Martian Rainbow

by Robert L. Forward

  "Kunowsky!" Jay said. "I did a traverse of that crater."

  "According to the maintenance records, your crawler also got a wheel tangled in some optical fiber," Red said. She paused. "It wasn't missile fiber."

  "Of course!" Jay exclaimed, shaking his head at his own stupidity. "It couldn't have been. We were thousands of kilometers from the nearest war action. It never occurred to me at the time—"

  "You weren't the only one," Gus said. "But Red did pay attention and found the Lineups. Now, we'd better go and talk with them. Although Copernicus is closer than the North Pole, we should go to the North Pole enclave since we have regular hopiter flights to the base nearby. It'll save on antimatter."

  "I want to go," Red said. "As you said, I found them. Besides, I haven't patted a hunk of diamond in a while."

  "Well," Gus said, looking around, "a hopiter or crawler can carry a dozen—if not in comfort. Chris and Jay should go, in case the Lineups do talk to us and want to ask questions about the terraforming plan. Maury—apprentice governor. Some biologists, in case they let us in ... Anyone else that doesn't have important work to do at the institute?"

  When the director of the institute put it that way, the number of raised hands in the room dropped dramatically.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Lineups Help

  THE EIGHT that landed in the hopiter at Boreal Base included Antonio Fiat, a medical doctor from the EEC contingent that had been rescued from the Moon, and Chang Lu, a low-gravity biologist from the Chinese moon contingent. For the drive in the crawler over the dunes and glaciers to the enclave, they used Al Eisen, who had driven them there before. Phyllis Eisen used Al's influence to join them.

  "If they let us inside," Phyllis said, "I want to record all the ice and dust layers those diamond tunnels pass through."

  That evening, Gus looked for Viktor, in order to invite him along, too. He found him in the Bore Hole—drunk and crying. Red was sitting with him, trying to comfort him. She looked up as Gus came to their table.

  "He just learned from the Mars underground that his wife was one of those killed at Novosibirsk," she explained.

  "My heart, it is broken," Viktor burbled drunkenly, then started sobbing again.

  "Maybe there's someone else that can take her place," Red said as she drew the sorry besotted head to her breast and rocked him gently. She looked up at Gus.

  "I'd better get him to bed," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow morning at the base motor pool. I don't think he'll be in any shape to come."

  "The crawler leaves at nine sharp," Gus warned.

  A WINTER had passed since the last time they had visited the enclave. The crawler used autonomous guidance most of the way, but occasionally Al had to take over and chose a route past a slide or around a new crevasse.

  When they came to the diamond door set in the face of the cliff, the circular door opening was visible once again, and the "porch" had been swept clear of snow. Red went immediately to the door and tried to turn it.

  "It's locked," she reported. "Welded shut."

  Gus got out the laser communicator and set it up so that it shot up the tunnel. A good deal of thought had gone into what message they could send that would draw the attention of the Lineups and get them to at least converse with the humans. The biologists had suggested one course of action based on the few comments the Lineup Badepi had made before it had so abrupdy terminated conversation.

  "Hello," Gus said. "This is Gus Armstrong calling Badepi. I have friends with me. Mars is too cold. Mars does not have enough air. Our equipment is failing. We cannot survive much longer. We need help. Please talk to us."

  Gus took his thumb off the "talk" button on the laser communicator.

  "A bit of a lie, but to a culture that has survived a few billion years, a few hundred years is 'not much longer'."

  There was a glimmer of laser light reflected from the floor of the diamond airiock and the communicator spoke.

  "Replying to Gus Armstrong with friends is Kipape-bypepo-tumuro-badepi-pubemu. Coming am I. Waiting are you."

  "It worked," Maury said. "It's coming."

  "It's not the one we talked to before," Gus said. He replayed the response and listened to it carefully. "But there is a 'Badepi' in there."

  "The creature you originally talked to was a single segment, sent out to do a simple mission," Chris said. "I bet that now it's linked up into a longer, more intelligent creature. Remember how the learning power of the Lineups increased as more segments plugged into the first group?"

  "Here comes Kip-whatever," Maury said, pointing at the low door. The inner door of the airlock had been opened and the front portion of the long Lineup had its forward eyerods up against the door. Varicolored laser light flashed over them as the creature scanned their bodies.

  "Finding of equipment of Gus Armstrong operational," came the voice from the laser communicator. "Finding of equipment of friends of Gus Armstrong operational. Understanding of statement of Gus Armstrong not."

  "Our equipment is operational now," Gus said. "But within a few years it will not be. We humans will then die."

  "Coming of humans, one of male sex, one of female sex, inside shelters then allowed. Remaining of others outside."

  "Only one pair of humans allowed. These enclaves are the Lineup version of arks," Phyllis said.

  "We must save all the humans," Gus said. "Please give us permission to increase pressure, increase temperature, and increase oxygen content of Mars atmosphere."

  "Asking of permission needed not. Preventing of any creature from any action unthinkable."

  "BUT WE may melt the ice cap and destroy your protection. The increase in temperature and pressure might kill the plants you are protecting. Are you sure it's okay for us to change Mars until it is more like Earth?"

  "Surviving of fittest prime directive. Controlling of environment on Earth enabled survival of humans in past. Controlling of environment on Mars enables survival of humans in future. Preventing control of environment of Mars by humans unthinkable."

  "The quintessential ecologist," Phyllis said. "They would let us change their whole world rather than interfere with us while we're following our inherent nature to change the environment in order to be more 'fit' and be a survivor."

  "The human race thanks you," Gus said. "We will get started on our work soon, but it will take many years—centuries—before we are done. In the meantime, would it be possible to come into your wonderful shelter and see some of the marvels there?"

  "Continuing of tasks on inside of importance higher," the reply came, and the Lineup backed out of the airlock, screwed shut the inner door, and started to turn back up the tunnel.

  "It's going back in again," Gus said, shaking his head. "I guess they really aren't interested in us except as specimens."

  "What the hell!" Maury shouted. He grabbed the laser communicator control from Gus and shouted into it at the retreating figure of the Lineup. "Hey! Come back here!"

  "Coming back," the reply came. The Lineup stopped and came to the inner airlock door and waited.

  Gus and the others stood there open-mouthed.

  "Open the door," Maury commanded.

  "Opening," the Lineup said, and unscrewed the inner door.

  "Open ..." Maury started, but Gus grabbed the communicator control away from him.

  "Opening," the Lineup said, and started to open the outer door of the airlock.

  "Wait!" Gus yelled through the laser communicator.

  "Waiting," the Lineup said, the six fingerlike protuberances around its snout paused in the holes in the circular door.

  "It's obeying commands just like a robot!" Phyllis said.

  "Very unnatural for a biological creature," Chang Lu said.

  "I'd better be careful how I phrase things," Gus said. "Maury almost had him opening the outer door of the airlock before he closed the inner door."

  "Close the doors, but leave them so humans can open them," Gus commanded. "Return inside shelte
r. Wait there for humans to arrive."

  "Leaving doors," the Lineup said, backing up through the inner airiock door and rotating it shut. "Returning inside." They waited for a few minutes, then a fluttering of reflected laser light came through the diamond door. "Waiting for humans."

  "Let's go!" Red said, starting to twist the outer airlock door by its six finger-sized holes.

  "Scientists first," Chris said, holding up his air analyzer.

  "He's been there before, Red," Gus said. "Let him go ahead and make sure the Lineup will really let us through the last door into the enclave proper."

  After Chris had reported success, the rest cycled through one by one until only Gus and Al Eisen were left.

  "You'll have to stay here to call for help in case something happens," Gus said to Al.

  "I'll watch it all through Phyllis' helmeyes," Al said agreeably, pulling down the visor on his modified battle helmet.

  When Gus cycled through the last door into the Lineups' enclave, he looked around to see that everyone had taken their helmet off except Phyllis, who was turning around slowly, recording everything with her helmeyes and at the same time giving Al a view. Gus raised his hands, unlatched his helmet, and took a sniff. The air was warm, humid, and had a hint of spice. The Lineup was right below his nose, but it didn't seem to have any particular smell.

  The room was pretty much as they had observed before through Chris' helmeyes view from the airlock. Beds of plants were being tended by Lineups of varying lengths, while single units scampered here and there on errands. Gus then looked up to see some large black batlike creatures fluttering overhead. They were bigger than a kite, with two-meter wingspans and bodies the size of an Italian sausage.

  "What are those?" he said, pointing.

  "I call them flutterbats," Chris said. "At first we thought it was a different creature, but then Phyllis pointed out the similarity between it and the 'wings' that the Lineup segments grow. Sure enough, Maury caught one of the Lineups growing wings and then letting them fly away free. The flutterbats seem to stay clustered over our heads. Perhaps we stink and they are air cleaners of sorts. I do note that when one of them passes close, the air has a fresh spicy smell to it."

  "I'm starting to get a headache," Red said. "It's been fun, but on goes my helmet."

  "Red's right," Chris said, raising his helmet, too. "There's plenty of oxygen to breathe in here, but there's too much carbon dioxide. A few hours of this and you'd be one sick dog."

  "I'll need my helmet laser to talk to the Lineups anyway," Gus said, putting his helmet back on.

  "While you talk to them, Chang Lu and I are going to have a look around," Phyllis said.

  "I will go this way," Antonio said.

  Gus put a firm tone into his voice as he spoke to the still-waiting Lineup through his suit laser communicator. "Humans will explore shelter. No Lineup is to obstruct humans. You will listen to Gus Armstrong."

  "Obstructing of humans in exploration of shelter unthinkable," the Lineup said. "Listening is Kipape-bypepo-tumuro-badepi-pubemu."

  "I will call you Kipape," Gus said. "I want to make sure you understand what we are planning to do to your planet. We humans are going to make a new atmosphere for Mars by warming up the polar ice caps using large reflectors of sunlight in space and darkening the ice with dust from the moons. We then are going to drop some small asteroids to make a hole in Hellas Basin to increase the air pressure."

  "Making of new atmosphere from polar caps by humans take long time," said Kipape.

  "A very long time," Gus agreed.

  "Making of new atmosphere from polar caps by Lineups take one cold-hot cycle," Kipape said.

  "One cycle?" Gus said in amazement. "You mean you could do all that in one Martian year!"

  "Making of atmosphere and hole in one cycle with near certainty," Kipape said.

  "Would you?" Gus asked, unable to believe in their good fortune.

  Kipape didn't answer, but just stood motionless, his eyerods sweeping back and forth over the group of humans.

  "All you have to do is give him the order and they will start," Maury said. "Gives you a sense of power, doesn't it?"

  "A sense of foreboding," Gus said. "I feel like the Sorcerer's Apprentice."

  "Or someone who has just rubbed a magic lantern," Maury said. "What's the best way to spend three wishes?"

  "That's it!" Gus said. "Instead of us trying to think of the best thing to do, then telling them, why don't we ask the Lineups to help us figure out how best to use them!"

  "Dear Lineups," Red murmured to herself. "Please design us an Eden on Mars."

  "Commencing of design of Eden on Mars," Kipape said.

  "Wait!" Red yelled in panic. "I didn't mean it!"

  "Waiting," said Kipape.

  "At least you can turn them off," Maury said.

  "It's all right, Red," Gus said. "Provided they know what an Eden is."

  "The Old Testament must be part of the Main Base library that they memorized," Maury said. "But all of those begats must have bewildered them when they got to that part."

  "Continue," Red said tentatively.

  "Continuing design of Eden on Mars," Kipape said. There were flashes of light from underneath his body as bursts of laser power shot back and forth from his coupling eyerods to light fibers lying on the floor of the cavern. Soon another five-segment Lineup came and hooked into the end of Kipape, then a four-segment, then a seven-segment. The long body of the twenty-one-segment creature stretched across the room and around the beds of plants. It was strangely motionless as its twenty-one-segment brain cogitated the difficult problem. After a while, a burst of laser light flashed at Gus' laser communicator.

  "Making of diamond tower into space take long time. Taking of Lineup of one segment by humans into space take short time."

  "We'll be glad to take any number of Lineups anywhere in the solar system, if it would help," Red assured.

  "Taking of one segment to near moon sufficient," Kipape said. "Continuing design of Eden on Mars."

  WHEN IT was all over and the eight humans crawled back out of the Lineup enclave, they were followed by two Lineup segments. The two segments had simple stripe patterns around their middle that were very similar. Their names were similar, too, Babadi and Babado.

  "It's hard to believe that those two creatures are going to terraform Mars in one Martian year," Maury said as he watched one of them start ripping up a nearby snowbank with its powerful claws and devouring the dirt and snow as fast as it could eat. The other Lineup went to the nearby crawler and waited patiently outside the airiock door.

  "They aren't quite going to do the whole job in one mear," Chris said. "As they pointed out, the material just isn't there to make the atmosphere really Earthlike. They'll get us out of spacesuits in a mear. But to convert the carbon dioxide into oxygen, and dig up all the nitrates buried in the ground and turn them into nitrogen will take a little longer."

  Al opened the airiock door to the crawler and waved at the Lineup waiting there.

  "Hop in," he said. The Lineup stayed motionless.

  "Forgot ..." Al said. "Maury!" he called.

  "Hop in," Maury repeated, coming up. The Lineup bunched its powerful legs beneath it and literally hopped into the airlock using all four feet.

  "Hopping in," it reported.

  Maury climbed in the airlock with the Lineup and Al cycled them through as Gus came up for his turn.

  Al turned to Gus and said, "It's a good thing you gave the Lineups the general command that henceforth they are only to obey commands from someone who carries the violet Globe Coin," Al said. "Otherwise every offhand statement by a human could lead to trouble."

  ON THE arrival of the crawler at Boreal Base late the next day, the Lineup caused quite a crowd to gather, but the Lineup ignored all the people and trotted to the orbiter waiting on the landing pad at the end of the base.

  "Is it housebroken?" the orbiter pilot asked dubiously as he looked at the feathery-
skirted piglike animal.

  "Hasn't eaten a thing in over twenty-four hours," Maury assured him. "But just get him up to Phobos and stand back. It'll more than make up for lost time if it eats like the other one."

  "No waist for a seat belt," the pilot continued, still dubious.

  "I'm sure he can hold on with those claws," Maury said.

  "I'll send you the bill for any rips in the seats," the pilot promised as he activated the outer airlock door.

  "Hop in," the pilot said to the Lineup. It didn't move.

  "Hop in," Maury said, smiling superiorly at the pilot.

  "Hopping in," Babado said as it hopped into the airlock with a heavy thud.

  "Hey! Take it easy on the equipment," the pilot said.

  "Sorry. My fault," Maury said, stepping into the lock with the Lineup. "See you inside." The airlock door closed as the pilot stood there shaking his head.

  CHANG LU and Antonio Fiat took two sols to gather together a few colleagues with backgrounds in biology—there weren't that many assigned to the supposedly barren Moon and Mars—some techs, and some equipment, then drove back out to the site of the Lineup enclave in a caravan of crawlers. Chris went with them. When they got there after the long journey through the spiral ice canyon, there were four Lineups, busy eating the snow and dust as fast as they could.

  The Lineups were standing side by side, digging their way across the surface of a slope that would ultimately take them up on top of an ice ridge. From their backs extended long jet-black wings, soaking up the sunlight that was now pouring down almost twenty-four hours a sol. Behind them, in the broad trench they were making, the snow was covered with a dull black substance.

  "Their feet now number eight!" Chang Lu said with obvious surprise. "I do not understand."

  "They have grown much longer in the middle," Antonio said. "They seem to have grown the extra feet to support the middle section. They are almost as long as two Lineup segments."

  "That is the answer," Chang Lu said. "They do not replicate by making smaller young through parturition or budding, but instead grow large enough to make two adults by bifurcation. Look at that one on the left. It has a seam all around its middle, and it has eyerods starting to come out, just as on a two-segment Lineup."