Red Mars(234)

The tunnel led them straight into the ice for what must have been a kilometer at least. The tunnel was wide enough for two or three rovers, and had a low ceiling. The ice around them was a pure white, dry ice only lightly streaked by stratification. They passed through two locks filling the tunnel, and in the third lock Michel and Kasei stopped the rovers, and opened their locks, and climbed down. Maya, Nadia, Sax, Simon and Ann followed them out of the cars. They passed through a lock door and walked down the tunnel in silence. Then the tunnel opened up and they all stopped, stilled by the sight that met them.

Overhead was an enormous dome of gleaming white ice. They stood under it as if under a giant overturned bowl. The dome was several kilometers in diameter, and at least a kilometer high, maybe more; it rose swiftly from the perimeters, and then bowled gently across the center. The light was diffuse but fairly strong, as if on a cloudy day, and it seemed to come from the white dome itself, which gleamed.

The ground under the dome was gently rolling reddish sand, grassy in the hollows, with frequent stands of tall bamboo and gnarled pine. There were some small hillocks to the right, and clustered in these hills was a little village, one- and two-story houses painted white and blue, interspersed with large trees which had bamboo rooms and staircases set in their thick branches.

Michel and Kasei were walking toward this village, and the woman who had guided their cars into the tunnel lock was running ahead, shouting “They’re here, they’re here!” Under the other side of the dome there was a lake of faintly steaming open water, its surface a white sheen lined by waves that broke on the near shore. On the far shore stood the blue bulk of a Rickover, its reflection a smear of blue across the white water. Gusts of cold damp wind nipped at their ears.

Michel came back and retrieved his old friends, who were standing like statues. “Come on, it’s cold out,” he said with a smile. “There’s a water-ice layer stuck to the dome, so we have to keep the air below freezing all the time.”

People were spilling out of the village, calling out. Down by the little lake a young man appeared sprinting toward them, gazelling over the dunes in great leaps. Even after all their years on Mars such a flying run still looked dreamlike to the first hundred, and it took a while before Simon clutched Ann by the arm and cried “That’s Peter! That’s Peter!”

“Peter,” she said.

And then they were in a crush of people, many of them young folk and children, strangers, but with familiar faces everywhere making their way to the fore, Hiroko and Iwao, Raul, Rya, Gene, Peter crashing in to hug Ann and Simon, and there were Vlad and Ursula and Marina and several others from the Acheron group, all clustered around them, reaching to touch them.

“What is this place?” Maya cried.

“This is home,” Hiroko said. “This is where we start again.”