Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (111 page)

“Gabe, just hold her to you. She’ll
eventually get around to seeking a breast and some food. It’s instinctive. I’ll
get an Apgar in a minute or so, give her a shot of vitamin K, then in a couple
minutes I’ll clamp off and cut the umbilical cord. You just lay back, relax,
and let nature take its course.”

Gabe held the child to her breast
and the young girl nuzzled her mother.”

Susan smiled. “That’s a good sign.”
She allowed mother and child to bond for a minute, then said, “Alright, let’s
get on with this.”

“Get on with what?” said Gabe.

“I need to get an Apgar. You just
hold her like that.” Susan pulled the warm blankets down a bit, took the
child’s pulse, listened to her heart and lungs, examined her, fiddled about,
and gave her the vitamin K shot.

The child wailed.

“You’re making her cry,” said Gabe.

“That, in part, is the idea. If she
doesn’t cry, something’s wrong.”

“Well, she’s crying, now stop it.”

Susan chuckled. “Wuss. Trust me, it
won’t be the last time. Abby, tell me when it’s been three minutes.”

“Okay.”

At three minutes Susan clamped,
tied, and cut the umbilical cord, then covered Gabe and her child again. “Okay,
why don’t you and yours just lie down here and rest for a while. You should
expel the placenta in ten minutes or so. After that, if you’re feeling up to
it, we can move you into your room.”

“What’s the vitamin K for?” said
Jeff.

“Babies are born with a vitamin K
deficiency and there’s not much in breast milk. In rare cases this can result
in bleeding which can be severe, even life threatening. So for more than 50
years the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommend administration of a
small dose of vitamin K shortly after birth. It dramatically reduces the
likelihood of bleeding.”

“Got it. Apgar?”

“A perfect ten. With our elevated
CO
₂
level, I thought for sure there would be at least some sign of
cyanosis, but no. Maybe she’s used to it just as we are.”

Jeff nodded and helped Gabe lay
down on the floor. He smiled and kissed her forehead. “Perfect.”

Gabe grinned. “Yes she is.”

“Alright,” said Abby, “so what
is
her name?”

Gabe leaned over and kissed her daughter. “Her name
is… Margherita Concordia Grey.”

#

            “They asleep?” Abby asked.

            Jeff nodded, entering the commons from Gabe’s
room and gently closing the hatch behind him. “Yeah.”

            “Where’s Sue?”

            Jeff smiled. “In there with them, sound asleep
on the sofa.”

            Abby chuckled. “It’s been a long night all
around.”

            “Yeah, sure has.”

            “How are you holding up?”

            Jeff laughed. “Oh boy, I may not be able to
sleep for a week. Talk about a ‘natural high’, wow.” He slowly shook his head.
“I’ve waited a long time for this.”

            “I guess maybe one of us should have told you,
you don’t have to come to Mars to have a kid.”

            “Yeah,”
he chuckled. “What a chain of events.”

            “Okay, so, you want to explain her name to me?”

            Jeff grinned, “What? You haven’t figured that
one out?”

            “No. I’m sure it has some deep significance, but
it’s beyond me.”

            “Ah, okay. Well, Margherita obviously refers to
where we are, and it’s derived from the Greek word for pearl –
margaron
.
Concordia, in Roman mythology, was the goddess of agreement, understanding and
marital harmony.”

            “Hmmm, sounds like a wuss.”

            Jeff laughed. “Well, maybe. But she was also the
daughter of the Roman gods of love and war – Venus and Mars. So, Margherita
Concordia: pearl, daughter of Mars.”

            “Huh. I’ll be damned. Now that’s cool. Pearl,
daughter of Mars; well, she is all that.”

            “Indeed she is.”

            “And it took Gabe months to settle on that one?”

            “Well, you know Gabe.”

            “Yeah, I sure do. And you came up with that?”

            “Yeah. It was just a suggestion. I left it up to
her.”

            “Did you have to explain it to her?”

            “Yeah, mythology isn’t her strong suit.”

            “How’d you think of it?”

            “The Margherita part was pretty easy. Concordia?
I dunno, probably something I read in college or high school. It just came to
me.”

            “How do you spell it? Like the cocktail?”

            “No, it’s M-a-r-g-h-e-r-i-t-a, the Italian
spelling; both to distinguish her from the cocktail and, since Concordia was a
Roman goddess and Rome is in Italy, it just seemed to make more sense that
way.”

            “Huh. It’s kind of a mouthful. Does she have a
nickname?”

            “Yeah. Ghita.”

            Abby grinned. “Hey, now I like that.”

Monday, August 7,
2017

MSD 51047.945 (Sol
297)

            Jeff slowly walked around the greenhouse, hoping
to get Ghita to fall asleep, and give Gabe a rest.

            “Hey boss?” Abby softly interrupted from the
airlock.

            “Yeah?”

            “Chrissie wants to know if we want the
transcript from the press conference or the whole video?”

            “What do you think?”

            “Jeez, I want to see the video.”

            “Yeah, me too. How big’s the file?”

            “She says it’s about 175 megabytes.”

            “Jesus, what’d they do, tape it in HiDef?”

            “I dunno.”

            “How long will that take to upload?”

            “At this data rate? Oh, maybe 8 or 10 minutes.”

            “Ouch. That won’t make the folks at the DSN
happy. Eh, screw ‘em, tell her to send it.”

            “You got it. How’s the rug rat doing?”

            Jeff grinned. “The rug rat is well, thanks for
asking. Her belly is full and I’m just trying to get her to go to sleep to give
mom a rest and let me get some work done.”

            “Just to reiterate, Aunt Abby and Aunt Susan are
available seven by twenty-four to help out.”

            “Yeah, I know. Thanks. Eh, call it a paternal
thing, I’ll get over it.”

            “No, you won’t.”

            Jeff grinned. “No, I won’t. Thanks, Abby. I’ll
let you know.” He continued slowly walking around the greenhouse for another
fifteen minutes or so, noting the finer points of Martian agriculture to Ghita
until she finally fell asleep. He kissed her forehead and smiled softly. “Yeah,
I bore me too.” Jeff quietly walked through the habitat and into Gabe’s room
where he gently laid Ghita in the crib.

            Gabe glanced up at him and whispered, “Is she
asleep?”

            Jeff smiled. “Yeah. And you go back to sleep.”

            “Thanks for walking her.”

            “No problem. Get some sleep.”

            “Okay. Has the press conference video arrived
yet?”

            “No. Probably be a couple more hours before we
get an antenna.”

            “I want to see it. When it gets here, get me
up.”

            “Okay.”

            “I mean it, get me up. I want to see it.”

            “Okay, I’ll get you up. Now, go to sleep.”

Monday, August 7,
2017

MSD 51047.980 (Sol
297)

            Grey Aerospace Press Conference: 1:00 PM EDT
8/7/17.

           
Chrissie addressed a roomful of reporters.
“Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for coming on such short notice. And thank
you to WPRI here in Providence for making their facilities available to us for
this briefing. As most of you know, owing to Mars being in solar conjunction –
that is, being on the opposite side of the sun from Earth – for the most part
we have been out of communication with Mars since July 17
^th
, almost
three weeks. I’m pleased to announce that at 5:31 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
yesterday afternoon, we reestablished contact with our team on Mars. And, much
to our relief, everyone is fine. In fact, they’ve had a very quiet three weeks,
not having to jump up and answer the phone every fifteen minutes.

            Jeff laughed. “Isn’t that the truth?”

            “Though we do have communications, they are,
uh, slow, owing to high solar radiation levels as a result of the sun’s
position so close to our transmission line-of-sight and unusually high solar
flare activity. We as yet do not have communications on our high-speed Ka-band
transceivers, we’re operating at present on the slower speed X-band and, even
there, our data rate is only about half what we normally hope for; about three
megabits per second. Further, owing to the fact that Mars is presently about
247 million miles from Earth, communications take a little over twenty-two
minutes each way. So, just a round-trip ‘hello’ takes about three-quarters of
an hour. And, we have a lot of data to transmit in both directions. That
combined with time-sharing on the Deep Space Network means that it will be a
couple days before we have a full and complete update from the Margaritifer
Basin covering events of the past three weeks.

            “That said, I do have a singularly important
message to relay from Mars. I’ll read it to you exactly as we received it and
then I’ll be happy to take your questions. I only ask that you allow me to read
this in its entirety before you leap out of your seats and began pummeling me
with questions.” She grinned at Heidi, standing beside her.

           
Gabe let out a tiny
gasp. “Oh god, here it comes.”

            Jeff kissed her cheek.
“The world will never be the same.”

            Chrissie picked up the message and began
reading.

“Capt. Jeffrey Matthew Grey,
USNR-Retired

and

Dr. Gabriel Anneliese Frederick, Ph.D.

joyfully announce

the birth of their daughter

Margherita Concordia Grey

MSD 51046.195

3:41 a.m. LMST

eight pounds, seven ounces

twenty-one inches

Grey Station

Margaritifer Basin

Mars”

Gabe grasped Jeff’s hand and arm tightly.

            The entire room erupted. Chrissie and Heidi
glanced at one another in amusement.

           
Jeff chuckled.
“
That woke ‘em up.”

 Chrissie held her hands out in
a calming motion. “Alright, alright. Calm down, I’ll try and get to all of your
questions. How about one at a time.” She began pointing to one reporter after
another and taking questions, “Yeah.”

            “Did you just say there was a child born on
Mars?”

            “Yes, that’s what I said. Over here.”

            “MSD? LMST?”

            “Yeah, that’s how they keep time there. Mars
Sol Date and Local Mean Solar Time.”

            “Okay, right. Um, when did this take place
our time?”

            “Day before yesterday. Saturday, August 5,
2017 at 8:30 PM Eastern time. You.”

            “Was this planned or was it an, uh,
accident?”

Jeff
shook his head. “Ah, jeez.”

            “There are a lot of logistics required in
caring for a newborn. I think you can safely assume this was planned. Over
here.”

            “If it was planned, did you know about it?”

            “Yes. In back there.”

            “How long ago was it planned?”

            “Oh, about five years. Over here.”

“This has been planned
throughout all of the preparation? Since the beginning?”

            “Yeah, pretty much. Up here.”

            “And they have diapers and baby food and all
that with them?”

            “Yes, about a year and half supply. More than
enough to get Margherita here for her first visit to our lovely planet. Over
here.”

            “Her first visit? Oh my god. Is she, well… a
Martian?”

All four laughed.

“What else would she be, you
moron?” Abby snorted.

“Hush,” said Gabe, “I can’t hear.”

            “Well, I suppose that’s an interesting question
of semantics. But since she was born on Mars and has never been to Earth, uh,
yeah, what else would she be? Over there in back.”

            “Her parents are U.S. citizens. Is she an
American?”

            “Oh boy, I don’t know. She’s never been here.
Right now she’s not even an Earthling. Over here.”

They all
laughed again.

            “Do you know if she was conceived on Mars or
in space?”

“That’s kind of a personal
question,” said Jeff. “What do they want? Film?”

“Would you hush?” Gabe barked.

“Sorry.”

            “Given that she was born on Sol 296, it would
pretty much have to be on Mars. Yeah, you.”