It's a peaceful Sunday morning here in Adelaide; the temperature has dropped to something more liveable after the week's heatwave and the housework is almost done (meaning a day of writing and gaming). But wait... what is that loud exhaust note in the distance?
Oh yeah, I forgot; today is race 2 of the Supercar Series. 250 kilometres of racing around the parklands to go and then it will be a quiet Sunday once more.
27 Setting Out Too (the sequel)
Sid and Amos grinned proudly as Maynard inspected the slight modification the two engineers had made to the Star Runner.
"I thought you were only going to repair the forestay" Maynard said in awe.
"It's just not in our nature to ignore worn and broken parts without doing our best to fix them" Amos smiled.
"But there was nothing broken" the small ship's captain protested.
"What about the keel?" Sid pointed out.
"I liked having it stuck half down."
"But you couldn't..." Sid began but was cut off.
"And what is this?" Maynard asked about the grey cylinder with the digital readout and keypad attached to the tiller.
"Just a bit of old tech" Amos informed Maynard "You can input your heading and the auto steer will keep you on track."
"The new forestay doesn't look right either; it's too fine and it should be stainless steel."
"Yeah sorry but we didn't have any stainless steel wire cable, so we used a titanium sleeved cable with a carbon fibre core" Sid hoped it would be acceptable.
"I doubt it will hold" Maynard sneered "What's it rated too?"
"Three point seven five metric tonnes" Amos stated.
"Three point se..?" Maynard gasped "I guess it will suffice. Any chance you could re-do the entire rigging with that stuff?"
"Luis would be overjoyed to be able to speak with his son but unfortunately, he is not here at this time. Perhaps he could send a message for us to pass on when Luis returns. What is the boy's name?"
"You didn't use my name; why not?" Blue asked as he read the response from Mars Base.
"Blue is just what we call you" Professor Adisa explained "Your name is given to you by your parents."
"And you never thought to tell me this?"
"By the time you were learning to speak, we'd gotten so used to calling you Blue and we really didn't know if we'd ever find out your real name, so we never..." Linton decided to stop prattling and just say what needed to be said "Sorry Blue; we really made a mess of things."
"As the years went by, everything just settled down into a rut of maintain the railgun, build things and send them off to Mars" Sarah Spencer noted "Lather, rinse, repeat."
"Huh?" Calla spoke up upon hearing the strange comment.
"It's the instructions on the back of the shampoo bottle and it pretty much sums up what life was like down here" Sarah explained.
"And what is shampoo?" the young girl asked.
"A viscous liquid soap for the hair" Linton said as he wondered how many other old items he took for granted, would be unknown to the people of contemporary Earth.
"It's not made of..." Calla grimaced.
"No; definitely not" Sarah grinned.
"So what reply did you send back to this Olive Roux person?" Blue tried to get back on topic.
"I told her I would talk to you and send something later. She wished us luck and asked me to send her updates of our progress."
"It sounds to me like you may have been just a little paranoid" Maynard offered.
"Perhaps, but it will be interesting to see what happens when I tell Olive we have the means to send more evacuated people to Mars" Linton pondered "Will the idea be accepted?"
"Can she stop you?" Maynard asked.
"Olive could refuse to sent the MTV and pick up anyone we send; we may have to build an interplanetary ship of our own and that would take years" Linton sighed "I just hope we can talk her into accepting more people with the promise of us sending more supplies and equipment with them."
"It all comes back to the ship" Sarah reminded everyone "The more I think about it, the more I believe we were locked in here ahead of schedule so we wouldn't get our hands on it."
"I don't want to agree with you, but..." Linton nodded.
The next twenty four hours brought more changes to the railgun complex. Two larger trucks and some more earthmoving equipment were returned to active service and although work progressed at the ship, very little could be unloaded until the road from the ramp to the beach had been improved. With more machinery available, more residence of the complex could get to work on the road, but Professor Adisa had another task for himself and Henry Deming. Calla was not going to like it so Linton let Maynard break the bad news.
"I hope you two don't mind, but I need you to stay here when I head down to Padang" Maynard informed his children.
"You're taking that Professor guy with you I assume?" Emerson asked.
"Yes and a guy named Henry too."
"I can understand you wanting to leave giraffe boy behind" Calla pointed to her brother "but I won't take up much room and besides, I don't want to stay here with that kid; he's a bit of a know-it-all talking about science and stuff all the time."
"We'll only be gone a few days Calla and it's a big complex so just hang around with Ms. Spencer and I'll be back before you know it."
Not far away, Professor Adisa had a similar conversation with Blue.
"Can't you take her with you, she's such a pain and won't listen" Blue did some protesting of his own.
"Mr Linwood says his boat is much easier to handle if it isn't overloaded and I want to take Henry with me. There may still be some people living in or around Padang so having someone who can speak Bahasa Indonesian would be very helpful."
"I'll go with you as well then" Blue decided.
"Just find somewhere out of the way where Miss Linwood can't find you and I'll see you in a few days" Linton smiled as he tussled the boy's hair.
"Stick with me and the guys and we'll keep you so busy; the time will fly by" Willow offered.
But it wasn't just the presence of Calla worrying Blue, and he wasn't the only one with concerns; Doctor Quill Vieira had also tried to talk the professor out of taking this short but potentially risky journey. Linton Adisa was in very good health for a man his age, but he had not attempted anything so strenuous since being sealed inside the railgun complex fifteen years ago and everyone was worried about him over taxing himself.
Not only were Emerson and Calla sorry to see their father depart, but they were also disappointed not to have the chance to try out the Star Runners new modifications. After waving goodbye with everyone else, Calla climbed up to the deck of the ship and hurried down to the stern. From there she had a marvellous view of the ocean and the shrinking sails of the Star Runner as it sailed slowly away to the southeast. Her walk back to the bow and climb down to the dock was much more sedate and as she made her way back onto the beach, Blue could not help but feel sorry for the dejected young girl.
The rails of the overhead crane had been extended forward so Sid and Blue could now begin unloading more ramp sections and ready them for placement on the sand, but Blues attention was caught by a depressed Calla, shuffling her way up the beach.
"Maybe you could take Calla's mind off her father leaving by showing her what we gave you for your tenth birthday" Sid suggested when he noticed Blues concern.
"Do you think she'd be interested? But I can't; I promised to help you Jeana and Amos with the beach ramps" Blue realised.
"I think showing Calla and Emerson what they are in for is much more important and I believe Professor Adisa would agree with me."
"Okay Sid; I'll see if she's interested" Blue nodded.
He trotted off down the main ramp and soon caught up with the young girl trudging up the sand.
"Hey Calla, if you and your brother aren't busy, there's something I'd like to show you both."
"Busy; what earth shattering plans do you think we might have?" Calla snorted.
"Nothing really but I thought I should ask rather than just order you about."
Once again Calla realised she had over reacted and once again she was annoyed at Blues calm reply.
"So what is it then?" she asked.
"It would be better if I showed you" Blue smiled broadly.
"Okay then" she sighed "Let's go and find Emerson."
Soon after they had retrieved Calla's brother from his tent, they caught a lift back to the complex on one of the trucks. The young girl was a little sullen but soon after they arrived back, things began to happen to brighten the young girl's mood, even if only for a short time. Calla had spent some time inside the complex but Emerson, not so much. His first trip inside had consisted of down the ramp, follow everyone to the communications room, wait for a short time and then go back to the beach (with a little side trip to a kitchen for a snack). This time it was different though because it is difficult to get an idea of scale when you are driving down tunnels in an electric cart, but when you have been doing so for almost half an hour, perspective (in the feathered form of the Barn Owl of Slow Realisation) jumps out and slaps you in the face.
Calla huffed in a sign of her disapproval as Emerson declared once again how impressed he was at the size and complexity of the underground base. Unlike his sister, the seventeen year old could not stop craning his neck in an attempt to see through every crack in every door and follow it up by asking any and every question.
"How do you power this place? How did you get the sunlight down here? Can I drive the cart? How do you survive if there's a Tsunami? What's with all the chickens? How many cats are there down here? Where does the fresh air come from? Why are you still excavating more tunnels? Do you go swimming in the water tanks? What's an S.R.B? What time is dinner? Could you survive a direct hit from a meteorite? Are there any cute girls down here? How do you do a launch without a rocket? What does this button do? Woops... sorry."
"And I thought Blue was annoying" Calla mumbled to herself.
"What are we going to see now?" Emerson asked excitedly.
"One of my favourite places in the entire complex; I hope you like it."
Pulling the electric cart into another parking space outside another door, Blue led the Linwoods into yet another massive room that contained a machine like nothing Calla had ever seen before. Near the centre of the room was a giant egg. To be more accurate it was little bit like an egg, a little bit like a spider, but mostly like a white blob with stubby winglets seven metres off the ground. It did stand on eight legs but to be precise, it was no spider. The legs were all at strange angles of around thirty two degrees (give or take) in four V patterns making the strange thing look like it was drunk. Each leg was solidly anchored to the white blobbish machine at the top and the concrete floor at the bottom. Calla and Emerson stared at it in wonder as Blue turned on four large red power switches on a panel a few metres right of the door. A loud, yet slightly muffled humming started up in the next room.
"WHOA!" Emerson and Calla gasped as the machine suddenly jumped up another three metres; it almost seemed to be alive and trying to break free of its bonds.
After Blue had finished tapping out a few commands on the panels keyboard (how quaint), the aerospider slowly moved back until the door in its rear section was about two metres from an elevated walk way that encircled the room ten metres above the floor. The door turned out to be hinged at the bottom and it formed a ramp from the walkway to the machine when it was lowered.
"Okay then, let's go" Blue smiled as he jogged over to the steps that led up to the walkway.
"Go where?" Calla asked; she was beginning to suspect Blue was taking them into some strange walking vehicle and she found it more than a little disturbing.
"Not far" Blue replied "Just on a little capture mission in Low Earth Orbit."
What a week in space with two new Moon Missions announced; and here is me, living in one of the last countries on Earth not to have a space agency (sigh).
Hi to all you cat lovers out there and thanks for reading.