Brian Aldiss: White Mars

Anstruther snorted to show he regarded such talk as ridiculous.

“Well, that’s all hypothetical and I’m no expert,” said Gunther, defensively, and went on, laying emphasis on his words. “I am not yet ruined and I wish for this quest to be continued. It can be continued only on Mars. I know I can raise the money. We can find the Omega Smudge there, and transcend Einstein’s equations—if we fight today to keep Mars free of the terraformers.”

Anstruther gave me a glance, as if to show that he was aware of Gunther’s bluster. All he asked, coolly, was, “What in practical terms do you have against terraforming?”

“Our search needs silence—absence of vibration. Mars is the only silent place left in the habitable universe, my friend!”

When the bell rang for the afternoon session, the delegates trooped back to their places in a more sober mood than previously. The delegate for Nicaragua gave voice to a general uncertainty.

“We are required to pronounce judgement on the future of Mars. But can ‘judgement’ possibly be a proper description for what will conclude our discussions? Are we not just seeking to relieve ourselves of a situation of moral complexity? How can we judge wisely on what is almost entirely an unknown? Let us therefore decide that Mars is sacrosanct, if only for a while. I suggest that it comes under UN jurisdiction, and that the UN forbids any reckless developments on that planet—at least until we have made doubly sure that no life exists there.”

Thomas Gunther rose to support this plea.

“Mars must come under UN jurisdiction, as the delegate from Nicaragua says. Any other decision would be a disgrace. The story of colonisation must not be repeated, with its dismal chapters of land devastation and exploitation of workers. Anyone who ventures to Mars must be assured that his rights are guaranteed right here. By maintaining the Red Planet for science, we shall give the world notice that the days of land-grabbing are finally over.

“We want a White Mars.

“This is not an economic decision but a moral one. Some delegates will remember the bitter arguments that raged when we were deciding to move the international dateline from the Pacific to the middle of the Atlantic. That was a development dictated purely by financial interests, for mere convenience of trade between the Republic of California and their partners of the Pacrim. We must now make a more serious decision, in which financial interest plays no part.

“If we are to explore the entire solar system and beyond, then this first step along the way must be marked by favourable omens and wise decisions. We must proceed with due humility and caution, forgetting the damaging fantasies of yesterday.

“I beg you to set aside a whole folklore of interplanetary conquest and to vote for the preservation of Mars—White Mars, as Mr. Leo Anstruther has called it. By so doing, we shall speak for knowledge, for wisdom, as opposed to avarice.” Gunther nodded in a friendly way to Anstruther as he strode from the podium.

Other speakers went to the podium to have their say, but now, increasingly, the emphasis was on how and why the Red Planet should be governed.

The sun was setting over the great milky lake beyond the conference hall when the final vote was taken. The General Secretary announced that the UN Department for the Preservation of Mars would be set up, and the White Mars Treaty executed.

Taking Thomas Gunther aside, the Secretary asked casually if Anstruther should be appointed head of the department.

“I would strongly advise against it,” Gunther said. “The man is too unpredictable.”

My eyes had not been trained to see such a panorama. I was disoriented, like my entire physical body depended on my sight. Closing my eyes, I became aware of another source of strangeness. I was standing on solid ground, but I had lost pounds in weight.

Bracing myself, I tried to take account of our surroundings. Beyond the suited figures of my friends lay a world of solitude, infinite and tumbled, with nothing on which the gaze could rest. My mind, checking for something familiar, ran through a number of fantasy landscapes, from Dis to Barsoom, without relief. Grim? Oh yes, it was grim—but marvellously complex, built like a diabolical artist’s construct. I was looking at something wonderfully unknown, indigestible, hitherto inaccessible. And I was among the first to take it all in!

And suddenly I found myself flushing. Like a blow to the heart came the thought: But I am of a species more extraordinary than anything else there ever was.

One day all this desolation would be turned into a fertile world much like Earth.

We broke from our trance. Our first task was to unload the body of Captain Tracy from our vehicle and place it in its body bag on the Martian surface. Although he was in his late thirties, Guy Tracy had seemed to be the fittest among us, but the acceleration and later deceleration had brought on the heart attack that killed him before we landed.

This death in Mars’s orbit had seemed like a bad omen for the mission, but, as we laid his body down among the rocks of the regolith, a glassy effect flared into the sky as if in welcome. Low, almost beyond the visible, it was, we figured later, an aurora. Charged particles from the sun were interacting with molecules of the thin atmosphere trapped in Mars’s slight magnetic field. The ghostly phenomenon seemed to flutter almost at shoulder level. It faded and was gone as we stepped back from the body bag. For a planet receiving sunlight equivalent to only some 40 per cent of Earth’s generous ration, the little illumination show was encouraging.

Calls from base broke into our solemn thoughts. We were reluctant to talk back to Earth. They challenged us to say what had gone wrong.

“You have to be here to understand. You have to have made the journey. You have to experience Mars in its majesty to know that to try to alter—to terraform—this ancient place would be wrong. A terrible mistake. Not just for Mars. For us. For all mankind.”

There was a long pained argument. It takes forty minutes for a signal to traverse the distance between Earth and Mars and back—and between experiences. Night came on, sweeping over the plain. The stars glittered overhead.

We waited. We tried to explain.

Base ordered us to continue with our duties.

We said—everything was recorded—“It is our duty to tell you that humanity’s arrival on another planet marks a turning point in our history. We should not alter this planet. We must try to alter ourselves.”

Forty minutes passed. We waited uneasily.

“What do you mean by this talk? Why are you going moral on us?”

After some discussion, we replied, “There has to be a better way forward.”

After forty minutes, a different voice from base. “What in hell are you going on about up there? Have you all gone crazy?”

“We said you wouldn’t understand.” And we closed the link and went to our bunks. Not a sound disturbed our sleep.

Our salaries, like our training, came from the EUPACUS combine. I knew and trusted their engineering skills. Of their intentions I was less sure. To win the Mars tender, the consortium had agreed merely to run all travel arrangements for ten years and to organise expeditions. I was well aware that they intended to begin the long process of terraforming by the back door, so to speak. Their hidden intentions were to turn Mars into saleable real estate; profitability depended on it. So I was told.

EUPACUS was contracted to run all ground operations on Mars, and could prevent unwanted curiosity there. Their investors would be eager to get their money back with interest, without being too concerned with how it was done. I woke with a firm determination to defy the stockholders.