Lance felt a draft of air. The door to the adjacent room opened, and Mike stepped inside. He was carrying a large pot and looked thoroughly proud of himself. With a flourish, he set the pot down on the hot mat Lance had put in the middle of the table. Mike then lifted the lid. Steam wafted out of it, filling the air with a delicious aroma that made Lance’s stomach growl even louder.
“A vegetarian lasagna from a family recipe,” Mike announced jovially. He had been born in the U.S., but his last name, Benedetti, reflected that at least one of his ancestors had come from Italy.
Mike pulled a large spoon out of his back pocket, picked up Sarah’s plate, and scooped some of the pasta onto it. “With fresh tomatoes from our own garden,” he added loudly.
The lasagna smelled really good. It was still steaming on Sarah’s plate.
“Just a second,” Mike said suddenly as he spun around and dashed out of the room.
A minute later he returned with a small container. He opened the lid and reached inside before sprinkling something from it across Sarah’s plate.
“Homegrown basil,” he said. “You can admire the plant in our garden.”
Lance had to hold back from diving right in after Mike filled his plate. The commander had earned the first toast.
Mike sat down and raised his glass. “To our celebration,” he said.
Short and sweet, lucky us, Lance thought.
Ellen then spoke up via the screen. Lance returned his knife and fork to the table. Was there going to be a speech now? The food was growing cold!
“I’m glad that our collaboration is going so well,” Ellen said. “Despite the unfortunate incident early on.”
“It wasn’t your doing, and all of you had to bear the brunt of it,” Mike replied.
Lance had noticed that his commander’s interest in Ellen was more than professional. If he’d noticed, it must be evident to everyone else. He decided not to say anything contrary about it. The two MfE men who had taken him and Sarah by surprise at the NASA probe had tried to kill them. It wasn’t only Ewa’s fault that things had been bumpy at the outset.
“But before anyone here starves to death...” Mike looked at Lance, “bon appétit.”
Finally. Lance didn’t need any additional urging to devote himself entirely to the delicious lasagna. Mike had outdone himself.
“The cheese,” Sharon asked, “is it from Earth?”
“Yes,” Mike replied, “it is the real thing, Parmesan from Earth. On our hundredth day, I thought I would spare us that fake cheese made from protein and fat.”
“Then we should memorize this taste,” Sharon said.
“I’m afraid so. If MfE’s animals don’t die out, we’ll someday have real sheep and goat cheese again. However, anything produced with cow’s milk will eventually vanish from humanity’s collective memory.”
If only the only thing they were losing was cheese! Lance thought. He would never again eat a juicy steak! And yet all the sustainability arguments against raising cattle didn’t really apply to Mars. The methane that the animals produced would have actually helped make Mars more inhabitable. However, it would be best for him to focus on the lasagna in front of him. Otherwise, his imagination would run away with him again.
Once the meal was over and the dishes had been cleared away, the party officially began. Even with the MfE crew joining in on the screen, it felt a little odd. After all, there were only the four of them. Mike turned on the music. Lance only knew about half of the songs. Most of them seemed to be from the 2020s, which must have been about the time Mike had been in school. Lance danced first with Sarah, then with Sharon, and then once more with Sarah, alternating with Mike. He eventually joined his colleague on the chairs at the edge of the dance area, while the two women continued to move tirelessly to the rhythm.
“You didn’t happen to bring a little grass along, did you?” he asked Mike.
Since soft drugs were legal in many nations, Lance had occasionally smoked various things. It was so relaxing. The fact that he was about to become a father weighed more heavily on him than he had guessed it would.
Mike shook his head. “What are you thinking? Much too risky! If they had caught me with that, my replacement would be sitting here.”
“What was his name again? Andrew? I always liked you better.”
Lance could only vaguely recall their training. Andrew had been a lanky, red-haired Irishman. For some reason, Lance had found him unlikeable, although he couldn’t remember why at this point.
“What do you think happened to him?” Mike asked.
“Maybe he’s sitting on the porch with his wife right now, enjoying a nice red wine,” Lance guessed.
“You think so? What about the communication lapse?”
“It was just a theory. It would be nice for him. I don’t particularly want to conjure up any disaster scenarios right now.”
“I get that,” Mike said, stretching out his legs.
For a few minutes, they just sat there, watching the two women. Sharon’s sense of rhythm and movement was remarkable. It had to be her Brazilian heritage. Someone from the MfE base occasionally waved at them through the screen.
“What do you think about the Chinese?” Mike suddenly asked.
Lance was slightly annoyed. Couldn’t they push topics like this off until tomorrow? “No clue,” he replied.
“I recall that China had planned a Mars mission that was supposed to arrive before we did. They wanted the prestige,” Mike said. “But then they ran into delays, and when we landed, they officially terminated their mission.”
“I know, but they seem to be on their way now,” Lance said.
“And with a crew of six instead of four people. It’s as if two extra people managed to save themselves by slipping on board the ship at the last minute,” Mike added.
“You mean they saved themselves from the catastrophe on Earth? Too bad they’re not responding anymore. They could have told us what happened there.”
“Maybe it’s better this way,” Mike said.
Lance nodded. Sometimes it’s best to not know too much, he thought.
7/23/2042, Spaceliner 1
“Is it safe here?” Isaac asked.
“Just look around,” Chad replied. “Where could anyone hide a microphone?”
They were standing in a bare storage room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of metal. Isaac pointed up. Three pipes belonging to the life support system ended here. The narrow door opened and Jean stepped in.
“She took care of the life support,” Chad said, pointing at the former captain.
“Yes, my new job regularly takes me into the bowels of the ship,” Jean said. “I especially checked the vents to this space yesterday. They’re clean.”
“Apparently you have greater freedoms as cleaning lady than as captain,” Isaac said with a laugh.
“I can at least get around more easily and can get to know the ship from a different perspective.”
“And you don’t have to deal with ‘Ricky the toady’ anymore,” Chad said. He was the one who had set up this meeting in the cramped storage room. It hadn’t been easy considering that their duty rosters happened to magically be such that they were never off at the same time—as if someone was deliberately trying to make it more difficult for them to be in contact. Chad had been forced to swap shifts to make this work.
“How is the mood in the lower ranks?” he asked.
“Not as bad as we’d hoped,” Jean replied. “The Senator’s decision to double their salaries means that the people are on his side. They haven’t realized yet that, Earth having fallen silent, money has lost all meaning.”
“I’m afraid that you aren’t missed in the officer ranks, either, Jean,” Chad admitted. Summers had left him in his position for some unknown reason, perhaps to keep him under better control.
“The scientists are skeptical,” Isaac said, “but that’s nothing new. They always think that everyone in leadership is incompetent. And
they’re right about that. Of course, you were the exception, Jean. Just imagine this. Summers came to us the day before yesterday with a grand idea. He had read somewhere that the Mars moon, Phobos, would crash into the planet in a few million years. He asked if we couldn’t speed up that process since the collision would generate a large amount of heat. This way we could possibly make the polar caps melt faster, which would, in turn, enrich the atmosphere. John calculated for him how much dust would be stirred up by that collision and explained how it was more likely that the end result would be an ice age. I’m not sure, though, if he found us all that convincing.”
Chad shook his head. This was typical of the ideas that only an amateur would come up with. Making the Mars surface more habitable was a task that would take at least a thousand years.
“And how are things in the command center?” Jean asked.
“Neither of the two Ricks are messing around up there, luckily. Everyone is doing their job as if nothing’s happened. The ship is on course, and if nothing else comes up, we’ll land on November 14.”
“Yes, my two deputies are reliable. I was involved with their hiring,” Jean said. “I’m happy that I didn’t accept the company’s initial recommendation.”
“But they aren’t really speaking their minds,” Chad declared. “I sometimes provoke things a little, but they’re keeping their heads down.”
“It sounds like the example Summers made of me has been effective,” Jean said. “Anyway, guess what I discovered recently while I was cleaning one of the cabins.”
“Illegal porn magazines?” Isaac asked.
“A bug on the underside of the bed. It was in the engineer’s cabin—Terran Carter’s.”
“Did you remove it?” Chad asked.
“I’m not stupid. That would’ve immediately alerted whoever had installed it that something wasn’t right.”
“Did you look around in the other cabins? Maybe that wasn’t the only bug.”
“No. Normally the passengers clean their own cabins, just like you two do. But Terran had spent a couple of days in sickbay, and the cleaners had to take care of his room. You should check under your beds, too.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Chad said. “More than once, I’ve wondered where the administrator is getting his information. I thought he might have a spy in our ranks.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive possibilities. Just be careful,” Jean warned.
“It could be that we’re all bugged—even the Senator,” Isaac said. “I think that if we want to shift the general mood, we’re going to need proof. Do you think we could convince Terran to cooperate with us?”
“Do you have an idea?” Chad asked. “I could talk to him about the bug.”
“If he works with us, we could prepare some kind of message that would lead us to whoever is listening on the other end,” Isaac said.
“Good. I’ll speak to him about it. We can meet again once I have his response.”
Sol 101, NASA base
Lance pointed his toes and stretched. He moved his arm to the side to where Sarah should have been lying. They had slept together last night, and he’d hoped perhaps he could convince her to give lovemaking another go this morning. But the bed was empty. She must have already gotten up. He listened for the sound of the shower. He could have joined her. But all he heard was the ubiquitous noise of the life support system. Lance sat up and reached a hand up to his temple. He had a headache! He must be slightly hungover. He had only drunk a glass and a half of champagne, but that had been his first alcohol in some weeks. Could he have become a lightweight so quickly?
He gingerly massaged his temples. The pain was real. He reached for the storage chest under his bed and found an opened package of pain killers. He was about to pull out a tablet when he thought better of it. They were going to have to learn to suck up the little aches and pains without medicine so that their supplies would last longer for the serious incidents. Standing under the shower might also help disperse his headache. Or he could try a little pure oxygen. A few days ago, Sarah had raved about how quickly pure oxygen helped with her headaches.
She didn’t seem to be bothered by the typical pregnancy complaints. He had never seen her suddenly throw up, and she didn’t have any strange cravings. There was also no sign of a baby bump. Lance recalled what she had looked like lying next to him. The dark triangle against the white sheets. She had been gorgeous. His eyes couldn’t drink in enough of her until Sarah had eventually asked if he had any other activity in mind. Boy, did he!
Lance got into the shower and looked up as he turned on the cold water. He let the eight-degree water pour down on him. He gave a startled exclamation, but forced himself to stay under the spray. He slowly turned up the water temperature. After soaping up his body and hair, he let the shower rinse off the foam. He then turned off the faucet, dried his skin, and knotted the towel around his waist. He walked back into his room, which he occasionally shared with Sarah. She preferred to spend some nights alone in her own cabin.
In his room, he pulled fresh underwear out of the closet and slipped into them. He then put on the athletic suit with the NASA logo, which served as work clothes for all of them here. He was a little surprised that nobody had called for him yet.
Because of their unscheduled holiday yesterday, they had twice as much work to do today. But everyone was very relaxed. He caught sight of Ellen on the monitor next to Mike’s seat. They probably had something to discuss, so he wouldn’t disturb them. Sharon was sitting at a table with a tablet in her lap. He saw various flow charts up on her screen. She might be working on their shift schedule.
Sarah was standing at a work table in the workshop. She had screwed a spade into a vise and was working on it with a file. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said cheerfully, not skipping a beat as she worked.
“Good morning. Have you been up long?” he asked.
“About an hour and a half. I need to polish up our garden tools a little,” she said. “If you happen to be bored...”
“No, not right now, but thanks for the offer. When Mike is done with Ellen, I would like to talk to him about our next excursion. We need to solve our water problem.”
“What about the deposits we found nearby?” Sarah asked.
“They’re down too deep. It would take too long for us to access them. In the long term, though, those deposits will be our life insurance.”
“So we need something to bridge the gap until then?”
“Exactly. MfE had promised to deliver water to us as needed, but the distance is too inconvenient and costly. In terms of energy expenditure, we’d almost be better off extracting water from the air or out of rocks.”
“Who do you want to take with you on the trip?” Sarah asked, setting aside the file.
“You, of course. Or Sharon. Depending on who has the time.”
“Don’t you dare!” Sarah said with a laugh.
Lance didn’t reply. He knew when it was best not to say anything. And she probably hadn’t really meant it like that either.
Ellen was still on the monitor when he swung back by the bridge. This time he didn’t leave again. Lance sat down in the seat for Mike’s second-in-command, which was empty most of the time. Practically the same array of devices was set up in front of it as at the commander’s seat. He studied them curiously. The thing to the left must be the radio. It was equipped with a whole array of scales, many more than the handheld radios they took along on their Mars expeditions. From here, you could even communicate with Earth—could have communicated, he corrected himself—as well as with spaceships in space, or with the satellites orbiting the planet and continuously transmitting the most recent data.
A red light was flashing on the lower right. Did that mean anything? Lance leaned forward to decipher the label: Incoming Call. He glanced over at Mike, who was still chatting nonchalantly with Ellen. He was listening at the moment. What exciting news did she have to convey? Mike was wearing earphones, so
Lance couldn’t listen in.
But was it perhaps crucial for Mike to tend to the incoming call? There weren’t all that many possible communication partners by this point. The commander was talking to MfE already, so that narrowed the options down to Spaceliner 1 and the Chinese, neither of which should be ignored.
Lance got to his feet and walked over to Mike’s seat. Mike glared at him. Can’t you see that I’m in the middle of an important conversation? But Lance didn’t let himself be put off so easily. He leaned down and saw that another red light was flashing there. He pointed at it, and when Mike didn’t respond, he tapped him on the shoulder.
He finally got Mike’s attention. “What is it?” Mike asked in surprise.
“A call for you,” Lance replied. “At least, the words ‘Incoming Call’ are written underneath the light.”
“Shit. Since when?”
“I have no idea. For a little while anyway. You were in a serious conversation.”
“Yeah...,” Mike said. He leaned forward and flipped a few switches before pulling the microphone up to his mouth. “Mars NASA base, Commander Mike Benedetti,” he said formally.
“We know each other, Mike. It’s me... Ewa.”
Mike seemed to lose his ability to speak. It took almost a minute for him to reply. “The Ewa?”
“Ewa Kowalska, formerly with Mars for Everyone.”
“But how is that possible? You’re supposed to be dead. How many sols has it been since you left the base?”
“Almost forty.”
“That’s over five weeks. Nobody could survive that long outside,” Mike said.
“Apparently one can. At least I’m still alive.”
“How did you do that?”
“I was lucky enough to find shelter.”
“Shelter? We and MfE are the only ones here.”
Mars Nation: The Complete Trilogy Page 41