"William K. Hartmann - Mars Underground" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hartmann William K)

For years, Stafford and his cronies had hoped that they would find rich bioorganic pockets and
advanced fossil forms, sealed deep in protected strata since the beginning of time, proof of their
catechism, of carbon chemistry's quirky ability to adapt. They had wanted an icon, more than a rational
test of a chemical theory, something they could hold in front of the cameras and proclaim, "See,it can
happen anywhere in the universe. We're not alone. Copernicus and Darwin were right: we're not special."

No luck.

But he'd had his day. Dr. Alwyn StaffordтАФthe father of a tantalizing but disappointing new consensus:
ancient wet Mars had produced no more than a few stunted microbial forms, starting three, maybe three
and a half billion years ago. The earliest examples seemed to be found in the ancient southern highlands.
Eventually, with the atmosphere thinning, all lifeforms in the surface layers had died and were buried. On
the third day they had not risen from the dead, and for the rest of Martian time the arid surface soils had
been sterile, while the primordial atmosphere dissipated, albeit with spasms that had left now dry
riverbeds. Some of the microbes apparently hung on in buried strata, but there was little evolution
because they were in static, frozen environments. And across the entire planet, the surface soil was
sterile, thanks to the planet's unkind lack of an ozone layer. Seasonal dust storms churned the soil every
year and exposed dust grains to the sun's ultraviolet light, sterilizing and re-sterilizing them, breaking up
any group of carbon atoms that might have an idea of getting together for a fling...

That was Martian history in a nutshell, and a desiccated nutshell at that. The new dogma, which he
himself had establishedтАФStafford, biologist of the dead world as they had called him. How many hours
had he spent in a spacesuit under the deceptively bright Martian sky to convince the world of that
uninspiring bottom line?

Stafford regretted none of those days. His teams had dug and they had drilled. They had penetrated the
permafrost. There had been that layer, deep in the south polar strata near the three-billion-year level, with
its enhancement of organic molecules and microbial forms. They had labeled it just another local anomaly.
Still, there had always been that next drill hole, that next spot that might be different.

Finally, Stafford's colleagues, who sat in their comfortable labs on Earth and served on review
committees, had had enough. They declared him a member of several academies, and virtually shut down
the BioExploration labs in Mars City. At the same time, they raised the budgets for the atmospheric
experiments, whichтАФaccording to the hypeтАФwere supposed to test some new theories on relieving
Earth's smog. Stafford had retired in a sort of muted glory. Nice work, old chap. Send us your memoirs.

Stafford's career had left a mystery, really. Why hadn't Martian life gone further? Why hadn't it
demonstrated some adaptation to Mars' increasingly arctic climate? Was life less resilient than they had
thought? Was biology, after all, rarer in the universe than scientists had come to believe? Stafford was
beginning to think he might see some answers to those questions, over the horizon. But for now he had to
concentrate on matters at hand.

Always the next Cibola, the next El Dorado.

Stafford had never been discouraged. He had seen more of Mars than anyone. He had seen strange
sunsets in the land of the Thoats, far beyond the wildest dreams of Percival Lowell and Edgar Rice
Burroughs and Ray Bradbury. The new kids coming to Mars from consumerlandтАФthey had never read
the Martian classics. Mars for them was just the latest hi-tech testbed, an exotic gig to put on your
resume, in the desperate gamble to establish yourself among the haves, when you returned to Earth.