S Morden - One Way

“Check for rocks.”

“There’s no rocks,” said Demetrius.

“On Mars, there will be. You walk along the route, and you pick up all the rocks that might work their way through the mat and you kick them to one side. Or you hammer the sharp edges off if they’re part of the bedrock. Go on. Look, I know there aren’t any rocks, because this is graded sand. But this is training. Every time we put out a new module, this is going to be your job. Walk the route, check it’s clear. Got that?”

He was malleable enough that he took the instruction without complaint. He trod over the sand, scuffing it up as he went, turned round at the end and scuffed it back.

“It’s clear.”

“Good work. Now let’s roll the mat out.” They did, and Frank noticed that there was a nozzle that would take air. Or any other pressurized gas. Or water, even.

When the rings at both ends had been completed, the outriggers assembled, and the airlock bolted on, they tied ropes to the structure and walked it into position. It was—aluminum and plastic—straightforward. The module still needed to be anchored down, but it was up, in something under the two-hour mark. It’d take longer in a spacesuit, of course. He should get them all practicing in the gloves at least, and see how cocky they were then.

That wasn’t right. He didn’t want them to fail. He wanted them to succeed. He just wanted them to be realistic about what could be accomplished and how long it would take them. If they could get a couple of sections up, join them together, and pressurize them in a day, that’d be a start.

No obvious friendships had formed. Alice seemed to hate everyone. Zero had taken his chance to bully Demetrius. Zeus’s ink made it all but impossible for him to get close to anyone. Declan—still no sign of him. Marcy. Him and Marcy. They got on well enough. So not fucking up there would be good.

While he toured the completed module, checking the rings at each end and the attached legs, the hangar door opened up. The crack of light flashed on and off. A shadow was briefly visible in the glare. Declan. Frank met him halfway.

“I was expecting you here already,” said Frank.

“I wasn’t told until now. They had me running up and down that hill.” Declan was wetter than usual. Dark stains mottled his T-shirt, and he rubbed his hands over and over again. He looked past Frank at the five others standing around the newly minted habitat. “This your team?” he asked.

Frank turned to look, and goddammit, yes. In the presence of a newcomer, they’d instinctively moved closer together.

“That’s right,” said Frank. “This is the rest of my team. Come on over. I’ll do the introductions.”

From:Bruno Tiller

To:Michelangelo Alvarez

Date:Sun, Sep 14 2036 00:03:29 +1000

Subject:Re: the Project

I’ve just filed the official documentation on the server, ready for Monday morning’s meeting. It gives an outline of everything we’ve done so far: I’ve included the specs for the vacuum chamber at Gold Hill, but not the full tech report. I wanted to talk to you about this over the back-channel.

You know my concerns: we’ve promised this vast open space, some five times larger than the SPF, and it’s as expensive as fuck. The tech report says we can build it, but I don’t think we *need* it. Something with twice the footprint of the SPF—in the region of 150–200 ft—will do, and it means we’ve got more in the war chest when we inevitably run down to Launch Day and have to throw money at problems to make them go away.

I want to emphasize to you that we cannot, must not, go over budget on this. The shareholders will crucify us, and all the stock we hold won’t be enough to buy a pot to piss in.

I want you to come to the meeting with proposals for a smaller vacuum chamber, and the justification for it. There’ll be some kickback, most likely from Castor on the Hab team, but I’ll take the heat and come down on your side. Hab will just have to suck it up.

Don’t let me down.

B

Building Fifteen was bigger on the inside. The back wall, which abutted the side of the mountain, was hollowed out and tunneled through. The electric carts they were in—sitting on rear-facing seats, wearing their spacesuits—drove all the way, then stopped. The voice in their ears told them to get out, and prepare for a live test.

When they turned round, they were confronted by a door that looked like it belonged in one of those apocalyptic movies, behind which the generals and the president shut themselves to escape the oncoming disaster.

“Well, damn,” said Marcy. It was almost too difficult to look up to the top. “What the hell do they do here?”

A klaxon sounded and the door ground open, slowly and inexorably. It was huge, and very thick. It opened inwards, powered by massive hydraulic rams that glistened and growled. Inside, across a threshold that was high enough to need steps to get over it, was a gray empty space. Something rattled against the lip of the door, and two white-covered technicians slowly appeared in the doorway as they climbed up. They came down on the outside, and stood at the base of the steps.

Then Brack pushed through them all and mounted the steps, facing them as if he was some kind of general, addressing his troops.

Frank could hear the others groan through the open circuit.

Brack was wearing a headset: they couldn’t block him out. “Get moving. We’re on the clock.”

One by one, they filed past Brack and into the dead area beyond. Concrete floor, curved concrete walls, louvered openings high up in the ceiling. On the floor, several items drew Frank’s eye. One was a long white cargo cylinder, like they’d been playing with in Building Ten. The other things were two igloo-like structures. They had the domed shape, but instead of an entrance tunnel there were hatches that looked like airlocks.

“Listen up, you retards. This is different. This is for real. You can die in here, and there’s jack anyone can do about it. In that tube is everything you need to build and pressurize one module. Against my advice, you have been provided with a couple of lifeboats. Use them for anything other than a medical emergency and you will be canned. Use them at all and I’ll get you canned anyway.

“When I step out of this facility, the door will close and the air will be sucked out. It takes half an hour to pump down, twenty minutes to refill so you don’t explode. After that first thirty minutes is up, you will get to work. You will be working in total vacuum, and you are on your own. There are cameras. Don’t interfere with them. But there will be no help except what you can provide for yourselves.”

He stood on the thick concrete sill and kicked the stairs away. They rolled across the smooth floor and eventually stopped.

“You’re the most useless bunch of fuck-ups I have ever had the displeasure of working with. I’m kind of hoping that when they open this door again, you’ll all be dead or mad. You get out of this coffin when you’ve done. Not before. You got that?”

Those who weren’t already looking at him shuffled round so that they could.

“I asked you a question.”

“We got it,” said Frank. “We know what to do.”

The klaxon sounded and the door began to creep shut again.

“And do not start until you are told. Or I’ll can you.”

The huge door obscured his body, but they could still hear him.

“I got fifty bucks on you fucking up.”

The reverberation when the door finally closed was profound. The echo seemed to go on and on. Then distant fans in the ceiling started to take the air away. Frank walked over to the discarded steps and locked the wheels using the brake. He sat down on the third flat, like they were bleachers, ready to wait out the half-hour.