Jamie waited for him to continue.
“The humidity sensors are calibrated for the very minor humidity we have expected on Mars. If the balloons passed through the mists you reported, then they encountered a much higher humidity than the sensors were equipped to handle. The sensors became saturated.”
“Okay, that sounds right.”
“On the other hand, we have the matter of the temperature differences.” Toshima smiled broadly. “Consider: the metsat infrared sensors are not seeing deeply into the canyon when the mists are there. The sensors see the mist and report its temperature.”
Jamie understood. “And if the mist is made of ice crystals…”
“Or even water droplets,” Toshima picked up, “it would appear much cooler to the infrared sensors than the air below the mist.”
“The mists act as a kind of blanket, insulating the warm air at the bottom of the canyon!”
“Exactly. Yet the radar aboard the metsat penetrates the mist as if it were not there and gives us a true reading of the depth of the canyon. Until you reported the mists I had no idea they existed.”
“So the balloons gave you a truer temperature reading than the satellites did,” Jamie said, feeling the thrill of understanding tingling through his body.
“That is how I interpret the data,” Toshima replied, grinning now with all his teeth.
“Okay, let’s pump the geological data into this display,” Jamie urged. He found it difficult to sit still, he was getting so excited.
Toshima pecked away at the keyboard, still on his lap.
“What are you seeking?” he asked.
“Heat,” said Jamie. “Something’s making that canyon warmer than the plains surrounding it. Warmer than we had any right to expect. Maybe it’s heat welling up from the planet’s interior.”
“Ah! Hot springs, perhaps. Or a volcano.”
“Nothing so dramatic as a volcano,” Jamie said, eagerly watching the screen, waiting for the geological data to appear.
“There are very massive volcanoes on Mars,” Toshima muttered, his fingers working the keyboard.
“A thousand kilometers away from Tithonium. And they’ve been dead cold for millions of years. Billions, maybe.”
Toshima half whispered, “Now,” and ostentatiously pressed the ENTER key with his stubby forefinger.
A thin train of bright red symbols sprang onto the screen.
“Can we back away from this close-up and see the region between our base and the canyon’s rim?” Jamie asked.
“Of course,” said Toshima.
There they were, the real-time readings from the sensors Jamie had planted on the ground during his traverse with Vosnesensky. The symbols formed a single track from their domed base to the Noctis Labyrinthus badlands, then out to the edge of Tithonium, and finally back to the base. Each cluster of sensors included heat-flow instruments. On Earth such sensors measured the heat welling up toward the surface from the molten magma deep below the crust.
“Not a helluva lot, is it?” Jamie muttered, straining his eyes at the tiny red numerals as if he could make them come alive by just staring hard enough.
Toshima said nothing. He sat with his hands folded politely on his lap.
“The planet’s colder than a frozen potato,” Jamie grumbled. “There’s not enough heat coming up from its core to warm a cup of tea.”
“No thermal flow in the canyon?”
Unconsciously kneading both thighs in frustration Jamie replied, “That’s just it: we don’t have any instruments down on the canyon floor. That may be the one place where some heat actually is flowing up out of the core, but we don’t have any sensors down there to check it out!”
Toshima bowed his head slightly, this time to show understanding. “I see. We must put sensors on the canyon floor if we hope to understand what forms the mists.”
“Not just sensors,” Jamie said, his voice urgent. “We’ve got to get down there ourselves. Somehow, we’ve got to get a team down on the floor of that canyon.”
Li Chengdu smiled thinly at the trio of images on his screen. This was such an important decision that all three project directors wanted to discuss it with him.
I can thank Waterman for this, Dr. Li said to himself. If it were not for him everything would be going according to plan.