CHAPTER 11
Brooke settled into her seat in the rover. The cave was over forty miles away, and the contraption they had for wheels had a top speed of twenty. What with dodging rocks and avoiding deep sands, Jesse rarely drove above ten. “Let’s put a little pedal to the metal today, Jesse. I want to get there before it’s time to come home.”
Mark stowed the gear and jumped in the back. “I’m with Brooke. This is the only cave anywhere close, and I want to get some spelunking in. Time to get down. Ha!”
Brian filed into the last seat. “For once, I’m with these two. Even at top speed, if we spill, it won’t damage our suits, especially at less than point four gees.”
Jesse stepped down on the accelerator. “Okay, okay. I get the message. Just so you know, if we tip, you guys are doing the lifting to straighten it out. I’ll be watching.”
He kept the speed up, and the vehicle bumped and bounced on its way. They almost tipped over twice, but both times Jesse managed to maintain control.
Adrenalin rushed when she spotted the hole in the ground. “Look, there it is!”
Mark broke into song. “Spelunking we will go. Spelunking we will go. Hi ho the derry-o, spelunking we will go.”
Everyone chuckled as Jesse pulled the vehicle to a stop some fifty yards from the hole. Brooke could hardly contain her excitement. She faced her last chance to find life before the return mission to Earth. So far, the fossilized remains discovered in the shale were the closest she had gotten. There must be life down there. I know it.
Brian handed out the climbing gear. “Now remember our training. As it is, those few exercises Earthside probably didn’t prepare you well enough for the climb down in this low gee.”
Brooke clipped the team line to her belt. “I’m trusting in you, Brian. After all, you are the resident expert. Just tell me what to do.”
She’d envisioned an open entry into a dark corridor like a mine in an old Western, but the cave was more like a large hole in the ground. Satellite readings indicated it ran for a long distance below the surface, perhaps an old lava tube or former river course. As they neared the lip of the cave, Brian tapped at the ground with a long metal rod he was carrying. “Just stay behind me until we get to the opening. Who knows how much this expands below?”
They reached the edge and looked down and in. To Brooke, it looked deep. “I can’t see the bottom!”
She and the others followed Brian around the roughly circular opening. It couldn’t be more than eighty feet across. When he was about a third of the way, he stopped and pointed in. “There’s the bottom. I’d say about forty yards down. This looks like our best point of entry. The sun is in the right spot to light the way, and I see a number of ledges and grades to make the climb down easier.”
Producing a hammer from his kit, Brian pounded the metal rod deep into the ground near him. Attaching a line to it, he threw the balance of the rope over the edge. “Okay, I’ll go down first. Along the way, I’ll plant a number of anchors and feed the rope through it to establish the path I want you to follow. Coming down is the easy part, but you’ll need those when we go back up.”
Mark gave him a playful shove. “You’re the man. Lead the way.”
Brian lowered himself over the edge and rappelled down the wall of the cave. Because he kept stopping to hammer in the anchors, it took him half an hour to reach the bottom. His helmet light faded off into the distance in two directions when he turned around.
“This thing is huge! I can’t see either end of it. Okay, everyone, come on down. The line is secure.”
Jesse attached his belt to the line. “My turn, folks.” It took him only five minutes to be at Brian’s side.
Brooke hooked onto the line. “Well, here I come.” She half-rappelled, half-scrambled and, for a couple of yards, half-fell into the hole. Once at the bottom, she looked back up at Mark’s descending form. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”
Mark landed with a thump next to her. “Time’s a-wasting. Let’s check it out. Which way, Brian?”
Brian pointed downhill. “That way. My guess is at one point there was an underground stream that ran through here. The opening above our heads is merely the result of a cave in. This could go for miles. Who knows, maybe tens, or even hundreds of miles. But one thing for sure, water runs downhill. So that’s the way we go.”
Brooke and the others picked their way through the rock debris when the roof caved in, but after several hundred yards, the way cleared and widened slightly, making travel easier. Brian pointed out what once must have been the underground river bed. Much of the course was filled with sand and ice. She would stoop now and then and scoop up a rock that seemed interesting. But relying only on her helmet light and those of the others, it was too difficult for her to really study them. Those most promising she dropped into a large pocket by her hip.
After almost two hours, Jesse pulled everyone to a stop. “It’s time we head back. Our oxygen will be nearing the halfway point soon, and I want to have enough to spare. Besides, by the time we get home, it will be night. Suits or no suits, I’m not taking any chances.”
Mark leaned against a wall. “Aw, Jesse. You spoil all the fun.”
As much as she wanted to press on, Brooke was weary and figured Jesse was probably right. She was about to comment about it when Mark tumbled to his knees. “Mark, you okay?”
He bounced up. “I’m fine. My hand slipped when I was leaning on the wall is all. Don’t I look the fool.”
An alarm went off in her head. Could it be? Brooke walked over to the wall Mark had leaned against. “Slipped? Let me take a look. Shine your light on the spot where your hand was.”
Mark turned and pointed. “Right there. That’s the spot. You just can’t trust a rock wall nowadays.”
Brooke pulled a knife and scraped at the spot, her excitement building. “Jesse, what’s the temperature?”
Jesse held up the box he carried that indicated all of the environmental readings. “I’ll be damned! It’s only four below zero Celsius! That’s pretty warm.”
She packaged the scrapings and looked farther down the cave. “Jesse, a little farther please. Can we go just a little farther?”
Jesse checked his apparatus. “Okay, fifteen more minutes. Then we’re out of here.”
Brooke paced to the lead, an awkward jogging due to the confines of her suit. She could hear Mark calling to her to wait up. She glanced back to see everyone scrambling to catch her. Turning forward again, she pressed on.
Jesse continued to examine his readings. “Minus two! Now, minus one!”
The distinctive sound of splashing brought Brooke to a halt. She looked down. She was standing in about an inch of liquid.
Mark came up beside her. “Can it be? Is it really water?”
She started forward again. “Let’s find out.”
She charged through a few more puddles, each larger than the previous, then the view before her became reflective and she came to a stop. Before her, as far as the light would allow, lay an underground lake. The walls, too, glinted in the light. Retrieving her knife once more, she scraped a sample and watched as it pared from the wall like thick jelly. “Living organisms! There’s life on Mars!”
Jesse came to stand beside her. “What is it, Brooke? Moss?”
“Nothing so complicated. My guess is some kind of single-celled organism that has multiplied to such extremity it has the appearance of a thick gel.”
Mark was standing at the lake’s edge. “Whatever it is, it’s in the water, too. It’s purple! I sure wouldn’t want to have to drink that.”
She finished packing up the sample from the wall. “I’m out of containers. Get me a sample of what’s in that lake, will you, Mark?”
“Ugh! Okay, will do. I bet this stuff would make one hell of a purple Jesus!”
Jesse tapped at the panel on his arm. “Time’s up, people. We have to head back now.”
She sighed and looked around the cavern. “We need to come back.”
Mark handed her the sample. “Yeah, and bring my swim trunks!”
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