Epilogue
2032: THE LETTERS
There comes a point in love that later on the soul seeks to surpass. Happiness wears out in the effort to recapture it. Nothing is more fatal to happiness than the remembrance of happiness.
—Andre Gide,
The Immoralist, 1902
On Mars, dust takes a long time to settle.
Carter returned to work in his office. He handed in his report, with a colorless retelling of the circumstances of Stafford's disappearance, his work at the pole, and the eventual recovery of his dune buggy. As everyone from Philippe to Sturgis predicted, no one cared about the report; it was eclipsed by the public announcement of the artifact's discovery and the explosive destruction of its southern node. During the following months he made several trips to the Polar Station where he spent long hours in the cavern, staring at the emerging fractal network of cylinders from another world, immeasurably separated from him in time and culture. When he was close to it, he could feel its presence in his bones, yet it taught him little except that he had to teach himself what to think about it. What he thought about everything. Annie had gone home to Earth.
He spent long evenings with Alwyn Stafford and with Philippe Brach talking about the latest news, and evenings alone thinking about Annie. Always the question was with him, whether to try to contact her or let go. Once, he saw her on the holeo news. He found himself wanting to touch her.
Finally, late one night, he knew that the constellations affecting him were beginning to change; it was time to write her, and he sat down in front of his screen.
Dear Annie,
How long ago it all seems. Do you remember?
And do you remember that you told me the best way to talk at a distance was not to talk but to write, so you could take time to say what you meant?
The sad thing I have to tell you is that Stafford died. Maybe you heard through the nets. It was peaceful, a stroke, in the cave at the excavation site. He was doing what he loved. The last time I saw him, he told me these were the happiest days he'd had on Mars. A good way to go. He still didn't know what the machine was for, but he said it was something "humanity could gnaw on."
Sometimes I sit in the observation room of Mars City, looking out across the red desert. It is the season of wind, and I can see the top of Philippe's tree, with the wind shaking the leaves so that they sparkle.
Philippe is building a piece of "human art," he says, to go at the pole, to complement what was put there long ago by the creatures we can't imagine. He says our adventure makes him think about what art is; he calls it the production of things that are pleasing to the senses of our species. He had planned to put it at the south pole—a literal new south pole. But they won't let him because they are afraid it may interfere with the machine, or what's left of the south end of the machine. No evidence has been found of a similar installation at the north pole (that's a mystery); there's lots of research there now, and they may let him put it there.
I think Stafford was right: no one is closer to understanding what the artifact is. Crowds of new people come and go. They've been digging in the crater the explosion made, and analyzing soil samples there, but they find nothing instructive. They've started new housing and lab modules at the Polar Station, to staff a huge colony of scientists. Shouldn't they rename it? "South Polar Research Station" is pretty bland! It should be named for you, since you broke the story. Did you tell me the Hawaiian for "house" is hale? They can build with sandstone from the hills and name it Hale Pohaku—House of Stone. There must be a thousand new scientists at the pole already, and they have expanded the excavations. The cavern is twice as big, but still you can see only the mass of tubes. As mysterious as ever. I keep thinking I fed different when I'm there, and I think Stafford said something about that, but it's something nobody can measure.
Mars City's population has grown fifty percent and a new module is under way. Horrible crowding since the new construction isn't done, and that doesn't make my life any easier! We are still the main port because Mars City is in the equatorial plane directly under Phohos's orbit. But the population is leveling off, and, amazingly, we are struggling for existence. The budget went up after the discovery, but now they are cutting it again, right in the middle of the construction! Why is there apathy in government circles on Earth? They seem to have lost interest in the artifact. Fewer ships arrive now. What is wrong with the people on Earth? Are they jaded to the point of exhaustion?
I complained to Philippe and he gave me this quote from one of his old books, Mosquito Coast, by Paul Theroux:
Ain't that always the way? You get on to a really serious subject, like the end of civilization as we know it, and people say, "Aw, forget it—have a drink." It's a funny world.
It is a funny world. Funnier than I knew.
Philippe is the same as ever. He is working on his polar monument. Happy as a clam.
There! I am giving you direct eyewitness news from Mars— or is it nonnews—for your next story! And will you write back to me? Will you tell me about your life now?
I think of you often. No, it is more than that. I wonder how two people can be drawn together and then lose contact, especially in an age of easy communication, even across astronomical units. Friends come and go, but if we become lovers with someone, I think we become part of them, like brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters do not lose love or affection just because of distance. Sweet sister, can we maintain some connection? I would like to be a tiny piece of your life. And always, I remember...
We were a star that was about to become a supernova. Our love could have lit up the galaxy and the lives of our friends.
He read the letter. It was going too far; he hit DELETE.
Later, after a night in Nix-O, he typed it out again, more or less the same, and posted it to the e-mail code she had given him. He did it fast, completely, all in one grand motion, before he lost his resolve. He watched his screen for days. Nothing came back.
Four E-months later, he got a letter in an envelope with an orchid drawn by hand in one comer. It had cost her ten New Dollars, half a day's wages, to send it. He took it to the observation room in Mars City, so that he could see across the brick-red plains to Earth, which was the evening star. The Phobos shuttle was coming in on a column of pale light as he slit the envelope, carefully.
Sweet Man,
Always we will be part of each other's lives. The adventures we shared were unique.
Now I am living in Hawaii with Tomas. We are both doing writing and tapes, and sometimes we take short assignments from the Japanese networks. I have a good contract to do a book about the discovery. I'm going to ask Philippe if I can use some of his sketches made during the actual events. It would be beautiful. I'm actually nearly done with the second draft, but I can tell that my publisher is interested only because they hope it will reveal some scandal, not because it would be an eyewitness record of a historic event. If somebody found an original diary by a sailor on Columbus's first voyage, the companies here would publish it only if it detailed a murder or gay sex among the crew.
I am writing to you from Liliokalani Garden in Hilo. It is an old Japanese garden on the bay, and I can see the sailboats, and smell the water. I come here to be alone sometimes, when I am in town for shopping. The old Japanese bridge curves over the dark pond, and beyond I can see palms, and plants with huge flowers you wouldn't believe. Beyond that rise the skyscrapers overlooking the bay. I want to tell you that Hawaii is absolutely the best place in the solar system for sleeping. The air cools just a few degrees and wafts through the open windows of your room, and when it rains you can hear the drops splat-splatting on the big leaves of the tropical plants outside your window. And sometimes, when I fall asleep at night, I remember everything with you and Mars.
I just got your message yesterday. When I said write, I meant, write by hand. Then there is something personal. Something that touched your body as well as your mind.
I am happy with my
life just now. I am happy to be back home, among the plants and the smells and the water. I had a baby boy. Did you know? I suppose there was no way for you to learn. Of course, he is Tomas's. He is named Tomas, Jr. But his full name is Tomas Carter. You know why. Tomas doesn't know why. I said I liked the name.
I want to give you a gift. Probably it is something I shouldn't say. The gift is that you are the one in my fantasies. You understand that there was not enough between us for me to give up my life here. There was an incredible intensity. It frightened me. It was different from the more comfortable feelings I have with Tomas. It had more to do with me than with you. I was afraid of what we had, what you did to me. It's a feeling I don't have with Tomas, but I'm not sure I (or anyone?) could build a life around it. Remember, you can love many people but you can only share your life with one at a time.
Enough of that. Understand that my life is pleasant and I am moving into the future.
Life on Earth is strange, especially after Mars. I don't know if you can sense what is happening here. You've been on Mars, how long? Four years? After Mars, where you are constantly thinking about the life you are building, and the basic elements for survival, everything seems superficial on Earth. There is such complacency here, people's lives are concerned with frivolity. On Mars, we were living on the edge. On the frontier. It was us talking directly to God and the Universe. You knew that if you went outside you could die. Still, I'm glad to be in Hawaii, which is still (at least in part) a quiet backwater, except for the Japanese and Russian resorts.
You asked about the funding cuts and loss of interest in Mars. There is an ironic twist to "our" story. The discovery of the artifact will go down as the greatest discovery in the history of human life, I'm firmly convinced. I know you believe that, too. And yet, you are right, no one is interested anymore!
There was an initial flurry of headlines. Front page headlines in the New York Timesnet, the London Timesnet, and Novii Era! My byline. (I know, I checked out the tapes in the library.) How's that for a story! Coverage for the first weeks, as long as it was a mystery and a political thriller. But it was just another orgasm of the media. How long can you keep the public titillated with pictures of a tube, once they've seen it; especially if it just lies there and doesn't do anything?
After Sturgis was called home, there was no freedom-of-the-press story or suppression-of-science story. Washington was very clever, to nip that story in the bud.
Oh, by the way, Sturgis was on the net the other day. He had done some assignment at Tycho, and just came back from the moon. There was a ceremony in the gardens of the Old White House, just above the president's offices, honoring him for his "part in the historic Martian discovery," and reassigning him as head of New White House Security. Stafford was right. People like Sturgis never go away.
Anyway, the media have been left with the story of an ancient, giant, and dead machine on Mars. After a few weeks it became yesterday's news. They aren't interested in secrets that take years to pry loose by careful research. I know. If I try to do a news story or a tape on it today—as opposed to my "I was there" book—my editors tell me to forget it. Did you know that everybody lost interest in the moon for thirty years after the first landings? It must be like that.
There is another aspect, which may explain it. Here's my pop-sociology theory: For a hundred years, the mythic idea of alien civilizations was built up so strongly in people's minds that from the point of view of The Great Earth Public, the aliens already existed. There was the whole trend line from Percival Lowell through science fiction to the charting of planets around other stars, and we had seen all the old movies from Spielberg to Kovaleva, and UFOs are a fixture of the media for most of a century even though no one ever brings one back ... Subliminally, everyone on Earth was so convinced of rampant alien civilizations that the actual proof was an anticlimax. Especially when the proof turned out to look like some Japanese scrap metal. Now if it had been a walking, talking robot, preferably with tits...
I realize now that the main emotional driver for me was not just to release the information a few days earlier than would have happened otherwise. The main thing was to shine a light on people like Sturgis, who hide behind their shell of dogma and assume the right to manipulate what happens to everybody else, because they are sure they know best. I was never sure that you understood that.
You sent me a quote. I have a quote back for you that explains it. I've been doing a lot of reading and I'm taking a philosophy course here at UH-Hilo. I needed this chance to read because it helps my own writing. My quote's from an obscure book by Goethe, a romantic novel from 1774:
Those people [are not] unhappy who, giving pompous names to their shabby occupations or even to their passions, pretend that these are gigantic achievements for the happiness and welfare of mankind.
1774! Can you imagine? It has Sturgis written all over it. Maybe we all have to apply it to ourselves. Your grand mission on Mars? For me, I am happy with my Tomas and my Carter. And I've given up on the crazy world outside.
Say hello to Philippe. I was sorry when I heard about Alwyn's death through the nets, here. I was glad to get more details from you. I know it must hurt you; you were his best friend. You are a bit of a stoic, you know. Do you let yourself feel the pain? Don't hide from it. It is a natural and good thing.
I've thought a lot about Alwyn and things he said. I'm not sure how to say this, but it seems to me he was controlling the unfolding of everything much more than we realized. Even you. Do you remember, when he disappeared, his notes specified that you would be the person who would be able to find him. And you didn't understand why he said that. But he had carefully planted a fat of ideas in your head! I think he had somehow chosen you and was giving you a sort of Zen test. He would agree to Sturgis's scheme, and research the artifact, but would rely on you—if you passed the test—to defeat Sturgis. Does that make sense?
Everybody's interested in the new sensies. They've got all this fantasy universe you can plug into. You see kids walking around in a daze. Trying to get anybody interested in the real environment, like Mars, is impossible. I know, I've talked to IPN about coming back to do a Mars Today special. Neg-a-tor-ee. But someday it may happen. If I came back, what would I do about you?
All our adventures with the Machine—that was only one reason why being with you was special. Together, we touched the cold, hard, crisp, red, dusty wonder of the real universe. You can't feel that on Earth anymore. Thoreau (another book I read in my course) said, "To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who is quite awake." On Mars we were awake together. And I hope I can transmit some of what we experienced together to Tomas Carter, the way your mother transmitted to you some kind of richness that I sensed in you. It wasn't just the adventure of chasing down that story, but the feeling of looking God in the face. I look at Tomas Carter in his crib and he looks ready to receive that wisdom. Maybe that's how you looked to Alwyn.
I fear that in another fifteen years Tomas Carter won't have that look anymore ... He'll be like everyone else. Carter, what happens to us when we grow up?
Do you realize that scientific and political revolutions may look important in history books, but more important than revolutions is love between individuals? All the kinds of love? Did you ever read Pasternak? Maybe your ancestors and my ancestors understood this better than most Americans.
Wait. Let me say it better. Love between unilluminated people, people with ignorant ideas of the universe, can seem ugly, almost obscene, like a painting that glorifies war. But after we have learned something about the universe, after we have comprehended our little place in it, after we have learned in our hearts that we humans are only one of a million intelligent species that have come and gone, then love becomes something brave and noble. That is what I have with you.
Carter kept the letter on the little desk in his room, always intending to answer it. But he knew it represented the kind of friendship that would feed on communication not daily
or weekly, but at some slower rate. And far below the ageless polar snows of the south pole of Mars, the alien coil with the nodes at each end lay buried, caked with dust and ice. Its chambers (chambers was a better word than the researchers' original term, "tubes")—its chambers were filled with 3.2 billion years of silence. Mighty in the simplicity of its lost engineering, it was not waiting, or remembering, or dreaming; it was only a castoff, left behind. Forgotten, in fact. Its builders were long gone, converted back into ionic star stuff shedding photons into the permanent darkness. The release of its relativistic entity, triggered by human approach, was no more important, in a sense, than the last tick that a long lost watch might make, when its discoverer picks it up and turns it over.
The machine had more meaning than a footprint petrified in mud or frozen in lava, because it was purposefully designed. Yet it had less meaning, in its way, than the Rosetta Stone. It had the same meaning as an arrowhead in an Illinois cornfield, a stone axe lost in a French cave, a fragment of a painted pot, staring into the sun every day from a cobbly desert in Iraq or Peru or China or Arizona.
It was a leftover, an accident, something once crafted, for the purposes of its builders. Something They needed when They came to Mars. So it was something used and appreciated, something left behind after They had passed by the solar system, stopping briefly on a brown but clement aqueous planet, on Their way from somewhere to somewhere, doing Their own business as creatures do, fighting Their fights, loving Their loves as Their chemistry dictated, wishing Their wishes, feeding on Their food, arguing Their arguments, playing Their play, dying Their deaths, smiling Their smiles, and laughing Their laughs, before passing on into distance and time, and knowingly or unknowingly leaving their descendants in one way or another on one planet or another, to become part of the time-lacing network of fertile molecules, and all their bizarre and myriad organic constructions that can be called Life in the Universe.
MARS UNDERGROUND Page 39