The Attempt (The Martian Manifesto Book 1) by Bob Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

adventure, didn’t I? Can’t you just not stand it, waiting to see what happens next?”
    Bonnie didn’t quite know what to say, but had to admit that Jeff’s enthusiasm was infectious. If she thought about it, it really was a glorious adventure that she was on. If only she didn’t have to worry about her children, she would have felt much better.
    Brother Jacobs stood up and reached forward, grabbing both of Bonnie’s hands. “My dear, I know this must seem overwhelming ,” he said. “But I am here for you. I am here for all of you. Keep the faith.” He leaned further forward and kissed her on the top of her head. “Go now. Settle in. We have much still to do. There will be a meeting here for all in one half hour, where we will outline our next steps.”
    Jeff handed Bonnie a small pamphlet labeled ‘Emergency Procedures.’ He then said, “Make sure to read these. There’ll be a quiz later,” he laughed.
    Bonnie looked down at the top page of the sheet she had been handed. The first item on the list said, ‘Know where your spacesuit is located at all times.’ “So much for that,” she thought. “Hopefully the rest of the list will be a bit more useful.”
    Bonnie turned around, and noticed that her daughters had already taken Lotus to one of the rooms and were headed towards the ladder they had descended. She picked her bags back up and hurried to catch up to them. She had to detour around a hatch in the floor by the ladder, which she hadn’t noticed before. Jean was lifting Lucky and shoving her through a small hole in the wall at about waist height.
    “We have to go through that?” Bonnie questioned.
    “Of course, Mom! It’s right on the map,” Jean said. Jean lifted her sister to the hole and then pushed her butt. “C’mon slow poke. You’re in my way. I want to get to our room.”
    As her daughters disappeared through the hole, Bonnie ducked and crawled in after them. The passageway was only about five feet long, which only took her a few seconds to traverse. When she came out the other end, she saw her daughters running to the end of a hallway. Along each side of the hall were rooms. The first door on her left had the word ‘Head’ on it. The one on the right said ‘Showers.’ There were more doors down each side of the hallway.
    Her children had already opened the door at the end of the hallway and disappeared. Bonnie walked deliberately forward with her shoulders squared as she passed the other doors on each side. Not knowing what to expect, given the incomplete nature of the Central module, she took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold into her new residence.

CHAPTER 5
    Lunch was over, and Charles climbed back down the ladder to the work section of the habitat. He was excited, as this was the first drilling expedition for the Mars rover. He wondered whether it had uncovered anything. As he alit at the bottom floor of the hab, he glanced over to his left at the exercise wedge section of the circular room. There was the treadmill with the bungee cords to hold the runner down as he ran. Next to it was a rowing machine, which he had specially requested for this trip.
    There was a big debate at NASA about whether th e one-third G of Mars was adequate to hold off bone loss, and so they had mandated as much exercise be done while at Mars as during the weightless journey there. Charles had insisted on a low impact rowing machine as an alternative to that endless jogging that they were required to do. He had rowed on the crew team in college, and had found the rhythm of the ergometer chain as it spun the flywheel quite soothing. But NASA required that he perform specific pieces at incredibly high stroke rates until he was aching and exhausted as part of the arrangement. “Hand it to NASA to suck the fun out of everything,” he thought. “At least those of us here haven’t lost our sense of humor.” He looked at the exercise bench next to the rower. A metal bar for bench pressing