Outbound: Meta Mars

Chapter 1 Vales Marineris Part 2

Dr. Timothy Storm had been anticipating the arrival of the Eternal Hope for months. On August 12, 2260, he and Dr. McKeever left their meeting to greet Dr. Virgil Greenly in the gantry of the Sojourner docking port at NASA Mars Base. Though Dr. Storm had collaboratedfrequently across the void, it was their first face-to-face meeting. Dr. McKeever wondered about the man who would become the overall Martian Project Director and his immediate boss.

The two scientists watched through the windows of the gantry tower as the Sojourner descended on retrorockets and settled onto its tractor platform. Automatic clamps swung up to secure the Martian shuttle. The platform with shuttle then began to move along its tracks to thedocking gantry. Once docked Dr. Greenly was the first to exit the Sojourner. After so many months on the En deavour, he paused to look around. Even the gantry landing was spacious compared to the cramped quarters of the Eternal Hope. He saw Dr. Storm and another approaching him.

“Dr. Greenly at last we meet in person,” Dr. Storm said as he stepped forward extending his hand.

“Likewise, Dr. Storm. It is such a relief to finally be free of the confines of that ship.”

“NASA Mars Base won’t be much better, I’m afraid. Living space is entirely underground. But it is an extensive matrix of lava tubes and constructed caves. All together the habitat includes more than three hundred kilometers of intersecting caves with periodic expanded nodes.”

“After the confines of New Hope, I want to walk the whole matrix,” Dr. Greenly said.

“That surely can be arranged but I would recommend our electric carts. They’ll move you around quickly. You will feel a breeze in your face. But I am afraid we can’t offer anything like the huge volume of Ellie 5 Zeta. What is it?… about twenty kilometers long?”

Dr. McKeever, meanwhile, had been left standing looking a bit awkward. But he had been quietly observing the famous scientist. Dr. Greenly presented himself as relaxed and self-assured. He was very focused on Dr. Stone and their conversation. This was a man who was accustomed to his power. He seemed a man who knew how to get what he wanted. You would not want to be the one to obstruct him.

And yet… and yet Dr. McKeever sensed a gentleness and humility that bespoke of a time when the man had been more like him. Less sure of himself. There was a humanity at the foundation of Dr. Greenly’s incredible intelligence. There was something else; Dr. Greenly looked remarkedly youthful… physically strong and vital… Dr. Stone suddenly interrupted Dr. McKeever’s musings when he noticed him standing silently at his side.

“Oh! I am so sorry. Dr. Greenly, this is Dr. Charles McKeever. He has been indispensable in all the projects he’s involved with. I took the liberty of assigning him as your Chief Engineer… To quickly bring you up to speed. You can choose your own Chief Engineer of course.”

Dr. Greenly stepped up to Dr. Greenly and extended his hand.

“Of course. I’m very pleased to meet you Dr. McKeever,” Dr. Greenly said. “I’m sure I’ll mrely heavily on your expertise. If it’s OK with both of you I think we should dispense with formality and call each other by our first names. Just call me Virgil.”

“Tim is my preference.”

“My friends call me ‘Chuck’,”

“Uh… you asked about Ellie 5 Zeta Tim?”

“About its dimensions,” Dr. Storm said.

“Oh yes, it is twenty kilometers in length. But it’s divided into three sections… although with projections on the dividing walls It seems like you can see into the far distance. The diameter, at two kilometers does allow for large landscapes.”

“I’ll visit someday, meanwhile we have so much to discuss… I made dinner reservations. How does an Armenian Restaurant at the NASA Administration Hotel sound? Is that agreeable?”

“Great! I really appreciate that Tim. The food choices aboard the Eternal Hope were rather limited,” Dr. Greenly said.

“Of course… The reservations are for twenty hundred hours. The old administration building was converted to a hotel just this last year. I’ve reserved a VIP suite for the three of us. There’s plenty of time for you to get settled in before dinner. Perhaps we can first meet in the lounge… At eighteen thirty hours? Is that OK with your Chuck?”

“Absolutely.”

Later in the hotel lounge the three scientists felt more at ease with one another. Dr. Greenly and Dr. Storm had worked together remotely for years so they felt and conversed like old friends. Soon, however Dr. McKeever joined in as if he were also part of an old friendship.

Cocktails were welcome and Virgil found the meal sumptuous after seven months of rotating repetition.

“Before we leave, I have ordered a special dessert for this occasion. It warrants a small celebration,” Dr. Stone said. At that, a waiter approached their table carrying a large platter with three plates, each with a large wedge of watermelon.

“This just arrived with your ship. A friend brought it as a gift. I thought it special that we share some to commemorate your taking on this project,” Dr. Stone said.

“As a matter of fact, I am familiar with this watermelon. I believe our consumption of it a perfect finish to my travels,” Dr. Greenly said.

After dinner they strolled around the Green. It was simulated nighttime so only the buildings and garden lights lit the scene. The large space was dominated by a park in the center of a huge half-hemispherical cavern that spanned eighty meters. In the center of the park there was a Victorian-style gazebo restaurant. The residents and businesses located around the periphery were its primary customers, but the quality of its food attracted from even distant nodes. Trees lit from the ground, a rose garden with low lighting, benches, and trails filled the rest of the green. People around the green were busy setting up booths with garlands and decorated food and wine-tasting tables.

“In the future these park nodes will include sports fields and courts for older children. At present we don’t have any means of providing a standard gravity environment for children to grow in. The Mars Rehab Orbiter doesn’t have the capacity.”

Virgil enjoyed the stroll as they walked around the whole enclosure for the next hour before entering Timothy’s offices in a building next to the hotel. They entered a round conference room with data screens covering the walls surrounding them. The large conference
table had an electronic surface as well.

“There seems to be a lot of activity out on the green… decorations, extra tables. I see wine bars being set up… and game booths. Are you having some kind of event?” Dr. Greenly said.

“Oh sorry, a major oversight. I’ve been so busy with everything. And… I guess I was also busy preparing technical papers and schematics to send to you while in transit. Though it is important to us, it didn’t directly relate to our business. We are celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the NASA Mars Base founding. The base was dedicated on August 16, 2060. The actual anniversary is in four days, but celebrations will continue for another week.”

“About the papers you sent me Tim. I appreciate the effort. Those papers kept me from going crazy with boredom. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not be at your celebrations. Instead, I wonder if I could tour the construction site of your Valles Marineris project. I
understand you’ve enclosed a fair amount of space.”

“Yes, but most everything has been shut down within the enclosure. Except for a few large tractors the construction the robots are all in for maintenance. You won’t have access to transport carts. Most everyone is participating in the preparations. The
celebrations continue until the twenty-third.”

“Can I poke around the structure on my own?”

“Mind you there are few improvements to support living inside. But perhaps you could. Let’s see… you’ll need a small rover to get there, and our regulations require you to wear a surface suit. Chuck is very familiar with the current situation there.”

“I’d be happy to run through the project with you Dr. er… Virgil. I can present a holograph when we get back to the office,” Dr. McKeever said.

“Is the surface suit needed Chuck? I thought the structure was sealed and pressurized
with breathable air.”

“It is, the enclosure is also heated, but we’re still doing leak tests, and the atmosphere is not generated or supported by living ecosystems. With the robots in maintenance everything is on hold… But there are small oasis sites set up throughout. Power, water, toilet facilities and a small kitchen have been installed in each. Most of them have recliner chairs that can be used for sleeping. The oases are spaced out about a kilometer apart. And they have hard connections to the data cloud.”

“I’d like to stay for at least a week in the enclosure. Are they stocked with food as well?

“They are. But because of the holiday each one may not have the full complement they normally would.”

“Are the surface suits cumbersome?”

“When used on the surface they can be. There you’d need to wear a water jacketed under suit. The suit sandwiches water as a gel between two layers. The outer suit protects against UV rays and allows a normal atmosphere inside the suit. The undersuit is needed to stop some of the cosmic radiation. It also helps to stabilize body temperature. You should be comfortable because won’t need that as there is a regolith roof overhead to shield you from cosmic particle radiation. The suit will be tailored specifically for you.

I’ll send your body scan to Auto Tailoring. It’ll be ready in the morning. I’ve reserved the
rover already,” Dr. McKeever said.

“I look forward to the open space. What is its current size?”

“It spans one of the small western tributaries of the Valles Marineris. There it’s just over ten kilometers across. We’ve completed that span and extended it another ten kilometers east along the ravine. The completed part of the roof is level with the surface, but the rift varies in height in this tributary from about thirty meters to about one hundred and fifty meters.”

“Chuck, that’s monumental!”

“You’d think so, but compared to where we must go, we’ve barely started. The far eastern end the valley can be up to ten kilometers deep and a hundred across. The entire system is around four thousand kilometers long. It will be a major challenge to build it out if we ever get that far. We’re trying to keep the natural contours of the valley floor so there will be multiple residential layers in the deeper sections. They will also support the roof in the deeper sections. This phase of the project is designed to extend for the first two hundred kilometers. It’s hard to imagine now, but eventually we could enclose the entire four thousand kilometers of the rift. The exciting thing is that one day it will be filled with settlements and natural habitats. It will be the largest off Earth settlement.”

“That’s one helluva vision, Chuck. I look forward to being in that space tomorrow.”

“Right now, it’s only a vision. Get ready for a lot of hiking. It’s an expanse of desolation.”

“Expansive space is attractive to me right now. Hiking around a bit I think might also be good for the soul,” Virgil said.

“I suppose your imagination could fill it with a lush environment.”

“Ahh… Chuck, you are beginning to know me. But I also intend to do some rock-hounding. Now is the time, before we disrupt the valley floor too much.”

“Rocks, you will find plenty of,” Chuck said.

“How is Jules Blackwood doing with her Redwood Forest dome? She could be a big help here.”

“She’s now Jules Blackwood-McKeever I’m happy to say… Uh, completely planted. The trees are still small, but when you enter the dome the smell of the forest is intoxicating. We cycle the terpene and terpenoid laced air throughout the underground base. To great
reviews, I might add.”

“Congratulations! Jules is a remarkable woman. Will she be available to begin planting in the Valles Marineris? I mean, as soon as the ground is detoxified,” Virgil said.

“She will. We have been spending more time on the Mars Rehab Orbiter lately, but she has seeded hundreds of saplings that could be planted as soon as the soil detoxification is complete, and the dirt properly fortified,” Dr. McKeever said.

“It seems that the Valles Marineris project triggered the rest of your projects,” Virgil said looking at Dr. Storm.

“That’s true. Our commitment to that vision triggered most everything else we’re doing,” Dr. Storm said.

“Oh yes… about the other projects. Can you give a quick update. I’d like to get a preliminary feel for scope and status of each. Perhaps you could send updated technical sheets to my PET (Personal Electronic Transponder) address.”

“I’ll forward them tonight… I tell you Virgil, I am looking forward to this break. I believe the stress I’ve experienced has caused me to be a bit hard on my people lately.”

“Tim, a little stress is natural. When it affects your health or relationships, it’s time for a break. You’re looking at a week of celebrations to recover your bearing and smooth any ill feelings you may have caused. I’ll be out of your hair for at least seven days before we get back to work.”

“’Out of my hair’? Whatever does that mean?”“

It’s an idiom which is perhaps as old as language. Say you’ve combed infestations such as lice out of your hair. Eventually, the usage becomes more generalized, but the expression carries the same approximate meaning. My wife and I play an ongoing trivia game. We each try to find an expression the other will not know of, then use it in casual conversation. The goal is to trip each other up.”

“I recognize that expression. Any exercise of the mind can’t hurt, I suppose… Virgil, it’s a wasteland down there but we have removed the chlorates and perchlorates from some of the enclosed ground. Blasted the surface with methane and oxygen-powered torches.”

“How can I tell which areas have been treated?’

“The detoxified areas have been mixed with charcoal, part of the effort to build soil. Just stick to those darker areas and you should minimize becoming contaminated.” Timothy said. Then he continued, “You’d be comfortable being alone for that long? Camping out
in a surface suit is no picnic,” Dr. Storm said.

“Maybe I should project some holographs of the enclosed section on the tabletop,” Dr. McKeever said. He continued, “Let me go into the annex just off this conference room and do a new scan of the interior of the finished space. I can send it to your PET and you’ll have current information.”

Dr. McKeever left the room. As soon as the engineer had left Dr. Storm turned off the recording devices set up a sound shield around the two of them.