still partially hanging out over the pit, but by pumping the attitude-control jets off and on, and supplementing the rotational force with a little backward oomph from the jets that were facing forward, Mudge managed to at last dislodge the ship and half push and half roll it completely onto muddy ground, so that no part of it was jutting over the pit. After a few more adjustments, the ACS quads stopped firing. I heard Pickover talking again to Mudge. “Yes, I’m holding on. Whenever you’re ready.”
Apparently Mudge was raring to go, because as soon as Pickover said that, the big engine cone at the rear ignited, shooting out a plume of flame. The massive cylinder pushed forward, sliding at least twice the ship’s length along the ground, digging a furrow as it did so, before it started to angle up toward the butterscotch sky. I watched it lift higher and higher and then streak toward the eastern horizon.
Once it was gone from view, I spun the Mars buggy around and headed back to that small crater with the two other wrecked buggies. And, of course, Dirk’s excimer jackhammer was waiting for me there. I had no idea which fossils were the most valuable, but I wandered around and used the hammer to remove four choice-looking slabs, which I put in the trunk of Juan’s buggy, along with the jackhammer. If I understood what Pickover had said correctly, it was best to keep the slabs frozen; I’d drop them off at a secret locale of my own on the way back.
Before removing each slab, I’d used my tab to take photographs of the specimens in the ground, and wider shots that established their precise locations and orientations; I’d placed my phone in the shots, so that dimensions could be worked out, too.
I couldn’t literally cover our tracks—or the buggy’s—but the ever-shifting Martian dust would do that soon enough. Still, I did make an effort to hide the wounds I’d just made in the soil.
Juan’s buggy, like most models, had a trailer hitch, and I hooked up a line so that I could drag both wrecks, one behind the other. I wouldn’t take them back to New Klondike because people would ask awkward questions about how they’d come to be destroyed, and because hauling that much weight all the way would make the journey take forever. But I did drag them thirty kilometers—not back east, in the direction we’d come, but south. They’d doubtless be stumbled upon at some point, but they would be nowhere near the Alpha.
I then finally got to give Juan’s buggy a workout. This part of Isidis Planitia wasn’t quite as good as the Bonneville Salt Flats, but it still let me pull some great skids, and I spun the buggy through a couple of three-sixties, just for fun. And then, at last, I headed home. I had no really good map of how to get there—and I wouldn’t have been able to retrace the course to return here—but I knew the dome was to the east, and so I just started driving that way, confident I’d eventually pick up the New Klondike homing beacon. And, indeed, after about ninety minutes, I did.
The sun had reached the western horizon behind me by the time I was approaching New Klondike. When I was back in phone range, I checked in with Pickover; he was safe in his apartment and happier than I’d ever heard him. He’d found the map aboard the descent stage—it had been rolled up for storage, he said, but was as big as a kitchen tabletop, a fact he knew because he now had it covering his own and was poring over it excitedly.
As I got closer to the dome, I saw that Mudge and Pickover had put the descent stage down vertically on one of the circular fused-regolith landing pads; it was resting on articulated tripodal legs that must have been previously stored within the hull. The pads were numbered with giant yellow painted numerals at three places on their rims; this one was number seven.
There’d be some paperwork to take care of before the descent stage could be brought inside to the shipyard. I drove on to the garage building near the south airlock and returned Juan’s buggy, pleased to see that although it was mud-splashed, it was otherwise no worse for wear.
I then entered the dome, returned my rented surface suit—getting the damage deposit back this time—and headed to my little windowless