“I’m glad you’ve decided,” Jamie said, with a slow smile. “I know Dr. Carleton intends to remain, too.”
“Damned right,” said Carleton.
“I will remain mission director,” Chang repeated. It was a demand, not a question.
“Yes, certainly,” answered Jamie. “Your experience will be very valuable to all of us.”
Carleton said nothing.
“I’ve talked with almost everyone here,” Jamie said. “Most of them are willing to extend their stays.”
“Several wish to leave,” Chang said.
Nodding, Jamie replied, “That’s all right. We need some interchange of personnel. We can’t expect to freeze everyone in their places.”
“We need geologists,” Chang said. “We should send an excursion team to the south pole—”
“We won’t be able to do that,” Jamie interrupted. “We just don’t have the resources.”
Undeterred, Chang went on, “The south pole is a conundrum. It is shrinking. Millions of tons of frozen carbon dioxide go into gaseous state each year. Gaseous carbon dioxide produces a greenhouse effect in atmosphere.”
Carleton grunted. “Some greenhouse. Temperatures are still below freezing.”
“But getting warmer,” Chang countered. “Yet humidity in the atmosphere is decreasing. Warmer atmosphere should support higher humidity level, not lower. A conundrum.”
“I agree it’s an important problem,” Jamie said. “But we just don’t have the resources to send a team to the south pole.”
“Then there is an ancient riverbed in the valley here,” Chang said. “Mapping the course of the riverbed is important.”
“The satellites are doing that with deep radar,” said Carleton. “What we really need are more grunts to help excavate the village.”
Chang insisted, “There must be other villages along the course of the riverbed.”
Carleton smiled easily and rolled his chair slightly to Chang’s right, so he could see the mission director’s face.
“Isn’t there an old Chinese proverb to the effect that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?”
Chang inched away from him.
Carleton went on, “We have a village to excavate. As I understand it, the Foundation people in Boston are putting together a video documentary about it, which they hope to use to raise more funds for us. I think all our efforts should be put into digging out this village.”
Chang tried to hide his scowl, failed. “There is more to be done than your one village.”
Before Carleton could reply, Jamie jumped in. “You’re both right. There’s an enormous number of things that we’ve got to do. But the village is very important. The question we have to settle is how much of our resources we should put into the village, and how much elsewhere.”
“Tracing the riverbed course,” said Chang. “Studying water geysers and underground heat flow. Melting at the south pole—”
“My village will bring new money into our program,” Carleton insisted. “You’ll never get to the south pole without an influx of new funding.”
“The village is important,” Chang conceded. “But it is not the only thing we must consider.”
“Right,” Jamie agreed. “Personally, I’d like to see more effort put into decoding the writing up in the cliff dwellings.”
“They weren’t dwellings,” Carleton said. “A religious center, more likely.”
“I’d still like to know what those symbols mean.”
With a shake of his head, Carleton argued, “Forget about it.”
“Forget it?”
“It’s a forlorn hope, Jamie. The best philologists in the world have cracked their skulls on those symbols. It’s useless.”
“But—”
“I know, I know. People have deciphered ancient languages: Sumerian, Cretan linear B, Sanskrit.”
“Proto-Chinese,” Chang added.
“Yes, but in every case they found a Rosetta Stone of one kind or another, a relic where the unknown language was written down side by side with a known one, so the philologists could translate from the known language to the unknown.”
Chang nodded reluctantly.
“There’s no Rosetta Stone on Mars. The Martian writings are completely alien. There’s no known language that we can translate from. We’ll never understand their writing.”
“Never is a long time,” Jamie muttered.
“Don’t waste time or effort on it,” Carleton insisted. “Don’t waste the limited resources we have on bringing more philologists here. They can study the imagery back in their offices on Earth.”
“I suppose so,” said Jamie.
“We’ll never understand their writing, I’m afraid. It’s just not possible.”
A sly smile crept slowly across Chang’s fleshy face. “August Comte,” he murmured.
“Ohgoost what?” Jamie asked.
“Comte,” said Chang. “Nineteenth-century French philosopher. Founder of positivism.”
“What’s he got to do with Martian writing?” Carleton wondered.
“Comte said it would forever be impossible to learn the chemical composition of stars. Yet within a few years astronomers started to use spectroscopy to do precisely that.”
Jamie grinned. “With spectral analysis you can determine the chemical composition of anything that glows. And a lot more.”
Chang finally turned in his chair to face the anthropologist. “There is another old Chinese proverb, Dr. Carleton: Never say never.”
London: Rock Rats Music, Inc.
Rafael Goodbar was not his real name, of course, but then music producers seldom used their true names anymore. The Reverend Caleb Mordecai hadn’t used his baptismal name in many years either: Willie Barcum just sounded too wimpy for a man who was rising in the eyes of the Lord.
Names aside, Rev. Mordecai had a mission to accomplish here, and Rafael Goodbar wasn’t making it easy for him.
Goodbar was obviously Jewish, thought Reverend Mordecai. He had the heavy-featured, fleshy face and hooded eyes of a Son of Israel. He was wearing a luridly flashy short-sleeved shirt that exposed his flabby, hairy forearms. Mordecai half expected to see tattoos, but none were evident.
“Let me understand you,” said Goodbar, smiling. Rev. Mordecai thought the smile looked forced, oily, devious. “You want to put me out of business.”
“Not at all,” the minister replied. “We merely request—request, mind you—that you allow our editorial board to review the lyrics of your songs before they are recorded.”
“Editorial board,” Goodbar said heavily. “You mean, censors.”
“Heavens no!” Mordecai exclaimed. “We do not censor. That would be illegal, or so the secular courts have maintained.”
“So what does your editorial board do?”
“We make suggestions. Recommendations, actually. When we find lyrics in a song that are offensive, we recommend that they be altered.”
“And if I don’t make the alterations?”
“We suggest to the Faithful that they boycott the song.”
“Just the one song?”
It was Mordecai’s turn to smile. “That would be impractical, at best. No, we recommend that our followers boycott everything that the producing company puts on the market.”
“Which would put the producer out of business.”
Mordecai glanced heavenward, then leveled his mild blue eyes at Goodbar. “If you are disseminating lyrics that harm impressionable young listeners, you are doing the devil’s work, Mr. Goodbar. You don’t deserve to remain in business.”
Goodbar countered, “But this is all a matter of opinion, isn’t it? What you think is harmful, other people enjoy listening to.”
“They enjoyed marijuana and other drugs before we put a stop to the narcotics traffic!” Mordecai snapped.