Read Online Marsquake! by Brad Strickland, THOMAS E. FULLER - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Brad Strickland, THOMAS E. FULLER
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foot?
But Sean couldn’t constantly stare at his boots. Notwhen the tunnel walls offered so much color, so many jewel-like shimmers of light. It was like the cave in the old story of Ali Baba, he thought.
The one where a powerful evil genie guarded the riches …
CHAPTER 6
Days passed, and at a steady, determined pace, the exploration team went deeper and deeper beneath the surface of Mars. To Ellman’s disappointment, the lava tube gradually curved to the west, away from the colony. It would not be usable as a place of retreat. Not that it mattered as Jenny pointed out; by now they were so far down that no drill from Marsport could have reached them.
The lava tube fed in and out of larger openings in the stone, caverns that seemed to have been formed by water action. They certainly didn’t have the characteristics of magma chambers but showed evidence of erosion, sedimentation, and crystallization, all characteristics of a water-rich environment. Now and then they found loose patches of the fine pale sand, but most often it had hardened into the brittle, easily broken sandstone.
Oddly they found no more fossils. The level of fossilized sand in the tube had gradually risen—now the lava tube was half choked with deep layers of the fine tawny red sandstone, and the patterns on the walls showed more multicolored crystals of ancient salts, remnants of the underground sea that once had filled the ancient tunnel. At the base of the walls, where once the dwindling water had lapped, a thick crust of white crystals now marked the boundary. Nothing unworldly about the crystalline substance, though. It was sodium chloride, NaCl, good old table salt, just the same as on Earth.
“The saline level down here must have been extraordinary,” Jenny said in her serious biology-student voice when they had encamped. She and Sean were inside one of the tents, eating a not very tasty meal of expedition rations, sipping at their water containers to wash the rations down. Jenny munched without seeming to pay attention to the taste. “The deeper we go, the brinier the water would have been. At the end, as the sea was drying up, the water must have been supersaturated with salt. Nothing could have lived in it.”
“Nothing …
human,
” Sean said with a horror-movie leer. He added a spooky laugh: “Mwah-hah-hah!”
“Okay,” Jenny said with a grin. “So maybe salt-eating Martian monsters lived in it. But they would have been a centimeter or two long, and you probably wouldn’t have recognized them as even being alive.”
Sean bit into a cracker that was supposed to contain protein, vitamins, and minerals. It tasted like it contained cardboard, sawdust, and grit. He made a face. “This stuff is awful.”
Jenny stared at the bar she had almost finished eating. “Yeah, the food isn’t great, but at least it keeps you going.”
“Right. Just the thought that whenever we stop, we have to eat this junk makes me want to keep on going forever.” Sean bit off a corner of his bar and tried to ignore the flavor. “Miles is going cracked trying to find more fossils,” he said. “That was really bizarre, that one fossil being there and then nothing else.”
Jenny took a drink of water. “Not so bizarre. First, remember that fossilization is extremely hit or miss. Fewer than one percent of all animals that are buriedbecome fossils, even on Earth. Conditions have to be just right. Then, too, remember the location of the fossil. We were probably standing right on the beach of the underground sea. Millions and millions of years ago that little critter came swimming up to mate or to spawn or something, and it died. That happens on Earth a lot, you know: Sea creatures creep up onto land to lay eggs, like the extinct green sea turtle, or to mate, like the grunion.”
“The what?”
“It’s a fish! Honestly.” Jenny never quite understood that not everyone was as interested in biology as she was. She shrugged. “Anyway, sea
But Sean couldn’t constantly stare at his boots. Notwhen the tunnel walls offered so much color, so many jewel-like shimmers of light. It was like the cave in the old story of Ali Baba, he thought.
The one where a powerful evil genie guarded the riches …
CHAPTER 6
Days passed, and at a steady, determined pace, the exploration team went deeper and deeper beneath the surface of Mars. To Ellman’s disappointment, the lava tube gradually curved to the west, away from the colony. It would not be usable as a place of retreat. Not that it mattered as Jenny pointed out; by now they were so far down that no drill from Marsport could have reached them.
The lava tube fed in and out of larger openings in the stone, caverns that seemed to have been formed by water action. They certainly didn’t have the characteristics of magma chambers but showed evidence of erosion, sedimentation, and crystallization, all characteristics of a water-rich environment. Now and then they found loose patches of the fine pale sand, but most often it had hardened into the brittle, easily broken sandstone.
Oddly they found no more fossils. The level of fossilized sand in the tube had gradually risen—now the lava tube was half choked with deep layers of the fine tawny red sandstone, and the patterns on the walls showed more multicolored crystals of ancient salts, remnants of the underground sea that once had filled the ancient tunnel. At the base of the walls, where once the dwindling water had lapped, a thick crust of white crystals now marked the boundary. Nothing unworldly about the crystalline substance, though. It was sodium chloride, NaCl, good old table salt, just the same as on Earth.
“The saline level down here must have been extraordinary,” Jenny said in her serious biology-student voice when they had encamped. She and Sean were inside one of the tents, eating a not very tasty meal of expedition rations, sipping at their water containers to wash the rations down. Jenny munched without seeming to pay attention to the taste. “The deeper we go, the brinier the water would have been. At the end, as the sea was drying up, the water must have been supersaturated with salt. Nothing could have lived in it.”
“Nothing …
human,
” Sean said with a horror-movie leer. He added a spooky laugh: “Mwah-hah-hah!”
“Okay,” Jenny said with a grin. “So maybe salt-eating Martian monsters lived in it. But they would have been a centimeter or two long, and you probably wouldn’t have recognized them as even being alive.”
Sean bit into a cracker that was supposed to contain protein, vitamins, and minerals. It tasted like it contained cardboard, sawdust, and grit. He made a face. “This stuff is awful.”
Jenny stared at the bar she had almost finished eating. “Yeah, the food isn’t great, but at least it keeps you going.”
“Right. Just the thought that whenever we stop, we have to eat this junk makes me want to keep on going forever.” Sean bit off a corner of his bar and tried to ignore the flavor. “Miles is going cracked trying to find more fossils,” he said. “That was really bizarre, that one fossil being there and then nothing else.”
Jenny took a drink of water. “Not so bizarre. First, remember that fossilization is extremely hit or miss. Fewer than one percent of all animals that are buriedbecome fossils, even on Earth. Conditions have to be just right. Then, too, remember the location of the fossil. We were probably standing right on the beach of the underground sea. Millions and millions of years ago that little critter came swimming up to mate or to spawn or something, and it died. That happens on Earth a lot, you know: Sea creatures creep up onto land to lay eggs, like the extinct green sea turtle, or to mate, like the grunion.”
“The what?”
“It’s a fish! Honestly.” Jenny never quite understood that not everyone was as interested in biology as she was. She shrugged. “Anyway, sea
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