Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever Phoenix Sullivan (most popular novels TXT) 📖

and evenings lingered. Political opinion about the mission was divided back on Earth, but he could not join the chorus who described the landscape as barren. Both politically and aesthetically he sided with those who called it rich in form and stark in content.

“We have a limited number of days here,” said West, “and we have used up way too many of our unallocated test days tracking down the previous…” he waved fingers in the air to indicate quote marks, “anomalies.”

“Who was unhappy I found that gold? Did they tell us to move on or did they tell us to take ten extra days to assay the potential mining site?”

He put up his hand to stem the onslaught. “Casey. The date for the end of the mission is fixed. We have a relatively short launch window. So thanks to several extra stops and extra days at sites — that we took largely by your recommendation, I’ll point out — if we spend more time here, there’s a danger we’ll have to cut other sites altogether. I recognize your scientific reasons for wanting to stay, but there are also scientific reasons for wanting to check every individual site possible – look at the Moon.”

“The Moon has become the Vietnam of space exploration. It’s the ultimate reason to not do anything,” she said.

Not needing to hear her opinions on the failings of previous generations yet again, Commander West ordered her to go.

Anne Casey put what dignity was possible into her low-grav bounce out the cabin door.

“Don’t forget the restrictions Buggy A puts on us,” West called after her.

She came back and slammed the door because — well, because she could.

West stared out the porthole at the rim of the Secchi Crater, its ancient solid-stone formations dusted with undulating patterns of sand. In the depths of winter, like tonight, it sometimes snowed.

Here, flakes came from pink or black skies and individual crystals tended to cluster into huge colonies before gravity pulled them toward the ground. Usually, fierce winds, common on Mars, would shred them out of existence long before they touched the surface. But tonight was calm and the snowflakes drifted peacefully, tipsily, to Mars.

“Hey, West, what’s Casey on the warpath about now?”

With a sigh, West turned from the snowflakes. Standing in the doorway doing a fair imitation of a door was Aoki.

“Something about an anomaly in her latest readings. How’s Buggy A?”

“After the refit it got, its engine systems should last longer than the ones on this buggy. But the electrical and life-support systems are still on the fritz. Schmidt’s working on an idea now.” After a pause, Aoki added, “I assume you’re hard up for time?”

“No. Finish what you’ve got to say,” said West.

“We don’t have to launch from Site 1. If we launch from Site 3, the trip will be more Spartan, but we’ll have an extra fourteen days we can put in on Casey’s stuff.”

“Did Casey tell anybody what the anomaly is?”

Aoki shook his head, so the Commander told him.

“Forget I said anything,” said Aoki as he left.

West turned back to the topsy-turvy snow. A breeze had come up, sweeping sand and snow into playful little piles. After a very long while he turned to the computer to bang out some more names for Martian features. That job was his and his alone, not to be delegated, or so the news always said. What it didn’t mention was that to name features, West had to use drop-down lists with names of people influential politicians owed favors to. As the features were cataloged, they were assigned to the appropriate lists already prepopulated with names for the first active volcano, the biggest cave, or whatever other natural formations were found. That was the real protocol.

West activated the hack and gave a few places some imaginative names. When there was nothing more he could do to stuff things up for the politicians back home, he checked the clock and made his way to the galley.

“Did everybody get hungry and ignore the schedule?”

The galley was crowded most times, an unavoidable consequence of the breakdown of Buggy A and the transfer of her crew to Buggy B. It meant there were fourteen people in a place designed for seven that could officially sustain only twelve. Everybody was on everybody else’s nerves, and the crew was dealing with a lot of unforeseen stress.

“Casey said there was a bug-hole in the numbers,” said Barry Schmidt. “True?”

“Chemical profiles of some samples have spikes we didn’t expect. Like the gold find, maybe we need to follow that up.”

“But it’s not gold, is it?”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Then we should move on to the next site and see if there’s something there that might make more money.” With that, Schmidt crossed his hairy arms over his hairy chest like the decision had been made.

“First of all, Schmidt,” West said, “you haven’t made dinner yet. Hop to it. Second of all — all of you — we’re scheduled to be here, testing and digging, for four more days. This is one of the big scientific digs. So there’s to be no talk of moving or staying until that four days is up. Now, those of you scheduled for rest, go get some sleep. Those of you with duties, get to them. And those of you scheduled to eat, stay seated.”

Of the ten, only four remained behind. Unfortunately, one of them was Schmidt. And another was Casey. “So I have four days—”

“To run any tests that protocols require, plus any additional tests protocols allow and for which you have the time and resources – without shortchanging any of the other test sites we’re scheduled to visit.”

“Can I have an extra assistant?”

“No, Casey, you work with what you’ve got. I’m not diverting any additional resources to you.”

Schmidt gave a condescending grunt. “Four days here, we could try to reopen Buggy A. Use it for something more than a mechanical pack mule.”

“So what do you plan to do? Replace the damaged solar panels with God-knows-what