The Martians

by Kim Stanley Robinson

  "Terran Origins Possible in the Ceraunius Basement Samples.” Vol. 57, 1 January m62. By Claparede, R., and Borazjani, H. X. et al., Department of Ecology, University of Mars, Burroughs.

  We examined the nanobacteria-like structures discovered in drill samples on the north flank of Ceraunius Tholus (cf. Forbes and Taneev, m61a). They exhibit the carbonates, magnetites, and PAHs seen in ALH 84001, but no movement or metabolic action. As in the case of ALH 84001 in Antarctica, recent contamination of the rock is a possibility, in this case anthropogenic contamination; hydration of the fault in question may have occurred when the lava tunnel on Ceraunius Tholus was used as a streambed, from m15 to m38. Also, while the samples do contain magnetites, we question whether any indigenous archaea or nanobacteria would evolve to produce magnetites when Mars has a magnetic field so slight that it could not be registered for biological use.

  "Ancient Areomagnetosphere Substantially Stronger in the Noachian Epoch Than at Present.” Vol. 57, 2 April m62. By Kim, C. H., Institute of Areophysics, Senzeni Na; and Forbes, G. N., Department of Microbiology, Acheron Institute for Areological Studies.

  Paleomagnetic studies in the southern half of the crustal dichotomy demonstrate that the paleointensity of the Martian magnetic field was as high as 250 to 1000 nT as recently as 1.3 Gyr ago, probably because of the presence of an active dynamo in the core. This suggests that Mars generated a magnetic moment greater than 1013 T-m3 (compared with Earth's moment of 8 × 1015 T-m3) throughout the Noachian, from approximately 4.1 Gyr to 1.3 Gyr (cf. Russell et al., m6j). Development of biomagnetism in any early indigenous life would therefore be unsurprising.

  "Paleomagnetosphere Not Yet Determined.” Vol. 57, 2 August m62. By Russell, S., Da Vinci Co-op Laboratories.

  A survey of recent studies indicates the Martian magnetosphere was probably negligible after approximately 3.5 Gyr.

  "Similarities between Indigenous Archaea Found under Ceraunius Tholus and the Columbia Basement Archaea Methanospirillum jacobii.” Vol. 58, 1 August m63. By Forbes, G. N., Department of Microbiology, University of Mars, Cairo; Taneev, V. L., Acheron Institute for Areological Studies; and Allan, P. F., Department of Microbiology, University of Mars, Cairo.

  The archaealike organisms found in Ceraunius, and what appear to be nanofossils of these organisms, resemble in many physical and chemical respects the Methanospirillum jacobii found in the Columbia River basement rock (see Figure 1.2). Nitrogen in the Martian samples all exhibit the isotropically heavy nitrogen that distinguishes the atmosphere of Mars from virtually all other volatile reservoirs in the solar system, which eliminates contamination as a possible origin. Partial genomic analysis of RNA fragments in the Ceraunius organisms shows a 44.6% match with DNA from the Columbia basement archaea Methanospirillum jacobii. Such a match cannot be explained by independent origin. Seeding of life from one planet to the other is suggested as the most plausible explanation. Lewontin-Thierry mutation-rate analysis gives a tentative date for division of the two species at approximately 3.9 Gyr, near the end of the heavy bombardment.

  "Preponderance of Left-Handedness Found in Ceraunius Archaeac Organisms' Amino Acids.” Vol. 58, 2 October m63. By Forbes, G. N., Allan, P. F., and Wang, W. W., Department of Microbiology, University of Mars, Cairo; and Taneev, V. L., Acheron Institute for Areological Studies.

  Left-handedness in amino acids found in Archaea ceraunii from Ceraunius Tholus is shown to predominate in proportion similar to the handedness of the Columbia basement Methanospirillum jacobii (cf. Ellsworth, N. W., 2067a). Organisms dead longer than 1 Myr would have yielded roughly the same amount of left- and right-handed amino acids in the sample, so the high incidence in the Ceraunius samples indicates some specimens must either still be alive, or have been alive in the last Myr. It is now well established (cf. Nabdullah, 2054) that extremophiles under worsening conditions react to the stress by slowing metabolisms to rates in which cell divisions occur less than once a century. With biologic functions temporarily suspended or greatly slowed, indications of life are clearest in biochemical states such as handedness.

  "Genomic Analysis of Ceraunius and Columbia Nanobacteria Reveal Recent Division of Populations.” Vol. 59, 1 February m64. By Claparede, R. and Borazjani, H. X., Department of Ecology; and Olson, G. B., and Thresh, J. J. et al., Department of Microbiology, University of Mars, Burroughs.

  We determined that, while there appear to be nanobacteria under the north flank of Ceraunius, genomic analysis of DNA fragments from both populations reveals they share 85.4% of their DNA. Mutation rates as recalibrated by Nguyen and McGonklin gave results indicating the two organisms underwent species division within the last 5000 generations. This suggests the rocks of Ceraunius Tholus were contaminated with Terran nanobacteria some 20 m-years ago, which is within the period when the lava tunnel on the north flank of the volcano was used as a streambed. This practice was discontinued by order of the global environmental court (cf. GEC Proceedings, m46, pp.3245–47) because the floor of the tunnel was found to be too porous, and in the words of the report, “risk of contaminating the deep regolith is considerable."

  "Stromatolitic Formations under Ceraunius Tholus Match Structure and Chemical Composition of Hydatogenic Geyserite Discovered under Tharsis Tholus.” Vol. 60, 1 May m65. By Borazjani, H. X., Department of Ecology; Robertson, L. D., Wulf, V. W., and Flores, N., Department of Areology, University of Mars, Burroughs.

  A siliceous deposit composed of nearly pure opaline silica was discovered during drilling in Tharsis Tholus. The thermal spring on the west flank, 4.2 kms below the surface, was still active, and the resulting geyserite formation was clearly abiologic in origin. No microbacteria, nanobacteria, archaea, or nanofossils were found in any retrieved rock, all of which was retrieved and handled using GEC-mandated sterilization techniques.

  "Mitochondrial Analysis of Archaea ceraunii and Columbia Methanospirillum jacobii Indicate the Ceraunius Population Is the Older of the Two.” Vol. 60, 2 May m65. By Forbes, G. N., Department of Microbiology, and Pieron, I. I., Department of Genetics, University of Mars, Cairo; and Kim, C. H., Institute of Areophysics, Senzeni Na.

  Though abiologic processes account for geyserite formations in Ceraunius Tholus, imbibition rates for basaltic lava as calculated by Russell et al., m12t, indicate that the archaea coating the fractures in the basalt cannot have penetrated quickly enough into the rock to be anthropogenic in origin. Mitochondrial analysis clearly shows that the fossil Archaea ceraunii found on site along with living specimens are older than any dated Columbia basement Methanospirillum. Mitochondrial analysis also suggests that the descendant Terran species split from its ancestor about 180 Myr, the time when SNC Crater was formed, and the SNC meteorites thereby cast into space (cf. Matheson, N., 1997b). This indicates that the Terran archaea may have arrived on Earth in the SNC meteorites.

  "SNC Crater Not Necessarily the Source of SNC Meteorites.” Vol. 60, 1 December m65. By Claparede, R., Department of Ecology; Xthosa, N., Institute of Areophysics, Senzeni Na; and Taneev, V. L., Acheron Institute for Areological Studies.

  Spectrographic analyses of the Shergotty and Zagami meteorites show that both diabase stones consist mainly of the pyroxenes pigeonite and augite, and of maskelynite, a shocked plagioclase glass. The maskelynite is zoned, with accessory phases of titanomagnetite, ilmenite, pyrrhotite, fayalite, tridymite, whitlockite, chlorapatite, and baddeleyite. In situ investigation of the brecciated diabase in SNC Crater and surrounding region reveal that ilmenite and whitlockite are missing from this inventory. Studies at another oval crater about the same age and size on the Elysium Massif, Crater Tf, show that it has the same brecciated diabase, with the same phase accessories, as SNC Crater and environs. The Crater Tf diabase also exhibits a poikilitic texture like that seen in the Chassigny meteorite (Banin, Clark, and Wänke, 1992). Either crater could have been the origin for the SNC meteorites so far found on Earth.

  "Exotic Features in Archaea ceraunii Confirm Indigenous Origin.” Vol. 64, 1 Ap
ril m69. By Forbes, G. N., Department of Biology, Sabishii College.

  Proportions of isotropically heavy nitrogen unique to Mars are present in the archaea found 2.3 kms beneath the surface of Ceraunius Tholus, in ancient thermal springs. Mitochondrial analysis using the revised Thurmond equations confirms that Archaea ceraunii and the Columbia basement nanobacteria Methanospirillum jacobii split from a common ancestor from 6000 to 15,000 generations ago. Rates of mutation in extremophiles that have radically slowed their metabolisms are not yet certain, but there are strong indications that they may be well over a magnitude slower than described by earlier estimates (cf. Whitebook, H., m33f). This means the Ceraunius and Columbia nanobacteria could have split into separate species over 1.8 Gyr. Imbibition rates in basalt are <1 cm/Myr (cf. Russell et al., m12t), and not all of the Archaea ceraunii were found on the surfaces of cracked rocks in the thermal vent; some were recovered as much as a meter deep inside unbroken samples. These and other considerations show that Archaea ceraunii cannot have been placed in situ by anthropogenic action; there has not been enough time for them to get there. Indigenous origin is the only good explanation of all the data.

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  Odessa

  Oh in those days we were so happy. In love, sure. Just the two of us; no kids; interesting work; lots of free time; all Mars there to be explored together. We would go out into the backcountry on long walkabouts, wandering and talking. Out under the stars at night. For several years we spent the fall in Odessa, where we had work in the vineyards and wineries. We rented a little house in the beach village a few kilometers west of Odessa, at the end of the tram line. A hillside village, looking down on a crook of a beach, buildings clustered at the bottom, scattered among the trees higher up. Our house was pretty high on the hill, with a view down over treetops and tile roofs, and the broad blue plate of the Hellas Sea. Little patio out back, a table and two chairs. A lot of flowering vines, a little lemon tree in a tub. Almost all the summer visitors would be gone by then, so that only one restaurant stayed open, down behind the beach. The cats were friendly and looked sleek and well fed, though no one owned them. In the restaurant one jumped right into my lap and purred. I remember the first time we stood on the patio, looking down, then back at the house—whitewash, vines, the bedroom balcony with an iron railing, the brown hills above and behind, the sea and the sky. We laughed at how perfect it was. Most mornings we trammed into town to work, then came back in the afternoons and went to the beach. Or vice versa. Sunset on the patio with a glass of wine. Dinners in our little kitchen, or down at the restaurant, where a guitar and mandolin duo played on Fridays. Then nights in bed in a house all to ourselves. Sometimes I woke before dawn and went down to start coffee and go out on the patio. One of those mornings the sky was plastered with a herringbone cloud that turned pink, then gold.

  Sexual Dimorphism

  The potential for hallucination in paleogenomics was high. There was not only the omnipresent role of instrumentation in the envisioning of the ultramicroscopic fossil material, but also the metamorphosis over time of the material itself, both the DNA and its matrices, so that the data were invariably incomplete, and often shattered. Thus the possibility of psychological projection of patterns onto the rorschacherie of what in the end might be purely mineral processes had to be admitted.

  Dr. Andrew Smith was as aware of these possibilities as anyone. Indeed it constituted one of the central problems of his field—convincingly to sort the traces of DNA in the fossil record, distinguishing them from an array of possible pseudofossils. Pseudofossils littered the history of the discipline, from the earliest false nautiloids to the famous Martian pseudonanobacteria. Nothing progressed in paleogenomics unless you could show that you really were talking about what you said you were talking about. So Dr. Smith did not get too excited, at first, about what he was finding in the junk DNA of an early dolphin fossil.

  In any case there were quite a few distractions to his work at that time. He was living on the south shore of the Amazonian Sea, that deep southerly bay of the world-ringing ocean, east of Elysium, near the equator. In the summers, even the cool summers they had been having lately, the extensive inshore shallows of the sea grew as warm as blood, and dolphins—adapted from Terran river dolphins like the baiji from China, or the boto from the Amazon, or the susu from the Ganges, or the bhulan from the Indus—sported just off the beach. Morning sunlight lanced through the waves and picked out their flashing silhouettes, sometimes groups of eight or ten of them, all playing in the same wave.

  The marine laboratory he worked at, located on the seafront of the harbor town Eumenides Point, was associated with the Acheron labs, farther up the coast to the west. The work at Eumenides had mostly to do with the shifting ecologies of a sea that was getting saltier. Dr. Smith's current project dealing with this issue involved investigating the various adaptations of extinct cetaceans who had lived when the Earth's sea had exhibited different levels of salt. He had in his lab some fossil material, sent to the lab from Earth for study, as well as the voluminous literature on the subject, including the full genomes of all the living descendants of these creatures. The transfer of fossils from Earth introduced the matter of cosmic-ray contamination to all the other problems involved in the study of ancient DNA, but most people dismissed these effects as minor and inconsequential, which was why fossils were shipped across at all. And of course with the recent deployment of fusion-powered rapid vehicles, the amount of exposure to cosmic rays had been markedly reduced. Smith was therefore able to do that research on mammal salt tolerance both ancient and modern, thus helping to illuminate the current situation on Mars, also joining the ongoing debates concerning the paleohalocycles of the two planets, now one of the hot research areas in comparative planetology and bioengineering.

  Nevertheless, it was a field of research so arcane that if you were not involved in it, you tended not to believe in it. It was an offshoot, a mix of two difficult fields, its ultimate usefulness a long shot, especially compared to most of the inquiries being conducted at the Eumenides Point Labs. Smith found himself fighting a feeling of marginalization in the various lab meetings and informal gatherings, in coffee lounges, cocktail parties, beach luncheons, boating excursions. At all of these he was the odd man out, with only his colleague Frank Drumm, who worked on reproduction in the dolphins currently living offshore, expressing any great interest in his work and its applications. Worse yet, his work appeared to be becoming less and less important to his adviser and employer, Vlad Taneev, who as one of the First Hundred, and the cofounder of the Acheron labs, was ostensibly the most powerful scientific mentor one could have on Mars; but who in practice turned out to be nearly impossible to access, and rumored to be in failing health, so that it was like having no boss at all, and therefore no access to the lab's technical staff and so forth. A bitter disappointment.

  And then of course there was Selena—his partner, roommate, girlfriend, significant other, lover—there were many words for their relationship, though none was quite right. The woman with whom he lived, with whom he had gone through graduate school and two postdocs, with whom he had moved to Eumenides Point, taking a small apartment near the beach, near the terminus of the coastal tram, where when one looked back east the point itself just heaved over the horizon, like a dorsal fin seen far out to sea. Selena was making great progress in her own field, genetically engineering salt grasses; a subject of great importance there, where they were trying to stabilize a thousand-kilometer coastline of low dunes and quicksand swamps. Scientific and bioengineering progress; important achievements, relevant to the situation; all things were coming to her professionally, including of course offers to team up in any number of exciting public/co-op collaborations.

  And all things were coming to her privately as well. Smith had always thought her beautiful, and now h
e saw that with her success, other men were coming to the same realization. It took only a little attention to see it; an ability to look past shabby lab coats and a generally unkempt style to the sleekly curving body and the intense, almost ferocious intelligence. No—his Selena looked much like all the rest of the lab rats when in the lab, but in the summers when the group went down in the evening to the warm tawny beach to swim, she walked out the long expanse of the shallows like a goddess in a bathing suit, like Venus returning to the sea. Everyone in these parties pretended not to notice, but they couldn't help it.

  All very well; except that she was losing interest in him. This was a process that Smith feared was irreversible; or, to be more precise, that if it had gotten to the point where he could notice it, it was too late to stop it. So now he watched her, furtive and helpless, as they went through their domestic routines; there was a goddess in his bathroom, showering, drying off, dressing, each moment like a dance.

  But she didn't chat anymore. She was absorbed in her thoughts, and tended to keep her back to him. No—it was all going away.

  They had met in an adult swim club in Mangala, while they were both grad students at the university there. Now, as if to reinvoke that time, Smith took up Frank's suggestion and joined him at an equivalent club in Eumenides Point, and began to swim regularly again. He went from the tram or the lab down to the big fifty-meter pool, set on a terrace overlooking the ocean, and swam so hard in the mornings that the whole rest of the day he buzzed along in a flow of betaendorphins, scarcely aware of his work problems or the situation at home. After work he took the tram home feeling his appetite kick in, and banged around the kitchen throwing together a meal and eating much of it as he cooked it, irritated (if she was there at all) with Selena's poor cooking and her cheery talk about her work, irritated also probably just from hunger, and dread at the situation hanging over them; at this pretense that they were still in a normal life. But if he snapped at her during this fragile hour she would go silent the whole rest of the evening; it happened fairly often; so he tried to contain his temper and make the meal and quickly eat his part of it, to get his blood-sugar level back up.