The Next Continent by Issui Ogawa

was not streamed from Earth; Ma had carried it with him on a memory card. It was not the kind of entertainment Beijing would have transmitted via one of their communications satellites. It was an erotic comedy from Hong Kong. Tae looked away in confusion. Sohya was embarrassed for her, but Cui paid no attention. For a short time, he became a different person, exploding with laughter throughout the film. Still, the rest of the time he was difficult to approach, while Peng and Jiang were easy to deal with.
    After several days, the reason for the irregular scheduling suddenly dawned on Sohya.
    A huge amount of the crew’s time was monopolized by repair work. Each crew member was occupied with something during waking hours, but a third of the work was devoted to repairs to the cooling system, the air and water purification devices, and the base power supply. Next in terms of demands on their time came looking after the creatures and harvesting the experiments in White Tiger. These tasks clearly limited the time available for other scientific work, so the only solution was to skimp on sleep. Even the crew’s strict adherence to the evening meal schedule was an artifact of the overburdened working day. Without at least an unhurried evening meal, they would not have been able to cope with the pressure.
    It seemed to Sohya that Kunlun Base was barely holding together, or at least operating at the limits of its capacity.
    The coolant leak they saw that first day proved to be a daily occurrence, and a sweet smell wafted throughout the base from pools of ethylene glycol beneath the floor. The solar panels installed outside the modules were exposed to direct sunlight with no intervening atmosphere to reduce its intensity, so the older panels were beginning to sustain damage. This sometimes pushed the base’s power supply to dangerously low levels. As an outsider, Sohya might never have noticed this, except for something that occurred just after they had bedded down on the fourth day.
    Sohya was about to doze off when he heard a crash and opened his eyes. The endless whirring of the purification fans and the droning of the reverse osmosis unit made for a surprisingly noisy environment, and it was never easy to sleep. Sohya drowsily opened the door to his sleep station to find Peng lifting a familiarlooking tank from the floor.
    â€œStill working, Commander? Don’t you guys ever get any sleep?”
    â€œSorry to disturb you. Please go back to bed,” said Peng. He glanced at Sohya and tightened a valve on the tank. Sohya heard a loud click and without thinking, asked, “It says ‘SFOG’ on the tank. What does that stand for?”
    Peng shook his head slightly, looking uncomfortable. “So you noticed that. It stands for Solid Fuel Oxygen Generator.”
    â€œOxygen generator?” Sohya said sleepily. “Are we short on oxygen?”
    â€œOf course not. Everything’s fine. We do this all the time.”
    â€œOh, okay…” Sohya climbed back into his hammock and closed his eyes. He needed the sleep.
    When he woke the next morning, he collared Jiang to ask about the oxygen generator. The young taikonaut smiled wryly.
    â€œYou’re right. That’s not standard procedure. We normally generate oxygen from electrolysis. SFOG doesn’t need electricity. It heats potassium chlorate to generate oxygen in emergencies. Commander Peng probably noticed we didn’t have enough power to keep the oxygen level nominal.”
    â€œAre we going to be okay?”
    â€œIt’s a temporary problem. The base is crowded right now.”
    Sohya had learned that not only the power supplies were stretched to their limit. He was also impressed by the crew’s calm in the face of potential disaster. The reality behind their government’s patriotic promotion was that the base was barely functioning, and only thanks to the tireless work of the crew. Keeping Kunlun going had almost