Niven, Larry - Rainbow Mars [SS col]

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RAINBOW MARS

TOR BOOKS BY LARRY NIVEN

N-Space

Playgrounds of the Mind Destiny's Road

WITH STEVEN BARNES

Achilles' Choice The Descent of Anansi

WITH JERRY POURNELLE AND STEVEN BARNES

Beowulf's Children

RAINBOW MARS

LARRY NIVEN

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either

fictitious or are used fictitiously.

RAINBOW MARS

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

Tor Books on the World Wide Web: http://www.tor.com

Tor(r) is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

Book design by Lisa Pifher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Niven, Larry.

Rainbow Mars / Larry Niven.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-86777-8 I. Title.

PS3564.I9 R3 1999 9841613 813'.54-dc21 CIP

First Edition: March 1999

Printed in the United States of America

0987654321

This is for Marilyn, who won't read fantasy unless I write it.

CONTENTS

Rainbow Mars

The Flight of the Horse

Leviathan!

Bird in the Hand

There's a Wolf in My Time Machine

Death in a Cage

Afterword: Svetz and the Beanstalk

Another major advance in our understanding of Mars has come from analysis of the MOLA topographic

data. Although relative topographic variations have been known since 1972 from Mariner 9 data, the

detailed topography needed to understand many of the features on Mars is only now being provided

by MGS. Even with the present elliptical orbit, MOLA is providing vertical resolutions of about 30

cm with horizontal resolutions of 300 to 400 m. MOLA has been able to provide detailed topographic

information about individual features such as impact craters, volcanoes, fractures, channels, and

polar deposits. One discovery is that some of the channels, including Ares Valles in whose outwash

area Mars Pathfinder landed, are deeper than previously thought, indicating more water has flowed

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through the channels than earlier suspected. In addition, MOLA has revealed that the northern

plains of Mars are extremely flat, as smooth as the Earth's oceanic abyssal plains. The smoothness

of the northern plains supports the theory that they are sediments deposited in a vast ocean which

once covered this area.

"Revealing the Secrets of Mars" by Nadine G. Barlow Ad Astro-the magazine of the National Space

Society

July/August 1998

RAINBOW MARS

+390 Atomic Era. Svetz was nearly home, but the snake was waking up.

Gravity pulled outward from the center of the extension cage as it was pulled toward present time.

The view through the wall was a jitter of color and motion. Svetz lay on his back and looked up at

the snake. A filter helmet showed only as a faint golden glow around its head. It wouldn't

strangle on post-Industrial air, and it couldn't bite him through the inflated bubble.

A ripple ran down the feathers along its spine, a gaudy flurry of color, nine meters from head to

tip of tail. It seemed to take forever. Tiny rainbow-colored wings fluttered at its neck. Its eyes

opened.

The natives of - 550 Atomic Era would have carved his heart out without losing that same look of

dispassionate arrogance.

Svet/ raised the noodle rifle.

A loop of it shimmied aside as he fired. The anesthetic crystal needle shattered on the wall. The

shimmy ran down the tail, while Svetz fired again and missed again. Then the tailtip snapped down

and flicked the needle gun out of his hands.

Svetz cringed back.

The rainbow-feathered head lifted to study him.

+1108 Atomic Era. Watery colors around the cage took on shapes. For an instant Svetz saw startled

techs, and Ra Chen yell-tig. Then the snake fell over him in coils, knocking the breath out f him.

Coils constricted around his torso. He wriggled an arm free and reached for the needle gun, but a

loop of tail coiled around his wrist.

Immobile, he looked into the ophidian face.

The hatch opened. Techs played sonic handguns along the snake's length. It went limp. Hillary Weng-

Fa and Wilt Miller pulled Svetz out of the X-cage and looked him over. Other techs coiled be

torpid snake on a lifter platform for transport to the Secretary-General's Vivarium.

Wrona pushed past Chairman Ra Chen to lick Svetz's face, Svetz hugged her. The touch of fur was a

comfort.

"Feathers," Ra Chen said. "Futz. Are you all right?"

"Fine. Sir, I think it decided not to kill me. Treat it right."

"The picture book didn't show feathers."

"There must be more than one kind of snake," Svetz said. "The locals worshipped this one. I'll bet

the SecGen loves it."

"They'll find something else to worship. Svetz-" Ra Chen's words stuck in his throat.

"Sir?"

"Waldemar the Tenth is dead."

"Long live the Secretary-General." Then his fatigue-blurred mind caught up. "Wait, now. The

natives were ready to cut my heart out for that snake, and now we don't need it?"

Ra Chen sighed. Svetz babbled, "Or do we? Who's the next Secretary-General? Does he like animals?"

"That's being settled, I don't doubt. Take Wrona home. Get some sleep. Everything goes to hell

when power changes hands."

PART

ONE

"If only we had a time machine!'

Chapter 2

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Willy Gorky's coming was announced. The Institute for Temporal Research had two hours to prepare.

The atmosphere as Svetz arrived was low-intensity frantic. Hum of techspeak, hum of power, three

techs swearing quietly over yellow lights on a display. Some looked up from the Guide Pit as he

and Wrona passed. Nobody particularly wanted to talk to Hanville Svetz, but Wrona was still a

curiosity.

The Director saw Svetz in a corner quietly eating a bowl of dole yeast. He said, "Get the dog

out."

Svetz nodded and stood. He rubbed Wrona between her ears. "Home," he told her, and turned back

toward the door. She laughed with her tongue lolling.

"Home, my ass," Ra Chen bellowed. "I need you here!"

"Make a decision, Boss."

Ra Chen took two seconds to think. Wilt and Hillary both got along with Wrona, but Svetz could see

both techs on duty in the Pit. They couldn't take her. The Zoo dogs fought with her.

"The dog stays. Good idea anyway. We'll have something to show Gorky."

"Yes sir. Why are we showing off for Willy Gorky?"

Ra Chen looked toward the Guide Pit. It looked impressive, and busy. He said, "Waldemar the Tenth

liked extinct animals. Waldemar the Eleventh likes planets and stars, they say, and he's not a

mental deficient."

Svetz flinched. Nobody would have dared to use that term when Waldemar the Tenth was Secretary-

General!

A whisper of wind from outside: limousines setting down in the drive.

"The Institute for Temporal Research has been transferred from Bureau of History to Bureau of the

Sky Domains-that's the new title for Space Bureau. Willy Gorky's the Director. He's our new boss.

Are you ready for that?"

Svetz smiled sourly. 'Time will tell."

Four Space Bureau guards flitted through the Center examining everything. One of them appeared

ready to shoot Wrona. As Svetz stepped in front of her he found Ra Chen and Zeera at his elbows.

The guard listened to Svetz's assurances, but he was looking at Wrona. Wrona looked back. On

command she sat, then lay down, snout on paws.

'Tie her up," the bodyguard said, and turned away.

"We will do no such thing," Ra Chen said.

The guard froze, then kept moving. Discussion must have taken place outside.

Willy Gorky entered with three more of his entourage. He was Svetz's height, centimeters shorter

than Ra Chen, but thick through the torso, arms and legs. He was half again Svetz's weight.

"Ra Chen, a pleasure to see you again! Lovely pond," he said.

He meant the rectangular pool outside. Ra Chen said, "It's not an extravagance. When we're pulling

an X-cage home we need somewhere to dump the heat. Otherwise expensive parts melt."

Svete's impression was that Gorky barely heard him. He bestowed a wonderful smile on one and all

and shook their hands. Svet2 felt bone-breaking strength held dormant

Wrona offered her paw. Gorky didn't notice. He was looking into the Guide Pit.

The Guide Pit was inside a knee-high wooden wall, symbol rather than barrier. There was room for

five to sit and work the instruments that guided extension cages into the past. From here the

Institute could run both X-cages at once, though that was rare. Gorky must have heard

descriptions. It was the heart of the Institute, and now it was his.

Two men with him wore tech uniforms, white coats lined with a score of bulging pockets, scanner

sets on their heads. The woman wore something else, a loose one-piece, brilliantly patterned and

covered with zipped pockets. She was an inch shorter than Svetz, and slender, topped with two

centimeters of ash-blond fuzz.

She came straight to Svetz, or maybe to Wrona. None of Bureau of the Sky Domains seemed to know

how to treat Wrona. They'd never seen a dog.

"I'm Miya Thorsven," she said, smiling at them both.

"Hanville Svetz, pleased to meet you. You're an astronaut?"

"Yes. And your... companion is a visitor from the past?"

"Somebody else's past. Wrona's people evolved from wolves. The X-cages sometimes veer sideways in

time when they're coming home. It's a quantum mechanical thing," Svetz said as if he understood

it.

"Why does she look so much like Dog?"

"You've been in the Vivarium?"

"Not yet. There's a web site that has holograms." Miya looked wistful. 'Tour achievements are

wonderful."

Svetz had captured most of the Vivarium's animals. He preened.

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She asked again. "Dog?"

"Dogs never went extinct. They're contemporary. If you think of a dog as a wolf that's been

civilized, then intelligent beings civilize each other. Intelligent wolves must have done that

too."

Miya nodded happily, and Svetz thought how strange it was to

be lecturing an astronaut on nonhuman intelligence. He asked, "Have you met aliens?"

"No," she said.

"How far have you been?"

"Mars."

"Only Mars?"

Space Bureau techs were examining the Center and talking to the Institute techs on duty. The ITR

techs were reluctant to answer. They looked to Ra Chen. Ra Chen and Willy Gorky ignored them all.

They were both hand wavers. Svetz saw Ra Chen's arms sweep around him to include the entire

Center. Gorky stopped talking then. So did Miya Thorsven. She looked to her boss, and her worry

mirrored his.

Gorky spoke briefly, gathered his entourage and left.

The Center's personnel gathered around Ra Chen.

"Good news and bad," he said. "The Center really could be shut down. Gorky wants to save us, he

says-" Ra Chen ignored the collective cynical sigh. "His ass is on the line too. He wants to talk.

He'll bring a man, I'll bring a man."

"You, Svetz. Don't bring Wrona. Zeera, can you keep things going here?"

Zeera Southworth scratched Wrona behind the ears. "You and me," she told the dog.

Chapter 3

I always knew that I would see the first man on the

Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last.

-Dr. Jerry Pournelle

Waldemar the Fourth had liked flowers. Green Resources Bureau had saved him a few for the garden

path that led to the World Globe.

Chair Gorky walked with Miya Thorsven, a few meters ahead of Ra Chen and Svetz. Their voices were

relaxed tones too low to make out.

Six kinds of orchids lived on vertical slabs of plant nutrient. Labels floated beside them, and

followed where the wind moved the flowers: holograms projected into a visitor's eyes. The roses

weren't doing well, but mutations made for marvelous variety. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts,

Artichoke: virtual labels said that some had considered these plants edible-

"Svetz!"

Thorsven and Gorky had reached the World Dome; but Svetz delayed. He'd never had a chance to

linger here. "Boss, do you want to convey your sense of urgency to Chair Gorky?"

'Tour point?"

"You told me once, never negotiate under a deadline. We're the masters of Time."

Ra Chen's head jerked once: yes. "What are you looking at?"

Svetz was watching minuscule motion on a leaf. Caterpillar, the virtual label said. It had too

many legs to count. Svetz watched it bend double to cross from one side of a tattered leaf to the

other.

The World Globe was new: Waldemar the Tenth's last construction project. The whole Earth was

projected onto the interior of a globe, updated every few minutes with data from myriads of

weather satellites. A walk with no railings led through the Globe. It was large enough that Svetz

couldn't tell its size.

Miya Thorsven and Willy Gorky walked ahead of them. Miya glanced back. "Point out something

interesting," Ra Chen said, "or else get moving."

"It's like looking at the Earth from inside, isn't it? Boss, have you spent a lot of time in the

garden and the Globe? / never took enough advantage of the perks. This could be our last chance."

"It could, couldn't it?"

Miya dropped back and engaged Svetz in conversation. Ra Chen took it as a hint and caught up with

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Gorky. Oddly lit by the white glare of ice caps above and below, and a whorl of hurricane over the

Pacific, the Heads of Space and Time walked ahead of

their aides. They talked like old friends who hadn't mot in some time: cordial and a little

cautious.

Svetz heard a little of that. Gorky speaking: "I've always been sure that the Earth will need to

be terraformed. More nuclear power, or orbiting solar power arrays-"

'Too late, Willy. Those forms of power don't leave residues, not even oxides of nitrogen and

carbon. You stop putting that stuff in the atmosphere, people will stop breathing!"

"Do it earlier? Time machine ..."

The World Globe was big. Svetz looked down at Antarctica and wondered how far he would fall. The

height didn't bother Miya. He suppressed a sigh when he and Miya reached the far end.

The Zoo-Vivarium-had been a favorite place to Waldemar the Tenth, forty-first Secretary-General to

the United Nations. Of course it was supervised. Bureau of History cameras were hidden everywhere.

But any spy or media camera found here would carry a death penalty.

The Heads would have privacy from all but their own people.

Gorky noticed nothing but the dominance game he was playing with Ra Chen. Miya's eyes danced left,

right, further, back. Owl. Horse. Snake watched Svetz pass. Svetz bowed. Snake nodded its regal,

brilliantly feathered head.

Here a cage was torn open as if some monstrous bird had hatched from it. Two down was another, its

shredded roof bowed inward. Ostrich. Elephant.

Horse's head came up when Miya walked past. It glared at Svetz along its fearsome spiral horn, and

Svetz stepped away from Miya Thorsven without quite knowing why.

Gorky asked, "Have you done anything about replacing Elephant?"

He knew what the torn cages meant!

Ra Chen answered, "We had a pickup mission planned. Sir, what's our budget like?"

"Call me Willy."

"In public too?" asked Ra Chen.

"Please. Now, I can keep us going for a year, Bureau of the

Sky Domains and anything connected with Space. You can have anything you can convince me you need.

Saving money won't help us. Keeping the time machine in repair, that would be normal maintenance.

Another elephant, another ostrich ... well, why?"

"Elephant can wait," Ra Chen agreed, and Svetz smiled. He had not looked forward to trying to get

another elephant into the big X-cage.

"My thought is, extinct life-forms can wait! They aren't going anywhere," Gorky said. "On a

legitimate mission, sure, bring home anything you like. We decide what's a legitimate mission."

Ra Chen said, "Waldemar the Ninth wanted videos of Jack the Ripper, John F. Kennedy, Ted Bundy-"

"Who?"

"Crime scenes. Executions. We hadn't built the extension cages yet. We mounted a vidcamera on the

end of a boom and pushed it far enough into the past to record the Nicole Simpson murder. Gah! We

can record anything we have exact time and location for. We got some famous riots. Then the

machinery glitched up and we were off-line for two years. Waldemar Nine would have shut us down if

he hadn't died first.

"Waldemar Ten wanted animals. Waldemar the Eleventh wants planets and stars, they say... ?" Ra

Chen waited for Gorky's nod. "Willy, I don't know how a time machine can give you that."

"I thought I did." Gorky turned the sudden force of his glare on Svetz. "Hanville Svetz, isn't it?

Svetz, none of this is to be spread around. Do you know what I mean by FTL?"

Svetz thought he did. "You need to go faster than light to reach any star while any one SecGen is

in power."

"Faster-than-light is fiction."

"Fiction." Huh?

"Waldemar the Tenth was like a bright child. I said I could get us to the stars, and he believed

it. Ra Chen, those books you rescued from California saved our butts. We used the science fiction

as source material. We mocked up computer-generated landscapes and cities from other worlds, and

aliens too. He believed all of it. But Waldemar the Eleventh won't. Our real power is pitiable."

Ra Chen could have dismantled the Bureau of the Sky Domains if he'd known that a year ago. A time

machine could fix that! Svetz saw all that in Ka Chen's eyes, and saw him shrug it off. Ra Chen

said, "Beware of wishes granted, Willy."

"I know. A bright SecGen who really wants stars! I thought I could use the Institute to get him

that," Gorky said.

Miya Thorsven half whispered to Svetz, "Dominance games." "I've watched a lot of this," Svetz

said. "Director Gorky swallowed up Ra Chen's department. Would Ra Chen help him justify that?"

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