"Can you please calm down in there!" Sven shouted.
In the children's room, there was some sort of fight going on. Even though Erik was only seven years old, he already knew how to tease his sister to the break of madness and surely, he had once again pushed it too far.
No reaction from the room, the loud voices continued. Sven hurried towards the room and stuck his head through the doorway. Anna sat across Erik's chest and held his wrists in a firm grip.
"Take it back!" she hissed.
Erik sneered at her and said, "No, never!"
Anna released one of Erik's wrists and started beating his shoulder, "Yes, you do!"
With a few quick steps, Sven arrived at the combatants and lifted Anna up and put her down on the nearest bed.
"Anna, what have I said about beating your little brother, you just don’t do it!"
"But he…"
"No Anna, you both know what I have said about this!"
Tears began to run down Anna's cheeks.
"But Erik actually said..."
"Yes, I know that Erik like to mock you Anna."
He turned to Erik who still had a smirk on his lips.
"And you know you shouldn’t tease your sister! Do you want us to leave your tablets here on Earth when we leave?"
It was, of course, an empty threat, but a seven-year-old couldn’t possibly know that.
Erik immediately looked worried and said with a low voice, "No, Daddy, I want to bring it with me."
"Okay, listen to me, both of you! No more trouble now, otherwise we will leave both your tablets here on Earth."
It was perhaps a bit dramatic, but it had an effect. Both Erik and Anna spoke almost simultaneously and looked appealingly at him.
"We will behave daddy, we promise!"
"Okay, please try to stay calm now, it’s not long until the bus arrives, and mom and I have to make a final check."
He felt a bit horrible. It was hardly right to threaten your children, but he didn’t have the time to work it out with them right now, and threats always worked, at least so far.
He went out into the living room. Four smaller suitcases were open on the floor and Helena rested on her knees in front of them and folded some clothes. It was their hand luggage that they would carry with them during the trip. The rest of the luggage had been retrieved earlier in the day and they would not have access to it until they arrived on Mars. But there wasn’t much they needed on the trip. Some personal belongings such as tablets, toiletries and a few outfits for each person. He went over to Helena and sat down beside her.
"Do you need any help?"
Helena answered with a slightly absent voice, "No, darling, there’s not much left to do, I am just going through our bags one last time."
Sven stroked her back.
"Are you okay?"
She looked up and he saw that her eyes were red and glossy.
"Yes, I am okay, I just feel a bit sad. I think about all our friends that I will never see again and all the places…"
"It’s the same for me honey," Sven interrupted. "But I try not to think about it. I just try to look ahead. We will experience so much new and exciting things together, you, me and the children. Focus on that instead if you can. I am sure it will make you feel better."
"Okay, you’re right Sven, I'll try."
She kissed him on his cheek and tried to smile.
"Can you please check all the rooms one last time, just to be sure we haven’t missed anything."
He knew they hadn’t forgotten anything, as they had checked every room at least ten times. But it was just as good to do something to pass the time before they had to leave, and Helena seemed to want to be left alone.
"Of course, honey, I will make one last check." he said and smiled at her.
Helena waited until Sven had left the room. Then she carefully placed the little snow globe in her suitcase and closed it.
*
The bus drove quietly and smoothly across the road that meandered through the grassy landscape. Outside, the African afternoon heat was pressing, and the trees and bushes seemed to almost vibrate in the heat. Inside the bus, however, it was cool and nice thanks to the air conditioning. The bus was packed, but despite that it was completely silent. Everyone seemed to be in their own thoughts, perhaps taken by the seriousness of the situation.
Sven had a seat by the window and looked dreamily towards the horizon. Everything looked as usual if it wasn’t for the "beanstalk," as the space elevator was called by the locals.
He never really got used to the sight of a huge thick wire that just stretched up to the sky and then disappeared behind the thin clouds. If you were close to it and looked up, you got vertigo. It was as if the brain reacted in the only way it could come up with to something so unnatural.
As an engineer, Sven had studied the elevator project with great interest. In order to build the elevator, they had to overcome enormous technical problems. For a long time, the material of the wire had been the largest problem to solve. The material had to be strong enough to be able to carry both its own and the elevators weight right up to the geostationary path.
For a long time, the researchers worked on trying to produce coal-based nanotubes and they proved to be both strong and light. But unfortunately, not strong enough. The best nanotubes could perhaps handle 6,000 kilometers, which was nowhere close to the length they needed. Therefore, the project stood still for many years before they managed to produce nanotubes with a diamond structure. This time, the material proved to be strong enough to cope with the enormous stresses, but there was just one problem. It was too expensive to manufacture. At least initially. However, the researchers worked hard on finding cheaper and more efficient ways to produce the material, and finally they managed to bring down the manufacturing costs to more reasonable levels.
Luckily, they finally resolved it, Sven thought. Otherwise they would never had come as far with the Mars project as they had now. Probably only a few landings on the planet.
Now they could send spaceships away at a fraction of the cost compared to if they started from the ground. The spacecraft itself was anchored to the space station at the end of the cable, and, on departure, they could then utilize the centripetal force and save lot of fuel.
Sven noted that they were approaching the base station as the huge building was now showing behind the hills. Sven and Helena had been there several times, but not the children. They were both sitting in front of him with their faces pressed against the window and Erik turned to Sven and said, "Dad, I didn’t think it would be that long, you can’t even see the end."
Anna sighed heavily and shook her head.
"You moron, you don’t understand anything. Of course, you cannot see where it ends, it’s so far up in space you cannot see it."
Erik pressed his elbow into Anna's stomach and said, "You are a moron too!"
"Dad, did you see? He hit me!"
Anna demonstratively rubbed her belly and looked unhappy.
"Okay kids, calm down. Remember what I said earlier today. We can still leave some things back here on Earth if needed."
Both silenced and mumbled "sorry" while Helena leaned toward him and whispered in his ear:
"Don’t threaten our children, they may get psychological scars for the rest of their lives."
"What should I do then?" he whispered back. "They don’t listen otherwise."
"You could do what you said during all the interviews with your psychologist. That you always try to explain to your children what’s right and wrong in a calm and methodical way."
She smiled at him.
"Ha-ha, very funny! What do you think I should have said? The truth? That they drive me crazy and that I sometimes would like to beat them when they don’t listen?"
"If you had said that, I'm pretty sure we wouldn’t be on this bus now."
She held his hand and continued, "By the way, isn’t that Emma Harrison over there? You know, the one who thinks she knows everything about almost everything?"
Sven recalled that Helena and Emma had an argument during a meeting a few months ago. Helena had pointed out something about the location of the various crops in the colony's enormous greenhouse and Emma had then instantly cut her off with a comment that she shouldn’t talk about things that she hardly could know very much about.
"Yes, it’s Emma. But didn’t you know she was going with our ship?"
"Yes, of course I knew that! But I had also heard some rumors that she had made herself impossible with almost everyone on the board and that they didn’t want to send such a troublemaker to Mars."
"I don’t think they had any choice," Sven said. " From the very beginning, she has been one of the key figures in the construction of the colony, and her knowledge can be the difference between life and..."
He was interrupted by a voice in the speakers that said that they would arrive in two minutes and that they should remain in their seats until the staff let them out.
Helena released his hand and said, "You don’t have to always be so practical and analytical. Can’t you just be on my side without having to see everything through some sort of logical filter?"
"Eh, what do you mean? I'm always on your side darling. I just tried to guess why they actually kept her in the program. But enough about that... I listened to the weather report before we left. The night will be completely cloudless, which means that we will have a fantastic view of the continent from the elevator."
Sven leaned against her and whispered, "Maybe we could sneak away to one of the private rooms after the children have fallen asleep? Just you and me alone watching the view?"
"Forget it Sven, anyone could find us there. I wouldn’t want to risk humiliating myself just because you are horny."
"What? What do you mean? What is embarrassing about a married couple who admires the view together?"
"I know what you are thinking about! And stop smiling like that, you look like an idiot!"
She took his hand again and kissed him on the cheek.
"You have to wait until we have the opportunity to be more private."
"More private? We have no privacy until we arrive on Mars. That’s seven months into the future!"
Sven made a sad face.
"Yes, yes, we’ll see… but enough about that now. It seems like they’re going to let us out now. Help me get the kids ready and check through all the seats to make sure we don’t forget anything."
He sighed heavily and began to pick up their stuff.
"Certainly darling, I’ll do that!"
Maybe he was logical and practical, but Helena was probably the worst control freak he knew.