Townsend stood beside the rover parked twenty meters from the Hab, its engine already running. Gwen, her work done, had backed away from the vehicle in the direction of the ERV. In the dim morning light, the ruddy landscape of Mars was stark and strange, both more beautiful and more threatening than ever. Somehow the sight brought home to McGee the immensity of this planet, its weird novelty, and the formidable nature of the expedition he was about to begin. It was a scene to engrave upon memory, and his mind reached for poetry:
"As when dawn lifts her rosy hand above the horizon..." Homer, would that you were here to chronicle this Odyssey.
Townsend waved him forward. "Let's go, Professor."
McGee strode down the ramp and entered the rover, followed quickly by the colonel. Moments later, Townsend closed the hatch and shifted the engine into gear. As they trundled away, McGee looked back to see Rebecca peering out the Beagle's upper-deck window, waving farewell. Then, as they approached the ERV, Gwen stood outside in a Marsuit. She gave the rover crew a thumbs up, which Townsend returned. Within minutes, the base receded into the distance, and they were alone.
As they drove out onto the plain in the direction of the vast canyon, McGee dropped a disk into his electronic book and started to read aloud: "Here's what Carr says in his old write-up. ‘Valles Marineris. The canyons are mostly flat-floored with steep, gullied walls. Many contain thick, partly eroded, layered sediments...' "
Townsend cut the lecture short. "Bottom line, McGee. Does he recommend a route?"
McGee shook his head. "From what he says, I think our best shot is to drive about half a day along the edge of the canyon, park near map point G-22, and make a descent along the series of natural switchbacks that appear to lie below it."
The colonel set his jaw. "Very well. Make it so."
Now where have I heard that before? McGee smiled inwardly.
"Yes... Captain Picard."
The two exchanged a comradely grin.
AURORAE PLANUM, NEAR CAPRI CHASMA
OCT. 30, 2012 10:20 MLT
Four hours later, the two men arrived at the edge of the largest canyon in the solar system. Exiting the rover, they advanced to the cliff, and looked down into its vast depths.
McGee's memory flashed to his first view of Earth's Grand Canyon. He had seen it before in pictures, movies, even on Imax the night before—but nothing had prepared him for the real thing. Now Mars' canyon made Arizona's look like a ditch. Though he had already seen a part of it on that first rover sortie with Gwen a lifetime ago, the Valles Marineris still sent his mind reeling.
Townsend motioned to McGee, and they started down together. At first the descent was easy. A ledge ran along the side of the slope, and though the path was steep, it offered no significant difficulty. Then, without warning, the ledge ended in a sheer cliff.
McGee was prepared. Uncoiling a thin nylon line, he fastened one end securely around a massive boulder, and threw the other into the yawning gulf below. It would be an impressive descent, almost two hundred meters.
He looked to the colonel and gestured to the rope. "After you, Alphonse."
Townsend smiled. "After you, Gaston."
McGee picked up the line, fastened it to his safety belt, and walked to the edge. "See you at the bottom," he said, and kicked off.
Over the edge he went, and then down. After so many months on Mars, McGee was accustomed to the low Martian gravity, but this was the first time he'd let himself fall in it. He noticed the obvious slowness of the acceleration during his drop. One-third g meant that he could fall three times the distance that he could on Earth before he reached an equivalent speed. Both going down and climbing back up, rappelling on Mars would be a lot easier than on Earth.
Thank God for small favors, he thought. After so much adversity, they would take any advantages wherever they could find them.
Still, the two-hundred-meter drop was awesome—and it was just the beginning. They successfully rappelled several more times, alternating with bouts of walking, bouldering, scrambling, rock climbing, and scree sliding.
After several hours they paused for water and a brief rest. Townsend, clearly more worn by the constant effort, turned to the historian. "It seems that I'm not as young as I used to be."
McGee had noted Townsend's limited technique during the descent, but had said nothing, mindful of the commander's pride. The military man was tough and game, and appeared to have been taught the basics of mountaineering at some point, but his lack of real experience was painfully obvious.
"Take it easy, Colonel. The gravity here is only about a third of Earth's, but the weight and clumsiness of our spacesuits and breathing gear makes this at least as tricky as a climb down any terrestrial canyon."
Townsend rubbed his sore left shoulder and added ruefully, "With the plus that if you fall and crack your faceplate, you die a blood-coughing, vacuum-breathing, agonizing death."
"Even a broken ankle could doom us, Colonel. So be very careful."
Tired as they were, they had little choice but to immediately resume their advance. Again they had to rappel, scramble, scree, march, and boulder. The pair made it to another good traveling ledge, which turned into a miniature canyon contained within the larger canyon's wall. As they marched downward quite a distance along this route, all view of the greater world beyond was cut off. Then suddenly the path bent, and before them was a sheer canyon wall towering thirty meters above them.
Trudging back several miles to the head of the channel and trying an alternative route was a prospect too demoralizing to contemplate. There could be no turning back. "We're going to have to make a frontal assault on this cliff face." McGee pulled a set of steel pitons from his pack, and turned to the mission commander. Sheer guts and grit wouldn't be sufficient here. For once his voice was authoritative. "I'll climb the face alone, Colonel; then you can use my safety rope to follow."
For an instant it seemed as if Townsend would argue, but then he thought the better of it and simply gestured for the professor to proceed. McGee had to admire the man's courage. Good, he's brave enough to be realistic. We might make it yet.
He stepped up to the wall and perceived a tiny handhold above, and the slightest sliver of a foothold at about chest height. Carefully, he surveyed the remainder of the wall, a bump here, a crack there, and the concept of a route upwards jelled in his mind. It had been nearly three years since he'd gone rock climbing, but his eyes were still practiced. Yes, there was a way. Five pitons. He selected six and put them in his belt pouch.
This wouldn't be so hard... if this were Earth, and I weren't wearing this Marsuit. Oh, for a T-shirt, shorts, and an old pair of climbing shoes. His mind went back to the first time he had rock-climbed, in Boulder. He'd been taken to an impressive formation called the Maiden by Kelly, a lithe young female climber, on a first date. Though he was an experienced hiker and mountaineer, ascending that sheer rock face had seemed impossible. But up Kelly had gone, ascending easily by means of invisible handholds and footholds. Then she'd waved for him to follow, merrily trapping him into attempting to duplicate her feat of terrifying lunacy. What had she called out to him?
Make yourself one with the rock.
Boulder philosophy. The Zen of rock climbing. Oh well, as bizarre as it seemed, it had worked that day.
Make yourself one with the rock.
He pressed his body as close to the cliff face as the suit would allow, dug his fingers into the cracklike handhold above, put one foot sideways on the minute shelf of a ledge below, and pushed. The suit scraped across the rocky wall, but it did not tear, and he was up nearly a meter.