Many were the arguments there about a possible return to Downstairs. By no means all women wanted it. Life Upstairs, although austere, was far less abrasive than it had been on Earth. Certainly child-rearing was easier, while the new generation of children seemed brighter and more companionable, despite their tammies.
Received wisdom was traded.
“Earth has decided to leave us here.”
“Let Downstairs get on with its affairs while we get on with ours.”
“They’ve forgotten all about us.”
Such remarks, often heard, were made with varying tones of optimism or gloom.
Olympus was moving steadily nearer. Observation showed, alarmingly, that its rate of progression was ever increasing. Various attempts to communicate with it failed. Willa and Vera, the mentatropists, had driven to the site, where they picked up a CPS, followed by a scrambled signal. The signal was intensively studied, but years passed before it was understood.
It was in that fifth year of our exile that Meteor Watch reported an object approaching Mars at a considerable velocity. Everyone was alarmed. But the speed of the object decreased. Eventually, a capsule shot from it, extruded a helichute, and landed a few kilometres north of the domes. An expedition set out immediately to investigate it.
The capsule bore a large symbol, TUIS, painted on its side. When transported into the domes and opened up, it was found to contain various medical supplies, scientific equipment, and a veritable store of foodstuffs, many of the names of which we had all but forgotten.
The supplies were accompanied by a plaque that read, “With the Admiration of the Terrestrial Utopian International Society”. We wondered at the title, which indicated that the times were changing Downstairs.
Early in our sixth year, which is to say six terrestrial years on the calendar to which we clung, notching up days like Crusoe on his island, the outer rim of Chimborazo appeared over the horizon, to be clearly viewed from both domes and science unit. Its leading edge seemed now to be approaching at a rate that was hard to credit—at least 500 metres a day. It was easy to imagine its paddles beating furiously through the underlying regolith. However, the speed of movement did not represent the motion of Chimborazo as a whole. Chimborazo’s scope encompassed more and more of the Martian surface, tumbling in our direction—a terrifying wave of regolith ploughed up before its prow.
Willa-Vera announced they would soon decode the signals they had recorded: Chimborazo’s “voice” fluctuated up and down the electromagnetic spectrum, and might be comprehended more as music than actual speech. They would have everything interpreted in a year or possibly two.
Their well-publicised conviction was that, after many centuries of meditation, this towering mentality—a mentality dwarfing Everest—had become a virtual god in wisdom. Once its mode of communication was understood, Chimborazo’s immaterialism and transcendent qualities would set humankind upon a fresher and more vital path than could at present be visualised.
We would then move forward into “an ultimate reality”.
I would certainly welcome a reality beyond my present day-to-day life…
It was six years and 100 Martian days since the economic collapse that had swept EUPACUS away, carrying the terrestrial infrastructure with it. A manned ship arrived within Mars matrix and went into orbit about the planet. The visitor appeared enormous, resembling, some said, St.
Paul’s Cathedral turned upside-down. We marvelled at it as if we were peasants.
Another age had dawned in the history of matrixflight. This strange object proved to be a ship powered by nuclear fusion. The epoch of wasteful chemical rockets was dead.
“What—what kind of rocket is that, for God’s sake?” exclaimed a young YEA.
It was John Homer Bateson who replied, and even he sounded impressed, “I would suggest that rockets are now as obsolete as the bathysphere.”
“What in hell is a bathysphere?” was the response.
A ferry floated down from this new marvel. Witnesses remarked that in the gentleness of its descent it was like a giant metal leaf. Our isolation was now ended…
Much jubilation broke out in the domes. Of a sudden, the prospect of green meadows, golden beaches and blue oceans became almost overwhelmingly desirable. We looked eagerly to see the faces of our rescuers from Downstairs.
Three unsmiling men confronted us. Marching into the domes, they announced that the Premier of the UK had taken over the assets of the failed EUPACUS consortium. They were the legal inheritors of all EUPACUS property. A EUPACUS ship had been stolen five years previously; its pilot, one Abel Feneloni, together with his accomplices on the ship, had been arrested. The ship was badly damaged when crash-landing in the north of Canada.
In his defence, continued the newcomers, Feneloni had claimed he was sent in the stolen ship under direct orders from the so-called government of Mars. A considerable stack of dollars was therefore owed by Mars to the government of the UK. Until this outstanding bill was paid, no free flights back to Earth were going to be allowed.
So we were quickly given the opportunity to relearn the value of money, and that some people lived by it.
Tom stepped forward. “We do not use money here.”
“Then you do not use our ship.”
The three terrestrials were invited to a consultation meeting. They refused, saying there was no necessity for consultation. All they required was settlement of an unpaid debt. They were clumsy in their spacesuits and we easily overpowered them.
To our disgust we found they wore guns under their suits. These were the first guns ever seen on Mars, our White Mars. We imprisoned them, took over their ship and signalled the UN on Earth.
We stressed that guns were not permitted on Mars; their importation therefore constituted an illegal act. Nor did we accept responsibility for the actions of Abel Feneloni; we regarded him as an outlaw. The UK had no entitlement to try and extract monies from us for Feneloni’s crimes.
To ameliorate this confrontational tone, we declared that we possessed a discovery beyond price that, as Utopians, we were prepared to share with everyone.
Clearly, much had changed on Earth during our absence. The United Koreas had become a great power, but were at odds with the UN—and with the rest of the planet. The response we received was favourable to us. The matter of the stolen ship remained to be resolved. Meanwhile our three captives had to be convinced that they were in the wrong and released, pending trial; and as many people as wished to return to Earth were immediately to embark on the waiting ship. They would be welcome Downstairs.
It was done. Many of our people crowded aboard the great orbiting ship—in particular, those who had children.
I wept when saying farewell to my friends.
I cannot tell here the histories of those who returned Downstairs. Some adjusted to the hectic heavy-gravity globe. Some became happy and settled. Some struggled in a world grown unfamiliar—and, of those, some prospered while others sank into failure.
Sharon Singh and Hal Kissorian parted company. Perhaps their involvement with each other had been too intense to endure. Kissorian became a great utopianist, and held a responsible position in government in Greater Scandinavia. Sharon Singh emigrated to Mercury and joined the FAD rebels in the Fighters Against Dictatorship struggle for Mercurian Utopia.
The fact remains that when our Martians stepped out from the rescue ship into the dazzling draughty light of their mother planet, they were greeted like heroes. Receptions were held for them in many of the world’s great cities. Several of them found themselves to be famous, their faces well known, even their speeches memorised.