So how did it feed?
‘Its exteroceptors suck nourishment and moisture from the rocks.
‘As you have heard from Kathi here, Chimborazo is executing a slow horizontal movement. It advances at the rate of a few metres every Martian year.’
At the exclamations from his audience, Dreiser looked gravely ahead of him. He spoke next with emphasis.
‘This advance began only when these domes and the science unit were established. Chimborazo is probably attracted by a heat source.’
‘You mean it’s advancing on us?’ cried a nervous voice from the floor.
‘Although its forward movement is much faster than its growth rate, it is still no speedster by terrestrial standards. A snail runs like a cheetah by comparison. We’re all quite safe. It will take nearly a million years to drag itself here at present rate of progress.’
‘I’m packing my bags now,’ came a voice from the floor amid general laughter.
Vouchsafing the remark a wintery smile, Dreiser continued, ‘We monitored the horizontal movement first. You may imagine our incredulity. We did not immediately realise we were dealing with a living thing – undoubtedly the biggest living thing within the solar system.
‘We did not connect it at first with those white exteroceptors, which flick so quickly out of sight. They are the creature’s sensors, and of complex function. Not eyes exactly. But they appear to be sensitive to electromagnetic signals of various wavelengths. The multitude of them together is probably used to build up a picture of sorts. They retract at any unexpected signal, which caused us problems in getting a clear picture of them to start with.’
A subdued voice asked a question from the audience. Dreiser needed it repeated: ‘I can’t believe what you’re telling us. How can that enormous thing possibly be alive?’
Kathi answered sharply. ‘You must improve your perceptions. If it can think, Chimborazo is probably asking itself how a small feeble bipedal thing like you could possibly be alive – not to mention intelligent.’
The questioner sank back in her chair.
‘You can perhaps imagine our shock when we discovered that Chimborazo was advancing towards our research unit. Nothing can stop its approach,’ Kathi said. ‘Unless we make some sort of conscious appeal to it…’
I asked if Dreiser thought that Olympus had a mind anything like ours.
‘The balance of opinion is that it has a mind radically different from ours. So Kathi has half persuaded us. A mind compounded of a multitude of little minds. Thought may be greatly slowed down by comparison with our time-scales.
‘Yes, I have to say it may well have awareness, intelligence. We have detected a fluttery CPS – the clear physical signal that is the signature of mind. It may tick over slowly by our standards, but speed of thought isn’t everything.’
‘Now you’re being anthropomorphic!’ said a voice from the floor.
‘It is one of the functions of intelligence to respond discriminatingly to the events that come within its scope. Which is what Olympus seems to be doing. Its response to mankind’s arrival here is to move towards us. Whether this can be construed as hostile or friendly, or merely as a reaction to a heat source, we have yet to decide. It has decided!’
He paused for thought. ‘It may well have consciousness. Consciousness is not necessarily the gift solely of earthly beings such as ourselves.
‘In our discussions here, I have noticed the frequency with which ancient authorities are appealed to, from Aristotle and Plato onwards – to Count Basie, I may say. This is because our consciousness has a collective element. “No voice is ever lost,” if I may take my turn at quoting. Our consciousness has been enriched by the minds of those good men who lived in the past. Perhaps you may regard this as a mental evolutionary principle of cooperation in action.
‘Consciousness is unlike any other phenomenon, compounded of many elements and apparent contradictions along the quantum-mechanical level. In the close quarters engendered by its shell, the huddled creatures of Olympus would probably have developed a form of consciousness.
‘I will also venture the suggestion that here in our cramped quarters we could be developing a new step forward in human consciousness, represented by the word “utopian”. A thinking alike for the common good…