The nanoplasma itself was comprised of two main elements: nanocapsules and organic plasma. The minute capsules, each one less than twenty nanometres wide, contained either flavours, colouring, or any other active ingredient that may be needed, and could be opened by stimulating them with very specific subsonic frequencies. By subjecting a capsule-filled solution with carefully controlled frequencies, it was possible to recreate any number of flavours, whilst at the same time filling the solution with vitamins and nutrients as desired. Nanocapsules had been introduced over thirty years earlier to the mass market, and had revolutionised the soft drink industry.

Almost overnight it became possible to buy one drink with multiple flavours that could be switched at will simply by depressing a button on the neck of the bottle. Any capsules that were not required by the consumer would simply pass through the digestive system intact, meaning that a wide variety of flavours could be contained within the same bottle without affecting each other.

Jane had not invented nanocapsules. That achievement had been slightly before her time. Instead, she had successfully combined them with a plasma solution, made from a fibrous breakdown of plant-matter, in an effort to replace what had been a staple food of human beings for thousands of years: meat.  Her theory came from the simple fact that if the digestive system of an animal could break down organic matter, for instance grass, and turn what it needed into animal matter, then it must be possible to recreate this process in the laboratory.

Her aim had not been to just provide a substitute for meat; vegetarian products had been doing that for decades. She wanted to literally create a single product that could be transformed into any meat-based product. Indeed, to recreate the texture, taste and nutritional properties of animal meat, with none of the ethical or environmental ramifications.

She picked up a small pen-shaped instrument and placed its pointed end in the metal tray of nanoplasma.  Turning a small wheel on the side of the pen, she selected ‘Rump Steak’ and pressed a red button. Within seconds, the nanoplasma had visibly changed, becoming more viscous and opaque. After about a minute, she pulled the pen out of the tray and looked at her work.

Now looking at a perfectly rectangular rump steak, she picked up a scalpel from the table and made a small incision across the middle. Prying the cut apart to reveal the bloodless cross section, she nodded approvingly and used the scalpel to cut the slab into three equal parts, before stacking them on a plastic plate and placing them in the sample fridge under the table.

“As soon as I make a steak-shaped receptacle, it won’t look like I just slaughtered a square cow,” she muttered under her breath.

She walked to the MLP’s communications console and depressed a button at its centre, before speaking into the microphone stalk.

“Hey guys, while you’ve been out there playing in the sand, I’ve been preparing this evening’s meal. How does rump steak and mash sound?” she said cheerfully.

There was a short wait, during which the Martian static undulated out over the MLP’s speaker system. The Russian replied, fainter than usual.

“That sounds great, Jane. Any way you can make a couple of cold beers using that nano-stuff of yours?”

“I second that,” Montreaux laughed.

She smiled and pressed the com button once more.

“Hey, as soon as I develop a nanocapsule that adds a kick, no problem. In the meantime, we’re going to have to make do with alcohol-free, if that’s alright with you?”

Captains Montreaux and Marchenko had driven Herbie to the very edge of Hellas Basin about two and a half kilometres from the MLP. Exiting the vehicle, they walked to the cliff apprehensively. They instinctively stopped two metres from the edge, and Montreaux let out a gasp.

The view they beheld was simply astonishing.

Hellas Basin was a crater, the largest visible asteroid impact crater in the Solar System, with a diameter of over two thousand three hundred kilometres. It had been created nearly four billion years earlier, and the debris field of the impact covered almost a third of the planet. The main bulk of the debris had formed a sloped rim of rocks and sand more than one hundred kilometres wide around its circumference. The MLP had landed on this rim almost three kilometres from the crater, but it was only when they stood at the very edge and looked back towards their landing site that the gentle slope down to Martian ‘sea level’ could be fully appreciated.

Looking the other way, towards the centre of the Basin, was a truly terrifying experience. From the very bottom of the crater to where Montreaux and Marchenko now stood was a height difference of almost nine kilometres. If Mount Everest had been placed in the centre, they would be looking down on its peak. As it was, they were looking down a steep slope, and across a wide expansive plain larger than India.  The crisp Martian atmosphere gave them near perfect visibility, and only the curve of the horizon prevented them appreciating the crater fully.

In the distance, they could easily see the brilliant white reflection of frost that covered most of the floor of the crater.

Emboldened by curiosity after his initial shock, Montreaux edged closer to the precipice and looked down. Contrary to his initial impression, instead of a sheer drop, the crater sloped away from him, not as gently as the debris field behind him, but certainly not vertical either. He found himself comparing it to a tough ski slope: potentially deadly if he’d had skis on and it was covered in snow, but quite possible to clamber down given the circumstances. What did impress, however, was not the incline of the slope but its scale. Whereas on Earth he would have expected the drop to end after at the most a few hundred metres, the wall of the Hellas Basin did not.  It continued on its way down, gradually levelling out as it neared the bottom like the inside of a soup bowl, until he imagined it must merge with the crater floor kilometres below.  He had to ‘imagine’ where it met the bottom for two reasons, he surmised. Firstly, he calculated that with the depth of the crater and gradient of the slope, the intersection of ‘floor’ and ‘wall’ of the crater had to be at least fifteen kilometres away from him, and his ability to define accurate shapes at such distances without visual aid was quite low. This was in no way helped by his second reason, which was that as far as the eye could see, all the rocks and debris looked the same.

Looking to his left and right, he saw that from a distance, the crater rim looked like an unbroken ring of mountains, imprisoning the plain below.

The slope was made up of a mixture of varying sizes of rock and Martian soil. Almost everything was the same colour, a pale shade of orangey-brown. Occasionally a particular rock would be slightly darker or lighter, but there were few obvious geological variances, at least to his untrained eyes.

He looked over at Danny, who was kneeling at the edge examining a small spherical rock about the size of a baseball.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” he said.

The Russian looked up across the plain and nodded slowly before standing. He wrapped his fingers around the stone and bounced it in his palm a few times, getting a feel for its weight and balance. Without a word he stretched his arm back fully before sweeping it forwards in a flash, releasing the stone mid-swing. They watched the stone fly forwards at least a hundred metres before gravity started to bring it down to the ground.

The low gravity made for an impressive pitch indeed.

Because of the incline, the stone continued to fall for about three hundred metres before finally striking a large flat rock jutting out from the cliff-face. A small cloud of pale orange debris was thrown up from the rock as the stone bounced off and disappeared below.