leaf008 Planet Blue
leaf009 leaf010: This new world weighs a yatto-gram.
But everything is trial-size; tread-on-me tiny or blurred-out-of-focus huge. There are leaves that have grown as big as cities, and there are birds that nest in cockleshells. On the white sand there are long-toed clawprints deep as nightmares, and there are rock pools in hand-hollows finned by invisible fish.
Trees like skyscrapers, and housing as many. Grass the height of hedges, nuts the swell of pumpkins. Sardines that would take two men to land them. Eggs, pale-blue-shelled, each the weight of a breaking universe.
And, underneath, mushrooms soft and small as a mouse ear. A crack like a cut, and inside a million million microbes wondering what to do next. Spores that wait for the wind and never look back.
Moss that is concentrating on being green.
A man pushes forward with a microphoneāāAnd is there oxygen?ā Yes, there is. āAnd fresh water?ā Abundant. āAnd no pollution?ā None. Are there minerals? Is there gold? Whatās the weather like? Does it rain a lot? Has anyone tried the fish? Are there any humans? No, there are not any humans. Any intelligent life at all?
Depends what you mean by intelligent. There is something there, yes, and itās very big and very good at its job.
A picture of a scaly-coated monster with metal-plated jaws appears on the overhead screen. The crowd shrieks and swoons. No! Yes! No! Yes!
leaf011: The most efficient killing machine ever invented before gunpowder. Not bad for a thing with a body the size of a stadium and a brain the size of a jam-jar.
I am here today to answer questions: āThe lady in pinkāā
āAre these monsters we can see vegetarian?ā
āMaāam, would you be vegetarian with teeth like that?ā
Itās the wrong answer. I am here to reassure. A scientist steps forward. Thatās better. Scientists are automatically reassuring.
This is a very exciting, and very reassuring, day.
We are here today to witness the chance of a lifetime. The chance of many lifetimes. The best chance we have had since life began. We are running out of planet and we have found a new one. Through all the bright-formed rocks that jewel the sky, we searched until we found the one we will call home. Weāre moving on, thatās all. Everyone has to do that some time or other, sooner or later, itās only natural.
My name is Billie Crusoe.
āExcuse me, is your name Billie Crusoe?ā
āThatās me.ā
āFrom Enhancement Services?ā
āYes, Every Day a New Day.ā (As we say in Enhancement.)
āCan you tell viewers how the new planet will affect their lives?ā
āYes, I can. The new planet offers us the opportunity to do things differently. Weāve had a lot of brilliant successes here on Orbusāwell, we are the success story of the universe, arenāt we? I mean to say, no other planet hosts human life.ā
The interviewer nods and smiles vigorously.
āBut we have taken a few wrong turnings. Made a few mistakes. We have limited natural resources at our disposal, and a rising population that is by no means in agreement as to how our world as a whole should share out these remaining resources. Conflict is likely. A new planet means that we can begin to redistribute ourselves. It will mean a better quality of life for everyoneāthe ones who leave, and the ones who stay.ā
āSo a win-win situation?ā
āThatās right, winning numbers all the way.ā
Through the golden arches that are the city gates, the President of the Central Power is arriving. The arches stand like angels, their wings folded back against the lesser lights of the skyline.
The laser-gates, which look so solid, appear and disappear, like the wall that rings the city, a visible and invisible sign of progress and power.
Look in the lightāthe slight shimmer is their long energy. They are the aura of the city: emblem and warning, its halo and shield.
The Presidentās cavalcade has reached the Circle. Flags, carpets, flowers, flunkeys, hitmen, pressmen, frontmen, back-up, support, medics, techies, crew, rig, lights, sound, real-time, archive, relay, vox-pop, popcorn, polish, makeup, dust-down, ready, greenāGO.
The President is making a speech. The Central Power has funded the space mission for hundreds of years, and it is understood that any discoveries belong to us. He compares us to the men who found the Indies, the Americas, the Arctic Circle; he becomes emotional, he reaches for a line of poetry. For a moment, there it is, in handwriting that nobody can read, slanting under the images of Planet BlueāShe is all States, all Princes I . . .
The President is making a speech.
Unique moment for mankind . . . unrivalled opportunity . . . war averted . . . summit planned between the Central Power, Eastern Caliphate, and our friends in the SinoMosco Pact. Peaceful compromise promised. New planets for old. Full pictures and information across the twenty-two geo-cities of the Central Power by tomorrow morning. New colonizing mission being made ready. Monsters will be humanely destroyed, with the possible exception of scientific capture of one or two types for the Zooeum.
Into the Circle come the spacemen themselves, in shiny titanium pressure suits, oversize helmets under their arms. These are men glamorous as comets, trailing fame in fire-tails.
Thereās a robot with themāwell, a Robo sapiens, incredibly sexy, with that look of regret they all have before they are dismantled. Itās policy; all information-sensitive robots are dismantled after mission, so that their data cannot be accessed by hostile forces. Sheās been across the universe, and now sheās going to the recycling unit. The great thing about robots, even these Robo sapiens, is that nobody feels sorry for them. They are only machines.
She stands there, while the silver-suited saviours shake the Presidentās hand. Sheās going to tell us all about the chemical and mineral composition of the new planet, its atmospheric readings, its possible history and potential evolution. Then, when the public part is done, sheāll go backstage, transfer all her data, and open her power cells until her last robot flicker.
The End.
Itās a kind of suicide, a kind of bleeding to death, but they show no emotion because emotions are not part of their programming.
Amazing to look so convincing and be nothing but silicon and a circuit-board.
She glances over to the Support Stand and catches my eye. I canāt help blushing. I think she has read my mind. They can do that.
This is a great day for science. The last hundred years have been hell. The doomsters and the environmentalists kept telling us we were as good as dead and, hey presto, not only do we find a new planet, but it is perfect for new life. This time, weāll be more careful. This time we will learn from our mistakes. The new planet will be home to the universeās first advanced civilization. It will be a democracyābecause whatever we say in public, the Eastern Caliphate isnāt going to be allowed within a yatto-mile of the place. Weāll shoot āem down before they land. No, we wonāt shoot them down, because the President of the Central Power has just announced a new world programme of No War. We will not shoot down the Eastern Caliphate, we will robustly repel them.
leaf014: The way the thinking is going in private, weāll leave this rundown rotting planet to the Caliphate and the SinoMosco Pact, and they can bomb each other to paste while the peace-loving folks of the Central Power ship civilization to the new world.
The new worldāEl Dorado, Atlantis, the Gold Coast, Newfoundland, Plymouth Rock, Rapanaui, Utopia, Planet Blue. Chancād upon, spied through a glass darkly, drunken stories strapped to a barrel of rum, shipwreck, a Bible Compass, a giant fish led us there, a storm whirled us to this isle. In the wilderness of space, we found . . .
My name is Billie Crusoe. Here comes my boss, Manfred. Heās the kind of man who was born to rise and rise: a human elevator.
āBillie, have you voiced through the downloads?ā
āYes, everything is thereāsketches, diagrams, and a step-by-step explanation of how Planet Blue will change all our lives.ā
āWe have to present this positively.ā
āIt is positive, isnāt it? Are you saying there are presentation problems with the chance that everyone is dying for?ā
āDonāt use the word ādyingā.ā
āBut Orbus is dying.ā
āOrbus is not dying. Orbus is evolving in a way that is hostile to human life.ā
āOK, so itās the planetās fault. We didnāt do anything, did we? Just fucked it to death and kicked it when it wouldnāt get up.ā
āI know how you feel. I donāt say youāre entirely wrong in your analysis, but that isnāt the way we can present the situation. The President has sent a memo this morning to instruct Enhancement Services and Media Services to work together on this. We donāt want any stupid questionsāany difficulties. The last thing the Central Power needs now is any unrest of our own. There will be trouble enough with the Caliphate and the Pact.ā
āBecause youāre not giving a ride to either the Believers or the Collective?ā
āWhen did they ever do anything for us?ā
The Central Power is trying to live responsibly on a crowded planet, and that bunch are still scanning the skies for God, and draining the last drops of oil out of the ground. They can go to Hell.ā
Manfred looked down at my notebook. He frowned his older-man-thinker-type-sexy frown. āBillie, if you werenāt so eccentric, youād fit in better here. Why are you writing in a notebook? Nobody reads and writes any moreāthereās no need. Why canāt you use a SpeechPad like everybody else?ā
āNotebook. Pencil. They have an old-fashioned charm that I like.ā
āAnd I like the present just as it is. You still living in that bio-bubble thing?ā
āYou mean the farm? Of course I am. If Iād been able to make it pay I wouldnāt be working for you. But a world that clones its meat in the lab and engineers its crops underground thinks natural food is dirty and diseased.ā
āIt is.ā
āYeah. And pigs are planes. So the farm is leased to Living Museum and I am enslaved to you.ā
āYou donāt get many scientists coming across to work in Enhancement . . . Itās not exactly a career move.ā
I had a feeling that something else was hereāone of those icebound conversations that skate over the corpse in the lake. āIs there a problem with my work?ā
Manfred shrugged. āLike I said, a Science Service high-flyer doesnāt need to take a job with Enhancement.ā
āYou work for Enhancement.ā
He was getting impatient. āBillie, Iām going to be running the whole shooting match within two years. I have a graph. I have a Promotion Plan. Iām heading for the top floor.ā (Yep, there he goes, Penthouse Man.) āYou arenāt heading anywhere. You could have been promoted to Management within six months, but youāre still on the ground, visiting people in their homes.ā
āThatās me, a cross between a District Nurse and an Insurance Salesman.ā
leaf016: āWhatās a District Nurse?ā
āNever mind. History is a hobby of mine. Itās not illegal, and neither is the farm, and neither is wanting a simple life. No graph, no Promotion Plan. OK?ā
āOK. OK.ā
He held up his hands. He turned to leave. āOh, you should move your Solo. Enforcement just gave you a ticket.ā
āBut I have a permit!ā
āTake it up with Enforcement.ā
āManfred, this has been going on for a yearāI clear them, they start again. Iām not paranoid, but if someone is out to get me, I would like to know.ā
āNo one is out to get you. But move the Solo. I would if I were you.ā
He swung his handsome body and handsome head out and away to higher things.
Manfred is one of those confident men who have had themselves genetically Fixed as late-forties. Most men prefer to Fix younger than that, and there are no women who Fix past thirty. āThe DNA Dynastyā, they called us, when the first generation of humans had successful recoding. Age is information failure. The body loses fluency. Command stations no longer connect with satellite sta...