Martian Dawn

Part 3, Chapter 2: Frozen Dawn

"...a conocerles..."

That was as far as she got. She had an entire speech planned out, but it fled, as soon as all those eyes focused on her again. The trailer was silent, other than the sound of the wheels over the bumpy ground.

After the silence had stretched to an uncomfortable length of time, her father stood up, grasping the safety straps overhead, and boisterously shouted, "¡BIENVENIDO A MARTE!"

The newcomers cheered, and for a moment, all was well, as they exchanged high fives and hugs all around. Then they settled again, and looked expectantly at father and daughter. Jerry had nearly exhausted his Spanish, so he turned to Dawn and whispered, "What's the matter?"

"Why do they look like that?" She whispered frantically, not even quite sure what she was asking.

Jerry examined their passengers again. They were healthy and varied in age and race, nothing off about them. He turned back to Dawn. "Like what?"

"I knew they'd be able to walk, because of the gravity on their ship," she whispered. "but these people are all huge and muscular--like video actors."

Jerry looked again. After a few moments, an inkling of what his daughter was seeing occurred to him. "Hey, what was the gravity on the Aguila? Mars normal? Earth normal?"

"Point eight seven," The pilot, Beto, answered. "The ship was designed to produce one full gee, but many people suffered motion sickness from the spin. We slowed it down just a little and it was controllable for even the worst sufferers with medication. And of course, these last few weeks, we gradually brought it down to point four, so we could acclimate and not stumble around like fools when we met you."

"Wow, I envy you, "Jerry told him. "When my mission arrived, we practically had to be carried into the Hab."

Beto's smile was easy. "We've all seen the footage from some of those landings. We know we are third generation explorers. I speak for everyone when I say that we appreciate the sacrifices you and your companions have made." He looked to the other passengers for support. The other seven returned his gaze and nodded, solemnly.

The woman sitting next to Beto looked directly at Dawn and said, "Would it be easier to proceed in English, señorita? Everyone here speaks English fairly well." She turned to her companions, "True, yes?"

Again, the others nodded, this time more enthusiastically.

Dawn swallowed and tried to speak, "Thank you," she croaked. "I apologize, I really did have something ready for you. I ah..." She struggled to think. Now that she was thrown off, where could she jump back in? And she'd practiced it in Spanish (not to mention French and Portuguese). Switching to English might not actually help.

Her dad tapped on the wall by her head. She looked where he indicated and suddenly remembered the whiteboard, on which were written several prompts. Thank God for the whiteboard! "Introductions!" She nearly shouted. "Vamos a empezar con introducciones. Yo voy primero."

The prompts on the whiteboard asked for name, age, hometown, specialty, and one thing they were really looking forward to doing on Mars.

"Me llamo Dawn Heinke," she began, carefully. "Tengo dieciséis años de Tierra, lo que es casi nueve años de Marte. Soy de Terra Aurora, Marte. No tengo ninguna especialidad scientifica, pero tengo una programa educativa en la YouTube. Una cosa que quiero hacer mientras que ustedes aquí estan es trabajar con las gallinas."*

The group applauded her. She smiled, shyly and looked at her dad. He immediately started his turn. "I'm Jerry Heinke--her father. I'm 46 years old from Chicago, Illinois, USA. I'm a chemical engineer, specializing in rocketry. Here on Mars, I work on pretty much any combustion reaction, and while you are all here, I very much look forward to taking some long cross country trips with the new methane-fueled buggies." He grinned on the last sentence, and his enthusiasm was contagious.