WHITE MARS by Roger Penrose, Brian Aldiss

The sophistry underlying the apparently simple laws of the physical universe, the exceptional qualities of many elementary particles, might lead one to suspect the universe of possessing a teleological character.
    She was continuing the explanation when I had to admit I could follow her no further.
    With a sympathetic smile, Kathi nodded her head and said, 'Who can?!'
    She became inquisitive about my beloved Other in Chengdu. Feeling sorry I had mentioned her, I was not very forthcoming. Later, I saw she was interested in the question of consciousness; the existence of my Other, so simple to me, seemed to raise complex questions in her mind.
    There seemed little for biochemists and xenobiologists to do once it was agreed that Mars held no life and that its early life forms - archebacteria and so forth - had perished many millions of years before mankind appeared on Earth.
    The heliopause, with its strange turbulences, was studied. While Mars was regarded as a completely dead world, indications of life on Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter already mentioned, were observed by new instruments.
    But I am getting ahead of our history again. Things were well enough for the Martian-terrestrial relationship, until the disaster occurred that changed the situation, entirely and for ever.

 
     
    5
     
     
    Corruption, Cash, and Crash
     
    You need to remember how complex and ill judged terrestrial affairs were up to this period.
    Among the harsh pleasures of Mars were many negative ones. I was particularly glad to escape the constant surveillance to which we had been subject. On Earth crime rates were such that every city, every road, every apartment house and condominium and almost every room in those buildings was watched day and night by the glass eyes of security cameras. The sellers of masks profited accordingly, and crime thrived. Oppression and blackmail prospered even more.
    The mansion of Thomas Gunther was well equipped with surveillance devices, including those of the latest type. The camgun for instance, would fire yards of adhesive at any visitor to the building whose characteristics were not held in its computer.
    Not all forms of crime yielded to inspection. Fraud and corruption could take place in broad daylight, with smiles to outface any camera. Smiles had been worn like masks in the upper echelons of the EUPACUS consortium.
    The collapse of the entire enterprise began with a seemingly small event in 2066. A senior clerk in the tall ivory-white tower in Seoul that was the main EUPACUS building was caught embezzling.
     
    The clerk was sacked. No charges were brought against him. He was found dead in his apartment two days later. Possibly it was suicide, possibly murder. But an electronic message was released, triggered by the stoppage of the clerk's electronic heart, to be received at the North American Supreme Court of Justice. It led the court to uncover a massive misappropriation of funds by EUPACUS directors. In comparison the clerk's misdemeanours were nugatory.
    A cabal of senior executives was involved. Five arrests were immediately made, although all managed mysteriously to escape custody and were not recaptured.
    Investigators visiting a vice-chairman's residence on Niihau Island, in the Hawaiian chain, were met by gunfire. A two-day battle ensued. In the bombed-out ruin of the palace were found disks incriminating directors of the consortium: tax evasion on a massive scale, bribing of lawyers, intimidation of staff and, in one instance, a case of murder. The affairs of EUPACUS were put on hold.
    EUPACUS offices were closed, sealed off for judicial investigation. All flights were halted, all ships grounded. Mars was effectively cut off. Suddenly the distance between the two planets seemed enormous.
    Our feelings were mixed. Along with alarm went a sort of pleasure that we had been severed from the contemptible affairs of Earth for a while.
    We did not understand at first how long that while was to be.