"I would've liked to have been there." Luke gave Gwen a salacious smile.
Instead of replying, Gwen kicked a leg of Luke's chair, causing it to fall over and sending the big geologist to the floor of the Hab in a low-gravity crash.
"Now mind your manners," Gwen admonished. Luke got up, grinning sheepishly.
Rebecca chuckled to herself. Bravo, Gwen. There's hope for you yet.
"Enough of that," said Townsend. "Luke, Gwen, good work. Now get some sleep. You can write up a full report in the morning."
As the rover team started to leave, Rebecca called after them. "Gwen, what's the rover's status?"
"Fully operational."
Rebecca thought quickly as the two explorers left the galley. The situation was critical, she realized. Timing was everything. "In that case, Colonel, I request that tomorrow I be allowed to take the rover over to the dry riverbeds near Maja Vallis to search for fossils."
"Well, Gwen will be needed here to help write the report."
"I'll take McGee." She smiled at the historian. His skills were not as useful as Gwen's, but he was a lot more fun to pass the time with on a long rover excursion.
"McGee's not a trained mechanic, and neither are you. If the rover should malfunction—"
"In the unlikely event of a rover malfunction, you can always send Gwen out in the reserve vehicle to help us. That was the procedure we followed last time. Why is Gwen's nonavailability an issue all of a sudden?"
Townsend shook his head. "You heard what they said in Houston. Their safety concerns are a bigger issue than they were before. I can't let you go that far without Major Llewellyn."
Rebecca looked him in the eyes and made a conscious effort to control her voice for maximum effect. She had to change his mind. "Colonel, let me take the rover out tomorrow."
"I don't see why it can't wait a few days until their report is done."
Rebecca could see why. She had to make him see. "It can't wait because when Gwen is done, then Luke will be done, and he'll want to do another geology sortie himself. And with all the brouhaha he's going to cause with these trinkets he found, he's sure to be given priority by Mission Control. This might be my only decent chance."
"Dr. Sherman, these new gems are more than just trinkets. Possible applications for superhard materials could have major benefits for American industry. In any case, even if he's given control of the rover for the next few weeks, what of it? We're going to be here for a year and a half."
Rebecca shook her head. That was the problem. Everyone thinks we have a year and a half. "Not true, sir. In four weeks the dust storm season will begin. That could shut down rover sorties for up to six months, especially if this safety craze takes hold at Mission Control. Then, if the storms damage our equipment, we could lose the capability for long-range sorties afterwards."
"That's a possibility, but..."
Rebecca saw her chance. Add passion to reason, you can move him. But not too much—don't blow it. She took a deep breath and focused. "Colonel, life on Mars is the real question we were sent here to answer. It's the key to whether life exists all over the universe. It's the mystery people have wondered about since time began. We've got to go look for it."
Townsend looked confused. "Those other scientists don't seem to think so."
"But you know that I'm right."
They sat in silence, Rebecca directing her eyes into his, pleading but morally certain. Finally, Townsend stood up and walked to the window, where he stared out at the night sky. He looked back at her.
This is my last chance, thought Rebecca. She allowed herself to give him a hint of a smile.
"Okay, Doctor, you can go."
She closed her eyes and sank into her chair. When her hands loosened their grip on the armrest, her fingernails had made little dents in the upholstery.
Townsend turned to McGee. "I don't know how I get talked into these things," he said apologetically, and left the galley.
McGee watched him go and then turned to Rebecca, who was now smiling like an angel. "Wow. Remind me to take you along next time I try to sell an idea for a new book to a publisher."
Rebecca just wrinkled her nose at him.
CHAPTER 7
NEAR MAJA VALLIS
DEC. 16, 2011 17:10 MLT
OUT IN THE ROVER, McGee and Rebecca rode along a ridge overlooking the dry riverbeds of Maja Vallis. In preparation for frequent EVA, they were dressed in Marsuits without helmets or backpacks. McGee drove while Rebecca surveyed the dry riverbeds with a pair of binoculars. He glanced over at her, admiring the curve of her elegant neck—definitely the best date on Mars. Earth too, possibly.
"Well, Dr. Sherman, exactly what should we be looking for?"
Rebecca answered without looking up from her survey. "I don't know, exactly. That's the hard part in all this. We're looking for macroscopic remains created by large numbers of microorganisms, probably calcified."
"Like coral reefs, or the chalk cliffs of Dover?"
"Could be, but probably not that obvious. I remember an expedition I took one time on Devon Island, looking for stromatolite fossils from the Ordovician, over four hundred million years old. We found them, but they looked like nothing you'd expect, kind of lumpy, bulging piles. Very strange."
"I see."
Rebecca gestured off to the right. "I wish we could get down into that dry riverbed. If anything was ever alive around here, that's where it would have been. Drive a little closer to the edge so I can get a better look."
McGee studied the ground. It was unconsolidated regolith, not the best place to be taking chances. "I'd rather not. We're pretty close to the edge already."
Rebecca smiled at him. "Come on, Kevin, we're driving at ten miles per hour. Don't be such a sissy."
Her smile made McGee feel both small and warm at the same time. There was no resisting. "Okay, have it your way. But I'm slowing down."
McGee cautiously steered the rover closer to the ridge edge. Rebecca peered into the valley, nodding her approval. "Ah, much better. See, no problem."
Suddenly the ground under the front right wheel gave way, causing the rover to tilt. McGee slammed on the brakes, but not quite in time. As he frantically shifted into reverse, the rover tipped slowly over the 40-degree slope of the gorge until its weight shifted completely, causing the scree to start sliding downhill, carrying the rover with it. Within seconds the whole slope began to tumble downhill in a roaring rush.
McGee shifted back into forward and accelerated, steering madly, trying to maintain some degree of control in the low-gravity ride. A huge rock standing firm in the midst of the avalanche loomed up in front of the rover, and he barely managed to avoid crashing into it.
He felt both terrified and enraged at having been goaded into reckless action. "Don't be a sissy, eh. No problem, eh!"
Smaller rocks, bouncing down the hill faster than the rest of the slide, pattered and ricocheted all around the vehicle. One stone the size of a softball slammed into the Plexiglas window on Rebecca's side. A network of cracks began to spread in the window. In seconds it would shatter and depressurize the rover. Rebecca stared at it, frozen.
"Rebecca! Quick-patch!" shouted McGee, snapping her out of it.
Rebecca tore off her seat belt and lurched to the back of the rover, reaching behind the seats to yank open a box in the cargo area. She withdrew a square-foot sheet of translucent plastic material with an adhesive back. In one swift motion, she peeled the cover off the adhesive and slammed the sticky plastic sheet into place on the window. She turned to McGee. "That was close—Oh no, watch out!"