Free First Steps (Founding of the Federation) by Chris Hechtl Page B

protest but another sighed. "We've
done extensive studies; really it is for the best."
    He
started to stand. "Wait a moment." Luigi raised a
restraining hand. "I'm going on the first mission and I happen
to agree with them, white is nice, but it is sterile. We are going to live in this place, make it a home for three years." He
looked over to the lead scientist. "Think about it. We want to
be at home in this place and I for one am not comfortable living in a
lab. White linoleum in the labs and airlock? Okay. But in the living
areas..." He looked over to Wanda.
    She
nodded. "Right. Wood. Lightly stained," she replied with a
firm nod.
    He
nodded. "That would work."
    He
looked at the scientists again. "Wood? On a space craft?"
The elderly psychologist gibbered. "You’re kidding!"
He shook his head. "Out of the question," he replied,
vehemently waving his hands in chopping motions.
    "Don't
be silly, not real wood, linoleum patterned to look like wood.
In fact, we could do bamboo too," Mario replied starting to
smile. "Would the Hans like that?" Mario asked looking over
to Luigi.
    One
of the scientists started to rub his jaw. "Lightly stained you
say?" he asked.
    "Yes,
a light grain, so it isn't so dark and depressive like the deep dark
stains. But enough contrast so it isn't blinding and too clinical,"
Wanda replied.
    Betsy
nodded. "We can do it, we could do a different pattern in each
living quarters as well. Bamboo, or light pine, or light oak, a
different pattern for each Hab. We could paint the trim to match if
we wanted too," Betsy said.
    The
female psychologist nodded. "I see that you want to make this
place a home, perfectly understandable." She looked over to the
others. "Touches of home are important for the mental health of
the crew," she reminded them. Reluctantly the other two nodded.
    "We
can get it done like this." Luigi looked up from his tablet and
placed it in the middle of the table. After a moment the table
computer picked up his upload and the wall screen changed to show a
simulation of the interior of the Hab.
    Luigi
picked up the tablet then scrolled through the hab, allowing them to
look around. "See? More homey," he replied.
    Mario
nodded. "I like it." He smiled.
    "Next
you'll want a fireplace I suppose..." One of the scientists
grumped.
    Mario
chuckled, and then rubbed his chin. "You know, that's not a bad
idea come to think of it..." Wanda poked him. Mario grinned at
her. "No, the wood will work." He smiled.
    ...*...*...*...*...
    “I
see you swapped one of the open rovers for a greenhouse,” Mario
said. Mario looked over the revised cargo list. “Three open
rovers and two enclosed ones. Good.” He nodded. “And with
the greenhouse we can have fresh food to supplement your rations.”
    Luigi
nodded. “Yeah good point. Three years of TV dinners is not very
appealing.”
    Mario
sighed. “Well, we can try to do some home grown meals. NASA has
spent the past forty years acquiring recipes and has tons of
manuals,” Mario grunted. He was still irritated that NASA had
spent forty years developing things for space flight but when it came
time to actually do it they wanted to throw everything out and start
fresh. It was like they didn't get the concept of getting the job
done!
    “Were
going almost totally paperless right? Relying on the computers for as
much documentation as possible to save weight?” Mario asked
looking over the net. “Damn. Please tell me this data storage
here isn't a hard drive.”
    Luigi
chuckled. “No, solid state hard drive. Basically a really big
ROM chip.”
    Mario
whistled. “Sony is providing the Terabyte chips? Wow. I
couldn't fill a one Terabyte drive and we each get a stack of them?”
He shook his head.
    “Well
we are going to have an AV library in the net and each person will
have their own materials,” Luigi replied and then pointed.
“We're not just going without paper; we're going to try to go
with only a handful of data backups too. We'll keep a back up of