Mission Mars (8 page)

“I'll have you know, I once spent an entire summer camping in the Rockies and eating nothing but ReadeeMeals. The paella dinners were delicious. Really! And a lot easier to pack than assorted pots, pans, and chopping boards.”

“Speaking of storage, what is Athanasius up to back there?” asked Calvin.

“You aren't trying to bet your Nobel, are you?” Katenka called out to him.

“That's no good, Athanasius!” Anita yelled, “I already got one!”

“And I have two!” grinned Ranbir.

“That second one was a team award—I don't think that counts,” teased Calvin.

“If we're betting medals, any takers for my Olympic Gold?” Yunhe put a finger to her lips in mock thoughtfulness. “I don't believe any of you have one of those.”

“Being a gymnast is nothing to brag about when you have access to zero gravity,” said Katenka.

“Says the woman who made such a big deal about being the first ballerina to go to Mars,” shot back Yunhe.

Katenka chortled. “Anything to sound different in the
application video. Still, someday, who knows? The Mars Mikhaylova Ballet School has a nice ring to it.”

At that point Athanasius came back to the table and plunked down a blue bio-suit boot, scattering slips of paper and stacks of candy. “I bet my first step on Mars,” he said as he sat back down.

The jovial atmosphere plummeted into silent shock, as if there were a breach in the hull. All the crewmembers stared at Athanasius.

There was a long silence as all the crew contemplated Athanasius bid.

After a long and arduous process, the Landing Order and Protocol Committee, after carefully weighing every factor to determine the order each team member would exit the craft after landing on Mars, they'd chosen Athanasius Linden. Dr. Linden, their decree explained, with his many degrees, awards, training, and experience, had a brilliant scientific mind. And he hailed from a country that had donated generously to the mission. Of course, aside from also possessing an eloquence of speech, he was photogenic. And for publicity purposes, that never hurt.

Finally, Anita asked, “Can you do that?” The shock and the delight in her tone was hard to miss.

“Well, it is his boot,” said Calvin, glancing back at his own hand with a surly smile.

There was a pause, and then the captain weighed in. “Let's play some cards.”

As it turned out, Anita did have the best hand. And she triumphantly clumped around the ship with the one boot on until it was time for sleep-shift.

Everyone kept flicking their eyes at Anita during the game. She wore a constant smile as she played, well aware that everyone was waiting for her to bet the boot. But, she only bet dessert rations and shower time. Of course, no one had thought it necessary to mention in their previous report or video log to the officials back on Earth about what had previously been bet, lost, and won in the last game.

As the game progressed, the crew began throwing in their most creative high stakes: ‘Personal Weight Allotments' in future cargo runs from Earth to Mars, ‘Naming Rights to Future Discoveries', ‘Joy Rides' in the to-be-assembled rover, currently in storage.

“Shall I just bet the shirt off my back?” Calvin finally said as he stared at the ludicrous pot of promises heaped up in the middle of the table.

“Strip poker?” asked Yunhe innocently.

“We've all seen each other naked,” scoffed Katenka.

“Besides, I believe all our indoor clothes are technically the property of Lululemon Athletica, since they paid for them,” noted Eric mildly.

“And they are racking up in sweet success with their Mars Mission collection,” added Ranbir.

Prior to launch, they had all been required to pose in their donated MM indoor wear for photo shoots. And now, each crewmember was forever immortalized in life-sized cardboard cutouts stationed in every Lululemon store.

“Well, what else are you supposed to wear when you ‘exercise like an astronaut'?” grinned Yunhe, referring to the new fitness craze the mission had inspired.

“Yes, because a forty-five minute Pilates class is exactly like training 24/7 at the Utah base,” scoffed Anita.

“Meanwhile,” Calvin said, trying to steer the conversation back to the betting pool, “our exosuits were generously donated by Boeing, with no promotional strings attached.”

“Except they were promised that their research about air pressure would be top priority. And were given a massive tax write off,” pointed out Katenka.

“Ah, the crass material world we leave behind us!” Calvin added.

Katenka raised her reengineered bottle of re-purified water. “To Mars!” she toasted.

Everyone raised their water bottles. “To Mars!” They all clinked the bottles with as much joy as if they were toasting the New Year with champagne at the Ritz.

Anita plunked the boot on the table. “To walking on Mars,” she said with a smirk. Immediately everyone focused intently on their cards.

Katenka demonstrated an old Russian folk dance that involved quite a lot of kicking. The better to show off the shiny blue boot she wore in a post-game celebration.

As the others watched her, Anthanasius, providing the vocal equivalent of a band with more enthusiasm than skill,
folded the table up for the night, while Calvin picked up the cards to put away for the week. With his eyes never leaving the cards, he shuffled the deck, and said to Athanasius, “You don't like the committees very much, do you?”

Anthanasius paused, as if merely inspecting the table for any last smudges of chocolate, and then said blandly, “I think deciding history by committee has never led to anything good.” He carefully wedged the folded table back into the slot in the wall. “Why ever do you ask?” His question revealed his butter-would-melt-in-his-mouth voice that made him so great for interviews.

“Just checking,” said Calvin, his smile nearly imperceptible. He flicked the cards in a concentrated waterfall from one hand to the other and then proceeded to shuffle them with the same meditative calm of a Buddhist monk. “Our weekly card game is a mix of skill and luck, a perfect description of our little adventure, eh, boy-o?”

“This mission has been planned out to the second,” said Anthanasius, a slight edge to his voice. “Without just at least a little human chaos added to the mix, we might as well be another group of rovers completing yet another unmanned Mars mission.”

As Katenka's boot went airborne, narrowly missing Ranbir's head, Calvin said, “Well, we got chaos.”

The crew sat and stared at their main telepresence screen as the host of the latest ‘live' educational program being filmed
back on earth prompted the audience to ask questions of the crew. Weekly interviews and other programs were still held to keep Earth up-to-date on the Mission Mars: Building Red mission. The audience could ask direct questions of the crew, which they all usually enjoyed. This interview was aimed at a young audience to educate school children about the Mars Mission and give them the chance to speak with the Mars crew. Most questions so far had been queries about food preparation, waste management, and gravity.

“And now,” the TV host continued, “we have another question from a young lady in our audience. Carole, age 9, from Ainsworth Elementary School, what is your question my dear?”

The little girl stood up. “What does ‘Betting the Boot' mean?” Without hesitation, she explained. “Last week, Dr. Fitzsimmons used it when Dr. Li Yuhne and Dr. Chadha were explaining how the ship would land.”

This student apparently had ears like a bat. It seems she'd overheard Calvin talking about the game in the background.

There was a split second of horrified silence, then Calvin began to rattle off, “Well, that's an easy one, Carole. You heard me using an old expression from County Cork to describe the accuracy of Dr. Chadha's course corrections, since our initial landing trajectory was incorrect. It means to be so sure of something, that you'd bet your boots on it and risk squelching around in the mud with bare feet.” Smile, smile for the camera.

“Well done,” said Athanasius when the cameras were turned off.

Calvin shrugged with false modestly. “It's not the first time I've talked me way out of a jam. It's in the blood.”

The Pegasus was designed to have the front section break off when they reached orbit and become the landing shuttle. The crew had checked and doubled checked, and triple checked their final landing calculations that morning, as did Mission Control on Earth. They had to make sure they landed at the supply depot. Otherwise.… But no one wanted to think about that.

The site was already equipped with twenty tons of supplies that had been sent ahead of Pegasus's departure in unmanned missions. The heavily shielded cargo pods had been precisely positioned to take advantage of Mars massive underground caves, which had been found to offer a temperate environment for its new residents, as well as protection from radiation. And the possibility of eventually finding potable water underground.

Separate pods supported different needs. One, filled with water, another food, and yet another, genetically altered plants that grew with little sunlight or water, and held the promise of life-sustaining oxygen. Lab equipment and construction gear in others.

It was found, after years of study, that the pods initially designed to become the crew's first housing, could possibly be decimated by meteor showers. So, after much debate, it had been decided that the pods would become a source of solar energy and were redesigned with solar panels that would harness the energy of the sun, as well as the heat of meteors
and stars charging through the atmosphere at millions of miles an hour.

Several days prior to landing, the crew would activate the giant solar panels encased beneath the outer shield of each pod for protection during the journey to Mars. Once all systems were go and the captain triggered the switch, their life on Mars would begin.