No matter how many times they cleaned, the dust would continue to appear; Danny’s frustration notwithstanding, they had more or less accepted it as part of their lives on Mars, like sand in a beach house.
“Of course,” she broke the silence, “if we do find anything harmful out there, or in here, the chances are that our bodies would be so totally unprepared for it that we wouldn’t stand a chance. And given that we cannot sensibly stop the dust from entering the MLP, we may as well stop worrying about it.”
They both looked at her, stunned.
“Great!” Danny said throwing his arms in the air. “The only doctor on board thinks that we’re going to die here no matter what! I may as well go out there without my suit next time!”
She laughed, tossing her food tray onto the table and sitting down on a stool. “I would imagine that we’re all more likely to die of food poisoning anyway, at least until my experiments bear fruit.” She nodded towards a table at the far end of the MLP, covered in small trays with clear plastic lids.
Captain Montreaux reiterated his desire for Captain Marchenko to get some rest, before sitting down in his chair and opening his book. He was on his second read-through of The Martian Chronicles, and it was making a lot more sense to him this time round.
The Russian made his way to his bunk and lay down, looking at the ceiling. “So we have to hope for a combination of friendly Martian bacteria and your very successful green-fingers, I see.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “We’re doomed.”
The next morning, Dr Jane Richardson was alone in the MLP. Strangely, she had never felt more at home than right now. Surrounded by experiments in the middle of the most unexplored environment humans had ever set foot on, she was the first scientist to touch Martian soil outside of a Petri dish, and despite the dangers it presented, she was enjoying every minute of it.
As far as she was concerned, if things stayed as they were and with enough water and food, she could quite happily stay on Mars for the rest of her life.
She prised the lid off a small plastic container and poured the liquid contents into a large, shallow metallic tray. The transparent, clear substance settled evenly at the bottom of the tray, a small bubble bursting on its surface. She tilted her head to one side slightly, as if listening to it, before putting the lid back on the small container from which it had been poured.
Nanoplasma had been the crowning achievement of her work on Earth. The result of five years of her own research and development, she was the first to admit that she stood firmly on the shoulders of giants, and would not have been able to succeed without the hard work of the pioneers of the ‘Nano-age’, as it had been dubbed by the media back in the 2020s.
The nanoplasma itself was comprised of two main elements: nanocapsules and organic plasma. The minute capsules, each one less than twenty nanometres wide, contained either flavours, colouring, or any other active ingredient that may be needed, and could be opened by stimulating them with very specific subsonic frequencies. By subjecting a capsule-filled solution with carefully controlled frequencies, it was possible to recreate any number of flavours, whilst at the same time filling the solution with vitamins and nutrients as desired. Nanocapsules had been introduced over thirty years earlier to the mass market, and had revolutionised the soft drink industry.
Almost overnight it became possible to buy one drink with multiple flavours that could be switched at will simply by depressing a button on the neck of the bottle. Any capsules that were not required by the consumer would simply pass through the digestive system intact, meaning that a wide variety of flavours could be contained within the same bottle without affecting each other.
Jane had not invented nanocapsules. That achievement had been slightly before her time. Instead, she had successfully combined them with a plasma solution, made from a fibrous breakdown of plant-matter, in an effort to replace what had been a staple food of human beings for thousands of years: meat. Her theory came from the simple fact that if the digestive system of an animal could break down organic matter, for instance grass, and turn what it needed into animal matter, then it must be possible to recreate this process in the laboratory.
Her aim had not been to just provide a substitute for meat; vegetarian products had been doing that for decades. She wanted to literally create a single product that could be transformed into any meat-based product. Indeed, to recreate the texture, taste and nutritional properties of animal meat, with none of the ethical or environmental ramifications.
She picked up a small pen-shaped instrument and placed its pointed end in the metal tray of nanoplasma. Turning a small wheel on the side of the pen, she selected ‘Rump Steak’ and pressed a red button. Within seconds, the nanoplasma had visibly changed, becoming more viscous and opaque. After about a minute, she pulled the pen out of the tray and looked at her work.
Now looking at a perfectly rectangular rump steak, she picked up a scalpel from the table and made a small incision across the middle. Prying the cut apart to reveal the bloodless cross section, she nodded approvingly and used the scalpel to cut the slab into three equal parts, before stacking them on a plastic plate and placing them in the sample fridge under the table.
“As soon as I make a steak-shaped receptacle, it won’t look like I just slaughtered a square cow,” she muttered under her breath.
She walked to the MLP’s communications console and depressed a button at its centre, before speaking into the microphone stalk.
“Hey guys, while you’ve been out there playing in the sand, I’ve been preparing this evening’s meal. How does rump steak and mash sound?” she said cheerfully.
There was a short wait, during which the Martian static undulated out over the MLP’s speaker system. The Russian replied, fainter than usual.
“That sounds great, Jane. Any way you can make a couple of cold beers using that nano-stuff of yours?”
“I second that,” Montreaux laughed.
She smiled and pressed the com button once more.
“Hey, as soon as I develop a nanocapsule that adds a kick, no problem. In the meantime, we’re going to have to make do with alcohol-free, if that’s alright with you?”
Captains Montreaux and Marchenko had driven Herbie to the very edge of Hellas Basin about two and a half kilometres from the MLP. Exiting the vehicle, they walked to the cliff apprehensively. They instinctively stopped two metres from the edge, and Montreaux let out a gasp.
The view they beheld was simply astonishing.
Hellas Basin was a crater, the largest visible asteroid impact crater in the Solar System, with a diameter of over two thousand three hundred kilometres. It had been created nearly four billion years earlier, and the debris field of the impact covered almost a third of the planet. The main bulk of the debris had formed a sloped rim of rocks and sand more than one hundred kilometres wide around its circumference. The MLP had landed on this rim almost three kilometres from the crater, but it was only when they stood at the very edge and looked back towards their landing site that the gentle slope down to Martian ‘sea level’ could be fully appreciated.
Looking the other way, towards the centre of the Basin, was a truly terrifying experience. From the very bottom of the crater to where Montreaux and Marchenko now stood was a height difference of almost nine kilometres. If Mount Everest had been placed in the centre, they would be looking down on its peak. As it was, they were looking down a steep slope, and across a wide expansive plain larger than India. The crisp Martian atmosphere gave them near perfect visibility, and only the curve of the horizon prevented them appreciating the crater fully.
In the distance, they could easily see the brilliant white reflection of frost that covered most of the floor of the crater.