March 2029, Rocket City, Sa State, Liangguo
Michael Max invited his girlfriend, Daphne Braun, to spend the weekend at his home. To avoid any awkwardness, he came up with a grand-sounding excuse, saying he wanted to conduct an important scientific experiment with Daphne.
On the phone, Daphne asked curiously, “What kind of scientific experiment?”
Michael answered with perfect solemnity, putting on a grave air. “My dear Doctor of Astronomy, this experiment is closely related to your Mars rupture theory. It requires precision electrical equipment and a complex technological process to complete. The experiment is called baking bread.”
Daphne giggled. She knew the bread Michael was talking about was Italian ciabatta, whose cracked surface and slipper-like shape had earned it the name “slipper bread.” A few days earlier, Daphne had tried making it once and had mentioned it to Michael.
Baking bread? As an excuse for a date, that was really a bit much.
To Daphne, the excuse did not matter. She had long since been drawn in by the immense energy Michael seemed to radiate.
Daphne firmly believed that true love was unconditional. Being with Michael was the happiest thing in her life; there was no need for a reason at all.
Though he was the richest man in the world, Michael Max’s home looked remarkably shabby. It was nothing more than a prefabricated panel house of less than a hundred square meters, assembled on an empty lot in three days.
Their important scientific experiment began.
The precision electrical equipment Michael had spoken of was in fact an old-fashioned electric oven, but the complex technological process he mentioned was real enough.
Mixing the dough, letting it rise, wrapping each piece of dough in plastic wrap to retain moisture—once the dough had risen, the baking procedure was extremely intricate, with highly precise requirements for temperature and steam humidity.
First, the oven was preheated to 260 degrees. The tray holding the dough was placed inside, along with another tray filled with water. The water tray produced steam. After thirty seconds of baking, the oven door was opened and water was sprayed in; the oven temperature dropped to 230 degrees, and the baking process was repeated.
The dough expanded when heated and contracted when cooled; then it expanded again under heat. When the temperature fell once more, the hard crust on the surface burst open, forming deep valley-like patterns, remarkably like a slipper.
“Daphne, your Mars rupture hypothesis is very interesting. If Mars expanded when heated and contracted when cooled, then after repeated cycles, its crust would rupture,” Michael said.
“Michael, you’re really sharp. The principles behind the rupture of Mars and the formation of slipper bread are the same.” As Daphne spoke, she leaned into Michael’s broad chest, their flour-dusted aprons pressing together.
Through the transparent oven door, they could see the bread inside swelling larger, its surface cracking open with a muffled pop.
The bread was already on the table. Both of them were in high spirits as Daphne told Michael about her research and findings on the Martian landscape.
The elevation difference on the surface of Mars exceeded twenty thousand meters, making it the planet with the greatest relief in the Solar System. Yet because there was no intense plate movement on the Martian surface, there were no large-scale folds; one could say its surface was smooth and flat.
Overall, Mars had only two types of terrain: flat highlands and flat plains. On the highlands stood Olympus Mons and, to its southeast, three smaller volcanoes arranged side by side.
Along the southeastward extension of these four volcanoes was a long canyon, more than four thousand kilometers in length, called Valles Marineris. Its length was second only to the East African Rift on Earth.
Where the highland on which Olympus Mons stood met the plains, there was no transitional zone, only nearly vertical scarps hundreds or even thousands of meters high.
In the plains regions, there were abundant traces of water having flowed, and they did not resemble the marks of river erosion. Instead, they indicated that Mars had once been warm and humid, with vast oceans.
Some of the rocks in the highlands and scarps had formed only tens of millions of years ago, while the geological age of the plains—that is, the former ocean floor—exceeded several billion years.
Most perplexing of all was Valles Marineris on Mars. It had been observed in 1972 by Mariner 9 and named after that spacecraft.
Valles Marineris was more than four thousand kilometers long, three hundred to six hundred kilometers wide, and reached a depth of eight kilometers at its deepest point. Unlike the two arc-shaped arms of the East African Rift on Earth, Valles Marineris was straight. There were no mountains or folds on either side, only endless plains. How had it formed?
In the 1970s, one view held that Valles Marineris had been formed by one or more flood impacts, but this theory was soon rejected. Even a very large flood would not have been enough to carve out such a wide and deep canyon, not to mention that there were no similar traces at all on either side of the canyon.
The current mainstream view was that Valles Marineris formed when the plains region collapsed during the uplift of the Olympus Mons volcanic highland.
The slipper-bread experiment and the arc-shaped structure of the East African Rift on Earth showed that if the Martian highlands had risen because of geological movement, then the rift should have been distributed in an arc around them. It could not have collapsed and split open along a straight line in one fixed southeastward direction, continuing along that line for more than four thousand kilometers—longer than the radius of Mars itself.
There was another unsolved mystery concerning Valles Marineris: large numbers of sedimentary layers had been discovered at the bottom of the canyon. Sedimentary layers were a common geological phenomenon, often forming at the bottoms of lakes or from deposits of volcanic ash.
After Valles Marineris formed, where had these extra sedimentary layers come from?
Michael listened, absorbed, then asked, “According to your hypothesis, the highlands on Mars were once land, and the plains were once seabed. Then how did Valles Marineris form?”
“I think Valles Marineris was caused by underground magma on Mars flowing out through volcanic eruptions, then cooling, which led the ground to collapse. What I can’t figure out is why the underground magma would flow along a straight line like that.”
The two of them fell silent. Then Michael’s eyes suddenly lit up. He pulled Daphne to her feet and said, “I can help you connect to my VESSEL. After brain-machine integration, it may help you think more deeply.”
Michael led Daphne to a special chair, paused, and added, “My brain-machine integration project is still in the experimental stage. VESSEL, the non-contact external-brain connector, was designed specifically for my brain. Although you know more than I do about Mars, I don’t know whether you’ll be compatible with VESSEL.”
Daphne was eager to try. Half joking, she said, “Let me try. If I’m not compatible, we’ll just treat it as a failed bread-baking experiment.”
Daphne relaxed her body, sat down in the chair, and put on the custom-made helmet, signaling Michael to turn on the device. As the power kept increasing, Daphne grew drowsy, and also felt dizzy and swollen-headed.
She tried hard to concentrate, hoping to enter a meditative state. A few minutes later, Daphne helplessly raised her right hand, signaling Michael to shut it down.
Michael helped Daphne remove the helmet. Daphne slumped in the chair, eyes tightly shut, and said weakly:
“I’m too dizzy. It won’t work. I can’t think at all.”
The experiment connecting Daphne Braun to VESSEL had failed.
That night, Daphne’s head rested on Michael’s shoulder. Her arm lay soft and natural across Michael’s chest, her breathing even, her sleep deep.
Was this a dream? Daphne saw a beautiful planet, with vast oceans and majestic mountains. One great volcano and three small ones spewed fiery-red magma into the sky.
A jetting fire dragon sometimes grew vast and blazing, sometimes shrank and dimmed, like the temperature inside the bread oven, high one moment and low the next. Under the effects of alternating cold and heat, the planet’s crust expanded and shattered.
With a crack, the land crust, together with mountains and lakes, splintered and flew off the planet’s surface. The entire seabed, carrying seawater with it, instantly splashed into the sky and froze into ice. The remaining landscape of the planet became bare highlands and level plains.
At the boundary between highlands and plains, clean vertical fractures were left behind. They were the planet’s original plate junctions. The seabed through which underground magma had flowed collapsed with a thunderous roar, forming a long canyon.
Some of the sedimentary layers shattered from the bottoms of highland lakes fell back onto the seabed plains and into the canyon. The planet lost its azure and emerald colors and slowly turned earth-red.
Michael’s shoulder shifted, startling Daphne awake. Michael said softly:
“Sorry, I woke you. I just had a dream.”
Daphne came back to herself and asked in surprise, “You had a dream too? What did you dream about?”
“I dreamed thin clouds were floating above Valles Marineris. I was in a cabin deep inside Valles Marineris, using a robotic arm to dig ice from the rock strata,” Michael replied.
“That dream of yours was too real. There is ice in the rock strata of Valles Marineris, and there are thin clouds in the sky over Mars in summer. Those are both true. Didn’t I tell you that?”
Daphne rubbed her eyes, then went on, “You told me you wanted to build a Martian survival base deep inside Valles Marineris. What did you call that survival cabin again?”
Michael answered, “The Valles Marineris Capsule.”
&
Chapter-closing cento poem:
Long dwelling, one trusts there is a spirit. Tang, Li Dong
In dreams I behold its form. Song, Li Liuqian
Seeking the source, I enter a secluded valley. Song, Ouyang Xiu
The tide rises on the islet beyond the door. Song, Xu Ji