CHAPTER TWENTY

MARS AIN’T JUST A STATE OF MIND

Mars does things to your mind. It forces reality and it’s real tough, that is what it really is. Real nasty too. It takes a real long time to get out there from Earth. The trip out takes almost an entire year. A long solid time of loneliness and solitude and thinking. All kinds of thinking. There is also the very real danger of death alone out in space. That means there is a lot of time for reflection, thought, planning—for reevaluation of your life up to that point. It’s a very natural human reaction to the time and stress factors involved.

Mars was a new beginning for most. People who left Old Earth left all the old problems behind. It was a new world. And if they were smart, they left a lot of the crap learned on Old Earth behind them too when they came to Mars.

Mars changed people.

Most people.

It had changed James Ryan for sure.

Now Ryan hoped it had changed Arabella Rashid.

It was in one of his dreams.

The fact that she had told him her true identity was a start. The fact that open warfare had not broken out between them, quite astonishing actually, was another check on the positive side of the ledger to his way of thinking. Sure, they were in love with each other. They must be. That had to be it.

But so what?

Love was not everything. To some people love meant nothing.

When you were the type of people Arabella Rashid and James Ryan were, too often love was just another useful weapon in the arsenal of warfare to be used against your enemy. Sometimes even being your most effective weapon.

Or so it had always been down on Earth.

* * * *

The vehicle approached the crater now. The place was unmarked, not on any of the charts. It was in a desolate area, but there was a road of sorts that lead into it. Most strange, Arabella thought, and she asked Ryan about it.

“You ain’t seen the half of it,” he replied with a smile and she was sure of that.

“Are we there yet?” she asked, as if an eager child on a family trip.

“Yes, just about. It won’t be long now. A short walk outside, we have to get to the turbo, go down, then de-suit. Then I’ll show you something that Earth has not seen the likes of for over a hundred years.”

She said, “I can’t wait, Ryan.”

“There’s just one thing you have to promise me, Arabella,” he said, using her real name for the first time. He decided he liked the sound of it, and she decided she liked the way her name sounded when spoken by his voice.

She said, “What’s that, James?”

“This is a secret. So you have to promise me not to tell anyone. All right?” he asked, not smiling now, stone-faced, calm but unreadable to her. He was dead serious.

She just watched him in amazement.

“It’s like the honor system,” he added. “Do you promise?”

She said, “Yes, James, I promise.”

“No matter what it is?” he asked incredulously, wondering already if she was lying to him. She probably was, after all. Was this the big betrayal he’d expected, what he’d been waiting for? Or was she being true? Had she changed? Mars could do that. Mars could perform miracles on the human soul and spirit. He knew that was true.

“Yes, James, I promise. No matter what it is.”

He smiled at her. He did not move his hand toward his gun. He knew he could never take up a weapon against her now.

Arabella smiled back, but she knew he was armed now. So was she. She relaxed a moment. She knew now he would never take action against her. She did not want to think about what she would have done were she in his place. At least what she would have done if she were back on Earth. But Ryan was correct. On Mars things were different. She forgot about her own weapon, and instead concentrated on the man walking next to her. Dreaming wonderful dreams with him as he spoke to her.

Ryan said, “Come on. We go in through here. Then down six levels. The place is all hollowed out. It was said to have been the home of some pre-human aliens. They’re long dead and gone now. Early astronauts did some archaeology long ago but DOC closed it down once they took over on Earth. Then it was to have been a secret missile base. In fact, that is just what the DOC and the Earth Authority think that it was originally. A secret missile base built by aliens, later to be used as a secret missile base by The DOC. But we’ve put it to better use.”

Arabella Rashid was impressed. She’d struck the mother lode all right. The inner-secret of Mars and the rebel Resistance. And Revolution. It was here and thriving all right. She realized now, “revolution” was exactly the correct and proper word for it. Subversion and revolution. Just the thing The DOC hated and strove so hard to crush. They would crush it in every way, shape, manner and form in which it appeared. Wherever it reared its ugly head.

On Earth! Crush it!

And now, here on Mars as well.... Crush it!

She sighed sadly, it was all so inevitable.

“Are you all right?” Ryan asked her.

“Yes,” she looked back, wondering why he was showing this all to her, knowing who an what she was.

“Then come on, it’s right over here,” he said, leading her toward the opening.

The building was enormous, a huge underground cavern, reinforced against all manner of attack, hermetically sealed and with fully functioning cyber security, ventilation, and climate control.

This had to be it! The secret base of the rebels!

They de-suited in an outside chamber before they entered the main hall and then Arabella Rashid had her breath taken away by what she saw.

“It’s our secret. This is it.”

“What is it?” she gasped.

“The secret Library of Mars,” Ryan said, proudly. “I’m the, ah...Chief Librarian.”

The hall was enormous and it was flanked by row upon row of shelves, all packed tightly with every kind of book. Mostly all paperbacks. It was incredible. She realized almost breathless, it was even quite lovely. Beautiful and wonderful.

Arabella Rashid looked at Ryan incredulously. “Chief Librarian? And to think, I thought you were just the leader of some...Revolution?”

Ryan blushed, “Actually not a Revolution, a Resistance. There is a big difference. We are resisters. We resist Earth’s ways, ideas and interference. We’re resisters.”

“And some day revolutionaries,” she said confidently, “and eventually... enemies....”

Ryan took a deep thoughtful breath and replied, “Perhaps. Some day.”

She shook her head like it was all so crazy.

And Ryan knew that it was, but he wouldn’t let that stop him.

“Come on, let’s go inside and I’ll show you around. I’m sure even Arabella Rashid of the DOC has never seen anything quite like this before.”

* * * *

Once inside, Ryan proudly explained to her, “The thing is, the books here are in a hermetically sealed, and preservation-secure environment. Here they can be protected for centuries. They were each plastisealed back on Earth before being sent out here. In fact, the books, I just got and all others were also plastisealed for a hundred years before being shipped to me. That is how they were able to stay in such good condition after so many years. They came from secret private collections. These books are the real treasure of Mars. This is the treasure Earth decided was too dangerous to keep on Earth. And yet, they are too important to destroy totally. Knowledge is treasure after all, but the greater treasure here is truth that comes from human stories.”

Arabella Rashid nodded, amazed at all the books shelved so neatly. It seemed there were miles and miles of books everywhere she looked.

Ryan continued, “Of course almost all the books here are non-fiction. History, politics, biographies, philosophy, so much more. Those are the most important books we need, the crucial ones, books with information, all published LastCen. Even before the Authority came to power. Before the DOC took control of everything. Real books in original hard copy, undoctored, unabridged, uncensored, and not subject to any PC monitoring whatsoever. There is no reevaluation, no reinterpretation, no revision of any of the text. What was written was printed, just as it was written. What was printed, has not been changed in any way. Not at all like what’s in the digital record, which is changed, updated and rewritten every day to conform with current fad, fashion, political policy, agenda, and propaganda.

Arabella Rashid let her eyes rove over the seemingly endless rows of high shelves. It was awesome. She’d never seen anything like it. Never had she imagined something like this could even exist....

Ryan continued, “The books here are the information storage devices of human truth in print, at least the truth as it was originally written by the original authors, without any changes to their words. The hard copy form is unchangeable without tell-tale signs of that change. They’re from the unpolluted old days, before brain programming, from days when such things were unethical and unlawful. It was a time when the control we take for granted today was in its infancy. A time when disinformation, reevaluated facts, and revised conclusions were not PC. In those olden days it was believed to be wrong, unethical, certainly immoral to even think of doing such things. It was book blasphemy.”

Arabella Rashid listened to his words but she thought her own thoughts and he could not tell what they were. What they might be or mean for him and Mars.

Ryan continued, “That was the old days, when for the most part, results were based on facts and evidence. Not when facts and evidence were used to ensure pre-ordained results. Today our sources of information are constantly changed, doctored, corrected, revised by the government on Earth—or by the DOC!”

She nodded, she knew all about that. It was all true. Ryan had even left out a lot of the more horrendous ways the government and The DOC controlled the masses. Mind-altering drugs in the food and water supply, hidden messages in disks and manipulated software, subcutaneous implants that most people did not even know they had imbedded within their body. VRB-Virtual Reality Brainwashing. Nanotech monitors capable of triggering subject death once that subject thought the wrong thought! Of course The DOC controlled all forms of all media, and in doing so controlled all forms of thought on Earth.

But not here on Mars!

Ryan added, “There are no disks here, no brain implants, or mind-computer links. Nothing that could be doctored or changed. Here we only have the original hard copies, only books. It is just pages, paper, covers, words printed on paper. A book you can hold in your hands. Real. Full of facts. They may not always be correct, but at least they’re a galaxy away from the lies and distortions of your controlled media, links, implants, and everydamnthing!”

“Calm down, Ryan!”

“I’m calm,” he said tersely.

“You’re not like any librarian I’ve ever heard of. Even in the DOC. They’re usually kind of....”

“I know. Meek. Mild-mannered.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Like, what the hell happened to you?”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

She just laughed, “Don’t be sorry, baby.”

“Come on, then, there’s more to see in the Fiction Section.”

“How the hell did you get all these books out here?”

Ryan shrugged, “A few at a time. I have a contact who buys them up by the ton on Earth. No one seems to care much about them anymore. He gets them usually in more backward third-world districts and sectors where people have been using them for fuel for the last few decades.”

“Fuel, you mean they burn them?” she said, shocked.

“Yeah. They need to keep warm, so they burn them. They can’t read. They don’t know or care about books. They don’t understand what they really are. Some people are scared of them. And the Sector and district governments, the DOC, all encourage them to burn them.”

She looked at him, “It’s all right, I know all about it.”

“...The DOC, the leaders, keep everyone uneducated and illiterate except the elite. Most Citizens on Earth can’t even read anymore. Oh, they recognize a few words and symbols here and there, but they can’t actually read a complete book. They’re even scared of them now. They think books are dangerous. It is an idea given to them by The DOC. People are terrified of the ideas in books that they don’t understand. But that fear doesn’t stop them from putting any kind of government-approved software into the slot in their head. Or taking the latest fad-drug. They’ll do that and love it as they get themselves more deeply programmed and controlled than the reading of any mere words on paper could ever do, and they don’t even know it. But they’re scared of books. Imagine that? You have no idea how it was out here twenty years ago. The literacy program, I had to begin from scratch....”

“Did it work, James?”

“Too well. Now I’ve got a damn planet full of know-it-all scholars and cynical literary critics, avant-garde political theorists and cranky social engineers who argue bibliographic theory. Damn annoying—and damnit—it’s just great!”

She smiled.

“So many books!” she said in awe.

“Yeah, it is a lot. Over a million. We smuggled them out here shipload by shipload. Crates that say ‘vids’ and the latest ‘brain-implants’. What crap! Instead the boxes were full of old paperbacks from LastCen. Paperbacks were sent because they are much lighter to transport than heavier hard covers and much more common. We took all the great old stuff, all genres, and all the non-fiction and fact books we could find. The entire knowledge of our species. The history of our race, Arabella—the human race! It’s all here, at your fingertips just for the asking to be looked at.”

“How do you access it all?”

“Computers. Yeah, we’re not Luddites here on Mars. But we use the computer as a tool, it is a productive servant like it was intended to be and like it was used LastCen. It’s not the master on Mars, like it is on Earth now. It has its limited uses as a file system, a roadmap to where any book on any topic by any author could be found anywhere in here. Title, author, subject, and more, all indexed and cross-referenced a hundred ways.”

She said, “It’s all pretty impressive, James. You’re right, there is nothing at all like this on Earth.”

“Not anymore,” Ryan said, remembering. “Once there had been thousands of such libraries worldwide in a hundred different languages.”

Arabella Rashid looked at Ryan carefully.

Ryan looked back at her and thought, how sad she looked. She looked so very sad. She knows. He thought: She’s going to do it. She’s going to sell me out. I’ve failed.

Suddenly Ryan felt very tired. The gun in his pocket weighing heavier and heavier in a physical sense, but also in a mental and emotional sense. Meanwhile the seconds passed into minutes quietly. Slowly. Both of them savoring the time. Savoring being with each other. And thinking. What would they do next?

They stayed there the rest of the day and slept over that night. The library had accommodations for visiting scholars and researchers. A large and fully automated cafeteria, stocked with the latest in pre-processed and hi-tech manufactured foodstuff. It even tasted like the real thing if you weren’t too particular. Scholars on a research bender weren’t that particular about food anyway, they just wanted it to be hot and substantial enough to keep them going. They usually had better, bigger things on their minds than food.

Ryan understood; still and all, he enjoyed his meal with Arabella Rashid.

After they’d eaten, they went to bed and made love all night, then slept in exhausted slumber. They slept late to wake next day and shower in the mid-morning.

Ryan figured he’d done what he came out here to do, shown her what he wanted to show her. She’d seen what she had come to see. The Secret Library of Mars.

Big deal!

It would probably all be blown up with tactical nukes soon enough, if Ryan knew the DOC like he knew he did. But he’d done what he’d set out to do. He proved to her that he trusted her. He had foolishly opened himself up to betrayal.

For her.

Now it was all up to her.

“We might as well get an early start back to the port,” he said softly.

Arabella surprised him when she said, “James, we don’t really have to go back right now, do we?”

“I guess not. What do you want to do then?”

She looked back at him almost as if he were a simpleton, “I’ve done a lot of thinking. I don’t want to leave here. I want to stay. And...look around with you. Can we do that? Look around? Together? Read some of the books? Maybe read some of them to each other?”

Ryan was astonished but very pleased, she seemed genuinely interested. He’d expected secret shock troops from some hidden DOC battleship orbiting the planet to burst in and arrest him any minute. Or perhaps some kind of action taken against him by Arabella herself. Like a bullet in the head. She was certainly capable of such action.

“What do you want to do? Really?”

“Look up some of the books in the file. There are some things I’d like to read about. Some truths I want to discover. Or rediscover. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“You want to stay here for a few more hours, I guess. “

“Well, yeah, but actually I was thinking, why don’t we make a day of it. I wouldn’t even mind a day after that, or even a week out here. But only if you want, baby.”

Ryan nodded. She had called him ‘baby’ again. He smiled. He liked that. No woman had ever called him that before. He said, “Sure. What’s another day or two, or three....”

Arabella Rashid said, “A day or two, or maybe three, James. It’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, Arabella, it’s no big deal now.”

“Thanks, James.”

He put the doom that was hanging over them out of his mind for the moment. They had two-three days—and they’d make the most of it damnit!

He smiled, “Come on, then, I’ll show you how the files are configured. I set it all up myself years ago. You’ll be able to find anything you want and the servo-robots will bring you the correct book every time. They’ll bring the book right to your desk, room, or even to your bed if you like. Or you can go hunt for it on the shelves yourself. Sometimes that’s even more fun, but I warn you, it’s easy to get sidetracked.”

Arabella said, “That’s real service, Ryan. Come on. Let’s take another look around first.”

He thought he had to be dreaming it all. She was back downstairs now, looking up essays on “Noir” and the originators of hard-boiled crime fiction, of all things.

* * * *

He’d just showered, shaved, and was getting dressed. He took the gun and deposited it in the waste chute. Goodbye, weapon. He had to take his chance. He’d taken that chance. It looked like he had won. It looked like Mars might win too. A lot of things looked good to him at the moment. But that’s the way things always look, just before things turn bad. He wondered about that. Mars ain’t no state of mind, it’s a real place and ugly reality has a nasty habit of reasserting itself at the oddest moments.