4

Ice Chimney

Rose Stroger knocked on Will’s window, startling him. He looked up and saw her outside. She beckoned him to come out.

Will hesitated. It was a strange request. Then he rose from his desk and strode outside onto the roof of Riviera south. “What is it?”

“I wanted to talk to you a few minutes, but beyond the reach of microphones.”

Will nodded. Every room in the Outpost was intentionally bugged so that they could be checked for injured people quickly in an emergency. He pointed to the corn field nearby. Rosa walked over and opened a gate, then the two of them pushed into the dense field of corn stalks.

“This is amazing!” she said as soon as they were swallowed by the corn.

“Let’s hope no one sees us here; they’ll wonder what we’re doing! You’d never know you were on Mars. It’s like being under a green blanket. Is this about Stark?”

She nodded. “I’ve tried talking to him about his naval experience; we’re both graduates of the same nuclear power program, after all, and we know the same people. But I never got anything from him. Then it occurred to me that I could email a few old friends and ask about him on the excuse that I’m dissatisfied with his work. I finally hit on a friend who gave me some information about his assignments and with whom he worked. My friend said he had worked for the Firebox Team right before coming here; that’s the team studying the use of nuclear reactors in earth orbit to power antimissile lasers.”

“Bullseye. That’s the group who was studying off-earth sources of uranium for reactors.”

Rosa nodded. “So, he’s connected with them. He may not know about the plans; they may have been developed since he left Earth. Will, should we say something about this? Most of the residents here will not tolerate the production of Martian uranium for the United States military.”

“I know. Look, say nothing about this. I’ll send a confidential memo to Morgan about this. We’re lucky that in this case he’s a Republican and will have contacts with this particular group of people. But he’ll be on our side on this issue. I could see him issuing a statement in response to a reporter’s question—a planted question—that Martian uranium, if it were ever an export item, would only be available for peaceful uses. I’ll work on him about this.”

“Okay. This may not be the time for such a statement anyway; no one knows about this idea of producing uranium for export. But if the plan is made public, which it would have to be, the New York Times article will be remembered.”

“Exactly. But I’d rather see a statement come out now, when the matter isn’t controversial.” Will smiled. “Did you know that Carson’s actually happy having Stark work with him?”

“Really? Stark seems happy as well. I’m surprised.”

“I talked to Skip this morning. He said Stark’s personality is perfect for the character he has been writing for the movie, and it turns out Stark’s a half-decent actor! Who would have thought?” Will laughed.

Rosa laughed as well. “Stark’s got a good cover, at least. He hasn’t been working in the nuclear power department at all for the last two weeks!”

“I don’t think he’s been doing much for the uranium project either; he’s been helping Carson all the time. They are actually friends.” Will shrugged. “We live in a funny world.”

“Speaking of a funny world; can you believe the political situation?”

Will rolled his eyes. “Early October, and the President has clearly lost his bid for reelection. That’s what they get for ignoring intelligence that the nuclear bomb that incinerated a quarter of Paris was being shipped to Europe through Khalistan.”

“A stolen U.S. bomb, shipped through an ally’s territory by terrorists. It makes it look like the U.S. wanted the terrorists to strike. Of course, they didn’t.”

“But the two Republican candidates can claim the Democrats are weak on the military and terrorism.”

And in this case they were!”

“That’s for sure. In reaction, the Euro-Russian alliance is stronger than ever; and U.S. relations with the European Union and the Russians is worse than it has been in three decades. It’s really unbelievable. We need these major power blocks to be working together, not undercutting each other.”

“Not only Mars; Earth needs them working together, or the world economy is weakened. Things are too interdependent.”

“And the interdependence is dependent on the good will of too many people.” Will shook his head. “I have a bad feeling about the near future.”

“So do I. Well, I better get back to work.”

They walked out of the corn field. Will waved goodbye to Rosa, who headed for the ramp. He headed back to his office and sat for a long time, reflecting anxiously about the growing mess on Earth. The theory that liberal capitalist democracies would never clash was being severely tested. A few people even warned of the unthinkable: a war between the United States and the Euro-Russian alliance. But well before a war could happen, the world economy could go into a tailspin. It would not be a good time to be stuck in a little planet isolated from most of humanity’s resources.

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John Hunter’s expedition moved across Hellas at the deliberate pace of thirty-five kilometers per sol. Four of the eight personnel rode up front in the Conestoga and lead ranger every sol, rotating the job of running the vehicles as they cleared a smooth, straight dirt trail across the terrain. The other four either rode in the other ranger and detoured off the route to make geology field stops or worked in the Mobilhab, analyzing samples, cataloging them, or driving Prospectors in the vicinity. An eight-person expedition in four vehicles accomplished much more than the old three-vehicle, six-person teams, thanks to the equipment in the Mobilhab, more advanced computers, more intelligent software, more detailed aerial photography and remote sensing data, and greater nuclear power; the expeditions required very little support from Earth or Aurorae. Helmut rotated from the road clearing team to the Mobilhab support team and finally to the field exploration team, which was the assignment almost everyone wanted.

Hellas was a vast basin formed by an immense impact early in the history of Mars; its central floor was the lowest point on Mars and the ejecta blanket around the basin was Mars’s highest cratered highland areas. Hellas’s thick air made for more dust activity and thick deposits of sand and fines; its low altitude meant that it had been filled with a sea in the planet’s early years. Nearly every sol the surface exploration team visited eroding sedimentary strata filled with microfossils. The eobiologists identified two new species per week during their trek across the basin.

A month after Helmut and Vanessa arrived, excitement began to mount as they approached the ice chimneys, a series of volcanic vents in southern Hellas that released water vapor into the atmosphere. The expedition skipped several possible geological stops to head straight to the chimneys. Everyone was sitting in front of their vehicles straining for the first sight.

“There they are,” said Helmut to Kim Irion, pointing. They were in a ranger right behind the Conestoga but ahead of the other two vehicles.

“Wow!” said Kim. “Ice chimney’s a good description, isn’t it!”

“The tall one is twenty-four meters high and fifteen meters in diameter.”

“It’s hard to tell what its diameter is from here; the ground’s all white!”

“It’s all that water in the air; it produces frost here every night. Better start to suit up, Kim. I’ll keep driving.”

She nodded and walked back to grab her suit, which she began to pull on. John, in the conestoga, speeded up; Helmut found the trail getting rougher, but he tried to keep up with John. There were four big chimneys and six or seven smaller ones; a slight plume of steam could be seen rising from two of the big ones. There were also circular stains on the ground, probably the traces of ancient chimneys that eventually had evaporated into the air after their steam vent closed up.

John headed for the chimney that had collapsed about five weeks ago after a Prospector had tried to extract a sample; it had proved surprisingly fragile. The Prospector stood on a low rise nearby, its cameras pointed toward the broken heap of ice. The chimney had begun to rebuild as water vapor, hitting the frigid Martian air, converted into walls of ice around the vent.

Helmut stopped his ranger when john stopped the conestoga and jumped out of his seat to suit up. Everyone was going out and no one wanted to be last. Kim was already pulling on her helmet and heading for the airlock. Helmut tried to be fast and carefully systematic at the same time; one could not hurry the task of suiting up.

He got outside ahead of the other drivers, but Vanessa, Kim, Daichi, and Enlai had already cautiously climbed onto the heaps of broken ice and were patiently picking up samples. The conversation was serious, but with a note of excitement in the air. “There’s really good discoloration there,” said Enlai. “Let’s be sure to get that sample.”

“I got it,” replied Vanessa a moment later. She was using sterilized tongs. Helmut looked down at the plastic socks covering his boots so that he wouldn’t track any organisms into the ranger; if there was Martian life, they had no idea whether it might be dangerous to the scientists studying it.

“What could make discoloration like that?” he asked to Kim, who was standing next to him.

“Water droplets in the mist coming out of the vent, carrying minerals. Who knows.”

“But this looks biological in origin to me,” replied Enlai, trying to sound calm.

“It does look like algae in Antarctic snow,” agreed Vanessa.

They grabbed a few more ice samples, then they worked their way up the broken chimney toward the lip. John was the first to look in. “It’s an oval space about a meter long and three quarters of a meter wide,” he said. “The ground has two parallel cracks running the length of the oval; it appears the vapor is coming from the cracks. I see very slight quantities of vapor coming out of the crack. The ground around the crack appears to be wet, also.”

“That’s possible; the air pressure here is high enough for liquid water,” noted Enlai. “What’s the color of the ground?”

“It’s yellowish and appears to be a clay. I’ll get a sample.” John took the tongs and pushed them into the ground, which yielded pretty easily. Up came a sample of yellow clay, which they all examined carefully and described aloud to their terrestrial coworkers. “I’d say it’s discolored as well,” said John. “Rather strongly, too.”

“It’s more like a scum in the clay,” said Enlai, excitement creeping into his voice.

He got more samples; they put them in closed plastic containers. Then Enlai took them and ran to the Mobilhab with Vanessa and Kim. John had to smile; the biologists were excited.

Be careful walking around these things; they’re fragile,” he said, pointing to the other three big chimneys.

Helmut and Daichi approached a small chimney, only two meters high and less than a meter in diameter. It was eroded; the wisp of vapor he could see occasionally was not enough to keep up with the sublimation caused by the summer sun. They took out their rock hammers and whacked away at the ice, breaking a hole in the chimney until they exposed the central vent. The ground was frozen and skimmed with white; the vent was essentially dead. They broke free frozen ground, which had the same characteristic discoloration.

While the geologists explored the chimneys, collected more samples, and studied old chimney rings, the eobiologists prepared to study the samples they had already collected. Enlai stuck the samples into the sample door from outside the vehicle and closed it tightly. The door admitted the sample straight into a biologically isolated chamber inside the Mobilhab. The eobiologists entered the Mobilhab and pulled off their suits, then pressurized the sample airlock with argon and carbon dioxide and transferred it into the chamber, where they could pick it apart with remote-controlled tools and put the pieces under a microscope. The discolored ice samples were cold and hard, but they yielded to the sample saw. In an hour they had a slide prepared and under the microscope.

The microscope image was displayed on a large screen and transmitted live to scientists on Earth. When the sample came into focus, they all gasped; it was filled with cell-like structures!

“Look at that,” said Enlai, in awe. “They certainly look cellular, don’t they!”

“No question,” agreed Kim. “And the chimneys are contemporary; no part of them is more than a century or so old.”

“Contemporary Martian life. We’ve been looking for it for decades, and here it is,” said Vanessa. Then she frowned. “But you know, these cells really don’t look like the microfossils.”

“No; they’re bigger and more robust,” replied Kim. “Of course, the microfossils are usually puckered up.”

“But even the microfossils that are well preserved don’t look like this,” agreed Enlai, a note of concern entering his voice. “The cell membranes are much more primitive and the interior is completely unorganized. These look a lot more like terrestrial cyanobacteria to me.”

“God, they do,” agreed Vanessa suddenly. She sucked in air as she spoke. “But how’s that possible?”

“We’ve been on Mars for fifteen years, contaminating it the whole time,” replied Enlai. “I’m surprised the microorganisms could be airborne thousands of kilometers and find a conducive environment.”

“Is that really possible?” asked Kim. “We need more magnification. That’ll clinch the question of provenance.”

Enlai cranked up the magnification to maximum and slowly moved around the sample until they could find a good cell. The third one they examined was sliced open nicely. He shook his head. “Damn; mitochondria!” Martian cells lacked mitochondria.

“How do you like that; terrestrial life in a Martian ice chimney!” said Kim.

“We’re going to be a laughing stock,” groaned Vanessa.

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For a week the team explored the chimneys, sampling the interiors of the others without breaking them—an exceedingly tricky task—examining the remnants of ancient chimneys, and doing extensive studies of the minerals that had formed because of the volcanic vapors escaping from the ground. Geologically it was one of the most fascinating areas on Mars. With its geothermal energy and water vapor, “Chimneys” was an obvious location for a future scientific outpost.

But biologically, Chimneys was more than a disappointment. “We’re extremely concerned about the impact this will have on Martian biological research,” the biologists said in a videoconference with Will. “We’ve got a paper almost ready to submit to Nature. It’s sure to be accepted; on the surface it’s good research. But we’re already hearing from people who know the funders that this is the straw that broke the camel’s back and we can expect a big decrease in biological funding next year.”

“And we can’t spin our way out of this one,” replied Will. “The public’s disappointed as well. Until now they’ve remained interested in the quest for contemporary life on Mars without anticipating that the quest has run out. Now, they think the quest has ended. We’ve got to stress the excellent and important research that still has to be done on the microfossils and the evolution of life on Mars. We can’t study the origin of life on Earth; the rocks are gone from that period. They still exist in abundance on Mars.”

“But that research, as fascinating as it is, will not get public attention,” said Tina Hvitmer. “I’ve been doing my best to write up this story in a way to give it excitement, but it just hasn’t worked. The chimneys expedition, from the point of view of public relations, was a failure.”

There was silence in the gathering as everyone considered her comment. “Still, the funding agencies are less swayed by public opinion and more by quality science,” exclaimed Vanessa, after a moment. “Maybe this won’t impact funding that much.”

“No, it will cut our research funding,” replied Will. “It will especially affect grants to university biology faculty who follow up on our research. It will slow the growth of our eobiology facility here, too.”

“There may be some research to do on the species inhabiting the chimneys,” noted Enlai. “We haven’t identified any of them yet, but we haven’t got good data on terrestrial extremophiles. Several terrestrial teams are working on the problem.”

“Maybe there will be comparative research,” agreed Will. “There’s the question of how they got here. But that work will mostly be done on Earth. How much longer are you staying at Chimneys?”

“Three sols,” replied John. “We’ll need to plan a return trip to the Chimneys later. Then we’re heading south until we enter the seasonal snowcap. This is a good time to explore; the weather’s calm. We should reach the Antarctic Circle in another month. That’s about as far as we can go, since we won’t have daylight beyond there.”

“Good luck. And don’t be disappointed. We may find contemporary Martian life yet; who knows?”

“Thanks, Will.”

“Bye.” Will closed the link. He looked around his office, disappointed by the results. In many ways the jig was up. Eobiological research got the bulk of the funding on Mars, but it got its funding because of the popularity of the search for life. In the last week several prominent newspapers had declared the search for current life on Mars to be over; every major terrain and known favorable environment had been explored. Finding life of terrestrial origin in the chimneys added insult to injury.

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A week later the expedition had left the Chimneys and moved two hundred and fifty kilometers further south, into colder, snowier terrain. Helmut was intrigued to see Martian snow falling. It was not like most snowfalls on Earth; the air was filled with a haze of tiny particles, and after a sol’s time perhaps half a centimeter had fallen and accumulated on the surface. The ground was frozen and hard to bulldoze, so the conestogas stuck to clearing rocks and left the rough surface.

At Aurorae Outpost, the ground was finally broken for the Vandevelde Industrial Building due north of their original four biomes and close to their water and solar energy park. Will and Alexandra both presided over a brief ceremony, then the regolith moving equipment got started digging the hole for the ten meter wide, forty meter long facility. “Good luck on this one, Alexandra,” Will said, as they watched the first excavations being made. “This is an ambitious building.”

“We couldn’t have done it a few years ago,” she admitted. “But we’re ready now. The fifteen-meter height of the space is a particular challenge; it requires a lot of digging.”

“I’m more concerned about the anti-explosion features of the building,” said Will. “The steel reinforcing, the heavy duricrete and concrete curtains, and especially the three meters of regolith on the roof. That’s a lot of work. But the new equipment should help.”

She laughed. “I’m not worried about any of that. The explosion vents that let excess pressure escape into the containment bubble but can still hold in regular air pressure without leaking; now that’s an engineering challenge! Since this building will have no windows, the walls and ceilings are actually simpler to build than Renfrew or Joseph. And its long, thin shape simplifies ceiling reinforcement. This should be big enough for our metal and plastic production for a decade.”

“And the containment bubble around it will be good for low pressure agriculture unless an explosion contaminates it, so Lisa’s very happy; this thing kills two birds with one stone. Just let me know if there are any problems. I get the impression Rudenkov and his team in Moscow won’t be paying close attention, even if this is a design he has favored for a long time. We need to be extra vigilant.”

“I know: safety, especially after losing Guillaume. And I think you’re right about Rudenkov’s team; their budget has been cut and morale is low. Don’t worry, I’ll monitor everything carefully.”

“Thanks.” Will nodded, then turned away. He headed back to his office.

While walking to the nearest airlock he listened to, and watched a bit of, the third Presidential debate. The conservative former Republican candidate was being killed by the other two when they weren’t ignoring him. No doubt that would mean that he’d slip further in the polls. Most of the debate had been personal attacks on the candidates, and Will had been so disgusted he had decided not to vote at all, for the first time in his life.

He took off his spacesuit and headed for his office. There was a videomessage from Shinji Nagatani, whom he called back immediately.

“What’s wrong with Andries?” asked Will.

“It’s nothing serious; a broken wrist. He’s on his way to Cassini, which is just a hundred kilometers away, where they will set the bone. He’ll be back to normal in about six weeks.”

“How did it happen?”

“He was climbing up a rock outcrop to get a sample and fell. He put out his hand to catch himself; that was the mistake. It’s not compound and they managed to get his suit off pretty easily.”

“Six weeks.” Will considered. “He was scheduled to blast off to Gradivus in three. He was the mission geologist.”

“Not any more. Choose someone else.”

“We will. It was one of the positions awarded by lottery, so I guess we’ll draw another name. When can I call Andries to commiserate?”

“I’d wait a few hours, so he can get the bone set. I’ll call you when it’s good.”

“Thanks, Shinji. Bye.”

“Bye.” They closed the circuit. Then Will went downstairs to mission control to see Érico and Roger. “How’s everything?”

“All’s well,” replied Roger. The screen in front of him showed an asteroidal scene; he was driving a Prospector around on 2019XA. “This so called ‘southern continent’ region is definitely a composite of three different impacting bodies. I just wish we could find more pieces of the parent body from which 2019XA was ejected. We need more data to determine the nature of the impacting bodies.”

“Well, they were quite a mix; we know that. It explains the crazy compositional data we were getting back from the body.”

“Yes. This one is a candidate for mining, since it has water and metal,” agreed Roger.

“How’s Aster-2?” asked Will, turning to Érico. They had launched it six weeks earlier; it would be flying to Eureka over a year in order to save fuel.

“Nominal,” replied Érico. “I’ve been helping Roger and keeping one eye on the debate.”

“What a joke,” added Roger.

“I was disappointed by the partisanship,” agreed Will. “It looks like we’ll have a moderate Republican President.”

“Yes; I’m relieved,” said Roger. “But I doubt he’ll get a majority of the vote.”

“Or of the electoral votes,” added Érico. “That’s what worries me. This could bog down the leadership transition in litigation for months.”

“It could,” agreed Will. “We’ll have to see what happens on election day. Say, we have a problem with the Gradivus mission. I just got a call from Shinji. Andries just was out on doing field work, fell, and broke his wrist. So he won’t be flying for a while.”

“He was picked randomly, right?” asked Érico. Then he answered his own question. “We’ll just run the program again and see who is selected this time.” He turned to his console and pulled up the lists of volunteers and their qualifications. “We’ve got eleven qualified volunteers for the geo position; no, I take it back, twelve, because Helmut Langlais has now been out in the field at least the minimum amount. Shall I just run the random selection software?”

“Yes,” replied Will. “That’s what we promised to do.”

“Okay.” Érico selected the list for the random selection process and clicked an icon. They waited two seconds; then up popped Helmut Langlais.

“He’ll love it,” said Érico, a bit disapprovingly. “Should I run the program again?”

“No; the geologists were the ones asking for the random selection among the qualified! They can only blame themselves. We’ll have to fly a sunwing up to Hellaspontus to get him.”

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