Therefore, he always did a quick check at the start of his shift. He took the daylight lamp from its wall mounting so he could see the colors of the leaves in the natural spectrum. The light emitted by the walls and the ceiling was specifically adapted to the needs of the plants. Then he started to walk past the rows. The garden was a simple tube with an exterior diameter of about two meters and a length of nine meters. The ‘ceiling’ was suspended, and all the utility lines ran above it. At the ‘floor’ there was a path, with storage cabinets below it. The plant’s beds were installed on the exterior walls and two shelves stretching across almost the entire length, with up to six plants stacked on top of each other.
Martin decided on a vertical-horizontal search strategy. He therefore looked at each shelf from bottom to top first, then moved in and reversed the direction. He did not do this because he thought it more efficient, but because it was easier on his knees. At the end of the 16-meter path he had statistically analyzed the color, form, and size of the leaves for the six currently growing types of plants. During his first check-ups he still used the PlantGrowth app of his Universal Pad in order to calculate the existing biomass, but by now he could do this in his head. Plus, he did it better than the app, which he proved by measuring the volume of 20 plants with the good old displacement method. The camera in his head seemed to work better than the 3D cam of the Pad.
He did not have to write anything down. He possessed a good memory, and always had, except for faces. He quickly noted that, concerning the development of the most important features, 15 percent of the plants reached 15 percent of the respective median value. If he said it this way to Jiaying, she would laugh. Even though she was a biologist, or maybe because of it, he had to translate his thoughts for her. How should he express this? Maybe this way: one in six plants was brown.
Martin decided to follow the commander’s instructions. This meant getting rid of 27 plants, representing two fresh dinners for the entire crew—a real loss. Of course he did not really know whether the affected plants would die, although if he waited too long, nothing new could grow in these spots. First Martin had to clear the required space, and then Jiaying would plant the seeds or bulbs, probably in the afternoon while he struggled on the elliptical trainer. The astronauts took whatever was needed for new plants from special storage containers below the floor of the garden. In a truly closed system they would save a part of the harvest for planting the next generation.
He imagined Jiaying walking among the shelves in her underwear. I like her, but I know I have absolutely no chance with her. The psychologists claimed sexual desires decline in space. So far, Martin could not confirm this, but then they had not been in space that long.
“Damage to outer wall, module Gamma 3,” Watson’s voice said, startling him out of his meditative activity. The shift was almost over. The AI sounded completely neutral. If something serious had happened, it would have modulated its voice and announced one of three alert levels. Smaller impacts were casually reported to the astronauts, like just now. Every second the ship’s radar waves scanned, at the speed of light, the hemisphere of space in their direction of travel. The radar would detect larger, more dangerous fragments before impact. Only very large rocks could be detected so early that the chemically powered secondary jets of the ship could move it away from a collision course.
Martin imagined one of the three spider robots now crawling across the hull to investigate the damage. The six-legged robot would examine the width and depth of the impact. It attempted to determine the source, which was not always possible, as the impact would pulverize at least the smaller meteorites. The spider could seal up damaged areas in the one-centimeter range. For this purpose it carried a special red resin in its ‘spinning gland.’ The spider sprayed the resin into the hole, where it hardened within seconds in the vacuum of space. Afterward, the robot moved to its service bay, which the astronauts called the ‘doghouse.’ They had also given names to the three robots—dog names. The kind of thing you do when you are bored, Martin thought. The commander had suggested this, but again the idea probably came from the psychologists. There had been more than three suggestions so they had drawn lots. Martin’s ‘Rex’ did not win, but now he was glad about it, because the name seemed too unimaginative to him. The three winners were Joker, Obi-Wan, and Lancelot.
Larger problems were fixed by the crew during an exterior mission, though it wasn’t worth doing this at once. Watson kept a list of necessary repairs, and as soon as the AI estimated that at least an hour of work was required, the commander planned an exterior mission, or EVA. Luckily, she had not yet sent Martin outside. He did not want to remember his first, and until now, only spacewalk during the week of training on Tiangong-4 when he had acted very clumsily.
The second part of his workday was dedicated to exercise, but first he had to create a report. He spoke the keyword and told the always-listening AI what he had done in the garden. As the astronauts were constantly supervised, the reason for this procedure had originally eluded him. The NASA trainer, however, had given a convincing explanation; the AI analyzed his speech recording on two levels: first, it attempted to look at speech patterns, rhythm, and stress to find the unspoken message behind what was said; and second, the text helped the software understand the environment, as it provided meta-information to match the video recording of his activities. Humans were still better at classifying and arranging things than the AI was.
Martin moved through the zero gravity toward the hamster wheel. The fitness room was located in the fourth habitat module—numbers one through three contained two cabins and a WHC each. If he had been given a free wish, he would have asked to move the dining table there. After all, in his opinion, it is much easier to eat under the influence of gravity.
He climbed the ladder in a direction that now felt downward, but in fact constantly rotated around the axis of the spaceship. Two meters from the end of the spoke there was a glowing ring that Martin pressed. This opened the hatch of the habitat module, and a ladder was extended, as long as no one stood in this spot. The way was clear. Martin climbed down from the ceiling. He then turned around to face the door of the fitness room. He had not memorized everyone’s schedule, so he did not know who else would be there. Work was planned in such a way that at most two astronauts would exercise at any given time.
He pressed a button and the flat door disappeared into the wall. Martin stopped at the threshold. Amy sat on the exercise bicycle, wearing a VR headset and headphones, pedaling steadily. She whistled softly, probably the song she was listening to. Martin did not recognize the tune. Now the bicycle adjusted itself by several degrees. Amy pedaled more slowly; it was obvious she was exerting more strength. The VR headset was probably showing her images of a steep ascent.
Let her continue her trip! Martin was glad he did not have to engage in conversation. He entered the room, which measured approximately three by two meters. Amy stepped on the brake. She seems to possess a sixth sense. Or maybe she had just smelled him? Here in space, of all places, where one could not escape the scent molecules emitted by machines and people, the olfactory sense improved. The commander took off her headset, hung it from the handlebars, and then removed her earphones. She smiled at him. Martin noted sweat stains under the armpits of her T-shirt, and he also saw she wore no bra, probably unnecessary under half of terrestrial gravity.