by Rob Dircks
“Exactly. And thank you. I’m sure those points will come in handy as we narrowly escape death to get the hell off Mars.”
Skylar raises her hand. “But… we don’t have a bomb. No explosives.”
Drew grabs the flask in the middle of the table, nods to me, and hands it to her. “Now we do.”
And so the next twelve hours become a mad rush to solve our four big problems:
1. Water
First we create a bomb, using just a wee bit of Marsonium – that’s the name we’ve given the new element, which is actually a gas, but exists here on Mars in a liquid compound with methane, carbon, and hydrogen. It’s a crude bomb, like a stick of dynamite from an ancient western movie, it looks ridiculous, taped together with this and that, electronics thrown together in an hour, but according to Martha, it should do the trick.
Second, we drive out to the ice patch with the bomb and see what happens. Drew and Skylar have volunteered for this task, possibly to spend their last possible alone time together, saying weepy, smoochy goodbyes. Whatever. I’m just kind of glad it’s them and not me. Aurora and I watch through the open bay door as they get smaller and smaller into the distance on the rover.
“You think they really love each other?”
“Hell no. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s pretty slim pickins here on Mars. Larson’s- well, you know. And Daniels, I mean come on. So Drew starts looking pretty attractive by default.”
“I don’t know. He’d have to be the last man on- oh. Right.”
I point. “Hey, here they come.”
Drew and Skylar are racing back in the rover like a bat out of hell, trying to outrun the detonation. And then…
Wow.
A light, brighter than any I’ve ever seen, blinds us and the shock wave throws us back on our asses.
Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.
“What the hell is that sound? Paper, what the hell is going on?”
I have to laugh. We’re witnessing yet another first. “It’s a hailstorm. On Mars.”
Chunks of ice, from teeny, pebble-size to spare-tire-size, are clanking against the hull of the High Heaven. Drew and Skylar are dodging the larger chunks on their way back, reminding me of the way my mother drives. There is enough ice out in that field right now to fill every skating rink in America.
Okay, first problem solved: water.
2. Fuel
Thank God for Martha. While Drew and Skylar – I almost caught myself saying Drewlar – are out collecting the ice and hauling it aboard, Martha and I are working on the adjustments to the fuel systems. And she’s doing most of the work.
“We will have to separate the Marsonium from the other elements in the compound. I will guide you through the process, using the thermal-electric distillation unit.”
“You’re the best, Martha.”
“You are assisting.”
Martha’s all business as usual, but I can’t help it, I’m always trying to see if there’s more under the hood. “Do you miss him?”
“If by ‘miss’ you mean yearn for a person’s presence after an absence, no I do not miss anything or anyone.”
“Even Zach?”
There’s a pause, I don’t know if I imagine these things, continually anthropomorphizing Martha, projecting humanity and personality on to her, but it feels like a pause to me.
“No.”
“Really? Come on.”
“You will find the main burner in that left compartment. Be careful, Paper, to keep the Marsonium far away from combustion at this point, or you may die in a fiery explosion.”
“But you’d miss me, right?”
“No.”
“Fine.” I’m pissed, I mean Martha’s super-intelligent, but she can’t even throw me a bone and say yes? We work on the distillation process, then on releasing the gas into the bottom tank, then on the fuel line adjustments. We work in silence. When we’re done, and everything’s working and ready, I imagine she feels guilty, because she says, “Paper. May I tell you about my programming?”
“Whatever. I guess.”
“At my level of calculation ability, approaching but still very far from what you call consciousness, there is an effect, with no word for it yet, an effect that results from our very similar thought processes, humans and I. The people I work with become… familiar, identifiable and relatable in a unique way. A file, if you will, is created, not with factual details about the person, but with more subjective, subtle information. It would be difficult for me to even show you this information in a way that would make sense. When that person ceases to work with me, the file is no longer needed, so I delete it. In its place, there is a temporary void.”
Awww. She does miss him.
A smile to myself, and a tear makes its way down to my chin.
3. Oxygen
The backup oxygen electrolysis generator is working fine, I guess Daniels only had so much time to sabotage as much of the voyage as possible, he couldn’t think of everything. So we fill the top tank with ice, using up four precious hours, melt the water, retrofit a connection from the generator down to the tank, start up the generator, cross our fingers, and…
It works.
Huh. It’s funny. I’m so used to things going wrong, and now we’ve got three things working in a row. I look up, to Heaven I guess, thinking the preposterous thought that maybe Larson is looking down on us, helping us out, and I fall to my knees and start bawling.
Aurora bends down next to me. “Hey, Paper. It worked.”
“I know. I just… is he really gone?”
“Wow. You really connected with him, huh?”
“He was a Fil… he was a friend. No, like family, almost. My heart hurts, Aurora. I keep expecting him to jump out, like it was all a trick, and yell, “Fun, fun fun!” and that’s the real ending to You’re Going to Mars!, and we all have a good laugh, and he breaks some kind of ratings record, and he gets a ticker tape parade down Broadway. Or he comes out and says, ‘Strike five.’ Did you know he had no idea how many strikes there were in baseball?”
“Uh…”
“Aurora. Really?”
“Not exactly a fan of the ball with bases game. It’s worse than watching golf. I’m thinking three, though.”
“Yes. It’s three strikes. Like three strikes and you’re out. It’s a metaphor for running out of luck.”
“So, how many strikes have we got? Are we running out?”
“Actually, if we can solve the last problem, it’s a home run.”
“What’s a home run?”
75
Food
FOOD. That’s the last of the big four problems.
We have fuel. Check. We have oxygen. Check. We have water. Check.
So what’s the rush?
Well, Daniels not only destroyed the farming resources, and introduced all our plants to the Martian atmosphere, killing them all, but he also dumped the bulk food ingredients – which made quite the colorful streak of sludge running down the side of the High Heaven – leaving us with only the packaged food reserves.
Enough food for one person.
Even if we stretch rationing to the limit, only one person could survive for only two months.
Skylar raises her hand. “Can I just state the obvious? We can’t stay here. We’ll have nothing to eat.”
Aurora mumbles something.
“What, Aurora?”
“We could eat Larson.”
“Oh my God. That is absolutely the most horrible thing you’ve ever said.”
“Hey, we’re brainstorming. There’s no bad idea in a brainstorming session.”
“Yes there is. That’s it. That is the ultimate bad idea. Can we agree that we’re not going to extend our lives through cannibalism?”
Drew and Skylar nod. Aurora shrugs.
“Good. Obviously we have to leave. As soon as possible. Skylar, you mentioned Term Sleep?”
“Yes. With Term Sleep, I think we’re fine. Minimum nutrit
ion requirements would use up half the food stores, leaving us awake for a day or two after launch, and up to a week when we approach Earth. I think we’ll need that time to figure out whether the government will even allow us to land.”
Ugh. That thought again. That we might pull this whole thing off, just to be blown up into little bits a few miles above home.
Zach Larson, if you’re up there somewhere, I could use one last favor.
76
Itching to Get Home
“Three… two… one…”
The thrust is incredible. Not only does Mars have lighter gravity, reducing the power necessary to escape it, but man, do we have power. This Marsonium stuff is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Like nothing anyone’s ever seen.
Goodbye, Mars.
Except for a few containers of the new element, we’ve left everything behind: the nearly finished dome, solar array, mining gear, the rover. Hopefully there’ll be another private mission, another group of starry-eyed visionaries who’ll pick up where we left off and take us a few steps farther. I feel sad, in a way, not completing it, but really? Ever since the discovery of the mystery element, and especially with Zach’s death, I’ve been itching to get home. My real home.
“Martha. How’s the new fuel system?”
“Within operating parameters. Five percent hotter than estimated.”
“Is that significant?”
“Nominal.”
We’re being pushed back into our headrests, our cheeks smushing against our jaws, and somewhere in storage I imagine Zach Larson whooping and waving his arms out the window of his convertible.
Just in case, we’ve got full spacesuits on, although if even the slightest thing goes wrong with the fuel or the oxygen production, we might as well have wrapped ourselves in toilet paper. Daniels is already in Term Sleep, and if all goes well we’ll be joining him shortly.
“I hope everyone’s feeling sleepy.”
Aurora groans. “Can we pick different dreams this time? No more running. I’m exhausted.”
“Tell me about it. You don’t have to dream about my mother.”
“Good afternoon, Pepper.”
I open my eyes.
It’s Jane. She’s driving a tractor trailer, I’m sure it’s filled with brie-colored armoires, and I’m in the passenger seat. She likes to say “good afternoon” when I wake up any time after dawn, like it’s a flaw waking up at a reasonable hour like normal people. Wait - this is feeling extremely real. Is it real?
“Here.” She hands me a sandwich. “Roast beef.”
Nope. It’s a dream.
“Thank you.” And suddenly I remember. “Jane. Mom. You were right.”
“I’m always right.”
“I mean about the element. Everything. WasteWay and the government were hiding the data. For decades.”
“You’re acting so surprised. I told you that months ago.”
“I know, but… I didn’t believe you.”
She smiles at me, a foreign smile for her face, quite maternal actually. “Have you ever heard the story of the prodigal son?”
“Yes! I was just thinking about it the other day. It’s about the boy who leaves home but realizes he belonged back there all along.”
“Right kid. Wrong story.”
“Excuse me?”
“The story’s about the boy who leaves home and loses it all and has to come groveling back.”
“Well that’s just sad. I like my version better.”
“You’re missing the point. The point is that it’s all our stories. We think we know everything, but we never really know our place, until we go off on our own, and we lose it all.”
I look at her, confused.
“Come on. I thought you were the smart one. Listen: until we’re stripped of everything, we know nothing. And then we learn it for ourselves, and that brings us home.” She grins. “Hey, this is going to be a long trip. You want a meal-in-a-bag?”
I wave it off and hold up my roast beef. “I may know nothing, but I know I don’t want one of those.”
“Suit yourself.” She begins to snake the tube, pink this time, up and over her ear, and into her nose. It’s no less gross in my dreams. Then she looks over, smiles again.
And begins choking.
“Pepper! Pepper! There’s a leak! There’s a leak!”
I can feel my heart racing, but I can’t reach out to help her. I’m paralyzed.
Something’s wrong. This doesn’t feel like a dream.
“Paper. Paper.”
I open my eyes.
The inside of the Term Sleep pod. Hmm. Are we there already?
“Paper. Paper.”
“…huh?…. Martha?…”
“I’m sorry to wake you so early. But there’s a leak.”
77
The Leak
Martha guides me, still groggy, to the spot Aurora and I had been, monitoring the fuel systems during the emergency drill.
But this time it’s definitely not a drill. As I look through the large, thick window into the tanks chamber, red lights are flashing, gauges are blinking, something is hissing. It feels like the end of the world.
And I’m alone.
It’s just me, Martha did the only thing she could, if she woke everyone the food would run out and we’d all die anyway. And she’s already alerted me, in her oh-so-personable way, that by doing this I might be taking one for the team. A big one. The permanent one. Great.
“Okay, what am I looking at?”
“Inside the chamber, the bottom tank. Seven-point-three inches from the coupling, there is a seam. A microscopic breach has appeared in that seam, leaking at a rate of two-point-six cubic inches per minute. It is safe now, but will reach explosive limit in eighteen minutes if not attended to.”
“Gee, that’s all? What’s the bad news?”
“We obviously cannot use a blow torch to repair the seam. This ship and its occupants would explode into small pieces approximately fifty microns in diameter.”
“Nice. Any good news?”
“There is a solution, and that is why I have awakened you. There is a ninety-one percent possibility that a length of PPMM tape, over an equal length of PPMM epoxy putty, will seal the leak sufficiently.”
“Why do I feel like I’m waiting for the ‘but…’?”
“Quite astute, Paper. You will have to hold the epoxy putty and tape in place, with a minimum pressure of one pound per square inch, until it is fully cured. Do not worry though. It is a fast-curing material.”
“Fast-curing. Good. How many minutes?”
“Two hundred and four.”
“That’s not minutes! That’s hours! Like over three hours!”
“Earlier materials took seven hours to cure. You’ll be applying pressure for less than half that time.”
“Remember what I told you about silver linings? That’s a silver lining, Martha.”
So I haul ass into my suit and into the chamber. Wow. It is HOT in here. The engines are still over a hundred feet below me, but I feel like they’re blowing directly in my face. I suddenly realize Martha could’ve woken any one of us up for this job, it’s not particularly technical, I’m just wadding up some putty and holding it on a leak for three plus hours.
“Hey, Martha. Why did you have to pick me for this? Seems kind of unfair.”
And I remember Zach’s words, way back on the obstacle course: there may be a moment, on the voyage of High Heaven, when fairness simply doesn’t apply. When life is at stake. What’s to be done then? Complain? He was talking about me, of course, changing the game myself, breaking the rules to get up here in the first place. How did he know it would be me in the end? I whisper back to Martha, “Forget I asked.”
“Asked what?”
“Wise ass.”
I wish I could say it was more impressive, this act of bravery and sacrifice, ensuring this discovery makes it back to Earth and changes everything, but it really is just wadding up a ball of epoxy-putty, pu
tting a piece of tape over it, and smushing it against the hole I can’t see in the seam, putting constant pressure on it.
“Martha, can you give me a countdown clock or something at least? A timer?”
“Certainly, Paper. In exactly two hundred one minutes, the small display to your right will either light up red, showing that the seal has failed, and that this ship and its occupants will explode into small pieces approximately fifty micro-”
“I heard you the first time. And what if it’s green?”
“The opposite. You will live. You will go home.”
It’s been an hour.
I’ve never tried to put pressure on something for an hour. My hands are killing me.
But I guess that’s better than this leak killing us all.
“Paper. I have news.”
“If it’s that this stuff is cured already and I can go back to sleep, bring it on. Anything else, keep it to yourself, it’s just more bad news.”
“Certainly. I will not tell you.”
I float in silence for a minute, trying to uncramp my hands. “Well, now you have to tell me.”
“The quantum radio has received a signal. From Earth.”
“EARTH?!”
“Yes. Would you like me to open up a channel? Simultaneous entangled communications at this distance will only be audio, there isn’t enough bandwidth for video.”
“Yes! Yes! Of course!”
There’s a little click in my helmet com, then static, then… “-can you hear me, High Heaven? Transmitting at one-point-”
“Ted!”
“Paper? Paper Farris?”
“Yes! Ted!”
“Confirming entangled connection. Paper, our telemetry is showing you’re in flight, on a trajectory toward Earth. Why aren’t you on Mars? What’s wrong?”
“Holy cow. Where do you want me to start?”