“It’s printing out the diagrams of the thrust system. just like that. You’re right, Joe—this place is great!”
On the northeast edge of the massive area on the surface of Mars called the Mare Hadriacum, stood a complex of domes and cylinders. Made of metal and glass, it stood on an open plain about 35 degrees south of the equator and 85 degrees east of the central meridian. The complex was one of five atmosphere-generating plants on Mars, and the only one in the southern hemisphere. In a small crater nearby was the settlement of New Emmaus, with a population of about 12,500.
The long process of terraforming Mars had begun when a meteor shower struck the fourth planet in 2009, significantly raising the temperature of the atmosphere and altering the weather systems. With this jump start serendipitously provided by meteorites, Earth had hastened the process of making Mars livable by scattering the surface with spores and seeds, introducing desert—hardy animals, and establishing the five atmosphere-generating plants. Thanks to Earth’s efforts, the planet’s temperature had continued to rise. Eventually water had emerged from below ground and from the ice caps around the poles, and the air was gradually thickening.
Terraformation had been taking place for almost 150 years, and it would be at least another two centuries before it would be possible to live anywhere on Mars without a spacesuit. The atmosphere-generating plants were critical to the process. The plants themselves were automated, with all systems operated and monitored by robots, and the major centers of population on Mars were located in craters not far from each plant. The complexes were on the open surface of the planet rather than in craters, but the air they created flowed first into the nearest depressions in the surface, and it was here that most settlements were located.
The plant located in the southern hemisphere was the most remote, but had been filling the Mare Hadriacum, locally known as the Red Sea, for decades. This great depression was 2,500 miles in diameter. When much of the southern ice cap had melted, it filled the Red Sea with water up to about three-fourths capacity, making the region a delightful place for quiet living.
In the early morning of August 15, 2151, the cloudless sky was a brilliant violet, and the sun was rising like a bowl of molten gold. Marshal and Averette North, a retired couple, had climbed to the top of the crater wall to enjoy the sunrise. Six miles away was the atmosphere plant, gleaming in the newly-risen sun.
They were the only ones to see what happened next, but it happened so quickly that there was almost nothing to see. In the thin atmosphere, there was only a slight vapor trail and a short-lived but powerful whine; then with a dull, gut-churning thud a ball of black and orange flame slammed obliquely into the desert floor within a quarter of a mile of the atmosphere plant. An enormous wave of pinkish-ochre sand rose up in front of the impact site like a great wall. The shock wave quickly blew the wall of sand upward and outward, so that it sparkled like luminous rain until the sand particles became too scattered to be seen.
The shock wave struck the atmosphere plant and shoved it aside as if a giant, invisible hand were violently clearing a table of unwanted crockery. The crater wall where the Norths were standing rocked and heaved as if in an earthquake. The shock wave passed them, blowing their hair and rippling their clothing as if it were a pleasant breeze that died away as quickly as it had come.
The elderly couple stood frozen in shock and watched the cloud of dust gradually fill the entire eastern sky. After several minutes, the dust was thin enough to reveal a horseshoe-shaped crater almost a mile across. On the southwestern edge of the crater, where it trailed off into the desert without a sharp boundary, was the place where the atmosphere plant had been. Now the plant was broken into many thousands of pieces and the wreckage was scattered for three or four miles in a wide fan across the sand.