uncertainly. "This is funny. It smells like fish in here."

Laughter reverberated off the walls and Melina
struggled to keep hold of the wide-eyed cat.

New people, new partners on Mars. Emma wiped tears
from her face. It didn't matter if she'd be stuck inside for weeks
on end. There were new people to talk to - synchronous
conversations without ten or twenty minute gaps between sentences.
There were also more heaters and lights in the S-4 knarr,
appliances for the Plaza galley, medical equipment, Claude's
instruments, and more seeds. The transport might be in orbit, but
even so, her world was expanding.

Liz pulled Emma through the crowd.

"Come meet the rest of the settlers," she said,
climbing the ladder to the life support level. Emma felt a cool
breeze on her face as she reached the top of the ladder.

Liz stood next to a stainless steel cylinder like a
big, shiny beer keg. Frost hung on the top and wisps of fog rippled
across the deck. The cylinder was cooled with liquid nitrogen.

"Meet two hundred new settlers." Liz's face glowed.
This chamber was the test batch of frozen embryos. Unconsciously,
Emma's fingers rubbed the contraceptive chip on her arm. Colony
Mars' plans didn't call for implanting these embryos, not yet. The
test was to prove out the cryochamber's viability system. Emma
smiled faintly at Liz.

"The purpose of life?"

"The purpose of life," Liz said.

***

An alert tone woke Emma hours before dawn. She groped
for her pad, hoping to see that, after hours of trying, MEX had
unclamped the S-4 modules, but it was her wake-up tone. Earlier
than usual because this morning the asteroid would hit Mars.

I would have slept through the impact, she thought as
she fumbled for her shoes. Glad I set an alarm after last night's
party.

Emma wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and
slid her privacy flap open.

Over the heads of the crowd, an animation of the
approaching asteroid played on the screen. In one corner was a
bright patch of fuzz - one of the satellites must have an imager
aimed at it. Where was Ruby?

They were short a bunk since the transport ship was
still in orbit. Liz had moved the New Four to bunks in the south
habitat with Yin and Yang. That meant Ruby should be in the north
habitat, somewhere.

She tottered to the docking module, climbed the
ladder, and entered the jumpship cabin.

Ruby glanced at her with a short nod, then back to
her screen and a satellite image of the southern hemisphere in full
sunlight.

"No luck, huh?" Emma felt the co-pilot's seat form
snuggly around her as she flopped down.

"The transport's safe in orbit, isn't it?"

"For a while." Ruby switched to a view of the
transport, its modules still firmly joined.

"The orbit's already decaying. Jumper Two's a robot
now. Maybe it can grapple hold and boost the orbit even if Governor
loses comms. I should..."

Robot. An idea jolted Emma.

"How far is Jumper Two from Phobos Base right
now?"

"Other side of the planet. Why?"

"How about the power station?" Emma felt her pulse
quicken.

"S-4's approaching the power station." Ruby looked at
her quizzically.

"The power station has onboard maintenance bots. They
have tools - cutters and space torches."

Ruby's eyes widened.

"I see what you mean." She quickly related the plan
to Governor, asking for a maintenance bot to be ready.

Emma plugged in her pad and opened the feed from
Jumper Two's forward imager. The closest bot was waiting. It was a
small unit, so its weight wouldn't disrupt the power station's
pinpoint aiming of microwaves as it crawled over the satellite.
Slow and specialized, it had a limited operations range. It added
collector panels, repaired micrometeor impacts - things like
that.

"Did Governor tell it to grab the right tools..."

Too late. The bot stretched two of its limbs out to
Jumper Two. Stars filled the imager's view as the jumper swung in
an arc, towing the bot back to the transport in its grapplers.

Emma looked back at the weather feed.

"Here comes the asteroid. Boom." A smudge of orange
dust bloomed and boiled outwards.

Emma craned her neck to look at Ruby's screen.

"Watch the storm, Emma, not me. Keep me posted."

Settler Four's transport filled the jumper's view and
the little bot appeared, held in a grappler tip against one of the
clamps.

"Is there a dust cloud from the impact?" Ruby focused
on her screen.

"It's spreading fast. The forecast says..."

"On second thought, don't tell me." Ruby chewed her
lip and reached for the transport with another of the jumper's
grapplers. She hit too hard and the jumper rebounded instead.

"Let Governor handle it," Emma said sharply. "The AI
gets feedback from both ships."

Ruby rapped her controls, let go, and sat back with a
frustrated sigh.

They watched as the jumpship clutched the transport
with one grappler and swung the bot to the closest clamp. The image
wobbled from the momentum.

Claude poked his head into the cabin. It sounded like
the rest of the settlers were behind him.

"Governor will explain," Emma said tersely and turned
back to Ruby. "Can't stop now."

The jumper moved the bot from clamp to clamp, cutting
the modules loose.

"Which one should I bring down? Which module first?"
Ruby asked.

"The knarr," Emma said immediately.

"Governor, can that little bot survive a
descent?"

"I do not have an analysis for that event. Stand
by."

"Never mind. Cancel analysis. It's coming down." Emma
leaned over to Ruby's screen and watched the little bot wrap all
its limbs around the jumper's frame.

"Okay Governor. Bring the knarr down. Descent
authorized." She rapped Emma's shoulder.

"Get out. I'm going up for the habitat."

"There's no time. Governor, how long before the cloud
reaches Kamp?"

Ruby stared icily at a chart of cloud density versus
time that Governor sent to her screen, the background shaded red
well before she could get back to Kamp.

"Well, damn."

"Let's concentrate on landing the knarr."

Emma hopped out the open airlock still wrapped in her
blanket. Yin and Yang waited for her. They had immediately
understood the plan and summoned a loader and beetle-bot to the
nederzetting.

A landing pad for the knarr had been ready for months
at the end of the medical bay. Jumper Two set the module down,
hovering on short bursts of thruster fire.

The bots nudged the knarr to align its airlock
against the prepared end of the bay, and wriggled it to seat the
seal.

Cheers echoed around her. Emma could hear Claude
bemoaning lost data from the impact - he had no seismometers.

"Send the jumper to Maintenance," Yang called to
Ruby. "There's still a beetle-bot there to refuel it."

Emma slipped back into the copilot seat to watch the
weather satellite feed. The cloud, now a murky brown, hit the edge
of sunrise on the Tharsis Plain. In just a minute...

"Too late." Ruby sat back into the pilot's seat as
red lights began flashing. "The dust's too thick."

"We'd never have gotten the knarr down without
Governor," Emma said quietly.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't rub it in." But Ruby's face glowed
as she secured her controls.

"How's the power station's bot, Governor?"

"Its functions are nominal, but I will run a full
diagnostic."

"Whatever protocol demands, Governor," Ruby said with
a twisted smile.

"Did your construction bots make it back to
Maintenance?" Emma asked Yang, who had slipped into the seat behind
Ruby.

"No, only about half way."

"Sorry. I hope they'll be alright."

"Oh, it'll take weeks to clean them thoroughly." Emma
turned to find Yin behind her, grinning.

"Just another sol on Mars," he said.

"It all pays the same." Yang heaved an exaggerated
sigh.

"Damn, I hate dust."

***

"Shouldn't the cloud get thinner as it spreads out?"
Emma asked, watching a mosaic image of the entire planet on the
habitat's main screen.

Claude shook his head.

"The cloud's getting thicker. It's absorbing sunlight
and heating up. That whips up the wind and lofts more dust. More
dust picks up more heat and generates more wind." He pointed to the
latest thermal data in the lower right of the screen - a false
color image of the planet turning from green to yellow to red.

"Those are rising temperatures at the top of the
cloud. But the dust is so thick, surface temperature here at the
nederzetting is falling. This cloud's dense enough to interfere
with communications, too."

"Damn," Emma said, moving to the wall to plug in her
pad. "I better warn my mother I'll be out of touch for a
while."

By lunchtime, Governor's reception from MEX was
breaking up. Soon it couldn't receive from the satellites orbiting
overhead, either. That had never happened before.

"No point sitting here staring at a blank screen,"
Yin said. "I want to unload the knarr."

"I say, let's pull radiant heaters out first for the
Plaza," Yang said.

"And move our kitchen to the Plaza. It's too crowded
in here." Yin nodded in agreement.

"The knarr was shipped pressurized. We can cut into
it now."

They all grabbed chisels and broke through to the
knarr's airlock in a sol.

Emma stood at the open door and shivered. She'd hoped
for something - maybe the smell of Earth. But only coldness tumbled
out from a stack of boxes.

"Don't touch anything," Yin said. "Remember this
module's only just come down from space."

"Gloves, everyone." Yang walked down the aisle
tossing out pairs of gloves with long gauntlets.

The bay's bench tops were empty, so they spread cargo
out, digging for what they wanted. The New Four sat on some boxes
and watched. They helped occasionally, but mostly sat ashen faced
in the unfamiliar gravity with incongruously cheerful grins.

"Governor, are you recording?" Emma asked when they
paused for a break.

"Yes, Emma."

"I guess there's no harm sending the raw files to
MEX," Ruby said. "Once the dust clears enough for comms, that
is."

Chapter Thirty-Seven:
English Breakfast

Unloading the knarr was a holiday. While they
worked, the New Four shared the latest gossip from Colony Mars
headquarters.

The bays grew brighter and warmer as they installed
lights and heaters. Plaza's pond was warm enough for Liz to
transfer duck weed and water bugs, preparing it for fish. She
planted alfalfa in the new garden bays and had to chase the cat out
more than once as he happily dug in the newly turned sand,
scattering seeds.

Claude pulled up the knarr packing diagram and
plotted a path to his spectrometer. It was a bench top model, its
various sources and detectors enclosed in a gray box with blue
panels here and there. Emma followed Claude through the short aisle
he'd opened among the boxes to admire the instrument.

"That's too bulky for one person to carry. Here, let
me slip by you." Emma squeezed by and a tingle jolted through her
as she pushed against Claude's warm body. Her face flushed and he
gave her a loopy grin. She cleared her throat.

"I think I can get on the other side... okay, lift.
Where are we going with this thing?"

"Into the Plaza. There's too much going on in
Medical."

They rolled a table close to Medical's door - good
thing they're round, Emma thought - and set up Claude's
spectrometer.

Yin and Yang were as happy installing the Plaza
kitchen as they had been building bays. Settler Four's knarr
included a cook top and oven with an assortment of pots and pans.
They moved the habitat galleys to the kitchen and Yin announced
their next breakfast would be served in the Plaza.

Emma and Liz carried all the beverage mixes to
Plaza's cabinets. While Emma stirred coffee powder into a pot of
hot water, Liz mixed orange flavored protein powder for the New
Four. She'd insisted they all sit down and, newly returned to
gravity, they didn't argue.

"Just what the doctor ordered." Liz set out cups.

"You probably know more about adjusting to Mars
gravity than I do," Grace said, sipping her drink. She was modest
about her specialty in space medicine. "There's nothing like
firsthand experience."

Hannah, their pediatrician, tilted her head side to
side. "I'm not dizzy anymore. I guess Mars gravity agrees with
me."

"Have you tried the neurovestibular platform yet?"
Grace asked. "I want to record how well you're sensing your body's
positional orientation. And, I hate to start nagging, but I saw the
flexion machines lying on the other side of the Plaza. I'd like to
see those reinstalled, and get everyone back on an exercise
schedule."

"That's for you space weaklings," Ruby said as she
poured the bitter coffee.

"And for me, too," Daan said. "I don't know how much
muscle and bone I'll need to climb Olympus."

"Mars medicine will be different from Earth medicine
and from space medicine," Grace said, nodding. "Our children will
discover what it means to be Martian."

"To be Homo rufus," Liz said.

Grace tilted her head, quizzically.

"One definition of a species is a group that's
reproductively isolated. That's us on Mars - us and the
embryos."