“I studied telecommunications in college,” Germaine interjected.
“And I spent time soldering together electrical systems in a factory,” Marilou added.
“That’s good,” Rebecca said, “but I don’t see how that can help us. Our men don’t have anything that we could radio to from here. They even took away their spacesuits.”
“We need some kind of messenger,” Walter said. “Something that we can send into Mars City. I have an idea. Want to discuss this some more this evening in the commons?”
“I’ll be there,” Rebecca said.
‘The commons’ was what they’d named the large room that served as their lounge. However, it looked more like a storeroom than a lounge. It didn’t have any real furniture, just heavy, brown cubes that were scattered all around. These served as supports for cushions they’d made and stuffed with straw. They had created the cubes by compressing and baking Mars dirt. On both the right and the left sides of the space, they had used two flat blocks of compacted dirt to build sofa-like seats, and at the center of the room, there was a seating area made up of chairs arranged in a circle. The seatbacks were made from perpendicular stone walls. Rebecca had made a few of these herself. She had no idea who had come up with the suggestion to use homemade adhesive instead of mortar. Regrettably, the sticky substance had stuck better to fingers and clothes than to the rocks. If you sat down in one of the seats, it was best if you didn’t lean back too hard.
Walter and the others were already in the seating area, talking quietly. Gabriella, the doctor, was also there. As the last one to arrive, Rebecca was surprised that Gabriella was there, since she rarely had time when someone had a concern or request. Rebecca was suspicious that Gabriella had her sights set on Ellen’s position as the unofficial leader of the Mars for Everyone project. In reality, there really wasn’t any cause for envy. Ellen hadn’t been elected to this post, but had simply been accepted as the one who got the final say on the basis of her competence. She received no advantages as a result.
Rebecca sat down in a free chair. Despite the cushions, the seats were somewhat hard.
“It’s nice you could come,” Walter said.
“Oh, thanks!” she said.
“It’s nice that you could all be here, Germaine, Marilou, Gabriella.”
The American suddenly seems quite chatty, Rebecca thought. “Your insinuations made me very curious,” she said.
Walter blushed. He didn’t seem accustomed to personal praise. “One of my hobbies is space history,” he began. “Before we set off, I could’ve told you the biographies of any astronaut of your choosing.”
“Not anymore?” Germaine asked.
“I think the radiation has softened my brain a little, but one important mission came to my mind yesterday.” Walter hesitated, glancing around the group.
“We’re all ears,” Germaine said.
“Eleven years ago, the Japanese successfully landed their first mission to Mars—JAXA. Or was that twelve years ago already? I still don’t really get the conversion between sols and Earth days. It was in late 2031, according to good old Earth chronology. This was an unmanned mission, and they chose not to deploy a rover. Instead, they had four robots on board that had each been equipped with enough AI capacity to independently explore Mars’s surface. I can still remember that they all had common Japanese names, like Gray Rabbit and Nimble Mouse, but I can’t recall the specifics anymore.”
Rebecca smiled. Yes, the robots had been assigned amusing names. She’d been 14 or 15 at the time, and had even rechristened her stuffed bunnies after them, but she could no longer recall the details either.
“The robots had really caused a stir, because they made much faster progress than all the NASA rovers before them. They had simply rolled across the surface. One of them even managed to circumnavigate Mars.”
“Way up at the North Pole,” Gabriella said.
“Yes, it had searched out the shortest route, something that was later criticized,” Walter continued. “And then there were the questions about what the four robots were actually capable of accomplishing. One of the Mars scientists even suggested that they were nothing more than mere toys that served no real purpose.”
Models based on the robots had been sold in toy stores, and Rebecca’s father had given her one in hopes of getting her interested in technology.
“But, of course, that wasn’t true,” Walter forged on. “The robots were equipped with all sorts of sensors, and they contributed significantly to our knowledge about the surface conditions on Mars, along with its water resources.”
“Good old times,” Gabriella cut in. “But could you please get to the point? I really have to...”
Rebecca sent her a blistering look. Walter looked unsettled, his eyes traveling from one to the other in the group. Rebecca nodded at him encouragingly.
“The main point,” Walter resumed, “is that not all four robots set off. Only three did. One after the other, the three eventually stopped functioning. The fourth got snagged on the landing module after being unloaded.”
“It was probably scared,” Germaine declared.
“Whatever happened, it has to still be there. Its energy supply is presumably low, but I know that it was powered by solar cells and an isotope battery, which means it might still be functional even today.”
“Despite the fact it wasn’t operational back then?” Gabriella inquired.
“You would just need to disconnect it from the landing module. At the time, nobody was here to take care of that, but we could drive out there.”
“Then what?” the doctor asked.
“Then we take it and program it to be a messenger that could take our messages to Mars City. The administrator doesn’t know anything about the robot,” Walter replied.
“Our men don’t either,” Gabriella said.
“The robot should be intelligent enough to only approach our people. It possesses a good optical system, and we could program it to recognize the faces of Theo, Ketut, and the others. As soon as it sees a stranger, it could hide.”
“That sounds doable,” Rebecca said.
“But we don’t have the Japanese source codes. Andy could possibly locate them, but can we?”
Why is Gabriella being so negative today? Rebecca thought. “Nancy used to work as programmer,” she said.
“I know my way around that world, too,” Walter said.
“Well, that gives us a chance,” Gabriella replied, though she didn’t sound all that convinced.
“I’m all for us trying to retrieve that robot,” Germaine chimed in. “Do you know where the module landed back then, Walter?”
“Fairly close to the middle of Syrtis Major.”
“Isn’t that a gulf in the Mediterranean?” Germaine asked.
“I don’t know,” Walter said. “I was never in Europe.”
“I did a Mediterranean cruise once,” Germaine explained.
“That means you know more than I do. The Japanese picked Syrtis Major on Mars because you can see it from Earth, even if all you have is a small telescope. It looks darker than its surroundings. Just like you’ve pointed out, someone could think it was a gulf and assume that there are seas on Mars. However, in reality, the feature is actually a volcanic plateau.”
“Thanks, Walter,” Rebecca said. “How far away is the site?”
“The landing area is somewhere in the northern zone of Syrtis Major. I would guess that it would take us two weeks to reach it in the rover.”
Rebecca sighed. Since the visit from Summers’ people, all they now had was the open rover. She remembered her last trip on it. She and Theo had gone out to search for water. It had been real torture. “Two weeks on the rover will be hard,” she said.
“If you drive more than ten hours a day, it could be done in ten days,” Walter declared.
“And if we drove straight through?” Rebecca asked.
“Then we’d need less than a week each way,” Walter said. “But how
do you think that would work? Wouldn’t you need to sleep?”
“One person could drive while the other one sleeps,” Rebecca explained.
“But it would be impossible to sleep while riding.”
“No, it wouldn’t. After a while, you can sleep anywhere, Walter. I know what I’m talking about. The passenger just has to strap in tightly, then it works.”
“I still think it sounds crazy.”
“All of us here are famous for being crazy. Would we have boarded the Santa Maria otherwise?” Germaine asked.
“That’s true,” Walter agreed.
“But there is one other problem we haven’t thought about,” Rebecca said. “Summers and his people will notice if our rover and two of us are gone for a long time. Our productivity would inevitably decline.”
“Then the others would have to cover for the two who were gone,” Marilou said.
“Hopefully, that would do the trick,” Rebecca declared.
“One other detail,” Walter interjected. “When would this happen and who would take the trip?”
“Tomorrow,” Rebecca said, and everyone nodded. “I’ll drive,” she added, and everyone shook their heads.
“I’ll go,” Germaine volunteered.
“People would miss me the least,” Marilou said.
“What makes you think that?” Rebecca asked.
“I... it’s a good argument, isn’t it?”
“But it won’t be accepted,” Rebecca said.
“Good, then we’ll draw names,” Germaine suggested. “Gabriella and Walter, do you want to be included, too?”
The two of them nodded.
“I’ll write our five names on each of my fingers, and then Rebecca can select two fingers. Okay?”
“Good idea, Germaine,” Rebecca answered.
The young woman turned around and extracted a pen from her pants pocket. She then wrote something down on her left hand before curling it into a fist. “Your turn, Rebecca.”
Rebecca studied Germaine’s fist. She had very slender, long fingers. Where might her own name be sitting? Of course, she didn’t really want to go on this trip, but she had experience already. If she could choose, she would bring Germaine along. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to do the drive with Gabriella!
Rebecca tapped the pointer finger. Germaine extended it out from her fist. ‘Marilou’ was printed on it.
“Cool,” Marilou said. “A trip!”
She won’t stay excited for long, Rebecca thought. She then tapped Germaine’s middle finger. The pointer and middle fingers created the victory sign. That worked. Germaine opened her fist. Her own name was written on her middle finger. She raised it triumphantly.
“It will be a marvelous adventure,” she cried, hugging Marilou.
Rebecca had a bad feeling about this. Neither of them had experience tackling this kind of trip. Did they really know how treacherous the Mars surface was? On the other hand, they had been trained just as rigorously for this mission as she had been. She shouldn’t make any assumptions about Marilou and Germaine just because they were still so young. And how did one define young anyway? Germaine was only three years younger than herself, while Marilou was five. No, everything would work out. They just had to make sure that nobody missed them.
Sol 321, Mars Machine
‘Could you please yank the external microphone out of your suit?’ Friday asked.
“What?” Ewa’s breathing was labored. The climb was strenuous. She was now paying for the fact that she hadn’t been working out every day.
‘We want to find the large window.’
“And you need the external mike for that?” The microphone was integrated into her suit’s collar, which covered the helmet around her neck.
‘Exactly,’ Friday said. ‘It will help me to locate the window. Just be sure not to cut off the electrical connection.’
“You need to explain that to me more specifically.”
‘You will hold the mike over the ground, and I will send sonic waves through the mike and measure the echo. The echo will change whenever the surface’s composition changes.’
“I could just lie down on the ground. That way I wouldn’t have to tear out the microphone,” Ewa suggested.
‘If you can lie down so that the mike is pressed against the surface, that would be alright.’
“I’ll give it a try,” she said. “Then we’ll know if that approach might work.”
She hoped that this method would work for Friday’s idea. She was very reluctant to deliberately damage the high-tech suit she had stolen from the Spaceliner ship. And so, she knelt down and searched for a position that would allow the mike to be pressed against the surface without having to forcibly jerk it out of her collar. She lowered her head close to the ground and turned her torso to the side. Her stance made her look like she was venerating some archaic god. Fortunately, nobody could see her, as this was the only way to make this work.
‘Stay right there,’ Friday said. ‘Great position. Is that a yoga move?’
“Stop chatting and get on with it,” Ewa said. “This isn’t exactly comfortable.”
‘It wasn’t my idea for you to get down on the ground,’ Friday replied.
“Are you done yet?”
‘Just about. I have to speak at a limited volume level, but things look good.’
“Have you found the window?”
‘No, but you can get up again. I now have the first reference baseline. The window can’t be anywhere around here.’
“Then why did I have to get down on the ground?”
‘It was your idea, Ewa. But in this case, I need some comparative values in order to know how the echo from the substrate normally sounds.’
“Got it. Don’t you have to keep saying the same thing, though?”
‘No, this has to do with the volume level.’
“That makes me feel better then. I was worried that we’d have to repeat this pointless conversation a thousand times.”
‘No worries,’ Friday said. ‘After this, you may have other pointless conversations with me.’
“I’m relieved to hear that.”
‘I know. I’m stuck here inside you.’
“You know how I’m feeling, Friday?”
‘Don’t worry. I still can’t read your thoughts, but I can tell from your movements if you’re feeling panicky or calm.’
“Then you know more than I do.”
‘That’s my firm assumption, Ewa. And now let’s keep going up.’
Ewa’s right knee hurt. That had to be a sign she was getting old. Who would have thought that? It hadn’t been all that long ago she had stopped assuming she would grow old on this planet.
“How much longer?” she asked.
‘I’m slowly zeroing in on it,’ Friday replied.
They had already reached the mountain’s summit and climbed back down the other side. Friday had supplied her with the approximate direction, which he had calculated from their recollection of the sun’s position. In these mental images, the hall and its transparent roof seemed huge. But shouldn’t they have come across it long before now? According to Friday, they hadn’t had a point of comparison for the gigantic dimensions of the machine. Compared to the entire mountain, the window would be relatively small.
‘Now, please,’ he said.
Ewa carefully sat down on the ground to spare her knee joint the exertion. But she had to get her head all the way down to the ground. The collar with the microphone needed to rest directly on the surface. A small rock pressed itself into her forehead. Her breath blew away some of the dust that had worked its way into her nose.
“Achoo!”
‘Crap! That was too short,’ Friday said. ‘You’ll have to lean back down.’
Ewa sighed and followed his instructions.
‘I’m going to tell you something now,’ Friday said.
“What is that?”
‘I’m still thinking. Maybe the story about the princess and...’
“And?”
‘That’s enough. You can stand up again.’
“But I want to hear the story.”
‘Are you a little girl or something?’
“Yes,” Ewa said, laughing.
‘You really need to check the nitrogen content in your bloodstream,’ Friday said.
“Let me keep a little joy.”
‘But of course. I’ll bring you an even greater joy.’
“You’ve found it?”
‘Yes, I have.’
“That’s fantastic!”
‘But...’
Her joy slipped away. “Why the but?”
‘I still don’t know how we can reach the computers down there.’
“You’ll think of something, Friday.”
‘That’s true. Let’s first check out the area.’
Ewa slowly stood up and turned around. The slope seemed to be composed of dark granite. The material was so dark that you would almost guess it was basalt. On Earth, in a highland area of volcanic origin, a hillside like this would hardly stand out. And yet, it had to be extraterrestrial in origin, just like the machine that was concealed within the mountain.
“Looks like stone,” she said.
‘Looks chemically produced,’ Friday confirmed.
“And what’s going on with the echo?”
‘It indicates that the material is predominantly homogenous—up to the point that the sound meets a boundary layer.’
“How homogenous?”
‘The large stone underneath you is a giant monocrystal. At least, that’s how I’m interpreting the measurement results. The specific spatial directions in space within the stone are unusually asymmetrical.’
“Couldn’t that be a coincidence?” As a teenager, Ewa had owned a chemistry set and had grown crystals with it. None had ever grown larger than a fingertip, at which point she’d lost her interest in them.
‘With our technology, it would be impossible to grow such a crystal,’ Friday said.
“How thick is it?”
‘I would have to have more precise details about its characteristics in order to know that. You don’t happen to have something with you that could measure its conductivity, do you?’
Mars Nation: The Complete Trilogy Page 62