Sitting there vexed, I tried to understand what she was saying. The gravitational link puzzled me. On inspiration, I decided to Ambient Jon Thorgeson in the science unit.
An unfamiliar face came up in the globe. ‘Hi! I’m Jimmy Gonzales Dust, Jon’s buddy. We’re training for the marathon and he’s busy on the running machine. Can I help? He’s spoken to me about you. He thinks you’re cute.’
‘Oh … Does he? Do you know anything about the -what do you call it? The gravitational … no … The magneto-gravitic anomaly? Have you any information about it?’
He looked hard at me. ‘We call it the M-gravitic anomaly.’ He asked me why I was worrying. I said I didn’t really know. I was trying to learn some science.
Jimmy hesitated. ‘Keep this to yourself if I give you a shot from the upsat. There’s been a slight shift in the anomaly.’
The photograph he released came through the slot.
I stared at it. It was an aerial view of the Tharsis Shield from 60 miles up. The outline of Olympus Mons – or Chimborazo, to use Kathi’s name – could clearly be seen. Across the shot someone had scrawled with marker pen G-WSW + 0.130.
Why and how, I asked myself, should the anomaly have shifted? Why in that direction – in effect towards Arizonis Planitia and our position?
As I stared at the photo, I noticed furrowed regolith to the east of the skirts of Olympus. Kathi had pointed this furrowing out to me earlier. Now it seemed the furrowing was rather more extensive. I could not understand what it meant. In the end, I returned to my studies, not very pleased with myself. Cute? Me?!
The domes had become a great hive of talk. There were silent sessions by way of compensation. Sports periods were relatively quiet. Other colloquia concentrated on silence, and were conducted by the wooden tongue of a pair of clappers. Silence, meditation, walking in circles, sitting, all reinforced at once a sense of communality and individuality. Those who concentrated on these buddhistic exercises reported lowered cholesterol levels and a greater intensity of life.
Much later, these colloquia became the basis of Amazonis University.
Fornication evenings were a popular success. Masked partners met each other for karezza and oral arts under skilled tutors. Lying together without movement, they practiced inhalation, visual saturation and maryanning. Breath control as a technique for increasing pleasure was emphasised.
Breath control formed the entire subject of another colloquium. In a low-lit studio, practitioners sat in the lotus position and controlled ingoing and outgoing breaths while concentrating on the hara. Mounting concentrations of carbon dioxide in the blood led to periods of timeless ‘awayness’ which, when achieved, were always regarded as of momentous value, leading to a fuller understanding of self.
This opening up of consciousness without the use of harmful drugs became highly regarded in our society, so that the breathing colloquium had to be supplemented by classes in pranayama. At first, pranayama was seen as exotic and ‘non-Western’, but, with the growing awareness that we were in fact no longer Western, pranayama became regarded as a Martian discipline.
Whether or not this concentration on the breath, entering by the nose, leaving by the mouth, was to be accounted for by our awareness that every molecule of oxygen had to be engineered, this discipline, in which over 55 per cent of our adults soon persevered, exerted a considerable calming effect, so that to the remoter regions of the mind the prospect of a tranquil and happy life no longer seemed unfamiliar.
‘A better life needs no distraction…’
In all the colloquia, which rapidly established themselves, the relationship between teacher and taught was less sharp than usual. No one had a professional reputation to uphold; it was not unknown for a teacher to exclaim to a bright pupil, ‘Look, you know more about this than I -please take my place, I’ll take yours.’
Old hierarchies were dissolving: even as Tom had predicted, the human mind was becoming free.
At all this great activity I looked in amazement. To repair the damage done to my body I studied pranayama, becoming more aware of Eastern influence in our society. I wondered if this was really the case, or did I, with my Eastern inheritance, merely wish it to be so?