Kahnu (The Guardians of Tomorrow Book 1) Page 19

  Most of the landscape surrounding them was the same monotonous reddish hue found everywhere else on Mars. On occasion, a darker stone, or the lighter surface of a broken section, added some welcomed variety. They were walking through a desert of rocks and boulders, occasionally leaving clear foot prints in small ponds of dust scattered across their path. The whole area was in shadows, the sun having already moved high up the cliffs of the canyon behind them. Outside their suits, the temperature had already dropped below minus sixty Celsius, and the ancient landscape seemed completely indifferent to the intruders. A few minutes later, they were right underneath a rocky bulge, protruding out of the otherwise fairly flat cliff face.

  “You're sure that's it?” said François. “I don't see anything shinny.”

  “I know,” said Dedrick. “The sun is not on it anymore, but I'm sure that's the spot.”

  “Well, I don't see how we can possibly get up there without a crane or some giant ladder, two things we do not have. That terrace must be at least a hundred meters above us, maybe more. There's no way we can climb this cliff, it's way too steep.”

  “There's another way, from above.” interjected Sabrina.

  “From above? And how do you propose we get there?” replied François amused, pointing at the rock wall. “You expect us to fly up there?”

  “Don’t be silly. I think we can get there from behind the cliff, with the rover. Hold on… I’m almost positive we've already been to that side in sector…let me see...42-23. Yep, my pad agrees. Sector 42-23 is right behind that cliff,” she said with confidence, looking at a small computer pad in her right hand.

  “I think we can make it in less than forty-five minutes if we leave now. It's a big loop, but once there, we should be able to lower ourselves with the tow cable,” she added with a touch of excitement in her voice.

  “Sounds a bit hazardous, if you ask me. And how long is the cable, anyway? Looks like we’re gonna need a good sixty meters of it to reach that terrace from the plateau above,” commented Dedrick, looking up awkwardly through his helmet.

  “You know what? I think that’s a great idea. The rover’s tow cable is eighty meters long, just so you know,” said François looking at Dedrick. “And we do have a basket in the back. It's just what we need!” Turning his attention back on the cliffs above, he added, “We still have a few hours of daylight, right? I say we go for it. I’d really like to know what’s up there…”

  Dedrick looked again at the high-perched terrace. “Yeah, what IS up there?”

  “Well?” asked François.

  “OK, I guess we have some time left, but only if the terrain on the other side is practical. Any possibility of danger and we turn around.”

  “Yes captain!” said the Frenchman sarcastically, with a salute.

  #

  A few minutes later, in the control room of Mars First, the radio started to make sporadic sounds again...

  “Shhh--Ladli? Lad—crack--Buzz--Can youshhsh—buzzz--me?--zzz--Crack!”

  “Dedrick? Dedrick? Do you copy?”

  “Buzz---sssshhhhh----”

  “Dedrick? Where are you guys? Are you OK?”

  “Crack-buzz-- before we --buzz--come back buzz—”

  “Dedrick, I did not get that. Please repeat!”

  “Buzz—said we're walking back to the rov—crack-sector 42-23 before we come backrrrack--”

  “Dedrick, you are still breaking up. What about sector 42-23?”

  “I said we're walking back to the rover now. But there's something we need -sshhh- check before we come back. We're moving to sector 42-23. Did you get that?”

  “Ten-four, Dedrick. Loud and clear now. Glad to have you back. I hate not knowing what you guys are doing when you're out there, you know that.”

  “I know, Ladli. I promise, we'll be careful, and we'll stay in contact at all times. I don't think we'll have a loss of signal in that sector. We'll be high up. Another thing, I'm sending you a few images taken by my camera of the canyon we were just in. Can you upload everything to the main computer and run a complete analysis?”

  “You got it. What did you find? And why sector 42-23? You were scheduled to go to sector 50-16 today.”

  “I know. I'll explain later. We only have so much daylight left. I'll talk to you in a few minutes, when we get to the plateau. Dedrick out.”

  Climbing in the rover, Sabrina, Dedrick, and François started moving toward the sector 42-23. It was an uneventful drive of just under eight kilometers. Climbing slowly the low grade of the cliff's gentle slope, the rover and its passengers eventually reached the top, near the edge of the plateau they had been looking at from below earlier. Dedrick maneuvered the rover to face the edge of the precipice, leaving a good ten meters between the vehicle and the sheer drop. After putting his helmet back on, he then walked to the back of the rover to get the basket. With François' help, the two attached the carrier to the hook at the end of the cable coming down from the overhead winch. The basket was now dangling in front of the rover, about two meters up in the air.

  Sabrina soon joined the two men at the front of the vehicle.

  “So, who wants to go first?” asked François.

  “Someone has to stay up here to control the winch,” Dedrick said.

  “I'll stay!” volunteered Sabrina quickly. She was not looking forward to stepping into the abyss, now that she could see it from above.

  “I thought this was your idea?!” said François teasingly. He knew very well how she felt about heights.

  Turning in the general direction of the station, Dedrick called Ladli on his helmet communicator. Vera, who had now joined Ladli in the control pod, answered.

  “Don't worry, love. I promise we're just gonna go down for a quick look, and we won't leave the basket unless it is absolutely safe to do so. I have no intention of missing dinner tonight.”

  “You better not!” she replied.

  After telling her about the shiny object they had spotted earlier, and how they intended to get to it, “very carefully,” he had promised, she had reluctantly agreed. She wasn't happy about them taking unnecessary risks, but she knew Dedrick and François too well to argue. No matter what anyone could say, those two always ended up doing what they wanted, anyway.

  “Check your feed every five minutes, no matter what. I know your helmet will be constantly sending me images, but I also want to monitor your vital signs. All three of you!” she ordered.

  “I knew you cared about me, Vera darling,” said François.

  “I’m sorry. What was that, François?”

  “Don't worry about it. It's just François talking nonsense, as usual,” said Sabrina. “I'll stay in visual contact with them. Don't worry,” she added.

  “OK then, we better get going,” said Dedrick.

  Following François to the rover's forward crane, Dedrick waited his turn to climb on top of the arm, as the two men made their way carefully into the basket. Securing himself into position, Dedrick gave the OK for Sabrina to start driving the rover closer to the edge, above the cliff. Giving the two one last wave and wishes of good luck, Sabrina engaged the winch motor, and the basket slowly began its descent down into the abyss. Carefully lowering them at a pace of about half a meter per second, Sabrina was following the basket and its cargo on her dashboard screen, thanks to the camera mounted on the crane's arm.

  Dedrick was trying to locate the protruding rocky outcrop they had located from below. If there were in the right place, it had to be about fifty meters directly under them. But the view from above was significantly different. It was hard to recognize the cliffs features, and looking down with their suits on was difficult without feeling a bit noxious. They were quite high, and the basket kept rocking, at times dangerously, at any movement the passengers made.

  After descending for a couple of minutes, Dedrick told Sabrina to stop the winch.

  “Are you there? Did you find the spot? Dedrick?... François?”

  A few seconds passed. V
era and Ladli were also listening.

  “What's going on Sabrina?” asked Vera. “Why aren't they answering you? Do you have them on your monitor?”

  “Yes, they're still in the basket. I've just stopped the winch. They should be able to hear us calling. They're just sitting there, not moving. I can't see their faces, but I think they are staring at the cliff in front of them. Dedrick?” she asked again.

  “Dedrick? François? Come on guys, what's going on?” asked Vera as well.

  “I know you can hear me,” added Sabrina.

  Down in the basket, Dedrick and François were dead silent. They dared not even move a centimeter. They were looking at something they could not yet comprehend. Staring at a recess in the face of the cliff directly in front of them, about fifteen meters in depth and just as wide, they were transfixed. The terrace in front of them was perfectly level and smooth, and the flawless shape of the cliff walls around it left no doubt it was not a natural formation. The precision of the perfectly spherical ceiling and back wall was in absolute contrast with the rugged look of the surrounding rock face. But it wasn't the amazing architecture of the place that baffled them the most. On the leveled floor of the encavement, a perfect spherical ball, about two meters in diameter, stood right in the center, partially buried into the ground. Its casing was light in color and appeared to be made of some high-glossy material. Its very top was partially covered by a thin layer of dust.

  “That's impossible!” finally said Dedrick, breaking the silence.

  “Well, it's right there, so...I'd say it IS possible,” replied François pointing at it. “I admit, though…I don't understand what I’m looking at, either. I… I thought we were the first ones on Mars. Do you think the Chinese could’ve...? No, we would've known about it.”

  Back in ARC 2, Sabrina could hear both men clearly. “Guys? Guys? What’s going on? Talk to me…”

  Sixty meters below, Dedrick, still in shock, turned slowly to François.

  “No, you don't understand. I've seen this. In my dream! That's what's impossible!”

  “Guys! Hello! What are you talking about? Is this another one of your silly routines? This is no time for jokes! Please, talk to me!”

  “Sorry Sabrina. I…I hear you. I'm not sure how to describe what we're seeing… There's something down here. It's a... it looks artificial, but we have no idea what it is. I…I've never seen anything like it,” François replied.

  “What? Right! OK, I see. Dedrick, what is going on down there??” she asked with frustration, guessing François was pulling one of his stupid pranks on her again.

  “Sure, but he'll tell you the same thing.”

  “It's true, Sabrina. We've found something. I can't tell you what. I don't know what we’re looking at either. I’m not even sure it's man made. It looks...alien,” replied Dedrick.

  “I'm sorry, what? Did you say alien?! You mean like little green men? Those kinds of aliens?” She was almost laughing, and had it not been for the fact that she knew Dedrick to well to play along with François on this one, she would have dismissed the whole thing in a heartbeat. But Dedrick sounded very serious and that worried her.

  “Sabrina, I'm serious, we've found something, something impossible...” Dedrick added.

  “OK, that's it. I'm pulling you guys back up.”

  Engaging the winch, Sabrina slowly started pulling the basket and its contents back up the cliff. She was watching them on the monitor, waving their arms and babbling something but she wasn't listening. She had already switched her radio to the Mars First station and was talking with Vera.

  “I’m telling you. I think it’s the altitude or something. They don’t make any sense. Anyway, we’ll be heading home soon. I’m pulling them up as we speak.”

  A few minutes later, the two men were getting inside the rover. Sabrina had already moved to the back seat and relayed to Vera that something was wrong with the guys' suits. Their oxygen mix was probably off, and they were both starting to get delirious, she had told her. Vera was already planning to take the two men under medical observation, as soon as they got back.

  Dedrick and François had complained about getting pulled back so soon, but eventually agreed it was time to head back to base anyway. In fact, they needed to regroup and get more supplies before returning to the site. There was some planning to do. For now, the Russian man was thinking while his French teammate was babbling away…

  “What was that thing down there? You really think it's alien? And what did you mean when you said you’ve seen that place before in your dreams? How is that even possible? We've never been to that cliff. We've never even been near it!”

  Sabrina listening to them from the back seat said, “OK. Seriously, guys. What is going on?”

  Keeping an eye on the terrain in front of him, François tried to answer, “Sabrina, we're serious. We don't know what we've found, but whatever it is, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There's this circular room and in the middle, there’s that big shinny sphere and-”

  “François! Stop it! It's not funny anymore. I'm starting to worry. If it's another one of your pranks...” she started saying, but Dedrick cut her off.

  “Sabrina, we're telling you the truth. Look!”

  Having connected his suit to the rover's computer, he punched in a command on the small keyboard on his left wrist, and a picture appeared on the rover’s dashboard.

  There it was, not as clear as they had seen it, the camera in Dedrick's helmet wasn't the best at filming in low light, but the circular recess and the orb at its center could clearly be seen. The central object, of an off-white color, definitely looked artificial, but not man-made. Something about it looked out of this world. Sabrina couldn't figure out what. But there it was; whatever it was. She couldn't believe it, yet it was true. She was looking right at it. She kept shaking her head and rubbing her eyes, as if trying to clear the image from her vision.

  “I don't believe it. That's...that’s impossible!” she finally said dumbfounded.

  “I know, that's what we said too, but I'm telling you, it is really down there,” assured François, without looking at the screen.

  “We need to upload both our suit videos to the main computer as soon as we get back. I guess we're gonna have one hell of a story to tell the others…” added Dedrick.

  #

  By the time they were back at the base, everyone inside knew something had happened. They just didn't know what. Ladli and Vera had told the small group what they could.

  “I don't know. What Dedrick told me didn't make any sense. Sabrina first thought something was wrong with their suits. Then, she started telling me this wild story about an object in the cliffs... Now I'm wondering if her suit isn't acting up as well. All I know is, we need to get them immediately to the infirmary, as soon as they are through the vacuum chamber,” finished Vera.

  The rover finally arrived in front of the garage. Ladli opened the gate. After driving into the dwelling, the door slowly closed behind them, and François parked the rover in its designated spot. The three passengers stepped out of the vehicle and headed for the pressure hatch. After the light above the hatch had turned green, signaling that they could now breathe without their helmets, they removed their suits, threw them into the sterilizing chamber, and proceeded through another hatch into the station, where they were immediately assaulted and dragged to the infirmary by their colleagues, amid protests and threats, mostly from François.

  Two hours later, all eight members were assembled in the main lobby of the station. Dedrick was standing by a desk, looking around the room at his teammates. They were scattered here and there on pillows or kneeled on the floor. Two-and-a-half-year-old Chasma was resting in her mother's arms on the small couch. Everyone was quiet, listening attentively to Dedrick.

  “As most of you already know, we have found something in sector 42-21. Earlier this morning, Sabrina, François, and I were on a routine excursion to Candor Chasma. Around 11:20, we spotted a li
ght in the cliff's face, a reflection of sorts about seventy meters up above the floor of the ravine. Unable to reach it from below, we decided to access the location from above, by going around through sector 42-23, right here. He was pointing at a topographic map of the area on the screen behind him. After Sabrina lowered François and me, we came across what looked like a small niche. What really got our attention is how unusually proportionate and flawless the carved recess looks. I think we can rule out a natural formation. And that’s not all...”

  Turning to the large monitor behind him, Dedrick pressed a few buttons on the computer keypad below. A clear image of the orb appeared on the screen, and those in the group who had not seen the images yet, gasped. Staring, incredulous, they all watched the footage taken by François and Dedrick’s helmet cams in silence for several seconds. And then, everyone started asking questions, all at once.

  “What is it?”

  “Is that-?”

  “That’s impossible!”

  Dedrick waited a few seconds before waving everyone to calm down.

  “No, we don't know what it is. The computer has analyzed the footage and came back with nothing. It’s obviously nothing we’ve ever encountered before. I’m not sure what to make of it, but I think we need to go back with the right tools and study the place thoroughly. And we should explore the area around as well. It may not be the only artifact there.”

  “You think there could be others like it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just saying we should check.”

  “I’m sorry, did I miss something? Are you saying this is some kind of alien machine?” asked Vera, confused.