Species II Read Free

three, mark.” On the dual cue, a small hatch in one side of Patrick’s landing module flipped down with a precise movement of hydraulics. “I’ve got the camera carrier,” Anne said, her voice shaking with exhilaration. “You’re in charge of the drill.”
    “I knew it,” Dennis quipped. “The man comes all this way and gets stuck digging in the dirt.”
    “Always did like making mud pies.” Patrick’s voice was enthusiastic, his face set with concentration despite his easy words, his fingers light on the remote controls in the landing module as he worked his Rover around the rock obstacles on the surface.
    “I’m afraid for those you’ll need water,” the doctor said absently. She was piloting her camera-armed Rover close to where Patrick’s mechanism had stopped on the near side of a dark-colored, three-foot-long rock and was slowly working a drill into the barren soil. “Not enough of that on Mars.”
    “There’s considerable evidence of subsurface ice,” Dennis commented.
    “True,” Anne agreed. “But liquid water can’t exist on the planet’s surface at the present time. I’m afraid Patrick’s mud pies would have had to be made in the first third of the planet’s life—the last of the Noachian Period, or perhaps the first part of the Hesperian Period.”
    “More?” Patrick asked, breaking into the discussion. They saw him point toward the Rovers and the small pile of red material it had gouged free of the Martian landscape.
    “Yes, please. There are three canisters in the storage hatch. Ultimately you’ll need enough samples to fill all of them, and from different depths and areas, too. You might as well get started before you go out, so you have more time to explore the terrain. Besides, the less time you’re in proximity to the drilling mechanism, the happier we’ll be.”
    Patrick nodded and bent back to his task, then looked up and smiled. “Go on, Anne. Take your Rover out for a ride. Mine is positioned so that I can see well enough with the module’s external camera, and we’ll want as much film as we can get. Staring at the same spot on the ground is no fun.”
    The doctor’s face lit up. “Wonderful!” She bent closer to the screen, nose nearly touching its surface as she focused on piloting her miniature Land Rover in a tight arc around the base of the landing module. “God, look at this. Wouldn’t it be great if we had one of those ships they’re always flying in those science-fiction shows? Then we could just zoom around wherever we wanted, see what’s really in the deeper regions of the Valles Marineris canyon system, the Hebes Chasma.” Her words were starting to come so fast they were running together. “Or the Olympic Mons—can you imagine going down into the crater of a volcano that rises over fifty thousand feet high?”
    “I wouldn’t go,” Dennis said, more to slow her down than anything else. Not just an observer, he was continually monitoring and adjusting the position of the Excursion relative to the landing module down on the Martian surface. “What if the volcano erupted?”
    “Oh, there’s no indication of current volcanic activity,” Anne responded. “Face it, this place is empty.”
    Dennis glanced at her. “I distinctly remember a media blitz a few years back about microbes having been discovered in a Martian meteorite—”
    Anne raised an eyebrow at him. “Dead microbes are a long way from the kind of life needed to make mud pies, Mr. Gamble. There’s nothing out there now but wind and oxidized dust.”
    Patrick’s voice interrupted them. “Afraid I’m going to have to side with Annie on this one, buddy.” A pause, then, “What do you say? Are we ready for me to go out and start the in-person collection process?”
    Dennis chewed his lower lip nervously and checked the digital readout—1:00:37. Jesus, where had the time gone? Finally, he nodded. “Ready when you are.”
    For a few moments, the radio remained silent. At last