by Paul Reaver
“Sounds good,” said Mark.
“As far as the dome is concerned,” said Gorev, “we will monitor the temperature inside, and when we have reached 50 degrees Fahrenheit, we’ll plant the seeds. We could do it at a lower temperature, but the seeds will grow more quickly if it is warmer. And as indicated earlier, our Martian knowledge of plants includes a way to accelerate plant growth.”
“One other thing I wanted to mention,” continued Gorev, “is that we built the dome so that it can be made less transparent up to the point of being opaque. We did this to be able to control the Sun’s rays in case they increase the temperature inside the dome too much. We also installed an airlock on the south end of the dome, so that equipment and people can enter and exit if needed without disturbing the atmosphere too much. We expect that teleportation will take care of most of the movement of people and equipment in and out of the dome, but we thought it would be good to have a secondary point of entry and egress, especially for large objects such as equipment.”
John said, “I must say, that in all of my experience, I have never seen such outstanding progress in this many diverse projects that combine to form such a primary central goal. There are usually at least several significant obstacles of error to overcome. We did have some situations that we had to deal with, but they were relatively minor. And each team had at least one or two reasonably significant changes in their projects. Jenore, Kirlin, and I served as a consulting team to manage these changes. The two examples just expressed by Gorev, the ability to change the translucence of the dome, and the airlock, were both situations that we discussed with them. We did the same with the other teams. I believe that has been what made this project so successful.
“Gorev and Mark, I know you have a meeting planned after this one concludes. It is paramount that you proceed with getting the dome ready as soon as you can. And to clarify what Gorev said, none of you is going to live in the dome initially. In fact, no one is going to live in it initially. We have to make sure the atmosphere and temperature and all the other indispensable things are stable. Once we’ve established that, you can live in the dome and teleport back and forth between here and the dome as needed. In addition to our teams living in the domes, Jenore and Kirlin are going to awaken some of the Martians that are in stasis to live there as well. Although we will have tested it, we want to make sure that everything is working as it should.
“Kirlin, Jenore, and I are giving the green light to continue with all of the projects. We need to do everything it takes to get the dome ready for habitation, so we should concentrate on our detailed agenda and move forward.” He smiled. “We want to avoid any stops if at all possible, so let’s meet at 9:00 tomorrow morning and touch base on where we are and our next steps. That’s the primary goal of our meeting. If we can avoid any obstacles that halt our progress, I know we can progress quickly. Tomorrow, Jenore is going to wake up some of the Martians who will inhabit the dome so they can have time to prepare themselves.
“Let’s call it a day. We’ll meet tomorrow morning. I, for one, am very excited about this. I think all of you are, too. I will see everyone tomorrow.”
The group dispersed and went their separate ways. There were some of the teammates who left together, obviously discussing tomorrow’s meeting. As always, John saw this as a very positive sign.
Chapter 34
John woke the next day in a very positive frame of mind. He went through his morning ablutions and such and then made a small breakfast. His thoughts were on the meeting. He knew that all of the team members would contribute to their game plan such that no piece was out of place. That’s just what he wanted. As he had expressed in the meeting yesterday afternoon, he was amazed at the overall extremely positive outcome of everyone’s efforts. Such was the reason for his positive frame of mind. As far as creating their plan, he saw everyone as pieces of a puzzle. The team members all fit a role, some more specific than others. They had the framework knowledge, and they knew what they needed to do. He, Kirlin, and Jenore had the experience to help them make a smooth journey toward their goal. Even though it was a bit early, he decided to head to the conference room.
As usual, it turned out that he was not the only eager one. Several other people were already in the meeting room, including Kirlin and Jenore. The three of them held a private telepathic conversation until the rest of the team arrived. Their discussion was along the same lines as John’s earlier thoughts; all three were very positive about the things to come.
Once everyone had arrived, Kirlin said, “Now that we have done some preliminary work with the dome, we would like to go around the room to each sub-team and gather your knowledge and thoughts on the contributions they will make to the terraforming project. We want to add our notes from this meeting into our mission plan for the domes. As we discussed before, we created a step-by-step master plan, but we knew there would have to be updates made to it. The updates have to be as detailed as is needed so that every step is clear. Some steps will be more inclusive and larger than others; they will be more self-explanatory. Some will have to be small and very detailed so that we don’t miss anything. And I expect that we will not be able to put together a complete plan today. It will probably take several days or more. We not only need a list of the steps we will take; we will need an exact timetable of the steps, especially the ones that need to dovetail together.”
Kirlin’s statement about the time it would take to revise their plan turned out to be prophetic. It took four days of all-day meetings to produce a step-by-step, updated set of instructions. They had checked and rechecked all the steps. There were rewrites, information added and deleted, and some conversational differences of opinion along the way. But ultimately, they knew they had covered everything in the deep layer of detail that they wanted. They all knew they could never have a completely bullet-proof plan, as things would change as they went along. This ability to coherently update their plans as they progressed was exactly what they were looking for, and exactly what they needed.
The next day, they pushed forward to complete the first dome and make it habitable.
Chapter 35
For the various teams, the time it took to finish the completion of the dome – three weeks and two days – seemed to pass as if it were only a couple of days. They were all now gathered in the main conference room.
Kirlin said, “It is hard to believe that we have actually completed the first dome, and it only exists due to the diligence and hard work of the people in this room. Congratulations to all of you for creating the first step along the path to bring Mars back to life. John, Jenore, and I have arranged a shuttle to take us to the dome for our first visit as the entire team. We were waiting for a week to pass before we took this step to make sure the dome was performing as expected. From all of our monitoring, everything is working as planned.
“I know we have all seen parts of it; some of us have seen most of it. But none of us have seen it all in its completed state. Would you all please follow me to the hangar?”
She got up and entered the corridor, turning toward the shuttle bay. The others followed. When they had reached the alcove that provided access to the shuttle area, Kirlin pressed a button next to a hefty bulkhead-style door approximately 10 feet wide that slid up into the ceiling and granted entry to a room that looked like an airlock. Once everyone was in the room, she pressed another button that closed the door. She walked across the room and pressed a button next to a door that was a twin to the first one, and this one also slid up into the ceiling to reveal a rather astonishingly large enclosed hangar. This was no surprise to the other Martians, of course, but to the humans, it was much more than they expected.
As if she were reading their minds (she wasn’t, not without permission), she said, “It might seem extravagant to use the amount of air it takes to pressurize an area this large. But since we have very few people using it, and only occupying it occasionally, once we pressurized it the air remains stable. We don’t
have to refresh it regularly, and if the content falls below the required amount of one of the atmospheric components, such as oxygen or nitrogen, we refresh only that component. Otherwise, it acts as a storage area for air. As you have seen, the air here in the hangar is isolated from the air in the rest of the facility. We use airlocks for any crafts entering or leaving the hangar, so very little air is lost when a vehicle is deployed or returns. Also, we built this area to hold a great deal more air- and space-capable vehicles than you see. That was another goal for which we ran out of time, but at least we managed to get a number of the most appropriate vehicles relocated here. The rest are still in various underground hangars and are available if we need them. The mid-sized shuttle you see to the right of the one with the wings in the folded-up position down on the tarmac is our transportation for this trip.”
They all headed toward the vehicle with Kirlin leading the way. All of the Earth people gazed in awe at all the complex and sophisticated craft in the hangar, especially the one they were going to board. Its fuselage was made up of curved lines and rounded shapes. It looked as much like a work of art as it did a spacecraft. The other vehicles in the hangar were similarly designed with an eye to form as much as function. The impression of them was “otherworldly” because, of course, they were!
When they got close to the shuttle they were going to use, John and his team could begin to gauge the size of the craft. John estimated its dimensions were approximately 150 feet long, 50 feet tall, and 50 feet wide. Though it had a rounded nose rather than a pointed one, it nonetheless was very aerodynamic-looking, reminding him somewhat of the shuttles Earth used to service the International Space Station some years ago. However, the similarity ended there. The rest of the fuselage behind it flowed quickly to full size with an oval shape, progressing to a flared tail that probably housed the shuttle’s propulsion engines. On each side was what looked like a small wing. John thought they were likely to be navigational thrusters; they were too small to be wings.
The craft appeared to be sitting directly on the tarmac, but it just sat very low. Kirlin had led them to the side of the shuttle about a third of the way back from the nose. Suddenly, a door opened and folded down to the ground as a ramp for egress to the interior. This startled the Earth people a bit, because prior to the door opening, there had been no seam to indicate its existence. And although they did not know this, when the door closed, there would again be no seam. The people from Earth boarded first and immediately began to survey the vehicle’s interior. It was quite roomy, and looking forward to the front, they could see the cockpit and front windows. The interior itself was similar to the exterior. As though an artist had built it, curves and smooth lines dominated the design. Even the seats echoed this impression. They seemed oddly shaped, but this was because the Martians had designed them to protect their occupants during rough travel, whatever the reason. Each seat could wrap around the person sitting on it cocoon-like if necessary as a shield from harm. Probably the most striking feature was not what the cockpit had, but what it lacked: there were no arrays of displays and controls. Yet somehow, the area did not look simple; it appeared very sophisticated. The entire interior looked sophisticated.
Kirlin said, “For those of you from Earth, I wanted to point out the apparent lack of features in the cockpit. It appears as though there are no controls or read-outs. You have quite likely discerned the reason for this. Everything is controlled telepathically. The pilot and co-pilot can activate an actual heads-up display if they so desire. Most do not. They prefer to receive that information telepathically as well. However, device failures happen, whether a part burns out, is damaged from turbulence, or stops working for some other reason. If the telepathic transmitter and receiver from the controls stop functioning, we have to revert to physical controls and displays. Here, let me show you.”
She walked up to the console between the two pilot seats and pressed a button on the top. It didn’t look like a button, but it was touch-sensitive. When she pressed it, several panels in the cockpit area slid away to reveal a multitude of switches and displays. For each of the two cockpit seats, a steering control device unfolded from under the dashboard. They positioned themselves in front of each seat so the pilot and co-pilot could guide the craft manually. This surprised John and his team, but they could also see that they were a necessity, as Kirlin explained.
“It is not a common thing to have to do this,” she said. “But there have been rare occasions when pilots had to go to manual control. We had some of the designers who built the first telepathically-controlled craft argue that the optional manual controls were not necessary. Other engineers insisted that they were. The first time we had a failure in the telepathic interface on a ship, we were glad that the engineers that wanted the manual option prevailed.
“This ship primarily uses a gravity propulsion system similar to yours. We also have photon rocket engines that allow us to approach the speed of light during interstellar travel. We build most of our vehicles in this way. Some of our spacecraft use fusion propulsion in place of the gravity drive, a type of propulsion that I believe that you call impulse drive on Earth, although there it is considered science fiction. We Martians applaud you and your team, John. You have surpassed your science fiction to make it science fact in many ways with the trip you have made to Mars.”
She paused and then said, “Everyone, please be seated, and we’ll take off in a few minutes.”
Kirlin sat down in the pilot’s seat, with Jenore taking the co-pilot position. Kirlin pressed another button on the console, and the covering panels for the controls slid back into place. Although she could have left them open, she was used to flying without the manual controls. A look of concentration came over her face as she mentally prepared the craft for flight.
“Ok,” she said after several minutes. “We will be taking off now.”
The shuttle lifted horizontally to a height of about ten feet, and then slowly began to move forward. The cabin’s side windows were large, elongated rectangles that ran uninterrupted along the entire exterior walls in the cabin, offering a panoramic view on both sides of the ship. Everyone could also see out the large front cockpit windows as well. Soon it became evident that they were approaching a massive metal door, obviously made for entry and egress of the various Martian craft through an airlock, and it was rising upwards to open as they approached it. The humans mentally cringed; they expected a huge “whoosh” of escaping air because the airlock door now appeared open. However, there was no change at all. When they reached the opening, the door seemed to be gone, but the area that it had previously covered shimmered faintly but noticeably.
“Since we normally keep the metal airlock door closed, we have raised a force field in its place,” said Kirlin. “When we know we are about to exit or enter, our ship sends a signal to the airlock computer control to activate the force field and raise the door. This is convenient, and it saves time by not having to wait for the metal door to open and close. We have chosen not to risk a force field failure by leaving it in place continuously, so we keep the metal door closed until a ship is ready to go through the airlock. In addition, the force field draws a large amount of power to function. The metal airlock door does not, and its function is virtually guaranteed. Also, our craft can fly through the force field without having to drop it, and there is no compromise to the seal.”
Sure enough, when they got close enough to the airlock, everyone could see the Martian landscape ahead through the transparent force field. The shuttle flew through the field without even a bump and began to climb.
“Ranella had mentioned in one of our meetings that before the CME destroyed our orbiting devices, we kept them cloaked so they not be seen by anyone other than Martians. The cloaking also applies to any new satellites and to any Martian artifact on the surface. Therefore, the shuttle we are in now is cloaked. If you look behind us, you’ll see that the airlock door is cloaked.”
Everyone looked back, and sur
e enough, the hill from which they had exited was featureless.
Kirlin said, “We should reach the dome in about ten minutes.”
The shuttle was on a low trajectory. All of the people from Earth were gazing out the front and side windows to take in the terrain. Soon they could see the dome in the distance. As they approached, details from the inside of the dome became clear. Low-growing, dark-leaved plants occupied the majority of the dome. This was as they had planned it; the darkness of the plants would help to attract heat to warm the inside of the dome. There were also some trees since the plan was to experiment with growing other plants to create diversity with the plant life.
The shuttle flew around to the far side of the dome and toward the airlock. The airlock was easy to see because it was metal, and being a giant mechanism, it stood out against the transparency of the dome. As with the airlock door at the Martian base, the metal door was already open, and a force field protected the dome’s atmosphere. Kirlin flew through the force field into the dome and toward a landing pad on the right. The ship sat down smoothly.
“We have not done anything too sophisticated inside the dome,” said Kirlin, “other than the living quarters. They are not very far from here, and we can walk and follow a path to reach them.”
The primary thing that everyone noticed after disembarking the shuttle was that the atmosphere and temperature seemed just like Earth’s. There was absolutely no difficulty in breathing and no peculiar odors. However, they were aware of the faint smell of the vegetation, although the odor was pleasant and seemed normal for being in a quasi-greenhouse. No one had any special clothing on. The Martians told them that it would not be necessary, and it wasn’t. They also prepared for an ambient temperature of 75 degrees Fahrenheit per the Martians’ advice, and that’s exactly what it seemed to be. So far, the dome’s environment had met the goals set for it. Kirlin led the way down a path that appeared to be stucco, but of course, the actual material was much more durable. The trail was bordered on each side by the dark green plants, and they stretched without any break as far as the eye could see, with two exceptions: when the plants met the edge of the dome, and when they met groves of trees which were scattered here and there. One such grove of trees was directly in front of them, and the path took them straight into it. The plants were not too surprising to the people from Earth. Though the plants had rather large tubular leaves, and only grew to a height of about two feet, the diversity of plants on Earth had prepared them for just about anything. The trees were also nothing like the type found on Earth. They looked like a cross between an evergreen tree and a deciduous tree, and the trunks did not look like trunks. Instead, they looked like strong gnarled branches winding around each other. They appeared to grow to an average height of about seventy-five to a hundred feet. The foliage was thick and blocked the view of whatever was on the other side, and they were planted close enough to one another that there was no view between them either. After walking a short distance, the path turned sharply left up ahead. Abigail, the first Terran in the line, audibly gasped when she turned the corner. The rest of the group surged forward to see the cause of her reaction.