The Next Continent (10 page)

Soon the timer on Cui's wearcom began beeping. “Oh well,” said Cui as he replaced the cover on the case he was about to open. “It's time for my medical experiment in Azure Dragon. Why don't you come along and watch?”

“What about the fungus?” asked Tae, pointing to the case.

“Don't worry, they won't die.” Cui shelved the case and walked past them. They climbed through the hatch and into the node, then through another eighty-centimeter hatch into the eastern module. Passing repeatedly through the narrow hatches was becoming a bit of a chore.

The interior of the Azure Dragon module was the most complex space they had yet seen. Perhaps “complex” was a little too complimentary. The space was crammed with food and equipment boxes, waste containers and devices, and tools and components stacked on the floor and hanging from the walls and ceiling. Amid all this clutter was something that looked like a conveyer belt, a bicycle with no wheels, and some spring-loaded exercise gear. Tae looked stunned. “You could get lost in here,” she whispered.

“Don't drop anything,” said Cui. “We'll never find it. This is where the automated supply vehicles dock, so we use it for storage.” Sohya and Tae could see another hatch at the opposite end of the module and beyond it a space that looked like a dark cave.

Cui stood on the conveyer belt and removed his shirt. He unhooked several cables tipped with electrodes from a device on the wall, attached them to his naked chest, and donned a mask with a hose leading to another device. “What's that?” asked Tae.

“Cardiopulmonary-function check. We have to do this every day, along with the training. The low-G environment has a negative effect on muscular and cardiovascular function. The treadmill and the stationary bike are ergometers to measure the work we do while exercising.” He began running on the treadmill.

“Can't you get exercise out on the surface?” asked Tae.

Cui answered at intervals as he paused to catch his breath. “EVAs are hard on space suits…It's hard to get efficient exercise…

Anyway, we have to use this equipment.”

“So this is the only exercise you get? What about tennis, or a horizontal bar, or swimming?”

“We're not…doing this for…pleasure.”

“Do we have to exercise too?” said Tae.

“Fifteen minutes should be…enough…You won't be here…long anyway. We have to exercise…for an hour.”

“You have to look at the wall for an hour while you run?” Tae furrowed her brows. Sohya put a hand on her shoulder.

“Tae, he's busy. Let's talk about it later. We should do some exercise too.” Sohya pointed to the stationary bike. Tae mounted the machine doubtfully. Sohya picked up a spring-loaded chest expander and extended his arms against the resistance. The springs creaked where they were attached to the handles. Cui looked over at him. “We haven't…used those…for a while. Be careful.”

But before he had finished speaking, the springs separated from their attachments with a metallic squeal. A blur shot past Sohya's eyes as he reflexively drew in his chin. The springs crashed against the opposite wall. “Whoa!” he shouted.

“This is rusted too!” cried Tae. She was red with exertion, but the pedals were stuck fast.

“It's not rusted—you have to adjust the torque.” Sohya helped her lower the resistance.

After fifteen minutes of exercise, the pair poked around the module as if it were a yard sale while they waited for Cui to finish his running quota. Twice Peng entered the module and hurriedly grabbed a cylinder similar to tanks used for diving.

There were around twenty of these tanks along the wall. Sohya took one down to examine it more closely. “SFOG” was stenciled on the tank.

Solid Fuel Oxygen Generator
, Sohya thought. Why would the base need a supplementary oxygen source?

THEY HAD SEEN
all four modules. This completed their tour of the base. Sohya still had to take photographs and write up a report for Gotoba, but their one-week stay had just started. Though they had not come just to examine the base hardware, they still had plenty of time.

It seemed there was nothing left for them to do that day. They were in no position to help the crew; they had received only the most basic training before leaving Earth and had no idea how to perform any of the base tasks. The only way for them to keep from getting underfoot was to kill time in a corner of the habitation module.

“Sohya, look at this.” Tae brought a cup of water. She had rearranged her hair from the bun on her head to braids.

She tilted the cup back and forth with her wrist. It slopped back and forth in the glass with a slow, syrupy motion.

“Isn't it weird? It looks alive.”

“Careful you don't spill it,” warned Sohya.

She spilled it. The water suddenly shot over the lip of the cup in a long sheet of fluid that rose higher than her head, like a jellyfish. The tongue of fluid broke into droplets and splashed lazily over the floor panels. Tae dropped to the floor so quickly her braids pointed at the ceiling. “Oh no!” she wailed. “I'm sorry, I didn't think it would go so high. Where's a cloth to wipe it up?”

As they searched for a cloth, Jiang stuck his head through the entry hatch. His work moving Xiwangmu 5 was finished for the day. As soon as he noticed what was going on, he yelled, “What have you done?”

Jiang nearly did a somersault coming through the hatch. He grabbed a towel from the garment rack and covered the pool of water with it, carefully wiping the floor as if desperate to get every drop.

“Fresh water is precious! Who said you could do this?”

“It's not fresh water,” said Sohya defensively. “It's from the shower.” He pointed to the stall farther back in the module. Jiang sighed deeply.

“Oh, I see. In that case it's okay. We can replace it.”

“Can't you recycle water for drinking too?” asked Sohya.

“Sure, but recycled water tastes bad.” Jiang wrung out the soaked towel over the inlet to the recycling unit. “There was a hole in the distillation unit. The E. coli count went through the roof. We have to add tons of silver nitrate to kill the bacteria. The water isn't undrinkable, but the supply ships bring water that's much tastier.”

This was the first opportunity Sohya and Tae had had to speak to this young man, the youngest member of the base team. He seemed much more open and approachable than Cui. Sohya decided to risk a question.

“Have we done anything wrong? Cui doesn't seem to like us much.”

“Oh, he's just stressed, that's all. We've been away from home for a year. We're all homesick.”

“Really?” marveled Sohya. “I thought you all had this burning desire to fulfill your mission.”

“Of course we do. Otherwise we could never manage this.” Jiang shrugged and looked at his wearcom. His face lit up. “Finally—time for the evening meal. That's the best stress reliever. It's my turn in the kitchen tonight. I'll show you what good cooking is all about.”

“What's on the menu?” asked Tae.

“We can off-load supplies from Xiwangmu now, so we're going to have a feast. Camel hump fried in oil, stir-fried abalone—”

“Is that why the base has this smell?” said Tae, jabbing a finger in the air.

Jiang nodded. “It's too bad we can't ventilate better. Whatever we can't scrub stays in the air.”

“Doesn't that put an extra load on the life-support system?” asked Sohya.

“Lighten up,” chided Jiang. “The Russians actually smoked cigarettes on Mir. Well, I better go get things ready.” He clapped Sohya on the shoulder and went out through the hatch. Sohya was openmouthed with amazement. Jiang was completely different from his nervous counterpart, Cui.

Tae looked delighted. “This is the best thing so far!”

“Didn't you say something about not liking oil?”

“It's the smell I don't like. Chinese food is good every now and then. I think I'll give him a hand.” She left through the hatch, smiling with anticipation. Sohya shook his head. What kind of an operation was this? He wasn't sure.

[5]

THE DAY AFTER
the festive welcome party, the work of off-loading supplies began in earnest. Sohya and Tae's weeklong stay on the moon was based on the time required to complete this work, not on any accommodation by the Chinese. They knew nothing about lunar operations, but a week was enough to learn about the base. They observed the crew's activities very closely.

Each day started with a wake-up call from Beijing Control at 0600. Work started at 0800 and ended at 1800, with a two-hour lunch and rest break in between. An hour of physical training was supposed to be followed by two hours for dinner and private time, then an hour of prep for the following day, with lights out at 2200. But the real schedule was mostly very different.

The crew was up much earlier than 0600. Breakfast was sometimes just a hurried snack. The extra time gained was largely devoted to monitoring and maintenance of the life-support systems. The rest of the day tended to proceed according to plan, but it was difficult to complete everything in the time allotted. It was often necessary to break early from one task and hurry on to the next.

The evening meal was punctually observed. In fact this was the only part of the schedule that was. Like clockwork, the five Chinese strictly adhered to the two-hour meal period, but there was no private time afterward. The crew never observed the scheduled start of the sleep period at 2200. Instead of private time, they worked late into the night on facility repairs, harvesting the experiments in White Tiger and preparing for the next day. Once, around four in the morning, Sohya woke to use the toilet and heard the animated voices of Peng and Cui coming from White Tiger, audible over the round-the-clock
basso profundo
hum of fans heard everywhere on the base. It sounded like an argument.

And after every task was finished, there was communication with Beijing Control. Cui had been constantly checking his wearcom during that first day's tour not only to monitor the time but to send text updates to Beijing. His refusal to do updates via voice link reflected his irritation with having to do them at all. This was not hard to understand. He even had to contact Control when he visited the toilet.

Yet there were times when Cui set aside his usual dour mood. One evening after dinner, Ma suggested they watch a movie together, and Cui revealed another side to his personality.

The movie was not streamed from Earth; Ma had carried it with him on a memory card. It was not the kind of entertainment Beijing would have transmitted via one of their communications satellites. It was an erotic comedy from Hong Kong. Tae looked away in confusion. Sohya was embarrassed for her, but Cui paid no attention. For a short time, he became a different person, exploding with laughter throughout the film. Still, the rest of the time he was difficult to approach, while Peng and Jiang were easy to deal with.

After several days, the reason for the irregular scheduling suddenly dawned on Sohya.

A huge amount of the crew's time was monopolized by repair work. Each crew member was occupied with something during waking hours, but a third of the work was devoted to repairs to the cooling system, the air and water purification devices, and the base power supply. Next in terms of demands on their time came looking after the creatures and harvesting the experiments in White Tiger. These tasks clearly limited the time available for other scientific work, so the only solution was to skimp on sleep. Even the crew's strict adherence to the evening meal schedule was an artifact of the overburdened working day. Without at least an unhurried evening meal, they would not have been able to cope with the pressure.

It seemed to Sohya that Kunlun Base was barely holding together, or at least operating at the limits of its capacity.

The coolant leak they saw that first day proved to be a daily occurrence, and a sweet smell wafted throughout the base from pools of ethylene glycol beneath the floor. The solar panels installed outside the modules were exposed to direct sunlight with no intervening atmosphere to reduce its intensity, so the older panels were beginning to sustain damage. This sometimes pushed the base's power supply to dangerously low levels. As an outsider, Sohya might never have noticed this, except for something that occurred just after they had bedded down on the fourth day.

Sohya was about to doze off when he heard a crash and opened his eyes. The endless whirring of the purification fans and the droning of the reverse osmosis unit made for a surprisingly noisy environment, and it was never easy to sleep. Sohya drowsily opened the door to his sleep station to find Peng lifting a familiarlooking tank from the floor.

“Still working, Commander? Don't you guys ever get any sleep?”

“Sorry to disturb you. Please go back to bed,” said Peng. He glanced at Sohya and tightened a valve on the tank. Sohya heard a loud click and without thinking, asked, “It says ‘SFOG' on the tank. What does that stand for?”