Chapter 101

Zeke parked the runner near the base of a mountain.

He let Carly and Lindsey get out. He popped into the hidden room and made an extra globe and a copper bowl. He had enough spare pipes for one more lollipop. They were putting the outer ring of globes in a more five-pointed cut diamond arrangement for this set-up.

Pat was to drive the runner to the pickup point for Carly and Lindsay. It was only a 120km away. At a low cruising speed of 400km/hr, it wasn’t going to take long. Hercules promised to keep her safe. It wasn’t like anyone else was flying around; they had been grounded.

Pat was waiting for Carly and Lindsay once they were done. They happily told her of the sights, and she reciprocated. After twenty minutes, they began to worry about Zeke. While he had two more stops than them, he was quicker, and they expected him to arrive not long after them.

Then they felt the shield form and hurried outside.

Zeke had gone north-east to plant the extra pole.

It wasn’t where he had expected to put it, as it was a backup if the shield missed a join.

He had planted the last planned pole and was about to do the spells when his ring became hot. He felt around for life signs and found his family. However, he felt a tingle on the edge of his awareness and searched further to the north.

He checked his map for that area, but it showed nothing. He picked a spot and blinked. He was alarmed to find a dome under construction. It was in a valley some 12km south of Du Martheray’s crater wall near an old volcano.

An old freighter that he doubted would fly again was being used as temporary accommodation. He counted at least twenty people working on the site. He estimated the construction zone was outside the range of the shield.

Zeke blinked closer and loped up to one of the people. The woman was startled, to say the least.

“Excuse me, Ma’am, are you aware there is a plan to drop a huge arse asteroid into that crater in about nine hours?”

“Stupid man, of course I’m aware. That’s why we are building the processing plant here.”

“Were you told that they may have to crash land it and that you should evacuate this area?” he asked, worried by her lack of concern.

“Piffle, we planned the retrieval to the nth degree. They told us they had to do the extra orbit, but that was factored in.”

“So, did you factor in a 120m long by 90m wide chunk breaking off and landing on Grace Crater two hours ago?” he retorted angrily.

She stepped back from him. “What? That can’t be true.”

“Lady, you need to check all the facts. Your people need to evacuate, now!”

She shook her head, “We can’t. We were advised that all craft are grounded until the asteroid is on the ground. The freighter can’t fly, and we don’t have the gear to walk forty people out of here.”

“Um, how many people at Central were killed?” she asked more shakily.

“Thankfully, none. Make sure your people are inside before that damn asteroid lands. It will shake the shit out of this area, so stay in your suits and away from things that can fall on you,” Zeke told her before he loped away.

Once out of sight, he blinked to the highest point at the opening of the valley that was 5km to the south of southwest. He planted the last pole and held it as he formulated the spells and let the magic build.

“Alakazam!” he yelled and released the magic.

His globe lit up. The magic jumped to the next two, then the next and then the next until all of the shields activated and grew. Once complete, the shield had grown to 15m above the arbitrary sea level and 225km in diameter.

Castle Crater didn’t have the depth that Gale did. Zeke guessed they would have milder weather unless he came back and put Du Martheray Crater under the shield, too. He may have to do it just so half the asteroid wasn’t lost to the atmosphere of Mars and the solar winds. That is if they got it down safely.

This area did have a lot of flat land. A bit of rain would leach some of the sulphur and chlorine from the regolith. They may get some hardy desert grasses and shrubs that don’t mind a bit of cold to grow and acidic ground. Goats would do well. Plenty of people on Earth ate goat.

As the regolith became soil, more nutritious grasses could be grown. One day, they may even have cattle stations on Mars. Zeke chuckled. Gale Crater may have less flat land and lower elevations, but goats like hills, too. He suspected they would get more rain than here.

Zeke blinked back to his loved ones. It was time to go back to Armstrong and see to his stepfather’s funeral and say goodbye, for a while, to his mother and brother.

Then he could worry about his own life.

Once they were all back in Hercules, Zeke blinked to the crystal cavern.

“Why are we here?” Pat asked.

“I’m going to cheat and use the transporter. I believe I fixed it, but I haven’t actually used it, yet. The military found one on Luna. Even if it doesn’t have crystals, we can transport to it. We just can’t use it to come back here, until I fix that one. Akl says it doesn’t have lava pits and relies on sunlight.”