The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN Read Online Free PDF Page B

MAI?”
    “UNKNOWN.” At least it’s an answer. If nothing else,
a willingness to admit ignorance.
    “Has there been any contact from Earth?”
    No answer. Back to where I was before. But I pushed
anyway:
    “Has there been any contact from any of
colonies?”
    No answer.
    “Has there been any sign of activity on the
surface?”
    No answer.
    “How long have we been asleep, MAI?”
    No answer.
    “What happened to Colonel Copeland?”
     

 
    Day 4:
     
    “Okay—Colonels, Doctor—this is what I’ve managed to
find out so far…”
    Staley seems reasonably bright despite starting his
rehab PT this morning. He should be in agony like the rest of us.
(He very well may be—the chipper mood may just be his pain meds.)
We older folks almost needed wheelchairs just to get here: The
Officer’s Mess, just around the corner from our block of quarters,
re-tasked for now into a Command Briefing Room. (Our actual
dedicated Command Briefing Room is almost straight above us in the
Command Tower, but none of us are looking forward to stairs just
yet).
    Allison Ryder had the longest trip since she was just
at work in B-Deck Medical, doing her part to monitor the recovery
of 1197 people (including herself). She must have drawn the short
straw among her fellow physicians Halley and Shenkar, or maybe
their patient load was heavier, because she got sent up to
represent them at this quick intimate briefing. She’s looking as
old as I feel (possibly as old as Matthew feels) and she’s only 55.
But she has more than just fatigue to account for it.
    “Bad news first,” Staley gets right to it, bringing
his figures up on the wall screens that are usually used for Link
or—more routinely—entertainment feed. “Something’s wrong with the
nuclear batteries. They’re running below 40%, which makes no sense
since they were supposed to last a hundred years. That’s impacting
everything, including the atmosphere scrubbers.
    “The scrubbers themselves are straining above normal,
which makes sense with all the grunting and huffing trying to get
almost twelve-hundred people up after what’s likely been several
months of hibernation. But I asked Lieutenant Rios to have his more
mobile bodies pull a sampling of the filters, and they’re unusually
cruddy and breaking down, which is odd since they should have been
barely working while we were asleep. It looks like they’re all long
past due for replacement. We’ve started swapping out from our
stores, and cleaning the ones that can be recycled, but it will
take awhile. The good news is we seem to be breathing pretty
well.”
    I watch Matthew take an extra-deep breath, like he
doesn’t trust Staley’s assessment of the air systems.
    “Any idea what could account for all the grit in the
filters?” Ryder asks. “Could we have a leak? Sand getting into the
system?”
    “Preliminary indicators say we’re intact,” he tells
her. “And the crud isn’t sand. It’s just dust. I asked for samples
to be sent to the labs, but it looks like what we’d normally shed
into the air. There’s just a lot of it.”
    “It may be the effect of running on limited power for
so long,” I wonder.
    “Colonel Copeland would have left the air systems
running for himself,” Ryder considers.
    “He would have shut down all sections he didn’t
need,” Matthew assumes.
    “But it’s dusty in Ops,” I say what’s bothering me.
“And in his quarters.”
    “And we still have no idea what happened to him?”
Ryder pushes, sounding anxious.
    “Records are dumped,” Anton reports heavily. “It’s
like MAI just didn’t bother to record anything while we were
sleeping.”
    “Was MAI offline?” Ryder is starting to get a sense
of the weirdness we’ve been dealing with. I expect she—and the
other department heads—have only just recently reviewed the
recording of my wake-up “interview” that I selectively
released.
    “MAI has a ‘Sleep’ protocol for emergency
conservation, but it stays on