SUNSET: SOL 48
FUCHIDA’S EXCURSION PLAN CALLED FOR THEM TO LAND LATE in the afternoon, almost at sunset, when the low sun cast its longest shadows. That allowed them to make the flight in full daylight, while giving them the best view of their landing area once they arrived at Olympus Mons. Every boulder and rock would show in bold relief, allowing them to find the smoothest spot for their landing.
It also meant, Fuchida knew, that they would have to endure the dark frigid hours of night immediately after they landed. What if the batteries failed? The lithium-polymer batteries had been tested for years, Fuchida knew. They stored electricity generated in sunlight by the solar panels and powered the plane’s equipment through the long, cold hours of darkness. But what if they break down when the temperature drops to a hundred and thirty below zero?
Rodriguez was making a strange, moaning sound. Turning sharply to look at the astronaut sitting beside him, Fuchida saw only the inside of his own helmet. He had to turn from the shoulders to see the space-suited pilot—who was humming tunelessly.
“Are you all right?” Fuchida asked nervously.
“Sure.”
“Was that a Mexican song you were humming?”
“Naw. The Beatles. ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’”
“Oh.”
Rodriguez sighed happily. “There she is,” he said.
“What?”
“Mount Olympus.” He pointed straight ahead.
Fuchida did not see a mountain, merely the horizon. It seemed rounded, now that he paid attention to it: a large gently rising hump.
It grew as they approached it. And grew. And grew. Olympus Mons was an immense island unto itself, a continent rising up above the bleak red plain like some gigantic mythical beast. Its slopes were gentle, above the steep scarps of its base. A man could climb that grade easily, Fuchida thought. Then he realized that the mountain was so huge it would take a man weeks to walk from its base to its summit.
Rodriguez was humming again, calm and relaxed as a man sitting in his favorite chair at home.
“You enjoy flying, don’t you?” Fuchida commented.
“You know what they say,” Rodriguez replied, a serene smile in his voice. “Flying is the second most exciting thing a man can do.”
Fuchida nodded inside his helmet. “And the most exciting must be sex, right?”
“Nope. The first most exciting thing a man can do is landing.”
Fuchida sank into gloomy silence.
Jamie was in the comm center, staring fixedly at the immersion table, trying not to look at his wristwatch.
Tomas will call when they land. There’s no point in his calling until they’re down safely. He’s probably reached the mountain by now and is scouting around, making sure the area is okay for an actual landing.
Behind him, he heard Stacy Dezhurova say tersely, “They are over the mountain now. Beacon is strong and clear, telemetry coming through. No problems.”
Jamie nodded without turning around. The immersion table showed a three-dimensional map of Tithonium Chasma, but if you pulled your head away you lost the depth sense and it took several moments of blinking and head movements to see the map in three-d again.
He had marked the electronic display so that the niche in the cliff face where he had seen the—artifact, Jamie called it—was clearly noted in white. Not that far from the landslide we went down to get to the Canyon floor, he saw. But it would save a day’s trip if we went straight to the spot and then I lowered myself down on a cable. No sense going to the floor of the Canyon; the niche is more than three-quarters of the way up to the top.
There are other niches along the Canyon wall, he knew. Are there buildings in them, too? And we haven’t even looked at the south face of the Canyon yet. There could be dozens of villages strung along the cliffs. Hundreds.
Behind him, he heard someone step into the comm center, then Vijay’s low, throaty voice asked, “Have you heard from them?”
“Not yet,” Stacy said.
Then Trudy Hall asked, “Anything?”
“Not yet,” Dezhurova repeated.
Jamie gave up his attempt to plan his excursion. He closed down the three-dimensional display and it turned into an ordinary-looking glass-topped table. Then he turned toward Dezhurova, sitting at the communications console. Its main screen showed a relief map of Olympus Mons and a tiny glowing red dot crawling slowly across it: the plane with Rodriguez and Fuchida in it.
“Rodriguez to base,” the astronaut’s voice suddenly crackled in the speaker. “I’m making a dry run over the landing area. Sending my camera view.”
“Base to Rodriguez,” Dezhurova snapped, all business. “Copy dry run.” Her fingers raced over the keyboard and the main display suddenly showed a pockmarked, boulder-strewn stretch of bare rock. “We have your imagery.”
Jamie felt his mouth go dry. If that’s the landing area, they’re never going to get down safely.
Rodriguez banked the plane slightly so he could see the ground better. To Fuchida it seemed as if the plane was standing on its left wingtip while the hard, bare rock below turned in a slow circle.
“Well,” Rodriguez said, “we’ve got a choice: boulders or craters.”
“Where’s the clear area the soarplanes showed?” Fuchida asked.
“‘Clear’ is a relative term,” Rodriguez muttered.
Fuchida swallowed bile. It burned in his throat.
“Rodriguez to base. I’m going to circle the landing area one more time. Tell me if you see anything I miss.”
“Copy another circle.” Stacy Dezhurova’s tone was terse, professional.
Rodriguez peered hard at the ground below. The setting sun cast long shadows that emphasized every pebble and dimple down there. Between a fresh-looking crater and a scattering of rocks was a relatively clean area, more than a kilometer long. Room enough to land if the retros fired on command.
“Looks okay to me,” he said into his helmet mike.
“Barely,” came Dezhurova’s voice.
“The wheels can handle small rocks.”
“Shock absorbers are no substitute for level ground, Tomas.”
Rodriguez laughed. He and Dezhurova had gone through this discussion a few dozen times, ever since the first recon photos had come back from the UAVs.
“Turning into final approach,” he reported.
Dezhurova did not reply. As the flight controller she had the authority to forbid him to land.
“Your imagery is breaking up a little.”
“Light level’s sinking fast Yes.”
Fuchida saw the ground rushing up toward him. It was covered with boulders and pitted with craters and looked as hard as concrete, harder. They were coming in too fast, he thought. He wanted to grab the control T-stick in front of him and pull up, cut in the rocket engines and get the hell away while they had a chance. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut.
Something hit the plane so hard that Fuchida thought he’d be driven through the canopy. His safety harness held, though, and within an eyeblink he heard the howling screech of the tiny retro rocket motors. The front of the plane seemed to be on fire. They were bouncing, jolting, rattling along like a tin can kicked across a field of rubble.
Then a final lurch and all the noise and motion stopped.
“We’re down,” Rodriguez sang out. “Piece of cake.”
“Good,” came Dezhurova’s stolid voice.
Fuchida urgently needed to urinate.
“Okay,” Rodriguez said to his partner. “Now we just sit tight until sunrise.”
Like a pair of tinned sardines, thought Fuchida as he let go into the relief tube built into his suit. He did not relish the idea of trying to sleep in the cockpit seats, sealed in their suits. But that was the price to be paid for the honor of being the first humans to set foot on the tallest mountain in the solar system.
He almost smiled. I too will be in the Guinness Book of Records, he thought.
“You okay?” Rodriguez asked.
“Yes, certainly.”
“Kinda quiet, Mitsuo.”
“I’m admiring the view,” said Fuchida.
Nothing but a barren expanse of bare rock in every direction. The sky overhead was darkening swiftly. Already Fuchida could see a few stars staring down at them.
“Top of the world, Ma!” Rodriguez quipped. He chuckled happily, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. In two worlds.