The Ruins of Mars: Waking Titan (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy) by Dylan James Quarles

the stairs to the Dome’s ground floor level.
    Watching the image of him leave from a Tablet screen on her desk, Liu suppressed the urge to go after him and tell him everything. Fear stopped her, though. Fear and guilt. Guilt t hat she knew a secret he didn’t; fear that he would blame her or, worse, himself.
    Putting her protective glasses on, she picked up the welding torch and went back to attaching the cutting arm to the Rover.
    A small model with only six wheels, the Rover was a squat beetle-like machine designed for the construction of the Base. Crude though it may have been, the Rover was one of Braun’s many avatars, chosen for this mission because of its durability and easily modifiable design.
    As sparks flared up before her, Liu focused on making her hands steady, not wanting to allow the weight of her personal problems to interfere with the delicate job.
    On a nearby desk, her Tablet chimed and she glanced over her shoulder at the screen. It was another message from Kubba. The fourth in an hour. Feeling the walls closing in on her, Liu’s hand dipped slightly and the beam of the laser torch touched the hard shell of the Rover’s battery casing. A blast of ceramic sparks ignited, and before she could pull the tool away, the burning sting of a small shard leaped up to imbed itself in her cheek.
    Putting a hand to the wound, Liu pulled the shard away and looked at the droplets of blood on her fingertips. A sob broke free from her chest and soon she was slumped forward, her head resting against the Rover, as tears streamed down her face.
    Back in his lab, Harrison sat with his feet on his desk, music piping through the room’s sound system.
    Using his Tablet to scan his inbox, he groaned at the mounting number of transmissions that required a reply from him. At least three Deans from the Consortium of Universities wanted to pick his brain, and he was even beginning to get political solicitations from the two rival parties vying for control of the White House in November. There was a message from James Floyd as well, but his face looked red and angry in the thumbnail, so Harrison decided to ignore it for a while.
    “Harrison,” said Braun.
    “Mmmhmm?”
    “Dr. Kubba is at the door.”
    Stretching in his chair, Harrison put down the Tablet and turned to face the entrance.
    “Let her in,” he yawned.
    The door slid open and Elizabeth Kubba stepped through, her face bright and friendly.
    “What’s up, Doc?” he asked. “Is it time for you to tell me I’m crazy?”
    Chuckling softly, Kubba shook her head and leaned against the wall.
    “No, not yet. I was actually coming to see if you wanted to go on a walk with me.”
    “A walk?”
    “Yes. As I understand it, you and I are the only members of the crew not otherwise busy with projects right now.”
    “Well,” grinned Harrison. “That’s not entirely true. I probably should be working on something. I just can’t remember exactly what it is. Too many voices in my head. Can’t hear myself think.”
    “Then you are crazy,” Kubba said. “And a nice stroll through in the garden is just the cure you need.”
    “The garden, eh?” nodded Harrison, rising to his feet. “Sounds nice.”
    Twenty minutes later, the two white-suited explorers were stepping through the airlock into the hazy Martian morning.
    A stiff breeze whipped up motes of dust , and in the quiet of his helmet, Harrison could just make out the sound—like the sighs of a sleeping giant.
    Taking a left, the pair headed around the curve of the Dome and made for a series of metal rings protruding from the sand.
    The skeleton of what would someday become a connecting tunnel between the Dome and the greenhouse, the big rings stood like the rib bones of a dead whale. Due to a hiccup in planning, the Alon needed to plate the tunnel was never included in the Ark, so it stood unfinished, not to be completed until the next mission.
    Patting one of the rings as he walked through it, Harrison