Welcome Aboard Air Marineris
Chapter Seven: Like A Child's Toy

On his last day, the day he was to leave, Dini and I woke Bee up together. He packed the few possessions he was going to take in his yellow personals bag. It was a very dirty yellow by that time, faded and threadbare. Klara had suggested he wear a uniform in executive grey. On Mars, no-one wore the formal uniforms they had worn on the Moon. There, Bee had worn the grey admin tunic with the opposed arches that were the logo of the Moon Settlement Authority. There, everyone wore the blues of tech or the grey of admin that represented their prime occupation. Even the businesspeople wore a dark green tunic.

In the same way as it was custom to wear uniforms there, it was custom to wear what one wanted on Mars. Klara had set the tone with her severe blue trousers and plain white tops bare of emblems, and everyone else had followed in their own style. That resulted in the kind of color riot that would have been unthinkable on the Moon, but somehow it fit on our brighter world of sun and daylight.

For his trip, Bee took the pair of admin uniforms that he had been issued when he had come to Mars. He had never been issued the tech blue ones for his prospector job. There was no need. He had never worn them on Mars. We thought, though, that they would make a subtle case that he was the inoffensive and loyal servant of the MSA he intended to impersonate. Stitched over the heart was the red orb of Mars with MSA emblazoned on it. Dressed in those uniforms, and acting the dedicated servant of the corporation, we hoped he would be convincing. Then his family would be safer because they would see no threat in him. That was very important to us all.

He extended that to details, no matter how insignificant. He was intending to maintain his hair scalp-short to be invisible, without even the white roots he often let show, to complete the picture of compliance with authority. We encouraged him to act the part of the scrupulous and dedicated employee in every way he could. May as well make all the easy points to be made.

After that prep and a cleanup, he left the bag with the selections from his few possession on the couch. He gave it a contemplative look when he set it down:

“This is the first time in eight years that I have left a place with the intention to return. Quite a change for this vagabond, isn’t it? It’s odd to look forward to a round trip.”

He didn’t comment on our elaborate plans for him to meet his family. They would need to wait until he arrived at his first destination. Only then would he be able to determine whether they were practical. It all might prove to be impossible without unacceptable risk. The idea to bring up his family on the quiet had set off a useless round of speculation on how wonderful that would be. Still, the idea to bring them to the habs was not impossible. To see Rachel and Josh one more time was dream material for him for sure. There is only one inescapable limit that retires you as a parent.

He was silent and contemplative as he closed his door and went down the pegpole to the Commons. We saw a few familiar faces in the small numbers of late risers there at that hour, but no-one Bee wanted to sit down with on his last day there. We sat in the red-tinged light of the sun rising over the rim of the Valles and ordered old-fashioned oatmeal with raisins and one portion of cloned, scrambled eggs and hot peppers. It was probably foolhardy to have the eggs with peppers. He was, after all, going to be in free fall later in the day. It was a bit of a tradition, though. His wife Esther had made him Spanish style eggs like that. Her family was partly Spanish, from the Expulsion of the Jews over six hundred years ago. The same historical moment, from the same malevolent actors, had brought both our peoples misery. Some will tell you that the present lasts just for a moment and is gone. Don’t believe it. Any connection with her, and her past, was worth a little upset stomach.

The sun’s radiance lit his face as he sat facing the display of the Valles. The cloned eggs tasted better than the synthetic ones and the peppers gave it a sheen of sharp, smoky flavor that reminded us of those days we had sat together just in the same way. Following it all were two cups of hot, strong coffee. Antacid would be needed for that too. We had long since learned to savor the small pleasures in life. The big ones were so often allusive.

I didn’t have much time for either Bee or Dini that morning. I had to return to my office up top and try to finish the estimates for Starward. I wouldn’t see him again until he was ready to mount the Rockship.

“While you are slaving away, Mo, I’m going to play. I’ve planned this last day. It isn’t often that I have a whole day free. We work hard for you six and a half days of the week. In a previous life it would seem like a lot, but with all the exciting work we do it doesn’t seem like that here. I am always proud of this work. We make a lot of good stuff. The high value products, and especially the radiation resistant ones, are something special. People in space need them.

“I have a few extra hours free for the gym. I’ve decided to use them to take a row on the Oceanus Borealis. They have a routine on the rowers that simulates that Martian primordial ocean. It uses their hardware. I’ve never been able to replace the time to devote to use it. All my normal session can cover is a brief row on the waves, with a few tosses from the pneumatic thrusters on the machine, but no time for a larger experience on the ocean. I’m going to go out there with Jan Vries. We’re going to be the first to use the program tailored to the special conditions here.”

I envied Bee. I had taken the same short ride many times, but never on an ocean, even a virtual one. It is a need we still have. That is why videopac, texts, and gaming are so important to people all over. It is a chance to imagine being outside for at least a while. It’s important to keep people sane. On Mars, we have an open world to roam and the largest canyon in the system to contemplate. But radiation prevents us from physically exploring the surface in the same way that the poisonous atmosphere confines people on Earth. At least, here we can look. Maybe, with more spyeyes on the surface, the way they have scattered them on the Moon, we can use walker programs more to explore virtually. Spyeyes can be made cheaply in quantity and scattered like seed to cultivate the imagination.

Bee’s game took you back several billion years to a time when the northern hemisphere of the planet was covered with a large ocean, the Oceanus Borealis, and people could possibly have gone outside here. Bee was a bit old to have taken up the new generation of cooperative outdoor games that had been written for a population starved of the outdoors. Still, he enjoyed some of them. He told me the virtual walking ‘games’ that allowed one to walk on a simulated surface were already in his repertoire from his time on the Moon, as were the exercise games that he was going to sample that day. There was a wider variety of games, many including a violent element, which were meant to dissipate frustrations. Neither of us needed that. We had enough real-life ones. There was also the mindbath. It was a different order of magnitude in games. That curse on mankind belonged with hard drugs. Not something I want to talk about.

Bee had already done his confidential research. The kind we didn’t want to share with curious minds on Earth. He would complete his inquiries on the Rockship, consulting the nets to ready himself for his trip. The research he would do on the ship would appear innocuous, and he was fully prepared for the surveillance that would probably be made on his searches and queries. Let them watch.

Although he was better with people than he used to be, he was just not personable the way he said his wife had been. He didn’t have her skills. Not having what must have been her consuming interest in people, he regularly forgot the important details of people’s backgrounds and connections. Yet he wanted to make certain that he remembered everything people would be expecting of him. He also needed to research likely connections for him to make to facilitate his work.

Jan Vries, his partner on his day’s adventure, was an intrepid Netherlander who had sailed the sour oceans on Earth.

“You wouldn’t think it to look at him, Mo. He used to be a professional daredevil. Notwithstanding the toxic environment, there were risk-takers who challenged it. There were still mountain climbers who scaled the mountains to get over the toxic clouds, as well as sailors like Jan who sailed the acid seas. Very expensive to do, The equipment did not last long under the noxious conditions, We’ve always had such people to seek danger. And we have always had people to sponsor them and watch. Jan sailed the Atlantic in a dingy whose hull dissolved slowly in the water driven by sails that did likewise in the Sulphuric atmosphere. And he’s here to tell the tale. And they say miracles don’t happen!”

I had seen him around. He was a cheerful and unassuming man of almost two meters, angular and spare in appearance. He had twinkling blue eyes and a mouth with lips that barely covered his teeth. His rail frame was surprisingly strong, though. He had pushed himself through trips that would have daunted any strongman. His humor was self-deprecating, but you knew that if he could see it in himself he could also recognize it in others. You didn’t hear it, though. He was too kind for ridicule. I liked him.

He was to meet Bee in the gym. Jan was a solitary man. He preferred not to meet us at breakfast. So, after the meal was eaten, Bee ran away to his man games, and I went back to work.

I met Lou and Chantelle back in my office up top, still early, with the red sun shining through my ‘windows’:

“They want us to start the new line as fast as possible. They don’t know how fast we can do it. We can give it a little boost beyond their expectations, can’t we? Chantelle, can you check on the supplies we have left over from the Borealis line? And Lou, are you ok to start with one of the constructors when we have the hangar built for the first ship?

Chantelle replied first. She was very good at organization, and she had a lot of it in her head. That’s the best way, isn’t it? If you can handle it.

“We have a good stock of spares. Who knew how long stuff would last here? You made them well, Mo. All our spares are still available. At the twenty-five-meter spacing we used last time the hundred and twenty-five we have should go just over three kilometers. That’s a good distance. And we have more than enough chemset to place them, and maybe fifty more. It’s not a patch on the four thousand kilometers we need to go, but it will get you well out of sight from Lowell. We have two constructors just sitting there, and we can just install the lifts in the ship you will be taking down south like we did last time. I assume you will use one of the existing ships. We have two. One is a rocket assist, so the other one is going. How are you going to get it down there, Mo?

“You’ll be tickled by that, Chantelle.”

Her round, espresso coffee-colored face squinched adorably:

“It was designed to be pulled. What better vehicle than the Lowell train?”

Both laughed as I did. What a ridiculous sight that would be. The huge, double soccer field sized ship looming over the much smaller train, floating above it, being pulled along like a child’s balloon. Lou was the first one to reply.

“You’re kidding! I can’t wait to see that. It will be wild. What a sight!”

“That was Boris’ response too, Lou. We are going to make a show of it. We’re going to put a flyeye on the tractor engine at the front and show it on a channel we are going to set up. We’re going to send it to EarthSpace. I was thinking Chantelle could expand on the vlog she’s been running for local consumption. It’s popular around here when we are doing something interesting. The Marineris line will be that. We have a big story to tell. I want it to go to Earth. They are spending a lot of money on this. They are entitled to watch it. Boris says it worked well on the Moon with their projects. Publicity helps sometimes, he says. This will be a lot of money over a long time. Time enough for them to lose interest if we don’t hold it. I want all of us to be here as long as we can do the job.”

Chantelle’s creamy voice replied:

“Crazy like a fox, chief. Me, too. I can’t tell you how many times I have set things up and then get sent back to the bleachers to watch the victory laps. I want the satisfaction of my work too. This job is a natural for a vlog. I will build you a fanpage that will pull them all in.”

Lou then came back to the subject of the actual construction.

“Mo, I worked together with Boris for six months to build that line. It won’t be a problem to do it again. Just give me the supplies and I can plant them wherever you want. I can handle the lifts too. And we have already assembled more than a few Quonsets. The train station won’t be a problem. In Mars gravity, assembly is much easier than on Earth. In its way, it is easier than in space. At least stuff stays where you put it here. We can start this afternoon, if you want, Mo.”

I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. I couldn’t have asked for better people to work with.

“Tomorrow morning is soon enough. Spend the afternoon figuring how to get that bird attached to the train. I’ve got a few trillion credits of estimates to finish up.