A reminder that volunteering for tuckerization only means a character in the story shares the participant's name. Other than that, there are no other similar characteristics implied.
Under the Dunes of Mars
by Alan Loewen
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Fred Jones carefully steered his exploration vehicle over and
around the dunes of Mars. Sinking sands that could swallow him and his
transport and not leave a trace of where he had been were rare but always a
possibility. His communicator chimed, the display flashing the name of the
director of the Asimov colony.
“Jones, here.”
"ETA to the mining station?"
“Still the same. 0900 UT. No problems here. The wind is good. Dust
manageable. Ground firm. Any new communications?”
“No,” the director said. Fred could hear the worry in her voice. “The station is still silent. Let’s hope it’s just a communication problem, and it’s
only a waste of your time.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it.” It’s why you pay me the
big bucks anyway, Fred thought sarcastically.
“But that’s why we pay you the big bucks,” the director said. “Stay
in touch.”
Four hours later, Fred rounded the last dune and gasped in horror.
Where the station was supposed to be, there was only a massive hole about
fifty yards wide, double the size needed to swallow the small complex and its
crew of ten. Another fifty yards west of the collapse stood another small
building, fortunately intact, that contained mining equipment and the elevator that allowed access
to the mine. Next to it stood the smelter, a much larger facility where
valuable minerals were separated from the raw ore.
Donning his helmet and making sure it was airtight, Fred went to
the small airlock of his transport and cycled outside.
Carefully walking to the edge of the hole, he looked down into a seemingly
bottomless abyss. Though assumptions were fatal in the Red Planet's hostile
environment, Fred assumed the mining colony must have hit a cavern compromising
the stability of the ground.
He had no idea how far down the station's wreckage lay. It was also a safe assumption the ten workers assigned to the project
could not have survived such a catastrophe. He radioed the director of the
Asimov Colony and gave his report.
Fifteen minutes later, Fred cycled through the airlock to the
building that housed the mine elevator. The size of a small warehouse, the building contained mining
equipment, and everything needed to mine titanium and chromium, two critical
minerals for the future of colonization.
The warehouse's interior was pressurized and its
independent power supply stood solidly in the green. However, the mine was not
pressurized, so the elevator had its own airlock. The diagnostic
computer reported the integrity of the elevator shaft remained intact.
Pulling up a map on the computer, Fred downloaded it into his suit.
Ten minutes later, he stood in the elevator as it took him down into the
planet.
The ride lasted a good twenty minutes to reach the bottom of the
shaft a half-mile below. Fred had been ordered to see how much damage had been
caused to the mine itself. As the mine played an essential part in the future of
Mars colonization, a little risk on his part was a small price to pay.
The elevator door opened to show a large room melted into the very
rock of the planet, the result of plasma cutters. Carts of ore ready to be
taken up to the smelter filled the room.
The computer inside Fred’s helmet beeped. He stared fascinated at
the display that flashed across his face helmet. Puzzled, he ordered the
computer to rerun its scans, and the results came back the same.
There was an atmosphere in the mine with high humidity, two
impossibilities this far underground. The atmosphere was still not breathable,
but as far as atmospheric pressure was concerned, in density, it rivaled Everest's
summit back on Earth. Much better than the almost vacuum present on the Martian
surface. And the air itself was an odd, raw mixture of mostly nitrogen with
trace amounts of hydrogen and oxygen.
Fascinated, Fred went to a control panel and turned on the passage
lights that led to the veins of ore the miners were digging.
Grabbing an electric cart, Fred drove deeper into
the mine.
The plasma cutters had created a solid crust that formed the
floor, walls, and ceiling of the tunnel. The tunnel itself led directly under where the main
building had stood, so Fred drove slowly, scanning the
walls for damage and the possibility of further collapse.
It didn’t take long for Fred to discover the solution to the building's disappearance. The passageway ended at a massive sinkhole, the passage almost choked
off by the station's wreckage that had fallen a half-mile into the surface of the
planet. Fred could not fathom the cavern's size that could have swallowed half
a mile of planetary rock, let alone the station.
And though the atmosphere was thin, it was enough to carry a faint sound; a slightly irregular rumble that penetrated his helmet.
Turning on the exterior lights of his suit, Fred made his
way around the wreckage of the station. He did not waste time looking for
survivors. A half-mile fall into the Martian planetary crust, as well as the
total destruction of the station, made it clear the fate of the miners.
As Fred made his way around the wreckage and shattered rock, the
sound became louder. At the edge of a cliff on the other side of the station's debris,
Fred stared into the stygian darkness of a cavernous room so massive the powerful
lights of his suit showed neither walls nor ceiling.
However, very carefully making his way to the edge of the cliff,
Fred was astounded to see droplets of moisture appear on his faceplate. Kneeling, he
looked over the edge. There, just barely visible in his lights,
massive waves battered the side of the cliff, waves Fred estimated at least
thirty feet tall.
Excited, Fred stood and made his way back to the elevator. This discovery had cost
ten lives and an unknown amount of resources. Still, the miners had
inadvertently found something far more valuable than the ores they dug
from the ground.
Fred had no idea how massive an underground lake had to be to have
waves thirty feet high. It might even be an ocean! But it was water;
life-giving water that, if carefully stewarded, would assure the future of
colonization for decades if not centuries to come.
As Fred quickly made his way back to the elevator, he could not
have seen the insanely long tentacle that made its way up over the cliffside. Ten
feet in diameter at its thickest with flesh as black as the abyss, the tentacle
glistened from the reddish phosphorescent light of its multiple eyes.
After a few moments, it once again sank into the underground ocean of Mars.
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