"Some of you are destined to live well into your hundreds, particularly if you can avoid serious accidents. Some of you, in whom cancer is waiting for a stray X or cosmic ray to trip up your DNA, have less, perhaps much less. Stay inside if you can. Given an active lifestyle in reduced gravity, a healthy diet, a sterile environment, the lack of stop signs to run, planes to crash, disaffected lovers to shoot you (a small laugh here), you should all see yourselves well into your nineties."
We shall see, Sam Aiken thought. Already Fenley was getting on his nerves.
The reality was that the dangers were many and they all knew. Ultraviolet light bathed the surface and minimally attenuated solar winds scoured the rocks. Gamma and X-rays smashed though the thin atmosphere, wreaking havoc on organic bonds great and humble. The regolith, the very 'earth' they hoped to stand on, was toxic. Dust storms could build static charges to dangerous levels. Dust devils could blast exposed surfaces of their protective coats. The wind blown fines were toxic. Mars was a tentative world, a departed world made of rock, dry sand, styrofoam, plasticine and silly putty.
The Martian surface, untested by rain, wind, and gravity of Earth-like intensity was held in the questionable grip of a variety of weak forces, waiting patiently for the input of sufficient kinetic energy to allow it to fall apart. Every uninformed step was potentially a last one. They could protect themselves behind glass, plastic, and armoured suits, but at the cost of freedom—freedom to feel the wind blow across their skin, to cool their faces, and to feel the good earth trickle through their hands.
Enough said. Years of military service had endowed Sam for life with the most succinct characterization of the present hardship: it could be worse.
After the others had left for the day he sat slumped in his seat in the darkened hall, contemplating all of this. For some reason he disliked Fenley. He pondered the whys.
They had never met before Sam had entered the program and since then their interactions had been limited to a couple of working groups and a brief one-on-one interview in a dark and quiet room during which Fenley had asked only three questions: why did he want to go to Mars, what would he miss about Earth, and was he prepared to die on Mars? A thought occurred: Had he been functionally read?
He had been slightly surprised and embarrassed to learn of Fenley's high profile stint as Presidential Science Advisor. He chastised himself for not recognizing him. In preparation for the interview he should have done his research, known all about him in fact, so as to act suitably and appropriately impressed.
Today, at the podium, Fenley had been standard-issue modern executive: tall, forty-ish looking, immaculately turned out in a conservatively-cut day-glow blue suit, with his shoulder-length hair pulled back into the mandatory ponytail to accentuate his weasel-like face. His on-stage performance had been that of the consummate communicator: wholly at ease yet animated, chock full of dramatic gestures—the swoops and whirls of his hands had just skirted the fringes of the appropriate. Fenley been completely in command, and many, it seemed, had been charmed. But there were no surprises in any of this—this was no less than it should have been at this ultra-high level of leadership.
No, he decided, it was something else. Eyes closed, he pondered again the total effect of Fenley, and finally it came together. Fenley reminded him of most of the senior project managers he had known. Yes, that's it. The club tie, the easy smile, the firm handshake, the sudden look in the eye. They looked everywhere but at you, their eyes constantly flitting about the room seeking someone or something more important to them.
No, Nada, nyet. It's that dismissive wave of the hand. They all do it. He's a chimera. Yes, that's the word. A collection of actions and intents. No, a hologram. No, a gestalt. He felt himself losing it and clamped down.
"Great Mother of Ulcers!" he spoke to the empty hall. "That's it." He got up and left the assembly hall, fully satisfied that he had nailed Fenley. But the words left a bitter aftertaste. No. Acid.
***
On an otherwise nondescript evening, as on numerous other evenings during initial training, a group that varied greatly in composition and number went out for drinks at the one of the many establishments that lined the boulevard near the Assembly Hall. As he often had, Sam tagged along, walking alone on the fringes of the group.
Over the evening the conversation ranged from the ridiculous sonic-billboard shirts worn by Fenley to the quality of the day's speakers and the events unfolding in the Middle East. All points made, the others had drifted away to their own distractions and now he sat in the café, drinking mulled wine and talking in hushed tones to a person who was as yet still a perfect stranger.
He was tired and not a little irritated by the endless seminars and the irrelevant information contained in them. Given the finality of the whole thing much of it seemed pointless. Uncharacteristically, he had consumed too much wine. Much too much wine. The barriers of self-preservation were coming down.
The spiral of conversation gradually closed in on their individual motivations. "This is difficult, much more difficult than I could have ever imagined."
"Why are you going, then?"
He abruptly turned and slid to the end of the bench. He was on the verge of getting up. "The fact is some of us want the hell out," he said in a voice louder than necessary, loud enough to earn the startled looks of a few of the other patrons.
"It's not that bad—at least not for the west, not yet," she countered in response to the most obvious meaning of his words.
He sat back in his seat and turned to her. She also sat back suddenly, apparently fearful of some fault of her own, which made him vaguely aware that he'd been projecting his misanthropy more intensely than he'd realized.
He looked at her, through and around her, and without any thought for the strangeness of the then just forming words, let go.
"I think there are those of us who don't belong here. We don't fit. We don't see what others see. Sometimes it's all so alien. Sometimes the words don't make sense. The crushing cities, the frantic rush, they're not mine." He paused to take a breath. "Sometimes at night, when I look up, I beg to be taken away. I want it so bad, I can't describe it. I…."
He stopped, but not through any embarrassment. The voices of reason, common-sense, and propriety had seized the controls. Not to someone you hardly know, you fool!
From her perspective the high strangeness of his outburst was not lost. How had he survived the screening process? She too had quirks, sufficient that should they be known would probably disqualify her, but.... Suddenly, that thought was pushed aside by another. He was not one of them.
She glanced at the mirrored wall to check her image and pushed a lock of hair back into place. He was an outsider, one who through either personal choice or unsuitability could neither send nor read. That, she realized, explained his awkwardness. All the happs had pinged him as acceptably attractive, sufficiently intelligent, and highly available. She had been projecting interest and she had assumed he was picking up on it.
Long accustomed to being with those who transmitted their emotional state via the link, she was forced to guess the meaning of his words. Out of self-preservation, she grasped for the most obvious and innocuous interpretation. "Yes, we all want to go to the stars or we wouldn't be in the program."
"Yes, we do. Some more than others."
2
August-September 2040
Over a period of two months, in groups of as many as sixteen, they were rocketed into Earth orbit from the great spaceports of world. There was no Ohio winter made summer by rocket blasts. The routes to orbit were the same that had been employed for the previous seventy years: Canaveral, Baikonur, French Guyana, and Woomera, following well worn ruts into the sky to convenient parking and assembly orbits. For many it was not their first trip into space.
There, waiting in low Earth orbit, was the Prometheus. After a brief introduction to the vehicle (which turned out to be unnecessary considering what happened next), they were d
rugged, stripped naked, stabbed with multiple IVs for all manner of good purpose, and slid unconscious into their waiting gel cells, one step from death. In fact, for .5 percent it might very well be death, since the process of placing humans into long-term hibernation was not without its risks.
When it was over, all 152 were in stasis in a volume less than 152 cubic meters—a little larger than a modest living room. So much for the glories of space travel.
They left orbit to another great fanfare: a day of uplifting speeches and enormous firework displays in all of the participating nations. The video of the Prometheus's engines firing, sending them into the up and out was televised globally and shown repeatedly. They would have been proud, had any of them seen it.
But they had not. In beehive fashion, each in their own octagonal cell, the Colonists were kept in a drug-induced stupor, disconnected, their minds sedated, their bodies jerking spasmodically from the electrical stimulation required to keep muscles from atrophy and bones from leaching calcium.
Fortuitously, this arrangement allowed a reduction in the support requirements: space, energy, nutrition, water and waste disposal. Automated systems kept watch. Should the mission fail for any cause, the occupants would never know. Sam could recall nothing from this time. If he had dreamt, he was unaware.
Back on Earth, ground controllers monitored their status and were in frequent communication with the Prometheus. After a brief flurry of interest, the rest of humanity turned its attention to more important things.
There were critical moments during the long voyage, however no one on board was aware of any of them. Automated systems operated the Prometheus's propulsion and life support systems. Mid-course corrections were carried out flawlessly. Retro firing for orbital insertion was precise. The time-honoured process of aerobraking was employed to achieve the desired orbit. The spacecraft spent an additional three days making small inclination adjustments to rendezvous with a tanker to fuel the landing module. Then several more days were spent making more course adjustments to ensure they came down at the desired landing site in Chryse Planitia.
Sixty-five days after arrival at Mars, the lander separated from the main craft, the descent engines fired and they dropped toward the surface.
No colonists were awake during the actual landing. To accommodate everyone would have been impractical and had been determined to be non-essential. Had anyone been awake they would have been unable to view the landing from the single small viewing port; it was facing what had been forward in space and was therefore unsuitable for the landing. But from the rear viewscreens they would have seen the planet grow beneath them until it filled the bottom half, then as the angle of descent increased, the entire screen.
At 20 kilometers little of the Station could be seen, even if one knew where to look. Only the gleaming white cylinders and black shadows of the support ships upon whose intact arrival they were dependent were visible. They touched down in a cloud of red dust that settled quickly in the almost non-existent atmosphere.
Sam was not among the first to be awakened upon landing. That was reserved for a select group that included Fenley and several of the Brits who were required to assess the readiness of the Habitation Module. It was several days before he had his first glimpse of the surface of Mars. Still groggy and nauseated from the effects of sedation, he was gently led from the wake-up room of the lander through an interconnecting tube to a new place by someone he did not recognize.
Seated at one of the side windows in the dimly-lit room, he gazed out over a boulder-strewn plain capped by a pinkish sky. It was not dark yet. Late afternoon or early evening, he guessed, and whatever thing they were in cast a long and distinct shadow over a reddish surface cross-marked with vehicle tracks. He could see footprints made by a solitary walker. The disturbed regolith was markedly of a darker shade, almost black in the fading light. He slept.
Time had passed, he felt. The sun had apparently set quite some time ago, but the sky still glowed with a lingering haze that filled his view. If the awkwardness and vertigo induced by straining one's neck could be endured, very high above, cirrus clouds could be seen. He passed in and out of consciousness several times.
There occasionally appeared in front of him a tray upon which rested a foam cup, sometimes filled with ice water, sometimes with a tepid, sickeningly sweet juice. An articulated arm fixed to the bulkhead several hazy meters away held the tray before him, and from somewhere above a disembodied yet kindly voice urged him by name to drink.
One time he had closely examined the end of the mechanical arm. It had six flat rectangular extensions radiating from a central hub. One extension used as an opposable thumb gripped the top of the tray. The others fanned out below. He took the tray from its grasp and set it before him. The arm began to retract.
Impulsively he reached for it and took it in his own hand. It offered no resistance to his impulsive action. He was surprised by its warmth and soft texture. "Hello," he said, and its shape changed into the form of a human hand. It gripped his in a silent handshake. Examining the surface more closely, he noted a satiny finish. He stroked it. It had the feel of soft velvet. Infinitely flexible, it must have contained tiny electrical power and control wires and undoubtedly, equally tiny sensors.
Without any hope or expectation, he spoke a single word: "flower." The hand transformed itself into a black chrysanthemum. "Thank you." The flower withdrew. The water was warm, sweet and had no weight. It smelled and tasted of flowers. Sam slept—or so he believed.
He woke with a start. It took him a moment to realize that he had been moved. It was light in this new place, but at first the windows were opaque and nothing could be seen of the exterior. Time passed slowly. Over the course of the next hour or so, several others whom he recognized joined him. They seemed oblivious to each other's presence. Clothed in identical thin pale blue jumpsuits, together but very much alone, they silently watched out the now transparent windows as the shadows lengthened and the pink sky slowly faded to velvet black. Unwavering stars began to fill the sky. As night fell he began to feel anxious.
Time passed quickly for a while, then slowly. From moment to moment it seemed to Sam that the heavens had rolled above them like a wheel on a track and then remained frozen in place for hours. The grogginess and nausea faded, this time for good. As it did, the final realization of the enormity of the proceedings registered. He was on Mars.
By the time the others had recovered sufficiently to appreciate the situation, Sam was fully alert. He had no idea how long he had been on Mars. He was aware of who his companions were, of the reduced gravity, of a somewhat lower atmospheric pressure and of the distinct scent of something familiar yet not common in the air.
Conversations were conducted around him in hushed tones. The two who had arrived just after Sam were joined by a third, and then a fourth joined in until all six of them, still in muted voices, were involved. They peered eagerly into the darkness, cupping their hands around their eyes to gain a better view through the windows. Within the cramped confines of the transporter they tested their somewhat diminished but still substantial muscles against the Martian gravity.
"It's blood," offered his seatmate, the Brit, Ross, whom Sam had befriended during indoctrination.
"Pardon?"
"You smell blood. They say it's caused by the particles of iron they can't filter out. That and the lack of anything else to toggle your nose. Although I'm sure that will change."
"No. You don't say?"
Much later Ross spoke again in a too loud voice.
"You know, we've bloody well been sitting here for three fucking days!"
"No. Impossible."
"Fucking right," he said, and then lapsed into silence, his head drooping onto his chest.
Later, maybe much later, from somewhere above, a mechanical voice begged their pardon, told them that they were about to move, and urged them to fasten their seat belts. As one they complied. In a few moments and without further announcement,
the vehicle began to move.
As it swung to the right, a new scene unfolded before their eyes. On the left, the bulk of the lander gave way to the darkness of a sky only distinguishable from the land by the presence of stars. On the right, the same darkness was broken by the distant lights of what could only be the Station.
As the Station drew in front of the vehicle, the scene out both sides became the same: darkness, made imperfect only by the stars. The motion of the vehicle was smooth and steady. No one spoke. The approach in darkness revealed nothing of the Station to the newcomers.
Later, Sam could remember little of that day or days, except one thing: the strange sight of two rows of AIs lining the sides of the road, brilliantly lit by flood lamps, arms upraised as if in praise.
November 2041
An immense quantity of information about Mars had been garnered during the previous seventy years. Every scrap of information from the Mariner and Viking missions of the 1970s had in its time been exhaustively studied. There was so little of it that such a task was feasible. It was a mere dozen doctoral theses or so worth of data.
But in the latter part of the 20th century the immense quantity of data retrieved from the various orbiters, landers, and rovers of the US, Russia, the ESA, and others formed a vast library of information on a whole range of categories, many of which had been invented for the sole purpose of the exploration of Mars.
The coincident manned missions of the new century failed to contribute significantly to this volume. They were too brief, too limited in their research capability, too limited in mobility, and in the end, too much about just being there. Meaningful exploration required unglamorous down-in-the-dirt time on site and time was something that humans could not and would not spend, so the task was done by others.
Imagery at wavelengths of increasingly greater resolution were taken. In time the entire surface was imaged in visible light to decimeter resolution. It was the equivalent of flying above the surface of Mars at an altitude of one half kilometer and looking straight down.