Fable Hill

by Christopher Uremovich

  “Fine, four will go, Renee and Keiko will remain behind. We leave one hour after sunrise. Meeting is adjourned,” Roland said as he jogged towards the control room.

  “Amirah, what is it?”

  “You have a video call from Nagoya Mission Control, sent forty-five minutes ago. Shall I playback the message, sir?”

  “Play it.” Roland sat down.

  The large, sixty-inch television screen mounted to the wall shown a bright blue as the central computer finished its download of cached files. A plump, heavyset woman that Roland didn’t recognize appeared on screen.

  “Greetings Captain Chartier. My name is Dr. Kaahumanu. We have never met before but I have been heavily invested in your mission for some time now. I served for many years on the Nagoya Advisory Council and headed aerospace research. I’ve been here from the beginning and I’ve been assigned to your detail as head of Mission Support.” Dr. Kaahumanu paused, thinking of what to say next.

  “The reason I’ve contacted you today is to reassure you and your team that the Ogaki resupply mission is on schedule to launch later this week. As you know, the Ogaki is a conventional mission, using a chemical rocket and will take nine months to reach Lyot Crater. I’ve also sent an itinerary for you and the crew,” she continued.

  “In a moment, Jang will give you your required intel and current events briefing. Before I go, I just wanted to congratulate you all for what a fine job you've done. You’re heroes and a lot of people are watching your mission from across the globe, from businesses to school classrooms. Aloha and God speed, Yamada.” The video ended abruptly and the next video buffered.

  Dr. Hyuk’s familiar face appeared on the screen. Roland motioned for Amirah to lock the door to the control room. He looked around to make sure no one was watching him and revealed a half empty pack of cigarettes. He took one of them out and lit it, taking several deep successive puffs. He sighed with satisfaction, slumping lower in his chair.

  •••

  Hours before sunrise on the next sol, five of the six crew members breached the airlock perimeter, leaving the safety of the habitat for the hostile environment of Mars. It was pitch dark and the temperature dropped well below -80°C. Even with advanced temperature controls, they struggled to maintain comfortable suit climate.

  “Anyone else freezing right now?” Frank asked in vain. He watched as ice crystals formed down the arms and gloves of his suit from relic moisture. His suit’s thermometer read an abysmal 35°F but steadily rose.

  As they all huddled around in a circle, Mia directed a series of warm-ups. They did push-ups, jumping jacks, and anything else to get their bodies warmed up. Mia had installed a pull-up bar with the help of Frank. They each took turns doing chin-ups. Keiko struggled to do even one. Mia held her by the waist and gave encouragement, but to no avail.

  “Thirty percent your body weight and you still can't do one chin up?” Alexei laughed. Mia gave him a stiff kick in the rear, causing ice particles to break off of his suit.

  “What are we going to do when winter comes, Roland?” Renee griped.

  “I'm staying inside the hab,” Keiko said as she dropped down from the pull-up bar. The bar had frozen over with ice and was in danger of shattering.

  “Let’s get some more light out here,” Roland barked. “Frank.”

  Frank ran over to the exterior breaker panel to power on perimeter lights. He used his helmet’s light and skimmed the list of switches.

  “Look at that!” Renee cried. She pointed off into the distance. A dim, dark purple light hung low in the sky over the central uplift. It appeared to move in waves, becoming clear then dark.

  “Over there as well,” Mia directed towards the eastern hills—faint hues of green and magenta, this time much higher up.

  “UFOs, man . . .” Roland said in his best hippie impersonation.

  “It's just aurora,” snapped Alexei.

  “We know it’s aurora, dummy, look how low it is in the atmosphere. We could fly to it almost,” Mia said.

  “Much different than Earth’s. It’s much thinner, smaller, and just . . . less impressive,” Renee said. “Still beautiful though.”

  “Reminds me of the Hessdalen lights in a way,” Mia replied. The flash of exterior lights caught everyone’s attention, washing away the dark and revealing brightly contrasted sand.

  “We have light, sir,” Frank said. “The halogens seem to be working fine but the LEDs won’t kick on. I checked the fuses but couldn’t find the problem.”

  Roland attempted to reply, but Alexei beat him to the punch. “Probably the cold. Halogens generate more heat.”

  Getting slightly irritated, Roland rallied the group and assigned tasks. He tapped into Frank’s wealth of experience in mission planning and charged him with planning and execution. Frank suggested Renee and Keiko remain on standby, ready to respond with the airship in case of emergency.

  They spent the early morning hours loading up the MEV and the attached fifteen-foot trailer. Supplies of food, water, and scientific equipment littered the floors of the MEV’s crew compartment, which doubled as a light cargo hold. Dozens of spare oxygen tanks, battery chargers and chemical oxygen generators lined the exterior of the vehicle, clasped together by metal clamps.

  All four temporary habitats and a fully stocked medical bag were packed in case of emergency. Roland wanted to play it as safe as possible since they would be without their chief medical officer.

  As the sun rose across Lyot Crater on sol 22, most of the preparatory work had been completed. Using a remote control, Alexei guided Nagoya's new state-of-the-art Tama Rover onto the trailer. The Tama was an all-terrain smart rover commissioned by Nagoya two years before the mission to Mars. Sleek design with a built-in data bot, the rover could conduct complex science experiments autonomously.

  “This the rover with the drill?” asked Frank as he walked towards Alexei.

  “Yes,” he replied simply.

  “What happened to the old rover?” asked Frank again.

  “I scrapped it for parts, piece of junk. It could only drill thirty meters,” Alexei said with disgust. “The Tama . . . now she’s my baby. Can drill ninety-one meters!” Alexei play-slapped Frank rather hard on the back.

  Roland and Mia dawdled over routes. Hunched over stacked plastic cases, they argued about logistics. Roland wanted to stay close and survey the surrounding hills while Mia opted for a bolder strategy: descending to the lowest point in the northern hemisphere, a mere fifteen kilometers away.

  “We don’t have the necessary equipment, Mia,” Roland complained, but Mia insisted on finding a safe passage into the valley. Roland eventually gave in to her persistence.

  “Let’s roll out.” Roland knife handed. “Frank, you have the MEV. Move out!”

  Frank opened the rear hatch of the colossal Mars Exploration Vehicle. There was no other way in except for two small emergency hatches in the floor and ceiling. The thick door raised vertically, venting atmosphere. Two vehicle compartments separated drivers from passengers, with the latter doubling as an airlock.

  Sealing off the cockpit, Frank was alone in the driver’s seat. A second seat to his right remained empty. He acquainted himself with the vehicle controls. An airlock gauge dinged to signify a stable barometric pressure and breathable atmosphere.

  “You can remove your helmets now,” Frank said over vehicle intercom. His compartment door slid open from the other side and Mia slouched down, plopping herself into the other seat.

  “You can lock this, you know. Green switch over there.” She pointed.

  Frank took the MEV out of neutral and stepped on the accelerator. Acceleration was decent, gradually increasing in speed over time. They pulled away from the yard with Renee and Keiko waving in the rearview cameras.

  Gauges littered the cabin. There seemed to be a meter, screen, or instrument for everything. The center dashboard contained a touchscreen interface with several different displays. Frank monitored electrical current from six
induction motors, each with lithium ion batteries for power generation. The vehicle had no clutch, axle, differential, or transmission. Instead, each wheel was powered by its own motor.

  Mia programmed the onboard satellite positioning system, a synonym for Earth-based GPS. She imput a nine-digit grid coordinate as Frank drove in a southeasterly direction, away from Ōme, across the open plain. Sometimes unreliable because of connection speeds and buffering times, the navigation system froze. Frank brought the MEV to a grinding halt.

  “Where am I going, Mia?” he asked in an overtly calm voice.

  “Um . . . we have to turn around. Go west, towards the cliffs on the backside of Ōme,” she said, referencing her maps.

  “What’s the hold up?” Roland asked through the intercom.

  “Everything’s fine, sir,” Mia replied as Frank peeled out in a forty-five degree turn, causing the trailer to skid across the sand.

  “Careful!” Roland shouted.

  A big smile shown on Frank’s face. He tightened his grip on the steering column and floored the accelerator. His goal was to see how fast the MEV could go. After about two kilometers over open plain, the speedometer plateaued at eighty-five kilometers per hour.

  The trailer bumped up and down as its wheels struck exposed rocks. They passed by Ōme and drove unhindered for another five kilometers until reaching the western edge of the planum. Ahead, jagged tors rose abruptly atop rounded hills formed from an ancient impact event.

  Frank put pressure on the brake pedal. All six wheels braked independently from one another. The vehicle came to a complete stop at the edge of the hill formation. Ironically, the onboard navigation rebooted itself and started working again.

  “Why have you stopped?” Mia wondered aloud.

  “I didn’t think we could go any further. You see what’s in front of us, right?” he replied with alarm.

  “Right there.” Mia pointed to a small inlet, a passageway through the hills.

  “I’ll try. Roland won’t approve though,” Frank replied with nervous apprehension.

  The MEV started up again. Slowly, it navigated the somewhat perilous pass. Up, down, and sideways, they bounced around in the cab as Frank steered around potholes and shallow ditches. Roland came over the intercom more than once, complaining about the route, but Frank didn’t let up. If they stopped inside the pass, they may not get back out. It was all or nothing now.

  They drove for another painstaking kilometer through tightly winding terrain before exiting out into a clearing. As if sensing the impending danger ahead, Frank braked aggressively, but was too late. The front right tire fell into a pocket of loose aggregate, becoming buried and immobile, just a body length away from a cliff and sheer drop.

  “Shit!” Frank shouted, hitting the dash with his fist.

  “Reverse, get us out!” Mia shouted back.

  All six tires spun independently and freed the front right tire from its sandy trap. Unknown to them, the loose rock beneath collapsed and formed a much larger crater. They violently descended into the now larger crater, throwing all astronauts forward into their harnesses. Despite Frank not letting up on the accelerator, the MEV remained angled and motionless.

  Cracks appeared on adjacent rock faces as more debris fell from cliffs above, battering the roof of the MEV. Bang! Thud! went the roof as the ground below gave way and began to fall several hundred feet to the lobate apron below. Frank turned on traction control, let off the accelerator for a second, then floored it. All six tires gripped the dirt just enough. Slowly, the MEV ascended out of the hole in reverse as the entire platform gave way and crashed onto the valley floor below.

  “Got any cigarettes?” Frank asked. Mia gave him a jubilant embrace.

  “What the hell just happened?!” Roland’s voice distorted over the intercom speakers. “Everything’s fine, sir. Frank just saved our lives!” Mia expressed ecstatically. Everyone poured out the back of the MEV and assessed the situation together.

  The view from atop the escarpment was jaw dropping. The crew stood in admiration of the picturesque landscape. Below, a wide valley separated two mountain ranges that made up the multi-ringed Lyot Crater basin.

  On the far side of the valley to the west were towering mountains with an untraversable barrier ridge. To the south, gently sloping land gave way to a sea of swirling sand dunes, black as night.

  “Look, down there,” Mia said. At the bottom of the valley, a deep rift formation carved a swath through the land. “That’s the lowest point, that’s our destination,” she said.

  “From here, another ten kilometers at least,” Alexei complained.

  “Fifteen,” Frank corrected.

  “You’re on.” Alexei extended his hand in a wager and Frank accepted. They turned on their rangefinders. Both read 15.7 kilometers.

  “Should have bet on something, damn,” Frank said victoriously.

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  Mia walked near the ridge line, being careful not to disturb any more rock slides. She looked for any possible way down but found none, only a steep grade and drop off. “We’ll have to go around these hills to the north,” Roland concluded.

  She sighed inside her suit before keying her mic. “That will take who knows how long.”

  “It’s better than going south, that would take us all day. The longer we sit here . . .” Roland said.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, let’s go already,” Mia replied.

  Frank slammed on the reverse. They bumped and rolled inside the MEV back to where they came from, disgruntled but still motivated.

  Chapter 21

  1030 hours, Sol 22

  Lyot Crater

  Earth Date: May 25, 2045

  “We're here!” Mia exclaimed.

  “It's about damn time,” Alexei expressed. “Took us what? Four hours to drive twenty kilometers?”

  The MEV came to a complete stop at the edge of a long and narrow rift. They had finally reached their destination at the bottom of the valley. A light fog concealed the bottom of the fissure. Mia predicted it to be about twenty-five meters deep, though they couldn't be sure with reduced visibility.

  “First things first, we set up camp,” Roland ordered.

  Mia stood at the precipice while the others offloaded equipment and supplies. Using her rangefinder, she attempted to map the bottom, but was unsuccessful. Each time a laser was beamed an error message would appear on her viewfinder. “Pity,” she whispered to herself.

  “Barometric pressure reading is 1180 pascals,” Mia read over comm. “Depth is . . . 7,023 meters below the Martian datum, temperature is -20.” She said of their current position above the fissure.

  A gloved finger tapped Mia on the shoulder. She turned and was greeted by a bag-wielding Alexei. “Less work, more work.” He shoved a bag into her chest. Mia dropped the bag and flashed the bird into Alexei's lifeless, tinted visor. He shook his head silently and gave up, resigning himself to offload the Tama Rover.

  “That’s good though, right? I mean, shouldn't we see liquid water on the surface down here?” Frank asked innocently.

  “Not likely,” came the reply from Mia. “Not at the current temperature. We need to warm by a lot more and even then, even then, not likely.”

  Silence ensued as Frank retreated to his thoughts on the topic of water.

  “It's possible we may encounter highly saturated brine,” Mia broke the silence.

  “Yeah, but think if we found liquid water, think of the impact that would have,” Frank said.

  “We already have evidence that without a doubt water exists on or under Mars in liquid form, we just haven't seen it yet. Only a matter of time before that happens,” she said.

  Frank waited a few seconds before replying. “So, you haven't actually seen it but you know it's there. Sounds like faith to me,” he said as he drug another case over to the campsite.

  “Not faith, the data tells us it exists and has existed on the surface for billions of years. Take hydrated minerals,
for example. We suspected its existence for years before actually seeing it appear on steep slopes for ourselves,” she pointed out.

  Alexei added an inane quip to the conversation, but was ignored. Heavily invested now in the conversation, Frank pressed further.

  “If you know it’s there, then why the obsession with finding it? Why are all scientists obsessed with finding life on Mars? Think of all the years the science community wasted on trying to find life instead of developing technologies, or figuring out how to mine the moon, or . . .” Frank said.

  “Stop for a second. First, you are the one who brought up water in the first place. I didn’t mention anything about life or water. Second, it’s our duty to study and understand life on Mars, to make sure we don’t accidentally contaminate and destroy it forever, even the smallest microbe,” Mia retorted. “Also, scientists help develop new technologies all the time. . .”

  “Billions of dollars spent on studying and protecting something that isn’t there. The religion of science in a nutshell. It’s all a front for a more sinister agenda, and I don’t mean you in particular but the science community as a whole,” Frank said.

  “How do—” Mia interrupted, but Frank insisted. “Finding life was never about protecting or studying anything. The aim was to fundamentally disprove the existence of God. By discovering life on another planet, no matter how small and insignificant, science could put to rest the credibility of every major religion,” Frank said, showing a rare side of himself that they had not yet seen.

  Frank dropped another plastic case at the campsite. A plume of dust billowed up in a bowl, concealing his lower torso. He sat down on a box to rest and disappeared entirely inside the orange dust. The other two astronauts looked on, expecting Mia to destroy Frank, but she simply walked away.

  Construction finished on the new campsite, aptly codenamed: Tango-1. Work started immediately as morning transitioned to mid-afternoon. The crew finished eating a late brunch in one of the tents and prepared the rover for exploration.