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Back Blue Mars Save as PDF
Chapters (93)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Contents
  4. Map
  5. The Martain Calendar
  6. Part 1: Peacock Mountain
  7. Prologue
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. Part 2: Areophany
  11. Prologue
  12. 1
  13. 2
  14. 3
  15. 4
  16. Part 3: A New Constitution
  17. Prologue
  18. 1
  19. 2
  20. 3
  21. 4
  22. 5
  23. 6
  24. 7
  25. Part 4: Green Earth
  26. Prologue
  27. 1
  28. 2
  29. 3
  30. Part 5: Home at Last
  31. Prologue
  32. 1
  33. 2
  34. 3
  35. Part 6: Ann in the Outback
  36. Prologue
  37. 1
  38. 2
  39. 3
  40. Part 7: Making Things Work
  41. Prologue
  42. 1
  43. 2
  44. 3
  45. 4
  46. 5
  47. 6
  48. Part 8: The Green and the White
  49. Prologue
  50. 1
  51. 2
  52. 3
  53. 4
  54. Part 9: Natural History
  55. Prologue
  56. 1
  57. 2
  58. Part 10: Werteswandel
  59. Prologue
  60. 1
  61. 2
  62. 3
  63. Part 11: Viriditas
  64. Prologue
  65. 1
  66. 2
  67. 3
  68. 4
  69. 5
  70. 6
  71. Part 12: It Goes So Fast
  72. Prologue
  73. 1
  74. 2
  75. 3
  76. 4
  77. 5
  78. Part 13: Experimental Procedures
  79. Prologue
  80. 1
  81. 2
  82. 3
  83. 4
  84. 5
  85. 6
  86. 7
  87. Part 14: Phoenix Lake
  88. Prologue
  89. 1
  90. Acknowledgments
  91. About the Author
  92. Bantam Books by Kim Stanley Robinson
  93. Copyright

Nirgal and Sax stared. Coyote was quivering, he looked like he was going to stab the wall.

Sax cleared his throat. “Desmond— what makes you so sure?”

“Because I looked! I looked. I looked like no one else could look. She’s not in any of her places. She’s not anywhere. She didn’t get out. No one has really seen her since Sabishii. That’s why you’ve never heard from her. She’s not so inhuman she would let us go all this time without ever letting us know.”

“But I saw her,” Sax insisted.

“In a storm, you said. In a bit of trouble, I suppose. Saw her for a little while, just long enough to get you out of trouble. Then gone for good.”

Sax blinked.

Coyote laughed harshly. “So I thought. No, that’s fine. Dream about her all you want. Just don’t get that confused with reality. Hiroko is dead.”

Nirgal looked back and forth between the two silent men. “I’ve looked for her too,” he said. And then, seeing the blasted look on Sax’s face: “Anything’s possible.”

Coyote shook his head. He went back into the kitchen, muttering to himself. Sax looked at Nirgal, stared right through him.

“Maybe I’ll try looking for her again,” Nirgal told him.

Sax nodded.

“Beats farming,” Coyote said from the kitchen.

1

Recently Harry Whitebook had found a method for increasing animal tolerance to CO2, by introducing into mammals a gene which coded for certain characteristics of crocodile hemoglobin. Crocodiles could hold their breath for a very long time underwater, and the CO2 that should have built up in their blood actually dissolved there into bicarbonate ions, bound to amino acids in the hemoglobin, in a complex that caused the hemoglobin to release oxygen molecules. High CO2 tolerance was thus combined with increased oxygenation efficiency, a very elegant adaptation, and as it turned out fairly easy (once Whitebook showed the way) to introduce into mammals by utilizing the latest trait transcription technology: designed strands of the DNA repair enzyme photolyase were assembled, and these would patch the descriptions for the trait into the genome during the gerontological treatments, changing slightly the hemoglobin properties of the subject.