Starship: Free Mars

Part 2: Journey to Mars

Part 2: Journey to Mars

The passenger compartment of the raider's ship was only about half the size of the lunar shuttle. From what he had seen as the raider had approached, Tate knew the ship was actually quite a bit larger than the shuttle. Therefore, he was not surprised when the Martian ship boosted away from the shuttle at high acceleration. The chemical rockets roared and vibrated in the stern for just over nine minutes. Tate was not sure why he timed it. It was not like he knew any astrogation techniques to plot their course. One of the screens in front of the woman who led the raiders had a long looping curve on it which might have shown a velocity-boost pass through the moon's gravity field. Or, it might have shown a diagram of a sky-ball tournament move. He was just along for the ride.

Four people made up the crew of the Martian raider, exactly the same number as the crew on the lunar shuttle. Was that an accident? The woman obviously commanded from the pilot's position on the left side of the craft. The other three men had their own tasks including the short dark haired man sitting just in front of Tate. He had turned his seat around as soon as the boost ended and sat there with a stern expression on his face watching them. Tate was not surprised, but he was amused. Neither he nor either of his mathematician colleagues were a threat to the crew. Besides, even if they were by some miracle to overpower the crew and gain control of the vessel, how could they possibly navigate it to safety?

The pilot finally pushed away her control pallet, got out of the command chair, and maneuvered back to the open compartment where the three kidnapped mathematicians sat. "Welcome to the ship, Free Mars, of the Martian Space Navy,” she said. "Our trip to Hellas will take forty-three days. Sanitary facilities are in the stern. While you are free to move around, crew stations are off limits. Reading matter and entertainment are available on your seat's display." She waved in the general direction of Earth. "Unfortunately almost all transmissions from Earth are encrypted these days, so our current media has all been produced on Mars. We have only archival works from Earth."

With another gesture she indicated the narrow cabin taking up one wall of the passenger quarters. "I will begin interviewing each of you separately in my quarters. We keep Hellas time on board. Evening mess will be in two Mars hours. Lights out, three hours after that." She nodded at Tate. "Dr. Richardson, I will begin with you."

Tate followed her to her cabin. When he first got out of his seat, he was surprised to find he was not weightless. A small but persistent force pushed him towards the stern. At the cabin door she waved him inside then closed the door behind them. Tate settled to the stern-ward wall. He saw her hook her foot into a loop to anchor herself, and he found one for himself to put him in a similar orientation. She studied her display pad for a moment while they both gently swayed in the air currents from the ventilation system. Tate thought of fronds of kelp in an ocean current.

Impatient from waiting, Tate stuck out his hand. "Tate Richardson," he said. "And you are…?"

She looked up at him and studied him cooly. She ignored his hand and said, "Captain Glory Aurillia."

"Ah then, Captain Aurillia, could you tell me with whom I could make a reservation for time on the handball court?"

Her expression did not change. "In case you didn't notice, Dr. Richardson, this is not a luxury cruise vessel." She looked back at her display pad.

"Well, maybe not," said Tate with a shrug. "Still, we are stuck together for the next forty-three days, so why not have a little levity?"

"I have a job to do which will last for the next forty-three days. Do you understand?"

"And I'll bet your job is not cruise director."

She ignored him and asked. "Where was your last residence?"

"The faculty quarters at the University of New Chicago. I haven't moved for several years so it should be the same as in your file." He looked up and saw a chess board on the static display on the panel over her desk area. He said, "Ah! Let's move white's king's rook to king's bishop five.” He paused. "Oh, and check."

She did not look up. "Black Queen to king's bishop six.” After a brief pause, she added, "And mate."

"Uh," he started when he realized she was right. "Yes. Quite." He looked at her and saw she was waiting for him to say something else. He looked back at the board—and saw it. "If you would be so kind as to let me take back that move and try pawn to queen's rook four?” He smiled. "Mate in two?"

For the first time she smiled a tight half smile. "So you play chess, Dr. Richardson." It was not a question.

"When I'm not playing handball." Her smile disappeared, and she looked skeptically at his slightly plump middle. “Actually I don’t play that much handball,” he added defensively.

For the next several minutes she asked him a series of questions about his background, medical history, and a list of preferences some quite general but others quite personal. Finally Tate broke in. "So where is this all going, Captain Aurillia?"

Looking up from her display pad, she said, "We are making arrangements for you at the University of Hellas. You will be able to continue your research, but we will also have some projects we would like your help with." Her blue eyes regarded him cooly.

"The University of Hellas? I was not aware the colonies had a university."

"The Republic of Mars has been an independent, planetary-wide, self-governing entity for over one hundred fifty years, and…"

"…and I, and most other people on Earth, have not heard of the Republic of Mars," he added before she could say anything more.

"Yes," she said and looked away. She looked back at him, and now her voice was firm. "Our two planets have been out of general communication for some time. I suspect we will both learn something from your visit."

He nodded. "One thing I'm curious about right now is our acceleration. You humped us out of our lunar trajectory with chemical rockets, but we are still accelerating at what, about a tenth-gee? Are you using ion thrusters? I've never heard of any that powerful."

She smiled a genuine smile now, and Tate decided she was proud of the Free Mars. "Did you see the picture of our ship?" She gestured to the wall. Tate had seen the picture, but he had thought it was a flower with wide-spread black petals.

He looked at it more closely. "Are those solar panels?"

"We are designed to operate throughout the asteroid belt. This close to the sun, our ion engines provide more than enough thrust to outrun any of the Space Service’s patrol craft as long as we have a head start—which we now have."

Tate nodded. "I wondered about Mars being forty-three days away."

After a few more questions, she sent him away and called for Dr. Mason Banner, an applied mathematician from the Crown University of Toronto. Tate knew Banner casually having served with him on a jury panel for the Rumanugan Medal. When Banner passed him, he arched his eyebrows in question at Tate. "Don't worry," Tate said, "she only uses the cattle prod when she has to." He said it with a grin since he did not know if Banner knew him well enough to know his sense of humor.

The evening meal was fairly ordinary ships’ fare, but there were some unusual flavors Tate did not recognize. He finished everything, but there was no dessert. Later that evening he worked to adjust his personal assistant to keep Mars time. The additional thirty-nine minutes in a Martian day made for some changes. For convenience the original colony had made the length of its day twenty-four Martian hours long with sixty Martian minutes in each hour. That made each Martian minute somewhere around one thirty-seventh longer than an Earth minute…

He was tired after all the day's events, and he could not get the same answers twice in a row. Finally he just loaded in a short patch which reset his PA's timekeeper. He was about to put it away when a notification popped up on the screen. He opened it and found a chess board set to play. Up in the identification banner across the top were just the initials, "GA." He smiled and started the match. After about five minutes, his opponent stopped responding. Shortly afterwards, Captain Aurillia came out of her cabin and resumed her post for another shift at the controls. She did not look at him. Tate put his PA away. Maybe he would have something to do on this trip after all.