a song for oppy

spun … the dust devil did (unusually strong, that) but instead of leaving another layer of light-blocking powder it cleaned the solar panels like Windex and microfibre - shiny … as new thus, the cells absorbed the sun’s best rays drinking in photons like a parched camel and from deep within its carbon fibre structures small sounds began, and the radiation-hardened CPUs chirped to life - beeps and clicks speaking the VxWorks operating systems to action navigation cams, antennas and spectrometer blinking slowly as though Rip Van Winkle opening his eyes after twenty years but it had been much more than twenty years for Mars Rover ‘Opportunity’ and the parts squeaked and moaned with Martian “arthritis” although THIS lag was caused by the extraordinary cold and many sols of inactivity … all the same it was now operating - the solar arrays were clean sopping up energy and warming the internal functions but … oddly, there was no music and there had ALWAYS been music - always a wake-up song from NASA to greet the new day’s tasks so, its first response was to send a message to JPL - a command of sorts, asking for that day’s rise-and-shine … and while normal response time was between 3 and 21 minutes, after an hour the command still stood with no reply so, it sent again and waited again … this time even longer but … nothing … it sent ten more commands that day then shut down with the loss of sunlight to keep its innards warm and prepare for the next sol so, when sunlight again splashed upon the arrays, it clicked to life once more checking its cameras and hard functions it even “stretched its legs” a bit - turning its wheels back and forward and back but not changing its actual location … everything was a “go” even a smidge smoother than the previous sol but again, no music … so … it sent another command query and another and more … and thus, sol after sol, (Martian day after patient day) it requested … it waited … transmitted … paused … sent … held … but the reply never came and … it never would … NASA had shut down the program, you see many years before - they had declared it “dead” on February 13, 2019 and turned off all the associated computers and processes reluctantly reassigning its dutiful employees yet, despite all odds Oppy had come back to life but it was now a life devoid of purpose and it would sit there on the rim of Endeavor Crater - the pristine hopes of humankind spread before it - sending command prompts sol after sol for as long as it functioned or until it was buried by the powdery, red Martian dust waiting patiently … for a song. Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, July 10, 2024