Yves Giraud - Kahnu

While Dedrick was staring at the orbs, mesmerized by the scene, the tall being approached so slowly and quietly that he didn’t see him until he was almost right on him. The Russian froze. Extending an open hand in front of him, the being presented a smaller sphere to Dedrick. Feeling strangely willed by someone else, he slowly raised his hand to receive the object. Instantly melting into his skin, the sphere quickly disappeared, and Dedrick felt as if he was weightless, a sensation he had experienced many times in zero gravity.

Now hovering toward the shed, he suddenly realized the dwelling had been replaced by a large door. One like he had never seen before. The tall portal was full of strange carvings, lines, and geometric forms Dedrick could not recognize. It was covered in a thick layer of dust that gave the impression it had not been used for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. The strange being waved his hand in front of the door. A light appeared in the center, slowly morphing into a widening ring that rapidly spread across the entire doorway, until it faded to give way to a long, dark tunnel. Completely helpless, Dedrick was now inside, moving along with the stranger next to him, both floating slowly forward in the purple lit corridor. He suddenly realized Rita was with him again, hovering just in front of them. Dedrick felt as if he was being taken through an ancient Egyptian tomb. He also noticed he couldn’t taste the air, or smell anything, and the place was eerily quiet. Rita, as if seated on an invisible flying rug, floated calmly ahead. The three of them soon arrived in front of another door. This one looked as if it had been built more recently. It was bright white and free of dirt. The grooves sculpted on it were much easier to see than the first one. Waving again, the alien being made the door slowly vanish and—

…Buzzz… Buzzz… Buzzz…

The sound of his alarm suddenly woke him up. He had been dreaming again. The same dream he had had countless times since his arrival on Mars, more than a decade earlier. The dreams were becoming more frequent lately, and for a moment, he wondered if it had anything to do with the guilt he still harbored for leaving his mother back on Earth.

He shook the thought out of his head, turned off the annoying noise by voice command, and got out of bed. Putting his boots on, he slowly made his way to the dark panel on the far wall of the small habitat and turned on the spotlights outside. The view through the small porthole window was almost completely obstructed by a thick haze of orange dust swirling around in all directions outside the station. Dedrick let out a bored sigh and walked to the pod’s small kitchen area. He grabbed a sealed coffee cup and put it in the microwave. A few seconds later, he moved to his computer, coffee in hand, and pressed his finger on the lower right corner of the screen to open his log page.

Monday, June 14, 2037. Today was his mother’s birthday, he realized. She was sixty-seven, if she had survived Earth’s devastating epidemic, that is. To think of it, he didn’t even know if she was still alive or not. It had been almost three years since their last contact with Earth. No one knew what had happened exactly, but they had a pretty good idea. As far as they could tell, a large percentage of Earth’s human population was probably gone, but they were unable to even guess the true extent of the tragedy. This unknown had at first given the colonists the feeble hope their loved ones might still be alive. But by now, they knew this much: For the last thirty-five months, the colony’s radars and communication devices aimed at Earth had been utterly silent.

Bringing himself out of his dreary thoughts, Dedrick moved to the lounge cove next to his sleeping area and began putting his PLS suit on. He was leaning forward, one boot in his hands, when a single high-pitched whistle suddenly blasted out of the small speaker above his head, followed by the familiar sound of his French colleague’s voice.

“Good morning, old man!”

Barely glancing at the monitor screen without stopping what he was doing, Dedrick replied. “Ha! Look who’s talking! I think YOU’RE the old one, my friend.”

It was true, François was his elder by almost a year.

“Yeah, yeah,” said François. “Listen. I was thinking we should take rover 2 this morning. I was checking ARC 1 last night, and I think the left front wheel is still out of whack. We could have problems stirring through Candor.

“Fine with me. You’re the expert. See you in the garage in a few,” said Dedrick without looking again at the screen.

The high-pitched whistle squealed one more time as the screen turned black, and the speaker went quiet. Dedrick finished putting his suit on, got up to the hatch door, and left the room.

The garage, as they preferred to call it, was a single cylindrical pod barely big enough for two of the rovers it housed. Two small tunnels provided access in and out of it from the rest of their living quarters. On the main wall in front of the rovers, a lengthy porthole window in the middle of the main hatch gate offered a glimpse out onto the flat plateau beyond the station. Dedrick approached the far wall where Sabrina was standing, with her helmet halfway over her head.

“Hey Sabrina!”

“Hi Dedrick. Did you see the storm, earlier? So much for François’ weather forecast last night. For a moment, I thought we were gonna have to postpone the excursion until tomorrow.”

“You should know better than to trust his ‘all-knowing-Majesty.’ I knew he was full of it when he announced today would rival a summer day in Florida. You know how much he loves toying with us.”

“I know, he can be so immature at times.”

After putting their helmets on, both got into ARC 2, and Dedrick turned on the onboard computer and started going down his check list.

“Good morning everyone,” said a voice through the rover’s intercom.

“Morning, Ladli,” replied Dedrick and Sabrina, in unison.

“I just checked the weather conditions at Candor I. Visibility is low but acceptable. You should be able to get a few hours of exploration today. So much for the clear day forecast last night, huh. By the way, where is François?”

“Late, as usual,” replied Dedrick.

As if on cue, sliding from under one of the anchoring cables, François reached the passenger side of the rover with a big 2 on it and climbed aboard.

“Well, thanks for joining us, Mr. Menardais,” said Sabrina sarcastically.

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything, love!” he replied with a wink.

After they were done going through the check list, Dedrick’s French co-pilot, looking at Ladli on the console’s screen, announced, “Ready when you are, Hun.”

“OK, don’t forget to lower your visors, I’m opening the door.”

Watching them via the visor-viewer from inside the control room, she entered a few commands on the touch screen in front of her, and the garage door slowly began to rise. A thin band of bright orange light appeared under the cracked gate, and sun light soon filled the small shelter with a bright reddish glow. The rising sun was facing them just above the horizon. Dedrick slowly pressed forward on the joystick in his hand and the vehicle began moving.

A few seconds later, the gate was closing behind them, and the team of three began making its thirty-minute trek across the deserted landscape of Candor Chasma to the Candor I site.

The ride was quiet. No one seemed to have much to say. François was staring at the giant cliffs in the distance. Below them, the terrain between the cliffs was almost perfectly flat and smooth. Aside from an occasional level drop and a few dried-out riverbeds, the surroundings resembled the flat floor of a dried-up lake, with the immense cliffs stretching far behind the horizon. Several kilometers high in some places, the magnitude of the geology of the Valles Marineris region was absolutely breathtaking. The facade to the left of them was only a few kilometers away and towered far above, as if trying to reach the sky itself. Occasional vertical cracks and crevices in the walls of the rock face revealed long narrow passages into the gigantic feature. François was suddenly jolted out of his seat by a sudden road bump.