America One: War of the Worlds (27 page)

“Mattville to Base Nevada, this is Max with my daily report. First Vitalily, we copied that, thank you for the idea but we have already thought about going out on the underground lake further, but have nothing here in the base we could make a floating devise out of. Nevada, I suggest you think of something that can handle freezing water, small enough to fit down the stairs, maybe in pieces, and bring it with you. I was thinking of an air boat, one of those old Zodiac air boats we could blow it up from an air tank once we got it down the stairs. I don’t even think you could carry a canoe down there. I don’t believe there is canoe short, or narrow enough on Earth. A cord tied to a spacesuit, and water wings, the things kids used to play with in swimming pools back home is an idea. Remember the larger than normal door is only six feet tall, the staircase down is circular. We cannot get anything down there longer than eight feet or width wider than two feet. I have tested the fact. We tried to get a pole down there to fit a second light on, and we had to shorten it to get it down the stairs. I’m thinking there is enough dry surface to maybe build something small down there, so an air boat is the best bet, and bring as many as you can. Other than that, this new base is great but I say that every day. The water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen is at full speed. We are processing about 50 gallons of water from the river per day. The crew are happy, and prefer this establishment to the old one. Boss, Ruler Roo wants to say hi.”
There was a pause as Roo came to the mic.

“Ryan, Roo here. The three new children are blending in well with the others. I heard what you were discussing with Vitalily, and with Max. I had asked the children about the underground cave a few days go. The eldest boy, his name is Det, has been underground to the lake before for a few seconds. The air was too bad for him to breathe and he nearly perished. Commander Fob didn’t allow anybody down the stairs, except for tribe members elected by him who tried to do what Max is discussing: to float across the water. Det told me that in his lifetime, he had heard of three attempts, each with a single Matt in a blue spacesuit heading down the stairs. They never were seen again, and I suggest extreme caution. Det believes there is something out there that has eaten the three people, but that is also a child’s suggestion. My family is fine, the base very nice and we all look forward to your return. Please tell Mr. Jones that I have stopped drinking, and that he should do as well. Max will be ready to report in again tomorrow, out.”

“Yes, Mr. Jones, listen to your friend Roo, and stop drinking,”
stated Allen over the intercom once the message had passed them on its way to Earth via the radio.

“
SB-III
to Nevada base, Jones on radio,” stated Jonesy ignoring what Allen had just said. “Nothing to report from our two ships. We are on course and ETA LSO: 37 days. Our food supplies are good, water supplies, are good, fuel supplies are excellent, and I will not be taking Ruler Roo’s advice, over.”

“Didn’t think so,” stated Maggie.

“I didn’t think so either Maggie,”
added a still grumpy Allen Saunders from the neighbor shuttle.
“We are going to be dry in a week, ten days if we ration ourselves further.”

“Don’t blame me,” replied Jonesy.

A boat, huh!” thought Ryan loudly twenty minutes later as the messages arrived one after the other, and in order.

“Sounds like a horror movie,” stated Kathy Richmond sitting next to him. “Those poor
Matts
heading into the dark unknown and never being seen again.”

“The bad air would have killed them within an hour or so,” added Dr. Smidt.

“I’m not going down there, wherever it is,” added Pluto Katherine. “Lunar, did you go down there?”

“No, but Dad did.”

“Is it that scary?” Pluto Katherine asked her father.

“Not really,” Ryan replied. “No more scary that landing on a moon, or asteroid for the first time.”

“You know Ruler Roo gets excited about most things,” added Kathy.

“Maybe a gunboat, or gun-canoe might be needed?” added Lunar. “I’m sure VIN knows about those things from his Marine days.

“Martin will be landing in his new jet/spacecraft in a few minutes. Dr. Smidt please go through the messages for anything we missed. Also the coordinates of Mr. Jones’ radio transmission for a readout of his location to Earth. I want to see this new design of Martin’s, land.”

The doctor nodded as Ryan picked up his old handheld radio and headed out of Hangar One with his three girls in tow. They joined several others who were already watching the skies round the base.

“New radar contact 180 miles due east, incoming at 680 knots altitude 60,000 feet,” stated the PA system from the control tower.

“Too high for a commercial jet,” stated Ryan, as his radio squawked.

“Nevada Base this is Martin Brusk, do you copy over?”
Since there was still far less traffic in the air than two decades earlier, 70 percent less, there wasn’t a real need for radio protocol as yet.

“Martin, Ryan, we have you 180 miles out, over.”

“Roger, old friend that is me descending through 58,000 feet,”
replied Martin.
“It sure is always a nice view up at these higher altitudes than before. You can see a curve in the Earth’s horizon at 75,000 feet, over.”

“Not as nice as when you see our planet grow from a star into a blue ball,” replied Ryan.

“Yes, I’m looking forward to my first trans-planet flight with you guys next year.”

“You are really trusting your new plasma thrusters,” smiled Ryan.

“Yes, good news, we will be ready to ship the first six in two months’ time, but I will tell you more when I get down. Nevada base control, I will be landing vertical from 30,000 feet, over.”

“Nevada base tower to incoming aircraft, we copied that. I am transmitting our coordinates for your vertical descent to your onboard computer IP over. There will be ground personnel for a visual descent if you need it, over.”

A couple of minutes later, the crowd on the apron could see a white speck descending directly above where a ground controller was walking out with batons.

Ryan’s old Gulfstream, which certainly didn’t look anything like a Gulfstream, or even an old fashioned jet anymore, came down to land.

Compared to the silence of the shuttles landing in their blue shields, Martin’s craft still sounded like an old Harrier Jump jet, and all put their hands to their ears for the last few hundred feet of descent.

“Still pretty noisy,” stated Ryan shaking his friend’s hand as he exited the weird looking craft several minutes later.

“Yes, unfortunately not something I have perfected yet,” replied Martin smiling. “I look forward to my new toy being as quiet as my old Teslas one day.”

Martin Brusk’s air/space craft was looking more and more like Ryan’s shuttles in shape, although three times smaller than the smaller shuttles. Its wings were more rounded than the shuttles, and its body looked twice as wide as Jonesy’s Gulfstream stashed away on the island. To Ryan, Martin’s toy looked more like something on test with NASA.

Martin and his co-pilot were taken in for coffee to Hangar One and twenty minutes later Ryan’s Heads of Departments were called in for a meeting.

“Ryan, crew, and scientist of Astermine Co., I finally accept your offer to travel to Mars on your next mission in
America Two
. My wife, unfortunately has no interest in joining me, and I will be traveling alone. My main interest is to fulfil my dream of one day getting to Mars. I always said that I would never come back once I got there, but with your new mother ship and with Franklin’s new plasma thrusters I am building, and have exclusivity with him, I believe I will be coming home. Also, I hope to travel to Mars with you faster than any man has ever traveled in space before.”

“Our information on flight times and speeds tally with yours I assume Martin?’ Ryan asked smiling.

“I believe yours are more accurate, Ryan, but yes we will top 100,000 knots in space for the first time, and far above it with a 500 ton ship. The 49-day journey my figures show is really exciting.”

“Our figures showed 47 days?” Ryan asked.

“OK. My question to you Ryan, if you use 10 percent less fuel for a 49 day journey, I can’t see why extra 2 days matter?”

“Only on the first flight,” smiled Ryan in return. “Like the Titanic wanting to set records crossing the Atlantic centuries go. One record flight only and then it is least amount of fuel to move freight. We can also load two more days of Rare earth metals.”

“Ryan, what do you envisage as freight on a regular schedule? Also what you envisage as what Mars will look like once it is safe for normal citizens to live on the red planet?” Ryan thought for a few seconds before answering Martin. He had dreamed of this all is life. Over time, his dreams had changed as new knowledge about the red planet made the changes necessary, but he told Martin his thoughts.

“I believe we can populate Mars with thousands of new citizens. Most of the cities will be underground, as I feel we should have originally built in safe areas on Earth. It saves energy to have 56 degrees around your home 24/7. We humans on Earth waste so much of our resources due to bad planning, short term thinking, and no futuristic thought to our actions. On Mars I feel we can begin a new world with more thought to saving energy, raw materials, and a new way of life. In my lifetime, I would like to see 10,000 Earth people move to Mars. We now have good water supplies. If we can figure out how these blue shields work, we can have acres, even square miles of above ground farms growing everything we grow here on Earth. It is so simple if we can control the heat, humidity, altitude and light. For example, we could have a cooler winter climate in one shield for winter vegetables, and right next door have a humid, equatorial, high-altitude climate for crops like coffee and cocoa. We can import the bugs we need, and not import the pests we don’t. We can import birds to pollinate, bees, ants to aerate the soil, and we can control what goes on in different areas of vegetation. We can live underground in harmony with constant temperatures, and Martin, the most important factor is about us humans moving to Mars. How it will change us in body and mind? How will we differ from Earthlings in a century, or a thousand years?” Ryan took a mouthful of coffee, and then continued.

“We have seen how the
Matts
are so different to us. What I hope we Homo Sapiens living on Mars will change to become a more peaceful race, more secure in our ways of life, understand that we are a only part of universal nature, and that we don’t own it. My dream Martin, is to see a peaceful world on Mars, happy people, and growth in production and science to new levels we have never seen on Earth. That Martin Brusk has been my dream since I was a child. Being bullied at school made my dream even more real to me. I understand I will not perfect the human race, but I believe I can make the Human Race cleverer, and a better group of people, nothing more.”

A round of applause from the crew round him showed that Ryan wasn’t alone in his dream.

“Since I heard you say the same speech when we were younger Ryan” smiled Martin “I look forward to seeing something change in us Homo Sapiens before I die. Now let me give Astermine the update you all have been waiting for on the new plasma thrusters. We had 12 of the new 50 kilowatt thrusters in our first two batches of production. Since you only need 10, we have two aside and are working faster on the ten you need for
America Two
. They weigh in at 10 pounds under 2 tons each, or 3990 pounds. They are each 33 feet long and 12 feet wide. Since I produced your larger shuttle version, two complete plasma thrusters will fit through your larger shuttle roof doors and into your cargo bays. We suggest that you launch them into orbit directly from our plant in Israel, and we will supply you the fuel for the seven launches needed to get the ten engines, and the necessary installation equipment for your ship.

“We have strived for as little installation work as possible, but your ship’s entire rear engine bay will have to be ripped out and modified before they can be installed. This is going to take you six weeks of solid 24-hour shiftwork by your orbital build crew. I have discussed his with you and your section chiefs while you were away, and you know what needs to be done. We have the outer shell and interior engine modifications we are building for you ready at my plant for you to launch up, starting tomorrow.”

For two hours the meeting went on. The only new information was the exact weight and size of the new thrusters.

At the end Ryan asked Martin if his new ship as ready for its first flight into space. Martin replied that it wasn’t, but would be in a couple of months’ time. There was an ignition problem switching from its atmospheric thrusters to its small 20 kilowatt plasma thruster, and the plasma engine was back on the design tables in Tel Aviv.

Ryan had actually thought that Martin’s craft was ready for its test flight, but at least Astermine’s Chief Astronaut would be back by the time it would be ready for its maiden flight into orbit.

Martin was ready to collect the second half of his promised gold and Rare Earth metals though, and Ryan told him that the two tons of radioactive-free treasure would be on the shuttle flight to his plant the next day.

The crew had celebrated a couple of weeks earlier, and the day the deliveries of promised gold had been flown out to the countries in payment for the liquid hydrogen fuel to pay for the return light from Mars. The celebration was that not counting what was onboard Jonesy’s shuttle, but they already had 85 percent of what they had returned with. They had so far beaten the promised cargo load by nearly half a ton.

Five weeks later, Jonesy and Allen Saunders swung into their first orbit around the blue planet, and which would be their slowing orbit to meet up with the Orbital Build Station.

It was good to be home. The final flight for Jonesy and Maggie had been a long one, and both were excited to see that two more sections of
America Three
had been built and connected, and the third mother ship was coming along.