"But as Stafford says, if the story breaks before Sturgis is ready, that is different. It would ratchet humanity one notch forward. Sturgis and his pals will look like fools defending your archaic American desire to rule the world. His whole house of cards comes crashing down. Such a collapse, it is something humanity needs, every generation or so. It is curious, you know, inbred bureaucracies always become obsolete when science moves forward. Look what happened with Galileo and his trial...."
Carter said nothing.
"And I will tell you something else. Nobody will deduce any stare secrets from this machine for a long time. This is truly alien technology. Alien to our way of thinking. It's not like looking at the hardware in a Japanese sensie unit, trying to figure out how they did it and how we can make a better one. When you look at something from Japan, even if it is far ahead of what we've got, you share a common technology base, a common structure of physical insights into nature. Here, we're dealing with something else. Somebody was here 3.2 billion years ago and built something. That is all we can say. We don't know how far ahead of us they were, technically or biologically. We don't know if they had the same way of organizing physics."
Carter felt frustrated. "Stafford says the same thing. But I think, if they study it enough, they will have some breakthrough...."
"I've been thinking. We like to claim that science is the process of discovering the absolute reality of the universe. But, you know, Newtonian physics was invented by people who believed in clockwork machines. Later, wave mechanics was invented by Schrödinger after he got interested in Hindu principles—Brahma extending continuously through the universe, organizing itself temporarily in little packets of karma. So there is a question. What if our images of the universe simply mirror our cultural conventions? Maybe each race re-creates the universe in the mathematical image of their own belief systems. Of course, the underlying reality is the same, but the way you organize it may lead you to discover different aspects, and to build different kinds of technology. You understand? We may not have the philosophic paradigms to understand this alien machine, or whatever it is. Maybe we're like the archaeologists who assign the label 'ceremonial object' on everything they do not understand." He turned to the window again. "We keep calling this thing a machine, probably because it looks complex and seems involved with magnetic fields. But maybe we should just label it a giant ceremonial object and let it go at that. Maybe it is an objet d'art. What if some future archaeologists dug up your Washington Monument and assumed it was a machine, and then kept trying to analyze its function?"
He banged his long arm wildly against one wall of the hallway, then the other, and then the ceiling. "Anyway, I think it's time to think ahead to something new. Now we know what they have here. It is wonderful. I want to make something wonderful out of this experience. I don't know what. But"—he slapped Carter on the back, harder this time—"I think Annie wants you. It shows I was right, of course. Her desires are beyond comprehension. It is your problem now."
In Carter's room, the terminal showed a message. It was from Annie. "Hurry. I want you."
Annie was sitting on the bed. Everything except her posture spoke of openness, of offering, of her own sensuality. Her hair flowed onto her shoulder like a waterfall in a black river. She wore a blouse with buttons, half of them undone. She had put on a full skirt, also with a row of buttons. They were open halfway up one side, revealing her brown, smooth leg. She stared intensely at him when he came in, as if she had been sitting for an hour watching the door. Only her posture ... She was rubbing her arms as if she were cold.
He locked the door and turned toward her. She whispered to him, "Shhhhhh." She had put music on. Slack key guitar from Hawaii, fluid as a breeze. In the midst of Earth's popular music of violence, this was music of pleasure. "If they are there, I don't want them to hear," she whispered. She glanced meaningfully at the walls, the ceiling. The music filled the room.
"Here." She gestured for him to sit beside her.
He began to unbutton her blouse. She wore nothing under it. He caressed her breast, her shoulder.
"I've got to go back, you know."
"Back."
"Home. To Earth. You know that, don't you?"
His hand did not stop moving.
"Wait," she whispered again. She took his hand. "It's nothing to do with you. It's my life...." She was looking at him with an intensity he hadn't seen before. As if she were trying to get inside his brain. As if he were a patient. "So I want to give you two gifts."
Carter said nothing. His hand was under her skirt now, where she wore nothing. Whatever she was giving him, he would take. He ran his hand along her thigh, and played with the buttons. One at a time....
"This time here on Mars, it has been an adventure," she was whispering. "Some different universe. I'm sorry we have so little time .... Make love to me. Do what you want. Punish me if you want.... Maybe this is the last time for us. I want you to see what you do to me. I want you to know that it's real, it's not just pretend...."
Their playing went on for hours, and the third time he made her come, she screamed.
"Third time's charmed," she told him.
Still later, they were quiet, lying across her bed. "And now there's that second gift I wanted to give you." She was still whispering, holding his hand and running her fingers across his chest and his face. She had become serious. "I'm going to break this story, one way or another. After that, there'll be a million journalists here. They'll think they have the hottest story in history, but once the story has broken—I see it now—it will become routine. They'll come here and stick cameras in people's faces and do what they are trained to do, and pontificate on the evening news, live, from Mars. Or almost live, when you think of the transmission time." She smiled, wistfully. "After that, it will just unfold, like an origami puzzle."
"I don't understand what you are talking about."
"I'm beginning to see the whole pattern. In a way ... I'm tired of it. Can you understand that, Carter? I'm tired of all these games people play. Little boys and girls, trying to exercise their power over each other. Sturgis and his secret missions. Lena trying to stay on top of it all. The reporters who will come and jockey for the inside story. Even Stafford, with his discovery, trying to milk it for all it's worth. I love him, but ... Can you understand this, Carter? These are little games that are just triggered by events, like clockwork. People are immersed in them and can't see the pattern of it all. What's important is what happens between human beings on a personal level: not who wins these little impersonal games with their little rulebooks and their little tally cards. Robots can do that. We are imperfect, and therefore precious, like flowers."
She sighed. "Don't you understand? It was you who helped me see that." She was still holding his hand. She had stopped moving her fingers. They lay motionless, side by side. "For now, I'm right in the middle of this. And I'm going to finish it. I'm the only journalist who will have been in on it since the beginning. With you. You and Stafford, and Philippe. I'm going to finish it and then I'm going to go home. Then, I have to write about it. This discovery was a momentous event in history, and it shouldn't be debased by the clockwork games, media one-upmanship, and all that. The real story has to be described in human terms. I owe that to my future children. Maybe a book. I'll live by the sea, which I love; I'll live with Tomas, whom I love. I'll have those children. I'll live somewhere where it's wet and green, and watch the flowers and listen to the rain on the leaves of the plants. I'll remember you and I'll tell the story of what really happened here.
"I do love you, too, in my own way. And I don't think you believe it. And I want to prove it to you." Her fingers were moving again. "I want you to know you are part of me now. I want to give you a gift so you'll know. The only gift that will prove it to you.
"You see, what happens next depends on us. I've kept my promise to you." She was whispering. "I haven't published the story of your investigation, except for the stories about Sta
fford's disappearance in the first place. But I've done one thing." Her whisper grew still quieter. "I've written up everything you found on Phobos, all the evidence pointing to the Polar Station, and I've locked it away. So it's already logged in my file under my security code with the network. There's no way Sturgis and his people can get it back. It's got a routine time lock. If I don't send new reports and update the file within a week, the net will take a look at what's in there. It will lead them right here, and they'll find the biggest story of the century. They'll break it, and they'll find stringers to send down here from Phobos, to find out what's going on. So even if we do nothing, the story comes out."
Carter looked around the room again and whispered, "So that's the end of Sturgis and his lies."
"You don't understand him. You're too ... pure. To people like that ... what he's doing is not lying. It's creating a cover—routine business. You have to realize, this guy expects a promotion when it all comes out— just for keeping it quiet this long. Exactly for lying, as you put it. If the lie is uncovered, the next step is to lie some more, confuse things, so no one knows what to believe. Create villains, for instance. Innocent bystanders like us. Remember, he's expecting praise from all his friends. A pat on the back from the White House. Lying is a sign of manhood to people like that."
"I can't figure why Stafford goes along with him."
"You're unhappy 'cause your hero has feet of clay?" Annie laughed. "I talked to Stafford out there. I don't think he sides with Sturgis."
"Is he playing both sides?"
"He said he has to work around Sturgis. I think he sees Sturgis as an impediment. Sturgis wants to believe he is saving the world, that he carries its weight on his shoulders. Stafford says people like that leave a wake of chaos behind, and that his attitude is to stay out of the wake."
"He gives Sturgis too much credit. Sturgis just gets off on wielding power."
"I think Stafford is looking beyond Sturgis, at some larger game." She smiled. "But I can't figure what his game plan is."
"So..."
"I've decided I want to have my own game plan, too, not just wait for the clock to run out. I think that's my job and I think it's the right thing to do. I don't think these people have the right to take over this discovery for themselves. We're supposed to have an open world. History doesn't just hand it down to us, we have to keep re-creating it. The evil here is not just that people like Sturgis are running everything, it's that they think they're supposed to run everything."
"That's all very nice but there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it."
"There is something we can do. That's why I'm talking to you. I want you to understand. You and Philippe have this idea I'm just trying to manipulate you, that I've just been using sex to..."
"And here we are again, aren't we?" Carter commented. He pulled her toward him.
"Things are all mixed up together. I love you, Carter. I think about you all the time. You do something to me that is ... I've never felt it before."
"Thought you loved Tom the ape, or whatever his name is." Carter's hand was still.
"I do. I can love many people at once, in their own way, but I can only live with one person at a time."
"A cute line."
"It's true about everybody. People just don't admit it.
"Carter." She was pleading. "I'm giving you a gift. Listen to me." She curled against him and whispered in his ear even more quietly than before. "We mustn't let them hear. I could just let the clock run out without telling you, and my story would appear. But I want to prove to you that I haven't been using you. When I set up my file, I also set up a code that would alert the net to open the file sooner. I don't have to tell you any of this, but I want you to know. I'm offering you power over what happens. After all, if you tell this to Sturgis, he could send fake updates to my net and keep them out of my files, and that would prevent the story from coming out until he releases it. I'm putting at least part of the fate of this story in your hands."
Carter sat up and searched her face.
"But here is the important part," she added. "My code. It will trigger their computers and get them to open the file immediately and release the story. All I've got to do is get a message back to the network with three code words in it." She snuggled even closer, whispering so that he could hardly hear. "I figured that if Stafford really was here, they obviously had some secret operation going on, and they might be trying to hold us here incommunicado. I figured they'd have to let me send a message out, sooner or later, just to keep up appearances. Sturgis will have to send something out for each of us—that we're off on a trip or something. If I can get him to let me send some seemingly innocuous message ... All I have to do is insert the words 'satisfactory,' 'series,' and 'situation' in my message. I picked three S words: S A, S E, and S I. Easy to remember. Doesn't matter what order. If they get something with those three words, red lights will go on everywhere."
She pressed against him, giving herself to him again. "This is crazy, but I'm giving you everything, just to prove myself to you. I'm putting it in your hands. I wanted you to know you can stop me now, if you choose to. Now you know. Sooner or later, Sturgis is going to have to put out something about why we are down here so long. He'll want our cooperation. You'll have to talk to him. Tell him about my plan if you want, I dare you. But if you talk him into putting out a message to the net with our code in it—even your own press release about Mars-2 or the search for Stafford or whatever—you'd be the one to break the story. This way, at least you know I'm leveling with you." She paused. "I'm being as open to you as I possibly can. I'm putting it in your hands."
During the slow polar dawn that extended the polar half night, they were lying together, quietly and sweetly, when they felt a sudden jolt, like someone hitting the bed, and an alarm bell began ringing in the distance, down the hall.
28
MARCH 6-7
The 4:00 A.M. tremor had shaken the whole building. Annie, throwing on a robe, rushed to her door. There was a moment when people stood frozen in their doorways, staring disbelievingly down the halls toward the alarm bell, and then across the hall at each other until they realized that something serious was happening. Carter came up behind her, struggling to put on his pants.
Moments later, an apprehensive crowd was racing through the halls toward the labs. Annie, Carter, and Philippe joined the melee. The power was still on, but the nighttime lighting in the station was set at a dim level. The polar night-sun gleamed dully from the horizon through the small windows in the hallway, creating a copper glow, like some vision of purgatory. A crowd of scientists and staff had backed up, elbow to elbow, outside the lab doors. The claustrophobia of the tiny station, which she had been able to ignore until now, suddenly pressed on her in full force. She struggled to ignore the feeling. Concentrate on what's happening.
The doors of the lab opened onto the end of the hall, and one of the aides was barring access to the lab itself, pleading with the crowd. "C'mon. Keep back. Let them find out what's going on. We'll get the info out to you as soon as we can."
Standing in the crowd, peering past the heads of the other onlookers, Annie could see banks of electronics with flashing readouts, and a large holographic globe, set out in the room's center, with red pulses glowing deep in its interior. Stafford was nowhere to be seen.
Slowly the message was passed back to them, through the jostling crowd. The single large tremor had occurred at 3:54. Although it shook the whole station, the air pressure seals had not been breached. The tremor had been detected by seismometers in the seismic net that extended all over Mars, but it had been felt by humans only at the station, not at Hellas Base or Mars City. It was deep, triangulated at a depth of around eleven hundred kilometers, somewhere beneath the polar ice. Tiny tremors were continuing, around the same depth, too small to be felt and too small to be picked up anywhere but by the polar seismic net.
"What does it mean?"
Nobody knew.
&
nbsp; "Are earthquakes common at high latitudes?"
"Minor tremors, yes. Adjustments to the increasing weight of polar sediments. But nothing like this."
Little groups began breaking off, heading for breakfast, looking grim but beginning to relax. As Carter, Annie, and Philippe followed them, Philippe joked, "So it wasn't you guys who set off the seismic network."
"What?"
"The walls are thin. You guys were kind of noisy, last night." He said it as an acceptance.
"Sorry, Philippe." They both said it at once. Philippe shrugged, with a faint grimace.
It turned into a day of awaiting seismic news, interspersed with abortive planning. "After all, we can't just commandeer a hopper and escape," Philippe kept telling them at breakfast. "We can't do anything."
"If we could just send a message..." Annie looked at Carter meaningfully. Word from the seismic lab came that aftershocks were now occurring one hundred kilometers above the original tremor.
"Do you think it has something to do with the machine? Maybe they built some kind of machine that drew energy from the planet's magnetic field and..."
They felt no more shocks.
Annie decided to give up unproductive fantasizing about causes, as she called it, and work on the larger story that was all around her. Then she saw her chance. Her first step was to send Elena a formal request to send out a story on the earthquake, including interviews with seismic researchers and a damage report on the building. If she had a chance to choose the wording...
To send out her code words would preempt her offer to put the choice in Carter's hands. She had been serious about the offer. But it couldn't be helped. The quake had dropped the opportunity into her lap. Maybe making the offer was gesture enough. Besides, he still had the option of spilling the beans to Sturgis.
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