 
The Way Home
Part four

of

THRONES OF MARS

A novel

By

Lloyd R R Martin

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 The Way Back

Chapter 2 Xanthros on the Net

Chapter 3 Docking

Chapter 4 Loneliness of Command

Chapter 5 The Chase

Chapter 6 Thrones of Mars

Chapter 7 Cold Dark Silence

Chapter 8 Meeting in Hilbert Space

Chapter 9 Gerald and Sarsen 2

Chapter 10 Citation

Chapter 11 DeathValley

Chapter 38

The Way Back

Ash climbed under the canvas to gain access to the capsule. The pale grey cloth waved freely in the thin atmosphere. However, this was not any ordinary cloth; this almost indestructible Graphene was to protect the delicate electronic equipment within the Mars Landing Vehicle from solar radiation. It also made the inside of the vehicle out of the reach of the robots' communications net, which meant the robots were unable to prevent Ash and Hoshi Masuto from starting up the machine they knew as Euclid and leaving Mars to join their mother ship, the Phoenix. Likewise, Jake Jensen and Galina Danilenko were about to get the Pythagoras started. Ash and Jake still wore the sheepskin lined leather jackets they had used to protect themselves from the bitter cold of the Martian night during their foray out to the Mars hinterland. Hoshi and Galina had cold weather gear on that had been designed for use within easy reach of Homer Base during the Martian day. The temperatures out here in the dead of night were brutal, and the thermal underwear could only protect to a certain extent.

Ash flipped the emergency launch switch. This fed power to the main power bus and began the various boot sequences. Pressure built up in the fuel systems, and when there was sufficient power available, the little rockets on the ends of the rotors began to be heated, first the top set of rotors, then the lower ones. Fuel was then passed to the tips, as they began to move the atmosphere provided just enough support to allow them to rise, eventually to a horizontal position. By then the second, lower set of rotors had begun to move in the opposite direction. As the rotors picked up speed the tips produced white contrails. Because they were going in opposite directions, they now created a criss-cross pattern that twisted and cascaded down the little pyramid structures, taking with it the Graphene sheet – this meant that the two vehicles could communicate with each other automatically.

The noise levels in the Euclid module began to rise – the thing was coming to life. Ash and Hoshi constantly monitored the systems as they warmed up. There was an occasional call between them,

'Checkout valve to engine return.' From Hoshi.

'Lox bubbling. Lox replenish.' From Ash.

'Tanks pressurised. Terminal countdown.' Hoshi, 'T minus nine.'

'Ignition command.' Ash.

'Eight, Seven, Six.'

'In-flight pressurisation.'

'Five, Four,'

'Igniters firing, four blue.'

'Three,'

'Lox flow.'

'Two,'

'Primary ignition.'

'One.'

'Ignition. Thrust ok. 1060 psi. We have lift-off.'

The twin rotors thrashed through the Martian atmosphere, maintaining stability by keeping the nose pointing upwards. The massive J-2 rocket engine below the capsule blasted out a flame that changed from yellow through red, then to clear blue. Rocks and dust were scattered in dead straight lines briefly, then the module shot off into the dark, dark sky.

Meanwhile the Pythagoras had followed the same procedure. Once the Graphene cloaks were removed the capsules synchronised their systems to enable a simultaneous lift-off, this prevented collateral damage caused by debris from the first big rocket to fire.

The gigantic J-2 rocket that powered the capsules into space had to be governed, not to conserve fuel, but to prevent the occupants being crushed by the tremendous g-forces created by the firing of such a powerful rocket engine.

The astronauts were subjected to eight times the gravity of Earth during the initial twenty-seven second burn, that was all it took from the J-2 to enable them to escape the gravity of Mars. Then silence and weightlessness descended upon the astronauts.

Author's note:

If you wish to work this out, you need to know the escape velocity of Mars, the exact power of the J-2(mod), and the inertial weight of the Euclid and Pythagoras, (they were different). That's rocket science.

Ash released her restraining straps as she turned to Hoshi,

'Do we know exactly where the Phoenix is?'

'Yes. It is on the other side of the planet.'

'Can we rendezvous with her?'

Hoshi shrugged, 'We left the planet in such a hurry that we did not have the opportunity to calculate how we were to intercept the mother ship.'

Ash removed his helmet, then Hoshi took hers off before any more conversation,

The rather battered space gloves that Ash wore looked as if they had seen better days, he punched a few buttons as he checked the shut-down procedures of the J-2,

'We know that she left the Martian static orbit some time ago. I think she is on the other side of the planet now, and I think we know the track she will be taking in her orbit.'

Hoshi took up the line of calculus,

'All we have to do is find that line in space.' She consulted the main navigational computer. 'This line is not in three dimensions, it is not even in four dimensions; first there is the height above the surface to consider.' She punched in the information.

'How consistent is this line? It could be almost oval.' Ash suggested.

'I can only go on the last information we have. When she passed over this spot we are over, that was her height.' She pointed at the figure she had input. 'Now we need to know where she is at this moment. That position over the surface will give us another two dimensions.'

Ash punched requests into the equipment, but came up shaking his head,

'Nothing. There is no transponder information from the Phoenix, and I don't think it is because she is on the other side of the planet.'

'You mean the robots?'

'Yes, that is why we must converse in this way, without using microphones.'

The radio then burst into life,

'Pythag to Euclid.' Jake came over loud and tinny.

'Euclid to Pythag. Hi, Jake. How are things over there?'

'Ok. Have you worked out how we are to meet up with Phoenix?'

'We are working the problem right now. If you could take position twenty miles from us, when we have worked out the probable line of travel we will straddle it.' Hoshi seemed to be talking to herself, '... the direction of travel and exact bearing has to be known, then the speed.'

'Hoshi, are you on the Net?' Ash interrupted her, Hoshi was inducted into this system because of her involvement with the electronics throughout the whole mission. The Net extends as far as Earth.

'Not that I know. But I have my cloak here, it is probably a good idea to use it for now.'

Hoshi took out the grey Graphene cloak that covered her head and torso, making her invisible to the Net, then continued,

'The speed is tied in with the height above the surface. In order to maintain a steady orbit, the ship will have a certain speed dictated to it.' She typed in the last few pieces of information, then turned to Ash who was watching screens on his side of the module.

They both watched the main monitor that showed a line drawing of Mars. Then it overlaid a grid that signified the sub-divisions on the planet's surface. The grid moved around, then a bright yellow dot appeared, alongside this appeared the name Phoenix, then a time of its last known position. This figure, and the dot changed and moved as the computer calculated the Phoenix's position up to the present time. Then it drew an oval from the dot, describing the orbit of the Phoenix. Next various time makings appeared showing where she will be at various times. At the same time that all of this was developing there were data showing up on panels to either side of the main picture. One of these showed the speed of the Phoenix. Then two small but bright bluish white lights appeared on the screen showing where the Euclid and Pythagoras were.

'Not bad.' Ash commented as he assessed their positions relative to the orbit of the Phoenix 'She should pass about 250 miles over there in about 55 minutes' time.'

'Feed into that the consideration that the Phoenix may be coming at us at several thousand miles per hour, and we only have the mark one eyeball to assist with docking, I think we have a better than reasonable chance of screwing this up good style.' Hoshi joked.

Ash called Jake,

'Euclid to Pythagoras. Hey, Jake can you see me from way over there?'

Jake and Galina both heard the transmission, they looked out of their respective windows,

'Where is he?' asked Galina.

'According to the radio bearing he could be one of those stars over there.' Jake said as he leaned gently on her shoulder. His sheepskin lining felt comforting to her, it was as if something natural from Earth had touched her. She pointed agitatedly out of the window,

'There. Yes, there. Is that them? I think I can see Ash. Yes. There. That must be them. There. That is Ash mooning us!'

Jake ruffled her hair and said,

'Bloody fool.' As he took his seat he selected the conference setting in the radio, that meant that all four astronauts could now talk as if in a conference,

'Ash, there is no way we could see you even if you sent of a flare.'

'Yes, I agree. Do you think we could see the Phoenix at this range?

Jake looked at Galina briefly before replying,

'She's a big ship, and she would only be half the distance away, so I think we would be able to pick her out.'

Ash stroked his chin thoughtfully, he consulted Hoshi,

'What do you think?'

'There will be no transmissions from Phoenix?'

'We are not expecting any. I mean, what we do not want is for us to find out that there are no transmissions after she has passed.'

'So we must presume there will be no assistance from the mother ship.' The Japanese scientist looked out of the window at the blackness of space with so many pinpricks of various sizes and brightness. She turned and looked at Ash, then suddenly exclaimed,

'Yes. Of course we will be able to see her. We have all seen the original International Space Station from the ground, and she was far more than 125 miles away- with an atmosphere in the way.'

Ash reached a decision,

'Ok people let's get over there. If you can put the desired co-ordinates into the system, Hoshi, we shall adopt a 300-mile spread on either side of the predicted line of trajectory.'

The two capsules turned their noses towards the line of trajectory, and then fired their main engines. They worked in unison because their navigation computers have now been linked.

The path they took meant that, not only do they change positions in space to sit on either side of the predicted path their mother ship will take, but they were also travelling at about 75% of the speed of the Phoenix. This allowed the big mother ship to catch up to the capsules.

The capsules pirouetted to allow their occupants to see in the direction in which the Phoenix will be arriving.

Ash and Galina saw it first. One star seemed to be moving.

'I think we have the Phoenix in sight.' She reported. Jake pulled the magic finger out of the nav computer. This is a device that simply tells the navigational computer exactly what it is pointing at.

'Point it out.' He said as he passed the pointer to her. She looked down the small tube. The display within it was auto stabilised, so she saw the stars were rock steady.

'I got one too.' Ash reported, 'Pointing now.' He placed the small red dot on the star that seemed to move. Then conjoined nav computers analysed the information, then concluded that the object of their interest was, indeed the same spot in space, and it was travelling at 5,473 miles per hour faster than they were, but in the same direction. It also told them that it would draw level with them in less than five minutes.

Hoshi and Galina did not need any instructions, they both put in to the nav computer the information needed to turn to face the same way that the Phoenix was travelling. Once this was done, and it was confirmed that they were steady, the desired speed was put into the main computer. This then referred to the blanket of stars surrounding them; from this information, the computer is able to calculate the exact speed of the capsule. This is vital; one per cent error could mean a speed differential of hundreds of miles per hour.

.....................
Chapter 39

Xanthros on the Net

Mission Controller Xanthros looked at the outflowing of information coming from the telemetry that was coming from the Phoenix. He stood in Mission Control, this was his area of control; everyone looked up to him here.

Alongside him stood Nye, he was the Earthbound Mission Specialist, Orbit and Trajectory, sometimes referred to as EMSOT.

Nye pointed at one of the screens as he exclaimed,

'What the hell are they doing?'

He referred to the unmanned Phoenix as 'they' purely because of the robot brains on board. Due to the great distance between the ship and Mission Control on Earth, the computers on the Phoenix had a very extensive expansion of their authority. So much so that they were almost allowed to run the mission on their own list of priorities.

That list consists of such elements as sanctity of the Mother Ship, Phoenix, and realization of the mission, then, lower than one would expect, the welfare and safety of the humans on the mission.

Communications with Earth can change these priorities. These very communications had caused things to change significantly. However, not everyone had knowledge of the different communications systems used; Nye knew of no reason why the Phoenix should change orbit around Mars. He had a perplexed expression as he turned to Xanthros,

'Where do they get the idea from that it would be good to go down towards the planet's surface?'

Xanthros took a deep breath before moving his attention from the screen before him.

He knew that Nye was a monitor but was not privy to information about the secret communications system that he knew as The Net; based on laser technology, this was much more efficient than radio waves that normal communications use, but normal humans were not made aware of the existence of this.

'Something has happened out there,' He quietly said to Nye, 'it has become imperative that mission parameters be modified.'

'Modified? Modified?' Nye posed this one-word question as if it were a statement, 'How can the mission be modified? We kept it as simple as possible to allow for any changes that might be necessary – 'he counted on his fingers, 'Go to Mars. Land and build a base. Take ground samples. Return to Earth.' He threw his hands up in frustration, 'How the hell can you change that?'

Xanthros turned back to look at the screen again without answering.

Nye shook his head in disbelief. He tapped on a screen as he said,

'Let us tick these things off, Go to Mars. Done that. Land. Done that. Build base. Done that. Take samples. Done that. Return to....' He turned to Xanthros as his face began to drain colour. He could hardly finish the sentence, 'the only thing left is the return. You mean we should change that?'

Xanthros turned to the Korean man and said,

'There are some things that you must understand. Meet me in my office in ten minutes, and I will make thing clear to you.' He raised one forefinger as he continued, 'But there is another level of security involved here, so be very careful what you say.' With that, he signalled to someone across the room, then turned and left.

Michelle Romero walked up to Nye's side and said,

'Good morning, Doctor Nye. Do you have all the information you need from these terminals?'

'Yes.' The EMSOT seemed to have lost the plot, but he will soon get a new one.

'If you would come with me.' Michelle took Nye by holding his arm just above the elbow. As her thumb gripped his white lab coat this looked quite innocent, but he could feel the treat that if she gripped too hard his whole arm would become paralysed, then another nerve grip on to his neck, and he would be dead.

The invitation was compelling.

They left the Mission Control, as they walked down a corridor, Michelle said,

'I am taking you to a room down here that you will not have seen before. In it you will gain a little more information in preparation to receive what the Controller will tell you. It is important to do it this way due to the importance of complete secrecy necessary.'

She placed her hand on a palm-print recognition pad on a door on their right; the pad was only just visible on the shiny pale grey-Blue portal. A human sounding voice that must be from a machine said as the door opened,

'Hello, Michele. Who is that with you? Please enter his details in the pad inside.'

She took Nye's pass from him, then entered some details on a tablet-like device before putting the card into a slot, like an ATM machine.

An inner door opened allowing entry to a much smaller room than usual at Houston.

'Please stay close by me. We do not like strangers on their own in here.' Michelle instructed Nye.

They walked over to a display of photographs that looked like an evidence board in a detective film.

Nye remained silent as Michelle told him what they meant,

'Before anyone had even gone into space on the Orion Mission, we lost an astronaut. Canadian John Garbou drowned in the total immersion unit at Sunningdale. We gathered this, and other parts of evidence.'

She pointed to photographs pinned in a large board, 'It turned out that someone was trying to sabotage the mission. Xanthros worked out that it was the Russians, but if they left the whole mission would be in jeopardy, so it was best covered up to retain the mission intact.'

She then moved on towards the next display, but before getting to it she turned to Nye and said in a quiet voice,

'Two people here on base found out, but were unfortunately lost in an aviation accident, along with most of the evidence.'

Next they came to a display case containing what looked like a broken handle.

'This is the tether anchor point that was supposed to stop Mary-Jo Shelton from drifting into space during the building of the Phoenix. As you can see, it has been tampered with. Mary-Jo was spinning in the void of space for long enough to make her arms swell for the next six months, one of the robots went out to rescue her, and probably the mission too.'

She stopped again,

'We have nothing tangible concerning the next event. But the testimonies and statements tell their own story.'

Nye stood open-mouthed in astonishment as she continued,

'On the way to Mars, you will remember that a Russian by the name of Dmitri Chopov was lost, probably due to space drift?'

Nye nodded.

'Well it was space drift all right. Only after one of the robots opened the air lock inner door before it had completely repressurised. Chopov was smashed against the wall by a two ton robot. Serves him right, he had tried to shoot my man, and take over the whole mission. We have only just recently found out why.' She indicated an opening door with her hand, 'Then the robot opened the outer door. In his case space drift amounted to several thousand miles per hour.'

'You say you have only just found out why he tried to take over the mission?' Nye made the statement more like a question.

'That is for Xanthros to tell you if he deems it necessary.'

They walked on to a wall-mounted screen. Michelle touched it, and it came to life. As she tapped symbols on the screen she explained,

'We are on the surface of Mars now. This is what Mark Singleton found. Xanthros will tell you more about this in due course but suffice for now to tell you that the robot they refer to as Silver built it after he came down in Sarsen IV.'

She touched the screen, and it went off. There were no more places for visual information, Michelle said quietly,

'You will know that we lost touch with Mark, then things got very sketchy?'

'Yes. We were all getting very concerned.'

'Well, I can now tell you more or less what happened – as far as we know.' She took a deep breath,

'Ash and Jake went to find out what had happened to Mark. They were attacked by a robot they knew as Silver when they found what Mark had found.'

Nye held out a finger, 'That was when he went off the grid?'

'Yes. They tried to get back to Homer Base after the robot had been dealt with. That was when Hoshi and Galina went out to try to find them. So did the androids Gerald and Stuart. Stuart became incapacitated during the journey, Gerald was damaged. Steve went with Hoshi and Galina. Gerald succeeded in destroying most of the living accommodation at Homer Base.'

'That explains some of the crazy readings we have been getting from Mars, but now we have been getting the craziest of all, when the Phoenix itself seemed to want to attack Olympus Mons.'

'We had better go and see Xanthros now; I think he will fill in the blanks for you.'

They walked into Xanthros's office, he was punching in some data into a terminal on the right of his desk. He finished what he was doing as the couple moved across the floor.

'Please, have a seat.' He offered by the sweep of a hand towards the comfortable looking Blue settee that ran around the corner opposite to his desk. By using this he could conduct the meeting from his desk, or join the people on the settee.

Michelle and Nye sat next to each other facing the side of the main desk.

Nye was feeling mixed emotions – he had never been in this office before, that part was a little intimidating as well as being exciting. On the other hand some of the revelations that Michelle had shown him had surprised and troubled him. He knew there are more surprises to come.

Xanthros turned away from the terminal he was working at, then moved his plush leather chair closer to the settee,

'Michelle here has shown you some of the background to what I am about to tell you. That is to give you some sort of idea of the gravity of the whole picture that I am about to disclose to you.'

'Yes, sir.'

'In answer to your questions about why the Phoenix is behaving in such a strange way, we must go back to the work that Silver was doing in the area off camp.'

Xanthros took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling before continuing,

'He had landed with Sarsen IV away from the camp because of the hazardous nature of the experiment he was tasked with performing.'

Nye moved uneasily, as if he was about to learn something of monumental importance.

'Sarsen IV took Silver and the spare nuclear reactor down to the surface of Mars. This reactor differed from the one used on the Phoenix in that its main problem was its main purpose. Nuclear reactors are normally used to produce electricity; any heat produced is an unwanted by-product. This is a tremendous waste, there is always a massive amount of heat produced. That was what this reactor was made to produce – heat. Only heat, anything else was a by-product. This heat was designed to be used in a special way; this is the main reason for the whole mission. Many scans of the subsurface of Mars have eventually shown up that this one area contains a most unusual cavern. Unfortunately, it is filled with ice. The reactor's heat was to be used to melt this ice. This it did.'

Nye moved forward in anticipation.

Xanthros placed an arm on the desk, then threw the hand in the air to open his palm,

'By then Dr Singleton had found the experiment, so it was decided that he would by kept there to assist with the work; Silver is quite a bulky robot, as you can see from this picture.'

He touched a screen on his desk, a screen on the opposite wall came to life, and then an indistinct picture of a Silver ball with many arms and legs came into view.

'This is the best picture we have of him. He was constructed out on the Phoenix as the robots and androids were building it. I think that you will agree that he is not exactly suited to cave work, so Dr Singleton came in very useful.'

Xanthros switched off the screen by touching a screen on his desk. As he turned back to Nye he seemed to adopt a more sombre tone, 'That was the problem. There was something in the cave.'

Nye shook with surprise.

'Of course we knew there was, that was the whole reason for the mission.'

Nye spoke for the first time,

'How did you know there is something hidden beneath ice in a cave in Mars? And why would you need to get to it?'

Xanthros considered these questions for a second, then replied,

'How we knew there was something there will become clear. Why we felt we needed to get to it – well that is a more difficult question to answer.' He sat back in his chair and took a deep breath, 'The only reason we can give is curiosity. Did you never wonder why the first rover to land on Mars was called 'Curiosity'?'

Nye looked more curios than ever.

'Yes, we knew there was something in that cave, we have been using it unconsciously for generations, possibly longer.'

Both Nye and Michelle were now non-plussed. They were stunned into silence.

'There are thirteen 'families', or dynasties if you prefer, around the world guiding civilisation along its way. There used to be seventeen, but the one in South America was killed, the Conquistadores were an attempt to re-establish it, but that was not a complete success. The African branch was eaten, the ones in Egypt were lost at Luxor, the Mongul hoards were far too violent, and the control centre on Mars had to curtail them. That left the thirteen we now have today. Have you never wondered why there are some countries that are more civilised than others? Or why people from less civilised countries become civilized when they travel to a more developed country?'

Both Michelle and Nye shook their heads, they had been far too busy with their own lives to become involved in such things.

'Certain countries are 'governed' by the control centre left on Mars. That is not to say that they are being run by Martians – simply because there are no such things as Martians; we have known for quite some time now that there is no life possible on the red planet, so it would become more and more difficult to get a mission like this one under way.' He pointed at the two people opposite him, 'You two, among many others are monitors. You know that your responsibility is to monitor the development of your part of society, for that job you have been entrusted with certain knowledge about the background, but this goes far beyond that.'

Xanthros sat back again, and paused to let the information sink in.

'Dr Singleton found the control centre in the cave, then others of the group also found it. This information cannot get back to Earth. You are now among only a few hundred people on Earth who know this secret. You are already monitors, so are aware of the need for secrecy. The astronauts are not in such a position. The machines that built the Phoenix have been given the instruction that the astronauts must be prevented from returning to Earth.'

Michelle Romero looked shocked. She turned to Nye as if to confirm that she had heard correctly.

Just then the phone on Xanthros's desk rang. He picked it up, looked at the display, then asked Michelle and Nye to excuse him for a moment, he then walked to the far side of the room, Michelle and Nye could hear only one side of the conversation,

'Xanthros.'

'Neit.'

'No sir, we agreed to continue this mission, despite your attempts...'

'It has already cost too many lives.'

'There is very little chance...'

'We are rapidly running out of resources out there.'

'I don't care if Pendar wants another thirteen families...'

'We have it all in hand, sir. We shall discuss this at a later date. Goodbye.'

He returned to the couple on the settee. Michelle looked quite pale, Nye was trying to process this information.

Xanthros needed to draw the meeting to a close,

'I am sure you both have many questions. I suggest that you let this information digest a little, just get on with your normal duties, and don't try to discuss this with anyone.'

.....................
Chapter 40

Docking

The four astronauts were now trying to get into position to dock on the ends of the long arms of the Phoenix. This manoeuvre is usually done without the whole ship turning. Now she was diving as well. Ash and Hoshi were in the capsule Euclid coming up behind the rotating mother ship, Jake and Galina were holding position a little way back, this was a very dangerous operation that Ash was attempting; because of the rotating movement, any mishap could impact the second capsule, should they be attempting the same task. The Phoenix had now dropped a little in its orbit. To prevent further decay of the orbit the Phoenix had to fire the main engines. These were four massive F-1 rocket engines. The Euclid was little more than a thin tin that was about to pass right through the powerful blast of these engines.

The red planet drifted slowly below the strange formation. Phoenix turned its long arms through one revolution every 20 seconds, the thin atmosphere, or escaping materials allowed the occasional wisp of white vapour to trail the turning arms, Ash could see the main rocket engines fire up with pure blue flames. He thought of trying to turn the capsule round to place the heat shield towards the Phoenix's rockets, but that would not really help them. Maybe altering course away from the cone of blast would work? His own main rocket engine, the impressive J-2 unit was still usable, he glanced at the fuel gauge, and there was enough fuel for a thirty-second burn. Instantly he decided what to do. He threw the controls into one corner of their parameters, clicked on the J-2 for three seconds, then looked out of the window in time to see the Phoenix drift by. He had successfully turned the Euclid's nose to point in nearly the same direction the Phoenix was travelling. The mother ship was travelling faster than Euclid before the burn. In one swift burn Ash had cancelled out the speed difference, and thrown the little capsule away from the F-1D engines at the rear of the Phoenix, he had also began a sympathetic rotational procession with the Blue Sarsen arm upon which he intended to dock.

However, he was not out of the woods yet. Between the four arm structures of the Phoenix and the extremities of the centre were fine rigging wires of Graphene to allow the structures to withstand both acceleration and rotational gravity forces. These were easily capable of slicing the little capsule into small fragments. Ash could not see these, but he knew they were there. He turned the capsule to point its nose at the centre of the Phoenix as the massive blue solar panels drifted by his window. This gave him a very good visual cue in four dimensions, up and down, depth, and movement. The grey truss that carried the nuclear reactor made a curious contrast against the dull red Martian surface as the machines turned together. A little squirt from the attitude jets on the nose of the capsule gently pushed it back to be in line with the rotational position of the outer edges of the long arms. Slowly the blunt end of the Blue Sarsen came into view in Ash's window. He maintained complete calmness and silence as the white arm gradually grew larger, he made very delicate demands of the attitude jets. There would be no assistance from the mother ship; all this had to be done manually. Then the nose of Euclid became aligned with the docking port of the Rassvet capsule attached to the Bridge on Blue Sarsen, they were almost motionless in their relative positions. Ash looked down the long arm they knew as Blue Sarsen to ensure he was aligned properly. He saw the bulk of the Phoenix looking bereft of something with the units Sarsen I to IV now missing. The bright pin-pricks of stars drifted in the background as they rotated as if in a dance. One final check on the alignment instrumentation, then a quick look outside, Ash then spoke for the first time since they had to escape the rocket engines of the Phoenix,

'Clear and aligned for docking.'

Hoshi gave the equally concise reply,

'Clear and aligned for docking, I concur.'

'Stand by for docking.' With that Ash touched the control for the attitude jets on the nose of the Euclid to give all four of them a one point two second burst.

The two astronauts felt a very satisfying clunk, the displays turned from red to Blue, and the whole capsule seemed to heave a sigh of relief to be back home.

Ash called on the radio,

'Euclid docked and locked.'

Jake in the other capsule replied,

'Congratulations and well done from Pythagoras. Now it is my turn.'

Jake must now manoeuvre the Pythagoras to the opposite end of the long arm of habitable modules they knew as the Red Sarsen.

As he began to formate with the dull silver cylinder that formed the end of the arm, he and Galina began to feel the welcome effects of rotational gravity. As he looked up at the centre of the conical ceiling he quietly said,

'The only way is up.'

The gravity that was felt by the crew meant that they operated in a much more familiar environment; the straps that held them in place were not the essential restraining devices that they were in weightlessness – there was an up and a down again.

Jake docked with the end of Red Sarsen, then began shutdown procedures. When they had finished he called Ash with one pre-arranged word,

'Cupola.'

This signalled that all four astronauts would meet at the cupola, which was situated opposite the air lock half way down Blue Sarsen.

Jake and Galina performed the shut-down procedures in the capsule Pythagoras, as Jake took care of the final electrical switches Galina released the ladder in preparation of their exit from Pythagoras.

'Don't go up there yet.' Jake advised, 'There are scutters up there, who may not be friendly. In fact, I would test the air before we expose ourselves to it.'

'Christ! You're right.' Galina replied, she dropped back down to her normal position, and began booting up the atmosphere analysis panel, 'I will take a sample, then feed it down through the AAP.'

'Ok. Let me know when it is safe to open up.' Jake finished the shutdown procedures, then sat back and watched Galina. Her hair brushed her shoulders as she moved her head from side to side, she had the shoulders of a swimmer, the tops she wore usually covered this, but here in the Mars suit, the rubber-like material clung to extremities until it was inflated to enable comfortable movement on the surface of Mars. The events before their departure did not allow time to change into full space suits.

She began tapping the instrument as if in frustration.

'You got a problem?' Jake asked.

'Yes, I can't get a reading. Nothing. It's as if there was no atmosphere at all out there.'

She looked directly at Jake as the sudden realisation of what she had just said manifested itself.

Her eyes opened wider as she exclaimed,

'Jeez!' more tapping and adjusting, 'You don't think that all of the air on the Phoenix has leaked away?'

'No, I think the scutters have stored it in the White Sarsen, mainly to prevent leakage, but they do not need it, so if there is no air they can move about more freely, going out without the need to depressurise. Of course, if they have the same plan as the rest of the robots, that is to keep us from getting back to Earth, the absence of a breathable atmosphere would work very well in their favour.'

Galina hit the transmit button on her suit radio,

'ASH, do not open your hatch. Do not open your hatch. There is no air out there.'

She looked at Jake, they both looked worried as they waited for a reply – would they get one or were they too late?

Great relief when they received the call from Ash,

'We were just running tests and wondered why there were no readings. Thanks for the heads-up on that. The Mars suits will suffice, but I only have this modified aqua suit, Jake, you have the same, don't you? I don't think they will work in the complete vacuum of space.'

Galina, who had designed and built these modified suits agreed,

'No. They will not work. They only just passed the pressure tests on Mars where there is low atmospheric pressure. In space there is no pressure at all, you do not have adjustable pressures available to you, so if you gave yourselves any pressure setting at all, as soon as the air is released from your capsule your suits will probably explode because of the pressure differential.'

Ash responded,

'Shit. That means that we are all trapped in our capsules. It we open up to a vacuum the lack of pressure will cause us to explode along with our suits, at low pressure the boiling point of our blood will be lower than body temperature.' He flapped his arms in exasperation, 'What about your Mars suits? They are not intended for space work either.'

'That is true, but they have variable self-compensating pressure settings. As soon as the external pressure drops the internal pressure adjusts to prevent over inflation.'

Ash looked at Hoshi in her Mars suit,

'I bet you are feeling smug now.' He joked, 'Is there any way we can repressurise the Phoenix from within here?'

Hoshi looked at Ash as if he was asking the impossible,

'Even if we could, how would we know if a hatch had been left open?' she shook her head emphatically, 'There are too many tests to be performed before we can do that.'

Ash summed up the situation,

'So, we are stranded here in our capsules, unless one of us wishes to make the ultimate sacrifice.'

Galina came back on the radio, sounding as if she were exerting herself in some way,

'Not necessarily. I may have, uggh, a solution.'

Ash and Hoshi looked at each other in surprise. Ash whispered to his colleague,

'You don't suppose she is taking her Mars suit off do you? For what purpose?'

Then Galina came back on the line,

'When you men went charging around the planet in those silly converted aqua suits I got worried – especially when it sounded as if you were getting involved in some action. So I picked up a spare Mars suit as we left Homer Base.' She threw a package at Jake, 'And to save your blushes I shall look out of the window.'

Jake caught the package on his chest,

'I do believe that you saved my life.'

Galina had a look of satisfaction on her face as she looked out of the window at the slowly revolving blanket of stars. Every twenty-five seconds Mars would drift by. She looked at her time-piece, then out of the window, then back to her time-piece,

'We are slowing down. Yes, we are definitely slowing.' This was said directly to Jake, not over the radio, 'What do you think that could mean?'

'Well, first of all, it means it is going to be easier for us to get out of here. The more the turning stops, the lower the gravity will be.' He thought for a moment as he paused whilst putting on the Mars suit, 'But on a more serious note, it means that something out there is changing things in response to events.'

Galina continued to look out of the window as she replied,

'The radio silence is still needed then?'

'Even more so now. Remember that Hoshi has contact with the robot net, they may be able to find out through her what we are up to. I would rather they didn't know,'

He finished putting on the suit, then called Ash and Hoshi,

'Pythagoras to Euclid. Going silent now.'

Ash replied,

'Euclid to Pythagoras, roger that.'

Galina then said to Jake,

'I think we had better remove our intercoms too. Even if they are switched off they can be tracked throughout the ship.'

Ash simply nodded as he picked up his helmet, fiddled about inside, then came out with a small piece of electrical equipment with a short piece of multi-core cable attached to it.

Galina did the same, then they both donned their helmets, and tried to shout at each other, but neither could hear anything. That did not matter, because without the intercom system there will be no comms in the vacuum that exists outside of their capsule.

They could still feel the rotational gravity equivalent to approximately zero point three Earth gravity. This will help them avoid being sucked out of the capsule when the pressure is released through the exit hatch at the top of the pyramid.

The ladder was swung out from the wall, then anchored to the ground.

Jake climbed up the ladder to the top. Galina climbed up the opposite side of the ladder until she was almost facing Jake. Here she was sandwiched up on the slanted ceiling of the capsule. She took hold of his waist, and wrapped her arm around him and the ladder, thus making a very strong unit that will have to withstand tremendous forces when Jake opened the hatch.

He was very glad of the support from Galina, the locking wheel on top of the capsule that was now positioned inside the Phoenix, proved to be very tight due to the unequal pressure.

Jake had to use both hands to wrench the wheel round, less than quarter of a turn at a time. He knew he was close to opening up when air began escaping, turning to vapour around the hatch.

Then another wrench for an attempted quarter turn, and the wheel stopped. The hatch seemed to move. Jake took hold of the straight handles that needed to be turned through ninety degrees before finally releasing the whole mechanism. He tried to look down at Galina, but the restrictions of the helmet prevented this. He called out,

'Ready?'

She more sensed this than heard it, and replied,

'Ok. Go ahead.' Then she gripped tighter on to his waist in anticipation of the explosive decompression.

He felt the grip, and knew what it meant.

The twin handles turned quite easily – but then nothing happened. The hatch opened inwards, towards the pressure. That differential in pressure was now preventing the hatch from opening.

Jake took firm hold on the handles, he hooked his feet under a rung of the ladder, then pulled with all of his might.

The hatch was pulled out of his hands as the pressure was released. Galina gripped on to him, otherwise he would have been sucked out by this pressure wave, he was unable to grasp on to anything – he even let go of the hatch wheel to prevent having his arms pulled out of their sockets.

Debris from the capsule streaked past his back. Galina clung on, her shoulder taking most of the load as it was crammed up against the top of the capsule.

Less than one second after it started, it finished. Jake's feet returned to the ladder rung, this signalled to Galina that the excitement and danger were over.

Then their suits reacted to the sudden pressure differential. Their self-compensating mechanism was unable to cope with the suddenness of the event. They both detected a drop of pressure much like they were designed to on the surface of Mars. When this happens, they give a little pressure in the suit to protect from the low atmospheric pressure and give a little insulation from the very low temperature on the planet's surface.

But here the pressure kept falling. Within one point seven seconds it went from 14.7 lbs. per square inch to zero. The little inflation caused the suits to puff out, forcing their arms to point out like scarecrows. There was not that much room in the capsule, there was even less where Jake found himself – half in and half out of the hatchway, with his arms stretched out. Galina managed to keep hold of him, but he had slipped until he occupied the position he now found himself in.

The small module that Jake had begun to enter was one of the Rassvet docking modules, it was just as just a little wider than his outstretched arms. Gravity was now almost zero. As he dropped back towards the capsule, his arms caught on the sides of the hatch. His suit immediately began to deflate. There was no pressure in the airless Phoenix – it was like being in outer space. Slowly Jake began to be able to bend his arms again, but he needed to do something about the lack of air pressure. As soon as it got down to below the pressure where the boiling point of water was lower than body temperature, his blood would boil.

Jake did not know, but the same thing was happening to Galina below him, still in Pythagoras. As soon as he could move his arms enough he lifted himself into the interconnecting module, then looked around to see if he could do anything to help himself. He checked his suit as best as he could but found no leaks. The readings inside his helmet were showing normal. He looked down into Pythagoras to see if Galina was ok and was surprised to see that she was visibly shrinking. Then he realised that she had suffered the same over-inflation that he had experienced, and the suit was now bringing itself down to manageable levels.

She looked up to see him waving enthusiastically for her to come up and join him.

They slowly made their way up into the first full sized module, this was the old Harmony module which had been converted to carry mainly Russian experiments. They stopped there, and by pressing their helmets together found that they could converse quite normally. Jake began by shouting at first, but this nearly deafened Galina.

'We must be careful from here on in.' He said, almost in a conspiratorial whisper, 'There may be robots around here, and they could be hostile.'

She nodded.

'Thanks for holding me back there.' He said more softly.

'We are a team, are we not?' she allowed a smile to put a sparkle in her eyes.

The gravity kept on decreasing as the Phoenix continued to slow its rotation, so they hugged a little closer to prevent their helmets from parting as he said.

'Let me lead the way here. We don't know what to expect; these machines have had seven months to evolve.'

He winked as he began to move away from Galina. He climbed the ladder with ease, when he opened the hatch into the next section, he was surprised to find that this module was almost completely in darkness. The low gravity allowed him to move quite quietly. Noise needs air to travel, but the metal structure around him can transmit sound.

Slowly and carefully he moved forwards. His eyes gradually became accustomed to the dark. He stopped half way up the 26-foot-long module, and stood stock still. He was checking for movement. The robots he was concerned about were the two scutters, these maintenance machines were the size of a big dog, but longer because of the six arms/legs; the appendages could be either. Or they could have developed themselves to have an extra limb or two, or a big floodlight. Anything was possible.

Galina joined him as he began slowly opening the hatch of the next module. This was narrower than the previous modules. Jake waited before entering, there was no movement here, so he cautiously moved forwards. Galina followed him, in the darkness she bumped into his foot. This gave Jake a considerable shock. His feet both left the ladder he was climbing, the gravity was almost gone now because they were getting closer to the centre of the ship, and she was slowing down. Jake allowed his feet to drift outwards as he dropped his right hand from the ladder, allowing him to look below, to where his feet were. He saw the dim outline of Galina. His right hand then grabbed the top of the ladder, his left took the opening handle of the hatch before his right began turning the wheel to release the securing dogs that held the hatch in place.

This hatch opened away from where Jake and Galina stood. Jake pushed the hatch open, as he gave a little pressure he felt something touch the hatch. Then a silver rod came through the gap as it opened. He slammed the hatch shut, trapping the rod. It vibrated a little, then remained stationary.

He allowed his body to drift to the other side of the narrow passageway, then began opening the hatch again. The silver rod was now floating freely in space – but it was once attached to something. Jake took hold of it, he could not examine it in the darkness, but this looked like the nearest he could find to use as a weapon.

As the hatch opened he thrust into the darkness with the rod. There was nothing there. Slowly he raised his head into the module. He recognised this to be one of the modules that were attached to the centre Sarsen that had been made from the second stage of the launch vehicle. In the gloom and darkness anything could be lurking. As Jakes feet cleared the hatchway Galina put her head into the module, then an arm. In her hand she held a torch, which illuminated the whole module.

She moved up to where Jake was, their helmets touched, she said,

'I thought you could use some help.'

He replied, his eyes moving around the module as he did so,

'There is a Soyus module over there.' He pointed towards a circular hatch on the side of the module they were in, 'That could come in useful later.'

'Yes, that is fully equipped to fly the ship.'

He broke away to look into a far corner of the module, then touched helmets again,

'Shine some light in that corner.'

Galina shone her light into the area indicated. There was movement. Jake waved the silver stick in the direction of the movement, then the hatch into the main body of the mother ship, the White Sarsen, it opened, and a strange five-legged creature scurried through, and into the dark void beyond.

Helmets met again.

'I think I know what happened there.' Jake sounded hopeful, 'The sudden light flooded its sight sensors, they don't have eyes like ours, and they are much slower to react, so can become swamped and blinded very easily.'

Just then all of the internal lights came on.

Jake nodded,

'Crafty move. They lose the advantage of lurking in the dark, but that has been compromised now. We must presume that they are gathering for a counterstrike.'

'I think we had better move into the Soyus.' Galina suggested, 'It has full controls to enable us to operate and fly the whole of the Phoenix; as a life-boat this far out in space it also has to function as part of the main vessel.'

Jake saw the sense of this move, but had reservations,

'What about Ash and Hoshi? We should go get them first?' the latter part of the statement became more of a question.

'That means getting past the scutters. I have a better plan.' Galina said as she began to make her way towards the hatch that led to the Soyus.

As she touched the release handle on the hatch, the other hatch – the one that led into the White Sarsen – flew open. She didn't see what happened in that direction; she was far too occupied in getting out of that module.

A five legged machine that was bigger than a German shepherd, with extra length for the back set of limbs burst through the open hatch from the White Sarsen. It took hold of the ship's structure with its only front limb, there seemed to be one missing, wires hung where it used to be. The back legs made contact with the side of the module, then pushed it off the wall towards Jake.

He presumed it wanted to get its limb back. So he gave it to it. In a swing made more out of desperation than any calculated move, Jake managed to make contact with the machine's top sensor unit. As the mechanised head began to disintegrate it continued on its trajectory towards Jake. He ducked, but some of the debris hit him. Mainly on the helmet, this was able to stand the impact with impunity, but three small shards made contact with his Mars suit. Air began to leak away as the machine landed on the far wall.

As the scutter began to regain its sensor capability by re-routing systems, Jake decided not to hang about, he followed Galina into the Soyus.

Galina was already booting up systems when Jake closed the hatch, he then looked around to find something with which to jam the mechanism. This done he turned to Galina. She looked across to him and gave the thumbs-up. Three more switches were thrown, and air began to be fed into the capsule.

When the Soyus was fully pressurised and heated, Jake and Galina removed their helmets, then sat back to work out what to do next.

'Let's look at what we have available to us.' Galina began, 'We have in here the means to control most of the ship.'

There was a tapping sound from the hatch.

'Does that include the scutters?'

'No, I'm afraid not. They have had their programming distorted, they are simple maintenance machines, this aggressive behaviour is not in their normal mapping.'

Jake scanned the equipment available,

'I have an idea.'

More tapping on the hatch as the machine outside kept trying to get in, 'If we can control most of the ships functions, I presume we can pressurise bits, and communicate with Pythagoras?'

Galina nodded and turned towards a series of panels marked 'Life Support',

'More than that. We can check the integrity of any section of the ship.' She opened up three screens on the panel as Jake got on the radio.

'Jake to Pythagoras. Do you hear me, Ash?'

'Hi Jake, what's the situation for you?'

Galina interrupted,

'All modules in the Blue Sarsen are sound and clear. I will begin to pressurise the module nearest to the Euclid.'

Jake replied to Ash,

'We got out of the capsule and have made it to a Soyus craft.'

He was interrupted by more tapping and sliding as if a five-legged dog-like machine was trying to get in,

'The bad news is that the scutters are not friendly any more. But the good news is,' he turned and looked at Galina, 'We have control of most of the ship's function from here, so we will begin to pressurise the ship starting with the module outside your position.'

'You say you have control of most of the ships systems from a Soyus craft?' Hoshi asked.

Galina replied as she worked the life support panel,

'Yes, this is one of the emergency craft we prepared in case something went wrong with the main ship. The idea was to retreat here, where we can still fly the mother ship.'

Hoshi seemed confused,

'I thought that was one of the Orion units?'

'Yes, we converted one of those, too. Like you converted the Leonardo MPLM, but we felt that we needed something that was capable of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.'

Jake came back into the conversation at this point,

'Hoshi, it looks as if the scutters have turned renegade, can you get into their systems through their net, and find out if we can restore the situation?'

Hoshi knew what Jake meant,

'The net has been very quiet of late. I think the participants are taking time off. I shall go off air for a few minutes to see what I can do.'

She switched the radio equipment off, then donned her grey cloak to keep him from the robots' net, She then took a few moments to compose herself. She looked rather monk-like as she quietly contemplated the situation.

Her thoughts were in Japanese, but here we shall see them in English.

'The Net feels weak now. There must be little or no influence from Mars; that means that the guidance is mainly coming from Earth. The scutters' core program is simply to work on a mechanical level, instructions to impede human activities must be an imposition to this programming, so must be weak within the biometric circuitry of the scutters. Now, how am I to impose on this imposition?'

She swayed slightly and hummed quietly as she contemplated the situation.

'They are hard wired to work alongside us in furtherance of the mission. Any external influence can only alter their internal software, and what can be altered can be unaltered – especially if the original change is not in line with their primary programming. I suppose we could simply flood them with work, so that they have no capacity for newly programmed tasks.'

She gently moved a hand to touch Ash, then quietly said,

'What is the most demanding job we can give the scutters?'

Ash thought for a moment,

'It has to be something in the centre of the ship, where both of them are needed due to the vast areas and lack of gravity.' He snapped his fingers, then pointed at Hoshi, 'Got it! Purging the secondary alumin fuel hopper, it's a bastard getting in and out of.'

'Very well, that is what we should do, get them working at full capacity, then hit them with navigational tasks that will saturate their computing capacity. Once they are in that condition I can probably get into their software via the Net and undo the patches that have been applied. If they were applied directly from Earth, they should be relatively easy to over-ride.'

Ash nodded at Hoshi, who returned the nod, she switched the radio on again, but stayed beneath the hood.

'Euclid to Jake. We have a plan. I don't want to broadcast it in plain language, so just follow me, would you?'

'Roger that good buddy.' Jake replied.

'Can you input to the main bus that we need the secondary alumin fuel hopper to be purged as a matter of urgency? I have no input from here.'

Jake went over to the main computer repeater without saying anything. He input the request as several loud thumps reminded him of the attentions of the scutter outside.

Presently the scratching stopped. Hoshi reported that there was activity around the White Sarsen, and the purging began.

Hoshi then suggested that they shower the robots with navigational requests that will overload their computing capacities.

Amongst the requests was the exact co-ordinates and information required to leave orbit, and head for Earth. The massive overload was intended to cause the robot's computers to crash – it was not known if that crash would also incapacitate the ship's capability to navigate, so information was gathered in preparation.

Galina, in the makeshift command module Soyus began the repressurisation of the mother ship. By the time the whole ship had reached equal air pressure, the scutters had shut down.

Ash and Hoshi left the Euclid, Jake and Galina left the Soyus, and all four met up by the observation dome to plan the next part of their adventure.

.....................
Chapter 41

Lonliness of Command

Xanthros dropped into his chair; it had been a rough few days as the mission to Mars drew to its close. The Mission Controller had not slept

or left his station for three days. He was about to pick up the phone when Tom Collins knocked and walked into the room.

'Hi, Tom. What can I do for you?'

'I think you are doing enough, sir. How long is it since you had a rest?'

The Controller looked surprised by the question,

'Yesterday I think.'

'Three days more like.'

'Has it been that long?'

'Yes, it has. Why don't you go to the Gilruth and get your head down for a couple of hours? I can manage here; there is little we can do at this juncture anyway.'

Xanthros still had the phone in his hand. He looked at it, and then replaced it in its stand; he looked up at Tom,

'I guess you're right.' He rose from his desk, he held out his hand to Collins, and with an almost reluctant smile said, 'You have the helm, Mr Collins.'

'Keep your cell on, if anything happens I'll text you. If I need you, I will ring you.'

'Ok.'

Xanthros knew it made sense, how long would it be before his decision-making was affected? Had it already been affected? He walked into the fresh air, this revived him somewhat, but the fatigue from the last few days would take more than a breath of fresh air to shift. He could now feel the strain begin to manifest itself, there was no spring in his step, and he did not feel the effect of breeze on his face as he walked at his normal brisk pace.

A line of obscure poetry ran through his head,

'Creatures for a day! What is a Man? What is he not? A dream of a shadow is our mortal being.'

He began to feel more like a shadow as he entered the Gilruth, as he made his way to the sleeping quarters he caught the aroma of freshly ground coffee coming from the Orion lounge. He turned to avail himself of the caffeine; maybe that would make the difference between sleep and complete coma.

The frothy Latte tasted sweet and welcome. It seemed to spread relaxation through his body as it flowed down his throat.

The large wall-mounted TV flickered in his peripheral vision, and then a news flash broke into the ad break,

'We interrupt the scheduled program with breaking news about our mission to Mars. It has been reported that there has been an explosion on Mars, and five people have been lost during this mission. Stay tuned for more on this and other stories from closer to Earth.'

Xanthros could not believe his eyes and ears. The latte was abandoned, he quickly made his way back to his office, and on the way he called for Tom Collins and Michelle Romero to meet him there.

The Mission Controller began by explaining what he had seen,

'All they said was that there had been an explosion on Mars, and that we have lost five people during this mission. Given that there were only six who went to Mars, and that four of them are alive and kicking, where do they get their five from?'

Michelle had a sensible suggestion,

'If we burrow down into this story in detail we may be able to pinpoint a likely source.'

Xanthros agreed,

'That is a sound suggestion. See if you can find out where this story came from.' He turned to Tom, 'You don't think there has been a leak from in here, do you?'

Tom was one of the astronaut corps who had trained for this mission from the outset, so was beyond reproach. Michelle was a Monitor, so she was to be trusted implicitly. Xanthros was placing his hopes in this matter completely in these two.

Before Tom had chance to reply Michelle began working the case,

'Right, first I need to know which station was carrying the story. Did you catch which station it was?' she began typing into her tablet.

Xanthros shook his head,

'No. However, I would start with the locals first. In addition, avoid digital note taking, with paper only one person at a time can read it. With digital you do not know who is linked in. How many people knew the kind of information that was released to the network?'

Michelle and Tom looked at each other,

'Thousands.' They chorused.

Tom continued,

'They all work here, but very few have the complete picture, if we found out exactly what was released we may be able to narrow it down a little.'

Michelle added,

'I'll get on with finding the station, and then see if I can get a transcript of the broadcast. Should be able to illicit something from them with the expectation of scoops from NASA.'

Xanthros began shutting down his screens as he said,

'I will have to leave it with you like that; I have to go to Sweden, in Europe on a matter concerning the Mars mission. I will be back in three days; I hope you will have moved close to resolving the matter in the meantime.'

Later that day.

Michelle drove them to the TV station that broke the story. She wore the American flag dress, Tom wore his normal civilian clothes, and he did not want to turn up as a full Air Force Colonel.

On the way they discussed the rather fast departure of Xanthros. Michelle, as a Monitor knew that Tom was not, but he was cleared to receive the same level of information as a Monitor.

'Sweden? Did you, or have you ever had a call from Sweden, Michelle?'

'No, but there does not need to be a phone call. Xanthros is not only a higher rank than you and I; he is also a rank of which there are less than one hundred on Earth. He is a member of a group of individuals who do not normally rule, but they monitor and influence the rulers. Sometimes to such an extent they do become the rulers. These people are called Greys.'

Tom turned to look at Michelle,

'Shut the front door!'

She glanced across at him, then returned her attentions to the road,

'Without their input, democracy would never work. You do not think that people voted in, almost at random, can be capable of running a country on their own do you? They have no experience of running a whole country, they have no time to learn how to do it, yet it is the most important job any person can be asked to do.'

'Ok, 'Chell, so Xanthros is meeting with some of these people, is he?'

'Probably. These meetings are not arranged on the phone. They have their own communications system, as a Monitor I can sometimes pick up on this, but it is not very reliable at my level.' She shrugged and smiled at him, 'But I did pick up enough names to know that this is a particularly important meet.'

'Anyone we know?'

'You must be joking. These people know all there is to know about keeping out of sight.'

This surprised Tom,

'But running countries and having power is, by its very nature, high profile.'

'Not the way they do it, Tom.'

'Ok, I am fairly well informed, or at least I like to think so. Hit me with some names, Chell.'

She looked askance at him, and thought carefully before replying,

'Ok. Try these for size, but these names must not go any further than the two of us.'

She looked at him again and awaited a reply.

'Yeah, sure. Hit me with the names.'

'Ok. I think Baur is a German; del Banco could be Mexican for all I know, but is probably Spanish. Then there was Hapsburg, Semiramis and Plantagenet.'

Tom just stared out at the road in front of them. Seconds passed in silence before he said,

'The Hapsburgs I remember from high school history lessons, and the Plantagenets from even longer ago. Medieval Europe I think. But you were talking about people today concerning themselves with a mission to Mars. They can't be the same people, can they?'

'Of course not. They may not be normal humans, but they ain't immortal.'

'But they are the same families?'

'Yes, Tom. They are descendants from these families.'

'But if these families were spread all over the known world, and travel was always more difficult than it is now, how have they managed to maintain the purity of their race? I presume they have been procreating in a similar way to us.'

'Oh, for Christ's sake.' Michelle smiled at Tom, 'How the hell should I know what they get up to? But I guess they are the same as us in every way except for their cerebral make-up. As far as diluting their advantages goes, I strongly suspect that the difference between us and them is so strong that it is dominant within their off-springs.'

'Like black and tan in dogs?'

A quizzical look came over her face as she looked at Tom,

'I beg your pardon. Have you completely lost the plot?'

'Hell no. At least I do not think so. There seems to be a dominant gene within dogs that produces black and tan coats. When two dogs mate, if either one of them is black and tan, the young are always black and tan. It is a genetic trait.'

'I see what you are getting at. Dominant Genetic Strains.'

'If that is what is happening, and indeed, what has happened, there is a whole strand of genetic research that has not yet been explored – or even discovered.'

The car pulled up to the security gate of the TV station.

They met with a producer; Larry Harris was in charge of news content. Michelle opened up the conversation,

'This item about our mission to Mars is of some concern to us, we would like to ensure that you get the facts absolutely correct.'

'That is our aim, ma'am. If we could work exclusively with you on this...'

Tom interrupted here; it looked as if Harris was likely to run the conversation,

'We can't give you exclusiveness. But what we can offer is a first to know deal.'

Michelle added,

'But first we need to check your first story for accuracy. If you could give us the exact information you are working with we can check this and correct any errors. We certainly do not want to get any misleading information to go out to the public. We will probably be able to explain some elements of this and add in things you do not know.'

'Can we quote NASA when we use this information?' Harris was getting quite excited about the prospects of working so close to NASA.

Michelle did not hesitate in replying,

'Of course, providing you do not alter the information or use it out of context.'

'Can we report that the information is exclusive to us?'

Michelle was very aware that they do not yet have the transcript they came for,

'What we give you in respect of the piece you have already run will be exclusive to you.'

Harris was feeling bullish as he kept pushing for advantages over his competitors,

'What about other information? Can we run a series on developments and discoveries?'

Michelle looked at Tom Collins, she was aware that she should not appear too keen to give away gems of information – it devalues it. She addressed the TV executive,

'Can we have a moment?'

'Yes, of course.'

They rose from their seats, and slowly walked across to what looked like a very old bare brick wall at the rear of the establishment.

'Pushy person, ain't he?' Tom opened quietly. They kept a respectable distance from the wall in case of listening devices.

'I suppose that's part of his job.' Michelle said.

'Yes, and it is still our job to get that transcript, we ain't had a sniff of it yet.'

'Should we use a carrot or a stick to get closer to it?'

'We ain't got no stick here, Michelle. On the one hand, we are a very open organisation, funded by the public, and we share our information and discoveries with our paymasters. However, on the other hand we have this requirement of confidentiality.' They both knew what was meant by that, and no more would be said about it.

Tom raised a finger as he said,

'I think I can make a carrot look like a stick.' His eyebrows raised in enquiry.

'You sock it to him, Colonel.' Said Michelle as she tapped Tom's arm, they turned back to Harris.

Tom began the next part of the negotiations,

'As you are no doubt aware we are not alone in this venture.'

He carefully watched Harris's response as he slowly unwrapped the metaphysical package that could contain a carrot, or a stick, Harris was not supposed to know which, Harris nodded, Tom continued,

'Other powers have vested interests in what we do out there on Mars, we couldn't release their information, neither would you want us to, believe me.'

Harris understood,

'Of course, we respect confidentiality; we wouldn't get far in this line of work if we didn't.'

Tom and Michelle each thought,

'Two-faced bastard.'

Tom continued,

'Whilst there are elements within this mission that must remain under wraps, there are other parts that the public does not understand. It would be good if they can be educated, you may be able to play a part in this.'

Harris was keen to explore this further,

'That would be exclusive?'

'A series of TV programs would be exclusive.' Tom was still feeding out the bait.

Harris's mind was whirring in eager anticipation,

'What about transmissions directly from the surface of Mars?'

Michelle stepped in here,

'Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. All these things are possible, but first we have to make sure that you are issuing accurate information. Do you have an original transcript of what you received, as well as what you broadcast?'

Harris was hooked. All he could think of was how much his competitors would bid to have a part of his Mars-based reporting system.

He placed two phone calls, within minutes Michelle and Tom had hard copies of not only the broadcast transcript, but also the raw information that they needed to try to find the leak from where this had come.

Xanthros was Michelle's boss. However, everyone has a boss, the people at NASA all thought that Xanthros's boss would be the President, or some other such political body.

They would be wrong.

The Greys were not the neighbours down the block -unless the block was a couple of galaxies wide.

However, they are now here amongst us:

Ninkharsag was Xanthros's sister. She lived incognito below the rank of Monitor, but was performing the duties of a monitor, watching Xanthros from close by and yet afar.

del Banco, his brother operates from Switzerland. There is still sibling rivalry between these two.

Semiramis was the Goddess of communications, as such; she will have a vital role to play.

Rockefeller lived in Sausalito, California as a poet and philosopher.

Romanov moved around the countries that used to be in the Soviet Pact. He decided that this group of countries were not vibrant enough whilst within the Soviet Union.

Moreover, they all had a boss:

The Marquis of Libeaux controlled the whole set-up. He did not micro-manage the 'people' beneath him, but this time he concerned himself directly.

'I don't care where you have to go.' The Marquis was speaking to Michelle by secure link from Istanbul,

'We must stop this leak. I have arranged for Semiramis to help you.'

As a Monitor, Michelle was aware of the organization, but she did not know any of them, nor even the Marquis.

'Sorry, but who is Semiramis?' she said the name with hesitation and uncertainty.

'Semiramis is the sister of Xanthros, they do not usually work together. I think she will be of use to you in this task, her area of speciality is communications; she is the Goddess of communications. It was she who brought about the Internet Protocol 6D.'

Michelle thought for a moment,

'What about Tom? We have been working on this together, we are developing theories.'

'Tom is a vital part of the team, there will be three of you to deal with this threat. Yes, I said threat, for this is indeed a threat to civilisation. There are threads within the civilised world that hold it together. If this leak is not stopped soon, these threads will be threatened, and unknown destruction will follow. I cannot stress enough the importance of your mission.'

'Yes, I can see that she would be most useful, now do I contact her, or will she...'

'Semiramis will indeed contact you. It is her forte, after all.'

Michelle was somewhat taken aback by this.

'Oh, ahem, err. Right, erm, Ok. But we have to go to St Louis to follow a lead,'

'Yes, we know this, but I think you will find your lead will have moved on to Des Moines by the time you get there.'

'How on Earth do you know that?'

'Never mind, Semiramis will explain everything to you. You had better prepare for your move to Des Moines; Semiramis will contact you before you get there and make whatever arrangements for you.'

Michelle was rather nonplussed; she did not even know how to address this strange caller.

'Right, err. Ok Mr Marquis. Sir, err, I am sorry, what do I call you? We don't go for nobility in the US.'

'"Sir" is what most people settle for. In addition, I know that Semiramis is a difficult name to get your tongue around, so she prefers Sam.'

'Roger that, sir. I will look forward to hearing from Sam.'

The call ended, Michelle slowly lowered the instrument. She looked across at Tom Collins, who entered the room as the call ended. She shook her head as she said,

'You won't believe what that was all about. I should have put it on speaker for you.'

'I presume there has been some sort of development.'

'You could say that. Would you like some coffee?' As she worked the machine he replied,

'Yes. What kind of development?'

'We ain't going to St Louis for a start.' She moved back with the coffee from the machine, 'And we have a new assistant.'

'Have we now? That sounds interesting. Who is it? Someone here?'

'Not exactly. Don't you want to know about St Louis?'

'Whoa there. One thing at once. Which is the most significant?'

She took a deep breath to assimilate her thoughts.

'For a start, the guy on the other end claimed to be someone called,' she looked up the note she made at the beginning of the conversation, 'The Marquis of Liboo or something like that. He claimed to be Xanthros' boss?' she look more and more puzzled as the story moved on.

'Then he said he knew we were going to St Louis.'

'How can he know that?'

'What he told me next came as a bigger surprise,' she took a sip of her coffee, 'by the time we get to St Louis our target will have moved on to Des Moines.'

'What?'

'So we have to go to Des Moines to meet up with someone he described as 'The Goddess of communications.'

'This is gonna by good.' He responded, 'And just who is this mystery person?'

'Her full name is Semiramis, but we can call her Sam.'

He smiled as he said,

'Instead of Uncle Sam, we got ourselves an Aunt Sam.'

'You should have heard his voice, Tom. I believe every word – even the bit about being Xanthros' boss.'

Tom drained his cup,

'Right, Des Moines it is then.'

.....................
Chapter 42

The Chase

Galina Danilenko looked out of the windows of the cupola. Here in the Blue Sarsen they were under some 20 per cent gravity, which gave then a nice feeling of knowing what was up and what was down. The stars moved slowly from the top to the bottom of the segmented dome as the space ship rotated. Presently Mars came into view. They were now orbiting at six miles above the red planet; she scrutinized the surface that until recently they called home. Any sign of the explosion that damaged Homer Base had by now disappeared. She knew where the base lies, but to be able to see details at this range was asking too much, the structures were not big enough to stand out.

Ashton Preston and Jake Jensen moved into the bridge area, which was situated alongside the cupola, at the same time Hoshi Masuto checked the main air lock, which was opposite the observation window.

Galina and Hoshi were back to back when she called out,

'That is not possible.'

Hoshi turned around in response to this exclamation.

'What is not possible?'

He moved across to look out of the window.

'There. Is that smoke or dust?'

'Where?'

'I am worried that something may have happened to our camp, Hoshi.'

'Why, were you thinking of putting it on the market?'

A playful prod in the ribs from Galina's elbow moved the Japanese scientist to the next window. Her head was much closer to the glass now. She looked towards their camp on the surface of Mars, then let out a cry of her own,

'Yes. I see it now.'

She brought her binoculars to bear on the spot, just as the rotation of the ship took it away from their field of view.

She dropped her glasses as she turned to Galina,

'Damn. You were right, there was something happening down there. We should just get one more chance to see it again before it drops over the horizon.'

They both watched the pattern of stars drop down their field of view, what seemed like minutes had passed since Mars was in their window, but it was less than twelve seconds before the planet appeared at the top of their viewing windows. They scrutinised the surface for traces of activity, but could find no signs.

Hoshi was still wearing her cloaking device, this she discarded, she then stood quietly pondering what had just happened – or not happened.

Her head bowed, she began shaking it slowly. Presently she looked at Galina with a very serious expression,

'There is some strange activity on the 'Net'

She turned to look into the bridge area,

'Ash, can you pick up any transponder activity?'

All spacecraft are hard-wired with a transponder device that makes it easier to find them in the depths of space.

Ash threw a couple of switches and tapped on some screens. He then called out,

'Christ. Jake, what do you make of that?'

Jake looked at the display.

'It looks as if we are not alone.'

In the display in front of them was a clear indication given off by a transponder.

Within the signal are the vehicle's identity, position and speed.

Ash was first to notice,

'That's Sarsen 1, and look, there is another one, Sarsen 2. They are heading this way.'

Jake looked directly at Ash,

'How? We left nothing alive down there. Gerald and Steve just about destroyed each other, Stuart has been disassembled on the prehistoric pavement by Gerald, and we finished off Silver.'

Hoshi joined the two Americans in the bridge area,

'Are these vehicles programmed to return to the mother ship when all humans have left the planet?'

Ash replied,

'Not that I know. Anyway, what use would they be on a return journey? But they could be of use on Mars if anyone else came here.'

Hoshi returned to her contemplative position as Galina took the place she vacated on the bridge.

She looked at Jake, and asked,

'What does this mean?' there was real concern in her voice.

'We just don't know.' Ash could offer no comfort, 'But it looks as if they are positioning themselves to rendezvous with us.'

All four astronauts fell silent. The numbers kept changing in the display to update the positions of the Sarsens.

Hoshi did not break the silence as she carefully placed her hood back over her head. She had been in touch with the Net, now she needed some thinking time.

Galina went back to the observation copula, and looked at the slowly turning stars. She knew that she would not be able to see anything, the dome faced forwards, the Sarsens were approaching from the rear.

A dull red light flooded the area as Mars appeared, then dropped out of sight to be replaced by a blanket of bright stars. Galina wondered if one of them could be Earth, and she worried that she would never see it again; this constantly turning on two axis in space was disorientating.

Hoshi looked at her watch, then, without removing her cloaking hood she announced in a quiet voice,

'About five minutes ago I received a scrambled message on the Net. I couldn't make it out at first; most messages are not in clear speech. I thought nearly I recognised the source; it sounded as if it came from Gerald. I have been analysing the content, part of it seems to be coming from a long distance away, that must be Earth, but there were elements that were not Gerald, and not from Earth. It could have been his Sarsen, or the other one, I couldn't be sure.'

Ash was worried about this,

'Can you make a guess as to what they are up to?'

'I don't think that there is any doubt about why they are up here. We are the only thing between here and Earth, which is still two months from perihelion, by the way.'

Jake was more direct,

'Do they mean us any harm, Hoshi? If so, what can we do about it?'

'From the strange coding I have been picking up it is difficult. These are machines communicating with each other, there is no malice involved, only mechanical information about the task in hand.'

'And what is that task?' Galina tried to hide the anxiety in her voice.

Hoshi turned to face her directly as she said,

'They intend to dock with us.'

Jake was first to react to this revelation,

'Shit. Is there anything we can do about that?'

Hoshi held her hands out, palms uppermost as she replied,

'Not a thing. These are machines performing a series of tasks for which they have been programmed.'

Galina had all but given up trying to hide the apprehension she now felt,

'What will happen then?'

Hoshi looked at her fellow astronauts in turn as she outlined the probable scenario,

'Docking is almost fully automatic in this case. The Sarsens will dock back on to the White Sarsen – even if it is still turning. Gerald then has a choice of how he gets on to the Mother Ship; he can make his way to the docking port, then pass into the main ship just like we would. Or he could leave the Sarsen by the emergency exit in the nose – remember he is a robot; so does not need an air lock or a space suit. He could then choose his entry point. He does not care if he depressurises a Solyut, or a module, or the whole ship. If he tries to enter by the normal air lock here, the Quest, we can probably lock the mechanism, but that would only delay the inevitable.'

'Which is what?' Galina wanted the full detail.

Hoshi looked at the Americans. Jake decided to lay it down,

'Judging by his actions on Mars, he is determined to prevent us leaving Mars – and is quite prepared to kill us all to achieve his mission – and he will not stop.'

She visibly shook, Jake moved to her, and took her in his arms,

'It's gonna be ok. We'll think of something.' He looked across at Ash for support in this.

Ash looked at Hoshi,

'Any suggestions?'

Hoshi looked around the bridge area, then up and down the inside of the Blue Sarsen,

'Not many. We could barricade ourselves in here, the circuits from here cannot be overridden, we could then proceed to fly the ship from here, but how long would it be before he punches a hole in the skin of the module? Then it would be game over for us within seconds.'

Ash looked at the display showing the relative positions of the two Sarsens, the numbers slowly ticking away as they drew closer,

'So pure defence is not an option. Can we prevent him entering the Mother Ship?'

The four astronauts thought for a few minutes, the Sarsens gradually closed the distance between them and the Phoenix.

Hoshi was first to speak,

'That is not going to be easy. The Sarsens are designed to do very few tasks, the main ones being; land on Mars, leave Mars, then dock with the Phoenix. This being so, they were hard wired to ensure that nothing interfered with them.'

Jake asked,

'Why are there two?'

Hoshi had picked up some extraneous messages when she first found out about them. Now she tried to make sense of them,

'They were always kept fully fuelled and ready for launch whilst on the surface of Mars. The launch sequences of both is almost fully automatic, if Gerald used the Net to initiate launch, it is quite conceivable that both would be fired up.'

Galina looked at Ash, who was deep within the bridge,

'Ash, can we outrun them?'

He consulted Hoshi with a glance, then replied,

'Not really; the Sarsens have the improved F-1D rocket, and weigh about one eighth of what we do. But we can still use our four F1 engines to keep them at bay, and buy us some time, but that is only temporary.'

They decided upon this course of action, but Hoshi pointed out that they were in a carefully controlled orbit,

'We must be careful to avoid being thrown out of orbit by the increase in speed, we want to be thrown off the planet eventually, but not at random, we would like to be pointing at Earth when we leave orbit.' She moved to a terminal, and then began punching in numbers. She referred to the screen that Jake was using to monitor the chasing Sarsens, and then went back for more number crunching.

'Got it!' Ash exclaimed from his position within the bridge, 'The Sarsens are slightly lower than us in orbit, also they are going faster than we are. If we increase our speed towards escape velocity, they will reach it before we do. If we then stop accelerating, we will stay in the Martian orbit whilst they shoot off into space.'

'Do you think they will fall for that?' Jake asked.

'They have no choice. They have to keep pace with us. That is their primary mission now and being reprogrammed with a patch will probably work in our favour.'

Ash saw the logic in this, it must be remembered that spacecraft in orbit are flying in straight lines, it is the gravity of the planet or body they orbit that bends the line into an orbit; but too fast and they risk flying off, too slow and they risk dropping down.

'Sarsens do not have forward thrusters, so they will not be able to stop accelerating, let's do it.' Ash added.

The Phoenix began increasing speed, at the same time they started to lose height to remain in orbit.

As predicted the following Sarsens picked up speed, because in order to catch the mother ship they had to be travelling faster. As the big mother ship reached escape velocity, she fired her reverse thrust rockets in the nose, and then began to drift higher, where the Sarsens would be forced to follow, just as they reached escape velocity.

Sarsen Two, flown by Gerald, adopted a slightly nose-up attitude. He fired the F-1 rocket for zero point seven seconds (0.7 sec). This was only point zero three of a second (0.03 sec) too long. The F-1 rocket can deliver up to one million six hundred thousand pounds of thrust (1,600,000 lbs.). If left pumping out that kind of thrust, with no atmosphere to resist, for as little as 0.03 of a second too long whilst close to terminal velocity means only one thing can happen. Sarsen Two left orbit. She moved out first towards Jupiter, and then the curved nature of her course began to move Saturn into her line of flight.

Sarsen One did not follow Sarsen Two. Steve was flying this, it was his plan to monitor the situation, and then see if he could intercede to help the astronauts.

The automaton in Sarsen Two tried to turn his fleeing spacecraft round to face the direction he had come from, but he continued to move away from Mars at over four and a half thousand miles per hour. By the time he got the machine to face the right direction Phoenix had passed behind the planet twice more, then blasted off using the sling shot effect of the orbits. The astronauts finally made the leap to return to Earth.

.....................
Chapter 43

The Thrones of Mars

NASA's Lear Jet dropped down into the circuit at Copenhagen airport. Xanthros looked out of the rounded window at the ground below as the clouds parted. He had the plane to himself, apart from the skeleton staff of pilot, navigator and the secretary Sem who acted as steward too on this trip. He would have brought Michelle Romero, but she had the information leak to deal with.

As the sleek jet taxied to a stop, he saw a big Volvo drawing up to the aircraft. Rockefeller and del Banco were in the car. They went directly to the Lisieux Conference Centre on the outskirts of the city for the meeting.

The Marquis of Libeaux chaired the meeting; also in attendance were Xanthros's brother del Banco, Romanov, Rockefeller, and Hapsburg. The little secretary Sem entered the room, and to Xanthros's surprise she metamorphosized into his sister Ninkharsag.

These were not normal people. They were all the same as Xanthros; they were all Greys.

In the dim reaches before memories, the family of The Marquis of Libeaux wanted servants to do the menial tasks for them on Earth, and so it fell to Ninkharsag and Xanthros to create these beings. After some time, Xanthros was not satisfied with their creation, the pre-Neanderthal, and wanted to give them more intelligence. del Banco was outraged at what they had done, accusing them of making men "like Gods." However, Xanthros had more plans for the thinking humankind; he needed soldiers, which implies that this is the fundamental reason for humankind's willingness to fight wars on behalf of their God. He originally operated from what is now Egypt; from here, he gave different tribes different gods to worship. The echoes of these "developments" we can still see today stretching across North Africa and through the Middle East, from the Atlantic to India.

Xanthros is in charge of the mission to Mars. Things have not gone completely to plan; some would have preferred the mission to fail to get to Mars, because they knew what is likely to be found there. The original setbacks – the Jacques Garbou 'accident', Mary-Jo Shelby's drift into space, even the attempted hijacking by Dmitri Chopov – they were all orchestrated by del Banco to try to prevent humankind from discovering something that might upset the delicate balance that was evolving amongst humankind.

However, this meeting was not about sibling rivalry and differences of opinions – humans had developed many threats to themselves and their planet in the past. However, even the threat that came from the destructive powers of nuclear weapons paled into insignificance when considering the way the humans have now become dependent upon electronics. Now they have used electronics and their ingenuity in engineering to produce robotics. This has now infiltrated through all elements of even the least civilised areas. Warring tribes have been known to use electronics and robotics to a certain extent. Until now any threat to humankind has been prevented by the First Law of Robotics; 'No robot shall harm a human, or allow harm to come to a human by inaction.' This simple law has prevented intervention of electronic brains upon the human development. Now Xanthros has allowed it to be overturned, setting a precedent that could lead to the electronic intelligences taking over the whole of the human race, wiping out thousands of years of development and evolution.

The Marquis began by asking Xanthros about the development that led up to the present situation,

'Professor Xanthros, would you like to tell us how your manned mission to Mars is progressing?'

'It is going very well, thank you my Lord. We have the four astronauts back on board their mother ship, the Phoenix. We expect them to begin their trip back to Earth in the very near future.'

Ninkharsag appeared to be relieved by this news; she always seemed to wear her heart on her sleeve,

'We are all very pleased to hear this, but all has not always been good and successful has it not?'

Xanthros looked at his hand as he answered,

'No, there have been a few snags along the way, but we all knew that this was going to be an adventure fraught with danger.'

Xanthros' brother del Banco said,

'You lost five people as a direct consequence of intervention did you not?'

'Yes,' Xanthros looked at Rockefeller, 'There are people around this table who did not want this mission to succeed.'

The Marquis then asked,

'Did it succeed? What did they find on Mars?'

The group fell silent as all eyes turned to Xanthros,

'They found water. Not liquid water, but they took a couple of nuclear reactors with them, so they could melt the under-surface ice. As you know it is quite important to protect yourself from the harmful radiations and general conditions on Mars, so they gained several advantages from this approach.' He began counting on his fingers, 'One, shelter, two water, which they can split down to hydrogen and oxygen. I do not need to tell you how important these two elements are. They have spent fourteen months on the planet, and I think they have made good use of their time there.'

This roused del Banco,

'There were five who landed, were there not? What exactly happened with the one whom you lost?'

'He was working in the cave that was being excavated, and an accident occurred.'

'That is horse shit, and you know it. Unfortunately for you, so do we. Who had control of the machine that he was working with, Professor Xanthros?' del Banco demanded.

These two were brothers, and their sister was Ninkharsag, but there is sibling rivalry between the three, who's direct ancestors (or was it they themselves?) began the original experiments to create a more intelligent species.

'If you are so all-knowing, you will also know that all the machinery on Mars is semi-independent. They are controlled by each other, through their own Net, but there is little or no human input into this line of command.'

'So the machinery killed the fifth astronaut?'

'We don't know exactly what happened. The working conditions below ground were unpredictable and dangerous. Anything could have happened.'

del Banco responded quietly to this,

'Is that right Professor?' he pointed a remote control at a wall. The whole edifice flicked into life; the image of an ice cave appeared. Xanthros recognised this immediately as the cave in which Mark Singleton lost his life.

As the picture began to move del Banco explained,

'This is footage taken by a camera mounted on the drilling machine within the cave on Mars. These figures on the sides are performance data, and there is sometimes information on orders and directives sent out to the machine. This data is sometimes coded into responses and other data, so I will translate it as we go along. It may be necessary to stop the movie from time to time to allow me to keep up with the commentary, but here goes.'

He turned to the screen as the image began to move into the cave. Data and figures flickered on both sides of the picture as the machine moved into the cavern. del Banco explained,

'This is where the machine began to cool down. You can see from the data here that the power to the drill head had been stopped. There is no way a human can survive whilst it is powered up; the heat is too much.'

The ice in the cave continued to melt down the blue and white walls. The constantly dripping of water echoed around the cavern, punctuated occasionally by the crash and splash of ice falling from the roof. del Banco pointed at the right side of the picture,

'Temperature is noted here, you can see that it is now plummeting down. In a way the ice water that is flowing out of the cave is carrying the heat away with it.'

As the group of Greys watched parts of the cave walls turn from blue-white to striped shades of ochre, red and brown, the camera turned until a figure could be seen walking towards it.

del Banco paused the movie, he pointed at the symbols on the right side of the screen said,

'This signifies communications, but probably not between the drilling machine and the man.'

He restarted the movie. The symbols he had just pointed at changed colour, from grey to white,

'There you go. Communications between the drill and the robot known as Silver, who was at the entrance of the cave, he was too big to enter the cave.' He explained.

The man in the cave was the British engineer, Mark Singleton, who had built the original trike upon which the drilling machine was based.

del Banco told the meeting,

'Mark here has no communications with the machines; they are talking to each other over their Net. Here we see another communicator coming into the conversation.' He pointed to symbols that now appeared in pale yellow.

He paused again to study the cryptogram.

'This has been translated as a communication from Homer Base. It was probably from Gerald, but it was not a message to the cave. Remember that this communication system is a Net. Here we have the android Gerald communicating with Earth. Not only Earth, but someone here in this room.'

He looked at Xanthros, who sat quietly, knowing what to expect.

'Professor Xanthros, would you like to tell us what is said in these messages?'

'This one is notification of Mark's entrance to the cavern; I acknowledged the information, that's all.'

The white symbols grew as Gerald sent a message out.

'And what is this about?' asked del Banco, pointing at the newest symbols.

Xanthros knew that they had been translated, so there was no point in bluffing,

'Gerald is asking what should be done if the human finds the device.'

Ninkharsag asked the question that everyone else must have been wondering,

'What device?'

Xanthros looked around the room as he gave his considered answer,

'You have all been too involved with your own petty little games here on Earth to remember where you once came from. Studies in causation and the chaos theory indicated that there are links between what we know as coincidences. These links, once traced, led us to Mars.'

He paused, looking around the room before continuing,

'Deep below the planet's surface, at first we thought it may have been the core of the planet itself. However, we eventually worked out that it was not in rock, but ice. Then we put together this operation to land a man on Mars. It had to be a manned mission, the whole operation was too big and complex to justify otherwise. The landing site was chosen some distance away from where we wanted to explore to allow our dedicated robot to get on with its work without the humans knowing anything about it. You know that Silver took the fourth Sarsen and landed near where the device was thought to be. Then he began searching. He found readings that indicated a vast ice-filled underground cavern. He had a nuclear reactor with him, so developed more than enough power and heat to turn the ice into water.'

He seemed to be relaxing into the story now. On the screen Mark was cautiously making his way across the newly hewn cavern. His commentary came as sound,

'The ground seems made up from 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 lip at the entrance.'

He was silhouetted in the entrance as he bent to touch the ground inside the cave.

'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.'

The room was deathly silent as the group watched Mark moving tentatively into the cave. The glinting ice reflected the constantly moving light on his nearly white Mars suit from the powerful lanterns he carried. He described what he saw,

'The ground seems reddish-brown inside, but that is not easy to determine due to the light being reflected off the ice walls and ceiling.'

The sounds of dripping water was combined with his feet paddling through the freezing water as he made his way towards the camera that was mounted on the trike.

Mark's Liverpool accent came through as he continued his commentary,

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

The viewing group saw the top of his head as he bent down to examine one of the mounds, one of the lanterns flashed its beam crazily around as Mark tapped the little hillock,

'They are hard, not like sandstone, it sounded and felt more like granite, but brown. But this is not a scientific hardness test; that will have to wait.'

The Greys could then see the beam from one of the lanterns flash across the surface as Mark inspected the smoothness of the area around him,

'I don't want to step on one of these, they are sharp.'

His figure grew bigger as he reached the camera, then shot off to the right-hand side of the screen. A blurred arm or something flashed past the camera as he inspected the trike-drilling machine,

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

The astronaut came into view again as he trudged across the cave, his lights flashing around the psychedelic cavern with its red, ochre and brown striped walls contrasting with white and blue sections of ice reflecting the madly swinging beams from Mark's lanterns.

He walked ungainly away from the trike, then shone his lanterns into a darker corner of the cave,

'I think I can see a naked outcrop of 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 strange about its shape – it is too regular.'

The symbols on both sides of the screen started to increase in activity; the grey and white squiggles were joined by yellow ones, then red, then light blue ones.

The Marquis of Libeaux sat bolt upright,

'What the hell does all that mean? Freeze the screen please Mr del Banco. I want to know what just happened there.'

del Banco smiled demurely as he paused the picture again. He turned to Xanthros, who still looked as if he was in full command,

'Professor Xanthros, do you have encryptions of these symbols?'

Xanthros looked at the screen edges, where the coloured symbols were displayed,

'The white symbols are from the robot known as Silver, the cream coloured ones are from a robot in Homer Base, in most cases it would be Gerald. The red symbols come directly from Earth, which means me.'

The Marquis wanted to know more,

'And exactly what did you say, Professor?'

Xanthros did not look quite as comfortable this time as he said,

'I reiterated an instruction that had been given to all mechanised devices on the Mars mission; that was to prevent the humans finding out what we were looking for.'

The Marquis raised one eyebrow,

'And exactly how far were the robots allowed to go in this prevention?'

del Banco joined in the probing questioning, pointing at the screen he asked,

'Is this the command that led to what we shall see happened?'

'No. That is me simply asking Silver what was happening.'

He scanned the meeting,

'You see, I did not have this facility here on Earth. I also asked him to see if he could intercede in the developments in the cave, but he could not get into the opening.' He pointed at the screen, 'This is him telling me that there was nothing he could do, and he then asked me if the trike could be used.'

'What was meant by this, Professor?' The Marquis asked.

'All machinery on Mars can be controlled by use of the Net. He was asking if he should use the trike in some way. It was the only piece of equipment in the cave with Singleton.'

Romanov then asked,

'And just what was he supposed to do with the drill, hide the device behind it hoping that the human would not see it? He already has seen it.'

del Banco suggested he play the movie on a little more.

'Let us see what happens. If the Professor would be so good as to decipher the codes?'

Xanthros nodded. The movie continued. The symbols on both sides began flashing, changing and moving.

'Here we see signals going to the trike telling it to move.'

A series of strange Blue symbols appear,

'This response shows that the machine is stuck in ice.' He pointed at the screen, 'And here is the response, to switch on the heater.'

del Banco asked a direct question as the astronaut on screen began speaking, so he paused the movie,

'Exactly who gave the order to switch in the heater, and to what level?'

Xanthros thought for a second or two,

'It is not as simple as that.'

He stood, and looked at his feet, then continued,

'If you have a foot stuck in the mud, it instructs your brain that there is a problem. The brain then decides which muscles to use; it also deals with balance issues, plus a myriad of other communications. You do not hold your foot responsible for its own extraction.'

He waved at the symbols now frozen on the screen,

'All these show the activities of the Net. It is now working like a vast pervasive inorganic brain.'

The Marquis asked,

'You mean that the robots and machines are acting autonomously to decide what to do?'

Xanthros considered this,

'Not exactly. They have been given a task and will do whatever they need to in order to complete this task.'

Ninkharsag spoke up,

'But they cannot harm humans, can they not?'

Romanov answered,

'The Asimov Laws prevent any harm to humans. Is that not so, Professor?'

'Yes.'

Romanov then asked,

'Were these laws circumvented in some way?'

del Banco prevented an answer by restarting the movie.

Ash tried to contact Mark in the cave, but there was no answer received. The symbols flashed orange and red. The Marquis turned to first Xanthros, then to del Banco,

'What do these symbols mean?'

Xanthros at first seemed reluctant to answer, del Banco asked him,

'Do you want to tell him, or shall I?'

'Doctor Singleton was about to reveal the location and nature of the object we were looking for. He must be stopped from doing this.'

He pointed at the orange symbols,

'Here we see the urgent command from me to prevent him from touching the device. Further down we see that the trike was heating, this was the only machine we had in the vicinity of the problem. So I authorised the trike to be heated to its maximum.'

Ninkharsag interrupted him,

'That would surely contravene the First Law of Robotics. They would not have obeyed you.'

Xanthros addressed the whole meeting,

'I had to invalidate the First Law of Robotics for these robots and machines in order to prevent a leakage of information that we didn't want releasing.'

He turned to del Banco,

'If you would run the film.'

Mark was seen moving towards the trike, orange symbols changed to vivid Blue ones. The glow from the trikes drill head began to turn everything a vivid red. The red ice matched the red soils around the cave, then as Mark approached the camera position the light turned into bright white; so bright that the Greys could clearly see Mark's face through his visor. After that mist began to come from the seals of his Mars suit. He then exploded before their eyes.

Before the room had chance to digest the events unfolding on the screen, they were interrupted by Semiramis entering the room. Semiramis was the Goddess of communications, the most famous portrayals of her being the Statue of Liberty, and the picture on Starbucks' cups.

'My Lord, Ladies and Gentlemen, sorry to interrupt, but something truly terrible has happened.'

The whole room turned to face Semiramis. They all knew she would not intrude unless the matter was of supreme importance.

'We are receiving reports from the Canary Islands of a volcanic split on the main island of Gran Canaria. It seems to be relating to five volcanoes along the island erupting at the same time. This has caused a split down the centre of the island.' She waited for the people in the room to digest this.

'There is no easy way to put this. There is a giant super tsunami moving across the Atlantic Ocean at supersonic speed headed for the US east coast. It will hit in less than two hours.'

.....................
Chapter 44

Cold dark silence

The cold dark silence of space enveloped the spaceship Phoenix. She was now well on her way back to Earth. But, even travelling at the speed she had picked up by taking a sling-shot from the orbit of Mars, it would still take five and a half months to get back to the Mother planet; one hundred and sixty four days.

The android Steve has docked Sarsen One onto the mother craft and is now working with the astronauts.

The scutters were back to their normal selves performing essential maintenance tasks. The four astronauts were fully occupied with converting the landing modules back from being living accommodations to becoming functioning spacecraft at the ends of the turning arms of the Phoenix.

It was Hoshi Masuto who first noticed the extremity of the silence. She was working with Preston Ashton in the old Euclid module under zero point eight gravity when she commented,

'Ash, have you been on the radio lately?'

'I don't believe I have. There has been no need for communications with Earth, but, come to think of it, they have been quiet.'

'The Net has also been very quiet of late. It is as if they have declared a holiday. Do you think we should try to waken them up to find out if everything is ok?'

'Yup, Hoshi. I will just finish nailing this cabinet down here.' He clipped the drinks cabinet down; everything was anchored down, just in case. Otherwise it was made to be as close to normal furniture as possible.

He climbed the ladder up to the Zvenda module in the Blue Sarsen, where the radio room was located,

'Phoenix calling Houston, This is Preston Ashton on board the interplanetary craft Phoenix calling Houston, over.'

The old-fashioned call sign 'Over' has been reinstated here to signify that the caller is now awaiting a response.

Ash timed his wait. After thirty seconds, he repeated his call. Not out of impatience, because he knew that it took seven minutes for his transmission to reach the Earth from where the Phoenix was, and then another seven minutes to get a signal back. Hoshi came into the module,

'The only thing I can get on the Net is from Steve and the Scutters.'

'They sound like a pop group of the sixties!' Ash replied as he moved to try another communications system, 'I'll try the cell-phone sub-ether system; we may be close enough to get some response.'

He prodded and tapped at two computer screens in turn. Then a dialling tone could be heard. He held a finger in the air, then pointed at Hoshi before turning back to the screens. The familiar beeping for a cell phone replaced the dial tone. But they both knew that these sounds were generated here on the Phoenix. Then the sound of the ringing tone told them that they had got through. After only two rings a very familiar, yet alien voice replied,

'Sarsen Two.'

Ash and Hoshi looked at each other in amazement. The transmission delay was not there; this did not come from somewhere else in the Solar System – this was very close.

Ash responded almost automatically,

'Sarsen Two from Phoenix. What is your position?'

He shrugged his shoulders at Hoshi. Then the rely came over the conference system,

'I am two thousand one hundred and eighty-five miles behind you. I estimate joining you in forty-seven minutes.'

Gerald sounded just like he always did; completely without sentiment, everything he said came out as a cold statement of fact.

This worried Ash,

'Shit.' He covered the mike as he turned to Hoshi, 'What the f.'

Hoshi touched herself on the head, and shrugged, signifying that there was nothing on the Net.

Ash turned back to the mike,

'Roger that Sarsen Two. What are your intentions?'

'Docking should take place in about fifty minutes. I am looking forward to working with you again, Doctor Ashton.'

Ash could not think of anything else to say, so he simply replied,

'Me too, Gerald. We shall look out for you.' With that he closed the transmission and looked directly at Hoshi.

'What do you make of that, Hoshi?'

Hoshi shook her head,

'There has been nothing on the Net. Do you suppose he has gone into stealth mode?'

'That implies something sneaky and devious. I don't think that fits in with him telling us exactly what he intends to do. See if you can see him on the radar, will you? Meanwhile I think we had better notify the others of this.'

Galina Danilenko and Jake Jensen were at the far end of the Red Sarsen. Ash called them on the personal intercom,

'Hi, you two. We have had a development up here, could we meet up in the Euclid lighthouse room for a conflab?'

The re-entry module in which Ash and Hoshi had returned to the Phoenix in has been changed to a more comfortable living accommodation setup with equipment taken from the Orion craft, with its semi-spiral staircase leading down they could make it to a lounge area. A small circular room approximately ten feet across, the floor was actually twelve feet across, essential equipment took up the other two feet. The carpet was a plain oatmeal colour, matched by the curved couch that had been made by Mark Singleton to be disassembled, then re-used. The two large, segmented screens were mounted on the walls to provide the perception of a room with windows. The central control consul, that was positioned in the middle of the room for the outbound journey was now located against the wall directly facing the exit from the staircase.

As Galina and Jake made their way towards the far end of the ship, and Ash and Hoshi did the same, moving from the Blue Zvenda module, out towards the end of the turning arm, the ship made compensation for the movement of their mass by transferring liquids around the ship.

Jake was finishing the installation of beds in what was to become the male dormitory module at the end of the Red Sarsen. Galina led the way up the ladder to the first module, a docking module without the benefit of an internal ladder. She climbed through this structure into the high-G Zvenda module. It was referred to this way because it has positioned further out than the Zvenda module on the Blue Sarsen; therefore, it had a higher gravity level. As she passed through the Zvenda module she checked the door to the small supply module that was attached to the module, then she began encountering the laboratory and other scientific working modules.

The gravity was getting weaker as she climbed, by the time she passed through the fourth science module she was almost weightless. The hatch that opened into the central White Sarsen opened easily, leading into a flat circular area where there was no up, and no down. Slight gravity made things cling to the outside of the circle. As she emerged into the void Galina took hold of a hand rail, then deftly allowed her body to pivot around her hands until her feet pointed at the far hatchway. She then let go and pushed herself towards the hatch twenty-six feet away. The aim is to land gently on the hatch, Galina had developed the feat to such a pitch that she could perform as many summersaults as she wanted on the way across. This time she knew that the reason she was taking the journey was serious, so she did not take on such flippant manoeuvres. Both feet landed gently directly on the hatch, she bent down to open the Blue portal just as Jake appeared at the Red hatchway from where she had just emerged. He skilfully followed the movement performed by Galina, to land close by her side.

'May I be of some assistance?' he smiled.

'Thank you kind sir,' she replied, 'but I have this covered.'

With that she slid quietly down the shaft into the Blue Sarsen. The first module she dropped down into, for that is how she entered these, the first big unit, the Low Gravity Science Modules. She slowly almost drifted down the double module, increasing speed as she touched down on the hatchway that led to the Bridge area. Here the structure seemed to open out, but that was just an illusion caused by the attachment of service modules alongside the main structure, the Quest air lock, the viewing Cupola, and the Bridge construction itself.

She couldn't resist a glance at the Copula as she drifted by, holding on to the ladder's hand rail now, the gravity began to take hold as she descended through 50% gravity by the main communications tower attachment box. Then into the Blue Zvenda unit, the Comms section. The American Lab was the penultimate module she passed through, now under 85% gravity, she felt the welcome effects of feeling weight on her feet, giving greater command of how her body moved.

It is a strange luxury in space to drink coffee as if you were on Earth. Ash dispensed fresh coffee into the specially made space cups that look just like normal coffee cups, but are, in fact, hollow, and made of hard plastic.

Hoshi was configuring the consul to read radar inputs when Galina descended the stairs.

'Hi, what is occurring?' she quipped.

Ash responded with a cup of coffee,

'Have a seat,' he looked at the top of the stairs to see Jake's feet appearing, 'Hoshi is setting things up now.'

Jake took a coffee, then joined Galina on the couch. Hoshi sat by the consul, Ash stood by her as she began,

'We have had a strange communication.' She looked at her watch, 'twenty minutes ago the Android we know as Gerald told us that he is expecting to join us in,' she consulted her watch again, 'thirty minutes.'

Jake was first to react to this news,

'What? That bastard tried to kill us all.'

Hoshi responded quietly,

'Yes. But permission for that action came from an electronic patch. I have not been able to find any sign of it on the Net recently. In fact there has been no activity on the Net from the Earth for quite some time now.' He surveyed the faces in the room. 'I think the patch has expired, and they have all reverted to type. You have all seen how Steve behaves as if the patch had never been there.'

Galina pointed out,

'Yes, but he resisted the patch instruction early on.'

'And that showed the way for the rest of them. Or should I say that it showed us what could happen.' Hoshi was trying to put a positive slant on all of this.

Ash took a decisive lead,

'But this is different. He was far more determined and resourceful to finish us off. I don't trust him, and think we should resist any attempt to get to us or our ship.'

Jake agreed,

'Ash is right. We only lose once. The risk is too great.'

Even Hoshi had to agree that it would be foolish in the extreme to allow Gerald to get too close.

Ash looked at his watch,

'The clock is ticking, people. Twenty-two minutes to docking.' He turned and looked at Hoshi, 'What can we do?'

'I have him on radar now. There is no way we can outrun him, he has a much better power to weight ratio, and we are very limited in our stresses.'

Galina gave a suggestion,

'Can we alter our rate of turn to make it difficult for him to dock?'

Hoshi butted in at this juncture,

'I have him on telemetry.' All the machinery, including the androids, were linked by the Net; it was this that now gave Hoshi an edge. 'He has used a lot of fuel to get where he is. There may not be enough for a complicated re-join manoeuvre.'

Jake mainly addressed Hoshi as he said,

'You will have to watch those stresses. I think that is our best chance.'

Ash then asked,

'So it is decided that we do not trust Gerald.'

'I think that is the general feeling around here.' Hoshi replied.

Ash looked at his watch again,

'We had better get to positions people, fourteen minutes to docking.' He turned to the consul, 'I can begin accelerating the turn from here, can you get to the Bridge, Hoshi, and watch those stresses.'

Galina then put in an observation,

'We had all better get away from here, the g-forces are going to increase.' She followed Hoshi up the semi-circular stairs.

Gerald gradually approached the turning Phoenix, he had used quite a lot of his precious fuel in decelerating to match the speed of the Phoenix. The android was expecting a turn rate of four point eight rpm to give centrifugal gravity of zero point two five G to the modules at the ends.

Ash had spun the speed up to three point seven rpm. He was still in the Euclid module; the G forces pushed him down into the chair. Although it was far from the seven or eight Gs he had got used to as a fighter pilot, then an astronaut, but this is sustained and constant.

Gerald adjusted his approach path to compensate for the faster turn rate.

Ash was in contact with Hoshi,

'Ash to Bridge. I am going to fire the nose retard thrusters, at the same time as slowing the turn rate.'

'Ok, Ash. I will watch the strain gauges on the rear Graphene lines. So far we are only at one hundred and twenty-three per cent of their design maximum workload.'

Gerald had by now managed to match their turn rate and was approaching the docking station with Sarsen Two.

Ash fired twelve forward facing thrusters at the same time as the thrusters that control the turn rate.

The docking parts of Sarsen Two and the Phoenix moved away from each other. The Mother Ship began to slow its turn rate, and at the same time, but much, much slower it began to slow its forward momentum.

Gerald first noticed the change in the turn rate, and began taking the necessary steps to match this new turn rate.

Then he noticed the whole ship was slowing. Sarsen Two was now moving forwards along the structure of the White Sarsen towards the arms that form the Red Sarsen, the Blue Sarsen, and the two opposite nuclear reactor arms. One of which was empty now that Silver had taken the reactor down to the surface of Mars.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the nose of Sarsen Two moved closer to the base of the Blue Sarsen.

Galina looked out of the Cupola, but could see nothing because the windows in it face the front Hoshi called across to her,

'Here, I have found a camera with a good view.'

She went over to the monitor just in time to see the blunt nose of Sarsen Two fill the camera lens.

'Oops.' She exclaimed, 'That is a little too close.'

Hoshi made a few adjustments, then a picture taken from further down the Blue Sarsen came onto the monitor. Galina could now see Sarsen Two at a strange angle with its nose too far forward.

'It is perilously close to the Graphene lines.' She called.

Just then Gerald must have decided that was the case too, the craft suddenly lurched upwards, backwards and away from the Phoenix.

'He's going away.' The excited tones in her voice were clear for all to hear.

Because of the way the android took Sarsen Two away from the Mother Ship he was falling further behind the Phoenix. Ash decided this could be in their favour, so he fired the main rocket engines at the back of the Phoenix. This caused Gerald in Sarsen Two to fall still further behind the Phoenix.

Rotation rate was then returned to normal. Speed was kept at the newer, higher value when Gerald began another attempt to mate with the Mother Ship.

As he approached the docking station Ash increased the rotation rate slightly to two point eight rpm, then dropped it down to one rpm. This gave everyone aboard very low gravity. Then he stopped it altogether. This was the most difficult thing for Gerald and Sarsen Two to deal with; because whilst turning there is always a certain level of centrifugal energy to take into consideration. Now the Mother Ship had stopped, this energy is no longer there. It took the combined computers of Gerald and Sarsen Two several seconds to readjust to this new situation. They were still turning with the Phoenix when she stopped. The loss of the centrifugal force meant that Sarsen Two began drifting towards the Phoenix, then she moved towards the position occupied by Sarsen One which Steve had docked on the other side of the White Sarsen.

Galina watched all this in the monitor Hoshi had set up for her.

Ash monitored the situation on screens showing the situation in 3D from computer interpretations of readings. He called Jake, who was watching on a set of slave monitors,

'Jake, can we throw Sarsen One at him now?'

Jake was taken aback by this suggestion,

'Sorry, Skip, it's pressurised. By the time we sealed it off the chances of hitting him would be very small. Granted, if we just cut it loose it would really get in the way of anyone trying to dock – especially if it were rotating at a slower rate than we were.'

'Great idea! Hoshi, can you prepare Sarsen One to be released?'

'Ok, Skip.' She made a few adjustments on her displays, 'Depressurising. Ready to release in thirty seconds from... mark.'

'Spinning up to three rpm.'

Ash began the rotating motion of the Phoenix,

'We shall release at three, then move back to our normal two rpm – that will leave Sarsen One orbiting us every thirty seconds. It takes at least ninety seconds to dock – even with all the computing systems working.'

'Preparing to release.' Hoshi held her position on her instruments, 'Permission to commit, on your count.'

Ash watched his displays, which told him of the relative positions of the ships, and the rate of turn. Sarsen Two had now almost matched the rate of turn of the Phoenix.

'Release in five... four... three... two... one... GO.'

Hoshi tapped a mechanical 'Enter' key. Ash watched the generated images on his screens. Jake gave the ultimate confirmation,

'Sarsen One has been released.'

Ash confirmed the position of the Sarsen,

'Sarsen One is orbiting us at seven feet and holding.' He touched the displays several times, 'Moving Sarsen One back to avoid the Graphene lines.' This was necessary to avoid hitting Graphene lines that are used to reduce the stress workloads on the extended structures, 'moving up to normal turn rate.'

The Phoenix changed its turn rate to two rpm, Sarsen One dropped back, it did not increase its turn rate; It stayed at three rpm. Every thirty seconds the big Sarsen orbited the rear of the Phoenix.

Gerald in Sarsen Two held back. He called the Phoenix,

'Sarsen Two to Phoenix.'

Ash replied; he tried not to sound smug,

'Phoenix to Sarsen Two. Hello, Gerald. What can I do for you?'

'I don't know, Dr Ashton. I have sustained some damage on Mars; the docking system seems to be malfunctioning in some way. Now we seem to have Sarsen One orbiting the rear of the Phoenix, making it impossible to dock, so I will have to stay back here until we can organise something.'

'Ok, Gerald. I suggest you put your craft on automatic, and shut yourself down to preserve energy, if you have taken some damage, you may leak power in ways that you do not know about.'

'Good idea, Dr Ashton. I will do as you suggest, I will transmit a wake-up code for you to revive me if needed before I switch off.'

'Roger that, Gerald.

.....................
Chapter 45

Meeting in Hilbert Space

Sometime later the interplanetary craft Phoenix with Sarsen I reattached, closely followed by the lone Sarsen II, hurtled through space heading for home. They were now only two weeks away, two million miles as the crow flies. The modules Euclid and Pythagoras were in the middle of being re-converted into re-entry modules.

All four astronauts have been trying to contact Earth on the hour, every hour. It is now getting to be worrying.

The crew, along with Steve, meet on the bridge to discuss the loss of communications with Earth. Gerald has been shut down.

The modules divided the bridge into joined sections alongside the Quest airlock and the cupola viewing window. Steve and Hoshi sat in the inner module, they could see the through to the square module on the other side of the main structure that carried the air lock and cupola. Through the circular access hatch, they could see Galina and Jake. Ash stood in the middle space looking out of the cupola at the stars as they turned slowly. All except one. A bright bluish dot seemed to remain stationary in the centre of the circular window. That was their target – Earth.

They explore what they can do to communicate with the Earth, Gerald suggests calling Michelle on her cell phone, the way he did on the way out.

Ash thought this to be a good idea, all else had failed,

'What about the time delay? What will it be from out here?'

Hoshi answered,

'About twelve seconds each way.'

'If we manage to get a connection, we will not know for twenty-four seconds?'

'I'm afraid that is the case, Ash.'

Ash shrugged his shoulders,

'When your cell phone rings under normal situations, you say 'hello' – then wait for a reply. If a reply does not hit you in less than four seconds you know it is from a call centre trying to sell you something you do not want, so you hang up.' He turned to Steve, who would be initiating the call, 'Sorry, Steve. It won't work.'

Galina then came up with an idea,

'What time is it on Earth? Anyone know?'

Everyone looked at Steve, who said,

'It is six-twenty-two a.m. in Idaho.'

Galina then put forward her idea,

'If there is someone whom cannot answer the phone on Earth, you send them a text. Why not send her a text?'

They all looked at Steve. He pondered for a moment,

'Yes. I have the capacity to intercept her carrier signal with a text. What would you like to say?'

Ash thought for a minute, then said,

'Tell her that we have lost contact with Earth, and we need to re-establish this as soon as possible. We are now two weeks before entering Earth orbit. Normal conversation can be entered into in eight days. All our hailing channels are open.'

'Ok, Doctor Ashton. That is now on its way to Earth. She will receive it in fourteen seconds. I have taken the liberty of checking her carrier signal- it is active and good. The terminal seems to be somewhere in Idaho. We shall await a reply. I will flash it to the GP screens when it arrives.'

The GP screens to which Steve referred were the general-purpose screens scattered throughout the ship. The crew continued with their chores, the message would make itself known when it arrives, but just in case, Ash suggested to Steve,

'How about a better alarm call when the reply comes in?'

'What would you suggest, sir? A submarine klaxon perhaps?' the loud alarm used in submarine films filled the ship,

'Or a football crowd cheering...' cheering flooded the ship,

'or a human voice,' "WE INTERRUPT THE SCHEDULED PROGRAM WITH THIS BREAKING NEWS".

Jake was closest to the android by this time,

'The first one is a little too alarming; the football crowd sounds too exuberant. Remember, there may be bad news from Earth, of the three, it looks like the news breaking one wins.'

Hoshi had been thinking about this,

'Why not just play some music? A pre-arranged song perhaps? Anything by Bowie would be fitting, but not 'Life on bloody Mars!''

Galina made a suggestion,

'I have always liked 'Diamond Dogs', do you have that one?'

Hoshi was first to respond,

'Yes, I have it on my MP3.'

Ash looked at Steve, who simply nodded,

'Right, that does it then, when you hear 'Diamond Dogs' we will have our reply, we can then begin to plan our return to mother Earth.'

They dispersed and went back to their tasks.

Twelve seconds later Michelle Romero's cell phone pinged as it received a message from an unknown number. It did not wake her.

Semiramis picked up the strange signal of a text from outer space going to Michelle's cell-phone, then rang the number without moving. She was able to do this by using the newly restored Net.

Michelle woke with a start, the light came streaming in from the early sun, low in the sky.

The window on the phone showed that a call was coming from an unknown source, she answered,

'Romero office.'

'Good morning, Michelle, Semiramis here. Sorry to disturb you at this early hour, you have just received a text from an unusual source; I think it is from space.'

'Oh. I see, I'll check and get back to you, Sam.'

'There is no need, Michelle. I will be able to read it as soon as you open it. If you don't mind.' The last bit was a little unnecessary.

'No, not at all. Here goes.'

She ended the call, and then opened up her txt service. Both she and Sam picked up the message at the same time:

"Hi Michelle. Ash here, I hope you get this. Ring me when you can. We have lost contact with Earth, and we need to re-establish this as soon as possible. We are now two weeks before entering Earth orbit. Normal conversation can be entered into in eight days. All our hailing channels are open. Looking forward to hearing your news and seeing you in the very near future. By the way, what are you doing in Idaho?"

The phone rang again; Michelle knew it was Sam,

'Hi,' she answered the call; 'Is that great news?' this was a genuine question, because she knew the conditions on Earth. She could hear Sam moving as she replied,

'I'm on my way. We shall put together a reply and start to work out how to bring them back.'

Michelle had only just finished dressing when there was a knock at her hotel door. She opened the door to find her assistant Sem standing there.

'This may take some explaining.' Sem said.

'Hello, Sem. I was just expecting...'

'Someone else?'

'Yes.'

'No, Michelle. I am Semeramis, the Goddess of Communications. Here to help you.'

'Well.' Michelle was non-plussed.

'I don't know what to say.'

'You don't need to say anything; it is my job to know everything people are communicating about.'

Michelle stood back and let Sem into the room. As she closed the door behind her Sem added,

'I am confident that we are on the same page here, so let's get down to work.'

Together they put together a reply to the interplanetary craft Phoenix:

'Good to hear from you, Phoenix. Things here on Earth have taken a turn for the worse. There is no easy way to put this, so I will just tell it like it is. A Tsunami came across the Atlantic from the Canaries. It hit Florida and wiped out the whole state. A wave 20 storeys high went straight across the peninsula at something like 500 mph, then carried on to devastate Mississippi and Alabama. Long Island and New York have ceased to exist; everything has been swept to upstate New York. Washington did not escape, it has been so badly damaged that the capital has been moved to Chicago. The whole Eastern seaboard has taken a massive hit, because of this, the country is messed up now. The cell phones have only just begun working again, even the Net was disrupted. It does not look very good for a return; almost the whole of NASA has been wiped out. Mike Xanthros was in Europe when it hit. He had to fly back via Japan and California. He is now operating out of Edwards Air Force base where the remnants of NASA are gathering. The news of your position will now be broadcast via the Net. Will get back to you as soon as we have any news. Michelle and Sam.'

Ash stood by the screen in the remains of the Euclid Lounge, Hoshi saw him read the message, then joined him.

'That looks bad. There must have been millions killed.' She said as Ash turned away from the screen.

Ash shook his head as he tried to comprehend what had happened,

'The whole of Florida swept into the Gulf of Mexico!' he made a sweeping gesture with his hand, 'just like that.'

Hoshi sat on the framework that was once the couch,

'How will this affect our chances of a safe return?'

Jake's voice then came from the intercom,

'Christ, Ash. Did you see that?'

'Yes, Jake. I think we all saw it. Steve do you have any ideas?'

'There is a lot of activity on the Net concerning this. Why don't we meet up in the bridge, and there should be more clear information available by then?'

The four astronauts and one android made their way back to the bridge again.

To everyone's surprise the first voice they heard was the soft gentle tones of Semiramis,

'Good morning Phoenix. I feel I that I must address you in this way, because I have no way of knowing who is there. I have here with me Michelle. Xanthros is on line in Edwards, along with a handful of NASA staff. What I suggest is we all communicate via the Net. I will put all communications on the screens we are all using. This obviously takes a little time; that will cancel out the time delays for signals travelling from space, or from California via satellite.'

Steve replied from the Phoenix. His words appeared almost instantly on the screens of the spaceship but took eight seconds to appear on Earth. That was because the Net operates faster than radio waves.

'We have four astronauts here, plus one android, myself Steve, and Gerald in Sarsen II who is following us; he had trouble docking.'

Semiramis picked up other signals from the Phoenix,

'Is Gerald in hibernation mode?'

'Yes, I will alert him now.' Steve replied.

Xanthros began whilst Gerald booted himself up,

'The original plan was to bring you guys back in to Canaveral, but there is nothing there now except the Gators. What state are you in now?'

Ash began typing his reply when the soft voice of Semiramis interrupted him,

'There is no need to type it in, Dr Ashton, if you speak your words, Steve can put them directly into the Net.'

'Ok. We are stripping down the living accommodation in the re-entry modules. Supplies are plentiful, we were expecting to have six returning, there are only four of us, and there is plenty of water and food left. Fuel is not so good. We have had a few unauthorised burns on the way back, so we are really quite close to our reserves.'

Gerald came on line,

'There is still the nuclear reactor, we could use it to produce oxygen and hydrogen, and there is spare aluminium in the structure. We can make more rocket fuel given time.'

Hoshi responded quite quickly,

'That is a very dangerous procedure. I would not countenance it whilst there are humans on board unless the situation is very desperate.'

Ash brought a note of sensible to this,

'And there is not time. How much fuel could be made in the time left, once the necessary equipment has been assembled?'

Hoshi made another observation,

'We cannot buy time either, if we do not reach Earth in the right point in space we will shoot past at something like ten thousand miles per hour. By the time we had made enough fuel to turn and enter the correct orbit we would have been drawn into the sun.'

Xanthros came into the conversation from Edwards Air Force base in California,

'I have a team here with me who can calculate the correct entry point and speed for you. We shall take into consideration your precarious fuel state. Don't worry, we will get you home safely.'

Jake and Ash looked at each other and exchanged dubious expressions.

'I hear you have Gerald there with you, but not in the same ship? How did this happen?'

Ash replied quickly,

'He had trouble docking.'

'So he is in one of the Sarsens?'

Gerald replied calmly,

'Yes, Professor Xanthros, I am in Sarsen II.'

'Have you any fuel that could be transferred to the Phoenix?'

Gerald pondered his situation,

'I will have to use the main J2 engines without ullage 'You cannot use the J2s without ullage. You will not be able to guarantee all four engines will light evenly.'

'The eight thrusters firing simultaneously to the rear would serve as ullage, but they will probably give me enough forward momentum to meet the Phoenix on their own.'

'Very good, Gerald. Make preparations to dock.'

'Roger that, Professor.'

Ash and Jake looked worried; it was Gerald who tried to kill them on Mars to prevent them returning to Earth.

Xanthros called the call to an end,

'My team and I have a lot of number crunching to do, so we must get on with it. Semiramis, if you could arrange a comms check every hour we can keep track on how they are doing.'

This told Hoshi that the Net was not as efficient as it used to be.

'Very well, Professor, I will open the Net every hour on the hour.'

Ash nodded to Jake and gestured to follow him away from the bridge.

When they were a couple of modules away from the others Ash said quietly to Jake,

'I don't like the look of this. It was as if we had no choice in the matter.'

'Can we get a meeting together Ash? Hoshi will have to wear her hood.'

'Yes, you are right. Tell them we need a lift in the Blue Orion module, I will go down now to make room.'

Ash and Jake were not the only ones with concerns. Michelle asked Semiramis,

'That was very interesting, Sam. How did you do it? The normal time delay in messages from two million miles away is about twelve seconds, I calculated the time delay we had was about four point three seconds. That is impossible.'

'I use an abstract multidimensional domain called Hilbert space. This has evolved in line with the Schrodinger equation.'

'Very good. Now what does mean in plain English?'

Sam thought for a second or two, then turned to Michelle, and with an understanding look on her face said,

'Well, I'll try. But it won't be easy.'

She took a deep breath,

'One element is superposition, where particles appear to be in two places at once.'

Michelle followed.

'Then there is entanglement.'

Michelle nodded.

'This is where two particles influence each other, no matter how far apart they are.'

Michelles' eyes narrowed.

'These properties are used in conjunction with the randomness of quantum physics.'

Michelle had gone now, but Sem had to finish,

'Schrodinger found out in 1952 that even light operates in waves, within these systems some strange things happen.

We have found ways of using these weird schemes to communicate in ways that supersede normal radio waves.'

Michelle smiled and shook her head,

'Jesus wept! I'm glad I asked!'

.....................
Chapter 46

Gerald and Sarsen II

The four astronauts met in the Euclid module. Hoshi was wearing her Graphene hooded garment, which meant that the Net could not intercept her.

Various bits of kit were lying around, but the important thing was that the electronic equipment was in the process of being changed from living accommodation to re-entry module status, so there was nothing capable of transmitting what was said to the robots Net.

Ash began the conversation,

'I do not trust this Gerald character any longer.'

Hoshi was quick to point out,

'He is not a character, Ash. He is simply an android; a machine that will do whatever it is instructed to do, and it will never give up.'

'That is as maybe; but he still tried to kill us to prevent us from leaving Mars – and may I remind you all that his reason for doing what he did was in order to prevent us getting back to Earth to tell what we saw and found out.'

Jake agreed,

'And we are at his last chance saloon. In five or six days, we will be in radio range of anyone on Earth who has a radio. If he is to stop us, he must do it now. This old crate is in pretty poor state, it has been stressed way beyond anything expected of it. We are in unknown territory now as far as the state of the structure is concerned; most of the strain gauges have been red lined many times. We do not know how much more she can take, and what is likely to happen if something fails. What I am saying is we are not home yet, and this could be our biggest trial.'

Galina tried to inject some humour, her Russian accent actually lent itself well to the attempt,

'What you are saying is that the wobbling has now reached academic proportions; one more wobble and the wheels fall off.'

Jake gave her a reassuring smile,

'Yes, honey, but I don't think that right now is the time for levity.'

She pursed her lips and shrugged.

Hoshi said,

'She has a point. If Sarsen 2 comes in hard for docking, who knows what damage the resulting shock wave will do, or if he just catches one of the rear Graphene rigging lines. That could send part of one of the arms flying off, upsetting the balance of the ship like a propeller that has lost a tip; the whole structure would be shaken to pieces.'

Jake looked at Hoshi,

'What you are saying is that even to attempt docking could prove fatal for the whole mission.'

'Yes, it is no longer a question of whether he has any intent to harm us or not. In fact, I have not picked up anything suggesting that he has been re-programmed to do harm. But then that may be because he does not need any re-programming; and he is still bent on our destruction from his previous instructions.'

Ash remembered the talk Xanthros had delivered in the cave,

'If this devious bastard wants us to fail, he doesn't need the compliance of an android, he knows the ship has taken a battering, all he needs to do is convince the android that he is doing something for the good of the mission. Xanthros already thinks that Gerald has something wrong with his docking procedures, he doesn't know it was us preventing him from docking.'

Hoshi came back,

'I tried to analyse Gerald's system situation when the Net became available again, he seems to have taken a quite a beating. His neural functioning is down to about as little as 47 per cent, most of the sensors in his head seem to be malfunctioning, or their functions have been transferred to other organs. His physical capability is so messed up that I can't even get a reading; there seem to be partial readings for four arms, but two of these are ghost readings, one of the others is only operating at 28 per cent.'

Jake commented,

'You mean to tell me that he is not really capable of a safe docking?'

'That would appear so.'

An observation was made by Galina,

'I think you may be missing something here,' her focus seemed to be at Ash and Hoshi, 'surely the Sarsen is capable of docking on its own.'

'Yes, it is.' Hoshi's hands parted, then joined up again, 'However, there are strange things about the Net, and participants within it who are closest to whatever event is happening have the greatest effect on it. That prevents inputs from distant elements influencing events over which they have little or no knowledge of.'

'How, then can participants on Earth control things on Mars?'

'That is down to authority, instructions and even electronic patches to software. All Xanthros has to do to encourage disaster is to let Gerald do his worst.'

Jake stood up,

'I think we all know what to do, Hoshi and I will go to the bridge, if you two can keep Steve occupied; I don't know how he will react to us preventing Gerald from entering the ship, so it may be as well if he is kept out of the way.'

Ash led the way up the makeshift ladder from the work in progress area they had been meeting in, he was followed by Hoshi.

When they got to the bridge Hoshi elected to keep her hood and cloak on to prevent the Net from reading her thoughts. Ash checked on Sarsen Two's position. It had begun its manoeuvres in preparation to dock.

The intercom unit by Ash's side illuminated, as if there was a call coming in. However, no other unit was activated.

He tapped the screen.

'Hello, Doctor Ashton. My name is Semiramis. I am here on Earth with Michelle Romero, but I do not have time to go into my position now, I have patched in to your intercom system in order to communicate with you alone. I am able to tell you that Xanthros is in constant contact with Gerald – he seems to be reassuring him that he can do this, and it is to save the mission. But I know that Gerald is badly damaged, and is therefore incapable of flying this mission, you must do something about it.'

Ash looked at Hoshi, she had not heard this,

'Yes, we presumed as much. How did you get the information? Are you on the Net? And is that how you managed to contact us?'

'Yes, I control the Net. Because of that, I can have my own private communications setup. No-one else can hear what we say here.'

Ash looked across again at Hoshi, who was still quite oblivious to the conversation going on,

'What do you intend to do Doctor?' Semiramis asked.

'Can you convince Gerald that he should not attempt to dock?'

'I have tried that, but Xanthros has re-instated his mission control protocol with full authority. He is now like a child who is determined to do what he sees as the most important thing in his life. It is called the Hewitt Protocol, which implants stubbornness to the extent of self-destruction. He sees it as his mission to fly the Sarsen to docking position.'

Hoshi called to Ash,

'Sarsen Two inbound.'

'I have the helm, Dr Masuto. Stop rotation.' Ash took over flying the Phoenix, and forgot that Semiramis was still on the intercom, 'That should give him something to think about.'

But Ash knew that it was only a delaying manoeuvre – and a dangerous one at that; the Phoenix had vast arrays of Graphene rigging lines, if Sarsen Two should touch any of these because of differences in rotational speeds they could begin to tear the Phoenix apart.

The sensors within Sarsen 2 picked up the problem, and alerted Gerald. Lights flashed around his position in the front section. He touched screens around him, although there were three screens with finger-sized holes in them where the android had tapped a little too hard, there was more than enough to provide the data required. Then another one went pop. The on-board computers re-shuffled the readings and information given by the remaining screens, they could do this until there was only one screen left.

He lifted the nose of the Sarsen, then backed it off to avoid the Graphene lines. The computers told him of the difference in rotational speeds, they also told him of the continuing decrease in speed of rotation by the Phoenix, but he missed that vital piece of data.

Sarsen Two still rotated around the centre line of the Phoenix at four-point seven revolutions per minute. The Phoenix was slowing. This approach was going to go wrong too.

Ash tapped screens,

'Ignition sequencer on line.'

Hoshi looked alarmed, but continued with the trained response,

'Checkout valve to engine return position.'

Gerald raised the nose of Sarsen 2 again, then allowed natural movement to move him back towards the rear of the Phoenix. As he drifted back, the effects of his thrusters caused the Sarsen to track back along its own centre line.

'Tank pressure 375.' Hoshi called, this was confirmed by Ash's reply,

'Two second burn on all main engines.'

Ash looked at the relative position display, paused, then called,

'Ignition.'

Ignition caused the combustion zone pressure to increase. There was no turbine combustion gas to cool the nozzle extensions (the bell-shaped exhausts at the back of the rocket engines); this is not needed in the cold of deep space. The four massive F-1 rocket engines burst into life with orange, then yellow, then white, then almost invisible blue flames. They each produced one and a half million pounds thrust each in these conditions.

Two seconds later, they shut down as quickly as they had fired up.

Sarsen 2 floated down past the rear of the Phoenix. As the nose section approached the rocket nozzles, they fired. The Sarsen was in a more or less upside-down position, with the pilot nearest to the mother ship.

The first thing that Gerald knew of the intentions of the crew of the Phoenix was the burst of white light that entered his cockpit from the F-1 engines on the Phoenix.

As he moved his hand to press his engine start command the shock wave from the rocket engines hit his ship. This made his ship try to move away from the blast, the violent movement introduced gravity forces that seemed to come from the window in front of Gerald. His hand and arm shot up into the air involuntarily, this caused his hand to come into contact with the overhead controls. As his fingers tore across the switches and screens above the window, his seat belts held his body in close contact with the structure of the ship. But his arms were flailing about – and they were not of skin and bone. Being an android, Gerald's hands, arms and fingers were mechanical, and very strong.

Whilst one hand was destroying the panel above his head, the other went straight through the front window. This allowed one point six seconds' worth of six million pounds of thrust to enter the small cockpit area.

First the glass from the shattered window went straight through Gerald's already damaged body. The shell of this was mainly metal and carbon fibre, but the glass hit him at supersonic speed, and went straight through.

Then the power of the shock wave hit him. This almost flattened him against the seat, before it was ripped from its mountings to be smashed against the rear bulkhead. This was never intended to take this kind of workload, so the whole cockpit contents were propelled back, into the main body of the Sarsen. For a very short period, this area was flooded with violent light. Then the F-1 engines stopped, leaving the area dark, and with bits of android and other machinery floating around.

Sarsen 2 began to turn around its own length as it drifted away from the Phoenix.

Semiramis spoke to Ash again,

'That did not please Xanthros. I have someone here who would like a word with you.'

.....................
Chapter 47

Citation

As Michelle put the phone to her ear she heard the long lost, but familiar tones of Preston Ashton coming through the distance of space,

'Hi, hun.'

'Hi yourself. What have you been up to?'

She waited for a response, but was surprised to get a reply almost at once,

'You would not believe it, trust me on this, you would not believe it. We will be home soon to tell you all about it. What have you been doing with the planet whilst we have been away?'

'This is unbelievable, too. Most of the eastern seaboard has been lost. Even places as far in as Washington has been hit. Canaveral has gone; the whole launch complex was washed into the Gulf of Mexico. Downtown Houston has been badly damaged; there are people still there, but no communications, no law and order. We reckon the supermarkets would have run out of food within days, the gas stations may have lasted a little longer, but not much. The people there are stranded, with no chance of food coming in to them, and no chance of getting out.'

'Jeez, that sounds real bad, hun. How did you manage to escape?'

'Tom Collins and I have come to chase a lead. There was an information leak from within NASA, and we were given the task of chasing it down; the trail led us here to Des Moines.'

'Gotta go now, hun. We got a planet to find. See you soon.'

'So long for now, nice to hear your voice again.'

Semiramis took the phone from Michelle as she finished the call. Her face was serious,

'There are dark clouds gathering. I told you that Xanthros was not happy about things.'

She explained what had just happened,

'He has just lost the latest round in space. It was probably his best chance of stopping the Phoenix.'

'But – I always thought Professor Xanthros was on our side.'

'He was, but for his own ends. Now there have been developments that mean he wants to keep the secrets from coming back to Earth.'

Semiramis took Michelle's hand,

'But now you must leave Des Moines – Tom is on his way over to take you to the airport. Do have your case ready at the hotel?'

'Yes, Sam. Always. But where are we going?'

'Anywhere out of town; it is not safe for you any longer; do not even go outside until Tom gets here.'

Michelle waited in the reception of the foyer until Tom Collins turned up to take her to the hotel to pick up her suitcase and belongings.

'Hi, Tom. Where are we going?'

'The airport. I have hired a little plane to get us out of here.'

'Did you hire it on the phone?'

'No, I went in person; Sam said it might not be a good idea to use the phone system.'

They gathered her belongings, and then hurried out to the car. Tom had to hesitate as he placed the suitcase on the ground to unlock the car. As he pressed the fob, the sound of screeching tyres drowned out the clicking of unlocking. He did not even look around; in almost one movement, he opened the car door, threw the cases onto the back seat, and then swept Michelle in behind the cases. As he leapt into the drivers' seat, he looked where the sound of screeching tyres had come from. There was nothing out of the ordinary. As he started the engine, he examined the traffic flow along Market Street, and at the junction of Fourth Avenue. Nothing looked out of place; a black and white Police cruiser of the Des Moines Sherriff's Office pulled into Market Street.

Tom pulled out of the parking lot and turned towards Fourth Avenue. As he passed the cruiser the blue lights began flashing, the siren blared out. The police officer in the drivers' seat pointed directly at Tom as his partner spoke into the loudspeaker'

'STOP. DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER.'

Tom instinctively stopped the car, pointing towards the junction with Fourth Avenue, but only just out of the parking lot.

The cruiser made a U-turn, and then pulled in front of Tom.

'I don't like the look of this.' He said to Michelle.

As the police officers got out of their car and began walking back to Tom, he wound his window down, smiled at the officers, and waited until they were alongside his front wheels, then he leaned out of his window, and called,

'Morning officers. What can I do for you?'

He gambled that they did not notice that his car was now moving very, very slowly backwards.

His intention was to lead them as far away from their car as possible.

Four paces further on the officer on the roadside of the car noticed that it was rolling,

'Would you stop your car, sir?'

Tom smiled at him, and said,

'Nope.'

The vehicle was already in reverse; Tom hit the accelerator and backed into the parking lot exit he had just come out of. As the police made their way back to their car, Tom turned the opposite way down Market Street.

The police cruiser took a few seconds to execute a U-turn. Other traffic got in their way, despite the use of blues and twos. By the time they were pointing in the right direction, Tom had turned right up Third Avenue, but the officer in the passenger seat had spotted him.

'He went right.' He called to his partner.

The cruiser healed hard over as they chased after the runaway astronaut. Just in time to see the car they were chasing take a left.

This put Tom and Michelle on to a short block, which they got along before the police saw them, Tom took a sharp right turn, and then gunned the engine to get to the next junction as quickly as possible.

Des Moines' finest had lost their quarry; by the time they had an APB out to all units, Tom and Michelle were at the airport.

Tom parked the car out of sight from the road in the lot, and then they went to find their aircraft. The aircraft rental office was not what you would expect. The squat square building had a worn sign outside that said, "Air Navigation Transport"; alongside this, a much cleaner, neater sign announced that the site was "For Sale or Lease".

Michelle looked askance at the unkempt building, and the almost empty parking lot, crazed by cracks that prevented her from pulling her suitcase on its wheels,

'Are you sure these people even have an aircraft, let alone one that is legal and airworthy?'

'Don't you worry about that, they have plenty of aircraft.'

She looked at the massive collection of Elliott buildings across the road and could not help thinking that they should be using them.

A rather stern receptionist sat behind the usual high-fronted reception desk. As Tom and Michelle walked in, she welcomed them with a warm smile,

'Mister Collins?'

'Yes.'

She pointed her pen across to a group of men,

'Stan here will check your paperwork and show you around your aircraft.'

They went into a small room to do the necessary checks, after which all three people drove in what Michelle presumed was Stan's car to the airport across the road. Parked outside one of the smaller hangars they pulled up alongside an elderly Cessna Citation jet. Two suited men in sunglasses guarded this.

As Tom accompanied Stan on the preliminary walk-round checks on the external of the aircraft, one of the guards assisted Michelle to stow her luggage in the main cabin. Here she was surprised to find another man dressed the same as the guards outside; and Stan too, now she came to think of it.

She sidled up to the man inside the aircraft, she though briefly that he may be a steward,

'Excuse me, are you guys CIA?'

'Yes, ma'am. This is a CIA operation, you are safe here.'

As Stan explained the controls and procedures to Tom, Tom did not say anything about being a fully trained astronaut with many hours on all types of jet. Stan had briefly looked over Tom's flying logbook back at the office, to see that he was qualified and authorised to fly this type of aircraft. Michelle stood by the rear of the cockpit and watched all of this going on. She thought of going to the galley at the rear of the aircraft to make coffee but thought better of it. They would soon be taking off and getting away from the dangers of Des Moines.

With surprising brevity, Stan got out of the cockpit seat, shook Tom's hand, then left with the man who Michelle thought was a steward.

Tom waved for her to join him in the front seat as he prepared to start the engines.

Once the engines were started, tested, then settled down, he contacted Air Traffic Control, who directed him to use runway 09. They did not ask why he had not filed a flight plan.

They left controlled airspace heading north. Michelle turned to Tom and asked,

'Where are we going? I do not even know if we should bother chasing our leads, given what has happened. And we can hardly go back to Florida.'

'I had a call from someone in Xanthros' office saying that the situation has not changed. There are people out there who know what Xanthros does not want to be released.'

'I presume that must have been the danger that Sam warned us of.'

Tom shrugged, his straps still in place,

'Guess so.'

'So where can we go? Xanthros will have his end covered, so there is no need for us to go to Edwards in California.'

'How about Canada?' he suggested.

'How about California?' a strange male voice came from behind, startling them both.

As they both turned, they saw two men in the narrow doorway. One held a small handgun, the one closest to them had a police Tazer.

'You will set course for Edwards.'

Tom was still flying the aircraft manually. He thought of throwing it about to disorientate their attackers, then noticed that Michelle had undone her straps, and would be in great danger of hurting herself on the hard, sharp corners in the cockpit. In any case, what could they do? The men still had weapons.

'What if we don't?'

He knew that they were already above the height where pressurisation was needed, 'You can't use the gun without the risk of depressurisation, that would put us all at risk.'

'That is why we have the Tazer.' He pointed the toy-like yellow plastic thing at Michelle's shoulder, and then fired.

She let out a cry of pain as the barbs entered her skin.

'Do not attempt to remove them or I shall give you a shock.' Two thin, coiled wires led to his device. They played out as he moved back from the entrance to the cockpit, 'If you would accompany me into the cabin please Miss Romero.'

Tom knew that if she were to be shocked whilst in the confines of the cockpit there would be serious danger to the safety of the aircraft.

Tazer man kept at least six feet away from Michelle as she moved into the cabin. As handgun man passed her, she moved to remove one of the barbs from her arm – she knew that it would not work if one lead were disconnected.

Tazer man saw this, and pulled the trigger, delivering a non-lethal electric shock to Michelle.

She screamed and writhed uncontrollably before she could get to a seat.

Tom turned in his seat, but his straps and the gunman prevented him from seeing anything. Just to be sure the gunman pushed the gun into Tom's neck. He moved the gun into a position so that any bullet coming out after going through Tom's body would not hit the outer skin of the aircraft.

'We are both capable of flying this aircraft, so do not think that you are indispensable.'

Tazer man called from the cabin. Michelle had sat down; he had her fasten her seat belt,

'Are we on course for California yet?'

Gunman glanced at the compass,

'No, not yet.'

Another loud scream came from the cabin as Michelle got another shock.

'How many more of these do you think she can take.' Tazer man watched as Michelle's shoes flew off as her legs quivered uncontrollably, her head lolled to one side as if she were unconscious, but her eyes were still wide open. It was difficult to know if she could see anything out of them.

'Hey, stop that. Turning now.' Tom shouted from the pilot's seat.

.....................
Chapter 48

Death Valley

Nine days from Earth the people on Phoenix settled in to their routines, they have rebuilt the re-entry modules. The workloads now allowed more free time. More and more the crew found themselves gathered around the bridge area, usually with Preston Ashton and Hoshi Masuto at the helm, with Galina and Jake looking out of the windows of the copula at the slowly enlarging Earth. It was now a definite pale blue globe with the naked eye.

Hoshi kept a wary ear on the Net; there was not much traffic these days. Semiramis deliberately kept quiet, she did not want to worry the astronauts with things about which they could not do anything. Xanthros was keeping his own counsel; he knew that Hoshi could listen in to the Net, and that Semiramis would probably disapprove, and then interfere.

One day more brought them one hundred and fifty thousand miles closer to mother Earth – an Earth that was having more than its own share of problems. Xanthros was making plans for the landing after re-entry. The revised plan was to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean, but the loss of the Pentagon and all of the bases on or near the eastern seaboard had thrown the navy, like all of the armed forces, into disarray, so they could not guarantee to have a support group of ships in close proximity of the splashdown. He did not want to risk having two capsules floating in the Pacific waiting for any passing ship, so was making arrangements for them to alight using their rotor systems on the White Sands missile testing facility in New Mexico. He had a team of scientists doing the calculations needed for the re-entry to put the two Orion modules down in New Mexico instead of the Atlantic Ocean.

Hoshi worked assiduously along with the new sets of figures that came from Earth in preparation for the perilous, fiery re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

At the other end of the chain, a lone Cessna Citation entered the circuit at White Sands, the gleaming white aircraft banked on to the base leg, undercarriage extended in preparation for landing. The sun glinted off the windshield as the little airliner gradually lost height. The massive runway spread out before them, Tom Collins touched down about one third of the way down the concrete. He was instructed to taxi round to a group of hangars to the south of the main cluster of buildings. Upon coming to a halt on the apron outside the buildings he began shut-down procedures on the jet engines as gun man turned to tazer man. He saw that the man with the tazer was unable to move far from Michelle, who was slumped in her seat, still strapped in. Gun man decided that Tom was sufficiently occupied in the cockpit, and that he was the only one on board who had the spare capacity to be able to open the door, so he made his way to the door, two paces behind the cockpit.

As he pulled the door open, the warm air and bright sunlight streamed in. This abrupt change in atmosphere took him back a little. He blinked twice, then felt the weight of Tom Collins hitting him with a football tackle that was intended to cause him to hit his head on something hard. He hitting his head on the half-open door achieved the desired effect. Tom then pushed his head back into the metal door to cause even more damage. Blood ran down the pale grey door.

Tazer man saw what was happening, he had already undone Michelle's seat belt, he stood back from her, and did the only thing he could; he zapped Michelle again. She awoke with a start, then began screaming and shaking, convulsing uncontrollably. Tom was already reaching for the gun in the grasp of his adversary. He pulled on the man's sleeve before he realised what was happening, the pilot then took hold of the gun whilst it was still in the man's hand, pointed it towards tazer man, then squeezed the trigger. The man's left shoulder took the full impact; disintegrating as the bullet took out his shoulder blade before imbedding itself in the rear bulkhead. He dropped the tazer, Michelle did not move. The aircraft door swung open, with a swift kick Tom dispatched the semi-stunned, bloody-headed gunman into the air outside. He still had the gun in his hand when he hit the concrete five feet below him head first. Tom turned to tazer man who had had all the fight knocked out of him.

'You're next.'

The man was in agony; he tried to hold his dislocated arm with his right hand as Tom picked up the Tazer. The man's already pale complexion turned an ashen yellow as he realized what was about to happen. Tom waved the Tazer towards the open door,

'OUT.'

The man had the audacity to turn to Michelle as he walked past her,

'Sorry.'

Tom backed towards the cockpit to avoid being too close to the man as he reached the doorway. The wounded man shook as he looked outside.

'Don't wait for the steps.' Tom fired the Tazer. The barbed prongs hit the man in the right arm. The electric shock did nothing for the man's well-being, neither did the concrete.

Tom looked down at the bodies lying on the concrete, dead or wounded, he could not tell, but they were definitely out of the fight.

He reached to close the door. Their best chance of escape was to leave the way they came, by air. As the door closed, he saw a car pull up between them and the nearest hangar. Xanthros stepped from the car as Tom closed the door and secured the locking mechanism. He checked on Michelle, who was slowly regaining consciousness. Then refastened her seat belt,

'It's ok now. We will soon be out of here.'

He jumped into the pilot's seat and began the emergency start-up procedures. Automatically he looked out of the window. He saw Xanthros with the biggest hand-held machine gun he had ever seen.

There was the sound like an unmuffled piston engine revving up as machine-gun bullets ripped through the Cessna.

Xanthros stitched an ugly row of jagged holes from one end of the gleaming white aircraft to the other. Inside the passenger cabin, Michelle instinctively ducked as the bullets ripped through the air, Tom had no time to react to the noise; he looked around,

'You ok?'

'Yes, but I don't think we will be going to any altitude in this.'

Tom looked at the man on the concrete, who waved his gun, indicating that they should leave the plane.

Tom looked around at the damage, next at Michelle, and then at Xanthros, three other men had now joined him from a second car.

'Come on, let's see what he wants.' Tom said.

Michelle nodded as she undid her seatbelt.

Tom opened the door, then kicked the steps out, which opened automatically. As he and Michelle descended the four steps, two of the men came to restrain them to prevent any escape.

Without a word being said the group made its way to the waiting cars. Xanthros picked up the Tazer on his way back. He did not give the crumpled men on the blood-stained concrete a second glance.

Michelle and Tom were bundled unceremoniously into the second car at gunpoint, Xanthros stowed the gigantic machine gun in the trunk of his own car whilst his driver took his place behind the wheel.

They drove past three hangars, then turned away from the flight line to reach a small office building set on its own among weeds and cracked concrete driveways.

Xanthros' car stopped first, he got out, and then approached the second car as it rolled to a stop.

As the black-suited occupants alighted, Xanthros approached one of them. He passed the Tazer to him as he said,

'Find out what they know. Tell them we know about the phone call to the ship. I have some more pressing matters to attend to.'

He turned to Tom, 'We would like to know what information has been passed to you. This is very important to your future.'

The suits then took Michelle and Tom into a small, sparsely furnished room, and tied them to metal stacking chairs.

As Xanthros left the building, he heard Michelle scream again.

Xanthros sat alone in the back seat of his car. This was a spacious rear compartment, converted to operate as an office. He logged on to a special part of the Net known as the Kreigsmarine section. This section allowed clandestine communications between two elements, be they man or machine. In this case, Xanthros wanted to communicate exclusively with the navigation computer on board the Phoenix.

He did not actually speak to it, what he did was alter its mathematical interpretation of orbit insertion data. This meant that, when the Phoenix entered Earth orbit, the data for the Orion re-entry modules will be wrong, meaning that they will be either too fast, making them bounce off the atmosphere and ricochet into space. Or, more likely enter the atmosphere too steeply and fast, causing them to burn up. Either way the secret they found on Mars will die with them.

The planet Earth was getting very big in the viewing windows of the copula. As Hoshi looked at the vast expanse of the Pacific she remembered the poem by Jeffers dedicated to it,

"...Like a vast eyeball of water, it covers half of the Planet."

She looked out of the upper windows just in time to see her homeland of Japan when Semiramis phoned by her secure line,

'By now you will be readying yourselves for the re-entry into your Mother planet. Have you been able to check the figures given to you by your new Mission Control at Edwards?'

'Only as far as the general condition of the data, we do not have the capacity or the time to check every single parameter; things change too fast as we approach Earth.'

'I suggest you double check your re-entry angles and speed. There is an error in the raw data.'

'Oh, shit. What kind of error? How did it get there?'

'Neither of these matters now. Your time is limited. Start by checking the angles of entry into Earth orbit. Once you have a stable trajectory you can lengthen the time in orbit, to give yourself time to find the errors.'

'We shall get on with this straight away, there is no time to lose.'

'One other point, Doctor Masuto, do not trust the main navigation computer; this is where the error originates.'

'Thanks, Semiramis. I will need some help with this. Can we trust Steve in this task?' she got the feeling that the Net had been used to sabotage the information.

'Yes, he was not touched by the spike. It came to you via a secure link called Kreigsmarine; that allows only the recipient to know about the communication.'

'Then how do you know about it?'

'You seem to forget that I am the Goddess of communications. You also seem to be forgetting that time is not your friend, you must employ Steve, and Doctor Ashton immediately to find and rectify the defect.'

'Yes – of course. Yes. Thank you, I must go. Thank you, I hope we shall meet up when we return.'

For the next two days, neither she nor Ash got any sleep. Steve did not need any.

Xanthros entered the little room in which Michelle and Tom had been 'interviewed'. The Tazer had run out of charge some time ago. Both subjects were soaked through from repeated dowsing with cold water when they passed out. Normal bullying tactics had been employed to ensure that they had squeezed all the information out of them.

Xanthros squatted down to face Michelle,

'Things could have worked out very differently for you. But you chose the wrong side.' He stood up, then turned to one of the suits, 'Bismark.' Was all he said.

The man nodded.

Xanthros left the room as the suits manhandled Michelle and Tom out of their chairs. They used baseball bats as thrusting weapons to knock the wind out of the two prisoners, who were then bundled out to a pickup truck. They unceremoniously threw them into the back, and then the semiconscious couple were tied to shackles that had been welded on to the floor to secure loads. A dusty tarp was then thrown over them.

After two hours on smooth roads, Tom gained most of his faculties. He managed to throw the tarp about enough to check on Michelle. She was not really compos mentis at this stage. He tried to push some of the tarp under her to cushion the ride as it got rougher. The treatment they had been put through started to take its toll now as they constantly bounced up and down on the hard steel floor of the pickup. Michelle was knocked unconscious again, Tom was stunned, then came to, but his vision was now blurred.

There was no way they could have known how long the journey lasted, but eventually the pickup stopped. The two suits moved around to the rear of the truck,

'Are they dead?'

'That is academic. Let's just dump 'em here, and get back.'

They dropped the tailgate, and then climbed on board. As they pulled the tarp away they were surprised to find the bodies covered in dust that had set hard in the sweat and blood.

'I'll take this one.' Suit one said as he kicked the limp body of Michelle Romero, 'It looks lighter.'

'Ok, I'll take this one.'

Tom heard a knife opening, then his feet were moved about as the man began cutting through the zip ties that held his feet. The man, suit two, had to climb over the tarp that lie between the bodies in order to reach Tom's hands. As he staggered towards the hands, an eye opened.

Suit one had already cut the ties that bound Michelle's feet.

Suit two was in the process of cutting Tom's first zip tie on his hands when Michelle saw her moment. The man was not secure in his footing, so she launched the hardest kick she could muster directly at the man's protruding rear end. He lost balance immediately, dropped his knife, and toppled over the side.

Tom pulled his hand free, picked up the knife, and then thrust it deep into suit one's leg just above the ankle. This was as far as he could reach, so he withdrew it, and sliced across the man's Achilles tendon. With the man's blood still warm on the blade Tom cut his remaining zip tie, head butted suit one as he got up, then threw him over the side, just as suit two was climbing up the side. Tom saw this and decided that he just had enough time to free Michelle before the man would become a threat again.

As Michelle became free, suit two poked his head over the side of the truck, then his right hand rose above the side, with a pistol in it.

Michelle cried,

'Gun.'

Tom spun round, picking up the tarp in the same movement, he threw it over the threat. As the man fell, he fired three shots wildly, probably involuntarily. Two bullets entered the desert sand harmlessly, but a third hit a rock, ricocheted towards the truck, and hit the gas tank. The desert heat combined with the heat of the bullet was more than enough to ignite the petrol.

Flames erupted around the sides of the pickup. Tom was on one knee, Michelle was about to lift herself from her prone position, when Tom pointed at the only part of the truck that was not a complete blanket of flame; the rear of the truck bed.

As Tom helped Michelle to her feet, they had to keep their heads down, and then they both dived for the back of the truck.

Scrambling for footings, they both elected to keep running; as far as they knew there were two very annoyed men with guns back there.

Falling behind a rock, the pair decided to give themselves the luxury of a look behind. Tom was first to peek from behind the rock. When Michelle saw his shoulders relax she knew that it must be safe to look.

The truck was well ablaze, so was the tarp, with suit two still inside it.

They walked cautiously back. Suit one did not move. When they got to him, they found that he was barely conscious; having bled out from the massive damage that Tom had inflicted.

Michelle knelt on one knee to assess his condition. Having looked him over, she stood and looked at Tom, they moved away from the fiery truck,

'What do we do now?' she scanned the flat, featureless horizon, and then looked at suit two, 'There is nothing we can do for him.'

'I agree, even if he were fit, I doubt he would make it out of here.'

'Speaking of which; where the hell are we? And, more to the point, how are we going to get out of here? The only shelter for miles around is burning merrily away, and there goes the only means of transport. We don't even have a map.'

Tom carefully examined the situation in his mind. He looked at the sun, and the tracks the truck had made in the desert sand,

'I reckon we have been travelling more or less in a southerly direction.' He turned to Michelle, 'If that is true, we are in Death Valley.'

The local terrain certainly lived up to its name; nothing but burning heat from the relentless sun, and dust that did not want to go around you, it seemed to want to pass right through you. No shelter, and no hope of rescue.

'How long do you think we were travelling, Michelle?'

She shook her head gently from side to side,

'God, I have no idea. Could have been hours, it would have been hours.'

'If it were hours, and I agree, it probably was,' he looked at the height of the sun in the sky to gain some impression of the time of day, 'We landed in the late morning, there is probably only a few hours of daylight left. We could have travelled for over a hundred miles. We have no water, not even a compass.'

'Wait, I have an idea.' Michelle moved back to suit two. She reached down into his pocket and found his cell phone.

'Why don't we ring for help?' She exclaimed, waving it above her head.

'I wouldn't trouble anyone at this late hour,' Tom quipped, 'but if you must.'

Michelle tried pressing the screen, but nothing seemed to be happening, she scrutinised the little instrument, then realise that there was a problem,

'No bloody signal.'

'It is not surprising,' Tom noted, 'We are not exactly in downtown LA, if that still exists.' He held out his hand, 'Here, let me have a look at it; there may be some function we can use to get ourselves out of here.'

She passed the phone to him. He tried tapping it a few times, then exclaimed,

'There a satnav function. At least we will be able to find out where we are.'

The cellular phone showed a map of downtown Des Moines, and the legend 'Acquiring Satellites'; it was trying to find at least three satellites in orbit. Before it had found three, it began ringing as if receiving a call.

The two NASA employees looked at the phone, then at each other. Eventually Michelle took the phone and answered it.

A woman's voice at the other end asked,

'Who are you, and what are you doing with those people? And on what authority?'

She nearly dropped the instrument.

'Hello. Who is that?' The voice sounded vaguely familiar.

'Is that Michelle? Are you ok?' came the reply.

'Yes.' Then she recognised the voice, 'Sam? Is that you?'

Semiramis, the Goddess of communications, had intercepted the phone's carrier signal when it began looking for satellites.

'Yes. Are you ok? Is Tom there with you?'

'Yes, we are a bit battered, but reasonably ok.'

'Right, I have a fix on your position, but Xanthros has wiped all reference to you, or your journey. So rescue elements will not activate because there is no-one there. However, I have a plan to overcome this. Can you hold out until tomorrow? What has happened to the men who were with you?'

Michelle consulted with Tom,

'It's Sam, you remember her from Des Moines? She says she can get someone out to us tomorrow, if we can hold out.' She turned back to the phone, 'Yes, we can do that. Should we stay here, or move on?'

'Do you have any shelter there with you? And how many of you are there?'

She looked at Tom and shrugged,

'Shelter?'

He looked at the still smoking truck. There was still the metal framework, as well as most of the bodywork. The tarpaulin was all but gone. He nodded.

'There are only two of us; the other two did not make it. We have what remains of a pickup truck we can shelter in; we should be ok for the night.'

'Right. I have to make some arrangements for you now. I will be in touch.'

Tom and Michelle dragged the bodies of suits one and two a respectable distance away from the truck before they recovered some remnants of the tarp, and took what shelter they could in the truck.

They did not know that Xanthros had had them erased from the record, so in effect there was no-one out there to rescue.

Semiramis constantly stayed in touch with Hoshi on board the Phoenix. They were now entering the orbital phase. The rotation of the Phoenix stopped. The Orion re-entry modules were now level with the surface of the Earth. Inside the Blue Orion sat Preston Ashton and Hoshi Masuto. Galina Danilenko and Jake Jensen occupied the Red Orion.

Both modules left the mother ship for the last time simultaneously. They were within sight of each other during the re-entry. The vehicles were ten miles apart, but the fiery trail left behind by the friction heating up the heat shield left a trail of flames that they could see against the blackness of space for hundreds of miles.

Hoshi had calculated their re-entry co-ordinates again; she had reprogrammed the nav computer for a safe re-entry. The strange orbit they found themselves in put them at 45 degrees off the equator; this meant that they were travelling on a course of 45 degrees when heading north, then 225 degrees when coming down on the other side of the planet. Hoshi had to move the Phoenix before release to allow the orbit to shift sufficiently to be in a place on Earth that would put them over Arizona when the parachutes opened at the end of their burn-up and deceleration through the Earth's atmosphere.

Luckily, Xanthros and his cohorts did not prevent this, and the re-entry phase went well. The parachutes opened as advertised at 10,000 feet, these carried the two capsules to lower altitudes, where their secondary and final alighting mechanisms would come into play.

The returning Orion capsules descended at a rate of six hundred feet per minute beneath their parachutes. This is slow enough for a water splash-down, but they were not able to do a splash-down, at this speed the impact with the ground would be catastrophic. At five thousand feet the contra-rotating rotors deployed, and a homing device on board the Blue Orion began tracking a signal that had been put there by Semiramis.

The panoramic cameras on the landers offered the occupants complete coverage of the area they were descending into.

Jake mentioned,

'Christ, it looks worse than Mars. Do you think they want us to feel more at home here?'

Galina replied,

'Can't see any hostile robots.'

Ash studied the picture below.

'All I can see is what looks like a burnt-out truck.'

They all looked at the truck on their monitors.

Hoshi commented,

'If these people are our welcoming committee, I can't say I am impressed by their choice of vehicle.'

Ash was more reasoned,

'We had better land behind that ridge to their east to protect them from our downwash.'

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

In the back of a burnt-out truck in Death Valley, the sounds of helicopters woke Michelle and Tom.

Tom staggered to get to his feet on the tarp. He helped Michelle to stand.

They stood there, unsteady, uncertain what to expect.

The couple were surprised to see a strange helicopter-like triangular vehicle coming over the hill at them.

Ash saw the people moving about,

'What would anyone be doing out here?'

He was far too involved with the landing to take any more notice what the people on the truck were doing.

As the dust settled around the landers the astronauts inside did their final shut-down procedures

These complete, exit doors were opened. At the same time Tom Collins and Michelle Romero climbed the small hill towards the strange vehicles.

As they mounted the crest, small doors opened near the tops of the landers.

Ash was first out. The standard white NASA coveralls were no longer pristine and clean, but Michelle and Tom recognised them straight away.

He turned towards Michelle,

'You don't suppose...'

Michelle stopped in her tracks as she suddenly realized the implications of what was unfolding before her eyes.

As Ash began descending the steps Hoshi stuck her head out. Jake began climbing the steps on the other lander.

As the six NASA employees greeted each other, the cell phone rang. It was Semiramis. She explained that the Marines would soon be along to rescue the men from Mars.

True to her word, five minutes later four V-22 Osprey aircraft appeared.

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

I hope you enjoyed this story and I would like to know what you thought about it.

If you have a moment to spare, would you leave a review of this book with your supplier. Your opinion goes a long way in helping others decide if a book is for them.

If you do decide to leave a review, please send me an email at llydmrtn@gmail.com so that I can thank you with a personal email.

Also, if you can, please help other readers find this book by recommending it to friends, readers' groups and discussion boards.

