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A great plume of red dust flashed into the sky, the explosion muffled by the thin atmosphere. While the charge used looked impressive from afar its actual strength was limited, but it was enough to send racing lines of seismic waves through the ground beneath.

            She had accepted the post of hydrologist partly to get away from the crowded habitats, here at least she had some peace, even if it was marred by the occasional explosion. She sat hunched over one of the vehicle’s flat screen consoles, waiting for the patterns of seismic waves (detected by the sensors she had so carefully laid out this morning) to be interpreted into a human friendly form by the computer. Again she was shown a screen of red flecks with yellow haze, she was again eluded.

She knew there was water this far south in the southern hemisphere, otherwise certain climatic models would have to be changed way out of line, the evidence was here, just that the perpetrator behind those proofs was deep entrenched in the bedrock.

She ran discrimination programs through the data again, it was clear that no large aquifers were here. She was rather proud of the programs she created, they worked with the seismology readings and interpreted them into categories she knew well, red for bedrock, yellow for regolith, and the elusive blue-green for ice. She began to have suspicions that she had created programs that were adept at covering aquifers, if only she had some proof that it could detect ice, she had considered driving north, to where there were well known aquifers to test prove the system, but she had been so confident that it would work. Anyway despite whatever her programs were telling her, the data collected was accurate, may be other researchers would find the water hidden in the data.

A dialogue appeared on the computer screen, it informed her that the data collected from that last test was collated together into a file suitable for transmission into other archives across the planet, she always resented pressing the button that would transmit the data across the globe via the constellation of areosynchronous satellites above her. Somehow it felt like being robbed, ones hard work accessible from any console, and if discoveries were made she was sure that she would not be given any credit, it was like being the means to an end, an unimportant part of a grander process.

She sighed turned in the swivel chair to look out the small window in science section of the rover. The post failure melancholy would always pass, especially when she started to move on into a new region, then the confidence would build again, seeing the signs of water everywhere, only to be dashed by another seismic test. But despite the emotional instability of the job, at least everyday was distinct, every dawn bringing new challenges. Unlike the habitats, with the same scenery the same problems, and the same people.

Same people, the loneliness of this mission started to cut in after the first couple of expeditions, but she still had contacts she could talk to across the ether if not face to face, it sort of made sense why all the geologists she had met were so insular, if they were not then they could not do there job. To be lonely and free, new horizons new challenges, but alone in the hostile wilderness.

But for the moment she could not move on, sensors have to be gathered, the blast site checked, photographs taken. It did not seem fair that the most tedious part of her job would be in the depressive period after each failure. Nevertheless it would get dark soon, the sun was closing on the horizon, though this far south it was hard to judge, she could probably get more than half the sensors in the next hour or two, driving the rover towards their transponder signal, uprooting them, and stowing them for use again. She would have to visit the blast site first though, and then again before she left to her next location, there maybe no large water deposits but you could make good guesses as to the ice content of the regolith by looking at the blast site.

She got ready to suit up, it was not so cold out, not for Mars, she struggled as ever to get the suit on, the highly elastic material which would stop her body expanding in the low pressure also made it a nightmare to put on, still it was better than bulky pressurized suits that were used in space. It still was inconvenient to suit up every time to go outside, but it was a routine now, the alternative of anoxia and rapid death were options she would not entertain despite her recent failure.

One day terraforming would do away with the need of suits, even the most diehard of geologists who campaigned that such changes would ruin what was already there eventually admitted guiltily that they would like to work in the open. Science is like medicine it may taste horrible to begin with, but it did make things better.

She finished suiting up, putting her other clothes over the science consoles chair, where the white jumpsuit was lit by the colours from the screen, which still showed her survey results, climbed into the lock, and set off to pull out the first set of instruments.