Rescue Mode - eARC (38 page)

“While you two guys have been out taking leisurely walks, Amanda and I have been busy with the 3D printer and some spare parts putting this together.”

“This is a garden?” McPherson asked, his voice heavy with skepticism.

“Damned right it is,” Connover said. “We made the box, the stand, and the growth chamber out of the same plastic we used to make your wedding bands. It’s strong, resistant to the environment outside, and we layered it so as to provide some additional thermal protection.”

Amanda took over. “In the growth chamber you can see the trays that we’ll fill with water. We’ll plant the seeds we brought along for the hydroponics experiments that we were going to do.”

She pointed to the two-by-two-foot experimental hydroponics chamber that was part of the
Fermi
’s built-in equipment.

“It was too damned small for growing enough food to feed us,” Ted resumed, “so we copied its design and used parts of it for our garden chamber. Of course, we had some help from the engineers back home.”

Amanda said, “Hey, they’re not here, so we can take all the credit.”

Pointing, Connover explained, “We put some resistive heaters along the walls and on the bottom. The clear lid gives us an airtight seal. We can’t have our summer harvest freezing in the balmy eighty below out there.”

“You’re going to put this outside?”

Nodding, Connover went on, “Daytime power will come from the solar arrays on the tips of the booms. We printed those, too, same way that dirt farmers in Africa are printing their own solar panels.”

“The spheres will generate enough power to keep the chamber warm during the day,” Amanda said. “Plus, they’ll charge up the batteries that’ll run the heaters overnight.”

“Once we fill it with water we’ll plant the potato sprouts for our first crop,” Connover said.

“Potatoes?” Catherine asked.

Amanda said, “They don’t need seeds to reproduce. We just plant the sprouts. We’ll let the first harvest sit around for a week or so, until they start developing ‘eyes’ and sprouting their own roots. Then we’ll cut ’em up and grow more potatoes.”

“And you’re going to move this rig outside?” McPherson asked again.

“Yep,” Amanda replied. “Then we’ll plant bamboo. It’s a root runner, spreads in the water and shoots up new bamboo plants. Houston’s sending me some bamboo recipes.”

“And we’ll grow mint, too,” said Connover. “Amanda wants to flavor her tea.”

“Later on we’ll plant tomatoes, beans, peas and the other vegetables we were going to grow in the hydroponics rig. With any luck, we can get them to self-pollinate so we can keep the lines going.”

“We should have brought some bees along,” Catherine murmured.

McPherson asked, “But why outdoors? Why are you going to so much trouble to put in heaters? Can’t we just use the artificial lighting in here to grow food? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“If we were only planning on one or two hydroponics units,” Amanda answered. “But we need enough to feed ourselves, and this place is too small for that. We need the great outdoors.”

Connover said, “I’m going to put a camera in the box so we can monitor their growth from here in the habitat.”

Amanda pointed out, “One of the reasons we picked potatoes to start with is that they have all the nutrients the human body needs. We can live on potatoes alone, if we have to.”

“Like the Irish,” said McPherson.

“Potato soup,” Catherine said. “Perhaps even
bouillabaisse
.”

“Okay,” said McPherson. “Looks to me like you’ve thought everything out. When can we expect our first harvest?”

“About four months,” Amanda said.

“God willing and the creek don’t rise,” Connover added.

December 17, 2035

16:08 Universal Time

Mars Landing Plus 42 Days

NASA Headquarters, Washington D.C.

Bart Saxby got to his feet and came around his desk as Robin Harkness led Sarah Fleming into his office. Saxby noted with some surprise that the president’s red-headed staff chief was a centimeter or two taller than his director of human spaceflight. Then he saw the spiked heels she was wearing.

Gesturing to the small round conference table by his office windows, Saxby said graciously, “Welcome, Sarah. It’s good to see you.”

As they settled themselves on the chairs, Saxby’s administrative assistant carried in a tray bearing a silver coffee pot and three delicate china cups and saucers.

“First of all,” Fleming said, “the president sends his congratulations. Your team got through the solar storm with flying colors.”

Harkness’ lean face broke into a smile. “They’ve been well trained.”

“And I understand the group on Mars is starting a vegetable garden?”

Saxby nodded. “They’re settling in for the long haul.”

“They confirmed the Chinese discovery, but they haven’t managed to find any water yet.”

“No,” Saxby admitted. “Not yet. And please quit calling it the ‘Chinese discovery’.”

Fleming folded her hands on the tabletop as Harkness reached for the coffee pot. “Sugar?” he asked her. “Milk?”

“Do you have any cream?”

Glancing at the tray, “Looks like milk.”

“I’ll call for cream,” Saxby said, pushing his chair back from the table.

“Don’t bother,” Fleming said. “Milk will be fine.”

Once their cups were filled, Saxby said, “I presume this visit is about the follow-on mission?”

“Yes, of course,” she replied. “We have a tricky political situation on our hands.”

Harkness glanced at his boss, but said nothing.

“On the one hand,” Fleming began to explain, “you have four people who will die on Mars unless we send the follow-on to bring them home.”

Saxby said, “I don’t think there’s another hand. We’ve got to save them.”

Shaking her head slightly, Fleming said, “There is another side to this. And it’s loaded with dynamite.”

Both men fell silent.

Looking stern, almost grim, Fleming continued, “Senator Donaldson is already yapping that this whole situation has been engineered by you NASA people to blackmail the government into sending the follow-on to Mars.”

“That’s not true!” Saxby snapped.

“It doesn’t have to be true,” Fleming said. “It just has to be believable.”

“We didn’t set this up! We didn’t steer the
Arrow
into the path of that meteoroid! We didn’t tell Connover and the others to stay on Mars!”

“Of course you didn’t. But Donaldson is going to sing that song to the public. And isn’t it convenient that the rocks that contain biomarkers are among those that remained on Mars and not in one of the rocks on the ship headed for Earth?”

“He’s a prick,” Harkness said, with some heat.

“But Congress has cut the funding for the follow-on,” Fleming pointed out. “Do you have any idea of how hard it will be for the president to get it put back into the NASA budget?”

“The hardware is all but finished,” said Harkness. “It’s going to cost more money to terminate the contracts than to go ahead and finish the job.”

“It gets worse,” said Fleming. “Suppose you send the follow-on and your people on Mars die while it’s on its way. Senator Donaldson and his followers will claim you knew there was no chance of them surviving, but you used them to get the funding back for the follow-on.”

“That’s a goddamned lie!” Harkness burst.

“But it will play well with the news media.” Before either of the men could say anything, she added, “And suppose the follow-on mission runs into trouble. What then?”

“Wait a minute,” Saxby said, fighting down the sullen pain in his chest. “The polls show the public is solidly behind sending the follow-on: nearly sixty percent in favor.”

“Yes, but if they get to Mars and find your team dead, or if themselves get killed, the public may swing a hundred and eighty degrees against you. Future Mars missions will be just as dead as those four people.”

“So what’s the president want to do? Let them die on Mars?”

Fleming shook her head once more. “You have to understand that the president is a lame duck. His term ends in thirteen months. He has very little leverage with Congress.”

“And Donaldson wants his job,” Harkness muttered.

“He certainly does. And if Donaldson gets into the White House, human spaceflight beyond the Moon will be a dead issue.”

Saxby leaned back in his chair and wished the pain in his chest would go away. Heartburn, he told himself. You always get heartburn when you get excited. Calm down. Calm yourself, dammit.

Harkness was asking, “So what is the president going to do?”

“He hasn’t made up his mind yet. Viscerally, deep in his guts, he wants to authorize the follow-on. Politically, he’s worried that it will turn into a fiasco and hand next year’s nomination to Donaldson.”

“Why doesn’t he just come out and tell the people that Donaldson’s wrong about this?”

“Because Donaldson belongs to the president’s party, and the president doesn’t want to tear the party apart and hand the White House to the Democrats.”

Saxby squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then said, “So what you’re telling us is that the next election is more important to President Harper than those four people struggling to survive on Mars.”

Fleming glared at him. “What I’m saying is that the president has to look at all sides of this. It’s not as simple a matter as you think.”

“Seems simple enough to me,” said Harkness. “Life or death.”

“The president wants to save your people on Mars,” Fleming insisted. “But he’s got to find a way to do it that won’t play into Donaldson’s hands.”

Saxby stared at her for a moment, then turned to Harkness. “You’d better tell Connover and his team to stay alive.”

Fleming smiled tightly. “It would help if they found some water for themselves.”

Saxby had to agree. “That it would, Sarah. That it would.”

December 18, 2035

16:00 Universal Time

Mars Landing Plus 43 Days

Fermi
Habitat

Ted Connover turned away from the window and surveyed the habitat’s central compartment. Hammocks hung on the walls. Chairs were scattered haphazardly.

Looks like an encampment more than a temporary shelter, he thought. All we need is a fire for toasting smores.

After weeks of daily excursions, the ground outside was churned with bootprints. And despite all the vacuuming they did every day, the floor inside the habitat was smudged with the pink ridges of their boot tracks.

He turned back to the window and looked at the five hydroponic gardens they’d built. The plants were doing well in their stout oblong boxes. They didn’t seem to mind that the Sun was farther away than on Earth, or that they were growing in a water solution instead of dirt. They wouldn’t like Martian dirt: it was loaded with perchlorates and other chemicals, more like bleach than farming soil.

Water, Connover thought. They’d still not found water and they were nearing the point where the problem would be critical. They might even have to raid one of the hydroponics gardens. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

He and McPherson had spent the morning on another fruitless water search, this time to a rock formation about three kilometers to the west. After studying and restudying the data from the satellites, and with the help of data-processing algorithms developed just for this purpose by some of the brightest scientists back on Earth, they had decided this site was a likely spot for having subsurface ice.

So Ted and Hi had gone out there this morning and found . . . nothing. The core samples were nothing but rock and dirt. No trace of ice.

And when they’d returned to the habitat, Ted found a message from Houston that a dust storm was heading their way. The Mars meteorologists said it would be a big one, perhaps global.

“Just what we need,” he muttered.

“What is just what we need?” Catherine asked.

Startled, Connover spun around to see the French geologist eyeing him with a curious smile on her face.

“Hi, Catherine. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I was in the biology lab, talking with Amanda.”

With a sigh, Ted jabbed a finger toward the communications console. “Latest weather forecast predicts a dust storm. A big one.”

“But that is not terribly dangerous, is it?”

“No, not really.” Despite his mood, he produced a little grin. “It won’t be like big dust storms in the American Midwest, with a wall of opaque dust obliterating the horizon and gale-force winds.”

“Mars is much more gentle,
non
?”

“
Oui
,” he said, exhausting his French vocabulary. “We won’t see Dorothy and Toto lifted off to Oz.”

More seriously, Catherine asked, “How bad will it be, Ted?”

“A drop in barometric pressure,” he replied. “Some haze. If you go outside, you might notice a stronger breeze than usual. Nothing scary.”

“Nothing to worry about, then.”

“We’ll have to clean the dust off the gardens and the all the solar panels,” Connover said. “After the storm’s over.”

“The reactor?” she asked. “The dust shouldn’t affect it, right?”

McPherson ducked through the hatch. Ted thought that he’d just set a record for being separated from his wife. The two of them always seemed to be within arm’s reach of one another.

“Dust? You mean a dust storm? The reactor could be damaged?” Hi asked, his brow furrowing.

“It should be okay,” Ted answered. “It’s been designed to operate autonomously in just about any weather the planet can throw at us.”

McPherson nodded, satisfied.

But Connover worried about that
just about
. Dust storms blow very fine particles of iron-rich sand. With the storm covering all the solar panels with dust, the reactor’s going to be the only source of electrical power we’ll have for several hours, maybe a day or more. He hoped they hadn’t gone with the lowest bidder when they built the reactor.

The four of them had dinner together while the usual soft whisper of the Martian wind outside the habitat rose to a low moaning wail. Connover kept glancing at the window. The Sun was getting low on the horizon, but it was still visible through the thickening haze.
It’s going to be a noisy night,
he told himself.