Chapter 9

CAMPING TRIP

The next morning, I was in Mom’s office. She sat at her desk, looking at three different computer screens. Two of them had maps displayed, and the third had a live chat with Mrs. Sosa. “Hi, Starr,” Mrs. Sosa said.

“Hi, Mrs. Sosa,” I replied.

“I watched the video from Olympus Mons yesterday. Simply remarkable,” she said. “You are all doing a wonderful job. People on Earth are very excited about what’s going on up there.”

“It was definitely exciting,” I said.

“How are Raj and Yuna doing?” Mrs. Sosa asked.

“Good.” I replied. “It was hard at first because we couldn’t communicate very well. But we created new audio translation software for our helmets, and it’s made a huge difference.”

“That’s great!” Mrs. Sosa replied.

“Mom, can I go out to the greenhouse pods and help Kathy?” I asked.

“Have breakfast first and then you can go help her.”

I raced to breakfast and then to Professor Will to suit up and head out to help Kathy. He came out with me. Kathy’s greenhouse pod wasn’t far from the station.

“How’s it going in here?” Professor Will asked when we’d gone inside.

“So far, so good,” she said. “I’ve mixed the Earth soil with various Martian soils. It’s going to be interesting to see in which ones the crops grow best. I can create near-perfect conditions for growing here. There are no pests such as insects or small animals to destroy the crops.”

I helped Kathy move crops into the new planting beds for almost two hours.

“We should head back to the station, Starr,” the professor said. “The group is leaving for Valles Marineris soon.”

“I’m going to stay here and continue on the farm,” Kathy said. “There’s so much work to be done. I can’t wait to hear all about your trip, though.”

I had been so focused on farming that I hadn’t noticed that Professor Will had been going back and forth to line up all the Martian Masters outside. One of the Martian Masters had several pods attached to it.

We said goodbye to Kathy, I put on my suit, and we went out onto the surface.

“We’ve decided to stay over at Valles Marineris for a few days,” the professor said. “We’ll tow a few pods behind us so we don’t have to keep making the trip back and forth to the station for somewhere to sleep. It means we can spend more time there too.”

“I didn’t even realize we could move pods around like that!” I said, astonished.

“I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve,” the professor said with a wink.

Inside the station, everyone was doing their last-minute packing to prepare for the trip to Valles Marineris.

Mom was still at her desk when I walked in. “Hey, Farmer Jane,” she said, smirking.

“Hey,” I said. “I didn’t realize we were going to Valles Marineris for a few days.”

“Sure! We’ll leave most of the pods here so we can have the main station near Olympus Mons, and we’ll set up a new, smaller station over by Valles Marineris.”

“What about Raj and Yuna?” I asked.

“We’re all coming along! It’s going to be quite an adventure. Why don’t you go grab anything you want to take with you and meet me back here in a little while?”

About an hour later, we were all packed up and loaded into the MMs. I sat in the back with Cozzie and Apollo, while Mom and Dad sat in the front. We took off and followed the other MMs and Professor Will. His MM pulled several pods behind it.

“I can’t believe how powerful the MMs are,” Mom said. “I would have never imagined that it would be strong enough to pull a line of pods.”

The MM looked like a train, and the pods were like the train cars pulling behind it. “All aboard!” Cozzie announced, pulling his arm as if he were pulling a train whistle.