“The camera.” He heard Vosnesensky’s voice in his helmet earphones. “The sunlight is beginning to evaporate the mist.”
Jamie shook himself inside the hard suit and got to work. He panned the vidcam up and down the valley, then from the lip of the rimrock where they stood out to the mist-shrouded horizon. Wherever the sun touched the clouds dissipated, dissolved into thin air. Like the old myths of ghosts that vanish when the sun comes up, Jamie told himself.
“It’s not right to call this a valley,” he muttered as he worked the camera. “That’s like calling the Pacific Ocean a pond.”
Vosnesensky said, “If you will be all right here for a while, I will set up a sensor unit.”
“I’ll be okay,” Jamie said. “I’ll be fine.”
For hours he watched the mists dissolving as the pale sun rose higher in the rose-pink sky. Down in the deepest recesses of the rocks there must be places where the mist clings, where the sunlight can’t reach, Jamie said to himself. Little oases where there are droplets of liquid water and warmth from the sun’s heating of the rocks. Little pockets down there where life might hang on.
By noontime he had used up three videocassettes and was inserting a fourth one into the camera. The mists were almost entirely gone now and he could see the rock formations standing like proud ancient battlements, marching off in both directions from the spot where he stood. The valley floor was so far below that he could only see the distant part of it, curving off past the horizon. Misty shadows still clung among the rocks down there.
“They’re differentiated, Mikhail,” Jamie said into his helmet microphone. “The rock walls here are layered. There was an ocean here once, or maybe an enormous river. Look at the layers.”
Vosnesensky, standing beside him once more, said, “All the rocks look red.”
Jamie laughed. “And on Earth all the trees look green. But there are different shades, Mikhail.”
He pointed with a gloved hand along the line of cliffs. “Look out there. See, this top layer is cracked vertically, weathered pretty badly. But the layer under it is smoother, and much darker in color.”
“Ah, yes,” said Vosnesensky. “Now I see.”
“And the layer under that is streaked with yellowish intrusions.
Maybe bauxite, or something like it. This region must have been a lot warmer once, a long time ago.”
“You think so? Why?”
Jamie started to reply, then realized he was indulging in wishful thinking. “Good question, Mikhail. We’ll make a scientist out of you yet.”
He heard the Russian’s deep chuckling. “Not likely.”
Jamie squinted up at the sun. “Let’s set up the winch. I want to…”
“Not down there!”
“Just the first three layers,” Jamie said. “I know we can’t get down to the bottom or anywhere near it. But I can reach that layer with the yellowish intrusions, at least. Come on, the sun’s starting to hit this side.”
“No lunch?”
“You can eat lunch after the winch is up. I’m too excited to eat.”
In his stolid, immovable fashion Vosnesensky insisted that they both eat before breaking out the winch and climbing harness.
“Nutrition is important,” the Russian insisted. “Many mistakes are made because of hunger.”
Despite himself Jamie grinned. “You sound like a commercial for bran flakes, Mikhail.”
Neither man bothered to take off more than his helmet and gloves once inside the rover. They each ate a hot meal perched on the edge of their facing half-folded bunks in their cumbersome hard suits. Vosnesensky brought the bottle of vitamin supplement pills from their little pharmaceutical cabinet.
“We forgot at breakfast,” he said, handing the bottle to Jamie.
“Right.” Jamie shook one of the orange-colored pills loose. “Wouldn’t want to miss the Flintstones.”
Vosnesensky scowled, puzzled. “It is no joke. Our diet lacks vitamins; we get no sunshine on our skins. The supplement is necessary.”
“Besides,” Jamie kidded, “it’s written into the mission rules.”
Jamie popped the pill into his mouth and washed it down with the last of the coffee in his mug. God, what I’d give for a cup of real coffee instead of this instant crap!