WHITE MARS Read Free Page A

believed there was a delegate from California who thought as they did.
    After all, he concluded, there were experiments that could be conducted only on that world.
    'What experiments do you mean?' Anstruther enquired.
    At this, Gunther hesitated. 'You will think me self-interested when I speak. That is not the case. I seize on my example because it comes readily to mind. Perhaps we might go out on a balcony, since there are those near us anxious to overhear what we say. Take a samosa with you. I assure you they are delicious.'
    'My secretary always accompanies me, Thomas.'
    'As you like.' He threw me a suspicious glance.
    The two men went out on the nearest balcony, and I followed them. The balcony overlooked beautiful Lake Louise, the pellucid waters of which seemed to lend colour to the sky.
    'No doubt you know what I mean by "the Omega Smudge"?' Gunther said. 'It's the elusive final ghost of a particle. When it's known - all's known! As I presume you are aware, I am the president of a bank that, together with the Korean Investment Corporation, financed a search for the Gamma Smudge on Luna, following the postulate of the Chin Lim Chung-Dreiser Hawkwood formulation.' He bit into his samosa and talked round a mouthful.
    'It was thought that the lunar vacuum would provide ideal conditions for research. Unfortunately, the fools were already busy up there, erecting their hotels and supermarkets and buggy parks and drilling for this and that. As you know, they have now almost finished construction on a subway designed to carry busybodies back and forth to their nasty little offices and eateries.
    'At great expense, we built our ring - our superconducting search ring. Useless!'
    'You did not find your smudge, I hear.'
    'It is not to be found on the Moon. The drilling and the subway vibration have driven it off. Certainly experts argue about whether that was so - but experts will argue about anything. It has still to be discovered.' Gunther went on to explain that the high-energy detection of the Beta Smudge nearly two decades ago had merely disclosed a further something, a mess of resonances - another smudge. Gunther's bank was prepared to fund a different sort of research, to pin down a hidden symmetry monopole.
    'And if you find it?' Anstruther asked, not concealing his scepticism.
    'Then the world is changed ... And I'll have changed it!' Gunther puffed out his chest and clenched his hands. 'Leo, the Americans and the Russians have tried to find this particle, and others, without success. It has an almost mystical importance. This elusive little gizmo so far remains little more than an hypothesis, but it is believed to be responsible for assigning mass to all other kinds of particle in the universe. Can you imagine its importance?'
    'We're talking about a destroyer of worlds?'
    Gunther gestured dismissively. 'In the wrong hands, yes, I suppose so. But in the right hands this elusive smudge will provide ultimate power, power to travel right across the galaxy at speeds exceeding the speed of light.'
    Anstruther snorted to show he regarded such talk as ridiculous.
    'Well, that's all hypothetical and I'm no expert,' said Gunther, defensively, and went on, laying emphasis on his words. 'I am not yet ruined and I wish for this quest to be continued. It can be continued only on Mars. I know I can raise the money. We can find the Omega Smudge there, and transcend Einstein's equations - if we fight today to keep Mars free of the terraformers.'
    Anstruther gave me a glance, as if to show that he was aware of Gunther's bluster. All he asked, coolly, was, 'What in practical terms do you have against terraforming?'
    'Our search needs silence - absence of vibration. Mars is the only silent place left in the habitable universe, my friend!'
    When the bell rang for the afternoon session, the delegates trooped back to their places in a more sober mood than previously. The delegate for Nicaragua gave voice to a general uncertainty.
    'We are