MARS—NANEDI VALLES PLATEAUDr. George Meriweather, clad in a Mars excursion suit, stepped through a portal and looked around. It was pitch black except for a blaze of overhead stars. The canyon floor on which he stood lay 100 meters below the level of Nanedi City, fourteen kilometers to the northwest. His location was protected by a moderately steep canyon wall immediately to the west and a crater ring wall section ten kilometers beyond that. The portal was significantly larger than what he had used at Mars Station, large enough to accommodate a rover. He stepped to one side as a rover rolled through the portal. Through the clear polymer domed endcap, he counted four people dressed in Mars excursion suits except for their helmets.
He collapsed the portal, pocketed the hyper-disk, and enter
