The going was rough, and the rovers had to weave their way around grotesquely shaped outcrops of lava or make wide detours to avoid deep crevasses. At last they found themselves on a relatively gentle incline as they climbed the flank of Uranius to reach the first site marked out for them by Mission Control.
“Time for a break, I think, before we start exploring,” said Orlov over the intercom, his voice sounding in both cabins.
The tempting odors of coffee and soup filled the little cabins as the seals were broken on self-heating cans. By the time the gull’s-wing hatches were swung upwards the edge of the Sun was peering over the lip of the caldera, and the spongy-looking lava flows around them were highlighted with gold. Below was a wasteland of iron–grey and rust, the conical shadow of their mountain clearly defined.
Robert had, to no one’s real surprise, given Aurora, along with the rest of the team, a clean bill of health. Now they all spread out over the slopes, taking samples, drilling cores, setting up instruments and making measurements. It was arduous and exhausting work in their Mars suits, but they were all glad to be able to perform useful field work again.
Having completed his program of “official” tasks, Beaumont produced his dowsing rods and began walking back and forth over a prepared area. After a while, having finished up her own allotted experiments, Aurora joined him, attaching the lead which enabled them to have a private conversation between suits without using the radio.
“Having any luck?”
“This is great!” he said enthusiastically. “I was thinking earlier how amazing it would be to work on Olympus Mons but, you know, this is better in a way. Uranius is more—familiar, somehow. Accessible, if you like. You can tell you’re on a volcano, whereas on Olympus I’m sure you wouldn’t be able to see the wood for the trees. It’s too big. Know what I mean?”
“I do. I think we should try to reach the peak—where that sort of glass bubble, dome, was in the movie. If that really was Mars.”
“You don’t think it was?”
“I can’t make up my mind. I mean, how could it be? I agree that the physical features seem to match up, and yet....” She shook her head in exasperation, her blonde hair swinging loosely inside her helmet. “I’m sure I should know. Anyway, how’s the dowsing coming along?”
“It isn’t. I had one false alarm—thought I’d found metal, but it seems to be only a nodule of iron oxide. There’s nothing interesting down there. I’m sure of it.”
“I’m afraid I think the same. I haven’t found anything with my instruments either, other than what I’d expect, geologically. Disappointing, isn’t it? We were so sure we’d find real archaeological evidence of that city. Or at least something to show it had been here.”
“Never mind. We try a new site tomorrow.”
“Yeah. S’pose so.”
* * * *
The atmosphere in the Igloo that evening was quiet, even somewhat depressed. None of the team had found anything of other than geological interest, and, while a few months ago that was all they would have expected, now it was a let-down.
“The lava is more fluid than I would have predicted,” said Minako.
Beaumont and Aurora nodded bored agreement.
Verdet expressed their feelings when he burst out: “Goddamit! You would have thought we’d find something down there! Not near the surface, of course. But how could all that, that whole civilization, just vanish without trace?”
Lundquist found an opportunity to take Aurora aside. “I still wish you’d let me terminate your pregnancy while it’s at an early stage,” he said. “I accept your arguments for yourself—your health and so on—but I’m thinking of the baby. The fact remains that you took a dose of over two thousand rem, and even if your body could cope with that—well, whatever you are, the father is human. There’s no knowing what sort of effect the radiation might have had on the genetic material of the fetus. And right at the most susceptible time, too.”
“Whatever else I am, I’m human too. I’m pregnant by a human father. What more proof could you need? As a doctor, I’m sure you’d be the last person to believe those science fiction stories in which disguised alien lizards impregnate humans!”
“That doesn’t alter my point.”
“The point is that the baby is mine, it’s inside my body and building itself from my tissues.” Her face softened. “Bob, I do take your point, and I know you’re only thinking of my interests. But it will be all right, you’ll see. Trust me!
“Look, you’ll be monitoring my progress, won’t you?” she continued. “You could tell from a scan if there was any physical deformity, couldn’t you? And I’m sure there are lots more tests you can do. If there’s any sign of abnormality, we’ll talk again. I promise.”
Robert sighed. “I didn’t come on this expedition geared up to hold a pre-natal clinic,” he said. “But, yes, I expect I can modify some of my equipment. You win. As usual....”
REVELATIONS
Spirits in the Igloo were low again next evening. Today’s work had been as disappointing as yesterday’s. There had been not the slightest indication that a great city might once have occupied the slopes of the volcano. Not so much as the smallest artifact.
As Lundquist had pointed out, neither had their research ever found any other trace of life of any kind—no algae or lichen, no microbes, no dormant spores; just a few of those supposed fossil bacteria. No life even in the canyons of Noctis Labyrinthus, where water had surely run millions of years ago. Mars seemed entirely barren, and gave every indication that it had always been so.
Beaumont and Aurora had climbed high on the slopes of Uranius, but had abandoned any idea of reaching the summit. It was difficult, though not impossible, yet it no longer seemed worth the effort. “If only we still had the Blimp!” Aurora had said. But Beaumont had pointed out that the air at the top of the volcano was so thin that even the airship would probably not have been able to reach the caldera.
Yet Aurora still felt the volcano, and its larger counterpart to the south, calling to her.
“If there is any place on Mars that I feel I had to come to, it is here,” she told Beaumont. “I know that doesn’t really make sense, but what does on this crazy expedition?”
He searched his brain for something to lift their spirits. His eyes lit upon his minisynth, left there after their wedding ceremony.
“Why don’t you give us a tune, darling? Might cheer us all up a bit!” he said to Aurora.
She was at first almost as reluctant as she had been during her first public performance at the Grotto Club, but the others cheered and forced her to her feet. Finally she succumbed to their encouragement, and adjusted the tone settings on the instrument.
As always seemed to happen when she began to play, there was silence from her little audience within seconds. Beaumont had quite expected to recognize a melody from the Gas Giants’ album, but this was something quite new.
He watched her face closely. It changed, became younger, yet—different.
Her eyes closed, and a trancelike expression took over her face....
* * * *
The music was haunting, though not sad. Rather, it was calm, tranquil. It told, without words or the need for words but in clear images, of a world in which there was no war or strife, where weapons had been destroyed long ago and outlawed for centuries—but in which no one would anyway have wished to create or possess a method of destruction or cruelty. Indeed, there were few machines. But this was no static, sterile world, without change. Its people had simply forsaken non-essential technology, keeping only as much as they needed, turning instead to pursuits of the mind.
As Aurora played, the confined space of their pressure dome expanded and became a vast amphitheater, its terraced slopes lined with seats full of people. In the center, gowned musicians played instruments even smaller than her own, which they wore around their necks or as belts. The music they played augmented her own, swelling and soaring to incredible, spiritual hei
ghts.
It was night, yet everywhere a radiance shone from invisible sources. Foliage glowed vivid green....
Aurora swayed. The music faltered, the images wavered and shivered.
Lundquist moved towards her, but she shook her head.
The music passed through a series of violent chord-changes, calmed, shifted subtly into a minor key. When the images returned, the floor of the amphitheater was cracked.
Somehow, there was an impression of heat. This was not right, an intrusion. Two suns, one large, one small, rose in a purple sky; but they were in different parts of the sky, not close, as they had been in the “movie”. Clouds closed in rapidly, lightning flickered. A red glow pulsed on the underside of thick, turgescent clouds. The plants drooped and turned brown.
Orlov and Verdet mopped their brows. They were sweating visibly. The others looked uncomfortable too, except Minako, who seemed unaffected aside from a puzzled expression. Lundquist got up and checked the thermostat.
Bright rays of light streamed through cracks in the tattered clouds, which in places were ripped apart. The illumination became unbearable. Even the clouds themselves seemed to glow internally. Now, the other musicians having vanished, Aurora played alone, a plaintive threnody that rose and fell.
A bright spark rose from the horizon, then another. And another. At intervals they arced into the roiling clouds to be swallowed in a brief ripple of light. A few people remained in the amphitheater, watching the ascending fleet. The music was a song of farewell. Soon Aurora and her friends would, likewise, be leaving their world.
The scene became indistinct, as though seen through a haze of smoke. She still played, but the music became faster—whirled, sizzled, grew discordant, dissonant, became a cacophony.
Verdet and Minako put their hands to their ears.
Beaumont’s eyes were still on Aurora, half-knowing what to expect, and he caught her when she swayed and fell. He carried her into her compartment and laid her on her cot. Lundquist, following him through, pushed him aside, firmly though not roughly.
Aurora lay stiffly on the bed, her muscles rigid. “It’s like catatonia,” said Lundquist, seemingly to himself. Noticing Beaumont looking at him with worry and inquiry in his eyes, he added: “It’s a state sometimes found in schizophrenics. But why? I can’t understand it.”
“Can’t you do anything?”
“Not a lot, here. I think it’s best to leave her. Knowing Aurora, she probably has her reasons and will find her own way out of this.”
“But what about the baby? Will it be all right?”
Lundquist checked the instrument he held. “Aurora’s vital signs are weak, but not dangerously so. All I can do is keep monitoring her condition.”
He looked haggard. An expedition physician shouldn’t be expected to have to cope with a patient like Aurora, his expression said.
* * * *
She lay in a catatonic state all the next day, and the next. Worried, Lundquist explained the position to medical experts at Mission Control. They gave as much advice as they could from that distance.
He had attached a drip feed to Aurora’s left arm. Her husband refused to leave her side. They brought Beaumont food and drink, but most of it went untouched.
On the third day, Aurora awoke, stretched, smiled beatifically, kissed Beaumont on the cheek, and made her way to the bathroom.
He went and woke Lundquist, who checked her over medically when she returned.
“You really will have to stop doing this sort of thing!” he said, his mock anger doing little to disguise obvious relief. “OK, you’ll do. Go and get some decent food inside you.” He removed the drip tube from her arm and put on a small bandage.
When he had left, Aurora kissed Beaumont more thoroughly, then said calmly: “I have it all now. I can get at it—at last. I have a full set of memories, just as I knew I should have had. But they aren’t my own memories. They’re my father’s. He passed them to me moments before he died.
“In the middle of World War Two. The London Blitz.”
HOMECOMING
Everyone had seen the same images, to a lesser or greater extent, except Minako. She had been moved by beautiful music but nothing more. She had seen no landscape, no people, had felt no rise in temperature.
Now Aurora sat in a chair, a video camera focused on her. After much discussion it had been decided that the best way for her to tell of her implanted and released memories was to do so in a single session, if it proved possible, to the whole world. So, now that she felt fit enough, not only her colleagues but everyone on the home planet was waiting avidly to hear her words. More people were believed to be watching and listening than for any other event in history.
“I want it to be just as if I’m telling a story—my own story,” said Aurora by way of preamble. “To me, now, it’s as if the memories were my own, anyway. But I need to explain that they are not only my father’s memories but those of many other people too, some of whom lived hundreds or thousands of years earlier.
“They were able to access those huge unused portions of the brain which neurologists have known and wondered about for decades; and part of that use was to fill them with precious memories transferred from others. Their family, friends. It was a way of learning, too—instantly. But it tended to make books, tapes, computer data files—recordings of any type really—redundant. They had to rediscover the technology to make that ‘movie’ we saw.
“They didn’t really expect the ‘movie’ ever to be seen. They hoped it would never be needed, because I had all the information—in here.” She tapped her head. Then her face grew sad. “At least, my father and mother did. Yes. That woman astronaut we found in the desert was my mother.
“Her name was Anela.”
For several seconds she could not speak. Then:
“My father passed on his memories to me as a final resort. But, as I was saying, the ‘movie’ was intended purely as a back-up—a fortunate back-up for us. It was also available as proof of my words, if needed. But it was never expected that we would find it on Mars....”
She paused to take a sip of water.
“I don’t know why those memories were blocked from my conscious mind. Perhaps it was the trauma of my arrival on Earth, in the middle of an air raid on London by the Germans. Or of other traumatic events later in my life.
“Why did they return?
“Perhaps because I came to this magical place on Mars. Perhaps it’s because I’m in love!”
She turned to Bryan with a smile.
“Or because of the baby, of changes in my bodily chemistry. Or a combination of all those things. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, does it?
“Music has always been the key, of course, and that is because of my father, who was a Musician—a highly respected position in his society. His name was Themor. Somehow, musical chords struck sympathetic chords deep in the recesses of my mind. Perhaps I just found the right note at last—struck the Lost Chord, as it were!”
Aurora drew another deep breath.
“Right. Here goes. You have to realize that I need to start by going back a long, long way; but what you don’t know, unless you’ve managed to guess by now, is that to you it’s not back at all. It’s forward.
“It’s all in your future....”
She took another drink of water. She looked nervous and very fragile—and young. Her image and the words she had spoken when she started speaking were still travelling towards the Earth at the speed of light.
“When I was born, the method of counting dates had changed—several times. I was born in your equivalent of the year 20,000 AD.”
There was a collective gasp from the people around her.
“So some of the earlier dates I give may not be completely accurate, but they are as close as I, we, can get. For reasons which you will see, many records were wiped out. Especially those that were kept on computers or used other electronic storage methods, and so were vulnerable to an electromagne
tic pulse....
“We do have an accurate record of this: in the year 2069, there was—there will be? Look, I’m going to have to speak in the past tense. OK? In 2069 there was a series of devastating explosions that wiped out Baghdad and severely damaged Tel Aviv, Beirut, Tehran, and other cities and towns in that area. Unfortunately they did not destroy all the secret underground command posts, or the nuclear missiles which had been stockpiled, contravening all those United Nations treaties. Or the people who then ruled that area, who instantly assumed it to be a nuclear attack on them.
“Here I am augmenting my ‘memories’ with what I know of today’s political situation, but you all know that, while the world seems to be progressing towards peace, the Middle East remains as ever a flashpoint for trouble, because of its oil. Which is not inexhaustible.
“The fireballs, complete with mushroom clouds, were certainly equivalent to several atomic or even hydrogen bombs, but were in fact caused by a portion of the head of a small, non-periodic comet. It came ‘out of the Sun’, which is why it was not detected earlier, and it arrived in full daylight. Its arrival was preceded by a series of detonations high in the atmosphere, during which it broke into a number of smaller pieces. It originally weighed perhaps five thousand tons, and the main mass impacted in the Syrian desert. It could as easily have landed on Washington, or Paris, or Moscow. The direct results would have been much the same. But it could hardly have happened at a worse place or time.
“Just to give you a bit of historical background, a similar object hit Central Siberia—only four thousand kilometers from Moscow—on the thirtieth of June, 1908. It flattened two thousand square kilometers of taiga forest, The name of the place where it fell was Tunguska.
“And in 1947 there was a similar event only four hundred kilometers from Vladivostok. As most of you will know, a comet is composed chiefly of ice, so almost all of it vaporizes on impact, hitting the ground at perhaps thirty kilometers per second and leaving no solid traces. There is a crater over a kilometer in diameter in Arizona, but that was caused by a chunk of iron twenty-five meters across that struck twenty or thirty thousand years ago—‘your’ time. So such impacts as the ones in 2069 had not been unexpected. Organizations like Spaceguard had been warning of them for years, but governments had given little heed, even after a comet impacted Jupiter in 1994 and its effects were shown on TV worldwide.
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