“I’ll join you shortly, I have to quickly finish this log entry first,” he explained.

She left, and the Captain returned to the window and gathered his thoughts.  “Captain Daniil Marchenko, Russian cosmonaut, Second in Command of the Clarke, is twenty-nine years old today.” He paused and repeated the number to himself under his breath; it seemed impossibly young. “We are having a small celebration in the Lounge this evening.” He focused on the small brilliant disc that was Earth, its continents no longer distinguishable, and smiled. “Next log entry in one sol. Stop recording.” The last two words were said more loudly in a monotonous voice. He was rewarded with an audible confirmation from his computer.

The Clarke’s crew had been working to the Martian day, twenty-four hours and thirty-nine minutes, for over a year, and were by now completely adjusted to it.  As soon as they had been accepted for the mission training, they had all been given new wrist-watches, and their computers had been updated with new software to add the extra minutes into each day.  The easy part of the transition had been to start referring to a day as a sol; the hardest part was to turn up to work nearly three quarters of an hour later every ‘morning’.  Within two weeks they were working at night instead of during the day, and it was two months before Montreaux learnt to stop looking towards the Sun for guidance.

While on Earth this had been a chore, in space it was much easier due to the lack of natural daytime and night time. Space made it more natural to fall asleep during what their watches told them was the Martian night. The Clarke was designed to simulate the cycle of the Martian sol by providing ambient light at pre-programmed times, in perfect co-ordination with the planet itself based on the time zone of their projected landing site.

Looking at his watch now, Montreaux knew that there were barely two hours of sol-light left.

Chapter 12

As Montreaux entered the Lounge, he saw Captain Daniil Marchenko sitting next to Su Ning on the sofa. He had a huge grin on his face as he donned his birthday hat.  His head was completely shaven, and the hat slipped down to rest on his brow, partially blocking his sight.

“Wait, Danny!” Su Ning laughed as she lifted the paper hat off and crimped the back to make it smaller. “That’s better!” she placed it back on his head, ensuring it fitted perfectly.

“Thank you Su Ning, I will bring you my suit to fix in the morning.” He laughed as he avoided Su Ning’s playful dig at his ribs before reaching for his drink.  Placing the straw in his mouth he pressed down on the bag’s contents until it was empty.

“Happy Birthday, Captain Marchenko,” Montreaux said as he glided across the room, extending his hand to the Russian.  They had, of course, already greeted each other that sol, but it seemed appropriate to repeat the congratulations given the festive appearance of the crew.

“Thank you, Captain,” Marchenko replied gracefully.

Montreaux was glad that the Clarke’s official language was English, as his Russian was worse than his Chinese. While Marchenko’s accent was not as good as Su Ning’s, his English was similarly impressive.

“S Dnyom Rozdyeniya, Danny!” came a voice above Montreaux’s head.

It was bad enough that the crew did not follow the regulatory naming convention of rank and surname, thought Montreaux, but if there was one person who would reliably break any possible protocol, including that of official language, it was Dr Jane Richardson, the mission’s civilian scientist. She was the only crew member without a military background, a fact that was usually reflected in both her attire and attitude.  The Captain glanced up at her and tutted.

The Lounge was the main social hub of the Clarke.  A huge spherical room, it was fifty feet wide, with slightly flattened poles like a beach ball that was being pressed against the ground. Two cylindrical tubes connected the Lounge to the other parts of the ship, and four small windows, identical to the one in the Captain’s quarters, were placed at regular intervals around the equator.  Between two of the windows and directly in front of Montreaux, who had approached from the sleeping area, was the Lounge’s red sofa, sixteen feet long with four backrests. It was designed for everyone to sit facing the low coffee table in front. Lieutenant Su Ning and Captain Marchencko had used the sofa’s straps to stop themselves from floating away from the drinks and meals that stuck magnetically to the table’s surface.

Behind Montreaux’s head, on the wall above the entrance, was a large recessed television screen, protected by thick Plexiglas against out of control floating astronauts.  Every night they would be able to sit in front of the screen and watch a variety of programmes and movies, held in the Clarke’s library. It was also where the crew would get regular video broadcasts from Earth. Private communications would invariably be played on the smaller screens, inside their own quarters.

The sofa and coffee table formed the logical ‘floor’, while the small recessed cupboards and drawers on the opposing side of the sphere were the ‘ceiling’.  However the lack of gravity meant that the Clarke’s crew were by no means restricted to such definitions.

It would be another month and a half before they would need to get used to an actual feeling of down and up, but even on Mars it would be at a third of Earth’s oppressive gravity.

For this reason, he was unsurprised to see Dr Richardson sitting quite comfortably on the ceiling above him, sipping through the straw of her drink.

“Hi, Yves!” she waved.

 “Good evening Dr Richardson,” he said quite politely. “I would remind you that the official language of this vessel is English.” He knew he was perhaps being a little harsh, given the circumstances, but his upbringing had been one of utmost respect for seniority and rank, none of which was forthcoming from the doctor. He reached the sofa with a push and strapped himself in. Pulling a drink from the table, he forced himself not to look up at the scientist. “Will you be joining us today?”

“Actually, yes, I will,” she replied.

She suddenly appeared on the seat beside him thanks to a perfectly judged push against the room’s wall. She clipped herself in and raised her drink for a toast.  Some people took a long time to get used to zero gravity, and simply moving from one place to another was a chore.  But not Dr Richardson; Jane was a natural, and it annoyed him no end.

“To Danny!” she said with a grin.

The light-hearted party had lasted three hours, during which special congratulatory messages from Earth had been played on the Lounge’s television screen. It had finished when it became evident that both Captain Marchenko and Dr Richardson had clearly consumed too much alcohol, a dangerous situation in space. The Russians had a far more relaxed attitude to alcohol than their western counterparts, and had lobbied hard to allow some drinks on the mission for special occasions. But Montreaux been had brought up under the NASA doctrine, where alcohol was a complete no-no.

As a consequence, he had called an end to the night slightly earlier than planned, with Marchenko retiring merrily to his quarters to watch the more personal greetings that his family had transmitted during the day.

Back in his own room, Montreaux placed the headphones carefully over his ears and pressed them down firmly with his hands, before touching the screen lightly. As the music began to play, he lay back and let his mind wander.

On the wall opposite was a framed picture: a three dimensional rendering of the Clarke, set against the backdrop of Mars. The Sun shone from the left of the picture, casting the Clarke’s shadow over the Red Planet.