The City and the Stars / The Sands of Mars (52 page)

“I appreciate that. But facts aren’t everything. What I hope you’ll explain to Earth is the things we hope to do, just as much as the things we’ve done. They’re even more important— but we can achieve them only if Earth gives us its support. Not all your predecessors have realized that.”

That was perfectly true, thought Gibson. He remembered a critical series of articles in the “Daily Telegraph” about a year before. The facts had been quite accurate, but a similar account of the first settlers’ achievements after five years’ colonization of North America would probably have been just as discouraging.

“I think I can see both sides of the question,” said Gibson. “You’ve got to realize that from the point of view of Earth, Mars is a long way away, costs a lot of money, and doesn’t offer anything in return. The first glamour of interplanetary exploration has worn off. Now people are asking, ‘What do we get out of it?’ So far the answer’s been, ‘Very little.’ I’m convinced that your work is important, but in my case it’s an act of faith rather than a matter of logic. The average man back on Earth probably thinks the millions you’re spending here could be better used improving his own planet— when he thinks of it at all, that is.”

“I understand your difficulty; it’s a common one. And it isn’t easy to answer. Let me put it this way. I suppose most intelligent people would admit the value of a scientific base on Mars, devoted to pure research and investigation?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“But they can’t see the purpose of building up a self-contained culture, which may eventually become an independent civilization?”

“That’s the trouble, precisely. They don’t believe it’s possible— or, granted the possibility, don’t think it’s worth while. You’ll often see articles pointing out that Mars will always be a drag on the home planet, because of the tremendous natural difficulties under which you’re laboring.”

“What about the analogy between Mars and the American colonies?”

“It can’t be pressed too far. After all, men could breathe the air and find food to eat when they got to America!”

“That’s true, but though the problem of colonizing Mars is so much more difficult, we’ve got enormously greater powers at our control. Given time and material, we can make this a world as good to live on as Earth. Even now, you won’t find many of our people who want to go back. They know the importance of what they’re doing. Earth may not need Mars yet, but one day it will.”

“I wish I could believe that,” said Gibson, a little unhappily. He pointed to the rich green tide of vegetation that lapped, like a hungry sea, against the almost invisible dome of the city, at the great plain that hurried so swiftly over the edge of the curiously close horizon, and at the scarlet hills within whose arms the city lay. “Mars is an interesting world, even a beautiful one. But it can never be like Earth.”

“Why should it be? And what do you mean by ‘Earth,’ anyway? Do you mean the South American pampas, the vineyards of France, the coral islands of the Pacific, the Siberian steppes? ‘Earth’ is every one of those! Wherever men can live, that will be home to someone, some day. And sooner or later men will be able to live on Mars without all this.” He waved towards the dome which floated above the city and gave it life.

“Do you really think,” protested Gibson, “that men can ever adapt themselves to the atmosphere outside? They won’t be men any longer if they do!”

For a moment the Chief Executive did not reply. Then he remarked quietly: “I said nothing about men adapting themselves to Mars. Have you ever considered the possibility of Mars meeting us halfway?”

He left Gibson just sufficient time to absorb the words; then, before his visitor could frame the questions that were leaping to his mind, Hadfield rose to his feet.

“Well, I hope Whittaker looks after you and shows you everything you want to see. You’ll understand that the transport situation’s rather tight, but we’ll get you to all the outposts if you give us time to make the arrangements. Let me know if there’s any difficulty.”

The dismissal was polite, and, at least for the time being, final. The busiest man on Mars had given Gibson a generous portion of his time, and his questions would have to wait until the next opportunity.

“What do you think of the Chief, now you’ve met him?” said Mayor Whittaker when Gibson had returned to the outer office.

“He was very pleasant and helpful,” replied Gibson cautiously. “Quite an enthusiast about Mars, isn’t he?”

Whittaker pursed his lips.

“I’m not sure that’s the right word. I think he regards Mars as an enemy to be beaten. So do we all, of course, but the Chief’s got better reasons than most. You’d heard about his wife, hadn’t you?”

“No.”

“She was one of the first people to die of Martian fever, two years after they came here.”

“Oh,” said Gibson slowly. “I see. I suppose that’s one reason why there’s been such an effort to find a cure.”

“Yes; the Chief’s very much set on it. Besides, it’s such a drain on our resources. We can’t afford to be sick here!”

That last remark, thought Gibson as he crossed Broadway (so called because it was all of fifteen meters wide), almost summed up the position of the colony. He had still not quite recovered from his initial disappointment at finding how small Port Lowell was, and how deficient in all the luxuries to which he was accustomed on Earth. With its rows of uniform metal houses and few public buildings it was more of a military camp than a city, though the inhabitants had done their best to brighten it up with terrestrial flowers. Some of these had grown to impressive sizes under the low gravity, and Oxford Circus was now ablaze with sunflowers thrice the height of a man. Though they were getting rather a nuisance no one had the heart to suggest their removal; if they continued at their present rate of growth it would soon take a skilled lumberjack to fell them without endangering the port hospital.

Gibson continued thoughtfully up Broadway until he came to Marble Arch, at the meeting point of Domes One and Two. It was also, as he had quickly found, a meeting point in many other ways. Here, strategically placed near the multiple airlocks, was “George’s,” the only bar on Mars.

“Morning, Mr. Gibson,” said George. “Hope the Chief was in a good temper.”

As he had left the administration building less than ten minutes ago, Gibson thought this was pretty quick work. He was soon to find that news traveled very rapidly in Port Lowell, and most of it seemed to be routed through George.

George was an interesting character. Since tavern keepers were regarded as only relatively, and not absolutely, essential for the well-being of the Port, he had two official professions. On Earth he had been a well-known stage entertainer, but the unreasonable demands of the three or four wives he had acquired in a rush of youthful enthusiasm had made him decide to emigrate. He was now in charge of the Port’s little theater and seemed to be perfectly contented with life. Being in the middle forties, he was one of the oldest men on Mars.

“We’ve got a show on next week,” he remarked, when he had served Gibson. “One or two quite good turns. Hope you’ll be coming along.”

“Certainly,” said Gibson. “I’ll look forward to it. How often do you have this sort of thing?”

“About once a month. We have film shows three times a week, so we don’t really do too badly.”

“I’m glad Port Lowell has some night-life.”

“You’d be surprised. Still, I’d better not tell you about that or you’ll be writing it all up in the papers.”

“I don’t write for
that
sort of newspaper,” retorted Gibson, sipping thoughtfully at the local brew. It wasn’t at all bad when you got used to it, though of course it was completely synthetic— the joint offspring of hydroponic farm and chemical laboratory.

The bar was quite deserted, for at this time of day everyone in Port Lowell would be hard at work. Gibson pulled out his notebook and began to make careful entries, whistling a little tune as he did so. It was an annoying habit, of which he was quite unconscious, and George counterattacked by turning up the bar radio.

For once it was a live program, beamed to Mars from somewhere on the night side of Earth, punched across space by heaven-knows-how-many megawatts, then picked up and rebroadcast by the station on the low hills to the south of the city. Reception was good, apart from a trace of solar noise— static from that infinitely greater transmitter against whose background Earth was broadcasting. Gibson wondered if it was really worth all this trouble to send the voice of a somewhat mediocre soprano and a light orchestra from world to world. But half Mars was probably listening with varying degrees of sentimentality and homesickness— both of which would be indignantly denied.

Gibson finished the list of several score questions he had to ask someone. He still felt rather like a new boy at his first school; everything was so strange, nothing could be taken for granted. It was hard to believe that twenty meters on the other side of that transparent bubble lay a sudden death by suffocation. Somehow this feeling had never worried him on the
Ares;
after all, space was like that. But it seemed all wrong here, where one could look out across that brilliant green plain, now a battlefield on which the hardy Martian plants fought their annual struggle for existence— a struggle which would end in death for victors and vanquished alike with the coming of winter.

Suddenly Gibson felt an almost overwhelming desire to leave the narrow streets and go out beneath the open sky. For almost the first time, he found himself really missing Earth, the planet he had thought had so little more to offer him. Like Falstaff, he felt like babbling of green fields— with the added irony that green fields were all around him, tantalizingly visible yet barred from him by the laws of nature.

“George,” said Gibson abruptly, “I’ve been here awhile and I haven’t been outside yet. I’m not supposed to without someone to look after me. You won’t have any customers for an hour or so. Be a sport and take me out through the airlock— just for ten minutes.”

No doubt, thought Gibson a little sheepishly, George considered this a pretty crazy request. He was quite wrong; it had happened so often before that George took it very much for granted. After all, his job was attending to the whims of his customers, and most of the new boys seemed to feel this way after their first few days under the dome. George shrugged his shoulders philosophically, wondering if he should apply for additional credits as Port psychotherapist, and disappeared into his inner sanctum. He came back a moment later, carrying a couple of breathing masks and their auxiliary equipment.

“We won’t want the whole works on a nice day like this,” he said, while Gibson clumsily adjusted his gear. “Make sure that sponge rubber fits snugly around your neck. All right— let’s go. But only ten minutes, mind!”

Gibson followed eagerly, like a sheepdog behind its master, until they came to the dome exit. There were two locks here, a large one, wide open, leading into Dome Two, and a smaller one which led out on to the open landscape. It was simply a metal tube, about three meters in diameter, leading through the glass-brick wall which anchored the flexible plastic envelope of the dome to the ground.

There were four separate doors, none of which could be opened unless the remaining three were closed. Gibson fully approved of these precautions, but it seemed a long time before the last of the doors swung inwards from its seals and that vivid green plain lay open before him. His exposed skin was tingling under the reduced pressure, but the thin air was reasonably warm and he soon felt quite comfortable. Completely ignoring George, he plowed his way briskly through the low, closely packed vegetation, wondering as he did why it clustered so thickly round the dome. Perhaps it was attracted by the warmth of the slow seepage of oxygen from the city.

He stopped after a few hundred meters, feeling at last clear of that oppressive canopy and once more under the open sky of heaven. The fact that his head, at least, was still totally enclosed somehow didn’t seem to matter. He bent down and examined the plants among which he was standing knee-deep.

He had, of course, seen photographs of Martian plants many times before. They were not really very exciting, and he was not enough of a botanist to appreciate their peculiarities. Indeed if he had met such plants in some out-of-the-way part of Earth he would hardly have looked at them twice. None were higher than his waist, and those around him now seemed to be made of sheets of brilliant green parchment, very thin but very tough, designed to catch as much sunlight as possible without losing precious water. These ragged sheets were spread like little sails in the sun, whose progress across the sky they would follow until they dipped westwards at dusk. Gibson wished there were some flowers to add a touch of contrasting color to the vivid emerald, but there were no flowers on Mars. Perhaps there had been, once, when the air was thick enough to support insects, but now most of the Martian plant-life was self-fertilized.

George caught up with him and stood regarding the natives with a morose indifference. Gibson wondered if he was annoyed at being so summarily dragged out of doors, but his qualms of conscience were unjustified. George was simply brooding over his next production, wondering whether to risk a Noel Coward play after the disaster that had resulted the last time his company had tried its hand with period pieces. Suddenly he snapped out of his reverie and said to Gibson, his voice thin but clearly audible over this short distance: “This is rather amusing. Just stand still for a minute and watch that plant in your shadow.”