It was entirely due to our water situation being what it was, and would be until, or if and when, we succeeded in climbing Jesperson’s “hill” and doing a fix. Once he got all his soldiers back in vacuum gear and lined up to fight the conditioning crusade, his doctor roommate realized she needed to take a back seat to her newfound love’s deadly serious, no nonsense dedication to the do-or-die business at hand. Once his intensity refocused on doing right, he put his smart-mouth in full flower, got his ducks all lined up, and privately vowed to stop making waves in high places, saying it was nonproductive. Unless the hoist system checked-out as functional, or at minimum fit to be repaired and used, us foot-sloggers would be sweating up and down the ringwall maintenance trail to no purpose. The primo item on his agenda was therefore to corral his original three helpmates and lead us back out to Olympus Rupes. This time, however, he filed a formal crawler-use requisition and trip plan, and waited impatiently for the council to sprinkle holy water on his humble request.
