Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (94 page)

“We’re in the ravine.”

“Oh yeah? What’s it like?”

“Rocky. Think of the HiRISE images
of the north end of the Morava Valles.”

“Eeew.”

“It’s not that bad, mostly just big
sheets of bedrock. You just have to avoid the drop-offs, crevices, and
potholes. Otherwise, it’s a walk in the park.”

“Okay, I’ll take your word for it.
We’re gonna start disassembling this thing. See you in a couple hours.”

“Roger that.”

Jeff and Gabe detached from
Amos
’
life support system and plugged into their PLSSs. While Gabe folded antennas,
Jeff began unbolting
Pathfinder
’s ‘head’ from the landing stage. The
head contained the radios, antennas, batteries, and RTG power supply. The
landing stage contained the rocket motors, fuel tanks, and landing legs, and
was no longer needed as Abby and Susan had a lightweight support tower for the
head with them. Once separated from the landing stage Gabe and Jeff carefully
set the head in the rover’s bed and securely strapped it in place. On Earth,
the lander’s payload section weighed 230 pounds, and would have been too much
for just the two of them to handle. But on Mars it only weighed 87 pounds, and
was manageable.

“Okay, Gabe, that looks good. Let’s
go.”

“Rog.”

They climbed back into the rover,
reattached to its life support system, and headed south.”

“Abby?” said Jeff.

“Yeah, I’m here, I was just about
to call you.”

“Oh yeah? We’ve got
Pathfinder
in back and are on our way. Where are you?”

“We’re there.”

“There? There, where?”

“At the north end of the ridge,
about two klicks south of that little crater on the east rim of Frying Pan.”

“Oh, okay. You made good time.”

“Yeah, it’s wasn’t too bad to here,
and from here on should be a piece of cake; it’s all sand, just like the north
end of those HiRISE images of the volcano. Low dunes running north-south, about
five to ten meters apart; shouldn’t be bad at all.”

“Excellent.”

“You want us to run on up there and
pick a spot?”

“Sure, go ahead. It’s about 25
klicks, so it’ll probably take us an hour, hour and a half, to get there. We’ll
ease out through the south pass in this ridge and then just follow your
tracks.”

“That’s the long way around. We
took a detour and followed the canyon all the way to Frying Pan, then
backtracked up here. Unless you want to go sightseeing, you can probably save
six or eight kilometers by skipping that part. When you get to the bend in the
canyon where it turns southwest, just go straight and head for the ridge.”

“Is it worth seeing?”

“Oh yeah! That valles cuts right
through the ejecta and runs straight into the crater, then abruptly drops off
about 500 meters. We took some pictures and a few samples. It’s weird, it sure
looks like it was cut by water, but whether the water was flowing in or out is
hard to say.”

“I think it had to be flowing in,”
said Susan. “The rim and face of the crater show significant signs of erosion.”

As Jeff and Gabe rumbled south
alongside the 100-meter high escarpment that formed the west wall of the
valley, he mentally scratched his chin. “Yeah, okay, but how do you explain all
the erosion on the west side of the crater? That east side is 500 meters above
everything around, including the west side of the crater. Water doesn’t flow
uphill.”

“Multiple events? Suppose that eons
ago the terrain here was somewhat different. For example, suppose that at the
time of the impact that created the crater, this area from the volcano all the
way over to the hills on the west side of the crater was one continuous
mountain range, and supposing the entire Basin, except for that range of
volcanic peaks was inundated.”

“And the impact created something
akin to Crater Lake in Oregon?”

“Right. And water breeched the
ejecta on the east side and filled up the lake.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that. Then what
happened?”

“The big bang.”

“You mean the Vastitas Borealis
impact?”

“Yes, and chaos ensued. Mile-high
walls of water rushing in every which direction eventually ate a channel
through this volcanic range, and drained the crater lake through the west side,
either north into the Basin proper or south into the Loire Valles, and then
around to the Morava Valles, on up into what is now the Iani Chaos, and on into
Ares Vallis.”

“Makes as much sense as anything.”

“That valley running into Frying
Pan is over ten kilometers long, is at some points the better part of two
kilometers wide and, over a hundred meters deep! That’s like a stretch of the
Mississippi River, and then some. And it doesn’t even have a name. This place
is incredible.”

Jeff laughed. “Now aren’t you glad
you came? You guys probably did more exploration and research this morning than
the MSL did in two years.”

“Yeah. Wow.”

“Anyway,” said Abby, “Jeff, it’s
only a day trip, so you might want to skip it today and come back another
time.”

“Gotcha. Okay, we’ll take the
bypass and see you in an hour or so. When you get up there, make sure you’ve
got line-of-sight with the station.”

“Will do.”

“And then why don’t you guys look
around for a nice sidewalk bistro and we’ll do lunch.”

There was a brief pause, followed
by a laugh. “Um, are we on the same planet?”

“Yeah, right. Okay, let’s just try
and get home by suppertime.”

“Rog.”

Fifteen minutes later, Gabe eased
through the narrow south pass of the valley’s west ridge into the adjoining
valley that led to Frying Pan crater, and they intercepted
Andy
’s
tracks. “I guess we can pick up the speed a bit.”

“Yeah,” said Jeff. “Just keep your
eyes on the road and watch for rocks.”

“And what are you going to watch
for?”

“Oh, I’m just gonna sit back and
take in all this pastoral scenery.”

“You’ll let me know if you see
anything… pastoral?”

“Yeah.”

Half an hour, 8.5 kilometers, and a
slow climb up the hill, and they found themselves alongside the massive
500-meter-high rugged butte comprising the brunt of what remained of Frying
Pan’s meteorite impact ejecta. Gabe stopped. “Wow, that is some rock.”

“Yeah. I don’t know about you, but
I don’t think I’d want to have to climb that south face.”

“No. Once you get past the rubble
at the base, that has to be nearly 400 meters vertical.”

“Abby?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re at the bend in the river,
where are you?”

“We’re on top, in the center of the
ridge on a knoll about two and a half klicks south of the minus 750-meter MOLA
contour. About 500 meters south of an east-west string of three small craters.”

Gabe chimed in. “I know the spot.
Can you see the station?”

“Yeah. Looking at it through the
binoculars right now. You guys have got to see this view, it’s incredible. To
the northwest is Frying Pan, to the east the Loire Chaos, to the south the
Loire Valles, and to the southwest the confluence of the Loire and Samara.”

“Roger that,” said Jeff, “we’re on
our way. Probably be another half hour.”

“Take your time, we’re having fun
and keeping busy. I’m taking pictures and Sue’s collecting samples. She found a
reasonably fresh little crater – about ten meters across – and she’s down in it
trying to dig out some bedrock, see what this hill is made of. Oh, and I’ve got
Andy
taking a panorama with the Mastcam.”

“Alright, sounds good. See you in a
bit.”

They crested the knoll and pulled
to a stop alongside
Andy
. Jeff switched their VOX comms to Abby and
Susan’s channel, connected to his PLSS, and climbed out. “Hi, we’re here. I see
what you mean about the view. Wow.”

Gabe climbed out, walked around the
rover, and stood beside Jeff. “Oh my god! The Loire Chaos. That’s
unbelievable.”

“Yeah. Quite the geologic train
wreck, isn’t it?”

“Uh huh. Hundreds of square
kilometers of football-stadium sized boulders. Good god!”

“I think some them are a lot bigger
than that. Some of those cliff faces have to be a couple hundred meters. And
can you imagine what the Iani or Aureum Chaos looks like? Ten thousand times
bigger?”

“Not really, it’s beyond my
imagination. We need to figure out how to get down in there.”

“We will, but not today. Come on,
let’s turn to. It’ll take us a couple hours to get this set up, and a couple
hours to get back. I’d like to be back before dark. This site meet with your
approval?”

Gabe looked around. “Yes, should be
fine.”

“Alright then. Abby, Sue? You want
to set up the tower, and we’ll unpack the head?”

An hour later they had the
six-foot-tall tower assembled and leveled and the
Pathfinder
communications head seated atop it. “Okay,” said Jeff, “while Gabe and I get
this thing bolted in place and the antennas aligned, Abby, Sue, why don’t you
two take
Andy
and run on out the ridge – it’s only four or five klicks –
and get some pictures and slope measurements of the other side where it runs
down into the valles. We can take a look at them later and see if we can plot a
route down into the valles from this side, and back up into the chaos.”

“Roger that,” said Abby.

“Don’t take too long, we’re burnin’
daylight.”

“On our way.”

Jeff and Gabe finished assembly,
then Gabe took several bearings to features of known location with a pelorus
affixed to the tower just below the comm head. Then she calculated exact
position and the site azimuth, and programmed it, along with the elevation,
into the antennae alignment computer. Two of the head’s three high gain
antennas immediately slewed around and aligned with the orbiter and the
station. “Okay,” she said, “reading five by five on all bands.”

“Excellent. Try
Andy
?”

“Alright.” She keyed ‘
Andy
’
for a search with the third, uppermost antennae.
Pathfinder
’s RDF, or
Radio Direction Finding, antenna quickly began rotating, searching for a VHF
carrier from
Andy
, and locked in. Then the high gain antenna slewed to
the south, and pointed along the ridge in the direction that Abby and Sue had
gone.

Jeff chuckled. “Outstanding! Sue,
come up on Ka-band.”

“Okay, just a second.”

He switched
Amos
’ comm relay
to Ka-band, and had the rover align its high gain antenna with the
Pathfinder
head. “Sue? How do you read on Ka?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Excellent. Where are you?”

“We just crested the top. We’ve got
a great view of the chaos, but can’t see all the way to the bottom of the
valles. There’s a bluff that runs around the southwest side of the volcano
that’s blocking our view. I’m guessing it’s about four kilometers below us, but
the terrain and slope don’t look bad.”

“Rog. Uh, don’t go down there, no
time. Just get what you can and get on back here, we need to get going pretty
soon.”

“Copy.”

Gabe fiddled with
Amos
’
video display, and slewed the Mastcam around to the northeast.

“What are you looking at?”

“Trying to see if I can get any
kind of image of the rims on the big craters.”

He glanced at the display. “Kind of
hazy. Springtime on Mars, ‘tis the season.”

“Yes. Well, let’s hope it’s not
that
kind of season.”

“Yeah, really. Uh, try infrared.”

She switched modes on the camera. A
black and white image appeared on the screen.

“Ugh. Not much better.”

“The sun’s in the wrong place,
there’s not much thermal contrast. It’d be better at night.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not gonna wait
around for it. At least not today.”

“Oh, look.” She pointed to the
screen. “That look like foothills to you?”

“Uh huh, sort of.”

“Let me check the azimuth. Yeah,
that’s the right direction.” She brought up a topographical map on the second
display. “That’s the foothills just to the southwest of the smaller crater of
the big three.”

“Okay, cool. So we’ve got
line-of-sight.”

“Oh yeah, that’s only about 50
kilometers. From up here we should have line-of-sight of at least 80 kilometers
farther to the northwest looking into the Basin.”

“Very good.” Jeff keyed his radio.
“Abby?”

“Yeah?”

“From where you are can you see
west up the valles to the confluence?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you see those two peaks on the
west side of Frying Pan?”

“We can see the southern one. The
northern one is blocked by that ejecta peak on the southwest side of Frying
Pan.”

“Can you see that notch on the
south end of that range?”

“Not the notch itself, but the east
face of it.”

“Good. Can you get some pictures of
that?”

“Already did.”

“Excellent. You about done?”

“Yeah, we’ll be starting back in
just a couple minutes.”

“Okay. Well, we’re done here, I
think, and are gonna head home. Meet you at the barn.”

“Rog.”

#

Jeff parked
Amos
beside the
station, reconnected to his PLSS, and slowly climbed out. “Oh my god, eleven
hours in this damn suit. I don’t know about you, but I’m beat.”

“Yeah,” said Gabe.

It was about an hour before sunset
and the sky was gradually turning from pink to indigo. “When do you think we’re
going to break the EVA record?”

Gabe sighed as she stumbled toward
the airlock. “I don’t know. It’s currently held by Anatoly Solovyev, around 82
hours. At the rate we’re going, probably day after tomorrow. And we’ve only
been here for a week.”