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collide with Mars.
I did some arithmetic in my head. That s about ten days from now.
Nine-point-eight-three Earth standard days, to be exact.
The Brain expanded the image of Mars until it filled the tank; a bull s-eye
appeared at a point just above the equator.
Estimated point of impact will be approximately twelve degrees North by
sixty-three degrees West, near the edge of the
Lunae Planum.
Just north of Valles Marineris, Jeri said. Oh God, Rohr, that s near . . .
I know. I didn t need a refresher course in planetary geography. The impact
point was in the low plains above Mariner Valley, only a few hundred klicks
northeast of Arsia Station, not to mention closer to the smaller settlements
scattered around the vast canyon system. For all I knew, there could now be a
small mining town on the Lunae Planum itself; Mars was being colonized so
quickly these days, it was hard to keep track of where a bunch of its one and
a half million inhabitants decided to pitch claims and call themselves New
Chattanooga or whatever.
Sabotage! McKinnon yelled. He unbuckled his harness and pushed himself
closer to the nav table, where he stared at the holo. Someone has sabotaged
the mass-driver so that it ll collide with
Mars! Do you realize . . . ?
Shut up, Captain. I didn t need his histrionics to tell me what would occur
if . . .
when
. . . 2046-
Barr came down in the middle of the Lunae Planum.
The Martian ecosystem wasn t as fragile as Earth s. Indeed, it was much more
volatile, as the attempt in the 50s to terraform the planet and make the
climate more stable had ultimately proved.
However, the Mars colonists who still remained after the boondoggle had come
to depend upon its seasonal patterns in order to grow crops, maintain solar
farms, continue mining operations and other activities which insured their
basic survival.
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It was a very tenuous sort of existence that relied upon conservative
prediction of climatic changes.
The impact of a three-kilometer asteroid in the equatorial region would throw
all that straight into the compost toilet. Localized quakes and duststorms
would only be the beginning; two or three hundred people might be killed
outright, but the worst would be yet to come. The amount of dust that would be
raised into the atmosphere by the collision would blot out the sky for months
on end, causing global temperatures to drop from Olympus Mons to the Hellas
Plantia. As a result, everything from agriculture to power supplies would be
affected, to put it mildly, with starvation in the cold and dark awaiting most
of the survivors.
It wasn t quite doomsday. A few isolated settlements might get by with the aid
of emergency relief efforts from Earth. But as the major colony world of
humankind, Mars would cease to exist.
McKinnon was still transfixed upon the holo tank, jabbing his finger at Mars
while raving about saboteurs and space pirates and God knows what else, when I
turned back to Jeri. She had taken the helm in my absence, and as the
Comet came up on the
Fool s Gold again, I closely studied the mass-
driver on the flatscreens.
Okay, I said quietly. The hangar bay is out . . . we can t send the skiff
in there while it s depressurized and the cradles are full. Maybe if we. . .
She was way ahead of me. There s an auxiliary docking collar here, she said,
pointing to a port on the spar leading to the command sphere. It ll be tight,
but I think we can squeeze us in there.
I looked at the screen. Tight indeed. Despite the fact that the
Comet had a universal docking adapter, the freighter wasn t designed for
mating with a craft as large as
Fool s Gold
. That s cutting it close, I said. If we can collapse the telemetry boom,
though, we might be able to make it.
She nodded. We can do that, no problem . . . except it means losing contact
with Ceres.
But if we don t hard-dock, I replied, then someone s got to go EVA and try
entering a service airlock.
Knowing that this someone would probably be me, I didn t much relish the idea.
An untethered spacewalk between two vessels under acceleration is an iffy
business at best. On the other hand, cutting off our radio link with Ceres
under these circumstances was probably not a good idea. If we fucked up in
some major way, then no one at Ceres Station would be informed of the
situation, and early warning from Ceres to Arsia Station might save a few
lives, if evacuation of settlements near
Lunae Planum was started soon enough.
I made up my mind. We ll hard-dock, I said, turning in my seat toward the
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