by WADE, T I
The days began to drag. Production of air ceased once the second shield was filled. It had taken 18 months of work, and they hoped to harvest the first crops before DX2017 was visited.
Mars Noble made a suggestion that saved many of the crew’s lives. At the time, it was just a suggestion. He thought it a good idea to use some of the valuable fuel to do two extra water trips. The reason was that some of them were working on a second hydrogen-fuel-making laboratory, and with more water, they could increase the production of fuel for the five weeks between visiting DX2017 and the departure of the rest of the crew.
Igor and Ryan didn’t see a need for more water. It seemed a waste of precious fuel, and five weeks could only produce 100 maybe 200 gallons, about the same fuel it would take to retrieve the water.
VIN, Boris and Jonesy were on Mars’s side. The young man was now an adult, ready to marry Saturn Jones, but they, as well as many others, had elected to wait and get married on Earth, not in space. They couldn’t have children for a while anyway, so there was not a big rush to marry. VIN thought that extra water was always a good idea. He had often learned the lesson of water while as a Marine in the desert of Iraq many years earlier.
Jonesy thought that every hour of flight for four of the new astronauts was important, and for two months Igor, who was still in charge of the base, refused to allow the waste of fuel.
Finally, Ryan made the decision, under pressure from his family to override Igor, explaining to his best friend that within a few months young Mars Noble and Lunar Richmond would be in command of the base while the old people slept on DX2017 and he thought it prudent to allow them to lead, and make some decisions.
Four tons of water was collected from the deep crater. It was climbing out of the high crater walls and over the lip of the deep crater that a storm was seen following the two craft. Jonesy was, as usual, in SB-III’s copilot seat, and one of the Burgos daughters was having her 30 minutes of flight practice, when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a dust cloud out of the side window.
“SB-II, we have our old friend back, the storm. Increase speed to 3,000 knots and increase cruise height to 10,000 feet, over.”
“Copy that,” replied young Pluto Katherine, flying the second ship under Allen Saunders’s exacting eyes.
They rose and headed back to base. Jonesy began to worry. This storm was different. It was still following them and actually rose higher than their 10,000 foot altitude. He ordered both craft in formation to complete a 360 degree turn to starboard, and they were shocked to see the extent of the dust cloud about 100 miles behind them. It seemed to cover the whole planet.
“SB-III to base, we have a storm following us. A doozy. I suggest you move all craft and equipment possible into the atmospheric shields. Winds look over 500 miles an hour, height of storm 12,000 feet. I’ve never seen anything like this one.”
“Roger, thanks for the advanced warning,” replied Boris, who was on the radio. They had prepared all the craft for departure. The other four craft had their belly cargo pods on and looked like beached whales. Jonesy knew that the three mining craft were inside the third shield. There was room for SB-II and SB-III in one of the two shields, and their pods could be moved by a dozen crewmembers with the light gravity. They needed to be inside the atmospheric shields for the crews to work on them without having to wear spacesuits. That was a waste of air. Their pods were on trolleys ready to attach them back to the two returning shuttles. With 600 miles to go, there was enough time to prepare for a windstorm.
The base had gone through many storms, and thanks to still having the three shields, everything that would have been damaged outside was protected by the shields. Also, without the early warnings from America One anymore, the crew was prepared for swiftness if a storm neared. Two of the cameras, from the last visit to the Israelis, had been placed on top of the crater directly above the base and gave them about 30 minutes warning of any approaching storm.
By the time the young pilots brought the two shuttles in, they were directed to land right on top of the new vegetables in Shield Two.
Most storms blew themselves out within a week or two, and the legs of the shuttles didn’t hurt the plants any more than the thrusters on light thrust. Two months had been the longest dust storm to date, and through that one two years earlier, the base still had scratchy communications with America One.
At that time, the mother ship had explained to them that the storm was like a hurricane that just didn’t move, was centered 100 or so miles to their west, and just swirled week after week. The physics team had decided that it was due to a possible sun flare, or a physical blast from the sun that had formed the storm.
After dark, the latest storm hit, and this time it was felt as it tore the areas outside the shields apart. Jonesy had been about right; the winds were about 500 miles an hour. After several minutes, they lost the camera view from above and the crew hunkered down to spend a week or two in a dust storm.
“Dr. Rogers, please give us your latest findings on how to freeze us old people, who are part mechanical, part human, into cryogenic sleep for thirteen years,” said Ryan the next morning of the doctor over a parsley and mint tea. The astronauts, and the group of people who had accepted the possibility of cryogenic sleep, were together to learn about what they were about to go through.
The coffee was gone, every bean of it, and it was nothing more than a fond memory in Ryan’s mind. So was his left arm a fond memory, which still felt like it was still there every now and again. He now knew how VIN had felt getting his new legs all those years ago, and now the poor guy was virtually three quarters metal.
“Most of what we have learned was given to us by our good friend Dr. Nancy before she died aboard America One,” he began. “As many of us know, it is the freezing of the human body extremely fast to extremely low temperatures. Dr. Nancy and I spoke extensively to every one of the Matts we saved from the cabinets around the solar system, and they all gave us the same descriptions. First of all, the human body can only do it once in a lifetime. The Matts learned that pretty quickly, so don’t get hooked on wanting to try it again. We expect to be woken close to Earth in 13 years, 47 days and 12 hours from when we open the nitrogen tanks aboard DX2017. Martha and I will be also sleeping with you guys. Our younger members, Dr. Walls and several assistants are being prepped to bring us out of our cryogenic sleep. As the Matts have perfected, and thanks to those aliens we destroyed a while ago, long-term cryopreservation, the correct description, can be achieved by cooling our bodies to near 77.15 Kelvin, the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The Matt technique, as we have seen researching the systems we can understand, is virtually flawless. Each one of us will be given a sedative. A powerful sedative that will slow our bodies down in breathing and heartbeat to near death levels. Once that is attained, our noses, throat and ears will be plugged. Don’t worry, you won’t notice it. A strong dose of pure oxygen is piped into the lungs just before the throat and nose plugs are inserted.
“This gives the body and the team seven minutes to get the body down to the cold conditions, where further oxygen intake is unnecessary by the body for survival. We give you the pure oxygen, the plug is inserted, the lid of the cabinet closes and the large button on the control panel, or on the cabinet itself, is pressed. Our tests show that the cabinet reaches freezing in 5 seconds and what we call cryonic freezing in three minutes. So the whole process takes about three of the seven minutes.”
“Sounds chilly,” said Jonesy. Dr. Rogers smiled.
“To return the body to temperature, several changes take place, and lastly, the whole cabinet vibrates, which we believe makes sure that no two cells are stuck together, the veins and arteries around the entire body are open and that the heart begins to circulate blood again. What happens below minus 100 degrees Celsius we cannot tell, except that if left alone, the system returns the body from 77.15 Kelvin to normal body temperature automatically. For the last couple of minutes, the body goes through
certain wakening shocks, like the vibrating, until the cabinet slides out of the wall area and the top part of the cabinet pops open. We had several of the children walk out of the chamber by themselves. It is possible to reach in and take your throat plug out by yourselves. The same with your nose and ear plugs. They told us that they were taught this in case there was nobody there when they awoke. So y’all will be taught the same way.”
“How cold is 77 Kelvin?’ asked Maggie.
“In Celsius, minus 196 degrees; Fahrenheit, minus 321 degrees, Maggie,” Dr. Rogers replied.
“That is cold,” remarked Jonesy.
“And don’t try to take a jug of alcohol with you, Jonesy,” joked the good doctor. “It is far too cold to try and drink it on your journey.”
“The Matt chambers are only five feet long. How are us taller guys going to fit?” asked VIN. “And will Ryan’s and my mechanical legs and arms still work?”
“Two good questions, VIN. We have studied all your bodies. For anybody over five feet tall and under five feet eleven inches, we will be placed on our backs as the others, but with our knees bent and our feet placed below our buttocks. There is enough room for our bent knees between the sleeping area and the top door of the cabinet, one exact foot. We even squashed Jonesy into one of the chambers down here, and he is the only one that has to be positioned lying on his right side with his lower legs bent behind his upper legs. Dr. Walls will arrange his legs and everybody else’s legs once we are under medication and our legs are soft and supple. A tight squeeze for some, yes, but we have no choice.
“VIN, we have already tested your arms before we gave them to you. The mechanics and lithium batteries worked perfectly, except that the batteries will need an immediate charge when Dr. Walls brings you and Ryan round. We needed to modify the skin layer, as it became brittle once it was warmed up again. Any special instructions will be placed if necessary on each chamber.”
“We must have speeded up the system when we brought Commander Roo and Tow back to life,” said VIN. “That only took three hours.”
“Yes, there are two timing systems that can be activated,” replied Dr. Rogers. “If the system senses that something is wrong, or it is being tampered with from outside, it has an emergency three-hour mode. All we can suggest is that it is an emergency release system, and is far more dangerous to attempt than the correct twelve-hour sequence of returning one to the present.”
For many it was fascinating. For Jonesy, he wondered what he had to go through just to be young enough to go fishing. He should have stayed with Bob Mathews.
The storm went on and on. Thanks to the natural light spectrum of the shield walls, the crops grew better than if they were in the weak Martian sunlight. The crew stayed fit and waited. They watched movies for the umpteenth time, and every way possible was thought out to give substance to every day the storm continued.
A month passed, then two. The time to meet DX2017 was nearing, and hydrogen fuel was produced as fast as the two liquid hydrogen plants could make it.
As the storm went into its third month, Ryan began to worry about losing the window of opportunity to reach DX2017. With the limited fuel reserves, even though they now had a little extra, there wasn’t much wiggle room.
It wasn’t hard to want to be back on Earth, and the loss of his beloved dream with his ship had changed Ryan more than his crew realized. Soldiers say that every man can be broken, and Ryan was pretty close to that point. Even though he had a perfect family, a beautiful wife, and two perfect and beautiful young female astronauts as daughters, something inside him was missing. Maybe it was the will to go on, or just that apart from family life there wasn’t any fire flaring up in the hearth inside him anymore.
Jonesy was waiting. The death of both his parents had changed him as well. Like Ryan, he had a beautiful family, more than he had ever imagined possible in his life. Maybe it was the alcohol meant for the Matt craft, or what, but his fire would never die. He just wanted to go fishing, and daily wondered how his buddy Bob Mathews was doing.
VIN was VIN. His ideas about life didn’t change much. He was one of those guys that could always see the good in life, no matter what, and shook it by the throat. The only two things eating into the Marine were aging and the continuous loss of body parts.
His new arm was strong. Left-handed, he could arm wrestle anybody, even his son who was growing stronger by the day. He became an expert in chess during the four month, three week, two day storm, beating Suzi, who used to nail his Queen every game. The connection to his new mechanics still tingled, and sometimes he woke up during the sleep periods thinking that his arm was back, somehow tied onto his upper arm. When this happened he usually went back to sleep smiling. His legs had done the same for years.
Chapter 23
DX2017
Finally it happened. One day there was a dust storm, and one day there wasn’t. The storm had gone, and the sun could be seen through the shields as the biologists and gardeners went out to tend the two shield gardens.
Many breathed sighs of relief, as they still had a five-day window to leave the red planet to catch DX2017, which had already gone past and was slowly orbiting away toward Jupiter and Saturn. Ryan gave orders to leave within six hours.
The departing crew were ready. They had been for weeks now. SB-III as usual was the elected craft, its belly pod already affixed, and Jonesy’s pregnant-looking shuttle looked large and ungainly in the Martian sunlight.
Several crewmembers were already in spacesuits and clearing away the Martian dust as Jonesy, Maggie and Saturn headed out for preflight checks. Jonesy was desperate to get away from the cabin fever of the base. The red Martian dust had sunk down the sides of the shields, and once the wind had dissipated, had gently passed through the walls. With the strong wind, the swirling dust and stones hit the shields hard and were repelled, but once the movement of the dust softened, it began to slowly slip through.
Jonesy noticed at least two feet of dust piled up around the inner shield walls during this storm, more than ever before. The mining robots were made operational, and they cleaned up the piles of dust.
Forty of the crew were going now that one shuttle could take so many. Nobody knew how many sleep chambers there were on DX2017. VIN had only seen twelve, but Commander Joot had told them that he knew that there was the chance the Ruler was still asleep, which meant as VIN had suggested on past visits that there could be a second room of cryogenic cabinets below the first. It certainly wasn’t anywhere else. Also if the Ruler was there, that meant that there was another Matt craft in the planet, and Ryan, since he had so much time to think during the storm, had ideas to use it to get his people home.
The crew had drunk half the remaining alcohol when Ryan stopped their daily routine of a few tots per person. He was also enjoying the rocket fuel. They had 48 gallons left, and he hoped that the supplies left inside DX2017 were still usable. 48 gallons of fuel wouldn’t get it back to Earth, but that and a full tank might if it was connected to one of the shuttles. The extra might be needed to reenter Earth’s atmosphere. Ryan still had thousands of gallons of the stuff underground in Nevada.
Both doctors and Nurse Martha were going along. Over the last couple of years, they had taught several of the NextGen girls basic medicine. Unfortunately, their only son, Jacob Rogers, who was destined to be the next doctor, had died in the attack, but they still had six of the NextGen girls under the leadership of Joanne Dithers Roo, who could aid any sick or hurt in an emergency.
Every member of the first odyssey was ready and an hour later began climbing into the three crew compartments. A small amount of provisions, three months’ supply of food and water for thirty, and the tanks of liquid nitrogen to replace the tanks on the planet were already packed into the compartments. Several of the crew would have sit and sleep on them.
Goodbyes and tears abounded as the parents said their goodbyes and left their children. The NextGens were under the new base and flight leadership of Mars N
oble, Lunar Richmond and Saturn Jones. It was their job to get the youngsters back to Earth.
At twenty years old, the new team were ready for the mission; perhaps not as experienced as their parents, but ready to take over command.
None of the Matts could go, as they had already been frozen once, but they lived much longer than the Tall People, and as Jonesy had complained, still had many years of fishing before them.
SB-III filled up with crew, her tanks were full, and DX2017 would be a thirty-hour flight away once they left Mar’s orbit.
Ryan looked back at The Martian Club Retreat for the last time, as it was his turn to enter the shuttle. His eyes were wet as he looked back at what he had built, the first outpost for mankind, and was saddened that once again warlike humans – of a sort – had taken away his dream. The fields under the two shields were full of green healthy vegetation. So were the greenhouses inside, and dozens of the younger crew waved at each person as they entered the shuttle doors.
Suzi was next, and she was quite emotional at seeing her work for the last time. She really missed Mr. Rose and her teammates who had died in the attack. She felt the same as Ryan, and held no apologies for the human race, past or present. Like Ryan, she felt let down by her fellow man. A perfect space advancement mission for the last twenty years had been beaten up from all sides by human greed, human lust for power, and the human lack of common sense. As a scientist, she couldn’t understand why.
Much like at an airport at the beginning of flight, the crowd retreated to the other shield as SB-III’s thrusters glowed, and slowly the craft exited the shield and climbed out of view.