Yves Giraud - Kahnu

Chasma knew some of the circumstances surrounding the crew’s death, but not all the details. The colonists had told her a malfunction had caused the crash, and that the incident had happened long before her birth. Today, she would get a chance to see where the MF3 crew was buried. It also meant the group was going to take her to “The Gate.”

“Are you OK, Chasma?”

“Yes, Mom, I’m fine. You don’t have to ask me every time.”

“I know. I’m just making sure. It’s a long trip and the way is a bit bumpy at times.”

“I don’t mind.”

They finally came to a stop at the foot of a slope. Not far away, four small pyramids made of large stacked up rocks were looking back at them. Shoulder high and looking strangely enigmatic, the evenly spaced monuments were hard to miss on the flat Martian landscape. They each featured a small niche, the size of a shoe box, where the colonists had put some of the astronauts’ personal belongings they had managed to find after the crash. There was also a picture of each team member taken from the computer archives. Chasma stepped out of the rover holding her mother’s hand, and the two began walking to the memorial.

A few minutes later, all eight humans were facing the site. Atop a small boulder in front of the pyramids, a white metallic plaque read the following:

“Here rest the body, spirit, and soul of our friends, brothers, sisters and colleague astronauts Ebba Andreasson, Jessie Bruun, Daniel Patel and Antonio Bardino. May their death not be forgotten, and their life celebrated for the true heroes they were. Pioneers in the conquest of space, they came to Mars and died on this day of November 22, 2034, in the name of all mankind. Stretching the limits of their world, and overcoming the fear of the unknown, they came in peace to explore new frontiers and a world yet unexplored. Mankind is forever in your debt, dear friends.”

Dedrick stood in the middle of the small group, facing the fallen colleagues.

“…and we all miss you. We wish you could have seen all this with us. We’ve finally made good use of the panels we had found from your ship a few years back and managed to build another storage area behind the station. Most of it is built underground, right into the cliff behind the base. So, I guess we have you to thank for that too. Last week, the…”

While Dedrick was addressing the four monuments, the rest of the group had gathered around him in a tight crescent. Chasma was staring silently as the sunlight grazed the side of Jessie Bruun’s tombstone. Jessie, team three’s mission specialist, had just turned forty-one when the ship had finally left Earth. She was ecstatic and for good reasons. Her passionate love for Mars had inspired more interest in the project, during her astronaut training, than any other candidate ever had. She had the most infatuating personality of her group, and her looks didn’t hurt, of course. She had many admirers, to say the least, and François had commented on her feminine charms more than once, which invariably made Sabrina jealous. Jessie Bruun had been the most disappointed of her team when their trip to Mars, originally scheduled for 2030, had been delayed, after the shocking news of Najib’s death. She had also found herself quite affected by the astronaut’s unexpected passing. But she had worked diligently at helping Mars First convince the powers at play to allow the next ship to launch, eventually getting her wish four years later. Tragically, her dreams of exploring the red planet had died with her when MF3 had crashed on Mars six months later, killing Jessie and her three teammates on board.

“…but that wasn’t enough, I guess, so they had to kill everyone! So fucking stupid! We were so close! Leave it to the human race. Makes you wonder how we even got this far, doesn’t it?” Dedrick’s speeches invariably led to his frustration over Earth’s ultimate demise, each time the colonists came to the MF3 site. They were all used to it by now, and no one cared to stop him. After all, he wasn’t saying anything they didn’t agree with. Although traveling to other stars had seemed a perfectly plausible future for humans to the visionaries of the twenty-first century, that scenario was very unlikely now. With only eight of them left, possibly the very last survivors of their doomed civilization, the universe would forever be left unexplored. And even though Chasma was proof life could go on, even here on Mars, chances were the small outpost would never offer more than a precarious dwelling, destined to eventually breakdown and die, them along with it. The base couldn’t be expanded or even repaired, now that they couldn’t get any more help from Earth. Eventually, something would need to be replaced, a computer would fail, a door seal would wear out. Whatever the cause, they too would disappear, ending the human saga forever, and they all knew it.

“…yet, somehow, we’re still here. Eight small creatures, alone on Mars. That’s quite a miracle in itself, isn’t it?” He looked up at the sky. “Lars, if you can hear me, I hope you can see us now and are proud of yourself. You made this possible. You and your dream that we were meant for more; that we were explorers and meant to break through the barriers of our own atmosphere, travel millions of kilometers through space and begin anew, on another world. You helped humanity go further than anyone had ever before, and in doing so, as fate would have it, gave humanity a second chance. We will do our best to be worthy. We’re going to survive, and we’re going to grow. Chasma is the first child of Mars. But there will be more. We will make a better world, a smarter one, a peaceful one. We will make it worth all the efforts and all the losses.”

He was staring at the landscape in the distance. The megalithic cliffs ahead letting giant beams of light cut through their plateau’s crevices, some casting kilometer deep shadows across the flat plane below, offered a sight rivaling none. On a day like this, occasional dust devils and wind storms were common sights. But, to his surprise, those seemed strangely absent today. As if reading his thoughts, a light wind picked up for a few seconds, as if saying “we’ll see about that.”

Dedrick continued, “Today, we have a new visitor for you. Chasma… Chasma…?”

Only partially listening to her Dad, Chasma was staring at the picture of the dark-haired woman on one of the pyramids.

“Mommy, that’s my birthday,” she stated, pointing at the date on the inscription.

“You’re right, sweetie. The MF3 accident happened the same day you were born. I guess it’s time you knew.”

“Did you know her, Je… ssie?”

“Yes, sweetie, I knew her. She was a wonderful person. I think you would’ve liked her very much. And you know what? She loved flowers too. She always had some in her room, back on Earth. And she was funny, gosh she was funny…”

Chasma was listening to her mother, watching her from below, when she noticed a few tears begin to roll down her face.

“I’m sorry, Mommy.”

“I know, love, I know. It’s OK.”

She squatted down to take her daughter in her arms, only to realize how unpractical it was with both their suits on. She looked at Chasma through the glass front of her helmet for a moment, and finally asked with a smile, “Do you want to see something really cool?”

Each year since the fatal crash of Mars First 3, the colonists paid their tribute to their dead colleagues at grid C 12-4, aka Key Largo, where the largest portion of the ship had been recovered, and where the colonists had buried their fallen friends. Soon after the alien door’s discovery, they had extended that visit to include a stop there as well each year. It was a logical decision since the Gate, as they called it, was less than half a mile away from the crash site.