CHAPTER 8 – A FRUSTRATING DELAY
08:04 (GMT)
Thursday, February 25, 2044
Northwest section of the Melas Chasma
Valles Marineris, Mars
The large, conical ship, floating down under its huge directional parachute topped by a helium balloon, further slowed down its descent by firing up briefly its main rocket engine as it was only twenty meters above the dirt floor of the Martian canyon, landing softly on its multiple landing wheels and bouncing slightly once before coming to a rest on the Martian dirt. The ship, with a maximum width at its base of 26 meters and a height of 34 meters, soon started to roll towards a group of lava tube openings at the base of the northern cliffs of the canyon, some seventeen kilometers away. The ten wheels of the ship, far from simply supporting the ship, were also motorized, each of them incorporating an electric drive motor connected to the small nuclear reactor plant of the ship. Motoring along at fifteen kilometers per hour, the ship arrived after 75 minutes beside the group of lava tube openings, then parked itself as close as possible to the foot of the ten kilometer-high cliff wall, in order to enjoy as much radiation protection as possible from the rocky wall, which in effect cut down by half the amount of radiation showering this part of the surface of Mars.
Up in orbit, aboard the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, the team led by Doctor Roman Denisovich exchanged high fives and handshakes inside the remote control center of the ship, with Denisovich happily patting the shoulder of Denise Wattling, who had remotely piloted the Mars Cargo Lander Number One down into the Melas Chasma canyon.
‘’That was some really nice piloting on your part, Denise: we could barely have asked for a more precise landing near our intended future base location.’’
‘’Well, you really should praise the engineers who designed our landers, Roman. They conceived a truly ingenious and effective design. This combination of parachute, helium balloon and retro-rocket, plus the motorized landing wheels, make it easy to reach our intended landing point. So, when do we launch our three other cargo ships?’’
‘’We will launch Cargo Lander Number Two in about one hour, when our ship will be back in the proper launch position. Mister Walsingham will pilot it. Then, Mister Brown will pilot our Cargo Lander Number Three down to the Melas Chasma after an another hour. Finally, you will pilot down our Cargo Lander Number Four. Once all of our four cargo ships will be safely parked near the entrances of the lava tubes that will house our base, we will then be ready to send down the ground exploration team, with you at the commands of the Mars Manned Lander. If all goes well, you will be able to walk on the surface of Mars in two days, Denise.’’
The tall, blond ex-fighter pilot grinned while imagining that moment.
‘’That will certainly be the highest point in my life to date, Roman: to be the first person to walk on Mars…’’
‘’Well, you will have fifteen companions with you on the surface, Denise, so you will still have plenty of company.’’
‘’Damn, I hope that anticipation and excitement will not stop me from finding sleep until then.’’ said wistfully the American woman.
03:45 (GMT)
Saturday, February 27, 2044
Cabin 014, Ring Carrousel ‘A’, main disk section
H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, in low Mars orbit
Denise Wattling was sound asleep when the buzz from her wrist’s videophone woke her up. Chasing away with difficulty her fatigue, Denise pressed the ‘open link’ button of her videophone, speaking in a tired voice in its microphone.
‘’Yes?’’
‘’Denise, this is Roman! I am sorry to have to wake you up at such an early hour, but we may have something serious to contend with: a major dust storm is in the process of forming up at the surface of Mars, near the Valles Marineris.’’
Those words acted like a shot of adrenaline on Denise, who promptly sat up on her bed.
‘’Aw shit! What are the chances for us that this dust storm may avoid our landing zone in the Melas Chasma, Roman?’’
‘’Not good, Denise. My team is already discussing our scenario options for such a thing but I am not optimistic at all. You better come here quickly.’’
‘’On my way!’’ said Denise before closing the link and jumping out of bed in order to get dressed. Putting on her ship’s service two-piece uniform and her magnetized slippers took only a minute. She however took another minute to go comb her hair in front of the mirror of her dresser before running out of her cabin. Going up one level to the Promenade Deck of the ‘A’ ring via the nearest set of stairs, she crossed the promenade strip and entered one of the transit compartments of the fixed median section. There, she went up along one of the six communication tubes linking the rings and the core section of the ship. Since she was now in a zero gravity environment, she was able to float along the tube, using its padded hand rails to propel herself quickly and covering the fifty meters length of the tube in less than half a minute before arriving at the airtight door giving access to the core section of the ship. Planting her feet back down on the floor of the tube and making her slippers’ magnetized soles stick lightly to the thin steel sheet coating the aluminum floor, she unlocked and opened the door, then stepped into the core section and closed the door behind her. Walking normally this time, despite the core being also a zero gravity environment, Denise went to the surface monitoring center, where the data and images of all the ship’s sensors pointed at the surface of Mars were collated and studied. There, she found Roman Denisovich looking at a large display screen showing a view of the surface of Mars taken by a surveillance camera. On it, more than half of the surface being viewed was blanketed by an impenetrable giant cloud of red dust that was advancing westward. The planetologist and geo-physicist was surrounded by a number of other people also looking at the screen and discussing between them, including the mission commander, Janet Larsson, and her deputy, Alexei Primakov, plus five other members of the Mars Manned Lander crew. They all turned around when Denise walked in, with Roman Denisovich nodding to her.
‘’Aaah, good to have you so quickly, Denise. Unfortunately, it appears that this dust storm is heading straight towards our designated landing zone and will completely cover it in a few hours. It also is a major dust storm that will cover at least half of the tropical band of Mars, possibly for days or weeks. The question we have to face now is whether we still launch our manned lander or we wait for the dust storm to subside.’’
Janet Larsson then jumped in, speaking in a sober tone.
‘’The problem I see with launching our manned lander despite of this storm is that normal visibility on the ground will be close to zero, making orientation very difficult. Even thermal cameras and infrared sensors will have their range affected by the dust storm. With the crew of the manned lander needing to go out in their spacesuits in order to start exploring the lava tubes and go to our four cargo landers to take out equipment and supplies, one or more of our people could very well get lost and walk away in the wrong direction. Remember our collective training back on Earth, when we were in Antarctica and went out during a blizzard that created a whiteout condition.’’
‘’Oh, I certainly remember that, Commander. It was a bit scary then and we had to use our safety lines to find back the entrance to the base. We could still navigate through that dust storm, using our rovers’ radars and thermal sensors, but I agree that working in such an environment would be very demanding and stressful. I say that we should wait for that dust storm to subside before launching our manned lander.’’
‘’Don’t forget that such storms are known to often persist for weeks and months at a time.’’ cut in Steve Larkin, the ship’s chief geologist. ‘’Do we want to potentially waste so much of our mission time by waiting for this storm to die out? We do have a lot of work to be done on the surface.’’
Denise shook her head at once on hearing that.
‘’I’m sorry, but the safety of our people should be placed above any consideration of time or workload. As pilot and commander of the Manned Lander, I still say ‘wait for the storm to subside’.’’
‘’I concur with and support your assessment, Denise.’’ said Janet Larsson, to Larkin’s obvious annoyance. ‘’We will wait for this dust storm to die down before launching our manned lander. You may now return to bed, my friends.’’
The small crowd then broke up, with most of them leaving the surface monitoring center to return to the rotating carrousels. Denise was also in the process of going back into a radial circulation tube when she stopped, indecisive. The adrenaline shot of learning about the dust storm, allied with the decision to postpone the launch of her manned lander, had chased out her sleepiness, leaving her fully awake and needing to expend some energy. She toyed for a moment with the idea of going to the Promenade Deck of ‘B’ Ring, to run along its exercise track and use the various exercise machines there, but she decided otherwise, as she already had been doing that nearly every day since their departure from Earth orbit. An idea then made her smile: since she was already in the core section of the ship, why not use one of the facilities in it? Staying in the core section but going up by three levels, she ended up in a relatively small rotunda-like compartment with four airlocks attached to it and with four solid, large acrylic windows along its walls. The rotunda was actually inside the forward anti-radiation shield protecting the core section. That shield was in turn shaped like a thick disk situated forward of the core and filled with water, making the core insensitive to even the most violent solar storms ever recorded. A similar water shield protected the bottom of the core, while a water jacket surrounded its sides, completing its anti-radiation protection. If a truly violent solar storm ever submerged the ship with penetrating charged particle radiation, then the crew of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP would be able to find safety inside the core section, where seats and facilities for the whole crew were available. As an interplanetary ship that was going eventually to travel to places as far as the Jupiter and Saturn systems, such anti-radiation protection was not only desirable: it was also essential. However, the designers of the ship had followed a philosophy of making as many of its components as possible fill more than one role. In the case of the forward core water shield, they had decided to use it as a giant scuba swimming tank. With a diameter of twenty meters and a height of five meters, that had provided a huge volume to play with, a volume which the designers had further made even more suitable for its secondary role by adding false surfaces mimicking a sea bottom and an illuminated sea surface. Giant circular screens covering the lateral walls of the tank projected pre-recorded views of fish and other marine life swimming around, enhancing the illusion effect of the tank. Denise had already used the scuba tank a few times and she positively loved the sensation of freedom of movement and wide spaces it gave, in contrast to the comfortable but still enclosed space found in other ship’s sections. Going to one of the personal effects lockers of the rotunda, she quickly undressed, ending up completely naked. Stuffing her clothes inside the locker, she then went to the racks supporting the pressurized air scuba bottles used by swimmers, selecting a full tank and putting it on her back. Buckling the retaining belt of the tank and testing that her regulator was functioning correctly, Denise then put on a scuba mask and a pair of fins before walking backwards towards one of the four small airlocks of the rotunda. Entering the airlock, she closed its hatch, then went through another hatch, entering an inner airlock. Closing that hatch as well, she pressed a large button and heard air whistle in as the pressure in her secondary airlock increased slightly. Pinching her nose and blowing air with her mouth closed, she equalized the pressure on her eardrums. Only then did she open a third hatch, stepping in a small adjacent compartment and closing the hatch behind her. She was now in a small but tall space half filled with an elevated platform with a large hole on top of it. Climbing the short set of stairs leading to the top of the platform, Denise then jumped down through the hole, splashing into the water of the tank one meter down. When time would come to leave the tank, she would then simply swim back to the hole and climb a short ladder to find herself back into a breathable air space. Swimming out of the access well, which had been camouflaged as an underwater cave with the help of molded and painted plastic surfaces, Denise gave a few vigorous strokes of her fins, ending in the middle of the flooded volume of the tank. Looking back at the airlock rotunda complex, she saw the fake underwater section of a small reef going up all the way to the faked sea surface. Now feeling as free as a fish, Denise started swimming lazily around the tank, savoring her surroundings and feeling the lukewarm water flow over her naked skin.
She ended up spending a good forty minutes swimming around the tank before she returned to one of the four access wells and exited the water. As Denise was putting on her uniform, she heard her stomach growl.
‘’Looks like the exercise opened up my appetite. It could be a good time to go visit the cafeteria for an early morning breakfast.’’
Returning to the level of the core that connected with the radial circulation tubes, she took one tube and floated down towards the contra-rotating carrousel rings, soon ending in the ‘A’ Ring and walking along the promenade strip towards the ship’s cafeteria. There, she found Jack Sommers manning the hot service counter and preparing a batch of sausages and bacon. The growls inside Denise’s stomach redoubled as she smelled the meat cooking on the hot plates, while Jack smiled to her.
‘’Hello, Denise! You are early, this morning.’’
‘’I sure am! I was awakened by a call two hours ago, only to have my scheduled departure for the surface postponed for an indeterminate period because of a giant dust storm on the surface.’’
‘’Oh! And how long could this dust storm last?’’
‘’Nobody knows! It could be days, weeks, even months. We will wait for the time it takes to have good visibility again on the surface. And Xiulan, how is she doing?’’
‘’She is well, thank you. Her pregnancy is progressing just nicely and all the tests show that the fetus is viable and has no deficiency or anomaly.’’
‘’Aah, that’s good! Well, while I’m here, I will have some scrambled eggs, along with hash brown and bacon.’’
‘’Scrambled eggs, hash brown and bacon, coming up!’’ replied Jack, smiling, while turning face down two strips of bacon on the hot plate with his spatula.
Denise’s hopes that the dust storm on Mars would go on for a few days only were quickly replaced by growing frustration as days, then weeks passed by without signs of the storm abating. It took close to two months before the dust started to settle down, to the immense relief of the whole crew of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP. Then, the last verifications and checks to the manned lander were ordered by Janet Larsson and the crew of the lander was finally able to board their craft.