She reaches out and touches his face. He feels himself almost overcome with a sense of love and affection. Not a sexual love, but the sort of love shared by mothers and sons, one that will survive all things, even life itself. She says, “There is a place I want to show you.” She points to the window and he is stunned to see the red surface of Mars rapidly growing larger, directly in their path.
The ship slows as it approaches orbital distance, but they don’t go into orbit. Instead, Ningal flies them down toward the surface. Even allowing for the thin Martian air, it is by far the smoothest re-entry Borman has ever experienced. In the blink of an eye, they are gliding across the rocky terrain, no more than a hundred feet or so in the air. He stares in awe at the desolate surface. It’s a desert of reddish yellow rocks and dust, not a speck of water to be seen anywhere.
As the landscape ahead changes dramatically, he gasps and points to the window. “My God, look at that.” It’s a massive mountain, taller than anything he has ever seen on Earth.
“It was once a volcano,” she says. “It is almost as large as France and taller than Mount Everest.”
There is a massive escarpment at the foot of the mountain. As they fly closer toward it, a vertical fissure opens up ahead of them. Ningal flies her ship directly inside the fissure. She taps a button on her panel, and its walls are suddenly illuminated by a light from the ship’s hull. They are inside a vast cavern, taking them deep underground as they follow its course. Its walls are smooth, like they have been deliberately reshaped to remove all dangerous extrusions.
“What is this place?”
“You will see.”
They fly on, more slowly now, deeper into the Martian interior and further into a natural light that now seems to be emanating from the very stone walls surrounding them. Then the walls open out into a much broader chamber — the hollowed out main vent of the volcano. From the wall on its far side, a large flat plateau stretches out toward them, a gargantuan hand reaching through the Martian crust.
As the ship approaches slowly, he gets a good look at the plateau and everything built upon it. It is as if a section of the vent wall has been cut and folded out. Built into the vent wall behind it, a massive structure of metal and glass stretches high above their heads. From either side of this, two rows of cranes and gantries line either side of the platform, upon which Ningal gently lands the ship. As it touches down, it triggers lights that turn the chamber from night to day. Nearby, large and empty containers are scattered haphazardly about the floor of the facility, the only sign of disorder. A large rectangular container hangs in the air almost directly above them, seemingly caught halfway in the process of either being loaded or stored away.
“Would you like to go outside and take a look?” she asks.
“Is it safe?”
“Perfectly. This is a Ryl facility. Though we no longer use it, everything remains operational.”
Before he has time to object, the ship’s entry hatch snaps open, seemingly leaving them exposed to whatever atmosphere may or may not exist outside. Ningal adjusts something attached to her belt, and then simply walks toward the door. “You will need that helmet now,” she tells him.
“You built this place? What for?”
“It’s a gold mine.”
“And you’re saying if I step through that door right now, I won’t be able to breathe?”
“The air here is breathable, but only just. The atmospheric generator has been switched off for many years.”
“So why haven’t we lost cabin pressure?”
She points to the hatchway. “The two spaces are incompatible with one another. The interior of this ship does not exist in the world outside, hence it is not subject to the laws of physics that govern it.” He stares at her like she’s talking nonsense. “Imagine we are inside a bubble,” she says. “We can step in and out of the bubble without bursting it, but the inside and the outside of the bubble remain separate from one another.”
“What about you — don’t you need a space suit?”
She smiles. “I’m already wearing it. Mine is magnetic.” She steps through the hatchway and into the Martian chamber.
As soon as his boots leave the ship’s entryway, Borman senses Martian gravity take hold. He instantly feels lighter. There is no sign of life; the facility looks long abandoned. Ningal is already several hundred feet ahead of him, walking toward the rear of the loading bay. She turns, beckons to him to follow, then disappears into the darkness of the giant building embedded in the volcanic wall.
He steps away from the ship, slowly at first, until he realizes he can move great distances with a single step in the lighter gravity. Just outside the building entrance, he stops and looks up. It’s enormous, lit from within all the way to the top. He senses the volcanic vent itself is far taller, but its ceiling is hidden in the total darkness that stretches ominously above his head. Half spooked, he quickly steps inside the building to find Ningal.
She is standing in the center of the building’s pentagonal foyer, a large empty space stretching high above their heads and spanning half the size of a football field. The space is empty but for a red metal circle embedded in the floor. Ningal is standing on top of it, waiting for him. As he reaches her, the disc beneath them begins to rise, lifting them in the air. She grabs his arm firmly just as the speed of their ascent increases, taking them through the structure’s many levels all the way to the top floor, which looks to have been an executive suite of sorts.
Here too the ceiling is high, built to accommodate a race of people far taller than human beings. Large Ryl-sized chairs and tables are scattered about, making Borman feel rather like Goldilocks visiting the home of the three bears. There is dust and dirt in lines along the floor, marking the places where other furniture or equipment had once been standing before the facility was abandoned. As the red disc locks into position, it seals them from the floors below. This triggers lights. An air supply makes a dim hiss as the large room comes back to life.
All the walls are windows, offering them a 360-degree view of the volcanic chamber. Though invisible from the platform below, they are atop a massive volcanic plug. The vent is many times larger than it had first appeared. Lights from the building offer partial illumination to both sides of the vent chamber, just enough to show its sheer enormity. Borman figures the chamber is large enough to house a large part of the US Navy’s Pacific fleet.
She once more adjusts her belt, and then takes a deep breath. “Yes, the air is fine. You can remove your helmet.”
Borman does so, marveling at the idea that he is taking his first breath of air on another world. It tastes thin and dusty, but otherwise perfectly breathable. “How long has this place been abandoned?”
She raises an eyebrow. “I think, perhaps 500 Earth years.”
“But you’ve been here before?”
“I was here when the mine was still operational.”
“You’re joking…”
“Oh, I’m far older than that. Our bodies don’t age like yours. A fault in your design, I’m afraid.” Spoken like an apology of sorts.
“Is the mine exhausted? That why you left?”
She shakes her head. “We thought we would find a reliable source of water if we progressed far enough underground. Alas that much eluded us.”
“But you found gold?”
“A plentiful supply. It lasted us many hundreds of years.”
“Lasted you…?”
“Gold is a critical part of our infrastructure. It powers our propulsion systems and gives us the ability to build small dimensional windows in space, such as that inside my ship.”