"Exactly like the photos," said Antony Reed.

To Jamie, the red desert world beyond the window looked just as he had expected it to look. Like home.

The first member of the team to leave the landing ship was the sturdy construction robot. Crowding against the small observation window with the three other scientists, Jamie Waterman watched the bulbous, blue-gray metal vehicle roll across the rusty red sand on its six springy wheels, stopping abruptly about fifty meters from where their lander stood.

Watching the square-sided machine with the bulky liquefied air tanks atop it, Jamie thought to himself, Russian design, Japanese electronics, and American software. Just like everything else on this expedition.

A pair of gleaming metal arms unfolded from the truck’s front like a giraffe climbing to its feet and began to pull a shapeless heap of plastic from the big storage bin on its side. The robot spread the plastic out on the sand as precisely as a grandmother spreading a picnic tablecloth. Then it seemed to stop, as if to inspect the shiny, rubbery-looking material. Slowly, the lifeless plastic began to stir, filling with air from the big tanks on the robot’s top. The plastic heap grew and took form: a bubble, a balloon, finally a rigid hemispherical dome that completely hid the robot from view.

Ilona Malater, pressing close, murmured, "Our home on Mars."

Tony Reed replied, "If it doesn’t leak."

For more than an hour they watched the industrious little robot building their inflated dome, fixing its rim firmly to the dusty Martian soil, trundling back and forth through a man-tall flap to get reinforcing metal ribs and a complete airlock assembly from the landing vehicle’s cargo bay and then weld them into place.

They were all anxious to go outside and plant their booted feet on the rust-red soil of Mars, but Vosnesensky insisted that they follow the mission plan to the letter. "The braking structure must cool," he railed down to them from the cockpit, by way of legitimizing his decision. "The dome structure must be finished and fully pressurized."