THE BARTDON PAPERS - "Cancel all previous directives."

[UnusualAttitude]

13 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

If it helps you guys, I did hack up a RealFuels config (which seems to work in 1.1.3) for Karbonite to hydrolox, methalox, methanol, ammonia, the standard hypergols (hydrazine, MMH, UDMH, Aero50, with NTO and IRFNA-III oxidizers). The two biggest stretches I can think of: the HF component of IRFNA-III comes from space magic, and the synthesis routes for MMH, UDMH, and Aero50 are... complicated.

If you use it, I suggest using a bit of restraint and thinking of whether it would be realistic to get the raw materials at that body; I generally started my syntheses from H2O, NH3, and CO2, which may not be always available.

That's a very impressive list of processes there... I've never used Karbonite, but I may consider it as an alternative (it doesn't look like Real ISRU is going anywhere, unfortunately). If I understand correctly, the paths for producing hydrolox and methalox cryogenic fuels from local resources (water/ice and atmospheric CO2) are well-known and have been tested in the context of proposed missions to Mars or lunar bases. Producing hypergolic fuel via ISRU is much harder: some of the elements simply aren't available and the reactions are, as you say... complicated. Probably explodey, too...

The Camwise Logs makes the assumption that by the time we get round to performing ISRU on another world, hypergolic fuels will largely be a thing of the past and reduced to niche applications such as transfer stages for small probes spending a long time in a parking orbit, or maneuvering thrusters for larger ships. Cryogenic fuels will be the norm for larger vessels, boiloff will be manageable due to active cooling systems, and integrated RCS thrusters using the same propellants will be practical.

14 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

Sounds to me then like I should make the default hydrolox config dump LO2 (for some reason, the engine configs use ~3x more LH2 than LO2, when comparing on densities, it should be ~2x)

This, I believe, is because all hydrolox rocket engines run a fuel-rich mixture of propellants for improved ISP and to reduce the combustion temperature. All Real Fuels engines are configured accordingly. So yes, it takes longer to fill up on fuel than on oxidiser. And your tanks are even larger....

5 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

You know, there's actually a non-zero chance Bartdon could hit a golf ball across some of the smaller craters on Mars. Given a 100 m/sec swing (almost the world record), at a 45 degree angle, with Mars's weak gravity and negligible atmosphere, that ball could go nearly 2.7 km.

And yes, I was thinking "hm, I wonder if Bartdon could hit it across Hebes Mensa" when I started to run the math.

Well, now that Squad have officially announced that they intend to cash in on the KSP "franchise", we can expect a Kerbal version of some of the classic golfing games. Bartdon's PGA Solar System Tour, anyone? 

[Starman4308]

2 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

That's a very impressive list of processes there... I've never used Karbonite, but I may consider it as an alternative (it doesn't look like Real ISRU is going anywhere, unfortunately). If I understand correctly, the paths for producing hydrolox and methalox cryogenic fuels from local resources (water/ice and atmospheric CO2) are well-known and have been tested in the context of proposed missions to Mars or lunar bases. Producing hypergolic fuel via ISRU is much harder: some of the elements simply aren't available and the reactions are, as you say... complicated. Probably explodey, too...

So long as you've got ammonia, carbon dioxide, and water, the elements are there (except maybe the 0.5% HF in IRFNA, which is admittedly space magic*). My best guess is that they're talking about the chlorine necessary to make the chloramine, which can theoretically be recycled from the HCl byproduct... adding yet another reaction to the crazy set of reactions involved in making MMH/UDMH.

*And the HF is pretty necessary; without hydrofluoric acid, RFNA likes to chew through its tanks like candy. If you haven't already, I'd recommend "Ignition!" by John D. Clark; I recently gave it a read and loved it.

3 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

The Camwise Logs makes the assumption that by the time we get round to performing ISRU on another world, hypergolic fuels will largely be a thing of the past and reduced to niche applications such as transfer stages for small probes spending a long time in a parking orbit, or maneuvering thrusters for larger ships. Cryogenic fuels will be the norm for larger vessels, boiloff will be manageable due to active cooling systems, and integrated RCS thrusters using the same propellants will be practical.

I'm not quite as sold on the idea that cryogenic propellants will ever be practical for RCS applications; it can be difficult to get a reliable start, and RCS thrusters need to be able to turn themselves on and off very frequently, favoring hypergolic propellants and monopropellants. Fortunately for future ISRU operations, hydrazine is relatively easy to make from hydrogen peroxide and ammonia, and dinitrogen tetroxide from ammonia and oxygen, although the high melting point of hydrazine and the fact that hydrazine is liquid death to humans does put a small damper on things.

[UnusualAttitude]

17 minutes ago, Starman4308 said:

I'm not quite as sold on the idea that cryogenic propellants will ever be practical for RCS applications; it can be difficult to get a reliable start, and RCS thrusters need to be able to turn themselves on and off very frequently, favoring hypergolic propellants and monopropellants. Fortunately for future ISRU operations, hydrazine is relatively easy to make from hydrogen peroxide and ammonia, and dinitrogen tetroxide from ammonia and oxygen, although the high melting point of hydrazine and the fact that hydrazine is liquid death to humans does put a small damper on things.

Weeellll, there have been a couple of prototypes and working tests. For example, XCOR made a methalox RCS thruster that was supposed to fly on the Lynx spaceplane, although the project never got off the ground. Admittedly, this was for a vehicle that would make short, suborbital flights before returning to the hangar for maintenance/inspection. Doing the same with hydrolox would probably face additional challenges. 

Also, resistojets. I think my future designs will use these. I know they are used for propulsion and attitude control on many small satellites today. Don't know how well they would scale up for larger vehicles.

[Starman4308]

23 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Weeellll, there have been a couple of prototypes and working tests. For example, XCOR made a methalox RCS thruster that was supposed to fly on the Lynx spaceplane, although the project never got off the ground. Admittedly, this was for a vehicle that would make short, suborbital flights before returning to the hangar for maintenance/inspection. Doing the same with hydrolox would probably face additional challenges. 

Also, resistojets. I think my future designs will use these. I know they are used for propulsion and attitude control on many small satellites today. Don't know how well they would scale up for larger vehicles.

If you're going for electrical propulsion, there's an ion-based RCS part pack (depending on your KSP version, possibly part of AmpYear), which provides a potentially interesting tradeoff between efficiency and ease of refueling + electrical requirement + TWR.

[KAL 9000]

Featuring the Shepard golf course on the moon! It would be kind of fun to see Kerbal versions of all the major games:

Fuelout 4: A bunch of RTGs explode over Kerbin, meaning all Kerbals now have to live underground. 

Kerbcraft: You're stranded on Laythe! Make the most of your situation, and craft tools and build a shelter to fight off the Laytheans, all while gathering the sweet, sweet SCIENCE!

Grand Theft Spacecraft: You're Jeb. You need explosions to survive. Steal spaceships and blow them up! 

[UnusualAttitude]

Spoiler

 

The full panorama looking southwards down into Candor Chasma is well worth a look. Full SSTV transmission here.

 

Spoiler

 

The 360° view is here.

Panoramic view, looking back across Juventae Chasma to the East is here.

 

After ten days, we have covered nearly 2,400 kilometres.

Edited November 5, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[DMSP]

It's amazing, Mars, even in a modded video game.

Thank you so much for making this all happen, @UnusualAttitude.

[superstrijder15]

You should of course notify crossing the equator, and hebes chasma looks interesting: a mountain in a seabed or something. Good luck driving!

[UnusualAttitude]

7 hours ago, superstrijder15 said:

You should of course notify crossing the equator,

We already have, and we shall cross it again several times during the course of our journey. 

Spoiler

 

[HamnavoePer]

If it isn't too late to place requests, going to schiaparelli in the rough place of the Ares 4 mav. Yes, I like the martian.

[UnusualAttitude]

2 hours ago, HamnavoePer said:

If it isn't too late to place requests, going to schiaparelli in the rough place of the Ares 4 mav. Yes, I like the martian.

Requests are still cool, but I'm afraid that Schiaparelli is simply too far to the east of my landing site. Besides, I hear that it's raining space debris there at the moment, maybe not a good time to visit...

Take a look at the map and read this post:

Spoiler

I've reached the northeastern limit of the yellow area and will now be heading back to the southwest into Valles Marineris. An update is coming sometime this weekend.

Edited October 22, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[HamnavoePer]

4 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Requests are still cool, but I'm afraid that Schiaparelli is simply too far to the east of my landing site. Besides, I hear that it's raining space debris there at the moment, maybe not a good time to visit...

Take a look at the map and read this post:

  Reveal hidden contents

I've reached the northeastern limit of the yellow area and will now be heading back to the southwest into Valles Marineris. An update is coming sometime this weekend.

That's fine. I'll think of somewhere else. The picture didn't load on my mobile device. Using a laptop I can see it now.

[UnusualAttitude]

Spoiler

 

A detailed panoramic view of the crater can be found here.

A panoramic view of Orson Welles is here.

 

We have now travelled a total of 4,460 kilometres in 19 days.

Edited November 5, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[UnusualAttitude]

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

A panoramic view of Coprates Chasma is here.

A panoramic view looking back east along Lus Chasma is here.

 

Spoiler

 

A panoramic view of the Pavonis Mons caldera is here.

 

After 44 days of roving, we have travelled more than 10,000 kilometres across the surface of Mars.

 

Edited November 5, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[DMSP]

Wow. How long has this all taken?

[UnusualAttitude]

4 minutes ago, DMSP said:

Wow. How long has this all taken?

Far too long, even with autorove.  You're getting this more or less as I finish it. I've been roving for a couple of weeks now and I've been reading up on all the places Bartdon does his drive-by science in. It's been really interesting for me, but I don't want to bore all my readers to death so I'll probably speed up the pace now. 

Also, you guys need to take a closer look at those panoramic views (yes, I know they take a long time to load, be patient). You've all missed the local wildlife... 

[superstrijder15]

On 30-10-2016 at 2:20 AM, UnusualAttitude said:

Far too long, even with autorove.  You're getting this more or less as I finish it. I've been roving for a couple of weeks now and I've been reading up on all the places Bartdon does his drive-by science in. It's been really interesting for me, but I don't want to bore all my readers to death so I'll probably speed up the pace now. 

Also, you guys need to take a closer look at those panoramic views (yes, I know they take a long time to load, be patient). You've all missed the local wildlife... 

The normal pictures take long to load to, and while the upper ones load they offset the ones of this chapter, this could be helped by spoilering them *hint hint*

[UnusualAttitude]

1 hour ago, superstrijder15 said:

The normal pictures take long to load to, and while the upper ones load they offset the ones of this chapter, this could be helped by spoilering them *hint hint*

Yup, I can imagine this page is getting painful to load for some. I'll throw some spoiler tags in there.

Next update will see a return to our usual wordy format.

[Geschosskopf]

On 11/5/2016 at 10:57 AM, UnusualAttitude said:

Next update will see a return to our usual wordy format.

Well, I'm finally caught up with this one.  Wow, what an ambitious mission!  I'm glad it's working out so well, after all the work you've put into it.  Thanks for taking us on such a great tour of Mars.  I recall back in the 70s, I went to Disneyland where they'd recently revamped the original "rocket to the Moon" ride with a trip to Mars.  This included sending recon drones to fly along the "Marinated Valley", which sadly malfunctioned after only a few minutes.  I'd always wanted to see that place again

BTW, in the post of 22 October, down in the lower left part of the initial map picture, there's a large, dark crater.  Am I mistaken, or do I see the word "Mulch" written there?

[UnusualAttitude]

Awesome to see you back, @Geschosskopf. And a most timely return, too. Your expertise would have been sorely missed in the next few episodes, had you remained absent...

Vague, ominous hints aside, I wonder what the Martian canyons were "marinated" in to get that lovely rich, red colour? A fine Châteauneuf du Pape, perhaps. Or my personal (biased) favourite, the strong, dark reds of Cahors. Just imagining a catastrophic flood of millions of cubic metres of Clos Triguedina is enough to make my mouth water.

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

BTW, in the post of 22 October, down in the lower left part of the initial map picture, there's a large, dark crater.  Am I mistaken, or do I see the word "Mulch" written there?

Hehe, that would be Mutch Crater. I have hidden some surprises in the panoramic views, but no-one has spotted them, yet. Or if they have, they are not telling. 

Next part almost finished. I will try and post it tonight.

Edited November 8, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[Geschosskopf]

59 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Awesome to see you back, @Geschosskopf. And a most timely return, too. Your expertise would have been sorely missed in the next few episodes, had you remained absent...

Hmmm, I don't think I know how to do any of the things you're doing here

 

59 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Vague, ominous hints aside, I wonder what the Martian canyons were "marinated" in to get that lovely rich, red colour? A fine Châteauneuf du Pape, perhaps. Or my personal (biased) favourite, the strong, dark reds of Cahors. Just imagining a catastrophic flood of millions of cubic metres of Clos Triguedina is enough to make my mouth water.

I was thinking more of Tabasco sauce and such things.  It looks like what I soak snake and alligator in prior to frying into fritters

 

59 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Hehe, that would be Mutch Crater. I have hidden some surprises in the panoramic views, but no-one has spotted them, yet. Or if they have, they are not telling. 

I like "Mulch Crater" better .

Now that you mention it, I went back and examined the panoramics again, and spotted a couple of oddities.

Spoiler

 

Xanthe Terra

• Spoiler

  Unnamed Crater, just over the crest uphill from the rover, as if peeking over the rim at the crew.

   

Lus Chasma

• Spoiler

  On the smooth slop at the extreme left, in a darkish spot.  I'm surprised I missed this before.

   

Yup, surprising   And somewhat ominous.

 

 

[UnusualAttitude]

28 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

It looks like what I soak snake and alligator in prior to frying into fritters

Ooh. Now I want to try your spicy alligator fritters. A quick search of the Internet tells me that this is sadly pas possible in France, although there is a rumour about a Belgian company attempting to get an authorisation to import frozen crocodile. Dammit.

41 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

and spotted a couple of oddities.

Well spotted indeed. Just to be clear, these are nothing to do with the actual story. Just a bit of fun. And they are all based on real Martian anomalies spotted in pictures taken by probes on the surface.

Spoiler

You missed one more lurking on the flanks of Candor Chasma. 

 

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Ooh. Now I want to try your spicy alligator fritters. A quick search of the Internet tells me that this is sadly pas possible in France, although there is a rumour about a Belgian company attempting to get an authorisation to import frozen crocodile. Dammit.

Well, alligator and rattlesnake are nearly indistinguishable from tofu.  They have about the same texture and an absolute lack of flavors of their own.  They are all blank canvases upon which to paint with spices, preferably in the style of Kazuo Shiraga's "Chijusei Shizenhaku".  So you could probably get something quite similar to my alligator fritters by dumping large amounts of everything hot and zesty in your spice rack into a bowl, soaking balls of tofu in it for a while, then rolling in a light batter and frying.

I do find it surprising, however, that you can't get alligator meat in France.  There are vast farms and ranches of the things here, so there's no shortage of the meat.

BTW, down here on the bayou, we call the alligator "le cocodrie".  I've often wondered where this Spoonerism came from, but it goes way back.  There's a town of that name here that was founded in the 1700s.

 

1 hour ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Well spotted indeed. Just to be clear, these are nothing to do with the actual story. Just a bit of fun. And they are all based on real Martian anomalies spotted in pictures taken by probes on the surface.

Over in a flintknapping forum I read, somebody Photoshopped an appropriately colored Clovis point into one of the first pics Curiosity sent back

[UnusualAttitude]

YEAR 12, DAY 15. BARTDON.

We pulled up alongside Quissac sometime before noon.

Our exploration rover Areocambal was still running perfectly well, but the miles were now beginning to show. Scratches and dents dulled her previously shiny white bodywork, and a thin veneer of rust-coloured grime covered most of her exposed parts. But she had got us home. For now, at least.

It had taken us another two weeks to make the long trek back to base from Pavonis Mons and complete the first part of our Tour de Mars. As a precaution, we had already started to ration our supplies way back in Valles Marineris. Despite our best efforts to make them last, anything resembling proper solid food ran out less than halfway through this last leg across the highlands.

We kept going by taking hourly doses of the rover's seemingly endless supply of expresso coffee. We sweetened it far more than was reasonable and used it to bolt back vitamin tablets, as well as dunking small cinnamon flavoured biscuits that some thoughtful nutritionist had included in an inexplicably large quantity. But even the cinnamon biscuits ran out eventually.

We travelled from morning, setting off as soon as our batteries were charged, and stopping only an hour or so before dusk to allow them to top up before nightfall. Empty bellies growling, Engineer Mitzon and I had motored back across the rolling ochre dunes, kept awake through the long hours of driving by a permanent caffeine buzz, two vicious tempers and a couple of splitting headaches.

I happened to be driving when we broke the crest of the last dune and our shuttle was there waiting for us in the next hollow. It took a full minute for the information to register. Another minute for me to be convinced that it wasn't a caffeine-induced hallucination. A wave of exhaustion hit me as I pulled the rover's parking break and grabbed my suit for the short EVA over to Quissac. I had put the damned thing on so many times in the past two months that it had become second nature.

I could feel the crushing weight of every single day of my considerably long existence as I clambered painfully down the rover's ladder and, following Mitzon blindly, crawled across the small gap that separated us from our first decent meal in days. But, despite the discomfort I felt at that particular moment, I realised that it had been worth every single minute of pain, hardship and privation.

I had accomplished the greatest field trip in the history of science. The observations I had made and the samples we had gathered would keep Earth's entire scientific community busy for decades. Would we find clues of climates and environments buried deep in the Red Planet's past that had been suitable for life? Would we even find the tell-tale traces of biological activity hidden in the clays and minerals that were strewn across the landscape?

The biologists could pore over the samples for as long as they liked, as far as I was concerned. It no longer felt all that important. I had visited places that a whole generation of planetary investigators had only dreamt of ever seeing. I had gazed on vistas of indescribable beauty, the memory of which would remain with me until I drew my final breath.

And it was not over yet. So far, everything had gone according to plan. Refueling operations had been successful and Quissac's tanks were already full. Mission Control had approved an extended stay on the surface. After resting for a couple of days we would continue our exploration far into the northern hemisphere. And I fully intended to reach those blasted ice caps.

Ah... Martian gravity. Real food, none of that damned flavoured paste squeezed out of a tube. It occurred to me that I wasn't looking forward to going back to orbit. After eating what felt like my own weight in beans and tetra fish-paste, I somehow managed to reach my bunk and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

YEAR 12, DAY 43. BARTDON.

We made it.

This afternoon we broke the final crest that separated us from the southernmost limit of the polar region. A thin coating of ice draped the landscape along the northern horizon, glittering in the low sun that hadn't set for weeks at these latitudes. We had chosen to visit at the height of the boreal summer.

To get here, we had journeyed through the planet's northern reaches for another month. First of all, we had made a beeline to the northeast across Lunae Planum, then we had trundled down into the open plains of Acidalia Planitia. The Planitia was a dark region so vast that it could be spotted through Earth-based telescopes. All of the major outflow channels in the region including Valles Marineris, as well as Ares and Shalbatana Valles had once emptied into the Chryse and Acidalia basins.

We had expected to find easier terrain to drive through but as it turned out, that illusion did not last for long. Despite the absence of large canyons or volcanoes, the land remained extremely rugged. Aeons of harsh winds sweeping across these open plains had blown away many of the finer sediments that had smoothed out the slopes and craters in the highlands. We ducked and weaved our way across mile after mile of cracked, bedrock strewn landscapes.

After many days of following a tortuous path across Acidalia we came to one of the sites that had been requested by the folks back home. Stopping to take some pictures, I thought about this latest craze back on Earth that consisted of writing fictional stories about Kerbals in space. Despite the obvious influence of our real endeavours to explore our system, most of these stories seemed to be complete nonsense.

Take that book about the crew of a Martian mission called Ares 3, for example. Mitzon attempted to explain the plot to me, as he'd read it to kill time during the long transfer from Earth. However, I utterly failed to understand why a crew of Kerbals would make a two-year trip to another planet just to grow some potatoes, and how they could be incompetent enough to take-off for home without all of their damned crewmates on board. Blasted nonsense, I say, but if it improves awareness of what we're trying to do here, who am I to complain?

After that, we kept pushing eastwards to a hilly region on the borders of Arabia Terra called Cydonia. This was a place of immense interest to the planetary investigators, as it had probably once been a coastal region and presented many fascinating and poorly understood features such as oddly shaped hills and pyramid-like structures. We did not however find any clear trace of alien presence there. We took more pictures and samples and moved on, this time due North.

Ahead of us lay the expanse of the vast Boreal plains, and as we travelled onwards the days grew longer, until eventually the sun no longer dipped beneath the horizon at all. These extended periods of daylight allowed our solar rover to cover more and more ground each day. Our long journey to the edge of the ice caps was punctuated only by the few large craters that broke the monotony of this frigid landscape. In places that lay in the long shadows of gullies and boulders, patches of frost began to appear.

But the ice cap itself had made its seasonal retreat well beyond 80° North, and it wasn't until today that we spotted the blanket on the northern horizon. We stopped once more to gaze at these alien surroundings: a sight far more bleak and hostile than any arctic scenery on Earth. The track marks left by our rover revealed the sparkle of water-ice frost that lay just below the surface. Ahead of us lay the strange contrast of deep red Martian regolith and carbon and water ice of the purest white, untouched by the the presence of sentient beings, possibly since the beginning of time.

It occurred to me that my insistence on reaching the ice caps was just another excuse to delay the inevitable. We would have to go and examine the anomaly near Tharsis Tholus eventually. Give in and comply with the urgent demands of the Board, who by know were probably furious at my blatant disregard for their mission priorities.

I began to realise that I was afraid of what we might find, but we could put it off no longer. Tomorrow we return South, and face whatever awaits us there.

YEAR 12, DAY 53. BARTDON.

Last night we parked just a few kilometres away from our final objective. Time had flown since we left the poles, and the journey back southwards through the long, repetitive days of driving had gone by too swiftly. I couldn't sleep.

Our mission to Mars had so far been a resounding success. Couldn't we just leave it at that and return home triumphantly, with years and millions of funds worth of scientific data to go on? Couldn't we drive past the anomaly? Fake some sort of emergency or failure, and make our way back to our shuttle? Who would be any wiser?

Stop this dithering, Bartdon. You came here for a reason, and you're going to damn well face up to this challenge.

I took the wheel.

The ancient terrain of the eastern limits of Tharsis had been blasted by the wind until it was relatively smooth, but many low hills and ridges still impeded our view of the surroundings. As a result, we didn't spot the anomaly until we were almost on top of it.

From our first glance, any hopes of it being just an oddly shaped hill were dashed. Its dark burgundy hue made it stand out from the much paler surroundings like a sore thumb. If it it had been created from material that was native to Mars, then this material had been submitted to some sort of chemical or thermal process in the not-too-distant past.

We cut across the floor of a small valley and up the slope beyond so that we could approach the feature from slightly higher ground; the primitive instinct of a cautious animal investigating something beyond its comprehension. The artefact lay partially buried in dust near the top of a fairly steep slope, and as we cleared the ridge, we finally realised what we were actually looking at.

The bulging forehead. The protruding eyes. The thin slit of a closed mouth. It was a face. A Kerbal face. Subtly different from our own, with perhaps a slight exaggeration in the size of the crown and of the eyeballs, and a narrower chin. Or maybe that was just how it looked to me here from the ground? It was unmistakably Kerbal nevertheless.

Mitzon, unable to see it back in the passenger cabin, was going crazy. “What is it, PI? What have we discovered, boss?”

His voice drew me from my stupor, and I pulled the parking brake. “I think we have found your great-great-grandfather, SE.”

After we were both suited up in record time, we vented the rover and made our way out onto the surface. We approached the face cautiously in tense silence.

Up close, it was remarkably smooth with an almost polished finish, and its dark surface was slightly mottled like some sort of marble. It was utterly unlike any other rock formation we had seen on Mars. It reminded me of the standing stones that had been discovered out on the surface of my island back on Earth. A mysterious circle of monoliths that had been hewn from rock mined hundreds of kilometres away and dragged across the landscape by some herculean feat of primitive engineering, far back in Kerbal prehistory. Except this rock didn't even look as if it was from the planet we now stood on.

Nothing happened as I walked right up to the sheer wall at the base of the sculpture's chin. I resisted the urge to touch it, remembering what had happened to Camwise back on Luna. But this seemed different: the face was not a vessel of any kind. It stared up sightlessly at the pale red sky, as it had done for countless millennia before we had disturbed it. It seemed to be some sort of monument or beacon. Inanimate, but clearly left here to attract attention.

Our attention.

“What do we do now, boss?” said Mitzon, breaking the silence at last.

“We do what we did back on the Moon. We plug in the seismometer and find out if this thing talks.”

I went back to the rover and backed it carefully into position to allow Mitzon to get to work. Within minutes he had the ground base set up and connected a power socket into the back of the rover. Any seismic activity would now be picked up by Areocambal's instruments, and could be deciphered as audio or imagery using the codes we were now familiar with.

“How long do we wait?”

“As long as it takes. Or until we run out of damned food,” I snapped impatiently.

 

YEAR 12, DAY 54. BARTDON.

We reported back to Earth via the uplink to Laroque and prepared to spend another sleepless night in the shadow of the mysterious Face. I lay awake on my bunk, gazing upwards at the brilliant night sky through the small skylights in the rover's roof. A view of the heavens that was not blurred by a thick atmosphere, as it was on Earth.

As Mars spun through his short summer night, stars, Sol's planets and the great luminous belt of the galaxy scudded across my small, trapeze-shaped window on the universe. Somewhere out there was a star called Beta Hydri, and the beings who had sent these enigmatic constructs. And somewhere on one of those planets, their creations still waited for us to find them.

Was this Face just the latest in a series of clues? A breadcrumb trail that would eventually lead us to their Captain, perhaps even to their ship? It was a deadly spin on the game of hide-and-seek, and a damned expensive one if you were paying for the space programme that was required to play it.

Perhaps it would be possible to date this clearly ancient sculpture, although judging by what we already knew, that would be a foregone conclusion. One thing was now chillingly clear, however: the Crew had known of our existence. They had walked among Kerbals, our ancestors on planet Earth, and had remained active for long enough to create this evidence of our meeting.

The more I thought about it, the more this seemed absolutely terrifying.

Nevertheless, there was hope in the fact that we were still here. As Angun had already stated, any civilisation sufficiently advanced to cross the gulf between the stars could have eliminated us when we were still a primitive species. Clearly, they had been waiting for something. What did they want from us?

The strident chirp of an alarm and a red glow from the cockpit broke my train of thought. Mitzon, who had also been unable to sleep, was up in a flash and made his way over to the console immediately. He peered at the gauges through bleary eyes and after a few moments, announced his diagnostic.

“Something is drawing power.”

There was a click and a hum as the fuel cell kicked in to make up for the lack of solar energy.

“How much?” I asked hurriedly. Loss of power during the cold Martian night could mean a swift end for us both.

Mitzon did a few mental calculations. “It's significant, but nothing the fuel cells can't compensate for. We should be OK until dawn. Do we report this?”

The Face was apparently getting ready to speak.

“No, SE. Advise Laroque of a routine power-saving procedure and close that antenna. We want to save every little bit of juice we can.”

Mitzon and I spent the rest of the night in an uneasy silence, each immersed in our own thoughts and trying not to think about what sort of message we would be given. When dawn broke at last, we made a short EVA to inspect the rover and the baseplate. Nothing had moved. Mitzon wanted to check underneath it. I told him not to touch anything.

The power drainage increased proportionally to the output of our solar panels as the pale sun climbed overhead, but still the seismometer remained mute. Laroque – and therefore Mission Control – would be getting seriously concerned by our radio silence by now. To hell with them, I had to see this through. And, if possible, avoid broadcasting it to the entire planet in the process.

It happened when we returned to the crew cabin after our second EVA of the day, and were in the process of removing our suits. It started with another chime from the rover's console.

“The uplink... the antenna is deploying,” said Mitzon, staring at the instrument panel in front of him in disbelief. My worst fears were confirmed by the quiet hum from above as the short range omni extended from the rover's roof. “Maybe this is a forced remote command from Laroque...”

“SE, close that link down, now!” I barked. But it was too late, and the voice began to blare from the rover's intercom, over our radio and up to the areostationary network. From there it would be beamed across space to Laroque, and then automatically relayed back to Mission Control. Once it got there, twenty minutes later, it would be heard by every single member of the Board within minutes. And, of course, potentially every single Kerbal on Earth.

“Kerbals of Earth,” rang the emotionless voice in a reasonable but firm tone. “Please pay attention to the following communication. It is of vital importance to the future of your species, and of your planet.”

“The uplink...!?” I seethed at Mitzon.

He hammered on the consoles switches in futility. “I can't switch it off...”

Hell, do it your damned self, Bartdon. And with a sledgehammer, if need be... I thought, pulling on the helmet of my EVA suit and nodding at Mitzon to do the same so that I could vent the cabin.

“Kerbals of Earth. This is a pre-programmed message translated into your dominant language for your convenience. Do not attempt to respond. I am the First Mate of the Transmare, Second-in-Command of the Crew of Colonisation Mission Seven, sent by our Creators to explore your worlds.”

With my helmet now firmly in place, I could hear the voice loud and clear through my headset. I fumbled with the depressurisation lever and yanked it into the Emergency Vent position. A thin mist of water vapour condensed as the pressure dropped, and was swiftly swept out of the rover's hull into the near-vacuum beyond.

“This message was left here many Earth years ago, and if you are receiving it then you have evolved from the state of cave-dwelling savages to that of a true space-faring civilisation. I congratulate you for these accomplishments.”

I managed to rip the hatch open and began to haul myself through the small space onto the rover's roof.

“It is time for us to meet face-to-face and share each other's knowledge and resources. Due to unfortunate technical issues, my Captain, my Crew and I were forced to withdraw into the outer reaches of your system.”

I crawled out on top of the rover and turned to force the antenna to close physically. If it wasn't extended, I was pretty sure the signal could not reach our orbital network. I tried to depress the catch at the base of the antenna to release it, but it would not budge. Through a combination of wear and Martian dust and grit, it had jammed. I looked around wildly for something to hit it with.

“However, you will find members of our Crew present on the natural satellites of the gas giant planets. They will direct you to the location of our Captain, or to myself.”

“Mitzon, pass me your power-tool. Quick, dammit!”

“By our estimation of your present level of technology, I understand that it may take you some time to reach these worlds...”

I grabbed the tool from Mitzon's outstretched hand and grasped it by the chuck. I then used the grip as an improvised hammer and began raining desperate blows down onto the catch in an attempt to release it. Once... twice... it didn't budge.

“...but I shall expect new developments on your behalf within ten Earth years, such as a crewed mission with ambassadors from your planet, or at least a probe that can provide a reliable uplink for negotiations.”

A third time. Urgently. Harder. Something cracked and gave way inside my glove as the grip glanced off the catch and my hand smashed against the rover's bodywork, but I felt no pain. I hit harder still.

“I must insist on the importance of this request and the urgency with which you must work in order to comply. Should you fail to do so, we will have to consider your species as being a potential threat to our Creators. Our instructions would then oblige us to-”

The catch finally released under my repeated hammering, and with a single tug, I snapped the retractable antenna shut, cutting off the uplink.

Mitzon and I alone heard the terrifying conclusion to the First Mate's message.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[KAL 9000]

What was the end of the message?