All the previous day they had taken turns driving the rover at breakneck speed along the broken, rugged badlands country, heading north by east, away from the faulted canyons of Noctis Labyrinthus, away from their base camp. Breakneck speed, for the rover, was not quite forty kilometers per hour—almost the speed limit in a school zone. Still they were exhausted by the time the sun had finally dropped behind the ragged horizon at their backs and the dark cold shadows of night overtook their vehicle. Two straight days of continuous driving, much of it detours around ridges too steep to climb or crevasses too deep to traverse, had sapped them physically and emotionally. They ate a sparse dinner in moody silence; then Vosnesensky checked in with Dr. Li and the base camp. Everything was going smoothly at the base, and to Jamie’s continuing surprise and delight, Li still did not order them to turn around and return to the domed camp. “The mission controllers haven’t vetoed our excursion,”
