One Way To Mars

Chapter 4

In the sickbay, Foreman gavesmall sips of water to Monkley. The GenMop sipped steadily, graduallyrecovering from his ordeal.

'I've found the food and we'vegot plenty. Hungry?'

'Hungry.'

'Me, too. Come on.'

Monkley and Foremen walked handin hand out of the sickbay.

'I gotta hand it to those geeks.They got some things right.'

Taking care of Monkley for thefirst hour had meant little more than a quick whistle-stop tour ofthe base. He'd just finished High School when President WilberforceWilliams had announced that under his administration, the adventurewith space travel was going up a couple of notches. The Senate hadnarrowly agreed and although the budget had been trimmed back, mannedexpeditions to Mars, with a view to establish a base, usinginternational cooperation with any other nation willing to pitch in,got under way. By the time Foreman was in his final year ofveterinarian college and Williams had been voted in for his secondterm, the base was established. That the first manned landing on Marswas timed just prior to the election was merely a coincidence, theWhite House insisted, fooled nobody. Williams still romped home.

Foreman's father had served inthe air force, and his love of all things flying was infectious.Finding himself involved in the GenMop experiment, Foreman was numbertwo in the team coordinating GenMop training for the InternationalSpace Federation. By the time the base was at an almost selfsustaining stage, it had been agreed the next mission to Mars wouldbe the first real introduction of a GenMop to the base. ProfessorAlison Cartwright, Foreman's boss, was close to retirement, and offailing health. Unmarried, Foreman was considered the naturalcandidate for the job of looking after Monkley. They had bonded welland Foreman had trained the animal to an exceptionally high degree ofability. Of all the GenMop's, Monkley seemed the brightest and mostverbally gifted.

Foreman had at first declined theoffer, and it took a visit from his congressman to persuade him hisstate would perhaps not look too kindly on him turning down theopportunity to be their first astronaut. Also, that Sam Goldsack wasa long time friend of his dad's wasn't to be taken lightly.

'Shit, Andy. All ya gotta do isbaby sit a damned monkey. You ain't driving the damned bus, for God'ssake.'

'Monkley isn't a monkey, sir.He's a genetically engineered primate from chimpanzee genes.'

'Son. I don't give a shit if he'sKing Kong's direct descendent. He's going to Mars, and so the hellare you. Get used to it.'

The base, deliberately leftunnamed so as not to cause any nation to be snubbed or affronted, wasone hundred and fifty feet long, one hundred feet wide and fifty feethigh. The structure had been fashioned out of Luxotral, a materialconceived and developed for the base because of its incrediblestrength to weight ratio. Once production was under way, Luxotral wasquickly taken up by industry and because it used a fusion ofrecyclable plastics and common silicon making it relativelyinexpensive, it soon found thousands of uses. Complete houses weremade from it, and because everybody wanted to live in something usedon Mars, a building booming made the entire economy of Earth takeoff. Everyone was making so much money, people forgot to fight eachother. It was a good time to be a human being.

The base sections wereconstructed on Earth's moon and towed to Mars in three hugecontainers in a convoy to supply the project. Whole new industriesblossomed. It took three more years to construct the base, one yearto locate and drill deep enough to find water, which, although tootainted in minerals and far to acidic to drink neat, was at leasttreatable to be usable.

The base was intended to be oneof many more units capable of running semi-automatically, constantlyfiltering and neutralising the water. As much as possible, thescientists mimicked nature and by powering everything by solarenergy, letting carefully selected plants create oxygen and food,paradise was formed. And although there were no shortage ofvolunteers to people the base, it had been decided that GenMops wouldbe created to maintain the bases long term, with a view to graduallyexplore the galaxy with the creatures, minimising human risk.

The debates around that went intothe far reaches of philosophical discussion, split largely into twocamps, one erring on the side of caution, and of the opinion that theGenMops were an acceptable bridge between robots and humans. The morevociferous faction were adamant that humans were adventurouscreatures and taking risk was an essential part of the humancondition. Many a bar-room brawl was started over an innocent, casualcomment regarding the pros and cons of man versus GenMop, usuallyending in a draw where the combatants eventually forgot what the hellthey were fighting about and got on with the serious business ofdrinking.

Space Brass were equally divided,but, in the end, and to some degree influenced in no small part, bythe astronomical sums already spent so far on creating the GenMoPs,“and what the hell would we do with the little buggers if we didn'tsend them off into space?” GenMoPs won the day.

'Oooh!' said Monkley.

'Kinda neat, yeah?'

'Oooh!'

When Monkley was particularlyfascinated by something, “Oooh!” was his usual reaction. Thefantastic diversity of plant life in the base was staggering. Mostlytropical and subtropical plants, chosen for fast growth and theiroxygen creating abilities; many fruit trees filled one complete sideof the base. Foreman counted more than thirty different assortedfruit trees, mostly full of luscious fruit.

'Knock yourself out, pal.'

Monkley, free at last of spacesuit and undergarments, went into chimp overdrive and raced up thenearest tree. A banana tree. Making himself comfortable in the forkof a branch, Monkley helped himself.

'Hey. About one for me?' Monkelythrew a banana skin down at him hitting him in the face. 'Thanks abunch, pal.'

Monkley laughed and whooped.Foreman gathered up a selection of fruit and sat on the bank of thereservoir of continuously circulating water. A man-made waterfall,contrived to look like the real thing, splashed continuously into thelarge deep pool. He knew it had been hotly debated about introducingsome bird and aquatic life, but each answer only threw up a dozenmore questions. Yes, one day, but lets think it through first, okay?Foreman pictured himself by the side of the pool, pole and line inhand, catching his dinner. Not on this trip.

Separate from the main pool, wasa much smaller pool. It too had a small waterfall. Completelysurrounded by lush ferns and bushes, it was a perfect hideaway soakpool. 'Oh, yeah!'

Stripping off his one pieceundergarment, he tested the water with his big toe. Perfect. Hejumped in, letting the purified water cover him. Coming up for air,he lay on his back and floated.

'I really should phone home,' hetold himself. 'Hey. Monkley. Get your stinky ass down here. You needa bath, too.' As he expected, it went suddenly quiet. 'Monkley.Unless you want to spend the night in the airlock, you get down herethis minute.' A banana hitting him on his head was Monkley'sresponse. 'You got five seconds to get down here, or I mean it.Airlock.'

There was a rustling of theundergrowth and a serious faced Monkley poked his head out.

'It's nice. Come on. It'll do yougood.'

'Water.'

'Yeah. Bathwater. Look. Bethankful I'm too tired to go find soap. In. Now.'

Monkley shuffled to the edge ofthe pool. Foreman reached out for his hand, but Monkley had otherideas, scooping up water and splashing him in the face. Howling withlaughter, he jumped up and down, doing a back-flip for good measure.

'Okay, pal. Come on.'

Monkley eased himself into thepool, draping one wet hairy arm around Foreman.

'See? Nice.'

'Nice.'

They lay together in the peacefuloasis, thankful to be alive.

'I never did say thanks, Monkely.You saved my hide out there. Thanks pal.'

'Happy now.'

'You and me both, pal. Look. It'sbeen one hell of a day. Time for bed. I gotta try and call home, socome on, let's get you dried off.'

Hand in hand they went to thequarters at one end of the base. There were six compact single bedunits, a bathroom, a kitchen, small communal sitting area, and thecommunications room. Foreman found a couple of towels and handedMonkley one.

'Do you want your own room?'

'Out,' said Monkley, pointing atthe tiny jungle.

'Yeah. Why the hell not? Go forit, pal.'

Foreman watched his hairy friendrun out into the trees. He knew there was nothing dangerous outthere, apart from possible indigestion from over eating. Finding aclean singlet and briefs, he dressed and went into the radio room.With only the basic understanding of how it worked, he flickedswitches and twiddled knobs. Things lit up and strange whistlingnoises screeched out of the speakers.

'Hi. Hello? Hello? Anybody home?'Nothing. 'Hi. This is Andrew Foreman. If you can hear this, I have totell you we had something of an incident. The ships gone and all butme and Monkley are...dead. Shit. Okay. I know it could take a fewminutes to answer, so I'll just keep talking. No. I need to rest.I'll try again in the morning. Over.'

Leaving the radio on, he shuffledoff to find the nearest bed.