Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (53 page)

“Well, we’re running three shifts,
it’s non-stop.”

Jeff glanced at Gabe who was
wearing a scowl. “What’s the matter, Gabe? You don’t look happy.”

“No, it’s not that. Just standing
here, looking at all this, well… it’s just all really starting to sink in. It’s
a little overwhelming.”

“Yeah.”

“Two years ago it just, I dunno,
seemed like a theoretical exercise. But here it is. Twenty-one months and we’re
on our way.”

Jeff nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

Abby turned around and faced Jeff.
“You still think this is a good idea?”

He shrugged. “Why? You want to call
it off?”

She shook her head. “No. But, like
Gabe says, it’s a little overwhelming. I think I need a drink.”

“Yeah.” Jeff turned back to Heidi
and looked at the dark circles under her eyes, her unwashed hair, and generally
ragged appearance. “Um, except for picking us up at the airport, when was the
last time you left this building?”

“Oh god, I dunno.”

“Why don’t you come back to the
ranch with us, relax, take a load off, give it a rest for a few days? You look
like you could use it.”

She nodded and smiled softly. “I’d
like that. Thanks.”

Jeff took a long look around the
assembly building and shook his head. “It’s amazing what a billion dollars will
buy these days.”

Sunday, June 8, 2014 (T minus 653 days)

“Have you told her?” said Gabe.

Jeff looked up from his desk. “Told
who what?”

“Heidi, about your little plan
for a nursery on Mars.”

“Oh, that. Uh, no, I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It just hasn’t come
up. Come on Gabe, this is a big damn puzzle, and that’s just one piece of it.
Heidi’s been real busy with the Jupiters and, well, it just hasn’t come up.
Besides, if we don’t get those rockets built we’re not going anywhere and the
whole question is moot.”

“Don’t you think it’s time she
knew?”

“Yeah, sure. Probably long past
time. Go get her. I’ll tell her right now.”

“Okay.”

“Might as well get Abby, Sue and
Chrissie. We’ll make this a family meeting.”

“Alright.” Gabe paused at the door.
“She told me what she said when you hired her.”

“What? About sleeping with me?”

“Yeah. We’re you surprised?”

“Uh, yeah. But after I thought
about it for a second it seemed to be a reasonable question, from her
perspective. And by the way, she handled it a lot more delicately than you
did.”

Gabe grinned sheepishly.

“Go get ‘em. Let’s do it.”

“I’m going. This should be
interesting.”

Jeff growled, “Gabe, just go.”

He knew this was coming since the
moment he’d hired Heidi, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. It was
potentially… awkward.

A few minutes later Gabe reappeared
at Jeff’s office door with the rest of the team in tow. “Here we are.”

Jeff motioned them in. “Everybody
take a seat.”

“What’s up boss?” said Abby.

“Just hang on.” He leaned back in
his chair, sighed, and turned his gaze to Heidi. “Heidi, first, please let me
say I haven’t kept this from you for any particular reason other than we’ve been
busy and, honestly, I just haven’t got around to it.”

Abby cringed. “Uh oh.”

Jeff glared at her. “Shut up. This
is awkward enough without your kibitzing. Heidi, reaction to this has been all
over the map…”

Abby laughed.

“Abby!” Jeff glared at her again.

“Sorry.”

Heidi looked puzzled. “What is it?”

“I’m getting to it.” Jeff took a
deep breath. “When you get to the cargo manifest, you’ll find an assortment of
sealed containers labeled ‘Schedule G’, with no other description. Were
you to open those containers, inside you would find a year and a half’s worth
of, well, supplies for a newborn child: diapers, baby food, clothes… the
works.”

Heidi’s jaw dropped.

“We, well, not me but one of them,”
motioning to Abby, Gabe and Sue, “are going to conceive and bear a child on
Mars.” Jeff sat silently for a moment allowing it to sink in.

Heidi sat, slack jawed
and motionless.

“Feel free to take your time and
ponder that. Or, leap up screaming, cussing, and run out of the room. That’s
been done too.”

Heidi tilted her head and stared at
the floor for a minute. “Wow,” she said without looking up. She scratched her
forehead then slowly looked up at Jeff. “You’re gonna set the entire world on
its ear. You’re gonna come back with a real live Martian.”

Jeff laughed and glanced at the
others. “Yeah, well, that’s one way to look at it.”

Heidi glanced in the direction of
Abby, Gabe and Sue. “Which one?”

Abby shrugged. “Don’t know yet.
We’ll figure it out when we get there. Or along the way.”

Heidi turned to Jeff and frowned.
“You lied to me.”

Jeff shook his head. “No I didn’t.
I told you that all five of you were women purely by statistical chance, and
that’s the truth. Were all of you men, I’d just go out and recruit another
crew. But as luck would have it, I don’t have to. I may not have told you the
whole truth, but I did not lie to you.”

She shook her head. “I assume
you’ve thought this through?”

Jeff smiled. “That’s a pretty safe
assumption.”

“Is it possible?”

“Sure. The only environmental
difference – inside the habitat – is gravity and a few atmospheric trace gases,
and we don’t believe either will be an issue. Other than that the, uh,
mechanics are pretty straightforward.”

“Okay. Uh, conception?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Um, how?”

“What do you mean? You mean like,
artificial insemination or the old fashioned way?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I dunno, I just work here.” Jeff
nodded toward the others. “Ask them.”

Heidi glanced questioningly at the
others who looked nervously at one another.

Susan cleared her throat. “Ahem,
well, not surprisingly we have talked amongst ourselves about that at some
length.”

Jeff leaned forward at his desk and
listened attentively, then suddenly turned to Heidi. “This’ll be news to me
too.”

Susan continued, “It’s not cast in
stone. We, of course, could do either but the consensus of opinion at this
stage is that we should do it the old fashioned way.” She shrugged. “I mean, if
we are going to do this, let’s do it right – the way it was meant to be done.”

Jeff nodded. “All three of you in
agreement on that?”

Abby, Gabe and Sue all nodded.

“Okay. Well, for it’s worth, I’ll
make it unanimous. I agree, let’s do it right. We still take the cryo freezer?
Just in case?”

Sue nodded. “Yeah. Just in case.”

Heidi turned to Sue and shook her
head. “Cryo freezer?”

“Yes. Before we leave, we’ll
harvest eggs, fertilize some, and freeze the embryos, remaining eggs, and donor
sperm in liquid nitrogen as a backup. And we’ll take everything necessary for
in
vitro
.”

“Whose?”

Sue grinned. “Ours. Eggs and
embryos from Gabe, Abby, Chrissie and myself, and Jeff’s sperm, along with that
from some anonymous donors.”

Heidi glanced at Chrissie with
astonishment. “Yours? You’re not even going!”

Chrissie shrugged and smiled. “I’m
part of the team. If it comes to that, I’m perfectly happy to be the mother of
the first Martian.”

“But, would you be the mother?”

Chrissie laughed. “We’ll split that
hair later, if necessary.”

Heidi frowned. “You guys are
amazingly cavalier about this.”

Jeff shook his head. “Oh no we’re
not. This, as you may imagine, has incalculable moral, philosophical, legal,
even religious implications that we’ve struggled with for two years, and will
continue to do so. But the bottom line is, eventually it will happen.
Eventually, someone will do it. We’re gonna be there first, so why not us?”

A smile slowly came over Heidi’s
face. “Forgive the pun but that birth announcement will be the mother of all
press conferences.”

They all laughed.

“I expect so,” said Jeff.

“Chrissie?” said Heidi.

“Yeah?”

“Job opportunity.”

Chrissie smiled. “Yeah, I’ve
figured all along that one would be mine. To tell you the truth, I’m looking
forward to it. Like you said, it’ll set the world on its ear.”

Heidi smiled. “Um, that’s a lot of
diapers.”

Jeff chuckled. “Would be if we were
using disposables, but we’re going old school and using cloth since we have
laundry facilities in space and on the surface.”

Heidi sighed. “Well, okay. Wow.”
She looked directly at Jeff. “Any other skeletons in the closet I should know
about?”

Jeff shook his head. “Nope. That’s
it. However, there is one thing. I told you when I hired you that I didn’t like
secrets unless the knowledge could hurt someone. And that’s still true. Based
on just your reaction, you may well imagine what might happen were the news
media to get wind of this. There is no way for us to judge what public reaction
might be, and it would probably be all over the place. The consequences to us
could be disastrous. This is not something we want debated in the court of
public opinion – yet. We’ll let the world know when the time comes.”

Heidi nodded. “I understand. Uh,
one other thing, how will you transport the child from the hab to the MAV, and
what are you going to do until you’re in space and pressurized? How are you
getting the baby back? You having someone build a suit for it?”

Jeff grinned. “Sue will show you,
she has the prototype down in the lab. Remember the two crates I mentioned at
the MAV meeting with NASA, JPL, and Grumman?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we had ILC Dover build a
couple pressurized capsules for us that will connect to the MAV’s and CM’s life
support systems or piggyback off a PLSS. They’ll also serve as cribs on the
surface, and provide some additional radiation shielding in the event of high
solar activity. We’ve rearranged things a bit in the command module. We removed
one of the rear bulkhead crew couches and turned the other around and located
it under the center couch to give Sue a bit more room. On the return trip the
two kiddy capsules will sit on either side of her beneath the left and right
seats. As far as ILC knows, they’re for the purpose of transporting some
materials that require temperature and humidity control. They didn’t even raise
an eyebrow. When necessary, the little one will ride in one of them.”

“Huh. That’s ingenious. Whose idea
was that?”

“Gabe’s.”

Heidi glanced at Gabe. “So, to
smart, talented and beautiful, we can now add devious?” she said with a grin.

Jeff whispered, “You have no idea.”

“I heard that,” said Gabe.

“Why two?” said Heidi.

“Primary and backup. And… god
forbid,” Jeff shook his head, “somebody decides to have twins.”

Heidi cringed. “That could present
problems.”

“Yeah, big problems. One of them’s
already on the way in
Columbus
, the other will go in
Magellan
;
just more Schedule G stuff. Okay, well, there you have it. Now, as I reminded
Gabe a little earlier, this is just one part of a very large plan. Yeah, it’s a
significant part that requires a lot of very detailed advance planning, but
it’s still just one part. Let’s not get fixated on it, there are a lot of other
parts that also require our attention.”

“Got it.”

“Okay.” Jeff sighed, “What time is
it?” and looked at his watch. “Yeesh, five-thirty. Hey, Abby, we’re missing
cocktail hour.”

“Oh no! Anything but that.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” Jeff looked
at Susan and tapped on his watch. “When you have a chance can you dig out a
watch for Heidi? I completely forgot about that.”

“Sure, I’ll get one as soon as
we’re done here.”

Heidi looked around at their
wrists. “I’ve been meaning to ask about that. You all wear the same watch. Is
there something special about them?”

Jeff nodded. “Indeed there is.
These are Omega Speedmasters – the original moon watch, worn by the Apollo
astronauts. And these are all from that era, the 1960s, though most have been
rebuilt for us by Omega. They are known to work on the moon and they’ll be
going with us to Mars.”

“How cool. But, won’t they gain
like half an hour a day on Mars?”

“These would. These with the blue crowns
are calibrated for a 24-hour Earth day. We have another set with red crowns
that are calibrated for a 24-hour Martian day. We’ll take both.”

Heidi looked over at Gabe. “That
your idea too?”

Gabe shook her head. “Nope, the
boss came up with that one.”

“Good idea.”

Jeff smiled. “Well, I’ve still got
some functional brain cells, though Abby and I are about to go downstairs and
kill off a few more. Y’all are welcome to join us.”

Heidi grinned and nodded. “Sounds
good to me. I think I need a drink.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right
place. Let’s go.”

#

The six of them sat in lounge
chairs beside the pool, watching the late spring sunset. Abby sighed audibly.
Jeff recognized the sigh. “What’s on your mind, Abigail?”

“Um, well… crap.”

“Come on, spit it out.”

“Boss, it’s been two years. Leaving
aside Chrissie and Heidi, who are free to do as they please… are two of us, at
least, looking at another four and a half years of celibacy?”

Jeff’s head – and heart – sank. He
knew this was coming, eventually. He exhaled loudly and shook his head. “Sue,
what are the risks?”

“Oh gee, thanks. I don’t know. The
risk of complications – sexually transmitted disease – resulting from
intercourse with other men are, well, I don’t know, but they’re real. Likewise,
potential problems with chemical birth control – the pill – are also real. And
the potential psychological issues with you having relations with more than one
of us? Jeez, Jeff, that’s so far outside my area of expertise I don’t even want
to think about it. I just don’t know. But I will say this: Abby does have a
point. I mean, you have three women here that are right in the prime of their
reproductive lives and the peak of their sexuality. You’re asking an awful lot
of us.”