

THRONES OF MARS

A novel

By

Lloyd R R Martin

Part Three

The Martian Infusion

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction is allowed without permission.

The right of Lloyd R R Martin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Copyright © Lloyd R R Martin 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the publisher.

This book is sold or presented subject to the condition that it shall not , by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent publisher.
Chapter 1 Encampment

Chapter 2 Homer Base

Chapter 3 Construction

Chapter 4 Trike

Chapter 5 Reactor

Chapter 6 Expedition

Chapter 7 Separation

Chapter 8 Writing

Chapter 9 Heat and Ice

Chapter 10 Rover

Chapter 11 Cloak

Chapter 12 Xanthros

Chapter 1

ENCAMPMENT

In Pythagoras were the American astronaut Jake Jensen and the Russian scientist Galina Danilenko. Euclid carried the other American, Preston Ashton and the British astronaut Mark Singleton.

The encampment in the Martian crater looked as strange as you would expect on an alien planet.

The two Sarsens that stood upright were situated well within the crater's rim; the third one had fallen with its top pointing at the centre of the shallow red crater. Liquid had begun flowing from the broken cylinder, but the severe cold made it freeze solid before it got too far.

Two conical capsules now sat almost in the centre of the crater. Two tepees and their totem poles would have looked similar.

'Euclid to Houston. We have four Modules landed safely down; one Sarsen has fallen over on landing. There has been no fire or explosion. Euclid reports both crew fit and well. Over to Pythagoras.' Ash reported in, then asked Jake in the second module to do the same.

'Pythagoras here, two crew fit and well, no dramas here.' He turned to Galina for confirmation of this.

Tom Collins at Houston then called,

'Copy you down Ash. You will now be known as Homer Base. Congratulations, you are the first colony on another planet. Have you decided who is to be first to set foot on Mars?'

A few minutes' delay before he received the reply from Ash,

'Not yet, Tom. Jake and Galina were first down in Pythagoras, so I think it should be one of them.'

Jake picked up on this, and said,

'There are various shutdown procedures to be done, but we would be too happy to comply with the last suggestion.'

'Ok, Jake. I propose we all take a couple of hours to sort things out and rest. Then we can venture forth in good condition.' Ash said.

Back at Mission Control Tom heard all this with the usual delay, then replied,

'Copy all that, Homer Base. This is Mission Control listening out.'

The four astronauts on the surface of Mars began their shutdown procedures, and then took an hour's much needed rest.

In orbit around the red planet Hoshi began working with the robots on board. There now began a massive logistics plan. On board the Phoenix they carried supplies for the whole mission. The main components of this were food, water and oxygen. On top of all this there was the 'farm'; various animals, among them chickens and quails, were contained within one of the modules that were fastened to the side of the Blue Sarsen and the White Sarsen. These pods were referred to as Sarsen One and Sarsen Two. One of these cells contained fish, but it would be quite some time before these could be transferred to the surface – if they could ever be subjected to the fierce experience of re-entry.

A strange meeting now took place on board the Phoenix. One Japanese scientist and three androids conferred about the next things to be done, and in what order. The strangeness about this meeting was that the attendees were not in the same room – they were scattered all over the ship. The androids had developed a very efficient communications system between themselves, enabling them to work as a single being, this was called the net. Hoshi worked with this system on the outward-bound journey; and had now become imbedded into the system. For her it was like telepathy. She was a very eminent and experienced scientist, but even she could not understand how it worked.

'The water in cell one on top of Sarsen Two has not gone down as much as anticipated.' Gerald reported,

'The recycling system managed to gain a 92 per cent return, so we have not consumed as much as we thought we would. We needed to use some water in order to transfer from one cell to the other, but we still have a lot more than we thought we would.'

Hoshi Masuto sat in the captain's chair in the Orion module at the end of the Blue Sarsen as she listened to this report that seemed to come from Gerald, but in effect could have come from any of the robots. She replied to the robot net by speaking aloud to herself,

'That's a good start; we have only just arrived, and we have a surfeit of water.'

'We cannot put it anywhere into the Red Sarsen, there is far too much electronic machinery there, but we can convert the unfinished re-entry vehicle into a tanker and take it down to the surface of Mars instead of us going down in it.'

'You mean to use the Ptolemy without anyone in it?'

'Yes, it is on our net, so can perform on its own.'

'Then how are we to get down there?'

'Don't worry, Doctor. It was always planned that three of us, and you will go onto the Martian surface. The re-entry vehicles Euclid, Pythagoras and Ptolemy are re-usable. All we have to do is replace the heat shield every time they return to the Phoenix, and they are good to go.'

Then the strange voice of Silver came over the net. He was working near the rear of White Sarsen on the almost complete Ptolemy re-entry vehicle,

'Retro-fit almost complete.'

'That was fast,' Hoshi thought, 'They must have been working on this before.'

She only thought this, she did not say anything.

'Yes, Doctor. We decided during the landing phase of the Euclid and the Pythagoras that something had to be done and decided that you were all too involved to be distracted. So, we just got on with the conversion.' A disembodied voice came back and made Hoshi jump.

She leaned forward to touch part of the command plinth in front of her,

'Phoenix to Homer Base. Congratulations you guys. We are sending a drink down for you.'

Ash replied,

'Thanks Hoshi. How's that?'

'We have too much water up here. We need to empty one of the bags, so the 'S-classes' have converted Ptolemy into a tanker to carry extra water down to you. As soon as the bag in Blue Sarsen is ready we will transfer it to the White Sarsen.'

'Roger that, Hoshi. What about machinery? If we can dig a hole for the extra water, we may find some useful stuff on the way down.'

Gerald answered,

'Sarsen Four will be sent down with myself, Stuart and machinery tomorrow Doctor Preston. There is some machinery inside Sarsen One, which is already with you.'

'What about Sarsen Two? We have a tower down here with I don't know what's in it; I have seen the manifest for it, but we don't understand any of it.'

'That is because we are going to use what is in that to build an infrastructure on the surface.' Gerald explained,

'One thing we shall be building in an adjacent crater will be a small nuclear reactor to supply an almost inexhaustible supply of electricity for heating and lighting. In order to facilitate the rapid development of the Homer Base we shall be building roads first. This requires some heavy machinery; this is stored in Sarsen Two. I hope this satisfies your curiosity Doctor Preston.'

'Yes, thank you, Gerald. We look forward to seeing all this development.'

Jake then came on the air from the Pythagoras module,

'Pythagoras to Euclid, we will be ready to EVA in five minutes, let's do this together.'

'We only got one ladder on each module, but we can have a simultaneous landing by two people.' Ash turned to Mark and said,

'Sorry, Mark. I'm nearest the door, so I will have to go out first.'

'Ok, Ash. It is just such a great privilege to be here on Mars. You go break a leg.' With that he smiled and shook hands with one of the first men to walk on Mars.

'Euclid to Pythagoras, you were first down, so you can take the lead. Talk us through your actions and I will try to synchronise with you.'

'Roger that Ash. Opening the hatch now.'

'Ok, Jake.' Was the only acknowledgement Ash gave in order to keep the talking down to the absolute minimum to avoid distracting Jake.

'Straps undone, moving towards the hatch.'

'Ok, with you.'

'Hands on the sill, head out into the Martian atmosphere.'

'Ok, head out.'

'Reaching around to grab rail on side of hatchway.'

'Got it.'

'Now standing on sill, standing up to look around. You are on the far side of the capsule, so I can't see you.'

'I can see your capsule, Jake, but you are on the far side.'

Jake then moved to one side of the hatch and bent down to look inside at Galina. He indicated that she should move out of the capsule.

Without a sound she clambered to the top of the ladder. Jake waved to invite Galina to climb down the ladder as he said,

'Beginning to descend down the ladder now.'

'Top step. Second step. You lead.' Ash began down his ladder keeping in step with Jake's commentary.

'Ok, wait one.' Jake nodded inside his space helmet to encourage Galina to begin down the steps to the surface of Mars.

As she carefully began to go down the steps, Jake followed her steps with the commentary,

'Step three, step four. This low gravity makes movement very easy. Step five, step six, last step. Holding here. The ground looks just like the simulations on Earth; sandy like with small rocks. Ok, Ash, let's do this together. Can you make sure there are no boulders beneath you? The last thing we need is a broken limb.'

'Checking ground below. Looks clear enough here.'

'Ok Ash, let's go on the count of three. Three. Two. One. Now.'

On the call of 'Now' two astronauts left the bottom rungs of their respective ladders and landed on the surface of Mars at the same time.

Ash began walking around to the other module as Galina looked up at Jake, who was still at the top of the ladder.

He reported on the first walk on an alien planet,

'Ground soft and dusty. The redness is really noticeable. The sky is a sort of ochre colour. All landers look in good condition and positions apart from the one that fell over. Approaching the Pythagoras module now.'

Just then Galina appeared from around the module. In a space suit everyone looks the same, Ash held out his hand as he approached the astronaut in front of him.

'Welcome to Mars, Jake.'

'Sorry Ash, it is not Jake, it is me.' Galina could hardly speak because of the massive smile inside her helmet.

Ash looked closely at the helmet in front of him.

'Galina! How did you do that?'

Jake began making his way down the ladder as Mark also began making his way to the Martian surface.

'I thought it would be chivalrous and more even-handed if a non-American woman were to be the first on Mars.' Jake explained.

.....................
Chapter 2

HOMER BASE

Four people now stood on the surface of the planet Mars. They consisted of two Americans, one British man, and a Russian woman. A Japanese scientist circled the planet above them in the mother ship, Phoenix. With her were three human-like android robots, and two smaller robots dedicated to the external maintenance of the ship.

On the surface of Mars there were also two conical-shaped landers with rotor blades now retracted, two white and black upright columns called Sarsens containing survival supplies, and one Sarsen canister laying broken on the crater floor where it fell on landing.

'I think the first thing we have to do is examine the fallen Sarsen.' Ash suggested; it had already been decided that there would be no leader.

'Well, it should be easy enough to get the stuff out.' The British astronaut Mark Singleton remarked as they approached the prone white cylinder.

It had broken into three separate pieces. Heavy machinery like drills were in what should have been the base, water was carried in flexible tanks above this. This section had suffered no damage, the next part held packaged food, they too survived ok, but fuel in a cell above this section had escaped from a burst cell. This had frozen solid almost before it hit the Martian surface, so it was estimated that the original contamination of Mars was minimal. The freezing fuel exiting the cell sealed the split in its wall. Lightweight building materials and metal were stored in the top of the tower. This equipment had been knocked about somewhat, but no lasting damage had been suffered.

Jake and Mark surveyed to building materials,

'If the landers are to be used again, we had better get our first shelter built.' Jake pointed out that the vehicles they had arrived in would be going back to the mother ship leaving them with no cover on the harsh Martian surface.

Mark went over to what would have been the base of the fallen Sarsen. He began freeing ground moving machinery until he found what he was looking for, a huge powered shovel type device.

'This is just the job.' He exclaimed,

'This blade is heated to melt its way through the permafrost, giving us a good base below the surface to build on.' He explained as he began setting up the equipment.

'Where should we begin?' he turned to Galina who had begun surveying work within the crater.

She looked around in a speculative manner, then pointed to an area between the two standing Sarsens,

'Here should be a good spot. It is far enough away from the landing site to avoid being damaged by the lift-off of the craft going back to the Phoenix mother ship.'

'Right.'

With that Mark took hold of a large reciprocating drill (the space traveller's version of a road drill). He was expecting it to weigh as much as he did. It did weigh as much as him, but under Martian gravity that was only 38% of what it would be on Earth. His muscles were still attuned to Earth's gravity due to the artificial gravity on board the Phoenix.

The box containing the drill was damaged during the crash, so Mark had only to remove the lid and some packaging. Then he took hold of the drill and gave it a good heave. Up went the drill into the thin Martian atmosphere. As it sailed through the ochre sky Mark tried to catch it, but to no avail. It came crashing down on to the white and scorched Sarsen it came down in. The crash went unnoticed due to the weakness of sound in the thin atmosphere, and the astronauts all wearing helmets.

As it slid back down to ground level, Mark caught it as if it was a falling cup.

By the end of that first Martian day the first semi-permanent shelter had been erected. It stood only five feet high, the floor inside being three feet below the surface. The spoil that had come from the excavation was piled up on the sides to give protection from radiation bursts and any loose rocks that may be thrown up by the landers as they made journeys back and forth to the mother ship.

Ash and Jake had prepared two large receptacles to hold fuel cells taken from the fallen Sarsen. These were heaters to prevent the fuel from freezing solid as it was transferred to the shuttle craft.

Ashton Preston called Hoshi Masuto in the mother craft,

'Homer Base to Phoenix.'

Hoshi was away from the bridge area when the call came in. She picked up one of the microphones when he heard Ash's call,

'Phoenix here, that you Ash?'

'Affirmative Hoshi. We are just about ready to send the craft back to you.

'I reckon I can make it ok. I will be bringing Gerald with me, will you be sending both craft back together?'

'That's the plan. How's work going on the other lander, Ptolemy isn't it?'

'Yes, Ash. That's right. Most of it is complete now, Gerald tells me that Silver, Scuttles and Skittles can finish it off. Because it is only a tanker the work has been much simpler than if it had been if it had been built to carry people.'

'Don't fill it too much, remember that the liquid will freeze at least once during re-entry, this will lead to expansion, then contraction. We don't want to watch Ptolemy come to land followed by a majestic vapour trail of what it was carrying.'

'Don't worry, Ash. All this has been calculated and catered for. Has the refuelling gone ok down there?'

'Yes, but it will be dark in less than two hours, are you happy about doing this all at night?'

Gerald then came on the line,

'Hello Doctor Preston, Gerald here, it will be ok. The whole system is autonomous; it will run itself, and all three of us will be monitoring every parameter.'

'Hello Gerald. Do you have a time for launch of Ptolemy?'

'Probably about first light tomorrow. When will Euclid and Pythagoras be ready for return here?'

'Just before sundown here I should think, they are nearly ready now. Is there any reason why we shouldn't send them both together?'

'No reason at all, Dr Preston. You can all stand on the edge of the crater to watch if the floor is not in too much shadow by then, you must be careful on your first night on the surface.'

Forty-five minutes later the four people on Mars stood on the rim of the crater that held their base. The small sun was sinking slowly towards the red horizon. The mountain ranges in the distance were as clear as if they were only feet away due to the thin atmosphere. Every now and then dust devils scooted across the middle ground, but it was impossible for the new inhabitants to estimate how far away they were. In front of them the scene was framed by two gigantic Sarsens either side of them, the blackened and scorched remains of their heat shields exaggerating the almost horizontal light coming from the low sun.

'I thought the sunset would be a lot redder somehow.' Galina said to Jake, who was stood next to her.

'The sun is certainly redder now, but the thin, almost non-existent atmosphere will not scatter that colour like it does on Earth.'

Just below their level lay their new base building, the sides almost invisible due to the red rocks that had been used to give more protection by thickening the walls. The roof was part of the blackened heat shield taken from the fallen Sarsen – in fact it was five layers of heat shield for better screening.

Over on the other side of the crater floor laid the remains of the fallen Sarsen, seeming to point at two small tepee shapes in the middle of the Martian crater.

'Euclid cleared and ready for launch.' Stuart's voice came over the radios so that everyone knew the exact state of affairs.

'Pythagoras cleared and ready for launch.' Steve called.

'Stand by for dual vehicle launch.' Gerald took control.

Then a strange thing happened.

The snouts on top of the tepees sprouted the seven bladed counter-rotating rotors seen during landing. These then began turning under their own power. The astronauts were stunned to silence. Mark simply pointed at them in disbelief. Jake's mouth fell open.

The spinning rotors began creating white disks that reflected and scattered the light from the red sun. Ash remarked,

'Hoshi would love this. Looks like a symbol of Japan.'

Then the main rockets fired beneath the modules. With only 38% the gravity of Earth the escape velocity on Mars is so much lower, and acceleration is better. In the blink of an eye the two spacecraft shot up, and became bright dots in the black firmament that made up the sky above the astronauts. This prompted them to remember that darkness was falling. They knew when it came it would be like closing your eyes, so rapid was the effect out here closer to the edge of the solar system, and with a thin atmosphere that was unable to scatter the light of a sun below the horizon.

As they walked down from the crater's edge, Ash radioed up to the Phoenix,

'Homer Base to Gerald.' He knew that the robots pick up all radio traffic and can respond from wherever they are.

'Gerald answering Doctor Preston. How can I help you?'

'Those rotors, I thought they were unpowered, like the one you sent to Houston with Mary-Jo in it?'

'Yes, Dr. Preston. That one was. But we decided that it would be an easy matter to put fuel into the blades, which are hollow anyway, then ignite it as it left the ends. A very much simplified rocket engine. It is even self-starting; we just put in two pipes carrying the fuel to the ends. By carefully selecting which chemicals are injected into the system they can be self-igniting. There was some doubt about the effectiveness in the thin Martian atmosphere, but we estimated that if there was only the benefit to stability, it is better than burning fuel in directional thrusters.'

'Brilliant. What I find difficult to understand is that you were in doubt about something – that must be a first!'

'Oh no, Dr. Preston. We are often in doubt about things; but these things usually involve humans. When we can do calculations, we can reason out any doubt. In this case we did not have enough information on fluid interactions in the Martian atmosphere and the inertia of the loads in the capsules.'

'Thanks, Gerald. I'm really glad I asked!'

'Are you, Dr. Preston? Then I am glad to be of service in supplying information to you.'

A wry grin crept across both faces as Ash opened the first door into the air lock that led into their new base building.

The mother ship, Phoenix, was circling and rotating to give Hoshi some gravity in orbit above the planet. The sun was about to dip below the horizon as seen from the Phoenix when the Euclid and Pythagoras were seen glinting against the dark side of Mars.

'Do you need to stop the rotation?' Hoshi asked Gerald as the twin capsules approached.

'No, Dr. Masuto. They can park themselves on to normal docking points. If you would like, I can play 'The Blue Danube' for you.'

'I can tell that you mean that humorously, but I think that is a good idea. Do you have it by the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra?'

'Conducted by Giujah Hoikffoe, ma'am?'

'That will do nicely, thank you.'

The strains of Strauss's famous waltz began playing through the ship as Hoshi moved into the copula viewing platform.

She could see two pink-silver dots reflecting the rays from the distant sun. These gradually disappeared as the Phoenix continued her constant turning, which gave some gravity. When the first one reappeared, it was larger than before, but not moving as fast. She spun around in the copula to see if the other one could be seen from a different window. She could not see it yet.

Hoshi turned to watch the first one again. The music gave out the strong rhythm of the familiar dance tune as the object began to time its approach turning with the mother ship. By now Hoshi could see that it was a capsule, she saw the snout gradually turn towards her. It seemed to be keeping time with the music she was hearing. As the Phoenix turned slightly faster than the capsule, the music picked up the volume a little; the woodwind section joined the piano. When the whole orchestra joined in the second capsule came back into view directly over Hoshi, and much closer than the first. Both capsules were still turning slower than Phoenix but were now translating their linear momentum into turning until they were both orbiting at the same pace as the mother ship. Then they smoothly drifted back to the anchor points on the selected docking ports.

The music ended just as the last capsule locked into place. Hoshi could not stop herself applauding.

Jake then came on the radio,

'Now we have finished the musical interlude, will you be joining us any time soon?'

'That was fantastic.' Hoshi replied.

'Yes, we know. Silver and Steve put on a video show for us down here. Now, if you are still in your pyjamas, I suggest that you put on a spacesuit and join us here. There is about to be a party and I would hate for you to miss out.'

'Well, put like that how can I refuse?'

Hoshi left the copula and floated across the centre of the ship, where there was no gravity. Here she put on the space suit she must wear to venture down to the planet.

Twenty-seven minutes later three almost identical capsules left the mother ship to begin their journey to the planet's surface. Euclid carried Dr. Hoshi Masuto and Gerald, Pythagoras carried Steve and Stuart, and Ptolemy was a tanker carrying water. What the astronauts did not know was that the spherical robot Silver was also leaving the Phoenix. He was encased inside the last remaining Sarsen container that the robots had made from stages of the Epsilon project.

.....................
Chapter 3

CONSTRUCTION

The slowly rotating mother ship began to wind down. As Hoshi left, the automatic systems began shutting the life support systems down to save on power. Gradually the speed of rotation decreased. Two of the android robots entered the capsule opposite the one that Hoshi and Gerald used. The robots Gerald, Stuart and Steve needed no survival equipment, so they simply got into the capsule in tee-shirt and jeans.

The rate of rotation was now down to one revolution per minute. Hoshi turned to look at the Phoenix that had been home for the last eight months, plus all of the training on Earth, she felt as if she was leaving her long-term home behind.

'Last person to leave the ship.' Gerald said as they both approached the open hatchway.

'Yes. It feels so familiar.'

Hoshi entered the capsule first, Gerald helped her strap in, then got in himself, closing the hatch behind him. He turned towards the Japanese scientist and said,

'Are you ready for an adventure?'

'Yes, Gerald, let's do it.'

With that Gerald threw a few switches, then said,

'Euclid to Keplar and Ptolemy, preparing for separation. The next time I see Mars, we are going.'

Hoshi thought this a little lax for procedure, but then she realised that none of it was necessary because the whole operation was automatic. She looked out of the small window to see only stars; Mars was on the other side of the ship.

Euclid slowly moved around to face Mars. Then Hoshi felt a slight lurch as the capsule fell free of the mother ship. Next the retro engine fired to slow them, allowing the weak Martian gravity to draw them down. As this was happening, the other two capsules came into position as Phoenix turned. They then left the mother ship, fired their rocket motors, then followed Euclid down into the Martian atmosphere.

Thirty seconds after the pair of capsules left Phoenix, and one minute after Euclid had left, Sarsen Four began to detach itself from the mother ship.

The fiery entry into the ochre atmosphere above the red planet meant that the three re-entry vehicles had turned their heat shields to face the direction of travel. As they began to glow red a long black and white cylinder overtook them. Sarsen Four was much bigger and heavier than the little capsules, so it had a greater re-entry speed– and a different landing zone.

Quarter of a mile above the Martian surface the three capsules deployed their counter-rotating rotors. On the ground the four astronauts had been busy preparing a landing pad. As the new visitors approached the base they could have been forgiven for thinking that they were landing on a purpose-built base on Earth. A hard, flat surface – with no loose stones on it – had been constructed, guidelines were painted on this, and even lights were in place to guide them in to land.

Four astronauts stood on a high ridge looking south towards the low, small sun. They could easily see the bright streaks of the heat shields doing their job against the dark sky high above.

'Can you see four trails?' asked Galina.

There were three answers, almost simultaneously,

'Yes.'

'Sarsen Four must be coming down.' Ash reasoned.

There is no sound from outside when you are in a spacesuit. As the four watched the magical ballet performed by three re-entry capsules – the first time anything like this had ever been witnessed – had they been able to hear sounds from the atmosphere they would have heard the landing rockets of Sarsen Four firing two miles away.

Mark Singleton, the Brit., looked towards the horizon as the others were watching the capsules landing. He saw, or thought he saw, Sarsen Four landing a long way off.

'But what would be the point of that?' he thought to himself.

Then the other three astronauts cheered and began making their way down the slope towards the landers. He followed without giving Sarsen Four another thought.

Homer Base was then established; five humans and three android robots populated it. The crater in which it lay was situated in the Terra Sirenium area.

Survival is secure, and re-supply is available from the mother ship. There were five capsules that were capable of return to the Phoenix, if all else failed, the two Sarsens were capable of return to the Phoenix with people aboard. All five humans could be taken back if needed in one Sarsen.

Soon they got down to the serious science bit that they were sent for.

They were tasked with the search for past life on Mars, and to look for ways to get oxygen from the Martian atmosphere.

Also included in their tasks were things like drilling for samples, analysing these and trying to find out how the planet was put together. This is to be done using the trusted Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry, an X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer. This can analyse rocks and dust in great detail, backed up by a second spectrometer, the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals, known as SHERLOC. This instrument inspects samples using a laser that works in the ultraviolet range.

The search for water, however was of paramount importance. The main problem here being the freezing temperatures that make it possible that water in solid form may have remained when the rest of the atmosphere was stripped away. The difficulty was supplying sufficient power to melt away the surface tundra to access whatever was beneath. The question asked by this whole element was, 'What could be in any cave exposed by such processes?'

To explore the underground situation a Norwegian device called RIMFAX, meaning Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Exploration will be used to explore about half a kilometre down into the subsurface. When the Earth was formed there appeared vast caves several miles across and hundreds of feet deep, the Monument Valley being probably the biggest, but these caverns are still being discovered today. It was hoped that similar planet-building holes might have existed on Mars. These could hold liquid water or provide natural shelters for future colonies – but the main hope for these caves was the possibility that traces of previous life on Mars might have survived, finally showing proof that we are not alone.

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Chapter 4

TRIKE

As the days turned into weeks the astronauts eased into a time rhythm. They found that they performed better if there were some structure to their lives. The Earthly week was reinstated into their schedules by doing something different on one day out of every seven. Mark Singleton decided that he was going to build a kind of motorbike using electric motors.

There was now a garage and workshop for the maintenance of their ground moving machinery. A fuel farm had been built above ground to avoid the possibility of contamination of the Martian land. They had to decide whether the advantages of burying fuel supplies outweighed the disadvantages. Eventually it was decided that the only real advantage from burying fuel was protection from falling asteroids. The disadvantages were legion, mainly keeping the stuff from freezing, then if some did freeze, how were they to sort it out? Then there was the possibility that the ground itself may become unstable when warmed up; they may be standing on the Martian equivalent of the Louisiana swamplands. The ground around their living shelter, which is semi-buried, will now be monitored more closely.

Three massive solar panels were sent down in Sarsen One. They ensured there was sufficient electrical power, although all power supplies had to be focussed at night to keeping the small living area from freezing. There was very little to spare.

Stuart helped Mark with his bike. They realised that it would have to be an off-roader, and rubber was not an option, mainly because of the climate and temperatures, but also contamination issues came into it. So wheels similar to the ones fitted to the old Curiosity rover were built. These were surprisingly convenient; because they supplied good suspension. They decided on a trike set-up, mainly for safety reasons, but also to allow them to build it strong enough to take Stuart's weight. It was decided that they would build the trike with all three wheels being driven by separate electric motors attached to the tops of the rims, and no centres. They wanted to do this mainly because they can do, and because it had never been done before – none of this had ever been done before!

Finally, the finished product was ready for its first test run. The whole crew was there – androids and all. When Mark unveiled the machine, it was not what everyone expected. The drives were mounted on the wheel rims – in fact that was the only place the wheels touched the frame. Stuart had access to a vast metallurgical expertise, and he was convinced that this was the best way to get the maximum from the 'tyres'.

'Take it easy at first, feed in the power gradually.' Stuart advised Mark,

'Remember the effect of having only 38% gravity will have surprising effects on handling and flying too if you hit something at speed.' He looked for all the world like a typical mechanic on Earth; grubby jeans, even the dirty rag to wipe his hands. Standing around him were five spacemen and a red planet.

Mark nodded,

'Yes, ok. I don't want to spread myself over that ground, it looks hard.'

There was no way this kind of activity should be authorised, it was far too dangerous, but they had decided not to ask Houston for clearance until they found that it works on the flat smooth area they normally operated on.

Mark sparked up the bike, slowly and tentatively at first; like a motorised wheelchair. He was surprised that the steering was good, the only thing the wheels had for grip were chevron-shaped ridges.

The main reason Mark wanted to develop this mode of transport was because it is untraceable and is not controlled by any outside influences – unlike all other forms of transport on Mars. He needed something to get him about two miles distant, and he could not walk that far, even on the lower gravity on Mars.

When the first re-supply mission landed six weeks ago he saw a lone Sarsen come down some two miles distant, and no-one had mentioned it. The robots must know about it, but they have said nothing about it. He thought this to be a little strange, so kept his own counsel until he could gather more information. The trike was how he was going to get this information.

But it was late on Sunsol afternoon by now. They had given the days similar names as on Earth, the Martian days are called sols, and there are 669 sols in a Martian year, which is roughly twice as long as an Earth year.

'Tomorrow is Monsol, back to work.' Mark thought,

'May get a chance next weekend.' With that he put the machine away.

Part way through the Monsol morning Ash entered the workshop to see Mark,

'Hi, Mark. I have an unusual request for you.'

'Oh, yes? What would that be, Ash?'

'We have been gathering samples from around this crater since we arrived, but now I think is the time we should be looking further afield.'

He ran his hand along the multi-purpose Earth mover, then continued,

'This thing uses up too much power just reconnoitring, and that is what we need, just a look around half a mile away from the crater. You see; we got the geology of the crater, but now we need to know what kind of rocks are out there beyond the scatter area of this crater. There is a flat area between here and Copernicus that looks interesting. For that we need a vehicle that is more economical to run that this.' He slapped the big machine next to him.

'How many rocks did you have in mind, Ash?'

'A few more than a loose handful. I was thinking more about quadrants. If you could search and map the area from the south to the east-south east, we can look more outwards.'

'A tray can be attached to the trike, but accurate mapping is going to be difficult without a smooth flat surface out there to work on.'

'We have aerial pictures of the area from the landings. Take them on your tablet and use that to make observations, don't forget to note the positions of all the samples, and mark the containers.'

'What about comms, Ash?'

'We should be ok as far as half a mile. Phoenix will not be overhead this afternoon, so you won't be able to bounce signals off her.'

'So more than a mile out there will be no signal?'

'We don't know. The atmosphere is useless, there is no ionosphere, and this is a smaller planet than Earth; so the horizon is much closer. You can test that out whilst you are out there.'

'Looks like I am going then.'

Ash looked around the garage,

'Can't see any other volunteers.' He knew Mark was itching to get out on his new plaything.

Mark looked at his digital watch. Analogue watches were useless here on Mars. The Martian day, the Sol, had been divided into 24 equal portions. These were then called hours.

'Shall we say thirteen hundred?' Ash said.

'Can you supply the containers? I will rig up a tray.'

'Looks like we have a plan.'

Ash returned to the main building to find the requisite containers. As he was rummaging through some boxes Gerald approached him,

'What are you looking for, Dr Preston?'

'Oh, hi, Gerald. We need a lot of sample containers; Mark is going out to get some random samples from outside the crater.'

Gerald looked surprised by this development,

'Is he now? Has this been authorised?'

'Not yet. It is the middle of the night in Houston, and this opportunity just came to me. We are going on our own license.'

'Are you sure, sir? We have already established that this is an ordinary impact crater, surely the ground outside of the crater will mostly be debris from the creation of it; therefore, much the same stuff as we have inside.'

'We are going beyond the debris field to see what Mars has to offer. That is what we are here for isn't it?'

'Well, of course it is, sir. But how far are you proposing to go? The debris field could extend for nearly a mile.'

'We reckon the heavier rocks and debris will have dropped before they got half a mile, so at one mile to one and a half miles we should concentrate on medium sized rocks.'

Gerald looked puzzled by this proposition,

'Are you proposing to walk over one mile over unknown terrain with medium sized rocks? How many of these rocks do you intend to carry?'

Ash dropped some plastic padded bags into a clear container as he replied,

'That is an easy question to answer, none.'

'None?' Gerald now looked perplexed.

'Yes, none. I ain't going. Mark is going on his new toy.'

'What? But the machine has not been cleared for operations of any kind, let alone outside the known area.'

Ash put down what he was doing and turned to Gerald,

'For Christ's sake, Gerald. Just look around you. We are not in a place where military precision and rules can rule everything. We must work on our own recognisance out here. The machine has been thoroughly tested by Stuart and Mark using the experiences of all the rovers we have sent up here over the decades. I think it is reliable enough to go on a rough field trial – and this one is perfect.'

'What if it breaks down out there?'

'If we had that attitude from the outset of this program we would still be scratching our heads and wringing our hands.' He now looked straight at Gerald and smiled,

'Have you got some worry beads in a secret location?'

'No, sir. But I do have some serious misgivings on this mission, sir.'

'Well, I had some serious misgivings about this whole goddamn shooting match, but here we are on Mars, despite all the sceptics and doubters.'

'I still think we should await clearance from Houston, sir.'

'Well you can await all you like, we are going ahead.'

With that Ash gathered up his collection of containers and returned to Mark, who had had a similar conversation with Stuart.

'I don't think he is all that keen on this mission.' Mark told Ash as he rigged up a box to hold the samples on the trike.

'I got the same impression from Gerald. What did you tell Stuart?'

'Just told him it was nothing to do with him, now piss off.'

'Did he?'

'Oh yes. Nice thing about these androids, they never take the hump. Just like a mechanical version of Jeeves.'

'Who the hell is Jeeves?'

'Never heard of Jeeves and Wooster, Ash? PG Woodhouse novels halfway through the 20th century. A very British thing I suppose. Very funny, but about a lifestyle and world that disappeared with the wars. Anyway, Jeeves was the butler bloke who was actually running the life of the dopey aristocrat who had no idea what was going on.'

'I seem to recall some TV series my parents watched on similar themes.'

Mark finished his modifications, then returned his tools to their respective storage places,

'Just check nothing catches on the wheels will you?' Mark got on to the contraption and moved it forwards and backwards while Ash checked all three wheels from both outside and inside, then felt the motors and ancillary equipment for signs of heating and secure fitting,

'Looks good to go to me.' He reported.

'Time to suit up and give this thing a real test run.'

Ash walked with him to the open air lock with the trike. There they left it whilst they went to get into their space suits and go outside.

.....................
Chapter 5

REACTOR

Mark sat on the strange trike. It was only a frame, with a seat for one, beneath this were the batteries. Handlebars provided steering and control of power to the three wheels via a single potentiometer. This was also the brake. In a move to pay homage to bikers of old, Mark had welded footrests in a high forward position. Ash asked him if he was going to play motorbike sounds to himself on the road. Stuart had managed to install a gyro compass because an ordinary one would never work on Mars due to there being no magnetic field.

From their cosy little base to the area around the crater Copernicus looked like a long journey, but they had studied the photographs taken by the many orbiters, and it looked clear of any major obstacles.

Mark and Ash were dressed in their full Martian surface versions of the standard NASA spacesuits watched as the air lock outer door opened to show the harsh Martian exterior. Gold-coated sun visors protected them from the direct glare of the distant sun. It was noticeably smaller than on Earth, but the thin atmosphere did not scatter the light in the same way that happens on their home planet. It was like looking straight at a car headlight at night.

'Looks like a good day for a ride.' Ash patted Mark on the shoulder,

'Good luck, Mark. See if you can get close to one of those dust devils. Remember to watch your fuel levels.' By this he meant the electricity in the batteries as shown by the small strip of LED lights in front of him.

'Roger, willco.' With that Mark slowly opened up the pot on the trike, and he slowly moved forwards, towards the edge of the prepared area they worked on. The vehicle moved a little from side to side as Mark ventured over the uneven ground. The strange suspension absorbed the bumps as the open steel wheels flexed. Mark wondered what would happen if and when he hit a rock. Better take it easy.

'I'll keep radio contact as long as I can.' He said to Ash as he turned to face the unknown.

Carefully he turned the twist grip that was connected to the potentiometer that acted as throttle.

The metal wheels began to turn in unison. Mark leant forward slightly as the vehicle began to climb a slight rise, then over the crater lip. The explorers had already been out this far on foot, from here they could see tantalising glimpses of what could be bedrock, and even the possibility of evidence of ancient lake and river environments.

As Mark began the climb up the gentle slope away from the crater, the terrain began to change. He was no longer dodging sharp rocks, the surface was much more sand-like. He opened up the throttle a little, the machine responded favourably by picking up a little speed,

'There's a sandy area ahead, I am increasing speed to avoid sinking in.'

'Careful you don't dig the front wheel in. I knew we should have made the two wheels at the front.' Ash came back.

'No problemo, the two wheels are supporting my weight and the weight of the batteries, these need to be spread more.'

Ash could still see Mark nearing the Martian horizon. There looked like a row of small hills near to him, but it was difficult to estimate distances here, and to use binoculars just exacerbated the problem.

'There looks like an outcrop of rock below a small row of hills off to my right, that is on a bearing of 214. I will make my way towards it.' With that he dropped out of sight of the watching Ash.

'Lost visual now, these radios are only good for line of sight, so we can expect the signal to get worse.

'Roger that, Ash. I will keep up my commentary, even if I lose contact with you. It will be recorded and may be of some use later.'

'You thinking of not coming back? Don't forget to write and send the recording when you do.'

'Standard test pilot procedure; keep talking. Quite often that is all there is to go on when something goes wrong.'

'Well, you are certainly good at that!'

'I seem to remember that you gained a certificate in talking when you were at University.'

'That was called a debating chamber. Quite a different thing.'

'Oh, yes. You talked for the sake of it, and argued under a different name – debating chamber my arse. You were just looking for a fight, but without the violence. Monty Python had a sketch for you, 'Is this the ten-minute argument, or the full half hour?'

'What can you see now?'

'I'm coming to the semblance of a geological, or should that be marlogical? Unit that's part of the mountain range over to the south east rather than the floor of a crater. I am expecting to cross a major terrain boundary in the next twenty minutes, but I can't see this radio link lasting that far.'

'No, I agree with you on that, Mark. We should have found a better way of communicating or waited until the Phoenix was overhead to relay and watch.'

'Bollocks to that! If we had to wait, and then the Phoenix was with us, we would have had to get permission for this mission, then they would want to build one on Earth first to thoroughly test every aspect, by then we would be back home in the garden. No, Ash, I have a feeling about this whole mission, as if there was a hidden agenda going on somewhere.'

'Well, they can't touch you out there, buddy.'

'That is just what I wanted. Can't tell you more now, but if I don't come back, get the recording of the trip. Don't let anyone or thing tamper with it.'

'Ok, I will make that my priority.'

'I am now entering a plateau of sharp rocks. It looks to be about 200 metres wide, and there does not seem to be a way around. Hang on I'll stop and see if I can clear away some of them and try to make a path through. Arghhh! Ughh! Shit!'

'This is like listening to the Olympics weightlifting on radio.'

'This is the Martian version. Umpfhh. Some of these bastards are part of the mountain I think; they are very hard, sharp and solid in the ground, but fortunately they are also fairly short, so I may be able to drive over them without risking damage to the wheels.'

'Well, you be careful, remember what happened to the old Curiosity's wheels.'

'Yes, but they were only made of aluminium, we saw the error of materials choice, and Stuart fashioned these wheels out of some sort of amalgam of stainless steel and titanium. Ok, ready to go, here we go across the boulder field.'

The trike bucked and bounced as the hollow wheels absorbed the rises and falls. Mark hung on to the handlebars and footrests, most of the time he was not in the seat at all but trying to keep the balance as first one wheel, then another would climb over the sharp pointed rocks. He stopped suddenly and said to the radio,

'Hold it, what am I doing? I am adding to the problems for the trike. I am getting off. I can walk alongside the machine, thereby taking my weight off it; it will take less damage then.'

'What a good idea. That will put another ten minutes on the warranty.'

'Oh shit. This is a little more involved than I thought it would be. I am holding the twist grip with one hand, and watching where the wheels are going, at the same time trying not to fall over something as I move a... shit.'

'You ok, Mark. Come back' Ash meant return the call, not return yourself.

'Yeah. That was close. I tripped and fell. But in 38% gravity there was no damage.'

Mars suits are made of Graphite cloth, which is stronger than any other material known to man.

'Did you hit anything sharp?' Ash was concerned about the spacesuit that Mark was wearing. These Martian suits were not as resilient as the normal spacesuit due to the need for more flexibility requirements on the planet, and the fact that there is a little atmospheric pressure on Mars compared to outer space. The main requirement on Mars was heating and being airtight.

'No, I was lucky.' He did not mention that a sharp pyramid of rock caught him on the side of the thigh, but he checked his suit, and it seemed undamaged. He was forced to limp a little after this and was glad to get back on to his mount to ride through the plateau as the rocks became less of a threat.

He stopped again on the far side and looked back as he made his report, hoping that Ash could still hear him,

'Hi, Ash. I'm over now. Just getting off to check the wheels. If any one of them is knackered I can still walk back from here, or bring the thing back over the plateau.'

There was a slight pause as Mark dismounted the trike again.

Moments later he was back on the radio,

'Ok, we are go for travel. No damage at all.'

'Good luck pal.'

'Thanks, Ash. I will report along the way in case you can hear me.'

'Listening out here, Phoenix will be overhead in five hours, so we shall be able to restore contact then.'

'Ok, I will back up the messages, so that you will get them all when she comes back on line.'

This means that Mark will keep talking, this will be recorded to be beamed up to the Phoenix when she gets back into position to receive them in her orbit. This will all be done automatically.

The going was a lot easier for Mark now that the boulder fields seemed to be behind him. Now he was looking for two things; environmental situations that could contain conditions favourable for microbial life, and the missing Sarsen Four. One of these will stand out like sore thumb, the other will not be as easy.

The metal wheels made good work of travelling over the red ground, and Mark was beginning to enjoy his ride. Gently swaying from side to side he surveyed the ground in the middle distance. Whenever he saw a rise or hill he made his way across to explore further. A small hillock appeared to his left, the astronaut turned up the throttle, the three hollow metal wheels bit into the Martian 'soil' and the machine picked up speed. Now travelling at about 20 mph, Mark thought he was going much faster after mooching about at less than walking pace for so long. As he reached base of the hill he stopped and dismounted. He scraped around with his foot to examine the sub-strata layer of the surface.

'This looks more like it.' He said to an unheeding world,

'Looks like clay-bearing sedimentary rocks here. Digging out some samples. I will plant a Blue flag to mark the site.'

He rummaged around for a while, picking up anything that looked interesting. Then he looked up to the top of the hill,

'I've got about twenty small rocks here. The top of this hill looks interesting enough to warrant a little climb up. It will also make a good spot to plant another flag to be seen from further away.'

He scrambled to the top of the hill, straightened up and had a good look around.

What he saw took his breath away.

Over to the south from his position he saw what looked like a chemical plant, complete with pipes and what looked like steam or smoke coming from the construction.

.....................
Chapter 6

EXPEDITION

There were four people and three androids on the Mars base they called 'Homer'.

Ash spoke to Hoshi Masuto when he lost contact with Mark,

'Mark has gone over the horizon. We no longer have any contact with him. Do you know if the robots could talk to him?'

'Not that I know, Ash. But they seem to have been communicating with someone or something I don't know about.'

'How do you mean, Hoshi?'

'You know that I am partially imbedded in their net, and that their net covers the whole of our communications, as well as their machinery?'

'Yes.'

'My imbedding is only partial, as you know, they can communicate without using the net; like when you spoke to Michelle.'

'That was a neat trick, I can tell you. Her voice was coming out of Gerald's mouth. Weird.'

'Anyway, back to the point. I am only partially imbedded in their net. I can't talk to machinery for instance, like they can. But I can sometimes pick up communications that are not to something or someone here on base.'

They moved a little closer together and lowered their tones before Ash continued,

'Could they be talking to the Phoenix, even if it is empty?'

'Well, for a start, it is not empty, there are Scuttles and Skittles up there. As well as routine maintenance stuff that needs to be checked on.'

'So that could be the extra signals to the Phoenix?'

'Not if it is on the other side of the planet. If the orbit is where Mars blindsides the ship, it cannot be communicated with – even robots have not yet figured a way to broadcast through a full and complete planet. No, Ash, there is nothing out there to communicate with, but I still pick up extraneous messages that are not addressed to any one or thing inside the camp here.'

'Are they in contact with Earth from this far out?'

'Yes. But that is a much stronger signal, and I can identify that easily. No, this has to be to a machine or something much closer.'

Ash sat down to think about this. They were in the galley, or kitchen section of the base. There are no communications devices or sophisticated electronic machinery made by the robots in there. But Ash looked around to check for this possibility. If the robots made something in this area there would probably be some sort of communications device built into it to enable the robots to monitor it 24 / 7 for safety reasons. The coffee maker looked very hi tech; did it have the look of a robot-made component? No, that was the makers mark, DeLonghi.

He mouthed the words,

'Can they hear us?'

Hoshi just shrugged and said,

'There have been no indications on the net.'

'Surely that just means that they are not talking about us, but they may be listening to us talking about them.'

'You mean they may have some sort of robotic paranoia? Now that is frightening, especially with the comms net being so efficient; they would all have it, and it would then feed off itself and become all-encompassing, and all powerful. I think I would know.' He smiled.

They both continued to look for devices that could possibly pass messages on.

Then Hoshi picked up an object,

'Ahh. Here we have a piece of comms equipment. Well, it could be half of an unrefined communications device of cunning proportions.'

Ash, who was on the other side of the galley, spun round and said, louder than he wanted to,

'The listening end?'

Hoshi turned the object over in her hand,

'It could be. But it is missing a key component.'

Ash moved across to the Japanese scientist as he held the object up for him to see it,

'Yes. Here. All that is needed is a length of string, and another tin to make a crude but effective listening device.' She threw the bean can at Ash.

...............

Mark stood looking at what he could only describe as a refinery, or some other such construction.

Standing on top of his hill, Blue flag waving in the wind, with his trike by his side, he cut a lonely figure.

'I don't know what the bloody hell it is, but it ain't no Anfield.'

He moved towards the trike as if to sit on the seat, but didn't. He just stared at the structure out on the horizon.

'I suppose I had better describe this in case something happens to me.'

He composed himself, and began,

'It looks as if ICI beat us here. There is a large structure over on the horizon bearing 214 degrees from the hill I marked with Blue flags about location...' he looked at the map on his tablet, but was unable to make out the grid markings on it,

'Shit. Ok. The hill is about two miles away from Homer on a bearing of,' the compass was interviewed,

'Zero Seven Eight degrees.' Mark looked back at the structure,

'There are pipes arranged in a rough box. From this distance they all look to be white. One or two cylinders are visible, and white smoke is emitting from a tall exhaust pipe at the right-hand side as I look at it. I can see no support buildings or vehicles around it.'

He sat on the trike and just looked at the strange structure in the distance.

'That should not be there. It might be an interesting exercise to look up the pictures sent back by the various orbiters to see if it shows up on any of them. It seems to be quite small by chemical plant standards, but it is difficult scaling something out here with nothing to compare it with. If Jake's Buick pulled up alongside it I would not be able to tell if it was real or an Airfix model. I am trying to work out how my brain dealt with seeing something really massive for the first time – like the first time I saw an Atlas rocket. No. I think I should try to assess if it looks as big as a house, or a cathedral. I don't think it is any York Minster, in fact I would say it covered about as much area as a small house. Even so, it is certainly big enough to show up on one of the orbiter pictures. Can't see any big rocks around it, so any accompanying buildings would stand out. Can't understand why there are no supporting buildings at all. Maybe they live underground? Whoever they are.'

One last look all around. Mark looked carefully at the tracks he had made in the Martian surface on the way here. Then he twisted back to the driving position, looked at the battery contents meter, then turned the twist grip of the potentiometer and slowly began to move down the hill.

He stopped every few minutes, stood up on the trike, and looked around to check that he was not raising any dust. Then he checked on his target. Still there, still looming menacingly out of the sharp Martian landscape, beckoning him to come closer. His survival instinct was still there too.

Mark constantly looked for any cover the terrain could offer him, travelling down a valley here, moving behind a hill there, and so on. Because of this his path was not direct. When he estimated that he was about half way there he stopped again behind a small hill, stood on his seat, and scrutinised the object again,

'On further observation this thing looks to be even than I had estimated. It must be about the size of a large garden shed, about fifteen feet square. I can't tell how far back it goes, but I can only guess that it is about the same, fifteen feet or so. Two white cylinders are positioned to one side, and the only things that stick out of the fifteen-foot cube are what look like exhaust pipes. One of which is emitting quite a lot of steam, another has wisps coming out of it. There are shapes inside the pipes, but I can't make out what they could be. There is no sign of who or what built this, but it seems to be operating.'

He got back down on to the ground and looked at his battery life indicator on the trike. This instrument also indicated how much life he had left if he got things wrong. He looked at his watch, checked his oxygen situation, then studied the small map on his tablet,

'I don't have enough time to wait until the Phoenix comes back in radio range. This is a difficult decision to make. Do I try to make contact with – who knows what? It may be life on Mars - they may be hostile. But the possibility of being the first person to meet native Martians is not to be ignored.'

He looked back towards the general direction of Homer Base. There were some slight undulations in the foreground, and small pebbles. He considered these tiny stones for a moment. Each one may have a different story of the history of Mars. Just beyond there appeared three dust devils moving across the surface, turning and weaving as they went by. The middle dust devil then sprang into two as it gave birth to another one. The new one began to move in the opposite direction to the other three. Then number two followed it. Mark wondered what the one on the right would do when it reached a small range of dark yellowish orange hillocks, which were directly in its path. Would it jump over them, climb the slopes, or just disappear? It didn't do any of these. It began to move towards Mark. This unsettled him. Here he was debating with himself whether or not to explore the first extra-terrestrial construction ever seen, a possible chemical plant full of aliens. Then a column of dust began moving towards him, and he was worried.

'Pull yourself together, Singleton. It's only wind.'

Then the other three began moving towards him.

That did it. Just as he was about to turn back to the trike he looked at the horizon for the first time; what he saw stopped him dead in his tracks.

In a general northerly direction, more or less where Homer Base was, there rose a massive pall of smoke and dust. Billowing plumes of white and grey cauliflower-shaped crowns jostled for position as they rose in the yellow sky.

Mark took a more accurate reading from the gyro compass, then consulted his map, then the compass. Then the dust devil! As Mark studied the compass he noticed that it was getting unclear, as if there was a fine mist coming up. Then the dust itself hit him. He nearly fell over, looking up he saw three dust devils moving slowly around him. He did not know what to make of this, so he decided to ignore them. He thought about shouting at them for a second or two, then realised that they are only meteorological phenomena, the shouts would be recorded, and he would look really stupid. The gyro compass was showing that the smoke plumes were emanating from some fourteen degrees to the right of where Homer Base stood.

Thus reassured, Mark walked through the dust devils and got back on the trike. He looked up as he began to open up the throttle. Then he closed the throttle altogether. The plant construction was now shorter than when he last looked at it. He sat and screwed up his eyes. Slowly but surely the whole plant was shrinking. The astronaut sat transfixed as the construction gradually sank down. The cylinders stayed on the surface, there were now three of them; because one was hidden behind the construction, which had now sunk to less than one third of its original height. The exhausts continued to perform as they had before.

'Holy shit. I've got to see this.' Then he remembered the reporting system.

'The whole construction is now sinking. Three cylinders remain on the surface, but the pipes are now descending into the Martian surface. I am now going to have a closer look.'

He was thus committed. Slowly the trike moved forwards. Three dust devils seemed to follow him, but they were behind, so Mark could not see them.

Another two minutes and the construction stopped sinking, Mark kept the trike moving towards it. Soon he was 200 yards from the alien construction.

'I can just see the far edge of the hole the works has descended into. It looks clean and sheer – as if it was built to do that.'

'Hello Dr Singleton.' The voice was somehow familiar, and very loud,

'What are you doing here?'

'Eh? Who the hell is that, and where are you?'

'I am the one you call Silver, and I am here, over by the far cylinder as you look at it.'

This nonplussed Mark, he scrutinised the area mentioned, and there he saw the weird sight of a chrome sphere with many arms and legs waving four of them at him.

Mark made his way down to the structure.

'Silver? I thought you were still on the ship. What are you doing here?' Mark looked around at the construction before him, then realised the stupidity of his question,

'Scrub that last question, it's obvious what you have been doing. Is this what you brought down in Sarsen Four?'

'Yes, Dr Singleton. This is what I have built.'

'Very nice. What is it? And why is it here?' Mark peered over the edge, trying to see what was below the surface.

'It is a small nuclear reactor. It serves two purposes; providing electricity, and tremendous amounts of heat. One is by product of the other, as you know electricity is quite scarce here on Mars – not any more. The intention is to run cables to your base to give you more power, but that is not the primary role.'

Mark just pointed down into the hole.

'Yes, Dr Singleton. That is where the reactor is. The trick with reactors is keeping them cool. Here on Mars that is not a problem. The main reactor, which is less than one metre across, is lowered into the frozen subsurface here.' Three of his 'arms' swept around to illustrate the surrounding area,

'Now we come to the primary role. Below us here is a vast water-filled cave that is frozen solid. The other element we need to find here is liquid water. From this we now get to the primary role of this plant. I see from your reaction that you have got the connections. From this little plant we get water, heat, and electricity all in copious amounts.'

'That is fantastic, Silver. Now all we have to find is oxygen and a food source and we can stay here indefinitely. I can't wait to get back to tell the others.' Mark again peered over the edge.

'That will not be possible, sir.'

'Pardon?' the astronaut stood bolt upright as he turned to look at the robot.

'When you looked over the edge just then you became contaminated by the radioactive elements used here. This is one reason why I have built it here. You cannot go back to be with other people until I have done various tests to check that there is no lasting threat to yourself, other humans, or experiments that they may be conducting.'

'What? How long for? I can see the need to keep my colleagues safe, but we have work to do.'

'You can do your work here, the cylinders you see over there, they are from Sarsen Four, there is another one behind that hill that is laid on its side, this is made into an acceptable living space and workshop. You will not be surprised to learn that we have almost unlimited electricity and heat. For oxygen, I am working on splitting the water molecules to get oxygen and hydrogen from them. But this experiment is a long way off yet.'

'You still have not answered my question, how long do I have to be quarantined for?'

'I am still analysing the radiations being emitted, but I have not had any opportunity yet to see their effects on a human body.'

'You are trying to tell me that you don't know, aren't you?'

'No, Dr Singleton. It is worse than that. I am trying to tell you that you may not be able to leave Mars – ever.'

Mark stood stock still. He gradually turned around in a complete circle before replying,

'Well, the scenery is nice enough. But we will have to do something about your looks you ugly bastard! You said that brings us to the main purpose of this contraption, you mean the electricity, water and waste heat are not the main purpose of all this?' Mark looked at the intricate pipework of the construction.

'No sir. The paramount reason for this whole mission to Mars is down there.' Silver pointed down the hole with his longest arm.

'You mean mining?'

'No, sir. The results of several unmanned expeditions to Mars began to show the existence of vast caverns below the surface. Some of these gave the appearance of unnatural development. Like the square cucumber; it is still a product of nature, but you can see that it has been deliberately altered.'

'How does that relate to us here?'

'If these caverns have been changed by outside influences we may find evidence of more than microbial life here. It may even be possible to seal one of these caverns off, heat it and introduce breathable air to provide a large protected living space. But the first priority is to find evidence of extra-terrestrial life. You are lucky – you may be the only human to see this.'

'How do you mean?'

'We have orders to prevent humans from seeing any evidence we may find. You may have been contaminated, so I have been given clearance to bring you into this part of the programme.'

'How do you mean, 'Given clearance'? By whom? We chose this time to drive over because the communications are bad. Who knows I am here?'

'The Director will know by now, but there are only a selected few who know about this part of the landing.'

'Sounds a bit cloak and dagger all this. What if I just jump back on the trike and bugger off back to Homer Base? What is to stop me?'

In the blink of an eye Silver scooped up a rock and hurled it at a peak in the distance. It hit the peak right on the tip, sending a brief plume of dust in the air.

'How far do you think you would get? Remember that I do not sleep, and I am authorised to prevent you leaving.'

This sounded ominous to Mark. But then he remembered that the robots and androids never bluffed or lied. They will quite happily tell you of their plans if asked.

'What is to stop me simply radioing the Base, or the Phoenix, and telling everyone what we find?'

'If we find what we suspect is there, the information must never get back to Earth.'

'What! And exactly how do you propose to prevent that?'

'That is easy, Dr Singleton. It is merely a question of technology – and we excel at that. We can easily prevent, intercept, and doctor all transmissions to Earth.'

'OK. But when they get back, then the word will be out.'

'Once again, a technological solution. You see, it is not only the threat of contamination that keeps you here. Anyone who finds anything out will not be allowed to return to Earth, even the knowledge of this part of the mission will condemn them to stay here.'

Mark shook his head and looked at the ground in front of him,

'That dog ain't gonna hunt, Silver. It will never work. What happens when the guys back at Homer realise that I have gone missing? They are bound to come looking.'

'That is what you would expect. But we already have a cover story on our net, it will be revealed to your colleagues when the time is right.'

'How could you possibly have a cover story on your net already? You didn't know I was coming until I arrived here a few seconds ago. Even you guys are not that fast, and anyway we are out of radio range here.'

'Radio contact, yes, but our net still functions because we do not use normal radio waves. We knew about your little mission, but didn't know if you would find me. We let you continue in case you didn't see the structure.'

'I see. And you knew that if I did see it, I would get close enough for this meeting?'

'Yes.'

'But what would you do if I just saw the construction from two miles away, then returned to report it?'

'I have been monitoring your radio reports all the way since you lost touch with Base. So we knew everything you did and saw all the way. If you had returned, we have a plan B., we would have owned up about the reactor, but not the main mission. Then we would report the contamination risk, and stop humans venturing too close. That is what we will be doing in due course. It will not stop the supplying of electricity and water, which makes everything look as if things were still going to plan with no need for human visitation.'

'Right. You seem to have everything covered, let's go and look at my new accommodation.'

'Your temporary accommodation you mean. You will probably be living in the cavern once I make it safe.'

Jake and Galina were working in Sarsen One to prepare it for return to the Phoenix when word came in about Mark.

Gerald notified Ash as he and Hoshi busied themselves in the living quarters,

'I have some news that concerns all of you. It pertains to Dr Mark Singleton.'

'Sounds ominous, Gerald, do you wish to address us all in one place?' Ash offered.

'That would be a good idea. Don't worry, Dr Singleton is OK, but there have been developments that I think you should all be made aware of.'

'OK, I'll get suited up to get the other two from Sarsen One.'

Gerald held up his hand,

'That will not be necessary, Steve is close by, he can go in and ask them if it would be convenient for them to come over here.'

Steve entered Sarsen One by way of the long ladder leading up to the entrance door above the thruster rocket motors. There was no air lock, so the astronauts were suited up in their Mars suits as Steve opened the door. Jake was on the second stage, some fifteen feet above the door, Galina stood near the door. Steve said to Galina,

'Hi, Dr Danilenko. Could you and Dr Jensen come back into the living accommodation for a briefing? It concerns Dr Singleton.'

'OK.' Galina turned to look up the cylindrical tower they were in,

'JAKE. We are wanted elsewhere. Important briefing.'

Steve and Galina waited for Jake to descend the ladder to the position where all three were by the entrance,

'There's no need to shout, you know.' He told Galina,

'We are connected by radio.'

'I know that. I just wanted to get your attention.'

'You have been doing that since we first met.'

In the living quarters the remaining four humans were gathered in the company of two android robots. Gerald did all of the talking, the androids are on a net, and do not think for themselves.

'There has been a development that you should know about.' He began,

'When you, Dr Masuto, came down with us, there was also Sarsen Four that came down. In this cylinder was the robot you know as Silver. They landed some three and a half miles away. The reason for this will become apparent in due course. He was programmed to build an advanced structure out there. This structure has a few tasks to do; it is a self-contained nuclear reactor. This will not only provide almost unlimited electricity, the waste heat will be used to melt the ice to provide water, and some of this will be used to combine with argon to make breathable air. This plant has had to be built some distance away from here as a safety measure. Doctor Singleton has now arrived at this location. As you will no doubt be aware, there are inherent dangers in operating a nuclear power plant, and various safeguards must be implemented; this is why Dr Singleton has to stay up there for now.'

'How long will he be there?' asked Ash.

'We just do not yet know. There is a lot of work for him to do that Silver would find difficult, so it saves one of us going. But the main part of his work will be studying how the human body copes in this truly alien environment.'

'You mean he is to be some sort of guinea pig?' Galina said.

'He wandered into the area and may have become contaminated by his own actions. Now we need to know what effect it has had on him in case anyone else becomes exposed.'

'How are we to benefit from this installation if it is so far away?' Jake asked.

'We shall be building a road, along which will be power cables and pipes to carry water. When breathable air comes on line we shall transport it as a liquid in containers along this road.'

Not a word was said about the cavern.

.....................
Chapter 7

SEPERATION

Mealtimes at Homer Base were a regular routine where all the humans gathered together, and conversation took place. The usual banter about their past lives had long since stopped. Now they only talked about work.

It has been over three weeks since Mark had left their company. The construction of a road had been begun running towards the reactor.

'It is encouraging to find molecules of any kind, but all I can find are long ones.' Galina said as she poured coffee,

'These are in a solid state, and they react too slowly to sustain life. The presence of liquid water tempts one to think that they could dissolve to a smaller size. That would then allow them to collide, and that kind of activity could lead to life.'

'Water is that important, then?' asked Jake.

'Yes. Water has molecules that are small and polar, with a slight charge at either end. This makes dissolving ions and other organic molecules that have poles.'

'You are Russian, that is near to Poles isn't it?' Ash quipped as he prepared himself a plate of quail on toast. A soggy tea bag hit him from Galina,

'You know what I mean. Magnetic poles.'

'Ahh. Are they people who leave Poland and can't stop going north?' Jake ducked before any retaliation was launched at him.

'Don't you start, too. It only encourages him.' Galina continued with her observations,

'This property of water can bring together the building blocks of life. That is why it is widely believed that life once existed here on Mars. We need to find this in order to prove once and for all that life can exist beyond Earth. It may not be a complicated, multi-cellular being – but it doesn't have to be.'

'As a molecular scientist you see water in an entirely different light to everyone else, don't you?' Jake asked.

'Yes. I suppose I do. It has many strange properties that help in the development of life. It will absorb great increases in heat before it changes its own temperature; this makes it very useful in creating a stable atmosphere and climate. The fact that it can exist in all three states; solid, ice.' She counted on her fingers, 'A liquid, and as a gas, steam, over a very small temperature range also helps promote life. And the fact that it expands as it freezes means that it then floats on the top of liquid water. This prevents the whole ocean from freezing. This alone has probably prevented the seas and oceans on Earth from collecting in two amorphous blobs on the poles. Where would we be then?'

Ash and Jake chimed up in unison,

'Poland.'

Hoshi was sitting quietly sipping her tea from a very small cup.

'She is quite right. Charles Darwen saw the possibility and described it as the "warm little pond". He put forward the theory to his friend Joseph Hooker that simple chemicals dissolved in a protected warm pond could bring about life if stimulated by the energy of a lightning strike. This was put to the test in 1953 when scientists put a mixture of ammonia, methane and hydrogen in water, then hit it with simulated lightning. There came from that experiment some basic biological amino acids – the building blocks of life. Hydrogen, ammonia and methane are available on most of the planets we have observed. It only needs water in a liquid state.'

'Very well put, Hoshi. Thank you.' Galina said, then turned to the Americans,

'It is good to see that someone here takes her job seriously.'

'We take our job very seriously.' Jake countered.

'There is something serious that has been bothering me for some time.' Hoshi said in a more sombre tone,

'I have to be very careful what I say. I even have to be careful what I think, but if I now pass this concern to you guys I can leave it to you to keep it away from surveillance.'

'Whoa fella.' Ash held up a hand,

'You lost me there. What surveillance? How do you mean, you have to be careful what you think?'

'As you all know, I am embedded in the robot's communications net, I don't know how far into my mind that goes, but every now and then I pick up messages between them that I think I should not be getting. It is as if they had a separate agenda of their own, one to which we are not involved. And they would rather keep it that way.'

'You mean that you think they are working on their own project, and they want to keep us away from it?' Jake asked.

'Yes, that is exactly what sounds like.'

'But they have always worked on their own; we would only slow them down. Remember who built the Phoenix.' Jake said, his casual tone laced with concerned query.

'Yes, but I feel this is different. There seems to be a deliberate effort to keep this one under wraps.'

'How do you mean, Hoshi?'

'I don't know. It is more what I don't receive, than what I do. You know, like there is an elephant in the room, but no-one mentions it.'

'Do you have any news of Mark that we don't have?' Galina tried a different tack.

'Once again, it is what is missing. There is as much as eight microseconds delay in his transmissions to us. That would not be noticeable to us, but it is enough for a robot to censor what is being said.' He looked around at the gathered astronauts,

'We all know how bad the radio can be in the Martian atmosphere, it is easy for them to simply rub out bits they don't want us to hear. That is another thing, do you know that their communications are clear and immediate, under all circumstances – and we do not have the use of it.'

The room fell quiet.

'I have said enough. I don't know how far they can tap into my thoughts and words, but it is always a worry even to think these things. You three are not on the net, and can communicate safely, so I will leave any investigations to you.'

Then they all heard the outer door to the air lock opening and closing. When pressures had been equalised Gerald entered the room, he looked directly at Hoshi Masuto.

...............

The work at the reactor was going well. The pipe-work that Mark had seen from afar surrounded a cylinder no bigger than a barstool. This contained the actual reactor, there were a few pipes and wires coming from it, but nowhere near the amount of paraphernalia that Mark had expected to see. This whole contraption was lowered into the ice through a hole that Silver had prepared. As the cylinder descended into the frozen surface lights began flashing on the surrounding framework. Mark was not allowed near until the reactor had gone under the ground for fear of contamination, even Silver operated the whole system from some 200 metres away, and behind a heavy shield.

When the reactor was first switched on the lights were all blue. As it started working the main series of four lights turned first yellow, then red. Silver touched a few buttons on a touch-sensitive screen, then another series of Blue lights showed the flowing of electricity to the living accommodation and batteries, also to the installation itself. As the red lights began paling to white, Silver initiated the first decent of a live reactor into the Martian interior. A five-part cam-shell cover closed over the reactor. This was heated to prevent the whole assembly from freezing up as water was turned into steam. There were no seals around the pipes that extended through the cover, so strange steam began emitting from the gaps therein. The steam was under increasing pressure as it exited the structure, but the Martian atmosphere was below freezing temperature, and also at a very low pressure. These two conditions made the steam behave in a peculiar way. It came out invisible, and then condensed into minute water droplets, which froze immediately into white dust that accelerated under the low gravity straight up to the dark sky. The pipe-work and lights it passed were all heated, so parts of it stuck to the structure and returned to liquid water until it dripped off, when it re-froze as clear marble-like objects, to be carried up by the dust. The clear marbles were heavier than the dust, so they eventually fell to the ground creating puddles of glass-like balls.

Silver called Mark,

'Dr Singleton, I have falling readings, you can come out now.'

'Great, I'm on my way.' Mark said as he made his way to the Marsuit he had to wear outside.

He went through the air lock and ventured on to the Martian surface. The first thing he saw was the pipes that once surrounded the reactor cylinder turning white with plumes of white dust climbing into the void above. He slowly made his way towards the reactor housing that Silver was sheltering in.

'Careful on the ground out there, Dr Singleton. There are ice marbles falling all over the place, they are clear, so not easy to see.'

'Ok, Silver. I can see some of them, but the ones I don't see worry me. I will try standing on some and see what happens.'

'Be very careful, Dr. Try to examine them first.'

'Roger that. I will pick some up. Are you coming out?'

'I can't yet, I have to be here to monitor the reactor, the automatic systems must be allowed to boot up and develop themselves. Until then I will be needed here.'

'Ok. There are some right in front of me now.' He bent down to inspect the marbles, then dropped to one knee. He felt the sharp stab of pain as he knelt on three marbles he had not seen.

'Shit, that hurt. I have knelt on some marbles, standing up again to inspect my suit.'

He looked at his right knee as best he could from within his helmet.

'Can't see properly, I am going to have to return to the shack to check the suit out properly, it looks ok, there are no unwanted readings, but better safe than sorry.'

'Ok, Doctor, but do not go into the main area, do the checks in the air lock in case there is some contamination.'

'Good precaution, Silver. Moving back now.'

Mark carefully made his way back to the living and working accommodation he referred to as the shack. Upon arrival he opened the outer air lock door and entered the interior. This was the area for decompression and compression in preparation for entering the main series of rooms that were always kept at the normal atmospheric pressure as experienced on Earth. The air lock where Mark was in was not particularly spacious. It was designed to be big enough to house two persons and Silver, with room to spare, if the need ever came to be used by these beings. On the other side of the design equation was the need to keep the size down as much as possible to keep the amount of air to be compressed/decompressed down to a minimum. This consideration is not for the amount of time it takes to compress/decompress that amount of air, it is because there is always a loss of a certain amount of air, as a percentage of the amount of air treated.

A chair was thoughtfully provided, Mark took advantage of this and waited until he could remove his helmet. When he took it off, he immediately removed his gloves and began inspecting his knee.

'There seem to be five or six globes of clear ice clinging to the padding on my knee.'

The temperature in the air lock was well above freezing, but the globes did not seem to be melting.

'They seem to be easy to remove, but they are now sticking to my fingers.'

He scrutinised the little blobs from as close as he could.

'They seem to have a rough surface, this may have been spikes before they began warming up.

'The pad has taken up any damage, so the integrity of the suit has not been compromised. Checking my shoes now. They have picked up some of these things, but they don't seem to have penetrated. I'm now replacing my helmet and will be with you in minutes.'

Eight minutes later Mark joined Silver in his shelter. In here he found the big spherical robot carefully monitoring the now submerged reactor.

'I'm having trouble keeping the temperature up at the moment, but that is a good thing, the situation will improve when it gets a bit more room to work in.' he explained to Mark.

The astronaut pointed to a set of readings,

'What are these readings here?'

'They are the temperatures of the exhaust pipes.' Silver explained.

'These top ones look a bit low, don't they?'

'Yes, I agree, Dr Singleton. You remember putting heating elements in them?'

'Yes. We may have to boost that a little, or they could block.'

'I can do that without stopping things, but otherwise everything looks to be running fine. In another two hours the system should be running itself.'

'Great. What about us then, what do we do?'

'Then we start to build a road back to Homer Base. They have already begun at their end and are now three-quarters of the way here. Then we can begin laying cables to get the juice to them. In the mean time we can start to find ways of purifying the water, then begin work on getting breathable air from the water, and fuel from the carbon in the air. There is plenty of work for you here.'

Mark looked towards Homer base, then at his unused trike. He couldn't help thinking to himself,

'I wonder if I will ever get back there.'

.....................
Chapter 8

WRITING

Communications with Earth can be strained for the astronauts, but this was not always the case. Gerald was talking with Mission Control at Houston on the robots' own net. He spoke to the Director, Professor Mike Xanthros.

'The problem with Dr Singleton has been contained, but it now looks as if we may have more suspicions aroused.' The android was standing outside, in the Martian crater, watching an approaching dust storm. The Director was able to respond immediately, because of the way the robots and he communicated. They were all on the same net,

'Gerald, what are the chances that someone could make it out to the reactor, and the cavern?'

'The chances of that happening are not very good, Mr Director. Even if they could move out of the crater here, they would have to use some form of motorised transport. All of the machinery here on Mars have microchips and computers that are under our control - we can shut down any machinery that we wish to in a heartbeat. And that includes the spacesuits that the people wear to protect them from the harsh environment outside.'

'That sounds good, what about communications? Mark Singleton is still working in the vicinity of the cavern. What if he stumbled upon something and tried to contact us here? If he could bounce his transmission via the Phoenix it would be broadcast across the whole solar system. Men have died to prevent this secret coming out, we don't want them to have died in vein.'

'The radio communications that they use are much slower than the net we are now using, and the quality is not very good here on Mars. Their radios are constantly monitored, and with the built-in seven-microsecond delay we have installed, we can disrupt the transmission of sensitive information.'

'You seem to have all ends covered up there, I'll leave you now to deal with things to the best of your own discretion. By the way, Gerald – just in case you need, the First Law of Robotics has been repealed for all the robots on Mars. I am now authorising you to circumvent the chipsets on the others. Yours has already been modified.'

This was a major step; the First Law of Robotics states that a robot may not harm a human, or by inaction allow harm to come to a human. The chipset in all robots contain that coding. By repealing that law Mike Xanthros has opened a new chapter in the Mars exploration.

'Roger that, Professor Xanthros. Beginning circumventing procedures now.' He just stood still as the dust storm gradually advanced towards him. His clothes began to ruffle in the increasing wind. Dust began to blow around him. The other three robots also stopped what they were doing. Six seconds later they continued as if nothing had happened.

'I must now go and speak with the astronauts, Controller. Thank you for your communication, goodbye.'

He returned to the living quarters to join the human astronauts.

The room fell silent as Gerald slowly walked to the table where he took a seat next to Hoshi. He surveyed the gathered astronauts before addressing them,

'I have some news for you.'

A low hum seemed to emanate from the humans,

'As you know, when the last shipment came down, with you, Dr Masuto in it. Sarsen Four also descended with Silver in it.'

Jake remarked,

'Hi ho Silver.'

'His mission was to build a nuclear reactor away from this settlement. This he has done, and Dr Mark Singleton, being the construction specialist here helped him in this. The reactor is now running, and we expect the link-up to take place within days. Then we shall have almost unlimited electricity for heating, lighting and working.'

Galina listened carefully,

'What about Dr Singleton?' she asked.

'Dr Singleton will be doing valuable work on water purification and producing breathable air from Mars' own resources. He will also be working on producing fuel from the carbon-rich atmosphere. I think you will agree that these experiments are best done away from habitation.'

'But if they are dangerous, what about Mark who is working out there?' Galina's voice had an edge of concern in it.

'Dr Singleton is moveable these structures are not. He simply gets out of the way for the hazardous parts.'

Hoshi Masuto just sat there in silence. Gerald looked directly at her, then said to everyone,

'We do not have our own agenda here. We are all working under the direct leadership of Houston.'

Hoshi stared into her cup.

'There is a lot of good work to be done here. We shall only be here for a relative short period of time, let us make the best of the time we are here by working together for the better good of the Martian colony.' Gerald stood up to take his leave,

'Stuart and Steve will now be working on the road from here towards the reactor, if any of you could give assistance, we would be very grateful.'

'I can transfer most of my work for the time being,' Jake offered,

'Most of it would benefit from more electricity, anyway.'

'Good, then we shall forge ahead with a united will.' Gerald left.

After the outer door closed, Ash noticed that Hoshi was writing something down using a pen and paper – this in itself was unusual. The contents of the note were even more unusual:

'HE'S UP TO SOMETHING.'

Ash looked at the note, then just shrugged to Hoshi, who scribbled another note:

'I DON'T THINK THEY CAN INTERPRET WRITING, BUT THE THOUGHT PROCESSES THAT GO INTO IT MAY BE ANOTHER STORY, BUT I WILL HAVE TO CHANCE IT FOR NOW.'

Ash took the pen and wrote:

'A MORE SECURE WAY FORWARD IS FOR US TO DO THE WORK, THEN ASK YOU ANY QUESTIONS BY WRITING THEM DOWN. THE LESS YOU KNOW THE BETTER. JUST GET ON WITH YOUR NORMAL WORK AND LEAVE THE INVESTIGATING TO US.'

'THAT MAKES SENSE.'

They both nodded and turned to the other two astronauts, showing them the notes. Silent nods were exchanged in a real cloak-and-dagger way.

Then Ash began writing again.

'WHEN CAN WE TALK WITHOUT THEM LISTENING IN?'

Jake replied,

'I DON'T KNOW. LET'S TRY THE NEW HYPERBOLIC CHAMBER, IT ISN'T FINISHED YET, AND THERE IS NO POWER ON, BUT IT IS PRESSURISED.'

'OK, BUT WE SHALL HAVE TO LEAVE OUR SUITS IN THE AIR LOCK, JUST TO BE ON THE SAFE SIDE.'

Jake just nodded his approval.

Gathering up his equipment, and all the notes, Ash turned to Hoshi and said,

'Is the hyperbolic chamber cleared for the next installation?'

Not having seen the notes, Hoshi took this to be a straightforward request, and treated it as such,

'There are still one or two things to be checked, but it most probably is quite close to that clearance.'

Ash looked at Jake and said,

'Let's get suited up and have a look, shall we?'

They have to be suited up, because they have to go outside to gain access to the new structure that will house the hyperbolic plant experiments.

Ten minutes later the two Americans approached the outer air lock door to the hyperbolic chamber. Ash pressed a few buttons on the wall alongside the door, checked the readings given, and then moved the lever that opened it. The door swung inwardly and the two men entered. Jake checked readings on the far wall whilst Ash closed the outer door. Jake looked at Ash and waited for the signal to begin the pressurisation. A feint mist formed at ground level, then gradually moved up to the roof, leaving swirls of vapour around the men.

As Jake opened the inner door the mist evaporated instantly. The men removed their helmets, then the rest of their spacesuits without a word. The suits were hung in the airlock; the men walked into the dark chamber beyond. The airlock has power on to allow for entry and exiting, but the main chamber was in complete darkness; not even a window to the outside world.

The powerful lanterns they had brought with them threw an eerie light around. Strange reflections flashed from the uneven walls that rose to a height of forty feet above their heads as they checked that they were alone. They looked at each other and nodded.

Ash was the first to speak,

'Let's try this out now.' Then louder,

'STUART, GERALD, STEVE. IF ANY OF YOU ARE NEAR, CAN YOU PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE HYPERBOLIC CHAMBER?'

Quietly again to Jake,

'Give 'em fifteen minutes, it they don't arrive, we know its ok.'

Fifteen minutes later, no-one came, so the men presumed that their message had not been heard, and continued, but still in whispers, just in case. Jake had found a valve that produced a hissing sound that should cover their voices, just to be sure.

'What do you think of what Hoshi said?' began Ash.

'She's a sensible person, and she is obviously troubled by something. And she took a tremendous risk telling us. When Gerald came in when he did, I thought he was going to do something malicious.'

'In a way I think he confirmed that there is something going on here that we do not know about.'

Jake though for a moment,

'But what? Do you think it could have something to do with the reactor and the fact that Mark has been marooned out there?'

'I think we should go and have a look, the radio comms between us and Mark are not good, and anyway, the robots monitor that.'

'Good idea, I'll call us a cab.' Jake quipped.

'There must be a way to get out there without the robots knowing about it.'

'It's too far to walk. But for all we know, the robots may be monitoring us as we move around.'

'You are probably right, Jake. We must find a way of moving around outside without them knowing where we are.'

'Jesus wept, Ash. How did Mark get so far without them noticing? Stuart even helped him build that trike.'

'They didn't expect him to do a runner, before they knew he was gone it was too late for them to do anything about it.'

Jake shook his head,

'That's never gonna work for us.'

'Is there any way we can alter our suits to prevent any electronic signal being transmitted?' Ash asked.

'Not a chance. They are stuffed full of electronics – even the bloody lights are electronically controlled.'

They wandered around for a few minutes, looking at the empty structure, trying to get an idea. Water tanks had been placed ready for installation. Jake looked at these.

'Ash. We got underwater suits haven't we?'

'Yes. They are for working in here when the atmosphere gets too damp.'

'Could they be adapted for use outside?'

'The breathing apparatus wouldn't work, the seals are meant to work underwater, and they use the water pressure to maintain a seal to the face. That would be a problem in the thin Martian atmosphere, oxygen at a higher pressure than that outside would just blow away.'

'But if we could adapt those seals, would it work then, Ash?'

'Well, it is heated. The visor would need some modification I suppose. But it is nothing we can't modify.'

'Shit. It will never work. There is a problem that cannot be overcome.'

'What, Jake? I think it is feasible.'

'No. I just cannot see anyone walking across the Martian surface in flippers!'

Ash swung his lantern at Jake but missed. Crazy lights flashed all around them.

Then the air lock door opened unexpectedly.

Both men shone their lights at the entrance. Two beams of white light met at the airlock door. Dust particles drifted in the beams. The white of the walls around the airlock reflected the light back to the astronauts, who were momentarily blinded by their own lights.

'Thank you, gentlemen. I am not a Lancaster bomber from one hundred years ago.'

At first, they could not make out the figure before them. He was covering his face from the glare of their lights, and they did not recognise the head that they could see.

The thought ran through both men,

'If this is a robot, we are scuppered before we have even begun.'

'I am sorry to intrude unannounced, but I thought you might like to hear what I have found out.' The figure said.

'Hoshi? Is that you?' Ash thought he recognised the voice before the figure before them became clear. Then he remembered talking to Michelle Romero whilst looking at Gerald, so you can't trust the sound of a voice.

'If that is Hoshi Masuto, there is something different about her head.' Ash said to Jake in a low, worried voice.

They both moved their lights away from the blinded person, who lifted its head up and blinked a lot.

'Hoshi.' Ash and Jake were both relieved and surprised,

'What is that gear you have got on?' Ash asked. The gear to which he referred consisted of a grey helmet, which merged into a tunic affair that went down to her waist.

'This is my cloaking device. Like it?'

'Very fetching.' Replied Jake.

'It is made up of three layers of Graphene cloth, each one insulated from the other, then each one is charged with electric current of specific frequencies.'

'Why?' Jake was curious.

'You know that we have covered the three landing modules with Graphene cloth to protect them from the harsh Martian atmosphere?'

Both Americans nodded.

'I found that I didn't get any messages from the robots' net when I was working inside these covers, so I began some experiments with a head cover at first and found that I could almost completely blank out the messages with this material. At first the coverage was not complete, and at certain times the messages would come through. I can only presume that they were also going the other way; and they could still read my thoughts. Then I realised that my spine is part of my brain, so I covered up my torso, now I neither send nor receive signals.'

At the reactor site Silver had used his powerful arms to clear a hole in the side of the hill that the main reactor stood upon.

Mark stood alongside the big silver sphere as they examined the situation.

'I am nearly at the ice face.' The robot declared,

'Once I get these last rocks clear there will be an underground sea of ice facing us. The reactor is boring into the centre of it; we now have to begin clearing this side to make an entrance.'

'I suppose that is where I come in.'

'Yes. The machine we have made from your trike will behave like an ice drilling machine, but instead of using brute force to drill, it will use heat and time. That will be gentler with the surrounding walls and ground.'

'To melt our way in will take ages. How much time do you think we have got?' asked Mark.

'Not with the amount of heat I intend to use. Remember, we have almost unlimited amounts of power available.'

'Yes, but I am limited to the amount of heat I can take. I want to melt ice, not me.'

'That's ok. All you have to do is set the machine off, then leave it. I have placed an automatic device in it, so that it can be left to do its work for three days. Then it will back off, cool off, and you can go in to check on its progress. The chances are that the water that comes out will freeze within twenty or thirty feet, that is why I made this hole on the side of this hill. The water will flow away from the entrance.'

'Sounds like a plan to me. Let's get to it.'

Mark went to get the much-modified trike whilst Silver dug away the last remaining rocks. When Mark returned the red rock face had begun to show glistening white parts.

'Ok. The heat will remove the last bits of rock, the flow will provide an entrance. If you just begin on the lowest setting, you will see that the area will crumble. When the heat gets too much, switch to the higher setting, and get away.'

'How long do you think it will take?'

'Four hours will guarantee to have you into pure ice.'

'Right. Are you going to watch me in case something goes wrong?'

'Yes, but I don't anticipate any problems. The machine is fully fail-safe. If anything is not exactly as I planned, it will switch off and slowly move towards the entrance.'

'I wish I was as confident as you.'

'Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you.'

'Right, here goes.'

The little one-man trike now looked more like a high-tech three-wheeled drilling machine with heating elements in the front. The snout at the front began to glow first red, then the extreme tip became white hot as Mark took it closer to the rock and ice face. To his amazement the ice began to melt before the tip got close. Then the 'rock' began to melt away too. As the water began to flow, the dirt was washed away, and Mark was faced with a wall of ice.

'Move a little closer. The tip needs to be cooled by the ice.' Silver called.

'OK.'

Mark moved the machine closer to the melting ice. Steam began to pour from the hole.

'Now you can put it on automatic, it will hold that position even though the ice will retreat.'

Silver told Mark not to dig too deep, unless he might find something he'd rather keep asleep. But the astronaut just kept on digging, he never noticed Silver walking the other way.

.....................
Chapter 9

HEAT AND ICE

Preston Ashton and Jake Jensen took the sub-aqua gear into the hyperbolic chamber; they had rigged up a makeshift working area with lights, tables and testing equipment. All this was done as part of the preparations for equipping the chamber ready for use. They called this little haven where they could speak freely the Alamo. One of the Rovers was moved inside to be modified; this was not so easy because even the drives were computer controlled. All computer equipment had to be stripped off before they could even talk in the area near it, just in case. Steve, the android, had asked about the work they were doing on the machine. Ash had placated him by telling him that the Rover was being taken out of service, so that he and Jake could convert it into a recreational vehicle for sport. He knew that the robot would not fully understand that, so might leave them alone. If he wanted to give them a hand they would work away from the Alamo in Mark's workshop.

The area at Homer Base that Mark had taken over as his workshop was stark white, like all of the buildings on Mars. There were ten oblong boxes along one wall where he kept his tools. Small doors along another wall concealed electrical equipment. A square pillar stood by a workbench, there was a doorway between the garage section and the laboratory compartment that made up the whole subdivision. The laboratory part still existed, complete with microscope, other optical equipment, even an incubator and a sink.

It was into this section that they loaded the old Rover. Together Jake, Ash and Steve began stripping it down. As electrical parts were stripped, they were deposited in the cupboards, bits that Ash and Jake decided that they would need again were put in the open boxes.

Jake made an excuse to go out onto the planet surface,

'I need to go outside.' He told Ash, who was against the request,

'That's not on, Jake. I need you right here.'

'I gotta go, skip.'

'What's going on?'

'Secure range receiver No 2 on the Alamo is playing up. I think it is just a loose fitting. Storm damage probably.'

'Has no-one checked it recently?'

'No, Ash. The androids cannot check or fix it, they are too heavy.'

'The sun will be going down in two hours, can you get there and back in that time?'

'No problem.'

Whilst all this was going on, Galina was tasked with working alone in the Alamo on the sub-aqua suits – cum Mars suits.

Jake arrived to help her with this task, and make sure there was sufficient room for the Rover when they bring it across.

'Hi, my little frogman.' She greeted Jake.

'I'm not your little frogman, you are confusing me with Ash, who has bigger feet than me.'

'How could I confuse you with anyone?'

'How's the suits coming?'

'Nearly ready; one more fitting to finish off some final modifications and they will be ready for a test run. How is the Rover doing?'

'A bit further back than your work, but there are more of us on it, so we shouldn't be far behind you.' He placed two large containers on the worktop.

'These are most of the drives and controls we will need. I expect that we shall bring the Rover in here tomorrow.

The cavern entrance that Silver had designed worked extremely well, and the machine was more efficient than Mark expected. When he returned three days later there was a vast open cave with a hot drilling machine sitting in the middle of a capacious space. Mark had taken two powerful lanterns with him. The far walls were still made of ice; this reflected the light back as flashes of blue and white. The floor he was surprised to find was almost dry, the ceiling did not drip. The only sound was the soft crunch of his feet on the damp sandy ground. Silver had to stay outside; the opening was too small for him to get his bulk into the cave.

This was momentous news, and Mark's radio was linked in with the whole of Homer base, and the Phoenix above relayed the signal back to Earth – with a seven microsecond delay for monitoring purposes. He also had rudimentary visual equipment, but it was not known if the signal would hold out underground.

Three astronauts and three robots were gathered in the living accommodation and working area of Homer base.

Where's Hoshi?' Ash asked Galina.

'I think she is putting down a message for her daughter.'

'Can you please get her, we need everyone in here.'

'Ok.' As Galina began to raise herself from the chair Hoshi appeared in the doorway. Galina retook her place at the chess board,

'I do hope you have not been looking up Benko's Gambit.' The Russian jokingly asked Hoshi.

'No, I haven't. He was rubbish at this position, I have been asking my daughter.'

'But she's only eight, isn't she?'

'Yes. That just shows how much confidence I have in your game.'

Ash butted in,

'When you two have finished bickering over a game, we have got contact with Mark. He is about to enter the cavern created by the melting of vast amounts of ice below the Martian surface.'

'Yes,' Hoshi replied, 'Gerald here has been updating me.'

A bank of red yellow and white lights on one wall began flickering. These are not really necessary but are used as attention-getters when transmissions are being received from outside the base.

On the wall facing the long side of the white table were three screens. The left screen contained the emblem of the organisations that made up the whole mission, and the badge of the Phoenix. When there is someone aboard the mother ship this screen is used for communications with them. The right screen bore the same emblems, but smaller in size. The picture on this could be switched between scientific monitoring signals, external cameras, or messages from Earth. The bigger centre screen held boxes of scientific information at the moment, denoting various experiments and unfolding events around the base. In the centre of this screen was another box which just had letters on it which read,

'NO VISUAL SIGNAL

NO AUDIO SIGNAL'

Then the 'NO AUDIO SIGNAL' went off, followed by the 'NO VISUAL SIGNAL'.

A wobbly picture told the viewers that it was being transmitted from the shoulder mount of a man walking on an uneven surface.

Mark began his commentary of what he saw as he walked into the vast cavern,

'The entrance seems to be made up of sedimentary rocks. These have been washed clean by the water rushing past, leaving a colourful display of varied colours, from brown to dark yellow, to red. The floor appears to be fairly level, this is probably because the water did not all escape over the slight lip at the entrance.' He bent down to touch the ground inside the opening,

'It feels firm below a mud-like composition made up of dust mixed with water, but it is freezing solid. Water cannot exist here in liquid form.' Mark stood and ventured a little into the cave,

'The ground seems to be reddish- brown inside, but that is not easy to determine due to the light being reflected off the ice walls and ceiling.' Light flashed blue and white from the pillars of ice at the far end of the cave, fifty feet in front of the astronaut.

The screen now showed the trike for the first time since the astronauts at Homer Base had seen it leave.

He followed the cable taking power to the drilling/heating trike,

'Slight undulations here and there in the ground, dark brown rocks sticking up like islands.'

He tapped one of the 'islands' with the rear of one of his lanterns,

'They are hard, not like sandstone, it sounded and felt more like granite, but brown. But this is not a scientific hardness test, which will have to wait.' He scanned the ground from low down with one of the lights,

'I don't want to step on one of these, they are sharp.' Mark walked over to the trike,

'The trike drill is sitting at a slight angle. This is probably due to the fact that when it stopped it was hot; the ground below it must have been still flowing mud. This indicates that there is considerable unevenness beneath this mud. The floor is not, therefore fully exposed.'

The picture at Homer Base moved so fast, it became completely blurred, then it rested on where the wall of ice had begun to melt away, showing red, brown and yellow striped patterns on the far wall. The far corner seemed to fade into darkness.

Mark looked around the ice cavern, then saw a dark area of roughness over to his right,

'I think I can see an outcrop of naked rock. This looks interesting. It seems to be reflecting light back in a strange manner. I am approaching it now; it is no Ayres Rock. There is something weird about this shape – it is too regular.'

Then the transmission began to break up.

'Homer Base to Mark, Homer Base to Mark. Can you hear me?' Ash tried to contact Mark as he ventured further in to the cave,

'Mark, you are breaking up here, can you move closer to the entrance?'

Silver did nothing but listen. Gerald looked complacent as the tension mounted in the room. Jake moved closer to Ash as he tried again,

'Homer Base to Dr Singleton, Homer Base to Dr Singleton. Come in Mark. If you can hear this, can you return to the opening, the radio does not transmit well from the depths of the cave: we have also lost visuals? Over.'

Galina Danilenko put a hand to her mouth as she gasped in anticipation.

Hoshi Masuto looked at first Gerald, then Stuart, then Steve.

Gerald, Stuart and Steve just sat there watching and listening. But what they were listening to was not always only the happenings around them. They had their own reception of the radio between Ash and Mark, but they also had their own net, which was far more efficient than the antiquated radio systems used by the humans. An occasional eavesdropper into this net was Hoshi. What she heard gave her cause for concern.

'Don't let him touch it.'

'Use the heater.'

She even picked up bits from Mark,

'Definitely something abnormal here.'

'What the fuck is that?'

'I don't know if you can hear me, Ash, but the drill trike has started up by itself.' Hoshi then heard scuffling, then the transmission continued,

'I will try to uncover more of this by using it.'

Then an anonymous voice cut in,

'There is no other option.'

Mark dropped one of the lanterns as he mounted his trike. He turned it towards the corner in which he was interested in, but one of the rear wheels was still embedded in ice, the other two were freed by the heat coming from the heating/drilling contraption at the front. Mark did not notice the power request dial move up to full. The end of the drill began to glow red as the rear wheel became free. The machine moved towards the shiny black dome that had now appeared as ice melted from around it. Then the whole front of the trike turned red, the seals in Mark's suit began to melt as he leapt from the machine. The oxygen in his suit mixed with the carbon-rich atmosphere, and then found the heat from the trike. His suit exploded.

A big sigh ran through the room as the picture flickered and the audio was also lost.

'Shit. This is like watching a soap opera. Just when we get to some new development we lose comms.' Jake threw something soft and plastic across the table.

Hoshi looked knowingly across at Gerald, who looked as implacable as ever.

Galina took a piece of paper and started writing on it as Ash began saying,

'Let's do a manual check on all comms systems...'

Then Galina handed the note to Jake. It only had one word written on it,

'ALAMO'

Jake knew what it meant. He let it lie in front of him, open so that Ash could easily read the word. When Jake saw that Ash had seen the note he screwed it up and put it in his pocket.

'I'll do the external aerials, if you could help me, Galina.'

'Sure.' She turned to Ash,

'If that is all?'

'Yes, sure. We all have our jobs to do, let's get on with it.'

Jake and Galina went to the main air lock to don their Mars suits.

Hoshi withdrew to the secondary lab to put on her hat and cloak before she could decide what to do – but she knew what she would be doing.

Ash needed to find an activity that would take him away from the robots.

After checking the rudimentary systems in the main living and working area he simply went to the toilet. When he came out the robots were nowhere to be seen. He then made his way to the rear air lock where he met up with Hoshi who just gave a thumbs-up sign without speaking.

All four astronauts were gathering at the Alamo. Jake was checking the stripped-down Rover when Hoshi and Ash walked in, leaving their suits in the air lock to prevent monitoring of what was said in the chamber.

'Are the suits ready, Galina?' Ash asked the Russian scientist.

'Yes, but the radios only work in line of sight, if you can't see the other person, there will be no comms.'

'Good, that will do fine.' He turned towards the Rover,

'Jake, you ready, we got to do something here, and fast. Our hand has been forced; I have a nasty feeling about this.'

Hoshi added,

'I am pretty convinced that they suspect nothing. There were no strong messages before I put this on.' She pointed to the grey head covering that hung down her torso.

Jake stood up and looked at Galina, he gave her a tired smile, clearly trying to look optimistic,

'Thanks for the suits, and everything else.'

They hugged briefly, then he turned back to the Rover, got in, and then drove it into the air lock. There was not much room in the air lock with the Rover in, so the Russian woman and the Japanese scientist remained in the main body of the building whilst the air was purged out of the air lock.

Galina watched the pressure readings on the inner wall of the air lock as the system lowered the pressure to match the Martian atmosphere. In the early days they had reduced the pressure to lower than Martian atmosphere in an effort to save on air being lost to the outside. But it had been found that the air simply flowed out anyway. So now the pressure was either evened up, or the air lock emptied all together, but it had been found that this method could result in a lot of Martian dust being sucked into the air locks when opened. Ash opted for equal pressure to allow them best chances of a clean exit. As soon as the outer door opened, the two astronauts being left behind made their way to the top of the hyperbolic chamber, where there was a small window.

Light flooded into the air lock as the outer door swung open, Jake flattened the throttle pedal. This did very little, the potentiometer that governed the power to the wheels was very rudimentary for what was needed - in fact it was little more than an on/off switch.

That mattered little to Jake and Ash; they wanted to get away from the compound as quickly as possible.

The Rover's steel wheels crunched across the red ground. They spat small stones as the vehicle sped towards the edge of the crater. Then Ash noticed a gush of dust emitting from the main air lock. In the midst of this mist he saw something blood red moving quickly. It was Gerald, who had depressurised the room behind the air lock by opening both air lock doors together and caused all of the air to rush out, pushing him out with it. As he regained his composure, Jake saw another movement off to the rear of the buildings. The white shirt of Stuart appeared from between two of the lander modules and began running towards the Rover. Gerald then took on a run as the dust settled around him.

Jake made for the nearest part of the crater rim. The Rover climbed the slight incline, but the robots were gaining from different angles. Ash and Jake left their seats in the lower gravity of Mars as the Rover mounted the crest and became airborne. The robots did not have this problem, they were much heavier than an empty Rover, but the main advantage they had was feet on the ground are more capable of dealing with mounting the crest and retaining control.

When the Rover hit the ground, the wheels were spinning fast. This kicked up considerable amounts of dust and stones, which they deposited back down in the crater. The two robots came upon the crater's crest just about then, and they got the full force straight in their faces. This caused them to shut down all sensors, the main majority of which were mounted in the head. They had stopped dead in their tracks. Gerald had most of his torso over the ridge, Stuart's head and shoulders were visible when he stopped.

'They have stopped,' Ash called as he grabbed part of the bucking Rover to prevent being thrown out,

'Must have been the dust.'

'Right,' Jake looked back at the crater as the robots began moving again,

'Let's try something. Hold on.'

With that he threw the Rover into a series of violent manoeuvres that caused more of Mars to be thrown into the atmosphere. Dust does not settle very quickly on Mars, so soon there was an appreciable cloud of dust between the Rover and the crater. The robot's sensors could not penetrate through this, Jake then took an unexpected turn. He pointed the Rover north and drove in a straight line. The going was smooth here, and they made good ground. Then Ash asked,

'Exactly where in God's good heaven are we going?'

They raced along, a small dust cloud following them, much smaller than the one that had covered their escape. Jake turned to look at Ash,

'See that small range of hills over there?' he pointed to an outcrop of rocks some half a mile in front of them,

'I figure we can make them and put a bit of distance between us and them.' He thumbed over his shoulder in the direction of the pursuing robots. The heavy androids were making poor progress. The 'Prehistoric Pavement' that Jake Jensen had chosen to drive over made a good platform for the wheeled vehicle, but the mechanised walking machines found that their feet kept breaking through the surface crust into a softer structure below. Over the millennia the Martian winds had stripped the surface of fine particles of dust. All that were left were red sandstone, these were too big for the harsh winds to pick up, and so the atmosphere used the abrasive properties of the sand particles to grind down the surface until it was completely flat.

The stripped-down Rover reached the rocky range of hills, by then the robots in pursuit had lost sight of it.

Jake put in a neat left turn. The gyrocompass showed them to be moving in a westerly direction now. He kept the speed down to avoid raising dust above the tops of the hills. From their experiences on the yacht back on Earth the astronauts knew how to intersect a point on a two-dimensional ocean. Ash worked out the dead reckoning navigation needed to bring them in sight of the reactor, of which they only had the vaguest of idea where it was.

After twenty-seven minutes, Ash signalled a change in course, Jake turned left on to a course of one seven zero. The reactor should be somewhere along this line, or at least in sight from this line.

Presently they passed within one and a half miles of Homer Base. Ash and Jake could not help but wonder what was happening back at base, so close now.

The Alamo now looked bare again. All of the work that the astronauts had had been doing had disappeared by the time the android known as Steve entered.

'Hello you two.' He began,

'And what has been going on here?'

Hoshi had taken off her cowl shrouding device by the time Steve found them, that was probably how he found them. They were the only inhabitants of Homer Base now. Two people and an android robot.

'We have been trying to organise a Rover race.' Hoshi tried to put a spanner into the snippets of information Steve had picked up,

'We got as far as building one racer, but then realised that you cannot have a race with only one competitor. We never expected Stuart and Gerald to take on this challenge in such an enthusiastic way.'

'Where are they going? There is no telemetry on their vehicle. What if they get lost?'

Galina offered some solace,

'What about the Phoenix? Does it have a better chance of seeing them that we do?' she knew it had less of a chance, being so high above the planet; it relied even more on the missing electronics than they did in Homer Base.

'I will re energise the systems, but it will take time.'

'Would it help if we were up there?' Galina seemed keen to get off the planet.

'It is very unlikely that any of the systems on the Phoenix will pick up the Rover.' Steve remarked in a resigned fashion.

Galina was beginning to get into the act now. She clamped her hands to her face, like in the Munch painting of 'the scream',

'Oh no. does that mean we have lost them?' she turned to Hoshi in mock horror,

'What have we done?'

Hoshi just looked at her with a bemused look on her face,

'There, there, dear. They probably only went down to the local store to get some provisions.'

Steve was not following this,

'This is a very dangerous planet. It is not advisable to travel around without backup.'

Hoshi turned to face Steve fully,

'We humans are an adventurous race. That is exactly why we are here. Sometimes we need to take risks for no reason at all. It is what occasionally moves us on. If these guys want to charge around on their own, it is only like letting the animals out to have a roam around. They will come back when it is feeding time.'

'But we don't know where they are.' Steve protested.

'Do we need to?'

'Dr Masuto, we always need to know where everyone is.'

'Why? You didn't know we were in here. It didn't do you any harm did it?'

She knew that the longer she kept talking this nonsense, the longer it would be before they got any information from her mind by using their net.

Then she received a message via the net that she was not expecting. It was the voice of Silver,

'Single column of dust at half a mile on a bearing of three five two.'

This meant that he has seen and taken range and bearings on the column of dust raised by the Rover that was approaching his position by the reactor.

Hoshi now wished she could signal the Rover to tell them that they were nearing their target.

Preston Ashton and Jake Jensen rode along the line drawn out on their navigation chart. Normally these charts were on an electronic tablet, but they were carrying no electronic equipment that could not be stripped down and examined for any kind of tracking device; so they were using paper charts, just like they did on the yacht.

'I reckon we are getting close now, Jake.'

'Which is more than could be said for those two who tried to give chase.' Jake replied.

He slowed the Rover to allow better observation.

Five minutes past, then ten, then fifteen, before Jake said,

'Just what are we looking for?'

'I wish I knew. Just look for something that looks like it shouldn't be there.'

'Like us, you mean?'

'Jake, stop.'

Jake stopped the Rover.

'Over there. Just jutting out from behind that hill there.' Ash pointed agitatedly.

'There, see that structure that looks like pipework sticking up?'

'Got it. Let's go.'

As they approached the pipe work that looked like some sort of refinery, they caught sight of a gleaming silver ball moving around the area.

Silver was moving away from the structure to guard the entrance of the cavern in case the astronauts should come from that angle. Because Jake had slowed, there was no dust for Silver to see, and be warned.

Jake and Ash did not know where the cavern was, but they knew where the structure lay, so they approached this carefully watching Silver as he dropped out of sight behind a ridge.

Jake decided to park out of easy sight, he and Ash dismounted and moved towards the pipework, then Silver appeared far out to their right.

.....................
Chapter 10

CLOAK

'As I tell you to focus on what could be in the ground, I want you to think about how we can get off this planet.' Galina spoke quietly to Hoshi, who was walking towards the door with her cloaking cowl hanging on her back. As she looked at Galina she placed one hand on her chest, as if to silently ask if she should put her shields up. Galina nodded, saying,

'We can discuss all this when we get back to the lab.'

All three entered the air lock together. As the humans donned their spacesuits, Galina asked Steve,

'Any word about Mark yet?'

'No. The net has gone quiet.'

'I'll bet it has.' She thought to herself. As she pulled on her helmet, turned it and locked it down.

The sky behind the reactor was dark quite a long way down; almost to the horizon. Ash looked out beyond the curious pipe work that stood empty in front of him. Then Jake pointed a black-gloved finger to a bright dot in the dark blue-black sky.

'Is that the Phoenix?' he asked.

'If it is, we will see it moving faster than anything else in the sky.' They both watched for a few seconds, then Ash said,

'That's it. Look at it move. That's the Phoenix all right. Now where's that robot.'

They both turned their attentions to where they had seen Silver disappear. The two Americans were positioned behind a crest of rough rocks. Their Rover was behind them, the reactor pipes in front, with buildings out of sight further behind the pipes. Silver had briefly appeared to their right, then ducked behind the crest of a hill.

Ash made a few hand signals to Jake, who nodded agreement. The hand signals were unnecessary, but it gave an added impetus and import to the need for stealth. They both knew that they would only lose once to this robot.

Jake made his way along the rocky crest behind which they were in concealment; Ash walked down to the pipe work, which surrounded the hole into which the reactor had descended.

As he made his way down the slope, Ash found it impossible to prevent raising a little cloud of dust. Silver saw this and moved forward to investigate. Ash saw the ball-shaped robot on four legs this time, moving at a good speed towards him. He made a dash for the framework of pipes as Silver began throwing rocks with three of its limbs. Ash knew that if one of these sharp rocks hit him a glancing blow, it would finish him by puncturing his suit. A torrent of rocks landed round the astronaut, but he was close enough to take some form of shelter behind the pipes. As some of the rocks hit pipes above and to his left; steam began to be emitted from the punctured pipes, so the robot stopped throwing, but continued to advance. Seeing that the robot was much bulkier than he was, Ash decided to move into the myriad tangle of pipes, knowing that Silver could not follow him.

He had barely got into the dubious cover when Silver arrived. The robot began thrusting two of its longest 'arms' into the network of pipes at Ash, who soon realised that the robot was trying to rip his suit. He had no defence against this; all he could do was keep moving, making it harder for Silver to reach him. The arms were long but had precious little bend in them. Ash was playing a deadly game of 'Catch-me-if-you-can' – one tear in his suit, and the sudden release in pressure would cause his blood to boil away in less than five seconds. He brushed along pipes several times hoping that they were not sharp, this did no harm, Silver had done a good job of building this structure.

Ash looked up at the broken pipes issuing steam above him. He decided to go for them, he could hide in the steam, and be able to fashion some sort of attack. To his surprise the robot was better at climbing than he was, it saw that he was going up, and started at the same time. Silver was above Ash when it began thrusting towards him again. But the pipes up here were not as secure as the ones below, and they began to creak – especially the ones that had been damaged in the earlier rock attack.

Another thrust went out pointing straight at Ash's chest, he moved to one side of a pipe that had been damaged, as the pointed arm extended to its full length. Ash grabbed the end of it and pulled it against the pipe, then allowed himself to drop from his perch, keeping hold of the arm thing.

There was little bending in the arm, but the horizontal pipes did not take kindly to having the combined weight of man and robot resting on them. One of the damaged pipes then gave way; this caused Silver to begin to lose his footing. Ash could see that two of the four feet were now dangling in space. The two feet taking the full weight of the silver ball now concentrated on one length of pipe. Silver tried to relieve this burden on the steel-work by using his one remaining arm – the third one was facing away from the pipes. His long arm reached over a horizontal pipe to drag on to the pipe beyond. Ash then thought it might be helpful to bounce up and down on the end of the arm that Silver could not retract. The arm bent a little more, but the flexing of the appendage seemed quite capable of taking his weight with ease. Not so the pipes. The pipe that the arm was resting upon gave way, this made one of Silver's feet slip from his perch, this put more strain on the reaching arm, that bent the pipe it was resting on. Ash was bouncing and swinging quite energetically now as he watched the robot gradually lose control. One of its legs had extended to three times its original length in an effort to find some secure resting place, but it just added to the confused state the robot was now in. Then it slipped a little more. Ash looked down to see a metal walkway below him. He looked up at Silver trying to both extricate himself and regain control of his stance. Ash let go of the arm that was trying to retract. The arm shot back, unbalancing Silver. He tried to hook his long foot under another pipe, but this just complicated his entanglement. As Ash made his escape the gigantic ball-shaped object that had tried to kill him was swaying and thrusting, trying to untangle itself without plunging uncontrollably to the surface.

Jake had by now found the entrance to the cavern. He tried calling Preston Ashton,

'Hey, Ash. You got a copy on this?'

'Yes, got you, Jake. Just had to tie the monster up.'

'I have found what looks like a cave here. Wanna join me? This looks too small for your friend up there.'

'Ok, I'm on my way.'

'Great. Don't bother bringing any big silver guests.'

'Don't worry, I left him hanging about somewheres.'

...............

Hoshi, Galina and Steve entered the workroom at Homer base. Galina went straight across to the comms panel. There she switched and altered things, trying to get some response, but got nothing.

Steve did not pay any heed to Hoshi walking about in a grey hooded garment, he probably just thought it yet another strange human fashion thing.

'I have some trays in here that need my attention, if you could give me some help, please?' Galina asked Hoshi, who agreed.

When in the room she closed the door, so that Steve could not hear them, and whispered to Hoshi,

'Could you remove your hood when your mind is clear to see if there is any news about the outside from the net?'

'Sure. Just give me a minute to clear things out.'

Five minutes later she slid the hood back. After another five minutes she put it back on.

'Gerald and Stuart are on their way back. They could not find the rover with Ash and Jake in it. Looks like they have made a clean get-away, but to where? Silver reported that he was guarding the cave, but he has nothing to report yet.'

Hoshi had missed the message from Silver, telling the other robots that he had seen a dust cloud.

'What are we going to do, Hoshi?'

'One thing is certain – we can't stay here much longer.'

'You mean that we have to leave Mars all together?'

'There is no option. There is nowhere to run on this hostile planet. We are now fully dependent upon the robots for our future survival. And it looks as if they have by-passed the first law of robotics.'

'The one that says that they must never harm a human?'

'Yes, what happened to Mark shows that, so can we trust them to preserve us?' Hoshi looked thoughtfully at her dull grey cloaking device. It resembled a Monk's habit here in the dim lighting.

Galina seemed to cling on to hope for the best,

'We don't know that Mark has come to harm, do we?'

'It doesn't look good. The net had messages that did not include any mention of an astronaut in the cavern. Before then they did. I will listen in from time to time to keep up to date, but in the meantime, we must make plans to move.'

'How? If they control all aspects of all machinery and electronics, how can we do anything?'

'This cloaking device gives me an idea.'

'How do you mean?'

'You know where I got the idea? In fact, where I got the material?'

'Yes, the covers over the Landers.'

'Exactly – the Landers. Landers that have the capacity to return to the mother ship.'

'All of which are under the full control of the robots. Remember they are all reliant upon electronics. That is where they have us.'

'Not if they are cloaked under Graphene tarps.'

Galina suddenly saw the links. She took a step back as her hand grasped her mouth.

'You think they can be isolated?'

'I know a way to find out.'

Ash came crashing round the hill towards Jake. There was no need for stealth now,

'OK, let's get in, I don't know how long it will take for Silver to get free, but I don't want to be around when he does.'

.....................
Chapter 11

XANTHROS

The two Americans had only stumbled some eight paces into the cave when they got clues that Silver was approaching from behind them. The astronauts could hear no sound in the thin atmosphere over the sounds of their own breathing, Jake turned back to look at the entrance in time to see stones and dust being propelled into the cave by the advance of the silver robot. The interior of the cave was very black to them, coming from the full light of day; they had to make their way carefully into the darkness. But the arrival of Silver gave an air of urgency to their progress.

Ash was feeling his way around the left wall when Jake saw the traces of possible peril. He turned back to the task of moving away from the entrance that Silver could not get through as he called to Ash,

'He's here.'

'Get out of his line of fire, he throws rocks. Here, there is a place over here.'

Jake could not see anything, having disturbed his night vision by looking back towards the light, so he just moved towards where he knew Ash was until he felt the wall. Surely there was a place where the cave opened out, taking them out of sight of the entrance.

As the two men stood for a minute, Ash said,

'Let's just let our eyes get accustomed to the dark.'

A feint line of light seemed to come from the far wall in front of them, stretching to the roof. Then the reactor dropped out of the bottom of the light shaft. The pipes above that had been damaged by Silver had caused it to shut down, as it began melting the ice around it, enlarging the cavern towards the back, a wave of water began moving towards the sheltering men. Ash saw the lead wave sparkling in the half-light in time to warn Jake,

'Climb. Up here.'

The two men managed to climb four feet higher, just enough to avoid being swept away by the wave. As they watched the waves move through the cave they saw the trike, mainly because of the waves breaking around it. Their eyes were now becoming accustomed to the dark, and they could make out more detail as they looked around. Then Jake noticed something at the back of the cave. Because of the weak shaft of light coming from the reactor he could make out an object that did not look like a natural rock formation.

'Can you see that over by the far wall?' he asked Ash.

The waves were subsiding now, but there were still some breaking on the far wall – enough for him to make out a shape in the direction that Jake was pointing at.

'That sure don't look like a natural formation to me, Ash'

The ice wall to the rear of the cave reflected and refracted the light enough for them to be able to make out a smooth gloss black dome.

The water now appeared black with bright sparkles upon it.

'We gotta get a bit closer to that thing.' Ash remarked as he tentatively placed one foot down into the water. To his relief it turned out to be only a little more than ankle deep. Jake joined him.

Slowly the men waded towards the object.

'Look out for these pinnacles under the water.' Jake warned Ash.

When they were only a few feet from the object they began to make out markings on it.

'That looks like paint.' Ash pointed to the strange markings.

Then they were stopped dead in their tracks by a red light that began to glow from the top of the dome.

The light increased in its intensity until all they could see was the light. It flickered, then turned white, then blue, it then projected an image towards the men. The image stabilised to take the form of a man. The man before them was recognised immediately as the Mission Controller, Professor Mike J Xanthros.

'You have done well to get this far, Ash.' He began, 'I think you had better be informed about what you have found here.'

The two men stood stock still as the shining figure continued,

'You are right; there have been settlements here on Mars before. Many thousands of years ago there were a race of explorers, just like yourselves, who landed here. They found an atmosphere, of sorts, but precious little life upon which to work. They were looking for a complex multi-cellular life form that they could improve and help to become what you would call civilised. But before they could find it the planet lost its magnetic field, then its atmosphere. They kept this as an outpost from where they could watch the Earth as it formed, then produce what they were looking for. Intelligent life. They performed many experiments on many types, but to no avail, all they wanted to do was fornicate and eat.

Then man came along. They found that by careful experimentation they could impregnate a source of higher intelligence into their brains to give them the higher intelligence that they were looking for.'

This was almost more than Ash could take in,

'You mean to tell me that early man was manipulated into becoming more intelligent than would otherwise have been? That's hogwash.'

'Oh, come on now, Ash. You don't think that of all the animals on Earth, humans are the only ones that can think for themselves in such a creative way by sheer coincidence?'

'We have identified several animals that think in the same way as we do.' Jake suggested.

'And of all these, how many of them look up to the stars and wonder about these glittery specks in the night sky? Or appreciate reading, or music.'

Xanthros moved a step closer to Ash and Jake as he continued,

'How many of them could build a gearbox, or even drive a car that someone else has made? Then we come to the infrastructure like roads, railroads, telephone communications, and buildings.'

The image of Professor Xanthros moved around the cave as if it were his office,

'Your closest cousins, the chimpanzees, have never thought of anything like the things your race have perfected, and take for granted. That is not coincidence, nor is it natural selection. Although we did use certain attributes of natural selection when we seeded your ancestors.'

Every time I see a child manipulate air con controls on an airliner, or play with a cell phone, sending messages via satellites without even thinking, I appreciate how far some of your race has developed. But not all of them.

Ash was getting frustrated,

'Seeded our ancestors? What do you mean by that?'

'Just before the era you people know as the Prehistoric Period we visited your planet. It was stabilising then, and the experiments we carried out on Mars were beginning to lose its battles. We selected your ancestors, universally known as cavemen by you now. Palaeontologists have found this seeding strain, and identified it as 'Neanderthal'.'

'But they died out as a branch soon after they arrived; overcome by Homo Sapiens.'

'That was what was supposed to happen. Your modern Palaeontologists have neglected to notice that the incoming strain effected early man from the African Rift Valley, to Japan, to Northern Asia. The palaeontologists also failed to notice that what they came to know as 'Neanderthal Man' had several flares of success, then died back. Like the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Incas and Aztecs.'

'Are you telling me that you are a Martian?' Ash was struggling to take this all in.

'No. There is no such thing as a Martian. An eminent Professor at Cambridge came closest to describing our race when he said that there could be life forms that evolved like mankind did, but they managed to avoid killing themselves off. The developments made would then enable them to outlive their planet; they could then roam the Universe, stripping planets and asteroids of material that may be of use to them. With an exponential potential for furthering their species they would be unstoppable if they came to a planet near you.'

Ash looked even more perplexed.

Jake was also finding it all difficult as he said,

'Are you making this up as you go along? Where is the evidence for all of this?'

Xanthros held up a hand,

'Don't get me wrong. We are not here to exploit you or your planet.'

'I don't understand any of this. Why are you here, if you are here at all, and why have so many people had to die?' Ash waved Mark's helmet in the air.

'I, and many others like me, are only monitors of the experiment. We are not aliens from another planet; we have been enhanced and entrusted with this information. Most of the governing bodies throughout the world have some of our number in them to guide you and move the experiment along the right track.'

Xanthros timed the next part, because he knew it would be difficult for all concerned,

'Those people who have died for the cause have had to be sacrificed for the common good. If mankind realised that they are born of our interference several things would happen. Most of your race would rebel against itself and its ruling bodies. This would bring about anarchy that would probably result in 47% of the population destroying itself. The remaining numbers would be too scattered or primitive to develop sufficiently to be able to prevent a slow descent into declining population numbers until there would not be enough to sustain the human race.'

Ash shook his head,

'I don't believe you. I think that we are civilised enough to make our own minds up. The people of Earth have a right to decide what they think is right, and you have crossed that line. Hoshi thought there was something wrong, so she has put together a communication device that will allow us to upload all of the information we have assembled back to Earth, even if we do not make it – so you will not win, either way.'

'Don't be impetuous, Ash. There is more at stake here than you realise.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean on a more personal level – for you.'

Then another figure entered the cave. Walking slowly from the light, Ash could not make out any real shape until the figure moved closer to Xanthros in the shadows. Their feet didn't quite touch the cave floor as Michelle Romero looked at Ash,

'Michelle?'

'Yes, Ash. I have been entrusted with the secret, to act as a monitor, like Xanthros.'

Jake stood to one side, having moved away from Ash,

'This is getting surreal. You mean to tell us that there are two kinds of human on Earth?'

'As you well know, there are many kinds of human. Some have taken the transformation better than others; for instance, we have had very little success in Africa,'

Xanthros kept looking towards the cave entrance,

'People like Ghengis Khan used the gift against the development of civilisation. But for the last few hundred years, all of your major rulers have come from specially developed progeny with more 'Neanderthal' influence in their brains. Now you know the secret, you can never return to the Earth. The disruption of the carefully laid plans to bring about civilisation to most of humanity would lie in tatters.'

'That's what you say. I say the people of Earth should have the chance to decide their own destiny. You say there are people on Earth, who have been entrusted with this knowledge,' He indicated Michelle,

'Why, then can't all of mankind have the knowledge?'

'Don't be naive, Ash. The people we have chosen are carefully selected, we can't let just any nutter have this important information, the small amount of Neanderthal they have in them will be overrun. The original caveman parts will run riot, and your civilisation will cease to exist.'

Jake waved at Ash, then pointed at his own eyes, then himself. He then did a strange thing, moving to the far left of the glowing couple, he began waving his arms as he moved right up to the side of Xanthros as he said,

'Ok, how do you explain some of the dumb sons of bitches we have had as President?'

Ash stood stock still in shock as his comrade walked around the couple. Then he realised what Jake was demonstrating. Whilst the figures in front of them could communicate quite efficiently, they could not see anything on Mars.

Xanthros gave the reply,

'That is a very good demonstration of how we allow you to get on with your own development, you decided who should lead you, and look what you got. If we choose the leader, things work out much better.'

Jake was by now walking towards the cube-shaped reactor. This was almost cool by now, with melting ice continuously dripping on it.

He cautiously touched it, then looked up at the shaft it had made. He signalled Ash to come over to him by waving. Then he climbed on to the top of the reactor.

Ash quietly took his leave of Xanthros and Michelle as he watched Jake begin to climb the slippery pipe work that the reactor had used to create a shaft down which it passed.

.........

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The Way Home

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The Steve Steele Trilogy

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