trusted her, above all others under the dome, to keep the secret too. But she looked so happy about my father coming home that I didnât want to worry her.
âNothing,â I said, turning back toward my keyboard. Now I didnât feel like writing in my journal anymore. âGive me a few minutes to clean my room, and Iâll be ready for my haircut.â I forced a smile.
Clipped ears, in comparison to alien monsters that chased humans, suddenly didnât seem like such a bad thing.
CHAPTER 4
Four hours later, I was among those waiting outside the dome on the platform buggy to watch the landing. The other platform buggy sat beside us, empty except for the driver. The pilots, crew, and new project members would go back to the dome in that one.
I strained my eyes, looking upward. There was tension among us. While no previous landing had failed, there was always the potential for disaster. If anything went wrong, my father could die. Then the rest of us. Slowly. Because we were in the early stages of the Mars Project, the spaceship was our only lifeline to Earth. It had all the supplies we needed to survive another three years.
I reached down to the pouch hanging from the armrest of my wheelchair and pulled out three red juggling balls. Although it was dark, I began to juggle, keeping all three in the air without even thinking about what I was doing.
After five minutes, people began pointing upward. I let the juggling balls fall back into my lap and stared at the sky through the clear roof of the platform buggyâs minidome.
At first, it looked like a star growing brighter among the millions of stars in the Mars night sky. It wasnât a star, though. NASA called it the Habitat Lander.
The whole journey from Earth was complicated. My father and the rest had taken a Crew Transfer Vehicle from Earth, about a six-month trip through space. Waiting for them in orbit around Mars was the Habitat Lander. They hooked up with it and switched ships. Rawling had once explained it to me in Earth terms. It was as if they were crossing an ocean. They came over in a big ship, and once they reached harbor, a little tugboat took them the final distance to shore.
But there was a difference. The journey had to be carefully planned so it occurred when Earth and Mars were nearest each otherâroughly 50 million miles apart. At any other time, their orbits placed the planets up to double or triple the distance apart. And little tugboats on Earth didnât have to deal with the intense heat of Martian atmosphere.
The bright light I now saw was the result of the Habitat Lander moving downward so quickly that, even in the sparse atmosphere of Mars, its bullet-shaped heat shield glowed with friction.
I held my breath as I continued to watch. There was silence around me in the platform buggy as everyone else did the same. We all knew this was not a simple tugboat operation.
Coming in at too steep an angle would fry everyone aboard. Coming in at too shallow an angle would bounce them off the atmosphere toward Jupiter, without enough fuel to allow them to reverse and try again.
Although the Habitat Lander moved quickly, it seemed painfully slow to us down on the Martian surface. This was partly because it was still so far above us and partly because of our fear and worry.
Up there, my father was rolling the Habitat Lander to the right or left as it blazed through the upper atmosphere, steering it like an out-of-control sled careening down the steepest snow-covered mountain. Soonâtoo soonâheâd have to find a way to stop it.
The Habitat Landerâs glowing heat shield, now appearing bigger than the sun, suddenly dropped straight down. I gasped. My eyes followed as it flipped and tumbled, a blaze of fire heading directly toward distant mountain peaks. Then the blaze became shattered jewels of fire as it exploded on contact.
I took another deep breath, reminding myself of what I already knew but so
âNothing,â I said, turning back toward my keyboard. Now I didnât feel like writing in my journal anymore. âGive me a few minutes to clean my room, and Iâll be ready for my haircut.â I forced a smile.
Clipped ears, in comparison to alien monsters that chased humans, suddenly didnât seem like such a bad thing.
CHAPTER 4
Four hours later, I was among those waiting outside the dome on the platform buggy to watch the landing. The other platform buggy sat beside us, empty except for the driver. The pilots, crew, and new project members would go back to the dome in that one.
I strained my eyes, looking upward. There was tension among us. While no previous landing had failed, there was always the potential for disaster. If anything went wrong, my father could die. Then the rest of us. Slowly. Because we were in the early stages of the Mars Project, the spaceship was our only lifeline to Earth. It had all the supplies we needed to survive another three years.
I reached down to the pouch hanging from the armrest of my wheelchair and pulled out three red juggling balls. Although it was dark, I began to juggle, keeping all three in the air without even thinking about what I was doing.
After five minutes, people began pointing upward. I let the juggling balls fall back into my lap and stared at the sky through the clear roof of the platform buggyâs minidome.
At first, it looked like a star growing brighter among the millions of stars in the Mars night sky. It wasnât a star, though. NASA called it the Habitat Lander.
The whole journey from Earth was complicated. My father and the rest had taken a Crew Transfer Vehicle from Earth, about a six-month trip through space. Waiting for them in orbit around Mars was the Habitat Lander. They hooked up with it and switched ships. Rawling had once explained it to me in Earth terms. It was as if they were crossing an ocean. They came over in a big ship, and once they reached harbor, a little tugboat took them the final distance to shore.
But there was a difference. The journey had to be carefully planned so it occurred when Earth and Mars were nearest each otherâroughly 50 million miles apart. At any other time, their orbits placed the planets up to double or triple the distance apart. And little tugboats on Earth didnât have to deal with the intense heat of Martian atmosphere.
The bright light I now saw was the result of the Habitat Lander moving downward so quickly that, even in the sparse atmosphere of Mars, its bullet-shaped heat shield glowed with friction.
I held my breath as I continued to watch. There was silence around me in the platform buggy as everyone else did the same. We all knew this was not a simple tugboat operation.
Coming in at too steep an angle would fry everyone aboard. Coming in at too shallow an angle would bounce them off the atmosphere toward Jupiter, without enough fuel to allow them to reverse and try again.
Although the Habitat Lander moved quickly, it seemed painfully slow to us down on the Martian surface. This was partly because it was still so far above us and partly because of our fear and worry.
Up there, my father was rolling the Habitat Lander to the right or left as it blazed through the upper atmosphere, steering it like an out-of-control sled careening down the steepest snow-covered mountain. Soonâtoo soonâheâd have to find a way to stop it.
The Habitat Landerâs glowing heat shield, now appearing bigger than the sun, suddenly dropped straight down. I gasped. My eyes followed as it flipped and tumbled, a blaze of fire heading directly toward distant mountain peaks. Then the blaze became shattered jewels of fire as it exploded on contact.
I took another deep breath, reminding myself of what I already knew but so
Similar Books
