Mission Mars (22 page)

Steve knew that in order to provide the rich nutrients the plants would need, separators and treatment facilities would need to be nestled in the few spaces still available between the buildings. Compared to the simplicity of just pumping the sewage away, this new challenge was a welcome one. Often,
Steve had to reference expansion plans, study obscure rules, and rework significant parts of the infrastructure. Finally, the work was stimulating.

By Monday morning, he'd completed his plan. The new system was much more complex and would cost nearly thirty percent more to build. On the upside, it would also handle 20% more throughput, produce 60% less untreated waste, increase the eastern residential boundary by 11%, and (something Steve was particularly proud of), open up additional opportunities for farming that could piggyback off the waste treatment and disposal system. He calculated that the more expensive system would pay for itself in less than a decade, even without taking into account the use by the Botanical Technologies division. Steve arranged the two proposals into a simple side-by-side comparison chart that surely, even Cynthia Abilene Castle could understand. At precisely 1600, he was prepared and ready to face the queen on her throne.

“So, then what happened?” asked North.

She had rushed to meet him at Lone Crater when he called her after his presentation to Cynthia. He took a larger than average sip of his astronomically expensive drink.

“Apparently, she had promised the board of directors a presentation on Monday after I said I would be done early, which, in my defense, I didn't know. She ended up having to postpone it. She said that made her look bad, as if she needed help. She also didn't want the ‘headache' of the more complex solution. She didn't even fire me herself, she just screamed
at me until she was hoarse and then had the secretary do it. Honestly, I think it's because she couldn't even remember my name!” Steve glared at his reflection on the bar top. His anger dissipated slightly. “Maybe it was inappropriate for me to threaten to take the plans to the board myself….”

“Are you going to?”

Steve shook his head. “She won't let me get close to the board.”

“Tomorrow morning, I'm on a transport ring back to Earth.” Steve stared at the bottles on the wall behind the bar. He was still coming to terms with his rapid dismissal.

North looked pensive. “Can you get a copy of that proposal?”

Steve shook his head. “I don't know why you'd want them, but it doesn't matter. Besides, I can't. It's all on the computer at my desk, and if her highness catches me going back, I think she might have me beheaded.”

Frederick had just placed a drink in front of North. “Are you worried about Cynthia Castle?”

“Who else?” asked Steve.

The bartender smiled and leaned over the bar closer to Steve. “Miss Castle is currently getting plastered at The Astronaut. You get those plans, and I'll take care of your tab.”

North grabbed his arm in encouragement and urged him off the stool. “Please, Steve?”

“Well, I guess it can't hurt,” said Steve.

“So, get going. I've got an idea, too. I'll see you later.”

Despite Frederick's assurance that her Highness was getting drunk elsewhere, he wasn't really keen on running into
her again. He took every shortcut he knew as he hurried back to the office one last time.

To his relief, accessing the plans for North was easy. Cynthia, in her laziness, hadn't submitted his change in employment to the IT department yet, so his sign-in credentials and access to the office still worked. Evidently, no one else knew about his dismissal either. Not one of the few people still there batted an eye when he sat down to work at his desk. Not only were they used to him working late nights already, but the heavy walls of Cynthia Abilene Castle's office which silenced her violent sickness after a drunken night, had also prevented anyone from hearing her tirade against Steve and his subsequent firing.

After sending a copy of the plans to North, Steve edited the README warning on his desktop and added his name to the bottom of the growing list. When he stood up, he opened a game of solitaire and played a few hands, leaving it mid-game to protect the icon from prying eyes.

An hour later, Steve found himself back in his room. The adrenaline wore off, he sobered up, and the full weight of the situation began to sink in. Steve repacked his bags that had just barely been emptied a week and a half before. Part of him wished he were back at the bar having more of Frederick's excellent concoctions. Even if he had to pay for them, the cost was trivial compared to the risk he'd taken in not heeding the warning left by his predecessors, which now had cost him his job.

There were no jobs lightly offered on the barren planet. Quarters were assigned by job, and an employee who was fired didn't even have one a single day to try to find alternate employment. To indemnify the Castle family businesses against just such a loss, everyone seeking a job on Mars also accepted the risk of having to pay their own return flight to Earth. Steve would be in debt for a decade, and would have to take whatever boring job he could find to pay it off. So much for his adventure.

With the last of his socks roughly matched and stuffed in his bags, he pulled off his wrist computer and set an audible alarm for early in the morning. The perfectly recycled air of his room felt heavy in his lungs. He would miss the playful banter with North, and the too high stools at Frederick's bar. He stared at the ceiling, wishing that at least once in the short time he was on Mars, he had taken the time to admire the two moons, Phobos and Deimos, as they swung across the sky.

He closed his eyes, each breath as difficult as if he were outside. In time, he drifted off to sleep. As the last of his consciousness slipped away, reality mixed with his dreams. North held a blazing drink that grew to fill his mind. Ice settled and became dirt, thin foam became wispy clouds, and the glass became Iron Castle tower backed by a cold sun. He sat on top of a transparent aluminum transportube watching a Martian sunrise. Slowly suffocating in the lack of oxygen, he slipped from the deathly dream into empty sleep.

The beeping of his wrist computer woke Steve early
enough that he could afford to hit snooze a time or two. As he turned over and disabled the alarm, he noticed his view screen blinking. Stiff from sleep, he got to his feet and turned on the screen to find no less than seven unread messages.

The first was his ticket to board transit ring M282. The second was a message from Susan Canton thanking him for sending North his plans for the revised sewage system. The third was a copy of the message North had sent to Susan explaining he had been fired over the plans. The fourth was a copy of the emergency request Susan had sent for an immediate personnel transfer. Steve's heart skipped a beat. The fifth message informed him that his ticket to board M282 had been cancelled. His hand was shaking as he tapped the sixth message hardly able to believe the implications. The sixth message was an official welcome from Dr. Susan Canton of the Botanical Technologies division asking him to come in at his leisure, but before 1300 (please), to start his new job. This message Steve read three times before remembering there was one more unread. He opened the last message. Since his job had changed, so had his quarters. He scrambled to his feet, his head spinning from both the jump out of bed and the incredible news. Even without starting work at the usual time, it would take him most of the morning to figure out where his new quarters were, move in, and get to his new job. He laughed out loud that the adventure wasn't over yet.

Finding his new quarters was not as easy as it had been to find in Iron Castle. In the agricultural sector, halls were narrow
and windows were rare. The air had a metallic bite that clawed at his lungs when he breathed too deeply. His new quarters were small and sparse, but at least they were clean, and thick walls kept the ambient noise to a low hum. He unpacked as quickly as possible and freshened up. If he had any difficulty finding the Botanical Technologies offices, he knew he would be late. He just hoped no one would look closely enough at him to notice that one of his socks had a hole in the back.

The Botanical Technologies office proved to be more of a complex. Steve entered into a dome, lined with crunchy, silver insulation. Small round windows, tinted with cheap radiation coating, dotted the sides and ceiling. Furniture was the simple, serviceable kind that afforded much more spacious desks for the employees. To his surprise it seemed that everyone was smiling, something he'd found was alien to the employees that worked under Cynthia Abilene Castle.

A voice to his left startled him. “I thought Cynthia was exaggerating when she said you were always late.”

He turned to see a woman with a loose pile of silver hair, and no taller than North, smiling at him.

She continued. “Arriving at 1304! Let me guess, you have some unbelievable excuse involving drunken management, unexpected quarters transfers, and getting lost in the transportubes on your way to work.”

“Uh well….” Steve wasn't sure what to say. He had thought he had escaped being treated like garbage.