Yves Giraud - Kahnu

“Yes, they’re still in the basket. I’ve just stopped the winch. They should be able to hear us calling. They’re just sitting there, not moving. I can’t see their faces, but I think they are staring at the cliff in front of them. Dedrick?” she asked again.

“Dedrick? François? Come on guys, what’s going on?” asked Vera as well.

“I know you can hear me,” added Sabrina.

Down in the basket, Dedrick and François were dead silent. They dared not even move a centimeter. They were looking at something they could not yet comprehend. Staring at a recess in the face of the cliff directly in front of them, about fifteen meters in depth and just as wide, they were transfixed. The terrace in front of them was perfectly level and smooth, and the flawless shape of the cliff walls around it left no doubt it was not a natural formation. The precision of the perfectly spherical ceiling and back wall was in absolute contrast with the rugged look of the surrounding rock face. But it wasn’t the amazing architecture of the place that baffled them the most. On the leveled floor of the encavement, a perfect spherical ball, about two meters in diameter, stood right in the center, partially buried into the ground. Its casing was light in color and appeared to be made of some high-glossy material. Its very top was partially covered by a thin layer of dust.

“That’s impossible!” finally said Dedrick, breaking the silence.

“Well, it’s right there, so… I’d say it IS possible,” replied François pointing at it. “I admit, though… I don’t understand what I’m looking at, either. I… I thought we were the first ones on Mars. Do you think the Chinese could’ve…? No, we would’ve known about it.”

Back in ARC 2, Sabrina could hear both men clearly. “Guys? Guys? What’s going on? Talk to me…”

Sixty meters below, Dedrick, still in shock, turned slowly to François.

“No, you don’t understand. I’ve seen this. In my dream! That’s what’s impossible!”

“Guys! Hello! What are you talking about? Is this another one of your silly routines? This is no time for jokes! Please, talk to me!”

“Sorry Sabrina. I… I hear you. I’m not sure how to describe what we’re seeing… There’s something down here. It’s a… it looks artificial, but we have no idea what it is. I… I’ve never seen anything like it,” François replied.

“What? Right! OK, I see. Dedrick, what is going on down there??” she asked with frustration, guessing François was pulling one of his stupid pranks on her again.

“Sure, but he’ll tell you the same thing.”

“It’s true, Sabrina. We’ve found something. I can’t tell you what. I don’t know what we’re looking at either. I’m not even sure it’s man made. It looks… alien,” replied Dedrick.

“I’m sorry, what? Did you say alien?! You mean like little green men? Those kinds of aliens?” She was almost laughing, and had it not been for the fact that she knew Dedrick to well to play along with François on this one, she would have dismissed the whole thing in a heartbeat. But Dedrick sounded very serious and that worried her.

“Sabrina, I’m serious, we’ve found something, something impossible…” Dedrick added.

“OK, that’s it. I’m pulling you guys back up.”

Engaging the winch, Sabrina slowly started pulling the basket and its contents back up the cliff. She was watching them on the monitor, waving their arms and babbling something but she wasn’t listening. She had already switched her radio to the Mars First station and was talking with Vera.

“I’m telling you. I think it’s the altitude or something. They don’t make any sense. Anyway, we’ll be heading home soon. I’m pulling them up as we speak.”

A few minutes later, the two men were getting inside the rover. Sabrina had already moved to the back seat and relayed to Vera that something was wrong with the guys’ suits. Their oxygen mix was probably off, and they were both starting to get delirious, she had told her. Vera was already planning to take the two men under medical observation, as soon as they got back.

Dedrick and François had complained about getting pulled back so soon, but eventually agreed it was time to head back to base anyway. In fact, they needed to regroup and get more supplies before returning to the site. There was some planning to do. For now, the Russian man was thinking while his French teammate was babbling away…

“What was that thing down there? You really think it’s alien? And what did you mean when you said you’ve seen that place before in your dreams? How is that even possible? We’ve never been to that cliff. We’ve never even been near it!”

Sabrina listening to them from the back seat said, “OK. Seriously, guys. What is going on?”

Keeping an eye on the terrain in front of him, François tried to answer, “Sabrina, we’re serious. We don’t know what we’ve found, but whatever it is, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There’s this circular room and in the middle, there’s that big shinny sphere and—”

“François! Stop it! It’s not funny anymore. I’m starting to worry. If it’s another one of your pranks…” she started saying, but Dedrick cut her off.

“Sabrina, we’re telling you the truth. Look!”

Having connected his suit to the rover’s computer, he punched in a command on the small keyboard on his left wrist, and a picture appeared on the rover’s dashboard.

There it was, not as clear as they had seen it, the camera in Dedrick’s helmet wasn’t the best at filming in low light, but the circular recess and the orb at its center could clearly be seen. The central object, of an off-white color, definitely looked artificial, but not man-made. Something about it looked out of this world. Sabrina couldn’t figure out what. But there it was; whatever it was. She couldn’t believe it, yet it was true. She was looking right at it. She kept shaking her head and rubbing her eyes, as if trying to clear the image from her vision.

“I don’t believe it. That’s… that’s impossible!” she finally said dumbfounded.

“I know, that’s what we said too, but I’m telling you, it is really down there,” assured François, without looking at the screen.

“We need to upload both our suit videos to the main computer as soon as we get back. I guess we’re gonna have one hell of a story to tell the others…” added Dedrick.

By the time they were back at the base, everyone inside knew something had happened. They just didn’t know what. Ladli and Vera had told the small group what they could.

“I don’t know. What Dedrick told me didn’t make any sense. Sabrina first thought something was wrong with their suits. Then, she started telling me this wild story about an object in the cliffs… Now I’m wondering if her suit isn’t acting up as well. All I know is, we need to get them immediately to the infirmary, as soon as they are through the vacuum chamber,” finished Vera.

The rover finally arrived in front of the garage. Ladli opened the gate. After driving into the dwelling, the door slowly closed behind them, and François parked the rover in its designated spot. The three passengers stepped out of the vehicle and headed for the pressure hatch. After the light above the hatch had turned green, signaling that they could now breathe without their helmets, they removed their suits, threw them into the sterilizing chamber, and proceeded through another hatch into the station, where they were immediately assaulted and dragged to the infirmary by their colleagues, amid protests and threats, mostly from François.

Two hours later, all eight members were assembled in the main lobby of the station. Dedrick was standing by a desk, looking around the room at his teammates. They were scattered here and there on pillows or kneeled on the floor. Two-and-a-half-year-old Chasma was resting in her mother’s arms on the small couch. Everyone was quiet, listening attentively to Dedrick.