Read Rainbow Mars for Free Online

“You’ve got your aliens.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œBoss, do you see that?”
    A floating flat something moved into view, distant enough to look tiny until Gorky zoomed. Then … an open flying vehicle with eight crew, possibly man-shaped, moving around the upper deck. “Pressure suits,” Gorky said. “No wonder at this altitude, but what holds it up? Lighter-than-air craft don’t fly without air.”
    They watched it glide over the crater rim.
    â€œI wonder if they saw the Tanker come down.”
    Ra Chen asked, “We want to talk to them anyway, don’t we?”
    â€œBring a few home. Ambassadors to the United Nations!”
    â€œKidnap?”
    â€œWe know what happened to Mars. Anyone we can bring out is rescued! Can you rebuild a Vivarium cage to house Martians?”
    â€œFutz, yes. Just fiddle with the programs. It’s already set to make breathable atmosphere for pre-Industrial plants and animals.”
    â€œ Ex cellent. What’s the opposite of genocide?”
    Ra Chen laughed. “Nobody’s ever needed one.”
    â€œRa Chen, I’m wondering what we’d find if I sent a team to Mons Olympus in present time.”
    â€œIs it an active volcano? That could wipe out any traces … Willy, don’t do it. Knowing what’s there today would restrict our options in the past. What else have we got?”
    *   *   *
    Pilgrim One gave them a breathless run across ochre deserts at high speed. A glimpse of something in flight. More desert.
    Pilgrim Two: ochre sand, a claustrophobic run through a sandstorm, then more sand and a line of gray-green. Miya’s breath caught. Ra Chen slowed the view to real time.
    Alien greenery, so flat that the low-built Pilgrim could look straight across six klicks’ width of dry-looking vines. A row of small triangular heads peeped out of the web of dusty-green fiber to watch the Pilgrim pass. Infrared showed the heads as red dots: warm-blooded.
    The plants showed spectra of chlorophyll and water. If there was free-running water, it must run beneath the plants.
    â€œMars has … had gigatons of water. Where did it all go?” Miya wondered.
    Gorky said, “The Orbiter only found a few small seas. Most of the water must be already in the canals.”
    One of the animals pulled free and charged the Pilgrim. Body like a ten-legged weasel, face like nightmare, all teeth and hunger.
    â€œI’ll call,” Willy Gorky said. To leave the viewing room must have been like pulling his own teeth, and he surely heard Ra Chen’s chuckle, but he hurried. Nobody else could be allowed to break this news to the Secretary-General!
    And the rest settled back to watch the show.
    Pilgrim Two ran fast-forward alongside the canal with ten-legged weasels biting at it, then turned suddenly. Ra Chen slowed again to examine a slender arc of freestanding bridge, ornately carved. Pilgrim Two crossed, watched impassively by an inhumanly tall and slender woman in a golden mask, and rolled on into red desert.
    Ra Chen began flashing from one Pilgrim to another. He was trying to pull too much data too fast:
    Pilgrim Three rolled into thick ice at the south pole, and froze up.
    Pilgrim Four was approaching dwellings when creatures on riding beasts attacked and disabled it with swords. Ra Chen froze the frame on dwellings like clusters of crystal pillars, elegant and fragile and ancient. Then on the attackers. Weapons in three hands out of four; bipedal; green skin; faces like overgrown insects.
    â€œTwo species! Unbelievable. We’ll have to…” Ra Chen trailed off. No telling what might be needed at this point, or what he would have for resources.
    Pilgrim Seven was crossing a web of valleys. Running the record at high speed made everyone seasick; Ra Chen had to stop. Up, down, up, down. “Valles Marineris,” Miya said. “It was bad enough when it wasn’t choked