One Way To Mars

Chapter 5

It was the smell of the coffeethat woke Foreman up.

'Hello,' said Monkley, passinghim the mug.

'Hey! You, pal, are a realgentleman. Thanks.' He sipped the coffee. 'Perfect. How are you thismorning?'

'Happy.'

When it came to words, Monkleywas a one size fits all kinda chap.

'We're alive, which is the mainthing. We should do something, you know, about our buddies. Marktheir passing, somehow. I'll think of something.'

He went to the bathroom and ranthe shower. He knew all the water would be filtered and sterilised.It was the same for any waste water. Solids would end up being usedas fertiliser for the plants. Nothing was ever wasted in a facilitylike the base. Drying himself off, he found a coverall that fitted.The kitchen had a storeroom filled with enough vacuum packed food tofeed four people for a year. Maybe not the finest dining experience,but nutritious and sustaining. Finding some tomato filled dough basedthing, he zapped it in the microwave and sat at the table to eat. Themeal was okay. Adequate. It would keep him alive. Another coffee hitthe spot.

He left the kitchen after washingup his coffee mug, and went out to try the radio again. With his mindrested, he figured he stood a better chance of making contact. Afterhalf an hour of nothing but static, he gave it up.

'Hey, Monkley. Where the hell areyou?'

There was a rustling as Monkleybounded athletically from branch to branch, landing perfectly by hisside.

'Are you going to dress today?'

Monkley shook his head. 'Happy.'

'Fair enough. I tried callingEarth. I didn't get very far. You and I still have a job to do, youknow? We gotta check out the systems, make sure it's all in goodorder. You need to stick by me, learn a bit. We have to go to thecontrol room. Come on.'

The nerve centre of the base wasat the far end of the accommodation units. A light came on as theystepped inside.

'Ah! This isn't good, pal.' Heknew he had left the radio on. Now, however, it wasn't lit up.'Probably a loose connection.'

Monkley jumped up onto the benchand watched Foreman at work. Checking the cables and power supply, hedetermined the problem, if there was one, was with the radio itself.'Maybe its on some sort of timer. Yeah. Makes sense. Conservingpower.'

He flicked every switch, turnedevery knob, poked all the buttons. Nothing. 'Gotta be some kindamanual for the damn thing.'

Monkley was holding a thickinstruction manual in his hairy hands, turning the pages. This wouldhave been impressive, had it not been upside down.

'You ain't fooling nobody, pal.Hand it over.' Monkley passed it to him. 'Shit! This is ridiculous,'he said feeling the weight. 'You make yourself useful and make me acoffee while I get my head around this.'

Monkley jumped down and ran outof the room as Foreman made himself comfortable in a chair, his feetup on the bench. Five minutes later, Monkley returned with the coffeein one hand and a banana in the other. Jumping back up on the bench,he ate the banana as Foreman studied the manual. 'I got to pageninety seven and it still ain't told me how to turn the damn thingon. What is it with geeks? They got this peculiar way about them,using a thousand incomprehensible words when one simple word woulddo.'

He tossed the manual on the benchand stared at the radio. Despite the technical ramblings of themanual, it looked quite basic in design. It served two purposes, heknew. Internal base communication including with anyone outsideperforming missions, and communication with either Earth, or anyoneon their way from Earth. That was it. It would of course, ordinarilybe operated by an expert, but the expert was Science OfficerElizabeth Mauler. She'd have had the thing fired up and dancing thebossanova in seconds. Mauler being dead was a huge obstacle in herbeing able to do that, however.

'I need a crap,' said Foreman.

On his way to the bathroom, hemarvelled at the base. He was impressed with its simplicity. One hugeLuxotral construction, self supporting with no internal pillars,capable of withstanding small meteor collisions. Not that that waslikely. Mars had two distinct areas, one a heavily pockmarkedbattered side, ravished by time and meteor bombardment, and the restof it, smooth and relatively unblemished. Nobody really knew why thatwas. The base site had been chosen using the Olympus Mons mountain asa marker. Near the equator, surrounded by a vast crater, the extinctvolcano measured an impressive eighteen miles in height. Thebordering plateau was where the bore for the water had been drilled.Impervious pipes made of Luxotral were used to get the water to thebase under natural pressure. The people building all this would havetossed the geek instruction manuals into the trash and just got onwith the job.

Not one ounce of material hadbeen wasted. There was nothing used in the project that didn't needto be there, and considering it was a joint effort between manynations, it all went amazingly well. The toilet was a self cleaning,self flushing design, recycling waste material for the compost forthe plants. All the packaging for the food was a biodegradablematerial, organic based, that broke down into compost. Havingfinished his ablutions, Foreman returned to the control room, to findan excited Monkley talking into the lit up radio.

'...Space Federationcommunications centre. I repeat. This is Cadet Nathan Farley, of theInternational Space Federation at the communications centre. Can youhear me?'

'Happy. Monkley happy.'

'Holy crap.' Foreman stared atthe GenMop in amazement. 'Cadet Farley. This is Andrew Foreman. Canyou hear me?'

Farley wouldn't hear that for afew minutes, so continued introducing himself. After a long pauseForeman got his reply.

'Yeah. I got some nut-job onbefore, going on how happy he is.'

Allowing for the pauses, thedialogue continued. 'That's Monkley. The GenMop. You say you're justa cadet?'

'Yeah. I can hear you. We're inthe middle of an evacuation. Big shit going down.'

'Evacuation? What the hell isgoing on down there?'

'Terrorist strike. Bad shit goingdown all over the damn place.'

'But I...everything was peachywhen we left. How come...?'

'I can't stay long, sir. I wasjust passing the communications centre when I happened to hear thetransmission.'

'Farley. Listen carefully. Theship went down. Me and the GenMop are the only survivors. We are inthe base and...'

'Glad you made it, sir. Look. Igotta go.' There was the sound of an explosion. 'Shit. Good luck,sir.' There was another explosion and the radio went dead.

'Farley? Farley?'

Foreman stared at the radio.'Damn. Turn my back for five damn minutes and it all goes to pieces.'