Brian Aldiss - White Mars

A tear trickled from under the neat epicanthic fold of Cang Hai’s eye. “You surely can’t believe that still, Tom.” But I believed I caught her thinking, even as she wiped the tear away, that some good had come from my dear wife’s death, whereby I had sublimated grief by striving to change society.

Little Alpha liked to be told stories of bikers and their gang warfare in the days before I was born. In the underprivileged part of the world where my boyhood had been spent, it was sometimes possible to obtain a magazine entitled Biker Wars, which I had greatly relished at the time.

As I was telling the child one such story, we were interrupted by a tiny cry, something between the bleat of a goat and the shrill of a gull.

“Scuse me, unkie,” said the child. “My little Yah-Yah needs attention.”

She brought forth from the basket she was carrying what appeared to be a small cage. It contained a kind of big-eyed red animal. Alpha showed it to me when she had attended to its needs. So I had my first close look at a tammy.

“Crispin gave it to me,” she said, with pride.

The men and women in the fire prevention force had been rendered virtually unemployed by the success of the Sim White Mars operation. Rather than remain idle they had cannibalised some of their equipment, making an improved version of a toy that had enjoyed a vogue on Earth many decades previously.

In Alpha’s cage was a small VR pet. It was born and it grew, constantly needing feeding, cleaning and loving care from the child who owned it. If neglected, the pet could die or “escape” from its cage. In adolescence, it became rather rebellious and needed tactful handling. Conveniently, at this age a pet of the opposite sex entered the cage. With some guidance from the small owner, the two pets could mate and eventually bring forth another generation of pet.

Time inside the VR cage had been speeded up. The lifespan of a pet was rarely more than twenty-eight days. The far-sighted leader of the fire prevention team had designed the computer pets as a learning toy. When I eventually spoke to this lady, she said, “Belle Rivers recognises that the children need love. She is less ready to recognise that children also need to give love, to own love-objects, something other than human, to help in developing their own personalities. Kids with tammies will grow up into caring adults—and have fun meanwhile.”

It was far-sighted, but not far-sighted enough. Every kid wanted a tammy. The domes were maddened by the moans, howls and chirps of a wide range of the VR pets. Concerts and plays were ruined by the incessant demands of the toys in the audience. Eventually, tammies had to be banned from such occasions, although this meant that children excluded themselves, lest their charges perished … I hated imposing bans, but the government of behaviour was an inescapable part of civilised society.

Tammies next became banned at mealtimes, so that children might associate properly with adults. Adminex had in mind here a passage from Thomas More’s Utopia, in which he says, “During meals, the elders engage in decent conversation with the young, omitting topics sad and unpleasant. They do not monopolise the conversation for they freely hear what the young have to say. The young are encouraged to talk in order to give proof of the talents which show themselves more easily during meals.”

This was not always successful. The elders sometimes grew tired of childish prattle. The atmosphere was always soothed by music—not Beza’s music, but something much more anaemic, suited to our austere diet.

I managed to drag myself away from the raptures of Mary Fangold and her delicious physiotherapy. Although I was back in the busy world, finding a juster society slowly developing, act by act, I wished to give Mary a present.

Seeking out Sharon Singh, I asked to see her collection of rock crystal pieces. She displayed them for me, meanwhile gazing up at my face from under her dark fringe of hair. Among the many shapes, I chose one that, in its finely detailed folds, closely resembled a vagina.

Giving it to me, Sharon said, “Isn’t it curious that the cold pressures of Mars should create such a hot little thing?”

She gave a tinkling laugh.

Olympus—now more frequently referred to as Chimborazo; Kathi Skadmorr had won that argument—had taken hold of people’s imaginations. Discussion groups met regularly to chew over the riddle. It was a subject for argument in public and across the Ambient.

Most Ambient users found it hard to accept that Chimborazo could be conscious. They were daunted by the thought of that great solitary intellect sitting permanently upon a planet that had become hostile to life. What was it waiting for? was a frequently asked question.

Certainly not a bombardment by CFC gas, was one answer.

The parallel between Chimborazo’s shelter for collaborating species and our own situation in the domes was quickly seized on. Fondness replaced fear as a response to its existence.

Dreiser’s remark about a stack of thoughts 23 kilometres high kept returning to me. Also there was the speculation about what one might encounter if one prized up the protective shell and looked—went? was drawn?—inside.

I believe that Hawkwood’s interview was a great persuasive force in the establishment of our Utopian constitution.

One interesting theory I heard discussed on my return to society was that Chimborazo’s power of consciousness was far greater than we had suspected. Its attention had become directed across the gulfs of matrix to where it sensed other minor flames of consciousness. It had kept the minds of terrestrials busied with ambitions to visit Mars in order to lure them to provide it with company.

These were speculations without much ground in fact. However, when I contacted Dreiser and Kathi, I found that they too were in the midst of a welter of troubled speculation. Their new findings presented us with new problems. I moved Adminex to call a meeting in Hindenburg Hall at once.

A whole phalanx of scientists attended. The meeting was crowded. Children were welcomed. Their tammies had to be left behind.

Dreiser began speaking without preamble. “We have a confusion of opinions here. You have every right to hear them. In some cases they amount to serious disputes between us.

“The fact is that, over the last week, we have observed no less than twenty-seven glitches in the superfluid of the ring. The interpretation of these phenomena is unclear as yet. When examined closely, the build-up to these glitches has a curious and complicated structure. Most of us have therefore reached the conclusion that the glitches are not caused by HIGMOs after all.

“The question then is: What does cause them?

“I am going to ask Jon Thorgeson to give his point of view.”

Thorgeson rose. As when he had spoken in public before, he began nervously but soon got into his stride.

“I don’t really expect you non-scientists to understand all the nuances of the situation. Maybe you’ve heard before that there is something going wrong in the ring. There may be stray vortices in the superfluid which lead to spurious effects. I believe that to be the case. It is the obvious explanation.

“Before we go any further, or develop any crazy ideas, we have to turn off the refrigeration units so that the superfluid can return to its normal fluid state. Okay, so then we examine the tube thoroughly and clean it. That is a meticulous job. Then we switch the refrigeration on again, turning it up very very slowly, so that no vortices can develop.

“It’s just lousy luck that this procedure will take about a year. By that time the ships will be back, I don’t doubt—and their vibrations would spoil everything. We have to take that chance.