The John Varley Reader

by John Varley

  “I don’t know.”

  “It doesn’t. Believe me.”

  “All right. But the fact remains that you’re the closest thing on Mars to a pilot for the Podkayne. I think you should consider that when you’re deciding what we should do.” He shut up, afraid to sound like he was pushing her.

  She narrowed her eyes and gazed at nothing.

  “I have thought about it.” She waited for a long time. “I think the chances are about a thousand to one against us if I try to fly it. But I’ll do it, if we come to that. And that’s your job. Showing me some better odds. If you can’t, let me know.”

  Three weeks later, the Tharsis Canyon had been transformed into a child’s garden of toys. Crawford had thought of no better way to describe it. Each of the plastic spikes had blossomed into a fanciful windmill, no two of them just alike. There were tiny ones, with the vanes parallel to the ground and no more than ten centimeters tall. There were derricks of spidery plastic struts that would not have looked too out of place on a Kansas farm. Some of them were five meters high. They came in all colors and many configurations, but all had vanes covered with a transparent film like cellophane, and all were spinning into colorful blurs in the stiff Martian breeze. Crawford thought of an industrial park built by gnomes. He could almost see them trudging through the spinning wheels.

  Song had taken one apart as well as she could. She was still shaking her head in disbelief. She had not been able to excavate the long, insulated taproot, but she could infer how deep it went. It extended all the way down to the layer of permafrost, twenty meters down.

  The ground between the windmills was coated in shimmering plastic. This was the second part of the plants’ ingenious solution to survival on Mars. The windmills utilized the energy in the wind, and the plastic coating on the ground was in reality two thin sheets of plastic with a space between for water to circulate. The water was heated by the sun then pumped down to the permafrost, melting a little more of it each time.

  “There’s still something missing from our picture,” Song had told them the night before when she delivered her summary of what she had learned. “Marty hasn’t been able to find a mechanism that would permit these things to grow by ingesting sand and rock and turning it into plasticlike materials. So we assume there is a reservoir of something like crude oil down there, maybe frozen in with the water.”

  “Where would that have come from?” Lang had asked.

  “You’ve heard of the long-period Martian seasonal theories? Well, part of it is more than a theory. The combination of the Martian polar inclination, the precessional cycle, and the eccentricity of the orbit produces seasons that are about twelve thousand years long. We’re in the middle of winter, though we landed in the nominal ‘summer.’ It’s been theorized that if there were any Martian life, it would have adapted to these longer cycles. It hibernates in spores during the cold cycle, when the water and carbon dioxide freeze out at the poles, then comes out when enough ice melts to permit biological processes. We seem to have fooled these plants; they thought summer was here when the water vapor content went up around the camp.”

  “So what about the crude?” Ralston asked. He didn’t completely believe that part of the model they had evolved. He was a laboratory chemist, specializing in inorganic compounds. The way these plants produced plastics without high heat, through purely catalytic interactions, had him confused and defensive. He wished the crazy windmills would go away.

  “I think I can answer that,” McKillian said. “These organisms barely scrape by in the best of times. The ones that have made it waste nothing. It stands to reason that any really ancient deposits of crude oil would have been exhausted in only a few of these cycles. So it must be that what we’re thinking of as crude oil must be something a little different. It has to be the remains of the last generation.”

  “But how did the remains get so far below ground?” Ralston asked. “You’d expect them to be high up. The winds couldn’t bury them that deep in only twelve thousand years.”

  “You’re right,” said McKillian. “I don’t really know. But I have a theory. Since these plants waste nothing, why not conserve their bodies when they die? They sprouted from the ground; isn’t it possible they could withdraw when things start to get tough again? They’d leave spores behind them as they retreated, distributing them all through the soil. That way, if the upper ones blew away or were sterilized by the untraviolet, the ones just below them would still thrive when the right conditions returned. When they reached the permafrost, they’d decompose into this organic slush we’ve postulated, and . . . well, it does get a little involved, doesn’t it?”

  “Sounds all right to me,” Lang assured her. “It’ll do for a working theory. Now what about airborne spores?”

  It turned out that they were safe from that danger. There were spores in the air now, but they were not dangerous to the colonists. The plants attacked only certain kinds of plastics, and then only in certain stages of their lives. Since they were still changing, it bore watching, but the air locks and suits were secure. The crew was enjoying the luxury of sleeping without their suits.

  And there was much work to do. Most of the physical sort devolved on Crawford and, to some extent, on Lang. It threw them together a lot. The other three had to be free to pursue their researches, as it had been decided that only in knowing their environment would they stand a chance.

  Crawford and Lang had managed to salvage most of the dome. Working with patching kits and lasers to cut the tough material, they had constructed a much smaller dome. They erected it on an outcropping of bare rock, rearranged the exhaust to prevent more condensation on the underside, and added more safety features. They now slept in a pressurized building inside the dome, and one of them stayed awake on watch at all times. In drills, they had come from a deep sleep to full pressure integrity in thirty seconds. They were not going to get caught again.

  Crawford looked away from the madly whirling rotors of the windmill farm. He was with the rest of the crew, sitting in the dome with his helmet off. That was as far as Lang would permit anyone to go except in the cramped sleeping quarters. Song Sue Lee was at the radio giving her report to the Edgar Rice Burroughs. In her hand was one of the pump modules she had dissected out of one of the plants. It consisted of a half-meter set of eight blades that turned freely on teflon bearings. Below it were various tiny gears and the pump itself. She twirled it idly as she spoke.

  “I don’t really get it,” Crawford admitted, talking quietly to Lucy McKillian. “What’s so revolutionary about little windmills?”

  “It’s just a whole new area,” McKillian whispered back. “Think about it. Back on Earth, nature never got around to inventing the wheel. I’ve sometimes wondered why not. There are limitations, of course, but it’s such a good idea. Just look what we’ve done with it. But all motion in nature is confined to up and down, back and forth, in and out, or squeeze and relax. Nothing on Earth goes round and round, unless we built it. Think about it.”

  Crawford did, and began to see the novelty of it. He tried in vain to think of some mechanism in an animal or plant of Earthly origin that turned and kept on turning forever. He could not.

  Song finished her report and handed the mike to Lang. Before she could start, Weinstein came on the line.

  “We’ve had a change in plan up here,” he said, with no preface. “I hope this doesn’t come as a shock. If you think about it, you’ll see the logic in it. We’re going back to Earth in seven days.”

  It didn’t surprise them too much. The Burroughs had given them just about everything it could in the form of data and supplies. There was one more capsule load due; after that, its presence would only be a frustration to both groups. There was a great deal of irony in having two such powerful ships so close to each other and so helpless to do anything concrete. It was telling on the crew of the Burroughs .

  “We’ve recalculated everything based on the lower mass without the twenty of you and
the six tons of samples we were allowing for. By using the fuel we would have ferried down to you for takeoff, we can make a faster orbit down toward Venus. The departure date for that orbit is seven days away. We’ll rendezvous with a drone capsule full of supplies we hadn’t counted on.” And besides, Lang thought to herself, it’s much more dramatic. Plunging sunward on the chancy cometary orbit, their pantries stripped bare, heading for the fateful rendezvous . . .

  “I’d like your comments,” he went on. “This isn’t absolutely final yet.”

  They all looked at Lang. They were reassured to find her calm and unshaken.

  “I think it’s the best idea. One thing; you’ve given up on any thoughts of me flying the Podkayne?”

  “No insult intended, Mary,” Weinstein said, gently. “But, yes, we have. It’s the opinion of the people Earthside that you couldn’t do it. They’ve tried some experiments, coaching some very good pilots and putting them into the simulators. They can’t do it, and we don’t think you could, either.”

  “No need to sugarcoat it. I know it as well as anyone. But even a billion-to-one shot is better than nothing. I take it they think Crawford is right, that survival is at least theoretically possible?”

  There was a long hesitation. “I guess that’s correct. Mary, I’ll be frank. I don’t think it’s possible. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t expect—”

  “Thank you, Winey, for the encouraging words. You always did know what it takes to buck a person up. By the way, that other mission, the one where you were going to ride a meteorite down here to save our asses, that’s scrubbed, too?”

  The assembled crew smiled, and Song gave a high-pitched cheer. Weinstein was not the most popular man on Mars.

  “Mary, I told you about that already,” he complained. It was a gentle complaint, and, even more significant, he had not objected to the use of his nickname. He was being gentle with the condemned. “We worked on it around the clock. I even managed to get permission to turn over command temporarily. But the mock-ups they made Earthside didn’t survive the reentry. It was the best we could do. I couldn’t risk the entire mission on a configuration the people back on Earth wouldn’t certify.”

  “I know. I’ll call you back tomorrow.” She switched the set off and sat back on her heels. “I swear, if the Earthside tests on a roll of toilet paper didn’t . . . He wouldn’t . . .” She cut the air with her hands. “What am I saying? That’s petty. I don’t like him, but he’s right.” She stood up, puffing out her cheeks as she exhaled a pent-up breath.

  “Come on, crew, we’ve got a lot of work.”

  They named their colony New Amsterdam, because of the windmills. The name whirligig was the one that stuck on the Martian plants, though Crawford held out for a long time in favor of spinnaker.

  They worked all day and tried their best to ignore the Burroughs overhead. The messages back and forth were short and to the point. Helpless as the mother ship was to render them more aid, they knew they would miss it when it was gone. So the day of departure was a stiff, determinedly nonchalant affair. They all made a big show of going to bed hours before the scheduled breakaway.

  When he was sure the others were asleep, Crawford opened his eyes and looked around the darkened barracks. It wasn’t much in the way of a home; they were crowded against each other on rough pads made of insulating material. The toilet facilities were behind a flimsy barrier against one wall, and smelled. But none of them would have wanted to sleep outside in the dome, even if Lang had allowed it.

  The only light came from the illuminated dials that the guard was supposed to watch all night. There was no one sitting in front of them. Crawford assumed the guard had gone to sleep. He would have been upset, but there was no time. He had to suit up, and he welcomed the chance to sneak out. He began furtively to don his pressure suit.

  As a historian, he felt he could not let such a moment slip by unobserved. Silly, but there it was. He had to be out there, watch it with his own eyes. It didn’t matter if he never lived to tell about it; he must record it.

  Someone sat up beside him. He froze, but it was too late. She rubbed her eyes and peered into the darkness.

  “Matt?” she yawned. “What’s . . . what is it? Is something—”

  “Shh. I’m going out. Go back to sleep. Song?”

  “Um hmmm.” She stretched, dug her knuckles fiercely into her eyes, and smoothed her hair back from her face. She was dressed in a loose-fitting ship suit, a gray piece of dirty cloth that badly needed washing, as did all their clothes. For a moment, as he watched her shadow stretch and stand up, he wasn’t interested in the Burroughs. He forced his mind away from her.

  “I’m going with you,” she whispered.

  “All right. Don’t wake the others.”

  Standing just outside the air lock was Mary Lang. She turned as they came out, and did not seem surprised.

  “Were you the one on duty?” Crawford asked her.

  “Yeah. I broke my own rule. But so did you two. Consider yourselves on report.” She laughed and beckoned them over to her. They linked arms and stood staring up at the sky.

  “How much longer?” Song asked, after some time had passed.

  “Just a few minutes. Hold tight.” Crawford looked over to Lang and thought he saw tears, but he couldn’t be sure in the dark.

  There was a tiny new star, brighter than all the rest, brighter than Phobos. It hurt to look at it, but none of them looked away. It was the fusion drive of the Edgar Rice Burroughs, heading sunward, away from the long winter on Mars. It stayed on for long minutes, then sputtered and was lost. Though it was warm in the dome, Crawford was shivering. It was ten minutes before any of them felt like facing the barracks.

  They crowded into the air lock, carefully not looking at each other’s faces as they waited for the automatic machinery. The inner door opened and Lang pushed forward—and right back into the air lock. Crawford had a glimpse of Ralston and Lucy McKillian; then Mary shut the door.

  “Some people have no poetry in their souls,” Mary said.

  “Or too much,” Song giggled.

  “You people want to take a walk around the dome with me? Maybe we could discuss ways of giving people a little privacy.”

  The inner lock door was pulled open, and there was McKillian, squinting into the bare bulb that lighted the lock while she held her shirt in front of her with one hand.

  “Come on in,” she said, stepping back. “We might as well talk about this.” They entered, and McKillian turned on the light and sat down on her mattress. Ralston was blinking, nervously tucked into his pile of blankets. Since the day of the blowout he never seemed to be warm enough.

  Having called for a discussion, McKillian proceeded to clam up. Song and Crawford sat on their bunks, and eventually, as the silence stretched tighter, they all found themselves looking to Lang.

  She started stripping out of her suit. “Well, I guess that takes care of that. So glad to hear all your comments. Lucy, if you were expecting some sort of reprimand, forget it. We’ll take steps first thing in the morning to provide some sort of privacy for that, but, no matter what, we’ll all be pretty close in the years to come. I think we should all relax. Any objections?” She was half out of her suit when she paused to scan them for comments. There were none. She stripped to her skin and reached for the light.

  “In a way it’s about time,” she said, tossing her clothes in a corner. “The only thing to do with these clothes is burn them. We’ll all smell better for it. Song, you take the watch.” She flicked out the lights and reclined heavily on her mattress.

  There was much rustling and squirming for the next few minutes as they got out of their clothes. Song brushed against Crawford in the dark and they murmured apologies. Then they all bedded down in their own bunks. It was several tense, miserable hours before anyone got to sleep.

  The week following the departure of the Burroughs was one of hysterical overreaction by the New Amsterdamites. The atmosphere was forced a
nd false; an eat-drink-and-be-merry feeling pervaded everything they did.

  They built a separate shelter inside the dome, not really talking aloud about what it was for. But it did not lack for use. Productive work suffered as the five of them frantically ran through all the possible permutations of three women and two men. Animosities developed, flourished for a few hours, and dissolved in tearful reconciliations. Three ganged up on two, two on one, one declared war on all the other four. Ralston and Song announced an engagement, which lasted ten hours. Crawford nearly came to blows with Lang, aided by McKillian. McKillian renounced men forever and had a brief, tempestuous affair with Song. Then Song discovered McKillian with Ralston, and Crawford caught her on the rebound, only to be thrown over for Ralston.

  Mary Lang let it work itself out, only interfering when it got violent. She herself was not immune to the frenzy but managed to stay aloof from most of it. She went to the shelter with whoever asked her, trying not to play favorites, and gently tried to prod them back to work. As she told McKillian toward the end of the week, “At least we’re getting to know one another.”

  Things did settle down, as Lang had known they would. They entered their second week alone in virtually the same position they had been in when they started: no romantic entanglements firmly established. But they knew each other a lot better, were relaxed in the close company of each other, and were supported by a new framework of friendships. They were much closer to being a team. Rivalries never died out completely, but they no longer dominated the colony. Lang worked them harder than ever, making up for the lost time.

  Crawford missed most of the interesting work, being more suited for the semiskilled manual labor that never seemed to be finished. So he and Lang had to learn about the new discoveries at the nightly briefings in the shelter. He remembered nothing about any animal life being discovered, and so when he saw something crawling through the whirligig garden, he dropped everything and started toward it.