Finches of Mars (6 page)

9

Life Elsewhere?

The squealers produced varieties of uncomfortable news.

In the Middle East, President Iduita Gane admitted to, indeed boasted of, the desecration of Westminster Abbey, carried out on the grounds that it had become a refuge for gay men. More seriously, the small university in ‘Lhasa', Tibet, withdrew from the UU, pleading poverty. Since the university was under direct Chinese control, this move was seen as a first reprisal for the attack on a visitor at the West's tower gate.

A counter move was also reported. The Florida universities, a group calling itself ‘Tampa' within the UU, were celebrating the anniversary of their sighting of Earth's companion sun, ‘Nemesis'. They offered a peace-making infusion of finance to ‘Lhasa'. The offer was ‘being considered'.

In small print at the bottom of the flash, it was announced that some of ‘the gallant' Barrin's possessions had gone missing.

The Terrier and the Grey Wolf, ignoring the medal, had in fact taken hasty possession of Barrin's rather old-fashioned shrieker. It contained the Terrier's parting advice to Barrin as the latter had prepared for his journey back to Mars. Directed at Barrin, it had been given as an off-the-record talk, with a small audience of trusted colleagues. It had taken place before that routine committee meeting which had turned out to be Barrin's last.

They played the recording to a select few on the UU Council.

Tibbett's talk had begun with an item he thought wiser to keep restricted for the present:

‘So far, governments have mainly regarded the UU as something of a derisible exercise, an eccentricity that could not be maintained for long. But, there are also some cautious signs of approval because, during a time of severe recession, the Mars expedition brought employment and a modicum of life to a sluggish economy.

‘I have to warn you that opinion in Washington has shifted under the new President. Planners, military men and others are considering bringing UU under government control. Don't you hate planners? Don't you hate military men? We are doing all we can to disabuse them, short of cutting the President's throat …

‘Remain constantly aware that the UU is not a united body but a series of wise or ambitious or just plain crazy heads of educational establishments. You are not dealing with a church, a united body, although of course we think highly of the UU. The Principals of some universities, pleading poverty, wish to withdraw their support; they claim they gain nothing in the way of knowledge as a return. Some wish to prune their contributions, or to send their subscriptions less frequently.

‘A learned if short-sighted man from Stockholm suggested we should turn to governments for a hand-out. While we would appreciate a hand, we are old enough to savvy that some hands have a vice-like grip. You will understand, my dear brave Barrin, that the last thing we want is governmental involvement, which would probably transform our quiet assembly of towers into a military outpost.

‘In some cases political motives predominate which have little to do with us. In some cases, the Indonesian universities for example, they entered the union for complex reasons beneficial to themselves, having suffered badly from fault-line disturbances and consequent earthquakes and tsunamis. You might find it expedient to mention this case, stressing that on Mars you do not suffer from fault lines. Tsunamis too are singularly lacking.'

He smiled but the audience did not find the remark very funny.

‘Take what advantages you can out of our situation. In particular, the news that we live in a binary system has caused the population at large to take a new view of our cosmic status. In fact, a change of umwelt.

‘You must nevertheless continue to emphasise the rigours of life on Tharsis, and above all how you are now, and shall be for a while, entirely dependent on the UU's many scientific and humane contributions. If you can do that, it would be wise also to stress how you are working towards independence—positive night soil strategies, for example, with potential for growth of potatoes—so that the UU consortium do not convince themselves that their contributions will prove unending.

‘Recall too that the towers often send out expeditions over the surface of Mars, in search of previous life forms.'

A pause followed while Barrin gathered himself together.

‘How do you advise treating the religious question, should it arise?' Barrin asked from his wheelchair. He looked a sick man, quite unfit to make a journey to the Moon, never mind back to Mars.

The Terrier paused to blow his nose, perhaps to delay answer.

It was an opportunity for a humourist in the audience. ‘As we are part of a binary system, will our taxes be doubled?'

Whereupon the Grey Wolf spoke, ignoring the laughter. ‘By the lack of comment regarding our quest for previous Martian life forms, I take it you have a scorn, as do many people, for the mere notion of life on Mars. A Professor Lowell in the early years of the twentieth century spread the notion of, as he quaintly put it, “Mars as the Abode of Life”. The idea then became quite fashionable. “Martians” became a serious subject for conversation. But then the comics got hold of them and for a number of years the concept of two-legged green people became laughable.'

‘They're even more laughable now,' Barrin murmured.

‘Oh yes,' the Grey Wolf agreed. ‘But the idea of life itself is again the subject of serious contemplation.'

The Terrier took over again.

‘Your question, Barrin—the belief in life elsewhere resembles a religion. One of the hallmarks of most religions is “life elsewhere”. It is bound to recur, along with other metaphysical riddles. Of course the UU know that the colonists are all atheist, or at least agnostic. Remember that a clause about atheism was written into our original charter. It almost provoked a war.

‘This was one of the several reasons we were, sadly, unable to introduce Muslims to Mars. Not that there were many Muslim universities willing to contribute. True, there were some Muslim communities that would have been welcome—Malaysia, for instance. Also those dissident Muslims in China in—what's it called?—Urumchi.'

‘So if we are accused of excluding a large proportion of the human race, what precisely is the defence, President?' Barrin asked.

‘A large proportion excludes itself …'

There, in the middle of the Terrier's response, the recording cut out.

Over coffee after that talk, the Grey Wolf had been asked the same question about religion. She had smiled as she began to count on her fingers for emphasis.

‘Firstly, the great majority of humanity would hate to go there, fear the journey, fear Mars itself.

‘What if we find it proves to be inhabited by non-humans hiding somewhere?' Another finger.

‘What if it proves never to be truly habitable, if those of us already there are forced to go back?' A third finger.

‘But the ruling in our UU charter states categorically that there is to be no religion on Mars. I was a script girl when the charter was set up, and one of the council's fears was that a new religion might spring up, become indigenous and prove even more of a cause for division than do terrestrial religions.'

In her earnestness, her fingers were forgotten.

A recorder clerk spoke.

‘That doesn't quite answer the question about mass exclusions. After all, there are forward-looking people everywhere. Many would be proud to join us.'

‘You will have to explain to them how limited are our Martian facilities.'

One of the women from the Exploration Desk laughed. ‘Oh, the toilets, you mean? But thousands of Muslims live happily without toilets. And Africans. And–'

‘Stop it! Yes, we did have an initial problem without plentiful water. But that's been solved the Chinese way, with night soil distribution and so forth. Do not let yourself be drawn into such minor arguments. Just remember the ghastly complexities of terrestrial global wars and the unrest we experience everywhere.

‘For the majority of inhabitants, oppression, shortages, racism, tribalism, sexism, rapine, and of course the kaleidoscope of religions, makes of existence a living hell.'

‘It's the old lungs and penises problem,' a man remarked.

The Grey Wolf, undeflected, said, ‘Such issues interest only the washed and well-dressed and wily. If you want to assist, you must get what you can from them. Neither beg nor boast. See if they are researching a quicker way to get supplies out to Tharsis.'

As the group shook hands and put cheek to cheek, the Grey Wolf had pressed her lean cheek to the Terrier's whiskery one.

Those who lived in the towers took exercise. Tennis was popular. Sport itself did not entirely exercise their minds. But they feel themselves to be closer to the mystery. The mystery was alluring, even obsessional. Nor was it easy to define. But there certainly was a mystery.

‘Life is the invisible elephant in the room,' as someone put it.

The mystery lodges in the skulls of humans.

See, here's a man. It's night and he sits by a small fire in a forest. The seasons are turning; it grows colder. His woman lies by his side, not asleep but with no speech or movement. The man has a dog, part wolf, on a leash, made restless by the crackle of burning sticks.

These three beings are in a continent almost uninhabited. It is full of trees. The trees grow straight, in silent competition, one with another. The man tears branches off the trees to burn, to keep him warm. He sits there, hands out to the blaze. He thinks. He is attempting to think about the mystery.

He can't even name it, but he feels its presence.

Enormous lengths of time, lengths beyond human visualisation, stand between the present and that moment when the universe exploded from a nothingness—nothingness also beyond human visualisation. The illuminations of that distant beginning have sunk into almost complete night. Fires burn out.

Yet the dust and debris of that beginning still continue to fly outwards. The universe, to use a phrase we almost understand, continues to expand. We label some of the clusters of blazing material galaxies. Stars are lit in these galaxies, yet throw no light on their meaning.

Suppose there is no meaning in a galaxy and we are just wasting our time. No meaning in a galaxy—or in the whole universe? Why should there be? The strange thing is that human entities who worry about this question exist. It may be that mind lends meaning. Is that what mind is for? We have to live, to die; neither is a voluntary process. Yet we find what happens between birth and death important, to have meaning.

The wily squirrel, clearly a conscious being, prefers its tree. But we have come down from the trees to face—or to invent—the mystery alone.

So human life, let us say for a moment, has meaning. Does that mean also that the existence of viruses holds a meaning for them? Animals certainly have minds. But no concept of Mind.

These days, we can departmentalise this mystery into scientific, religious and philosophical slots—even if we believe that all three departments form one invisible elephant in our thinking.

And another elephant. The telescope at Tampa had actually managed to pinpoint Nemesis, the Massive Solar Companion—in fact a dull dwarf star. It proved that Earth had been a component in a binary system, without an inkling of the fact, throughout all history and prehistory.

And if there is no understanding, then what meaning can there be in human life? Or supposing the universe has a meaning—supposing it is its own meaning—does that give human life meaning? And what if ‘meaning' itself holds no meaning?

Here we ask questions which are sometimes put less naively round the desks and tables in the settlement, in the evening relaxation period, except in Singa-Thai, where they dance.

We hope the questions probe the mystery more clearly than does the man squatting by his fire in the great forest of the night on that forbidding continent. But do they get closer to answers?

A mathematician, by name Daark, works on Noel's computer. His character has changed since his life on Earth. He had a partness and two children, but his career was failing. On Tharsis, a measure of remorse makes him a solitary in the crowd. It was he who had built on Madame Amboise's work, and discovered the normon. He drew up an equation which proved that the universe itself is a life form.

This solution proved unwelcome. There are now other clever people who are seeking to disprove Daark's proof.

One man, Nors, committed suicide in order to prove that if Daark's figures were correct and the universe itself was a life form, then suicide would be impossible.

10

The Inevitable Happens

Grey Wolf and Terrier were at home in their Harpstead house when news came through on the squeaker. ‘Hello. We greatly grieve to have to tell you sad news. Regrettably, the Sheea baby has died, age just seven days. It had been suffering from multiple internal injuries. The mother is well, but naturally upset, as are all here. We are now seeking advice from gynaecologists in terrestrial clinics.'

‘Oh, Dolores! Dearest Dolores!' cried the Terrier, reverting to his sister's childhood name when he heard the news.

‘I feared this would happen,' said Grey Wolf as she wrapped herself round her partner and let him weep his burning tears. ‘All the poor little Mars babies die.'

Noel had been present, consoling Sheea, when three doctors—all the tower could muster—had taken her dead baby to a nearby examination chamber. It resembled a small plucked, uncooked turkey. Dr Gior had been with the midwife when the child was delivered.

‘It was living when it emerged, although the ribs were not properly formed. There was a pulse, but no breathing.' Noel's eyes filled with tears as the doctor spoke.

‘As you will know,' said Dr Cood, folding his hands before him on the table, ‘the heart can continue to beat even when the brain has ceased to function. At least for a while. I attached the mechanical ventilator—the heart muscle operates on its own. Unfortunately, it was at that point the midwife went off, all excitement, and announced that the child was living. We failed to correct her misapprehension immediately. We kept the baby on the ventilator for a week, but it was already brain dead. And so, unfortunately, the world was misled.'

Dr Nivec agreed. ‘It's that vital lowest part of the brain where it merges with the spinal cord. The union there broke just before or during the actual birth. So brain death took place immediately, although the lungs continued to operate after a fashion … What can we do about this dire situation?'

Dr Cood sighed heavily. ‘You may remember some idiot at the Sorbonne—was his name Adrien Amboise?—suggested that when a woman here found herself pregnant she should be flown back to a terrestrial maternity home. Even if the flight could be made short enough, the rigours of it would most probably kill both her and the foetus!'

‘Absurd!' said Gior.

‘Ridiculous!' said Nivec.

‘Typical of Earth people!' agreed Cood.

Noel laughed briefly. She told them the compoutat was recording. She reproved them for talking in generalities. Hard facts were necessary.

Dr Gior spoke, saying that the human gestation period was normally 40 weeks. A child born before the thirty-seventh week is defined as premature on Earth. Here, on Tharsis, women give birth at thirty-six weeks, with few exceptions.

She said they were working on a theory that the problem was not only one of the lighter Martian gravity, serious though that was. The rigors of the Terra-Mars journey caused a lowering of temperature of a woman's womb. That and the irregularity of breathing had a lasting effect. A bacterium mycoplasma was also under suspicion. Antibiotics had been used to delay labour, but had now been shelved. Part of the problem of treatment was that they had insufficient equipment.

Drugs called tocolytics were used which caused only a slight retarding of delivery. They were believed to allow a little time for steroids to strengthen the baby's lungs and bones. Sheea had been given this treatment, but …

At this point Gior spread her hands in a gesture of despair.

Dr Cood mopped his bald head, saying, ‘We're still at work on the whole question. It was totally unforeseen. It is the most serious problem we face.'

Nivec added, muttering, ‘If the problem remains unsolved, then the very existence of our colony on Mars is brought into question, obviously. It is probable to my mind that the UU may withdraw their funding.'

‘And then?' Noel asked.

It was Nivec who replied. ‘We'll have to think of something.'