Crash-landed on Antichthon. Page 4
First, using automatic and then manual control, the spaceship made several turns around the planet, getting closer and closer to its surface. High rocky mountains with narrow mountain gorges gave way to rocky plateaus and deserts of light yellow, red, black, and green sand. There is only one place on Earth with green sand containing peridot; there are several on Mars but with olivine sand. There are hundreds of sites on Antichthon - from small surfaces to huge deserts with moving green dunes consisting of an unnamed mineral.
On the monitors, landscapes floated both areas located under the flying spaceship and far from it. In different places on the planet, researchers noticed volcanic activity, whirlwinds, and several tornadoes over sandy deserts, and in one of the gorges, the smooth surface of a water lake.
The alien transmitter was in a rocky area near a huge trapezoid-shaped desert. Most of it was green sand, but in some places, there were large patches of red or yellow sand. Approaching the edge of the desert, Alex dropped to five hundred meters when suddenly strong turbulence began. One of the small red vortexes suddenly spun more strongly and rose several hundred meters directly in line with the spaceship. Having received the instrument data, R-Gamma calculated the speed, direction of movement, and density of the dust devil. In all respects, it was tens of times greater than the tornadoes that occur on Earth.
The pilot began to sharply move to the right to fly around the dust obstacle when a new yellow dust devil hit him from the side, dropping the aircraft into a dive. With an incredible effort, Alex managed to get out of the dive while simultaneously moving away from the reappearing yellow and red tornadoes, information about which R-Gamma constantly displayed on the monitor. The struggle of earthlings with the alien meteorological elements lasted only a few seconds. Still, it seemed like an eternity had passed for the rest of the crew.
“We were caught by six dust devils,” R-Gamma said when they escaped from the sandy captivity, “Seventeen flew around and thirty-eight stayed away.”
“Okay,” Kruglov answered calmly as if he had been flying the aircraft with one hand and holding a cup of coffee with the other for the last few seconds.
They landed about two to three kilometers from the alien spaceship a few minutes later. The flight engineer and one of the androids began inspecting their spaceship. R-Alpha loaded the rover with fuel extraction equipment and drove south from the landing site. Alex and his friend flew northwest in a light aircraft to the alien crash site.
“You can imagine that currently we are on Earth,” says Nancy. “It is difficult,” answered Yakuro Kurosaki, "Because I know data about a compound of the atmosphere here which an unmanned aerial vehicle received. We landed on a planet with only 5 percent of oxygen and more than 80 percent of carbon dioxide."
“Can you imagine standing without a spacesuit,” the girl said, laughing. She quickly picked up her backpack with instruments and went to take geological samples.
The ship’s commander went to prepare a report on the latest events to send it to Earth.
Alex Kruglov and the R-Gamma are discussing how they can open the door of the alien space probe.