by Guy Haley
After two hours, Stulynow stopped. “We are coming to what we call the Chasm. We are fifteen thousand and fifty metres under the peak of the Mons. To our right, we’ll be skirting along an old magma chamber, drained when Ascraeus moved away from the Tharsis plume. Be really careful on the lip. You fall in there, and we’ll never see you again.”
“Just ‘The Chasm’?”
“Yes,” said Stulynow dourly, “because it’s the biggest damn hole in the ground you will ever see.”
“Stuly, this is something amazing. Can’t you build it up a little bit?” said Vance.
“It is what it is.”
“You are a miserable, miserable man,” said Vance.
“It is the Russian in me, I told you this many times.”
They went down a short flight of stairs into a lesser cave. At the base was a doorway carved into the rock, lights and EM relays on both sides of it. The safety line was broken by the door, the carbon cable giving way to a steel one anchored on the far side.
“It may seem stupid to put this here,” said Stulynow. He pointed to two unfinished doorways. “We tried to find another way down, but this rock is broken by vertical conduits and faulting that made it impossible. Following the edge of the chasm made it easier to bring in bridging materials to get over the lesser gaps. The outgassing was also easier to trace here. Without the Chasm we might never have found the major biome. So, as you say, swings and carousels.”
“Roundabouts,” said Holland. “We say ‘roundabouts.’”
“Yes. Those. Jensen?”
“Yes.” Jensen’s voice crackled.
“We are about to walk the chasm.”
Holland followed Stulynow through the doorway. “Unclipping,” Stulynow said as he unclipped Holland’s suit harness.
“Affirmative,” said Jensen.
Stulynow moved the carabiner to the steel wire on the other side of the door. “Clipping,” he said as he reattached it. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” said Holland.
Stulynow chuckled drily. “No you’re not.”
They walked out, Vance following Holland, Cybele and the mules bringing up the rear. The path followed a tunnel a short way, then opened up into nothing.
“Oh, Christ,” said Holland.
To his right was an immense void, the far side barely visible, the top a mess of rock cubes hanging from the ceiling in defiance of gravity.
“I’d say do not look down,” said Stulynow, “only you can’t see the bottom. Even with that.” He indicated a powerful lamp on a gimbal mounted on the wall. “We’ve five hundred metres of this to go.”
“Stay steady, Holland, it’s over quicker than you might think.” Maguire spoke over the suit radio.
“I’m fine with heights, really,” said Holland.
But this was more than a height, and Holland’s stomach flipped. The path clung to a thin ledge, widened when necessary by catwalks bolted to the stone. It did not take long before Holland was eyeing each and every bolt as if it would suddenly turn suicidal and cast them all into the dark. Only two thin cables, the guideline to his right and the safety line to his left, stood between him and the Chasm. By the time they’d reached the end, he stood on shaky legs.
“Adrenaline rush? Told you. Scares the shit out of me, and I have been here two dozen times,” said Stulynow.
“The worst of it is over,” said Vance. She put a hand on Holland’s elbow and peered earnestly up at him from the depths of her helmet. “From now on we’ve just got the stair, and then we’re into Wonderland. From there it’s thirty minutes to the base camp.”
“Our doctor does have a nice side,” said Stulynow.
“Fuck you, you aggravating Russian,” said Vance. There was little real annoyance to it.
“I tell you, every day...”
“Your mother was a Buryat?” said Holland.
Stulynow smiled, teeth showing in the light of his helmet. “Exactly. Now, as Vanchetchka says, we go down the stair.”
The stair was a maze – ancient pressure domes, vertical conduits, lesser lava chambers and biotic cavities stepped on top of each other. Some of them were the beginnings of lava tubes, and led off to who knew where.
“We have explored precisely none of these deeper tubes,” said Stulynow. “Needs people, or fully autonomous robotic units. We’re shit out of both. There’s life in a lot of them, we’ve got the gas traces to prove it. Anything could be down there.”
Natural cracks between the caverns had been widened by machine or blasted open. They went down quickly, and the air temperature rose. Holland could not feel it beneath his suit’s insulation, but his thermometer crawled up from minus figures into the low plusses. The air composition changed: less carbon dioxide, more methane. The walls took on hues of chemical brightness, the remnant ecology becoming progressively more active the lower they went. Dripping strings of mucus appeared on the ceilings, colonies of sulphur-loving bacteria. There was more moisture in the air, and the ground became slippery underfoot. Holland wondered how his boot soles were faring – the wetness was sulphuric acid dripped by the snottites. Fairy castles became more common, until they were walking through rooms full of glittering formations.
The ground levelled out, and the steps came to an end. They had arrived. Tripod lights came on automatically, illuminating a large gallery.
“Wonderland, Dr Holland,” said Dr Vance. “The last great bastion of Martian life.”
“Wow,” he said. This time he really meant it. They were in a large, loaf-shaped cave. Chemotrophic bacteria of all types feasted on the rock and air and the by-products of the snottites. Other bacteria subsisted on their organic residues, creating a riot of colourful alien life.
It was, figuratively speaking, all his. He was the first real exobiologist to see this since the cave was opened last year.
Now he was excited. “I... I just don’t know where to start.”
Vance laughed. Again, that hand on his arm. Was there an attraction there? She was certainly not the firebrand of two nights ago. They had all been drunk, after all.
“I’m so glad you’re impressed. Perhaps you’ll help me stop those ignorant bastards ripping it all up,” she said.
“I don’t see why it has to go,” he said. “I mean, we’re so deep under the surface now. Equally bizarre ecosystems thrive on Earth... Less complex, obviously, but... I don’t know. It will need isolating, perhaps. And then maybe even not that. There’s so much to study, far more than I thought.” He walked to a wall glistening with moisture, and reached his hand out, then thought better of it. More acid. These caves had been etched out of solid rock.
“Come on, there’s time for all that tomorrow,” said Stulynow. “You probably do not feel it now, but you will be tired. We go to base camp now, and we rest. Tomorrow, the full tour, and some work. The day after, home.”
Stulynow beckoned them, and they followed him up the glittering passage.
BASE CAMP WAS in a system of sealed, sterilised caves some way above the main biome caverns. An outer cave held a foamcrete survival shelter and racks for the hard shells. Holland stepped out of the hard shell. He inspected the suit as instructed, looking for acid damage. It was dirty, but whole. They misted the suits and robots with alkaline spray, and set the racks’ nanobots to give them the once over. An airlock unit with integrated nanite wash led into the living quarters.
Stulynow consulted with Jensen while Vance gave the rooms a quick biotic scan and sampled the air for methane contamination. Everything checked out, so Stulynow gave the signal that they could take their helmets off.
They stood with hair plastered to their heads with sweat. Holland breathed deep; the air was damp and tasted of stone. Vance smiled at him.
“It is something, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yeah, yes it is.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Stulynow. “Let’s eat, shall we?”
There was no furniture at the base camp, only the very bare essentials, so they sat
on rocks to eat. The food was stuff in bags that was as bad as Holland had been warned. He ate it ravenously anyway. He was exhausted. The hard shell was well designed, power-aided in important areas by polymer muscle bundles, but it was still damn heavy, and moving against the constant pressure of the undersuit, like the environment suits, was hard work.
“God, I’m stiff,” he said.
“It takes a little while to get used to the hard shells,” said Vance. “It’s not so much the weight, it’s the way it makes you move. Not entirely natural. Your muscles sore?”
Holland nodded. He stretched out his leg, flexed it and winced.
“Right. Get your undersuit off,” said Vance.
Stulynow, crouched over a tablet’s holo screen, sniggered.
“But Jensen told me to keep it on at all times.”
“Yeah, and I’m expedition doctor. He’s overruled. You’ll be no use to us if you seize up. Off!”
Holland looked dubious. He was naked underneath.
“Don’t worry, I’ve seen it all before.”
Stulynow smiled broadly. “Better do as she says, you’ve seen her when she’s being a hardass.”
Holland got to his feet and reluctantly removed his undersuit. “I stink,” he said.
“Everyone who has to shit in a bag for two days stinks. We all stink. I don’t care,” said Vance. She pulled a hypo spray from her equipment box, pulled out an ampoule and loaded it. “This is a mild muscle relaxant. There’s an anti-lactic acid agent in it.”
“I had to get undressed for this?”
“No,” she said, “you had to get undressed for this.” She pulled a tube of ointment out of the box and tossed it to him. “Rub it in where it hurts most.”
“Ointment?” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. Still best for what ails you. I’d get on with it before you get cold.”
Holland rubbed at his limbs vigorously.
Vance smiled. “Nice butt, by the way.”
Stulynow roared with laughter.
“This isn’t some kind of cave-hazing is it?” said Holland. “I’ve fallen for it, haven’t I?”
“No, no,” said Vance. “Really it is best for the stiffness,” she said with a smirk. “But it’s still pretty funny.”
Holland slipped his undersuit back on while the others giggled like children. Before long, he was laughing, too.
HOLLAND WAS CATALOGUING microbial communities in a new chamber when it happened.
“Could you get me a sample of that one there?” said Holland.
“Which?” said Vance.
“That one, the vermillion, above the blue.”
Vance took a plastic scraper and worked it at the mineral deposit. It wouldn’t last long once certain strains of bacteria got onto it, but they couldn’t risk sparks. She scraped an amount into a diamond weave pot. “This enough?”
Holland checked her suit camera. “Aha, should be. Enough for an analysis and a culture.”
Stulynow was out with Cybele and one of the mules, erecting new lamps and refreshing the fuel cells of those that had been there a while. They were scrupulously careful. Everything that stayed in the cave was made of light metals, covered in an antispark coating. Fuel cells were chemical types, the lamps low power bio-lights. The air was anoxic – for combustion there would have to be a significant release of oxygen and a source of extreme heat – but there was so much methane it paid to be careful.
Holland was sampling chemical structures with his suit, running analysis in the hard shell’s on-board minilab. Vance returned the diamond weave dish to his equipment box.
There was a deep rumble. The ground shook.
“What the...?” said Holland.
“There are no blasts scheduled for today, are there?” said Vance.
Another rumble. Then another. Rock fragments pattered off Holland’s hard shell.
“Bloody Chinese,” came Stulynow’s voice. “Blasting without telling us. Come on, we have to get into the shelter.”
“THE CHINESE INSIST that they are not conducting seismic testing today,” said Jensen. Interference had increased, and his voice was crackly.
“Besides, looking at your readings, you’re so deep they’d have to be detonating mini-nukes up here at least,” added Maguire. “And we’d notice that. We can feel nothing.”
The blasts continued, rhythmic and regular.
“Like artillery fire,” said Holland.
“Or a heartbeat,” said Vance.
“It’s not natural seismic activity,” said Stulynow. “Is it something Marsform’s TF crews are doing?”
“Negative,” said Maguire.
“Any rockfalls?” said Jensen.
“No, no. Everything’s okay down here, once you become accustomed to the ground shaking,” said Stulynow.
“You’ll have to sit tight until it’s over,” said Maguire. “Sorry.”
The three scientists, crammed in their hard shells in the shelter, helmet to helmet, looked at each other doubtfully.
“You can at least take a measurement from up there, Dave,” said Holland. “Triangulate it with our data, so we can find out exactly where it’s coming from?”
“Yeah, hang on. Jensen?”
“Yes. We can do that.”
They worked as best they could, using the base camp’s seismic sensors along with those of Deep Two to pinpoint the source of the tremors. After a time they ceased, to the relief of them all. They left the shelter.
“Look’s like it was emanating from about here,” said Stulynow. A red dot flashed on a holo map that burst into being in front of Holland’s nose. He nearly staggered back with surprise, fighting the urge to swat at it.
“That’s not far away,” said Vance. “A bit up the stair, then into the labyrinth.”
“Can’t have been very strong after all, then,” said Holland.
“What do you think? Stuly? Should we check it out?”
“Have you collected your samples, Dr Holland?”
“I’ve more than enough for weeks of analyses,” Holland replied.
“Fine. If you are willing to help me with the lamps and work a little later tonight, then we can.”
There was the sound of somewhat heated debate from the other end. Maguire came on the line. He laughed apologetically. “Jensen’s all for you coming right back home, until I reminded him of Marsform’s obligation to investigate all unusual phenomena unless hazardous to personnel. I’m quoting there. I’ll not force the issue, so it’s really up to you guys.”
Stulynow looked from Vance to Holland. Both nodded.
“Let’s do it,” said the Russian.
THEY FINISHED STULYNOW’S maintenance round quickly. A sense of anticipation hung on the air: this sort of serious exploration was not something that came around often. By 16.00 hours they had Cybele and one of the mules loaded up with whatever they might need. They ascended one hundred metres of the stair, arriving at one of the many lava tubes buried under Ascraeus Mons.
“This way,” said Stulynow, pointing down the tube. He took a torch and plugged it directly into his suit, supplementing the built-in lamps. The others followed suit, Cybele included. Fat beams of high-powered light picked out holes in the ceiling four metres above, slumped sections of wall, debris on the floor.
Their maps had been seismically inferred, and were imprecise at best. After half an hour they reached the furthest point the tube had been explored to, and the maps began to correct themselves as better data presented itself.
“We should be coming to a blockage now,” said Stulynow. His torch beam picked out a pile of rock debris fallen in from the roof some way ahead. “How deep, Cybele?”
“Five metres at the base, two at the top. I can make a hole for your passage in ten minutes.”
“Are there many more blockages?” asked Holland as they walked to the wall of rubble.
“Hard to say,” said Stulynow. “According to the map, the tunnel branches after this. There’s a conduit not too
far on, and an inflation chamber. It’s all inferred, though. Will we have more digging to do? Probably.”
Cybele set down her torch and stalked to the weakest point in the debris wall. She began to dig.
“I wonder what this is all about?” said Vance.
“Martians. The little green men,” said Stulynow.
“Stuly! What do you think, Holland?”
“I have no idea.”
“It is fun finding out,” said the Russian.
They watched Cybele pick up chunks of rock far bigger than any they could have managed, even under the light gravity. She went to the mule for a spade, and shovelled the lighter material aside. In a few minutes, she had carved a hole near the peak of the debris.
“Ladies first,” said Stulynow.
“I will go ahead,” said Cybele. “In case of peril.”
She went through the hole she’d made, returning a few minutes later. “The way ahead is safe,” she said. “There is more methane, more life, but it is safe.”
“Jensen, Maguire? I’m setting an EM relay here. Any signal weakness, let me know,” said Stulynow. He placed a scratched plastic box on the floor. A green light flickered on it. “Okay. Let us go on.”
They walked through the hole, and into the unknown.
“THIS IS IT,” said Vance. She pointed to a crack in the rock.
“Thank God it’s not down there,” said Holland. He pointed to the broad volcanic flue behind them, a rickety bridge of linked plates placed across it by the android.
“It doesn’t matter if we can’t get in,” said Vance. “This is a new branch of Wonderland, that’s good work for a day.” Snottites hung from the roof, and there were blooms of other life all around.
“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” said Stulynow. He pushed his hand into the crack. “Without the hard shell, I think I could get in there.”
