Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (91 page)

Once Gabe had the suit room module
in tow she swung around and lined up due east of where Jeff stood, then slowly
proceeded forward on a true westerly heading.

Jeff stepped out of the way. “Okay,
right… there!”

Gabe brought
Amos
to a halt.

“What do you think?”

“Looks good to me.”

Abby’s voice came over the radio.
“Jeff, Gabe, we’re inside and the airlock’s depressurized. All yours.”

“Roger that,” said Jeff, “on our
way.”

Gabe climbed out of Amos and stared
at the lone tuna can. “Well, it’s a start.”

Jeff smiled. “Yeah. How you
feeling?”

“I’m tired, and hungry. I never
imagined a little walking on Mars would be so exhausting.”

“Yeah. Well, after seven months in
space it’ll take some getting used to. Come on, let’s get out of these suits.”
They walked to the Genesis and Jeff opened the airlock hatch. “Ladies first.”
Once inside the airlock, Jeff closed the hatch, slapped the REPRESS valve, then
glanced at his watch. “It’s funny. We’ve only been here four hours and I’m
already kind of getting used to the place.”

“Uh huh. I think I’d be a lot more
excited if I wasn’t so tired. I just want to eat and sleep.”

“Yeah, it’s been a long day, and
it’s only a quarter past noon.” He watched the pressure gauge and when it
reached 5 psi, he plucked the vacuum wand off the bulkhead and started
vacuuming the dust off Gabe’s suit. The airlock was seven feet wide, seven feet
high, and three feet deep between the inner and outer hatches, and also served
as the module’s bathroom, with a chemical toilet at one end that sealed
automatically when the airlock was depressurized to prevent evaporation of the
effluent. Suited up and with both of them inside there wasn’t enough room for
either to bend over, and just barely enough room to turn around.

As Mars fine dust would quickly
clog conventional filters, both the vacuums and air filtration systems for the
Genesis and the surface habitat utilized cyclonic separators, and the canisters
could be accessed and emptied outside. Gabe had worked with Dyson Ltd to design
and build the units. Once they were relatively free of dust and the airlock’s
pressure had stabilized, they helped each other out of their suits, cleaned up,
changed into coveralls, and Jeff opened the inner hatch. Unlike the outer hatch
that was large enough to walk through in a Mark III suit, the inner hatch was a
mere two-feet in diameter and opened into the rear end of the truss. Jeff
climbed through, dropped onto the Genesis’ floor, and glanced at Abby and
Susan. “Hello.”

“Hi,” said Abby. “Good timing.
Lunch is just about ready.”

“Excellent. I’m starving.” He
wiggled past their suits, piled on the floor in the corner, and stood, sort of.
Susan was the only one that could stand up straight in the Genesis, the others
had to lean over the truss to avoid banging their heads on the inner wall of
the shell.

The kitchen, such as it was, was
located in the central portion of the truss and consisted of a small
refrigerator, microwave oven, hot plate and sink. Though minimalist at best, as
they now had gravity, cooking – and eating – was much easier than in space.

Gabe came through the hatch behind
Jeff. “I smell food.”

“It’s just about ready,” said
Susan.

Abby passed out cafeteria-style
serving trays and mugs, and Susan dished up scrambled egg, bacon, and cheddar
cheese enchiladas topped with reconstituted
salsa verde
,
along with sliced pears, and coffee. Then they all took seats on the floor,
leaning against the bulkhead, and ate. It was the first time in seven months
they could drink without a straw.

The Genesis had a table and chairs
that folded out of the truss, but it only sat two, as the unit was principally
set up for exploration in teams. In a pinch it could accommodate all four of
them for up to two weeks. In the event of a major solar flare, if they had time
they would all enter the Genesis and seek shelter in a deep, narrow ravine
about ten kilometers southeast of the station. If they didn’t have time, or the
Genesis was away on an exploration mission, they would gather in the airlocks,
which possessed significantly better radiation shielding than the Genesis and
habitat modules.

There were no beds in the Genesis; they slept on the
floor on inflatable mattresses. After brunch, while Gabe and Susan washed
dishes, Abby and Jeff inflated mattresses and laid them out on the floor
beneath the truss with pillows and blankets. Then they refilled the water and
oxygen tanks on the PLSSs, and connected their batteries to the charging
system. “This afternoon you and I can set up the high-gain antenna, then jack
up the suit room, remove the wheels, and install the airlock.”

Abby yawned and nodded. “Okay.”

“Gabe, what time’s sunset?”

“About a quarter past six.”

Abby glanced at her watch. “If we sleep for a couple
hours, are we gonna have time to do that?”

Jeff shrugged. “We have lights, and it shouldn’t
take all that long.”

“Jeff,” said Susan, “I vote we just take the rest of
the day and tonight off. We just got here and we’re all exhausted. And a
two-hour nap isn’t going to help all that much. I know what the flight plan
says, but we didn’t anticipate being this tired. Let’s get some rest and not
make any mistakes because we’re too tired to know what we’re doing.”

He glanced at Gabe, she nodded, then at Abby.

“Works for me.”

“Okay, sounds reasonable. But we won’t have the
high-gain till tomorrow.”

Gabe shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, we have a
good S-band signal from the orbiter on the omnis. Newport shouldn’t have all
that much traffic for us tonight. Besides, we can always use
Andy
’s
high-gain if we need to.”

“Alright. Sue, looks like the ‘ayes’ have it. Motion
carried.”

She smiled. “I love democracy.”

“As much as you love gravity?”

She scratched her forehead. “Hmmm, I’ll have to
think about that.”

“Yeah. Okay then, let’s get some sleep.”

Thursday, October 6,
2016

MSD 50751.366 (Sol 1)

Jeff
opened
Amos
’ tool chest and retrieved a cordless impact wrench and a 12”
Crescent wrench.

Abby
turned and walked back toward the Genesis. “I’ll get the other ones from
Andy
.”

“Okay.”

“I
forget, what size socket do I need?”

“Five-eighths
inch.”

“Oh, yeah.
Back in a minute.”

Each of
the nine habitat modules had four wheels and four scissor jacks. The jacks were
placed equidistant between the wheels and were used to establish a uniform
floor level for the entire station and level each individual module. Each jack
sat on a shallow aluminum 12” dish-shaped footpad to minimize sinking into the
sand, and arrived affixed to the wheels with a single bolt rather like a
hubcap. While waiting for Abby, Jeff went around to each wheel of the suit room
module, removed the footpad, and set it and its bolt under the nearest jack.

When Abby
returned they set about bolting the footpads to the base of each jack, then
scissored them down with the impact wrenches until they were firmly seated in
the sand.

“All
set?” said Jeff.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,
now we’ll jack these two up just far enough so that this wheel spins freely.”

“Okay.”

“Hold
it.” He reached over and spun the wheel. “That’s good. Now the other side.”
Once they had all four wheels off the ground they went around to each wheel,
removed a single retaining bolt, and slid the wheel assembly out of its mount.
Then they leveled the module. “Alright, let’s see what
Amos
has to say.”
He walked over to
Amos
, aligned the crosshairs in the MastCam on an
orange dot on the side of the module and had
Amos
triangulate the
modules height. Through their surveys of the site,
Amos
and
Andy
had calculated the lowest mean height for all the modules accounting for minor
fluctuations in terrain elevation. “13.5 inches high. Okay, 27 turns down on each
jack.” They took a Crescent wrench to each jack and gradually cranked them
down, keeping the tuna can more or less level in the process. Jeff checked with
Amos
again. “Okay, we’re good, one down, eight to go. How’s the level
look?”

“It’s
good. God, I’m glad we brought these impact wrenches. Doing all this by hand
would’ve been a bitch.”

“That’s a
fact.”

“Whose
idea were these?”

“NASA’s.
They were on the ISS tool list.”

“Well
worth the price.”

“They
were free. When I called DeWalt and told them what we needed, they sent a whole
crate of ‘em. No charge.”

 “Ah,
that explains the DeWalt decals on the tool chests.”

Jeff
laughed. “You bet. Didn’t you see that TV clip with the DeWalt ad that Chrissie
sent us last night?”

“No, must
have missed that one, there were so many.”

“Yeah. It
was during coverage of the landing on some station. ‘If it works on Mars, we’re
pretty sure it’ll work in your garage,’ and included a shot of one of our tool
chests.”

She
laughed. “I like that.”

“Uh huh.
Gabe, you guys about ready?”

“Yes,
depressurizing. Be there in a minute.”

“Okay.”
Jeff climbed into
Amos
and, while Abby supervised, carefully backed the
trailer with the habitat’s airlock toward the suit room’s main hatch.

“Hold it, let me have a look. Okay, alignment’s
good, but you need to come back about six inches.”

“Rog.”
Jeff instructed
Amos
to backup six inches. Where Jeff’s estimate of six
inches was rough, at best,
Amos
could do it precisely by measuring the
amount of wheel rotation, part of the rover’s inertial navigation system.

“Good.
That’s it.”

When Gabe
and Susan arrived, they removed the airlock’s tie down straps, unlatched the
front of the trailer bed from its chassis, and gently tilted it backwards,
allowing the airlock to slide off onto the sand, then tilted it upright to
stand, as with the habitat modules, on four scissor jacks.

“Pretty
darn close,” said Jeff.

The main
airlock was similar in construction to the Genesis airlock, but without the
bathroom facilities. The rear was concave to mate with the round habitat module,
and suited, all four of them could squeeze into it at once, barely. Unlike the
Genesis where they would don and remove their suits in the airlock, in the
habitat that procedure was relocated to the suit room.

Gabe and
Abby wiped the exterior of the suit room around the airlock bolt holes with
tack cloths to remove the accumulated dust, then working together, the four of
them carefully elevated and aligned the airlock, opened the outer hatch, and
bolted the airlock to the module. Once the entire station was assembled they
would pressure test each module in turn and address any leaks by re-torqueing
the bolts, and if necessary applying an epoxy sealant.

Jeff
opened the suit room hatch, switched on his helmet lights, stepped inside and
looked around. Strapped to the floor was the cross-connect tunnel that would
join the suit and utility room hatches. Around the walls were hangars for six
Mark III suits – two spare suits being packed away with other supplies – and
stations to recharge the PLSSs, along with the vacuum. He turned around and
checked the power panel beside the hatch. “Gabe, we’ve got 12.8 amps. Is that
enough for lights?”

“Barely.”

He closed
the circuit breaker to the solar panel on the roof and switched on the lights.
Six 24-volt DC, 8-watt, LED flush-mounted ceiling lamps brightly illuminated
the room. “Well, barely seems to be enough.”

“Don’t
switch anything else on or you’ll pop the main breaker.”

“Got it.
Abby, you want to park the trailer somewhere and go get the utility room?”

“Sure.”

“Sue,
come on in and help me ready this cross-connect.”

“Coming.”

A few
minutes later Jeff heard Gabe groan. “Abigail, what are you doing?”

“What
does it look like I’m doing? Lining up to pull this thing into place.”

“Look in
your rearview mirror and tell me what’s wrong with that picture.”

“Huh? Oh
crap, I’m backwards.”

“Yes.
Come around to this side and try again.”

Jeff and
Susan glanced at each other and Jeff poked his thumb in the direction of the
hatch. She nodded. They got up and went outside. He walked over to Gabe. “How
we doing?”

She just
looked at him and smiled.

“Right.
Okay, I’ll standby and get the hitch, you direct traffic.”

She
grinned and nodded.

He went
to the suit room’s trailer tongue and waited. When properly positioned, each
module would connect with the trailer tongues of adjoining modules. That
insured correct spacing and prevented horizontal movement of any module that
might result from sand shifting beneath the jacks. The tongues also served as a
base for the cross-connects. Jeff pulled a retaining pin and removed the
coupler, revealing a flat plate with four boltholes that would mate with the
next module. “Alright, bring it on.”

Amos
edged forward, using a precise laser rangefinder to gauge
distance and alignment with the suit room.

When the
two mating plates were about a foot apart Jeff hollered, “Stop!” He laid a
straightedge across the two plates. “Looks good.” Then he pulled the retaining
pin on the utility rooms mating plate and removed the assembly from its
receptacle. “Okay, bring her forward.”

Amos
eased forward and stopped.

“Okay,
hold it right there. Let’s get the jacks down.” Once the utility room was
raised, leveled, and the wheels removed, Jeff replaced the mating plate and
they lowered the module until slots machined on either side of the plate
engaged the opposite plate on the suit room tongue, forcing them into
alignment. Finally, he inserted and hand tightened the bolts, then torqued
them. “Okay, that’s got it. Let’s get the cross-connect installed.”

Jeff and
Gabe brought the cross-connect out of the suit room while Abby and Susan
cleaned the mating surfaces around the hatches of both modules. Then they set
the tunnel in place on the tongue, expanded the flex coupling, aligned both
joints, and bolted it in place.

Abby
groaned. “That was a lot more work than I remember.”

“Amen to
that,” said Jeff. “We only practiced this once in suits, didn’t we?”

“Yes,”
said Gabe. “And even then only two of us were suited up.”

“Yeah.
Well, what time is it?” He looked at his watch. “God, 1130 already. Damn, that
took four hours. How much air have we got left?”

“About
two and half hours,” said Susan.

“Well
clearly that’s not enough time for another one. Why didn’t we think to bring
long umbilicals so we could hookup to the tank trailer and stay out here all
day?”

“Would
you want to stay suited for twelve hours, even if you could?” said Gabe.

“Uh, no,
not really.”

“Well
then?”

“Alright.
Well, Sue, Abby, why don’t you two head for the Genesis, and Gabe and I will
position the lab, and we can finish it off this afternoon.”

“We’re
not going to get this done in three days, are we?” said Abby.

“Doesn’t
look like it; four at least. And that’s assuming it doesn’t take all day to get
the kitchen unstuck.”

“Boss,
instead of breaking for lunch now, since we still have a couple hours of air
left, while you and Gabe are siting the lab why don’t Sue and I take
Andy
and the trailer up to the drop line and pick up some supplies? To quote your
favorite actor, we’re burnin’ daylight. We need to get all that shit down here
one way or another.”

“Fine
with me. Just make sure you leave yourselves enough time to get back in the
airlock.”

“Shouldn’t
be a problem, we’ll plug into
Andy
on the drive up and back.”

“Okay,
but keep an eye on his reserve and fuel tank levels, particularly O
₂
,
since he uses it too. If anything looks like it’ll drop below 50%, stop by the
Sabatier on your way back and fill ‘em up.”

“Got it.”

Monday, October 10,
2016

MSD 50754.380 (Sol 4)

Gabe started to climb into the back of her Mark
III. “God, it’s been six days. I need a bath.”

Jeff
grinned.

She
leaned toward him and sniffed. “So do you.”

“Thanks
for the reminder.”

She
reached out and stroked his cheek. “You also need a shave. You’re not getting
anywhere near me like that. It’ll chafe.”

He rubbed
his chin and laughed. “Yeah. Well, move it. If we get our butts in gear, we may
be able to check into the hotel tonight.”

Gabe
smiled softly. “Okay, but in any case, we have to be in by tomorrow night.”

“Why?”

“Because
tomorrow’s Sol 5.”

“Yeah,
and…?”

She
grinned. “And tomorrow we need to start trying again to conceive a Martian.”

Jeff gave
her a broad smile. “Oh, yeah, forgot about that.”

She
frowned. “Forgot?”

“Oops.
Well, we’ve been busy and I don’t have Chrissie up here to remind me of
things.”

“I need
to get you a calendar.”

“There’s
one on the main computer in the commons.”

“Yes, but
though it’s our server, it’s also a Terminal Services Client with the main
computers in Newport. Wouldn’t it be nice if Chrissie was giving some group of
dignitaries a tour while we were uploading something and a reminder pops up on
the MCC center screen, ‘Sol 5: Jeff, get Gabe pregnant.’”

He
laughed. “Uh, yeah, that could be a little awkward.”

“Just a
little.”

“Okay,
but in the meantime… get dressed.”

#

While
Gabe unhitched the trailer from
Andy
, Jeff checked up on Abby and Susan,
who were bolting the cross-connect between the lab and utility room in place.
“How’s it going?”

“It’s a
lot of work,” said Abby. “This is much easier with eight hands instead of
four.”

“I know.
Once we get back with the kitchen and get it sited, we’ll give you a hand.” He
patted Abby’s shoulder. “We’ll be on channel three, see you in a couple hours.”

“If you
need help, holler.”

“Bank on
it.”

Jeff and
Gabe returned to the disabled kitchen module and went to work. “Okay, Gabe,
grab an impact wrench and a couple of jack footings, and let’s jack this thing
up as far we can on this side.”