designed it? Yes, said Grendel, and hes bloody proud of it. And any resemblance of these toy weather stations to the Martian fighting machines of certain books and movies is purely coincidental.
Theyre my babies. Yuri threw his head back and laughed through his thick black beard.
While it was halted the rover released other, more exotic bits of gear: tumbleweed, cage-like balls a meter across that rolled away over the dry ice snow, and smart dust, a sprinkling of black soot-like powder that just blew away. Each mote of dust was a sensor station just a millimeter across, with its own suite of tiny instruments, all powered by microwave energy beamed from the sky, or simply by being shaken up by the wind. We have no control over where the weed and the dust goes, Yuri said. It just blows with the wind, and a lot of the dust will just get snowed out. But the idea is to saturate the polar cap with sensors, to make it self-aware, if you like. Already the data flows are tremendous.
With the SEP seen to, the rover began its descent into the canyon. The ice wall was layered, like stratified rock, with thick dark bands every meter or so deep, but much finer layers in betweenvery fine, like the pages of a book, fine down to the limits of what Myra could see. The rover drove slowly and carefully, its movements evidently preprogrammed. Every so often Yuri, or more rarely Grendel, would tap the dashboard, and they would stop, and the manipulator arm would reach out to explore the surface of the wall. It scraped up samples from the layers, or it would press a box of instruments against the ice, or it would plant a small instrument package.
Grendel said to Myra, This is pretty much the drill, all the way in. Sampling the strata. I'm testing for life, or relics of life from the past. Yuri here is trying to establish a global stratigraphy, mapping all the caps folded layers as read from the cores and the canyon excursions against each other. Its not very exciting, I guess. If we see something really promising, we do get out and take a look for ourselves. But you get tired of the suit drill, and we save that for special occasions.
Yuri laughed again. The rover rolled on.
I spoke to Ellie, Myra said uncertainly. Down in the Pit. She told me something of her experiences of the sunstorm.
Grendel turned, her eyebrows raised. Youre honored. Took me three months to get to that point. And I'm her nominated psychiatric counselor.
Sounds like she had it kind of tough.
Myself, I was ten, Grendel said. I grew up in Ohio. We were a farming family, far from any dome. Dad built us a bunker, like a storm shelter. We lost everything, and then we were stuck in the refugee camps too. My father died a couple of years later. Skin cancers got him.
In the camps I worked as a volunteer nurse at triage stations. Gave me the taste for medicine, I guess. I never wanted to feel so helpless in front of a person in pain again. And after the sunstorm, after the camps, I worked on ecological recovery programs in the Midwest. That got me into biology.
Yuri said cheerfully, As for me, I was born after the sunstorm. Born on the Moon, Russian mother, Irish father. I spent some time on Earth, though. As a teen I worked on eco-recovery programs in the Canadian Arctic.
Thats how you got a taste for ice. I guess. And now youre here, Myra said. Now youre Spacers.
Martians, Grendel and Yuri said together.
Yuri said, The Spacers are off on their rocks in the sky. Mars is Mars, and thats that. And we dont necessarily share their ambitions.
But you do over the Eye in the Pit.
Yuri said, Over that, yes, of course. But Id rather just get on with this. He waved a hand at the sculptures of ice beyond the windscreen. Mars. Thats enough for me.
I envy you, Myra blurted. For your sense of purpose. For having something to build here.
Grendel turned, curious. Envys not a good feeling, Myra. You have your own life.
Yes. But I feel I'm kind of living in an aftermath of my own.
Grendel grunted. Given who your mother is thats understandable. We can talk about it later, if you like.
Yuri said, Or we can talk about my mother, who taught me how to drink vodka. Now thats the way to