As he raced back to the landing site, John's devastated mind oscillated between worry about food and wrenching anxiety about his fellow crew members. It would be a miracle if many of them hadn't been killed. And since the greenhouse had been destroyed, there would be precious little food to sustain the survivors, just a few weeks at most of canned and dried. That seventh lander had better arrive in two weeks, with its one and a half tons of food on board! No, in eleven days actually.

          - from Chapter One: Catastrophe

* * * * * * * *

        "Your path is a noble one," said Dr. Sato, his eyes raised. "It is a path of honest work and toil to prevent suffering. All such work done well ennobles. Such a path cannot be refused by a person who follows the teachings of the Blessed One. No other path is becoming."

          - from the chapter: Zen Master

* * * * * * * *

        Outside, fine white frost lay on the landing site, as the moon Phobos sailed majestically overhead. Something new had been born in the universe that cold evening. As the stars gave way to a deep red sky, brightening over the distant mesa, a new day dawned with a human being on Mars committed to living an entire life there. The first Martian had come into existence.

          - from the chapter: The Graves

* * * * * * * *

        When they stopped, John and Denise just sat stunned in the rover cockpit, staring in silent dismay at the badly ruptured wall of the building, vividly lit up by the sinking sun behind them. There could be nobody alive inside that habitat, now fully open to the low pressure Martian air. When they finally got up to go outside, John noticed tears glistening in Denise's eyes. She was fighting her emotions, trying hard not to give in and start weeping.

          - from Chapter One: Catastrophe

* * * * * * * *

        Together they walked carefully down the rocky slope toward the waiting rovers. They never talked when they were walking, unless to point out some aspect of the immediate terrain. They concentrated solely on what they were doing. This was the rule of sanitary conversation. It was similar to the safety rule applying to airline pilots and copilots on Earth while waiting for takeoff -- only immediate aircraft matters could be discussed. The same rule applied to driving the rovers.
        Although it occurred to neither of them, this rule was also in compliance with the Buddhist admonition to practice mindfulness: Think neither of the past nor of the future, but focus the mind on what is happening right now in the present.

          - from the chapter: Journey East

* * * * * * * *

        "The success of the whole operation depends on the way otherwise rational people are led to wrong conclusions, and wrong decisions," philosophized the CIA chief. "People don't usually make mistakes because they have their facts wrong, or because they don't reason clearly. They make them because there's something they're not taking into account. That's why the disaster on Mars happened in the first place. We'll give the nation plenty of facts, with which it will reason very carefully. But it will come to the wrong conclusions, because the really important facts will be withheld."

          - from the chapter: Conspiracy

* * * * * * * *

        John was first out through the rover's one-person airlock.
        Once outside he walked quickly toward the habitat entrance. But half way there he suddenly stopped, as the reality of what had to be inside hit him hard. He just stood there, waiting for Denise. There could only be horribly deformed bodies in there.
        "I'm not sure you should go in, Denise," he said, putting out his left arm when she caught up, to stop her from going nearer. "It'll be a horrible sight. Might be better if you don't see it."
        "I know, but somebody has to go in, and I'm the mission doctor."
        "Then we'll both go in."
        "No, it's better if I go," said Denise resolutely, forcing herself to draw on reserves of strength. "It's my department. Maybe you should go and look inside what's left of the farm."

          - from Chapter One: Catastrophe

* * * * * * * *

        They talked about those layers of ice, and water under pressure, that lay under ground in most places. The layers were far down in low latitudes, as in Kasei Valley. In high latitudes they could sometimes be only tens of meters below the surface, and could be seen as strata in pole-facing escarpment walls. Water gushed from these strata every so often, when erosion of a large piece of the escarpment wall caused exposure of a fresh piece of an ice layer, releasing the dammed up water behind it.

          - from the chapter: From the Heavens

* * * * * * * *

        "We're not on Earth," retorted Denise. "Let me continue. Earth is so bountiful, and so friendly a planet to life, that you can believe stupid things about life there and still survive, if only at an impoverished level. Not here. Mars will quickly kill off all who venture on her soil with stupid beliefs in mind about how to survive. A mistaken belief here is fatal. Here you must create the resources needed to survive. The main resource you must create is an ecosystem of life ....Such an ecosystem is available on Earth for free. To build such a Martian ecosystem you need knowledge, imagination, reason, discipline and diligence."

          - from the chapter: The Council

* * * * * * * *

        He stood for a while, looking at the setting sun over the hills to the west, with the now dark conical mountain to the southwest silhouetted against the sunset sky. The pink-blue fan above the sun gave a few wispy clouds their typical bluish sunset appearance.
        He stood there, continuing to gaze, long after the sun had gone down. The changing colors of the Martian sky, so different from those on Earth, gave him no pleasure. His feelings of despair were intense, and he could hardly bear to think about doing what he had decided upon. Still, he knew what he was risking if he backed down. Although his mind was certainly not at peace, it was decided. Determined to go through with it, he followed Denise into the rover.

          - from the chapter: The Graves

* * * * * * * *

        Then Denise spoke again, her voice quivering -- she was still in tears: "Max looked awful...He was lying in the com room. A rock took most of his head off."
        "Oh God."
        "I know he couldn't have suffered like the others must have... but it was awful to look at."
        The two of them just stood there in silence, trying to find some strength and comfort in each other. Emotionally, they were both close to the breaking point.

          - from Chapter One: Catastrophe

* * * * * * * *

        The sequence stopped with a video clip of an elderly Japanese gentleman of medium height. He was strolling with hands behind his back in mottled sunlight in a Japanese garden, with temple buildings in the background. The years had touched him only lightly. His posture was that of a much younger man, for when he stopped to examine something on a flowering tree branch, he stood quite straight.
        He looked very ordinary. In fact, it would be closer to the mark to say he looked extraordinarily ordinary. There was nothing that could tell you he was a Zen master, or one of the world's great scientists, except perhaps an impression of an unusually peaceful man.

          - from the chapter: Questions

* * * * * * * *

        "I wasn't really dreaming about it as something I wanted," said Denise. "Just thinking about it. Anyway, I imagined we came back to Earth and became famous, and some big publisher got us to write a book about our experiences, about our long journeys across Mars and so on. ..."
        "And then we started to regret we ever came back to Earth," continued Denise, "and started to long for the vast empty spaces of this planet, with its big clear skies, and red plains and valleys. We secretly wished we were back in the driver's seat again, able to make decisions that determined at least a part of the planet's future, even if only a small part, and even if we had to do all the hard work ourselves."

          - from the chapter: Ares Valley

* * * * * * * *

        The hard days passed, and Beta-April gave way to the month of Alpha-May, well into the Martian spring. The days were lengthening too, and it was becoming more obvious that the sun was now rising well to the north of east, and setting well to the north of west.
        The effects of seasonal change are impossible not to notice under the sunny, clear skies of Mars. From winter to summer, there is a steady increase in the length of the days, a steady creep northward of sunset and sunrise on the horizon, and a steady increase in the height of the sun at noon, just as on Earth. There is also an additional bizarre seasonal effect, that does not occur on Earth.
        On Mars, the size of the sun in the sky also changes, getting noticeably larger from summer to winter in the north. This is due to the planet's elliptic orbit around the sun, which brings the sun closest, and thus makes it appear larger, just before the winter solstice in the north.

          - from the chapter: Unexpected

* * * * * * * *

        No time to waste. John had the message ready in his mind, and began transmitting at once. He kept repeating it slowly and loudly, until just after five fifteen, as follows:

        Kasei-75 calling. Kasei-75 calling. Return rocket explosion. Landing site totally destroyed. Eight confirmed dead. John and Denise alive and uninjured. Ben, Dave, and Sally missing, possibly still alive. One rover missing. Two rovers undamaged. Next report at dawn. John Erway.

        John's backup communications skills served him well, for his makeshift communications system did work, and a very worried Mission Control picked up the shocking message, continuously repeating, some ten minutes after he began transmitting.
        Minutes after that, at seven fifty Washington time, on Tuesday evening, February 02, 2038, the President of the United States got the news of the near total loss of the four-hundred billion dollar international Mars mission, on which the attention of the world had been riveted for months.

          - from Chapter One: Catastrophe

* * * * * * * *

        "You are suffering great pain and torment," said the Zen master, "and for good reason. Try to understand that suffering is natural, as much a part of the nature of things as wind and clouds and sunshine. You are designed to suffer and endure suffering. A high price has to be paid if you wish never to suffer. This too will pass."

          - from the chapter: Vigil

* * * * * * * *

        Every so often, they crossed the track left on the ground by a recent dust devil, a fairly-straight, wide path completely cleared of red dust and sand. The path looked as if it had been created by a giant vacuum machine. Such dust-cleared paths were visible even to a survey satellite. In a few places, they had found the desert floor crisscrossed by the tracks of dust devils.
        Despite their threatening size and appearance, because of the low pressure Martian air, it was generally thought that the giant dust devils of the great plains of Mars were not dangerous. Still, they were not anxious to be the ones to test that theory. There were very strong winds where the spinning funnel touched the ground in a swirl of dense red dust. They would slow down, or change direction if a dust devil showed any sign of getting close. Nevertheless, watching for them had provided some diverting entertainment each afternoon, as they crossed the otherwise generally featureless desert.

          - from the chapter: Journey East

* * * * * * * *

          - from the chapter: Explosion

Copyright Thomas William Cronin, 2001, 2005. Reproduction rights granted for review purposes, otherwise by permission only.