Runaway World

Hoder

     Two hours later, the rover once again safely on solid ground, Andrew and Jasmine climbed gratefully up the aluminium ladder to the hab-rover's airlock.

     "So," said James over the intercom as his father and his sister stripped off their surface suits. "What now?"

     "We do what you suggested," said Andrew as he hung his suit's life support backpack on its wall mount and plugged in the hoses that would refill its oxygen tanks and recharge its batteries. All electrical power in the hab-rover came from an atomic generator powered by a chunk of plutonium that had once been part of a nuclear warhead. The nuclear apocalypse that the world had feared for so long had never happened. A worse apocalypse had happened instead and the warheads, now rendered superfluous, had been found a more peaceful use.

     "We go east," Andrew continued. "Right around Bassenthwaite Planitia. Then we find one of the old roads going south and follow it until we find a place where we can go west, back to the dig site. It's a bit out of our way but it'll get us there."

     "I was looking at the satellite images while you were out," said Susan distractedly while watching Jasmine peel the suit from her arms and upper body. "Looks like there's a traversible path. The bad news is that it passes quite close to Skiddaw Mons, the highest mountain in the area. There could be nitrogen flows coming down the mountain, blocking our path. Jasmine dear, let me look at you. Are you hurt?"

     "I'm fine," the girl replied, looking down at herself as she wriggled the suit past her hips and down her thighs. She prodded the pink, healthy looking skin with the tips of her fingers. "See? No frostbite. No bruising."

     "Let me see." Susan pushed her daughter's hand away and performed her own inspection. "You have to be careful out there. Your boots and gloves are the only parts of your suit that can..."

     "I know, mum. I've studied the suit's specs as thoroughly as the rest of you."

     "Reading them is one thing..."

     "I just slipped, mum. Stop fussing."

     "Yeah, mum," said Andrew, feeling suddenly mischievous. "You'll give her a complex."

     David's chuckle came over the intercom from the childrens' shared bedroom where he was doing his homework. Susan glared at her husband, but then she smiled and nodded, conceding the point. She still insisted on inspecting her daughter's body, though, and Jasmine endured it stoically until her mother was finally satisfied and allowed her daughter to get dressed in her indoor clothes.

     "Mum's right," said James, who had called up a map from before The Freeze on one of the cockpit displays. "There was a road going south past Bassenthwaite Planitia. Whetner it's still there remains to be seen, of course. Who knows that the Hoder floods and earthquakes did to the place?"

     "If the route's impassable we could always travel across Bassenthwaite Planitia itself," said Andrew as he got dressed. "It's a bowl, surrounded by hills except where the rivers used to enter and leave. There's nowhere for the ice to go so it should be stable. No crevasses. Nothing but tiny fractures where the ice contracted as it cooled."

     "Nice, flat ground," said James approvingly. "Should be a nice, smooth drive. I'll get going to the east, then, shall I?"

     "Yes please," said Andrew. "I'll be right there."

☆☆☆

     Mile after mile of frozen, ice covered ground passed by outside the rover as Andrew and James sat in the two cockpit seats, watching the already gloomy landscape grow darker as the distant sun sank towards the horizon.