Mission Mars (17 page)

Pank had her little robot crawler, christened Dante, attached to a fiber optic tether, and ready to descend into the hole under strut four before breakfast. After those chores we all retreated to the hab to watch the feed from Pank's little guy.

“Dante?” I asked.

“He descends into the under world!” Isabella and Pank chorused. Rienholt snorted.

As the newly christened Dante made its way down the slope under strut four, sand was continuously sucked into the hole at the bottom.

As more sand disappeared into the hole, dust from the sand-fall was being sucked into the hole, too. “Negative pressure down there. I wonder why,” I mused.

Once the crawler reached the bottom of the pit, it crawled out onto the dark surface that formed the roof of the tube.

“I'm sending Dante in to find out,” Pank said as the image of the hole on-screen grew and then darkness filled the monitor as the robot tipped over into it. Lights on the robot snapped on and we had our first glimpse of the Martian underground.

The lights showed a dizzying drop and a pile of red sand in the bottom of the space. Pank swiveled the lights and camera around. We could just make out, far below, that the bottom of the tube was flat. The roof arched away to vanish in the gloom. The walls were too far away to see.

“Echo ping,” Pank announced as she sent the command.
Dante emitted a string of five sharp beeps, waited, and then banged out five more every few seconds. Each time it waited longer between pings. Each ping updated a 3D model on the computer screen.

“Our camp, the lander, and our mine, everything, is sitting on top of the largest lava tube yet discovered. Our entire enterprise could vanish into a subsidence crater like those on the flanks and lava fields of nearly every volcano on Mars,” Pank said. Her voice was little more than a whisper.

The 3D map showed a cavern more than forty meters across, and nearly that from floor to roof. There were no ends in either direction along the tube beyond five hundred meters.

“That's a big hole. Down we go,” Pank said. She lowered Dante to the pile of sand that had come down from the hole in the roof of the tube. It reached the bottom of the pile and paused. “Which way?” Pank asked.

“Left,” Rienholt said.

“Either,” I said. Isabella shrugged; her eyes were glued to the computer.

Pank turned Dante left and set it trundling up the tube. The scene the little robot sent back from its camera was a wide flat surface that vanished into the dark ahead. Far off to the left and right, the walls of the tube reflected dim, rippling waves of light.

“How much fiber optic cable do you have in that spool?” I asked.

“Three kilometers, Mac.”

“Can you get another sonogram?”

Pank typed a command and the beeping started again. “If we get to 3k and haven't found something interesting, I can
detach the transmitter and roll on for another kilometer on radio control,” Pank said.

“Look at that.” Rienholt said, wonder in his voice.

On the map the sonar displayed a vertical wall that seemed to fill the tunnel.

“What is it?” Isabella asked.

“Whatever it is, it's about three hundred meters ahead.”

“The lights should let us see it in a couple of minutes,” Pank added.

We fell silent and watched the video monitor. Two minutes passed. I glanced at the range numbers on the sonar display. “It's still over a hundred meters away.” While I watched the numbers spool down to ninety, light on the video monitor began to bounce back to the camera as flashes and sparkles.

“What the…?”

“Looks like diamonds,” Isabella whispered.

I saw a glimmer of light run up a column that looked like black glass. Pank stopped Dante and panned the camera left and right, then up toward the ceiling of the tube. A jumble of columns filled the tube, floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall. Large, glassy, crystals grew out of the floor and met meters, or tens of meters up. Where two or three crystals met, a large spiky ball made of smaller crystals, like an explosion frozen in time, marked their joints. More crystals shot off across the wall to meet other crystals from other junctions. The crystal columns were layered to form a solid wall of obsidian-colored glass. As Pank panned the camera back to the left, I thought I saw something that didn't belong.

“Pank, is the Dante on the centerline of the tunnel?”

She sent out another series of pings.

“No, I've drifted about five meters right of centerline. Why?”

“Pan back to the left.”

She moved the camera until I said stop.

“What's that?” I asked pointing to something that looked remarkably like a piece of structural metal.

Pank shook her head and moved the robot five meters to its left, and then pointed its camera at the object.

“What the…?” I said.

“I don't believe…” Rienholt said.

“Can't be…” Isabella whispered.

“I knew it! Those rat bastards!” Pank shouted, overriding the rest of us.

She slapped switches on the monitor and shut the video feed down. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” She repeated as she collapsed into a chair. “We're dead. It went out over the comm channel. Damn it!”

I looked at Rienholt and Isabella; they both looked as bewildered as I felt.

“Pank, calm down. Start at the beginning and explain what's going on.”

She looked at me with pity in her eyes.

“Might as well. I've killed us all any way. Be right back,” she said as got up and headed to her room. She returned in a few seconds, clutching the seventy-year-old vodka she brought as part of her personal allotment, along with four small, antique shot glasses. A few more seconds passed as she poured shots for each of us.

She picked up her glass and held it to the light, admiring the golden light that filtered through the glasses and the
vodka. “Prost!” she exclaimed and slammed down the ounce of golden lightning. We joined her. Then I said, “Spill it, Pank. What the hell's the matter?”

“Fifty years ago, and more,” she began without preamble, “the United States and the Soviet Union were very interested in Mars. Mars weirdness and human's ability to see faces in patterns of light and shadow led some people to believe Mars was inhabited.”

“Pareidolia,” Rienholt supplied.

“Yes, pareidolia provided NASA and others the excuse they needed to conceal the possibility that someone had been, or might be, on Mars. Several conspiracy theories held that some governments had bases on Mars and the Moon. At the time, the idea that the United States had bases on other planets was laughable. That airlock is proof that the conspiracy buffs were not crazy. The video from Dante went out over the comm link with location meta data attached.” She grimaced and continued. Tears were gathering in her eyes.

“In another six minutes, give or take, the video will be on the screens of some very powerful—and very nervous—people. No more than thirty minutes after that, coded messages will be sent to Cydonia Base, and within minutes after that, a squad of inspectors will be headed our way, flight time two hours, at most. They won't be coming to inspect; they will be coming to destroy what we found. Our camp and our bodies will be at the bottom of a sudden subsidence. After that, the area will be tagged as too dangerous for colonization. It happened before.” She put her face in her hands and sobbed.

“That's crazy,” Isabella said. Her voice sounded more like a question, rather than a statement.

Pank turned on her and growled. “You and everyone else, too wrapped up seeing yourself on Mars, instead of seeing Mars!” Isabella jerked back at Pank's vehemence. “Cydonia Base isn't anywhere near The Face. It isn't even in the original Cydonia region. They renamed the original Cydonia. It's Hell's Deep on current maps.”

“But that's the most unstable—” Rienholt began. Pank cut him off.

“They prohibit travel into Hell's Deep, claiming massive subsidence danger and seismic activity. Some Earth Corps people have been running expeditions in there for years.” Pank punched the button on the video feed, turning it back on. “They have been searching for that.” She pointed at the airlock door set into the wall of crystals on the video feed. Next to the airlock, a sixties-era space suit lay with its legs spread towards the camera, and its body leaning against a large crystal. The suit's helmet lay upside down on the tube floor, and a desiccated face turned sightless eyes towards the roof. The airlock door was propped open by a basketball-sized crystal. Wisps of dust floated through the air and into the open door. “So, we have two hours.”

“Maybe three,” Rienholt said.

“Maybe three,” I agreed. “Pank, put the comm feed back up. Provide a running voiceover. Tell them who and where we are, how we found this. Isabella, you and I are going down there. Rien, you are on cables and communications. Let's move.”

I tossed Isabella and Rienholt their helmets, then pulled my own on. Outside, we located some climbing equipment, winches, and enough cable to reach the bottom of the tube
and loaded them into the rover. Rienholt secured my winch to a large rock and I stepped over the lip of the subsidence. As I slid down the side, I saw him running an anchor from Isabella's winch to the front of our rover. Isabella stepped over the lip and sent a cascade of dust down on me. When I reached the bottom of the subsidence, I had planned to step off into the hole in the roof of the tube, but nature beat me to it. I was pushing a wave of dust ahead of me and I watched a piece of the tunnel roof vanish as the wave of sand reached it. The hole doubled in size. I was suddenly swinging at the end of my cable while tons of sand poured down from the surface. I heard Isabella's whoop and then delighted laughter as she joined me.

“Mac, Isabella, I've got the winches at top speed. The subsidence area is growing. I'm afraid it is going to reach your anchors before you get to the bottom.” Rienholt was near panic. I looked between my feet at the pile of sand and rocks that had already poured through the hole.

“If it looks like the anchors may go, we will drop on your say so. Be ready to move the rover,” I said. The peak of the sand pile grew closer every second. We didn't have the time to reach it.

“Mac, Isabella! Now!” Rienholt's voice was even closer to panic. I saw Isabella's body jerk upwards and then she fell free of the cable. My cable went suddenly slack.

“Incoming!” Rienholt screamed into the radio.

I unsnapped my quick release and hit the sand, hard. Instead of trying to get to my feet in the soft dust I just rolled and tumbled to the bottom of the pile. I ended up on my back, half buried in sand, just in time to see an explosion of dust and
fragments of tunnel roof explode around a rover-sized rock as it fell through the widening hole in the ceiling of the tunnel. The rock hit the mound of sand about half way up. It sent another explosion of dirt into the air. Then it rolled gently to the bottom of the pile. It stopped with a grinding, crunching, noise between Isabella and I.

“Everyone alright?” I asked. My suit monitor was quiet and my display showed Isabella's and Rienholt's icons in green, so I knew they were okay, and their suits were intact.

“What a ride!” Isabella said. She was just two decibels short of a shout.

“I'm okay,” Rienholt said. He sounded shaky.

“Three hours, ten minutes,” Pank said.

“Rien, did the subsidence get any closer to the lander?” I asked in sudden panic.

“No, it moved about three meters closer to the hab but it stopped right after that bolder rolled in.” He replied.

“OK, keep a sharp eye on it. Right. No rest for the wicked,” I said climbing to my feet. Isabella bounded over the rock and landed next to me.

I flipped on the work lights built into my helmet. Isabella flipped hers on, and gestured towards the optical cable from Dante. “Shall we?”

“No time like the present,” I said.

It took little time to reach the wall. In moments, we stood looking down at the mummified astronaut. The nametag over the left breast of his suit was concealed by the collapse of the body. I bent and moved the fabric so I could see it. J. Farr. Could have been Jack or Justine, but the fringe of stubble on cheeks and chin left little doubt about the sex of the body.

“I wonder why he committed suicide,” I mused aloud.

I heard a click and Pank's voice came over the radio. “NASA astronaut candidate Julian Farr, Major, US Army. Deceased. It says here he was killed in a training accident in 1963.”

I was thankful again that quantum storage devices that could hold most of the Internet's information weighed next to nothing. Iridium, being the major component in making them was the main reason we were on Mars. We had a snapshot of the Internet in a cube half a meter on a side. It's also a quantum computer. Pank was searching it instead of sending the data queries to Earth, six light-minutes away. We didn't have time to wait for a search to go to Earth and return twelve minutes later.