“Earth, this is Captains Yves Montreaux and Dannil Marchenko, and Dr Jane Richardson of the spaceship Clarke,” he said to the eight billion people he hoped were listening across the gulf of space. His breathing was all over the place with emotion as he spoke from the confines of his suit’s helmet. He looked out over the Martian plain before him, and then let his eyes return to the sky, towards home.

“We are calling from Mars, where our wonder has indeed been renewed; space travel has again made children of us all.”

Chapter 26

Martín reached for the small radio clock on his bedside table and held it a few centimetres from his face. Squinting at the display for a few moments he let his head fall back on the pillow and groaned.

Almost seven o’clock; he was late.

He swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and pushed himself upwards, away from the tempting warmth of the sheets.

“What time is it?”

He jumped and shot a look over his shoulder. Seeing Jacqueline’s head emerging from under the duvet on the other side of the bed, the night’s events started coming back to him. “Late,” he managed to say.

Bringing his hands to his head, he rubbed his face with his palms and tried to piece things together. They had been drinking, he remembered, until the early hours. What had they been celebrating?  The Mars landing? Captain Montreaux’s unexpected quote? Jacqueline’s plan to use Beagle 4 to spy on the mission? That and a whole lot more.

“Is everything alright?” he heard her say worriedly behind him.  He could imagine the look on her face. They were in his flat, after their first night together. It was clear that she liked him. How would he feel in her position? He still hadn’t even looked at her properly!

“Martín, are you OK?”

Everything felt alright, aside from the obvious hangover.  He’d been here before, with others, but this was different. They would both be late for work, but somehow that didn’t matter anymore.  He lay back down in bed and brought the duvet up over his shoulder.  Turning towards her, he found her arm under the covers, held it with his hand and smiled, looking her directly in the eyes.

“Perfect,” he said, relaxing as she melted into his embrace. “Everything is perfect.”

After weeks of zero gravity and little activity save for the treadmills and dumbbells, NASA had little requirement to tell the crew of the Clarke to start work straight away. The greatest barrier of all had been getting used to the gravity of Mars. Although only a third of that experienced on Earth, it was infinitely more than they had felt for months.

Jane had been a natural adapting to the apparent weightlessness of the Clarke, and her two male crew members could only watch in envy as she pranced around the MLP as if she had lived on Mars her entire life. It was the astronaut’s version of Jetlag, and as with Jetlag, it only became apparent sometime after landing. Montreaux had been surprised at the weight of a portable computer, which had it not been rugged would almost certainly have smashed as he dropped it on the floor. Danny for his part had already tipped his tray of food over at lunchtime, saved slightly by the fact that they were still eating from food packets from the Clarke. As a result, only his peas had fallen, and he had spent an awkward minute on his knees trying to collect them all from the grooves in the metal floor.

Their first Mars-walk had been a resounding success, Danny and Montreaux having gone three hundred metres from the MLP and completed a ninety degree arc before returning to the lander. Their short walk took them less than an hour, but in that time they managed to walk the perimeter of an area of more than a  square kilometre. The first robotic Mars rovers had taken weeks to cover similar distances, and even Beagle 4 would have taken several hours to do the same.

They had also pinpointed six successful drop sites, covering everything from food and hygiene supplies to clothing and scientific equipment. That thirty per cent of the supply drops had been successful and fallen a few hundred metres apart was nothing short of incredible, but what really impressed the astronauts was that the MLP had landed within sight of them.

During this time, Jane had already started to assemble her scientific apparatus inside the MLP, and when her two colleagues returned she was already preparing sample dishes and trays on a long trestle table to one side of the craft.

Now, four hours since the first Mars-walk had taken place, she was getting impatient.

“Right, we only have an hour or so of light left before the end of the sol.” She looked across at Montreaux, who was checking the readings on the main control board in the centre of the MLP. “We need to perform one more Mars-walk before sunset, to set up the first perimeter beacons.”

“I think that we need to wait until the morning, Jane,” Danny said, making Montreaux look up at him in surprise. Catching his candid wink, he sighed and returned to his work.

She glared at the Russian. “Danny, I don’t really care what you think. There is no way I am going to spend humankind’s first sol on Mars inside the MLP.”

“Doing the washing up?” he laughed.

Montreaux tensed and waited for the scientist’s response without looking up from the console.  Instead of the expected outburst, however, he was surprised to hear her laugh.  Straightening up, he turned to face her and saw that it was genuine.

“Danny, if there’s one thing that’s even more certain than the fact that I am going outside in a minute, it’s the fact that today I am so happy, not even you can wind me up!”

He laughed and walked towards the airlock and the protection suits hanging on the wall. “OK, whatever you say.”

Minutes later, as she brought down the helmet over her head and fastened the clips to the neck of her suit, she raised her thumbs at him and gave a huge grin.

Danny checked the air regulator on his own suit and returned the OK signal, before winking at her. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “As clear as day.” She turned to the airlock and opened the inner door.

From the console in the centre of the room, Montreaux caught the look in the Russian’s eye and groaned. Danny grinned in return.

“Oh, Jane, don’t forget your flag,” he said, as matter-of-factly as possible.

She ignored him and got into the airlock all the same. Danny followed and sat opposite her.  From where he was sitting, Montreaux could see Jane through the open door, and as it closed behind them her eyes told him she was slightly annoyed by his joke. Smiling to himself, he stood up and walked over to the airlock to perform the safety checks.

If anyone could wind Dr Jane Richardson up, it was always going to be Captain Daniil “Danny” Marchenko.

Chapter 27

“My God!” She held the binoculars up to her visor and focused on the metallic object shining on the horizon; one of the supply drops that had arrived on Mars in the last year, it contained some of the vital life-support components for their return launcher, which would take them and the central core of the MLP back into Mars orbit. “We have to go all the way over there?”

“Be thankful we are not salvaging my beloved country’s lander, instead. At least we can see this one.” Danny said. “But if you do notice any metal objects with red flags on them, please let me know.”

The 1972 Mars 2 lander had been sent by the Soviet Union as part of its ambitious early exploration of the planet.  It consisted not only of an orbiter and landing craft, but also a small rover on skis, which would explore the immediate surroundings of the landing site. Like most missions to Mars it had failed, and although the thin Martian air would have slowed it down from the six kilometres per second with which it had hit the atmosphere, its parachutes did not deploy as it hurtled towards the ground.  To the best knowledge of the scientific community, it had impacted within a hundred mile radius of where the Clarke’s MLP now stood.