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(Page 2 of 8) A Merry Martian Christmas by Stuart Atkinson
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Looking down on it from the shuttle I was amazed at the sight... row after row after row of dunes, with deep rift valleys between them, looking like a sepia-tinted snapshot of the Pacific, wave after wave of dunes, frozen in time... Soon we were over the dunes, and edging into the icy wilderness of the north polar desert, lit by the fading light of the sinking Sun... just a magical trip, I loved every minute of it.
I shared the shuttle with half a dozen other people. Three of them were members of a terraforming studies group, on an expedition to collect deep ice core samples from a different Outpost near Kison Tholus, which is further around the limb of Mars than the one I have been posted to, here near the edge of Chasma Borealis. Of course, being a Red I just smiled at them politely but didn't speak. (No, not being petty Lucy, I was just being *safe*: if I'd got into a conversation it would have developed into an argument, and almost 200 million klicks from home you have to try and get on with people, you know? Mars would be torture for you! hehe...) so I just smiled thru my gritted teeth, wished them well and stared thru the window.
Eventually the Sun touched the horizon, and the ice-covered land below us turned a heart-stopping charred orange colour, reflecting the Impressionistic sunset... Then night fell like a guillotine blade. With nothing else to see out the window I closed my eyes and let the steady drone of the shuttle's engines lull me off to sleep¡K
When I woke up it was to find that we had landed. Like everyone else onboard I had travelled in my suit, so once inside the airlock all I had to do was twist my helmet on and wait for the pressure to equalise with the outside. I knew it had when a red light on the control panel beside the outer door turned green. The door hissed open then, to reveal a tall, space-suited figure waiting for me, hand outstretched in welcome. I took it and shook it, and introduced myself, stifling another yawn as I was led across the shuttle pad to the Outpost's own airlock. Through bleary, sleep-heavy eyes I tried to take in the landscape as we walked, or in my case stumbled, but could see nothing. It was dark, just dark, there was nothing *to* see...
I'm ashamed to admit it, but what happened after we reached the airlock door is a mystery to me. All I know is that when I woke up briefly, several hours later, I was wrapped snugly inside a thickly-quilted sleeping back, laid out on a couch of some kind in a room that looked like the living room of my sci-module back home at the Settlement. The only light came from a dimmed lamp on the table beside me, so I turned it off and wriggled my way deeper into my deliciously warm and comfortable quilted coccoon, giving myself up to sleep once again...
Next morning I had only one thought in mind - explore! (Well, actually that was thought no.2, no 1 was "Coffee! Now!") so I went through the required paperwork as quickly as I could and then made my way to the Personnel Office, to check-in with my immediate superior, the Outpost's geology officer, Lara.
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