Page 4 of Alone
My stomach growls and reminds me to leave the men and get some sustenance. Then the filters need cleaning again, and I should go outside to check on the sensors. We had a massive sandstorm last night and I'm worried that some of the sensors and cameras we have on the perimeter around the station may have been damaged. One of the cameras has always been malfunctioning slightly, but right now it's showing more static than it usually does. Hopefully it's a quick fix and not something that needs technical skills. It's really not my forte.
With a sigh, I leave the loading bay and head to the common room, which is probably the saddest place in the station. There are enough tables and benches for about a hundred people, so sitting in here on my own is depressing. It reminds me of all the friends and colleagues I lost. Sometimes I think I can still hear their voices echoing through the empty room, the laughing and shouting that always signalled our meal times. Life on the station was always hectic and difficult, but the three times a day everyone gathered in the common room, we let our guards down and relaxed.
Now, I have no time to relax. The station needs to be kept going. I take some carrots that I harvested yesterday and throw them into the cooking device. A minute later, they're boiled and ready to eat. A bit of salt is all that I add.
Back on Earth, I liked to cook and made elaborate meals for my friends. Today, I couldn't care less. It's all about giving my body what it needs to keep functioning. Taste isn't important. Although I have to admit that the carrots have turned out nicely, they're sweeter than the last batch.
I've reduced the amount of space I use in the greenhouses and only plant enough for ten people. Everything else would be a waste of time and water. We may have found a way to distil water from the frozen ice deep beneath the Martian surface, but it takes a lot of energy to turn it into drinkable water than can be used for plants and humans. I always notice that the water quality has changed when I get a rash after my morning shower. A clear sign the filters need to be calibrated. Luckily that hasn't happened in a few weeks now. I've got enough problems as it is.
Having swallowed my dry carrots, I head to the lab for a quick check up on the experiments I'm running. The scientists on Earth were wrong the first time, undoing a week's worth of work. Now I'm waiting for their new calculations, but I've decided to rerun their method again, checking each step for mistakes. The last time, the final vaccine turned out to be too acidic, so if I can determine at which step of the experiment it became that way, I may be able to shorten the process.
I wish I knew how the virus was transmitted in the first place. When the first of us fell ill, she was put under quarantine, but it was too late. The next day, three others were complaining of the same symptoms. They checked the water and air for contamination and pathogens, but didn't find anything. That doesn't mean there wasn't anything in there, though, just that we couldn't detect it. Maybe it was a virus carried in from the outside, something that had laid dormant for millennia, waiting for the perfect host. That thought makes me shiver. Everyone thought there was no life on Mars, but maybe there was. Not intelligent life, just a virus that did its work very efficiently.
No use thinking of the past. I need to find a way to protect the newcomers from the disease that killed everybody else. Except me. I still don't know how I deserve to live when so many others died. I'm not special, I've never been immune to other illnesses back on Earth. And I did get sick, but I only got minor symptoms and survived.
I check my instruments. The pH is still fine. I scribble down some notes that I can send to the control centre later on and take a wistful look at my bed. Well, it's a mattress on the floor in a corner of the lab. My room is at the other end of the station, so it made sense to relocate while I'm trying to solve this puzzle. But even this simple mattress looks very tempting right now. I've not had a proper sleep in too long.
But now, I can't. I rub my eyes and determinedly turn around, away from my place of rest. There's work to be done.
Week 3
"Hey gorgeous!"
Will is looking as pretty as always. He had to listen to me ramble on for over an hour before exhaustion caught up with me. Now I'm back to check on my men and tell them the good news.
"They sent me new instructions. Some of the diagrams are still transmitting, but later today I'll be able to try making the vaccine once again." I sigh, trying to shove the doubts in my mind into a corner. "I'm sure this time it will work. I figured out why the last batch got too acidic, so that problem has been solved."
I don't tell them about all the other problems facing me. When I skimmed through the instructions earlier, there were a lot of notes in red saying things like "if you do this step wrong, it could be lethal". I might end up killing the men, not saving them. And with nobody here to test the vaccine on, any mistake I make will affect their health. I hate having this responsibility. I'm a geologist, the only responsibility I usually have is for the wellbeing of my rocks. And they're pretty hard to hurt.
I miss my work, spending time outside, exploring the landscape, trying to find out more about the planet's structure and origin. Now all I do is hurry from one task to another. Always chores, no enjoyment. The highlight of my day is coming to the loading bay to talk to the guys. I've come to get to know them pretty well. Will is the quiet listener, Toby is my rock who I can cling to when despair threatens to overwhelm me, Bastian keeps the peace, Han's almost-smirk on his lips makes me laugh, Jordan poses questions that challenge me and Jim... well, he's the mystery I'm trying to figure out.
Together, we make quite a good team. I do all the work and they support me in it. With their help, I'm sure I'm going to get this vaccine working.
Reassured, I leave them to it, going back to the lab in the hope that all the instructions have been transmitted by now. The data connection with Earth has been getting slower and less reliable with every week since the Drowning began. Add to that the time delay, it makes for some very boring conversations. We avoid sending images because of the limited bandwidth, but in this case, the scientists thought the diagrams are necessary for me to fulfil my task. That probably means it's going to be very complicated. I wish I could avoid this and go back to my rocks, but life has changed and I have to deal with it. And if I want to have some company on this Station, I better get this thing working.
Luckily, everything's downloaded. The graphics don't look as complicated as I'd expected. Thank the bleeding Mars sands for that. And just like the last approach, it starts with me taking some of my own blood. All my tools are already on the table and all I need to do before playing vampire is load some code I was sent into one of the lab's processors. That will tell the machine to filter out the blood serum which contains my antibodies and antigens. I need those before I can continue to the next step.
