Montreaux’s imagination took him through his quarters’ small window and he sailed out into space. He felt himself rotating slowly in the vacuum, before coming to rest in a reclined position, his eyes wide open.
Before him lay the Clarke.
Chapter 13
The Clarke slid through space effortlessly and silently at just over eight kilometres per second. The bright blue beam of charged ions escaping the spaceship’s exhaust, powered by a nuclear particle accelerator, made it the fastest manned craft ever built. Despite this, the gradual acceleration over eight weeks made the sensation of incredible speed practically imperceptible to its crew, who continued to float inside.
The ion drive and particle accelerator were housed within a large grey oblong structure to the rear of the Clarke, narrowing at the end to a slit through which the ions were forced. The structure was connected by a one hundred feet section of titanium scaffold to the main living quarters. Running the entire length of the scaffold, through its centre, was a series of thin metallic tubes containing xenon gas, the fuel for their entire journey. On their arrival in Mars orbit, the spent canisters would be jettisoned carefully in space, away from the planet, to save on mass for the return journey; mass still had the same effect on objects as it did on Earth, even in the weightlessness of space.
Closest to the ion drive was a group of four cylindrical pods bunched together in a circle, each one fifteen feet high and ten feet in diameter. There was one pod for each crew member, containing a bunk, computer, cupboard and drawers for personal items, and a small desk and chair with strap to retain its occupant. The remaining space was used for storage; enough food for one person for eight months.
These personal quarters all led to a single cylindrical pod, ten feet high and twenty feet in diameter. Known to the crew as the ‘Hygiene Bay’, it housed the toilet and cleaning facilities. From the inside, it was a long way from a normal domestic bathroom; the walls and floors were made of thin stainless steel plates and fibreglass moulds. Any water used whilst cleaning would go through a purification process and return to the water canisters housed around the outside of the pod. Similarly, all bodily fluids were also recycled and returned to their reserve supply.
From the Hygiene Bay a small opening led to the southern pole of the Lounge.
The Lounge was designed to be a multi-purpose living area in which the crew would spend most of their time. Recessed cupboards opened out to reveal exercise mats and treadmills, and along one wall a complex scientific laboratory could be assembled. The Lounge’s sheer scale allowed it to perform several functions at once, meaning that the crew of four could all use the space at the same time while not being restricted to the same activities. The flexibility had been deemed indispensable by the mission psychologists, who had also made efforts not to separate the crew. For this reason, aside from emergency airlocks between each pod, there were no closable doors throughout the ship.
Attached to the northern pole of the Lounge was the ten-foot long Command Module, containing four bucket seats in which the crew would be strapped during any navigation or propulsion changes. Surrounding the seats, an array of computer screens and old-fashioned flick switches covered every possible surface. Several portable fire-extinguishers were fastened to the walls.
Whereas the other modules, with the exception of the Hygiene Bay, were designed to be welcoming and friendly, using pastel colours and soft lighting, the Command Module was exactly the opposite; from its grey rivet-covered walls to the un-enticing control panels, entering the pod felt like getting into a World War II submarine. It was designed for functionality only, and doubled as the Clarke’s optimistic emergency escape pod. Optimistic because everyone knew that save for incredible good fortune, to enter the Command Module and leave the Clarke mid-mission was a one way ticket, as if they did so at any appreciable distance from Earth, it simply couldn’t sustain life for long enough to allow a rescue party to reach it.
A single, closed hatch left the Command Module.
The final element of the Clarke interplanetary spaceship had been the subject of years of debate and research between the participating nations: the Mars Lander Pod. The MLP would be the first manned landing craft ever to touchdown on another planet. Larger objects had been placed on the surface of the Moon, but its lack of any substantially abrasive atmosphere naturally meant that aerodynamics did not need to be factored in; any sufficiently powered and controlled town house could be placed on the surface of the Moon with relative ease. Only the relatively small return modules needed to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
The MLP had eventually been developed as a compromise between volume, mass and form. At thirty feet in diameter and ten feet tall, shaped like two shallow soup bowls, one upside down on top of the other, it bore more than a passing resemblance to a nineteen-fifties flying saucer. Despite this, its method of entry into the Martian skies would be very conventional, sliding in like a Frisbee at such an angle as to ensure friction did not destroy it, but not so shallow as to cause it to bounce off the atmosphere and back into space.
Montreaux opened his eyes. His personal music player had stopped shuffling through his favourites list, and the ship’s lighting had auto-dimmed, which told him it was Nightmode. Glancing at his watch, he noted with interest that he had been sleeping for nearly four hours. Lifting the headphones from his ears, he listened intently for voices.
Silence, save for the gentle hum of the Clarke’s air circulation system.
Although the ship was in Nightmode, thin strips of light ran along the edges of his door, and along all of the passageways outside it, throwing an eerie blue glow across his room. Looking round in the dim light, he unclipped himself and moved carefully through the door and into the Hygiene Bay.
The sound coming from Captain Marchenko’s quarters was proof that it was possible to snore in zero gravity, and Montreaux smiled as he headed for the Lounge.
He reached for a small sliding switch on the inside of the connecting tunnel and the lights inside the Lounge turned on, faintly at first, then more brightly, until it was bathed in a soft, day-like warmth that reminded him of a summer afternoon in California. Were it not for the fact that he was now floating three feet above the sofa, he could almost imagine he was there, on the porch of the beach house, the sun touching his face gently.
“Couldn’t sleep, Sir?”
Due to the lack of gravity he didn’t so much jump as contract in surprise. He also couldn’t stop a small gasp of shock from leaving his mouth.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Su Ning apologised.
He looked up and saw her, lying flat on the ceiling, on her stomach, looking out of one of the Lounge’s four windows. Her body and legs, held against the curved hull of the Clarke, made it look like an impossibly uncomfortable position.
“That’s OK, Lieutenant. No, I had no problem sleeping, If anything I overslept! I’m just doing my rounds to make sure things are ticking along nicely, albeit a little later than usual. You?”
She continued to look into space. “I come up here every night, for an hour or two; when the ship goes into Nightmode, there is no reflection in the Plexiglas, and I can see all of the stars.” Her voice drifted off, almost to a whisper.
“I had no idea you did this.”
Su Ning arched her head up to look down at him. “You may be the Captain, Sir, but with respect you don’t know everything.”