“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 the 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.
*Aerography: equivalent to “geography” for Earth. From “Ares” Greek for Mars.
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 modern 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, “Ollie!”—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 yesterday?”
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 Ollie 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 the 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 ‘wrestling 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 liked 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 s
chool, 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, well—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’!”
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