As she approached the far side, she thought she’d reached a dead end. But then she spotted a tunnel half-hidden behind a rocky outcropping—a lava tube, the walls smoothed by the ancient lava flow. It was large enough to accommodate the rover and appeared to be heading in the right direction. With a mental shrug, she drove into the tube. It descended rapidly, but it was still heading in the right direction, the signal growing closer with every meter.
Her pulse quickened and she leaned forward eagerly. Her excitement came to an abrupt halt when the rover’s headlights revealed a fall of rock blocking most of the tunnel.
Damn.
After a brief hesitation, she decided to investigate. If there weren’t too many rocks, the rover might be able to push them aside and continue. After placing a breathing mask across her nose and pulling on a thermal coverall, she climbed out of the rover. She shivered as the cold air surrounded her, but made her way cautiously to the blockage. Climbing carefully over the loose rocks, she peered through the open section.
“Damn,” she muttered again. The rockfall extended for at least ten meters. It didn’t block the tunnel completely but there were far too many rocks for the rover to move.
Climbing back down, she returned to the rover, eying the signal disconsolately as she drank some water.
So near and yet so far. So near…
Although it was an estimate rather than a certainty, the scanner indicated the source of the mysterious readings was only a few hundred meters away. She knew if Cass was here, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She didn’t have Cass’s experience in the field, but really, how difficult could it be? If the path ended, she would simply turn back.
Before she’d even consciously made the decision, she was reaching for the field pack stored in the back of the rover, running a quick check of the contents. She might not have much experience, but she’d undergone the same training and she knew what it should contain. After making sure that everything was present, she slung it over her shoulder and set off again.
Picking her way through the rockfall was more difficult than she’d expected, but she refused to give up. By the time she made it to the other side, she was sweating despite the cold and her knees were aching from crawling over the rocks.
“I really need to get out of the lab more often,” she muttered as she brushed the dust off her coverall.
There was still enough light from the rover’s headlights for her to see that the tunnel continued downwards. While it wasn’t as smooth as the earlier part of the tunnel, the floor was relatively clear. The path started to curve to the right and the light from the rover disappeared. She switched on her portable light, the beam cutting through the darkness.
Twice the tunnel branched and each time she took the branch that seemed to head towards the signal, marking her choice on the rock. The branch she was following quickly narrowed, becoming little more than a fissure in the rock, but she kept going, keeping her steps slow and cautious. The last thing she needed was to injure herself out here alone.
The passage narrowed again and then again, until she would have to turn sideways to squeeze through. She hesitated, shining her light into the tight space. All she could see was that it kept going, curving away to the left.
“I hate this,” she muttered, but the signal was so close and so strong… “Just a little farther.”
She switched her pack from her back to her side, took a deep breath, and edged her way into the narrow space. Moving sideways made her muscles ache, and the rock pressed in on both sides, rough and unyielding against her back and chest. For a moment, panic raced through her system, but she was too close to give up now.
She suddenly realized that the air was growing warmer. Some kind of geothermal heat source? That wasn’t possible. Mars didn’t have pockets of warm air underground. Not like this.
Her mind raced through possibilities even as she kept going and it took her a moment to realize that the passage was widened again. Just as she was about to face forward again, her feet slid out from under her, sending her sliding down a thankfully smooth slope. The fall knocked the breath out of her, but instead of crashing into the hard rock floor she expected, something soft cushioned her body.
For a moment she was too dazed to notice her surroundings, but then her eyes widened. She’d landed in a cavern, but a cavern unlike anything else she’d seen on Mars. A cavern that shouldn’t exist. A network of vines climbed the walls, lush and healthy, with more draped across the floor. A thick carpet of moss and lichen covered the ground. Lichen that bore no resemblance to the plants the colonists so diligently cultivated.
Life, impossible life, hidden away beneath the surface of Mars. Life that had never been recorded. Never documented.
Still dazed, she sat up, automatically trying to catalog what she saw. At least ten different species, perhaps more, all of them healthy. Thriving in this underground cavern.
Climbing slowly to her feet, she cautiously approached the nearest wall. A deep purple vine with large, palm-shaped leaves covered that section. As she carefully examined one of the leaves, she realized that the underside glistened with some kind of clear fluid. The fluid didn’t appear to have any scent, but her breathing mask filtered some scents. And yet the consistency…
Water?
A wave of excitement filled her, and she quickly retrieved a sample jar from her pack. She collected some of the fluid and was about to take a leaf as well when she suddenly hesitated. Somehow it seemed wrong to damage the plant.
She jerked her hand back and began recording instead, documenting everything—composition, structure, temperature.
“I need to get as much data as possible,” she told herself.
As she moved deeper into the cavern, she noticed that the vines thickened along the back wall. As she moved closer she realized they were wrapped around a huge pod of some kind, suspended several feet above the ground. It must be another type of plant, but what could be so large? The pod was at least two and a half meters in length and at least a meter across.
The tightly furled leaves surrounding it were pale gold, shimmering slightly in the light from her lantern. Curious, she ran a gentle finger along one of the leaves. The silkytexture surprised her, but the unexpected warmth was even more shocking. The pod was warmer than the surrounding air, warmer even than her own skin. And there was something else…
A subtle vibration against her fingertips.
That’s impossible,she thought.But then again, is anything about this cavern possible?
