Rainbow Mars

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Rainbow Mars

  Chapter 1

  Part One

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  The Reference Director Speaks

  Svetz’s Time Line

  The Flight of the Horse

  Leviathan!

  Bird in the Hand

  There’s a Wolf in My Time Machine

  Death in a Cage

  Afterword: Svetz and the Beanstalk

  Tor Books by Larry Niven

  Praise

  Copyright

  This is for Marilyn,

  who won’t read fantasy unless I write it.

  Another major advance in our understanding of Mars has come from analysis of the MOLA topographic data. Although relative topographic variations have been known since 1972 from Mariner 9 data, the detailed topography needed to understand many of the features on Mars is only now being provided by MGS. Even with the present elliptical orbit, MOLA is providing vertical resolutions of about 30 cm with horizontal resolutions of 300 to 400 m. MOLA has been able to provide detailed topographic information about individual features such as impact craters, volcanoes, fractures, channels, and polar deposits. One discovery is that some of the channels, including Ares Valles in whose outwash area Mars Pathfinder landed, are deeper than previously thought, indicating more water has flowed through the channels than earlier suspected. In addition, MOLA has revealed that the northern plains of Mars are extremely flat, as smooth as the Earth’s oceanic abyssal plains. The smoothness of the northern plains suports the theory that they are sediments deposited in a vast ocean which once covered this area.

  “Revealing the Secrets of Mars” by Nadine G. Barlow

  Ad Astra—the magazine of the National Space Society

  July/August 1998

  RAINBOW MARS

  1

  + 390 Atomic Era. Svetz was nearly home, but the snake was waking up.

  Gravity pulled outward from the center of the extension cage as it was pulled toward present time. The view through the wall was a jitter of color and motion. Svetz lay on his back and looked up at the snake. A filter helmet showed only as a faint golden glow around its head. It wouldn’t strangle on post-Industrial air, and it couldn’t bite him through the inflated bubble.

  A ripple ran down the feathers along its spine, a gaudy flurry of color, nine meters from head to tip of tail. It seemed to take forever. Tiny rainbow-colored wings fluttered at its neck. Its eyes opened.

  The natives of –550 Atomic Era would have carved his heart out without losing that same look of dispassionate arrogance.

  Svetz raised the needle rifle.

  A loop of it shimmied aside as he fired. The anesthetic crystal needle shattered on the wall. The shimmy ran down the tail, while Svetz fired again and missed again. Then the tailtip snapped down and flicked the needle gun out of his hands.

  Svetz cringed back.

  The rainbow-feathered head lifted to study him.

  +1108 Atomic Era. Watery colors around the cage took on shapes. For an instant Svetz saw startled techs, and Ra Chen yelling. Then the snake fell over him in coils, knocking the breath out of him. Coils constricted around his torso. He wriggled an arm free and reached for the needle gun, but a loop of tail coiled around his wrist.

  Immobile, he looked into the ophidian face.

  The hatch opened. Techs played sonic handguns along the snake’s length. It went limp. Hillary Weng-Fa and Wilt Miller pulled Svetz out of the X-cage and looked him over. Other techs coiled the torpid snake on a lifter platform for transport to the Secretary-General’s Vivarium.

  Wrona pushed past Chairman Ra Chen to lick Svetz’s face. Svetz hugged her. The touch of fur was a comfort.

  “Feathers,” Ra Chen said. “Futz. Are you all right?”

  “Fine. Sir, I think it decided not to kill me. Treat it right.”

  “The picture book didn’t show feathers.”

  “There must be more than one kind of snake,” Svetz said. “The locals worshipped this one. I’ll bet the SecGen loves it.”

  “They’ll find something else to worship. Svetz—” Ra Chen’s words stuck in his throat.

  “Sir?”

  “Waldemar the Tenth is dead.”

  “Long live the Secretary-General.” Then his fatigue-blurred mind caught up. “Wait, now. The natives were ready to cut my heart out for that snake, and now we don’t need it?”

  Ra Chen sighed. Svetz babbled, “Or do we? Who’s the next Secretary-General? Does he like animals?”

  “That’s being settled, I don’t doubt. Take Wrona home. Get some sleep. Everything goes to hell when power changes hands.”

  PART ONE

  “If only we had a time machine!”

  2

  Willy Gorky’s coming was announced. The Institute for Temporal Research had two hours to prepare.

  The atmosphere as Svetz arrived was low-intensity frantic. Hum of techspeak, hum of power, three techs swearing quietly over yellow lights on a display. Some looked up from the Guide Pit as he and Wrona passed. Nobody particularly wanted to talk to Hanville Svetz, but Wrona was still a curiosity.

  The Director saw Svetz in a corner quietly eating a bowl of dole yeast. He said, “Get the dog out.”

  Svetz nodded and stood. He rubbed Wrona between her ears. “Home,” he told her, and turned back toward the door. She laughed with her tongue lolling.

  “Home, my ass,” Ra Chen bellowed. “I need you here!”

  “Make a decision, Boss.”

  Ra Chen took two seconds to think. Wilt and Hillary both got along with Wrona, but Svetz could see both techs on duty in the Pit. They couldn’t take her. The Zoo dogs fought with her.

  “The dog stays. Good idea anyway. We’ll have something to show Gorky.”

  “Yes, sir. Why are we showing off for Willy Gorky?”

  Ra Chen looked toward the Guide Pit. It looked impressive, and busy. He said, “Waldemar the Tenth liked extinct animals. Waldemar the Eleventh likes planets and stars, they say, and he’s not a mental deficient.”

  Svetz
flinched. Nobody would have dared to use that term when Waldemar the Tenth was Secretary-General!

  A whisper of wind from outside: limousines setting down in the drive.

  “The Institute for Temporal Research has been transferred from Bureau of History to Bureau of the Sky Domains—that’s the new title for Space Bureau. Willy Gorky’s the Director. He’s our new boss. Are you ready for that?”

  Svetz smiled sourly. “Time will tell.”

  * * *

  Four Space Bureau guards flitted through the Center examining everything. One of them appeared ready to shoot Wrona. As Svetz stepped in front of her he found Ra Chen and Zeera at his elbows.

  The guard listened to Svetz’s assurances, but he was looking at Wrona. Wrona looked back. On command she sat, then lay down, snout on paws.

  “Tie her up,” the bodyguard said, and turned away.

  “We will do no such thing,” Ra Chen said.

  The guard froze, then kept moving. Discussion must have taken place outside.

  Willy Gorky entered with three more of his entourage. He was Svetz’s height, centimeters shorter than Ra Chen, but thick through the torso, arms and legs. He was half again Svetz’s weight.

  “Ra Chen, a pleasure to see you again! Lovely pond,” he said.

  He meant the rectangular pool outside. Ra Chen said, “It’s not an extravagance. When we’re pulling an X-cage home we need somewhere to dump the heat. Otherwise expensive parts melt.”

  Svetz’s impression was that Gorky barely heard him. He bestowed a wonderful smile on one and all and shook their hands. Svetz felt bone-breaking strength held dormant.

  Wrona offered her paw. Gorky didn’t notice. He was looking into the Guide Pit.

  The Guide Pit was inside a knee-high wooden wall, symbol rather than barrier. There was room for five to sit and work the instruments that guided extension cages into the past. From here the Institute could run both X-cages at once, though that was rare. Gorky must have heard descriptions. It was the heart of the Institute, and now it was his.

  Two men with him wore tech uniforms, white coats lined with a score of bulging pockets, scanner sets on their heads. The woman wore something else, a loose one-piece, brilliantly patterned and covered with zipped pockets. She was an inch shorter than Svetz, and slender, topped with two centimeters of ash-blond fuzz.

  She came straight to Svetz, or maybe to Wrona. None of Bureau of the Sky Domains seemed to know how to treat Wrona. They’d never seen a dog.

  “I’m Miya Thorsven,” she said, smiling at them both.

  “Hanville Svetz, pleased to meet you. You’re an astronaut?”

  “Yes. And your … companion is a visitor from the past?”

  “Somebody else’s past. Wrona’s people evolved from wolves. The X-cages sometimes veer sideways in time when they’re coming home. It’s a quantum mechanical thing,” Svetz said as if he understood it.

  “Why does she look so much like Dog?”

  “You’ve been in the Vivarium?”

  “Not yet. There’s a Web site that has holograms.” Miya looked wistful. “Your achievements are wonderful.”

  Svetz had captured most of the Vivarium’s animals. He preened.

  She asked again. “Dog?”

  “Dogs never went extinct. They’re contemporary. If you think of a dog as a wolf that’s been civilized, then intelligent beings civilize each other. Intelligent wolves must have done that too.”

  Miya nodded happily, and Svetz thought how strange it was to be lecturing an astronaut on nonhuman intelligence. He asked, “Have you met aliens?”

  “No,” she said.

  “How far have you been?”

  “Mars.”

  “Only Mars?”

  Space Bureau techs were examining the Center and talking to the Institute techs on duty. The ITR techs were reluctant to answer. They looked to Ra Chen. Ra Chen and Willy Gorky ignored them all.

  They were both hand wavers. Svetz saw Ra Chen’s arms sweep around him to include the entire Center. Gorky stopped talking then. So did Miya Thorsven. She looked to her boss, and her worry mirrored his.

  Gorky spoke briefly, gathered his entourage and left.

  The Center’s personnel gathered around Ra Chen.

  “Good news and bad,” he said. “The Center really could be shut down. Gorky wants to save us, he says—” Ra Chen ignored the collective cynical sigh. “His ass is on the line too. He wants to talk. He’ll bring a man, I’ll bring a man.

  “You, Svetz. Don’t bring Wrona. Zeera, can you keep things going here?”

  Zeera Southworth scratched Wrona behind the ears. “You and me,” she told the dog.

  3

  I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last.

  —Dr. Jerry Pournelle

  Waldemar the Fourth had liked flowers. Green Resources Bureau had saved him a few for the garden path that led to the World Globe.

  Chair Gorky walked with Miya Thorsven, a few meters ahead of Ra Chen and Svetz. Their voices were relaxed tones too low to make out.

  Six kinds of orchids lived on vertical slabs of plant nutrient. Labels floated beside them, and followed where the wind moved the flowers: holograms projected into a visitor’s eyes. The roses weren’t doing well, but mutations made for marvelous variety. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Artichoke: virtual labels said that some had considered these plants edible—

  “Svetz!”

  Thorsven and Gorky had reached the World Dome; but Svetz delayed. He’d never had a chance to linger here. “Boss, do you want to convey your sense of urgency to Chair Gorky?”

  “Your point?”

  “You told me once, never negotiate under a deadline. We’re the masters of Time.”

  Ra Chen’s head jerked once: yes. “What are you looking at?”

  Svetz was watching minuscule motion on a leaf. Caterpillar, the virtual label said. It had too many legs to count. Svetz watched it bend double to cross from one side of a tattered leaf to the other.

  * * *

  The World Globe was new: Waldemar the Tenth’s last construction project. The whole Earth was projected onto the interior of a globe, updated every few minutes with data from myriads of weather satellites. A walk with no railings led through the Globe. It was large enough that Svetz couldn’t tell its size.

  Miya Thorsven and Willy Gorky walked ahead of them. Miya glanced back. “Point out something interesting,” Ra Chen said, “or else get moving.”

  “It’s like looking at the Earth from inside, isn’t it? Boss, have you spent a lot of time in the garden and the Globe? I never took enough advantage of the perks. This could be our last chance.”

  “It could, couldn’t it?”

  Miya dropped back and engaged Svetz in conversation. Ra Chen took it as a hint and caught up with Gorky. Oddly lit by the white glare of ice caps above and below, and a whorl of hurricane over the Pacific, the Heads of Space and Time walked ahead of their aides. They talked like old friends who hadn’t met in some time: cordial and a little cautious.

  Svetz heard a little of that. Gorky speaking: “I’ve always been sure that the Earth will need to be terraformed. More nuclear power, or orbiting solar power arrays—”

  “Too late, Willy. Those forms of power don’t leave residues, not even oxides of nitrogen and carbon. You stop putting that stuff in the atmosphere, people will stop breathing!”

  “Do it earlier? Time machine…”

  The World Globe was big. Svetz looked down at Antarctica and wondered how far he would fall. The height didn’t bother Miya. He suppressed a sigh when he and Miya reached the far end.

  The Zoo—Vivarium—had been a favorite place to Waldemar the Tenth, forty-first Secretary-General to the United Nations. Of course it was supervised. Bureau of History cameras were hidden everywhere. But any spy or media camera found here would carry a death penalty.

  The Heads would have privacy from all but their own people.

  G
orky noticed nothing but the dominance game he was playing with Ra Chen. Miya’s eyes danced left, right, further, back. Owl. Horse. Snake watched Svetz pass. Svetz bowed. Snake nodded its regal, brilliantly feathered head.

  Here a cage was torn open as if some monstrous bird had hatched from it. Two down was another, its shredded roof bowed inward. Ostrich. Elephant.

  Horse’s head came up when Miya walked past. It glared at Svetz along its fearsome spiral horn, and Svetz stepped away from Miya Thorsven without quite knowing why.

  Gorky asked, “Have you done anything about replacing Elephant?”

  He knew what the torn cages meant!

  Ra Chen answered, “We had a pickup mission planned. Sir, what’s our budget like?”

  “Call me Willy.”

  “In public too?” asked Ra Chen.

  “Please. Now, I can keep us going for a year, Bureau of the Sky Domains and anything connected with Space. You can have anything you can convince me you need. Saving money won’t help us. Keeping the time machine in repair, that would be normal maintenance. Another elephant, another ostrich … well, why?”

  “Elephant can wait,” Ra Chen agreed, and Svetz smiled. He had not looked forward to trying to get another elephant into the big X-cage.

  “My thought is, extinct life-forms can wait! They aren’t going anywhere,” Gorky said. “On a legitimate mission, sure, bring home anything you like. We decide what’s a legitimate mission.”

  Ra Chen said, “Waldemar the Ninth wanted videos of Jack the Ripper, John F. Kennedy, Ted Bundy—”

  “Who?”

  “Crime scenes. Executions. We hadn’t built the extension cages yet. We mounted a vidcamera on the end of a boom and pushed it far enough into the past to record the Nicole Simpson murder. Gah! We can record anything we have exact time and location for. We got some famous riots. Then the machinery glitched up and we were off-line for two years. Waldemar Nine would have shut us down if he hadn’t died first.

  “Waldemar Ten wanted animals. Waldemar the Eleventh wants planets and stars, they say…?” Ra Chen waited for Gorky’s nod. “Willy, I don’t know how a time machine can give you that.”

  “I thought I did.” Gorky turned the sudden force of his glare on Svetz. “Hanville Svetz, isn’t it? Svetz, none of this is to be spread around. Do you know what I mean by FTL?”