Space Stations

The pilot ignored the close supervision by the captain and concentrated on the delicate final stage of contact with the small moon. He completed the “docking” maneuver with hardly a jolt felt by the four-person crew. After making sure that the ship was really at rest with respect to Phobos, he pushed the button for the anchors, firing two super-sharp harpoons into the crust of the little moon. Once the harpoons penetrated the surface to the predetermined depth, hooks extended from them, securing the anchorage.

“Anchors in place, Colonel Eriksen. We are right next to the Stickney Crater as planned.

All set for extravehicular activities now.” Old habits were hard to break; Boutillier sometimes addressed the ship's captain by the latter's military rank.

“Well done, Jack.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The 'landing' site was near the huge crater, where an earlier flyby mission reported a possible ice deposit. With the chance of taking advantage of the putative ice deposit, two supply ships had been sent to the adjacent area and had been waiting for the arrival of Trailblazer. One robot ship was full of supplies; the other ship contained provisions but had been designed to serve as a habitat.

“Nobu, put on your space suit and follow me outside. We're going to find out if the cargo aboard the supply ships arrived safely. We'll also see if the habitat can really be made habitable, then we'll check up on the rumored ice deposit.”

“I am ready, Captain,” answered Nobuo Okita, ship's nuclear physicist and all-around engineer.

Looking out the neo-glass window from his pilot's seat, Boutillier wondered aloud.

“Why do we call this huge cavity the Stickney Crater? An unusual name, I'd say.”

“It was named after the wife of the discoverer of the Martian moons, Asaph Hall of the U.S. Naval Observatory. His wife's maiden name was Chloe Angeline Stickney.” Okita, who was an astronomy buff, offered the answer, spelling out her first name for the benefit of his audience. “I understand she was a brilliant mathematician and an interesting woman. After her marriage to Hall, she would sometimes sign her letters using her initials, C.A.S.H.”

After his discovery in 1877, Hall named the two moons Phobos and Deimos, Fear and Panic, the two ancient companions of the war god, Mars. The Crater was not discovered for about a century after the discovery of the little moon. It was “imaged” by a flyby probe in the latter part of the twentieth century. Asaph had always publicly acknowledged that he would not have succeeded in the search but for Chloe Angeline's constant encouragement to keep looking. The International Astronomical Union approved naming the Crater Stickney to honor her important contribution.

While donning his space suit, Okita mumbled an aside to his captain. “The Consortium ship Ares was only several days behind us the last time we checked. If they go for a direct landing on Mars, they can reach the planetary surface before us.”

“Yah, don't we all know it! We have no time to waste. Let's get going.”

Presently, Eriksen and Okita stood on the surface of Phobos, where no human beings had walked before. The robot ships that had landed a few months before were visible at a distance of a few hundred meters. The sunlight striking the bottom of the Stickney Crater was reflected by something shiny there, possibly a dark patch of ice.

“When you start walking, slide along the surface. Avoid up and down motions. It might not be easy on this godforsaken surface, but move horizontally as much as possible. If you try jumping over an obstacle, you might end up getting into orbit around this moonlet", cautioned the captain.

“Roger that.” Actually, walking horizontally with a minimum of ups and downs came naturally to Okita. It was one of the first lessons he had to internalize in his judo class.

Many a time at the beginning, failure to do so caused him to be thrown down on his back.

As they made their way toward the two unmanned ships, Eriksen started planting automatically-piercing metallic sticks, about one and a half meters long, into the moon's crust at an interval of several meters. Like the harpoons for anchoring the ship, once the sharp point reached a certain depth, the stick would release an anchorlike hook that would open underground. But he had to be careful when he gave the stick an initial shove downward so as not to propel himself into a trajectory. Okita, following his captain, ran a wire through a loop on each pole. Those who would follow the path to the supply ships in the future could run a hand around the wire and avoid the embarrassment of pushing themselves into a flight path.

An inspection of the inside of the ships showed that the shipments had arrived intact and that the habitat, after minor rearrangements, would provide a living space for several occupants.