“Good. Now let’s get inside. I’m sure Roland would like to be cleaned up. And I could use a bath too,” she added, realizing for the first time just how dirty she was.
“I’ll check that everything is secured first,” he said. “Why don’t you take care of Roland?”
She nodded, not surprised that his protective instincts were on full alert.
Roland scurried down her arm and chirped at Zach, who gave him an approving look. “You’re a good boy, Roland.”
“I agree,” she said, and his skinny tail wagged happily.
Roland followed her through the airlock into the station, then climbed up onto the long desk beneath the window while she stripped off her thermal suit. Since she knew he didn’t like the shower, she wet some towels and started cleaning off his armored plates.
“It might have been safer to have been out in the storm,” she murmured, studying the swirling clouds of dust outside the window. He gave a disapproving squeak and she laughed. “But I had you and Zach to keep me safe, didn’t I?”
Just as she finished cleaning him, the airlock door opened and Zach appeared.
“Everything is secure and Phantom is on alert,” he said. “And I brought you something.”
He pulled out a small sample container and handed it to her. Inside was a cluster of pale orange material.
“Is this the lichen you found?” she asked, examining it through the clear container.
“Yes. At first I wondered if it was a form of the terraforming lichen the colonists have been planting, but the structure is different.”
She turned the container, studying the specimen. “The color’s off too. Terraforming lichen is a more saturated orange. This is almost… luminescent.”
“It is—bioluminescent anyway.”
“That might explain how it could live without sunlight.” Her mind raced through possibilities. “Or it could be chemosynthesis instead, drawing energy from chemical reactions in the rock. Or maybe it’s not plant-based at all, just mimicking the appearance of a plant.”
She pulled up Roland’s sensor data. “Look at this—they’re the other places where Roland discovered organic material.”
“Can you calibrate the data to specifically detect this lichen?”
“I think so. If I use the sample you collected as a baseline, I can map the distribution throughout the tunnel system.”
She typed rapidly, adjusting parameters and sensitivity thresholds, excitement pushing aside her earlier melancholy. This was what she lived for—the puzzle, the discovery, themoment when disparate pieces of data suddenly formed a coherent picture.
“There,” she said finally. “That should do it.”
“Good work.” Zach’s approval warmed her more than it should have.
“I’m also cross-referencing it with the geophone data. If there’s a correlation between the creature’s movements and the lichen distribution, that might tell us something about their relationship.”
“Predator-prey? Farmer-crop?”
“Exactly. Or maybe the lichen is just a byproduct of their presence. We need more data.”
“We could return with better equipment and a security team,” he suggested, but she could hear the doubt in his voice.
Once they reported this discovery, it wouldn’t be just theirs anymore. Teams of scientists, security personnel, administrators—they’d all descend on this place, dissecting, analyzing, perhaps destroying in their eagerness to understand.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, studying her face.
“Just… processing. This changes everything we thought we knew about Mars. Perhaps even about the possibility of life on other planets.” She met his gaze. “And I’m wondering what happens when we tell people.”
“You mean when the bureaucrats and military get involved?”
“And the scientists. My colleagues.” She gave a short laugh. “We’re not always known for our gentle touch when it comes to new discoveries.”
