The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN by Michael Rizzo Page A

“empties” out into the
delta-like Eos Chasma three hundred miles to the east.
    “The receivers we set up topside have so far
triangulated electrostatic field emissions from at least twelve
points, all above fifteen-thousand feet from the Melas floor, five
thousand feet below the Datum line of the Planae,” he points out,
lighting up new points that form a relative perimeter around Melas
that includes the existing generators. “We expect there are
probably more of these lining Coprates.”
    “And they’re holding the atmosphere in?” Matthew
questions like he’s not willing to believe it.
    “In a way, Colonel,” Anton tells him. “This design
was in the original ETE long term plan. They knew that they’d be
facing a losing battle down the road, if they didn’t figure out a
way to keep the air and free water they made from simply bleeding
out into space because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field. I
remember there were several proposals, including going so far as
trying to re-liquefy the planet’s iron core.”
    “Which would have destabilized the planet’s crust and
maybe even the planet’s orbit,” Rick dismisses the fantasy.
    “This option was the least invasive and least
costly,” Anton continues, “creating an ionization ‘net’ that would
help keep the atmosphere ‘held’ below certain elevations, by
charging the particles that hit the field, creating a perpetual
down-flow and using the walls of the valleys to contain the effect.
The high iron content in the airborne dust makes it very effective,
and it gets easier as the upper atmosphere thickens. Once the
initial ‘small scale’ proved effective down here in the Chasmata,
which is geologically ideal for it, they planned to eventually go
global, but that was potentially centuries down the road.”
    “It looks like the ‘small scale’ works pretty well,”
Lisa allows.
    “But it conveniently blocks our transmissions, and
fries our gear when we try to punch through it,” Matthew
accuses.
    “There’s an incredible amount of power involved,
Colonel,” Anton offers. “No idea how they’re generating it, but the
air up there is hot enough to fry anything that isn’t
EM-shielded.”
    “Would it jam incoming signals as well?” I ask.
    “It might play havoc with weaker ones,” Rick
calculates. “But the bigger concern is that it’s likely keeping
Earthside from detecting signals from smaller transmitters on the
surface, at least inside the colonized valleys. Getting through to
Earth from where we are would require an uplink powerful enough to
handle cutting through the interference. Even then, we’d probably
need a satellite geosynchronous above us to boost signals
through.”
    “Which we don’t have,” Matthew concludes
bitterly.
    “Any chance Earthside would have picked up on our
last attempt?” Ryder wants to know. Anton can only shrug at
her.
    “Odds are that we might be able to scavenge what we
need to build a better tower if we can find the other bases
reasonably intact,” Rick considers. “Or maybe the corporate
colonies might have what we need—I’d have to review
inventories.”
    “But even if we can find them, there’s still the
issue of getting there and back,” Lisa calculates. “The rovers we
have won’t manage.”
    “Same reason we can’t just fly up out of the valley
and call out,” Anton kills the most obvious solution. “Not to
mention the conditions outside this ‘atmosphere net’ are probably
not much different than the Mars when we went to sleep. We’d have
to work in shelters and pressure suits, and a long way from
support.”
    “We need the ASVs back up,” I conclude. “I’ll have
Morales put priority on just getting them flying—we don’t need them
to go into orbit, we just need the range. We’ll need them to go
looking for survivors and supplies anyway.”
    “We’re overlooking the obvious,” Matthew counters,
and I feel him get angry. He turns to Anton: “What was the