Chapter 24: Treasure Hunt

Daria sat in the rover at her workstation. She was counting the number of people who knew about the inscriptions. There were the four in the mission that first found them. Then there was Shamus. Now there was another person and Mia. That was 7 total. The security of information was a function of the inverse of the number of people who know it. That is why keeping secrets is so hard. Here they had gone from ¼ to 1/5 to now 1/7. Before this was done she was certain that it would be 1/10. That meant a drop from 25% to 10%. At some point there could easily be a leak – purposeful or not.

The existence of an alien inscription and possibly more than that was certainly something out of science fiction. The myriad of questions relating to the effects of releasing the information alone were staggering. Until they knew the extent of what they were dealing with not even the members of the Martian Council had been informed. Mia was holding this information very tightly. There were not just scientific ramifications to this. There were potentially political, economic, and even religious aspects. A war on Mars over possession of any alien technology was a real possibility as well. 'So,' mused Daria. 'Here sits the retired English professor at the very epicenter of this. I hope it is worth the trouble!'

Tom's voice broke her reverie. "Come on and put on your suit!

"I'm coming," Daria called out. She got up from her workstation and started putting on her surface suit. About half-way through the process she paused for a moment and just looked at the garment. Going through her mind was how this instrumented piece of equipment was the difference for her between life and death. So far, other than the alien inscriptions and themselves, there was no solid evidence that life existed on Mars. Only with these suits was it possible to explore and be outside of a pressurized vessel – whether a rover or habitat. Was it really being outside? Afterall this suit was itself a pressure vessel without which her blood would boil and she would die a quick, but rather horrible, death. A moment's reflection quickly gave way to finishing the task at hand. Daria headed for the airlock.

24.2

Herman led the way through the cave. His lighting system made the space as bright as day. His internal mapping system also guaranteed that they would not take a wrong turn. They made steady progress.

In a wide area about 50 meters (165 ft) long Daria called, "Stop. Look over there." Daria pointed off to the left where there was clearly some kind of object laying among several rocks. "I'm going to check it out. It does not look like a natural shape." Daria started toward the object. As Daria got close to it Julie turned and started walking in that direction as well.

Julie screamed. Everyone turned toward her. Tom asked in an almost breathless voice, "What is it?"

"Daria just disappeared!" Julie shrieked.

"What?" Tom said.

"She was just there and disappeared!"

Tom turned to Herman. "Go over there and shine your lights at high intensity over the area. We will follow."

Herman covered the distance in what seemed like two strides. The humans took a few more than that. Herman used his lighting system to brightly illuminate the area. The good news was that Daria had not disappeared. The bad news was that there was a very large hole right by the the object.

"Shine your light down this hole," Tom ordered Herman. The robot complied.

Tom's adrenaline was running hard. He knew that Daria could be injured or worse. The car accident she was in 30 some years ago flooded back into his mind. He was actively forcing himself not to panic. Shamus came up by his side. Together they leaned over the hole and looked down. There they could see Daria lying motionless on her back on top of a pile of rubble. Dust filtering down on top of her.

"Daria, are you OK?" Tom yelled into his microphone. There was a pause.

"Damn," Daria deadpanned. "Just when things get interesting you get hit by a truck. Anybody get the license number? I am going to have one heck of a backache tomorrow. A fall like this isn't good for my arthritis either. I'm probably bruised too. I predict a handful of painkillers in my future. Do we have any Martian Moonshine with us as well? I might just take it straight!"

Tom knew in that moment that Daria was fundamentally OK. If she could be sarcastic, then all was not lost. He said over the radio, "Who has the climbing rope? We need to go down there and get her."

"Bring a suit patch with you," Daria replied. "My status board is showing a breach in my right calf, but I am not losing air. So, there must be a piece of something stuck in there that made the hole and is plugging it as well."

Before anyone could move, Shamus clamored to the edge of the hole and jumped in. He landed on his feet and walked over to Daria. Herman's illumination made it easy to see the area around her. He quickly pulled out a suit patch from his emergency kit, rolled Daria over, removed a small stone from her suit, wiped the area, and administered the patch.

"Thanks," Daria said. "But that wasn't the smartest thing to do to jump down here."

Shamus chuckled and replied, "Well, I haven't been here that long and I have been doing my exercises. So, my bones haven't lost much strength. I am still pretty much as I was when I left Earth. Under this light gravity that was really not much of a jump." Shamus extended his hand to help Daria to her feet.

"Thank you Father," Daria replied as she got up. "It was still a hell of a fall!" Absent mindedly brushing dust from her surface suit Daria remarked, "As for this old body I am just glad my suit detected the fall and inflated the air sacks. That helped break the fall for me. My head didn't even hit the side of my helmet."

Shamus smiled at her and stated, "The fact that you are alright is what is important. I will add a prayer of thanksgiving for that tonight! Now look. Tom is just down on the rope and Julie is following."

The moment Tom was down he ran over to Daria and hugged her. A few tears stung his eyes. He just could not help himself. His wife was simply too precious to him.

"Easy Tiger," Daria deadpanned. "I am just fine. Maybe a little bruised, but there is no need to crush me. Of course that is nearly impossible in these surface suits. I love you too. Now let's get back to exploring!"

Tom released Daria and looked around. While the two had had their moment the others had pulled out their flashlights and started looking around. Daria had seemingly fallen through a roof and onto a floor. They were not in some natural tube. In fact, it seemed to be a wide corridor,

"Everybody move away from the hole," Tom ordered. When they complied he said, "Herman, come down here."

Herman jumped into the hole and landed in the midst of the group. With all of his lighting system it was now very clear that they were in a large corridor and not a natural feature. There was even what appeared to be writing on the walls, though it was not decipherable.

Herman led the group down the corner while providing light all along the way. He kept a very reasonable pace. At various points someone in the group asked to stop and they briefly looked at pictures or other inscriptions. Herman was recording all of this for later playback and analysis.

As they walked along there were a few doors into the corridor. Herman opened the doors and the group peered in. One room looked like it held bunks. Another appeared to be a meeting room. All of them were surprised that the apparent uses of these rooms seemed quite obvious. The furnishings seemed like they were about 7/8ths scale, i.e., smaller than a normal modern human would be comfortable using. Daria, for example, could reasonably sit in one of the chairs. Shamus on the other hand was simply too big to be comfortable in any of the furnishings. In many ways the rooms looked like they had simply been left with the occupants expecting to return very soon. Clearly that was not the case!

For some strange reason, Daria could not get asparagus out of her mind. As she walked along and peered into the rooms her mind wandered back to the agricultural domes, where she had seen the technicians cultivating asparagus. There were mounds made from Martian soil fortified with humus and fertilizer produced right there in the colony. The stalks were fat and tender. When cooked for a dinner they were absolutely marvelous! The margarine they used in the kitchen gave the spears a buttery flavor that was really good and the cooks knew how to prepare them so that they were soft, but still had a little crunch to them. Daria was starting to think that maybe she had hit her head in the fall. Of all the silly things to think about while making one of the most important discoveries in human history, a vegetable was certainly quite silly. She tried to focus her mind on the things at hand.

24.3

After about an hour of walking and exploring, Herman led them into a very larger room. Perhaps this was the nerve center of the complex. Herman adjusted his lighting to make everything visible.

"Wow. Look at this place!" Julie exclaimed.

Looking around Ian commented, "These panels look like they could be displays. They may even be interactive displays. I don't see much that looks like it is a control knob or switch around here."

Daria looked around. The ceiling was a dome. The circle of the dome was inscribed within the square of the room. It was an interesting geometry. She estimated that the dome was about five meters (16.5 fit) high in the center. The walls of the room were about three meters (10 ft) high. It was a vast open space.

After about 20 minutes Shamus called out, "Everyone come over here. I think I have found something! It looks like a button to activate something."

Everyone walked over to Shamus' position along the north wall. There inscribed in the four languages they had seen on the panels was a message. Below each message was a button. Shamus commented, "It says here in Latin: Cherished visitors. Please press the button below."

Shamus reached out and pressed the button before anyone could say anything.