A klaxon blared.
“Attention,” said a voice from a speaker over their heads. “We’ll be hitting atmosphere in ten minutes, the observation lounge is now closing. All hands please report to landing stations.”
A lighted passageway led them towards a room, which appeared, to Fintan at least, to be right at the core of the ship. It made sense – should something go wrong with atmospheric entry, the crew should be as far from the edge of the ship as possible, where the friction of the atmosphere would be reaching extremely high temperatures.
They took seats with over-the-shoulder harnesses that held them snugly in place.
There was an excited buzz in the air as they sat. Large monitors at either end of the landing stations showed the view from the ships nose as they nudged against the atmosphere.
A thrill of fear ran through Fintan’s body as the ship rocked gently and then bucked a little. On the monitor they could see the deep red sands of Mars right in front of them.
The ship rocked again, and Fintan felt his stomach lurching. He was glad he hadn’t eaten.
“For an atmospheric entry, this is quite smooth,” said Simon. The ship lurched again, violently this time and Fintan was sure that Simon turned slightly green.
Fintan turned to talk to Nizhoni. He still felt awkward since their earlier moment, but she was sleeping. On the far side of Nizhoni sat Ayako, who met Fintan’s look with a smile.
“That girl can sleep anywhere,” said Ayako. “Better sleeping than enjoying all this!” She strained to stretch her hands out against the harness.
The jolting continued for several more moments and they felt the ship leveling out. Blue sky showed through the monitors, with a sun that looked too small lifting above the horizon.
From the cameras they could see that they were veering Northwards, away from the equator.
“We’ll be landing in Cydonia in about fifteen minutes,” said the voice from their speakers.
“Cydonia?” said Zack. “No way, this is too cool!”
“What is Cydonia,” asked Ayako.
“It’s where the face on Mars is,” said Zack.
“The what?”
“The face on Mars,” he repeated. “Early NASA missions to Mars took photos of the surface. In Cydonia they found a mountain that from orbit looked like a face. Some people think it’s a sign of ancient alien intelligence on Mars, and they carved a face so that it could be seen from orbit.”
He shrugged. “Of course it was all debunked using later photos, so nobody believes it anymore. It’s odd that we’re going to Cydonia now, of all places.”
Nizhoni had woken up. “I remember reading about it once. It’s at the edge of a heavily cratered area to the South, but super lightly cratered to the North. Many folks believe that the relatively smooth landscape to the North was a water ocean that evaporated long after the atmosphere was gone. That explains why there are fewer craters there. If that were the case Cydonia would be on the coast. A great place for a city, right?”
They were flying low now, gliding over the surface of the planet. They crossed a long plateau, with several craters at its bottom. In the distance they could see mountains, and as the ship turned eastwards, they could see mountains either side as they cruised to land in a deep rift between them. Finally they saw signs of life and civilization in the form of a cluster of domes.
Iara was at the far end of the room, and she spoke up. “We put the domes here for several reasons. First of all, there are many devastating dust storms on Mars, and here the mountains protect us. Furthermore, and what is more important, the valley is almost completely obscured from earth-bound telescopes. That way we can do our work in secret – and we don’t have the luxury that the moon base has of always being invisible to Earth.”
The ship touched down gently. “Be warned,” she shed, “that Mars gravity is about 40% of Earth Gravity, so tread carefully, and girls, you’re going to love it!” She winked.
“I think I’m going to love it too,” said Zack under his breath, watching Iara in admiration as she unstrapped herself.
***
As he exited the ship, Fintan felt like a great weight was lifted from him. He walked out of the artificial gravity field and initially felt like he was beginning to float away, but his feet were firmly rooted on the ground. It was oddly disconcerting, like being in an elevator going downwards really fast. His stomach felt like it was in his throat.
Again he was thankful he hadn’t eaten, and when he looked up he nearly laughed at several of the girls who were frantically holding their skirts down, thinking that the skirts were going to float upwards, but of course they didn’t as gravity still pulled them down. Everything was lighter, so it was understandable to be afraid of that.
Zack was smirking at their discomfort too, but stopped after a glance from Ayako. “Kick me in this gravity and I think I’ll fly away,” he said.
Ayako replied, “I think you are giving me more reasons to kick you and not less.”
“You’ve been hanging too much with Nizhoni,” he laughed. “You’re getting violent.”
Fintan stood back as both girls faced him down, hands on hips.
Zack tried to have a straight and sorry face, but couldn’t help himself. He laughed out loud.
“Sorry,” he said between giggles. “You guys look so cute when you’re mad.”
The girls walked ahead of him towards the entrance of one of the domes.
“Smooth,” said Fintan. “Real smooth.”
***
They assembled in the largest of the domes, and Fintan noticed that they were inflatable, as opposed to being hard-edged like the ones back on Earth. Fintan pointed at the bottom of the dome – it wasn’t sealed and under its edge they could see the rusty Martian landscape outside.
“Air pressure inflates the dome,” said an adult, who from his bulk, and his uniform, was some sort of soldier.
“The Earth-air being pumped in pushes the Martian-air out underneath the dome. It’s basically a big tent,” he added.
“What about heat?” asked Nizhoni
“There’s a heating element in the floor,” he said, “which serves the purpose of heating us and expanding the air to increase the pressure.”
It was simple, and elegant. Fintan was impressed.
Mister Sinclair, as squadron leader, was also leader of the expedition. He gave the expected long boring lecture on safety, following instructions, staying within the marked boundaries before Fintan got bored and missed the rest. When he finally went offstage, the excitement grew again.
Iara also had some announcements, which perked Zack up as she took to the stage. Ayako and Nizhoni shrugged. She demonstrated how their pressure suits work, including how to make emergency repairs.
Finally she ran through the schedule for the trip. They’d be spending three days and two nights on Mars. The rest of this day would be free time, and they’d head out to the ‘dig site’ early the next day tomorrow. They’d spend a couple of nights on the dig site before heading back to Earth.
“How long is a day on Mars?” asked one kid.
“Good question,” said Iara, “and unfortunately it’s not much longer than a day on Earth, being about 24 hours and 40 minutes long. We keep Earth time on Mars, and as a result, the clock stops at midnight and starts again 39 minutes, 35 and a quarter seconds later. We call this time ‘the witching hour.’ Enjoy it!”
Many of the students laughed.
As they dispersed towards their sleeping quarters to drop their stuff and get their pressure suits, Zack called to Ayako and Nizhoni. “Meet back here in half an hour to go for a hike?”
The two girls looked at each other, and then back to Zack. They nodded ‘yes’.
***
Their pressure suits were light fitting and easy to wear. They were one-piece, blue grey jumpsuits that they zipped themselves into. They wore hard boots on their feet, and the helmet was built into the suit itself. Several small oxygen
tanks were efficiently spread down the sides and across the back. Fintan felt like his head was in a bubble when the suit inflated.
“You look like you have a bubble on your head,” said Zack, laughing.
“It’s a lot lighter and easier to move in than a traditional astronaut suit,” said Fintan. “This fiber is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It must also protect us from the atmospheric and radiation conditions on Mars in the same way as a traditional space suit. Must be some form of alien technology.”
“Cool.”
They left the boys dorms and found the girls near the airlock.
“I definitely preferred them in skirts,” said Zack. Nizhoni sighed.
The airlock was simple, a tech unzipped the door, and they walked into a small space between the main tent and an outside one. The tech then re zipped the door, which was now inside of their position, and Zack unzipped the door in front of him. Outside it Fintan could see a red, rocky valley.
“We’re on Mars!” he said.
“Well duh,” said Zack.
“Now I really feel like I’m here,” said Fintan.
Ayako nodded in her suit. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
They walked out through the airlock, and Zack zipped the door closed behind them. They were in a wide valley with a slope leading up at about a twenty-degree angle to their right. On their left was a steep cliff that climbed maybe a hundred feet.
The ground was made of a red substance that was coarser than sand, but finer than gravel. It was littered with different rocks of different sizes, but of a uniform dark grey color. The cliffs to their left were the same red as the ground, but in places darker rocks were peeking through.
“Wind erosion is bad,” said Ayako. “We’d better not be here if there’s a dust storm.”
“I don’t think they get them here very often,” said Zack. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be living in a tent.”
They walked along the valley towards its end. The cliff was getting lower now, and after about a quarter of a mile, it was gone. They looked back along the valley they had walked out of, and could see the main dome that they had left stretching across it from end to end. Beyond it they could see the other domes as well as the ship they had arrived on towering over everything.
Zack reached down and dug some dirt away. A few inches down he found something and prodded it with is finger.
“Frost,” he said. “Water ice. I guess that answers one of the big questions about this place.”
“Yeah,” said Fintan. “I wonder if there’s life on Mars, or if they’ve answered that question.”
“We know the answer now, don’t we?” said Zack
“We do?” said Fintan.
“Err. Duh,” said Zack and pointed at himself, then Nizhoni, then Ayako and then Fintan.
“We’re the life on Mars now!”
***
They backtracked and walked along the cliff top overlooking the base.
“I’m tired,” said Nizhoni. “I think I’m going to sit for a bit. Go on ahead.”
“No,” said Fintan, and he sat, legs dangling over the cliff, he held up a hand to help her sit beside him.
“Okay,” said Zack. “Rest stop.”
“No,” said Ayako. “We can keep walking.”
“Nizhoni and Fintan have stopped, and there’s a beautiful view. Why don’t we stop and enjoy it with them?”
“No,” said Ayako, evenly. “We can keep walking.”
“Huh?” said Zack. “Oh. Yeah. Okay. Let’s keep walking.”
Ayako rolled her eyes and winked at Nizhoni. She took Zack’s arm and practically dragged him along with her.
From where they sat, they could look down over the valley, across to the plains on the far side. Dusty mountains lined the horizon. Nizhoni pointed and said, “Can you see the crater?”
Fintan squinted to see, but couldn’t. She pulled him a little closer to look along her arm towards what she was pointing at, and then he saw it. It was a perfect bowl shaped crater, with the rim on one side lit brightly by the sun, while a deep shadow crept across the other.
“You know,” said Fintan. “Have you ever had the feeling that you were waiting for something? Like my whole life I knew that where I lived and what I did wasn’t my real life? That something better was waiting out there?”
She smiled a little and nodded.
“Well, one of the first thoughts that came to my head when I got to the school was that my life is now starting. It’s starting for real. But even then it didn’t feel right.”
She turned to look at him. The bright spot of the sun, and the red of the landscape reflected beautifully in her faceplate.
“I was wrong,” said Fintan.
She raised an eyebrow.
“It’s only here, now, sitting with you that I feel that. I feel that my life is finally starting, that I’m finally making my own way in the world. It’s because you are here sitting with me. How do I say this Nizhoni? But I feel like I can’t imagine living without you. I feel that I-”
She put her hand up to his faceplate. She smiled again. “I feel that way too. I knew it for sure when I saw how you interacted with my family. You’re a slow learner.”
Fintan laughed and took her hand from his face. She held onto his hand and didn’t let go.
“Oh,” said Zack, who had approached from behind. “Don’t try to kiss, okay? It’s not going to work with the helmets on!”
“Ewwww,” said Nizhoni and threw some sand at him.
“Now what did I say?” said Zack.
Chapter 34. The Dig
The following morning they got onto a transport to head towards the dig site. Simon and Red Two would escort them in their saucers.
“All aboard the big yellow school bus,” said Simon as they began to board. “Next stop, the face on Mars!”
They boarded and sat in rows of forward facing seats. “It really does look like a school bus,” said Zack.
It lifted off and headed out of the valley towards the mountains that Nizhoni and Fintan had been looking at the night before. After twenty minutes they landed near a number of smaller domes shaped tents.
Iara was their driver and tour guide. “So,” she said. “The dig that we’re going to visit is something that we started a few years back. It appears that some form of alien must have visited Mars a few thousand years ago. They left some evidence here, and we can’t help but wonder if it they did it deliberately near the mountains that, from orbit, would look like a face. If you squint real hard that is. Don’t worry – they didn’t really carve a face.”
“Who were they?” asked Zack.
“We have no idea,” she replied. “Neither do Trichallik’s people. This is why we’re digging here – to find some signs of their occupation and see what we can learn.”
“Trichallik really doesn’t know?” asked Fintan, looking Iara in the eye.
“Well, that’s what she tells us,” the teacher answered. “If she does know, she isn’t telling. Maybe she wants us to figure it out for ourselves.”
They exited the bus and walked through an inflatable airlock into one of the tents. There, they activated their pressure suits and made ready to enter the underground tunnels.
***
As Fintan entered the tunnels, he was still in awe that he was on Mars, but underground it was like anywhere on Earth. The tunnel was dark, though not quite damp.
“Zack found permafrost under the surface near the camp,” he said. “How come there is none here, yet we’re going deeper underground?”
Iara answered. “Good question. It appears our camp was near an ancient ocean and there are still signs of water underneath. This was further inland, so any water that was here is long gone.”
The tunnel led downwards at a shallow slope, a line snaked along the ceiling and had perfectly normal lamps attached to it at regular intervals.
“It’s a long way down,” said Iara “and as you get closer to the end,
the tunnel will get narrower and lower, so watch your heads.”
It took them a long time of carefully picking their way, but they finally made it into a wide red cavern.
In the center of the cavern, they could see the top of an elevator shaft. The elevator was waiting for them, and was big enough to hold them all, but with a bit of a squeeze. Once they were all in, Iara reached over a grinning Zack to push the ‘down’ button.
The elevator lurched into life, and they were moving downwards. It was an unusual feeling in the Martian gravity. After a few minutes the door opened and they were in a larger cavern.
“The walls are smooth,” said Simon “like they’ve been built and not dug.”
Iara found a wall panel and flicked on the lights. They revealed a room that looked vaguely familiar to Fintan. The walls were made of huge red stone bricks and they led up about forty feet to an angled ceiling. At the far side of the room was a large doorway.
“No,” said Nizhoni. “I don’t believe it!”
“What?” said Fintan.
“We’re in a geofront aren’t we?” said Nizhoni. “Like the one in Nevada!”
The others looked around, shocked. Iara raised an eyebrow at Nizhoni. “Lucky guess?”
She strode forward to the wide doors. Now that Nizhoni had said it, the room they were in was almost identical to the one in which he had met Bob, back in the Nevada City.
Iara led them through the doors and lit some spotlights that shone into the darkness.
Through the gloom they could see some buildings and a similar platform to the one in Nevada that they had stood on to watch the welcoming ceremony only a few months before.
“It’s a geofront all right,” said Iara. “As far as we can tell, it’s been deserted for a long time.”
***
They had each been given different assignments. Iara had paired Fintan with Nizhoni. She smiled and said, “for obvious reasons.” They weren’t going to be in the geofront itself, but would instead be helping with the excavation of some tunnels nearby. “We found some artifacts there,” said Iara. “See if you can find some more.”
***
Nizhoni and Fintan followed the path Iara had given them, to find another dark cavern. A ramp sloped downwards, turning back onto itself, and on the far side was a cave. Nizhoni grabbed a couple of lanterns from a bucket near the entrance to the cave and they walked in. The cave was still partially dug out, and there was a huge pile of debris on the far side. Nizhoni shone her lantern at the wall.