WHITE MARS

by Brian W Aldiss

  'Incidentally, on the subject of life, you might ask yourself how likely - what are the odds - of such a coincidence happening elsewhere in our galaxy. Long odds, I'd say.'

  Although I was in agreement with this statement, I got Dreiser back on track again by asking what all this had to do with Olympus's extinction of the rest of Martian life.

  'No, no, you have the wrong picture in your head still, Tom. That's not what happened here, as we envisage it. There was no extinction.'

  He paused before continuing, perhaps considering how to explain most clearly.

  'With the very different conditions on Mars, the balance of advantage in evolutionary processes was also different. Even on Earth, two types of evolutionary pressure have been important. We have become accustomed to considering the idea of competition as being the more important. This may be because Darwin's splendid perceptions were launched in 1859 into a highly competitive capitalist society.

  'In the competition scenario, the different species battle it out, and the "fittest" are, on the whole, the ones that survive. But the cooperative element in evolution has sometimes proved important - vital, you might say - as we've seen in the instances of symbiotic development I have already mentioned.

  'On Earth, competitive aspects of evolution have rather dominated the cooperative elements in our consideration. Our enforced social competitiveness has led us in that direction. We tend to think that the competitive element predominates, although in fact the entire terrestrial biomass works in unconscious cooperative ways to create a favourable environment for itself.

  'These cooperative processes stem from the early days when life first crept from sea to the land. Initially both land and atmosphere were hostile to life of any kind, and various symbiotic relationships had to be adopted. Otherwise life could not have survived. But gradually, as conditions on Earth became more favourable, competitive elements began to assert themselves. We now see - or think we see - the competitive elements dominating the cooperative elements.'

  Somewhere in the audience, a tammy began to chirp and was hushed. I asked Hawkwood if evolution had taken a different course on Mars.

  'Possibilities for life here differ considerably from Earth, as we have said. Conditions have never been other than harsh. Now they weigh heavily against life. We have low atmospheric pressure, almost zero oxygen content, abnormally dry conditions. But basic natural laws always applied.

  'In the case of evolution, cooperation had a distinct edge over competition. In the early days of Mars's history, conditions more closely resembled Earth's. But gradually oxygen became bonded into the rocks while water vapour leaked away. As conditions became more and more adverse, cooperation among the indigenous life forms won out over competition.

  'The enormous diversity of life forms, such as we find on Earth, never had a chance to develop here. Evolution on Mars was forced into a combining together of life. All forms eventually huddled together for protection against adverse Martian conditions. It was the ultimate Martian strategy.'

  They huddled together, I suggested, under what we have always thought was a volcano, Olympus Mons. Why should they have chosen that particular shape?

  'A cone shape is economical of material. And since the life forms were not going to be particularly mobile, they chose a defence readily adopted by countless of Earth's creatures - they opted for camouflage. Camouflage against what we can't tell; nor, I suppose, could they. But their instincts are readily understandable. In fact, the shell is just that, a shell made from keratin and clay - very tough and durable.'

  It would keep heat in, I suggested.

  'Yes, and fairly large meteorites out.'

  A child's voice from the audience asked, 'What are the people like under the shell, Dreiser?'

  They aren't people in our sense of the word,' Dreiser replied. 'The use of keratin as a binder in the shell suggests hair, nails, horns, hooves, feathers...'

  At the words 'hooves, feathers...' a frisson ran through the audience like the rustling of great wings.

  Dreiser continued. 'Olympus Mons - sorry, Kathi, Chimborazo - has grown gradually into the vast volcano shape we know today. The creatures under it must be still surviving, perhaps even thriving, since Olympus is now in a growth phase. It extends very slowly, we think upwards. But our surveys indicate an expansion of something like 1.1 centimetres every other decade.'

  So how did it feed?

  'Its exteroceptors suck nourishment and moisture from the rocks.

  'As you have heard from Kathi here, Chimborazo is executing a slow horizontal movement. It advances at the rate of a few metres every Martian year.'

  At the exclamations from his audience, Dreiser looked gravely ahead of him. He spoke next with emphasis.

  'This advance began only when these domes and the science unit were established. Chimborazo is probably attracted by a heat source.'

  'You mean it's advancing on us?' cried a nervous voice from the floor.

  'Although its forward movement is much faster than its growth rate, it is still no speedster by terrestrial standards. A snail runs like a cheetah by comparison. We're all quite safe. It will take nearly a million years to drag itself here at present rate of progress.'

  'I'm packing my bags now,' came a voice from the floor amid general laughter.

  Vouchsafing the remark a wintery smile, Dreiser continued, 'We monitored the horizontal movement first. You may imagine our incredulity. We did not immediately realise we were dealing with a living thing - undoubtedly the biggest living thing within the solar system.

  'We did not connect it at first with those white exteroceptors, which flick so quickly out of sight. They are the creature's sensors, and of complex function. Not eyes exactly. But they appear to be sensitive to electromagnetic signals of various wavelengths. The multitude of them together is probably used to build up a picture of sorts. They retract at any unexpected signal, which caused us problems in getting a clear picture of them to start with.'

  A subdued voice asked a question from the audience. Dreiser needed it repeated: 'I can't believe what you're telling us. How can that enormous thing possibly be alive?'

  Kathi answered sharply. 'You must improve your perceptions. If it can think, Chimborazo is probably asking itself how a small feeble bipedal thing like you could possibly be alive - not to mention intelligent.'

  The questioner sank back in her chair.

  'You can perhaps imagine our shock when we discovered that Chimborazo was advancing towards our research unit. Nothing can stop its approach,' Kathi said. 'Unless we make some sort of conscious appeal to it...'

  I asked if Dreiser thought that Olympus had a mind anything like ours.

  'The balance of opinion is that it has a mind radically different from ours. So Kathi has half persuaded us. A mind compounded of a multitude of little minds. Thought may be greatly slowed down by comparison with our time-scales.

  'Yes, I have to say it may well have awareness, intelligence. We have detected a fluttery CPS - the clear physical signal that is the signature of mind. It may tick over slowly by our standards, but speed of thought isn't everything.'

  'Now you're being anthropomorphic!' said a voice from the floor.

  'It is one of the functions of intelligence to respond discriminatingly to the events that come within its scope. Which is what Olympus seems to be doing. Its response to mankind's arrival here is to move towards us. Whether this can be construed as hostile or friendly, or merely as a reaction to a heat source, we have yet to decide. It has decided!'

  He paused for thought. 'It may well have consciousness. Consciousness is not necessarily the gift solely of earthly beings such as ourselves.

  'In our discussions here, I have noticed the frequency with which ancient authorities are appealed to, from Aristotle and Plato onwards - to Count Basie, I may say. This is because our consciousness has a collective element. "No voice is ever lost," if I may take my turn at quoting. Our consciousness has been enriched by the minds of t
hose good men who lived in the past. Perhaps you may regard this as a mental evolutionary principle of cooperation in action.

  'Consciousness is unlike any other phenomenon, compounded of many elements and apparent contradictions along the quantum-mechanical level. In the close quarters engendered by its shell, the huddled creatures of Olympus would probably have developed a form of consciousness.

  'I will also venture the suggestion that here in our cramped quarters we could be developing a new step forward in human consciousness, represented by the word "utopian". A thinking alike for the common good...

  'If that is so - and I hope it may be so - it will mean the fading away of individualism. This is what has happened with our friend Chimborazo, if I guess correctly. It has become a single creature consisting of the symbiotic union of all indigenous Martian life.'

  Came a shout from the audience. 'What gives you the idea that this weird mind is good?'

  Dreiser responded thoughtfully. 'I repeat that individualism had no chance on Mars. To survive, this entity evolved a collective mind. It has therefore learned control ... But we can only speculate upon all this. With awe. With reverence.'

  Here Kathi chipped in to say, 'It may seem to us slow and ponderous, but why should we not believe it to be superior to our own fragmented minds?'

  After the talk, Helen Panorios came up to Dreiser and asked, timidly, why Olympus had camouflaged itself as a volcano.

  'Olympus lies among other volcanoes. So it can become pretty well lost in the crowd.'

  'Yes, sir, but what has it camouflaged itself against?'

  Dreiser regarded her steadily before replying. 'We can only suppose - although this is terrestrial thinking - that it feared some great and terrible predator.'

  'Space-born?'

  'Very probably space-born. Matrix-born...'

  From this occasion onwards, Dreiser and I spent more time together, discussing this extraordinary phenomenon. Sometimes he would call in Kathi Skadmorr. Sometimes I called in Youssef Choihosla, who professed an empathy with Olympus.

  One of the first questions I asked Dreiser was, 'Are you now going to abandon your search for the Omega Smudge?'

  He stroked his moustache as if it was his pet, gave me an old-fashioned look, and replied with a question, 'Are you going to abandon your plans for a Utopian society?'

  So we understood each other. Ordinary work had to continue.

  But it continued under the shadow of that enormous life form that unceasingly inched its way towards us. Despite warnings to the contrary, the four of us drove out one calm day to inspect Olympus at close quarters. Crossing the parched terrain, we began to climb, bumping over parallel fracture lines. Kathi, in the rear seat with Choihosla, seemed particularly nervous, and clutched Choihosla's large hand.

  When I jokingly made some remark to her about her nervousness, she replied, 'You might do well to be nervous, Tom. We are crossing Chimborazo's holy ground. Can't you feel that?'

  The terrain became steeper and more broken. Dreiser drove slowly. The exteroceptors were all about us. They seemed thicker here, more reluctant to slide back into the frozen regolith. The buggy dropped to a mere crawl. Dreiser flicked his headlights on and off to clear the track. 'God, for a gun!' he muttered. We were all tense. No one spoke.

  We surmounted a bluff, and there the rim of it was, protruding above ground level like a cliff. We stopped. 'Do we get out?' I asked. But Kathi was already climbing from the vehicle. She walked slowly towards Chimborazo.

  I got out and followed. Dreiser and Choihosla followed me. Suited up, we could hear no external sound.

  Even near to, Olympus closely resembled a natural feature, its flanks being terraced in a roughly concentric pattern. There were imitations of flowlines, channels and levees, as well as lines of craters that might or might not be imitations of the real things. We could by no means see all of its 700-kilometre diameter. Even the caldera was hardly visible, though a small cloud of steam hovered above it. Whether as a volcano or a living organism, it seemed impossible to comprehend.

  In its presence I felt the hair at the back of my neck prickle. I simply stood and stared, trying to come to terms with it. Dreiser and Choihosla were busy with instruments, noting with satisfaction that there was no radiation reading, receiving a CPS.

  'Of course there's a CPS,' said Kathi. 'Do you really need instruments to tell you that? How's the back of your neck, for instance?'

  Braver than we were, she climbed up on to the shell and lay flat upon it, her little rump in the air. It was as if - but I brushed aside the thought - she desired sexual intercourse with it.

  After a while, she returned and joined us. 'You can feel a vibration,' she said. She returned to the buggy and sat, arms folded across her chest, head down.

  Cang Hai's Account

  13

  Jealousy at the Oort Crowd

  At this period, I used to like to go with my baby daughter to a small cafe on P. Lowell called the Oort Crowd. The talk there was all about Chimborazo. The threat from outside seemed to have drawn people together and the cafe was more crowded than ever.

  My Ambient was choked with messages from Thorgeson, which alternated between apologies, supplications, abuse and endearments. I preferred cafe life, as did Alpha.

  Although I did not wish to be impolite, I eventually sent Thorgeson a message: 'Go to hell, you and your ventriloquist's dummy!' At the same time, I found some sheets on the Ambient network and tried to gain a better understanding of particle physics. I was making little progress, and called Kathi, asking if I might see her.

  'I'm busy, Cang Hai, sorry. We have problems.'

  Trying to keep the disappointment from my voice, I asked her what the problems were.

  'Oh, you wouldn't understand. There's some trouble with the smudge ring. Stray vortices in the superfluid. We're getting spurious effects. Sorry, must go. Meeting coming up. Love to Alpha.' And she was gone.

  Possibly this was what my Other in Chengdu had warned me about. I had been walking up a mountain with a king -or at least a man with a crown on his head. The air was so pure. We listened to bird song. Another man came along. He too had something on his head. Or perhaps it was a mask. I wanted him to join us. He smiled beautifully, before starting to run at a great pace up the mountain ahead of us. Then I saw a lake.

  The manager of the Oort Crowd was Bevis Paskin Peters. He had taken over a department of the old Marvelos travel bureau. He ran the cafe very casually, being a part-time dress designer - the planet's first. Peters was rather a heavy man, with a sullen set to his features that disappeared when he smiled at you. In those moments, he looked amazingly handsome.

  However, Peters was not the reason I went to the Oort Crowd. Nor was Peters often there, leaving the running of the cafe to an assistant, a fair-haired wisp of a lad. I went because Alpha loved to watch the cephalopods. The front wall of the cafe consisted of a thin aquarium in which the little cephalopods lived, jetting their way about the tank like comets.

  A YEA marine biologist had become so attached to his pets that he had brought two pairs with him to Mars. Convinced of their intelligence, he had built them a computer-operated maze. The maze, built from multicoloured perspex, occupied the tank. Its passageways and dead ends altered automatically every day. The cephalopods multiplied and had to be culled, so the Oort often had real Calamari on the menu. Ten of the creatures lived in the tank, and seemed to take pleasure in threading their way about the maze.

  Alpha sat contentedly for hours, watching. Her particular admiration was for the way in which the squid changed body colour as they glided through the coloured passageways.

  We were there one day - I was chatting to some other mothers - when in came Peters with a dark-skinned man I did not know, together with the famous Paula Gallin.

  She scooped up Alpha, who knew her well, and kissed her passionately, calling endearments and making Alpha give her beautiful chuckle. The two men, meanwhile, were putting a cassette into a player at t
he rear of the bar.

  Then Paula demanded the attention of the cafe's clientele.

  'I just want you all to take a look at a piece of film. A sneak preview of my next production, okay? It won't take a minute. Okay, guys.'

  The mirror behind the bar opaqued and there were figures moving and talking. They were in a long hall, filmed in longshot. All was movement. A man and a woman were talking in the crowd, talking and quarrelling. In the main, they avoided each other's gaze, shooting angry glances now and then. As they continued walking but their voices grew louder, the crowd about them froze into immobility.

  The man said, 'Look, all I do I do for you.'

  'You don't. You do it for yourself,' said the woman.

  'You're the selfish one. Why are you always attacking me?'

  'I don't attack you, you liar. I was just asking you why—'

  'You were distinctly interrogating me,' he said, breaking into her sentence. 'You're always on at me.'

  'I simply had a small suggestion to make, but you would not listen. You never listen.'

  'I've already heard what you have to say.' He was red in the face now.

  'I do everything for you. What do you do for me?'

  His manner changed entirely. 'I do nothing for you, do I?' He appeared completely crestfallen. The woman turned her head angrily away.

  The film cut, the mirror returned.

  Paula laughed with a rich kind of gurgle. 'Okay, folks, now which of those two characters do you think was in the wrong, or was most wrong?'

  We gave our opinions, the few of us sitting in the cafe. Some thought the man was feeling guilty about a misdemeanour. Others thought the woman was a nagger. Most of the speakers took sides. I said that they had got themselves into the kind of situation where both parties were wrong; they needed to stop quarrelling and try to find agreement, if necessary calling in a third party.