Jacqui In Space Read online

  Chapter 2—Another World

   

  Jacqui took a sip of water from the tube in the chin-piece of her helmet. The main water reservoir was strapped in a hump on her back. Urine and sweat were collected through a catheter and suction capillaries built into the lining of the survival-suit for reprocessing as drinking-water, though she hoped that she wouldn't need to call on that particular emergency supply. She doubted that she was sweating much anyway, as the planet was cold today and she was moving slowly.

  Peering up through her visor at the four mapping cameras mounted on a Steadicam damped pole on the rear of her bike she angled her head to spot any dust on the lenses. Jacqui wished that she could simply blow the particles away. Her nose itched like crazy a couple of hours ago, and she'd only been partly able to alleviate the irritation by squeezing her head forward inside the helmet-lining to rub the tip of her nose on the drinking-tube. She extracted a wet-wipe from a foil pocket on her arm and gave the lenses a wipe.

  The red dust got everywhere, and was surprisingly abrasive. Enfield's old chain-drive would have worn-out quickly, so was replaced with a rubber-nylon belt enclosed in a sealed casing. Jacqui didn't trust the sealing-gaiters and checked the casing for stones every night. A broken drive-belt could be serious out here.

  Scanning the area with her mini-binoculars, Jacqui looked for an easy route through the boulder-field ahead. She was part of the latest mapping-team to be sent to the surface, her bike giving her greater mobility than the lunar-rovers. All she could see was red, a dull haematite red. Some parts of Mars that she'd visited were streaked with veins of matte-yellow mineral deposits adding variety to the view. Jacqui longed for the sight of green.

  Or blue. Blue would be wonderful. It meant water, which was what they were looking for on any planet that might be thought to be habitable. Earth was once known as the 'Blue Planet'. What colour predominated now that most of the vegetation was dying-off—would it really resemble a sphere of brown earth?

  Jacqui tapped the screen of her GPS device, not entirely trusting it to work. Having been let down by such technology back on Earth, and knowing what it was like to be stranded in places where even supposedly accurate maps were unreliable, Jacqui was cautious enough to have introduced her own system of dead-reckoning on Mars.

  Marking a trail helped navigate a return-journey to the landing-station, and did no harm to the ecosystem. Jacqui was shocked to find garbage abandoned by previous pioneers, something she would never do. It was a terrible comment on Man's colonisation of worlds that it meant instant pollution. Building small cairns was harmless, though it made sense to knock them flat as she made her way back, lest she confuse herself or others who relied on a similar system.

  The power-gauge on Enfield's handlebars showed that there was now two-thirds of the battery energy remaining. Jacqui didn't rely that much on this instrument, and would never go exactly half-way on its reading before turning back to safety. It was as well to have something in reserve. As with anything, dwindling supplies seemed to diminish quicker.

  She'd explore a few more hectares of the plain below, avoiding the loose scree and tumbled mounds of rocks that were accumulated at the base of the slope ahead. It was curious how the trough-shaped hollows across parts of the land resembled lateral and terminal moraines. Could there once have been glaciers on Mars? If so, there might be vast reservoirs of subterranean water.

  Trying to avoid the most jagged of the rocks lying on the track she'd been following, Jacqui braked to a halt. The tyres were self-sealing for all but the largest punctures, but it paid to be careful. Wrestling Enfield onto full-lock and paddling her machine backwards, intending to return to where the gradient shallowed, she caught her ankle on a loose stone and down she went….

  It was only a low-speed tumble, she'd hardly been moving at all. Irritated at her clumsiness Jacqui pushed Enfield off one shin with her other leg. Her bike's black petrol tank, which now contained sophisticated electrical controls, had picked up a few more war-wounds. What did she look like? The great biker-pioneer plonked on her backside, her motorcycle laying down beside her as if they were both having a rest.

  Shifting her rump, Jacqui surveyed herself for damage. All seemed to be in order, though her hip might have a bruise come out later. She needed to be more observant of where she was putting her feet. Going to the far side of her horizontal bike, Jacqui braced a boot against the lower frame rail, and leaning back tugged Enfield upright with her body-weight. The lithium batteries may be weighty, but Mar's lack of gravity made her feel like superwoman when it came to lifting things.

  Jacqui rested Enfield on the side-stand and checked her suit for tears. The temperature averaged 78F on a bright day in this sector of Mars, but was twenty degrees cooler today due to cloud-cover, and with the setting sun it would soon be freezing. Night-time temperatures could plummet to minus 150F here. With an atmosphere that was predominantly Carbon Dioxide, she didn't fancy asphyxiating or being further chilled by CO2.

  Flipping the side-stand up with her toe, Jacqui thumbed the electric motor into life. She rather missed the ritual of kick-starting the old single cylinder petrol-engine, though her leg broken in Pakistan appreciated a life of ease. How long ago was that now? 120 years ago.

  “God, I'm getting old”, Jacqui chuckled as she leant back in the saddle to drop down the slope to the plain. All of that beauty-sleep had worked wonders though, and she felt more full of energy than ever. It still paid to be cautious, however—relaxing too much inevitably led to an accident.