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Mars Diaries-1 Chapter One
Sandstorm!
Across the plains, the black shell of the gigantic dome gleamed in late-afternoon sunshine. It was beautiful against the red soil, laden with iron oxides, and the faded-rose-colored Martian sky. From the bottom of the mountain where I stood, it took less than an hour's trek across the plains to reach it—in good weather.
But we would not get that hour. Sand rattled hard against my titanium casing, warning me of how little time remained. Much less than we needed.
I turned my head to the left, into the wind that raked the sand across me. A huge dark wall lifted from the north of the plains, a blanket of doom that covered more and more of the sky. Winds of near-hurricane force lifted tons upon tons of red sand particles. Already the front edge of the storm reached out to us. In less than half an hour, those tons of sand would begin to cover me and the three scientists I had been sent out of the dome to find.
"Home base," I called into my radio. "This is Rescue Force One. Please make contact. Home base. This is Rescue Force One. Please make contact."
There was no answer. Just like there had been no answer the other hundred times I'd tried in the last half-hour.
A solar flare must have knocked out the satellite beam. The sun was 140 million miles away, so weak and so far from Mars that on winter nights, the temperature here dropped down to minus two hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Yet all it took was a storm on the surface of the sun to fire out electromagnetic streams nearing the speed of light, and communication systems all through the entire solar systemwould pay the price.
"Home base," I said. "This is Rescue Force One. Please make contact."
One of the scientists stalked in front of me, blocking my view of the base. He leaned down and pushed his helmet visor into my forward video lens.
"What are we going to do?" he shouted.
He did not have to shout. I could hear him clearly.
Nor did he have to walk around in front of me. I could have seen him just as easily with my rear video lens. Or one of my side lenses.
"Forward," I said. "We cannot stop."
"No! We must make shelter."
Did he think I had not thought of this already?
Standard procedure in dealing with a sandstorm was to go to high ground, unfold an emergency pop-up blanket, and crawl beneath it. The pop-up blanket made a miniature dome that would easily provide shelter for as many days as it took the storm to pass. But fools who used the pop-up blanket on low ground would be buried by the sand, never to be found again.
"Forward," I said. "Follow me."
"That's easy for you!" he shouted. "You're just a stupid machine!"
He was correct both times. It would be easy for me to travel in a sandstorm. And I was just a machine.
But he was also wrong. I was more than a machine. And I was not stupid. I knew plenty.
I knew that during each Martian fall and winter, the carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere froze out of the air and onto the ground, making a giant hood of frost that covered from the pole to the equator. I knew that as spring arrived, the difference in temperatures between the sun-warmed soil and the retreating ice made for fierce winds. I knew these strong winds were so monstrous that sometimes sandstorms covered the entire planet. I knew if we took shelter, we might be trapped for days.
I also knew that the last scientist of the three only had ten hours of oxygen left in his tank. If we took shelter, he would die long before the storm ended.
"One of you will die if we stop," I said. "If we continue, all of you will survive."
"We'll get lost in the storm! No one survives a sandstorm."
"No," I insisted. "My navigation system is intact. We will link ourselves by cable, and I will maintain direction. All you need to do is follow."
"No!" he yelled. "Not through a sandstorm!"
"Listen," I said, "if we stop, he has no chance."
"Should three of us die instead of one?" The scientist picked up a rock and tried to smash it against my head. But since he wore a big atmosphere suit and was very slow, I moved out of the way easily.
He picked up another rock and threw it at me. I put up my arms to protect my video lenses, and the rock clanged off my elbows. The other two scientists watched, doing nothing. They were very tired. I had rescued them from the bottom of a giant sinkhole where they had been stranded for two days.
The first scientist picked up another rock to throw. It was a big rock. Even though his suit made him clumsy, he would be able to throw it hard. Mars has very little gravity compared to Earth. A person throwing a rock the size of a grapefruit on Earth could easily throw a rock the size of a basketball on Mars.
What was I going to do?
If I let the scientist with the rocks force us to stop and put up a shelter, one of them would die.
But if I grabbed the scientist with the rock in my sharp metal claws, I would most certainly poke a hole in his space suit. With an atmosphere of 95 percent carbon dioxide, he would die within minutes.
Either way, it didn't look like I could find a way to make sure all three scientists made it back to the dome alive. I would fail in my task. I could not allow that.
Another rock clanged off my leg.
"No!" I said. "No!"
This was getting worse. If I ran off to protect myself, then all three of them might die. But if I stayed to try to protect them, one of those rocks might smash and disable me. Which would mean all three of them might die.
I couldn't decide what to do.
The scientist threw another rock. It hit my shoulder.
A huge blast of sand swept over us. For a brief moment, I could see nothing in any direction from my four video lenses.
In the instant the air cleared again, I saw the scientist with another rock in his fist. But it was too late. Out of the swirling sand he appeared, aiming the rock toward my video lenses.
The rock smashed down.
The rose-colored Martian sky tilted. The red soil zoomed toward me. Then everything went black. . . .
