Arrival (32 page)

“Look at this,” Sara called to him excitedly. “I’ve never seen anything like this. It looks like a dried up swamp.”

“Where did the water come from?”

“I don’t know. Maybe from rain?”

“It hasn’t rained for weeks, Sara.”

“Yeah, but maybe we landed just after this area’s rainy season? A lot of the water would’ve evaporated by now. That would explain all the ponds.”

“Maybe so.”

“Let’s get down there. I can’t wait to take some samples of this.”

They drove down the hill and out onto the floor of the depression. The ground felt different under the ATUV’s wheels. It seemed harder, more compact. All Sara cared about was that the ride was much smoother, a fact for which her bladder was quite thankful.

They drove across the depression, winding their way between the clumps of plants and ponds. Although it had a unique beauty, Sara couldn’t help but feel there was something wrong. “I don’t get it,” Sara said.

“Don’t get what?” Mac wondered.

“These are all saltwater swamp plants.”

“How do you know?”

“They’re just like the ones in that little marsh at the north end of the beach where we pulled out the last cargo pod.”

“There was a marsh there?”

“Duh.”

“So, what’s the big deal?”

“If the water came from the rains, these should be freshwater plants, like the ones along the rivers and streams.” She looked at Mac, who wasn’t following her line of reasoning.

“So the water here is salty? Big deal.”

“Well, where did the salt come from?”

“Duh,” Mac said. “The ocean, maybe?”

“What, did you flunk meteorology or something? Rainwater doesn’t have salt in it.”

“Yeah, but lots of rocks do. Maybe the subterranean rock here is full of salt?”

“Maybe,” she conceded. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as he acted. “And maybe we should take a deeper sampling here?”

“You’re the boss,” Mac said as he stopped the vehicle. “Why don’t you go ahead and start collecting some topsoil samples while I break out the drilling gear?”

“Okay,” Sara agreed as she climbed out of the vehicle. She grabbed her sampling bag out of the backseat and strode off toward the nearest batch of plants. They were tall, nearly chest-high, with large, cream-white flowers which hung like bells from the plants’ yellow-green stalks. Vibrant red stems protruded from the center of the flowers, three or four in each, ending in little spirals with a bluish ball of pollen at the ends. They were surrounded with swamp grass that stood about knee-high, its dark-green blades in sharp contrast to the yellow stalks of the neighboring plants.

The plants seemed to be clustered on large mounds of tan-colored soil. The gray and rust-colored ground she was walking on crunched beneath her feet as she walked toward the flowering mound, and she doubted that anything would grow in it.

Sara knelt down on the edge of the pile and opened up her bag, pulling out a long, tubular sample spike. Made of metal, the spike resembled an unusually large hypodermic needle, pointed and blade-like at the tip, hollow through its length. She affixed a handle onto its blunt end, parted the grass to expose the topsoil, and plunged the spike into the soil all the way up to the handle joint. With a slight twist, she carefully withdrew the sample spike from the ground, leaving a five-centimeter-diameter hole in the ground. Being careful not to contaminate the sample by touching it with her fingers, she cautiously placed the soil-filled spike back into its container, disconnected the handle and closed its lid tightly. She meticulously labeled the sample, including the time, date, location, and conditions from where it was taken, before storing the sample in her bag. When she got back to the lab, she would mechanically remove the long pellet of soil to be analyzed using the lab’s many scanning devices.

When she returned to the ATUV, she found Mac had assembled the drilling apparatus and was ready to begin.

“Where would you like to start?” he asked.

“Right here should be fine.”

Mac pointed the long drill tip to the ground, holding it upright. The tip was similar to that of the sample spike, but its cutting edge was spiraled around the hollow core. Mac gripped the drill motor handle tightly, expecting considerable resistance from the rocky surface. But when he started the motor, he was easily able to pass through. The crunchy rock yielded to the drill bit without much back torque, and the drill slid quickly down into the ground. When the motor got down to the ground, Mac stopped, reversed the motor, and powered it back out.

“That looked easy enough,” Sara commented.

“Yeah, too easy.” Mac detached the motor from the tube and placed it on the ground. Then he detached the drill bit from the tube. Sara laid the sample tube on the ground next to Mac, who laid the tube down next to it. After releasing the retaining rings at each end of the drill tube, he swung the tube open, revealing the meter-long pellet of sample he had just removed from the ground.

“Wow,” Sara commented. “I didn’t expect that.” She examined the sample. Just like the open ground, it had sporadic patches of gray and rust-red colors. It was also considerably porous.

“I’m no geologist,” Mac admitted. “But that doesn’t look like dirt to me.”

“You’re right,” Sara agreed as she violated protocol and removed a small piece of the sample from one end. It broke apart between her fingers as she squeezed, crunching in the same manner as it did beneath her feet. “I would swear this is lava rock.”

“Like from a volcano?”

“Exactly.”

“Hopefully, not from a recent one,” Mac added.

“Not likely,” Sara answered. She had studied the initial scans of the planet that were made by the fly-by probe two years ago. They had shown very little volcanic activity, none of which were anywhere near this area.

She stood up, brushing the lava dust from her hands as she looked around. “This whole depression must’ve been one big lava flow,” she theorized. “That tall peak to the southeast must’ve been a volcano a few million years ago.” Sara pulled out her canteen and took the lid off. “The question is, how did all these dirt mounds get here?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Mac shrugged.

“Well, that’s not for us to figure out. At least not now.” Sara took a drink from her canteen. “Let’s head to the far side and get some more samples before we head west along the mountain base.”

“Sounds good,” Mac agreed as he picked up the drilling gear.

A few minutes later, they were back in the ATUV, heading across the depression to the far side along the southern base of the mountains.

“You know,” Sara yelled over the sound of the lava rock crunching beneath the weight of the ATUV’s oversized wheels, “it’s really quite perplexing how
anything
could grow out here.”

“Why do you say that?” Mac shouted back.

“I’ve seen video footage of lava flows back on Earth. They plow over everything. Trees, plants, buildings, even some rocks. It destroys everything in its path. Those plants shouldn’t be able to grow here.”

“Yeah, I saw those videos as well. But there were plants growing on the hardened lava flows as soon as a few years later, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah, but not saltwater swamp plants,” she reminded him.

About two-thirds of the way across the depression, Sara asked him to stop for another, deeper soil sample. Again, she collected from a nearby mound while Mac drilled into the lava rock.

“You know,” Sara said as she returned, “We should probably take a water sample from one of the ponds while we’re out here. It might help to solve the riddle as to how all this came about.”

“Good idea,” he agreed as he put the drilling equipment back into the ATUV.

“I think there’s a pond about half a click west of us.”

“Half a click, huh?” Mac smiled at her use of the lingo he taught her on their first outing together weeks ago. “Lead on, chief,” he teased.

As she led the way, Sara realized that her day with Mac hadn’t been as bad as she anticipated. She had no idea why, but he was far less abusive than usual. Could it be that Mac was maturing? She felt that was unlikely. Maybe he was beginning to understand what she had been preaching to the others? Whatever the reason, she was just thankful he wasn’t being as much of a jerk.

It took them about fifteen minutes to reach the pond. It was of moderate size, maybe ten meters across. The water was dark and muddy, swirling with small bits of lava dust from the ground underneath. There were many varieties of aquatic plant life of different sizes, shapes, and colors, growing in and around the pond, but none of them resembled anything she had seen before on this world.

“This is kind of eerie,” Mac observed.

“What do you mean?”

“I know we’re on an alien planet and all, but this seems
really
alien to me. You know?”

“Yeah, it is different.” Sara bent down at the water’s edge, picking up the stalk of a dead plant to stir the water with it. The particles in the water swirled together, grays and blacks hardly visible in the murky fluid. “It looks almost like a thick soup, doesn’t it?”

Mac handed her the water test kit. “Not like any soup I ever had.”

“You know,” Sara joked while filling the sample container with pond water. “It looks an awful lot like that vile protein crap you’re always swilling down.”

“Why does everyone rag on my cream dream?” Mac said defensively. “You know, I had it analyzed back on the Daedalus, and they said it was actually quite healthy.”

“Sure, especially if you have no sense of smell.” She enjoyed teasing Mac for a change. She couldn’t remember the last time she was able to joke without one of his half-witted comebacks.

She held the plastic tube up to the sunlight for inspection. That’s when she noticed the moons. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Look at the moons!”

Mac looked up to the sky. Luna Proxima was moving in front of Luna Dista at a noticeably faster rate. “Whoa, look at that.”

They stood there for a moment, watching as Proxima passed slowly in front of Dista. “I wonder if the others know about this.” She moved her comm-set mic down closer to her mouth to call the camp, but something stopped her. A wet sensation at her feet. She looked down and saw the pond water creeping up out of its basin, covering her boots. “What the hell?” she said as she stepped back.

“Whoa!” Mac shouted, noticing the moving pool of water himself. Then something caught his attention. A rumbling sound, coming from the nearby mountain base. “What’s that noise?”

Suddenly, the rumbling turned to the sound of water crashing down onto rocks. From a cave at the base of the mountain only a few hundred meters away, water began spewing forth, spilling out into the depression below. “Uh oh,” was all Mac could say.

The water rushed across the depression, and it was moving directly toward them. “I don’t think these ponds were formed by rainwater,” Sara realized, her eyes wide at the sight of the oncoming water.

“Let’s get out of here!” Mac yelled, grabbing her hand and pulling her behind him.

He almost knocked her over as he pulled her toward the ATUV. He was surprisingly fast for a man of his size, and it took her several steps before she managed to get in sync with his longer strides. “Wait!” she exclaimed, pulling at Mac’s arm to try and stop him. “The test kit!”

“Forget the test kit!” Mac yelled, forcing her to follow him.

Sara looked over her shoulder. The water was already reaching the test kit, washing it aside as the flood continued toward them. “We’re not going to make it!”

“Keep moving!” he ordered. “Don’t look back!”

They continued to run as fast as they could, Mac almost dragging Sara behind him. He lowered his own comm-set mic and began yelling into it, as his left hand keyed the mic button on his belt pack. “Hey somebody! Anybody! Help!”

“
Mac! What’s wrong?
” It was Frank’s voice on the comm-set.

“We’re on the run! Sector twelve! In the depression! There’s a flood coming in fast!”

“
What? From where?
”

“From a cave in the base of the mountain!” Mac panted as they ran the last few meters to the ATUV. The water was less than a meter behind them, lapping at their heels as they ran.

“
What the... Get to high ground, Mac! Get to high ground!
”

“No shit!”

By the time they reached the ATUV, the water was already ankle-deep and rising fast. Mac scooped Sara up and tossed her into the vehicle with ease as if she were a child, then jumped into the driver’s seat beside her. He stomped on the accelerator pedal, and the vehicle lurched forward with a jerk, throwing Sara back into her seat as she fumbled to fasten her seatbelt. Water and loose lava rock spewed from the back tires as the vehicle plowed forward through the rising water.

Mac spun the vehicle hard to the right, heading in the same direction as the water in an attempt to get ahead of the flow.

“Where the hell are you going?” she yelled. “The nearest high ground is to the south!”

“We’ll never make it across! It’s coming in too fast! We’ve gotta try to get some distance between us and the water first, and
then
cut across!”

Sara looked behind them; they were starting to outrun the water and were on dry land again, but the flood was gaining on them as they lost time weaving between the mounds of soil and marsh plants. Sara reached across Mac’s lap, feeling across his left thigh for his seatbelt.

“Now’s not the time, Sara!” Mac teased, despite their desperate situation.

“Your seatbelt, you jerk! I’m trying to find your seatbelt!”

Mac reached down to his left and pulled the belt across his lap, handing the end to Sara who buckled it into its receptacle.

“Go over them!” she yelled as Mac swerved back and forth between the mounds.

“What?”

“The mounds! Go over them!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Mac brought the wheel back to center and drove straight into the next mound. The ATUV plowed up the side of the mound through the plants, sending white flowers flying in all directions as the vehicle went down the other side. The jolt nearly launched Sara out of her seat, causing her to tighten down her belt. She grabbed onto the dashboard with her left hand, and the roll bar with her right, as they hit the next mound. This one was much larger than the last, and it sent them flying up into the air, landing hard on the flat lava rock on the far side.