Intelligence

On the planet of the robots it was business as usual. The marathon runner, Opportunity, was still at Endurance Crater doing science thirty five years after its ninety day warranty had run out. Curiosity had been given new life by the Ares One crew when, as part of their mission, they replaced its aged Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator with their own from the Mars Decent Vehicle. Now the Mars science Laboratory was doing analysis again, cruising the hills around Gale Crater. The mobile laboratory launched in twenty-twenty named Resolve had driven across the smooth sands of Amazonis Planitia and up the side of Olympus Mons to study the ancient volcano.

A fleet of craft orbited the planet, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, EXOMars, the Deep Space Relay, and several others sent a constant stream of data back to earth.

And at Schiaparelli Crater eight intelligent machines made glass.

(*)

"What's on the trouble tickets today?" Mindy asked as she entered the control room.

"Nothing much," Brendon said. "Rover Four has a sticky wheel so we've sent it and Three to the garage, we'll have Three do the compressed air rinse of Four's inner wheel knuckle like we did with Rover One, and that should get everything back to one-hundred percent."

"K, you're relieved, go get dinner. I'll see you tomorrow," Mindy said and laid her hand on his arm. "Good job, Brendon."

"We've been making glass for two months with only three failed castings," he said proudly. "Less than one percent failure rate is incredible, and we've got almost two full structures in the stacks."

Mindy nodded and looked up at the mission board. The furnaces were half way through a melt, the hopper was at seventy-five percent, rovers Two and Five were on their way back from the quarry, Three and Four were headed to the garage, One was on his way to the quarry, and Rover Six was moving finished blocks to the stacks.

Mindy looked at the stack monitor. Each stack was eight blocks per layer and four blocks high. They had seventeen stacks arrayed in the warehousing area and were closing in on eighteen. If a Martian giant wanted to play Jenga they were all set.

A smaller window on the big board showed the Hermes in the space dock. Its Vasmir one engine was completely refurbished and ready to shove the Hermes through space again. The repairs to the front of the ship had been completed months prior, and the ship was being readied for Ares five departure in just thirteen short months. In that time five more pre-supply missions would be launched for Mars.

The Ares five team consisted of the original Areas four astronauts with one exception. Brian Olberman, the geologist and medical mission specialist, had graciously surrendered his chair to taikonaut Nie Yaping. Brian would be going to Mars as flight physician on the Kore.

Mindy had met Yaping on their trip to China for the test firing of the furnace, and she was pen pals with her in a way. They emailed every week. Yaping was a fan come friend, and she was insatiably curious about everything Mars related. As a physician she asked constantly about Mark's recovery from the rigors of Mars and the space travel between, as an artist she wanted to know everything about the foundry and the glass it made, and as a scientist she wanted to know everything else.

"Flight, this is Satcon," Marie said. "Got weather coming in."

"Let's see it," Mindy said.

The view from the furnace mast cam was replaced by a satellite view of Schiaparelli and its environs. A large dark mass was approaching from the north.

"Speed?" Mindy asked.

"Calculating," David called from atmospherics. "One-hundred-twenty-eight kilometers per hour. Damn."

Mindy looked at him. "Time to the Ares Five site?" she asked.

"One hour, ten minutes," David answered after doing some math for a moment.

Mindy turned and addressed the room. "All right folks, we've done the bad weather drill, this time it's real." She turned to the rover team. "Rover team, finish the maintenance on three and park Three and Four. When"-she paused and looked at the big board_" when Five and Two dump their loads in the hopper park them too. Bring Six back from the stacks and park it. How long till One gets his load?"

Glenn McKitchen, Rover Lead, looked down at his console. "Ten minutes," he answered.

"Can you drive him in a sand storm?" Mindy asked.

"I'll have him back before it hits," Glen said with a proud smirk.

"Okay, you'd better," Mindy said, and they all began the long wait for the storm to set in.

(*)

The sun shone down on Rover One as he dutifully trundled along the road to the quarry. The solar panels on his back couldn't quite keep up with the power loss, but his batteries were charged, and the drain was minimal. The next rotation cycle had him doing material handling while six underwent his weekly maintenance review and then took over loading. The Artificial Intelligence that resided in the programming of the rovers was the pinnacle of the art. They could make all the navigation decisions they needed to based on their incredible camera optics and spatial analysis programs. They had a self-preservation protocol that would override everything but astronaut safety, and they could communicate between themselves and act as a team if needed.

In its rudimentary mind Rover One knew that the others had been sent to the garage for safety due to an incoming storm. That bit of information percolated through the programming and triggered a heightened awareness of danger. As it approached the quarry the main optical head scanned the dune and quickly selected the scoop point. The rover moved forward and took a one third cubic meter bucked load of Martian sand from the dune. The camera head swiveled to face the non-head end of the rover and he stared back down the road to the foundry.

Every five minutes Rover One's navigation camera system looked up and took a picture of the sky. The fifth time it ran the comparison program it came up red. A large opaque cloud was cresting the northern rim of the crater and barreling down on the foundry site.

Internal programs ran and triggered other routines. Decisions were made at the speed of light and the rover doubled its speed.

The foundry, witnessing its servant's actions, called out to the rover and asked for an update. Rover One replied with an estimate that got it back to the foundry with its load, and then to the garage with a few minutes to spare. The foundry turned to its companions in orbit. Messages were sent to the orbiters through the Comm bases asking for the latest images of Schiaparelli Crater. Dozens of pictures were passed to the foundry in moments. The foundry reutilized its glass analysis processor for image analysis and checked the images for the speed of the storm.

The analysis processors reported back that it was seeing the storm accelerate. The foundry was about to pass this to Rover One when a small rock got kicked up by Rover One's front right wheel and it lodged in the running gear of the left middle wheel. Current spiked and automatic circuit breakers kicked in. The center left wheel on Rover One stopped.

And an enormous number of things happened in less than a minute

Rover One did a quick self-test and it jiggled the wheel in an attempt to free the obstructing stone. Having no success Rover One lifted the wheel off the ground and proceeded at half speed. The foundry did more analysis and found that the rover would not make it back to the garage in time, with or without its load.

All around the planet the cyber intelligences conferenced. Mars Global Surveyor proposed and overland route to the foundry that would be three hundred yards shorter. The foundry vetoed that because of unknown sand conditions. The garage volunteered to move toward the rover. The foundry vetoed that because the garage was to slow to make up the time. The garage then volunteered rovers Three and Six as rescue. The foundry accepted this plan.

Throughout the discussion among its companions the Comm bases had been silent. When the foundry made its decision they sprang into action. Triangulating with the foundry on Rover One's signal they were able to pinpoint its location in real time and relay that knowledge to Rovers Three, Six, and to the foundry. Rovers Three and Six exited the garage and made top speed down the quarry road.

(*)

"What the hell just happened?" Mindy nearly yelled.

Glenn McKitchen, at the rove console, looked amazed. "They… Rover One has a wheel obstruction. They made a plan," he said in quiet, stunned voice. "The Foundry, the rovers, MGS, the Comm bases, the whole robot community of Mars just made a plan! I'm calling the AI team, they need to see this."

Mindy stopped him. "First tell me what they're doing," she said.

Glenn looked down at the data dump on his tablet. "There was a problem with Rover One's center left wheel. They had a conversation among themselves, MGS, and… well all of them really, and THEY thought up a plan to get the rover and his load." He shook his head. "Rover Three is in loader config now, and he's heading to Rover One. Rover Six is in material handling, and he's on his way too. They've done it by now, but their plan is to have Rover One dump into Rover Three's bucket, Three drives on to the foundry and delivers the sand. Meanwhile Rover Six grapples with One and pulls him at top speed to the garage."

Glenn smiled broadly. "Our eight prodigy's up there just sensed a danger, analyzed the situation, analyzed resources, and concocted a plan. AI is going to shit kittens."

(*)

A cloud of dust preceded Rover Three as it sped up to Rover One. Three lowered his bucket to the ground and tilted it up to receive One's load. One carefully dumped his load into Three's bucket, and Three sped off to the foundry. As soon as Three was clear of Rover One, Rover Six moved in and grappled rover One's tow hook. Together they made for the garage.

(*)

Mindy watched the mast cam feed from the foundry. Rover Three appeared out of the desert and approached the foundry. In the distance she could see Rover Six and One's dust trail as they neared the garage. Her little minions had done well. Rover Three dumped his load quickly into the hopper and made top speed to the garage.

The front edge of the storm was just beginning to hurl micro particles at the garage when it closed the two remaining doors to Rover One and Rover Six's bays. Everyone was safe. The foundry had full hopper, enough material for two full days of casting at least, and its annealing chamber had only the last round of blocks left in it, so there was plenty of room for product. Mindy nodded to herself. The storm plan was working.

(*)

They were naked and sweating again. The acrobatic nature of the yoga poses they were attempting had increased exponentially. Mark had his feet against the back of her hips and his hands supporting her shoulders as she arched her back and grabbed her heals.

"Ekam," came out slow and meditatively.

"Dve," they whispered.

"Trini," they said almost prayer like. Several moments passed, and then Mark lowered Mindy to the mat.

Without a word Mark got on his knees, arched his back, and grasped his ankles. Mindy placed her hands on his chest and slowly, with great care, did a hand stand on his chest.

"Ekam… Dve… Trini…" She lowered herself to a crouch and then to the ground.

Mindy laid down with her back to the floor, and Mark stood. He faced away from her and she put her feet against his hips. He leaned back and she caught his hands just as his feet left the ground. This time he arched his back as she pushed him up parallel to the floor.

They held the pose in silence until Mindy let him down. She had been in fairly good shape before they had come together, he had been still somewhat weak and atrophied from all the time spent in space, now they both were trim and fit. They were each developing a hint of a six pack, and neither had any spare body fat. They weren't obsessive, just consistent in their exercise routine. Most days they did yoga, and three times a week they ran or swam.

"Ralph's back," Mindy said, levering herself up on her elbows and looking out the floor to ceiling living room windows that faced the canal side of the house.

Mark rolled on his side and looked out at the ten foot alligator basking on the pool deck next to his chaise. "I'll miss him," he said.

"Yeah, me too," Mindy said. "I love this house. It's great for entertaining, love the pool, we get to have a boat if we want, but the HOA sucks, and it's not a child friendly house.

"You still want to go for it?" He said with a smile.

She nodded. "Yes, my intrepid hero, I want to have our child," she smirked. "Or children."

Mark waggled his eyebrows. "Wanna go work on that now?"

Mindy laughed. "Next year, my love," she said and kissed him. "Right now I've got eight up there to think about."

"They kicked ass last night," Mark said with a chuckle.

"They certainly did," Mindy said proudly. "The AI guys were stoked. They had written these kinds of protocols into the system, but they never thought it would result in the kind of collaboration we saw yesterday."

"I'll be folding that into the curriculum," he said. "The Ares Five crew will be working directly with the rovers. They're ready, but I think for everyone else we need to think about how we interact with automated help right from the start of training."

"That's a good thought," Mindy said. "Robot assistants will be crucial to Mars."

"And everywhere else," he said. "In that meeting yesterday we were discussing the next target after Mars. The dark side of Mercury is one, and they are seriously thinking about Europa."

"A sixty mile deep ocean," she said. "It'd be a terrible waste of habitable space. Got to be something alive in there."

"That's why we're going."

"Can't make glass on an ice ball," she said with a smirk.

"Nope, but we can burrow in the ice," he said. "The same nuclear probe tech we used at Ceres to bore in and see if it had a subsurface ocean will let us melt our way through the ice at Europa."

"Rich has an Idea about Ceres," Mindy said.

"Yeah, he told me," Mark said. "He's so smart he's a little scary sometimes."

"If it works…"

"He says the math all checks out."

"So," Mindy said. "We build a giant rocket motor on the surface of Ceres, push it out of its orbit and toward Mars."

"Yeah," Mark said. "And ten years later Mars captures it and they become a binary planet pair."

"It spins up the dynamo inside Mars and it gets its magnetic field back." Mindy said. "Then we bring in the comets and give Mars back its water. Brilliant."

"It's a project for the next century," Mark said. "We've got a lot to do, but once we put that plan in motion humanity will have a whole and complete new world to build on."

"So, they're gonna do it?"

"I think so," Mark said. "They're sending Rich to China to explain it to CSA."

Mindy snickered. "I know."

Mark looked puzzled. "How…"

"Clara is going with him."

"Ah," he said and chuckled. "His trip was supposed to be secret," he said, and smiled slyly. "Well, since you know, here's another one. He's got the ring." Her eyes lit up. "Not a fucking word," he said sternly while waging his finger at her. "Okay?"

"Okay," she said with a hint of defeat.

"Hey," he said and cupped her cheek "Let it be a surprise."

She nodded and smiled. "I will, I'm just really happy for Clara." She wiped a small tear from her eye. "It's been a long time coming."

"After meeting dumb fuck, I get it," he said. "What a turd!"

"She still thanks me for loaning you to her that day."

He smiled. "Another stroke of brilliance on your part," he said. "If the two of you had shown up, he'd have been the bully you said, but as it turned out all I had to do was intimidate the fuck out of him until he surrendered the dog."

Mindy hugged him hard and kissed him. "I love you so much," she said, and then stood and pulled him to his feet. "Let's go practice the baby making routine." She wiped some sweat from his shoulder. "In the shower I think."