MUIR ON MARS
Dreamed 1994/5/14 by Wayan
I'm John Muir, reborn on Mars. But the Mars that Muir's generation knew--cold, thin-aired, dry, but a living world, not a tomb. Barsoom! I'm fighting to protect the fragile Martian forests--aspens and pines, like high mountain woods on Earth. I've joined Mars First. We've had some influence--split human immigrants between technocrats and ecologists. Curiously, the native Martians are also split--one group's traditional, deeply eco-religious, with a hierarchy somewhat like Catholicism. They're slowly accepting human Mars Firsters into their church. But a rival philosophy, thousands of years old too, is based on a sort of solipsist libertarianism. They think Earth technology means power; they want a Meiji wave of modernization. I find them cynical.
I'm in a spiritual crisis. In my life on Earth, when I was beaten, I just moved on to the next fight, as if there'll always be somewhere to move on to. But the soul of Mars wants me to stand, and fight to the death. Never give up any land, NEVER.
My friend Zooop is stricken ill. An ambulance is summoned. The doctor says she may have been poisoned! Zooop's an important figure--the first human to reach the rank of K'boomch in the Martian eco-church. A high regional office, a bit like a bishop. Even the pro-tech humans respect her. Who would do this? Maybe it was accidental.
I must go into the woods--a poor time for it, when my friend's ill. But I must confront the Martian solipsists. Long journey in the wilderness... along paths whose forks mean spiritual decisions that shape your life.
The solipsists are eager to talk to me! Funny, I thought they thought I don't exist. They want a feature of English explained: they don't get how one word changes pronunciation slightly and becomes a subtly different word, like "cloze" and "cloce". But at least the IDEA of closing a gate or switch, and of closing in, and the closed element then being close... these are familiar to them. But "uce" bewilders them. They understand the verb "uze" just fine. They're good at that, good at uzing. But "uce", or to be "of uce"... that, they just don't get. I try to explain the idea that objects outside one could have inherent values... for everyone, not just the ego. That a forest could be "of use": valued for its use to others and even to itself, not just BE USED. I don't think they agree, but they do hear me. At least I've confirmed it's not just a grammatical oddity of Earth tongues, but carries real meaning.
They are courteous, for them. They ask me, mocking yet serious (showing a rare curiosity about something low-tech) why I'm heading for an old estate near us, in the deep woods. Seldom visited. If it were Solipsist-owned, they'd uze the land, of course. I explain I plan to walk up its driveway at least--to renew the public right-of-way. I say "I'm maintaining this path by uzing it--walking on a path knocks back the undergrowth burying it. That is one uce of walking! But I'm also there to maintain my right of way. by uzing my right, I maintain it the uce for everyone; indeed, I myself am being of uce."
Return at last from the trip. Feel spiritually refreshed by wandering in the woods, but strangely tired and shaky. To find... an ambulance taking Zooop away again! The driver's a government official I know slightly, who waves casually and cheerfully; it can't be too bad. I ask her housemates, who say she'll recover fully--but it was poisoning. And we both ate or drank it! That's why I've been feeling off. But they knew I got less of it because I was able to hike, so they weren't even worried about me enough to track me down and warn me. "You'll feel fine in a couple of days."
Their casual attitude offends me--after all, someone's out to poison us! Things are getting nasty.
I visit Zooop in the hospital. She's worried because her investiture is next Tuesday, only five days away, and she doesn't want to miss it. That may have been the point of the attack.
One of her friends hands me a huge old ring with a dark ruby the size of my thumbnail, heavy with history--you can feel time crusted around it. "Who's this from?"
"Your Martian friends. Zooop is not the only human the Martians have accepted--this ring means you've been elected Gekko." A sort of Cardinal, one step from the top! I'm the first Terran to rise to such a position of trust.
But it made me a target, too. Whoever attacked me knew before I did!
A YEAR LATER
I read Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars. Anyone who's read it will see the parallels. If I'd reversed the sequence--read that book about radical eco-politics during the settlement of Mars, then dreamt this dream--no one would question that the dream was a reaction, or a review, of the book. But what is it when you dream it before you read the book?
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