I have some wonderful news for you all. Chocolate comes from cocoa, which is a tree. This makes it a plant and therefore chocolate is a salad.
Chapter 55
Farewell Blue Marble
Although she still found it difficult to move her limbs in the depressurised environment, Calla was slowly becoming accustomed to moving about in her bulky suit. Having shut down the main engines, both girls had made their way forward to the nose of the ship and they soon found themselves at the hatch the Orion capsule, that almost became Abigails tomb. Unlike the rest of the MTV, the Orion still had air inside and even though it may not have been breathable, it did keep Abigail from opening it up due the positive pressure it held on the hatch.
"It's the exact opposite of the problem Blue and I had trying to shut the Star runner door" Calla realised.
"But now it's docked again, all I have to do is de-pressurise it and we'll have no trouble" Abigail noted.
"Why bother when you could just build up pressure in here?"
"You'll see" Abigail said with a smile.
While Blues sister worked at the computer terminal, Calla craned her head and looked around the front of the ship. It all seemed quite normal until she noticed something very familiar above her. There was a cupola just like the one on the simulator, back when Blue had first shown it to her. Last time she had only seen a computerised projection through the windows but this time, Calla could experience the real thing. Being careful not to touch any of the controls, she floated up and was greeted by the most wonderful and panoramic view of the Earth, the Moon and stars she had ever seen.
"Wow!"
"Not a bad view at all is it?" Abigail smirked.
"It's amazing" Calla agreed as her heart rate began to quicken.
The wide view of space she now saw was very different to what Calla had seen through the smaller windows and it was beginning to make her feel a little odd.
Having completed her de-pressurisation task, Abigail opened the inner door in front of her, to reveal the Orion hatch Sage had purposely neglected to close before ejecting his crewmates into space. A sickly feeling churned around in Abigail's stomach as she remembered what it was like having to face death for the first time in her short life. She moved slowly into the capsule with Calla a short distance behind.
"I'm not expecting any problems, but hold on to something anyway" Abigail suggested.
Calla was not sure what Abigail meant but she grabbed one of the lower seats and held on tightly. To her surprise, Abigail went all the way to the end of the capsule and started to unlock the hatch.
"WAIT!" Calla cried out "The External Payload Carrier doesn't have hatches on either end."
"I know" Abigail turned and smiled.
As she pulled the hatch open, Calla could see straight through to open space for the first time and it gave her a severe case of agoraphobia. Her breathing shallowed and she started to panic when Abigail floated through the opening and into the EPC. It looked to Calla like her new friend was about to float off into deep space, never to return and she felt like she was being pulled out into the blackness of space with Abigail, even though she was really not moving an inch. As she watched wide eyed, Abigail re-entered the Orion capsule with the remains of what was once an inflatable rubber raft in her hands.
"Are you okay?" she asked when she noticed the look of panic on Calla's face.
"C-close the hatch... please."
"Yeah sure" Abigail nodded as she reached out for the door.
With the risk of falling out into space gone, Calla began to feel a little more relaxed, but she was now painfully aware of the helmet she wore and the great desire she felt to get it off as soon as she could.
"How long before we'll get air in here?" she asked Abigail.
"Breathe deep and I'll get right on it."
The girls moved back into the main body of the ship and to a control panel fifteen meters away from the Orion. Abigail could still hear Calla's shallow breathing and so she talked as she worked to help the girl rescuer relax.
"Unfortunately I don't have the security clearance to override the remote signal from Mars, but I do have clearance for accessing the maintenance instructions and wiring diagrams. In order to regain control of the ships life support, all I have to do is remove the computer's ability to receive external signals."
"How are you going to do that?" Calla asked as her breathing returned to something near normal.
"I need to... ah here it is... to find the connection to the high gain antenna."
Abigail floated over to a nearby panel and undid the fasteners in each corner.
"Now we need cable R-117-AR" she said as she scanned the mess of shielded wires in front of her.
It took a few minutes for Abigail to track down the right one and disconnect it from the main computer but when she had, the system reverted to internal control allowing her to re-seal the ship and begin re-pressurisation. The result was not instantaneous, but Calla found the effects showed as her suit slowly loosened and she could easily bend her arms once again.
"Let me help you with your helmet" Abigail said as she began to unlock the neck ring.
"Thanks" Calla sighed as the helmet was removed.
"Are you feeling a little better?" Abigail asked.
Calla just sighed again and lowered her gaze.
"I'm sorry... I just can't explain..."
"Its okay" Abigail comforted her "You never know how anything is going to affect you until you experience it for the first time. It's one thing to see the panoramic view of space from inside a ship, but when you can see there is nothing to stop you from falling away, it can be pretty frightening."
"It didn't frighten you though" Calla kept her perfect sighing record going strong.
"Yes it did" Abigail admitted "I'd never faced open space before either and I was shaking a little."
"You're just saying that" Calla smiled.
"Even if I was, there are all sorts of thing that freak me out, so don't worry if agoraphobia is your thing."
"What's agoraphobia?" Calla asked.
"A fear of open spaces" Abigail explained.
"But I love being outdoors, climbing mountains, sailing open waters..."
"That's good" Abigail nodded "I guess outer space is just a little too open for you at the moment; perhaps you'll get used to it over time."
"My brother is really going to get a laugh out of this" Calla sighed to the power of four "Your brother probably will too."
"We don't have to tell him" Abigail offered.
"I like the idea of not saying anything but I think we must, or it could cause problems if there was ever another emergency" Calla admitted.
"Fair enough" Abigail nodded; impressed by Calla's attitude "Now let's get back to your ship; I want to punch my dad in the arm."
Just like many other places Professor Adisa had seen on his journey, San Diego looked like it had seen some hard times. After the One and All had pasted by the Solomon Islands, the only other Pacific Islands still intact and inhabited were the larger Hawaiian Islands. Being situated on the eastern side of the Pacific meant San Diego, along with the entire west coast of the Americas, had received far more than their fair share of damage from excessively large waves for many decades, but most of the current damage appeared to be many years old. There was still some debris floating inside the bay, but everything on shore was quite dry. Captain Branson's only comment about what they saw, was that there was simply nobody around to clean up; or that there were probably more pressing survival needs.
The Captain found a reasonably clear place to drop anchor in the northern part of the bay, not far from a large airport that had not seen a wide bodied jet for many decades, and two wooden life boats were lowered into the water soon after. The last time Linton Adisa had stepped foot on American soil (or sand in this case), was the day he had gone onboard the massive tanker now driven onto a beach in West Sumatra.
"For the life of me, I can't work out if it's good to be back or not" Linton said to Henry Deming.
"Good or bad, your feelings don't matter if we can find out some relevant information. Sarah really needs to know what happened fifteen years ago" Henry said "The lives of the people she sends into space may depend on what we find out."
"Hmm... yes" the Professor smiled to himself "I've been so caught up in my own curiosity lately, I'd almost forgotten about how important this journey is to everyone else."
Captain Branson climbed to the top of a nearby breakwater to look around, followed by his acting first officer Jack Sumner and two other crewmen. He signalled for those with him not to talk so he could also listen to their surroundings.
"Seems pretty deserted Captain" Jack commented after half a minute.
"I'd guess we would have about four hours till sunset" Reed noted. "I'd like you to go and have a quick scout around the local area. Take one other member of the crew with you and make sure you arm yourselves. Check in by radio every fifteen minutes and be back well before it gets dark. I'll look for a good shore base around here, but if you find something worth using, call it in and I'll come check it out."
"Aye Skipper" Jack nodded and headed back to the lifeboat for his rifle.
"Excuse me Captain" Professor Adisa called out "do you think we could start unloading the Bull Ant this afternoon? I'd like to start assembling it as soon as we can get it ashore."
"Don't worry Professor; I'm just as eager to finish up here and move on myself, but we have to check the place out first."
"Understood Captain" Linton agreed.
Based on what DeGroot had told Professor Adisa back in Sumatra, it had become clear they would need to travel well inland once they had arrived in the US. But with no room on the One and All for a land vehicle, the Railgun engineers had provided Linton with a viable alternative, just in case no transport was available at their destination. The Bull Ant was a transport system created for moving anything across the surface of an asteroid; an entire habitat or large rocks for processing, the Bull Ant could handle it all. It consisted of four small but heavy tracked units, each one resembling a mini army tank but without the gun turret. They stood just under a meter tall, were two meters long and were connected only by a shielded electric cable on a spring loaded spool with electrical power supplied by photo-voltaic tarpaulins that could be draped over what the units were moving. So all Linton needed to undertake the journey inland was to find something to carry all his supples; an old vehicle, bus, semi trailer or even a tram would do. It just needed to be hoisted onto the four sections of the Bull Ant and they would be on their way. It would be a very slow trip, but they'd get there in the end.
Henry Deming and Professor Adisa wandered over towards the airport in an attempt to occupy Linton's mind for a while, but now he was finally on American soil, he was itching to start the next leg of their journey. Unfortunately there far too much debris left from past tsunami still littering the wide flat expanse of the car park, so after an hour of trying to get through, they gave up and wandered back to the beach. Then in a much welcome turn of good fortune, Jack Sumner's check in call had some good news attached to it.
"We're about two kilometres south east of your current position" he reported "and we've found a solid looking pier near an old fish market. You should have no trouble tying up the ship here."
"Good work Jack" Branson replied "Stay put and I'll send one of the boats ahead to check the route; we won't be far behind."
"Back to the ship?" Linton said excitedly.
"Let's go Professor" Branson chuckled to himself.
In spite of his advanced years, Professor Adisa still acted just like a child on vacation sometimes.
Ursula Linwood felt quite apprehensive as she sat in her family room and waited. A few minutes ago she had received the news of her daughters impending call from orbit and although she was looking forward to hearing from her, the fact Calla had requested to have the call sent to her family's quarters for a private conversation had her worried. Maynard was on his way back from the ship but would not arrive in time for the call, and Emerson's only response to hearing about Calla checking in was to tell his mother to say hi from him.
"Stand by Mrs. Linwood; we're patching you through now" the communications technician reported.
"Thank you" Ursula replied nervously as she continued to wait.
Just as she was beginning to think she and the comms technician held very different definition about the meaning of the word 'now', she finally heard a very familiar voice.
"Mom? This is Calla; can you hear me?"
"Yes I can hear you; what's happening and when are you coming home?"
"Err... well... quite a lot has been happening" Calla evaded the second half of her mother's question "As you know, we've got this great big space ship now so Blue decided after he had brought me back home, he was going to leave and to go to Mars; but it would take months to get him back up here if we returned to Earth."
"Calla... are you trying to tell me..."
"I've decided I'm going to Mars as well."
"LIKE HELL YOU ARE!"
"Oh come on Mom; this is a great opportunity" Calla tried to explain "I get to be the first one from the fleet to travel into deep space; I get to be a trailblazer and show everyone this is not some kind of ridiculous dream."
"You've already done all that; now come home this instant young lady!"
"Sorry Mom... not gonna happen I'm afraid."
"I'm going to find Doctor Spencer and tear her head off" Ursula threatened through gritted teeth.
"Don't you dare Mom, it's not her fault" Calla fumed "She just spent the last fifteen minutes trying to talk me out of going as well."
"Well why didn't you listen to her?" Ursula snapped.
"Listen Mom..." Calla stopped to breath and calm down "we're not going right now; Major Dias is going to wait in orbit for some supplies to be sent up from Earth, as well as the first pods bound for the Asteroid Belt. So you'll have plenty of time to think about all this before we leave orbit."
"And you'll have time to change your mind and come home" Ursula countered.
"Don't hold your breath Mom" Calla huffed.
Some days I am sharp and on the ball; I feel like I can do anything and nothing can stop me. But then there are those other days when I eventually find my lost keys in the refrigerator behind the butter.