by Bryce Walton
theMartians," Don said. "It has a pagan religious significance. The moonswere male and female, and when they--ah--united their light, theMartians held feasts, fertility rituals--highly symbolic rites."
"Only symbolic?" said Mrs. Ericson, pretending blase disappointment.
"Well," grinned Don, "the Martians were only human. Just as--ah--well--Imust say that a number of tourists have a tendency to chuck theirinhibitions during the rituals. But if not on Mars, then where?"
"I still say," yelled Mr. Ericson from his camel, "that you shouldspring a live Martian on us."
"We get plenty of calls for them," Don said. "But so far we haven't beenable to scare up any."
"What did they look like?" asked Mrs. Ericson.
"Nobody knows. The only Martians around now are--ghosts," Don said, witha strange softness. "A few old prospectors, fakirs, beggars live inthese hills--hermits. They claim they see Martians, know they're here.They believe in ghosts. The Martian sun drives them crazy."
"Like that old man we saw coming out here," said Mr. Ericson.
Don nodded. "They're dangerous. You must stay away from them, youunderstand. Or you'll get the contamination."
For the first time, Madeleine felt that Don was touching something real.She straightened. "Contamination?"
"Those crazy old guys are like lepers. They stay apart from everybodyelse. But if you go to them, you pay for it. And if you're contaminated,it'll cost. If you really get it, you can't be cured at all. You die."
No one said anything. Odd, Madeleine thought, his coming out with scaretalk. Didn't seem to be good propaganda. Then she got it, and laughed alittle. "Sensationalism," she said. "Pure bunk."
"What is this contamination?" Mr. Ericson said.
"An alien virus. Martian. Nobody's been able to isolate it. If a caseisn't too bad we cure it in the antiseptic wards, but otherwise--well,you just wither away and die in a few hours. You're all shriveled up andlook like a mummy."
"That's horrible!" whispered Mrs. Ericson.
"They're diseased fakirs who say they can read the sands, predict yourfuture, bring you paradise, for five credits. But stay away from them!"
And just at that moment, as though on cue, Madeleine thought, the oldman stepped out about fifty feet in front of Don's camel, and blockedthe narrow trail.
"Caravan halt!" Don yelled and raised his hand.
Not knowing why, laughing and exclaiming, the long line of the caravanhalted. And Madeleine stared ahead into the old man's face. The old manwas dirty, bent and very ancient and hairless, with only a soiled robeof crude but heavy cloth hanging on his frame. There was nothing thatseemed very much alive about him except his eyes.
Even he was a stereotype, she thought. The classic old hermit character.The yogi, the magi, the wise old man, the Hindu Rope Trick, look into mycrystal ball, I am the teller of the sands--
But her heart was pounding extraordinarily loud. His eyes--
Don jumped from his camel. His hands were shaking as he raised hisquirt. "Out of the way!" he shouted, then turned slightly. "Don't comeany nearer, folks! It'll be all right. I'll have him out of the way in aminute."
"We'll all be contaminated," whispered Mrs. Ericson.
"Just stay clear. You have to contact them directly to be contaminated,"Don said.
He stopped five feet from the old man and raised his quirt. The old manlooked only at Madeleine, then shook his head slowly up and down asthough reaffirming some special secret. As though he shared some secretwith her.
"Five credits," the old man said, in a loud whisper. "And I'll read thesands for you. The Martian sands know all your secrets and thetimelessness of your dreams. Let them speak to you, through me, for fivecredits."
Don swung the quirt savagely. It was heavy, and it thudded and smackedacross the old man's face and chest. He fell in the middle of the trail.
The sun wheeled crazily. Madeleine could hear her mother screaming andher father yelling as she moved, as though in a trance, toward the oldman. Her feet slipped, stumbled in the shale. The old man crawled alittle, got up, fell again.
She was screaming at Don to stop.
The old man had fallen to one side and the trail was clear now.
"Let him alone! Let him alone!" Madeleine screamed. "He's out of theway!"
"Madeleine!" Mr. Ericson shouted. "Come back! Get away from that beggar,right now, or we return to Earth in the morning!"
For the first time in her life, that she could remember, her father'sthreats meant nothing. But the old fear was there as she moved towardthe Martian hermit, on a painful tightwire of impulse between threat anddesire. She had learned that for any real feeling--fear, joy, pain oreven the dimmest-remembered pleasure, you paid a dear price. But shemoved on.
The old man's face was bleeding. She saw the long welts of red on theflesh, and the blood-flecks and tortured little broken channels of bloodcrossing it. Sound roared around her as she eluded Don's hands and kneltdown, took the old man's head in her arms. She tilted her canteen to hislips.
There was a kind of strange triumph in the old man's eyes as hepeered past her for only a moment and looked at Don. And fromsomewhere--Madeleine couldn't even tell whether it was real--came athought.
"_Madeleine--come back. Come back when you can. And you will find joy._"
Later she knew how she kicked and screamed at them as they dragged heraway. How Mrs. Ericson was embarrassed by the display, and how herfather refused to touch her because of the fear of contamination. Andher mother weeping, later, because of the disgrace and because of whatthe other guests would think.
In the shiny antiseptic ward at Martian Haven, the virus was burned outby a certain number of roentgens of carefully proportioned X-rays, gammarays and neutron bombardment. She kept thinking of the old man's eyes,of the stray thought that promised joy.
She kept seeing the old man lying off the trail among the rocks, how hehad raised himself on his elbow, and how he waggled the blood-clot ofhis head in the glaring sun as they dragged Madeleine away.
Occasionally she thought of the whole project--in Mars, Mecca of Earthtourists, Martian Haven, Dream City of the Solar System--that was socolorful and impressive and exotic to others, and she wondered if it wasall really as ridiculous as it seemed to her.
She lay there in the dark of the room as evening reached over the deadsea bottom toward the edifice that was Martian Haven. Out there in thebig amphitheatre, resurrected supposedly from old Martian ruins, MartianHaven, with all of its rich, efficient facilities and staff, waspreparing the stage, props and guests for the Love Ritual of the DoubleMoons.
The core and centerpiece of Martian Haven was a great cubistic hotel,with the two Martian canals on two sides, renovated, of course, and afive-mile-long artificial lake on a third side. It was somehow designed,in the middle of all that vast emptiness of dead sea, sand and erodedrock, to have a not-ungraceful look of insubstantiality, as though atany moment it might open great wings of some sort and take off into theMartian nowhere by which it was so overwhelmingly surrounded. The sidethat faced the lake curved in a half-moon, so that it commanded a wideprospect to the eroded hills that had once been mountains to the westand to the east thousands of unbroken miles of desert, that had once,they said, been an ocean.
When Madeleine opened her eyes, it was night. On many a starry night shehad lain inside walls not so different from these, and felt much thesame, she thought, surrounded by a desert of her own. Away off there inthe blackness, Earth shone palely--and she might as well never have leftit at all.
And then again she saw the old hermit's eyes out there in the dark, hisburning eyes where there should be only sterile emptiness in the night.And his voice calling where there would otherwise have been only thedusty echoes of an arid past.
Outside now the tourists were gathering in the double moonlight. Theweird extrapolation of Earth music that was supposed to be the strainsof Martian rhythms drifted to her, and lights flickered from burningtapers where dancers undulated and writhed f
itfully. A libidinousexpectancy was as heavy as a thick scent in the night.
Then, only for a moment, she despised herself for not being with theothers, for never having been able to participate in the futilemake-believe. She felt like a child who had never grown beyond the stageof the most old-fashioned fairy tales. Someone who had gone beyond thelooking-glass and had never been able to get back, but who had neverquite been able to forget the world from which she had come.
She could hear her parents and Don talking in the next room.
"It's a shame for her to miss the ritual of the double moons," Don said.
"She's always been that way," Mr. Ericson said. "Staying by herself."
"We've tried everything," said Mrs. Ericson.
"She's spent half her life on an analyst's couch," said Mr. Ericson.
"She wouldn't even," Mrs. Ericson said, "fall in love with her_analyst_!"
"She was only in love once," said Mr. Ericson, "and that had to be withan idiot who was always writing sonnets."
"A poet," said Don. "There used to be a lot of poets."
"But not in my life," said Mr. Ericson.
"Maybe," Don said, "your daughter expected a little bit too much fromMars."
"Don," Mrs. Ericson pleaded, "maybe _you_ can do something."
"I'll be glad to try," Don said.
So Madeleine lay there and waited for Don, the perfect host, who couldsupply everyone at Martian Haven with whatever was necessary to insure apleasant day.
Later, though she did not turn or make any sign of noticing, she knew hehad entered the room and was standing over her. She could see theperiphery of his giant shadow projected by moonlight over the coloredglass.
"Madeleine--we've got a date for the ritual tonight."
"That's odd, Don. I don't remember it."
"But you didn't say you _wouldn't_ attend it with me, when I suggestedit this morning."
"Well, Don, this is an official rejection of your proposal."
She saw his shadow bend, his body drop down beside the couch. She felthis hands on her arm. The peculiar fright went through her.
"You won't listen, Madeleine, but whatever you're looking forhere--please forget it! The rituals will help you forget. Try it,Madeleine! Please--"
Why did he, all at once, sound so desperate?
"With you?"
"Why not?"
"You're just an artificial dream, Don, that comes true seasonally forpeople so sick that they can convince themselves you're real--for aprice."
"Well, Madeleine--are you so different?"
"I guess I am."
"You just want the impossible. The others--they want little dreams wecan give them easily."
There was a strain, a tension in him, in his hands, in his voice.Suddenly, his hands held her, and his face was close above her lips."You're still young and beautiful to me," he whispered.
She turned her face away, and gazed at the tattered and splendid veilsof moonlight as Deimos and Phobos neared one another, with undyingeagerness to consummate the timeless ritual.
Dimly, she could hear the communal voices rising to desire.
"_Twin Moons, Love Moons, whirling bright, Bring me Martian love tonight!_"
If you could expect too much from Mars, then where could one find theanswer to the intangible wish? Sirius. Far Centauris. And at the end ofit, the hucksters, the phony props, would be there first.
Some people should stay on Earth, she thought, those who are so hard toplease. There the veils of space and time might keep the last illusionsliving. Once you find that even the farthest star is illusory, there'sno place left to go.
His lips were near her lips. His voice was low. "You are different!" Histhroat trembled. "You really are. But--I wonder if you're differentenough."
She was aware of the awful gnawing emptiness within her that was onlyintense desire too frightened to be free. And then his lips werecrushing to hers and she allowed it, for she knew what was to be heronly way out, and the promise of union was a haze in the room like theveils of light from the moons of Mars that joined against the starlightof heaven.
There was more than the ardent in his intensity. A kind of desperation,his desire to please going beyond the line of duty. The old consumingterror returned.
She pushed him away. His hands reached, his body crushed. Panic. Shefelt unable to breathe, and she started to scream. His hand was over hermouth.
"Don't look any deeper, don't probe any farther!" he said, like asuddenly terrible threat. "I beg you, don't do it! You'redifferent--beautifully different, Madeleine. But not different enough!None of them ever are!"
She squirmed away, onto the floor between the glass and the couch, andscurried toward the door. She could hear the gasping, the sobbingdesperation in his voice, and his shadow lengthened across the walls.
Then, as she hesitated in the doorway, he was gone.
She put on a nylon hiking suit and left the room. The silence of thehall was not real, and the emptiness was not really emptiness. It waslike waking and being exasperatingly aware of only the fleeting end of adream. And as she slipped out a side entrance, even the wailing ofexotic musical instruments seemed in a sense not real. Even the silence,the feeling of being followed, watched, even that seemed artificial--itwas impossible to substantiate the suspicion.
Her palms were wet as she slipped along the wall toward the garage wherethe sandsleds were kept. From the amphitheatre she could hear therituals, the intercessions, comminations, hymns, libations,incense-burning, and who knew what else. She saw the reflection ofchrome and artificial glitter disguised as Martian authenticity, thelights hanging like a grove of pastel moons, and the shrill emptylaughter of girls uncoiling as bright as tinsel through the sluggishMartian evening. And in spite of the sound and elaborate pretension, itall had the undying feel of lugubrious solitude.
It had, for a doomed generation driven into inescapable conformity, thenecessary quality of a dream in which a stubborn unconsciousness seeksever for truth. And later, back on Earth, in the rut and groove, itwould remain only a dream no one ever talked about to anyone else. Afterall, it would simply be something that happened on another world.
She gave one brief, bitter laugh. And even on another world the lastdesperate dream was false.
There might be something to be said for release through a pagan orgyunder the double moons; she had no moral scruples about it. But thepaganism would have to be real, that was the thing. Besides, it was toolate. For a moment she pressed her flattened hands against her face andfelt tears squeezing through the tightly-locked fingers. She felt asthough she might explode somewhere inside and realized how the invisibleedges of living had cut her soul to pieces.
It wasn't even self-pity any more. It had grown above self-pity to arealism beyond tragedy.
She felt icy and empty and alone as she lit a cigarette. Through thetaper smoke, the glowing amphitheatre seemed like a golden porpoiselapped in dawn, and coupled with the expanse of the Haven it nestled inthe night to resemble a sleeping question mark, an entity gay and sadand full of what was called life.
There was no turning back now. There was no turning back, even to Earth,for that would be the most humiliating defeat of all.
Then she was inside the first sandsled. The sled moved noiselessly outof the garage and whispered away over the sands.
After only a few minutes the radio frightened her with an abrupt voicelike that of a disembodied spirit.
"Madeleine!"
She looked back through the trailing skeins of moonlight. A dark spotwas overtaking her. She couldn't go any faster. Evidently Don had one ofthose racing sleds that hardly seemed to touch the sand at all.
"Madeleine! Please--for God's sake, don't see that old hermit!"
"For the sake of which God, Don? I understand the Martians had more thanone."
"Madeleine! I'm begging you to come back!"
"Why?"
"You know why."
"The contamination!" She laughed.
"Your melodramatic devices don'tfrighten me."
"It's true. You'll die--! Come back!"
"To what?"
"We'll talk about it! Just come back!"
"What's so dangerous, Don, about my not accepting things here as they'resupposed to be?"
His voice tightened. "Just stop, stop and come back!"
She didn't stop, didn't bother to answer. She circled the sandsled amongthe hills, skirting the rocky clefts with a reckless abandon she hadnever felt before, and her face was flushed as she leaned her head backand laughed.
"Madeleine!"
It was the last time he called to her. After that, the silence conveyedan intensity of purpose far stronger than verbal entreaties.
She swerved the sandsled dangerously among the erosions, and felt thegrinding strain at the base of her skull as the sled bounded from onespire and careened toward another, which she barely avoided smashinginto head-on.
She recognized the area. She leaped out of the car and ran, hearing thepursuing sandsled stop somewhere below her as she climbed.
For an instant dizziness threatened, and the surroundings and themotions of Don and herself and the love moons in the sky seemed wildly,almost dangerously abstracted, as if viewed through drug-glazed eyes. Apanicky wash of blood came to her face and she struggled for breath,wanting to cry out. It passed. Her mind
