The Orthogonal Galaxy (14 page)

“
Oh, I’m sorry… I gave
them to you in order of elevation. Did you want them in terms of
their geographic alignment. Ascraeus is the northernmost, Arsia is
on the south end, and Pavonis sits right between them.”

Reyd’s jaw dropped as he
stared at Joram. “Where did that come from?”

Joram blushed a bit. He
did not intend to condescend, but being caught up in the moment of
research, he couldn’t help blurting out a little too much knowledge
perhaps. “I’m sorry… I read a book on Martian geography a couple of
years ago. The chapter of Martian mountains really left an
impression on me, I guess.”

“
Apparently so.” Reyd
flushed slightly as he shook his head in amazement and turned back
to the console. He got ready to dial into the Ascraeus database in
an attempt to beat Zimmer to the punch, while the telescope was
quickly zooming towards its new subject. “Ascraeus Mons… there it
is.”

Zimmer called out, “How
does she look, Reyd.”

“
It looks great,
professor. However, we don’t have quite the same angle on the slope
of the mountain, as we did for Olympus. It might be tricky to pick
a spot that we’ll want to measure from the digital
image.”

“
The lava flows might help
us find our spot,” Joram pointed out on the database image. “They
extend all the way around the mountain.”

Joram pointed to the
northeast and south sides of the mountain where dark slits cut all
the way around the mountain. Larger gashes where those of dried up
lava flows at the surface of the mountain.

“
Those are really amazing
geologic structures there,” admitted Reyd. “At this zoom level,
those flows make the mountain look more like a scratching post than
a volcano. It makes for a very distinguishable feature. However,
they may be too low in elevation for them to be any use to us. Wow…
look at the scar over on the west side of the mountain where it
looks like a landslide has left a huge gash in the mountain. Again,
that’s way too low to be of use to us, but what about
this?”

Reyd pointed to the east
side of the mountain. “These pits here may be caves or perhaps the
end of lava tubes opening up on the surface of the mountain. Some
of these might be high enough. Otherwise, there isn’t a whole lot
of distinguishing features around the mountain to tell where a
cloud may end.”

“
Take a look at the live
image right there.” A long finger belonging to Professor Zimmer had
reached between the pair of students and pointed to the live image
on the monitor. Just above the cloud was a distinguishing feature,
either a cave, or perhaps a large boulder, but it was easily
spotted by the shadows being cast by the afternoon Sun.

“
Let’s see.” Reyd worked
quickly to spin and focus on the object. “That’s just north of west
on the mountain. Interesting, I didn’t remember noticing many
features on that part of the mountain. Could that be a new exposure
or perhaps a crater?”

Silence ensued for a few
minutes as the two teams examined both the left and right frames,
as if watching a rapid volley at a Wimbledon tennis
match.

“
Right here,” Joram
pointed on the left side of the screen. “Look at the database
image. The lighting isn’t as favorable, but I think there is a
slight difference in coloration which may match to the shadow in
the live image.”

Zimmer suggested, “Hey,
Reyd… can we scan the remaining images in the database? It would be
nice to find an image with similar afternoon lighting in order to
pinpoint that structure.”

“
Yes, sir.” Reyd
negotiated through the menus quickly to bring up the full catalog
of images available. He set the default 3D model to provide a
west-side angle.

The team scanned through
image after image for a couple of seconds each. After flipping
through more than a dozen pictures, Zimmer shouted, “There!” He
pointed at a pinpoint of a black spot, not as large as that of the
live image, but certainly in the same location. “It’s a shadow,”
Zimmer stated confidently. “It’s not being cast as long in this
image, certainly because it was taken earlier in the day, but make
no mistake, that’s our spot.”

With accepting nods from
his students, Reyd went quietly to work, clicking and measuring. He
leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head, as
the trio of astronomers clearly understood the data they were
looking at.

Professor Zimmer nodded
approvingly. “Kath!”

Kath gave a start and spun
around quickly.

“
Kath, do you still have
Dr. Avram on the phone?”

“
No, Professor, but I can
call him back. What did you find out over there?”

“
Thirty thousand feet,
Kath. The cloud is at thirty thousand feet on Ascraeus Mons. On
Olympus Mons, it was fifty thousand feet above mean surface level,
so it would appear as if the height of the dust cloud is relative
to the surface features.”

“
That means there isn’t as
much total volume of dust in the atmosphere, right, Professor?”
asked Joram buoyantly.

“
Yes that is correct,
which means…”

Kath, the meteorologist,
finished his sentence. “…it won’t absorb as much heat, won’t
generate as much wind, and will settle out quicker. Maybe we’ll be
able to see our astronauts soon!”

Professor Zimmer looked at
his watch. 3:30 AM. He dashed back to the telescope controls.
“Reyd, small mountains… give me coordinates to one of the smallest
mountains on the planet.”

Reyd’s eyes opened wide as
he grasped Zimmer’s plan.

“
If we find the dust low
on a small mountain, then we will know for sure that the dust is
not thick. I’ll dial up the list right away.”

Reyd spun back to the
control panel quickly, and worked the menus again. Within moments,
a spreadsheet emerged on the screen with a long list that Reyd
sorted by ascending elevation.

“
Professor,” Reyd
announced abruptly. “Some of these features are below the zero
elevation. What elevation should we start our search
at?”

“
Reyd,” Joram pointed to
the screen. “Can we eliminate all of the patera from the list?
These are usually low-lying craters that won’t benefit us. We need
just the mons features that actually project upward from the
surrounding surface.”

“
Yes,” Reyd nodded. “Good
point. Let me filter farther.”

While Reyd worked, Joram
jumped to his feet, startling his partner at the control panel. He
raced towards Zimmer. “Professor! What about Valles Marineris?
Rather than iterating on various mountain elevations, we should
look at Marineris! The canyon is of varied elevation throughout,
and if the cloud is relatively low to the nape of the planet, then
we’ll be able to see the canyon walls, and we’ll be able to tell
exactly how deep the cloud is inside of the canyon. Besides,
Marineris is to the east of Tharsis, where the sun will be setting
soon. We’ll have good afternoon shadows to give us perspective of
the canyon walls.”

Zimmer smiled at Joram and
hopped down from the telescope. “Ok, then… give me coordinates to
Marineris and an image of the canyon system. That is one long
trench, and we’ll need to figure out where to start
looking.”

Within moments, an
elevation-shaded relief map of the deepest canyon in the solar
system was portrayed on the full widescreen monitor, replacing both
the live and historic images of Ascraeus Mons.

“
Well, let’s start right
here in the middle,” the Professor stated.

“
The Candor region,”
interjected Joram. “Excellent choice, Professor. We could start
here in the Candor Chaos and work our way to its chasm, where the
elevation differences are varied, and the walls are more step-like
than the main branch of the canyon. We can tell based on which
steps are exposed, the elevation of the dust cloud, I
believe.”

Joram didn’t notice that
both Reyd and Zimmer were staring intently at him as he focused on
the screen.

Reyd was slowly shaking
his head. “How… how do you know all of this?”

Zimmer’s eyebrows were
raised. He wasn’t certain whether to be irritated or impressed with
this upstart college kid. “Candor, it is! Coordinates,
please!”

Zimmer bounded back to the
telescope and arrived in time for the coordinates from Reyd. He
worked rapidly at the controls. “What do you see
gentlemen?”

“
A lot of dust,” answered
Reyd sharply.

“
Can we side-by-side the
current coordinates, Reyd?” asked Joram. “We need a clear reference
to see where we’re at here.”

Once again, the screen was
split with the live image on the right and the best database image
on the right. Both images were bounded by the same exact
coordinates, guaranteeing that the mouse cursor hovered over
exactly the same location on both images.

“
Wow!” Joram exclaimed.
“Look at that, Reyd.”

“
Professor, can you zoom
in on grid cell D6? Joram’s found something interesting
here.”

Both students leaned
forward in their chairs.

“
Professor?” called Reyd.
“You should come see this.”

Zimmer scaled down the
telescope platform again and met up with his students. He turned to
Kath. “Kath, can you come take a look at this?”

“
Absolutely, Professor.”
She looked over Reyd’s left shoulder intently. “What exactly am I
looking at?”

The professor briefed her
on the discovery. “This, Kath, is Valles Marineris, the longest
canyon in the solar system, and if some sources are to be
believed…” He cut a glance over at Joram “…we are looking around
the Candor region.”

Joram blushed while
shrugging his shoulders almost imperceptibly.

The Professor continued:
“Anyway, look at this billowing cloud of dust. This is down inside
the canyon. And right here, you can see the border of the canyon
wall. Any ideas what might cause a dust cloud like that to
occur?”

“
I’m having a hard time
with perspective here. How wide and deep is the canyon here?” asked
Kath.

“
About one hundred miles
wide and three miles deep,” answered Reyd.

“
Three miles deep? That
thing is three miles deep? And I thought the Grand Canyon was
impressive… My goodness.”

Professor Zimmer brought
Kath back to the task at hand. “Any ideas about this cloud,
Kath?”

“
Well, it looks like it’s
bubbling up from the middle. I’d say that there must be wind
rushing down both sides and creating a violent turbulence right in
the middle.”

“
What could cause
that?”

“
A sudden drop in
barometric pressure inside the canyon perhaps? That could cause a
vacuum-like effect and suck the wind from the plateaus above… or a
sudden change in temperature inside the canyon to cause convection…
or…”

“
Or…” Joram interrupted
while he pushed the mouse cursor along the canyon wall in the
database image. “Or… the canyon wall is crumbling.”

Zimmer couldn’t help
chuckle at this suggestion, mainly because of the matter-of-fact
nature of Joram’s idea. “What do you mean by that,
Joram?”

“
Well, Professor, at
first, I thought the images weren’t lined up very well, because
look at the cursor here on the south side of the canyon. It is set
some distance inside of the live image. But then, if you point the
cursor to the north canyon wall, it also looks offset from the
canyon wall, but in the opposite direction. Simply put, the width
of the canyon is narrower in this satellite photo than it is over
here in the live image.”

Zimmer offered an
explanation. “Perhaps the zoom factor is different? Reyd, can you
calibrate the two images?”

“
I don’t think so,
Professor,” countered Joram. “Look up here in the Candor Chasm.
There is a ridge right here. It is inside the rim of the canyon,
and yet it overlays perfectly on both images.”

“
Joram… this is ludicrous.
Mars is not a geologically-active planet. There is no rain to erode
the surface features, and there isn’t enough wind to cause
landslides like this! For centuries, we have relied on pretty much
the same exact look at Mars. Today, you’re telling me that
Marineris is growing wider?”

“
Professor, it fits with
the billowing cloud. If the walls of the canyon were crumbling,
tons of rocks and sand would rush down the slopes, creating a
downdraft that would meet in the middle and balloon up from the
canyon.”

The professor buried his
head in his hands and rubbed his eyes deeply. He turned away from
the students. “How does this happen?” Sarcastically, he offered,
“Has somebody just nuked the surface of Mars? That might explain
all of the dust, and crumbling canyon walls.”

“
Professor,” Kath
interjected. “I would propose in this case that the wind patterns
for a nuclear reaction would be too violent for this. We aren’t
seeing the kind of wind needed.”

“
Agreed,
Kath. It was a ludicrous theory to being with, but it’s just that
this is growing more and more frustrating,” he whispered as much to
himself as to his students. Turning back, he completed his thought.
“Team, what we really need are
more
answers and
fewer
questions. It seems that with every turn, this
whole mystery grows more and more complicated.”