I grinned. “And the Atens asteroids?”
Ashley paused, beginning to smile because she had a chance to show off her knowledge. “Between Earth and Venus.”
“Apollos belt?”
“Much, much more serious. Those are the ones that cross the Earth’s orbit.”
“Bravo!” I clapped for her.
She bowed as if I were an audience of thousands instead of me, just a kid in a wheelchair beneath the Martian night. “Any reason you picked asteroids? Usually you get us to look at more exciting things like star explosions. Asteroids are just lumpy rocks that drift like garbage.”
“Just thinking about the one that might have hit Mars yesterday. Dad and Rawling figure it was only the size of a spaceship.”
I stopped, wondering. Could it actually have been a spaceship? One out of control? Made by an alien civilization? What were we going to find when we finally arrived at the crater that the satellite had photographed?
Dumb, I told myself. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. As if an alien spaceship had crashed into Mars.
“Doesn’t take much, does it?” Ashley said, breaking into my thoughts. “I mean, I was reading up on asteroids today too, and—”
“Ha!” I interrupted. “That’s how you knew about the Amors, Atens, and Apollos belts.”
She ignored my comment. “And there’s a crater in Arizona nearly a mile across, made by an asteroid fragment only half the size of a football field. If one of the bigger asteroids ever hit Mars, it would break the planet in two!”
“Nice thought,” I said.
Ashley shrugged. “At least it would take my mind off the news I just got from Earth.” The sadness was back in her voice.
“Is anything the matter?”
“Well—”
Footsteps stopped her from saying anything else.
It was Rawling. “Hi, guys,” he said to us. “Sorry to barge in, but I need to talk to Tyce. It’s about our trip. There’s no problem if your dad joins us, and we’ve decided to leave in an hour.”
“At night?”
“At night.” He didn’t give a reason. I thought this was strange. Very strange. Why leave at night?
“So if you could go back down and get ready …,” he said.
“Um, sure,” I said.
Rawling saluted me and spun around, leaving me and Ashley alone again.
“You were saying?” I said to her.
“Nothing,” she said. “Where are you going?”
“On a field trip.”
“At night? Nobody’s gone out in the field since I got here, and nobody’s left the dome at night. What’s so important?”
“It’s just a field trip.”
I could see in her eyes that she was hurt I wouldn’t tell her. But I couldn’t. Worse, I couldn’t even tell her why I couldn’t tell her.
“Will you be gone long?” Ashley asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Oh.” She seemed to grow small and quiet. After a few seconds, she reached up and took off one of her silver cross earrings. She handed it to me. “Keep this,” she said.
My face must have looked blank.
“You’re my only friend under the dome, except for the koalas, and they can’t talk. Maybe the cross will also remind you to e-mail me once in a while. I mean, you will have some computers on board, right?”
I smiled again. “Right. But there’s nothing to worry about.” I paused, thinking about our upcoming search. “Really. Nothing.”
Almost as if I were trying to convince myself instead of Ashley.
CHAPTER 8
An hour later, we were ready.
Rawling and Dad had loaded all the supplies into a platform buggy, a clear minidome perched on a deck that rode on huge rubber tires. Storage compartments and the motor were underneath. The motor didn’t burn gasoline because Mars has no oxygen in the atmosphere to allow any fuel to burn. Instead, it ran on electricity made from solar panels that hung off the rear of the platform. The minidome looked much like the igloos I’ve seen in Earth photos. A small tunnel stuck out from the minidome onto an open portion of the deck. Then a ladder descended to the ground from there.
From my wheelchair on the ground I had to lean way back to see the platform. Rawling stayed up there as Dad climbed down. Mom was beside me, her hand on my shoulder, as we waited for Dad to get to us.
He kissed Mom’s forehead. “I’ll miss you. I’m glad I’m leaving for only a few days, not …”
He didn’t finish his sentence. In a few more weeks, when the planetary orbits were lined up so the journey from Mars to Earth would be at its shortest, Dad would be on a spaceship again, beginning another three-year journey.
“I’ll miss you too.” She hugged him. “I’ll be praying for you guys.”
They kissed again. I coughed and looked the other way.
Mom hugged me and whispered good-bye when they were finished. “Take care of your dad,” she said, speaking more loudly for his benefit.
“Sure,” I said. But if I had known what was ahead over the next few days, I might not have sounded so cheerful.
The dome was the quietest it had been all day. Dad and Rawling helped me up the ladder onto the platform deck. Rawling went down again and hauled my wheelchair into the buggy. Bruce, the robot body, was already packed underneath.
This late at night, most of the scientists and techies were relaxing in their own minidomes. Because of the quiet, the grinding of the motors that controlled the dome exit seemed louder than usual. The techie who was letting us out waved up to us where we sat high above the ground.
“Ready, gentlemen?” Rawling asked as he waved back at the techie.
“Ready,” I said.
Dad’s answer was to move levers, rolling the platform buggy into the main dome’s igloo tunnel. We left the dome through the inner door and stopped in the short tunnel, which was about twice the length of a platform buggy. Ahead of us, the outer door was still sealed.
The techie closed the inner door behind us, sealing the dome completely. Only then did the techie allow the outer door to open. As the warm, moist, oxygen-filled air followed us out of the dome into the tunnel, it made contact with the Martian atmosphere. Turning instantly into white vapor, it disappeared into the night.
Dad moved the platform buggy forward, and the outer door shut behind us.
We were on our way to search for alien artifacts.
CHAPTER 9
I wasn’t worried about getting lost. The platform buggy, which was running off the stored electricity from the dome’s solar panels, held a computer with a GPS. The GPS tracked our position by satellite and gave us our coordinates on the surface of the planet at all times. Not only that, but as a space pilot, Dad had managed to get to Mars after crossing 50 million miles of space from Earth—like hitting the head of a pin with a bullet from a thousand miles away. So I figured between him and Rawling, a brilliant scientist, we’d get to the crater, no problem.
“I’m guessing it will take us 14 hours,” Rawling said, addressing me. He stood beside Dad at the steering wheel. I sat in my wheelchair to the side, watching through the clear, hard plastic of the platform buggy’s dome. “It’s about 200 miles. This buggy can do 25 miles an hour, but we’ll want to go slower since it’s night. Your dad and I will take turns driving.”
I nodded at his time estimate. Since gravity on Mars is much different than gravity on Earth, a year on Mars is much longer than on Earth: Mars takes 687 days to circle the sun. But the length of days is similar. Just like Earth, Mars spins, and it takes 24 hours and 37 minutes to complete each rotation.
“I’m hoping,” Rawling continued, “that you’ll sleep as much as possible. We need you rested, with a sharp concentration level.”
“Sure,” I said. Rawling had brought on board the narrow bed from the computer lab. There were also two small roll-out cots for him and Dad. And three space suits with oxygen tanks—one for me in case of emergency and one for each of them so they cou
ld walk around when we got to the site.
I watched the passing landscape in the headlight beams for a few more minutes. While Mars has mountains and extinct volcanoes, there are plenty of valleys, so I was seeing landscape almost like a desert on Earth, except here there were no plants of any kind. Just sand and rocks.
The monstrous tires of the platform buggy rumbled as they pressed against the ground. Because of a good suspension system, the platform deck stayed level most of the time, but there were occasional bumps. I was surprised at how soothing the noise and bumps felt. Maybe it was like being rocked to sleep in a cradle—something I’d only read about.
But I wasn’t ready to sleep. Not yet.
I asked Rawling the question I’d been saving. “Why did we have to leave tonight in such a big rush?”
“Politics,” he answered. “Plain and simple.”
Dad kept his eye on the white circles of light cast by the headlight beams.
Rawling gave his attention to me. “Think of what it would mean on Earth if we discovered evidence of an alien civilization. If those black boxes came from beings who once lived on Mars or from beings from another solar system who left them on Mars, this would be the greatest discovery in the history of humankind.”
“With our names all over it, right?” I grinned. “We’d be known forever!”
Dad took his eyes off the headlight beams briefly and snorted. “My son, the space explorer.” He smiled, shook his head with affection, and kept driving.
“For starters,” Rawling explained to me, “if what we find belonged to an ancient Martian civilization, we might be able to learn a tremendous amount about how to recolonize the planet. Did they live underground? Where did they get power? How did they make food? All those answers will be extremely valuable.”
“And if these black boxes aren’t from a Martian civilization …”
“Since no planets other than Mars and Earth are potentially inhabitable, it means the boxes had to come from outside the solar system. Which would be far more incredible.”
“An alien is an alien,” I pointed out, “no matter where it’s from.”
“Not quite,” Rawling said. “Aliens from outside this solar system could only get here with some type of transportation that overcomes the tremendous distances. Think about it. With the best technology we have, it still takes three years to catch an orbit to take us from Mars to Earth and back. Imagine being able to travel to the stars.”
“Close to light-speed travel!” Dad said. Now, as a space pilot, he was very interested.
“That’s a big stretch to conclude from the presence of unexplained black boxes,” Rawling cautioned. “But a possible stretch.”
“Well,” I said, “what does this have to do with politics and the reason we left in such a hurry?”
“If we find evidence of an alien civilization, scientists will be extremely curious to learn from it. And the government will also want to know if it needs to defend Earth against future alien invasions. Given these two factors, how much money do you think the United Nations’ Science Agency would be prepared to spend on the Mars Project?”
Even I understood that kind of politics. “Tons and tons and tons,” I answered.
Rawling nodded. “Right now, it’s costing Earth about $200 billion a year to support the dome. You can bet that money would be doubled or tripled. Or more.”
Rawling paused as the platform buggy hit a big bump, then waited for the platform to level itself and stop shaking. “Here’s why we couldn’t wait until tomorrow to leave. Travel to the crater and back will take up to two days altogether. I’d like at least two days to explore and learn what we can. That gives us four days. Even with that, we’ll barely make the deadline.”
“Deadline for what?”
“In four days,” Rawling told me, “the United Nations is voting on budget issues. Specifically, the amount of money they are going to commit to the Mars Project. We need to find out about this by then or else.”
I asked the obvious. “Or else what?”
“It’s not public knowledge,” Rawling said, “but after all these years and with progress so slow, there are some people on Earth who wonder if the government should be spending $200 billion a year on the dome. When we first left for Mars 15 years ago, we knew that the issue of funding would come up at the end of the 15th year. Now that time is here. As director, I’ve found out there’s a good chance they’re going to cut the budget in half at that meeting. Or more. Which will mean the end of the dome as we know it.”
He let out a deep breath. “In other words, finding evidence of aliens will ensure that all of us stay on Mars.”
CHAPTER 10
Rawling wanted me to get as much sleep as possible. He had already dimmed the interior lights. Now he shut them off completely so only the instrument panels glowed.
I lay on my narrow bed, staring through the clear, hard plastic of the platform dome.
The stars were crisp diamond points against the black velvet of the Martian night. And although Mars does have a moon—in fact, two—neither moon gives much light. They are like giant potatoes—huge lumps of rock, each less than 20 miles across.
As I stared upward, waiting to get tired enough to sleep, I was able to see a solar system sight so beautiful that I felt sorry for people on Earth, because they’ll never be able to see it. Not unless they actually leave Earth.
What I saw was a round white-and-blue ball hanging against the eternal darkness. Earth itself. With a telescope from Mars, you can see the swirls of cloud cover and watch hurricanes develop. From the platform buggy, however, I had to rely on my memory of telescope sighting.
The atmosphere that surrounds Earth is minuscule compared to the size of the planet. Yet this thin fabric of nitrogen and oxygen makes life possible. Without atmosphere, there’s no water, no conservation of heat.
The angle of the tilt of Earth is perfectly suited to give seasons. The size is perfect too. Bigger planets like Venus have too many volcanoes and erupt so much carbon dioxide that the greenhouse effect heats them to 850 degrees Fahrenheit. Smaller planets like Mercury can’t hold their atmosphere.
And Earth’s moon? Planets without a large moon flipflop on the axis of rotation, literally throwing the planet back and forth, making it impossible for life to survive climate changes.
If Earth were only 1 percent closer to the sun (think of taking only 1 penny off a stack of 100 pennies), it would get too hot. Only 5 percent farther away, and it would freeze, like Mars. If the Earth didn’t have a nearly perfect circular orbit—always 93 million miles away—it would get too close to and too far from the sun.
In other words, life on Earth only exists because the planet is the right size, always at the right distance from the right-size sun, with the right-size moon circling it at the right distance.
All of this has convinced me that Earth was created for a reason. And that someone—a powerful Someone, God—made it that way so life could exist. After years of finding it hard to believe in him, I’d been thinking a lot about him over the past month. It had all started with the oxygen crisis and wondering what would happen to me if I died.
I started getting drowsier as these thoughts went through my mind.
Then Ashley’s question popped back into my thoughts. “Why is there something instead of nothing?”
And what was here instead of the universe before the nothing became something? How can time start? Did it start when the universe started? Or is time forever?
I closed my eyes and let all these questions run through my mind again and again and again.
It must have looked like I was asleep because Rawling and my dad started talking softly.
“It’s a big responsibility,” Rawling said. “I’m sorry I have to throw it on Tyce’s shoulders.”
That worried me. What exactly was going to be so difficult?
“It has to be done,” Dad answered just as softly. “But if anyone can do it, it’s Tyce. Words can’t tel
l you how proud I am to have him as a son.”
A month ago, he hardly felt like a father to me. Now it was different. Hearing him say that made me happy.
I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
And I woke up to a loud screeching noise.
CHAPTER 11
The screeching sound was followed by a big jolt of the platform buggy.
In bed, I struggled to sit up. I leaned on my elbows and blinked myself completely awake. The first rays of sun had reached across the horizon, showing the jagged edges of ancient rust-red volcanoes on all sides of us.
“Tyce,” Dad said from behind the controls, “you can relax. We’re fine.”
Rawling was at the side of the platform, peering downward through the clear protective plastic. “I’m not sure about one of our tires though.”
The platform deck had begun to tilt in Rawling’s direction.
“Some of this lava is sharp as a razor,” Rawling continued. “I think it cut one of the rear tires.”
Dad leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. It looked like he’d been at the controls the entire time I’d slept.
“We’ve got a compressor underneath,” Rawling said. “All we need to do is plug the leak with a repair kit, and we’ll be on our way.”
I remembered the tires were filled with carbon dioxide so we could pump into them straight from the atmosphere.
Dad stood and stretched. “Flip a coin to see who goes out there?”
“Nope,” Rawling said. He pointed at me. “Here’s where you get to see how good your son is.”
“Run through the checklist,” Rawling told me as he tightened straps across my legs to hold me to the bed. If I moved, the connection between the antenna plug in my spine and the computer receiver on the other side of the platform deck could be broken.
“First,” I said, “no robot contact with any electrical sources. Ever.” Because my spinal nerves were attached to the antenna plug, any electrical current going into or through the robot could seriously damage the neurons of my brain. It had happened once—a slight shock—and I’d been out for 6 minutes and 10 seconds.
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