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 The Lost Dawnby Stuart Atkinson Page 3 of 4
Higher in the sky, two much brighter stars are shining side by
side, and yet another bright star can be seen glinting above
them and to their right, close to ruddy Aldebaran and the stars
of the Hyades, forming a sharp triangle of lights in the
brightening sky. The highest of the three has a warm, golden
hue, which on its own is enough to betray its real identity, and
the silence of the still martian dawn is briefly broken by a
dozen soft whirrs, as the colonists use their visors to zoom in
on Saturn and gaze in awe at the beauty of its rings...
Beneath Saturn, Venus is a yellow-white beacon, just as bright in Marss as it is appears Earth. A zoomed-in HUD view transforms the "star" into a beautiful gibbous disc, tinged slightly orange by the dust in Mars' atmosphere. Then a voice breaks the silence. "Which star did *you* come from, mommy?" the young girl asks, leaning back sleepily against her mother's legs. The woman crouches down, gathers her daughter to her, and raises her finger towards the east. "That one honey, the bright blue one over there..." Following her mother's directions the girl looks at the sky and sees, beside Venus, just a short distance to its left, a brilliant azure-hued star. It looks like a sapphire glinting in the starlight, the most perfect, cleanest, glacial blue the young girl has ever seen. It reminds her of a crystal, or a tiny drop of water, glistening in and reflecting Phobos-light... "Did you *really* come from there?" the young girl asks suspiciously. The star, as beautiful as it is, looks very small. And very far away. Her mother nods. Yes, she did, she says, but it was a long time ago. A *long* time ago. "Will I have to go there, when I'm older?" the woman's daughter asks hesitantly. No, her mother reassures her, not if you don't want to. There are lots of people there who would like to see you, but no-one will *make* you go. The girl smiles with relief, cheered by the news; if the "star" really is the "Urth" her mother and the other grown-ups talk about, a strange place with a weird-coloured sky, a too-big world where you feel much too heavy, and water actually falls on you from above, then she is in no rush to go there. The colonists stand in silence, linking arms, holding hands, leaning against each other as the sky brightens and brightens, until one by one the five planets fade from view. Then, still in silence, they turn away from the dawn and start the long walk back to the rover. But one by one, as they pass, each lovingly presses a gloved hand to the frost-coated "Thomas A Mutch Memorial Station" dedication plaque they brought with them from Earth all those years ago, and offers up a silent "Thank you" to the men and women who came before them. Who made it possible for them to *be* there... Well, that's how it could have been, how it *should* have been, on this year's anniversary. But that spectacular sunrise will only be witnessed by frustrated computer users like myself, and by those of you sufficiently moved or intrigued by this article to check it out for yourselves. That incredible scene will be there, in Mars' sky, on that morning, but no-one will see it because somewhere along the line we stopped dreaming. Yes, the missions of Pathfinder and MGS have been amazing successes, have taught us more about Mars than we thought possible, maybe even dared to believe possible, but so far we have only sent machines to Mars, and as efficient as they are they can't see, they can't feel. They can't *experience* Mars. Copyright© 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Stuart Atkinson, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. |
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