that the rovers systems could easily be hacked; she could be watched at any moment.
The day wore on, and the daylight, already murky under the rovers artificial dust storm, began to fade. Myra began to fret that they would not after all find the wreck of Mars 2, as the light ran out on this anniversary day.
Then Ellie sat back, staring at a complex graph on her softscreen.
Myra studied her. She had gotten to know this edgy physicist well enough to understand that she wasnt given to extravagant displays of any emotion save irritation. This sitting-back and staring was, for Ellie, a major outburst.
What is it? Well, there it is. Ellie tapped her screen. The destiny of Mars. Weve figured it out. All right. So can you say what it means, in simple terms?
I'm going to have to. According to this message I'm to take part in a three-world press conference on it in a couple of hours. Of course the math is always easier. More precise. She squinted out at the
dust, thinking. Put it this way. If we could see the sky, and if we had a powerful enough telescope, we would see the most distant stars recede. As if the expansion of the universe had suddenly accelerated. But we would not see the same thing from Earth.
Myra pondered that. So what does that mean?
The Q-bomb is a cosmological weapon. We always knew that. A weapon derived from the Firstborns technology of universe creation. Yes?
Yes. And so
So what it has done is to project Mars into its own little cosmos. A kind of budding-off. Right now the baby Mars universe is connected smoothly to the mother. But the baby will come adrift, leaving Mars isolated.
Myra struggled to take this in. Isolated in its own universe?
Thats it. No sun, no Earth. Just Mars. You can see that this weapon was just supposed to, umm, detach a chunk of the Earth. Which would have caused global devastation, but left the planet itself more or less intact. Its too powerful for Mars. It will take out this little world altogether. She grinned, but her eyes were mirthless. It will be lonely, in that new universe. Chilly, too. But it wont last long. The baby universe will implode. Although from the inside it will feel like an explosion. Its a scale model of the Big Rip that will some day tear our universe apart. A Little Rip, I suppose.
Myra pondered this, and didnt try to pursue the paradox of implosions and explosions. How can you tell all this?
Ellie pointed to the obscured sky. From the recession of the stars weve observed with telescopes on Mars, a recession you wouldnt see from Earth. Its an illusion, of course. Actually the Mars universe is beginning to recede from the mother. Or, equivalently, vice versa.
But we can still get off the surface. Get to space, back to Earth.
Oh, yes. For now. There is a smooth interface between the universes. She peered at her screen and scrolled through more results. In fact its going to be a fascinating process. A baby universe being born in the middle of our solar system! Well learn more about cosmology than we have in a century. I wonder if the Firstborn are aware of how much theyre teaching us...
Myra glanced uneasily about the cockpit. If they were being hack-watched, this display of academic coldness wasnt going to play too well. Ellie. Just rejoin the human race for a minute.
Ellie looked at her sharply. But she backed off. Sorry.
How long?
Ellie glanced again at her screen and scrolled through her results. The data is still settling down. Its a little hard to say. Ballparkthree more months before the detachment.
Then Mars must be evacuated by, what, February?
Thats it. And after that, maybe a further three months before the implosion of the baby cosmos.
And the end of Mars. Just six more months grace, then, for a world nearly five billion years old. What a crime, she said.
Yeah. Hey, look. Ellie was pointing to a crumpled, dust-stained sheet protruding from the crimson ground. Do you think thats a parachute?
Rover, full stop. The vehicle jolted to a halt, and Myra peered. Magnify...I think youre right. Maybe the twisters whip it up, and keep it from being buried. What does the sonar show?
Lets take a look. Rover...
And there it was, buried a few meters down under the windblown Martian dust, a squat, blocky shape easily imaged by the sonar.
Mars 2, Myra said.
Mars 2 was a Soviet probe that