The Martian Way and other Stories Part 18

The sunward third of each was illuminated by both suns simultaneously into a brilliant white that slowly yellowed westward, and as slowly greened eastward. To the east of the white sector lay another, half as wide, which was reached by the light of Lagrange I only, and the snow there blazed a response of sapphire beauity. To the west, another half sector, exposed to Lagrange II alone, shone in the warn orange red of an Earthly sunset. The three colors graded into one another bandwise, and the similarity to a rainbow was increased thereby.

The final third was dark in contrast, but if one looked carefully enough, it, too, was in parts-unequal parts. The smaller portion was black indeed, but the larger portion had a faint milkiness about it.

Cimon muttered to himself, "Moonlight. Of course," then looked about hastily to see if he had been overheard. He did not like people to observe the actual process by which conclusions were brought to fruition in his mind. Rather they were to be presented to his students and listeners, to all about him in short, in a polished perfection that showed neither birth nor growth.

But there were only s.p.a.cemen about and they did not hear him. Despite all their s.p.a.ce-hardening, they were fixing whatever concentration they could spare from their duties and instruments upon the wonder before them.

The spiral curved, veered away from north-south to northeast-southwest, finally to the east-west, in which a safe landing was most feasible. The dull thunder of atmosphere carried into the pilot room, thin and shrill at first, but gathering body and volume as the minutes pa.s.sed.

Until now, in the interest of scientific observation (and to the considerable uneasiness of the Captain) the spiral had been tight, deceleration slight, and the planetary circ.u.mnavigations numerous. As they bit into Junior's air covering, however, deceleration pitched high and die surface rose to meet them.

The icecaps vanished on either side and there began an equal alternation of land and water. A continent, mountainous on either seacoast and flat in between, like a soup plate with two ice-topped rims, flashed below at lengthening intervals. It spread halfway around Junior and the rest was water.

Most of the ocean at the moment was in the dark sector, and what was not lay in the red-orange light of Lagrange II. In the light of that sun, the waters were a dusky purple with a sprinkling of ruddy specks that thickened north and south. Icebergs!

The land was distributed at the moment between the red-orange half sector and the full white light. Only the eastern sea-coast was in the blue green. The eastern mountain range was a startling sight, with its western slopes red and its eastern slopes green.

The ship was slowing rapidly now; the final trip over ocean was done.

Next-landing!

NINE.

The first steps were cautious enough. Slow enough, too. Cimon inspected his photochromes of Junior as taken from s.p.a.ce with minute care. Under protest, he pa.s.sed them among the others of the expedition, and more than a few groaned inwardly at the thought of having placed comfort before a chance to see the original of that.

Boris Vernadsky bent over his gas a.n.a.lyzer interminably, a symphony in loud clothes and soft grunts.

"We're about at sea level, I should judge," he said, "going by the value of g."

Then, because he was explaining himself to the rest of the group, he added negligently. "The gravitational constant, that is," which didn't help most of them.

He said, "The atmospheric pressure is just about eight hundred millimeters of mercury, which is about 5 per cent higher than on earth. And two hundred forty millimeters of that is oxygen as compared to only one hundred fifty on Earth. Not bad."

He seemed to be waiting for approval, but scientists found it best to comment as little as possible on data in another man's specialty.

He went on, "Nitrogen, of course. Dull, isn't it, the way nature repeats itself like a three-year-old who knows three lessons, period. Takes the fun away when it turns out that a water world always has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Makes the whole thing yawn-worthy."

"What else in the atmosphere?" asked Cimon irritably. "So far all we have is oxygen, nitrogen, and homely philosophy from kindly Uncle Boris."

Vernadsky hooked his arm over his seat and said, amiably enough, "What are you? Director or something?"

Cimon, to whom the directorship meant little more than the annoyance of preparing composite reports for the Bureau, flushed and said grimly, "What else in the atmosphere, Dr. Vernadsky?"

Vernadsky said, without looking at his notes, "Under 1 per cent and over a hundredth of 1 per cent: hydrogen, helium, and carbon dioxide in that order. Under a hundredth of 1 per cent and over a ten thousandth of 1 per cent: methane, argon, and neon in that order. Under a ten thousandth of 1 per cent and over a millionth of a per cent: radon, krypton, and xenon in that order.

"The figures aren't very informative. About all I can get out of them is that Junior is going to be a happy hunting ground for uranium, that it's low in pota.s.sium, and that it's no wonder it's such a lovely little double icecap of a world."

He did that deliberately, so that someone could ask him how he knew, and someone, with gratifying wonder, inevitably did.

Vernadsky smiled blandly and said, "Atmospheric radon is ten to a hundred times as high here as on Earth. So is helium. Both radon and helium are produced as by-products of the radioactive breakdown of uranium and thorium. Conclusion: Uranium and thorium minerals are ten to a hundred times as copious in Junior's crust as in Earth's.

"Argon, on the other hand, is over a hundred times as low as on Earth. Chances are Junior has none of the argon it originally started with. A planet of this type has only the argon which forms from the breakdown of K40, one of the pota.s.sium isotopes. Low argon; low pota.s.sium. Simple, kids."

One of the a.s.sembled groups asked. "What about the icecaps?"

Cimon, who knew the answer to that, asked, before Vernadsky could answer the other, "What's the carbon dioxide content exactly?"

"Zero point zero one six em em," said Vernadsky.

Cimon nodded, and vouchsafed nothing more.

"Well?" asked the inquirer impatiently.

"Carbon dioxide is only about half what it is on Earth, and it's the carbon dioxide that gives the hothouse effect. It lets the short waves of sunlight pa.s.s through to the planet's surface, but doesn't allow the long waves of planetary heat to radiate off. When carbon dioxide concentration goes up as a result of volcanic action, the planet heats up a bit and you have a carboniferous age, with oceans high and land surface at a minimum. When carbon dioxide goes down as a result of vegetation refusing to let a good thing alone, fattening up on the good old CO2 and losing its head about it, temperature drops, ice forms, a vicious cycle of glaciation starts, and voila-"

"Anything else in the atmosphere?" asked Cimon.

"Water vapor and dust. I suppose there are a few million air-borne spores of various virulent diseases per cubic centimeter in addition to that." He said it lightly enough, but there was a stir in the room. More than one of the bystanders looked as though he were holding his breath.

Vernadsky shrugged and said, "Don't worry about it for now. My a.n.a.lyzer washes out dust and spores quite thoroughly. But then, that's not my angle. I suggest Rodriguez grow his d.a.m.n cultures under gla.s.s right away. Good thick gla.s.s."

TEN.

Mark Annuncio wandered everywhere. His eyes shone as he listened, and he pressed himself forward to hear better. The group suffered him to do so with various degrees of reluctance, in accordance with individual personalities and temperaments. None spoke to him.

Sheffield stayed close to Mark. He scarcely spoke either. He bent all his effort on remaining in the background of Mark's consciousness. He wanted to refrain from giving Mark the feeling of being haunted by himself; give the boy the illusion of freedom instead. He wanted to seem to be there each time by accident only.

It was a most unsuccessful pretense, he felt, but what could he do? He had to keep the kid from getting into trouble.

ELEVEN.

Miguel Antonio Rodriguez y Lopez (microbiologist; small, tawny, with intensely black hair, which he wore rather long, and with a reputation, which he did nothing to discourage, of being a Latin in the grand style as far as the ladies were concerned) cultured the dust from Vemadsky's gas-a.n.a.lyzer trap with a combination of precision and respectful delicacy.

"Nothing," he said eventually. "What foolish growths I get look harmless."

It was suggested that Junior's bacteria need not necessarily look harmful; that toxins and metabolic processes could not be a.n.a.lyzed by eye, even by microscopic eye.

This was met with hot contempt, as almost an invasion of professional function. He said, with an eyebrow lifted, "One gets a feeling for these things. When one has seen as much of the microcosm as I have, one can sense danger-or lack of danger."

This was an outright lie, and Rodriguez proved it by carefully transferring samples of the various germ colonies into buffered, isotonic media and injecting hamsters with the concentrated result. They did not seem to mind.

Raw atmosphere was trapped in large jars and several specimens of minor animal life from Earth and other planets were allowed to disport themselves within. None of them seemed to mind either.

TWELVE.

Nevile Fawkes (botanist; a man who appreciated his own handsomeness by modeling his hair style after that shown on the traditional busts of Alexander the Great, but from whose appearance the presence of a nose far more aquiline than Alexander ever possessed noticeably detracted) was gone for two days, by Junior chronology, in one of the Triple G.'s atmospheric coasters. He could navigate one like a dream and was, in fact, the only man outside the crew who could navigate one at all, so he was the natural choice for the task. Fawkes did not seem noticeably overjoyed about that.

He returned, completely unharmed and unable to hide a grin of relief. He submitted to irradiation for the sake of sterilizing the exterior of his flexible air suit (designed to protect men from the deleterious effect of the outer environment, where no pressure differential existed; the strength and jointedness of a true s.p.a.ce suit being obviously unnecessary within an atmosphere as thick as Junior's). The coaster was subjected to a more extended irradiation and pinned down under a plastic coverall.

Fawkes flaunted color photographs in great number. The central valley of the continent was fertile almost beyond Earthly dreams. The rivers were mighty, the mountains rugged and snow-covered (with the usual pyrotechnic solar effects). Under Lagrange II alone, the vegetation looked vaguely repellent, seeming rather dark, like dried blood. Under Lagrange I, however, or under the suns together, the brilliant, flourishing green and the glisten of the numerous lakes (particularly north and south along the dead rims of the departing glaciers) brought an ache of homesickness to the hearts of many.

Fawkes said, "Look at these."

He had skimmed low to take a photochrome of a field of huge flowers dripping with scarlet. In the high ultra-violet radiation of Lagrange I, exposure times were of necessity extremely short, and despite the motion of the coaster, each blossom stood out as a sharp blotch of strident color.

"I swear," said Fawkes, "each one of those was six feet across."

They admired the flowers unrestrainedly.

Fawkes then said, "No intelligent life whatever, of course."

Sheffield looked up from the photographs with instant sharpness. Life and intelligence, after all, were by way of being his province. "How do you know?"

"Look for yourself," said the botanist. "There are the photos. No highways, no cities, no artificial waterways, no signs of anything man-made."

"No machine civilization," said Sheffield. "That's all."

"Even ape men would build shelters and use fire," said Fawkes, offended.

"The continent is ten times as large as Africa and you've been over it for two days. There's a lot you could miss."

"Not as much as you'd think," was the warm response. "I followed every sizable river up and down and looked over both seacoasts. Any settlements are bound to be there."

"In allowing seventy-two hours for two eight thousand-mile seacoasts ten thousand miles apart, plus how many thousand miles of river, that had to be a pretty quick lookover."

Cimon interrupted, "What's this all about? h.o.m.o sapiens is the only intelligence ever discovered in the Galaxy through a hundred thousand and more explored planets. The chances of Troas possessing intelligence is virtually nil."

"Yes?" said Sheffield. "You could use the same argument to prove there's no intelligence on Earth."

"Makoyama," said Cimon, "in his report mentioned no intelligent life."

"And how much time did he have? It was a case of another quick feel through the haystack with one finger and a report of no needle."

"What the eternal Universe," said Rodriguez waspishly. "We argue like madmen. Call the hypothesis of indigenous intelligence unproven and let it go. We are not through investigating yet, I hope."

THIRTEEN.

Copies of those first pictures of Junior's surface were added to what might be termed the open files. After a second trip, Fawkes returned in more somber mood and the meeting was correspondingly more subdued.

New photographs went from hand to hand and were then placed by Cimon himself in the special safe that nothing could open short of Cimon's own hands or an all-destroying nuclear blast.

Fawkes said, "The two largest rivers have a generally north-south course along the eastern edges of the western mountain range. The larger river comes down from the northern icecap, the smaller up from the southern one. Tributaries come in westward from the eastern range, interlacing the entire central plain. Apparently the central plain is tipped, the eastern edge being higher. It's what ought to be expected maybe. The eastern mountain range is the taller, broader, and more continuous of the two. I wasn't able to make actual measurements, but I wouldn't be surprised if they beat the Himalayas. In fact, they're a lot like the Wu Ch'ao range on Hesperus. You have to hit the stratosphere to get over them, and rugged-Wow!

"Anyway"-he brought himself back to the immediate subject on hand with an effort-" the two main rivers join about a hundred miles south of the equator and pour through a gap in the western range. They make it to the ocean after that in just short of eighty miles.

"Where it hits the ocean is a natural spot for the planetary metropolis. The trade routes into the interior of the continent have to converge there so it would be the inevitable emporium for s.p.a.ce trade. Even as far as surface trade is concerned, the continental east coast has to move goods across the ocean. Jumping the eastern range isn't worth the effort. Then, too, there are the islands we saw when we were landing.

"So right there is where I would have looked for the settlement even if we didn't have a record of the lat.i.tude and longitude. And those settlers had an eye for the future. It's where they set up shop."

Novee said in a low voice, "They thought they had an eye for the future, anyway. There isn't much left of them, is there?"

Fawkes tried to be philosophic about it. "It's been over a century. What do you expect? There's a lot more left of them than I honestly thought there would be. Their buildings were mostly prefab. They've tumbled and vegetation has forced its way over and through them. The fact that the climate of Junior if glacial is what's preserved it. The trees-or the objects that rather look like trees-are small and obviously very slow growing.

"Even so, the clearing is gone. From the air, the only way you could tell there had once been a settlement in that spot was that the new growth had a slightly different color and- and, well, texture-than the surrounding forests."

He pointed at a particular photograph. "This is just a slag heap. Maybe it was machinery once. I think those are burial mounds."

Novee said, "Any actual remains? Bones?"

Fawkes shook his head.

Novee said, "The last survivors didn't bury themselves, did they?"

Fawkes said, "Animals, I suppose." He walked away, his back to the group. "It was raining when I poked my way through. It went splat, splat on the flat leaves above me and the ground was soggy and spongy underneath. It was dark, gloomy. There was a cold wind. The pictures I took don't get it across. I felt as though there were a thousand ghosts, waiting-"

The mood was contagious.

Cimon said savagely, "Stop that!"