I would have done it for the liftoff alone – 30,000mph – but that prodigal speed was the least unique feature of this mission. It was quite exhilarating, however. I’ve always enjoyed hurtling through space rapidly, from the swingset and my breakneck childhood bike rides to the Air Force and Navy where I served as a test pilot for some of the fastest machines ever built. That’s one of the reasons I was selected for the mission. They knew I could survive takeoff. It sure wasn’t for my psychological makeup.
Old friends from the service gave me a hard time about working for a private company. They said I was a sellout. I said somebody finally met my asking price. It wasn’t like anybody else was offering a rocket ride to Mars. It wasn’t the first time I had worked for a massive dick either, but it was the first time I was properly compensated for it.
We were using the standard trajectory route during the synod, but it would still take us six months to get to Arcadia Planitia in the Southern Hemisphere where previously launched automated diggers had bored holes in the crater wall to house the shelters we would build. While we did so, we would live on the ship parked in one of the tunnels to protect us from the punishing radiation.
To save resources during the 6-month journey, they placed us in a chemically-induced state of suspended animation. It was based more on the predilections of the company’s reviled owner than on science. It basically amounted to giving every member of our team a custom derivative of ketamine that would put us in a deep REM state while our bodily functions were taken over by IVs and vacuum hoses. The dose would be tapered off as we came within a few days of Mars.
After the honeymoon of acceleration and anticipation came the descent into a k-hole. It manifested itself as a shared space where the dream avatars of all the crew gathered. I was a crow. I could talk, but more importantly, I could fly. This was to circumvent claustrophobia from developing. Dr. Brenda Hamilton was a hummingbird. I saw a beaver and a raccoon who were two of the mission’s structural engineers. Everyone was incarnate in forms that would best preserve their psychological health.
When we came within fourteen days of Mars, they appeared. Apparently they had searched our psyches for images of friendly aliens because one looked like Superman, one looked like Mork and the other one looked like Spielberg’s ET.
“Why have you desecrated mother?” Mork asked.
“You mean the tunnel boring?”
“How would you like it if I did that to your mother?” Mork quipped.
“We’re building a colony.”
“There’s already a colony,” said Superman. “If you believe in truth, justice and the American way, you won’t disturb us.” Morgan, the SpaceX supervisor, in the form of a weasel, laughed. Then he choked as something older than time ended him.
Literature in Small Doses 