Autumn on Mars
A science fiction novelette by Matthew Crane.
Mika’s Martian Travel Guide, Part 1: How to choose a Rover.
Mars can be a pretty dangerous place. People don’t normally come from Mars. And even though we’re living here I’ve always been told to remember that it’s only because of the machines at the colony that we always have air to breathe and power to stay warm.
But we are explorers and if you’re reading this so are you. We need a way to carry all that important machinery with you and what we’re using is an Enbilulu Rover. It doesn’t look particularly good because like most things we have on Mars it’s very cream grey and smooth and boxy and boring.
But while it doesn’t look very good my sister Trip says we can trust it to work fine and keep on working fine for a long long time.
Right now my sister is driving us over dusty hills at about 12 km/h but the Rover allows people to travel at up to 15 km/h! We won’t be going that fast though because Trip is worried that we’ll crash and that would be very embarrassing considering we’ve only just started our journey. I don’t think we’re going to crash but it’s smart to look out just in case.
Another not as good part of the Rover is the window. If you’re an explorer then you want to see as much of the land you’re exploring as possible. The Rover’s window is only a meter tall and there’s no side window. Trip has screens that let her see all around the Rover in her side of the cockpit because that’s important to drivers but a navigator like me doesn’t have that. If I want to look around I have to stand up and lean close to the window while the Rover is shaking about.
So for you and for next time I would say that if you go exploring on Mars definitely make sure to get a Rover with lots of windows.
Despite the window problems Mars has still been filled with plenty of stuff for us to discover looking out of those windows.
First we went down this valley where the bottom was all ruffled up. Trip says that that’s because a lot of the other Rovers drive down there when they’re leaving coldbrook so we weren’t really exploring at that point. It was still something fun to look at. Most places where people drive a lot in colonies like Coldbrook are tidied regularly but out here they just let the ground get bumpier and more interesting.
After that we went through a field of lots of rocks that looked like stacks of plates sticking out of the hillside. Trip says that it’s rough terrain and that she thinks it’ll be harder for them to follow us through it. We stopped next to a few of the rocks and I got to have a closer look at them. They were flat sided like hexagons or octagons and they were between 2 and 3 meters wide. They’re kind of bluish black like a lot of the rocks on Mars if you rub the dust off them. Dad told me that this kind of rock is called Basalt.
Things like these unusual shaped rocks that you won’t see while sitting at home are why we all explore. We need to see things we’ve never seen before or life just gets boring. These stone pillars are incredible and you should definitely try and find some yourself. Just be careful because they bunch together a lot. Trip says it was very hard driving through those rocks, but that she spotted most of them without my help.
We’ve been driving for nearly an hour now and I think we’re driving off the bottom of Talyfan Mons which is the volcano that Coldbrook is near the top of.
Trip says we’re not off the volcano yet and that there’s still a lot of shallow hills to go down. They fall around the mountain itself like a towel on top of a radiator.
Trip seems kind of worried about that. I don’t think she likes being on the mountain and it’s probably because she’s worried that we’re going to crash. I’m not worried. I would be more worried if we were further away and somewhere rescue might find difficult to find but we’re Explorers. The most important thing about being an explorer is that you have to be brave even when you’re far from help
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