When Adam was married the first time, 800 years before he met Eve

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The malfunctioning rover launched itself off the ridge of the crater as if it could fly, but its flight soon turned into a huge arc as the meager but constant gravity of the red planet pulled selfishly like a child not wanting to give up a new toy. At over three hundred surveyed cubits deep and Adam found himself in a free-fall that appeared to execute in slow motion. He fumbled blindly and clumsily below the lip of his visor to free himself, but the unyielding seat restraints bound Adam and the self-willed rover together in a death grip
“CONTROL, URGENT, URGENT,” hollered Adam into his headset, knowing in the back of his mind it would do no good; the signal takes nearly four minutes to reach USB control. As the horizon swept over his head and the cold dark shadows below rushed up

[This message has been edited by tnwilz (edited October 20, 2006).]

The moment you said “rover” I saw the unmanned ones currently on Mars. And launching itself off the ridge of a crater…I saw it go over the edge and fall.

THEN…the Mars gravity is certainly strong enough to pull stuff down. Isn’t the air thin? Somehow a “rover” seems wrong. I guess this is some sort of glider or powered aircraft and must have wings out halfway to Marsport to fly there. (An exaggeration, but this is going on gut feeling.)

Four minutes to reach USB control? For a moment, reading, I though he was back maybe in Marsport remote controlling this thing. Are the USB controls back there? I just can’t conceive of going out in a craft meant to fly, or even not to fly (I assumed the launch was intentional) with controls (push stop button and four minutes later the brake starts to operate) that had a 4 MINUTE DELAY!!!

* This is gripping

If its confusing its confusing.

What I want to convey is that its an alien system long before earth is populated (bfore Adam met eve) that uses what we would call ancient measuring systems like cubits (the measuring system used on the Ark). Its a rover like the one the early space travelers used on our moon and it has a simple accelerator malfunction and in his bulky space suit he cant stop it quickly. I wish also for the reader to picture the same early space suits that we use today that are impossible to work on when your in them. Most of the parts are out of your field of view. Picture yourself inside one and you'll see what I mean. To loosen the seat belt the rover would have to be stopped and he would largly have to use touch and training to release it.

Of course its hard to do more than hint at all this stuff in 13 lines but I will meditate on it, thank you again.

Mars gravity is approximately 38% Earth's gravity. I might or might not describe that as meager.

At over three hundred surveyed cubits deep and Adam found himself in a free-fall that appeared to execute in slow motion.
I had trouble with this sentence. What's the difference between a surveyed cubit and an unsurveyed cubit? How does a free-fall 'execute'? I understand what you're trying to convey with the slow motion idea, but it is coming across as awkward.

He fumbled blindly and clumsily below the lip of his visor to free himself,
I don't think you need the adverbs. Also, because he's fumbling with the lip of his visor, I was confused as to how his visor alone was preventing him from freeing himself.

but the unyielding seat restraints bound Adam and the self-willed rover together in a death grip
How can seat restrains bind the rover? I know that's not what you mean, but that's how the sentence is written.

“CONTROL, URGENT, URGENT,” hollered Adam into his headset, knowing in the back of his mind it would do no good
You don't need all caps here. Use exclamation points instead.

the signal takes nearly four minutes to reach USB control
Unlike arriki, I had no trouble understanding this. There is often a time-lag in sending communication signals of different kinds. However, I did have two minor problems with this sentence.
- I don't know what USB stands for. You should spell it out the first time it's used.
- You switched to present tense in this sentence, and that's jarring. To keep it in a smoother tense, you might say, "the signal would take nearly four minutes..."

the cold dark shadows below rushed up into the lights of the rover
This felt melodramatic to me. Shadows can't rush into lights, because the lights obliterate the shadows.

Adam braced for impact and Russell’s frantic voice from base station was in his ear.
Ok, except that the unexpected introduction of a new character was jarring. We are about to impact, we are tense and expectant, and suddenly we have to stop to figure out who this new guy is.

Are you saying that Adam is from an ancient spacefaring civilization? If not, I don't see a problem with your intro -- we'll find out about the ancient civilization when it becomes relevant. If so, you have to tell us, or we'll feel tricked. "The first paragraph is free": you can tell us whatever background we need to understand Adam before getting into the malfunctioning rover thing.

BTW, I wouldn't blink much at "USB" -- and I'd say you may not need to explain it, as it's obvious from context what it is -- but to me, "USB" is a kind of data port on my computer.

It doesn't matter about Adam being ADAM, not here in the first 13 lines. The lines have to make sense on their own. Which is why a rover on a "red planet" is a Mars rover to contemporary readers I fear.