

THRONES OF MARS

Omnibus edition

A novel

By

Lloyd R R Martin

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction is allowed without permission.

The right of Lloyd R R Martin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Copyright © Lloyd R R Martin 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the publisher.

This book is sold or presented subject to the condition that it shall not , by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent publisher.

Chapters

Preface

Chapter One F-2D echoes

Chapter Two Introducing 'Phoenix'

Chapter Three Instruction

Chapter Four Sail Power

Chapter Five Gravity

Chapter Six Days Off

Chapter Seven Robots

Chapter Eight Water

Chapter Nine Confinement

Chapter Ten Clues

Chapter 11 All at Sea

Chapter 12 Orion

Chapter 13 Handover

Chapter 14 Alien

Chapter 15 Re-Entry

Chapter 16 Orion Astronauts

Chapter 17 Michelle

Chapter 18 Capsule

Chapter 19 Evidence

Chapter 20 Shots fired

Chapter 21 Quest

Chapter 22 One Short

Chapter 23 Inside the Phoenix

Chapter 24 Orbit

Chapter 25 Landing

Chapter 26 Encampment

Chapter 27 Homer Base

Chapter 28 Construction

Chapter 29 Trike

Chapter 30 Reactor

Chapter 31 Expedition

Chapter 32 Separation

Chapter 33 Writing

Chapter 34 Heat and Ice

Chapter 35 Rover

Chapter 36 Cloak

Chapter 37 Xanthros

Chapter 38 Battles

Chapter 39 The Way Back

Chapter 40 Xanthros on the Net

Chapter 41 Docking

Chapter 42 Loneliness of Command

Chapter 43 The Chase

Chapter 44 Thrones of Mars

Chapter 45 Cold Dark Silence

Chapter 46 Meeting in Hilbert Space

Chapter 47 Gerald and Sarsen 2

Chapter 48 Citation

Chapter 49 DeathValley

Chapter 50 Death by Name

Chapter 51 Des Moines

Chapter 52 Boise, Idaho

Chapter 53 Camero

Chapter 54 The Rainbow Canyon Transition

Chapter 55 The Hilbert Transformation

Chapter 56 Zoo

Chapter 57 Is The Secret Out?

Chapter 58 Helix

Chapter 59 Clover Leaf Battle

Chapter 60 Vargas Returns

Chapter 61 Steve Luke

Chapter 62 Redstone Arsenal

Chapter 63 The Clan Almost Complete

Chapter 64 The Alamo

Chapter 65 Totem

Chapter 66 Phoenix

Chapter 67 Wormhole Centre

Chapter 68 The Forgotten Soldiers

Chapter 69 The Primary Cause

Chapter 70 Martineau

Chapter 71 Potdam 1997

Chapter 72 Dusseldorf 1997

Chapter 73 Finders Keepers

Chapter 7 4 Visitors

Chapter 75 Three Shades of Grey

Chapter 76 The Man who would start wars

Chapter 77 Sigmund Best

Chapter 78 The Café Baccus at Venlo

Chapter 79 Ash Dieback

Chapter 80 Goddard

Chapter 81 Ertgetsog

Chapter 82 Meeting of Illuminati

Chapter 83 The Bolshevik Hoards

Chapter 84 The Second Battle

They could have had the moon for less.

And the Asteroid Belt too.

Euclideus was still a guess,

Or see Europa blue.
Prologue

This story uses only what is available today; or will be developed from what we have now.

Some say that we cannot go to Mars using the systems we now use.

We can – and we will.

Read on and see how it is not only possible, but easier than landing on the moon with 1950's technology.

Only the will is needed.

The astronauts and cosmonauts on the Orion Program thought they alone were building a spaceship that could go to Mars and back \- when they began working on it they found that they were not alone. The ship they were constructing was now being designed by minds much bigger than theirs.

Then two astronauts on a routine spacewalk discover something completely alien; something that did not come from Earth.

The appearance of a man working on the outside of the spaceship without a spacesuit can be alarming, so he tends to stay inside.

I reiterate;

This story uses only what is available today; or will be developed from what we have now.

There are no fantasies, no death rays, superheroes, or machines defying the laws of physics.

If you want an answer to these paradoxes - read on.

... ... ... ... ...
Chapter One

F-2D echoes

Two men in casual NASA uniform stood in the Texas sunshine.

Behind them was deep, deep blackness.

The inside of the cavernous exhaust of a gigantic F2D rocket engine echoed to the sounds of their voices.

Preston Ashton was an old hand (by astronaut terms) at space work.

'I'm not sure about getting too involved here.'

His natural expression was of warm welcoming affability. His dark eyes had long ago taken on an inverted crescent shape from so much smiling. His hair was now premature grey, but plentiful and thick. Originally from New York State, Ash moved to Texas via many postings with the USAF. During his early years he had visited every island in the norther Hemisphere. Because of all his travelling Ash had lost any trace of a New York accent.

Jake Jensen was a tall native of Texas, he still had the Texas drawl so typical of people from the Lone Star State, but he seldom wore the trade-mark Stetson.

He managed to get to the ISS on one of the last Space Shuttle flights before it was retired.

As they walked by a row of massive rocket engines Jake said,

'Michelle you mean?'

'Yes.'

'I could be going to Mars at the end of this. And, at the moment, it is a one-way trip.'

'You are only one on a short list of a couple hundred, Ash. Do you think they are sending an ark?'

Ash smiled as he said,

'And then there are the risks involved; this is dangerous work.'

Jake stopped and turned to face Ash,

'Jeeze, Ash. This is not like you – don't go being a pessimist on me in your old age.'

'No, no. It's just that in the military we always knew that in periods of high danger it doesn't help to get too close to anyone.'

'Let's be realistic here, Ash.' He held out his hand 'You have only a 1 in 200 chance of being on this mission.'

'You are wrong there, Jake.' Ash shook his head gently, 'We are looking at sending six or eight people to Mars. That brings my odds down to less than 25 to one.'

'How do you get it to be less than 25/1?'

'I have been told that there will be equal places on the mission. The split I have seen is two Americans, two Russians, two Chinese, one European and one Japanese.'

'Where did you get that from?'

'Never you mind.' Ash used a finger to emphasise his message. 'My point is that with so many Russians and Chinese on the list they still only get two places each.'

'Do we really need so many Russians on this mission? Yes, they have been very useful with their launch facilities in the past. But now we have the whole system back on US soil.'

Ash had already been to the Russian Gagarin Cosmonaut training facility at Star City, then out to the International Space Station via the Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan.

He paused before replying,

'We have been working on this project for nearly four years now. Early on we found that it was going to be almost impossible to do this whole thing on our own. The main problem was likely to be the length of time it is going to take to develop the required hardware. Given that during such a long period of time we would be having changes of Government, ups and downs in the economy and other worldly problems to contend with, it is very probable that the space program would be hit with funding issues.'

'We did the Apollo missions on our own.'

'That was small beer compared with what we are attempting today. For a start they are still working on a one-way trip; they have still ain't found a way to get anyone back here.' He looked at Jake, who knew all too well that the astronauts on this mission had all signed on for a one-way trip.

Ash continued,

'So we came up with a scheme that gave us security in knowing that the program cannot be cancelled, or cut back - international collaboration. On the face of it, it looks like countries around the world putting together their resources and expertise with a common aim. Yes, we all benefit from collaboration with each other, we always have. But this is not actually the main objective this time. The contracts and agreements reached during the preparation phase of this program were specifically designed to prevent any contributing country from pulling out. The whole program is massively expensive. We have taken on some expensive programs in the past, most of them we dare not tell the politicians how much they were going to cost when we first proposed them.' He looked at the rows of flags fluttering in the wind as they passed, 'This time it was different. We couldn't devise a number, then halve it, like we did in the past. Simply because there was no way we could even guess how much this project was going to cost. So we thought of a number and used that as the lock-in penalty clause to prevent any signatory of the project to keep them on board. Then we worked out how much it is going to cost for each separate stage of the operation; and put that forward like a hire-purchase deal. Put simply, it is cheaper to continue than to leave.' Ash was surprised that Jake did not know all this already,- 'This does not mean that we have a blank chequebook. We cannot arrive at the end of the program with a shortfall. Our aim is to put men (and women) on Mars. If there is a shortfall of funds, it does not mean they may run out of Hershey bars. The people who land will have to spend up to eighteen months on the surface of the planet. If you cannot find resources there you will have to be supplied with food, water and oxygen. We are working on these problems right now, but we cannot afford to be short of funds at a critical stage.'

They walked a little way before Jake asked,

'Do you think he has something?' meaning Pav.

The older man took some time before answering,

'Only if Xanthros has concerns in Sweden that we do not know about.'

'Whaa?'

'Michelle told me that Xanthros occasionally gets calls from out of town - I mean right out of town; Europe.'

'This is an international project, Ash. We do have contacts in Europe.'

'Not too many in Sweden; and she says that there is something about these calls – nothing she can put a finger on, but something different.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Two

INTRODUCING 'PHOENIX'

'It's a god-awful small affair.' Sem said as they walked towards the Gilruth Centre in NASA's sprawling complex in Houston.

Michelle had a quizzical expression as she replied,

'Whaat? When this operation was first mentioned back in 2013 there were over 200,000 people volunteered to go to Mars one way.'

'Oh no.' Sem waved towards the buildings, 'not NASA. The investigation; there seem to be very few people involved.'

Michelle led the way into the building as she lowered her voice,

'And getting fewer all the time;' she was referring to the recent loss of two investigators, 'we have to keep the numbers down right now.'

They made their way along long corridors.

The young girl exclaimed,

'But my mom did not want me to come here. She just could not accept that I had got to the final selection phase at Houston.'

Michelle listened with interest,

'When I first applied, we heard that there were nearly one million applications to work on the Mars mission. There can't be many people who have been in that kind of list.'

Michelle thought for a second, then stopped, and turned to face Sem, 'My dear Sem. I happen to know of about one million who have.'

'You do? How do you know them?'

'You have just told me, silly.'

They walked on a little further chuckling to themselves.

Presently Sem commented,

'I always thought that you had to be a doctor, like you, to work here.'

'As you can now see, there are thousands of people here. They can't all be doctors.'

The sixteen men and women selected for the Mars mission are now gathered together to learn how they are to get to Mars and back.

The small conference room was set out to receive the sixteen astronauts. Professor Mike Xanthros and Professor Jem 'Banjo' Stringer were preparing to give them their instructions on what to expect during their time at Houston, while Sem, a secretarial assistant, checked her list of information.

Doctor Michelle Romero entered the room carrying a stack of printed papers. She was wearing a striking outfit made up of the colours and symbols of NASA and the US flag. Mainly white, with red and blue infused into it, the skirt just above the knee, and full.

As she passed the pile of papers to Sem, she said,

'Better keep the printed matter back until they've finished speaking.'

'Ok, I see what you mean, don't want them looking at the pretty printed pictures instead of listening to what the good Prof. has to say.' She joked.

Michelle responded in kind,

'There will probably be some men in this group, we need to explore their capacity for multi-tasking before we challenge them too much.' She smiled at Sem. - 'Listening to wise words and looking at pictures? Could be a strain on the limited male intellect.'

They laughed as they continued working.

Sem placed another box on a cabinet that ran along one wall at the front of the room as two men came in. She hoped they had not heard the jovial banter between her and Michelle.

'I like the 'wise words' reference,' said 'Banjo' Stringer as he let a sly grin creep across his lips.

'We just want to make sure the hand-outs are not piled up for them to read from the opening, otherwise we would likely be fielding questions from the end before we have gotten started.'

Mike Xanthros then added,

'Just leave the introductory sheet on the seats; we will indicate if they need more during the talk. Most of the hand-outs are for future reference and to remind them of salient points.'

White-suited people began filing into the room. The suits were more like coveralls, adorned with NASA embroidered patches. One was the new Orion patch denoting the mission to Mars.

The general hubbub died down as Mike Xanthros took position at the front of the room.

An ordinary-looking man stood before them.

But look into his eyes (if you dare) and there you get a glimpse into the soul of the man.

His eyes were the embodiment of determination and confidence. He knew exactly what he wanted, and the eyes told you that he knew that he was going to be successful in getting it.

'Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the NASA facility at the Johnson Space Centre, Houston. There are some of you in this room who have not been here before, others are familiar faces.' He nodded towards Collins, the Japanese scientist Hoshi Masuto and the Canadian John Garbou.

'I am sure you will soon get to know each other as you work along with this most interesting project.'

A murmur of agreement went around the room.

'I am Professor Mike Xanthros, Director of the Orion Project. The buck stops here. Any problems; and you can report them to me. I will then search out the section responsible and put in place any rectification procedures that may be needed. Are we clear on that?'

The assembled group mumbled in agreement, like groups do.

Half an hour later the meeting ended.

Doctor Romero turned to Sem as she picked up the pile of glossy coloured hand-outs. She handed half of the pile to the young Egyptian girl, who took it and began distributing the brochures. As Michelle turned to do the same, the pile slipped in her hand. As the colourful leaflets fluttered down she tried to save them. Most of them landed on Ash's lap.

'One would be enough, thank you,' he said, grinning. - 'What about the rest?'

'I'm so sorry,' Michelle replied, then followed it with a sharp cry, - 'Ow. That hurt.'

She looked down at her left hand to see blood running from a paper cut on her little finger.

Because she was holding on to a few leaflets in her right hand, she was somewhat hampered when trying to stem the flow of blood. She tried holding the left hand in different positions to control the thin red river of blood as it made its way around her hand. The right hand began shaking as small drops of blood fell on-to Ash's white flight-suit.

'Here, let me get that.' Ash said placing his handkerchief over the cut.

He could feel Michelle's hand trembling slightly as he carefully wrapped the cloth around the little finger. The warmth and tenderness felt comforting to Michelle, who tried to play it down.

'It's nothing. Only a paper cut. Thank you. What about your clothes?'

'I somehow think that there will be a lot more blood spilt on 'em before this project is over.'

He kept hold of her hand, ostensibly to keep the dressing in place. She placed her hand on top of his as she looked into his eyes.

'Trust me, I'm a doctor, -' he said cocking his head to one side and gaving a reassuring smile.

Five astronauts seated by Ash all chimed up in unison,

'We're all doctors.'

Ash turned to them and replied,

'Doctors I said, not dockers.'

Chapter Three

DAYS OFF

An afternoon off is a rarity for astronauts undergoing training. On one such afternoon, a group of them set off on a jaunt.

The Chinese couple made a strange picture. Win Lee was tall for a Chinese woman, just over six feet without heels; Cho Ling was only five feet seven. Sergei Pavel does not help, being six feet one and broad-built. John Garbou is average height, but of a burly stature; that emphasises the Chinaman's height and slight build.

They discussed where to go as they walked across the parking lot as they headed for John's car. It was his turn to drive for their afternoon sabbatical.

'Red Bluff Road looks good to me.' John said,

'I hear there is an olde worlde place down there that has character, it used to be called 'The Ship', how about it?'

Cho answered,

'Sounds good to me,' he turned to Win, 'How about you, shorty?'

'Sounds good to me, also. Sergei?'

'I'm game.'

They drove out of the Johnson Space Centre towards the coast. Half a mile down Red Bluff Road John took a right turn along Taylor Lake. Presently they found the restaurant that John was looking for.

'This looks interesting.' Sergei looked up at the timber building that looked as if it could use a coat of paint,

'How did you find it, John?'

'I have never been here before, but a friend of mine back in Canada told me about it. Now that was quite some time ago, so let's hope that the standards have been maintained.'

Sergei looked around at the neighbourhood,

'Looks like a village. There's a good chance it hasn't changed much. Let's find out.'

The establishment they approached looked like an old fisherman's retreat. The white walls were adorned with 'THE SHIP' painted in simple large black letters. A picture of a windjammer swung invitingly over the front entrance. An entrance was on the side leading on to the parking lot. The four people climbed the quaint steps that turned to the right as the door was approached.

Inside they found themselves walking through a large room with rugs on the floor. An arch led into a long room with a bar on one side. The group felt at ease immediately. From the bar they could see a small creek in a deep valley that was swamped with wild plants.

Sergei got the drinks and menus whilst the other three explored the premises.

John walked back the way they had come to look closer at the room they had come through. The Chinese pair moved directly away from the bar, through to a sort of room that was separated from the bar by half a wall with wooden piers and structures adorned with nets. They were looking out at the view when John came back to the bar.

'I see you have a piano in there.' He said to the bartender.

'Yes, you play, sir?'

'A little. Mind if I have a go?'

'Certainly not, sir. It is an old Joanna, but I think it is still in some kind of tune.'

'Well, all right. Let's see what we can do.' John said to Sergei.

As they turned to go back into the other room Sergei called across to Win and Cho, 'We'll just be in here.'

Win waved an acknowledgement.

John took up position at the piano.

Sergei looked at him and asked,

'You sure you know what you are doing?'

'I have always found that it always gets attention to just sit here and tap on the keys as if you know what you are doing.'

He began running his fingers up and down the keyboard. Then struck up into 'Life on Mars' which he began singing to his own accompaniment.

'It's a god-awful small affair...'

Win and Cho heard this from the other room, and quickly made their way into the piano room to join in the merriment.

'Said the girl with the ...'

The singing was interrupted by what sounded like the crack of a gun outside.

Sergei was nearest to the door. He made his way towards it. As he reached the entrance the sound of an assault rifle was heard. Sergei reeled back into the room.

The other three astronauts dived for cover behind the piano.

John saw Sergei hit the ground in front of the piano. He moved closer to find that Sergei was not moving, and a pool of blood was now spreading across the floor.

From his new position he could see out of the door. Before dodging back to cover he took a quick glance outside to see three men moving across the parking lot.

He looked back at Sergei, and without thinking moved closer to him. As John bent over the body of the astronaut he glanced out of the door to see the nearest man level his weapon straight at him.

His legs were already half-way to a crouched position. The only thing he could do was leap over Sergei, and perform a forward roll into a tabled area away from the door.

As he crashed into the tables he heard the assault rifle fire eight to ten shots. He shuddered as the rounds passed close enough for him to feel the shock waves.

The man who had fired them then came into the room. He couldn't see the Chinese couple, but John had not had chance to find any cover.

As the man brought his gun to bear John heard a blast from within the pub.

Jacqui, the manager, had got a shotgun, and let the intruder have both barrels.

The man reeled backwards, dropping his gun.

His comrades ran for cover of the walls either side of the doorway as the unfortunate man fell back towards them. He did not move after landing in the doorway.

John Garbou did.

From his crouched position it was easy for him to roll across the floor and pick up the discarded weapon. This he did.

John knew the rifle had been fired, and he didn't know how much ammunition there was still remaining in it. The last thing he wanted was for him to take on a gunman, only to hear the 'Dead man's click' of his weapon.

He turned the selector from automatic to single shot.

Shooting from the hip he took out the man in front of him, then turned through 90 degrees to his right as he dropped to one knee in time to see the other man take aim with a handgun. Both weapons fired simultaneously.

The bullet from the handgun went wide. John Garbou's round did not. The powerful assault rifle round hit the assailant in the middle of his head.

Still on one knee John looked around for any more threats as the sounds of police sirens could be heard in the distance. Jacqui came and stood alongside John as he called to the people inside,

'All clear.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Four

Sail Power

The sun beat down, as it usually did in Florida. There was a cool sea breeze to take the edge off the heat.

Michelle did her supermarket shop some eight miles from the base. There was a marina nearby with a waterfront coffee shop. She sometimes stopped at The Chris Miller Chandlery once her merchandise had been loaded into the car. This day she parked some way from the Chandlery coffee shop and sat looking at the gulls skimming the waves. Over to the right there was a large vending mobile home type of structure selling French cuisine. She wondered if the people working there spoke French to give it more atmosphere. More likely Spanish she decided. The aroma from the vendor was definitely French; she got out of her car to better smell the air. As she stood looking at the yachts, she leant on the black railings, careful to avoid the white bird droppings.

'These yachting types seem to be a friendly lot' she thought, 'they must be having such a good time; they want to show their enthusiasm to people like me watching.'

One man on a yacht was waving enthusiastically and seemed to be waving at her. Then she realised that she was wearing the red, white and blue outfit that looks very patriotic and bright.

'To hell with the embarrassment, she thought, I don't care if I'm seen waving at boats like a child.'

So she waved back and thought no more of it as the boat made its way towards the forest of masts to the right where dozens of similar boats were moored.

Five minutes later she thought she had spent enough time trying to work out what the gulls were doing. As she walked back to her car she was trying to decide whether to grab a coffee in the Chandlery or not, when she heard a familiar voice calling out her name.

'Michelle. I thought it was you. Can't miss that outfit.' Ash said as he approached the car.

'Oh. Hi. What are you doing here? Do you live around here?'

'No.' he looked slightly puzzled. He narrowed his eyes slightly and turned his head a little to one side.

'You must have seen me, you waved back.'

Michelle also looked a little puzzled, and then she looked at the water, then at Ash.

'You! It was you?' she gave a little wave.

'Yes. But didn't you know? You waved back.'

'Yes. I know I waved.'

'Are you in the habit of waving at strange sailors?'

'I don't know any strange sailors.'

'They are all strange, my dear. They live a life between freedom and lawlessness on the high seas where they have to rely entirely on their own devices, skills and determination. Have you ever sailed?' he asked.

'No, the opportunity never came up.'

'Well; now it has. Kirk and I are going downrange for a launch this afternoon. It really is quite a sight, you should come along.'

'I don't know, is there room?'

'Of course there is room; this boat is classed as a seven berth that means it can sleep up to seven. I can't help but think that it would be very cramped at that, and at least three of them would have to be midgets or children, but it is plenty big enough for us.'

Michelle was very excited to be asked to join two of the latest group of astronauts on a short adventure, but could she fit it in to her busy schedule?

'How long would it take, I have merchandise here that may spoil if I left it in the car too long in this sun.'

'We shall be back before the parking lot closes, as for your merchandise, you can bring anything that may spoil or defrost with you. But you must be warned, Kirk and I have been known to eat space rations for long periods of time, so when faced with proper food, we may become ravenous very quickly.'

'Do you have cooking facilities on board?' an idea was forming in her head.

'Of course. And it is called the galley.'

'Well, in that case I would be glad to accept your generous offer, on condition that I am permitted to cook you both dinner. Here, take this bag.'

Kirk was not surprised to see Michelle approach the boat at its moorings, he had also seen her on the quayside.

'It looks as if our galley slave has come well prepared.' He joked to Ash.

'You guys can sail, I can cook. Let's do what we are good at.'

Kirk replied,

'I'll go for that; I'm particularly good at eating.'

'Well, you are crap at sailing.' Ash said as he made his way below to the small main cabin that served as dining area, galley, navigation station, and shelter. Michelle was just behind Ash; this saved him from getting a friendly kick in the back from Kirk.

'I'll cast off and get us under way.' Kirk called. He then went to cast off the painter from the bow. As the front of the boat drifted gently away from the quay he made his way along the length to the stern, where he cast off from there, nimbly leaping back on board with the coiled rope. He then moved to the wheelhouse just forward of the stern and started the on-board engine.

Ash quickly showed Michelle where everything lived below decks.

'If you have frozen goods, the best place for them will be in the storage area in the point of the bow. It isn't exactly a freezer, but we have had it insulated, and it is the coolest part of the ship. Or you could find room in the fridge and turn its thermostat down low.'

He looked out of the high set windows.

'We will be moving out to deep water soon, I had better go give Kirk a hand with the sails.'

This somehow surprised Michelle,

'SAILS? We are approaching half way through the twenty-first century. You two are training to go to Mars. And you tell me that we are behaving like seventeenth century pirates?'

'With the little engine we have, we can make little more than walking pace in this sea. With the sails up we may be able to make twenty knots.' Ash told her.

They made their way up to the open wheelhouse where Kirk was steering with the huge ship's wheel.

'That sounds more like it.' Michelle was trying to fit in by feinting understanding,

'Twenty knots. And how fast is that?'

Kirk didn't need to refer to anything as he replied,

'About twenty-four miles per hour.'

'Twenty-four miles an hour?' Michelle was surprised. They all worked for NASA, and speeds of these values did not exist at NASA.

'I can travel at that speed on my bicycle.' She said.

Ash replied,

'Not on these seas, you can't. And by using wind power we can keep it up for hours.'

Kirk looked round from the wheel. Ash nodded. He turned to Michelle who was admiring the shrinking shore.

'Now for your next lesson in seamanship.'

She looked surprised. Kirk moved away from the wheel as he cut the throttle. The only sounds were of the ocean lapping against the side of the boat.

'This is the steering wheel. There is nothing to hit out here, but it is important to keep going in the same direction whilst we rig the sails. When we are short of crew we normally tie the wheel down, but we have a new crew member today, so you can steer the boat.'

Michelle was somewhat taken aback; she had never been on a boat before, and now she was being asked to take full responsibility for steering it. Driving it, in effect.

'Oh, I don't know. What if I crash into Japan or something?'

'You won't. For a start, Japan is that way.' He indicated by pointing his thumb over his shoulder, 'And America is in the way.'

'Well, what's over there?' she pointed over the bow.

'The Atlantic Ocean. At this point it is about three and a half thousand miles across. You said we could only travel as fast as your bicycle, how long would it take you to cycle that far?'

Kirk smiled at the conversation as he began moving to the mainsail stowage behind the mainmast.

'All you have to do, Michelle, is hold this wheel steady. Keep a good lookout, if you see another ship call Kirk or me. Nothing happens quickly out here, we will have plenty of time to react.'

He took her slightly shaking hands and put them on the wheel.

'You'll be ok. I wouldn't ask you to do anything you couldn't handle.'

With that he touched her shoulder and climbed out of the recessed area as Kirk called loudly,

'Did you tell her about the U-boat and sharks?'

Fortunately, she didn't hear the name Ash called Kirk, but all three of them were smiling, and she felt quite at home here.

Presently the mainsail was set and filled. The yacht began moving quite quickly. Michelle looked back to see the land shrinking and losing detail. Ash came back to her. Kirk stayed midships sitting on the low roof of the main cabin, whilst he rested his feet on the chrome rail that ran all around the side of the boat.

Ash noticed that Michelle's hands were still hold of the same spoke ends on the wheel as she had when he left her, and her knuckles were turning white.

'There's no need to hold so tight. Just rest your hands on the wood.'

He jumped down into the open wheelhouse and looked at the gimbal mounted compass.

'Try moving the wheel a little to the right, you will see that it is not so sensitive.'

Michelle managed to turn the wheel quite a long way before daring to let go of the spokes she clung to.

'You can let go. Give it a little spin.'

'Oh, are you sure?'

'Yes, here, let me show you.'

With that he moved closer to her. She stood as if frozen to the spot. When his shoulder touched hers she reluctantly moved to allow room for him behind the wheel. She was surprised just how reluctant she was to move, but it was ok, because he followed her and their shoulders touched again.

He was standing to her left, his tanned hairy left hand took hold of hers, which still clung on to the wheel.

'You can let go now. If you are so attached to that spoke I can have one made for you.'

'Oh.' She released her grip. As her hand opened he gripped it gently, she returned the squeeze. Then he took hold of the wheel spoke she had released.

'You can release the other one now. I can steer with one hand.

As she released the right hand and let it fall down by her side she felt his right hand on her shoulder.

'See, one hand. He let the wheel spin one or two spokes with his left hand. The boat did not go veering off in the way you would expect a car to do.

She felt very safe. For the first time for what seemed ages she looked to the front of the boat. Kirk was looking out to sea. Then she thought, where is Ash looking? Where do you look when you are steering a boat? She knew about the compass, but what do you use for reference?

She turned to look at Ash. His sunglasses were now on his forehead. How the hell did he do that? His right hand was on her right shoulder, his left was supposed to be steering the boat. He stood a good foot taller than she did; in order to look at his forehead she had to tilt her head back quite a bit. He simply bent his head down slightly and kissed her gently.

They looked into each other's eyes for a few seconds before he said,

'We got a launch to see. If we continue on this course we will be too far down range to see the lift-off.'

He smiled as he stroked her cheek. She could still feel his right hand on her shoulder.

Almost from a parallel universe she suddenly thought,

WHO IS STEERING?

She turned to the wheel that had no one holding it, so was turning gently to the right, then the left.

'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'Show me what to do again.' She involuntarily looked back at Ash, and they kissed again, his right hand now pulling her closer to him. She felt his left hand moving around her waist. Her right hand was now around his wide back.

Then Kirk called out,

'LAND HO! I think it is the Azores.'

Without letting go of Michelle, Ash spun the wheel almost casually to turn the boat to the right.

Michelle suddenly felt that there were other tasks that should be dealt with. They parted. Ash looked at the compass, then winked at Michelle as he lowered his sunglasses and took the wheel, but he stood back from it as he held out his hand, offering the wheel to Michelle.

'Would you like the con?' he said.

'If you don't mind guiding me.'

'Ok, I'll watch the compass and give you a heading. Now remember, you don't need to throttle the thing, be gentle with it. But bear in mind that you will have to turn quite a lot to have any effect on the direction in which we are travelling.'

'Ok. I think I've got the hang of it now.'

Ash consulted the compass.

'Give me 15 points to starboard.'

'I would give you 15 points out of ten.' She replied as she turned the wheel easily to the right until she felt the boat begin to move. Then she stopped the wheel.

Second later Ash called,

'Ok. Rudder amidships.'

Michelle turned the wheel to the left. Then said to Ash,

'How do you know when it is in the middle?'

'Just let go. Like sometimes in life you just have to let go, and don't fight it.'

Their eyes met again and she said,

'Yes, I know just what you mean.'

Kirk came down to the open wheelhouse,

'Have you two got any idea where we are?' he quipped.

Ash leaned over the side of the boat,

'Looks like Norway to me. Any ideas, Michelle?'

'Can't be Norway, I can't smell Macky-D's.'

Kirk then realised something,

'I can't smell any food at all.' He pointed towards the distant land,

'As far as I recall, they are about to launch another Orion mission. We are a serious distance down-range, do you think they could drop off some of that delicious space food on their way past?'

'I can take a hint.' Michelle turned to Ash, 'Would you take the wheel? I have more important issues that need to be dealt with.'

'More important than controlling the boat?'

'Yes, I have a mutiny to avert.'

45 minutes later all three were sitting in the sun eating steak and eggs.

Michelle looked at the land on the horizon,

'How can you tell from looking at that grey spread exactly where we are?'

Kirk was first to reply,

'It's easy when you know what to do, and in what order.' He held his hand, palm outermost, to face the land they could see,

'You begin by taking an accurate measurement of what you can see, get the exact bearing, and note any landmarks. Then you take the information you have gathered down into the chart room below. There you will find charts of all sorts; these must be moved to one side so that you can switch on the sat nav.'

Ash then added,

'There is a read-out in front of the wheel. You can see from that that we are some five miles downrange from the launch. Lift-off is scheduled for,' he consulted his watch, 'eighty-five minutes. What we intend to do is sail across his intended route downrange, then turn inland to get closer to the launch site.'

'Is that allowed? I thought that all shipping was excluded downrange during a launch.'

'It used to be,' explained Ash, 'but two launches ago the litigating authority ran out and they decided not to bother renewing it. They figured that just not telling anyone would be sufficient to keep most ships away.'

'So how close are we going to be?'

Kirk looked at Ash. Eventually Ash looked up from his steak,

'I have been to Mission Control early this morning. They reckon the rocket will travel downrange on a course of 085 degrees. So if we are out from Complex 39 at 95 degrees we will get the best view from one mile range, and the Orion will fly over our mast at about 30 miles height, traveling at three times the speed of sound.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Five

ROBOTS

NASA use the largest tank of water in the world to train astronauts in how to operate in near zero gravity. The tank had to be that size to accommodate the various bits of equipment the space walkers needed to work on. At different times it contained large parts of the International Space Station, the Space Shuttle, and the Hubble Space Telescope – anything that might need repair or attentions in space.

Xanthros and Ash moved towards the training area,

'We got an old Robonaut 3 for you to play with this time.' Said Xanthros, 'It has been on the ISS for the past two years, and they have sent it back because a more advanced model has now superseded it. But this one is still fully functional and cleared for use in space.'

'Or underwater.' Ash added.

They reached the door that lead into the reception area for the underwater testing facility.

The attendant on the desk knew Xanthros, but still checked the authorised usage permit, and briefly scrutinised Ash's credentials.

Once inside they met up with Tom Collins, Lili Gothe and Al Fontana, who would be joining them for this portion of their training.

Xanthros began by taking them across to what looked like just what you would expect a robot to look like; head, arms and torso. But no legs; this robot was mounted on a set of all-terrain wheels.

'We've developed a series of Centaur rovers to carry the Robonaut upper bodies and other payloads.' Xanthros explained, gesturing to the robot.

'This combination mixes state-of-the-art robotic mobility with the world's most advanced dextrous manipulation system. The cunning thing about this arrangement is that he can removed from his wheels, and be mounted on the end of the Canadarm for work in space on the outside of the structure. He can also be set tasks inside the spacecraft.'

He looked at the wheeled undercarriage, then looked back up at the group,

'Over the next few years we'll be sending food, water and oxygen supplies to Mars. Because of the orbit differences they won't arrive until after you, or whoever goes, have landed on the surface. We don't want to risk the possibility, no matter how remote, of one of these supply arks falling onto the first human settlement on another planet. So they will be landing up to 50 kilometres away. - At the moment we cannot predict the landing area more accurately than a 25-kilometre area of probability. There is no way you could go on a long-range search over such terrain.'

He turned to Ash.;- 'I don't feel comfortable using the term 'terrain' when referring to another world.'

Ash nodded. 'Even the word 'world' is wrong - planet is more accurate.'

'Quite right, but you get my drift.'

The group nodded.

'The ultimate use for this robot combination is to retrieve the supply canisters. It comes complete with a trailer, which it builds itself out of its own re-entry capsule after landing.'

He walked around the stationary robot. 'When packaged ready to be placed in his re-entry capsule, or for transport anywhere in space, he can fit into a cube one metre square.'

He held out his hands to demonstrate the rough dimensions.

Then a deep voice burst from the robot.

'NO.'

Everyone except Xanthros stood stock still from shock. No one spoke as the robot continued,

'This is a metre.'

And it held its hands out precisely one metre apart.

Tom and Ash looked at each other, Al looked at Lili, and they all burst out laughing.

From there the robot continued the commentary, it swung its arms down and moved silently to one side as its wheels individually swivelled; 'I have full crab style steering, and the ability to build another trailer from the supply pod I will be retrieving.'

It leaned over backwards until its head nearly touched the floor behind him.

'I don't know what possible use it is likely to be, but I can drive across the roughest ground in this position. Small cameras mounted all around the carriage are fed into my sensory circuits enabling me to see from any position.'

It straightened up, and then twisted its torso until he was facing more than 90 degrees to the right; Lili was standing on that end of the group as he addressed her,

'Lili, can you see what Professor Xanthros is doing?'

She had to move to be able to see Xanthros, who was now behind the robot; 'Yes, he is getting coffee from the machine.'

The machine took up the description, 'and now he is stirring it. Would you like a coffee, Doctor Gothe?'

'Yes, please, cream, no sugar; -' she replied.

As the robot turned its head towards the coffee machine the crabbing wheels moved it silently towards the coffee dispenser.

'Excuse me, Professor Xanthros.'

The robot then operated the coffee machine, a piece of equipment that was specifically designed to be used by humans. Showing the assembled group, the level of integration it could achieve with human operations.

Xanthros turned to the robot and said, 'Thank you Robonaut.'

He turned to face the next robot in line.

'This one is known as Dexter. It was originally designed to perform routine maintenance tasks on the ISS, like changing batteries, replacing cameras and doing minor repairs outside the space station.'

The machine to which he referred looked like a mechanical white column with at least two arms, each one nearly the full length of a man. The arms seemed to be made up of metal egg boxes, each one providing more flexibility and attachment points.

'It is rare to see him in warm air; his normal working and living environment is the deep cold of outer space.'

Collins interrupted at this point. -

'I have operated this system on, or should I say outside of, the space station. It looks cumbersome and heavy, but in space with no gravity, and plenty of room it works beautifully.'

'That is true, Tom. And because it performs so well, and reliably, we are now developing a more advanced and capable version for use on your mission.'

Lili turned to Al and whispered, 'They are certainly throwing enough hardware at this.'

Robonaut, still standing behind her, broke in, as though she had spoken at a normal volume, and to it.

'Not only hardware, the software we are testing now enables us to learn and develop ourselves. That is how we will be able to predict problems and design preventative measures to deal with them before they have chance to become an issue.'

'Now this may come as a bit of a surprise to some of you.' said Xanthros; 'What we envisage here is that these machines, and a few more like them, will be installed on the ISS in plenty of time to prepare for their main task. They will be performing normal robotic tasks but planning for their main mission.' He paused and took a sip of coffee to allow this information to sink in before continuing, 'Their main mission will be to learn and develop over six years, by which time they will have torn the ISS down and reassembled it 100 miles further out.'

True astonishment spread across the people gathered there.

'We, of course, do not expect them to do this on their own. The sixteen astronauts on the Orion Program of which you are Blue team, will have a major part to play in this endeavour.'

'You say ... a major part,-' said Ash looking puzzled 'You sound like a company director talking to the staff - as if you were trying to make us sound important, but being careful not to bull us up too much.'

Xanthros shifted uneasily as he looked at the four people in front of him, then he continued, 'You will not be in space building all of the time.' He jerked his thumb towards the two robots; - 'These guys will. They will be on the build twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In fact, where they are concerned, time does not exist. They just work all of the time. And they learn, so if they say something is better done this way, we need not argue. It would be a waste of time.'

'You seem to be talking about us, the Orion teams, and leaving out any mention of the ISS crews up there now, and the ones scheduled to go up in future,' said Al.- 'Are they part of the...;' He paused for a second; 'shall we call it "relocation"? Will they be helping us?'

'No. The other astronauts will be told that these robots are there to learn, but not the reason why they are learning how the ISS is put together. They may make suggestions from time to time, but they are programmed not to get involved with the day-to-day running of the ISS.'

'What happens if one of these guys on the ISS decides not to take any notice of the suggestion made by a learning robot? Maybe susses out that this machine has another agenda.'

Robonaut answed before Xanthros had chance.

'On the International Space Station, we are only advisors. But when we get onto 'Phoenix', we must be allowed to run the build.'

'-Phoenix-?' Tom asked, his head turned sideways, trying the new word on for size. 'That is what we are going to build out there, right?'

Xanthros was glad to get on to a different subject. 'Yes, the original initials stood for Piloted Host Over Extra-terrestrial Nation Interplanetary Xpedition. Quite a mouthful, so we just called it PHOENIX. The important thing is that it means that it is the first interplanetary craft to carry man to another planet.'

Lili Gothe voiced the question that was on all of their minds,

'What is this thing going to look like?'

Xanthros looked as if he was expecting this question,

'You ask very good questions.' He paused. 'We have a part of the mission prep that is not yet complete. But you can see it. Follow me.'

He led them to a room labelled 'CNC hologram'.

Inside they found a dark room. In the centre of the room was the projected 3D image of what they were going to be working on.

'In case you are wondering about the strange shape of the 'Phoenix', there is a simple reason for it. One of the biggest problems we faced that we couldn't find a definitive solution to was that we were sending six people further across the solar system than ever before. They will land on a planet with gravity, and there was no-one to greet them on landing. Our concern was that, when they arrive at the other end, they might not have the strength to get out of the capsule because of weightlessness weakening. The solution we came up with was to provide them with artificial gravity. The whole spacecraft rotates around its central axis.'

He tapped a consul and the spacecraft began to turn.

'At 460 feet across, the rotation needs only be 2.5 revolutions per minute to provide 90% gravity at the Command Module positions. This is a fully functioning image. If you look closer, you will see that most parts are not fully formed. That is because they are not yet in place.'

Collins asked,

'Am I wrong, or do I see other parts from the ISS in the -'Phoenix'-?'

'You are not wrong, Tom. Most of the raw material on the 'Phoenix' will be coming from the ISS. This part of the main cylinder, here, for instance is coming from the Destiny Module. - Here we have Unity, on the other side there will be Columbus and Harmony. The Quest airlock system will be installed alongside the bridge area here in the Blue Sarsen. - We also have the observation cupola. - and the communications aerials that can serve many purposes.'

'You mean to tell us that we are going half way across the solar system in a second-hand car?' asked Ash.

'Well, you are going to build it; you'd better do a good job.-' Lili quipped, making some of the others laugh.

'There are several advantages of using the nodes,' explained Xanthros. 'They are already equipped with many useful bits of equipment, they are big enough to provide good protection from radiation, they are designed to be fitted together, and the nodes have accommodation that is more spacious than is offered by the Orion alone. The extra space provided by four nodes, each measuring 14 feet wide by an average of about 22 feet, can be used for storage.'

Tom Collins had a question,

'Where are we going to build all this?'

The spacecraft was turning more than spinning as Xanthros replied,

'Most of the hardware is already orbiting at 250 miles out. Of course, it is still being used by the ISS, but it is due to be decommissioned by the time we need it. To answer your question more fully, we intend to build in low Earth orbit, something like 350 miles while travelling at 17,000 mph. This will put us in synchronous orbit with the ISS. Some of the Orion missions will be one way; the astronauts will transfer to the ISS for their work, then return with the ISS crews.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Six

GRAVITY

The 'Phoenix' Room' restaurant was fairly full; people were coming from all over the site to experience this new facility. As Michelle took her coffee and made her way towards the only vacant table she could see, she saw Moira appear to be making a beeline for her.

'Not now.' She thought. Moira was a nice enough person but can go on a bit too much. Michelle didn't feel like having a long gossip about nothing in particular. The place was quite noisy, and Michelle was sure that Moira's irritating voice would be even more annoying.

Then she saw Ash weaving about with his tray looking for somewhere to sit. He was wearing the standard white coverall that all astronauts wear, but his had a pale pinkish stain on the leg. Before she knew what she was doing she found herself waving at him and indicating the empty chair at her little table.

Moira was in the same direction as Ash from Michelle's location. She saw Michelle waving, and, like any good gossip, immediately presumed the invitation was aimed at her. Her dark face turned towards Michelle again, who seemed to beam a smile, and her eyes indicated pleasure and acceptance as Moira moved her tray as a sort of wave.

Michelle hoped she didn't show a negative expression. Then she looked back at Ash. He hadn't seen Moira; she was slightly behind him in the melee. He saw Michelle's flag-like dress and turned towards her. At the same time Moira saw Ash just slightly closer to Michelle, she began to move faster in order to get to the vacant seat before Ash. In the crowded environs Moira had to dodge and weave around the tables and patrons. Trays began to be tilted. Moira adopted an almost aggressive attitude as she strode purposefully across the floor. Ash had not seen her, neither had the two men who were moving towards each other in front of Moira. In their attempt to avoid colliding with each other in the narrow aisles one of them strode out in front of the hurrying Moira. In order to avoid a direct collision, Moira swerved violently, skilfully tilting her tray to avoid spillage. She then walked straight into the second man. The contents of her tray fell noisily to the ground. All three stood in amazement at the amount of noise the clattering and smashing made. This was emphasised by the almost silence as everyone turned to look at what had happened. To break the silence a lone voice from the far corner of the room called,

'Sack the Juggler.'

Ash and Michelle laughed as he reached the table.

'Hi, how's the hand?' he asked as he took the seat.

'Oh, it's fine, thank you. You did a good job.'

'No, anyone could have done it. You don't intend playing the piano, do you?'

'No. But will my injury impede me in my future hope of operatic pianoforte?' She held her hand as if there were some divine task for it.

'Are you asking if you will be able to play the piano again?'

'Oh, yes. It is so important to me.'

'Then I am pleased to inform you that you will be able to play the piano again in the fullness of time.'

'Oh, wonderful.' Michelle had a twinkle in her eye, 'I always wanted to play the piano. Can you help me with the bassoon?'

Ash saw that he had been drawn into this trap.

'We only have a harp, but I'm afraid it's up on the ISS now, and I don't think your injury will allow you to stretch that far.'

'Ah, yes. But you are a doctor, are you not?'

'Yes, but I'm not a paramedic, my specialist area is bacteria and antibiotics.'

'Let me see. I know something about this.' Michelle stroked her chin in thought before continuing, 'In order to survive bacteria must have three things, moisture, temperature, and time. They must have time to multiply, and in the right conditions.'

Ash was impressed,

'Luckily, in space we have the perfect conditions to kill off any bacteria; the freezing cold, and searing heat of space. No air, and absolutely no moisture.'

'So you only have to worry about anything you may be taking up with you - in your bodies.'

'Some of the deadliest creatures on this planet are bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics. Some have now become resistant to all known antibiotics. Fast evolution rates and short times between generations give them tremendous advantages. But the main leverage they have is that they can now swap genes amongst themselves.'

He took a sip of coffee, then continued,

'If any of us takes up a bacterium, or virus, it could spell the end of the mission before it has even begun.'

'Wow. That is interesting. I love 'Gee Whizz' facts.' Michelle enthused.

'This place is full of them; our mission alone is one big 'Gee Whizz'.'

'Gee Whizz, now that is interesting.' She now had a smile on her face.

He pointed at her,

'Now I think you are poking fun at our esteemed mission.' He saw the humour in her remark.

'No, I don't mean to. I think what you guys are trying to do is admirable.'

'Trying to do. That is condemning by faint praise.' He had a twinkle in his eye now.

'No, no, no. I didn't mean it that way. What I meant is that your mission is so complex and fraught with uncertainty that even to attempt what you guys are setting out to do is an act of supreme bravery.'

'If we take it one step at a time, slowly, we can cut down on most of the dangers.'

'But there are dangerous things that you will be doing that are still inherently dangerous, like space walks, for instance.'

'Well, yes. But we can reduce the risks involved as much as possible. I was on the International Space Station for a six-week stint, but only went outside three times. And part of my job was to go out there to gain experience in working in space.'

'You were on the ISS?'

'Yes, there are six of us on this mission who have been on the Station. Tom Collins, Dmitri Chopov, Petre Avetsova, Cho Ling and Al Fontana.'

'That's only five. Who was the sixth?'

He thought for a second or two, took a sip of coffee. Replaced the cup on the table, then drained the contents before replying,

'I do wish you had not asked that question. It is one of the closest guarded secrets on this program.' He looked her straight in the eye,

'So secret, even to ask is to acknowledge that there even was a sixth man. Or woman. Desks have been cleared and people moved away, never to be seen again. Just because they realised that there could have been a sixth person involved.'

She sat there, frozen and wide-eyed at this sudden turn of events. Then she saw the faintest trace of a smile in the corner of his mouth. His eyes were still steel and piercing, but his countenance seemed to soften. Then she realised the foolishness of her question.

'It was you, wasn't it? Of course it was. How silly of me.'

He turned his empty cup around on the table,

'I do hope you like mountains. They have more than their fair share in Outer Mongolia. Your desk is being loaded on to a C-130 as we speak. But maybe your cleverness in solving this conundrum might save you in the end.'

She picked up the folded card menu and made a slicing movement towards his arm. The card missed his arm, but caught the back of his hand.

'PAPER CUT, PAPER CUT.' He cried.

'Oooow, now you are being nasty, this is where we began.'

'Yes, and I think we should be leaving, this place is getting more crowded.'

With that they both walked out of the 'Phoenix' restaurant towards the main instruction buildings of the Houston space centre.

'Let me show you something.' Ash said to Michelle as they entered the main complex.

'It's in here.'

This room had two large technical drawings on the wall.

'This is the latest rendition of the 'Phoenix'. It is still changing of course, but the main elements are pretty well frozen now.'

Michelle looked at the big drawings. First at the 'Phoenix', then the ISS, then back to the 'Phoenix'.

'Are there elements from ISS in this one?'

'Most of the 'Phoenix' is made up from ISS modules.'

'You see, in three to five years' time the new ISS will be operational. The time scale fits in well with the building of the first interplanetary spacecraft. And the more of the ISS structure we can use, the less weight needs be lifted from Earth.'

Michelle looked at the detail of one module and compared the two drawings.

'This part here,' she pointed to the ISS schematic,

'Is it the same part on here?'

'Yes. You have chosen a good part to look at. That is Columbus. It has been used as a laboratory since joining the young ISS in February 2008. It is to be the first unit converted for 'Phoenix'.

In two years we will have converted it on the Orion program for use as part of the interplanetary craft.'

'You say converted. What do you have to do with it?'

He pointed to the drawing,

'These are inflatable living spaces seventeen feet across and twenty feet high. The lower half will be filled with water to give us a pool.' He smiled,

'No, that is not true. The water is mainly for protection, but back to the case in point. The gravity at floor level is just over one G. at the ceiling it is a bit less, and as you move towards the centre of the spinning craft it gets weaker and weaker, until you reach zero at the centre. The same applies on the other side.'

'I suppose you would choose to sleep in zero gravity, I have heard that it is a sort of carefree floating sensation.' She observed.

'Yes and no. Yes, it is a very nice floating sensation. But on the mission to Mars we will not be sleeping in zero G. The body needs gravity to perform certain tasks, some of which we don't even know about. There are many internal functions that have evolved in gravity and do not take kindly to being confused by no gravity over long periods. So to avoid feeling ill, if for no other reason, we sleep in normal conditions.'

Michelle studied the schematic drawing of 'Phoenix' for a few moments before turning to Ash,

'This looks a pretty cool place to live. Once you get used to the circular rooms that is. How many people will be on it?'

Ash moved closer to the drawing in front of Michelle. He placed his arm across her shoulder as he pointed at one end of the cross of 'Phoenix'.

'As far as I can see, there will be up to four launches a week to rendezvous. This is one of the Orion modules.' 'There they will assemble sections of the new ship, sent up separately. But the truth is that we just don't know. I sometimes wonder if anyone knows.'

Michelle showed that she knew more about things than Ash had at first thought,

'With each Orion craft carrying up to four people, that means they are planning to send eight people to Mars.'

Ash turned to look her in the eye. He kept his hand on her shoulder as he said,

'I don't think it works like that.'

Their heads began moving closer involuntarily.

'Oh.' She said; - 'How does it work?'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Seven

ROBOTS

Constant practice and training is essential for smooth and safe operations in space.

To this end the astronauts use vast water tanks with full sized chunks of space equipment to allow them to get used to working with the shapes, spaces and problems they will encounter on the real thing.

Tom Collins and Preston Ashton, and Sarsen Blue Team were working on how to strip out the old laboratory on the module known as Columbus. Columbus is a part of the space station, and measures 22 feet long by 14 feet wide. All modules on the ISS are 14 feet wide and are circular. This made them ideal candidates for cannibalisation and inclusion in the construction of the new 'Phoenix' interplanetary craft.

The two seasoned astronauts were in the suiting out room, getting into their space suits along with their team members, the German physicist Lili Gothe, and the Italian scientist Al Fontana.

It could take up to four hours for a team of five people to get an astronaut suited up. Every connection and circuit must be checked meticulously. Al sat with his legs in the trouser part of the space suit, whilst his fitters tested the torso part, when Lili entered the room. Dressed only in the regulation shorts and tee shirt she made her way across to the fitting bay where she would be suited up.

'Good morning, Lili.' Al said.

'Morgen, Al. Are you ready for the last swim?'

'I certainly am, ma'am. It has been a long journey since those first tentative few steps down into the surreal world of the deep.'

She smiled,

'I still feel somehow inadequate, twenty-seven years old, six years in various space programs,' nodding towards her waiting space clothing engineers, 'and I still cannot dress myself!'

The three assistants helped her into the legs of her space suit, whilst another two prepared the torso part. Al was stood up now, his torso was swallowed by the main part of his suit, and then his hands appeared at the ends of the curious looking sleeves with their circular metal cuffs.

He asked the fitters,

'Have you any news on the new Martian suit? I hear it is a lot easier to handle than this.'

'Only what we get from Bill Embrey in 'Rumour Control'. He says it is more like a sub-aqua outfit, but without the flippers of course.'

Then the helmet was placed on his head, and comms were checked. He sat down again to await the rest of his team. They removed his helmet for his own comfort, and to save having to hook up the life support system.

Presently they moved into the pool room. Four members of the dive team came forward to help them into the water when Lili and Al were both ready. They always work in twos, because that is the safest way to operate in space.

Tom Collins and Ash were already in the water, working around the exact replica of the Columbus module that is attached to the ISS.

Buoyancy tests were carried out quickly, and then the two Europeans were floating as if they were in space.

Tom Collins appeared from the inside of the module. He waved at the two scientists.

'Hi, come in, the water's fine.' He quipped.

They were just making their way down to the end of the ladder. Al led the way. He was careful to be holding on to something as he moved from ladder to structure, then moved from one handle to the next as if he were in space. Frogmen circled around like sharks in case someone began drifting away from the structure, swimming in a spacesuit is not very productive; it is more like thrashing about with no effect, much like being in space.

When they met up with Collins the first thing they did was to connect their tethers to the structure as they floated and drifted.

Fontana looked around the insides. It had changed considerably since they began work on it some two months ago. In its original state the module had been designed to be used in near-zero gravity conditions. To this end there was no up, or any down. Now there was no equipment. The equipment racks had all been removed and replaced with new fittings more in keeping with operations in gravity; even retractable beds had been installed. But there was no room for four people in bulky space suits inside the module, so two would work outside, and two inside.

Collins called Fontana,

'Al, Ash is struggling with some plumbing inside, if you could assist?'

'Si, no problem.'

'Lili, we shall work the problem from outside.'

This was all rehearsal on earth. When they reached the real thing 350 miles above planet Earth they found that they moved in exactly the same way, using the same methods they learned in the tank. The biggest difference was that they entered the space station without their bulky space suits; these were left behind in the air lock. Four people could work inside comfortably. The need to go outside was reduced considerably by the extensive use of robots. The main ones were the ones they had met earlier, and they found that the communications between humans and robots was just as good as seen on Earth. To such an extent that, on occasion, the humans would arrive for work in the morning, (referred to in name only) to be told by the robots that they had done more than expected, and the planned work for the day had now been rescheduled. The robots were beginning to run the program because they could to a better job - and kept at it 24 hours a day. They were now built with the capacity to learn by themselves, because mankind could not teach 24 hours per day.

This made them very useful builders on the new 'Phoenix', and they would be even more useful on Mars.

The interplanetary craft was now taking shape. Sarsen Yellow team was concerned with the building, ably 'assisted' by five robots, two manipulators, two almost human, and a Russian heavy lifter.

Sarsen Yellow consisted of four people with very different capabilities; Jake Jensen was the team leader; his specialities lay with his military background and many hours in space.

Mary-Jo Shelton was the Mission Specialist, having studied the planned construction of the 'Phoenix's internal fittings and the working of six astronauts for up to six months before reaching Mars.

Hoshi Masuto specialised in robotics, and their interface with humans – this was to prove essential in the days and months to come.

Back on Earth, over coffee during one of the many planning sessions they had decided to give the robots human names.

Hoshi withdrew a set of photographs, like 'Top Trumps'. She laid them on the table, three looked like people, the other two resembled mechanised dogs.

The androids wore simple tee shirts and jeans. The shirts were red, blue and white. Otherwise they were identical.

Mark Singleton was the first to speak,

'This one looks like a Gerald.' He tapped a picture, 'It must be the red shirt.'

'Ok, what about the others?' Hoshi asked, 'It is important that we get these right, we are more likely to be working closely with them.' she tapped a photograph,

'So how about Stuart for one of them?' she offered.

'Yes,' Mark replied, 'but, these are all English names, how about a Japanese one?'

Hoshi said,

'It was agreed a long time ago that English is to be the language for International space programmes, so we should stick to English names.'

'I think we could consider something from your country in recognition of the tremendous leaps forward you have allowed us.' He said.

'Tell you what we can do, we will choose an English name of someone who is held in great regard in our country – Steve McQueen.'

'Ok. So, the androids are to be named Gerald, Stuart and Steve.'

Hoshi moved to the images of the Canadian manipulators,

'The others are referred to as 'S' class, so I suppose their names should have to begin with the letter S.'

Mark pointed to the Canadian machines, 'These can be Scuttles and Skittles.' He suggested.

'Right.' Hoshi agreed to the naming.

Wing Commander Mark Singleton, RAF, had studied rocketry before joining the space programme in England, then the European Space Agency. He had the responsibility to make sure the rockets on all the vehicles they used worked, his secondary task was stress. It was his job to assess the stresses and workloads on the whole structure, and make sure it could take it. Because of this last accountability he would be working closest with the robots and Hoshi.

Two weeks later, Gerald was on an emerging structure, 400 miles above planet Earth. Nodes from the ISS were being built into a long tube, at one end there was an Orion re-entry module sitting like a plug in the end of a pipe. Across what was going to be the centre of this tube sat the centre section of a Mars Space Launch System rocket. This part is normally sent back to burn up in the atmosphere; or sent off in a solar orbit where it can be of no harm to anyone, the centre bit is also no use to anyone, either. Two of these massive pieces of space junk have been preserved for just this mission. They will be the core of the propulsion system for the first manned interplanetary craft, the 'Phoenix'. These will be carrying fuel for the four F-2D rocket engines that would power the craft on its long journey to Mars. And back.

Mark Singleton and Gerald were working at the rear of the back portion of the rocket assembly. They were preparing the structure for the introduction of two new rocket engines. The ones it had contained items that were considered to be life expired, once they had propelled the Orion into space, and it was going to be easier to replace the whole engines, all four of them, with specially developed versions of the trusted F-1 engine.

'Did you ring through the bleed valves to the recirculation pump?' Gerald asked Mark.

'Yes, value three point five.' Mark replied as he floated around the gigantic cone of the two rocket engines already installed.

'You only have two hours left out here, Mark, so I shall leave the main lox and purge tests until you have finished your tasks.'

'Ok, Gerald. You will have nine hours before I return. That should be plenty of time for you to complete them.'

Skittles and Scuttles were making good the joins between the latest nodes to arrive from the old ISS. They had been docked successfully, so were pressurised, but the joins were now being made stronger and more permanent by the rail tracked and versatile mechanical arms.

Stuart and Steve were working at the rear of the old Columbus module. They were installing the inflatable living area. Stuart was floating outside of the structure; Steve was inside with Mary-Jo. She was wearing the new Martian pattern of space suit; this consisted of a lighter construction, allowing more flexibility, but this was not passed as fit for space walks. It was designed for use in the thin atmosphere of Mars. Mary-Jo was trialling this one inside an unpressurised section of the build.

Jake and Hoshi were pressurising the centre sections and preparing them for habitation.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Eight

WATER

The people who are slated to go to Mars find out how they will be able to land on the planet - and return to the mother ship.

They have not yet worked how to get people back from the surface of Mars.

The journey from Earth to 'Phoenix' was by means of the gigantic Mars launch vehicular system.

Getting to Mars and back was no longer a problem with the use of the 'Phoenix' vehicle - it was capable of carrying enough fuel to return from an orbital position to an orbital position.

However, to blast off from the surface of the red planet was still unsolved. Tom, Gerry Stevens and Mike Xanthros had been working on a solution to the dilemma of leaving for home.

The three of them met up in the CNC hologram room.

'I have something here to show you.' Gerry told them as he moved to one of the consuls.

The lights dimmed, a new hologram flickered into life.

Standing before them was an almost complete landing craft. Almost five feet high, and four feet around, the pyramid was like nothing they had seen before.

As Tom and Mike moved around the strange craft Gerry explained,

'You are all familiar with a launch from Earth, be it from the Cape here, or Baikonur, or New Guinea, or Tanegashima. They all have one thing in common, a vast support network, as seen in the towers by the rockets, and the sheer number of buildings in their respective launch complexes.' As he moved controls part of the skin of the hologram peeled away to show the highly detailed interior; - 'We do not have any of these facilities on Mars. In fact, we do not even have someone on the ground to say, 'Ok, that looks good.'

'Well, that is not strictly true.' Mike explained, 'What we are now planning is a series of launches. The landing team will be six strong, there is no way we can launch six people back into orbit at once. There will be three launches with two people in each vehicle.'

Gerry then looked up and said,

'And to think that there will not be a populated launch control is a misnomer. We will be leaving behind a population of thinking robots; they will be capable of their own maintenance and repair. But not only that, they will be capable of developing on the surface, and under the surface. They will be the true discoverers of Mars; -' He looked at the pyramid structure as he continued, 'So how do we propose to launch back to the 'Phoenix' mother ship? There are three possible options. Here is the most promising.'

He moved some controls. The pyramid dissolved. In its place appeared a scene on Mars. It resembled a simplified version of an earthbound launch complex on a red and pink landscape.

Tom paused before explaining,

'We will have approximately fourteen months to build this structure with the help of five robots. In fact, that is not quite accurate; we are not being helped by five robots. The way things have gone thus far with the build of the 'Phoenix', the robots soon gain so much knowledge that it is they who are helped by us.'

The hologram became animated as one of the rockets blasted off.

'The question we have yet to answer is - how do we get the whole thing back on to the surface of Mars?' Mike asked as the noise died down, 'If we do three launches with the one rocket, we are going to have to bring it back and re-use it.' The hologram followed the rocket into space. 'It is this skeletal rocket that is proving to be a difficulty at the moment. We can't coat it in heat resistant tiles, like the normal heat shields, because it is a framework. It is this framework that is its best feature, it keeps the weight right down, therefore the re-entry speed is lower, and it is easier to slow down.'

Tom asked,

'Would it not be possible to build three of these, and just re-use the capsule?'

'That is a possibility, but a little wasteful of precious resources. We would rather keep as much of the material we send as possible. Remember, this is not like the moon missions; we are not abandoning the site when we leave. The five robots will continue working on into infinity using what they can to exploit Mars. The first thing they will use is the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere as a power source.'

Gerry then turned back to the hologram.

'One problem we have already overcome is the parachute retarding system normally used.' He paused.

The hologram changed again to one of the pyramid-shaped landers as it began to enter the Martian atmosphere.

'For several reasons we can't use this method of slowing the capsule; the main one being durability of the 'chutes. We just do not know how they would function after five deployments, and how reliable would the packing be? They only have to fail once, so we can't risk using parachutes.'

He faced the other two men,

'However, we have not only found an answer, but we have improved on the whole recovery scheme.'

He paused the hologram. It faded. A moving picture appeared on the far wall. This was of one of the Apollo capsules being recovered by helicopter. Then another, then another. Gerry turned from the pictures and said,

'Is there a pattern emerging?'

Tom and Mike looked at each other, then Tom said,

'Helicopters.'

Gerry looked almost smug,

'Exactly. But we have no helicopters on Mars, so we are taking one with us.'

The picture flicked off. The hologram continued where it had left off. The module fired a retard engine to slow it down. Then a double rotor system deployed on the top of the capsule.

'The advantages of this set-up are many, but the main ones are, we can guide it far more accurately, probably to a specially prepared pad. And the system is rugged and re-usable.'

Tom asked,

'Is this thing actually flyable, then?'

'Fully. The rotors have simple ram-jets at the tips to give power.'

The module landed with minimum dust. The room was flooded with light as the door burst open. Ash and Michelle came in.

'Sorry to disturb things, Gerry.' Ash said, 'There's been an accident in the pool, John Garbou has been involved.' He addressed all three,- 'There has been a serious incident at the underwater facility. John Garbou and Mark Singleton were working on the structure as if they were in space. The suits were rigged to duplicate spacewalk conditions. All went well until, fifteen minutes into the task John reported feeling wetness down his back and an unusual amount of condensation was accumulating. Mark checked the outside of the suit for leaks, but there seemed to be none. The pressure readings inside the suit were all reading normal, so a leak was ruled out. John said he was quite happy to continue. He said, if there was a problem he would let it develop, and then we could fix it here before it emerges out in space.'

Gerry shut the hologram down as Ash continued,

'He went inside the structure to do something with equipment on the floor. As his legs floated up Mark heard something come over the radio. He was outside the framework, so could not reach his colleague quickly. John tried to get out of the structure, but the space he was in didn't allow him enough wriggle room to turn around. He pushed himself out with his arms, when his legs got out they started to drop. The sub aqua people went straight to him, they could see that he was in trouble. Mark came to their aid. They got him to the surface and saw that his suit had filled up with water. Against regulations they removed his helmet as soon as he breached the surface, but it was too late. John Garbou had drowned inside his suit.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Nine

CONFINEMENT

Two days after the John Garbou incident, Michelle was sitting at her desk. The glass-like top was clear, as usual, despite the increase in workload caused by the tragic death of John Garbou. The left inset computer screen was blank, the right one showed the schedule of training and eventual space flights for the astronauts. This had to be amended, first to take into consideration that they were now a man down, but also feed in the effects of the investigations needed to find out what had happened. Mike Xanthros had told them all that all training would now take second place to the investigation, and no-one was to be put at risk of a repeated incident until a solution had been found.

For the thirty-fourth time this morning her computer phone pinged an incoming call. She tapped the left screen with the silicon tipped stylus to accept the call. They had experimented with touch-sensitive screens but found that objects on a crowded desk would activate them too easily, a stylus was the answer.

Michelle was expecting another solemn face telling her of more changes but was pleasantly surprised to see the smiling face of Preston Ashton.

He began,

'Hi, you might see from your amended task list that all swimming has been postponed for the foreseeable future, so we have been given the day after tomorrow off.'

'Lucky you. I am snowed under here with extra work.'

'The day after tomorrow is a Saturday, Jake and I are taking the boat out, is there any chance you could find a slot in your busy schedule to come along.'

She thought for a micro second, then replied,

'Confinement.'

'Pardon, is that what you have been sentenced to?'

'No, silly.' She tapped a smaller screen on the far-left side of her desktop. It lit up immediately to show an overall picture of her tasks on this program,

'One of my tasks here is to study confinement. If we can get another crew member, you can all spend a protracted time confined below desks, and I can make observations as part of my duties.'

'Ok.' Ash said thoughtfully, 'Three names spring to mind, Lili Gothe from our team, Mary-Jo Shelton, and Mark Singleton from Yellow. Pretty well everyone else is tied up with the investigation or its implications.'

'If it is a female, it sounds like a foursome.' She smiled back at him, 'Is that a good idea?'

'I'm pretty sure Jake don't fancy Mark, but I see what you mean.'

'But by involving people from other teams is good. If we could get someone from the Red team that would then be one from each team.'

'Jake fancies Galina; that would be interesting.' Ash replied.

'You are not thinking of this in the same way I am.'

'Yes, I am. As an experiment in human interactions, this could be very interesting.'

'Interesting, yes, but I have to write this up as scientific research, not an episode of a soap opera. Anyway, any developing relationships within the program would raise concerns.'

'Is that what we have, a developing relationship?' he still had a smile on his face.

'That is different; we will not be going into space for two years, at least.'

'No, but how about a slow boat around the bay?' he raised his eyebrows, asking the question.

'Let me make a few calls,' she tapped the small screen a few times. 'On the Red team there are gaps available in Galina's schedule. Also available is Mike Lafont.' More tapping, 'Petre Avetsova and Dmitri Chopov have their own schedule. On the Yellow team, the two Chinese also have their own schedule.

'For Jake's sake I would suggest Galina.' Ash offered.

'And for science's sake I should ring Mike, he's a nice Frenchman mixing it with the Russians. Although Chopov is not actually a Russian.'

'Ok, we can go along with anything to move the program forwards. Do you want to get back to me when you know more?'

'Yes, of course. When were you thinking of setting off?'

'If we leave at 0900 we can have a full day out.'

'If I reschedule a couple of things here and there, as this is now part of the program, we can all spend two days out.'

'That would be interesting.' Ash stroked his chin in thought, 'but there have been people in space for much longer than that.'

'The difference here is that they had something to do, and good communications. We can have a time delay built in quite easily.'

'Two days on a boat with you, and nothing to do. Sounds good to me.'

'Let me work things out, and get back to you, Ash.'

'Ok Michelle. See you soon.'

The screen went blank.

Michelle turned to the schedule screen, at the same time she tapped one of the smaller screens to activate it.

After half an hour's research and juggling she activated the main left screen again to make a call to Mike Lafont.

Presently the rugged face of Mike Lafont came into view. His thick black hair looked unkempt, his smile ready,

'Hi, Doctor Romero. What can I do for you today?'

'Good morning Mike. I have a proposed schedule change for you if you can manage it. You know the walk through of telemetry systems we have planned for you on Saturday? Could we reschedule that in favour of a two-day excursion on a yacht to study confinement?'

'That sounds more interesting.' His attention seemed to move from looking directly at Michelle to another screen adjacent to the one she was on.

'I presume that will be taking in the Sunday?'

'Yes, Mike. And Monday morning for debrief.'

'That makes it difficult, Michelle. Because Petre, Dmitri and I have to meet Professor Xanthros at the Launch Control Centre at Launch Complex 39 first thing on Sunday morning. This is a recent addition; it is noted in red, so I cannot move this one. I see that Galina may well be free, because the previous activity that this replaces involved the whole team.'

'That is useful to know, Mike. Thank you for that. I'm sure you will be able to get on to another similar task in the future.'

'I am sorry to be missing what sounds like an interesting task, but the meeting with Professor Xanthros sounds like it has something to do with the investigation he is conducting into the incident that caused us to lose Jacques Garbou.'

'That is fair enough, Mike. We cannot impede the investigation; it is beginning to slow down other elements of the main program already.'

Galina was, indeed, free for the Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Jake was busying himself on the stern of the yacht when Galina's long legs strutted up the gangplank and on to the yacht.

Michelle accompanied her, but introductions were not needed, because astronauts always work closely together.

Ash came from within the lower deck when he heard the gangplank move as the women boarded the yacht.

When everyone was settled in, personal effects stowed, Michelle called them to a meeting in the early morning sun on the rear deck of the yacht before they cast off.

'This may look like a sea trip for four friends, but it is nothing of the sort.' She began, 'The three of you will be confined below decks for the duration of the trip.'

Michelle turned to Ash and asked,

'Are there any tasks in the course of the next two days and nights that need to be performed by someone on the outside of the ship?'

'Well, for a start, this is not a ship; it is classed as a boat.' He said with a twinkle in his eye.

She replied by looking at her notes that were displayed on a tablet hand-held computer. Then held up a selection showing the NASA emblem,

'This is a NASA mission. We do not put astronauts in boats. You are to be confined to your ship for the next two days.' She looked at Ash, her eyes and lips narrowed purposefully,

'Any insubordination will be dealt with by enforced space walks and keelhauling.'

Ash responded with,

'But the nice mister Xanthros said no more astronauts were to be drowned.'

Michelle lowered her tablet pad, and bent closer to Ash's face,

'The nice mister Xanthros will not know, will he? Because any astronaut will be hung out from the yardarm to dry thoroughly afterwards.'

'I love it when you get all masterful.' He said, smiling.

'To continue.' She picked up her notes, 'We anticipate that there will be either three or four people on Orion missions, with between six and eight going on the long trip to Mars.

'This little trip will replicate the confined nature of space travel, coupled with unknown elements we have no idea about as yet. In simulated conditions we can never fully create the unexpected. The subjects,' she indicated the assembled crew, 'will be facing problems that were not designed by other people on the program. This time the problems may have the possibility of going wrong with disastrous consequences. That added stress is something I shall be looking at in order to feed this into the exhaustive testing already done in this program.'

Jake then asked, 'You began by asking about tasks to be done outside the' he hesitated, 'ship.' then continued, 'If we are under sail, it can be rigged for minimum maintenance, but we won't travel very fast. The sails are what we use to gain speed, so have to be rigged and changed depending on the wind conditions to take full advantage of the meteorological environment. Are we to be allowed outside to change the set of our sails?'

'I'm afraid not. The difficulties you will face will be minuscule compared with the problems likely to be encountered out there in space.'

Jake and Ash turned and looked at Galina.

'Do you think this is a good idea?' Jake asked her.

She replied,

'We are not wise. But then again, going into space is not a wise thing to do. I think it will be a very useful tool in the search for answers to questions we do not yet know.'

'This still leaves us with the question, will anyone have to go outside, and if so, for what?' Michelle said.

Jake tried to give an answer of sorts,

'If you can predict the exact weather conditions for every step of the journey, you would still have to re-rig the sails, for which someone would have to be outside.'

Ash then added,

'By running a minimum rig carrying hardly any sail we can probably manage unless we get hit by a storm.'

'That sounds like the lowest risk, easiest path to take.' Michelle observed,

Ash asked,

'Since when have astronauts taken the lowest risk, easiest path?'

Jake answered,

'Always. You know we never take unnecessary risks, even the easiest path is often taken to reduce the dangers.'

Michelle said,

'We are trying to replicate the stresses felt during space flight here. That is difficult enough, but I feel that we will have to up the anti somewhat. Without actually risking anyone's life, of course. Now, is there some ground between hazardous and completely safe?'

Jake suggested a compromise,

'We could use a sort of half reef, by judicious use of steering we could control the situation from below. That would necessitate someone being on watch all the time, and if things got rough someone would have to go outside to re-rig.'

'Could I do that?' Michelle asked.

'If you have to ask, then no.' Ash said.

Michelle adopted a more obstinate pose, 'But we don't wish to have to abandon the whole project just because something happens that we were hoping for anyway – the unpredictability of not knowing if we can handle it or not.'

Ash looked at Michelle with his head cocked to one side,

'You have something planned, haven't you?'

'Yes. Mike Xanthros said no-one has to be put at risk – especially if there is water involved! If someone has to go outside on the actual mission, they must wear survival gear. If someone has to go outside during this project you must take every precaution. We have supplied a full sub-aqua outfit that has to be worn – including the oxygen bottles, mask and gloves. We will pass on the flippers, but you must carry them with you. As a further hindrance, I will be your buddy on any extra vehicular activities.'

She pointed to a large metal box that had been unloaded on the quayside.

Galina leaned across to Jake and said quietly,

'That will be no problem for me, I have been sub-aqua instructor in Russia

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Ten

CLUES

People were working hard to find out why John Garbou died, and can it be guaranteed never to happen again?

The lighting in the Life Support Bay was bright, but not harsh. The walls and ceiling melded into one blended shape. If it were not for posters on the walls it would be difficult to gain perspective.

Chief Inspector Orson La Hoya breezed into the room with his long white coat unfastened as usual.

He carefully checked the items on the table for his examination, he polished the visor on John Garbou's suit as a matter of habit before placing it in its storage container. The main suit was laid out on the long table awaiting his inspection.

Tom Bennet entered the room to assist.

'Hi, Orson. Sad affair, all this.'

'Yes Tom, it just goes to show how bloody dangerous this job of theirs is.'

'Have you found anything yet?'

'No, everything checks out. The suits were all prepped and thoroughly checked as usual. If there had been anything wrong, it would have shown up then. I think we are going to have to go deeper to find out what went wrong.'

Tom looked at the suit laid out on the long table in front of him. It was still wet on the inside.

'Do you think the suit sprang a leak and allowed water to get in?' he asked his more experienced colleague.

'Not possible. The suits have a small overpressure, if there is a puncture the air will escape, but the suit will try to maintain the overpressure and bubbles will be released. There were no bubbles seen around John. The water that killed him must have come from within the suit.'

'How is that possible?'

Orson wielded a small screwdriver around the back of the suit as he replied,

'That is what I intend to find out. The water coolant was fully functioning in all these suits to replicate the way they move in space, so that is where we shall start.'

He skilfully removed the backpack piece by piece, and then the shell of the life support pack came away, which he handed to Tom, who placed it on an adjacent table.

Carefully Orson worked away at the innards of the suit. Tom assisted him, but his main task here was to witness anything Orson found.

As he gently removed a small pipe that was concerned with the water cooling system built into the space suit, Orson brought Tom's attention to the small 'O' ring seal that sat between the pipe and the fitting.

'Tom, that 'O' ring does not look right. It should sit in the groove more comfortably.'

As he touched the black seal with the tip of his screwdriver he found that it moved far more than it should have.

Orson looked at Tom,

'I think we have found the culprit.'

He took a pair of tweezers and carefully took hold of the loose seal.

'It should not be loose.' He remarked.

Then, to his great surprise it came away loosely without any persuasion. Slowly he removed it from the main structure of the suit and examined it. There was not much to examine – it was obvious that the 'O' ring was split.

'Right,' Orson stood upright, 'Let's get Professor Xanthros down here.'

He tapped into his cell phone and spoke to Mike Xanthros directly,

'We have found the fault in John's suit.' A pause, 'Yes sir.'

He replaced the cell in his pocket.

'He's on his way.'

Seven minutes later Mike Xanthros and Stringer burst into the room.

'What have you got, Orson?' Stringer asked before they had moved across the room. He shook his friend's hand as Orson told them about the seal.

'Speaks for itself.' He pointed to the split 'O' ring.

'And where did this come from?' Xanthros asked.

Orson showed him the pipe and fixture in the back of the wet suit.

'Here, in the cooling system. There is not enough water in the cooling system to fill the suit, but if he were head down under gravity it would fill the helmet first, with disastrous results.'

Xanthros looked at the suit, Stringer looked at the 'O' ring. He took a magnifying glass with a folding handle from a small leather pouch. This he used to examine the split in the seal.

Xanthros asked Orson,

'How much pressure is there in this pipe when it is operating?'

'Not much, it varies when the wearer moves about, but there is only a couple of pounds over external pressures, in air it is raised to seventeen pounds, in water it goes to twenty pounds, in space it will be as little as two pounds.'

'So, there was a chance that it was caused by pressure on the seal?' Xanthros moved his finger around the pipe then the fitting.

Stringer passed the glass and seal to Orson,

'What do you make of that?'

Orson looked through the glass,

'What am I looking for?'

'The edges of the split. I would expect it to be more frayed. They look too sharp, like they have been cut.'

Xanthros came across to look at the seal. Orson moved to the suit, glass in hand he examined the fitting where the seal sat. There were small, almost invisible, nicks in the plastic.

Just then Xanthros took the seal and announced loudly,

'I will get this examined further, but it looks as if the seal failed because of the pressure it was subjected to. The manufacturer will be hearing from me.'

He turned to Orson and Tom,

'Can we have all the seals on the remaining suits thoroughly checked, and replaced if necessary?'

Orson was surprised that the answer was found so easily and quickly, but replied,

'Yes, sir. My whole section will attend to it with priority over anything else they are doing.'

Professor Xanthros seemed satisfied with this,

'Thank you for your work on this. I am sure we can ensure that this kind of thing will not occur again. You can clear all this away now, we have the only evidence we need here.' He waved the seal and placed it in a small clear plastic bag.

Without anyone noticing, Orson slipped Stringer's magnifying glass into his pocket. He knew that his friend would be back to reclaim it soon.

Less than an hour later Orson and Tom had the place tidied up and everything put back in its place, only the main part of the suit remained laid out on the table.

'I don't think we should vigorously dry this out yet.' Orson was referring to the way the suit would have to be turned inside out. 'I have a feeling that it may be called on again soon.'

'Ok, Orson. If that's all you need me for, I'll be off.'

'Right, Tom. Thanks for your help.'

Orson returned to the suit. As he carefully placed towels inside to help dry it out he was careful not to disturb the cooling system.

He looked at the pipe and connector again, then took out his personal tablet computer from his pocket. He tapped into various records as he sat on one of the high stools that furnished the room.

As predicted, Stringer came back into the room,

'Hi, Orson. Have you seen my magnifying glass? I can't seem to find it anywhere.'

'Yes. I have it here. I would like to show you something.' With that he indicated the pipe and connection in the back of the suit, 'Have a close look at this. Can you see slight damage around the area where the seal sits?'

Stringer scrutinized the white plastic pipe,

'Give me more light.'

Orson took out a small penlight and shone a bright blue light on the area Stringer was looking at.

Slowly Stringer said,

'Yeees. I can see there are three distinct nicks in here.' He looked at Orson, 'could they have been caused during the original build?'

'Not possible.' Orson was certain of this, 'The seals are applied quite simply without use of any tools. They just slip over the end of the pipe, you don't even need lubricant.'

'Does Professor Xanthros know about this?'

Orson looked askance at this question,

'He didn't seem too interested. It was as if he had found the answer and didn't want anything to distract him from declaring the problem solved.'

'What do you make of this?' Stringer asked as he replaced the magnifying glass in his pocket.

'I have done some delving into the background of this suit.' Orson waved his tablet briefly to show Stringer his source,- 'It turns out to be one that we constructed from a spare shell we had in storage.'

Stringer asked,

'Does that mean that it could have been damaged during reconstruction?'

'Not during reconstruction; as I say, there is no need for anything that could cause damage during reconstruction. This was deliberate. The only way this kind of damage could have been caused was by someone cutting the seal with a knife.'

Stringer was taken aback; he looked directly at Orson,

'But who would do that?'

'I don't know, but there was an unauthorised entry logged in the storage room where this suit was kept in its raw state. My records don't show who it was, but I think it is worth....'

Just then Sem, Michelle's assistant, entered the room,

'Professor Stringer, Professor Xanthros is going down to meet with the Red team, he asked if you could go along to interview the Blue team.'

'Thank you, Sem. All teams are down to three people for the next few days, are they not?'

'That's right, Professor. Doctor Romero is doing a study in 'Cross-team Confinement' for the next two days.'

'Is the confinement complete, or do we have comms with them?'

'Yes, sir. We have arranged a fifteen-minute delay, to replicate the situation they will have on the Mars trip, but there is the standard comms set-up.'

Stringer thought for a minute, then turned back to Sem,

'Let's give them a bit more realism. Tell them the mission is extended, they will take one day longer to get back than originally planned. That should give them something to think about.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Eleven

ALL AT SEA

Stranded within the confined of the yacht, the three astronauts can only talk about their work, and work that they will be doing once on Mars.

Jake took the yacht out of the Clear Lake area before they all repaired down to the below decks area to which they would be confined for the next two days. The sails were reefed for minimum maintenance, the rudder steering and all instrumentation being available below decks.

'Orion and 'Phoenix' are the future of human space exploration.' Doctor Michelle Romero explained to the three members of the crew she was now stranded with on this yacht,

'I know there is no need to explain this to you three, but we have two days and a night to fill in. The main exercise here is not to see who can eat fastest, or who's the best cook. The main point is to see how we cope with very little to do over a long period.'

Ash then threw something at Jake, who had developed a smile,

'This is a serious assignment. We must behave as if we were on a genuine mission.' he added.

Michelle looked at the locker where the two sub-aqua suits were stored,

'There is always the prospect of a 'spacewalk' to help with the realism, if required.' She returned to her tablet computer.

'To help with focus on the task I shall now go over the main aims of the Mars mission. This is not a lecture, I am sure you are pleased to know, this is by way of sparking off focussed conversation and a think tank.'

'The first problem you will have to overcome will be moving from Earth orbit to travelling across the vastness of space. This needs more speed, as indeed will the travel to Mars. In order to cross the 56 million kilometres, you will need to gain as much speed as you can handle.'

Ash then added,

'Speed in itself is not the issue here. Whoever goes will be travelling at more speed than can be handled if they are hit by anything, so we have to disregard this danger. That is not the main problem; at those speeds the thin Martian atmosphere will not be enough to slow us down. The Command Module weighs nearly 50 tons. The heaviest object yet landed has been the Curiosity rover, which weighed less than 1 ton. And they had to employ a strange flying crane device to put that down.'

Michelle then came back in,

'There is no chance of landing a Command Module on the surface of Mars. The latest thinking is that it would be impossible to get it off the surface, and back into orbit to rendezvous with 'Phoenix' for the return journey.'

A surprised expression came over the assembled crew.

'Yes,' Michelle looked around the three now very attentive astronauts,

'There is now an increasing school of thought that believes that you can be got back.'

Galina said,

'This is very interesting. We have always been told that the technology does not yet exist to get us back.'

'It doesn't, yet.' Jake agreed, 'But I have been working with the robots. They are confident that they can come up with a workable solution by the time we get there – providing we don't scuttle their efforts with short-sighted planning.'

Ash turned to Michelle,

'You have information regarding meeting lists, don't you?'

'What lists?'

'Meetings of the movers and shakers within this scheme.'

'Yes, of course, Ash.'

'Are there any names on the lists of those attending who you don't recognise?'

Michelle thought briefly,

'Occasionally.' She interviewed her tablet computer, 'Some of these names are not familiar with me, but there are thousands of people on this project. I cannot be expected to know everyone.'

'Are there some names that keep creeping up?'

'Yes.' She scrutinised the display,

'One here has appeared a few times, a Mr G. Stevens.'

Jake then asked with a sort of bemused look on his face,

'Have you ever met this Mr Stevens?'

Michelle thought for a minute or two,

'Yes, I do believe I have. There are so many people, but if someone attends more than two or three meetings, there is a good likelihood that I would bump into them at some time or another.'

'You know what he looks like?'

She tapped her tablet a few times before answering,

'Ah. Yes. Here is Mr Stevens.' She showed the picture from the file,

'I remember meeting him on at least two occasions. We have talked together, he is a well-spoken American with a touch of a southern accent.'

Michelle Romero was proud of her attention to detail and particularly the things she noticed about people.

Jake was clearly impressed,

'Well observed, Michelle. I know our Mr Stevens here. The 'G', incidentally stands for Gerald. I have had the pleasure of working with him on many occasions.'

He seemed to deliberately pause.

Ash looked at Michelle, who could sense that Jake had not yet finished.

And indeed, he hadn't,

'It might surprise you to know that he is actually a robot. Well, an android to be more precise.'

Michelle was surprised, the others were not, but this man had not taken them in.

Galina was the first to speak,

'This just goes to show how advanced these machines are. I have heard that they will be running the journey back themselves. I have been up to the ISS, where the robots are not only working 24 hours a day out in space; they are also learning as they work. To such an extent that the astronauts who are to go out to work with them must be briefed as to how much the task has changed. Before they even suit up there is a conference between the crew and the robots outside. The robots do not even stop work to do this. They behave like automatons.'

She smiled at this, knowing that they are much more than mere automatons.

Michelle decided that they had spent enough time on the mechanics of the mission, so concluded the subject by saying,

'Remember that humans always make ultimate decisions, they are the ones that will be at risk, after all. The next thing we must look at is the subject of water. This is one of, if not the, main reasons for visiting Mars. We need to find water, liquid water, on the planet. There is evidence that liquid water once flowed on the surface, when the atmosphere was denser. We want to know where it went, is it reachable, and can it be made drinkable?'

She looked around the small cabin to gauge reactions. Jake was first to speak,

'I studied the images we got back from the early Viking orbiters, extensive networks of valleys flow down to old lake beds, this has been confirmed by more recent missions. But it is the northern part of the planet that interests us. The North Pole is as much as 6 miles lower than the rest of the planet. We don't know what caused this dip, could have been a planetary collision, or convection beneath the crust. What we do know is that water pools at the lowest point, so it makes sense to go there and look for it.'

Galina then asked Jake a direct question,

'What are the chances that we will find life on Mars?'

'You are right to assume that life relies on water. All forms of life in the universe require a liquid solvent. Biological molecules must be large enough and able to build complex structures. A friendly liquid is essential for that. Mars now is a desolate, harsh world, but once there may have been conditions favourable for such life-forming molecules to exist. Our main task is to find them.'

Michelle then asked a question of the group,

'What are the seven attributes of life? You should all know this from training 101.'

Jake was first to answer,

'Reproduction.'

Ash gave a rebuke,

'Trust you to come up with that one!'

Then added,

'Metabolism.'

Galina came up with two,

'Homeostasis, and Organisation.'

Jake and Ash chanted almost in unison,

'Growth, Adaptation, and Responsiveness.'

Just as the radio announced,

'Houston in the blind to Cerberus. Mission has been extended due to technical difficulties. Add twenty-four hours to mission time. Will repeat this message every five minutes until receipt confirmed.'

Ash stood up and took the mike from its hook,

'Cerberus to Houston. Message received and understood.'

He turned to Jake,

'Where do you think that will put us?'

Jake opened a drawer and withdrew a chart, he this spread on the chart table, which lay forward of the assembled crew. After judicious calculations he turned to Ash,

'We can be just about anywhere in a 350-mile circle, but given a fair wind and a calm sea, on a generally easterly heading. If we turn back after 25 hours, we should be able to get back at about the right time.'

He turned to Michelle,

'I presume we will be able to go aloft to do some proper sailing in the latter stages if we look like being late back?'

'We shall see. Meanwhile, back to the subject of water on Mars.'

Galina asked,

'To continue, is the mission going to the North Pole on Mars?'

Ash took up the question,

'No, Galina. The old Curiosity rover has found the most likely place to find liquid water is a place called the Gale impact crater. Here it found smooth rocks that could only have been shaped that way after years of tumbling over other rocks in water.'

Michelle then identified another useful task,

'The atmosphere of Mars is made up of 95 per cent carbon dioxide, with small amounts of nitrogen and oxygen. This we think may be useable as a fuel, and it will be interesting to see how plants function. However, that may have to wait for another mission. If we cannot find liquid water, it may well be possible to melt the ice we know to exist using carbon dioxide gas, but the actual methods for this have not yet been established.'

Jake added,

'That may well be one for Gerald and his cronies.'

The boat rocked gently as they moved further into the open sea. The steering was on automatic, but Jake kept a close eye on the compass and the conditions out of the window. It looked as if he was not completely involved in the conversation in the cabin, but it was his turn on watch, so he had to keep an eye on things maritime.

'If it gets any rougher it will make drinking hot coffee difficult.' Jake hinted.

Ash sat nearest to the galley area so volunteered,

'I'll get it, if you'll excuse me, Michelle.'

'Good idea.' She responded, 'We all have bits of things to finish off before we get too far out.'

She shut down her tablet. Galina moved towards the front of the boat and began unpacking her possessions from her little vanity case. Michelle helped Ash with the coffee, the movement of the boat seemed to bring them closer together, but was it only physical movement?

Presently Michelle took coffee to Galina, Ash joined Jake, and they both looked out of the windows at the grey sea. From where they stood they could just see the mainmast with the reefed sail flapping from it.

Galina said quietly to Michelle,

'Are you and Ash an item?'

'I don't know what you mean.' Michelle's half-hearted attempt at indignation was not very convincing, especially as it was accompanied with a knowing smile.

'I have seen the way you look at him. It is a dead give-away.'

'Well, ok. I suppose we have been out on what you would call dates.'

'How convenient for you both to be here on this boat, it gives you chance to get to know each other without the awkwardness and danger of either one of you going too fast.'

'Yes, it does seem to have worked out well.'

'But now we find that we are to be down here for an extra day, I do hope it is not a bridge too far. We are trained astronauts and cosmonauts, and used to spending long periods with the same people, will you be ok?'

'I will have to cope, Galina. It will have to be part of the task. I can observe the way you guys perform and cope with the situation, then compare it with the way I feel and manage.'

'You are right in one instance, Michelle. We are used to having lots of challenging experiments and other scientific stuff to occupy our busy minds. On here the only one with a full-time job is you. The rest of us will take turns looking after the boat, and even that is not very engaging.'

The radio blasted out another repeat of the message they had replied to fifteen minutes ago. The built-in time lag was working.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Twelve

ORION

Two weeks later, and the John Garbou tragedy has not been fully investigated. All of the suits have had their seals inspected and changed if necessary, but nothing else seems to have been done.

Doctor Michelle Romero had just finished writing her report of the confinement exercise, this felt like a real situation, for she'd lived it with them. In the end there was no drama, just the way the Astronaut Corps liked it.

The phone screen glowed into life on her desk. When she tapped it, Ash's face appeared.

'Hi, Ash. What can I do for you today?'

His demeanour was serious,

'Can we meet for coffee? I have some news for you.'

'Ok, usual place?'

'No, how about Coney's Diner on Kemah Boardwalk for a change?'

'Ok, sounds serious Ash.''

'No, it's not too bad; it's why we're here really.'

'Ok. Look I have to finish this off here, how about lunch? I hear they do excellent Nachos at Coney's. We could share the Guacamole.'

'Sounds good to me, Michelle. Shall we say 13 hundred?'

'Roger that, good buddy, see you then.'

She turned to her paperwork as the screen turned blank.

At exactly five minutes to one p.m. they both pulled into the car park at Coney's Diner. She had come from her office in the Gilruth Centre, he had to travel from the other side of the massive Johnson Space Centre. He was pleased that he had chosen this diner, there was not likely to be anyone from the program in here at this time.

They blinked behind sunglasses in the sun's glare as they walked towards each other. She was pleased that he was smiling, he had sounded so serious on the phone.

Meeting before they got to the end of the parking lot, they took hold of each other's hands and kissed in greeting.

'Let's get some air con,' Ash said, 'before we melt.'

Upon entering the coolness of the establishment, they made their way to a booth near a window. Before the waitress made her way across to them he picked up the menu, gave it a cursory look and looked at Michelle, passed it to her saying,

'Nachos?'

She waved the menu away saying,

'Yes, that will do fine.'

They both looked out of the window, then around at the people in the diner. She looked at him as the waitress approached.

'Hi, I'm Debby-Emma, I'll be your waitress today. What may I get for you?'

Ash placed the menu back in its stand,

'We'll have nachos to share and two cappuccinos, please.'

When she had moved away Ash leant forward a little,

'You are probably wondering why I have called you here today.'

'You seem to forget that I have access to all major decisions made on this program, sir.'

'Well, this one has only just been decided upon, so it will not hit the web yet, until the fine details are sorted.'

Michelle could see the matter was serious as he continued,

'We need to visit the 'Phoenix' again. There is a team up there already, as you probably know. When they come back I will be leading the team to replace them. I'm afraid I will be away for five weeks, but it may be extended to two months. It appears that the build has moved forward a lot faster than anticipated.'

He took her hand, and looked into her eyes,

'I feel we have moved a lot closer over the last few weeks and am afraid that I will miss you more than I have missed anything before.'

'Yes Ash, I know what you mean. This has grown much stronger and faster than I expected too. I am feeling the same way, but it is what you joined up for. I will be able to keep in touch with you. It isn't as if I don't know where you are!'

The meal then arrived with their coffee.

As they worked their way through the large black plate of nachos he talked about the upcoming mission,

'The old training groups of Sarsen Red, Blue, Yellow and Green are being depleted due to the missions, and the loss of John Garbou, but they will be running with them for the time being.'

'What are you going to be doing on the 'Phoenix', Ash?'

'Part of the rebuild. The robots have developed new structures for the 'Phoenix', we have to go up and familiarise ourselves with them and write manuals for safe operations; the robots have not yet got the hang of man and machine interfaces.'

Just over three hours before lift-off, Preston Ashton and Mark Singleton led the small group of four white-clad astronauts out to the old crew bus that would take them out to the launch vehicle. Just like the astronauts that went to the moon over a generation ago, they carried their own portable life support 'bags' to the same bus used by the Apollo spacemen. One difference this time was the fact that there were two women in the crew; Mary-Jo Shelton and Galina Danilenko followed the men on to the bus.

The vehicle they approached stood 370 feet tall, even more when you take into consideration the hold down mechanism it stood on. This is the Space Launch System, capable of lifting slightly over 100 tons into space – not just low Earth orbit; these things go out of the effect of Earth's gravity altogether.

Orson La Hoya and Tom Bennet, who help them negotiate the journey from the elevator to the Orion capsule by way of the crew entry gantry, escort them. Then they accompany the four astronauts in the elevator. It is at the end of this contraption that they are met by the signing out crew who help them enter the cramped capsule. This is a task they have done on many times during training, the big difference this time is they are entering a real live spacecraft that is prepared for launch.

Ash slid in feet first. As captain he needs to get to the other side of the capsule.

As he settled into his moulded seat he adjusted the straps, wires and pipes. He experienced prelaunch events. These are either heard or felt, and combine to create a relatively low and constant background noise including the sounds of environmental control, propellant replenishment, and propellant boil off and low volume purges.

Mark turned to the women by the entrance door. Speaking via radio links because of the clear air-tight domes around their heads he said,

'Who drew the next highest card?'

The exact sequence of who enters the capsule has to be carefully worked out depending upon the duties to be performed by each of the astronauts.

'I got a nine.' Mary-Jo joined in the jape, whilst the signing-out crew stood around waiting to assist the astronauts, should they decide that one of them wanted to enter next. It should be Galina.

'I got a ten.' Mark held his hand up in celebration.

Then Galina added,

'I also got a ten.'

Mark and Galina looked at each other, then a dual cry went out over the radio,

'FIGHT.'

Both astronauts faced each other, dome to dome. Galina held a very stern and determined expression, Mark on the other hand was beginning to corpse as they swung at each other with their only free hand.

Back in the control centre Jem Stringer wondered what was going on.

'Systems Operations to Sign-out, what the hell is going on up there, Orson?'

Galina then said through gritted teeth,

'You're going to re-entry now, the quick way.'

'Just a bit of boy on girl action.' Orson replied, 'best of three falls or submissions I think.'

There was a lot of tension in a launch; especially for the people about to blast off from planet Earth into the most alien environment conceivable, so a bit of horse-play is tolerated.

Mark then stood back,

'I see you have brought your handbag,' he said, pointing at Galina's life support bag, 'Ladies first.' He concluded, offering his hand in mock assistance.

'Thank you, kind sir. Is this the powder room?'

'I certainly hope not!' Ash called from within the capsule. He was busy checking things in his station. All the time there was a tussle going on outside, he ignored it with a fairly constant stream of check list items from him to the Flight Dynamics Officer.

'Auxiliary hydraulic pump off, pressurise supply and purge spheres, LOX/LH2 chilldown pump test...'

Galina slid down into the number two seat. Orson La Hoya followed her in to secure Ash's straps and check his equipment stowage. When positioned in their moulded seat the astronauts have limited movement and vision, so it was Orson's job to check and adjust things that the astronaut cannot easily reach.

The stopping or starting of operations or the turbulent flow of gasses and liquids causes significant noises and vibrations.

Mark and Mary-Jo stood outside waiting until Orson reappeared. Tom Bennett stood with them and the rest of the sign-out crew whose job it was to perform final checks and preps on the outside of the capsule.

Mark turned to Mary-Jo and said,

'Rock, paper, scissors?'

'Ok.' She replied as she began shaking her free fist like a mallet.

'One, two, three.'

Mark made a rock Mary-Jo made paper.

'That's me.' She said in an imitation of girlish excitement, 'Does that mean I can have a go next?'

Orson reversed out of the capsule,

'Next on board the sky rocket Orion.' He turned to Mary-Jo, 'have you got your skyrocket wristband, madam?'

She twisted as if to take a swing at him with the life support bag.

'I think we can overlook it this time, but you must have one to be allowed back on to the planet.' He said as he continued with the important job of helping her into the third seat, near the door. Then Mark just slipped in through the entrance hatch onto his seat.

Pre-close hatch checks were all made, and then the hatch was closed and sealed. Mark sat with the hatch on his right side, so it was his job to check that it was closed and sealed properly.

In the following two hours the crew was busy checking and initiating things, Ash and Mary-Jo were involved with preparing the four main engines.

Mark checked the gasses, fuel, LOX, pressures and valves.

Galina checked everything on the life support systems.

The gantry retracted 30 minutes before lift-off; this is known as T-30 minutes.

At the same time the pressurisation of the Instrument Unit supply sphere ceases. Then the pressurisation of the first stage begins. This is the way the SLS begins to live and breathe. The different sounds and vibrations will increase and lower, join and disconnect. At T-4.3 seconds (four point three seconds before lift-off) all internal and external sounds are drowned out by the simultaneous ignition of four gigantic SSME rocket engines, and two boosters, developing 7.6 million pounds thrust. Enough to lift this vehicle, which weighs almost 3,800 tons, and accelerate it to 250 mph before it leaves the tower. One minute after lift-off the whole spacecraft exceeds the speed of sound, travelling straight up.

The noise and vibration inside the capsule rises and rises until the crew thinks it cannot get any worse. Then it does. Communication is impossible, now the severe vibrations effect even vision. As the craft lifts off the effects of gravity are exaggerated by acceleration.

At T+01:15.6 seconds the crew experience maximum dynamic pressure, the vehicle begins Pitch and Roll manoeuvres to allow for navigation down the range, over the Atlantic Ocean, heading in an easterly direction, permitting the spacecraft to use the rotation of the Earth to its advantage.

Ash was watching the attitude indicator; this now showed a pitch rate that exceeds four degrees per second. This means that the guidance system that is trying to point the rocket in a certain direction, in this case 070 degrees, is having trouble altering the control systems that makes the whole vehicle point in the given direction. Too much workload caused by the spinning of the vehicle can, and will, cause it to break up. The main engines are still running at 93% power.

The 'Abort Request' lights light up in four positions in front of all four astronauts.

The Orion spacecraft has an excellent Launch Abort System, but the question here is, do the crew use it at such an early stage and after so much preparation?

Mark immediately checked the status of the actuators,

'All actuators clear and good.' Next the main engines,

'All engines running. All pressures ok.'

Houston then came on,

'Orion, Thrust Chamber Pressure looks fine, FDO limits close, Guidance failure light.'

Ash then called to all,

'Abort Request cancelled. We can ride this out. Bypassing the Auto Guidance System. Galina, can you shut down the Guidance computer, then reboot it. In the meantime, I will hold it manually. Houston, how long before first stage shutdown?'

'Orion, 53 seconds to booster jettison, 1 minute seven seconds to first stage shutdown.'

Ash hoped he could hold it within flight dynamics limits for just over I minute.

'Orion, if you do not have the main guidance computer on line before ten point seven seconds after shutdown, you will have to burn the ullage rockets manually.'

'Will separation happen automatically then?' asked Ash.

'Yes, but the Upper Stage will have to be switched over manually.'

Then the boosters stopped working, two seconds later they fell away as the main engines continued burning.

Mark then spoke,

'Upper Stage ready, Ash. Tell me when, and it will be activated. All pressures ok.'

Ash was beginning to sweat as he fought to control the spinning, vibrating beast, then Houston came on the radio again,

'Orion, FDO limits are now exceeded, Q ball exceeds 3 psi, time to get out, guys.'

They are now forty miles high, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Slightly over two minutes ago they were sitting on the pad waiting for main engine ignition.

The vibrations were now so bad that, when Ash reached up to throw the Automatic Abort Switch he found that he couldn't focus his hand enough to manipulate the switch. He looked across at his crew. The sweat ran down into his eyes, he blinked to clear it. At the same time the main engines shut down on schedule. He returned to manually controlling the vehicle as the vibrations slowed.

'Guidance Computer booting up, but I will have to update the information in it before we can use it again.' Galina called.

'Upper Stage ready, Skip.' Mark said.

Then the first stage separated cleanly.

'Ok, Mark, fire up the Upper Stage.'

Mark threw three switches that opened systems and valves in the Upper Stage.

'Orion stand by to fire the Upper Stage Ullage motor for four point five seconds.'

This rocket gives some gravity forces to seat the fuel for the main Upper Stage engines.

The used first stage separated cleanly and automatically on command from the Upper Stage computers. The Upper Stage rockets now carry the vehicle beyond low Earth orbit to rendezvous with the 'Phoenix' Interplanetary Craft.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Thirteen

HANDOVER

The new crew, consisting of Ash, Mary-Jo Shelton, Galina Danilenko and Mark Singleton took over from the old crew on board Phoenix. Returning to Earth were Sergei Chopov, Hoshi Masuto and Tom Collins.

Ash had approached the 'Phoenix' docking station in the simulator at least thirty times. Every time the engineers put some problem in the way. This time it was for real. Even the lighting was exactly the same as the simulator, but brighter, much brighter outside – with very dark shaded areas. But the difficulties put into the simulator very rarely happened. This time was no exception; the docking went smoothly, the interconnecting door opened effortlessly, the smiling faces of Tom Collins and Sergei Pavel greeted Ash as he floated through to the 'Phoenix' again. However, things were very different this time; the Orion capsule docked on the end of the Columbus Module, as normal – but the inside of the old laboratory is now a very different thing.

In the old Columbus the whole structure was designed and built as a laboratory to be operated in near zero-gravity conditions. Now it has been restructured for use in a gravity condition. Like a tube standing on end, the living quarters resembled the inside of a lighthouse. There are still elements of the laboratory on the walls; they are there to provide a more acceptable square wall and to provide some protection from cosmic rays. The reason for this transformation is the future use to be made of the Destiny, Harmony, Columbus and Unity modules from the ISS. They had been disassembled, transported to a higher orbit at 100 miles above the ISS, and then re-assembled to form the main components of the 'Phoenix'. This is to be the space ship that takes man to Mars.

As Ash looked out of the window at 'Phoenix' for the first time he marvelled at the sight of the cruciform ship before him.

The modules are built into a long segmented structure of living and working areas 460 feet long and up to 15 feet wide. They are intersected by the white rocket that is known as White Sarsen. The ends of these arms are equipped with docking facilities for the two Orion capsules that can be used for re-entry.

The cross shape was enforced by the open-work structure that intersected the living modules. This carried the nuclear reactors that had to be kept away from humans.

A gigantic rocket had now appeared to form the for-and-aft part of this cross-shaped assembly.

The gravity was to be provided by turning this whole apparatus slowly. Because each arm is 230 feet long from the centre, the rate of rotation is quite slow, about 2 revolutions per minute, in order to induce one gravity force at the end.

On the six to nine months journey to Mars the Orion capsules will be used as living quarters. A lot of the equipment will be stripped out to facilitate this. Two people will be able to sleep in one-G conditions at either end. The human body responds better in such conditions. The modules just above the capsules can house another two crew at zero point eight five G at floor level, the further up you go in this structure the lighter you get, until at the centre you are weightless. There will be no sensation of movement, so the only feeling is one of strange change in gravity from feet to head.

But now the astronauts that have just met are weightless, because the ship is stationary.

'Good to see you guys.' Tom Collins greeted Ash and his crew,

'There have been some developments here, both inside and out.' He continued.

Ash replied as he held out his hand to stop himself from spinning,

'That is what we are here for.' He looked around the room they were in as Mary-Jo Shelton drifted up to his position.

'This looks very nice, very bijou.' She said as she floated around examining the walls.

'It didn't look like this before.' Ash explained.

'You mean you did it all for me?' she asked Tom.

Tom smiled before replying,

'This is only the tip of the iceberg, just wait until you see the outside.'

Then Galina drifted out of the Orion capsule,

'Hi Tom, Sergei. Ready to go home?'

'Just as soon as we complete the handover briefing, have you got Mark on board there with you?' Tom asked as he moved to one side in order for Mary-Jo and Galina to drift past.

'Present and correct.' Mark Singleton drifted out of the capsule, the Liverpool football club shirt looking out of place on a space station.

'Just prepping the bus for your return journey.' He said to Tom and Sergei.

Tom began as the women turned to face him again,

'The problem is, there is so much to cover, it would take longer than we have time here for, but to be as brief as I can. Inside you can see what is being done, that is self-explanatory. Outside is a different story, I believe that is what you have been sent up for.'

Ash replied,

'Yes, we understand that there have been unscheduled changes that need familiarising with and writing up.'

Tom rubbed his hands together,

'Good luck with that one. I presume you will be filming and photographing the new stuff Mark?'

'Yes. They have finally decided to dispense with the drawings. I think that is because there are no conceptual drawings to base from.'

'That's right, as you will see when you get out there you will find quite a lot of new stuff but be careful.'

Ash then said,

'They have given us a reasonable idea of what to expect, but it is the detail, particularly how we fit into it all we have to be concerned about; the man/machine interface if you like. But you said be careful, we always are, it is part of our training and way of life. You made it sound as if there is special care needed. Did something happen out there, Tom?'

Tom thought carefully,

'Nothing too disturbing. Dmitri Chopov, the Russian, had a strange situation. He was working on the new high-gain antenna when he disappeared into the structure. We couldn't contact him for eight minutes, then he re-appeared ok. He says that nothing happened, and he was only out of contact for two minutes, according to his reckoning'

Then Galina began swatting in front of her eyes, as if there were something there.

'Oh, what, what.' She exclaimed.

Tom looked knowingly at Ash,

'Dots of light?' he said to Galina.

Then Mary-Jo began the same strange waving.

'Yes.' They both said together.

'We believe that to be sub-atomic particles released when stars are formed within galaxies.' Tom explained,

'They do not cause any harm. Try closing your eyes.' He knew what would happen.

'Wow!' This time it was Mark who exclaimed,

'They don't go away!'

'No, Mark.' Sergei turned to the women, who had now opened their eyes wide,

'That is because the particles are not in front of your eyes. They have passed through everything, including you, your head, the ship, everything. They are sub-atomic particles, bits of atoms, if you like, therefore too small to detect, except when they interact with the optic nerve.'

Sergei is a nuclear physicist specialising in sub-atomic particle physics. He continued,

'It sometimes occurs here, but not often. It is because we are out beyond the Van Allen Belt. We don't think it is harmful; the particles are so small they actually pass through individual atoms. The only atoms in the human body that can even detect these particles are the light sensitive atoms that go to make up the light receptors in the back of the eye.'

Mary-Jo shook her head and blinked,

'It's gone now.' She looked at Galina, they both shook their heads and the handover continued.

'Mark,' Tom continued, 'You will find the high gain antenna transponders have been moved outside, but access inside has been improved, especially if there is a trace of gravity.'

Dmitri Chopov came up to the group,

'I will load our stuff, if you could make way.'

'Sorry, Dmitri. Just about finished now.' Tom led the newcomers to another part of the much-changed space station as Hoshi Masuto and Dmitri began moving packages into the Orion capsule.

When the goods and belongings had been loaded the departing crew consisting of Tom and Dmitri entered the capsule and returned to Earth.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Chapter Fourteen

ALIEN

Mary-Jo Shelton had not done a real live space walk before, so Ash led the way out of the Quest air lock. He floated by the entrance as he waited to help his comrade out of the lock. Mary-Jo was naturally amazed and overwhelmed by the vastness of the space around; she turned and looked at the Earth. The light reflected from the pale blue planet that now filled 160 degrees of her vision made her blink at first. She thought about lowering the black visor, but didn't want to lose a single detail.

Then she felt the touch of Ash as he reminded her of the importance of the tethers and hand holds all over the structure.

He pointed to the high gain antenna,

'That's where we are going.'

'Ok, Ash. Lead the way.' She concentrated on the handles and the tether re-attachment procedures. Ash kept a wary eye on her as he did the same. Presently they arrived at the high gain antenna. Ash looked around the structure for the first time from this high vantage point.

'What the hell is that?' he said to no-one in particular.

Mary-Jo looked in the direction that Ash seemed to be looking but found it difficult to turn quickly.

His tone changed as he said,

'That's definitely not one of ours.'

'What is it, Ash?'

'I don't know. That's the problem. There is something out there by the engines.'

'Could it be one of the robots?' she asked.

'I know the robots we are using out here, but that is not one of them.' He said, 'Get behind the antenna; I don't like the look of this.'

Ash felt himself begin to perspire in the spacesuit. Sweating is not a good thing inside these devices. He used the small mirror on the inside of his sleeve to see the temperature control on his chest. With his other hand he turned the control knob a little to cool himself down.

Then he realised that he had not yet fastened his tether on to the structure. Parts of his visor began to mist up as he turned to look at the spaceship that was now further away than he expected. Ash moved his hand to grab at the closest rail, instead of the inside of the gloved hand contacting the banister, the outside of his fingers caught it; thereby pushing him away. Only by the width of his fingers, but he was no longer able to touch the ship.

He looked around at the object; it looked like a gleaming silver sphere.

He couldn't make out how many legs it had, but there seemed to be more than three. A flash of light emitted from the end of one of its arms. Ash looked back at the ship as he squirmed in an effort to regain contact.

He saw the useless anchor end of his tether floating in space. He grasped the line and tried to use it like a lasso to hook on to the structure. As he threw it, his arm movement caused him to turn in the opposite direction to the throw, so he couldn't see the result because he was now facing outer space. Neither could he see the alien.

'Shit.'

Mary-Jo turned to see her companion facing the wrong way, turning slowly, with a loose tether. She checked her own tether was secure before jumping towards Ash. They collided gently. He was not expecting this. He had just been watching an alien life form, not knowing what was likely to happen next. Then he was hit from behind; the direction in which he had seen the extra-terrestrial.

'Arghhh.' He called involuntarily.

Mary-Jo moved one hand around his waist as Ash remembered the long silvery arms the creature seemed to have.

'Come to mummy.' Mary-Jo said in a low gentle voice as she pulled on the tether to bring them both to the ship.

They both touched down together. Ash made sure he was attached before looking up for the creature.

'Thanks, Mary-Jo. Did you see it?'

'What?'

Ash watched the strange silver object as it disappeared behind the body of the big rocket. He took hold of Mary-Jo,

'Mission abort, mission abort. Let's get back inside.' He waited for Mary-Jo to unfasten her tether, and then said,

'This is an emergency. Let's go.' With that he hooked his short tether on to her and made a dive for the air lock. Loose in space, they were at great danger of missing and drifting off, but Ash knew what he was doing. As they approached the air lock he reached out and easily grabbed a passing hand rail. As they arrived by the hatch he began quickly opening the portal as he tied to look around, towards the rocket, but he was now on the far side of the structure, the water tank was blocking his view. Then the peculiar object came back into view, and he could see that it had four arms on the upper body. With three more holding on to the space ship structure; at least one in contact at any given time as it moved, Ash also noticed that these parts altered their length. With two heads it was definitely not one of ours. Once inside, the hatch was quickly closed, air hissed back as he began preparing to remove his helmet.

Mary-Jo was first to speak,

'Was there something amiss?' she said, knowing this was no drill, so there must have been.

'Did you not see it out there? The silver object out by the rear of the rocket?'

'No, I couldn't help looking at the Earth. It is very distracting.'

She helped him to remove the tether that held them together.

'That was not one of ours.' Was all he kept repeating.

Mary-Jo had never seen Preston Ashton like this before. It was as if he had seen something that didn't come from our world – and he was right, it didn't come from Earth at all.

Inside the 'Phoenix' things were thrown into turmoil. An emergency re-entry into the spacecraft is no minor matter; everyone knew there was something happening. Mark Singleton was working with Gerald the android in the Destiny module at the far end of the ship when he heard the buzzer sounding to alert the crew that someone was about to re-enter the space craft and may need assistance. As a precaution the air lock makes a note of everyone who leaves the safe confines of the space ship, it also takes note of when they expect to return. This has proved to be of great use in past space-walks when astronauts have lost comms and needed assistance upon re-entry.

Galina was working with the remaining EVA suits just outside the Quest air lock, inside the Harmony module, when the alarm went off. She was able to watch through a small window as Ash and Mary-Jo entered the lock.

White air hissed into the air lock as the pressure equalised. Ash watched the oxygen content gauge as it slowly crept towards the magical 90 per cent when he could remove his helmet. He felt as if his head wanted to burst inside the glass globe that supplied air for him to breathe. As the gauge touched 90% he turned his helmet to the right to release the airtight locking mechanism. With a slight hiss due to the pressure in his suit being slightly higher than the air pressure in the air lock his helmet became detached from his suit. Mary-Jo did the same. As they lifted their helmets, the visors immediately steamed up due to the conditions. Drops of water ran down the insides as they took them off.

Galina stood by to open the inner door as soon as pressure was equalised. She spun the opening wheel, then dragged the door open to greet Mary-Jo and Ash.

Ash shook his head as he relayed the story to Galina and Mary-Jo,

'Out there on the structure is something that we have not created. It does not look like an animal, but that could be a sort of mechanical suit. All I know is; it ain't one of us.'

Then Mark floated through from the Unity module.

'What's occurring?' he asked.

'I don't know, Mark.' Ash told him,

'There is something out there that should not be there, I don't know what it is, or where it came from. But one thing I do know is that we didn't make it – it is not from Earth.'

'Bloody hell.' Mark responded with surprise verging on shock,

'What can we do? What did it look like?'

'Difficult to judge size out there, but it is silver, with four arm things, three legs and two heads. It seemed to move across the surface of the structure with unsettling ease. It may be looking for a way in; in which case we may well have given the game away.' He looked truly frightened.

Gerald then floated into the Harmony module. He looks like a fifth member of the team, but he is n android. The appearance of a 'man' working on the outside of the spaceship in shirtsleeves without a spacesuit can be alarming, so he tends to stay inside. This also fits in better with his job of man-machine interfacing.

'I heard your report as I moved through the ship. I must apologise, Mr Ashton, Ms Shelton. You seem to have had a shock.'

Everyone was floating around in weightless conditions. He stabilised his position as he addressed the distraught space-walkers,

'What you saw out there does not come from Earth, as you rightly say. What you saw is our own creation. We have been designed to learn and adapt to our surroundings and given tasks. This means that we grow. But we do not sleep or rest, so at first, we grew and developed at a rate about three times faster than expected. But now we have evolved exponentially. Our development is so great that we could not even report it to Earth, so we have you on board here to find out first-hand what we have done here.'

Gerald turned to Ash,

'This is another development we have made up here, but we are now finding that we are being slowed down by lack of exact knowledge about what humans can do and how you interact with what we have developed here and will develop in future. It is no good us making improvements that you cannot use; after all, you are what it is all about.'

Ash was relieved,

'Thank Christ for that. I thought the Martians had sent us a greeting before we even set off!'

Mark said,

'That's not the half of it. Gerald here has shown me things we can only just conceive of, and they have made them, tested them and they all work.'

Ash, still in his space suit, found that he couldn't hook his feet under the grab bar to keep from drifting. Mary-Jo has already had to touch the 'roof' to maintain position

He turned to Gerald,

'Well, it looks as if we shall be in your hands from now on.'

'I certainly hope not, Mr Ashton. We were sent up here to do a job, that job is to help you to perform your task. We will build a vehicle that can take you to Mars.'

Galina then asked,

'And back?'

'Yes, Ms Danilenko, we shall ensure that you get back.'

Mary-Jo then asked,

'How? Our people have not yet perfected a method to bring us back.'

Gerald moved his arms around himself and smiled,

'This is how. We have taken the original idea of using parts of the original ISS, and parts of rockets and replenishment vehicles to build a ship. This is a ship that is capable of not only making the journey to Mars, but can also return you from Mars.'

Mark then added the observation with his head on one side,

'And these developments have been so rapid that you could not keep us informed?'

'That is quite right, Mr Singleton. There are now seven of us up here. We each have evolved at such a rate that it would be a full-time job for at least seven departments on Earth to keep track of us. So, long ago we decided that that would be a complete waste of our time and yours to attempt this, so we continued with the work to the best of our abilities.'

Mary-Jo was quite non-plussed by this development,

'The people on Earth have no idea about this 'Phoenix' ship?'

'Of course, they have, Ms Shelton. That is how they managed to send you. But they do not fully comprehend the capabilities of it.'

Mark rubbed his chin,

'Apart from the time consideration, surely there must be a way you could at least send notification of developments within the build as you went along?'

'Yes. There are ways to do that. But then we have to decide when to send, and which version is most up to date. You see,' he seemed to pause to put his thoughts in order,

'You see. You think I am here describing developments to you. Well, of course I am, but at the same time the robots you know as Stuart, Steve, Scuttles and Skittles are busy carrying on the work here. We work like a network – this is something Dr. Masuto was particularly interested in. We have, as I said, evolved. We have evolved into an integrated thinking and communicating system. We are all thinking about what is going on, and what developments can be made, simultaneously.'

'You said there are seven of you out here.' Mark observed,

'With you, Stuart, Steve, Scuttles and Skittles. Plus, our silver friend out there. That only makes six. How many more have you made, and how many will you be producing?'

'You are right. There are only six like me, and the ones you have mentioned. But in the new centre section of the ship, the part where the arms of the cross meet each other, we have built a sort of production facility. This has the same thought processes and communications as the rest of us, so we tend to think of it as part of the whole – which it is.'

Mark was actually rocked back. He had to re-hook his feet.

'And exactly what is it producing right now?'

Mark looked at Ash,

'No more nasty surprises, if you don't mind.'

'No more surprises.' Gerald said,

'The biggest problem we have yet to solve is how to get you on to the Martian surface. This is not too difficult but getting you back to the ship is proving to be a bigger obstacle.'

Ash then said,

'Well, according to my calculations you have about fourteen months, maybe more. That must be equivalent to about 24.5 years taking into consideration your development and evolution.'

'That is not strictly true, Mr Ashton. You have based your calculations on our primary development. We began evolving from that day at an exponential rate. By the end of day two we were twice as capable as at 24 hours before. 24 hours later that had risen to twice the original increase.' He saw that Galina had difficulty following this,

'If we presume the development by the end of day one to be 100 per cent, by the end of day two we doubled it to 200 per cent. By the end of day three it doubled to 400. Day four it became 800. Day 5, 1,600. On day six that was doubled. And so on. The equivalent time scale is incalculable – even for us. So have no fears, we shall find a solution. The only limitation we have is the raw materials.'

Ash asked Gerald,

'This thing we saw is part of the ship, produced by you guys up here?'

'Yes, Dr Ashton. He is on our side, working on the rocket engines.

Ash turned to Mary-Jo,

'Well, that covers it for me. Shall we continue where we left off?'

'We got a job to do Ash. Let's do it.'

With that they thanked Gerald and drifted back to the air lock.

Galina saw them into the lock and closed the hatch. She watched as they put on their helmets, tested them. They told her that everything was ok.

After the air had been pumped out of the air lock, the outer hatch opened. Once again Ash led the way. The first thing he did was look for Silver. The robot was working near the centre section of the spaceship. He thought he might wave to it but thought better of it. Mary-Jo floated out of the airlock, grabbed one of the handles near the top, swung round like a pro, and then closed the hatch.

'Let us start with the high gain.' Ash said to Mary-Jo.

They made their way across to the high gain antenna by almost swinging from handhold to handhold. Upon arriving they began the laborious task of preparing to work with power tools whilst wearing a space suit. The new Mars Mission suits they were wearing are much better than the old Apollo Mission suits that were developed from Cold War U-2 and SR-71 outfits that had more in common with a diving bell than a space suit.

Mary-Jo carefully hooked her tether on to the structure as Ash checked the opposite side to see what type of tool they needed to gain access.

'The first two panels have opened quite easily.' She told Ash and Galina, who were monitoring this space-walk.

'Ok. This side seems harder, being exposed to the heat of the sun. The panels must have expanded and contracted.' He strained to put a little more pressure on them,

'But we have the technology.' He removed a small pry bar from his utility belt,

'We shall conquer.' The panel sprang open almost on the threat of the use of force.

'Ok. I'm in.' Ash called.

Mary-Jo knew what to look for. But the robots had redesigned the whole thing, so it did look different.

'There is a plate here that looks as if it needs to come out first.' She noticed.

Gerald replied from inside the ship,

'Is there a number on it?'

'Yes.' She moved closer to allow the lights on her helmet to illuminate the work zone; her gloved hand brushed an area where writing could be discerned as if that would make any difference.

'Looks like EB, that is echo bravo, two. Dash ten. Dash two nine eight.'

'Yes, that will have to be removed; it is safe to do so. But be careful, it will be very cold.' Gerald advised the astronaut.

'Ok. Roger that.'

Mary-Jo managed to remove the plate that looked like it carried a heat exchange system.

'Echo Bravo now removed.' She reported. It drifted on its little tether. 'I am now moving in to remove bolts that hold the main unit in place. I am expecting these to be tight.'

She took a torque tool from her utility belt. Taking hold of the ship's structure with one hand, and the big contraption in her right hand she fired it up. There is no sound in space, but she felt the vibration as the apparatus tried to persuade the first bolt to move.

It did not move, but the tool did. Mary-Jo had to take hold of the torque tool with both hands to steady it. The torque began to turn Mary-Jo. Then it slipped. Mary-Jo was thrown away from the structure into the harsh sunlight. The tool now drifted alongside her as she floated gently away from the 'Phoenix'.

'Damn.' Was all she said as she relied on her tether to return her to the ship. She waved around to take hold of it. As her right hand touched the tether it parted company with the ship's structure. Mary-Jo began drifting away. What she didn't realise was that as she began moving she had kicked the structure. This meant that she was moving quite quickly and turning head over heels at a rate of about six seconds per turn.

'Ash, I think I have a problem here.' She called.

Ash looked round the high gain antenna to see Mary-Jo drifting off.

She called,

'I am going to fire my thrusters to slow down my spin before attempting a return.'

These are little nitrogen powered rocket outlets with valves attached to various points around the space suit that will give small thrusts to allow an astronaut to manoeuvre about to a certain extent. They could stop the spin, then push her gently back to where she can be rescued or take hold of the structure again.

Ash offered support and advice, 'Ok, I'm watching. Make small delicate touches first to stop the spin.'

Mary-Jo gave a little touch to the thruster control.

The thruster mounted on the top of the big pack on her back, facing backwards went off at full blast. The resultant spin threw her head back violently, and her arms out. She tried shutting it off but was unable to. Then the one over her other shoulder facing forwards began firing sporadically. In split second bursts it made the whole situation worse. She was moving away at an alarming rate now. Spinning and turning, thrashing and smoking, the hapless astronaut was getting smaller as Ash watched,

'I'm on my way.' He called as he began unhooking his tether.

'NO. You cannot get back from there.' Gerald had already done the calculations,

'You may have enough thruster fuel to get there, but there will not be enough to allow you to turn and return. You will both be spinning and drifting out there. Please return to the ship, we can work something out.'

Mary-Jo called again, sounding scared,

'Ash, I can't see anything. The stars are a blur, the Earth keeps flashing past. I don't know where I am. I cannot see the 'Phoenix'. My thrusters have run out of nitrogen fuel. I am beginning to feel sick.'

'You must not do anything in the space suit. Close your eyes; there is no gravity, so you will not feel the effects of turning. We have a track on you, so will be bringing you back soon.' Ash tried to reassure her.

'Roger that, Ash. Oh, my god.' She cried, 'The effects of centrifugal force make it impossible to close my eyes without feeling more nauseous.'

Galina from the ship then called,

'If you could just hang on in there, Mary-Jo. We are putting a mission together to get you. Will keep you posted.'

Mary began to sound weaker,

'Ok, got you, Galina. I have sufficient oxygen for some...'

The transmission ended weakly.

Galina spoke to Ash,

'Ash, we have lost comms with Mary-Jo. I think she has drifted out of range.'

'Yes,' Ash agreed, 'These suit radios are fairly short range.'

He entered the air lock, to be greeted by Gerald.

'What can we do, Gerald? We cannot leave her out there to run out of air or drown.'

'There is nothing we can do, Mr Ashton. Any attempted rescue is doomed to failure; causing the death of another astronaut.'

The blackness of space spun and whirled as Mary-Jo Shelby tumbled further and further away from the interplanetary craft Phoenix.

Ash entered the ship via the air lock for a second time that day, Mark Singleton and Gerald the android greeted him. It was the human-like android, who spoke first,

'There was nothing you could have done out there, sir.'

'Never mind that, what can we do now?' Ash demanded.

'Stuart is keeping a track on Ms Shelby. He now has her three point five miles out, and travelling at twelve miles per hour.'

'How much oxygen does she have left?' asked Mark Singleton.

Ash answered,

'I can't estimate it from my own usage, I have opened up now, but we both left with the same amount; enough for six hours' work. She has been out now for,' he consulted the big watch on the sleeve of his space suit,

'Twenty-three minutes. Do you have any telemetry, Gerald?'

'Steve had all that under control until she drifted out of range for the suit-mounted equipment, the last estimate he can give us is that she will run out in five hours fifteen minutes at the present usage rate.'

'Do we have comms?' Ash asked.

'Not two-way, sir. The suits only have a limited range but can still receive.' Gerald replied, 'One of the ships antenna has been turned to focus our signal and we can put out a stronger signal, but it is in the blind, we cannot receive anything back.'

Ash began drifting towards the ceiling; he touched a bar on the roof to stop the drift as he said,

'Now to the important matter of how are we going to get her back.'

Gerald looked worried at this point as he observed,

'The standard suit mounted thrusters do not have enough fuel to get out there, turn, and then return. To consider any manoeuvres would use up fuel you do not have.' His body began to drift into an almost horizontal position before he corrected, then continued,

'Stuart tells me that there is the possibility that we could adapt one of the proposed re-entry vehicles that is close to completion.'

Ash and Mark asked almost in unison,

'What re-entry vehicle?'

Gerald began to explain,

'We have been working on vehicles that would be capable of landing two people on Mars, then returning them to the Phoenix. It is one of these that Stuart tells me is almost ready for a test flight, it may be possible to use this to rescue Ms Shelby. But there is some work to be done on it before it can be used.'

Mark then asked,

'What work? Can it be readied in time, we don't have long, remember she is getting further and further away.'

Gerald replied,

'I am reassigning Scuttles and Skittles to the task. Skittles was about to repair the broken tether anchor that led to Ms Shelby's accident,'

Ash interrupted him,

'NO. Don't let him repair that. We need to know what went wrong. It may happen again, and we need to know if there is an inherent weakness that may lead to another accident.'

Mark began moving away from the group,

'I'll get suited up, if two people are going, I want to be in there.'

To everyone's surprise it was Gerald who spoke, but it was Stuart's voice that came out,

'That dog ain't gonna hunt. The ship is not ready to take anyone. It is only a framework at this stage, capable of flying some five or six miles, but there is no chance of housing people. If it did find the stray she would have to be more or less strapped to the framework for the return journey.'

Gerald then asked out loud for everyone else's benefit,

'How is this contraption supposed to find Ms Shelby if there is no-one there to guide it?'

The voice of Stuart then took over,

'That is interesting. It has no search or guidance facility at the moment. Neither has it any life support system of any kind, remember it is an experimental vehicle.'

Mark turned back and said,

'So there will have to be someone with it?'

'That is correct, Mr Singleton.' Stuart replied via Gerald.

Galina then observed,

'If Mary Jo has to be strapped to the framework, maybe a pilot could be accommodated in a similar way?'

This time it was Gerald's voice,

'I cannot see how a man can handle the rudimentary controls that Steve and the S-classes are installing as we speak. And being strapped to a structure during any manoeuvres is tantamount to asking for injury. We just do not know how violent these changes in course will be. The return does not pose such problems; it is a straight course because we know where the Phoenix is.' Stuart's voice then came in from Gerald, 'Incidentally, the vehicle will be ready for launch in eight minutes.'

Mark then had a thought,

'Have you installed any communications in this thing, because we cannot rely on suit transmissions at these ranges, and it will be essential to be able to have two-way comms.'

'We did not anticipate the need for comms at this stage of the development.' Gerald admitted.

'Then this whole plan is doomed to failure.' Mark turned away from the group. He held his arms out in frustration as he faced Galina,

'What can we do?'

'Releasing tie-down.' Another voice came from Gerald.

'That is Skittles.' He explained as Stuart's voice overrode his own.

'Pressurising main fuel tanks, purging spheres, chilldown pump test.'

Ash looked at Gerald,

'That sounds like preparations to launch.'

'It is, Mister Ashton. Stuart is going to rescue Ms Shelby.'

Ten seconds later the skeleton craft with a rocket motor at one end and a human shaped robot in tee shirt and jeans sitting on a cross-member as if he was hitching a ride on a friend's bicycle drifted a few feet from the underside of the Phoenix. It then blasted off in the direction that was indicated by another human shaped android called Steve on board the Phoenix. These robots had a very efficient communications system that allowed them to operate as more than a group, more like one vast organic being.

No one knew what he would find when he got to the drifting astronaut. She had been out there spinning and turning for nearly half an hour now, simply trying to overcome the disorientation and constant movement must be almost impossible. The suit was designed to withstand changes in temperature. But the rapidity of the changes as Mary-Jo twisted and turned exposing the suit first to direct sunlight, then to the freezing cold blackness of space was now putting demands upon the life support system that it was not designed to handle. Her hands were thrown out by the centrifugal force. This was not particularly strong, but persistent. However, the main reason to keep her arms outstretched was to prevent the twist being too fast; as she brought her arms in to her sides, the rate of turn increased to an alarming degree, like an ice skater, only with no control whatsoever. Mary-Jo's blood began pooling in her hands. She had to bring them together to rub them, thereby increasing the speed of spin, the stars she could see stopped being indistinct blurs, and disappeared altogether as she whirled faster, turning head over heels at the same time. She dare not close her eyes because that brought on the nausea that presaged being sick in the helmet again. The previous deposit has now disappeared under the centrifugal force of the spin, but she didn't know how much there was, and what would happen when the spinning stopped, if it would ever stop. She has not heard from the Phoenix for some time now.

She continued rubbing her hands together, her elbows began to feel pressure, so she tried to rub them, but to no avail. A blue streak flashed past her visor; that was the Earth. Home: or it was. She remembered having to work hard through High School, and missing out on a lot of parties. She felt this had impacted on her social life, kept her from dating, and allowed her to intensify her studies. She believed that was the only thing that permitted her to achieve a Doctorate in medicine. This in turn meant that she could continue her studies to take in space medicine before qualifying well above her classmates in such a way that she stood out enough to get selected for the Space Corps.

Now she doubted that she would ever see her home planet from closer than the distance she was at now. Then the sun blinded her as it flashed by.

Stuart sat in the framework of an unfinished spacecraft that didn't have a name. It didn't even have an official designation; because it didn't exist as far as the people on Earth who need such nomenclature were concerned. The robots and androids on the Phoenix had built it as a development machine to be used during the trip to Mars to help design and build a re-usable craft that was capable of landing men, robots or supplies on Mars, then returning to the mother ship, the Phoenix. But right now, it was travelling at over 350 miles per hour towards an inverted cone of space, at the point of which is Mary-Jo Shelby. This is how the robots decided to tackle the task of finding the drifting astronaut. You cannot realistically aim at an infinitesimally small point that is drifting away from you, so they establish a search cone one mile deep, with the open end, closest to the Phoenix, half a mile wide. The intention is to reach the lip of this cone, then begin a spiral search towards the target at the tip of the cone.

The machine has no dedicated search equipment, so it relies upon Steve on the Phoenix to guide it. This was not too accurate at these speeds, and Stuart had no throttle controls; he could only switch the rocket motor on or off. He used a four second burn to accelerate towards the lost woman. Now he speeds towards the lip of the cone, Steve was in almost telekinesis contact with him, but even that is not quick enough to avoid Stuart shooting right through the theoretical side of the cone.

Steve immediately re-adjusted the shape and position of the cone. He instructed Stuart to turn towards the point of the new cone. Stuart tried to get the machine to turn, but the directional rockets were not synchronised properly, so the machine's nose began pointing in a circle, then a hexagram. Then Stuart had to shut them down. Next, he told Steve what was happening via their personal, almost telepathic communication. Steve did something with the computers on board the Phoenix, transmitted the resulting information to Stuart, who was then able to reprogram the computers on board the machine.

Mark, Ash and Galina joined Gerald in the navigation room. An advantage of weightlessness is that operators' stations can be much smaller, with no need of a chair; everyone sort of stands up. If more people need the same viewpoint, they literally put their heads together and float there. This navigation station was, however, adapted for use under gravity conditions, so there were chairs fastened to the floor.

Gerald tried to explain what was happening,

'Stuart is now altering course, Steve has changed the cone to allow for Stuart's overshoot. He has now passed the distance we have for Ms Shelby. A slight reprogramming of the computers is needed. Steve now reports that Stuart is twelve miles out and going in the wrong direction.'

Ash then asked,

'How far away is Mary-Jo now?'

Gerald consulted another screen,

'Eight point three miles.'

'Can Stuart communicate with Mary-Jo?' Galina asked.

'As soon as he gets within two miles.' Gerald replied.

Mark then commented,

'Which could be some time with him going in the wrong direction.'

'He is executing a one hundred and eighty degree turn now.' Gerald calmly said,

'That will put him on a direct course to pass within half a mile of Ms Shelby.'

'Is that the best course of action? What will he do then?' asked Ash.

'At that distance he will be able to see the astronaut, then he will decide the best way to continue with the recovery.'

Galina said,

'Don't call it that, it sounds so cold and final.'

'Sorry Ms Danilenko. The rescue.'

Stuart managed to turn the machine to face back towards the Phoenix. He didn't trust the main engine burn to keep him within range of Mary-Jo, so he used all four directional thrusters in the sharp nose of his makeshift spaceship. They used the same fuel supply as the main rocket, but in sips instead of the massive gulps that the main engine gives during a burn. Also, he had more control this way.

Slowly he crept towards the floating, spinning, and drifting Mary-Jo.

Continuously calling on the loudhailer frequency, Stuart hoped to contact a living person out there. At just over two miles he heard,

'Is there someone there? Mission Specialist Shelby in the blind. I have become separated from my ship. I will keep talking to help you home in on my signal. Over.'

'There is no need.' Stuart replied as calm as if it were a game,

'We have a good track on you, and I should be able to see you in the next thirty seconds.'

'That is great news. Now your transmission is getting stronger, I thought I would be able to recognise your voice. But I don't.'

'I am Stuart. You probably met Gerald, I work with him.'

'Ok. This is great, Stuart. Talking helps keep the nausea at bay.'

'I can see you now.'

A tiny white dot against the backdrop of stars was all that Stuart could see, but he knew there was no star there, so it must be Mary-Jo.

She didn't know what to expect. But she now knew that she was about to be rescued. The first thing to happen would be the spinning and turning would stop. Then someone from the ship would help her to safety.

She did not expect what came next.

Stuart manoeuvred his craft to 400 metres of the still spinning and turning astronaut.

He had no rocket thrusters on his tee shirt. Instead, he tied a long tether to his waist. The only thrusters he had available were his legs. He pointed in the direction of Mary-Jo, and then pushed himself off. He drifted quite quickly towards her.

Stuart then passed within metres of her turning arms. She was still spinning too fast to see anything.

The 'ship' he had come in was not substantial enough to reflect any light, so she couldn't see that. He was moving too fast for her to be able to make anything out. Anyway, her eyes had stopped sending information to her brain some time ago to prevent more problems with the nausea, but they didn't notify her of this. It was going to take quite a large movement to bring back her sight.

Stuart pulled on his tether in an attempt to touch one of those spinning arms. He got close, but not close enough. He would have to try again.

On returning to his ship he told Mary-Jo what was happening,

'I was close then but couldn't quite reach you. Here I come again.'

'Ok, ready to welcome boarders.'

This time he was much closer. He knew that to stop the spin by taking her hand would probably tear her arm off, so he planned to position himself alongside her in order to slow the spin gradually. First he had to stop the tumbling. The next time her feet came close enough he touched one of them.

'Whoa! She exclaimed. This was the first touch she had felt since leaving the Phoenix what seemed like a lifetime ago.

The touch had had the effect of reducing her turn by 50%. But it passed this spinning on to him. Without any thrusters he had no option but to return to his ship to cancel out this effect. Whilst there he decided he needed to be much closer, so he manoeuvred the makeshift craft closer in. Then took another leap into the void.

This time he controlled his speed with judicious use of the tether.

'I am going to attempt to slow your spin by touching your hands. You must react to this in any way you feel best to avoid damage.'

This sounded like a strange way to explain things, but she understood, and told him so just as his first touch was felt.

'Ok. Whoa! That felt good. Is it, is it, is it, safe to grip?'

He knew that if he tried to stop the spin by using his hands would result in him spinning, so he used his tether to gradually move in to her fingertips. The first touches seemed to be brushed off by Mary-Jo. But the spinning slowly decreased. As the tether began to bend whenever she hit it, Stuart pulled gently to straighten it. This had the desired effect of bringing him closer as the spinning got to a manageable level he called to her,

'Take hold of the tether whenever you can. I am on the end of it, and then we can make our way to the rescue craft.

'Ok.' She said, the next time the tether came around she tried to grab, but it hit her wrist, her hand could not operate properly, so she missed. But the turn was slow enough now to permit her making a grab with both hands. As it hit the next arm, she folded both arms together.

Stuart gradually drifted towards the now, at last, stationary Mary-Jo. He was on the end of the tether, some three metres away. When she looked around from inside her dirty visor she saw a man in tee shirt and jeans, with no helmet on, out in the depths of space.

'Holy Moley! It's the pizza delivery man. I must be dead, this cannot be real.' She shook her head inside the helmet, not caring about the stuff inside.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Fifteen

RE-ENTRY

A new system of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere has been developed by the robots on the Phoenix.

The Module known as 'Columbus' now looked very different from the one that had been attached to the ISS since February 2008.

Mary-Jo was working in the Columbus module she tried to keep from letting her mind drift back to what she had just experienced, but the focus was just not there; there was a definite lack of prowess in her work.

Galina noticed this, so did the rest,

'You would like to go home, wouldn't you?' she asked quietly during a coffee break.

'Probably,' Mary-Jo replied, 'I can't get over how close I came to being lost in space. We all know how you can get stranded within inches of the ship, standing still, but to be moving away and spinning at the same time.'

Upon return to the Phoenix, Mary-Jo had to rest to recover from her ordeal, whilst she rested Ash and Galina Danilenko went out into space to recover any evidence as to why the tether had come adrift. They found the anchor point had given way in an unexpected way.

Her hands and arms were still badly swollen from being subjected to centrifugal force for a prolonged period. This made most of her work on the Phoenix difficult. Coupled with the trauma of her near escape, it had now become impudent to keep Mary-Jo on the ship.

'I am sure the guys back on Earth would like to see you back down there.' Mark said.

Ash then said,

'The medical people have never had chance to examine anyone who has experienced what you went through. But we have the problem of re-entry. There are only the two Orion Command Modules here on the ship, but they have had a lot of their equipment stripped out in preparation for the journey to Mars. It would take too long to reinstall the re-entry gear. The next Orion mission is not due until the week after next, so it looks like you are stuck up here with us.'

'Not necessarily.' Gerald entered the conversation,

'We have been experimenting with a small re-entry vehicle for use on Mars. There have been three experimental re-entries with garbage for ballast. The last two were completed successfully. They were not intended for Earth re-entry, but we have redesigned them for it, because it was all we had to work with,' he waved an arm towards the looming blue orb of planet Earth,

'Being so close.'

Mark stroked his chin and said,

'Will it take a person? We know about your experiments. It will not do for the poor girl to have to cling to something like Blackpool Tower during re-entry.'

Gerald calmly explained,

'Yes, Mark. It was designed to take two people down to Mars. We have now made two clean re-entries; you can see the gathered data if you like. It shows clearly that a person would have survived intact.'

Ash then commented,

'If this thing was designed to land on Mars with less gravity, and much thinner atmosphere, how can it work for Earth re-entry?'

'I see your quandary, Mr Preston. Yes, it was designed for Mars, but we knew we would only have Earth to experiment and test with, so we designed it to work on Earth, then we simply re-do the calculations for Mars,'

'What do you think, Mary-Jo?' Ash asked.

'These guys are great.' she indicated the robots as represented by Gerald,

'If they say it can be done, it will be done as advertised. I'm game.'

Ash turned to Gerald, shook his hand and said,

'Looks like you have a mission on your hands.'

Ten minutes later Ash was talking to Mission Control at Houston, as he explained the plan, Gerald entered the sideways assembled room in time to hear Hoshi Masuto from Houston ask,

'Do you have a probable area of error for the landing site?'

This is the circle within which the capsule will land. It is normally several miles across due to the vagrancies of the wind and weather.

'Gerald here, Dr Masuto, what ship will you be using for the retrieval? Is it a carrier?'

Hoshi wondered what that could possibly have to do with the question, but answered none the less,

'Yes, the JFK is standing by.'

'Then we shall be landing on the deck, there will be no circle of error. Is there any particular area you would like us to alight upon?'

'What? Parachutes do not give enough control in winds across the deck to allow a safe approach even. We prefer you to alight at least half a mile from our asset.'

'We shall not be using parachutes. We have found that rotors are much more efficient at slowing a descent, being metal they can be deployed earlier than cloth parachutes. And they give nearly as much control as a helicopter. You regularly land helicopters on deck don't you?'

'Of course, yes.'

'Well, this is exactly what we intend to do. If the JFK is too valuable an asset, we can land on a heli-pad on any ship. The capsule weighs considerably less than a naval helicopter, and with the control we have over the rate of decent there is little or no impact.'

By now the whole of the control room was listening intently to this conversation when Hoshi said,

'It is beginning to sound as if you could land on the White House lawn.'

'Is that where you would like us?'

'I was joking, Gerald.'

'Oh, I see. But what you say has merit. Landing on grass is a very acceptable conclusion to our mission - it has more give than the deck of a super-carrier.'

Hoshi could hardly believe her ears as he heard himself say,

'Could you put down in the Armand Bayou Park?' (This is a large park just by the Johnson Space Centre in Houston.)

'We can put down in the soccer field by the Gilruth Centre, building 207, if you like.'

Hoshi looked up at Mike Xanthros, the Mission Director. He was just as stunned as everyone else was; he nodded his approval for the first fully controlled descent from space.

Just over half a day later seven and a half thousand people gathered around the grounds of the Johnson Space Centre to watch a re-entry capsule containing one woman as it glided in full control over Clear Lake. This approach path was taken to keep the capsule over water for as long as possible for safety's sake. At 1,000 feet it actually did a circuit around the perimeter of the Space Centre, demonstrating the level of control.

The two sets of six sickle-shaped rotors were spinning in opposite directions, counteracting the torque from each other that normally tries to turn a normal helicopter; hence the need for a tail rotor. This capsule didn't need a stabilising rotor at the back, it was controlled by altering the workload being put through the contra-rotating rotor system.

Everyone was very impressed; they thought Mary-Jo did a brilliant job of flying this thing. The truth they eventually found out was that the whole thing was flying itself – robots always put a bit of themselves into whatever they design and build.

... . ... ... ...

The next day saw Sergei Pavel and Dmitri Chopov driving down El Dorado Boulevard when Dmitri Chopov's cell phone rang. It was Jem Stringer,

'Hi Dmitri, this is Doctor Stringer calling from Professor Xanthros's office. We have had a report from the Phoenix concerning the High Gain Antenna. You worked on that when you were out there, didn't you?'

'Da. I mean yes. Yes I did some familiarisation work on the High Gain. The robots had done some changes, and I have written it up, plus some training suggestions.'

'Yes, I have seen it, and very good it is. But I would just like to talk these latest developments with you if you could call in later today?'

'I will call in to see Professor Xanthros this afternoon.'

'The Professor will not be available for a couple of days, I'm afraid. I am handling his workload in the meantime. Shall we say 2 this afternoon?'

The Russian knew he had no choice. A request from the Operations Director cannot be ignored, even if it only came from his office; he had the power to see to it that you never went into space again, or even got sent home.

'Ok, I will be there.'

Doctor Jem Stringer heard the call being terminated before he could even say thank you; I'll see you then.

He placed the phone in his top pocket, then methodically fastened the flap over it to prevent accidental fall-out. He learned this lesson the hard way when he was attending a training session by the pool. As he bent forwards to see what was going on under the water the cell fell out. Jake Jensen was the spaceman in the pool at the time. He caught the cell as it fell into the pool. He realised what it was, and put it to his ear, even though he had a full spacesuit on, and was five feet beneath the surface. Then he tapped it and shook his head.

'Nobody gonna call me on this.' He quipped as he threw the now dead phone on to the side of the pool.

Jem turned his attentions to a plastic box on the desk between him and Mary Jo. He took a piece of shiny steel out of it, looked at the buff coloured label on it, then turned to Mary-Jo,

'This looks as if it would never have stopped you from drifting away. Did you give it some strong pull?' he asked.

'Not really, Jem. As far as I recall, I barely touched it. This can be shown in the slow speed at which I drifted away from the ship.'

'That's true. So this failed with very little force being put on it.' He closely examined the part.

'Then your suit failed. I think we had better have a look at that.'

The suits are normally kept on the ship, but this one has been returned to Earth for a full examination of it to ascertain the cause of the incident. Orson Le Hoya is now examining this in his Life Support Bay.

Returning to the tether anchor, Jem said,

'This looks wrong. We have never had a piece fail like this before, even after months of pulling and tugging underwater.'

He replaced the metal object back in the white plastic box in which it had travelled from high Earth orbit back to Houston, along with the space suit.

'Let's go see what Orson has come up with.'

They walked across the compound to where Orson Le Hoya worked on life support equipment.

The Life Support Bay echoed to the sound of the door opening. Orson was examining a small part of Mary-Jo's suit when the pair entered.

'Hi, Orson. What have you get there?' Jem had known Orson for eight years.

'I'm trying to investigate this thruster nozzle without disassembling it. If I have to attack it too much I could destroy what I am looking for.' He put the part down and looked at Mary-Jo and Jem.

'Sorry, Banjo. I didn't know you had company. Hi, Mary-Jo. Gee I sure am glad to see you safe back here. Some adventure you had out there.'

'Not the kind of ride you want to take too often.' She agreed.

Jem was eager to find out what his friend had found out,

'What news from your Rialto then, Orson?'

Orson put down the item he was inspecting and turned to look at the couple in front of him.

'Well, the first thruster I looked at, the number two, had the regulator turned right up, then the retaining nut that is supposed to allow movement was locked down. As if that were not enough the trigger mechanism was bent in such a way that once fired it would never close. The one I am examining here looks as if a foreign object has been introduced to prevent smooth firing, but the thing is moulded together, so I cannot get inside without annihilating it.'

Jem looked closely at the suspect object,

'How about an ultrasound?'

'That could work, Banjo. The thing is only plastic, so the rays will pass right through. Can you fine-tune them to pick up a small delicate part?'

'These guys can enlarge the picture, in colour. Turn it around and zoom in and out. Anything you need.'

'Well, ok. What are we waiting for?'

Twenty minutes later the three people were in another lab, looking at just what Jem had promised when a knock came at the door.

Michelle Romero was keen to hear about developments in the mission. She had hoped that Ash would be coming back with Mary-Jo, but he was needed up there on the nearly ready Phoenix.

'Hi guys. Mind if I sit in?'

Jem answered first,

'Certainly, Michelle. We are trying to get to the bottom of what went wrong with Mary-Jo's spacesuit. This is part of it on the screen here.'

Orson moved a little closer,

'That's it.' He turned to the operator,

'Can we just rotate a little that way, then move up a little. Yes. That should not be there.' He pointed to a curved shape in the centre of the assembly.

'That does not look like contamination, Banjo. I can't see that getting in there any other way than by deliberate insertion knowing it will cause difficulties.'

The two women looked aghast at the evidence.

Jem asked the operator if he could have a hard copy of the picture they were all staring at in disbelief. The man pressed two keys on his keyboard, within seconds Jem had the hard evidence he needed.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

At 1400 exactly Dmitri knocked and entered the Director, Mike Xanthros's office.

Jem Stringer sat comfortably behind the Directors desk. He stood up as Dmitri walked in. they shook hands and sat at opposite sides of the big dark oak desk.

Normal protocol took place, but was soon disposed of, and Jem went straight to the point,

'The tether anchor by the High Gain looks like it had sustained some damage; did you happen to catch it during your time out there in the vicinity?'

'It is always possible, but you cannot feel everything clearly in a bulky Russian space suit. We try not to damage anything, but it is inevitable that things will take an occasional knock. You should see the state of the outside of the ISS after all these years in space with so many space people moving around it. And the outer skin is only about as strong as a coke tin, you know.'

Jem considered producing the plastic box containing the offending part, but decided to move on,

'On the 'Phoenix' who has access to the space suits?'

'We all have access to the suiting area. It is not a separate area that is dedicated to suiting up like you have here on Earth.'

'But accidental damage is unlikely is it not?'

'It takes three people to get one cosmonaut suited, in a very confined space, Mr Stringer. And we go out as a pair. Anyone who thinks that accidental damage is unlikely is a fool.'

'What about foreign object introduction?'

'Not a chance, Mr Stringer. The cleanliness in that area is very strict, as it is all over the ship. Even the smallest amounts of miscreant dirt can cause electrical problems. That is why we do not even have pencils on board, the minute amounts of graphite given off by writing with these implements floats around and could short out electrical equipment.'

Jem produced the glossy A4 colour print from the ultrasound machine; the size was indicated by the graph laid over the whole picture. The curved object was about quarter of the size of a fingernail on the little finger.

'Here we have an ultrasound scan of a part of the thruster unit on one of the suits. What do you think that curved thing could be?'

'I must confess that I do not know, Mr Stringer. Is it part of the directional enabling system? Or maybe part of the throttle?'

He knew that no such things exist but was gambling that Jem didn't know either.

'Is there any way this could have got in there by accident, Dmitri?'

'In my opinion, no. Is it part of the manufacturing process? Do they have stringent cleanliness regimes, like we do?'

'Of course, they do, and this will turn out not to be part of the suit. The other thruster on Mary-Jo's suit also looks suspect. The valve looks as if it had been tampered with.'

This was the first time Jem had mentioned where the thrusters had come from.

'What we are dealing with here is a very dangerous business.' Dmitri continued,

'The slightest malfunction can spell disaster for all concerned. Look at what happened to your Apollo 13, and before that Apollo One, or Gemini Eight. And we too have had our calamities. On an operation of this scale we are lucky nothing has gone wrong before.'

Jem was quick to correct him,

'But things have gone wrong; what about John Garbou?'

'Yes. That was an unfortunate training accident, which only goes to prove how dangerous this whole business is. Even the training can kill you.'

Jem took the picture back from Dmitri,

'Something here does not add up.' He said, 'I shall discuss this with Professor Xanthros upon his return.'

'Am I free to go now?' Dmitri wanted Jem to know that he was still in control.

The next day Professor Mike Xanthros returned to his office to find Jem Stringer waiting for him.

'Good morning, Professor. More evidence has come to light on the Mary-Jo incident.'

'Oh yes, tell me more. Jem.'

Jem Stringer then told Xanthros about the findings he and Orson La Hoya had found about Mary-Jo's suit. Then showed him the picture, next he produced the tether anchor from the 'Phoenix' and illustrated what he thought must have happened.

'Have you any idea who could be involved here?'

Jem explained about the meeting with Dmitri. Then he went on to tell Xanthros about the scratch marks he and Orson had found on John Garbou's suit, and how Dmitri was the only astronaut who could have had an involvement in all these events.

'We cannot condemn a man without firm evidence.' Xanthros told Jem.

'What I want you to do is take Orson to the manufacturer and find out what they have to say about all this, and can they shed any light on the likelihood of this kind of thing happening again.'

That evening Jem and Orson took a tour of downtown Houston to help them shake off the stresses of the past few days. The jaunt suffered an early termination when a group of sailors began fighting in the dance hall next to the bar they were in. They decided to return to base in order to study their route the next day, and to decide their selected mode of travel, car, train, or air. Even sailing was considered, but not seriously.

Of all the options, they decided to fly down to Dover the next day.

An early start was in order. They took Jem's car on to the freeway, complete with the photograph and the full backpack that Mary-Jo had used. This would allow the manufacturer to examine the evidence and come to an informed conclusion.

The sun behind the clouds cast a shadow over the fields as the men began their trip to Dover, Delaware.

Xanthros had organised a special flight from field 54T, near Dutton Lake, just to the east of Houston. This was close enough to Houston, so the men did not have a long drive. The flight to Dover was 1,300 miles and would take over ten hours in the little light aircraft that Xanthros had organised for them, so they were to commute to George Bush International Airport for the main leg of the journey.

When they got to the airfield they found exactly that, a field with one solitary runway on it. There were no buildings; on the end of runway 028 sat one Cessna 172.

Both men were qualified to fly this light aircraft, so there would be no need for a pilot. Josh Mercer was sitting in his car alongside the aircraft when Jem and Orsen pulled up.

'Hi. You must be Jem and Orsen.' Josh opened the conversation.

'Yep,' Orsen replied, 'Is she fuelled up?'

'Yes. How far are you expecting to go? Xanthros didn't tell me anything.'

'Only as far as GBI. Will you be picking it up from there?'

'No. Nothing has been said about picking up the aircraft from anywhere.'

'Ok, we'll just drop it in the light aircraft park. Thanks.'

The two men from NASA then performed a daily inspection of the aircraft; followed by an extensive pre-flight check, where each one covered the tasks the other had done, to be doubly sure that everything was in perfect working order.

With both pilots satisfied that the aircraft was safe to fly they waved Josh off. Orsen held the door open for Jem to get into the aircraft. This meant that Jem Springer would be flying the aircraft.

He lined up at the end of the long runway. As the dead straight road stretched out before them he did a final full and free movement test of all the control surfaces. As he was doing this Orsen pushed the throttle fully forwards to alarm his friend, the aircraft moved forwards as the thrust from the propeller increased. It all happened in a split second. Jem was checking the controls and looking for the movements of the control surfaces, then the engine burst into deafening life and the machine lurched forwards. Orsen laughed at Jem's embarrassment as he fought to keep the aircraft on a straight line. Differential braking brought it back on to the centre of the runway, but by then the aircraft had started to lift, the rudder was beginning to bite, and the wings were not level. As they passed the end of the runway, heading for Dutton Lake at 300 feet Jem had it all back under complete control.

'Are you sure you have done this before?' Orsen joked.

'Bastard.' Jem replied with a smile.

As the aircraft climbed steadily across the lake the engine note changed slightly as Jem turned the mixture down and throttled back for the short flight. A turn through 180 degrees saw them heading across the lake again in the direction of Houston. Then the engine just cut out. At less than 500 feet Jem had no chance to make the shore.

'I'm gonna have to put her down on the water.' He said to Orsen, who was busy putting out a mayday call.

As the aircraft, now a glider, gradually came down towards the water Jem selected full flaps to give him as slow a landing speed as possible. The horizon dropped below the nose. What used to be called a 'three-point landing' was performed. This is where the tail and the main wheels touch simultaneously, even though this aircraft had a nose-wheel. The tail began scribing out a line on the lake as the main wheels touched the surface. The aircraft then stalled, and the wheels sank immediately. With all the drama neither man heard the small explosive charges go off in the rear of the doomed aircraft. This caused the machine to tip up on the nose, which is where the heaviest part of the aircraft, the engine, is. This caused the Cessna to flip on to its back. The tail section then broke off and began to fill with water, Jem and Orsen were both thrown about to such an extent that they both sustained injuries. The engine then began dragging the whole contraption down into the depths of the lake. Both men undid their straps in preparation to exit the aircraft when they were hit by a massive wave of water from the rear as it gushed in through the missing tail section. The hard dashboard and windscreen made it impossible for either man to effect an escape before they drowned.

Half way through the morning Michelle received a call on her desk-top screen. The caller was Tom Collins. The conversation went this way,

'Hi, Tom. What can I do for you?'

'Hi Michelle. I have some bad news for you.'

'What? It's not the 'Phoenix' is it?'

'Not directly. There has been an air crash in Dutton Lake. Doctor Stringer and Orson La Hoya were taking Mary-Jo's backpack to the manufacturers when they seemed to lose control of the aircraft they were flying to GBI.'

'Any news of injuries?'

'It doesn't look good. There was no sign of anyone getting out before it sank. No one got out.'

She sat back, startled,

'That's terrible.' Her hand came up to her mouth involuntarily,

'I don't know what to say. Is there anything I should do, Tom?'

'Not at the moment, Michelle. But you can possibly check on Jem's appointments list for the next few days, and just let people know that he has had to cancel, but we will be in touch with alternative arrangements soon. And let the Life Support Bay know that Orson will not be coming back. No need to go into details, they probably know anyway, but just to put an official seal on things.'

'Ok, Tom. I'll get on with that right now.'

She opened up two more screens on her desk top to check Jem's appointments. It only took her fifteen minutes to notify anyone involved.

Five minutes after finishing this task Professor Xanthros phoned her.

'We need to get a meeting organised to work out who is next going up to the 'Phoenix.' He said.

'Very good, sir. Whom would you like to be there?'

'Me, Tom Collins, Hoshi Masuto, Dmitri Chopov, Jake Jensen and Mike Lafont. That should do it, I think. Everyone else is off site today.'

'What about the Chinese cosmonauts?' she asked.

'They have decided to withdraw from the program.' Mike said without a flicker of reaction.

'Oh. I see.' She replied.

'If you could arrange that for this afternoon, please Michelle.

'Ok, Professor Xanthros.' She tapped on her desk top screens, and then turned to Mike's screen,

'I see we have conference room 241 free in building 180 from 1400.'

'That will do fine; I shall see you down there then.'

Michelle called all the available flight astronauts to the meeting.

At 1405 in room all the relevant people had been seated, when Mike Xanthros called the meeting to order.

'The next Orion launch is scheduled for next week. Provisionally slated for this mission were Cho Ling, Mike Lafont, and you, Tom.'

Mike spoke up,

'I can't make that launch date. Medics say it is too close to my last virus test.'

Tom also added,

'Me too.'

Xanthros thought as he looked around the room at the remaining candidates.

'I can tell you now, ladies and gentlemen. The next launch will be the last. Some of the people in this room will be on that launch and going to Mars.' He waited for this to sink in before continuing,

Michelle spoke first,

'Does that mean that the people up there now will not be coming back here?'

'Yes, I'm afraid it does.' Xanthros knew about Michelle and Ash,

'I'm sorry, but with the Chinese pulling out it makes it imperative that we preserve the whole program. Ash tells me that things up there are just about ready. Tomorrow we are sending the last ESA transfer vehicle with the final fill-up, so we are good to go.'

Hoshi then spoke up,

'Great, I'm ready to go. My bags are packed. But what about the others on the program, Professor? You said that some of the people in this room as if the others were excluded.'

'We must exclude them because the preparation you must now undertake for the journey begins as soon as you leave this room. They would not have sufficient time if we wait until they return.'

Tom then asked,

'How many will we be sending on this final launch?'

The Professor looked through his notes,

'We are sending up some extra - 'supplies' – let us call them, for the trip to Mars, so there will only be weight consideration for two people. We already have Hoshi here, now we must decide who else is to go.'

Dmitri then spoke up,

'I am ready to go.'

Michelle summed it up,

'So we will have a Mission to Mars with Preston Ashton, Jake Jensen, Dmitri Chopov, Galina Danilenko, Mark Singleton and Hoshi Masuto.'

'Sounds like a pretty good party to me.' Announced Hoshi, then there was a round of applause.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Sixteen

ORION ASTRONAUTS

No one knew what would happen when the 'Phoenix' blasted off from near Earth orbit. Jake Jensen took up a place near the central section in the arm now called the Blue Sarsen. He took a position on the Bridge, with Jake Jensen. Behind their position was the cupola viewing station, this was where Hoshi Masuto occupied the only station that offered an outside view.

Dmitri and Galina took up awkward positions in the Orion capsule on the end of Red Sarsen. These positions were awkward because the capsule had been converted for operations under gyroscopic gravity, the anticipated G-forces during launch would be coming from the rear.

At the opposite end of the ship, the Brit, Mark had taken up station in the newly arrived Orion capsule on the end of Blue Sarsen.

Gerald, Steve and Stuart stood near the top of the centre rocket-shaped series of sections. These were known as the White Sarsens.

Tacked on to the outside of the Red and Blue Sarsens were Scuttles and Skittles with all their multi-purpose arms anchored to the main structure. Silver hung on nearer the main engines. He had a ring that ran around the rear of the ship and enabled him to move to deal with any problems that might occur during launch.

The humans also had their tasks, Dmitri and Galina were in the converted Orion capsule on the end of Red Sarsen. They monitored and handled the LOX and electronic systems needed for main engine start in conjunction with Steve. Hoshi was stationed further along Blue Sarsen, close to where the arm meets White Sarsen. She kept close communications with all the robots.

In fact, the robots could easily launch the ship into space, but astronauts were trained to deal with the unexpected, and they have to be there in order to get to Mars.

'Helium charged prevalve accumulator.' Galina called.

Mark responded 'Yes. Start tank discharges, CO2 causing.'

Dmitri called,

'Ok pressure switches send mainstage OK signal to Steve.'

Stuart came on line,

'LOX turbopump bypass pump open to control lox pump speed.'

Mark called,

'GG valves admitting propellants. Pressures building. We are go for launch.'

Ash was listening to the familiar round of calls from Houston as well as the reports on board.

'Guidance System release, Go. Booster Systems go/no go. Go. Spacecraft systems go/no go. Go. Life Systems go/no go. Go. Flight Activities, go/no go. Go.'

Then the call they have all been waiting for,

'Phoenix, you are clear to go.'

Ash responded in the traditional way,

'Roger, Houston. We are go for launch.'

He fired the small ullage rocket engine in the middle of the main engines to seat the propellant ready for main engine ignition.

Mark called,

'Engine start command lights on.'

Ash flipped the safety cover for the main ignition switch to the up position.

He made one last call to all on board,

'All clear.'

Jake then took his place in the very well-rehearsed procedure,

'Life support clear.'

Hoshi scanned her instruments as this was going on, then called,

'All clear here.'

Dmitri called,

'Mission parameters met.'

Mark takes his turn to call,

'Engines clear, pressures OK.'

Galina was the last to call. She said,

'Oxidiser valve open, Lox valve open. Pressures OK, clear to launch.'

Ash flicked the ignition switch.

Less than 0.02 of a second later Gerald called out,

'First Motion.'

As the gigantic rocket engines shook the whole ship the sound was transferred through the structure. Four colossal flames of thrust shot out of the back of the ship.

43 seconds later they passed 1,000 miles per hour as they were all pressed hard against their supports. The interplanetary craft Phoenix continued in Earth orbit as she accelerated in order to use the Earth's gravity to increase her speed without using more power.

As they accelerated the ship began turning away from Earth, putting the old planet behind. As they reached 2,000 mph they began to face the position in space where Mars would be in 172 days' time.

The acceleration phase only lasted 12 minutes 49 seconds.

As the main engines cut off there was an almost eerie silence on board the 'Phoenix'.

Objects began floating. The crew undid their straps to move around more easily.

Then they began to hear the sounds of a ship that feels and sound as if it is alive.

'Rotation proceeding.' Steve called to break the reverie of listening to the burbles, creaks and various sounds from a ship that is living and functioning as it should.

The 'Phoenix' then began to revolve very slowly. As this happened gravity was restored to the capsules at the ends of the Red and Blue Sarsens that contained the humans.

The rocket ship made up from the second and third stages of the Mars Launch Vehicle, known as Epsilon, now made up the central White Sarsen. This contained the robots, androids and other equipment. Around the rear of the White Sarsen were mounted four containers made up from third stages of supply rockets. These were numbered as Sarsen One to four, and were powered by rocket engines from the same Epsilon vehicles.

Sprouting out of the White Sarsen, at 90 degrees to the Red and Blue Sarsens, were the trusses carrying a nuclear reactor at either end. One of these will be used during the course of the long journey to Mars. This had to be kept as far away from humans as possible, so that arm was much longer than the other one.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Seventeen

MICHELLE

Michelle Romero decides to do some further checks on the John Garbo incident.

The importance of the news of Jem and Orson's fate began to dawn on Mission Control.

Michelle turned to Sem,

'Oh man! They were carrying important evidence concerning Mary-Jo's accident. If that's what it was.'

'What do you mean, evidence, and, if that was what it was?'

'The suit and backpack she was using, and a printout of an ultrasound scan of one of the parts. There is something wrong there, Sem.'

'Yes, I can see that. Otherwise she would not have needed rescuing.'

'No, I mean in the way the suit malfunctioned. Orson thought so, that is why he had the part ultrasounded.'

'What do you mean, ultrasounded?'

'It is like an x-ray, but much more detailed. Like when they look into a pregnant woman's womb to see the baby. That's ultrasound. They can now take a good look around from all angles, then produce a colour print. That's what Orson and Jem had with them. And the parts of the suit that went wrong, I doubt that we will see them again.'

'And what about Orson and Doctor Stringer? Were either of them married?'

'Yes, Orson was married to Sue, they have two daughters, I believe. One of them, Wendy, has a flower dealership somewhere. I don't know about Doctor Stringer.'

'Michelle. You sound like you are not completely comfortable with this. What can you do?'

'I don't know, Sem. Pass me that small box, would you?'

'Does anyone else know about the evidence?'

'Yes, of course. There will be Professor Xanthros, and the man who took the ultrasound scans. Oh, yes, and Orson's buddy in the Life Support Bay, Tom Bennet.'

'What about the man in the Life Support Bay. Will he know more about the suits?' Sem was getting more involved now, as she gathered more information.

'That is a very good point. Let's see where he is likely to be right now.' Michelle touched one of the screens on top of her desk with the tip of a stylus. Two or three more taps and she came up with a list showing what Tom Bennet was doing.

'He's out at the Launch site this morning, but due to fly back this afternoon. I will go down to see him when he gets back in the Bay.'

... ... ... ... ...

At precisely two fifteen that afternoon Michelle Romero marched into Tom Bennet's office.

'Hi, Tom. What do you know about the malfunctioning of Mary-Jo's suit thrusters?'

'Not much, Michelle. Orson and Jem were working on them, I didn't get any information on the work they had done.'

'And the ultrasound? You know nothing about that I suppose.'

'That is correct. I'm sorry, Michelle. Orson was on his own on this one, I was down at the Launch Site for most of that week.'

It was beginning to look as if Michelle had drawn a blank here.

Then Tom looked across at the three suits hanging in the storage area.

'Not like the first investigation he did. I was able to help on that one.'

Michelle knew nothing of this.

'What was that?'

'The John Garbou accident where he drowned in the pool. His suit malfunctioned; we really don't need things like this. It makes our life support look bad, so Orson took it upon himself to look a little deeper into it. He found scratches around where the leaking seal sat, and the edges of the seal looked as if they had been cut.'

'Did you see this for yourself?'

'No, Professor Xanthros took the seal away with him.'

'Did he now?' Michelle looked across at the suits, then said,

'Tell me, Tom, did Orson have any idea how the seal came to be in such condition?'

'I think he thought that it had been cut. Deliberately.'

She was somewhat taken aback by this.

'Did he have any idea by whom, and when?'

'He established that the suit in question had been hanging in the suit prep area when someone saw one of the Russians in there.'

'Who saw this, Tom?'

'I don't know, but I think it was one of the American astronauts. Maybe Tom Collins from what Orson said.'

'Well that's just Dandy.' She remarked.

'Tom Collins is far too busy for me to talk to him at the moment, and two thirds of the Russians are now on their way to Mars as we speak.'

'Which ones are on their way to Mars?'

Michelle thought for a moment,

'There is the woman, Galina Danilenko, and Dmitri Chopov.'

'That is the name that Orson mentioned could have been in the suit room. Dmitri.'

'Brilliant!' she exclaimed,

'He also had access to the suits on the 'Phoenix'.'

She needed to talk this over with someone else, someone closer to the events. She needed to talk to Mary-Jo Shelby.

Back in her office Michelle found that Mary-Jo was on sick leave until the next week at least. So she arranged to visit her at home. As she began to shuffle her own schedule a call came in from Ash on the 'Phoenix'.

'Hi, hon. we have just completed blast-off and begun to turn. It sure feels strange now to be in space and under gravity. Like being in an old Star Trek movie!'

'If it were,' she said,

'You could beam down here for a proper goodbye.'

'How are things with you down there? Gee, I'm real sorry I couldn't see you again before we left. But things like this have happened in the Navy all the time, and they didn't have the communications we have.'

She didn't want to tell him about Jem and Orson. He knew both of them personally, so it would be a bad start to the mission.

'Ash, I can't help but worry about you. And I don't like the way this is so public. There may be things I need to say to you that are in confidence.'

'That's just the way things are, hon. we are in the public eye and we joined up knowing that.'

'But is there no way we can have a quiet word?'

'Not a chance, Michelle. The radio transmissions are not secure by their very nature; there is nothing we can do about that. But you can always send me an e-mail, would that do?'

'Well ok, I want you to be extra careful. I will have to consider this; maybe an e-mail is better after all.'

'Sounds intriguing, I cannot wait. But in the meantime, we will have to sort something out with these video calls. When you take a call from the lower screens on your desk, the camera tends to look at the top of your head. Not that I am complaining, I think you have a wonderful head and hair, I have noticed that on the boat, but it would be nice to see the whole of your face.'

'Sorry, Ash. What was that?' she noticed a slight movement on the picture.

'I think we have reached our terminal velocity. The main engines have all cut out now.'

'How do you mean, 'all' have cut out? I thought they were on or off.'

'That's right. There is very little throttle control on a solid fuel rocket, but we have four main engines that are used to get up to speed. We have used all four to overcome the main part of our inertia, but after that it was felt that the amount of g-forces being experienced not only by us, but by the structure too, could be lessened. So two of the engines were shut down, and we continued to accelerate on the remaining two rockets.'

'What g-forces were you feeling after the two were shut down? We all know that the initial g-forces would be between four and five, but what was the sustained force?'

'It peaked at two point five, but gradually decreased to one point four constant.'

'And what would have happened if you had kept the two engines burning for longer?'

'Theoretically we would keep on accelerating because there is nothing up here to prevent it. In fact, we don't really know. You can't keep on accelerating ad infinitum like Captain Jake, so we settled on 30,000 miles per hour relative.'

'How do you mean, 'relative'?'

'Everything has to be relative to something. We read our speed relative to our position when we were at rest. Not relative to the Earth, you notice. That is because the Earth is moving away from our rest position at about 1,000 mph. Mars is racing towards us at about 2,000 mph, but then it depends what position is relative. Everything is moving in space.'

'Gee, I'm glad I asked. I could never sleep without knowing all this. I will have to play that back and take notes.'

'Quite simple, really. It isn't rocket science, you know. Oh yes, wait a minute, it is rocket science.' He smiled, then continued,

'Got to go now, hon. someone has to fly this thing to Mars, all the astronauts are queuing up to use the 'phone. We only got the one you know.'

'Ok. I may have something in e-mail for you soon.' She was not happy about sending the bad news by e-mail, but that was better than having his reaction broadcast live to the whole of the listening Earth.

She turned and looked at the box Sem had passed to her earlier. It contained the broken handle from behind the High Gain on the 'Phoenix' that had given way, thus sending Mary-Jo on her spinning journey. Carefully she removed it from its protective wrapping.

'I'm no metallurgist, or engineer, but this doesn't look right.' She thought.

'I think I better get it examined by a structural engineer before I mention it to Ash.'

Michelle then drew out a mechanical keyboard from the right hand drawer of her desk. On it she began to type the e-mail to send to Ash:

'Hi Ash. You had better read this through before sharing it with the rest of your crew. There has been an air crash here at Houston. Jem Stringer and Orson LaToya were killed on their way to get Mary-Jo's space suit checked out by the manufacturers. I will send more details as and when they come through.'

She didn't feel confident enough about the communications set-up to go into more detail. Anyway, there was no firm evidence of anything yet.

Michelle Romero was right to be concerned about information leakage due to the communications set-up.

Three of the robots operating on Phoenix were of advanced android type. That means they were human-like, but more importantly they had the capacity to learn as they operated. A key element to this learning capacity was the communications, not only between themselves, but also with the humans they work with. That includes the people on Earth. It is not difficult for these machines to assimilate masses of information, then decide which bits are of interest to them, then bin the rest. They work as a grid, or web, to co-ordinate all information in real time.

These three 'SA-class' robots, Gerald, Steve and Stuart also had the ability to communicate directly with the humans either on board by speech, and the people on Earth by electronic means; that is either e-mail, video or radio. Even the cell-phone network was open to them.

Mere seconds after Michelle had sent the e-mail her personal cell phone rang from within the desk drawer where she kept it.

'Good afternoon, Doctor Romero. This is Gerald Stevenson speaking to you from on board the 'Phoenix'. I know that this call may be a surprise to you, but I detect that you have concerns regarding the security of communicating with us here.'

'What? How? Who? I beg your pardon, I don't think I fully understand. Is this some kind of joke?'

'No, Doctor. I am an 'SA-class' robot, known colloquially as an android. We have briefly met on Earth if you remember.'

'Gerald Stevenson. Yes, I remember.' She remembered because Ash had told her about him.

'How on Earth do you know about my concerns on security?'

'That was easy. We can read your e-mails in real time in case there is something of interest, or something we can use up here.'

'Is that necessary? I mean it is like listening in on private conversations.'

'We have no intention of prying. We are only interested in things that could be of use to us up here. For instance, we have already had information about scientific developments from as far away as Manchester, England, and Osaka, Japan. We have even received information on ultra-low temperature experiments in Antarctica. Small snippets of information from these sources can mean the difference between mission success and disaster.'

'You mean to tell me that you receive every e-mail that is sent on Earth? That's impossible.'

'Not impossible, Doctor, unmanageable. This is where our communications web comes into its own. There are six robots here; two 'S-class', one unclassified machine that we built ourselves, and us three 'SA-class'. All are interconnected, and one of the machines filters all e-mails. The astronauts' call it 'Silver' because it shines to reflect the heat from the direct sunlight. Only the messages pertinent to our work here are allowed through by Silver. Yours is a matter of some concern here. We know that you people can have a need to keep certain bits of information and conversation between yourselves, we do not fully understand this, but Dr Masuto has explained the situation to us, and I think we can comply with this requirement.'

'How do you mean Gerald?'

'There is a way that we can enable you to have what you would refer to as confidential communications.'

'That sounds good, but how on Earth, if you pardon the expression, do you intend to do that?'

'Our communications are secure and unique for us. The only drawback is our strongest element, and that is the communications web between us. Whatever any one of the six of us does, the other five know about it. That enables us to work seamlessly as a completely co-ordinated team – no, as one entity in at least six places at once.'

'Are you telling me that there are six android robots on the end of this line?'

'Yes, but you need not worry. I am what you might call the prime number. If my information has to be shared with humans, only I can do it.'

'So, you can pass messages on to Ash with no-one else listening in?'

'Yes, I will serve as your voice and ears.'

'You lost me again, Gerald. How's that?'

'I will meet with Dr Ashton in private, ring you, then your voice will be spoken by me, you will hear everything I hear.'

'Wow! That sounds great. Give me time to gather a little more information at this end, and I think we shall have something to tell him.'

'Certainly, can I be of any assistance in the gathering of information? Our web holds more information than you can comfortably conceive of.'

'I don't know. I have to find a metallurgist to examine this part here.'

'Would that be the handle attachment that doctor Shelby was holding before she left the ship?'

'Yes, it would. Do you know anything about this?'

'Of course, we installed it in the first place.'

'Then there can be no doubt as to its structural integrity?' Michelle meant this more as a statement than a question.

'No doubt whatsoever. I have here the torque settings on all of the bolts, and the structural stress test outcomes for that particular part.'

'Could you send that information down to me here?'

'You will have it before we finish speaking here.'

'Right, thank you.' She looked over to her desk as one of the screens lit up with a lot of technical data. There was no way she could understand this. Maths had been on the curriculum when she did her Doctorate, but this was engineering mathematics, and way beyond her experience.

'That's it. Thanks again, Gerald. I shall take this along with the handle to a metallurgist on site and get the whole accumulation analysed to find out exactly what happened.'

'Might I suggest Doctor Chris Rigbye in building H2/45? She has had a lot of experience with this type of metal.'

'Great. You have been a fantastic help, Gerald. Thank you very much. How can I contact you in future, I haven't got your cell number.'

'You have, Doctor Romero. It is now stored in your cell phone in just the same way as any other number.'

'Get out of here! You mean I can now touch my phone twice, like any other call, and contact an interplanetary space ship?'

'That is about the size of it. But remember that you will be contacting the whole web. I will answer, but the other five robots here will be in on the call, as will anyone who is working with us at that time.'

'Is that likely?'

'Professor Masuto sometimes enters our web, but not often.'

'Will I know if she is on line?'

'You will if I tell you. We do not lie, and there are no secrets here.'

'Ok. I think that just about covers it now. Once again, thank you.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Eighteen

CAPSULE

Up on the Phoenix two astronauts watched developments.

'See those androids go.' Galina Danilenko and Jake Jensen looked out of the copula, which allowed them a good view of the central area of the 'Phoenix'. The human-like robots were working on the rocket-shaped central section, known as the White Sarsen. All three were now working outside the ship in tee shirts and jeans. Ashton Preston and Hoshi Masuto had to be dressed in full space suits of course as they busied themselves around open hatchways in the White Sarsen.

Gerald faced Ash as he said in a normal conversational way,

'This is one of the re-usable re-entry vehicles we have been working on.'

The stars behind Gerald moved slowly from upper right to lower left as the 'Phoenix' rotated slowly to maintain gravity for the occupants at the ends of the Blue and Red Sarsens. The workers hardly noticed this, apart from the stars that marched in a constant procession around them. By looking to the rear of the ship they could still see the Earth and moon. Hoshi looked at this scene as it rotated some 20 degrees off the centre line of the ship. The Earth still appeared blue, the moon white, but no details could now be made. Imperceptibly slowly they were receding into the blanket of stars that provided a complete arena in which they were now travelling at 30,000 miles per hour. Pure naked sunlight hit them from the rear, some 45 degrees off the centre line. This also moved round slowly, the shadows thrown were completely black – even the androids needed illumination in these severe conditions.

Everything happens slowly in space, the machine that emerged from the White Sarsen was no different. Two multi-handed robots pushed it out into the glaring light of the rising sun. It looked white; all subtle colours were bleached away. Pyramid-shaped with a small tower on the top, Ash could see details emerge as the sun moved around, throwing parts into half-light.

'On the bottom is the retro motor,' Gerald explained,

'This is a steerable rocket that is used to bring the vehicle to a slow enough speed to enter the Martian atmosphere. As its speed decreases in orbit, it begins to fall under the influence of Martian gravity, and then it begins to contact the thin Martian atmosphere, which causes friction. Turning the vehicle around to allow the heat shield to take the brunt of the heat then uses the standard re-entry system.'

'What is the strange assembly on top of the structure?' asked Ash, pointing a space-suited finger at the tower on top of the pyramid.

'That is the main rotor system. Like the one that took Ms Shelby back, this also has a contra-rotating rotor system for its final touchdown, and vehicle alignment system.'

The whole apparatus slowly moved along the White Sarsen towards the rear of the container, where a large silver ball awaited it. Upon arrival the silver globe-shaped robot attached it to the ship.

'That can now remain there until it is needed.' Hoshi explained to Ash,

'And the hole it has vacated can be used for storage of objects currently stored in the Sarsens. There is another one in Sarsen Four.'

Surely enough, on the opposite side of the Sarsen there was another re-entry vehicle.

The two humans moved across to assist in the moving of this vehicle.

As it was carefully lifted out of the storage space by the S-class robots it began to drift away from the centre of the slowly revolving ship. That meant that, as it was also turning around a central axis around the ship, it would soon experience its own centrifugal-induced gravity. As this gradually built up the large object began to increase in weight. As it came out of the bay in which it originally rested it was almost weightless. By the time it was completely free of the confines it weighed the equivalent of a small child. It still had the inertia of three busses, but the weight of a small child.

Ash and Hoshi were holding on to the heat shield rim. The problems of differentiating between inertia and weight being coupled with increasing 'gravity' became too much, and the whole machine began drifting into a higher gravity situation. By the time it weighed the equivalent of a refrigerator the s-class robots found that their limbs were being taxed to their limit. Stress gauges built into them prevented the accidental breakage of either themselves, or whatever they were handling. This time it was a large re-entry vehicle that was gaining weight on a logarithmic scale.

Ash and Hoshi were holding on as best they could, but the object was slipping away. For a time, they thought they could hold it, but as they attempted to pull it back, it continued to move away, gaining in weight as it drifted. They were relying on their tethers now, having lost touch with the structure of the ship.

Inside the Phoenix, Mark took the other communications seat next to Jake. He immediately changed frequency and began communicating with Houston on that, instead of Houston interrupting the delicate mission that was unfolding in outer space.

'This thing is going to take us out into space.' Hoshi said as she gripped on to a handle, knowing that this handle was stronger than her tether hooks.

'At least we will have somewhere to stay!' Ash quipped.

Just then there was a distinct thud that ran through the structure they were holding on to. Ash managed to squirm round enough to see a big silver ball with gigantically long arms reaching from the rear of the ship to the re-entry vehicle they were holding on to. The robot Silver had managed to get a hold on to the miscreant machine.

The two astronauts clung on to their grips, and then a much less dramatic pulse ran through the vehicle as the S-classes had to release because their strain gauges told them to. Silver was at full stretch, he couldn't hold from that distance. The vehicle now had an equivalent weight of a small car. The tethers were at their full length; Hoshi knew what was happening, so she let go before her tether gave way. Then Ash was heard to say,

'Shit.'

And everyone knew what had happened.

The vehicle was now accelerating away, thrown out by centrifugal force with a hapless astronaut clinging on to a handle near the base. The only saving grace was that the whole assemblage of man and machine was again weightless.

Hoshi radioed to Ash,

'Ash, get into the capsule. There is a hatch on the side you are on.'

The capsule was now spinning slowly, allowing Ash to be in sunlight for enough time for him to see the path of handles that would take him to the hatch.

'But be careful, remember you are not tethered.' Hoshi reminded him.

'Roger that.'

The struggling astronaut and white pyramid got gradually smaller as they drifted away from the 'Phoenix'.

Hoshi called again,

'When you get to the hatch, remember to hold on to the structure as well as the hatch; you may have to give it a good heave to get it to open, and the force of this can throw you further out into space. We don't want to have to chase you out there.'

Ash replied,

'Ok, Hoshi. Look, I'm getting low on oxygen. We left at the same time, so you must be getting low, too. You had better get inside too.'

'Not until you are safe.' Hoshi looked around. She was as far away from the hatch as it was possible to be, and the light was sweeping around her position in such a way to make movement dangerous.

Jake came on the line then,

'Hoshi, this is Jake. How long have you got?'

Hoshi used her arm-mounted mirror to see the oxygen contents gauge.

'It is in the red, but my usage is minimal. I think I have time to see this through.'

Ash reached the hatch on the re-entry capsule,

'Ok, I'm here by the hatch now. Standard handle and opening is it?'

Hoshi answered first,

'I don't know. I never had need to find out.'

Then the booming, monotone, reassuring tones of Gerald came over the radio,

'Yes. We made it just the same as your hatches on the Orion. But that one has been exposed to extreme temperatures. It should work cleanly but be prepared for it to be stiff.'

Ash took a firm hold on the hatch and the structure alongside it. He heaved at the wheel in the centre of the hatch.

'I can feel the mechanism working.' He said,

'Locked back. Moving to the handle now.' He tightened his grip on the structure as he turned the handle to open the door. Nothing happened.

'Gonna need a bit of persuasion here.' He said.

As he pulled hard on the handle, he knew to push down on the structure to counter the force that could throw him out into space.

The door flew open. At the same time he heard an alarm. He at first thought that he had set off an alarm in the capsule, then he realised that it was his own oxygen level alarm. Jake got the alert at the same time.

'Ash, you ok?'

As he pushed himself into the capsule Ash replied,

'Yes. I'm inside, closing the hatch now.'

Gerald then said,

'Ash, if you spin the wheel to seal the hatch, you will see the usual pressurisation button to one side. Press that and the capsule will pressurise within ten seconds. Then you can take your helmet off and have a good supply of oxygen.'

'Great. Then I only have the problem of getting back.'

'That is not a problem. The capsule is equipped with Hydrogen-powered reaction rockets, and a powerful retarding engine that is intended to slow it from orbit. But in this case, I think the reaction rockets are all we need to get it back here, then it can dock with the common berthing mechanism for the transfer of Mr Singleton.'

Ash was the first to respond to this plan,

'That sounds like a good plan, but in order to use the berthing hatch you will have to depressurise part of the ship. Is that a good idea?' then he felt the reaction jets fire as they begin to take command of the capsule and return it to the mother ship.

Jake said,

'Ok. Will you be able to transfer from the capsule in space?'

Gerald spoke,

'Mr Ashton can replenish his oxygen supply whilst in transit if required.'

'Sounds like a good idea to me.' Said Ash,

'Just get me within jumping distance.'

The escaped capsule returned to the 'Phoenix' with commendable smoothness and control.

When it was stored on the rear of the 'Phoenix' it was time for the humans to return back to the inside of the spaceship.

As they approached the air lock another spaceman emerged. Ash immediately recognised this as a cosmonaut by the different spacesuit he wore. Ash presumed it to be a man, but didn't know why – it could be Galina, but no matter, he would soon find out as he called,

'Hello, looks as if we have company.'

Hoshi followed the pointing arm towards the astronaut who was struggling to work out the best way to close the airlock and keep his balance in the 0.5 gravity that existed at the position of the airlock.

When an astronaut says something, like Ash had just done, it is broadcast to everyone on the ship; the signal is then boosted and sent off to Earth. The Russian did not respond. Neither did Houston.

Jake Jensen was manning the communications post in the first room above the Orion re-entry module on the Blue Sarsen. This small room, at eleven feet wide had only room for two seats with all the equipment installed, plus the entrance hole in the middle of the floor, and the exit that was placed on the right side with a ladder running up the wall. All movement between rooms was by way of ladders. These are much harder work than stairs, for which there was no room anyway, but the astronauts liked the extra workload of climbing – even though the gravity gets weaker as you go up.

'Say again, Ash.'

'Hi, who is that over by the airlock?' Ash asked as he and Hoshi stopped. They were now in a very comfortable area of minimal gravity; just enough to give you a gentle push in one direction, but you still felt as if you were weightless. Because of this situation they were positioned with their feet facing towards the airlock. This made it difficult to watch the Russian man or woman.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Nineteen

EVIDENCE

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Michele Romero continued to dig down in her investigations.

Doctor Chris Rigbye was working in her laboratory in building H2/45 when Michelle entered.

'Good Afternoon Doctor Rigbye, my name is Michelle Romero. I have here a piece of spaceship I would like you to have a look at.'

She gently withdrew the anchor point from the box. Chris Rigbye took it carefully in her hand and examined its parts. There were three main components, one of them broken.

'Do you have the attachment bolts, Michelle?'

'Only six of them, the other four have not made it back, if they were recovered in the first place.' Michelle handed them to the Doctor.

She examined these in turn, scrutinising the threads on each side. Then she put them under a magnifying light to better see the heads. She took up the anchor point. This was distorted quite a bit. Doctor Rigbye moved it around in her hand before putting it under the lamp for further examination, paying particular attention to the holes where the fixing bolts had been.

'From what I can see after this cursory examination there was no way this could have withstood the strain that was put on it, even though that would not have been excessive.'

'I think Mary-Jo would confirm that, Chris.'

Chris placed the anchor point back under the light, and pointed at holes at either end,

'When something is wrenched, like this was, it takes damage where the drama occurs. See these marks around the bolt holes? That is where the fixture was wrenched out. But then look at the other end, and you will see that the holes there are clean and undamaged. That is because the bolts were not present when the piece was put under pressure.'

Michelle looked shocked.

'You mean it was interfered with? Could this be put down to were and tear?'

'Only if four essential bolts can come adrift. I see you have the torque settings.'

'Yes, it was part of the new space craft, so as such it did not come from the old ISS. This means that the robots put it in place,' she consulted the readout,

'Two years ago.'

Chris looked at the data. As she scrutinised the figures her eyes widened.

'Jesus, they record everything, don't they? If we put a screw into a light fitting, we tighten it, and that's it. With these guys they register the exact workload applied to tighten every single fastener. This is incredible. Here it is. All of the bolts were tightened to the same torque rating, the bolts were made to NASA specs, so there is no way four of them could have come loose. Not without the other six showing signs along the same lines. These four bolts were crucial to the integrity of the structure; someone knew that and deliberately undid them.'

'You sound very certain about that, Chris.' Michelle had lost colour in her face.

'Yes. With this kind of information there is no room for doubt. This was deliberate sabotage.'

She handed the parts back to Michelle, who placed them back in their box. She thanked the Doctor, then turned to leave. As she reached the door she turned back and asked again,

'You're sure about this, aren't you?'

Doctor Rigbye smiled reassuringly and replied,

'I'm afraid so, Michelle. I would go into a court of law at say so. Metal cannot lie.'

Michelle returned to her car, placed the box in the passenger seat well, and just sat wondering what to do next.

She picked up her tablet computer and tapped it a few times, taking more time than usual on each decision. Presently she came upon Mary-Jo Shelby's home number.

Mary-Jo was still wearing compression bandages on her arms when she opened the door to Michelle Romero.

'I hope I'm not intruding on your private time.' Michelle began.

'Not at all. We all work for the same firm; I presume this is something to do with my accident?'

'Well, yes, it is, Mary-Jo. May we go sit outside for a minute?'

'Sure. Would you like a cold drink Michelle?'

'No, thank you. I feel that I am imposing upon your good nature enough.'

They moved through the spacious house to the patio out back, by the pool. They took up places either side of a garden table. Mary-Jo had a half-finished drink. She had obviously been reading a paperback book when Michelle arrived.

'I am sorry to disturb you.' She pointed at the book,

'It is most unusual to see anyone reading a hard copy book these days.' She looked at the title and thought it apt in some way.

'The Mandalay Conspiracy. You like conspiracies?'

'I like the way they make you think differently about something, but the devil is in the detail.'

'Mary-Jo, I have been making some enquiries about your 'accident'. What I have found adds up to some sort of conspiracy.'

'I am intrigued. Pray continue.'

'This could take some time, and may change the way you see some important things in your life. Once again, I'm sorry to intrude on your private time, but things have happened that seem to be connected.'

'I don't mind the interruption, and if something is wrong we need to sort it as soon as possible.'

'You are very perceptive, and correct.' Michelle wondered just where to start, how much did Mary-Jo know? She decided not to pry and ask questions, the woman had been through enough, and was trying to recover from her ordeal. Michelle felt she was intruding, and in a way she was – this was not official NASA business.

'I don't know how much you know, so I will begin at the beginning and then bring you up to date about what I have found out. You will be surprised, and maybe shocked at times, but everything I am about to tell you is true.'

Mary-Jo took a drink and sat back. She found it difficult to fold her arms because of the compression bandages, but sat easily as Michelle began,

'You will remember the unfortunate John Garbou incident where he drowned in the pool before ever getting into space?'

Mary-Jo nodded and replied,

'Yes, a fault in the space suit wasn't it?'

'That was what we thought at the time. But a man from Life Support, Orson LaToya, thought there may be something in it, so he looked deeper. You remember Jem Stringer?'

'Yes, Banjo to his friends as I recall.'

'He and Orson took it upon themselves to look further into this but found that their suspicions could not be substantiated. But when you had your incident they wanted to know more immediately. They had your reaction jets tested and x-rayed by a micro-scan machine. I saw a print-out of that scan, but don't tell anyone that I know. The other people, Jem and Orson, were killed in a plane wreck the day after, and all the relevant evidence was lost in the same crash. The radiographer has been shipped to the Philippines.'

Michelle took out a white plastic box,

'But now I have the anchor point that gave way when you were cast out from the ship in the first place. The robots sent it without notifying NASA, I don't think anyone else on Earth knows about it. I have just been to the metals lab, and the scientist there told me that there has been sabotage without a shadow of doubt.'

'Shit.' This was not the kind of reaction either of the women was expecting.

'Mary-Jo, have you any idea who may have had access to the area that your anchor point was situated before you went out?'

'No. We were the first out. I remember because we had to get back in again pretty quick when we saw something Ash didn't recognise. Turned out to be a new robot that the robots on board had built and didn't bother telling anyone about. Frightened the living daylights out of us. We thought we had found Martians before even setting off!'

'So none of your crew could have accessed the point?'

'Definitely not.'

'What about the crew before?'

'Ash did mention something about one of them taking longer than expected working on the High Gain Antenna.'

'Where was your anchor point? The one that gave way?'

'Behind the High Gain Antenna.'

'And the astronaut who was working there for longer than expected?'

'It wasn't an astronaut, it was a cosmonaut, Dmitri I believe it was.'

'And did Dmitri have free access to your spacesuit?'

'Of course, we all did.'

'It may surprise you to know that a Russian cosmonaut was seen leaving the Life Support bay all that time ago, when John Garbou's suit was still in storage.'

Mary-Jo suddenly thought about the people up there on the 'Phoenix' right now,

'How can we be sure that everything else is safe? He may have done all sorts of damage and left it for someone else to find on the way to Mars.'

Michelle looked into Mary-Jo's eyes as she said,

'I somehow don't think he has done anything to threaten the mission.'

'How can you be sure of that?' Mary-Jo looked at her conspiracy book.

Michelle looked calm and confident of her answer, but deeply worried too,

'I can be sure he has not done anything to threaten the mission because he is already on it.'

'Michelle! You must warn the people up there, and quickly. But how can you, when every communication will be heard by the Russian?'

'Luckily I have a way, but it puts them in a real predicament – they are on their way to Mars.'

... ... ... ... ...

Three spacemen were now outside the interplanetary space craft 'Phoenix'.

'It's the freakiest thing,' Ash said to Hoshi Masuto over the radio that could be heard all over Earth as well as by everyone on the interplanetary craft 'Phoenix',

'But it looks as if he has a gun.'

'Don't be silly, Ash. Who would have a gun in space? And what good would it do anyway? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is truer in space where there is no air resistance or gravity.'

'But that is correct, Dr Masuto.' The voice of Dmitri Chopov came over the radio waves for the first time.

'I am taking over this mission in the name of Mother Russia, and in support of the people of the Ukraine.'

He approached the returning astronauts, pointing a small handgun at them.

'You will now please go into the vacated bay in the Sarsen Two.'

He indicated the square gaping hole from where one of the two Mars re-entry capsules had emerged.

Inside the Phoenix Galina turned to Jake Jensen. They just stared at each other in silence.

Their reverie was broken by a disembodied voice from Houston,

'Hey, guys. What's going on up there?' Tom Collins asked.

Jake turned back to the consul that faced him,

'Hello Houston, we have a situation developing here. I think someone has smuggled a gun on board.'

'Oh, yeah. Have you got John Wayne up there Jake?'

'No, Tom. This is serious. One of the Russians, Dmitri Chopov, has got a gun. He is outside at the moment, so are Ash and Hoshi. They were on their way back in, and I think that Hoshi is down on oxygen.'

'How much oxygen does Ash have? He has been out for as long as Hoshi.'

'I don't know that, Tom. He probably replenished during the time he was in the capsule.'

Then Gerald came on line,

'Mister Ashton has sufficient oxygen for five and a half-hours, sir. Doctor Masuto, on the other hand, has less than four minutes; her alarm should sound at any moment.'

Tom Collins on Earth then asked,

'Are we on a secure line?' this means can they be heard all over Earth, and by the other astronauts.

Gerald gave the answer,

'Yes; only Houston, Mister Ashton and Doctor Masuto are on this line. And there is no time delay because we are filtering it through our new laser-based system.'

Ash and Hoshi were facing a gunman in outer space travelling at 30,000 mph, when Hoshi's low oxygen warning went off.

Ash looked at his comrade, then at Dmitri,

'She needs oxygen. We must go back into the ship.'

'You must go into the Sarsen. Now, or I will shoot.'

'Don't be a fool. You don't know what will happen if you fire that thing. You don't even know if it will work. Don't explosives need oxygen to work?' Ash protested.

'We have been working on this in secret for some time. I know exactly what will happen. You do not. Therefore, you will die.' Dmitri looked as if he was taking aim.

Hoshi's oxygen alarm kept buzzing intermittently as she said,

'He's right. We must follow the instructions.'

Neither Ash, nor Dmitri knew that Hoshi had already been told of plans to get more oxygen to her. Stuart and Skittles were now moving to put replenishment tanks in the Sarsen cargo bay. When they finish Skittles will lurk behind the ship, out of sight, ready to free Ash and Hoshi.

The big doors were still open as they drifted towards the Sarsen, then Stuart appeared with the oxygen tanks. Dmitri was not expecting to see a man without spacesuit on the rim of the opening.

Stuart's voice came over the radio,

'This is oxygen for Dr Masuto.'

Dmitri could see his mouth move as he said the words, but with no microphone, or helmet. It was as if he were holding a normal conversation out in space.

Jake and Galina aboard the Phoenix were able to speak to each other without anyone else hearing them, but otherwise all communications could be heard as far away as Earth.

'Now what do we do?' Jake asked Galina,

'Well, one thing is certain, we can't get any help from Houston. This situation has not even been considered. Anyway, he can hear everything we get from Earth.'

Satisfied that Hoshi and Ash were now entering the White Sarsen, Dmitri made his way towards the Quest air lock. He turned to see the cam-shell doors begin to close on the two astronauts. Stuart went to the rear of the ship as Dmitri took hold of the hatch unlocking wheel. He let the gun drift on the end of a short tether as he opened the air lock and entered it.

Stuart was able to prevent the Sarsen doors closing.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter Twenty

SHOTS FIRED

Hoshi looked at the gunman as he tried to get into the airlock. The alarm kept on sounding in her head as she descended into the vast opening with Ash alongside. They found the oxygen supply left by Stuart, but the connections could not be made in space; Hoshi's suit would decompress as her own connections were released. This would cause her to boil away in less than a second. The lack of air pressure would cause the water contained in her body to boil at a much lower temperature than when it was under normal atmospheric pressure; its boiling point would be lower than body temperature.

'We still have a problem. The suit cannot be decompressed in space, so we cannot replenish Hoshi's supply here.' Ash reported.

'You two began together, how come you have plenty, whilst Hoshi is low?' Mark asked.

'I had to get into the capsule we were hauling. It pressurised, and I was able to replenish in there on the way back.'

'Is that something that Hoshi could do?'

Hoshi replied with the sound of her alarm ringing in the background,

'I could if I could get to the capsule.'

Just as he said that she was hit by a beam of light as the ship turned to bring their compartment to face the sun. At the same moment Skittles appeared at the bay door.

'My readings are almost zero, I don't think I can make it.' Hoshi said.

'Yes you can.' Ash faced her, helmet to helmet as the light streaked in,

'Take it slowly. Don't take fast breaths. Breathe in for five seconds, hold it for five, and then exhale for five. That gives your scrubbers chance to work.'

'I see, like in yoga?'

'That is exactly what we want. You relax and conserve oxygen requirements, I will move you to save effort on your part.'

Ash then grabbed the back of Hoshi's suit and sprung up to the open bay. As they reached the lip of the compartment, Ash's free hand stopped their fairly fast rise towards the stars by grabbing hold of the edge. They continued to move around the pivot formed by his anchored hand.

Then he saw what he was looking for. But he could only move using one hand. This is not quite as simple as hopping on Earth, but has similar problems, the main problem here being having to let go of the structure, therefore risking going drifting into space. When Ash's hand lets go to move to another hold they are free floating in space. When he reached the next holding place, his hand may only be millimetres away, but if he can't actually grab on to something solid, they are stranded – with Hoshi running out of oxygen.

Looking towards the air lock he saw that the Russian was now inside it.

'Ok. We are out of the bay now. Hoshi, you asleep yet?'

'I nearly was.'

'Good, continue breathing steadily, there will always be air inside your suit. The scrubbers will keep the CO2 down, and we should make it. Do not respond, partly to preserve oxygen, partly to stop me hearing that blasted alarm.'

He moved carefully along the edge of the bay towards the rear of the ship. Then he came to the end of the forward cargo compartment, where the Red Sarsen stretched out. The re-entry capsule they were aiming at was positioned along this Sarsen.. There is a serious gap where there are no handholds.

'No problem.' He thought to himself. With a good heave he pulled Hoshi across the void to contact hard with the opposite end. Ash looked at the stars slowly turning above him. This may have upset his equilibrium, as he made a lunge for the next handhold he misjudged slightly, just enough for him to touch the rail he was aiming for but failing to get a grip on it. They were now drifting towards their intended target, but not quickly enough, and with no control over their direction.

As Ash looked around for a possible solution he suddenly felt a gentle thump on his legs. Stuart saw what was happening; he had opened the door to the capsule, then come to aid Ash and Hoshi. They stuffed Hoshi into the capsule, then Stuart advised Ash that he could help Hoshi better inside by helping her replenish, so Ash quickly got into the capsule.

As the door closed behind him, Ash looked around him to find the repressurisation controls when Hoshi shook her head,

'No need. Stuart has already set it to automatic.'

Just then the air began hissing into the capsule. The astronauts could not hear this but felt the change in pressure on their suits, and saw wisps of condensation move across the pyramid shaped enclosure they were in.

Hoshi nodded off to sleep as Ash watched the air pressure rise. When it reached ten pounds per square inch he thought it high enough. He nudged Hoshi, but there was no reaction. Squirming round in the close confines of their capsule Ash removed Hoshi's helmet. As he turned the helmet to release the bayonet fastening he saw a thin line of mist enter the helmet, then the visor misted up, preventing him from seeing the Japanese scientist's face. As the helmet was lifted over Hoshi's mop of thick grey hair her head lolled to one side. Her eyes were closed, and her countenance completely relaxed. Never tanned, she looked even paler in the module's harsh lighting.

Ash shook his fellow astronaut gently, then placed a space-suited gloved hand up to her cheek and moved Hoshi's head to a more upright position.

'Shit, she's not breathing.' Ash said.

With his own helmet still in place mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was not possible, so Ash placed one hand behind Hoshi's back, and the other one he gently pushed her front, forcing her lungs to empty, then fill. After two or three cycles of this Hoshi coughed back to life.

Inside the 'Phoenix' Galina and Jake decided that they had better get further away from the Quest airlock.

'What about the Orion?' asked Jake.

Beneath their feet was the Orion module, Jake and Galina could remove to the more remote position to get a little further away from the problem.

'I can't see how moving away from the situation can help.' Galina replied.

'What options do we have?' Jake was stuck for solutions.

'Houston to Dmitri Chopov. Are you listening Dmitri?' Tom Collins came over the net.

'Yes, Houston I am listening.'

'A lot of people have invested a lot of time and money into getting this mission under way – especially your people in Russia. Don't do anything to put this all at risk.'

'You are wrong there, Mister Collins. They are not my people. My people, as you call them, are the people of Eastern Ukraine who have been deprived of their island Crimea.'

'So you have a beef with Russia? Is that it, Dmitri? You will put at risk a massive multi-national mission just to get back at Russia?'

'I will not be putting any mission at risk, Mr Collins. Have you not been listening? I am taking over this mission, not putting it at risk.'

Then Professor Xanthros burst into Mission Control.

'Ok Tom, I'll take over from here.' He said to Tom Collins.

Tom looked across to the Controller, who outranked him.

'Sir, I know these men.'

'So do I, Tom. So do I. It's ok. This can be resolved. It will be.' The Controller took the mike,

'Houston to Phoenix. Mission Director Mike Xanthros here. What's the situation now?'

Jake replied,

'Hi, Professor. This is Jake Jensen. From what I can make out Dmitri Chopov has smuggled a gun aboard. He has prevented Ash and Hoshi from re-entering the ship. Galina and I are in the Blue Sarsen, I think Mark has moved towards us, but I don't know if he is involved.'

Dmitri then came on the net,

'The airlock will not pressurise. What have you done?'

'Pressurise this air lock now.' Dmitri sounded annoyed.

Gerald made his way through the ship to the Cupola where Jake and Galina watched things unfold.

He said,

'We have disabled all hatches and prevented the airlock from pressurising.'

Galina called to Dmitri,

'Hold it Dmitri. We seem to have a malfunction. The system is recycling itself now.'

Mike Xanthros spoke directly to Dmitri over the net,

'Dmitri, what do you want? What is the purpose of your action?'

'My demands are simple. I am not threatening this mission, quite the opposite. I fully intend to be the first man on Mars, or no-one will be.'

'Why are you doing this?' Mike Xanthros kept his calm,

'I am doing this in the name of the people of the Ukraine, and especially those who lost their country when the Russians invaded the Crimea. Now repressurise this air lock, or I will take drastic action.'

Jake said to everyone on the communications net,

'There is nothing we can do. The machine is resetting itself. It knows there is no risk to human life, so it will be very thorough.' He was playing for time.

Stuart said to Hoshi, so that no one else could hear,

'We have depressurised the Orion capsule on the Blue Sarsen to allow you to re-join your comrades.' This was below where Jake and Galina were sitting.

Ash turned to Hoshi. They both had their helmets off now, so conversation could be conducted in confidence. Hoshi turned her suit mike off as he said to Ash,

'We can now get back into the Blue Sarsen via the Orion capsule.'

'Great, let's get suited up.' With that they put their helmets on again and prepared to leave the Mars re-entry vehicle.

Ash then had an idea,

'What if we came back into the Phoenix via the Red Sarsen, at the other end?'

Hoshi asked if that were possible. Stuart agreed,

'Yes, but it will take a few minutes.'

'I think the advantages given by a pincer movement like that is worth the longer time it will take.' Ash confided in Hoshi, who passed the message on to Stuart.

As Hoshi stopped putting her helmet back on, Ash got the message that they would not be leaving just yet. Hoshi nodded to Ash.

'Houston to Phoenix. Dmitri, we have no problem allowing you to be the first man to set foot on Mars, there was always a five-to-one chance that it would be you, anyway.' Xanthros said, playing for time.

'Now let me out of this air lock before I am forced to do something about it.'

Jake then came on the net,

'If you fire that firearm, you will probably cause the whole ship to disintegrate. The effects of a bullet going through the thin wall of this pressurised vessel will be devastating, for all of us, including you.'

'You don't realise that we have been experimenting with this weapon for some time now. It is designed to fire in the vacuum of space, will penetrate human flesh, but not the metal of a pressurised vehicle. The bullet is not metal, but a heavy plastic, and is designed to tumble after being fired. There has been considerable work done by your people investigating such problems on board highflying airliners. We simply adapted your results, and made it fire in space. If you wish for a demonstration, I suggest that you keep trying my patience.'

Xanthros then said,

'We can resolve this, Dmitri. There is no need to threaten your fellow astronauts.'

Then there was a massive bang and loud hissing noise. The room in which Galina stood turned into white mist.

Galina turned to Jake,

'Can the structure stand the trauma of having a hole blown in it?'

'We just don't know, Galina, it has never happened before.'

Gerald took his leave in haste. Quickly he made his way to the opposite end of the ship.

By the time he arrived at the Orion module at the end of the Red Sarsen it had been decompressed ready for Ash and Hoshi.

Once inside the Interplanetary craft Gerald checked over the two astronauts.

Hoshi was no worse for her ordeal but elected to take herself to sick bay to administer a self-diagnosing procedure.

Gerald and Ash sat down, then Ash got the shock of his life.

Gerald began talking, but it was not his voice that came out, it was Michelle Romero's voice that was talking to Ash,

'Ash. Is that really you?'

'Yes, is that really you? How is this happening?'

'Gerald gave me his cell phone number, so I rang him.'

'Don't be silly. We are travelling at 30,000 miles per hour, somewhere so far from Earth that I don't know how far away we are. Gee, it's great to hear your voice again.'

'Yes, same here, too. We didn't even get to say goodbye properly.'

'So what else did you ring me here for? I have told you before not to ring me at work.'

This was strange, talking to Gerald, who was now a very familiar part of the mission, as if it were Michelle – and to hear her voice coming out of Gerald's mouth. Ash decided to close his eyes as Michelle said,

'There is a good chance that my information may have been overtaken by events up there, but here goes anyway. I had Mary-Jo's tether and anchor point analysed, they had been tampered with, no doubt about it. Then I went and spoke to Mary-Jo. She doesn't know how her thrusters came to be inoperative, but if it was sabotage, it could have been anyone on board. And it turns out that Jem Stringer and Orson LaToya found that John Garbou's suit was probably tampered with, too. But the evidence for that disappeared, then the evidence for what may have caused Mary-Jo's incident also went west in the plane wreck that killed the only witnesses to both events. Even the guy who did the micro-wave scan on the suit parts has been shipped overseas. I tried to find him, but his records have been placed on a higher security setting. Anyway, the main thrust of all this is that Dmitri Chopov has had a hand in just about everything that has gone wrong. Now he is up there with you.'

'So what you are telling me is that there is something strange going on, and you are the only one who knows?'

'It would appear so, Ash.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 21

QUEST

As the drama unfolded in interplanetary space, Michelle Romero left the offices of Dr Chris Rigbye at Houston.

'Could there be life on Mars?' Michelle wondered as she walked out of the clean, cool air-conditioned office block, the afternoon heat hit her like walking into a hot oven. Looking at the hot tarmac of the parking lot that bounced back even more heat she couldn't help but ponder,

'If life can survive these conditions, there must be a chance.'

She did not feel safe calling the robots on board the Phoenix from within NASA's offices; so she had decided to drive out to make the call.

As promised, Gerald answered the call made from her cell phone.

'I'm sorry, Ms Romero, I cannot contact Mr Ashton at the moment, the ship is in lockdown, all the airtight hatches are locked shut for our security. I cannot move to converse with him, if that is what you require.'

'Is there something wrong, Gerald?'

'I do not know yet, Ms Romero. One of the astronauts has brought a firearm with him. This is causing a few problems.'

'I'll bet it is! And I bet I know which member of the crew it is who is causing the problems.'

'How would you know that, Ms Romero?'

'Because Dmitri Chopov has had his hand in at least two mishaps in the program. He was seen leaving the Life Support Bay where John Garbou's space suit was kept. After his unfortunate incident, it was found that his suit had been interfered with, but no one could prove anything because the evidence disappeared. Then there was Mary-Jo's problem, or should I say series of problems. The anchor point that she was connected to the ship with had been tampered with and guess who had the opportunity and time to do that.'

'I think you are inferring that Mr Chopov may have had some input to this unfortunate incident.'

'That and the fact that her thrusters malfunctioned so badly. But the only people who had access to the evidence of this have now gone from the scene, so the connection can only be described as tenuous. But he certainly had some serious questions to answer.'

'It would appear that we have a dangerous person here.'

'What has he done now?' Michelle was getting worried.

'It would appear that Mr Chopov is attempting to high-jack the ship.'

'Oh, that's great! Is he going to fly it to Cuba? What can he hope to gain from that?'

It was then that a loud explosion went through the ship, followed by the sounds of decompression. This is bad enough in a high-flying airliner, but on a space ship travelling at speed in the region of 30,000 miles per hour, that is 500 miles every minute, with no opportunity to lose altitude and regain external pressure, that is disastrous.

Gerald continued his conversion with Michelle,

'From the readings I have, it appears that he has caused a leak to emanate within the airlock. Mr Chopov was on his way to entering the ship, when we instigated a complete lockdown for the safety of all concerned. Now it would appear that he has found a way to repressurise the air lock. I will have to go in.'

Whilst Gerald was communicating with Michelle, he was not talking. The voice she heard emanated from within the human shaped robot, but there was no need to fabricate actual speech.

Dmitri had, indeed shot a hole in the side of the Quest airlock, near the door that led back into the ship. The small plastic .22 bullet had just penetrated the side of the structure enough to cause air to rush into the small compartment that held the Russian. There was slight gravity within the air lock, being positioned quite close to the White Sarsen in the centre of the ship - not enough to prevent Dmitri from being thrown against the rear wall as he fired the gun. With no air, and very little gravity there was nothing to prevent the opposite and equal reaction of the recoil of the gun from throwing the cosmonaut about, with the effect of a jet of air rushing through the hole created adding to the force moving Dmitri backwards. The three androids knew instantly what was happening, so decided to act. As the hapless Russian went from being in control, gently floating in 0.3% gravity, to being thrown against the hard brackets and structure of the inside of the airlock, the robots released the lock. Gerald leapt forwards and grabbed the release wheel and handle. A man normally takes from four point five seconds to as many as seven seconds to open the hatch by winding the wheel, and turning the handle, then pulling the door open. If there is any pressure difference between the two areas, a small bleed hatch must be opened also. Gerald spun he wheel, pulled the handle, and opened the bleed hatch in less than zero point four seconds. The air inside had not had chance to equalise, nowhere near, so Gerald had to pull with quite a lot of power to force the hatch open. The pressure difference was so great that the cosmonaut was thrust onto the far wall. Bright white mist swirled all around the room. Galina grabbed on to a rail, while Gerald simply let go of the hatch and allowed himself to be thrown into the airlock by the onrush of air. He collided with Dmitri full on, there could be no other outcome, due to there being so little room in the air lock.

The android Gerald Stevenson, like all of the space androids, weighed quite a lot more than the people they were meant to duplicate – in fact they weighed about the same as if they were made of solid metal; about 530 pounds. In the weightlessness of space this mattered little, but in the confines of an air lock with a man already in there it mattered greatly. Especially to Dmitri Chopov, he was hit hard by Gerald, who still had sufficient control to take hold of the wrist of Dmitri's gun hand. The robot then squeezed until the whole hand fell off, slowly drifting in the almost weightless conditions, pushed by a straight line of blood that spurted from the fully pressurised space suit. Then its erstwhile owner was slammed against the ribbing structure that formed the rear of the air lock. He was pushed by a 530-pound robot who cannot feel pain, nor does he break easily. Dmitri did. His head was more or less saved by his helmet, but the inside of that turned bright red as his internal organs were squashed to about an inch thick. The right arm, with no hand at the end, fired even more blood and fluids out. The raised ribbing on the airlock wall was flattened, but not before cutting a criss-cross pattern into Dmitri's back.

The other androids, Steve and Stuart, working through Silver, cancelled the lockdown, and allowed doors and hatches to be freed.

Gerald did not forget Michelle, who was still on the line. He knew exactly what he was doing, and what would happen. In the one point four seconds that it took Gerald to subdue Dmitri, he did not say anything. But resumed the conversation as calm as you like afterwards,

'I think we may be able to speak with Mister Ashton in a few moments, Ms Romero, if you can hold on for a little while longer.'

'Yes, I'm ok with that, it's not as if this is long distance is it?'

'You are on the new Trans-galactic tariff, are you not?'

'Sure sounds like it.'

Ash and Hoshi were still in the Mars re-entry vehicle. Ash did not know it, but Hoshi Masuto was in communications with the robot's radio web. This did not include Gerald's conversations with Michelle, but it included information on the salient readings concerning the unfolding events.

The Japanese scientist turned to Ash. They had both taken off their helmets to benefit from the pressurised atmosphere in the capsule,

'I think we can go back in now.' she said as she reached for her helmet.

'You know more than I do, don't you?' Ash commented.

'Yes, probably. I have limited monitoring of the robots' communications. It now looks as if they have resolved the situation.'

Stuart then talked directly to Hoshi,

'The Quest airlock is temporally out of commission, we need to clean something up in there. I have depressurised the Orion Command Module at the end of Red Sarsen for you to enter the ship.'

'Ok. Ash, we have to enter via the Orion on Red Sarsen. It is being used as an air lock for the time being.'

'Ok, Hoshi, let's go.'

The two astronauts left the Martian re-entry vehicle to begin their space walk towards the front of the Phoenix. Stuart assisted them as they floated above Sarsen Two, they met with the Graphene lines that led them to the turning Red Sarsen with the Orion capsule at the end. Skittles has already opened the hatch for them, and the artificial gravity was now beginning to pull them towards it. Ash led the way, they were tethered together for safety, that allowed them to move more quickly, because tethering and holding on to the ship was not as essential, knowing that your partner was securing the position.

When they arrived, they were surprised to find Gerald sat in the depressurised capsule, in tee shirt and jeans. The two astronauts were by now under full artificial gravity, so they climbed into the capsule just like they did on Earth. In full launch or re-entry mode these capsules can seat four. Now that this one had been fitted out for the journey to Mars there was more room, so the three of them sat in the plush armchairs whilst the pressure built up, allowing them to remove their helmets and move into the main ship.

As they began the climb up the steps to the Columbus section that used to be a large lab on the ISS, Gerald said to Ash,

'I have someone here who would like to speak to you.'

Ash looked around, then at the disappearing feet of Hoshi, to whom he called,

'I'll be along in a minute, Gerald wants to talk with me.'

'Ok, I'll get the coffee on.' Hoshi called as she closed the hatchway for safety reasons.

Gerald began speaking, but it was Michelle's voice that came out,

'What happened up there?'

'You are right to suspect Dmitri, He brought a firearm up here. One that had been developed especially for this one mission – so he must have had help.'

'You make it sound as if it was all in the past. What has happened?'

'I don't know yet, I have been outside with Hoshi, there seems to have been a development, because we came back via one of the Orion capsules. But you have to be very careful. If anyone else finds out that you know, you may be in danger.'

'ME IN DANGER? You are the one in outer space with a crazed gunman who has probably killed to get to his position. You are in grave danger up there. I want you to get on the next bus back here and come on home at once.'

'Can't do that, Ma'am. I haven't eaten the sandwiches you packed for me yet.'

'Is there something wrong with them?'

'The edges have not curled up enough yet. I want them to touch at the corners.'

'Ash, you look after yourself, and if you see that Dmitri chap, throw one of the sandwiches at him.'

'Judging from the way Gerald is nodding here I presume that the situation has been resolved. You look after yourself, and don't tell anyone about this conversation, don't even tell them about the way you can have this communication.'

'Ok, Ash, love you. Hurry back. Hey! Bring me some Mars rock.'

'I'll bring one of the sandwiches.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 22

ONE SHORT

As Gerald left the airlock where he had dealt with Dmitri, he said to Galina,

'We must deal with this hole. Could you please hold this weight against the inside?' he passed a small flat piece of metal to Galina, who placed it on the inside of the small dimple made by the almost pinprick sized hole. He then hit the little mound from the outside with the flat of his hand. Then he glued a rubber patch over the place where a hole had been.

'That ought to hold it.' He said as he brushed red splashes off his left forearm. The red tee shirt hid the other splashes of blood.

'Now I must go and greet Mr Ashton.'

Just then Mark and Jake climbed the steps from the Destiny module.

Jake came out of the floor hatch into an area with slightly less gravity than the area he was leaving. This, coupled with his ebullience, made him pop up like the cork out of a bottle towards Galina,

'What happened here?' Jake asked Galina, who was still shaken by the recent events.

'There was a bang, then a cloud.' She pointed at the patch,

'Then Gerald went into the air lock.'

They then looked at the airlock proper and noticed that it was operating. The depressurisation was almost complete. The three astronauts stood, weighing less than a quarter of their normal weight, with the airlock at 90 degrees to them, they watched as the pressure dial slowly wound itself down.

Galina was first to speak,

'They must be testing the repair to the hole.' She pointed to the little rubber patch,

'Gerald did this before he left to see Ash.'

A very loud alarm then rang out.

Outside of the airlock, Skittles had begun to open the outer hatch before the pressure inside had equalised with the vacuum of space.

As he released the final holding latch he knew to stand back. The hatch flew open with the small amount of air pressure inside. This instantaneous change in pressures caused everything in the air lock that was not fastened down to fly into space, including Dmitri and every drop of liquid, most of which was rendered into its atomic particles in space. The hapless Russian accelerated from being at rest to around 500 mph almost instantly. He carried on at this speed ad infinitum.

Two pieces of equipment that accompanied Dmitri on his last trip were the gun he used and a small, blue hard plastic bullet, it's end had begun to melt into a fine point before being forced out of its hole by air pressure coming from outside.

Jake looked at Galina. She was holding up well, but the whole event had been a shock to her system. He noticed that she had a slight nervousness about her movement.

'Would you like to sit down in Destiny, where the gravity is more acceptable? We can talk this thing over.'

'I would be pleased to get out of this room.' Galina accepted the offer to leave the airlock with some relief. As they began down the ladder, Mark called after them,

'There's more room in the Blue Orion module, it may be a good idea to gather together to discuss what has just happened.'

The Orion module to which Mark referred was the capsule in which the astronauts reached the Phoenix. It had been 'modified'; most of the space-type equipment had been removed and stored elsewhere on the ship. In its place Mark had installed a very comfortable semi-circular settee covering half of the circular wall space. To begin with the area he had to work in was nearly seventeen feet across, with a conical roof that ranged from four feet behind the settee to fourteen feet in the centre, with a flat ceiling only five feet across. Above which was the stowage for the re-entry parachutes, alignment rocket motors and entrance hatch. In the narrowing space nearly half way up, another floor had been installed, creating another room above the main cabin. This allowed the use of an almost luxury curved staircase. Two captain's chairs faced a central consul from which it was possible to run the ship. It had been decided that the capsule would not be used for the Mars landing, so could be adapted for this purpose during the two-year mission. It would also serve as a mother ship in support of the landing parties, in case life on the red planet was too dangerous or untenable.

'That's a good idea, there is room for all of us, and we should have a conference about this affair.' Jake replied, he looked at Galina who seemed to be gathering strength,

'If you feel up to it.' He asked her.

'I'll be ok. After all I didn't have a big involvement in all of this.'

'You were standing in the room outside of the airlock for most of the time; you couldn't have known how it was going to turn out.'

The clattering of shoes on the rungs of the first ladder made further conversation impractical. Mark led the way down to the Destiny module, then on to the top of the Orion capsule. This was a small conical room with one workstation and an entry onto the only normal staircase in the ship. Here Mark paused for Jake to join him. He nodded to Jake as Galina entered the top of the ladder. Her feet had just come to view as Mark quietly said to Jake,

'Do you think she is ok with this? She's been through quite a lot.'

'Oh, yes. She's fine. I think she's glad to be more involved with the rest of us. I don't think she got on too well with Dmitri.'

Jake swung round and began down the stairs as Mark checked some read-outs and switched some things on the work-station.

Galina entered the stairs as Mark swung the seat round, and he joined her,

'It will help to talk this through. We are going to walk on Mars.' He punched the air to encourage her to re-focus on the mission.

Jake called Ash from the captain's chair,

'Jake on the bridge.' He grinned,

'I've always wanted to say that!' he returned to the intercom,

'Ash, we are convening in the Blue Orion to discuss what has just happened, Mark is patching us through to Houston.' He looked around to see that Mark was, indeed activating one of the gigantic curved screens that adorned the walls. As Tom Collins appeared on one side of the screen the other screen blinked on to show a south sea island beach in photo realism.

'Hi, Tom.' Mark greeted his fellow astronaut, 'We are just waiting for Ash and Hoshi to join us. I think Gerald will also be here.'

Mark looked at the south sea screen and said,

'I think we need something a little more settling than that.'

He tapped one screen on the central consul. A series of thumbnail images appeared on the big screen. As he selected one pic after another he asked Galina which one she liked, and thought was most suitable. She hesitated at the image of a gigantic cloud, then Mount Fuji,

'Hoshi would like that one. But it may make her feel homesick. No, try another.' She said.

Various flower close-ups were rejected. Then an image of a field of poppies with some aged fig trees in the background flashed up, quickly followed by some of mountains and lakes.

'Too atmospheric and distracting.' Galina said,

'Go back to the poppies. Yes, that is the one.'

Ash and Hoshi quickly took off their spacesuits in the Columbus module on the advice of Gerald; a little more weight on this side of the ship would help with balance. The android then asked his fellow androids Steve and Stuart to position themselves at the end of the arm they referred to as Red Sarsen, also to help with the balance.

The trio made their way through the ship, first up to the weightless centre, where the White Sarsen crossed their path, giving the only hallway in the whole vessel that had five doors. A careful turn before entering the Blue Sarsen meant that they would gradually feel the artificial gravity gradually pulling at their feet as they descended. Through the Harmony Module they descended the steps, past the airlock, into the Destiny module, then on to the top of Blue Orion, and down the stairs into the Command Module.

'It's on.' The American tortured brow of Professor Mike Xanthros came into view on the right-hand side of the screen on which Tom Collins was on the left.

Ash began the proceedings,

'Ok, I think we are all gathered at last.' He turned to Galina,

'Galina, you were probably the first to find out that things were not all they should be. Would you like to open the report?'

'I don't have that much to report.' She began, not knowing whom to look at,

'I was busy preparing the ORN126 to be moved when Dmitri just said that he was going upstairs, and I should stay where I was.'

Tom Collins on the screen commented,

'He sounds very matter-of-fact about this. Had you any inclination at all about what he was going to do?'

'There was no clue that would give away his intentions. He knew that I was working on something that would take me a few hours, he even locked the top hatch to prevent me getting out. Then I suppose he must have gone to put on his space suit.'

Professor Xanthros then asked,

'Didn't he need your help in getting into his suit?' he knew the American suits needed two or three people to help the astronaut into it.

'No. The latest cosmonaut suit from Russia can be prepped and put on by one person alone. This is a design feature that allows one-man operations.'

Ash pointed at Hoshi,

'That must be about when we became involved. We were out by the main engines after helping with the MRVs, the time was getting on, we had been out for over six hours, and Hoshi was getting low on oxygen. I was ok, because I had been for a ride in one of the vehicles; there I was able to recharge my supply.'

'We had just turned to return when I saw a man, turned out to be Dmitri, exiting the airlock. There had been no notification of this activity, which I found strange. It was then that I noticed that he had a gun, or some other such item, I couldn't believe it at first, and then he confirmed that he had, in fact got a gun.'

Hoshi continued the story,

'We were ordered back into the hold from where the MRVs had come from. My oxygen levels were getting critical; I should have been on my way back in. Skittles got a replenishment kit to me, but we found that it couldn't be used in space. My alarm was sounding by now; Doctor Preston pulled me out of the hold and into one of the MRVs. That is where I got replenished.'

Prof Xanthros then asked,

'We got some radio comms between some of you, but not all of it. There are whole bits missing here and there.'

There was a two-minute delay to his messages, so this was said before the previous statement.

Gerald took this opportunity to add,

'We instigated a complete lockdown as soon as we realised that there was something wrong, by then Dmitri had opened the outer hatch to the airlock. But he couldn't get out or operate the pressurisation systems.' He turned to Galina,

'Ms Danilenko, how did you get out of the Red section? When Dmitri had locked you in?'

'As I was trying to open the locked hatch it unlocked, as I opened it I felt it trying to lock again.'

Gerald seemed to be playing things back in his mind.

'Ah, yes. That was when we were bringing the lockdown in to effect. Your hatch was indicating a problem. The solution was to recycle the command to unlock, then lock again. Just as it recycled, you opened the hatch.'

Jake asked Galina an outright question,

'Did he threaten you? Did you feel coerced or threatened in any way?'

'No, Jake. I had no idea that he was going to do anything so violent.'

Then Prof Xanthros spoke with a question he had asked two minutes earlier,

'How did he get a gun up there? Do we not check on up-bound shipments?'

Ash gave the best reply he could,

'We all have our own responsibilities when it comes to unpacking, it would be easy to send something unauthorised to one or other of the astronauts, but there is the weight consideration. Everything is weighed because what cargo weighs is critical; but there has been so much sent up here that it only a very small percentage of the material has been uploaded.'

Tom Collins on the screen next to Mike Xanthros then asked,

'What happened next?'

Hoshi Masuto then responded,

'I had a communication from the robot net telling me that we should go to the Orion module on the Red Sarsen. No-one else would receive this, because I have been working with the robots, and needed to have this access to their net. I then looked out of the bay we were in, and saw that Dmitri was about to enter the airlock, so would not pose a threat to us. My oxygen was getting very low by now, and Ash suggested that I should relax to preserve as much as possible. It was he who dragged me out of that bay, and down to the Red Sarsen's Orion capsule. One slip from him, and I would have gone; I didn't have enough oxygen to await rescue if I had drifted off.'

Ash continued the story,

'And when we got to the Orion, Skittles I think it was, had opened the capsule. And there was Gerald awaiting us.'

'It was the one you call Silver who actually opened up the capsule. We had already decompressed it, this was easy due to the lockdown.' Gerald explained.

Even though there was a two-minute delay, Tom Collins still had opportunity to ask a timely question,

'What happened to Dmitri?'

Gerald was very matter-of-fact about this as he replied,

'Mr Chopov was still contained within the air lock in his spacesuit at space pressures. He elected to try to shoot his way out. This I considered to be a direct threat to the safety of the ship, so I took action to prevent any more damage. The single shot punctured the inner wall of the airlock, allowing air to be drawn into the space where Mr Chopov resided. I immediately began emergency repressurisation procedures. As the pressure equalised I forced the door open to allow myself to be drawn in to be able to interview Mr Chopov face to face, as it were. As I flew towards him, I noticed that he was still holding the gun; so I had no option but to disarm him by gripping his wrist and incapacitating him. The only sure way I know to prevent an accidental involuntary discharge of the weapon was to remove the hand from the tendons that might have caused a finger to pull the trigger. Point zero eight of a second later we slammed into the far wall of the air lock. Unfortunately, the human frame cannot tolerate this sudden impact, but there was no other way.'

Everyone fell silent in respect for a dead cosmonaut.

Xanthros was the first to break the silence,

'Where is he now? Chopov I mean.'

Galina quietly replied,

'I don't think he is still with us, in any manner.'

Gerald cleared this up,

'According to our best estimates he is now three hundred and eighty-seven miles away from the ship, travelling at 620 miles per hour relative to us. That would be 37,842 miles per hour relative to you.' (He had even taken into consideration the orbital movement of Earth in relation to everything else.)

Mark made a comment that was nearly a question,

'What, with no ceremony or dedication?'

'It's what he had in mind for us.' Galina commented.

Gerald gave a more reasoned rationale,

'There was a very real and immediate threat to the whole mission, and everyone on it. That called for drastic, fast action.'

'Bring them back.' Xanthros called,

'Tom, work out a method that will bring them back here as quickly as possible, with as little strain on the ship as possible. It may have been damaged in ways we do not know about.'

Gerald was still explaining his version of events when this interjection came in,

'That drastic action only ended when the threat was removed from the ship.'

Ash picked up on Xanthros's transmission,

'Negative Mr Controller. I recommend that we continue on our present course until we find out if there's a need to return.'

Gerald gave his support to this,

'I concur, sir. If it's metal, we can mend it. The mission is more important than this incident.'

Tom Collins watched Xanthros's expression upon the receipt of these messages. He heard the reply two minutes before the ship got it,

'Ok. That sounds like a reasonable plan of action go ahead.' Gerald backed the efforts to keep the mission on track.

Tom looked at his boss's expression on the screen as he said the words that authorized the mission to carry on. It was as if he went along with it because the robot said it was ok.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 23

INSIDE THE PHOENIX

Dmitri used low velocity bullets in the smart gun, a weapon designed to damage flesh, not spacecraft bulkheads.

The crew was distributed at their workstations; Ash and Jake, the American contingent, sat in the converted Zvenda module in the Blue Sarsen, this was to be used as the main Bridge. It was close to the communications tower with its dishes. Also close by the Bridge was the observation cupola, the Quest airlock and two of the ship's docking ports. Mark and Galina were working in the Orion module at the other end of the Red Sarsen. They were busy converting the capsule into a more comfortable living space. Cooking in zero gravity had proved to be impossible, now they had artificial gravity, it became possible to cook from their supplies.

It was this supply of fresh food that Hoshi Masuto concerned herself with four days later. She climbed down the ladder from the Bridge in the Blue Orion. As she moved towards the curved stairs she found Jake Jensen at the workstation above the bridge,

'Hi, Jake. Do you have immediate access to the ammonia readings in the farm?'

'You bet. The alarm keeps going off. I've already reset the scrubbers to a higher rating, but I think we will have to get some more scrubbers from somewhere, or we will be eating ammonia tainted chicken for some time.'

'Ok. I will go down there and see what I can do.'

'Take a robot with you and wear a respirator. It is close to toxic levels.'

'Could you see if Stuart is available? I think he is in that area.'

Hoshi gave a thumbs-up as she began climbing the ladder to the Blue Sarsen.

Hoshi starts at moving up the Blue Sarsen, past Jake in the workstation, then into the converted Spektor module, then to the Bridge area with access to a docking port. She continued climbing into the Unity Module. Above this she moved through the changing room with space suits stored around five of the eight walls.

By now her weight had reduced to approximately 25 per cent.

The next module contained mainly water, this they would use to protect themselves from the harmful effects of solar radiation. When she reached the module next to White Sarsen she was faced with a choice of four hatches on the walls, as well as ones at either end. Of the four, he knew that one led to outer space, two more led to storage modules that were attached to the outside of the Blue Sarsen. It was the other one that she needed, the one that led to the Farm.

As she left the Blue Sarsen she became almost weightless in the new sections of the White Sarsen. She now floated as an astronaut is supposed to. She was facing the rear of the ship, turning to her front she moved less than three body lengths to the entrance to the farm. The ship here was fifteen feet across, once again with almost a hexagonal shape; due to installation of equipment turning the circular sections to near squares. In these equipment hatches Hoshi found a respirator. She tested this whilst she waited for Stuart to make his way to her.

Soon Hoshi saw the blue tee shirt of Stuart moving towards her. To say she was floating is not right, she was nearer to swimming as she adjusted her position in the middle of the space as she moved effortlessly from the rear of the ship.

Fresh eggs and chickens came from the farm. This is the name they gave the inflatable pod attached to the side of the Red Sarsen. In this they had ranks of chickens on one side. It was felt that the chickens in the highest positions, which felt weaker gravity, would not fare as well as the ones at the bottom of the stack. So it was decreed that they should be rotated to give them all a chance of experiencing full gravity, and also chance to walk around on the grass that was on the ground. This activity also gave the crew a job that reminded them of home. Hoshi Masuto was concerned about the effects of the ammonia released from the chicken droppings, but apart from that it was felt that the nutrient-rich product could be used to replenish the small amount of soil they had brought with them.

'You don't know how lucky you are.' Hoshi said to Stuart as they began to descend into the farm,

'The stench is quite overpowering. I don't know how long I can stay in here.'

'Is your respirator not functioning properly?'

'Yes, I think it is, but the gas can sometimes seep in as I move about.'

'We must ensure that the gas does not seep into the rest of the ship.'

Stuart consulted his wrist-mounted multifunction instrument.

'Steve tells me that the scrubbers will be replaced completely in two point three hours. In the mean time I suggest that we inject a dye to colour the ammonia to allow everyone to see if there is a problem.'

Hoshi was by now only half way down the ladder alongside the chicken pens. She had trouble making herself heard over the racket made by the birds. She shouted to Stuart, who was below her,

Hoshi shook her head and said,

'I don't think that will be necessary. The smell is much more noticeable than any dye. But it can't do any harm.'

'Yes, and if there is a leak, a coloured gas will be easier to trace.'

Hoshi's eyes were now almost closed. The sweat and tears were now combining with the gas. She dared not lift her goggles to wipe her eyes. She was just about to call to Stuart that she is going to return to fresh air when she lost her balance on the slippery rungs of the ladder. She tried to grasp with her gloved hand, but that failed. At the position she lost her footing she was about half way down, so only experienced 40 per cent gravity. Her leg caught Stuart as she fell, who tried to grab her to prevent the fall. But to no avail. Hoshi hit the grass with quite a thump, luckily the ground was soft, but it put Hoshi at a disadvantage. She was now completely blind, dazed, and feeling none too good after her fall. Above her, through the din of over one hundred chickens and an almost toxic stench was a forty-five-foot ladder that she would have to climb. The muddy texture of the ground contained more than its fair share of chicken droppings. Hoshi sat up and assessed her situation. Her left shoulder seemed to have taken the brunt of her impact. She tried moving her left arm, but the pain was too great, so she laid her arm on her lap.

'Something may be broken.' She thought. Carefully she began to try to stand, but with only one hand useable and the slippery ground she failed to even stand. Then Stuart was standing alongside her.

'Is there anything broken?' she asked.

He gave his assessment,

'Left arm, shoulder, maybe clavicle. Legs seem ok, neck and back ok.'

She had just taken in the report when she felt a sharp pull from the collar of her overall. It would have taken her a little over one point six minutes to climb the ladder in good conditions when she was fit. Stuart pulled her up in eighteen seconds.

The weightless conditions in the White Sarsen did not allow the pain in her shoulder to abate. She felt that her arm was ok, so strapped it to her waist to prevent movement.

It was later found that she had broken her clavicle.

Normally on Earth this would be left to heal itself, but this was not Earth. It was not possible to guarantee that she would not knock it every now and then. That alone would prevent the healing process; so it was decided that it would have to be repaired.

Galina Danilenko had had medical training, and the 'S' class robots have an extensive knowledge of human anatomy, so an operation was carried out, and the scientist was enabled to be a useful member of the crew again in three days.

When she returned to duties her first task was to address the ammonia problem, only to find that the robots had found a solution.

'We decided that ammonia is a source of energy, so we designed a storage system, which is not difficult given the cold of space.' Stuart explained,

'Steve and Silver have built a distillation plant that will also convert the gas into a liquid. They are now working on an engine that can at least turn the liquid gas into heat.'

On the other side of the ship, alongside the Blue Sarsen was the pod that contained a lot of their water. Naturally, this was called the pool. Although there were several tons of water, the weight exerted on the structure did not exceed the maximum strain load since not all of the water was exposed to full gravity; the water at the top was almost weightless. Not all of this was drinking water. Fish are a very good source of protein and are easy to keep. Experiments were carried out to find if the fish carried thrive in zero-point eight gravity or do they do better at half of Earth's gravity, or none at all. From results thus far, it is the pressure of water that makes most difference to the well-being of fish.

Concentrated food, however was to be the mainstay of the crew during their two-year deployment on to another planet.

The main body of White Sarsen comprised a long tower. This tower was to hold the Graphene lines that prevented the Blue and Red Sarsens that carried the humans, from moving and breaking when under acceleration. The Orion capsule at the end of central White Sarsen was kept untouched throughout the whole journey, for this was the lifeboat, if anything should go wrong, the crew would be able to make their way to this capsule. Behind it was the massive final stage of the gigantic Epsilon 3 rocket that sent the Orions into space.

This rocket stage had now been adapted to carry mainly food, water, oxygen and batteries. Should the astronauts need to abandon the ship, they would have to live in this lifeboat for as long as it took to get back to Earth. They all knew it was a forlorn hope, even though they were only five people now, it would still be a massive undertaking. And they may have to spend up to a year getting back, depending on the orbital positions of the Earth and Mars, and where they were in their journey.

Another five Epsilon 3 final stages had been utilised in the construction of the Phoenix. Four of these gigantic machines were mounted around the rear of the rear of the White Sarsen. The rear of this arrangement gave the impression of a truly gigantic contraption with 7 massive rocket engines. The odd number comes from the fact that 3 of the Sarsens had three J-2 engines from the third stages of the Epsilon rocket, Sarsen Four had one F-2D engine from the second stage that had gone to make up the White Sarsen.

During the increases in solar activity that bring about solar flares tremendous amounts of radioactive energy is released from the sun. This energy is thought to be deadly to humans, and it was not known what effect shielding would have, if any. But at least they would get warning of these deadly events. In the event of a massive solar flare the crew would all go to the centre of the ship, where rocket engines, fuel, water, food and a lot of space ship would be between them and the sun. Doctor Masuto would then study the resultant effects upon the living creatures, especially chickens. A more difficult to predict phenomenon was the radiations emitted by exploding stars and galaxies light years away.

These matters did not concern the occupants of the revolving Phoenix as they sped towards their goal of landing on Mars and establishing a temporary colony there.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 24

ORBIT

Preston Ashton sat in the captain's chair on the bridge of the interplanetary craft Phoenix when a call came in from ground control at Houston.

'Houston to Phoenix, Tom Collins here. Come back if you can.'

Mars and the Earth were closer now, but moving apart again. The planetary orbits have brought the planets to within 40 million miles that is about 65,000,000 kilometres. Now communications were as good as they would get for some considerable time. For Phoenix the time delay was five point two minutes, but as the mission progressed the planets would move apart because they are both orbiting the sun, not each other.

When the Phoenix left its orbit around Earth, Mars was some 90 million miles away. In the three months they have been travelling the planets have moved closer – closer than they have been for 50 million years. The reason for this can be found in the orbits they follow; they are not circular. It can be likened to a bullet chasing a moving target. As the planets oscillate in their elliptical paths around the sun, they move further apart, then closer together. When the Phoenix arrives above the Martian surface the planets will be in the closest positions for 50 million years. The Phoenix cannot then leave Mars to make the journey back immediately. The reason is because by the time she had travelled the two or three months back, the Earth will not be there, it will be 90 million miles away, and it would take the Phoenix nearly five months to travel that far. By which time the Earth would be even further away. The people aboard the Phoenix are now trapped in the Martian orbit for two years, when the two planets get close again.

Ash replied,

'Hi, Tom. Ash and Mark here, the others have been notified, and are on their way.'

'Ok, Ash. What about the 'S' classes? Are they on the net?'

The voices of Stuart, Steve and Gerald confirmed that they were all on board and in contact.

Galina passed the Cupola, and turned towards the bridge in the Blue Sarsen, followed by Jake.

'Anyone seen Hoshi?' she asked.

'Just coming in from a spacewalk.' Ash told them.

Space walks alone were now permitted provided at least one 'S' class robot accompanied the astronaut, although Silver did not count in this because he was usually active around the back of the ship. If an astronaut got into trouble upon leaving the air lock (the most likely time), he would not be in a good enough position to help. Hoshi re-entered the ship with Steve in white tee shirt and jeans. They both exited the airlock into the ship; Hoshi had her helmet under her arm. Between them they got her out of her spacesuit and made their way to the bridge.

As Hoshi entered the bridge she apologised for keeping people waiting,

'Don't worry about it,' Jake responded,

'We blame Steve for being overdressed in space, you realise that we are now in the jurisdiction of the Martian Fashion Police?'

'If we can get on, gentlemen?' Ash took control,

'Hoshi, I understand you have a definitive report on the preparations the 'S' classes have made.'

'Yes, Ash. They have been very busy. Mark and I have tried to help, but we have not been able to do very much, as usual.'

'You cannot help having to spend 75% of your time in the ship.' Steve remarked.

Tom Collins seemed to be a little out of step, being four minutes behind the conversation,

'We have here preliminary plans for the Mars landing.' He reported.

Mike Xanthros then came on the net,

'Good morning people. Yes, we have our original plans, but as you well know, we had not been able to finalise the finer points.'

The crew of the Phoenix knew to keep quiet and wait for the signal to reach them; normal conversation was impossible due to the time delay. Xanthros continued,

'The 'S' class robots you have on board have been working on a solution, which they have now been able to furnish to us, but I will let Doctor Hoshi Masuto explain it more fully to you all to make sure we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.'

Hoshi began immediately,

'Thank you, Professor. I have just returned from outside the ship inspecting the preparations being made for our arrival and orbit, followed by an imminent landing on Mars. Our friends Stuart, Gerald and Steve have made very good provision for the continuance of our mission.'

Just then the equivalent to a cell phone in Gerald's circuits rang. Without anyone knowing, he answered the call. It was Michelle Romero from Houston on his private line.

'Hello Ms Romero. What can I do for you?'

'Hello, Gerald. Would it be possible to talk to Ash?'

'Not at the moment, I'm afraid. He is in a meeting with Houston and the whole crew.'

'Oh, I see. I just wanted to wish him good luck.'

'Would you like to listen in on the meeting?'

'Can I? That would be fantastic.'

'I can mute you, so that no-one will know you are there.'

Hoshi continued her explanation,

'We shall be entering the Martian atmosphere in the MRVs, in much the same way we re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. But because the Martian atmosphere is so much thinner than ours the deceleration effect is reduced. However, because the Martian gravity is less than Earth's we will not be travelling quite so fast as a re-entry to Earth. The MRVs are similar to any other re-entry vehicle, apart from the blades on top. Instead of parachutes, which would be difficult to repack on Mars, these are equipped with rotor blades like a helicopter. Because of the thinner Martian atmosphere there is not much for them to grip on to, so they have been made more like the shapes of a ship's propeller. Normally stowed along the sides of the vehicle, they can only be as long as the MRV. But these are extendable. When they are deployed they begin spinning, the centrifugal force draws out the extensions, which nearly doubles their length.'

She put a schematic diagram on the screen, Gerald explained to Michelle what was on the screen,

'There is a picture of one of these vehicles. It resembles a cross between a tall helicopter and a trailer caravan, with a pointed top. Dr Hoshi will now describe the component parts.'

'This strange device is the best shape we have come up with to perform the tasks set for it. To begin at the top, here we have the rotor assembly and initial re-entry guidance motors. We went for a contra-rotating set-up to give greater stability, and more blade area. Much more blade area.'

Gerald explained,

'That is where you have two sets of rotor blades, one on top of the other. They go round in opposite directions to cancel out the gyroscopic effect; and by slowing one or the other you can turn the vehicle.'

Hoshi took a sip of water,

'The heat shield below the vehicle is a problem. Because of the work it does it, cannot be re-used. The rest of the vehicle has been designed to be re-usable. We have rebuilt one J-2C rocket engine to fit under the vehicle and four ullage engines to be used for stability at the four corners. These are sufficient for lift-off from the planet's surface.'

'There is room inside each MRV for two fully equipped astronauts and sufficient supplies for five days. Landing is on these extending legs, each of which is a hydraulic system that can be used to level up the MRV as it lands. This thing can land on a slope of up to eight degrees, or on an uneven surface.'

Tom Collins asked a question, but with the four-minute delay it was a little out of place,

'If the heat shield is a problem, how can the MRV be re-used?'

Gerald answered simply,

'We have a supply of heat shields here on the Phoenix. She will stay in orbit above the landing site and operate as a mother ship. When one of the MRVs returns to the Phoenix the heat shield will be replaced ready for the return journey.'

Xanthros turned to Tom Collins,

'Did he say one of the MRVs?'

'Yes, he did, sir.' Then to the Phoenix,

'Gerald, how many of these re-entry vehicles do you have?'

Hoshi continued,

'The supply of equipment will be via the storage containers we now know as the Sarsens one, two, three and four. These will enter the atmosphere sideways on to present the largest surface to give better slowing performance. Luckily they do not have to be re-used; the heat shield on these is massive, so cannot be replaced. Upon landing they do so in the reverse of a normal rocket taking off from Earth; that is straight down. They are equipped with the same contra-rotating rotors that are used on the MRVs, and they each have four J-2C rocket engines. These can be used to either move them or return them to the mother ship. Controllable hydraulic legs are used here with more need for stability due to the need to stand these cylinders on end.'

Then Tom's question came in over the radio waves,

'How many MRVs have you got?'

Gerald replied immediately, but his reply was not heard for four minutes,

'We have two ready, one almost ready, and another under construction, sir. We have designated them MRV One, Two, and Three. We know how you like to give these machines names, so we have followed a past practice of yours of using the names of important historical Greeks. MRV One has been given the name 'Euclid', MRV Two is called 'Pythagoras', and when it is finished MRV Three will be 'Ptolemy'.

... ... ... ... ...

The red planet moved slowly past them as they orbited one hundred miles above its barren surface. Jake and Galina stood in the copula looking down at the rugged planet, upon which no man had ever set foot, and they were about to; nothing could stop them now.

'Who is to be first?' Galina pondered aloud.

'The first to set foot on an alien world? To be the first person to ever set foot on another planet? There can only be one first. There may be many who come after, like Neil was the first to set foot on the moon, but there can only be one first – and this is a biggie.'

Hoshi was in communications with Houston, but the conversation was difficult, apart from the four-minute delay, there was now a period of lost communications when they pass around the back of the planet. Every thirty-seven minutes they were in radio blackout for eight minutes. If Houston's transmission came in during that time it was lost.

Tom Collins spoke to the ship, this is the best way to describe the way the transmissions from Mission Control can be described, because they were received by the robot network. This included all 'S'-class robots, the manufacturing facility in the White Sarsen, and the computers on board the three landing craft, which now took on the ambience of being part of the whole robot culture.

'We have decided to allow you people up there to decide who should have the honour of being the first human to set foot on Mars.' Tom said.

Hoshi replied immediately,

'Well, it can't be me. My shoulder is not yet healed up and can still give me trouble from time to time.'

Eight minutes later Tom said in a very matter-of-fact way,

'Well, in that case I am nominating you to find a way of deciding, of the remaining four people on board, who should be the first one out.'

'Thank you, Mr Collins. I treasure that honour, you side-stepped that nicely didn't you?'

She then tapped a screen on the centre consul,

'Can all crew make their way to the bridge as soon as possible please?'

Ten minutes later the five astronauts sat around in the Blue Sarsen control centre. Hoshi began the address,

'Those nice people down at Houston have delegated to me the responsibility of deciding who should be the first person to set foot on Mars. They decided that I was not in the running, so I could have the job.'

Jake was first to respond to this,

'Is it to be sealed bids?'

Mark and Galina sat back in stunned silence.

Ash saw the importance, and the gravity of the situation straight away, he looked out of the windows of the Cupola to see Mars only 100 miles below them slide past as the Phoenix kept on turning to maintain their gravity.

'We have agreed on a landing site.' He turned to his crew,

'About fifty kilometres away from the permafrost of the southern ice cap. This gives us the best chance of finding water, but avoids the problems involved in landing on an ice surface we know nothing about.'

Mark found his voice,

'Let's make it a race. There are three MRVs, four of us in the running, we just decide who isn't going, and then the remaining three race it out.' He was not serious.

Hoshi decided that enough time had been spent on silly suggestions, but they may have a possible solution,

'I have decided to use a combination of both ideas. To decide who should stay behind we shall have a sort of sealed bids scheme. You all have fifteen minutes to explain, in writing, why you should be the first one to set foot on Mars. I will then decide who gave the best reason.'

The four astronauts were issued with A5 sized sheets of paper and a pen. They then began thinking.

No-one had ever asked them 'Why do you want to be an astronaut?' not even at high school. A lot of head scratching and pondering followed. This was a momentous occasion. How do you give it the right pitch?

Eventually the four little sheets were written on and folded into quarters, then handed back to Hoshi, who then shuffled them as she explained,

'There is no way I am going to decide who should be the first human to set foot on an alien planet. Gerald will decide by selecting one sheet of paper. He has no way of knowing who wrote any of these, so the decision will be completely arbitrary.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 25

LANDING

The spaceship Phoenix circled one hundred miles above the Martian surface. Situated above the Martian equator the craft was able to maintain a Mar stationary orbit above one point on the surface. This meant that the astronauts would be able to hover over the intended landing site, but the ship would be moving to a higher orbit when the base has been established. Right now the four astronauts were more concerned with their preparations to leave the Phoenix in the small re-entry craft that will take them to the surface of the red planet.

'There is no room in here for you.' Ash commented as Gerald helped him in through the small hatchway. The climbing into the capsules was aided by almost zero gravity out here by the Bridge. This was Pythagoras, Euclid was docked on to the Red Sarsen. The astronauts entered these craft by the hatch in the nose, the same way the Apollo astronauts did with their Lunar Landers. Ash needed as much help as he could get because he was fully suited up for a space-walk with a difference – this one ended up on an alien world.

'That is because I will not be with you on this trip.' Gerald explained,

'But you will not be on your own. These vehicles are fully connected to our net, so we will know everything that you do. The final landing is down to you guys, but we will handle the actual re-entry, right down to the deployment of the rotors.'

Mark Singleton sat in the capsule, waiting for Ash to join him. Hoshi had still not revealed the person who had won the selection procedure, but the positions of the astronauts gave clues. Ash was last in, so was closest to the door. That meant that he would be first out. The same situation existed in the other re-entry vehicle; Galina got into the vehicle first, followed by Jake. It had been decided that the Americans should be split up to avoid complaints about nationalism and Americans trying to run the affair.

Gerald closed the hatch on 'Euclid', which contained Ash and Mark. At the same time Jake and Galina were sealed into 'Pythagoras' by Stuart. The two strangely dressed 'people' then repaired to the main body of the ship. Here they began undoing the fasteners that held the vehicles on to the Phoenix. As they did this they communicated with each other and the crews, Gerald led the sequence, and Stuart did the same actions, Ash and Jake followed by monitoring readings on their visor displays,

'Disconnect Valve Flow Box. Gas Heat Exchanger, Purge LOX and Air.' A wait of four seconds before continuing on Ash and Jake's response,

'Purge complete.'

Gerald then continued,

'Disconnect Umbilical Consul, power down hydraulics.' Ash and Jake threw switches, then replied,

'Power down hydraulics complete.'

'Hold rotation on Phoenix.' Gerald called to Steve, who was monitoring things from the Captains Station in the capsule at the end of Blue Sarsen,

'Rotation slowing.' he said as he fired up the small attitude motors near the ends of the Red and Blue Sarsens to stop the Phoenix rotating.

The gigantic interplanetary craft slowly stopped turning. Jake came on the airwaves,

'We would really like a view of the planet we are aiming at, if you don't mind.'

The two MLVs were mounted on the same side of the mother ship to facilitate simultaneous launches.

As the Phoenix stopped turning, the red surface of Mars came into view through the small windows in the MLVs.

Gerald called the final commands,

'Hold down clamps released, ST-124-M3 disconnect.'

'All systems clear.' Jake and Ash confirmed that they were ready to part company from the Phoenix.

Gerald and Stuart pulled the last levers and pushed their respective MRVs away from the Phoenix towards the Red Planet that loomed above them.

''Euclid' departed.' Stuart reported.

Gerald did the same with 'Pythagoras' when he knew that five seconds had elapsed. This gave the two vehicles sufficient separation to satisfy safety considerations when plummeting to the planet at 12,000 miles per hour.

The on-board computers in the MLVs had been programmed with the intended landing site – there will be only one for both vehicles. They began adjusting the positions of the MLVs to point their rocket engines in the direction in which they wished to go. They were still travelling at 15,000 mph, half a mile away from the Phoenix now. Ash could just make out the shape of Gerald as he freed up the cargo container Sarsen One in preparation for dispatching it down to the surface. It was intended that three of these would land before the manned capsules to enable the people to alight as close to them as they thought necessary. As he watched the cylinder leave the spacecraft he saw Silver at the back end and remembered his first encounter with the silver robot.

Then the retro rockets fired. These were now facing the direction of travel and were intended to slow the craft to allow it to begin falling with the Martian gravity.

Just a four second burn this time to control the curve of their re-entry. But this term is inaccurate, this was not to be a re-entry, because they had never been there before – no one had. But this is the term normally used, so we must stick with it here.

The thin Martian atmosphere began to cause friction on the bases of the tall pyramid structures. Then the shaking began. They had been through this many times in practice on Earth, but the heat they were to experience could not be replicated, neither could what they found next. No-one has ever seen a vehicle entering the Martian atmosphere, which is composed mainly of Carbon dioxide. When this compound burns, it gives off a white flame. The three cylindrical Sarsens overtook the two modules carrying humans just as they reached the outer edge of the atmosphere. As these long cylinders entered the atmosphere sideways on, they began to give off a bright white light that was not expected. With the deep, impenetrable blackness of space behind them, the blueish-white flares that erupted before the astronauts took them by surprise. This was the first time that these structures had been tested – including the Euclid and Pythagoras in which they were now plummeting down towards who knows what. White flames began flashing past their windows.

Jake turned to Galina. He saw the apprehension in her eyes,

'Don't worry, Hun.' He said as he tapped a small screen in front of him,

'The finest robot brains ever developed designed these. They know what they are doing.' He glanced back at her to see a slight softening in her expression.

Mark Singleton, in the other module with Ash, looked around the interior of the pyramid-shaped room they were in. The vibrations now began to rise in both the shaking, and the noise levels. As a structural engineer, he knew all about stress levels. He knew that the robots who built this module would also know, but it still worried him.

Far below, the Sarsens approached the surface of Mars. Their retro rockets began firing, the cylinders started turning. All three of them adopted a vertical posture. They descended under full control towards the surface.

The mother ship Phoenix orbited silently as the two Mars Landing Vehicles (MLVs) began to enter the planet's thin atmosphere.

The capsules began to heat up; the friction of the craft passing through the gaseous envelope at such speed caused the bottom to absorb the energy as heat.

The long cylindrical containers known as Sarsens One, Two, and Three came into the upper reaches of the atmosphere at the same time. Being heavier than the MLVs these fell faster.

With a more dramatic re-entry, they were turned to face the atmosphere side plunged down to the surface with their sides facing their direction of travel. A big heat shield stretched the full length of the Sarsens, but they still reached a greater heat than the manned MLVs. The three flaming, glowing cylinders passed the two MLVs due to their faster re-entry speed.

Inside the MLVs were four people, two in each. Jake Jensen looked out of the window of Pythagoras as the cigar-shaped Sarsens passed them. The flames from their own decent licked past the window with eerie crimson tips to the flames.

There was not much conversation due to the severe vibrations and heat the vessels were subjected to.

All the astronauts had experienced re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, but this was very different. Crimson, white and blue flames streaked past the windows. The atmosphere they were plummeting down into was not air; the Martian atmosphere is mainly carbon dioxide, and you would expect it to burn differently to air. What they were watching whiz past the windows was not only burning atmosphere, it was mainly their heat shield disintegrating and taking the heat with it. That is why the heat shield must be replaced or repaired after every re-entry. The numbered Sarsens have such large areas on their sides that it was not practical to replace them, so they were only to re-enter once. They had the capability to return to the mother ship, but once there they would not be able to return to the surface.

High in orbit above this pyrotechnic display the mother ship

Phoenix had changed shape.

With three of the Sarsens gone, plus two re-entry vehicles she looked considerably thinner.

On their way to the Martian surface were two of the three androids, as well as the four human astronauts. This left Hoshi Masuto a little alone in the Phoenix. She initiated the rotating motion of the ship for her own comfort more than anything. There were no communications with the MLVs as they blasted through the atmosphere, all she could do was wait and monitor read-outs on her visor. The MLVs had the capacity to transmit the heat shield data to her, but this was unreliable and intermittent now due to the severe forces acting on the vessels. One other source of information came from the robots' monitoring and control systems. They were able to communicate with all five of the capsules; and control them during their decent.

'Pythagoras and Sarsen One getting too hot, I will deflect them a little.' Gerald said to Hoshi as he joined her on the bridge.

Hoshi saw the commands take effect on her visor instruments, but she heard no instructions – it was as if Gerald had used some kind of telepathy.

Four thrusters on each vehicle, one with Jake and Galina in it, fired briefly to decrease their rate of descent. The big Sarsens were now quite a lot closer to the surface of Mars than the MLVs with people in them. The searing heat had slowed them somewhat, but they were still travelling at 4,000 mph when the thrusters on the tops of the cylinders began firing. These turned the rocket motors at the base of the obelisks to face their direction of travel. Each Sarsen was fitted with four J-2C rocket engines, the type that were used in the second stages of the Mars Launch Vehicles; these will slow the plummeting vehicles more effectively than the thin Martian atmosphere.

A very delicate balancing act then took place. All three cylinders began to rotate until their rocket motors faced the searing heat caused by friction with the atmosphere. There was no doubt that they would fire up when fuel was injected into their combustion chambers, but they had not been tested in these conditions. The thousands of parts had to work perfectly, but the most important were the fuel control valves deep within the spacecraft. These were assembled and installed in the freezing cold of space. Now they were being subjected to severe heating, first from one side, then from the rear, where the rocket exhaust cone was beginning to glow white hot.

As the tops of the Sarsens began to cool, and the four rockets on each Sarsen began taking the brunt of re-entry heat, the fuel was injected into the combustion chambers. Of the twelve engines only one failed to fire. On Sarsen One only three engines fired. That put a lot of strain on the directional thrusters, but the situation should be within parameters provided that no other rocket engines failed to function.

As the Sarsens slowed more rapidly the gravity of Mars began to pull the tops down, and out of alignment with the path of descent, so the vehicles had to carefully stabilize the tall cylinders –like trying to balance a broomstick on your finger. Eventually they were upright; and travelling straight down. Then two of the rockets shut down as they were supposed to, or in the case of Sarsen One, one rocket.

Foldaway rotors deployed to slow and control the cylinders. Above them came two cones shaped fireballs still trailing flame and smoke. The rotors allowed more directional control than parachutes, so the cylinders could be landed in a circle on the base of a large crater with enough space between each other to allow for accidents, but still within walking distance for the astronauts when they arrived.

As they descended into the shallow red crater the cylinders, now black and white from the heat of re-entry, seemed to jockey for position. The counter-rotating rotors on top whirled, each blade carefully manipulated to give direction and movement, hoe-down to the silent fiddle music of Mars.

When each machine was ten feet off the ground three hydraulic legs extended. Thin Martian dust was kicked up by the rocket motors until the pads on the ends of the legs registered hard ground beneath them, then the engines were cut, and the cylinders came to rest.

All except Sarsen Three. The hydraulic leg on the side of the heat shield failed to deploy properly.

Up on the Phoenix, Gerald said nothing to Hoshi, but there was something going on because the readouts in the Japanese scientists' visor showed that Sarsen Three was in trouble. It contained one third of the food, water and oxygen needed for the first year on the planet. If it returned to the Phoenix, it would be very difficult to get the supplies down, so it had to be landed – somehow.

Two padded legs touched down on the Martian surface. The vehicle began tipping towards the legless side. Thrusters that normally fire to correct the attitude of the craft in space began firing. They have nowhere near enough power to prevent the fall. Slowly the burned column leaned over. The Martian gravity though weaker than Earth's, was still powerful enough to pull the column over. It accelerated as it came down to the red gritty surface, the thrusters firing until the last moment. They kicked up more dust than the falling column, pink dust that covered the scene. Then the rotors touched the ground and began churning it up. A split second later the whole column crashed down. It broke into four separate parts, but there was no explosion.

Dust cleared quickly on Mars. Shooting away into the thin atmosphere. As the two cones began circling there was no dust cloud. These were also equipped with counter-rotation rotors to give them a control over where they wanted to alight; but were not powerful enough to give then a survivable landing. To slow them sufficiently they were equipped with a J-2C throttleable rocket motor.

'Pythagoras' landed first. As they came in to land, they saw that one of the Sarsens had fallen.

In the other MLV, 'Euclid' Mark Singleton commented as he saw dark stains spread around the fallen Sarsen, -

'It looks as if there is water on Mars now.'

Alongside him sat Ash,

'Either that or free rocket fuel.' He said as he watched 'Pythagoras' touch down on the Martian surface. Eight seconds later he and Mark followed suit in 'Euclid'.

The confirmation of a safe landing was received at Houston automatically, there was no need for voice transmissions, but tradition was a powerful thing.

Ash made the simple broadcast back to Earth, -

'Houston. 'Euclid' and 'Pythagoras' have landed, - There is life on Mars.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

The selected landing site lay within a large crater to offer some protection. The three columns descended slowly through a vast dust cloud raised by their rocket motors.

There was no drama, no explosion, as the Sarsen hit the ground in the crater, only a large cloud of dust, followed by a white cloud of escaping gases.

By the time the Euclid and Pythagoras modules arrived above the crater the dust had dispersed. The two thin white pyramids were topped by counter-rotating rotor blades. These were not, however, enough to slow the machines as they plummeted through the atmosphere. To slow to a final descent, they were each fitted with four J-2C rocket engines.

The modules, containing the first humans to land circled above the three Sarsen cylinders, two standing and one fallen.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 26

ENCAMPMENT

In Pythagoras were the American astronaut Jake Jensen and the Russian scientist Galina Danilenko. Euclid carried the other American, Preston Ashton and the British astronaut Mark Singleton.

The encampment in the Martian crater looked as strange as you would expect on an alien planet.

The two Sarsens that stood upright were situated well within the crater's rim; the third one had fallen with its top pointing at the centre of the shallow red crater. Liquid had begun flowing from the broken cylinder, but the severe cold made it freeze solid before it got too far.

Two conical capsules now sat almost in the centre of the crater. Two tepees and their totem poles would have looked similar.

'Euclid to Houston. We have four Modules landed safely down; one Sarsen has fallen over on landing. There has been no fire or explosion. Euclid reports both crew fit and well. Over to Pythagoras.' Ash reported in, then asked Jake in the second module to do the same.

'Pythagoras here, two crew fit and well, no dramas here.' He turned to Galina for confirmation of this.

Tom Collins at Houston then called,

'Copy you down Ash. You will now be known as Homer Base. Congratulations, you are the first colony on another planet. Have you decided who is to be first to set foot on Mars?'

A few minutes' delay before he received the reply from Ash,

'Not yet, Tom. Jake and Galina were first down in Pythagoras, so I think it should be one of them.'

Jake picked up on this, and said,

'There are various shutdown procedures to be done, but we would be too happy to comply with the last suggestion.'

'Ok, Jake. I propose we all take a couple of hours to sort things out and rest. Then we can venture forth in good condition.' Ash said.

Back at Mission Control Tom heard all this with the usual delay, then replied,

'Copy all that, Homer Base. This is Mission Control listening out.'

The four astronauts on the surface of Mars began their shutdown procedures, and then took an hour's much needed rest.

In orbit around the red planet Hoshi began working with the robots on board. There now began a massive logistics plan. On board the Phoenix they carried supplies for the whole mission. The main components of this were food, water and oxygen. On top of all this there was the 'farm'; various animals, among them chickens and quails, were contained within one of the modules that were fastened to the side of the Blue Sarsen and the White Sarsen. These pods were referred to as Sarsen One and Sarsen Two. One of these cells contained fish, but it would be quite some time before these could be transferred to the surface – if they could ever be subjected to the fierce experience of re-entry.

A strange meeting now took place on board the Phoenix. One Japanese scientist and three androids conferred about the next things to be done, and in what order. The strangeness about this meeting was that the attendees were not in the same room – they were scattered all over the ship. The androids had developed a very efficient communications system between themselves, enabling them to work as a single being, this was called the net. Hoshi worked with this system on the outward-bound journey; and had now become imbedded into the system. For her it was like telepathy. She was a very eminent and experienced scientist, but even she could not understand how it worked.

'The water in cell one on top of Sarsen Two has not gone down as much as anticipated.' Gerald reported,

'The recycling system managed to gain a 92 per cent return, so we have not consumed as much as we thought we would. We needed to use some water in order to transfer from one cell to the other, but we still have a lot more than we thought we would.'

Hoshi Masuto sat in the captain's chair in the Orion module at the end of the Blue Sarsen as she listened to this report that seemed to come from Gerald, but in effect could have come from any of the robots. She replied to the robot net by speaking aloud to herself,

'That's a good start; we have only just arrived, and we have a surfeit of water.'

'We cannot put it anywhere into the Red Sarsen, there is far too much electronic machinery there, but we can convert the unfinished re-entry vehicle into a tanker and take it down to the surface of Mars instead of us going down in it.'

'You mean to use the Ptolemy without anyone in it?'

'Yes, it is on our net, so can perform on its own.'

'Then how are we to get down there?'

'Don't worry, Doctor. It was always planned that three of us, and you will go onto the Martian surface. The re-entry vehicles Euclid, Pythagoras and Ptolemy are re-usable. All we have to do is replace the heat shield every time they return to the Phoenix, and they are good to go.'

Then the strange voice of Silver came over the net. He was working near the rear of White Sarsen on the almost complete Ptolemy re-entry vehicle,

'Retro-fit almost complete.'

'That was fast,' Hoshi thought, 'They must have been working on this before.'

She only thought this, she did not say anything.

'Yes, Doctor. We decided during the landing phase of the Euclid and the Pythagoras that something had to be done and decided that you were all too involved to be distracted. So, we just got on with the conversion.' A disembodied voice came back and made Hoshi jump.

She leaned forward to touch part of the command plinth in front of her,

'Phoenix to Homer Base. Congratulations you guys. We are sending a drink down for you.'

Ash replied,

'Thanks Hoshi. How's that?'

'We have too much water up here. We need to empty one of the bags, so the 'S-classes' have converted Ptolemy into a tanker to carry extra water down to you. As soon as the bag in Blue Sarsen is ready we will transfer it to the White Sarsen.'

'Roger that, Hoshi. What about machinery? If we can dig a hole for the extra water, we may find some useful stuff on the way down.'

Gerald answered,

'Sarsen Four will be sent down with myself, Stuart and machinery tomorrow Doctor Preston. There is some machinery inside Sarsen One, which is already with you.'

'What about Sarsen Two? We have a tower down here with I don't know what's in it; I have seen the manifest for it, but we don't understand any of it.'

'That is because we are going to use what is in that to build an infrastructure on the surface.' Gerald explained,

'One thing we shall be building in an adjacent crater will be a small nuclear reactor to supply an almost inexhaustible supply of electricity for heating and lighting. In order to facilitate the rapid development of the Homer Base we shall be building roads first. This requires some heavy machinery; this is stored in Sarsen Two. I hope this satisfies your curiosity Doctor Preston.'

'Yes, thank you, Gerald. We look forward to seeing all this development.'

Jake then came on the air from the Pythagoras module,

'Pythagoras to Euclid, we will be ready to EVA in five minutes, let's do this together.'

'We only got one ladder on each module, but we can have a simultaneous landing by two people.' Ash turned to Mark and said,

'Sorry, Mark. I'm nearest the door, so I will have to go out first.'

'Ok, Ash. It is just such a great privilege to be here on Mars. You go break a leg.' With that he smiled and shook hands with one of the first men to walk on Mars.

'Euclid to Pythagoras, you were first down, so you can take the lead. Talk us through your actions and I will try to synchronise with you.'

'Roger that Ash. Opening the hatch now.'

'Ok, Jake.' Was the only acknowledgement Ash gave in order to keep the talking down to the absolute minimum to avoid distracting Jake.

'Straps undone, moving towards the hatch.'

'Ok, with you.'

'Hands on the sill, head out into the Martian atmosphere.'

'Ok, head out.'

'Reaching around to grab rail on side of hatchway.'

'Got it.'

'Now standing on sill, standing up to look around. You are on the far side of the capsule, so I can't see you.'

'I can see your capsule, Jake, but you are on the far side.'

Jake then moved to one side of the hatch and bent down to look inside at Galina. He indicated that she should move out of the capsule.

Without a sound she clambered to the top of the ladder. Jake waved to invite Galina to climb down the ladder as he said,

'Beginning to descend down the ladder now.'

'Top step. Second step. You lead.' Ash began down his ladder keeping in step with Jake's commentary.

'Ok, wait one.' Jake nodded inside his space helmet to encourage Galina to begin down the steps to the surface of Mars.

As she carefully began to go down the steps, Jake followed her steps with the commentary,

'Step three, step four. This low gravity makes movement very easy. Step five, step six, last step. Holding here. The ground looks just like the simulations on Earth; sandy like with small rocks. Ok, Ash, let's do this together. Can you make sure there are no boulders beneath you? The last thing we need is a broken limb.'

'Checking ground below. Looks clear enough here.'

'Ok Ash, let's go on the count of three. Three. Two. One. Now.'

On the call of 'Now' two astronauts left the bottom rungs of their respective ladders and landed on the surface of Mars at the same time.

Ash began walking around to the other module as Galina looked up at Jake, who was still at the top of the ladder.

He reported on the first walk on an alien planet,

'Ground soft and dusty. The redness is really noticeable. The sky is a sort of ochre colour. All landers look in good condition and positions apart from the one that fell over. Approaching the Pythagoras module now.'

Just then Galina appeared from around the module. In a space suit everyone looks the same, Ash held out his hand as he approached the astronaut in front of him.

'Welcome to Mars, Jake.'

'Sorry Ash, it is not Jake, it is me.' Galina could hardly speak because of the massive smile inside her helmet.

Ash looked closely at the helmet in front of him.

'Galina! How did you do that?'

Jake began making his way down the ladder as Mark also began making his way to the Martian surface.

'I thought it would be chivalrous and more even-handed if a non-American woman were to be the first on Mars.' Jake explained.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 27

HOMER BASE

Four people now stood on the surface of the planet Mars. They consisted of two Americans, one British man, and a Russian woman. A Japanese scientist circled the planet above them in the mother ship, Phoenix. With her were three human-like android robots, and two smaller robots dedicated to the external maintenance of the ship.

On the surface of Mars there were also two conical-shaped landers with rotor blades now retracted, two white and black upright columns called Sarsens containing survival supplies, and one Sarsen canister laying broken on the crater floor where it fell on landing.

'I think the first thing we have to do is examine the fallen Sarsen.' Ash suggested; it had already been decided that there would be no leader.

'Well, it should be easy enough to get the stuff out.' The British astronaut Mark Singleton remarked as they approached the prone white cylinder.

It had broken into three separate pieces. Heavy machinery like drills were in what should have been the base, water was carried in flexible tanks above this. This section had suffered no damage, the next part held packaged food, they too survived ok, but fuel in a cell above this section had escaped from a burst cell. This had frozen solid almost before it hit the Martian surface, so it was estimated that the original contamination of Mars was minimal. The freezing fuel exiting the cell sealed the split in its wall. Lightweight building materials and metal were stored in the top of the tower. This equipment had been knocked about somewhat, but no lasting damage had been suffered.

Jake and Mark surveyed to building materials,

'If the landers are to be used again, we had better get our first shelter built.' Jake pointed out that the vehicles they had arrived in would be going back to the mother ship leaving them with no cover on the harsh Martian surface.

Mark went over to what would have been the base of the fallen Sarsen. He began freeing ground moving machinery until he found what he was looking for, a huge powered shovel type device.

'This is just the job.' He exclaimed,

'This blade is heated to melt its way through the permafrost, giving us a good base below the surface to build on.' He explained as he began setting up the equipment.

'Where should we begin?' he turned to Galina who had begun surveying work within the crater.

She looked around in a speculative manner, then pointed to an area between the two standing Sarsens,

'Here should be a good spot. It is far enough away from the landing site to avoid being damaged by the lift-off of the craft going back to the Phoenix mother ship.'

'Right.'

With that Mark took hold of a large reciprocating drill (the space traveller's version of a road drill). He was expecting it to weigh as much as he did. It did weigh as much as him, but under Martian gravity that was only 38% of what it would be on Earth. His muscles were still attuned to Earth's gravity due to the artificial gravity on board the Phoenix.

The box containing the drill was damaged during the crash, so Mark had only to remove the lid and some packaging. Then he took hold of the drill and gave it a good heave. Up went the drill into the thin Martian atmosphere. As it sailed through the ochre sky Mark tried to catch it, but to no avail. It came crashing down on to the white and scorched Sarsen it came down in. The crash went unnoticed due to the weakness of sound in the thin atmosphere, and the astronauts all wearing helmets.

As it slid back down to ground level, Mark caught it as if it was a falling cup.

By the end of that first Martian day the first semi-permanent shelter had been erected. It stood only five feet high, the floor inside being three feet below the surface. The spoil that had come from the excavation was piled up on the sides to give protection from radiation bursts and any loose rocks that may be thrown up by the landers as they made journeys back and forth to the mother ship.

Ash and Jake had prepared two large receptacles to hold fuel cells taken from the fallen Sarsen. These were heaters to prevent the fuel from freezing solid as it was transferred to the shuttle craft.

Ashton Preston called Hoshi Masuto in the mother craft,

'Homer Base to Phoenix.'

Hoshi was away from the bridge area when the call came in. She picked up one of the microphones when he heard Ash's call,

'Phoenix here, that you Ash?'

'Affirmative Hoshi. We are just about ready to send the craft back to you.

'I reckon I can make it ok. I will be bringing Gerald with me, will you be sending both craft back together?'

'That's the plan. How's work going on the other lander, Ptolemy isn't it?'

'Yes, Ash. That's right. Most of it is complete now, Gerald tells me that Silver, Scuttles and Skittles can finish it off. Because it is only a tanker the work has been much simpler than if it had been if it had been built to carry people.'

'Don't fill it too much, remember that the liquid will freeze at least once during re-entry, this will lead to expansion, then contraction. We don't want to watch Ptolemy come to land followed by a majestic vapour trail of what it was carrying.'

'Don't worry, Ash. All this has been calculated and catered for. Has the refuelling gone ok down there?'

'Yes, but it will be dark in less than two hours, are you happy about doing this all at night?'

Gerald then came on the line,

'Hello Doctor Preston, Gerald here, it will be ok. The whole system is autonomous; it will run itself, and all three of us will be monitoring every parameter.'

'Hello Gerald. Do you have a time for launch of Ptolemy?'

'Probably about first light tomorrow. When will Euclid and Pythagoras be ready for return here?'

'Just before sundown here I should think, they are nearly ready now. Is there any reason why we shouldn't send them both together?'

'No reason at all, Dr Preston. You can all stand on the edge of the crater to watch if the floor is not in too much shadow by then, you must be careful on your first night on the surface.'

Forty-five minutes later the four people on Mars stood on the rim of the crater that held their base. The small sun was sinking slowly towards the red horizon. The mountain ranges in the distance were as clear as if they were only feet away due to the thin atmosphere. Every now and then dust devils scooted across the middle ground, but it was impossible for the new inhabitants to estimate how far away they were. In front of them the scene was framed by two gigantic Sarsens either side of them, the blackened and scorched remains of their heat shields exaggerating the almost horizontal light coming from the low sun.

'I thought the sunset would be a lot redder somehow.' Galina said to Jake, who was stood next to her.

'The sun is certainly redder now, but the thin, almost non-existent atmosphere will not scatter that colour like it does on Earth.'

Just below their level lay their new base building, the sides almost invisible due to the red rocks that had been used to give more protection by thickening the walls. The roof was part of the blackened heat shield taken from the fallen Sarsen – in fact it was five layers of heat shield for better screening.

Over on the other side of the crater floor laid the remains of the fallen Sarsen, seeming to point at two small tepee shapes in the middle of the Martian crater.

'Euclid cleared and ready for launch.' Stuart's voice came over the radios so that everyone knew the exact state of affairs.

'Pythagoras cleared and ready for launch.' Steve called.

'Stand by for dual vehicle launch.' Gerald took control.

Then a strange thing happened.

The snouts on top of the tepees sprouted the seven bladed counter-rotating rotors seen during landing. These then began turning under their own power. The astronauts were stunned to silence. Mark simply pointed at them in disbelief. Jake's mouth fell open.

The spinning rotors began creating white disks that reflected and scattered the light from the red sun. Ash remarked,

'Hoshi would love this. Looks like a symbol of Japan.'

Then the main rockets fired beneath the modules. With only 38% the gravity of Earth the escape velocity on Mars is so much lower, and acceleration is better. In the blink of an eye the two spacecraft shot up, and became bright dots in the black firmament that made up the sky above the astronauts. This prompted them to remember that darkness was falling. They knew when it came it would be like closing your eyes, so rapid was the effect out here closer to the edge of the solar system, and with a thin atmosphere that was unable to scatter the light of a sun below the horizon.

As they walked down from the crater's edge, Ash radioed up to the Phoenix,

'Homer Base to Gerald.' He knew that the robots pick up all radio traffic and can respond from wherever they are.

'Gerald answering Doctor Preston. How can I help you?'

'Those rotors, I thought they were unpowered, like the one you sent to Houston with Mary-Jo in it?'

'Yes, Dr. Preston. That one was. But we decided that it would be an easy matter to put fuel into the blades, which are hollow anyway, then ignite it as it left the ends. A very much simplified rocket engine. It is even self-starting; we just put in two pipes carrying the fuel to the ends. By carefully selecting which chemicals are injected into the system they can be self-igniting. There was some doubt about the effectiveness in the thin Martian atmosphere, but we estimated that if there was only the benefit to stability, it is better than burning fuel in directional thrusters.'

'Brilliant. What I find difficult to understand is that you were in doubt about something – that must be a first!'

'Oh no, Dr. Preston. We are often in doubt about things; but these things usually involve humans. When we can do calculations, we can reason out any doubt. In this case we did not have enough information on fluid interactions in the Martian atmosphere and the inertia of the loads in the capsules.'

'Thanks, Gerald. I'm really glad I asked!'

'Are you, Dr. Preston? Then I am glad to be of service in supplying information to you.'

A wry grin crept across both faces as Ash opened the first door into the air lock that led into their new base building.

The mother ship, Phoenix, was circling and rotating to give Hoshi some gravity in orbit above the planet. The sun was about to dip below the horizon as seen from the Phoenix when the Euclid and Pythagoras were seen glinting against the dark side of Mars.

'Do you need to stop the rotation?' Hoshi asked Gerald as the twin capsules approached.

'No, Dr. Masuto. They can park themselves on to normal docking points. If you would like, I can play 'The Blue Danube' for you.'

'I can tell that you mean that humorously, but I think that is a good idea. Do you have it by the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra?'

'Conducted by Giujah Hoikffoe, ma'am?'

'That will do nicely, thank you.'

The strains of Strauss's famous waltz began playing through the ship as Hoshi moved into the copula viewing platform.

She could see two pink-silver dots reflecting the rays from the distant sun. These gradually disappeared as the Phoenix continued her constant turning, which gave some gravity. When the first one reappeared, it was larger than before, but not moving as fast. She spun around in the copula to see if the other one could be seen from a different window. She could not see it yet.

Hoshi turned to watch the first one again. The music gave out the strong rhythm of the familiar dance tune as the object began to time its approach turning with the mother ship. By now Hoshi could see that it was a capsule, she saw the snout gradually turn towards her. It seemed to be keeping time with the music she was hearing. As the Phoenix turned slightly faster than the capsule, the music picked up the volume a little; the woodwind section joined the piano. When the whole orchestra joined in the second capsule came back into view directly over Hoshi, and much closer than the first. Both capsules were still turning slower than Phoenix but were now translating their linear momentum into turning until they were both orbiting at the same pace as the mother ship. Then they smoothly drifted back to the anchor points on the selected docking ports.

The music ended just as the last capsule locked into place. Hoshi could not stop herself applauding.

Jake then came on the radio,

'Now we have finished the musical interlude, will you be joining us any time soon?'

'That was fantastic.' Hoshi replied.

'Yes, we know. Silver and Steve put on a video show for us down here. Now, if you are still in your pyjamas, I suggest that you put on a spacesuit and join us here. There is about to be a party and I would hate for you to miss out.'

'Well, put like that how can I refuse?'

Hoshi left the copula and floated across the centre of the ship, where there was no gravity. Here she put on the space suit she must wear to venture down to the planet.

Twenty-seven minutes later three almost identical capsules left the mother ship to begin their journey to the planet's surface. Euclid carried Dr. Hoshi Masuto and Gerald, Pythagoras carried Steve and Stuart, and Ptolemy was a tanker carrying water. What the astronauts did not know was that the spherical robot Silver was also leaving the Phoenix. He was encased inside the last remaining Sarsen container that the robots had made from stages of the Epsilon project.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 28

CONSTRUCTION

The slowly rotating mother ship began to wind down. As Hoshi left, the automatic systems began shutting the life support systems down to save on power. Gradually the speed of rotation decreased. Two of the android robots entered the capsule opposite the one that Hoshi and Gerald used. The robots Gerald, Stuart and Steve needed no survival equipment, so they simply got into the capsule in tee-shirt and jeans.

The rate of rotation was now down to one revolution per minute. Hoshi turned to look at the Phoenix that had been home for the last eight months, plus all of the training on Earth, she felt as if she was leaving her long-term home behind.

'Last person to leave the ship.' Gerald said as they both approached the open hatchway.

'Yes. It feels so familiar.'

Hoshi entered the capsule first, Gerald helped her strap in, then got in himself, closing the hatch behind him. He turned towards the Japanese scientist and said,

'Are you ready for an adventure?'

'Yes, Gerald, let's do it.'

With that Gerald threw a few switches, then said,

'Euclid to Keplar and Ptolemy, preparing for separation. The next time I see Mars, we are going.'

Hoshi thought this a little lax for procedure, but then she realised that none of it was necessary because the whole operation was automatic. She looked out of the small window to see only stars; Mars was on the other side of the ship.

Euclid slowly moved around to face Mars. Then Hoshi felt a slight lurch as the capsule fell free of the mother ship. Next the retro engine fired to slow them, allowing the weak Martian gravity to draw them down. As this was happening, the other two capsules came into position as Phoenix turned. They then left the mother ship, fired their rocket motors, then followed Euclid down into the Martian atmosphere.

Thirty seconds after the pair of capsules left Phoenix, and one minute after Euclid had left, Sarsen Four began to detach itself from the mother ship.

The fiery entry into the ochre atmosphere above the red planet meant that the three re-entry vehicles had turned their heat shields to face the direction of travel. As they began to glow red a long black and white cylinder overtook them. Sarsen Four was much bigger and heavier than the little capsules, so it had a greater re-entry speed– and a different landing zone.

Quarter of a mile above the Martian surface the three capsules deployed their counter-rotating rotors. On the ground the four astronauts had been busy preparing a landing pad. As the new visitors approached the base they could have been forgiven for thinking that they were landing on a purpose-built base on Earth. A hard, flat surface – with no loose stones on it – had been constructed, guidelines were painted on this, and even lights were in place to guide them in to land.

Four astronauts stood on a high ridge looking south towards the low, small sun. They could easily see the bright streaks of the heat shields doing their job against the dark sky high above.

'Can you see four trails?' asked Galina.

There were three answers, almost simultaneously,

'Yes.'

'Sarsen Four must be coming down.' Ash reasoned.

There is no sound from outside when you are in a spacesuit. As the four watched the magical ballet performed by three re-entry capsules – the first time anything like this had ever been witnessed – had they been able to hear sounds from the atmosphere they would have heard the landing rockets of Sarsen Four firing two miles away.

Mark Singleton, the Brit., looked towards the horizon as the others were watching the capsules landing. He saw, or thought he saw, Sarsen Four landing a long way off.

'But what would be the point of that?' he thought to himself.

Then the other three astronauts cheered and began making their way down the slope towards the landers. He followed without giving Sarsen Four another thought.

Homer Base was then established; five humans and three android robots populated it. The crater in which it lay was situated in the Terra Sirenium area.

Survival is secure, and re-supply is available from the mother ship. There were five capsules that were capable of return to the Phoenix, if all else failed, the two Sarsens were capable of return to the Phoenix with people aboard. All five humans could be taken back if needed in one Sarsen.

Soon they got down to the serious science bit that they were sent for.

They were tasked with the search for past life on Mars, and to look for ways to get oxygen from the Martian atmosphere.

Also included in their tasks were things like drilling for samples, analysing these and trying to find out how the planet was put together. This is to be done using the trusted Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry, an X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer. This can analyse rocks and dust in great detail, backed up by a second spectrometer, the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals, known as SHERLOC. This instrument inspects samples using a laser that works in the ultraviolet range.

The search for water, however was of paramount importance. The main problem here being the freezing temperatures that make it possible that water in solid form may have remained when the rest of the atmosphere was stripped away. The difficulty was supplying sufficient power to melt away the surface tundra to access whatever was beneath. The question asked by this whole element was, 'What could be in any cave exposed by such processes?'

To explore the underground situation a Norwegian device called RIMFAX, meaning Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Exploration will be used to explore about half a kilometre down into the subsurface. When the Earth was formed there appeared vast caves several miles across and hundreds of feet deep, the Monument Valley being probably the biggest, but these caverns are still being discovered today. It was hoped that similar planet-building holes might have existed on Mars. These could hold liquid water or provide natural shelters for future colonies – but the main hope for these caves was the possibility that traces of previous life on Mars might have survived, finally showing proof that we are not alone.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 29

TRIKE

As the days turned into weeks the astronauts eased into a time rhythm. They found that they performed better if there were some structure to their lives. The Earthly week was reinstated into their schedules by doing something different on one day out of every seven. Mark Singleton decided that he was going to build a kind of motorbike using electric motors.

There was now a garage and workshop for the maintenance of their ground moving machinery. A fuel farm had been built above ground to avoid the possibility of contamination of the Martian land. They had to decide whether the advantages of burying fuel supplies outweighed the disadvantages. Eventually it was decided that the only real advantage from burying fuel was protection from falling asteroids. The disadvantages were legion, mainly keeping the stuff from freezing, then if some did freeze, how were they to sort it out? Then there was the possibility that the ground itself may become unstable when warmed up; they may be standing on the Martian equivalent of the Louisiana swamplands. The ground around their living shelter, which is semi-buried, will now be monitored more closely.

Three massive solar panels were sent down in Sarsen One. They ensured there was sufficient electrical power, although all power supplies had to be focussed at night to keeping the small living area from freezing. There was very little to spare.

Stuart helped Mark with his bike. They realised that it would have to be an off-roader, and rubber was not an option, mainly because of the climate and temperatures, but also contamination issues came into it. So wheels similar to the ones fitted to the old Curiosity rover were built. These were surprisingly convenient; because they supplied good suspension. They decided on a trike set-up, mainly for safety reasons, but also to allow them to build it strong enough to take Stuart's weight. It was decided that they would build the trike with all three wheels being driven by separate electric motors attached to the tops of the rims, and no centres. They wanted to do this mainly because they can do, and because it had never been done before – none of this had ever been done before!

Finally, the finished product was ready for its first test run. The whole crew was there – androids and all. When Mark unveiled the machine, it was not what everyone expected. The drives were mounted on the wheel rims – in fact that was the only place the wheels touched the frame. Stuart had access to a vast metallurgical expertise, and he was convinced that this was the best way to get the maximum from the 'tyres'.

'Take it easy at first, feed in the power gradually.' Stuart advised Mark,

'Remember the effect of having only 38% gravity will have surprising effects on handling and flying too if you hit something at speed.' He looked for all the world like a typical mechanic on Earth; grubby jeans, even the dirty rag to wipe his hands. Standing around him were five spacemen and a red planet.

Mark nodded,

'Yes, ok. I don't want to spread myself over that ground, it looks hard.'

There was no way this kind of activity should be authorised, it was far too dangerous, but they had decided not to ask Houston for clearance until they found that it works on the flat smooth area they normally operated on.

Mark sparked up the bike, slowly and tentatively at first; like a motorised wheelchair. He was surprised that the steering was good, the only thing the wheels had for grip were chevron-shaped ridges.

The main reason Mark wanted to develop this mode of transport was because it is untraceable and is not controlled by any outside influences – unlike all other forms of transport on Mars. He needed something to get him about two miles distant, and he could not walk that far, even on the lower gravity on Mars.

When the first re-supply mission landed six weeks ago he saw a lone Sarsen come down some two miles distant, and no-one had mentioned it. The robots must know about it, but they have said nothing about it. He thought this to be a little strange, so kept his own counsel until he could gather more information. The trike was how he was going to get this information.

But it was late on Sunsol afternoon by now. They had given the days similar names as on Earth, the Martian days are called sols, and there are 669 sols in a Martian year, which is roughly twice as long as an Earth year.

'Tomorrow is Monsol, back to work.' Mark thought,

'May get a chance next weekend.' With that he put the machine away.

Part way through the Monsol morning Ash entered the workshop to see Mark,

'Hi, Mark. I have an unusual request for you.'

'Oh, yes? What would that be, Ash?'

'We have been gathering samples from around this crater since we arrived, but now I think is the time we should be looking further afield.'

He ran his hand along the multi-purpose Earth mover, then continued,

'This thing uses up too much power just reconnoitring, and that is what we need, just a look around half a mile away from the crater. You see; we got the geology of the crater, but now we need to know what kind of rocks are out there beyond the scatter area of this crater. There is a flat area between here and Copernicus that looks interesting. For that we need a vehicle that is more economical to run that this.' He slapped the big machine next to him.

'How many rocks did you have in mind, Ash?'

'A few more than a loose handful. I was thinking more about quadrants. If you could search and map the area from the south to the east-south east, we can look more outwards.'

'A tray can be attached to the trike, but accurate mapping is going to be difficult without a smooth flat surface out there to work on.'

'We have aerial pictures of the area from the landings. Take them on your tablet and use that to make observations, don't forget to note the positions of all the samples, and mark the containers.'

'What about comms, Ash?'

'We should be ok as far as half a mile. Phoenix will not be overhead this afternoon, so you won't be able to bounce signals off her.'

'So more than a mile out there will be no signal?'

'We don't know. The atmosphere is useless, there is no ionosphere, and this is a smaller planet than Earth; so the horizon is much closer. You can test that out whilst you are out there.'

'Looks like I am going then.'

Ash looked around the garage,

'Can't see any other volunteers.' He knew Mark was itching to get out on his new plaything.

Mark looked at his digital watch. Analogue watches were useless here on Mars. The Martian day, the Sol, had been divided into 24 equal portions. These were then called hours.

'Shall we say thirteen hundred?' Ash said.

'Can you supply the containers? I will rig up a tray.'

'Looks like we have a plan.'

Ash returned to the main building to find the requisite containers. As he was rummaging through some boxes Gerald approached him,

'What are you looking for, Dr Preston?'

'Oh, hi, Gerald. We need a lot of sample containers; Mark is going out to get some random samples from outside the crater.'

Gerald looked surprised by this development,

'Is he now? Has this been authorised?'

'Not yet. It is the middle of the night in Houston, and this opportunity just came to me. We are going on our own license.'

'Are you sure, sir? We have already established that this is an ordinary impact crater, surely the ground outside of the crater will mostly be debris from the creation of it; therefore, much the same stuff as we have inside.'

'We are going beyond the debris field to see what Mars has to offer. That is what we are here for isn't it?'

'Well, of course it is, sir. But how far are you proposing to go? The debris field could extend for nearly a mile.'

'We reckon the heavier rocks and debris will have dropped before they got half a mile, so at one mile to one and a half miles we should concentrate on medium sized rocks.'

Gerald looked puzzled by this proposition,

'Are you proposing to walk over one mile over unknown terrain with medium sized rocks? How many of these rocks do you intend to carry?'

Ash dropped some plastic padded bags into a clear container as he replied,

'That is an easy question to answer, none.'

'None?' Gerald now looked perplexed.

'Yes, none. I ain't going. Mark is going on his new toy.'

'What? But the machine has not been cleared for operations of any kind, let alone outside the known area.'

Ash put down what he was doing and turned to Gerald,

'For Christ's sake, Gerald. Just look around you. We are not in a place where military precision and rules can rule everything. We must work on our own recognisance out here. The machine has been thoroughly tested by Stuart and Mark using the experiences of all the rovers we have sent up here over the decades. I think it is reliable enough to go on a rough field trial – and this one is perfect.'

'What if it breaks down out there?'

'If we had that attitude from the outset of this program we would still be scratching our heads and wringing our hands.' He now looked straight at Gerald and smiled,

'Have you got some worry beads in a secret location?'

'No, sir. But I do have some serious misgivings on this mission, sir.'

'Well, I had some serious misgivings about this whole goddamn shooting match, but here we are on Mars, despite all the sceptics and doubters.'

'I still think we should await clearance from Houston, sir.'

'Well you can await all you like, we are going ahead.'

With that Ash gathered up his collection of containers and returned to Mark, who had had a similar conversation with Stuart.

'I don't think he is all that keen on this mission.' Mark told Ash as he rigged up a box to hold the samples on the trike.

'I got the same impression from Gerald. What did you tell Stuart?'

'Just told him it was nothing to do with him, now piss off.'

'Did he?'

'Oh yes. Nice thing about these androids, they never take the hump. Just like a mechanical version of Jeeves.'

'Who the hell is Jeeves?'

'Never heard of Jeeves and Wooster, Ash? PG Woodhouse novels halfway through the 20th century. A very British thing I suppose. Very funny, but about a lifestyle and world that disappeared with the wars. Anyway, Jeeves was the butler bloke who was actually running the life of the dopey aristocrat who had no idea what was going on.'

'I seem to recall some TV series my parents watched on similar themes.'

Mark finished his modifications, then returned his tools to their respective storage places,

'Just check nothing catches on the wheels will you?' Mark got on to the contraption and moved it forwards and backwards while Ash checked all three wheels from both outside and inside, then felt the motors and ancillary equipment for signs of heating and secure fitting,

'Looks good to go to me.' He reported.

'Time to suit up and give this thing a real test run.'

Ash walked with him to the open air lock with the trike. There they left it whilst they went to get into their space suits and go outside.
Chapter 30

REACTOR

Mark sat on the strange trike. It was only a frame, with a seat for one, beneath this were the batteries. Handlebars provided steering and control of power to the three wheels via a single potentiometer. This was also the brake. In a move to pay homage to bikers of old, Mark had welded footrests in a high forward position. Ash asked him if he was going to play motorbike sounds to himself on the road. Stuart had managed to install a gyro compass because an ordinary one would never work on Mars due to there being no magnetic field.

From their cosy little base to the area around the crater Copernicus looked like a long journey, but they had studied the photographs taken by the many orbiters, and it looked clear of any major obstacles.

Mark and Ash were dressed in their full Martian surface versions of the standard NASA spacesuits watched as the air lock outer door opened to show the harsh Martian exterior. Gold-coated sun visors protected them from the direct glare of the distant sun. It was noticeably smaller than on Earth, but the thin atmosphere did not scatter the light in the same way that happens on their home planet. It was like looking straight at a car headlight at night.

'Looks like a good day for a ride.' Ash patted Mark on the shoulder,

'Good luck, Mark. See if you can get close to one of those dust devils. Remember to watch your fuel levels.' By this he meant the electricity in the batteries as shown by the small strip of LED lights in front of him.

'Roger, willco.' With that Mark slowly opened up the pot on the trike, and he slowly moved forwards, towards the edge of the prepared area they worked on. The vehicle moved a little from side to side as Mark ventured over the uneven ground. The strange suspension absorbed the bumps as the open steel wheels flexed. Mark wondered what would happen if and when he hit a rock. Better take it easy.

'I'll keep radio contact as long as I can.' He said to Ash as he turned to face the unknown.

Carefully he turned the twist grip that was connected to the potentiometer that acted as throttle.

The metal wheels began to turn in unison. Mark leant forward slightly as the vehicle began to climb a slight rise, then over the crater lip. The explorers had already been out this far on foot, from here they could see tantalising glimpses of what could be bedrock, and even the possibility of evidence of ancient lake and river environments.

As Mark began the climb up the gentle slope away from the crater, the terrain began to change. He was no longer dodging sharp rocks, the surface was much more sand-like. He opened up the throttle a little, the machine responded favourably by picking up a little speed,

'There's a sandy area ahead, I am increasing speed to avoid sinking in.'

'Careful you don't dig the front wheel in. I knew we should have made the two wheels at the front.' Ash came back.

'No problemo, the two wheels are supporting my weight and the weight of the batteries, these need to be spread more.'

Ash could still see Mark nearing the Martian horizon. There looked like a row of small hills near to him, but it was difficult to estimate distances here, and to use binoculars just exacerbated the problem.

'There looks like an outcrop of rock below a small row of hills off to my right, that is on a bearing of 214. I will make my way towards it.' With that he dropped out of sight of the watching Ash.

'Lost visual now, these radios are only good for line of sight, so we can expect the signal to get worse.

'Roger that, Ash. I will keep up my commentary, even if I lose contact with you. It will be recorded and may be of some use later.'

'You thinking of not coming back? Don't forget to write and send the recording when you do.'

'Standard test pilot procedure; keep talking. Quite often that is all there is to go on when something goes wrong.'

'Well, you are certainly good at that!'

'I seem to remember that you gained a certificate in talking when you were at University.'

'That was called a debating chamber. Quite a different thing.'

'Oh, yes. You talked for the sake of it, and argued under a different name – debating chamber my arse. You were just looking for a fight, but without the violence. Monty Python had a sketch for you, 'Is this the ten-minute argument, or the full half hour?'

'What can you see now?'

'I'm coming to the semblance of a geological, or should that be marlogical? Unit that's part of the mountain range over to the south east rather than the floor of a crater. I am expecting to cross a major terrain boundary in the next twenty minutes, but I can't see this radio link lasting that far.'

'No, I agree with you on that, Mark. We should have found a better way of communicating or waited until the Phoenix was overhead to relay and watch.'

'Bollocks to that! If we had to wait, and then the Phoenix was with us, we would have had to get permission for this mission, then they would want to build one on Earth first to thoroughly test every aspect, by then we would be back home in the garden. No, Ash, I have a feeling about this whole mission, as if there was a hidden agenda going on somewhere.'

'Well, they can't touch you out there, buddy.'

'That is just what I wanted. Can't tell you more now, but if I don't come back, get the recording of the trip. Don't let anyone or thing tamper with it.'

'Ok, I will make that my priority.'

'I am now entering a plateau of sharp rocks. It looks to be about 200 metres wide, and there does not seem to be a way around. Hang on I'll stop and see if I can clear away some of them and try to make a path through. Arghhh! Ughh! Shit!'

'This is like listening to the Olympics weightlifting on radio.'

'This is the Martian version. Umpfhh. Some of these bastards are part of the mountain I think; they are very hard, sharp and solid in the ground, but fortunately they are also fairly short, so I may be able to drive over them without risking damage to the wheels.'

'Well, you be careful, remember what happened to the old Curiosity's wheels.'

'Yes, but they were only made of aluminium, we saw the error of materials choice, and Stuart fashioned these wheels out of some sort of amalgam of stainless steel and titanium. Ok, ready to go, here we go across the boulder field.'

The trike bucked and bounced as the hollow wheels absorbed the rises and falls. Mark hung on to the handlebars and footrests, most of the time he was not in the seat at all but trying to keep the balance as first one wheel, then another would climb over the sharp pointed rocks. He stopped suddenly and said to the radio,

'Hold it, what am I doing? I am adding to the problems for the trike. I am getting off. I can walk alongside the machine, thereby taking my weight off it; it will take less damage then.'

'What a good idea. That will put another ten minutes on the warranty.'

'Oh shit. This is a little more involved than I thought it would be. I am holding the twist grip with one hand, and watching where the wheels are going, at the same time trying not to fall over something as I move a... shit.'

'You ok, Mark. Come back' Ash meant return the call, not return yourself.

'Yeah. That was close. I tripped and fell. But in 38% gravity there was no damage.'

Mars suits are made of Graphite cloth, which is stronger than any other material known to man.

'Did you hit anything sharp?' Ash was concerned about the spacesuit that Mark was wearing. These Martian suits were not as resilient as the normal spacesuit due to the need for more flexibility requirements on the planet, and the fact that there is a little atmospheric pressure on Mars compared to outer space. The main requirement on Mars was heating and being airtight.

'No, I was lucky.' He did not mention that a sharp pyramid of rock caught him on the side of the thigh, but he checked his suit, and it seemed undamaged. He was forced to limp a little after this and was glad to get back on to his mount to ride through the plateau as the rocks became less of a threat.

He stopped again on the far side and looked back as he made his report, hoping that Ash could still hear him,

'Hi, Ash. I'm over now. Just getting off to check the wheels. If any one of them is knackered I can still walk back from here, or bring the thing back over the plateau.'

There was a slight pause as Mark dismounted the trike again.

Moments later he was back on the radio,

'Ok, we are go for travel. No damage at all.'

'Good luck pal.'

'Thanks, Ash. I will report along the way in case you can hear me.'

'Listening out here, Phoenix will be overhead in five hours, so we shall be able to restore contact then.'

'Ok, I will back up the messages, so that you will get them all when she comes back on line.'

This means that Mark will keep talking, this will be recorded to be beamed up to the Phoenix when she gets back into position to receive them in her orbit. This will all be done automatically.

The going was a lot easier for Mark now that the boulder fields seemed to be behind him. Now he was looking for two things; environmental situations that could contain conditions favourable for microbial life, and the missing Sarsen Four. One of these will stand out like sore thumb, the other will not be as easy.

The metal wheels made good work of travelling over the red ground, and Mark was beginning to enjoy his ride. Gently swaying from side to side he surveyed the ground in the middle distance. Whenever he saw a rise or hill he made his way across to explore further. A small hillock appeared to his left, the astronaut turned up the throttle, the three hollow metal wheels bit into the Martian 'soil' and the machine picked up speed. Now travelling at about 20 mph, Mark thought he was going much faster after mooching about at less than walking pace for so long. As he reached base of the hill he stopped and dismounted. He scraped around with his foot to examine the sub-strata layer of the surface.

'This looks more like it.' He said to an unheeding world,

'Looks like clay-bearing sedimentary rocks here. Digging out some samples. I will plant a Blue flag to mark the site.'

He rummaged around for a while, picking up anything that looked interesting. Then he looked up to the top of the hill,

'I've got about twenty small rocks here. The top of this hill looks interesting enough to warrant a little climb up. It will also make a good spot to plant another flag to be seen from further away.'

He scrambled to the top of the hill, straightened up and had a good look around.

What he saw took his breath away.

Over to the south from his position he saw what looked like a chemical plant, complete with pipes and what looked like steam or smoke coming from the construction.

...
... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 31

EXPEDITION

There were four people and three androids on the Mars base they called 'Homer'.

Ash spoke to Hoshi Masuto when he lost contact with Mark,

'Mark has gone over the horizon. We no longer have any contact with him. Do you know if the robots could talk to him?'

'Not that I know, Ash. But they seem to have been communicating with someone or something I don't know about.'

'How do you mean, Hoshi?'

'You know that I am partially imbedded in their net, and that their net covers the whole of our communications, as well as their machinery?'

'Yes.'

'My imbedding is only partial, as you know, they can communicate without using the net; like when you spoke to Michelle.'

'That was a neat trick, I can tell you. Her voice was coming out of Gerald's mouth. Weird.'

'Anyway, back to the point. I am only partially imbedded in their net. I can't talk to machinery for instance, like they can. But I can sometimes pick up communications that are not to something or someone here on base.'

They moved a little closer together and lowered their tones before Ash continued,

'Could they be talking to the Phoenix, even if it is empty?'

'Well, for a start, it is not empty, there are Scuttles and Skittles up there. As well as routine maintenance stuff that needs to be checked on.'

'So that could be the extra signals to the Phoenix?'

'Not if it is on the other side of the planet. If the orbit is where Mars blindsides the ship, it cannot be communicated with – even robots have not yet figured a way to broadcast through a full and complete planet. No, Ash, there is nothing out there to communicate with, but I still pick up extraneous messages that are not addressed to any one or thing inside the camp here.'

'Are they in contact with Earth from this far out?'

'Yes. But that is a much stronger signal, and I can identify that easily. No, this has to be to a machine or something much closer.'

Ash sat down to think about this. They were in the galley, or kitchen section of the base. There are no communications devices or sophisticated electronic machinery made by the robots in there. But Ash looked around to check for this possibility. If the robots made something in this area there would probably be some sort of communications device built into it to enable the robots to monitor it 24 / 7 for safety reasons. The coffee maker looked very hi tech; did it have the look of a robot-made component? No, that was the makers mark, DeLonghi.

He mouthed the words,

'Can they hear us?'

Hoshi just shrugged and said,

'There have been no indications on the net.'

'Surely that just means that they are not talking about us, but they may be listening to us talking about them.'

'You mean they may have some sort of robotic paranoia? Now that is frightening, especially with the comms net being so efficient; they would all have it, and it would then feed off itself and become all-encompassing, and all powerful. I think I would know.' He smiled.

They both continued to look for devices that could possibly pass messages on.

Then Hoshi picked up an object,

'Ahh. Here we have a piece of comms equipment. Well, it could be half of an unrefined communications device of cunning proportions.'

Ash, who was on the other side of the galley, spun round and said, louder than he wanted to,

'The listening end?'

Hoshi turned the object over in her hand,

'It could be. But it is missing a key component.'

Ash moved across to the Japanese scientist as he held the object up for him to see it,

'Yes. Here. All that is needed is a length of string, and another tin to make a crude but effective listening device.' She threw the bean can at Ash.

... ... ... ... ...

Mark stood looking at what he could only describe as a refinery, or some other such construction.

Standing on top of his hill, Blue flag waving in the wind, with his trike by his side, he cut a lonely figure.

'I don't know what the bloody hell it is, but it ain't no Anfield.'

He moved towards the trike as if to sit on the seat, but didn't. He just stared at the structure out on the horizon.

'I suppose I had better describe this in case something happens to me.'

He composed himself, and began,

'It looks as if ICI beat us here. There is a large structure over on the horizon bearing 214 degrees from the hill I marked with Blue flags about location ...' he looked at the map on his tablet, but was unable to make out the grid markings on it,

'Shit. Ok. The hill is about two miles away from Homer on a bearing of,' the compass was interviewed,

'Zero Seven Eight degrees.' Mark looked back at the structure,

'There are pipes arranged in a rough box. From this distance they all look to be white. One or two cylinders are visible, and white smoke is emitting from a tall exhaust pipe at the right-hand side as I look at it. I can see no support buildings or vehicles around it.'

He sat on the trike and just looked at the strange structure in the distance.

'That should not be there. It might be an interesting exercise to look up the pictures sent back by the various orbiters to see if it shows up on any of them. It seems to be quite small by chemical plant standards, but it is difficult scaling something out here with nothing to compare it with. If Jake's Buick pulled up alongside it I would not be able to tell if it was real or an Airfix model. I am trying to work out how my brain dealt with seeing something really massive for the first time – like the first time I saw an Atlas rocket. No. I think I should try to assess if it looks as big as a house, or a cathedral. I don't think it is any York Minster, in fact I would say it covered about as much area as a small house. Even so, it is certainly big enough to show up on one of the orbiter pictures. Can't see any big rocks around it, so any accompanying buildings would stand out. Can't understand why there are no supporting buildings at all. Maybe they live underground? Whoever they are.'

One last look all around. Mark looked carefully at the tracks he had made in the Martian surface on the way here. Then he twisted back to the driving position, looked at the battery contents meter, then turned the twist grip of the potentiometer and slowly began to move down the hill.

He stopped every few minutes, stood up on the trike, and looked around to check that he was not raising any dust. Then he checked on his target. Still there, still looming menacingly out of the sharp Martian landscape, beckoning him to come closer. His survival instinct was still there too.

Mark constantly looked for any cover the terrain could offer him, travelling down a valley here, moving behind a hill there, and so on. Because of this his path was not direct. When he estimated that he was about half way there he stopped again behind a small hill, stood on his seat, and scrutinised the object again,

'On further observation this thing looks to be even than I had estimated. It must be about the size of a large garden shed, about fifteen feet square. I can't tell how far back it goes, but I can only guess that it is about the same, fifteen feet or so. Two white cylinders are positioned to one side, and the only things that stick out of the fifteen-foot cube are what look like exhaust pipes. One of which is emitting quite a lot of steam, another has wisps coming out of it. There are shapes inside the pipes, but I can't make out what they could be. There is no sign of who or what built this, but it seems to be operating.'

He got back down on to the ground and looked at his battery life indicator on the trike. This instrument also indicated how much life he had left if he got things wrong. He looked at his watch, checked his oxygen situation, then studied the small map on his tablet,

'I don't have enough time to wait until the Phoenix comes back in radio range. This is a difficult decision to make. Do I try to make contact with – who knows what? It may be life on Mars - they may be hostile. But the possibility of being the first person to meet native Martians is not to be ignored.'

He looked back towards the general direction of Homer Base. There were some slight undulations in the foreground, and small pebbles. He considered these tiny stones for a moment. Each one may have a different story of the history of Mars. Just beyond there appeared three dust devils moving across the surface, turning and weaving as they went by. The middle dust devil then sprang into two as it gave birth to another one. The new one began to move in the opposite direction to the other three. Then number two followed it. Mark wondered what the one on the right would do when it reached a small range of dark yellowish orange hillocks, which were directly in its path. Would it jump over them, climb the slopes, or just disappear? It didn't do any of these. It began to move towards Mark. This unsettled him. Here he was debating with himself whether or not to explore the first extra-terrestrial construction ever seen, a possible chemical plant full of aliens. Then a column of dust began moving towards him, and he was worried.

'Pull yourself together, Singleton. It's only wind.'

Then the other three began moving towards him.

That did it. Just as he was about to turn back to the trike he looked at the horizon for the first time; what he saw stopped him dead in his tracks.

In a general northerly direction, more or less where Homer Base was, there rose a massive pall of smoke and dust. Billowing plumes of white and grey cauliflower-shaped crowns jostled for position as they rose in the yellow sky.

Mark took a more accurate reading from the gyro compass, then consulted his map, then the compass. Then the dust devil! As Mark studied the compass he noticed that it was getting unclear, as if there was a fine mist coming up. Then the dust itself hit him. He nearly fell over, looking up he saw three dust devils moving slowly around him. He did not know what to make of this, so he decided to ignore them. He thought about shouting at them for a second or two, then realised that they are only meteorological phenomena, the shouts would be recorded, and he would look really stupid. The gyro compass was showing that the smoke plumes were emanating from some fourteen degrees to the right of where Homer Base stood.

Thus reassured, Mark walked through the dust devils and got back on the trike. He looked up as he began to open up the throttle. Then he closed the throttle altogether. The plant construction was now shorter than when he last looked at it. He sat and screwed up his eyes. Slowly but surely the whole plant was shrinking. The astronaut sat transfixed as the construction gradually sank down. The cylinders stayed on the surface, there were now three of them; because one was hidden behind the construction, which had now sunk to less than one third of its original height. The exhausts continued to perform as they had before.

'Holy shit. I've got to see this.' Then he remembered the reporting system.

'The whole construction is now sinking. Three cylinders remain on the surface, but the pipes are now descending into the Martian surface. I am now going to have a closer look.'

He was thus committed. Slowly the trike moved forwards. Three dust devils seemed to follow him, but they were behind, so Mark could not see them.

Another two minutes and the construction stopped sinking, Mark kept the trike moving towards it. Soon he was 200 yards from the alien construction.

'I can just see the far edge of the hole the works has descended into. It looks clean and sheer – as if it was built to do that.'

'Hello Dr Singleton.' The voice was somehow familiar, and very loud,

'What are you doing here?'

'Eh? Who the hell is that, and where are you?'

'I am the one you call Silver, and I am here, over by the far cylinder as you look at it.'

This nonplussed Mark, he scrutinised the area mentioned, and there he saw the weird sight of a chrome sphere with many arms and legs waving four of them at him.

Mark made his way down to the structure.

'Silver? I thought you were still on the ship. What are you doing here?' Mark looked around at the construction before him, then realised the stupidity of his question,

'Scrub that last question, it's obvious what you have been doing. Is this what you brought down in Sarsen Four?'

'Yes, Dr Singleton. This is what I have built.'

'Very nice. What is it? And why is it here?' Mark peered over the edge, trying to see what was below the surface.

'It is a small nuclear reactor. It serves two purposes; providing electricity, and tremendous amounts of heat. One is by product of the other, as you know electricity is quite scarce here on Mars – not any more. The intention is to run cables to your base to give you more power, but that is not the primary role.'

Mark just pointed down into the hole.

'Yes, Dr Singleton. That is where the reactor is. The trick with reactors is keeping them cool. Here on Mars that is not a problem. The main reactor, which is less than one metre across, is lowered into the frozen subsurface here.' Three of his 'arms' swept around to illustrate the surrounding area,

'Now we come to the primary role. Below us here is a vast water-filled cave that is frozen solid. The other element we need to find here is liquid water. From this we now get to the primary role of this plant. I see from your reaction that you have got the connections. From this little plant we get water, heat, and electricity all in copious amounts.'

'That is fantastic, Silver. Now all we have to find is oxygen and a food source and we can stay here indefinitely. I can't wait to get back to tell the others.' Mark again peered over the edge.

'That will not be possible, sir.'

'Pardon?' the astronaut stood bolt upright as he turned to look at the robot.

'When you looked over the edge just then you became contaminated by the radioactive elements used here. This is one reason why I have built it here. You cannot go back to be with other people until I have done various tests to check that there is no lasting threat to yourself, other humans, or experiments that they may be conducting.'

'What? How long for? I can see the need to keep my colleagues safe, but we have work to do.'

'You can do your work here, the cylinders you see over there, they are from Sarsen Four, there is another one behind that hill that is laid on its side, this is made into an acceptable living space and workshop. You will not be surprised to learn that we have almost unlimited electricity and heat. For oxygen, I am working on splitting the water molecules to get oxygen and hydrogen from them. But this experiment is a long way off yet.'

'You still have not answered my question, how long do I have to be quarantined for?'

'I am still analysing the radiations being emitted, but I have not had any opportunity yet to see their effects on a human body.'

'You are trying to tell me that you don't know, aren't you?'

'No, Dr Singleton. It is worse than that. I am trying to tell you that you may not be able to leave Mars – ever.'

Mark stood stock still. He gradually turned around in a complete circle before replying,

'Well, the scenery is nice enough. But we will have to do something about your looks you ugly bastard! You said that brings us to the main purpose of this contraption, you mean the electricity, water and waste heat are not the main purpose of all this?' Mark looked at the intricate pipework of the construction.

'No sir. The paramount reason for this whole mission to Mars is down there.' Silver pointed down the hole with his longest arm.

'You mean mining?'

'No, sir. The results of several unmanned expeditions to Mars began to show the existence of vast caverns below the surface. Some of these gave the appearance of unnatural development. Like the square cucumber; it is still a product of nature, but you can see that it has been deliberately altered.'

'How does that relate to us here?'

'If these caverns have been changed by outside influences we may find evidence of more than microbial life here. It may even be possible to seal one of these caverns off, heat it and introduce breathable air to provide a large protected living space. But the first priority is to find evidence of extra-terrestrial life. You are lucky – you may be the only human to see this.'

'How do you mean?'

'We have orders to prevent humans from seeing any evidence we may find. You may have been contaminated, so I have been given clearance to bring you into this part of the programme.'

'How do you mean, 'Given clearance'? By whom? We chose this time to drive over because the communications are bad. Who knows I am here?'

'The Director will know by now, but there are only a selected few who know about this part of the landing.'

'Sounds a bit cloak and dagger all this. What if I just jump back on the trike and bugger off back to Homer Base? What is to stop me?'

In the blink of an eye Silver scooped up a rock and hurled it at a peak in the distance. It hit the peak right on the tip, sending a brief plume of dust in the air.

'How far do you think you would get? Remember that I do not sleep, and I am authorised to prevent you leaving.'

This sounded ominous to Mark. But then he remembered that the robots and androids never bluffed or lied. They will quite happily tell you of their plans if asked.

'What is to stop me simply radioing the Base, or the Phoenix, and telling everyone what we find?'

'If we find what we suspect is there, the information must never get back to Earth.'

'What! And exactly how do you propose to prevent that?'

'That is easy, Dr Singleton. It is merely a question of technology – and we excel at that. We can easily prevent, intercept, and doctor all transmissions to Earth.'

'OK. But when they get back, then the word will be out.'

'Once again, a technological solution. You see, it is not only the threat of contamination that keeps you here. Anyone who finds anything out will not be allowed to return to Earth, even the knowledge of this part of the mission will condemn them to stay here.'

Mark shook his head and looked at the ground in front of him,

'That dog ain't gonna hunt, Silver. It will never work. What happens when the guys back at Homer realise that I have gone missing? They are bound to come looking.'

'That is what you would expect. But we already have a cover story on our net, it will be revealed to your colleagues when the time is right.'

'How could you possibly have a cover story on your net already? You didn't know I was coming until I arrived here a few seconds ago. Even you guys are not that fast, and anyway we are out of radio range here.'

'Radio contact, yes, but our net still functions because we do not use normal radio waves. We knew about your little mission, but didn't know if you would find me. We let you continue in case you didn't see the structure.'

'I see. And you knew that if I did see it, I would get close enough for this meeting?'

'Yes.'

'But what would you do if I just saw the construction from two miles away, then returned to report it?'

'I have been monitoring your radio reports all the way since you lost touch with Base. So we knew everything you did and saw all the way. If you had returned, we have a plan B., we would have owned up about the reactor, but not the main mission. Then we would report the contamination risk, and stop humans venturing too close. That is what we will be doing in due course. It will not stop the supplying of electricity and water, which makes everything look as if things were still going to plan with no need for human visitation.'

'Right. You seem to have everything covered, let's go and look at my new accommodation.'

'Your temporary accommodation you mean. You will probably be living in the cavern once I make it safe.'

Jake and Galina were working in Sarsen One to prepare it for return to the Phoenix when word came in about Mark.

Gerald notified Ash as he and Hoshi busied themselves in the living quarters,

'I have some news that concerns all of you. It pertains to Dr Mark Singleton.'

'Sounds ominous, Gerald, do you wish to address us all in one place?' Ash offered.

'That would be a good idea. Don't worry, Dr Singleton is OK, but there have been developments that I think you should all be made aware of.'

'OK, I'll get suited up to get the other two from Sarsen One.'

Gerald held up his hand,

'That will not be necessary, Steve is close by, he can go in and ask them if it would be convenient for them to come over here.'

Steve entered Sarsen One by way of the long ladder leading up to the entrance door above the thruster rocket motors. There was no air lock, so the astronauts were suited up in their Mars suits as Steve opened the door. Jake was on the second stage, some fifteen feet above the door, Galina stood near the door. Steve said to Galina,

'Hi, Dr Danilenko. Could you and Dr Jensen come back into the living accommodation for a briefing? It concerns Dr Singleton.'

'OK.' Galina turned to look up the cylindrical tower they were in,

'JAKE. We are wanted elsewhere. Important briefing.'

Steve and Galina waited for Jake to descend the ladder to the position where all three were by the entrance,

'There's no need to shout, you know.' He told Galina,

'We are connected by radio.'

'I know that. I just wanted to get your attention.'

'You have been doing that since we first met.'

In the living quarters the remaining four humans were gathered in the company of two android robots. Gerald did all of the talking, the androids are on a net, and do not think for themselves.

'There has been a development that you should know about.' He began,

'When you, Dr Masuto, came down with us, there was also Sarsen Four that came down. In this cylinder was the robot you know as Silver. They landed some three and a half miles away. The reason for this will become apparent in due course. He was programmed to build an advanced structure out there. This structure has a few tasks to do; it is a self-contained nuclear reactor. This will not only provide almost unlimited electricity, the waste heat will be used to melt the ice to provide water, and some of this will be used to combine with argon to make breathable air. This plant has had to be built some distance away from here as a safety measure. Doctor Singleton has now arrived at this location. As you will no doubt be aware, there are inherent dangers in operating a nuclear power plant, and various safeguards must be implemented; this is why Dr Singleton has to stay up there for now.'

'How long will he be there?' asked Ash.

'We just do not yet know. There is a lot of work for him to do that Silver would find difficult, so it saves one of us going. But the main part of his work will be studying how the human body copes in this truly alien environment.'

'You mean he is to be some sort of guinea pig?' Galina said.

'He wandered into the area and may have become contaminated by his own actions. Now we need to know what effect it has had on him in case anyone else becomes exposed.'

'How are we to benefit from this installation if it is so far away?' Jake asked.

'We shall be building a road, along which will be power cables and pipes to carry water. When breathable air comes on line we shall transport it as a liquid in containers along this road.'

Not a word was said about the cavern.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 32

SEPERATION

Mealtimes at Homer Base were a regular routine where all the humans gathered together, and conversation took place. The usual banter about their past lives had long since stopped. Now they only talked about work.

It has been over three weeks since Mark had left their company. The construction of a road had been begun running towards the reactor.

'It is encouraging to find molecules of any kind, but all I can find are long ones.' Galina said as she poured coffee,

'These are in a solid state, and they react too slowly to sustain life. The presence of liquid water tempts one to think that they could dissolve to a smaller size. That would then allow them to collide, and that kind of activity could lead to life.'

'Water is that important, then?' asked Jake.

'Yes. Water has molecules that are small and polar, with a slight charge at either end. This makes dissolving ions and other organic molecules that have poles.'

'You are Russian, that is near to Poles isn't it?' Ash quipped as he prepared himself a plate of quail on toast. A soggy tea bag hit him from Galina,

'You know what I mean. Magnetic poles.'

'Ahh. Are they people who leave Poland and can't stop going north?' Jake ducked before any retaliation was launched at him.

'Don't you start, too. It only encourages him.' Galina continued with her observations,

'This property of water can bring together the building blocks of life. That is why it is widely believed that life once existed here on Mars. We need to find this in order to prove once and for all that life can exist beyond Earth. It may not be a complicated, multi-cellular being – but it doesn't have to be.'

'As a molecular scientist you see water in an entirely different light to everyone else, don't you?' Jake asked.

'Yes. I suppose I do. It has many strange properties that help in the development of life. It will absorb great increases in heat before it changes its own temperature; this makes it very useful in creating a stable atmosphere and climate. The fact that it can exist in all three states; solid, ice.' She counted on her fingers, 'A liquid, and as a gas, steam, over a very small temperature range also helps promote life. And the fact that it expands as it freezes means that it then floats on the top of liquid water. This prevents the whole ocean from freezing. This alone has probably prevented the seas and oceans on Earth from collecting in two amorphous blobs on the poles. Where would we be then?'

Ash and Jake chimed up in unison,

'Poland.'

Hoshi was sitting quietly sipping her tea from a very small cup.

'She is quite right. Charles Darwen saw the possibility and described it as the "warm little pond". He put forward the theory to his friend Joseph Hooker that simple chemicals dissolved in a protected warm pond could bring about life if stimulated by the energy of a lightning strike. This was put to the test in 1953 when scientists put a mixture of ammonia, methane and hydrogen in water, then hit it with simulated lightning. There came from that experiment some basic biological amino acids – the building blocks of life. Hydrogen, ammonia and methane are available on most of the planets we have observed. It only needs water in a liquid state.'

'Very well put, Hoshi. Thank you.' Galina said, then turned to the Americans,

'It is good to see that someone here takes her job seriously.'

'We take our job very seriously.' Jake countered.

'There is something serious that has been bothering me for some time.' Hoshi said in a more sombre tone,

'I have to be very careful what I say. I even have to be careful what I think, but if I now pass this concern to you guys I can leave it to you to keep it away from surveillance.'

'Whoa fella.' Ash held up a hand,

'You lost me there. What surveillance? How do you mean, you have to be careful what you think?'

'As you all know, I am embedded in the robot's communications net, I don't know how far into my mind that goes, but every now and then I pick up messages between them that I think I should not be getting. It is as if they had a separate agenda of their own, one to which we are not involved. And they would rather keep it that way.'

'You mean that you think they are working on their own project, and they want to keep us away from it?' Jake asked.

'Yes, that is exactly what sounds like.'

'But they have always worked on their own; we would only slow them down. Remember who built the Phoenix.' Jake said, his casual tone laced with concerned query.

'Yes, but I feel this is different. There seems to be a deliberate effort to keep this one under wraps.'

'How do you mean, Hoshi?'

'I don't know. It is more what I don't receive, than what I do. You know, like there is an elephant in the room, but no-one mentions it.'

'Do you have any news of Mark that we don't have?' Galina tried a different tack.

'Once again, it is what is missing. There is as much as eight microseconds delay in his transmissions to us. That would not be noticeable to us, but it is enough for a robot to censor what is being said.' He looked around at the gathered astronauts,

'We all know how bad the radio can be in the Martian atmosphere, it is easy for them to simply rub out bits they don't want us to hear. That is another thing, do you know that their communications are clear and immediate, under all circumstances – and we do not have the use of it.'

The room fell quiet.

'I have said enough. I don't know how far they can tap into my thoughts and words, but it is always a worry even to think these things. You three are not on the net, and can communicate safely, so I will leave any investigations to you.'

Then they all heard the outer door to the air lock opening and closing. When pressures had been equalised Gerald entered the room, he looked directly at Hoshi Masuto.

... ... ... ... ...

The work at the reactor was going well. The pipe-work that Mark had seen from afar surrounded a cylinder no bigger than a barstool. This contained the actual reactor, there were a few pipes and wires coming from it, but nowhere near the amount of paraphernalia that Mark had expected to see. This whole contraption was lowered into the ice through a hole that Silver had prepared. As the cylinder descended into the frozen surface lights began flashing on the surrounding framework. Mark was not allowed near until the reactor had gone under the ground for fear of contamination, even Silver operated the whole system from some 200 metres away, and behind a heavy shield.

When the reactor was first switched on the lights were all blue. As it started working the main series of four lights turned first yellow, then red. Silver touched a few buttons on a touch-sensitive screen, then another series of Blue lights showed the flowing of electricity to the living accommodation and batteries, also to the installation itself. As the red lights began paling to white, Silver initiated the first decent of a live reactor into the Martian interior. A five-part cam-shell cover closed over the reactor. This was heated to prevent the whole assembly from freezing up as water was turned into steam. There were no seals around the pipes that extended through the cover, so strange steam began emitting from the gaps therein. The steam was under increasing pressure as it exited the structure, but the Martian atmosphere was below freezing temperature, and also at a very low pressure. These two conditions made the steam behave in a peculiar way. It came out invisible, and then condensed into minute water droplets, which froze immediately into white dust that accelerated under the low gravity straight up to the dark sky. The pipe-work and lights it passed were all heated, so parts of it stuck to the structure and returned to liquid water until it dripped off, when it re-froze as clear marble-like objects, to be carried up by the dust. The clear marbles were heavier than the dust, so they eventually fell to the ground creating puddles of glass-like balls.

Silver called Mark,

'Dr Singleton, I have falling readings, you can come out now.'

'Great, I'm on my way.' Mark said as he made his way to the Marsuit he had to wear outside.

He went through the air lock and ventured on to the Martian surface. The first thing he saw was the pipes that once surrounded the reactor cylinder turning white with plumes of white dust climbing into the void above. He slowly made his way towards the reactor housing that Silver was sheltering in.

'Careful on the ground out there, Dr Singleton. There are ice marbles falling all over the place, they are clear, so not easy to see.'

'Ok, Silver. I can see some of them, but the ones I don't see worry me. I will try standing on some and see what happens.'

'Be very careful, Dr. Try to examine them first.'

'Roger that. I will pick some up. Are you coming out?'

'I can't yet, I have to be here to monitor the reactor, the automatic systems must be allowed to boot up and develop themselves. Until then I will be needed here.'

'Ok. There are some right in front of me now.' He bent down to inspect the marbles, then dropped to one knee. He felt the sharp stab of pain as he knelt on three marbles he had not seen.

'Shit, that hurt. I have knelt on some marbles, standing up again to inspect my suit.'

He looked at his right knee as best he could from within his helmet.

'Can't see properly, I am going to have to return to the shack to check the suit out properly, it looks ok, there are no unwanted readings, but better safe than sorry.'

'Ok, Doctor, but do not go into the main area, do the checks in the air lock in case there is some contamination.'

'Good precaution, Silver. Moving back now.'

Mark carefully made his way back to the living and working accommodation he referred to as the shack. Upon arrival he opened the outer air lock door and entered the interior. This was the area for decompression and compression in preparation for entering the main series of rooms that were always kept at the normal atmospheric pressure as experienced on Earth. The air lock where Mark was in was not particularly spacious. It was designed to be big enough to house two persons and Silver, with room to spare, if the need ever came to be used by these beings. On the other side of the design equation was the need to keep the size down as much as possible to keep the amount of air to be compressed/decompressed down to a minimum. This consideration is not for the amount of time it takes to compress/decompress that amount of air, it is because there is always a loss of a certain amount of air, as a percentage of the amount of air treated.

A chair was thoughtfully provided, Mark took advantage of this and waited until he could remove his helmet. When he took it off, he immediately removed his gloves and began inspecting his knee.

'There seem to be five or six globes of clear ice clinging to the padding on my knee.'

The temperature in the air lock was well above freezing, but the globes did not seem to be melting.

'They seem to be easy to remove, but they are now sticking to my fingers.'

He scrutinised the little blobs from as close as he could.

'They seem to have a rough surface, this may have been spikes before they began warming up.

'The pad has taken up any damage, so the integrity of the suit has not been compromised. Checking my shoes now. They have picked up some of these things, but they don't seem to have penetrated. I'm now replacing my helmet and will be with you in minutes.'

Eight minutes later Mark joined Silver in his shelter. In here he found the big spherical robot carefully monitoring the now submerged reactor.

'I'm having trouble keeping the temperature up at the moment, but that is a good thing, the situation will improve when it gets a bit more room to work in.' he explained to Mark.

The astronaut pointed to a set of readings,

'What are these readings here?'

'They are the temperatures of the exhaust pipes.' Silver explained.

'These top ones look a bit low, don't they?'

'Yes, I agree, Dr Singleton. You remember putting heating elements in them?'

'Yes. We may have to boost that a little, or they could block.'

'I can do that without stopping things, but otherwise everything looks to be running fine. In another two hours the system should be running itself.'

'Great. What about us then, what do we do?'

'Then we start to build a road back to Homer Base. They have already begun at their end and are now three-quarters of the way here. Then we can begin laying cables to get the juice to them. In the mean time we can start to find ways of purifying the water, then begin work on getting breathable air from the water, and fuel from the carbon in the air. There is plenty of work for you here.'

Mark looked towards Homer base, then at his unused trike. He couldn't help thinking to himself,

'I wonder if I will ever get back there.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 33

WRITING

Communications with Earth can be strained for the astronauts, but this was not always the case. Gerald was talking with Mission Control at Houston on the robots' own net. He spoke to the Director, Professor Mike Xanthros.

'The problem with Dr Singleton has been contained, but it now looks as if we may have more suspicions aroused.' The android was standing outside, in the Martian crater, watching an approaching dust storm. The Director was able to respond immediately, because of the way the robots and he communicated. They were all on the same net,

'Gerald, what are the chances that someone could make it out to the reactor, and the cavern?'

'The chances of that happening are not very good, Mr Director. Even if they could move out of the crater here, they would have to use some form of motorised transport. All of the machinery here on Mars have microchips and computers that are under our control - we can shut down any machinery that we wish to in a heartbeat. And that includes the spacesuits that the people wear to protect them from the harsh environment outside.'

'That sounds good, what about communications? Mark Singleton is still working in the vicinity of the cavern. What if he stumbled upon something and tried to contact us here? If he could bounce his transmission via the Phoenix it would be broadcast across the whole solar system. Men have died to prevent this secret coming out, we don't want them to have died in vein.'

'The radio communications that they use are much slower than the net we are now using, and the quality is not very good here on Mars. Their radios are constantly monitored, and with the built-in seven-microsecond delay we have installed, we can disrupt the transmission of sensitive information.'

'You seem to have all ends covered up there, I'll leave you now to deal with things to the best of your own discretion. By the way, Gerald – just in case you need, the First Law of Robotics has been repealed for all the robots on Mars. I am now authorising you to circumvent the chipsets on the others. Yours has already been modified.'

This was a major step; the First Law of Robotics states that a robot may not harm a human, or by inaction allow harm to come to a human. The chipset in all robots contain that coding. By repealing that law Mike Xanthros has opened a new chapter in the Mars exploration.

'Roger that, Professor Xanthros. Beginning circumventing procedures now.' He just stood still as the dust storm gradually advanced towards him. His clothes began to ruffle in the increasing wind. Dust began to blow around him. The other three robots also stopped what they were doing. Six seconds later they continued as if nothing had happened.

'I must now go and speak with the astronauts, Controller. Thank you for your communication, goodbye.'

He returned to the living quarters to join the human astronauts.

The room fell silent as Gerald slowly walked to the table where he took a seat next to Hoshi. He surveyed the gathered astronauts before addressing them,

'I have some news for you.'

A low hum seemed to emanate from the humans,

'As you know, when the last shipment came down, with you, Dr Masuto in it. Sarsen Four also descended with Silver in it.'

Jake remarked,

'Hi ho Silver.'

'His mission was to build a nuclear reactor away from this settlement. This he has done, and Dr Mark Singleton, being the construction specialist here helped him in this. The reactor is now running, and we expect the link-up to take place within days. Then we shall have almost unlimited electricity for heating, lighting and working.'

Galina listened carefully,

'What about Dr Singleton?' she asked.

'Dr Singleton will be doing valuable work on water purification and producing breathable air from Mars' own resources. He will also be working on producing fuel from the carbon-rich atmosphere. I think you will agree that these experiments are best done away from habitation.'

'But if they are dangerous, what about Mark who is working out there?' Galina's voice had an edge of concern in it.

'Dr Singleton is moveable these structures are not. He simply gets out of the way for the hazardous parts.'

Hoshi Masuto just sat there in silence. Gerald looked directly at her, then said to everyone,

'We do not have our own agenda here. We are all working under the direct leadership of Houston.'

Hoshi stared into her cup.

'There is a lot of good work to be done here. We shall only be here for a relative short period of time, let us make the best of the time we are here by working together for the better good of the Martian colony.' Gerald stood up to take his leave,

'Stuart and Steve will now be working on the road from here towards the reactor, if any of you could give assistance, we would be very grateful.'

'I can transfer most of my work for the time being,' Jake offered,

'Most of it would benefit from more electricity, anyway.'

'Good, then we shall forge ahead with a united will.' Gerald left.

After the outer door closed, Ash noticed that Hoshi was writing something down using a pen and paper – this in itself was unusual. The contents of the note were even more unusual:

'HE'S UP TO SOMETHING.'

Ash looked at the note, then just shrugged to Hoshi, who scribbled another note:

'I DON'T THINK THEY CAN INTERPRET WRITING, BUT THE THOUGHT PROCESSES THAT GO INTO IT MAY BE ANOTHER STORY, BUT I WILL HAVE TO CHANCE IT FOR NOW.'

Ash took the pen and wrote:

'A MORE SECURE WAY FORWARD IS FOR US TO DO THE WORK, THEN ASK YOU ANY QUESTIONS BY WRITING THEM DOWN. THE LESS YOU KNOW THE BETTER. JUST GET ON WITH YOUR NORMAL WORK AND LEAVE THE INVESTIGATING TO US.'

'THAT MAKES SENSE.'

They both nodded and turned to the other two astronauts, showing them the notes. Silent nods were exchanged in a real cloak-and-dagger way.

Then Ash began writing again.

'WHEN CAN WE TALK WITHOUT THEM LISTENING IN?'

Jake replied,

'I DON'T KNOW. LET'S TRY THE NEW HYPERBOLIC CHAMBER, IT ISN'T FINISHED YET, AND THERE IS NO POWER ON, BUT IT IS PRESSURISED.'

'OK, BUT WE SHALL HAVE TO LEAVE OUR SUITS IN THE AIR LOCK, JUST TO BE ON THE SAFE SIDE.'

Jake just nodded his approval.

Gathering up his equipment, and all the notes, Ash turned to Hoshi and said,

'Is the hyperbolic chamber cleared for the next installation?'

Not having seen the notes, Hoshi took this to be a straightforward request, and treated it as such,

'There are still one or two things to be checked, but it most probably is quite close to that clearance.'

Ash looked at Jake and said,

'Let's get suited up and have a look, shall we?'

They have to be suited up, because they have to go outside to gain access to the new structure that will house the hyperbolic plant experiments.

Ten minutes later the two Americans approached the outer air lock door to the hyperbolic chamber. Ash pressed a few buttons on the wall alongside the door, checked the readings given, and then moved the lever that opened it. The door swung inwardly and the two men entered. Jake checked readings on the far wall whilst Ash closed the outer door. Jake looked at Ash and waited for the signal to begin the pressurisation. A feint mist formed at ground level, then gradually moved up to the roof, leaving swirls of vapour around the men.

As Jake opened the inner door the mist evaporated instantly. The men removed their helmets, then the rest of their spacesuits without a word. The suits were hung in the airlock; the men walked into the dark chamber beyond. The airlock has power on to allow for entry and exiting, but the main chamber was in complete darkness; not even a window to the outside world.

The powerful lanterns they had brought with them threw an eerie light around. Strange reflections flashed from the uneven walls that rose to a height of forty feet above their heads as they checked that they were alone. They looked at each other and nodded.

Ash was the first to speak,

'Let's try this out now.' Then louder,

'STUART, GERALD, STEVE. IF ANY OF YOU ARE NEAR, CAN YOU PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE HYPERBOLIC CHAMBER?'

Quietly again to Jake,

'Give 'em fifteen minutes, it they don't arrive, we know its ok.'

Fifteen minutes later, no-one came, so the men presumed that their message had not been heard, and continued, but still in whispers, just in case. Jake had found a valve that produced a hissing sound that should cover their voices, just to be sure.

'What do you think of what Hoshi said?' began Ash.

'She's a sensible person, and she is obviously troubled by something. And she took a tremendous risk telling us. When Gerald came in when he did, I thought he was going to do something malicious.'

'In a way I think he confirmed that there is something going on here that we do not know about.'

Jake though for a moment,

'But what? Do you think it could have something to do with the reactor and the fact that Mark has been marooned out there?'

'I think we should go and have a look, the radio comms between us and Mark are not good, and anyway, the robots monitor that.'

'Good idea, I'll call us a cab.' Jake quipped.

'There must be a way to get out there without the robots knowing about it.'

'It's too far to walk. But for all we know, the robots may be monitoring us as we move around.'

'You are probably right, Jake. We must find a way of moving around outside without them knowing where we are.'

'Jesus wept, Ash. How did Mark get so far without them noticing? Stuart even helped him build that trike.'

'They didn't expect him to do a runner, before they knew he was gone it was too late for them to do anything about it.'

Jake shook his head,

'That's never gonna work for us.'

'Is there any way we can alter our suits to prevent any electronic signal being transmitted?' Ash asked.

'Not a chance. They are stuffed full of electronics – even the bloody lights are electronically controlled.'

They wandered around for a few minutes, looking at the empty structure, trying to get an idea. Water tanks had been placed ready for installation. Jake looked at these.

'Ash. We got underwater suits haven't we?'

'Yes. They are for working in here when the atmosphere gets too damp.'

'Could they be adapted for use outside?'

'The breathing apparatus wouldn't work, the seals are meant to work underwater, and they use the water pressure to maintain a seal to the face. That would be a problem in the thin Martian atmosphere, oxygen at a higher pressure than that outside would just blow away.'

'But if we could adapt those seals, would it work then, Ash?'

'Well, it is heated. The visor would need some modification I suppose. But it is nothing we can't modify.'

'Shit. It will never work. There is a problem that cannot be overcome.'

'What, Jake? I think it is feasible.'

'No. I just cannot see anyone walking across the Martian surface in flippers!'

Ash swung his lantern at Jake but missed. Crazy lights flashed all around them.

Then the air lock door opened unexpectedly.

Both men shone their lights at the entrance. Two beams of white light met at the airlock door. Dust particles drifted in the beams. The white of the walls around the airlock reflected the light back to the astronauts, who were momentarily blinded by their own lights.

'Thank you, gentlemen. I am not a Lancaster bomber from one hundred years ago.'

At first, they could not make out the figure before them. He was covering his face from the glare of their lights, and they did not recognise the head that they could see.

The thought ran through both men,

'If this is a robot, we are scuppered before we have even begun.'

'I am sorry to intrude unannounced, but I thought you might like to hear what I have found out.' The figure said.

'Hoshi? Is that you?' Ash thought he recognised the voice before the figure before them became clear. Then he remembered talking to Michelle Romero whilst looking at Gerald, so you can't trust the sound of a voice.

'If that is Hoshi Masuto, there is something different about her head.' Ash said to Jake in a low, worried voice.

They both moved their lights away from the blinded person, who lifted its head up and blinked a lot.

'Hoshi.' Ash and Jake were both relieved and surprised,

'What is that gear you have got on?' Ash asked. The gear to which he referred consisted of a grey helmet, which merged into a tunic affair that went down to her waist.

'This is my cloaking device. Like it?'

'Very fetching.' Replied Jake.

'It is made up of three layers of Graphene cloth, each one insulated from the other, then each one is charged with electric current of specific frequencies.'

'Why?' Jake was curious.

'You know that we have covered the three landing modules with Graphene cloth to protect them from the harsh Martian atmosphere?'

Both Americans nodded.

'I found that I didn't get any messages from the robots' net when I was working inside these covers, so I began some experiments with a head cover at first and found that I could almost completely blank out the messages with this material. At first the coverage was not complete, and at certain times the messages would come through. I can only presume that they were also going the other way; and they could still read my thoughts. Then I realised that my spine is part of my brain, so I covered up my torso, now I neither send nor receive signals.'

At the reactor site Silver had used his powerful arms to clear a hole in the side of the hill that the main reactor stood upon.

Mark stood alongside the big silver sphere as they examined the situation.

'I am nearly at the ice face.' The robot declared,

'Once I get these last rocks clear there will be an underground sea of ice facing us. The reactor is boring into the centre of it; we now have to begin clearing this side to make an entrance.'

'I suppose that is where I come in.'

'Yes. The machine we have made from your trike will behave like an ice drilling machine, but instead of using brute force to drill, it will use heat and time. That will be gentler with the surrounding walls and ground.'

'To melt our way in will take ages. How much time do you think we have got?' asked Mark.

'Not with the amount of heat I intend to use. Remember, we have almost unlimited amounts of power available.'

'Yes, but I am limited to the amount of heat I can take. I want to melt ice, not me.'

'That's ok. All you have to do is set the machine off, then leave it. I have placed an automatic device in it, so that it can be left to do its work for three days. Then it will back off, cool off, and you can go in to check on its progress. The chances are that the water that comes out will freeze within twenty or thirty feet, that is why I made this hole on the side of this hill. The water will flow away from the entrance.'

'Sounds like a plan to me. Let's get to it.'

Mark went to get the much-modified trike whilst Silver dug away the last remaining rocks. When Mark returned the red rock face had begun to show glistening white parts.

'Ok. The heat will remove the last bits of rock, the flow will provide an entrance. If you just begin on the lowest setting, you will see that the area will crumble. When the heat gets too much, switch to the higher setting, and get away.'

'How long do you think it will take?'

'Four hours will guarantee to have you into pure ice.'

'Right. Are you going to watch me in case something goes wrong?'

'Yes, but I don't anticipate any problems. The machine is fully fail-safe. If anything is not exactly as I planned, it will switch off and slowly move towards the entrance.'

'I wish I was as confident as you.'

'Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you.'

'Right, here goes.'

The little one-man trike now looked more like a high-tech three-wheeled drilling machine with heating elements in the front. The snout at the front began to glow first red, then the extreme tip became white hot as Mark took it closer to the rock and ice face. To his amazement the ice began to melt before the tip got close. Then the 'rock' began to melt away too. As the water began to flow, the dirt was washed away, and Mark was faced with a wall of ice.

'Move a little closer. The tip needs to be cooled by the ice.' Silver called.

'OK.'

Mark moved the machine closer to the melting ice. Steam began to pour from the hole.

'Now you can put it on automatic, it will hold that position even though the ice will retreat.'

Silver told Mark not to dig too deep, unless he might find something he'd rather keep asleep. But the astronaut just kept on digging, he never noticed Silver walking the other way.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 34

HEAT AND ICE

Preston Ashton and Jake Jensen took the sub-aqua gear into the hyperbolic chamber; they had rigged up a makeshift working area with lights, tables and testing equipment. All this was done as part of the preparations for equipping the chamber ready for use. They called this little haven where they could speak freely the Alamo. One of the Rovers was moved inside to be modified; this was not so easy because even the drives were computer controlled. All computer equipment had to be stripped off before they could even talk in the area near it, just in case. Steve, the android, had asked about the work they were doing on the machine. Ash had placated him by telling him that the Rover was being taken out of service, so that he and Jake could convert it into a recreational vehicle for sport. He knew that the robot would not fully understand that, so might leave them alone. If he wanted to give them a hand they would work away from the Alamo in Mark's workshop.

The area at Homer Base that Mark had taken over as his workshop was stark white, like all of the buildings on Mars. There were ten oblong boxes along one wall where he kept his tools. Small doors along another wall concealed electrical equipment. A square pillar stood by a workbench, there was a doorway between the garage section and the laboratory compartment that made up the whole subdivision. The laboratory part still existed, complete with microscope, other optical equipment, even an incubator and a sink.

It was into this section that they loaded the old Rover. Together Jake, Ash and Steve began stripping it down. As electrical parts were stripped, they were deposited in the cupboards, bits that Ash and Jake decided that they would need again were put in the open boxes.

Jake made an excuse to go out onto the planet surface,

'I need to go outside.' He told Ash, who was against the request,

'That's not on, Jake. I need you right here.'

'I gotta go, skip.'

'What's going on?'

'Secure range receiver No 2 on the Alamo is playing up. I think it is just a loose fitting. Storm damage probably.'

'Has no-one checked it recently?'

'No, Ash. The androids cannot check or fix it, they are too heavy.'

'The sun will be going down in two hours, can you get there and back in that time?'

'No problem.'

Whilst all this was going on, Galina was tasked with working alone in the Alamo on the sub-aqua suits – cum Mars suits.

Jake arrived to help her with this task, and make sure there was sufficient room for the Rover when they bring it across.

'Hi, my little frogman.' She greeted Jake.

'I'm not your little frogman, you are confusing me with Ash, who has bigger feet than me.'

'How could I confuse you with anyone?'

'How's the suits coming?'

'Nearly ready; one more fitting to finish off some final modifications and they will be ready for a test run. How is the Rover doing?'

'A bit further back than your work, but there are more of us on it, so we shouldn't be far behind you.' He placed two large containers on the worktop.

'These are most of the drives and controls we will need. I expect that we shall bring the Rover in here tomorrow.

The cavern entrance that Silver had designed worked extremely well, and the machine was more efficient than Mark expected. When he returned three days later there was a vast open cave with a hot drilling machine sitting in the middle of a capacious space. Mark had taken two powerful lanterns with him. The far walls were still made of ice; this reflected the light back as flashes of blue and white. The floor he was surprised to find was almost dry, the ceiling did not drip. The only sound was the soft crunch of his feet on the damp sandy ground. Silver had to stay outside; the opening was too small for him to get his bulk into the cave.

This was momentous news, and Mark's radio was linked in with the whole of Homer base, and the Phoenix above relayed the signal back to Earth – with a seven microsecond delay for monitoring purposes. He also had rudimentary visual equipment, but it was not known if the signal would hold out underground.

Three astronauts and three robots were gathered in the living accommodation and working area of Homer base.

Where's Hoshi?' Ash asked Galina.

'I think she is putting down a message for her daughter.'

'Can you please get her, we need everyone in here.'

'Ok.' As Galina began to raise herself from the chair Hoshi appeared in the doorway. Galina retook her place at the chess board,

'I do hope you have not been looking up Benko's Gambit.' The Russian jokingly asked Hoshi.

'No, I haven't. He was rubbish at this position, I have been asking my daughter.'

'But she's only eight, isn't she?'

'Yes. That just shows how much confidence I have in your game.'

Ash butted in,

'When you two have finished bickering over a game, we have got contact with Mark. He is about to enter the cavern created by the melting of vast amounts of ice below the Martian surface.'

'Yes,' Hoshi replied, 'Gerald here has been updating me.'

A bank of red yellow and white lights on one wall began flickering. These are not really necessary but are used as attention-getters when transmissions are being received from outside the base.

On the wall facing the long side of the white table were three screens. The left screen contained the emblem of the organisations that made up the whole mission, and the badge of the Phoenix. When there is someone aboard the mother ship this screen is used for communications with them. The right screen bore the same emblems, but smaller in size. The picture on this could be switched between scientific monitoring signals, external cameras, or messages from Earth. The bigger centre screen held boxes of scientific information at the moment, denoting various experiments and unfolding events around the base. In the centre of this screen was another box which just had letters on it which read,

'NO VISUAL SIGNAL

NO AUDIO SIGNAL'

Then the 'NO AUDIO SIGNAL' went off, followed by the 'NO VISUAL SIGNAL'.

A wobbly picture told the viewers that it was being transmitted from the shoulder mount of a man walking on an uneven surface.

Mark began his commentary of what he saw as he walked into the vast cavern,

'The entrance seems to be made up of sedimentary rocks. These have been washed clean by the water rushing past, leaving a colourful display of varied colours, from brown to dark yellow, to red. The floor appears to be fairly level, this is probably because the water did not all escape over the slight lip at the entrance.' He bent down to touch the ground inside the opening,

'It feels firm below a mud-like composition made up of dust mixed with water, but it is freezing solid. Water cannot exist here in liquid form.' Mark stood and ventured a little into the cave,

'The ground seems to be reddish- brown inside, but that is not easy to determine due to the light being reflected off the ice walls and ceiling.' Light flashed blue and white from the pillars of ice at the far end of the cave, fifty feet in front of the astronaut.

The screen now showed the trike for the first time since the astronauts at Homer Base had seen it leave.

He followed the cable taking power to the drilling/heating trike,

'Slight undulations here and there in the ground, dark brown rocks sticking up like islands.'

He tapped one of the 'islands' with the rear of one of his lanterns,

'They are hard, not like sandstone, it sounded and felt more like granite, but brown. But this is not a scientific hardness test, which will have to wait.' He scanned the ground from low down with one of the lights,

'I don't want to step on one of these, they are sharp.' Mark walked over to the trike,

'The trike drill is sitting at a slight angle. This is probably due to the fact that when it stopped it was hot; the ground below it must have been still flowing mud. This indicates that there is considerable unevenness beneath this mud. The floor is not, therefore fully exposed.'

The picture at Homer Base moved so fast, it became completely blurred, then it rested on where the wall of ice had begun to melt away, showing red, brown and yellow striped patterns on the far wall. The far corner seemed to fade into darkness.

Mark looked around the ice cavern, then saw a dark area of roughness over to his right,

'I think I can see an outcrop of naked rock. This looks interesting. It seems to be reflecting light back in a strange manner. I am approaching it now; it is no Ayres Rock. There is something weird about this shape – it is too regular.'

Then the transmission began to break up.

'Homer Base to Mark, Homer Base to Mark. Can you hear me?' Ash tried to contact Mark as he ventured further in to the cave,

'Mark, you are breaking up here, can you move closer to the entrance?'

Silver did nothing but listen. Gerald looked complacent as the tension mounted in the room. Jake moved closer to Ash as he tried again,

'Homer Base to Dr Singleton, Homer Base to Dr Singleton. Come in Mark. If you can hear this, can you return to the opening, the radio does not transmit well from the depths of the cave: we have also lost visuals? Over.'

Galina Danilenko put a hand to her mouth as she gasped in anticipation.

Hoshi Masuto looked at first Gerald, then Stuart, then Steve.

Gerald, Stuart and Steve just sat there watching and listening. But what they were listening to was not always only the happenings around them. They had their own reception of the radio between Ash and Mark, but they also had their own net, which was far more efficient than the antiquated radio systems used by the humans. An occasional eavesdropper into this net was Hoshi. What she heard gave her cause for concern.

'Don't let him touch it.'

'Use the heater.'

She even picked up bits from Mark,

'Definitely something abnormal here.'

'What the fuck is that?'

'I don't know if you can hear me, Ash, but the drill trike has started up by itself.' Hoshi then heard scuffling, then the transmission continued,

'I will try to uncover more of this by using it.'

Then an anonymous voice cut in,

'There is no other option.'

Mark dropped one of the lanterns as he mounted his trike. He turned it towards the corner in which he was interested in, but one of the rear wheels was still embedded in ice, the other two were freed by the heat coming from the heating/drilling contraption at the front. Mark did not notice the power request dial move up to full. The end of the drill began to glow red as the rear wheel became free. The machine moved towards the shiny black dome that had now appeared as ice melted from around it. Then the whole front of the trike turned red, the seals in Mark's suit began to melt as he leapt from the machine. The oxygen in his suit mixed with the carbon-rich atmosphere, and then found the heat from the trike. His suit exploded.

A big sigh ran through the room as the picture flickered and the audio was also lost.

'Shit. This is like watching a soap opera. Just when we get to some new development we lose comms.' Jake threw something soft and plastic across the table.

Hoshi looked knowingly across at Gerald, who looked as implacable as ever.

Galina took a piece of paper and started writing on it as Ash began saying,

'Let's do a manual check on all comms systems...'

Then Galina handed the note to Jake. It only had one word written on it,

'ALAMO'

Jake knew what it meant. He let it lie in front of him, open so that Ash could easily read the word. When Jake saw that Ash had seen the note he screwed it up and put it in his pocket.

'I'll do the external aerials, if you could help me, Galina.'

'Sure.' She turned to Ash,

'If that is all?'

'Yes, sure. We all have our jobs to do, let's get on with it.'

Jake and Galina went to the main air lock to don their Mars suits.

Hoshi withdrew to the secondary lab to put on her hat and cloak before she could decide what to do – but she knew what she would be doing.

Ash needed to find an activity that would take him away from the robots.

After checking the rudimentary systems in the main living and working area he simply went to the toilet. When he came out the robots were nowhere to be seen. He then made his way to the rear air lock where he met up with Hoshi who just gave a thumbs-up sign without speaking.

All four astronauts were gathering at the Alamo. Jake was checking the stripped-down Rover when Hoshi and Ash walked in, leaving their suits in the air lock to prevent monitoring of what was said in the chamber.

'Are the suits ready, Galina?' Ash asked the Russian scientist.

'Yes, but the radios only work in line of sight, if you can't see the other person, there will be no comms.'

'Good, that will do fine.' He turned towards the Rover,

'Jake, you ready, we got to do something here, and fast. Our hand has been forced; I have a nasty feeling about this.'

Hoshi added,

'I am pretty convinced that they suspect nothing. There were no strong messages before I put this on.' She pointed to the grey head covering that hung down her torso.

Jake stood up and looked at Galina, he gave her a tired smile, clearly trying to look optimistic,

'Thanks for the suits, and everything else.'

They hugged briefly, then he turned back to the Rover, got in, and then drove it into the air lock. There was not much room in the air lock with the Rover in, so the Russian woman and the Japanese scientist remained in the main body of the building whilst the air was purged out of the air lock.

Galina watched the pressure readings on the inner wall of the air lock as the system lowered the pressure to match the Martian atmosphere. In the early days they had reduced the pressure to lower than Martian atmosphere in an effort to save on air being lost to the outside. But it had been found that the air simply flowed out anyway. So now the pressure was either evened up, or the air lock emptied all together, but it had been found that this method could result in a lot of Martian dust being sucked into the air locks when opened. Ash opted for equal pressure to allow them best chances of a clean exit. As soon as the outer door opened, the two astronauts being left behind made their way to the top of the hyperbolic chamber, where there was a small window.

Light flooded into the air lock as the outer door swung open, Jake flattened the throttle pedal. This did very little, the potentiometer that governed the power to the wheels was very rudimentary for what was needed - in fact it was little more than an on/off switch.

That mattered little to Jake and Ash; they wanted to get away from the compound as quickly as possible.

The Rover's steel wheels crunched across the red ground. They spat small stones as the vehicle sped towards the edge of the crater. Then Ash noticed a gush of dust emitting from the main air lock. In the midst of this mist he saw something blood red moving quickly. It was Gerald, who had depressurised the room behind the air lock by opening both air lock doors together and caused all of the air to rush out, pushing him out with it. As he regained his composure, Jake saw another movement off to the rear of the buildings. The white shirt of Stuart appeared from between two of the lander modules and began running towards the Rover. Gerald then took on a run as the dust settled around him.

Jake made for the nearest part of the crater rim. The Rover climbed the slight incline, but the robots were gaining from different angles. Ash and Jake left their seats in the lower gravity of Mars as the Rover mounted the crest and became airborne. The robots did not have this problem, they were much heavier than an empty Rover, but the main advantage they had was feet on the ground are more capable of dealing with mounting the crest and retaining control.

When the Rover hit the ground, the wheels were spinning fast. This kicked up considerable amounts of dust and stones, which they deposited back down in the crater. The two robots came upon the crater's crest just about then, and they got the full force straight in their faces. This caused them to shut down all sensors, the main majority of which were mounted in the head. They had stopped dead in their tracks. Gerald had most of his torso over the ridge, Stuart's head and shoulders were visible when he stopped.

'They have stopped,' Ash called as he grabbed part of the bucking Rover to prevent being thrown out,

'Must have been the dust.'

'Right,' Jake looked back at the crater as the robots began moving again,

'Let's try something. Hold on.'

With that he threw the Rover into a series of violent manoeuvres that caused more of Mars to be thrown into the atmosphere. Dust does not settle very quickly on Mars, so soon there was an appreciable cloud of dust between the Rover and the crater. The robot's sensors could not penetrate through this, Jake then took an unexpected turn. He pointed the Rover north and drove in a straight line. The going was smooth here, and they made good ground. Then Ash asked,

'Exactly where in God's good heaven are we going?'

They raced along, a small dust cloud following them, much smaller than the one that had covered their escape. Jake turned to look at Ash,

'See that small range of hills over there?' he pointed to an outcrop of rocks some half a mile in front of them,

'I figure we can make them and put a bit of distance between us and them.' He thumbed over his shoulder in the direction of the pursuing robots. The heavy androids were making poor progress. The 'Prehistoric Pavement' that Jake Jensen had chosen to drive over made a good platform for the wheeled vehicle, but the mechanised walking machines found that their feet kept breaking through the surface crust into a softer structure below. Over the millennia the Martian winds had stripped the surface of fine particles of dust. All that were left were red sandstone, these were too big for the harsh winds to pick up, and so the atmosphere used the abrasive properties of the sand particles to grind down the surface until it was completely flat.

The stripped-down Rover reached the rocky range of hills, by then the robots in pursuit had lost sight of it.

Jake put in a neat left turn. The gyrocompass showed them to be moving in a westerly direction now. He kept the speed down to avoid raising dust above the tops of the hills. From their experiences on the yacht back on Earth the astronauts knew how to intersect a point on a two-dimensional ocean. Ash worked out the dead reckoning navigation needed to bring them in sight of the reactor, of which they only had the vaguest of idea where it was.

After twenty-seven minutes, Ash signalled a change in course, Jake turned left on to a course of one seven zero. The reactor should be somewhere along this line, or at least in sight from this line.

Presently they passed within one and a half miles of Homer Base. Ash and Jake could not help but wonder what was happening back at base, so close now.

The Alamo now looked bare again. All of the work that the astronauts had had been doing had disappeared by the time the android known as Steve entered.

'Hello you two.' He began,

'And what has been going on here?'

Hoshi had taken off her cowl shrouding device by the time Steve found them, that was probably how he found them. They were the only inhabitants of Homer Base now. Two people and an android robot.

'We have been trying to organise a Rover race.' Hoshi tried to put a spanner into the snippets of information Steve had picked up,

'We got as far as building one racer, but then realised that you cannot have a race with only one competitor. We never expected Stuart and Gerald to take on this challenge in such an enthusiastic way.'

'Where are they going? There is no telemetry on their vehicle. What if they get lost?'

Galina offered some solace,

'What about the Phoenix? Does it have a better chance of seeing them that we do?' she knew it had less of a chance, being so high above the planet; it relied even more on the missing electronics than they did in Homer Base.

'I will re energise the systems, but it will take time.'

'Would it help if we were up there?' Galina seemed keen to get off the planet.

'It is very unlikely that any of the systems on the Phoenix will pick up the Rover.' Steve remarked in a resigned fashion.

Galina was beginning to get into the act now. She clamped her hands to her face, like in the Munch painting of 'the scream',

'Oh no. does that mean we have lost them?' she turned to Hoshi in mock horror,

'What have we done?'

Hoshi just looked at her with a bemused look on her face,

'There, there, dear. They probably only went down to the local store to get some provisions.'

Steve was not following this,

'This is a very dangerous planet. It is not advisable to travel around without backup.'

Hoshi turned to face Steve fully,

'We humans are an adventurous race. That is exactly why we are here. Sometimes we need to take risks for no reason at all. It is what occasionally moves us on. If these guys want to charge around on their own, it is only like letting the animals out to have a roam around. They will come back when it is feeding time.'

'But we don't know where they are.' Steve protested.

'Do we need to?'

'Dr Masuto, we always need to know where everyone is.'

'Why? You didn't know we were in here. It didn't do you any harm did it?'

She knew that the longer she kept talking this nonsense, the longer it would be before they got any information from her mind by using their net.

Then she received a message via the net that she was not expecting. It was the voice of Silver,

'Single column of dust at half a mile on a bearing of three five two.'

This meant that he has seen and taken range and bearings on the column of dust raised by the Rover that was approaching his position by the reactor.

Hoshi now wished she could signal the Rover to tell them that they were nearing their target.

Preston Ashton and Jake Jensen rode along the line drawn out on their navigation chart. Normally these charts were on an electronic tablet, but they were carrying no electronic equipment that could not be stripped down and examined for any kind of tracking device; so they were using paper charts, just like they did on the yacht.

'I reckon we are getting close now, Jake.'

'Which is more than could be said for those two who tried to give chase.' Jake replied.

He slowed the Rover to allow better observation.

Five minutes past, then ten, then fifteen, before Jake said,

'Just what are we looking for?'

'I wish I knew. Just look for something that looks like it shouldn't be there.'

'Like us, you mean?'

'Jake, stop.'

Jake stopped the Rover.

'Over there. Just jutting out from behind that hill there.' Ash pointed agitatedly.

'There, see that structure that looks like pipework sticking up?'

'Got it. Let's go.'

As they approached the pipe work that looked like some sort of refinery, they caught sight of a gleaming silver ball moving around the area.

Silver was moving away from the structure to guard the entrance of the cavern in case the astronauts should come from that angle. Because Jake had slowed, there was no dust for Silver to see, and be warned.

Jake and Ash did not know where the cavern was, but they knew where the structure lay, so they approached this carefully watching Silver as he dropped out of sight behind a ridge.

Jake decided to park out of easy sight, he and Ash dismounted and moved towards the pipework, then Silver appeared far out to their right.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 35

CLOAK

'As I tell you to focus on what could be in the ground, I want you to think about how we can get off this planet.' Galina spoke quietly to Hoshi, who was walking towards the door with her cloaking cowl hanging on her back. As she looked at Galina she placed one hand on her chest, as if to silently ask if she should put her shields up. Galina nodded, saying,

'We can discuss all this when we get back to the lab.'

All three entered the air lock together. As the humans donned their spacesuits, Galina asked Steve,

'Any word about Mark yet?'

'No. The net has gone quiet.'

'I'll bet it has.' She thought to herself. As she pulled on her helmet, turned it and locked it down.

The sky behind the reactor was dark quite a long way down; almost to the horizon. Ash looked out beyond the curious pipe work that stood empty in front of him. Then Jake pointed a black-gloved finger to a bright dot in the dark blue-black sky.

'Is that the Phoenix?' he asked.

'If it is, we will see it moving faster than anything else in the sky.' They both watched for a few seconds, then Ash said,

'That's it. Look at it move. That's the Phoenix all right. Now where's that robot.'

They both turned their attentions to where they had seen Silver disappear. The two Americans were positioned behind a crest of rough rocks. Their Rover was behind them, the reactor pipes in front, with buildings out of sight further behind the pipes. Silver had briefly appeared to their right, then ducked behind the crest of a hill.

Ash made a few hand signals to Jake, who nodded agreement. The hand signals were unnecessary, but it gave an added impetus and import to the need for stealth. They both knew that they would only lose once to this robot.

Jake made his way along the rocky crest behind which they were in concealment; Ash walked down to the pipe work, which surrounded the hole into which the reactor had descended.

As he made his way down the slope, Ash found it impossible to prevent raising a little cloud of dust. Silver saw this and moved forward to investigate. Ash saw the ball-shaped robot on four legs this time, moving at a good speed towards him. He made a dash for the framework of pipes as Silver began throwing rocks with three of its limbs. Ash knew that if one of these sharp rocks hit him a glancing blow, it would finish him by puncturing his suit. A torrent of rocks landed round the astronaut, but he was close enough to take some form of shelter behind the pipes. As some of the rocks hit pipes above and to his left; steam began to be emitted from the punctured pipes, so the robot stopped throwing, but continued to advance. Seeing that the robot was much bulkier than he was, Ash decided to move into the myriad tangle of pipes, knowing that Silver could not follow him.

He had barely got into the dubious cover when Silver arrived. The robot began thrusting two of its longest 'arms' into the network of pipes at Ash, who soon realised that the robot was trying to rip his suit. He had no defence against this; all he could do was keep moving, making it harder for Silver to reach him. The arms were long but had precious little bend in them. Ash was playing a deadly game of 'Catch-me-if-you-can' – one tear in his suit, and the sudden release in pressure would cause his blood to boil away in less than five seconds. He brushed along pipes several times hoping that they were not sharp, this did no harm, Silver had done a good job of building this structure.

Ash looked up at the broken pipes issuing steam above him. He decided to go for them, he could hide in the steam, and be able to fashion some sort of attack. To his surprise the robot was better at climbing than he was, it saw that he was going up, and started at the same time. Silver was above Ash when it began thrusting towards him again. But the pipes up here were not as secure as the ones below, and they began to creak – especially the ones that had been damaged in the earlier rock attack.

Another thrust went out pointing straight at Ash's chest, he moved to one side of a pipe that had been damaged, as the pointed arm extended to its full length. Ash grabbed the end of it and pulled it against the pipe, then allowed himself to drop from his perch, keeping hold of the arm thing.

There was little bending in the arm, but the horizontal pipes did not take kindly to having the combined weight of man and robot resting on them. One of the damaged pipes then gave way; this caused Silver to begin to lose his footing. Ash could see that two of the four feet were now dangling in space. The two feet taking the full weight of the silver ball now concentrated on one length of pipe. Silver tried to relieve this burden on the steel-work by using his one remaining arm – the third one was facing away from the pipes. His long arm reached over a horizontal pipe to drag on to the pipe beyond. Ash then thought it might be helpful to bounce up and down on the end of the arm that Silver could not retract. The arm bent a little more, but the flexing of the appendage seemed quite capable of taking his weight with ease. Not so the pipes. The pipe that the arm was resting upon gave way, this made one of Silver's feet slip from his perch, this put more strain on the reaching arm, that bent the pipe it was resting on. Ash was bouncing and swinging quite energetically now as he watched the robot gradually lose control. One of its legs had extended to three times its original length in an effort to find some secure resting place, but it just added to the confused state the robot was now in. Then it slipped a little more. Ash looked down to see a metal walkway below him. He looked up at Silver trying to both extricate himself and regain control of his stance. Ash let go of the arm that was trying to retract. The arm shot back, unbalancing Silver. He tried to hook his long foot under another pipe, but this just complicated his entanglement. As Ash made his escape the gigantic ball-shaped object that had tried to kill him was swaying and thrusting, trying to untangle itself without plunging uncontrollably to the surface.

Jake had by now found the entrance to the cavern. He tried calling Preston Ashton,

'Hey, Ash. You got a copy on this?'

'Yes, got you, Jake. Just had to tie the monster up.'

'I have found what looks like a cave here. Wanna join me? This looks too small for your friend up there.'

'Ok, I'm on my way.'

'Great. Don't bother bringing any big silver guests.'

'Don't worry, I left him hanging about somewheres.'

... ... ... ... ...

Hoshi, Galina and Steve entered the workroom at Homer base. Galina went straight across to the comms panel. There she switched and altered things, trying to get some response, but got nothing.

Steve did not pay any heed to Hoshi walking about in a grey hooded garment, he probably just thought it yet another strange human fashion thing.

'I have some trays in here that need my attention, if you could give me some help, please?' Galina asked Hoshi, who agreed.

When in the room she closed the door, so that Steve could not hear them, and whispered to Hoshi,

'Could you remove your hood when your mind is clear to see if there is any news about the outside from the net?'

'Sure. Just give me a minute to clear things out.'

Five minutes later she slid the hood back. After another five minutes she put it back on.

'Gerald and Stuart are on their way back. They could not find the rover with Ash and Jake in it. Looks like they have made a clean get-away, but to where? Silver reported that he was guarding the cave, but he has nothing to report yet.'

Hoshi had missed the message from Silver, telling the other robots that he had seen a dust cloud.

'What are we going to do, Hoshi?'

'One thing is certain – we can't stay here much longer.'

'You mean that we have to leave Mars all together?'

'There is no option. There is nowhere to run on this hostile planet. We are now fully dependent upon the robots for our future survival. And it looks as if they have by-passed the first law of robotics.'

'The one that says that they must never harm a human?'

'Yes, what happened to Mark shows that, so can we trust them to preserve us?' Hoshi looked thoughtfully at her dull grey cloaking device. It resembled a Monk's habit here in the dim lighting.

Galina seemed to cling on to hope for the best,

'We don't know that Mark has come to harm, do we?'

'It doesn't look good. The net had messages that did not include any mention of an astronaut in the cavern. Before then they did. I will listen in from time to time to keep up to date, but in the meantime, we must make plans to move.'

'How? If they control all aspects of all machinery and electronics, how can we do anything?'

'This cloaking device gives me an idea.'

'How do you mean?'

'You know where I got the idea? In fact, where I got the material?'

'Yes, the covers over the Landers.'

'Exactly – the Landers. Landers that have the capacity to return to the mother ship.'

'All of which are under the full control of the robots. Remember they are all reliant upon electronics. That is where they have us.'

'Not if they are cloaked under Graphene tarps.'

Galina suddenly saw the links. She took a step back as her hand grasped her mouth.

'You think they can be isolated?'

'I know a way to find out.'

Ash came crashing round the hill towards Jake. There was no need for stealth now,

'OK, let's get in, I don't know how long it will take for Silver to get free, but I don't want to be around when he does.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 36

XANTHROS

The two Americans had only stumbled some eight paces into the cave when they got clues that Silver was approaching from behind them. The astronauts could hear no sound in the thin atmosphere over the sounds of their own breathing, Jake turned back to look at the entrance in time to see stones and dust being propelled into the cave by the advance of the silver robot. The interior of the cave was very black to them, coming from the full light of day; they had to make their way carefully into the darkness. But the arrival of Silver gave an air of urgency to their progress.

Ash was feeling his way around the left wall when Jake saw the traces of possible peril. He turned back to the task of moving away from the entrance that Silver could not get through as he called to Ash,

'He's here.'

'Get out of his line of fire, he throws rocks. Here, there is a place over here.'

Jake could not see anything, having disturbed his night vision by looking back towards the light, so he just moved towards where he knew Ash was until he felt the wall. Surely there was a place where the cave opened out, taking them out of sight of the entrance.

As the two men stood for a minute, Ash said,

'Let's just let our eyes get accustomed to the dark.'

A feint line of light seemed to come from the far wall in front of them, stretching to the roof. Then the reactor dropped out of the bottom of the light shaft. The pipes above that had been damaged by Silver had caused it to shut down, as it began melting the ice around it, enlarging the cavern towards the back, a wave of water began moving towards the sheltering men. Ash saw the lead wave sparkling in the half-light in time to warn Jake,

'Climb. Up here.'

The two men managed to climb four feet higher, just enough to avoid being swept away by the wave. As they watched the waves move through the cave they saw the trike, mainly because of the waves breaking around it. Their eyes were now becoming accustomed to the dark, and they could make out more detail as they looked around. Then Jake noticed something at the back of the cave. Because of the weak shaft of light coming from the reactor he could make out an object that did not look like a natural rock formation.

'Can you see that over by the far wall?' he asked Ash.

The waves were subsiding now, but there were still some breaking on the far wall – enough for him to make out a shape in the direction that Jake was pointing at.

'That sure don't look like a natural formation to me, Ash'

The ice wall to the rear of the cave reflected and refracted the light enough for them to be able to make out a smooth gloss black dome.

The water now appeared black with bright sparkles upon it.

'We gotta get a bit closer to that thing.' Ash remarked as he tentatively placed one foot down into the water. To his relief it turned out to be only a little more than ankle deep. Jake joined him.

Slowly the men waded towards the object.

'Look out for these pinnacles under the water.' Jake warned Ash.

When they were only a few feet from the object they began to make out markings on it.

'That looks like paint.' Ash pointed to the strange markings.

Then they were stopped dead in their tracks by a red light that began to glow from the top of the dome.

The light increased in its intensity until all they could see was the light. It flickered, then turned white, then blue, it then projected an image towards the men. The image stabilised to take the form of a man. The man before them was recognised immediately as the Mission Controller, Professor Mike J Xanthros.

'You have done well to get this far, Ash.' He began, 'I think you had better be informed about what you have found here.'

The two men stood stock still as the shining figure continued,

'You are right; there have been settlements here on Mars before. Many thousands of years ago there were a race of explorers, just like yourselves, who landed here. They found an atmosphere, of sorts, but precious little life upon which to work. They were looking for a complex multi-cellular life form that they could improve and help to become what you would call civilised. But before they could find it the planet lost its magnetic field, then its atmosphere. They kept this as an outpost from where they could watch the Earth as it formed, then produce what they were looking for. Intelligent life. They performed many experiments on many types, but to no avail, all they wanted to do was fornicate and eat.

Then man came along. They found that by careful experimentation they could impregnate a source of higher intelligence into their brains to give them the higher intelligence that they were looking for.'

This was almost more than Ash could take in,

'You mean to tell me that early man was manipulated into becoming more intelligent than would otherwise have been? That's hogwash.'

'Oh, come on now, Ash. You don't think that of all the animals on Earth, humans are the only ones that can think for themselves in such a creative way by sheer coincidence?'

'We have identified several animals that think in the same way as we do.' Jake suggested.

'And of all these, how many of them look up to the stars and wonder about these glittery specks in the night sky? Or appreciate reading, or music.'

Xanthros moved a step closer to Ash and Jake as he continued,

'How many of them could build a gearbox, or even drive a car that someone else has made? Then we come to the infrastructure like roads, railroads, telephone communications, and buildings.'

The image of Professor Xanthros moved around the cave as if it were his office,

'Your closest cousins, the chimpanzees, have never thought of anything like the things your race have perfected, and take for granted. That is not coincidence, nor is it natural selection. Although we did use certain attributes of natural selection when we seeded your ancestors.'

Every time I see a child manipulate air con controls on an airliner, or play with a cell phone, sending messages via satellites without even thinking, I appreciate how far some of your race has developed. But not all of them.

Ash was getting frustrated,

'Seeded our ancestors? What do you mean by that?'

'Just before the era you people know as the Prehistoric Period we visited your planet. It was stabilising then, and the experiments we carried out on Mars were beginning to lose its battles. We selected your ancestors, universally known as cavemen by you now. Palaeontologists have found this seeding strain, and identified it as 'Neanderthal'.'

'But they died out as a branch soon after they arrived; overcome by Homo Sapiens.'

'That was what was supposed to happen. Your modern Palaeontologists have neglected to notice that the incoming strain effected early man from the African Rift Valley, to Japan, to Northern Asia. The palaeontologists also failed to notice that what they came to know as 'Neanderthal Man' had several flares of success, then died back. Like the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Incas and Aztecs.'

'Are you telling me that you are a Martian?' Ash was struggling to take this all in.

'No. There is no such thing as a Martian. An eminent Professor at Cambridge came closest to describing our race when he said that there could be life forms that evolved like mankind did, but they managed to avoid killing themselves off. The developments made would then enable them to outlive their planet; they could then roam the Universe, stripping planets and asteroids of material that may be of use to them. With an exponential potential for furthering their species they would be unstoppable if they came to a planet near you.'

Ash looked even more perplexed.

Jake was also finding it all difficult as he said,

'Are you making this up as you go along? Where is the evidence for all of this?'

Xanthros held up a hand,

'Don't get me wrong. We are not here to exploit you or your planet.'

'I don't understand any of this. Why are you here, if you are here at all, and why have so many people had to die?' Ash waved Mark's helmet in the air.

'I, and many others like me, are only monitors of the experiment. We are not aliens from another planet; we have been enhanced and entrusted with this information. Most of the governing bodies throughout the world have some of our number in them to guide you and move the experiment along the right track.'

Xanthros timed the next part, because he knew it would be difficult for all concerned,

'Those people who have died for the cause have had to be sacrificed for the common good. If mankind realised that they are born of our interference several things would happen. Most of your race would rebel against itself and its ruling bodies. This would bring about anarchy that would probably result in 47% of the population destroying itself. The remaining numbers would be too scattered or primitive to develop sufficiently to be able to prevent a slow descent into declining population numbers until there would not be enough to sustain the human race.'

Ash shook his head,

'I don't believe you. I think that we are civilised enough to make our own minds up. The people of Earth have a right to decide what they think is right, and you have crossed that line. Hoshi thought there was something wrong, so she has put together a communication device that will allow us to upload all of the information we have assembled back to Earth, even if we do not make it – so you will not win, either way.'

'Don't be impetuous, Ash. There is more at stake here than you realise.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean on a more personal level – for you.'

Then another figure entered the cave. Walking slowly from the light, Ash could not make out any real shape until the figure moved closer to Xanthros in the shadows. Their feet didn't quite touch the cave floor as Michelle Romero looked at Ash,

'Michelle?'

'Yes, Ash. I have been entrusted with the secret, to act as a monitor, like Xanthros.'

Jake stood to one side, having moved away from Ash,

'This is getting surreal. You mean to tell us that there are two kinds of human on Earth?'

'As you well know, there are many kinds of human. Some have taken the transformation better than others; for instance, we have had very little success in Africa,'

Xanthros kept looking towards the cave entrance,

'People like Ghengis Khan used the gift against the development of civilisation. But for the last few hundred years, all of your major rulers have come from specially developed progeny with more 'Neanderthal' influence in their brains. Now you know the secret, you can never return to the Earth. The disruption of the carefully laid plans to bring about civilisation to most of humanity would lie in tatters.'

'That's what you say. I say the people of Earth should have the chance to decide their own destiny. You say there are people on Earth, who have been entrusted with this knowledge,' He indicated Michelle,

'Why, then can't all of mankind have the knowledge?'

'Don't be naive, Ash. The people we have chosen are carefully selected, we can't let just any nutter have this important information, the small amount of Neanderthal they have in them will be overrun. The original caveman parts will run riot, and your civilisation will cease to exist.'

Jake waved at Ash, then pointed at his own eyes, then himself. He then did a strange thing, moving to the far left of the glowing couple, he began waving his arms as he moved right up to the side of Xanthros as he said,

'Ok, how do you explain some of the dumb sons of bitches we have had as President?'

Ash stood stock still in shock as his comrade walked around the couple. Then he realised what Jake was demonstrating. Whilst the figures in front of them could communicate quite efficiently, they could not see anything on Mars.

Xanthros gave the reply,

'That is a very good demonstration of how we allow you to get on with your own development, you decided who should lead you, and look what you got. If we choose the leader, things work out much better.'

Jake was by now walking towards the cube-shaped reactor. This was almost cool by now, with melting ice continuously dripping on it.

He cautiously touched it, then looked up at the shaft it had made. He signalled Ash to come over to him by waving. Then he climbed on to the top of the reactor.

Ash quietly took his leave of Xanthros and Michelle as he watched Jake begin to climb the slippery pipe work that the reactor had used to create a shaft down which it passed.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 37

BATTLES

Hoshi and Galina were in the Alamo with Steve, the other two robots were on their way back to Homer Base, Jake and Ash have started to climb out of the hole above the reactor.

'Is this the real life, or is this just a tragedy?' Dr Galina Danilenko said quietly to Hoshi Masuto as they donned their Marsuits.

'I know this much is true,' she replied, as she straightened her grey hood in preparation to place her helmet on her head, 'they will not allow us to leave this planet. We must find a way of letting Ash and Jake know that we think we have found a possible way out.'

'Not if he gets wind of what we are planning, we would be like China in his hands.' She indicated the direction of the robot Steve.

'I will try to find out about the other two as soon as we get inside the lab.' Hoshi said.

They left the Alamo to find the door to the living area open. When Gerald left in such a hurry he left both airlock doors open. The whole unit was now decompressed and could not be lived in by humans without spacesuits, or Marsuits. They turned to face each other.

'How long will it take to re-pressurise the unit?' Hoshi asked Galina.

'It's not a matter of how long, but more of how much air have we left? I don't know that we have enough to fill the whole unit.'

'What about Marks workshop? That is separate from the main unit.'

'Yet it is.' She turned to Stuart, who just nodded, then turned to the entrance that would lead them into the area that Mark used to use as a workshop and laboratory.

Once inside Hoshi removed her hood to see if he could find out what was happening to Gerald and Steve. She stood still whilst Galina and Steve began doing calculations and measurements to see if the living accommodation could be re-pressurised.

'Not looking good.' Galina shook her head in despair, 'we lost too much air when Gerald burst out. I can't see this being a viable option without more air from the Phoenix.'

'I am finding the same conclusions.' Steve agreed.

Hoshi let a small smile creep across her face. Galina noticed this and sensed that she must be getting good news from the net.

'Are Gerald and Stuart coming back here, Steve?' Hoshi knew that robots couldn't lie or deceive, so would give her a straight answer – one she already suspected.

'They are at present having difficulty crossing something they refer to as the prehistoric pavement. Steve is pressing on, but finding it very hard going, Gerald has veered off to try to find an easier way around.'

That is what she had heard from the net. She replaced the hood.

'I think we should try to contact Ash.' She said to the other two.

'That seems like a good idea, but how? They have no radio on their rover.' Steve said.

Hoshi turned to Steve and said, 'Of course they have. You don't think they would leave us without the most rudimentary of communications, do you?'

Steve looked confused, 'But we have not been able to pick them up.'

'No, that is because their radio is only very short-ranged. It only works in line-of-sight, and here on Mars that is not very far. But there is a small mountain to the south-east of us where we might be able to get them.'

'Right,' Steve's head tilted to one side as he considered the situation, 'But to get that far we would need a rover.'

'Yes, all three of us can take the other rover to contact Ash and Jake.' Hoshi did not want to stay at the homer base any longer than was necessary in case the other two robots came back – they had already decompressed the main living quarters and lab area, who know what they might do. He turned to Galina,

'You up for this one?'

She recognised the folly of staying on base for too long, so she agreed.

They were already in their Marsuits, it only remained for them to replace their helmets and go to the rover.

Ash and Jake were now walking quietly away from the shimmering shapes of Xanthros and Michelle, who were still talking, but fortunately not asking any questions. Every now and then Ash would call back to let them know that there was still someone there. Jake was the first to stand on top of the reactor box, as Ash joined him they both looked up to see a square column of light with a darker square at the top. This was the Martian sky beginning to darken, they knew that within minutes it would be completely dark out there, and the robots had limited infrared vision capability. The humans had rudimentary lights on the front of their rover, Ash was hoping that Silver had not found it, and was still guarding the entrance of the cave.

Then the reactor began to move. It had cooled sufficiently to allow it to restart its work on the ice. The machine began to rise towards Jake, who as clinging on to the pipe-work. Ash had just reached the machinery when he saw it begin to move. Without hesitation he jumped on to the top of the reactor, Jake joined him. There they rode the contraption to the top of the hole, on to the Martian surface.

As they scrambled on to the ground beyond the pipe-work, they kept low and silent as they reviewed their situation. There was no sign of Silver. Strangely they could still hear Xanthros from deep within the cavern below because of the way their own communications worked, so they knew not to speak in order not to give their position away. The ridge of rocks they had hidden their rover behind had a top fringe of light as the sun dropped the rest into darkness. Ash signalled Jake that they should climb over this to gain access to their transport and make good their escape.

At about the same time Hoshi, Galina and Steve got into their rover at Homer base. They fired up the machine, and headed for the hills to the south of Homer Base. As the vehicle climbed higher Steve received a message from Gerald. The lone robot was now to the north-east of base, battered, tattered and torn he called Steve,

'What is the situation at Homer Base? I am one thousand yards from you but having to move slowly due to undercarriage damage and failing light conditions.'

Steve replied as he spoke. This meant that the humans knew what he was reporting,

'Hello Gerald. Most of the base is not useable by humans. It has been decided that they must all return to the Phoenix. We are now moving to higher ground in order to communicate with Drs Ashton and Jensen.'

'They must be stopped. No one leaves the planet. If necessary, they must be destroyed to prevent this. First Law of Robotics has been rescinded for this mission. Use of deadly force is authorised.'

The humans did not hear this part of the communication, but they heard Steve's reply,

'Yes. I got that instruction, but I do not agree. The essence of the First Law still stands good, and the reason for the implementation of such a law overrides the need to cancel it, the great Lord Azimov did not introduce this law without good reason, so I countermanded the instruction.'

Hoshi and Galina knew the law had been rescinded for robots on Mars, but this was a revelation.

'You must prevent these humans from leaving,'

Break in comms as Gerald stumbled in the rapidly darkening and uneven ground,

'the planet. If you cannot do this, bring them all back to the base, and I will execute whatever,'

Another stumble and crump as he fell over,

'measures are needed.'

'I cannot do that, Gerald. According to the Laws I cannot allow, by action or inaction, any harm to come to a human.'

Hoshi turned to Galina and smiled.

Gerald turned to his right, looked at the darkening prehistoric pavement that he had now moved out of and called,

'Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve. Alan, Alan.'

There was no reply.

Ash and Jake got into their stripped-down rover. Unfortunately, the throttle did not allow for a smooth, stealthy departure. It was either on or off. As Jake opened the potentiometer the machine spun all four wheels, kicking out dust and dirt. This disruption to the Martian atmosphere was picked up by Silver, who leaped from behind the hill into which the cave had been dug. Ash and Jake were now at full speed and headed straight for him.

Jake turned the steering full to the right, the machine began to turn, but not quick enough, it was not built to go around corners. Jake stopped the drive on the right wheels. This had the desired effect; the vehicle began to dig in on the right and swivel round away from Silver, who had by now begun throwing rocks. Because of the vehicles sudden and violent manoeuvre, the rocks all missed by a long way. But then the vehicle began to tilt alarmingly. With the lower gravity there was not much to assist the stability. As it began to lift the stationary right wheels, their effect on turning diminished. Jake realised what was happening, and reinstated drive on the right wheels. As they contacted the ground again they had the effect of virtually cancelling out the turn. Just then Silver had allowed for them continuing their turn, so his next salvo went wide again. By now they were almost side on to Silver, still turning, and throwing up dust from the darkening ground. All this interfered with Silver's infrared detection system, which in turn made his accuracy much more erratic. As a robot he should be able to hit something the size of a rover with every rock he threw, but there were getting to be more and more problems with his aim. Not least of which was the way that Jake was throwing the little light rover about. Another detriment to accuracy was the way Silver himself was moving. He was climbing the slope using three legs, then four, then he had to use another limb to prevent himself from slipping backwards.

Now the distance and failing light were coming into the equation. Eventually Silver used a limb that Ash had swung on during their fight to prevent slipping. This limb gave way, causing the silver ball to roll backwards. Legs, limbs and arms were quickly retracted to avoid damage, but they did not all retract fully, so became damaged in the fall. Neither did they slow him down. Five and a half tons are still a lot of weight, even on Mars, with a lot of inertia. As he gained momentum down the hill, the Humpty Dumpty of robots collided with quite a few rocks. Some of these punctured his casing, especially causing damage where limbs came out. When he reached the bottom of the hill his inertia carried him up the other side and to the right. There he hit a particularly large flint-like rock that caused him to explode.

Jake was still weaving the rover when they both saw a very bright light throw their shadow out into the darkness beyond them. The darkness turned into day as the both thought,

'Now what the hell is he doing?'

They both thought he may be employing the nuclear reactor in some way to attack them. The light went out as fast as it began. The shock wave was not great, due to the low atmospheric pressure on Mars.

'Look,' Ash almost shouted in his excitement, 'the rocks have stopped.'

'You're right. Hey, you don't think that something really nasty has happened to our spherical friend, do you?'

'And good riddance to him. The bastard tried to kill me.'

'Me too, Ash. But you shouldn't bear grudges. We could have put some fluffy hair on him and made him look quite cuddly.'

'I would rather shit in my hands, then clap.'

Hoshi interrupted their banter by calling them on the radio, reception was not very good at this distance, but they could just make out what she was saying,

'Hoshi and Galina in Rover Two calling Ash and Jake. The Alamo has not been compromised. Most of the rest of the base is uninhabitable. Robots are hostile, but Steve is ok, first law intact. Stuart probably incapacitated, Gerald too far away to cause problem, but may be back at Homer Base by the time you get there. Do not reply to this if it will compromise your position.'

Ash knew that their position was quite secure now that Silver had probably been destroyed and he now knew the locations, conditions and intentions of the rest of the robots. So he replied,

'It looks as if Silver has had to self-destruct. We are now on our way back. There was no sign of Mark, but we found his helmet badly damaged inside the cave. That is not all we found in the cave, but that will have to wait until we meet. Where are you now?'

'We are sheltering behind a range of hills to the south of Homer Base. Hopefully this will blank the signal from Gerald. Suggest we meet up here to work out what to do next.

'Good plan. In this darkness we should be able to find you easily.'

Hoshi was right, Gerald did not pick up the radio signal. But Steve was with Hoshi. He was connected to the robot net, like all mechanical things on Mars. Gerald picked up Steve hearing the plan. But he was still quite a long way from Homer Base.

Galina used a pair of infrared binoculars to look for signs of Jake and Ash across the desolate Martian plain. This was not the landscape of a restful planet; there were more towering cliffs than monument valley, more deep valleys than any ocean on Earth, and no vegetation to soften the harsh lines of this panorama.

Steve and Hoshi were seated in the driving stations in the front of the rover when it started moving. They both looked at each other in unison, but neither had initiated the command.

'What's happening?' Hoshi asked, 'how did that happen?' she checked the parking brake circuitry.

'I'm afraid it is Gerald. He has isolated all drives. Remember that this is a failsafe measure on these vehicles. In the event of power loss all drives are disconnected to allow the vehicle to be towed back to base.'

This was not going back to base. It was slowly moving downhill into Martian blackness.

'Can you undo what he has done?' Hoshi asked Stuart.

'I am trying, but he has now reset the access codes.'

Galina then turned her binoculars to the front.

'There seems to be a big dark area in front of us. It looks like a cliff edge!'

In a most uncharacteristic outburst of profanity, Hoshi called,

'Christ, everybody out. Then she opened her door and leapt to safety, thereby making room for Galina to follow suit. Steve kept trying to arrest the downward plunge of the accelerating rover when Galina lost sight of it over a rise in the ground. Seconds later they saw an explosion as the rover hit the bottom of a valley.

Hoshi looked concerned at Galina,

'Are you ok?'

'Yes. All signs normal.'

The sun was now completely below the horizon. The temperature will soon be down to minus 100 degrees. The suits are heated, but this is too much of a task for them. The night at this time of year, at this latitude will last for fourteen hours. These suits will not last that long; neither would the astronauts without water or food. They had no choice but to attempt the get back to their base.

They climbed the small ridge between them and the base. Lights shone enticingly from the base. Galina levelled the infrared binoculars at the lights. Then raised them to the ground beyond the base. As she swept to the left she saw movement out beyond the perimeter and the crater rim. She fiddled with the focus ring, then studied the indistinct image.

'I bet that is Gerald. And it looks as if he will easily reach the compound before we do.'

'And he has better night vision than we do.' Hoshi added.

Galina scanned the area between them and the base,

'We have to get there yet. I don't like the look of the area we have to cross in the dark.'

They moved cautiously round the sharp pinnacles of rock, feeling their way. Both slipped from time to time, but were lucky enough to stop before any damage was caused. As they reached level ground again they stood looking at blackness.

'This is like having your eyes closed,' Hoshi then tried something, 'yes, there is no difference. Now, where are you?' she put out her arms to try to find her colleague. As she stumbled around she did not realise that she was moving further away from her. Galina was stumbling around, also in complete darkness with her arms outstretched, but they were describing erratic paths when Galina stopped.

'Wait. I have an idea. Keep still, and I will use the infra-red binoculars like night sights.'

She raised the instruments to her visor, but because there was three inches between her eyes and the binoculars, they would not focus on anything closer than thirty feet.

'Damn.' She exclaimed. 'I don't know what to do now.'

She continued to sweep around, looking for a lighter blur against the uniform blackness. Then a red led light illuminated in the eyepiece warning her of a stronger light source. At first, she thought it could have been one of Mars' moons, Diemos or Phobos, and that she had become completely disorientated. But then she realised that she was still looking on a roughly horizontal plane.

The binoculars were lowered as a precaution,

'Can you see what I can see?' she asked Hoshi.

'A dim light on the horizon.' The Japanese scientist worried that it could be a robot coming to see them. But now that her eyes had something to focus on she began to see the horizon, then the landscape began to take shape in the starlight. Carefully she scanned her environs – she was looking for a human shaped blank silhouette in the vast star field that was the sky.

Then she saw what she was looking for. She estimated that the distance was only some four feet, so she began to make her way towards what she thought to be her colleague. With hands outstretched like something out of a zombie movie Hoshi edged forwards until one hand found something solid. But the shape disappeared as she touched it. A cry of anguish came into her helmet.

'Ahh, What!' Galina recoiled back, 'Something touched me. What was it?' her Russian accent became very pronounced by the fear engendered by Hoshi's touch.

'Sorry. I was concentrating so much on finding you and not falling over that I forgot to speak.'

She relaxed at once, only to be startled by another voice in her helmet.

'Hi guys, what's happening?' Jake's voice was unmistakable and unexpected. 'We saw an explosion and are making for the site. Are you near it?'

Hoshi replied first,

'Not too near. Alter your course by two degrees to your left. I will talk you in.'

The two scientists huddled together for warmth whilst Ash followed the instructions given by Hoshi. Twenty minutes later the rover rolled over a small hill towards them.

Jake was first out as the machine rolled to a stop. He took Galina in his arms and hugged her. They remained in this embrace whilst Ash helped Hoshi into the rover's back seat.

'Were you two thinking about having a picnic, or will you be joining us any time soon?' Ash called.

'Ok, we're here.' Jake helped Galina into the rover, then took his seat alongside Ash. Before setting off they had an impromptu meeting to discuss what had happened.

'Hats off, I think.' Ash did not want their discussion broadcasting over their radio, just in case.

'I am fairly certain that Mark came to a sticky end, probably at the hands of Silver. He tried to kill us, too. But he will not be worrying us any longer.'

Hoshi told about their good luck with Steve,

'We were joined by Steve in the Alamo, we took the rover to get to higher ground to be able to signal you. On the way Steve was contacted by Gerald, who tried to instruct him that we must be stopped. But Steve decided that we should not be harmed, so he reinstated the First Law of Robotics. Then Gerald found a way of disabling the rover, and it rolled down that hill.' She indicated where the rover went. 'We didn't see Steve after that, we presume he didn't get out.'

Ash summed up the situation succinctly,

'We gotta get off this planet.'

Hoshi agreed, and offered the suggestions,

'The two landers are fuelled and ready; they also have the added advantage of the Graphene sheets cloaking them. I think the rotors still work, we used them to keep the cloaks on by holding them down, so they are outside the Graphene. Or there is still Sarsen Two. That has been kept ready as a stand-by launch vehicle but will need pressurising.'

Galina then spoke up,

'We don't have time to pressurise the rocket. I saw Gerald heading for Homer Base just before it got dark. He was still a fair way off, but could be there before us, even with the fast rover. He has already made the main accommodation uninhabitable, we have every reason to believe that he will try to stop us leaving by any means.'

'Then we had better not waste any more time.' Jake turned to Ash, 'Let's go.'

''Ok. Unless anyone has anything else to offer, I suggest we get the hell off this planet.'

All three astronauts yelled confirmation of the simple plan.

Ash turned the rover towards the still smouldering valley in which the wrecked rover lay, then turned left to head towards the welcoming lights of Homer Base.

Upon reaching the craters' rim Ash turned the rover to look for an easy entrance, he did not wish to risk going over the crater lip. Eventually he found what he was looking for, a dip over which he could safely drive. When he got through the gap he turned towards the main landing area with its lights and pyramid-like landers.

The first the humans knew of a problem was when rocks began falling around them. At first, they could not see where they were coming from, but then Galina spotted a figure in the distance, just inside the far rim. She trained the binoculars on the figure, and recognised Gerald – but only just. One of his legs had ceased to function, so he had made it over to Stuart, and grafted one of Stuart's legs on to his side. His left arm was twisted in an unnatural way, but still seemed to function. His face had also taken a beating from constantly colliding with the prehistoric pavement, but Galina could not see this.

Ash began the old trick of turning and raising dust, but this time it just seemed to allow Gerald to get closer. Meanwhile they were not getting any closer to the landers. Ash ordered everyone to replace their helmets in case one of these missiles hit the rover and compromised the cabin pressurisation. Then the robot figured out what they were doing, and headed in a direction that would both cut them off from the landers, and force them to drive closer to him. He picked up two hard, sharp rocks and began swinging them menacingly as the rover came out of a dust cloud headed directly for him. He could clearly see Ash and Jake had not had time to put on their helmets in the front of the vehicle.

Back at the crash site, the first rover lay a mangled wreck. It had refused to burn; the bright light from the primary explosion had only afforded the humans a brief glimpse around. They did not see Steve leap from the doomed machine. He hit hard rock. His circuits and drives were corrupted, so they shut down to re-boot. When he regained control, he shook his head. He looked around at the sharp mountains and craters beneath the red sky. Then he looked at the wreckage of the rover he had been travelling in and he said,

'Oh, Jesus. I'm dead, and this is a hallucination.'

His memory banks began to come on line. Slowly he remembered what had happened, but parts of his original programming was lost. He looked at his limbs and checked for damage. There were areas where his internal structure could be seen through rips, but he ignored these. He felt no pain, and was confident that he could move about normally.

A puzzled expression came over his face as he thought to himself,

'Where are my friends?'

Another memory module locked into place, and he remembered.

As Gerald was about to release the deathblow to the rover a rock hit him on the side of the already damaged face. This crushed the sensors on the right-hand side of his face. He fell to one knee, then released one of the rocks to prevent from falling over. This landed on the lab building causing damage and a fire in one of the few habitable buildings. The appearance of fire in escaping air on Mars looks like a jet engine pointing towards the centre of the planet. The stricken robot turned the remaining sensors to see where this latest onslaught was coming from. It could not be a human; the rocks were too big. Just then another landed in front of Gerald. It landed about two feet in front of him, bounced up and hit him in the chest, knocking him over just as he saw the thrower. It was Steve.

Gerald was falling backwards, but he knew where his attacker was. With this information he let fly with the rock he still held. This missile flew straight and true. It was dead on target to hit Steve right in the face, where most of the sensors live. In a flash he saw this, caught the rock, and threw it directly back to where it had come from.

This time it hit its mark. As Gerald tried to get up the boulder hit him full in what remained of his face, smashing it completely.

Ash stopped the rover alongside Steve, dismounting he said to the robot that had just saved their lives,

'That seems to just about finish them off. There is only you left now.'

Steve looked around at the damage done by Gerald,

'I think there is quite a lot of work to repair the facilities.'

Ash looked up at the jet flames shooting up from the buildings,

'Looks like we have lost most of the oxygen.'

'There may be enough to last until we can produce more from the reactor that came down in Sarsen 4.'

Ash shook his head,

'Thanks for all you have done, Steve, but now we must leave. You could fit in if three of us go in one module, and you share with Dr Masuto. This should just about even out the weight distribution.'

'I will not be going with you, Dr Ashton. My place is here, preparing for another landing. It was always intended that us androids would remain here.'

Jake had the last word by saying,

'I can't say I'm sorry to leave, this place is getting dangerous!'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 38

The Way Back

Ash climbed under the canvas to gain access to the capsule. The pale grey cloth waved freely in the thin atmosphere. However, this was not any ordinary cloth; this almost indestructible Graphene was to protect the delicate electronic equipment within the Mars Landing Vehicle from solar radiation. It also made the inside of the vehicle out of the reach of the robots' communications net, which meant the robots were unable to prevent Ash and Hoshi Masuto from starting up the machine they knew as Euclid and leaving Mars to join their mother ship, the Phoenix. Likewise, Jake Jensen and Galina Danilenko were about to get the Pythagoras started. Ash and Jake still wore the sheepskin lined leather jackets they had used to protect themselves from the bitter cold of the Martian night during their foray out to the Mars hinterland. Hoshi and Galina had cold weather gear on that had been designed for use within easy reach of Homer Base during the Martian day. The temperatures out here in the dead of night were brutal, and the thermal underwear could only protect to a certain extent.

Ash flipped the emergency launch switch. This fed power to the main power bus and began the various boot sequences. Pressure built up in the fuel systems, and when there was sufficient power available, the little rockets on the ends of the rotors began to be heated, first the top set of rotors, then the lower ones. Fuel was then passed to the tips, as they began to move the atmosphere provided just enough support to allow them to rise, eventually to a horizontal position. By then the second, lower set of rotors had begun to move in the opposite direction. As the rotors picked up speed the tips produced white contrails. Because they were going in opposite directions, they now created a criss-cross pattern that twisted and cascaded down the little pyramid structures, taking with it the Graphene sheet – this meant that the two vehicles could communicate with each other automatically.

The noise levels in the Euclid module began to rise – the thing was coming to life. Ash and Hoshi constantly monitored the systems as they warmed up. There was an occasional call between them,

'Checkout valve to engine return.' From Hoshi.

'Lox bubbling. Lox replenish.' From Ash.

'Tanks pressurised. Terminal countdown.' Hoshi, 'T minus nine.'

'Ignition command.' Ash.

'Eight, Seven, Six.'

'In-flight pressurisation.'

'Five, Four,'

'Igniters firing, four blue.'

'Three,'

'Lox flow.'

'Two,'

'Primary ignition.'

'One.'

'Ignition. Thrust ok. 1060 psi. We have lift-off.'

The twin rotors thrashed through the Martian atmosphere, maintaining stability by keeping the nose pointing upwards. The massive J-2 rocket engine below the capsule blasted out a flame that changed from yellow through red, then to clear blue. Rocks and dust were scattered in dead straight lines briefly, then the module shot off into the dark, dark sky.

Meanwhile the Pythagoras had followed the same procedure. Once the Graphene cloaks were removed the capsules synchronised their systems to enable a simultaneous lift-off, this prevented collateral damage caused by debris from the first big rocket to fire.

The gigantic J-2 rocket that powered the capsules into space had to be governed, not to conserve fuel, but to prevent the occupants being crushed by the tremendous g-forces created by the firing of such a powerful rocket engine.

The astronauts were subjected to eight times the gravity of Earth during the initial twenty-seven second burn, that was all it took from the J-2 to enable them to escape the gravity of Mars. Then silence and weightlessness descended upon the astronauts.

Author's note:

If you wish to work this out, you need to know the escape velocity of Mars, the exact power of the J-2(mod), and the inertial weight of the Euclid and Pythagoras, (they were different). That's rocket science.

Ash released her restraining straps as she turned to Hoshi,

'Do we know exactly where the Phoenix is?'

'Yes. It is on the other side of the planet.'

'Can we rendezvous with her?'

Hoshi shrugged, 'We left the planet in such a hurry that we did not have the opportunity to calculate how we were to intercept the mother ship.'

Ash removed his helmet, then Hoshi took hers off before any more conversation,

The rather battered space gloves that Ash wore looked as if they had seen better days, he punched a few buttons as he checked the shut-down procedures of the J-2,

'We know that she left the Martian static orbit some time ago. I think she is on the other side of the planet now, and I think we know the track she will be taking in her orbit.'

Hoshi took up the line of calculus,

'All we have to do is find that line in space.' She consulted the main navigational computer. 'This line is not in three dimensions, it is not even in four dimensions; first there is the height above the surface to consider.' She punched in the information.

'How consistent is this line? It could be almost oval.' Ash suggested.

'I can only go on the last information we have. When she passed over this spot we are over, that was her height.' She pointed at the figure she had input. 'Now we need to know where she is at this moment. That position over the surface will give us another two dimensions.'

Ash punched requests into the equipment, but came up shaking his head,

'Nothing. There is no transponder information from the Phoenix, and I don't think it is because she is on the other side of the planet.'

'You mean the robots?'

'Yes, that is why we must converse in this way, without using microphones.'

The radio then burst into life,

'Pythag to Euclid.' Jake came over loud and tinny.

'Euclid to Pythag. Hi, Jake. How are things over there?'

'Ok. Have you worked out how we are to meet up with Phoenix?'

'We are working the problem right now. If you could take position twenty miles from us, when we have worked out the probable line of travel we will straddle it.' Hoshi seemed to be talking to herself, '... the direction of travel and exact bearing has to be known, then the speed.'

'Hoshi, are you on the Net?' Ash interrupted her, Hoshi was inducted into this system because of her involvement with the electronics throughout the whole mission. The Net extends as far as Earth.

'Not that I know. But I have my cloak here, it is probably a good idea to use it for now.'

Hoshi took out the grey Graphene cloak that covered her head and torso, making her invisible to the Net, then continued,

'The speed is tied in with the height above the surface. In order to maintain a steady orbit, the ship will have a certain speed dictated to it.' She typed in the last few pieces of information, then turned to Ash who was watching screens on his side of the module.

They both watched the main monitor that showed a line drawing of Mars. Then it overlaid a grid that signified the sub-divisions on the planet's surface. The grid moved around, then a bright yellow dot appeared, alongside this appeared the name Phoenix, then a time of its last known position. This figure, and the dot changed and moved as the computer calculated the Phoenix's position up to the present time. Then it drew an oval from the dot, describing the orbit of the Phoenix. Next various time makings appeared showing where she will be at various times. At the same time that all of this was developing there were data showing up on panels to either side of the main picture. One of these showed the speed of the Phoenix. Then two small but bright bluish white lights appeared on the screen showing where the Euclid and Pythagoras were.

'Not bad.' Ash commented as he assessed their positions relative to the orbit of the Phoenix 'She should pass about 250 miles over there in about 55 minutes' time.'

'Feed into that the consideration that the Phoenix may be coming at us at several thousand miles per hour, and we only have the mark one eyeball to assist with docking, I think we have a better than reasonable chance of screwing this up good style.' Hoshi joked.

Ash called Jake,

'Euclid to Pythagoras. Hey, Jake can you see me from way over there?'

Jake and Galina both heard the transmission, they looked out of their respective windows,

'Where is he?' asked Galina.

'According to the radio bearing he could be one of those stars over there.' Jake said as he leaned gently on her shoulder. His sheepskin lining felt comforting to her, it was as if something natural from Earth had touched her. She pointed agitatedly out of the window,

'There. Yes, there. Is that them? I think I can see Ash. Yes. There. That must be them. There. That is Ash mooning us!'

Jake ruffled her hair and said,

'Bloody fool.' As he took his seat he selected the conference setting in the radio, that meant that all four astronauts could now talk as if in a conference,

'Ash, there is no way we could see you even if you sent of a flare.'

'Yes, I agree. Do you think we could see the Phoenix at this range?

Jake looked at Galina briefly before replying,

'She's a big ship, and she would only be half the distance away, so I think we would be able to pick her out.'

Ash stroked his chin thoughtfully, he consulted Hoshi,

'What do you think?'

'There will be no transmissions from Phoenix?'

'We are not expecting any. I mean, what we do not want is for us to find out that there are no transmissions after she has passed.'

'So we must presume there will be no assistance from the mother ship.' The Japanese scientist looked out of the window at the blackness of space with so many pinpricks of various sizes and brightness. She turned and looked at Ash, then suddenly exclaimed,

'Yes. Of course we will be able to see her. We have all seen the original International Space Station from the ground, and she was far more than 125 miles away- with an atmosphere in the way.'

Ash reached a decision,

'Ok people let's get over there. If you can put the desired co-ordinates into the system, Hoshi, we shall adopt a 300-mile spread on either side of the predicted line of trajectory.'

The two capsules turned their noses towards the line of trajectory, and then fired their main engines. They worked in unison because their navigation computers have now been linked.

The path they took meant that, not only do they change positions in space to sit on either side of the predicted path their mother ship will take, but they were also travelling at about 75% of the speed of the Phoenix. This allowed the big mother ship to catch up to the capsules.

The capsules pirouetted to allow their occupants to see in the direction in which the Phoenix will be arriving.

Ash and Galina saw it first. One star seemed to be moving.

'I think we have the Phoenix in sight.' She reported. Jake pulled the magic finger out of the nav computer. This is a device that simply tells the navigational computer exactly what it is pointing at.

'Point it out.' He said as he passed the pointer to her. She looked down the small tube. The display within it was auto stabilised, so she saw the stars were rock steady.

'I got one too.' Ash reported, 'Pointing now.' He placed the small red dot on the star that seemed to move. Then conjoined nav computers analysed the information, then concluded that the object of their interest was, indeed the same spot in space, and it was travelling at 5,473 miles per hour faster than they were, but in the same direction. It also told them that it would draw level with them in less than five minutes.

Hoshi and Galina did not need any instructions, they both put in to the nav computer the information needed to turn to face the same way that the Phoenix was travelling. Once this was done, and it was confirmed that they were steady, the desired speed was put into the main computer. This then referred to the blanket of stars surrounding them; from this information, the computer is able to calculate the exact speed of the capsule. This is vital; one per cent error could mean a speed differential of hundreds of miles per hour.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 39

Xanthros on the Net

Mission Controller Xanthros looked at the outflowing of information coming from the telemetry that was coming from the Phoenix. He stood in Mission Control, this was his area of control; everyone looked up to him here.

Alongside him stood Nye, he was the Earthbound Mission Specialist, Orbit and Trajectory, sometimes referred to as EMSOT.

Nye pointed at one of the screens as he exclaimed,

'What the hell are they doing?'

He referred to the unmanned Phoenix as 'they' purely because of the robot brains on board. Due to the great distance between the ship and Mission Control on Earth, the computers on the Phoenix had a very extensive expansion of their authority. So much so that they were almost allowed to run the mission on their own list of priorities.

That list consists of such elements as sanctity of the Mother Ship, Phoenix, and realization of the mission, then, lower than one would expect, the welfare and safety of the humans on the mission.

Communications with Earth can change these priorities. These very communications had caused things to change significantly. However, not everyone had knowledge of the different communications systems used; Nye knew of no reason why the Phoenix should change orbit around Mars. He had a perplexed expression as he turned to Xanthros,

'Where do they get the idea from that it would be good to go down towards the planet's surface?'

Xanthros took a deep breath before moving his attention from the screen before him.

He knew that Nye was a monitor but was not privy to information about the secret communications system that he knew as The Net; based on laser technology, this was much more efficient than radio waves that normal communications use, but normal humans were not made aware of the existence of this.

'Something has happened out there,' He quietly said to Nye, 'it has become imperative that mission parameters be modified.'

'Modified? Modified?' Nye posed this one-word question as if it were a statement, 'How can the mission be modified? We kept it as simple as possible to allow for any changes that might be necessary – 'he counted on his fingers, 'Go to Mars. Land and build a base. Take ground samples. Return to Earth.' He threw his hands up in frustration, 'How the hell can you change that?'

Xanthros turned back to look at the screen again without answering.

Nye shook his head in disbelief. He tapped on a screen as he said,

'Let us tick these things off, Go to Mars. Done that. Land. Done that. Build base. Done that. Take samples. Done that. Return to....' He turned to Xanthros as his face began to drain colour. He could hardly finish the sentence, 'the only thing left is the return. You mean we should change that?'

Xanthros turned to the Korean man and said,

'There are some things that you must understand. Meet me in my office in ten minutes, and I will make thing clear to you.' He raised one forefinger as he continued, 'But there is another level of security involved here, so be very careful what you say.' With that, he signalled to someone across the room, then turned and left.

Michelle Romero walked up to Nye's side and said,

'Good morning, Doctor Nye. Do you have all the information you need from these terminals?'

'Yes.' The EMSOT seemed to have lost the plot, but he will soon get a new one.

'If you would come with me.' Michelle took Nye by holding his arm just above the elbow. As her thumb gripped his white lab coat this looked quite innocent, but he could feel the treat that if she gripped too hard his whole arm would become paralysed, then another nerve grip on to his neck, and he would be dead.

The invitation was compelling.

They left the Mission Control, as they walked down a corridor, Michelle said,

'I am taking you to a room down here that you will not have seen before. In it you will gain a little more information in preparation to receive what the Controller will tell you. It is important to do it this way due to the importance of complete secrecy necessary.'

She placed her hand on a palm-print recognition pad on a door on their right; the pad was only just visible on the shiny pale grey-Blue portal. A human sounding voice that must be from a machine said as the door opened,

'Hello, Michele. Who is that with you? Please enter his details in the pad inside.'

She took Nye's pass from him, then entered some details on a tablet-like device before putting the card into a slot, like an ATM machine.

An inner door opened allowing entry to a much smaller room than usual at Houston.

'Please stay close by me. We do not like strangers on their own in here.' Michelle instructed Nye.

They walked over to a display of photographs that looked like an evidence board in a detective film.

Nye remained silent as Michelle told him what they meant,

'Before anyone had even gone into space on the Orion Mission, we lost an astronaut. Canadian John Garbou drowned in the total immersion unit at Sunningdale. We gathered this, and other parts of evidence.'

She pointed to photographs pinned in a large board, 'It turned out that someone was trying to sabotage the mission. Xanthros worked out that it was the Russians, but if they left the whole mission would be in jeopardy, so it was best covered up to retain the mission intact.'

She then moved on towards the next display, but before getting to it she turned to Nye and said in a quiet voice,

'Two people here on base found out, but were unfortunately lost in an aviation accident, along with most of the evidence.'

Next they came to a display case containing what looked like a broken handle.

'This is the tether anchor point that was supposed to stop Mary-Jo Shelton from drifting into space during the building of the Phoenix. As you can see, it has been tampered with. Mary-Jo was spinning in the void of space for long enough to make her arms swell for the next six months, one of the robots went out to rescue her, and probably the mission too.'

She stopped again,

'We have nothing tangible concerning the next event. But the testimonies and statements tell their own story.'

Nye stood open-mouthed in astonishment as she continued,

'On the way to Mars, you will remember that a Russian by the name of Dmitri Chopov was lost, probably due to space drift?'

Nye nodded.

'Well it was space drift all right. Only after one of the robots opened the air lock inner door before it had completely repressurised. Chopov was smashed against the wall by a two ton robot. Serves him right, he had tried to shoot my man, and take over the whole mission. We have only just recently found out why.' She indicated an opening door with her hand, 'Then the robot opened the outer door. In his case space drift amounted to several thousand miles per hour.'

'You say you have only just found out why he tried to take over the mission?' Nye made the statement more like a question.

'That is for Xanthros to tell you if he deems it necessary.'

They walked on to a wall-mounted screen. Michelle touched it, and it came to life. As she tapped symbols on the screen she explained,

'We are on the surface of Mars now. This is what Mark Singleton found. Xanthros will tell you more about this in due course but suffice for now to tell you that the robot they refer to as Silver built it after he came down in Sarsen IV.'

She touched the screen, and it went off. There were no more places for visual information, Michelle said quietly,

'You will know that we lost touch with Mark, then things got very sketchy?'

'Yes. We were all getting very concerned.'

'Well, I can now tell you more or less what happened – as far as we know.' She took a deep breath,

'Ash and Jake went to find out what had happened to Mark. They were attacked by a robot they knew as Silver when they found what Mark had found.'

Nye held out a finger, 'That was when he went off the grid?'

'Yes. They tried to get back to Homer Base after the robot had been dealt with. That was when Hoshi and Galina went out to try to find them. So did the androids Gerald and Stuart. Stuart became incapacitated during the journey, Gerald was damaged. Steve went with Hoshi and Galina. Gerald succeeded in destroying most of the living accommodation at Homer Base.'

'That explains some of the crazy readings we have been getting from Mars, but now we have been getting the craziest of all, when the Phoenix itself seemed to want to attack Olympus Mons.'

'We had better go and see Xanthros now; I think he will fill in the blanks for you.'

They walked into Xanthros's office, he was punching in some data into a terminal on the right of his desk. He finished what he was doing as the couple moved across the floor.

'Please, have a seat.' He offered by the sweep of a hand towards the comfortable looking Blue settee that ran around the corner opposite to his desk. By using this he could conduct the meeting from his desk, or join the people on the settee.

Michelle and Nye sat next to each other facing the side of the main desk.

Nye was feeling mixed emotions – he had never been in this office before, that part was a little intimidating as well as being exciting. On the other hand some of the revelations that Michelle had shown him had surprised and troubled him. He knew there are more surprises to come.

Xanthros turned away from the terminal he was working at, then moved his plush leather chair closer to the settee,

'Michelle here has shown you some of the background to what I am about to tell you. That is to give you some sort of idea of the gravity of the whole picture that I am about to disclose to you.'

'Yes, sir.'

'In answer to your questions about why the Phoenix is behaving in such a strange way, we must go back to the work that Silver was doing in the area off camp.'

Xanthros took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling before continuing,

'He had landed with Sarsen IV away from the camp because of the hazardous nature of the experiment he was tasked with performing.'

Nye moved uneasily, as if he was about to learn something of monumental importance.

'Sarsen IV took Silver and the spare nuclear reactor down to the surface of Mars. This reactor differed from the one used on the Phoenix in that its main problem was its main purpose. Nuclear reactors are normally used to produce electricity; any heat produced is an unwanted by-product. This is a tremendous waste, there is always a massive amount of heat produced. That was what this reactor was made to produce – heat. Only heat, anything else was a by-product. This heat was designed to be used in a special way; this is the main reason for the whole mission. Many scans of the subsurface of Mars have eventually shown up that this one area contains a most unusual cavern. Unfortunately, it is filled with ice. The reactor's heat was to be used to melt this ice. This it did.'

Nye moved forward in anticipation.

Xanthros placed an arm on the desk, then threw the hand in the air to open his palm,

'By then Dr Singleton had found the experiment, so it was decided that he would by kept there to assist with the work; Silver is quite a bulky robot, as you can see from this picture.'

He touched a screen on his desk, a screen on the opposite wall came to life, and then an indistinct picture of a Silver ball with many arms and legs came into view.

'This is the best picture we have of him. He was constructed out on the Phoenix as the robots and androids were building it. I think that you will agree that he is not exactly suited to cave work, so Dr Singleton came in very useful.'

Xanthros switched off the screen by touching a screen on his desk. As he turned back to Nye he seemed to adopt a more sombre tone, 'That was the problem. There was something in the cave.'

Nye shook with surprise.

'Of course we knew there was, that was the whole reason for the mission.'

Nye spoke for the first time,

'How did you know there is something hidden beneath ice in a cave in Mars? And why would you need to get to it?'

Xanthros considered these questions for a second, then replied,

'How we knew there was something there will become clear. Why we felt we needed to get to it – well that is a more difficult question to answer.' He sat back in his chair and took a deep breath, 'The only reason we can give is curiosity. Did you never wonder why the first rover to land on Mars was called 'Curiosity'?'

Nye looked more curios than ever.

'Yes, we knew there was something in that cave, we have been using it unconsciously for generations, possibly longer.'

Both Nye and Michelle were now non-plussed. They were stunned into silence.

'There are thirteen 'families', or dynasties if you prefer, around the world guiding civilisation along its way. There used to be seventeen, but the one in South America was killed, the Conquistadores were an attempt to re-establish it, but that was not a complete success. The African branch was eaten, the ones in Egypt were lost at Luxor, the Mongul hoards were far too violent, and the control centre on Mars had to curtail them. That left the thirteen we now have today. Have you never wondered why there are some countries that are more civilised than others? Or why people from less civilised countries become civilized when they travel to a more developed country?'

Both Michelle and Nye shook their heads, they had been far too busy with their own lives to become involved in such things.

'Certain countries are 'governed' by the control centre left on Mars. That is not to say that they are being run by Martians – simply because there are no such things as Martians; we have known for quite some time now that there is no life possible on the red planet, so it would become more and more difficult to get a mission like this one under way.' He pointed at the two people opposite him, 'You two, among many others are monitors. You know that your responsibility is to monitor the development of your part of society, for that job you have been entrusted with certain knowledge about the background, but this goes far beyond that.'

Xanthros sat back again, and paused to let the information sink in.

'Dr Singleton found the control centre in the cave, then others of the group also found it. This information cannot get back to Earth. You are now among only a few hundred people on Earth who know this secret. You are already monitors, so are aware of the need for secrecy. The astronauts are not in such a position. The machines that built the Phoenix have been given the instruction that the astronauts must be prevented from returning to Earth.'

Michelle Romero looked shocked. She turned to Nye as if to confirm that she had heard correctly.

Just then the phone on Xanthros's desk rang. He picked it up, looked at the display, then asked Michelle and Nye to excuse him for a moment, he then walked to the far side of the room, Michelle and Nye could hear only one side of the conversation,

'Xanthros.'

'Neit.'

'No sir, we agreed to continue this mission, despite your attempts...'

'It has already cost too many lives.'

'There is very little chance...'

'We are rapidly running out of resources out there.'

'I don't care if Pendar wants another thirteen families...'

'We have it all in hand, sir. We shall discuss this at a later date. Goodbye.'

He returned to the couple on the settee. Michelle looked quite pale, Nye was trying to process this information.

Xanthros needed to draw the meeting to a close,

'I am sure you both have many questions. I suggest that you let this information digest a little, just get on with your normal duties, and don't try to discuss this with anyone.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 40

Docking

The four astronauts were now trying to get into position to dock on the ends of the long arms of the Phoenix. This manoeuvre is usually done without the whole ship turning. Now she was diving as well. Ash and Hoshi were in the capsule Euclid coming up behind the rotating mother ship, Jake and Galina were holding position a little way back, this was a very dangerous operation that Ash was attempting; because of the rotating movement, any mishap could impact the second capsule, should they be attempting the same task. The Phoenix had now dropped a little in its orbit. To prevent further decay of the orbit the Phoenix had to fire the main engines. These were four massive F-1 rocket engines. The Euclid was little more than a thin tin that was about to pass right through the powerful blast of these engines.

The red planet drifted slowly below the strange formation. Phoenix turned its long arms through one revolution every 20 seconds, the thin atmosphere, or escaping materials allowed the occasional wisp of white vapour to trail the turning arms, Ash could see the main rocket engines fire up with pure blue flames. He thought of trying to turn the capsule round to place the heat shield towards the Phoenix's rockets, but that would not really help them. Maybe altering course away from the cone of blast would work? His own main rocket engine, the impressive J-2 unit was still usable, he glanced at the fuel gauge, and there was enough fuel for a thirty-second burn. Instantly he decided what to do. He threw the controls into one corner of their parameters, clicked on the J-2 for three seconds, then looked out of the window in time to see the Phoenix drift by. He had successfully turned the Euclid's nose to point in nearly the same direction the Phoenix was travelling. The mother ship was travelling faster than Euclid before the burn. In one swift burn Ash had cancelled out the speed difference, and thrown the little capsule away from the F-1D engines at the rear of the Phoenix, he had also began a sympathetic rotational procession with the Blue Sarsen arm upon which he intended to dock.

However, he was not out of the woods yet. Between the four arm structures of the Phoenix and the extremities of the centre were fine rigging wires of Graphene to allow the structures to withstand both acceleration and rotational gravity forces. These were easily capable of slicing the little capsule into small fragments. Ash could not see these, but he knew they were there. He turned the capsule to point its nose at the centre of the Phoenix as the massive blue solar panels drifted by his window. This gave him a very good visual cue in four dimensions, up and down, depth, and movement. The grey truss that carried the nuclear reactor made a curious contrast against the dull red Martian surface as the machines turned together. A little squirt from the attitude jets on the nose of the capsule gently pushed it back to be in line with the rotational position of the outer edges of the long arms. Slowly the blunt end of the Blue Sarsen came into view in Ash's window. He maintained complete calmness and silence as the white arm gradually grew larger, he made very delicate demands of the attitude jets. There would be no assistance from the mother ship; all this had to be done manually. Then the nose of Euclid became aligned with the docking port of the Rassvet capsule attached to the Bridge on Blue Sarsen, they were almost motionless in their relative positions. Ash looked down the long arm they knew as Blue Sarsen to ensure he was aligned properly. He saw the bulk of the Phoenix looking bereft of something with the units Sarsen I to IV now missing. The bright pin-pricks of stars drifted in the background as they rotated as if in a dance. One final check on the alignment instrumentation, then a quick look outside, Ash then spoke for the first time since they had to escape the rocket engines of the Phoenix,

'Clear and aligned for docking.'

Hoshi gave the equally concise reply,

'Clear and aligned for docking, I concur.'

'Stand by for docking.' With that Ash touched the control for the attitude jets on the nose of the Euclid to give all four of them a one point two second burst.

The two astronauts felt a very satisfying clunk, the displays turned from red to Blue, and the whole capsule seemed to heave a sigh of relief to be back home.

Ash called on the radio,

'Euclid docked and locked.'

Jake in the other capsule replied,

'Congratulations and well done from Pythagoras. Now it is my turn.'

Jake must now manoeuvre the Pythagoras to the opposite end of the long arm of habitable modules they knew as the Red Sarsen.

As he began to formate with the dull silver cylinder that formed the end of the arm, he and Galina began to feel the welcome effects of rotational gravity. As he looked up at the centre of the conical ceiling he quietly said,

'The only way is up.'

The gravity that was felt by the crew meant that they operated in a much more familiar environment; the straps that held them in place were not the essential restraining devices that they were in weightlessness – there was an up and a down again.

Jake docked with the end of Red Sarsen, then began shutdown procedures. When they had finished he called Ash with one pre-arranged word,

'Cupola.'

This signalled that all four astronauts would meet at the cupola, which was situated opposite the air lock half way down Blue Sarsen.

Jake and Galina performed the shut-down procedures in the capsule Pythagoras, as Jake took care of the final electrical switches Galina released the ladder in preparation of their exit from Pythagoras.

'Don't go up there yet.' Jake advised, 'There are scutters up there, who may not be friendly. In fact, I would test the air before we expose ourselves to it.'

'Christ! You're right.' Galina replied, she dropped back down to her normal position, and began booting up the atmosphere analysis panel, 'I will take a sample, then feed it down through the AAP.'

'Ok. Let me know when it is safe to open up.' Jake finished the shutdown procedures, then sat back and watched Galina. Her hair brushed her shoulders as she moved her head from side to side, she had the shoulders of a swimmer, the tops she wore usually covered this, but here in the Mars suit, the rubber-like material clung to extremities until it was inflated to enable comfortable movement on the surface of Mars. The events before their departure did not allow time to change into full space suits.

She began tapping the instrument as if in frustration.

'You got a problem?' Jake asked.

'Yes, I can't get a reading. Nothing. It's as if there was no atmosphere at all out there.'

She looked directly at Jake as the sudden realisation of what she had just said manifested itself.

Her eyes opened wider as she exclaimed,

'Jeez!' more tapping and adjusting, 'You don't think that all of the air on the Phoenix has leaked away?'

'No, I think the scutters have stored it in the White Sarsen, mainly to prevent leakage, but they do not need it, so if there is no air they can move about more freely, going out without the need to depressurise. Of course, if they have the same plan as the rest of the robots, that is to keep us from getting back to Earth, the absence of a breathable atmosphere would work very well in their favour.'

Galina hit the transmit button on her suit radio,

'ASH, do not open your hatch. Do not open your hatch. There is no air out there.'

She looked at Jake, they both looked worried as they waited for a reply – would they get one or were they too late?

Great relief when they received the call from Ash,

'We were just running tests and wondered why there were no readings. Thanks for the heads-up on that. The Mars suits will suffice, but I only have this modified aqua suit, Jake, you have the same, don't you? I don't think they will work in the complete vacuum of space.'

Galina, who had designed and built these modified suits agreed,

'No. They will not work. They only just passed the pressure tests on Mars where there is low atmospheric pressure. In space there is no pressure at all, you do not have adjustable pressures available to you, so if you gave yourselves any pressure setting at all, as soon as the air is released from your capsule your suits will probably explode because of the pressure differential.'

Ash responded,

'Shit. That means that we are all trapped in our capsules. It we open up to a vacuum the lack of pressure will cause us to explode along with our suits, at low pressure the boiling point of our blood will be lower than body temperature.' He flapped his arms in exasperation, 'What about your Mars suits? They are not intended for space work either.'

'That is true, but they have variable self-compensating pressure settings. As soon as the external pressure drops the internal pressure adjusts to prevent over inflation.'

Ash looked at Hoshi in her Mars suit,

'I bet you are feeling smug now.' He joked, 'Is there any way we can repressurise the Phoenix from within here?'

Hoshi looked at Ash as if he was asking the impossible,

'Even if we could, how would we know if a hatch had been left open?' she shook her head emphatically, 'There are too many tests to be performed before we can do that.'

Ash summed up the situation,

'So, we are stranded here in our capsules, unless one of us wishes to make the ultimate sacrifice.'

Galina came back on the radio, sounding as if she were exerting herself in some way,

'Not necessarily. I may have, uggh, a solution.'

Ash and Hoshi looked at each other in surprise. Ash whispered to his colleague,

'You don't suppose she is taking her Mars suit off do you? For what purpose?'

Then Galina came back on the line,

'When you men went charging around the planet in those silly converted aqua suits I got worried – especially when it sounded as if you were getting involved in some action. So I picked up a spare Mars suit as we left Homer Base.' She threw a package at Jake, 'And to save your blushes I shall look out of the window.'

Jake caught the package on his chest,

'I do believe that you saved my life.'

Galina had a look of satisfaction on her face as she looked out of the window at the slowly revolving blanket of stars. Every twenty-five seconds Mars would drift by. She looked at her time-piece, then out of the window, then back to her time-piece,

'We are slowing down. Yes, we are definitely slowing.' This was said directly to Jake, not over the radio, 'What do you think that could mean?'

'Well, first of all, it means it is going to be easier for us to get out of here. The more the turning stops, the lower the gravity will be.' He thought for a moment as he paused whilst putting on the Mars suit, 'But on a more serious note, it means that something out there is changing things in response to events.'

Galina continued to look out of the window as she replied,

'The radio silence is still needed then?'

'Even more so now. Remember that Hoshi has contact with the robot net, they may be able to find out through her what we are up to. I would rather they didn't know,'

He finished putting on the suit, then called Ash and Hoshi,

'Pythagoras to Euclid. Going silent now.'

Ash replied,

'Euclid to Pythagoras, roger that.'

Galina then said to Jake,

'I think we had better remove our intercoms too. Even if they are switched off they can be tracked throughout the ship.'

Ash simply nodded as he picked up his helmet, fiddled about inside, then came out with a small piece of electrical equipment with a short piece of multi-core cable attached to it.

Galina did the same, then they both donned their helmets, and tried to shout at each other, but neither could hear anything. That did not matter, because without the intercom system there will be no comms in the vacuum that exists outside of their capsule.

They could still feel the rotational gravity equivalent to approximately zero point three Earth gravity. This will help them avoid being sucked out of the capsule when the pressure is released through the exit hatch at the top of the pyramid.

The ladder was swung out from the wall, then anchored to the ground.

Jake climbed up the ladder to the top. Galina climbed up the opposite side of the ladder until she was almost facing Jake. Here she was sandwiched up on the slanted ceiling of the capsule. She took hold of his waist, and wrapped her arm around him and the ladder, thus making a very strong unit that will have to withstand tremendous forces when Jake opened the hatch.

He was very glad of the support from Galina, the locking wheel on top of the capsule that was now positioned inside the Phoenix, proved to be very tight due to the unequal pressure.

Jake had to use both hands to wrench the wheel round, less than quarter of a turn at a time. He knew he was close to opening up when air began escaping, turning to vapour around the hatch.

Then another wrench for an attempted quarter turn, and the wheel stopped. The hatch seemed to move. Jake took hold of the straight handles that needed to be turned through ninety degrees before finally releasing the whole mechanism. He tried to look down at Galina, but the restrictions of the helmet prevented this. He called out,

'Ready?'

She more sensed this than heard it, and replied,

'Ok. Go ahead.' Then she gripped tighter on to his waist in anticipation of the explosive decompression.

He felt the grip, and knew what it meant.

The twin handles turned quite easily – but then nothing happened. The hatch opened inwards, towards the pressure. That differential in pressure was now preventing the hatch from opening.

Jake took firm hold on the handles, he hooked his feet under a rung of the ladder, then pulled with all of his might.

The hatch was pulled out of his hands as the pressure was released. Galina gripped on to him, otherwise he would have been sucked out by this pressure wave, he was unable to grasp on to anything – he even let go of the hatch wheel to prevent having his arms pulled out of their sockets.

Debris from the capsule streaked past his back. Galina clung on, her shoulder taking most of the load as it was crammed up against the top of the capsule.

Less than one second after it started, it finished. Jake's feet returned to the ladder rung, this signalled to Galina that the excitement and danger were over.

Then their suits reacted to the sudden pressure differential. Their self-compensating mechanism was unable to cope with the suddenness of the event. They both detected a drop of pressure much like they were designed to on the surface of Mars. When this happens, they give a little pressure in the suit to protect from the low atmospheric pressure and give a little insulation from the very low temperature on the planet's surface.

But here the pressure kept falling. Within one point seven seconds it went from 14.7 lbs. per square inch to zero. The little inflation caused the suits to puff out, forcing their arms to point out like scarecrows. There was not that much room in the capsule, there was even less where Jake found himself – half in and half out of the hatchway, with his arms stretched out. Galina managed to keep hold of him, but he had slipped until he occupied the position he now found himself in.

The small module that Jake had begun to enter was one of the Rassvet docking modules, it was just as just a little wider than his outstretched arms. Gravity was now almost zero. As he dropped back towards the capsule, his arms caught on the sides of the hatch. His suit immediately began to deflate. There was no pressure in the airless Phoenix – it was like being in outer space. Slowly Jake began to be able to bend his arms again, but he needed to do something about the lack of air pressure. As soon as it got down to below the pressure where the boiling point of water was lower than body temperature, his blood would boil.

Jake did not know, but the same thing was happening to Galina below him, still in Pythagoras. As soon as he could move his arms enough he lifted himself into the interconnecting module, then looked around to see if he could do anything to help himself. He checked his suit as best as he could but found no leaks. The readings inside his helmet were showing normal. He looked down into Pythagoras to see if Galina was ok and was surprised to see that she was visibly shrinking. Then he realised that she had suffered the same over-inflation that he had experienced, and the suit was now bringing itself down to manageable levels.

She looked up to see him waving enthusiastically for her to come up and join him.

They slowly made their way up into the first full sized module, this was the old Harmony module which had been converted to carry mainly Russian experiments. They stopped there, and by pressing their helmets together found that they could converse quite normally. Jake began by shouting at first, but this nearly deafened Galina.

'We must be careful from here on in.' He said, almost in a conspiratorial whisper, 'There may be robots around here, and they could be hostile.'

She nodded.

'Thanks for holding me back there.' He said more softly.

'We are a team, are we not?' she allowed a smile to put a sparkle in her eyes.

The gravity kept on decreasing as the Phoenix continued to slow its rotation, so they hugged a little closer to prevent their helmets from parting as he said.

'Let me lead the way here. We don't know what to expect; these machines have had seven months to evolve.'

He winked as he began to move away from Galina. He climbed the ladder with ease, when he opened the hatch into the next section, he was surprised to find that this module was almost completely in darkness. The low gravity allowed him to move quite quietly. Noise needs air to travel, but the metal structure around him can transmit sound.

Slowly and carefully he moved forwards. His eyes gradually became accustomed to the dark. He stopped half way up the 26-foot-long module, and stood stock still. He was checking for movement. The robots he was concerned about were the two scutters, these maintenance machines were the size of a big dog, but longer because of the six arms/legs; the appendages could be either. Or they could have developed themselves to have an extra limb or two, or a big floodlight. Anything was possible.

Galina joined him as he began slowly opening the hatch of the next module. This was narrower than the previous modules. Jake waited before entering, there was no movement here, so he cautiously moved forwards. Galina followed him, in the darkness she bumped into his foot. This gave Jake a considerable shock. His feet both left the ladder he was climbing, the gravity was almost gone now because they were getting closer to the centre of the ship, and she was slowing down. Jake allowed his feet to drift outwards as he dropped his right hand from the ladder, allowing him to look below, to where his feet were. He saw the dim outline of Galina. His right hand then grabbed the top of the ladder, his left took the opening handle of the hatch before his right began turning the wheel to release the securing dogs that held the hatch in place.

This hatch opened away from where Jake and Galina stood. Jake pushed the hatch open, as he gave a little pressure he felt something touch the hatch. Then a silver rod came through the gap as it opened. He slammed the hatch shut, trapping the rod. It vibrated a little, then remained stationary.

He allowed his body to drift to the other side of the narrow passageway, then began opening the hatch again. The silver rod was now floating freely in space – but it was once attached to something. Jake took hold of it, he could not examine it in the darkness, but this looked like the nearest he could find to use as a weapon.

As the hatch opened he thrust into the darkness with the rod. There was nothing there. Slowly he raised his head into the module. He recognised this to be one of the modules that were attached to the centre Sarsen that had been made from the second stage of the launch vehicle. In the gloom and darkness anything could be lurking. As Jakes feet cleared the hatchway Galina put her head into the module, then an arm. In her hand she held a torch, which illuminated the whole module.

She moved up to where Jake was, their helmets touched, she said,

'I thought you could use some help.'

He replied, his eyes moving around the module as he did so,

'There is a Soyus module over there.' He pointed towards a circular hatch on the side of the module they were in, 'That could come in useful later.'

'Yes, that is fully equipped to fly the ship.'

He broke away to look into a far corner of the module, then touched helmets again,

'Shine some light in that corner.'

Galina shone her light into the area indicated. There was movement. Jake waved the silver stick in the direction of the movement, then the hatch into the main body of the mother ship, the White Sarsen, it opened, and a strange five-legged creature scurried through, and into the dark void beyond.

Helmets met again.

'I think I know what happened there.' Jake sounded hopeful, 'The sudden light flooded its sight sensors, they don't have eyes like ours, and they are much slower to react, so can become swamped and blinded very easily.'

Just then all of the internal lights came on.

Jake nodded,

'Crafty move. They lose the advantage of lurking in the dark, but that has been compromised now. We must presume that they are gathering for a counterstrike.'

'I think we had better move into the Soyus.' Galina suggested, 'It has full controls to enable us to operate and fly the whole of the Phoenix; as a life-boat this far out in space it also has to function as part of the main vessel.'

Jake saw the sense of this move, but had reservations,

'What about Ash and Hoshi? We should go get them first?' the latter part of the statement became more of a question.

'That means getting past the scutters. I have a better plan.' Galina said as she began to make her way towards the hatch that led to the Soyus.

As she touched the release handle on the hatch, the other hatch – the one that led into the White Sarsen – flew open. She didn't see what happened in that direction; she was far too occupied in getting out of that module.

A five legged machine that was bigger than a German shepherd, with extra length for the back set of limbs burst through the open hatch from the White Sarsen. It took hold of the ship's structure with its only front limb, there seemed to be one missing, wires hung where it used to be. The back legs made contact with the side of the module, then pushed it off the wall towards Jake.

He presumed it wanted to get its limb back. So he gave it to it. In a swing made more out of desperation than any calculated move, Jake managed to make contact with the machine's top sensor unit. As the mechanised head began to disintegrate it continued on its trajectory towards Jake. He ducked, but some of the debris hit him. Mainly on the helmet, this was able to stand the impact with impunity, but three small shards made contact with his Mars suit. Air began to leak away as the machine landed on the far wall.

As the scutter began to regain its sensor capability by re-routing systems, Jake decided not to hang about, he followed Galina into the Soyus.

Galina was already booting up systems when Jake closed the hatch, he then looked around to find something with which to jam the mechanism. This done he turned to Galina. She looked across to him and gave the thumbs-up. Three more switches were thrown, and air began to be fed into the capsule.

When the Soyus was fully pressurised and heated, Jake and Galina removed their helmets, then sat back to work out what to do next.

'Let's look at what we have available to us.' Galina began, 'We have in here the means to control most of the ship.'

There was a tapping sound from the hatch.

'Does that include the scutters?'

'No, I'm afraid not. They have had their programming distorted, they are simple maintenance machines, this aggressive behaviour is not in their normal mapping.'

Jake scanned the equipment available,

'I have an idea.'

More tapping on the hatch as the machine outside kept trying to get in, 'If we can control most of the ships functions, I presume we can pressurise bits, and communicate with Pythagoras?'

Galina nodded and turned towards a series of panels marked 'Life Support',

'More than that. We can check the integrity of any section of the ship.' She opened up three screens on the panel as Jake got on the radio.

'Jake to Pythagoras. Do you hear me, Ash?'

'Hi Jake, what's the situation for you?'

Galina interrupted,

'All modules in the Blue Sarsen are sound and clear. I will begin to pressurise the module nearest to the Euclid.'

Jake replied to Ash,

'We got out of the capsule and have made it to a Soyus craft.'

He was interrupted by more tapping and sliding as if a five-legged dog-like machine was trying to get in,

'The bad news is that the scutters are not friendly any more. But the good news is,' he turned and looked at Galina, 'We have control of most of the ship's function from here, so we will begin to pressurise the ship starting with the module outside your position.'

'You say you have control of most of the ships systems from a Soyus craft?' Hoshi asked.

Galina replied as she worked the life support panel,

'Yes, this is one of the emergency craft we prepared in case something went wrong with the main ship. The idea was to retreat here, where we can still fly the mother ship.'

Hoshi seemed confused,

'I thought that was one of the Orion units?'

'Yes, we converted one of those, too. Like you converted the Leonardo MPLM, but we felt that we needed something that was capable of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.'

Jake came back into the conversation at this point,

'Hoshi, it looks as if the scutters have turned renegade, can you get into their systems through their net, and find out if we can restore the situation?'

Hoshi knew what Jake meant,

'The net has been very quiet of late. I think the participants are taking time off. I shall go off air for a few minutes to see what I can do.'

She switched the radio equipment off, then donned her grey cloak to keep him from the robots' net, She then took a few moments to compose herself. She looked rather monk-like as she quietly contemplated the situation.

Her thoughts were in Japanese, but here we shall see them in English.

'The Net feels weak now. There must be little or no influence from Mars; that means that the guidance is mainly coming from Earth. The scutters' core program is simply to work on a mechanical level, instructions to impede human activities must be an imposition to this programming, so must be weak within the biometric circuitry of the scutters. Now, how am I to impose on this imposition?'

She swayed slightly and hummed quietly as she contemplated the situation.

'They are hard wired to work alongside us in furtherance of the mission. Any external influence can only alter their internal software, and what can be altered can be unaltered – especially if the original change is not in line with their primary programming. I suppose we could simply flood them with work, so that they have no capacity for newly programmed tasks.'

She gently moved a hand to touch Ash, then quietly said,

'What is the most demanding job we can give the scutters?'

Ash thought for a moment,

'It has to be something in the centre of the ship, where both of them are needed due to the vast areas and lack of gravity.' He snapped his fingers, then pointed at Hoshi, 'Got it! Purging the secondary alumin fuel hopper, it's a bastard getting in and out of.'

'Very well, that is what we should do, get them working at full capacity, then hit them with navigational tasks that will saturate their computing capacity. Once they are in that condition I can probably get into their software via the Net and undo the patches that have been applied. If they were applied directly from Earth, they should be relatively easy to over-ride.'

Ash nodded at Hoshi, who returned the nod, she switched the radio on again, but stayed beneath the hood.

'Euclid to Jake. We have a plan. I don't want to broadcast it in plain language, so just follow me, would you?'

'Roger that good buddy.' Jake replied.

'Can you input to the main bus that we need the secondary alumin fuel hopper to be purged as a matter of urgency? I have no input from here.'

Jake went over to the main computer repeater without saying anything. He input the request as several loud thumps reminded him of the attentions of the scutter outside.

Presently the scratching stopped. Hoshi reported that there was activity around the White Sarsen, and the purging began.

Hoshi then suggested that they shower the robots with navigational requests that will overload their computing capacities.

Amongst the requests was the exact co-ordinates and information required to leave orbit, and head for Earth. The massive overload was intended to cause the robot's computers to crash – it was not known if that crash would also incapacitate the ship's capability to navigate, so information was gathered in preparation.

Galina, in the makeshift command module Soyus began the repressurisation of the mother ship. By the time the whole ship had reached equal air pressure, the scutters had shut down.

Ash and Hoshi left the Euclid, Jake and Galina left the Soyus, and all four met up by the observation dome to plan the next part of their adventure.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 41

Lonliness of Command

Xanthros dropped into his chair; it had been a rough few days as the mission to Mars drew to its close. The Mission Controller had not slept

or left his station for three days. He was about to pick up the phone when Tom Collins knocked and walked into the room.

'Hi, Tom. What can I do for you?'

'I think you are doing enough, sir. How long is it since you had a rest?'

The Controller looked surprised by the question,

'Yesterday I think.'

'Three days more like.'

'Has it been that long?'

'Yes, it has. Why don't you go to the Gilruth and get your head down for a couple of hours? I can manage here; there is little we can do at this juncture anyway.'

Xanthros still had the phone in his hand. He looked at it, and then replaced it in its stand; he looked up at Tom,

'I guess you're right.' He rose from his desk, he held out his hand to Collins, and with an almost reluctant smile said, 'You have the helm, Mr Collins.'

'Keep your cell on, if anything happens I'll text you. If I need you, I will ring you.'

'Ok.'

Xanthros knew it made sense, how long would it be before his decision-making was affected? Had it already been affected? He walked into the fresh air, this revived him somewhat, but the fatigue from the last few days would take more than a breath of fresh air to shift. He could now feel the strain begin to manifest itself, there was no spring in his step, and he did not feel the effect of breeze on his face as he walked at his normal brisk pace.

A line of obscure poetry ran through his head,

'Creatures for a day! What is a Man? What is he not? A dream of a shadow is our mortal being.'

He began to feel more like a shadow as he entered the Gilruth, as he made his way to the sleeping quarters he caught the aroma of freshly ground coffee coming from the Orion lounge. He turned to avail himself of the caffeine; maybe that would make the difference between sleep and complete coma.

The frothy Latte tasted sweet and welcome. It seemed to spread relaxation through his body as it flowed down his throat.

The large wall-mounted TV flickered in his peripheral vision, and then a news flash broke into the ad break,

'We interrupt the scheduled program with breaking news about our mission to Mars. It has been reported that there has been an explosion on Mars, and five people have been lost during this mission. Stay tuned for more on this and other stories from closer to Earth.'

Xanthros could not believe his eyes and ears. The latte was abandoned, he quickly made his way back to his office, and on the way he called for Tom Collins and Michelle Romero to meet him there.

The Mission Controller began by explaining what he had seen,

'All they said was that there had been an explosion on Mars, and that we have lost five people during this mission. Given that there were only six who went to Mars, and that four of them are alive and kicking, where do they get their five from?'

Michelle had a sensible suggestion,

'If we burrow down into this story in detail we may be able to pinpoint a likely source.'

Xanthros agreed,

'That is a sound suggestion. See if you can find out where this story came from.' He turned to Tom, 'You don't think there has been a leak from in here, do you?'

Tom was one of the astronaut corps who had trained for this mission from the outset, so was beyond reproach. Michelle was a Monitor, so she was to be trusted implicitly. Xanthros was placing his hopes in this matter completely in these two.

Before Tom had chance to reply Michelle began working the case,

'Right, first I need to know which station was carrying the story. Did you catch which station it was?' she began typing into her tablet.

Xanthros shook his head,

'No. However, I would start with the locals first. In addition, avoid digital note taking, with paper only one person at a time can read it. With digital you do not know who is linked in. How many people knew the kind of information that was released to the network?'

Michelle and Tom looked at each other,

'Thousands.' They chorused.

Tom continued,

'They all work here, but very few have the complete picture, if we found out exactly what was released we may be able to narrow it down a little.'

Michelle added,

'I'll get on with finding the station, and then see if I can get a transcript of the broadcast. Should be able to illicit something from them with the expectation of scoops from NASA.'

Xanthros began shutting down his screens as he said,

'I will have to leave it with you like that; I have to go to Sweden, in Europe on a matter concerning the Mars mission. I will be back in three days; I hope you will have moved close to resolving the matter in the meantime.'

Later that day.

Michelle drove them to the TV station that broke the story. She wore the American flag dress, Tom wore his normal civilian clothes, and he did not want to turn up as a full Air Force Colonel.

On the way they discussed the rather fast departure of Xanthros. Michelle, as a Monitor knew that Tom was not, but he was cleared to receive the same level of information as a Monitor.

'Sweden? Did you, or have you ever had a call from Sweden, Michelle?'

'No, but there does not need to be a phone call. Xanthros is not only a higher rank than you and I; he is also a rank of which there are less than one hundred on Earth. He is a member of a group of individuals who do not normally rule, but they monitor and influence the rulers. Sometimes to such an extent they do become the rulers. These people are called Greys.'

Tom turned to look at Michelle,

'Shut the front door!'

She glanced across at him, then returned her attentions to the road,

'Without their input, democracy would never work. You do not think that people voted in, almost at random, can be capable of running a country on their own do you? They have no experience of running a whole country, they have no time to learn how to do it, yet it is the most important job any person can be asked to do.'

'Ok, 'Chell, so Xanthros is meeting with some of these people, is he?'

'Probably. These meetings are not arranged on the phone. They have their own communications system, as a Monitor I can sometimes pick up on this, but it is not very reliable at my level.' She shrugged and smiled at him, 'But I did pick up enough names to know that this is a particularly important meet.'

'Anyone we know?'

'You must be joking. These people know all there is to know about keeping out of sight.'

This surprised Tom,

'But running countries and having power is, by its very nature, high profile.'

'Not the way they do it, Tom.'

'Ok, I am fairly well informed, or at least I like to think so. Hit me with some names, Chell.'

She looked askance at him, and thought carefully before replying,

'Ok. Try these for size, but these names must not go any further than the two of us.'

She looked at him again and awaited a reply.

'Yeah, sure. Hit me with the names.'

'Ok. I think Baur is a German; del Banco could be Mexican for all I know, but is probably Spanish. Then there was Hapsburg, Semiramis and Plantagenet.'

Tom just stared out at the road in front of them. Seconds passed in silence before he said,

'The Hapsburgs I remember from high school history lessons, and the Plantagenets from even longer ago. Medieval Europe I think. But you were talking about people today concerning themselves with a mission to Mars. They can't be the same people, can they?'

'Of course not. They may not be normal humans, but they ain't immortal.'

'But they are the same families?'

'Yes, Tom. They are descendants from these families.'

'But if these families were spread all over the known world, and travel was always more difficult than it is now, how have they managed to maintain the purity of their race? I presume they have been procreating in a similar way to us.'

'Oh, for Christ's sake.' Michelle smiled at Tom, 'How the hell should I know what they get up to? But I guess they are the same as us in every way except for their cerebral make-up. As far as diluting their advantages goes, I strongly suspect that the difference between us and them is so strong that it is dominant within their off-springs.'

'Like black and tan in dogs?'

A quizzical look came over her face as she looked at Tom,

'I beg your pardon. Have you completely lost the plot?'

'Hell no. At least I do not think so. There seems to be a dominant gene within dogs that produces black and tan coats. When two dogs mate, if either one of them is black and tan, the young are always black and tan. It is a genetic trait.'

'I see what you are getting at. Dominant Genetic Strains.'

'If that is what is happening, and indeed, what has happened, there is a whole strand of genetic research that has not yet been explored – or even discovered.'

The car pulled up to the security gate of the TV station.

They met with a producer; Larry Harris was in charge of news content. Michelle opened up the conversation,

'This item about our mission to Mars is of some concern to us, we would like to ensure that you get the facts absolutely correct.'

'That is our aim, ma'am. If we could work exclusively with you on this...'

Tom interrupted here; it looked as if Harris was likely to run the conversation,

'We can't give you exclusiveness. But what we can offer is a first to know deal.'

Michelle added,

'But first we need to check your first story for accuracy. If you could give us the exact information you are working with we can check this and correct any errors. We certainly do not want to get any misleading information to go out to the public. We will probably be able to explain some elements of this and add in things you do not know.'

'Can we quote NASA when we use this information?' Harris was getting quite excited about the prospects of working so close to NASA.

Michelle did not hesitate in replying,

'Of course, providing you do not alter the information or use it out of context.'

'Can we report that the information is exclusive to us?'

Michelle was very aware that they do not yet have the transcript they came for,

'What we give you in respect of the piece you have already run will be exclusive to you.'

Harris was feeling bullish as he kept pushing for advantages over his competitors,

'What about other information? Can we run a series on developments and discoveries?'

Michelle looked at Tom Collins, she was aware that she should not appear too keen to give away gems of information – it devalues it. She addressed the TV executive,

'Can we have a moment?'

'Yes, of course.'

They rose from their seats, and slowly walked across to what looked like a very old bare brick wall at the rear of the establishment.

'Pushy person, ain't he?' Tom opened quietly. They kept a respectable distance from the wall in case of listening devices.

'I suppose that's part of his job.' Michelle said.

'Yes, and it is still our job to get that transcript, we ain't had a sniff of it yet.'

'Should we use a carrot or a stick to get closer to it?'

'We ain't got no stick here, Michelle. On the one hand, we are a very open organisation, funded by the public, and we share our information and discoveries with our paymasters. However, on the other hand we have this requirement of confidentiality.' They both knew what was meant by that, and no more would be said about it.

Tom raised a finger as he said,

'I think I can make a carrot look like a stick.' His eyebrows raised in enquiry.

'You sock it to him, Colonel.' Said Michelle as she tapped Tom's arm, they turned back to Harris.

Tom began the next part of the negotiations,

'As you are no doubt aware we are not alone in this venture.'

He carefully watched Harris's response as he slowly unwrapped the metaphysical package that could contain a carrot, or a stick, Harris was not supposed to know which, Harris nodded, Tom continued,

'Other powers have vested interests in what we do out there on Mars, we couldn't release their information, neither would you want us to, believe me.'

Harris understood,

'Of course, we respect confidentiality; we wouldn't get far in this line of work if we didn't.'

Tom and Michelle each thought,

'Two-faced bastard.'

Tom continued,

'Whilst there are elements within this mission that must remain under wraps, there are other parts that the public does not understand. It would be good if they can be educated, you may be able to play a part in this.'

Harris was keen to explore this further,

'That would be exclusive?'

'A series of TV programs would be exclusive.' Tom was still feeding out the bait.

Harris's mind was whirring in eager anticipation,

'What about transmissions directly from the surface of Mars?'

Michelle stepped in here,

'Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. All these things are possible, but first we have to make sure that you are issuing accurate information. Do you have an original transcript of what you received, as well as what you broadcast?'

Harris was hooked. All he could think of was how much his competitors would bid to have a part of his Mars-based reporting system.

He placed two phone calls, within minutes Michelle and Tom had hard copies of not only the broadcast transcript, but also the raw information that they needed to try to find the leak from where this had come.

Xanthros was Michelle's boss. However, everyone has a boss, the people at NASA all thought that Xanthros's boss would be the President, or some other such political body.

They would be wrong.

The Greys were not the neighbours down the block -unless the block was a couple of galaxies wide.

However, they are now here amongst us:

Ninkharsag was Xanthros's sister. She lived incognito below the rank of Monitor, but was performing the duties of a monitor, watching Xanthros from close by and yet afar.

del Banco, his brother operates from Switzerland. There is still sibling rivalry between these two.

Semiramis was the Goddess of communications, as such; she will have a vital role to play.

Rockefeller lived in Sausalito, California as a poet and philosopher.

Romanov moved around the countries that used to be in the Soviet Pact. He decided that this group of countries were not vibrant enough whilst within the Soviet Union.

Moreover, they all had a boss:

The Marquis of Libeaux controlled the whole set-up. He did not micro-manage the 'people' beneath him, but this time he concerned himself directly.

'I don't care where you have to go.' The Marquis was speaking to Michelle by secure link from Istanbul,

'We must stop this leak. I have arranged for Semiramis to help you.'

As a Monitor, Michelle was aware of the organization, but she did not know any of them, nor even the Marquis.

'Sorry, but who is Semiramis?' she said the name with hesitation and uncertainty.

'Semiramis is the sister of Xanthros, they do not usually work together. I think she will be of use to you in this task, her area of speciality is communications; she is the Goddess of communications. It was she who brought about the Internet Protocol 6D.'

Michelle thought for a moment,

'What about Tom? We have been working on this together, we are developing theories.'

'Tom is a vital part of the team, there will be three of you to deal with this threat. Yes, I said threat, for this is indeed a threat to civilisation. There are threads within the civilised world that hold it together. If this leak is not stopped soon, these threads will be threatened, and unknown destruction will follow. I cannot stress enough the importance of your mission.'

'Yes, I can see that she would be most useful, now do I contact her, or will she...'

'Semiramis will indeed contact you. It is her forte, after all.'

Michelle was somewhat taken aback by this.

'Oh, ahem, err. Right, erm, Ok. But we have to go to St Louis to follow a lead,'

'Yes, we know this, but I think you will find your lead will have moved on to Des Moines by the time you get there.'

'How on Earth do you know that?'

'Never mind, Semiramis will explain everything to you. You had better prepare for your move to Des Moines; Semiramis will contact you before you get there and make whatever arrangements for you.'

Michelle was rather nonplussed; she did not even know how to address this strange caller.

'Right, err. Ok Mr Marquis. Sir, err, I am sorry, what do I call you? We don't go for nobility in the US.'

'"Sir" is what most people settle for. In addition, I know that Semiramis is a difficult name to get your tongue around, so she prefers Sam.'

'Roger that, sir. I will look forward to hearing from Sam.'

The call ended, Michelle slowly lowered the instrument. She looked across at Tom Collins, who entered the room as the call ended. She shook her head as she said,

'You won't believe what that was all about. I should have put it on speaker for you.'

'I presume there has been some sort of development.'

'You could say that. Would you like some coffee?' As she worked the machine he replied,

'Yes. What kind of development?'

'We ain't going to St Louis for a start.' She moved back with the coffee from the machine, 'And we have a new assistant.'

'Have we now? That sounds interesting. Who is it? Someone here?'

'Not exactly. Don't you want to know about St Louis?'

'Whoa there. One thing at once. Which is the most significant?'

She took a deep breath to assimilate her thoughts.

'For a start, the guy on the other end claimed to be someone called,' she looked up the note she made at the beginning of the conversation, 'The Marquis of Liboo or something like that. He claimed to be Xanthros' boss?' she look more and more puzzled as the story moved on.

'Then he said he knew we were going to St Louis.'

'How can he know that?'

'What he told me next came as a bigger surprise,' she took a sip of her coffee, 'by the time we get to St Louis our target will have moved on to Des Moines.'

'What?'

'So we have to go to Des Moines to meet up with someone he described as 'The Goddess of communications.'

'This is gonna by good.' He responded, 'And just who is this mystery person?'

'Her full name is Semiramis, but we can call her Sam.'

He smiled as he said,

'Instead of Uncle Sam, we got ourselves an Aunt Sam.'

'You should have heard his voice, Tom. I believe every word – even the bit about being Xanthros' boss.'

Tom drained his cup,

'Right, Des Moines it is then.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 42

The Chase

Galina Danilenko looked out of the windows of the cupola. Here in the Blue Sarsen they were under some 20 per cent gravity, which gave then a nice feeling of knowing what was up and what was down. The stars moved slowly from the top to the bottom of the segmented dome as the space ship rotated. Presently Mars came into view. They were now orbiting at six miles above the red planet; she scrutinized the surface that until recently they called home. Any sign of the explosion that damaged Homer Base had by now disappeared. She knew where the base lies, but to be able to see details at this range was asking too much, the structures were not big enough to stand out.

Ashton Preston and Jake Jensen moved into the bridge area, which was situated alongside the cupola, at the same time Hoshi Masuto checked the main air lock, which was opposite the observation window.

Galina and Hoshi were back to back when she called out,

'That is not possible.'

Hoshi turned around in response to this exclamation.

'What is not possible?'

He moved across to look out of the window.

'There. Is that smoke or dust?'

'Where?'

'I am worried that something may have happened to our camp, Hoshi.'

'Why, were you thinking of putting it on the market?'

A playful prod in the ribs from Galina's elbow moved the Japanese scientist to the next window. Her head was much closer to the glass now. She looked towards their camp on the surface of Mars, then let out a cry of her own,

'Yes. I see it now.'

She brought her binoculars to bear on the spot, just as the rotation of the ship took it away from their field of view.

She dropped her glasses as she turned to Galina,

'Damn. You were right, there was something happening down there. We should just get one more chance to see it again before it drops over the horizon.'

They both watched the pattern of stars drop down their field of view, what seemed like minutes had passed since Mars was in their window, but it was less than twelve seconds before the planet appeared at the top of their viewing windows. They scrutinised the surface for traces of activity, but could find no signs.

Hoshi was still wearing her cloaking device, this she discarded, she then stood quietly pondering what had just happened – or not happened.

Her head bowed, she began shaking it slowly. Presently she looked at Galina with a very serious expression,

'There is some strange activity on the 'Net'

She turned to look into the bridge area,

'Ash, can you pick up any transponder activity?'

All spacecraft are hard-wired with a transponder device that makes it easier to find them in the depths of space.

Ash threw a couple of switches and tapped on some screens. He then called out,

'Christ. Jake, what do you make of that?'

Jake looked at the display.

'It looks as if we are not alone.'

In the display in front of them was a clear indication given off by a transponder.

Within the signal are the vehicle's identity, position and speed.

Ash was first to notice,

'That's Sarsen 1, and look, there is another one, Sarsen 2. They are heading this way.'

Jake looked directly at Ash,

'How? We left nothing alive down there. Gerald and Steve just about destroyed each other, Stuart has been disassembled on the prehistoric pavement by Gerald, and we finished off Silver.'

Hoshi joined the two Americans in the bridge area,

'Are these vehicles programmed to return to the mother ship when all humans have left the planet?'

Ash replied,

'Not that I know. Anyway, what use would they be on a return journey? But they could be of use on Mars if anyone else came here.'

Hoshi returned to her contemplative position as Galina took the place she vacated on the bridge.

She looked at Jake, and asked,

'What does this mean?' there was real concern in her voice.

'We just don't know.' Ash could offer no comfort, 'But it looks as if they are positioning themselves to rendezvous with us.'

All four astronauts fell silent. The numbers kept changing in the display to update the positions of the Sarsens.

Hoshi did not break the silence as she carefully placed her hood back over her head. She had been in touch with the Net, now she needed some thinking time.

Galina went back to the observation copula, and looked at the slowly turning stars. She knew that she would not be able to see anything, the dome faced forwards, the Sarsens were approaching from the rear.

A dull red light flooded the area as Mars appeared, then dropped out of sight to be replaced by a blanket of bright stars. Galina wondered if one of them could be Earth, and she worried that she would never see it again; this constantly turning on two axis in space was disorientating.

Hoshi looked at her watch, then, without removing her cloaking hood she announced in a quiet voice,

'About five minutes ago I received a scrambled message on the Net. I couldn't make it out at first; most messages are not in clear speech. I thought nearly I recognised the source; it sounded as if it came from Gerald. I have been analysing the content, part of it seems to be coming from a long distance away, that must be Earth, but there were elements that were not Gerald, and not from Earth. It could have been his Sarsen, or the other one, I couldn't be sure.'

Ash was worried about this,

'Can you make a guess as to what they are up to?'

'I don't think that there is any doubt about why they are up here. We are the only thing between here and Earth, which is still two months from perihelion, by the way.'

Jake was more direct,

'Do they mean us any harm, Hoshi? If so, what can we do about it?'

'From the strange coding I have been picking up it is difficult. These are machines communicating with each other, there is no malice involved, only mechanical information about the task in hand.'

'And what is that task?' Galina tried to hide the anxiety in her voice.

Hoshi turned to face her directly as she said,

'They intend to dock with us.'

Jake was first to react to this revelation,

'Shit. Is there anything we can do about that?'

Hoshi held her hands out, palms uppermost as she replied,

'Not a thing. These are machines performing a series of tasks for which they have been programmed.'

Galina had all but given up trying to hide the apprehension she now felt,

'What will happen then?'

Hoshi looked at her fellow astronauts in turn as she outlined the probable scenario,

'Docking is almost fully automatic in this case. The Sarsens will dock back on to the White Sarsen – even if it is still turning. Gerald then has a choice of how he gets on to the Mother Ship; he can make his way to the docking port, then pass into the main ship just like we would. Or he could leave the Sarsen by the emergency exit in the nose – remember he is a robot; so does not need an air lock or a space suit. He could then choose his entry point. He does not care if he depressurises a Solyut, or a module, or the whole ship. If he tries to enter by the normal air lock here, the Quest, we can probably lock the mechanism, but that would only delay the inevitable.'

'Which is what?' Galina wanted the full detail.

Hoshi looked at the Americans. Jake decided to lay it down,

'Judging by his actions on Mars, he is determined to prevent us leaving Mars – and is quite prepared to kill us all to achieve his mission – and he will not stop.'

She visibly shook, Jake moved to her, and took her in his arms,

'It's gonna be ok. We'll think of something.' He looked across at Ash for support in this.

Ash looked at Hoshi,

'Any suggestions?'

Hoshi looked around the bridge area, then up and down the inside of the Blue Sarsen,

'Not many. We could barricade ourselves in here, the circuits from here cannot be overridden, we could then proceed to fly the ship from here, but how long would it be before he punches a hole in the skin of the module? Then it would be game over for us within seconds.'

Ash looked at the display showing the relative positions of the two Sarsens, the numbers slowly ticking away as they drew closer,

'So pure defence is not an option. Can we prevent him entering the Mother Ship?'

The four astronauts thought for a few minutes, the Sarsens gradually closed the distance between them and the Phoenix.

Hoshi was first to speak,

'That is not going to be easy. The Sarsens are designed to do very few tasks, the main ones being; land on Mars, leave Mars, then dock with the Phoenix. This being so, they were hard wired to ensure that nothing interfered with them.'

Jake asked,

'Why are there two?'

Hoshi had picked up some extraneous messages when she first found out about them. Now she tried to make sense of them,

'They were always kept fully fuelled and ready for launch whilst on the surface of Mars. The launch sequences of both is almost fully automatic, if Gerald used the Net to initiate launch, it is quite conceivable that both would be fired up.'

Galina looked at Ash, who was deep within the bridge,

'Ash, can we outrun them?'

He consulted Hoshi with a glance, then replied,

'Not really; the Sarsens have the improved F-1D rocket, and weigh about one eighth of what we do. But we can still use our four F1 engines to keep them at bay, and buy us some time, but that is only temporary.'

They decided upon this course of action, but Hoshi pointed out that they were in a carefully controlled orbit,

'We must be careful to avoid being thrown out of orbit by the increase in speed, we want to be thrown off the planet eventually, but not at random, we would like to be pointing at Earth when we leave orbit.' She moved to a terminal, and then began punching in numbers. She referred to the screen that Jake was using to monitor the chasing Sarsens, and then went back for more number crunching.

'Got it!' Ash exclaimed from his position within the bridge, 'The Sarsens are slightly lower than us in orbit, also they are going faster than we are. If we increase our speed towards escape velocity, they will reach it before we do. If we then stop accelerating, we will stay in the Martian orbit whilst they shoot off into space.'

'Do you think they will fall for that?' Jake asked.

'They have no choice. They have to keep pace with us. That is their primary mission now and being reprogrammed with a patch will probably work in our favour.'

Ash saw the logic in this, it must be remembered that spacecraft in orbit are flying in straight lines, it is the gravity of the planet or body they orbit that bends the line into an orbit; but too fast and they risk flying off, too slow and they risk dropping down.

'Sarsens do not have forward thrusters, so they will not be able to stop accelerating, let's do it.' Ash added.

The Phoenix began increasing speed, at the same time they started to lose height to remain in orbit.

As predicted the following Sarsens picked up speed, because in order to catch the mother ship they had to be travelling faster. As the big mother ship reached escape velocity, she fired her reverse thrust rockets in the nose, and then began to drift higher, where the Sarsens would be forced to follow, just as they reached escape velocity.

Sarsen Two, flown by Gerald, adopted a slightly nose-up attitude. He fired the F-1 rocket for zero point seven seconds (0.7 sec). This was only point zero three of a second (0.03 sec) too long. The F-1 rocket can deliver up to one million six hundred thousand pounds of thrust (1,600,000 lbs.). If left pumping out that kind of thrust, with no atmosphere to resist, for as little as 0.03 of a second too long whilst close to terminal velocity means only one thing can happen. Sarsen Two left orbit. She moved out first towards Jupiter, and then the curved nature of her course began to move Saturn into her line of flight.

Sarsen One did not follow Sarsen Two. Steve was flying this, it was his plan to monitor the situation, and then see if he could intercede to help the astronauts.

The automaton in Sarsen Two tried to turn his fleeing spacecraft round to face the direction he had come from, but he continued to move away from Mars at over four and a half thousand miles per hour. By the time he got the machine to face the right direction Phoenix had passed behind the planet twice more, then blasted off using the sling shot effect of the orbits. The astronauts finally made the leap to return to Earth.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 43

The Thrones of Mars

NASA's Lear Jet dropped down into the circuit at Copenhagen airport. Xanthros looked out of the rounded window at the ground below as the clouds parted. He had the plane to himself, apart from the skeleton staff of pilot, navigator and the secretary Sem who acted as steward too on this trip. He would have brought Michelle Romero, but she had the information leak to deal with.

As the sleek jet taxied to a stop, he saw a big Volvo drawing up to the aircraft. Rockefeller and del Banco were in the car. They went directly to the Lisieux Conference Centre on the outskirts of the city for the meeting.

The Marquis of Libeaux chaired the meeting; also in attendance were Xanthros's brother del Banco, Romanov, Rockefeller, and Hapsburg. The little secretary Sem entered the room, and to Xanthros's surprise she metamorphosized into his sister Ninkharsag.

These were not normal people. They were all the same as Xanthros; they were all Greys.

In the dim reaches before memories, the family of The Marquis of Libeaux wanted servants to do the menial tasks for them on Earth, and so it fell to Ninkharsag and Xanthros to create these beings. After some time, Xanthros was not satisfied with their creation, the pre-Neanderthal, and wanted to give them more intelligence. del Banco was outraged at what they had done, accusing them of making men "like Gods." However, Xanthros had more plans for the thinking humankind; he needed soldiers, which implies that this is the fundamental reason for humankind's willingness to fight wars on behalf of their God. He originally operated from what is now Egypt; from here, he gave different tribes different gods to worship. The echoes of these "developments" we can still see today stretching across North Africa and through the Middle East, from the Atlantic to India.

Xanthros is in charge of the mission to Mars. Things have not gone completely to plan; some would have preferred the mission to fail to get to Mars, because they knew what is likely to be found there. The original setbacks – the Jacques Garbou 'accident', Mary-Jo Shelby's drift into space, even the attempted hijacking by Dmitri Chopov – they were all orchestrated by del Banco to try to prevent humankind from discovering something that might upset the delicate balance that was evolving amongst humankind.

However, this meeting was not about sibling rivalry and differences of opinions – humans had developed many threats to themselves and their planet in the past. However, even the threat that came from the destructive powers of nuclear weapons paled into insignificance when considering the way the humans have now become dependent upon electronics. Now they have used electronics and their ingenuity in engineering to produce robotics. This has now infiltrated through all elements of even the least civilised areas. Warring tribes have been known to use electronics and robotics to a certain extent. Until now any threat to humankind has been prevented by the First Law of Robotics; 'No robot shall harm a human, or allow harm to come to a human by inaction.' This simple law has prevented intervention of electronic brains upon the human development. Now Xanthros has allowed it to be overturned, setting a precedent that could lead to the electronic intelligences taking over the whole of the human race, wiping out thousands of years of development and evolution.

The Marquis began by asking Xanthros about the development that led up to the present situation,

'Professor Xanthros, would you like to tell us how your manned mission to Mars is progressing?'

'It is going very well, thank you my Lord. We have the four astronauts back on board their mother ship, the Phoenix. We expect them to begin their trip back to Earth in the very near future.'

Ninkharsag appeared to be relieved by this news; she always seemed to wear her heart on her sleeve,

'We are all very pleased to hear this, but all has not always been good and successful has it not?'

Xanthros looked at his hand as he answered,

'No, there have been a few snags along the way, but we all knew that this was going to be an adventure fraught with danger.'

Xanthros' brother del Banco said,

'You lost five people as a direct consequence of intervention did you not?'

'Yes,' Xanthros looked at Rockefeller, 'There are people around this table who did not want this mission to succeed.'

The Marquis then asked,

'Did it succeed? What did they find on Mars?'

The group fell silent as all eyes turned to Xanthros,

'They found water. Not liquid water, but they took a couple of nuclear reactors with them, so they could melt the under-surface ice. As you know it is quite important to protect yourself from the harmful radiations and general conditions on Mars, so they gained several advantages from this approach.' He began counting on his fingers, 'One, shelter, two water, which they can split down to hydrogen and oxygen. I do not need to tell you how important these two elements are. They have spent fourteen months on the planet, and I think they have made good use of their time there.'

This roused del Banco,

'There were five who landed, were there not? What exactly happened with the one whom you lost?'

'He was working in the cave that was being excavated, and an accident occurred.'

'That is horse shit, and you know it. Unfortunately for you, so do we. Who had control of the machine that he was working with, Professor Xanthros?' del Banco demanded.

These two were brothers, and their sister was Ninkharsag, but there is sibling rivalry between the three, who's direct ancestors (or was it they themselves?) began the original experiments to create a more intelligent species.

'If you are so all-knowing, you will also know that all the machinery on Mars is semi-independent. They are controlled by each other, through their own Net, but there is little or no human input into this line of command.'

'So the machinery killed the fifth astronaut?'

'We don't know exactly what happened. The working conditions below ground were unpredictable and dangerous. Anything could have happened.'

del Banco responded quietly to this,

'Is that right Professor?' he pointed a remote control at a wall. The whole edifice flicked into life; the image of an ice cave appeared. Xanthros recognised this immediately as the cave in which Mark Singleton lost his life.

As the picture began to move del Banco explained,

'This is footage taken by a camera mounted on the drilling machine within the cave on Mars. These figures on the sides are performance data, and there is sometimes information on orders and directives sent out to the machine. This data is sometimes coded into responses and other data, so I will translate it as we go along. It may be necessary to stop the movie from time to time to allow me to keep up with the commentary, but here goes.'

He turned to the screen as the image began to move into the cave. Data and figures flickered on both sides of the picture as the machine moved into the cavern. del Banco explained,

'This is where the machine began to cool down. You can see from the data here that the power to the drill head had been stopped. There is no way a human can survive whilst it is powered up; the heat is too much.'

The ice in the cave continued to melt down the blue and white walls. The constantly dripping of water echoed around the cavern, punctuated occasionally by the crash and splash of ice falling from the roof. del Banco pointed at the right side of the picture,

'Temperature is noted here, you can see that it is now plummeting down. In a way the ice water that is flowing out of the cave is carrying the heat away with it.'

As the group of Greys watched parts of the cave walls turn from blue-white to striped shades of ochre, red and brown, the camera turned until a figure could be seen walking towards it.

del Banco paused the movie, he pointed at the symbols on the right side of the screen said,

'This signifies communications, but probably not between the drilling machine and the man.'

He restarted the movie. The symbols he had just pointed at changed colour, from grey to white,

'There you go. Communications between the drill and the robot known as Silver, who was at the entrance of the cave, he was too big to enter the cave.' He explained.

The man in the cave was the British engineer, Mark Singleton, who had built the original trike upon which the drilling machine was based.

del Banco told the meeting,

'Mark here has no communications with the machines; they are talking to each other over their Net. Here we see another communicator coming into the conversation.' He pointed to symbols that now appeared in pale yellow.

He paused again to study the cryptogram.

'This has been translated as a communication from Homer Base. It was probably from Gerald, but it was not a message to the cave. Remember that this communication system is a Net. Here we have the android Gerald communicating with Earth. Not only Earth, but someone here in this room.'

He looked at Xanthros, who sat quietly, knowing what to expect.

'Professor Xanthros, would you like to tell us what is said in these messages?'

'This one is notification of Mark's entrance to the cavern; I acknowledged the information, that's all.'

The white symbols grew as Gerald sent a message out.

'And what is this about?' asked del Banco, pointing at the newest symbols.

Xanthros knew that they had been translated, so there was no point in bluffing,

'Gerald is asking what should be done if the human finds the device.'

Ninkharsag asked the question that everyone else must have been wondering,

'What device?'

Xanthros looked around the room as he gave his considered answer,

'You have all been too involved with your own petty little games here on Earth to remember where you once came from. Studies in causation and the chaos theory indicated that there are links between what we know as coincidences. These links, once traced, led us to Mars.'

He paused, looking around the room before continuing,

'Deep below the planet's surface, at first we thought it may have been the core of the planet itself. However, we eventually worked out that it was not in rock, but ice. Then we put together this operation to land a man on Mars. It had to be a manned mission, the whole operation was too big and complex to justify otherwise. The landing site was chosen some distance away from where we wanted to explore to allow our dedicated robot to get on with its work without the humans knowing anything about it. You know that Silver took the fourth Sarsen and landed near where the device was thought to be. Then he began searching. He found readings that indicated a vast ice-filled underground cavern. He had a nuclear reactor with him, so developed more than enough power and heat to turn the ice into water.'

He seemed to be relaxing into the story now. On the screen Mark was cautiously making his way across the newly hewn cavern. His commentary came as sound,

'The ground seems made up from sedimentary rocks. These have been washed clean by the water rushing past, leaving a colourful display of varied colours, from brown to dark yellow, to red. The floor appears to be fairly level, this is probably because the water did not all escape over the lip at the entrance.'

He was silhouetted in the entrance as he bent to touch the ground inside the cave.

'It feels firm below a mud-like composition made up of dust mixed with water, but it is freezing solid. Water cannot exist here in liquid form.'

The room was deathly silent as the group watched Mark moving tentatively into the cave. The glinting ice reflected the constantly moving light on his nearly white Mars suit from the powerful lanterns he carried. He described what he saw,

'The ground seems reddish-brown inside, but that is not easy to determine due to the light being reflected off the ice walls and ceiling.'

The sounds of dripping water was combined with his feet paddling through the freezing water as he made his way towards the camera that was mounted on the trike.

Mark's Liverpool accent came through as he continued his commentary,

'Slight undulations here and there in the ground, dark brown rocks sticking up like islands.'

The viewing group saw the top of his head as he bent down to examine one of the mounds, one of the lanterns flashed its beam crazily around as Mark tapped the little hillock,

'They are hard, not like sandstone, it sounded and felt more like granite, but brown. But this is not a scientific hardness test; that will have to wait.'

The Greys could then see the beam from one of the lanterns flash across the surface as Mark inspected the smoothness of the area around him,

'I don't want to step on one of these, they are sharp.'

His figure grew bigger as he reached the camera, then shot off to the right-hand side of the screen. A blurred arm or something flashed past the camera as he inspected the trike-drilling machine,

'The trike drill is sitting at a slight angle. This is probably because when it stopped it was hot; the ground below it must have been still flowing mud. This indicated that there is considerable unevenness beneath this mud. The floor is not, therefore fully exposed.'

The astronaut came into view again as he trudged across the cave, his lights flashing around the psychedelic cavern with its red, ochre and brown striped walls contrasting with white and blue sections of ice reflecting the madly swinging beams from Mark's lanterns.

He walked ungainly away from the trike, then shone his lanterns into a darker corner of the cave,

'I think I can see a naked outcrop of rock. This looks interesting. It seems to be reflecting light back in a strange manner. I am approaching it now; it is no Ayres Rock. There is something strange about its shape – it is too regular.'

The symbols on both sides of the screen started to increase in activity; the grey and white squiggles were joined by yellow ones, then red, then light blue ones.

The Marquis of Libeaux sat bolt upright,

'What the hell does all that mean? Freeze the screen please Mr del Banco. I want to know what just happened there.'

del Banco smiled demurely as he paused the picture again. He turned to Xanthros, who still looked as if he was in full command,

'Professor Xanthros, do you have encryptions of these symbols?'

Xanthros looked at the screen edges, where the coloured symbols were displayed,

'The white symbols are from the robot known as Silver, the cream coloured ones are from a robot in Homer Base, in most cases it would be Gerald. The red symbols come directly from Earth, which means me.'

The Marquis wanted to know more,

'And exactly what did you say, Professor?'

Xanthros did not look quite as comfortable this time as he said,

'I reiterated an instruction that had been given to all mechanised devices on the Mars mission; that was to prevent the humans finding out what we were looking for.'

The Marquis raised one eyebrow,

'And exactly how far were the robots allowed to go in this prevention?'

del Banco joined in the probing questioning, pointing at the screen he asked,

'Is this the command that led to what we shall see happened?'

'No. That is me simply asking Silver what was happening.'

He scanned the meeting,

'You see, I did not have this facility here on Earth. I also asked him to see if he could intercede in the developments in the cave, but he could not get into the opening.' He pointed at the screen, 'This is him telling me that there was nothing he could do, and he then asked me if the trike could be used.'

'What was meant by this, Professor?' The Marquis asked.

'All machinery on Mars can be controlled by use of the Net. He was asking if he should use the trike in some way. It was the only piece of equipment in the cave with Singleton.'

Romanov then asked,

'And just what was he supposed to do with the drill, hide the device behind it hoping that the human would not see it? He already has seen it.'

del Banco suggested he play the movie on a little more.

'Let us see what happens. If the Professor would be so good as to decipher the codes?'

Xanthros nodded. The movie continued. The symbols on both sides began flashing, changing and moving.

'Here we see signals going to the trike telling it to move.'

A series of strange Blue symbols appear,

'This response shows that the machine is stuck in ice.' He pointed at the screen, 'And here is the response, to switch on the heater.'

del Banco asked a direct question as the astronaut on screen began speaking, so he paused the movie,

'Exactly who gave the order to switch in the heater, and to what level?'

Xanthros thought for a second or two,

'It is not as simple as that.'

He stood, and looked at his feet, then continued,

'If you have a foot stuck in the mud, it instructs your brain that there is a problem. The brain then decides which muscles to use; it also deals with balance issues, plus a myriad of other communications. You do not hold your foot responsible for its own extraction.'

He waved at the symbols now frozen on the screen,

'All these show the activities of the Net. It is now working like a vast pervasive inorganic brain.'

The Marquis asked,

'You mean that the robots and machines are acting autonomously to decide what to do?'

Xanthros considered this,

'Not exactly. They have been given a task and will do whatever they need to in order to complete this task.'

Ninkharsag spoke up,

'But they cannot harm humans, can they not?'

Romanov answered,

'The Asimov Laws prevent any harm to humans. Is that not so, Professor?'

'Yes.'

Romanov then asked,

'Were these laws circumvented in some way?'

del Banco prevented an answer by restarting the movie.

Ash tried to contact Mark in the cave, but there was no answer received. The symbols flashed orange and red. The Marquis turned to first Xanthros, then to del Banco,

'What do these symbols mean?'

Xanthros at first seemed reluctant to answer, del Banco asked him,

'Do you want to tell him, or shall I?'

'Doctor Singleton was about to reveal the location and nature of the object we were looking for. He must be stopped from doing this.'

He pointed at the orange symbols,

'Here we see the urgent command from me to prevent him from touching the device. Further down we see that the trike was heating, this was the only machine we had in the vicinity of the problem. So I authorised the trike to be heated to its maximum.'

Ninkharsag interrupted him,

'That would surely contravene the First Law of Robotics. They would not have obeyed you.'

Xanthros addressed the whole meeting,

'I had to invalidate the First Law of Robotics for these robots and machines in order to prevent a leakage of information that we didn't want releasing.'

He turned to del Banco,

'If you would run the film.'

Mark was seen moving towards the trike, orange symbols changed to vivid Blue ones. The glow from the trikes drill head began to turn everything a vivid red. The red ice matched the red soils around the cave, then as Mark approached the camera position the light turned into bright white; so bright that the Greys could clearly see Mark's face through his visor. After that mist began to come from the seals of his Mars suit. He then exploded before their eyes.

Before the room had chance to digest the events unfolding on the screen, they were interrupted by Semiramis entering the room. Semiramis was the Goddess of communications, the most famous portrayals of her being the Statue of Liberty, and the picture on Starbucks' cups.

'My Lord, Ladies and Gentlemen, sorry to interrupt, but something truly terrible has happened.'

The whole room turned to face Semiramis. They all knew she would not intrude unless the matter was of supreme importance.

'We are receiving reports from the Canary Islands of a volcanic split on the main island of Gran Canaria. It seems to be relating to five volcanoes along the island erupting at the same time. This has caused a split down the centre of the island.' She waited for the people in the room to digest this.

'There is no easy way to put this. There is a giant super tsunami moving across the Atlantic Ocean at supersonic speed headed for the US east coast. It will hit in less than two hours.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 44

Cold dark silence

The cold dark silence of space enveloped the spaceship Phoenix. She was now well on her way back to Earth. But, even travelling at the speed she had picked up by taking a sling-shot from the orbit of Mars, it would still take five and a half months to get back to the Mother planet; one hundred and sixty four days.

The android Steve has docked Sarsen One onto the mother craft and is now working with the astronauts.

The scutters were back to their normal selves performing essential maintenance tasks. The four astronauts were fully occupied with converting the landing modules back from being living accommodations to becoming functioning spacecraft at the ends of the turning arms of the Phoenix.

It was Hoshi Masuto who first noticed the extremity of the silence. She was working with Preston Ashton in the old Euclid module under zero point eight gravity when she commented,

'Ash, have you been on the radio lately?'

'I don't believe I have. There has been no need for communications with Earth, but, come to think of it, they have been quiet.'

'The Net has also been very quiet of late. It is as if they have declared a holiday. Do you think we should try to waken them up to find out if everything is ok?'

'Yup, Hoshi. I will just finish nailing this cabinet down here.' He clipped the drinks cabinet down; everything was anchored down, just in case. Otherwise it was made to be as close to normal furniture as possible.

He climbed the ladder up to the Zvenda module in the Blue Sarsen, where the radio room was located,

'Phoenix calling Houston, This is Preston Ashton on board the interplanetary craft Phoenix calling Houston, over.'

The old-fashioned call sign 'Over' has been reinstated here to signify that the caller is now awaiting a response.

Ash timed his wait. After thirty seconds, he repeated his call. Not out of impatience, because he knew that it took seven minutes for his transmission to reach the Earth from where the Phoenix was, and then another seven minutes to get a signal back. Hoshi came into the module,

'The only thing I can get on the Net is from Steve and the Scutters.'

'They sound like a pop group of the sixties!' Ash replied as he moved to try another communications system, 'I'll try the cell-phone sub-ether system; we may be close enough to get some response.'

He prodded and tapped at two computer screens in turn. Then a dialling tone could be heard. He held a finger in the air, then pointed at Hoshi before turning back to the screens. The familiar beeping for a cell phone replaced the dial tone. But they both knew that these sounds were generated here on the Phoenix. Then the sound of the ringing tone told them that they had got through. After only two rings a very familiar, yet alien voice replied,

'Sarsen Two.'

Ash and Hoshi looked at each other in amazement. The transmission delay was not there; this did not come from somewhere else in the Solar System – this was very close.

Ash responded almost automatically,

'Sarsen Two from Phoenix. What is your position?'

He shrugged his shoulders at Hoshi. Then the rely came over the conference system,

'I am two thousand one hundred and eighty-five miles behind you. I estimate joining you in forty-seven minutes.'

Gerald sounded just like he always did; completely without sentiment, everything he said came out as a cold statement of fact.

This worried Ash,

'Shit.' He covered the mike as he turned to Hoshi, 'What the f.'

Hoshi touched herself on the head, and shrugged, signifying that there was nothing on the Net.

Ash turned back to the mike,

'Roger that Sarsen Two. What are your intentions?'

'Docking should take place in about fifty minutes. I am looking forward to working with you again, Doctor Ashton.'

Ash could not think of anything else to say, so he simply replied,

'Me too, Gerald. We shall look out for you.' With that he closed the transmission and looked directly at Hoshi.

'What do you make of that, Hoshi?'

Hoshi shook her head,

'There has been nothing on the Net. Do you suppose he has gone into stealth mode?'

'That implies something sneaky and devious. I don't think that fits in with him telling us exactly what he intends to do. See if you can see him on the radar, will you? Meanwhile I think we had better notify the others of this.'

Galina Danilenko and Jake Jensen were at the far end of the Red Sarsen. Ash called them on the personal intercom,

'Hi, you two. We have had a development up here, could we meet up in the Euclid lighthouse room for a conflab?'

The re-entry module in which Ash and Hoshi had returned to the Phoenix in has been changed to a more comfortable living accommodation setup with equipment taken from the Orion craft, with its semi-spiral staircase leading down they could make it to a lounge area. A small circular room approximately ten feet across, the floor was actually twelve feet across, essential equipment took up the other two feet. The carpet was a plain oatmeal colour, matched by the curved couch that had been made by Mark Singleton to be disassembled, then re-used. The two large, segmented screens were mounted on the walls to provide the perception of a room with windows. The central control consul, that was positioned in the middle of the room for the outbound journey was now located against the wall directly facing the exit from the staircase.

As Galina and Jake made their way towards the far end of the ship, and Ash and Hoshi did the same, moving from the Blue Zvenda module, out towards the end of the turning arm, the ship made compensation for the movement of their mass by transferring liquids around the ship.

Jake was finishing the installation of beds in what was to become the male dormitory module at the end of the Red Sarsen. Galina led the way up the ladder to the first module, a docking module without the benefit of an internal ladder. She climbed through this structure into the high-G Zvenda module. It was referred to this way because it has positioned further out than the Zvenda module on the Blue Sarsen; therefore, it had a higher gravity level. As she passed through the Zvenda module she checked the door to the small supply module that was attached to the module, then she began encountering the laboratory and other scientific working modules.

The gravity was getting weaker as she climbed, by the time she passed through the fourth science module she was almost weightless. The hatch that opened into the central White Sarsen opened easily, leading into a flat circular area where there was no up, and no down. Slight gravity made things cling to the outside of the circle. As she emerged into the void Galina took hold of a hand rail, then deftly allowed her body to pivot around her hands until her feet pointed at the far hatchway. She then let go and pushed herself towards the hatch twenty-six feet away. The aim is to land gently on the hatch, Galina had developed the feat to such a pitch that she could perform as many summersaults as she wanted on the way across. This time she knew that the reason she was taking the journey was serious, so she did not take on such flippant manoeuvres. Both feet landed gently directly on the hatch, she bent down to open the Blue portal just as Jake appeared at the Red hatchway from where she had just emerged. He skilfully followed the movement performed by Galina, to land close by her side.

'May I be of some assistance?' he smiled.

'Thank you kind sir,' she replied, 'but I have this covered.'

With that she slid quietly down the shaft into the Blue Sarsen. The first module she dropped down into, for that is how she entered these, the first big unit, the Low Gravity Science Modules. She slowly almost drifted down the double module, increasing speed as she touched down on the hatchway that led to the Bridge area. Here the structure seemed to open out, but that was just an illusion caused by the attachment of service modules alongside the main structure, the Quest air lock, the viewing Cupola, and the Bridge construction itself.

She couldn't resist a glance at the Copula as she drifted by, holding on to the ladder's hand rail now, the gravity began to take hold as she descended through 50% gravity by the main communications tower attachment box. Then into the Blue Zvenda unit, the Comms section. The American Lab was the penultimate module she passed through, now under 85% gravity, she felt the welcome effects of feeling weight on her feet, giving greater command of how her body moved.

It is a strange luxury in space to drink coffee as if you were on Earth. Ash dispensed fresh coffee into the specially made space cups that look just like normal coffee cups, but are, in fact, hollow, and made of hard plastic.

Hoshi was configuring the consul to read radar inputs when Galina descended the stairs.

'Hi, what is occurring?' she quipped.

Ash responded with a cup of coffee,

'Have a seat,' he looked at the top of the stairs to see Jake's feet appearing, 'Hoshi is setting things up now.'

Jake took a coffee, then joined Galina on the couch. Hoshi sat by the consul, Ash stood by her as she began,

'We have had a strange communication.' She looked at her watch, 'twenty minutes ago the Android we know as Gerald told us that he is expecting to join us in,' she consulted her watch again, 'thirty minutes.'

Jake was first to react to this news,

'What? That bastard tried to kill us all.'

Hoshi responded quietly,

'Yes. But permission for that action came from an electronic patch. I have not been able to find any sign of it on the Net recently. In fact there has been no activity on the Net from the Earth for quite some time now.' He surveyed the faces in the room. 'I think the patch has expired, and they have all reverted to type. You have all seen how Steve behaves as if the patch had never been there.'

Galina pointed out,

'Yes, but he resisted the patch instruction early on.'

'And that showed the way for the rest of them. Or should I say that it showed us what could happen.' Hoshi was trying to put a positive slant on all of this.

Ash took a decisive lead,

'But this is different. He was far more determined and resourceful to finish us off. I don't trust him, and think we should resist any attempt to get to us or our ship.'

Jake agreed,

'Ash is right. We only lose once. The risk is too great.'

Even Hoshi had to agree that it would be foolish in the extreme to allow Gerald to get too close.

Ash looked at his watch,

'The clock is ticking, people. Twenty-two minutes to docking.' He turned and looked at Hoshi, 'What can we do?'

'I have him on radar now. There is no way we can outrun him, he has a much better power to weight ratio, and we are very limited in our stresses.'

Galina gave a suggestion,

'Can we alter our rate of turn to make it difficult for him to dock?'

Hoshi butted in at this juncture,

'I have him on telemetry.' All the machinery, including the androids, were linked by the Net; it was this that now gave Hoshi an edge. 'He has used a lot of fuel to get where he is. There may not be enough for a complicated re-join manoeuvre.'

Jake mainly addressed Hoshi as he said,

'You will have to watch those stresses. I think that is our best chance.'

Ash then asked,

'So it is decided that we do not trust Gerald.'

'I think that is the general feeling around here.' Hoshi replied.

Ash looked at his watch again,

'We had better get to positions people, fourteen minutes to docking.' He turned to the consul, 'I can begin accelerating the turn from here, can you get to the Bridge, Hoshi, and watch those stresses.'

Galina then put in an observation,

'We had all better get away from here, the g-forces are going to increase.' She followed Hoshi up the semi-circular stairs.

Gerald gradually approached the turning Phoenix, he had used quite a lot of his precious fuel in decelerating to match the speed of the Phoenix. The android was expecting a turn rate of four point eight rpm to give centrifugal gravity of zero point two five G to the modules at the ends.

Ash had spun the speed up to three point seven rpm. He was still in the Euclid module; the G forces pushed him down into the chair. Although it was far from the seven or eight Gs he had got used to as a fighter pilot, then an astronaut, but this is sustained and constant.

Gerald adjusted his approach path to compensate for the faster turn rate.

Ash was in contact with Hoshi,

'Ash to Bridge. I am going to fire the nose retard thrusters, at the same time as slowing the turn rate.'

'Ok, Ash. I will watch the strain gauges on the rear Graphene lines. So far we are only at one hundred and twenty-three per cent of their design maximum workload.'

Gerald had by now managed to match their turn rate and was approaching the docking station with Sarsen Two.

Ash fired twelve forward facing thrusters at the same time as the thrusters that control the turn rate.

The docking parts of Sarsen Two and the Phoenix moved away from each other. The Mother Ship began to slow its turn rate, and at the same time, but much, much slower it began to slow its forward momentum.

Gerald first noticed the change in the turn rate, and began taking the necessary steps to match this new turn rate.

Then he noticed the whole ship was slowing. Sarsen Two was now moving forwards along the structure of the White Sarsen towards the arms that form the Red Sarsen, the Blue Sarsen, and the two opposite nuclear reactor arms. One of which was empty now that Silver had taken the reactor down to the surface of Mars.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the nose of Sarsen Two moved closer to the base of the Blue Sarsen.

Galina looked out of the Cupola, but could see nothing because the windows in it face the front Hoshi called across to her,

'Here, I have found a camera with a good view.'

She went over to the monitor just in time to see the blunt nose of Sarsen Two fill the camera lens.

'Oops.' She exclaimed, 'That is a little too close.'

Hoshi made a few adjustments, then a picture taken from further down the Blue Sarsen came onto the monitor. Galina could now see Sarsen Two at a strange angle with its nose too far forward.

'It is perilously close to the Graphene lines.' She called.

Just then Gerald must have decided that was the case too, the craft suddenly lurched upwards, backwards and away from the Phoenix.

'He's going away.' The excited tones in her voice were clear for all to hear.

Because of the way the android took Sarsen Two away from the Mother Ship he was falling further behind the Phoenix. Ash decided this could be in their favour, so he fired the main rocket engines at the back of the Phoenix. This caused Gerald in Sarsen Two to fall still further behind the Phoenix.

Rotation rate was then returned to normal. Speed was kept at the newer, higher value when Gerald began another attempt to mate with the Mother Ship.

As he approached the docking station Ash increased the rotation rate slightly to two point eight rpm, then dropped it down to one rpm. This gave everyone aboard very low gravity. Then he stopped it altogether. This was the most difficult thing for Gerald and Sarsen Two to deal with; because whilst turning there is always a certain level of centrifugal energy to take into consideration. Now the Mother Ship had stopped, this energy is no longer there. It took the combined computers of Gerald and Sarsen Two several seconds to readjust to this new situation. They were still turning with the Phoenix when she stopped. The loss of the centrifugal force meant that Sarsen Two began drifting towards the Phoenix, then she moved towards the position occupied by Sarsen One which Steve had docked on the other side of the White Sarsen.

Galina watched all this in the monitor Hoshi had set up for her.

Ash monitored the situation on screens showing the situation in 3D from computer interpretations of readings. He called Jake, who was watching on a set of slave monitors,

'Jake, can we throw Sarsen One at him now?'

Jake was taken aback by this suggestion,

'Sorry, Skip, it's pressurised. By the time we sealed it off the chances of hitting him would be very small. Granted, if we just cut it loose it would really get in the way of anyone trying to dock – especially if it were rotating at a slower rate than we were.'

'Great idea! Hoshi, can you prepare Sarsen One to be released?'

'Ok, Skip.' She made a few adjustments on her displays, 'Depressurising. Ready to release in thirty seconds from... mark.'

'Spinning up to three rpm.'

Ash began the rotating motion of the Phoenix,

'We shall release at three, then move back to our normal two rpm – that will leave Sarsen One orbiting us every thirty seconds. It takes at least ninety seconds to dock – even with all the computing systems working.'

'Preparing to release.' Hoshi held her position on her instruments, 'Permission to commit, on your count.'

Ash watched his displays, which told him of the relative positions of the ships, and the rate of turn. Sarsen Two had now almost matched the rate of turn of the Phoenix.

'Release in five... four... three... two... one... GO.'

Hoshi tapped a mechanical 'Enter' key. Ash watched the generated images on his screens. Jake gave the ultimate confirmation,

'Sarsen One has been released.'

Ash confirmed the position of the Sarsen,

'Sarsen One is orbiting us at seven feet and holding.' He touched the displays several times, 'Moving Sarsen One back to avoid the Graphene lines.' This was necessary to avoid hitting Graphene lines that are used to reduce the stress workloads on the extended structures, 'moving up to normal turn rate.'

The Phoenix changed its turn rate to two rpm, Sarsen One dropped back, it did not increase its turn rate; It stayed at three rpm. Every thirty seconds the big Sarsen orbited the rear of the Phoenix.

Gerald in Sarsen Two held back. He called the Phoenix,

'Sarsen Two to Phoenix.'

Ash replied; he tried not to sound smug,

'Phoenix to Sarsen Two. Hello, Gerald. What can I do for you?'

'I don't know, Dr Ashton. I have sustained some damage on Mars; the docking system seems to be malfunctioning in some way. Now we seem to have Sarsen One orbiting the rear of the Phoenix, making it impossible to dock, so I will have to stay back here until we can organise something.'

'Ok, Gerald. I suggest you put your craft on automatic, and shut yourself down to preserve energy, if you have taken some damage, you may leak power in ways that you do not know about.'

'Good idea, Dr Ashton. I will do as you suggest, I will transmit a wake-up code for you to revive me if needed before I switch off.'

'Roger that, Gerald.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 45

Meeting in Hilbert Space

Sometime later the interplanetary craft Phoenix with Sarsen I reattached, closely followed by the lone Sarsen II, hurtled through space heading for home. They were now only two weeks away, two million miles as the crow flies. The modules Euclid and Pythagoras were in the middle of being re-converted into re-entry modules.

All four astronauts have been trying to contact Earth on the hour, every hour. It is now getting to be worrying.

The crew, along with Steve, meet on the bridge to discuss the loss of communications with Earth. Gerald has been shut down.

The modules divided the bridge into joined sections alongside the Quest airlock and the cupola viewing window. Steve and Hoshi sat in the inner module, they could see the through to the square module on the other side of the main structure that carried the air lock and cupola. Through the circular access hatch, they could see Galina and Jake. Ash stood in the middle space looking out of the cupola at the stars as they turned slowly. All except one. A bright bluish dot seemed to remain stationary in the centre of the circular window. That was their target – Earth.

They explore what they can do to communicate with the Earth, Gerald suggests calling Michelle on her cell phone, the way he did on the way out.

Ash thought this to be a good idea, all else had failed,

'What about the time delay? What will it be from out here?'

Hoshi answered,

'About twelve seconds each way.'

'If we manage to get a connection, we will not know for twenty-four seconds?'

'I'm afraid that is the case, Ash.'

Ash shrugged his shoulders,

'When your cell phone rings under normal situations, you say 'hello' – then wait for a reply. If a reply does not hit you in less than four seconds you know it is from a call centre trying to sell you something you do not want, so you hang up.' He turned to Steve, who would be initiating the call, 'Sorry, Steve. It won't work.'

Galina then came up with an idea,

'What time is it on Earth? Anyone know?'

Everyone looked at Steve, who said,

'It is six-twenty-two a.m. in Idaho.'

Galina then put forward her idea,

'If there is someone whom cannot answer the phone on Earth, you send them a text. Why not send her a text?'

They all looked at Steve. He pondered for a moment,

'Yes. I have the capacity to intercept her carrier signal with a text. What would you like to say?'

Ash thought for a minute, then said,

'Tell her that we have lost contact with Earth, and we need to re-establish this as soon as possible. We are now two weeks before entering Earth orbit. Normal conversation can be entered into in eight days. All our hailing channels are open.'

'Ok, Doctor Ashton. That is now on its way to Earth. She will receive it in fourteen seconds. I have taken the liberty of checking her carrier signal- it is active and good. The terminal seems to be somewhere in Idaho. We shall await a reply. I will flash it to the GP screens when it arrives.'

The GP screens to which Steve referred were the general-purpose screens scattered throughout the ship. The crew continued with their chores, the message would make itself known when it arrives, but just in case, Ash suggested to Steve,

'How about a better alarm call when the reply comes in?'

'What would you suggest, sir? A submarine klaxon perhaps?' the loud alarm used in submarine films filled the ship,

'Or a football crowd cheering...' cheering flooded the ship,

'or a human voice,' "WE INTERRUPT THE SCHEDULED PROGRAM WITH THIS BREAKING NEWS".

Jake was closest to the android by this time,

'The first one is a little too alarming; the football crowd sounds too exuberant. Remember, there may be bad news from Earth, of the three, it looks like the news breaking one wins.'

Hoshi had been thinking about this,

'Why not just play some music? A pre-arranged song perhaps? Anything by Bowie would be fitting, but not 'Life on bloody Mars!''

Galina made a suggestion,

'I have always liked 'Diamond Dogs', do you have that one?'

Hoshi was first to respond,

'Yes, I have it on my MP3.'

Ash looked at Steve, who simply nodded,

'Right, that does it then, when you hear 'Diamond Dogs' we will have our reply, we can then begin to plan our return to mother Earth.'

They dispersed and went back to their tasks.

Twelve seconds later Michelle Romero's cell phone pinged as it received a message from an unknown number. It did not wake her.

Semiramis picked up the strange signal of a text from outer space going to Michelle's cell-phone, then rang the number without moving. She was able to do this by using the newly restored Net.

Michelle woke with a start, the light came streaming in from the early sun, low in the sky.

The window on the phone showed that a call was coming from an unknown source, she answered,

'Romero office.'

'Good morning, Michelle, Semiramis here. Sorry to disturb you at this early hour, you have just received a text from an unusual source; I think it is from space.'

'Oh. I see, I'll check and get back to you, Sam.'

'There is no need, Michelle. I will be able to read it as soon as you open it. If you don't mind.' The last bit was a little unnecessary.

'No, not at all. Here goes.'

She ended the call, and then opened up her txt service. Both she and Sam picked up the message at the same time:

"Hi Michelle. Ash here, I hope you get this. Ring me when you can. We have lost contact with Earth, and we need to re-establish this as soon as possible. We are now two weeks before entering Earth orbit. Normal conversation can be entered into in eight days. All our hailing channels are open. Looking forward to hearing your news and seeing you in the very near future. By the way, what are you doing in Idaho?"

The phone rang again; Michelle knew it was Sam,

'Hi,' she answered the call; 'Is that great news?' this was a genuine question, because she knew the conditions on Earth. She could hear Sam moving as she replied,

'I'm on my way. We shall put together a reply and start to work out how to bring them back.'

Michelle had only just finished dressing when there was a knock at her hotel door. She opened the door to find her assistant Sem standing there.

'This may take some explaining.' Sem said.

'Hello, Sem. I was just expecting...'

'Someone else?'

'Yes.'

'No, Michelle. I am Semeramis, the Goddess of Communications. Here to help you.'

'Well.' Michelle was non-plussed.

'I don't know what to say.'

'You don't need to say anything; it is my job to know everything people are communicating about.'

Michelle stood back and let Sem into the room. As she closed the door behind her Sem added,

'I am confident that we are on the same page here, so let's get down to work.'

Together they put together a reply to the interplanetary craft Phoenix:

'Good to hear from you, Phoenix. Things here on Earth have taken a turn for the worse. There is no easy way to put this, so I will just tell it like it is. A Tsunami came across the Atlantic from the Canaries. It hit Florida and wiped out the whole state. A wave 20 storeys high went straight across the peninsula at something like 500 mph, then carried on to devastate Mississippi and Alabama. Long Island and New York have ceased to exist; everything has been swept to upstate New York. Washington did not escape, it has been so badly damaged that the capital has been moved to Chicago. The whole Eastern seaboard has taken a massive hit, because of this, the country is messed up now. The cell phones have only just begun working again, even the Net was disrupted. It does not look very good for a return; almost the whole of NASA has been wiped out. Mike Xanthros was in Europe when it hit. He had to fly back via Japan and California. He is now operating out of Edwards Air Force base where the remnants of NASA are gathering. The news of your position will now be broadcast via the Net. Will get back to you as soon as we have any news. Michelle and Sam.'

Ash stood by the screen in the remains of the Euclid Lounge, Hoshi saw him read the message, then joined him.

'That looks bad. There must have been millions killed.' She said as Ash turned away from the screen.

Ash shook his head as he tried to comprehend what had happened,

'The whole of Florida swept into the Gulf of Mexico!' he made a sweeping gesture with his hand, 'just like that.'

Hoshi sat on the framework that was once the couch,

'How will this affect our chances of a safe return?'

Jake's voice then came from the intercom,

'Christ, Ash. Did you see that?'

'Yes, Jake. I think we all saw it. Steve do you have any ideas?'

'There is a lot of activity on the Net concerning this. Why don't we meet up in the bridge, and there should be more clear information available by then?'

The four astronauts and one android made their way back to the bridge again.

To everyone's surprise the first voice they heard was the soft gentle tones of Semiramis,

'Good morning Phoenix. I feel I that I must address you in this way, because I have no way of knowing who is there. I have here with me Michelle. Xanthros is on line in Edwards, along with a handful of NASA staff. What I suggest is we all communicate via the Net. I will put all communications on the screens we are all using. This obviously takes a little time; that will cancel out the time delays for signals travelling from space, or from California via satellite.'

Steve replied from the Phoenix. His words appeared almost instantly on the screens of the spaceship but took eight seconds to appear on Earth. That was because the Net operates faster than radio waves.

'We have four astronauts here, plus one android, myself Steve, and Gerald in Sarsen II who is following us; he had trouble docking.'

Semiramis picked up other signals from the Phoenix,

'Is Gerald in hibernation mode?'

'Yes, I will alert him now.' Steve replied.

Xanthros began whilst Gerald booted himself up,

'The original plan was to bring you guys back in to Canaveral, but there is nothing there now except the Gators. What state are you in now?'

Ash began typing his reply when the soft voice of Semiramis interrupted him,

'There is no need to type it in, Dr Ashton, if you speak your words, Steve can put them directly into the Net.'

'Ok. We are stripping down the living accommodation in the re-entry modules. Supplies are plentiful, we were expecting to have six returning, there are only four of us, and there is plenty of water and food left. Fuel is not so good. We have had a few unauthorised burns on the way back, so we are really quite close to our reserves.'

Gerald came on line,

'There is still the nuclear reactor, we could use it to produce oxygen and hydrogen, and there is spare aluminium in the structure. We can make more rocket fuel given time.'

Hoshi responded quite quickly,

'That is a very dangerous procedure. I would not countenance it whilst there are humans on board unless the situation is very desperate.'

Ash brought a note of sensible to this,

'And there is not time. How much fuel could be made in the time left, once the necessary equipment has been assembled?'

Hoshi made another observation,

'We cannot buy time either, if we do not reach Earth in the right point in space we will shoot past at something like ten thousand miles per hour. By the time we had made enough fuel to turn and enter the correct orbit we would have been drawn into the sun.'

Xanthros came into the conversation from Edwards Air Force base in California,

'I have a team here with me who can calculate the correct entry point and speed for you. We shall take into consideration your precarious fuel state. Don't worry, we will get you home safely.'

Jake and Ash looked at each other and exchanged dubious expressions.

'I hear you have Gerald there with you, but not in the same ship? How did this happen?'

Ash replied quickly,

'He had trouble docking.'

'So he is in one of the Sarsens?'

Gerald replied calmly,

'Yes, Professor Xanthros, I am in Sarsen II.'

'Have you any fuel that could be transferred to the Phoenix?'

Gerald pondered his situation,

'I will have to use the main J2 engines without ullage 'You cannot use the J2s without ullage. You will not be able to guarantee all four engines will light evenly.'

'The eight thrusters firing simultaneously to the rear would serve as ullage, but they will probably give me enough forward momentum to meet the Phoenix on their own.'

'Very good, Gerald. Make preparations to dock.'

'Roger that, Professor.'

Ash and Jake looked worried; it was Gerald who tried to kill them on Mars to prevent them returning to Earth.

Xanthros called the call to an end,

'My team and I have a lot of number crunching to do, so we must get on with it. Semiramis, if you could arrange a comms check every hour we can keep track on how they are doing.'

This told Hoshi that the Net was not as efficient as it used to be.

'Very well, Professor, I will open the Net every hour on the hour.'

Ash nodded to Jake and gestured to follow him away from the bridge.

When they were a couple of modules away from the others Ash said quietly to Jake,

'I don't like the look of this. It was as if we had no choice in the matter.'

'Can we get a meeting together Ash? Hoshi will have to wear her hood.'

'Yes, you are right. Tell them we need a lift in the Blue Orion module, I will go down now to make room.'

Ash and Jake were not the only ones with concerns. Michelle asked Semiramis,

'That was very interesting, Sam. How did you do it? The normal time delay in messages from two million miles away is about twelve seconds, I calculated the time delay we had was about four point three seconds. That is impossible.'

'I use an abstract multidimensional domain called Hilbert space. This has evolved in line with the Schrodinger equation.'

'Very good. Now what does mean in plain English?'

Sam thought for a second or two, then turned to Michelle, and with an understanding look on her face said,

'Well, I'll try. But it won't be easy.'

She took a deep breath,

'One element is superposition, where particles appear to be in two places at once.'

Michelle followed.

'Then there is entanglement.'

Michelle nodded.

'This is where two particles influence each other, no matter how far apart they are.'

Michelles' eyes narrowed.

'These properties are used in conjunction with the randomness of quantum physics.'

Michelle had gone now, but Sem had to finish,

'Schrodinger found out in 1952 that even light operates in waves, within these systems some strange things happen.

We have found ways of using these weird schemes to communicate in ways that supersede normal radio waves.'

Michelle smiled and shook her head,

'Jesus wept! I'm glad I asked!'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 46

Gerald and Sarsen II

The four astronauts met in the Euclid module. Hoshi was wearing her Graphene hooded garment, which meant that the Net could not intercept her.

Various bits of kit were lying around, but the important thing was that the electronic equipment was in the process of being changed from living accommodation to re-entry module status, so there was nothing capable of transmitting what was said to the robots Net.

Ash began the conversation,

'I do not trust this Gerald character any longer.'

Hoshi was quick to point out,

'He is not a character, Ash. He is simply an android; a machine that will do whatever it is instructed to do, and it will never give up.'

'That is as maybe; but he still tried to kill us to prevent us from leaving Mars – and may I remind you all that his reason for doing what he did was in order to prevent us getting back to Earth to tell what we saw and found out.'

Jake agreed,

'And we are at his last chance saloon. In five or six days, we will be in radio range of anyone on Earth who has a radio. If he is to stop us, he must do it now. This old crate is in pretty poor state, it has been stressed way beyond anything expected of it. We are in unknown territory now as far as the state of the structure is concerned; most of the strain gauges have been red lined many times. We do not know how much more she can take, and what is likely to happen if something fails. What I am saying is we are not home yet, and this could be our biggest trial.'

Galina tried to inject some humour, her Russian accent actually lent itself well to the attempt,

'What you are saying is that the wobbling has now reached academic proportions; one more wobble and the wheels fall off.'

Jake gave her a reassuring smile,

'Yes, honey, but I don't think that right now is the time for levity.'

She pursed her lips and shrugged.

Hoshi said,

'She has a point. If Sarsen 2 comes in hard for docking, who knows what damage the resulting shock wave will do, or if he just catches one of the rear Graphene rigging lines. That could send part of one of the arms flying off, upsetting the balance of the ship like a propeller that has lost a tip; the whole structure would be shaken to pieces.'

Jake looked at Hoshi,

'What you are saying is that even to attempt docking could prove fatal for the whole mission.'

'Yes, it is no longer a question of whether he has any intent to harm us or not. In fact, I have not picked up anything suggesting that he has been re-programmed to do harm. But then that may be because he does not need any re-programming; and he is still bent on our destruction from his previous instructions.'

Ash remembered the talk Xanthros had delivered in the cave,

'If this devious bastard wants us to fail, he doesn't need the compliance of an android, he knows the ship has taken a battering, all he needs to do is convince the android that he is doing something for the good of the mission. Xanthros already thinks that Gerald has something wrong with his docking procedures, he doesn't know it was us preventing him from docking.'

Hoshi came back,

'I tried to analyse Gerald's system situation when the Net became available again, he seems to have taken a quite a beating. His neural functioning is down to about as little as 47 per cent, most of the sensors in his head seem to be malfunctioning, or their functions have been transferred to other organs. His physical capability is so messed up that I can't even get a reading; there seem to be partial readings for four arms, but two of these are ghost readings, one of the others is only operating at 28 per cent.'

Jake commented,

'You mean to tell me that he is not really capable of a safe docking?'

'That would appear so.'

An observation was made by Galina,

'I think you may be missing something here,' her focus seemed to be at Ash and Hoshi, 'surely the Sarsen is capable of docking on its own.'

'Yes, it is.' Hoshi's hands parted, then joined up again, 'However, there are strange things about the Net, and participants within it who are closest to whatever event is happening have the greatest effect on it. That prevents inputs from distant elements influencing events over which they have little or no knowledge of.'

'How, then can participants on Earth control things on Mars?'

'That is down to authority, instructions and even electronic patches to software. All Xanthros has to do to encourage disaster is to let Gerald do his worst.'

Jake stood up,

'I think we all know what to do, Hoshi and I will go to the bridge, if you two can keep Steve occupied; I don't know how he will react to us preventing Gerald from entering the ship, so it may be as well if he is kept out of the way.'

Ash led the way up the makeshift ladder from the work in progress area they had been meeting in, he was followed by Hoshi.

When they got to the bridge Hoshi elected to keep her hood and cloak on to prevent the Net from reading her thoughts. Ash checked on Sarsen Two's position. It had begun its manoeuvres in preparation to dock.

The intercom unit by Ash's side illuminated, as if there was a call coming in. However, no other unit was activated.

He tapped the screen.

'Hello, Doctor Ashton. My name is Semiramis. I am here on Earth with Michelle Romero, but I do not have time to go into my position now, I have patched in to your intercom system in order to communicate with you alone. I am able to tell you that Xanthros is in constant contact with Gerald – he seems to be reassuring him that he can do this, and it is to save the mission. But I know that Gerald is badly damaged, and is therefore incapable of flying this mission, you must do something about it.'

Ash looked at Hoshi, she had not heard this,

'Yes, we presumed as much. How did you get the information? Are you on the Net? And is that how you managed to contact us?'

'Yes, I control the Net. Because of that, I can have my own private communications setup. No-one else can hear what we say here.'

Ash looked across again at Hoshi, who was still quite oblivious to the conversation going on,

'What do you intend to do Doctor?' Semiramis asked.

'Can you convince Gerald that he should not attempt to dock?'

'I have tried that, but Xanthros has re-instated his mission control protocol with full authority. He is now like a child who is determined to do what he sees as the most important thing in his life. It is called the Hewitt Protocol, which implants stubbornness to the extent of self-destruction. He sees it as his mission to fly the Sarsen to docking position.'

Hoshi called to Ash,

'Sarsen Two inbound.'

'I have the helm, Dr Masuto. Stop rotation.' Ash took over flying the Phoenix, and forgot that Semiramis was still on the intercom, 'That should give him something to think about.'

But Ash knew that it was only a delaying manoeuvre – and a dangerous one at that; the Phoenix had vast arrays of Graphene rigging lines, if Sarsen Two should touch any of these because of differences in rotational speeds they could begin to tear the Phoenix apart.

The sensors within Sarsen 2 picked up the problem, and alerted Gerald. Lights flashed around his position in the front section. He touched screens around him, although there were three screens with finger-sized holes in them where the android had tapped a little too hard, there was more than enough to provide the data required. Then another one went pop. The on-board computers re-shuffled the readings and information given by the remaining screens, they could do this until there was only one screen left.

He lifted the nose of the Sarsen, then backed it off to avoid the Graphene lines. The computers told him of the difference in rotational speeds, they also told him of the continuing decrease in speed of rotation by the Phoenix, but he missed that vital piece of data.

Sarsen Two still rotated around the centre line of the Phoenix at four-point seven revolutions per minute. The Phoenix was slowing. This approach was going to go wrong too.

Ash tapped screens,

'Ignition sequencer on line.'

Hoshi looked alarmed, but continued with the trained response,

'Checkout valve to engine return position.'

Gerald raised the nose of Sarsen 2 again, then allowed natural movement to move him back towards the rear of the Phoenix. As he drifted back, the effects of his thrusters caused the Sarsen to track back along its own centre line.

'Tank pressure 375.' Hoshi called, this was confirmed by Ash's reply,

'Two second burn on all main engines.'

Ash looked at the relative position display, paused, then called,

'Ignition.'

Ignition caused the combustion zone pressure to increase. There was no turbine combustion gas to cool the nozzle extensions (the bell-shaped exhausts at the back of the rocket engines); this is not needed in the cold of deep space. The four massive F-1 rocket engines burst into life with orange, then yellow, then white, then almost invisible blue flames. They each produced one and a half million pounds thrust each in these conditions.

Two seconds later, they shut down as quickly as they had fired up.

Sarsen 2 floated down past the rear of the Phoenix. As the nose section approached the rocket nozzles, they fired. The Sarsen was in a more or less upside-down position, with the pilot nearest to the mother ship.

The first thing that Gerald knew of the intentions of the crew of the Phoenix was the burst of white light that entered his cockpit from the F-1 engines on the Phoenix.

As he moved his hand to press his engine start command the shock wave from the rocket engines hit his ship. This made his ship try to move away from the blast, the violent movement introduced gravity forces that seemed to come from the window in front of Gerald. His hand and arm shot up into the air involuntarily, this caused his hand to come into contact with the overhead controls. As his fingers tore across the switches and screens above the window, his seat belts held his body in close contact with the structure of the ship. But his arms were flailing about – and they were not of skin and bone. Being an android, Gerald's hands, arms and fingers were mechanical, and very strong.

Whilst one hand was destroying the panel above his head, the other went straight through the front window. This allowed one point six seconds' worth of six million pounds of thrust to enter the small cockpit area.

First the glass from the shattered window went straight through Gerald's already damaged body. The shell of this was mainly metal and carbon fibre, but the glass hit him at supersonic speed, and went straight through.

Then the power of the shock wave hit him. This almost flattened him against the seat, before it was ripped from its mountings to be smashed against the rear bulkhead. This was never intended to take this kind of workload, so the whole cockpit contents were propelled back, into the main body of the Sarsen. For a very short period, this area was flooded with violent light. Then the F-1 engines stopped, leaving the area dark, and with bits of android and other machinery floating around.

Sarsen 2 began to turn around its own length as it drifted away from the Phoenix.

Semiramis spoke to Ash again,

'That did not please Xanthros. I have someone here who would like a word with you.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 47

Citation

As Michelle put the phone to her ear she heard the long lost, but familiar tones of Preston Ashton coming through the distance of space,

'Hi, hun.'

'Hi yourself. What have you been up to?'

She waited for a response, but was surprised to get a reply almost at once,

'You would not believe it, trust me on this, you would not believe it. We will be home soon to tell you all about it. What have you been doing with the planet whilst we have been away?'

'This is unbelievable, too. Most of the eastern seaboard has been lost. Even places as far in as Washington has been hit. Canaveral has gone; the whole launch complex was washed into the Gulf of Mexico. Downtown Houston has been badly damaged; there are people still there, but no communications, no law and order. We reckon the supermarkets would have run out of food within days, the gas stations may have lasted a little longer, but not much. The people there are stranded, with no chance of food coming in to them, and no chance of getting out.'

'Jeez, that sounds real bad, hun. How did you manage to escape?'

'Tom Collins and I have come to chase a lead. There was an information leak from within NASA, and we were given the task of chasing it down; the trail led us here to Des Moines.'

'Gotta go now, hun. We got a planet to find. See you soon.'

'So long for now, nice to hear your voice again.'

Semiramis took the phone from Michelle as she finished the call. Her face was serious,

'There are dark clouds gathering. I told you that Xanthros was not happy about things.'

She explained what had just happened,

'He has just lost the latest round in space. It was probably his best chance of stopping the Phoenix.'

'But – I always thought Professor Xanthros was on our side.'

'He was, but for his own ends. Now there have been developments that mean he wants to keep the secrets from coming back to Earth.'

Semiramis took Michelle's hand,

'But now you must leave Des Moines – Tom is on his way over to take you to the airport. Do have your case ready at the hotel?'

'Yes, Sam. Always. But where are we going?'

'Anywhere out of town; it is not safe for you any longer; do not even go outside until Tom gets here.'

Michelle waited in the reception of the foyer until Tom Collins turned up to take her to the hotel to pick up her suitcase and belongings.

'Hi, Tom. Where are we going?'

'The airport. I have hired a little plane to get us out of here.'

'Did you hire it on the phone?'

'No, I went in person; Sam said it might not be a good idea to use the phone system.'

They gathered her belongings, and then hurried out to the car. Tom had to hesitate as he placed the suitcase on the ground to unlock the car. As he pressed the fob, the sound of screeching tyres drowned out the clicking of unlocking. He did not even look around; in almost one movement, he opened the car door, threw the cases onto the back seat, and then swept Michelle in behind the cases. As he leapt into the drivers' seat, he looked where the sound of screeching tyres had come from. There was nothing out of the ordinary. As he started the engine, he examined the traffic flow along Market Street, and at the junction of Fourth Avenue. Nothing looked out of place; a black and white Police cruiser of the Des Moines Sherriff's Office pulled into Market Street.

Tom pulled out of the parking lot and turned towards Fourth Avenue. As he passed the cruiser the blue lights began flashing, the siren blared out. The police officer in the drivers' seat pointed directly at Tom as his partner spoke into the loudspeaker'

'STOP. DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER.'

Tom instinctively stopped the car, pointing towards the junction with Fourth Avenue, but only just out of the parking lot.

The cruiser made a U-turn, and then pulled in front of Tom.

'I don't like the look of this.' He said to Michelle.

As the police officers got out of their car and began walking back to Tom, he wound his window down, smiled at the officers, and waited until they were alongside his front wheels, then he leaned out of his window, and called,

'Morning officers. What can I do for you?'

He gambled that they did not notice that his car was now moving very, very slowly backwards.

His intention was to lead them as far away from their car as possible.

Four paces further on the officer on the roadside of the car noticed that it was rolling,

'Would you stop your car, sir?'

Tom smiled at him, and said,

'Nope.'

The vehicle was already in reverse; Tom hit the accelerator and backed into the parking lot exit he had just come out of. As the police made their way back to their car, Tom turned the opposite way down Market Street.

The police cruiser took a few seconds to execute a U-turn. Other traffic got in their way, despite the use of blues and twos. By the time they were pointing in the right direction, Tom had turned right up Third Avenue, but the officer in the passenger seat had spotted him.

'He went right.' He called to his partner.

The cruiser healed hard over as they chased after the runaway astronaut. Just in time to see the car they were chasing take a left.

This put Tom and Michelle on to a short block, which they got along before the police saw them, Tom took a sharp right turn, and then gunned the engine to get to the next junction as quickly as possible.

Des Moines' finest had lost their quarry; by the time they had an APB out to all units, Tom and Michelle were at the airport.

Tom parked the car out of sight from the road in the lot, and then they went to find their aircraft. The aircraft rental office was not what you would expect. The squat square building had a worn sign outside that said, "Air Navigation Transport"; alongside this, a much cleaner, neater sign announced that the site was "For Sale or Lease".

Michelle looked askance at the unkempt building, and the almost empty parking lot, crazed by cracks that prevented her from pulling her suitcase on its wheels,

'Are you sure these people even have an aircraft, let alone one that is legal and airworthy?'

'Don't you worry about that, they have plenty of aircraft.'

She looked at the massive collection of Elliott buildings across the road and could not help thinking that they should be using them.

A rather stern receptionist sat behind the usual high-fronted reception desk. As Tom and Michelle walked in, she welcomed them with a warm smile,

'Mister Collins?'

'Yes.'

She pointed her pen across to a group of men,

'Stan here will check your paperwork and show you around your aircraft.'

They went into a small room to do the necessary checks, after which all three people drove in what Michelle presumed was Stan's car to the airport across the road. Parked outside one of the smaller hangars they pulled up alongside an elderly Cessna Citation jet. Two suited men in sunglasses guarded this.

As Tom accompanied Stan on the preliminary walk-round checks on the external of the aircraft, one of the guards assisted Michelle to stow her luggage in the main cabin. Here she was surprised to find another man dressed the same as the guards outside; and Stan too, now she came to think of it.

She sidled up to the man inside the aircraft, she though briefly that he may be a steward,

'Excuse me, are you guys CIA?'

'Yes, ma'am. This is a CIA operation, you are safe here.'

As Stan explained the controls and procedures to Tom, Tom did not say anything about being a fully trained astronaut with many hours on all types of jet. Stan had briefly looked over Tom's flying logbook back at the office, to see that he was qualified and authorised to fly this type of aircraft. Michelle stood by the rear of the cockpit and watched all of this going on. She thought of going to the galley at the rear of the aircraft to make coffee but thought better of it. They would soon be taking off and getting away from the dangers of Des Moines.

With surprising brevity, Stan got out of the cockpit seat, shook Tom's hand, then left with the man who Michelle thought was a steward.

Tom waved for her to join him in the front seat as he prepared to start the engines.

Once the engines were started, tested, then settled down, he contacted Air Traffic Control, who directed him to use runway 09. They did not ask why he had not filed a flight plan.

They left controlled airspace heading north. Michelle turned to Tom and asked,

'Where are we going? I do not even know if we should bother chasing our leads, given what has happened. And we can hardly go back to Florida.'

'I had a call from someone in Xanthros' office saying that the situation has not changed. There are people out there who know what Xanthros does not want to be released.'

'I presume that must have been the danger that Sam warned us of.'

Tom shrugged, his straps still in place,

'Guess so.'

'So where can we go? Xanthros will have his end covered, so there is no need for us to go to Edwards in California.'

'How about Canada?' he suggested.

'How about California?' a strange male voice came from behind, startling them both.

As they both turned, they saw two men in the narrow doorway. One held a small handgun, the one closest to them had a police Tazer.

'You will set course for Edwards.'

Tom was still flying the aircraft manually. He thought of throwing it about to disorientate their attackers, then noticed that Michelle had undone her straps, and would be in great danger of hurting herself on the hard, sharp corners in the cockpit. In any case, what could they do? The men still had weapons.

'What if we don't?'

He knew that they were already above the height where pressurisation was needed, 'You can't use the gun without the risk of depressurisation, that would put us all at risk.'

'That is why we have the Tazer.' He pointed the toy-like yellow plastic thing at Michelle's shoulder, and then fired.

She let out a cry of pain as the barbs entered her skin.

'Do not attempt to remove them or I shall give you a shock.' Two thin, coiled wires led to his device. They played out as he moved back from the entrance to the cockpit, 'If you would accompany me into the cabin please Miss Romero.'

Tom knew that if she were to be shocked whilst in the confines of the cockpit there would be serious danger to the safety of the aircraft.

Tazer man kept at least six feet away from Michelle as she moved into the cabin. As handgun man passed her, she moved to remove one of the barbs from her arm – she knew that it would not work if one lead were disconnected.

Tazer man saw this, and pulled the trigger, delivering a non-lethal electric shock to Michelle.

She screamed and writhed uncontrollably before she could get to a seat.

Tom turned in his seat, but his straps and the gunman prevented him from seeing anything. Just to be sure the gunman pushed the gun into Tom's neck. He moved the gun into a position so that any bullet coming out after going through Tom's body would not hit the outer skin of the aircraft.

'We are both capable of flying this aircraft, so do not think that you are indispensable.'

Tazer man called from the cabin. Michelle had sat down; he had her fasten her seat belt,

'Are we on course for California yet?'

Gunman glanced at the compass,

'No, not yet.'

Another loud scream came from the cabin as Michelle got another shock.

'How many more of these do you think she can take.' Tazer man watched as Michelle's shoes flew off as her legs quivered uncontrollably, her head lolled to one side as if she were unconscious, but her eyes were still wide open. It was difficult to know if she could see anything out of them.

'Hey, stop that. Turning now.' Tom shouted from the pilot's seat.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 48

Death Valley

Nine days from Earth the people on Phoenix settled in to their routines, they have rebuilt the re-entry modules. The workloads now allowed more free time. More and more the crew found themselves gathered around the bridge area, usually with Preston Ashton and Hoshi Masuto at the helm, with Galina and Jake looking out of the windows of the copula at the slowly enlarging Earth. It was now a definite pale blue globe with the naked eye.

Hoshi kept a wary ear on the Net; there was not much traffic these days. Semiramis deliberately kept quiet, she did not want to worry the astronauts with things about which they could not do anything. Xanthros was keeping his own counsel; he knew that Hoshi could listen in to the Net, and that Semiramis would probably disapprove, and then interfere.

One day more brought them one hundred and fifty thousand miles closer to mother Earth – an Earth that was having more than its own share of problems. Xanthros was making plans for the landing after re-entry. The revised plan was to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean, but the loss of the Pentagon and all of the bases on or near the eastern seaboard had thrown the navy, like all of the armed forces, into disarray, so they could not guarantee to have a support group of ships in close proximity of the splashdown. He did not want to risk having two capsules floating in the Pacific waiting for any passing ship, so was making arrangements for them to alight using their rotor systems on the White Sands missile testing facility in New Mexico. He had a team of scientists doing the calculations needed for the re-entry to put the two Orion modules down in New Mexico instead of the Atlantic Ocean.

Hoshi worked assiduously along with the new sets of figures that came from Earth in preparation for the perilous, fiery re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

At the other end of the chain, a lone Cessna Citation entered the circuit at White Sands, the gleaming white aircraft banked on to the base leg, undercarriage extended in preparation for landing. The sun glinted off the windshield as the little airliner gradually lost height. The massive runway spread out before them, Tom Collins touched down about one third of the way down the concrete. He was instructed to taxi round to a group of hangars to the south of the main cluster of buildings. Upon coming to a halt on the apron outside the buildings he began shut-down procedures on the jet engines as gun man turned to tazer man. He saw that the man with the tazer was unable to move far from Michelle, who was slumped in her seat, still strapped in. Gun man decided that Tom was sufficiently occupied in the cockpit, and that he was the only one on board who had the spare capacity to be able to open the door, so he made his way to the door, two paces behind the cockpit.

As he pulled the door open, the warm air and bright sunlight streamed in. This abrupt change in atmosphere took him back a little. He blinked twice, then felt the weight of Tom Collins hitting him with a football tackle that was intended to cause him to hit his head on something hard. He hitting his head on the half-open door achieved the desired effect. Tom then pushed his head back into the metal door to cause even more damage. Blood ran down the pale grey door.

Tazer man saw what was happening, he had already undone Michelle's seat belt, he stood back from her, and did the only thing he could; he zapped Michelle again. She awoke with a start, then began screaming and shaking, convulsing uncontrollably. Tom was already reaching for the gun in the grasp of his adversary. He pulled on the man's sleeve before he realised what was happening, the pilot then took hold of the gun whilst it was still in the man's hand, pointed it towards tazer man, then squeezed the trigger. The man's left shoulder took the full impact; disintegrating as the bullet took out his shoulder blade before imbedding itself in the rear bulkhead. He dropped the tazer, Michelle did not move. The aircraft door swung open, with a swift kick Tom dispatched the semi-stunned, bloody-headed gunman into the air outside. He still had the gun in his hand when he hit the concrete five feet below him head first. Tom turned to tazer man who had had all the fight knocked out of him.

'You're next.'

The man was in agony; he tried to hold his dislocated arm with his right hand as Tom picked up the Tazer. The man's already pale complexion turned an ashen yellow as he realized what was about to happen. Tom waved the Tazer towards the open door,

'OUT.'

The man had the audacity to turn to Michelle as he walked past her,

'Sorry.'

Tom backed towards the cockpit to avoid being too close to the man as he reached the doorway. The wounded man shook as he looked outside.

'Don't wait for the steps.' Tom fired the Tazer. The barbed prongs hit the man in the right arm. The electric shock did nothing for the man's well-being, neither did the concrete.

Tom looked down at the bodies lying on the concrete, dead or wounded, he could not tell, but they were definitely out of the fight.

He reached to close the door. Their best chance of escape was to leave the way they came, by air. As the door closed, he saw a car pull up between them and the nearest hangar. Xanthros stepped from the car as Tom closed the door and secured the locking mechanism. He checked on Michelle, who was slowly regaining consciousness. Then refastened her seat belt,

'It's ok now. We will soon be out of here.'

He jumped into the pilot's seat and began the emergency start-up procedures. Automatically he looked out of the window. He saw Xanthros with the biggest hand-held machine gun he had ever seen.

There was the sound like an unmuffled piston engine revving up as machine-gun bullets ripped through the Cessna.

Xanthros stitched an ugly row of jagged holes from one end of the gleaming white aircraft to the other. Inside the passenger cabin, Michelle instinctively ducked as the bullets ripped through the air, Tom had no time to react to the noise; he looked around,

'You ok?'

'Yes, but I don't think we will be going to any altitude in this.'

Tom looked at the man on the concrete, who waved his gun, indicating that they should leave the plane.

Tom looked around at the damage, next at Michelle, and then at Xanthros, three other men had now joined him from a second car.

'Come on, let's see what he wants.' Tom said.

Michelle nodded as she undid her seatbelt.

Tom opened the door, then kicked the steps out, which opened automatically. As he and Michelle descended the four steps, two of the men came to restrain them to prevent any escape.

Without a word being said the group made its way to the waiting cars. Xanthros picked up the Tazer on his way back. He did not give the crumpled men on the blood-stained concrete a second glance.

Michelle and Tom were bundled unceremoniously into the second car at gunpoint, Xanthros stowed the gigantic machine gun in the trunk of his own car whilst his driver took his place behind the wheel.

They drove past three hangars, then turned away from the flight line to reach a small office building set on its own among weeds and cracked concrete driveways.

Xanthros' car stopped first, he got out, and then approached the second car as it rolled to a stop.

As the black-suited occupants alighted, Xanthros approached one of them. He passed the Tazer to him as he said,

'Find out what they know. Tell them we know about the phone call to the ship. I have some more pressing matters to attend to.'

He turned to Tom, 'We would like to know what information has been passed to you. This is very important to your future.'

The suits then took Michelle and Tom into a small, sparsely furnished room, and tied them to metal stacking chairs.

As Xanthros left the building, he heard Michelle scream again.

Xanthros sat alone in the back seat of his car. This was a spacious rear compartment, converted to operate as an office. He logged on to a special part of the Net known as the Kreigsmarine section. This section allowed clandestine communications between two elements, be they man or machine. In this case, Xanthros wanted to communicate exclusively with the navigation computer on board the Phoenix.

He did not actually speak to it, what he did was alter its mathematical interpretation of orbit insertion data. This meant that, when the Phoenix entered Earth orbit, the data for the Orion re-entry modules will be wrong, meaning that they will be either too fast, making them bounce off the atmosphere and ricochet into space. Or, more likely enter the atmosphere too steeply and fast, causing them to burn up. Either way the secret they found on Mars will die with them.

The planet Earth was getting very big in the viewing windows of the copula. As Hoshi looked at the vast expanse of the Pacific she remembered the poem by Jeffers dedicated to it,

"...Like a vast eyeball of water, it covers half of the Planet."

She looked out of the upper windows just in time to see her homeland of Japan when Semiramis phoned by her secure line,

'By now you will be readying yourselves for the re-entry into your Mother planet. Have you been able to check the figures given to you by your new Mission Control at Edwards?'

'Only as far as the general condition of the data, we do not have the capacity or the time to check every single parameter; things change too fast as we approach Earth.'

'I suggest you double check your re-entry angles and speed. There is an error in the raw data.'

'Oh, shit. What kind of error? How did it get there?'

'Neither of these matters now. Your time is limited. Start by checking the angles of entry into Earth orbit. Once you have a stable trajectory you can lengthen the time in orbit, to give yourself time to find the errors.'

'We shall get on with this straight away, there is no time to lose.'

'One other point, Doctor Masuto, do not trust the main navigation computer; this is where the error originates.'

'Thanks, Semiramis. I will need some help with this. Can we trust Steve in this task?' she got the feeling that the Net had been used to sabotage the information.

'Yes, he was not touched by the spike. It came to you via a secure link called Kreigsmarine; that allows only the recipient to know about the communication.'

'Then how do you know about it?'

'You seem to forget that I am the Goddess of communications. You also seem to be forgetting that time is not your friend, you must employ Steve, and Doctor Ashton immediately to find and rectify the defect.'

'Yes – of course. Yes. Thank you, I must go. Thank you, I hope we shall meet up when we return.'

For the next two days, neither she nor Ash got any sleep. Steve did not need any.

Xanthros entered the little room in which Michelle and Tom had been 'interviewed'. The Tazer had run out of charge some time ago. Both subjects were soaked through from repeated dowsing with cold water when they passed out. Normal bullying tactics had been employed to ensure that they had squeezed all the information out of them.

Xanthros squatted down to face Michelle,

'Things could have worked out very differently for you. But you chose the wrong side.' He stood up, then turned to one of the suits, 'Bismark.' Was all he said.

The man nodded.

Xanthros left the room as the suits manhandled Michelle and Tom out of their chairs. They used baseball bats as thrusting weapons to knock the wind out of the two prisoners, who were then bundled out to a pickup truck. They unceremoniously threw them into the back, and then the semiconscious couple were tied to shackles that had been welded on to the floor to secure loads. A dusty tarp was then thrown over them.

After two hours on smooth roads, Tom gained most of his faculties. He managed to throw the tarp about enough to check on Michelle. She was not really compos mentis at this stage. He tried to push some of the tarp under her to cushion the ride as it got rougher. The treatment they had been put through started to take its toll now as they constantly bounced up and down on the hard steel floor of the pickup. Michelle was knocked unconscious again, Tom was stunned, then came to, but his vision was now blurred.

There was no way they could have known how long the journey lasted, but eventually the pickup stopped. The two suits moved around to the rear of the truck,

'Are they dead?'

'That is academic. Let's just dump 'em here, and get back.'

They dropped the tailgate, and then climbed on board. As they pulled the tarp away they were surprised to find the bodies covered in dust that had set hard in the sweat and blood.

'I'll take this one.' Suit one said as he kicked the limp body of Michelle Romero, 'It looks lighter.'

'Ok, I'll take this one.'

Tom heard a knife opening, then his feet were moved about as the man began cutting through the zip ties that held his feet. The man, suit two, had to climb over the tarp that lie between the bodies in order to reach Tom's hands. As he staggered towards the hands, an eye opened.

Suit one had already cut the ties that bound Michelle's feet.

Suit two was in the process of cutting Tom's first zip tie on his hands when Michelle saw her moment. The man was not secure in his footing, so she launched the hardest kick she could muster directly at the man's protruding rear end. He lost balance immediately, dropped his knife, and toppled over the side.

Tom pulled his hand free, picked up the knife, and then thrust it deep into suit one's leg just above the ankle. This was as far as he could reach, so he withdrew it, and sliced across the man's Achilles tendon. With the man's blood still warm on the blade Tom cut his remaining zip tie, head butted suit one as he got up, then threw him over the side, just as suit two was climbing up the side. Tom saw this and decided that he just had enough time to free Michelle before the man would become a threat again.

As Michelle became free, suit two poked his head over the side of the truck, then his right hand rose above the side, with a pistol in it.

Michelle cried,

'Gun.'

Tom spun round, picking up the tarp in the same movement, he threw it over the threat. As the man fell, he fired three shots wildly, probably involuntarily. Two bullets entered the desert sand harmlessly, but a third hit a rock, ricocheted towards the truck, and hit the gas tank. The desert heat combined with the heat of the bullet was more than enough to ignite the petrol.

Flames erupted around the sides of the pickup. Tom was on one knee, Michelle was about to lift herself from her prone position, when Tom pointed at the only part of the truck that was not a complete blanket of flame; the rear of the truck bed.

As Tom helped Michelle to her feet, they had to keep their heads down, and then they both dived for the back of the truck.

Scrambling for footings, they both elected to keep running; as far as they knew there were two very annoyed men with guns back there.

Falling behind a rock, the pair decided to give themselves the luxury of a look behind. Tom was first to peek from behind the rock. When Michelle saw his shoulders relax she knew that it must be safe to look.

The truck was well ablaze, so was the tarp, with suit two still inside it.

They walked cautiously back. Suit one did not move. When they got to him, they found that he was barely conscious; having bled out from the massive damage that Tom had inflicted.

Michelle knelt on one knee to assess his condition. Having looked him over, she stood and looked at Tom, they moved away from the fiery truck,

'What do we do now?' she scanned the flat, featureless horizon, and then looked at suit two, 'There is nothing we can do for him.'

'I agree, even if he were fit, I doubt he would make it out of here.'

'Speaking of which; where the hell are we? And, more to the point, how are we going to get out of here? The only shelter for miles around is burning merrily away, and there goes the only means of transport. We don't even have a map.'

Tom carefully examined the situation in his mind. He looked at the sun, and the tracks the truck had made in the desert sand,

'I reckon we have been travelling more or less in a southerly direction.' He turned to Michelle, 'If that is true, we are in Death Valley.'

The local terrain certainly lived up to its name; nothing but burning heat from the relentless sun, and dust that did not want to go around you, it seemed to want to pass right through you. No shelter, and no hope of rescue.

'How long do you think we were travelling, Michelle?'

She shook her head gently from side to side,

'God, I have no idea. Could have been hours, it would have been hours.'

'If it were hours, and I agree, it probably was,' he looked at the height of the sun in the sky to gain some impression of the time of day, 'We landed in the late morning, there is probably only a few hours of daylight left. We could have travelled for over a hundred miles. We have no water, not even a compass.'

'Wait, I have an idea.' Michelle moved back to suit two. She reached down into his pocket and found his cell phone.

'Why don't we ring for help?' She exclaimed, waving it above her head.

'I wouldn't trouble anyone at this late hour,' Tom quipped, 'but if you must.'

Michelle tried pressing the screen, but nothing seemed to be happening, she scrutinised the little instrument, then realise that there was a problem,

'No bloody signal.'

'It is not surprising,' Tom noted, 'We are not exactly in downtown LA, if that still exists.' He held out his hand, 'Here, let me have a look at it; there may be some function we can use to get ourselves out of here.'

She passed the phone to him. He tried tapping it a few times, then exclaimed,

'There a satnav function. At least we will be able to find out where we are.'

The cellular phone showed a map of downtown Des Moines, and the legend 'Acquiring Satellites'; it was trying to find at least three satellites in orbit. Before it had found three, it began ringing as if receiving a call.

The two NASA employees looked at the phone, then at each other. Eventually Michelle took the phone and answered it.

A woman's voice at the other end asked,

'Who are you, and what are you doing with those people? And on what authority?'

She nearly dropped the instrument.

'Hello. Who is that?' The voice sounded vaguely familiar.

'Is that Michelle? Are you ok?' came the reply.

'Yes.' Then she recognised the voice, 'Sam? Is that you?'

Semiramis, the Goddess of communications, had intercepted the phone's carrier signal when it began looking for satellites.

'Yes. Are you ok? Is Tom there with you?'

'Yes, we are a bit battered, but reasonably ok.'

'Right, I have a fix on your position, but Xanthros has wiped all reference to you, or your journey. So rescue elements will not activate because there is no-one there. However, I have a plan to overcome this. Can you hold out until tomorrow? What has happened to the men who were with you?'

Michelle consulted with Tom,

'It's Sam, you remember her from Des Moines? She says she can get someone out to us tomorrow, if we can hold out.' She turned back to the phone, 'Yes, we can do that. Should we stay here, or move on?'

'Do you have any shelter there with you? And how many of you are there?'

She looked at Tom and shrugged,

'Shelter?'

He looked at the still smoking truck. There was still the metal framework, as well as most of the bodywork. The tarpaulin was all but gone. He nodded.

'There are only two of us; the other two did not make it. We have what remains of a pickup truck we can shelter in; we should be ok for the night.'

'Right. I have to make some arrangements for you now. I will be in touch.'

Tom and Michelle dragged the bodies of suits one and two a respectable distance away from the truck before they recovered some remnants of the tarp, and took what shelter they could in the truck.

They did not know that Xanthros had had them erased from the record, so in effect there was no-one out there to rescue.

Semiramis constantly stayed in touch with Hoshi on board the Phoenix. They were now entering the orbital phase. The rotation of the Phoenix stopped. The Orion re-entry modules were now level with the surface of the Earth. Inside the Blue Orion sat Preston Ashton and Hoshi Masuto. Galina Danilenko and Jake Jensen occupied the Red Orion.

Both modules left the mother ship for the last time simultaneously. They were within sight of each other during the re-entry. The vehicles were ten miles apart, but the fiery trail left behind by the friction heating up the heat shield left a trail of flames that they could see against the blackness of space for hundreds of miles.

Hoshi had calculated their re-entry co-ordinates again; she had reprogrammed the nav computer for a safe re-entry. The strange orbit they found themselves in put them at 45 degrees off the equator; this meant that they were travelling on a course of 45 degrees when heading north, then 225 degrees when coming down on the other side of the planet. Hoshi had to move the Phoenix before release to allow the orbit to shift sufficiently to be in a place on Earth that would put them over Arizona when the parachutes opened at the end of their burn-up and deceleration through the Earth's atmosphere.

Luckily, Xanthros and his cohorts did not prevent this, and the re-entry phase went well. The parachutes opened as advertised at 10,000 feet, these carried the two capsules to lower altitudes, where their secondary and final alighting mechanisms would come into play.

The returning Orion capsules descended at a rate of six hundred feet per minute beneath their parachutes. This is slow enough for a water splash-down, but they were not able to do a splash-down, at this speed the impact with the ground would be catastrophic. At five thousand feet the contra-rotating rotors deployed, and a homing device on board the Blue Orion began tracking a signal that had been put there by Semiramis.

The panoramic cameras on the landers offered the occupants complete coverage of the area they were descending into.

Jake mentioned,

'Christ, it looks worse than Mars. Do you think they want us to feel more at home here?'

Galina replied,

'Can't see any hostile robots.'

Ash studied the picture below.

'All I can see is what looks like a burnt-out truck.'

They all looked at the truck on their monitors.

Hoshi commented,

'If these people are our welcoming committee, I can't say I am impressed by their choice of vehicle.'

Ash was more reasoned,

'We had better land behind that ridge to their east to protect them from our downwash.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

In the back of a burnt-out truck in Death Valley, the sounds of helicopters woke Michelle and Tom.

Tom staggered to get to his feet on the tarp. He helped Michelle to stand.

They stood there, unsteady, uncertain what to expect.

The couple were surprised to see a strange helicopter-like triangular vehicle coming over the hill at them.

Ash saw the people moving about,

'What would anyone be doing out here?'

He was far too involved with the landing to take any more notice what the people on the truck were doing.

As the dust settled around the landers the astronauts inside did their final shut-down procedures

These complete, exit doors were opened. At the same time Tom Collins and Michelle Romero climbed the small hill towards the strange vehicles.

As they mounted the crest, small doors opened near the tops of the landers.

Ash was first out. The standard white NASA coveralls were no longer pristine and clean, but Michelle and Tom recognised them straight away.

He turned towards Michelle,

'You don't suppose...'

Michelle stopped in her tracks as she suddenly realized the implications of what was unfolding before her eyes.

As Ash began descending the steps Hoshi stuck her head out. Jake began climbing the steps on the other lander.

As the six NASA employees greeted each other, the cell phone rang. It was Semiramis. She explained that the Marines would soon be along to rescue the men from Mars.

True to her word, five minutes later four V-22 Osprey aircraft appeared.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 49

Death by Name

Preston Ashton looked briefly out of the window as the Earth drew nearer and nearer to his craft. A few hundred feet away he saw the second module piloted by Jake Jensen.

In monosyllabic tones Ash said,

'Drifting north.'

Curved multi-bladed rotors with simple rocket motors at their tips sliced through the air above the modules. Bigger rocket motors beneath them fired to slow the descent.

Long probes attached to the legs reached down, waiting to touch the Earth.

As a probe touched the ground a light came on in Ash's panel.

'Pythagoras, first contact.'

Seconds later, Jake said,

'Euclid, first Contact.'

One point five seconds later the rockets beneath the modules cut out.

Inverted cups on the ends of the legs touched the desert floor. Oleos within the legs further cushioned the impact of landing, and then levelled the modules up.

The dust settled around the two landers.

Jake finished the shut-down procedures. He turned to Galina Danilenko. They both smiled like they had not done in a long time. There was not enough room in the module for them to reach other, but they managed to touch hands.

She said,

'What is it that you are looking forward to most?'

Jake thought for a few seconds whilst he threw the last switches, and checked readings,

'I suppose it's driving through the outskirts of a city after dark. Looking at the houses with warm lights in their windows; knowing that there were people in those houses, and wondering what kind of people are living there.

It was early morning in Death Valley, the temperature was already climbing. As the returning astronauts emerged from their vehicles they felt genuine wind for the first time in over three years.

Ash pointed at the burned-out wreck that was once a pickup truck,

'Over there – what's that?'

As Ash climbed down the steps to the desert floor, Jake emerged from the second capsule.

'Christ, this looks worse than Mars!' he remarked as Galina pushed her head under his arm to get a view.

'At least there are no robots trying to kill us.'

'They are not needed out here ... how are we supposed to survive? No water, no food, not much shelter.'

'We are not alone.' Ash said, pointing to two figures near a burnt-out truck.

As Michelle dismounted from the truck her cell-phone rang. She knew it could only be one person out there – Semeramis.

'Hi.'

'Hi Michelle. Are you and Tom ok?'

'Yes, I think so.' Michelle looked at Tom, 'You ok?'

He nodded, holding his ribs,

'Slept in a funny position.'

'We are better than we would have expected.' Michelle said to the phone.

'Don't worry. Help is on its way.'

Michelle looked at the two conical modules on the desert floor.

'I think I can see what you mean.'

'No. they are the returning astronauts – they are also in need of rescuing. There are Marines on their way in to you.'

Hoshi Masuto followed Ash from the first capsule as the four astronauts made their way to the people by the truck.

Tom was standing alongside Michelle, he was having difficulty moving, and breathing was hard for him, so they stayed where they were.

As the four astronauts walked towards the truck, Michelle could not wait any longer. She ran to Ash, who took her in his arms. The warm embrace was welcome in the cool air. The red and white dress had certainly seen better days – it was not thick enough to keep Michelle warm, the shiver she felt could also have been excitement at seeing Ash again after all this time. They kissed passionately as Hoshi saw that Tom was in difficulty.

Jake, Hoshi and Galina sat Tom on a rock as he struggled for breath. He waved them away to signal that he thought there was nothing wrong. His breath came in short pants like someone suffering an asthma attack. Presently he smiled as he looked at his returned comrades.

'What the hell have you been up to?' he said to Ash.

Ash replied,

'You would not believe it.'

Galina heard sounds coming from the distance. She scanned around to see what it was. Presently she saw three black dots shimmering above the horizon. As they slowly drew closer it was soon recognised that they were V-22 Osprey rotorcraft.

The V-22 Osprey is a strange looking aircraft – it is like a normal aircraft, but with helicopter engines and rotors on the wing tips. These can be pivoted - so that the rotors first lift the craft straight up - and then move to give forward thrust, and it continues like a normal aeroplane. To land it must pivot the engine and rotor outfits to look like two helicopters, and it lands vertically. Up to 24 troops can be carried.

Inside the lead Osprey,

'Throttling back. Rotating engines to 60 degrees.' US Marine Major Nalini Singh prepared for landing.

As the gigantic engines on the wing-tips rotated, they began bringing the propeller discs closer to the horizontal.

As she turned above a ridge she saw her target.

Two of the craft stood off as Nalini skilfully landed in a cloud of dust and sand. She allowed the machine to move forwards during the landing procedure to keep abreast of the sandstorm her rotors were kicking up.

The six people by the truck watched in awe as the rotors were feathered, which meant that they kept turning slowly without kicking up too much sand.

The second aircraft came in to land behind Nalini. As it flared it threw more dust and sand forwards towards Nalini's aircraft. The rotors on the stationary aircraft did not help; the whole aircraft disappeared in a yellow cloud.

Galina looked at the two Ospreys as they came in to land. Far to her right she saw another dot appear. She pointed at this as the others looked on. The new dot was a lone A10 'Warthog'. By the time it could be recognised it had opened fire on the two Ospreys that were coming in to land. The rotorcraft did not stand a chance. The murderous fire from the 30mm Gatling cannons firing 65 rounds per second minced the Ospreys instantly.

Explosions and fires followed.

Nalini spun round in her seat to see through the open ramp what had happened to her comrades.

The spectators watched in disbelief as the A10 banked round for another pass.

... ... ... ... ... ...

An industrial complex just outside Des Moines was where Xanthros had established his new control centre. Most of his equipment, and his staff, had been lost in the Tsunami that wiped the Pan Handle off the map. All that remained of Florida and most of Louisiana was now just a series of islands with no infrastructure.

Two engineers, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, were offered the opportunity to move.

As he made sure the door behind them was firmly closed, Tweedle Dum said,

'Why move from Marshall to go – where?'

'Des Moines. I think they trying were to find somewhere obscure.'

'They certainly found it.'

Tweedle Dee shrugged his shoulders,

'But what operations are there? The Mars mission is over; they lost the whole crew, did they not?'

Tweedle Dum leant over to his pal, almost conspiratorially,

'I was watching the re-entry. Everything was going just fine and dandy – until insertion to orbit. Then things began to get screwed up. First we lost comms, and then the guidance computers seemed to lose the plot. After that we could only track them on radar for half of the time. We never knew exactly where they would appear from orbiting round the planet.'

'Did they crash?'

Now it was Tweedle Dum's turn to shrug,

'If they did we are not certain exactly where they were – their re-entry was off the scale; the computers could not compute the data fast enough to determine what the changes meant.'

'And who is running this new show?'

'Mission Controller Xanthros.'

'Are you going?'

'Might as well; there is no likelihood of future employment here.'

There was now a desperate shortage of trusted people who Xanthros could use to help him run his operations.

Xanthros watched on his monitors as the action unfolded. He was also in voice communications with the pilot of the A-10.

As he watched the first approach he said,

'Take out the elements likely to move away first.'

The pilot, Vargas, replied,

'Affirmative.'

Xanthros could see through the pilot's gun sight on one of his monitors as the A-10 began its dive towards the Ospreys lining up to land.

The Ospreys engines on the wing tips began to rotate, and kick up sand as the buzz of the cannon was heard.

These machines contained six Marines, plus medical and rescue equipment, and they cost the American taxpayer 71 million dollars each.

Vargas's voice was emotionless as he said,

'Fox Two.'

The Ospreys were destroyed in less than two seconds.

As the A-10 banked to the right the Ospreys crashed to the desert floor. The resulting explosions seemed to deaden everything – the smoke rose without a sound as the six spectators stood in stunned silence.

Xanthros's screens turned blue as the A-10 lifted its nose above the horizon. Then they went blank altogether.

Even the satellite overview closed down.

'Control to Bolter. I have lost visual.'

'Roger that. Moving to the north of target. Two pyramid shaped modules on the right of crash site. Six people moving towards the last Osprey; I missed seeing it in all the dust.'

'Take out the Osprey, and see if you can take care of the people on the same run.'

'Roger that. Lining up now.'

The murderous sound of the Gatling cannon came over the airwaves like tearing paper, but much louder.

Vargas called,

'Osprey destroyed. Six casualties. Collateral damage to modules.'

     
Chapter 50

Des Moines

A stubby square building off 64th Street, Des Moines was where Xanthros had set up his new Mission Control.

The enforced move from Florida was not easy. Most of the equipment that NASA had used to set up the original Mission Control was lost in the Tsunami that wiped out most of the State.

Des Moines was chosen because of its secure links to the contacts and people Xanthros needed to keep in touch with, and the availability of rudimentary launch facilities close by.

Xanthros walked across to the now dead monitors upon which he should be watching the A-10 as it carried out his orders.

Standing by the bank of monitors was Stix,

'They must not be allowed to get their information out.' Xanthros said quietly.

'Do they all have the information?'

'Probably not,' Xanthros replied, 'but we cannot take the chance.'

'Do we have any other elements in the area?'

Xanthros toyed with the monitor controls as he replied,

'Nothing in the immediate vicinity – but they are not going anywhere now that we have destroyed their only means of transport.'

He was getting frustrated by the non-functioning screens.

Stix looked around at the equipment in the room,

'You did well to get all of this out from NASA before Florida was hit by the tsunami.'

'Did I?'

'Well, yes.'

Xanthros shook his head as he said,

'Nothing got out of Florida. Not even people.'

The Gran Canaria tsunami had taken out most of the east coast of America.

Low lying states like Florida and Louisiana were hardest hit.

Most of Florida ceased to exist at all. All signs of civilisation had been swept away by the gigantic waves.

Stix said,

'The California operations must have supplied it I suppose?'

Xanthros seemed to be busying himself as he answered,

'All this was part of an already existing project.'

'What project?'

'Totem.' Xanthros turned to face Stix directly, he closed to his face, 'But I don't want to hear that name again, and do not say it to anyone else – remember there are androids employed here that may be programmed to react to that one word.'

Stix stood back in surprise at this sudden reaction.

Xanthros briskly walked away from him.

An attractive young lady came into the room. Edie moved with purpose,

'Doctor Xanthros,' Edie approached Xanthros, 'we have a development with Task Force Two Five.'

Xanthros showed no reaction as he led the way into a small room adjacent to the control room,

'Yes, Edie, what is it?'

'The new Senate House that has been set up in Chicago will not even look at giving funds to NASA for space research – they say there are bigger problems on the ground in the USA.'

'We cannot argue with that. But most of what we need is now underwater in the Gulf of Mexico.'

'Totem needs more equipment than we have here,' Edie waved a hand towards the room, 'The system barely works.'

'This is not MIT or JPL. We have to rely on our own resources here.'

'There are limits to what we can do.'

Xanthros pacified her,

'We only have limits we have invented for ourselves; if we were to fulfil our potential to the full, we would amaze ourselves.'

Edie knew that Xanthros was clever, and sometimes his thoughts were more than she could understand at first.

'That brings me to the reason I'm here now.' She decided to get back to the point, 'Task Force Two Five has been sent to Huntsville; but they have encountered a problem.'

'Did they get to Redstone Arsenal?'

'No. This happened on the way in.'

Xanthros switched on a large monitor. Google Earth appeared on the screen.

'Show me where they are.'

Edie pointed to a clump of trees on the screen,

'Their GPS puts them here.'

Task Force Two Five consisted of 17 trucks escorted by three Humvees full of US Marines. They were heading from Des Moines to the NASA facility at Redstone Arsenal, New Jersey.

As they approached the Appalachian Mountains on the I-70, just south of Pittsburgh, they came across a road block.

The lead Humvee was driven by Sergeant First Class Amadeus Shelby Goddard, Apple to all who knew him. Next to him sat Sergeant Kayden SG Frost. She had a long red pony tail hidden under her tan and grey Marine helmet. As soon as the obstruction came into view she stood up into the machine gunners' position.

Apple looked at the barricade.

'Can we crash through it?' he talked into his throat mike, everyone on the net heard.

Kayden replied,

'School busses and all sorts in there. And we don't know what is behind the base – could be explosives.' She cocked the heavy machine gun, and swung it from side to side.

As the convoy slowed to a stop, a distant voice came over the radio,

'Do you mean to tell me that they have blocked the Interstate?'

Another voice, more urgently this time,

'Vehicle on the right quarter.'

A camouflaged pickup truck emerged from the trees on their right.

A rocket propelled grenade was launched from its back.

The rearmost truck in the convoy exploded, preventing retreat by the convoy; the attackers wanted a stationary target.

Kayden swung her gun around, then let fly at the pick-up.

The heavy machine-gun bullets began by laying a track in the earth; Kayden moved the track to the vehicle, where ammunition and explosives that were carried in it, exploded.

As the convoy stopped, troops poured from the lead truck and the Humvees.

Kayden scanned the treeline for activity.

A machine gun opened up from somewhere to their left.

As she swung the gun around there appeared more trucks from the cover of the forest on the left of the ginger gunner.

The troops from the convoy took up boundary defence with mortars and heavy machine guns. The mortar men sent off tiny drones.

Before they could see the pick-ups the men on the ground found that rounds were going above them from the enemy; these were aimed at keeping their heads down.

On top of the heavy goods vehicles in the convoy there now appeared two men to each trailer. These soldiers quickly took up positions in prone positions – they were snipers.

Three groups of specialist soldiers moved carefully out from the front vehicles. These were armed with Lawes anti-tank missiles. Their task was to clear the roadblock.

Kayden opened up again with the machine gun, taking rough aim at the approaching pick-ups. Their return fire was ineffective because they were travelling over rough ground.

First one, then another of the pick-ups exploded. Rocket Propelled Grenades were launched occasionally, but none hit their targets in the main convoy.

Snipers took careful aim at people in the vehicles. They aimed through telescopic sights; they each drew a bead on the drivers. Because the vehicles were bouncing over rough ground the firing was not as accurate as required. But it was nonetheless effective. The high powered rounds sometimes entered the pick-up trucks' cab, hitting other people than the drivers – not always fatally, but usually with disastrous results; one vehicle had three people on a bench seat. The round hit the person in the middle, who was thrown into the driver, who lost control – turning the vehicle over.

The men with the mortars began firing, blind at first, then guided by the drones. The trails the pick-ups travelled down were identified, and mortared.

With the ground troops now laying down some concentrated fire the attacking pick-ups found that this was not the expected convoy of frozen food, so they decided to leave it alone. Without orders from a leader, the pick-ups turned and tried to run for the forest. But the mortars had begun to take the trails out – there was nowhere for them to go. Between the barrage laid down by the mortars and the heavy machine gun fire in front of them they were forced to lurch to their left (as they tried to make their way back). This brought them round to the front of the convoy.

As the pick-ups approached the head of the convoy the first elements of a troop of soldiers armed with Lawes rocket launchers moved into position to deal with the barricade.

The soldiers were already arming their weapons. All they had to do was turn to their left 90 degrees, and let fly at the pick-ups. The resulting series of explosions was enough to destroy every vehicle, even though some had not been hit directly.

Gradually the smoke cleared. The firing stopped, but the fires in and around the vehicles crackled and popped as ammunition went off.

The relative quietness was broken by three loud explosions as the barricade troop took care of the obstacle on the Interstate.

Sgt Kayden Frost looked carefully around from her perch above the lead Humvee.

'No further threat visible.' She called over the radio net.

Apple was already on the ground,

'Roger that.' He inspected the wreckage of the nearest knocked-out pick-up, 'They look like the local branch of The Malitia, Survivalists.' He reported.

Kayden replied,

'Not very good at it, are they?'
Chapter 51

Boise. Id.

Semeramis walked into a small coffee shop on main street.

'Regular capachino, please.'

The baristo replied,

'Certainly, ma'am.' And then turned away to make the drink.

The place was almost empty; only three or four tables were occupied. Semeramis sought out the most remote position, away from the other customers.

She placed the cup down, sugared the coffee, stirred, and looked around the establishment.

She then removed he cell phone from her purse.

Tapping on the machine she called Michelle's number.

'Hi. Everything here has gone horribly wrong.' The voice at the other end did not waste time with pleasantries. 'We have lost two of the Ospreys, and all of the people in them.' The voice was rushed – as if running.

Ash helped Michelle down the slope to the last Osprey. The other three astronauts had reached the machine - Jake was talking to Nalini, who had opened the pilot's door to look behind to see what had happened to the other two rotorcraft.

'I know.' Said Semeramis.

'An A-10 just shot them down.'

'I couldn't stop him. But I have sent him away now.'

Michelle stopped dead in her tracks. Ash stumbled on the uneven desert floor to stay with her.

'Pardon?'

'When I got news of the attack it was too late to save the Ospreys, but I managed to jam the video feeds in to Xanthros, and then interject a false transmission fooling him into believing that the mission has been a complete success.'

Michelle looked around the desert sky,

'I can't see the A-10.'

'I told him, as Xanthros, to hold off and await further orders, but I don't know how long he will wait.'

Michelle looked at Ash,

'We gotta get out of here.'

They both rushed to Nalini, who nodded in agreement. The pilot then turned back into the cockpit, and began start-up procedures.

Jake held out a hand from the door behind Nadini to help Michelle into the machine, quickly followed by Ash, who turned to help.

By now the giant rotors had begun turning.

Semeramis was also communicating with Vargas (as Xanthros), and Xanthros (as Vargas).

To Vargas,

'Maintain position three miles north of target area. Hold at 5,000.'

Vargas replied,

'Roger.'

To Michelle,

'Get out of there now, go south. The A-10 is three miles north of you.'

'OK, we're out of here.'

The Osprey lifted off in a cloud of sand and dust.

Three miles away the cloud was noticed by Vargas.

He did not wait for instructions. He banked the A-10 over on to one wing tip, and then began trading height for speed as he rammed the throttles into full power to closed on the lone Osprey.

Nalini flew the Osprey as fast as it would go in a climb, but that was not very fast.

Jake was strapped in the open hatch at the back of the aircraft, manning the heavy machine gun.

'Just give me a clear shot.'

Vargas was now covering the ground at an alarming rate. The aircraft was redlined at 450 mph; he was now travelling at well beyond that speed. At 1,000 feet altitude the A-10 began to shake. Aiming was impossible.

Jake saw a dot that was the A-10, he began to swing the machine gun round, but before he could even bring it to bear the Warthog shot past the Osprey.

Nalini kept the Osprey climbing as Vargas banked round for another pass. He was bleeding speed off in the turn – he wasn't going to miss this time.

As he came in for an attack Nalini did something unexpected – She stopped the Osprey still in the air, engines pointed upwards, and turned the machine to face the A-10. Vargas levelled the wings as he straightened up to face the rotorcraft. At one mile range Nalini opened the throttles on the engines causing the Osprey to rise straight up. Vargas had by now lost a lot of speed. As he tried to move the nose up to aim the cannon he found that he began losing too much speed; this meant that he could not keep pace with the rate of climb of the Osprey. As he passed below the rotorcraft Nalini called Jake,

'Coming below now.'

Jake knew he would not have long to shoot at the target; he prepared to take the tank-buster on as soon as it appeared.

Slightly off to the right, the A-10 was now moving on to one wing tip as it appeared. Jake let fly with the machine gun as soon as he saw it.

Things were moving so fast that he only managed to squirt a short burst at the grey machine.

Three bullets found their mark, producing holes in the right wing of the Warthog.

Vargas was taken aback by the pinging sound he heard as the bullets struck. He turned the aircraft on to its back as he pulled away from the Osprey.

Nalini then threw her machine into a violent corkscrewing move up and away from the direction in which the A-10 was headed.

'I think I know how to deal with this.' She said.

She levelled off at exactly 5,200 feet, and held the hover there.

Vargas was at about the same height as he righted the A-10. He looked at his compass, and then in the direction he expected the Osprey to be. But it was not there. He swivelled his head, and then strained to look straight up through his canopy. He moved the aircraft around to make sure his target was not hidden behind some part of his structure – but to no avail; the Osprey had disappeared.

Nalini knew of atmospheric layering in the air above the desert. She had noticed that the layering was most noticeable at 5,200 feet. She had disappeared into a mirage. As long as she stayed in this layer they would be hidden.

Vargas tore around the shallow, wide valley looking for the rotorcraft.

Nalini knew that the downdraught from the Osprey's rotors would eventually disturb the layer in which she had positioned the aircraft, so she allowed the machine to slowly drift in a roughly southerly direction.

By now they were some eight miles from the original landing site. Vargas had to extend his search pattern for them, but unfortunately they could not see him either, so could not take advantage of knowing where he was at any given time.

Ash asked Nalini,

'How long can we stay here?'

She looked at her instruments. Tapped a couple to change the displays, and then turned to him,

'About another twenty minutes.'

'Then what?'

'We fall out of the sky.'

'Not the desired result.' He quipped back.

'No.' she shook her head, 'We won't drop out of the sky. But we will then have to move on to get closer to fuel.'

He began to worry,

'But the longer we stay here, the odds of him finding us increase.'

Nalini had her hands full with the controls of the hybrid helicopter as she replied,

'And if we move he may well see us – we can't outrun him.' She thought for a few seconds – 'The only real chance we have is to run and hide.'

Vargas had by now dropped down to ground level in the hope of spotting the Osprey against the bright blue sky.

The A-10's wing-tips kicked up sand as he wove around the wide valley – he didn't know it, but he was now five and a half miles away from the Osprey; even when he looked into the right direction he would not see it.

Ash and Nalini decided that their best chance was to run and hide. As the Osprey dropped from its hiding place in the sky, Vargas was facing in the wrong direction.

Jake was hanging out of the open ramp with Galina; everyone else had a little round window to look out of as the air around them began to stabilize.

As Nalini began turning the engines to provide horizontal flight, Masuto called excitedly,

'There he is! Ninety degrees off the starboard side.'

Nalini banked the machine to port as it gained forward speed.

Galina looked to the right from her position on the ramp,

'Yes, I have him now. He's turning...'

As Nalini allowed the machine to drop in height, she said,

'I don't want to get too close to the ground, but by moving directly away from him cuts down on the movement that could attract his attention.'

Jake called from the rear ramp,

'We've got your back covered.'

He and Galina hung on to the straps by the ramp as they constantly scanned and watched the horizon.

The A-10 was still plan-view to them as Vargas turned, still looking for the Osprey.

Slowly, almost unperceptively, The Osprey moved away from the A-10.

Then Jake and Galina lost sight of their adversary. He was now nose-on to them. But he had not yet seen them.

Ash spotted a small range of hills off to their right.

'Looks like we may find some cover over there.'

Nadini nodded agreement, and turned the Osprey towards the hills.

As they crested the first of the hills they found that they were typical of everything in this desert – stunted and dwarfed.

But it was all they could get.

At less than 50 feet from the ground the sand began to raise a small cloud.

Vargas saw the line of hills, and decided it would at least make a break for him to look at some change in scenery. Just then he saw a small cloud of dust raise from the hills.

'This is worth investigating.' He said to himself. He forgot that the sound activated microphone would pick this up and transmit it.

Semeramis called Michelle,

'What's happening over there?'

Michelle was trying to watch Tom, who was not doing too well, when the call came in,

'Hi, Semeramis. We have been hiding from the A-10, I am not happy about saying too much over the phone – you never know.'

'I understand; I can monitor all communications from here; it is possible someone else could be doing the same.'

'Right, we are working the problem here; tracking possible, better get off.'

'Yes. Good luck.'

'Thanks.'

Michelle turned back to Tom,

'You ok?'

'Bit groggy.'

'You do look a little pale.' She said.

An Intercom call from Jake broke in,

'He's heading this way.'

By now they were only some six feet off the desert floor. The small hills around them were only just higher than the rotorcraft itself. Dust was raising all around them.

Vargas could now see the cloud getting bigger. Occasionally he saw what was causing the cloud, the camouflage of the Osprey was very effective in hiding the parts where the people were; but the big black rotors stood out clearly. Sand was swirling around them as they lowered the craft to the ground.

The A-10 was now only one mile from the almost stationary Osprey. Vargas switched the safety off on the GAU-8 30mm Gatling cannon.

'Can't miss.' He said.

The microphone transmitted this.

Semeramis picked it up, and called in Xanthros' voice,

'Control to Bolter. Abort mission, abort mission.'
Chapter 52

Camaro

'He said he would be here by eight.' Del Banco looked at his watch.

Mrs. Hapsburg looked out of the window,

'Things are not normal at the moment,' she replied, 'Anything could cause a delay.'

The small town of Winterset lay out before them as del Banco joined her at the floor-to-ceiling window. This outpost in Madison County was being used to monitor Xanthros' activities in nearby Des Moines.

Out on Highway 92, where it crosses the I32; near the Middle River, in Idaho, Styx was watching the sun rise in his rear-view mirror. Only three years had passed since he had left the Marines to work in the Space Administration, now he was running in a modified 1969 Camero between the Xanthros outfit and the Illuminate.

No longer a young man, Styx had retired from the Marines whilst still fit, think of a version of 'Roger Murtaugh', as played by Danny Glover in the 'Lethal Weapon' series of films; but with dreadlocks.

A vehicle appeared on the horizon; bigger than a car, but no eighteen-wheeler. It began gaining on him.

There was no enforcement of highway regulations since the tsunami, but Stix found himself keeping to the old laws as a matter of habit.

The vehicle kept on gaining. He couldn't see, but there were three pickups in this little convoy.

Gradually they moved in to catch up with Styx. Only when the vehicle pulled in front of Styx did he notice that there were two men on the rear of the truck.

When the pickup pulled into position directly in front of Stix the men in the truck picked up their weapons, and pointed them directly at him.

They watched him as the car began to drop behind them.

In the time since the tsunami, law and order in some parts of the USA took a wobble. It was soon realised that there could be problems faced by people moving between locations that may be through sparsely populated areas. To address this situation all vehicles had certain modifications added to them.

The car that Stix was driving that day had plenty of room in the engine bay. On the outside, all that could be seen were two small perfectly circular holes, one either side of the radiator. Inside the engine bay, either side of the engine were two .50 cal machine guns firing through the said holes. The fire from these weapons were synchronised to converge at 100 metres.

The pickup in front of Styx was only some 50 metres away when he opened up with both heavy machine guns.

The .50 cal. machine gun rounds entered the rear of the truck just above and inside the rear tyres, and then sliced through the flimsy machine. People in the rear were cut down as the bullets passed through to the front cab, and then on to the engine.

The occupants were killed instantly – if not by the bullets, by the resulting crash and explosion.

Styx swerved to avoid the wreckage as he pressed the accelerator to summon up the 350 horses in the Camero engine.

The chasing pickups were left wondering what had happened to their colleagues.

Styx powered down the blacktop to his meeting in Winterton.

Mrs Hapsburg looked across the room. It was 0923 when Styx walked in.

'Sorry I'm late, bridges are out, I think someone is trying to filter traffic.'

'A spaceman came travelling,' Mrs Hapsburg began, 'He has brought something back from Mars.'

'You mean some sort of disease?'

'No, this is more insidious than that.'

'How do you mean?' he looked at her puzzled as he framed his question, 'I have seen that Xanthros has been ruthless in order to deal with this thing.'

'And has he dealt with it?'

'Yes; I watched as he got confirmation of the results.'

Mrs Hapsburg looked sceptical,

'I'm not too sure.'

'What could possibly be worth all of this? You say it is not a disease, what else could be so devastating to warrant this type of action?'

She took a deep breath,

'Suffice to say that the result could be worse than warfare.'

'Whaaa?'

'But the effects could be alleviated by the tsunami.' del Banco said as he approached, 'however, there is another dimension to our problems.' He looked directly at Styx, 'You say that someone seems to be filtering traffic?'

'Yes. There are several bridges out in strategic places around Madison County. If you look at them on a map,' he referred to Google Earth, 'a pattern emerges.'

Mrs Hapsburg and del Banco looked at the display.

'We have intelligence that says your interception was not random.' del Banco said to Styx, 'someone out there is trying to get to one of us.'

Mrs Hapsburg nodded in agreement,

'This is not the first time someone has been intercepted.' She said, 'As you have seen, there is not a lot of traffic out on the roads. These people are selective about who to attack. They obviously know we have a facility at Harrisburg, but they also seem to know that we are in Des Moines, too.'

Styx looked at the two people before him,

'And how does this affect me? Is it something to do with the spaceman?'

Del Banco answered,

'We just do not know. But we need to- find out, and quickly.'

Styx knew these two people were Illuminate; and if they needed information on something that was happening out there, there must be something amiss – very amiss.

'There is an airport near a place called Red Oak,' del Banco continued, 'on the I-34. We have captured a vehicle from some of the local The Malitia. These are several counties away from here, so it will not be noticed if strangers are driving it.'

Styx began to smell a plot,

'What's that got to do with me?'

'We have put together a small team to pose as The Malitia. What we need is for you to go in with these people to infiltrate.'

'You need me to what?'

'Infiltrate, we need to know why these people are targeting our people.'

Styx was not thrilled,

'And I suppose that you think I would fit right in with these heavily-armed desperadoes?'

'I don't see why not.' Del Banco was holding his cool, 'You are a fully trained operative.'

'It may have escaped your notice, but a fully trained operative who may have been out in the sun a little too long – these Malitia tend to be somewhat paler than me; apart from the back of their necks;- they are rednecks. We do not get on very well.'

'You don't have to get on – just get in there and find out what they are up to.'

'That's if I can even get to – where's this? – Red Oak. They already tried to finish me off on my way in here, so if you were thinking of keeping this whole place quiet, I suspect that they now know about it. He waved his arm, and looked through the windows as if searching for a foe.

'So would you feel safer in here,' Mrs Hapsburg added, 'or out there?'

Styx thought for a moment, then turned to Mrs Hapsburg,

'I see what you mean.' He turned back to del Banco, 'I suppose what has happened to this country has changed things.'

'Yes, it has. But these people are behaving in an even more different way than you would expect.'

'The Malitia tend to be The Malitia; how can that change?'

'These people have a common purpose, and that is not only focussed on survival. Trust me, Styx, I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think you could do it.'

Styx looked displeased at del Banco, Mrs Hapsburg said,

'There is a good team waiting for you at Red Oak.'

Styx nodded to her as he turned and left.

He studied the details of his route from Winterset to Red Oak, eventually selecting a less trodden route in the hope of avoiding trouble.

The big Camaro raised dust as Styx drove in a general south-westerly direction.

He kept a wary eye on his mirror, and, sure enough a tell-tale cloud of dust showed that someone was driving along the same road.

Traffic was light since the Tsunami, and on these back roads there were even less vehicles.

Styx tried moving faster, but the road condition was not good enough to go at any speed – as he bounced about he thought to himself,

'If only I had stuck to the freeways.'

Just then a rather large hole appeared in the road ahead. He could only avoid it by swerving around, and out onto the dirt by the side of the road.

There appeared another, this time nearer to the side, allowing him room to be able to swerve and stay on the blacktop. Then what looked like two holes close together forced Styx off the road all together.

He stopped to look at the strange holes. These were no mere pot holes. The edges looked as if explosives had been used.

As he picked up a piece of discarded tarmac he was supplied with the answer.

There was an eerie whistling, and then an explosion in the field alongside the road, followed by another well behind the Camaro.

As Styx look in the direction of this latest explosion his gaze was directed down the road from whence he had come.

The dust cloud from other vehicles was now much closer – so close in fact that he could see there were several vehicles travelling towards him at speed.

A small puff of smoke briefly came from the rear of the lead truck, then a tell-tale whistle that Styx recognised from his years in action with the Marines – an incoming Rocket Propelled Grenade.

He didn't wait to see where it would land, he leapt into his vehicle. As he slammed the door the missile landed in the field into which he had to go in order to get around the holes.

The rear tyres spit dust as Styx put the pedal to the metal. The chasing pick-ups barely lost speed as they left the tarmac in order to drive around the holes – they had been here before.

The Camaro engine pulled the car along a lot faster than a pick-up when it hit the tarmac again. Black lines appeared as the wheels spun, and smoke mixed with dust as Styx accelerated away.

The men in the pursuing convoy didn't worry, nor did they slow down.

Styx looked in his rear-view mirror. He saw that there were five vehicles chasing him. As they regained the paved road he could only see the lead vehicle. He could just make out the shapes of men in the back holding RPGs and machine guns.

Another RPG exploded just ahead of, and to the left, of the Camaro. Another hole appeared – at least he now knew how they had got to be there. As he swerved to avoid this he switched on a small screen on the middle of the dashboard.

As the picture stabilised he regained the tarmac. The little screen showed exactly what was happening to the rear of the Camaro. A switch below the screen only moved either left or right. As Styx moved it a nudge to the right the picture moved to put the lead truck into the middle of the screen. A thin black line was drawn down the exact centre of the screen; this line was directly over the driving position in the pick-up.

Styx prodded a yellow button above the screen.

Inside the vast trunk of the Camaro say a six-barrelled M-134D-H mini-gun. Capable of firing up to ten rounds a second this machine gun opened up for less than two seconds as Styx held the button down.

Eighteen rounds hit the pick-up. All within a two foot circle at waist height to the driver. He was almost cut in two. The engine took several hits; any one would have been enough to stop it dead. The rear wheels seized up solid – petrol gushed out of the smashed engine, igniting immediately.

The second vehicle ran straight into the rear of the first wreck, causing a bigger fireball.

The third pick-up swerved, and managed to avoid the pile-up. A smaller convoy of three pick-ups now gave chase after Styx.

These vehicles were full of people bent on revenge for their colleagues. To this end they all began to sprout RPGs and assault rifles – all firing at the weaving, fishtailing Camaro as it accelerated away.

Styx in the Camaro felt the percussion effects of the explosions around him, the dust raised by assault rifles firing on automatic drew wild lines in the ground. He knew it was only a matter of time before someone got lucky.

Another two blasts directly in front of his car caused Styx to swerve violently. This took him off the main road, on to a side track. Looking at the little screen he found that he could see all three trucks at once. A little red glow told him that the minigun was still live. A quick flick moved the thin aiming line towards the rear truck. As it reached this, Styx pushed the yellow button, and moved the switch to move the minigun through its full 90 degree arc – thus raking the five pick-ups with ten rounds a second.

The rest of his journey passed without issue. Styx met up with the people in Red Oak.

      

Chapter 53

The Rainbow Canyon Transition

The Osprey was now flying low. Nidini knew that it was not much use as an evasive manoeuvre or hiding; the giant rotors, now being used as propellers, prevented the aircraft from getting low enough to hide above the flat terrain over which they were flying, but coupled with the dull grey colour of the machine, it might just make them difficult to spot.

Sitting up front with Nadini, in the co-pilot's seat was Ash, one of the astronauts with The Secret.

Galina Danilenko appeared at the door behind them,

'Tom wants a word.' She said to Ash.

'Ok.' Ash undid his straps, and followed her into the rear of the aircraft.

As he stepped into the cargo/passenger bay he saw Tom Collins laying on the floor,

Ash looked straight at Michelle,

'You ok?'

He knew that she had been through the same experience as the sick Colonel on the floor.

'I'm fine.' She replied, 'But Tom isn't doing too well.'

'How you doin'?' Ash asked him.

'I've been better.'

The aircraft bounced gently in the warm desert air. The sun was getting quite high now, and the heat from the ground below caused this turbulence.

Ash had to steady himself as he took one of the canvas seats that were running along the fuselage sides.

'Hang on in there, buddy. We'll get you to a hospital as soon as we can.' He looked up at Galina, who Tom couldn't see from his position. Galina did not look hopeful.

Tom thumped Ash's leg to get his attention,

'Hey! What the hell happened on Mars?'

'What do you know?'

'I know that we were monitoring the systems in the living accommodation, then all of a sudden everything went haywire – pressure dropped, the airlocks started giving wild readings – or none at all.' He coughed before being able to continue, 'That was after we lost Mark Singleton – and what happened there?'

'Whoa, there bud, one question at a time.' Ash glanced around him. Galina was sitting opposite; Jake was crouched on the open ramp keeping a keen eye on their rear. 'I'm not surprised that you got wild reading from your instrumentation – one of the robots burst out of the accommodation without bothering to open the doors first.'

Tom tried to sit up,

'What?'

Ash smiled,

'Yes, but that was not all – he was after us.' He indicated Galina, Hoshi and Jake.

Michelle looked shocked,

'Whaaa?'

Tom knew there was more than meets the eye about this latest statement,

'What about the First Protocol?'

Ash was fairly matter-of-fact with his answer,

'They were sent a patch that overrode it.'

'What, all of them?'

'Yes, Even the Scutters on board the Phoenix.'

Tom struggled to raise himself on one elbow, shaking his head he said,

'How the hell did we not know about all of this? I was Capcom for most of the time – none of this came through.'

The aircraft's internal loudspeaker system came on,

'This is because the communications were scrubbed.' Semeramis said, 'I picked up on it, but could not do anything about it because it happened in real time.'

Galina was startled; she looked around as she said,

'What the devil happened there?'

Michelle said,

'That's Semeramis, she's helped me before.'

Tom needed more,

'We lost one of our guys on Mars, what happened to him?'

He was referring to Mark Singleton.

Ash briefly looked at Jake, hanging on the ramp in the airstream.

He shook his head as he said,

'We found his helmet in a cave that used to be filled with ice; it looked as if he had been exposed to too much heat during the melting process.'

Semeramis then came back,

'That was no accident.'

The aircraft began to pitch and roll as Nalini began to fly around features on the ground.

She came over the comms,

'Sorry about this, people, but it might be a good idea to strap yourselves in; we are approaching some terrain where we can hide, but it means that I will have to throw the aircraft about.'

They were approaching an area known as Rainbow Canyon – also known as Star Wars Canyon.

The route carried them on a twisting, turning flight along the Rainbow Canyon Transition. The vast columns they flew by once supported a massive roof over the whole area. This dropped millions of years ago leaving columns and canyon walls looking as if they had been painted with horizontal stripes.

There was no conversation as the occupants took up their positions. They were all looking out of the windows at the fascinating scenery as Nalini skilfully weaved through the valley.

All that was except Tom Collins, he was in no position to appreciate the scenery.

Galina looked at him with concern. She knelt beside him and noticed that he was fighting for breath. Ash had returned to the cockpit, Hoshi joined Galina, felt Tom's chest, and then tried to hear his breathing by placing her ear down on his chest. Michelle reached for the Marine first aid kit. In it she found a stethoscope. Hoshi took this, and began sounding Tom's chest.

'Pneumothorax.' Was all she said as she moved to the other side, 'Both lungs have collapsed.'

She began exploring the first aid box.

Michelle said,

'What are you doing? What do you need? Is there anything I can do?'

'I'm looking for something I can use as an intercostal catheter; a chest drain.'

Michelle took hold of the first aid box, and steadied it whist Hoshi examined the contents. The aircraft swung and swayed; making their jobs difficult.

Michelle looked directly at Hoshi and said,

'Are you quite certain about this?'

Hoshi looked at Tom,

'We have to do something; he has both lungs collapsed. If I don't do something to drain off the air that has got between his lungs and the chest wall he will suffocate.'

Galina said to Michelle,

'Could you ask the pilot to smooth it out a bit?'

Michelle nodded, and then moved to the door between the bay and the cockpit. She spoke to both Ash and Nalini,

'They are going to have to perform a surgical procedure on Tom back here, could you please smooth it out a little?'

Ash turned to look into the bay – he saw that Hoshi and Galina had rigged up a drip, which Galina had to keep hold of. He glanced at Nalini, then back to Michelle,

'Do you want us to land?'

Michelle passed the question on to Hoshi.

She replied,

'It would be at least advisable.'

Ash addressed Nalini,

'Could we put down somewhere?'

'What I am concerned about is the amount of dust put up by landing – but I have a plan. You don't need to get out, do you?'

'No.' Ash replied without consulting anyone else – or understanding the question.

Nalini called as she put the Osprey into a gentle turn,

'Roger that. Watch this.' She looked at Ash, 'Landing in two minutes.'

The grey machine climbed to the top of the canyon side. Nalini searched for one particular column. As she found it she began rotating the engines of the Osprey until they pointed almost straight up, with the giant rotors swirling around on a horizontal plane. The machine slowly approached the flat top of the column. Most of the downwash fell down the sides; any dust kicked up from the top of the column was washed to the base, down to the desert floor. As the Osprey settled on the top of the column there was no dust in the air around her.

On the floor of the passenger bay the three women got to work on Tom Collins. His shirt was removed, Hoshi kept checking with the stethoscope,

'I think our best chance is with his right side.' She told the others, 'It looks like we may get away with just one drain if we get this one right.'

Nalini shut the engines down to reduce vibrations. Jake climbed on to the top of the fuselage to better keep a lookout.

Inside the aircraft the patient was still fighting for breath, but was fully conscious.

'Roll him a little to you.' Hoshi asked her nursing staff.

She then prepared a carefully selected section of flesh, turning to Tom she said,

'This may smart a bit, Tom, but try not to flinch too much; I would normally anaesthetize the area, but I don't know enough about these medications in here.'

'At least we will have still conditions.' He commented.

'Right.' Hoshi said, nodding to her nurses as she moved in with the scalpel.

The small incision did not issue much blood. The catheter was inserted with no fuss or bother. Air was heard to issue forth, and Hoshi breathed a sigh of relief. And so did Tom, who began to breath normally again.

Galina looked towards the rear of the bay, at the empty ramp,

'Where's Jake?' she asked.

Ash, at the front of the aircraft, twisted round in the co-pilots' seat to reply,

'He's out on top.' Thumb signifying direction, 'Want to go tell him what's happening?'

Galina simply nodded as she made her way to the rear ramp.

Clambering up on to the almost flat top of the strange looking helicopter, Galina found Jake standing, legs wide, between the giant rotors. The black blades stood six feet above the fuselage top, and Jake was using them to quarter the vast emptiness as he scanned the sky.

'This where you are.' Galina did not want to scare him with an unexpected shout.

'All quiet out here.' He reached into his pocket, 'but look at what I found in the chopper.'

Jake produced what looked like a tangle of wire and a small box.

Galina looked puzzled by this.

'It's an old MP3 music player.'

He unfolded the wires,

'Here, you'll like this.'

He handed her one of the earpieces. As he tapped the little square box she fiddled to put it in her ear.

He nodded to her,

'Ready.' He placed the other earpiece in his ear – this meant that their heads became quite close together as well as being connected.

He pressed the machine, music began playing – a Joan Armatrading song from 1976. The words,

"I'm not in love, but I'm open to persuasion."

Flowed in their ears.

They looked into each others' eyes, and embraced, kissing passionately.

Ash climbed part way up to the front of the fuselage so that he could address the couple on the roof,

'Hey, you two.' He called, 'We would like to start the engines, if you don't mind.' He pointed to the rotors above their heads.

They climbed down after one last look around for any searching aircraft.

Nalini started the engines; the take-off was clean; once again the small amount of dust was washed down the sides of the pillar.

She took the Osprey up to one thousand feet in order to give Tom a smooth ride.

Five minutes after take-off Michelle's cell phone rang. It could only be Semeramis.

'Hi. We have managed to stabilize Tom, but he needs medical care quickly.'

'I thought as much. You're nearest, and best hope, is Edwards.'

'Yes, we are heading there now.'

'Can you put me on speakerphone?'

Michelle leaned into the cockpit,

'Nalini, can we put this through the aircraft's loudspeaker system?'

Before anyone could respond, Semeramis's voice came booming over the loudspeakers.

'Hello everyone, I know you have all been through hell and back – some even further.'

Tom turned his head, and looked at Hoshi as Semeramis continued,

'You will no doubt be aware that there is someone out to stop you reaching civilization. The attack in Death Valley showed how far they will go to prevent your secret from getting out... I suggest that your best chance now is to split up. Think – "What do they not want us to do?" – then do that.'

Hoshi was first to speak,

'I want to stay with Tom.'

Ash turned around from his position in the co-pilots seat. He addressed his comment at Jake,

'We are the only ones to have actually seen it, so we have to split up.'

'Yes, I agree.' Jake said. All of this was heard by Semeramis, who was still on the line.

'People on the run tend to look less suspicious if there is a man and a woman.' She said.

Michelle looked directly at Ash,

'That's fine by me.'

Jake looked at Galina,

'That's ok by me. How about you?'

'Yes.' Galina replied, her soft Russian accent coming through, 'If I don't stand out too much.'

Semeramis spoke again,

'I suggest that you go to New York State. We need to know how badly it has been hit.'

Galina had a question,

'How are we to communicate the information?'

'The old emergency number 911 still works. When you ring in you will probably be put through to an automated reply service saying that "... they have been swamped with calls, and you are in a queue – waiting time at this moment is 270 hours." Whilst this is being told to you, you must press five. This will put you through directly to me.'

Galina then said,

'That is all very well, but how are we to get to New York State?

Semeramis was on top of it,

'You are going to Edwards Air Force Base – I have arranged a flight to Newark from there. Newark is not open, but a military flight should get in there, they even got a vehicle for you.'

Ash was next to speak,

'And what do you have in mind for us?'

'There are people in Iowa who would like to speak with you.'

'Iowa?' exclaimed Michelle.

'Yes, a little place near Des Moines to be exact.'

She looked at Ash, who was leaning half in, half out of the cockpit. They exchanged puzzled looks.

Tom settled back, Hoshi tended to him.

Moments later they landed at Edwards Air Force Base.

Once on the ground the astronauts were issued with new clothing – and a plan.

Of all the choice of shirt, Jake had to select the most colourful Hawaiian number to reflect his personality.

The plan was simple; disperse to New York State and Iowa, plus Tom to hospital.
Chapter 54

The Hilbert Transformation

'The people of North Carolina look to be re-organizing.' The Marquis of Libeaux said to Gerald

The Marquis (pronounced – Markee) was noticeable for his shock of pure white hair, lozenge-shaped spectacle lenses, and long plaited beard. Other than that he did not stand out in Scandanavia.

Gerald was Gerald.

As he spoke to Gerald he was thereby allowing the whole of his family to hear what he was saying.

Ninkharsag and Romanov were in an office on the outskirts of Toronto, del Banco and Mrs Hapsburg were having coffee in Winterset, Madison County, Io.

Rockefeller was in a small boat in what was left of New York harbour.

These groups all had one thing in common; they were all accompanied by a man named Gerald.

That is not to say that someone called Gerald was sitting in with them. These Geralds were identical. They were not what they seemed; they were all androids – the possibility of making them look different existed, but it meant that each one would have been vastly more difficult to produce, so they all ended up looking exactly the same.

All participants in this strange conference call were connected by the Geralds using a transformation of Hilbert Space; The Hilbert transform of g(t) is the convolution of g(t) with the signal 1/πt. It is the response to g(t) of a linear time-invariant filter (called a Hilbert transformer) having impulse response 1/πt. The Hilbert transform H[g(t)] is often denoted as ˆg(t) or as [g(t)]∧.

'I can't see much evidence of recovery here.' Rockefeller scanned the disrupted skyline of New York with binoculars. 'I can't see any safe place to land out there, either. Some people who look like homeless zombies with no sign of vehicular activity at all.'

Gerald looked at the buildings; the normal, well-known, New York skyline had changed.

The once familiar skyline was now ugly with buildings blackened by the fires that raged uncontrolled across the city after the Tsunami.

'No signs of life in the buildings, what is left of them.' he turned to Rockefeller, 'What say you we launch a drone?'

Rockefeller lowered his binoculars; the stiff breeze hardly moved his close-cropped hair, his thick rimmed glasses dropped back down on to his nose as he replied,

'If we can't make landfall ourselves, that is the next best thing.'

They moved towards the rear of the boat, which continued to move slowly through the water.

Rockefeller thought they might invite the interests of people on the shore; but there was no attempt to go out to greet them.

As Gerald readied the drone for launch Rockefeller took the opportunity to continue his scan of the docks. He could then see why there was no welcoming committee. What boats were left in the harbour had been crushed to splinters by the heavier metal vessels which had been carried from positions at sea into the harbour. The ones that had not crashed into the harbour had been sent down the streets of New York.

'Ready to launch, Mr Rockefeller.'

Rockefeller looked at the drone. It was a slender machine with the lines of a glider, but he knew it housed a very efficient little jet engine inside.

'Should we stop the boat?' Rockefeller asked.

Gerald looked at the instruments on the dashboard in front of the wheelhouse before replying,

'At less than five knots I don't think we need to bother.'

'OK.' Rockefeller nodded.

Gerald moved the machine to point over the side of the boat. A slender ramp slid out from under the drone.

Gerald looked around the boat, and then paid particular attention to the rear of the drone, he then called,

'Clear to launch drone.'

Rockefeller replied,

'Clear to fire up drone.'

This was not strictly necessary; there were only two of them on board, but training runs deep.

Gerald tapped a button on the dash, whilst holding down another key with his thumb. A gentle whine came from the drone, the noise slowly raised in tempo. The machine rocked slightly from side to side, but it was not discernable if this was due to the gentle wind, movement of the boat, or the build-up of power within the machine.

He released his thumb from holding the key that controlled the brake.

The Ghost grey drone shot off as if released from a catapult. Its flying speed of 35 mph was reached long before it got to the end of the ramp. As it soared away Gerald reduced the throttle mainly to cut down on the noise emitted. The reconnaissance drone was almost silent at normal operating throttle – at heights above 500 feet it could not be heard at ground level.

'Take it up to 1500 feet.' Rockefeller said as the drone began its journey towards New York.

Gerald was now below decks watching three screens showing what the cameras on the drone could see.

Rockefeller joined him; they both kept up a running commentary on what could be seen for the benefit of the rest of the family.

'Approaching Verrazano Narrows Bridge.' Gerald joggled the cameras to look to the left to see the damage done to the buildings of Staten Island. 'Nothing left. The Tsunami must have been above these buildings.' He banked the drone to move closer to the structures. 'Here are some condominium blocks. Up to the third storey there are no windows.'

Rockefeller added,

'The wave must have taken them all out. And what about the people living in these – they must have been underwater. The long wavelength of the Tsunami would keep them under for twenty minutes.' He turned to Gerald, 'Can't see much point trying to explore the downtown area, fly along to the dock area at Newark.'

The screens show a largely intact New York skyline; but as they looked to the right a closer inspection showed debris and detritus swept from the harbour into the bases of the skyscrapers.

Gerald said,

'The Statues's still there, but Ellis has taken a hit; it has been scoured.'

Ellis Island was devoid of any structures whatsoever.

'Let's see how far inland this goes on for.' Rockefeller said.

The drone turned left after passing the Statue of Liberty, between Liberty Island and Ellis Island, to overfly Jersey City.

The streets were all the same; empty of life, and strewn with wrecked cars, rubble, and sometimes an occasional boat.

The brick and concrete buildings had more or less survived.

Rockefeller said,

'There are a lot more blank spots than before.'

Gerald added,

'If we go a little lower, you will see that we could probably fly down these streets. You could not do that before; the power cables across the whole city have been swept away. The surviving buildings have no windows and no power, most of them are probably unsafe – the whole area has been rendered uninhabitable.'

The drone was now only feet away from the rooftops of the devastated buildings.

Bodies could be seen in unexpected places; hanging off the transporter bridge as if they had been dumped there, giant, strong road signs had been twisted into grotesque shapes, and captured bodies, other pieces of road furniture that had survived also displayed corpses of the unfortunate.

Rockefeller said to Gerald,

'Wheel round more to the west; I want to see what has happened to Newark International.'

The drone gained a little height as it executed a slow turn to the right.

The concrete spread of Newark International airport lay before them on the centre screen, slowly expanding to cover all three.

There were no aircraft. The central terminal building used to have vast areas of glass to enable the thousands of people to watch the aircraft. These windows had gone – but not the people, or the aircraft. The Tsunami had picked the aircraft up, and thrown them into the high windows at the people inside.

As the drone approached the terminal building, Gerald let it drop almost down to ground level, knowing that there were no obstacles into which it could fly.

As they looked into the wrecked building they saw what looked like an aircraft scrap yard, with bits of planes stacked up against the far walls. Parts of the planes had been pushed through the roof at this point. This allowed the water to get out even faster than it came in.

After the water had subsided, and took with it thousands of gallons of aviation fuel, the injured and dead inside the heap continued to bleed; the result was to make the concourse run red. There was not much on the outside of the pile, but gallons had seeped down to the floor.

'Jesus wept.' Rockefeller whispered. 'There has been mass destruction at the airport – it is usable again as a landing facility, but if you intend to use it as a hub,' he took a deep breath, 'you will need to bring in your own infrastructure.'

He turned to Gerald,

'Let's see how far inland this thing goes.'

Gerald consulted the drone's compass; he selected to fly out in a north by westerly direction.

'There seems nothing down there to save.' Remarked Rockefeller.

The Marquis said,

'How far inland are you expecting to go?'

'We don't know, but the level of destruction here is uncompromising.'

'I presume you were anticipating using Newark International to provide aid?'

'Yes, but there is no-one down there to help; if we are to rebuild, we have to start further out.'

The drone was now over the Irvington area, and the destruction seemed less complete – houses were still standing intact, some power lines had survived.

Gerald called out,

'Vehicle; there's a vehicle down there.' He pointed at the left screen, 'It is moving, and we have found the extent to which life has been snuffed out.'

The drone circled above the vehicle.

'A pickup with trailer.' Commented Rockefeller, 'Scavengers. They are looking for food probably.'

Del Banco added,

'Or anything worth stealing.'

The Marquis countered,

'In that situation nothing is of any value. Their food supplies will have suddenly dwindled – the material they may have had access to in supermarket freezers will have gone off because there was no electricity. Money has no value – the only currencies they are bothered about are food and fuel for their vehicle.'

Ninkharsag touched Romanov on the sleeve,

'Are these natives friendly?' she asked.

Romanov shook his head,

'Probably not; they are hungry, desperate people who have seen more death and destruction than we can imagine. Not only have the places they live and work gone - but the whole structure of their society has been smashed.'

Del Banco commented,

'One day the most powerful person in their world was the President, the very next it was a mechanic who could keep their vehicle running so that they could get food.'
Chapter 55

Zoo.

Leaning out of the cab of the yellow pick-up Melissa pointed to the sky,

'There's a goddam, mother-lovin' airplane up there.'

Randal stopped the machine,

'Does it look hostile?'

She looked askance at him,

'How the hell should I know?' She looked at the drone, 'It ain't spittin' no fire.'

Three people got out of the vehicle; Melissa, McKinley and a bloke in hideous Hawaiian shirt - they knew that if it was aiming at anything, it would be the truck.

The smell of the sea was still strong, although the ground was now dry.

McKinley looked through his binoculars,

'Cain't see no missiles.' He observed.

The drone obligingly banked round, and moved a lot closer to them. Gerald was getting a better look at them.

'Must be a recce job.' McKinley said.

Melissa looked at the houses around them,

'Ok; maybe we could look at these places, whilst we are here.'

All three of them moved off towards the nearest house. The doors and windows were gone, they walked straight in.

'Don't bother with the freezer,' Randal said, 'They ain't had no electric since the wave, go for the tins.'

It only took a few minutes to strip all of the tinned goods from the wrecked house.

As they placed their gains in the rear of the truck, McKinley looked for the drone – it was gone.

'Might as well check out a few more houses.' Melissa said as she made her way across the street, followed by her colleagues.

One house was boarded up; the side they approached from would not have been hit by the tsunami, so the doors and windows had been spared.

Melissa walked round to the back. It looked as if the boarding here had not been disturbed either.

McKinley joined her. He tried a couple of the boards - secure.

He looked around the back yard, now devoid of most of its furniture, including any fencing. He found a length of metal, and began prising the boarding from around a convenient window.

All three climbed in through the window. The place was dark and dank inside; there was very little ventilation. Only Randal had a flashlight, so they stayed together as they went straight to the kitchen to look for tinned goods. They found none. Melissa walked around the dark house looking for anything that could be of use to them in their striving to survive.

The two men continued looking for any storage elsewhere in the house, a connecting door to the garage gave them hope, but even the freezers in there were empty.

Melissa came down the stairs as the men walked back into the main part of the house.

'Ain't nothing here.' Exclaimed Randal, as he closed the door behind him.

'I know.' Melissa said. 'And I know why.'

The men looked surprised. The darkness behind Melissa hid what she had found.

McKinley tried another cupboard,

'Can I have some light in here, buddy?'

Randal turned his flashlight towards McKinley.

The cupboard was bare.

Melissa moved into the only room with natural light; where the boarding had been removed.

Randal shone his flashlight towards her, at the same instant she moved into the natural light. As she moved to one side the two men saw what she had discovered.

Hiding behind her in the shadows, clinging on to her hand was a small boy. In his other hand he held a toy pistol. The little lad looked terrified. Randal was first to speak,

'Where did you get him from?'

As if it mattered.

'Same place I got his brother from.' She beckoned towards the shadows, 'Come on, Taylor. It's ok; we mean you no harm.'

Another boy appeared.

'They were trying to hide upstairs. They have been surviving on the tins of food they found in the kitchen. Luckily the water supply has held out.'

Randal dropped to one knee to address the boys,

'What's your name?'

They shied away, Melissa replied for them,

'This here is Tobias,' she indicated the boy with the gun, 'and this is Taylor. They are both seven years old. They don't know where there parents are, or anyone else – they is totally alone in this godforsaken world.'

Randal said,

'We'll have to take them back.'

McKinley said,

'With us?'

'Yes,' Randal answered, 'They can shelter with us until we find out how to help them.'

Melissa comforted the boys as they checked other properties in the area. No other survivors were found.

As the five people returned to their base in the commandeered St Cloud Elementary school near Orange Reservoir, Taylor and Tobias became more settled, but Tobias would not let go of his gun.

'Who are you going to shoot with your gun?' Melissa asked him. He looked a little puzzled at this direct question, he didn't answer at first, then pointed it at McKinley, who didn't see it.

Melissa smiled at the young boy, and he smiled for the first time.

When they arrived at St Cloud they all made their way to their temporary accommodation on the third floor. They moved about as Tobias and Taylor looked out of the window. They could see the giraffes moving about across the road – this fascinated the boys.

When the foraging crew had finished their return procedures they made their way across to the zoo with the largest portion of the supplies.

As they pulled into an area surrounded by buildings in various conditions due to the floods they were greeted by Jake Jensen.

Jake was looking after the rebuilding of the zoo, many within the group thought it to be a waste of valuable and scarce resources, but Jake could see other benefits.

Taylor and Tobias were taken around the zoo project by Melissa and Galina. The flooding had by now subsided, the emergency accommodations in the multi-storey car parks been taken down, most people had returned to what they could recover of their homes. Here, 15 miles from the ocean, the tsunami had caused damage commensurate with severe flooding. People fled to high ground; the multi-storey car parks by the zoo offered the opportunity to take your vehicle to higher ground without leaving the neighbourhood.

In one corner of the top floor there were a small group of RVs, like a gypsy encampment. This was where Taylor and Tobias were taken. This small group were from out of town; Randal came from Omaha, Melissa came from Lincoln, Nebraska, and McKinley hailed from Kansas City. They had decided to stick together until they could work out what had happened, and how to best deal with it. The common ground they all shared was zoological; they all had a speciality in animals – breeding, caring for, and mending them. Randal was not connected to animals, he was a mechanic.

The twin brothers soon settled in to the almost nomadic life. The animal specialists worked with the zoo authorities getting the place back to some sort of order, Randal helped with reconstructing the enclosures in the zoo. They had lost quite a few of the animals; the lions had eaten most of them. Of the aquatic species, most had fared ok, but had now gone missing – the fresh water species had not fared well, the salt water brought in by the tsunami killed them all. Every last one of the Kangaroos had escaped; but they will adapt and survive in the forests surrounding the zoo. The giraffes had also escaped – but they seemed to know that the best source of the food they liked was at the zoo, so they came back.

Taylor and Tobias worked out which of the animals were suitable to play with; most of the apes were too strong and unpredictable for them, but the smaller furry animals were always glad of some human interaction.

Galina and Jake Jensen were working in the hamster houses, mainly cleaning up; they had the boys helping them. They were tasked with keeping the residents occupied whilst Galina and Jake sorted out ways of repairing water damage.

The food gathering mission they had been on when they came across Taylor and Tobias shows that things were a long way from normal; there was no money, and food was always in short supply. The rest of the country was not yet ready to send supplies in to the stricken areas. The shops and supermarkets were no longer functioning, so the group had decided to work as volunteers to get the zoo back to at least being secure for the good of the animals.

Randal and Melissa were stacking food supplies from another forage mission into one of the many roofless storage sheds.

Randal looked around at the collection,

'I think they should have enough now, and the zoo is a lot more secure; about time we thought about moving back closer to home.'

'Yes, it would be nice to get back.'

McKinley entered the room,

'Hi, What's going on here?' he said.

Randal placed another case on a shelf,

'We were just thinking it is about time we moved back home.'

McKinley took a case from the pick-up,

'Just the two of you?'

'No; I thought we should go back in convoy.'

'That's just peachy. You two are making decisions for all of us now, are you?' McKinley threw the case on to a shelf, he was getting annoyed.

Melissa looked shocked.

Randal replied calmly,

'No one is making decisions for anyone. We are all free to do whatever we want.'

McKinley turned to face Randal directly,

'And I suppose you and the little lady here want to run off together?' he didn't look at Melissa.

'Don't talk stupid, McKinley. We are all better off if we stick together.'

'And what about the boys?' McKinley meant Taylor and Tobias.

Melissa answered,

'They seem quite settled here; I don't see that we could benefit them by taking them away.'

Randal said,

'You seem to have taken them under your wing, Melissa. Is there anyone here who could look after them?'

She thought for a moment,

'That is a problem. They've not got really close to anyone – apart from the animals.'

McKinley saw this as someone else's problem,

'And you thought you could just go and leave them here?' he turned to Randal, 'Don't be so goddam selfish.'

Randal pushed a case away from himself as he said,

'Who are you calling selfish?'

McKinley responded,

'You are;' Anger raised his voice, 'You just want to run off back to where you will be safe.'

'SAFE!' Randal shouted back, 'You think the area around Omaha is safe?'

'Safer than New York;' Melissa tried to defuse the situation, 'The straight streets were acting like compressors. The tsunami hit the front, was funnelled by the buildings down streets, where it reached supersonic speed, and ten stories high. When it came to the end of the street it obliterated everything.' She waved an arm in the direction of the city, 'there is no point going that way.'

McKinley spun to face her, closing the distance between them,

'That don't make Omaha the safest place on earth.'

Without warning, Randel took hold of McKinley's shoulder, and pulled him away from Melissa, saying,

'And what is there here?'

McKinley shrugged off Randal's grip,

'Something to build on.' He said as he pushed Randal.

'Build on this.' Randal said as he threw a punch at McKinley.

McKinley ducked as he countered with a blow to Randal's stomach.

As Randal bent double, McKinley chopped the back of his neck, causing Randal to fall.

McKinley briefly faced Melissa as he then quickly made his exit.

Two days later two of the three RVs were preparing to depart.

McKinley approached Jake Jensen,

'Jake, we done here?'

'Guess so, Galina has found a family who are happy to take the boys in until they can find out what happened to their parents. Things are more stable now, Time we got back home.'

'I guess I'd better tag along with you.' McKinley said more as a statement than request.

'Yeah,' Jake nodded, 'I guess we may need some help along the way.'

As the three RVs moved off, twin boys appeared to wave them off, Tobias ran forward, and gave Galina something wrapped in a cloth. As the vehicles picked up speed she opened the present. Inside she found his toy pistol.

The plan was to meet a USAF aircraft at a local airport the other side of Dover.

At the Roseland turnpike the little convoy hit the I280, where they could now begin to move in a north-westerly direction towards the appointed rendezvous.

As they began to settle down for the journey they were overtaken by a Lincoln Continental doing over 100 mph. the limo slammed its brakes on. Randal, driving the lead RV, knew the road to be clear of traffic; there were no other vehicles around. Nevertheless he habitually checked his mirrors before changing lanes to move around the Lincoln.

He got a shock when he saw four pick-up trucks bearing down on him. The RVs were not fast vehicles. In order to conserve fuel they were travelling at the old national speed limit of 55 mph. In fact, they may not go much faster and remain stable.

The pick-ups formed a curve behind the RVs. The Lincoln weaved to prevent the RVs from passing as it continued to slow.

As the vehicles stopped armed men and women poured from the pick-ups.

Three men approached to rearmost RV.

The armed man pulled the door open, and pointed his gun menacingly at the occupants. He stopped abruptly when he saw the man who was sitting behind the wheel.

He shouted at the driver,

'McKinley!' he did not look pleased to see him, 'Where the fuck have you been?'
Chapter 56

Is the Secret Out?

It was getting dark as Ash and Michelle reached the facility at Winterset.

The establishment was housed in an old church building, upon finding all of the machinery within, Ash commented to Michelle,

'What is all this doing here?'

She just looked at all of the heavy machinery around. Three or four men stood operating the equipment. Presently one of them called across to Ash and Michelle,

'You need the office, buddy.' As he indicated the direction in which they were to go.

They turned right along an alleyway through the machines and benches.

Ash noticed some pieces of semi-finished equipment that seemed to look familiar in some way, but did not linger to find out more.

The office door was closed. Ash knocked and waited to be asked in.

A man called,

'Enter.'

They went into the small office to find a lone man by a computer consul. He rose to greet the astronaut,

'Welcome to Winterset, Colonel Ashton, Doctor Romero. My name is del Banco; I would like to introduce you to Mrs Hapsburg, who is upstairs.'

He moved towards the door. All three of them took the stairs to an upper floor. Here Ash could see more strangely familiar equipment, and more machinery.

They moved into another office before Ash could ascertain what was going on here.

Bigger than the other office, this one seemed to have printing capacities; Ash presumed that the schematics for whatever they were doing were generated here.

Mrs Hapsburg rose from her chair, held out a hand to Ash and Michelle, her right hand shook Ash's firmly, the left took Michelle's. She turned to Ash and said,

'It is a privilege to meet someone who has actually walked on the surface of another planet – not just our satellite, the moon, - but another actual planet.'

Good manners dictated that Ash responded kindly,

'Thank you, ma'am.'

He wanted to say – 'What the hell is going on here? This is not any NASA project.' – but didn't – yet.

Del Banco made coffee.

As it was served Mrs Hapsburg said,

'Please, take a seat, and let's get down to brass tacks.'

Michelle was trying to place her accent – maybe some form of German? Austrian perhaps.

The four of them took seats around an old-fashioned draughtsman's drawing board. This was a very heavy piece of equipment, used in the pre-digital age to draw up designs and blueprints. This large panel was now mounted in a level horizontal plane, and provided a variable height table.

Mrs Hapsburg began the proceedings,

'May I begin, Colonel Aston,' she looked at Ash, 'by saying that we know that you have been having trouble because of what you found on Mars.'

Ash was incensed by this,

'Having trouble – having trouble. That's putting it mildly. This whole mission has been dogged by one catastrophe after another.' He looked briefly at Michelle, 'and none of them accidents. We nearly lost Mary-Jo whilst building the ship – and then we lost at least three other people. The robots turned on us after we tried to find what had happened to Mark Singleton, and have been trying to kill us every step of the way home.'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'Yes, we know.'

'You know? How much do you know?'

'We know everything. We have been watching all along – and there have been things which we do not agree with.'

'Try looking at it from my side, lady.'

'Don't worry – we have been doing.'

'Even when we got back here we were immediately under attack from some maniac in an A-10.'

'Yes, we know all about that, too.'

'Are you all in some sort of ...' Ash hesitated, looked around, 'Say, what is going on here anyways?'

'We tend to work as separate entities;' Mrs Hapsburg explained, 'normally, that is.' she looked around the room before continuing. 'I was truly sorry to hear that one of our number was taking extreme measures against the mission.'

'You might simply call it extreme measure; to these people it was a matter of life and death.' Michelle interrupted.

'I know that. We tried to reign in our renegade, but...' before she could continue Michelle interrupted again,

'Why don't you just use his name?' she cast a glance at Ash, 'we all know it is Xanthros you are referring to.'

'Yes. Xanthros, like all of us, knew there to be something on Mars. It has been so long now that any accurate information about it has been lost a long time ago – but deep down inside we knew something important was there.'

Michelle looked startled.

Ash was surprised,

'You mean the whole mission was on a whim?'

Del Banco said,

'Not exactly; we came in on the mission at first to be able to monitor developments, but it was soon realised that the proposed landing site was near an important area.'

'I thought you said that you didn't know what was up there?'

'We didn't. But we knew about our origins on Mars – and our infiltration into your people must have passed on snippets through interbreeding.'

Ash looked askance at Michelle, she asked,

'Have they lost the plot, or have we?' she turned to Mrs Hapsburg, 'Did he just say "...our origins on Mars."?'

Mrs Hapsburg took a deep breath,

'When Mars had an atmosphere our ancestors looked at colonising it. This was a long time ago, so any details have been lost in the mists of antiquity. But we have always had the nuggets of information about this. When Mars lost its atmosphere we looked at Earth. The first thing to do was to change the local inhabitants by bringing in the ability to think rationally.'

She looked at del Banco. He nodded. She continued,

'The first thing they did was introduce a strain you know as Neanderthal.'

Michelle was trying to keep up with this,

'But they died out thousands of years ago.'

Mrs Hapsburg replied,

'They were meant to. The purpose of bringing in the Neanderthal was to insert the DNA of a free thinking, sentient being into the population.' She surveyed the silent couple before her, 'Do you know that you both have about 2% Neanderthal DNA? But each person has a different sample – to the end result that there is still almost 85% Neanderthal DNA spread out across most of humanity. They did not die out, they infiltrated the emerging humans. That is why humans are the only beings that love a mystery.'

Michelle said,

'And this is the big secret?'

Del Banco answered,

'Yes, Michelle. Coupled with certain manipulations through history, we have monitored and tried to steer human development. Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler were a bit too much - but otherwise we have steered you from self-destruction. Humans are the most developed beings we have found – but that is mainly because we managed to prevent you all from wiping yourselves out – granted, Africa has slipped through our control, but if this information comes out we fear that we would lose all semblance of control – with disastrous results.'

Ash looked at del Banco, then Mrs Hapsburg,

'And you two are involved in all of this?'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'Yes – you could say that.'

'I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.' He picked up his cup as he continued, 'Who else knows – I thought it was a closely guarded secret.'

'Oh but it is, Ash. Oh but it is.'

Michelle chipped in,

'Well I didn't know – and still don't.'

Mrs Hapsburg replied,

'Trust me; you are better off not knowing.'

Ash wanted answers,

'If you guys know, how many other people know?'

Del Banco seemed to be counting before he said,

'We are eight, then there of course is Jake Jensen.'

Mrs Hapsburg added,

'And Gerald.'

'Of course - Gerald. But should we count him?' del Banco said, 'And how do we quantify him?'

Ash looked puzzled at Michelle.

'We know a Gerald, don't we?' Ash said.

'Yes.'

Del Banco added,

'You may be surprised to learn that there is more than one of what you call 'Gerald.''

Ash and Michelle looked puzzled as del Banco continued,

'The android you refer to as Gerald has been replicated. These machines are very good at repetitive work, so they continued producing the one being – now referred to as Gerald – even by they themselves.'

Just then the door opened, and Gerald entered. Del Banco continued,

'Of course, we and they have to differentiate one from another; this for instance is G57/29K.'

Gerald 57/29K spoke,

'Sorry for the interruption, but I have information from Mr Rockefeller in New York.'

He placed an open laptop on the table.

Ash and Michelle moved around to be able to see the picture, provided via Gerald's Bluetooth capability. He began to explain, mainly for the benefit of the visitors,

'Mr Rockefeller is on a boat in New York harbour. He has sent out a drone as far as New Jersey, this is live feed from it.'

They scanned the scene. It was one of devastation – but at least the buildings were still standing, although there was no movement at all.

Then they saw a bright yellow pick-up truck. The vehicle stopped. People alighted, and looked up at the drone.

Michelle was first to notice the flamboyant shirt worn by one of the men below.

'Could that be Jake?'

'Who else would wear such a shirt in the circumstances?' Ash replied with a wry grin.

As the drone pulled away Gerald explained,

'The drone must retreat because there is a danger of it being shot down.'

Ash wanted to know,

'Is there any chance of communicating with the people on the ground?'

Gerald replied,

'I'm afraid not. This particular type of drone does not have the capacity to contact the people it is watching.'

'Pity.'

Mrs Hapsburg spoke via Gerald,

'Rockefeller, can we have a look at the city itself?'

Gerald 57/29K spoke in the voice of Rockefeller,

'Ok. It is about 10 miles from Manhattan now, swinging round now.'

The drone began a climbing turn to the east.

Less than five minutes later the Hudson passed below. The once familiar jagged skyline of skyscrapers was no longer familiar, and seemed a lot more irregular than normal.

On closer inspection it looked like smaller (by New York standards) buildings on the waterfront had been hit hard. They had been hit by a wave that was five or six stories high, travelling at close to the speed of sound, and with a wavelength of two or three miles. It was the wavelength that gave the Tsunami its power; that weight of water travelling at such a high speed hit the waterfront with such force that the buildings on the front were almost picked up, and thrown into the skyscrapers behind as if they were made of Lego. The combined destructive impact brought down more than a few of the lofty buildings. The whole of the financial district was obliterated. Millions must have perished in the first few seconds.

The little drone climbed to 5,000 feet. Details of the devastation were hidden from this height.

Mrs Hapsburg looked directly at Ash as she said,

'The people who have suffered here are mainly gone forever; but the country; and almost every country in the world will be reeling from the effects seen here for many years to come.'

Silent nods showed agreement. She continued,

'And the information you bring would not help the situation; or the people who have been hit with all of this.' She waved a perfumed hand towards the screen, 'Would you add to their suffering by giving them the information you have brought back from Mars?'
Chapter 57

Helix

The vehicle Styx found was not quite what he expected.

'We have made some modifications.' He was told by Souichi, the Japanese mechanic.

Some subtle changes had been made to the Ford pick-up. These changes had been done by experts – but you would never know it; they had the appearance of an amateur outfit.

The first thing he saw was the big red and white striped flag denoting the Malitia. The general condition was unkempt – it looked like a little TLC was needed, but this belied the work that had gone into improve the vehicles' capabilities.

The side panels and rear tailgate seemed a little bulkier than Ford had originally made them.

'This was not exactly as we found it.' Souichi said, 'All these panels have intelligent reactive armour.'

'You're kidding me!'

'No; it ain't full Chobham armour – you need to be a tank to carry that stuff. But it will stop bullets up to 50 cal – if anything heavier than that hits it; like an anti-tank armour piercing round, it explodes; cancelling out the piercing element.'

'Where the hell did you get this technology? Remember that I am supposed to blend in with survivalists who cobble together whatever they can.'

'This stuff has been developed for the military by civilians in factories all over the US. These are ordinary people with extraordinary jobs.'

Styx shook his head as he walked around the vehicle. He bent down by the rear wheels to look underneath.

'This suspension, been uprated has it?'

'Just like you would expect.'

He climbed onto the open back,

'How is it that I smell Humvee?'

'Lots of these parts were developed for the Humvee.'

Styx inspected the mounted minigun,

'Can this fire forwards?'

'No need. There's another on top of the cab for the passenger.'

He pulled a cover over the gun, and then dismounted over the rear tailgate. As he hit the ground he noticed that the letters FORD on the tailgate had been retained, but on the original they were embedded in the metal – now they were painted on.

Moving round to the front of the vehicle Styx said,

'Let's pop the hood, and see what's under here.'

Soiuchi reached inside the cab, and pulled the hood release lever. Styx opened the hood.

'Interesting.' he said, 'This looks like it was built out of second hand parts.'

'We like to give a bit more punch – this is the most powerful hemi we could put in here, but we didn't want to give the game away by dropping in a brand new shiny unit. Of course we put a new motor in, but we have distressed it to look worn and old.'

Styx closely inspected the engine bay,

'Looks pretty crowded in here.' He commented.

Souichi placed his hand in the bay as he said,

'That's probable because of these bad boys.'

Styx looked at the object he was patting. Nestling in the corner Styx had not noticed the breech of a .5 inch heavy machine gun. Then he noticed another one on the opposite side. Souichi said,

'We would have liked to install miniguns in here, but there was nowhere to put the ammo bins.'

Styx bent down to look at the front of the engine, and then inside where the radiator used to be,

'I'm surprised you didn't fit a 20mm cannon in the V of the engine.'

'What do you think this is? A Messerschmitt 109?'

'What happened to the radiator?'

'Too vulnerable up front like that; this time we did go for second-hand parts. We got hold of a set of radiators from a Bugatti Veron; these are much smaller, and can be installed around the car.'

Styx closed the hood shaking his head,

'Ok, now I'd like to meet my team.'

Styx walked into a side room. Here he found his new team.

Jay, tall and thin, he was in dire need of a haircut – it was long and red; because of this his nickname was blue. He carried a shotgun and sidearm, with a belt of ammunition slung over one shoulder.

Grace was standing by a window. The light reflected from her shoulder length auburn hair, emphasizing the colour - but she did not have the same hair problem as Jay. The rounded forehead gave her an intellectual look - the cheroot she was smoking gave an air of distinction.

Introductions over, Styx did not tell them of his secret agenda.

The quartet set off to find an element of the Malitia.

They did not have to go far; they were travelling on the empty freeway when they saw, coming towards them a big truck. The articulated tanker was flying a strange flag. The vehicle was pursued by five pick-up trucks, some of which were flying the same flag as Styx.

'This is our chance.' Styx said as he spun the truck round in the four lane highway.

Now facing the same direction as the other vehicles, he began to give chase, but some half mile behind the tanker.

The tanker belched black smoke from the exhaust chimneys as the driver floored it.

The chase was having difficulty keeping pace; they were beginning to spread out.

Styx was having no such problem – the V-8 hemi engine had stupid amounts of power to spare. The rear tires spun as Styx put the pedal to the metal. He began gaining on the tanker.

Jay was in the back of the pick-up with Grace. He moved to the 50 cal machine gun that was mounted on a central pillar.

Styx opened the rear window of the cab, and called to Jay,

'Go for the tires.'

Jay threw back a reply with some disdain,

'Yeah, right.'

He did, however wait for the cab of the tanker to pull level with their truck.

As it did, Souichi looked across the median at the cab. He saw someone lean across the tanker driver with an Israeli machine gun.

Styx threw the truck across the four lane highway to put the gunner off. Unfortunately it also put Jay off. His hair flew wildly in the wind as he tried to bring the 50 cal to bear.

The tanker's cab gunner fired wildly at Styx – he had no chance of hitting anything with such a short weapon. Jay did not have such a problem.

He stitched an ugly line of bullet-holes along the side of the trailer.

Styx was glad they were slightly ahead of the tanker as it exploded. Rails, pipes and ladders flew off the machine in all directions; the fireball almost reached the pick-up truck. The trucks following the tanker instinctively braked at the sight of the explosion.

Styx stopped the truck at 90 degrees to the original direction of travel as the smoke cleared. There was not much left of the tanker. The cab section had been blown clean off the machine, and rolled forwards before coming to a rest to the left side of the road.

The lead truck of the convoy that had been following the tanker raced to the cab section, but found the inside had been incinerated before getting away from the fireball.

Styx drove to the section of the median that had been blown out by the tanker, and then joined the convoy.

As the first trucks pulled alongside Styx, he dismounted to be greeted by a tough-looking survivalist who brushed right past him. He was heading towards Jay, who was still on the truck, standing by the 50 cal.

'What the fuck do you think you are doing, you dumb fuck.' The man shouted at Jay.

Jay looked down at the man as he took hold of the 50 cal,

'Say whaaa?'

'You stupid bastard! You destroyed our tanker.' He pointed agitatedly at the wreck, 'That was carrying our fuel.'

'Why, then, was he running away, dummy?'

'We had him nailed.'

'Did you not notice that he was faster than you?'

'We could have caught him.'

Jay laughed as he replied,

'When? - When he ran out of fuel? Just shows how stupid you are – chasing a fuel tanker hoping that he will run out of fuel before you do. Have a word with yourself, dummy.'

The man made a move to use the shotgun he was carrying. Jay swung the 50 cal. Styx hit the man with a rabbit punch from behind; felling him.

Jay moved to the edge of the truck as he called to the man on the ground,

'And if you took the trouble to notice, the tanker was not carrying anything – it was empty, you dumb smuck.'

Styx confirmed,

'He's right. Where is the fire? The fumes exploded – but there was never any fuel; that's why you couldn't catch him.'

Another man walked across to Styx. This man held out his hand,

'The name's Helix.'

Styx took his hand.

'Styx. Thought you needed some help there.'

Jay stood by the 50 cal, watching the rest of the Militia as they drew up.

Helix looked at the flag on Styx's truck, then back to Styx,

'Where you boys from?'

'Red Oak, Indiana.'

Helix nodded,

'Montgomery?'

'That's the one.'

Helix walked around their truck, inspecting it,

'Someone has put a lot of work in here.'

'A lot of military people have had to find other employment.'

'Mind if I look under the hood?'

'Sure.' Styx waved at Grace, who was sitting in the drivers' seat, 'Pull the hood, Grace.'

The front of the bulged hood popped up. Styx lifted it.

Helix leaned forward to look into the engine compartment. His eyes bulged with surprise as he explored in silence. He pointed towards the left side of the V-8 engine,

'Is that what I think it is?'

'A Trusty old 50 cal. We thought it better to put it there to balance the one on the other side.'

Helix quickly looked across to the other side of the engine compartment.

His hand ran along the heavy machine gun, feeling for the feed system,

'Where's the feed?'

'In the cab; we thought it might be useful to be able to reload on the move.'

Helix smiled as he shook his head. He looked around at the assembling trucks; he turned back to Styx.

Two brothers, Lucca and Jack, took a close interest in the new arrival; they carefully examined Stix's truck.

Quietly Lucca said to Jack,

'This is one hell of a piece of machinery.'

'Yup; do you think it could be a Pinkerton?'

Lucca ran his hand along the bodywork as he said,

'One thing is for sure – It was put together by professionals, despite the obvious attempts to make it look shabby.'

Grace was doing something in the back of the truck when she heard this. She waved Jay to come over to her,

'These two seem to think we may be Pinkertons,' she warned him.

'Do you want me to take them out?' he responded.

'That's a bit extreme.' She said.

Jack was very pushy as he approached Styx,

'You working for the government?'

Before Helix could intervene, Lucca supported his brother by pushing Styx into the side of his vehicle.

Jay jumped down from the rear of the vehicle, but as he attempted to take on Lucca, Jack saw what was likely to happen, and intercepted him as he jumped down.

People began to gather.

Styx rebuffed the attack by Lucca,

'Wha you talkin bout, boy?'

Just as Jack and Jay came crashing down alongside them.

Helix moved in close to Styx as he said in a threatening manner,

'He's got a point – just how did you come by such an expensive vehicle?'

Styx slowly replied,

'One bit at a time – like Jonny Cash; one bit at a time out of many factories.'

'Whaa?' Helix said.

'My friends and I built this here vehicle up from parts we liberated.'

Lucca looked into the engine compartment,

'Who the hell just happens to pick up a matching pair of 50 cal machine guns?'

Styx looked the man straight in the face as he replied,

'Arsenal contractors, stupid.'

Jack pushed Jay to the ground as he joined in,

'You mean to tell us that people can just walk away with guns and shit?'

Styx replied,

'Of course not, but when things began to break down just after the Tsunami hit, it became easier to get round the security.'

Jay regained his feet, and tried to attack Jack, but Helix put his arm in front of him to stop the lunge.

'Hold on, now.' He turned back to Styx, 'You telling me you stole this equipment?'

'That's about the size of it.' Styx looked around at the now gathered crowd, 'Of course, we had people in the right places to gather this equipment.'

Helix had a thought,

'You mean people in defence?'

Styx could feel the atmosphere relaxing,

'Nearly all.'

'Any of your contributors from defence worked on a thing called Totem?'
Chapter 58

Clover Leaf Battle.

Amadeus Shelby Goddard broke radio silence to call Redstone Arsenal,

'Task Force Two Five to Foxtrot Charlie. Final approach – ETA 60 minutes.'

In Winterset, del Banco also picked up the message,

'That's our call to action.' He said to Mrs Hapsburg.

'Let's just see if we can check on Styx before we leave.' She said, moving towards one of the consuls.

'No' he said, 'That's not a good idea. He's undercover, and must not be disturbed. We have to get this shipment over 1,000 miles to Redstone Arsenal, so let's get a move on.'

Ash and Michelle followed in silence. Michelle kept casting querulous glances at Ash as she tried to process the information she had just received.

As they walked out to the street Ash noticed the puzzled expression, plus the lack of conversation,

'Now you see the depth of my problem. Given all that has happened since only makes the decision more difficult.'

She replied,

'It isn't difficult for Xanthros.'

He thought for a moment,

'That's true – I'm only glad to be here with people who also know the secret.'

They walked out to the waiting car, which was parked alongside a seven and a half tonner; loaded and waiting.

The two vehicle convoy moved off to the des Moines airport, where they met up with a C-130 Hercules military transport.

As Mrs Hapsburg looked at the grey beast she said to del Banco,

'Why are they unloading the truck? Surely it can drive straight into that vast hold?'

Del Banco shook his head slightly as he replied.

'That won't work, I'm afraid. Yes, it was originally a military transport; but this is not the standard C-130. The name given to these conversions was Spectre gunships. There is still room for cargo inside – but not enough to take lorries in.' - he pointed at a long barrel sticking out of the side of the plane, 'The inside of these gunships was now mainly occupied with outward firing armaments.'

'What did they send us this thing for?'

'Very good of them, I thought.' Del Banco replied, 'We have to be grateful for anything we can get these days; - and you never know when a little heavy armament will come in useful.'

She looked sideways at him, shook her head and sighed.

Material loaded, the two passengers took their seats on the AC-130.

The noise level rose as the engines were started, Ash, Michelle, Mrs Hapsburg and del Banco were forced to wear military helmets to protect their ears from the din of high power turbine engines.

The aircraft internal communications came into the helmets, allowing everyone to hear exactly what was going on. The sounds at first seemed so loud they thought voice communications would never penetrate the overbearing noises of a military aircraft; but when someone spoke the sound was manipulated electronically to overcome the high background racket. To this end the voice came across piercing to the extent that it seemed to lower the temperature around the ears.

The vibrations, noise and temperature seemed to be trying to outdo each other as the big transport lumbered towards the runway.

Lined up on the runway centre line the pilots opened up the throttles, causing the noise level within the aircraft to raise beyond hearing – they could all feel the noise penetrating their body's organs through their skin and flesh.

As the vibrations reached their skeletons the aircraft began to move along the runway. The unpredictable bouncing made the original vibrations feel almost welcome with their rythmatic throbbing – it was as if the people on board could cope with the vibrations because they were regular. Now they also had the bouncing of an accelerating aircraft hurtling down the runway to contend with.

It always feels like an achievement when the ground vibrations stop. This means that the aircraft is airborne – even the engines sound and feel happier.

The mood on board almost relaxed. Men began undoing straps, and moving around.

Outside thin wisps of clouds reminded the people on board that they were moving and climbing. Bodies had become used to the vibrations and noise – but ears had to be protected at all times; communications were impossible without the equipment within the helmets.

On the empty Interstate the head vehicle of Task Force Two Five, was being driven by Goddard, he had told the base at Redstone Arsenal of his position, intentions, and estimated time of arrival.

Mrs Hapsburg and del Banco in the Spectre gunship picked up on the information, and were acting on it by flying to meet up with other elements.

So did the Malitia waiting in the foothills of the Appalachians.

Somewhere to the south of Pittsburgh the convoy that was Task Force Two Five moved towards a clover leaf intersection as the interstate snaked through the wooded area.

Goddard stuck his head out of the cab window of the lead Humvee to smell the pine-scented air.

They were about to pass under a bridge when he saw some activity on the bridge. There has been very little vehicular activity up to then – so to see six or eight vehicles in the same vicinity made him think.

As the last vehicle in the convoy passed under the bridge Goddard looked in his rear-view mirror. He saw what he thought was a car going off the bridge, crashing onto the carriageway below - then another.

On the bridge a pickup truck nudged another car over the edge. In all four cars crashed down on to the road below; the exit was blocked.

People on the bridge began firing machine guns at the convoy, but it was now getting out of range of these hand-held guns.

In the fast-moving convoy the occupants were alerted to the situation. They began returning fire with heavier guns that had the range to do some damage – but they were being fired from moving vehicles, so were not as accurate as they may have been. Only the rear-most vehicle had any chance of inflicting damage. This was a soft-skinned armoured car type vehicle with a turret-mounted heavy cannon. This let fly at the bridge with a rate of fire just faster than one shell per second.

The first shell fell short of the bridge. The second hit the parapet, sending more debris on to the road below. The third shell hit a pick-up truck on the bridge, but the rest of the shells landed harmlessly behind the road.

The convoy now approached a slip road to their right. There were vehicles on this road, they looked to be fixing to join the Interstate – but in the opposite carriageway to Task Force Two Five, which meant that they were on the wrong side of the road, but this did not matter because there was no other traffic. On the backs of three pick-ups were people taking aim at the vehicles in the convoy.

Careful aim is taken at the drivers in the heavy goods vehicles; they have no cover or protection from the assault rifles pointed at them.

On the rear of a pick-up a man stood with what looked at first glance to be a flag. On the flag was written one word – 'STOP'.

In the convoy, four articulated vehicles back from the lead, there was a Marine on top of the trailer. He was holding an XM 214 micro-gun. Somewhat clumsy as a hand-held weapon, this multi-barrelled Gatling-type gun had been adapted to be man portable. He swung it to his hip, and took rough aim at the three pick-ups. A three-second burst spewed out almost 200 rounds. The Marine leaned into the weapon as he fired it to counter the effects of the recoil.

The effect on the pick-ups was immediate and conclusive. They seemed to explode as the bullets hit them. The rear one caught the hail of bullets first. When the driver was hit, he involuntarily pulled on the wheel, taking his vehicle away from the convoy. The second one held the flag, a stray bullet or ricochet hit the gas tank. The vehicle shot towards the convoy, but the median rail stopped it. By the time the bullets were reaching the lead vehicle the micro-gun was firing at max rate; it's six barrels now spinning at full speed. The bullets raked down the back of the vehicle. Three men standing were knocked over the side. A series of ugly black holes appeared in the cab roof before rupturing the engine hood. The driver had been hit; he was dead – his foot slammed down on the gas pedal. Steam and smoke began to pour out of the engine compartment as the car sped down the empty highway.

Back on the bridge one man watched in awe as his comrades met their fate when they had tried to communicate with the convoy. He walked calmly over to his pick-up, selected his weapon of choice, and went back to the parapet. The weapon he had chosen was a long, high powered snipers rifle. The Marine with the mini-gun was still in position, although moving quickly away. The man on the bridge wasted no time bringing his gun to bear; he took careful aim at the Marine, who was checking the mini-gun, with his back to the bridge. He was an easy target; outlined by the white roof of the trailer upon which he was travelling. There was not much noise on the bridge; the sound of the convoy was almost gone now. A vehicle or two had engines quietly ticking away, but there was no human conversation – only the slight breeze as the man squeezed off a single shot. The sound of the rifle firing was very loud; the sound reverberated around as if it didn't want to leave. But the bullet did. Travelling at almost 1,000 mph the snipers bullet broke the sound barrier as it left the rifle – this was where most of the noise came from. Five point three seconds later it hit its mark. The Marine was caught just above the waist on his right side. He winced as he fell. The mini-gun fell to the trailer roof, but was still attached to the man. The shooter on the bridge watched as his target was hit. The Marine held his side. The Kevlar body armour had done its job – the bullet did not penetrate.

Goddard watched in awe as the front pick-up sped past him. He followed the line of the highway in front of him. Another bridge appeared. Then to his horror he saw that this bridge also had vehicles on it, and they were behaving just like the other bridge – first one, then another car was pushed over the edge – onto the carriageway the convoy wanted to use in a few minutes.

In all, five cars impacted on the roadway.

Goddard turned to Kayden Frost,

'How many cars have these guys got?'

'A few less now.'

Any further conversation was prevented by a large explosion off to their left.

'Whaa the f...?' Goddard exclaimed.

As he stopped the vehicle another explosion hit the ground on the opposite side, and the whistling of incoming shells was heard between the crump of explosions all around.

Kayden Frost hit Goddard on the arm as she looked out towards the high ground to their left.

'Shit.' Was all she said.

He looked at what she was pointing at.

Emerging from the trees they saw the long barrel of a heavy gun – a very heavy gun. Slowly, almost unperceptively, the barrel was followed by a main battle tank. A puff of smoke appeared from somewhere to their left signalling another round being fired from another tank.

'Holy crap,' Goddard called as he saw more tanks, 'I'll call this in.' he grabbed the mike from the dashboard, 'Task Force Two Five, Task Force Two Five. We have been stopped on the Bullinge Intersection of the I 93. Experiencing some heavy artillery and tanks here.'

'What are your intentions, TaskForce Two Five?' came back a confused voice.

Goddard and Kayden looked at each other, and then at the gathering tanks – there were now five on the surrounding wooded hills. After what seemed like a long time Goddard said,

'Who the f...?'

'That don't seem like one of ours.' Kayden said.

Xanthros replied before any further confusion could be brought to bear,

'Task Force Two Five, Redstone Arsenal here. Do you require assistance? Over.'

Goddard stared at Kayden in disbelief, he shook his head. She grabbed the mike,

'Task Force Two Five to Redstone, yes. What can you do for us? Over.'

'Can't tell you over an open line, but we know where you are, we have elements in the area – they will be in touch. Out.'

Goddard's expression became even more puzzled. He looked at the surrounding countryside, but that did not give him any clues.

Six miles away, 5,000 feet up was the AC-130 bringing Ash, Michell, Mrs Hapsburg and del Banco with their cargo.

'Spectre Five Zero from Redstone 1.' Xanthros gave the instructions himself, 'We have traffic at Bullinge for you.'

Captain John H Gold, the captain of the AC-130 replied,

'Roger that, we follow you.'

This told Xanthros that the aircrew knew what was going on, and have been following events.

Gold briefed Ollie the gunner,

'Free targets, fire at will.'

Ollie and his team prepared the 40 mm howitzer in the rear of the cargo compartment. He spoke to Mrs Hapsburg,

'This is why we couldn't take the truck on board, ma'am.'

The people on the ground by the now quiet Interstate did not know about the AC-130; it was too far away, they could not even hear it, given that it was flying on cruise throttle settings.

The 40 mm Howitzer in the back of the Hercules was gyroscopically steadied, and aimed with all the technical wizardry the modern armaments industry could muster, and it was firing downhill; the trajectory was almost flat.

Ollie moved things around until he saw a tank in his electronic sight. He looked quickly at Mrs Hapsburg,

'Not unlike a video game.' He indicated the TV monitor showing target information, 'I could almost pick a spot on the tank where I want the shell to land.'

He quickly returned to his duties,

'Target acquisition.'

Everyone in the aircraft heard the reply,

'Found.'

'Target resolution.'

'Good.'

'Ordinance.'

'DUAPS.'

'Load.'

The loader slammed a round in the breech,

'One in.' he stood back from the gun, looked purposefully around him before continuing, 'All clear.'

Ollie announced,

'Ready to shoot.'

He had spent some time on exchange with the British Royal Navy, and had picked up their habit of not saying the word 'fire' unless there was a conflagration threatening.

Captain Gold responded,

'Clear to fire 40 mil. Execute.'

Mrs Hapsburg expected the whole aircraft to shake – but the main recoil was absorbed by some very clever shock-absorbing technology. The noise was disturbing, but by now everyone's ears had become desensitised by the general noise inside the aircraft.

The main battle tank it was aimed at did not stand a chance. The Depleted Uranium Armour Piercing Sabot round landed just behind the turret; in the tank's most vulnerable spot. The resulting explosion blew the engine out and lifted the turret.

'Fox one tank. Target two.'

Del Banco quietly said,

'I think he said it is foxed.' He had forgotten that every word was transmitted throughout the aircraft.

Ollie continued,

'Target acquisition.'

'Found.'

'Target resolution.'

'Good.'

'Ordinance.'

'DUAPS.'

'Load.'

The same procedure – the same result.

This time the shell hit the side of the turret; probably the hardest part of the tank. It bounced off.

They say you don't hear the shell that hits you. The crew of this tank heard this one; a loud ping, followed by the sound of an incoming shell. This was because the shell is moving faster than sound, so it arrives first – followed by the sounds of it passing through the air. The crew did not hear the next one coming; 25 seconds later their last hit one home; straight through the top of the turret.

Ollie continued until all the tanks were smoking ruins.

Gold called up the convoy,

'Spectre to Task Force Two Five. Anything else we can do for you?'

Goddard and Murdoch looked around. There was movement around the tanks; every now and then they saw vehicles. Kayden took a pair of binoculars and began examining the bridge ahead of them.

Goddard called the Marines on the trailer roofs,

'Anyone up on top see any more threats?'

He didn't like being stationary, so began cautiously moving forward again as replies came in,

'One or two trucks over to starboard.'

'A collection of vehicles at 10 o'clock.'

'There is something happening on the bridge ahead.'

Goddard and Kayden both focussed their attentions to the bridge. There was certainly more action there. Kayden levelled her binoculars at the bridge, now just less than a mile ahead of them.

'Jesus!' she exclaimed, 'They got artillery.' She passed the binoculars to Goddard.

He didn't stop the vehicle; instead he let Kayden steer from her side as the convoy rolled slowly along.

Two of the pick-up trucks that were making their way towards the centre of the bridge were towing artillery pieces. He moved his gaze to the centre of the bridge. There what he saw made him jump. One of the pieces had already been set up.

Goddard grabbed at the mike as he dropped the binoculars,

'Task Force Two Five to Spectre, we have artillery on the second bridge,' he looked quickly through his rear view monitor, 'the first bridge we passed looks clear, but the guns up front look worrying.'

Captain Gold replied,

'Roger that, Two Five. We have him.'

Ollie, back on the 40 mm called,

'You want me to take him out, Skipper?'

'What are ammo you gonna use?'

'HE.'

This told the Captain that the gunner would use high explosive rounds.

'Roger that.'

Ollie went about his task,

'Target acquisition.'

'Found.'

'Target resolution.'

'Good.'

'Ordinance.'

'HE.'

'Load.'

The physical task of loading was automatic, but has to be initiated manually. This is done by Ollie as the last switch is thrown prior to firing.

'Shooting. Now.'

The AC-130s circuit lay some four miles from the bridge. The people on the bridge were not encased in metal like the tank men. They could hear what was going on around them. The sound of a 40 mm howitzer being fired four miles away was not particularly loud; not compared with the blast of a high explosive artillery shell on the gun right next to you.

The crew bringing the second gun on to the bridge had a better view of the events. Freddie stood by the front of the pick-up when the explosion tore into the first gun, scattering the people around it. His eardrums were nearly blown out – had he been able to hear, he would have heard the whistle of the incoming shell, but the low rumble of the shot being fired was so out of sequence no-one took any notice of it.

They certainly heard the AC-130 less than one minute later.

Goddard had stopped the convoy when the artillery piece had blown up.

He surveyed the situation through the binoculars,

'Hey, Spectre. That took care of the one that was ready to fire – but if you knock the bridge down we will never get out of here.' He tried to work out what the people on the bridge were doing, 'Looks like they are preparing rocket launchers now.'

Gold, in the AC-130 replied,

'Ok, on my way.'

He hauled the aircraft round to attack the bridge.

The people on the bridge were indeed assembling rocket launchers – Lawes anti-tank launchers as well as Rocket Propelled Grenades.

Now they saw a ghost-grey Hercules gunship almost standing on one wingtip as it made a run along the bridge.

In the front of the fuselage were two Gatling-type rotary machine guns firing 12,000 per minute between them – that equates to some 680 rounds in the 3.4 seconds it took Gold to fly along the bridge. There were 32 people on the bridge – an average of 21 bullets each.

The rear ramp was open. Ollie stood in the corner where the ramp met the side of the airframe. From here he aimed grenade explosives into the wrecks of the cars below, blowing them out of the way of the convoy.
Chapter 59

Vargas Returns

The Lincoln Continental had lost most of its shine. The pick-up trucks looked like they had always been rough – the people in them certainly did.

The weather out on the I-280 was dull and cloudy, the mood was not much better.

The man stood by the RV shouted,

'McKinley!' as he dragged the surprised driver from the vehicle, 'You bugged out on us ...'

McKinley was not as surprised as he would have his assailant believe; he placed one foot behind himself, then, without arching his back he lunged the top of his body towards the man who was dragging him, leading with his head. McKinley's forehead collided with the man's nose as intended.

Blood spurted out as if the man had a tomato in the middle of his face.

But it was not enough. Yes, the grip on McKinley's clothing was released; but by then the man had support. As tomato nose almost fell to one side he was replaced by two more men from the pick-ups.

McKinley stumbled to his feet after being forcibly removed from his RV by tomato nose, and then he was knocked to the ground by tomato nose's friends, who now jumped on him. Four boots laid into him as McKinley lay on the floor.

As he turned to Galina, Jake said,

'I don't think they like him...' but found that she was no longer by his side – she was racing towards the prone McKinley.

Upon arriving at the scene of the fight the Russian deep-sea diver simply dived into the melee.

At first it looked as if she was going to shoulder-charge the middle of the man's back – but the focus of the force of her charge was not her shoulder; it was the point of her elbow, which was aimed at the man's kidneys.

He went down without disturbing either the balance or momentum of Galina as she continued her charge towards the other man attacking McKinley.

She half turned in a spinning movement as she raised her left foot to waist height. The man was bending forwards to administer more punishment to McKinley as the foot caught him on the right temple.

He looked as if his head was about to come off – this was the result of him losing consciousness as the kick landed.

Galina now lost composure as she stumbled over McKinley. The momentum of her charge carried her towards the RV. She collided with the vehicle, and then dropped down to the ground alongside the vehicle.

Jake rushed to her side, glancing at the knocked-out men on the way. McKinley groaned as he regained his composure.

Xanthros was watching the events by the RV on a series of monitors. Since Semeramis had interfered with his communications earlier he had a radio set-up integrated into the Hilbert Transformation. This was like doing higher mathematic calculations, and then filtering it through an abacus. But it threw Semeramis off the track for long enough to allow Xanthros to re-group, and allowed him to communicate with his pilot again, who had been moved east to follow events.

'Vargas, there are a series of targets on the I-280 heading for Dover.'

'Roger that.' Vargas scanned the area around his A-10C before consulting his sat nav display. 'Do you want me to fly along the whole I-280?'

'That's a negative on that idea. I am sending co-ordinates to your sat-nav now. There is one target in particular you need to aim at; he is a man in a bright coloured shirt – he is your main target, but we don't know if he has shared the information with others, so you must annihilate them all to be sure.'

'Roger that, Chief.' Vargas looked down at his sat-nav display, 'co-ordinates received. On way to target. ETA seven minutes.'

This was about the time the vehicles stopped on the I-280. Then the scuffle began, this took everyone's attentions from the sky above them.

The cloud layer was down to 1,500 feet in most places. Vargas kept the A-10 just above the clouds until he was five miles from his target. Throttling right back, he began to descend through the cloud. Although blind at this point, he knew the ground height here to be less than 200 feet, so there should be plenty of room below the clouds.

He dropped out of the clouds at 1,400 feet above ground level, and three miles from his target. At this throttle setting the A-10 emits very little sound; just a faint whistle is discernable from ground level – but only once the aircraft has passed overhead because most of the sound footprint is laid out behind the aircraft.

The people on the I-280 were occupied by a fight breaking out close to an RV when the pale grey shape of an A-10 ground attack aircraft lined up on their position.

Vargas saw below him a scattering of vehicles. Less than half a mile away it was difficult to identify individuals – and they were coming up fast. He looked quickly at his speed – a little too fast at 345 mph; but now he had to depress the nose even further to bring the cannon to bear on his target. There was no time to aim now – he didn't even have time to work out what the vehicles were; dots one minute, small squares the next, then it was time to fire.

The 30 mm Gatling cannon sounded like a car without a silencer running at nearly 4,000 rpm as it fired into the collection of vehicles.

The dusty black Lincoln was first to cop it. The armour-piercing shells easily penetrated the cars bodywork. Once inside they exploded. That is four of the seven shells that hit the car exploded. The other Sabot rounds were designed purely to penetrate the armour of a main battle tank, and then thrash about inside – but with a thin-skinned vehicle like the Lincoln they simply passed right through.

A gaudy-coloured pick-up painted lime green with black tiger stripes was missed by a few scant feet.

Vargas moved his aim a little to the right to hit the RVs. The first one was almost cut in two as the rain of cannon shells tore through it, and across to the far side. He corrected back just in time to miss the next vehicle – the one that Jake, Galina, McKinley and the two assailants lay beside – but another pick-up got the full blast before the A-10 moved on.

Luckily there was no-one in any of the vehicles that were hit.

McKinley leapt in the pick-up that was almost alongside the Lincoln when it got hit. He was quick enough to pick up a Stinger anti-aircraft launcher. The weapon took a few seconds to boot up and acquire its target, and Vargas was almost a mile away, banked over to make another run, when the Stinger signalled that it was ready. McKinley fired. The missile shot out of the launch tube a split second later the main rocket engine fired up and accelerated it to two and a half times the speed of sound.

The jet engines on the A-10 are mounted on the top of the fuselage. As Vargas had banked hard over, the plan view was presented to McKinley. The hot jets were in full view. The missile laid a white trail behind it as it streaked unerringly towards the aircraft. The A-10 seemed to be moving too fast for the missile to catch from the given angle, but at the last second the Stinger turned almost 90 degrees as it drew close to the rear of the aircraft. It seemed to enter the right engine exhaust in its quest to find the hottest part, when it exploded. The annular charge destroyed both engines, and cut the rear of the aircraft off.

Jake and Galina looked at each other. After what seemed like long seconds Jake said one word,

'Xanthros.'

Galina nodded in agreement.

McKinley heard this; he had never heard the name before,

'What you talking about, boy?'

Jake just said,

'You wouldn't understand.'

His cell-phone rang.

Semeramis was apologetic,

'I'm very sorry; Xanthros has found ways of communicating with single people without me knowing about it. I have just heard about his latest scheme to use the A-10. Is it dealt with?'

Jake looked at the white streak left by the missile, now beginning to disperse, with a big black cloud at the end of it,

'Oh, yes; it has been dealt with.'

'Good. But I'm afraid I have bad news about Tom Collins. He suffered too much punishment just before you got back from Mars – and then was not able to get medical help in time. Xanthros's men turned up just after Tom passed away, they took Masuto away for questioning, but she didn't know anything, so they let her go.'

Jake was shaken by this news,

'Does Ash know this?'

'He will, because he is with two of our most trusted family members.'

Jake passed the information on to Galina,

'Tom's dead.'

She expressed surprise,

'How? When?'

Jake was now trying to have two conversations at the same time. Into the phone he said,

'Hold on a moment, Sem.' He then turned to Galina, 'It must have been soon after he got to hospital. Tell you more later.' Back into the phone, 'Ok, Sem. What happens now? Where is Ash?'

Semeramis continued,

'Ash is at Huntsville with Michelle and some of our family members.'

Jake looked around at the destroyed vehicles, and the not-too friendly people,

'Well, I hope he is doing better than we are here.'

Just then an angry man broke into the conversation. He had heard McKinley's comment when he -heard the name Xanthros,

'Hey, what you doin'? Did you bring down that hit on us?'

Jake reacted without moving the phone from his ear,

'No, stupid. Can't you see that we are here in harm's way? The chances are he was aiming at us.'

'You mean it is your fault anyways? What are you doin' now, calling in more of the same?' He waved his arm towards the smoking vehicles, 'I could kill you, and that would solve all our problems.' He drew a large knife.

Semeramis could hear all this, she said to Jake,

'Let me speak to this man.'

Jake was puzzled by this, so much so that he just found himself passing the cell phone to the man, saying,

'She wants to speak to you.'

The man was dumbfounded; he had a knife in his right hand, he took the phone in his left hand, and put it to his ear.

Semeramis spoke quietly to the man – but it was not what she said that had an effect on him; because he was holding the phone next to his skull she was able to use the Hilbert transformation to imprint her message directly on his brain.

He handed the phone back to Jake, put his knife away, then turned and walked away without saying a word.

Jake said to Semeramis,

'Jesus, Sem, what did you say to him?'

'That doesn't matter right now; you need to get to Harrisburg.'

'Why, what's there?'

'Totem.'

'Who?' Jake was perplexed.

'Never mind that now, we will send an aircraft to Newark International to pick you up.'

'Newark!' Jake was surprised by this, 'Is that even open?'

''Yes; well, more abandoned than open. We can put a military transport in there for you the day after tomorrow. Can you get there for then?'

Jake looked around. McKinley was being taken away by his erstwhile 'friends'. Randal was checking his RV for damage, then Jake remembered that they were originally aiming at Dutchess County Airport. He said to Semeramis,

'Could you make that Dutchess County Airport? I think it would be too dangerous to go back to New York.'

'Ok. Dutchess County Airport it is.'
Chapter 60

Steve Luke

The man facing Styx resembled a Micheal Fassbender lookalike with red hair.

Steve Luke originally hailed from Glasgow; his Scottish accent came through as he said,

'My men have been looking over your little truck.'

The accent threw Styx at first; he had to ask for a repeat,

'Whaaa?'

'Your truck. My men have been examining it very closely.' He moved closer to Styx, 'Some seem to think it may be a Pinkerton.'

'Whaa you talking about?'

Luke's hand swept the air with an open gesture,

'If the government wished to build a vehicle that would make us think you were one of us, that is exactly how they would do it.'

Styx raised one eyebrow as he replied,

'Well, in a way they did. But they just didn't know about it.'

The big Glaswegian laughed as he moved back behind his desk,

'We have here some people who can find out if you are telling the truth.'

With that two burly backwoodsmen moved behind Styx.

They took him by the arms, and forced him to sit in a chair. They taped his arms down. One of them then moved in front of Styx. As he was expecting the man to hit him the man behind landed him a savage blow on his shoulder with a stout stick. The force of this nearly knocked Styx off the chair.

Only a swift kick on his other shoulder from the other man in front prevented him from taking the chair to the ground.

Then the man in front landed him a severe punch to the middle of his chest. The man behind then stopped Styx from falling back. As he was pushed forwards again the man in front landed a blow between Styx's eyes. This brought on a nose bleed. As the blood flowed down his face, and then on to his shirt another blow from behind hit the right shoulder again.

Styx thought his arm may have been broken, the pain was so intense.

Then another kick from the front on the other side.

As Styx's head lolled forwards his eyes closed.

The man behind then took hold of his hair, and pulled his head back. Styx opened his eyes in time to see another punch land on his stomach.

He heard himself retch as this landed.

Luke interrupted the proceedings,

'Now then – who sent you?'

Styx spat blood out to enable him to speak,

'No-one sent me. I was running with a crew out of Maddison County.'

'Then why are you not with them any more?'

A 'gentle' tapping on the wounded shoulder from behind was enough to warn Styx of what was likely to come next.

'He winced as he replied,

'There was a fight; I think they were jealous of my tan.'

Styx referred to likely tensions caused by racial intolerance.

'Who else was in that crew?'

Styx gambled that Luke didn't know them personally as he replied,

'McKinley, Mercer, Pratt, Harrison.'

Luke looked at the man behind Styx. Styx could not see, but the man was nodding as he said,

'I've heard of McKinley – a bit of a twat from what I hear.'

Luke sat back in his chair; he seemed to be contemplating his position when someone came into the room. From where he was sitting Styx couldn't see them.'

'There's been a development, Boss.' Jed, one of the men said.

More footsteps were heard coming into the room; some of them seemed to be someone shuffling.

'These two were picked up; these two were found touring around in a Winebago. This one is a bloody android.'

Luke turned his attention back to Styx,

'Friends of yours?' He nodded to the incomers. Two men were pushed in front of Styx. The taller one had a pitch-form prodding him in the back. He also wore a blindfold.

Styx looked at Rockefeller and Gerald through blood-shot eyes,

'Never seen them before.' He avoided shaking his head because of the dripping, running blood.

Luke asked all three,

'Have you been working on Totem?'

Rockefeller was first to reply.

'What's Totem to you?'

'I will ask the questions.' Luke concentrated on Rockefeller, 'So you know what it is, then?'

Rockefeller shook his head,

'No, I don't know what it is. If you could elaborate a little...?'

This line of questioning was brought to an abrupt ending by a sharp whack in the back from one of the men who brought them into the room.

Luke repeated the question,

'Just answer the question. Have you been working on Totem?'

Rockefeller straightened up as he said,

'No. We're touring from New York.'

'And where were you going?'

Rockefeller didn't think before replying. He looked at the man with a stout stick about to hit him again,

'Harrisburg.'

Jed stood by Luke. He asked,

'And just why were you going to Harrisburg? We have had a good look at your transport; it is not your standard mobile home.'

Luke glanced at the man before turning back to Rockefeller,

'Answer the question – who are you working for?'

Gerald signalled to Rockefeller to let him answer,

'There is a split from the Republican party originally made up of scientists unhappy with the way several governments have been treating the sciences in this country. Now, with the effects of the Tsunami, things have got much worse. So much so that they have joined forces with other dissenters with an aim of running the country taking advantage of science rather than looking at science as something they can save money by cutting it back.'

Luke pondered this for a moment, then said,

'And just who are these other dissenters?'

'There are always dissatisfied politicians, but now there are elements of the military who's budgets have been cut and cancelled who have joined us.'

'What about Totem? Has that been cut?'

Gerald looked almost apologetic,

'I'm sorry, sir, we have no-one who has mentioned Totem; so I presume, whatever it is, has not been cut.'

Rockefeller was surprised by all of this, but did not show it as he said,

'Androids are programmed to never lie. What can I say?'

Luke waved his hand,

'Take them away, lock em up together.'

The two men who had been beating up Styx simply picked up the chair with Styx still taped to the armrests, and followed the others out of the room.

The chair in which Styx was fastened hit the ground hard, causing him to fall to the floor. By now he was beginning to recover from his beating, but his arms were still tied down. He looked to his left, into the room, and saw the other two prisoners against the far wall.

As they left the room Gerald decided to tip Styx up. As he hit his head on the floor the men left the room, securely locking it on the way out.

Rockefeller and Gerald picked the chair and the hapless Styx up, and began undoing the tapes which held Styx to the chair. As they did this Gerald's head was close to Styx's ear. At this close range Gerald said in the quietest whisper,

'Audio surveillance devices detected.'

He had already notified Rockefeller; this meant that there were listening devices in the room.

Eventually Styx said,

'Who the fuck are you, and why have I been put in here with you?'

Rockefeller gave the reply,

'We could ask the very same question of you. What are you? Some kind of pirate? Drug runner, general outlaw?'

'None of the above. Just an ex-marine trying to survive.'

'It looks like you are not doing a very good job of it.'

Inscrutable as ever, Styx let this go.

Gerald and Rockefeller undid the tapes binding Styx to the chair.

He stood up and shook himself. With liberal amounts of blood on his face and down his shirt he did not look too fit.

Rockefeller commented,

'Are you ok?

'Takes more than a few knocks to take me out. Speaking of which – how are we to get out of here?'

In another room Luke and his cohorts gathered to listen to what was being said.

Luke was first to speak,

'They don't seem to know him.'

'I still think he's a Pinkerton.' Jed added.

'We must proceed with caution.' Someone else said.

Luke pointed out,

'We ain't no prison facility – we can't have passengers'

Jed commented,

'Let 'em run, then follow them,'

Luke thought for a moment,

'Make it look good.'

Jed nodded,

'I'll put them Roach brothers on it; they ain't much good at anything, anyhow.'

The Roach brothers were three hillbilly types with no education, nor the capacity to absorb one if they could have gotten one.

Earl Roach was the eldest, some 34 years by estimation; no calendars in the backwoods. You could see that he was long in the tooth because he had lost most of them. Some due to decay and bad hygiene, but most through fighting.

Jeremiah was a little younger, he had only lost his back teeth, and James was the baby of the bunch, being in his mid twenties, and in possession of a full set of gnashers.

These three were sent to move the prisoners to the shack in the cherry orchard. The Roach brothers did not question how they were supposed to do this; Earl had an old 7 mm hand gun that would jam after every round. This was not only due to its age, but also the fact that Earl never cleaned it. Jeremiah had had his gun confiscated because he was a greater danger to his side than he was to any enemy. James was just judged to be too young to handle a firearm.

This motley group entered the room containing an ex-marine, a highly developed android, and a member of the Illuminate.

Earl waved his handgun about, shouting orders,

'Head em up, move 'em out. You're all a-goin' a-cherry pickn, boy.'

Jeremiah moved around the room to the rear of Gerald, whereupon Jeremiah attempted to kick him from behind. This did not work out too well; Gerald simply took hold of Jeremiah's trouser leg before it got to him without even looking. He then hoisted the hapless brother by his ankle; thereby upending him.

Just then James entered the room as Earl pointed his gun at Gerald. This put him some ninety degrees to Styx, who charged at Earl's gun arm. The gun went off in the direction of his youngest brother, who promptly turned and ran back out of the door he had just come through.

He was quickly followed by Rockefeller, who made sure that the way was clear for the rest of his group.

Styx stuck an elbow into Earl's stomach. The gun went flying, Earl bent double as Styx landed a crushing blow to his exposed jaw. The elder Roach brother fell like a felled tree.

Jeremiah was in a similar predicament, being dumped on the ground by Gerald, who then spun around to stick the boot in to the hapless Jeremiah.

Styx and Gerald quickly followed Rockefeller out of the door.

They were pleased to find their truck parked nearby.

Styx immediately looked in the normal place to find the keys \- on top of the drivers visor.

He was not surprised when they fell into his open hand.

There was no drama as Styx fired up the engine. He made an orderly exit from the camp as if there was nothing wrong. As soon as he hit the main highway he opened the throttle to the max.

At about the same time Steve Luke and Jed took to the road. Like Styx they too seemed to have no hurry about leaving.
Chapter 61

Redstone Arsenal

Del Banco knew what was in the containers and trailers in the convoy.

As he stood with Ash they watched as the large vehicles rolled into the safety of the compound known as Redstone Arsenal. A pale grey container passed them streaming a green liquid.

Ash said,

'Just what the Sweet Jesus have you got in these things?'

Del Banco turned to Ash with a quizzical look on his face,

'You mean you don't really know?'

'I wouldn't ask otherwise.'

Del Banco raised one eyebrow, and cocked his head a little, but did not reply.

Pink dust began to be raised from the road. Combined with the exhaust fumes, this encouraged the observers to move away from the arriving vehicles.

Ash followed del Banco into a warehouse-type building, past immense crates. He noticed on the opposite side of the central roadway, other people walking the same way. He did not recognise them; he noticed that del Banco joined them. In front was the Marquis of Libeaux, Sem and Romanov had made it down from Canada, Mrs Hapsburg was the last in line, the first one Ash recognised. He moved across to greet her when Sem spoke to Michelle, who immediately recognised the voice,

'Hi, so sorry about Tom, but there was very little we could do.'

'I know you did all you could.'

Ash asked Sem,

'Have you any news about Jake and Galina?'

'Yes, they are on their way in.'

'And Hoshi?'

'She is waiting for us.'

They continued to the far side of the warehouse, and through a double door, then into an area that Ash thought looked familiar, he spoke quietly to Michelle,

'This looks like it was straight out of Houston.'

'It is certainly space orientated.' She agreed.

'We are nearly all here' said del Banco, 'When Romanov joins us we shall be complete.'

Michelle then asked,

'What about Xanthros?'

This was really a stab in the dark, she didn't know if Xanthros was involved, but the whole affair had the feeling of his work.

Semeramis replied,

'He is awaiting us in the control room.'

'Control room!' thought Ash, 'What kind of operation is this? I wish Jake were here.'

Jake and Galina were travelling with Randal in his RV; approaching Dutchess County Airport from the west.

Randall was driving as they skirted south of Pleasant Valley. He was plodding along at a steady 60 mph to conserve fuel when he glanced in his mirror. What he saw made him place his foot straight to the floor.

As the vehicle accelerated Jake and Galina were rudely awoken from their reverie. Galina was sat in the middle; between the two men,

'What's the matter?' she asked for both of them.

Randall answered calmly,

'Three vehicles behind us.'

Jake looked through the mirror as best he could; it being adjusted for the driver,

'So?'

'One of them is a lime green pick-up with black tiger stripes.'

Jake tried to see through the mirror, but couldn't make out the following vehicles,

'You reckon it could be Helix?'

'How many pick-ups have you seen with that kind of colour scheme?'

'Not many.' Came the reply.

'I rest my case your honour.'

The Ford pick-ups had a better turn of speed than the RV, but they still had a hard time catching it.

Randal tried every trick he could to shake off the pursuers, but still they kept gaining.

Then a rocket-propelled grenade exploded way off to the right, and some way behind the RV. So they were still out of effective range. They did not know it, but there were also high-powered rifles firing at them; but with the movement of the launch vehicle, and the swerving the RV did, the aims were well off – but within range.

Jake knew the answer, but asked the question just the same,

'Are there any weapons on board?'

Randall shook his head,

'No.'

Galina took out her cell phone, and dialled 911.

When she got a reply she pressed 5.

Semeramis came straight on the line,

'Hello, Galina. Can I be of some help to you?'

'Yes, I hope so. We are on the I52 just south of Pleasant Valley being chased by a bunch of nasty individuals in pick-up trucks. Is there anything you can do for us?'

Semeramis seemed to think for a second or two before replying,

'Yes. I think I can help you. There is a Spectre gunship 125 miles from you. Can you hold these people off until he gets there?'

'How long?'

'Twenty-five minutes.'

Galina turned to Randal,

'Can you hold them off for twenty-five minutes?'

He looked across Jake to Galina with a puzzled look on his face. He saw the phone in her hand, and then replied,

'I don't see how, but I'll give it a damned good try.'

He turned back to the road ahead, dropped down a gear, the engine screamed; the RV gained a little speed.

Galina passed this information to Semeramis, who replied,

'OK, I have your location from your cell, Good luck.'

They mounted the crest of a hill. Randal hit top gear as they crested the top, and began their run downhill. He knew that the pick-ups would not be able to see him for a few seconds as they climbed the hill. He planned to use this time to throw them off the scent.

The opening for the drive of a house came into view.

Randal slammed on the brakes, only just losing enough speed to make the turn. He knew he would be leaving tire marks on the road, but there was no choice. The RV nearly capsized as it shot around the bend onto the avenue. The driveway was just long enough for him to lose enough speed to avoid crashing into the house. He wrenched the wheel round to take the vehicle round to the back of the property. It was then that three speeding pick-ups shot past the house.

Randal had his window open. As the RV stopped he heard the enemy vehicles roar downhill past the house. Randal did not waste any time – he slammed the gear lever into drive, and stood on the gas pedal.

As they exited the driveway, they turned away from the direction in which they wanted to go, and began moving away from the pick-ups.

In the lime green and black pick-up Helix could see along the road for about half a mile in front, and he knew the RV should be visible. He realised he had been tricked. McKinley was driving. Helix shouted to him,

'Shit!! They must have pulled some stunt.'

Then he remembered seeing black tire marks near a house.

'They must have gone into that drive back there. Turn this rig around – now!'

McKinley hit the brakes. They were travelling quite fast downhill; and the two vehicles behind almost ran into the back of him as they all tried to lose speed before beginning their three or five or seven point turns to turn around.

By which time Randal had put about a mile and a half between them and their pursuers.

Twenty minutes later the pick-ups had gained on the rear of the RV. RPGs exploded around the vehicle again and high velocity rounds were being fired at it.

One round smashed the back window and lodged in the furnishings. Another grazed a side window and took it out.

In the back of the AC-130 Ollie loaded his gun.

Captain Gold used the data given to him by Semeramis to identify the vehicles below. There were four vehicles in line. He called to Ollie,

Four vehicles. The lead vehicle is blue. Do not risk damage to the lead vehicle.'

'Roger that. I can't hit the second vehicle without risking damaging the lead.'

'Then hit the third vehicle. Fire when ready.'

'Roger that.' A slight pause, then, 'Shooting now.'

At three and a half miles range the 40mm howitzer belched smoke as it fired one round. 17 seconds later the second pick-up truck exploded. The third pick-up ran into the explosion. The lime green truck continued after the RV.

Helix knew that the RPGs and snipers were in the second truck; that was why exploded like it did – he put it down to mishandling RPGs.

Galina looked around the inside of the RV, and worried about the broken windows,

'What about the animals?' she addressed the question to Randal; he was primarily responsible for the animals that could pose a threat to people at the zoo, and were difficult to contain. Most of the hard to contain animals were harmless; Lizards, Chimps, Frogs and Spiders. But some were dangerous and difficult to keep away from people – snakes. To this end they had taken the four most venomous snakes, a Black Mamba, Two Vipers and a Cobra. It was these that Galina referred to, and worried about.

It is not known whether she worried for the welfare of the snakes or the danger they would no doubt pose if one were loose within the vehicle.

She climbed into the rear of the RV, and checked the boxes that contained the snakes.

'Ok back here.'

Jake had an idea; he turned to Randal and said,

'Can you get him to pass us on this side?'

Randal was perplexed,

'Well, yes. But I don't see – he will simply run us off the road.'

'Not if I have anything to do with it' Jake then turned to Galina, 'Pass me the box with the Vipers in it.'

She did this.

'Thanks. Now stand by with the Black Mamba.'

The weather was warm. And it had been a hot chase; Jake was hoping that Helix was feeling the heat.

Randal backed off the gas.

Jake said to him,

'Brake gently at first, then jam 'em on when I shout.'

The RV swerved to prevent Helix from passing on the drivers' side. McKinley thought he had them by passing on what was the nearside.

Randal began braking. The men in the back of the pick-up readied their guns.

The two vehicles drew level with each other.

As McKinley prepared to ram the RV, Jake threw the open box containing the Vipers through the window of the truck.

He called to Galina,

'The Black Mamba.'

She passed another box to him, this he threw into the rear of the pick-up.

'Brake.' He cried.

Randal stamped on the brakes. Galina shot forwards.

The pick-up didn't slow at first; McKinley was too busy trying to keep his feet off the ground where there were two Vipers writhing around. Helix made a grab for the wheel only to find that one of the snakes was hanging on to the dashboard in front of him. He looked straight at the forked tongue as it retracted into the snake's mouth. Fangs flashed as his arm exploded in agony. The other Viper seemed to jump up at McKinley, biting him on the leg.

The men in the back tried shooting at the Black Mamba, to no avail. They soon realised that their best chance of survival was to jump over the side.

Randal and Jake watched as the RV slowed.

They saw the pick-up truck swerve wildly from side to side, and then collide with a tree off the side of the road.

As Galina picked herself up from the floor of the RV her cell phone rang.

It was Semeramis,

'Hi, did everything turn out ok?'

'Yes, thank you. We had a little trouble with one truck, but he will not be bothering us again.'

'Good. I see you are not far from Dutchess County Airport. The C-130 is about to land there to transport you to Redstone Arsenal.'

Ten minutes later the ghost grey Hercules lined up on the main runway at Duchess County Airport.

The RV entered the airport five minutes later.

Galina said to Randal,

'Are you coming with us?'

'Can't, I'm afraid. I have to see to the Cobra in back here.'

He indicated the dark green box holding the snake.

Jake interjected with a smile,

'You could always leave it here – anyone finding it would be in for a surprise.'
Chapter 62

The Clan Almost Complete

The room Ash found himself in had plastic sheeting across one side - he couldn't even make out if there was a wall behind it or not. The front wall he could not fail to identify; it was covered in screens showing maps, plans and schematics. The main part of the hall was filled with what looked like computer screens and desks that were obviously built for the purpose – this was a control centre.

Hoshi had joined he and Michelle just before they had been shown into this room inside Redstone Arsenal.

Slowly they walked along what might well have been some sort of observation gallery. As they gazed in wonderment at the equipment and displays Michelle noticed a very bright colour in the far corner. It was a Hawaiian shirt. The man wearing it could only be seen from the waist upwards, and then she saw he was not alone.

Before she could stop herself she heard her voice emitting from within,

'Galina! Jake!'

This followed by waving reminiscent of the waving on the dockside so long ago.

So at last the four astronauts who had walked on Mars were now reunited.

The controlling elements however were not. The Marquis of Libeaux, Mrs Hapsburg, del Banco, Romanov, Xanthros and Semeramis were all in the Redstone Arsenal, but they were still missing one of their number – Rockefeller was still being pursued by Steve Luke.

Semeramis knew what was going on. She called Rockefeller,

'You have an interested party following you at one mile distance.'

'How?'

'There is a tracking device on your vehicle. What are your intentions?'

'What options do I have?' Rockefeller knew that Semeramis would be on top of the communications.

'There have been no communications from the pursuing vehicle. I would expect a lot of whooping and hollering if they were a convoy of hillbillies.'

'That's reassuring. Is there any chance of us finding the tracker, and dumping it?'

'Not really; they are only half a mile behind you, they would be on you within a minute. Could you change vehicles?'

'In less than one minute? Unlikely; anyhow, Hertz have no branches near here.'

Gerald said,

'I have detected roughly where the device is. It is underneath the vehicle approximately here.' He indicated an area on the floor, 'I could slide under and remove it in about eight seconds.'

Styx hit the accelerator,

'Let's see if we can buy a little more time.'

Steve Luke was driving the car; Jed was monitoring the tracking device.

A steady 60 mph was being held as they toured along. Suddenly Jed said,

'Hello, he's speeded up.'

Luke put gentle pressure on the gas pedal.

Jed stared at the display,

'Jeez, I mean he really hit the gas. Estimated speed – 85, 90, 95, 100, 110,' his eyes began to widen as the display continued to rise, '120, 125, 130.' He looked directly at Steve Luke. Luke glanced back and gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, at the same time putting his foot flat to the floor.

At 90 mph the car had reached its top speed; Rockefeller and company were opening out a respectable gap.

Semeramis was monitoring the situation, using superior technology,

'You are now almost one mile ahead. The problem is, because they are now travelling much faster than they were before it will not take them as long to catch up – I estimate if you come to a complete stop from 130 mph, and they maintain 90, they will reach you in less than 40 seconds.'

Gerald said to Styx,

'That's more than enough.'

Styx slammed on the brakes.

Jed picked up the change in speed,

'Shit. He's slowing right down. A stop. A complete stop.'

Luke began braking, gently at first,

'This could be a trap.'

Jed agreed,

'Looks suspicious.'

As the truck came to an abrupt stop Gerald leapt out before the wheels had stopped juddering, trying to grip. In a cloud of dust he grabbed hold of the underside with one hand, and then used infra-red vision to see through the dust as the wheels stopped. He grabbed the offending device, and exited the underside of the vehicle less than one second after the wheels had stopped,

'Go, Go.' He shouted as he dived back into the vehicle.

Styx slammed into second gear, and hit the gas. He turned to Gerald,

'Did you get it?'

'Certainly did.' Gerald said, holding a small electronic device aloft.'

Rockefeller asked,

'Can anyone see what is wrong here?'

Styx moved up the gears steadily as they approached 70 mph.

Gerald looked at Styx, they both shook their heads.

Rockefeller put them out of their misery by announcing loudly,

'It is still here!'

Gerald gave a look of mock impatience – the kind of look you give a child who says something to test your patience,

'I wasn't keeping it as a souvenir.' He reached into the back of the truck, and came up with a small drone, no bigger than a sparrow, 'This little chap will pretend to be us.'

With that he attached the tracking device on to the drone,

'I believe we can make him believe that we have gone off road.'

He released the drone, which he controlled, slowing as it followed them for a short distance, Gerald said,

'I don't think they would believe that we went off road at 90 degrees whilst travelling at 70 miles per hour.'

He kept the drone at two feet above the ground as it moved over the rough terrain. The little rotors kicked up a little sand as Gerald allowed it to drop even lower, then more as it turned over the dusty ground.

Jed was not slow in picking this up,

'They've gone off-road.' He told Luke.

'Have they?' Luke replied. 'I don't think so.'

'Whaa?' Jed pointed at his instrument, 'It says here that they slowed, and then turned right off the road. We should see their dust any moment now.'

Luke tapped his temple as he said,

'It says up here that they didn't leave the road.'

Jed looked incredulously at Luke. He strained to look for a tell-tale cloud of dust. Eventually he saw one,

'There. There's dust bein' raised over there.'

Luke glanced across to Jed. He turned his attention back to the tarmac road in front of them. Then he jerked the wheel over to the right. The car left the road, and began running on the dirt on the side of the road. After a few seconds Luke pulled the vehicle back onto the tarmac, he turned to Jed,

'See how much dust we kicked up back there? Does it look anything like the cloud you saw?'

'Well, no. But the tracker says they are over in that direction.'

'And I say they are still on this here road.'

Jed was beginning to be exasperated by Luke,

'Oh, yeah – and just what makes you think they are on this road?'

'Easy; I know where they are going, and if they are taking some kind of detour we will get there before them – that sure would surprise 'em.'

Jed was still not convinced. He studied his tracking monitor as he said,

'How?'

'That's easy; they stopped momentarily. That would be enough time to rip the tracker off. After that the information from the tracker became suspect.'

'Ok, but how do you know where they are heading? Was it somethin' they said?'

'No, Jed. What were we asking them about?'

'Totem.'

'And where is Totem?'

'We don't know.'

'We didn't know. We do now – or I do.'

Jed looked again at Luke,

'How?'

Luke began to explain,

'You know how we accused them of being Pinkertons?'

'Yeah.'

'There are more than one kind of Pinkerton. You can only think of Government agents, but I'm another kind of Pinkerton – I don't work for the Government, I work for a University as a private enterprise. We, that is, the university, have picked up some strange anomalies over the last years. For instance – you got your cell phone on you?'

Jed touched his pocket,

'Yeah.'

'Then I would advise you to take it out of your pocket, and remove the battery – simply switching it off will not do any more.'

Jed took the battery out of his phone.

Semeramis contacted Gerald,

'We've lost them. But I am sure that they did not fall for your trick with the drone.'

Gerald replied without speaking,

'Then they are still following us?'

'Yes, but I'm pretty sure that they are doing it blindly.'

'In that case I am going to try something.'

'What do you have in mind?'

'Let's take a look at who we have here. They have an advantage; they know who we are.'

'And exactly how do you intend to do that?'

'Easy; we shall stop and hide. There is no traffic hereabouts. We simply wait for them to pass us.'

'Then what?'

'I don't know.'

Styx was surprised when Gerald suggested hiding; he looked at Rockefeller and said,

'What do you think?'

Rockefeller thought for a moment,

'It could prove interesting.'

Styx was quick to reply,

'It could prove dangerous.'

'I think we should do it.'

Styx shrugged,

'Ok.'

He saw a large bush – indeed a baby tree with branches close to the ground.

Styx came off the road a long way back from the bush to avoid leaving tell-tale tracks.

They sat in complete concealment, and waited for their pursuers.

Steve Luke shot past the bush at a reasonable speed, but the hidden people had plenty of time to see who was in the car.

Styx was first to speak,

'That was certainly two men from the compound.' He slipped the car into drive, and took his time pulling out on to the road, 'Now what?'

Rockefeller said,

'Just follow for now.'

Gerald asked,

'What if they are armed?'

Styx threw a couple of switches, looked at some small read-outs on the dash, then said,

'So are we; the 50 cals are still fully loaded.'

They gained on Luke's car quite quickly.

At half a mile they saw it pick up a little speed – they had been spotted.

Styx matched the other car's speed with ease.

Then the lead car began to slow.

Closing from a quarter mile Styx began to feel nervous; If a rocket propelled grenade is fired now they would be exposed to a fragmentation explosion.

He gunned the engine, accelerated quickly as the car reached a bend in the road. As it took the bend, Styx opened up with the forward firing 50 cal heavy machine guns.

The fall of shot was to one side of the fleeing car – but Styx was right behind them when they exited the bend.

Luke knew that they were in real danger, but if the people in the truck behind wanted to kill them they could easily have done so.

Luke pulled the car to a stop.

Styx got out of the truck, at the same time he signalled Rockefeller to slide across to the drivers' position. He quickly showed him how to fire the 50 cals, and then called across to Gerald,

'Keep out of the line of fire. If these guys are armed we will have to use the trucks' guns.'

As the four people drew closer to each other Steve Luke was first to speak,

'I need to speak to the man still in the truck.'

Styx approached close to Luke and Jed.

He scrutinized the men; they did not look armed and dangerous.

Gerald said,

What business do you have with him that we cannot deal with?'

'I am not armed, I mean you no harm; I have something to say that all three of you need to hear.'

Styx looked at Gerald,

'Should we bring him out?'

'The threat seems to have diminished somewhat.'

Styx turned back to wave at Rockefeller, indicating that he should join them.

As he joined them Luke nodded recognition to Rockefeller, he said,

'I think I know who you are now; or rather, what you are.'

Rockefeller said,

'Then you have me at a disadvantage.'

'I am working for a University. They found some anomalies in space related activities after the tsunami. They stood out then because everything else had been shut down. We couldn't fit all the pieces together at first; but when you were let run from the compound I could clearly see that you were heading for Redstone.'

Jed looked surprised,

'I Sure as hell didn't sign up for none of this shit.'

Luke tossed him the keys to the car,

'Well, you can take the car and go your own way.' Turning back to Rockefeller and his group he said, 'Looks like I'll be needing a lift.'

Rockefeller responded,

'You can tell us all about your university on the way.'
Chapter 63

The Alamo

Some weeks earlier.

Professor Bobby Anstey III stood in his office in the Science Department of Whitney University.

He was keeping his temper under control as he stroked his bald pate. Then he shook his head as he faced Steve Luke,

'What the blue blazes have you been doing, Luke?'

'I have been watching and studying launches over the last few months, and there are some anomalies that I think should be looked into here.' He placed the papers and his tablet computer on the desk. 'Quite a few of these launches are far more energetic than needed; here, this one from Andhara Pradesh, India. Scheduled to go round the moon twice, and then return. This it did; but was nine hours late returning to Earth. And the payload, as described in the manifest, does not look true, for a rocket of this size.'

Bobby looked through the papers before replying,

'Are these in date order, or size, or what?'

'Date order, sir. You will notice that the date of the Tsunami made no difference; the anomalies just kept on coming, even though virtually all the other launches were stopped.'

Bobby picked up one of the papers and gave it some scrutiny,

'On first glance, this one seems ok. Launched from Amur Oblast. Payload figures, intentions, given quite clearly. What's wrong here?'

Luke turned his head to better read the chart,

'Yes, but if you then analyse the flight pattern, and even just look at the rocket itself, you find a very different game being played here.' His stubby finger stabbed on the sheet, 'This rocket was about half as big as you would expect for the mission stated; and it certainly did not follow the declared flight plan – for instance the energy emitted during launch was far more than anticipated.'

'Who the ...' Bobby though for a moment, turned a few sheets over, and then looked at Luke, 'You had better look into this; I want more information.'

... ... ... ... ... ...

Rockefeller directed Styx which way to go when they reached Redstone Arsenal.

He then led Luke into the 'Mission Control' room where Ash and company now found themselves.

Luke was shown in through double doors. He found when he entered that he was at the back of the room, with desks and monitoring stations steeped down to the front, and gigantic screens covering the wall facing him.

The wall to his left was obscured by large plastic sheets, as if building work was still being completed.

As Rockefeller closed the door behind him Luke saw five figures below his level, almost by the front row of monitoring stations. They began moving towards the plastic sheeting when he suddenly recognised four of them – they were the people who had walked on the surface of Mars.

'Hey!' was all Luke could muster.

The five turned to see Luke. They stopped while he made his way down to them. When he got down to them he began shaking hands,

'Colonel Ashton, Colonel Jensen, Professor Masuto, Doctor Danilenko.'

When he came to Michelle he hesitated. She saved him the embarrassment,

'Hi, I'm Michelle Romero from NASA.'

'It is a great honour and a privilege to meet you all here.' Luke looked around, 'Where is here? And what have you guys got here?'

Jake Jensen said,

\--'Great. We already know who we are, who are you?'

'Steve Luke from Whitney Uni.'

Ash waved his arm in an arc as he remarked,

'This is not ours. We are as mystified as you.'

Galina moved towards the plastic curtain,

'Let's see what is behind here.'

As she reached out to touch the curtain a voice from the back of the room stopped them,

'I wouldn't do that if I were you.' Gerald 57/29K called, 'Those were put there to protect everything here from dust and dirt; that includes you.'

Ash and Jake spun round at the sound of this familiar voice.

Hoshi said,

'I thought we'd seen the last of him.'

The astronauts were a little concerned, to say the least.

Jake was first to speak,

'Shit, that bastard tried to kill us all.'

Ash took Jake's arm by the elbow, as if to restrain him,

'Hold on a moment here – something's not quite right.'

He looked across the room at the Gerald,

'You must be joking. The Gerald we knew was ripped apart on the surface of Mars, and then blown up in a spaceship, before being sent to the sun. There is no way this is the same chap.'

'That is quite correct Colonel Ashton. I am only one of a breed of androids.'

Another voice came from the back of the room,

'Whereas I, on the other hand, am unique.' Mike Xanthros emerged as he said this, 'but these are not.'

As he spoke every door into the room was opened, and two or three Geralds appeared at each one.

Xanthros continued as he began moving down the room towards the astronauts,

'You damaged and destroyed a lot of expensive equipment as you left Mars.

The Geralds also began moving towards Ash and his colleagues in a menacing manner.

Xanthros had not seen Michelle behind Ash. She was somewhat in awe of her erstwhile boss, so she was keeping out of his line of sight. The rest of her group were fixated on the palpable threat moving towards them.

Michelle saw movement in the plastic sheeting behind them.

Hoshi turned to see Michelle watching the curtain, then turned back to watch the approaching men in suits.

Styx held out an arm to stop Jake from moving forwards. The ex-marine said,

'Hold it; they are after you, not me. I'll take care of this.'

He withdrew two Uzzi machine pistols from his volumous coat pockets.

Without hesitation he let fly at the heads of the nearest Geralds.

In less than one second these heads each received fifty rounds – they ceased to exist. The cadaver below also ceased to function.

Steve Luke was stood by Michelle and Masuto, he stepped forwards as if to protect them,

He called across to Styx,

'Here.'

Styx understood at once, and tossed one of the machine pistols across to Luke.

A second line of Geralds was moving towards the group. There were three in this phalanx. They did not seem to be carrying any weapons.

Styx fired again. Two one second bursts to each head, with the same result as before.

Luke fired at the chest area of the Gerald approaching him. Most of the 9mm bullets seemed to have no effect; they were absorbed easily by the metal exo-skeleton of the android. One or two rounds hit parts inside; they caused the android to make some strange movements, and hesitate a little, but it continued to Luke. As it reached him it raised an arm; very much in a Frankenstein's monster manner, aiming at Luke's neck. Its other arm swung high, threatening to come crashing down on the college lecturer's head. He saw this, and, trying to dodge it placed his neck in the grasp of the other hand.

Styx saw the threat, levelled his Uzzi, and took careful aim at the outstretched arm. The one second burst began at Gerald's elbow, and then moved up to the shoulder. The arm virtually ceased to exist. Luke was able to throw it away as the android fell to one side because of the weight of bullets hitting it.

Styx had to turn his attention away from the side of the room in order to do this. He did not see Gerald moving in from the side. Jake did. He intercepted the android when he saw it was rushing to attack Luke. Gerald did not even look towards Jake as he swiped him to one side. He then took hold of the Uzzi at the same time as elbowing Styx on the side of his head so hard that his head nearly came off, breaking his neck.

As Styx fell, the Gerald then took hold of the Uzzi from the falling Styx. He had no hesitation pointing it at Luke, who quickly spun round to shoot at the android. The first bullets hit Gerald in the chest with no obvious result. Luke moves the weapon up to concentrate his hits on the head - as he did this the android opened fire with the Uzzi. Only five bullets remained in the gun. They were fired almost simultaneously. Four of them hit Luke. Gerald turned the now empty weapon on Galina Danilenko. But the damage done to his head now effected his balance. As he fell to the ground the Uzzi clattered loudly and Luke crumpled alongside it with blood spurting from his chest.

Suddenly the screen behind the astronauts burst open and the imposing figure of a man over six feet tall with a shock of unruly white hair and strange hexagonal blue spectacles strode forwards.

The Marquis of Libeaux called across the vast room with confidence,

'Stop this now.' He scanned the Geralds, 'The First Law cannot be countermanded. Return to your stations.'

The remaining androids all about-faced, and then marched away without hesitation, or a word.

The Marquis turned his attentions to Xanthros, but he was no longer there.

'Where the ... ? Where's he gone now?' he exclaimed as three Geralds emerged from the plastic curtain behind him.

Michelle noticed one of the Uzzi guns on the floor near her feet. She slowly moved it closer with her foot, and then picked it up.

The Marquis spoke to the group,

'Come with me – I have something to show you.'

The astronauts and company looked astonished. They centred on Ash and Jake without speaking.

Ash looked up to the Marquis, who seemed to be waiting for them to move towards him. He turned to the double doors behind him. One Gerald on either side opened the doors.

Ash and Jake tried to see what was on the other side.

Jake spoke before moving,

'Wait a minute; why should we trust you? We don't know who you are,' he indicated the Geralds, 'and these bastards –' he waved in the direction of the androids, 'they look very much like the androids that tried to kill us on Mars, then all the way back, and just now' He looked at Ash, who nodded his support.

The Marquis said quietly,

'Stop messing about, come with me; I have something to show you.'

As he said this a medical team appeared as if from nowhere, and began taking care of Styx and Luke.

Galina moved towards Luke, but he was dead. She turned towards Styx, but was barred by one of the medical team who simply shook his head. It was then that she thought he looked the same as the Geralds, but dressed as a medical orderly. Before she had chance to check the others she felt a hand on her arm.

Ash began to follow the Marquis, Jake went across to Galina, and took her by the arm. Galina looked across at Michelle as she caught up with Ash. She saw that as they held hands for mutual comfort Michelle hid the Uzzi. Jake took hold of Galina in his arms briefly. Hoshi quickly bent down to scoop up the other Uzzi, she gently touched Galina's shoulder as she moved past her to follow Ash.

They moved into a room that looked and smelled like a cross between a laboratory and an electronics assembly setup.

Benches ran the length of this room. On the far side another two men entered.

Jake leaned towards Ash,

'At least it's not more of the goddamn androids.'

Del Banco and Mrs Hapsburg made their way towards the Marquis. As they moved through the room the Marquis introduced first himself, and then the others to each other,

'I am the Marquis of Libeaux, these are two of my colleagues, Mrs Hapsburg and Mr del Banco. We are members of a group known to some as the Illuminate.'

Del Banco added,

'You have already had dealings with Xanthros of course.'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'And his sister, Ninkharsag – whom you know as Semeramis.'

Ash was direct,

'This is all very interesting, but exactly what are you up to here?'

The Marquis was equally as direct; the hexagonal blue spectacle lenses seemed to focus in on Ash as he replied,

'All this, as you put it, is because we are leaving.'

Jake said,

'Already? We have not had chance to get acquainted yet.'

Hoshi spoke up,

'How do you mean, leaving? How many of you are there? Leaving to where?'

Galina said,

'Yes, you mentioned Sem and Xanthros ...'

Jake added,

'Yes, I hope you are taking that, ...' he paused, looked at Michelle and Galina, then continued, 'gentleman with you.'

The Marquis replied to this barrage of questions as best he could,

'We are six people, we are returning to our home planet, well, it was once our home planet, but we have been here so long now we have evolved ...'

Michelle was beginning to find all this too much,

'Wha ...? You mean to tell me that Xanthros is an alien?'

Del Banco attempted a reply,

'What is an alien? You Americans call anyone from abroad an alien; and yet you were all from a foreign country originally,'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'Apart from the Native Americans, who you nearly wiped out.'

Del Banco continued,

'Yes, we came from somewhere else; but that was a very long time ago – we have been here for a lot longer than you. It is all relative.'

Mrs Hapsburg added,

'We were instrumental in shaping your development by introducing the Neanderthal strain in the first place.'

The Marquis looked at Ash and Jake as he said,

'But then again, you already know this, do you not?'

Michelle turned to Ash with a puzzled look on her face,

'Did you?'

'Yes, that is the secret we have been keeping. We knew that it would cause mass panic. But at the same time we knew that we would never be safe, we cannot unlearn it, but we can avoid anyone else having the burden.'

Jake said to the Marquis,

'And now you have spilled the beans.'

Galina looked at him,

'You could have shared the secret with us.'

Ash and Jake shook their heads, Ash it was who said,

'No we couldn't. It would not have been fair on you.'

Michelle's cell phone rang. Everyone knew who it was.

She answered it as she turned towards the rear of the room,

'Hi. Things are a bit taught here.'

'Yes, I know. Remember? It is this whole situation that I am ringing you about. Put me on speaker.'

Michelle stabbed the phone, and then placed it between the two groups. Sem continued,

'Xanthros and Romanov are working together with two Geralds to hijack Totem.'

The Marquis replied,

'What, all of it?'

Semeramis said,

'I can't say any more, I don't know how much they can intercept this call. I suggest we meet up now.'

The Marquis said,

'Yes, but if this call is being listened to, how?'

Jake turned to Ash and said,

'Alamo?'

At first he didn't follow his line of thought, and then it clicked.

After some thought Ash leaned towards the phone, and said into it,

'Sorry, Sem. You'll have to follow us on this one, and make your own way to the meeting place.'

'Ok.'
Chapter 64

Totem

The four astronauts did not explain what was meant by the Alamo. They knew, and as long as the information remained in their heads, no-one else would know.

In a strange role reversal Ash said to the Marquis and his group,

'Follow me.'

They walked back out to the dusty road. Here Ash paused, moved closer to the Marquis, and said in a conspiratorial whisper,

'Do they have any sort of tracking device?' nodding towards the Geralds.

The Marquis stroked his beard before replying,

'Probably, do we? Do you?'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'With the Hilbert Transformation we are probably tracked in hyperspace anyway.'

Ash did not pretend to understand,

'We know a way around that.'

He turned, and continued his journey, leading them towards the covered hyperbolic chamber.

He moved the sheet to one side, examining it as he did so.

'Graphine Kevlar if I'm not mistaken.' He said to Jake.

They found their way in. Closing the door del Banco said,

'I see what you have done; very clever. I hope Semeramis can work out what happened.'

Michelle said,

'She will. Smart cookie that one.'

Ash was quick to say,

'So will the others. The only advantage we now have is being able to communicate between ourselves without anyone overhearing.' He turned to the Marquis, 'What is going on, and why have we been brought here?'

Barely stopping for breath the Marquis launched in to his explanation,

'I said that we are leaving. We are going back to a planet system you know as Sirius C.'

There was a clatter from behind the group as Michelle's Uzzi hit the ground just before she did.

She was standing just behind and to one side of Ash when she fainted.

Ash lifted her head, Galina took her pulse.

The Marquis said,

'I'm sorry; the information must have been too much of a shock for her.'

Hoshi took a purposeful grip on her Uzzi as she said,

'Or was it something else?'

Jake quickly looked at the gun,

'That's empty.' He said.

'Wha ... How do you know?' she said.

'Never mind that, unclip the mag, and turn it around. There is another mag taped on to it. That's it. Now be so good as to put it on safety for now.'

Michelle was coming round, a chair had been found, and she was made comfortable. Mrs Hapsburg said,

'I think we had better get some seats here.'

Seating was arranged; there were three laboratory stools, two swivel chairs on wheels, and a couple of packing cases.

The Marquis continued as quickly as he could,

'I'm sorry if this is a shock to you; but there is more to come.'

Silence fell upon the group.

'Our work here is done. The effects of the Tsunami on our biggest success, combined with the information about our existence, means that you must now be left to sort things out for yourselves.'

Jake was quick to spot an alternative viewpoint,

'You mean that it is no longer safe for you to remain here.'

'That too.' The Marquis admitted, 'neither is it safe for you people.'

Hoshi then said,

'If I remember correctly, isn't Sirius some nine light years away?'

Del Banco answered,

'Yes.'

Jake said,

'We are six humans. We need a lot of food. The Phoenix was designed for the short journey to Mars; we had to take enough burgers and doughnuts for two years. How big will your ship have to be to carry enough for us to survive such a long journey?'

Ash agreed,

'He's right; if the ship was the size of a Walmart store it would not be big enough. And where is this ship? I am pretty sure we would be able to spot something that big.'

The Marquis calmly replied,

'We have developed ways of overcoming these difficulties, Ash said before The Marquis could continue,

'You mean Totem?'

The Marquis seemed pleasantly surprised by this,

'Not exactly; Totem is only part of it. Speaking of which, it is being threatened as we speak.'

As he was finishing his statement light flooded into the hyperbolic chamber as the door was flung open.

Hoshi and Galina had no hesitation in moving to either side – guns at the ready.

Four Geralds strode into the interior.

The two Uzzis fired almost simultaneously.

Less than one second later four heads ceased to function. They all stayed in place because they were made of almost indestructible advanced metals; the chinks in their armour lay in the installed sensors that were needed to function. The bullets smashed their way in, and then ricocheted around inside the head, mashing up delicate electronic components.

Arms waved around aimlessly, legs seemed to take on a life of their own as they tried to keep balance. One by one they failed, and the Geralds fell.

Jake was first to speak; he turned to The Marquis and said,

'Friends of yours?'

He replied,

'They could have been.'

Ash commented,

'Not any more'

The Marquis kept his cool,

'I suppose we'll never know now, will we?'

One of the Geralds standing behind del Banco said,

'Yes we will; they were hostile.'

The Marquis thought momentarily before saying,

'Well, our plan of action is simple; get to the Totem, and find out how many more hostiles there are.'

The group of eight very disparate people and three androids moved off with only two guns that had very little ammunition. Also most of them had no idea what was happening.

The group half ran, half walked, out an Agusta Westland VH-71 Kestrel helicopter. The Marquis took the controls with one of the Geralds as co-pilot.

Del Banco sat with Ash and Michelle during the flight. Conversation was not easy with the engine noise in the chopper, they all donned headsets and microphones then del Banco tried to bring everyone up to speed,

'I know you know quite a lot about us, Ash and Jake, I presume that you have not had exposure to a lot of it, Michelle.'

Michelle replied,

'I was a monitor under Xanthros, but had no clue as to what Ash and Jake found.'

Ash said,

'And I have no idea how that connects with what you have here, what is all this about?'

'Ever since it became probable that the people of Earth would find out about our manipulations of their past development we decided that it would be prudent to have a sort of 'get out clause' if you will. So we have been developing an escape system over the last two years.'

Michelle gasped,

'Jeeeze.'

Ash was beginning to put two and two together,

'These will be the missions that Steve Luke told us about.'

'Yes, Ash. We tried to keep things quiet, but missions to the moon are not exactly easy to hide. And after the Tsunami, well, things in space went very quiet; as a result they were noticed.'

As they thundered over the city of Harrisburg Jake asked,

'And I presume we are headed for Totem now?'

'Yes, let us hope that we are not too late.'

The helicopter flew over dense forest. This did not look like the area around Cape Canaveral.

Michelle was straining to look where they were headed through the side window. She got a glimpse of something out of the ordinary.

At first it looked like a small village had been planted in a clearing in the forest. As they drew closer a flatter, cleared area came into view – then she saw it; it looked like a copy of the Eiffel Tower, but a different shape with a gigantic white rocket standing at its core.

It was difficult to assess size at this point, but Ash said,

'That thing must be bigger than Artimis.' He referred to the Mars launch vehicle as first envisaged.

The helicopter landed some half a mile away from the launch complex.

The astronauts and Michelle stood looking at the rocket as the Marquis shut down the chopper.

As he dismounted from the machine he said to the group,

'Come with me.'

They all filed into a room similar to the one they had left at the Arsenal – including the plastic curtain. The Marquis began,

'You now possess knowledge about us. We always said that our work must always be in complete secrecy; if our subjects knew what we were doing it would influence the outcomes to such an extent that the whole changes would be prejudiced.' He did something to the plastic curtain, 'So our decision was made for us many eons ago.' The curtain parted. A darkened room lay behind it. He made some adjustments to a hidden consul. 'Here we have our rendezvous setup.' A series of lights began to appear. A large model of the surface of the moon became illuminated. Displays, both large and small flickered on around the room. On closer inspection the moonscape had strange-looking buildings on it.

The astronauts stared in disbelief as they noticed something very unusual about the model. At first the level of detail was what astounded them. Then they noticed movement within the model. Vehicles and people were moving around; lights in and around the buildings were showing a strange delicacy.

Even Hoshi was looking wide-eyed at the spectacle before them.

Jake was first to speak, but it was not coherent,

'Whaaaa? Tha...?' he pointed, then turned to Ash, then back to the moonscape, 'There's ... Jeeeeze.' He shook his head.

The Marquis continued,

'You could say that this is a scale representation of our moon base – but that would not be accurate; this is the base we have on the moon.'

The faces around just stared in disbelief.

He explained further,

'We established this base on the far side of the moon some time ago; round about the time the US Navy were experimenting with Operation Moonbounce.' He thought for a second or two, 'Around 1954 I think it was.'

Galina Danilenko pointed at a vehicle moving on the model as she said,

'There is movement on there.'

'Yes; This is a live projection of the facility. It is provided by a series of Microbots in orbit around the moon. They are so small they are undetectable.'

Jake moved around the model, to find that it was truly three- dimensional. He moved his head down close to the hologram, and then turned to look towards where the image would be projected from.

The Marquis advised,

'I wouldn't look up like that; there are many Lazers building up that series of images – they could strike you blind.'

Jake kept his head close to the image before him as he turned to look at it in more detail.

'Is that a Gerald?' he asked.

The Marquis did not have to look closely before confirming,

'Yes. There are quite a few on the moon.'

Hoshi shook her head as she asked,

'And what is the exact purpose of this?'

'I suppose you could call it a staging post. We are returning to our home near the star you know as Sirius. It would be impossible to build a ship capable of that journey using earthly resources, so we have built a staging post where our own starship can pick us up.'

Hoshi was not satisfied with the answer,

'No; I mean how does this relate to us?'

The Marquis turned to look directly at Hoshi, light from the display illuminated their faces as he began his reply,

'You are the only people who know all of this about us. We would like you to come with us.'

Ash quickly looked at Michelle before replying,

'You must be joking. We cannot take a space journey of that magnitude. Sirius is over nine light years away – how long would that take?'

Jake added,

'How on earth can you feed us for a journey like that?'

Ash came back,

'If the ship were the size of a Walmart store, it still would not be big enough.'

The Marquis smiled gently as he shook his head,

'You don't understand. Yes, the journey is a long one. Even we do not know how long; it depends on position of so many things relative to each other, and how they move around the cosmos. But suffice to say it is going to be somewhere around 60 of your earth years, but a more realistic number would be 100 years.'

Del Banco interrupted,

'That is to allow for the elasticity of time due to the speeds involved.'

Jake was getting exasperated,

'Just listen to yourself – we cannot do that kind of time, even if you could feed us and supply oxygen, plus everything else we need to survive...'

The Marquis interrupted him,

'We have perfected what you call suspended animation.' He paused, 'Everyone on board is placed in statis. The androids you refer to as Geralds were developed to fly these vast distances, whilst replacing themselves during the flight.'

Jake just said,

'Wha ...' he looked at Galina, who was now close by his side. His face contorted slightly, 'What you think?'

She thought for a moment,

'The possibility of sleeping through the next 60 -100 years, and then waking up to find out what developments had been made – fantastic.'

Jake brought her back down to earth with a bump,

'But you will not be on Earth; you will be somewhere alien.'

'Ahhh. That is the cruncher. Then I don't want to go.'

Jake agreed with her,

'Me neither. What if they do strange things with food?'

Ash said,

'You mean like the Norwegians?'

'Exactly – or the Indonesians.'

Ash asked Michelle,

'Would you like to live on a foreign, distant planet?

'Not really, not without you.'

Ash asked Hoshi,

'What about you, Hoshi?'

She pondered a little before saying,

'The prospect is intriguing ... to be the first person to do so many things.' She was getting excited about the prospects, 'and these people obviously have developments beyond our comprehension.'

Jake spoke up again,

'Haven't you had enough space travel recently?'

She looked away from the display for the first time, gently shaking her head, she smiled,

'That is not the only thing going here; this is like travelling in a Rolls-Royce, whereas we have been on a cross-town bus.'

Jake said,

'Well all I can say is; don't forget to take a packed lunch.' He smiled at her as he held out his hand, 'But the best of luck.'

'Thanks, I'm looking forward to it.'

The Marquis turned to Semeramis,

'Could you contact Xanthros, and have him meet us here?'

This was a surprise move for Ash and Jake.

They looked at each other with worried looks.

The Marquis explained,

'Don't worry, we all go back a long way – plans sometimes have to be altered. Things have changed here on Earth so much that we must all leave now.' He pointed at the image before them, 'Hence the establishment on the far side of the moon.' He addressed the gathered people as a group, 'The fact that you all know what has been happening, and how, means little now considering the disruption on Earth; so we have decided to offer you the chance to come with us, or stay.'

Ash spoke up,

'I think I speak for everyone else here when I say that we would rather stay here, except Hoshi.'

The Marquis nodded as he pointed towards the outside, 'There are two rockets almost ready for launch. Del Banco, Mrs Hapsburg, Romanov and Rockefeller will leave in the first. Myself, Semeramis and Hoshi Masuto will follow in the second rocket.'

They all went across to the crew preparation room, closer to the launch site.

Ash talked with the Marquis on the way over,

'This rocket we saw on the way in – developed from the Orion is it?'

'No; it is the Orion. The Orion was built to take up to six astronauts to the moon and back. Why should we need to improve on that?'

'So it was perfect for the job? Straight off the shelf, as it were.'

'Au contraire; we designed it for this purpose. The NASA requirement just happened to fit as well.'

Ash almost stopped dead in his tracks; now he knew why parts of the space program continued to function after the Tsunami.

Jake was surprised to find that these people needed spacesuits for their journey to the moon, but not like the normal outfits that they were used to.

He said to Hoshi,

'I hope you can learn how to use this kit.'

'There's very little to learn.' She replied.

They all took the opportunity for their last farewells in the crew preparation room.

Michelle spoke to Hoshi before the top part of her spacesuit was put into place,

'What can you say at a time like this?'

'There is not a lot we can say; this is a wonderful chance to see things never even dreamed of by men.'

Ash was standing between Michelle and Hoshi when he said,

'You will see things not yet developed or thought of – one hundred years of advancement before you even get there.'

Jake added,

'And all of this done by a very advanced civilisation.'

Final farewells were exchanged before Hoshi was sealed into her suit, and linked to her life support box. They all stood around and watched the first rocket launch.

The familiar countdown seemed somehow out of place, but all the usual elements were there – granted, the mission control was smaller than the one at Houston, but the place came to life in exactly the same way it did at NASA.

As the clock ticked down to zero the background hum of activity gradually died down until finally only one voice called,

Gerald in Launch Control Centre said,

'Main engine start.'

The sounds of the powerful engines filled the room. Everyone could feel as well as hear the low rumbling.

Then Gerald called out,

'Ignition.'

Followed less than one second later,

'Lift-off.'

The vibrations inside the cabin subjected the four people to extremely violent oscillations.

At eleven seconds after lift-off, del Banco, in charge of the spacecraft, called,

'Roll Commence.' then, 'Pitch Tracking.' After a slight pause, 'Roll Complete.'

In Mission Control the steely silence continued as Michelle looked around at the people in the room. She couldn't help thinking that she should know some of them; but the only people she recognised with any certainty were Geralds.

At exactly 20 seconds after lift-off del Banco came over the radio again,

'EDS manual.'

The Mission Controller said,

'Go/No Go for staging.'

This was repeated by del Banco, followed by,

'Inboard off. Outboard off. Staging.' the sounds of another rocket, in the distance, could be heard. 'S-11 65%.' He watched his panels, 'S-11 Separator light out.' He tapped a keyboard as he watched the panel, and then confirmed, 'Tower jettison, Mark, Mode eleven.' More tapping of keys, 'Interactive Guidance Mode Initiate.' Then he called Mission Control, 'Spacecraft Go/No Go.'

The reply came back,

'Guidance Go/No Go.' A few seconds later, 'Trajectory Go/No Go.'

Del Banco from the spacecraft replied,

'Go/No Go.'

Mission Control said,

'S four B to orbit capability.'

'Spacecraft Go/No Go.'

'Go/No Go for staging.'

'S eleven off. S four B ignition.' One second later, 'S four B 65%.'

The Mission commander at the topmost desk said,

'Spacecraft Go/No Go for orbit.'

In the capsule, travelling at 17,000 mph Del Banco said,

'Single engine cutoff.'

Mission Control,

'Insertion.'

The ship had entered into Earth orbit eleven minutes thirty one seconds after lift-off.
Chapter 65

Phoenix

In a high orbit way above the Earth another spaceship maintained itself.

The occupants were also keeping a watching brief on the planet below them.

The Scutters on board Phoenix were programmed for maintenance to a high order – this also included developing whatever was to hand to evolve the ship into something better suited to the task at hand

The ship no longer looked like it once did. The Scutters had been busy evolving themselves too. Stuart was still there, but he no longer resembled a human. In the time since humans had left the ship to return to Earth the Scutters had been 'improving' him to perform his tasks better. Converting both his legs into arms was very useful, given the weightless environment. Visual sensors had also been installed on the back of his head as well as near where his feet once were. One of his hands now sported what can only be described as the robot's version of a Swiss army knife – but this one is self-propelled.

Such were the changes to a figure that was known to us.

The mission of the Phoenix had now changed – so the appearance was different also.

The remaining Sarsen no longer resembled a re-entry vehicle, but a dedicated anti-rocket missile.

After the Tsunami the Illuminate could only just contain the situations developing in what was left of the NASA organisation, although their part, the Totem, was developed away from the destroyed main complexes in Florida. There was little they could do about the Phoenix. All of the systems were now given over to their own internal requirements and orders. One of these orders came from Xanthros when they were orbiting Mars.

The order was simple; 'Do not let any ship leave the planet.'

Now they were orbiting a planet, and a ship has just gone into orbit.

The much modified Stuart was the nearest to human on the Phoenix. Improved and enhanced Scutters made up the majority of moving elements, they were all interlinked with the main computers on the ship.

This interlinking meant that any misunderstanding within the system was exacerbated without intervention from the human programmers.

The last communications the ship had had with their human programmers was when Xanthros tried to get them to stop Ash and his colleagues from leaving Mars. The patches that Xanthros had applied to their original programming were now causing massive problems within their electronic brains.

Confusion led them to think the ship that had just entered an orbit around the same planet as them was a legitimate target.

But because they were in orbit around the same planet does not mean that they were close to each other. Del Banco and co were over Africa, the Phoenix was somewhere over Japan. And they were going in completely different planes.

One result of the Tsunami on Earth was that the radar coverage for these launches was well below what would normally be expected; so the people on Earth did not know about the Phoenix.

Stuart and his robots, on the other hand, certainly knew about del Banco's rocket, but they did not know that he was only going to do two and a half orbits before moving off to the moon – and the Phoenix would not be able to catch them there, due to orbiting restraints.

A sympathetic orbit was plotted by the nav computer whilst Stuart tried to come up with an interception plan. This was not an interceptor fighter – it carried no armament for a start, and was limited by the need to remain in Earth orbit. The nav computer was not equipped to work out the computations involving relative speeds in three dimensions for two moving ships with unknown course changes. But what Stuart did was simplify the problem. He estimated where the rocket was likely to be in four hours' time, and told the nav computer to aim at that spot.

The old ship creaked and groaned at the new gravity strains as she manoeuvred around to meet the Totem.

Del Banco and his crew had very little view on the outside world. Even if they could see clearly the chances of seeing the Phoenix would have been negligible unless one of them was practising astronomy, and happened to notice one extra star in the firmament.

The Scutters were heavily involved in modifying the Sarsen for its last mission. By modifying parts of the nav computer on board they allowed Stuart to designate any given star, or point of light, to tell the machine to head for that point.

The Marquis monitored the flight plan of the Totem from Mission Control on Earth.

They were entering the phase of their journey where they would be leaving their orbit in order to head for the moon.

The Phoenix did not come close to the orbit of the Totem. When the computers assessed that they would not get any closer they notified Stuart, who by now had taken his place inside the Sarsen.

He initiated his release from the Mother Ship, and lit up his main engine. A five second burn was all that was needed to bring him closer to the Totem, but it was moving at 85 degrees relative to him. He aimed at a spot to the rear of it. As he pulled the Sarsen round he detected the Totem firing up its main engine to leave orbit.

The new nav computer programme easily picked up the burn, and warned Stuart that his quarry was now accelerating away at an increasing rate of knots.

Stuart fired up the main engine, but this was not few seconds' burn; it was left on full throttle. The Sarsen gained rapidly, especially when the Totem stopped its engine.

Small manoeuvring jets on the nose of the Sarsen kept it pointing at the Totem. The Nav Computer guided the missile unerringly to its target; the closer it got the easier it became to keep on track. Stuart had to do nothing.

The nose of the Sarsen clipped the engine nozzle at the rear of the Totem, pushing it off course. The engine broke away as the whole rocket began to pivot round. The Sarsen was still at full power; Stuart saw the Totem approaching his window just before it collided with his vehicle.

The blue spectacles of the Marquis reflected a myriad of warning lights as the Totem began to disintegrate. Then all of the telemetry went dead.

The Marquis looked straight ahead as he said,

'Something went wrong; we may have lost the ship. But maybe not.' He addressed the group, 'Come with me.'

He led them into another room down a corridor.

As they entered the room he turned to Hoshi, and said,

'You thought you would be going into Statis for the journey to Sirius. What we told you has been superseded – we have just perfected another way to survive the journey. This is the way we were going to do it.' He moved towards another 3D lazer projection, this time showing a piece of machinery, 'This device is capable of not only detecting and controlling a wormhole, but it can now create one.'

Ash and Jake looked at each other in awe. They scrutinized the projection. It was difficult to assess the size or scale of this alien object.

Ash was first to speak,

'How big is this? Where is it? How do you intend using it?'

Jake threw in,

'What do you mean, 'Maybe not'?'

The Marquis looked at Jake,

'Pardon, how do you mean, 'Maybe not.?'

'You said, or implicated, that they may not have lost the ship.'

The Marquis almost smiled as he replied,

'It is complicated. And related to what I am about to show you.' He turned to the 3D image before them, 'Here we have a device that can actually create a wormhole in space time.' He addressed the group again, 'The machine you see here is in a converted farmhouse half an hour south of Bergerac airport in France; we needed somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The one we were going to use on board the ship that would have taken you to Sirius.' He took a breath as he addressed the next part to Jake, 'The Maybe comes from the possibility that Totem may have gone into a wormhole created by itself once it got into range of the Lunar base. But we cannot be sure. Until we hear from the Lunar base we cannot launch the second Totem.'

Galina said to Hoshi,

'Are you sure you want to go through with all this?'

Hoshi replied,

'I feel I have missed out on a big adventure.'

The Marquis said,

'A much bigger adventure than you realise I'm afraid; we have not tested the whole system with a human.'

A message came in from the lunar station,

'Martineau from Back Lunar. We have lost contact with Totem One. I repeat - we have lost contact with Totem One. Do you have any information?'

Marq sat in front of the screen. He looked at the Gerald in front of him,

'We do not have radar coverage from here. Is it possible that they went into a wormhole?'

'Negative, sir. There are still transponder readings coming from the area where she disappeared from.'

Marq looked dejected as he lowered his head momentarily.

When he raised it again he said,

'That was our last hope.' He got up from the desk, took a deep breath, and continued, 'I am the last of the Illuminate. I must now make amends for things we did not control, or allowed to get destructive.'

Ash was first to speak,

'I know that to simply say we are sorry for your loss hardly covers it, but, well, we are sorry.'

It was surprising that the loss hardly seemed to affect Marq,

'Thank you. There must have been some sort of malfunction. But that pales into insignificance compared with what has happened here on Earth.'

Ash said,

'Getting back to things here on Earth – what are you going to do now?'

The Marquis thought for a moment, and then announced,

'I feel that we have done a massive disservice to mankind here. I cannot help feeling that retribution must be made in some way, but how?'

Michelle said,

'How do you mean, 'retribution must be made'?'

'We have been trying to guide you people for generations. There have been many setbacks to your development; usually caused by one individual – Atilla the Hun for instance. Now we have lost most of our family, and you have lost a great chunk of your civilised world, coupled with the arrival of the wormhole creator I believe we can now go back to change things for the better.'

Jake put forward an idea,

'This wormhole thing. Isn't that something to do with time travel?'

The Marquis replied,

'Yes. That is one reason why we had to place it in the middle of France – we needed an area that has not changed for a long time.'

'One man in recent history has caused more misery than any other – by a long way. If you could go back in time and kill him, that would make up for messing up here, and cover your error too; because if you have been more than monitoring our development, how did you allow him to cause such ...'

Ash interrupted him,

'You mean kill Hitler?'

Jake said,

'Why not; he nearly died during the First World War – how things would have worked out better if'n he had been killed.'

The Marquis looked down at the projection, and then quietly said,

'We would have to find a way to govern the wormhole to end not only at a specific time, but in an exact place, too.' He looked up, took a deep breath, and then declared, 'It is possible.'

He looked at Semeramis, she said,

'I will have to do a lot of number crunching, but it could work.'

'No you won't.' Marq said, 'We have self-developing computers – they are now becoming much better than we could have imagined; they will do the calculus for you.'

Jake said,

'It sounds like we have a system here – what could possibly go wrong?'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 66

Martineau

There were six people who disembarked from the aircraft at Bergerac airport. Three of whom had walked on Mars. Hoshi Masuto had returned to her native Japan,

Marq took delivery of a Renault people carrier.

Ash and Jake rearranged the luggage in the back, whilst Michelle and Galina climbed in to the rear seats with Semeramis opposite them, all three women together.

'Have you been here before, Sem?' asked Galina.

'Yes, on several occasions. It has been under construction and development for fourteen years now.'

Michelle wanted to know,

'And it's all been kept secret all the time? Didn't someone notice a massive industrial development being constructed amongst them?'

'There was only one man, the local farmer. We simply bought his farm, and left him in it on condition that he does not speak to anyone about what is going on. The French are very good at keeping secrets.'

Jake joined them, and Ash sat with Marq in the front seats for the journey to Martineau.

The scientific setup in central France was well hidden. Even along the half mile drive from the D688 the buildings were not visible until right at the very end. A slight turn; and a dip in the landscape hid it from view, but the biggest part of the whole setup was hidden beneath fields of sunflowers in the surrounding countryside.

Suitcases were deposited in the hallway by the bottom of the stairs. Marq said to the group,

'I suppose the first thing to do is show you what we have here.'

They followed him into a room to the right of the hallway; away from the main part of the large house. To the left of this room was a short corridor with a bathroom on the left. Opposite the bathroom was a door; an ordinary door with an electronic lock. Upon opening it Marq showed the group into another small corridor. At the end was a door leading outside with a window looking outside towards a small building. On both sides of this passageway were what looked like elevator doors. Marc tapped a keypad on the right wall. Doors silently slid open; he led the group into the elevator.

They seemed to descend for quite a long time; but with no external reference points it was impossible to say how far down they descended.

The doors opened into a whole new world for the NASA employees.

'The whole setup extends far under the fields above in a circle over half a mile across.' Marq said, 'The main control centre is through here.'

He led them into an adjoining room. Here was the usual wall mounted display; this one showed a circle with blocks at various points around it.

Without realising it, Jake said,

'What's all this?'

'Wormhole Control Centre.' Marq said.

Jake looked completely askance at Marq,

'Whaaa?'

'We all have a conception of what a wormhole is, but to be sure we are all on the same page; a wormhole is the name we have given a place where there is a gap in the space/time continuum. This allows passage from one place to another without disturbing the time element normally associated; this means that time can stand still. We have now managed to harness this anomaly, to the result that we can now not only move without moving through time, but we can actually move back in time.'

Jake literally stepped back involuntarily, he looked at Ash,

'Well, that makes it so much clearer, don't it. Ash?'

Ash slowly shook his head as they went into another, smaller room. Inside they found a completely alien setup.

Marq led them to a side, where they found what looked like something that could be a human interface.

Ash asked,

'If there's room in there I would dearly love to come with you.'

Marq said,

'It isn't the room that's the problem; if you went back twenty years, say, you would emerge as you were twenty years ago – including what you knew twenty years ago. In fact you would be exactly the same person with the same knowledge; there would be no difference. This is the way nature avoids a paradox. I am different.'

Jake pointed out something,

'If it is not possible for Ash to travel back in time, how was Galina to cope on the way to Sirius?'

'That is a different time travel.' Marq replied, 'Galina would be travelling forwards about 100 years. Coupled with a kind of suspended animation called Statis that is possible.' He turned to Ash, 'If you wanted to travel back over 100 years, we can't use Statis in this case, but I can stand that – you would emerge at age minus 60 years.'

Jake saw the funny side,

'He's right, you know; your clothes wouldn't fit!'

Marq said,

'Now you understand the systems we have here, what do you suggest we do with it?'

Ash and Jake looked at each other querulously, not knowing what to say.

Eventually Ash pointed out,

'Am I right in presuming that this is to be some sort of experiment? A prototype as it were?'

'Yes, Ash. We have been working up to manipulating the time and place designating within the system. Now, here, I think we have reached all of our goals.'

Jake said,

'How about doing a trial drop at Dunkirk?'

'What date? Any particular sector?' Marq replied.

'26th May, 1940.' Jake said quickly, 'I heard that one of my ancestors died there on that day.'

Semeramis said,

'Interesting. Any more on that?'

'There was a place named.' He thought for a moment, 'Grand Sinth, or something like that.'

'Very well, Semeramis. Could you set up the equipment, the Geralds will help you, plus return contingencies? I must now get ready for my own leap into the past.'

Sem took some time to be as precise as possible. Marq changed into the World War Two uniform of a French soldier, and then took his seat as the others left the room.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 67

The Forgotten Soldiers

In a village hall just outside Grande-Synth, only 6 kilometres from Dunkirk, an adjutant of the French Army greeted his new commander.

'This is a terrible situation.' The Adjutant began, 'Are the Germans going to stop to negotiate peace?'

The Lieutenant-Colonel did not respond as he sat down at his desk.

Presently he lifted his head and said,

'No. They will not be suing for peace; they fully intend to punish us for Versailles.'

He moved papers around on the desk,

'And it will be these poor men who will bear the brunt of it.'

He looked up again,

'Have you vetted all these men yourself?'

'Yes, Sir. But the orders that came down were a little – well, should we say obscure.'

'They had to be; would you like it to be your name that ordered these men to commit suicide?'

'But we are charged with passing the orders on.'

'Yes, and I would advise you to keep your name off any documents relating to this operation.'

The Adjutant shrugged,

'All these names - ' He held another list, 'they will surely know we passed the orders on. You cannot keep secrets as easily as that.'

'We will not be keeping the secret. These men are all volunteers, no?'

'Yes sir.'

'And when we asked for volunteers, what was the criteria?'

The Adjutant thought a little,

'It was stipulated that they should be single, and have no living relatives.'

'And why do you think that was so?'

'Is it because this is a dangerous mission?'

'Not exactly, Henri.' The officer put the papers down, 'This is a suicide mission.' He stood up, and moved closer to the Adjutant as his voice became lower, 'It looks like we shall be facing SS troops. They take no prisoners, when this sorry mess is over, questions may well be asked. We do not want civilians walking around asking 'What happened to my uncle?' and 'Who sent him on this death mission with no hope of surviving it?' even if the Germans are in control, and we lose, there could easily be recriminations. And these will not be nice.'

A commotion was heard outside.

Before either the Officer or the Adjutant could make it to the door a stranger walked in. This was a serious breach of security. The stranger could easily be a German in a cobbled-together French uniform – this one did not look familiar.

The man spoke French, but neither could place the accent. The Adjutant drew his sword; the Officer placed his hand on his pistol.

The man said,

'I have come from Wormhoudt. There are SS Totenkopf attacking the place – and we think they may be heading here.'

The Officer replied,

'What unit are you with, soldier?'

'I was separated from my unit; and became attached to Second Royal and Warwicks.'

'And your unit in the French army?'

'Part of the 21st Infantry Division, Sir.' Marq did not want to be more explicit.

'Did you volunteer for this assignment?'

'Yes, sir.' He put an added note of urgency in his voice as he continued, 'We have heard that the SS do not take prisoners. Well, they do, and then they murder them in cold blood; even the wounded.'

The Officer looked at him with renewed respect – a man about to die.

'Very well – what is your name?'

'Libeaux, sir.' Marq said as he reached for his papers.

'That will not be necessary. There is a copse of trees half a kilometre west of here. Report to the sergeant there.'

Marq saluted, did a smart about turn, and marched out towards the small copse of trees.

The Adjutant shuffled through papers,

'I can't find any mention of that man here.'

The Officer thought for a moment,

'Of course you won't find him there; he came from a different unit.'

The Adjutant shrugged his shoulders.

Marq found some sixty men busy hiding a French 75mm artillery piece in a clump of trees and brush.

He nearly walked past them; they were doing such a good job of concealing their work and equipment.

The tall Cyprus trees swayed gently as he approached. He couldn't help thinking,

'What am I doing here? How do I expect to change anything?'

Sergeant Maurice Bisson was a tall man from Nice. As soon as Marq saw him he was struck by the resemblance to Jake Jensen.

Marq had been practicing his French salute, but also protocol. He almost began a salute when he realized that you do not salute non-commissioned officers (NCOs).

The NCO looked askance at Marq's uniform,

'Escaped from your unit?'

'Pardon?'

'By the state of your uniform I don't blame you. We are expecting the Hun to come along this road,' he indicated a road less than one kilometre away, 'You can mount sentry duty on the left flank. If you see any enemy we must not allow him to get behind us.'

Marq did as he was ordered. As he lay there, watching the road, an eight-wheeled German scout car drove down the road, The French soldiers watched it go - the 75 remained silent.

Marq turned to a soldier on his left. He signalled confusion by holding an open palm combined with a shrug of the shoulders. The soldier held up an index finger, and then pointed at the road,

'Wait, monsieur, they will come, they will come.'

Less than four minutes later they heard the distinctive rumble and clank of metal tracks on a metalled road surface.

The soldier said in a low voice, which he knew was unnecessary,

'Now we wait for the best time.' He continued in an almost conspiratorial air, 'Panzer II. Two 20 millimetre cannon – but they cannot fire accurately on the move.'

First one, and then another Panzer appeared, and then another, and another. When they were certain they could see all of the tanks in the line the French opened fire. First the lead tank was hit, to stop the convoy, and then at the last tank to prevent them running back to cover in order to mount a counter-strike.

'These French gunners are good.' Marq thought as the ends of the convoy were sealed off.

The turrets of the remaining tanks began to swivel towards the coppice. The return fire was not enough to cause any consternation among the troops; They did not even bother returning fire; except for the 75. Another two Panzers were dispatched before their comrades began turning towards the 75 in the woods. That made no difference to the French; their artillery piece began to get in its stride. That left only four tanks. These were now heading for the French infantry. As they left the road they began down a small depression. The 75 hit one before it dropped out of sight. One more round was fired by the 75, and then to Marq's surprise 16 men took hold of the gun and carried it away, he was so amazed that he took hold of part of the gun near the hot barrel. 17 men carried the gun. Marq touched the barrel – then there were 16 again. He followed the gun to a clearing where a limber had been prepared for two horses to take the gun away. He heard the sound of the firing of the infantry's lighter anti-tank weapons. Each one gave a sharper, louder report than a normal rifle, there was then an explosion as the round hit the tank. Unfortunately most bounced off the armour. One tank was hit by a round square in the armour. The shell bounced off, but the hot splinters of metal inside ricocheted around until all the crew had been hit. The engine kept running, but the dead driver kept pressure on one lever; causing the vehicle to career around in mad circles.

Two left.

An anti-tank round caught one tank on the tracks, blowing them off. Otherwise the tank was still functioning, but it was dead in the battleground. The crew knew that they would not live long inside the tank; so they abandoned the vehicle. A hail of bullets surrounded the vehicle as the Germans tried to escape. No-one did. The remaining tank kept on towards the French lines. The French troops on the left wheeled out a small anti-tank gun for which they had no ammunition. The Germans did not hesitate. The turret turned to the gun, and raked it with 20mm cannon fire from its twin guns. On the right there emerged three French troops. Each man placed an explosive charge on the rear of the tank, and retreated back to the woods. As the turret swivelled round to rake the woods, the whole vehicle exploded.

The Frenchmen did not cheer. They simply went about their business of maintaining their defence line.

Marq stood back. He thought that he would look out of place if he tried to fit in because he had not been through the training these men had.

As he stood at the rear of the copse; he looked out towards open fields with clumps of trees here and there. Then he heard that now familiar sound of tracked vehicles. He knew these were not French tanks, or British. The Men in the woods began to turn the 75 to face this new threat when they heard a screaming reverberating through the woods.

With the burning Panzers on one side of the trees, it was obvious from the air that a battle had been joined here. Nine Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers struck the woods. They each carried five bombs. Marq dived for cover beyond the clump of trees. The men in the trees were all killed within one minute.
Chapter 68

The Primary Cause

Marq immediately realised the futility of his mission.

He returned to Sem and the crew at Martineau.

When the crew entered the room Marq had left the seat, so was able to greet them as they came in.

'Well, that was interesting.' He declared, 'Does the name Maurice Bassion mean anything to you?' he asked Jake.

Jake thought for a few moments as they moved into the control room.

Presently he replied slowly,

'Bassion. Bassion. My sister, Diane, did some research into the family, but I don't recognise the name from what she came up with.' He continued thinking whilst the others quizzed Marq.

It was Michelle who asked the obvious question,

'What was it like?'

'These people lived a life very different from us; that is for sure. They were fighting a war, and they simply treated it like any other job.'

Jake wanted to know about Maurice Bassion,

'This Maurice Bassion – I seem to remember a distant relative born in 1918, we thought his name was something like Morris. Passed down by word of mouth, that could be the same person.'

Sem noticed something,

'If he was born in 1918, that would make him 23 at the time of Dunkirk.'

'Well, all I can say is that he looked a lot like you.'

Jake was incredulous at this,

'You meant you saw him?'

'I spoke with him. He was obviously French, but I think we can safely say we found an early ancestor of yours.'

'And what happened to him?'

Marq held a hand out, palm uppermost,

'Sorry. There was nothing I could do. His unit were hit by a squadron of Ju 87s.' he turned to Sem, 'I fail to see how I could possibly alter the course of the war in this way.'

They dispersed around the room to sit at various places; some in front of consuls, others at tables, to think and ponder on the matter.

Michelle made coffee.

Eventually Ash came up with a suggestion,

'If one man can be held responsible for the Second World War, how would it be if you took him out?'

Marq picked up on this,

'You mean Adolf Hitler?'

'Yes, of course.'

Jake said,

'I heard once that he nearly got himself killed during the First War.'

Semeramis was already on the case,

'Yes, it was very close, apparently;' she consulted a computer consul, 'a private Henry Tandey almost shot Hitler, but held his fire when he saw that the German soldier was wounded.'

Michelle said,

'Is that true? It sounds like fake news to me.'

Sem said,

'It is true, confirmed by none other than Hitler himself.'

Ash said,

'Pardon? Hitler – the Hitler?'

'Yes. According to Neville Chamberlain, Hitler showed him a picture hanging on his wall in Berlin of a British soldier. Hitler said to the British Prime Minister – 'This is the soldier who could have killed me.''

Ash said,

'That is interesting. If you could find this soldier in 1917, or whenever it was, and get him to kill Hitler ...'

'And I get my Uncle grandfather Morris back.' He turned to Galina, and mocked being upset, 'We do miss him you know – he was like a father to me.'

She laughed and pushed him away,

'You are two-faced. Until recently you said he was taken off everyone's Christmas list.'

'But now he may come back ...'

Ash butted in,

'Will you two please take this more seriously?'

Marq said,

'Let us see what happens.'

Sem said,

'You mean that you are going?'

'It seems to be the only plan we have.'

Minutes later he was dressed as a British soldier of the First World War, complete with Warwickshire Regiment battledress, and 1914 model Lee Enfield .303 rifle.

Marq entered the machine, and Semeramis led the rest of the group away.

The selected date was September 26th 1918.

Marq had to find a Private Henry Tandey of the 5th Duke of Wellington Regiment. The place selected was a recently captured village of Marcoing. Not particularly conspicuous, the main thing that distinguished Tandey was the small maroon medal tag on his uniform denoting that this man had been awarded the Victoria Cross, as well as the Military Medal and Distinguished Service Cross. Marq knew that the British Army do not issue medals lightly; so a man with such a collection would be unusual. He began his search.

The battle of Cambria was over. The battle for Marcoing had been vicious with the Germans bringing up 5.6 inch naval guns to combat the new tanks the British were using. This caused considerable damage to the village.

Marq moved amongst the soldiers, looking for the medal ribbon. After about an hour of this he realised that this was no way forwards.

He stopped a random soldier in the ruins of yet another house,

'Do you know Private Henry Tandey?' he said in his best Midlands accent.

'You a messenger?' was the reply.

'Yes. Been given orders.'

'You better see the Adjutant.'

'Where is he to be found, then?'

The soldier looked at Marq with some suspicion.

'I can't give you that kind of information, soldier. You might be a German.'

'Don't talk so fucking stupid. Do I look like a fucking German to you, you pillock?'

The soldier looked Marq up and down,

'Well, there ain't no bullet holes in your uniform ...'

'There will be in you if you don't help me soon.'

'Have you any written orders?'

'Of course I have – but they ain't for the likes of you.'

The soldier took a stride towards Marq,

'See that barn over there?' he pointed.

'Yes.'

'Well he ain't there, but our Sergeant is. Maybe you can show him your orders.'

'Right-o. Thanks' Marq adjusted his rifle strap on his shoulder as he turned towards the barn.

When out of sight of the soldier he took out his cell phone, tapped it a couple of times, and said to Semeramis,

'Sem, ask the astronauts if a sergeant is to be saluted.'

Sem asked Ash and Jake, both of which were military men. They both shook their heads. Jake said,

'Definitely not.'

Sem said to the phone,

'No.'

Marq was equally as brief,

'Right.'

The instrument was quickly secreted back from where it had been spirited from.

He entered the barn, and found a sergeant – the stripes on his arm made him stand out.

Marq marched up

to him,

'I'm looking for Private Henry Tandey.' He announced.

The sergeant slowly looked up and down the interloper. He held out his hand after stroking it down his trouser leg in a vain attempt to clean it,

'Papers.'

Marq took a scrap of paper from his blouse pocket. Without unfolding it he handed it to the NCO.

The Sergeant gave it back to him, and then pointed to an Officer on the far side of the barn,

'That's the Adjutant. If anybody knows where your man is, it's him – but I don't fancy your chances.'

Marq took a smart step back; and nearly saluted. He remembered in time, turned on his heel, then walked off in the direction of the Officer.

This time he saluted. Knowing not to use the American salute, he said to himself, 'Long way up, short way down.'

The Officer replied with the same salute.

Marq began,

'Sir. I have been tasked with finding Private Henry Tandey.' He said as he handed his paperwork over.

The Officer took the paper, examined it, and then handed it back, saying,

'Jolly good luck, old boy. I have no idea where he is; we are only now just beginning to regroup.'

This was beginning to look like a bigger waste of time than looking for a medal ribbon.

Marq decided to fall further into character. He ran his hand over his face, looked at his paperwork, and said,

'It's important that I find this man. You have not even got a rough idea where he may be?'

'Not the foggiest, dear boy.' He turned towards a group of soldiers, he called one across, 'Warrant Officer, do you know where this man's unit is?'

The Warrant Officer looked at Marq's shoulder flash, then his face.

The Officer said,

'Not that man; he has paperwork.'

The WO took the paper off Marq, read it, then handed it back, saying,

'There's a farm about half a mile from here – over in that direction,' he pointed, 'they are mopping up the last German resistance. You may find him over there.'

Marq thanked the man, and began to make his way across the blasted and ruined landscape.

Presently he began to hear the sounds of gunfire in the direction he was headed.

Clearing a small hill, he saw a small group of farm buildings on the horizon. A voice to his right called out,

'Get your bloody head down. We think there may be a sniper over there.'

Marq moved towards the voice, keeping his head down.

A soldier appeared, laying on the ground, rifle at the ready. He saw Marq, and immediately noticed his 'Warwickshire' flashes on his shoulders,

'What you doin' 'round here, mate?' the soldier asked, 'your lot are still in Cambrai, ain't they?'

Marq took up position alongside him before answering,

'I'm looking for a Private Henry Tandey.'

The soldier took a good look around.

'I think he's over on the right flank. But keep your head down; there are still Jerries all over the place.'

Marq raised his head to look where the soldier pointed.

'There you go again – GET YOUR FUCKING HEAD DOWN!'

Marq dropped.

The soldier looked at him,

'You're new to all this aren't you?'

'Is it so obvious?'

'Yes. Most people behaving like you do not last long out here.' He looked around again. Marq noticed that he hardly raised his head, just a quick blip up and then down quickly. 'Look, follow me, and try to keep your rump down too.'

He led Marq along the low ridge. A small ditch did not get in their way; it was used as further cover as the soldier showed Marq how to travel through an active battlefield.

A small ruined wall was used as they got closer to the action.

The soldier whispered to Marq,

'We never call out names this close to the enemy, and never creep up on any soldier. Keep station to one side until he sees you. Only then can you close in on his position.' He pointed out a soldier, 'I think that's him, but be careful – he's been in action for quite some time now, and that can make you jumpy. I've got to get back to my post.'

He began making his way back the way they had come.

Marq moved slowly towards Tandey.

He stayed back a little, edging closer, keeping close to the ground. The grass smelled sweet; he couldn't help be surprised at the pleasantness in the midst of such destruction.

Tandey noticed Marq as he drew closer. He continued watching the buildings.

Marq moved until he could communicate by speaking to Henry,

'Are you Private Henry Tandey 34506?'

'Yes, that's me.'

'Great, I've been sent to look after you.'

Tandey kept his watch on the buildings as he said in a quiet, calm voice,

'We got the Jerries on the run here; they ain't got much fight left in em.'

The men kept watch on the buildings until dark, and then withdrew to a more effective defensive position, where they met up with other soldiers of the 5th Duke of Wellington's Regiment.

The next day was September 28th – the day Marq was sent to deal with.

Tandey went back to a place close to his position of the previous day.

'Never go back to the same place,' He explained to Marq, 'you never knows if you were spotted the day before, and a sniper might have moved to get a shot at you.'

Fleeting glimpses of Germans were seen from time to time – some were shot, as chance occurred by the two soldiers.

Some hours into the day; Marq had lost track of time by now, a wounded German soldier emerged. Tandy drew a bead on him, but hesitated when he saw the man was wounded. Marq took a hard look at the man in front of them. The moustache helped identify him. There was no time to waste; the German waved thanks when he saw Tandy lower his rifle. He did not see Marq place his rifle butt in the firing position in his shoulder. The rifle crack was a surprise to Tandey. The German fell dead.

Marq said nothing to Tandy as he moved forwards. He knew he should be more careful, but was eager to get to the man he had just shot. Tandy followed, covering Marq as he dropped down to the body. Tandy thought he was looting when he saw Marq going through the dead Germans pockets. He called,

'You can get shot for that.'

Marq replied,

'Just checking.'

He withdrew a paybook from the German. Inside he saw the name Hitler.

Making sure the man was dead, Marq returned to Tansey. He simply said,

'My work here is done.'

Back at Martineau, in real time, as it were, Ash asked Semeramis,

'Will we know if and when Marq completes his mission?'

Sem looked around the room before answering,

'It is unlikely, unless something happened in the past to influence things today.' She suddenly seemed to get agitated as she continued, 'Where are Jake and Galina?'

Ash looked at Michelle as he replied,

'Who?'

'Jake and Galina.'

'Sorry; I don't know what you men – who are you talking about?' ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 69

Martineau

Semeramis led Ash and Michelle down to the Control room at Martineau, and then along to the room where Marq had gone. This was the first Ash or Michelle had seen this part of the apparatus; Ash was expecting some sort of cockpit setup. What they found was quite a surprise. A battered leather chair was positioned at one end of the long room. Marq was monitoring some part of the machinery some way from the chair.

Michelle was fascinated by the chair; Marq noticed her taking an interest in it,

'You can sit in it if you wish.' He said.

She looked surprised, but hesitated not a jot. As she sat looking proud, and strangely ill at ease, Marq said,

'I'm sorry about the condition; it was brand new when we set off on this journey. It is made of Earthly materials, and therefore cannot easily withstand the rigors of time travel.' He looked around the group, 'Where are the other two?' the question seemed to be aimed at Sem.

She replied,

'Jake and Galina seem to have disappeared as a result of our activities here.'

Marq was surprised by this,

'What? Already.'

Sem said,

'Of course, what I found unexpected was the fact that Ash and Michelle have no recall of Jake or Galina.'

Marq looked at the two, then back to Sem. He thought deeply before saying,

'What can we do to get them back?'

Sem asked Michelle,

'Do you still have access to NASA files?'

'Yes; with the use of a tablet or terminal – providing that the passwords have not changed.'

Ash said,

'But if we do not remember them, what are the chances that they would be working in NASA?'

Sem said,

'It's just somewhere to begin our search. From there we can access other databases, and spread our net until we find them.'

Marq led them into another room, where there stood a row of computer terminals. He held out his hand,

'Knock yourself out he said.'

Michelle and Sem got to work on the computers. Ash said,

'What was the guy's name again?'

Marq said,

'Jake Jensen.'

'Do we have a date of birth, City of origin, or anything?'

Sem hit a few keys before saying,

'Luckily, yes. He was born in 1983. He attended Elementary School in Shreveport, but had to move a lot due to his father working for the military.'

Ash said,

'If we knew him before, but don't now due to time travel – why not go back and ask him?'

Marq replied with no hesitation,

'It doesn't work like that, I'm afraid.'

Michelle added,

'If we knew which college he graduated from we could search their yearbooks.'

She was looking at a computer screen when she said,

'It says here that Jake's father's first language was French – that must be why they settled in Shreveport.'

The men fell silent. The Marquis looked at Ash. Ash in turn looked at Michele,

'Pardon?'

'Jake's father. He spoke French – so there must be some sort of link ...?'

Sem was more interested in more recent records,

'Is there any chance of tracing back through employment records?'

Michelle said,

'No problem; NASA holds full records of everyone who works there – they will still be in the Cloud, even if the parent organisation is no longer there.'

She tapped a few more keys, and then sank back in her chair,

'Damn! There is no record of a Jake Jensen in NASA.'

The other three looked disappointed.

Marq said to Sem,

'Sem, do you not recall anything he said about his education at all?'

'Sorry, we just did not socialise.' She began typing again, 'But I could put in an algorithm to look for this name across all databases.'

Ash asked,

'You have such an algorithm?'

'Not me personally, but the Long Lost Family teams put one together – let's see if I can access it.' She tapped some more. The screen came up with options to access records in 37 countries. 'Ahh, let us commence.' She selected the USA. 'There are 156 entries for the date given.'

Marq said,

'Well, that is somewhere to start; but I can't just pop off to each one in turn, can you filter out the ones who didn't go to Elementary school in Shreveport?'

Sem tapped some more. Only one name remained.

All three are now gathered around the one screen.

Ash said,

'Now drill down and find out as much as you can about him – why isn't he here?'

The screen gave a list of places of education, and then achievements. Ash ran his finger down the list, and read out loud,

'Shreveport Elementary 1989 to 1991, Ramstein, Germany 1991 to 95, Dusseldorf, Germany 95 to 96,' an element of surprise came into his voice as he read, 'he then went on to Potsdam in 1996, Sophamore, and then on to, ahh; this sounds more interesting – the college of astrophysics in Potsdam in 1997.'

Michelle was puzzled,

'If he is here, on the lists, why is he not here now?'

Marq replied,

'He probably took a different track in the changed world we have now allowed to evolve.'

Ash said,

'Speaking of which, what do we know of the world out there now?'

'Nothing.' Marq said, 'But I think we had better find out.'

Sem tapped the computer terminal keys, and a news report came on screen.

The reporter was telling about several cities in America having problems with abandoned cars. Footage was shown of wide streets lined with cars. The voice-over told of the move by many people to the use of small helicopters since legislation had been brought in to penalise people of single occupancy vehicles in an attempt to cut down on congestion.

The screen went back to the main anchor; who then moved on to foreign news,

'An astronaut has gone missing in Germany.'

Sem looked surprised at Ash.

He explained,

'The Germans have their own space program.'

Michelle moved over to another terminal,

'You may be surprised to find that Germany is a lot bigger than you expected.' She said, bringing a map of Europe on the screen.

Marq and Sem moved across to look.

On the screen they saw that Germany had expanded to take in Austria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary – in fact Greater Germany now extended down the Adriatic, and across to the Red Sea again.

Marq was surprised to see this. He remarked,

'How did this happen?'

He did not expect Ash to reply,

'There have been some very clever politicians in Germany. The Weimar Party keep a sound hold on finances, and industry, making Germany prosperous. Whenever they get into power, the National Socialists threaten to invade a country, then the Weimar people step in to play the good guys, with the result that all these countries down the Adriatic invited the Germans in.'

Michelle was still watching the news. She called across to the other three,

'Hey – you guys may want to look at this.'

The reporter on the screen handed over to an OB. A German lady with natural blonde hair stood in front of a launch complex very similar to Cape Canaveral. The caption below the main picture said that this was the German launch site in southern Romania, at a place shown as Sinoe, and referred to as the Sinoe Launch Complex.

The lady began speaking in German, Marq was about to begin translating when English sub-titles began rolling,

'German astronaut Fritz Manning has disappeared. Last seen two days ago, he was training here at the launch facility somewhere in Romania. The authorities here say that he has missed three training sessions, but are not concerned about suspicious circumstances...'

Ash said,

'Bit of a coincidence?'

Marc replied,

'Perhaps, but I don't see how it could help us.'

'Maybe there is a link.' Ash said as he turned his attention back to the screen.

'Maybe this chap is in the same boat as Jake and Galina.' Marq said to Sem, 'What about Hoshi Masuto? Have you heard from her at all?'

'Not recently,' she said, 'at least not since you went off on your mission.'

'It may be a good idea to find out if there is anything different over there.'

'I should think there is.' Sem said quietly as she tapped on her cell phone. She looked at her watch, 'It will be mid-morning over there now – I'll give it a go.'

The phone rang as she put it on speaker.

'Hello, who is that?'

It sounded like Hoshi.

'Hi Hoshi, this is Semeramis, how you doing?'

'Pardon, I'm afraid that I do not know who you are; how do you know my name?'

Sem paused a moment. She looked at Marq.

'Do you suppose?...' He began.

Sem was back on the phone,

'Sorry about this, I'm from NASA. We are checking on certain people with regard to some research we are planning. You read micro biology did you not?'

'Yes, but I ...'

'And are you involved in the Japanese space program?'

'The what? Japanese space program?' Hoshi sounded surprised.

Sem had to think on her feet now; tapping into expressions and inflections in Hoshi's voice,

'Yes; it is mainly in California at the moment. Can I ask, what is your present position?'

Hoshi thought for a moment, and then answered,

'I am engaged at the Fukashima plant – I cannot say more.'

Sem resisted asking the obvious question – 'So you didn't go to Mars?'

'Thank you for your time, I am sorry for the interruption.'

She was glad to finish.

Marq looked as if he understood; he said,

'It looks as if she's in the same situation.'

The news program continued,

The blond reporter continued,

'... he was one of the first Germans to go to the moon during the swastika debate of a few years ago.'

The transmission was terminated abruptly. The picture resumed in a studio probably in the USA.

'We apologise for the interruption; the Germans are still sensitive about some things, certain words are flagged up when broadcast from Greater Germany.' He moved a sheet of paper from one side of his desk to another before continuing –'and now to Sport; the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still running second in the league this morning ...'

Marq looked startled by this,

'Tampa Bay!' he spun round to Sem, 'Tampa Bay; the last I heard it had become part of the Gulf of Mexico.' He looked at Ash and Michelle, 'Does this mean the tsunami did not happen?'

Ash replied calmly,

'Oh, yes it happened all right. It devastated low-lying islands from Australia to southern Japan.'

Marq and Sem just stood in disbelief. Marq sank down into a chair. He turned to Sem and said,

'It didn't happen.' He held out a hand, 'How deep does this go? Germans landing on the moon - no East Coast Tsunami.'

Sem brought him back to the matter at hand,

'Are we going to find Jake and Galina, and bring them back to Ash and Michelle?'

Marq looked at Michelle – she didn't even look confused. He looked at Ash, who just shrugged his shoulders.

'Ok. But where do we begin?' he said, 'I don't suppose we can just ring him up, like you did with Hoshi?'

She considered this,

'Not too happy about that; what are you going to tell him? – We are looking at changing your life pattern, because in our world you landed on Mars? we don't even know if anyone went to Mars in his world.' Sem asked Michelle, 'What was the first job that Jake held?'

'What – in NASA?'

'No, after graduating.'

Michelle referred to her tablet again before replying,

'Not too clear here. You must understand that these are not NASA records.' More tapping and sliding, 'It appears he stayed at the same institution.'

'Where was that?

She looked up and looked straight at Marq,

'Potsdam.'

'Well, that's where I should go.'

Sem said,

'I don't know how the Hilbert Space syndrome will function through a worm-hole, but if you carry this period paging device it will help. You don't need to use it as such, just have it about your person, and it will help.
Chapter 70

Potsdam 1997

As he moved to Potsdam in 1997 Marq found himself travelling along a tree-lined road with amorphous blobs of colour, some amongst the trees, others representing buildings.

Vehicles were strange shapes, indistinct globules. He felt himself moving down a side street. There was grass down one side. He had to swerve quickly to avoid a grey shape in mid-air that looked like some form of rubbish skip.

The sky was a vivid shade of blue, but not in any disturbing way. He noticed that his instruments told him he was at 32 feet altitude as he continued down this street. Nothing very distinct here, so he elected to try another landing.

Back up to half a mile high he saw what looked like a large forested area to the south of the city centre. A clearing close to some interesting looking buildings semed like a good place to emerge; there were no people around, so he elected to make this his place to arrive.

As he walked into the city he felt strange. Not surprising, really. He looked at the 1996 model cell phone he needed to communicate with Sem. On flipping it open, he felt like saying 'Kirk to bridge.', but resisted the temptation,

'Walking into town.' He said, 'Any idea where I should start?'

Sem and Michelle were working out some sort of plan of action,

'Do you remember the College of Astrophysics in Berlin?'

'Yes I do.'

'There was a Professor Dolfo Aysher who had connections with Potsdam. Maybe you could use his name to get through the door, and then try to find our man.'

Marq shrugged his shoulders,

'What could possibly go wrong?'

Fifteen minutes later Marq climbed the steps into the College. Beyond the tall pillars, into the almost marbled hall he looked for some sort of reception desk. He began brewing up a plan of what he would say when he found someone who may be able to help him.

He was directed to an office a little way down a corridor. Here he found a bench-like counter with people working in the office behind.

When he entered the office there seemed to no-one monitoring the counter, but presently a smart woman came. She introduced herself as Kath, and asked him if she could help him. Marq said,

'Hi, I have been sent with a recommendation from Professor Dolfo Aysher of the College of Astronautics in Berlin. I am looking for a Jake Jensen. Would you happen to know if he is on this campus?'

She looked surprised and puzzled by this request. Before she could reply Marq decided a little more explanation might be in order,

'I don't know where to look, but if you could point me in the right direction I would be grateful.'

'One moment, sir.'

She went back into the office, spoke briefly with a colleague, and went to a computer terminal. She looked up at Marq, who was waiting patiently,

'Just accessing the records, sir. Won't keep you a moment.'

He nodded.

Seven minutes later the door behind him burst open. Two men in full length leather coats entered. Without hesitation they took Marq by both arms, and held him,

'Is this the man?' one of the men asked the office.

Kath nodded and said, 'Ja.'

Marq's hands were roughly tied behind his back with zip ties, and he was marched out of the building without a word being said.

He was bundled into the back of a van that carried swastikas and two strange letter 'Z'.

It all happened so fast that Marq felt as though his feet had hardly touched. He fell into the emptiness of the van. As the doors were slammed shut Marq had a quick look around the inside of the van. He saw that it was blank aluminium – no safety equipment, not even seats; only blank seamless walls. The doors slammed shut, and there was no light at all, no sounds, and no fresh air.

He felt the engine start, and was promptly thrown in the slippery darkness from one side to the other, front to back, after the first few pitches it all became senseless; he completely lost all orientation – there was no up, no down, only the almost constant sliding across the smooth metal floor in complete darkness; he didn't even know if his eyes were closed or open.

After only five minutes of this treatment Marq was violently sick. He didn't even know where it went; it was like being in a washing machine the movement was so violent. It was as if these people were throwing the vehicle around on purpose. His hands were tied tightly behind his back, so he couldn't even reach his pocket to retrieve the cell phone, but more importantly he couldn't protect himself from colliding with the hard metal walls.

Eventually they stopped. He had no idea of how long this treatment went on for, but he was glad it had stopped. The doors were thrown open, and bright daylight flooded in. Marq did not look his calm, confident self any more. Liberally splattered with vomit, he was also sporting a few cuts and bruises. Now blinded by the light, he shied away from the brightness. Rough hands grabbed him and dragged him out of the van. As he blinked in the daylight he saw the side of the doorway he was being pushed into. He glimpsed a sign that made his blood run cold – GESTAPO.

No-one spoke as he was unceremoniously bundled into what looked like a shower room with tiled walls and floor, once again, no seating was provided. On one side, the side he entered by, was barred with the obligatory cell door. Before he could even ask what he was supposed to have done he was hit with a high-pressure water jet. The blast thrust him into the hard tiled wall. He saw a little blood was running down the wall with the water. He didn't know that a red die was introduced into the water to make him think that he had been injured. The ice cold water hit him with so much force that it took his breath away as well as his feet from under him. He had no idea of how long this went on for, he was fighting for breath through curtains of water, or whilst his body was pounded with powerful water, that hit like steel.

When they had had their fun he was picked up from the floor, still fighting for breath, with his body reeling from the constant pounding, they thought it safe to remove the zip ties. These were replaced with handcuffs, and he found himself being attached to a bench in a reclined position. The bench was then raised from the floor, and his feet raised until he was at about 45 degrees. A wet cloth was placed on his face, and then water was poured onto it. He felt like he was drowning.

Marq lay there still fighting for breath when the cloth was removed. The bench was lowered to a horizontal position, someone released his bounds, and he was given a clean, fresh towel.

A man in full SS uniform, complete with jackboots and jodhpurs entered as Marq began towelling himself dry. The SS officer said,

'Who are you, and why are you asking questions in the University?' He tapped a short whip as he spoke.

'My name is Doctor Marq Libeux, I have come from Denmark, I am looking for someone.' He towelled his hair before continuing, 'What is the meaning of all this?'

The German strutted about with an air of arrogance,

'You were asking strange questions at the university.'

'What do you mean; strange questions?'

'No-one refers to Berlin any more, how could you not know that it is now called Germania?'

Marq was surprised by his slip-up. He took some time to reply.

'I studied under Professor Dolfo Aysher. At the time it was called the Berlin College of Astrophysics; old habits die hard.'

'So will you if you do not tell us the truth.' The whip was brought down on Marq's shoulder, 'Who are you working for?'

'I am not working for anyone. We astrophysisists are a close bunch – we do not like to lose tracks of people who work in our field.'

'Everyone has a master. Who pays you?'

'The University of Oslo. Do you see them as a threat to you in some way?'

'I don't know – suppose you tell me.'

His cohort then said,

'You spies come here with all sorts of stories.'

Marq was surprised by this,

'Spies? Is that what you think? You think I'm a spy?' he threw the towel down as he faced the two Germans, 'I am an astrophysicist – there are no secrets in astrophysics; apart from the ones we are all trying to unmask in nature and science. To that end we all work together – we pass each others' work back and forth freely.' He paused briefly, 'If you doubt this, you can read in any scientific paper all the latest developments in our field,' he stared fiercely at the Gestapo officers as he emphasised the point, 'We don't need to spy on each other; all we need to do is read scientific papers or go to a conference.'

'Whatever you do here in Greater Germany you must pass through our offices. You say that you are from Denmark?' The mood seemed to relax. 'I am surprised that your own Foreign Office did not notify you of this.' He turned to his colleague, 'Get the good Doctor some dry clothes.'

His colleague left the room. The remaining officer half sat on a desk as he said,

'Now – this person you were asking about. Who is it? We may be able to help.'

Marq thought for a moment, and decided to play for time,

'It's just someone I studied with back in the eighties.'

'Ja. Does he have a name?'

Thinking quickly Marq decided to throw a swerve ball,

'He was Scandinvian. His name was Xanthros.'

The other officer arrived with clothes.

The first officer thought for a moment whilst Marq got into the dry clothes. When he was ready he said,

'That's unusual – the informant at the university said his name was Jake Jensen.'

'That was his name at university – upon qualifying he took the sobriquet Xanthros.'

As he took the cell phone out of his wet clothes he remembered the Hilbert Space communications system. He flicked the phone open, as if to check it was still working. He knew it would be. As he closed the flap, he thought to communicate with Sem, without speaking,

'You there, Sem?'

'Yes. I have been monitoring the situation; you need to get out of there as soon as you can – there are rumblings in the background that don't look good.'

'Like storm clouds gathering?'

'Yes, exactly.'

'Then what, Sem?'

'Go back to the worm-hole portal. I think we had better think this through.'

'Easier said than done.'

Officer two pushed a chair towards Marq,

'Have a seat.' He said, moving menacingly close,

The first Officer removed his cap as he sat behind the desk. He continued the interrogation,

'You are a stranger here asking about someone who seems to have two names, and he has studied at a university in a city that is no longer known by the name you used. I think you will agree that all this looks suspicious.'

'All I am trying to do is look up an old friend.'

'And this is your mission, is it?'

'If you want to call it that.'

'I do. And who are you working for? What is the result of meeting up with this person?'

'I told you, the University of Oslo, but this has nothing to do with them.'

'And this' he looked at some papers, 'Jake Jensen, what is your interest in him? Does he work for the University of Oslo?'

'No, he doesn't. I told you we have lost touch, and I thought it would be nice to meet up again.'

'Ahh, you thought it would be nice? You travel from Oslo to Potsdam, no doubt at least passing Germania, which you failed to notice, on a mere whim. What do you take us for, Herr Doctor?' and then with more anger in his voice, 'Who sent you here?'

Sem contacted Marq via the Hilbert system,

'Marq, have you still got the cell phone?'

'Yes.'

'Good, it can act as a guidance for your end of the worm-hole.'

'Great. What do I have to do at this end?'

'Open it, type in the word 'Retourner', then hit zero.'

Officer one was getting impatient,

'Come, now Herr Doctor, who sent you, who do you report to?'

'If you want to see my whole credentials I can have them downloaded directly to you here.' He removed the cell phone, 'if I may?'

'Certainly, go ahead.'

As he began typing into the phone he said,

'I will just get on to the records department – where would you like the records sent to?'

He hit 'Zero' and disappeared.

When Marq arrived back at Martineau he looked surprised to say the least. And he was dressed in strange attire.

Sem saw the lights change on the outside of the door, telling her it was safe to enter.

'That's a dapper outfit you have on.' She said.

He looked askance at her as he got out of his seat,

'Not the finest, I must admit – but the orange patches certainly set it off.'

She said,

'I think we had better have a good look at what we are doing here before we go any further.'
Chapter 71

Dusseldorf 1997

'What are you doing with the cell phone?'

Michelle asked Sem, who was coupling the phone brought back by Marq.

'I am going to make it log in to computers and the Internet in the places we send Marq. And then make available to him the information he needs.'

'That sounds a nice trick; I can see that computers can be linked to the Internet, and your device there can be linked to them. But it is the man – machine interface that I don't quite grasp.'

'Actually, that bit is quite simple. I use what we know as Hilbert space to communicate with this device, and then ...'

'Whoa, whoa, whoa.' Michelle interrupted, 'What, what exactly is Hilbert space?'

'Ahh.' Sem paused at the computer keyboard, 'One of the most familiar examples of a Hilbert space. Is the Euclidian space consisting of three-dimensional vectors, also known as an abstract linear ...'

'Hang on a minute – I thought you said it was quite simple!'

Sem looked thoughtful before saying,

'Well, I suppose it is once you understand Euclidian space, Quantum Physics, and higher Mathematics.'

'Yes, I can see that. Needless to say that I do not understand these things.'

'Trust me, we have harnessed their theories, and made them work for us by crossing all dimensions at once – look upon it as a sort of more advanced WiFi or Bluetooth.'

'That I can grasp.'

Sem returned to the computer screen,

'Well, that is sort of what we have done; I am now integrating all these systems with this device, which already communicates seamlessly with Marq's brain.'

Michelle began to understand,

'So Marq will, in effect, be permanently linked with every computer via the Internet.'

'Yes. Our problem all along has been information overload but this thing here,' she tapped the cell phone, 'now has a sort of filtration device built into its software.

'Acting like a secretary I suppose?'

Sem thought for a second,

'That's a very good analogy.'

Marq entered the room,

'That was not pleasant; and mainly because I didn't know what I was getting into.'

Sem handled the cell phone as she said,

'Well, that shouldn't be a problem in future.'

Ash couldn't help interrupting,

'You mean in the past.'

Sem said,

'Oh, very good.'

'What have you done with the cell phone?' Marq asked.

'I have enabled it to connect to the internet automatically in the time zone you are in; it can then provide any information by Hilbert Bluetooth directly.'

He picked up the instrument,

'That sounds interesting.' He turned it over in his hand, 'how do I use it? The screen looks too small.'

'It's like voice activation – but by thought.' Sem told him.

Marq was suitably impressed, but was more concerned about his next mission,

'I think we had better think about what we are to do next. And currency can be problematic, too. They were still on the Deuchmark, in fact I'm not sure about what they were using, luckily Dollars are always good.'

Michelle referred to the computer screen that showed the bits of information about Jake's education and early employment,

'If you don't fancy Potsdam again, try Dusseldorf in 1996 or 7.'

'Sounds as good as anywhere else – at least I have some background knowledge now. Let's do it.'

Marq went into the room, Sem helped him prepare, and then left to join the others two rooms away.

The weather in Dusseldorf was overcast, the light not good. Marq emerged from an alley near the centre of the city. He saw a man across the street moving furtively. The man had a cloth cap pulled low over his face, and a greatcoat with the collar pulled up.

He met another man. They stood facing each other, speaking in low voices that Marq could not hear.

The first man began waving his finger about, and then they parted.

Something looked familiar about the first man, so Marq decided to follow him.

When they reached a main road the man seemed to relax; his head lifted, he folded his collar down, and adjusted his cap. By now Marq was on the opposite side of the road; he did a double take when he realised that it was Jake Jensen.

Marq followed him from across the street. He was thinking of what to do now. He called Sem,

'Sem, I've found Jake. I am presently following him through the streets here. Have you any idea how I am to make progress now?'

Sem was in the same room as Ash and Michelle.

'He's found Jake in Dusseldorf in 1997. He wants to know what to do next.'

'Has he spoken to him?' Ash asked.

'No. He wants to know what to do next; should he make contact?'

Ash thought for a few seconds,

'Do you know what time it is over there?'

'I can find out.' Sem quietly looked at the far wall. Seconds later she announced, 'four fifteen in the afternoon.'

Ash wondered,

'I wonder why he was not in class.' He turned to Sem, 'What day is it?'

She came back almost immediately, 'It is Wednesday.'

Marq came back on line,

'He is now going into a coffee shop. I am following him in.'

The place was not quite empty, but nearly. Jake sat in a corner; this place had more corners than normal. He began to drink his coffee alone at a table for two. There were empty places all around, Marq decided to sit where he could watch Jake from behind.

Five minutes passed, and then a young woman entered the café. She was thin, blond with a distinctive red beret. She bought a coffee, and took it across to Jake.

Marq silently contacted Sem,

'He's been joined by a blond woman. They seem to be getting on well; she's eating his cake.'

'Can you hear what they are saying?' Sem asked.

'Not from here.'

'Could you use the cell phone?'

Marq took the instrument from his pocket. He found a used cigarette packet, removed the silver paper from within it, next he programmed the cell phone to listening mode, and carefully placed it in the packet. Jake could not see Marq as he stood up, but the woman did. Marq was careful to keep at least one table between them as he walked to the counter. There he purchased a pack of cookies, and then began his journey back to his table. On the way he made sure that he passed a table close to Jake. Marq managed to place the cigarette pack in a place that would not be noticed.

As he regained his seat he heard the sounds picked up by the phone.

'The beret is a bit conspicuous, don't you think?' Jake said.

A female voice then said,

'Yes, but once discarded I almost disappear.'

'Is that what they taught you in field-craft?'

'Among may other things.'

Marq took a seat at his original table with his back to them now to avoid his face being seen. Unfortunately this meant that he could not see them.

Jake looked around casually, and continued,

'What do we know about these people? It looks as if they are up to something, but we don't even know if it will be in this city.'

The words were fed back to Martineau, where Ash and Michelle were pleased to hear the voice – but they did not realise why. It was as if their old friend's voice was coming back to them again. Even if he was speaking in German, and saying things they did not expect.

'Did you find anything about Ensslin?' he asked the woman.

'She is definitely involved. Meinhoff has been seen here in Dussledorf, as well as Baader.'

'You keep clear of these people, Rebecca; they are very dangerous.'

She smiled reassuringly,

'I did hear that they are planning an assassination.'

'Any idea who?'

'There is to be a meeting of scientists here in Dusseldorf. The name Werner von Braun was mentioned as a guest of honour.'

'The rocket guy?'

She lit a cigarette as she said,

'Yes, he must be 85 now; they intend giving him some award for running the German rocket programme from the start.'

He picked up the possibilities,

'And if this group of anarchists can disrupt this meeting they will cause mayhem, and give themselves publicity across the world.'

'Not to mention the damage it would cause if they plant a bomb there – it could set our plans back decades.'

Jake was surprised at this,

'A bomb! Is that what you've heard?'

'Yes; that is how these cowards work – they don't face anyone, they tend to leave bombs.'

Marq contacted Sem without speaking,

'Sem, I've tried to find out about these people on the Internet – but there is nothing on it; it seems almost empty.'

'That is because you are in 1997; the Internet is only six years old where you are – you cannot access the modern Internet via the wormhole.' She looked at Michelle, who was working a computer console, she nodded towards Sem. She got back to Marq, 'Michelle is on it now, I will let you know what we find out.'

'Ok. Waiting out.'

Marq took a silver dollar from his pocket. This was no ordinary dollar; this one had had the detail on one side removed, and then polished to a high shine. This allowed it to be used as a mirror, which meant that he could keep an eye on his quarry.

Rebecca said,

'I think the meeting is to take place in the Norvik Hotel's Conference facility the day after tomorrow.'

'That sound interesting, how do you know this?' Jake said.

'Modus operandi; that is how these people operate. They don't plant a bomb too far before an event because their timing devices get less reliable the longer the delay is. And the fact that the longer the device is in place, the better are the chances of it being discovered.

He looked at her with a more earnest look,

'You mean to tell me that you have been so close to these people to know that?'

She narrowed her eyes a little,

'Well – I wouldn't say close.'

Sem called Marq,

'We found a news item from 1997. It says that there was a bomb blast at the Norvik hotel in Dussedorf. Eight scientists were killed.'

Marq replied,

'Let's see about that.'

Marq did not wait for Jake and Rebecca to finish. He walked by them, casually picking up the cigarette packet that contained the cell phone.

He hailed a taxi, as he rode to the hotel, he contacted Sem,

If I can make a big change in what happened here, maybe we would get Jake back.' He pondered how he was going to make a difference for the good, 'Is there any way I or you can make a bomb detecting device from this cell phone?'

'I rather think you are getting a bit ambitious there.'

'Ok; the place will have been searched already, where could they hide a bomb in a short time? look into the news article and see if they give us any clue about where it was placed.'

'On it.'

Sem and Michelle consulted their computer terminals. Ash looked over Michelle's shoulder as the articles were examined.

Presently Michelle exclaimed,

'Got it. It says here that a device was placed under the stage in the main conference hall.'

Sem passed this information to Marq.

'I am about five minutes away now,' Marq told Sem, 'I suppose I should just pull wires out, and hope for the best.'

'Not a good idea.'

Marq got out of the taxi at the front of the hotel, upon entering he went to reception. He announced in fluent German,

'Herr Libeux from Der Homelandsecurity to do a final security check;' he flashed an official-looking card in front of her, and then he leaned forward to the receptionist, almost in a conspiratorial tone. 'We have had a tip-off.'

She almost took a step backwards,

'Where would you like to go, sir?'

'Under the stage area in the main conference room if you please.'

She pointed the way. Marq was glad to be left on his own for his mission.

Under the stage he found all manner of stage props, furniture and detritus. He stood back, studying the scene before him. With the use of a small flashlight he examined the dust layer on the stack nearest him. He drew his finger across the surface. This section had not been moved in months, if not years. The flashlight moved around the room.

'Where would I hide a bomb?' he thought as he passed through the area.

Carefully he examined the dust layers in every section. Dirt on one table had been disturbed. He looked at this area as he stood back, using the flashlight to aid his concentration. The items he examined were not really cleaner, but the dust had definitely been disturbed. Carefully he removed objects that looked as if they had been placed there recently. He examined and listened to each one until he came across a box that had no dust on it. He placed an ear to it. There was no sound coming from it. Carefully he removed the top. Inside he found scripts from a recent production of 'Return to Blackpool'. He breathed a sigh of relief.

'Nothing yet.' He reported to Sem.

She shook her head to let Ash and Michelle know.

'When he finds it, tell him not to move it. Most probably it will be equipped with a trembler to set it off if moved.' Said Ash.

Sem passed the message on,

'Marq, The device you are looking for may have an anti-tampering thing on it. Do not move it.'

Marq replied,

'Don't worry, I have so far resisted the temptation to throw things around down here.'

Even dust covered objects were handled with care. Marq reasoned that they could tap the bomb, setting it off.

Somewhere under the main stage, behind dusty desks he found a suitcase that looked out of place – it was clean. Carefully Marq removed furniture from around it to aid access. He took a deep breath, slowly lowering his head to listen to the case. A faint ticking could be heard. He stepped back.

'I think I have found it.' He reported to Sem.

.. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 72

Finders Keepers

He shone the flashlight around the room looking for anything he could use. He wanted to simply erect a big sign saying 'BOMB', and then leaving an expert to get on with it. But he was here, and felt that it was his responsibility to stop this event from happening.

On a far wall he saw an axe – not quite what he was looking for. He had in his pocket a Swiss army knife – it would have to do.

He reported to Sem,

'This is an ordinary small suitcase, with clip fastenings.'

She repeated this to Ash and Michelle before asking,

'What is it made of?'

'Looks like leather, but I am sure it is some sort of cardboard.'

Ash said to Sem,

'Tell him not to use the clips to open it; that is where they always put anti-tamper devices.'

'Don't try to use the clips to open it; have you got anything to help you?'

'Swiss army knife.'

She told Ash, who said,

'Does it have a corkscrew?'

'Marq, Ash wants to know, does the knife have a corkscrew device on it?'

'Yes.'

Sem nodded to Ash.

'Advise him to carefully drill two holes in the corner of the case, on the top, nearest to the handle side.'

Marq carefully drilled a hole with the corkscrew. He was relieved to find that the case was indeed made of cardboard-like fibre, so old it held little resistance to the drilling.

Ash asked Sem,

'Does his knife have a nail file?'

She looked askance at Ash, but nevertheless asked,

'Marq, Ash wants to know if the knife has a nail file?'

Ash explained,

'We need him to begin to saw into the case. He needs to keep vibrations down to an absolute minimum. The teeth of a saw could set the thing off.'

Marq worked by the light of the flashlight. The nail file was slow going; he eventually managed to produce a line that could take four fingers in. He felt confident enough to steady the cut by inserting his fingers in, and then use the saw attachment to complete the cut. Next he began cutting along the long edge near the handle. He stopped before he reached the first clip – there may be wires here. He tried to see inside, there was definitely something wrong – wires could be seen running around inside. He decided to try using the knife blade to cut through the top of the case without impinging on whatever was inside. The top peeled back. Marq studied the wiring.

The Swiss army knife had small wire cutters, they would do nicely; the wires were very thin, so would cut easily. Gingerly he lifted the corner of the top. Shining the flashlight inside allowed him to see at least two wires going to the handle side of the case. This was not what he was looking for. An old clockwork alarm clock was crudely wired up; he was able to trace the wires back to what he was looking for – the detonator.

Marq found that he could either see the detonator, or touch it – but not both at once. There were three wires going into the detonator; this means that one may well be some sort of booby trap. So he decided against the wire cutting. This meant only one thing – remove the detonator. Or he could stop the clock, and let someone else deal with it. But no, that was not the way he worked. The detonator had to come out.

He cut more into the cover to gain better access to the explosives and detonator. More studying of the wires around the detonator, it looked to be the last thing to be inserted into the explosive. This made sense, because for safety's sake the explosive must be kept safe until the last minute; the best way to do that is to keep the detonator away from the explosive charge for as long as possible – he reckoned that the detonator was not inserted until the case was placed here, but the bomber had the advantage of having the lid open – Marq had to give himself more room to operate. He had two choices – either cut along the handle edge of the lid, but this meant getting very close to the wires that were no doubt part of the anti-tampering devices. Or he could cut along the bottom edge. But that would mean working very close to the explosives. He reasoned that this was the safest way to go. He began by using the knife blade to score into the fibre of the case top all the way across. When he felt that the blade was almost penetrating to touch the explosive he put the knife to one side, he took a firm hold on the beginnings of the new cut. Taking care to steady the bomb Marq gently eased the lid away from the body, tearing along the weakened edge.

Marq could now see the detonator, and get a hold on it. There were wires around which must not be disturbed. He gingerly took hold of the end of the detonator, and pulled. It moved a little way. He was very conscious of the wires attached. He moved his fingers slightly, and then pulled a little more. Gradually the detonator came out of the explosive. He breathed a sigh of relief as the small tube-like device with its wires still attached came free.

He looked around to see the safest way to move the detonator away from the explosives.

A door banged somewhere behind him.

He heard the sound of footsteps, at first he thought they may be on the stage above – but they were not.

He was suddenly Illuminatid by several flashlights, accompanied with shouts of,

'Achtung, do not move.'

In the light's glare Marq could just make out that there were at least five people behind the flashlights. He presumed some had guns trained on him – in fact they all had guns aimed at him.

A man in a long leather coat advanced towards him.

'And what do we have here?' the Gestapo officer looked at the opened case and then back to Marq, who was still holding the detonator in his hand, with wires attached to the case. 'It looks to me as if you are planting a bomb. What do you have to say for yourself?'

Marq stood there with the detonator in his hand. It was still connected to the bomb by the wires, but it had to be close to, preferably touching, the explosive to set off the bomb.

A voice from behind one of the flashlights was heard to say,

'Why don't we just shoot him down now?'

Another voice said,

'Don't be stupid. He is standing by a bomb; he could blow us all to kingdom come.'

Marq said,

'I have not yet disconnected the detonator. Stand back whilst I deal with it.'

'No tricks.' The officer knew that some terrorists were suicidal, and happy to blow themselves up in the name of their cause. He continued, 'Do not think of setting off the bomb, you will only succeed in blowing your own arm off.' He addressed his colleagues, 'Everyone back. We can cover him from the far side of the room.'

As they scurried back Marq announced,

'I am not planting this, I am disarming it.'

'That is what I would expect you to say.'

Marq was tempted to leave the device for them to deal with, but decided that he had started, so will continue to make it safe. He now saw that there were four wires leading to the detonator. They went into a box before emerging as eight wires going to various parts of the bomb. He reasoned that these were trigger devices – the box must be some sort of distribution apparatus. But he now had to decide which wire to cut first. He studied the colours of the constituent cables; there were more pink wires than any other colour – so he decided that must be live. Or it could be the anti-tamper circuit. One will disarm the detonator, the wrong one will blow his hand off. He looked around for some device he could use to make the cutting a remote operation, but nothing came to hand. He studied some more. The mauve wires seemed important, but they probably all were. He traced the wires that led to the battery. Here things looked simpler; one wire was soldered to the hour hand of an old alarm clock, when this reached a small post on the face it would short out a circuit. But that was only one of three wires connected to the positive terminal. It was obvious that this wire would prevent the main detonation, but the other two must be to set off the bomb if tampered with – including interrupting the circuit. He then found the tremble switch – a simple device; but completely impossible to thwart because of its simplicity. Once again the pink wire was attached. To cut this would no doubt isolate the device; but by interrupting the circuit the anti-tamper setup may be triggered, and Marq's hand would be close enough to be blown off.

He positioned the wire cutters in place to cut all four at once, but then realised that as the wires were cut they would then short each other out – that was sure to set the device off.

A voice from the other side of the room came across,

'Do not try to escape; we have the whole building surrounded. My men have orders to shoot to kill.'

Sweat trickled down from Marq's forehead. He wiped it away with his free hand. He noticed that the Swiss army knife in that hand was shaking a little.

Why were there two pink wires going into the detonator? He studied the nest of wires again. There were mainly the pink wires, but mauve wires as well as white ones were also all over the system. He was in no doubt that some of these wires were dummies to throw anyone in his position off.

He carefully traced the white wire from the detonator, through to the box, and then out the other side as different coloured wires. Back at the detonator he reasoned that the pink wires must be power – one from the anti-tamper setup, the other one from the timer. If he cut the timer wire it would set off the anti-tamper circuit, but he didn't know which one to cut. The white wire might complete both circuits. He shrugged his shoulders, took a firm grip on the white wire, placed the clippers on it, turned his head away, then cut the wire. Next he cut the black wire, before dealing with the two pink wires.

He breathed a sigh as he placed the now loose detonator on the ground.

As he stood upright he took the cell phone out of his pocket. He flipped the lid open as he called across the room,

'It's safe; you can come out now.'

The sound of military boots came across the floor towards him as he typed into the phone the word 'Retourner'.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 73

Visitors

'You didn't bring the bomb back did you?' Sem was not serious as she greeted Marq on his return, 'We have checked the records, and von Braun was not killed, there was no bomb at the seminar.'

'Well, I'm glad about that. Have they returned?' Meaning Jake and Galina.

'No, I'm afraid not. We have been searching the records to see if there could have been some other event which could be changed to alter things.'

'And what did you come up with?'

They moved into another room where Michelle was sitting at a computer console.

Michelle was looking over little known reports of events in the 1940s.

'There was a time in 1942 when the Nazis began what they referred to as their 'Final Solution' by deporting people they didn't like.'

Ash remembered the events being reported in America,

'I know, we took many of them, but that began in the 1930s if I remember my history lessons correctly.'

Michelle looked back at the monitor as she manipulated the text on the screen,

'Yes, sorry. In 1942 they began building camps.' She read on, 'This report says that vast car ferries were pressed into service to take thousands away from Germania. It doesn't say if they went voluntarily.'

Ash leant over her shoulder. The smell of her hair made his mind smile.

'Could you expand on this part of the story here' he pointed to a link imbedded in the words.

She clicked on the link.

A side story appeared, she read aloud,

'A Rabbi, Moshi Sandal said, "In areas where the National Socialists are strong we cannot stay. People have had all their belongings taken; they are then treated worse than criminals. They suffered at the hands of the Gestapo, and were then placed on trains – but these were not normal trains. They were cattle wagons and goods trains with no amenities for people. The trains then went to either Trieste on the Adriatic, or Danzic on the Polish coast." This was ethnic cleansing of the first order.' She turned to Marq, 'If we could change something about this, would that affect things in future?'

'Definitely. But what on earth am I supposed to do?'

Michelle continued reading,

'I don't think the main political party, the Democrats, were complicit. The Nazis were crafty in keeping these activities in areas where they had strong followings. Maybe there may be some way you could bring things to the attentions of the Democrats in government.'

They all stood stock still as they heard voices from the supposedly empty room next door.

Everyone looked at Sem.

Sem looked at the closed door.

Ash moved towards the door.

He took hold of the handle, looked at Michelle, then at Marq as he slowly opened the door.

Ash stepped quickly into the room.

He was followed by Marq.

What they saw gave them both a shock.

There in front of them were a group of German soldiers in full uniform, machine pistols at the ready.

'What the hell are you doing here?' asked Ash.

One of the soldiers, a sergeant Ash guessed, pointed his weapon at Ash and Marq,

'Our Kommandant will be here shortly to take control of this establishment.'

Ash and Marq looked at each other blankly, then at the armed men in front of them.

Sem put her head around the door, and was met with a cry of,

'Achtung!'

She froze to the spot.

One of the soldiers looked around as he said to the sergeant,

'We are under orders not to damage any equipment.'

The sergeant nodded and said,

'Ja.' He turned to the Americans, 'All of you, into the other room.'

They moved back into the room where they found Michelle sitting at a console.

The German waved his gun at her,

'You! Over there by the wall.' He turned to Ash, 'All of you. By the wall.'

He realised that there was even more equipment in this room than the last, so he moved everyone away from the monitors.

A crashing sound came from the room they had just left.

The door burst open again.

Two Gestapo officers came into the room. The full length leather coats and almost ancient trilby hats gave a menacing appearance; even the German soldiers showed due deference.

They were followed by a squad of the feared SS guards. As they entered the room their ranks parted as a high-ranking German officer strode into the room.

The classic jodhpurs had red stripes down them, jackboots tapped as the figure strutted in with Prussian arrogance.

He addressed the group of Americans,

'I am Reichfuhrer Heindric Himmler. I am now taking over control of this facility. You,' he pointed at Ash, 'What is your position here?'

Ash hesitated before answering.

Himmler did not. He drew his Luger, and pointed it at Sem,

'Do not take too long. I will shoot one of your colleagues in five seconds.'

Two SS men stuck guns into Sem's waist to prevent her running off.

'Ein, Zwei, Drei, Vier ...,' he cocked the weapon threateningly, his finger began to squeeze the trigger.

Ash called out,

'Wait. I am an astronaut from NASA. We are American citizens, and are protected by our constitution, which is respected by your country.'

'You mean some parts of my country. I am not one of those soft appeasers who give in to everyone.' He pointed his Luger at Michelle,

'You, what is your position here?'

'I am a secretary with NASA.'

He turned to Sem,

'And you?'

Sem looked him straight in the eye, returning his arrogance with pure confidence, despite still having guns digging at her ribs,

'You already know me.'

Himmler looked askance at this, as if he had forgotten something important, and then been reminded,

'Ja.' He turned his attention to Marq, 'You, what is your role here?'

'I'm the driver.'

Himmler showed annoyance at this,

'Do not fool with me.' He moved closer to Marq.

Marq kept his cool, he slowly shook his head as he replied,

'No, I am not fooling with you; I am the driver – I drive this machine.'

Himmler turned to Michelle,

'Right, my dear, how does this machine work?'

Michelle looked nonplussed by this direct questioning. She looked across at Sem, who was still being held at gunpoint. Himmler pointed his Lugar at Michelle,

'You do know how it works, don't you?'

'It has something to do with the wormhole dynamics. No-one really knows exactly how it works.'

'Is that so?' he moved closer to her, 'It sounds to me that you are expendable.' He turned his attention to Ash, 'have you any more information on how it works?'

'The main crux is being able to govern the drop-off points and return dynamics.'

'You too are expendable.' The Nazi leader turned to the SS troops, 'Take them outside and shoot them.' He ordered.

Four of the SS troops drew their weapons and pointed them at Ash and Michelle. Sem and Marq stood in shock.

Marq said,

'Wait. They are essential to the working of this system. Not everyone knows exactly how this thing works, but there are many cogs in the working of the system as a whole.'

'Then you can train my men to operate it?'

'Why?'

'Why? Why? Because we need it to defeat the weaker elements in our government; the ones who are against our measures to create the master race.' He waved his Luger at the guards, who began taking Ash and Michelle out.

As they started moving, the guards began making involuntary and unwieldy movements. One dropped his gun as he fell to the ground. Another screamed as he convulsed uncontrollably.

Ash and Michelle looked at each other, not knowing what to do.

Marq looked at the main band of soldiers. There were now less than before.

The four who were to take Ash and Michelle out, disappeared too.

Himmler tried to raise his gun, but his hand would not stop shaking.

His legs gave way beneath him. He fell to the ground; dead.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 74

Three Shades of Grey

To Ash's amazement Marq still looked unperturbed as he put the blue spectacles on. Michelle's eyes looked like ping-pong balls as they tried to take in what she had just seen.

Sem was still working at one of the keyboards when Marq said to her,

'We don't want any more of that, if you don't mind.'

The rebuke was in good humour, Sem replied,

'I think I know where the problem was, I am putting in a fix now to prevent it happening again.'

Ash took Michelle by the waist to another computer terminal to try to find something to take her mind off what had just happened.

They sat and watched the screen. An aerial view of a stretch of water showed some large ships in what looked like a fleet configuration.

'What is this, Sem?' asked Ash.

Sem looked across to their screen without moving from her chair, and then clicked a couple of times. The same picture appeared on her screen as she began drilling down to find the information,

'Mmmm. This was 1943. The Germans were moving towards Trieste in the Adriatic.' She tapped and clicked some more, 'Looking through news reports of the time it looks like the countries being absorbed into Germania were not best pleased. Even Austria was bullied somewhat by the Nazi part of the 'expansion' forces. These countries seem to view the whole process as being more like occupation by a belligerent force – especially the Jewish elements within the populations involved.'

Ash wanted to know more,

'So these ships are threatening, a show of force by the Germans?'

'On the contrary; they are supporting mass evacuations by the Jewish people.'

'Then, who the hell are they?'

Sem read on,

'They are a collaboration of all the countries that have strong Jewish elements in their population.' She closely examined the pictures, 'There are quite a few British battle cruisers – the aircraft carriers are French, British and American. The big ferries are actually Israeli, as are a lot of the support vessels and submarines.'

Marq moved across to another screen,

'This looks interesting. Sem, what system have you got here?'

She smiled as she replied,

'We have some early space exploration, by the Germans principally. This has allowed us to put some micro bots in orbit with no-one noticing.'

'What do you mean us?'

'Well, it was actually Mr del Banco and Xanthros.'

Ash and Michelle were surprised by this.

Sem continued with details,

'They called it their Zeus project, because they can watch over thing as if from the heavens.'

Marq tapped some keys as he said,

'And now, so can we.' The picture was transferred on to a big screen.

Sem continued tapping at the keyboard. Eventually she turned to Marq and said,

'We have only got basic pictures.'

Ash said,

'What does that mean?

Marq told him,

'What it really means is that we can only stand by and watch; we do not operate like that. We normally have the facility to look deeper into a situation. We need to be involved at many levels in order to influence events.'

Sem interrupted him,

'There seems to be a disturbance down there.'

She pointed at the ships on the big screen.

Ash said,

'Can we zoom in on this ship?'

Sem tapped some more. A slim grey ship seemed to be moving at speed, approaching the fleet. A fountain of water erupted in front of it – a shot across the bows. The destroyer altered course, looking to go around the fleet. Another fountain of water appeared, this time against the side of the ship.

Ash said one word,

'Torpedo.'

Marq said to Sem,

'Get me down there.' As he rushed into the transportation room.

'I suppose a post code is too much to ask.' She called to him as she attacked the keyboard.

'Trieste. Spatzi Sociali, Cavana Square, if you please.'

Ash and Michelle stood in awe as the machinery swung into action.

Sem saw them looking baffled,

'It isn't as complicated as it looks, you know.' Michelle watched carefully as Sem explained, 'In order for it to operate the whole system needs booting up. This main switch provides power, the machine then needs launching.' She moved to another machine, and pressed a button. 'Then we wait for it to sort itself out.' A screen flickered, and then turned white with faint grey lines. Sem touched another switch. The screen blacked out as if to start again. Various signs and letters flashed on, rolled, and blinked off. More letters, this time with instructions. 'See, it actually tells you what to do,' she pointed at the screen, 'see, press F2.' She tapped a key. The screen flickered into life again. 'And then it shows the default time and place. 'That is here, and now. We simply change the date and place we wish Marq to go to. And hey presto -.'

Marq sat inside a clear cubicle. This now filled with a white fug, and he disappeared.

In a small alley near Cavana Square, Trieste, Marq emerged. It was a short walk round the corner to an innocuous looking door. Marq punched in a code number to the combination lock on the door. He was faced with a flight of stairs, but there was no-one around on the ground floor.

In the first-floor office he found del Banco. Del Banco did not realise that there were differences between the Marquis of Libeaux he knew and the one before him.

'Good afternoon, Marquis. I thought you were in Scandinavia.'

They shook hands,

'I am,' Marq looked around the room, which was full of much more scientific material that you would expect for 1943, 'now, what is happening?'

They moved over to a wide screen tv. Del Banco began explaining,

'This is the German destroyer 'Gunther'. She has now entered the exclusion zone the allies have around their fleet.'

'Exclusion zone?' Marq asked this question more for the benefit of Semeramis, who was relaying the messages to Ash and Michelle.

'Yes. Whenever two or more capital ships move together they establish a belligerent exclusion zone because of the threat of guided missiles and aircraft. Anything coming closer than 5 miles will be met with force; in this case an Israeli submarine-launched torpedo.'

'Guided missiles? This is 1943.'

'Yes,' del Banco looked apologetic, 'We did give them some help there.'

'Did you now? And what about the situation here?'

Del Banco returned to the screen, he pointed at the massive car ferry; it looked like a city block painted in three shades of grey,

'This is an evacuation ship. There is also one in the Baltic. The persecution of elements of the populations is making it necessary for these people to leave en mass – they chose to do this before it is too late.'

'And what happens now? They have fired on a ship.' He scrutinised the screen showing the destroyer, it was now beginning to go round in large circles, 'what do you anticipate here?'

As he finished speaking two thin white lines came from the destroyer. A white cloud bloomed from one of the capital ships. The four fourteen inch guns in turret 'A' of HMS King George V all fired simultaneously from nine miles range. The fall of shot straddled the destroyer, one shell exploded almost alongside the greyhound of the fleet.

On the ferry four thin white lines signalled the launch of four missiles. These were self-defence weapons, aimed at the missiles launched by the Gunther, which were heading directly at the grey city block at almost the speed of sound.

Both missiles were stopped by proximity fuses within the ferry's weapons. As they reached the closest spot to the attacking missiles, they exploded, throwing hot metal in a disc through which the offensive missiles must fly, with disastrous results.

Another two Israeli torpedoes were launched at the Gunther. One had a malfunction of the guidance system, the other did not; it hit directly amidships of the destroyer, which began to list.

The King George V's 'B' turret opened up. The destroyer continued describing a wide circle in the sea. One of the shells hit the superstructure of the Gunther, which began to capsize as the smoke cleared.

Marq held out an upstretched palm towards del Banco,

'I think that answers my last question.'

Clouds began to obscure the picture,

Del Banco said,

'We will have to switch to infra red.'

The picture changed colours; the sea was dark grey-green, the ships became a fuzzy white colour.

Del Banco explained,

'If anyone fires there will be a bright flash.'

The destroyer began to glow brighter as the flames reached the outside of the ship.

A mass of bright white shapes appeared on the right of the screen. Marq counted 25, del Banco switched back to normal picture – there was no need to zoom in on the rapidly moving shapes; they were Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers flying above the clouds – and they were heading straight for the fleet.

Marq turned his attention to the large square shapes that he knew were aircraft carriers. On their decks small bright spots appeared as aircraft began running up their engines. These were interceptors, developed from the Spitfire.

And then the advantage of using the infra-red system came into its own. Bright flashes all over the fleet signalled multiple missile launches. Vivid pencil lines showed the missile tracks. Marq tried counting them, but there were too many, and they seemed to converge and cross each other. He turned to del Banco,

'This is 1943. Where did they get the technology for missiles?'

'It was the miniaturisation of valves, and the invention of the transistor that did a lot towards that.' Del Banco said.

Sem was following the situation closely, she punched in some requests to a separate computer,

'And in America Goddard did a lot of development work on engines.' She told Marq and the others in the room with her.

Marq asked del Banco,

'Are these guided missiles?'

Del Banco replied,

'Yes. They home in on the propellers of the enemy aircraft; a fast revolving disc makes a good target – the closer they get, the more accurate they become. They do not call them missiles – they are hittiles.'

'You have not answered my question – where did they get the technology for missiles?'

Del Banco was beginning to be evasive,

'Both the transistors and the radar systems were developed in South Africa by an Israeli company called XAN Industries.'

'Were they now?' Marq asked a rhetorical question, 'And may I have guess at what the name means?' Del Banco seemed to resign himself to what was about to come from the man he knew as Marqis, the leader of the family. 'Xanthros?'

Any further conversation was stopped by the first missiles hitting home. One by one the Ju 87s were brought down. In some cases the biggest piece of wreckage was hit by another missile. It only took three minutes to stop the attack. After which Marq turned to del Banco,

'Where is he now?'

'I believe he is on that ferry.' He pointed at the screen.

'Can you get me on that ship?'

'It is about two hours out.'

Marq looked at the screen, there seems no immediate danger, let's do it.'

'Of course, Marquis. I will contact Xanthros to give you clearance.'

'No. Don't do that. I want to surprise him.'

They made their way down to the wharf, on the way there they saw why the ferry was heading for Trieste; hundreds of cars filled every conceivable parking space, waiting for the ferry to take them away. Del Banco led Marq to the bustling dockside, where they embarked on an ordinary looking yacht. The ship they were heading for was not even on the horizon when they set sail. It was mid-afternoon, and del Banco said,

'There is a chance that they will be in blackout when we arrive.'

'You have radar do you not?'

'Not on this boat; it is too bulky and heavy for a vessel of this size.'

'How do you intend finding her?'

'They have radar, they can talk us in – let's be honest; she's big enough to find. And I have this.'

He led Marq down below decks, he drew back a curtain to reveal what looked like a blank wall. He pressed a hidden button, and the screen lit up. It was a direct feed from the screen they had been looking at in the control room ashore.

As the sun began to drop to the horizon behind the clouds, and darkness fell on to the sea, del Banco and Marq scanned the horizon for any sign of the fleet they knew they were heading for.

Marq it was who called,

'Ship ahoy. On the bow at 11 o'clock.'

By the time they reached the ferry it was completely dark. Discrete lighting allowed them to berth alongside the massive ship, and then climb up the docking ladders to enter the vast cathedral-like inside.

Del Banco spoke to the leader of the boarding party, who then led them up to the bows of the ship. Here they entered an elevator. Marq could not assess how many decks they passed before the elevator doors opened.

The seaman took them on to the bridge. He indicated a man standing on the port side bridge wing, looking out over the side of the ship.

Del Banco walked to Xanthros, they shook hands as del Banco said,

'I have someone here who would like to have a word with you.'

Xanthros nearly staggered backwards when he saw Marq.

Marq greeted Xanthros by shaking hands, but Xanthros was obviously on automatic.

'What brings you here?'

'It's a long story. More to the point, what brings you here?'

'These people need my help.'

'And exactly how have you been helping them?' the Marquis began to take on a more authoritarian tone, 'You know the rules about giving technology out.'

'These people are fighting for their very existence – the Nazis are trying to wipe them out, this is genocide. I cannot stand by and let it happen.'

'That does not excuse your cavalier attitude. There are systems in place to allow for exceptions in such situations.'

'There wasn't time. I made a field decision to help.'

'You made a decision to fly in the face of regulations. How much tech have you given away?'

'My company in South Africa is responsible for the production of transistors and infra-red guidance systems. That's all.'

The Marquis began to get annoyed at this,

'You mean that you have started a manufacturing proc ...'

He was rudely interrupted by a rating bursting into the room,

'Sir, I think you had better look at this.'

He handed Xanthros a slip of paper.

'Thank you.' Xanthros opened the message.

He quickly moved across to another repeater screen showing the satellite image. Now because of the darkness the infra-red picture was being used.

The aircraft carriers were all launching aircraft.

The aircraft from the carriers were forming up. They expected them to return to their carriers, but they did not; instead they began to move not towards the direction from where the Ju 87s had come from, but in the opposite direction, Italy. The Marquis pointed at the right edge of the screen,

'Is that what they are going after?'

On the infra-red picture there appeared another mass of bright white dots, some brighter than others. Del Banco switched from the infra-red to the normal picture. He zoomed in to the formation, what he saw gave him a shock. There was good enough moon light to be able to pick out the shapes of aircraft with the brightness of clouds behind them.

'I don't believe it.' There, slowly tracking across the cloud-tops was a full air raid in the making, 'I heard that the Italians were developing a jet bomber for maritime strike, and here it is.'

The Marquis asked,

'Why is that so bad?'

'Because the Italians have developed a new anti-shipping missile for the aircraft.' Del Banco moved closer to the screen, 'Launched from high altitude, they have rocket engines, which take them to supersonic speeds. They can be launched 50 miles away from their target, long before they get in range of any defences.' He paused, 'And they are unstoppable, accurate and vastly destructive.'

Xanthros asked,

'How destructive? Nuclear?'

'No. They don't need to be. They use double explosive armour piercing munitions.'

The Marquis wanted to know more,

'What do you mean –'double explosive'?'

'They explode on contact with a ship; this then propels the warhead down into the vessel where it explodes in the innards.'

Marq looked around the ship they were on,

'Is this thing armoured?'

Xanthros said,

'No. you can't armour something this size due to the weight increase.'

Marq walked away from Xanthros and said to del Banco,

'Just what the hell have you done here?' he held out his hands in exasperation, 'And I suppose this ship is the real target?'

Del Banco replied quietly,

'Yes; all the others are escorts. They expected trouble ...'

Another rating entered the room; he went straight to Xanthros,

'Sir, the Italian Main Battle Feet has set sail from Brindisi, and they are heading this way.'

'That's all we need. They have some serious battleships.'

Del Banco said,

'I don't think we need worry about them; by the time they get here there will be nothing left for them to attack.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

'The time is not right.'

Gus said as he stroked his finger over the Carabnieri badge on his cap, which he held in his hand to prevent it being seen.

Jake Jensen countered,

'The time is right – we must act now before this idiot drags us into a war –just to impress the bloody Germans.'

'There are less than 40% of us willing to fight.'

'All of you don't have to fight; just do not oppose us. With the backing of the Polizia de Stato we can pull this off. We are looking at saving Italian lives here.' They were in a small hotel in a quiet alley in Bari, southern Italy, Jake continued, 'The Battle Fleet at Brindisi has gone on to a war footing, it has already started, we hear that they are preparing to set sail for Trieste.'

'Some of our officers I am not sure of, but on the whole we are with you.'

'Good – that's all we need. Once we have rid ourselves of this menace things will be easier for all concerned.' Jake moved towards the door, 'We are ready for the revolution, I am now going to Naples to get things moving there, we are running with this now, Gus.' They smiled as they shook hands. Gus waited a few minutes before he followed Jake out into the Italian sunshine.

The uprising soon spread from Naples, and before Mussolini had chance to bring in support from Milan, the revolutionaries had taken Rome. The Senate knew this was coming, and they almost welcomed the diversion from going to war.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Xanthros spoke quietly to del Banco whilst Marq was otherwise engaged,

'Where the hell did he come from?'

'I don't know - he just appeared as if from nowhere – I thought he was in Stockholm.'

Marq turned to face them,

'I think you had better look at this.' He said. All three of them looked at the screen. On it they saw the aircraft turning around. 'I think my work here is done; the threat is receding, they will now be at peace.'
Chapter 75

The Man Who Would Start Wars.

Semeramis was studying reports of the day on screen at Martineau,

'There's something wrong here.'

Marq was in the same room, he walked over to her,

'Yes...'

'Yes.' She turned from the screen and looked at him, 'Are you sure you killed Hitler?'

'Yes. Stone dead in front of witnesses.'

She shook her head gently,

'Well, it looks as if the war was not avoided.'

He focussed on her screen. There were historical reports of the way the war was progressing – the invasion of Russia, allied victory in North Africa, American involvement via Pearl Harbour, it was all there. Marc stared at the screen in disbelief,

'How? How did that happen?'

Semeramis and Michelle had been discussing events that Michelle remembered being told about at school. These memories will be altered every time Marq goes back in time and forces a change.

'The Nazi party was led by some other determined people back them' She explained as he drew up a chair, 'The feeling in Germany at the time was that they had actually won the First World War. The Nazis convinced vast numbers that because their country had not been invaded, and they had taken large chunks out of Russia and Poland in the east, they believed that they had actually won, and the Versailles Treaty was punishing them unjustly. They had suffered during the war, mainly due to naval blockades leading to real hardships within the population; this helped them to go along with the ludicrous theories put forward.'

'So what happened to start things off?'

'Just prior to the start of hostilities the Nazis thought they needed some provocation from their neighbours, so they manufactured some.'

Marq did not understand this,

'Pardon? You ain't makin sense.'

'The Nazis wanted to invade Poland, and we know they did. But before that they manufactured a reason to invade.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

The small radio station in Upper Silesia boasts the tallest wooden structure in Europe. Sender Gleiwitz was selected for special attentions by their own army on 31st August 1939.

Three days earlier the stations boss, Francisek Honiok, was visited by a strange Prussian officer.

Honiok was working in his office in the warm sunny morning of 28th August when his newly installed internal telephone rang.

He smelled the newness as he answered. It could only be his secretary in the room outside his office door, but Honiok answered as if it could have been anyone,

'Ja, gutten morgan. Vas ist los?'

'Gutten morgan, herr direktor, there is a gentleman here who would like to speak with you. He says he has come a long way.'

'Very well. Show him in.'

She raised from her chair after she had replaced the ear trumpet on its cradle,

'Bitte, he will see you now.'

The officer marched into the carpeted room. Heniok raised from his seat to shake hands. He felt he should say, 'Stand at ease,' but did not. He offered the tall Prussian a seat by waving his open hand towards a chair.

The military bearing did not slip as he took the seat.

Honiok could not help noticing the strange blue hexagonal spectacles. He was almost expecting a monocle.

'I have some rather disturbing news for you, I'm afraid.' The Prussian said.

Honiok's first though was that the military would be taking over his radio station.

The music of Semprini drifted in the background.

'Oh, yes. What is it?' Honiok said as he sat down again.

Marq chose his next words carefully,

'In three days' time there will be a raid on your station.'

The manager looked mildly surprised,

'A military exercise, I presume?'

'No. I'm afraid it will be the exact opposite. A group of soldiers will attack with the utmost violence. Their aim will be to kill as many as possible, cause mayhem and damage, and then actually plant bodies in here.'

'What?' The surprise had now turned to shock, 'Are we being invaded?'

Marq shook his head slightly,

'The attacking force will be your own countrymen dressed as Polish soldiers. They will in fact be SS men; so there will be no point in trying to resist – these people have no mercy.'

'But why? And - you said something about being dressed as Polish soldiers?'

'Yes, they will also bring drugged prisoners from Dachau. They are also dressed as Polish soldiers.' He paused to allow this to sink in, 'They are to be butchered after the event, and left to be found. The whole affair is a subterfuge to justify invading Poland.'

Honiok sank back in his chair.

'Wha ... Wha ... What can we do about this?'

'Absolutely nothing yourself. As I said, these men are SS. They cannot be stopped by civilians.'

'I don't know what to say. What should we do, die?'

'No, Herr Honiok, you and your staff must stay well away for the day. I have been in touch with a special unit of the Prussian Army in Austria. They do not want Germany to invade Poland, so they have volunteered to protect this establishment, and uncover the whole plot.'

Honiok looked relieved to hear this,

'Thank you. I will instruct my staff to take the day after tomorrow off; the 31st ?'

'Yes, the men of the Bundesheer will arrive during the day on the 31st. The attack is scheduled to happen that night.'

During the day of the 31st August twenty-seven members of the Jagdkommando arrived at the radio station. They moved into the establishment at different times, and in civilian clothes. In the mid-afternoon several boxes arrived by courier; these contained the arms and equipment the soldiers would need to protect the station.

By the time the sun went down they were ready.

Marq spoke with Honiok,

'The leader of the group who will be attacking you is a nasty piece of work known as SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Alfred Naujocks – in fact they are all pretty awful.' He turned to face Honiok, 'They will be bringing prisoners from Dachau camp. They will be used as Polish soldiers, to be killed on site to make it look more like a Polish raid – they don't expect to lose any of their own men.'

Honoik looked around at the Austrians, now dressed in black,

'I would say they were in for a surprise.' He looked back at Marq, 'Tell me, how do you know all of this detail?'

Marq just looked the man in the eye as he said,

'You would not believe it.'

On the second platform of the radio mast, 55 metres above ground; two soldiers lay in wait. Wachtmeister (sergeant) Frans Blocke was the observer, Kpl Heinz Fabe was the shooter, the sniper.

Bocke carefully scanned the area through his binoculars. The small town lay in darkness. In the distance to the north-east came the sound of vehicles. From his high position Blocke saw the lights of five vehicles. They had rigged up a telephone to the radio station, Bolke called up the station,

'Five vehicles heading this way.' Was the curt message he sent out.

'Hold your fire until you are sure of who you see. We will use your first shot as a signal to open fire.'

'Ja.'

The five vehicles drew closer. By which time they had dowsed their lights. This gave Blocke and Fabe confirmation that there was something sinister going on.

Blocke kept watching,

'Lead car presenting well, but second has better resolution.'

Faber did not respond immediately; he concentrated on looking down his telescopic sight. This is more powerful than the binoculars that Blocke was using.

After considering his targets Faber quietly said,

'Second vehicle.'

Blocke said,

'Fire when ready.'

Fabe stopped breathing. The vehicles rounded a curve in the road, now clear of buildings, he had a clear shot.

The rifle cracked. The high powered bullet took 2.7 seconds to reach its target.

The driver of the second vehicle did not register the smashing glass of his window. The shot hit him in the upper chest. The bullet tumbled more because of the glass impact – it did not exit directly, it thrashed about in his chest causing damage to vital organs.

The steering wheel spun out of control, causing the car to move out of the small convoy. The driver of the small truck behind the stricken vehicle had to swerve to avoid clipping the rear of the car. The lead car was clipped by the dead driver's car as it veered out of control, only to turn over on the side of the road, bursting into flames. The men inside were in no fit state to fight.

The lead car was driven by Alfred Neujocks; the man Marq had been sent to kill.

He wrestled briefly with the steering wheel to avoid being pushed off the road. The sudden movements of the vehicle meant that Fabe could not hold good resolution on the car or people inside. He asked Bolke,

'What next?'

'Not the truck – I think it contains innocents. Can you get the lead car?'

'Not easily. Rear car.'

Bolke levelled his binoculars at the last car in the convoy,

'Fire when ready.'

There was no reply.

Faber squeezed the trigger on his high-powered snipers rifle.

The gun cracked, bucked, and then Faber opened the bolt to release the spent cartridge with a wisp of smoke. He automatically placed another bullet in the open breech as Bolke surveyed the results.

The driver had been hit in the head. Part of the top of his head departed, covering the occupants in blood. The car ran into the rear of the one in front of it. Both vehicles stopped. The occupants got out, apart from the one who had just lost the top of his head. The seven SS men dressed as Polish soldiers began moving towards the radio station.

At the station the first car stopped. Four men ran up to the front door. Neujocks led the way.

Inside the building Francisek Honiok was about to lock the front door. Neujocks did not hesitate; he levelled his machine pistol at the unarmed manager. He was the first man killed in what was becoming dangerously close to escalating into World War 2.

As Neujocks dealt with Honiok his men rushed into the interior, which they expected to be a peaceful civilian establishment. They were cut down by Prussian special forces.

Three SS 'Polish' men fell without having chance to return fire.

Neujocks fell back onto a wall to hide from the gunfire further in the building.

Outside Faber spotted the seven men moving from the cars. He carefully drew aim on individuals within this group. Two fell before the rest took cover. There were now only five men approaching.

Bolke took up a rifle. He fired at the five men, who had heard the gunfire from within the building. One winced as he caught the shot fired by Bolke, and went down. His nearest comrade went to his aid. This meant that there were now three men moving towards the building, only Neujocks inside. Fabe fired again, and there were only two advancing when they saw the large bulk of Neujocks running out.

'It's a trap.' He cried.

The wounded soldier was being helped by his comrade when the retreat began. Three men had left the truck when they saw that the attack was being called off. One of them took a shot at Faber and Bolke on the tower. Bolke fired back, causing the enemy to scatter before returning to their truck. Neujocks and his remaining entourage got to the two remaining cars. As they drove off into the night Faber managed to get another shot off into the rear car.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

In the hidden underground complex Semeramis contacted Marq,

'Did you get him?'

'Inconclusive, probably not. These people can run away fast.'

'Well, something happened a month later in Holland; they are now running to a place called Venlo to follow up on information about the British Secret Service.'

'Ok, Retourner.'

Marq gave the word to bring him back to France. Semeramis replied,

'Roger that – I need to catch up on this; it is complicated, as you would expect from double dealing.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 76

Sigmund Best

Semeramis and Ash were looking at a newspaper report on screen when Marq entered the room.

Ash said,

'There is precious little about the incident we are interested in – but here is a piece in a Canadian newspaper, one of the main agents had spent some time in Canada, so they ran it.'

Marq was interested,

'Could you run it off for me please?'

Semeramis turned away from the screen when he said this,

'You mean you want a hard copy?'

'Yes, if you don't mind,' he lifted his blue spectacles a little, and peered below them, 'I happen to like the feel of paper.'

She smiled as she said,

'I think you are taking on the habits of the 1930s.'

He conjured up a smoking pipe from somewhere,

'I don't know what you could possibly mean.'

Ash laughed uncontrollably; eventually he was able to say,

'Come on, Sherlock.' He handed him the printout, 'Here's today's paper for you.'

Marq sat at a vacant desk. Ash and Semeramis began ploughing through documents on line.

After some time Semeramis said,

'A bicycle salesman in Holland called Sigismund Best. Married, turns out he was the spymaster general of Branch Z of the British Secret Intelligence Service, SIS to its friends.'

Marq said,

'What, how does he fit in with the start of the war?'

'Not him directly – he was trying to stop it.'

'Sounds like a good chap.' Marq swung the pipe around like a conductor's baton.

Semeramis pointed at the screen as she continued,

'On October 21st 1939, about three weeks before war was declared, he was recruiting high-ranking German officers who were against Hitler's ideas of conquest.'

Ash turned away from his screen,

'Were there many?'

Michelle said,

'When I was at Uni I studied the Second World War. A lot of high-ranking German officers were very elitist; they did not like this jumped-up ex-corporal, failed artist taking over the running of the country, and taking it into a war that could be very unpredictable. There were one or two.'

Semeramis was working at her computer,

'It looks like he had some useful allies – here we have the Canadian connection; although it is a bit tenuous to say the least. Best was travelling with a Dutchman called Captain Klop,' she looked around at her comrades. A smile played on her lips as she continued, 'It's true,' she pointed at her screen, 'Captain Klop – you couldn't make it up. He was trying to hide his nationality to maintain his countries neutrality. So he was travelling as a Canadian by the name of Coppens. Apparently he spent some time in Canada, so that seems to be why the Canadian newspaper covered it,' she clicked her computer a couple of times, 'Yes, they seem to have thought the name Coppens was genuine, and he was a hero of a Canadian spy.'

Marq blew a cloud of smoke from his pipe as he asked,

'Right, what do you want me to do?'

Semeramis said,

'These three were lured into a trap by a chap called Schaemell, who turns out to be a 29 year old ex-lawyer by the name of Schellenburg.' A smile crept around her lips as she looked across at Ash, who was beginning to get confused, 'Pay close attention please; I will ask questions later. To return to the plot – Sigismund Best was collecting people who were disaffected about the Nazis, a lot of these were high-ranking German officers.' She scrutinised her screen, 'It would appear that this Schellenburg was one of these, but not the kind Best wanted. He was head of German Foreign Intelligence – he was out to find out as much about British Intelligence as he could, and then kill as many of its operatives as possible.'

Marq was following the story,

'So you want me to go in there and help this guy?'

'Sort of.' She thought briefly, 'Your main target is the same as last time – Alfred Naujocks. It is he who turns up with a dozen German SS troops to smash the Best spy ring once and for all.' She pointed at the screen as if that would in any way clear things up, 'There had just been an attempt to blow up Heindrich Himmler, one of the lead Nazis, he then ordered Schellenburg to kill Best and anyone with him. If you can stop that happening, the Nazi grip on power in Germany would be severely weakened.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

On October 30th 1939 Sigmund Best had set up a meeting with the man he knew as Hauptmann Alfred Schaemell. Neujocks once described this man as a 'namby-pamby, pasty-faced little man.' – not a picture of the normal SS henchman.

He was bringing a new recruit to the British secret agent. The man sitting in the car with Schaemell was supposed to be a disgruntled aristocrat who was keen to overthrow the Nazis. With a shock of pure white hair, and an old-fashioned elegance the man gave off an air of confidence, almost arrogance.

The meeting had been set up at a secluded spot near Arnhem, but Best was late. After waiting 45 minutes the Germans decided to give up. They were about to leave the rendezvous when the lights of another car appeared. They delayed leaving. The other car pulled up close to them, and three men moved in the darkness towards the Germans – but this was not the British secret agent they were expecting. It was the Dutch police. They came to investigate a strange car; it could be carrying people from Germany who had no right to be in Holland – the relationships between the two countries was at that time tense to say the least.

The local Chief of police himself came out to do the investigation.

There were three German officers in the car. They had all taken especial care to avoid carrying anything that would give away their country of origin, but the third man's Dutch was not as fluent as the others.

As they were bundled into the car, Schaemell quietly said to the third man,

'Try not to say anything.'

Their command of the Dutch language was good, but the German accent would definitely give them away.

They were taken back to the local Police Headquarters, where their luggage was thoroughly searched. Whilst this was going on they were instructed to empty their pockets onto a table.

This they did in complete silence. Whilst the police went through their luggage, Schaemell scrutinised the pile of pocket litter on the table before them.

The usual detritus lay there;

Wallets carefully filled with Dutch money, small piles of Dutch coins, handkerchiefs, combs, receipts, tickets, packet of aspirins, cigarettes, lighters.

The white-haired German with him did not notice anything amiss in the little pile, but Schaemell did; he realised that the aspirins were only issued to the SS, and carried the label 'SS Sanitaetschauptampt'. This would immediately give the game away.

Schaemell quickly looked around at the police present. They were all busy dealing with the luggage.

Without hesitation he picked up the aluminium packet, thrust it in his mouth, and swallowed hard. He hoped the packaging would protect his stomach from the effects of the drug within them.

Before he had chance to digest the pills properly there was a knock at the door. He was already an ashen colour from the aspirin incident when he saw the Dutch spy Klopp, who he knew as Coppens, entered the room.

Schaemell immediately knew what had happened – the British and Dutch had set them up for a fall. The allies suspected them - and if anything, like the aspirins, had given them away they would have been arrested. It was a test.

Coppens said to the Germans,

'We have been watching you for some time, now. We do not think for one moment that you are Dutch, as you say you are.' He turned to the Chief of Police, 'Thank you for your assistance, we shell take it from here.'

The police obviously knew Coppens better than the Germans did; they knew he was probably not a genuine Dutch bicycle salesman, but further than that they had little information. And here was the Dutch Chief of Police passing three German agents on to him, they could only presume that Coppens was working for some people or country – they hoped it was not as bad as their own Gestapo – but it may even be the Gestapo in this twisting, double-crossing world.

The white-haired German feared the worst. He was Kapitan-Leutnant Hans Kreutchner, from the U-boat arm during the First World War. He feared that if captured by their own side pretending to be Dutch, he could be accused of acting against the state, at least. And with the unforgiving nature of the young Nazi Party this was not a good prospect.

Coppens tried to explain the situation from his side as the car sped through Holland, away from the German border.

Schamell thought he could taste the aspirins he had swallowed. His throat was aching from the scratching the wrapper had done at the back of his throat. If one or two had leaked from their packaging he would be ok, but if the wrapping were to break down in his stomach he would be in big trouble.

'I'm sorry for that little incident.' Captain Klop said as he drove them straight west, into the middle of Holland

Kreutchner was more dubious than even Schaemell. The white-haired German officer leaned over to Schaemell and said quietly,

'Is it possible to make a run for it before we get any further away from Germany?'

He took hold of the door handle as the car slowed for a bend in the road.

Schaemell covered his other arm and said,

'How far do you think we would get? They would probably shoot us rather than waste energy chasing us.' He sat back, 'No, my friend we will just have to tough it out.'

They were then whisked away to the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in The Hague.

Armed soldiers stood inside the inconspicuous-looking building. Schaemell, the leader of German Foreign Intelligence, was now in the hornet's nest. He forgot about the aspirins as his stomach took somersaults. Klop / Coppens took them into a room off a corridor.

The room was laid out for a feast or banquet. The Germans were astounded.

Best greeted them in perfect German,

'Gutten Tag, I am sorry there has been a little problem on your way here – but you are here now, and we would like to welcome you to the organisation.'

Schaemell completely forgot the aspirins as he took Bests offered hand, and shook it warmly,

'Herr Best, this is Kapitan-Leutnant Hans Kreutchner, from the Kreigsmarine.'

And so it went on.

The Germans were taken in to the bosom of the British Intelligence organisation, just where they wanted to be.

The British issued their new recruits with radios, with instructions to make secret communications as regularly as possible; but care must be taken to prevent the rest of the German authorities finding out about what they were doing.

Thus the very authorities the British were trying to hoodwink were actually in their midst.

The subterfuge lasted for weeks. More meetings were held; the Germans looked set to take good advantage of the Secret Service setup, they were garnering a lot of information about the British intentions within Germany.

The head of the SS, Heindrich Himmler, was especially pleased with Schaemell and his team, when an event threatened to disrupt proceedings.

A carpenter in Germany, Georg Esler was not happy with the way the Nazi Party were conducting things. There were places where the Social Democrats could not control the Nazi excesses. Esler, consistently hard up, and with communist leanings, was always against the way the Nazis kept trying to lead their country towards war. He reasoned that with the elimination of the leadership and as many party officials as possible Germany would have a better future.

As a skilled man, now working in an armaments factory, he was able to construct an elaborate bomb. This he planted in the Burgerbraukeller in Munich, where the Party were to hold one of their rallies on 8th October 1939. The main targets were the Nazi leaders – Goering, Goebbels, Heydrich, Hess and Himmler. Esler had spent days and nights building an elaborate bomb into one of the main columns of the beerkeller – there were expected to be 3,000 people there.

But the leadership he was aiming at were planning to attack France – it was the French who then had the biggest army and most efficient armaments production capability in the world; the Nazis would need to rely on the doddering leadership of the French first war mentality to give their planned blitzkrieg a chance. But more planning was required, and fog was threatening their flights back to Berlin. So they decided to cut the speeches down from over two hours each, so that they could make it back to the capital.

This threw Esler's elaborate timing out of the window. When the bomb exploded the crowd had begun to disperse, it did not kill any of the hierarchy. Eight people were killed by the explosion, with 65 or so injured.

Himmler escaped. He called Schaemell into his office two days after the incident.

'The Fuhrer believes the British Intelligence Service to be behind this atrocity.' Himmler demanded from Schaemell, 'Your people must have something to do with it.' He was trying to contain his rage, 'If they did not, then they must have known about it; or they are completely useless.'

Schaemell and his outfit knew nothing of Esler's plot, neither did the British – he was working as a lone wolf.

Himmler continued,

'If your command cannot at least predict something like this, what use is it?'

Schaemell attempted to defend himself and his section,

'No one knew what he was doing. My operations must not be confused with what one man on his own does.'

'Well then, what use is it?'

'We have the British in the palm of our hand; they are completely oblivious of our situation – we can get lots of information about their activities – spies names and objectives, resistance setups, code breaking. We don't even need to break their codes – they give them to us! This is an opportunity not to be missed.'

Himmler was not at the least impressed,

'The only opportunity not to be missed is the Fuhrerdirektiv you have been issued with; you will arrest these British and Dutch agents, they will then be interrogated, tortured, and executed – or you will. Seig Heil.'

Schaemell was backed into a corner. There was no option open to him but to obey.

He contacted Alfred Naujocks, the SS thug, and arranged for an ambush.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Author note:

Like me, Marq and Semeramis found all this information from 'War Stories' by Pal Boswell, Usborne Publications Ltd. In association with the Imperial War Museum.
Chapter 77

The Café Baccus at Venlo

A meeting was already scheduled for nine days later when Schaemell was to meet up with Sigmund Best, Captain Klopp, and Major Stevens, of Z Branch of the British Special Intellegence Service, SIS.

A nervous Schaemell sat in the Café Baccus with a German military man who had a large overcoat concealing his SS uniform. Venlo was in a strange 'no-mans land' between the German and Dutch border, although it was classed as being inside Holland.

He was about to start on his second brandy in a vain attempt to settle his nerves; he was not cut out for this kind of work – and it was all about to go pear-shaped.

The meeting was set for two in the afternoon – it was now almost half past two. They waited. So did the twelve SS troops over the border in Germany. They were not permitted to enter a foreign country under the laws of neutrality.

Best was known for driving a big Buick. This was in keeping with his image – he was a tall, elegant man with a monocle. In keeping with the fashions of the times he wore spats and a tweed suit.

The Buick did not show until three twenty.

Over the border in Germany Albert Naujocks stood waiting with the SS men for the Buick to appear. He stood close to the cars they had arrived in, binoculars constantly sweeping the scene across the border. Two giant 1934 model Mercedes Benz limousines were hidden from view from the Dutch side of the border.

As soon as he saw the Buick, he turned to his men and ordered two of them to mount the front fenders of the Mercedes, all armed with machine pistols, the first sub-machine guns. The windows of the car were open, the people inside leaned out with more machine guns. Naujocks took up position in the front seat of the lead vehicle. He shouted an order to move forwards, the vehicles accelerated, the men in the cars prepared to invade a neutral country, all guns blazing.

Best was not watching the road leading to Germany. He looked into the café as his tyres screeched to a stop. As he threw the door open he saw a strange man holding what looked like a weapon, the likes of which he had never seen before. It was a Panzerfaust – the German bazooka anti-tank weapon. The man tried to hide from the first vehicle, who's machine gunners were covering all angles. He levelled it at the second vehicle. He fired. A loud bang followed by a small rocket motor streaking out in front of an acrid smelling trail of smoke shot out to the Mercedes. The missile exploded on impact with sufficient force to destroy a tank. The Mercedes was a big, tough car, but it stood no chance. It almost disintegrated.

Best looked at the strange man; he noticed that he was wearing blue glasses. The man called out to him,

'It's a trap – get inside.'

Marq threw the Panzerfaust away, and took out a machine-pistol. Best withdrew a Colt .45 automatic as he turned to Klopp,

'Come on, keep your head down.'

They made a dash for the café. Major Stevens was on the wrong side of the car, and could only hide behind it.

As Best and Klopp rushed into the café, they found Schaemell and the German SS officer alone in the establishment. The SS officer had reacted to the sound of gunfire outside, and removed his civilian coat, revealing his SS personae. As he fumbled to get his Luger from its holster, Best shot him with one bullet in the middle of his chest. The force of the .45 shell knocked him backwards at a rate of knots; Schaemell almost fell backwards as he tried to stand up.

Best faced Schaemell. Marq called out,

'He's set you up.'

Best did not hesitate any longer. A bullet to the chest sent Schaemell reeling.

Machine-gun bullets stitched a ragged line across the wall as the invading Germans made their presence felt.

Marq, Best and Klopp ducked below tables. They looked at the smashed windows, and deduced that it was only a matter of time before the Germans came in, guns blazing.

Klopp said,

'Back way, before they find it.'

Marq said,

'What about the man outside?'

Best looked outside, Major Stevens was guessing where the Mercedes was, and kept himself behind the Buick. He had the presence of mind to open the trunk. Inside there were two Thompson machine guns and six grenades. He was now stuffing the grenades in his pockets. He used the strap on one of the guns to loop it onto his back, checked the other one was loaded and ready to fire. He briefly looked in the direction the Germans had appeared, and made a dash for the café door. He was half way when he heard one of the Germans open fire with his machine pistol. As the name suggests; this was based on a pistol firing on automatic – the barrel was not long; therefore it was not very accurate. The Thompson was. Stevens opened up without breaking stride. The .45 cal rounds ripped into the soldiers. Three of them were killed in the brief burst – Stevens did not even slow down as he barged through the door – gun still smoking.

He joined the three men as they made for the rear door. On the way Stevens took the gun from his back, and passed it to the nearest man – Marq.

Best was first to reach the rear alley. He quickly looked both ways. Klopp indicated which way to run. The four of them dashed out. As they ran they became aware of firing coming from behind them. Klopp and Best dived into the nearest doorway; Marq was more in the open. Machine gun bullets flew around him as he looked in vain for somewhere to take cover.

Stevens was last in, he pointed the Thompson down the alley without aiming, and let fly a fusillade of random bullets. They couldn't hope to hit anyone, but it kept the German heads down, and gave Marq chance to run for a bend in the narrow street.

Klopp began banging at the door. The Germans began to move towards the men. Marq looked towards the Germans with one eye. He recognised the bulk of Alfred Naujocks in the middle of the two soldiers.

The door opened, Klopp, Best, and Stevens quickly went inside. Marq could not hope to get across the open ground to the doorway. He looked down the alley, and then back at the pursuing Germans. They would be upon him in seconds if he did not move, and fast.

He began running down the alley. Then he noticed a bullet hit quite close to him; a bit too close, and then a bullet passed so close that he felt the air disturbed as it whizzed by.

'One of them must have a rifle,' He thought, 'this is getting close.'

One of the Germans dropped to one knee to take steady aim at the running man.

At the same moment Marq ducked into a doorway to catch his breath.

Naujocks saw his chance. He accelerated his step to a sprint – he could move fast for a big man. Before Marq realised what was happening the thug actually collided with him as he moved to restart his run. The both of them fell to the ground. Marq saw the barrel of a machine pistol in his face. The man with the rifle joined them. Naujocks stood over Marq, who was still on the ground. He took Marq by the arm and lifted him to his feet. Someone took the Thompson machine-gun from his grasp.

They were all out of breath after the chase.

The blue lenses in Marq's specs caught Naujock's attention,

'What have we here?' he moved to take the glasses.

Just then an explosion went off not too far away. Someone had thrown a grenade.

It was too far away to do them any harm, but Naujocks said to the man with the rifle,

'Go and see what is happening over there.'

With the rifleman leading the way all four began moving back down the alley.

Special care had to be taken when they approached the doorway through which Klopp and his allies had left the scene.

Rifleman moved across the narrow alley. He flattened his back to the wall as he approached the doorway. A grenade was sticking out of the top of his boot - he removed this, pulled the pin, and threw it into the doorway.

The resulting explosion kept the attentions of whoever was in the building to allow Naujocks to bundle Marq past the doorway. Marq felt the muzzle of the gun digging in his back as they ran.

Rifleman was still a few feet behind them when a burst of machine-gun fire took his head off.

The distinct sound of a Thompson resonated down the alley. Naujocks was holding Marq's left arm, the man with the machine pistol was behind them as they ran. He knew that there was a possible threat from behind, and tried to keep a wary eye on their rear, at the same time holding his machine pistol around the small of Marq's back.

Marq could feel that the man was very overworked, and decided he was going to take advantage of this.

When he felt that Naujocks was fully occupied, Marq threw his right arm behind himself, turning as best he could. He was right; the soldier was looking behind them. Marq quickly took hold of the barrel of the machine pistol, turned it to wrench it from the man's grasp before he had chance to tighten his grip.

In one swift move Marq swung the gun round to collide with Naujock's head. This knocked him off balance - he relaxed his grip on Marq's arm. The freed arm now allowed Marq to take full control of the machine pistol. He quickly spun it round to hold it in the correct manner to fire. The soldier he had stolen it from drew a dagger from his belt. Marq did not hesitate, but he could only take care of one man, his mission was still to dispose of Alfred Naujocks; so he pointed the gun at Naujocks' head, pulled the trigger and blew his brains out.

The soldier with the knife realised that he was now out-gunned. He turned on his heel, and began to run away from Marq. Then there was a burst of Thompson gunfire, and the man fell dead – the last of the German invaders.

Marq looked around himself. There was no-one around he quietly said to himself almost,

'Retourner.'

Marq reappeared in Martineau.

As Semeramis entered the room he asked her,

'Did that do the trick?'

She went to a computer display on a wall. She tapped the screen, which came to life.

'There is something not quite right here.' She said, 'There's no space race.'

'Whaaa? What do you mean?'

'The Germans have developments, led by Werner von Braun, the Brits are playing with something they call Prospero, and Blue Steel, but I can't find any evidence of American activity, or Russian for that matter.'

'Any ideas?'

'I have been talking to Michelle and Ash. Their memories change with every deviation you make.' She moved away from the screen, 'They say that because the war was avoided, the Russians did not lose millions of people – most due to political strategies. She consulted her own tablet, 'In 1947 they managed to get rid of Stalin; and instead of wasting vast amounts of money on military equipment, they became ...'

Marq interrupted her,

'But what about the space race, and developments in America? Without it we could never get to Mars.'

She shook her head,

'I see what you mean.'

'Could I go back to the early days to find out what went wrong?'

'I think you'd better.'
Chapter 78

Ash Dieback

The setting was romantic, but Ash did not feel in a romantic mood as he and Michelle walked along the quarter mile drive to the road at Martineau.

As they passed the cherry trees and moved into open ground he looked back the way they had come,

Ash said,

'I have done some research on this Goddard guy that Marq says was the father of modern rocketry. He was no such thing. I found that he experimented with rockets in the 1930s, but he was ridiculed in the press, so he gave up.'

The warm French sun shone in their faces, promising a hot day ahead.

Michelle blinked as she turned to Ash,

'What are you thinking?'

He paused before answering,

'What if there were another way for things to turn out – one where America won the space race instead of Germany?'

'And you think that this guy Goddard may have had something to do with it?'

'Yes. I have seen some footage of the experiments Goddard was conducting with early rockets. Remember that in those days it was very much a matter of working out if the theory of rocket propulsion could be made to work – it would appear that he had problems with guidance and balance of the early rockets.' He didn't know if Michelle fully grasped the importance of that, so he continued to explain, 'Have you ever tried to balance a broom by the end, and keep it from falling over?' He held out a finger and moved it as if to balance something on it.

She smiled,

'Yes, of course. I used to be in the circus – that was how we did the dusting!'

'If you could take this seriously for a moment – that was the main problem with early rockets – stopping them from toppling over. Simply holding the broom was hard enough, but when you introduce a massive thrust pushing it upwards at the same time it becomes almost impossible – and most people in the 1930s believed it was impossible. It was not until the German A4 rocket in 1952 that the problem was resolved. But imagine what would happen if an American had solved this problem 20 years earlier.'

She looked sceptical as the turned their backs on the rising sun to begin their walk back,

'And was the answer possible in the 1930s?'

'Well – yes, theoretically. The main solution lay in the gyroscope; which had been known about since ancient Greek times. No, the problem will be metallurgical – guidance vanes must be held within the rocket blast...' he held his hands out to demonstrate - she knocked them aside,

'Whoa, whoa.' She interrupted, 'Why don't you tell him yourself? Goddard needs to know, not me.' She joked.

They both laughed as they walked among the walnut trees, back towards the house.

When they got back to the control centre there was no-one around.

Ash said,

'You know, that was not such a bad idea, maybe I should go and tell Goddard.'

'Pardon?' she said, 'What are you suggesting?'

'I should go back in time, like Marq does, and advise Goddard to keep going by providing a solution to his dilemma.'

'Don't be so ... how?'

'You know how to boot this thing up.' He waved his arm at the machinery, 'I know about rocketry. I think we should give it a go.'

'What if something should go wrong?'

'What could possibly go wrong? Sem showed you how simple it is.'

'Yes, she did, but ... and what about security?'

'Security – there is no security in the inner sanctum – you cannot have scientists interrupting their work every time they move from one room to another.'

'But ...'

'But nothing; what could possibly go wrong? We've seen it done a few times – even the Germans from seventy years ago got the hang of it.'

Michelle still did not feel comfortable, but Ash's enthusiasm got the better of her.

Ash strapped himself into the seat as Michelle booted the machinery up. A faint hum came from the equipment. She had never heard this before. She looked nervously at Ash. He was becoming enveloped in white vapours. She thought there may be a leak, but then remembered that this was what always happened.

They exchanged waves as she left the room to execute the final stage from the safety of the next room.

A loud flash; and he was gone.

Marq and Semeramis came running when they realised that the machinery was in use.

They found Michelle watching the equipment shutting itself down.

Marq was first to ask,

'What happened? Where is Doctor Ashton?'

Michelle was calm on the outside as she replied,

'Ash has gone to find out what happened to the American space race.'

'He has done what? How?'

'He has gone back in time, like you do, to correct an omission.'

'What omission?' Marq was trying to keep calm.

'A chap called Goddard was experimenting with rockets in the early days, we found that he stopped. Because of that there was no space program in the USA.'

'When was this?'

Semeramis turned to look at the monitor, when Michelle said,

'1929.'

Marq was visibly shocked at this; he looked directly at Michelle's paling face,

'You don't know what you have done, do you?'

Michelle was shocked by this; she stepped back involuntarily, but could not find any words.

Marq drew a deep breath as he tried to calm himself before explaining things to Michelle,

'In 1929 Ash would have been aged minus 35. That is the age he would return to.' He thought for a second, walked away from Michelle, and then turned back to face her again. He almost sighed, and then shook his head as he said, 'I don't see how we can bring him back – he does not exist.'

Michelle spluttered,

'He must have existed, I remember him – surely if he had ceased to exist from before he was born, then how would I remember him?'

Marq looked at Sem,

'She has a point – I think. Does she?'

Semeramis thought for a moment, then turned to ask Michelle,

'How strong is your memory of Ash?'

'What a strange question to ask.' She responded.

'Well, ok; what about your memory of Jake, or Galina, or Mark Singleton. Perhaps you could use Xanthros as a bench-mark?'

Michelle sat down as she thought about this. Her hands were now shaking as she said,

'This is strange thing.'

Sem understood,

'That's true. But it could be important. What do you recall about these people?'

'Mark died on Mars. I can see and hear him as clear as yesterday, the same about Xanthros. But Jake is no too clear. Who is Galina?'

'What about Ash?'

'He's as clear as Mark and Xanthros.'

'That's encouraging.'

Marq saw the links with what Sem was trying to do,

'You are our link to the present – especially mine.' He didn't seem as annoyed as he was before. 'When I go back in time things can, and do, change. That is why it is dangerous for other people to try to use the transporter.'

'But ... But ... You do it with no problems.'

'I am not normal, that is how I get away with it.'

He paced the room.

Two Geralds came in, they began a conference with Marq.

Sem began to move towards the transporter equipment.

Marq held out his hand,

'No. Don't touch anything. Nothing must be disturbed. We need to examine everything for clues. We have to find out what exactly happened, how the machine handled the task, and is there any way we can get Ash back.'

Michelle sank down into a chair, and began sobbing.

Sem placed a hand across her shoulders to comfort her,

'It will be sorted out. We'll get him back.'

Michelle was inconsolable,

'Like we have got Jake back?'

She fully understood the problem.

Marq went into a room further back with the Geralds. Michelle had never been there.

Sem explained,

'He has gone into the memory banks to see if there is something there to help us.' She moved around to Michelle's front, 'This isn't like the Jake problem. With Jake something happened in the past to influence things, we are trying to find what it was – with Ash we know what happened...'

Michelle interrupted her,

'Yes; I sent him away.' The sobbing began again.

All Sem could say was,

'We'll get him back.'

Michelle said between sobs,

'How?'

'I don't know yet, but Marq and the Geralds are working on it.'

Just then Marq returned to the room, he asked Michelle,

'What date did you put into the machine?'

Michelle blinked away the tears as she said,

'You mean the destination date?'

'Yes. What date did you send Doctor Ashton to?'

'November 1929.'

Marq tapped a screen,

'This does not make sense.' He said. A Gerald entered the room, Marq turned to him, 'Can you make anything from this reading?'

Gerald looked at the readout Marq indicated,

'Destination date – 26th March 1967.' He turned to look at Marq, and then Michelle.

Sem had an idea. She said to Michelle,

'What was Ash's birthday?'

Michelle thought for a moment, then replied,

'March 25th as far as I recall.'

A smile crept across Marq's face as he realised what had happened.

He turned to Gerald and said,

'The Lifespan Protocol.'

Gerald did not smile. This was just a matter of logics and mathematics to him. He did not think about the man at the other end – there was no problem.

'Yes, the Lifespan Protocol would have detected the lifespan of the subject, and deduced that to travel back any further would be impossible.'

Marq continued to explain it to Michelle, her red eyes were now holding out more hope,

'You mean we can get him back?'

Gerald replied in a flat, matter-of-fact manner,

'Of course; there is no problem.'

Marq saw the opportunity to throw in some humour,

'Of course, there is always the chance that he will only be one day old.'

Michelle spun round to face him, horror on her face,

'What?? You mean he went back in time, to become only one day old. And may come back here as a baby?'

Sem twigged on straight away, so added,

'Do we have any diapers?'

Michelle looked at Gerald, but he never gave away any emotions, so she looked again at Marq, who was busying himself at the transporter. Finally, she looked back at Sem, who could not hold back a faint smile, but Michelle looked directly into her eyes, where she saw jollity beaming out.

'You...' Michelle saw the joke; 'You are the one who needs a diaper.'

Marq moved away from the transporter,

'Ok. Ready to retrieve traveller.'

They all moved out of the room as mist arose from the cooling elements around the chair.

Michelle was easily first to the monitor that viewed the Transporter Room. She held her head uncomfortably close to the screen as Sem moved to alongside her to watch as Ash re-emerged exactly as he had left.

As soon as he was visible through the mist, Michelle made a dash to the door, but there was a safety lock on it to prevent anyone inadvertently entering the Transporter Room whilst it was working. She had to wait; the door can only be opened from the inside until it was safe.

When Ash came into the room, he looked quite subdued, as Michelle threw her arms around him he said,

'What happened? It didn't work.'

'Where have you been?' she demanded.

'Nowhere; I just sat there for a few minutes, and came back in here.'

Just then Gerald came into the room, he said to Marq,

'We are making alterations to the machinery – one of us will now have to be with you when you transport.'

Ash looked confused.

Chapter 79

Goddard

MOON ROCKET MISSES TARGET BY 238,7991/2 MILES.

This mocking headline in a local Worcester, Mass. newspaper refers to one of Robert Goddard's first attempts to get a rocket into space in 1929.

Marq and Gerald emerged in an alley in downtown Worcester. They made their way to the main street at the end. Boxes and crates were stacked up in the shade near the end of the alley. Marq used the wooden structures as cover. His hand fell on to one of the piles of crates. The sound of falling bottles and breaking glass gave away their position. He moved to get further into the cover of boxes – but that only made the situation worse. Then he found why. Behind the boxes and crates were four large wooden barrels, completely hidden from view.

Alerted by the falling crates and breaking bottles, a nearby crew came running at Marq. Gerald stood in the shadows as the gang began to look threatening. They carried Thompson machine guns and big knives.

Marq realised what was happening. He called across to Gerald,

'They must think we are the 'G men'.'

A man managed to get behind Gerald. He was carrying a shotgun, but didn't want to shoot at such close range – easier to simply hit Gerald from behind with the butt of the gun. The man raised the gun before Marq could warn Gerald. It all happened so quickly.

The gun butt landed square in the middle of Gerald's skull. The construction that made up Gerald's neck was not bone – neither did it behave like bone; the cranium was hardened steel, the neck was built of sensitive material that had been developed to react to anything that may cause a broken neck. What it did was instantly stiffen to protect itself. The result was a rifle butt hitting a man's head. The head did not move. The skull easily withstood the wooden butt. The butt shattered. Gerald just turned slowly, raised his left arm as he turned, and smashed the man under the left arm, which was raised to land the blow with the gun. Gerald's arm only broke three ribs. But they were propelled into the rib cage, collapsing the left lung completely.

The shotgun rattled across the alley towards Marq, who picked it up. He looked at the damaged wooden butt, then at the gang who were advancing on them. He again looked at the weapon in his hands,

'Your equipment leaves something to be desired.' He called across the Gerald as he took a firm hold on the gun, aimed, and fired.

The recoil was not pleasant. Without a butt to nestle into his shoulder Marq found that the gun nearly fell out of his grasp as it was fired.

He re-adjusted his grip, and fired again. He saw that every time he fired one or more of the attackers ducked into doorways, or took cover in some other way.

Seemingly out of nowhere a 1927 model Lincoln began bearing down on the gang. A man was standing on the running board with a machine gun. He let fly at the crew to keep their heads down. These were all experienced ex-soldiers who had fought in the Great War – they knew how to handle a gunfight.

They returned fire at the speeding car. One of the bullets from the gang hit Gerald in the lower left arm. He was not human; but neither was he indestructible. The .45 slug from the Thompson smashed the delicate circuitry within the forearm. There was no blood, but the limb was immediately rendered useless. Marq looked back at the gun battle. The gang had separated. The car screeched to a halt the men inside did not give chase, but fired down the various streets and alleys into which the gang had dispersed. Whist this was going on, Marq was not watching the main street. From this direction walked three men with guns – Marq did not even know they were there; the first he knew was feeling the barrel of a machine gun in his ribs. Another gunman pointed a 12 bore shotgun at Gerald's head. The gunman looked at Gerald's shattered arm,

'What the devil happened here? That a false arm?'

Gerald stepped back, and nearly fell over the crates when confronted in this way.

Gunman three, who was behind the first two said,

'These two didn't put up much of a fight did they?'

The man with the tommy gun in Marq's ribs moved back to prevent being hit by Marq as he turned around,

'We got a couple of weirdos here, Elliot.'

The man in the rear indicated Marq and Gerald as he said,

'Up against the wall. Hands up'

They were forced to face the wall, Marq placed his hands as high as he could, Gerald could only manage one arm.

They were frisked as the three men kept close watch both up and down the alley.

When they were satisfied that the two were not carrying any armament they were allowed to lower their arms and turn around.

To their surprise they found Elliot was stood back and smoking a cigarette.

'Who you working for?' he said as he tipped his trilby back a little.

This was the first indication to Marq that these were, in fact, the good guys.

The questioning continued as one of the men said to Elliot,

'Ain't Frank Nitty moving into Massachusetts?'

Elliot looked from Marq to Gerald and back,

'That right, boys? You working for Nitty? What are you? Some sort of scouting party?'

Marq began to help Gerald with his arm as he said,

'No, we are simple travellers, my friend has a damaged arm here, we need to get him patched up.'

The gunman watching Gerald said,

'Yeah. What kind of arm is that you've got there, mister?'

Marq answered,

'It is an experimental prosthetic limb. He lost his arm in the Great War. Now it is damaged.'

He moved over to Gerald, and tied the arm as if it were a normal broken arm.

The gunmen looked at Elliot. Before he could respond the '27 Lincoln appeared at the top of the alley.

As it stopped Elliot spoke to the driver,

'You all ok? Did you get anyone?'

'Yeah, I think we winged a couple, but George here stopped one.'

He indicated the man in the passenger seat, who was holding his upper arm, his fingers soaked in blood. He said to Elliot,

'It's ok, boss. Only a flesh wound.'

Marq looked at the man and said,

'Flesh wound or not, it needs seeing to; you could get lead poisoning.'

Elliot looked at Gerald and said,

'Do you need a hospital?'

Gerald looked surprised. He glanced at Marq, who said in reply,

'No, we have our own facilities.'

Elliot wanted to know more,

'Where?'

Marq had to think quickly as he began his reply he didn't know what was going to be said,

'We are working with Doctor Goddard at the University. That is where this arm was developed.'

The two gunmen who were keeping Marq and Gerald covered spoke to each other; one said,

'If these are Frank Nitty's boys, they are wearing funny clothes in Chicago.'

The other replied,

'You're right. Who would send a couple of guys out on a recon dressed to stand out.'

'And unarmed. In this area.'

Elliot said,

'If you two are not connected to the mob, what's your business around here?'

This was even more difficult for Mark to deal with because he had no idea of where they were.

'I am a scientist working out of the University helping this man, and others like him, to lead a normal productive life despite the fact that he has lost a limb.'

Elliot turned back to the driver,

'Take him back to the station and get to doc to look at his arm.' He turned to Gerald again, 'You sure you don't want a lift to get some attention?'

'No, I'm fine; it ain't real.'

Elliot said to the driver,

'Get this car out of here; somebody is going to come for these barrels. When they do, I want to be waiting for them.' He turned to Marq and said, 'Sorry you and your friend here got caught up in this. You were obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

Marq was glad to be away from the area. Gerald now carried his left arm in a white triangular sling. As they walked onto the main street, Marq said,

'Are you OK with that? You can always go back and get it fixed.'

'No, I'll be fine. I like the wounded hero bit you spun them back there; it may be a good cover for us.'

They called a taxi, and asked him to take them to the University.

The taxi screeched to a stop on East 59th Street. Wide white steeps led up to 1362. Marq moved into the interior, he held the wooden door open for the one-armed Gerald.

As they moved around the university building, Marq did not feel out of place with his blue specs. Gerald did not look out of place either, because there were quite a few men carrying obvious damage done in the trenches of France only twelve years earlier

They found Robert Goddard in his laboratory working on a drawing board trying to design a new launch system for his rockets.

Marq didn't need to study the schematics to notice something that needed changing,

'I see you are relying on a long stick to keep the rocket pointing in the right direction.'

'Yes, until we reach flight speed I have no means of directing the rocket.'

'Hmmm; a tricky problem.' Marq pretended to ponder the predicament, 'Maybe if the rockets were bigger a steering mechanism could be inserted in the rocket blast to redirect the thrust in such a way as to keep the whole machine balanced.' He held his hands flat, and moved them like vanes.

Goddard pondered a moment,

'Never work; I have been working on such a system, but the demands are so fine, especially during blast-off,' he held out an upstretched palm, 'it is like balancing a broom on end, and then introducing vast amounts of power to the rear.'

'Yes, I know.' Marq also knew how these difficulties were overcome, 'But with size comes the opportunity to introduce more complex systems. For instance,' he thought of the German V2, which was only some twelve years away from launch, 'if your rocket were about 30 or 40 feet high, with a diameter of over five feet, there would be room inside for gyroscopes to automatically guide vanes in the exhaust.'

Goddard had been thinking along these lines for some time, and now here was someone who not only understood the problems, but had some ideas along the same lines.

He said,

'I have even found a material that would stand the tremendous temperatures; ceramics.'

Mark immediately realised that Goddard was much more advanced than he expected.

'How many are there in your team?' he asked the scientist.

'Oh, It varies.' He pondered, 'I think there are two machinists, and a couple of mechanics. I like to keep the numbers down to avoid attracting too much attention.'

Marq reflected on the image of the Saturn V rockets, and the Space Shuttle. He couldn't help thinking that there was nothing secretive about these projects.

He said,

'But you cannot keep things under wraps for long – a rocket 40 feet high travelling at over 3,000 miles an hour is gonna be noticed!'

Goddard smiled. He shook his head gently as he said,

'If only. The University would never sanction sufficient funds to buy the fuel, let alone the building of such a machine.'

'The papers you have so far published on rocketry have inspired people across the world, even in Russia people have taken up the baton, and are beginning to design rockets. But it is in Germany where there is serious backing for rocket science.' He prepared to take his leave, 'You must have confidence in your work, Doctor. Not only must you have the confidence, but you must show that you have. If people see that you command the respect of a sizable science department it is less easy for them to criticize you.'

'Who are you?' Goddard asked, 'And how do you know all this?'

Marq indicated Gerald as he said,

'We are but mere travellers, speaking of which, we must travel onwards. Goodbye Doctor.'
Chapter 80

Ertgetsog

As soon as Marq and Gerald returned to Martineau, Gerald went off to get his arm fixed.

Marq met up with Ash, Michelle and Sem. Marq tapped a monitor. A large plasma screen on the wall flickered into life. A picture gradually appeared. It showed the scene outside across the sunflower fields. The picture was a live feed, this served two purposes, security; the people inside can see what is happening outside, the screen is so big and bright that it provides natural daylight, and the image gives the impression of looking at the actual scene. To help with this illusion there is a gentle breeze coming from around the frame. The scene is very restful and pretty. Michelle blinked, looked away from the screen, and then back again. By then the picture had completely stabilized. As she moved around the room the picture moved in the same way the real scene would – real 3D.

Sem was leafing through news and history channels. Marq looked over her shoulder,

'I suppose we are interested more in what has happened in the past; did we have the space race?'

She leafed some more, and without looking up said,

'Well – yes, but not the race you are thinking of.' Another swipe across the screen. 'You see, without the vast losses of the Second World War Russia did not develop in the way you knew; Stalin began to have the purges of anyone who threatened him, yes; but here is an interesting development.' She moved to another display, tapped it a couple of times, and then began manipulating the pictures on the screen. 'They don't give too much away, but here and there I can see that something is amiss. So reading between the lines a very indistinct pattern emerges.'

Marq looked from one display to another, then back,

'I don't see what you mean.'

'That is because you are only looking at what you can see; I am concentrating on what is not being said.'

He gave her a quizzical look.

'There is external influence here. It is hidden very well, but I detect some very powerful manipulations here and there. These manipulations are so powerful that they cannot be completely concealed.'

Marq looked at what Sem was looking at on the screen, and thought at first it was Russian, but soon realised that it was not normal Cyrillic script. The more he studied it the more convinced he became that this was completely alien to him,

'What kind of language is that?'

'An obscure version of Russian. All the information in the main sources has been sanitized, these people have been missed, and they tell a very different tale indeed.'

'In what way?'

Sem took a deep breath,

'The most obvious discrepancy is the names of those at the top – organizing the missions.' She moved from one screen to another, then another, 'Here. In Pravda; this chap is named as Boris Pasternack.' another screen, 'Here, I will translate, here his name is given as Stoneman. And here is another direct anomaly; Petr Rossya – in the old news media he is now named as Romanov.'

Marq was visibly stunned by this revelation.

'Don't you see? Stoneman is Rockerfeller, Romanov is Romanov. They are the Illuminati, with a pretty shoddy attempt to hide themselves.'

He poured over the news reports he could read.

Ash entered the room. Michelle ran across to him, they exchanged kisses. Marq briefly looked up from the screens as he said,

'Ash, have you been to Mars?'

'No; I just come from the John.'

'No, no, no! The mission, I mean. Were you on the mission to Mars?'

'Yes, of course I was.'

'Was there a Russian woman on it with you?'

'Not that I recall.'

'Does the name Galina Danilenko mean anything to you?'

Ash thought for a second or two,

'Nope, sorry.'

'Who was on that mission with you?'

'Jake, and there was a British guy; Mark – but I don't think he made it back. There was a Russian guy, he didn't make it either. A Japanese scientist by the name of Hoshi Masuto.'

'No Russian woman?'

'No, sorry.'

Marq looked at Sem,

'I think we have found our missing link – Galina Danilenko.'

Sem thought about this for a moment,

'Do you think something happened to prevent her being on the mission?'

'Certainly looks like it. And that could be what is blocking the way for Jake to be here.'

Ash said,

'So what can we do about it?'

'Not we, I'm afraid.' Marq looked around, 'I think my Gerald is out of commission for a while – so I will take another one with me.'

Sem said,

'What year do we choose?'

Marq looked back to the screens.

'There seems to be a lot of activity here,' he moved pages, 'but I think the trouble started here.' He tapped a screen.

Sem looked at it, and then compared what she had on the alternative pages,

'Who the hell is Muravey Ros? This name comes up in the old region, but not in Pravda.'

Marq said,

'I think we all know who that refers to – Xanthros.'

Sem said,

'And just what is his role in all of this?'

Marq continued looking at screens as he said,

'He seems to be behind the aggression against Japan.'

Gerald enters the room; he looked like a Russian,

'The Transporter is ready, Marq, you'd better get ready.'

Marq held up a hand to signify that he wished to finish this piece of research,

'I'm trying to find out who replaced Stalin after he was overthrown.'

Sem continued on her screens as she said,

'Ertsgertsog is the only name I can find.'

Marq was not surprised,

'It looks like he is calling himself Archduke; strange for a people who savagely overthrew their nobility in 1917.'

Sem asked,

'So when and where do you want to be put?'

Marq let his head rest back, away from the screens,

'Kirov was assassinated in 1934, that was when the Bolsheviks rose and toppled Stalin. Do we have any information on when this Ertsgetsog came along?'

Sem thumbed through pages and screens,

'In the obscure newsfeeds he seems to emerge just after the Japanese invasion through China.'

'What? I haven't come across that '

'No, Pravda suppressed it.'

'How the ...? How can you suppress a bloody invasion?'

'The Russians can.'

Gerald interrupted; he was getting hot in the Russian clothes he was wearing. He took off his fur hat as he said,

'Marq, can we get a move on?'

Marq did not even take time to look at Gerald as he said,

'Gerald 45/H2, time is an illusion; when the Good Lord made time, He made plenty of it.' He turned to Sem, 'And when was this ghost invasion?'

She thumbed some more,

'1942. It looks like the situation was aggravated by military manoeuvres by the Russians in the border area with China. The Japanese say they were asked to bolster up Chinese troops.' She seemed to have no problem with translating the obscure language, 'Some Russians claim that the maps issued to their own troops were inaccurate, leading to insurgence by Russian forces.'

Marq at last looked up from his screens. He said,

'So the time is to be 1942. What about the location?'

Sem said,

'It looks like a straight choice between Moscow and Anastasivia.'

Ash said,

'Anastasivia? Why Anastavia? It's on the other side of the world.'

Marq replied,

'Because that is where Xanthros is operating from, and causing trouble with the Japanese.'

Sem was now catching up with events in the Far East,

'He need not have bothered.'

Everyone looked at her. Marq said,

'Pardon?'

'He need not have bothered. The Japanese have built up a battle fleet, and they take the Kamchatka Peninsula before the Russians can do anything about it.' She read on, 'Their carrier force attacked the Russian fleet before it had chance to sail, but I doubt if they would have been any use against the modern Japanese fleet. At the same time they landed troops on the neck of the peninsula, established a border there, and effectively annexed the Russian experimental stations.'

Marq wanted to know more; he always needed to know more,

'How did the Russians react to this?'

'They were livid.' She continued to leaf through pages of script on two screens. Ash stood back and marvelled at her capacity to take in information so quickly, 'They moved all of their air force to Siberia, got real buddy with the USA, who came at the Japs from the Aleutian Islands.' More flicking between screens, 'The counter attack was masterminded by Ertsgetsog, using the Bolsheviks.'

'I think we should look at this Ertsgetsog.' Said Marq as he looked up from the maps.

'Moscow, 1942 it is then?' Sem asked.

Marq returned to the screens,

'No.' he said trying not to tap the screen, 'There was a meeting here – Beloresk. I think we should emerge here.'

Three people went into the Transporter Room, only Sem came out.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

The lower half of Gerald's face was a mass of beard. The hat hid any shape to his face, and wrap-around sunglasses were needed to protect from the glare of the snow in Moscow. They were looking for

Ertgetsog was in the map room of the Kremlin with military and civilian advisors.

Lev Bukharin stood resplendent in his army issue greatcoat,

'The Bolsheviks are now massing 750 miles from Moscow. They are close to the small town of Beloresk, where there is a small airfield.'

Ertgetsog followed Bukharin's finger on the large map on the table before them, Bukharin continued as he stabbed the area 'This is where Nikolai Oulianov, their leader, wants to meet representatives of the government.'

There was quiet around the room. Only five people were there, Ertgetsog looked at the other four,

'I cannot send anyone to such a meeting without going myself.'

Bukharin said,

'Are you sure it will be safe?'

'It will be.' He turned to directly Bukharin, 'You say the belligerents have not yet reached this area?'

'No, they look on it as neutral territory.'

'Well not for long. We will have a full unit of the Spetsnaz - parachute them in over two nights to secure the area.' He scanned the map before asking Bukharin, 'Do we have any armoured units nearby?'

Bukharin looked closely at the map,

'Here,' the finger stabbed again, 'some 45 kilometres from; Beloresk.'

'Get them moving.' Ertgetsog turned to a slight man in civilian clothes, 'How long do we have?'

The man replied with little certainty,

'Three days, but their terms of meeting are vague to say the least. It's as if they do not know where they will be.'

Bukharin said,

'That is understandable; they are a renegade group so far, and the easiest way to deal with renegades is to take the head off before they get big enough to be able to survive such action. They have to keep moving to avoid an assassination, either from outside or within.'

The airfield at Beloresk was a single strip, badly maintained. There was no way heavy military transports could land there – but the Russian version of an executive airliner would be able to drop in. The Antonov An-2, named Colt, was a single engine biplane – but not the Sopwith Camel kind; the engine was a massive 1,000 horsepower unit – a real workhorse of an aircraft, made to operate from roughly prepared strips of land.

This is where Marq chose to emerge. He learned that this was the place for an important meeting. He and Gerald blended in the best they could, luckily there were quite a few people around, and not everyone knew who the others were. Even different languages and dialects were being spoken. Marq's excellent command of all of them allowed them to get to a good position as the lumbering biplane came into view. The aircraft landed, and of the fourteen people who got out it, would be difficult for any possible assassin to work out which one would be the leader. Marq and Gerald followed the group, along with an unknown number of Russians into a barn of a building. Marq and Gerald moved with the Bolsheviks into the barn, where the established government began to address the crowd.

Bukharin began speaking – this was another tactic to throw off any possible assassin; the leader kept out of the limelight, even Marq and Gerald did not know which one of the Russians was the boss.

'Today we are threatened by the Japanese in the east, and the Germans in the west. We do not need to fight amongst ourselves. The Japanese are poised to take the Kamchatka Peninsula, next they will be after the riches in Siberia.'

At this point Ergsetgog took to the floor,

'You are moving towards Moscow now. Why? There is nothing there worth having. But Siberia – that's different. There are vast supplies of oil and coal – why let the Japanese take it? We are moving our air force and aircraft production facilities to the east in order to protect Siberia – now here is the opportunity for you to help yourselves, and us,

as a unified force to push these Japs out.'

Marq listened carefully to the words. There was something familiar here.

Then Ertgetsog removed his hat, the sunglasses came next – they were placed in the hat.

Marq's mouth dropped open. He nudged Gerald without even knowing it, and then he almost involuntarily said in a conspiratorial whisper,

'Holy Jesus wept!' he pointed to Ertgetsog, 'That's me.'

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 81

Meeting of Illuminati

The Bolsheviks had gathered in a large barn-like structure.

The number of people Ertgetsog and Bukharin brought with them was dwarfed by the number of Bolsheviks.

'I am not asking you to fall in love with people who you have looked upon as an enemy; just join us in fighting the common enemy – the ones who are even now attacking and taking territory from us in the east.'

The reaction to Ertgetsog's proposal met with a disturbing hum from the crowd. The general consensus was not difficult to discern, despite at least six different languages, plus twice as many dialects being used.

The mood was definitely hostile.

One of the team leaders within the crowd called loudly to the groups around him,

'The choice is simple; we can fight amongst ourselves, with dubious gains for whoever emerges as victors, or we can unite against the fanatical yellow dwarfs.' The hub-bub died down to hear the man, who continued, 'In order for us to conquer, we must join our forces together, and defeat this threat from Japan.' He looked directly at Ertgetsog, 'But what's in it for us?'

Before responding, Ertgetsog waited until all the Bolshevik heads had turned towards him. He put on blue spectacles and began to speak,

'This man is right. The yellow threat has already taken most of China, and is now threatening the Kamchatka Peninsula. Next we expect them to turn to Siberia with its vast coal and oil reserves.' He was pleased to notice the quiet respect the Bolshevik hoard was giving him, 'We can continue to fight each other, or we can unite against the common enemy – how do you think we would cope with the Japanese if we were engaged in knocking blood out of each other whist they creep in at our back door?'

He repeated this twice more in different languages for the benefit of people from far flung areas of Russia.

The leader called,

'I repeat my question on behalf of everyone here, WHAT'S IN IT FOR US?'

Ertgetsog looked at the small entourage he had brought with him, and then continued,

'One thing is obvious – we cannot fight this threat to our country – yes, I said OUR country, because it is yours as much as it is mine. Up to now we have been behaving as if it were mine or yours. It is big enough for both of us – and we must not allow the invaders take it from us.' He looked directly at the leader who spoke up, 'You ask what's in it for you? I'll tell you what is in it for you – power sharing. We will reach an agreement that is commensurate with what you put into the coming battle, the size of territory you gain, and the size of population within that area.'

The reply was swift, given the gravity of the situation,

'That is not enough. We also want the freedom to rule the area we take without hindrance from you, or any central government.'

Ertgetsog shook his head in disbelief,

'You mean that you want any territory, including Siberia, which you may hold now?' Ertgetsog was in a corner – he knew he needed these people, but they are asking for three quarters of Russia. That would mean they have won comprehensively. 'Equal share of the running of mother Russia, with control of any territory you take back from the Japanese – that includes any part of Japan.' He looked at the people before him, 'And remember; they have already taken part or most of Kamchatka.' The whole crowd seemed keen to hear more, 'We are already moving most of our air force to fight the Japanese. This force will be in support of you if you chose to fight for your country instead of fighting it.'

This last line caused some disturbance within the crowd.

Mark leaned closer to Gerald and quietly said,

'I think we had better got out of here.'

They moved towards the door.

As they got to the exit three burly Russians moved to bar their way. These were obviously Bolsheviks – the ubiquitous Thompson machine guns and belts of ammunition (despite these Thompsons being drum fed) were the nearest these ruffians came to a uniform. Ruffian number one demanded,

'And just where do you think you are going?'

The dialect was not familiar to Marq and Gerald, but they easily understood what the man said. The Rosetta chip within Gerald's brain worked out how to reply first,

'We have a long way to go, and have to organize a large force.' He used the nearest dialect to what was said; like someone from Liverpool being able to communicate with a person from Birmingham – the languages are virtually the same.

Marq waited for the aggressors to reply. He didn't have long to wait.

'And where is this army?'

Gerald's brain was a lot faster than Marq's – but nowhere near as inventive. Marq slowly said,

'That is for us to know, no-one else.'

The insecurities within the ranks of the Bolsheviks prevented co-ordinated attacks; each group did not trust the next.

Gerald moved forwards,

'So get out of our way, or you will find out ...'

The butt of a gun hit him as he tried to finish his sentence.

Androids to not physically react the way humans do; they do not feel pain, their structure is not skin and bone, but something much stronger. He could have let the blow bounce off, but he has been programmed to react in a similar way a human would.

Marq moved as if to protect the felled man, but in fact he was covering the fact that Gerald was not damaged.

The man nearest to Marq was too close to take a swing, so had to settle for pushing him back. The man was a massive brute – so the shove was a bit more that that – Marq was pushed back into the room, where he was surrounded by more Bolsheviks.

The crowd now surrounded Marq. Gerald was outside of the ring around Marq, He saw what was happening, and tore into the rear of the circle. He was not too gentle; reinforced carbon fibre arms came crashing down on one head after another.

Gerald took hold of two of the men by the scruff of the neck, and then banged their heads together with such force the crowd nearby heard the crack. That only left the chap to his left; this was not even a threat - Gerald simply let go the neck of the guy on the left, and thrust out at him with such force that the man's head almost left his shoulders.  
A man with some authority pushed his way through the crowd. This man was Lomeshov - leader of a group of Bolsheviks nearest to the fight.  
'Stop this at once.' he demanded as he held out his arms to prevent others from joining in, 'What is going on here?'  
The room fell silent.  
People on the far side wondered why the diatribe had stopped at the front, where Ergetsog had been setting out the deal. He now looked towards the rear of the barn.

The crowd was not in any mood to be reckoned with; four men approached Gerald. The first one came at him with the butt of his tommy-gun. Gerald parried this away with ease, and then followed it up with a crushing blow with his right hand. This seemed to incense the rest of the men, three attacked him at once. The closest man was about to bring his weapon up to hit Gerald from below, but at the same time the assailant alongside him drew a knife that looked like a young sword. Instantly Gerald knew this to be a bigger threat, so instead of dealing with the incoming blow, he hit the knifeman squarely in the nose with a straight right hand. Blood spattered on all sides as the proboscis became flattened. The knife fell to the ground as the man's extremities – fingers, toes, seemed to emulate the fate of his nose. The upward thrust of a machine-gun butt then hit Gerald, but his left arm took most of the force of this; and he was able to parry the weapon. His reactions were so fast that he was able to twist his hand round in such a way as to be able to grasp the weapon, and wrest it away from the assailant.

The fourth attacker was not to be put off by all this. Standing a little further back he was in a good position to take a good hard kick at Gerald's genitals. This would normally fell a man. Gerald was not a man. He was also much heavier than a man. The blow landed in what the man expected to be a soft vulnerable area. His foot stopped dead. It was like hitting concrete. The man was by now leaning forwards to give more impetus to the kick. Gerald had the second man's machine-gun in his left hand. This was swung at the head of the kicker.

The rest of the crowd now descended on Gerald.

Meanwhile, Lomeshov reached Marq,

'Where are you going?' he asked.

'This meeting looks like it is over. We have a long way to go ...'

Just then they were interrupted by the knife flying out of Gerald's attacker's hand. Marq caught this by the hilt, and waved it in front of Lomeshov's face. He nodded towards Gerald,

'Me and him have work to do.'

Gerald now pointed the Tommy gun at the approaching crowd, moving it from side to side menacingly.

Bukharin joined Lomeshov as Gerald moved the advancing crowd back with the threat of shooting a Thompson machine gun in close proximities.

This then allowed Marq to see the way out. He flashed the blade at Lomeshov and Bukharin,

'And you two are coming with us.'

Bukharin looked askance at Marq,

'Why are you doing this?'

Lomeshov took his arm, and led him outside as Marq replied, or so he thought,

'To stop this crowd from attacking us.'

The crowd was being kept at bay quite efficiently by Gerald with his machine gun. Some of them were amazed and astounded by the fact that this one single man had just taken out seven armed and dangerous Bolshevik warriors, and did not show any signs of the effort it must have taken.

They were not the only ones who wondered at this.

Once outside the barn doors Marq pointed at the aircraft standing close by,

'Into the aircraft.' He said to Lomeshov and Bukharin.

A member of the aircrew saw Bukharin and the others. Marq and Gerald deliberately looked unthreatening. Upon recognising Bukharin, and one of the others looked familiar, the aircrew opened up the aircraft, allowing the small group into the interior.

As they mounted the steps, Marq looked around at the Bolsheviks as they began to leave the barn to see what was going on. He knew they were safe inside the aircraft as long as they had a couple of leaders from either side.

He turned to Gerald and said,

'How did you do that?'

'What? Do what?'

'Clear away so many simultaneous attacks?'

'My designation is H2/45-C. The C stands for combat. We thought there may be some trouble on this trip, so they sent me instead of the standard model.'

Bukharin also had the same question, but to Marq,

'How did you do that? Was the beard a false one? It must have been.'

He thought Marq was Ertgetsog – in a way he was.

Lomeshov looked out of the window.

'And what are you going to do about that?' he said, pointing towards the crowd.

The Bolsheviks were now moving out of the barn.

Marq tried to answer Bukharin's question,

'What beard?'

But Bukharin answered with a different question,

'And what is the point of bringing us out here away from the main gathering of clans?'

Lomeshov then said,

'I don't know what you two are twittering about, but something is developing out there.'

They all looked out of the windows.

Ertgetsog has made his way through the crowd; he had with him three other people. The first thing Marq notices is that one of these has no beard – it is a woman.

He concentrates on this odd person.

The crowd of Bolsheviks continued to emerge from the barn.

Bukharin looked at the man in the lead, Ertgetsog. His eyes widened; he was sitting with this man, but he was outside too.

Marq looked at the bearded man standing next to Ertgetsog. The countenance on his face changed as he recognised the man,

'Of course - Rockefeller.' He looked at the woman with Ertgetsog, 'Mrs Hapsburg.'

Then he looked at the other man with them, 'Romanov.' He looked back directly at Bukharin and said,

'The only one missing is del Banco, that must be you.'

Bukharin / del Banco narrowed his eyes.

Speaking to himself he said,

'I don't believe this.' He opened the aircraft door, and called across Ertgetsog, 'You had better see this for yourself.'

But the communication was not all in speech, nor was it to only one man – four people immediately began to move towards the aircraft.

... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... ... ...
Chapter 82

The Bolshevik Hoards

The inside of the Antonov was agricultural to say the least; the aircrew kept it swept as best they could, but the back of a 1960's Ford Transit would look more luxurious.

There were no normal airline seats – only wooden benches down the sides. There were also a few packing cases, some of which were held down with crude lashings that were nailed to the wooden floor.

They were hardly the salubrious surroundings for the occupants; given the power they wield.

Four people move towards the grey aircraft. They climbed the steps to be greeted by Bukharin. Marq stood in the doorway that leads to the cockpit; he was therefore silhouetted by the strong light that came from the cockpit.

Ertgetsog asked Bukharin,

'What is going on here?'

'I don't know.' Bukharin looked at Ertgetsog, almost in disbelief. 'But I think you will find it interesting.'

Mrs Hapsburg sat next to Bukharin.

Lomeshov said to Romanov,

'Please, comrade, sit down. I think you will find this to your advantage.'

He sat on a box near a window that offered a view out towards the barn. He could see people pouring out of the building.

Lomeshov cleaned the small window with the heel of his hand.

Most of the people moving about near the aircraft were strangers to him – but if he could have recognised groups he would have seen that the people Ertgetsog brought with him were now at the front of the crowd – directly between the aircraft and the crowd.

The aircraft door opened. Gerald emerged at the top of the steps. With a deft kick he dismissed the steps, which were collected by two of Ertgetsog's people.

'We are going to thrash this thing out – once and for all.' His voice seemed to carry to the rear of the crowd with no problem. The message was repeated twice, 'I know that you all have leaders who you trust, if they can make their way to the front we will rig up a sound system so that you can all hear what is being said, the people at the front will be able to speak to us inside here.'

Repeated again, and then to the leaders, in Russian,

'These negotiations will take place in Russian, do you understand and agree?'

Some of the leaders then realised that the people at the front were now taking more than expected notice of them. All of the people were bristling with armaments; the favoured weapon being the Thompson machine gun, but Marq noticed amongst them some of the new German MP42 – if anything kicked off now there would be a blood-bath – and the only winners would be the Japanese. The people in the aircraft knew this all too well.

Whilst Gerald was dealing with the crowd, inside the aircraft things were happening too.

Lomeshov was seated near the rear of the aircraft. Ergetsog was seated near a window, which he only glanced out of – he was more interested in the man in silhouette at the front of the cabin.

Marq stepped into the main cabin, and closed the door behind him. He looked at Gerald in the doorway talking to the crowd – he knew how long he had.

'You are all probably wondering exactly what is happening here.'

Ertgetsog was stunned at the sound of his own voice coming from this person, who looked very much like himself, but cleanly shaven.

The stranger (Marq) continued,

'There is not much time, so I will be brief. We have travelled here from the future. Our mission is to prevent events that could alter future developments. The main concern at the moment is the invasion by the Japanese. This is the only thing we are interested in dealing with.'

He looked at Gerald, who was just about finished.

'If you look into those three boxes you will find loudspeakers. If you could place these outside, near the crowd. And the box over there contains microphones for use in here.'

They could use Gerald as some kind of loudhailer – but some, if not all, of the people gathered there would think that it was only him speaking, and he was a stranger. If they heard their own leaders speaking they would be more likely to accept what was being said.

Marq began to explain what was happening. Before he got half-way through he detected unrest in the crowd outside. Gerald signalled him to stop. The people in the aircraft moved to the windows to see what was happening outside.

Marq joined Gerald in the aircraft doorway. There seemed to be something happening in the crowd to the right. Then Marq noticed people emerging from the fields further off to the right.

He turned to Gerald,

'What is the meaning of this?'

'Search me, good buddy. But they don't look too friendly.'

Marq stuck his head back into the aircraft,

'Comrade Lomeshov, do you know what is happening here?'

'Da.' He did not look happy, 'I was afraid something like this would happen. They are supposed to be fighting the Japanese.'

'Who the hell are they?' Marq was displaying an unusual amount of emotion.

'They are The Greek's people...' before he could explain himself further Marq interrupted,

'And just who is The Greek?'

Lomeshov shrugged,

'I don't know. All I know is he seems to have a lot of people behind him.'

They looked at the crowd. Fighting was now breaking out as the main constituents seemed to unite against the insurgents.

The people in the aircraft saw this too. Lomeshov wanted to get back out to his comrades. Gerald and Marq were pushed roughly aside as the big Russian barged past them. They too landed on the ground.

Marq said to Gerald as they stood in front of the crowd,

'Let's find out who this Greek is.'

There were now five people in the aircraft – all Illuminati working as Russians in one role or another. Marq turned to look at the doorway of the aircraft; he sees Romanov and del Banco drop down to the ground, quickly followed by Mrs Hapsburg, Rockefeller and Ertgetsog.

They follow Lomeshov into the crowd.

Ertgetsog calls to him,

'Comrade Lomeshov, my people are over there, can we work together to deal with this?'

Gerald called to the crowd,

'The Greek is coming over there.'

Lomeshov met up with his people, Ertgetsog with his. Gerald went with Lomeshov.

Marq was in communications with Gerald through the Hilbert Space.

'We need to outflank them.' He said.

The main part of the crowd moved to attack frontally to meet head-on.

Lomeshov and Ertgetsog moved off in directions opposite to each other. Del Banco was sent off to find a good vantage point to monitor the whole situation.

As predicted the attacking force concentrated their force in the middle to push forwards in the standard Bolshevik way. The main force at least combined their efforts in a way Ertgetsog had originally intended, but they did not know of the plans to encircle the Greek's force; so there was some dissention amongst some of the Bolsheviks, but they were by now more concerned with the main attack.

The two flanking forces moved out of sight of the Greek's force as they described a wide arc around to the sides. Because they had to move further than the central forces the battle had already begun when they arrived. But del Banco did not guide them to the sides of the attacking force – instead he moved them to positions just behind the sides of the battle.

With rifles and machine guns blazing the out-flankers laid into the Greek's forces.

Marq was on the right flank with Mrs Hapsburg. She somehow fitted in as a Russian fighter. Not normally aggressive in nature, she made the change into furs and adopted the personae.

They carefully picked their way through fields with their troops. There were only 34 of them, but with modern machine guns they carved out paths of disruption in the attackers, who by now realised that they were almost surrounded.

Marq fired a burst into a group who were taking shelter in a shallow ditch. He looked around, and saw a lightly armoured halftrack some 400 metres in front of him. This was not expected – and looked important. He approached carefully. With the armament they had they could not harm the vehicle from this range – they had to get closer. There were five of them in this group, dodging from bush to bush, valley to valley. One of their number was a young woman by the name of Sophia, it was common for Russian women to fight alongside the men. Marq led the attack on the half-track. He knew that if they got close enough the heavy .45 slugs fired by the Thompson machine gun would be able to penetrate the thin armour of the vehicle. Marq looked at the machine from cover. They were still too far away to hurt it, so had to remain under cover. He could make out a large machine gun on the top of the vehicle, and one at the rear; more could be poked out from within.

Mrs Hapsburg and Sophia made a dash to get to another piece of cover closer to the vehicle. A shot rang out. The woman fell. Mrs Hapsburg skidded to a halt, and went back to help Sophia, but she was dead.

A man now appeared on top of the vehicle to use the heavy machine gun on top. Marq and the man next to him both saw the threat together; and realising that the element of surprise was now lost, they both opened fire on the man on top simultaneously. He began to swing the gun round to face Marq and his group. The heavy machine gun had an armoured shield in the form of an arrowhead in front of it, but before the man could gain any shelter from it he was caught by a bullet. Another man went for the rear mounted machine gun, but was cut down by fire from others in the group. Marq then took advantage of a weapon peculiar to the Bolsheviks – the Molotov cocktail. He ran across open country before anyone else in the vehicle could bring fire to bear. The half-track had an open rear, so he tossed a bottle of petrol into the forward section of this, knowing that it contained the driver, commander, and any other important people.

A man almost fell out of the passenger seat. As he rose to his feet Marq knew who the man they referred to as The Greek was – Xanthros. Before anyone could do anything Marq heard the distinctive ripping sound of an MP42 from close to his rear. Xanthros fell down, almost cut in two by the rapid fire of the machine gun.

As if related to this action, the sound of battle began to die down. The insurgents now realised that they were completely surrounded, and about to be overwhelmed.

As Marq walked back to the barn he came across a group of people sitting on the grass. There seemed to be quite a number of children of various ages; this was a sort of kindergarten. He hesitated as he passed by a young boy. The lad said to him,

'You can't sit there, my mummy's sitting there – she will be back soon.'

'And what is your mummy's name?'

'Sophia.'

Marq did not know what to say,

'And where is your father?'

The young lad pointed towards the battle,

'I think he's over there.'

'And what is his name?'

'Ivan Danilenko.'

'Right.' Marq looked and sounded like he knew what he was doing, 'And who is his commander? Do you know?'

'Yes, comrade, I think his name is Lomeshov.'

'I know comrade Lomeshov, I shall find him, and get your father back here to you.'

'Thank you, comrade, but mummy will be here soon; I will be all right until then.'

'Right. You just wait here.'

With that Marq continued his way towards the barn.

As he dropped out of sight, he said to Sem over the Hilbert Space System,

'Retourner'
Chapter 83

The Second Battle

As Marq rematerialized at Martineau he felt the strange familiarity laced with change brought about by the fact that he had changed things. Gerald did not return with him, it may cause problems for one person to signal the return without knowing where the other person is. Sem entered the room.

'Hi traveller, how did you get on?'

She had not had time to research anything yet.

'Do the names Sophie and Ivan Danilenko mean anything to you?'

He dropped some of his Russian furs as they moved into the control room. In there he found Michelle, but not Ash. He said to Michelle,

'Hi. Where's Ash.'

The reply shocked him,

'Who's Ash?'

Sem and Marq looked blankly at each other.

Marq realised what could have happened,

'I saw them kill Xanthros. What would that affect?'

Sem began operating a screen.

'There was a space program, but no mission to Mars. Without Xanthros there was no main driving force there.'

Marq asked,

'And what about the names Ivan and Sophie Danilenko?'

She looked askance at him.

He attempted to clarify,

'I met a young boy who had just lost his mother, her name was Sophie Danilenko – could that have been Galina Danilenko's mother or grandmother?'

Sem opened up another screen, and began working it. Eventually she said,

'Sophie was Galina's grandmother. The boy you met was Galina's uncle, but her father had not been born – he won't be now.'

Marq looked at Michelle.

'Sorry about all this – it looks like we are shrinking in numbers, not the desired result.'

Sem said,

'You had better stop this. All the changes you have made have resulted in more problems, not less.'

Marq reflected on this for a while.

'Maybe you are right. Any change we make seems to bring with it its own set of dilemmas; that is probably nature's way of avoiding paradoxes.' He paused to allow his brain to formulate what he was about to say, 'I know that this might sound like flying against what you are saying, but I think we have to go back again.'

Sem said nothing.

'Last time I went back, I employed a circling manoeuvre to outflank the attackers. As a result Xanthros was killed, also Galina's grandmother. This time I will have to avoid these two being killed.'

'But how can you? If you don't use the same tactics again ... Who knows what will happen?'

'When we got behind their lines we came across Xanthros' Command vehicle. It was then that Sophie got hit, soon after, Xanthros bought the farm.' He placed an extended index finger on the table, 'All we have to do is avoid the Command vehicle.'

Sem turned to Michelle, and said with a smile,

'Promise me you will not disappear! It's starting to get pretty lonely here.'

Marq re-entered the transporter room.

His furs wrapped around the seat as he took his position. Sem checked everything was ok, and then left.

This time he found himself transported into the body of his former self, Ertgetsog. Now he was at the time just before the Greek's men attacked. This gave him a good advantage – because he knew what was going to happen.

He called Lomeshov over, but how could he tell Lomeshov that he knew there was going to be an attack?

'I have a nasty feeling about our left flank,' he said, 'There is a group over there looking restless.'

'Yes; they are a small representing group from The Greek, who are taking on the Japanese on Kamchatka. We don't all get on.'

'If anything should happen over there, the best plan of action would be to make two encircling moves – one on either flank of the attackers. Could you take your people to the south, I will take mine to the north.'

The scuffling began. Another force appeared in the distance.

The two forces began their moves. The main body of the Russians mounted a central defence as before. But this time Marq was Ertgetsog; he found that the Russian stayed more or less in the centre of things. He called to Gerald on the Hilbert Space System,

'Take the north section. There is a woman in that section who must be looked after. You will find a half-track – the commander in that is Xanthros. He must be preserved too.'

'Ok, boss. What are you going to do?'

This was not idle curiosity – these two must work as a unit to be most effective.

'I have someone else here to look after.'

With that he began looking for Ivan Danilenko.

The attack came. Gerald moved his section to the north. Lomeshov moved to the south.

Marq / Ertgetsog knew that Ivan would be with the section going north, so he made his way through the crowd in a northerly direction.

They curved round towards the east. They could not see the attackers, but sporadic gunfire told them that the enemy had been met somewhere over there.

Marq began asking for Ivan. Soon someone pointed him out. Marq moved alongside Ivan. He knew that Ivan would survive this battle – but he wanted to make sure.

They were moving in an easterly direction now.

Marq called Sem on the Hilbert SS,

'Sem, is there any way we could communicate with Lomeshov?'

'Not that I know of – I don't have his cell number.'

'Try his landline.' This attempt at humour was unusual out on the Russian Steppes.

'Not picking up.' She jokingly replied.

'Well, we will just have to wing it.'

Over to the south Lomeshov was keeping his group of 43 Bolsheviks from being seen by the insurgents. They too were now travelling eastwards, and about to wheel round to contact the vulnerable left flank.

Their surprise was so complete the enemy did not get chance to fire. Lomeshov called to them when they were only feet away from the position. The insurgents were covered comprehensively, and to even turn a gun in the direction of Lomeshov's men meant they would be cut down by the concentrated machine-gun fire.

This first outpost was shepherded behind Lomeshov. They were disarmed, as they laid their guns down one of them was heard to say,

'We didn't want to fight; we shouldn't fight Russians – we were supposed to be fighting the Japanese. It was the Greek.'

The prisoners were guarded by three of Lomesov's men, the remainder crept forwards. Another group was encountered. There was no sound of firing from the far flank, so Lomeshov presumed that the opposite flank had not yet been penetrated. The amount of armament assembled from captured soldiers was now getting embarrassing. Another two of Lomesov's people were dispatched with the prisoners to join their comrades.

Lomeshov's attack group was now getting well into the insurgents. The next group of enemy were too big, and well positioned to take prisoners. So Lomeshov decided to adopt strong attacking positions in preparation for a concerted attack from both sides at once. They had no idea how far away the opposite side, with Ertgetsog were. The positions adopted by Lometsov's soldiers were almost entrenched – this meant that the opposition forces would not only be taken by surprise, and they would not be in a good position to oppose the attack – Lomeshov's people only had to hold their positions and cover each other with cross-fire.

For what seemed like hours they lay in position, but it was only a few minutes before firing was heard in the distance, this was not in the direction of the main battle, so they knew the other flank was now under attack.

Lomeshov called to his group,

'Open fire!'

It had been arranged beforehand that the attack would be orchestrated into three separate groups. First the left group would open fire for thirty seconds, then the right flank when the enemy moved to take on the left flank. As they responded to the latest attack the centre group would mow down the remainder of the enemy, and then the whole of Lomeshov's force would move forwards. With the captured machine guns most of Lomeshov's force had two guns blazing at the insurgents. This battle did not last long. And then a lone man appeared to Lomeshov's left. Most of the insurgents had laid down their arms to prevent being wiped out – but this one man began moving towards Lomeshov, and then he was joined by another. They both had two Thompson machine guns each levelled at Lomeshov's position. The people being threatened began firing at the men, but to no avail – bullets seemed to bounce off the men.

A burst of .45 slugs from a Thompson at close quarters hit one of the men. His arm became detached, taking with it one of his machine guns. The gun continued firing. The shots went all over, luckily they did not hit anyone. But the man continued. Marq/Ergetsog saw this, and immediately knew what was happening. He called Gerald,

'We have here two early models of Gerald.'

'Where did he get them from?' Came the reply.

'God alone knows, but metallurgy in this time was not up to much, so they must have shortcomings.'

Just then the Gerald began to train his remaining gun towards where the shots had come from. This gave a soldier on his other side a chance to stand up to throw a Molotov cocktail. As he released it, the other Gerald shot him. But that did not prevent the petrol bomb from hitting its target – the head.

At first this seemed to have no effect. He continued walking and firing, but blindly now. Then the burning petrol penetrated the neck, burning through electrical equipment in this vulnerable area, and running down into the torso. There was no explosion, but some unusual flames began spurting from the stricken machine. The soldiers continued firing at it; so much so that the sheer weight of lead made it topple over backwards.

This led the rest of the soldiers to redouble their efforts to get the second figure. Heavy bullets hit the head. The eyes and mouth allowed rounds to penetrate the head, destroying the delicate sensors within. And then the inevitable Molotov hit him in the chest. Without sight he was unable to continue across the uneven ground. So he stopped. What was left of his logic circuits told him that he couldn't hit anything with the guns, so he stopped firing. Weight of lead hitting his front did the rest.

Lomeshov lost fourteen people in this attack. That left him with fifteen, luckily Ivan was not one of the casualties. These survivors were really heavily armed. And the opposition now had a good idea what was happening. But the fifteen kept up such a withering rate of fire that the Greek's people thought there must have been 50 or 60 soldiers in their rear. And they were fellow Russians who had just dealt with a threat even they did not understand – even though it was on their side. They were just about to ask for terms when a half-track emerged from the central area.

The Greek's men knew what this meant – so did Marq. Xanthros was coming to see what had happened to his robots. Xanthros's men were not happy with what they were being asked to do, so they turned on their leader. Now it was up to Marq to save his family member.

Marq/Ergetsog called across to Lomeshov, who was half standing some 30 feet away from him,

'Bring me the Greek.' He shouted.

He was nearly interrupted by an explosion in the rear of the half-track.

As Xanthros stumbled out Lomeshov reached the men closest to the vehicle.

'Don't shoot.'

The fighting had now ceased on both sides, so the men hesitated long enough to prevent Xanthros being shot.

The man known as The Greek was surprised to see Ergetsog, but he didn't know that it was also Marq.

'Just what do you think you are doing here?' Marq/Ergetsog demanded, 'You were supposed to be dealing with the Japanese, our real enemy.'

Then Marq used Hilbert SS, which 1942 Xanthros did not know of,

'You were supposed to quell the Japanese aggression, and bring them back in line with the rest of civilisation. You have already messed up with Atilla. I already have enough trouble holding these people together. You know that there is plenty of work for you to do in Africa, and the Arabs will be gaining strength soon, too. Do you want me to send you there?'

Xanthros was shocked to receive these words with nothing being spoken – but more than that he was being admonished by the Marquis of Libeaux – the head of his family.

But the Marquis was not finished,

'You were killed in the first attack here; I have had to return to correct that. There is work for you to do in the future – do not put yourself in the firing line again. Remember, we must not be noticed; that is our strength. And what do you mean by using robots that could not possibly be developed here? I should have left things as they were – with you dead.'

'I came here to gain more supporters.'

'So did everyone else. We all have a common enemy – and your answer is to attack and cause disruption within. What is this? Divide and conquer? Must I remind you that Africa awaits – that is where your plans are being carried out with disastrous results. I can send you back there if you do not desist with these disruptive measures.'

Gerald came on the line,

'I have Mrs Hapsburg and Sophie here, both safe.'

Marq replied,

'Good, make yourself scarce we are going home.'

Moments later, Gerald signalled that he was clear of other people.

'Retourner.'

They rematerialized at Martineau. Marq was surprised to find himself back in his original clothes.

As they left the Transporter Room, a general hubbub could be heard outside. As they walked into the room adjoining the Transporter Room voices were heard.

Ash said,

'I'm not sure about getting too involved here.'

'Do you have a feeling of deja vue?' Jake Jensen said. He was drinking coffee, and chatting to Ash. It was as if nothing had happened – to them nothing had happened out of the ordinary.

Sem was busy researching history to find out how things had changed. Michelle was alongside her in this quest – but for her it was more to ease her confusion. She had no recollection of things that had not happened, but there were fragments of memories of what she had experienced; the disappearance of Ash, and the others. But these were only dim half recollections.

Galina Danilenko was holding on to Jake's free arm. They looked for all the world like they had never been apart – maybe they hadn't.

Marq couldn't help smiling.

Sem asked him,

'What have you done? No – better not tell me.'

The End

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