around a clear orange-brown sky.
This was actually the first time Myra had been for a trip in one of the bases rovers. It was a lot smaller than the big beast she had ridden down from Lowell, its interior cramped by a miniature lab, a suiting-up area, a tiny galley, and a toilet with a sink where she would have to take sponge baths. It towed a trailer, which didnt contain a portable nuke like Discovery from Port Lowell but a methane-burning turbine.
We manufacture the methane using Mars carbon dioxide, Yuri called back. More of Hanses ISRU. He pronounced it issroo. In-situ resource utilization. But its a slow process, and we have to wait for the tank to fill up. So we can only afford a few jaunts like this per year.
You need a nuke, Myra said.
Yuri grunted. Lowells got all the best gear. We get the dross. But its fit for purpose. And he banged the rovers dash as if apologetically.
This trip isnt too exciting, Grendel warned.
Well, its new to me, Myra replied.
Anyhow youre doing us a favor, Yuri called. Standing orders say we should take three out on every excursion more than a days walk back to the station. I mean, we can do what we like; we override. Sometimes I even do this route alone, or Grendel does. But the AIs get pissy about rules, you know?
We are undermanned, Grendel said. Nominally Wells Station should house ten people. But theres just too much to do on Mars.
And I guess Ellie is pretty much locked up with her work in the Pit.
Grendel pulled a face. Well, yes. But she isnt one of us anyhow. Not a Martian.
What about Hanse?
Hanses a busy guy, Yuri said. When hes not running the station, or drilling his holes in the ice, hes running his ISRU experiments. Living off the land, here on Mars. You might think the north pole of Mars is an odd place to come try that. But, Myra, theres water here, sitting right here on the surface, in the form of ice. Theres nowhere else on the inner worlds, save a scraping at the poles of the Moon, where you can say that.
And, Grendel said, Hanse is thinking bigger than that.
Yuri said, Myra, there are a lot of similarities between trying to live here on the Martian ice cap and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, which are generally nothing but big balls of frozen ice around nuggets of rock. So Hanse is trialing technologies that might enable us to survive anywhere out there.
Ambitious.
Sure, Yuri said. Well, hes a South African on his mothers side. And you know what the Africans are like nowadays. They were the big winners out of the sunstorm, politically, economically. Hanses committed to Mars, I think. But hes an African Martian, and he has deeper goals...
After a couple of hours driving they came to the lip of a spiral canyon.
The wall of eroded ice was shallow, and the canyon wasnt terribly deep; Myra thought the rover would easily be able to skI'm down to its floor, and indeed the rutted track they were following snaked on down into the canyon. But she could see that further ahead the canyon broadened and grew deeper, curving smoothly into the distance like a tremendous natural freeway.
They didnt descend into the canyon immediately. Yuri tapped the dashboard, and the rover lumbered along the canyons lip until an insectile form loomed out of the dark before them. It was a complex platform maybe fifty centimeters across laden with instruments, and it stood on three spindly legs. The rover had a manipulator arm, which now unfolded delicately to reach out to the tripod.
This is a SEP, Yuri said. A surface experiment package. Kind of a weather station, together with a seismometer, laser mirrors, other instruments. Weve been planting a whole network of them across the polar cap. He spoke with a trace of pride.
To keep hI'm talking she asked, Why the legs?
To lift it above the dry ice snow, which can reach a depth of a few meters by the end of the winter. And there are surface effectsyou can get major excursions of temperature and pressure over the first few meters up from the ground. So there are sensors mounted in the legs too.
It looks spindly. Like it will fall over in the first gust of wind.
Well, Mars is a spindly kind of planet. I calculated the wind loading moment. This baby wont get knocked over in a hurry.
You