Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1)

by Gregory Gates

  “It’s costs too much?”

  “Ah. The almighty dollar. Well, let’s see.” He quickly walked back to the chalkboard. “No one is sure just how much it would cost for a manned mission to Mars, but estimates seem to run somewhere between fifty-five billion and four-hundred billion dollars.” On the chalkboard he scrawled the figure $200,000,000,000. “Let’s split the difference, more or less. Okay, there are about three hundred and five million people living in the United States. So, if we divide that into two-hundred billion we get, hmmm… six hundred and fifty-six dollars for every man, woman, and child in the country.” He turned and pointed his finger across the room, “So we’re going to need six hundred and fifty-six dollars from each of you.”

  The students’ eyes opened wide as murmurs and giggles filled the room.

  “Most of you don’t have six hundred and fifty-six dollars, do you?”

  “No!” was the unanimous response.

  “I didn’t think so. But your parents do, don’t they?”

  Some students nodded, some shook their heads, and most simply looked puzzled.

  “Alright, just for arguments sake, your parents, each and every one of them, have decided to give you six hundred and fifty-six dollars for you next birthday. Cash money, to do with as you please. Now, you have two choices: you can spend that money any way you wish, or you can all – and it has to be all – give it to NASA to pay for some people to go to Mars. So, let’s have a vote. The majority wins. How many of you want to give your six hundred and fifty-six dollars to NASA? Raise your hands.”

  Looking around the room, Jeff saw not one hand go up.

  “And there you have it. We can afford to go to Mars, and we have the technology. And there are those that are willing to accept the risk. But we, as a nation, choose not to do it. It’s simply a matter of choice. In 1962 we chose to go to the moon. Today, we choose not to go to Mars. Choice. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what you take from the study of… anything. The knowledge with which to make an educated and intelligent choice.”

  Just then the bell in the hall rang, signaling the end of the period.

  “Okay then, that’s it. Everybody have a nice weekend.”

  Jeff stood at his desk, smiling and nodding to his charges as they collected their things and filed out the door. When the last had gone, he smiled, feeling just a bit proud of himself and hoping that on that day his students had actually learned something useful.

  He turned out the lights, locked the doors and headed straight for the parking lot. If there was anything in his inbox in the teacher’s lounge, it could wait until Monday. His students were not the only ones that relished the weekend.

  Arriving at the car, an utterly non-descript four-year-old Toyota Camry, he climbed in and started the 15-minute drive home. It being Friday, Jeff exercised his weekly ritual and pulled into the corner liquor store a few blocks from his house. He stood patiently in the abnormally long line and, finally arriving at the counter, glanced up at the Mega Millions lottery board.

  “My word! Is that right?”

  The clerk, sounding as though he had already answered the same question a few hundred times said, “Yep, that’s right. It’s been rolling over for more than two months. How many tickets you want?”

  “Seven hundred and fifty million dollars! Good grief.” Jeff usually bought just five tickets every Friday, but a figure like that seemed to call for a small splurge. He figured that’s how it got so large; everyone else was thinking the same thing. “Alright, give me ten.” He choose his numbers, attempting to be as random as possible, gave the clerk a ten dollar bill from his wallet and returned to the car. “Seven hundred and fifty million dollars. That’s ridiculous. Someone is going to have a life-altering experience, that’s for certain,” he muttered to himself while climbing in. He tossed the tickets in the glove box, as usual. He had six months to claim any winnings, so he just let them collect, then sat down on a weekend every month or two and checked all the numbers on the lottery’s web site. He’d won $150 three months ago and figured he was playing on someone else’ money, discounting all that he’d spent in prior years. That, of course, doesn’t count.

  Jeff wasn’t much of a gambler, but Marsha had regularly played the lottery, nickel slot machines on their occasional trips to Las Vegas, and $20 would keep her busy for an entire day during the racing season at Santa Anita. So, after she died, he kept up the routine. Just a tiny reminder, sort of a mental Post-it note to keep her in his thoughts.

  Linden Avenue was a quiet little street of modest homes in Bixby Knolls, at least modest by Bixby Knolls standards. Jeff and Marsha had bought the house in 1986, shortly after they were married. It seemed a vast sum of money at the time, but the Cal-Vet loan was reasonable and the place was worth an order of magnitude more today than then. He turned into the driveway which passed down the side of the Spanish-style stucco house ending at a detached garage, which Jeff thought all fine and well except when it was raining. Exiting the garage, he walked past the pool to the corner of the back patio, by the two elms that desperately needed trimming, and up to the back door, which led through the service porch to the kitchen.

  Jeff grabbed a beer out of the fridge and immediately headed back to the patio where he could exercise, with political correctness, his only vice: he smoked. Not much, maybe half a pack or so a day, but he acknowledged his status as a societal outcast and conducted his vile deed only in the privacy of the sanctity and solitude of his backyard. Lighting up he inhaled deeply, “Ah, that’s better.” Beer, coffee and cigarettes, left over mementos of the Navy. But Jeff was pretty sure he wasn’t a Benedictine monk, and refused to behave like one. He strolled out to the pool deck, dropped into a lounge chair and savored his smoke, his beer, and a comfortable southern California late afternoon.

  “Uh huh. Thought I smelled a Winston.”

  Ed Fielding was Jeff’s next door neighbor and a retired longshoreman that Jeff figured was probably working the docks when the Cyane arrived in Monterey in ’46… 1846.

  “Hey Ed, how ya doin’?”

  Ed was leaning on the top of the redwood fence, attired in bib overalls and a dungaree shirt, and sporting about four days-worth of snow-white whiskers. All-in-all, about how he usually looked.

  “Doin’ good boy. How ‘bout yourself? Say, can I bum a smoke?”

  Ed had emphysema and his doctor made him quit smoking years ago, sort of. Jeff was Ed’s evil enabler. He figured Ed was plenty old enough to make his own choices and wasn’t about to judge him.

  “I’m doin’ good. Yeah, sure.”

  Over the years this had become a daily routine. Ed knew when Jeff was due home from school and always made certain he was in the backyard at the appointed hour.

  “Here you go. Need a light?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “How about a kick in the chest to get you started?”

  “Naw, I can manage. Thanks.”

  “You know those’ll kill you.”

  “Boy, I sure hope so. Don’t know how much more of Edna I can take.”

  Ed and Edna. Jeff asked Ed about it once, “Did you two plan this Ed-Edna thing?”

  Ed had laughed, “No, that’s just the way it is. You know, back in Oklahoma everyone’s named Ed or Edna. What choice do you have?”

  Ed was forever complaining about Edna, but Jeff remembered attending their 50th wedding anniversary a few years back and figured they were probably going to go the distance… no matter what.

  “So, what’s Edna done now?”

  “Ah hell, the usual. She’s just a nag.”

  “Ed, she’s always been a nag. And it’s for the best, you need a nag. If you didn’t have a nag you’d just be cantankerous and slovenly.”

  “But I am cantankerous and slovenly.”

  “My point exactly.”

  The two men stood there in silence for a minute, enjoying their tobacco in peace, away from nags, spousal or societal.

  “Say, you want to come ov
er for supper tonight? Edna made up some stew. Big chunks of some meat-like byproduct. I wouldn’t recommend it, but thought I’d ask.”

  “Thanks Ed, but I think I’ll pass. Gonna plant my ass on the sofa, turn on a ballgame – I think the Angels and Dodgers are playing an interleague game – and sleep through it.”

  “Good call. May do the same. You take her easy. Thanks for the smoke. Later.”

  “See ya, bub.”

  Ed turned and slowly strolled toward his porch. Jeff dropped his cigarette in the soft soil next to the fence, stomped it out, kicked a little dirt over it, and headed back to his house as well.

  Passing through the kitchen, Jeff grabbed another beer and peeked in the freezer. “Hmmm, Marie Callender lasagna. That’ll do.”

  Jeff sat down on the sofa with a plate of hot lasagna and a beer and turned on the television.

  “The Mars Scientific Laboratory, or MSL, is now just over half-way through its journey, some 56 million miles from Earth and traveling at a speed of more than 33,000 miles per hour.”

  Jeff took a bite of lasagna and started to reach for the remote.

  “If all goes according to plan, the $2.5 billion MSL will land on the Martian surface early next August and begin it’s work attempting to locate signs of life, past or present.”

  Jeff thought to himself, “$2.5 billion to put a high-tech gocart on Mars, hoping to find the remnants of some three billion-year-old microbe that probably never existed in the first place. You guys need to put people up there. You need human brains. You need footprints in the sand. You need to put a damn flag up there that says ‘We are mankind and we got here first – Keep Out!’” He picked up the remote and switched channels to the baseball game.

  By the bottom of the sixth inning the Angels were ahead nine to one and already high-fiving each other in the dugout. “I wouldn’t be too proud of that accomplishment,” Jeff groaned at the TV, “I think my 8th-grade softball team could beat those bums.” He turned off the TV and headed for bed. It was late and, as this was a Reserve weekend, Jeff had to be up early and make the drive to San Diego.

  Jeff had attended college at UCLA and majored in chemistry. Following graduation he joined the Navy, attended Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, was commissioned an Ensign in the Naval Reserve, and volunteered for EOD – Explosives Ordinance Disposal. Growing up near the beach in southern California, Jeff had been a surfer and diver and had been on the water polo team at UCLA. So, EOD just seemed to be a natural fit. He had served on active duty for six years commanding a mobile EOD team, plus a six month extension during the Gulf War disarming unexploded ordinance and booby traps left in the smoldering Kuwait oil fields courtesy of Saddam Hussein. He thought seriously about a career in the Navy but, following his Kuwait deployment, Marsha was having none of it. Still, he was able to convince her that staying in the active Reserve was safe enough. So for the past 21 years, one weekend a month and two weeks during the summer, Jeff had gone off to do something of marginal service to his country. Two years ago he’d thought the end was nigh as he’d been passed over twice for Captain and didn’t expect to make it on his third and last look. But for reasons passing understanding, the promotion came through. It meant a bit more retirement money when he reached 60, but more importantly it gave him an extended lease on a life that he’d always enjoyed. It was something different to do. He was now the Reserve Commanding Officer of EOD Operational Support Unit Seven, or EODOSU7, at the Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado Island. It was largely a symbolic and ceremonial title and why the Navy kept him around was a mystery to all, but there it was.

  At 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning, Jeff’s alarm clock went off. He showered, donned his service khaki uniform, got in the car and started off on the two-hour drive to Coronado. As was his routine, he stopped by McDonald’s in Oceanside and picked up an Egg McMuffin and coffee. Jeff had done it so often, the staff there knew him. When he walked in the door it was always, “Good morning, Captain, have it for you in a minute.” Jeff liked that.

  At the NAB Coronado gate, Jeff received a smart and proper salute from the Marine guard and was promptly waved through; the eagle beside the blue vehicle sticker on his windshield did have it’s benefits. He drove across the base and pulled to a stop in the EODGRUONE visitors parking lot – a Navy Captain and didn’t even warrant his own parking space. Oh well. Though there were some 70-odd Reservists in the group, the facility was largely deserted even on drill weekends as most of the enlisted team members were in the field training.

  “Morning, Master Chief. How’s that grandson of yours doing?”

  Master Chief Explosive Ordinance Disposal Technician Garland Stewart snapped to attention. “Good morning, sir. The rug rat is well, kind of you to ask, sir.”

  “Kind of me to ask, my ass. Gar, when was the last I didn’t ask you about your grandson?”

  “Before he was born, sir.”

  Jeff grinned. “Right. Give me the message board. Anything interesting here?”

  “No sir, pretty much the usual. Rags did detonate a good sized ANFO bomb in Baghdad. Blew up a mosque and about 200 locales. Triggered with a Russian 122mm artillery shell – don’t know where they found that.”

  “Jeez! Where the fuck are they getting all this ammonium nitrate?”

  “It’s Iraq, sir. They probably truck in a hundred tons of the stuff a week from Syria.”

  “Yeah, but we’re still the 800-pound gorilla in theater, you’d think we could at least put a lock on the fuckin’ cage.”

  “Sir, we’ve got 20,000 troops left over there to handle an area bigger than California. What are you expecting?”

  “Body bags.” Jeff sighed. “Is there coffee?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll be in my hooch.”

  Gar Stewart had eventually recovered from his injuries in Kuwait, made a career of the Navy and retired as a Senior Chief. But when he heard that Jeff was in the active Reserve he applied for a Reserve post with him. As a mere Captain, Jeff didn’t rank an aide. But Gar Stewart was Jeff’s right hand, and as good an aide as any in the Navy serving a four-star admiral.

  It wasn’t really Jeff’s office. In fact, it wasn’t much more than a broom closet that during the week served as the office of a 1st Class Yeoman. But Jeff didn’t really care, and he was careful not to touch anything as the Yeoman had a real job and Jeff didn’t want to make it any more difficult. Jeff spent the morning reading over hundreds of pages of messages – mostly classified – detailing reports of Improvised Explosive Devices from all over the world. Most came from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but many originated from far flung theaters. There were road-side bombs, car bombs, suicide strap-on bombs, and bombs from which there wasn’t enough left to figure out where they had come from. Most involved people dying. In more than 25 years in this line of work, Jeff had become fairly callused to the personal tragedy side of the issue. For him it was now just a job, and one for which he felt obligated to stay current on the technology. If for any bizarre, inexplicable reason he once again found himself commanding an EOD group, men’s lives would depend on his leadership.

  Around noon Jeff broke for lunch. “Hey, Master Chief, anything in the commissary deli that isn’t showing signs of life?”

  “No, sir, it all looks to be alive and well. But if you’re short on penicillin…”

  Jeff laughed. “Hell of recommendation, Master Chief.”

  “Did you see the one about the nail bomb in Nigeria?”

  “Yeah. Ouch. That had to leave a mark.”

  “These clowns are inventive, that’s for sure.”

  “Yes they are. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  “Yes, sir. Oh, Captain, they’ve got a fresh locker of meat on the beach. You might enjoy a look.”

  “Thanks, Master Chief. I’ll stop by.”

  The ‘fresh locker of meat’ the Master Chief referred to was a Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALS, or BUDS, class in ‘Hell Week’. Jeff’s drill weeken
ds rarely coincided with Hell Week but when they did he tried to make a point of stopping by. It always made him grateful that he had not chosen the SEALs. Besides, Captain Ralph Dillard, a SEAL, and the Commanding Officer of Naval Special Warfare Group Three was a good friend and had been for many years.

  Jeff decided to pass on the Commissary and instead stopped by Subway and picked up a club sandwich, chips and a bottle of water, then drove down the Coronado Strand and pulled into the parking lot adjoining the beach obstacle course at the south end of the base. He spied a blue Escalade parked beside the course with a familiar figure leaning against the hood. Jeff parked behind it, grabbed his lunch, and strolled over to join him.

  “Crap, can’t a guy get some privacy on this beach?”

  “Hey Jeff, how the hell are you?” said Ralph Dillard.

  “God, Ralph, that’s cruel. You standing here eating a Quarter Pounder with cheese in front of these poor bastards? You know, you’re evil.”

  Ralph Dillard and Jeff had been commissioned about the same time. Ralph had remained on active duty and was now one of the most senior SEAL officers in the Navy. Jeff leaned against the hood, standing beside him, and began working on his sandwich.

  “So, how they look?”

  “Not bad. Very low dropout rate. Looks like a good class.”

  “That’s good. You need ‘em.”

  “Boy, you can say that again. DoD seems to expect us to do everything these days.”

  “Yeah, what the fuck is the deal there, Ralph? Every time I turn on the TV all I hear about is Special Forces. You guys can take ground better than anybody, but you can’t hold it, not enough manpower. What the hell are they thinking?”

  “Jeff, I honestly don’t know. I think they saw a Rambo movie and figured all they need now is a Sylvester Stallone impersonator and the world is safe for democracy.”

  Jeff looked across the sand at the hundred men on the beach; cold, wet, dirty, hungry, tired to the point of utter exhaustion, but still going forward on nothing more than shear will and determination. “Why do they do it, Ralph?”