Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [64]
'Now might be a good time to tel me.’
'Very well,' Greyhaven said,'Over twenty years ago, the crew of Mars Probe 13 encountered Xznaal's people, the native race of Mars. Alexander Christian and his crew infiltrated a subterranean city, and were caught spying in a scientific research facility. Christian was the only one to escape. As you know, I was Minister of Science at the time, with responsibility for both the Mars programme and Space Security, and so it fell to me to sort out a potential diplomatic disaster. Once the language barrier was overcome, the Martians demanded two things: Christian's extradition, and an assurance that we would stay away from their territory. The extradition proved a logistical problem - the Prison Service would have blown their budget for the next hundred and twenty years transferring Christian sixty million miles. Eventually Xznaal agreed that we could keep him imprisoned here, but that we mustn't ever release or debrief him. We have stuck to our agreement.'
Xznaal grunted his approval. 'If a Martian had been caught at Aldermasston or Ssel afield, would you have been sso lenient?'
'Almost certainly not,' Staines admitted quickly. 'And now the Martians are angry at us because the Mars 97 breaks the other side of the agreement? But Teddy, you were the driving force behind Mars 97.'
Greyhaven and Xznaal shared a laugh.
'My dear chap, why do you think that we haven't been to Mars for over twenty years?'
'Lack of funding? The money could always be spent better elsewhere.'
61
'Nonsense. Think about the prestige of being the first country to put a man on Mars. Think about al the mineral wealth in the asteroid belts, think about the possibilities of a military base on the Moon, or a steel works in zero-gravity. There are energy sources and minerals in this solar system that would provide the solution to al mankind's problems; the population boom wouldn't be a problem if we could move people to Mars or Venus. Would a few billion pounds really be better spent on social security for a couple of million layabouts on one small island?'
'Mars is uninhabitable, Teddy. It doesn't have an atmosphere, it's highly radioactive.'
Greyhaven laughed. 'If Mars is uninhabitable, Home Secretary, what, precisely, do you think that is?'
'Things might live there,' Staines blurted,'but not humans.'
'Congratulations, David, that is precisely what I want people to believe. Before the mid-seventies, most scientists thought that Mars might be capable of supporting life. The Mariner probes didn't rule it out. Why do you think Britain wanted to go to Mars back in the seventies? Because it was the only planet in the solar system, other than Earth, that might be fit for colonisation. Now, I agreed with Xznaal that no Earthman would land on Mars, and it wasn't too difficult to wind down the British Mars Programme - the death of Alexander Christian's crew made it a great deal easier. But the last thing I wanted was some American or Russian mission there. I may have some clout in this country, Teddy, but I have very little influence on NASA policy. So the British Space Centre reported back that Mars was uninhabitable, we released reams and reams of scientific "evidence" proving that Mars wouldn't support a human colony, that there was far too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Almost straight away, without question, the international scientific community accepted our version of events. Only the Americans weren't sure - until one of MI6's double-O agents went to Cape Canaveral and substituted the real data collected by Viking with our fake. Their plans for Mars missions have been more half-hearted since then, much easier to sabotage. The best they've come up with in twenty years is a fossil that might be from Mars. Even if it is, do you know what they thought the fossil was? The waste products