Olympus Mons Read online

  A good soldier, I did as I was told. Later I was glad.

  ***

  “If I have seen farther, it is by

  standing on the shoulders of giants.”

  Sir Isaac Newton, from

  a letter written in 1675

  In every field of medicine, the view from on top of equally impressive shoulders has enhanced numberless careers — Harvey and Hooke; Vesalius, Pasteur and Koch; Jenner, Reed, Fleming, the list is endless.

  The author would be remiss in failing to commemorate the remarkable achievements of a recent giant, Dr. Edwin C. “Clancy” Bevvins. No biomedical researcher has ever been more farsighted while poised on the shoulders of his illustrious predecessors, or selflessly awarded an equal amount of credit to his peers past and present for his own singular accomplishments. Reared on a sheep station in the shadow of New Zealand’s Southern Alps, and educated at the University of New South Wales, Dr. Bevvins quickly became preeminent in his chosen field, cellular physiology, and devoted himself exclusively to research until losing his life in pursuit of a dream, its fulfillment tantalizingly close over the horizon.

  Bevvinase, the “miracle enzyme” developed aboard a research satellite orbiting mighty Jupiter, was the result of a lengthy, exhaustive quest. Problems then unknown regarding metabolic degradation, acidosis and the formation of toxic substances and byproducts within the human organism defeated his desperate attempt to save the lives of two colleagues as well as his own. Perfected a decade after his passing, the revolutionary process he conceived and developed has contributed directly and dramatically to the colonization of Planet Mars.

  Isolated for obscure “security reasons” among a cross-rough of physical scientists aboard the circum-Jupiter research satellite, his diary tells us Dr. Bevvins “paid his way” by rolling pills, relieving sprains and performing physical exams, all the while conducting intensive experiments with the gibbon monkeys he colorfully described as “marvelously useful human analogs.” The visionary, long-range programme he brought to near-fruition — adapting humans to the hostile Martian environment in situ — had been bureaucratically funded by a senior medical board, then shuffled aside shortly after its inception and ignored. In lay terms, Dr. Bevvins’ goal was to devise a viable alternative to breathing oxygen, specifically a modus vivendi that required semi-radical alteration of human metabolic processes in order to safely convert carbon dioxide, by far the tenuous Martian atmosphere’s major constituent, into oxygen en vivo, within the organism proper.

  Heavily shielded against Jupiter’s severe radiation environment, the research satellite was accidentally struck by a random fragment of celestial debris. With no warning whatever, the small, high-velocity object ripped through all habitation decks and both oxygen pressure vessels ironically installed poles apart to mitigate the likelihood of just such a disaster. Adding to the satellite’s misfortune, its modest size had demanded logistic resupply of life support materiel from the frigid base on Jupiter’s largest natural satellite, Ganymede. A Mayday lasercomm transmission earned an immediate if disheartening reply: the relative orbital positions of the stricken research satellite, and Ganymede, prevented a rescue vehicle from arriving for at least thirty hours.

  Facing slow suffocation, Dr. Bevvins had nothing to lose by revealing to the sole pair of fellow survivors the for-whatever-reason highly classified details of his programme. He was of course utterly disbelieved. The volume of breathable air in the satellite’s sealed-off quadrant shrank steadily, growing more contaminated. Bevvins checked on his gibbons, fortunately housed in a quadrant where fail-safe hermetic hatches had automatically closed, interdicting the still-pressurized compartments. He found the current test specimen waggishly named “Bess” alive and well and constantly monitored for phrenic nerve activity, hemoglobin oxygen versus carbon-dioxide content, turnover rate — the enzyme’s regeneration rate in the tissues — oxygen diffusion rate, the buildup of toxins in the bloodstream, and similar esoteric parameters. Enzymes are pure protein substances, hence most subject gibbons were Bevvinase “factories,” whereas Bess, the enzyme’s then-current recipient, constituted the latest in a succession of noble failures.

  Grasping the only straw available, rapidly weakening Dr. Bevvins ordered his companions to don EVA-rated vacuum gear and injected the experimental enzyme. The diary records how anxiously he watched for signs of hypernea, ultra-rapid breathing, until his companions lapsed into a semi-comatose condition. Feeling that the enzyme was “taking hold nicely,” he scribbled instructions for the care of his companions and himself on blank pages torn from the diary, and then waited with unbelievable patience until his own consciousness began slipping away to inject himself and seal his pressure-suit.

  The three survivors regained consciousness many hours later. Lethargic and disoriented, yet also elated to still be among the living, they found themselves sequestered in an isolated carbon dioxide compartment within Ganymede’s small medicenter. Their elation proved short-lived; none survived longer than forty-eight hours.

  One cannot help but feel deep, abiding appreciation for the wondrous doors opened by this remarkable biomedical scientist. The refined Bevvinase Process has offered humankind a second home, our near neighbor in the sky, the Red Planet, and perhaps holds forth a promise of prospective human tenancy on potential extrasolar planets that sustain carbon dioxide environments. A less-heralded spinoff of his wondrous innovative lifework may prove of even greater significance to those of us dwelling in the here and now — the laboratory simulation of photosynthesis in the form of a synthetic molecule capable of sustaining polarization long enough to react usefully with other molecules. This serendipitous corollary achievement threw wide a second enormous door: the ability to efficiently and economically tap and convert limitless solar energy to electrical potential.

  Among other profound reasons to revere Dr. Bevvins’ profound legacy is the fact that he left us shoulders to stand on of considerably greater breadth than those of any recent savant in the history of biomedical science.

  Lest the scientifically unsophisticated feel talked down to, or perhaps given to wondering if certain details of the Bevvinase Process may have been glossed over, here in vastly simplified form are the basics of mammalian electrosynthesis as opposed to photosynthesis in plants, algae, fungi, and certain strains of anaerobic bacteria, so as to run mammalian oxidation “backwards.” Bevvinase is able to promote analogous though radically different conversions and energy transfers in mammalian organisms by means of a series of catalytic reactions, reductions, and antioxidant embellishments presented here as an excessively simplified, unbalanced organic formula:

  CO2+NADH+H2O=HCOOH+NAD+ +OH- HCOOH+NADH=HCHO

  +NAD+ +OH- HCHO+2NADH+H2O=CH4+2NAD+ +2OH-

  The reducing agent, NADH, a source of H- is a hydride ion not present in the free state, but created when a proton and electron are transferred from NADH to the substance being reduced, in this case carbon dioxide. Mars-rationalized humans resort to a quixotic definition, referring to themselves as “Marsrats,” and are sustained by a network of surgically implanted mini-electrodes that supply microenergy to drive the conversion process via a complex method semi-analogous to that driven by sunlight. Prior to the formulation and introduction of specific blood-cleansing agents and processes, byproducts deriving from the Bevvinase Process eventually and invariably proved lethal. Methane is relatively harmless — relatively — yet the buildup of formic acid, lactic acid and formaldehyde are definitely not conducive to the health and well being of living tissue. It is both sorrowful and ironic to realize that Dr. Bevvins and the short-lived companions he did his utmost to save were poisoned by acidosis, while simultaneously embalming themselves.

  A thesaurus of medical terminology, together with biochemical formulae of interest only to professionals is appended in this volume. A second appendix describes in the symbology of organic chemistry and extensive verbal detail the complex chain of anabolic and catabolic processes, along with specifi
c electro-surgical procedures, which permit Bevvinase to act as a catalyst in the conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen en vivo.

  MODUS VIVENDI

  Warren L. Beresford, M.D., Ph.D.

  Hyperspace Press, Pty. 2123

  Auckland, Sydney & Toronto

  ***

  I skipped everything except the gist of the piece, not worrying a whole lot about how hard it was to understand. It made me silently curse the late, great Dr. “Clancy” Bevvins for reminding me how they roll you out of the isolated processing ward in the Christchurch Medicenter, load your sealed carbon dioxide capsule aboard a jet airfreighter bound for the Pacific Launch Complex offshore Lahaina, Hawaii, and ease your dread of what’s to come by telling you you’re about to spend your last night on Earth. Sure has a comforting ring, doesn’t it? Then the “Mars-rationalized” label is overlaid on every page of your electronic file, but it should be written in blood, or engraved on platinum foil and glued to your forehead. A one-way street runs to Mars. They tell you straight, with no softsoap, that you can never come home again.

  Ever!

  ***

  Jesperson lifted his eyes from the way station’s aged holovision tank and looked at me, his expression sour as week-old cream. “Seen enough, Barney?”

  “More than plenty. Go on, kill it, Bwana.”

  He picked up the remote controller. “Better think it over,” he advised, tongue in both cheeks — a tough maneuver even for him. “It’s the only pomp and ceremony you’re liable to see for the rest of your unnatural life.”

  I told him what the Gypsy told the policeman.

  He clicked his tongue, pretended hurt feelings. “You’re uncouth, Barnes! Stay tuned, and you’ll witness an historic event. Vonex Chairman Korasek is going to formally hand over Burroughs to United Nations stewardship, then the U.N. Secretary-general will swear in Scheiermann by proxy. Sure you want to miss all the hoopla?”

  I hadn’t exactly liked Scheiermann’s version of Hearts and Flowers. “Deeds’ll get done without my help. Let’s suit-up ‘n truck for home.”

  It looked like he’d taken me at my word by tapping the off switch, but didn’t budge. He just sat there stroking his stubbled chin, stewing about something, which I’ve learned can be a bad sign. Then without a word, he reenergized the holotank, switched inputs and diddled with the view selector until the lowermost section of the Olympus Rupes escarpment swelled to fill the display. The way station is way too close to the volcano for the roof camera to pick up more than a tiny slice of a piece of a smidgen of the monster’s soaring curtain wall. We had inspected the downfall stretch of pipeline earlier that morning, using what my partner calls “the Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector” that gets swapped around between the enclave’s half-dozen crawlers. Magnified in the telescope, the visible pipe string way high up is a faint thread that dives down at you after it comes over the scarp’s beetling brow. The aqueduct, our lifeline, carries a steady dribble down from the volcano’s middle heights, the enclave’s one and only source of water.

  “Someday,” vowed Jesperson, “I’ll climb that mother. I swear I will!”

  “Be a cinch,” I encouraged, “once you sprout wings.”

  He took no offense; we’d had the same meaningless conversation a dozen times in the past. My zinger rolled off his back like a Ping-Pong ball.

  “I mean it!” he insisted, studying the holotank intently as if willpower alone would make Big Oly’s gawdawful escarpment do some kind of change. He did mean it, but it was the ex-mountain climber in him doing the brave talking, not what any bo with a smidgen of common sense would say. Most experts peg the humongous volcano as dormant; others subscribe to the notion that it’s been stone cold dead one full day longer than forever. Either way, except for minor burps and a now-and-then shiver shake, Big Oly hasn’t done any kind of major turn for thousands or maybe millions or billions of E-years.

  The lowermost stretch of the escarpment’s three-D image reared in the holotank like a colorized clip from some grainy old black-and-white King Kong movie — vertical, rugged bulwarks and furled ropes of lava drip that had serpentined down from the heights in ages past. In literally any number of places, the Olympus Rupes escarpment soars six kilometers above a layered crust the monster’s tremendous weight has actually depressed some. High as it is, the scarp itself is only the first baby step in a truly awesome rise. All told, from its base on the Tharsis highlands to the caldera up on the edge of space Jesperson insists on calling the mesosphere, Olympus Mons is roughly three times the height of Mt. Everest.

  After a long, thoughtful silence, my partner said, “I won’t need wings, Barney.”

  My astute observation was, “Uh-huh.”

  During my first weeks as his assigned work-partner, I thought I’d gotten to know the man backward, forward and upside down, at least to the point of developing a genuine urge to kill the ornery sonuvabitch. Then I started to catch on, to begin figuring out what Jesperson was all about. In a dozen different ways, he’s one helluva puzzling puzzle to try to unravel until you learn he always speaks his mind, and always minds what he’s about to say before he speaks. At heart, my partner’s a moody, bad-tempered, overeducated, Marsrat as lean and UV-irradiated and parchment dry as every other bo stuck in this frozen, rust-colored dustball. His conversation, what little there is of it, tends to be laced with acid.

  I gradually found out that like me he’d had been given a living death sentence as a Marsrat after what must’ve been a really unpleasant earthside experience. He’d righteously deny ever confiding the tale to another living soul, but he would be wrong. One evening maybe three E-years ago we were sitting in Art the Barkeep’s sleazy watering hole when he’d babbled the highlights to me. Seems he’d once been on the payroll of a government spook show that’s shy of being talked about, and had somehow come to do less than what was expected of him. A mysterious Asian fem was involved — aren’t they always? — and a fly speck-sized data microdot he’d somehow let stray into the wrong hands. The half-told tale came spun out all fuzzy and cloak ‘n daggery, leaving me mainly in the dark about whatever details he’d decided to keep under his hat. He never came right out and said so, but catching the general drift was fairly easy. His big boss had offered simple options: termination with prejudice, or Mars. I know exactly how Jess must’ve felt, but I still believe we both made the worst of two choices.

  Once upon a time, a stonefaced, white bread judge looked down his long nose at me and offered what Jesperson once called “Hobson’s Choice,” whatever that means. The rambunctious gent I’d tangled with in a San Berdoo gin palace had already taken on an overload of white lightning. He’d gone out of his way to provoke the scuffle, and his foulmouthed lack of manners had pushed me in the same direction. What lit his fuse, I later learned, was that his kid, a defensive tackle with two left feet, had screwed-up during a losing game. I’d yanked the baby bull off the field, sat him down on the bench to think about his sins.

  The bo swung and I ducked, in that order. We went at it hot and heavy for a half-dozen heartbeats, except once the chips were down the tackle’s proud papa was handier with his mouth than his mitts. My right fist hit the left side of his mouth, and the back of his head hit the edge of the bar, also in that order.

  The assistant DA knew a Murder Two indictment wouldn’t hold water. Even so, she argued, waffled, beat her gums, and ended up grudging a manslaughter plea-bargain deal that gratified the young public defender assigned to stand up for me. Unlike Jesperson, I’d had no “termination” worries, yet thoughts of five-to-ten in the slam when you’re young are, well . . . I was a lot younger then, and black, and ten times more arrogant than I am now. Hizzoner didn’t care for arrogance. He cared even less for Afro-American football coaches. It’s a dull story.

  Anyhow, once the fallout fell out, unbeknownst to either of us at the time we’d each opted for a one-way ticket to Mars. I found Lorna here, fell for her big time, and managed to earn my keep, and a sore back, by virtue of t
he dexterity and industry I demonstrated picking up, carting hither and thither, and setting down objects of various sizes, shapes and weights.

  Jesperson wasn’t that fortunate; only thing he found here was Olympus Mons. Now no one in his right mind, underscore no one — taking it for granted the term applies to my partner — had ever given serious thought to climbing Burroughs’ humongous next door neighbor. Yet I think mountaineering must get in your blood, and stay there. My partner had been a world-class climber long before he made the mistake that got him cashiered and made him agree to have his insides reworked so he could get boxed and shipped to Mars. According to Doc Franklin, the enclave’s self-appointed areography expert, Jesperson had once ranked among the homeworld’s top “alpinists,” if that’s the right word. When prodded extra-hard, he’d now and then open up part way and spin a tale about climbing some “hill” in the Dolomites, Alps, California’s Sierra, the Canadian Rockies or wherever. He once told me he and another pair of carefree crazies had hitched their bods up the sheer granite face of Yosemite’s El Capitan, and proudly said they’d gone up the wall “clean,” anchoring their carabiners, ropes and whatnots in chocks and handset aluminum wedges instead of hammered-in pitons — more big words borrowed from Jesperson.

  Why do a super-tough climb the super-tough way? Not, for the love of God just because it’s there! That has to be the lamest damned excuse for risking it all I ever did hear. No, he said he and the other two clucks had done it the hard way so as not to “spoil” the rock face for any head cases dumb enough to follow them up a few thousand meters of vertical granite.

  All things considered, I think that explains my wild ‘n crazy work-partner better than anything else I could tell you.

  Two: Tharsis

  Suiting up for the short hike from the way station airlock to the crawler was a bother. Our next-to-nothing surface air pressure is less than one percent of what it is at sea level earthside, so we bothered. The summer afternoon was mild, the air temp wobbling around minus forty degrees C, with a light wind from the southeast — a homeworld gale, but here in Mars a gentle zephyr.