“We could newk the bastards and get it over,” Paul said.
“And poison our own country,” J.J. said.
“Leave it so battered that the overseas radicals could walk in,” Neil said.
“Right now we’re fighting a limited war,” J.J. said. “It’s tough to slaughter your own people. You don’t use nuclear weapons on your own country. You try to hold the damage down and pray that old John Q. Public will come up right, as he so often does. The unwashed masses. Sooner or later they’re going to pull their heads out of their TV sets and realize that someone is shooting at them. The way John Q. moves will decide it. Right now there are two relatively small armies shooting at each other.”
“The public will decide the issue on very intelligent thought,” Paul said. “Like which side has the most photogenic generals and the prettiest uniforms.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” J.J. said. “One of the first results of the war will be the destruction of the distribution system. People will be scavenging for edible weeds in the fields. When that happens, we’ll get right down to the nitty-gritty. If we can convince the public that hunger is the result of a war started by the radicals, they might come in on our side. Our mission takes on a new importance. Because if we can go back and promise them the stars—”
“And once we’re in control give them the stars,” Neil said.
Dom was numb. He kept hearing that phrase in his mind. Once we’re in control. It was almost as if—but it was Doris who voiced his suspicions.
“J.J., you knew it was coming, didn’t you? Your whole plan was built around a coming revolution.”
“I can say this,” J.J. said. “We are important, very important, and we have the support of what’s left of the government and of all the services.”
Chapter Ten
The approach to Mars was always an exciting experience for Dom. The negligible atmosphere of the planet allowed a clear view of the surface. A dust storm was blowing in a cyclonic pattern west of the Hellas plains in the southern hemisphere. The film of ice deposits in the northern polar area gleamed, a white jewel atop the globe. Doris was by his side, keeping an avid eye on the viewers, since it was her first trip to Mars.
Although she was arid, cruel, deadly to an unprotected man, Mars was Dom’s second home. In recent years he’d spent as much time there as he had on Earth. He was proud to be a part of a service which made human presence on Mars possible, and he was bitter because events on Earth now threatened, more than ever, the developments which had been scratched and dug out of the planet at the cost of much labor and some human life.
During the days in which he watched the planet grow from a bright star into a disc and then into a huge, dominating sphere hanging over the Kennedy, he talked with Doris about his feelings. Mars policy was made on Earth, and it was contradictory and confused.
“Take the Kennedy,” he said. “For what she cost we could have supplied plenty of water for the entire planet for all time.”
He pointed out the ice deposits at the north pole.
“There’s enough water there to change the face of the planet,” he said. “If all the water in the ice deposits could be released, the planet would be covered in water to a depth of ten meters, about thirty feet. That’s a theoretical figure, and it would be accurate only if the planet were a smooth globe. The point is, we’ve spent billions building this ship to carry water out here and all the time there’s plenty of water already here if we had the money and the manpower to develop it.”
Mars was anything but a smooth planet. The huge shield volcano, Olympus Mons, showed on the horizon. Even from height and distance Olympus Mons was impressive.
“Two and a half times as high as Everest,” Dora said. “Fifteen miles high.”
“Quite a mountain,” Doris said. “I don’t think I’d want to try to climb it.”
“It’s not all that tough,” Dom said. “Remember, it’s less than half Earth gravity. The only tough part of the climb is in lower altitudes, because of the winds. I’ve seen winds of two hundred miles per hour on the lower slopes. But no one climbs the thing. It’s too easy to take a jumper and set it down on the peak. If we find the time I’ll take you up. I think you’d enjoy it.”
From space, Mars looked like a planet stripped down to its skeleton. An ancient riverbed, with tributaries branching out like small veins from an artery, lanced across a flat plain pimpled by meteorite craters. The effects of the Martian wind could be seen in the dark tails extending outward from the craters, marking the deposit of bright dust particles. As the rotation of the planet brought the canyon area into view, Doris was, again, impressed. The giant rift covered an area as long as the distance from New York to San Francisco. The main chasm, Tithonius Chasma, would have made the Grand Canyon of the Colorado look like a small creekbed. The stark and terrible beauty of the planet misted Doris’ eyes. She leaned against Dom, her hand on his arm.
“I once hated her,” Doris said.
“Why?” he asked, not thinking.
“Because she took you away from me.”
“That was a long time ago,” he said.
“I can understand why she draws men,” Doris said. “I can see why, once you’ve seen her, you have to come back.”
“There are ten thousand people down there,” Dom said, pointing out the high volcanic plains in the Elysium area. “They live in quarters which would give most Earthlings claustrophobia. They breathe reconstituted air which they’ve made themselves by breaking down the oxygen from rocks and what little water can be pumped from the ground. They’re dependent on Earth for most of their food and manufactured materials. There are marvelous things on Mars, minerals, jewels, metals. She’ll never have to worry about overpopulation, because she wasn’t meant for man. But she can give to man. There’s enough raw material there to ease a lot of shortages back on Earth. And what do we carry when we send a ship back? Fertilizer.”
“I’ve always thought Mars policy was penny-wise and pound-foolish,” Doris said.
“We have the technology right now to change the entire Martian environment,” Dom said. “We could use the hydro engine to shift the two moons just a little, just enough to change the motion of the planet to give more sun heat at the poles. The caps would melt and the planet would be wetter, warmer, and that would make her almost self-sustaining.”
“Can you imagine the screams from the nature worshipers?” Doris asked, with a laugh. “Can you imagine the lawsuits which would be filed if the department announced that it was going to change the sacred ecology of an entire planet?”
“The battle cry would be, ‘Lichens Have Rights,’ ” Dom said.
The Kennedy’s huge powerplant was thrusting against her motion, slowing her. Mars hung over the ship, huge, red, beautiful. Landing preparations went smoothly. Although the ship was huge, she had the power to go in and come up on her own in the light gravity of Mars. Neil put her down as if he were handling a scout ship a fraction of her size. Men began to offload the water, which would strain the storage capacity of the tanks. It would be a long job, since existing pumping facilities had been designed for much smaller quantities of water.
Dom introduced Doris to old friends, guided her through the museum to see the scanty remains of the primitive extinct animal and plant life. The museum always made him feel sad. It told its story only too well. Mars had once been a living planet, both geologically and biologically. Scientists were still discussing the cause of her death. Currently, the most favored theory pointed to a varying sun. That school of theorists said that tens or hundreds of millions of years in the past, the sun had radiated more energy. At that far-distant time, the water now encased in the polar icecaps had been free, the atmosphere more dense, the whole planet wetter, allowing the development of both plant and animal life.