Ell Donsaii 13: DNA by Laurence Dahners Read Free Book Online

port, sliding down the rails and out onto the floor.
    The frost that had gathered on the radiators had flashed to steam and Carol felt a brief wave of heat from the big port. Then she was moving with the rest of the team over to the can. Diane and Mark popped the latches and they opened it up to look at the big gray pile of filmy fabric lying inside. Dan plucked at the fabric, making its gossamer nature evident. He said, “I think we should carry it outside in the canister. If we lift it out of the can in here, it’s going to flop everywhere and be a huge pain in the ass to handle.”
     
    A little while later, four of them had suited up and were carrying the canister out past the last of the three—now deflated—graphene spheres that plugged the tunnel and functioned as an airlock. Once they had the canister outside, they attached some ropes and dragged it up onto the relatively flat plain at the top of the Valles Marineres.
    They unlatched the canister and dumped out its contents, then quickly latched it up to keep the dust out of it. The filmy fabric had thoughtfully been folded so a couple of the tie-down straps were immediately available and they staked those out. Because the atmosphere was so thin, the Martian winds couldn’t generate much force. However, once this thing was inflated it’d weigh very little in comparison to its enormous cross-section. Even those wimpy winds would easily be able to blow it away then. The Major held a brief conversation with people back on earth and a few minutes later the fabric started bulging, twisting and unrolling as gas poured into it through ports.
    As it unfolded, and unfolded, and unfolded, gradually spreading across the plain, Carol’s eyes widened. She turned to Lindy Thompson, “I know they said this dome thing was going to be big, but holy crap, how big?”
    Lindy looked at her, “The multilayer graphene it’s made out of is only 120 nanometers thick. In theory they could have packed a graphene dome big enough to cover nearly 2 square kilometers into the canister. In practice, it was too difficult to fold the material up that tightly so the dome’s diameter is only a little over a kilometer.”
    “That’s still huge!” Carol breathed.
    Lindy said, “I’m supposed to do an interview with one of the news services back on Earth once we’ve got it inflated. Do you mind capturing the video with your AI?”
    Carol shrugged, “Sure.”
     
    Once the dome had extended itself fully, they had to rotate it a little around the first stakes because part of it was hanging out over the Valles. Then Lindy had them open some of the ports that connected into the oceans of Europa. Those filled the bottom of the dome with about a foot of water. Even though the water would pretty securely hold the dome in place, they walked around and staked down the rest of the dome’s circumference while it continued swelling up into the air.
     
    Lindy stood in front of the enormous, somewhat translucent dome and Carol adjusted her position so that both Lindy and the dome were well framed in the image obtained by her AI. Rupert Alton, the newsie from Earth who was doing the interview, cleared his throat and said, “You ready ladies?”
    Lindy and Carol both nodded.
    Rupert said, “Carol, I’ve got to remind you not to move your head. We need our image to stay stable for the viewers.” He gave a little laugh, “Don’t want our audience getting seasick.”
    “Oops, sorry,” Carol said, reminding herself to move only her eyes.
    “Okay then.” Rupert said, “Folks, this is Rupert Alton, bringing you an interview with Dr. Lindy Thompson, NASA’s botanist on the Mars mission. Dr. Thompson, framed in the picture behind you is what appears to be an enormous dome, or perhaps the top half of a balloon. Can you tell us about this new project you ‘Martians’ are undertaking?”
    “I’d be happy to Mr. Alton. What you just said is essentially correct. What you’re looking at is an