Back in the
present, the lights flashed briefly twice.
Jorge stepped from the driver’s compartment to the passenger
compartment.
“Old man, we’ve been on the road for
ten hours now. Shift change up front,
and sleep time back here,” he said, jerking a thumb towards the front cabin.
“Right,” I said, rising from my
chair and grabbing my seat bag.
“You good to drive for now,” he
asked, settling into the seat I had vacated.
“Grandson, I was sleeping behind the
wheel with the truck on autopilot before you were a gleam in your daddy’s
daddy’s eyes. I’ve got this.”
“Sleep behind the wheel,” Kelley
asked, a concerned look on her face.
“Yeah, we do it all the time on long
trips. The truck is monitored by MTC,
and has all the latest in science-tificical devices to ensure we get where
we’re going without incident. Which,
come to think of it, was how we found site Tarkas in the first place. Tell you what, let me grab a few hours of
sleep up front, and I’ll tell you about us finding the Pipers, ok?”
“It’s safe?”
“Look, cars on Earth have been self-driving
for what, the last 60 or so years? Ya’ll
think someone actually driving is some sort of aberration these days, I
hear. This is the same system ya’ll use,
adapted for the terrain. It’s a modified
terrain following radar/lidar system.
Otherwise, this 48 or so hour long drive would take twice as long. The whole system is designed to operate
without a driver. I’m there to make
command decisions in the event of things like sandstorms and other ‘weather
phenomena’.”
“Other than sandstorms, what weather
does Mars have?”
“Good point. But, we
didn’t write the programming, someone on Earth did, under a grant from the
government, and it had to handle all possible issues. If we were driving across the polar caps, we
might get some fog in the early morning, or during the sublimation period. But yeah, this thing could be driven by a
blind person with no issues. Hell, my
damn cats could ‘drive’ it long as someone programmed the destination. And before you ask, yes, we had someone do
that back in ’91 if I remember correctly,” I said, grinning.
“Hadn’t thought about it that way,” she said, settling back
in the seat. “I’ll see you in a few
hours then.”
“Good night then. See
you in about eight hours or so,” I said stepping through into the driver’s
compartment, sealing the door behind me.
I cut the lighting in the passenger compartment while I was settling
into the driver’s seat. I checked the
settings in the autopilot, the weather and other things, made sure the timer
was set for an eight hour nap, and went to sleep.
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