When I asked which plants he recommended, Poulsen said that it was necessary to maintain a clean atmospheric environment. Ozone emissions from electronic systems mixed with the chemicals humans gave off to form what he called ‘sass’ – sick air soups. Mary Fangold’s hospital was handling too many cases of sore throats and irritated eyes for comfort. Selected plants were the things to swallow up the harmful sass.
‘What can we do to ease the problem?’ I asked.
Poulsen replied that he was getting suitable plants into the domes. A consciousness-raising exercise would be the rechristening of streets and alleys with plant names. K.S. Robinson Avenue could become Poinsettia, and K. Tsiolkovski Place Philodendron.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Who could pronounce Philodendron?’
We both chuckled.
Using my Ambient, I spoke to the YEA from Hobart, Kathi Skadmorr. Her manner was defensive. She looked straight at me and said, ‘I happened to be viewing Professor Hawkwood’s Living Without Knowing It.’
‘I’m sorry to have interrupted you. What do you make of his theory of the coming of consciousness?’
Without replying to my question, she said, ‘I love learning – particularly hard unquestionable science. Only it is difficult to know what is actually unquestionable. I have so much to take in.’
‘There are good technical vids about Mars. I can give you references.’
‘So where is the dateline on Mars? Has that been established?’
‘We have yet to place it. The question is not important yet.’
‘It will be, though. If God wills it.’
I gave a laugh. ‘God hasn’t got much to do with it.’
I thought I detected contempt in her voice when she replied, ‘I was speaking loosely. I suppose I meant some higher consciousness, which might well seem like a god to us, mightn’t it?’
‘Okay, but what higher consciousness? Where? We have no proof of any such thing.’
‘Proof!’ she echoed contemptuously. ‘Of course you can’t feel it if you close your mind to it. We’re awash here with electromagnetic radiation, but you don’t sense it. We’re also awash with each other’s CPS signals, isn’t that so? Maybe consciousness, a greater consciousness – supposing that here on Mars – oh, forget it. Why are you logging me?’
The question somehow embarrassed me. I said, ‘I was interested in the way you spoke up in our debates. I wondered if I could help in anyway?’
‘I know you have been of great help to Cang Hai. But thanks, Dr. Jefferies, I must help myself, and stop myself being so ignorant.’
Before she switched off, a ghost of a sweet smile appeared on her face.
A mystery woman, I said to myself, feeling vexed. Mysterious and spikey.
At one time, a woman called Elsa Lamont, a slip of a person with dyed-blonde hair cut short, came to my office, accompanied by a sullen-looking man I recognised as Dick Harrison. I had marked him out as a possible trouble-maker, although on this occasion he was civil enough.
Lamont came to the point immediately. She said that my talk of terrestrial discomforts had ignored consumerism. It was well known that consumerism was responsible for much greed and injustice. She had worked for a big advertising agency with world-wide affiliations, and had been responsible for a successful campaign to sell the public Sunlite Roofs, at one time very fashionable, though scarcely necessary.
She explained that their TV commercials had been aimed at everyone, although only 20 per cent of viewers could afford such a distinctive luxury item. However the remaining 80 per cent, knowing they could never afford such a roof, respected and envied the 20 per cent, while the 20 per cent understood this very well and felt their status increased by the clever commercial.
Behind Lamont lay a period of art training. She woke one morning realising she disliked the nature of her advertising job, which was to make people feel greedy or ashamed, so she left the agency and worked to become a YEA and visit an ad-free world. Now she asked, would not people on Mars miss commercials, which had become almost an art form?
We talked this over. She argued that we needed commercials to dramatise the concept of unity. She had been trained as an orthogonist at art school, and using orthogonal projection she could create figures on the walkways that would appear to be erect – amusing figures, dancing, walking, holding hands.