by Greg Bear
Here’s the situation. We can no longer communicate directly with Earth. We are left with the capsule radio, which Willy can pick up and boost for re-broadcast whenever the conditions are good enough. At the moment, conditions are terrible. The solar storm that dogged our Icarus heels on the way out, forcing us deep inside Willy’s capacious hull, is still active. The effect on the Martian atmosphere has been most surprising.
There’s a communicator on the glider body as well, but that’s strictly short-range and good for little more than telemetry. So we have very garbled transmissions going out, reasonably clear coming back, and about twenty minutes of complete blackout when Willy is out of line of sight, behind or below Mars.
We may be able to hit Willy with the surveyor’s laser, adapted for signal transmission. For the moment we’re going to save that for the truly important communications, like time of launch and approximate altitude, calculated from the fuel we have left after the transfer piping exploded … was it three days ago? When the night got colder than the engineers thought possible and exceeded the specs on the insulation.
I’m going back in now. It’s too much out here. Too dark. No moons visible.
Now at the telterm keyboard. Down to meaningful monologue.
Mission Commander Linker, First Pilot Cobb, and myself, Mission Specialist Mercer, have finished ninety percent of the local survey work and compared it with Willy’s detailed mapping. What we’ve found is fascinating.
At one time many lines and stripes crisscrossed Mars. To an isolated observer they looked very much like canals. Until a century ago, any good telescope on Earth, on a good night, could have revealed them to sharp-eyed observers. As the decades passed, it was not the increased skill of astronomers and the improved quality of instruments that erased these lines, but the end of the final century of the Anno Fecundis. Is my Latin proper? I have no dictionary to consult. With the end of the Fertile Year, a thousand centuries long, came the first bleak sandy winds and the lowering of the Martian jet streams. They picked up sand and scoured.
The structures must have been like fairy palaces before they were swept down. I once saw a marketplace full of empty vinegar jugs in the Philippines, made from melted Coca Cola bottles. They used glass so thin you could break them with a thumbnail tap in the right place—but they easily held twenty or thirty gallons of liquid. These colonies must have looked like grape-clusters of thousands of thin glass vinegar bottles, dark as emeralds, mounted on spider-web stilts and fed with water pumped through veins as big as Roman aqueducts. We surveyed one field and found the fragments buried in red sand across a strip thirty miles wide. From a mile or so up, the edge of the structure can still be seen, if you know where to look. Neither of the two previous expeditions found them. They’re ours.
Linker believes these ribbons once stretched clear around the planet. Before the sand storm, Willy’s infrared mapping proved him correct. We could trace belts of ruins in almost all the places Lowell had mapped—even the civic centers some of his followers said he saw. Aqueducts laced the planet like the ribs on a basketball, meeting at ocean-sized black pools covered with glassy membranes. The pools were filled by a thin purple liquid, a kind of resin, warming in the sun, undergoing photosynthesis. The resin was pumped at high pressure through tissue and glass tubes, nourishing the plantlike colonies inhabiting the bottles. They probably lacked any sort of intelligence. But their architectural feats put ours to shame, nonetheless.
Sandstorms and the rapidly drying weather of the last century are still bringing down the delicate structures. Ninety-five percent or more have fallen already, and the rest are too rickety to safely investigate. They are still magnificent. Standing on the edge of a plain of broken bottles and shattered pylons stretching to the horizon, we can’t help but feel very young and very small.
A week ago, we discovered they’ve left spores buried deep in the red-orange sand, tougher than coconuts and about the size of medicine balls. Six days ago, we learned that Mars provides children for all his seasons. Digging for ice lenses that Willy had located, we came across a cache of leathery eggshells in a cavern shored up with a translucent organic cement. We didn’t have time to investigate thoroughly. We managed to take a few samples of the cement—scrupulously avoiding disturbing the eggs—and vacated before our tanks ran out. While cutting out the samples, we noticed that the walls had been patterned with hexagonal carvings, whether as a structural aid or decoration we couldn’t tell.
Yesterday, that is, about twenty-six hours ago, we saw what we believe must be the hatchlings: the Winter Troops, five or six of them, walking along the edge of the plateau, not much more than white specks from where we sat in the lander.
We took the sand sled five kilometers from the landing to investigate the cache again, and to see what Willy’s mapping revealed as the last standing fragments of an aqueduct bridge in our vicinity. We didn’t locate our original cache. Collapsed caverns filled with leathery egg skins pocked the landscape. More than sandstorms had been at the ruins. The bridges rested on the seeds of their own destruction—packs of kangaroo-rat Winter Troops crawled over the structure like ants on a carcass, breaking off bits, eating or just cavorting like sand fleas.
Linker named them. He snapped pictures enthusiastically. As a trained exobiologist, he was in a heat of excitement and speculation. His current theory is that the Winter Troops are on a binge of destruction, programmed into their genes and irrevocable. We retreated on the sled, unsure whether we might be swamped as well.
Linker babbled—pardon me, expounded—all the way back to the lander. “It’s like Giambattista Vico resurrected from the historian’s boneyard!” We barely listened; Linker was way over our heads. “Out with the old, in with the new! Vico’s historical ricorso exemplified.”
Cobb and I were less enthusiastic. “Indiscriminate buggers,” he grumbled. “How long before they find us?”
I had no immediate reaction. As in every situation in my life, I decided to sit on my emotions and wait things out.
Cobb was prescient. Unluckily for us, our lander and glider rise above the ground like a stray shard of an aqueduct-bridge. At that stage of their young lives, the Winter Troops couldn’t help but swarm over everything. An hour ago, I braved the hash and our own confusion and sent out descriptions of our find. So far, we’ve received no reply to our requests for First Contact instructions. The likelihood was so small nobody planned for it. The message was probably garbled.
But enough pessimism. Where does this leave us, so far, in our speculations?
Gentlemen, we sit on the cusp between cycles. We witness the end of the green and russet Mars of Earth’s youth, ribbed with fairy bridges and restrained seas, and come upon a grimmer, more practical world, buttoning down for the long winter. We haven’t studied the white Martians in any detail, so there’s no way of knowing whether or not they’re intelligent. They may be the new masters of Mars. How do we meet them—passively, as Linker seems to think we should, or as Cobb believes: defending ourselves against creatures who may or may not belong to our fraternal order of big-brained cogitators? What can we expect if we don’t defend ourselves?
Let your theologians and exobiologists speculate on that. Are we to be the first to commit the sin of an interplanetary Cain? Or are the Martians?
It will take us nine or ten hours tomorrow to brace the lander pads. Our glider sits with sylar wings half-flexed, crinkling and snapping in the rising wind, silver against the low sienna hills of Swift Plateau. Sunlight strikes the top of the plateau. Pink sky to the east; fairy bridges, fairy landscape! Pink and dreamlike. Ice-crystal clouds obscure a faded curtain of aurora. The sky overhead is black as obsidian. Between the pink sunrise and the obsidian is a band of hematite, a dark rainbow like carnival glass, possibly caused by crystalline powder from the aqueduct bridges elevated into the jet streams. From our vantage on the plateau, we can see dust devils crossing Edom’s eastern
rim and the tortured mounds and chasms of the Moab-Marduk range, rising like the pillars of some ancient temple. Boaz and Jachin, perhaps.
Since writing the above, I’ve napped for an hour. Willy relayed a new chart. He’s found construction near the western rim of Edom Crater—recent construction, not there a few days ago when the area was last surveyed. Hexagonal formations—walls and what could be roads. From his altitude, they must rival the Great Wall of China. How could such monumental works be erected in just days? Were they missed on the previous passes? Not likely.
So there we have it. The colonies that erected the aqueduct-bridges were not the only architects on Mars. The Winter Troops are demonstrating their skills. But are they intelligent, or just following some instinctual imperative? Or both?
My shipmates are sleeping again. They’ve been working hard, as have I, and their sleep is sound. The telterm clicking doesn’t wake them. I can’t sleep much—no more than an hour at a stretch before I awake in a sweat. My body is running on supercharge and I’m not ready to resort to tranquilizers. So here I sit, endlessly observing. Linker is the largest of us. Though I worked with him for three years before this mission, and we have spent over eight months in close quarters, I hardly know the man. He’s not a quiet man, and he’s always willing to express his opinions, but he still surprises me. He has a way of raising his eyebrows when he listens, opening his dark eyes wide and wrinkling his forehead, that reminds me of a dog cocking its ears. But it would have to be a devilishly bright dog. Perhaps I haven’t plumbed Linker’s depths because I’d go in over my head if I tried. He’s certainly more dedicated than either Cobb or I. He’s been in the Navy for twenty-one years, fifteen of them in space, specializing in planetary geology and half a dozen other disciplines.
Cobb, on the other hand, can be read like a book. He tends toward bulk, more in appearance than mass; he weighs only a little more than I do. He’s shorter and works with a frown; it seems to take him twice his normal concentration to finish some tasks. I do him no injustice by saying that; he gets the work done, and well, but it costs him more than it would Linker. The extra effort sometimes takes the edge off his nonessential reasoning. He’s not light on his mental feet, particularly in a situation like this. Doggedness and quick reflexes brought him to his prominence in the Mars lander program; I respect him none the less for that, but. … He tends to the technical, loving machines more than men.
Linker and I once had him close to tears on the outward voyage. We conversed on five or six subjects at once, switching topics every three or four minutes. It was a cruel game and neither of us are proud of it, but I for one can peg part of the blame on the mission designers. Three is too small a community for a three-year mission in space. Hell. Space has been billed as making children out of us all, eh? A double-edged sword.
I have (as certain passages above might indicate) been thinking about the Bible lately. My old childhood background has been stimulated by danger and moral dilemmas—hair of the dog that bit me. The maps of Mars, with their Biblical names, have contributed to my thoughts. We’re not far from Eden as gliders go. We sit in fabled Moab, above the Moab-Marduk range, Marduk being one of the chief “baals” in the Old Testament. Edom Crater—Edom means red, an appropriate name for a Martian crater. I have red hair. Call me Esau!
Mesogaea—Middle Earth. Other hair, other dogs.
Back on the recorder again. Time weighs heavily on me. I’ve retreated to the equipment bay to weather a bit of grumpiness between Linker and Cobb. Actually, it was an out and out argument. Linker, still the pacifist, expressed his horror of committing murder against another species. His scruples are oddly selective—he fought in Eritrea in the nineties. Neither has been restrained by rank; this could lead to really ugly confrontations, unless danger straightens out all of us and makes us brothers. Three comrades, good and true, tolerant of different opinions.
Oh, God, here they come again! I’m looking east out the equipment bay port. They must number five or six thousand, lining a distant hill like Indians. That many attacking … Cobb can have his way and it won’t matter, we’ll still be finished.
If they rip a section of wing sylar larger than we can stretch by hand, we’re stuck.
That was close. Cobb fired bursts of the surveyor’s laser over their heads. Enough dust had been raised by their movement and by the wind to make a fine display. They moved back slowly and then vanished beyond the hill. The laser is powerful enough to burn them should necessity arise.
Linker has as much as said he’d rather die than extend the sin of Cain. I’m less worried about that sin than I am about lifting off. We have yet to brace the sled pad. Linker’s out below the starboard hatch, rigging the sling that will level the glider body when the RATOs fire.
More dust to the east. Night is coming slowly. After the sun sets, it’ll be too cold to work outside for long. If the Winter Troops are water-based, how do they last the night? Anti-freeze in their blood, like Arctic fish? Can they keep up their activity in temperatures between fifty and one hundred below? Or will we be out of danger until sunrise, with the Martians warm in their blankets, and we in our trundle-bed, nightmaring?
I’ve helped Linker rig the sling. We’ve all worked on the sled pad. Cobb has mounted the laser on a television tripod—clever warrior. Linker advised him to beware the fraying power cable. Cobb looked at him with a sad sort of resentment and went about his work. Other than the few bickerings and personality games of the trip out, until the last few days, we’ve managed to keep respect for one another. Now we’re slipping. At one time, I had the fantasy we’d all finish the mission lifetime friends, visiting each other years after, comparing pictures of our grandchildren and complaining about the quality of young officers. What a dream.
Steam rises from the hoarfrost accumulated during the night. It vanishes like a tramp after dinner.
Should we wish to send a message to Willy now, we shall have to unship the laser and remount it. The hash has increased and Willy says his pickup is deteriorating.
More ice falls during the night. Linker kept track of them. My insomnia has communicated itself to him—ideal for standing long watches. Ice falls are more frequent here than on Earth—the leavings of comets and the asteroids come through this thin atmosphere more easily. A small chunk came to within a sixty meters of our site, leaving an impressive crater.
Another break. Willy has relayed a message from Control. They managed to pick up and reconstruct our request for instructions on First Contact. They must have thought we were joking. Here’s part of the transmission:
“We think you’re not happy just finding giant vegetables on Mars. Dr. Wender advised on Martians … (hash) … some clear indications of their ability to fire large cylindrical bodies into space. Beware tripod machines. Second opinion from Frank: Not all green Martians are Tharks. He wants sample from Dejah Thoris—can you arrange for egg?”
I put on a pressure suit and went for a walk after the disappointment of the transmission. Linker suited up after me and followed for a while. I armed myself with a piece of aluminum from the salvaged pad. He carried nothing.
Swift Plateau is about four hundred kilometers across. At its northern perimeter, an aqueduct once hoisted itself a kilometer or so and vaulted across the flats, covering fifteen kilometers of upland before dropping over the south rim into the Moab-Marduk Range. Our landing site is a kilometer from the closest stretch of fragments. Linker followed me to the edge of the field of green and blue grass, keeping quiet, looking behind apprehensively as if he expected something to pop up between us and the lander.
I had a notebook in my satchel and paused to sketch some of the piers the Winter Troops hadn’t yet brought down. None were over four meters tall.
“I’m afraid of them,” Linker said on the suit radio. I stopped my sketching to look at him.
“So?” I inquired with a touch of irritation. “We’re all afraid of
them.”
“I’m not afraid because they’ll hurt me. It’s because of what they might bring out in me, if I give them half a chance. I don’t want to hate them.”
“Not even Cobb hates them,” I said.
“Oh, yes he does,” Linker said, nodding his head within the bulky helmet. “But he’s afraid for his life. I fear for my self-respect. I can’t understand them. They’re irrational. They don’t seem to see us. They run around us, fulfilling some mission … they don’t care whether we live or die. Yet I have to respect them—they’re alien. The first intelligent creatures we’ve ever met.”
“If they’re intelligent,” I reminded him.
“Come on, Mercer, they must be. They build.”
“So did these,” I said, waving a gloved hand at the field of shattered green bottles.
“I’m trying to make myself clear,” he said, exasperated. “When I was in Eritrea, I didn’t understand the nationalists. Or the communists. Both sides were willing to kill their own people or allow them to starve if it won some small objective. It was sick. I even hated the ones we were supporting.”
“The Martians aren’t Africans,” I said. “We can’t expect to understand their motives.”
“Comes back double, then, don’t you see? I want to understand, to know why—”
He suddenly switched off his radio, raised his hands in frustration, and turned to walk back to the lander.
Our automatic interrupts clicked on and Cobb spoke to us. “That’s it, friends. We’re blanketed by hash. I can’t get through to Willy. We’ll have to punch through with the laser.”
“I’m on my way back,” Linker said. “I’ll help you set it up.”
