Qahirah’s Kayak

Derek M Shannon

© 2007 Derek Shannon

derekshannon@gmail.com

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Latin – English
Vallis – Valley
Valles – Valleys

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Table of Contents
1. THE MIDNIGHT WORKSHOP SESSION
2. ANYTHING BUT PATIENCE
3. SET TO SAIL
4. UNDER A BLUE STAR
5. A LONG ROVER RIDE
6. LONELY ON THE HIGH PLAIN
7. A FALLING STAR
8. THE FROZEN WATERFALL
9. THE CURIOUS CLIMBER
10. PATIENCE MEETS AN AIRMILL
11. A NARROW ESCAPE
12. SPRUNG FROM THE HOOSEGOW
13. THE CLOGGED BATHTUB
14. THE CARELESS KAYAKERS
15. THROUGH THE CHAOS AND INTO THE CAVERN
16. A FRIENDLY GLOW
17. THE HAPPY EXPLORERS NOTE: Chapter
18. BACK IN THE FLOW OF THINGS titles in red are
19. WINTER UNDER TWIN MOONS also shown on the
20. THE CANALS OF A GROWING TOWN rainbow map of
21. A LADDER TO THE SKY Mars
22. A SPECTACULAR VIEW
23. WINDMILLS, WHALES AND WALLOPS
24. GREEN AND RED MOLASSES
25. THE NET IN THE CHAOS
26. WHERE A ROVER ONCE ROAMED
27. THE GROWING CRASHING
28. JOURNEYS ON THE NEW SEA
29. TO THE CAPITAL CITY
30. A REUNION IN PASSING
Acknowledgements

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 1. THE MIDNIGHT WORKSHOP SESSION

Outside, a thin wind blew colder than anyone had ever known.

Inside, Qahirah held her breath.

The workshop creaked around her. The night through the nearest window was dark

with blowing dust. She wasn’t supposed to be down here this late, and certainly not in a

storm. If the wind woke Papa….

On the other hand, the wind covered up Qahirah’s own noise.

Their little house was shaped like a tin can, shiny and metallic. It groaned as it

shrank in the cold. Qahirah tightened the blanket around her shoulders. The creaking

subsided. The storm had shriveled the little house as small as it could go. All was quiet

but for the wind’s wolfish cry.

Qahirah resumed carving. Papa’s day of rest tomorrow might be the last chance for a

long while to learn how to do the next steps, and after that—The journey!

Qahirah glanced to the window. Her reflection in it seemed so small and alone. It

made her doubt that the journey would ever be possible.

With a firm shake of her head, Qahirah got back to work. The better to get every—

detail—just—right!

Slowly, a shape emerged from the aerogel block. It was half rocket and half canoe, a

toy kayak just bigger than her forearm. Three bulges on each side would add buoyancy.

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The bulges reminded Qahirah of the old six-wheeled robots that had once wandered

nearby. She wondered if the resemblance would bring good luck.

A tiny figure dressed in a spacesuit peaked up from the kayak’s middle to watch over

it all. The figure held a paddle as if to stroke unseen waters.

“Qahirah.”

She was nearly startled into dropping the whole creation. Instead, she caught herself

and clutched the kayak to her thumping heart.

Papa’s voice from the kitchen doorway was soft. She couldn’t be in too much

trouble.

Papa had been watching her for a while. He shuffled her up to bed, reminding her for

the millionth time that even the first child born on Mars needed sleep. But he did stop to

admire her handiwork. He asked what name she had given to the little kayaker.

“Patience,” Qahirah declared. “Her name is Patience.”

Papa’s face became serious. “So you must already know that it will take many

people, and a lot of time—perhaps many lifetimes, even—for Patience to complete her

journey. Do you still think it will be worth the trouble?”

Qahirah looked at her reflection again, this time in the porthole that was her tiny

bedroom window. “Maybe,” she replied.

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 Papa tucked Qahirah into her bunk. He set Patience on Qahirah’s bookshelf, next to

her stories of a strange wet world called Earth. He smiled. “That’s my girl! After all, it

could be the best kind of journey, the kind that never ends.”

This gave Qahirah a moment of puzzlement. “What do you mean, Papa? Of course

Patience will have an end to her journey. I’m building her to reach the sea. Her journey

will have to have an end there, unless….” Qahirah couldn’t bring herself to say, unless

Patience doesn’t last long enough for the sea to come about. Or unless Patience is lost or

stopped in her travels….

Papa only shook his head. “You’ll understand some day.” He stayed with Qahirah a

little while longer. They talked about all that would have to happen for the little kayak’s

journey to succeed. It nearly made Qahirah lose hope.

Papa offered some encouragement. “You can make it happen, Qahirah. I believe in

you! And the name you’ve chosen is a very good idea…it’s just that an even better idea

would be a good night’s sleep!” With that, Papa gave her a look that said No more

sneaking out. He flicked off the light and gently shut her door.

Qahirah was not inclined to argue. Surrounded by a howling storm on a frozen desert

planet, she dreamed of lakes, and rivers, and the sea.

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 2. ANYTHING BUT PATIENCE

The next morning the sun rose small and bright. The land awoke in perfect stillness.

Qahirah woke up with it. She took a glad moment to see that last night’s storm had

passed.

The long morning shadows seemed to be the desert’s way of stretching itself from

horizon to horizon, the better to soak up the sun’s first rays. It was all so clear after the

storm! From the lavender sky to the red and purple rocks, the world had been rubbed a

fresh raw pink. The air outside was one hundred times thinner than a person could

breathe, so the dust had settled quickly. Papa would have no excuse to delay!

The special equipment she would use that day took up a section of the rover garage,

which meant they would have to go outside. Qahirah had her helmet on and suit fastened

before Papa could remember what planet he was on. Before he had finished his coffee,

Qahirah had triple-checked her valves, fixed a loose wire in her radio, and begun to cycle

the airlock.

“Don’t rush, Qahirah!” Papa called out over his morning dispatch. “You don’t want

to depressurize the hab!”

Qahirah rolled her eyes. She had known all about airlocks since before she could

walk. Qahirah worked the controls with one gloved hand. Her fingers flashed over the

dials.

—Whoosh!—

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 The air in the airlock was the same pressure as in the kitchen.

Papa slurped his second cup of coffee.

The inner door opened. Papa barely had time to set down his coffee mug before

Qahirah had dragged him through. With a bounce she set the clear bubble of his helmet

over his balding head.

The inner door closed. After a few snapped latches and a blurted “Safety check!”

Qahirah was ready for the next step. She set a different airlock dial to the proper setting

and…

—Whoosh!—

The air in the airlock matched the near-nothing pressure of the desert planet outside.

The outer door opened.

Mars lay before them.

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 3. SET TO SAIL

Qahirah clambered down from the airlock almost on top of Papa. Her boots stomped

down on dirt. She did not mind the chill that tingled her toes.

Looking around, patches of frozen air still clung to the shady sides of dunes. When

the patches were gone, the sun would be high in the sky and it would be time for lunch.

But making up for a skipped breakfast was for later.

For now, Qahirah hopped from crunch to crunch in the frost, until halfway to the

rover garage Papa scolded, “Settle down, Qahirah, before you fall and crack your

helmet!”

Papa always said that.

Inside the big bubble of the rover garage, Papa took her through a maze of machines.

Qahirah learned quickly. Her heart leapt as the little kayak emerged from one device,

shining with its first coat of protective diamond.

Once Papa was satisfied that she understood how to use all the equipment safely,

Qahirah was free to finish on her own.

All that day and the next she worked. Ballast of wrought iron—smelt from the rust-

red sands all around—gave weight to the kayak’s base. A titanium bolt was reshaped to

become a gleaming, knife-sharp rudder.

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 All of it would have to last a very long time. This was the worry that guided Qahirah

as she applied the finishing touches, painting on details and refining the balance. At last

she applied the final coatings: One to protect against chemical oxidation, another against

ultraviolet light, and one more of diamond for good measure. Beneath all this, three

broad stripes on the kayak itself shone red, green and blue.

That night she raced back to the habitat to show Papa her completed work.

Qahirah’s kayak was ready to set sail.

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 4. UNDER A BLUE STAR

With so few people around, however, it was hard to say good-bye. Instead, wherever

she went, Qahirah brought Patience with her. Qahirah kept the little kayak by her books

as she studied in the greenhouse, or tucked between the oxygen tanks of her suit as she

scrambled over rocks. There was so much beauty in this world, yet so few people to

share it with! Qahirah was still the only child around for a long, long ways.

One afternoon was turning into evening as Qahirah and Papa hurried back to their tin

can house. They urged their all-terrain vehicles faster over the packed dirt. It had been a

hard day of exploring.

A pale blue evening star was peeking over the horizon as the glowing portholes of

home came into view.

“Look, Papa!” called Qahirah over her radio. They dismounted, and on a nearby rock

the pair took a seat to watch the star. It was following the sun’s example by disappearing

behind some far off hill. Qahirah knew that it was no star at all, but rather a planet.

It was the Earth, the planet where her parents had been born, but which she had never

known. Still, Qahirah knew that it was blue with oceans. It was warmer with its thick

atmosphere and closeness to the Sun. Qahirah knew this, and also that her own world of

Mars was red and cold. It made Qahirah sad. She reached out for Papa’s hand in the

growing twilight.

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 “Qahirah,” Papa said, “I know that you are lonely here. It was always my dream to

give my daughter a new world, a world of her very own, but I know this is not the world

of your dreams. At least, not yet.”

Qahirah nodded in her helmet. Her father had reminded her many times that she and

the planet shared a name, Mars in Latin, al-Qahir in Arabic. Qahirah even meant

“victorious.” This was her father’s favorite meaning, because—he said—that was how

she made him feel. Her name did make it feel like the whole world was hers, but it was

not her victory. Or as Papa had said, at least, not yet.

The blue star was slipping below the horizon. The silver dot of the Earth’s moon

became just barely visible, but it too was about to blink away.

“You dream of a world with people and oceans,” Papa continued. “Would you have

been happier if you were born on Earth?”

Qahirah was taken aback. The thought of living anywhere but Mars had never

crossed her mind. “No, Papa! The Earth is already alive…Where would the fun be in

that? I love this planet—our planet—as it is, and how it will be again. I want to see it

come back to life. I want to see it become a laughing, breathing, Mars of our own

making. And if I can’t be around, I want Patience to see it for me on her journey.”

Papa’s eyes were shining as he put an arm on her shoulder. “Then you’ll be happy to

know that today’s dispatch had some major announcements,” he said. His voice became

uncertain as he squeezed her tight. “Many more people will be arriving. You won’t be

lonely anymore.”

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 Qahirah felt many things, but uncertainty was not one of them. She leapt up,

springing skyward as if to greet the people from the blue star. They might already be on

their way! She came down with her arms around Papa in a hug.

“This will change our lives a lot,” continued Papa. “Patience will have her journey,

and you will have yours.” His eyes had caught the kayak wedged between his daughter’s

oxygen tanks. A smile had crept into his voice.

Qahirah looked at her father. More people meant more friends, and more hands to

help the waters flow once more. There was no time to lose!

A dark curtain had fallen over the western horizon. Smaller stars began to sparkle

through.

Qahirah decided that it was time for Patience to begin her journey.

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 5. A LONG ROVER RIDE

It would be the first time Qahirah had been allowed to take a long rover trip all by

herself. The rover was as safe as a little house…and Papa could always come to the

rescue if something went wrong, but still….

The thought of exploring alone gave Qahirah a funny feeling in her stomach.

Papa peppered her with last minute warnings as he helped her pack away food and

other supplies. “Radio back every night! Be sure to re-activate the main power cycle

every morning. Watch out for dust devils. And quicksand!”

“And sand devils, and quickdust!” Qahirah teased back. “I know, Papa, and I will.”

She put on a brave face, but Qahirah was glad that Patience would be with her.

The hour before her departure was taken up by one last session in the workshop.

There, Qahirah inscribed a message on the little kayak, once on each side:

I am Patience. Hear my plea. Help me reach the distant sea.

The rover rolled out. Qahirah was surprised at how small Papa looked as he waved

good-bye. The habitat disappeared from view behind a bend.

To pass the time, Qahirah spoke to the miniature spacesuited kayaker perched on the

rover’s dashboard. “Pay attention, Patience! When I was very little, Papa showed me a

rainbow map of Mars, where the biggest craters showed deep blues and purples, and the

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tallest volcanoes showed red, then brown, then white. The map revealed an ancient

waterway. The waterway has been dry for billions of years, but it still traces a path from

the ice cap at the South Pole to the plains that were once the northern sea.

“Patience, I want to see the water flow again. I want to see that ocean, with people all

around! But it will be a long time before that can happen.” Qahirah’s voice was sad.

“Patience, I have made you strong. This is the journey you must make for me.”

That was enough lesson for now. Qahirah flopped back in her driver’s seat.

The rover chugged quietly south over ridges and hills. Qahirah never tired of

watching the new sights stream by. Every night she radioed back her progress. Papa

listened as if he hadn’t already been monitoring every detail along the way.

After several days, the rover ride had gone on just long enough. Qahirah checked her

map and commanded the rover to stop.

“Well, Patience, we’re here.”

They had reached the very start of the great ancient waterway of Mars. At the

moment, however, there was only a dusty orange desert. Qahirah used a spade to take a

sample of the soil. She did not have to dig down very deep before the scoopfuls had

become bright with ice, almost more ice than dirt! This was indeed the place.

One last time Qahirah cradled Patience in her arms. She thought of how lonely the

trip back would be without the little kayak. She thought about Papa’s dispatch, the news

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that soon there would be new people all around, perhaps even other children! It would

not be so lonely then. They could all work together to help Patience on her way.

Gently, Qahirah set the kayak down upon the mound of icy soil.

“This is the right place for you to wait, Patience. I don’t know when the waters will

flow again, but I’ll make sure they do. I promise.”

Back in the rover, Qahirah took a final look at the little kayak perched on the desolate

plain. “Good-bye, Patience,” she whispered. “Maybe we’ll meet again some day.” She

felt like crying.

Qahirah tucked her samples of icy soil away in the cold storage compartment. She

commanded the rover to take her home.

She hoped she could keep her promise.

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 6. LONELY ON THE HIGH PLAIN

A soft wind whistled over the little kayak. No curious owls swooped down to have a

peek. No mice tested their teeth by nibbling on Patience’s helmet. The air was too thin,

the soil too cold, and the sunlight too harsh for any living creature.

Qahirah’s laboring hands had left microbes—tiny creatures too small to see—on the

kayak’s outer surface. Even these quickly met their end under the ultraviolet rays that

streamed each day.

Those days could be very long. This close to the southern pole of Mars, the sun

would sometimes twirl around Patience many times before setting. Then the days would

get shorter and shorter. The very air would freeze. Stars would be harder and harder to

see as Patience on her little mound became encased in ice. Eventually even the bright

blue star of Earth would fade from view through the slab of solid air. The wind’s soft

whisper would be muffled almost to nothing.

The sun rose again, however, again and again after each of many winters. The blue

star shone sometimes in the evenings, and sometimes in the mornings. But the high plain

all around Patience did not change, even as the fogs of spring rolled over it.

The plain was part of the Dorsa Argentea. Long ago cold waters from the polar cap

would pool here. Now the only water near the surface was ice mixed with frozen dirt.

Patience did not mind the changelessness. She could wait.

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Patience waited.

Towards the end of one spring night, a bright flash interrupted the changelessness.

A ball of fire thundered through the sky, and for a few seconds night became day.

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 7. A FALLING STAR

The sky faded once more to velvety black, but the hills to the south shone red like hot

coals. It might have seemed that a star had fallen from the sky, but had Patience been

able to count them, she would have found that all the sky’s stars were still at their posts.

Rather, a large chunk of rock—an asteroid the size of a basketball court—had come

crashing down. It had hurtled through space at tremendous speeds. Upon hitting Mars,

the great energy of its motion had become heat and light and a gaping, bowl-shaped hole.

The hole was an impact crater. Its formation threw chunks of the surface upward to

form smaller craters themselves as they fell back down. It vaporized rock and ice in the

shorter part of an instant. The thermal pulse from the cataclysm spread over the icy plain,

as if someone had spilled hot soup.

In a mission control center far to the north, Qahirah sat in the command chair as she

and her team of friends congratulated each other. Several Mars years ago, they had

selected one small mountain of rock from the untold multitude that swirled around the

Sun. Robots had lassoed it. Rockets had nudged it ever so slightly. The asteroid took on

a new path, one that sent it careening towards Mars.

Qahirah sat back and smiled. The site of the impact had been no accident. She had

helped Patience begin her journey. Now Qahirah herself had a journey for which she had

to prepare.

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 In Dorsa Argentea, the ground greeted the approaching dawn with a tremble. A blast

of steaming wind picked up. Dim though the early morning’s light may have been, there

was clearly movement at the plain’s southern edge.

The trembling became a rumble set to shake the planet apart.

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 8. THE FROZEN WATERFALL

The frozen crust of Dorsa Argentea buckled all around. The heat of the impact was

melting its icy surface. The liquid waters that had been lying dormant now raged to

break loose. They roared from below like a wounded lion.

Patience’s mound was where they burst forth onto the surface. The dirt around the

kayak melted away. A crash of water began carrying Patience on the first leg of her

travels. It seemed as though the entire land of Dorsa Argentea was surging down the

slope that dipped gently to the north.

Patience’s ride was anything but gentle. The rushing, muddy waters battered the

kayak. Rudely awakened and rude in turn, the waters converged at the head of a valley

system, the Surius Valleys. On the crest of one seething wave, Patience leapt over the

edge and into one of the valley system’s deepest gashes.

This valley led to another, much larger crater. It made the crater that Qahirah had

engineered look like a pinprick in comparison. It had been formed when a giant bit of

space junk—perhaps a comet one hundred kilometers wide!—struck Mars billions of

years before. Here near the crater’s edge, great blocks of stone had been tilted upwards.

The blocks had formed a ring of mountains nearly a thousand kilometers across.

Water had once carved a path through the scraggly peaks. With Patience leading the

charge, the water found its way again.

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 The valley rushed past. Soon the mountains loomed large all around, as if to warn of

the devastation ahead. Patience bobbed high as waves snapped and snarled at each other.

They tossed her between them.

Cold as the water ran, the air around was so thin that each wave wanted to boil so

much as freeze. Water hissed away into the atmosphere. Near the edges of this newborn

river, the slower waters began to crack and spit. Ice formed only to shatter into a million

pieces. But every time the ice formed again, it lasted a little longer.

The ice migrated toward the river’s center. It advanced on Patience. Giant rafts of it

threatened to smash her to smithereens.

Just as the river seemed almost solid, it flung itself—and Patience with it!—into a

great abyss. Tumbling end over end, the remaining water froze ice and rock together as

the whole mess plummeted downward. Thick fog obscured the bottom.

Patience would not find the bottom this day. The freezing jumble trapped her as well.

The tip of the kayak peeked out of a wall of ice.

Patience was trapped in a frozen waterfall.

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 9. THE CURIOUS CLIMBER

As day broke, an amazing sight opened up before Patience. The icefall lay on the rim

of the Argyre Basin, the impact crater that had formed the surrounding mountains. It was

so vast that the far side could not be glimpsed, even from Patience’s high vantage point.

The grip of the icefall held fast even in the peak of summer. In the cold, thin air the

ice could sublime directly into water vapor…but it would not melt. Patience passed

many seasons before the grandeur of Argyre.

Patience could not see, of course, but even if she had been able, the kayak blocked the

view directly below her. It would therefore have come as quite a shock when—on one

particularly rosy morning—a spacesuited ice climber appeared beside her.

The ice climber clung to the face of the icefall with crampons, pitons, and a shining

ice axe. Inside his helmet, he blinked and shook his head. He checked the oxygen

readings on his suit. He wiped frost from his faceplate with a free hand. With the other,

he began switching his lifeline between pitons while leaning far over to get a better look.

“By Jo’!” he radioed back to his friends. The rover in which his friends were waiting

looked like an ant from the great height. The wind whistled. “There’s some kind of toy

wedged in the ice up here! I’m going to—”

That was the moment when the crampon of his right boot slipped! The climber did

not fall very fast in the low gravity, but the bottom was so far below if would not have

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mattered. He had just enough time to extend a gloved hand and grab the tiny kayak. He

hung on for dear life.

Of course, that was the moment—precisely the wrong one!—that Patience began to

slide out of her ice prison. In a flash, the climber had reattached his lifeline, but it was

too late! With Patience in one hand and the lifeline in the other, the climber dropped

down towards the floor of the crater. He shouted as he fell.

Just as fear drove its memory from his mind, the lifeline pulled taut. The light gravity

had pulled him to its end. He and Patience swung lazily across the pillar of ice. The pair

rocked back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

The climber radioed to his friends that he’d had enough for one day. He cautiously

rappelled the rest of the way down.

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 10. PATIENCE MEETS AN AIRMILL

The climber breathed a sigh of relief as his boots touched solid ground. He kicked his

crampons off and took a closer look at the find that had nearly left him to be found.

Patience’s spacesuit was very old-fashioned. She must be very old. He read the

inscription on the sides of the kayak.

I am Patience. Hear my plea. Help me reach the distant sea.

The climber looked around. Aside from the icefall and the waiting rover, there was

nothing but rock for as far as the eye could see.

The climber thought about taking Patience back to his friends. It didn’t seem like

such a good idea. They might put up a fuss, and Patience might never complete her

journey. The climber was too grateful for the little kayak’s brief handhold to let that

happen, even if the journey did seem impossible. He set Patience down a ways from both

the rover and the base of the icefall. It would be a better story if his friends were left

wondering if it were true!

Back in the rover, the climber told his tale. His friends only half-believed it. They

soon fell to discussing other topics, like the first mission to another star. The explorers of

that mission had just left the Solar System, on a voyage that would last them many, many

years. But despite such distractions, some of the climber’s friends repeated the story, a

story about a little kayak that sought the sea. A sort of legend sprang up.

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 Legends were no use to Patience. The little kayak was left to sit in safety on the floor

of the great crater. Seasons passed. Sometimes the wind blew stronger than it ever had

before, and the little kayak would rock back and forth. The pillar of the icefall collapsed

one day. It left a heap in the distance. The rubble might have crushed Patience had she

still been trapped inside.

More floods came. While all eventually became new frozen pillars on the crater rim,

the base of each pillar reached farther and farther into Argyre. Soon, Patience was once

again lost in a jumble of ice blocks. On the sunniest days and in certain places, the top of

the ice would melt. The water would still boil away, but not as fast as it once had. The

wind would blow the kayak back and forth in a small pool above the ice. Then as night

approached, the chill would freeze Patience back into place until the next heat wave.

It was late one fall when a new sort of rumble could be heard across the ice. It was

neither a Marsquake, nor a flood, nor even a falling asteroid. It was a giant sort of rover.

The giant rover scooped ice up off the surface. The ice went into a contraption at the

front, where whirling metal jaws crushed bits of rock and the ice itself before a conveyor

belt ushered the mish-mash into its mysterious confines. At the rear, strange clouds

billowed out of a tall metal chimney.

Sometimes the giant rover could not be seen at all. At others, it and two or three just

like it were in sight, gobbling away all across the crater. They would zig and zag and

rarely come near. That is, until one day when a giant rover was becoming giant indeed.

Its hungry jaws opened wide like a hippo’s as it headed straight for Patience.

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 11. A NARROW ESCAPE

The clamping and clanging of metal jaws echoed louder and louder over the ice.

Chips of rock danced across the surface before the looming shadow. Patience danced

with them, but not nearly far enough to escape the path of destruction.

At the…

—last!—

—possible!—

—instant!—

…the giant rover lurched to one side. It sputtered to a halt. Its jaws went silent.

An airlock cycled. The feminine form of the driver stepped gracefully down and

approached Patience. The driver scratched her head as best she could through her helmet.

“Gal-ax-Y!” she muttered to herself. Her strong arms scooped Patience gently up off the

ice. “You had a narrow escape just now, little…” She didn’t know what to call the

bizarre find, until she turned the kayak over in her gloved hands.

“…Patience! Well, Patience,” the driver continued, “You’re not safe here. Not every

airjack has an eye as sharp as mine!” The driver—or airjack, rather—began carrying

Patience back to the giant rover. Pointing, she said, “This here’s my airmill, and I’m

sorry the two of you had to meet under such circumstances. I think in the long run the

two of you will be best of friends.”

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 The airjack was right. In the years that followed, Patience might have become the

world’s leading expert on airjacks, airmills, and their mysterious mission.

The explanation was repeated often. “Patience, the air on Mars is very thin. It’s

mostly made out of a gas called carbon dioxide. That warms this here planet a bit, but

not enough for there ever to be an ocean again. Don’t worry, though—There are better

gases for trapping the sun’s heat, fluorocarbons and whatnot. It’s sort of like wrapping

the planet in a thicker, warmer blanket!”

The airjack would use the airmill’s sensors to scour the ice for just the right deposits.

Then she would poke around Argyre, talking to Patience all the while. “Those floods that

brought you this far aren’t much good as rivers, Patience, but the ice they leave on the

surface is very useful, rich in fluorine and such and so forth. That ice provides us with

raw materials. Airmills like this one are roving all over the planet, and that’s not all…”

Through all the seasons of exploring, even before the arrival of Patience, a large logo

had remained emblazoned on the airmill’s side. It looked eerily like the silhouette of a

small, spacesuited figure seated in a kayak. As to the why and wherefore of this mystery,

the airjack never explained outright. Now and then she would hint, however, by

muttering, “Gal-ax-Y! We thought he was just a klutz, but all this time, that crazy ol’

climbin’ fool was telling the truth about his fall that day…”

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 12. SPRUNG FROM THE HOOSEGOW

Patience kept the airjack company for many a day. The little kayak would look out

from the airmill’s dashboard as it trundled back and forth across the ice of the crater

floor. Fluorocarbons poured out of its shiny chimney. Each puff warmed the planet a

little bit more.

When the airjack went on vacation, Patience would go on display in the cafeteria of

the air-making company. Other airjacks and visitors would come to gawk, but they

always showed enough respect to make sure that Patience faced the spectacular view

outside.

Far in the distance, the basin of Argyre gleamed white with ice. At the peak of

summer, the brightness in the distance would sometimes shimmer and break into a dark

mottle.

During one long vacation, Patience was put on display under glass. A sign nearby

read: “PROPERTY OF AIRCO, INCORPORATED.”

When the airjack returned, she was not at all happy.

“It’s the end of an era, Patience,” the airjack said. It was late at night, after everyone

else had left. “We don’t need to crunch the ice up, anymore. It’s not even ice most of the

time!”

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 The airjack rapped her knuckles on the glass to test its strength. “And just when

you’d be safe back in the waters, those jokers go and toss you in the hoosegow. Well, I’ll

get in bit of trouble for this, but it’s about time to retire anyway. Let’s spring you on out

of there, little buddy.”

The airjack wedged a small tool beneath the glass case. She lifted the case up and off

Patience. “Even if the sea isn’t quite there yet, it’s time to set you free to find it!”

An alarm began buzzing.

The room glowed red.

The airjack rushed off with Patience under one arm.

Later that night, far from the security cameras and searching lights, the airjack and

her friends held a secret ceremony. There was cake and a ribbon cutting and a ramp

down which Patience slid into calm, clear water. Still very cold, it splashed all around.

A wind kicked up, carrying the little kayak away. The airjack and her friends

shivered in their spacesuits as they waved good-bye. The ceremony was for many of

them their retirement party, as well, after many years of trekking across the ice.

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 13. THE CLOGGED BATHTUB

Argyre was wetter now, but all the melted ice added up to barely a few bucketfuls.

The water froze solid around Patience every winter. Every spring, however, Argyre

thawed to welcome new waters from the south to its blue expanse.

Once there, the waters would swish and circle with nowhere to go. Patience flowed

with them around and around. With each cycle of the seasons she rose up higher with the

waters, as if trapped in a clogged bathtub. One stretch of the crater walls in the north did

not rise very high at all. This was the mouth of the Uzboi Valley, where long ago the

waters had risen high enough to rush out.

Patience was near where her icefall had once crashed down when it happened again.

The currents quickened. The first waters to rise above the dusty mouth of Uzboi

Valley had trickled only briefly before becoming a great torrent. They carved down to

bedrock in an instant.

The waters of Argyre tugged Patience along as they unleashed themselves on the

long-sleeping waterways to the north.

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 14. THE CARELESS KAYAKERS

Patience bobbed along towards the rapids that marked the entrance to Uzboi Valley.

The valley made a gap in the peaks of the Nereid Mountains. After so long going in

circles, to go north at last!

The great white roar of water over rocks echoed as the mouth of the valley drew near.

It was hard to tell which was more powerful, the rushing waters or the pounding noise!

Patience was not the only kayaker to approach the rapids. Several full-size paddlers

were poised to take the plunge themselves. Some of them did not wear full space helmets

at all. Instead, they wore simple contraptions that covered their noses and mouths like

the masks of surgeons. Such oxygen masks were all that were needed in the thickening

air—Those and a good wetsuit for the frigid waters!

Others wore helmets, but not the fancy new models that had been the fashion for

some time. Instead, their helmets were downright bulbous and antiquated. They looked

suspiciously similar to that carved long ago for Patience herself.

One of the kayakers spotted Patience through a pair of binoculars. The kayakers

lifted their paddles in a cheer. They had timed their expedition just right, but not for the

reasons a certain air-making company would have liked.

Airco, Inc. was offering a “Patience Prize” for returning the little kayak to the

company’s private collection. The members of the kayaking expedition, however, were

not there to capture Patience or the reward. They thought they had a better idea. They

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would follow Patience through this segment of her journey. Then they would work hard

to bring about the sea that would greet her at its end.

Patience floated through their midst. The kayakers paddled backwards to keep their

positions. One was close enough to reach out and pat Patience with his paddle, for luck.

Patience passed the lead kayaker. A yell went out from the group. Led by the

smallest amongst them, the armada set out across the rapids of Uzboi Valley.

Water had not flowed through the valley in a long time, so the way was wild and

untamed. Water cascaded over small cliffs in arcing waterfalls that were just barely

navigable thanks to the low gravity. Jets shot up in a confusion of whitewater.

In one whirlpool, the way was lost entirely, and the currents were so strong that the

kayakers could not find a way out. The raging waters threatened to bash them on sharp

rocks as they exhausted themselves more and more with each spin.

A flume of water catapulted Patience onto just the right current at just the right time.

She floated away, out of the deadly whirlpool. The kayaker who had patted Patience

with his paddle saw Patience escape. He yelled to his companions.

Digging their paddles into the foam, the careless kayakers strove towards the patch of

saving current. The maelstrom fought against their every stroke. The last of the group

had just made her exit when Patience disappeared from view around a bend.

The kayakers lingered in the calm. It was good to have a moment’s rest. They

slowly regained their strength before continuing downstream.

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 15. THROUGH THE CHAOS AND INTO THE CAVERN

The kayakers did not catch up to Patience. There were too many paths to choose, and

more were being made all the time.

Uzboi Valley branched this way and that. The water would course through each

stretch of valley until another crater reared up before it. Some craters were very old, and

the water could follow the same path it had previously. Just as often, a crater would be

young, obliterating the waters’ last path and forcing a detour as the waters searched for a

new route.

This fickle flow kept Patience bobbing around for a whole season.

One day the water was working to find its way with particular ferocity. It was a place

where rivers of lava had once flowed across the land. In some cases, the outer layers of

lava had cooled as the molten rock inside flowed away. A hollow shell called a lava tube

would be all that was left. The lava tubes went off every which way like a tangle of

sewer pipes.

Patience was battered against rock as the water attacked a broken lava tube that

barred its way. The rock was strong, but the water gained the upper hand. Its swirling

vortices drilled into the rubble, and suddenly a new path was pierced. Most of the water

flowed up and over, but not Patience. Some quirk of the current sent her right into the

ancient lava tube!

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 Sunlight was soon a distant memory. Patience was carried deep beneath the surface

by the flowing water, through twists and turns and sometimes narrow passages. Finally,

she rode a spout of water out the end of the lava tube, and fell—

…down…

…down…

…down…

—SPLASH! —

The little kayak landed in a place of stillness. Aside from that, it was too dark to tell

what kind of place it was. There was a crashing from above as the end of the lava tube

collapsed.

Patience was trapped in a watery cavern.

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 16. A FRIENDLY GLOW

The last drops from the lava tube plunked down. The water at the surface must have

chosen another way. Ripples from the drops spread out over the cave waters. They made

the smallest of splashes on the cavern walls before bouncing back fainter and fainter,

until not even an echo was left. It became very quiet.

Mars is half again as far from the Sun as the Earth, and the sun’s light there is not as

bright. So to be trapped deep underground there is a very dark situation, indeed. In this

particular cavern, however, it was not always as dark as one might expect. Nor was it as

cold.

The cavern was warmed not by the faraway sun, but by heat flowing up right from the

core of Mars. In the early days of the planet, such warmth had exploded from the depths

to craft huge volcanoes like Olympus Mons, the tallest in the Solar System. Now, the

heat percolated slowly, and only here and there. Caverns like the one where Patience

now resided were rare.

Patience sat on the surface of a deep pool, not even drifting between its shores.

Some of the water here had arrived with Patience through the lava tube, but most of it

was from long before. The waters that flowed here would circulate down through cracks

into the hot depths of the planet. They would then slosh back just in time to keep the

cavern waters from freezing.

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 When this happened, Patience would bob amidst the bubbles. Strange vapors would

fill the cavern until the waters went quiet again. It was a cycle that had been spinning

since the dawn of Mars.

At times, Patience might have witnessed a spooky glow in the ancient waters. It was

strongest when a batch of roiling bubbles had just arrived from below. Sometimes the

glow would just barely illuminate the sharp spikes of stalactites on the cavern ceiling

high above.

Long acquaintance made the glow less spooky. Rather, it became more of a friendly

glow.

Then one day—or rather, during one instant of that never-ending night—a bright

shaft of light stabbed down.

It blazed forth from somewhere high up.

A gasp echoed off the cavern walls.

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 17. THE HAPPY EXPLORERS

“What’s that?”

The question rang like a bell in the immense hollow. It was hardly muffled at all

from beneath the asker’s oxygen mask. That oxygen mask was complemented by a full

biosuit. Apparently, the asker and his companion wanted to keep the cave sterile.

The asker was a timid young student, and he was getting nervous. This whole crazy

spelunking expedition was his professor’s idea. That professor—a very knowledgeable

woman, to be sure—was confident that the heat from the planet’s interior would lead

them to an interesting discovery. The student was not convinced.

The professor wanted to find the most shielded depths of the cavern. There, the

warmth of the planet might have created an environment sheltered from the harsh surface.

It was the young student’s job to trace the most direct route downward. But the tunnels

before him snaked in all different directions. The radar map was a muddle. Any more

mistakes and they would be lost in the labyrinth.

The young student had almost called off their search for the day, saying, “Professor, I

think we’d better head ba—”

It had been just then that an explosion of diamond had erupted. It happened right as

the student had waved his flashlight over a particular crevice in the side of one tunnel.

Something far below had sparkled red, green, and blue.

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 The young student’s “What’s that?” was still ringing as he again directed its beam

downward. Squinting, it appeared almost as if a sliver of diamond was reflecting the

beam. A dark pool surrounded the sliver. When he turned the light off and let his eyes

adjust, there was instead a sliver of darkness, while the pool around it seemed to…glow?

Now, here was an interesting discovery!

The professor was only too happy to have a glimpse. She agreed that they should

investigate. The crevice was too small to squeeze through, however, and the line they

had brought was too short. Painstakingly, they mapped out a detour.

The student led the way with renewed confidence until they came to a watery

impasse. Breaking out their cave-diving fins, the pair slipped beneath the inky waters.

It should have been just a short swim beneath a ledge….

They should have popped up—right away!—in a pool on the other side….

Instead, the short swim turned into a desperate slog through the murk.

The thermal sensor seemed to be leading them in the right direction, but right when

they should have been surfacing it shorted out. The student and the professor kept their

lights on to communicate with sign language. The way seemed hopeless and it would be

better to go back…but now even the return path was uncertain.

The chill of the waters crept in on them.

The ceiling of rock pressed down.

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 To the young student, the walls felt more like the coils of a python. The scales

constricted around him. It seemed impossible to tell, which gap would lead to safety, and

which would lead to icy fangs in the dark.

Fighting off his panic, the young student remembered the glow. The glow became

the spark of an idea. He and his professor turned off all their lights, even the tiny ones

that would help them find each other if they got separated.

It was worth the risk, for there it was!

The friendly glow was shining from just a little ways off. It beckoned through a

small chink in the python’s armor. Professor and student stroked their fins in its

direction. They squeezed through the crack, one by one. Then they powered upwards,

rushing upwards on their fins like birds that had spotted a snake just in time.

The young student drew a long breath from his oxygen tank as they broke the surface.

All around them, perhaps agitated by the commotion, the glow seemed brighter than ever.

Before them was the source of the sparkle. It was a little kayak painted red, green,

and blue, carrying a tiny, spacesuited figure, and made nearly invincible by a coat (or

two!) of protective diamond. The student and professor didn’t know what to make of it,

but they figured the little kayak could use a lift out of there.

The two happy explorers tucked rocks, water samples, and Patience into their packs.

They began to wind their way back, up to the smiling sun.

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 18. BACK IN THE FLOW OF THINGS

The young student squinted as they reached daylight. Their rover was parked just

ahead, on the edge of a fissure. The rover had a mobile laboratory onboard. Professor

and student clambered into the airlock with their finds in tow.

Inside, with oxygen masks off, the two could smell a whiff of rotten egg stench

coming from their discarded biosuits. It wasn’t pleasant, but it could mean that

something exciting was afoot!

The student read Patience’s name from the inscription, and spoke to the little kayak

sealed tightly away inside a sample bag. “Now, Patience, we’re awful happy to have

found you, but we were looking for an even bigger prize, maybe the most amazing

discovery in history: life—”

“—on Mars!” his professor interrupted. She called her student over to a very

complicated instrument. “This is very different from anything we’ve ever seen, and

Patience led us to it.” The professor gave the little kayak a knowing smile. “Take a

look—I don’t think we can even call its genetic material DNA!”

When the student finally managed to peer into the instrument, his jaw dropped. He

wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at, but it was definitely…alien? It was an

incredible realization, to think that the microbes swimming before his eyes might just

turn everything people knew about life upside down.

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 First they had to study it, though. The two scientists were analyzing the discovery

and arguing over it all through the night.

They even analyzed Patience. It seemed that no organism, from any planet, had

found purchase recently on her diamond-coated surface. It was safe to free Patience from

the sample bag.

As they worked, the scientists were surprised to learn that a company called Airco,

Inc. was still offering a large prize for the chance to put Patience in its private collection.

Both student and professor put the kibosh on that. After Patience had guided them so

well, it didn’t seem fair not to send the little kayak on its way.

This the scientists did quietly, soon after they astounded the world with their

discovery, and after several other labs had verified that Patience was not a source of

contamination in the cavern ecosystem.

Patience floated away on a serene stretch of river. The waters had long since worn

down the rapids here. The scientists watched the little kayak until it had disappeared in

the distance. Then they headed off to search for more alien life.

The free-flowing surface waters were a better home for Patience.

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 19. WINTER UNDER TWIN MOONS

The waters were not calm for long. It was the height of spring when Patience began

down the long waterway again, and the waters flowed fast and deep. Patience was

carried along quickly, but as winter approached the river became a tumult, then a trickle,

and then froze over just as Patience splashed on an icy wave into Holden Crater.

This crater was not so big as mighty Argyre, but it too had once been a lake where

waters circled before heading to the sea. As the waters arrived, their currents slowed.

The waters would dump the sediment they had carried as rivers. The sediment had

formed layer upon layer on the crater floor.

When the waters had left, wind had carved the layers into a thousand different shapes.

Spires, buttes and mesas had reared up where there had once been a lazy lake bottom.

Now these features reared up all around Patience, and made it clear that the waters had

not yet reached their former glory. During this particular winter they were little more

than an ice puddle. Holden Crater would be a lake again, but for now the waters were not

yet ready to claim the title.

The old layers gave the landscape a striped appearance. As the winter wore on, the

grit of fierce winds polished into a mirror the ice sheet on which Patience sat. The striped

mesas reflected up and down until it was hard to tell which way was which.

On the least frigid winter days, the pressure of a skate blade had enough warmth to

allow its user to glide across the ice. On such days, people would go ice-skating in

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Holden Crater. Tiny figures could be seen careening around the most scenic buttes.

Sometimes people would skim across the surface at tremendous speeds in iceboats that

braved the bitter winds.

None of these revelers ever came near Patience. The little kayak’s diamond glitter

was lost in the glare.

During the night, it was the two moons of Mars that kept Patience company as they

went skimming by. This far north, they jousted high over the horizon like a pair of ice

skaters egged on by a dare. Each time their paths met, farther, smaller Deimos seemed to

barely brush past the brightly rushing Phobos.

When spring came, waters from the south melted Holden Crater’s ice puddle. Rising

waters surged as the stripes ticked off their progress. Finally the water rose high enough

to boil over into the spillway of the Ladon Valleys.

Patience bobbed along.

A new summer of traveling had begun.

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 20. THE CANALS OF A GROWING TOWN

That summer the waters carried Patience far along the Ladon Valleys. Craters and

other convolutions would often cause a detour. The waters would pause to overflow

some new basin, or remember their way haphazardly along a channel twisted by time.

For every slosh forward, there seemed to be two sloshes back.

Those sloshes added up, however, until Patience was sloshed from the Ladon Valleys

into Ladon Basin. The big depression was very broad, but shallow enough that only three

winters later it had overflowed to set Patience free again. Now the little kayak traveled

north through the Margaritifer Valleys.

As Patience neared the equator, a flimsy shape like a huge, clear circus tent appeared

on the horizon. She was approaching a town. The air all over Mars was now thick, but it

had too much carbon dioxide and too little oxygen to breathe. The townspeople had

erected the giant tent to keep the good air in and the bad air out.

The people worked hard to make their town a more beautiful place. Beneath the tent

and between the two valleys on its east and west sides, they had built a network of canals.

A system of locks on the outskirts kept fresh water circulating through. Instead of

going past, Patience got caught in an eddy, which diverted her into a lock, and soon she

was drifting through the watery byways.

There were more people here than Patience had ever encountered. During the

evenings crowds would throng the sidewalks. People ate and argued and played chess at

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cafés. The canal currents would often send Patience by the town’s central park, where

music or laughter could be heard near an outdoor theater.

One sunny day, Patience was floating by the park when a group of kids began daring

each other to take great, flying, low-gravity leaps across wider and wider sections of the

canal. One kid missed the far side by a wide margin, but his cannonball plunked right

down on Patience. Neither Patience nor the kid were the worse for the encounter. In

fact, the kid seemed quite thrilled.

Floating in the water, he exulted at his find, waving Patience over his head for his

friends to see. His friends were so excited that they jumped into the water themselves for

a closer look. The ensuing debate over what to do with the tiny celebrity soon grew so

raucous that the town mayor looked up from his book and wandered over to sort out the

soggy gang.

“Why, this is fantastic luck!” exclaimed the mayor as he turned Patience over in his

hands. The old inscription verified that this was indeed the legendary kayaker:

I am Patience. Hear my plea. Help me reach the distant sea.

“Just in time for the ceremonies!” The mayor addressed Patience’s latest steward.

“You and your friends take good care of Patience for now, but be bright and early for the

ribbon arrival tomorrow. I want Patience to get a good seat!”

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 21. A LADDER TO THE SKY

Patience changed hands many times that night, as the result of one dare or another,

and sometimes due to an outright scuffle! Too bleary-eyed to discuss the matter any

further, the troop reached the central park again bright and early as promised. They

made it just before the entire remainder of the town’s population showed up for the day’s

celebration.

Patience’s steward explained the situation. “You must think it’s funny for us to be

celebrating some bit of ribbon coming to town, Patience—But it’s not silly at all!”

Patience was seated comfortably in the kid’s lap, which in turn was located in a seat of

honor up on the makeshift stage. His eyes, along with those of his friends and the

townspeople, would wander from Patience, to each other, and then always to the bright

morning sky visible through the gossamer tent.

The kid whispered to Patience as the mayor and other bigwigs made interminable

speeches. “You see, Patience, this ribbon is super-strong. When its close end gets here

today, it will have dropped down all the way from space, all the way from seventeen

thousand kilometers up and beyond! This ribbon is so long that the whole thing is in

orbit, even though one end will be in outer space, and the other end will be—right—here!

Look, there it is!”

The boy pointed Patience’s kayak so that she had a direct line of sight. The crowd

got to its feet and cheered. The mayor had not timed his speech quite right, and was

trying to finish, but if anyone was paying attention they could not have heard him.

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People yelled and pointed at a beacon far above the tent. The beacon marked the tip of a

long black ribbon. The ribbon went straight up into the sky until it disappeared.

Jets from the beacon kept the entire apparatus from swaying too much as the ribbon

was guided down. The beacon came closer and closer, until it had passed through a

special airlock in the tent’s roof. It would be easy to make up for the unavoidable leaks.

The ceremony had been poorly planned. Everyone rushed to the site of the beacon’s

actual first contact several canal blocks away. Patience was rushed along as with any

other flood. Through it all, her steward kept yelling his explanation. “The ribbon is like

a ladder to the sky, an elevator to space, and now we won’t need to use rockets, or the big

draped ribbons on Olympus Mons, or even the newer one on Pavonis. We have our own!

This won’t be a small town much longer!”

Patience would get a demonstration of what all this madness was about—soon!

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 22. A SPECTACULAR VIEW

Engineers locked the end of the ribbon down onto its anchor. Up close, the ribbon

was meters wide but thin as paper. They brought it up to full tension while trying to keep

the mob of onlookers at a safe distance. They didn’t want anyone to be hurt in case the

ribbon should snap. Fortunately, the ribbon held safe and strong.

Weeks went by as the final engineering checks took place on the brand new space

elevator. It was an advanced design, and the engineers wanted to make sure it functioned

perfectly before sending up the first batch of very important persons on an inaugural trip.

When the checklists were finally checked off, Patience went along for the ride. This

caused her steward much delight…and even more worry.

“Don’t be scared, Patience. It’s a lot safer than the old rockets used to be.” Patience

just stared straight ahead, as usual. She couldn’t be scared to start with, but in talking to

her, the kid got a little more courage himself.

At the anchor, giant cranes would swing a climber car close to the ribbon. Their

treads would clamp down, like the gripping hands of a chameleon on a branch. Then up

and away the car would go. Even more like a chameleon, it would fade to invisibility as

it got smaller and smaller in the sky.

The special passenger car was attached to the ribbon. It took a long while to get

everyone seated. The doors sealed. With a jolt the car leapt skyward! It passed slowly

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through the airlock, then reached high speeds as the atmosphere thinned and the

encircling horizons turned into the great globe of the planet Mars.

A spectacular view of the Red Planet unfolded before Patience and the other

passengers. Few had seen Mars like this before. As they rose higher, the great scar of

Valles Marineris, greatest canyon in the Solar System, appeared in the west.

In the east, the great dust desert of Syrtis Major was dark and forbidding.

And there, to the south, was the glittering blue outline of the waterway that had

brought Patience this far. It stretched through many valleys, back into the immense crater

of Argyre, all the way back to the polar plain.

The kid thought of what his friends had been whispering in his ear as he boarded the

climber car. One of them had heard about the Airco, Inc. prize to put Patience in the

company’s private collection. With compound interest over the many years since it had

first been offered, the prize had become very substantial. Patience had already traveled

so far on her journey—Wasn’t it far enough?

The great plain of Vastitas Borealis, home to the once and future ocean, opened up to

the north. It was stubbornly rust red, with only a dab of water here and there.

To see what might have been an ocean seem so parched and pleading made the kid

think again. He ran his finger over the inscription on the kayak’s sides. He thought of

the trust that someone long ago had put in those words. No, not just in those words, but

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in all who would read them. Trust, that those who came after would help the little kayak

reach the sea. Faith, that they would all work hard to make the sea come about.

No, the kid thought, it wouldn’t be right.

The journey was far from over.

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 23. WINDMILLS, WHALES AND WALLOPS

It took a full day for the climber car to travel along the ribbon to the space station in

orbit around Mars. That orbit was a special one, where any satellite or speck of dust

would travel around Mars exactly as fast as the planet spun. In that way, the entire

ribbon would always be stationary relative to the small town at its anchor.

All the way up, the gentle tug of Mars grew less and less. Patience grew lighter in the

kid’s arms until they reached the station, where neither of them weighed anything at all.

Giddy from freefall, they caromed from ceiling to wall to floor, and forgot which was

which.

There were many sights visible through the station’s large windows. A little ways

off, giant doughnuts spun to give the inhabitants of their interiors artificial gravity.

Superstrong strings a hundred kilometers across twirled like windmills as they flung

people and cargo around the Solar System.

The kid took special care in showing Patience the mirrors near the station. “Ya see

those big shiny things, Patience, huh? Do ya? Those are shining down to warm the

planet. They’ll keep the waters flowing, and help you reach the sea.” The mirrors

floated past like silvery whales.

Even on the way down, when the environs could only be described as stuffy, the kid

never got tired of the view. This was especially true when the mini-moon Phobos

whizzed by right outside! “Didja see that, Patience, huh? Didja? I swear someone

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wearing a spacesuit waved from that crater!” Everyone said they didn’t believe

him…except Patience, who minded the stuffiness least of all.

Upon returning to the surface, there was supposed to be another small ceremony.

Wearing their oxygen masks, all the kids, the mayor, and a few folks with too much time

on their hands gathered together on the north side of town. The dock there was decorated

red, green and blue with clusters of balloons. It was then that the kid almost wished that

someone else had found Patience. Sending her on her way left a heavy feeling in his

heart.

A few of the kid’s friends, on the other hand, were a bit more cheery. Trying to talk

him into cashing in on the prize had come to no avail, but had they really…given…up?

—YOINK!—

A last minute lunge for Patience resulted in an eight-way wrestling match.

Headlocks! Half-Nelsons! A poke to the eye! A kick to the shins! Nothing quite

pitched the battle one way or the other…that is, until the mayor wandered into the fray.

The mayor jostled his way through the dogpile, hoisting kids up by their shirt collars

and trying to restore some sense of dignity to the proceedings. It was a wallop that

dodged unexpectedly through his legs that turned the tide. It allowed Patience to slip

through the tangle of grabbing hands and into a tangle of ribbons…

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 The kid released the balloon bunch with a tug. Rising above desperate leaps, Patience

flew off and over the water. Those gathered watched her float away. All were happy to

be part of the legend, but it was for different reasons that they were sad to see her go.

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 24. GREEN AND RED MOLLASSES

Patience had traveled nearly a quarter of the way around Mars, when—flying high in

a cluster of balloons!—brisk winds carried her north past the equator.

The land was changing. Here in the tropics of the once frigid planet, the first simple

plants were taking hold. Down below, flecks of green moss and blue lichen spangled the

rusty red. The colors almost matched those of the little kayak and its cluster of balloons.

Near the river, the water-saturated ground was slumping and melting. The land around

the Margaritifer Valleys was like green and red molasses.

The winds carried Patience away from the main channel, over side valleys and up

streams, until her way might have been lost entirely. But when the last balloon fizzled

out, high in a secluded ravine, it was the waters themselves that put the little kayak back

on track. They carried Patience down streams and through side valleys, and with a

rushing gurgle back into the main channel. Within the watershed of the great waterway,

even the tiniest droplet carved a path to the sea.

When winter arrived in lands to the south, the flow of water would slow to a trickle.

Sometimes, if Patience was in a broad part of the valley or in a crater lake, she would be

stranded on a silty beach until the spring waters flowed again.

Some mornings would reveal drifts of snow, which quickly melted under the light of

day. During others, an entirely new phenomenon would occur: Rain would fall from the

sky.

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 Through rain and snow, drought and flood, Patience moved forward. North of the

equator, when she was waiting for the waters to find their way out of a crater, the currents

would tend to spin her in the opposite direction. It was good to see the world from a

different perspective.

The plants set in place to help oxygenate the atmosphere grew everywhere. They

thrived during the long northern summers. Their abundance reached its peak as Patience

arrived at Margaritifer Chaos, near the end of the ancient river system. Here long ago the

southern waters had pooled beneath the surface. The land’s very shape had depended on

the waters holding it up, like an icy crust supported by a winter lake. Then the crust had

collapsed one day as the waters catastrophically discharged onto the northern plains.

The land had been left in a jumble of brokenness.

Now, all around Patience, it had become a garden.

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 25. A NET IN THE CHAOS

Of the many sights that had greeted Patience along her journey, Margaritifer Chaos

was perhaps the most amazing. Special care had been taken here to provide a foothold

for living, growing things. The sides of tall cliff faces squirmed with life. Mosses and

lichens buttressed almost every mesa. Delicate mists danced with shafts of sunlight in

the breeze.

Scientists tested new organisms here before sending them to strive in the southern

highlands or on some squalid lava field. As Patience floated by, a few scientists were

collecting flower samples by the water’s edge. One of them was a man in an oxygen

mask and a bright purple jacket marked “AIRCO, INCORPORATED – Celebrating 300

Years.”

When the man saw Patience, he dropped his bouquet!

The man began racing along the shore. He leapt over boulders and dove through

brambles in pursuit of the little kayak. He was just a few strides away when a loose patch

of gravel sent him sprawling in the mud.

Patience continued on unfazed. The broken terrain split the currents like a scythe.

They made her path hard to trace. Limping and muddy, the man fell far behind. Soon it

appeared that Patience had lost him for good. She bobbed from wave to wave as if on a

sluggish and disjointed tour.

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 The shattered landscape of the chaos had been cut off from its old courses. People

had carved new channels to help the water find its way. Watery fingers prodded Patience

towards the viaducts that led to Aram Chaos.

The outline of Aram’s ancient crater framed another living triumph. The fragrance of

vegetation combined with a diversity of green and light. The effect was dizzying, but not

so much so that a person would not notice the dot of muddy purple that sometimes

flashed amongst the green.

The purple dot made appearances more and more frequently, until a few days later

when the man in the purple jacket showed himself once more. He was wild-eyed and

disheveled, as if he had been camping and hiking for a long time. He had positioned

himself far out over the river on an overhanging branch. As Patience approached, he

leaned down with a large net, but the current was tugging the little kayak just out of

reach.

The man shimmied along the branch….

He stretched with all his might….

—SNAP!—

Patience rode a wave away from where the man had splashed down.

The man took a moment to sputter into his oxygen mask. He waved both his net and

the piece of broken branch over his head. The little kayak moved far beyond reach.

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 Long after he had swum back to shore, the man muttered about his lost vacation days,

and how he had been planning to get back to nature, anyhow. He laid his purple jacket

out on a flat rock to dry in the sun.

Later that evening, still nursing aches and pains but at least with a dry jacket in which

to shiver, the man made an important decision. The man—who happened to be the forty-

third Chief Executive Officer of Airco, Incorporated—decided to let the Patience Prize

expire. To have the company give the reward money to charity, his thinking went, would

be far less painful.

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 26. WHERE A ROVER ONCE ROAMED

Patience was left free to wander the fractures of Aram Chaos. The interconnecting

channels were like a medina. They turned the currents into a traffic jam. The honking

and complaining waves crammed Patience into this rock crevice and that, then through

soggily collapsed canyons until finally sending her east.

Patience traveled through the only outlet from Aram Chaos into Ares Valley. The

valley was enormous. It had been carved by water flowing at hundreds of times the rate

of the faraway Mississippi. The waters that pushed Patience along it now were hardly a

trickle in comparison, but the splendor of the tear-shaped isles and ravaged piles of rock

was no less.

Long ago, a robotic rover had explored the valley for the first time. The rover had

bounced down from space with huge airbags cushioning its fall. It had sampled rocks

and sent many pictures back to Earth, before any human had ever visited. Now, Patience

was here, too.

A silty stream maneuvered Patience to the center of the valley’s mostly dry mega-

channel. Each spring the rush of waters would carry her forward in a month as far as she

had traveled in the whole previous year. Like an inchworm propelled by the seasons, she

approached the plains that were the dust-covered remains of the sea.

On the edge of what many thought was perhaps an ancient shoreline, the currents

gave up the last of their strength. There was no more flow in them. The northern plains

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soaked up their moisture in a maze of dunes. The waters would need to kindle for a long

while before winning this fight.

Patience was run aground in the middle of a sandy bog.

The ocean of dreams long past was nowhere in sight.

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 27. THE GROWING CRASHING

Mars moved forward to life again. The process was not a smooth one. Instead, it

progressed with the hulking jerks of a rusty car.

Patience was prey to its whimsy. She sat stranded in the bog, enduring seasons when

hardly a drop came down from the wide mouth of Ares Valley. In others, she braved

deluges in which huge blocks of the planet were in danger of being swept away.

Patience was smacked around unceasingly from this pile of sand to that as the planet

made up its mind. She would sometimes be perched on one of the higher dunes, and to

the far north there would be a strange shimmer, accompanied by a salty spray.

The sea was a long while coming. One late fall a sand avalanche buried Patience

beneath a mountain of dark, damp grit. Not even a puff of sea breeze reached her there.

In time, tender roots reached down and wrapped themselves around the little kayak.

Primitive grasses and other plants took hold and locked the sand—and Patience—in

place.

Muffled through the sand, a growing crashing could be heard all the time. The

crashing would be quiet and faraway in winter, but each spring it would return with a

vengeance. Patience waited for many seasons. The little kayak was entombed in

darkness even as the crashing became louder and louder.

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 It was the crash and wail of the newborn ocean. For a long while now, the infant sea

had been soaking up warmth from the thick atmosphere. It had nursed from each new

flood and chance fall of rain. It had grown strong.

Movement around her caused Patience to twitch in her little grave. Encroaching

waters saturated the soil. The little kayak strained against the sand and gnarled roots.

The crashing became like thunder. The waves batted furiously at the sands. If

Patience was buried too deeply, the waves would move on past. Patience would be left to

sleep away the centuries beneath calm depths.

Patience’s creator had proven too clever. The little kayak’s bulges were too

buoyant—its frame too light—for anything to stop it now.

The hungry waves gnawed unceasingly. They mixed and shifted the sands just

enough for Patience to rush up to the surface.

Like a dolphin Patience breached the foam. She spun in the salty air before crashing

down to float once more above the waters.

Patience had reached the sea!

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 28. JOURNEYS ON THE NEW SEA

The wind-driven tides eventually cast Patience far out into the open ocean. This wet

expanse covered much of the northern hemisphere. Its currents took time to sort

themselves out, but soon a sort of “river in the sea” won the day, moving beneath the

winds and spin of the planet to push Patience around and around, and ever to the east.

Patience chased after each sunrise, and fled from each sunset.

Patience circled the globe until it was a wonder that the poles of the planet did not

grow dizzy and tip over. She would travel in an arc up the coast of Arabia Terra, do a

curlicue through the bay of Isidis Planitia, and detour far to the north around the flank of

Tharsis.

If she was headed in that direction in the warmest summer months, she might make it

all the way to where the last of the lovely polar dunes peaked above the waves. She

would spend a winter with them trapped in ice before spring carried her south once more.

The volcano continent of Elysium never knew where to send Patience. Sometimes it

would send her north, to contend with cold waves crashing on the rocky shore.

Sometimes it would send her south, where the shallows were green with algae and brown

with kelp.

On some dark nights, when the waters were very still, it seemed there was a hint of

the friendly glow—the native life of Mars!—that had once kept Patience company in a

cave.

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 The amount of oxygen in the air was increasing. The first animals appeared to join

Patience in her travels. At first there were only simple creatures, like plankton in the artic

waters or buzzing dragonflies in a tropical wetland. Soon, however, there were fish and

frogs, snapping turtles and even an orca that sent Patience flying on the spout of its

blowhole.

One night, a passing seabird briefly capsized Patience when it decided to take a nap

on the kayak’s bow. There came a time when every dawn was greeted by the singing of

birds.

When boats or other signs of people would appear in the distance, it could be seen

that oxygen masks and carbon dioxide filters had long since been discarded. The faces of

the people smiled unimpeded in the sunshine.

The planet had become a home.

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 29. TO THE CAPITAL CITY

One early spring, a cold current sped Patience south. She was headed towards Xanthe

Terra. Winds blew Patience through the shallow channels of Xanthe and into the mighty

canyons of Valles Marineris. Waves dashed themselves on cliffs that touched the sky yet

could not spy each other across the immense gulf between them.

Patience bounced from canyon to canyon, until one day in Candor Chasma a giant

contraption blossomed on the horizon. It looked like an enormous metal spider, but in

reality it was a floating power plant. The power plant made clean energy by mixing the

cold deep waters with the warmth of the surface.

It was here that a large coelacanth fish—perhaps itself a bit lost so close to the

surface—suddenly took offense at Patience’s sparkle. With a noisy slurp Patience was

wedged within its big fleshy jaws, and headed downward fast.

The coelacanth wanted to finish off this ornery meal at its underwater cave. Patience

had other plans. The farther down the fish swam, the harder it was to keep Patience’s

buoyancy from carrying her back to the surface. Soon the coelacanth let go, sending

Patience upward along a string of indignant bubbles. The coelacanth drifted away.

Patience was not bound directly for the surface, however. Instead, a deep intake pipe

for the power plant put a kink in her course. Patience was accelerating upwards not to

freedom, but towards the power plant’s grinding, crushing turbines.

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 This escape was easier than most. Patience was caught in the complicated filtration

apparatus, which did not know what to make of her. It beeped for human intervention.

Eventually, a grumpy diver came to inspect the filter. For being so grumpy, the diver

sure was pleased with what he found.

And if the diver was pleased, his fellow technicians were overjoyed. Excitedly, they

read the ancient inscription:

I am Patience. Hear my plea. Help me reach the distant sea.

They hooted and clapped at their good fortune. “Looks like you did it, Patience!

Your journey’s all over now. The welcome festival is tomorrow, and just think, after all

these years!...”

“You’ve come back to us just in time!” another exclaimed. “Well, a hundred years

ago, back when that big prize was still being offered, well, that would have been a bit

nicer for us, I suppose. But we’re happy you’re back, anyhow.”

That very evening a sliver of metal—what passed for an airplane in those days—

rushed the diver and the little kayak to the coast of Cydonia.

Patience was taken to the capital city of Mars.

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 30. A REUNION IN PASSING

The spires and monuments of the capital city truly scraped the sky. They seemed to

stretch themselves in every direction, to relish the freedom of the living planet. Their tips

swam in the high breezes, for they did not need to constrain themselves within any tent—

and certainly not a tin can!

People clogged the streets to greet Patience as she was carried to the central plaza.

They did not constrain themselves, either. They cheered with abandon, and many darted

forward to get a closer look. The diver would oblige them, extending Patience out with a

cheery harrumph for the most curious to view.

Amidst the crystal fountains and beaming faces, in the gleaming city on the shores of

the peaceful sea, there was one face that would have most liked to see the splashing

waves. There was one face that would have most loved to wander through the crush of

cheering crowds. But to see that face again seemed beyond even hope. Hundreds of

years had passed. The face of that long-ago girl had surely faded into history. She could

never see the miracles of time and persistence all about…could she?

Nothing is beyond hope!

For there was that same face. It smiled with more wisdom, but shone with the same

spirit that had once set down a little kayak on a pile of icy dirt.

The face now belonged to a woman whose eyes glittered like Patience’s diamond

coat. Her name was still Qahirah. Long ago she had been the first child born on Mars.

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She had created a legend and diverted an asteroid, and then when the first crew of

astronauts had left the Solar System, she had been their captain.

Patience would not be the biggest celebrity of these festivities. The celebrations were

to welcome that returning crew, the first people to explore a different star. They had been

gone a very long time. They had traveled so fast that they had outraced time, and nearly

caught up with light. Their clocks had slowed down until they hardly aged, even while

back on Mars an age had passed. They had been brave to explore so far, and braver still

to face the changes that would greet them after the return trip. They would find the

planet a very different place.

Qahirah had led them all home, to see what Patience had wrought.

At the central plaza there were long speeches on heroism and fortitude, and on the

amazing discoveries that had been made. There was talk of a world much like the Mars

of old that now beckoned from a distant star, cold and harsh but somehow welcoming.

Then there was a moment when Qahirah got reacquainted with her old friend. “Oh,

Patience!” Qahirah spoke to the tiny figure in her arms, but her words echoed out over

the entire crowd. “You helped inspire all of us to make a distant dream come true.”

Patience was as quiet as ever. The crowd more than made up for her silence as they

shouted their approval.

Qahirah continued, “I am filled with joy to be back here, to be reunited with you on

this world we find at the end of our long voyage. But my father once told me that the

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best kind of journey is the kind that never ends, and now I realize what he meant. I sense

a new sea calling out to us, Patience, one that longs to be awakened on a world around a

distant star. That is the new distant sea, the sea to which you are always headed. You

must lead the way there. You will give hope to the people who will awaken that ocean.

Your legend will comfort them on a world where our Mother Earth is not even a blue star

in the sky.”

The crowd was thoughtful. Many did not want to send Patience away again after

finding her for the first time in so long. But the hearts of those who would go forever to

that distant star were filled with gladness. Their cheers ignited the crowd once more.

Soon the celebration echoed louder than ever. It roared like a new sea.

When the festivities had ended, there was time to rest. Qahirah wandered with

Patience about the transformed planet. They splashed in crater lakes teeming with life,

and Qahirah made a life for herself on this world of her dreams. She was never lonely,

for now there were people everywhere to share with her in the beauty of Mars.

She was too old to go again to that far star, but she had done everything she had ever

wanted—and more! Besides, only a crazy young person would want to leave this perfect

planet. Maybe it was perfect in her eyes because she had helped make it. Maybe these

new star settlers heading off so soon wanted the same opportunity. Sometimes a little

youthful craziness is a good thing, she thought.

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 It was a solemn but joyous event, that day when Patience went up the space elevator

again. Patience joined the settlers of the first colony ship as it prepared to leave the Solar

System. Together, they would create the first home for humanity around another star.

Qahirah handed the little kayak—still shining red, green, and blue—over to one of the

more responsible settler children. The child made Patience a place of honor at the bow,

and did not feel that the void ahead was so terribly empty.

Qahirah stayed behind. Mars was her victory, now. Even more than that, it was

home.

Patience’s home was in a journey to distant seas. Each would be farther away and

more unimaginable than the last.

The colony ship raced away. It traveled so fast that the stars left behind shifted red

like the Mars of old.

The colony ship itself gleamed green with the plants its settlers tended.

The stars ahead shifted blue like the sea.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to authors Holling Clancy Holling and
Kim Stanley Robinson, for the inspiration their works continue to provide, and to
scientists TJ Parker, SM Clifford, JA Grant, FS Anderson, and WB Banerdt, for the
studies of the ancient Martian waterway that allowed Holling and Stan’s worlds to
collide in this new adventure.

Additional acknowledgements must go to Chris McKay for his studies of terraforming

Mars, Ken Nealson for the work on microbiological “quorum sensing” that inspired the
glowing Mars life seen here, Brad Edwards for his development of a feasible space
elevator concept, Robert Zubrin for providing Qahirah and her father with their tin can
home, and Pascal Lee for their all-terrain vehicles!

November 2002, during the seventh crew rotation of the

Mars Desert Research Station: The author (r) and fellow
sim-nauts unfurl a “Mars Flag” at the Upheaval Dome
impact crater in Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

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