Part 11 (1/2)

'Oh ... Does he? Do you know anything about the -what do you call it? The gravitational ... no ... The magneto-gravitic anomaly? Have you any information about it?'

He looked hard at me. 'We call it the M-gravitic anomaly.' He asked me why I was worrying. I said I didn't really know. I was trying to learn some science.

Jimmy hesitated. 'Keep this to yourself if I give you a shot from the upsat. There's been a slight s.h.i.+ft in the anomaly.'

The photograph he released came through the slot.

I stared at it. It was an aerial view of the Tharsis s.h.i.+eld from 60 miles up. The outline of Olympus Mons - or Chimborazo, to use Kathi's name - could clearly be seen. Across the shot someone had scrawled with marker pen G-WSW + 0.130.

Why and how, I asked myself, should the anomaly have s.h.i.+fted? Why in that direction - in effect towards Arizonis Planitia and our position?

As I stared at the photo, I noticed furrowed regolith to the east of the skirts of Olympus. Kathi had pointed this furrowing out to me earlier. Now it seemed the furrowing was rather more extensive. I could not understand what it meant. In the end, I returned to my studies, not very pleased with myself. Cute? Me?!

The domes had become a great hive of talk. There were silent sessions by way of compensation. Sports periods were relatively quiet. Other colloquia concentrated on silence, and were conducted by the wooden tongue of a pair of clappers. Silence, meditation, walking in circles, sitting, all reinforced at once a sense of communality and individuality. Those who concentrated on these buddhistic exercises reported lowered cholesterol levels and a greater intensity of life.

Much later, these colloquia became the basis of Amazonis University.

Fornication evenings were a popular success. Masked partners met each other for karezza and oral arts under skilled tutors. Lying together without movement, they practiced inhalation, visual saturation and maryanning. Breath control as a technique for increasing pleasure was emphasised.

Breath control formed the entire subject of another colloquium. In a low-lit studio, pract.i.tioners sat in the lotus position and controlled ingoing and outgoing breaths while concentrating on the hara. hara. Mounting concentrations of carbon dioxide in the blood led to periods of timeless 'awayness' which, when achieved, were always regarded as of momentous value, leading to a fuller understanding of self. Mounting concentrations of carbon dioxide in the blood led to periods of timeless 'awayness' which, when achieved, were always regarded as of momentous value, leading to a fuller understanding of self.

This opening up of consciousness without the use of harmful drugs became highly regarded in our society, so that the breathing colloquium had to be supplemented by cla.s.ses in pranayama. At first, pranayama was seen as exotic and 'non-Western', but, with the growing awareness that we were in fact no longer Western, pranayama became regarded as a Martian discipline.

Whether or not this concentration on the breath, entering by the nose, leaving by the mouth, was to be accounted for by our awareness that every molecule of oxygen had to be engineered, this discipline, in which over 55 per cent of our adults soon persevered, exerted a considerable calming effect, so that to the remoter regions of the mind the prospect of a tranquil and happy life no longer seemed unfamiliar.

'A better life needs no distraction...'

In all the colloquia, which rapidly established themselves, the relations.h.i.+p between teacher and taught was less sharp than usual. No one had a professional reputation to uphold; it was not unknown for a teacher to exclaim to a bright pupil, 'Look, you know more about this than I -please take my place, I'll take yours.'

Old hierarchies were dissolving: even as Tom had predicted, the human mind was becoming free.

At all this great activity I looked in amazement. To repair the damage done to my body I studied pranayama, becoming more aware of Eastern influence in our society. I wondered if this was really the case, or did I, with my Eastern inheritance, merely wish it to be so?

I asked this question of Tom. Perhaps we had grown closer over the past year. Tom said, 'I cannot answer your question today. Let's try tomorrow.'

On the morrow, when we met with Belle Rivers again for another discussion of what education should consist, he looked amused and said, 'Has your question been answered overnight?'

Playing along with this zen approach, I replied, 'No religion has a monopoly on wisdom.'

At this he yawned and pretended to be bored. He said he believed, though without sure foundation, that there had been a time when the West, the little West which then called itself Christendom, had been a home of mysticism. Come the Renaissance, people forgot constant prayer, loving instead the riches and excitements of the world about them. They had given themselves up to the worldly things and even neglected to love, first others, then themselves. Now it was possible that in our reduced circ.u.mstances we might learn to love ourselves again with a renewed mysticism.

'And love G.o.d?' I asked.

'G.o.d is the great cul de sac in the sky.'

'Only to those with spiritual myopia,' Belle said, with a trace of irritation.

I couldn't resist teasing Tom - a tease in which there was some flattery - telling him he was the new mystic, come to guide us.

'Don't get that notion in your head, my dear Cang Hai, or try to put it in mine. I cannot guide since I don't know where we are going.'

But he offered me, chuckling, a story of a holy man who finally gave up calling on Allah because Allah never spoke in return, never said to the man, 'Here am I.' Whereupon a prophet appeared to the holy man in a vision, hot foot from Allah. What the prophet reported Allah as saying was this: 'Was it not I who summoned thee to my service? Was it not I who engaged thee with my name? Was not thy call of ”Allah!” my ”Here am I”?'

I said I was pleased that Tom had a mystical as well as a practical side, to which he answered that he clung to a fragment of mysticism, hoping to be practical. That practicality might permit our grandchildren to espouse the contentment of real mysticism.

I thought about this for a long time. It seemed to me that he denied belief in G.o.d, and yet clung to a shred of it.

Tom admitted it might be so, since we were all full of contradictions. But whether or not there was a G.o.d outside, there was a G.o.d within us; in consequence he believed in the power of solitary prayer, as a clarifier, a magnifying gla.s.s, for the mind.

'At least, so I believe today,' he said teasingly. 'My dear Cang Hai, we all have two hemispheres to our brains. Can we not carry two different tunes at the same time? Do you not wish to be silent in order to listen to them?'

While we were talking in this abstract fas.h.i.+on, our friends were making love and more children were being conceived. Too many would threaten the precarious balance of our existence. To find Tom planning for two generations ahead made me impatient.

'We must deal with our immediate difficulties first, not add to them. This random procreation threatens our very existence. Why do you not issue a caution against unbridled s.e.xuality?'

'For several good reasons, Cang Hai,' he said. 'The foremost of which is that any such caution would be useless. Besides, if I, a DOP, issued it, it would be widely - and maybe rightly - regarded as an edict flung across the generation gap.'

I laughed - 'Don't be afraid of that. You are older, you know better! Don't you?' - for I saw his hesitation.

'No, to be honest I don't know better. s.e.xual temptation does not necessarily fade with age. It's merely that the ease with which one can give in to it disappears!' He laughed. 'You see, our generations have become too preoccupied with s.e.xuality. You know what Barcunda said.

'Our relations.h.i.+ps with natural things withered and died in the streets. We no longer tend our gardens -or sleep under the stars, unless we are down-and-outs. We think stale city thoughts, removed from nature. All we have to relate to is each other. That's unnatural; we should be responding to agencies outside ourselves. The quest for ever more s.e.xual satisfaction runs against true contentment. Against love, joy and peace, and the ability to help others.'

'Ah, those ”agencies outside ourselves” ... Yes...'

We sat silently for a while.

At last I said, 'It is sometimes difficult for us to speak our minds. Perhaps it's because I have reverence for you that I agree with what you say. Yet not only that... I have not found great pleasure in s.e.x, with either men or women. Is that something lacking in me? I seem to have no - warmth? I love, but only platonically, I'm ashamed to admit.'

Tom put his large hand on mine.

'You need feel no shame. We are brought up in a culture where those who seek solitude or chast.i.ty are made to think of themselves as unwell - fit subjects for new sciences like psychurgy and mentascopism - almost beyond the pale of society. It was not always so and it will not be so again. Once, men who sought solitude were revered. These matters are not necessarily genetic but a question of upbringing.'

After a pause, he said, 'And your upbringing, Cang Hai. Where are you in Kissorian's scheme of things - a later-born, I'd guess?'

'No, Tom, dear. I am a dupe.' Looking searchingly at him, I was surprised he did not immediately understand.

'A dupe?'

'A clone, to use the old-fas.h.i.+oned term. I know there's a prejudice against dupes, but since our difference doesn't show externally we are not persecuted. My counterpart lives in China, in Chengdu. We are sometimes in psychic touch with one another. But I do not believe that case affects my att.i.tude to s.e.xuality. As a matter of fact, I spend much time in communication with those archetypes of which you say someone spoke in the debate. I believe I am in touch with myself, though I'm vexed by mysterious inner promptings. Those promptings brought me to Mars - and to you.'

'I am grateful, then, for those inner promptings,' he said, giving me a grave smile. 'So you are that rare creature, not born of direct s.e.xual union...'

I told him I knew of at least a dozen other dupes with us on Mars.

With a sudden intuition, Tom asked if Kathi was also a dupe. I said it was not so; was he interested in her?

He chose to ignore this. Dropping his gaze, he said, 'My destiny seems to be as an organiser. I'm doomed to be a talker, while in my heart of hearts, that remote place, I believe silence to be a greater thing.'

'But not the silence, surely, that has prevailed on Mars for centuries?'