by Pat Hauldren
Crouching down on my belly in the ship, I yell out "Talley Ho!" the ancient call of jousters, fighter pilots, and racers for a thousand years. The ovoid nanotube shell protrudes only one meter around my body, and its faring fins propel the ship forward through gravity waves like the wind-powered sailing ships of old. We call them "faring" ships from an old term referring to curved surfaces around a bike rider that reduce drag, something that would be illegal back in earthbound bicycle racing.
To go faster, I must focus constantly on navigation, least-resistance path, asteroid avoidance, and slipstreaming in the graviton wake of fellow competitors. When I move within 150 meters behind another faring ship, I borrow some of its graviton wave-bending energy and get about a 30% reduction in my own perceived effort. If the zebra-striped ref ships catch you drafting, you'll get a ten-minute stand-down penalty, where the frustration of just standing still can make you urinate in your nanosuit. So we try to keep within the rules--only 20 seconds behind another ship before you have to pass.
I'm expending a tremendous amount of energy just keeping the ship moving straight, about 700 calories per hour, using my legs, hips, back and abdominals to subtly guide the faring into the optimal gravity wave. It's not that my body thrusts the ship forward--the ZPE does that with the energy density within space itself--but the speed can vary by 20% depending on orientation in the graviton stream. Not unlike staying low and aero on a bicycle into the wind.
My heart rate is 145 beats per minute, but that will shoot much higher once I hit the asteroid belt and start dodging their gravity wells. How many gigawatts can I generate during the race without burning too many calories? I have a little food on board, but mass is critical so I carry the least amount possible.
About 20 billion meters into the course, I'm sliding along at a good 50 gigameters per hour, stretching out my back after the cold cave swim on Europa. Take a few swigs of electrolyte/carb solution every fifteen minutes and settle in. Eat some solid food after a couple of hours. I can eat like a pig while faring at aerobic heart rate; never vomited once during a race no matter what the conditions, though I have peed in the ship a couple of times--no big deal.
[RACE TIME 07:42:33]
I'm coming up on the halfway marker beacon at 225 billion kilometers, a red hologram flashing across a thousand meters of space. I'm about to enter the hardest part of the course, the asteroid belt. As one of the larger racers at 80 kilos, I can optimize more gigawattage in the "flat" or vacant parts of space, but once we hit the massive asteroid section, that same body mass holds me back.
Even though asteroids are very far apart, at 50 gig per hour they feel damned close together, like small boulders on a race track. It takes decent balance--and even more guts--to navigate them quickly. And their mass causes the graviton shielding to wobble--lots of jumps and thumps to jeer the body and mind. Not unlike a switchback turn back on Earth.
Heart rate up to 165 now, sweat collecting on my brow, then one salty drop blinds my right eye--I jerk the ship two degrees left. I almost hit a boulder, overcorrect to the right and the ship starts wobbling wildly. Instinctively, I push my right knee out from my body and pull the stick hard right for a split second, putting the ship into a clockwise roll of about 90 rpm. That's the only way to stop the yaw wobble and miss the next asteroid. I'm dizzy from the roll, but at least I'm still alive.
This mistake lets two other racers pass, including the Übermensch Helldrive. I grumble that ancient aphorism from the auto-racer Roger Penske: "The thing about racing is, they don't wait for you."
An hour later I pass the last 'stroid--finally relaxing the control stick. It's all smooth sailing and downhill to Mars, where its gravity well pulls me in faster. But now the solar wind is blowing into my face at two million kilometers per hour.
We race in a narrow, one-kilometer lane to avoid other space traffic, but now it narrows to only 100 meters on final Mars approach. Then I see the mandatory ZPE shutdown marker, cut the engine, and I'm on gravity shielding and thrusters for the final 50-kilometer glidepath.
Still carrying way too much momentum after the shutdown, so I end up taking the last turn wide, allowing the Australian Welchy to pass on the inside track to landing. I hear "G'day mate," on the race radio and see his smiling face through the starboard window.
"Focus, dammit!," I shout, swooping in to land at T2 about halfway up Olympus Mons.
After I exit the ship, the nanosuit rebreather switches to Martian mode, while thousands cheer through the transparent dome, but I can hear only silence through the thin atmosphere. My back and legs are sore but thankfully not cramping, because I still have a long way to run after faring 555 million kilometers in just eleven hours forty-nine minutes. Not a bad flight time, really. The only problem is, five guys landed on Mars before me and more are coming right behind me.
One hundred seventy kilometers may not seem like much after that, but it's straight uphill on the tallest mountain in the solar system, a quadruple marathon run to the peak of Olympus Mons, aptly named, because it's the finish line for the first interplanetary-distance Olympic Triathlon.
Phase Three: The Olympus Mons Marathon
[RACE TIME 13:32:47]
I never seem to hear Sylvia yelling for me at the swim start, not even on Earth, but pick her out of the crowd of photographers at the run start. There she is, wearing her orange media nanosuit with built in 40-terapixel holocam and low-pressure atmospheric mike. Red curls and blue eyes peak out through the faceplate in the pale light of the Martian noon. No, she can't hear me speak, but she can hear my feet pounding on the rusty soil of the Red Planet. She knows better than to come near me, touch me, hug me or hand me anything--no outside assistance allowed on the run.
She arrived in only three hours via space bus using zero-point energy. The graviton space lane from Europa to Mars was closed down to regular traffic for this event, but she and about ten other photographers had a special space-patrol escort. It's amazing that one man in a faring ship can now move one-third the speed of a commercial spaceliner. With ZPE, mass is not so important anymore when it comes to generating energy. Skill means more than brute force. Most of the spaceliner's extra speed comes from the quantum entanglement computer, which can see slightly into the future to find the best vacuum energy path. Quantum computers are not allowed in our faring ships--that would ruin the sporting uncertainty.
Sylvia doesn't earn her main living shooting holovids but is still credentialed as one of the top sports journalists in the system. She can crank out petabits of holovid better than anyone I have ever seen, including the Tour de France shooters or the Helioprobe Documentary folks who shoot from within the sun's photosphere. But she won't leave her job as an immune-disorder nurse back on Earth. "It's more fun because it's not a job," she says.
We first met when I was fifteen back in high school--only the second girl I'd ever slept with. We ended up going to different colleges, eventually broke up and married other people. As it turns out, the wrong people. After my last divorce, I found her name on the list at a local 5K running race and gave her a call. We started back up like we'd never been apart, as if we'd both gotten lost in an alternate universe for a decade, only to return to the place we really belonged . . . together. And she's a bigger sports fan than I am--not just endurance sports, either. Someday I'm gonna marry that girl.
Only she doesn't know it just yet.
Marathon is a relative term. On Earth, it usually means 42.2 kilometers, but that original Greek warrior at Marathon, Pheidippides, ran over 240 kilometers and then died relaying the victory message, "We have won."
On Mars, we run 170 kilometers in about a third of Earth's gravity, so we can take longer strides while ascending a steep, seven-percent grade on a mountain that is 27,000 meters above the Martian plain, three times higher than Mount Everest and 2.7 times higher than my home at Mauna Kea--when you calculate from the bottom of the ocean. Running looks something like a kangaroo, but bounding on one leg at a time.
&nbs
p; As I run up Olympus Mons with sore legs, plodding along a rusty cinder trail, I can't see its peak, which lies beyond the Martian horizon. A thin white line of frozen carbon-dioxide appears to cut off the summit, leaving nothing but space--an intimidating sight.
At my side, fans cheer silently inside a glass tube along the course. Staff and volunteers stand outside the tube in nanosuits, handing up pressure-sealed containers of warm water, electrolytes, and other food.
I have to be very careful to insert these special foods precisely into the valve of my breathing mask, or else they will freeze instantly--along with my lip and tongue. And while it's okay to relieve yourself in the lake water or in your faring ship, one thing I definitely can't do on Mars is take a leak on the course. The stream would freeze instantly and probably about half my penis along with it. So we have a special urinary tube inside the nanosuit.
After about five kilometers, I have a good idea of how I'm doing. I don't really pace using speed, though I have accelerometers that show exact stride length (about 185 centimeters), cadence, and speed. What I go by is heart rate, because it's tied closely to calorie burn and aerobic capacity. I've been smart today and made sure to eat more during the faring ship phase than I would normally need, giving me more glycogen to burn on the run.
It's always harder to eat while running than faring.
Even in frigid Martian conditions, but we can lose one or two liters per hour of fluid, and that means up to 2,500 milligrams of sodium. As on earth, we almost never drink plain water in triathlon: it's always mixed with electrolytes and carbohydrates.
[RACE TIME 13:57:58]
I see my first competitor about ten kilometers up the course. His white nanosuit gleams in the sun like a target hung on a dark-orange background, his black micro-meteor helmet forming a bulls-eye. He's much taller than I am, from Sweden, one of the only guys in the race who weighs more than I do, and though his strides are longer, his cadence is slower. I've worked very hard to incorporate my earthly cadence into interplanetary racing, maintaining a smooth 90 foot-strikes per minute whether I'm running on Earth or Mars. The African marathoners can run at 95 or higher, but they are out of my league.
Runners can rarely fight a pass in IPT races. You are too tired and too locked into your own pace. Even on Earth, there have been maybe a dozen finishing duals between runners in over a century of Hawaii Ironman racing. It's about as rare as a no-hitter in the World Series or a hole-in-one at the Masters. So I blow by him easily and head toward the next aid station.
There are 25 aid stations on the run course, just like Earth marathons. We don't have to eat or drink at every one of them, especially since it takes time to inject calories, but overconfidence can lull you into a dull fantasy.
If your ego thinks it can miss one too many feedings, you will bonk big time and slow down, maybe even start walking. Like the passing rule of thumb, no one has ever recovered from a fluid or calorie bonk to come back and win the race. You may be able to avoid dropping out--an honorable act of courage no doubt--but you have lost the war.
[RACE TIME 17:43:32]
Three-quarters up the mountain now, and the view is just beautiful: stark, blue-black sky with the tiny moons Phobos and Deimos racing across opposite ends of the horizon. It rivals the view from the peak of my beloved Mauna Kea, home of ancient Hawaiian astrologers who peered into the heavens long before anyone built telescopes.
Epiphanies of beauty are profound during an endurance race, but they are very short-lived.
Racing means, in essence, never stopping to smell the roses. We appreciate their beauty, for sure, but we are constantly moving on, the perpetual wanderer that harkens back to Paleolithic humanity. Man evolves, civilizations may grow and stabilize, but still we are driven to travel, to keep moving, becoming easily bored with any self-made home.
"Life is short, why build a house?" said the naked sage to the kingly god.
One of the volunteers moves toward me with nutrients, and I start to wave him away because I'm not thirsty. Before I can do so, he holds up a hand with two fingers extended in the nanoskin glove. That's universal language for me being in second place.
For the first time during the run, I flip on the race radio. "What the hell? I thought I was at least four back of the leader. Two of the best athletes in the solar system just disappeared from the course?"
"One of them was Wellingham with that flu bug--the virus dehydrated him and he dropped out. Sanchez tripped and broke the seal on his mask and the nanotubes wouldn't self-heal. We tried to bring him a replacement valve from the next station, but by then his VO2 levels were so low the doctors made him quit. He was mad as all hell but they were right--even if he finished, he had no chance of making the podium."
Triathletes are mostly responsible for fixing their own gear. The race staff will help you if they can, but if your life is in danger, the docs will just pull you from the race.
Once you take their oxygen and nanotech medical IV, you are officially out of the race--no exceptions. Three people have died in our IPT sport, which is still much less than bike racing or triathlons back on Earth, but with billions of holovid hits watching, the sponsors won't allow us to go beyond a certain level of risk. The ratings may go up, but the product sales go down when people die.
So that leaves only Welchy on the course--I don't even need to ask if it's him. Only he has enough talent to be ahead of me. I must gain at least 50 meters every kilometer to catch Welchy. And one thing's for sure, he won't stop unless he has a suit malfunction--I must become the aggressor and chase him down.
My pain level is high, but my nutrition and psychology are still strong. Now is the time to start what my coach calls "productive suffering," where you increase pain, increase speed, but don't overextend. It's a Razor's Edge to salvation, a Noble Middle Path to Nirvana, or some such cliché. I've read those ancient books and seen those holovids--my grandmother even made me go to church once--but the only thing that ever made me feel close to God or any sort of ultimate truth was racing. When the body has almost burnt itself up in fatigue, the ego dissolves, the self gets out of the way of bliss.
Time to climb Jacob's Ladder to the top of Martian Mount Olympus.
[RACE TIME 18:23:54]
Thankfully, the slope eases to only four per cent toward the finish line, but my legs are too tired to notice. My weary eyes see Welchy wearing a bright-blue nanosuit, gleaming in stark relief to the rusty landscape surrounding him. I can pick him out clearly now, and indeed his image is growing. That means I'm gaining. Someone tries to give me an exact time gap over the HelmetCom, but I flip it off because I don't want to hear it anymore.
"I don't want to know the ending, I want to make it up as I go along." Was it Shakespeare who said that? Or Fellini? I can't remember right now.
I always loved watching a lion chase down a gazelle, even though I'm a vegetarian. The gazelle was technically faster than the lion, but the predator was focused and determined.
I am the lionhearted one, chasing Welchy, the running gazelle. His foot speed is better than mine, but my heart is bigger than his. Step by step, centimeter by centimeter, I close in on the prey.
Surely he must have heard I'm chasing him, but it won't do him any good. He can't accelerate--only maintain his pace.
My own voice speaks to me inside my head: Move in right behind, say nothing, just gauge his gait. Then blow by his left side and never, ever turn around and look back.
You have a one meter gap ahead of Welchy . . . you have a five-meter gap . . . you have a 50-meter gap . . . but you still have 2,000 meters to the finish.
Now I'm in a hallucinatory state of fatigue. Synesthesia has me hearing the cheers through the glass wall of the finish-line dome. I can hear their facial expressions and smell their anticipation. The crowd is stretched in a semi-circle atop the caldera of the largest volcano known to man.
All planetary life comes from the volcano, all life comes from fire--so Hawaii has taught me.
Bu
t the runner stumbles. My legs cramp up and I fall flat on my face, or at least on my facial breathing apparatus. Amazingly nothing breaks, though I can't be sure about leaks.
Doesn't matter now. I can probably finish the race on anaerobic energy if I can just get the hell up off the ground. I don't even look to see where Welchy is behind me. It doesn't matter, because I can't even get up to walk.
I sure as hell can crawl, though. I can regress to the infantile stage, to regain that childlike fascination with the unknown. Ye must become as a little child.
Is that my favorite toy clock just over the finish line? Is that my favorite dog Bebe from childhood? Is that Sylvia kneeling down with her camera to catch me crawling like a beggar?
One of the volunteers comes over to try to help me up, but another one grabs and stops him. Don't those friggin' idiots know that there's no outside assistance allowed?
I have to keep crawling all by myself. "Get the hell away," I yell inside my helmet, even though the radio is not turned on. No one can hear my scream.
Finally, my knees buckle up and I fall on my belly. Just another five meters to go, dammit. So I start rolling like a log, over and over, red Martian dust coating me all around, covering my face mask so I can't see clearly. Round and round, over and over, like a child spinning itself dizzy and then collapsing.
At some point I cross the finish line, and Sylvia makes it past the cops and docs to get to me first, flashing her nurse ID and trying to pick me up.
I'm too heavy and the docs just want me to stay on the ground while they check my breathing gear. I manage to reach down to the bulging circle of my nanosuit and withdraw a simple white-gold ring I put there before the race. I take in a deep breath, which still feels like good air. As the docs try to pick me up, I push them away and then slowly wobble up on one knee to gaze into Sylvia's face.