Astronomicon 1: Inception Point (Finished)

12 - Valleys

"This gravel is hard on the ankles," moaned Kate, moving alongside Chris as they trudged onwards.

"I feel like the gravel is actually absorbing the energy in my legs," he replied.

"This can't go on forever," added Lucy from immediately behind them both. "There are mountains up ahead."

"We'll go from slogging in gravel to slogging up a mountain," Kate replied.

"How far away do you reckon those mountains are?" Chris asked. "I'm wondering if the module is our side of them or the other."

"We don't want to be climbin' mountains, Commander," said Fletcher. "It's cold enough already and if the air gets thinner, we're going to be in trouble."

"Anyone know how to gauge how far away a mountain is?" Chris asked the group.

"That middle one is getting awfully big," said Kate.

"Melissa, can the navicom help there?" called Lucy.

It took Melissa a moment to catch up.

"We've got the surface radar scans from the satellites overlaid on the beacon positions. It doesn't show ground features much less than a hundred metres across but the supply module seems to be landed in a dark stripe just the other side of that mountain range." She pointed at the already obvious mountains ahead.

"But how far?" Chris pressed.

"Er...It's another kilometre to what I think must be the end of the gravel, then we've got almost three kilometres of mountains to pass before we reach the module."

"Fletcher is right, gaining much altitude would be bad, potentially dangerous even," said Lucy.

"We've got to get to the module," he replied. "There must be valleys between the peaks, we'll have to use those to get through."

"How long have we got before the power runs out in the module?" she asked.

"Seven, maybe eight hours," he replied.

"We need to press on then," she said.

"This damned gravel has to end before the mountains and, if Melissa's right, we're past halfway through it," he said. "Let's do another ten minutes then have a water break."

Thirty-five minutes later, Chris and Kate, still leading the group, stepped off the gravel and up onto a rocky shelf some forty centimetres above the gravel sea. It looked like a miniature coastline stretching for several kilometres to both sides. While the rest of the team heaved themselves up too, Chris surveyed the small mountains ahead. He had to concede that, back on Earth, they would have counted as medium-sized hills at most, but here on Proxima C, without erosion and vegetation, they stood as grey masses of bare rock, rising to steep, jagged pinnacles that would be a major achievement to climb in this oxygen-poor atmosphere.

Without saying anything, he set off again and the group followed in single file behind him.

"These mountains don't look so big now we're closer to them," said Kate after another twenty minute's walking.

"We've already gained a hundred-and-fifty metres in altitude," Melissa reported from behind her.

"We should eat before we go any further," Chris announced. "The going will be harder up there, we'll need the energy and I'm guessing no-one's eaten since we landed."

"Crashed!" Kate corrected him.

"I haven't eaten in thirteen years, Commander," Fletcher loudly announced causing a flurry of chuckles.

"Point taken," replied Chris with a smile. "Let's have a sit-down and a sachet of rations each."

While everyone ate, Chris got Melissa to show him the navicom map and they planned out, what they hoped, was the optimum route through the mountains. It seemed that even the tallest peak was little more than half-a-kilometre higher than their current position, so he hoped they could pass through the entire range gaining only another hundred metres in altitude.

After eating and drinking, they set off towards the valley which looked like the best candidate. It would mean straying around a kilometre off the straight-line route, but they were already feeling the effects of the increased altitude and it would not take much to incapacitate them completely.

The valley floor was a mass of small, loose rocks and, while it was reasonably level and lower than the rocky slopes on either side, the rocks were exceedingly awkward to walk on. Progress was slow as they picked and stumbled their way over the hazardous terrain.

For the next hour, they continued their slow but steady progress along the valley as it continued to rise higher. Chris was feeling distinctly breathless by the time the valley floor finally peaked then began to descend once again. Fletcher was walking some five metres behind him and he could hear Fletcher's strained wheezing easily over the cacophony of footfalls crunching on the sharp rocks.

The valley gradually curved around the tallest nearby mountain, its width made irregular by the proximity of the smaller peaks around it. The floor dropped more rapidly each time another valley branched off to the left.

Melissa kept checking the navicom roughly every quarter of an hour, but did not say anything until they could see a wide opening between two low, rocky hills to their left which provided a view across another huge sea of rippled gravel and another, even larger mountain range some ten to fifteen kilometres further on.

"This is the one we want. It puts us back on our original heading, more or less," she announced.

Chris stopped walking and studied the view ahead. The rest of the group filed up behind him and fanned out to stand on either side. "I'm not disputing your navigating, Melissa, but where is the supply module?"

"Should be just over 650 metres directly ahead of us," she replied, rechecking the screen on the navicom.

"I can't see it either," said Kate.

"There's nothing out there but that dammed gravel," Fletcher muttered loudly.

"I don't know..." started Melissa, then changed her mind. "It must be in a dip. It's in a dark stripe across the surface and the navicom shows an intermittent height difference some ten, maybe twenty, metres lower."

"Then it's in a ravine or something?" asked Lucy.

"Looks that way. Melissa, if you keep us on target, we'll find it one way or another. The beacon won't lie. Let's go."

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