Chapter-SIX--OUTPOST!

CHAPTER SIX
OUTPOST
By Julian Phillips
From the story by Tom Luong /Tom Luong Films
Oct. 23, 2009

“ A philosopher said, Once a body in motion, it tends to stay in motion. Once a body at rest, it tends to remain at rest. What the kid meant was, use it or lose it! “
--Comedian and burlesque performer George Burns (‘Living It Up, or, They Still Love Me in Altoona’, Berkeley Publishing, 1976) That weekend at Vandenberg would change the US-Mars Space program forever. No one was to blame if the cosmos had finally pooted out a huge meteor from the Eternal Abyss that was likely to strike the Planet Earth, or even with inevitable certainty, would strike the Earth, with no real recourse to avoid disaster. An act of God? This was not the way they liked to think about anything much at all in the space-program, given the science-based nature of the work, the extreme dangers of space-travel, and a tendency for the deeply religious to have certain emotional problems associated with the work involved, in particular actual space-travel.
The rule they used was often spoken as, ‘The Universe is actively hostile to intelligent life. Deal with it.” This didn’t mean the space-planners were heartless men devoid of any true feelings. In fact, as far back as the old Apollo program, when men first walked on the moon, there was a ‘space-man’s prayer’ that was entered into the communication-record on flights, or prior to the many challenging launches and recoveries, such as the nearly-doomed Apollo-13 flight, in 1969, when the whole world watched a group of men very nearly die, struggling with a wounded ship and low-oxygen, to somehow navigate a safe return to Terra-Firma, from a voyage to the moon.
“Give us the knowledge, that we may pray with understanding hearts, to set forth the coming of the day of Universal peace. Amen,” was the space-man’s prayer in those days. And it hadn’t changed much in 100 years since the Apollo program, and many felt it was a transit of souls, into Infinity, that was being answered every day, and not just for astronauts, but for all men. Or maybe the troubling specter of the heat-death of the Universe itself, called ‘entropy’, figured at many billion years into future-time. In contrast to all the high-tech science and lab-coat feelings, or space-suit stuff, this prayer once would resonate on the radio-link that reached the men headed to the moon, or while on the moon, or prior to launch. Maybe it was because every single one of the astronauts were risking their lives from the moment of lift-off---yet something mysterious in their hearts drove them onward with the greatest courage. Others merely tolerated this sort, and it was a bit of a tradition, in any case.
Guy Reisling finally heard about his denouncement and loss-of-privileges as a pilot, about two weeks following the Spring US-Mars Program Update Conference. Enjoying some time off at home, a Certified Transmission arrived via Internet-computer, still in use for private citizen communication, and in 2075, now far more secure for major life-path business transactions, legal, government, banking, political-votes, and many other, it’s promise having finally risen beyond the early abuses, porn, terrorism, fraud, crime, etc. By 2075, the Internet was a solid rock of modern lifestyles, as dependable as legal-paper and business-title, standard paper-mail or government-taxation, and even money-types. So, a Certified Transmission meant it was something important, and of course Guy knew right away what it was.
It was just within the twilight hours, there where Guy had his home, North of Santa Barbara, close enough to the Space-Port to keep him busy. His next-door neighbor, an 85 year-old Chinese woman, thin and tough and brown as a small tree, who enjoyed being outdoors with half an acre of organic asparagus, was working with a wheel-barrow to move a load of fertilizer into a compost area, just a few yards from the side of Guy’s house, by a large window. The evening dusk-light touched the area between the two homes with shadows.
“Hoooooooooo-Yah! Wooo! Got it!!”, she could then hear from within Guy’s home. “I’m back! Wooo!”
The old woman paused, wiping the sweat from her forehead as she worked, casting a hard look toward Guy’s home. “Stupid space-boy,” she said to herself, again hoisting the wheel-barrow, huffing.
Guy was elated, inside his home, that he had been re-instated. The Certified Transmission was from Okman’s office, and the Flight-Protocol Review Board. The Board now held that Guy had made errors on his last flight, but they were willing to mitigate their decision because he had been able to correct himself, and return with his crew safely to Earth, despite the difficulty. So, he was re-instated, and this was in the best-interests of the program, given Guy’s experience, training and loyalty. This meant that he was once again fit-for-duty, and he and his crew would be back into service with the next probable passage date for a transport. To have lost his standing and pilot-qualifications, would have been a disaster, and a disgrace.
Following the Conference, there was a great deal of ‘scuttlebutt’ about the findings, especially among those who would be involved in what came next. Guy and Rob, his Co-Pilot, got together later at the base to talk things over and also look at flight-logs.
“I guess we’ll be running weapons-cargo or bombs over to the Martian Snikta-base for the next couple of runs,” Guy said to his Second, Rob Cowan. Rob was an un-extraordinary type, a hard worker, well-trained, mature and responsible. If Guy failed as Captain of the Penelope, Rob would take over, and for many tasks during the voyages they made, there were shared duties of all kinds. Rob was thin and tall, sometimes a bit pale, or seeming less-than-perfectly-healthy. But he was quite strong, and always ready at his work, which was a matter of personal pride to him, like them all.
“They shouldn’t turn the Mars-base into a military facility, just because of the meteor,” Rob answered him. “It’s for research. If the Russians take control, it won’t help if they’re heavily armed. The staff at Snikta-base is not military. They’d hardly know how to launch a bomb or missile. All they do is soil tests and mapping.”
“Maybe they’ll have to learn” Guy answered. “Maybe we will, too.”
“I’m not a soldier. All we do is haul the mail. Food, water, goods. If they send our crew on the Penelope up, and we have some kind of battle, I can only assume the Russians would be far better prepared. After all, they planned it that way. But we didn’t,” Rob added.
“Well, unless that changes,” Guy replied.
Karen Tutturo, the Communications-Specialist assigned to travel to Mars, was now only two days away from her departure. The news from the Conference gave her chills. Not only did she now need to deal with space-travel, and all her fears and the hardship involved, in addition to repairs to the Mars-base communications-gear---now she also had to worry about some vague kind of Russian-Islamic intrigue, or even an attack. And even, eventually, to consider whether or not the Earth would survive a meteor hit, and her world and all she ever knew, would vanish.
Two days prior to a people-shuttle flight departing for Mars, Karen’s life was all about preparation. There were medical exams, gear and life-support suits (which she had to learn to operate properly), and also her personal items, the plans and schematics she needed to work on the Mars-base radio-link for repairs. She would report to the base Launch-Control early in the middle of the week, to be ready for the flight: a flight-suit, waste or body-fluids elimination ‘diapers’ to be fitted (for launch-and-orbit sequence only), and then to get familiar with the ship, ship’s crew, her berth, and also terms and conditions of the actual passage.
“Why don’t they just give me a pill and knock me unconscious, and pack me into a bed or something, for the whole flight?” Karen said to her best friend, a biology-student, currently studying at Bakersfield State University.
“You’re too much fun for the pilots and crew to chat up or flirt with,” her friend said. “No good if you’re unconscious.”
“Not necessarily,” Karen replied. “Not with this bunch.”
They chuckled as only girlfriends can. “You can do it, Karen,” her student-friend said. They hugged. “You’re Number One.”
“Well, you know. Save the world.”
Another meeting, behind closed doors at the Vandenberg base, included Lynn Rodgers-Smith, Dr. Mehudi, the program specialist for sciences, and Winton Berle, the overall Fleet Commander. The Vandenberg Space-Port, now some 100 years-old itself, and having a new life since the year 2006, when funds were set in motion to create a high-end West-Coast US space-port, mostly for launches, but also some recovery or vehicle re-entry, and there were many other space-related functions, such as tracking, plotting flight-paths, prepping the astronauts, etc. By 2075, it was one of the world’s major facilities, at that time only among about 40 or 50 such ‘ports’ on the Planet Earth, many of them far inferior to Vandenberg. The three ‘Mars-Bars’, as the lower-level type workers called them, gathered in secret, or at least with significant privacy, in a pleasant ante-room, at the back of a long hallway of cubicle-offices, where in the past, US Presidents and Dignitaries interested in the space program, would stop by for drinks, or to smoke their cigars, or to get away from the media, or hide-out a troubling blonde-bombshell affair or two. The room looked rather like an Old West bar-room.
Lynn, ever the Texan at heart, had a coffee-and-brandy, and was walking back-and-forth at one end of a longish-green pool table with claw-feet. Dr. Mehudi had a plate with a pastry set on the green felt. No one was playing pool, but ‘Kick’, the only one of the three of them to have actually traveled to Mars, was working with a length of rope, tying knots he learned in the Maritime Academy, something he did when nervous for relaxation. His command-equals called him Winton.
“I’m sorry to point this out, Lynn. Maybe Dr. Mehudi can understand my point. It may not be clear, if you’ve never actually been to Mars, or the Mars-base, as I have,” Winton said, seated by the pool-table, in a recliner, his back straight. “I mean, you both have a lot of knowledge, of course. But on the ground-level, on Mars, conditions are way different. If there is any attack, of a military sort, conducting a defense, would be an opportunity for things to go from bad-to-worse very quickly. There’s really no air that anyone could breath without a suit, okay? So, beyond the walls of the base-facility, to stop the Russians---even a handful of men---it wouldn’t even make much sense from a military point-of-view. The air-suits, or Mars-gear for movement on the surface, are not intended for any kind of conflict. They’re fragile, really. Even a small tear in the fabric of the suit, which is an aluminum-mesh cloth-wire type---the slightest air-oxygen breach in the suit---your soldier dies for lack of air. Not from a gunshot wound. So a bunch of guys out there fighting---ha! They even fall down by accident, or a hard shove, or the other grabs him by the arm the wrong way---it’s over. So it makes no sense. It’s like sending a guy---a guy---a guy in a fire-proof suit, to a swim meet competition, at the Olympics. It’s not going to work that way---trust me.”
“What about the Russians? Is there any way to fight them outside the facility itself, or stop them---just, hold them off? How will they reach the surface anyway? Aren’t there suits like ours?” Lynn asked.
Winton now had successfully done a square-knots three or four times, while talking. “Their ships will have to enter orbit. Then they descend to surface-level in re-entry, you know the drill. Could be pods, parachutes, gliders, something new. All the Earth-technology for suits is basically the same, but we have a lot more experience on Mars and have made some advances. But, you never really know what they might come up with. If we stop them on the way, or while in orbit---much better. Outside the entry airlocks on Mars, into the base---without a suit---you’re dead. It’s like the Mojave desert in the summertime---only double--or the dead-winter of Iceland---minus-ten---but still in the Mojave desert---but with no air---and a certain amount of ambient radiation. And no way home, except back into the base, through the airlock. Or a shuttle-launch up into orbit onto a ship.”
A pause. Dr. Mehudi nibbled his pastry. “Those are nice knots you’re making,” he said to Winton.
Winton laughed again. “I do a good hangman’s noose, too,” he said. They all grinned slyly, understanding.

---Julian Phillips
Oct. 28, 2009
2,169-words