Vosnesensky said, “Schmitt found orange coloration on the moon. Some form of glass, if I remember correctly.”
“This isn’t glass,” Jamie said. “I’m sure of that.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know. Some sort of sulfur compound, maybe. We’ll have to put it through the analysis routine.”
Vosnesensky gestured with one hand to indicate to Jamie to go on with his report.
“I took four borings down to depths of ten meters. There doesn’t seem to be a permafrost layer here on the valley floor, or if there is one, it’s deeper than ten meters.”
“What about deeper borings?”
“We decided to do one deep boring on tomorrow’s EVA, after we move to the second site. A deep bore takes more time, what with the heavier equipment and all; we just didn’t have the time for it today. We won’t travel so far that the two sites aren’t geologically equivalent, so a single deep bore should do.”
The Russian blinked slowly and nodded.
“Ilona and Joanna will send you videos of the rock samples. We took soil samples too, of course. Plenty of sandy regolith out here, a deep layer, more than two meters at this location. I set up a remote sensing beacon. The preliminary data we’re getting from it show that the heat flow from below ground is significantly higher here on the canyon floor than it is up on the plain.”
“Higher heat flow? Why is that?”
“Don’t know. Not yet.” Jamie forgot his fatigue as he spoke. “Everything we’ve seen so far indicates that Mars is cold inside; if it has a molten core the way the Earth does, it’s very small and very deep. The core must’ve been bigger and hotter at one time, of course. Those Tharsis volcanoes can’t be more than half a billion years old, at most. But the core seems to have cooled down almost completely. No evidence of continental drift… nothing that even looks like continents.”
“Yet there is heat coming up from the canyon floor?”
“More than anywhere else we’ve investigated,” Jamie confirmed. “Something under this canyon is warm. That’s why there are mists and water vapor down here.”
“What else?”
“Air density and temperature are consistent with what the remote probes have found. This whole canyon complex seems to have its own microclimate, warmer and with higher air pressure than the rest of the planet. Maybe the Hellas depression exhibits the same phenomena. We’ll have to check that out.”
“Not on this mission!”
“I know that. We’ll need to come back. This is like exploring Africa, Mikhail. It’s going to take decades, maybe a century or more, before we’ve got it all down.”
Vosnesensky broke into one of his rare smiles. “One thing you do not lack, Jamie, is ambition.”
Jamie felt startled. “Ambition? Me?”
But Vosnesensky was already framing his next question. “How do you feel? Do you want to speak with Tony? Is your health status good?”
Jamie hesitated. “I’m tired but otherwise okay. Ilona’s under the weather a bit, but I don’t think anybody else has any complaints. I’ll ask each one individually; if there are any problems we’ll call back.”
“Be certain that you do.”
Jamie signed off and cut the connection. Odd that Mikhail should ask about our health. The damned guy must be telepathic. Then he realized that Ilona must have spoken with Tony while they were outside. And Mikhail saw that Joanna took the EVA with me instead of Ilona. He’s a suspicious cuss. Typical Russian.
MARS ORBIT
Li Chengdu frowned at the display screen. He was in the command module of the Mars 2 spacecraft, sitting at the monitoring station behind the two pilots’ seats. Tolbukhin and the American astronaut, Burt Klein, had turned their seats around to make a little conference circle.
Dr. Yang sat next to Li, pointing at the two lists displayed side by side on the screen.
“You see? Waterman and Brumado accomplished only half their scheduled tasks for the EVA.”
Yang’s fingernail was long and red and carefully manicured. Li wondered why the physician bothered to lacquer her nails. She was not an especially good-looking woman, he thought, rather plain in fact, with a pug nose and overly thick lips. Her figure was nondescript. Yet she adorned her tan coveralls with a bright gold-mesh belt and she wore a necklace and several bracelets that clashed together like miniature cymbals whenever she moved her hands. Her mouse-brown hair had been recently clipped; she wore it in bangs that came down almost to her eyebrows. And her face was made up with lipstick and eye shadow, no less.