But that same lack of atmosphere made the view all the more spectacular. Details were so clear that I imagined I could have spotted individual Martians walking around, if any such beings existed.

  Sighing, I turned away from the view. “Sheldon, do you know if Mars has ever had life?”

  “The first Gennan expedition did an analysis and concluded that it did at one point, but it wouldn’t have had time to evolve past single cells. The combination of a small planet and no large moon to kick up tidal effects meant the core cooled early, which had many negative consequences, such as the fading of the magnetosphere.”

  “Which allowed the atmosphere to be stripped by solar wind,” Natalie added. “Gibes with current theories on Earth.”

  “I’ll be sure to advise the Foundation of your approval.”

  “Oh, bite me.”

  Patrick interrupted the brewing feud. “Mariner Valley.”

  Natalie and I both turned to Patrick. “What?”

  “I want to see the Mariner Valley. Sheldon, can you head that way?”

  “Working.” The view of Mars began to shift, and in a few moments a huge scar on the surface of Mars came into view. Valles Marineris, a crack in the planet that rivalled the size of the United States, was twenty-five hundred miles long and up to four miles deep.

  “Cooooool … ” Patrick said, almost literally glued to the wall of the bridge.

  “It is certainly an impressive geological feature,” Sheldon said. “The Foundation has a large dossier on it. From a galactic point of view, it’s more impressive than Saturn’s rings or Jupiter’s great red spot, which I understand your species is in awe of. In the grand scheme of things, however, those are quite pedestrian.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I would not lie, Jack.”

  “Can you do a fly-through?” Patrick said, practically vibrating with excitement.

  “I most certainly can.”

  “I dunno, Patrick,” Natalie said. “That seems danger—Jesus!”

  Sheldon had wasted no time acting on Patrick’s request, and before Natalie could even finish her sentence, we were down and flying between the walls of the Mariner Valley. With the lack of atmosphere and resulting clear view, the experience had the feel of a video game. Sheldon seemed to be going out of his way to loop and bank through the valley’s various twists and curves, making the flight more nerve-racking than Patrick’s worst driving. I grabbed the back of the nearest chair and braced myself. I noticed Nat was doing the same, although Patrick seemed to be completely unaffected. He had his phone out, probably getting a video. Two minutes later, Sheldon turned the ship upward and we swiftly re-entered orbit.

  “I think I may have peed myself,” I said.

  Nat looked around meaningfully. “Speaking of which, what do the Gen use to relieve themselves? Please tell me they relieve themselves.”

  A door opened to the left of the bridge entrance. “The Gen are somewhat less body-shy than humans. You may find the facilities unsettling. I suggest you time your visits to not overlap.”

  “That comment is unsettling,” Natalie said. She glanced at us. “Don’t come in unless I scream for help.” With that, she made for the open door, and Patrick and I deliberately turned back to the view.

  “Speaking of Saturn, how long would it take to get there?” Patrick asked.

  “Seven hours. It is farther around the sun in its orbit at the moment.”

  “Yeah, we can’t do that,” I said. “Mom and Dad will start to worry.”

  “Yeah, mine too. Okay, maybe another day. How about Jupiter?”

  “Directly opposite side of the sun, unfortunately,” Sheldon replied. “More like twelve hours, each way.”

  I made a face. “Dammit. Well, maybe we can work something out on a weekend. It just feels so anticlimactic to head back to Earth now.”

  A smile slowly spread across Patrick’s face. It was an expression that I’d come to recognize meant trouble. “Are the space suits ready?” he said.

  “They are,” Sheldon replied.

  I knew immediately what Patrick was not quite suggesting. I was about to protest, but Natalie came back at that moment, an odd look on her face.

  “So?” Patrick said.

  “It’s just a line of holes in the floor,” Natalie replied. “I guess the Gen don’t have clothes, so they can just position themselves, and, uh, let fly … But I had to basically strip down. I imagine guys will have it easier.”

  I grinned. “You know, they never mention this stuff in Star Trek.”

  “Or Star Wars,” Patrick said. “I’m thinking of Jabba the Hutt … ”

  Nat stuck out her tongue in a gagging motion. “Ewwwww, gross.”

  I smiled at her reaction, then changed the subject. “So, uh, Sheldon says the space suits are ready, and since we’re here anyway … ”

  Nat’s jaw dropped. “You want to EVA? On Mars? Now?”

  “Well, we’re here, now.”

  Nat had always been the voice of reason, a direct counterpoint to Patrick as the group’s voice of chaos. I valued her judgment enough that if she said no, it would be no. I waited as she stared into space, frowning slightly. Finally she said, “Sheldon, how dangerous would it be?”

  “As long as you don’t accidentally throw yourself over a cliff, it is no more dangerous than coming here in the first place. This is Covenant technology, not the tinfoil-coated Halloween suits your astronauts use.”

  Nat shrugged. “Okay, why not?”

  Sheldon directed us to the fabrication room, where three suits were laid out on a table. The proportions of each one left no doubt about whose was whose. I looked at my suit, which resembled a set of zippered overalls with a weird collar and built-in gloves and boots. A surprisingly small backpack probably provided environmental support.

  “This is it?” I held up the item. “I’m not feeling confident.”

  “I am devastated,” Sheldon said. “Do you want to go out or not?”

  I hesitated, then looked at Nat. She shrugged and started to don the suit, stepping in through the zippered front. After a moment Patrick did the same. I finally surrendered to peer pressure and climbed into my suit.

  The zipper had a button at the bottom instead of a zipper tab. I pressed it experimentally, and the suit closed from the crotch upward in one smooth motion, somehow avoiding entangling my clothing in the process.

  “Where’s the helmet?” Patrick said.

  “Press the button on your right collarbone area.”

  We all reached up and followed Sheldon’s instruction. As I pressed the button, the suit kind of sucked in around me, like I was being vacuum-packed. At the same time, the collar unfurled around my head, becoming a goldfish-bowl helmet. I poked it with a finger. It seemed rigid, but like hard leather rather than glass.

  Patrick struck a pose, one arm out, pointing dramatically. “To the airlocks!”

  “Should we all go at once?” Nat asked. “Sheldon?”

  “What would someone remaining in the ship be able to do that I couldn’t do? For Covenant species, this is as routine as driving a car. Just try to avoid tripping over your own feet and impaling yourself on a rock.”

  The three of us exchanged a look. Nothing more needed to be said. We would be the first humans to set foot on Mars. Nothing was going to stop us.

  The airlock system operated exactly as I’d expected, and within minutes I was at the bottom of the staircase, staring at ochre-colored sandy soil.

  “What’s the hold-up?” Patrick’s voice said over what had to be a suit radio. It couldn’t possibly have carried through suits and the thin Martian air, but it sounded as clear as if he were in a room with me.

  “I feel like I should say something profound,” I replied. “But I got nothin’.”

  “One small step?” Patrick said.

  “To boldly go?” Nat added.

  “Space, the final frontier?” Patrick replied.

  “I’m beginning to envy Alaric,” Sheldon’s voice interjected. “Do I have to tilt the ship to shake you off?”

  I chuckled. “All right, Sheldon, chill.” I thought for a moment, then straightened my back. “As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.” And with that I stepped off onto the surface of Mars.

  “Nice choice,” Nat said, as she and Patrick followed me.

  Patrick kicked at the soil under his feet. “It feels like dirt. Dry, not quite sand, but just basically dirt.”

  “What were you expecting?” Nat replied. “Styrofoam beads?”

  Patrick ignored her. “You could have done something from Burroughs, a John Carter quote.”

  “Couldn’t remember any,” I replied.

  “Look,” Nat said.

  We both followed her pointing finger. Sheldon had landed in the Mariner Valley at Patrick’s request. We were close enough to one wall of the valley to see it rising to the sky in the distance. In the thin atmosphere of Mars, it was amazingly clear, so it appeared quite close. At the same time, it obviously rose from beyond the horizon, so it had to be far away. But on the third hand, Mars’s small diameter—I shook my head, breaking the loop. I was on Mars. This wasn’t the time to go down a mental rabbit hole.

  “That’s incredible,” Nat said. “I wish we could take pictures … ”

  “Sure, I’ll just whip out my phone,” Patrick said.

  Nat gave him a glare that should have stopped his heart. I spoke quickly to defuse the tension. “Do we want to go for a walk? Or have you guys had enough?”

  Patrick looked around. “If we had a flag to plant or a base station to set up, or even some golf balls and a club, I’d stay all day. But other than the view, it’s really just a lot of dirt. We can come back, though, right?”

  I nodded, but felt a momentary disquiet. First the Apollo 11 site, now this. Was space travel going to be just a series of letdowns? Then I turned back to the view. No, definitely not. We just needed enough time to appreciate it.

  Chapter Seven: Park It

  I stood in front of the command chair, ramrod straight with my hands behind my back, my gaze focused on infinity. Behind me, the Earth hung in the firmament, a visible curve on the horizon.

  “Okay, got it,” Nat said, examining her phone. “That’s a dozen pictures. My turn now. Here.” She handed me the device as I made way for her.

  “Ready, Nat? Let’s see that Admiral Nelson pose. Come on, girl, work it, work it. Show me that sass.”

  Natalie was having trouble keeping a straight face, but she turned and struck poses with enthusiasm, while I snapped pics as quickly as I could manage.

  “You humans are insufferable,” Sheldon commented. “You reduce everything to a tourist moment.”

  “Or, alternatively, we know how to thoroughly enjoy the moment without getting stuffy about it,” Patrick said.

  “Potato, potahto,” Sheldon muttered, but didn’t comment further.

  “You sure about putting the Sheldon in the barn?” Natalie asked.

  “I’m not the Sheldon, unless you are the Natalie. This ship is called the Halo Mahste which means Quest for Knowledge.”

  “Cool,” Natalie replied. “Halo it is.”

  “It’s not—” Sheldon paused. “Fine. I concede that the full name is too many words in a row for you. Have it your way.”

  I ignored Sheldon’s complaint and Nat’s answering evil grin. “Well, I’ll have to move the truck out, but we’re taking it in tomorrow anyway. I just feel weird about leaving the ship out in a field.”

  “But it’s invisible,” Nat pointed out.

  “And we found it anyway,” I replied. “All we needed was to know it existed and to have a starting point to search from. Want to bet a concerted aerial search would have found the tripod indentations?”

  “Jack is correct, Natalie. Should the Loranna have reason to start an organized search, they would locate the ship within three days at most, based only on that, even without a starting point.”

  “You could have parked on rock or something,” she said.

  “Alaric was not a strategist. Or a pilot. Or particularly smart, based on his manner of passing. In any case, the ship would act as a canopy over the ground below it, invisible or not. A few rainstorms and a circle would begin to stand out.”

  I sat back and crossed my arms, feeling smug. Natalie scratched the side of her nose with her middle finger while glaring back at me.

  During this exchange, Patrick had been examining the conn, tentatively pushing on the joysticks on the chair arms. “Hey, Sheldon, if someone’s at the controls, can you override if they’re about to mess up?”

  “Only if ordered to do so. Or in cases of extreme danger and impending destruction.”

  “Good. I’m ordering you to do so, as a default behavior.” Patrick sat at the conn and fingered the controls. “How about a quickie lesson? What do I do first?”

  “Very well. First, get up from the pilot’s chair. Second, hit yourself repeatedly on the side of the head with a rock, you five-fingered cretin.”

  “Whoo! Touchy. But seriously, Sheldon, I think at least one of us should have some ability to fly this tu—er, ship. Just in case. And no, I don’t know just in case what.”

  “Hmmph. I still prefer my plan, but very well. I have disabled the controls for the moment so you can practice in simulation without running the ship into an asteroid. The joystick on the left controls roll, pitch, and yaw. The one on the right controls acceleration and deceleration.”

  “How do you brake?”

  “Pushing the control forward accelerates you forward. Pushing it backward accelerates you backward. Or slows you down if you are already moving forward. Otherwise, you coast.”

  “Interesting.” Patrick tilted the right joystick. “So you can accelerate sideways. But not up and down?”

  “You can pull the joystick up or push it down to get vertical acceleration.”

  Patrick played with both joysticks for a few moments. “Nice. Quite intuitive, actually. Does this work for FTL as well?”

  “There is no piloting in FTL. Technically, there is no separate FTL drive, as such. The navigator sets coordinates and activates the system, and a wormhole is formed with one mouth in front of the ship and the other at the destination. The ship enters the wormhole, and from that point no further adjustments are possible.”

  “Okay. So what about this control … ”

  Patrick and Sheldon spent several minutes going over the various aspects of the conn, while Nat and I watched and occasionally kibitzed. I found it fascinating, but my mind kept going off on tangents when Sheldon explained some interesting aspect of space travel or the construction of the ship. Finally, Sheldon declared that Patrick knew enough to not immediately vaporize us and that he was reactivating the controls.

  “And you’ll override me if I do something stupid, right?”

  “Only as regards to piloting. The rest of your life is your problem.”

  “Testy, testy.” Patrick eyed the Earth on the wall of the bridge. “Say, is this view like a window or like a monitor? Are we seeing the real thing, or an image?”

  “The latter. No one builds vessels with windows.”

  “Cool. Can you superimpose graphics and such?”

  “Of course. What do you need? Some cartoon characters? Perhaps a frenetic music track? Porn?”

  “Um, maybe a pointer to where our home is? It’s not like looking at a globe of the Earth. The clouds make it difficult to work out the geography.”

  A red targeting circle appeared on a section of the wall. “Dunnville, Ohio,” said Sheldon.

  “Thanks, dude.” Patrick manipulated the controls, and the view shifted as the Halo rotated to bring the targeting circle directly in front of Patrick’s position. Then the Earth began to expand as the ship shot forward.

  “May I suggest a somewhat less enthusiastic re-entry?” Sheldon said. “We have no need to emulate a meteor.”

  “Would we burn up?”

  “No, not unless we took a run at it from much farther back. But we will ionize the air if we move through it too quickly. And that will show up both visually and on radar.”

  “Oops,” said Patrick. The ship’s forward progress slowed to a relative crawl. “Thanks, Sheldon.”

  “You are welcome.”

  It took less than ten minutes before we were hovering over our hometown. The targeting circle had expanded until it now uselessly encircled the entire view. “Sheldon, please target Jack’s barn.”

  “Certainly. Where is it?”

  “It’s—” Patrick snorted. “Right. You don’t know where we live.” He turned and looked at me and Nat. “Little help?”

  “Well, there’s the river,” Nat pointed. “And that big open area is the old textile mill, so the town should be over here … ”

  “And once we have that, we can go from there,” I added.

  “Got it.” A few more minutes of flying, and some further suggestions from the co-pilots, and the Halo was hovering over our barn.

  “I’ll have to move the truck out, and open the doors all the way,” I said. “You’ll need to drop me off.”

  “I’ll open the airlock,” said Sheldon.

  “You’ll need to land and drop me off,” I amended.

  “Oh. My bad.”

  Patrick snickered. “Sheldon, you should take over for close-in work.”

  “Of course.” The ship moved. “We are now hovering just above ground level, Jack. I will open the airlock once you are ready to disembark. I assume it would be disadvantageous for witnesses to observe that event.”

  “Good assumption.” I handed the remote to Nat. “I’m not sure if you have to be in possession of this to give Sheldon orders, but just in case … ”

  “It’s not a magic wand,” Sheldon said. “As a group, you are now in effect my command crew. Only if someone else comes in possession of the remote would there be a conflict.”

  “Good to know.” I waved and headed for the elevator.