Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1)
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Authors: Gregory Gates
MARGARITIFER
BASIN
Volume I of the
Margaritifer Trilogy
by
Gregory F. Gates
MARGARITIFER BASIN
Copyright © 2015 by
Gregory F. Gates
1
st
Edition.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts
thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. The scanning,
uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other
means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law.
Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted
materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Printed in the United
States of America.
ISBN:
978-0-9908543-9-5
To my beloved wife, Mary, who put up with me for six years
while writing this volume.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mary G., Steve, Mary P., Noelle and
Denise for all their insights and patience.
All the guys at W&E for your
perseverance, encouragement, and suggestions.
David Woods for his editing, along
with Eric Jones and all the other contributors to the Apollo Flight and Lunar
Surface Journals.
Dr. Timothy Frantz, M.D. for his
exceptional publishing assistance.
NASA for its unswerving commitment to continue to
make available to the public the historical records contained within the Apollo
Flight and Lunar Surface Journals.
Cover photo courtesy of
NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Mars maps courtesy of U.S.
Department of Interior/USGS Astrogeology Science Center.
THEMIS night infrared image
courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gregory Gates is a graduate of California State University,
Dominguez Hills, holding a degree in music, and of the Naval Postgraduate
School, Monterey, California, with a master’s degree in National Security
Affairs, Middle East Politico-Military Analysis. He is a former United States
Naval Officer and a Vietnam veteran. Mr. Gates is retired and resides in
northern California with his wife and two dogs.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Jeffrey Grey, a schoolteacher and
Gulf War bomb disposal veteran, wants to do something memorable with his
astronomical lottery winnings. It’s appropriate then that he chooses a flight
to Mars. But Jeff is astute enough to know that a few hundred million dollars
isn’t going to buy a ticket. But it might just provide the lubricant to get
private industry moving in the right direction.
In Greg Gates’ enjoyable,
well-researched and highly believable novel,
Margaritifer Basin
, Jeff
moves quickly to gather a crack team around him who will make the impossible
happen - colonize Mars. In Gates’ present future, NASA is left behind, plodding
to help where it can as Jeff gathers the components - all available now or in
the near future - to take a memorable journey away from the cradle of Earth and
onto the Red planet. But there’s a secret that he is keeping from the
government and the media; and he won’t reveal it until he gets there.
Gates has created a story that
doesn’t indulge in sci-fi fantasy. Rather, it’s a piece of memorable and
enthralling ‘tech-fic’ with a human heart that careers along on an adventure
that was unthinkable only a decade ago. Yet it is possible, and Jeff and his
crew will show us how.
David Woods, author
How Apollo Flew to the Moon
Margaritifer Basin
Wednesday, March 27,
1991
The Kuwait Oil Fields
Jeff came to and, as he lay in the
sand collecting his thoughts, concluded he was alive. That was the good news.
But opening his eyes to find nothing but utter blackness was not encouraging.
Crap, this can’t be good. He gingerly wiggled his fingers and toes. They worked
and, so far as he could tell, were all present and accounted for. He started to
rise but the searing pain in his back prompted him to reconsider.
The last thing he remembered was
seeing the wire running to the corrugated sheet metal that Gar was pulling off
the wellhead. “STOP!” he’d yelled, but too late. A bright flash, concussion
like he’d been hit by a runaway train; and here he was.
“Gar? You alive?” he called out,
but got no response.
Jeff gingerly rolled on his side
and, much to his relief, noticed a light in the distance. He squinted, trying
to get his eyes to focus. Flames. A burning wellhead. He pushed up on an elbow
and looked around. There were other fires here and there, and it was night. He
looked at his watch, just past nine; he’d been unconscious for almost five
hours.
Smoke from hundreds of fires
surrounding them in the Kuwait desert made for a night blacker than the oil
they burned. Jeff began inching around, trying to locate Petty Officer Garland
“Gar” Stewart. Groping around in the sand he finally came upon a boot, and
sincerely hoped that young Garland was still somehow attached to it.
Jeff wiggled the boot. “Gar, if
you’re not dead, say something.” Gar didn’t say anything, but he did moan.
“Alright boy, that’s better than nothing.” Jeff slowly inched his way up Gar’s
body, checking for damage. It didn’t take him long to find it. Both of Gar’s legs
were broken just below the knee with compound fractures. “Ugh.”
Gar twitched at Jeff’s poking and
prodding. “What?”
“Hey, you’re alive.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Oh jeez, LT! I’m hurtin’ bad.”
“I’m not surprised. Your legs are
broke.”
“Ah, fuck.”
“Eh, shut up you whiner, it could
be worse.”
Gar moaned in pain. “What the fuck
happened?”
“Trap, I’d say. Pretty good one, we
should have seen it. Thank God the rest of that H.E. didn’t go off and blow the
well head, or we’d be crispy critters about now.”
“You okay, sir?”
“Better ‘en you.”
“So, what now?”
“Well, you’re also bleeding some
and we’ve got no gear, that ain’t good. We need to get you back to that aid
station.”
“Won’t they come looking for us?”
“Yeah, but probably not till after
dawn, and you may not be with us that long. We gotta go now.”
Gar coughed. “Oh crap that hurts.”
“That’s a good sign.”
“Well, sir, you can have it if you
want it.”
Jeff laughed. “Nah, you just hang
on. Alright, let me see if I can stand up here.” He slowly got to his feet. The
pain in his back – probably from sheet metal shrapnel – was agonizing, but not
debilitating. He exhaled audibly. “Okay, that hurts.” Jeff looked around in the
dark. “Hey, Gar? I don’t suppose you know which way the road is?”
Gar pointed. “Uh, that way… I
think. Sir, you do know there’s 200 meters of landmines between us and it.”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks for the
reminder.” Jeff kneeled down beside Gar. “Alright bubba, you’re gonna have to
help, and it’s gonna hurt, a lot. I’m gonna pick you up over my shoulders and
haul your butt outa here. But you’re gonna have to help with some balance.”
“LT, you gonna walk through that
minefield at night with no light and haulin’ me?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Sir, you’re gonna kill us both.”
“That is possible. Now shut up and
climb aboard.”
Jeff managed to hoist Gar over his
shoulders in a fireman’s carry, struggle to his feet and slowly began plodding
toward the road, he hoped. “Jesus lard-ass, how’d you ever get in EOD?”
Gar groaned in pain. “Somebody thought I was too
big to blow up, sir.”
“Well, they were half right.”
Jeff struggled along, one foot in
front of the other for some 200 meters until suddenly his left ankle buckled
and he fell to his knees.
Gar gave a brief yell of pain.
“Sorry sir, that hurt.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Jeff sat
there on his knees for a minute, trying to catch his breath. As he was about to
put his hand down to help force himself back up he stopped, feeling something
against his knee. He gently pushed his fingers into the sand. “Oh shit.”
“What is it?”
“Hang on…” Jeff felt around the
object. “Cylindrical… oh crap. Ribs, about a foot in diameter. Russian TM-46
anti-tank, I’d guess. Motherfucker. Alright, Gar, I’m gonna lean forward and
pull your leg over my shoulder, I need this hand to get up, or I’m gonna blow
us to bits.”
“You have my full cooperation,
sir.”
Jeff pulled Gar’s leg up over his
shoulder, Gar groaning in pain at every tug, then pushed himself up with his
other hand. He gingerly sidestepped around the landmine and began stumbling
forward again.
“How much further you think, sir?”
“I dunno, can’t see a fucking
thing. Maybe 100 meters.”
Eventually Jeff reached the
embankment at the bottom of the road and dropped to his knees. “Okay, we’re
here. I’m gonna drop you off, go find the Humvee and come back for you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, sir.”
Jeff gently lowered Gar to the
ground then sat and caught his breath. “Back in a minute… I hope.”
“Sir, you think those rags that
shot at us this afternoon are still around?”
“Nah, I think we scared ‘em off.
Hang tight. I’ll be back.”
Jeff clambered up the embankment
and, pointlessly in the pitch black, looked up and down the road. He wasn’t
sure which way it was to the Humvee. He mentally flipped a coin and started
walking to his right. About 200 meters down the road he found the vehicle when
he walked into the back of it. “Halle-fuckin’-luiah.” He got in, turned around,
drove back down the road to where he thought he’d left Gar and yelled out the
window. “You there?” There was no answer. Jeff was pretty sure this was about
the right distance back down the road, so he turned around again, stopped and
got out. “Gar? You down there?” But there was still no answer.
Jeff’s head was reeling but he
fumbled around in the equipment packs in the back of the Humvee until he found
a flashlight, then stumbled down the embankment in search of Gar. Shining the
light in both directions, Jeff quickly found him, unconscious. Under the light,
Gar’s injuries were much worse than Jeff had originally thought, and it was
clear he’d lost a lot of blood. “Come on bud, hang in there.”
Jeff used every last ounce of his
strength to hoist Gar over his shoulders again, then struggled, half crawling,
up the embankment and dumped him into the Humvee’s front passenger seat. He
thought about trying to find something with which to bandage Gar’s wounds, but
decided the trip to the aid station would probably be shorter, so off they went
with Jeff’s foot to the floor.
Fifteen minutes later Jeff pulled
into the encampment and up to a tent with a large red cross on it. He stepped
out of the Humvee, yelled “Medic!” and fell to the ground, unconscious.
Twenty-one years later…
Friday, April 13,
2012 (T minus 1439 days)
“Alright then, settle down.
Everyone read last night’s chapter assignment?”
Jeffrey Grey looked around the
class of 6
th
graders. There were a few bright and shining faces,
many more not so shining, and a few barely registering signs of comprehension.
He had spent most of the previous 20 years teaching 6
th
and 7
th
grade Earth Science in the Long Beach, California Unified School System. In the
early days he enjoyed it; opening young minds to new concepts, creatively
exploring ideas, imparting knowledge of the wondrous universe around us, and
not merely spoon feeding facts but, more importantly, helping his young charges
learn how to think and reason. But that was then and this is now. Today there
was standardized testing and reams of state and federal “guidelines” dictating
– without any benefit of subtle nuance – exactly what, when, and how a child
should be taught. The key was teaching to the test. Everything depended upon
it: school budgets, federal funding, teacher performance evaluations…
everything. For the most part teaching was no longer teaching; it was
instruction, with a touch of indoctrination. Nine months a year of rote
memorization and pass the test. Jeff hated it.
His students generally did well on
the state tests, though never up to his expectations. Today he would rebel,
depart from the syllabus, and see if his class was actually learning anything.
“Okay, we’ve spent the past few
weeks learning all there is to know about our solar system. Right?” A general
chorus of agreement, punctuated with a handful of groans, followed. “So, what
can you do with all this new-found knowledge? Where can it lead you? What
bearing does it have on your very existence? Have you acquired this vast wealth
of knowledge because you hungered for it? Or because I told you to learn it?”
Jeff again looked around the room.
Blank stares. “Cassie. What have you learned and what good is it?”
“Uh, we’ve learned about the
planets and their orbits and gravity and stars and, I dunno, because it’s good
stuff to know… I guess.”
Jeff nodded, “Good stuff to know.
Okay, but what can you do with it? Daniel?”
Daniel shifted uncomfortably in his
seat, “I dunno, be an astronaut?”
“Would you like to be an
astronaut?”
“Yeah, I guess. It would be kind of
cool.”
Jeff paced slowly in front of the
blackboard, nodding in tempo with his steps, “Why?”
Young Daniel squirmed a bit more;
‘why’ was a dreaded word. “So I could ride in a rocket and go visit other
planets?”
“Rocketman, huh?” That broke the
ice a little with some smiles and giggles. “But, why? Just something to do?”
Daniel pursed his lips in
exasperation, “Yeah, I guess.”
Jeff stopped pacing and faced the
class, “In 1923, in an interview with the
New York Times
, the British
climber, George Mallory, was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. His
reply was, ‘Because it’s there’. And in 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary, along with
his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, finally reached the summit of Everest –
because it’s there.” He paused to give that little thought time to sink in. “By
the way, when Hillary got back down from that climb, the first man he met was
his friend and fellow climber, George Lowe. Hillary said to Lowe, ‘Well George,
we knocked the bastard off’.”
The class snickered and giggled at
his use of the quasi-profanity.
“So, Daniel, why would you want to
visit another planet?”
Daniel smiled and thought for a
moment, then blurted out, “To knock the bastard off!”
When the howls of laughter quieted
down, Jeff smiled, “There you go. Exploration, discovery, and man’s indomitable
spirit and curiosity. We go because it’s there. On September 12, 1962,
President John Kennedy said, ‘
We choose to go to the Moon in this
decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are
hard’. And go to the moon we did, just seven years later. July 21
st
,
1969, Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong stepped on to the surface of the moon and said,
‘That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’. We had the choice,
we made the choice, and we did it. That was 43 years ago.” He paused for a
moment and tapped his fingernails quite audibly on the desk. “So, all you
budding young astronauts and astronomers and aerospace engineers, why have we
not gone to Mars?”
Hoping for a
volunteer, he waited for a hand to go up. “Brianna?”
“Because it’s too far
and takes too long?”
“Too far? We’ve sent
a number of satellites and robots to explore Mars, and men and women have
stayed in space, in Skylab and the Russian Mir space station and the
International Space Station for periods far longer than it would take to get to
Mars.” Looking around, “Anybody else? Roberto?”
“It’s too dangerous?”
“Perhaps. More than
150 people have died attempting to climb Mount Everest. Nearly all of them are
still up there because it’s too hard to bring their bodies down. How many
people have died on the moon? None. So which is more dangerous? Climbing Mount
Everest or landing on the moon?”
Several murmurs of
“Mount Everest” came forth.
“Well, statistically
speaking, yeah, climbing Everest is a lot more dangerous, but people still do
it, every year. So, do we know for sure that going to Mars is too dangerous?
Particularly since we haven’t tried it? Sure, it’s dangerous. No argument
there. It’s dangerous to climb Mount Everest, it’s dangerous to go to the moon…
it’s dangerous to cross the street in front of the school here. But we still do
it. Risk, reward. It’s a calculated risk.”
Jeff walked around
his desk and up one of the rows between his students, “Any other thoughts on
why we haven’t gone to Mars?” He looked around for a while and one hand finally
went up, “Rhonda?”
“It’s costs too
much?”
“Ah. The almighty
dollar. Well, let’s see.” He quickly walked back to the chalkboard. “No one is
sure just how much it would cost for a manned mission to Mars, but estimates
seem to run somewhere between fifty-five billion and four-hundred billion
dollars.” On the chalkboard he scrawled the figure $200,000,000,000. “Let’s
split the difference, more or less. Okay, there are about three hundred and
five million people living in the United States. So, if we divide that into
two-hundred billion we get, hmmm… six hundred and fifty-six dollars for every
man, woman, and child in the country.” He turned and pointed his finger across
the room, “So we’re going to need six hundred and fifty-six dollars from each
of you.”