Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1)

by Gregory Gates

  “All set?” said Jeff.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, now we’ll jack these two up just far enough so that this wheel spins freely.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hold it.” He reached over and spun the wheel. “That’s good. Now the other side.” Once they had all four wheels off the ground they went around to each wheel, removed a single retaining bolt, and slid the wheel assembly out of its mount. Then they leveled the module. “Alright, let’s see what Amos has to say.” He walked over to Amos, aligned the crosshairs in the MastCam on an orange dot on the side of the module and had Amos triangulate the modules height. Through their surveys of the site, Amos and Andy had calculated the lowest mean height for all the modules accounting for minor fluctuations in terrain elevation. “13.5 inches high. Okay, 27 turns down on each jack.” They took a Crescent wrench to each jack and gradually cranked them down, keeping the tuna can more or less level in the process. Jeff checked with Amos again. “Okay, we’re good, one down, eight to go. How’s the level look?”

  “It’s good. God, I’m glad we brought these impact wrenches. Doing all this by hand would’ve been a bitch.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “Whose idea were these?”

  “NASA’s. They were on the ISS tool list.”

  “Well worth the price.”

  “They were free. When I called DeWalt and told them what we needed, they sent a whole crate of ‘em. No charge.”

  “Ah, that explains the DeWalt decals on the tool chests.”

  Jeff laughed. “You bet. Didn’t you see that TV clip with the DeWalt ad that Chrissie sent us last night?”

  “No, must have missed that one, there were so many.”

  “Yeah. It was during coverage of the landing on some station. ‘If it works on Mars, we’re pretty sure it’ll work in your garage,’ and included a shot of one of our tool chests.”

  She laughed. “I like that.”

  “Uh huh. Gabe, you guys about ready?”

  “Yes, depressurizing. Be there in a minute.”

  “Okay.” Jeff climbed into Amos and, while Abby supervised, carefully backed the trailer with the habitat’s airlock toward the suit room’s main hatch.

  “Hold it, let me have a look. Okay, alignment’s good, but you need to come back about six inches.”

  “Rog.” Jeff instructed Amos to backup six inches. Where Jeff’s estimate of six inches was rough, at best, Amos could do it precisely by measuring the amount of wheel rotation, part of the rover’s inertial navigation system.

  “Good. That’s it.”

  When Gabe and Susan arrived, they removed the airlock’s tie down straps, unlatched the front of the trailer bed from its chassis, and gently tilted it backwards, allowing the airlock to slide off onto the sand, then tilted it upright to stand, as with the habitat modules, on four scissor jacks.

  “Pretty darn close,” said Jeff.

  The main airlock was similar in construction to the Genesis airlock, but without the bathroom facilities. The rear was concave to mate with the round habitat module, and suited, all four of them could squeeze into it at once, barely. Unlike the Genesis where they would don and remove their suits in the airlock, in the habitat that procedure was relocated to the suit room.

  Gabe and Abby wiped the exterior of the suit room around the airlock bolt holes with tack cloths to remove the accumulated dust, then working together, the four of them carefully elevated and aligned the airlock, opened the outer hatch, and bolted the airlock to the module. Once the entire station was assembled they would pressure test each module in turn and address any leaks by re-torqueing the bolts, and if necessary applying an epoxy sealant.

  Jeff opened the suit room hatch, switched on his helmet lights, stepped inside and looked around. Strapped to the floor was the cross-connect tunnel that would join the suit and utility room hatches. Around the walls were hangars for six Mark III suits – two spare suits being packed away with other supplies – and stations to recharge the PLSSs, along with the vacuum. He turned around and checked the power panel beside the hatch. “Gabe, we’ve got 12.8 amps. Is that enough for lights?”

  “Barely.”

  He closed the circuit breaker to the solar panel on the roof and switched on the lights. Six 24-volt DC, 8-watt, LED flush-mounted ceiling lamps brightly illuminated the room. “Well, barely seems to be enough.”

  “Don’t switch anything else on or you’ll pop the main breaker.”

  “Got it. Abby, you want to park the trailer somewhere and go get the utility room?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sue, come on in and help me ready this cross-connect.”

  “Coming.”

  A few minutes later Jeff heard Gabe groan. “Abigail, what are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? Lining up to pull this thing into place.”

  “Look in your rearview mirror and tell me what’s wrong with that picture.”

  “Huh? Oh crap, I’m backwards.”

  “Yes. Come around to this side and try again.”

  Jeff and Susan glanced at each other and Jeff poked his thumb in the direction of the hatch. She nodded. They got up and went outside. He walked over to Gabe. “How we doing?”

  She just looked at him and smiled.

  “Right. Okay, I’ll standby and get the hitch, you direct traffic.”

  She grinned and nodded.

  He went to the suit room’s trailer tongue and waited. When properly positioned, each module would connect with the trailer tongues of adjoining modules. That insured correct spacing and prevented horizontal movement of any module that might result from sand shifting beneath the jacks. The tongues also served as a base for the cross-connects. Jeff pulled a retaining pin and removed the coupler, revealing a flat plate with four boltholes that would mate with the next module. “Alright, bring it on.”

  Amos edged forward, using a precise laser rangefinder to gauge distance and alignment with the suit room.

  When the two mating plates were about a foot apart Jeff hollered, “Stop!” He laid a straightedge across the two plates. “Looks good.” Then he pulled the retaining pin on the utility rooms mating plate and removed the assembly from its receptacle. “Okay, bring her forward.”

  Amos eased forward and stopped.

  “Okay, hold it right there. Let’s get the jacks down.” Once the utility room was raised, leveled, and the wheels removed, Jeff replaced the mating plate and they lowered the module until slots machined on either side of the plate engaged the opposite plate on the suit room tongue, forcing them into alignment. Finally, he inserted and hand tightened the bolts, then torqued them. “Okay, that’s got it. Let’s get the cross-connect installed.”

  Jeff and Gabe brought the cross-connect out of the suit room while Abby and Susan cleaned the mating surfaces around the hatches of both modules. Then they set the tunnel in place on the tongue, expanded the flex coupling, aligned both joints, and bolted it in place.

  Abby groaned. “That was a lot more work than I remember.”

  “Amen to that,” said Jeff. “We only practiced this once in suits, didn’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Gabe. “And even then only two of us were suited up.”

  “Yeah. Well, what time is it?” He looked at his watch. “God, 1130 already. Damn, that took four hours. How much air have we got left?”

  “About two and half hours,” said Susan.

  “Well clearly that’s not enough time for another one. Why didn’t we think to bring long umbilicals so we could hookup to the tank trailer and stay out here all day?”

  “Would you want to stay suited for twelve hours, even if you could?” said Gabe.

  “Uh, no, not really.”

  “Well then?”

  “Alright. Well, Sue, Abby, why don’t you two head for the Genesis, and Gabe and I will position the lab, and we can finish it off this afternoon.”

  “We’re not going to get this done in three days, are we?”
said Abby.

  “Doesn’t look like it; four at least. And that’s assuming it doesn’t take all day to get the kitchen unstuck.”

  “Boss, instead of breaking for lunch now, since we still have a couple hours of air left, while you and Gabe are siting the lab why don’t Sue and I take Andy and the trailer up to the drop line and pick up some supplies? To quote your favorite actor, we’re burnin’ daylight. We need to get all that shit down here one way or another.”

  “Fine with me. Just make sure you leave yourselves enough time to get back in the airlock.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem, we’ll plug into Andy on the drive up and back.”

  “Okay, but keep an eye on his reserve and fuel tank levels, particularly O2, since he uses it too. If anything looks like it’ll drop below 50%, stop by the Sabatier on your way back and fill ‘em up.”

  “Got it.”

  Monday, October 10, 2016

  MSD 50754.380 (Sol 4)

  Gabe started to climb into the back of her Mark III. “God, it’s been six days. I need a bath.”

  Jeff grinned.

  She leaned toward him and sniffed. “So do you.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  She reached out and stroked his cheek. “You also need a shave. You’re not getting anywhere near me like that. It’ll chafe.”

  He rubbed his chin and laughed. “Yeah. Well, move it. If we get our butts in gear, we may be able to check into the hotel tonight.”

  Gabe smiled softly. “Okay, but in any case, we have to be in by tomorrow night.”

  “Why?”

  “Because tomorrow’s Sol 5.”

  “Yeah, and…?”

  She grinned. “And tomorrow we need to start trying again to conceive a Martian.”

  Jeff gave her a broad smile. “Oh, yeah, forgot about that.”

  She frowned. “Forgot?”

  “Oops. Well, we’ve been busy and I don’t have Chrissie up here to remind me of things.”

  “I need to get you a calendar.”

  “There’s one on the main computer in the commons.”

  “Yes, but though it’s our server, it’s also a Terminal Services Client with the main computers in Newport. Wouldn’t it be nice if Chrissie was giving some group of dignitaries a tour while we were uploading something and a reminder pops up on the MCC center screen, ‘Sol 5: Jeff, get Gabe pregnant.’”

  He laughed. “Uh, yeah, that could be a little awkward.”

  “Just a little.”

  “Okay, but in the meantime… get dressed.”

  #

  While Gabe unhitched the trailer from Andy, Jeff checked up on Abby and Susan, who were bolting the cross-connect between the lab and utility room in place. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s a lot of work,” said Abby. “This is much easier with eight hands instead of four.”

  “I know. Once we get back with the kitchen and get it sited, we’ll give you a hand.” He patted Abby’s shoulder. “We’ll be on channel three, see you in a couple hours.”

  “If you need help, holler.”

  “Bank on it.”

  Jeff and Gabe returned to the disabled kitchen module and went to work. “Okay, Gabe, grab an impact wrench and a couple of jack footings, and let’s jack this thing up as far we can on this side.”

  “Rog.”

  They jacked the broken wheel as high as they could, replaced it, and shoveled sand between and around the rocks. Then they lowered the wheel onto the sand, raised the jacks, shoveled sand under them, and repeated the process.

  “Think that’s enough?” said Jeff.

  “I don’t know. The centerline wheels are off the ground. That puts all the mass on two wheels, and most of it on just one. And it’s digging in as we watch.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s try it. Back her up… slowly.”

  Gabe climbed into Andy and tried to backup. “His wheels are spinning.”

  “Then stop. Stop!”

  “Okay, I’m stopped.”

  “Don’t let Andy dig in, or we’ll have two things to dig out.”

  “Okay, but what do you want me to do?”

  “Just hang on, let me think about this for a minute. I think this would work on Earth, but here he just doesn’t have enough weight to obtain sufficient traction from a standing start to move the module when it’s sitting this way.”

  “Alright, makes sense. So, what do we do?”

  “I’m working on it. This would be a lot easier if I weren’t wearing this damn helmet and could scratch my chin.”

  Gabe laughed.

  “Alright, Plan B.”

  “And what is Plan B?”

  “We jack up the other side, shovel sand under the other three wheels, and keep doing same until we’ve got it level. Then we hope that Andy has enough traction to pull it forward off the sand mounds. Then we let gravity take over and as soon as you’ve got some forward momentum, hammer down, keep moving, and head for the beaten path.”

  “Okay, if you say so.”

  “It’s like 4-wheeling in sand on Earth. So long as you keep moving, you’re fine. Stop, and you have a problem.”

  “Have you ever done that?”

  “Yeah. What? That wasn’t in the curriculum at Caltech?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Hmmm, poor planning. Alright, come here, let’s get started.”

  An hour later Jeff and Gabe stood staring at the kitchen module, sitting high atop four three-foot mounds of sand.

  “You really think this will work?” said Gabe.

  “I don’t know. It’s all I can think of.”

  “Even if we get it moving forward it will bottom out on that last mound before the rear wheel comes up over it.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “Well…”

  “Well, what? You designed these things. Aren’t they strong enough to handle some sand?”

  “I think so.”

  “Some physicist you are.”

  “My area of expertise is high-energy plasma, not Martian sand.”

  “Right. Okay, drive.”

  She got in Andy and slowly pulled forward. The rover’s wheels immediately started to dig in.

  “Reverse!” yelled Jeff. “Backup and rock it! If it rolls off backwards, go full throttle backwards. If it goes off forward, hammer down forward!”

  “Don’t yell at me!”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. We just need to get this damn thing out of here.”

  “I understand.” She began rocking the module fore and aft until it finally rolled forward down the mounds.

  “You’ve got it! Full speed ahead!”

  As Gabe pressed the joystick fully forward, Andy lurched and the kitchen module bounced over the last sand mound, and she pulled forward into the flat.

  “Outstanding!” yelled Jeff. “Keep going. You’re clear. Head east toward Main Street and don’t stop until you’re on solid footing.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “As you please.”

  After trudging a quarter mile through Martian sand, Jeff finally caught up with Gabe and stood beside the rover, panting. “You couldn’t find someplace a little closer to stop?”

  “You’ve been in space for seven months, you need the exercise.”

  “Oh, great, now you’re a physical therapist?”

  “I’m multi-talented.”

  He climbed in and buckled up. “No argument there, but I think next time I’m gonna drive.”

  She laughed.

  Jeff pointed south. “Let’s go home.” He switched his radio back to channel one. “Abby, we’re on our way back.”

  “Rog. You get it?”

  “Yeah. Took a bit of work, but we’ve got it. How are you two doing?”

  “We’re just finishing the utility room-commons cross-connect.”

  “You only got two done? Why are they taking so long?”

  “Well, like I said, it goes a lot faster wh
en all of us are working together on these things. But more to the point, we noticed some settling and have been re-leveling most of the habs. Figured we should do that before you got back.”

  “Oh, crap. How much?”

  “Up to two inches in some places. But it’s not consistent, it seems to depend on the depth of the sand before you reach bedrock.”

  “Wow. Um, god, we’re gonna have to keep an eye on that. I’m beginning to wonder if we shouldn’t have found a place where we could site it on a big slab of rock.”

  “Oh god, Jeff, please tell me you’re not thinking about moving this?”

  “Some settling is to be expected,” said Gabe. “As you noticed when we landed, this sand does compress, but it’s not quicksand. Some of those modules have been sitting here for two years, and none of them sank. We just need to check them periodically, it’ll stabilize.”

  “Okay. Well, Abby, there’s your answer. See you in about twenty minutes.”

  “Rog.”

  Upon returning to the station, Gabe backed the kitchen module into the west side between Abby and Susan’s bedrooms. Then they leveled it and removed the wheels, removed the towing tongue, reattached it to the opposite side, and mated it with the commons, then joined Abby and Susan.

  “Okay, that’s that,” said Jeff. “All nine in place. Home sweet home.”

  “Cool,” said Abby. “We’re just about finished with this cross-connect. Why don’t you go pull out another one, and we’ll join you as soon as we’re done.”

  “Rog. Gabe, how about your room?”

  “Fine with me. I’m looking forward to sleeping in a real bed.”

  “You’re not alone.” Jeff stepped up on the tongue connecting Gabe’s bedroom to the commons, opened the hatch, pulled out the cross-connect, and they wrestled it into place. “Hmmm. Abby, you’re right, this a lot harder with only four hands.”

  “Told you so. We’re torqueing the bolts on this one, be there in a minute.”

  Three hours later, all the cross-connects were in place.

  “We’re running low on air,” said Susan.

  “Yeah, I know,” said Jeff. “Why don’t you and Abby climb into the Genesis, Gabe and I’ll close all the hatches and start pressurizing, and when you’re ready, dock the Genesis with the airlock.”