Red Hope (13 page)

Adam leaned toward the door and slowly rotated the
handle. They heard the sound of air leaking, but it only lasted for a few
seconds. Adam and Yeva stepped proudly out onto the catwalk. Stretched in front
of them was a surreal landscape like no other. The common description of it
looking like Arizona is not correct. It’s as if a huge landscape of bedrock was
sprinkled with red sand, dust and loose rocks. On Earth, even the harshest
desert shows some sign of life. They could see for miles in every direction
here and there wasn’t a single solitary living organism. This place had been
dead for a long time.

“It’s so beautiful and yet so lifeless,” said Adam.

He turned his head and looked up at the roof-mounted video
camera that was beaming their images back to Earth. He waved. Billions of
people were watching.

They both stood there looking down at the Martian soil
just three feet below them at the bottom of the ramp. It looked so inviting.
History was so close. Adam’s usually complacent ego was going into overdrive.
He was ruminating about Keller’s idea of forcing himself into history. Adam’s
repressed arrogance flared.

Yeva turned her head just in time to see Adam leap
forward past the end of the ramp and land on the ground. His boots kicked up a
puff of dust. It blew away in the thin Martian breeze.

The ground was as solid as if he’d landed on Earth. He
stood up soaking in the pride he was feeling. In that brief betrayal of Yeva,
he became the first human to step foot on another planet and ensured his
historical legacy. In five minutes, billions of people would see him become a
legend.

Adam turned around and looked at Yeva. She was staring
at him with a look of crushing disappointment. She would always be known as the
second person on Mars. In other words, she would be
unknown
. She assumed
he had always planned this move.

Yeva’s look of disappointment changed to rage. She
reverted to her Russian and said, “Vy nakhodites' na vershine moyego spiska
kormy!”

Adam raised one eyebrow and said, “That sure didn’t
sound like an endearing phrase.”

Adam could take her derision. For now at least. Only
his crew knew what was
supposed
to have happened, so he was still a hero
to Mission Control and to the billions of people watching.

He pushed the glove-mounted button that opened his
microphone up to the Earth video stream feed. He looked up at the camera and
said what Neil Armstrong had meant to say all those years ago when he first set
foot on the Moon; he added a bit of political correctness too.

“This is one small step for
a
human
and
one giant leap for
human
kind.”

Adam’s name would be an answer on game shows. It would
be an answer in
Trivial Pursuit: Mars Edition
. From this moment on, his
family would never want for money or medicine. And all he had to do was violate
a promise he had carried for many millions of miles.

Adam looked over at Yeva again. He said, “I am sorry
Yeva. I had to do that for my family. It’s hard to explain.”

Yeva was still stunned, unmoving. She walked down the
ramp and stopped before reaching the dirt. She lifted her boot carefully and
set it down firmly on the red dust. When she set the other boot down, she
looked up at Adam and said, “You can rot for all I care. Now, let us go finish
what we came here for.”

They walked toward the golf cart. Yeva pushed Adam out
of the way as she hopped into the driver’s seat. She looked at him and said, “I
am driving.”

Adam climbed in the passenger seat.

Before Yeva stepped on the accelerator pedal, they
both reached behind their seats and pulled out an American and Russian flag
respectively. They leaned out of the golf cart and jabbed them into the red
sandy soil.

Adam started laughing.

“Now what could possibly be funny?” asked Yeva.

“Did you ever notice that the first two people to walk
on Mars are named
Adam
and
Yeva
?” asked Adam.

She stared at him motionless.

“You know, like
Adam
and
Eve
in the
Garden of Eden?”

Yeva looked at him incredulously.

He quickly added, “Granted this place is hostile and
deadly, so it’s not
really
like the Garden of Eden, but still, it’s a
funny coincidence, right?”

Yeva was thinking. She finally spoke.

“I would like to remove one of your ribs and beat some
sense into you with it.”

A profound silence emerged. The smile left Adam’s
face.

“Okay, um, let’s get moving I guess,” he said.

Yeva powered up the cart and drove a slow circle
around the Big and Little Turtles to inspect their condition. Everything looked
good except for the parachutes that were lying down on the ground. Yeva pointed
at them and looked at Adam for his input.

“I don’t want to waste time re-packing those chutes
right now. Let’s continue,” he commanded.

Satisfied that nothing else seemed out of place, she
floored the pedal and the tore off toward the direction of the dead Curiosity rover
and the fossils. For several minutes, they wound their way around rocks,
boulders and old dry river beds. As they crested a rocky hill, they could see what
they came for.

Down in a shallow valley of smooth soil, they saw the idled
Curiosity rover next to some large sparkling boulders.

“That’s what we came all this way to see,” remarked
Adam.

“Yes,” said Yeva. “Those rocks look just like the ones
in our photographs.”

It was strange to see them from this angle. Yeva was
very excited to be able to study the fossils close-up. Up ahead in front of
both the rover and the fossil rock was a pyramidal structure that appeared to
be made out of large flat granite walls.

Yeva remarked, “The pyramid sure looks manmade,
doesn't it?”

“You mean
Martian
made?” asked Adam.

Yeva laughed and then remembered how Adam had betrayed
her. She scowled at him.

Yeva maneuvered the golf cart down the hill and parked
just a few feet from the Curiosity rover. They both hopped out.

Adam went to the back of the golf cart and grabbed the
large replacement power unit and some tools. He moved it over to the Curiosity
and started the laborious process of replacing its dead power unit. Since it
relied on a radioactive power source, Adam had to be very careful.

Yeva walked over to the fossil and kneeled down to
look at it. She touched her glove to the bony hand fossil protruding from the boulder.
It was similar in size and shape to her own hand, but it was millions of years
older. She was now the closest a human had ever been to an alien life form. She
sat there unmoving as she daydreamed. Yeva imagined this place as a once
luscious life-supporting landscape. She ran her fingers over the symbols on the
granite block as it lay in the skeleton fossil’s hand. The bony structures were
embedded just in the surface of the huge rock. She took picture after picture
of this most alien find.

Adam finished replacing the power unit. “There you go
little guy. Wander off and find more amazing stuff.”

In an hour or so, Mission Control on Earth would
direct the Curiosity to continue exploring. It would be gone from view by
tomorrow morning.

Adam put his tools back in the golf cart and grabbed
his digital camera. He walked over to Yeva and started taking high-resolution
photos of the fossils.

He stated, “I gotta admit they look posed. Almost like
they were put here on purpose to
become
fossils.”

Yeva wondered out loud, “Possibly, but how do you
think they went about embedding them in rock like this? I hope the person was
already dead when they put them here so long ago.”

Adam examined the boulder closely.

"I don't think this boulder is a naturally
occurring rock formation. It looks more like concrete to me.  Except, instead
of using gravel, they used greenish gems. Maybe
olivine
? Why would they
do that?" wondered Adam aloud.

"My guess is they wanted to grab the attention of
any future travelers.  It sure got
our
attention, yes?" asked Yeva.

"Good point," replied Adam.

The only visible parts on the fossils were the hands, arms,
and legs. The head was partially visible, but mostly encased in the gem-infused
boulder. Upon closer inspection, the symbols in the granite block were inlaid
in gold.

Adam remarked, “In hindsight, it seems obvious now
that these lines represent Pi. Just like
Chris
said.”

Yeva was the only crewmember who had guessed that
correctly. She ignored Adam’s statement and said, “Look at those leg bone
fragments. This person was extremely tall. I suspect seven, maybe eight feet
tall? Must be the result of living with lower gravity.”

“That’s not the only amazing thing here,” said Adam.
“Have you noticed how this symbol stone and the pyramid are the only examples
of granite within sight? Just look around. All I see are random volcanic stones
and some broken sedimentary rocks. There’s some basalt over there. I wonder
where they got the granite from?”

Yeva nodded her head in agreement.

“There must be a quarry somewhere around here. The
ground cover is interesting too. It looks like sand mixed with red dust. I move
my hand through it and it’s just so light, yet on top of a very hard crust.
It’s like we’re only inches from bedrock.”

Over the radio came a transmission from Keller, “Hey
have you guys found anything yet? Your little jumping stunt has reached Earth
and returned. The crowds are going wild.”

Adam laughed and said, “Yah, I’m not sure what came
over me; I must’ve lost my footing or something.”

Yeva stared at him with hateful eyes.

Adam continued, “Um, we’re at the site. I replaced the
power unit on the Curiosity and we’re looking at the fossils now. The symbols
are much more impressive in person. Isn’t that right, Yeva?”

He looked up to see her still staring at him with
disdain. She hoped he would fall down and break his legs. Then she would pose
his skeleton next to the fossils for the next civilization to find.

Keller said, “Now don’t go stealing those artifacts.
Molly and I want to see them, too.”

Yeva brought out her toolkit and took a few samples of
the fossils from the boulder. She put them in plastic bags to be examined
later.

After taking some more pictures, Adam noted that they
had already burned through half of their oxygen. The two astronauts walked over
toward the pyramid structure. On one side was a big round disk made of smooth rock
that was leaning against the pyramid. In the middle of the door was an engraved
square shown floating over a straight line.

However, there was also a ring of symbols going around
the outer edge of the door. This detail hadn’t been visible in the photographs.
These etchings were much more elaborate than those in the fossil’s hand.

Adam remarked, “It looks like the sign on the door has
an added bonus for us. Wish I knew what it meant.”

  Yeva used her fossil brush to clean the dust out of
each engraving before they documented them with their cameras.

Yeva questioned, “So, do you think the door rolls open
or maybe it swings on hinges?”

“I doubt door hinges would’ve lasted millions of
years, so they probably used the classic rolling slab door. Whatever it is, I
sure hope it’s hiding something awesome inside.”

Yeva wondered, “How should we move it?”

 The two explorers looked around for some clues about
how to roll this big round door away. Adam jogged over to the golf cart and
pulled the utility shovel off of it and brought it back. He slowly dug away at
the sand on one side of the disc.

Suddenly, the ground shook. It shook a lot. The
shimmying lasted for five seconds before fading. Sand shifted away from the
circular door.

Adam stopped digging. He asked over the headset
microphone, “Hey did anybody else feel that Earthquake?”

“You mean
Marsquake
?” asked Keller over the
intercom.

“Yah, I suppose that’s what I meant. It’s stopped
now.”

Adam was flustered, but he continued removing sand
from one side of the circular door. His plan was to dig a shallow depression
and hopefully the door would roll into it.

After a few minutes, the round door began to roll
toward the low point, albeit slowly. Adam tried to push it, but it didn’t
budge.  He took a break and gave the shovel to Yeva. After digging some more,
the disc rolled far enough to the side that the two astronauts could probably
squeeze through if they turned sideways.

“Hey Yeva, how much oxygen do you have?” asked Adam.

Yeva looked at the gauge on her wrist and said, “About
15 minutes. We’ll have time to go in and take a few pictures.”

Adam spoke over the intercom, “Okay. This is it
everybody. We are now going to enter a room built by aliens. Can you believe
it?”