Eric Flint - Boundary

It didn't matter, anyway. Whatever Ren's sexual orientation might be-and no one at Ares really knew-one thing that was sure and certain was that he was a master mechanical engineer. Better still, he had enough knowledge of chemistry to make him an ideal team member for designing and building all of the chemical reactors that would transform native Martian materials into everything human beings needed to live there.

That made him, arguably, the single most irreplaceable member of the team. The strategy of the Ares Project pivoted on a premise advanced by Robert Zubrin long before: that an expedition to Mars only needed enough fuel and supplies to get there. Surviving on Mars, and returning to Earth, could be done using the materials found on the planet itself. If that premise proved to be unworkable, everything else became a moot point-and it was Reynolds Jones, more than anyone, who would be the person to make it work. Or find out that it wouldn't.

"You can actually see the levels going up as we watch," Reynolds added.

"Ruth," the reactor in question, was deceptively simple. A test version of a close relative had, in fact, been created by Zubrin himself to prove the basic concept. A ruthenium-iron-chrome catalyst in a long pipe combined hydrogen with Martian carbon dioxide, producing methane gas for fuel, along with water and carbon monoxide as useful byproducts.

The reaction used was a variation of the Sabatier process. Once started, the process produced enough heat to maintain itself. The water was electrolyzed using an advanced solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) unit similar to those developed years before for use in nuclear submarines to produce oxygen and return hydrogen to the catalytic process in the reactor. Meanwhile, the carbon monoxide was led off to other processes or stored for later use. The various componentsattachments for power; tubing for leading the gaseous and liquid products to their destinations of liquefaction, compression, storage, or transfer; the compact shape of the custom SPE unit; and the connections for control circuitry and valves-were carefully distributed to leave the unit clear of obstructions. That was critical, because it operated at significantly high temperatures.

The basic tube-shape was still visible, however. Several other devices, of different construction, were set at separate locations around the atmospheric chamber.

Jones turned towards Anne Calabrio. "Annie, watch that carbon dioxide flow. We have to keep the pressure just right, and I think the program's not handling the valves properly. Something's wrong, anyway. The ratio's fluctuating more than it ought to."

"I'm on it, Ren. But with three experiments running at once, it's hard to maintain it all. I know we need to do this, checking for cross-interactions and all, but still, it's getting into pretty chaotic territory here."

Anne frowned. "Lee, can you throttle Ferris back some?"

"Throttle it back?" Grimes complained. "C'mon, Annie, I'm just gettin' started here!"

Anne's blue-eyed glare pinned Lee to the wall. The former Marine Corps lieutenant winced and raised his hands.

"Okay, okay. Gimme a sec. I was just starting to see some results here-and demonstrating iron production is going to be a pretty major experiment for us when we land, right?"

"Sorry, Lee," Reynolds said soothingly, "but remember, they're all tied together. We have to coordinate. When you start drawing the gas out of the system, the others have to adjust their timing so that each of us manages to support the other. It won't do us any good at all if you pull down the carbon monoxide when it's supposed to be used for a cleaning cycle. Or, worse yet, take too much hydrogen out of the main cycle."

Grumbling, the metallurgy specialist started shutting down the reactor that created iron by two separate paths. One combined hematite-an ore of iron that gave Mars its distinctive rust-red color-with carbon monoxide to produce iron and carbon dioxide. The other used hydrogen in a cycle that produced iron and water, with the water going to electrolysis to get more oxygen and return the hydrogen to work.

Lee Grimes was justifiably proud of the design. It allowed them to test and demonstrate both methods for producing usable iron, in a very small space.

"Part of the problem," Lee said, his tone conciliatory, "is that we're not really on Mars now. The damn chamber isn't big enough for us to drive things at full speed, at least not without a lot more ramp-up testing."

"Well, that's what we're all here for." Ren turned to Buckley. "Joe, what do you think?"

"I'd like to see if you can get Lee's experiment running again," Joe admitted. "Sure, our fuel-oxy reactor's big enough for primetime and combines reactions efficiently, but it's nothing spectacular. Making iron from Martian materials, now… That's going to be a demo that will make more investors really start thinking. And I'd like to see a demo of the ethylene reactor and the brickmaker, too."

"Ethylene coming up!" Anne said cheerfully. "Lee, once I get Ethyl running, you can restart Ferris. Use the hydrogen reaction, so I can grab the carbon monoxide from Ruth. Once I get that all balanced, we can try Porky."

"'Porky'?" Joe repeated, puzzled.

Lee gave an explosive snort of laughter. "You haven't heard that one yet, have you? The heat cycle on the brickmaker was hogging all the energy, since we haven't got a nuke reactor right now. To use the waste heat to cook the bricks, we need to pull it off the mains and use electric heaters. When I said that to Annie, she said to me: 'Well, yeah, it's the Third Little Piggie.'"

"Lee didn't get it immediately," Reynolds chuckled. "Until I pointed out it was making our house out of bricks."

"You do realize we'll need more respectable names for our advanced technology than Ruth, Ferris, Porky, and Ethyl?"

"Joe, stop worrying about the damn investors." Anne coded in several instructions to the system, causing Ruth to increase production and Ethyl to start in. "We've got perfectly good, dull, respectable names full of stupid acronyms for them."

Meryl Stephenson and Bryce Heyers from the next lab poked their heads in. "Hey, guys, can we use some of the- Oh, hi, Joe. Big demo for the boss, eh?"

Joe smiled. "Something like that. Look, I'll be by your lab in an hour or so. We need to-"

A buzzing noise sounded from one of the panels. Reynolds' head snapped around. "That's-"

Joe was just turning towards the panel when the world split open.

Even through his headphones, A.J. heard the sharp boom of the explosion, and felt the floor jolt under his feet. The phones shut off as A.J. leapt from his chair and dashed for the door.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," said Melanie Sherry, standing indecisively. "But it sounded like it came from Engineering."

Other people in the hallway blurred past as A.J. sprinted towards the doors. He burst out into the open.

As he ran towards the testing area, he could see that it was bad. Black billows of smoke, lit from beneath by orange flames, curled upwards from the shattered Engineering wing, near the Atmospherics Testing area. He felt his stomach tighten. Joe had been planning to test some of the catalytic generation processes today.

He skidded to a halt in a scattered jumble of stone and brick. A few others were hesitating, like him, before plunging into the yawning, smoke-belching ruin.

"Joe!" he shouted. "Reynolds! Annie! Lee!" He could hear the distant wailing of fire and emergency medical vehicles approaching.

Setting his jaw, A.J. started in. But then, startled, backed off almost immediately.

Something loomed up in the smoke, emerging slowly, backlit by the flames, seeming almost to materialize like a monster in a bad action movie. It was too wide and squat to be human. A broad, blocky silhouette that wavered like a black ghost…