Glory on Mars (28 page)

Yin snorted.

"I love the little git, don't get me wrong. But this
cat's nothing but a mass of reflexes."

"Hasn't a sensitive bone in his body," Yang said as
he brewed tea.

"No way he cares about anyone's mood."

Liz looked up sharply.

"You work eighteen hours a sol," she said. "How come
you guys are never tired?"

"We get tired," Yang said.

"It's a happy kind of tired," Yin said, handing Yang
a couple cups.

"That, too," Liz said. "How come you're always
happy?"

"We're doing exactly what we want to do."

"Colony Mars gave us the best erector set ever to
play with. We're fine."

"I feel fine, too." Liz said it quietly, almost to
herself.

"Or more accurately, I feel normal." She turned to
Emma.

"When's the last time you were happy?"

"It sounds strange, but... on walkabout," Emma said.
"Even when Malcolm tried to kill me. After the first sol, I felt
like myself again."

"It's following your passion that makes the
difference," Yin said. "Even Ruby lightens up when she does a bit
of flying."

Liz grabbed her pad and started tapping. Emma passed
supper to Yin and Yang and they ate quietly.

Liz dropped her pad in annoyance.

"It doesn't make sense. I entered all our symptoms
into Governor, everybody's, as if we were one patient. Fatigue,
confusion, depression, paranoia, hallucinations. I sent the file to
MEX, to their medical AI, too, but it's going to say the same thing
- I know it."

"And that was...?"

"The only diagnosis that fits all the symptoms is
hypoxia." Liz looked around the table at three puzzled
expressions.

"Chronic low oxygen levels in the blood. But that
doesn't make sense. Yin and Yang are fine."

"Yin and Yang spend more time at Maintenance than in
the nederzetting," Emma said. "It has its own life support system.
So do the rovers and the walkabouts, for that matter."

"So do the habitats," Liz countered.

"We equalize the atmosphere throughout the
nederzetting. I could bring back the gauges for the upper level.
You'll see - the habitat readings match the Spine."

Liz's eyes widened. She picked up her pad.

"Still doesn't make sense. The nederzetting
atmosphere meets minimum standards." Emma took the pad from her and
studied the tables.

"Barely! The pressure and oxygen are both at the
bottom of acceptable." She slid along the time scale. "Levels go up
a bit, then drop again... It does that a few times and never gets
near Earth-standard."

Yang reached for the pad.

"The bots transfer nitrogen and oxygen to the
nederzetting as we harvest the gases. Yes, these increases match
up."

"We open a new bay whenever Governor's calculations
say there's enough air built up to support the added volume," Yin
said.

"Here are the readings in Maintenance." Yang handed
the pad back to Liz.

"Why is the atmosphere so different there?"

"We top off Maintenance directly from the air
harvesting system," Yin said.

"You recharge the surface suit packs and the rovers
and jumpship at Maintenance, too, don't you?" Emma said. Yang
nodded.

"That chart you're looking at shows levels at the
Spine's main air return," he said. "That's the only place we have a
sensor in the bays and the air always meets the minimum."

"Of course, pressure should be higher in the
greenhouse," Yin added. "It's much warmer and you keep it closed
off from the Spine. We haul in CO2 for the plants and you have to
run an airlock pump to get a door open, don't you? That means the
pressure is higher."

"Yes," Liz said slowly. "And oxygen. I spend all my
time in the garden and plants generate oxygen."

Emma stroked the side of her face, where her burns
had fully healed. Yes, the greenhouse had a different oxygen
concentration than the rest of the nederzetting.

"But, Liz - these measurements are from the Spine's
recirculation system," Emma said. "You said 'oxygen in the blood.'
Shouldn't you be measuring our blood levels?"

"Yes, I should. But I don't have the necessary
medical equipment."

The four of them stared at each other in silence.

"Bloody hell. Have we caused all this trouble?" Yin
said.

"Are we opening bays so fast the air's too thin?"

"I don't know that," Liz said. "The composition meets
the spec..."

"It's easy enough to find out," Emma said. "We can
use the habitat airlock to maintain a higher pressure in here, and
everyone wear surface suits in the rest of the nederzetting."

Liz was already tapping at her pad.

"We'll need everyone's cooperation. I'm posting the
recommendation for a vote."

Emma fumbled her pad from a pocket and plugged it
in.

"I'm voting yes."

Yin and Yang quickly did the same. They paused again,
watching Liz's post.

Daan voted yes.

"Majority," Yin said. He and Yang jumped up.

"We're going back out to the robot squad. Top
priority will be harvesting nitrogen and argon from now on - and
electrolyzing oxygen."

The docking airlock had barely sealed behind them
when Daan stepped in from the Spine. He closed the door
deliberately and gave it an extra tug.

"I should have recognized the problem," he said.
"I've done high altitude climbing and I know the symptoms. I once
felt someone was following me in the Annapurna Range. Kept turning
around and finding no one there." He collapsed into a chair. "Just
like Melina's tulpa."

"The ocularity of hindsight," Emma said.

"We don't know for sure yet," Liz said. But she
looked excited.

"I'm going to get a handful of mealworms for the
cat," Emma said. "And mix up some powdered milk."

***

Yin and Yang pumped the maintenance control room's
air into tanks and the beetle-bots hauled them to the north
habitat, aiming to reach Earth's sea level conditions there as soon
as possible.

Claude and Emma suited up to tend to life support
chores in the Spine. Daan, Melina, and Sanni showed the worse
symptoms, so Liz kept them in the habitat and took notes on their
reactions. She recorded how long they spent in their bunks, asked
them questions to gauge their mental state, and recorded what they
ate and drank. In between she tracked the lively debate of her
hypoxia hypothesis by Colony Mars experts.

"The experts on Earth think I'm nuts," Liz said at
supper after the first full sol. "The minimums were thoroughly
researched. They still think it's a psychological issue. They want
to send us virtual reality headsets to simulate open earthly
landscapes..."

"Idiots," Ruby said.

"But how could they be so wrong about something as
basic as breathing air?" Liz looked unsure.

"Did they duplicate our diet, our living conditions?
Run their tests in Mars gravity? Over time?"

"Noah's backing me up. He thinks hypoxia makes sense,
that there could be an impact from low gravity on our circulatory
systems."

"He's our new psychologist?" Ruby asked. "I like him
already."

"The improved air is already working," Claude said.
"My headache's gone."

"That could be because of your expectations," Liz
said. "I'll have Governor analyze our comms - find out if our
speech patterns show improvement."

"You can figure that out. I want to talk about a trip
to Emma's lava tube," Claude said.

"I'd love to go back," Emma said.

"A trip up Olympus Mons would be better," Daan said.
"That would create excitement on Earth, too."

"Prospecting is more useful right now," Emma
said.

"Claude never got a chance to finish his work on the
Peacock's southern flank, either - maybe that should take
priority."

"I thought you'd like the romance of climbing a
mountain."

"Don't even talk about exploration until S-4 is
safely on the ground." Ruby shook her head sharply.

"But storm season's approaching."

"Okay, so let's plan the first expedition for next
spring."

It was a happy argument.

At the end of the week, Yang announced over breakfast
that the north habitat hit Earth-sea-level conditions.

"I slept straight through last night," Sanni said,
smiling.

Melina stepped out of her bunk with a puzzled
expression.

"What's going on? I've had the strangest dreams."

"Nice strange dreams?" Sanni asked, wrinkling her
nose playfully.

"I can't remember. Hey, what smells so good?"

"I'm fixing stuffed squash for breakfast," Liz said.
"Want some?"

"Yes, please. I'm starving. But I'm gonna shower
first. I feel yucky." She bounced to the ladder, but paused to look
around the module.

"Remember the clutter on Earth? So many empty events
and meaningless things. It was suffocating. Life on Mars is
minimalist, stripped to essentials. It's the right choice. How did
I forget that? I'm lighter and freer than I was on Earth."

She heaved a contented sigh and climbed.

Yin and Yang exchanged grins.

"You solved our biggest problem." Yin thumped Liz's
shoulder.

"No worries from now on."

Liz looked somber.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Emma gave her a hug.

"I was thinking of Ingra," Liz said. "She was foggy
from the thin air. She never had a chance to figure it out."

"MEX had all the data. The air looked fine to the
experts, too."

"What you know that ain't so," Ruby said. "That's
what's dangerous."

"You're so right," Emma said.

Chapter Thirty-Five:
Impact

The argument over which spring-time expedition to
mount was still underway when MEX sent a message unlike any Kamp
had received before.

"We have some bad news, guys," the new lead
controller said. "It's best if you view the attached presentation.
We're sending it to Kamp Kans and Settler Four's transport
simultaneously. Then we can talk."

Emma tapped her pad. "I can't see the diagram very
well on this little screen. What's it supposed to be?"

"Put it on the big screen."

"Well, that's a diagram of the solar system." Ruby
stood by the screen and cocked her head.

Emma could see planets orbiting in the ecliptic
plane. Her eye jumped to Mars, circling the Sun with its Greek
symbol trailing closely behind. A bright dot entered from above,
tagged with a table of numbers too small to read. Its path hung on
the diagram as a sparkling line. The disk angled into Mars and
vanished. The animation paused for a moment, then reset and the
sequence ran again.

"What the hell?" Emma muttered.

"That's an asteroid. Show the time frame, Governor."
An elapsed-time counter popped up in the lower left.

Emma watched the animation repeat.

"Colony Mars posted this to a fan site before we saw
it, the ghouls," Ruby said as she looked at her own pad. "Governor,
project the Earth Scan sphere."

No one had looked at the Earth Scan in ages. When the
image popped up near the ceiling it was a briskly spinning white
sphere.

"Turn the screen's audio on."

"...from the Near Earth Object tracking system. We
have detected an asteroid coming from above the solar system's
ecliptic plane. The likelihood of a collision with Earth is zero.
Normally there would be no public interest in such an object. This
asteroid, however, will impact the planet Mars on April twenty
seventh of this year. Our current projections indicate it will
impact in the Noachis quadrangle of the planet's southern
hemisphere with a kinetic energy of approximately one hundred
million tons. This estimate will be revised as more data become
available. The late detection of this asteroid demonstrates the
need for increased funding to monitor outside the plane of the
solar system..."

"Governor, pause. Claude, do you understand the
kinetic energy number?" Emma asked. He was watching the screen
wide-eyed.

"If this asteroid hit Earth, it'd wipe out half a
continent."

"Oh my god. Are we gonna die?"

"No, no, we're safe. Noachis is deep in the southern
hemisphere on the other side of the planet. Mars has no forests to
burn, no oceans to generate tsunamis, no tectonics. And no exposed
life on the surface. But it'll kick up one hell of a dust cloud.
Probably cover the entire planet for months." He rubbed his chin
thoughtfully.

"Here's another expedition for next spring. I must
get a piece of that asteroid to compare to the meteorite that hit
in our backyard. They may have a common source."

"Forget about the rocks for a minute. Will it kick up
enough dust to make flying the jumper risky?" Ruby asked.

"Worse than any haboob we've ever seen." Claude
nodded.

"You'd think MEX would translate dates for us." Ruby
always found something about MEX that annoyed her. "Governor, when
is April twenty seven?"

"That Earth date corresponds to Sol four
sixty-six."

"Governor, compare Settler Four's entry into orbit to
the impact date."

"Settler Four will enter orbit in seven sols, fifty
one hours and eleven minutes prior to impact."

"What?" Emma looked more closely at the animation.
"Holy shit. Could it hit them?"

"I doubt it. That would be exceedingly bad luck,"
Claude said.

"This is already exceedingly bad luck."

"Fifty one hours should be enough time to land all
the modules." Ruby said. "No problem."

"It gives me problems," Claude said. "When the
walkabout went crazy, we left my drill rig out there, on Peacock's
southern flank. And I still want to see Emma's lava tube. Those
brownish rocks she brought back, they're metallic meteorite
fragments. Ancient fragments."

"So what?" Ruby asked.