Lance relaxed. Either Guillermo had really lost control at their last encounter, or Ellen had her people solidly under her command.
The man removed his helmet and stepped toward him. “I would like to apologize,” he said. “I was a real asshole out there. I didn’t even realize it, which was the worst part. I always thought I had some kind of moral compass, but over the past few weeks, it seems to have become quite skewed. I was only thinking about ourselves and our mission, something that Ewa had sold us on hard recently. But that’s not really an excuse. I’m glad that Sarah was able to put me out of commission. Where is she?”
“Thank you,” Lance said, taking Guillermo’s proffered hand. He still wasn’t completely won over, but the apology seemed sincere. “Sarah should be coming through the airlock right behind you.”
Guillermo turned toward Sarah. He waited until she had taken off her helmet. “I’d like to thank you for your literal kick in the pants out there,” he said. “I really deserved it. In a way, you saved my life. I don’t know how I could’ve kept living if I had actually harmed you.”
“Gladly done!” Sarah replied. “If you ever need a kick like that again, you know where to find me. How’s Shashwat doing?”
“It was a clean in-and-out shot. The wound is healing nicely, but the drive down here would’ve been too much for him.”
“Could you all make a little more room? Ketut will have to stay in the airlock if you don’t,” Mike pointed out. He moved closer to Ellen to help unfasten the sections of her suit. “That’ll help us maximize the space.”
Lance noticed that Mike could hardly take his eyes off the young woman. Poor Sharon’s chances were shot to hell now. Ellen was about Mike’s age, and Lance had heard that she had even more Ph.D.’s than Mike did.
“Please move aside!”
Lance didn’t recognize this voice, which meant it had to be Ketut who was still stuck in the airlock. Lance now realized why. The MfE member was carrying a stack of five-sided somethings. The material couldn’t be all that heavy, though, since it was taller than Ketut’s head.
“This is our hospitality gift to you,” Ellen said. “These are the remnants from the large dome we’d planned to build over our settlement. Please set the pile on the floor, Ketut.”
Ketut knelt down, which wasn’t all that easy in his suit, and placed the honeycomb-shaped stack on the floor. It swayed slightly. Ellen reached for one of the thin, transparent panels at the top.
“This is Kevlar fabric, under one millimeter thick. We intended to build our dome out of these, but unfortunately, this was the only stack we could save from the Santa Maria. The rest of the panels are flying around the sun in our shipwreck. However, this material should be enough to construct a smaller dome. Or you can cover a garden with it.”
“Thank you very much,” Mike said as their official spokesperson. “I have a great idea for what we can do with these. But now it’s time for you all to freshen up, and then we can eat.”
Sol 88, NASA base
The project was slowly taking shape. First, the robotic drill had dug a circular hole into the ground, as Lance stood nearby and supervised. The walls were already hardened. The hole measured 1.2 meters in diameter and was four meters deep. A ladder would provide access for a person to climb up into the new section.
They were now in the process of digging a passageway from the base to the lower edge of the hole. Lance had spent the entire previous day shoveling, but the others were taking their turns today. He could hear the sound of their axes and spades underneath him. Unfortunately, the robot was unable to drill around corners, nor could it fit through the base’s airlock. This was why they were having to dig the corridor by hand. At least they were being energetically assisted by the three MfE guests.
Lance’s task today was to tend to the robot. It was busy digging a round trench around the hole. The channel was about a meter deep. The lower end of the dome would be anchored, sealed, and stabilized in this trench. They were making good progress. Occasionally, the robot sucked up an especially hard stone and needed Lance to dislodge it with a crowbar, a mechanical version of the Heimlich maneuver. These occurrences were far enough apart to leave him with ample time to study the landscape.
After they’d landed, Lance had thought the scenery was monotonous. He had been mistaken, he now acknowledged. The landscape had simply needed some time to reveal its intricacies. Or was it perhaps the humans who took longer to value Mars’s simplicity, because of their acquired tastes and customs? For example, the hill to the north—Lance enjoyed watching it through a telescope as it changed with each passing day. In the mornings, it sometimes glittered because water or carbon dioxide ice crystals had settled on its surface the night before. A week ago, he had even spotted a trail leading down from the ridge of the hill to the bottom. Sharon guessed that a piece of carbon dioxide ice had slid all the way down before literally evaporating—technically, sublimating—into thin air once the sun rose.
Lance had to chuckle as his mind wandered. Sarah had recently started acting a little strangely. She lost her temper more easily, or burst out crying at the slightest thing, but thirty minutes later, there was nothing left of the odd mood.
The robotic drill beeped, having finished its task. Lance checked the trench. He used his spade to shovel out rocks from two different spots where they must have fallen once the wall had been dug. Tomorrow the robot would start digging a new garden plot. Sarah wanted to try out a few new techniques. They had come to the conclusion that their current methods were still consuming too much energy. If they hoped to someday be able to meet all their food needs through their own cultivation, they wouldn’t be able to continue using their present techniques.
After this, they wanted to start in on the deep drilling project. But they would have to convert the robotic drill in order to do that, so they needed to first wrap up their current projects.
“Heads up, Lance,” Mike radioed in.
“What’s going on?”
“According to my data, we’re about to break through.”
“Alright. I’ll set the cover in place and watch.”
Lance walked over to the deep hole at the center of the round trench. He pulled out his flashlight and shone it inside. Everything looked the same as it had before. He took a couple of steps to the side to where a transparent panel that was larger than the hole was sitting. He picked it up and covered the opening in the ground with it. He sprayed its edges with repair foam. That should suffice as a temporary isolation method. As a security measure, he set two heavy stones on top of the panel to make sure that the air pressure wouldn’t lift it even a little.
“Alright, you’re on!” he called.
His friends down below were probably now hammering like crazy on the stone in front of them. He then saw a rock from the wall tumble onto the floor of the hole. The beam of his flashlight fell onto shining metal behind the rock’s former location. The connection to the base was almost complete!
Sol 92, NASA base
The seven of them were standing around a small table and toasting each other with champagne, except for Sarah, who had opted for water. The panorama was marvelous. The Mars surface was underneath them, but when they lifted their heads, they could gaze into the grayish-brown sky. The sun had almost reached its zenith. They were wearing neither spacesuits nor breathing masks since the tent of transparent Kevlar panels guaranteed them a breathable atmosphere.
Lance took a sip. Ellen was talking, but he wasn’t listening. Too much had happened! The sheer fact that they were standing here, protected by less than a millimeter of Kevlar, was a miracle. What would it look like in a year? In a century? Would green someday be part of the Red Planet’s palette?
It was a given that they would continue to make mistakes in the future. That was the nature of humans. The small table counted as one. None of them had thought about the fact that they could only easily transport into the dome those items that fit through the narrow corridor from t
he base. They should have built some furnishings beforehand. Lance, however, had sworn that he would somehow manage to bring a comfortable chair up here. No, make that two of them, even if he had to completely dismantle them and rebuild them inside the dome.
“I propose that we sign the document now,” Ellen said.
Sarah clinked her glass against Lance’s.
Right, thought Lance, the official part still has to take place.
Over the past few nights, Mike and Ellen had prepared a Declaration of Independence that would also function as a kind of constitution. They had discussed every aspect of it for a long time. Ellen had let the entire MfE vote on it, and they had all agreed to sign it.
Lance thought it had turned out as a nicely blended document that could be summarized as Freedom, Equality, Fraternity. They had deliberately left out concrete structures, such as governmental frameworks. The NASA expedition and the MfE initiative would continue to make their own decisions, but would take the other group into consideration. They had also discussed how cooperation with the crew of the private Spaceliner I might look. However, since the ship wouldn’t land for a few months yet, they had decided to put off any resolution on this until later.
“You’re up,” Sarah said, handing him the pen and the document.
Lance signed his name. The two words, ‘Lance Leber,’ looked odd on the paper. He couldn’t recall when he had last signed his full name anywhere.
Guillermo and Ketut were the next in line. Lance had spent two days toiling in the base passageway with Guillermo. The Mexican really did seem to be a reasonable person.
“Mike, Sharon, Sarah, Lance... I would like to thank you once again in the name of the Mars for Everyone Initiative,” Ellen finally said. “We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”
“And we’d already be bored out of our minds without you here,” Mike replied. “There’s really nothing worse than boredom on a lonely planet you won’t ever be leaving.”
They clinked their glasses again.
“To the Mars Nation,” Mike said.
“To all of us,” Ellen replied.
“There is one more bit of exciting news,” Sarah said. They all looked at her.
“Lance and I,” she took his hand, “are going to be parents. The first native-born Martian is on its way.”
As the others clapped, Lance felt a strange feeling churn inside him—a combination of anticipation, pride, and fear.
Sol 99, NASA base
Tomorrow was going to be a red-letter day. Sol 100! They had spent 100 Martian days here already. MfE and NASA had decided to celebrate the day together. They were spatially separated, of course, but they would set up cameras and screens, and play the same music—a virtual party of sorts. Lance was in the process of clearing some space in the conference room to create a small dance floor. We definitely need more storage space, he thought, especially if we want to scavenge the other old NASA probes over the coming weeks. This time there wouldn’t be any fights. The MfE people were now concentrating on the materials that all the other nations had shot up to the planet. That was a fair division since NASA had ultimately been more successful with their probes than the other space agencies.
“Lance, could you come here?”
Sharon was calling him from the command center. What could be going on now? He moved one more chair before doing as she asked.
“I’ve received a strange signal,” she said as he stepped into the room.
“Don’t tell me—it’s coming from Earth?”
“It is.”
Lance sighed. Over the past three days, there had been numerous false alarms because one of the Mars probes was going berserk for some reason. Mike was still trying to figure out what was causing the problem.
“Has Mike finished his analysis yet?” Lance asked.
“I don’t think so, but he’s still asleep. Should we wake him up?”
“No, it’s not worth it. I’m sure it’s another of those error messages.”
He replayed the signal. It wasn’t coded in NASA standard language. All he could hear was a whooshing sound. He changed the code filter, and suddenly the noise vanished.
“Wǒmen yāoqiú liánxì.”
What language was that? He thought it sounded like Mandarin. Luckily, the speaker switched to English.
“This is the spaceship Long Trip 2, seeking contact.”
“Whoa! I’ll go wake up Mike. Could you notify Sarah?” Lance called as he hurried off to fetch their commander.
It turned out it was Mandarin. The Chinese ship was still too far away for an actual conversation. They would have to wait 40 minutes for each reply to reach them. The crew had also indicated that they needed to conserve energy as much as possible. Apparently their launch hadn’t gone as planned, and there were six people on board instead of the intended four.
“Can you tell us anything about what has happened on Earth?” Mike asked before sending off his reply.
Over the coming days, they waited in vain for a response.
Author's Note
Finally! I have been waiting very eagerly to be able to get Mars Nation in your hand as a book or an e-book. You must know I wrote the trilogy back in the summer of 2018 after Audible, the audiobook company, had asked me for it. They wanted it exclusively in audio format for six months. As they took three months between each part, this meant they had to wait until the autumn of 2019.
But there is an upside: I had enough time to get both versions, English and German, ready at the same time. This is my first simultaneous global release. I think even large publishers rarely manage such a feat. Also, I will not let you wait for three months for the next installment. You will be able to get the second part in only one month. You can pre-order it here:
hard-sf.com/links/790047
Compared to my other books, Mars Nation is set in our nearest future. In the late 2020s, we will have ships cruising to the red planet. This is about ten years from now. There are good chances we all will be able to witness the first TV coverage of one man or woman stepping into the red sand. I think it will be at least as memorable as the first moon landing 50 years ago. Did you watch it? You can bet I did. And if I can, I’ll try to be aboard one of those tourist ships that Elon Musk from Space-X is trying to build. Would you come with me?
What will happen to the involuntary colonists over the next few years? Although Lance, Sarah, and the others believe that figuring out Earth’s fate is their greatest problem, real danger draws closer from two completely different directions.
Before I let you go to your dreams, I have to ask you one favor – if you liked Mars Nation 1, please leave a review at this link:
hard-sf.com/links/762773
Thanks a lot!
Best regards from my nightly desk
Yours, Brandon Q. Morris
Register at hard-sf.com/subscribe/ and you will be notified of any new Hard Science Fiction books that I will be publishing. Also, you will get a beautifully illustrated version of the Guided Tour to Mars.
Also by Brandon Q. Morris
The Enceladus Mission (Ice Moon 1)
In the year 2031, a robot probe detects traces of biological activity on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. This sensational discovery shows that there is indeed evidence of extraterrestrial life. Fifteen years later, a hurriedly built spacecraft sets out on the long journey to the ringed planet and its moon.
The international crew is not just facing a difficult twenty-seven months: if the spacecraft manages to make it to Enceladus without incident it must use a drillship to penetrate the kilometer-thick sheet of ice that entombs the moon. If life does indeed exist on Enceladus, it could only be at the bottom of the salty, ice covered ocean, which formed billions of years ago.
However, shortly after takeoff disaster strikes the mission, and the chances of the crew making it to Enceladus, let alone back home, look grim.
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The Titan Probe (Ice Moon 2)
In 2005, the robotic probe “Huygens” lands on Saturn’s moon Titan. 40 years later, a radio telescope receives signals from the far away moon that can only come from the long forgotten lander.
At the same time, an expedition returns from neighbouring moon Enceladus. The crew lands on Titan and finds a dangerous secret that risks their return to Earth. Meanwhile, on Enceladus a deathly race has started that nobody thought was possible. And its outcome can only be decided by the
astronauts that are stuck on Titan.
3.99 $ – hard-sf.com/links/527000
The Io Encounter (Ice Moon 3)
Jupiter’s moon Io has an extremely hostile environment. There are hot lava streams, seas of boiling sulfur, and frequent volcanic eruptions straight from Dante’s Inferno, in addition to constant radiation bombardment and a surface temperature hovering at minus 180 degrees Celsius.
Is it really home to a great danger that threatens all of humanity? That’s what a surprise message from the life form discovered on Enceladus seems to indicate.
The crew of ILSE, the International Life Search Expedition, finally on their longed-for return to Earth, reluctantly chooses to accept a diversion to Io, only to discover that an enemy from within is about to destroy all their hopes of ever going home.
3.99 $ – hard-sf.com/links/527008
Return to Enceladus (Ice Moon 4)
Russian billionaire Nikolai Shostakovitch makes an offer to the former crew of the spaceship ILSE. He will finance a return voyage to the icy moon Enceladus. The offer is too good to refuse—the expedition would give them the unique opportunity to recover the body of their doctor, Dimitri Marchenko.
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