Impact! Page 2

  Entering the basement below her farmhouse, she started up the stairs. When she got to the top she smelled bacon, “Bridget?”

  “Hey Ell, I made you breakfast. One of the omelets you used to like so much.”

  Ell stopped and stared, “I already ate breakfast.” She sniffed, “But that smells awesome!”

  Bridget picked up the plate and waved it near her. In a singsong voice she said, “It’s your fa-vor-ite.”

  “I can’t resist,” Ell said, hopping up onto the bar stool and taking the plate.

  Bridget’s eyes widened as she watched Ell start wolfing down, not just a little taste of the omelet, but the whole thing. Looking back up at Ell, she lifted an eyebrow and pondered saying something about it. She settled for saying, “It’s going to be great to have you back out at D5R.”

  Pointing down at her plate with her fork, Ell said, “This omelet is just as amazing as I remember.” She filled her fork with the last bite, but before she put it in her mouth she said, “I’ll only be at D5R sometimes, not every day.”

  “Why?!” Bridget asked, looking dismayed, “You’re off the most wanted list. What’s to keep you from coming in?”

  “Other things to do,” Ell winked at her, grinning. “Lots of other things.”

  Rolling down to the end of the farmhouse driveway Ell stopped to talk to the large crowd of reporters gathered there. She opened the door and got out to stand in the opening, “Hi guys, it’s good to be back out in public again. I’ll answer a few questions, but probably not all you want.”

  “Can you tell us where you’ve been hiding?”

  Ell grinned, “Nope.” She arched an eyebrow, “You never know when I might have to go back into hiding.”

  Another reporter asked, “Do you know why they took you off the ‘Most Wanted’ list?”

  Ell shrugged, “I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

  “Uh, and that is?”

  “Not public information. Sorry.”

  “Will you be entering the Olympics next summer?”

  “Oh, no! I’ve had my turn in the Olympics. Time for some new blood!”

  “What are you going to be doing?”

  “I’ll be doing what I love best. Trying to answer questions. Trying to further our understanding of the universe. Working with the great team I have out at D5R and Quantum Research to figure those things out.” She raised an eyebrow, “Speaking of which, I’m going to be late…” She dropped into her seat, closed her door, and slowly nosed her Ford Focus through the journalists and out onto the road.

  When she entered the big room at D5R, someone shouted, “Ell’s back!”

  People streamed into the room, crowding around until it seemed like everyone in the building had packed themselves in around Ell. Hugs and teary-eyed greetings quickly consumed everyone. Sheila shouted, “We’ve got cake and ice cream!” Things soon degenerated into a complete party atmosphere.

  After having two breakfasts, Ell was glad that saying hello to all of her old friends kept her too busy to have any cake or ice cream herself. When the excitement had settled a little, Ben Stavos climbed up on a table and addressed the group, “So, I know a lot of you are full of questions. In order to keep Ell from having to answer each of you one at a time I thought I’d invite her up here to address the group.” He beckoned Ell and after a moment she climbed up on the table with him. “Now, just don’t ask her how she got off the most wanted list. She’s already said she’s not gonna answer that one.”

  Ell was pleased that many of the questions she was asked had to do with prospective directions for Quantum Research and Quantum Biomed. They also asked about what might lie in the future of Portal Tech and ET Resource.

  A young man from the ET Resource group asked excitedly, “Now that we’re sending some people to live in the tunnels on Mars, are we going to start terraforming it? It seems like we could just open some big ports from Venus to Mars and let the Venusian CO2 go to Mars. Mars could use the hot gas and the greenhouse effect of the CO2 to warm it up. Then we could deliver microorganisms and plants to break the CO2 down and release oxygen into the atmosphere.” He looked around to judge the effect of his words on the others. “We’d need nitrogen too, but the atmosphere of Titan is over 98% nitrogen so we could start shipping it to Mars also.”

  Ell frowned at him for a moment, then said, “It’s a nice idea, but unfortunately it’s impractical.”

  With a frustrated look, the young man said, “What do you mean ‘impractical’? I’ve done my research on this. We really could create a breathable atmosphere.”

  A slight grimace crossed Ell’s face, then she shrugged and said, “It’s a problem of scale and orders of magnitude that’s hard to grasp unless you actually run the numbers, so let’s do it.” She looked up at the ceiling, “Supposing we opened a 10 meter port from the depths of the Venusian atmosphere to Mars. Now, I must point out, we’ve never built a port even close to that large so we don’t know if it’s possible, but if it is, it would draw… about 600 megawatts of power. That’s enough power for a city of half a million people or a good-sized aluminum smelter… a lot of power, but it could be done.”

  She looked back down at the young man, “The flow rate through a large port like that, from Venus’s atmospheric pressure of ninety times that of Earth’s into the essential vacuum of Mars’ atmosphere would be high. It should be…” Ell looked off into the distance distractedly as she calculated, “about 55 cubic kilometers of gas per year, which would mass 3.7 trillion kilograms. That really is a huge amount of gas we’d be transferring.”

  Ell paused a moment, still looking into the distance, then glanced down sadly, “Unfortunately, you’d need 2.5 quintillion kilograms to get up to the same pressure we have here on earth. That would take… 650,000 years.” She smiled and shrugged, “If you just wanted to get up safely above the ‘Armstrong limit’ so that people could go around with oxygen alone, not a spacesuit, it would only take 65,000 years.” She frowned, “I suppose if we opened up a thousand 10 meter ports it would only take sixty-five years to get comfortably above the Armstrong limit, but I hope you realize from these numbers that planets are enormous. You’re talking about an immense undertaking. I for one have some other things I’d like to do first.”

  The people in the room stood in stunned silence for a moment, then Ben laughed. “Yes, and for those newbies among you who are wondering, she did just do that math in her head.”

  ***

  Stell Simsworth stood beside the stage signing autographs for people at the end of her show. It seemed like every fan had something they wanted to say. Stell felt tired and wanted to go back to her hotel room, but she was determined to sign an autograph for every fan that wanted one. She intended to be the kind of singer whose fans loved her, even if it did mean singing the same songs at every concert until she was sick of them and signing autographs until her fingers cramped.

  The next person in line was tall, so Stell looked up. It was a young man, perhaps sixteen, wearing dark glasses despite the dim room. Blind? Stell’s voice caught, “Hello, how would you like your autograph signed?”

  “An autograph won’t do me much good since I’m as blind as you used to be,” he said in a richly resonant voice. He pulled something out of his pocket. It looked like a floor tile in a plastic bag. Opening the plastic bag he pulled out a thin piece of wood covered with moist clay, “I was hoping you might give me a hand print on this?” He held it out in her general direction.

  “Um, sure!” Stell said, amazed at the effort it must’ve taken the young man to prepare the clay and bring it to the concert for this. She put her left hand underneath it and pressed her right hand into the clay firmly enough to leave a good hand print. She said, “What happened to your eyes? I was blind because of congenital problems with my corneas and lenses.”

  “Retinoblastoma. That’s, uh, a cancer of the eyes. I had it in both eyes.”

  “Oh!” Stell said, covering her mouth with her hand in dismay. “Did they
get the cancer out?”

  Putting the clay impression carefully back in his bag, he said resignedly, “Yeah, it was a long time ago and I’m still alive. Still blind too. What they did for your eyes won’t work for mine. One eye is completely gone and the other just quit working after chemotherapy.” He pulled out a small package and tore it open to expose a wet-wipe, “Here, you can clean your hand.”

  Stell had just been about to try to wipe her hand unobtrusively on her pants. “Thanks.” she said, taking the wipe and cleaning off the little bits of clay sticking to her fingers. “So, are uh, your nerves okay? The optic nerves?” She looked up at his face thinking that he was probably handsome, but not feeling sure about it, having been blind for so long. He looked good to her in any case, symmetrical face, smooth skin, tall, and muscular.

  “I guess. I think when they took it out, they just cut the eye off the nerve on the right.” He shrugged, “The nerve on the left might’ve been damaged by the chemo I suppose.”

  Wondering whether she might be giving hope where hope could never come to fruition, Stell said, “The guys that fixed my eyes?” she paused. “Or didn’t really fix them, actually, just bypassed my bad corneas.” She shrugged, a habit she’d picked up since she’d gotten her sight back. Belatedly she remembered the shrug wouldn’t be seen by the young man. “They think they might be able to hook optic nerves directly up to cameras.”

  The young man looked thunderstruck, “Someone told me that, but I didn’t believe them. Do you really think they can?”

  “Yeah, they are part of Ell Donsaii’s research group. In fact, it was when she was trying to help me with my blindness that she developed the contacts that have become the hot new Heads Up Displays.”

  “I wouldn’t know much about HUDs,” the young man said bitterly, “being blind and all.”

  Irritated, Stell said, “Don’t forget, I used to be blind myself. I know just how useless an HUD is to a blind person. I was just trying to make a point about their capabilities and was going to ask you if you wanted to volunteer for their research program.” She paused, “But if you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, they probably won’t want to work with you.”

  The distressed expression on his face made it evident that he regretted what he’d said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be such a jerk. I would like to be on their list if you think you can connect me to them.”

  Stell stared at him for a moment or two. She didn’t want to waste Dr. Keller’s time with him if “jerk” was his more normal state. “If I do, you’re not going to make me regret it; are you?”

  “No,” he gave a rueful laugh. “Honest, I’m a nice guy. I’m just stupid sensitive about my blindness.” He put out his hand, “My name’s Warren Dawson.”

  Stell took his hand and gave it a gentle shake, “It’s nice to meet you Warren. Right now I’d better sign some more autographs, but I’ll let you know if they’re interested in talking to you.”

  Chapter One

  Houston, Texas—NASA and D5R jointly announced today the successful descent of the Mars Lander. The Mars Transfer Vehicle remains in orbit above them. In the attached video you can watch the Lander come down on the shelf at the top of the Valles Marineres. The crew then gets out in their graphene Mars suits and enters the habitat itself. Waldoes have been building habitat into the extensive tunnel system which has been melted approximately 10 m below the Martian surface by D5R’s melting tunneler. Inside the habitat the colonists were greeted with a party put on by the Martian waldoes, then they set out to inspect their new home. Hydroponically-grown vegetables and green crops have been thriving in the tunnels. These farms are already producing more than the colonists will be able to eat and the so-called “Mars crops” that have been ported back here to earth have been commanding a pretty penny in specialty markets.

  The colonists also brought goats and chickens with them. They hope to use the goats for milk, cheese and eventually meat. The chickens will provide eggs and meat. If these animals thrive, other animals may come out on later trips.

  Ell got into bed next to Shan and snuggled up to him. “Guess what?”

  Shan’s eyes strayed away from where they’d been studying something on his contact’s HUD, "You find me irresistible?"

  She raised an eyebrow, “Well that's usually true. But when you say something pompous like that…"

  He grinned, "Self-confidence in a man is simply irresistible isn’t it?"

  "Not! Well, unless they’re incredibly handsome." She drew back to look at him, “Hmmm…" She cocked an eyebrow, "perhaps in your case it might be?" She laid her head on his shoulder, "But first I have to tell you my little bit of news."

  "Okay, I'll bite. What's new?”

  "Well, Allan tells me that the next place south of ‘Ell Donsaii’s’ little farm is for sale. It has 7 acres with a big old house, and it's practically on top of the big tunnel down here to Pittsboro."

  "Oh, so that would be close enough for the security team to move back into their old houses in the neighborhood to the west of the farm, wouldn't it?"

  "Yup. We’d only have to cut a short tunnel from its basement to the big tunnel. Otherwise we could use the tunnels that already exist."

  "What's the bed rock like? Is it hard enough for you to just cut tunnels with your one ended port digger? Or will it need to be reinforced so that you’ll have to bring in your miner friend from West Virginia?"

  "Allan says there isn’t enough geological data to know. There are a lot of different types of rock in the Piedmont. We'll have to actually dig a little bit to find out."

  Shan shrugged, "Either way, it can be worked out, so it sounds like a good plan to me."

  "Me too. Maybe we can go look at it tomorrow?”

  "Sure,” he grinned at her, “if you still have the energy after tonight?"

  “Hah!” she said, rolling on top of him. "You mean, if you have the energy…"

  ***

  Phil checked Carol’s Mars suit and then she checked his. They walked down the tunnel that would take them to the ledge at the top of the Valles Marineres. Phil glanced up at one of the safety balloons glued in the top of the tunnel. In case of a failure of the three balloons that sealed the habitat’s tunnel and served as an airlock, the safety balloons could be inflated by the colony’s AI to prevent decompression of the remainder of the habitat. Considering how tough the graphene balloons were, it seemed unlikely in the extreme that the safety balloon would ever be needed. However, considering the harshness of the Martian environment, excessive safety precautions seemed completely reasonable to him. More of the safety balloons were scattered around the rest of the habitat, so that if any part of it lost pressure to some kind of rock fault, that section could be sealed off to protect the remainder of the tunnels. Emergency decompression suits were available in each of the sections that might be sealed off so, barring a catastrophic and nearly instantaneous decompression, anyone caught in a sealed off area could get into an emergency suit and wait for rescue. Since there were a lot of earth-connected ports in each section that would start bringing in air as soon as the pressure dropped, it was really hard to imagine it getting that desperate, but they were playing it safe.

  He and Carol stopped at the first of the airlock balloons and waited for it to deflate. They stepped past it, and once it had re-inflated, the second of the three airlock balloons began to go down. Finally they were in front of the last one. It deflated a little bit to let Phil and Carol check the integrity of their Mars suits one more time at a low pressure. As the pressure dropped in that last chamber, Phil felt his suit swelling around him. He moved his arms and legs around to be sure that the active system which deflated chambers on one side of a joint and inflated chambers on the other side—thus allowing the joint to be bent without extreme effort—was functioning correctly. Carol did the same and they both checked suit integrity by turning off the inflow ports under their chins that were bringing them air. Their suit pressures stayed up, thus proving they didn’t have lea
ks. Leaks wouldn’t be the end of the world because they could simply open more ports back to earth. Ports could bring in enough air to make up for anything but a huge rip; they weren’t dependent on tanks. Nonetheless, it was only good practice to be sure their suits were airtight before they started.

  The last balloon sealing them into the habitat deflated the rest of the way and they headed out on to the surface. Once they were out on the ledge, they stopped to stare out over the Valles. Where they stood it was 150 km wide and 5 km deep, dwarfing the Grand Canyon’s 29 by 1.8 kilometers back home. “Well,” Carol said after a moment, “probably not a good idea to just stand here soaking up radiation all day. Let’s go exploring.”

  Phil extended his arms and had his AI fire the jets under his upper arms. He lifted a meter or so and practiced moving back and forth on the jets to make sure he really knew how to fly them here in Mars’ low gravity before he turned and flew back up onto the plateau behind him. Landing, he felt a combination of exhilaration and depression. He was on Mars! However, all he could see was an unending flat, dirty brown plain, littered with unexciting dirty brown rocks…

  ***

  Olympic Stadium, Rome, Italy —Traditionally, the lighting of the Olympic flame honors an Olympic athlete of the host country. The athlete who will carry the torch on the final leg and use it to light the flame is kept secret until the torch is handed to them in the stadium. This year a great deal of excitement has swirled around the ceremony. It is rumored that the flame will not be lit by an Italian, though no one seems to know who it might be…