Final Frontier

Chapter Twenty-Four

Amazonis Women On Mars

Technically, there were sixteen men and sixteen women that comprised the crew of Clarke, but, to Thomas, it always seemed that there were more women than men, especially when it came to rover missions. Even though there were six men and six women going on this two-rover mission to Amazonis Planitia, it seemed as if the women would once again dominate the mission.

In Thomas and Suzie’s rover, Anka, Andy, Sophia and Pavel were unpacking their work equipment as well as their other sundries. Irina and Joao had Gregori, Stacy, Sergei, Tomas, and Ashwari in their rover, and they were in the other airlock loading up their stuff in the other rover. It was quite time consuming, because they had to pack it full of foodstuffs because of the sheer length of the journey, which would take two months to complete.

Amazonis was halfway around the planet, and not a direct route. The Tharsis bulge, which contained three of the largest mountains on Mars, stood in their way, so they would go around it by heading northwest towards the huge plain of Vastitas Borealis, then west and southwest towards Amazonis. The area they were avoiding had already been explored by rover missions the year before, and scientific discovery wasn’t the real objective of this mission anyway. While they would still do some science on the mission, it wasn’t their primary objective.

While they were on the mission, the American presidential election would take place. Landon led Walsh in the polls by a slim margin, but the election would be too close to call. Thomas wished he could cast a vote, but NASA didn’t want to risk the political preferences of its astronauts being outed by someone hacking into a secure channel. While the chances were slim of that happening, if it did, it could have a detrimental effect on the program.

As they pulled away from the base camp, Thomas realized that once they returned, it would be only three months before they would leave this planet. In a strange way, Mars had begun to feel like home to him, and he began to wonder what it would feel like to leave this place.

They had been part of this way before, but in a different direction, as they had returned from their circumnavigation from the west. Thinking of this, Thomas asked Suzie how many kilometers had they clicked off driving rovers during their time on Mars.

“I have no idea, to be honest. Not offhand, at least. Has to be at least three times around Mars, considering we’ve already been around the world once already. Why?”

“I’m going to miss this place when we leave, you know? It’s become like home, in a way.”

Suzie replied, “I know. Maybe we can hook on to another mission one of these years, who knows?”

“I thought you wanted to settle down, have kids.”

“Well, there is that, but maybe in twenty or twenty five years or so, we can come back here. Then again, if I can’t bear kids, we could come back sooner.”

Thomas sighed and mused, “It’d be nice if we could just stay here. We could do it, you know. The garden’s booming, we’ve got plenty of material to maintain the place, the water reclamation system works like a charm, and the nuclear reactor is good to go for many years to come.”

Suzie stayed silent for a long time, staring out the window. The others were in the habitation quarters aboard the rover, planning various subsidiary missions along the way, so Thomas and Suzie were alone in the cockpit. Thomas looked over from time to time, wanting to say something, but he stopped short, leaving Suzie to her thoughts.

“You should talk to Gabrielle when we get back. I think it would do you some good.”

Thomas wasn’t expecting an answer like that, and asked, “What makes you say that?”

“I think you don’t want to go back because, if you do, you’ll have to deal with the memory of Marney. I’ve hoped that you’d heal on your own, but I think you need some help.”

“It’s not that. It’s…”

“Then what is it then?” Suzie asked.

Thomas stared out the window for a while, not wanting to answer, hoping that Suzie would drop the issue. But his Russian lover stared at him as if she was trying to will the answer out of him, and he couldn’t withstand it any longer. He made a fist and lightly pounded it against the steering wheel, then he said, “You’re right. Dammit, you’re right.”

“I wish I wasn’t, but I am afraid I am. You can’t run from it, Thomas! The sooner we get back there, the sooner you can heal.”

“How would you know? You’ve never lost a lover!” Thomas snapped at Suzie. He shook his head and immediately apologized, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“It’s okay!” Suzie said, putting her left hand on his right arm as he drove. “I want to help you heal, because I need to heal myself. She was my friend too, and I still have trouble with her being gone.”

Thomas nodded and said, “I haven’t even looked at any videos of hers since she died, you know? I’ve begun to forget the sound of her voice.”

“Repression isn’t good, Thomas! Wait a second! I’ll be back!” Suzie got up out of her seat and went back into the habitation section of the rover. Thomas kept his eyes on the way ahead, turning right to avoid a scattering of rocks that appeared in front of him. The rover’s shocks and suspension were extraordinary, but Thomas wanted to be safe anyway, so he tried to avoid all but the smallest of rocks as they made their way northwest.

Suzie came back into the cockpit and said, “Stop the rover! I’m gonna take over driving for a while!”

“But it’s not your shift yet!” Thomas said, “I’ve still got another hour to go before you take over!”

“So what? You can take over an hour early tomorrow or some other day! I want you to see something!” Suzie stood over him and Thomas slowed the rover to a stop, got up, and turned the driver’s seat over to her. “Here!” Suzie handed him headphones and a media player. “This is some of your wife’s comedy routines in the past! Sit behind me and watch this stuff, because you need to watch this stuff and remember why you loved your wife, Thomas! If we’re going to be a couple, you have to confront this!”

“Okay, okay! I’ll watch the video!” Thomas took the media player from her and slumped down in the seat behind her sullenly, annoyed that his love was treating him like a child. Suzie got into the driver’s seat, buckled up, and started the rover back up, not saying anything as she started driving.

Thomas flipped up the screen of the player, put on the headphones, and brought up the display. Right there on Suzie’s main screen was a video file called “Marney’s Best”, and he sighed as he double clicked on it, bracing himself for the onslaught of memories.

The first one was one of her earliest performances, even before she met Thomas. “I used to be in college, but I had to drop out just to pay tuition!” The crowd laughed at her observation about her days in college at a campus club somewhere in the Midwest. “You know, college would be a lot cheaper if they weren’t building all over the place. When I was in school, you couldn’t sit out in the park and study like in those pictures they have in the brochures they use to lure there because of all the construction noise! I mean, how can you read your history assignment if there’s a jackhammer banging away close by!”

Thomas laughed at the bit, even if it wasn’t her best stuff. This was early in her career, where she was still working on her act. As the first clip ended, Thomas felt a smile on his face and a tear in his eye. The second was also on a college campus, this one in a school-owned club on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. Her style was observational comedy, mixed in with some stuff about current events, so her act was constantly changing and evolving.

From the driver’s seat, Suzie could hear Thomas’ laughter at his late wife’s routines. Luckily for her, the stretch in front of her was relatively flat, so she could use one hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. This was what Thomas needed, even though she knew it would hurt him like hell as he relived these clips, which he had seen countless times over the years.

Suzie remembered all the times she had went with Thomas to see Marney’s act, both in Houston and all over the place. It was kind of an odd friendship that the short, pudgy comedian and the tall, statuesque Russian cosmonaut had, but it had been a strong one. Marney always knew that Suzie was attracted to Thomas, but also knew that her friend loved her too much to even think of coming between them.

As darkness began to descend upon them with the setting of the sun off on the horizon, she slowed the rover to a stop, set the brake, and unbuckled her seat. When she turned back to Thomas, she saw that his face was wet with tears, but he was still laughing at her routine. Suzie saw that this was a more recent performance, taped in Philadelphia for the Comedy Central cable channel.

Thomas saw Suzie out of the corner of his eye and clicked off the player. “You’re right, babe. I needed that!” Thomas said as he got up from his seat and embraced Suzie. “I…I guess I’ve been afraid of confronting her passing.”

Suzie kissed him and said, “The only way to have the pain go away is to face it. The sooner you do that, the sooner you’ll be ready to give all your heart to me. Right now, you need to heal, and I want to be there to help you heal.”

Thomas leaned forward and touched his forehead against hers. “I love you, Suzie!”

“I love you, Thomas! C’mon, let’s head back and get some dinner. Okay?”

Thomas nodded and they departed from the cockpit, entering the habitation area and sitting down just as the others were finishing up fixing it.

The mission was rather dull, in a way. Routine was pretty much settled down to stopping every hour or so and setting up a weather beacon, as well as stopping for a few hours from time to time when an interesting geologic formation would appear. They spent a couple of days exploring Pettit crater, drilling core samples from the crater walls as well as near the center of the impact.

A brief dust storm hindered them briefly, but it lasted only a couple of days, and they managed to still drive slowly through it, using the infrared and ultraviolet radars to detect possible obstructions in their path. Soon enough, they were making their way around the massive bulk of Olympus Mons and weaving a path east, passing Biblis Patera, Pavonis Mons, Ascreaus Mons, Ceraunius Tholus, Tharsis Tholus, and Kasei Valles before descending down onto Lunae Planum and making their way northeast back towards Cydonia. They did some additional exploration of some possible sites for landings in the future while traversing through Chryse Planitia before making the final turn towards home.

They had to make a couple of all-night runs to make it, because they were starting to run low on food supplies, so they wound up arriving a couple of days earlier than expected. As they pulled into base camp and drove up to the garage lock, Thomas sighed, knowing that there was only one last rover mission left: the mission to explore the “Face”, which the president required in return for support for future missions.

Thomas had to admit he was a bit curious himself. The orbiter had snapped photos of the entire area and, from time to time, when the light was just right, the “Face” could still be made out. In addition to the pseudo-monument, they would explore some of the “pyramids” that some Mars lovers claimed was evidence of a city in an ancient civilization. In reality, these were low mesas that might have been part of some ancient coastal zone, with the northern plains serving as ocean beds.

Of course, there were critics who claimed that they were wasting time by exploring these mythical claims, but a plethora of scientists surprisingly stepped up to the plate and defended the mission, saying that, while it was unlikely that an ancient Martian civilization existed here, the area could have been a haven for life in the past, and could be rich in fossils of ancient life forms deep within the regolith of Mars.

The mission would take place in six weeks, and Thomas was sort of looking forward to it. Having been reminded of his former wife had helped to lift his spirits and helped heal the pain of her loss. While it wouldn’t go away, it would allow him to commit himself to being with Suzie fully and start on the road to building a future together.