Lon made a mental note to take some long exposure pictures. No doubt an astronomer would be able to tell him all about them. He watched them rise, the pale ghosts of the tails fading away before the sun broke the horizon, the brighter cores disappearing not long after.
Then he got up and helped George with breakfast over a small fire.
By noon the next day, the instruments on the balloon were mapping dry hills, with high mountains visible to the south, then a high altitude wind took it away to the west and as the sun set, over the coast and out to sea.
Lon almost refused to move indoors that night . The air was crisp and cool, perfect camping weather.
"Ah , now this is my idea of a proper new world. I hope this place has half the promise of Twelve-seventeen." George grinned. "The Government scouts there reported voracious mosquitoes and high humidity. Maybe your Board will leave the whole planet to JJ."
Lon growled. "It's out of my hands. Nast y little ass kissing backstabber. I'll be happy so long as he's not anywhere on a world of mine."
George eyed him. "Where'd you work with him?"
"Tournay. And that is all I'm going to say." Lon stalked off far enough to enjoy the bright stars in solitude.
Kia Farr was much more hesitant when she got to the rest of her equipment, and the second gravity meter and all the drones with gravity meters all registered the same fluctuations. "I don't suppose the planet has neutronium pellets in low orbits or something, does it?"
"I really doubt it." He left her disass embling the gravity meters and wandered down to the mapping box.
Nelson had them pretty well spotted on his map. Northwestern China. "The ice probably covers all of the Mongolian highlands. We'll have to circle wider to find out if it is regional, or connected to the polar icecap. South and east we have arid grasslands, the ice age Gobi desert. The shoreline is a vague approximation of the Earth's continental shelf." Nelson tapped a bit of water at the northern limit of the coverage. "The Sea of Japan, probably a land locked lake, possibly salty. I can't pinpoint much else, the sea level is lower and the geologic history different. But those mountains to the south would be the Himalayan complex, however altered. They're taller, can you imagine that? I wonder if we could drive over these mountains to the west and release a balloon there? Map westward?"
Naomi shook her head. "The way the jet stream grabbed the first one, we'll have to use the drones to map to the west. The other balloon I've launched, I set to stay low. We may be able to get a good deal further south, get some data on those mountains for you."
Lon peered at the map and nodded his approval. "Did the first balloon make it across the Pacific?"
"Not even close. It hit a storm a few hundred miles offshore and lost lifting power, either iced or holed. And as I said, number two is low altitude. I'll send up another high altitude balloon in a few days, give that storm time to move or dissipate."
"Right. We'll try to get the drones up and flying quickly. We'll have them up in two weeks even if the gravity meters are recording nothing but garbage."
Lon's fir st report was sent with the returning empty trucks and all of Nelson's surface and core samples. The report skated past "instrument problems delaying the start of the drone flights" and jumped to the early maps with Nelson Manrique's geologic samples used to denote the surface geology." Not bad for three day's work. The next report was going to have to have drone flights
Spring 1360
Eastern Hemisphere
The ground was getting difficult, the river beside them thick and swollen and fast, taking up a lot of the space between the towering walls of rock and ice.
"The Rip is a lot narrower, now." Lefty rolled up his maps. "The walls are lower too, unless there's a second scarp buried under the ice. I think the faults and all will be running back together a lot further north than the other end,
Then he got up and helped George with breakfast over a small fire.
By noon the next day, the instruments on the balloon were mapping dry hills, with high mountains visible to the south, then a high altitude wind took it away to the west and as the sun set, over the coast and out to sea.
Lon almost refused to move indoors that night . The air was crisp and cool, perfect camping weather.
"Ah , now this is my idea of a proper new world. I hope this place has half the promise of Twelve-seventeen." George grinned. "The Government scouts there reported voracious mosquitoes and high humidity. Maybe your Board will leave the whole planet to JJ."
Lon growled. "It's out of my hands. Nast y little ass kissing backstabber. I'll be happy so long as he's not anywhere on a world of mine."
George eyed him. "Where'd you work with him?"
"Tournay. And that is all I'm going to say." Lon stalked off far enough to enjoy the bright stars in solitude.
Kia Farr was much more hesitant when she got to the rest of her equipment, and the second gravity meter and all the drones with gravity meters all registered the same fluctuations. "I don't suppose the planet has neutronium pellets in low orbits or something, does it?"
"I really doubt it." He left her disass embling the gravity meters and wandered down to the mapping box.
Nelson had them pretty well spotted on his map. Northwestern China. "The ice probably covers all of the Mongolian highlands. We'll have to circle wider to find out if it is regional, or connected to the polar icecap. South and east we have arid grasslands, the ice age Gobi desert. The shoreline is a vague approximation of the Earth's continental shelf." Nelson tapped a bit of water at the northern limit of the coverage. "The Sea of Japan, probably a land locked lake, possibly salty. I can't pinpoint much else, the sea level is lower and the geologic history different. But those mountains to the south would be the Himalayan complex, however altered. They're taller, can you imagine that? I wonder if we could drive over these mountains to the west and release a balloon there? Map westward?"
Naomi shook her head. "The way the jet stream grabbed the first one, we'll have to use the drones to map to the west. The other balloon I've launched, I set to stay low. We may be able to get a good deal further south, get some data on those mountains for you."
Lon peered at the map and nodded his approval. "Did the first balloon make it across the Pacific?"
"Not even close. It hit a storm a few hundred miles offshore and lost lifting power, either iced or holed. And as I said, number two is low altitude. I'll send up another high altitude balloon in a few days, give that storm time to move or dissipate."
"Right. We'll try to get the drones up and flying quickly. We'll have them up in two weeks even if the gravity meters are recording nothing but garbage."
Lon's fir st report was sent with the returning empty trucks and all of Nelson's surface and core samples. The report skated past "instrument problems delaying the start of the drone flights" and jumped to the early maps with Nelson Manrique's geologic samples used to denote the surface geology." Not bad for three day's work. The next report was going to have to have drone flights
Spring 1360
Eastern Hemisphere
The ground was getting difficult, the river beside them thick and swollen and fast, taking up a lot of the space between the towering walls of rock and ice.
"The Rip is a lot narrower, now." Lefty rolled up his maps. "The walls are lower too, unless there's a second scarp buried under the ice. I think the faults and all will be running back together a lot further north than the other end,
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