Abby groaned. “Damn.”
“There’s a crater out there to the west, maybe a hundred yards. Looks like it’s about twenty-five or thirty yards in diameter. Old. Shallow. I’ll bet we came in right over it. It’ll probably show up in the MARDI images. And looks like there are some dunes to the north, maybe a couple kilometers.” Jeff knelt on one knee and scooped up a handful of sand. “Sand looks pretty typical. Compresses easily, but footing’s good. Looks like a mix of course dark grey grains and fine reddish powder, not as much gravel as where Curiosity landed, though the descent stage blast pattern looks similar.” He spread his gloved fingers and made a handprint in the sand. “Makes for good, crisp imprints. Not as good as what the Apollo missions saw on the moon, but a lot better than dry desert sand on Earth.” He stood and shook his head. “God, this is incredible.” He turned around and looked down at his footprints. “Well, there they are: human footprints on Mars. Hope you folks back home are seeing this. Gabe, do we have comms with the Pathfinder orbiter?”
“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 Ka band relay and Goldstone. We have solid receipt of data, voice, and video, and copy your safe landing in the Margaritifer Basin. Congr
atulations. 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.”
They gathered around and started removing the airbags.
“Oh great,” said Abby, “it’s upside down.”
Jeff harrumphed. “Figures. Okay, Sue, you want to get in Amos and back him up to this so we can get the winch on it?”
“Okay.”
Genesis’ wheeled undercarriage, airlock, and an assortment of other items were all packed in an eight-foot by eight-foot utility trailer that now lay wheels-up in the Martian sand. Susan turned Amos around and backed him to a position about twelve feet from the trailer.
“Okay, that’s good,” said Jeff. “Set the brakes.” He walked to the rear of Amos, pulled out the winch cable, and attached it to an I-pad on the side of the trailer. “Gabe, what’s this thing weigh up here?”
“217 pounds.”
“Ugh. Okay, Sue, the three of us will lift on this side and you – slowly – winch it up.”
“Go
t it.”
“When it’s on its side, stop.”
“Okay.”
They lifted and winched the trailer up onto its side, then the three of them moved around to the other side.
“Alright, Sue, just pull it enough to tip it, and we’ll lower it the rest of the way.”
“Okay, ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Here it comes.”
They gently lowered the trailer onto its wheels.
“Excellent.” Jeff wound and secured the winch cable and folded the trailer hitch down while Susan backed up to it. Once hitched, they returned to the Genesis. “Alright, everybody out, let’s unload.”
The tubular longitudinal frame of the undercarriage was collapsed to fit in the trailer. They pulled it out, set it alongside the Genesis, and extended it. Each of the wheels could be rotated 90º, and were currently aligned perpendicular to the main axis. Once extended, they jockeyed the undercarriage beneath the Genesis then, using screw jacks atop the landing A-frames, lowered the Genesis onto its mounts on the undercarriage, and bolted it in place. Then they raised it again, turned the wheels to their normal position, lowered it back to the ground, and removed the A-frames. Then they hoisted the airlock into place and bolted it to the Genesis aft docking collar.
Abby leaned back against Amos’. “That was easier than it was on Earth.”
“It weighs a lot less,” said Gabe. “By the way, Jeff, we’ve only got about 70 minutes of air left.”
“Yeah, I was just looking at that. Um, why don’t you tell Andy to get his butt up here, then you and Sue hop in Amos and take the trailer and go get the hab’s airlock. Abby and I can finish installing the tanks. Connect to Amos’ O2 and water reserve tanks if you need to.”
“Right.”
Gabe and Susan headed off down Columbus drop line while Jeff and Abby installed half a dozen empty tanks on the Genesis undercarriage and hooked them up. When Andy arrived, he immediately backed up to the Genesis hitch and latched on.
“Abby, I’m just about redline on O2, how are you doing?”
“About the same.”
“Alright, let’s get in Andy and replenish.”
“Okay by me.”
When the PLSS oxygen tank was exhausted, they could activate the Oxygen Purge System, OPS, that would provide them with an additional 15 minutes of oxygen, but they preferred not to do that unless absolutely necessary. The rover’s spare O2 and water tanks could supply them for another eight hours, but only while connected. The Mark III suit PLSS design could only be recharged with about one hour’s supply while they were wearing it. To fully recharge, the PLSS had to be disconnected from the suit.
Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) Page 73