A robot on Mars

(You should probably read Robot 55 first.)

A wavy plain the color of rust stretched all the way to a not-so-distant horizon, dotted with rocks big and small. Farther out, low outcroppings barely cast a shadow in the tiny, pale sun; high up, the air was thick with dust.

Something foreign stood in that empty vastness: the statue of a human being, thirty meters tall and covered in shiny armor plates painted red and white, that gave it an angular figure. On its head was a helmet with hard edges and a smooth faceplate attached. A pair of eyes burned in the gap between them. The giant appeared to stare into the distance, at bright lights chasing each other in the sky. After a while, it lifted a foot and started walking.

Inside the cockpit, numbers and diagrams danced across big screens that showed a panorama of the landscape. A young man in a red and white flight suit frantically pushed virtual buttons, straining against the cushioned harness he was strapped into.

"At least I made it down in one piece," he muttered, before zooming in to better see the celestial light show. "I hope they can hold the line without me."

Right on cue, the image of a muscular young woman appeared in a window on his helmet visor, flanked by thumbs-up symbols. The digital avatar winked at him, then vanished.

"Thanks, Hikaru," the young man said belatedly. "Let's see, if I got this right, the old research outpost should be... roughly this way."

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