Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (89 page)

“Yes. They should be receiving
voice and video.”

“Good. How’s
Amos
doing?”

“He’s on his way. I’m getting an
‘unfamiliar territory’ signal from him, but he has an inertial fix on us. Looks
like we’re about a kilometer north of
Columbus
’ drop line, and about
three kilometers north of
Magellan
’s. I don’t think either
Amos
or
Andy
have been this far north before, so he’s taking his time.
Probably twelve to fifteen minutes.”

“Well, we’ve still got about three
hours of air left, so shouldn’t be a problem. Okay… everybody out of the car, I
guess.” He walked back to the lander and folded his couch so Gabe could get out
while Abby climbed out.

Jeff took Gabe’s hand and helped
her up.

As she stood, she gasped. “Oh my
god!”

He chuckled. “Welcome to Mars.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Come on, stretch your legs.”

“Yeah.”

He helped her out. She took a step
and fell to her knees.

He grabbed her arm. “You okay?”

“Yes. It’s just a little
overwhelming.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling.”

Abby had wondered off ten paces or
so and was just standing, staring east.

“Abby,” said Susan, still pinned
under Abby’s couch. “Abigail!”

“Yeah, yeah, just a minute.”

“Hang on Sue, I’ll get you,” said
Jeff. He put his hand on Gabe’s helmet. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He walked around to the
other side of the lander and helped Susan out.

Standing together, holding Jeff’s
hand, Susan glanced around. “It’s weird.”

“How’s that?”

“There’s nothing to see, yet
everything to see.”

“Uh huh.” He patted her on the
shoulder. “Have a look around.”

“Yeah.”

Abby was on her knees, holding
handfuls of sand. Jeff walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
“And how are you doing?”

She sniffed. “It’s unbelievable.
I’m here, I made it.”

He smiled. “Yeah, you made it. If
there’s a bar in heaven, I’ll bet your grandfather is buying a round for the
house about now.”

She giggled. “Yeah.”

For ten minutes they wandered
around, ooing and awing over sand, rocks, a dark orange sky, and footprints.

Gabe walked up to Jeff. “Look at
this.” She handed him a softball-size rock.

“It’s heavy. Meteorite?”

“I think so.”

“So, where’s the crater?”

“Probably filled in with sand a
billion years ago.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Time takes on a
whole new meaning here, doesn’t it?”

“Uh huh.”

He handed the meteorite back to
her.

“May I keep it?”

“You don’t need to ask my
permission. Of course you can keep it, but around here I wouldn’t be surprised
if we found a lot more. We’ll probably be able to line the front walk with
them.”

She pointed south. “Dust.”

“
Amos
?”

“Or a Martian welcoming committee.”

“If so, I hope they speak English.”

“And aren’t hungry.”

“Uh, yeah. Boy, he’s sure kicking
up a lot of dust. A lot more than we saw during the desert trials on Earth.”

“It’s that iron oxide powder. We
don’t have that on Earth.”

“Hmmm. We’re gonna have to watch
that, particularly if we’re driving downwind. Get that stuff all over our suits
and we’re gonna have a lot of housekeeping to do.”

“Yes. And it will probably smell
like perchlorate.”

“Yeah, it’ll smell like we’re
living in an indoor shooting range.”

“Well, at least we anticipated that
and have pretty good air filtration.”

Jeff kicked at the sand. “We hope.”

“It worked pretty well on those
samples we got from Death Valley.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t Death
Valley.”

“Looks kind of like it.”

“It does, doesn’t it? Except for
the sky.”

“It’s incredible.”

“Uh huh. Well, when he gets here
why don’t you have him park over there…” he pointed a short distance south, “…
and put the MastCam on us, and we’ll have our little flag-raising ceremony,
then go find the Genesis.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll get the flag.”

Jeff returned to the lander and
pulled out a plaque and the flag, an assembly similar to that planted on the
moon by the Apollo missions, but without the horizontal crossbar. A minute
later
Amos
arrived. Gabe walked over to the rover while Jeff picked a
spot to raise the flag. “How’s he look?”

“Not as bad as I thought it might be. Some dust here
and there, but he must have got a decent bath in that cleaning event we
registered on the solar arrays last month.”

“Yeah, that was a pretty good
breeze. Okay, put the MastCam on us and let’s get on with it, we should be
getting our first post-arrival message from Newport in a few minutes. Everybody
want to gather around?” He picked a spot near his first set of footprints,
located a suitable rock, hammered the base about a foot into the sand, raised
the staff to its full eight-foot height, and unfurled the American flag. The
gentle morning breeze caused barely a flutter. He then attached the plaque to
the base of the flagpole, joined the others, and all four saluted. “I’ve thought
for a long time about the appropriate words for this moment. I don’t know as
there are any appropriate words. But a speech I’ve read many times, given by a
man far more famous and eloquent than I, kept coming into my head. I hope
Lincoln will forgive me for paraphrasing his great oratory.

“
The world will
little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what
those whom have given their lives in the exploration of space did to get us
here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from those honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure
of devotion—that we here highly resolve that those dead shall not have died in
vain.

“We hereby name this site,
‘Armstrong Landing,’ in honor of the late Neil Armstrong, the first human to
set foot on another celestial body, and establish upon it the ‘Fallen Astronaut
Memorial.’ On this plaque are the names of the twenty-nine men and women whom
have given their lives in the exploration of space and the advancement of
mankind’s knowledge of our universe, and it is signed by the four of us.”

Chrissie’s voice came over the
radio. “Grey Station, Newport, hope we’re not interrupting anything. We’re
reading your signal five by five via
Pathfinder
’s K
_a
band
relay and Goldstone. We have solid receipt of data, voice, and video, and copy
your safe landing in the Margaritifer Basin. Congratulations. You did it!”

They could hear cheering in the
background.

“We’re all kind of at a loss for
words. Congratulations are pouring in from around the world and we’ll package
those up along with some television coverage and send them along in a
compressed file once things have calmed down a bit. We know you have a very
busy week ahead of you and we’re sure you’re anxious to get the Genesis
assembled, get out of your suits, get something to eat and some rest, so I’ll
keep this brief. We’ll have an antenna at Goldstone on you for about another
hour, and our next regularly scheduled transmission will be from Madrid at 2300
your time. In the meantime, we’ve got some housekeeping items to send. We’ll
buffer them on
Pathfinder
and you can look at them at your leisure.

“Again, we and all the world are
excited beyond words, as I’m sure you are too. Stay safe and we’ll talk to you
tonight. Newport out.”

“Roger, Newport,” said Jeff. “We
copy your transmission. Yeah, we’re pretty excited too. As you can see, we just
finished the flag raising and site dedication, and we’re about ready to hop in
the car and head for the barn. I doubt we’re gonna make it into the Genesis
before LOS Goldstone. If not, we’ll sign off and revert to the scheduled
transmission protocol, if that’s alright with you? Please let everyone on Earth
know that we are safe and well, and really glad to be here. We’ll talk to you
later. Grey Station, out. Abby, you want to help me put the lid back on this
lander? Try and keep as much dust out of here as we can in case we need to
scavenge some parts out of it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

That complete, he looked around at
the others. “Well, shall we head on out? Who’s driving?”

“Me,” said Gabe.

“Roger that. Let’s go.”

“Okay, just a minute.”

“What?”

“Let me tag and bag this rock.”
Gabe retrieved a sample bag from
Amos
’ tool chest, labeled it, dropped
the rock in, sealed it, and placed it in the sample bin. “Okay. Glad we stocked
these before launching them.”

“Yeah.”

They all climbed into
Amos
and buckled up. Jeff and Gabe in front, Abby and Susan in the fold-up seats in
back.

Gabe gave
Amos
a destination
of the Genesis module and a GOTO command. With that, he started off,
backtracking the route he had taken to get there after crossing
Columbus
’
drop line, a known safe route.

After about fifty yards, Jeff said,
“Wait a minute.”

Gabe punched STOP on the command
console. “What?”
Amos
abruptly stopped.

Jeff pointed west. “While we here, let’s go see a
crater. Go over there.”

She responded nervously, “Um,
okay,” selected MANUAL, and grabbed the joystick on the console between them.

Amos lurched forward.

“Easy,” said Jeff.

“Sorry. He weighs 62% less here
than on Earth, so he feels like he has a lot more power. It’ll take me a minute
to get used to it.”

“Got it. But while you’re getting
used to it, try not to drive us into a big hole in the ground.”

“Are you criticizing my driving?”

“Um, at the moment? Yes.”

“Humph.”

Gabe brought
Amos
to a
gently stop about twenty yards short of the crater Jeff had seen from the
lander.

“Better?”

“Much. Shall we have a look? Feel free to leave the
meter running.”

Gabe chuckled. “Rog.”

They all climbed out and walked to
the edge of the crater.

Jeff glanced around. “Looks kind of
like Eagle, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Gabe. “There must be
bedrock not far under this sand. The outcroppings are similar.” She stepped
down over the rim and knelt by an outcrop of rocks. “They’re layered. There was
once water here, and a lot of it.”

Abby went back to
Amos
and
returned with a rock hammer.

Jeff frowned. “What are you doing? I just wanted to
have a look, not setup a mining operation. Come on, we’ve got things to do.”

“Eh, don’t get your panties in a
wad, this won’t take but a minute.” She walked over to a flat rock, about a meter
square, knelt in the sand and began scratching on it with the hammer’s pick.
“This is kind of like sandstone, it’s soft.”

“Yeah, so what? There’s probably
lots of it around here.”

“Yes, but this is the first we’ve
seen.”

“And…?”

“You’ll see.”

Jeff walked over to see what she
was doing. She had the first few letters of her name scratched in the rock.

He laughed. “Oh, fine, we brought a
tagger with us. What will the locals think?”

“Um, I think we are the locals.”
She finished inscribing ‘
Abigail Nolan
,’ and handed Jeff the hammer.

Jeff, Gabe, and Susan in turn
scratched their names on the rock, then Jeff added the Earth date and, ‘
We
were here first
.’

“You sure?” said Abby.

“Until somebody finds evidence to
the contrary, I’m gonna go with what we know.”

“Sounds reasonable. How long do you think that will
last?”

“A couple million years at least,”
said Gabe.

“Should be long enough.”

“Alright,” said Jeff, “let’s move
along. We’ve got lots to do. Sue, you want to get a picture of that? We’ll send
a postcard home.”

“Got it.”

They climbed back into
Amos
and headed south. About a kilometer down the ‘road’ they came across a mass of
rover tracks and turned east, following
Columbus
’ drop line. Gabe pulled
to a stop, and pointed out the front. “Look at the rover tracks. Some look
fresh, others are nearly filled in with sand and dust.”

“Yeah,” said Jeff, “but look, it’s
not consistent. Some tracks look relatively fresh, then obliterated, then fresh
again.”

“Dust devils?”

“That’d be my guess.” He reached to
the control panel, slewed
Amos
’ MastCam around, and took a few pictures.

“We’re going to be sending so much
scientific data back, it’ll keep JPL and astrogeologists around the world busy
for generations.”

“You’re probably right about that.
Well, let’s move on.”

Another kilometer down the drop
line, Gabe pointed ahead. “There it is.”

A couple minutes later they stopped
alongside the Genesis module. It sat, unexpanded, seven feet off the ground on
two A-frames. The module’s fully assembled mass was far too great to land with
an MSL descent stage, so it would have to be assembled and inflated before they
could enter it.

Jeff shook his head. “This is gonna
be a lot of fun.”

“At least it made it in one piece,”
said Gabe.

“Yeah. And it looks like a
reasonable working space.”

“Uh huh.”

“Okay, let’s go on down and pickup
the parts package.”

“Right.”

450 meters on down the drop line
they came to a jumbled pile of deflated airbags, stopped, and got out.

“Well, it’s in there somewhere,”
said Jeff. “Let’s get the bags off.”