‘The Permian suffered a serious catastrophe. Some thing or things hit us—hit the Earth—and it took several million years for a biomass to recover. But out of that big black pit crawled–’
‘Hang on,’ Nivec interrupted, placing a retaining hand on Cood’s arm. ‘Look, we must talk about this before an assemblage of the whole tower—and link up with the other towers. Everyone here on Tharsis has to understand just what we have got hold of. I figure this is the most terrific bit of Darwinian news ever. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘Don’t leave me out,’ cried Thirn, jumping up.
The assembly hall was packed. Noel was effectively in control.
All junk was cleared out of the way. Everyone was revitalised by the discovery of life on Mars, which until now had been merely one of those crazy science-fiction imaginings.
Sitting on the panel were the two doctors, Nivec and Cood. Thirn was also on display.
Nivec opened the proceedings. ‘Thanks to the courage of our friend Thirn here, we can say with confidence that yes, there is native life on this planet, although life rather different from that envisaged by Professor Percival Lowell some centuries ago. My colleagues and I wish to give you the scientific background as we understand it at this stage.’
He then spoke of the Permian-Triassic event, some 250 million years ago, when a great percentage of marine and terrestrial genera perished. It seems most probable that this wholesale destruction was caused by more than one violent impact from space. These bolides, passing through the solar system, were unlikely to have impacted Earth alone.
Nivec warned the audience that he was talking hypothetically. But something resembling the P-Tr event could have occurred on Mars, in what might tentatively be labelled the Martian Permian period.
The severity of the event on Earth may be judged by the fact that 30 million years passed before diversity was re-established. On Mars, diversity was never established.
Climbing out of that great pit of extinction were therapsids and later cynodonts, mammal-like reptiles. Cynodonts form part of the long trail that leads to the origins of mankind.
He said that there was a possible resemblance between some therapsids and the creatures just discovered under the Tharsis shield.
‘And I discovered them!’ shouted Thirn, jumping up and waving her hands above her head. Some in the audience laughed and clapped.
Nivec could not help smiling. ‘So you did, and we sha’n’t forget it!’
He then went on to emphasise his main point. ‘Therapsids evolved and evolution was and still is continuous. Yes, our ancestors came down from the trees, but long before that, more ancient ancestors climbed out of the pit of P-Tr’s vast extinction event into the trees. Don’t forget that first of all trees had to appear.
‘But on Mars, being of lower mass and on the fringes of the comfort zone of the Sun, evolution, we’d guess, proved more difficult. These creatures just discovered by—we know who, don’t we?—are Martian equivalents of therapsids, living evidence of a system calamity Earth has long outgrown.
‘I want you to realise that scientific study of the remote past can enlighten us regarding the present. The fact that today’s evidence might be edible should not blind us to the discovery we are now about to announce to the whole world.’
AS WE ALWAYS KNEW THERE IS LIFE ON MARS
HEROIC GIRL DISCOVERS HIDDEN LIFE (Pic. p 6)
FOOD FOR THOUGHT ON RED-HOT PLANET
SCI-FI COMES TRUE
One person was not at the lecture. He had other things to attend to. Tad had moved into the Chinese tower with Gongcha. Gongcha had put her deputy in charge, so that her affair with Tad would not be interrupted.
It was important to both Gongcha and Tad that he should be kissing the enchanting dimples on her behind. He had kissed almost everything else on offer, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes entirely without thought.
Gongcha had responded ardently, indeed almost acrobatically on occasion.
‘I am pleased to be pleasured. If I may play with words?’ she asked.
‘Oh, you can play in any way—even in ways we haven’t tried yet.’
She rolled over on to her back to clutch his prod. ‘This poor lonely item! I must give it shelter at once …’
Smiling mischievously, she did so, but teasingly slowly.
Tad clutched her tightly. ‘Oh, oh, oh, Gongcha, my darling, you prove to me there is life on Mars. Real life …’
Nevertheless Chang Mu Gongcha had things on her mind other than sex. An invitation had come from the West tower to inspect the new animals caught in the water course running under the ground between West, China, and on into the unknown.
Gongcha accepted and, at an hour fixed between them, presented herself with Chin Hwa, her chief scientist, and an escort at the gate of West. Noel and a scientist awaited her there. Showing the Chinese Director every courtesy, Noel took her and Chin Hwa to the science laboratories. Here the two captive fish-like things had been transferred to one fair-sized tank. Lights had been lowered to suit the imagined preferences of the pseudo-therapsids.
Nivec appeared, polite and formal. He described briefly the discovery and capture of the creatures, omitting the name of Thirn. He told Chang Mu Gongcha of the theory that these animals, part reptile, part mammal, were the equivalent of the terrestrial therapsids and the later cynodonts existing some 260 million years ago. He made no mention of what might become of the two specimens they had.
There was talk of an expedition to catch more specimens.
Then Nivec bowed and left Gongcha and Chin Hwa to their inspection and her thoughts.
A wooden plank provided by the building department gave the creatures something to rest on. They lay half in and half out of the water, unmoving. As she walked slowly round the tank, their great eyes followed her. Otherwise, they were unmoving, their long bony heads flat against the plank they clutched. Their legs were fin-like, with a firm hold on the plank.
Chin Hwa was making notes into his watputer. ‘To categorise these animals as equivalents of ancient Permian animals is premature. No research has been done. We have no evidence of bodily scales on therapsids. These creatures must live in water to obtain their oxygen quota …’
Chang Mu Gongcha scarcely listened. She stood looking at the captive fish-like beings. They stared back at her. No trace of emotion from them to her—or, for that matter, from her to them. No repugnance.
She stood with one hand against the tank that contained them, steadying herself against her thoughts.
Their hardship. Their struggle to live. Their need to reproduce. Their instinct to continue. Their deaths, of course. Whatever passed through their heads by way of response to their environment.
What was it she found here so horrible, so enduring, so inarticulate? Was it not that these faculties she imagined in them, however dark, however ancient, however alien—all such faculties which rose unbidden to her inner vision—she herself shared, and with all humanity, trapped as they were in time?
She turned finally to Chin Hwa. ‘Record that we saw them alive.’
27
Hitting the Trail
Preparations which kept Gerint busy were well under way for the monthly exploration. He was not one to allow those confounded therapsids to disrupt his routine.
The first exploration team had checked that underground water source first plumbed by the android drill. They had sent down a plumb line. The water was of considerable depth; but they could not gauge the size of the chamber containing the water. The question of whether to send down a diver, thus necessarily boring a larger hole, had been postponed and then somehow forgotten.
Gerint said nothing, not even to his partness, Dr Gior, but inwardly he raged to reflect that he could have gone down into the waters himself. He would then have had the honour of being the discoverer of Martian lif
e, rather than that silly little creature, Thirn. She lacked dignity.
Meanwhile, under his supervision, two dozen people, men and women, masked up and hit the trail. One objective was to maintain contact with the planet itself. There was also the hope of finding something of an answer, or a new question, with which to intrigue the scientific community back on Earth—something which might keep UU investments flowing.
The expedition set out in the Martian afternoon. The first expeditions had been linked together by lightweight cable. It had proved inconvenient. Now they spread out, all keeping within sight of each other—not, as they laughingly said, that they were afraid of encountering little green men, but rather to combat a feeling of utter isolation which confronted them. Shadows of sunset gathered, reinforcing the isolation. They were moving into hitherto unexplored territory.
Humans are social animals. Here on these desolate slopes, even within sight of others, loneliness confronted them.
They moved over the dusty surface in the direction of the volcano Ceraunius Tholis. Every now and then they came across small round pits created by incoming space stones, all of which they examined.
Whereas the orbit of Earth performed almost a regular circle round the Sun, Mars’ orbit was more elliptical. The distances between the two planets were variable. When they were on opposite sides of the Sun in superior conjunction, the distance between them amounted to some fifty-five million miles. When Earth passed between Mars and the Sun, in opposition, the distance might be as little as four million miles. In other words, the time in which Earth brightened and faded was governed by planetary orbital motions.
Nothing is simple. Dust storms frequently arose when no expeditions could be undertaken. This expedition took place towards the end of spring, when all was still and the skies clear. The sun shone, a small disc shedding a pennyworth of light, and sinking towards the horizon. Earth could not be seen. The little moon Diemos was high, hardly noticeable against the backdrop of stars. Phobos would soon be rising.
No storms. No wind. No sound. Silence like eternity. Silence scarcely broken by the scrape of a couple of dozen boots tramping over regolith.
All told, the men and women of the expedition moved in a melancholy tranquillity, as they headed slowly northwards. Most agreed the scene was not without beauty, inducing a feeling as yet unnamed, compounded of regret and delight. The intensity of this sensation spread comparative silence between the expedition members. Although an indifference to religion had lured them here, they were overcome by a sense of sanctity.
Later, back in the tower when their heavy togs were removed, this indefinable sensation would be discussed and, if possible, given a name. One suggestion so far, compounded from Greek roots, was metanipoko, created from words for regret and sublimity. Metanipoko.
Reaching Ceraunius, they climbed the west wall of the volcano, Gerint leading. They stumbled up a wide crack which served as a kind of pathway. On Earth, the climb would have been arduous. Here, it was pleasant enough. They had climbed back into the lees of sunset.
Nearing the broken lip of the volcano, they found rubble of shattered lava-rock. A short distance on and this changed into parallel seams of rock resembling strings of beads.
‘Here’s something!’ Vooky exclaimed. ‘A fish, by the look of it.’
They crowded round, bending as much as the stiff yixiing huaheng suits permitted. Certainly there, in one of several rope-like strings of rock, was a fish shape: featureless, lacking head or fins, but fish-shaped certainly … An infant therapsid, perhaps?
A torchlight was shone on it. Vooky cried, ‘Yes, we’ve found it! Past life! Oh, what luck! Almost as crucial as those things …!’
Another woman was beginning to scratch at the rock with a knife.
‘Don’t be too hasty, dear. This shape is also the shape of a leaf. It’s no fish –’
‘It is a fish,’ Vooky insisted. ‘How can you be so stupid? What would a solitary leaf be doing on Ceraunius?’
A man joined in, asking what a solitary fish would be doing here on Ceraunius. So an argument developed, polite, cool, but growing warmer.
Vooky suddenly shifted her position. How could a small fish have got to the mouth of a volcano? she asked. In any case, this fish-like, leaf-like shape was common enough, in organic or inorganic nature. Hope had driven her to make an error. She apologised to all concerned.
‘After seeing these other things, you know—therapsids, does he call them? I mean you can’t help wondering what else … well, you never know. Anyhow, sorry!’
‘Never mind,’ said Gerint.
They stood in silence, in the enveloping stillness, looking at their boots or down on to the plain.
Overhead, the rich blackness of unending space, the faint light of stars. Distantly, a comet moved, heading farther into the system, towards the Sun.
Eventually they made their way back to the West tower. Hope was such a hateful weakness. It sang out, sprang out, when least expected.
Out of nowhere, heading for the sun. Like the comet.
After the expedition’s return, both sexes showered together. Then the usual corporate conversation was held. They wasted some time agonising over the fish-like rock, talking about archetypal shapes. They discussed what they should call the new emotion many of them experienced on this occasion when walking on Mars. Eventually they decided to adopt metanipoko. An intensity of regret and delight.
Stroy ventured to suggest selbsthilfloszwang. It was considered but not adopted. Stroy thought to herself that people did not care to admit they found themselves forced to do something.
Several people came up to Stroy after the meeting to say they regretted her new word had not been adopted. Some had felt that unpronounceable word applied to themselves …
A neuroscientist and scientific adviser called Lock said, ‘We know how quantum coherence plays a part in biological systems. Neurons plus connecting synapses do a job similar to that of transistors. A steady environmental change may act like a switch on our consciousness and our extended consciousness—by which I mean digesting new data and promoting intelligent processing. I’ll go along with metanipoko provided you all realise we are going to need a quiver full of coinages properly to comprehend our new life-mode.’
Clomp.
Carn raised her voice above several others to suggest that neuroanatomy had been in some way disturbed by the distancing from Earth; new phraseology would be needed for new and emergent aspects.
Noel thumped on the table. ‘I want us to look outward. We living here have a new order imposed on us to which we must adapt. It’s not easy. We are inclined to mistake a blob of rock for a fish or leaf, although we “know”—in quotes—neither of them ever existed on Mars.’
Lock agreed. ‘Our new discoveries cannot by rights be called therapsids. Therapsids existed on Earth long ago. They have no possible link with these creatures here.’
Then she added, ‘Remember how mankind in past ages tried in a similar way to impose their order on heavenly bodies. We still talk of galaxies. Wasn’t the original word “galaxy” meant to designate the milk spurted from the breast of some daft Greek goddess?’
Clomp.
Their conversation had been punctuated by faint thumpings from below.
Sheea said, ‘This talk is fine, but Mars has imposed its order on us. You could say we are not meant to be here. Our brains are fine, our bodies less fine, maybe. But we are talking about the harshness of nature, or should be. These so-called therapsids can reproduce, that’s obvious, but they belong here. Nature will not allow us to have living babies. It is saying: “This is not your place in the universe—you can’t stay here.”’
Clang!
‘We have deep sympathy for your loss, Sheea. We know it hurts. It hurts all of us.’ This was one of the maintenance staff speaking. ‘But can you hear that noise from below? You know what th
at is? The guys are welding together a kind of centrifuge. A roundabout, if you want a friendlier term. A roundabout in which pregnant women can ride—we hope in comfort—and by centrifugal force remedy the lack of gravity.
‘And so produce normal living children.’
Clomp.
The days, the watches went by.
28
Some Problem for Mangalian
Noel and Daark were talking, sitting face-to-face across a table in Noel’s room. ‘The mock-therapsids. An extraordinary discovery, don’t you agree?’
‘The Permian made flesh,’ said Daark. ‘Opens up new lines of enquiry.’
‘We now have to face a fresh problem,’ said Noel, ‘but I want us to be prepared. Scientists of all shades are going to want us to ship our mock-therapsids to Earth labs for examination and classification –’
‘And of course display,’ Daark cut in.
‘A discovery beyond imagining. And we don’t know what else lurks in the subterranean water courses. Let’s suppose the scientific elite are going to send a group here to examine these creatures in situ.
‘We must take advantage of this discovery—decide now how we are to approach the question. For instance, should we bargain for better food supplies in exchange for the animals? Of course, resources here being limited, it would be best scientifically to have the creatures removed to a well-equipped terrestrial research centre.’
Daark chewed a thumb nail. ‘Does the question even arise? I mean, we are dependent on—owned by, really—the UU. Can’t the UU simply lay claim to possession of these mock-therapsids?’
‘Then we must engage in delaying tactics, in order to improve conditions here.’
Silence fell between them.
Daark’s thoughts drifted. Outside his window where he had worked back on Earth, a ranunculus had grown. Its leaves were heart-shaped and of a dark green. He remembered them when the leaves were damp with dew, just before the first gentle touch of autumn changed them.