Personal electronic letter (portion) DATE: 3 July 1967 FROM: Director Jimmy D. Hunt RE: Martian Field Exploration Team Beta 14 TO: Wilma Hunt (wife) Atlantic City, NJ) -- text removed -- In May of last year we found a deep shaft dug into the Martian surface in an area that is named Wileys' Meadow. The shaft was 2.5 meters in diameter and was over 100 meters deep. The inner surface of the shaft appeared to be precision machined. Now, Wilma - we weren't out looking for anything like this. You know me: I'm a firm believer that curiosity most often kills the cat. But there I was... Our original job was simply to build a landing strip for MarSurv gliders. Needless to say we were poorly equipped to evaluate a find like this. But we did all we could in the short time we had. But here's what really got us interested in the shaft: hot gas was venting out of it. We conferred and decided to do a couple of quick measurements. (1) we used a thermometer from an MS Rations kit to determine the temperature of the gas being expelled from the shaft. It was 80 degrees Fahrenheit - plus or minus 5 degrees. That may not seem like much in Earth terms - but on Mars it's HOT! (2) We caught a sample of the gas in a glass-lined thermos and then sealed the thermos with the special epoxy patch kit that is part of the emergency repair kit of any Martian vehicle. (3) We dismantled a broken transceiver and pulled forth a coil of hair thin copper wire. After unraveling it we determined its length to be about 100 meters. We then tied a small rock to one end and lowered it slowly down the shaft. We did this several times. We were unable to detect the bottom of the well. We radioed our findings to Burroughs' Station and were instructed to return immediately with the gas sample. This broke my heart. I had soooo looked forward to busting my butt clearing that landing strip... Over a year, Earth Standard, passed before we could take another crack at Wileys' Well. There were numerous delays: two record breaking sandstorms, an abnormally cold winter, and fuel shortages. But in the meantime we did get a good analysis of the gas we'd trapped in the thermos: 80% nitrogen,19% oxygen, 1% argon; no contaminants to speak of. If the gas pressure is high enough down in the tunnels - and if it's consistent... . The boys in Geolab said the gas was absolutly not volcanic. They, in turn, passed it on the the A-boys who claimed the gas to be mildly radioactive and, therefore, "possibly volcanic in origin!" This made the red tape fly and festered more delays. Finally, one week ago, MarsGov gave us the nod. Old Hithers himself called us (Myself, Dr. Chapman and Raj Kumar) into his office, made us all volunteers, and told us what we were going to do. He told us that even the pyramid ruins discovered by Burgess and Morvis were taking a back seat to this one... Yesterday we descended into Wileys' Well for the first time. Cpl. Suze Malloy, and Cpl. William DeLapp accompanied me. The other team members, Doctor Howard Chapman, Professor Raj Kumar, and SSgt. Richard Levy, all wanted to go as well - but since this was my party - my responsibility - I slammed the door in their faces. Can you imagine 98 year old Chapman scuttling one-hundred feet down a rope ladder in a pressure suit? And yes! The gas pressure at the bottom of the shaft is just enough to sustain human life. The air is pretty thin - and a chap with pulmonary disease or a heart condition wouldn't last long - but it smells sweet and fresh. We had no clue what we we're going to find. I guess - regardless of what the geeks in Geolab said - we all expected to discover some near-dormant volcanic fissure. We were reasonably sure that the source of the heat was not the byproduct of life. (Dr. Chapman had this theory of a slow burning deposit of coal - just like what has happened on Earth in the past.) Okay - here's the play-by-play... The shaft, it turns out, was 120 meters deep. The climb down was not easy. Chapman would never have made it. The walls of the shaft, precisely machined, were as smooth as glass - equaling, if not surpassing, the ability of Earth technology. The climb down took thirty minutes. What we found at the bottom surprised everybody: a series of tunnels left by, we assume, the past residents of Mars. The tunnels, rough-cut compared to the walls of the shaft, were all a standard width of 7.2 meters and height of 4.6 meters. Until that moment I had never actually been struck speechless. It seems that the bottom of Wileys' Well is a nexus - a convergence of eight tunnels arranged like the spokes of a bicycle (Each tunnel joined the nexus at exactly forty-five degrees respective to one another). After an intense round of eenie-meenie-minee-moe we decided to follow the tunnel that headed precisely north. Privets Malloy and DeLapp INSISTED on doing their security thing. In no time flat they were brandishing particularly lethal looking weapons which they both called - lovingly - PPRs. Before we moved out, I relayed our intent to the team members on the surface. I guess I caught them at a bad moment because they were hurriedly digging a hole in which to escape a dirt blow (Nick name, in a fond sense, for a sandstorm. This is opposed to the term "rock toss": a sand storm powerful enough to whip up chunks of gravel - turning them into the equivalent of high caliber bullets). We headed north. Malloy served as "point" and DeLapp brought up the rear. At about one kilometer our external suit mics picked up a faint rustling sound. I had time to see Malloy slam into the deck just before DeLapp jumped onto my back to make me do the same. PPRs began pointing every which away. After a moment or so we identified the source of the rustling sound: a sudden increase in air pressure from ahead - wind - was rubbing over the rough cut walls now. The sound our mics picked up was air passing over rock. At 200 meters we came to another nexus of four tunnels. We would have traveled farther but at about that moment our oxygen reserve timers began twirping. It was time to head back in order to live to explore another day. -- text removed -- We three made it safely back on the surface. Once there we found out that Dr. Chapman had suffered a heart attack and died during the sandstorm. Apparently some grit got into his air system and he panicked when his air flow stopped. It was only for a moment - but too much for the old boy. -- text removed --