“Raptors, Lizzy, these are Raptor engines…the Merlins have been scrapped for over five—“
“—I KNOW! Gertrude, yikes. Are you prepared to take one for the team then, telling all those passengers they have to wait another two years for the next launch window to get to earth? Heck, I know that I for one will not be doing that anytime soon.”
We were having the typical Lizzy rant all over again. All other space-attendants who had flown with her before had learnt to expect her craziness; it was perhaps a strangely reassuring constant in these Mars-Earth journeys. Being nearest to her meant I couldn’t avoid getting entangled in her internal arguments. No matter the futility of the exercise, I always tried to placate her.
“They wouldn’t have to wait that long, SpaceX always rebooks passengers onto other spacelines. Blue Origin would jump at our loss, and Virgin—”
“If any of these passengers could afford Jeff Bezos’ fancy spacecraft they’d have been on it already. At least the New Glenn doesn’t have failing engines on startup. I swear to Elon….” Lizzy’s last words were buried in a deafening roar as the Raptors exploded into life as if to make a point. But the PA system continued to drone on “—cabin crew please remain seated until the seatbelt indicators turn green on your dashboards, we’re are going to be…"
“Didn’t even realise we left the ground,” whispered Lizzy.
“Thrust required for lift off on Mars—”
“—is a third of that required on Earth, again Gertrude, I know. Gosh if you’re gonna lecture me about something, can it NOT be about something we both learnt at the SAME university.”
“You’re funny.”
Lizzy looked at me and smiled. She gave me a hard time now and then but we had been together far too long for me to mind whatever douchebaggery she threw my way.
We had reached cruising speed 45 minutes later and the solar array panels had just been deployed. The sight of the MCT unfurling the wing-like arrays was not unlike that of a majestic albatross preparing to take flight on a quiet Sunday morning by a deserted lake with nothing around it for tens of thousands of miles. Looking out at it through the cabin crew window never got old.
A few moments later Lizzy and I were shuffling between the isles serving passengers their dinner. Most were already restless and looking forward to leaving their confined launch chairs to head on to the upper deck. No one could blame them. The upper deck was the only thing among the strangeness of the interior of the Mass Colonial Transporter that had some sense of familiarity. It was a large space designed to look as homely and warm as possible, capable of having all 50 passengers at one time. Retractable book shelves, harnessed furniture and faux green lawn by faux walkways…everything that could make the 150 day journey comfortable had been thought of. Well, not everything, apparently Blue Origin’s New Glenn had much larger living quarters, with a passenger and crew dining area so that passengers didn’t have to return to their launch seats to be served meals.
“—can I have it with some lemon juice-please-thank-you.”
“—thanks darling, I’ll have the potato salad too”
I could tell Lizzy was already getting flustered as we pushed the service trolley from one customer to the next, and as I strained to see how far back the other space-hostesses were.
“Kopa o nthotheletse Bacardi foo tlhe motho wa modimo, nna kana ganke ke ja nako tse,” said a stout female passenger to a bewildered Lizzy. This made me smile.
“She wants the Bacardi for now Lizzy,” I helped her out, and in turn rewarded me with a quick smile of pretence-thanks (more like a "mind-your-own-business" smile), and served the lady. After all these years she still hadn’t picked up some of the basics of the language of those using route 267…this is going to be one long ride.
