The Many Worlds of Dean: Book 1 - Mars (4 page)

Dean looked down at his feet and said, “I’m
sure Bill would have caught his mistake.”

“Maybe, maybe not; I refuse to operate on a
‘maybe’. You are here because you fill a very important role as a
backup. Just like Destiny has multiple redundancies to prevent
catastrophic failure, you’re our human redundancy.”

Dean shut his eyes and in a quiet voice
said, “But if I’m constantly correcting the others, they will hate
me for it.”

“Yes they will; at first. I assure you, your
correcting Bill’s math will ensure he double and triple checks his
calculations from now on. Once you are no longer correcting him,
because he is no longer making mistakes, he will eventually figure
out that it was you that made him a better engineer. Trust me Dean;
they will come around soon enough. In the meantime, I want you to
do exactly what you already planned to do; study. The smarter you
are, the smarter the rest of us become. And, we need to be as smart
as possible to successfully complete this mission.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Of course it does. I’m the Captain; I’m not
allowed to not make sense.” Smiling, he rose from his chair and
walked toward the door. Just as he reached his hand out to grasp
the latch, he turned and said, “Oh, by the way, I’ve decided that
when we get to Mars, you are going to be the first to step out of
the lander. Better start thinking about what you are going to
say.”

With that, the Captain turned and exited the
room. Dean lay back on his bed, swallowing hard as he contemplated
the immense responsibility the Captain had just placed upon him.
There was little chance he would be able to sleep now. It was a
good thing that sleep deprivation was one of the many techniques
they had used against him during his training.

Dean was working in lab three as Stacy’s lab
assistant. The nuclear powered, ion engine had been powered up and
they had begun their journey as scheduled. Everyone had quickly
fallen into a routine and the days began to pass. Dean alternated
between serving as an assistant to Stacy or Captain Rogers in one
of the labs and helping Sarah in the medical bay.

“Can you bring me that beaker of sulfuric
acid?” Stacy asked.

He grabbed the heavy glass container off the
countertop and placed it down in front of Stacy. He was again
struck by how attractive she was for an older woman. She had short
brown hair and strikingly brown eyes. She was about fifteen
centimeters shorter than his own one hundred eighty three
centimeter frame and was in superb physical condition. She was in
her early thirties, which made her closer to his age than any of
the others.

He looked at the various items she had
spread out on the counter and tried to deduce what type of
experiment she was conducting. He saw several different chemicals,
six radiation meters, and six small protective cases labeled cobalt
sixty. “You’re studying radioactive decay?” he asked.

“Uh huh,” she answered absently. “It has
been shown that the speed of decay can be altered by solar events.
I intend to apply different chemical solutions to four of the
samples and then trail all six behind us in open space to determine
what effects the solar wind will have on them.”

Dean’s eyebrows furrowed as he thought about
her assertion. He asked, “But I thought the rate of radioactive
decay for any given substance was constant?”

After a long pause, during which she
continued to pour chemicals from one container to another, she
finally answered, “So did the rest of the scientific community
until about fifteen years ago. Scientists found that large solar
storms would minutely slow the rate of decay in radioactive
materials found on Earth. It hasn’t been determined how this
happens, but I intend to find out.”

“But, how can a solar event affect materials
on Earth when the Earth’s magnetic field blocks most of the solar
particles?”

“Look kid, I don’t have time to answer all
of your questions,” she said, suddenly agitated. “Grab that
notebook and take down what I dictate.”

Dean hung his head and replied in a quiet
voice, “Of course, I’m sorry.”

Stacy went back to preparing the chemical
solution she had been working on without even acknowledging his
apology.

Dean walked over and picked up the indicated
notebook and a pen and took a seat on the stool next to her. He
began to write as she verbally prescribed the steps she was
following.

About an hour later, he was still writing as
she was combining the ingredients of her third solution. “Compound
three should prevent charged particles from reaching the samples
while still allowing...,” she was saying, but cut herself off
short. A look of horror took over her features. “Oh no!”

“What?” Dean asked.

Sara stood and began pacing frantically.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid! I can’t believe I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“The engine; I forgot about the engine.”
Seeing the look of confusion on his face, she continued to explain.
“The engine is nuclear. It is not water cooled like the reactors on
Earth. It is vented to space. That means radioactive particles are
streaming from it in massive quantities. It will ruin any data I
get from my experiment.”

“Isn’t there any way to account for the
additional radiation?”

“No, there isn’t. The radiation from the
engine will invalidate the data I record.”

Dean watched as her expression became more
and more despondent. She looked to be on the verge of tears. He
took a deep breath and though hard about how he could help her.
After a couple minutes of awkward silence, an idea struck him.
“What if you use the exhaust as your source?”

She turned to him sharply as she sat back
down on her stool. “What?”

“The exhaust,” he replied. “It has a known
decay rate just like the cobalt. We could mount a meter near the
vent and measure any changes in its decay.”

“But what about the chemicals I was going to
use to change the effect?”

“I could rig up some sprayers near the
exhaust vent that would saturate the particles upon command. That
way you could try different compounds based on whatever the current
conditions are.”

She jumped from her stool and hugged him,
hard. “Dean,” she began as she pulled away from him with tears now
streaming down her face, “you are brilliant. You just saved my
experiment.”

“I’m sure you would have come up with the
same idea,” he replied, blushing brightly.

“No I wouldn’t have,” she said with a bright
smile contradicting the tears on her face. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” he said shyly.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, “I’ll make a
deal with you. If you can fabricate those sprayers for me, I’ll
promise to answer any questions you have, anytime you have
them.”

Dean smiled broadly. “Deal.”

More than a month had passed and the voyage
seemed to be going well. Dean had devoted himself to his studies
and was rapidly absorbing the information available in the computer
database. He had become great friends with Stacy once he helped her
set up her experiment. He managed to gain Sarah’s acceptance when
she discovered he could answer any anatomy question she threw at
him. And Captain Rogers had taken on the mantle of surrogate father
in Dean’s eyes.

Bill still hated him vehemently. Dean had
tried to ingratiate himself to the surly engineer, but nothing he
tried did any good. It seemed as if every effort he put forth only
served to further aggravate the situation. A one point, Bill and
Stacy had become romantically involved and Stacy’s friendly
relationship with Dean had only made Bill even angrier.

Now, as Dean walked into the exercise room
to complete his daily routine, he saw Bill pedaling furiously on
the stationary bicycle. Sighing, he turned to leave when he heard
Bill say, “Don’t you run away from me boy. I’ve got a bone to pick
with you.”

Trying hard to keep the exasperation from
his voice, Dean turned back and replied, “How can I help you…Bill.”
He watched with warm satisfaction as Bill’s face twitched at
hearing Dean call him by his first name.

Climbing from the bicycle, Bill stomped his
way across the room to come face to face with Dean. “You can stop
feeding the Captain your crazy ideas about improving the efficiency
of the engine. There’s no way I’ll ever let you anywhere near my
engine; so stop asking for his permission.”

“But, if you would just look at my
calculations you would see that we could get twelve percent more
thrust with only a minor recalibration of the plasma injector.”

“And I’m telling you, they weren’t designed
to handle that type of load. Regardless, it’s not going to happen.
As it is, the Captain already let you fiddle with the environmental
controls; against my recommendation I might add. I want you to
know, I’ve already sent a message to mission control; if anything
happens to this ship, they are to automatically assume it is your
fault.”

Dean had taken as much abuse as he could
stand from this man and proceeded to blurt out exactly what he
thought; only later realizing how much worse it would make things.
“You’re just afraid the Captain might give me your job because I’m
better at it than you. Luckily for me, it’s the Captain’s decision
as to whether or not I can modify the engine. Once I do, and he
sees the vast improvement, you’ll be the one emptying trash
cans.”

Dean watched as Bill’s face turned bright
red and a thick vein began throbbing on his forehead. Bill’s hands
balled into fists and he took a menacing step towards Dean. Dean
took a step back, unsure of what he should do if Bill struck him.
He had never been in a real fight in his life.

Bill took another step in Dean’s direction.
“Someone needs to teach you your place boy,” he said angrily.

“What exactly is going on here?”

Dean turned to see Captain Rogers standing
in the doorway. He began to stammer out an explanation when the
Captain held a hand up, silencing him.

“Actually, I believe I heard enough from
outside the door to know what this is about,” the Captain said.
Turning to look at the engineer, he ordered, “Bill, go to my office
so we can have a chat.”

Bill simply grunted angrily, brushed past
Dean and stomped out the door.

Turning back to Dean, Captain Rogers had a
look of anger on his face that Dean had never seen before. “Wipe
that smug look off your face,” he said roughly. “Like it or not,
Bill is our chief engineer and he has final say on what happens to
the engine. And, whether you believe it or not, he is a darn good
engineer. I trust his judgment and would not even consider
overruling him on this type of matter.”

Taking a deep breath, the Captain calmed
himself before continuing. “Look Dean, I have great respect for
your abilities, but you need to be aware of your limitations. You
are not an engineer.”

“Yes Captain,” Dean replied with his chin
resting on his chest.

“You are to confine yourself to your
quarters until tomorrow’s duty shift. I sincerely hope you will
think long and hard about this and maybe see that you owe Bill an
apology.”

“Yes Captain,” he repeated before turning to
make his escape from what had become the most uncomfortable
situation he had ever faced.

Three weeks later, Dean was back in Lab
three working with Stacy. He was trying to concentrate on his work,
but even weeks later, the incident weighed heavily on his mind.
Though he had tried to apologize to the engineer, Bill had simply
brushed him off with no reply.

Stacy seemed to have noticed that Dean’s
mind wasn’t on his work. She walked over to stand beside him and
asked, “Dean, are you okay?” Getting no response, she placed a hand
on his shoulder and repeated the question.

Startled, he turned and said,
“Huh…what?”

“I asked if you were okay,” Stacy replied.
“You seem to be farther out in space than the rest of us.”

“I’m sorry Stacy,” he answered with chagrin.
“I didn’t mess anything up did I?”

“You’re just cleaning beakers; pretty hard
to mess that up. What has you so troubled?”

Dean hesitated before saying, “Uh…I’m not
sure I should talk to you about it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, my problem is Bill. I know you two
have a relationship going, so I don’t want to put you in the middle
of anything.”

Stacy smiled kindly and said, “I appreciate
your concern; however, I’m a big girl and I can choose for myself
if I want to be in the middle of things. Besides, I may be the best
person to speak to. I probably know him better than anyone. So,
come on, spill. What’s the problem?”

Dean decided that he probably couldn’t do
anymore harm, so he blurted, “I just don’t know why Bill hates me
so much. As far as I can tell, I haven’t done anything to him. I
mean, I know I shouldn’t have said what I did in the exercise room,
but I tried to apologize and he just ignored me.”

Stacy took his hand, led him over to a pair
of chairs, and gently pushed him down into one. She sat herself in
the other one and placed an arm around his shoulders. “Dean, how
did you come to be on this ship?”

“You already know,” he answered, confused.
“I won the essay contest.”

“Yes, and how did Bill come to be on this
ship?”

“I have no idea. I assumed he was just a
qualified engineer.”

Stacy smiled and said, “There is a lot more
to it than that. There is a lot of competition to be part of the
space program. Bill spent many years in the military working his
backside off to be the perfect officer. He spent years working hard
to get his master’s degree. While doing all that, he volunteered
his time to work with various charities. He did all that to make
himself stand out so SpaceTek would notice him.”