“Something is really wrong with Parker,” Matthews began. Lennon took a deep breath, but did not reply immediately. She had just finished fitting a makeshift brace around Captain Petri’s torso to keep his spine stable, and then at Major Matthews’ request, she had moved to a far corner to talk to him privately.
“Well, what isn’t?” she mumbled, and then clamped her mouth shut when she saw his eyes widen. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m just really tired. I didn’t mean anything by that. What do you mean when you say something is wrong? Is she injured?”
“No, she was unscathed in the landing. As unscathed as I am, in fact.”
“So what is it?”
“She is… I don’t know, distant. I moved you and Dish to the habitat by myself. She just sat there the whole time and stared. Not at me, mind you. Not at anything. She just turned into a zombie. I had to almost carry her from the Lander to the MSV. St first I thought she was in shock; now, I don’t know.”
Lennon sighed and looked at the curtains that surrounded the sleeping area. “I’ll talk to her in the morning,” she offered. “She’s probably in shock. The sleep will do her some good.” She felt a growing apprehension in her gut, a feeling that she was losing control. She hoped she would not have another anxiety attack. She tried hard to think about something relaxing.
Thankfully, he changed the subject. “We need to take the Rover out and move the Lander here with us, and we also need to locate and retrieve all of the equipment and supplies.”
“How long will it take?” She touched her arm unconsciously. It was a half-splint; it hurt, but she could probably get into a uniform. She chided herself; the medicine might be making it seem better than it really was.
“Ah, the Lander’s fairly close. The time for just the Lander? Two hours, maybe.”
“Oh, I forgot,” Lennon interjected, “some the plants from the Atrium are in the Lander—and the rats. We can’t wait too long.”
“The Lander has a beacon; we just have to go towards it. How long will the plants last?”
“The sponges will probably not dry out completely for three or four days, and then the plants might survive one to two days after that. It depends if the climate control is still working in the Lander.”
“We shouldn’t waste time, then,” he said bleakly.
“Let’s go,” she grinned as she stood up, still weak but energized by the prospect of moving forward. “It’s not like we have anything else to do, and I want to see Mars!” She reached out her hand to him and he took it as he stood up.
“I hate to say it,” he began hesitantly, “but it would probably be better if we waited until tomorrow. We need to adjust, and it wouldn’t hurt to have Parker’s help. We haven’t even finished setting up camp here yet.”
He was right, but she wanted to go so badly. The excitement invigorated her and made her forget about her weak condition, but she knew that wearing the suit and trudging around Mars would wear her out very quickly. She was still having trouble walking without the suit on. “Ok,” she conceded, “I know we haven’t finished setting up yet, but a lot of the setup requires the retrieval of supply equipment. Let’s examine the suits and make sure that everything is ready to go. We can also prepare our camp as best we can.” He helped her up and they slowly made their way to the airlock. If she was not convinced before, the agony and exhaustion of that short walk proved to her that she was not ready to go outside yet.
It was not until they reached the suit storage by the airlock that she realized that they were still holding hands. She stopped and faced him. “Listen, um, Jonas...” she looked down at their hands, still connected.
“I like you too, Rebecca,” he interrupted. “Let’s just leave it at that.” He kissed her on the cheek, and then began examining the suits. Despite their determination to finish, they did not accomplish much towards setting up their camp because of the lack of supplies and because of Lennon’s weakened condition. They switched to preparing for the trip to the Lander. I like you too, Rebecca. Even though she was injured and exhausted, it was quite a while before her heartbeat slowed.
Day One Hundred and Eighty-Nine
Lennon was worried. The plants would not last much longer, and it was doubtful the rats were still alive. They needed food; she could feel hunger pains in her stomach. Matthews had not been able to carry very much by himself on the first day. Her strength was returning, although seemingly simple tasks still caused her to feel winded. Despite Mars’ reduced gravity compared to Earth, the adjustment to working in a gravity environment had been a lot more difficult than any of them had expected. Because of this, they still had not retrieved the Lander, nor had they started assembling any of the extra living modules. She discovered she was not the only one who had slept for a long time after the crash; Matthews had also slept the entire second day, needing sleep to recover from the exhaustion of taking Lennon and Dish to the camp.
Dish was feeling better, although he was still bedridden. Lennon worked with him daily, moving his position to prevent bedsores and attaching rubber straps so that he could do simple resistance training to keep his limbs in shape. He required the use of a bedpan, and it pained Lennon to see him deal with the humiliation. He was a fighter, though, and never gave up.
Parker mostly kept to herself, remaining uncharacteristically quiet and reserved. Lennon tapped on the feeble vinyl wall outside of Parker’s room and came inside when Parker answered.
“How are you doing?” Lennon asked.
Parker shrugged. “I feel like an outsider. I don’t think that anyone likes me anymore.”
“They’ll come around,” Lennon said. “You broke their trust, stealing the medicine and all, and it’s going to take some time. You need to get out and try to interact more.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You said ‘they’. What about you, Lennon? We used to be close.”
She lowered her head. “You broke my trust too, Maria.”
Parker looked away, her eyes watering. “I didn’t mean to. I wish I could take it back.”
“I know you do,” Lennon said softly. “We’re going to go and try to get the Lander today. Do you want to come?”
“I do, but I can’t. I need to watch the camp since Dish is laid out.”
“Parker, you need to get involved.”
“Tomorrow. I’ll go out tomorrow.”
Lennon studied her. She was much more lucid and responsive in her actions than she had been in a long time. She was probably going to be ok, physically speaking. Her mental health had also seemed to improve, other than a small bout of depression. Sometimes mild depression was better than crazy, though, so Lennon could not complain.
The door to the inflatable shelter, unlike most of the walls, was made of a thick, metal square with an oval-shaped ring in the center, which could open. The design of the inflatable shelter was modular and scalable so that the shelter could increase as new modules were connected. The modules were stored in metal crates. By design, the edges of the crate walls connected to each other with a latching system instead of welds or rivets. When the latches were released, the sides and top could come apart and the material inside would automatically inflate to create a structure. The metal front face of the crate would become the door to the structure, and the sides, top, and back of the crate would become connecting points for other modules, or the crew could use them as openings to route air, electricity, and water into and out of the structure.
Pre-deployed robots, sent several years earlier when the last planetary alignment made a launch economical, had set up the first two connected structures. The astronauts currently resided in the first one, and the second was, at the moment, only used to store supply crates of equipment that was needed to set up the camp. Several more structure crates remained un-inflated near the cave, entrance and containing medical, food, and housing gear. Plant growing and water recycling, two benefits of a hydroponic bio-filter, were to be the primary function of the second “building” in the camp.
/> The second building was huge. Most scientists agree that between three and five hundred plants are required to provide enough oxygen for each person. The structure was not big enough to hold that many plants, but it was impressive nonetheless. The plants would help with oxygen; however, other machines existed at the camp, which were efficient enough to produce most of the breathable air. The main purpose of the vegetation was to provide a supplementary, and eventually a primary, food source.
Out of Lennon’s mind until recently was a refrigerated crate that had, by design, landed separately from the Lander. The crate contained three hundred dormant baby fish, ready to complete the bio-filter and provide food. A significant amount of water and construction supplies was lying somewhere nearby, awaiting pickup. Retrieving the water and setting up the hydroponic filter was a high priority, as their stored food would only last forty-five days without rationing. It might last longer than that, thought Lennon bitterly as she mentally noted that the crew size had shrunk by thirty-three percent.
Lennon could hear her breath, coming in and out with a hiss as the air actuators in the suit reacted to her breathing. Matthews stood in front of her, the suit masking his physical features and giving him a robotic, stumbling appearance. He was unmoving, his left hand resting on the lever to the door in the airlock—the lever that would let them out into Martian atmosphere. The airlock was a simple device: it was simply a tube of airtight fabric with support rods; doors capped each end. One door led to the living quarters and the other led to the cave.
Breathable air was a precious resource because oxygen only exists in trace levels in the Martian air. To conserve moisture and oxygen, the air filtration system vacuumed air out of the airlock and pushed it back into the structure before the crew could leave. When they returned, it would vacuum the Martian air out of the airlock and push it back outside of the structure. To white tubes, approximately twelve inches in diameter, connected to the airlock section to retrieve precious air before they opened the door to the Martian environment.
They would need to transport almost all of the plants from the Lander, in addition to large amount of stored seeds. Even though the plants would not provide all of the oxygen needed, what they did produce was necessary because the engineers factored it into the calculated amount of breathable air needed for their stay.
The air had cycled in the airlock and the hissing of the vacuum had stopped. Matthews still had not opened the door. Lennon put her hand on his shoulder and he turned his body to see her through the helmet glass. “You know,” he said, his voice broadcasting into the speakers in Lennon’s helmet, “Queasy had something big that he planned to say when he stepped onto Mars for the first time. He knew it would be a historical quote, the ‘one small step for a man’ kind of thing. He worked for hours on it—no, days on it.
“Anyway, after he died, I looked at his notes. They were all personal reflections; I couldn’t use any of them. I spent night after night thinking of what to say. Nothing I thought of sounded right. I rewrote hundreds of quotes, from single lines to full speeches. Nothing struck me as it. I worked myself to weariness, wringing my brain to come up with something.”
“What did you say when you exited the Lander?”
“I stepped off of the Lander, and I was awestruck. It was so beautiful, so fearsome, so unlike everything that I expected and yet so familiar. All that came out of my mouth was ‘wow’.”
Lennon smiled. “That’s all you said?”
“I looked around at the landscape, breathless with the thought that I was really here, and then saw the damaged legs of the Lander. I looked at the crumpled mess and said ‘Thank God we’re alive.’”
“No one has to know, we could have you say something now.”
“I was thinking about that. I think… I think that… Well, I think that quote is just fine.”
Lennon smiled as he cranked the lever door lever down, releasing the door. He stepped out into the cave, and Lennon shivered with excitement. They were deep in the surface of Mars, but the cave entrance was easily accessible.
As it turned out, someone on the ground crew on Earth had the foresight to make sure that no one would miss the monumental event of humankind’s first foray to Mars. He had programmed the Lander to automatically record and transmit the audio during the first steps onto another planet in the solar system. The press blasted the headline ‘Thank God we’re alive’ around the world, spreading the news of the successful landing on Mars.
Lennon was gasping for air and her ribs were hurting again by the time they reached the Mars Surface Vehicle. She buckled herself in the seat of the MSV and began to doubt whether she should be assisting in this activity. Matthews had said that the main objective was reconnaissance, but Lennon knew that the time to get everything set up was running out. She clung to the shoulder straps with her right hand, as Matthews drove towards the beacon signal of the Lander; he kept glancing down at a display on the surface vehicle every few moments and adjusting his heading. She cradled her other arm towards her, trying not to let Matthews see that the shaking of the vehicle was causing her pain.
The wind was roaring, but thankfully, it was not strong enough to keep them from moving about. However, it stirred up dust and the rover’s knobby tires kicked up even more, and the resulting cloud obstructed Lennon’s view of the surrounding area. From what she could see, Mars looked very similar to certain places on Earth, except that there were no plants. It was even a little disappointing to her that the landscape was not fantastically different from areas she had seen in Arizona, or New Mexico, or even parts of Utah. It was dusty, rocky, and hills rose all around, making it harder to see far away. She could not believe she was really here; her mind struggled to allow her to believe she could not just keep driving until she made it back to West Virginia. To home. She sighed and struggled to think of something other than her mother. After twenty minutes, she saw the contrasting shape of the Lander against the surrounding terrain. It lay kinked to one side due to the damage that the legs absorbed during the landing.
Matthews parked the MSV and walked towards the Lander. Lennon followed shortly after, struggling with her bad arm to get the straps off. He whistled and ran his hand up and down the twisted leg.
“How bad is it?” Lennon asked, approaching as quickly as she was able. She stopped when she reached him, and bent over to catch her breath.
“Not bad,” he said appreciatively, without looking at her. “Not bad at all. The leg collapsed, but it took most of the force. The corner struck, here,” he pointed to the bottom of the Lander, which was embedded in the soil, “and that impact is what caused injuries to you, Abrams, and Dish. However, the collapse of the leg absorbed enough shock that the structure is still intact. I think we can assemble the wheels and tow it back.”
“Now?”
“Sure, why not? We’re here, right?”
She hesitated. “I’ve been thinking about the fish. I do not know how long they will survive. We need to find that crate and get that back today. We should probably do that before we attach this and tow it.”
“You’re probably right,” he agreed. Towing the Lander while they looked for the crate would only waste energy. “The only problem is that the beacon isn’t working. I don’t know where it is.”
She felt her heart sink. If the beacon was not working, the active electronics that kept the fish alive and dormant might be failing as well. They needed the fish. They were an integral part of the filtering process, providing fertilizer for the plants and food for the crew. There were backup plans, but living would be far less comfortable if they had to use the backup plans.
She climbed to the top of a nearby hill and scanned the horizon as the wind pushed against her. Nothing. It was completely desolate. She shivered uncontrollably as the realization struck her of how alone they were. She dejectedly slid back down the hill.
“Let’s drive around a bit,” Matthews suggested. “There’s still plenty of battery charge in the MSV.”
>
They drove in large circles, using the Lander as the center reference point. After an hour, they were exhausted and forlorn. “It had a parachute and an inflatable impact shield,” said Matthews. “It should be easy to spot.”
“Let’s go up that mountain,” Lennon suggested, pointing to a large, flat-topped feature to her left. It was not technically big enough for them to consider it a ‘mountain’, but compared to the surrounding hills the description seemed apt.
“The MSV can’t make it up there,” he answered.
“Let’s climb it.”
“We don’t have much oxygen left. I don’t know, Lennon,” he said hesitantly.
“Please? This is really important.”
He grudgingly agreed and they drove to the base of the large rock feature. Once there, they realized that the back half of the mountain had a much gentler slope. They drove the MSV to the top without much effort. At the top, on the flattened peak, lay a balloon-surrounded crate. “Well, I’ll be,” he said. “Praise God.”
She looked at him strangely. He almost never spoke of religion. She wondered if he knew what he had said or if it was something so engrained in his consciousness that it came without thinking. He backed the MSV up to it and they dragged it onto the bed, although Matthews had to do most of the work while Lennon helped with her good arm. After the crate was loaded, they made it back to the Lander, removed the protective casing, folded down and locked the wheels, and hitched the Lander to the back of the MSV. They towed it back to the cave and lined it up so that they could mate it to the inflatable structure.
Once they were secure inside the airlock, Parker helped them bring the crate in and remove their suits.
“I was worried about you guys,” said she said, and gave Lennon a long hug. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“Yeah, us too,” said Lennon, surprised by the sudden affection from Parker. “Come with us next time, ok? The camp will be fine.”
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