“Hi, ma’am. We’ve been instructed to check everyone’s ID. I’ll need to see yours too, sir.”
“Don’t worry, this is typical these days. We’ve received several threats in the past few weeks. Lars takes security very seriously,” she informed Dedrick.
“The welcome mat, I guess…” he thought to himself.
A few minutes later, both entered a small office at the end of a long hallway. The man seated behind the desk looked tall and thin, in his thirties with a receding hairline, and a friendly smile. Behind him, a three-dimensional reproduction of the Mars First station, laid in front of a photo of the red planet. It included a couple of astronauts and two rovers.
“Hello Dedrick. I’m Lars Bruininck. Welcome to Mars First,” said the man smiling while vaguely pointing at the walls around the room. His heavy accent left no doubt as to his Dutch roots.
“Thank you, sir. Glad to be here,” replied the young Russian as he moved forward to shake Lars’ extended hand.
“Please, call me Lars. Have a seat. So, how was your trip?”
“Very good. Sir, Thank you.” He thought of mentioning how long the trek had actually felt, but refrained.
“Have you seen the complex yet? And your quarters?”
“I haven’t taken Mr. Sokolov around yet. I wanted him to meet you first,” replied Sylvia before Dedrick could.
“Oh OK, good. Well, I’m glad you made it here without a glitch, and I have a feeling you’re going to enjoy your stay with us. I think you’ll like the place. The complex offers great amenities, including a large gym, an indoor pool, and we also have a wonderful training lab in the east wing of the building. Wait ’til you see it. You’re gonna love it!”
“I’m sure I will, Sir- I mean, Lars,” Dedrick replied with a nod and a smile.
“Great! Well, I’m sure you’re tired and impatient to check out your room, so I’ll let Sylvia take you there. Enjoy the rest of your evening and get some rest. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. We’ll have an orientation briefing in the morning, and you’ll get to meet the other members of your team, but Sylvia will explain all that to you in details. Good to have you on board, Dedrick!” Lars finished as he shook his hand and sat back down in front of his laptop.
“Thank you, Lars. I’m looking forward to it!”
“Good,” he replied as Sylvia and Dedrick left the room.
After visiting a few key places, including the recreational area, the centrifugal room, and the 590mm reflecting telescope, that last stop at Dedrick’s request, Sylvia finally led the Russian to his quarters, deep in the east wing of the main building.
“This is your room. The cafeteria is at the end of the hallway, on the right. Dinner is at seven thirty… that’s in about twenty minutes. If you need anything, just ring the front desk by dialing pound one on your interphone. Make yourself at home, Mr. Sokolov and I’ll see you in a few in the cafeteria.”
“Thank you, Sylvia,” replied Dedrick, daring to use her first name to keep things informal.
She just glanced at him with an approving smile and left.
The apartment was decent in size. The first thing Dedrick noticed was the giant flat screen TV on the wall across from him. Below it, a fake fireplace, vaguely reminding him of the one at his parent’s house, looked surprisingly new. “I wonder if it works,” he thought. A great bay window, almost as wide as the wall it covered, offered a clear view on the lavish forest beyond the compound. To the left, a small office area was filled by an armoire partially hidden behind a desk and chair, on top of which sat a computer. He stared an instant at the “Mars First” logo, moving slowly across the monitor. Beyond, a clear glass door opened into a modern bathroom with an all-around shower and Jacuzzi bathtub. Dedrick walked to the inviting bedroom. The room was uncluttered, with a single queen bed in the middle, a dresser and one chair near the window.
After removing his jacket and hanging it in the closet, Dedrick took off his shoes and walked to the small kitchen area to make himself some coffee. The kitchen was one step higher than the rest of the apartment, in an interesting split-level design. Turning around, his back to the percolating coffee machine, he stared a moment at the retro looking dark green couch that was sitting caddy cornered, facing the large TV. Not really to his taste but nonetheless classic. After pouring himself a well-deserved cup of warm coffee, he looked up at the low ceiling while taking a sip. Dedrick was a tall man at one meter ninety-two, and the ceiling offered only another half a meter or so of room above his head, giving him a strange feeling of confinement but that slight disappointment was compensated by two large skylights that offered a beautiful view of the open sky. In fact, every part of the complex, Dedrick would later learn, was designed to receive as much natural light as possible, a choice that he fully approved. It wasn’t the home of his dreams, but he would make the best of it. He had to. He was going to spend the next eight years here.
Coffee in hand, Dedrick walked to the small table in the middle of the living room, grabbed the remote, sat on the green couch, and turned the TV on. After scanning through a few local channels, he found a documentary on the Ajanta caves of India. He could not understand Dutch, but was nonetheless immediately captivated by the amazing images of temples carved right out of the mountain. For a few minutes, he watched, pondering on the challenges of such an undertaking. But after the excitement and exhaustion of the trip, even his fascination with ancient monuments was not enough to keep him awake for long, and he was soon deep asleep in front of the screen…
He was suddenly awakened by a loud noise outside his room, forty minutes later. At first a bit disoriented, he slowly reached for the remote and turned the TV off. After getting up uneasily, still groggy and walking a few steps, he reached his front door and opened it just in time to see Sylvia slap a young man and walk away.
“I guess I deserved that,” said the man, turning to Dedrick, one hand on his left cheek.
“François! Good to see you, my friend. I see you’ve met Sylvia,” said the Russian with a smirk.
“Yeah. Nice girl,” replied the Frenchman.
“Come on in. When did you arrive?”
François stepped into the room and Dedrick closed the door behind them.
“Want something to drink? Let me see what we have,” continued Dedrick, heading to the small fridge in the kitchen, while François let himself fall back on Dedrick’s green couch and rested his feet up on the coffee table in front of him.
“Sure. Thanks. I just got in a few minutes ago.”
“I see you’ve met Sylvia?”
“Yep. I guess I’ll have to find my room later. She was about to take me there, but I don’t think she liked what I said.”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, nothing worth getting so out of shape about. I just commented on how hot she looked and that I hoped my room had a strong enough bed because I intended to rock her body all night. Ha, ha. Yeah, I know…” he replied with a laugh.
“Wow! Leave it to the French! Yeah, I guess that’s a bit forward for a first meeting,” replied Dedrick, laughing as well.
Dedrick and François were among the first of two hundred thousand plus applicants to sign up for the Mars First project back in 2013. After a pre-selection process that had reduced that number to a mere few hundred the following year, the two friends were now among the lucky final twenty-six scheduled to begin astronaut training.
They had met online after exchanging multiple emails through the Mars First website. Dedrick had been selected as a candidate a few weeks before François, but it was François who had contacted the Russian applicant first, asking for his help with a female Russian applicant he was trying to impress. He needed help translating some emails and a poem the Frenchman was certain would sweep the woman off her feet. Dedrick had kindly obliged and translated the documents in Russian, but not without laughing when he had read the so called “poem.” Of course, François had sent the letter enthusiastically anyway, and as Dedrick had predicted, the young woman had politely declined the Frenchman’s advances and stopped corresponding with him soon after. That incident also explained why Sylvia’s reaction to François’ clumsy courting tactics earlier had not really surprised the Russian. Nonetheless, the two men had become good internet friends over the past year, and they would now have plenty of time to get to know each other even better.