Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (108 page)

“And there’s more?”

“Yeah, lots. Probably tons of it.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s this worth?”

Jeff shrugged. “Beats me. Gabe?”

Gabe shook her head. “I don’t know. What is gold
selling for these days?”

“Oh, around $2,000 an ounce, I think.”

“Well, we’ve got about eight kilos, 22 carat, so
about 0.92 fine. That’s roughly 260 ounces… $520,000, give or take.”

Abby chuckled. “Not bad wages for a couple hours
work.”

Jeff shook his head. “Yeah, but it’ll cost a lot
more than that just to get it back to Earth.”

“It can’t cost that much.”

“Gabriel?”

Gabe sighed. “Well, if upon our return to Earth the
only tangible item we have to show for the trip is 17.6 pounds of gold, the net
cost to get it home is roughly the cost of the trip, $3 billion, or around
$10.6 million per ounce.”

Abby rolled her eyes. “Oh, details. Can I have one?”

Jeff held his hand out toward the stack. “Help
yourself.” He chuckled. “You can write me a check when we get home.”

“Yeah, right.” She pawed through the bags, selected
one containing an unusually large nugget, and dropped it on the lab scale that
was calibrated in Earth weight. It read four ounces. “That’ll do. Should make a
nice paperweight.”

Jeff nodded. “Uh huh. Gabe and I figured you’d take
the big one.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a plastic bag with another
nugget in it, and set it on the scale.

Abby gasped. “Nine ounces! Holy shit!”

He snatched the bag off the scale before Abby could
grab it, and returned it to his pocket. “Gabriel?”

Gabe pulled a bag from her pocket and set it on the
scale.

Abby’s jaw dropped. “Twenty-one ounces! Mother…!
Trade you.”

Gabe snatched the nugget off the scale. “No.”

Jeff put his hand on Susan’s shoulder. “What about
you?”

“Oh, I think I’ll just melt down the rest, cast it
in a bar, and stick it in my carryon luggage.”

He laughed. “That’d work. But why don’t you leave a
little for JPL. Of course, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“No, I suppose not. Good grief, when I said this
place was a mineralogical gold mine, I wasn’t thinking of it literally. Did you
find any other interesting things?”

“Oh yeah, lots. The usual assortment of basaltic and
sedimentary rocks, and plenty of signs of hydration; clay minerals and the
like. Analysis of the sediment samples starting above the chaos and descending
down into it may be revealing. What we didn’t find was a whole lot of layering,
which was something of a disappointment. It’s probably there, but underground
down in the valles, and we couldn’t get to it.”

Susan nodded. “Do you think it might be worthwhile
to take
Jake
down there?”

Jeff cringed. “Ugh. That would be one very long
drive. I’m sure it would be informative, but I think maybe we need to look for
something a little closer for him to get his teeth into. There’s a layered
outcropping that Gabe and I ran across when we relocated
Pathfinder
.
It’s a lot closer and may provide just as much information if we dig down
alongside it. Anyway, we took a good hard look at the base of the slope south
of Frying Pan, where it meets the Loire Valles. You know those two big mounds
that split?”

“Uh huh.”

“The more we looked at those the more they looked
like the remnants of a chaos, the remainder of which may have been eroded by
water flow from the Loire or Samara, or both. That plain down at the bottom is
awfully flat and somewhat reminiscent of a delta, or something like that. Could
be there was a lot of ponding there before it broke out through that west ridge
at the confluence. We took a lot of samples that may ultimately tell us
something. The interesting part is, we may be looking at multiple events. That
is the chaos formation may have preceded a later inundation from the Loire, or
more to the point, the Samara. If we’re looking for a game-changer, that could
be it. Again, sample analysis back on Earth may tell us more.”

“That would be interesting.”

“Uh huh.”

“Sounds like you had a good trip.”

“Yeah, we did. Getting around towing the Genesis can
be a little challenging, but it’s not really that bad. It’s interesting. What
looks like a steeply descending narrow canyon on a THEMIS or HiRISE image, is
four kilometers wide and not nearly as steep as it appears on the Viking topo
maps. Everything here is so much bigger than it appears in satellite imagery,
and I think the reason for that is our perspective is skewed somewhat by what
we accept as the norm on Earth. Formation of the Grand Canyon began around 17
million years ago, but we’re driving around a landscape that evolved three to
four
billion
years ago. In spite of the absence of water, atmospheric
density, tectonic, and volcanic activity, there has still been an awful lot of
erosion since then. And when you’re maneuvering around it, you kind of have to
think in an entirely different paradigm. But it’s neat. There are some
spectacular vistas out there. Gabe, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Oh yes. It’s remarkable. The view from above the
Loire Chaos is breathtaking. And once you get down into it, it’s like nothing
on Earth. As I’d look at one formation after another, I kept asking myself the
same questions. How did this happen? What took place here? We may never
completely answer those questions, but it’s certainly something to behold.”

Susan was fidgeting.

“What’s the matter with you?” said Abby. “You’re
acting like you need to use the bathroom.”

“No.” She glanced at Jeff. “I want to see the ice.”

Abby shook her head. “There’s a fortune in gold
sitting here and you want to see ice cubes?”

“Yes!”

Gabe dug into the sample box and produced three
sealed Baggies of ice and set them on the counter.

Susan’s eyes grew wide and she gasped. “Oh my god.
Where did you find this?”

Jeff smiled. “We came across a narrow deep crevice
in a rock formation on the south side of the Loire Valles, about due south of
Frying Pan, that probably never sees direct sunlight. At least, not now. So we
stopped to take a look. Did a little digging with a shovel and a couple feet
down ran into solid ice.”

Susan took one of the bags and stared at it. “How
much was there?”

He shrugged. “Impossible to say. Could be a few
cubic feet or a few cubic miles. No way to tell. I think a little of it has
melted and refrozen.”

“How could it melt?” said Abby. “It hasn’t been
above freezing here in over a month.”

“Sunlight on the sample box. We didn’t think to
insulate it and it probably got into the upper 30s or lower 40s for a few hours
a day, but then it would freeze again at night. But bagged as it is, it’s still
all original and didn’t sublimate.”

“Is this all you brought?” asked Susan.

“Yeah. We figured that would be enough for you to
play around with for now. We can always go back and get more. After digging it
out we shoveled the sand back in to keep it from sublimating. I doubt we can
keep it frozen long enough to get it back to Earth, so you might want to
contact JPL and ask them how they want us to handle it.”

“Yes, of course. This is incredible.”

“Once you’ve analyzed it, maybe we can melt some and
all have a sip of Martian water.”

Abby’s eyes lit up. “Or Scotch on Martian rocks.”

That evening Jeff found Susan in the lab. “Still
playing with your ice?”

“Yes, this is fascinating. Water ice has only been
rarely observed here, and never before analyzed.”

“So what have you found?”

“It’s not much different than spring or well water
on Earth. A few trace elements – calcium, manganese, phosphates, some salts,
and the like – but nothing unusual. The amounts vary from sample to sample. The
deeper you went, the more pure it got.”

“That makes sense. Bag one was from the surface. Bag
two was a couple inches down, and bag three was from about a foot down.”

“Do you have any idea how deep it is?”

“No. No clue.”

“It would sure be neat if we could get something
like a six-foot core sample, if it’s that deep.”

“Well, core tubes are one thing we didn’t bring, but
we might be able to salvage a pipe off of something and hammer it down. Or, if
the field extends out to the mouth of the crevice we could use
Jake
’s
auger and collect samples as it brought stuff up. The crevice is too narrow to
get him more than a couple meters in there.”

“I think we should do that. JPL wants us to try to
return frozen samples in as original condition as possible.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet they do. Did they have any
suggestions as to how to do it?”

“Not really. They’re looking over our inventory and
are trying to come up with something like a double-walled vacuum thermos.”

Jeff laughed. “Good luck with that. I think we’d
have to make one, but out of what, I don’t know. Is it safe to consume?”

“So far as I can tell, yes. Obviously there are no
biologics present, and the mineral content as I said is not all that different
from potable fresh water on Earth. It just needs to be filtered to remove
particulate matter. Or we could simply distill it.”

“That’s cheating. Besides, if we’re going to build a
still, I think Abby would have something else in mind for it.”

Susan smiled and nodded. “Yes, I’ll bet she would.”

Wednesday, February
8, 2017

MSD 50872.359 (Sol
122)

The women sat at the breakfast table staring at Jeff
as he sipped his coffee.

He frowned. “What?”

“How’s your coffee?” said Susan.

“Fine.” He noticed that none of them were drinking
theirs.

“Taste alright?”

“Yeah, fine. Why do you ask?”

She shrugged. “Just curious.”

He carefully eyed the coffee cup. “Uh huh. What’s
going on?”

Abby glanced at Susan. “How long would it take?”

“Hard to say. All depends.”

Jeff cocked his jaw and furrowed his brow. “How long
would
what
take?”

“Well, we made the coffee this morning with Martian
water, and we’re just kind of curious.”

“I see. And I’m the guinea pig?”

Gabe grinned. “Something like that. You know, odd
man out? And since you’re the only man here, it wasn’t a difficult choice.”

He smiled and nodded. “Ah, okay. Well, should I fall
ill, before I die this place is liable to resemble the final scene in a
Shakespearian tragedy.”

They all laughed nervously.

He sipped his coffee. “Drink up.”

The women glanced at one another.

“Now!”

Wednesday, March 15,
2017

MSD 50906.452 (Sol
156)

“Well?” Gabe asked.

“I don’t know,” Susan replied.
“Without 3D I just can’t tell for sure. Looks like a girl, but I wouldn’t swear
to it.”

“Oh, you’re a lot of help.”

“Hey, you’ll find out soon enough.
Don’t sweat it.”

“A girl?” Jeff asked. “What are the
odds?”

“Does this look like Las Vegas?
Jeez, I’m not an expert at this. I dunno, maybe, 75% probability? Feel free to
place your bets, but I want odds.”

Jeff grinned sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Gabe gasped and lurched up.

“What?” said Susan.

“I felt a kick.”

“You did?”

“Uh huh.”

“Is that the first one?”

Gabe grinned. “Yes.”

Susan placed her hand on Gabe’s
belly. Jeff and Abby stepped over and did the same.

Gabe frowned. “What are you doing?
Get your hands off me.”

“No,” said Abby. “We want to feel
it too.”

Gabe growled, then a moment late
said, “There. There’s another one. Did you feel it?”

They all smiled and nodded.

“Oh, wow,” said Jeff.

“Well, middle of the 20
^th
week,” said Susan. “So, you’re right about on schedule.”

Gabe grinned.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

MSD 50930.824 (Sol
180)

After dinner Jeff remained seated
at the dining table sipping a cup of coffee while the women busied themselves
in the kitchen.

Gabe turned around and looked at
him. “Close your eyes.”

Jeff raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Which word didn’t you understand?”

“Oh for cryin’ out loud. Alright.”
He closed eyes. He heard something being set on the table.

“Okay, you can open them now.”

“Happy birthday to you,” they all
sang out. “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Jeffrey… Happy birthday
to you.”

Sitting on the table before him was
an eight-inch round, two-inch high birthday cake with ‘Happy 54
^th
’
scrawled in icing. He smiled at the cake, then each of them in turn. “Thank
you. Thank you very much. But I was rather hoping that no one would remember.”

Gabe frowned at him. “You can’t be
serious.”

He rolled his eyes and shrugged.
“Um, I didn’t know that we brought cake pans.”

Susan shook her head. “We didn’t.
We made them out of some bits of junk off one of the MSL descent stages.”

Jeff chuckled. “You’re kidding?”

“No. A little metalworking, a
couple rivets… no big deal. A lot easier than that hunk of junk you made for
Abby’s leg.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

Gabe hovered over the table. “Okay,
now we didn’t bring any candles, so we’re gonna have to improvise.” She struck
a wooden kitchen match and quickly planted it in the middle of the cake. “Make
a wish and blow out the match before it ignites the cake.”

Jeff frowned. “Why? Is it
flammable.”

Susan shrugged.

Gabe glared at him. “Just make a
damn wish and blow out the match!”

Jeff nodded sheepishly. The only
wish he could think of was that they should all make it home alive. He blew out
the match. “There. Happy?”