The Martian Race (7 page)

Months before launch each crew member had filled out an exhaustive dietary survey, and then had been interviewed by a dietician. Finally, a computer program called “Meal Creativity” took all the input and attempted to create a set of enticing menus that could be prepared in their galley. The menus rotated their individual choices and the whole pattern repeated monthly. Of course the meals were balanced nutritionally by the inexorable program, which tended to homogenize them. The mission eating experience was designed to be like repeatedly visiting a favorite restaurant. Sure, the menu was familiar, but familiar was reassuring. So the theory went.

They took turns in the tiny galley. On the outbound voyage Julia bowed to the public's expectation and dutifully did her time, but the others agreed that the results were definitely substandard, and she was relieved of cooking. Instead, she did extra cleanup.

That didn't bother Julia, a dedicated non-foodie, who believed that eating was a somewhat irksome necessity. Food was fuel to power people through the day. Something to keep the “little gray cells” nourished, as her favorite detective said. But unlike Poirot's fastidiousness in cuisine, her palate was undemanding. She went through school with a minimally equipped kitchen. Dumping a box of macaroni and cheese into boiling water stretched her limits. Viktor joked that he sure as hell hadn't picked her for her kitchen skills. He had done most of the cooking for the two of them before the mission, and filled out her food survey. “Either that,” he had said, “or risk eating junk food, or worse, Vegemite sandwiches, on Mars.”

But there were limits to the technology. The microwaved frozen vegetables were especially resistant to creativity, but Marc kept trying. He and Julia worked in the greenhouse to grow fresh ones. He had asked for a wide range of spices as part of his personal picks. Some of his more infamous attempts had produced stomach-rumbling distress. Still, the food was much better than the freeze-dried horrors of NASA days.

“So what did you two do while we were gone?” Julia asked later over very slightly grainy pudding. The chocolate color disguised any visible traces of Martian dust, but the tongue found its sting.

Marc licked his spoon carefully. “Well, we were drilling into the giant gopher mounds again, ya know. Found something … interesting.” He went back to his pudding.

Julia glanced over at Viktor. Something was up. You didn't live with people for two years without being able to read them.

Twenty years earlier, Earthbound scientists at NASA analyzing Viking photo data had discovered a field of dozens of regular, hundred-foot-tall hills just north of the small crater Thyra. They put forth a strong case that the hills were actually pingos, buried mounds of ice known from Earth's arctic. But so far, Marc's attempts to drill through what turned out to be layers of salt and rubble had been unfruitful.

“So what you found?” asked Viktor.

Marc stood up. With studied casualness he said, “C'mon, I'll show you. You can watch the robot vid. It's Raoul's turn to clean up anyway.”

Aha. It's something big.
She decided not to challenge him.
Just let him do it in his own way.
Anyway, she was enjoying the mystery.

She helped as Viktor got up clumsily and hobbled to the control room. The tape was already loaded and ready to go. Marc and Raoul must've planned this. Julia wondered, why the production?

They settled into chairs and Marc started. “Looking back over the robot's vid data, I found a hill where the morning fog seemed to have been a bit thicker or more persistent several times. Figured maybe the regolith covering was a little skimpier than on the others, ya know.”

The base sported two open dune buggies the size of ancient VW bugs that the crew used for short sprints of less than fifty klicks round-trip. By taking both buggies, two people could haul the drilling gear. The buggies had been part of the Outpost Mars robot post established by NASA in 2010 to characterize the future landing site. The buggies had been telerobotically operated from Earth, and later, from the hab at Zubrin Base. On arrival, Raoul and Viktor had added the seats to enable two people to ride in each buggy on manual mode. When not in active use, the buggies were sent out to robotically video areas of interest to the crew or to scientists on Earth.

Marc started the video. A large ruddy hill filled the screen.

Julia shivered, remembering the biting cold that morning she and Marc had first seen the fog over the mounds. Suit heaters cranked to the max, they had looked like colorful, quilted penguins. Their pictures now graced the cover of the Lands’ End catalog, wearing the parkas and leggings now called Marswear©, of course. It was the latest rage in macho-type clothes, and the licensing fees helped pay for the mission.

On that trip they'd used the big rover. As they'd prepared to leave it, she'd grabbed her tea cozy and worn it like a knit ski cap. That was only the first time she'd used it as extra insulation.

Marc was talking. “You can see that it has an exposed side. So I decided to try drilling horizontally into that. Saved hauling the gear up on top.”

He waved the remote and fast-forwarded the video, causing the two well-padded figures to waddle comically about as they positioned the gear and started drilling.

The video slowed to normal speed and the faint, tinny grind of the laboring drill came through. “Right about here we were in about thirty meters, going pretty slow through some resistant stuff, salts maybe, then all of a sudden the drill started to cut real fast. Right … there. Raoul is monitoring the depth and he shouts to me that it's speeded up. I stopped it then so we wouldn't lose the tip. Now we're pulling it out, and you can see that the drill tip is smoking.”

The camera came in for a close-up.

“Uh-oh,” said Julia, automatically sympathetic.

“That's what it looked like, anyway, but it wasn't hot, wasn't even warm.” He smiled, looking at Julia and Viktor slyly.

“So how could it be smok—oh, wait, it was water vapor!” shouted Julia. “You found water!”

Marc grinned. “Yep. The drill tip was really wet, and making cloud like mad.” Mars was so cold and dry that water on the surface never passed through a liquid stage, but sublimed directly from frozen to vapor. The team had concentrated their efforts to drill for water in places where early morning fogs hinted at subsurface moisture.

On the screen the two suited figures were jumping about.

“So are pingos after all.”

“Sure seems that way.” Suddenly, Julia could see how pleased Marc was. She hadn't noticed much until now, so preoccupied was she with Viktor's accident and the vent.

“How far in did you go?” asked Viktor.

Marc turned off the video. “Just under ten meters. We went back in to confirm, of course. Got one hell of an ice core.” He grinned again.

“What does Earth think?”

“I hope they're thinking: one more step towards a colony,” said Julia.

“Well, they asked for all the particulars we could squirt ‘em, that's for sure.”

She was suddenly enthusiastic. “This is great news! Fresh water on our doorstep, practically.” She had a sudden thought.

“It is fresh water, isn't it?”

“Yep. I used it in the soup.”

“What? Native water? Did you run it through the mass spec first? It could be full of toxic metals.”

He laughed. “Relax. Just kidding. I left the analysis for you to do. And a chunk of ice.”

“Wow. It's like suddenly discovering you live next to a lake.”

“More like frozen lake.”

“A frozen bumpy lake.”

“Typical Mars.” This last from Raoul, who appeared from the galley with mugs of hot chocolate. “On Earth, you'd look for water in the low spots, stream channels. Here, it's backwards—water is in the hilly hummocks. An upside-down world.”

His sardonic wit could sometimes cut through Julia's high moods, but not tonight. She was irrepressibly cheered by the discovery.

“A toast to the first lake on Mars,” she said, “and to the discoverers.”

They clicked mugs and drank.

“Can tell why Julia is so happy: she thinks we're going to build hot tub in the greenhouse.”

“Now
that's
an idea. But first, what
does
Earth think?”

“Well, they'd prefer more cores to make sure all the hills are pingos. First indications are, though, that this is probably good enough.”

“Good enough for the government, as they say,” said Raoul with uncharacteristic levity. Raoul was the top mechanic on the team, and ritually cynical about governments. He even disliked the fact that NASA had separately contracted with the Consortium to supply some geological data.

“Too bad we're not working for the government, eh?” shot back Marc.

Julia looked over at him, surprised. The brief exchange left much unsaid, but all understood the shorthand. Tensions were definitely building as the launch date approached. No one wanted to be the cause of a delayed return. The search for subsurface water had gone slowly, disappointing some of the mission backers, raising the specter that the team would be asked to stay longer to complete the mapping.

They didn't seem in a mood to discuss her going back to the vent. Time was pressing, and the next item was the engine test. She had better wait before bringing it up at all.

She knew through the years of working with these guys that timing was everything in prying up the lid of the male mind. She had learned that in the toughest of schools: NASA, and beyond.

After Katherine dropped out, there had been strong pressure to have an all-male crew. Many within NASA hadn't wanted a woman along at all. Adding one had inevitably made for tensions, but on the other hand, it also gave half the possible Earth audience somebody to identify with. And the Consortium could be subtle.

Even on Mars, the undeclared war between the sexes continued. As the sole woman on the mission, she had been the target of special psychological counseling during the final months before the launch. Her marriage to Viktor clarified what NASA delicately termed IRA, for Interpersonal Relationship Activities. Instead, they concentrated on how she could tell one of the “guys” that he was wrong without getting into a pissing contest. Someone was worried that she would bruise fragile male egos if she found fault with her crewmates.

She needed to be positive, supportive, but indirect, they said. No criticism of her crewmates. And they had her read old studies of the relationships between airline pilots and co-pilots. “Co-pilots on commercial aircraft use indirect hints to correct pilots who are making mistakes, even though these mistakes can be a matter of life and death,” read one of the learned studies she'd been given.
Hollywood screenwriters got it wrong again,
had been her first reaction. All those airplane terror movies, and the cockpit scenes fraught with punchy dialogue, hadn't happened.

“Captains give more than twice as many commands as first officers, reinforcing the arrogance of rank. Airline accident reports, however, show that first officers often must correct captains’ mistakes,” she'd read.

She'd tried to imagine how this scenario would work on Mars. What if she had to tell someone he'd left the airlock open without seeming to be critical? No shouting, “Close the @#$%! airlock door or we'll all die!” Instead she was supposed to say, “May I borrow your scarf? There's a breeze somewhere.” And then fall to the floor gasping for breath. What about something slightly more direct, like, “Oh, did you think it was getting a bit stuffy in here?”

She'd started to chuckle to herself. Okay, Instead of “Your helmet isn't buckled down right,” she could say, “What a novel way you've arranged your helmet. It's so much more
interesting
like that.” Or, to Viktor, “I love you, but you're about to drive this rover off a cliff.” By then she had been convulsed with laughter.

After that, she found excuses to stay away from the counseling sessions. The whole idea of having to assume a passive role was repugnant.

And ultimately, they just didn't get it: a few bruised egos would be survivable. Pussyfooting around stupid mistakes would not be. Mars never forgave.

6

AUGUST 2015

S
HE HAD FELT TROUBLED, AFTER SHE HAD GOTTEN
V
IKTOR ONTO THE
crew.

She had gone into the meeting with Axelrod without a thought of pushing Marc off—she'd been prepared to resign. Her NASA experience should have warned her. Crew selection was the most Byzantine of all the rotations at NASA, fraught with personality and pull. Nothing was ever done for just one reason. In the Missions Operations Directorate there had been an intricate promenade of personalities and rank and “pull,” traits that now seemed as distant and stylized as the mating dance of birds.

Still, at NASA, the art of picking crews took time and much influence-peddling, government style, and there was time to second-guess. Not here. Axelrod had done his calculations and acted with only a moment's thought. She lacked such decisiveness about people. Quite acutely she felt the soft inner squishiness of them, how easily damaged. With Viktor she shared a hesitant vagueness about emotional matters. This was the standard astronaut profile—strong on externals, weak on communication of internals, as current psych-talk had it. But that did not mean that she was unaware of people's feelings. Wounding Marc had been painful, even if she was not the primary decider.

There was precious little time to brood about it, though. After Marc left, they all swung into relentless mission training.

Using centrifugal gravity simplified many tricky engineering points. Plumbing and structural designs were far easier to make work with gravity to help. But there were plenty of new techniques to master. Despite this being a private venture, work got sliced into the same pigeonholes as at NASA: operations planning, robotics, computers, flight support, vehicle systems, operations managing, payload, habitats, EVA.

Axelrod had imported NASA veterans to run these, too. Soon the air was thick with acronyms, clipped sentences, and can-do mannerisms.