Lawrence: Long, don’t fall into that… that would put a real damper on your early retirement plans.
Long: Right, I will go ahead and just avoid that then.
Lawrence: I never thought that I would be so happy carrying such a heavy bag.
Long: Exactly, and it will weigh much more on Earth.
After the two finish making their way out of the tunnel system and back up onto the surface, they stand atop the edge, looking back down into the chasm below. Lawrence reaches for the anchor point to retrieve the rope.
Long: Wait. Don’t pull that up. Let’s just leave it for the next time we are collecting “samples”.
Lawrence: That’s thinking.
The ride back in the large rig is both light and casual, in stark contrast to the ride out. As the rig pulls up in front of the airlock, the sun sets into the Martian plain in the distance to the left of the dome. Both men nearly jump from the rig as it comes to a stop in front of its designated spot next to the airlock. Lawrence runs over to the heavy charging cable, lying in the sand a couple meters from the rig. With a quick scoop of his glove into the sand, he retrieves the plug end of the cable and runs it back over to the charging port on the rig. With a deliberate placement of the plug end, the cable begins to vibrate under the heavy current running through it.
The airlock passage is made with haste by the two. Lawrence has a hard time placing his hand on the control panel inside the airlock to initiate the procedure. His canvas bag over his right shoulder forces him to lean to the left to press his hand on the control; finally, success is the result.
Lawrence: So, where do you suppose we ought to stash these bags until we leave?
Long: I doubt anyone would check over there behind the dorm building.
Lawrence: After you sir.
With sample bags in hand, the two walk up behind the dorm building to stash the bags before anyone else has an opportunity to see them.
In the failing light of eve, the pair cannot see what lay in front of them. Long trips on a bag, which was already sitting behind the building in the dust. A canvas bag, similar to those that Lawrence and Long are already holding lay in the dirt; years of abandon have seen the canvas color fade. Both Lawrence and Long remove their helmets to improve their own view of the bag.
More interesting to them than the odd placement of the other bag is what fell out of the bag. An emerald of enormous proportion lay next to the bag on the ground.
Lawrence: Must be a buy one get one promotion.
Long: I wonder how good a place this is to hide these bags if we weren’t the first to think of it?
Lawrence: Well, the next time someone else runs across ridiculous jewels and wants to stash them, we had better have ours hidden better, right?
Long: Right. You’re right; no one will think to come back here unless they are hoping to hide something.
While rounding the corner, bringing them back into view from the plaza, they are greeted by the other three. Mendez, Cardiff and Ghent appear to have been discussing something as the others stumble back into plain sight, laughing all the way.
Ghent: Well, well. A day born of fear and adulation has come to an end filled with titillation and excitement. You two are giggling like school girls.
Long: Uh, was there a question in there? It sounded like you were asking something, that is, without actually asking it.
Ghent: I had supposed that by having sent both of you to some forsaken cavern somewhere that Cardiff was trying to thin the herd.
Lawrence: Wow, you really thought I was going to kill him in some accident?
Ghent: No, actually I was worried more for you. This place is indeed full of wondrous danger.
Lawrence: Do be careful Doctor. I have just opened up a spot on my short list. Anyway, it was a good day. Some exploring was just the sort of thing I needed to relax.
Cardiff: I am glad you enjoyed it so much, you get to go again.
Ghent: Well, I will bid all of you adieu, I am retiring for the night.
Cardiff starts walking the other direction, to the mess hall. Mendez, Long and Lawrence each follow her; none of them have eaten anything since breakfast.
As the sun disappears behind the distant horizon to the west, Ghent sits quietly in his room, on his cot. His legs crossed and his arms quietly folded as he stares intently at his closed door; the latch is locked.
Chapter 9
Year 15, Day 39
Ghent sits on the floor with his back to his door as the morning light breaks through his window. Dust laden air glows in the presence of the fresh light. His legs lie limply upon the cold painted floor. A sleepless night has rendered his eyes swollen and heavy. His hair, ragged and shabby, is filled with dust. Beads of sweat cover his face, and dampen his hair and jumpsuit.
Small beads of glass cover the floor and fill the sink basin; the medicine cabinet door is bare without the mirrored glass that once adorned it. Ghent leans his head back against the closed door and closes his eyes. The exhaustive night has taken a definite toll on him.
His eyes flash open and his hand rushes to the door handle to brace it after a loud knocking on his metal door.
Cardiff: Doctor Ghent, are you in there? Is everything alright in there?
The sound of cloth moving along the metal surface on the inside of the door answers one of her questions. The sound of fidgeting precedes the door opening a crack.
Ghent: Oh, good morning Captain.
Cardiff: Yes, is everything alright Doctor?… Doctor?
She pushes on the door to widen the view into the room from the hallway. A firmly planted door ignores the force of her body as it pushes into the door again.
Cardiff: What’s going on in there?
Ghent: Nothing, I will be out in a moment. I will look forward to seeing you in the mess hall in a few short minutes.
Cardiff: Right, I’ll see you in a few.
The sound of her footsteps as they fade down the hallway and out of the door, allows Ghent to relax, even if it is only just a tiny bit. His body complains as he pulls himself off of the floor. The sound of the mirrored glass crushing beneath his heavy boots, which he had not taken off during the night, causes him to pause a moment in consideration of the night’s events.
He reaches for the handle on the door; the sound of thousands of glass beads rolling draws his focus away from leaving the room. His head turns to the left to watch the spectacle; As if orchestrated by some unseen force, the glass upon the floor begins to congregate along the wall underneath where the mirror had been last night. As the final few pieces roll along the floor and come to rest in the pile, another migration of glass is set in motion; the glass beads begin to slide up the wall next to the sink. Ghent’s eyes squint, in the hope that a truer focus would reveal the whole impossible act to be a figment of his imagination.
He quickly grasps the lever handle on the door again and turns it to release the door. He turns and walks out of the door without paying any further attention to that which must be impossible. As the door shuts behind him, he draws in a deep breath to purge his distressed mind. The clear glass window in front of him permits him to see that Long and Lawrence are walking toward the laboratory down at bottom of the plaza.
He steps across the narrow hallway and places his hand on the window. The morning light fills the dome with color. A short smile crosses his face as the morning light buoys his mood greatly. A smile presses through the discontentment on his face, and breaks through to the surface. A warm rush of air surrounds Ghent, his eyes look to the side without the slightest movement from the rest of his body. The glass on the pane next to him begins to fog up. Not a single muscle twitches as words begin to appear on the foggy glass. The words appear as if drawn by some invisible finger on the glass. Ghent draws in a deep breath and closes his eyes tightly.
Long and Lawrence hurry through the opened door of the laboratory. With a single sample bag over his shoulder, Long places the samples on the long white bench. The bench, w
hich is mounted on the wall of the laboratory, is smooth and clean. Lawrence grabs a pair of gloves out of the supply cabinet above the desk. Long places two metal swivel stools over in front of the spectrometer and microscope at the workbench.
The vials are carefully cataloged and laid out in an organized fashion on the table. Lawrence hands a pair of white vinyl gloves to Long, and then he stretches the vinyl over his own hands as well.
Lawrence: Okay, where do we start here?
Long: Let’s start with number seven; load a sliver of that into that machine there.
Lawrence: Well, what does it do?
Long: Basically, it will confirm what I suspect.
Lawrence: What do you suspect?
Long: That the site we were at would be a very suitable place for manufacturing things. Specifically, it would be a good place to build large spacecraft hulls. Think about it, the gravity is far less here, less effort has to go into lifting larger items.
Lawrence: Yes, I do remember the brief before we left. I do have one question, though. What is this stuff in this vial here in the bag?
Long: Well, I think that it came from the wall on the way in, wasn’t it?
Lawrence: Look at it, the cap came off and this stuff has made a real mess in the bag. Everything inside is covered in this metallic-looking slime.
Long: I wonder what it is. I don’t recall getting all that much for a sample, so why is this mess so bad? Maybe it is like mercury, and expands a lot when it warms up. It would explain why the vial couldn’t contain it.
Lawrence: Here, I will try and scrape some of it onto this glass slide.
Long: Good. Okay, give it here.
The slide is carefully placed under the light of the microscope. Long bends over the microscope to examine the odd substance under magnification.
Long: Well, it looks as though it is just expanding under the heat in here and even further once it is placed under the intense light in the microscope. It is expanding quickly enough that it looks like it is moving on the slide. Just don’t touch it with your bare hands. It might be a combination of heavy metals.
Lawrence: So, what do you want me to do with all of this stuff?
Long: For now, just clean it up and keep it away from everything else. I am going to resume my examination of these other items.
Vial after vial is opened and tested, results are accurately logged. Long uses the glass control module at the front of the table to transcribe his report as he dictates it. He includes all of the information and photos for the report, all of which will be transmitted back to Earth. While preparing the report, the two continue their conversation from the prior day.
Lawrence: So, do you suppose that the third bag behind the living quarters was put there by someone in the first mission who had the same idea that we did?
Long: Looks like it. It is a shame that they didn’t make it back though.
Lawrence: So, I have only seen one of the bodies. What could have possibly happened to them? Much of their gear is still here, so it doesn’t look like they headed out on vacation or anything like that.
Long: Well, I am not certain that they have gone anywhere.
Lawrence: I’m afraid that you’re probably right. It gives a whole new meaning to having skeletons in your closet; we just might.
Long: I’m not certain that they are even dead. I saw a woman that first night.
Lawrence: I’m going to be straight with you, I think you are completely out of your mind. There was no woman standing there; there wasn’t anyone outside watching us either.
Long: You’re half right; there wasn’t anyone outside watching us. What are you talking about? I never said anything about anyone outside watching us.
Lawrence: Right, of course. Thanks for not killing me that night; it really means a lot to me.
Long: I never intended to, I just thought that you should know what I had been asked to do.
Lawrence: Of course, that lady wanted you to kill me.
Long: You don’t have to believe me.
Lawrence: Well, even if you are completely mad, you will be one rich crazy man when we get back, so it’s okay. Anyway, I told you my story yesterday. What’s yours?
Long: I don’t have a story, I just went to school for a long time, got out of school and hopped on the next ship to Mars. You know, all the same basic boring stuff that everyone does.
Lawrence: Yep, nothing I didn’t already know. If you really think that you don’t have a story, then you are about four types of strange. Not to say that that is bad or anything, just strange. By the way, you may also want to leave the sarcastic remarks to me too, they really need some work.
Long: Speaking of sarcasm, something tells me that you really don’t take anything seriously, do you? I mean, we are out here, where I only wish we could be in the middle of nowhere, because then at least I wouldn’t have to wear that cumbersome suit. Anyway, this is serious out here, real life or death type stuff, and you seem to just jeer in the face of certain death.
Lawrence: Laugh or cry, you get to choose. Sometimes it is all you get to choose. Anyway, death is the only certainty that we have, so “certain death” is redundant.
Long: Right. Well, I don’t really understand, but I guess it makes enough sense. Not like anything else I have said makes any sense either.
Lawrence: You know what they say about those who live in glass houses; this dome happens to be a pretty big glass house.
Long: Yeah, I’ve been waiting for you to make a comment to me about a glass house.
Lawrence: I’m that predictable, huh?
Long: Let’s just say that I would have made the same comment if I were as ridiculous as you are.
Lawrence: Ridiculously good looking.
Long: Clever. Well, I will go ahead and submit this report. I think that this is favorable enough that they may decide to support a mining operation out here.
Chapter 10
Panels of glass burst into illumination as the main control room computer starts up to greet Doctor Mendez as she enters the control center. An array of perfectly clear panels is laid out from left to right as a countertop might be. Each glass panel has a different purpose. Some display information about the environment inside the dome, others track communications and journal logs. There is one panel that displays only information relayed from the satellite orbiting overhead. Mendez is mostly interested in what has been entered via journal entries from the prior expedition. She has spent most of the past couple days reviewing footage and listening to audio.
On the whole, she finds the information quite boring, reports of minerals and the progress that the plant life in the dome had made. None of that has been very interesting to her, but she watches intently for “odd” behavior. Aside from a few odd entries, nothing noteworthy has happened.
Mendez sits down in the oversized swivel chair in front of the same panel where she has been sitting, it seems since they arrived. Cardiff joins her, turning the seat next to hers, and swiveling it back to face forward after seating herself. Mendez begins to retrieve the master listing of the recordings. Within a second, the panel fills with illuminated projections of these requested files.
Mendez: Did you bring the popcorn?
Cardiff: Depends, did you find anything interesting to watch? Seems like we either get some weird stuff that isn’t happening, or it is so boring you want to throw yourself off of something high.
Mendez: Yep. Well, I just started. We finished here yesterday, so let’s begin here… Right, here goes nothing. What do you have for us today Mr. Hansen?
The larger pane of glass behind the smaller control panels illuminates with what has become a familiar image to Mendez, crew-member Hansen. She presses her finger on the projection to start the playback. A single brief alarm sounds, followed shortly by a system notification, “Authorized access only”.
Cardiff: Authorized access? Here, let me do it. I should have sufficient authorization.
The still frame is still d
isplayed on the main screen, awaiting the authorization. Appearing larger than life, the small imperfections on his face appear larger; his facial scars from shaving are quite obvious. His facial hair appears to not have been trimmed or shaved in several days.
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