Mars Nation 2

by Brandon Q Morris

  Ewa considered this. There actually shouldn’t be anything to see right away, but the crack’s expansion had to stop. Up here, there was nothing else she could do, so she left the cab again. As she climbed down the ladder, she suddenly tipped slightly to the side. Stay calm, Ewa. You’re still alive, she told herself. One of the cracks must have intersected with one of the drill tower’s legs. The others had gathered around the switch box.

  Ewa studied the drill tower. It seemed to be standing totally vertical. For now. “I think it would be advisable if we all moved back a few meters,” she said. “When I was up on the ladder, I felt the structure wobble a little.”

  Mike knelt down on the ground and reached into the crack. His arm disappeared up to his elbow. Ewa wanted to yank it back out. She was vividly imagining the crack in the surface snapping shut all of a sudden and swallowing up Mike’s arm. That wasn’t likely, though. The crack would just keep getting wider.

  “It doesn’t look like the sealing of the drill hole has achieved anything,” Mike said. He stood up, brushing the dust off his gloves and sleeves.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Lance said.

  Ewa wished she had a solution for them, but she was all out of ideas. Was it possible that she was on the verge of very effectively causing the failure of the next mission? She didn’t want to imagine what would happen if the cracks reached the NASA base. Of course, she once again believed that this hadn’t been intentional. She had only wanted to help! And Mike, the NASA commander, had insisted on the test drill.

  Couldn’t it also be that the thing in her head had influenced her? Was it possible that it had known what would happen? It had plotted the quintuple murders on the Santa Maria so that they had looked like an accident.

  “You should probably go check on the base,” she eventually said. “Maybe you can prevent the worst there. There’s nothing else to do here.”

  “You’re right,” Mike said. “But you have to come along, too, Ewa. You can’t do anything here, either.”

  “No, I’ll stay. Maybe some unexpected opportunities will arise. After all, it’s my fault that you’re even in this situation.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mike declared. “If anyone’s guilty, it’s me. But who could’ve known that something like this would happen? You did all you could!”

  If only you knew, Ewa thought. No, she would stay here. She had a vague feeling that she still had something to take care of here. “I hate to argue with you, but my place is in the cab,” she said. “Someone has to stay here. I will keep you updated via radio. If a magma bubble really is building, then an eruption might occur. If that happens, someone will need to warn you as quickly as possible. And I’ll be that person.”

  “If a volcano erupts right under you, you won’t survive,” Sharon said.

  “I know the risk, but I have to live with it.”

  “All right,” Mike said. “We wish you good luck. Thank you for helping us feel hopeful again, even for this short time.”

  Despite everything, people always seem to find silver linings, Ewa thought. She wished she could do that. That was probably the main criterion in NASA’s astronaut selection process.

  Sol 106, NASA base

  Ewa held the muzzle of the taser against her chest.

  ‘No, I didn’t know anything about it,’ said Friday through her mouth.

  “You had no idea? You were just as surprised as everyone else?”

  ‘Yes. I swear. Please put away the weapon.’

  Ewa breathed heavily. How much weight did the promise of a chip in her head have? But Friday seemed afraid to die. The fear that was reflected in his words sounded real. He was using her own speaking apparatus and spontaneously chose the patterns of speech which she recognized. She knew how it felt to be afraid. She could still remember in exact detail how she prayed for her sister’s life, begged even. She knew very well the smell of her own cold sweat, how the little hairs on her body stood up straight, and how her fingers trembled. She knew the mortally terrified Ewa very well, right down to the sound of her voice.

  Friday was clearly afraid. Was he also telling the truth because of it? Everything just seemed to fit too well. He might have known, from who knows where, just what lay underground. Then he wouldn’t have needed to bypass her will like he did with the ‘accidents’ at the time. He would have only needed to steer her actions in a particular direction. For example, by helping her steal the drill.

  Was her suspicion justified? Ewa wasn’t sure. She had no intention of condemning someone without sufficient evidence. On the other hand, she had no desire to put anyone else in danger. If she pulled the trigger now, she would be free of all outside influence... but she would have Friday on her conscience.

  Ewa sighed. She simply couldn’t make the call and, for that reason, laid the weapon aside.

  At some point during the night, the cab had noticeably shifted and it was now sitting at an angle. Ewa woke up around three o’clock when she rolled off her cot. After that, she assessed the status of the tower. One of its legs had sunk an entire meter, but it seemed to have stabilized itself. She assured herself that there was no reason to worry.

  But now it was time to do an inspection walk-around. Outside, it was just becoming light, though the sun hadn’t appeared over the horizon yet. Ewa stowed the taser back into her tool bag and wiped off the window condensation that had collected during the night. She had turned down the life support system last night because the air was blowing directly at the back of her neck.

  The area seemed to have barely changed. Ewa looked all around. But after she had cleared off the glass looking eastward, she was startled. The reason she couldn’t see the sun wasn’t due to the time of day. Directly in front of her was a mountain that reached a good two hundred meters into the sky. It almost looked like a giant pimple that had popped up on the planet’s skin overnight. What might be hidden underneath it? Was there something deep within the belly of the mountain? If indeed hot magma were bubbling in there, the inevitable explosion would leave behind very little of the drill.

  Ewa considered her options. The drill was firmly stuck in place, but she could completely disengage the drill turbine and leverage its frame from the rest of the vehicle. If none of the connecting pieces were damaged or bent, then she could easily get away. But how would that help her? The only place she was welcome was in the loneliness of the Mars desert.

  No, it was too soon to flee. Perhaps the time for that would never come. She needed to hurry and get outside.

  Ewa had just gotten to the bottom of the ladder and set foot on the ground when Mike called on the radio. “Base to Ewa, please come in.”

  “I’m here,” she answered. “How did you survive the night?”

  “For safety’s sake, we all slept in our suits. There are two fissures running through the base, but so far the central structures are not affected. Most of the other rooms have lost their breathable atmosphere, and we had to seal them off.”

  “Are there any other losses?”

  “The garden is also open. None of the plants survived, and the soil is now frozen. We’ll have to start over again.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Ewa.

  “So far, it seems to have been surprisingly mild. The KRUSTY is at a far enough distance from all the cracks and seems to be secure. We are mainly worried about the central base. If the crack next to it gets any bigger, we’ll have to evacuate.”

  “The MfE base would give you refuge at any time.”

  “Yes, we have already spoken with them, and have both rovers loaded and ready to go. It’s quite a long ways away.”

  “Did you tell them about me?”

  “No, your name never came up. But once we are on our way, we will have to explain everything in more detail.”

  "Then do that. It’s no problem.”

  “Won’t you come with us, Ewa?”

  “Not on your life. You are better off without me anyway, you can see that. I would only comp
licate things.”

  “Okay, you are an adult and can decide for yourself. We will accept that. However, I don’t think the MfE folks will turn us away even if we have you with us.”

  “That may be, but I prefer it this way. I’m staying here.”

  “As you wish. But in case you change your mind, we’re still here and can come to get you if there’s an emergency.”

  “Thank you, Mike. That’s good to know.”

  She cut the connection. It was the right choice. Once again, she checked the tower’s stability on the computer in the control box. Since sunrise, it had shifted another two degrees. The computer projected that the construction would collapse by late afternoon if she didn’t return the tower to its original position before then. But there was still plenty of time for a little stroll before then.

  She planned to go and inspect the mountain in the east. What was inside its hard shell? What had they unknowingly drilled into that they should have left alone? Ewa started off. From the drilling tower, it was a constant uphill march. She walked through a sandy patch and sank a few centimeters into the ground with each step. That must have been the dust that had settled from the mountain and collected at its base. Three hundred meters further, a sharp buckle in the plane was discernible as the gradient of the surface suddenly changed by a few degrees.

  Ewa looked closely at the subsurface. It showed several stress lines, tiny fissures which indicated the amount of strain the regolith was exposed to. From here on out, she trod as lightly as she could because she had the feeling that the ground could break open under her feet at any moment. Twenty meters later, she turned around. The larger of the fissures that ran from here in every direction ended at the foot of the mountain, roughly in the same spot where she had noticed the crease in the surface.

  She continued on upward toward the mountain and quickly grew short of breath. Because it was so steep, she needed to walk with her upper body leaning far forward, almost bent at the waist. The boots of her suit provided surprisingly good grip, and were aided by the fact that there was little dust on the ground here. It was obvious that anything that was loose would fall to the ground below her.

  The closer she came to the peak, the more hollow her steps sounded. The noises she heard as she walked sounded like mechanical vibrations, which only made it harder for her to imagine how her footsteps would have sounded on Earth. Maybe this hollow noise was normal. If, however, a pocket of magma was located directly under her, it must have cooled and contracted somewhat in the meantime, leaving an open chamber near the top of the mountain.

  The thought of such an opening sent a shiver down her spine. Just how thick would the skin covering this hole be? The best thing to do was to walk very carefully so as not to break through. She envisioned herself crashing through and falling through the cavity right into the pool of magma. At least it would be a quick end to it all.

  The summit was now very close. She could almost reach out and touch it. Ewa looked at her universal device and saw that she had reached an elevation of two hundred ten meters. Of those, she had covered two hundred eight meters on her own. The rest was how much the mountain had grown as she was climbing it.

  She now stood at the top. Ewa looked out into the distance. She had the impression she could breathe more freely from up here. However, it was merely the support system of her suit that continually provided her with the amount of air she currently needed to breathe. The mountain was the only protrusion in the immediate proximity. The horizon was noticeably further away due to her altitude.

  She turned to the west, to where the NASA base was located. There was nothing to see in that direction, though, as there was far too much dust in the air to see clearly. The mountain she was standing on had a strange shape to it. It made her think of the belly of a pregnant woman in about her fifth or sixth month, just before it took on its unmistakably round form. Where she was standing was where the umbilicus would have been. How could such a shape have formed naturally? she wondered.

  Ewa got down on her knees. She held her universal device against the surface and measured the temperature. It registered minus thirty-five, only slightly warmer than expected. No way was there boiling hot magma here! Something else was at work, some process that no one could have known about, and one that extended beyond the limits of her imagination. But she didn’t believe in miracles. Whatever had caused this mountain to form, and the skin of the Red Planet to split as it was doing, must have had an incredible cause, a cause that she could diagnose and also remedy. If she had the strength to do so.

  Ewa had an idea. If, underneath this thin layer of ice that she had just ascended as a mountain, there was no hot molten magma, which would otherwise be best kept contained, then perhaps it would be worth tapping into the mountain’s outer shell. She could then see what was hidden underneath and could use the drilling vehicle to help her.

  Ewa spun around on her heel and looked at the drilling tower far below her. She needed to get back. Carefully, she set off, back down the mountain. The way down was more strenuous since she couldn’t shake the feeling she might slip along the steep slope. The regolith was tricky to navigate, even though there was very little dust covering it. However the uppermost layers were loose and unstable. She needed to take her time with the descent.

  Then suddenly her right foot slipped, and she fell on her right side. A sharp pain jolted through her hip. She tried to grab onto something to catch herself, but there was nothing there. No grass grew here, no plants. Once she was in motion, not even her boots could help slow her down. As she slid, she looked down. Only about fifty meters to go.

  The low level of gravity didn’t pull her into rapid acceleration as it would have on Earth. Over and over again, though she landed on her sore hip. She attempted to lessen the blows with her hands, but to no avail. She counted the seconds in her head. The crease in the surface quickly appeared. The mountain flung her off like a horse bucking off an inexperienced rider, and she landed in the soft sand that had collected beyond the edge of the crease.

  Ewa waited there for a moment before trying to get up. She tested all her muscles and found that nothing hurt. She pulled her legs to her chest, then turned on her left side. It was okay. She felt her right side with her hand. That’s where the pain was. But it seemed to be only bruising. She was ready to stand up.

  With a groan, she picked herself up out of the dirt. She was still standing. The mountain had shown her, but it hadn’t won yet. Now it was her turn to pay it back with a proper ramming.

  It was terrible messy inside the cab. What remained of her bed had moved to the opposite end, presumably during the last drop in angle. The package of rice cakes was upside-down, and the crumbs were everywhere. Ewa didn’t bother cleaning up. She probably wouldn’t be needing the drilling vehicle much longer anyway. Her idea was so crazy that there was no other option than for it to wreak maximum havoc.

  Should she ask Friday for advice? No. She decided not to. Ewa made her way to the front of the vehicle, to the driver’s seat, where she then called up the transformer program. That’s what she liked to call it when the vehicle transformed itself into a tower. She hoped the joints weren’t bent so far out of shape that the components would be stuck. She also needed the two spoons that the tower was attached to.

  She started the program. It recommended that she switch to automatic mode, but she ignored the suggestion. This way she had access to each individual joint. It wouldn’t be lowering the tower to its original horizontal position, since it wasn’t a long way to the mountain. Ewa activated the hydraulic system that extended the shafts of the spoons to raise the tower up off the ground a little. Once that was ready, all she needed to do was press the accelerator and drive the vehicle the short distance to the mountain. But the program wasn’t going to do her this favor. Instead, it reported an overload and warned that the entire system would shut down if she ignored the error message.

  Ewa studied the image on the monitor. It must have been the dri
ll pipe, including the drill head along with the turbine, that was causing trouble. It was still stuck in the borehole. It seemed as though it was now taking its revenge for her having filled the hole with ice to seal it. Should she try to melt the ice? With heat, it wouldn’t be a problem, but where was she supposed to find a heat source that could accomplish it?

  She needed to disengage the drill pipe. Since it was attached to the tower, she had to cap all the connections. She scoured through all the sub-menus, but found this action was not available inside the program. She needed to do it by hand. The inventory list revealed that there was an automatic saw on board which could cut through all types of material. She made a note of the numbered compartment the tool was located in, then she climbed down the ladder, looked for the right door, and opened it.

  It was empty. Ewa felt around the compartment with her gloved hand and found a note. ‘Borrowed for Project Z7,’ it read in neat penmanship. ‘Will return by 12/20/2041.’

  Great. If she ever got her hands on the person who took that tool and didn’t bring it back! In all likelihood, that person was back on Earth and long dead. Then, I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way—with brute force, she thought. Luckily, she had found a bolt cutter in the general toolbox. This was a good chance for the spacesuit’s motorized arm and wrist joints to prove themselves!

  Ewa climbed back up into the cab for the bolt cutter. Once more, the ground looked slightly askew from up here. She grabbed the bolt cutter and descended the ladder. She stopped about halfway down, at a height of around five meters. The drill pipe was situated below her and off to the side, and was not accessible with the ladder. If she jumped from here she could hang on to the cable that held the rod in place and carefully slide down. Ewa eyed the distance. She would have to jump two meters from where she stood. And she only had one hand free as the other held the bolt cutter.

  On Earth and with her MfE suit, this feat would have been impossible, but here, wearing this motor-assisted spacesuit, it just might work. Could, she corrected herself. That sounded better. She focused on her landing point, pushed off and jumped. The palm of her hand smarted as it slammed against the cable, but she forced the fingers to grip tightly despite the pain. Her arm was completely extended and nearly immobile until the suit’s artificial muscles came to her rescue. She gently slid down until her feet landed on the drill pipe. She’d made it! Tarzan would have been very proud of her.