Welcome Aboard Air Marineris
Chapter Fourteen: The First Trip

After we got the ship hooked up to its moorings, I felt obliged to report to Klara. We had taken the first step in our journey without suffering any major mishaps. I intended to maintain the advantage she had in knowing exactly what was going on. If she was going to stand up for us, she needed to have full confidence in us. That needed full cooperation from us. I wasn’t going to cover up anything that she might need to know. Leaders who get shaded reports to make them look good rarely succeeded in doing that. We didn’t need to know everything she knew, but she needed to know everything we did.

I called, not really expecting to get her. It was still early in the morning, and she could have been at a breakfast meeting. She had a lot more to do than listen to me, even though my project was a big deal. Still, she took my call.

“Klara, we’re done. We have the ship tied up to its moorings. We had a slight mishap. No damage done, but it reminded me that we still have a lot to learn about running a passenger line. I have the tech straight, but the details make it a lot more complicated than I thought.”

“What isn’t, Mo? Name me one thing. You think that despite twenty years of executive experience before I came here that I had any idea how difficult it would be to run a colony at the end of the line? Everything is hard here. So what? We’re the first ones to do this. Everything is going to be a mystery. Didn’t you have surprises with the first line? Give yourself a break, Mo. So, what is it?”

“When you put it that way, Klara, I’m going to expect a reward for screwing up. I forgot what they learned two hundred years ago when they had airships on Earth. It must be similar with ships on the oceans. Balance is important when you float things. And little things can make a big difference. I didn’t allow for that when I loaded the supplies for the Quonsets. When I was using them for transporting ore, I had relatively uniform cargo. Not the same for discrete objects. Despite allowing for lift adjustments with split bags, I forgot inertia. Well, I learned today. I will need to remember that for our line or I will have unadjusted turbulence that will create damaging resonance. And I will need to streamline our carriages. It turns out that the puny Martian wind can make a difference. Not much of a difference, but important in the mix.

“That’s your big failure? That you learn from your mistakes? I would love to have such a record, Mo. I usually need to make them repeatedly to have the lesson drilled in. Forget it. I have a new problem for you. A real one. They are sending up those radio sets to put in our offices, Mo. And I don’t like the sound of it at all. Some new type that allows them to communicate without any time lag. They wouldn’t exaggerate on that.

“Now they can second guess us in real time, and we can’t turn it off. I wish we could have them for our own communications. They would simplify a lot of problems for us. And imagine the human implications. It would reduce our isolation and make a great deal of expertise on Earth of much more use to us. It would effectively expand our work force on demand without increasing our need for life support. I can think of hundreds of ways it could help us. But they decide to use it to saddle us with a pointless spy eye. Am I wrong about how stupid that is? And just telling us that they can do it reveals their hand. What’s to stop us from figuring it out ourselves? It does tell us something about their current activities, though. They probably don’t have such surveillance in place yet. This is a threat, Mo. They are claiming to be able to replace us. An ineffectual threat. Someone on Earth is never going to be able to stand in for us, no matter how well connected he is – and it always seems to be a him.”

“I’ve asked Linh to come in to discuss this with us. Usual place. See you there in two hours?”

“Yeah” I said. “I can make that. See you.”

Two hours later we sat beneath the Brier and Rose. I was late again, but not by much. We had to put the second mooring mast to bed. I didn’t want to leave before the back end was rotated and tied down. It had to be done tortuously slowly. We extended the landing legs and lowered the ship onto them, but we maintained the floatation to make sure the legs, which were for emergencies only, didn’t fail. The cribs were more secure, but we didn’t have one there. It was a working solution.

Klara: “Linh, have you done any more research on this?”

Her eyes were dark rimmed. Sure, she had. The whole night, probably. Her expression was exhaustion tempered formal. Her creamed coffee complexion had an ashen hue. She didn’t show her usual ironic detachment.

“Yes, I have, Klara. I’ve searched everywhere I can replace. There’s been a lot of communications research, but nothing like this.”

She looked at me.

“I’ve found a mike in Klara’s office, Mo. Nothing anywhere else. It led to a receiver in storage. But there was no further relay I could detect. There would be no point in surveillance if you couldn’t transmit it. There was no storage or memory unit detectable in the receiver. I could be wrong, though. I can’t open it up to check. In the light of our new knowledge, it may besending its signal somewhere in real time. But not in any comm band I know. I am certain it’s not sending anything now, though.

“I must report to you that it received a heavy blow from the ingots that were stored on top of it. unfortunately, they fell somehow. I made sure to crush its black box. I knew it wasn’t receiving anything after my ministrations, but I couldn’t tell you whether it was sending anything. I couldn’t destroy it completely without revealing that I had eliminated it. I didn’t want to do that. Too obvious. They won’t believe that it could have been innocently destroyed. It was armored. But even though an untoward incident would be highly unlikely, it couldn’t really be said to be impossible. It does remain suspicious. We can’t help that. Klara’s surveillance is terminated, though. They can’t say anything about it since it was supposed to be secret. No matter. Now they are replacing their link. This time we won’t be able to squash it.

“I can only speculate on the tech they are using. It’s a step above what we have. We’ve talked about this. If you were beaming particles you need to be able to go through anything, and wanted them to be undetectable, you would use neutrinos. Otherwise, communications would be constantly interrupted by the rotation of planets unless you had an unobstructed antenna, which I don’t believe they have. That would seem to indicate neutrinos as the medium of communication. They can go through anything. But the very property that makes them useful makes them extremely hard to handle. Antennas for them are huge and unreliable, as far as I am aware. And what about the speed limit? If they traveled at lightspeed there would be no interval improvement. They say it’s instantaneous.

“Overall, then, it’s a problem beyond us. Where did they get such a gadget? It’s a question worth asking. And the answer that’s left makes you less trusting of our lords and masters. Those people are keeping something from us. Strange things are happening on Earth. Large numbers of people are being fired for inexplicable reasons. Scientists and researchers seem to comprise most of them. I don’t consider Mo’s report about the peculiar sources of her material studies to be irrelevant in this context. Something weird is happening, people. And I don’t understand it. That’s what worries me. They are sending us something that shouldn’t exist.”

“Your analysis sounds reasonable to me. As Director, I am obliged to appear to be following corporate policy. I can tell you that I don’t like this any more than either of you. Right now, though, we need their money and help. It may involve some risk, but we should be good girls and do our jobs.

“Bottom line, we are here, and they are there. We have a great advantage that we should not forget. We have a lot of their money, and they are giving us more. We are essential to their survival as a company. If we are under their orders, they are hostage to us. Revealing this secret to us when they otherwise did not need to indicates concern.

“They think that we are up to something, but they really don’t know what, any more than we do about them. Unusual for men and fems, yeah? Perhaps, we can settle their fears. We need to make them understand that we don’t want to deprive them of anything. We just want to live as free people.”

“Sounds good to me, Klara. I just want to build my railroad. We all agree that the planet needs it. This is our chance to be a partner to them. To help them. I don’t want to fight anyone either. It’s foolish to fight over resources when there is more than enough for all of us if we work together to procure them. So, I am going to ignore all this stuff and put that radio in my office and get back to starting my line. We need to rejig the airship connections. I don’t think it will make any difference to our imaging. The airship will still loom over the train. Just a little farther forward so we can connect it fore and aft for stability.

“Although I don’t see any safety issues, I would still prefer to make sure that the train journey is a special run with as few passengers as we can manage. If the ship fails somehow, which I consider unlikely, it may fall on the train. And, because it is over the cars to allow us to anchor it at both ends, we will need to loft it more to clear the cars. I’m not confident enough about the weight distribution to allow passengers. As well, we will need to run the train irritatingly slowly. No one will want a ten-hour journey.

“I will just need to learn to love my new mentor, Doctor Professor Weltmann. I’ll bet he is a dear old gentleman. If the quality of his first suggestion is any guide, that may not be all that difficult, even though it may be irritating. Nothing he says will help, but I will persevere. You both know I am incredibly charming when I want to be. Right?”

At that, they both looked at one another, smiled, and said, in an imitation of robot voices:

“Yes, Monica, you are incredibly charming. We love you, Mistress.”

I was secretly delighted by the whimsy. It was a loving critique. But what could I say? I know I am a prickly person sometimes. I put it down to a difficult personal history and take myself off the hook, but I know that does not cure me. It only makes me worse. I am ashamed of myself when I do it, but I can’t help it. Some things are difficult to change.

“Okay. You got me. I’ll do my best with the supervision. Now, we still need to get our train going. When can I get one cleared?”

“You’re more likely to have the answer about that, Mo. I’m only the Director here. I only take one train a month for my newbies. You are more responsible for supporting the line than I am. Your ingots and concentrates come in almost every day. If it weren’t for you and our agricultural exports, the train would be running empty or mothballed most of the time. So, you choose the day, and we’ll work around you.”

“What about Friday? I have a shipment of iron scheduled for then. I’ll tell Lou that’s the day. That will give them time to fit up the train with grommets for the cables.”

And that was it. Friday morning came along, and Lou pulled the ship. It had stood without fuss like a tame horse at the hitching post, standing just outside the Junction. The tomato-red color Chantelle had applied to it made it seemed as if it belonged there. A red ship outlined with the cotton candy pink sky. We streamed the color in the display. Absolutely no trouble with the wind as it was standing idle. Our problem earlier was proven to be a combination of motive factors. When the ship was not in motion, it had no effect.

Lou had attached the front and rear stays to the dual grommets that had been secured to the train hitches. The ship hung over the train, which was solidly weighted. It was laden with iron ingots for our factories up top. Most of our cars were for freight. We were doing a lot of different kinds of fabrication by that time. We were starting to tool up as well to produce all the things we would need for our new airline. We had a lot of work to do, and we would need a lot more people to help us. It was better to be ready with the basics before they came through.

I watched it on Chantelle’s monitor. It was impressive. The ship was floating over the train, that red on pink, proclaiming its name proudly. It was like a child learning how to walk. Such a sight had not been seen in a long time. Originally, when they were developed, airships on Earth were a scientific wonder in an age on the threshold of air travel. There were certainly setbacks, like the Zeppelin disaster, but great change has often exacted great sacrifices. Early air travel, and early space travel, was unfortunately dangerous.

I am designing an airline too. It is my fervent desire to make sure this history does not rhyme. I will do everything I can to ensure there are no more costs to pay for this new era of flight. Our airships should be many times safer than any other type of transportation despite their operation in an inherently dangerous place. We don’t have wind, and we don’t have oxygen. That eliminates two principal dangers.

After the ship was secured, Lou drove up to the last car, where we had temporarily installed the crane. They used it to lift the constructor into the car to sit alongside the spare already loaded. Then they pulled away down the tracks.

The trip was even slower in real time than I had expected it to be. The train’s crawl was punishing to watch. You couldn’t compare it to the usual trip that train takes. It usually speeds up to two hundred kilometers and makes the thousand-kilometer trip in just over five hours. That is still a long trip, but it is a long way, and it goes as fast as is safe. I wanted to be sure of our cargo, and there were no passengers to bore, so I kept the speed to sixty kilometers. That was seventeen hours of travel time, not five. On a train with few amenities, that would have been unacceptably long for passengers, so we were glad we didn’t have them. Cargo doesn’t complain. And cargo had the advantage of weight. All those ingots ensured that the ship was as stable as we could manage.

We didn’t have a single problem. It came into Lowell smoothly and even sat at the pylon we had installed at the end of the track. That, despite heavier winds than we had had up top. It floated where we put it, placid and unmoving. Then we started unloading. Inside of two hours, Lou had all the constructors, the arches and attachment equipment laid where we were going to put up the Quonsets. Lou had prepared the foundations for the erection earlier, so he could start right away.