by Greg Bear
In a few minutes, I was alone on the field of ruins. I sat on a weather-pocked boulder and took out my sketchbook. I mapped the directions from which we had been approached and attacked and compared them with the site of the eggs we had found. What I was looking for, with such ridiculously slim evidence, was a clear pattern of migration—say, from the hatcheries in a line with the sunrise. Nothing came of it.
Disgusted at my desperation, I got lost in a fog of something approaching misery when I glanced up … And jumped to my feet so fast I leaped a good three feet into the air, twisting my ankle as I came down. Two white Martians stared at me with their wide, blank gray eyes, eyelashes as long and expressive as a camel’s. The fingers on their hands—each had three arms, but only two legs—shivered like mouse-whiskers, not nervous but seeking information. We had been too involved fending them off before to take note of their features. Now, at a loss what to do, I had all the time in the world.
Three long webbed toes, leathery and dead-looking like sticks, met an odd two-jointed ankle which even now I can’t reproduce on paper. Their thighs were knotted with muscles and covered with red and white stippled fur. They could hop or run like frightened deer—that much I knew from experience. Their hips were thickly furred. They defied my few semesters of training in biology by having trilateral symmetry between hips and neck, and bilateral below the hips. Three arms met at ingenious triangular shoulders, rising to short necks and mouse-like faces. Their ears were mounted atop their heads and could fan out like unfolded directennas, or hide away if rough activity threatened them.
The Martians were fast when they wanted to be, and I had no idea what else they could eat besides the ruins, so I made no false moves.
One whickered like a horse, its voice reedy and distant in the thin atmosphere. The noise must have been impressively loud to reach my small, helmeted ears. It looked behind itself, twisting its head one-eighty to look as its behind-arm scratched a tuft of hair on its right shoulder. The back fur rippled appreciatively. Parrot-like, the head returned to calmly stare at me.
After half an hour, I sat down again on the boulder. I could still see the lander and the linear glint of the glider wings, but there was no sign of Cobb or Linker. Nobody was searching for me. My suit was getting cold. Slowly, I checked my battery pack gauge and saw it was showing low charge. Cautiously, in distinct stages, I stood and brushed my pressure suit. The Martian to my right jerked, fingers trembling, but I held my pose, apprehensive. With a swift motion, with its behind-arm it pulled a green, fibrous piece of aqueduct-bridge girder from its stiff rump fur and held it out to me. The piece was about thirty centimeters long, chewed all around.
I straightened, extended one hand and accepted the gift.
Without further ado, the Martians twisted around and bounded across the plateau, running and leaping in alternation.
Clutching my gift, I returned to the lander. By the time I arrived, my feet and fingers were numb.
The tripod lay on the ground, legs broken. The laser was nowhere to be seen. I had a moment’s panic, thinking the lander had been attacked—but since I had kept it in sight, that didn’t seem likely.
I climbed into the lander’s primary lock. Inside, Linker clutched the laser in both hands, one finger resting lightly, nervously, on the unsheathed and delicate scandium-garnet rod. Cobb sat on the opposite side of the cabin, barely two meters from Linker, fuming.
“What in hell is going on?” I asked, puffing on my fingers and stamping my feet.
“Listen, Thoreau,” Cobb said bitterly, “while you were out communing with nature, Mr. Gandhi here decided to make sure we can’t harm any of the sweet little creatures.”
I turned to Linker, focusing on his finger and the garnet. “What in hell are you doing?”
“I’m not sure, Dan,” he answered calmly, face blank. “I have a firm conviction, that’s all I know. I have to be firm. Otherwise I’ll be just like you and Cobb.”
“I have a conviction, too,” Cobb said. “I’m convinced you’re nuts.”
“You’re seriously thinking about breaking that garnet?” I asked.
“Damned serious.”
“We can fight them off with other things if we have to,” I reasoned. “The assay charges, the core sample gun—”
“Don’t give Cobb any more ideas,” Linker said.
“But we can’t talk to Willy if you break that garnet.”
“Cobb saw two of the Winter Troops. He was going to take a pot-shot at them with this.” Linker lifted the laser.
I blinked for a few seconds, feeling myself flush with anger. “Jesus. Cobb, is that true?”
“I was sighting on them, in case there were more.”
“Were you going to shoot?”
“If it was convenient. They might have been a vanguard.”
“That’s not very rational,” I observed.
“I’m not sure I’m being rational, either,” Linker said, fully aware how fragmented we now were, the sadness we felt rising to the surface. His eyes were doglike, searching my face for understanding, or at least a way to understand himself.
“I’ll do anything necessary to make sure we all survive,” Cobb said. “If that means killing a few Martians, I’ll do it. If it means overruling the mission commander, I’ll do that, too.”
“He refused to put the laser down, even when I gave him a direct order. That’s mutiny.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Cobb said.
“I won’t vouch for your sanity,” I said to Linker. “Not if you break that garnet. And I won’t vouch for Cobb’s, either. Taking pot-shots at possibly intelligent aliens.” I remembered the stick. Damn it, they were intelligent! They had to be, advancing on a stranger and giving him a gift … “I don’t know what sort of speculative First Contact training we should have had, but in spirit if not in letter, Linker has to be closer to the ideal than you.”
“We should be testing the brace on the pad and leveling the field in front of the glider,” Cobb said. “When we get out to orbit, we can argue philosophy all the way home. And to get home, we need the laser.”
Linker nodded. “Let’s just agree not to use it for anything but communication.”
I looked at Cobb, finally making my decision, and wondering whether I was crazy, too. “I think Linker’s right.”
“OK,” Cobb said softly. “But there’s going to be a hell of a row after we debrief.”
“That’s an understatement,” I said.
This record, even if it survives, will probably be kept in the administration files for fifty or sixty years—or longer—to “protect the feelings of the families.” But who can gainsay the judgment of the folks who put us here? Not I, humble Thoreau on Mars, as Cobb described me.
I did not reveal the stick gift to my crewmates until the laser had been remounted in the lander. I simply lay it on the table, wrapped in an airtight, transparent specimen bag, while we rested and sipped hot chocolate.
Linker was the first to pick it up. He looked at me, puzzled.
“We have enough samples, don’t we?” he asked.
“It’s been chewed on,” I pointed out, reaching to run my finger along the stick’s surface. I told them about the two Martians. Cobb looked decidedly uncomfortable.
“Did they chew on it in your presence?” Linker asked.
“No.”
“Maybe they were exchanging food,” Cobb said. “A peace offering?” His expression was sad, as if all the energy and anger had been drained and nothing was left but regret.
“It’s more than food,” Linker said. “It’s like stick-writing … Ogham. The Irish and Britons used something similar centuries ago. Notches on the side of a stone or stick—a kind of alphabet. But this is more complex. Here—there’s an oval—”
“Unless it’s a tooth-mark,” I said.
“Whet
her it’s a tooth-mark or not, it isn’t random. There are five long marks beside it, and one mark about half the length of the others. That’s about equal to one Deimotic month—five and a half days.” My respect for Linker increased. He raised his eyebrows, looking for confirmation, and started to hand the stick to me, then stopped and swung it around to Cobb. Mission commander, re-integrating a disgruntled crewmember. A mist of tears came to my eyes.
“I don’t think they’ve reached a high level of technology yet,” Linker said.
Cobb looked up from the gift and grinned. “Technology?”
“They built the walls and structures Willy saw. I don’t think any of us can argue that they’re not intent on changing their environment. Unless we make asses out of ourselves and say their work is no more significant than a beaver dam, it’s obvious they’re advancing rapidly. They might use notched sticks for relaying information.”
“So what’s this?” I asked, pointing to the gift.
“Maybe it’s a subpoena,” Linker said.
While I’ve been recording the above, Cobb has gone outside to see how long it will take to clear the glider path. The field was chosen to be free of boulders, but anything bigger than a fist could skew us dangerously. The sleds have been deployed. I’ve finished tamping the braces on the pad. The glider and capsule check out. In an hour we’ll lase a message to Willy and give our estimate on launch and rendezvous.
Willy tells us that most of Mesogaea and Memnonia are covered with walls. Meridiani Sinus, according to his telescopic observations, has been criss-crossed with roads or trails. The white Martians are using the old, sand-filled black resin reservoirs for some purpose unknown. Edom Crater is as densely packed as a city. All this in less than two days. There must be millions of hatchlings at work.
I’ll pause again now and supervise the glider power-up.
Linker and Cobb are dead.
Jesus, that hurts to write.
We had just tested the RATO automatic timers when a horde of Winter Troops marched across the plateau, about ninety deep and four kilometers abreast. I’m certain they weren’t out to get us. It was one of those migrational sweeps, a screwball mass survey of geography, and incidentally a leveling of all the aqueduct-bridges from the last cycle.
They had given us our chance. Tested our nature and will. We didn’t answer.
They caught Linker a half-kilometer from the lander. He had just finished clearing the path. I think they trampled him. They were moving faster than a man can run. I imagine his face, eyebrows rising in query.
Maybe he even tried to smile or greet them, lifting a hand …
I can’t get that out of my head. I have to concentrate.
Cobb knew exactly what to do. I think he didn’t mount the laser solidly, leaving a few brackets loose enough so he could unship it and bring it down, ready for hand use at a minute’s notice. He took it outside the ship with just helmet and oxygen—it’s about five or six degrees outside, daylight—and fired on the Winter Troops just before they reached the glider. There are dead and dying or blinded Martians all along the edge of the path.
They paid their casualties no heed. They did not bother with us, just pushed around and through, touching nothing, staying away from the area Cobb was sweeping—the edge of the path. They can climb like monkeys. They dropped over the rim of the plateau.
They didn’t touch Cobb. The frayed cord on the laser killed him when he stepped on it coming back in.
Where was I? Inside the glider, monitoring the power-up. I couldn’t hear a thing. It was all over by the time I got outside.
The laser is gone, but we’ve already sent our data to Willy. I have the return message. That’s all I need for the moment. The glider and capsule are powered and ready. I’ll launch it by myself. I can do that.
When Willy’s position is right. The timer is going. Everything will be automatic. I’ll make it to orbit. Two hours. Less.
I can’t bring their bodies with me. I could, but what use? There are no facilities for dead astronauts aboard the orbiter. What hurts is I’ll have a better margin with them gone—more fuel for the return. I did not want it that way, I never thought of that, I swear to God.
The glider wings are crackling in the wind. The wind is coming at a perfect angle, thin but fast, about two hundred kilometers an hour. Enough to feel if I were outside.
I trust in an awful lot now that Linker and Cobb are gone. Maybe it’ll be over soon and I can stop this writing and stop feeling this pain.
Waiting. Just the right instant for launch. Timers, everything on auto. I sit helpless and wait. My last instructions: three buttons and an instruction to the remotes to expand the wings to take-off width and increase tension. Like a square-rigger. They check okay, flat and level now, waiting for the best gust and RATO fire. Then they’ll drop into the proper configuration, dragonfly wings for high atmosphere.
I spent some time learning Martian anatomy as I cleared the path of the few Cobb had let through. There are still a couple out there. I don’t think I’ll run them over.
I killed one as a mercy. It was still alive, writhing, in the Martian equivalent of pain. Pain/Cain. I spiked it in the head with a rock pick. It died just like we do.
Linker died innocent.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Here it comes. RATOs on.
I’m in the first jet-stream. Second wing mode—fore and aft foils have been jettisoned. I’m riding directly into the black wind. I can see stars, can see Mars red and brown and gray below.
Third wing mode. All wings jettisoned. Falling, my stomach says. Main engines on the capsule are firing and I’m free of the glider framework. I can see the glare and feel the punch and the wings are twirling far down to port like a child’s toy.
In low, uncertain orbit.
Willy’s coming.
Last orbit before going home. Willy looked awfully good. I climbed inside of him through the transfer tunnel and requested a long drink of miserable orbiter water. “Hey, Willy Ley,” I said, “you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Of course, all he did was take care of me. No accusations. He’s the only friend I have now.
I spoke to mission control an hour ago. That was not easy. I’m sitting by the telescope, having pushed Willy’s sensors out of the way, doing my own surveying and surmising.
So far, the Winter Troops—I assume they’re responsible—have zoned and partially built up Mare Tyrennhum, Hesperia, and Mare Cimmerium. They’ve done something I can’t decipher or really describe in Aethiopis. By now I’m sure they’ve got to the old expedition landers in Syrtis Major and Minor. I don’t know what they’ll do with them. Maybe add them to the road-building material.
Maybe understand them.
I have no idea what they’re like, no idea at all. I can’t. We can’t. They move too fast, grow along instinctive lines, perhaps. Instinct for culture and technology. They may not be intelligent in the way we define intelligence, not as individuals, anyway. But they do move.
Perhaps they’re just resurrecting what their ancestors left them fifty, a hundred thousand years ago, before the long, warm, wet Spring of Mars drove them underground and brought up the sprouts of aqueduct-bridges.
At any rate, I’ve been in orbit for a week and a half. They’ve gone from cradle to sky in that time.
I’ve seen their balloons.
And I’ve seen the distant fires of their rockets, icy blue and sharp like hydroxy torches. They seem to be running tests. In a few days, they’ll have it.
Beware, Control. These brave lads will go far.
Schrödinger’s Plague
I rarely get ideas that can be expressed in 2500 words or less. Short fiction is difficult at best, but short short fiction is damned near impossible for me. I’ve only managed the trick a couple of times. This one is the best of my efforts. It’s also my
only epistolary story—a tale told through letters.
One of my fondest memories is of handing this story to Poul Anderson, my father-in-law, when Astrid and I were in Orinda for a family visit. Poul took the issue of Analog into his back office to read the story. A few minutes later, I heard a loud guffaw. Perfect!
I think I know the point in the story where Poul laughed.
According to some physicists (Gregory Benford and John Cramer) the physics behind this story is bogus. Your assignment for the week is to find out why. Your only clue: John Bell.
Kranz to Dietrich
Werner: It must have been in the system since just before the events, so a month at least. Copies enclosed of the appropriate entries. The rest, I think, is irrelevant and private. I’d like to return the journal to Richard’s estate. The police would probably hold it. And—well, I have other reasons for wanting to keep it to ourselves. For the moment, anyway. Examine the papers carefully. As a physicist, tell me if there’s anything in them you find completely unbelievable. If not, more thought should be applied to the whole problem.
P.S. I’m verifying the loss from Bernard’s lab now. Lots of hush-hush over there. It’s definite Bernard was working on a government CBW contract, apparently in defiance of the university’s guidelines. ?—How did Goa get access to the materials? Tight security over there.
Enc.: five pages.
The Journal
April 15, 1981
Today has been a puzzler. Marty convened an informal meeting of the Hydroxyl Radicals for lunch—on him. In attendance, the physics contingent: Martin Goa himself, Frederik Newman, and the new member, Kaye (pr: Kie) Parkes; the biologists, Oscar Bernard and yours truly; and the sociologist, Thomas Fauch. We met outside the lounge, and Marty took us to the auxiliary physics building to give us a brief tour of an experiment. Nothing spectacular. Then back to the lounge for lunch. Why he should waste our time thus is beyond me. Call it intuition, but something is up. Bernard is a bit upset for reason or reasons unknown.
May 14, 1981
Radicals convened again today, at lunch. Some of the most absurd shit I’ve ever heard in my life. Marty at it again. The detail is important here.
