Brian Aldiss - Finches of Mars

He was an attractive young fellow, tall, sinewy, with a mop of jet black hair – and a certain gift of the gab.

It was only after his remark, ‘Countless lungs, countless penises, all working away! We shall run out of oxygen before we run out of semen!’ that Mangalian’s name became much more widely known, and his book more attentively read. ‘Semen is always trendy,’ he told an interviewer, by way of explanation.

‘A handsome fellow,’ was how many people expressed in their various languages admiration and envy of Mangalian. Using his book as both inspiration and guide, several intellectuals made tentative efforts to link universities as the first step towards civilization elsewhere. There was no doubt that Mangalian was a vital advocate for a new association – the UU. While there were many who enthused over the idea of the UU, almost as many – in the main those living in slums, tents and sink estates – raged against its exclusivity.

So Mangalian, a youth with no university degree, became head, figurehead, of the newly formed UU. He was aware that any sunshine of global attention had its rapid sunset. Invited to England, he attracted representatives from the three leading universities, to shower them with challenges to unite.

‘All know you to be a footballing nation, but Q.P.R. and Q.E.D. 2should not be adversarial. A ball in the net is great – so is the netting of new facts.’ He was being facile, but his argument scored a goal. The first three universities raised the purple and blue flag of the UU.

But a left wing politician remarked, ‘So, the words come from Oxford, but the cash comes from China …’ It was certainly true, although not widely admitted, that NASA projects were nowadays kept afloat on Beijing currency – it was unlikely to be little different with the UU.

Under the goading of the young impresario Mangalian, many universities agreed to join the first three, to create a nation-like body of new learning, a corpus aloof from the weltering struggles of an underfed, under-educated and unreasoning range of random elements: the sick, the insane, the suicide-bombers and their like. Mangalian disliked this division. It was then he spoke for the colonisation of Mars. MARS, he said, stood for ‘MANKIND ACHIEVING (a) RENEWED SOCIETY.’ Some laughed, some jeered. But the movers at last moved.

Even before all the various universities had finished signing on their various dotted United lines, an exploration duo was sent out to inspect Martian terrain. The terrain had been photographed previously, but trodden by a human’s boot – never.

Operation Horizon consisted of two men and a robotruck. Modest though this expedition was, the future of an entire enterprise depended on it. If no watercourses were detected, then the great UU initiative was sunk as surely as the Titanic ; if water was detected, and in sufficient quantities, then the project would proceed. Everything depended on two skilled hydrologists and a new-fangled robotruck, designed especially for the task.

The truck could be spoken to by screamer from a kilometre’s distance. It was loaded with equipment. It also gave two men shelter in the chill sleep hours, and enabled them to refill their oxygen tanks.

While electronics experts and eager young engineers worked on the truck, various hydrology experts were being interviewed. One of the men given the okay was the experienced Robert Prestwick, fifty-six years of age, and the other Henry Simpson, sixty-one years old, famous for his design of the dome over Luna. He wasn’t just a skilled hydrologist. Prestwick was a heavily built, blue jowled man. Simpson was of slighter build, and a head shorter than his friend. The robotruck was new, as stated.

The hydrologists had known each other on and off for roughly thirty years, having first met at Paranal Observatory in Chile, which had been temporarily beset by flood problems. Now they joked, ‘So they send us to a planet believed to be without water …’

It seemed to be that way at first. The two men had begun by surveying the great central feature of the Martian globe, the Valles Marinaris, a gash in the planet a mile deep, stretching for almost two thousand miles. Howling winds blowing along the rift from east to west carried dust storms with them. The gales blew along its uninviting length, persuading the men to choose a more promising area to the north. The robotruck took them to the Tharsis Shield – at the north of which stood the grand old extinct volcano, Olympus Mons, once believed to be the home of gods. If their exploration was successful, no one believing in God was to be allowed on Mars.

Henry Simpson grumbled at the dimness of the light. ‘It’s like 4.30 on a December afternoon back home. Midnight, in other words.’

‘Don’t complain,’ said Prestwick, with a chuckle. ‘At least God has given us this spare planet for gainful employment … We’re sniffing water!’ He pointed to the screen, his mood changed entirely. The robotruck was moving slowly; a flickering vein of green showed on its screen. They halted, getting a depth check.

‘Nine point four feet below surface.’

Prestwick wondered to himself what it would be like to have to live here. He’d been to some bleak places back home. Here, there was nothing but bleakness, water or no water …

Simpson came and stared over his comrade’s shoulder at the screen.

‘Okay! Good! We need something nearer surface, but without being frozen solid.’

On the sweep again, they watched green delta-like traces close into a single strip. It then become faint and vanished. Simpson scratched his head.

‘We’ve struck an area.’ He spoke surprisingly calmly.

Stopping the machine, Prestwick asked, ‘Retrace?’

‘Hang on. There’s still something …’ Simpson had what they called a dedeaf to his forehead. Faintly came an intermittent boom and a faint low plop, such as a leaky tap might make, dripping into a puddle. The noises faded away and then returned, the tap noise slightly louder now.

‘Something’s going on. Can only be water.’ Simpson shivered. The sound was not a friendly one. ‘Couldn’t be horse piss,’ he added.

Prestwick by now had a dedeaf to his forehead too. He pulled a face at his partner. Both were well aware they were isolated on an unfriendly planet and this discovery would extend their stay. It was a disappointment – another week finding nothing and they would have been on the way back home. In time for Christmas. However, it was a well-paid stretch of employment.

‘Go on a bit,’ Simpson told the truck. ‘Slowly, okay?’

They growled onwards, watching the screen. Suddenly the green strip was back on screen. It fattened. A thin green vein ran off from it, disappearing at the side of the screen. The sound too had changed; the dedeafs brought a noise as of someone humming tunelessly in a deep voice.

The strip widened, becoming marrow-shaped.

‘Depth down to surface?’ Simpson asked.

‘Nineteen point nine to surface,’ reported the truck.

He sighed. ‘And to bottom?’

‘Twenty-eight … correction … twenty-nine to bottom.’

The two men exchanged glances.

‘Small reservoir? Not bad.’

‘Better mark it. We can map the extent later.’

They climbed out and stood there on the lee side of the truck until the truck extruded a coloured peg containing internal figures which could be read by any other truck, should such a thing ever come this way.

It was a melancholy thought. The expedition was no more than that. Nothing might ever come this way again. Simpson shuddered inside his uniform.

The hydrologists laid a track. When a map was drawn up, a spider-like effect was apparent, with small streams leading off a reservoir of considerable size. The men were neither pleased nor displeased. Instead, they decided to take a rest.