Red Mars

by Kim Stanley Robinson

  Or else they just thought he was a dangerous man to be around. Which gave him a start. Everyone had no doubt heard of the falling dump truck; maybe it was just that. But could it be something more? Might these people be aware of something that he wasn’t? Reflecting on this for a while, John found his own eyes beginning to press glass. He had been thinking of the falling truck as an accident, or at least something that could only happen once. But his movements were easy to trace, everyone knew where he was. And every time you went outdoors you were only a walker away, as they said. And in a pit mine there were a lot of behemoths about. . . .

  But they got back in without incident. And that night they had the usual dinner and party in his honor, a hard-drinking party, with a lot of omegendorph consumption and loud raucous talk: a bunch of young tough engineers, pleased to find that John Boone was actually a fun guy to party with. A fairly common reaction among newcomers, especially younger men. John chatted them up, and had a good time, and slipped his inquiries into the flow pretty unnoticeably, he thought. They had not heard of the coyote, which was interesting, as they did know about Big Man, and the hidden colony. Apparently the coyote was not in that category of tale; he was some kind of insider thing, known, so far as John could tell, only to some of the first hundred.

  The miners had had a recent unusual visit, however; an Arab caravan had come by, traveling the edge of Vastitas Borealis. And, they said, the Arabs had claimed to have been visited by some of “the lost colonists,” as they called them.

  “Interesting,” John said. It seemed unlikely to him that Hiroko or any of her crew would reveal themselves, but who could tell? He might as well go check it out; after all, there was only so much he could do at Bradbury Point. Very little detective work, he was noticing, could be accomplished before a crime occurred. So he spent a couple more days observing the mining, but that only reinforced his shock at the scale of the operation, at how much robotic earthmovers could tear away. “What are you going to do with all the metal?” he asked, after taking a look down into another great open pit mine, located twenty-five kilometers to the west of the habitat. “Getting it to Earth will cost more than it’s worth, won’t it?”

  The chief of operations, a black-haired man with a hatchet face, grinned. “We’ll hold onto it until it’s worth more. Or until they build that space elevator.”

  “You believe in that?”

  “Oh yeah, the materials are there! Graphite whisker reinforced with diamond spirals, why you could almost build one on Earth with that. Here it would be easy.”

  John shook his head. That afternoon they drove for an hour back to the habitat, past raw pits and slag heaps, toward the distant plume of the refineries on the other sides of the habitat mesa. He was used to seeing the land torn up for building purposes, but this . . . It was amazing what a few hundred people could do. Of course it was the same technology that was allowing Sax to build a vertical town the whole height of the Echus Overlook, the same technology that allowed all the new towns to be built so quickly; but still, wreaking such havoc just to strip away metals, destined for Earth’s insatiable demand. . . .

  The next day he gave the operations chief a fiendishly tight security regimen, to be followed for two months. Then he drove out into the wind-eroded tracks of the Arab caravan, and followed them north and east.

  It turned out that Frank Chalmers was traveling with this Arab caravan. But he had not seen or heard of any visitation by Hiroko’s people, and none of the Arabs would admit to being the one who had told the story at Bradbury Point. A false lead, then. Or else one that Frank was helping the Arabs to eliminate; and if so, how would John find that out? Though the Arabs had only recently arrived on Mars, they were already Frank’s allies, no doubt about it; he lived with them, he spoke their language, and now, naturally, he was the constant mediator between them and John. Not a chance of an independent investigation, except what Pauline could do in the records, which she could do as well away from the caravan as in it.

  Nevertheless, John traveled with them for a while as they roamed the great dune sea, doing areology and a bit of prospecting. Frank was only there briefly himself, to talk to an Egyptian friend; he was too busy to stay anywhere for long. His job as U.S. Secretary made him as much of a globe-trotter as John, and they crossed paths pretty frequently. Frank had managed to keep his position as the American department head now through three administrations, even though it was a cabinet post— a remarkable feat, even without considering his distance from Washington. And so he was now overseeing the introduction of investment by the American-based transnationals, a responsibility that made him manic with overwork and puffed up with power, what John thought of as the business version of Sax, always moving, always gesturing with his hands as if conducting the music of his speech, which had shifted over the years to full-tilt Chamber of Commerce overdrive, “Got to stake a claim on the Escarpment before the transnats and the Germans snap everything up, lotta work to be done!” which was his constant refrain, often said while pointing for illustration at the little globe he carried with him in his lectern pocket. “Look at your moholes, I just entered them last week, one near the North Pole, three in the sixties north and south, four along the equator, four bracketing the South Pole, all of them nicely placed west of volcanic rises to catch their updrafts, it’s beautiful.” He spun the globe and the blue dots marking the moholes blurred for a moment into blue lines. “It’s good to see you finally doing something useful.”

  “Finally.”

  “Look, here’s the new habitat factory in Hellas. They’re manufacturing starter units at a rate that’ll enable them to handle some three thousand emigrants per ell ess ninety, and given the new fleet of round-trip shuttles, that’s just barely enough.” He saw John’s expression and said quickly, “All heat in the end, John, so it helps the terraforming with more than just money and labor, I mean think about it.”

  “But do you ever wonder what’s going to come of it all?” John asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, this deluge of people and equipment, while things are falling apart on Earth.”

  “Things are always going to be falling apart on Earth, you might as well get used to it.”

  “Yeah, but who’s going to own what up here? Who’s going to call the shots?”

  Frank just made a face at John’s naíveté, at the very nature of the question. One look at his grimace and John could read it all, the whole complex of disgust and impatience and amusement. A part of John was pleased at this instant recognition; he knew his old friend better than he had ever known any of his family, so that the swarthy pale-eyed face glowering at him was like that of a brother, a twin that he couldn’t ever remember not knowing. On the other hand, he was annoyed with Frank for his condescension. “People are wondering about it, Frank. It’s not just me, and it’s not just Arkady. You can’t just shrug it off and act like it’s a stupid question, like there’s nothing to be decided.”

  “The U.N. decides,” Frank said brusquely. “There’s ten billion of them, and ten thousand of us. That’s a million to one. If you want to influence those kind of odds you ought to have become the UNOMA factor like I told you to when they set up the position. But you didn’t listen to me. You just shrugged it off. You could have really done something, but now what are you? Sax’s assistant in charge of publicity.”

  “And development, and security, and Terran affairs, and the moholes.”

  “Ostrich!” Frank pounced. “Head in a hole! Come on, let’s go eat.”

  John agreed and they went off to a dinner in the Arabs’ biggest rover, a meal of basted lamb and dill-flavored yogurt, delicious and exotic. But John found himself still irritated at Frank’s scorn, which never let up. The old rivalry, sharp as ever; and no First Man routine would ever make a dent in Frank’s sneery arrogance.

  Thus when Maya Toitovna showed up unexpectedly the next day, traveling west on her way to Acheron, John gave her a longer hug than he might ha
ve otherwise, and by the time that night’s dinner was over, he had made certain that she would spend the night in his rover— a matter of a particular attentiveness, a certain laugh, a certain look, the nearly accidental brushing of arms together as they stood trying sherbets, talking to the happy men of the caravan, who clearly found her fascinating. . . . All their old code of conciliation and seduction, established through the years. And Frank could only watch, deadpan, talking in Arabic to his Egyptian friends.

  And that night, as John and Maya made love in John’s rover bed, John pulled up from her briefly and looked down at her white body, and thought, So much for political power Frank buddy! That deadpan look had told it all, the fierce desire for Maya still there, still burning. Frank, like most of the men in the caravanserai that night, would have loved to have been in John’s place at that moment; once or twice in the past he no doubt had been; but not when John was around. No, tonight Frank would be reminded what real power was made of.

  Distracted by such nastiness, it took John a while to pay any real attention to Maya herself. It had been almost five years since he and she had slept together, and in the intervening time he had had several other partners, and knew she had lived for a time with an engineer in Hellas. It was strange to begin again, as they knew each other intimately and yet didn’t. Her turning face flickering under him in the dim light, sister then stranger, sister then stranger. . . . Something happened, then, something turned in him; all that exterior business fell away, all those games. Something in her face, in the way she was all there, the way she would give her whole self to him when they made love. He didn’t know anyone else who was quite like that.

  And thus the old flame sparked again, uncertainly at first, as it had not been there at all in their first lovemaking. But then, after an hour’s quiet talk, they had started kissing and rolled together and suddenly it was ablaze and they were inside it. Lit up by Maya as usual, he had to admit it. She made him pay attention. Sex for her was not (as it tended to be for John) some kind of extension of sport; it was a grand passion to her, a transcendent state of being, and she was so tigerish when she got going that she always surprised him, woke him up, brought him up to her level, reminded him what sex could be. And it was wonderful to be reminded again, to learn that again— really wonderful. Omegendorph was nothing to it, how could he have forgotten, why did he keep wandering away from her as if she weren’t, somehow, irreplaceable? He crushed her with a hug and they twisted together, bit at each other, panted and moaned; came together as they had so often before, Maya pulling him over the edge with her. Their ritual.

  And even afterward, just talking, he somehow felt very much more fond of her. He had started things just to irk Frank, it was true; he had been completely careless of her. But now, lying beside her, he could feel how much he had missed her presence in the previous five years, how bland life had seemed. How much he had missed her! New feelings— they always surprised him, he kept assuming he was too old for them, that he had more or less stopped changing. And then something would happen. And so often that something (thinking back over the years) was a meeting with Maya. . . .

  She was still the same Maya Toitovna, however: mercurial, full of her own thoughts and plans, full of herself. She had no idea what John was doing out there on the dunes, and would never think to ask. And she would slash him to ribbons if he accidentally crossed her mood, he could tell that just in the sultry set of her shoulders, just in the way she padded off to the toilet. But he knew all that already, it was old news, something from the first years at Underhill, so long ago; and the sheer familiarity of it was pleasing— even her irritability was pleasing! Like Frank and his scorn. Well, he was getting old, and they were family. He almost laughed, he almost said something to set her off, then thought better of it. Just knowing was enough, no need for another demonstration, Lord! At that thought he did laugh, and she smiled to hear it, and came back to bed and shoved him in the chest. “Laughing at me again I see! Because of my fat bottom is it?”

  “You know your bottom is perfect.” She shoved him again, insulted at what she considered a gross lie, and their wrestling drew them back into the reality of skin and salt, into the world of sex. At some point in the long lazy session he found himself thinking I love you, wild Maya, I really do. It was a disconcerting thought, a dangerous thought. Not something he would risk saying. But it felt true.

  So a couple of days later, when she left to visit the Acheron group, and asked him to join her there, he was pleased. “Maybe in a couple of months.”

  “No, no.” Her face was serious. “Come sooner, I want you there with me sooner.”

  And when he agreed, on a whim, she grinned like a girl with a secret. “You won’t be sorry.” With a kiss she was off, driving south to Burroughs to catch the train west.

  After that, there was less chance than ever of learning anything from the Arabs. He had offended Frank, and the Arabs closed ranks behind their friend, as was only right. Hidden colony? they said. What was that?

  He sighed and gave up on it, and decided to leave. Stocking his rover the night before his departure (the Arabs were punctilious about filling his hold with supplies), he pondered what he had accomplished so far in his investigation of the sabotages. Sherlock Holmes was in no danger, that was sure. Worse than that, there was now a whole society on Mars that was basically impenetrable to him. Moslems, what were they exactly? He read Pauline that evening after he was done stocking, and then he rejoined his hosts and watched them as closely as he was able, asking questions all that night long. . . . He knew asking questions was the key to people’s souls, infinitely more useful than wit; but in this case it didn’t seem to make any difference. Coyote? Some kind of wild dog was it?

  Baffled, he left the caravan the next morning and drove west, on the southern border of the dune sea. It would be a long journey to Acheron to join Maya, 5,000 kilometers of dune after dune; but he preferred driving to going down to Burroughs and taking the train. He needed time to think. And really it was a habit now, driving cross-country, or flying gliders— getting away, traveling slowly across the land. He had been on the road for years now, crisscrossing the northern hemisphere and making long excursions into the south, inspecting moholes or doing favors for Sax or Helmut or Frank, or looking into things for Arkady, or cutting ribbons at the opening of one thing or another— a town, a well, a weather station, a mine, a mohole— and always talking, talking in public speeches or private conversations, talking to strangers, old friends, new acquaintances, talking almost as fast as Frank did, and all in an attempt to inspire the people on the planet to figure out a way to forget history, to build a functioning society. To create a scientific system designed for Mars, designed to their specifications, fair and just and rational and all those good things. To point the way to a new Mars!

  And yet after every year that passed it seemed less likely to happen the way he had envisioned it. A place like Bradbury Point showed how rapidly things were changing, and people like the Arabs confirmed the impression; events were out of his control, and more than that, out of anyone’s control. There was no plan. He rolled west on autopilot, up and down over dune after dune, not seeing a thing, sunk deep in an attempt to understand what exactly history was, and how it worked. And it seemed to him as he drove on day after day that history was like some vast thing that was always over the tight horizon, invisible except in its effects. It was what happened when you weren’t looking— an unknowable infinity of events, which although out of control, controlled everything. After all, he had been here from the very beginning! He had been the beginning, the first person to step on this world, and then he had returned against all the odds, and helped to build it from scratch! And yet now, despite all that, it was spinning away from him. Contemplating that fact made him tense with disbelief, and sometimes with a sudden furious frustration; to think that the whole thing was accelerating not only beyond his control, but even beyond his ability to comprehend— it wasn’t right, he had to
fight it!

  And yet how? Social planning of some sort . . . clearly they had to have it. This flailing about without a plan, in violation of even the flimsy plan people had made back at the beginning with the Mars treaty . . . well, societies without a plan, that was history so far; but history so far had been a nightmare, a huge compendium of examples to be avoided. No. They needed a plan. They had a chance at a new start here, they needed a vision. Helmut the oily functionary, Frank with his cynical acceptance of the status quo, his acceptance of the breakdown of the treaty, as if they were in a kind of gold rush— Frank was wrong. Wrong as usual!

  But his own rushing about was probably wrong, too. He had been operating on the unarticulated theory that if he only saw more of the planet, visited one more settlement, talked to one more person, that he would somehow (without really thinking too hard) get it— and that his holistic understanding would then flow back from him to everybody else, spreading out through all the new settlers and changing things. Now he was pretty sure that this feeling had been naíve; there were so many people on the planet these days he could never hope to connect with them, to become the articulator of all their hopes and desires. And not only that, but few of the newcomers seemed much like the first hundred in regard to their reasons for coming. Well, that wasn’t entirely true; there were still scientists coming up, and people like the Swiss road-building gypsies. But he didn’t know them like he did the first hundred, and he never would. That little band had formed him, really, they had shaped his opinions and ideas, had taught him; they were his family, he trusted them. And he wanted their help, he needed it now more than ever. Perhaps it was this which explained the sudden new intensity of his feeling for Maya. And perhaps it was this which made him so angry with Hiroko— he wanted to talk to her, he needed her help! And she had abandoned them.