Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever Phoenix Sullivan (most popular novels TXT) 📖

prior to surface tests — a bore of about two feet,” said Casey.

“About?”

“Twenty-two inches.”

“The von Erich Coefficient.” West was secretly pleased at the look of surprise that crossed Casey’s face.

“Her work was —”

“I might have done the same. But —”

“I found … I found calcium carbonate and magnesium sulfate.”

“Ordinary constituents of Martian soil,” said West.

“Not in these concentrations. And not associated physically but not chemically. Naturally I broke protocol. Protocol is just Earth’s buzz word meaning obey me. By protocol, sand is taken, mixed, ground and then tested to get its chemical composition. Solid stone, like in a core sample, can be taken and cut into layers and the chemicals examined to see which ones are in some kind of association. We do that all the time to assay sediment soil to check how valuable a mine is likely to be. In this case, the calcium is next to the magnesium sulfate, and between those two deposits is phosphorus. The deposits are next to each other, but they aren’t mixed up together.”

She took out her tablet, the ones that under protocol only the lieutenants and the commander could have. Onscreen was a slide of core matter. There were several deposits of calcium carbonate, which were near phosphorus — but always physically separate. Likewise, on the far side of the phosphorus was nearly always a distinct deposit of magnesium sulfate.

West flipped through over fifty screens of core samples. They certainly didn’t seem random when looked at in that light, but Casey had just framed the whole thing for him. Having been told there was a pattern, he would look for it and possibly find it even if it wasn’t there. Hell, after decades of refutation, the images of scenery they sent back to Earth were still being analyzed for remnants of canals.

“Were all these slides from one core sample?” asked West.

Casey hung her head.

“That’s an awfully small sample to draw a conclusion from.”

“The only conclusion I’ve drawn, is that there is an anomaly.”

There was a clanking and a whirr as people entered the airlock. The bobbles had come home.

“From now on, Lieutenant Casey, you’re under direct management, and that means you will be micromanaged. I can get the reference to the protocol, if you like, but believe me, my order will hold.”

Airlocks were still a slow process, though they’d sped up considerably since the early days of Lunar colonization. What used to take hours now took twenty minutes. But sometimes it was a very long twenty minutes. And while West waited, the crowd gathered again.

The antechamber to the airlock was not built as a piazza. It couldn’t hold audiences for speeches, especially with six occupants in suits. West decided to simply rely on the pressure of numbers to drive out those near the door; that way he didn’t have to decide who was worthy and who was not to stay. In the end, he didn’t even have to rely on that.

Only one person came in, clad in armor. The helmeted head turned to take in the crowd. The camera lenses gave the impression of the eyes of a nocturnal creature. In fact, the lenses just cast what they saw onto a screen on the inside of the helmet. That way there was one less opening in the suit that could rupture.

Clamps released and the helmet came off revealing the face of Aoki.

“Couple of capacitors are gone. We can rig an ammonia battery, but it would be better if we could do phosphorus-neon. With that we’d have a closed system with only energy for input-output. If we use ammonia we’ll need a constant supply of it and we’ll use a lot of energy just maintaining the system.”

There was a low rumble and hiss as voices around the room played Chinese whispers and American mutterings.

“Given the phosphorus-neon batteries, we can bypass most of the problems with the capacitors. As an estimate — but I’m pretty confident about it — we’d be able to sustain four people, maybe five.”

The Chinese whispers stopped. The American mutterings continued. It didn’t take long for the noise to swell. West thought of shouting them down but then came up with a better plan.

“Aoki,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear but too softly for anyone to hear comfortably. Then he lowered his voice a little more. “When will the buggy be ready for occupation?”

Aoki gave his answer, put on his helmet, and went back into the airlock. Behind him the antechamber grew quiet.

“When will the buggy be ready?”

“Should have listened instead of talked, shouldn’t you?”

Commander Howard West walked out of the antechamber. It wasn’t exactly a piazza, but it could be just as useful. He’d remember that if he ever ran for a place in Government.

In his quarters, Susan Green was still sleeping. Overpopulating the buggy had people looking for a quiet place — and sometimes just another place. Three cramped levels, all with low ceilings, gave everyone a wanderlust that couldn’t really be filled. He wouldn’t wake Green, so he decided to head to Console.

Console was called Command Deck by Earth Headquarters, though Earth’s terminology was being steadily replaced as the mission went on. With its large view ports forward and to the sides, Console was where the buggy was driven. The windows, of course, were redundant. Readouts and ground sonar did more to find hazards than mere eyes ever could. Since they weren’t moving at the moment, West figured the driver’s seat should be free.

Should be.

As soon as Commander West walked in, the room fell silent. There were five in the room, two more than standard on a stationary night watch.

“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping, Commander?” asked Lieutenant Commander Bruno Laurer.

“Green is borrowing my bunk. I didn’t want to wake her.”

“So that’s where she goes. She’s not been in her assigned bunk since she and Ellison had a dust-up weeks ago. Hazard of sharing bunks, I guess. Still, Ellison holds grudges.”

“If you knew about that, you should have taken it in hand. There are