“All off!” Raoul called.
“Pressures down,” Viktor answered, voice as mild as ever.
“My God, what—?”
Then she started running. Not that there was anything she could do, really.
PART II
A MARTIAN ODYSSEY
12
JANUARY 14, 2018
AT LEAST THE DAMAGE WAS CLEAR. BRUTALLY. THE PANEL HAD PEELED off about a meter above the reaction chamber. Inside they could see a mass of popped valves, ruptured pumps, and tangled lines.
“Damn, I built those to take three times the demand load,” Raoul said.
“Something surged,” Viktor said. “Readout shows that.”
“Still, the system should have held,” Raoul insisted, face dark. “The seals must’ve leaked.”
“Overpressure was probably from double line we made,” Viktor said mildly.
“Ummm.” Raoul bit his lip. Julia could see his pale face through his helmet viewer and wondered if he felt defeated. He was looking intently at the ruined assembly. “There seems to be a stain inside…dust! There’s dust inside the line!” He turned to Viktor, “It’s the seals all right, and having two lines made it just that much worse—twice as many seals.” Then he nodded briskly. “That’s it, all right. We should check with the desk guys, see if anything else showed up during their test fire, but I’ll bet that’s it.”
“Double line was their idea.”
“Right. We’ll go back to the original design.”
Somehow this buoyed them. It had to, she reflected. Either they got the system working or they wouldn’t dare lift. The Airbus crew would have to rescue them—a huge maybe—getting the glory and the $30 billion.
“Should I contact Ground Control now, or wait until we get back to the hab?” Marc asked.
“They control nothing,” Raoul said. “We’re in control.”
“Is damned right,” Viktor said, laughing in a dry way.
“Okay.” Julia grinned uncertainly and Marc followed suit.
“I suppose we should wait, talk to Earthside before we pull anything out and start refitting,” Raoul said.
Viktor’s voice crackled in the suit radio, his accent more noticeable, “Nyet, nyet, no waiting. You go ahead. Can’t sit here and wait for Airbus to take us home.”
As they were cleaning up and preparing lunch, a chime announced that a priority vid had arrived. Julia knew it was from Axelrod, as usual catching them together at a mealtime. By consensus looks they agreed to wait until later to review it. Axelrod’s messages were usually harangues—as Marc put it, “The latest bee up his ass.” And today was going to be epic because he had seen the failure, heard their reports.
They ate slowly.
Axelrod was livid. “NASA’s repair blew out? What kinda shit instructions did they send you?” He was pacing around his office, vid feed clipped to his collar. “That’s why they call them whiz boys, ya know. They can’t find their whizzes without instructions. Detailed instructions.” He paused for breath. “First they sold us a defective ship, then they fuck up the repairs. Someone’s on the take to Airbus, I promise you.”
Viktor had been the first to notice that the monologues had slowly changed in tone, from the friendly go-get-’em team chats to daily rants.
Axelrod was being worn down by constant media pressure, amidst the capital drain that the mission was costing him. In addition, relations between him and NASA, always edgy, had deteriorated. He no longer trusted their communications team.
The problems dated to the very first days of Consortium mission planning, when Axelrod announced his plans to use the ERV to get his crew home. NASA had resisted, and the whole project teetered.
“Who’s gonna stop me?” Axelrod had said. “You want to send guards to Mars to keep the team out?”
After two months of hassling, they had reached a settlement—the Consortium could buy the ERV for $1 billion. Up front. But elements in NASA never forgot Axelrod’s original presumption.
When Raoul discovered the damage to the ERV, Axelrod was furious. He lashed out at NASA in the press, described the ERV as “a derelict piece of government surplus equipment,” and demanded his money back. This proved unwise.
Having already spent the money—after all, it was the government, and that is government’s job—NASA refused. Instead it offered to help model the repairs with a duplicate ERV sitting in a hangar at Johnson Space Center.
Axelrod became increasingly hostile, threatening to file suit to recover all costs for the mission unless the ERV could be repaired.
NASA, in turn, hinted that smooth communication with the Mars crew could be a casualty of any open breach of contract. If he filed suit, they said with solemn sincerity, the government lawyers would almost certainly not allow them to deal with Axelrod anymore. Even worse things could happen…
In fact, he had hinted darkly to his crew, NASA was already not transmitting his vids to them reliably.
On screen, Axelrod continued to pace. “If we lose because their piece of shit equipment won’t work—listen, Raoul, I want you, first thing, to—arrrrrrp.”
The screen went blank.
“That won’t help his state of mind,” said Julia mildly. She was relieved not to have to listen to him any longer. “He’s so paranoid about NASA.” She sent back a “Did not receive message” reply.
