Yves Giraud - Kahnu

“Hey, watch the road, Schumacher!”

“Sorry, I just didn’t see that boulder,” replied Dedrick, looking a bit startled himself.

“Were you day-dreaming again?” asked François, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

“No, I… I was just… Ah, never mind! I’m fine. We’re almost there.”

Sitting in the back right between the two of them, Sabrina was adjusting her helmet when a bright flash caught the corner of her left eye.

“Hey! What was that? Dedrick! Stop the rover. Dedrick!!”

“What is it?” he replied, while slowing down.

“I saw something. In the cliff. We just passed it.”

“What are you talking about?” asked François.

“I’m telling you, I saw a flash.”

“A flash?”

“Yes, a flash. We have to go back. Turn around, I’ll show you.”

Dedrick and François looked at each other. The Frenchman gave the Russian a doubtful smirk, obviously not convinced.

“Maybe it was just the sun reflecting on the window of the rover,” suggested Dedrick.

“Or maybe it was a Martian taking pictures,” added François with a silly grin on his face.

“I know what I saw, guys. Dedrick, we have to go back.”

“OK, Sabrina. Because I like you.”

Tracing a big circle, Dedrick drove the rover around a large boulder and back the way they had come. They quickly reached the spot where Sabrina had just seen the light.

“I don’t see anything,” said François.

“I’m telling you. It was right here, just to the left of that crevice,” Sabrina replied assertively, pointing at a wide vertical fissure in the face of the rock.

“Go back again, the other way, like when we passed it the first time.”

Executing another grand U-turn, Dedrick drove the rover back in the other direction. This time, all three saw it. A bright flash, as if the sun was reflecting off a mirror, or a very shiny surface of some kind. He stopped the rover dead on its tracks. Slowly backing up, he placed ARC 2 right in the path of the ray.

“See? What did I tell you?” said Sabrina satisfactorily.

The two men were silent for a moment, staring at the brightness in the cliff.

“A piece from MF3?” wondered François out loud.

“No way. We’re too far from the crash site,” replied the Russian.

“What else?”

“Whatever it is, we didn’t put it there,” mentioned Sabrina.

“OK… So, what do you think it is then?” asked François.

“I don’t know,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe some kind of reflective mineral; a gemstone deposit of sorts, perhaps. Obviously, something we haven’t come across yet.”

“ This could be an interesting, ” thought Dedrick.

“Well, I guess we might as well go see, then,” said François.

“I guess we might as well,” seconded the female geologist.

Without another word, the team started putting on their suits. After making sure everyone was ready, Dedrick released the door locks, and they stepped out of the vehicle. On closer inspection, it appeared the source of the light was quite far from them, a good hundred plus meters into the passage ahead. The rover was too wide and the terrain too treacherous to enter this narrow crevice. They would have to go explore on foot. They each had enough oxygen for three hours outside the rover. The ground in the fissure was littered with rocks of all sizes, most of them piled up along the sides, as if dropped from above by an earthquake, or in this case a “marsquake” to be exact.

Reaching for the side of his helmet to turn on his radio, Dedrick called the station.

“We have come across an ‘item’ we want to go check. It’s in a trench in sector 42-21. I’m gonna turn my suit camera on to record what we see. The terrain is too rough for ARC 2, so we’re going on foot. If we lose you, we’ll make sure to stay out of communication range no longer than a few minutes.”

“OK Dedrick. But you know how I don’t like not having you on my screen when you guys go off the scheduled route, so be quick!” replied Ladli.

“We’ll do.”

“I think she just can’t stand to be away from me, if you ask me,” said François with a silly smirk.

Sabrina simply rolled her eyes at him through her helmet.

For the most part, the path they were walking on, although obstructed in many places by giant boulders, was manageable. Dedrick was ahead of the small group, following the most logical and least demanding path through the messy landscape. Sabrina was right behind him and François, a few meters to their left, was zig-zagging unnecessarily through the obstacles, just because he couldn’t do anything like everyone else.

“You’re wasting your energy and your oxygen, François,” had told him Sabrina a few times already.

“I figured out what we’re looking for. It’s a Chinese tourist taking pictures. I’m just making sure is not hiding behind a boulder.”

“Oh my gosh, you can be SO annoying sometimes!” she had finally said, fed up.

After a few minutes, the small speakers in their helmets emitted a few “cracks” and “buzzes,” and a broken voice came through, barely discernible.

“Ded— crack —I’m starting to los— buzz-buzz . Dedrick, crack—buzz —hear me?”

“Ladli, I can barely hear you. I guess we’re about to lose you. I’ll get back in touch in five minutes at most. I promise! Ladli? Did you get that?”

“Dedrick, I— crack—crack—buzz—buzzzzz . OK, don’t spend— buzz —time— crack —need. I’ll st— sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh …”

“Sounds like we’ve lost her for good,” said Sabrina.

“I’m afraid so. We’d better hurry. It looks like we’re still a good third of the way from the source. François, come on!”

With renewed determination, the three started walking again. The passage was getting narrower the deeper they went. The sun was now hitting only parts of the cliff above them, and the reflection was gone. Relying on his wrist locator, Dedrick kept moving in the direction of the bulky rock he believed the light had originated from. The trench was hundreds of meters tall. Almost completely vertical, the cliff walls were full of jagged edges and uneven features. Between them, boulders of all sizes were littering the ground. Some as big as a small house. That, in itself, looked strange to Dedrick. Most of the geology in Candor Chasma was ancient and had not changed in millions of years. But this crevice, although in some ways similar to others in the area, looked as if something had happened there in a much more recent past. Could Mars have had seismic activity more recently than planetologists previously thought? Scientists on Earth, Dedrick had learned during his training, believed Mars was a dead planet, and had been so for most of its life. The rocky world had barely changed at all in billions of years. Earthquakes and other major geological changes were believed to have ceased long, long ago. Dedrick had a strange feeling about this small canyon. Something he could not explain.

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.