The Attempt (The Martian Manifesto Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

slightly the two joysticks he was holding , turning the rock in the rover’s claws. This was the most critical moment. He moved one hand to a dial and zoomed in on the small crack in the rock using the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI.  He had seen a glint of green as his rover had traversed the Martian landscape, and had stopped to examine this unique rock. “Yes,” he thought. “Definitely green.”
    Slowly he used one hand to select a small pick from the tool repository, and scraped the material onto a microscope slide. He maneuvered the small glass rectangle under the rover’s microscope, which he had nicknamed ‘Mickey’ to go with ‘MAHLI’.  Nervously he selected the maximum magnification. “C’mon Molly and Mickey, don’t let me down. This could be it,” he muttered. “This could be what justifies our whole mission. Algae…life.”
    The screen in front of him blurred, and then stabilized. It looked like a field of green rocks with jagged edges. “Damn! More crystals!” he said with a shake of his head.
    Just then he heard footsteps coming down the ladder behind him.
    “Hey Chuck, whatcha got there? Anything interesting?” Geologist Brad Newton said as he leaned over Charles’ shoulder. “Nice, looks like you’ve got either chlorite or some chromium there. Dump a bit into the CHIMRA chamber for chemical analysis.”
    “Sure, Brad,” Charles said with a sigh, twisting the joysticks to move the rock over the chamber’s intake scoop. “I was hoping I would finally find something biological when I saw the green color.”
    “I told you when we were training in the Atacama Desert in the mountains of Peru not to get too excited whenever you saw anything green,” Brad said with a smirk. “Just because that desert looked like Mars and some places had not seen any rainfall for years, you loved pointing out how algae could be found under rocks and just below the soil where tiny moisture lay hidden. From a geologist standpoint, we know green can come from all sorts of minerals. Plus, the atmosphere is so thin here that any surface moisture quickly evaporates, so finding algae on the surface would be miraculous.”
    “Well, then, we’ll just have to go deeper. I was on my way over to that crater we highlighted in our last satellite photo. You remember the one we spotted that looked like it had water trails down its slopes? Well, in any case, I guess since I’m already stopped, I might as well try drilling a few feet down here to see if there’s anything interesting. I’ll send the rover over to that crater a bit later for more extensive drilling. Do you want to keep me company?”
    “Let’s have some lunch upstairs first and find out if there is any news from Earth. Then we can come back and see what the rover digs up.”
    “Sounds like a plan,” Charles said. “But first, I’ll save us some time and put the rover in drill mode.” He maneuvered the robot to a clear spot, used the joysticks to select a drill bit, and set the rover to auto-drill. Checking the display, he saw the drill start turning and dust pluming into the air. He stood up and turned around to face Brad. “Lead the way, sir.”
    # # #
    Probe Spit felt a sequence of faint vibrations through its sensopads. It could tell that the ground was not being shaken by an earthquake or a meteoroid shower . “This is too regular for that,” it thought. “This is unexpected, but not unanticipated. I’d best expedite the mini-hoppers.”   Spit had one in storage that it could release immediately, but it would need more to cover all approaches to the crater. The probe directed its recently erected micro-factory to create three additional hoppers, and then released a picogram of antimatter down the magnetic conduit for the energy that would be required.
    Spit methodically took the already created hopper from storage and attached bits of sand and rock across its back for camouflage. It then directed the mini-hopper towards one rim of