The Orthogonal Galaxy (6 page)

“
Sorry, Garrison.” Ayman
hung his head in apology. “For the first few days, NASA has ordered
a strict diet of soft foods for you. You’ve been so unaccustomed to
eating ‘real’ food that it will take some time for your digestive
system to adjust.”

“
No worries, Ayman.”
Garrison understood his predicament. “After a month of those
cardboard bars and watered-down powder, this chicken soup and bread
look more like a steak and lobster meal to me.”

With that, Garrison
commenced to devour his supper while Ayman briefed him on the
duties of the afternoon.

“
As soon as you’re done
there, Garrison, we’ll need to show you around. We’ll start with
the central facilities, including the barracks here, and the
workshop and bunker just outside. Then, we’ll drive the Mars
Terrain Vehicle to the outer portions of the crater to show you all
of the support structures which make life and work possible for us
here at Camp Mars.

“
Dmitri and I have already
taxied the Iowa into the hanger and have fueled up and positioned
the Nevada for my trip back to the Moon, so we’ll finish the tour
at the runway, so I can take off while there’s still some sunlight.
NASA always prefers us to have the best visual conditions as
possible when landing or launching from the crater.”

Dmitri interjected an
important item which Ayman had omitted from the agenda. “We must
remember to get new headset at SAR pad. It should be there
now.”

“
Thank you, Dmitri,” said
Ayman. “I almost forgot that my communication headset has been
flaky the last couple of days. I certainly want to make sure that I
depart with a set that I know will work on the trip back to Mars.
It would be awful to lose communication from Mission
Control.”

After he had finished his
meal, Garrison felt adequately refreshed and strengthened for the
tour. They began, logically enough, with the barracks. Comprising
four bedrooms, each with a private bath, the barracks were
sufficiently appointed for comfort and peace. Each bedroom had a
full-sized bed with unaesthetic, yet comfortable, bedding. Each bed
had a wall-mounted light bright enough for reading. Next to the bed
was a nightstand with a lamp. The lamp was designed to provide soft
lighting, and certainly wasn’t sufficient to read by. It was,
however, adequate to extract any personal items off from the drawer
of the nightstand or make a trip to the bathroom. There was also a
large wardrobe, consisting of underwear, sweat suits, and
spacesuits for outside activities.

The dining room and
kitchenette were cozy, yet adequate. A round kitchen table was
could seat four astronauts, since there were rarely anymore than
this on Camp Mars at any given time. In the kitchen area, there was
a sink, microwave oven, and a small refrigerator. Garrison opened
the fridge to reveal that it was only stocked with beverages and
condiments. Cupboards revealed dishes, glasses, mugs, utensils, and
spices for meals as each astronaut may desire. There was also a
stock of snacks—pretzels, popcorn, chips, and candy bars—available
to the astronauts as desired.

In the middle of the
hallway was an exercise room

A trip down to the other
end of the hall revealed a small foyer with some plush seating and
tables with magazines and newspapers. Two rooms extended off of
each side of the foyer. The first revealed a study with plenty of
books for reading—fiction and non-fiction were equally represented,
and there was a sufficient amount of light reading and some that
looked calculated to help an astronaut endure an evening of
insomnia. There were two reading stations, which consisted of an
overstuffed recliner, a throw blanket, pillow, and an audio station
with wireless headphones. A side table was within reach of each
chair, allowing the astronaut to store his current book of interest
and any beverage or snack that he might be enjoying at the
time.

The second room on the
opposite side of the foyer was a room that Garrison was frankly
surprised to see. He had not been told about the entertainment
room, and this proved to be a significant perk. By far the largest
room in the barracks, this room consisted of two plush
theater-style rocker-recliner chairs that sat in front of a coffee
table directed towards a bare eight foot wall. On the ceiling
behind the chairs was a high-definition digital projector, whose
image covered the top half of the wall, for a full eight-foot wide
image. A media center between the chairs came equipped with a
high-quality Holographic Video Disk player and sizable library of
HVDs. The latest audio technology was included in the form of a
540-degree surround sound system. Developers used the term
“540-degree”, because it provides a more immersive audio experience
than the 360-degree system. At 360 degrees, there is a full
wall-length speaker on each of the walls in the room, so that sound
can come from all angles. The 540-degree effect comes in from the
set of four speakers mounted on the ceiling as well, to give a more
dome-like effect to the audio. A video game console was also
connected into the projector, and a few titles were available, but
this was not as popular a piece of equipment for many of the
astronauts. Either way, Garrison thought he was sure to give it a
try, since he would have plenty of time ahead of him for the next
couple of years. Behind the chairs was a fully equipped mahogany
pool table with a billiard lamp and two bar stools.

“
This is amazing!”
Garrison admitted. “Why hadn’t I heard about this.”

“
It’s actually a
well-guarded secret,” smiled Ayman. “After enduring the long
journey, all Mars astronauts have agreed that this little fringe
benefit really makes their day.”

“
Or in our case,” Boronov
interjected, “it makes our two years. It is, as the American say,
icing on cake, I think?”

“
Icing on the cake?”
Garrison reacted. “This is the whole darn bakery,
Dmitri.”

“
Come,” Ayman put his hand
on Garrison’s shoulder. “You’ll have plenty of time to enjoy this
room. First, we need to show you the rest of the
compound.”

They exited the foyer and
wandered back down the hallway. They opened a door, previously
unexplored by Garrison, and turned on a light inside. This was not
a room but instead a staircase which led down to a tunnel under the
ground. The tunnel was lit by fluorescent lights mounted to the
concrete ceiling. The walls and floor were also concrete and were
sealed to maintain the pressure and oxygen needed by the
astronauts. After walking for about thirty feet, a staircase took
them back up to another closed door, which Ayman, leading the way,
opened up for the three astronauts.

As Garrison emerged from
the door, he found that he was in a very large open room, clearly a
workshop. There were tools and electronic devices of all different
types. Workbenches complete with electrostatic discharge mats
allowed the astronauts the ability to work on all types of
electronics. A twenty-foot tall roll-up door was visible at the end
of the building. Just inside the door was a vehicle which looked
like a jeep but had four axles underneath the chassis. Each axle
had two wheels on a side for a total of sixteen wheels. This was
the Mars Terrain Vehicle or MTV. He recognized it instantly, as he
had practiced driving prototypes through obstacle courses at the
China Lake Naval Weapon Center just outside of Death Valley,
California. He knew how this little vehicle could climb over
boulders, and almost vertically up the sides of canyon walls, a
useful ability, considering the vast number of cratered walls that
would have to be encountered and handled on Mars.

After a brief introduction
to some of the equipment and safety procedures of the workshop,
Ayman confessed that there would be much about this building that
Garrison would have to become familiar with due time. Dmitri would
provide him with full training on all of the facilities within the
next month. During the three or so months of transition, there
would be no scientific missions or planetary explorations in order
to allow the new astronauts a full briefing of the camp.

The group returned back
down the stairway and then proceeded into a different corridor that
Garrison did not notice during his first trip down the tunnel. It
led to a bunker 150 feet below ground. The bunker was a huge cavern
about 300 yards wide by 500 yards long. Despite its size, it was
well-lit with a regular array of fluorescent lighting along the
ceiling and walls. There were racks full of emergency supplies.
Should anything go wrong on Camp Mars, the astronauts would be able
to survive in the bunker for three months—long enough for a rescue
mission to arrive and return the astronauts safely back to
Earth.

The most likely and
devastating scenario for such an emergency was a meteor impact.
Mars was situated very close to the asteroid belt, which made it
particularly vulnerable to meteor impacts. Fortunately, the thin
atmosphere was still sufficient to mitigate the threat of constant
meteoric bombardment, so the odds of a meteor landing in the
vicinity of Camp Mars were very remote. While the possibility of
this event was certainly weighed by NASA early on in the planning
of the Camp Mars project, there was still good reason to justify
the 120 billion dollars that the mission has cost NASA since its
beginning a couple of decades earlier.

Ayman was proving to be an
excellent tour guide, effectively showing Garrison the most
important aspects of Martian living and working. They now returned
to the workshop and suited up to go outside. Garrison was surprised
at how quickly his fellow astronauts were able to fully suit up,
and while he was finishing this laborious activity, the others had
already rolled up the large garage door, fired up the MTV and drove
it into the decompression garage.

After Garrison joined them
in this new room, Dmitri pressed a button on a control panel to
close the garage door behind them. Then, pressing another button, a
loud hissing sound indicated that the room was losing most of its
precious oxygen. Once the valves and gauges of the pressurization
system had detected nearly equivalent pressures inside and outside
of the garage, a second roll-up door slowly elevated.

A dull brown sunlight
began to splash into the garage, and it was the first time that
Garrison realized that he had not seen sunlight since he arrived on
Mars. He’d forgotten that due to pressurization differences between
the inside and outside of the buildings, windows were features that
could not be added. Instead, solid concrete and rock walls, five
feet thick were needed to ensure a safe, pressurized environment in
which the astronauts could live.

Ayman climbed into the
driver’s seat of the MTV, and Dmitri gestured for Garrison to take
the passenger’s seat. The MTV was really built just for two
passengers, since that was the typical operating procedure.
However, a flat and uncomfortable platform in the back of the
vehicle served as seating for additional passengers.

“
No,” said Garrison to his
senior companion. “You should sit up front, Dmitri.”

“
It is not so,” Dmitri
responded quietly. “Ayman will show you much about the compound. It
will be better learning for you in front seat.”

Garrison yielded
reluctantly to this logic, and with all three astronauts configured
in the vehicle, Ayman nudged the accelerator, and the MTV lunged
for the paved driveway outside of the garage. Garrison lowered his
sunshield over his helmet. While the Sun is not quite as bright on
Mars, it was still brighter than inside. Further, there was a dusty
glare through the atmosphere that made it even more difficult to
see.

With jaw dropped, he
surveyed the landscape for the first time. Upon his arrival, he had
been too exhausted to notice anything. He looked down at the
rust-colored dirt off to the side of the black asphalt. He could
see lava rocks protruding from the layer of fine-grained Martian
sand. He looked up to the rim of the crater. With a quick
360-degree examination, he could see that he was in the center of
the crater with steeply-sloped walls that rose hundreds of feet
above the ground. With only one exception, the camp was completely
surrounded by cliffs. After vast deliberation and somewhat heated
arguments at NASA headquarters, it was the exception which Garrison
was now observing that compelled NASA to select this crater as the
site of the camp.

Camp Mars was located in a
crater that was very similar to most of the impact craters
originally. However, a lava flow from Arsia Mons surrounded this
particular crater and eventually broke through one of its walls,
flooding it with lava. As a result, this crater was an extremely
desirable location. At three-miles wide, it was just the right
size. It had walls to protect the camp from high winds and dust
storms. It had a natural opening that gave easy access into and out
of the crater. And unlike most craters which are significantly deep
because of the impact, this crater had been filled in, such that it
was at the same exact elevation on the inside of the crater as it
was on the outside of it.

High up on one cliff, he
saw large American and Russian flags perched next to each other,
but noticed the discoloration caused by the Martian atmosphere. The
American flag appeared to have brown and yellow stripes and yellow
stars set on a background of purple waved in a gentle breeze while
a smaller-than-expected sun shown in the tawny sky above. Garrison
and Dmitri remained quiet as they allowed the surrealistic nature
of O’Ryan’s new home to settle in.