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Red Planet
By Robert Heinlein

CHAPTER ONE

Willis

THE THIN AIR of Mars was chill but not really cold. It
was not yet winter in southern latitudes and the daytime temperature
was usually above freezing.

The queer creature standing outside the door of a dome-shaped
building was generally manlike in appearance, but no
human being ever had a head like that. A thing like a coxcomb
jutted out above the skull, the eye lenses were wide and staring,
and the front of the face stuck out in a snout. The unearthly
appearance was increased by a pattern of black and yellow tiger
stripes covering the entire head.

The creature was armed with a pistol-type hand weapon
slung at its belt and was carrying, crooked in its right arm, a
ball, larger than a basketball, smaller than a medicine ball. It
moved the ball to its left arm, opened the outer door of the
building and stepped inside.

Inside was a very small anteroom and an inner door. As
soon as the outer door was closed the air pressure in the ante-room
began to rise, accompanied by a soft sighing sound. A
loudspeaker over the inner door shouted in a booming bass,
"Well? Who is it? Speak up! Speak up!"

The visitor placed the ball carefully on the floor, then with
both hands grasped its ugly face and pushed and lifted it to the
top of its head. Underneath was disclosed the face of an
Earth-human boy. "It's Jim Marlowe, Doc," he answered.

"Well, come in. Come in! Don't stand out there chewing
your nails."

"Coming." When the air pressure in the anteroom had
equalized with the pressure in the rest of the house the inner
door opened automatically. Jim said, "Come along, Willis,"
and went on in.

The ball developed three spaced bumps on its lower side
and followed after him, in a gait which combined spinning,
walking, and rolling. "More correctly, it careened, like a barrel
being manhandled along a dock. They went down a passage
and entered a large room that occupied half the floorspace of
the circular house plan. Doctor MacRae looked up but did not
get up. "Howdy, Jim. Skin yourself. Coffee on the bench.
Howdy, Willis," he added and turned back to his work. He
was dressing the hand of a boy about Jim's age.

"Thanks, Doc. Oh hello, Francis. What are you doing
here?"

"Hi, Jim. I killed a water-seeker, then I cut my thumb on
one of its spines."

"Quit squirming!" commanded the doctor.

"That stuff stings," protested Francis.

"I meant it to. Shut up."

"How in the world did you do that?" persisted Jim. "You
ought to know better than to touch one of those things. Just
burn 'em down and burn 'em up." He zipped open the front of
his outdoor costume, peeled it off his arms and legs and hung
it on a rack near the door. The rack held Francis's suit, the
headpiece of which was painted in bright colors like an Indian
brave's war paint, and the doctor's suit, the mask of which was
plain. Jim was now stylishly and appropriately dressed for
indoors on Mars bare naked save for bright red jockey shorts.

"I did burn it," explained Francis, "but it moved when I
touched it. I wanted to get the tail to make a necklace."

"Then you didn't burn it right. Probably left it full of live
eggs. Who're you making a necklace for?"

"None of your business. And I did so burn the egg sac.
What do you take me for? A tourist?"

"Sometimes I wonder. You know those things don't die
until sundown."

"Don't talk nonsense, Jim," the doctor advised. "Now,
Frank, I'm going to give you an anti-toxin shot. 'Twon't do
you any good but it'll make your mother happy. Long about
tomorrow your thumb will swell up like a poisoned pup; bring
it back and I'll lance it."

"Am I going to lose my thumb?" the boy asked.

"Nope. But you'll do your scratching with your left hand
for a few days. Now, Jim, what brings you here? Bellyache?"

"No, Doc. It's Willis."

"Willis, eh? He looks pert enough to me." The doctor
stared down at the creature. Willis was at his feet, having
come up to watch the dressing of Frank's thumb. To do so he
had protruded three eye stalks from the top of his spherical
mass. The stalks stuck up like thumbs, in an equal-sided triangle,
and from each popped a disturbingly human eye. The
little fellow turned around slowly on his tripod of bumps, or
pseudopeds, and gave each of his eyes a chance to examine
the doctor.

"Get me a cup of Java, Jim," commanded the doctor, then
leaned over and made a cradle of his hands. "Here, Willis
upsi-daisy!" Willis gave a little bounce and landed in the doctor's
hands, withdrawing all protuberances as he did so. The
doctor lifted him to the examining table; Willis promptly stuck
out legs and eyes again. They stared at each other.

The doctor saw a ball covered with thick, close-cropped
fur, like sheared sheepskin, and featureless at the moment
save for supports and eye stalks. The Mars creature saw an
elderly male Earthman almost completely covered with wiry
gray-and-white hair. The hair was thin on top, thick on chin
and cheeks, moderately thick to sparse on chest and arms and
back and legs. The middle portion of this strange, unMartian
creature was concealed in snow-white shorts. Willis enjoyed
looking at him.

"How do you feel, Willis?" inquired the doctor. "Feel
good? Feel bad?"

A dimple showed at the very crown of the ball between the
stalks, dilated to an opening. "Willis fine!" he said. His voice
was remarkably like Jim's.

"Fine, eh?" Without looking around the doctor added,
"Jim! Wash those cups again. And this time, sterilize them.
Want everybody around here to come down with the pip?"

"Okay, Doc," Jim acknowledged, and added to Francis,
"You want some coffee, too?"

"Sure. Weak, with plenty of cow."

"Don't be fussy." Jim dipped into the laboratory sink and
managed to snag another cup. The sink was filled with dirty
dishes. Nearby a large flask of coffee simmered over a bunsen
burner. Jim washed three cups carefully, put them through the
sterilizer, then filled them.

Doctor MacRae accepted a cup and said, "Jim, this citizen
says he's okay. What's the trouble?"

"I know he says he's all right, Doc, but he's not. Can't you
examine him and find out?"

"Examine him? How, boy? I can't even take his temperature
because I don't know what his temperature ought to be. I
know as much about his body chemistry as a pig knows about
patty-cake. Want me to cut him open and see what makes him
tick?"

Willis promptly withdrew all projections and became as
featureless as a billiard ball. "Now you've scared him," Jim
said accusingly.

"Sorry." The doctor reached out and commenced scratching
and tickling the furry ball. "Good Willis, nice Willis. Nobody's
going to hurt Willis. Come on, boy, come out of your hole."

Willis barely dilated the sphincter over his speaking diaphragm.
"Not hurt Willis?" he said anxiously in Jim's voice.

"Not hurt Willis. Promise."

"Not cut Willis?"

"Not cut Willis. Not a bit."

The eyes poked out slowly. Somehow he managed an expression
of watchful caution, though he had nothing resembling a face.
"That's better," said the doctor. "Let's get to the
point, Jim. What makes you think there's something wrong
with this fellow, when he and I can't see it?"

"Well, Doc, it's the way he behaves. He's all right indoors,
but outdoors He used to follow me everywhere, bouncing
around the landscape, poking his nose into everything."

"He hasn't got a nose," Francis commented.

"Go to the head of the class. But now, when I take him out,
he just goes into a ball and I can't get a thing out of him. If
he's not sick, why does he act that way?"

"I begin to get a glimmering," Doctor MacRae answered.
"How long have you been teamed up with this balloon?"

Jim thought back over the twenty-four months of the Martian year.
"Since along toward the end of Zeus, nearly November."

"And now here it is the last of March, almost Ceres, and
the summer gone. That suggest anything to your mind?"

"Uh, no."

"You expect him to go hopping around through the snow?
We migrate when it gets cold; he lives here."

Jim's mouth dropped open. "You mean he's trying to hibernate?"

"What else? Willis's ancestors have had a good many millions
of years to get used to the seasons around here; you can't
expect him to ignore them."

Jim looked worried. "I had planned to take him with me to
Syrtis Minor."

"Syrtis Minor? Oh, yes, you go away to school this year,
don't you? You, too, Frank."

"You bet!"

"I can't get used to the way you kids grow up. It was just
last week I was painting your thumb to keep you from sucking
it."

"I never sucked my thumb!" Francis answered.

"No? Then it was some other kid. Never mind. I came to
Mars so that the years would be twice as long, but it doesn't
seem to make any difference."

"Say, Doc, how old are you?" inquired Francis.

"Mind your own business. Which one of you is going to
study medicine and come back to help me with my practice?"
Neither one answered. "Speak up, speak up!" urged the
doctor. "What are you going to study?"

Jim said, "Well, I don't know. I'm interested in aerography,
but I like biology, too. Maybe I'll be a planetary
economist, like my old man."

"That's a big subject. Ought to keep you busy a long time.
You, Frank?"

Francis looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, uh shucks, I
still think I'd like to be a rocket pilot."

"I thought you had outgrown that." Doctor MacRae looked
almost shocked.

"Why not?" Francis answered doggedly. "I might make it."

"That's just what I'd be afraid of. See here, Frank, do you
really want to live a life bound around with rules and regulations
and discipline?"

"Mmmm... I want to be a pilot. I know that."

"On your own head be it. Me, I left Earth to get away from
all that nonsense. Earth has gotten so muscle bound with laws
that a man can't breathe. So far, there's still a certain amount
of freedom on Mars. When that changes "

" 'When that changes' what. Doc?"

"Why, I'll go find another planet that hasn't been spoiled,
naturally. Speaking of such things, you younkers go to school
before the colony migrates, don't you?" Since Earth-humans
do not hibernate, it was necessary that the colony migrate
twice each Martian year. The southern summer was spent at
Charax, only thirty degrees from the southern pole; the colony
was now about to move to Copals in Utopia, almost as far to
the north, there to remain half a Martian year, or almost a full
Earth year.

There were year-around establishments near the equator
New Shanghai, Marsport, Syrtis Minor, others but they
were not truly colonies, being manned mainly by employees
of the Mars Company. By contract and by charter the Company
was required to provide advanced terrestrial education on

Aerography: equivalent to "geography" for Earth.
From "Ares" Greek for Mars.

Mars for colonials; it suited the Company to provide it only at
Syrtis Minor.

"We go next Wednesday," said Jim, "on the mail scooter."

"So soon?"

"Yes, and that's what worries me about Willis. What ought
I to do. Doc?"

Willis heard his name and looked inquiringly at Jim. He
repeated, in exact imitation of Jim, "What ought I to do,
Doc?'"

"Shut up, Willis"

" 'Shut up, Willis.'" Willis mutated the doctor just as perfectly.

"Probably the kindest thing would be to take him out, find
him a hole, and stuff him in it. You can renew your acquaintance
when he's through hibernating."

"But, Doc, that means I'll lose him! He'll be out long
before I'm home from school. Why, he'll probably wake up
even before the colony comes back."

"Probably." MacRae thought about it. "It won't hurt him to
be on his own again. It's not a natural life he leads with you,
Jim. He's an individual, you know; he's not property."

"Of course he's not! He's my friend."

"I can't see," put in Francis, "why Jim sets such store by
him. Sure, he talks a lot, but most of it is just parrot stuff.
He's a moron, if you ask me."

"Nobody asked you. Willis is fond of me, aren't you,
Willis? Here, come to papa." Jim spread his arms; the little
Martian creature hopped into them and settled in his lap, a
warm, furry mass, faintly pulsating. Jim stroked him.

"Why don't you ask one of the Martians?" suggested MacRae.

"I tried to, but I couldn't find one that was in a mood to
pay any attention."

"You mean you weren't willing to wait long enough. A
Martian will notice you if you're patient. Well, why don't you
ask him! He can speak for himself."

"What should I say?"

"I'll try it. Willis!"

Willis turned two eyes on the doctor; MacRae went on,
"Want to go outdoors and go to sleep?"

"Willis not sleepy."

"Get sleepy outdoors. Nice and cold, find hole in ground.
Curl up and take good long sleep. How about it?"

"No!" The doctor had to look sharply to see that it was not
Jim who had answered; when Willis spoke for himself he
always used Jim's voice. Willis's sound diaphragm had no
special quality of its own, any more than has the diaphragm of
a radio loudspeaker. It was much like a loudspeaker's diaphragm,
save that it was part of a living animal.

"That seems definite, but we'll try it from another angle.
Willis, do you want to stay with Jim?"

"Willis stay with Jim." Willis added meditatively, "Warm!"

"There's the key to your charm, Jim," the doctor said
dryly. "He likes your blood temperature. But ipse dixit keep
him with you. I don't think it will hurt him. He may live fifty
years instead of a hundred, but he'll have twice as much fun."

"Do they normally live to be a hundred?" asked Jim.

"Who knows? We haven't been around this planet long
enough to know such things. Now come on, get out. I've got
work to do." The doctor eyed his bed thoughtfully. It had not
been made in a week; he decided to let it wait until wash day.

"What does 'ipse dixit' mean. Doc?" asked Francis.

"It means, 'He sure said a mouthful.'"

"Doc," suggested Jim, "Why don't you have dinner with
us tonight? I'll call mother. You, too, Frank."

"Huh uh," Frank denied. "I'd better not. My mother says I
eat too many meals with you folks."

"My mother, if she were here, would undoubtedly say the
same thing," admitted the doctor. "Fortunately I am free of
her restraining influence. Call your mother, Jim."

Jim went to the phone, tuned out two colonial housewives
gossiping about babies, and finally reached his home on an
alternate frequency. When his mother's face appeared on the
screen he explained his wish. "Delighted to have me doctor
with us," she said. 'Tell him to hurry along. Jimmy."

"Right away. Mom!" Jim switched off and reached for his
outdoor suit.

"Don't put it on," advised MacRae. "It's too chilly out.
We'll go through the tunnels."
"It's twice as far," objected Jim.
"We'll leave it up to Willis. Willis, how do you vote?"
"Warm," said Willis smugly.


CHAPTER TWO

South Colony, Mars

SOUTH COLONY WAS arranged like a wheel. The administration
building was the hub; tunnels ran out in all directions
and buildings were placed over them. A rim tunnel had been
started to join the spokes at the edge of the wheel; thus far a
forty-five degree arc had been completed.

Save for three Moon huts erected when the colony was
founded and since abandoned, all the buildings were shaped
alike. Each was a hemispherical bubble of silicone plastic,
processed from the soil of Mars and blown on the spot. Each
was a double bubble, in fact; first one large bubble would be
blown, say thirty or forty feet across; when it had hardened,
the new building would be entered through the tunnel and an
inner bubble, slightly smaller than the first, would be blown.
The outer bubble, "polymerized" that is to say, cured and
hardened, under the rays of the sun; a battery of ultra-violet
and heat lamps cured the inner. The walls were separated by a
foot of dead air space, which provided insulation against the
bitter sub-zero nights of Mars.

When a new building had hardened a door would be cut to
the outside and a pressure lock installed; the colonials maintained
about two-thirds Earth-normal pressure indoors for
comfort and the pressure on Mars is never as much as half of
that. A visitor from Earth, not conditioned to the planet, will
die without a respirator. Among the colonists only Tibetans
and Bolivian Indians will venture outdoors without respirators
and even they will wear the snug elastic Mars suits to avoid
skin hemorrhages.

Buildings had not even view windows, any more than a
modem building in New York has. The surrounding desert,
while beautiful, is monotonous. South Colony was in an area
granted by the Martians, just north of the ancient city of
Charax there is no need to give the Martian name since an
Earthman can't pronounce it and between the legs of the
double canal Strymon. Again we follow colonial custom in
using the name assigned by the immortal Dr. Percival Lowell.

Francis accompanied Jim and Doctor MacRae as far as the
junction of the tunnels under city hall, then turned down his
own tunnel. A few minutes later the doctor and Jim and
Willis ascended into the Marlowe home. Jim's mother met
them; Doctor MacRae bowed, a bow made no less courtly by
bare feet, and a grizzled, hairy chest: "Madame, I am again
imposing on your good nature."

"Fiddlesticks, Doctor. You are always welcome at our
table."

"I would that I had the character to wish that you were not
so superlative a cook, that you might know the certain truth: it
is yourself, my dear, that brings me here."

Jim's mother blushed. She was wearing a costume that a
terrestrial lady might choose for sunbathing or gardening and
was a very pretty sight, although Jim was certainly not aware
of it. She changed the subject, "Jim, hang up your pistol.
Don't leave it on the sofa where Oliver can get it."

Jim's baby brother, hearing his name, immediately made a
dash for the pistol. Jim and his sister Phyllis both saw this,
both yelled, "Oilie!" and were immediately mimicked by
Willis, who performed the difficult trick, possible only to an
atonal diaphragm, of duplicating both voices simultaneously.

Phyllis was nearer; she grabbed the gun and slapped the
child's hands. Oliver began to cry, reinforced by Willis.

"Children!" said Mrs. Marlowe, just as Mr. Marlowe appeared
in the door.

"What's all the ruckus?" he inquired mildly.

Doctor MacRae picked up Oliver, turned him upside down,
and sat him on his shoulders. Oliver forgot that he was crying.
Mrs. Marlowe added, "Nothing darling. I'm glad you're
home. Children, go wash for dinner, all of you."

The second generation trooped out. Phyllis said, "Take the
charges out of your gun. Jimmy, and let me practice with it."

"You're too young for a gun."

"Pooh! I can outshoot you." This was very nearly true
and not to be borne; Phyllis was two years younger than Jim
and female besides.

"Girls are just target shooters. If you saw a water-seeker,
you'd scream."

"I would, huh? We'll go hunting together and I'll bet you
two credits that I score first."

"You haven't got two credits."

"I have, too."

"Then how was it you couldn't lend me a half credit yester-
day?"

Phyllis changed the subject. Jim hung up his weapon in his
cupboard and locked it. Presently they were back in the living
room, to find that their father was home and dinner ready.

Phyllis waited for a lull in grown-up talk to say, "Daddy?"

"Yes, Puddin'? What is it?"

"Isn't it about time I had a pistol of my own?"

"Eh? Plenty of time for that later. You keep up your target
practice."

"But, look, Daddy Jim's going away and that means that
Oilie can't ever go outside unless you or mother have time to
take him. If I had a gun, I could help out."

Mr. Marlowe wrinkled his brow. "You've got a point.
You've passed all your tests, haven't you?"

"You know I have!"

"What do you think, my dear? Shall we take Phyllis down
to city hall and see if they will license her?"

Before Mrs. Marlowe could answer Doctor MacRae muttered
something into his plate. The remark was forceful and
probably not polite.

"Eh? What did you say. Doctor?"

"I said," answered MacRae, "that I was going to move to
another planet. At least that's what I meant."

"Why? What's wrong with this one? In another twenty
years we'll have it fixed up good as new. You'll be able to
walk outside without a mask."

"Sir, it is not the natural limitations of this globe that I
object to; it is the pantywaist nincompoops who rule it
These ridiculous regulations offend me. That a free citizen
should have to go before a committee, hat in hand, and pray
for permission to bear arms fantastic! Arm your daughter,
sir, and pay no attention to petty bureaucrats."

Jim's father stirred his coffee. "I'm tempted to. I really
don't know why the Company set up such rules in the first
place."

"Pure copy-cattism. The swarming beehives back on Earth
have similar childish rules; the fat clerks that decide these
things cannot imagine any other conditions. This is a frontier
community; it should be free of such."

"Mmmm... probably you're right, Doctor. Can't say that I
disagree with you, but I'm so busy trying to get on with my
job that I really don't have time to worry about politics. It's
easier to comply than to fight a test case." Jim's father turned
to his wife. "If it's all right with you, my dear, could you find
time to arrange for a license for Phyllis?"

"Why, yes," she answered doubtfully, "if you really think
she's old enough." The doctor muttered something that combined
"Danegeld" and the "Boston Tea Party" in the same
breath. Phyllis answered:

"Sure, I'm old enough. Mother. I'm a better shot than
Jimmy."

Jim said, "You're crazy as a spin bug!"

"Mind your manners, Jim," his father cautioned. "We
don't speak that way to ladies."

"Was she talking like a lady? I ask you. Dad."

"You are bound to assume that she is one. Drop the matter.
What were you saying. Doctor?"

"Eh? Nothing that I should have been saying, I'm sure.
You said something earlier about another twenty years and we
could throw away our respirators; tell me: is there news about
the Project?"

The colony had dozens of projects, all intended to make
Mars more livable for human beings, but the Project always
meant the atmosphere, or oxygen, project. The pioneers of the
Harvard-Carnegie expedition reported Mars suitable for colonization
except for the all-important fact that the air was so
thin that a normal man would suffocate. However they reported
also that many, many billions of tons of oxygen were
locked in the Martian desert sands, the red iron oxides that
give Mars its ruddy color. The Project proposed to free this
oxygen for humans to breathe.

"Didn't you hear the Deimos newscast this afternoon?" Mr.
Marlowe answered.

"Never listen to newscasts. Saves wear and tear on the
nervous system."

"No doubt. But this was good news. The pilot plant in
Libya is in operation, successful operation. The first day's run
restored nearly four million tons mass of oxygen to the air
and no breakdowns."

Mrs. Marlowe looked startled. "Four million tons? That
seems a tremendous lot."

Her husband grinned. "Any idea how long it would take
that one plant at that rate to do the job, that is, increase the
oxygen pressure by five mass-pounds per square inch?"

"Of course I haven't. But not very long I should think."

"Let me see " His lips moved soundlessly. "Uh, around
two hundred thousand years Mars years, of course."

"James, you're teasing me!"

"No, I'm not. Don't let big figures frighten you, my dear;

of course we won't depend on one plant; they'll be scattered
every fifty miles or so through the desert, a thousand mega horsepower
each. There's no limit to the power available,
thank goodness; if we don't clean up the job in our lifetimes,
at least the kids will certainly see the end of it."

Mrs. Marlowe looked dreamy. "That would be nice, to
"walk outside with your bare face in the breeze. I remember

when I was a little girl, we had an orchard with a stream
running through it" She stopped.

"Sorry we came to Mars, Jane?" her husband asked softly.

"Oh, no! This is my home."

"Good. What are you looking sour about. Doctor?"

"Eh? Oh, nothing, nothing! I was just thinking about (he
end result. Mind you, this is fine work, all of it hard work,
good work, that a man can get his teeth into. But we get it
done and what for? So that another two billion, three billion
sheep can fiddle around with nonsense, spend their time
scratching themselves and baaing. We should have left Mars
to the Martians. Tell me, sir, do you know what television was
used for when it first came out?"

"No. How would I?"

"Well, I didn't see it myself of course, but my father told
me about it. It seems"

"Your father? How old was he? When was he born?"

"My grandfather, then. Or it may have been my great
grandfather. That's beside the point. They installed the first
television sets in cocktail bars amusement places and
used them to watch wrestling matches."

"What's a 'wresting match'?" demanded Phyllis.

"An obsolete form of folk dancing," explained her father.
"Never mind. Granting your point. Doctor, I see no harm "

"What's 'folk dancing'?" persisted Phyllis.

"You tell her, Jane. She's got me stumped."

Jim looked smug. "It's when folks dance, silly."

"That's near enough," agreed his mother.

Doctor MacRae stared. "These kids are missing something.
I think I'll organize a square-dancing club. I used to be a
pretty good caller, once upon a time."

Phyllis turned to her brother. "Now I suppose you'll tell me
that square dancing is when a square dances."

Mr. Marlowe raised his eyebrows. "I think the children
have all finished, my dear. Couldn't they be excused?"

"Yes, surely. You may leave, my dears. Say 'Excuse me,
please,' Ollie." The baby repeated it, with Willis in mirror
chorus.

Jim hastily wiped his mouth, grabbed Willis, and headed
for his own room. He like to hear the doctor talk but he had to
admit that the old boy could babble the most fantastic nonsense
when other grown-ups were around. Nor did the discussion
of the oxygen project interest Jim; he saw nothing strange
nor uncomfortable about wearing his mask. He would feel
undressed going outdoors without it.

From Jim's point of view Mars was all right the way it
was, no need to try to make it more like Earth. Earth was no
great shakes anyway. His own personal recollection of Earth
was limited to vague memories from early childhood of the
emigrants' conditioning station on the high Bolivian plateau
cold, shortness of breath, and great weariness.

His sister trailed after him. He stopped just inside his door
and said, "What do you want, shorty?"

"Uh, Jimmy I'm sorry I said I could shoot better than
you can. I can't really."

"Huh? What are you leading up to?"

"Well.... Lookie, Jimmy, seeing as I'm going to have to
take care of Willis after you're gone away to school, maybe it
would be a good idea for you to sort of explain it to him, so he
would do what I tell him."

Jim stared. "Whatever gave you the notion I was going to
leave him behind?"

She stared back. "But you are! You'll have to. You can't
take him to school. You ask mother."

"Mother hasn't anything to do with it. She doesn't care
what I take to school."

"You just ask her. They don't allow pets at school. I heard
her talking with Frank Sutton's mother about it just yesterday."

"Willis isn't a pet. He's a, he's a"

"He's a what?"

"He's a friend, that's what he is: a friend!"

"Well, he's a friend of mine, too aren't you, Willis?
Anyhow, I think you're mean."

"You always think I'm mean if I don't cater to your every
wish!"

"Not to me to Willis. This is Willis's home; he's used to
it. He'll be homesick away at school."

"He'll have me!"

"Not most of the time, he won't. You'll be in class. Willis
wouldn't have anything to do but sit and mope. You ought to
leave him here with me with us where he'd be happy."

Jim straightened himself up. "I'm going to find out about
this, right away." He walked back into the living compartment
and waited aggressively to be noticed. Shortly his father
turned toward him.

"Yes? What is it, Jim? Something eating on you?"

"Uh, we'll look. Dad, is there any doubt about Willis
going with me when I go away to school?"

His father looked surprised. "It had never occurred to me
that you would consider taking him."

"Huh? Why not?"

"Well, school is hardly the place for him."

"Why?"

"Well, you wouldn't be able to take care of him properly.
You'll be awfully busy."

"Willis doesn't take much care. He never makes messes.
Just feed him every month or so and give him a drink about
once a week and he doesn't ask for anything else. Why can't I
take him, Dad?"

Mr. Marlowe looked baffled; he turned to his wife. She
started in, "Now, Jimmy darling, we don't want you to"

Jim interrupted, "Mother, every time you want to talk me
out of something you start out, 'Jimmy darling'!"

Her mouth twitched but she kept from smiling. "Sorry,
Jim. Perhaps I do. What I was trying to say was this: we want
you to get off to a good start at school. I don't believe that
having Willis on your hands will help any. As a matter of fact
Mrs. Sutton was telling me just the other day that she had
heard that pets were not allowed. She said "

"How does she know anything about it?"

"Well, she had been talking with the Resident's wife."

Jim was stumped for the moment. The wife of the Resident
Agent of the Mars Company for South Colony undoubtedly
had better sources of information than he had. But he was not
ready to give up. "Look, Mother. Look, Dad. You both saw
the pamphlet the school sent me, telling me what to do and
what to bring and when to show up and so forth. If either one
of you can find anything anywhere in those instructions that
says I can't take Willis with me, I'll shut up like a Martian. Is
that fair?"

Mrs. Marlowe looked inquiringly at her husband. He
looked back at her with the same appeal for help in his expression.
He was acutely aware that Doctor MacRae was
watching both of them, not saying a word but wearing an
expression of sardonic amusement.

Mr. Marlowe shrugged. "Take Willis along, Jim. But he's
your problem."

Jim's face broke out in a grin. "Thanks, Dad!" He left the
room quickly in order not to give his parents time to change
their minds.

Mr. Marlowe banged his pipe on an ashtray and glowered
at Doctor MacRae. "Well, what are you grinning at, you ancient
ape? You think I'm too indulgent, don't you?"

"Oh, no, not at all! I think you did perfectly right."

"You think that pet of Jim's won't cause him trouble at
school?"

"On the contrary. I have some familiarity with Willis's peculiar
social habits."

"Then why do you say I did right?"

"Why shouldn't the boy have trouble? Trouble is the normal
condition for the human race. We were raised on it. We
thrive on it."

"Sometimes, Doctor, I think that you are, as Jim would put
it, crazy as a spin bug."

"Probably. But since I am the only medical man around, I
am not likely to be committed for it. Mrs. Marlowe, could
you favor an old man with another cup of your delicious coffee?"

"Certainly, Doctor." She poured for him, then went on.
"James, I am not sorry you decided to let Jim take Willis. It
will be a relief."

"Why, dear? Jim was correct when he said that the little
beggar isn't much trouble."

"Well, he isn't really. But I just wish he weren't so truthful."

"So? I thought he was the perfect witness in settling the
children's squabbles?"

"Oh, he is. He'll play back anything he hears as accurately
as a transcriber. That's the trouble." She looked upset, then
chuckled. "You know Mrs. Pottle?"

"Of course."

The doctor added, "How can one avoid it? I, unhappy
man, am in charge of her 'nerves'."

Mrs. Marlowe asked, "Is she actually sick. Doctor?"

"She eats too much and doesn't work enough. Further
communication is forbidden by professional ethics."

"I didn't know you had any."

"Young lady, show respect for my white hairs. What about
this Pottle female?"

"Well, Luba Konski had lunch with me last week and we
got to talking about Mrs. Pottle. Honest, James, I didn't say
much and I did not know that Willis was under the table."

"He was?" Mr. Marlowe covered his eyes. "Do go on."

"Well, you both remember that the Konskis housed the
Pottles at North Colony until a house was built for them.
Sarah Pottle has been Luba's pet hate ever since, and Tuesday
Luba was giving me some juicy details on Sarah's habits at
home. Two days later Sarah Pottle stopped by to give me
advice on how to bring up children. Something she said triggered
Willis I knew he was in the room but I didn't think
anything of it and Willis put on just the wrong record and I
couldn't shut him up. I finally carried him out of the room.
Mrs. Pottle left without saying good-bye and I haven't heard
from her since."

"That's no loss," her husband commented.

"True, but it got Luba in Dutch. No one could miss Luba's
accent and Willis does it better than she does herself. I don't
think Luba minds, though and you should have heard
Willis's playback of Luba's description of how Sarah Pottle
looks in the morning and what she does about it."

"You should hear," answered MacRae, "Mrs. Pottle's
opinions on the servant problem."

"I have. She thinks it's a scandal that the Company doesn't
import servants for us."

The doctor nodded. "With collars riveted around their
necks."

"That woman! I can't see why she ever became a colonist."

"Didn't you know?" her husband said. "They came out
here expecting to get rich in a hurry."

"Hummph!"

Doctor MacRae got a far-away look. "Mrs. Marlowe,
speaking as her physician, it might help me to hear what
Willis has to say about Pottle, distaff. Do you suppose he
would recite for us?"

"Doctor, you're an old fraud, with a taste for gossip."

"Granted. I like also eavesdropping and window peeping."

"You're shameless."

"Again granted. My nerves are relaxed. I haven't felt
ashamed in years."

"Willis may just give a thrilling account of the children's
chit-chat for the past two weeks."

"Perhaps if you coaxed him?"

Mrs. Marlowe suddenly dimpled. "It won't hurt to try."
She left the room to fetch Jim's globular friend.

CHAPTER THREE

Gekko

WEDNESDAY MORNING DAWNED clear and cold, as
mornings have a habit of doing on Mars. The Suttons and the
Marlowes, minus Oliver, were gathered at the Colony's cargo
dock on the west leg of Strymon canal, ready to see the boys
off.

The temperature was rising and the dawn wind was blowing
firmly, but it was still at least thirty below. Strymon canal
was a steel-blue, hard sheet of ice and would not melt today in
this latitude. Resting on it beside the dock was the mail
scooter from Syrtis Minor, its boat body supported by razor-edged
runners. The driver was still loading it with cargo
dragged from the warehouse on the dock. The two families
waited nearby.

The tiger stripes on Jim's mask, the war paint on Frank's,
and a rainbow motif on Phyllis's made the young people easy
to identify. The adults could be told apart only by size, shape,
and manner; there were two extras. Doctor MacRae and Father
Cleary. The priest was talking in low, earnest tones to Frank.

He turned presently and spoke to Jim. "Your own pastor
asked me to say good-bye to you, son. Unfortunately the poor
man is laid up with a touch of Mars throat. He would have
come anyhow had I not hidden his mask." The protestant
chaplain, as well as the priest, was a bachelor; the two clergy
shared a house.

"Is he very sick?" asked Jim.

"Not that sick. He'll not die till I convert him. But take his
blessing and mine too." He offered his hand.

Jim dropped his travel bag, shifted his ice skates and Willis
over to his left arm and shook hands. There followed an awkward
silence. Finally Jim said, "Why don't you all go inside
before you freeze to death?"

"Yeah," agreed Francis. "That's a good idea."

"I think the driver is about ready now," Mr. Marlowe
countered. "Well, son, take care of yourself. We'll see you at
migration." He shook hands solemnly.

"So long. Dad."

Mrs. Marlowe put her arms around him, pressed her mask
against his and said, "Oh, my little boy you're too young to
go away from home!"

"Oh, mother, please!" But he hugged her. Then Phyllis had
to be hugged. The driver called out:

'"Board!"

" 'Bye everybody!" Jim turned away, felt his elbow caught.

It was the doctor. "Keep your nose clean, Jim. And don't
take any guff off of anybody."

"Thanks, Doc." Jim turned and presented his school authorization
to the driver while the doctor bade Francis good-bye.

The driver looked it over. "Both deadheads, eh? Well, seeing
as how there aren't any pay passengers this morning you
can ride in the observatory." He tore off his copy; Jim climbed
inside and went up to the prized observation seats behind and
above the driver's compartment. Frank joined him.

The craft trembled as the driver jacked the runners loose
from the ice, then with a roar from the turbine and a soft, easy
surge the car got under way. The banks flowed past them and
melted into featureless walls as the speed picked up. The ice
was mirror smooth; they soon reached cruising speed of better
than two hundred fifty miles per hour. Presently the driver
removed his mask; Jim and Frank, seeing him, did likewise.
The car was pressurized now by an air ram faced into their
own wind of motion; it was much warmer, too, from the air's
compression.

"Isn't this swell?" said Francis.

"Yeah. Look at Earth."

Their mother planet was riding high above the Sun in the
northeastern sky. It blazed green against a deep purple background.
Close to it, but easy to separate with the naked eye,
was a lesser, pure white star Luna, Earth's moon. Due north
of them, in the direction they were going, Deimos, Mars'
outer moon, hung no more than twenty degrees above the
horizon. Almost lost in the rays of the sun, it was a tiny pale
disc, hardly more than a dim star and much outshone by
Earth.

Phobos, the inner moon, was not in sight. At the latitude of
Charax it never rose more than eight degrees or so above the
northern horizon and that for an hour or less, twice a day. By
the daytime it was lost in the blue of the horizon and no one
would be so foolhardy as to watch for it in the bitter night. Jim
did not remember ever having seen it except during migration
between colonies.

Francis looked from Earth to Deimos. "Ask the driver to
turn on the radio," he suggested. "Deimos is up."

"Who cares about the broadcast?" Jim answered. "I want to
watch." The banks were not so high now; from the observation
dome he could see over them into the fields beyond.
Although it was late in the season the irrigated belt near the
canal was still green and getting greener as he watched, as the
plants came out of the ground to seek the morning sunlight.

He could make out, miles away, an occasional ruddy sand
dune of the open desert. He could not see the green belt of the
east leg of their canal; it was over the horizon.

Without urging, the driver switched on his radio; music
filled the car and blotted out the monotonous low roar of the
turbo-jet. It was terrestrial music, by Sibelius, a classical
composer of another century. Mars colony had not yet found time
to develop its own arts and still borrowed its culture. But
neither Jim nor Frank knew who the composer was, nor cared.
The banks of the canal had closed in again; there was nothing
to see but the straight ribbon of ice; they settled back and
daydreamed.

Willis stirred for the first time since he had struck the outer
cold. He extended his eye stalks, looked inquiringly around,
then commenced to beat time with them.

Presently the music stopped and a voice said: "This is station
D-M-S, the Mars Company, Deimos, circwn Mars. We
bring you now by relay from Syrtis Minor a program in the
public interest. Doctor Graves Armbruster will speak on 'Ecological
Considerations involved in Experimental Artificial
Symbiotics as related to'"

The driver promptly switched the radio off.

"I would like to have heard that," objected Jim. "It
sounded interesting."

"Oh, you're just showing off," Frank answered. "You
don't even know what those words mean."

"The deuce I don't. It means"

"Shut up and take a nap." Taking his own advice Frank lay
back and closed his eyes. However he got no chance to sleep.
Willis had apparently been chewing over, in whatever it was
he used for a mind, the program he had just heard. He opened
up and started to play it back, woodwinds and all.

The driver looked back and up, looked startled. He said
something but Willis drowned him out. Willis bulled on
through to the end, even to the broken-off announcement. The
driver finally made himself heard. "Hey, you guys! What yuh
got up mere? A portable recorder?"

"No, a bouncer."

"A what?"

Jim held Willis up so that the driver could see him. "A
bouncer. His name is Willis."

"You mean that thing is a recorder?"

"No, he's a bouncer. As I said, his name is Willis."

"This I got to see," announced the driver. He did something
at his control board, then turned around and stuck his
head and shoulders up into the observation dome.

Frank said, "Hey! You'll wreck us."

"Relax," advised the driver. "I put her on echo-automatic.

High banks for the next couple o' hundred miles. Now what is
this gismo? When you brought it aboard I thought it was a
volleyball."

"No, it's Willis. Say hello to the man, Willis."

"Hello, man," Willis answered agreeably.

The driver scratched his head. "This beats anything I ever
saw in Keokuk. Sort of a parrot, eh?"

"He's a bouncer. He's got a scientific name, but it just
means 'Martian roundhead'. Never seen one before?"

"No. You know, bud, this is the screwiest planet in the
whole system."

"If you don't like it here," asked Jim, "why don't you go
back where you came from?"

"Don't go popping off, youngster. How much will you take
for the gismo? I got an idea I could use him."

"Sell Willis? Are you crazy?"

"Sometimes I think so. Oh, well, it was just an idea." The
driver went back to his station, stopping once to look back and
stare at Willis.

The boys dug sandwiches out of their travel bags and
munched them. After mat Frank's notion about a nap seemed
a good idea. They slept until wakened by the car slowing
down. Jim sat up, blinked, and called down, "What's up?"

"Coming into Cynia Station," the driver answered. "Lay
over until sundown."

"Won't the ice hold?"

"Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. The temperature's up and
I'm not going to chance it." The car slid softly to a stop, then
started again and crawled slowly up a low ramp, stopped
again. "All out!" the driver called. "Be back by sundown or
get left." He climbed out; the boys followed.

Cynia Station was three miles west of the ancient city of
Cynia, where west Strymon joins the canal Oeroe. It was
merely a lunchroom, a bunkhouse, and a row of pre-fab warehouses.
To the east the feathery towers of Cynia gleamed in
the sky, seemed almost to float, too beautifully unreal to be
solid.

The driver went into the little inn. Jim wanted to walk over
and explore me city; Frank favored stopping in the restaurant
first. Frank won out. They went inside and cautiously invested
part of their meager capital in coffee and some indifferent
soup.

The driver looked up from his dinner presently and said,
"Hey, George! Ever see anything like that?" He pointed to
Willis.

George was the waiter. He was also the cashier, the hotel
keeper, the station agent, and the Company representative. He
glanced at Willis. "Yep."

"You did, huh? Where? Do you suppose I could find one?"

"Doubt it. You see 'em sometimes, hanging around the
Martians. Not many of 'em." He turned back to his reading
a New York Times, more than two years old.

The boys finished, paid their bills, and prepared to go outside.
The cook-waiter-station-agent said, "Hold on. Where are
you kids going?"

"Syrtis Minor."

"Not that. Where are you going right now? Why don't you
wait in the dormitory? Take a nap if you like."

"We thought we would kind of explore around outside,"
explained Jim.

"Okay. But stay away from the city."

"Why?"

"Because the Company doesn't allow it, that's why. Not
without permission."

"How do we get permission?" Jim persisted.

"You can't. Cynia hasn't been opened up to exploitation
yet." He went back to his reading.

Jim was about to continue the matter but Frank tugged at
his sleeve. They went outside together. Jim said, "I don't
think he has any business telling us we can't go to Cynia."

"What's the difference? He thinks he has."

"What'll we do now?"

"Go to Cynia, of course. Only we won't consult his nibs."

"Suppose he catches us?"

"How can he? He won't stir off that stool he's warming.
Come on."

"Okay." They set out to the east. The going was not too
easy; there was no road of any sort and all the plant growth
bordering the canal was spread out to its greatest extent to
catch the rays of the midday sun. But Mars' low gravity
makes walking easy work even over rough ground. They came
shortly to the bank of Oeroe and followed it to the right,
toward the city.

The way was easy along the smooth stone of the bank. The
air was warm and balmy even though the surface of the canal
was still partly frozen. The sun was high; they were the better
part of a thousand miles closer to the equator than they had
been at daybreak.

"Warm," said Willis. "Willis want down."

"Okay," Jim agreed, "but don't fall in."

"Willis not fall in." Jim put him down and the little creature
went skipping and rolling along the bank, with occasional
excursions into the thick vegetation, like a puppy exploring a
new pasture.

They had gone perhaps a mile and the towers of the city
were higher in the sky when they encountered a Martian. He
was a small specimen of his sort, being not over twelve feet
tall. He was standing quite still, all three of his legs down,
apparently lost in contemplation of the whichness of what.
The eye facing them stared unblinkingly.

Jim and Frank were, of course, used to Martians and recognized
that this one was busy in his "other world"; they
stopped talking and continued on past him, being careful not
to brush against his legs.

Not so Willis. He went darting around the Martian's peds,
rubbing against them, then stopped and let out a couple of
mournful croaks.

The Martian stirred, looked around him, and suddenly bent
and scooped Willis up.

"Hey!" yelled Jim. "Put him down!"

No answer.

Jim turned hastily to Frank. "You talk to him, Frank. I'll
never be able to make him understand me. Please!" Of the
Martian dominant language Jim understood little and spoke
less. Frank was somewhat better, but only by comparison.
Those who speak Martian complain that it hurts their throats.

"What'll I say?"

"Tell him to put wills down! Or, so help me, I'll burn his

legs off!"

"Oh, now, Jim, you wouldn't do anything like that. It

would get your whole family in trouble."

"If he hurts Willis, I sure will!"

"Grow up. Martians never hurt anybody."

"Well, tell him to put Willis down, then."

"I'll try." Frank screwed up his mouth and got to work. His
accent, bad at best, was made worse by the respirator and by
nervousness. Nevertheless he clucked and croaked his way
through a phrase that seemed to mean what Jim wanted.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, using a different idiom; still nothing happened.
"It's no good, Jim," he admitted. "Either he doesn't
understand me or he doesn't want to bother to listen."

Jim shouted, "Willis! Hey, Willis! Are you all right?"

"Willis fine!"

"Jump down! I'll catch you."

"Willis fine."

The Martian wobbled his head, seemed to locate Jim for
the first time. He cradled Willis in one arm; his other two
arms came snaking suddenly down and enclosed Jim, one
palm flap cradling him where he sat down, the other slapping
him across the belly. Jim was unable to get at his gun, which
was just as well.

He felt himself lifted and held and then he was staring into
a large liquid Martian eye which stared back at him. The Martian
"man" rocked his head back and forth and let each of his
eyes have a good look.

It was the closest Jim had ever been to a Martian; he did
not care for it. Worse, the little supercharger on the top of
Jim's mask compressed not only the thin air, but also the body
odor of the native; the stench was overpowering. Jim tried to
wiggle away, but the fragile-appearing Martian was stronger
than he was.

Suddenly the Martian's voice boomed out from the top of
his head. Jim could not understand what was being said although
he spotted the question symbol at the beginning of the
phrase. But the Martian's voice had a strange effect on him.

Croaking and uncouth though it was, it was filled with such
warmth and sympathy and friendliness that the native no
longer frightened him. Instead he seemed like an old and
trusted friend. Even the stink of his kind no longer troubled
Jim.

The Martian repeated the question.

"What did he say, Frank?"

"I didn't get it. Shall I burn him?" Frank stood uneasily by,
his gun drawn, but apparently unsure what to do.

"No, no! He's friendly, but I can't understand him."

The Martian spoke again; Frank listened. "He's inviting
you to go with him, I think."

Jim hesitated a split second. Tell him okay."

"Jim, are you crazy?"

"It's all right. He means well. I'm sure of it."

"Well all right." Frank croaked the phrase of assent.

The native gathered up one leg and strode rapidly away
toward the city. Frank trotted after. He tried his best to keep
up, but the pace was too much for him. He paused, gasping,
then shouted, "Wait for me," his voice muffled by his mask.

Jim tried to phrase a demand to stop, gave up, then got an
inspiration. "Say, Willis Willis boy. Tell him to wait for
Frank."

"Wait for Frank?" Willis said doubtfully.

"Yes. Wait for Frank."

"Okay." Willis hooted at his new friend; the Martian
paused and dropped his third leg. Frank came puffing up.

The Martian removed one arm from Jim and scooped up
Frank with it. "Hey!" Frank protested. "Cut it out."

"Take it easy," advised Jim.

"But I don't want to be carried. Judas what a smell!
Pew!"

"Smell? Don't be a sissy. He smells better than you do."

Frank's reply was disturbed by the Martian starting up
again. Thus burdened, he shifted to a three-legged gait in
which at least two legs were always on the ground. It was
bumpy but surprisingly fast. Finally Frank managed to say,
"Repeat that last crack when we get down and I'll show you
who smells bad."

"Forget it," urged Jim. "Where do you suppose he is taking
us?"

"To the city I guess." Frank added, "We don't want to miss
the scooter."

"We've got hours yet. Quit worrying."

The Martian said nothing more but continued slogging toward Cynia.
Willis was evidently as happy as a bee in a
flower shop. Jim settled down to enjoying the ride. Now that
he was being carried with his head a good ten feet above
ground his view was much improved; he could see over the
tops of the plants growing by the canal and beyond them to the
iridescent towers of Cynia. The towers were not like those of
Charax; no two Martian cities looked alike. It was as if each
were a unique work of art, each expressing the thoughts of a
different artist.

Jim wondered why the towers had been built, what they
were good for, how old they were?

The canal crops spread out around them, a dark green sea
in which the Martian waded waist deep. The broad leaves
were spread flat to the sun's rays, reaching greedily for life-giving
radiant energy. They curled aside as the native's body
brushed them, to spread again as he passed.

The towers grew much closer; suddenly the Martian
stopped and set the two boys down. He continued to carry
Willis. Ahead of them, almost concealed by overhanging
greenery, a ramp slanted down into the ground and entered a
tunnel arch. Jim looked at it and said, "Frank, what do you
think?"

"Gee, I don't know." The boys had been inside the cities of
Charax and Copais, but only in the abandoned parts and at
ground level. They were not allowed time to fret over their
decision; their guide started down the slope at a good clip.

Jim ran after him, shouting, "Hey, Willis!"

The Martian stopped and exchanged a couple of remarks
with Willis; the bouncer called out, "Jim wait."

"Tell him to put you down."

"Willis fine. Jim wait." The Martian started up again at a
pace that Jim could not possibly match. Jim went disconsolately
back to the start of the ramp and sat down on the ledge thereof.

"What are you going to do?" demanded Frank.

"Wait, I suppose. What else can I do? What are you going
to do?"

"Oh, I'll stick. But I'm not going to miss the scooter."

"Well, neither am I. We couldn't stay here after sundown
anyhow."

"You ain't whistling!" The precipitous drop in temperature
at sunset on Mars is almost all the weather there is, but it
means death by freezing for an Earth human unless he is specially
clothed and continuously exercising.

They sat and waited and watched spin bugs skitter past.
One stopped by Jim's knee, a little tripod of a creature, less
than an inch high; it appeared to study him. He touched it; it
flung out its limbs and whirled away. The boys were not even
alert, since a water-seeker will not come close to a Martian
settlement; they simply waited.

Perhaps a half hour later the Martian or, at least, a Martian
of the same size came back. He did not have Willis
with him. Jim's face fell. But the Martian said, "Come with
me," in his own tongue, prefacing the remark with the question symbol.

"Do we or don't we?" asked Frank.

"We do. Tell him so." Frank complied. The three started
down. The Martian laid a great hand flap on the shoulders of
each boy and herded them along. Shortly he stopped and
picked them up. This time they made no objection.

The tunnel seemed to remain in full daylight even after
they had penetrated several hundred yards underground. The
light came from everywhere but especially from the ceiling.
The tunnel was large by human standards but no more than
comfortably roomy for Martians. They passed several other
natives; if another was moving their host always boomed a
greeting, but if he was frozen in the characteristic trance-like
immobility no sound was made.

Once their guide stepped over a ball about three feet in
diameter. Jim could not make out what it was at first, then he
did a double take and was still more puzzled. He twisted his
neck and looked back at it. It couldn't be but it was!

He was gazing 'at something few humans ever see, and no
human ever wants to see: a Martian folded and rolled into a
ball, his hand flaps covering everything but his curved back.
Martians modem, civilized Martians do not hibernate,
but at some time remote eons in the past their ancestors must
have done so, for they are still articulated so that they can
assume the proper, heat-conserving, moisture-conserving
globular shape, if they wish.

They hardly ever so wish.

For a Martian to roll up is the moral equivalent of an
Earthly duel to the death and is resorted to only when that
Martian is offended so completely that nothing less will suffice.
It means: I cast you out, I leave your world, I deny your existence.

The first pioneers on Mars did not understand this, and,
through ignorance of Martian values, offended more than
once. This delayed human colonization of Mars by many
years; it took the most skilled diplomats and semanticians of
Earth to repair the unwitting harm. Jim stared unbelievingly at
the withdrawn Martian and wondered what could possibly
have caused him to do that to an entire city. He remembered a
grisly tale told him by Doctor MacRae concerning the second
expedition to Mars. "So this dumb fool," the doctor had said,
"a medical lieutenant he was, though I hate to admit it this
idiot grabs hold of the beggar's flaps and tries to unroll him.
Then it happened."

"What happened?" Jim had demanded.

"He disappeared."

"The Martian?"

"No, the medical officer."

"Huh? How did he disappear?"

"Don't ask me; I didn't see it. The witnesses four of
'em, with sworn statements say there he was and then there
he wasn't. As if he had met a boojum."

"What's a 'boojum'?" Jim had wanted to know.

"You modern kids don't get any education, do you? The
boojum is in a book; I'll dig up a copy for you."

"But how did he disappear?"

"Don't ask me. Call it mass hypnosis if it makes you feel
any better. It makes me feel better, but not much. All I can say
is that seven-eighths of an iceberg never shows." Jim had
never seen an iceberg, so the allusion was wasted on him
but he felt decidedly not better when he saw the rolled up
Martian.

"Did you see that?" demanded Frank.

"I wish I hadn't," said Jim. "I wonder what happened?"

"Maybe he ran for mayor and lost."

"It's nothing to joke about. Maybe he SssM" Jim broke
off. He caught sight of another Martian, immobile, but not
rolled up; politeness called for silence.

The Martian carrying them made a sudden turn to the left
and entered a hall; he put them down. The room was very
large to them; to Martians it was probably suitable for a cozy
social gathering. There were many of the frames they use as a
human uses a chair and these were arranged in a circle. The
room itself was circular and domed; it had the appearance of
being outdoors for the domed ceiling simulated Martian sky,
pale blue at the horizon, increasing to warmer blue, then to
purple, and reaching purple-black with stars piercing through
at the highest point of the ceiling.

A miniature sun, quite convincing, hung west of the meridian.
By some trick of perspective the pictured horizons were
apparently distant. On the north wall Oeroe seemed to flow past.

Frank's comment was, "Gee whiz!"; Jim did not manage
that much.

Their host had placed them by two resting frames. The
boys did not attempt to use them; stepladders would have been
more comfortable and convenient. The Martian looked first at
them, then at the frames, with great sorrowful eyes. He left
the room.

He came back very shortly, followed by two others; all
three were carrying loads of colorful fabrics. They dumped
them down in a pile in the middle of the room. The first
Martian picked up Jim and Frank and deposited them gently
on the heap.

"I think he means, 'Draw up a chair,'" commented Jim.

The fabrics were not woven but were a continuous sheet,
like cobweb and almost as soft, though much stronger. They
were in all hues of all colors from pastel blue to deep, rich
red. The boys sprawled on them and waited.

Their host relaxed himself on one of the resting frames; the
two others did the same. No one said anything. The two boys
were decidedly not tourists; they knew better than to try to
hurry a Martian. After a bit Jim got an idea; to test it he
cautiously raised his mask. Frank snapped, "Say! What 'cha
trying to do? Choke to death?"

Jim left his mask up. "It's all right. The pressure is up."

"Huh? It can't be. We didn't come through a pressure lock."

"Have it your own way." Jim left his mask up. Seeing that
he did not turn blue, gasp, nor become slack featured, Frank
ventured to try it himself. He found himself able to breathe
without trouble. To be sure, the pressure was not as great as he
was used to at home and it would have seemed positively
stratospheric to an Earthling, but it was enough for a man at
rest.

Several other Martians drifted in and unhurriedly composed
themselves on frames. After a while Frank said, "Do
you know what's going on, Jim?"

"Uh maybe."

"No 'maybes' about it. It's a 'Growing-together.'"

"Growing together" is an imperfect translation of a Martian
idiom which names their most usual social event in bald
terms, just sitting around and saying nothing. In similar terms,
violin music has been described as dragging a horse's tail
across the dried gut of a cat. "I guess you're right," agreed
Jim. "We had better button our lips."

"Yeah."

For a long time nothing was said. Jim's thoughts drifted
away, to school and what he would do there, to his family, to
things in the past. He came back presently to personal self-awareness
and realized that he was happier man he had been
in a long time, with no particular reason that he could place. It
was a quiet happiness; he felt no desire to laugh nor even to
smile, but he was perfectly relaxed and content.

He was acutely aware of the presence of the Martians, of
each individual Martian, and was becoming even more aware
of them with each drifting minute. He had never noticed before
how beautiful they were. "Ugly as a native" was a common
phrase with the colonials; Jim recalled with surprise that
he had even used it himself, and wondered why he ever had
done so.

He was aware, too, of Frank beside him and thought about
how much he liked him. Staunch that was the word for
Frank, a good man to have at your back. He wondered why he
had never told Frank that he liked him.

Mildly he missed Willis, but was not worried about him.
This sort of a party was not Willis's dish; Willis liked things
noisy, boisterous, and unrefined. Jim put aside the thought of
Willis, lay back, and soaked in the joy of living. He noted
with delight that the unknown artist who had designed this
room had arranged for the miniature sun to move across the
ceiling just as the true Sun moved across the sky. He watched
it travel to the west and presently begin to drop toward the
pictured horizon.

There came a gentle booming behind him he could not
catch the words and another Martian answered. One of
them unfolded himself from his resting stand and ambled out
of the room. Frank sat up and said, "I must have been dreaming."

"Did you go to sleep?" asked Jim. "I didn't."

"The heck you didn't. You snored like Doc MacRae."

"Why, I wasn't even asleep."

"Says you!"

The Martian who had left the room returned. Jim was sure
it was the same one; they no longer looked alike to him. He
was carrying a drinking vase. Frank's eyes bulged out. "Do
you suppose they are going to serve us water'

"Looks like," Jim answered in an awed voice.

Frank shook his head. "We might as well keep this to ourselves;
nobody'll ever believe us."

"Yeah. You're right."

The ceremony began. The Martian with the vase announced
his own name, barely touched the stem of the vase
and passed it on. The next Martian gave his name and also
simulated drinking. Around the circle it came. The Martian
who had brought them in, Jim learned, was named "Gekko";
it seemed a pretty name to Jim and fitting. At last the vase
came around to Jim; a Martian handed it to him with the wish,
"May you never suffer thirst." The words were quite clear to
him.

There was an answering chorus around him: "May you
drink deep whenever you wish!"

Jim took the vase and reflected that Doc said that the Martians
didn't have anything that was catching for humans. "Jim
Marlowe!" he announced, placed the stem in his mouth and
took a sip.

As he handed it back he dug into his imperfect knowledge
of the dominant language, concentrated on his accent and
managed to say, "May water ever be pure and plentiful for
you." There was an approving murmur that warmed him. The
Martian handed the vase to Frank.

With the ceremony over the party broke up in noisy, almost
human chatter. Jim was trying vainly to follow what was
being said to him by a Martian nearly three times his height
when Frank said, "Jim! You see that sun? We're going to miss
the scooter!"

"Huh? That not the real Sun; mat's a toy."

"No, but it matches the real Sun. My watch says the same
thing."

"Oh, for Pete's sake! Where's Willis? Gekko where's
Gekko?"

Gekko, on hearing his name, came over; he clucked inquiringly
at Jim. Jim tried very hard to explain their trouble,
tripped over syntax, used the wrong directive symbols, lost his
accent entirely. Frank shoved him aside and took over. Presently
Frank said, "They'll get us there before sunset, but
Willis stays here."

"Huh? They can't do that!"

"That's what the man says."

Jim thought. "Tell them to bring Willis here and ask him."

Gekko was willing to do that. Willis was carried in, placed
upon the floor. He waddled up to Jim and said, "Hi, Jim boy!

Hi, Frank boy!"

"Willis," said Jim, earnestly, "Jim is going away. Willis
come with Jim?"

Willis seemed puzzled. "Stay here. Jim stay here. Willis
stay here. Good."

"Willis," Jim said frantically, "Jim has got to go away.

Willis come with Jim?"
"Jim go?"
"Jim go."
Willis almost seemed to shrug. "Willis go with Jim," he
said sadly.

"Tell Gekko." Willis did so. The Martian seemed surprised,
but there was no further argument. He gathered up
both boys and the bouncer and started for the door. Another
larger Martian tagged "G'kuro" Jim recalled relieved
Gekko of Frank and tailed along behind. As they climbed the
tunnel Jim found suddenly that he needed his mask; Frank put
his on, too.

The withdrawn Martian was still cluttering the passageway;
both their porters stepped over it without comment.

The sun was very low when they got to the surface. Although
a Martian cannot be hastened his normal pace makes
very good time; the long-legged pair made nothing of the three
miles back to Cynia station. The sun had just reached the
horizon and the air was already bitter when the boys and
Willis were dumped on the dock. The two Martians left at
once, hurrying back to the warmth of their city.

"Good-bye, Gekko!" Jim shouted. "Good-bye, G'kuro!"

The driver and the station master were standing on the
dock; it was evident that the driver was ready to start and had
been missing his passengers. "What in the world?" said the
station master.

"We're ready to go," said Jim.

"So I see," said the driver. He stared at the retreating figures.
He blinked and turned to the agent. "We should have left
that stuff alone, George. I'm seeing things." He added to the
boys, "Well, get aboard."

They did so and climbed up to the dome. The car clumped
down off the ramp to the surface of the ice, turned left onto
Oeroe canal and picked up speed. The Sun dropped behind the
horizon; the landscape was briefly illuminated by the short
Martian sunset. On each bank the boys could see the plants
withdrawing for the night. In a few minutes the ground, so
lush with vegetation a half hour before, was bare as the true
desert.

The stars were out, sharp and dazzling. Soft curtains of
aurora hung over the skyline. In the west a tiny steady light
rose and fought its way upwards against the motion of the
stars. "There's Phobos," said Frank. "Lookie!"

"I see it," Jim answered. "It's cold. Let's turn in."

"Okay. I'm hungry."

"I've got some sandwiches left." They munched one each,
then went down into the lower compartment and crawled into
bunks. In time the car passed the city Hesperidum and turned
west-northwest onto the canal Erymanthus, but Jim was unaware
of it; Jim was dreaming that Willis and he were singing
a duet for the benefit of amazed Martians.

"All out! End of the line!" The driver was prodding them.

"Huh?"

"Up you come, shipmate. This is it Syrtis Minor."


CHAPTER FOUR

Lowell Academy

"Dear Mother and Dad,

"The reason I didn't phone you when we got in Wednesday
night was that we didn't get in until Thursday morning. When
I tried to phone on Thursday the operator told me that Deimos
had set for South Colony and then I knew it would be about
three days until I could relay a call through Deimos and a
letter would get there sooner and save you four and a half
credits on a collect phone call. Now I realize that I didn't get
this letter off to you right away and maybe you're not going to
get it until after I would have been able to make a phone call if
I had made it but what you probably don't realize is how busy
they keep you at school and how many demands there are on a
fellow's time and anyhow you probably heard from Frank's
mother that we had gotten here all right and anyway you look
at it I still saved you four and one half credits by not making
that phone call.

"I can just hear Phyllis saying that I am just hinting that the
half-and-four I saved should be turned over to me but I am not
doing anything of the sort because I wouldn't do anything like
that and besides I've still got some of the money left that you

gave me before I left as well as part of my birthday money and
with careful management I will not need any more until you
all come through here at Migration even though everything
costs more here than it does at home. Frank says it's because
they always jack the prices up for the tourist trade but there
aren't any tourists around now and won't be until the Albert
Einstein gets in next week. Anyway if you simply split the
difference with me you would still be a clear two and a quarter
credits ahead.

"The reason we didn't get here Wednesday night was because the
driver decided the ice might not hold so we laid over
at Cynia Station and Frank and I just fooled around and killed
time until sunset.

"Frank and I have been allowed to room together and
we've got a dandy room. It was meant for just one boy and
only has one study desk but we're mostly taking the same
subjects and lots of time we can use the projector together. I
am talking this letter into the study desk recorder because
tonight is Frank's night to help out in the kitchen and all I've
got left to study is a little bit of history and I'm saving that to
do it with Frank when he comes back. Professor Steuben says
that he does not know what they are going to do if they keep
getting more students here with no more room, hang them on
hooks maybe but he is just joking. He jokes a lot and everybody
likes him and will be sorry when he leaves on the Albert
Einstein and the new headmaster takes over.

"Well that's all for now because Frank just got back and we
had better get to work because tomorrow we have a quiz on
system history.

"Your loving son,

"James Madison Marlowe, Jr.
"P.S. Frank just told me that he didn't write his folks either
and he wonders if you would mind phoning his mother and
telling her that he is all right and would she please send his
camera right away, he forgot it.
P.P.S. Willis sends his love. I just asked him.
P.P.P.S. Tell Phyllis that the girls here are dyeing their hair in
stripes. I think it looks silly.

"JIM"

If Professor Otto Steuben, M.A., Ll.D., had not retired,
Jim's life at Lowell Academy would have been different. But
retire he did and went back to San Femando Valley for a
well-earned rest. The entire school went to Marsport to see
him off. He shook hands all around and wept a little and
commended them to the care of Marquis Howe, recently arrived
from Earth and now taking over.

When Jim and Frank got back from the space port they
found the first arrivals gathered around the bulletin board.
They crowded in and read the item that was drawing the
crowd:

SPECIAL NOTICE

All students are required to keep themselves and their
quarters neat and orderly at all times. The supervision
of these matters by student monitors has not proved satisfactory.
Therefore formal inspections by the Headmaster will be
held each week. The first such inspection will be at
ten hundred, Saturday, the 7th of Ceres.
(signed)
M. Howe, Headmaster

"Well, for crying out loud!" Frank burst out. "What d'you
think of that, Jim?"

Jim stared at it darkly. "I think that today is the sixth of
Ceres."

"Yeah, but what's the idea? He must think that this is a
school of correction." Frank turned to one of the older
students, who had, until now, been monitor of their corridor.
"Anderson, what do you think about it? Can he do that?"

"I don't know. I really don't know. It seems to me that our
rooms and so forth are our private business."

"What do you intend to do about it?"

"Me?" The young man thought a while before replying,
"I've got just one more semester to my degree, then I'm out of
here. I think I'll just sit tight, keep my mouth shut, and sweat
it out."

"Huh? That's easy enough for you to say but I've got
twelve semesters staring me in the face. What am I? A criminal?"

"That's your problem, fellow." The older student left.

One of the boys in the crowd seemed undisturbed by the
notice. He was Herbert Beecher, son of the Company's Resident
Agent General and a newcomer both to Mars and to the
school. One of the other boys noticed his smirk. "What are
you looking smug about, tourist?" he demanded. "Did you
know about this ahead of time?"

"Certainly I did."

"I'll bet you thought it up."

"No, but my old man says you guys have been getting
away with it for a long time. My old man says that Stoobie
was too soft to put any discipline into this school. My old man
says that"
"Nobody cares what your old man says. Beat it!"
"You better not talk about my old man that way. I'll"

"Beat it before I clip you one!"

Young Beecher eyed his antagonist a red-headed lad named Kelly
and decided that he meant it. He faded out of sight.

"He can afford to grin," Kelly said bitterly, "he lives in his
old man's quarters. This thing only gets at those of us who
have to live in the school. It's rank discrimination, that's what
it is!" About a third of boys were day students, mostly sons of
Company employees who were stationed at Syrtis Minor. Another
third were migratory colonials and the balance were the
children of terrestrials at the outlying stations, especially those
employed on the atmosphere project. Most of these last were
Bolivians and Tibetans, plus a few Eskimos. Kelly turned to
one of them. "How about it, Chen? Are we going to put up
with this?"

The Asiatic's broad face showed no expression. "It is not
worth getting excited about."

"Huh? You mean you won't stand up for your rights?"

"These things pass."

Jim and Frank went back to their room but continued to
discuss it. "Frank," asked Jim, "what's behind this? Do you
suppose they're pulling the same stunt over in the girls'
school?"

"I could call up Dolores Montez and find out."

"Mmm... don't bother. I don't suppose it matters. The
question is: what are we going to do about it?"

"What can we do about it?"

"I don't know. I wish I could ask Dad about this. He
always told me to stand up for my rights... but maybe he
would say that this is just something I should expect. I don't
know."

"Look," suggested Frank, "why don't we ask our fathers?"

"You mean call 'em up tonight? Is there relay tonight?"

"No, don't call 'em up; that costs too much. We'll wait till
our folks come through here at migration; that's not so very
long now. If we're going to make a fuss, we've got to have
our folks here to back us up, or we won't get any place with
it. Meantime, we sit tight and do what he asks us. It may not
amount to anything."

"Now you're talking sense." Jim stood up. "I suppose we
might as well try to get this dump tidied up."

"Okay. Say, Jim, I just thought of something. Isn't the
chairman of the Company named Howe?"

"John W. Howe," agreed Jim. "What about it?"

"Well, the head is named Howe, too."

"Oh." Jim shook his head. "Doesn't mean anything. Howe
is a very common name."

"I'll bet it does mean something. Doc MacRae says you
have to be somebody's cousin to get any of the juicy Company
appointments. Doc says that the Company setup is just one big
happy family, playing-you-tickle-me-and-I'll-kiss-you and that
the idea that it is a non-profit corporation is the biggest joke
since women were invented."

"Hmm... Well, I wouldn't know. Where shall I put this
junk?"

Slips were distributed at breakfast the next morning giving
what was described as "Official Arrangement of Rooms for
Inspection"; the job the boys had done the night before had to
be done over. Since Headmaster Howe's instructions failed to
consider the possibility that two boys might be living in a
one-boy room the rearranging was not easy; they were not
ready by ten o'clock. However it was nearly two hours later
that the Headmaster got around to their cubicle.

He poked his head inside, seemed about to leave, then
came inside. He pointed to their outdoors suits, hanging on
hooks by the clothes locker. "Why haven't you removed those
barbaric decorations from your masks?"

The boys looked startled; Howe went on, "Haven't you

looked at the bulletin board this morning?"

"Er no, sir."
"Do so. You are responsible for anything posted on the
bulletin board." He shouted toward the door. "Orderly!"
One of the older students appeared in the doorway. "Yes,
sir."

"Weekend privileges suspended for these two pending satisfaction
of inspection requirements. Five demerits each."
Howe looked around. "This room is unbelievably cluttered
and untidy. Why didn't you follow the prescribed diagram?"

Jim stuttered, tongue-tied by the evident unfaimess of the
question. Finally he got out, "This is supposed to be a single
room. We did the best we could."

"Don't resort to excuses. If you don't have room to store
things neatly, get rid of the excess baggage." For the first time
his eye lit on Willis, who, at the sight of strangers, had retreated
to a comer and hauled in all out-rigging. Howe pointed at him.
"Athletic equipment must be stored on tops of lockers or left in
the gymnasium. It must not be thrown in corners."

Jim started to answer; Frank kicked him in a shin. Howe
went on lecturing as he moved toward the door. "I realize that
you young people have been brought up away from civilization
and have not had the benefits of polite society, but I shall
do my best to remedy that. I intend that this school shall,
above all other things, turn out civilized young gentlemen."
He paused at the door and added, "When you have cleaned up
those masks, report to my office."

When Howe was out of earshot Jim said, "What did you
kick me for?"

"You dumb idiot, he thought Willis was a ball."

"I know; I was just about to set him right."

Frank looked disgusted. "Don't you know enough to let
well enough alone? You want to keep Willis, don't you? He
would have whipped up some rule making him contraband."

"Oh, he couldn't do that!"

"The heck he couldn't! I'm beginning to see that Stoobie
kept our pal Howe from exercising his full talents. Say, what
did he mean: 'demerits'?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't sound good." Jim took down
his respirator mask, looked at the gay tiger stripes. "You
know, Frank, I don't think I want to become a 'civilized
young gentleman'."

"You and me both!"

They decided to take a quick look at the bulletin board
before they got into any more trouble, rather than fix the
masks at once. They went to the entrance foyer and did so.
On the board was pinned:

NOTICE TO STUDENTS

1. The practice of painting respirator masks with so-called
identification patterns will cease. Masks will be
plain and each student will letter his name neatly in
letters one inch high across me chest and across the
shoulders of his outdoors suit.

2. Students are required to wear shirts and shoes or slippers
at all times and places except in their own rooms.

3. Pets will not be kept in dormitory rooms. In some
cases, where the animals are of interest as scientific
specimens, arrangements may be made to feed and care
for pets in the biology laboratory.

4. Food must not be kept in dormitory rooms. Students
receiving food packages from parents will store them
with the commissary matron and reasonable amounts
may be withdrawn immediately after meals, except Saturday
morning breakfast. Special permission may be
obtained for "sweets parties" during recreation hours on
occasions such as birthdays, etc.

5. Students denied weekend privileges for disciplinary
reasons may read, study, compose letters, play musical
instruments, or listen to music. They are not permitted
to play cards, visit in other students' rooms, nor leave
the school area for any reason.

6. Students wishing to place telephone calls will submit
a written request on the approved form and will obtain
key to the communications booth at the main office.

(signed) M. Howe, Headmaster

Jim whistled. Frank said, "Would you look at that, Jim?
Would you, now? Do you suppose we have to get permission
to scratch? What does he take us for?"

"Search me."

"Frank, I haven't got a shirt."

"Well, I can lend you a sweat shirt until you can buy some.
But take a look at paragraph three you'd better get busy."

"Huh? What about it?" Jim reread it.

"You'd better go butter up the bio teacher, so you can make
arrangements for Willis."

"What?" Jim simply had not connected the injunction concerning
pets with Willis; he did not think of Willis as a pet.
"Oh, I can't do that, Frank. He'd be terribly unhappy."

"Then you had better ship him home and let your folks care
for him."

Jim looked balky. "I won't do it. I won't!"

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I don't know." He thought about it. "I won't do anything
about it. I'll just keep him under cover. Old lady Howe
doesn't even know I've got him."

"Well... you might get away with it, so long as nobody
snitches on you."

"I don't think any of the fellows would do that."
They went back to their room and attempted to remove the
decorations from their masks. They were not very successful;

the paint had bitten into the plastic and they succeeded only in
smearing the colors around. Presently a student named
Smythe stuck his head in the door. "Clean up your masks for you?"

"Huh? It can't be done; the colors have soaked in."

"You're the umpteenth to find that out. But, from the
goodness of my heart and a willingness to be of public service,
I will paint your mask over to match the original shade
at a quarter credit per mask."

"I thought there was a catch in it," Jim answered.

"Do you want it, or don't you? Hurry up, my public is
waiting."

"Smitty, you would sell tickets to your grandmother's funeral."
Jim produced a quarter credit. .

"That's an idea. How much do you think I could charge?"
The other boy produced a can of lacquer and a brush, rapidly
painted out Jim's proud design, using a pigment that was a fair
match for the olive-drab original shade. "There! It'll dry in a
couple of minutes. How about you, Sutton?"

"Okay, bloodsucker," Frank agreed.

"Is that any way to talk about your benefactor? I've got a
heavy date over on the girls' side and here I am spending my
precious Saturday helping you out." Smythe made equally
rapid work of Frank's mask.

"Spending your time raising money for your date, you
mean," amended Jim. "Smitty, what do you think of these
trick rules the new Head has thought up? Should we knuckle
under, or make a squawk?"

"Squawk? What for?" Smythe gathered up his tools.
"There's a brand-new business opportunity in each one, if you
only had the wit to see it. When in doubt, come see Smythe
special services at all hours." He paused at the door. "Don't
mention that deal about tickets to my grandmother's funeral;

she'd want a cut on it before she kicks off. Granny is a very
shrewd gal with a credit."

"Frank," remarked Jim when Smythe was gone, "there is
something about that guy I don't like."

Frank shrugged. "He fixed us up. Let's check in and get off
the punishment list."

"Right. He reminds me of something Doc used to say.
'Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to
graft.'"

"That's not necessarily so. My old man says Doc is a
crackpot. Come on."

They found a long line waiting outside the Headmaster's
office. They were finally ushered in in groups of ten. Howe
gave their masks a brief glance each, then started in to lecture.
"I hope that this will be a lesson to you young gentlemen not
only in neatness, but in alertness. Had you noticed what was
posted on the bulletin board you would have been, each of
you, prepared for inspection. As for the dereliction itself, I
want you to understand that this lesson far transcends the matter
of the childish and savage designs you have been using on
your face coverings."

He paused and made sure of their attention. "There is actually
no reason why colonial manners should be rude and vulgar
and, as head of this institution, I intend to see to it that
whatever defects there may have been in your home backgrounds
are repaired. The first purpose, perhaps the only purpose,
of education is the building of character and character
can be built only through discipline. I flatter myself that I am
exceptionally well prepared to undertake this task; before
coming here I had twelve years experience as a master at the
Rocky Mountains Military Academy, an exceptionally fine
school, a school that produced men."

He paused again, either to catch his breath or let his words
soak in. Jim had come in prepared to let a reprimand roll off
his back, but the schoolmaster's supercilious attitude and most
especially his suggestion that a colonial home was an inferior
sort of environment had gradually gotten his dander up. He
spoke up. "Mr. Howe?"

"Eh? Yes? What is it?"

"This is not the Rocky Mountains; it's Mars. And this isn't
a military academy."

There was a brief moment when it seemed as if Mr.
Howe's surprise and anger might lead him to some violence,
or even to apoplexy. After a bit he contained himself and said
through tight lips, "What is your name?"

"Marlowe, sir. James Marlowe."

"It would be a far, far better thing for you, Marlowe, if it
were a military academy." He turned to the others. "The rest
of you may go. Weekend privileges are restored. Marlowe,
remain behind."

When the others had left Howe said, "Marlowe, there is
nothing in this world more offensive than a smart-aleck boy,
an ungrateful upstart who doesn't know his place. You are
enjoying a fine education through the graciousness of the
Company. It ill behooves you to make cheap wisecracks at
persons appointed by the Company to supervise your training
and welfare. Do you realize that?"

Jim said nothing. Howe said sharply, "Come! Speak up,
lad admit your fault and make your apology. Be a man!"

Jim still said nothing. Howe drummed on the desk top;

finally he said, "Very well, go to your room and think it over.
You have the weekend to think about it."

When Jim got back to his room Frank looked him over and
shook his head admiringly. "Boy, oh boy!" he said, "ain't you
the reckless one."

"Well, he needed to be told."

"He sure did. But what are your plans now? Are you going
to cut your throat, or just enter a monastery? Old Howie will
be gunning for you every minute from here on out. Matter of
fact, it won't be any too safe to be your roommate."

"Confound it, Frank, if that's the way you feel, you're
welcome to find another roommate!"

"Easy, easy! I won't run out on you. I'm with you to the
end. 'Smiling, the boy fell dead.' I'm glad you told him off. I
wouldn't have had the courage to do it myself."

Jim threw himself across the bunk. "I don't think I can
stand this place. I'm not used to being pushed around and
sneered at, just for nothing. And now I'm going to get it
double. What can I do?"

"Damned if I know."

'This was a nice place under old Stoobie. I thought I was
going to like it just fine."

"Stoobie was all right. And Howe is a prime stinker. But
what can you do, Jim, except shut up, take it, and hope he
will forget it?"

"Look, nobody else likes it either. Maybe if we stood
together we could make him slow up."

"Not likely. You were the only one who had the guts to
speak up. Shucks, I didn't even back you up and I agreed
with you a hundred per cent."

"Well, suppose we all sent letters to our parents?"

Frank shook his head. "You couldn't get them all to and
some pipsqueak would snitch. Then you would be in the soup,
for inciting to riot or some such nonsense. Anyhow," he went
on, "just what could you say in a letter that you could put your
finger on and prove that Mr. Howe was doing something he
had no right to? I know what my old man would say."

"What would he say?"

"Many's the time he's told me stories about the school he
went to back Earthside and what a rough place it was. I think
he's a little bit proud of it. If I tell him that Howie won't let us
keep cookies in our room, he'll just laugh at me. He'd say"

"Dawg gone it, Frank, it's not the rule about food in our
rooms; it's the whole picture."

"Sure, sure. I know it. But try to tell my old man. All we
can tell is little things like that. It'll have to get a lot worse
before you could get our parents to do anything."

Frank's views were confirmed as the day wore on. As the
news spread student after student dropped in on them, some to
pump Jim's hand for having bearded the Headmaster, some
merely curious to see the odd character who had had the temerity
to buck vested authority. But one two-pronged fact became
apparent: while no one liked the new school head and all
resented some or all of his new "disciplinary" measures, no
one was anxious to join up in what was assumed to be a
foregone lost cause.

One of the senior boys summed it up. "Get wise to yourself, kid.
A man wouldn't go into school teaching if he didn't enjoy
exercising cheap authority. It's the natural profession of
little Napoleons."

"Stoobie wasn't like that!"

"Stoobie was an exception. Most of them like rules just for
the sake of rules. It's a fact of nature, like frost at sundown.
You have to get used to it."

On Sunday Frank went out into Syrtis Minor the terrestrial
settlement, not the nearby Martian city. Jim, under what
amounted to room arrest, stayed in their room, pretended to
study and talked to Willis. Frank came back at supper time
and announced, "I brought you a present." He chucked Jim a
tiny package.

"You're a pal! What is it?"

"Open it and see."

It was a new tango recording, made in Rio and direct from
Earth via the Albert Einstein, titled iQuien Es La Senorita?
Jim was inordinately fond of Latin music; Frank had remembered it.

"Oh, boy!" Jim went to the study desk, threaded the tape
into the speaker, and got ready to enjoy it. Frank stopped him.

"There's the supper bell. Better wait."

Reluctantly Jim complied, but he came back and played it
several times during the evening until Frank insisted that they
study. He played it once more just before lights-out.

The dormitory corridor had been dark and quiet for perhaps
fifteen minutes when ^Quien Es La Senorita? started up
again. Frank sat up with a start. "What the deuce? Jim don't
play that now!"

"I'm not," protested Jim. "It must be Willis. It has to be
Willis."

"Well, shut him up. Choke him. Put a pillow over his
head."

Jim switched on the light. "Willis boy hey, Willis! Shut
up that racket!" Willis probably did not even hear him. He
was standing the middle of the floor, beating time with his eye
stalks, and barrelling on down the groove. His rendition was
excellent, complete with marimbas and vocal chorus.

Jim picked him up. "Willis! Shut up, fellow."

Willis kept on beating it out.

The door bust open and framed Headmaster Howe. "Just as
I thought," he said triumphantly, "no consideration for other
people's rights and comforts. Shut off that speaker. And consider
yourself restricted to your room for the next month."

Willis kept on playing; Jim tried to hide him with his body.
"Didn't you hear my order?" demanded Howe. "I said to shut
off that music." He strode over to the study desk and twisted
the speaker switch. Since it was already shut off full, all he
accomplished was breaking a fingernail. He suppressed an
unschoolmasterly expression and stuck the finger in his
mouth. Willis worked into the third chorus.

Howe turned around. "How do you have this thing wired?"
he snapped. Getting no answer, he stepped up to Jim and said,
"What are you hiding?" He shoved Jim aside, looked at Willis
with evident disbelief and distaste. "What is that"
"Uh, that's Willis," Jim answered miserably, raising his
voice to be heard.

Howe was not entirely stupid; it gradually penetrated that
the music he had been hearing came out of the curious-looking,
fuzzy sphere in front of him.

"And what is Willis', may I ask?"

"Well, he's a... a bouncer. A sort of a Martian." Willis
picked this moment to finish the selection, breathe a liquid
contralto buenas noches, and shut up for the moment.

"A bouncer? I've never heard of one."

"Well, not very many have seen one, even among the colonists. They're scarce."

"Not scarce enough. Sort of a Martian parrot, I assume."

"Oh, no!"

"What do you mean, 'Oh, no'?"

"He's not a bit like a parrot. He talks, he thinks he's my friend!"

Howe was over his surprise and recalling the purpose of his
visit. "All that is beside the point. You saw my order about pets?"

"Yes, but Willis is not a pet."

"What is he, then?"

"Well, he can't be a pet. Pets are animals; they're property.
Willis isn't property; he's... well, he's just Willis."

Willis picked this time to continue with the next thing he
had heard after the last playing of the tango. "Boy, when I
hear that music," he remarked in Jim's voice, "I don't even
remember that old stinker Howe."

"I can't forget him," Willis went on in Frank's voice. "I
wish I had had the nerve to tell him off the same time you did,
Jim. You know what? I think Howe is nuts, I mean really
nuts. I'll bet he was a coward when he was a kid and it's
twisted him inside."
Howe turned white. Frank's arm-chair psychoanalyzing
had hit dead center. He raised his hand as if to strike, then
dropped it again, uncertain what to strike. Willis hastily withdrew
all protuberances and became a smooth ball.

"I say it's a pet," he said savagely, when he regained his
voice. He scooped Willis up and headed for the door.

Jim started after him. "Say! Mr. Howe you can't take Willis!"

The Headmaster turned. "Oh, I can't, can't I? You get back
to bed. See me in my office in the morning."

"If you hurt Willis, I'll... I'll..."

"You'll what?" He paused. "Your precious pet won't be hurt.
Now you get back in that bed before I thrash you." He turned
again and left without stopping to see whether or not his order
had been carried out.

Jim stood staring at the closed door, tears streaming down
his cheeks, sobs of rage and frustration shaking him. Frank
came over and put a hand on him. "Jim. Jim, don't take on so.
You heard him promise not to hurt Willis. Get back into bed
and settle it in the morning. At the very worst you'll have to
send Willis home."

Jim shook off the hand. "I should have burned him," he
muttered. "I should have burned him down where he stood."

"Suppose you did? Want to spend the rest of your life in an
asylum? Don't let him get your goat, fellow; if he gets you
angry, you'll do something silly and then he's got you."

"I'm already angry."

"I know you are and I don't blame you. But you've got to
get over it and use your head. He was laying for you, you
saw that. No matter what he does or says you've got to keep
cool and outsmart him or he gets you in wrong."

"I suppose you're right."

"I know I'm right. That's what Doc would say. Now come to bed."

Neither one of them got much sleep that night. Toward
morning Jim had a nightmare that Howe was a withdrawn
Martian whom he was trying to unroll against his better
judgment.

There was a brand-new notice on the bulletin board at
breakfast time. It read:

IMPORTANT NOTICE

All students possessing personal weapons will turn them
in at the main office for safekeeping. Weapons will be
returned on request whenever the student concerned is
leaving the limits of the school and the adjoining settlement.
The practice of wearing sidearms in areas where
there is no actual danger from Martian life will cease.
(signed) M. Howe, Headmaster

Jim and Frank read it together. "This is the worst one yet,"
said Jim. "The right to bear arms is guaranteed. Doc says it's
the basis of all freedom."

Frank studied it. "Do you know what I think?"

"No. What?"
"I think he's afraid of you personally."

"Me? Why?"
"Because of what happened last night. There was murder
in your eye and he saw it. I think he wants to pull your teeth. I
don't think he gives a hoot about the rest of us hanging on to
our heaters."

"You really think so?"

"I do. The question is: what are you going to do about it?"

Jim thought about it. "I'm not going to give up my gun.

Dad wouldn't want me to. I'm sure of that. Anyhow, I'm
licensed and I don't have to."

"Neither will I. But we had better think up a wrinkle before
you have to go see him this morning."

The wrinkle showed up at breakfast the student named
Smythe. Frank spoke to Jim about it in a low voice; together
they accosted the student after breakfast and brought him to
their room. "Look, Smitty," began Jim, "you're a man with

lots of angles, aren't you?"

"Mmm... could be. What's up?"

"You saw that notice this morning?"

"Sure. Who didn't? Everybody is grousing about it."

"Are you going to turn in your gun?"

"I did before breakfast. What do I need a gun for around
here? I've got a brain."

"In that case you won't be called in about it. Now just
supposing that you were handed two packages to take care of.
You won't open them and you won't know what's in them. Do
you think you could find a safe, a really safe place to keep
them and still be able to give them back on short notice?"

"I don't suppose you want me to tell anybody about these,
uh, packages?"

"Nope. Nobody."

"Hmm... this sort of service comes high."

"How high?"

"Well, now, I couldn't afford to do it for less than two
credits a week."

"That's too much," Frank put in sharply.

"Well you're friends of mine. I'll make you a flat rate of
eight credits for the rest of the year."

"Too much."

"Six credits then, and I won't go lower. You've got to pay
for the risk."

"It's a deal," Jim said before Frank could bargain further.

Smythe left with a bundle before Jim reported to the
Headmaster's office.


CHAPTER FIVE

Little Pitchers Have
Big Ears

Headmaster Howe kept Jim waiting thirty minutes
before admitting him. When he was finally let in, Jim saw that
Howe seemed to be quite pleased with himself. He glanced
up. "Yes? You asked to see me?"
"You told me to see you, sir."
"I did? Let me see now, what is your name?"
He dam well knows my name, Jim said savagely to himself;
he's trying to get my goat. He recalled Frank's solemn
warning not to lose his temper. "James Marlowe, sir," he
answered evenly.

"Oh, yes." The headmaster picked up a list from his desk.
"I suppose you have come in to surrender your gun. Turn it
over."

Jim shook his head. "I didn't come in for that."
"You didn't? Well, that's beside the point. You've seen the
order; give me your gun."

Jim shook his head again. "I don't have a gun."
"Why did you come here without it? Go back to your room
and fetch it. Quickly I give you three minutes."

"No," said Jim slowly, "I've already told you that I haven't
got a gun."

"You mean you haven't one in your room?"

"That's what I said."

"You're lying."

Jim counted slowly to twenty, then answered, "You know
that I have no gun, or you wouldn't dare say that."

Howe stared at him for what seemed a long time, then
stepped into his outer office. He returned shortly and appeared
to have regained his cockiness. "Now, Marlowe, you said you
wanted to see me about something else?"

"You told me to see you. About Willis."

"Willis? Oh, yes, the Martian roundhead." Howe smiled
with his lips. "An interesting scientific specimen."

Howe added nothing more. The silence kept up so long
that Jim began to realize that the Headmaster intended to force
him to make any moves. Jim had already resigned himself to
the idea that it would be impossible to keep Willis at the
school any longer. He said, "I've come to get him. I'm going
to take him out in town and arrange to send him home."

Howe smiled more broadly. "Oh, you are? And pray tell
me how you are going to do that when you are restricted to the
school for the next thirty days?"

Frank was still warning him; Jim could almost hear him.
He answered, "All right, sir, I'll get somebody to do it for
me today. Now, please, can I have Willis?"

Howe leaned back and crossed his fingers over his stomach.
"You bring up a most interesting point, Marlowe. You
said last night that this creature is not a pet."

Jim was puzzled. "Yes?"

"You were quite emphatic about it. You said that he wasn't
your property, but your friend. That's right, isn't it?"

Jim hesitated. He could feel that a trap was being built for
him, but he was not sure what sort. "What if I did?"

"Did you say that, or didn't you? Answer me!"

"Well yes."

Howe leaned forward. "In that case, what are you doing in
here demanding that I turn this creature over to you? You have
no claim on him."

"But, but" Jim stopped, at a loss for words. He had
been tricked with words, slippery words; he did not know how
to answer them. "You can't do that!" he blurted out. "You
don't own him, either! You have no right to keep him locked
up."

Howe carefully fitted his finger tips together. "That is a
matter still to be determined. Although you have waived all
claim to him, it may be that the creature is property nevertheless
in which case he was found on the school grounds and I
may take title to him on behalf of the school, as a scientific
specimen."

"But You can't do that; that's not fair! If he belongs to
anybody, he belongs to me! You've got no right to"

"Silence!" Jim shut up; Howe went on more quietly,
"Don't tell me what I can or cannot do. You forget that I am in
loco parentis to you. Any rights that you may have are vested
in me, just as if I were your own father. As to the disposition
of this creature, I am looking into it; I expect to see the Agent
General this afternoon. In due course you will be informed of
the outcome."

The Latin phrase confused Jim, as it was intended to; but
he did catch one point in Howe's statement and snatched at it.
"I'm going to tell my father about this. You can't get away
with it."

"Threats, eh?" Howe smiled sourly. "Don't bother to ask
for the key to the communications booth; I don't propose to
have students phoning their parents every time I tell them to
wipe their noses. Send your father a letter but let me hear it
before you send it." He stood up. "That is all. You may go.
No wait." He went again to his outer office, to return almost
immediately. He seemed quite angry.
"Where did you hide that gun?" he demanded.
Jim had had time to regain some portion of calm. He said
nothing. "Answer me!" insisted the Headmaster.

Jim answered slowly, "You've already called me a liar once
on that subject; I won't say anything."
Howe looked at him. "Get to your room!" Jim got out.
Frank was waiting, "I don't see any blood," he announced,
looking Jim over. "How did it go?"

"Oh, that so-and-so! That filthy, filthy so-and-so!"

"Bad, eh?"

"Frank, he won't let me have Willis."

"He's going to make you send him home? But you expected that."

"No, not that. He won't let me have him at all. He used a
lot of double-talk but all it meant was that he had him and
meant to keep him." Jim seemed about to break down and
blubber. "Poor little Willis you know how timid he is.
Frank, what'll I do?"

"I don't get it," Frank answered slowly. "He can't keep
Willis, not for keeps. Willis belongs to you."

"I told you he used a lot of double-talk but that's what he
means to do just the same. How am I going to get him back?
Frank, I've just got to get him back."

Frank did not answer; Jim looked around disconsolately
and noticed the room for the first time. "What happened
here?" he asked. "The place looks like you had tried to wreck
it."

"Oh, that. I started to tell you. While you were gone, a
couple of Howie's stooges searched the joint."

"Huh?"

'Trying to find our guns. I just played dumb."

"They did, did they?" Jim appeared to make up his mind.
"I've got to find Smythe." He headed for the door.

"Hey, wait what d'you want to find Smitty for?"

Jim looked back and his face was very old. "I'm going to
get my gun and go back there and get Willis."

"Jim! You're crazy!"

Jim did not answer but continued toward the door.

Frank stuck out a foot, tripped him and landed on his back
as he went down. He grabbed Jim's right arm and twisted it
behind his back. "Now you just rest there," he told Jim, "until
you quiet down."

"Let me up."

"You got some sense in your head?"

No answer. "Okay," Frank went on, "I can sit here just as
long as you want to. Let me know when you've quieted
down." Jim started to struggle; Frank twisted his arm until he
yelped and relaxed.

"That's better," said Frank. "Now listen to me: you're a
nice guy, Jim, but you go off half-cocked. Suppose you do get
your gun and suppose you manage to scare old Howie into
coughing up Willis. How long are you going to keep him?
You know how long? Just long enough for him to call in some
Company police. Then they lock you up and take Willis away
from you again. And you'll never see Willis again, not to
mention the trouble and grief you'll cause your folks."

There followed a considerable silence. Finally Jim said,

"Okay, let me up."

"You've given up the idea of waving your gun around?"

"Yeah."

"On your honor? Solemn promise?"

"Yes, I promise."

Frank let him up and brushed him off. Jim rubbed his arm
and said, "You needn't have twisted it so hard."

"You're a fine one to complain; you ought to thank me.
Now grab your notebook; we're going to be late to chemistry
lab."

"I'm not going."
"Don't be silly, Jim. No use to pile up a bunch of cuts and
maybe flunk just because you're sore at the Head."

"That's not the idea. I'm quitting, Frank. I won't stay in
this school."

"What? Don't be hasty, Jim. I know how you feel, but it's

here or nowhere. Your folks can't afford to send you back to
Earth for school."

"Then it's nowhere. I won't stay here. I'm going to hang
around just long enough to find some way to get my hands on
Willis, then I'm going home."

"Well..." Frank stopped to scratch his head. "It's your
problem. But see here you might as well come on to chem
lab. It won't hurt you any and you don't intend to leave this
minute anyhow."

"No."
Frank looked worried. "Will you promise me to stay right
here and not do anything rash till I get back?"

"Why should you worry?"
"Promise me, Jim, or I cut lab, too."
"Oh, all right, all right! Go ahead."
"Right!" Frank dashed away.

When Frank got back he found Jim sprawled on his bunk.

"Asleep?"
"No."

"Figured out what you are going to do?"

"No."

"Anything you want?"

"No."

"Your conversation is brilliant," Frank commented and sat
down at the study desk.

"Sorry." Nothing was heard from Howe the rest of that day.
Frank managed to persuade Jim to attend classes the next day
by pointing out that he did not want to invite attention to
himself while he was waiting for an opportunity to grab
Willis.

Tuesday also passed without word from Howe. Tuesday
night, perhaps two hours after lights-out, Frank suddenly
woke up. Someone was stirring in the room. "Jim!" he called
out softly.

Dead silence. Keeping quiet himself Frank reached out and
switched on the light. Jim was standing near the door. "Jim,"
complained Frank, "why didn't you answer me? You trying to
scare me to death?"

"Sorry."

"What's up? What are you doing out of bed?"

"Never mind. You go on back to sleep."

Frank climbed out of bed. "Oh, no! Not while you've got
that wild look in your eye. Now tell papa."

Jim waved him away. "I don't want to mix you up in this.
Go on back to bed."

"Think you're big enough to make me? Now cut out the
foolishness and give. What are your plans?"

Reluctantly Jim explained. It seemed likely to him that
Headmaster Howe had Willis locked up somewhere in his office.
Jim planned to break in and attempt a rescue. "Now you
go back to bed," he finished. "If they question you, you don't
know anything; you slept all night."

"Let you tackle it alone? Not likely! Anyhow you I need
somebody to jigger for you." Frank started fumbling around in
their locker.

"I don't want any help. What are you looking for?"

"Laboratory gloves," answered Frank. "You're going to get
help whether you want it or not, you thumb-fingered idiot. I
don't want you caught."

"What do you want gloves for?"

"Ever hear of fingerprints?"

"Sure, but he'll know who did it and I don't care; I'll be
gone."

"Sure, he'll know, but he may not be able to prove it.

"Here, put these on." Jim accepted the gloves and with them he
tacitly accepted Frank's help in the adventure.

Burglary is not common on Mars and locks are unusual
items. As for night watchmen, manpower is not transported
through millions of miles of space simply to be used to watch
the silent corridors of a boys' school. The principal hazard
that Jim and Frank faced in getting to the school's offices was
the chance of running into some restless student going to the
washroom after hours.

They moved as silently as possible and scouted each stretch
of corridor before entering it. In a few minutes they were at
the outer door of the offices without they hoped having
been seen. Jim tried the door; it was locked. "Why do they
bother to lock this?" he whispered.

"On account of guys like you and me," Frank told him.
"Go back to the comer and keep your eyes peeled." He attacked
the latch with his knife.

"Okay." Jim went to the passageway intersection and kept
lookout. Five minutes later Frank hissed at him; he went back

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter. Come on." Frank had the outer door
open.

They tiptoed through the outer office, past recording desks

and high stacked spool files to an inner door marked: Marquis
Howe HEADMASTER Private.

The lettering on the door was new and so was the lock.
The lock was no mere gesture, capable of being picked or
sprung with a knife; it was a combination type, of titanium
steel, and would have looked more at home on a safe.

"Think you can open it?" Jim asked anxiously.

Frank whistled softly. "Don't be silly. The party is over,
Jim. Let's see if we can get back to bed without getting
caught."

"Maybe we can get the door off its hinges."

"It swings the wrong way. I'd rather try to cut a hole
through the partition." He moved aside, knelt down, and tried
the point of his knife on the wall.

Jim looked things over. There was an air-conditioning duct
running from the corridor through the room they were in and
to the wall of the headmaster's office. The hole for the duct
was almost as wide as his shoulders; if he could unscrew the
holding flanges and let the duct sag out of the way

No, he could not even get up to it; there was nothing to use
as a ladder. The file cabinets were fastened to the floor, he
found.

There was a small grille set in the bottom of the door, to
permit the exhaust air to escape from the inner office. It could
not be removed, nor would the hole left be large enough to be
of use, but he lay down and tried to peer through it. He could
see nothing; the room beyond was dark.

He cupped his hands over it and called out, "Willis! Oh,
Willis! Willis boy"

Frank came over and said urgently, "Cut that out. Are you
trying to get us caught?"

"Sh!" Jim put his ear to the grille.

They both heard a muffled reply: "Jim boy! Jim!"

Jim replied, "Willis! Come here, Willis!" and listened.
"He's in there," he said to Frank. "Shut up in something."

"Obviously," agreed Frank. "Now will you quiet down before
somebody comes?"

"We've got to get him out. How are you making out with
the wall?"

"No good. There's heavy wire mesh set in the plastic."

"Well, we've got to get him out. What do we do?"

"We don't do a dam thing," asserted Frank. "We're stymied.
We go back to bed."

"You can go back to bed if you want to. I'm going to stay
here and get him out."

"The trouble with you, Jim, is that you don't know when
you are licked. Come on!"

"No. Sh!" He added, "Hear anything?"

Frank listened, "I hear something. What is it?"

It was a scraping noise from inside the inner office. "It's
Willis, trying to get out," Jim stated.

"Well, he can't. Let's go."

"No." Jim continued to listen at the grille. Frank waited
impatiently, his spirit of adventure by now more than satisfied.
He was stretched between a reluctance to run out on Jim and
an anxiety to get back to his room before they were caught.
The scraping noise continued.

After a while it stopped. There was a soft plop! as if something
soft but moderately heavy had fallen a foot or so, then
there was a slight scurrying sound, almost beyond hearing.

"Jim? Jim boy?"

"Willis!" yelped Jim. The bouncer's voice had come to him
from just beyond the grille.

"Jim boy take Willis home."

"Yes, yes! Stay there, Willis; Jim has to find a way to get
Willis out."

"Willis get out." The bouncer stated it positively.

"Frank," Jim said urgently, "if we could just find something
to use as a crowbar, I could bust that grille out of its
frame. I think maybe Willis could squeeze through."

"We've got nothing like that. We've got nothing but our
knives."

"Think, fellow, think! Is there anything in our room, anything at all?"

"Not that I know of." The scraping noise had resumed;

Frank added, "What's Willis up to?"

"I guess he's trying to get the door open. We've got to find
some way to open it for him. Look, I'll boost you up on my
shoulders and you try to take the collar off that air duct."

Frank looked the situation over. "No good. Even if we get
the duct down, there'll be a grille set in the other side of the
wall."

"How do you know?"
"There always is."

Jim shut up. Frank was certainly correct and he knew it.
The scraping sound had continued, still continued. Frank
dropped on one knee and put his head close to the grille. He
listened.

'Take it easy," he advised Jim after a moment. "I think
maybe Willis is making out all right by himself."
"What do you mean?"
"That's a cutting sound if I ever heard one."
"Huh? Willie can't get through a door. Many's the time
I've locked him up, back home."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he just didn't want to get out
bad enough." The scraping sound was more distinct now.

A few minutes later a fine circular line began to show
around the grille, then the portion of the door enclosed by the
line fell toward them. For an instant Willis could be seen
through the hole. Sticking out from his tubby body was a
clawed pseudthumb eight inches long and an inch thick.
"What's that?" demanded Frank.

"Darned if I know. He never did anything like that before."
The strange limb withdrew, disappeared inside his body,
and the fur closed over the spot, leaving no sign that it had
ever existed. Willis proceeded to change his shape, until he
was more nearly watermelon-shaped than globular. He oozed
through the hole. "Willis out," he announced proudly.

Jim snatched him up and cradled him in his arms. "Willis!
Willis, old fellow."

The bouncer cuddled in his arms. "Jim boy lost," he said
accusingly. "Jim went away."

"Yes, but not ever again. Willis stay with Jim."

"Willis stay. Good."

Jim rubbed his cheek against the little fellow's fur. Frank
cleared his throat. "If you two love birds are through necking,
it might be a good idea to pop back into our hole."

"Yeah, sure." The trip back to their room was made
quickly and, so far as they could detect, without arousing
attention. Jim dumped Willis on his bed and looked around. "I
wonder just what I should try to take? I'll have to get hold of
Smitty and get my gun."

"Hold on," said Frank. "Don't get ahead of yourself. You
don't really have to go, you know."

"Huh?"

"I didn't hurt the outer lock; we never touched Stinky's
private lock. All there is to show for Willis' escape is a hole
that we obviously couldn't get through and another one like
it, probably, in Stinky's desk. He can't prove a thing. You can
arrange to ship Willis back and we can just sit tight."

Jim shook his head. "I'm leaving. Willis is just part of it. I
wouldn't stay in a school run by Howe if you paid me to."

"Why be hasty, Jim?"

"I'm not being hasty. I don't blame you for staying; in
another year you can take the rocket pilot candidate exams and
get out. But if you should happen to bust the exams, I'll bet
you don't stick here until graduation."

"No, I probably won't. Have you figured out how you are
going to get away without Howe stopping you? You don't dare
leave until daylight; it is too cold until then."

"I'll wait until daylight and just walk out. If Howe tries to
stop me, so help me, I'll blast him."

"The idea," Frank said dryly, "is to get away, not to stir
up a gun battle. What you want to do is to pull a sneak. I
think we had a better find a way to keep you under cover
until that can be arranged. The chances ought to be good
after noon."

Jim was about to ask Frank why he thought the chances
would be good after noon when Willis repeated the last three
words. First he repeated them in Frank's voice, then he said
them again in rich, fruity accents of an older man. "Good
afternoon!" he intoned.

"Shut up, Willis."

Willis said it again, "Good afternoon. Mark. Sit down, my
boy. Always happy to see you."

"I've heard that voice," said Frank, puzzlement in his
tones.

"Thank you. General. How do you do, sir?" Willis went
on, now in the precise, rather precious tones of Headmaster
Howe.

"I know!" said Frank. "I've heard it on broadcast; it's
Beecher, the Resident Agent General."

"Sh" said Jim, "I want to listen." Willis continued,
again in the fruity voice:

"Not bad, not too bad for an old man."

"Nonsense, General, you're not old."Howe's voice
again.

"Kind of you to say so, my boy," Willis went on. "What
have you in the bag? Contraband?"

Willis repeated Howe's sycophantic laugh. "Hardly. Just a
scientific specimen a rather interesting curiosity I confiscated
from one of the students."

There was a short pause, then the fruity voice said, "Bless
my boots! Mark, wherever did you find this creature?"

"I just told you, sir," came Howe's voice. "I was forced to
take it away from one of the students."

"Yes, yes but do you have any idea of what you've got?"

"Certainly, sir; I looked it up. Areocephalopsittacus Bron"

"Spare me the learned words, Mark. It's a roundhead, a
Martian roundhead. That's not the point. You say you got this
from a student; do you think you could buy it from him?" the
fruity voice continued eagerly.

Howe's voice answered slowly, "I hardly think so, sir. I am
fairly sure he wouldn't want to sell." He hesitated, then went
on, "Is it important?"

"Important? That depends on what you mean by 'important',"
answered the voice of the Resident Agent General.
"Would you say that sixty thousand credits was important? Or
even seventy thousand? For that is what I am sure the London
zoo will pay for him, over and above the cost of getting him
there."

"Really?"

"Really. I have a standing order from a broker in London at
fifty thousand credits; I've never been able to get him one.
I'm sure the price can be boosted."

"Indeed?" Howe agreed cautiously. "That would be a fine
thing for the Company, wouldn't it?"

There was a brief silence, then a hearty laugh. "Mark, my
boy, you slay me. Now see here you are hired to run the
school, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"And I'm hired to look out for the interests of the Company,
right? We put in a good day's work and earn our pay;

that leaves eighteen hours a day that belong to each of us,
personally. Are you hired to find strange specimens?"

"No."

"Neither am I. Do you understand me?"

"I think I do."

"I'm sure you do. After all, I know your uncle quite well;

I'm sure he wouldn't have sent his nephew out here without
explaining the facts of life to him. He understands them very
well himself, I can assure you. The fact is, my boy, that there
are unlimited opportunities in a place such as this for a smart
man, if he will just keep his eyes and ears open. Not graft,
you understand." Willis paused.

Jim started to say something; Frank said, "Shut up! We
don't want to miss any of this."

The Resident's voice continued, "Not graft at all. Legitimate
business opportunities that are the natural concomitants
of our office. Now about this student: what will it take to
convince him he should sell? I wouldn't offer him too much or
he will become suspicious. We mustn't have that."

Howe was slow in replying. "I am almost certain he won't
sell. General, but there is another way, possibly."

"Yes? I don't understand you."

The boys heard Howe explain his peculiar theory of ownership
with respect to Willis. They could not see Beecher dig
Howe in the ribs but they could hear his choked laughter.
"Oh, that is rich! Mark, you slay me, you really do. Your
talents are wasted as a schoolteacher; you should be a Resident."

"Well," Howe's voice replied, "I hardly expect to teach
school all my life."

"You won't, you won't. We'll find an agency for you.

After all, the school will be smaller and of less importance
after the non-migration policy goes into effect."

("What's he talking about?" whispered Frank" Quiet!"
Jim answered.)

"Is there any news about that?" Howe wanted to know.

"I expect to hear from your uncle momentarily. You might
stop in again this evening, my boy; I may have news."

The remainder of the conversation was of no special interest,
but Willis plowed on with it nevertheless. The boys listened
until Howe had made his farewell, after which Willis
shut up.

Jim was frothing. "Put Willis in a zoo! Why, the very idea!
I hope he does catch me leaving; I'd welcome an excuse to
take a shot at him!"

"Easy, fellow! I wonder," Frank went on, "what that business
was about a 'non-migration' policy?"

"I thought he said 'immigration'."

"I'm sure it was 'non-migration'. What time is it?"

"About three."

"We've got three hours, more or less. Jim, let's see what
else we can coax out of Willis. I've got a hunch it may be
important."

"Okay." Jim picked the fuzz ball up and said, "Willis old
fellow, what else do you know? Tell Jim everything you've
heard everything."

Willis was happy to oblige. He reeled off bits of dialog for
the next hour, most of it concerned with unimportant routine
of the school. At last the boys were rewarded by hearing again
the unctuous tones of Gaines Beecher:

"Mark, my boy"

"Oh come in, General. Sit down. Happy to see you."

"I just stopped by to say that I have gotten a despatch from
your dear uncle. He added a postscript sending his regards to
you."

"That's nice. Thank you, sir."

"Not at all. Close that door, will you?" Willis put in sound
effects of a door being closed. "Now we can talk. The despatch,
of course, concerned the non-migration policy."

"Yes?"

"I am happy to say that the board came around to your
uncle's point of view. South Colony will stay where it is; this
next ship load and the one following it will go to North Colony,
where the new immigrants will have nearly twelve
months of summer in which to prepare for the northern winter.
What are you chuckling about?"

"Nothing important, sir. One of the students, a great lout
named Kelly, was telling me today what his father was going
to do to me when he came through here at migration. I am
looking forward to seeing his face when he learns that his
father will not show up."

"You are not to tell him anything of the sort," the Resident's
voice said sharply.

"Eh?"

"I want all this handled with the least possible friction. No
one must know until the last possible moment. There are hotheads
among the colonials who will oppose this policy, even
though it has already been proved that, with reasonable precautions,
the dangers of a Martian winter are negligible. My
plan is to postpone migration two weeks on some excuse, then
postpone it again. By the time I announce the change it will be
too late to do anything but comply."

"Ingenious!"

"Thank you. It's really the only way to handle colonials,
my boy. You haven't been here long enough to know them the
way I do. They are a neurotic lot, most of them failures back
on Earth, and they will drive you wild with their demands if
you are not firm with them. They don't seem to understand
that all that they are and all that they have they owe directly to
the Company. Take this new policy: if you let the colonists
have their own way, they would continue to follow the sun,
like so many rich playboys and at the Company's expense."

Willis shifted to Howe's voice. "I quite agree. If their children
are any guide, they are a rebellious and unruly lot."

"Really shiftless," agreed the other voice. "You must be
firm with them. I must be going. Oh, about that, uh, specimen:
you have it in a safe place?"

"Yes indeed, sir. Locked in this cabinet."

"Hmm... it might be better to bring it to my quarters."
'Hardly necessary," Howe's voice denied. "Notice the lock
on that door? It will be safe."

There were good-byes said and Willis shut up.
Frank cursed steadily and bitterly under his breath.


CHAPTER SIX

Flight

JIM SHOOK HIM by the shoulder. "Snap out of it and help
me. I'm going to be late."

"That fat slug," Frank said softly, "I wonder how he would
like to tackle a winter at Charax? Maybe he'd like to stay
inside for eleven or twelve months at a time or go outside
when it's a hundred below. I'd like to see him freeze to death
slowly."

"Sure, sure," agreed Jim. "But give me a hand."

Frank turned suddenly and took down Jim's outdoors suit.
He flung it at him, then took down his own and started climbing
rapidly into it. Jim stared. "Hey what yuh doin'?"

"I'm going with you."

"Huh?"

"Think I'm going to sit here and do lessons when somebody
is planning to trick my mother into being forced to last
out a high-latitude winter? My own mother? Mom's got a bad
heart; it would kill her." He turned and started digging things
out of the locker. "Let's get moving."

Jim hesitated, then said, "Sure, Frank, but how about your
plans? If you quit school now you'll never be a rocket pilot."

"The deuce with that! This is more important."

"I can warn everybody of what's up just as well as two of
us can."

"The matter is settled, I tell you."

"Okay. Just wanted to be sure you knew your own mind.
Let's go." Jim climbed into his own suit, zipped it up, tightened
the straps, and then started picking over his belongings.
He was forced to throw away a large part, as-he wanted Willis
to travel in his bag.

He picked up Willis. "Look, fellow," he said, "we're going
home. I want you to ride inside here, where it's nice and
warm."

"Willis go for ride?"

"Willis go for ride. But I want you to stay inside and not
say one word until I take you out. Understand?"

"Willis not talk?"

"Willis not talk at all, not till Jim takes him out."

"Okay, Jim boy." Willis thought about it and added,
"Willis play music?"

"No! Not a sound, not a word. No music. Willis close up
and stay closed up."

"Okay, Jim boy," Willis answered in aggrieved tones and
promptly made a smooth ball of himself. Jim dropped him
into the bag and zipped it.

"Come on," said Frank. "Let's find Smitty, get our guns,
and get going."

"The Sun won't be up for nearly an hour."

"We'll have to risk it. Say, how much money have you
got?"

"Not much. Why?"

"Our fare home, dope."

"Oh" Jim had been so preoccupied with other matters
that he had not thought about the price of a ticket. The trip to
the school had been free, of course, but they had no travel
authorization for this trip; cash would be required.

They pooled resources not enough for one ticket, much
less than enough for two. "What'll we do?" asked Jim.

"We'll get it out of Smitty."

"How?"

"We'll get it. I'll tear off his arm and beat him over the
head with it if I have to. Let's go."

"Don't forget your ice skates."

Smythe roomed alone, a tribute to his winning personality.
When they shook him, he wakened quickly and said, "Very
well, officer, I'll go quietly."

"Smitty," said Jim, "we want our we want those packages."

"I'm closed for the night. Come back in the morning."

"We got to have them now."

Smythe got out of bed. "There's an extra charge for night
service, of course." He stood on his bunk, removed the grille
from his air intake, reached far inside, and hauled out the
wrapped guns.

Jim and Frank tore off the wrappings and belted their
guns on. Smythe watched them with raised eyebrows. Frank
added, "We've got to have some money." He named the
amount.

"Why come to me?"

"Because I know you've got it."

"So? And what do I get in return? A sweet smile?"

"No." Frank got out his slide rule, a beautiful circular instrument
with twenty-one scales."How much for that?"

"Mmm six credits."

"Don't be silly! It cost my father twenty-five."

"Eight, then. I won't be able to get more than ten for it."

"Take it as security for fifteen."

'Ten, cash. I don't run a pawn shop." Jim's slide rule went
for a smaller amount, then both their watches, followed by

lesser items at lower prices.

At last they had nothing left to sell but their skates, and
both boys refused the suggestion although they were still
twelve credits short of what they needed. "You've just got to
trust us for the rest, Smitty," Frank told him.

Smythe studied the ceiling. "Well, seeing what good cus-
tomers you've been, I might add that I also collect auto-
graphs."

"Huh?"

"I'll have both of yours, on one I.O.U., at six per cent
per month. The security will be the pound of flesh nearest
your heart."

"Take it," said Jim.

Finished, they started to leave. Smythe said, "My crystal
ball tells me that you gentlemen are about to fade away.
How?"

"Just walk out," Jim told him.

"Hmm... it does not seem to have come to your attention
that the front door is now locked at nights. Our friend and
mentor, Mr. Howe, unlocks it himself when he arrives in the
morning."

"You're kidding!"

"Go see for yourself."

Frank tugged Jim's arm. "Come on. We'll bust it down if
we have to."

"Why do things the hard way?" inquired Smythe. "Go out
through the kitchen."

"You mean the back door's not locked?" demanded Frank.

"Oh, it's locked all right."

"Then quit making silly suggestions."

"I should be offended at that," Smythe answered, "but I
consider the source. While the back door is locked, it did not
occur to brother Howe to install a lock on the garbage dump."

"The garbage dump," exploded Jim.

"Take it or leave it. It's your only way to sneak out."

"We'll take it, " decided Frank. "Come on, Jim."

"Hold on," put in Smythe. "One of you can operate the
dump for the other, but who's going to do it for the second
man? He's stuck."

"Oh, I see. " Frank looked at him. "You are."

"And what am I offered?"

"Confound you, Smitty how would you like a lump on the
head? You've already taken us for everything but our eyeteeth."

Smythe shrugged. "Did I refuse? After all, I told you about
it. Very well, I'll chalk it up to overhead good will, full
measure, advertising. Besides, I don't like to see my clients
fall afoul of the law."

They went quickly to the school's large kitchen. Smythe's
cautious progress through the corridors showed long familiarity
with casual disregard of rules. Once there, Smythe said,
"All right, who goes first?"

Jim eyed the dump with distaste. It was a metal cylinder,
barrel-size, laid on its side in the wall. It could be rotated on
its main axis by means of a lever set in the wall; a large
opening in it permitted refuse to be placed in it from inside the
building, then removed from the outside, without disturbing
the pressurization of the building the simplest sort of a pressure
lock. The interior showed ample signs of the use for
which it was intended. "I'll go first," he volunteered and settled
his mask over his face.

"Wait a second," said Frank. He had been eyeing the
stocks of canned foods racked around the room. Now he
dumped spare clothing from his bag and started replacing it
with cans.

"Hurry up," Smythe insisted. "I want to get back to my
beddy-bye before the morning bell rings."

"Yes, why bother?" protested Jim. "We'll be home in a few
hours."

"Just a hunch. Okay, I'm ready."

Jim climbed into the dump, drawing up his knees and
clutching his bag to his chest. The cylinder rotated around
him; he felt a sudden drop in pressure and a bitter cold draft.
Then he was picking himself up from the pavement of the
alley behind the school.

The cylinder creaked back to the loading position; in a
moment Frank landed beside him. Jim helped him up. "Boy,
are you a mess!" he said, brushing at a bit of mashed potato
that clung to his chum's suit.

"So are you, but there's no time to worry about it. Gee, but
it's cold!"

"It'll be warmer soon. Let's go." The pink glow of the
coming Sun was already lighting the eastern sky, even though
the air was still midnight cold. They hurried down the alley to
the street in back of the school and along it to the right. This
portion of the city was entirely terrestrial and could have been
a city in Alaska or Norway, but beyond them, etched against
the lightening sky, were the ancient towers of Syrtis Minor,
denying the Earthlike appearance of the street.

They came, as they had planned, to a tributary canal and
sat down to put on their skates. They were racers, with 22-inch
razoriike blades, intended for speed alone. Jim finished
first and lowered himself to the ice. "Better hurry," he said. "I
almost froze my behind."

"You're telling me!"

"This ice is almost too hard to take an edge."

Frank joined him; they picked up their bags and set out. A
few hundred yards away the little waterway gave into the
Grand Canal of the city; they turned into it and made speed for
the scooter station. Despite the exercise they were tingling
with cold by the time they got to it.

They went through the pressure door and inside. A single
clerk was on duty there. He looked up and Frank went to him.
"Is there a scooter to South Colony today?"

"In about twenty minutes," said the clerk. "You want to
ship those bags?"

"No, we want tickets." Frank handed over their joint
funds.

Silently the clerk attended to the transaction. Jim heaved a
sigh of relief; scooters to the colony did not run every day.
The chance that they might have to keep out of sight for a day
or more and then try to get away without encountering Howe
had been eating at him.

They took seats in the back of the station and waited. Presently
Jim said, "Frank, is Deimos up?"

"I didn't notice. Why?"

"Maybe I can get a call through to home."

"No money."

"I'll put it through collect." He went to the booth opposite
the clerk's desk; the clerk looked up but said nothing. Inside,
he signalled the operator. Subconsciously he had been worrying
about getting word to his father ever since Willis had
spilled the secret of the so-called non-migration policy.

The screen lighted up and a pleasant-appearing young
woman with the fashionable striped hair appeared therein. "I'd
like to call South Colony," he said.

"No relay until later this morning," she informed him.
"Would you like to record a delayed message?"

He was stopped; delayed messages were not accepted on a
collect basis. "No, thank you, I'll try later," he fibbed and
switched off.

The clerk was tapping on the booth's door. "The driver is
ready for you," he told Jim. Jim hurriedly settled his mask in
place and followed Frank out through the pressure door. The
driver was just closing the baggage compartment of the
scooter. He took their tickets and the two boys got aboard.
Again they were the only passengers; they claimed the
observation seats.

Ten minutes later, tired of staring almost into a rising Sun,
Jim announced, "I'm sleepy. I think I'll go down."

"I think I'll ask the driver to turn on the radio," said Frank.

"Oh, the heck with that. We've both had a hard night.
Come on."

"Well all right." They went into the lower compartment,
found bunks, and crawled in. In a few minutes they both were
snoring.

The scooter, leaving Syrtis Minor at sunrise, kept ahead of
the daily thaw and did not have to lay over at Hesperidum. It
continued south and reached Cynia about noon. So far advanced
was the season that there was no worry about the ice
holding from Cynia south to Charax; Strymon canal would not
thaw again until the following spring.

The driver was pleased to have kept his schedule. When
Deimos rose toward the end of the morning's run he relaxed
and switched on his radio. What he heard caused him to make
a quick check of his passengers. They were still asleep; he
decided not to do anything about it until he reached Cynia
station.

On reaching there he hurried inside. Jim and Frank were
awakened by the scooter stopping but did not get out. Presently
the driver came back and said, "Meal stop. Everybody out."

Frank answered, "We're not hungry."
The driver looked disconcerted. "Better come in anyhow,"
he insisted. "It gets pretty cold in the car when she's standing
still."

"We don't mind." Frank was thinking that he would dig a
can of something out of his bag as soon as the driver had left;
from suppertime the night before until noon today seemed a
long time to his stomach.

"What's the trouble?" the driver continued. "Broke?"
Something in their expressions caused him to continue, "I'll
stake you to a sandwich each."

Frank refused but Jim interceded. "Don't be silly. Frank.
Thank you, sir. We accept."

George, the agent and factotum of Cynia station, looked at
them speculatively and served them sandwiches without comment.
The driver bolted his food and was quickly through.
When he got up, the boys did so, too. "Just take it easy," he
advised them. "I've got twenty, thirty minutes' work, loading
and checking."

"Can't we help you?" asked Jim.

"Nope. You'd just be in the way. I'll call you when I'm ready."

"Well thanks for the sandwich."

"Don't mention it." He went out.

Less than ten minutes later there came faintly to their ears
the sound of the scooter starting up. Frank looked startled and
rushed to the traffic-checking window. The car was already
disappearing to the south. Frank turned to the agent. "Hey, he
didn't wait for us!"

"Nope."

"But he said he'd call us."

"Yep." The agent resumed reading.

"But, but why," insisted Frank. "He told us to wait."

The agent put down his newspaper. "It's like this," he said,
"Clem is a peaceable man and he told me that he wasn't a cop.
He said he would have no part in trying to arrest two strapping,
able-bodied boys, both wearing guns."

"What!"

"That's what I said. And don't go to fiddling around with
those heaters. You'll notice I ain't wearing my gun; you can
take the station apart for all of me."

Jim had joined Frank at the counter. "What's this all
about?" he asked.

"You tell me. All I know is, there's a call out to pick you
up. You're charged with burglary, theft, truancy, destruction
of company property pretty near everything but committing
a nuisance in the canal. Seems like you are a couple of desperate
characters though you don't look the part."

"I see," said Frank slowly. "Well, what are you going to do
about it?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. 'Long about tomorrow morning a
special scooter will arrive and I presume there will be force
enough aboard her to subdue a couple of outlaws. In the
meantime do as you please. Go outside. Wander around.
When you get chilly, come back inside." He went back to his
reading.

"I see. Come along, Jim." They retreated to the far comer
of the room for a war conference. The agent's attitude was
easily understood. Cynia station was almost literally a thousand
miles from anywhere; the station itself was the only
human habitation against the deadly cold of night.

Jim was almost in tears. "I'm sorry. Frank. If I hadn't been
so darned anxious to eat, this wouldn't have happened."

"Don't be so tragic about it," Frank advised him. "Can you
imagine us shooting it out with a couple of innocent bystanders
and hijacking the scooter? I can't."

"Uh no. I guess you're right."

"Certainly I am. What we've got to decide is what to do
next."

"I know one thing; I'm not going to let them drag me back
to school."

"Neither am I. What's more important, we've got to get
word to our folks about the deal that's being cooked up against
them."

"Say, look maybe we can phone now!"
"Do you think he" Frank nodded toward the agent
"would let us?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. We've still got our guns and I can
be pushed just so far." Jim got up and went to the agent. "Any
objection to us using the phone?"

The agent did not even glance up. "Not a bit. Help yourself."

Jim went into the booth. There was no local exchange; me
instrument was simply a radio link to the relay station on the
outer moon. A transparency announced that Deimos was
above the horizon; seeing this, Jim punched the call button
and asked for linkage to South Colony.

There was an unusually long delay, then a sweetly impersonal
voice announced, "Due to circumstances beyond our
control calls are not being accepted from Cynia station to
South Colony."

Jim started to ask if Deimos were visible at South Colony,
since he knew that line-of-sight was essential to radio
transmission on Mars indeed, it was the only sort of radio
transmission he was familiar with but the relay station had
switched off and made no answer when he again punched the
call button. He left the booth and told Frank about it.

"Sounds like Howe has fixed us," Frank commented. "I
don't believe there is a breakdown. Unless"

"Unless what?"

"Unless there is more to it than that. Beecher may be rigging
things to interfere with messages getting through until he's put
over his scheme."

"Frank, we've got to get word to our folks. See here, I bet
we could hole up with the Martians over at Cynia. After all,
they offered us water and"

"Suppose we could. Where does that get us?"

"Let me finish. We can mail a letter from here, giving our
folks all the details and telling them where we are hiding.
Then we could wait for them to come and get us."

Frank shook his head. "If we mail a letter from here, old
frozen face over there is bound to know it. Then, when the
cops show up and we are gone, he turns it over to them.
Instead of our folks getting it, it goes back to Howe and
Beecher."

"You really think so? Nobody has any right to touch private
mail."

"Don't be a little innocent. Howe didn't have any right to
order us to give up our guns but he did. No, Jim, we've got
to carry this message ourselves."

On the wall opposite them was a map of the area served by
Cynia station. Frank had been studying it idly while they
talked. Suddenly he said, "Jim, what's that new station south
of Cynia?"

"Huh? Where do you mean?"

"There." Frank pointed. Inked on the original map was a
station on west Strymon, south of them.

"That?" said Jim. "That must be one of the shelters for the
Project." The grand plan for restoring oxygen to Mars called
for setting up, the following spring, a string of processing
plants in the desert between Cynia and Charax. Some of the
shelters had been completed in anticipation of the success of
plant number one in Libya.

"It can't be much over a hundred miles away."

"A hundred and ten, maybe," Jim commented, looking at
the scale.

Frank got a far-away look in his eyes. "I think I can skate
that far before dark. Are you game?"

"What? Are you crazy? We'd still be better than seven
hundred miles from home."

"We can skate better than two hundred miles a day,"
answered Frank. "Aren't there more shelters?"

"The map doesn't show any." Jim thought. "I know they've
finished more than one; I've heard Dad talking about it."

"If we had to, we could skate all night and sleep in the
daytime. That way we wouldn't freeze."

"Hmm... I think you're kidding yourself. I saw a man
once who was caught out at night. He was stiff as a board. All
right, when do we start?"

"Right now."

They picked up their bags and headed for the door The
agent looked up and said, "Going somewhere?"

"For a walk."

"Might as well leave your bags. You'll be back."

They did not answer but went on out the door. Five
minutes later they were skating south on west Strymon.

"Hey, Jim!"

"Yeah?"

"Let's stop for a minute. I want to sling my bag."

"Just what I was thinking." Their travel bags unbalanced
them and prevented proper arm motion and any real speed.
But skating was a common form of locomotion; the bags had
straps which permitted them to be slung as haversacks. Jim
opened his before he put it on; Willis extended his eye stalks
and looked at him reproachfully. "Jim boy gone long time."

"Sorry, old fellow."

"Willis not talk."

"Willis can talk all he wants to now. Look, if I leave the
bag open a little bit so that you can see, will you manage not
to fall out?"

"Willis want out."

"Can't do that; I'm going to take you for a fine ride. You
won't fall out?"

"Willis not fall out."

"Okay." He slung the bag and they set out again.

They picked up speed. With fast ice, little air resistance,
and the low Martian gravity the speed of a skater on Mars is
limited by his skill in stroking. Both of the boys were able.
Willis let out a "Whee!" and they settled down to putting
miles behind them.

The desert plateau between Cynia and Charax is higher
than the dead sea bottom between Cynia and the equator. This
drop is used to move the waters of the southern polar cap
across the desert to the great green belt near the equator, hi
midwinter the southern ice cap reaches to Charax; the double
canal of Strymon, which starts at Charax, is one of the principal
discharge points for the polar cap when it melts in the
spring.

The boys were starting at the lower end of the canal's drop;
the walls of the canal reached high above their heads. Furthermore
the water level or ice level was low because the
season was late autumn; the water level would be much higher
during spring flood. There was nothing to see but the banks of
the canal converging ahead of them, the blue sky beyond, and
the purple-black sky overhead. The Sun was behind them and
a bit west of meridian; it was moving north toward northern
summer solstice. Seasons do not lag on Mars as much as they
do on Earth; there are no oceans to hold the heat and the only
"flywheel" of the climate is the freezing and melting of the
polar caps.

With nothing to see the boys concentrated on skating,
heads down and shoulders swinging.

After many miles of monotonous speed Jim grew careless;
the toe of his right runner caught on some minor obstruction in
the ice. He went down. His suit saved him from ice burns and
he knew how to fall safely, but Willis popped out of his bag
like a cork from a bottle.

The bouncer, true to instinct, hauled in all excrescences at
once. He hit as a ball and rolled; he traveled over the ice for
several hundred yards. Frank threw himself into a hockey stop
as soon as he saw Jim tumble. He stopped in a shower of ice
particles and went back to help Jim up. "You all right?"

"Sure. Where's Willis?"

They skated on and recovered the bouncer who was now
standing on his tiny legs and waiting for them. "Whoopee!"
yelled Willis as they came up. "Do it again!"

"Not if I can help it," Jim assured him and stuffed him
back in the bag. "Say, Frank how long have we been traveling?"

"Not over three hours," Frank decided, after a glance at the
Sun.

"I wish I had my watch," complained Jim. "We don't want
to overrun the shelter."

"Oh, we won't come to it for another couple of hours, at
least."

"But what's to keep us from passing right by it? We can't
see over these banks."

"Want to turn around and go back?"

"No."

"Then quit worrying."

Jim shut up but continued to worry. Perhaps that was why
he noticed the only indication of the shelter when they came to
it, for Frank skated on past it. It was merely a ramp down the
bank. There were such ramps every few miles, as ancient as
the canals themselves, but this one had set above it an over-hanging
beam, as if to support a hoist. Jim spotted it as terrestrial
workmanship.

He stopped. Frank skated on ahead, noticed presently that
Jim was not following him and came back. "What's up?" he
called out.

"I think this is it."

"Hmm... could be." They removed their skates and
climbed the ramp. At the top, set back a short distance from
the bank, was one of the bubble-shaped buildings which are
the sign anywhere on Mars of the alien from Earth. Beyond it
a foundation had been started for the reducing plant. Jim
heaved a big sigh. Frank nodded and said, "Just about where
we expected to find it."

"And none too soon," added Jim. The Sun was close to the
western horizon and dropping closer as they watched.

There was, of course, no one in the shelter; no further work
would be done at this latitude until the following spring. The
shelter was unpressurized; they simply unlatched the outer
door, walked through the inner door without delay. Frank
groped for the light switch, found it, and lighted up the place
the lighting circuit was powered by the building's atomicfuel
power pack and did not require the presence of men.

It was a simple shelter, lined with bunks except for the
space occupied by the kitchen unit. Frank looked around happily.
"Looks like we've found a home from home, Jim."

"Yep." Jim looked around, located the shelter's thermostat,
and cut it in. Shortly the room became warmer and with it
there was a soft sighing sound as the building's pressure regulator,
hooked in with the thermostat, started the building's
supercharger, in a few minutes the boys were able to remove
their masks and finally their outdoors suits as well.

Jim poked around the kitchen unit, opening cupboards and
peering into shelves. "Find anything?" asked Frank.

"Nary a thing. Seems like they could have left at least a
can of beans."

"Now maybe you're glad I raided the kitchen before we
left. Supper in five minutes."

"Okay, so you've got a real talent for crime," acknowledged
Jim. "I salute you." He tried the water tap. "Plenty of
water in the tanks," he announced.

"Good!" Frank answered. "That saves me having to go
down and chip ice. I need to fill my mask. I was dry the last
few miles." The high coxcomb structure on a Mars mask is
not only a little supercharger with its power pack, needed to
pressurize the mask; it is also a small water reservoir. A nipple
in the mask permits me wearer to take a drink outdoors, but
this is a secondary function. The prime need for water in a
Mars mask is to wet a wick through which the air is forced
before it reaches the wearer's nose.

"You were? Well, for crying out loud don't you know
better than to drink yourself dry?"

"I forgot to fill it before we left."

"Tourist!"

"Well, we left in kind of a hurry, you know."

"How long were you dry?"

"I don't know exactly," Frank evaded.

"How's your throat?"

"All right. A little dry, maybe."

"Let me see it," Jim persisted, coming closer.

Frank pushed him away. "I tell you it's all right. Let's eat."

"Well okay."

They dined off canned corned beef hash and went promptly
to bed. Willis snuggled up against Jim's stomach and imitated
his snores.

Breakfast was more of the same, since there was some
hash left and Frank insisted that they not waste anything.
Willis had no breakfast since he had eaten only two weeks
before, but he absorbed nearly a quart of water. As they were
about to leave Jim held up a flashlight. "Look what I found."

"Well, put it back and let's go."

"I think I'll keep it," Jim answered, stuffing it in his bag.
"We might have a use for it."

"We won't and it's not yours."

"For criminy's sake, I'm not swiping it; I'm just borrowing
it. This is an emergency."

Frank shrugged. "Okay, let's get moving." A few minutes
later they were on the ice and again headed south. It was a
beautiful day, as Martian days almost always are; when the
Sun was high enough to fill the slot of the canal it was almost
balmy, despite the late season. Frank spotted the tell-tale
hoisting beam of a Project shelter around midday and they
were able to lunch inside, which saved them the tedious,
messy, and unsatisfactory chore of trying to eat through the
mouth valve of a respirator mask. The shelter was a twin of
the first but no foundation for the plant had as yet been built
near it.

As they were preparing to leave the shelter Jim said, "You
look sort of flushed, Frank. Got a fever?"

"That's just the bloom of health," Frank insisted. "I'm
fine." Nevertheless he coughed as he put on his mask. "Mars
throat," Jim thought but said nothing as there was nothing that
he could do for Frank.

Mars throat is not a disease in itself; it is simply an extremely
dry condition of the nose and throat which arises from
direct exposure to Martian air. The humidity on Mars is
usually effectively zero; a throat dehydrated by it is wide open
to whatever disease organisms there may be present in the
human throat at the time. The result is usually a virulent sore
throat.

The afternoon passed without incident. As the Sun began
to drop toward the skyline it seemed possible that home was
not much more than five hundred miles away. Jim had
watched Frank closely all afternoon. His chum seemed to be
skating as strongly as ever; perhaps, he decided, the cough
was just a false alarm. He skated up alongside Frank. "I guess
we had better start watching for a shelter."

"Suits me."

Soon they passed another of the ramps built by long-dead
Martians, but there was no hoisting beam above it nor any
other sign of terrestrial activity. The banks, though somewhat
lower now, were still too high to see over. Jim stepped up the
stroke a bit; they hurried on.

They came to another ramp, but again there was nothing to
suggest that a shelter might be above it. Jim stopped. "I vote
we take a look up on the bank," he said. "We know they build
the shelters by the ramps and they may have taken the hoist
down for some reason."

"It would just be wasting valuable time," Frank protested.
"If we hurry, we can get to another ramp before dark."

"Well, if you say so" Jim shoved off and picked up speed.

The next ramp was the same story; Jim stopped again.
"Let's take a look," he pleaded. "We can't possibly reach the
next one before sundown."

"Okay." Frank stopped over and tugged at his skates.

They hurried up the bank and reached the top. The slanting
rays of the Sun showed nothing but the vegetation bordering
the canal.

Jim felt ready to bawl through sheer weariness and disappointment.
"Well, what do we do now?" he said.

"We go back down," Frank answered, "and keep going
until we find it."

"I don't think we could spot one of those hoist beams in the
dark."

"Then we keep going," Frank said grimly, "until we fall
flat on our faces."

"More likely we'll freeze."

"Well, if you want my opinion," Frank replied, "I think
we're washed up. I, for one, can't keep going all night, even
if we don't freeze."

"You don't feel good?"

"That's putting it mildly. Come on."

"All right."

Willis had climbed out of the bag and up on Jim's shoulder,
in order to see better. Now he bounced to the ground and
rolled away. Jim snatched at him and missed. "Hey! Willis!
Come back here!"

Willis did not answer. Jim started after him. His progress
was difficult. Ordinarily he would have gone under the canal
plants, but, late in the day as it was, most of them had lowered
almost to knee height preparatory to withdrawing into the
ground for the night. Some of the less hardy plants were already
out of sight, leaving bare patches of ground.

The vegetation did not seem to slow up Willis but Jim
found it troublesome; he could not catch the little scamp.
Frank shouted, "'Ware water-seekers! Watch where you put
your feet!" Thus warned, Jim proceeded more carefully and
still more slowly. He stopped. "Willis! Oh, Willis! Come
back! Come back, dawggone it, or we'll go away and leave
you." It was a completely empty threat.

Frank came crashing up and joined him. "We can't hang
around up here, Jim."

"I know it. Wouldn't you know that he would pull a stunt
like this just at the wrong time?"

"He's a pest, that's what he is. Come on."

Willis's voice or, rather, Jim's voice as used by Willis
reached them from a distance. "Jim boy! Jim! Come here!"

Jim struggled through the shrinking vegetation with Frank
after him. They found the bouncer resting at the edge of an
enormous plant, a desert cabbage quite fifty yards across. The
desert cabbage is not often found near the canals; it is a weed
and not tolerated in the green sea bottoms of the lower latitudes,
though it may be found in the deserts miles from any
surface water.

The western half of this specimen was still spread out in a
semicircular fan, flat to the ground, but the eastern half was
tilted up almost vertically, its flat leaves still reaching greedily
for the Sun's rays to fuel the photosynthesis by which plants
live. A hardy plant, it would not curl up until the Sun was
gone completely, and it would not withdraw into the ground at
all. Instead it would curl into a tight ball, thus protecting itself
from the cold and incidentally simulating, on giant scale, the
Earth plant for which it was named.

Willis sat by the edge of the half that was flat to the
ground. Jim reached for him.

Willis bounced up on the edge of the desert cabbage and
rolled toward the heart of the plant. Jim stopped and said,
"Oh, Willis, dam your eyes, come back here. Please come
back."

"Don't go after him," warned Frank. "That thing might
close up on you. The Sun is almost down."

"I won't. Willis! Come back!"

Willis called back, "Come here, Jim boy."

"You come here."

"Jim boy come here. Frank come here. Cold there. Warm
here."

"Frank, what'll I do?"

Willis called again. "Come, Jim boy. Warm! Stay warm all
night."

Jim stared. "You know what, Frank? I think he means to let
it close up on him. And he wants us to join him."

"Sounds that way."

"Come, Jim! Come, Frank!" Willis insisted. "Hurry!"

"Maybe he knows what he's doing," Frank added. "Like
Doc says, he's got instincts for Mars and we haven't."

"But we can't go inside a cabbage. It would crush us."

"I wonder."

"Anyhow, we'd suffocate."

"Probably." Frank suddenly added, "Do as you like, Jim. I
can't skate any farther." He set one foot on a broad leaf
which flinched under the contact and strode steadily toward
the bouncer. Jim watched him for a moment and then ran after
them.

Willis greeted them ecstatically. "Good boy, Frank! Good
boy, Jim! Stay nice and warm all night."

The Sun was slipping behind a distant dune; the sunset
wind whipped coldly at them. The far edges of the plant lifted
and began to curl toward them. "We still could get out if we
jumped, Frank," Jim said nervously.

"I'm staying." Nevertheless Frank eyed the approaching
leaves apprehensively.

"We'll smother."

"Maybe. That's better than freezing."

The inner leaves were beginning to curl faster than the
outer leaves. Such a leaf, four feet wide at its widest and at
least ten feet long, raised up back of Jim and curved in until it
touched his shoulder. Nervously he struck at it. The leaf
snatched itself away, then slowly resumed its steady progress
toward him. "Frank," Jim said shrilly, "they'll smother us!"

Frank looked apprehensively at the broad leaves, now curling
up all around them. "Jim," he said, "sit down. Spread
your legs wide. Then take my hands and make an arch."

"What for?"

"So that we'll take up as much space as possible. Hurry!"

Jim hurried. With elbows and knees and hands the two
managed to occupy a roughly spherical space about five feet
across and a little less than that high. The leaves closed down
on them, seemed to feel them out, then settled firmly against
them, but not, however, with sufficient pressure to crush
them. Soon the last open space was covered and they were in
total darkness. "Frank," Jim demanded, "we can move now,
can't we?"

"No! give the outside leaves a chance to settle into place."

Jim kept still for quite a long while. He knew that considerable
time had passed for he spent the time counting up to one
thousand. He was just starting on his second thousand when
Willis stirred in the space between his legs. "Jim boy, Frank
boy nice and warm, huh?"

"Yeah, Willis," he agreed. "Say, how about it. Frank?"

"I think we can relax now." Frank lowered his arms; the
inner leaf forming the ceiling immediately above him at once
curled down and brushed him in the dark. He. slapped at it
instinctively; it retreated.

Jim said, "It's getting stuffy already."

"Don't worry about it. Take it easy. Breathe shallowly.
Don't talk and don't move and you'll use up less oxygen."

"What difference does it make whether we suffocate in ten
minutes or an hour? This was a crazy thing to do, Frank; any
way you figure it we can't last till morning."

"Why can't we? I read in a book that back in India men
have let themselves be buried alive for days and even weeks
and were still alive when they were dug up. Fakers, they
called them."

" 'Fakers' is right! I don't believe it."

"I read it in a book, I tell you."

"I suppose you think that anything that's printed in a book
is true?"

Frank hesitated before replying, "It had better be true because
it's the only chance we've got. Now will you shut up? If
you keep yapping, you'll use up what air there is and kill us
both off and it'll be your fault."

Jim shut up. All that he could hear was Frank's breathing.
He reached down and touched Willis; the bouncer had withdrawn
all his stalks. He was a smooth ball, apparently asleep.
Presently Frank's breathing changed to rasping snores.

Jim tried to sleep but could not. The utter darkness and the
increasing deadness of the air pressed down on him like a
great weight. He wished again for his watch, lost to Smythe's
business talent; if he only knew what time it was, how long it
was until sunrise, he felt that he could stand it.

He became convinced that the night had passed or had
almost passed. He began to expect the dawn and with it the
unrolling of the giant plant. When he had been expecting it
"any minute now" for a time that he estimated at two hours, at
least, he became panicky. He knew how late in the season it
was; he knew also that desert cabbages hibernated by the simple
method of remaining closed through the winter.. Apparently
Frank and he had had the enormous bad luck to take
shelter in a cabbage on the very night on which it started its
hibernation.

Twelve long months from now, more than three hundred
days in the future, the plant would open to the spring Sun and
release them dead. He was sure of it.

He remembered the flashlight he had picked up in the first
Project shelter. The thought of it stimulated him, took his
mind off his fears for the moment. He leaned forward, twisted
around and tried to get at his bag, still strapped to his
shoulders.

The leaves about him closed in; he struck at them and they
shrank away. He was able to reach the torch, drag it out, and
turn it on. Its rays brightly illuminated me cramped space.
Frank stopped snoring, blinked, and said, "What's the matter?"

"I just remembered this. Good thing I brought it, huh?"

"Better put it out and go to sleep."

"It doesn't use up any oxygen. I feel better with it on."

"Maybe you do, but as long as you stay awake you use up
more oxygen."

"I suppose so." Jim suddenly recalled what had been terrifying
him before he got out the light. "It doesn't make any
difference." He explained to Frank his conviction that they
were trapped forever in the plant.

"Nonsense!" said Frank.

"Nonsense yourself! Why didn't it open up at dawn?"

"Because," Frank said, "we haven't been in here more than
an hour."

"What? Says you."

"Says me. Now shut up and let me sleep. Better put out
that light." Frank settled his head again on his knees.

Jim shut up but did not turn out the light. It comforted him.
Besides, the inner leaves which had shown an annoying tendency
to close in on the tops of their heads now had retreated
and flattened themselves firmly against the dense wall formed
by the outer layers of leaves. Under the mindless reflex which
controlled the movements of the plant they were doing their
best to present maximum surface to the rays from the flashlight.

Jim did not analyse the matter; his knowledge of photosynthesis
and of heliotropism was sketchy. He was simply aware
that the place seemed roomier in the light and that he was
having less trouble with the clinging leaves. He settled the
torch against Willis, who had not stirred, and tried to relax.

It actually seemed less stuffy with the light on. He had the
impression that the pressure was up a little. He considered
trying to take off his mask but decided against it. Presently,
without knowing it, he drifted off to sleep.

He dreamed and then dreamt that he was dreaming. Hiding
in the desert cabbage had been only a fantastic, impossible
dream; school and Headmaster Howe had merely been nightmares;
he was home, asleep in his bed, with Willis cuddled
against him. Tomorrow Frank and he would start for Syrtis
Minor to enter school.

It had simply been a nightmare, caused by the suggestion
that Willis be taken away from him. They were planning to
take Willis away from him! They couldn't do that; he
wouldn't let them!

Again his dream shifted; again he defied Headmaster
Howe; again he rescued Willis and fled and again they were
locked away in the heart of a desert plant.
He knew with bitter certainty that it would always end like
this. This was the reality, to be trapped and smothering in the
core of a hibernating giant weed to die there.

He choked and muttered, tried to wake up, then slipped
into a less intolerable dream.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Pursued

TINY PHOBOS, INNER moon of Mars, came out of
eclipse and, at breakneck speed, flew west to east into the face
of the rising Sun. The leisurely spin of its ruddy primary,
twenty-four and a half hours for each rotation, presently
brought the rays of that Sun to east Strymon, then across the
bank of desert between the twin canals and to the banks of
west Strymon. The rays struck a great ball perched near the
eastern bank of that canal, a desert cabbage closed against
the cold.

The plant stirred and unfolded. The sunward half of the
plant opened flat to the ground; the other half fanned itself
open like a spread peacock's tail to catch the almost horizontal
rays. In so doing it spilled something out of its heart and onto
the flat portion two human bodies, twisted and stiff, clad
garishly in elastic suits and grotesque helmets.

A tiny ball spilled out with them, rolled a few yards over
the thick green leaves, and stopped. It extended eye stalks and
little bumps of legs and waddled back to the sprawled bodies.
It nuzzled up against one.

It hesitated, nuzzled again, then settled back and let out a
thin wailing in which was compounded inconsolable grief and
an utter sense of loss.

Jim opened one bloodshot eye. "Cut out that infernal
racket," he said crossly.

Willis shrieked, "Jim boy!" and jumped upon his stomach,
where he continued to bounce up and down in an ecstasy of
greeting.

Jim brushed him off, then gathered him up in one arm.
"Calm down. Behave yourself. Ouch!"

"What's the matter, Jim boy?"

"My arm's stiff. Ooo ouch!" Further efforts had shown
Jim that his legs were stiff as well. Also his back. And his
neck.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded Frank.

"Stiff as board. I'd do better to skate on my hands today.
Say"

"Say what?"

"Maybe we don't skate. I wonder if the spring floods have
started?"

"Huh? What are you gibbering about?" Frank sat up,
slowly and carefully.

"Why, the spring floods, of course. Somehow we lasted
through the winter, though I don't know how. Now we"

"Don't be any sillier than you have to be. Look where the
Sun is rising."

Jim looked. Martian colonials are more acutely aware of
the apparent movements of the Sun than any Earthbound men,
except, possibly, the Eskimos. All he said was, "Oh..." then
added, "I guess it was a dream."

"Either that or you are even nuttier than usual. Let's get
going." Frank struggled to his feet with a groan.

"How do you feel?"

"Like my own grandfather."

"I mean, how's your throat?" Jim persisted.

"Oh, it's all right." Frank promptly contradicted himself by
a fit of coughing. By great effort he controlled it shortly;

coughing while wearing a respirator is a bad idea. Sneezing is
worse.

"Want some breakfast?"

"I'm not hungry now," Frank answered. "Let's find a
shelter first, so we can eat in comfort."

"Okay." Jim stuffed Willis back into the bag, discovered
by experiment that he could stand and walk. Noticing the
flashlight, he tucked it in with Willis and followed Frank toward
the bank. The canal vegetation was beginning to show;
even as they walked the footing grew more tangled. The green
plants, still stiff with night cold, could not draw away quickly
as they brushed through them.

They reached the bank. "The ramp must be about a
hundred yards off to the right," Frank decided. "Yep I see it.
Come on."

Jim grabbed his arm and drew him back. " 'Smatter?" demanded Frank.

"Look on up the canal, north."

"Hub? Oh!" A scooter was proceeding toward them. Instead
of the two hundred fifty miles per hour or more that such
craft usually make, this one was throttled down to a minimum.
Two men were seated on top of it, out in the open.

Frank drew back hastily. "Good boy, Jim," he approved. "I
was just about to walk right into them. I guess we had better
let them get well ahead."

"Willis good boy, too," Willis put in smugly.

"Let them get ahead, my foot!" Jim answered. "Can't you
see what they're doing?"

"Huh?"

"They're following our tracks!"

Frank looked startled but did not answer. He peered cautiously out.
"Look out!" Jim snapped. "He's got binoculars."
Frank ducked back. But he had seen enough; the scooter had
stopped at approximately the spot where they had stopped the
night before. One of the men on top was gesturing through the
observation dome at the driver and pointing to the ramp.

Canal ice was, of course, never cleaned of skate marks; the
surface was renewed from time to time by midday thaws until
the dead freeze of winter set in. However, it was unlikely that
anyone but the two boys had skated over this stretch of ice, so
far from any settlement, any time in months. The ice held
scooter tracks, to be sure, but, like all skaters, Jim and Frank
had avoided them in favor of untouched ice.

Now their unmistakable spoor lay for any to read from
Cynia station to the ramp near them.

"If we head back into the bushes," Jim whispered. "We can
hide until they go away. They'll never find us in this stuff."

"Suppose they don't go away. Do you want to spend another night
in the cabbage?"

"They're bound to go away eventually."

"Sure but not soon enough. They know we went up the
ramp; they'll stay and they'll search, longer than we can hold
out. They can afford to; they've got a base."

"Well, what do we do?"

"We head south along the bank, on foot, at least as far as
the next ramp."

"Let's get going, then. They'll be up the ramp in no time."

With Frank in the lead they dog-trotted to the south. The
plants along the bank were high enough now to permit them to
go under; Frank held a course about thirty feet in from the
bank. The gloom under the spreading leaves and the stems of
the plants themselves protected them from any distant observation.

Jim kept an eye out for snake worms and water-seekers and
cautioned Willis to do likewise. They made fair time. After a
few minutes Frank stopped, motioned for silence, and they
both listened. All that Jim could hear was Frank's rasping
breath; if they were being pursued, the pursuers were not
close.

They were at least two miles south of the ramp when Frank
stopped very suddenly. Jim bumped into him and the two almost
tumbled into the thing that had caused Frank to stop
another canal. This one ran east and west and was a much
narrower branch of the main canal. There were several such
between Cynia and Charax. Some of them joined the east and
west legs of Strymon canal; some merely turned water to
local depressions in the desert plateau.

Jim stared down into the deep and narrow gash. "For the
love of Mike! We nearly took a header."

Frank did not answer. He sank down to his knees, then sat
and held his head. Suddenly he was overcome by a spasm of
coughing. When it was over, his shoulders still shook, as if he
were racked by dry sobs.

Jim put a hand on his arm. "You're pretty sick, aren't you,
fellow?"

Frank did not answer. Willis said, "Poor Frank boy," and
tut-tutted.

Jim stared again at the canal, his forehead wrinkled. Presently
Frank raised his head and said, "I'm all right. It just got
me for a moment running into the canal and all and realizing
it had us stopped. I was so tired."

Jim said, "Look here. Frank, I've got a new plan. I'm
going to follow this ditch off to the east until I find some way
to get down into it. You're going to go back and give yourself
up-"

"No!"

"Wait till I finish! This makes sense. You're too sick to
keep going. If you stay out here, you're going to die. You
might as well admit it. Somebody's got to get the word to our
folks me. You go back, surrender, and then give them a
song and dance about how I went that way any way but this
way. If you make it good, you can stall them and keep them
chasing their tails for a full day and give me that much head
start. In the mean time you lay around in the scooter, warm
and safe, and tonight you're in bed in the infirmary at school.
There doesn't that make sense?"

"No."

"Why not? You're just being stubborn."

"No," repeated Frank, "it's no good. In the first place I
won't turn myself over to them. I'd rather die out here"

"Nuts!"

"Nuts yourself. In the second place, a day's start will do
you no good. Once they are sure you aren't where I say you
are, they'll just go back to combing the canal, by scooter.
They'll pick you up tomorrow."

"But well, what is the answer then?"

"I don't know, but it's not that." He was seized again by
coughing.

Neither one of them said anything for several minutes. At
last Jim said, "What kind of a scooter was that?"

"The usual cargo sort, a Hudson Six Hundred I think.
Why?"

"Could it turn around on that ice down there?"

Frank looked down into the small canal. Its sides sloped in
toward the bottom; the water level was so low that the ice
surface was barely twenty feet across. "Not a chance," he
answered.

"Then they won't try to search this branch by scooter at
least not in that scooter."

"I'm way ahead of you," put in Frank. "You figure we'll
cross to east Strymon and go home that way. But how do you
know this cut runs all the way through? You remember the
map that well?"

"No, I don't. But there is a good chance it does. If it
doesn't, it will run most of the way across and we'll just have
to hoof it the rest of the way."

"After we get to the east leg it will still be five hundred
miles or so to Charax. This leg has shelters on it, even if we
did miss the one last night."

"We've got just as good a chance of finding project shelters
on east leg as on west leg," Jim answered. "The Project starts
next spring on both sides. I know Dad's talked about it
enough. Anyhow, we can't use this leg any further; they're
searching it so why beat your choppers about it? The real
question is: can you skate? If you can't, I still say you ought
to surrender."

Frank stood up. "I'll skate," he said grimly. "Come on."

They went boldly along the stone embankment, convinced
that their pursuers were still searching the neighborhood of the
ramp. They were three or four miles further east when they
came to a ramp leading down to the ice. "Shall we chance it?"
asked Jim.

"Sure. Even if they send a man in on skates I doubt if he
would come this far with no tracks to lead him on. I'm tired of
walking." They went down, put on their skates, and started.
Most of the kinks from their uncomfortable night had been
smoothed out by walking; it felt good to be on the ice again.

Jim let Frank set the pace; despite his illness he stroked right
into it and pushed the miles behind them.

They had come perhaps forty miles when the banks began
to be noticeably lower. Jim, seeing this, got a sick feeling that
the little canal was not cross-connecting from west to east leg,
but merely a feeder to a low spot in the desert. He kept his
suspicion to himself. At the end of the next hour it was no
longer necessary to spare his chum; the truth was evident to
them both. The banks were now so low that they could see
over them and the ice ahead no longer disappeared into the
blue sky but dead-ended in some fashion.

They came to the dead end presently, a frozen swamp. The
banks were gone; the rough ice spread out in all directions and
was bordered in the distance by green plants. Here and there,
canal grass, caught by the freeze, stuck up in dead tufts
through the ice.

They continued east, skating where they could and picking
their way around bits of higher ground. At last Frank said,
"All out! End of the line!" and sat down to take off his skates.

"I'm sorry, Frank."

"About what? We'll leg it the rest of the way. It can't be so
many miles."

They set out through the surrounding greenery, walking
just fast enough to let the plants draw out their way. The
vegetation that surrounded the marsh was lower than the canal
plants, hardly shoulder high, and showed smaller leaves.
After a couple of miles of this they found themselves out on
the sand dunes.

The shifting, red, iron-oxide sands made hard walking and
the dunes, to be climbed or skirted, made it worse. Jim
usually elected to climb them even if Frank went around; he
was looking for a dark green line against the horizon that
would mark east Strymon. It continued to disappoint him.

Willis insisted on getting down. First he gave himself a
dust bath in the clean sand; thereafter he kept somewhat ahead
of Jim, exploring this way and that and startling the spin bugs.
Jim had just topped a dune and was starting down the other
side when he heard an agonized squeak from Willis. He
looked around.

Frank was just coming around the end of the dune and
Willis was with him, that is to say, Willis had skittered on
ahead. Now the bouncer was standing dead still. Frank apparently
had noticed nothing; he was dragging along in a listless
fashion, his head down.

Charging straight at them was a water-seeker.

It was a long shot, even for a match marksman. The scene
took on a curious unreality to Jim. It seemed as if Frank were
frozen in his tracks and as if the water-seeker itself were
strolling slowly toward his victims. Jim himself seemed to
have all the time in the world to draw, take a steady, careful
bead, and let go his first charge.

It burned the first two pairs of legs off the creature; it kept
coming.

Jim sighted on it again, held the stud down. His beam, held
steadily on the centeriine of the varmit, sliced it in two as if it
had run into a buzz saw. It kept coming until its two halves
were no longer joined, until they fell two ways, twitching.
The great scimitar claw on the left half stopped within inches
of Willis.

Jim ran down the dune. Frank, no longer a statue, actually
had stopped. He was standing, blinking at what had been a
moment before the incarnation of sudden and bloody death.
He looked around as Jim came up. "Thanks," he said.

Jim did not answer but kicked at a trembling leg of the
beast. "The filthy, filthy thing!" he said intensely. "Cripes,
how I hate them. I wish I could burn every one on Mars, all at
once." He walked on up along the body, located the egg sac,
and carefully blasted every bit of it.

Willis had not moved. He was sobbing quietly. Jim came
back, picked him up, and popped him in the travel bag. "Let's
stick together from here on," he said. "If you don't feel like
climbing, I'll go around."

"Okay."

"Frank!"

"Uh? Yes, what is it, Jim?" Frank's voice was listless.

"What do you see ahead?"

"Ahead?" Frank tried manfully to make his eyes focus, to
chase the fuzz from them. "Uhh, it's the canal, the green belt I
mean. I guess we made it."

"And what else? Don't you see a tower?"

"What? Where? Oh, there Yes, I guess I do. It's a tower
all right."

"Well, for heaven's sake, don't you know what that means?
Martians!"

"Yeah, I suppose so."

"Well, show some enthusiasm!"

"Why should I?"

"They'll take us in, man! Martians are good people; you'll
have a warm place to rest, before we go on."

Frank looked a bit more interested, but said nothing. "They
might even know Gekko," Jim went on. "This is a real
break."

"Yeah, maybe so."

It took another hour of foot-slogging before the little Martian
town was reached. It was so small that it boasted only one
tower, but to Jim it was even more beautiful than Syrtis
Major. They followed its wall and presently found a gate.

They had not been inside more than a few minutes when
Jim's hopes, so high, were almost as low as they could be.
Even before he saw the weed-choked central garden, the
empty walks and silent courts had told him the bad truth: the
little town was deserted.

Mars must once have held a larger native population than it
does today. Ghost cities are not unknown and even the greater
centers of population, such as Charax, Syrtis Major and
Minor, and Hesperidum, have areas which are no longer used
and through which tourists from Earth may sometimes be conducted.
This little town, apparently never of great importance,
might have been abandoned before Noah laid the keel of his
ship.

Jim paused in the plaza, unwilling to speak. Frank stopped
and sat down a metal slab, its burnished face bright with
characters that an Earthly scholar would have given an arm to
read. "Well," said Jim, "rest a bit, then I guess we had better
find a way to get down onto the canal."
Fank answered dully, "Not for me. I've come as far as I
can."

"Don't talk that way."

"I'm telling you, Jim, that's how it is."

Jim puzzled at it. "I tell you what I'll search around.
These places are always honeycombed underneath. I'll find a
place for us to hole up over night."

"Just as you like."

"You just stay here." He started to leave, then suddenly
became aware that Willis was not with him. He then recalled
that the bouncer had jumped down when they entred the city.
"Willis where's Willis?"

"How would I know?"

"I've got to find him. Oh, Willis! Hey, Willis! Come,
boy!" His voice echoed around the dead square.

"Hi, Jim!"

It was Willis, rightly enough, his voice reaching Jim from
some distance. Presently he came into sight. But he was not
alone; he was being carried by a Martian.

The Martian came near them, dropped his third leg, and
leaned down. His voice boomed gently at Jim. "What's he
saying, Frank?"

"Huh? Oh, I don't know. Tell him to go away."

The Martian spoke again. Jim abandoned the attempt to use
Frank as a translator and concentrated on trying to understand.
He spotted the question symbol, in the inverted position; the
remark was an invitation or a suggestion of some sort. Following
it was the operator of motion coupled with some radical that
meant nothing to Jim.

He answered it with the question symbol alone, hoping that
the native would repeat himself. Willis answered instead.
"Come along, Jim boy fine place!"

Why not? he said to himself and answered, "Okay, Willis."
To the Martian he replied with the symbol of general assent,
racking his throat to produce the unEarthly triple guttural
required. The Martian repeated it, inverted, then picked up the
leg closest to them and walked rapidly away without turning
around. He had gone about twenty-five yards when he seemed
to notice that he was not being followed. He backed up just as
rapidly and used the general inquiry symbol in the sense of
"What's wrong?"

"Willis," Jim said urgently, "I want him to carry Frank."

"Carry Frank boy?"

"Yes, the way Gekko carried him."

"Gekko not here. This K'boomch."

"His name is K'boomk?"

"Sure K'boomch," Willis agreed, correcting Jim's pronunciation.

"Well, I want K'boomch to carry Frank like Gekko carried
him."

Willis and the Martian mooed and croaked at each other for
a moment, then Willis said, "K'boomch wants to know does
Jim boy know Gekko."

"Tell him we are friends, water friends."

"Willis already tell him."

"How about Frank?" But it appeared that Willis had already
told his new acquaintance about that, too, for K'boomch
enlosed Frank in two palm flaps and lifted him up. Frank
opened his eyes, then closed them. He seemed indifferent to
what happened to him.

Jim trotted after the Martian, stopping only to grab up
Frank's skates from where he had abandoned them on the
metal slab. The Martian led him into a huge building that
seemed even larger inside than out, so richly illuminated in
glowing lights were the walls. The Martian did not tarry but
went directly into an archway in the far wall; it was a ramp
tunnel entrance, leading down.

The Martians appear never to have invented stair steps, or
more likely never needed them. The low surface gravity of
Mars, only 38% of that of Earth, permits the use of ramps
which would be disastrously steep on Earth. The Martian led
Jim down a long sequence of these rapid descents.

Presently Jim discovered, as he had once before under
Cynia city, that the air pressure had increased. He raised his
mask with a feeling of great relief; he had not had it off for
more than twenty-four hours. The change in pressure had
come abruptly; he knew from this that it had not resulted from
descent alone, nor had they come deep enough to make any
great difference in pressure.

Jim wondered how the trick was accomplished. He decided
that it had pressure locks beat all hollow.

They left the ramps and entered a large domed chamber,
evenly lighted from the ceiling itself. Its walls were a
continuous series of archways. K'boomch stopped and spoke again
to Jim, another inquiry in which he used the name Gekko.

Jim reached into his memory and carefully phrased a simple
 declaration: "Gekko and I have shared water. We are friends."

The Martian seemed satisfied; he led the way into one of
the side rooms and placed Frank gently on the floor. The door
closed behind them, sliding silently into place. It was a smallish
room, for Martians, and contained several resting frames.
K'boomch arranged his ungainly figure on one of them.

Suddenly Jim felt heavy and sat down rather unexpectedly
on the floor. The feeling persisted and with it a slight giddiness;
he stayed seated. "Are you all right, Frank?" he asked.

Frank muttered something. His breathing seemed labored
and rough, Jim took off Frank's mask and touched his face; it
was hot.

There was nothing that he could do for Frank at the moment.
The heavy feeling continued. The Martian did not
seemed disposed to talk and Jim did not feel up to attempting
a conversation in the dominant tongue in any case. Willis had
withdrawn into a ball. Jim lay down beside Frank, closed his
eyes, and tried not to think.

He felt a moment of lightness, almost of vertigo, then felt
heavy again and wondered what he was coming down with.
He lay still for a few more minutes, to be disturbed presently
by the native bending over him and speaking. He sat up and
discovered that he felt fine again. K'boomch scooped up
Frank and they left the room.

The great domed chamber outside looked the same, except
that it now held a crowd of Martians, thirty or more of them.
When K'boomch and his two burdens, followed by Jim, came
out the archway one of them separated himself from the group
and stepped forward. He was rather short as Martians go.

"Jim-Marlowe," he stated, with the vocative symbol.

"Gekko!" yelled Jim, echoed by Willis.

Gekko bent over him. "My friend," he boomed softly in
his own tongue. "My little, crippled friend." He raised Jim up
and carried him away, the other Martians retreating to make
way.

Gekko moved rapidly through a series of tunnels. Jim,
looking back, could see that K'boomch and the rest of his
party were close behind, so he let matters drift. Gekko turned
presently into a medium-sized chamber and put Jim down.
Frank was deposited by him. Frank blinked his eyes and said
"Where are we?"

Jim looked around. The room held several resting frames,
set in a circle. The ceiling was domed and simulated the sky.
On one wall a canal flowed past, in convincing miniature.
Elsewhere on the curved wall was the silhouette of a Martian
city, feathery towers floating in the air. Jim knew those
towers, knew of what city they were the signature; Jim knew
this room.

It was the very room in which he had "grown together"
with Gekko and his friends.

"Oh, my gosh, Frank we're back in Cynia."

"Huh?" Frank sat up suddenly, glared around him then
lay back down and shut his eyes tightly.

Jim did not know whether to laugh or to cry. All that effort!
All their striving to escape and to get home, Frank's gallant
refusal to give up in the face of sickness and body weariness,
the night in the desert cabbage and here they were not three
miles from Cynia station.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Other World

JIM SET UP housekeeping or hospital-keeping in the
smallest room that Gekko could find for him. There had been
a "growing together" immediately after their arrival. On its
conclusion Jim had found, as before, that his command of the
dominant tongue was improved. He had made Gekko understand
that Frank was sick and needed quiet.

Gekko offered to take over Frank's care, but Jim refused.
Martian therapy might cure Frank or it might kill him. He
asked instead for a plentiful supply of drinking water his
right, now that he was a "water friend," almost a tribal
brother and he asked for the colorful Martian silks that had
been used by the boys in place of resting frames. From these
silks Jim made a soft bed for Frank and a nest nearby for
himself and Willis. He bedded Frank down, roused him
enough to get him to drink deeply of water, and then waited
for his friend to get well.

The room was quite comfortably warm; Jim took off his
outdoors suit, stretched, and scratched. On second thought he
peeled off Frank's elastic suit as well and covered him with a
layer of flame-colored cloth. After that he dug into Frank's
travel bag and looked over the food supply. Up to now he had
been too busy and too tired to worry about his stomach; now
the very sight of the labels made him drool. He picked out a
can of synthetic orange juice, vitamin fortified, and a can of
simulated chicken filet. The latter had started life in a yeast
tank at North Colony, but Jim was used to yeast proteins and
the flavor was every bit as tempting as white breast of
chicken. Whistling, he got out his knife and got busy.

Willis had wandered off somewhere but he did not miss
him. Subconsciously he was not disposed to worry about
Willis while they were both in a native city; the place was
filled with an atmosphere of peace and security. In fact Jim
hardly thought about his patient until he had finished and
wiped his mouth.

Frank was still sleeping but his breathing was noisy and his
face still flushed. The air in the room, though warm and of
satisfactory pressure, was Mars dry. Jim got a handkerchief
from his bag, wet it, and put it over Frank's face. From time
to time he moistened it again. Later he got another handkerchief,
doused it, and tied it around his own face.

Gekko came in with Willis tagging along. "Jim-Marlowe,"
he stated and settled himself. "Gekko," Jim answered and
went on with moistening Frank's face cloth. The Martian remained
so quiet for so long that Jim decided that he must have
retreated into his "other world" but, when Jim looked at him,
Gekko's eyes showed lively, alert interest.

After a long wait he asked Jim what he was doing and why.

Jim tried to explain that his kind must breathe water as well
as air but his Martian vocabulary, despite the "growing together,"
was not up to the strain it placed on it. He gave up
and there was another long silence. Eventually the Martian
left, Willis with him.

Presently Jim noticed that the face cloths, both his and
Frank's, were not drying out rapidly. Shortly they were hardly
drying at all. He took off his, as it made him uncomfortable,
and decided that it must be uncomfortable for Frank as well;
he stopped using them entirely.

Gekko returned. After only ten minutes of silence he
spoke, showing thereby almost frantic haste for his kind. He
wanted to know if the water that flies with the air was now
sufficient? Jim assured him that it was and thanked him. After
twenty minutes or so of silence Gekko again left. Jim decided
to go to bed. It had been a long, hard day and the previous
night could hardly be called a night of rest. He looked around
for some way to switch off the light but could find none.
Giving up, he lay down, pulled a polychrome sheet up to his
chin, and went to sleep.

Sometime during his sleep Willis returned. Jim became
aware of it when the little fellow snuggled up against his back.
Sleepily, Jim reached behind and petted him, then went back
to sleep.

"Hey, Jim wake up."

Blearily Jim opened his eyes, and closed them. "Go away."

"Come on. Snap out of it. I've been awake the past two
hours, while you snored. I want to know some things."

"What do you want to know? Say how do you feel?"

"Me?" said Frank. "I feel fine. Why shouldn't I? Where
are we?"

Jim looked him over. Frank's color was certainly better and
his voice sounded normal, the hoarseness all gone. "You were
plenty sick yesterday," he informed him. "I think you were out
of your head."

Frank wrinkled his forehead. "Maybe I was. I've sure had
the damedest dreams. There was a crazy one about a desert
cabbage"

"That was no dream."

"What?"

"I said that was no dream, the desert cabbage nor any of
the rest of it. Do you know where we are?"

"That's what I was asking you."

"We're in Cynia, that's where we are. We"

"hi Cynia"

Jim tried to give Frank a coherent account of the preceding
two days. He was somewhat hampered by the item of their
sudden translation from far up the canal back to Cynia, because
he did not understand it clearly himself. "I figure it's a
sort of a subway paralleling the canal. You know a subway,
like you read about."

"Martians don't do that sort of engineering."

"Martians built the canals."

"Yes, but that was a long, long time ago."

"Maybe they built the subway a long time ago. What do
you know about it?"

"Well nothing, I guess. Never mind. I'm hungry.
Anything left to eat?"

"Sure." Jim got up. In so doing he woke Willis, who extended
his eyes, sized up the situation, and greeted them. Jim
picked him up, scratched him, and said, "What time did you
come in, you tramp?" then suddenly added, "Hey!"

"'Hey' what?" asked Frank.

"Well, would you look at that!' Jim pointed at the tumbled
silks.

Frank got up and joined him. "Look at what? Oh!"

In the hollow in which Willis had been resting were a
dozen small, white spheroids, looking like so many golf balls.

"What do you suppose they are?" asked Jim.

Frank studied them closely. "Jim," he said slowly, "I think
you'll just have to face it. Willis isn't a boy; he's a she."

"Huh? Oh, no!"

"Willis good boy," Willis said defensively.

"See for yourself," Frank went on to Jim. "Those are eggs.
If Willis didn't lay them, you must have."

Jim looked bewildered, then turned to Willis. "Willis, did
you lay those eggs? Did you?"

"Eggs?" said Willis. "What Jim boy say?"

Jim set him down by the nest and pointed. "Did you lay
those?"

Willis looked at them, then figuratively shrugged his
shoulders and washed his hands of the whole matter.
He waddled away. His manner seemed to say that if Jim chose to
make a fuss over some eggs or whatever that just happened to
show up in the bed, well, that was Jim's business; Willis
would have none of it.

"You won't get anything out of him," Frank commented. "I
suppose you realize this makes you a grandfather, sort of."

"Don't be funny!"

"Okay, forget the eggs. When do we eat? I'm starved."

Jim gave the eggs an accusing glance and got busy on the
commissary. While they were eating Gekko came in. They
exchanged grave greetings, then the Martian seemed about to
settle himself for another long period of silent sociability
when he caught sight of the eggs.

Neither of the boys had ever seen a Martian hurry before,
nor show any signs of excitement. Gekko let out a deep snort
and left the room at once, to return promptly with as many
companions as could crowd into the room. They all talked at
once and paid no attention to the boys.

"What goes on here?" asked Frank, as he crowded against
a wall and peered through a thicket of legs.

"Blessed if I know."

After a while they calmed down a little. One of the larger
Martians gathered up the eggs with exaggerated care and
clutched them to him. Another picked up Willis and they all
trooped out.

Jim stood hesitantly at the door and watched them disappear.
"I'd like to find Gekko and ask him about it," he fretted.

"Nuts," said Frank. "Let's finish breakfast."

"Well... all right."

Once the meal was over. Frank opened the larger question.
"Okay, so we are in Cynia. We've still got to get home and
fast. The question is: how do we go about it? Now as I see it,
if these Martians could bring us back here so fast, they can
turn around and put us back where they found us and then we
can head home up the east leg of Strymon. How does that
strike you?"

"It sounds all right, I guess," Jim answered, "but"

"Then the first thing to do is to find Gekko and try to
arrange it, without fiddling around."

"The first thing to do," Jim contradicted, "is to find
Willis."

"Why? Hasn't he caused enough trouble? Leave him; he's
happy here."

"Frank, you take entirely the wrong attitude toward Willis.
Didn't he get us out of a jam? If it hadn't been for Willis,
you'd be coughing your lungs out in the desert."

"If it hadn't been for Willis, we wouldn't have been in that
jam in the first place."

"Now that's not fair. The truth is"

"Skip it, skip it. Okay, go find Willis."

Jim left Frank to clean up the litter of breakfast and set out.
Although he was never able thereafter to give a fully coherent
account of just what happened to him on this errand, certain
gross facts are clear. He started by looking for Gekko, asking
for him of the first Martian he met in the corridors by the
barbarous expedient of voicing the general inquiry followed
by Gekko's name.

Jim was not and probably never would be a competent
linguist, but his attempt worked. The first Martian he encountered
took him to another, as an Earthly citizen might lead a
foreigner to a policeman. This Martian took 'him to Gekko.

Jim had no great trouble in explaining to Gekko that he
wanted Willis returned to him. Gekko listened, then explained
gently that what Jim wanted was impossible.

Jim started over again, sure that his own poor command of
the language had caused misunderstanding. Gekko let him
finish, then made it quite clear that he understood correctly
what it was that Jim wanted, but that Jim could not have
it, could not have Willis. No. Gekko was sorrowful to have
to refuse his friend with whom he had shared the pure water of
life, but this thing could not be.

Under the direct influence of Gekko's powerful personality
Jim understood most of what was said and guessed the rest.
Gekko's refusal was unmistakable. It is not important that Jim
did not have his gun with him; Gekko could not inspire the
hatred in him that Howe did. For one thing Gekko's warm
sympathy poured over him in a flood; nevertheless Jim was
thunderstruck, indignant, and quite unable to accept the verdict.
He stared up at the Martian for a long moment. Then he
walked away abruptly, not choosing his direction and shouting
for Willis as he did so. "Willis! Oh, Willis! Here, Willis boy
come to Jim!"

The Martian started after him, each stride three of Jim's.
Jim ran, still shouting. He turned a comer, came face-to-face
with three natives and darted between their legs and beyond.
Gekko got into a traffic jam with them which required the
time-wasting exercise of Martian protocol to straighten out.
Jim got considerably ahead.

He stuck his head into every archway he came to and
shouted. One such led into a chamber occupied by Martians
frozen in that trancelike state they call visiting the "other
world." Jim would no more have disturbed a Martian in a
trance, ordinarily, than an American western frontier child
would have teased a grizzly but he was in no shape to care
or notice; he shouted in there, too, thereby causing an unheard-of
and unthinkable disturbance. The least response was
violent trembling; one poor creature was so disturbed that he
lifted abruptly all of his legs and fell to the floor.

Jim did not notice; he was already gone, shouting into the
next chamber.

Gekko caught up with him and scooped him up with two
great hand flaps. "Jim-Marlowe!" he said. "Jim-Marlowe, my
friend"

Jim sobbed and beat on the Martian's hard thorax with both
his fists. Gekko endured it for a moment, then wrapped a third
palm flap around Jim's arms, securing him. Jim looked wildly
up at him. "Willis," he said in his own language, "I want
Willis. You've got no right!"

Gekko cradled him and answered softly, "I have no power.
This is beyond me. We must go to the other world." He
moved away. Jim made no answer, tired by his own outburst.
Gekko took a ramp downward, then another and another.
Down and down he went, much deeper than Jim had ever
been before, deeper perhaps than any terrestrial had ever been.
On the upper levels they passed other Martians; farther down
there were none.

At last Gekko halted in a small chamber far underground.
It was exceptional in that it was totally without decoration; its
plain, pearl-grey walls seemed almost unMartian. Gekko laid
Jim on the floor here and said, "This is a gate to the other
world."

Jim picked himself up. "Huh?" he said. "What do you
mean?" and then carefully rephrased the question in the
dominant tongue. He need not have bothered; Gekko did
not hear him.

Jim craned his neck and looked up. Gekko stood utterly
motionless, all legs firmly planted. His eyes were open but
lifeless. Gekko had crossed over into the "other world."

"For the love of Mike," Jim fretted, "he sure picks a sweet
time to pull a stunt like that." He wondered what he ought to
do, try to find his way to upper levels alone or wait for
Gekko. Natives were reputed to be able to hold a trance for
weeks at a time, but Doc MacRae had pooh-poohed such
stories.

He decided to wait for a while at least and sat down on the
floor, hands clasped around his knees. He felt considerably
calmed down and in no special hurry, as if Gekko's boundless
calm had flowed over into him while the native had carried
him.

After a while, an indefinitely long while, the room grew
darker. Jim was not disturbed; he was vastly content, feeling
again the untroubled happiness that he had known in his two
experiences of "growing together."

A tiny light appeared at a great distance in the darkness and
grew. But it did not illuminate the small pearl-grey room; it
built up an outdoor scene instead. It was as if a stereo-movie
projector were being used to project New Hollywood's best
work, in full, natural color. That it was not an importation
from Earth Jim knew, for the scene, while utterly realistic, had
no slick commercial finish, no plot.

He seemed to be seeing a grove of canal plants from a
viewpoint about a foot off the ground. The viewpoint shifted
steadily and erratically as if the camera were being trucked on
a very low dolly here and there through the stalks of the canal
plants. The viewpoint would shift quickly for a few feet, stop,
then change direction and move again, but it never got very
far off the ground. Sometimes it would wheel in a full circle, a
panorama of three hundred and sixty degrees.

It was during one of these full rotations that he caught sight
of a water-seeker.

It would not have been strange if he had not recognized it
as such, for it was enormously magnified. As it charged in, it
filled the entire screen. But it was impossible not to recognize
those curving scimitar claws, the grisly horror of the gaping
sucker orifice, those pounding legs and most particularly
the stomach-clutching revulsion the thing inspired. Jim could
almost smell it.

The viewpoint from which he saw it did not change; it was
frozen to one spot while the foul horror rushed directly at him
in the final death charge. At the last possible instant, when the
thing filled me screen, something happened. The face or
where the face should have been disappeared, went to
pieces, and the creature collapsed in a blasted ruin.

The picture was wiped out completely for a few moments,
replaced by whirling colored turmoil. Then a light, sweet
voice said, "Well, aren't you the cute little fellow!" The
picture built up again as if a curtain had been lifted and Jim
stared at another face almost as grotesque as the faceless
horror it replaced.

Although this face occupied the whole screen and was
weirdly distorted, Jim had no trouble in placing it as a colonial's
respirator mask. What startled him almost out of the
personal unawareness with which he was accepting this
shadow show was that he recognized the mask. It was decorated
with the very tiger stripes that Smythe had painted out
for a quarter credit; it was his own, as it used to be.

He heard his own voice say, "You're too little to be wandering
around by yourself; another one of those vermin might
really get you. I think I'll take you home."

The scene went swinging through the canal growth at a
greater height, hobbling up and down to the boy's steps.
Presently the point of view came out into open country and
showed in the distance the star-shaped layout and bubble
domes of South Colony.

Jim adjusted to the idea of watching himself, hearing himself,
and accepted the notion of seeing things from Willis's
viewpoint. The record was quite unedited; it pushed forward
in a straight line, a complete recollection of everything Willis
had seen and heard from the time Jim had first taken him
under his protection. Willis's visual recollections were not entirely
accurate; they seemed to be affected by his understanding
of what he saw and how used to it he was. Jim the
"Jim" in the shadow show at first seemed to have three legs;

it was some time before the imaginary excrescence vanished.
Other actors, Jim's mother, old Doc MacRae, Frank, developed
from formless shapes to full, though somewhat distorted,
representations.

On the other hand, every sound was heard with great clarity
and complete accuracy. As Jim listened and watched he
found that he was savoring sounds of every sort and most
especially voices with a new and rich delight.

Most especially he enjoyed seeing himself as Willis saw
him. With affection and warm humor he saw himself stripped
of dignity but clothed in a lively regard; he was loved but not
respected. He, Jim himself, was a great bumbling servant,
helpful but maddeningly unreliable in his attentions, like a
poorly trained dog. As for other human beings, they were
curious creatures, harmless on the whole, but unpredictable
traffic hazards. This bouncer-eye view of people amused Jim
mightily.

Day by day and week by week the account unfolded, even
to the periods of dark and quiet when Willis chose to sleep or
was shut up. It carried on to Syrtis Minor and into a bad time
when Jim was missing. Howe appeared as a despised voice
and a pair of legs; Beecher was a faceless nonentity. It
continued, step by step, and somehow Jim was neither tired nor
bored. He was simply in the continuity and could no more
escape from it than could Willis nor did it occur to him to
try. At last it wound up in the Martian city of Cynia and ended
in a period of dark and quiet.

Jim stretched his cramped legs; the light was returning. He
looked around but Gekko was still deep in 'his trance. He
looked back and found that a door had opened in what had
appeared to be blank wall. He looked through and into a room
beyond, decorated as Martian rooms so frequently are in careful
imitation of an outdoor scene lush countryside more like
uie sea bottoms south of Cynia than like the desert.

A Martian was in the room. Jim was never able afterwards
to visualize him completely for his face and particularly his
eyes compelled attention. An Earthling has no good way to
estimate the age of a Martian yet Jim had the unmistakable
impression that this Martian was very old older than his
father, older even than Doc MacRae.

"Jim Marlowe," the native said in clear tones. "Welcome,
Jim Marlowe, friend of my people and friend of mine. I give
you water." He spoke in Basic English, in an accent vaguely
familiar.

Jim had never heard a Martian speak an Earthly tongue
before, but he knew that some of them did speak Basic. It was
a relief to be able to answer in his own speech. "I drink with
you. May you ever enjoy pure and plentiful water."

"I thank you, Jim Marlowe." No actual water was used and
none was needed. There followed a polite period of quiet,
during which Jim thought about the Martian's accent. It was
oddly familiar; it put him in mind of his father's voice, again it
sounded like Doc MacRae.

"You are troubled, Jim Marlowe. Your unhappiness is
ours. How may I help you?"

"I don't want anything," Jim answered, "except to go
home and take Willis with me. They took Willis away. They
shouldn't have done that."

The silence that followed was even longer than before. At
last the Martian answered, "When one stands on the ground,
one may not see over the horizon yet Phobos sees all horizons."
He hesitated a moment before the word "Phobos." As
if in afterthought he added, "Jim Marlowe, I have but lately
learned your tongue. Forgive me if I stumble."

"Oh, you speak it beautifully!" Jim said quite sincerely.

"The words I know; the pictures are not clear. Tell me, Jim
Marlowe, what is the london-zoo?"

Jim had to ask him to repeat it before it was clear that the
Martian asked about the London Zoo. Jim tried to explain, but
broke off before he had finished elaborating the idea. The
Martian radiated such cold, implacable anger that Jim was
frightened.

After a time the Martian's mood changed abruptly and Jim
was again bathed in a warm glow of friendliness that poured
out of his host like rays from the Sun and was as real as
sunshine to Jim. "Jim Marlowe, twice you have saved the
little one whom you call 'Willis' from" He used first a
Martian term not known to Jim, then changed it to "waterseekers."
"Have you killed many such?"

"Uh, quite a few, I guess," Jim answered, then added, "I
kill 'em whenever I see 'em. They're getting too smart to
hang around the colonies much."

The Martian appeared to be thinking this over, but when he
got around to answering he had again changed the subject.
"Jim Marlowe, twice, perhaps three times, you have saved the
little one; once, perhaps twice, our little one has saved you.
Each time you have grown closer together. Day by day you
have grown together until neither one of you is complete
without the other. Do not leave here, Jim Marlowe. Stay. You
are welcome in my house, a son and a friend." He had said
"daughter" first, instead of "son," then corrected it without
any comic effect nor loss of emphasis.

Jim shook his head. "I have to go home. In fact I have to
go home right away. It's a mighty kind offer and I want to
thank you but" He explained as clearly as he could the
threat to the welfare of the colony and the urgent need for him
to carry the message. "If you please, sir, we my friend and
I would like to be taken back where K'boomch found us.
Only I want Willis back before we go."

"You wish to go back to the city where you were found?
You do not wish to go home?"

Jim explained that Frank and he would go home from
there. "Now, sir, why don't you ask Willis whether or not he
wants to stay or to go home with me?"

The old Martian sighed exactly as Jim's father had been
known to sigh after a fruitless family discussion. "There is a
law of life and a law of death and both are the law of change.
Even the hardest rock is worn away by the wind. You understand,
my son and friend, that even if the one you call Willis
returns with you, there will come a time when the little one
must leave you?"

"Uh, yes, I guess so. You mean Willis can come home
with me?"

"We will speak to the one you call Willis."

The old one spoke to Gekko, who stirred and muttered in
his sleep. Then the three of them wound back up the ramps,
with Gekko carrying Jim and the old one following a little
behind.

They stopped in a chamber about halfway up to the surface.
The room was dark when they reached it but it became
illuminated as soon as the party entered. Jim saw that the
place was lined, floor to ceiling, with little niches and each
niche contained a bouncer, as similar, each to the other, as
identical twins.

The little fellows raised their eye stalks when the light
came on and peered interestedly around. From somewhere in
the room came a shout of "Hi, Jim boy!"

Jim looked around but could not pick out the bouncer that
had spoken. Before he could do anything about it the phrase
had echoed around the room, "Hi, Jim boy! Hi, Jim boy! Hi,
Jim boy!" each time in Jim's own voice, as borrowed by
Willis.

Jim turned back to Gekko in bewilderment. "Which one is
Willis?" he demanded, forgetting to speak in the dominant
tongue.

The chorus started up again, "Which one is Willis? Which
one is Willis? Which, Which, Which one is Willis?"

Jim stepped out into the middle of the room. "Willis!" he
commanded, "come to Jim."

Off to his right a bouncer popped out from a middle tier,
landed on the floor, and waddled up to him. "Pick up Willis,"
it demanded. Gratefully, Jim did so.

"Where Jim boy been?" Willis wanted to know.

Jim scratched the bouncer. "You wouldn't understand if I
told you. Look, Willis Jim is about to go home. Does Willis
want to go home with him?"

"Jim go?" Willis said doubtfully, as if the unrelenting
echoing chorus had made it hard for him to undertsand.

"Jim go home, right away. Is Willis coming or is Willis
going to stay here?"

"Jim go; Willis go," the bouncer announced, stating it as a
law of nature.

"Okay, tell Gekko that."

"Why?" Willis asked suspiciously.

"Tell Gekko that, or you'll get left behind. Go on, tell
him."

"Okay." Willis addressed Gekko in a series of clucks and
croaks. Neither the old Martian nor Gekko made any comment;
Gekko picked up the two smaller creatures and the procession
continued on up toward the surface. Gekko put them
down outside the room assigned to Frank and Jim. Jim carried
Willis inside.

Frank looked up as they came in. He was sprawled on the
silks and, arranged beside him on the floor, was a meal, as yet
untouched. "Well, I see you found him," he commented. "It
sure took you long enough."

Jim was suddenly overcome with remorse. He had been
gone goodness knows how long. Days? Weeks? That moving-picture
thing had covered months, in detail. "Gee, Frank, I'm
sorry," he apologized. "Were you worried about me?"

"Worried? What for? I just didn't know whether or not to
wait lunch on you. You must have been gone at least three
hours."

Three hours? Jim started to object that it had been more
like three weeks, then thought better of it. He recalled that he
had not eaten while away, nor did he feel anything more than
normally hungry.

"Uh, Yeah, sure. Sony. Look, do you mind waiting
lunch a bit longer?"

"Why? I'm starved."

"Because we're leaving, that's why. Gekko and another
native are wailing to take us back to that town where
K'boomch found us."

"Well, Okay!" Frank stuffed his mouth full and started to
pull on his outdoors suit.

Jim imitated him, both as to eating and dressing. "We can
finish lunch in the subway dingus," he said, mumbling with
his mouth full. "Don't forget to fill your mask reservoir."

"Don't worry. I won't pull that stunt twice." Frank filled
his tank and Jim's, took a big drink of water, and offered the
rest to Jim. Moments later they slung their skates over their
shoulders and were ready to leave. The party filed through

ramps and corridors to the "subway station" hall and stopped
at one of the archways.

The old Martian went inside, but, somewhat to Jim's surprise,
Gekko bade them good-bye. They parted with ritualistic
exchange of courtesies appropriate to water friends, then
Frank and Jim, with Willis, went inside and the door closed
behind them.

The car started up at once. Frank said, "Wups! What is
this?" and sat down suddenly. The old Martian, secure on the
resting frame, said nothing. Jim laughed.

"Don't you remember the last ride?"

"Not very well. Say, I feel heavy."

"So do I. That's part of the ride. Now how about a bite to
eat? It may be a long time before we get another decent meal."

"You ain't whistlin'." Frank got out the remainder of their
lunch. When they had finished Frank thought about it and
opened another can. Before they had had a chance to eat its
contents cold baked beans and surrogate pork his stomach
suddenly did a flip-flop. "Hey!" he yelped. "What's happened?"

"Nothing. It was like that last time."

"I thought we had plowed into something."

"Nope, it's all right, I tell you. Hand me over some of
those beans." They ate the beans and waited; after a time the
feeling of extra weight left them and Jim knew that they had
arrived.

The door of the car compartment opened and they stepped
out into a circular hall exactly like the one they had left. Frank
looked around in disappointment. "Say, Jim we haven't
gone anyplace. There's some mistake."

"No, there's not." He turned, intending to speak to the old
Martian, but the archway door behind them was already
closed. "Oh, that's too bad," he said.

"What's too bad? That they gave us a run-around?"

"They didn't give us a run-around; it's just that this room
looks like the one back in Cynia. You'll see when we get up to
the surface. No, I was saying 'too bad' because I let" Jim
hesitated, realizing that he had never gotten the old Martian's
name. "because I let the old fellow, not Gekko, the other
one, get away without saying good-bye."

"Who?"

"You know, the other one. The one that rode with us."

"What do you mean, the other one? I didn't see anybody
but Gekko. And nobody rode with us; we were in there by
ourselves."

"Huh? You must be blind."

"You must be nuts."

"Frank Sutton, do you mean to stand there and tell me you
didn't see the Martian that rode with us?"

"You heard me the first time."

Jim took a deep breath. "Well, all I've got to say is: if you
hadn't had your face buried in your food the whole time and
had looked around you occasionally, you'd see more. How
in"

"Forget it, forget it," Frank interrupted, "before you get me
sore. There were six Martians, if you like it that way. Let's get
on up and outside and see what the score is. We're wasting
time."

"Well, all right." They started up the ramps. Jim was very
silent; the incident bothered him more than it did Frank.

Partway up they were forced to adjust their masks. Ten
minutes or so thereafter they reached a room into which the
sunlight came flooding; they hurried through it and outdoors.

A moment later it was Frank's turn to be puzzled and uncertain.
"Jim, I know I was light-headed at the time but
wasn't, uh wasn't that town we started from just a one-tower burg?"

"It was."

"This one isn't."

"No, it isn't."

"We're lost."

"That's right."


CHAPTER NINE

Politics

They were in a large enclosed courtyard, such as characterizes
many Martian buildings. They could make out the
tops of the towers of the city, or some of them, but their view
was much restricted.

"What do you think we ought to do?" asked Frank.

"Mmm... try to find a native and see if we can find out
where we've landed. I wish I hadn't let the old fellow get
away from us," Jim added. "He spoke Basic."

"You still harping on that?" said Frank. "Anyway I don't
think our chances are good; this place looks utterly deserted.
You know what I think? I think they've just dumped us."

" 'I think they've just dumped us,'" agreed Willis.

"Shut up. They wouldn't do that," Jim went on to Frank in
worried tones. He moved around and stared over the roof of
the building. "Say, Frank"

"Yeah?"

"You see those three little towers, just alike? You can just
make out their tips."

"Yeah? What about them?"
"I think I've seen them before."

"Say, I think I have, too!"

They began to run. Five minutes later they were standing
on the city wall and there was no longer any doubt about it;

they were in the deserted part of Charax. Below them and
about three miles away were the bubble domes of South Colony.

Forty minutes of brisk walking, varied with dog-trotting,
got them home.

They split up and went directly to their respective homes.
"See you later!" Jim called to Frank and hurried away to his
father's house. It seemed to take forever for the pressure lock
to let him through. Before the presssure had equalized he
could hear his mother, echoed by his sister, inquiring via the
announcing speaker as to who was at the door, please? he
decided not to answer but to surprise them.

Then he was inside, facing Phyllis whose face was frozen
in amazement only to throw herself around his neck while
shouting, "Mother! Mother! Mother! It's Jim! It's Jim!" and
Willis was bouncing around the floor and chorusing "It's Jim!
It's Jim!" and his mother was crowding Phyl aside and hugging
him and getting his face wet with her tears and Jim himself
wasn't feeling any too steady.

He managed to push them away presently. His mother
stood back a little and said, "Just let me look at you, darling.
Oh, my poor baby! Are you all right?" She was ready to weep
again.

"Sure, I'm all right," Jim protested. "Why shouldn't I be?
Say, is Dad home?"

Mrs. Marlowe looked suddenly apprehensive. "No, Jim,
he's at work."

"I've got to see him right away. Say, Mom, what are you
looking funny about?"

"Why, because Uh, nothing. I'll call your father right
away." She went to the phone and called the ecological laboratory.
He could hear her guarded tones: "Mr. Marlowe? Dear,
this is Jane. Could you come home right away?" and his father's
reply, "It wouldn't be convenient. What's up? You
sound strange."

His mother glanced over her shoulder at Jim, "Are you
alone? Can I be overheard?" His father answered, "What's the
matter? Tell me." His mother replied, almost in a whisper,
"He's home."

There was a short silence. His father answered, "I'll be
there right away."

In the meantime Phyllis was grilling Jim. "Say, Jimmy,
what in the world have you been doing?"

Jim started to answer, thought better of it. "Kid, you
wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I don't doubt that. But what have you been doing? You've
sure got folks in a stew."

"Never mind. Say, what day is it?"

"Saturday."

"Saturday the what?"

"Saturday the fourteenth of Ceres, of course."

Jim was startled. Four days? Only four days since he had
left Syrds Minor? Then as he reviewed it in his mind, he
accepted it. Granting Frank's assertion that the time he had
spent down under Cynia was only three hours or so, the rest
added up. "Gee! I guess I'm in time then."

"What do you mean, 'in time'?"

"Huh? Oh, you wouldn't understand it. Wait a few years."

"Smarty!"

Mrs. Marlowe came away from the phone. "Your father
will be right home, Jim."

"So I heard. Good."

She looked at him. "Are you hungry? Is there anything you
would like?"

"Sure, fatted calf and champagne. I'm not really hungry,
but I could stand something. How about some cocoa? I've
been living on cold stuff out of cans for days."

"Cocoa there shall be."

"Better eat what you can now," put in Phyllis. "Maybe you
won't get what you want to eat when"

"Phyllis!"

"But, Mother, I was just going to say that"

"Phyllis, keep quiet or leave the room."

Jim's sister subsided with muttering. Shortly the cocoa was
ready and while Jim was drinking it his father came in. His
father shook hands with him soberly as if he were a grown
man. "It's good to see you home. Son."

"It feels mighty good to be home. Dad." Jim gulped the
rest of the cocoa. "But look. Dad, I've got a lot to tell you and
there isn't any time to waste. Where's Willis?" He looked
around. "Anybody see where he went?"

"Never mind Willis. I want to know"

"But Willis is essential to this. Dad. Oh, Willis! Come
here!" Willis came waddling out of the passageway; Jim
picked him up.

"All right; you've got Willis," Mr. Marlowe said. "Now
pay attention. What is this mess you are in, son?"

Jim frowned. "It's a little hard to know where to start."

"There's a warrant out for you and Frank!" blurted out
Phyllis.

Mr. Marlowe said, "Jane, will you please try to keep your
daughter quiet?"

"Phyllis, you heard what I said before!"

"Aw, Mother, everybody knows it!"

"Possibly Jim did not know it."

Jim said, "Oh, I guess I did. They had cops chasing us all
the way home."

"Frank came with you?" asked his father.

"Oh, sure! But we gave 'em the slip. Those Company cops
are stupid."

Mr. Marlowe frowned. "See here, Jim I'm going to call
up the Resident and tell him you are here. But I'm not going
to let you surrender until something a lot more definite is
shown to me than I have seen so far, and certainly not until
we've had your side of the matter. When you do surrender,
Dad will go along with you and stick by you."

Jim sat up straight. "Surrender? What are you talking
about. Dad?"

His father suddenly looked very old and tired. "Marlowes
don't run away from the law. Son. You know I'll stick by you
no matter what you've done. But you've got to face up to it."

Jim looked at his father defiantly. "Dad, if you think Frank
and I have beaten our way across better than two thousand
miles of Mars just to give up when we get here! Well, you've
just got another think coming. And anybody that tries to arrest
me is going to find it a hard job." His right hand, almost
instinctively, was hovering around the place where his holster
ordinarily hung. Phyllis was listening round-eyed; his mother
was quietly dripping tears.

His father said, "Son, you can't take that attitude."

Jim said, "Can't I? Well, I do. Why don't you find out
what the score is before you talk about giving me up?" His
voice was a bit shrill.

His father bit his lip. His mother said, "Please, James
why don't you wait and hear what he has to say?"

"Of course I want to hear what he has to say," Mr. Marlowe
answered irritably. "Didn't I say that? But I can't let my
own son sit there and declare himself an outlaw."

"Please, James!"

"Speak your piece. Son."

Jim looked around. "I don't know as I'm so anxious to,
now," he said bitterly. "This is a fine homecoming. You all act
like I was a criminal or something."

"I'm sorry, Jim," his father said slowly. "Let's keep first
things first. Tell us what happened."

"Well... all right. But wait a minute, Phyllis said there
was a warrant out for me. For what?"

"Well... truancy, but that's not important. Actions to the
prejudice of good order and discipline at the school and I
myself don't know what they mean by that. It doesn't worry
me. But the real charges are burglary and theft, and another
one they tacked on a day later, escaping arrest."

"Escaping arrest? That's silly! They never caught us."

"So? How about the others?"

"Theft is silly, too. I didn't steal anything from him,
Howe, I mean. Headmaster Howe, he stole Willis from me.
And then he laughed at me when I tried to get him back! I'll
'theft' him!" If he ever shows up around me, I'll burn him
down!"

"Jim!"

"Well, I will!"

"Go on with your story."

"The burglary business has got something to it. I busted in
to his office, or tried to. But he can't prove anything. I'd like
to see him show how I could crawl through a ten-inch round
hole. And we didn't leave any fingerprints." He added, "Anyhow,
I had a right to. He had Willis locked up inside. Say,
Dad, can't we swear out a warrant against Howe for stealing
Willis? Why should he have it all his own way?"

"Wait a minute, now. You've got me confused. If you have
a cause for action against the headmaster, I'll certainly back
you up in it. But I want to get things straight. What hole? Did
you cut a hole in the headmaster's door?"

"No, Willis did."

"Willis! How can he cut anything?"

"Darned if I know. He just grew an arm with a sort of a
claw on the end and cut his way out. I called to him and out he
came."

Mr. Marlowe rubbed his forehead. "This gets more confusing all
the time. How did you boys get here?"

"By subway. You see"

"By subway!"

Jim looked thwarted. His mother put in, "James dear, I
think perhaps he could tell his story better if we just let him
tell it straight through, without interrupting."

"I think you are right," Mr. Marlowe agreed. "I'll reserve
my questions. Phyllis, get me a pad and pencil."

Thus facilitated, Jim started over and told a reasonably
consecutive and complete story, from Howe's announcement
of military-school inspections to their translation via Martian
"subway" from Cynia to Charax. When Jim had done, Mr.
Marlowe pulled his chin. "Jim, if you didn't have a life-time
reputation for stubborn honesty, I'd think you were romancing.
As it is, I have to believe it, but it is the most fantastic
thing I ever heard."

"You still think I ought to surrender?"

"Eh? No, no, this puts it in a different light. You leave it
up to Dad. I'll call the Resident and"

"Just a second, Dad."

"Eh?"

"I didn't tell you all of it."

"What? You must. Son, if I am to"

"I didn't want to get my story fouled up with another issue
entirely. I'll tell you, but I want to know something. Isn't the
colony supposed to be on its way by now?"

"It was supposed to have been," agreed his father. "Migration would
have started yesterday by the original schedule.
But there has been a two-week postponement."

"That's not a postponement, Dad; that's a frame-up. The
Company isn't going to allow the colony to migrate this year.
They mean to make us stay here all through the winter."

"What? Why, that's ridiculous, Son; a polar winter is no
place for terrestrials. But you are mistaken, it's just a postponement;
the Company is revamping the power system at
North Colony and is taking advantage of an unusually late
winter to finish it before we get there."

"I'm telling you. Dad, that's just a stall. The plan is to
keep the colony here until it's too late and force you to stay
here through the winter. I can prove it."

"How?"

"Where's Willis?" The bouncer had wandered off again,
checking up on his domain.

"Never mind Willis. You've made an unbelievable charge.
What makes you think such a thing?"

"But I've got to have Willis to prove it. Here, boy! Come
to Jim." Jim gave a rapid summary of what he had learned
through Willis's phonographic hearing, following which he
tried to get Willis to perform.

Willis was glad to perform. He ran over almost all of the
boys' conversation of the past few days, repeated a great
amount of Martian speech that was incomprehensible out of
context, and sang iQuien Es La Sefiorita? But he could not,
or would not, recall Beecher's conversation.

Jim was still coaxing him when the phone sounded. Mr.
Marlowe said, "Phyllis, answer that."

She trotted back in a moment. "It's for you. Daddy."

Jim shut Willis up; they could hear both ends of the conversation.
"Marlowe? This is the Resident Agent. I hear that
boy of yours has turned up."

Jim's father glanced over his shoulder, hesitated. "Yes.
He's here."

"Well, keep him there. I'm sending a man over to pick him
up."

Mr. Marlowe hesitated again. "That's not necessary, Mr.
Kruger. I'm not through talking with him. He won't go away."

"Come, come, Marlowe you can't interfere with orderly
legal processes. I'm executing that warrant at once."

"You are? You just think you are." Mr. Marlowe started to
add something, thought better of it, and switched off. The
phone sounded again almost at once. "If that's the Resident,"
he said, "I won't speak to him. If I do, I'll say something I'll
regret."

But it was not; it was Frank's father. "Marlowe? Jamie,
this is Pat Sutton." The conversation showed that each father
had gotten about to the same point with his son.

"We were just about to try to get something out of Jim's
bouncer," Mr. Marlowe added. "It seems he overheard a
pretty damning conversation."

"Yes, I know," agreed Mr. Sutton. "I want to hear it, too.
Hold it till we get there."

"Fine. Oh, by the way friend Kruger is out to arrest the
kids right away. Watch out."

"How well I know it; he just called me. And I put a flea in
his ear. 'Bye now!"

Mr. Marlowe switched off, then went to the front door and
locked it. He did the same to the door of the tunnels. He was
none too soon; the signal showing that someone had entered
the pressure lock came on shortly. "Who is it?" called out
Jim's father.

"Company business!"

"What sort of Company business and who is it?"

"This is the Resident's proctor. I've come for James Marlowe, Junior."

"You might as well go away again. You won't get him."
There was a whispered exchange outside the door, then the
lock was rattled.

"Open up that door," came another voice. "We have a warrant."

"Go away. I'm switching off the speaker." Mr. Marlowe
did so.

The pressure lock indicator showed presently that the visitors had
left, but shortly it indicated occupancy again. Mr.
Marlowe switched the speaker back on. "If you've come back,
you might as well leave," he said.

"What sort of a welcome is this, Jamie my boy?" came Mr.
Sutton's voice.

"Oh, Pat! Are you alone?"

"Only my boy Francis and that's all."

They were let in. "Did you see anything of proctors?" Mr.
Marlowe inquired.
"Yep, I ran into 'em."
"Pop told them that if they touched me he'd burn their legs
off," Frank said proudly, "and he would, too."

Jim caught his father's eye. Mr. Marlowe looked away. Mr.
Sutton went on, "Now what's this about Jim's pet having evidence
for us? Let's crank him up and hear him talk."

"We've been trying to," Jim said. "I'll try again. Here,
Willis" Jim took him in his lap. "Now, look, Willis, do you
remember Headmaster Howe?"

Willis promptly became a featureless ball.

"That's not the way to do it," objected Frank. "You remember
what set him off before. Hey, Willis." Willis extended his eyes.
"Listen to me, chum. 'Good afternoon. Good
afternoon, Mark,' Frank continued in a fair imitation of the
Agent General's rich, affected tones. " 'Sit down, my boy.'"

"'Always happy to see you,'" Willis continued in exact
imitation of Beecher's voice. He went on from there, reciting
perfectly the two conversations he had overheard between the
headmaster and the Resident Agent General, and including the
meaningless interlude between them.

When he had finished and seemed disposed to continue
with all that had followed up to the present moment, Jim shut
him off.

"Well," said Jim's father, "what do you think of it. Pat?"

"I think it's terrible," put in Jim's mother.
Mr. Sutton screwed up his face. "Tomorrow I am taking

myself down to Syrtis Minor and there I shall take the place
apart with my two hands."

"An admirable sentiment," agreed Mr. Marlowe, "but this
is a matter for the whole colony. I think our first step should
be to call a town meeting and let everyone know what we are
up against."

"Humph! No doubt you are right but you'll be taking all
the fun out of it."

Mr. Marlowe smiled. "I imagine there will be excitement
enough to suit you before this is over. Kruger isn't going to
like it and neither is the Honorable Mr. Gaines Beecher."

Mr. Sutton wanted Dr. MacRae to examine Frank's throat
and Jim's father decided, over Jim's protest, that it would be a
good idea to have him examine Jim as well. The two men
escorted the boys to the Doctor's house. There Mr. Marlowe
instructed them, "Stay here until we get back, kids. I don't
want Kruger's proctors picking you up."

"I'd like to see them try!"

"Me, too."

"I don't want them to try; I want to settle the matter first.
We're going over to the Resident's office and offer to pay for
the food you kids appropriated and, Jim, I'll offer to pay for
me damage Willis did to Headmaster Howe's precious door.
Then"

"But, Dad, we oughn't to pay for that. Howe shouldn't
have locked him up."

"I agree with the kid," said Mr. Sutton. 'The food, now,
that's another matter. The boys took it; we pay for it."

"You're both right," agreed Mr. Marlowe, "but it's worth it
to knock the props out of these ridiculous charges. Then I'm
going to swear out a warrant against Howe for attempting to
steal, or enslave, Willis. What would you say it was. Pat?
Steal, or enslave?"

"Call it 'steal'; you'll not be raising side issues, then."

"All right. Then I shall insist that he consult the planet
office before taking any action. I think that will stop his clock
for the time being."

"Dad," put in Jim, "you aren't going to tell the Resident
that we've found out about the migration frame-up, are you?
He would just turn around and call Beecher."

"Not just yet, though he's bound to know at the town meeting.
He won't be able to call Beecher then; Deimos sets in two
hours." Mr. Marlowe glanced at his watch. "See you later,
boys. We've got things to do."

Doctor MacRae looked up as they came in. "Maggie, bar
the door!" he called out. "We've got two dangerous criminals."

"Howdy, Doc."

"Come in and rest yourselves. Tell me all about it."

It was fully an hour later that MacRae said, "Well, Frank, I
suppose I had better look you over. Then I'll have a look at
you, Jim."

"There's nothing wrong with me. Doc."

"How would you like a clout in the head? Start some more
coffee while I take care of Frank." The room was well stocked
with the latest diagnostic equipment, but MacRae did not
bother with it. He tilted Frank's head back, told him to say
aaaah!, thumped his chest, and listened to his heart. "You'll
live," he decided. "Any kid who can hitchhike from Syrtis to
Charax will live a long time."

"'Hitchhike'?" asked Frank.

"Beat your way. It's an expression that was used way back
when women wore skirts. Your turn, Jim." He took even less
time to dispose of Jim. Then the three friends settled back to
visit.

"I want to know more about this night you spent in the
cabbage head," Doc announced. "Willis I can understand,
since any Martian creature can tuck his tail in and live indefinitely
without air. But by rights you two laddie bucks should
have smothered. The plant closed up entirely?"

"Oh, yes," Jim assured him, then related the event in more
detail. When he got to the point about the flashlight MacRae
stopped him.

"That's it, that's it. You didn't mention that before. The
flashlight saved your lives, son."

"Huh? How?"

"Photosynthesis. You shine light on green leaf and it can

no more help taking in carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen
than you can help breathing." The doctor stared at the ceiling,
his lips moving while he figured. "Must have been pretty
stuffy, just the same; you were short on green leaf surface.
What kind of a torch was it?"

"A G.E. 'Midnight Sun.' It was stuffy, terribly."

"A 'Midnight Sun' has enough candle power to do the
trick. Hereafter I'll carry one if I'm going further than twenty
feet from my front stoop. It's a good dodge."

"Something that still puzzles me," said Jim, "is how I
could see a movie that covered every bit of the time I've had
Willis, minute by minute, without missing anything, and have
it turn out to be only three or four hours."

"That," Doc said slowly, "is not nearly so mysterious as
the other matter, the matter of why you were shown this."

"Huh?"

"I've wondered about that, too," put in Frank. "After all,
Willis is a pretty insignificant creature take it easy, Jim!
What was the point in running over his biography for Jim?
What do you think. Doc?"

"The only hypothesis I've got on that point is so wildly
fantastic that I'll keep it to myself, thank you. But on the point
of time, Jim can you think of any way to photograph a
person's memories?"

"Uh, no."

"I'll go further and state flatly that it is impossible. Yet you
described seeing what Willis remembered. That suggest anything to you?"

"No," admitted Jim, "it's got me stumped. But I did see
it."

"Sure, you did because seeing takes place in the brain
and not in the eye. I can close my eyes and 'see' the Great
Pyramid shimmering in the desert heat. I can see the donkeys
and hear the porters yelling at the tourists. See 'em? Shucks, I
can smell 'em, but it's just my memory.

Jim looked thoughtful but Frank looked incredulous. "Say,
Doc, what are you talking about? You never saw the Great
Pyramid; it was blown up in World War III." Frank was, of
course, correct as to his historical facts; the eastern allies
should never have used the Pyramid of Cheops as a place to
stockpile atom bombs.

Doctor MacRae looked annoyed. "Can't you permit a man
a figure of speech? You tend to your own business. Now back
to what I was saying, Jim. When only one hypothesis covers
the facts, you've got to accept it. You saw what the old Martian
wanted you to see. Call it hypnosis."

"But, But," Jim was wildly indignant; it felt like an
attack on his very inner being. "But I did see it, I tell you. I
was there."

"I'll string along with Doc," Frank told him. "You were
still seeing things on the trip back."

"How would you like a punch in the nose? The old boy did
so make the trip back with us; if you had kept your eyes open,
you would have seen him."

"Easy, there," cautioned Doc, "if you lugs want to fight,
go outside. Has it occurred to you that both of you might be
right?"

"What? How could we be?" objected Frank.

"I don't like to put words to it, but I can tell you this: I've
lived long enough to know that man does not live by bread
alone and that the cadaver I perform an autopsy on is not the
man himself. The most wildly impossible philosophy of all is
materialism. We'll leave it at that."

Frank was about to object again when the lock signalled
visitors; the boys' patents were back. "Come in, come in,
gentlemen," the doctor roared. "You're just in time. We were
having a go at solipsism. Pull up a pulpit and take part. Coffee?"

"Solipsism, is it?" said Mr. Sutton. "Francis, pay no mind
to the old heathen. You listen to what Father deary tells you."

"He'll pay no mind to me anyhow," MacRae answered.
"That's the healthy thing about kids. How did you make out
with the Lord High Executioner?"

Mr. Marlowe chuckled. "Kruger was fit to be tied."

The called meeting of the colonists took place that evening
in the town hall, central building of the star-shaped group. Mr.
Marlowe and Mr. Sutton, having sponsored the meeting, arrived early.
They found the meeting-room doors closed and Kruger's two
proctors posted outside. Mr. Marlowe ignored the fact
that they had been attempting to arrest Frank and Jim
only a few hours ago; he offered them a civil good evening
and said, "Let's get the place opened up. People will be arriving
any minute now."

The proctors did not move. The senior of them, a man
named Dumont, announced, "There'll be no meeting tonight."

"What? Why not?"

"Mr. Kruger's orders."

"Did he say why?"

"No."

"This meeting," Mr. Marlowe told him, "has been properly
called and will be held. Stand aside."

"Now, Mr. Marlowe, don't make things tough for yourself.
I've got my orders and"

Mr. Sutton crowded forward. "Let me handle him, Jamie."
He hitched at his belt. Behind me men, Frank glanced at Jim
with a grin and hitched at his belt. All four of them were
armed, as were the proctors; the two fathers had decided not
to depend on Kruger's self-restraint while waiting for instructions
from Syrtis Minor about the warrant.

Dumont looked nervously at Sutton. The colony had no
real police force; these two were clerks in the Company's office
and proctors only by Kruger's deputization. "You people
have got no call to be running around armed to the teeth,
inside the colony," he complained.

"Oh, so that's it?" Mr. Sutton said sweetly. "Well, this job
calls for no gun. Here, Francis hold my heater." With
empty holster he advanced on them. "Now would you like to
be tossed out gently or would you prefer to bounce?"

For years before coming to Mars Mr. Sutton had used
something other than his engineering degree to dominate
tough construction gangs. He was not much bigger than Dumont
but immeasurably tougher. Dumont backed into his cohort and
stepped on his toes. "Now see here, Mr. Sutton, you've no, Hey! Mr. Kruger!"

They all looked around. The Resident was approaching.

He took in the scene and said briskly, "What's this? Sutton,
are you interfering with my men?"

"Not a bit of it," denied Mr. Sutton. "They were interfering
with me. Tell them to stand aside."

Kruger shook his head. "The meeting is canceled."

Mr. Marlowe stepped forward. "By whom?"

"I canceled it."

"By what authority? I have the approval of all councilors
and will, if necessary, get you the names of twenty colonists."
Twenty colonists could call a meeting without permission
from the council, under the colony's rules.

"That's beside the point. The rule reads that meetings are
to consider matters 'of public interest'; it cannot be construed
as 'of public interest' to agitate about criminal indictments in
advance of trial and I won't let you take advantage of the
rules to do so. After all, I have the final word. I do not intend
to surrender to mob rule and agitation."

A crowd was forming, colonists come to me meeting.
Marlowe said, "Are you through?"

"Yes, except to say that these others and you yourself
should return to your quarters."

"They will do as they please and so will I. Mr. Kruger, I
am amazed to hear you say that a civil-rights case is not of
public interest. Our neighbors here have boys who are still
under the care, if you call it that, of Headmaster Howe; they
are interested in how their sons are treated. However, that is
not the purpose of the meeting. I give you my word that neither
Mr. Sutton nor I intend to ask the colony to take any
action about the charges against our sons. Will you accept that
and withdraw your proctors?"

"What is the purpose, then?"

"It's a matter of urgent interest to every member of the
colony. I'll discuss it inside."

"Hummph!"

By this time several councilors were in the crowd. One of
them, Mr. Juan Montez, stepped forward. "Just a minute. Mr.
Marlowe, when you called me about this meeting, I had no
notion that the Resident objected."

"The Resident has no option in the matter."

"Well, that's never come up before. He does have a veto
over actions of meetings. Why don't you tell us what the
meeting is for?"

"Don't give in, Jamie!" It was Doctor MacRae; he shouldered
forward. "What kind of nincompoop are you, Montez?
I'm sorry I voted for you. We meet when it suits us, not when
Kruger says we may. How about it, folks?"

There was a murmur of approval. Mr. Marlowe said, "I
wasn't going to tell him. Doc. I want everybody here and the
doors closed when I talk."

Montez went into a huddle with other councilors. Out of it
came Hendrix, the chairman. "Mr. Marlowe, just to keep
things regular, will you tell the council why you want this
meeting?"

Jim's father shook his head. "You okayed the meeting.
Otherwise I would have collected twenty signatures and
forced a meeting. Can't you stand up to Kruger?"

"We don't need them, Jamie," MacRae assured him. He
turned to the crowd, now growing fast. "Who wants a meeting?
Who wants to hear what Marlowe has to tell us?"

"I do!" came a shout.

"Who's that? Oh! Kelly. All right, Kelly and I make two.
Are there eighteen more here who don't have to ask Kruger
for permission to sneeze? Speak up."

There was another shout and another. "That's three and
four." Seconds later MacRae called off the twentieth; he
turned to the Resident. "Get your stooges out of that doorway,
Kruger."

Kruger sputtered. Hendrix whispered with him, then motioned
the two proctors away. They were only too happy to
treat this as a relayed order from Kruger; the crowd poured
into the hall.

Kruger took a seat in the rear; ordinarily he sat on the
platform.

Jim's father found that none of the councilors cared to preside;
he stepped to the platform himself. "Let's elect a chairman," he
announced.

"You run it, Jamie," It was Doc MacRae.

"Let's have order, please. Do I hear a nomination?"

"Mr. Chairman"

"Yes, Mr. Konski?"

"I nominate you."

"Very well. Now let's have some others." But there were
none; he kept the gavel by unanimous consent.

Mr. Marlowe told them that news had come to him which
vitally affected the colony. He then gave the bald facts about
how Willis had come into Howe's hands. Kruger stood up.
"Marlowe!"

"Address the chair, please."

"Mr. Chairman," Kruger acceded sourly, "you said this
meeting was not to stir up sympathy for your son. You are
simply trying to keep him from having to take his medicine.
You"

Mr. Marlowe pounded his gavel. "You're out of order. Sit
down."

"I won't sit down. You had the bare-faced gall to"

"Mr. Kelly, I appoint you sergeant-at-arms. Keep order.
Pick your own deputies."

Kruger sat down. Mr. Marlowe went on, "This meeting has
nothing to do with the charges against my son and Pat Sutton's
boy, but the news I have came through them. You've all seen
Martian roundheads bouncers, the kids call them, and you
know their amazing ability to repeat sounds. Probably most of
you have heard my son's pet perform. It happened that this
particular roundhead was within hearing when some things
were discussed that we all need to know about. Jim bring
your pet here."

Jim, feeling self-conscious, mounted the platform and sat
Willis on the speaker's table. Willis looked around and
promptly battened down all hatches. "Jim," his father whispered
urgently, "snap him out of it."

"I'll try," agreed Jim. "Come on, boy. Nobody's going to
hurt Willis. Come out; Jim wants to talk to you."

His father said to the audience, "These creatures are timid.
Please be very quiet," then, "How about it, Jim?"

"I'm trying."

"Confound it, we should have made a recording."

Willis chose this minute to come out of hiding. "Look,
Willis boy," Jim went on, "Jim wants you to talk. Everybody
is waiting for Willis to talk. Come on, now. 'Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. Mark.'"

Willis picked it up. " 'Sit down, my boy. Always happy to
see you.'" He went on, reeling off the words of Howe and
Beecher.

Somebody recognized Beecher's voice; there was a muffled
exclamation as he passed his knowledge on. Mr. Marlowe
made frantic shushing signs.

Presently, as Beecher was expounding by proxy his theory
of "legitimate graft," Kruger got up. Kelly placed hands on
his shoulders and pushed him down. Kruger started to protest;

Kelly placed a hand over Kruger's mouth. He then smiled; it
was something he had been wanting to do ever since Kruger
had first been assigned to the colony.

The audience got restless between the two significant conversations;
Mr. Marlowe promised by pantomime that the best
was yet to come. He need not have worried; Willis, once
wound up, was as hard to stop as an after-dinner speaker.

There was amazed silence when he had finished, then a
murmur that became a growl. It changed to uproar as everyone
tried to talk at once. Marlowe pounded for order and
Willis closed up. Presently Andrews, a young technician, got
the floor.

"Mr. Chairman... we know how important this is, if it's
true but how reliable is that beastie?"

"Eh? I don't think it's possible for one of them to repeat
other than verbatim. Is there a psychological expert present
who might give us an opinion? How about you, Dr. Ibanez?"

"I agree, Mr. Marlowe. A roundhead can originate speech
on its mental level, but a speech such as we just heard is
something it has listened to. It repeats parrot-fashion exactly
what it has heard. I doubt if such a 'recording,' if I may call it
that, may be modified after it has been impressed on the animal's
nervous system; it's an involuntary reflex complicated
and beautiful, but reflex nevertheless."

"Does that satisfy you, Andy?"

"Uh, no. Everybody knows that a bouncer is just a super-parrot
and not smart enough to lie. But is that the Resident
General's voice? It sounds like it, but I've only heard him
over the radio."

Someone called out, "It's Beecher. I had to listen to his
drivel often enough, when I was stationed at Syrtis."

Andrews shook his head. "Sure, it sounds like him, but
we've got to know. It could be a clever actor."

Kruger had been quiet, in a condition resembling shock.
The revelation had come as a surprise to him, too, as Beecher
had not dared trust anyone on the spot. But Kruger's conscience
was not easy; there were tell-tale signs in his own
despatch file that Willis's report was correct; migration required
a number of routine orders from the planet office. He
was uncomfortably aware that none of the proper groundwork
had been laid if, as was the official claim, migration were to
take place in less than two weeks.

But Andrews's comment gave him a straw to clutch.
Standing, he said, "I'm glad somebody has sense enough not
to be swindled. How long did it take you to teach him that,
Marlowe?"

Kelly said, "Shall I gag him, chief?"

"No. This has to be met. I suppose it's a matter of whether
or not you believe my boy and his chum. Do any of you wish
to question them?"

A long, lean, lanky individual unfolded himself from a rear
seat. "I can settle it."

"Eh? Very well, Mr. Toland, you have the floor."

"Got to get some apparatus. Take a few minutes." Toland
was an electronic engineer and sound technician.

"Oh! I think I see what you mean. You'll need a comparison
model of Beecher's voice, won't you?"

"Sure. But I've got all I need. Every time Beecher made a
speech, Kruger wanted it recorded."

Volunteers were found to help Toland, then Marlowe suggested
that it was time for a stretch. At once Mrs. Pottle stood
up. "Mr. Marlowe!"

"Yes, Mrs. Pottle. Quiet, everybody."

"I for one will not remain here one minute longer and listen
to this nonsense! The idea of making such charges against
dear Mr. Beecher! To say nothing of what you let that awful

man Kelly do to Mr. Kruger! And as for that beast" She
pointed to Willis. "It is utterly unreliable, as I know full
well." She paused to snort, then said, "Come, dear," to Mr.
Pottle, and started to flounce out.

"Stop her, Kelly!" Mr. Marlowe went on quietly, "I had
hoped that no one would try to leave until we reached a decision.
If the colony decides to act it may be to our advantage to
keep it as a surprise. Will the meeting authorize me to take
steps to see that no scooter leaves the colony until you have
made up your minds about the issue?"

There was just one "no," from Mrs. Pottle. "Conscript
some help, Mr. Kelly," Marlowe ordered, "and carry out the
will of the meeting."

"Right, chief!"

"You can go now, Mrs. Pottle. Not you, Mr. Kruger." Mr.
Pottle hesitated in bewilderment, then trotted after his wife.

Toland returned and set up his apparatus on the platform.
With Jim's help, Willis was persuaded to perform again, this
time into a recorder. Shortly Toland held up his hand. "That's
enough. Let me find some matching words." He selected "colony,"
"company," "afternoon," and "Martian" because they
were easy to find in each recording, Willis's and an identified
radio speech of the Resident General. Each he checked with
care, throwing complex standing waves on the bright screen of
an oscilloscope, waves that earmarked the peculiar timbre of
an individual's voice as certainly as a fingerprint would identify his body.

At last he stood up. "It's Beecher's voice," he said flatly.

Jim's father again had to pound for order. When he had got
it, he said, "Very well what is your pleasure?"

Someone shouted, "Let's lynch Beecher." The chairman
suggested that they stick to practical objectives.

Someone else called out, "What's Kruger got to say about
it?"

Marlowe turned to Kruger. "Mr. Resident Agent, you
speak for the Company. What about it?"

Kruger wet his lips. "If one assumes that that beast is actually
reporting statements of the Agent General"
"Quit stalling!"

"Toland proved it!"

Kruger's eyes darted around; he was faced with a decision
impossible for a man of his temperament. "Well, it's really no
business of mine," he said angrily. "I'm about to be transferred."

MacRae got up. "Mr. Kruger, you are custodian of our
welfare. You mean to say you won't stand up for our rights?"
"Well, now, Doctor, I work for the Company. If this is its
policy and I'm not admitting it you can't expect me to go
against it."

"I work for the Company, too," the Doctor growled, "but I
didn't sell myself to it, body and soul." His eyes swept the
crowd. "How about it, folks? Shall we throw him out on his
ear?"

Marlowe had to bang for order. "Sit down. Doctor. We
haven't time to waste on trivia."

"Mr. Chairman!"

"Yes, Mrs. Palmer?"

"What do you think we ought to do?"

"I would rather that suggestions came from the floor."

"Oh, nonsense! you've known about it longer than we
have; you must have an opinion. Speak up."

Marlowe saw that her wish was popular. "Very well, I
speak for myself and Mr. Sutton. By contract we are entitled
to migrate and the Company is obligated to let us. I say go
ahead and do so, at once."

"I so move!"

"I second!"

"Question!", "Question!"

"Is there debate?" asked Marlowe.

"Just a moment, Mr. Chairman!" The speaker was one
Humphrey Gibbs, a small precise individual. "we are acting
hastily and, if I may say so, not in proper procedure. We
have not exhausted our possible reliefs. We should communicate
with Mr. Beecher. It may be that there are good reasons
for this change in policy."

"How are you going to like a hundred below!"

"Mr. Chairman, I really must insist on order."

"Let him have his say," Marlowe ordered.

"As I was saying, there may be good reasons, but the
Company board back on Earth is perhaps not fully aware of
conditions here. If Mr. Beecher is unable to grant us relief,
then we should communicate with the board, reason with
them. But we should not take the law into our own hands. If
worst comes to worst, we have a contract; if forced to do so,
we can always sue." He sat down.

MacRae got up again. "Anybody mind if I talk? I don't
want to hog the proceedings." Silence gave approval; he went
on, "So this pantywaist wants to sue! With the temperature
outside a hundred and thirty below by the time he has 'exhausted
his means' and us! and with the rime frost a foot
deep on the ground he wants it put on some judge's calendar,
back on Earth, and hire a lawyer!

"If you want a contract enforced, you have to enforce it
yourself. You know what lies behind this; it showed up last
season when the Company cut down on the household allowance
and started charging excess baggage. I warned you then
but the board was a hundred million miles away and you
paid rather than fight. The Company hates the expense of
moving us, but more important they are bloody anxious to
move more immigrants in here faster than we can take them;

they think they see a cheap way out by keeping both North
Colony and South Colony filled up all the time, instead of
building more buildings. As Sister Gibbs put it, they don't
realize the conditions here and they don't know that we can't
do effective work in the winter.

"The question is not whether or not we can last out a polar
winter, the Eskimo caretakers do that every season. It isn't
just a matter of contract; it's a matter of whether we are going
to be free men, or are we going to let our decisions be made
for us on another planet, by men who have never set foot on
Mars!

"Just a minute let me finish! We are the advance guard.
When the atmosphere project is finished, millions of others
will follow. Are they going to be ruled by a board of absentee
owners on Terra? Is Mars to remain a colony of Earth? Now is
the time to settle it!"

There was dead silence, then scattered applause. Marlowe
said, "Is there more debate?"

Mr. Sutton got up. "Doc has something there. It was never
in my blood to love absentee landlords."

Kelly called out, "Right you are. Pat!"

Jim's father said, "I rule that subject out of order. The
question before the house is to migrate, at once, and nothing
else. Are you ready for the question?"

They were and it was carried unanimously. If any refrained
from voting, at least they did not vote against. That
matter settled, by another ballot they set up an emergency
committee, the chairman to hold power subject to review by
the committee, and the committee's decisions to be subject to
review by the colony.

James Marlowe, Senior, was elected chairman. Dr.
MacRae's name was proposed but he refused to let it be
considered. Mr. Marlowe got even with him by sticking him on
the committee.

South Colony held at the time five hundred and nine persons,
from the youngest baby to old Doc MacRae. There were
eleven scooters on hand; enough but barely enough to move
everyone at one time, provided they were stacked almost like
freight and each person was limited to a few pounds only of
hand baggage. A routine migration was usually made in three
or more sections, with extra scooters provided from Syrtis Minor.

Jim's father decided to move everyone at once and hope
that events would permit sending back for personal possessions.
The squawks were many, but he stood by his guns, the
committee ratified and no one tried to call a town meeting. He
set dawn Monday as the zero hour.

Kruger was allowed to keep his office; Marlowe preferred
to run the show from his own. But Kelly, who remained a sort
of de facto chief of police, was instructed to keep a constant
watch over him. Kelly called Marlowe Sunday afternoon.
"Hey, chief, what do you know? A couple of Company cops
just arrived by scooter to take your boy and the Sutton kid
back to Syrtis."

Marlowe considered it. Kruger must have phoned Beecher
the moment he heard that the boys were home, he decided.
"Where are they now?"

"Right here, in Kruger's office. We arrested them."

"Bring them over. I'd like to question them."

"Right."

They showed up shortly, two very disgruntled men, disarmed
and escorted by Kelly and an assistant. "That's fine,
Mr. Kelly. No, no need to stay I'm armed."

When Kelly and his deputy had left, one of the Company
men said, "You can't get away with this, you know."

"You're not hurt," Marlowe said reasonably, "and you'll
get your guns back presently. I just want to ask you some
questions." But all he had gotten out of them, several minutes
later, was a series of begrudged negative answers. The intracolony
phone sounded again; Kelly's face appeared on the
screen. "Chief? You wouldn't believe it!"

"Wouldn't believe what?"

"That old fox Kruger has skipped in the scooter those two
birds came in on. I didn't even know he could drive."

Marlowe's calm face concealed his feelings. After a short
time he answered, "Departure time is stepped up to sundown,
today. Drop everything and get the word around." He consulted
a chart. "That's two hours and ten minutes from now."

The squawks were louder even than before; nevertheless as
the Sun touched the horizon, the first scooter got underway.
The rest followed at thirty second intervals. As the Sun
disappeared the last one shoved off and the colony was headed
north on its seasonal migration.


CHAPTER TEN

We're Boxed In!'

Four of the scooters were older types and slower, less
than two hundred miles per hour top speed. They were placed
in the van as pacesetters. Around midnight one of them developed
engine trouble; the column had to slow down. About 3 a.m.
it quit completely; it was necessary to stop and distribute
its passengers among the other scooters, a cold and risky
business.

MacRae and Marlowe climbed back into the headquarters
car, last in the column. The doctor glanced at his watch.
"Planning to stop in Hesperidum now. Skipper?" he asked as
the scooter started up. They had passed Cynia station without
stopping; Hesperidum lay a short distance ahead, with Syrtis
Minor some seven hundred miles beyond it.

Marlowe frowned. "I don't want to. If we lay over at Hesperidum,
that means waiting until sundown for ice and a full
day's loss of time. With Kruger ahead of us that gives Beecher
a whole day in which to figure out a way to stop us. If I were
sure the ice would hold after sunrise long enough for us to get
there!" He stopped and chewed his lip.

Back at South Colony it was early winter and the canal ice
would remain hard until spring, but here they were already
close to the equator; the canals froze every night and thawed
every day under the extreme daily changes in temperature
permitted by Mars' thin blanket of air. North of the equator,
where they were headed, the spring floods from the melting
northern polar cap had already started; ice formed in the
flooding canal currents at night, but it was floe ice, riding
with the current, and night clouds helped to save the daytime
heat.

"Suppose you do go on through, what's your plan, Skipper?"
MacRae persisted.

"Go straight to the boat basin, ramp the scooters, and load
whatever boats are there. As soon as the ice is rotten enough
for the boats to break through it, start them north. I'd like to
have a hundred and fifty or so of us out of Syrtis Minor and
headed north before Beecher recovers from his surprise. I
haven't any real plan except to keep forcing events so that he
doesn't have time to plan, either. I want to hand him a set of
accomplished facts."

MacRae nodded. "Audacity, that's the ticket. Go ahead
with it."

"I want to, but I'm afraid of the ice. If a scooter breaks
through there'll be people killed and my fault."

"Your drivers are smart enough to spread out in echelon
once the Sun is up. Jamie, I found out a long time ago that
you have to take some chances in this life. Otherwise you are
just a vegetable, headed for the soup pot." He paused and
peered out past the driver. "I see a light ahead that ought to be
Hesperidum. Make up your mind, Jamie."

Marlowe did not answer. After a time the light was behind
them.

When the Sun came up Marlowe had his driver cut out of
column and take the lead. It was near nine when they passed
Syrtis Minor scooter station, without stopping. They ploughed
on past the space port and turned right into the boat basin that
marked the terminus of the main canal from the north. Marlowe's
driver drove onto the ramp while he was still lowering
his crawling gear, with no respect for his runners. The lead car
crawled far along the ramp and parked; the others closed in
behind it.

Out of the headquarters car climbed Marlowe, Kelly, and
MacRae, followed by Jim, carrying Willis. Other scooter
doors opened and people started getting out. "Tell them to get
back into their cars, Kelly," Mr. Marlowe snapped. Hearing
this, Jim placed himself behind his father and tried to avoid
attracting attention.

Marlowe stared angrily at the basin. There was not a boat
in it. Across the basin one small launch was drawn up on
skids, its engine dismounted. Finally Marlowe turned to
MacRae. "Well, Doc, I'm up a tree; how do I get down?"

"You are no worse off than if you had stopped at Hesperidum."

"And no better."

A man came out of one of the row of warehouses ringing
the basin and approached them. "What's all this?" he inquired,
staring at the parked scooters. "A circus?"

"It's the seasonal migration."

"Wondered when you folks were coming through. Hadn't
heard anyting about it."

"Where are all the boats?"

"Still spread out here and there, at the Project camps
mostly, I suppose. Not my responsibility. Better call the traffic
office."

Marlowe frowned again. "At least you can tell me where
the temporary quarters are." To take care of the relays of colonists
a warehouse was always set aside at each migration and
fitted up as a barracks; the one Company hostelry. Hotel Marsopolis,
had only twenty beds.

The man looked puzzled. "Now that you mention it, I
don't know of any such preparations being made. Looks like
the schedule was kind of fouled up, doesn't it?"

Marlowe swore, realizing his question had been foolish.
Beecher, of course, had made no preparations for a migration
he did not intend to permit. "Is there a phone around here?"

"Inside, in my office! I'm the warehouse storekeeper.
Help yourself."

"Thanks," said Marlowe and started off. MacRae followed him.

"What's your plan, son?"

"I'm going to call Beecher."

"Do you think that's wise?"

"Confound it, I've got to get those people out of those cars.
There are young babies in there and women."

"They're safe."

"Look, Doc, Beecher has got to do something about it,
now that we're here."

MacRae shrugged. "You're the cook."

Marlowe argued his way past several secretaries and finally
got Beecher on the screen. The Agent General looked out at
him without recognition. "Yes? Speak up, my good man, what
is this urgent business?"

"My name is Marlowe. I'm executive chairman of the colonists
from South Colony. I want to know!"

"Oh, yes! The famous Mr. Marlowe. We saw your tattered
army coming through." Beecher turned away and said something
in an aside. Kruger's voice answered him.

"Well, now that we are here, what are you going to do
about us?"

"Do? Isn't that obvious? As soon as the ice forms tonight
you can all turn around and go back where you came from.
All except you! you stay here for trial. And your son, if I
recall correctly."

Marlowe held his temper. "That isn't what I mean. I want
living space, with cooking and toilet accommodations, for
five hundred people."

Beecber waved the problem away. "Let them stay where
they are. A day won't hurt them. Teach them a lesson."

Marlowe started to answer, thought better of it and
switched off. "You were right. Doc. There was no point in
talking with him."

"Well, no harm done, either."

They went outside, there to find that Kelly had strung a
line of his deputies around the scooters. "After you went inside,
Boss, I got uneasy, so I stationed some of the boys
around."

"You're a better general than I am," Marlowe told him.

"Any trouble?"

"One of Beecher's cops showed up, but he went away
again."

"Why didn't you grab him?" asked MacRae.
"Well, I wanted to," Kelly answered, "but he kept going
when I yelled at him. I couldn't stop him without shooting, so
I let him go."

"Should have winged him," said MacRae.

"Should I have?" Kelly said to Marlowe. "I was tempted
to, but I didn't know where we stood. Is this a shooting war,
or is it just a row with the Company?"

"You did right," Marlowe assured him. "There will be no
shooting unless Beecher starts it." MacRae snorted. Marlowe
turned to him. "You disagree?"

"Jamie, you put me in mind of a case I ran into in the
American West. A respected citizen shot a professional gunthrower
in the back. When asked why he didn't give the other
chap a chance to draw, the survivor said, 'Well, he's dead and
I'm alive and that's how I wanted it to be.' Jamie, if you use
sportsmanship on a known scamp, you put yourself at a terrible
disadvantage."

"Doctor, this is no time to swap stories. I've got to get
these people safely housed and at once."

"That's my point," persisted MacRae. "Finding housing
isn't the first thing to do."

"What is is, then?"

"Set up a task force of your best shots and send them over
to grab Beecher and the Company offices. I volunteer to lead
it."

Marlowe gestured angrily. "Out of the question. At present
we are a group of citizens going about our lawful occasions.
One move like that and we're outlaws."

MacRae shook his head. "You don't see the logic of the
actions you've already taken. You know that water runs downhill,
but you think, praise God! it'll never reach the bottom.
In Beecher's books you are an outlaw now. All of us."

"Nonsense, we're just enforcing our contract. If Beecher
behaves, we'll behave."

"I'm telling you, son the way to grasp a nettle is firmly."

"Doctor MacRae, if you are so sure how this matter should
be conducted, why did you refuse to accept leadership?"

MacRae turned red. "I beg your pardon, sir. What are your
orders?"

"You know Syrtis better than I do. Where is a building we
can commandeer as a barracks?"

Jim decided that this was a good time to come out of hiding.
"Dad," he said, coming around in front of him, "I know
where we are and the school is!"

"Jim, I've no time to chat. Get in me car."

"But, Dad, it's only about ten minutes' walk!"

"I think he's got something," put in the doctor. "The school
will have real beds for the kids, and a kitchen."

"Hmmm... very well. Possibly we should use both
schools and put the women and small children in the girls'
school."

"Jamie," advised the doctor, "at the risk of getting my ears
batted down again, I say 'no.' Don't divide your forces."

"I didn't really want to. Kelly!"

"Yes, sir."

"Get them all out and put a deputy in charge of each car
party to keep them together. We're moving out."

"Right."

There is very little foot traffic in the streets of the Earth
settlement at Syrtis Minor; pedestrians prefer to go by tunnel.
The few they did meet seemed startled but no one bothered
them.

The pressure lock at the school's front door could hold
about twenty people at a time. As the outer door opened after
the second load, Howe stepped out. Even with his mask on it
could be seen that he was angry. "What is the meaning of
this?" he demanded.

Willis took one look at him and closed up. Jim got behind
his father. Marlowe stepped forward. "We're sorry but we've
got to use the school as an emergency shelter."

"You can't do that. Who are you, anyway?"

"My name is Marlowe. I'm in charge of the migration."

"But!" Howe turned suddenly, pushed his way through
the crowd and went inside.

Nearly thirty minutes later Marlowe, MacRae, and Kelly
went inside with the last party. Marlowe directed Kelly to
station guards on the inside at each door, MacRae considered
suggesting a string of armed guards around the outside of the
building, but he held his tongue.

Mr. Sutton was waiting for Marlowe in the entrance hall.
"A news flash from Mrs. Palmer, Chief she says to tell you
that chow will be ready in about twenty minutes."

"Good! I could use a bite myself."

"And the school's regular cook is sulking in the dining
room. She wants to talk to you."

"You deal with her. Where is Howe?"

"Derned if I know. He went through here like a destroying
angel."

A man pressed forward through the crowd, the entrance
hall was jammed, not only with colonists but with students,
each of whom wanted to see the excitement. Reunions were
going on all around, between parents and sons. Kelly was
pounding a slightly smaller replica of himself on the back, and
was himself being pounded. The babble was deafening. The
man who had forced his way forward put his mouth to Marlowe's
ear and said, "Mr. Howe is in his office. He's locked
himself in; I've just come from trying to see him."
"Let him stay," decided Marlowe. "Who are you?"
"Jan van der Linden, instructor here in natural sciences.

Who, may I ask, are you?"

"Name's Marlowe. I'm supposed to be in charge of this
mad house. Look here, could you round up the boys who live
outside the school? We are going to have to stay here for a day
or two at least. I'm sorry but it's necessary. There can't very
well be any classes; you might as well send the town boys
home and the teachers, too."

The teacher looked doubtful. "Mr. Howe won't like me
doing it without his say-so."

"It's necessary. I'm going to do it in any case but you can
speed things up and help me put an end to this riot. I take full
responsibility."

Jim saw his mother through the crowd and did not wait to
hear the outcome. She was leaning against the wall, holding
Oliver and looking very tired, almost sick. Phyllis was standing
 close to her. Jim wormed his way through the crowd.
"Mother!"

She looked up. "What is it. Jimmy?"
"You come with me."
"Oh, Jimmy, I'm too tired to move."
"Come on! I know a place where you can lie down." A few
minutes later he had the three in the room abandoned by Frank
and himself: it was, as he had guessed, still unoccupied. His
mother sank down on his bunk. "Jimmy, you're an angel."

"You just take it easy. Phyl can bring you something to eat
when it's ready. Uh, there's a toilet right across the hall. I'm
going back and see what's going on." He started to leave, then
hesitated. "Phyl would you take care of Willis for me?"
"Why? I want to see what's doing, too."
"You're a girl; you'd better stay out from under foot."
"Well, I like that! I guess I've got just as much business!"
"Stop it, children. Jimmy, we'll take care of Willis. Tell
your father where we are."

Jim delivered his mother's message, then found himself
rather late in the chow line. By the time he had gone through
for seconds as well, and eaten same, he discovered that most
of the colonists were gathered in the school auditorium. He
went in, spotted Frank and Doctor MacRae standing against
the rear wall and squeezed over to them.

His father was pounding for order, using the butt of his gun
as a gavel. "Mr. Linthicum has the floor."

The speaker was a man about thirty with an annoyingly
aggresssive manner. "I say Doctor MacRae is right; we
shouldn't fool around. We've got to have boats to get to
Copais. Right? Beecher won't give 'em to us. Right? But all
the actual force Beecher has is a squad of cops. Right? Even if
he deputizes every man in Syrtis he only has maybe a hundred
to a hundred and fifty guns. Right? We've got twice that many
or more right here. Besides which Beecher won't be able to
get all the local employees to fight us. So what do we do? We
go over and grab him by the neck and force him to do right by
us. Right?" He sat down triumphantly.

MacRae muttered, "Heaven defend me from my friends."

Several tried to speak; Marlowe picked one out. "Mr.
Gibbs has the floor."

"Mr. Chairman... neighbors... I have rarely heard a more
rash and provocative speech. You persuaded us, Mr. Marlowe,
to embark on this reckless adventure, a project of
which, I must say, I never approved."

"You came along!" someone shouted.

"Order!" called Marlowe. "Get to the point, Mr. Gibbs."

"... but in which I acceded rather than oppose the will of
the majority. Now the hasty and ill-tempered would make
matters worse with outright violence. But now that we are
here, at the seat of government, the obvious thing to do is to
petition for redress of grievances."

"If you mean by that to ask Beecher for transportation to
Copais, Mr. Gibbs, I've already done that."

Gibbs smiled thinly. "Forgive me, Mr. Marlowe, if I say
that the personality of the petitioner sometimes affects the
outcome of the petition? I understand we have here, Mr.
Howe, the Headmaster of this school and a person of some
influence with the Resident Agent General. Would it not be
wise to seek his help in approaching the Resident?"

Mr. Sutton shouted, "He's the last man on Mars I'd let
speak for me!"

"Address the chair. Pat," Marlowe cautioned. "Personally,
I feel the same way, but I won't oppose it if that's what the
crowd wants. But," he continued, addressing the audience, "is
Howe still here? I haven't seen him."

Kelly stood up. "Oh, he's here all right; he's still holed up
in his office. I've talked to him twice through his ventilator,
I've promised him a honey of a beating if he will only do me
the favor of coming out and standing up to me like a man."

Mr. Gibbs looked scandalized. "Well, really!"

"It's a personal matter involving my boy," explained Kelly.

Marlowe banged the table. "I imagine Mr. Kelly will waive
his privilege if you folks really want Howe to speak for you.

Do I hear a motion?" Gibbs proposed it; in the end only he
and the Pottles voted for it.

After the vote Jim said, "Dad?"

"Address the chair, son. What is it?"

"Er, Mr. Chairman, I just got an idea. I was wondering,
since we haven't got any boats, just maybe we could get to
Copais the way Frank and I got back to Charax, that is, if the
Martians would help us." He added, "If folks wanted us to, I
guess Frank and I could go back and find Gekko and see what
could be done about it."

There was a moment of silence, then murmurs of "What's
he talking about?" and unresponsive replies. Although almost
all of the colonists had heard some version of the two boys'
story, it was the simple fact that it had not been believed, as
told, or had been ignored or discounted. The report ran
counter to experience and most of the colonists were as
bogged down in "common sense" as their relatives back on
Earth. The necessary alternative, that the boys had crossed
eight hundred and fifty miles of open country without special
shelter equipment, simply had not been examined by them; the
"common sense" mind does not stoop to logic.

Mr. Marlowe frowned. "You've brought up an entirely new
possibility, Jim." He thought a moment. "We don't know that
the natives have these conveyances between here and Copais."

"I'll bet they have!"

"and we don't know that they would let us ride in them
even if they have."

"But, Dad, Frank and I"

"A point of order, Mr. Chairman!" It was Gibbs again.
"Under what rules do you permit children to speak in the
councils of adult citizens?"

Mr. Marlowe looked embarrassed and annoyed. Doctor
MacRae spoke up. "Another point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Since when does this cream puff" He motioned at Gibbs.

"Order, Doctor."

"Correction. I mean this fine upstanding male citizen, Mr.
Gibbs, get the notion that Frank and Jim and the other gun toting
men their age ain't citizens? I might mention in passing
that I was a man grown when this Gibbs party was still
wetting his diapers"

"Order!" ,
"Sorry. I mean even before he had reached that stage. Now
as I see it, this is a frontier society and any man old enough to
fight is a man and must be treated as such, and any girl old
enough to cook and tend babies is an adult, too. Whether you
folks know it yet or not, you are headed into a period when
you'll have to fight for your rights. The youngsters will do
most of the fighting; it behooves you to treat them accordingly.
Twenty-five may be the right age for citizenship in a
moribund, age-ridden society like that back on Earth, but we
aren't bound to follow customs that aren't appropriate to our
needs here."

Mr. Marlowe banged his gun. "I declare this subject out of
order. Jim, see me after the meeting. Has anyone any specific
action to propose that can be carried out at this time? Do we
negotiate, or do we resort to force of numbers?"

Mr. Konski addressed the chair and said, "I favor taking
what we have to have, if necessary, but it may not be necessary.
Wouldn't it be well for you, Mr. Marlowe, to phone Mr.
Beecher again? You could point out to him that we have force
enough to do as we see fit; perhaps he will see reason. In fact,
I so move."

The motion was put and carried; Mr. Marlowe suggested
that someone else speak for them, but was turned down. He
left the rostrum and went out into the hall to the communications
booth. It was necessary to break the lock Howe had
placed on it.

Beecher seemed excessively pleased with himself. "Ah,
yes, my good friend, Marlowe. You've called to give yourself
up I assume?"

Marlowe glanced around at the half dozen colonists
crowded into the open door of the booth, then explained civilly
to Beecher the purpose of his call.

"Boats to Copais?" Beecher laughed. "Scooters will be
ready at nightfall to take the colonists back to South Colony.
You may tell them that all who are ready to go at that time will
escape the consequences of their hasty actions. Not you, of
course."

"The purpose of this call was to point out to you that we
are considerably larger in numbers than the largest force you
can possibly drum up here in Syrtis Minor. We intend to carry
out the contract. If you crowd us into using force to get our
rights, force we will use."

Beecher sneered through the TV screen. "Your threats do
not move me, Marlowe. Surrender. Come out one at a time
and unarmed, hands up."

"Is that your last word?"

"One more thing. You are holding Mr. Howe a prisoner.
Let him go at once, or I shall see to it that you are prosecuted
for kidnapping."

"Howe? He's not a prisoner; he's free to leave at any time."

Beecher elaborated. Marlowe answered, "That's a private
matter between Kelly and Howe. You can call Howe in his
office and tell him so."

"You must give him safe conduct out of the building,"
Beecher insisted.

Marlowe shook his head. "I'm not going to interfere in a
private quarrel. Howe is safe where he is; why should I
bother? Beecher, I am offering you one more chance to provide
boats peacefully."

Beecher stared at him and switched off.

Kelly said, "Maybe you should have thrown me to the
wolves, Chief."

Marlowe scratched his chin. "I don't think so. I can't conscientiously
hold a hostage, but I have a feeling that this
building is safer with Howe in it. I don't know just what
Beecher has, so far as I know there isn't a bomb nor any
other heavy weapon of any sort in Syrtis, but I would like to
know what makes him so confident."

"He's bluffing."

"I wonder." Marlowe went back in and reported the conversation
to all the colonists.

Mrs. Pottle stood up. "Well, we are accepting Mr.
Beecher's gracious offer at once! As for holding poor Mr.
Howe a prisoner, why, the very idea! I hope that you are
properly punished, and that ungentlemanly Mr. Kelly as well.
Come, dear!" Again she made a grand exit, with Mr. Pottle
trotting after her.

Marlowe said, "Any more who want to surrender?"

Gibbs stood up, looked around uncertainly, and followed
them. No one spoke until he had left, then Toland stood up
and said, "I move that we organize ourselves for action."

"Second!", "Second the motion!"

No one wanted to debate it; it was carried. Toland then
proposed that Marlowe be elected captain of the forces, with
power to appoint officers. It, too, was carried.

At this point Gibbs came stumbling back into the room, his
face white, his hands trembling. "They're dead! They're
dead!" he cried.

Marlowe found it impossible to restore order. Instead he
crowded into the circle around Gibbs and demanded, "Who's
dead? What happened?"

"The Pottles. Both of them. I was almost killed myself."
He quieted down enough to tell his story; the three had assumed
their masks and gone out through the lock. Mrs. Pottle,
without bothering to look around her, had stomped out into the
street, her husband a close shadow. As soon as they had
stepped clear of the archway they had both been blasted. Their
bodies lay out in the street in front of the school. "It's your
fault," Gibbs finished shrilly, looking at Marlowe. "You got us
into this."

"Just a moment," said Marlowe, "did they do the things
Beecher demanded? Hands up, one at a time, and so forth?
Was Pottle wearing his gun?"

Gibbs shook his head and turned away. "That's not the
point," MacRae said bitterly. "While we've been debating,
Beecher has boxed us in. We can't get out."


CHAPTER ELEVEN

Beseiged

IT WAS MADDENINGLY true, as a cautious investigation
soon proved. Both the front and back exits were covered by
gunmen, Beecher's police, supposedly who were able to
blast anyone emerging from the building without themselves
being under fire. The air-lock nature of the doors made a rush
suicidal.

The school was at a distance from the settlement's dwellings;
it was not connected by tunnel. Nor had it any windows.
Men and women, boys and girls, the colony listed hundreds of
licensed gun wearers and yet a handful of gun fighters outside,
as few as two, could keep them holed up.

Under the influence of Doc MacRae's bellowing voice the
assembly got back to work. "Before I go ahead with organizing,"
Marlowe announced, "does anyone else want to surrender?
I'm fairly sure that the Pottles were shot because they
blundered out without notice. If you shout and wave something
white, I think your surrender will be accepted."

He waited. Presently a man got up with his wife, and then
another. A few more trickled out. They left in dead silence.
When they were gone Captain Marlowe went on with the
details of organizing. Mrs. Palmer he confirmed as head of
commissary. Doc he designated as executive officer, Kelly he
appointed permanent officer of the watch, responsible for the
interior guard. Sutton and Toland were given the job of devising
some sort of a portable screen to block the enfilading fire
that had dropped Mr. and Mrs. Pottle. Jim followed all this
with excited interest until, after the appointment of platoon
leaders, it became evident that his father did not intend to use
boys as combatants. The students from the school were organized
into two platoons, designated as reserve, and dismissed.

Jim hung around, trying to get a word with his father. At
last he managed to catch his eye. "Dad"

"Don't bother us now, Jim."

"But, Dad, you told me to see you about the business of
getting the Martians to help us get to Copais."

"The Martians? Oh!" Mr. Marlowe thought about it, then
said, "Forget about it, Jim. Until we can break out of here,
neither that scheme, nor any other, will work. Now let us be.
Go see how your mother is doing."

Thus brushed off, Jim turned disconsolately away. As he
was leaving Frank fell in step with him, and locked arms. "Do
you know, Jim, sometimes you aren't as full of guff as you are
other times."

Jim eyed him suspiciously. "If that's a compliment, thanks."

"Not a compliment, Jim, merely justice. Seldom as I approve
of one of your weary notions, this time I am forced to
admit that you had a bright idea."

"Quit making a speech and get to the point."

"Very well. Point: when you suggested getting the Martians
to help us you were firing on all jets."

"Huh? Well, thanks for the applause, but I don't see it
myself. As Dad pointed out, there's nothing we can do about
it until we find some way to break out of here and slap old
Beecher down. Then I suppose we won't need their help."

"You're supposing too fast. Let's, as Doc would say, analyse
the situation. In the first place, your father got us boxed
in here!"

"You lay off my father!"

"I wasn't picking on your father. Your father is a swell guy
and my old man says that he is a swell scientist, too. But by
behaving like a gentleman he got us cornered in here and we
can't get out. Mind you, I'm not blaming him, but that's the
situation. So what are they going to do about it? Your old man
tells my old man and that drip Toland to work out a shield,
some sort of armor, that will let us get out the door and into
the open where we can fight. Do you think they'll have any
luck?"

"Well, I hadn't thought about it."

"I have. They are going to get exactly no place. Now Dad
is a good engineer with a lot of savvy. You give him equipment
and materials and he'll build you anything. But what's
he got to work with now? For equipment he's got the school
workshop and you know what a sad mess that is. The Company
never spent any real money on equipping it; it's about
right for making book ends. Materials? What are they going to
make a shield out of? Dining-room tabletops? A heater would
cut through a tabletop like soft cheese."

"Oh, there must be something around they can use."

"You name it."

"Well, what do you want us to do?" Jim said in exasperation. "Surrender?"

"Certainly not. The old folks are stuck in a rut. Here's
where we show finesse using your idea."

"Quit calling it my idea. I haven't got any idea."
"Okay, I'll take all the credit. We get word to Gekko that
we need help. He's our water friend; he'll see to it."
"How can Gekko help us? Martians don't fight."
"That's right, but, as it says in geometry, what's the corollary?
Human beings never fight Martians, never. Beecher
can't risk offending the Martians. Everybody knows what a
terrible time the Company had persuading the Martians that it
was all right to let us settle here in the first place. Now just
suppose that about twenty or thirty Martians or even one
came stomping up to the front door of this place: what do
Beecher's cops do?

"Huh?" ,"They cease fire, that's what they do and we come
swarming out. That's what Gekko can do for us. He can fix it
so that Beecher is forced to call off his gun toters."

Jim thought about it. There was certainly merit in what
Frank had to say. Every human who set foot on Mars had it
thoroughly drummed into him that the natives must not be
interfered with, provoked, nor their customs violated nor,
above all things, hurt. The strange and distressing history of
the first generation of contact with the Martians had resulted
in this being the first law of the extraterritorial settlements on
Mars. Jim could not imagine Beecher violating this rule nor
could he imagine one of the Company police doing so. In
normal times the principal duty of the police was the enforcement
of this rule, particularly with respect to tourists from
Earth, who were never allowed to come in contact with natives.

"There is just one thing wrong with your idea, Frank. Supposing
Gekko and his friends were willing to come to our
rescue, how in the name of mud are we going to let him know
that we need help? We can't just call him on the phone."

"No, we can't, but that is where you come in. You can
send him a message."
"How?"
"Willis."
"You're crazy!"

"Am I now? Suppose you go out that front door, fsst!
You're fertilizer. But suppose Willis goes out? Who's going to
shoot a bouncer?"

"I don't like it. Willis might get hurt."
"If we just sit tight and do nothing, you'll wish he was
dead. Beecher will sell him to the London Zoo."

Jim considered this unpleasant probability, then answered,
"Anyhow, your scheme is fall of holes. Even if he gets outside
safely, Willis couldn't find Gekko and couldn't be depended
on to deliver a message. He'd be just as likely to sing or recite
some of Doc's bum jokes. I've got a better idea."

"Convince me."

"I'll bet that Beecher's plug-uglies didn't think to keep
watch on the garbage dump. I'll deliver the message to Cekko
myself."

Frank thought it over. "No good. Even if they aren't really
watching the dump, they can see you from the comer where
they are watching the back door. They'd nail you before you
could scramble to your feet."

"I'll wait till dark."

"Mmmm... could work. Only I'll do it. I'm faster on my
feet than you are."

"Look who's talking!"

"All right, all right! We'll both do it an hour apart."
Frank went on, "But that doesn't cut Willis out of it. He'll try
it, too. One of us might get through. Now wait a minute,
you underrate your little pal. We'll teach him just what he's to
say. That'll be easy. Then you tell him to go over into the
native city, and stop the first Martian he meets and recite his
piece. The Martian does the rest because we'll put it all into
the message. The only question is whether or not Willis is
bright enough to do as you tell him and go over into Syrtis
Minor proper. I've got grave doubts about that."

Jim bristled. "You're always trying to make out that Willis
is stupid. He's not; you just don't understand him."

"Okay, then he can find his way over to the city and deliver
the message. Or can't he?"

"Well, I don't like it."

"Which do you prefer, to take a small risk with Willis or to
have your mother and your baby brother have to spend the
winter at South Colony?"

Jim chewed his lip in a manner just like his father. "All
right we'll try it. Let's go get Willis."

"Don't get in a rush. Neither you nor I know the native
language well enough to whip up just what we want to say.
But Doc does. He'll help us."

"He's the only one of the grown-ups I'd want to trust with
this anyhow. Come on."

They found MacRae easily enough, but were not able to
speak with him at once. He was in the communications booth,
bellowing at the screen. They could hear his half of the conversation.
"I want to talk to Doctor Rawlings. Well, get him,
get him don't sit there chewing your pencil! Tell him it's
Doctor MacRae.... Ah, good day. Doctor!.. .No, I just got
here... How's business. Doctor? Still cremating your
mistakes?... Well, don't we all... Sony, I can't; I'm locked
up...Locked up, I said...L...0...C...K...E...D
up, like a disorderly drunk... No reason, none at all. It's that
simian moron, Beecher... Yes, hadn't you heard? The entire
colony, penned up in the little red schoolhouse... shoots us
down if we so much as stick our noses out... No, I'm not
joking. You know Skinny Pottle, he and his wife were killed
not two hours ago. Burned down in cold blood, never had a
chance... Damn it, man, I don't joke. Come see for yourself
and find out what kind of a madman you have ruling you here.
The cadavers were still out in the street in front of the school
the last time I looked. We don't dare drag mem in and lay
them out decently... I said." The screen suddenly went
blank. MacRae swore and fiddled with the controls. Nothing
happened.

Presently, by experiment, he realized the instrument had
been cut off completely. He came out, shrugging. "Well, they
finally caught on to me," he remarked to the room in general,
"but I talked to three key men."

"What were you doing. Doc?" asked Jim.

"Starting a little backfire, some fifth column activity behind
Beecher's lines. There are good people everywhere, son,
but you have to spell it out for them."

"Oh. Look, Doc, could you spare us some time?"

"What for? Your father has a number of things for me to
do, Jim."

"This is important." They got MacRae aside and explained
to him their plans.

MacRae looked thoughtful. "It just might work. It's worth
a whirl. That notion of making use of Martian inviolability is
positively Machiavellian, Frank; you should go into politics.
However, about the other stunt the garbage-can paratrooper
act if you ask your father, he'll veto it."

"Can't you ask him? He'll listen to you."

"I said 'If you ask your father,' you idiot. Do I have to
wipe your nose for you?"

"Oh. I get you."

"About the other matter, chase up the little beastie and
meet me in classroom 'C'; I'm using it as an office."

Jim and Frank left to do so. Jim found his mother and
Oliver asleep, his sister and Willis gone. He had started to
leave when his mother woke up. "Jimmy?"

"I didn't mean to wake you. Mother. Where's Phyl? I want
to find Willis."

"Your sister is in the kitchen, I think, helping out. Isn't
Willis here? He was here on the bed with baby and me."

Jim looked around again, but found no sign of Willis. "I'll
go ask Phyl. Maybe she came back and got him."

"He can't have wandered far. I'm sorry, Jim."

"I'll find him."

He went to the kitchen, found his sister. "How would I
know?" she protested. "He was there with mother when I
left."

"I asked you to look out for him."

"And I left him with mother, they wanted me to help out
here. Don't go looking at me."

Jim joined Frank. "Dam it, they've let him wander off. He
might be any place. We'll just have to search."

One hour and hundreds of inquiries later they were convinced
that, if the bouncer was in the school, he had found a
very special hiding place. Jim was so annoyed that he had
forgotten completely the essential danger that they were all in.
"That's what comes of trusting women," he said bitterly.
"Frank, what'll I do now?"

"Search me."

They were in the far end of me building from their former
room. They started back toward it on the chance that Willis
might have come back. As they were passing through the entrance
hall, Jim stopped suddenly. "I heard him!"

They both listened. "Open up!" came a replica of Jim's
voice. "Let Willis in!" The voice came through the door's
announcing speaker.

Jim darted for the pressure lock, was stopped by the guard.
"Hey," he protested, "open the lock. That's Willis."
"More likely it's a trap. Stand back."
"Let him in. That's Willis, I tell you." The guard ignored
him, but threw the switch that caused the lock to cycle. He
cleared everybody back out of range, then cautiously watched
the door from one side, gun drawn.

The inner door opened and Willis waddled through.

Willis was bland about the whole thing. "Jim go away.
Everybody go away. Willis go for walk."

"How did you get outdoors?"

"Went out."

"But how?" Willis apparently could see nothing difficult
about that; he did not amplify.

"Maybe he went out when die Pottles did?" suggested
Frank.

"Maybe. Well, I guess it doesn't matter."

"Go see people," Willis offered. He named off a string of
native names, then added, "Fine time. Water friends. Give
Willis good water, big drink." He made lipsmacking noises in
imitation of Jim, although he had no lips himself.

"You had a drink just a week ago," Jim said accusingly.

"Willis good boy!" Willis countered.

"Wait a minute," said Frank. "He was with Martians."

"Huh? I don't care if he was with Cleopatra; he shouldn't
run away."

"But don't you see? He can get to the natives; he already
has. All we've got to do is to be sure he carries a message for
them to pass on to Gekko."

The point, relayed to MacRae, increased his interest. The
three composed a message in English for MacRae to translate.
"Greetings," it began, "this is a message from Jim Marlowe,
water friend of Gekko of the city of" Here they inserted the
unspellable and almost unpronounceable Martian name of
Cynia. "Whoever you may be, friend of my friend, you are
implored to send this word at once to Gekko. I am in great
trouble and I need your help." The message went on to tell in
detail the nature of the trouble, who was responsible, and
what they hoped would be done about it. Telegraphic simplicity
was not attempted, since Willis's nervous system could
hold a thousand words as easily as ten.

MacRae translated it, then drilled Jim in reading it, after
which they attempted to impress on Willis what he was to do.

Willis was willing, but his consistently slap-happy, feather-brained
approach to any problem exasperated them all almost
to hysteria. At last it seemed fairly likely that he might carry
out his assignment; at least (a) when asked what he was to do
he would answer, "go see friends," and (b) when asked what
he would tell them he would (usually) answer by reciting the
message.

"It just might work," decided MacRae. "We know the
Martians have some means of rapid communication, even
though we've never known what sort. If our plump friend
doesn't forget what he is doing and why he is making the
trip..."

Jim took him to the front door. On MacRae's authorization
(he guard let them through. Jim checked Willis again while
the lock was cycling; the bouncer appeared to be sure of his
instructions, although his answers showed his usual mental
leapfrog.

Jim hung back in the doorway, out of the line of fire, while
Willis rolled off the stoop. The Potties still lay where they had
fallen; Willis looked at them curiously, then took up a zig-zag
course down the street and disappeared from Jim's view, cut
off as he was by the door frame. Jim wished mightily then that
he had had the foresight to bring along a mirror to use as a
periscope. Finally he screwed up his courage, lay down, and
peeked around the edge of the door at the bottommost part.

Willis was well down the street and nothing had happened
to him. Far down the street some sort of cover had been set
up. Jim stuck his head out an inch farther, trying to see what it
was, when the comer of the door frame above him gave off a
puff of smoke and he felt the electric tingle of a near miss. He
jerked his head hastily back and reentered the lock.

He had an all-gone feeling at the pit of his stomach and a
conviction that he would never see Willis again.


CHAPTER TWELVE

"Don't Shoot!"

The rest of the day passed wearily for Jim and Frank.
There was nothing they could do about their own plan until
after dark. In the meantime discussions were taking place
among colonial leaders, but they were held behind closed
doors and the boys were definitely not invited.'

Supper was a welcome diversion, both because they were
hungry and because it meant that the kitchen would presently
be deserted and the way left open to the garbage dump. Or so
they thought. They found that, in practice, the womenfolk
running the kitchen first took a leisurely time to clean the
place up, then seemed disposed to sit around all night, drinking
coffee and talking.

The boys found excuses to come into the kitchen, excuses
that got thinner every trip and which began to arouse Mrs.
Palmer's suspicions.

Finally Jim followed another boy in, wondering what he
would say this time, when he heard the other boy say, "Mrs.
Palmer, Captain Marlowe sends his regards and wants to know
if it would be too much trouble to keep a night watch for
coffee and sandwiches for the men on guard."

"Why, no," Jim heard her say, "we'll be glad to do that.
Henrietta, will you go out and find some volunteers? I'll take
the first stint."

Jim backed out and went to where Frank awaited him.
"What's the chances?" asked Frank. "Does it look like they're
going to break up any time soon?"

Jim told him what the chances were or, rather, were not.
Frank swore, using a couple of words that Jim had not heard
before, and noted down for future use. "What'll we do, Jim?"

"I don't know. Maybe when it's down to just one of them
on duty, she'll go out occasionally."

"Maybe we could get her out with some song and dance."

"Maybe. Maybe we could tell her that she's wanted in the
headquarters room. That ought to do it."

They were still discussing it when the lights went out.

The place was suddenly completely dark, as dark as the
inside of a rock. Worse than that, there was a disturbing utter
silence. Jim had just realized that the complete emptiness of
sound resulted from the ending of the noise of circulating air,
from the stopping of the supercharger on the roof, when a
woman began to scream.

She was joined by another, in a higher key. Then there
were voices everywhere in the darkness, questioning, complaining,
soothing.

Down the hall from where the boys loitered a light sprang
out and Jim heard his father's voice. "Quiet, everybody. Don't
get excited. It's just a power failure. Be patient."

The light moved toward them, suddenly hit them. "You
boys get to bed." Jim's father moved on. Down the passage in
the other direction they could hear Doc's bellow, ordering people
to shut up and calm down.

Jim's father came back. This time he was saying, "Into
your suits, everybody. Have your respirators on your head. We
hope to correct this in a few minutes, but we don't want anybody
hurt. Now don't get excited; this building will hold pressure
for half an hour at least. There's plenty of time to get
ready for thin air, even if it takes a while to correct the trouble."

Other lights sprang up here and there; shortly the passageways
throughout the building, if not the rooms, were adequately
lighted. The corridors were crowded with dim shapes,
struggling into their outdoors suits. Jim and Frank, planning
as they were to attempt to go outside, had long been in their
suits, armed, and with respirators at the ready. "Maybe this is
a good time," suggested Frank.

"Nope," Jim answered. "They're still in the kitchen. I can
see a light."

MacRae came down the corridor; Jim stopped him. "Doc,
how long do you think it will be until they get the lights on?"

MacRae said, "Are you kidding?"

"What do you mean. Doc?"

"The lights aren't coming on. This is one of Beecher's
stunts. He's pulled the switch on us, at the power house."

"Are you sure?"

"There's no failure, we've checked it. I'm surprised
Beecher didn't do it hours ago, in his shoes, I would have
done it five minutes after we moved in. But don't you birds go
blabbing, Jim; your Pop has his hands full keeping the custard
heads from blowing their tops." He moved on.

In spite of Captain Marlowe's reassuring words the true
state of things was soon common knowledge. The pressure
dropped slowly, so slowly that it was necessary to warn everyone
to adjust their respirators, lest oxygen starvation sneak up
on the unwary. After that it was hardly possible to maintain
the fiction that the power loss was temporary, to be corrected
any minute now. The temperature in the building fell Slowly;

there was no danger of them freezing in the closed and insulated
building, but the night chill penetrated.

Marlowe set up headquarters in the entrance hall in a circle
of light cast by a single torch. Jim and Frank loitered there,
discreetly back in the shadows, unwilling to miss what might
be going on and quite unwilling to go to bed as ordered.... as
Frank pointed out to Jim, the only beds they had were occupied,
by Mrs. Marlowe, Phyllis, and Oliver. Neither of them
had given up the idea of attempting the garbage chute route,
but they knew in their hearts that the place was too stirred up
to give them the privacy they would require.

Joseph Hartley, one of the colony's hydroponists, came up
to Marlowe. His wife was behind him, carrying their baby
daughter in a pressurized crib, its supercharger sticking up
above the clear plastic shell of it like a chimney. "Mr. Marlowe,
I mean Captain Marlowe."

"Yes?"

"You've got to do something. Our kid can't stand this.
She's coming down with croup and we can't get at her to help
her."

MacRae crowded forward. "You should have brought her
to me, Joe." He looked the baby over, through the plastic,
then announced, "The kid seems to be doing all right."

"She's sick, I tell you."

"Hmm, I can't make much of an examination when I
can't get at her. Can't take her temperature, but she doesn't
seem to be in any real danger."

"You're just trying to soothe me down," Hartley said angrily.
"You can't tell anything about it when she is in a sealed
crib."

"Sorry, son," the doctor answered.

"A fat lot of good it does to be sorry! Somebody's got to do
something. This can't" His wife plucked at his sleeve; he
turned away and they went into a huddle. Shortly he turned
back. "Captain Marlowe!"

"Yes, Mr. Hartley."

"The rest of you can do as you like. I've had enough. I've
got my wife and baby to think about."

"The decision is yours," Marlowe said stiffly and turned
away in abrupt dismissal.

"But" said Hartley and stopped, aware that Marlowe
was no longer paying any attention to him. He looked uncertain,
like a man who wants someone to argue him out of his
resolution. His wife touched has arm; he turned then and they
went together to the front entrance.

Marlowe said to MacRae, "What do they expect of me?
Miracles?"

MacRae answered, "Exactly, boy. Most people never grow
up. They expect papa to get 'em the pretty Moon." The doctor
went on, "Just the same, Joe accidentally told the truth. We've
got to do something."

"I don't see what we can do until Sutton and Toland get
some results."

"You can't wait any longer for them, son. We've got to
crush out of here anyway. Theoretically a man can live for
days in a respirator. Practically, it won't work and that is what
Beecher is counting on. You can't keep several hundred people
crouching here in the dark and the cold, wearing masks to
stay alive, not indefinitely. You're going to have a panic on
your hands."

Marlowe looked weary, even through his mask. "We can't
tunnel out. We can't get out at all, except through the doors.
And they've got those doors zeroed. It's suicide."

"It's got to be done, son. I'll lead the rush."

Marlowe sighed. "No, I will."

"In a pig's eye! You've got a wife and kids. I've got nobody
and I've been living on borrowed time so long I've lost track."

"It's my privilege. That's settles it."

"We'll see."

"I said that settles it, sir!"

The argument was left unfinished; the inner door to the
pressure lock opened again and Mrs. Hartley stumbled inside.
She was clutching the tiny crib and sobbing wildly.

It was the case of the Pottles and Gibbs all over again.
When MacRae was able to make something out of her sobs, it
appeared that they had been very cautious, had waited, had
shouted their intention to surrender, and had displayed a light.
There had been no answer, so they had shouted again, then
Hartley had stepped off the threshold with his hands up and
his wife shining the light on him.

He had been struck down as soon as he stepped out the
door.

MacRae turned her over to the women, then went out to
reconnoiter. He came back in almost at once. "Somebody get
me a chair," he demanded, and looked around. "You, Jim,
skedaddle."

"What's up?" asked Marlowe.

"Let you know in a moment. I suspect something."

"Be careful."

"That's why I want the chair."

Jim came back with one; the doctor went through the pressure
lock again. He came back in about five minutes later.
"It's a booby trap," he stated.

"What do you mean?"

"Beecher didn't try to keep men outdoors all night, at
least I don't think so. It's automatic. They've put an electriceye
grid across the door. When you break it, a bolt comes
across, right where you'd be if you walked through it." He
displayed half a dozen deep burns through the chair.

Marlowe examined them. "But that's not the important
point," MacRae went on. "It's automatic but it's inflexible. It
hits about two feet above the step and about four feet. A man
could crawl through it, if his nerves were steady."

Marlowe straightened up. "Show me."

They came back, with the chair still more burned, in a few
minutes. "Kelly," Marlowe said briskly, "I want twenty volunteers
to make a sortie. Pass the word around."

There were at least two hundred volunteers; the problem
was to weed them down. Both Frank and Jim tried to get in on
it; Jim's father refused to take any but grown, unmarried men,
except himself. MacRae he refused.

The doctor pulled Jim back and whispered to him. "Hold
your horses. In a few minutes I'll be boss."

The raiding party started into the lock. Marlowe turned to
MacRae. "We'll head for the power plant. If we are gone
more than two hours, you are on your own." He went into the
lock and closed the door.

As soon as the door was closed, MacRae said, "Okay,
twenty more volunteers."

Kelly said, "Aren't you going to wait two hours?"

"You tend to your knitting! When I'm out of here, you're
in charge." He turned and nodded to Jim and Frank. "You two
come along." MacRae had his party in short order, had apparently
selected them in his mind before Marlowe left. They
filed into the lock.

Once the outer door was open MacRae flashed his torch
into the street. The Pottles and the unfortunate Joseph Hartley
lay where they had fallen, but no other bodies littered the
street. MacRae turned around and said, "Gimmie that chair.
I'll demonstrate the gimmick." He stuck it out into the door.
Instantly two bolts cut across the doorway, parallel to the
ground. After they were gone and the eye was still dazzled by
their brilliance, two soft violet paths of ionization marked
where they had been and then gradually dispersed.

"You will note," said the doctor, as if he were lecturing
medical students, "that it does not matter where the chair is
inserted." He again shoved the chair into the opening, moved
it up and down. The bolts repeated at split-second intervals,
but always at the same places, about knee high and chest high.

"I think it is best," continued the doctor, "to maintain the
attack. Then you can see where you are. First man!"

Jim gulped and stepped forward, or was shoved, he was
not sure which. He eyed the deadly fence, stooped over, and
with awkward and infinite care stepped through. He went on
out into the street. "Get moving!" the doctor ordered. "Spread
out."

Jim ran up the street, feeling very much alone but terribly
excited. He paused short of the end of the building and cautiously
looked around the comer. Nothing either way, he
stopped and waited in the darkness, ready to blast anything
that moved.

Ahead of him and to the left he could see the curious structure
which had almost cost him the top of his head many hours
before. It was clear now that the bolts were coming from it.

Some one came up behind him. He whirled and heard a
voice yelp, "Don't shoot! It's me, Frank."

"How about the others?"

"They're coming, I think."

A light flashed at the building ahead, beyond the shield
from which the bolts came. Frank said, "I think somebody
came out there."

"Can you see him? Do you think we ought to shoot?"

"I don't know."

Someone else was pounding up the street behind them. Up
ahead, from near the spot where Frank had thought he had
seen a man a heater flashed out in the darkness; the beam
passed them.

Jim's gun answered by pure reflex; he nailed the spot from
which the flash had come. "You got him," said Frank. "Good
boy!"

"I did?" said Jim. "How about the guy behind me?" He
found that he was trembling.

"Here he is now."

"Who shot at me?" the newcomer said. "Where are they?"

"Nowhere at the moment," Frank answered. "Jim nailed
him." Frank tried to peer into the mask; the night was too
dark. "Who is it?"

"Smitty."

Both Frank and Jim gave exclamations of surprise, it was
Smythe, the practical man. "Don't look at me like that,"
Smythe said defensively. "I came along at the last minute, to
protect my investment. You guys owe me money."

"I think Jim just paid it off," suggested Frank.

"Not on your life! That's another matter entirely."

"Later, later," said Frank. Others were coming up. Presently
MacRae came puffing up and roared, "I told you birdbrains to
spread out!" He caught his breath and said, "We tackle the
Company main offices. Dogtrot and don't bunch together."

"Doc," said Jim, "there are some in that building up
ahead."

"Some what?"

"Somebody that shoots at us, that's what."

"Oh. Hold it, everybody." MacRae gave them hoarse instructions,
then said, "Got it, everybody?"

"Doc," asked Frank, "how about the gun over there? Why
don't we wreck it first?"

"I must be getting old," said MacRae. "Anybody here
enough of a technician to sneak up on it and pull its teeth?"

A faceless figure in the darkness volunteered. "Go ahead,"
Doc told him. "We'll cover you from here." The colonial trotled
ahead, swung around behind the shield covering the stationary
automatic blaster, and stopped. He worked away for
several minutes, then there was a white flash, intensely bright.
He trotted back. "Shorted it out. Bet I blew every overload
breaker in the power house."

"Sure you fixed it?"

"You couldn't dot an T with it now."

"Okay. You!" MacRae grabbed one of his squad by the
arm. "tear back and tell Kelly that allee allee out's in free.
You!" He indicated the chap who had wrecked the gun.
"go around in back and see what you can do with the setup
back there. You two guys cover him. The rest of you follow
me to the building ahead, according to plan."

Jim's assignment called for sneaking along the face of the
building and taking a covering position about twenty feet short
of the doorway. His way led him over the ground where the
man had been at whom he had shot. There was no body on the
pavement; he wondered if he had missed. It was too dark to
look for blood.

MacRae gave his covering troops time to reach their stations,
then made a frontal assault with six to back him up,
among them Frank. The doctor himself walked up to the
building entrance, tried the outer door. It opened. Motioning
the assault group to join him, he went in. The outer door of
the building's lock closed on them.

Jim huddled against the icy wall, eyes wide, ready to
shoot. It seemed a cold eternity that he waited; he began to
fancy that he could see some traces of dawn in the east. At last
he saw silhouettes ahead, raised his gun, then identified one as
Doc's portly figure.

MacRae had the situation in hand. There were four disarmed
prisoners; one was being half carried by two others.
'Take 'em back to the school," Doc ordered one of his group.
"Shoot the first one of them who makes a funny move. And
tell whoever is in charge back there now to lock 'em up.
Come on, men. We've got our real job ahead."

There came a shout behind them; MacRae turned. Kelly's
voice called, "Doc! Wait for baby!" He came running up and
demanded, "What are the plans?" Behind him, men were
pouring out of the school and up the street.

MacRae took a few minutes to recast things on the basis of
more guns. One of the platoon leaders, a civil engineer named
Alvarez, was left in charge at the school with orders to maintain
a guard outside the building and to patrol the neighborhood
with scouts. Kelly was assigned the task of capturing the
communications building which lay between the settlement
and the space port. It was an important key to control of the
whole situation, since it housed not only the local telephone
exchange but also the radio link to Deimos and thence to all
other outposts on Mars and also the radar beacons and other
aids for incoming ships from Earth.

MacRae reserved for himself the job of taking the planet
office, the main offices on Mars of the Company, Beecher's
own headquarters. The Resident Agent General's personal
apartment was part of the same building; the doctor expected
to come to grips with Beecher himself.

MacRae sent a squad of men to reinforce Marlowe at the
power house, then called out, "Let's go, before we all freeze
to death. Chop, chop!" He led the way at a ponderous trot.

Jim located Frank in the group and joined him. "What took
you guys so long in that building?" he asked. "Was there a
fight?"

"Took so long?" said Frank. "We weren't inside two minutes."

"But you must have."

"Cut out that chatter back there!" called out Doc. Jim shut
up and pondered it.

MacRae had them cross the main canal on ice, avoiding the
arching bridge as a possible trap. They crossed in pairs, those
behind covering those crossing; in turn they who had crossed
spread out and covered those yet to come. The crossing held a
nightmarish, slow-motion quality; while on the ice a man was
a perfect target, yet it was impossible to hurry. Jim longed
for his skates.

On the far side the doctor gathered them together in the
shadow of a warehouse. "We'll swing around to the east and
avoid the dwellings," he told them in a hoarse whisper. "From
here on, quiet! for your life. We won't split up because I
don't want you shooting each other in the dark." He set forth
a plan to surround the building and cover all exits, while
MacRae himself and about half their numbers tried to force an
entrance at the main door.

"When you get around in back and make contact," MacRae
warned the two who were to lead the flanking and covering
moves, "you may have one deuce of a time telling friend from
foe. Be careful. The word is "Mars'; the answer is 'Freedom'."

Jim was in the assault party. Doc stationed six of them in
fan shape around the door, at an easy twenty-five yards range,
and had them take cover where available. Three of them were
on the open ramp in front of the door; he had them lie down
and steady their guns. "In case of doubt, shoot," he instructed
them. "Come on, the rest of you."

Jim was included in the last order. MacRae walked up to
the outer door and tried it; it was locked. He pressed the signal
switch and waited.

Nothing happened. MacRae pressed the switch again and
called out mildly to the speaker grille, "Let me in. I have an
important message for the Resident."

Still nothing happened. MacRae changed his tone to pretended
exasperation. "Hurry up, please! I'm freezing to death
out here."

The door remained dark and silent. MacRae changed his
manner to belligerence. "Okay, Beecher, open up! We've got
the place surrounded and we're ready to blast in the door. You
have thirty seconds till we set off the charge."

The seconds ticked away. Doc muttered to Jim, "I wish it
were the truth," then raised his voice and said, "Time's up,
Beecher. This is it."

The door hissed as the compressed air in the lock began to
escape to the outside; the lock was starting to cycle. MacRae
motioned them back a little; they waited, not breathing, all
guns drawn and aimed at the point where the door would
begin to open.

Then it was open and a single figure stood in it, the lock's
light shining behind him. "Don't shoot!" said a firm, pleasant
voice. "It's all right. It's all over."

MacRae peered at the figure. "Why, Doctor Rawlings'" he
said. "Bless your ugly face."


CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"It's an Ultimatum."

RAWUNGS HIMSELF HAD spent half the night locked up,
along with half a dozen other prominent citizens who had
attempted to reason with Beecher. As the story got around,
especially the matter of the deaths of the Pottles, Beecher
found himself with no support at all, save from his own clique
of sycophants and toadies and the professional, largely disinterested
support of the Company's police.

Even Kruger cracked up under the strain, tried to get
Beecher to reverse himself, and was stuffed in with the other
dissidents, which by then included the chief engineer of the
power plant. But it was Doctor Rawlings who talked the guard
placed over them into risking his job and letting them go, the
doctor was treating the guard's wife.

"I don't think Beecher would ever stand trial, even if we
had him back on Earth," MacRae remarked about the matter
to Rawlings and Marlowe. "What do you think, Doctor?" The
three were seated in the outer offices of the planet office
building. Marlowe had come there after getting word at the
power house from MacRae and had gotten busy at once, writing
despatches to the Project camps and the other outlying
activities, including North Colony itself, trying to round up
boats. He had then tried, red-eyed and uncertain from lack of
sleep, to compose a suitable report to Earth, until MacRae had
interrupted him and insisted that he rest.

"Paranoia?" said Rawlings.

"A clear case.7'

"My opinion, too. I've seen suggestive indications of it,
but the case was not fully developed until his will was
crossed. He must be hospitalized and restrained." Doctor
Rawlings glanced over his shoulder at a closed door. Behind it
was Beecher.

"Certainly, certainly," agreed MacRae, "but speaking non-professionally,
I'd rather see the no-good so-and-so hang. Paranoia is a disorder
contracted only by those of fundamentally bad character."

"Now, Doctor," protested Rawlings.

"That's my opinion," insisted MacRae, "and I've seen a lot
of cases, in and out of hospitals."

Marlowe put down his coffee cup and wiped his mouth.
"All that is as may be. I think I'll stretch out on one of these
desks for a couple of hours. Doc, will you see that someone
wakes me?"

"Certainly," agreed MacRae, having no intention of allowing
the man to be disturbed until he was fully rested. "Don't worry."

Jim and the others were back at the school where they were
to remain until boats could be gotten to take them to Copais.
Mrs. Palmer was bustling around with her assistants, getting a
mammoth breakfast for weary men and boys. Jim himself was
dead tired and hungry but much too excited to think about
sleeping, even though dawn had broken outside.

He had just received a cup of coffee and was blowing on it
when Smythe showed up. "Say, I understand you really did
kill that cop that took a pot shot at me."

"No," Jim denied, "he's in the infirmary now, just
wounded. I've seen him."

Smythe looked troubled. "Oh, shucks," he said finally, "it
won't happen more than once in a lifetime. Here's your
I.O.U."

Jim stared at him. "Smitty, you're sick."

"Probably. Better take it."

Jim reached back into his subconscious memory and
quoted his father. "No, thanks. Marlowes pay their debts."

Smythe looked at him, then said, "Oh, the heck with you,
you ungracious twerp!" He tore the I.O.U. into small pieces
and stalked away.

Jim looked wonderingly after him. "Now what was he sore
about?" He decided to look up Frank and tell him about it.

He found Frank but had no time to tell him about it; a shout
came through the crowd: "Marlowe! Jim Marlowe!"

"Captain Marlowe's at the planet office," someone answered.

"Not him, the kid," the first voice replied. "Jimmy Marlowe!
You're wanted up front, right away."

"Coming," yelled Jim. "What for?" He pushed his way
toward the entrance, Frank behind him.

The man who had paged him let him get close before he
answered, "You won't believe it. I don't myself. Martians."

Jim and Frank hurried outside. Gathered in front of the
school door were more than a dozen Martians. Gekko was
there, and G'kuro, but not K'booch. Nor could Jim make out
the old one whom he thought of as "head man" of Gekko's
tribe. Gekko spotted them and said in his own speech, "Greetings,
Jim-Marlowe, greetings, Frank-Sutton, friends sealed with water."

Another voice called out from one of Gekko's palm flaps,
"Hi, Jim boy!" Willis had come home with the bacon, a little
late perhaps, but successfully.

Another voice boomed mellowly. Gekko listened, then
said, "Where is he who stole our little one?"

Jim, uncertain of the dominant tongue, at best, was not
sure that he had understood. "Huh?"

"He wants to know where Howe is," said Frank and answered
in fluent, fairly accurate Martian. Howe was still where
he had taken refuge, still afraid to face Kelly, despite
repeated invitations.

Gekko indicated that he would come into the building.

Amazed, but cooperative, the boys led him in. Gekko was
forced to fold himself into a shape resembling a hat rack to get
into the lock but he managed it; the lock was large. Inside, the
sensation caused by his appearance was like that which might
have resulted from introducing an elephant into a church. People
gave way before him.

The door to the outer office was even more of a squeeze
man the air lock, but Gekko made it, with Jim and Frank
trailing him. Gekko handed Willis to Jim, then gently explored
the handle of the door to Howe's office with a hand flap.
Suddenly he pulled and the door came away, not only the
lock broken but the door wrenched completely off its hinges.
He squatted down further, completely filling the door frame.

The boys looked at each other; Willis closed up. They
heard Howe saying "What's the meaning of this? Who are"

Then Gekko stood up as well as he could in a room intended
for humans and started for the outer door. The boys
hesitated; Frank said, "Let's see what he did to him." He
stepped to the wrecked door and looked in. "I don't see him.
Hey, Jim he's not in here at all."

Nor was he.

They hurried after Gekko and reached him at the air lock.
No one stopped Gekko; no one stopped them. The repeated
indoctrination concerning Martians swept a path before them.
Outside Gekko turned to them. "Where is the other one, who
would do harm to the little one?"

Frank explained that Beecher was some distance away and
not available. "You will show us," announced Gekko and
picked them both up. Another Martian relieved him of Frank.

Jim felt himself cradled in the soft palm flaps, even as
Willis was still cradled in Jim's arms. Willis extended his
eyes, looked around and remarked, "Fine ride, huh?" Jim was
not sure.

The Martians ambled through town at an easy eight miles
an hour, over the bridge, and to the planet offices. The pressure
lock there was higher and larger than that at the school;

the entire party went inside. The ceiling of the building's foyer
was quite high enough for even the tallest Martian. Once they
were inside Gekko set Jim down, as did the Martian carrying Frank.

There had been the same scurrying surprise as at the
school. MacRae came out and looked the situation over without
excitement. "What's all this jamboree?" he asked.
"They want to talk to Beecher," Frank explained.
MacRae raised his eyebrows, then spoke in clear Martian.
One of them answered him; they conversed back and forth.
"Okay, I'll get him," agreed MacRae, then repeated it in Martian.
He went into the offices. He returned in a few minutes,
pushing Beecher in front of him, and followed by Rawlings
and Marlowe. "Some people to see you," MacRae said and
gave Beecher a shove that carried him out onto the floor of the
foyer.

"This is the one?" inquired the Martian spokesman.

"This is verily the one."

Beecher looked up at them. "What do you want me for?"
he said in Basic. The Martians moved so that they were on all
sides of him. "Now you get away from me!" he said. They
moved in slowly, tightening the circle. Beecher attempted to
break out of it; a great hand flap was placed in his way.

They closed in further. Beecher darted this way and that,
then he was concealed completely from the spectators by a
screen of palm flaps. "Let me out!" he was heard to shout. "I
didn't do anything. You've got no right to" His voice
stopped in a scream.

The circle relaxed and broke up. There was no one inside

it, not even a spot of blood on the floor.

The Martians headed for the door. Gekko stopped and said
to Jim, "Would you return with us, my friend?"

"No oh, no," said Jim. "I have to stay here," then remembered to translate.

"And the little one?"

"Willis stays with me. That's right, isn't it, Willis?"

"Sure, Jim boy."

"Then tell Gekko so." Willis complied. Gekko said farewell
sadly to the boys and to Willis and went on out the lock.

MacRae and Rawlings were in whispered, worried conference
at the spot where Beecher had last been seen; Captain
Marlowe was looking sleepy and confused and listening to
them. Frank said, "Let's get out of here, Jim."

"Right."

The Martians were still outside. Gekko saw them as they
came out, spoke to one of his kind, then said, "Where is the
learned one who speaks our speech? We would talk with him."

"I guess they want Doc," said Frank.

"Is that what he meant?"

"I think so. We'll call him." They went back inside and
dug MacRae out of a cluster of excited humans. "Doc," said
Frank, "they want to talk with you, the Martians."

"Eh?" said MacRae. "Why me?"

"I don't know."

The doctor turned to Marlowe. "How about it. Skipper? Do
you want to sit in on this?"

Mr. Marlowe rubbed his forehead. "No, I'm too confused
to try to handle the language. You take it."

"Okay." MacRae went for his suit and mask, let the boys
help dress him, and then did not deny them when they tagged
along. However, once outside, they held back and watched
from a distance.

MacRae walked down to me group standing on the ramp
and addressed them. Voices boomed back at him. He entered
the group and the boys could see him talking, answering,
gesticulating with his hands. The conference continued quite a
long time.

Finally MacRae dropped his arms to his sides and looked
tired. Martian voices boomed in what was plainly farewell,
then the whole party set out at a rapid, leisurely pace for the
bridge and their own city. MacRae plodded back up the ramp.

In the lock Jim demanded, "What was it all about. Doc?"

"Eh? Hold your peace, son."

Inside MacRae took Marlowe's arm and led him toward the
office they had pre-empted. "You, too, Rawlings. The rest of
you get about your business." Nevertheless the boys tagged
along and MacRae let them come in. "You might as well hear
it; you're in it up to your ears. Mind that door, Jim. Don't let
anyone open it."

"Now what is it?" asked Jim's father. "What are you looking
so grim about?"

"They want us to leave."

"Leave?"

"Get off Mars, go away, go back to Earth."

"What? Why do they suggest that?"

"It's not a suggestion; it's an order, an ultimatum. They
aren't even anxious to give us time enough to get ships here
from Earth. They want us to leave, every man jack, woman,
and child; they want us to leave right away and they aren't
fooling!"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Willis

FOUR DAYS LATER Doctor MacRae stumbled into the
same office. Marlowe still looked tired, but this time it was
MacRae who looked exhausted. "Get these other people out of
here. Skipper."

Marlowe dismissed them and closed the door. "Well?"

"You got my message?"

"Yes."

"Is the Proclamation of Autonomy written? Did the folks
go for it?"

"Yes, it's written we cribbed a good deal from the American
Declaration of Independence I'm afraid, but we wrote one."

"I'm not interested in the rhetoric of the thing! How about
it?"

"It's ratified. Easily enough here. We had quite a few startled
queries from the Project camps, but it was accepted. I
guess we owe Beecher a vote of thanks on that; he made
independence seem like a fine idea."

"We owe Beecher nothing! He nearly got us all killed."

"Just how do you mean that?"

"I'll tell you, but I want to know about the Declaration. I
had to make some promises. It's gone off?"

"Radioed to Chicago last night. No answer yet. But let me
ask the questions: were you successful?"

"Yes." MacRae rubbed his eyes wearily. "We can stay. 'It
was a great fight. Maw, but I won.' They'll let us stay."

Marlowe got up and started to set up a wire recorder. "Do you
want to talk it into the record and save having to go over it again?"

MacRae waved it away. "No. Whatever formal report I
make will have to be very carefully edited. I'll try to tell you
about it first." He paused and looked thoughtful. "Jamie, how
long has it been since men first landed on Mars? More than
fifty Earth years, isn't it? I believe I have learned more about
Martians in the past few hours than was learned in all that
time. And yet I don't know anything about them. We kept
trying to think of them as human, trying to force them into our
molds. But they aren't human; they aren't anything like us at all."

He added, "They had interplanetary flight millions of years

back... had it and gave it up."

"What?" said Marlowe.

"It doesn't matter. It's not important. It's just one of the
things I happened to find out while I was talking with the old
one, the same old one with whom Jim talked. By the way, Jim
was seeing things; he's not a Martian at all."

"Wait a minute, what is he, then?"

"Oh, I guess he's a native of Mars all right, but he isn't
what you and I mean by a Martian. At least he didn't look like
one to me."

"What did he look like? Describe him."

MacRae looked puzzled. "Uh, I can't. Maybe Jim and I
each saw what he wanted us to see. Never mind. Willis has to
go back to the Martians and rather soon."

"I'm sorry," Marlowe answered. "Jim won't like that, but
it's not a high price to pay if it pleases them."

"You don't understand, you don't understand at all. Willis
is the key to the whole thing."

"Certainly he's been mixed up in it," agreed Marlowe, "but
why the key?"

"Don't call Willis 'he'; call him 'she.' There, I did it myself. Habit."

"I don't care what sex the little beast is. Go on."

MacRae rubbed his temples. "That's the trouble. It's very
complicated and I don't know where to start. Willis is important
and it does matter that he's a she. Look, Jamie, you'll go
down in history as the father of your country, no doubt, but,
between ourselves, Jim should be credited for being the savior
of it. It was directly due to Jim and Willis, Willis's love for
Jim and Jim's staunch befriending of him, that the colonists
are alive today instead of pushing up daisies. The ultimatum
to get off this globe represented a concession made to Jim;
they had intended to exterminate us."

Marlowe's mouth dropped open. "But that's impossible!
Martians wouldn't do anything like that!"

"Could and would," MacRae stated flatly. "They've been
having doubts about us for a long time. Beecher's notion of
shipping Willis off to a zoo pushed them over the edge, but
Jim's relationship to Willis pulled them back again. They
compromised."

"I can't believe that they would," protested Marlowe, "nor
can I see how they could."

"Where's Beecher?" MacRae said bluntly.

"Mmm... yes."

"So don't talk about what they can or can't do. We don't
know anything about them... not anything."

"I can't argue with you. But can you clear up some of this
mystery about Jim and Willis? Why do they care? After all,
Willis is just a bouncer."

"I don't think I can clear it up," MacRae admitted, "but I
can sure lace it around with some theories. Do you know
Willis's Martian name? Do you know what it means?"

"I didn't know he had one, I mean 'she'."

"It reads: 'In whom the hopes of a world are joined.' That
suggest anything to you?"

"Gracious, no! Sounds like a name for a messiah, not a
bouncer."

"Maybe you aren't joking. On the other hand, I may have
translated it badly. Maybe it means 'Young Hopeful,' or
merely 'Hope.' Maybe Martians go in for poetical meanings,
like we do. Take my name, 'Donald.' Means 'World Ruler.'
My parents sure muffed that one. Or maybe Martians enjoy
giving bouncers fancy names. I once knew a Pekinese called,
believe it or not, 'Grand Champion Manchu Prince of Belvedere.'"
MacRae looked suddenly startled. "Do you know, I just
remembered that dog's family-and-fireside name was
Willis!"

"You don't say!"

"I do say." The doctor scratched the stubble on his chin and
reflected that he should shave one of these weeks. "But it's
not even a coincidence. I suggested the name 'Willis' to Jim
in the first place; I was probably thinking of the Peke. Engaging
little devil, with a pop-eyed way of looking at you just like
Willis, our Willis. Which is to say that neither one of
Willis's names necessarily means anything."

He sat so long without saying anything that Marlowe said,
"You aren't clearing up the mystery very fast. You think that
Willis's real name does mean something, don't you? else
you wouldn't have brought it up."

MacRae sat up with a jerk. "I do. I do indeed. I think
Willis is sort of a Martian crown princess. Now wait a minute,
don't throw anything. I won't get violent. That's a farfetched
figure of speech. What do you think Willis is?"

"Me?" said Marlowe. "I think he's an example of exotic
Martian fauna, semi-intelligent and adapted to his environment."

"Big words," complained the doctor. "I think he is what a
Martian is before he grows up."

Marlowe looked pained. "There is no similarity of structure.
They're as different as chalk and cheese."

"Granted. What's the similarity between a caterpillar and a
butterfly?"

Marlowe opened his mouth and closed it. "I don't blame
you," MacRae went on, "we never think of such metamorphosis
in connection with higher types, whatever a 'higher type'
is. But I think that is what Willis is and it appears to be why
Willis has to go back to his people soon. He's in the nymph
stage; he's about to go into a pupal stage, some sort of a long
hibernation. When he comes out he'll be a Martian."

Marlowe chewed his lip. "There's nothing unreasonable
about it, just startling."

"Everything about Mars is startling. Another thing: we've
never been able to find anything resembling sex on this planet
various sorts of species conjugation, yes, but no sex. It
appears to me that we missed it. I think that all the nymph
Martians, the bouncers, are female; all of the adults are male.
They change. I use the terms for want of better ones, of
course. But if my theory is correct, and mind you, I'm not
saying it is, then it might explain why Willis is such an
important personage. Eh?"

Marlowe said wearily, "You ask me to assimilate too much
at once."

"Emulate the Red Queen. I'm not through. I think the
Martians have still another stage, the stage of the 'old one' to
whom I talked, and I think it's the strangest one of all.
Jamie, can you imagine a people having close and everyday
relations with Heaven, their heaven, as close and matter of
fact as the relations between, say, the United States and Canada?"

"Doc, I'll imagine anything you tell me to."

"We speak of the Martian 'other world'; what does it mean
to you?"

"Nothing. Some sort of a trance, such as the East Indians
indulge in."

"I ask you because I talked, so they told me, to someone in
the 'other world', the 'old one' I mean. Jamie, I think I
negotiated our new colonizing treaty with a ghost.

"Now just keep your seat," MacRae went on. "I'll tell you
why. I was getting nowhere with him so I changed the subject.
We were talking Basic, by the way; he had picked Jim's
brains. He knew every word that Jim might know and none
that Jim couldn't be expected to know. I asked him to assume,
for the sake of argument, that we were to be allowed to stay.
in which case, would the Martians let us use their subway
system to get to Copais? I rode one of those subways to the
conference. Very clever, the acceleration is always down, as
if the room were mounted on gymbals. The old one had trouble
understanding what I wanted. Then he showed me a globe
of Mars, very natural, except that it had no canals. Gekko
was with me, just as he was with Jim. The old one and Gekko
had a discussion, the gist of which was what year was I at?
Then the globe changed before my eyes, bit by bit. I saw the
canals crawl across the face of Mars. I saw them being built,
Jamie.

"Now I ask you," he concluded, "what kind of a being is it
that has trouble remembering which millenium he is in? Do
you mind if I tag him a ghost?"

"I don't mind anything," Marlowe assured him. "Maybe
we're all ghosts."

"I've given you one theory, Jamie; here is another:

bouncers are Martians and Old Ones are entirely separate
races. Bouncers are third class citizens, Martians are second
class citizens, and the real owners we never see, because they
live down underneath. They don't care what we do with the
surface as long as we behave ourselves. We can use the park,
we can even walk on the grass, but we mustn't frighten the
birds. Or maybe the 'old one' was just hypnosis that Gekko
used on me, maybe it's bouncers and Martians only, with
bouncers having some fanatical religious significance to Martians,
the way Hindus feel about cows. You name it."

"I can't," said Marlowe. "I'm satisfied that you managed
to negotiate an agreement that permits us to stay on Mars. I
suppose it will be years before we understand the Martians."

"You are putting it mildly, Jamie. The white man was still
studying the American Indian, trying to find out what makes
him tick, five hundred years after Columbus, and the Indian
and the European are both men, like as two peas. These are
Martians. We'll never understand them; we aren't even
headed in the same direction."

MacRae stood up. "I want to get a bath and some

sleep.... after I see Jim."

"Just a minute. Doc, do you think we'll have any real trouble
making this autonomy declaration stick?"

"It's got to stick. Relations with the Martians are eight
times as delicate as we thought they were; absentee ownership
isn't practical. Imagine trying to settle issues like this one by
taking a vote back on Earth among board members that have
never even seen a Martian."

"That's not what I mean. How much opposition will we
run into?"

MacRae scratched his chin again. "Men have had to fight
for their liberties before, Jamie. I don't know. It's up to us to
convince the folks back on Earth that autonomy is necessary.
With the food and population problem back on Earth being
what it is, they'll do anything necessary, once they realize
what we're up against, to keep the peace and continue migration.
They don't want anything to hold up the Project."

"I hope you're right."

"In the long run I have to be right. We've got the Martians
pitching on our team. Well, I'm on my way to break the news
to Jim."

"He's not going to like it," said Jim's father.
"He'll get over it. Probably he'll find another bouncer and
teach him English and call him Willis, too. Then he'll grow
up and not make pets of bouncers. It won't matter." He looked
thoughtful, and added, "But what becomes of Willis? I wish I
knew."

Jim took it well. He accepted MacRae's much expurgated
explanation and nodded. "I guess if Willis has to hibernate,
well, that's that. When they come for him, I won't make any
fuss. It was just that Howe and Beecher didn't have any right
to take him."

"That's the slant, son. But it's right for him to go with the
Martians because they know how to take care of him, when he
needs it. You saw that when you were with them."
"Yes." Jim added, "Can I visit him?"
"He won't know you. He'll be asleep."
"Well, look, when he wakes up, will he know me?"
MacRae looked grave. He had asked the old one the same
question. "Yes," he answered truthfully, "he'll have all his
memory intact." He did not give Jim the rest of the answer,
that the transition period would last more than forty Earth
years.

"Well, that won't be so bad. I'm going to be awfully busy
in school right now, anyhow."

"That's the spirit."

Jim looked up Frank and they went to their old room, vacant
of womenfolk at the moment. Jim cradled Willis in his
arms and told Frank what Doc had told him. Willis listened,
but the conversation was apparently over the little Martian's
depth; Willis made no comment.

Presently Willis became bored with it and started to sing.
The selection was the latest Willis had heard, the tango Frank
had presented to Jim: iQuien Es La Senorita?

When it was over Frank said, "You know, Willis sounds
exactly like a girl when he sings that."

Jim chuckled. iQuien Es La Senorita?, Willis?"

Willis managed to look indignant. "Willis fine boy'" she
insisted.


About the Author

Robert Anson Heinlein was born in Butler, Missouri, in 1907. A
graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he was retired, disabled, in
1934. He studied mathematics and physics at the graduate school
of the University of California and owned a silver mine before
beginning to write science fiction, in 1939. In 1947 his first book
of fiction, ROCKET SHIP GALILEO, was published. His novels
include DOUBLE STAR (1956), STARSHIP TROOPERS
(1959), STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (1961), and THE
MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS (1966), all winners of the
Hugo Award. Heinlein was guest commentator for the Apollo 11
first lunar landing. In 1975 he received the Grand Master Nebula
Award for lifetime achievement. Mr. Heinlein died in 1988.