“It really pisses me off,” Tom said as he and Sarah unloaded the samples they had gathered from the cave. “I’m on the verge of the greatest breakthrough in the history of science, and I’ve got to stop gathering samples for two weeks, just because the overlords on Earth won’t be able to look over our shoulder.”
“We all knew this would happen before we left Earth,” Mission Commander Bill reminded him over his radio, ignoring Tom’s sarcasm and knowing Sarah wasn’t going to comment. “Now are you going to finish up and get in here? Or just bitch and moan about the inevitable?”
“I can do both at the same time can’t I?”
“Yeah, you’re a multi-tasker when it comes to that.”
Tom would have thought up a witty response but they had already finished unloading his samples into the unpressurized lab and they needed to get into the airlock so they could re-enter the base.
As the airlock door closed, it sealed them and the other four members of the Mars Expedition into the small base for the next two weeks. It had been decided before the mission began that during this period of conjunction, when Earth and Mars would be on opposite sides of the Sun, all of the team members would stay in the base and stop exploring the Martian surface.
Tom had thought it a reasonable precaution when he was back on Earth, but as communications with Earth became more stretched out, going from a 7 minute delay to over 40 minutes he wondered what good the guys back on Earth could be in an emergency as any question his teammates had would take almost an hour and a half to get a response.
Adding to his annoyance of the lock-down rule, his latest ice samples showed traces of free oxygen and advanced hydrocarbons. Not enough to prove life existed in the past, but enough to suggest a good probability. He knew it would only be a matter of time before he found a sample that would hold the first proof of extra-terrestrial life.
As the air pressure increased, he braced himself for the high-pressure jets that would clean the Martian soil off his suit. It was a necessary procedure, as the Martian soil didn’t have the millions of years of exposure to air and water like Earth soil wearing it down and making it smooth. If too much Martian soil got into the base’s atmosphere the particles sharp edges could cause serious lung and other health problems, as well as destroying sensitive equipment.
After a minute of bracing himself, he realized the air jets weren’t coming on.
“Slight problem.” Bill’s voice came over the radio. “The jets are down. You’ll need to use the vacuum.”
“Of course. I can’t have my last expedition end normally.” Tom turned towards the vacuum hose that was there as a back up and saw Sarah already had the hose and was getting ready to clean his suit.
She quickly cleaned all the dust off his suit without a word. They made a great team. A year into the mission, Tom had gotten into the habit of talking constantly which drove his other teammates crazy. Sarah had gone the opposite way and all but stopped talking about anything non-technical. She liked working with Tom as he did enough talking for both of them.
“How’d the expedition go?” Bill asked more to get Tom talking about a positive subject than real curiosity.
One of the reasons Tom felt Bill was a great choice for mission commander was his ability to steer people’s conversations onto positive thoughts making the crew, or at least him, focus on the mission without being heavy-handed.
“Great,” Tom said as he quickly vacuumed off Sarah’s suit. “We drilled down farther and our latest samples had air bubbles and a green tint, I can’t wait to see them under the microscope. These could be the samples I’ve been hoping for. I can’t wait to get out of this suit and into the lab.”
“Good luck.” Bill responded. “By the way, pressure has equalized, so you can take off your suits now.”
Hearing that, Sarah pulled the curtain that gave her a little privacy. She was the only member of the team to use the curtain, after a year together in an incredibly confined space the rest of the team members had come to think of modesty as an impractical luxury.
Tom was the opposite. Before the mission started and the team members were complaining about the stipulations that came with the media sponsorship of the mission, he just commented that if he needed to be naked for the whole world to see so be it. The mission would get the half-billion dollar sponsorship that funded more research so he figured it was well worth it.
He quickly wiggled out of his suit and as he stripped out of his unused specially designed reusable adult diaper, he had to comment. “Well I won’t be missing that for the next two weeks.”
As he was zipping up his jumpsuit, he was surprised by a sound he hadn’t heard since they left Earth. It was a sneeze.
“Are you OK?” he asked Sarah.
“Yup.” Came the reply from behind the curtain.
“Probably a reaction to change in pressure, or the filters missed some dust.” Bill suggested, “I used to have that reaction myself. But just to be safe we will need to keep you sealed in for another 30 minutes to make sure you don’t have anything contagious, sorry.”
“Great, I was hoping to grab a bite to eat before working on my samples, but now I’ll have to skip that.” Tom said.
For the next half hour Tom was fuming, he spent his time pacing the tiny airlock. Bill tried to keep him happy by keeping him informed of how his samples were being prepared for him. It calmed him down a little but not much.
When they were finally released Tom headed straight to the toilet, then over to the windows of the sealed chamber where his latest samples were held.
Before he could get to work, his vision started fading and his knees went weak.