The City and the Stars / The Sands of Mars (67 page)

“Won’t be back?” queried Gibson. “Has he gone to Skia?”

“Oh no,” said Mrs. Smyth, wavering slightly but obviously on the defensive. “I’m afraid I can’t say. But he’ll be back in twenty-four hours.”

Gibson decided to puzzle over this later. He presumed that Mrs. Smyth knew all about his affairs, so she could probably answer his questions.

“Do you know if there’s been any reply yet to my application?” he asked.

Mrs. Smyth looked even unhappier.

“I think there has,” she said. “But it was a personal signal to Mr. Hadfield and I can’t discuss it. I expect he’ll want to see you about it as soon as he gets back.”

This was most exasperating. It was bad enough not to have a reply, but it was even worse to have one you weren’t allowed to see. Gibson felt his patience evaporating.

“Surely there’s no reason why you shouldn’t tell me about it!” he exclaimed. “Especially if I’ll know tomorrow, anyway.”

“I’m really awfully sorry, Mr. Gibson. But I know Mr. Hadfield will be most annoyed if I say anything now.”

“Oh, very well,” said Gibson, and went off in a huff.

He decided to relieve his feelings by tackling Mayor Whittaker— always assuming that he was still in the city. He was, and he did not look particularly happy to see Gibson, who settled himself firmly down in the visitor’s chair in a way that obviously meant business.

“Look here, Whittaker,” he began. “I’m a patient man and I think you’ll agree I don’t often make unreasonable requests.” As the other showed no signs of making the right reply, Gibson continued hastily:

“There’s something very peculiar going on round here and I’m anxious to get to the bottom of it.”

Whittaker sighed. He had been expecting this to happen sooner or later. A pity Gibson couldn’t have waited until tomorrow: it wouldn’t have mattered then….

“What’s made you suddenly jump to this conclusion?” he asked.

“Oh, lots of things— and it isn’t at all sudden. I’ve just tried to see Hadfield, and Mrs. Smyth told me he’s not in the city and then closed up like a clam when I tried to ask a few innocent questions.”

“I can just imagine her doing that!” grinned Whittaker cheerfully.

“If you try the same thing I’ll start throwing the furniture around. At least if you can’t tell me what’s going on, for goodness’ sake tell me
why
you can’t tell me. It’s Project Dawn, isn’t it?”

That made Whittaker sit up with a start.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“Never mind; I can be stubborn too.”

“I’m not trying to be stubborn,” said Whittaker plaintively. “Don’t think we like secrecy for the sake of it; it’s a confounded nuisance. But suppose you start telling me what you know.”

“Very well, if it’ll soften you up. Project Dawn is something to do with that plant genetics place up in the hills where you’ve been cultivating— what do you call it?—
Oxyfera.
As there seems no point in keeping that quiet, I can only assume it’s part of a much bigger plan. I suspect Phobos is mixed up with it, though I can’t imagine how. You’ve managed to keep it so secret that the few people on Mars who know anything about it just won’t talk. But you haven’t been trying to conceal it from Mars so much as from Earth. Now what have you got to say?”

Whittaker appeared to be not in the least abashed.

“I must compliment you on your— er— perspicacity,” he said. “You may also be interested to know that, a couple of weeks ago, I suggested to the Chief that we ought to take you fully into our confidence. But he couldn’t make up his mind, and since then things have happened rather more rapidly than anyone expected.”

He doodled absentmindedly on his writing pad, then came to a decision.

“I won’t jump the gun,” he said, “and I can’t tell you what’s happening now. But here’s a little story that may amuse you. Any resemblance to— ah— real persons and places is quite coincidental.”

“I understand,” grinned Gibson. “Go on.”

“Let’s suppose that in the first rush of interplanetary enthusiasm world A has set up a colony on world B. After some years it finds that this is costing a lot more than it expected, and has given no tangible returns for the money spent. Two factions then arise on the mother world. One, the conservative group, wants to close the project down— to cut its losses and get out. The other group, the progressives, wants to continue the experiment because they believe that in the long run Man has got to explore and master the material universe, or else he’ll simply stagnate on his own world. But this sort of argument is no use with the taxpayers, and the conservatives are beginning to get the upper hand.

“All this, of course, is rather unsettling to the colonists, who are getting more and more independently minded and don’t like the idea of being regarded as poor relations living on charity. Still, they don’t see any way out— until one day a revolutionary scientific discovery is made. (I should have explained at the beginning that planet B has been attracting the finest brains of A, which is another reason why A is getting annoyed.) This discovery opens up almost unlimited prospects for the future of B, but to apply it involves certain risks, as well as the diversion of a good deal of B’s limited resources. Still, the plan is put forward— and is promptly turned down by A. There is a protracted tug-of-war behind the scenes, but the home planet is adamant.

“The colonists are then faced with two alternatives. They can force the issue out into the open, and appeal to the public on world A. Obviously they’ll be at a great disadvantage, as the men on the spot can shout them down. The other choice is to carry on with the plan without informing Earth— I mean, planet A— and this is what they finally decided to do.

“Of course, there were a lot of other factors involved— political and personal, as well as scientific. It so happened that the leader of the colonists was a man of unusual determination who wasn’t scared of anything or anyone, on either of the planets. He had a team of first-class scientists behind him, and they backed him up. So the plan went ahead; but no one knows yet if it will be successful. I’m sorry I can’t tell you the end of the story; you know how these serials always break off at the most exciting place.”

“I think you’ve told me just about everything,” said Gibson. “Everything, that is, except one minor detail. I
still
don’t know what Project Dawn is.” He rose to go. “Tomorrow I’m coming back to hear the final installment of your gripping serial.”

“There won’t be any need to do that,” Whittaker replied. He glanced unconsciously at the clock. “You’ll know long before then.”

As he left the Administration Building, Gibson was intercepted by Jimmy.

“I’m supposed to be at work,” he said breathlessly, “but I had to catch you. Something important’s going on.”

“I know,” replied Gibson rather impatiently. “Project Dawn’s coming to the boil, and Hadfield’s left town.”

“Oh,” replied Jimmy, a little taken aback. “I didn’t think you’d have heard. But you won’t know this, anyway. Irene’s very upset. She told me her father said good-bye last night as if— well, as if he mightn’t see her again.”

Gibson whistled. That put things in a different light. Project Dawn was not only big, it might be dangerous. This was a possibility he had not considered.

“Whatever’s happening,” he said, “we’ll know all about it tomorrow— Whittaker’s just told me that. But I think I can guess where Hadfield is right now.”

“Where?”

“He’s up on Phobos. For some reason, that’s the key to Project Dawn, and that’s where you’ll find the Chief right now.”

Gibson would have made a large bet on the accuracy of this guess. It was just as well that there was no one to take it, for he was quite wrong. Hadfield was now almost as far away from Phobos as he was from Mars. At the moment he was sitting in some discomfort in a small spaceship, which was packed with scientists and their hastily dismantled equipment. He was playing chess, and playing it very badly, against one of the greatest physicists in the Solar System. His opponent was playing equally badly, and it would soon have become quite obvious to any observer that they were simply trying to pass the time. Like everyone on Mars, they were waiting; but they were the only ones who knew exactly what they were waiting for.

The long day— one of the longest that Gibson had ever known— slowly ebbed away. It was a day of wild rumors and speculation: everyone in Port Lowell had some theory which they were anxious to air. But as those who knew the truth said nothing, and those who knew nothing said too much, when night came the city was in a state of extreme confusion. Gibson wondered if it was worth while staying up late, but around midnight he decided to go to bed. He was fast asleep when, invisibly, soundlessly, hidden from him by the thickness of the planet, Project Dawn came to its climax. Only the men in the watching spaceship saw it happen, and changed suddenly from grave scientists to shouting, laughing schoolboys as they turned to race for home.

In the very small hours of the morning Gibson was wakened by a thunderous banging on his door. It was Jimmy, shouting to him to get up and come outside. He dressed hastily, but when he reached the door Jimmy had already gone out into the street. He caught him up at the doorway. From all sides, people were beginning to appear, rubbing their eyes sleepily and wondering what had happened. There was a rising buzz of voices and distant shouts; Port Lowell sounded like a beehive that had been suddenly disturbed.

It was a full minute before Gibson understood what had awakened the city. Dawn was just breaking; the eastern sky was aglow with the first light of the rising Sun. The eastern sky?
My God, that dawn was breaking in the west.

No one could have been less superstitious than Gibson, but for a moment the upper levels of his mind were submerged by a wave of irrational terror. It lasted only a moment; then reason reasserted itself. Brighter and brighter grew the light spilling over the horizon; now the first rays were touching the hills above the city. They were moving swiftly— far, far too swiftly for the Sun— and suddenly a blazing, golden meteor leapt up out of the desert, climbing almost vertically towards the zenith.

Its very speed betrayed its identity. This was Phobos— or what had been Phobos a few hours before. Now it was a yellow disc of fire, and Gibson could feel the heat of its burning upon his face. The city around him was now utterly silent, watching the miracle and slowly waking to a dim awareness of all that it might mean to Mars.

So this was Project Dawn— it had been well named. The pieces of the jig-saw puzzle were falling into place, but the main pattern was still not clear. To have turned Phobos into a second sun was an incredible feat of— presumably— nuclear engineering, yet Gibson did not see how it could solve the colony’s problems. He was still worrying over this when the seldom used public-address system of Port Lowell burst into life and Whittaker’s voice came drifting softly down the streets.

“Hello, everybody,” he said, “I guess you’re all awake by now and have seen what’s happened. The Chief Executive’s on his way back from space and would like to speak to you. Here he is.”

There was a click; then someone said,
sotto voce:
“You’re on to Port Lowell, sir.” A moment later Hadfield’s voice came out of the speakers. He sounded tired but triumphant, like a man who had fought a great battle and won through to victory.

“Hello, Mars,” he said. “Hadfield speaking. I’m still in space on the way home— I’ll be landing in about an hour.

“I hope you like your new sun. According to our calculations, it will take nearly a thousand years to burn itself out. We triggered Phobos off when it was well below your horizon, just in case the initial radiation peak was too high. The reaction’s now stabilized at exactly the level we expected, though it may increase by a few per cent during the next week. It’s mainly a meson resonance reaction, very efficient but not very violent, and there’s no chance of a fully fledged atomic explosion with the material composing Phobos.

“Your new luminary will give you about a tenth of the Sun’s heat, which will bring up the temperature of much of Mars to nearly the same value as Earth’s. But that isn’t the reason why we blew up Phobos— at least, it isn’t the main reason.

“Mars wants oxygen more badly than heat— and all the oxygen needed to give it an atmosphere almost as good as Earth’s is lying beneath your feet, locked up in the sand. Two years ago we discovered a plant that can break the sand down and release the oxygen. It’s a tropical plant— it can exist only on the equator and doesn’t really flourish even there. If there was enough sunlight available, it could spread over Mars— with some assistance from us— and in fifty years there’d be an atmosphere here that men could breathe.
That’s
the goal we’re aiming at: when we’ve reached it, we can go where we please on Mars and forget about our domed cities and breathing masks. It’s a dream that many of you will live to see realized, and it’ll mean that we’ve given a new world to mankind.

“Even now, there are some benefits we’ll derive right away. It will be very much warmer, at least when Phobos and the Sun are shining together, and the winters will be much milder. Even though Phobos isn’t visible above latitude seventy degrees, the new convection winds will warm the polar regions too, and will prevent our precious moisture from being locked up in the ice caps for half of every year.

“There’ll be some disadvantages— the seasons and nights are going to ge complicated now!— but they’ll be far outweighed by the benefits. And every day, as you see the beacon we have now lit climbing across the sky, it will remind you of the new world we’re bringing to birth. We’re making history, remember, for this is the first time that Man has tried his hand at changing the face of a planet. If we succeed here, others will do the same elsewhere. In the ages to come, whole civilizations on worlds of which we’ve never heard will owe their existence to what we’ve done tonight.

“That’s all I’ve got to say now. Perhaps you may regret the sacrifice we’ve had to make to bring life to this world again. But remember this— though Mars has lost a Moon, it’s gained a Sun— and who can doubt which is the more valuable?