S Morden - One Way

He stood there and waited. Absolutely nothing happened.

“You have to walk around, so that the lights come on,” said a voice to his left.

Frank’s medical monitors would have noticed the spike in his heart rate, but not necessarily known the cause.

“Yeah, well. Fuck you for not doing that.”

Frank took a careful, sliding step forwards, didn’t bump into anything, and took another. The lights were very far away, up in the roof, and they came on in bands starting nearest the door. They ended a long way back.

“Big space,” said the voice.

“That’s what they tell me,” said Frank.

White cylinders, lying on their side like spilled Pringles tubes, took up the middle part of the broad sandy floor. Frank found it difficult to appreciate their scale, but with a squint and turn of the head they could easily have each been twenty or so feet in diameter, thirty-odd feet in length.

The sand scrunched next to him. Close. Too close. “Declan,” said the man. “I’m your second.”

Frank stepped away and looked this Declan up and down. He hadn’t seen him before, and he certainly hadn’t been at the group meeting. He didn’t have much hair on top. Nor much height or weight underneath it. Damp. Everything about him was just a little… moist. His eyes were red-rimmed, he sniffed, when he spoke he gurgled in his throat. He wiped the palms of his hands against his sides.

He could already tell the man wasn’t a Marcy. But neither of them were in charge of hiring, so they both had to make the best of it.

“You supposed to be part of our team now?”

“I guess,” said Declan. “They must have bumped one of your guys. I suppose I should be grateful but, sucks to be him.”

“Could be any one of us. Still could.” Frank nodded his head at the tubes. “You taken a look yet?” he asked.

“I was told to wait.” Declan tapped his ear. “I’m not getting into trouble. More trouble than I’m already in.”

“OK. Let’s see what they got.” Frank set out across the hangar, aiming for the nearest structure.

Declan scurried beside him. “So you build things like this?”

“Like this? No. But I do build things, and I’m guessing Xenosystems think that’s good enough. You in construction?”

“Kind of. Commercial electrician. Big power circuits. Wiring up whole buildings. That kind of thing.”

“We can work with that.”

Now they were closer, Frank could see that the cylinder sides were made of a stretched plastic, but that there was a metal ring at the end of each section, providing the skeleton to support it. Vertical external pylons with feet stopped it from rolling away.

Prefab. This was why they needed him. He was going to have to literally build a Mars base from a kit. The parts would get shipped to the site, and he—and Declan—would have to bolt it all together. Make the frames, get the plastic over it. Actually no: there were two rings, one inside and one outside that fitted together, forming an airtight seal.

He reached out to one of the pylons and gave it a shake. It was fixed to the ground with a screw-in rock anchor. The structure didn’t move. It was more solid than it looked. He walked around it, pushing and pulling at parts of it. He guessed that on Mars the plastic would be a lot more rigid, pressurized on the inside. That would help.

The far end was open, and they could walk in. Frank inspected the internal ring, and how it all fitted together. There was a cross beam, stretching horizontally from side to side. He reached up, and hung off it, lifting his boots clear of the floor with a grunt of effort. Yes, there was some flex, but barely any. Put one at the other end, and he could suspend joists between them. Two levels, then. Double the working space.

“You don’t say much,” said Declan.

“I have my moments.” Frank walked to the far end. The plastic membrane that was going to have to stand between them and actual Mars seemed thick and resilient. There was an additional rubber mat between the plastic and the ground, but the sand underneath was going to have to be graded for sharper rocks anyway.

So, in order. Prepare the foundation—whatever vehicle they had, just to drag a scoop in a line, then a manual clearing of the larger debris. Use the same machine to drag the base mat around until it was in position. Internal or external rings next? Probably easier to make one internal, then one external, and get it screwed together. They had wind on Mars, and they weren’t going to gain any kudos chasing their shelter across the red desert like it was a stray plastic bag.

Then the next ring. Working on the ground was so much easier than working at height. Would there be, at some point, a need for access to the higher points of the structure? A cherry picker or scaffolding would be preferable, ladders at a push.

They’d need ropes to haul with. Even with a lightweight metal, and this looked like aluminum, the weight wouldn’t be insignificant. They could still fix the outriggers while it was on the ground, and drag them into place, screw or fire in the rock bolts. There’d need to be an airlock to get in and out of. Maybe one of the other modules had one he could examine.

He walked back out onto the sand. “This’ll work,” he said.

Despite the dryness and cold, Declan still felt the need to wipe his hands again. “You reckon? Not going to be so easy doing it wearing a spacesuit.”

“Then we practice while wearing a spacesuit. They’ve color-coded the components. Inner ring’s green, outer ring’s yellow, bolts are all the same size so we never get to lose the one we need. A trained monkey could put one of these together.”

“They’re not sending monkeys. They’re sending us.” Declan didn’t sound thrilled at the idea.

“I’m saying that someone’s actually bothered to put some effort into the design, with the idea that none of us are exactly the Right Stuff. I don’t mind. The easier they make it for us not to screw up, the better.”

Frank toured the remaining modules, which were in various states of completion. He got it now: it was a physical version of one of those pictographic manuals from Legos, or flat-pack furniture. No words, just a stage-by-stage walkthrough.

At the far end of the hangar was a finished module. Open metalwork steps led up to the central airlock door, set in a pop-out standing proud from the end section. His footsteps rang as he climbed up. He was expecting an electronic lock, but this was determinedly low tech, just a lever on a bulkhead door.

He pushed it down and put his shoulder to it. The rubber seals were stiff, and broke with a sigh. There was a five-, maybe six-foot-long chamber before the inner door, and though he supposed that it would open even with the outer one also cracked, it might be an idea to get used to keeping one closed at all times.

Then he looked again. Both doors would only open inwards; positive pressure where it was supposed to be—inside—would prevent an accidental breach. He smiled to himself. OK, so this was well done. Someone had seen the problems they’d be facing, years ago, and had done their job. One professional to another, he silently saluted them.

He opened the inner door. The only illumination was that which filtered through the plastic walls; it was gloomy, almost dark. The ceiling was lower than he’d like, around seven and a half, eight feet, when suspended ceiling and sub-floor voids were taken into account. The curve of the roof made the available head-space less than it otherwise would have been. If the neo-Nazi man-mountain was coming with them, he’d find it difficult.

The floor—tiles made from hard honeycomb sheet with a continuous top layer, like corrugated packing—was pierced by a ladder, which led down to the lower level. To complete the tour, he lay on the tiles and looked through the hole at the floor below. He was guessing that level was mainly for storage. It wasn’t supposed to be a hotel, but there was a damn sight more room than a prison. Which it both was, and wasn’t. He’d need to spend some time poring over the plans, but his confidence to both do the job and win a place on the mission had grown.