"That's right, my friend."
"Why?" Ashley asked, looking to Peter as though she were just as angry as he felt.
"Because he thought no one knew he had it. He had the HRT sent in on a shuttle after the last redwind accident and one of his Marines installed it for him. He wasn't going to get caught in a redwind. He could have come and rescued you personally except for two good reasons."
"I don't think I want to know," Peter responded truthfully.
"Number one," Francis continued anyway, "he didn't want the colony to know he was the only one with HRT. He ordered his Marine to keep quiet about it. But when one of the techs was doing maintenance on the MAT, she found the forward sensor and traced it back with software. It's hidden in the navigation routine."
"So what's the second reason?" Toon asked.
"Lipton's a certified, card carrying coward. He wouldn't have come out for you in that storm if he were escorted by a thousand dancing girls tossing rose petals under the wheels. Face it, guys, our leader is a lousy transient wimp."
The hatch sprang open momentarily as Geoff bounced into his seat with a bundle of line coiled in his hands.
"Let's head back, team," Francis said. "Keep your pressure suits buttoned up, just in case. Peter, Ashley, see if you can strap yourselves together for the ride back. We only have a single harness for the both of you.”
As he powered up the MAT, the forward console sprang into a brilliant, false color representation of the desert outside. The HRT showed the surrounding terrain as clearly as if there were no storm in progress at all.
"Selfish ass..." Peter began, admiring the display that would have escorted them back with complete safety.
"You're much too kind," Ashley replied.
"Listen, Francis, Geoff," Peter began, "we really don't know how to thank you...."
"Cut it out. You'd have done the same for any of us," Geoff replied sincerely.
Peter sighed and rested back against the seat as Ashley pulled the lap belt snugly around them. With a hiss she plugged their life support systems into the MAT. They only had eight minutes remaining on their personal packs.
Geoff was right; Peter knew he, too, would have come out after his friends. That concept alone painted the clearest distinction between Lipton and the colonists.
Francis and Geoff concentrated on the task of navigating home as the dust cleared from the sky. The atmosphere of Mars was so thin that as the wind velocity dropped lower than aerodynamic support velocity, the dust simply fell out of the sky. Even the smallest particles were lost quickly as there was little in the way of support from the thin atmosphere.
In minutes, the sky rapidly began to lighten, from black to a deep red, finally revealing the full, light-pink Martian atmosphere. Everything here was a part of the learning curve. This storm was a good example. It had been one of the shortest lived redwind on record. Peter was sure Lipton would be prepared to take full advantage of that.
Peter felt Ashley's body press firmly against him. He rested his gloved hands on her leg. She responded by laying her hand gently atop his. He knew the next hour was going to be the most difficult of his life. The colonists all defined survival itself in terms of whether they could make a go of it on Mars. At this moment he did not think the chances of the Colonists in this tiny MAT were very good. And he despised the man who was about to make that choice for them.
2
he MAT carrying the five colonists made its way back to BC1 at its top speed of 60 kilometers per hour. The sun was just beginning to set as the Martian “sol” transitioned into night, but the dust had already completely settled and there was sufficient light to see the well traveled southern trail named "Interstate 3,” more commonly referred to as I3.
Days and nights on Mars were nearly the same as Earth days – but just slightly longer. Each Martian “day” was called a “sol”. It was understood that the word “day” meant an earthy cycle of 24 hours, but the term “sol” referred to the Martian equivalent of 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35.247 seconds. The colony preserved the same time standard of hours, minutes and seconds as on earth, but their clocks just ran a little longer than on earth for each Martian sol.
"MAT1, BC1 control. We've got you in sight now at six kilometers south on I3," radioed the control monitor.
"Roger. We should be dockside, main terminal shortly," Francis replied.
The Director wants to see you in his quarters, right away," the control monitor informed them, his voice heavy with premonition.
A neutral "Copy," was all that Francis would return.
Peter’s mood was black. In his view, a chance to be assigned as a colonist on Mars was one of the highest honors that could be bestowed on any human. Tens of thousands had applied for every one who actually got the nod to go. Even worse yet, no one had ever been fired or removed before. A handful had been unable to adjust and had given up and gone back to earth on their own volition, but no one had ever been fired and shipped back home in disgrace.
Base Camp 1 sprawled out before them across the Martian desert like a reticulated web: planned with careful forethought, uniformly engineered and purposefully executed. The original design consisted of a set of substructures that were to radiate out from the central dome in neatly ordered spokes. As it was constructed, the colony actually survived the demands to constantly change, and the plan retained its proposed regularity over the years of its construction. From the expensive lessons learned in the construction of the first International Space Station, BC1 was designed by an ingenious systems engineering plan that severely penalized politically inspired construction changes while encouraging and richly rewarding coherent system and design improvements.
BC1 had been established on the Elysium plains by the second American expedition to Mars. They left behind the base of their lander and a fair amount of un-recycled waste. Later colonists quickly made good use of the latter and fenced in the lander as a kind of shrine for future generations. It took nearly 50 years to establish a permanent presence on Mars, and BC1 was close enough to the relatively warm equator to have become the prime site for the full time American base of Martian operations.
The ability to survive on this planet long term was only now possible, although it still required periodic re-supplies from earth. The humans that had arrived on Mars determined to stay labeled themselves “colonists” because they had no plans to ever return to their home planet.
There were forty three permanent colonists at BC1, not including the fourteen part-time administrators, miscellaneous visitors and visiting scientists. The numbers varied, give or take a few, dependent on the assigned tasks and status of the supply ships. The population had steadily grown after each earth re-supply mission along with the authorization of more colonists. The restrictions seemed to be slowly
relaxing all along, dependent entirely on re-supply costs, government fiscal commitments and the drive toward the long sought after goal of self sufficiency - the much longed for sol when they would require no more life giving supplies from earth.
The MAT receiving doors of the main terminal gaped open for the vehicle as they neared and centered on the strobing medium queue, now brilliantly flashing in the gathering darkness. Francis dutifully, and according to procedure, turned the simple docking procedure over to the onboard computers. As elementary as such a maneuver was, the cost of repairing even the most simple of damages to a MAT was so overwhelming that no chances were taken at all.
This realization occurred to Peter like a physical blow. He had not even returned with his MAT at all, leaving it ruined in the Martian desert after clearly and unarguably refusing to follow orders and who knew how many procedures. It had been drilled into all of them again and again: procedures and orders are the stuff of life. Unquestioning obedience was equivalent to survival. Peter had failed the test, and now he would face the consequences.
The MAT receiving doors slammed shut behind them and the air rushed into the airlock. As the standard blue PRESS OK l
ights glowed on the outer panel, Francis cracked the door valve and a final hiss signaled the pressure had been equalized.
The window outside the airlock was crowded with faces. Peter could see Fabian Gorteau, the Nobel Prize winning physicist standing at the front of the group which seemed to be made up exclusively of colonists. One lone face, however, was not that of a colonist, but one of Lipton's Marine guards.
Francis turned around to face them. No one outside or in had made a move to open the doors. "Listen," he began, "we're all in this together, got it Peter? We’re in this as a team. Let me handle Sir Thomas,” he said, using the irreverent nick-name they had hung on Lipton.
"No, wait, Francis, no," Peter said. "I made all the decisions, and you only came out to fix what I started. There’s no way you’re going to take the rap for this, period - you, Geoff, Ashley or Toon. I take full responsibility."
"Sorry, but Francis is right. We’re a team," Geoff insisted.
"That's right," Toon added.
Peter felt Ashley squeeze his hand tightly as he reflected on how quickly things had spiraled out of control.
BC1 Leader Lassiter Lipton had been appointed to his job as a political favor by the previous U.S. president. When "the other" party came to power just prior to launch of the colony from earth, it was much too late to replace Lipton. He had already sunk too many fingers into the political and scientific pies of the mission. Yet, with no specific scientific credentials, he was clearly unqualified for the job. Lipton made an attempt to cover this by personally hiring a group of "scientific advisors.” These so-called advisors turned out to be a lawyer who specialized in space treaties, a nutritionist friend-of-a-friend who brilliantly erected a diet program empire, and a real estate whiz who had contributed royally to the President's ill-fated reelection attempt but was a veritable prodigy at cultivating his own connections. Although powerful, Lipton was becoming the controversial meat of the invisible but formidable Washington social circle gossip.
Lipton's selection of his odd gang was not quite so popular in the scientific community. Fortunately, Lipton offset his initial error by acquiescing to the National Academy of Sciences whom he allowed to select the colony department heads; a decision he quickly regretted.
Yet when it came to manipulating the bureaucracy, Lipton had no equal on either planet. He could name his price or call any shot by adroit manipulation of the system or simply by stalling it. He had no peer when it came to maneuvering with under the table politics, or funding. Only the threat of exposing his own lack of technical knowledge successfully steered Lipton clear of the science of the colony. Sorely tempted as he was to make his own inroads into the mission's scientific objectives, he was intelligent enough to keep a watchful distance. Recognizing this, the true scientific contingent of the mission was able to somehow secure their end of things and keep him out whenever possible. It was an uneasy, unspoken truce, and a very unstable one at that.
When the pair of colonists panicked in a redwind and tumbled to their deaths off a Martin cliff, a newly inaugurated Administration in Washington quickly took action to fire a full volley at Lipton in an undisguised attempt to force his resignation. Lipton, in true character, chose to draw on political favors and pull various strings until the pressure stopped. This left his personal culpability essentially unchallenged. He saw the scientific cadre as responsible not only for the accident but guilty for not coming to his defense. Isolating the administrative arm from the scientific branch had created gross rifts in the colony, and both sides were guilty. Unfortunately, the colony was thus rendered unstable both politically and administratively.
Lipton’s decisions became conservative and self protective in the extreme. Up to now they had affected only the bureaucratic end. Lives had not been endangered by his ongoing, personal quest for more control and political security. But the stakes had been raised and everyone’s hand called in. Unfortunately, now it was Lipton who held the trump.
Peter watched from his seat in the crowded MAT as Fabian Gorteau finally made the first move and opened the airlock door. As it swung away, he stepped into the airlock and popped the canopy on the MAT. The Marine guard moved in closely behind him, following right on his heels.
Gorteau stopped in his tracks, then swung around and faced the young, fresh-faced Marine. "Son, you are interfering with this procedure," he said sternly, aiming his entire polished, professorial demeanor toward the Marine over his bushy eyebrows. "Please, step out of the airlock."
The Marine looked momentarily intimidated. Then he collected himself and replied in an artificially deepened voice, "I have orders to escort this party to the Director’s office without delay."
"Yes, son, and so you shall," Gorteau assured him. "But not before the scientific community of this colony assures ourselves that this party is in good health. Now if you'll kindly step out of this area, I give you my word you shall have the pleasure of their escort in a few moments hence."
The Marine started to respond, looked over his shoulder at the others, then backed away. "I'll be waiting at the main passageway," he replied, trying not to look intimidated.
"Thank you, corporal," Gorteau said patiently as the Marine walked away, then offered his hand to those in the MAT and assisted them out.
Peter was the last out, and Gorteau seemed to be waiting for him. For a moment, Peter feared it would be Gorteau to fire the first volley. Gorteau was the president of the International Union of Planetary Scientists and a member of nearly every other major scientific body on earth. He was also elected to be the spokesman for the colony scientific cadre, a position he held without rival or competition.
"My boy, we are happy to see you alive," he said to Peter, embracing him. "You did the only thing you could do under the circumstances, and all of us give proper thanks to God for your safe return." He stepped back and looked reflectively at the five of them coated with Martian dust. With their helmets off, their faces were streaked with sweat and red dust, and they were all obviously fatigued. Gorteau felt a wave of sympathy for them.
"I am afraid that you are about to walk into the most convoluted, illogical, politically motivated thrashing you have ever had to endure. And I am fearful that something professionally tragic will probably come about as a result of all this in the short term. Lipton has been waiting for some happenstance to reduce the prestige of the colony's scientific team, and I am afraid this is going to be his golden opportunity. I can do nothing to stop whatever reproof he may levy on you, but I can promise you that we shall fight it for all we are worth. And I can also tell you that if he returns any of you to earth, that you have my word that you shall be reinstated here at a subsequent date, and I will stake my personal reputation on that promise!" he said resolutely, slapping his fist into his palm.
Then Gorteau looked into Peter's eyes and grasped the neck ring on his suit, tugging it toward him. "Now go on and listen to the oddest collection of pathetic logic you will ever hear strung together in a single discourse. But also remember that his wretched wisdom has little meaning in the long term, and that, after all, the truth has always, and shall always, endure. We are with you all in spirit."
Peter sighed and forced a thin smile as he answered, "Thank you, sir,” truly moved by this level of support. Although he was in his mid sixties and Peter half that age, somehow the age and wisdom of Gorteau seemed substantially greater.
The crowd of colonists that had managed to squeeze into the airlock applauded at Gorteau's speech. But Peter realized it was Lipton who stood directly in the way of independence for all of them.
True self sufficiency from this tyranny was the only way the colonists secretly believed they could relax the strangle-hold of government bureaucracy on their lives. The permanent colonists viewed the overwhelming number of regulations as unnecessary and intrusive. Yet their lives were entirely dependent on re-supply from Earth every two years. A study initiated by the colonists themselves had projected when the colony would become self sufficient: some t
en Martian years ahead. The two central issues cited in the non-political Bronson - Chaikin
Report were energy and water, without which the colony periodically literally ran down. With enough water and energy, the colony could produce all the oxygen, crops and raw materials they required to cut their links with the re-supply ships. Of course, as all colonists of history had discovered, the doors of trade would be necessary and welcome as a factor in the quality of their lives. But the Mars colonists were feeling the uncomfortable encroachment of a massive, earthly bureaucracy breathing constantly down their necks. The focal point of that complaint was Lassiter Lipton.
No single colonist really thought much about independence in the political sense, but they longed for the ability to govern themselves as an independent organization. They looked forward to the sol when they at last waved a long good-bye to the likes of Lipton and his entourage and got on about the business of developing their own rules to live by. Lipton was not so much a tyrant as he was a symbol for their lack of autonomy, as individuals and as a colony. Lipton represented the chain that shackled them to earth. He represented the central threat to their ultimate permanence.
Few colonists cared whether or not they were called U.S. citizens. They all had loving memories of their country, but it was hundreds of millions of kilometers away in a long, sweeping interplanetary orbit and they had long since left the earth for good. Now they were first generation Martians and they were fiercely proud of that.
It was that very thought process that forced the rift in BC1. The U.S. government had set aside separate housing for the colonists, so that they were each assigned their own living units. These were constructed apart from the temporary administrators and visitors quarters. Inadvertently or not, this caused the two groups to develop socially isolated viewpoints. Though there were notable exceptions to this, principally among visiting scientists and the colonists, the two groups usually went to great lengths to remain apart. The only common meeting places were generally the offices and laboratories. Even here there was back-biting and resentment between groups. The personnel officer, Lisa McConnel, herself a "transient" (this was the kindest term the colonists used for the temporary personnel) was constantly engaged in mediating disputes between the groups.
Mars Wars - Abyss of Elysium Page 4