“Are you sure it’s safe?”
“As I said, I still have some tests to run, but so far, everything has come back positive. Unless one of the last results raises a flag, we should be able to add it to the menu pretty soon. I think we’re overdue for a culinary change, don’t you?” she finished with a smile.
“You bet!” He tapped on the outside of the glass, trying to make the algae react.
Chapter VI
Rita
Dedrick, leaning on one knee, put another log in the fire. Rita, his beloved dog, had joined him and was lounging on the hardwood floor nearby. Flat on her stomach, her back legs stretched out behind her and her two front paws crossed. Panting, her tongue sticking out lazily on one side of her jaw, she was looking at him, following his every move, seemingly content. Staring at the flames flaring through the crackling logs, Dedrick was day-dreaming when he realized something wasn't right. How could he be in this room? He had not set foot in that house in many years. When was the last time exactly? It was a day just like this one, to think of it. Yes, he remembered sitting by the fireplace. He and Vera had made the trip from the Netherlands for a last goodbye. Now it was all coming back. Lars had told them this would be their last trip. Once back at headquarters, they would stay there for good until take off. But wait, that was almost twelve years ago! So, what was he doing here? How could he be back at his uncle’s house? No, that was impossible. The Earth had been ravaged by a terrible epidemic. Everyone was gone. He was on Mars. He had been for almost twelve years now. He couldn't be back.
Rita suddenly got up and started barking at the fireplace. As Dedrick watched in disbelief the flames turn purple, a tall figure emerged from the smoke and floated to the center of the room. He was big and strange looking. Humanoid like, but definitely not human. It was hard to see any features on his face, except for his big purple eyes. The rest of his body looked dark and blurry, out of focus. The odd being was so tall, he had to hunch over for his head not to touch the ceiling. His legs looked a lot thicker than normal, and disproportionate to his thin body, and his feet were thick and round, and flared evenly under each leg. The mysterious being slowly leaned towards Dedrick, one hand reaching forward, but before he could touch him, Dedrick bolted out of the room and started running down the corridor. He suddenly realized he was moving in slow motion. Rita, running just ahead, was losing him. She quickly turned down the hall to their right, towards the backyard patio.
"Not that way, Rita. Rita! Come back girl! RITA!!”
He had no choice but to follow her, trying to catch up. But the faster he ran, the faster she did as well. He kept calling her, but she was ignoring him. He finally reached the backdoor. Rita was on her hind legs, frantically clawing at the handle. A quick look behind him told him the menacing figure wasn't in sight yet. He reached for the handle and opened the door. Rushing through the yard, Rita ran straight for the tool shed. Dedrick followed, thinking of the tools he might find there. His uncle enjoyed yard work, and he knew he had an array of saws, picks, axes, and gardening apparatus he might be able to defend himself with. But before he could reach the dwelling, Rita stopped dead on her tracks and slowly turned around. Taken aback, Dedrick stumbled backwards and regained his balance just in time to watch her transform into the tall being he was so frantically trying to get away from. The backyard was fenced and poorly lit, but Dedrick could clearly see the pale blue ray of light that suddenly flashed out of the being's hand and followed it to a group of barrels stacked up next to the shed. But those were not really barrels. No, they looked completely spherical. He had never seen anything like it. They seemed to be glowing from within. He could almost make out a shadow, a darker mass moving inside, pulsing lightly, like a fetus in a translucent white egg.
While Dedrick was staring at the orbs, mesmerized by the scene, the tall being approached so slowly and quietly that he didn't see him until he was almost right on him. The Russian froze. Extending an open hand in front of him, the being presented a smaller sphere to Dedrick. Feeling strangely willed by someone else, he slowly raised his hand to receive the object. Instantly melting into his skin, the sphere quickly disappeared, and Dedrick felt as if he was weightless, a sensation he had experienced many times in zero gravity.
Now hovering toward the shed, he suddenly realized the dwelling had been replaced by a large door. One like he had never seen before. The tall portal was full of strange carvings, lines, and geometric forms Dedrick could not recognize. It was covered in a thick layer of dust that gave the impression it had not been used for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. The strange being waved his hand in front of the door. A light appeared in the center, slowly morphing into a widening ring that rapidly spread across the entire doorway, until it faded to give way to a long, dark tunnel. Completely helpless, Dedrick was now inside, moving along with the stranger next to him, both floating slowly forward in the purple lit corridor. He suddenly realized Rita was with him again, hovering just in front of them. Dedrick felt as if he was being taken through an ancient Egyptian tomb. He also noticed he couldn't taste the air, or smell anything, and the place was eerily quiet. Rita, as if seated on an invisible flying rug, floated calmly ahead. The three of them soon arrived in front of another door. This one looked as if it had been built more recently. It was bright white and free of dirt. The grooves sculpted on it were much easier to see than the first one. Waving again, the alien being made the door slowly vanish and-
... Buzzz... Buzzz... Buzzz...
The sound of his alarm suddenly woke him up. He had been dreaming again. The same dream he had had countless times since his arrival on Mars, more than a decade earlier. The dreams were becoming more frequent lately, and for a moment, he wondered if it had anything to do with the guilt he still harbored for leaving his mother back on Earth.
He shook the thought out of his head, turned off the annoying noise by voice command, and got out of bed. Putting his boots on, he slowly made his way to the dark panel on the far wall of the small habitat and turned on the spotlights outside. The view through the small porthole window was almost completely obstructed by a thick haze of orange dust swirling around in all directions outside the station. Dedrick let out a bored sigh and walked to the pod’s small kitchen area. He grabbed a sealed coffee cup and put it in the microwave. A few seconds later, he moved to his computer, coffee in hand, and pressed his finger on the lower right corner of the screen to open his log page.
Monday, June 14, 2037. Today was his mother's birthday, he realized. She was sixty-seven, if she had survived Earth’s devastating epidemic, that is. To think of it, he didn't even know if she was still alive or not. It had been almost three years since their last contact with Earth. No one knew what had happened exactly, but they had a pretty good idea. As far as they could tell, a large percentage of Earth’s human population was probably gone, but they were unable to even guess the true extent of the tragedy. This unknown had at first given the colonists the feeble hope their loved ones might still be alive. But by now, they knew this much: For the last thirty-five months, the colony's radars and communication devices aimed at Earth had been utterly silent.
Bringing himself out of his dreary thoughts, Dedrick moved to the lounge cove next to his sleeping area and began putting his PLS suit on. He was leaning forward, one boot in his hands, when a single high-pitched whistle suddenly blasted out of the small speaker above his head, followed by the familiar sound of his French colleague’s voice.
"Good morning, old man!"
Barely glancing at the monitor screen without stopping what he was doing, Dedrick replied. "Ha! Look who's talking! I think YOU’RE the old one, my friend."
It was true, François was his elder by almost a year.
"Yeah, yeah," said François. "Listen. I was thinking we should take rover 2 this morning. I was checking ARC 1 last night, and I think the left front wheel is still out of whack. We could have problems stirring through Candor.
"Fine with me. You're the expert. See yo
u in the garage in a few," said Dedrick without looking again at the screen.
The high-pitched whistle squealed one more time as the screen turned black, and the speaker went quiet. Dedrick finished putting his suit on, got up to the hatch door, and left the room.
The garage, as they preferred to call it, was a single cylindrical pod barely big enough for two of the rovers it housed. Two small tunnels provided access in and out of it from the rest of their living quarters. On the main wall in front of the rovers, a lengthy porthole window in the middle of the main hatch gate offered a glimpse out onto the flat plateau beyond the station. Dedrick approached the far wall where Sabrina was standing, with her helmet halfway over her head.
"Hey Sabrina!"
"Hi Dedrick. Did you see the storm, earlier? So much for François' weather forecast last night. For a moment, I thought we were gonna have to postpone the excursion until tomorrow."
"You should know better than to trust his 'all-knowing-Majesty.’ I knew he was full of it when he announced today would rival a summer day in Florida. You know how much he loves toying with us."
"I know, he can be so immature at times."
After putting their helmets on, both got into ARC 2, and Dedrick turned on the onboard computer and started going down his check list.
"Good morning everyone," said a voice through the rover's intercom.
"Morning, Ladli," replied Dedrick and Sabrina, in unison.
"I just checked the weather conditions at Candor I. Visibility is low but acceptable. You should be able to get a few hours of exploration today. So much for the clear day forecast last night, huh. By the way, where is François?"
"Late, as usual," replied Dedrick.
As if on cue, sliding from under one of the anchoring cables, François reached the passenger side of the rover with a big 2 on it and climbed aboard.
"Well, thanks for joining us, Mr. Menardais," said Sabrina sarcastically.
"Wouldn't miss it for anything, love!" he replied with a wink.
After they were done going through the check list, Dedrick's French co-pilot, looking at Ladli on the console's screen, announced, "Ready when you are, Hun."
"OK, don't forget to lower your visors, I'm opening the door."
Watching them via the visor-viewer from inside the control room, she entered a few commands on the touch screen in front of her, and the garage door slowly began to rise. A thin band of bright orange light appeared under the cracked gate, and sun light soon filled the small shelter with a bright reddish glow. The rising sun was facing them just above the horizon. Dedrick slowly pressed forward on the joystick in his hand and the vehicle began moving.
A few seconds later, the gate was closing behind them, and the team of three began making its thirty-minute trek across the deserted landscape of Candor Chasma to the Candor I site.
#
The ride was quiet. No one seemed to have much to say. François was staring at the giant cliffs in the distance. Below them, the terrain between the cliffs was almost perfectly flat and smooth. Aside from an occasional level drop and a few dried-out riverbeds, the surroundings resembled the flat floor of a dried-up lake, with the immense cliffs stretching far behind the horizon. Several kilometers high in some places, the magnitude of the geology of the Valles Marineris region was absolutely breathtaking. The facade to the left of them was only a few kilometers away and towered far above, as if trying to reach the sky itself. Occasional vertical cracks and crevices in the walls of the rock face revealed long narrow passages into the gigantic feature. François was suddenly jolted out of his seat by a sudden road bump.
"Hey, watch the road, Schumacher!"
"Sorry, I just didn't see that boulder," replied Dedrick, looking a bit startled himself.
"Were you day-dreaming again?” asked François, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
"No, I… I was just... Ah, never mind! I'm fine. We're almost there."
Sitting in the back right between the two of them, Sabrina was adjusting her helmet when a bright flash caught the corner of her left eye.
"Hey! What was that? Dedrick! Stop the rover. Dedrick!!"
"What is it?" he replied, while slowing down.
"I saw something. In the cliff. We just passed it."
"What are you talking about?" asked François.
"I'm telling you, I saw a flash."
"A flash?”
"Yes, a flash. We have to go back. Turn around, I'll show you."
Dedrick and François looked at each other. The Frenchman gave the Russian a doubtful smirk, obviously not convinced.
"Maybe it was just the sun reflecting on the window of the rover," suggested Dedrick.
“Or maybe it was a Martian taking pictures,” added François with a silly grin on his face.
"I know what I saw, guys. Dedrick, we have to go back."
"OK, Sabrina. Because I like you."
Tracing a big circle, Dedrick drove the rover around a large boulder and back the way they had come. They quickly reached the spot where Sabrina had just seen the light.
"I don't see anything," said François.
"I'm telling you. It was right here, just to the left of that crevice," Sabrina replied assertively, pointing at a wide vertical fissure in the face of the rock.
“Go back again, the other way, like when we passed it the first time."
Executing another grand U-turn, Dedrick drove the rover back in the other direction. This time, all three saw it. A bright flash, as if the sun was reflecting off a mirror, or a very shiny surface of some kind. He stopped the rover dead on its tracks. Slowly backing up, he placed ARC 2 right in the path of the ray.
“See? What did I tell you?” said Sabrina satisfactorily.
The two men were silent for a moment, staring at the brightness in the cliff.
“A piece from MF3?” wondered François out loud.
“No way. We’re too far from the crash site,” replied the Russian.
“What else?”
“Whatever it is, we didn’t put it there,” mentioned Sabrina.
“OK... So, what do you think it is then?” asked François.
“I don't know,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe some kind of reflective mineral; a gemstone deposit of sorts, perhaps. Obviously, something we haven’t come across yet.”
“This could be an interesting,” thought Dedrick.
“Well, I guess we might as well go see, then,” said François.
“I guess we might as well,” seconded the female geologist.
Without another word, the team started putting on their suits. After making sure everyone was ready, Dedrick released the door locks, and they stepped out of the vehicle. On closer inspection, it appeared the source of the light was quite far from them, a good hundred plus meters into the passage ahead. The rover was too wide and the terrain too treacherous to enter this narrow crevice. They would have to go explore on foot. They each had enough oxygen for three hours outside the rover. The ground in the fissure was littered with rocks of all sizes, most of them piled up along the sides, as if dropped from above by an earthquake, or in this case a “marsquake” to be exact.
Reaching for the side of his helmet to turn on his radio, Dedrick called the station.
“We have come across an 'item' we want to go check. It's in a trench in sector 42-21. I'm gonna turn my suit camera on to record what we see. The terrain is too rough for ARC 2, so we're going on foot. If we lose you, we'll make sure to stay out of communication range no longer than a few minutes.”
“OK Dedrick. But you know how I don't like not having you on my screen when you guys go off the scheduled route, so be quick!” replied Ladli.
“We'll do.”
“I think she just can't stand to be away from me, if you ask me,” said François with a silly smirk.
Sabrina simply rolled her eyes at him through her helmet.
For the most part, the path they were walking on, although obstructed in many p
laces by giant boulders, was manageable. Dedrick was ahead of the small group, following the most logical and least demanding path through the messy landscape. Sabrina was right behind him and François, a few meters to their left, was zig-zagging unnecessarily through the obstacles, just because he couldn't do anything like everyone else.
“You're wasting your energy and your oxygen, François,” had told him Sabrina a few times already.
“I figured out what we’re looking for. It’s a Chinese tourist taking pictures. I’m just making sure is not hiding behind a boulder.”
“Oh my gosh, you can be SO annoying sometimes!” she had finally said, fed up.
After a few minutes, the small speakers in their helmets emitted a few “cracks” and “buzzes,” and a broken voice came through, barely discernible.
“Ded—crack-- I'm starting to los—buzz-buzz. Dedrick, crack-- buzz-- hear me?”
“Ladli, I can barely hear you. I guess we're about to lose you. I'll get back in touch in five minutes at most. I promise! Ladli? Did you get that?”
“Dedrick, I –crack—crack—buzz—buzzzzz. OK, don't spend--buzz--time-- crack—need. I'll st—sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh...”
“Sounds like we've lost her for good,” said Sabrina.
“I'm afraid so. We'd better hurry. It looks like we're still a good third of the way from the source. François, come on!”
With renewed determination, the three started walking again. The passage was getting narrower the deeper they went. The sun was now hitting only parts of the cliff above them, and the reflection was gone. Relying on his wrist locator, Dedrick kept moving in the direction of the bulky rock he believed the light had originated from. The trench was hundreds of meters tall. Almost completely vertical, the cliff walls were full of jagged edges and uneven features. Between them, boulders of all sizes were littering the ground. Some as big as a small house. That, in itself, looked strange to Dedrick. Most of the geology in Candor Chasma was ancient and had not changed in millions of years. But this crevice, although in some ways similar to others in the area, looked as if something had happened there in a much more recent past. Could Mars have had seismic activity more recently than planetologists previously thought? Scientists on Earth, Dedrick had learned during his training, believed Mars was a dead planet, and had been so for most of its life. The rocky world had barely changed at all in billions of years. Earthquakes and other major geological changes were believed to have ceased long, long ago. Dedrick had a strange feeling about this small canyon. Something he could not explain.
Kahnu (The Guardians of Tomorrow Book 1) Page 18
