A Martian Ricorso

                 a short story by Greg Bear

                 Note: only available until the end of July

                 2000

                 Martian night. The cold and the dark and the stars

                 are so intense they make music, like a faint tinkle of

                 ice xylophones. Maybe it's my air tank hose scraping;

                 maybe it's my imagination. Maybe it's real.

                 Standing on the edge of Swift Plateau, I'm afraid to

                 move or breathe deeply, as I whisper into the helmet

                 recorder, lest I disturb something holy: God's sharp

                 scrutiny of Edom Crater. I've gone outside, away

                 from the lander and my crewmates, to order my

                 thoughts about what has happened.

                 The Martians came just twelve hours ago, like a tide

                 of five-foot-high laboratory rats running and leaping

                 on their hind legs. To us, it seemed as if they were

                 storming the lander, intent on knocking it over. But it

                 seems now we were merely in their way.

                 We didn't just sit here and let them swamp us. We

                 didn't hurt or kill any of them--Cobb beat at them

                 with a roll of foil and I used the parasol of the

                 damaged directenna to shoo them off. First contact,

                 and we must have looked like clowns in an old silent

                 comedy. The glider wings came perilously close to

                 being severely damaged. We foiled and doped what

                 few tears had been made before nightfall. They

                 should suffice, if the polymer sylar adhesive is as

                 good as advertised.

                 But our luck this expedition held true to form. The

                 stretching frame's pliers broke during the repairs. We

                 can't afford another swarm, even if they're just

                 curious.

                 Cobb and Link have had bitter arguments about

                 self-defense. I've managed to stay out of them so far,

                 but my sympathies at the moment lie with Cobb. Still,

                 my instinctual desire to stay alive won't stop me from

                 feeling horribly guilty if we do have to kill a few

                 Martians.

                 We've had quite a series of revelation the last few

                 days. Schiaparelli was right. And Percival Lowell,

                 the eccentric genius of my own home state. He was

                 not as errant an observer as we've all thought this

                 past century.

                 I have an hour before I have to return to the lander

                 and join my mates in sleep. I can last here in the cold

                 that long. Loneliness may weigh on me sooner,

                 however. I don't know why I came out here; perhaps

                 just to clear my head, we've all been in such a

                 constrained, tightly controlled, oh-so-disguised

                 panic. I need to know what I think of the whole

                 situation, without benefit of comrades.

                 The plateau wall and the floor of Edom are so

                 barren. With the exception, all around me, of the

                 prints of thousands of feet... Empty and lifeless.

                 Tomorrow morning we'll brace the crumpled

                 starboard sled pads and rig an emergency automatic

                 release for the RATO units on the glider. Her wings

                 are already partially spread for a fabric inspection --

                 accomplished just before the Winter Troops

                 attacked--and we've finished transferring fuel from

                 the lander to the orbit booster. When the glider gets

                 us up above the third jet stream, by careful tacking

                 we hope to be in just the right position to launch our

                 little capsule up and out. A few minutes burn and we

                 can dock with the orbiter if Willy is willing to pick

                 us up.

                 If we don't make it, these records will be all there is

                 to explain, on some future date, why we never made

                 it back. I'll feed the helmet memory into the lander

                 telterm, stacked with flight telemetry and other data

                 in computer-annotated garble, and instruct the

                 computer to store it all on hard-copy glass disks.

                 The dust storm that sand-scrubbed our directenna and

                 forced me to this expedient subsided two days ago.

                 We have not reported our most recent discovery to

                 mission control; we are still organizing our thoughts.

                 After all, it's a momentous occasion. We don't want

                 to make any slips and upset the folks back on Earth.

                 Here's the situation on communications. We can no

                 longer communicate directly with Earth. We are left

                 with the capsule radio, which Willy can pick up and

                 boost for re-broadcast whenever the conditions are

                 good enough. At the moment, conditions are terrible.

                 The solar storm that dogged our Icarus heels on the

                 way out, forcing us deep inside Willy's capacious

                 hull, is still active. The effect on the Martian

                 atmosphere has been most surprising.

                 There's a communicator on the glider body as well,

                 but that's strictly short-range and good for little more

                 than telemetry. So we have very garbled

                 transmissions going out, reasonably clear coming

                 back, and about twenty minutes of complete blackout

                 when Willy is out of line of sight, behind or below

                 Mars.

                 We may be able to hit Willy with the surveyor's

                 laser, adapted for signal transmission. For the

                 moment we're going to save that for the truly

                 important communications, like time of launch and

                 approximate altitude, calculated from the fuel we

                 have left after the transfer piping exploded.... was it

                 three days ago? When the night got colder than the

                 engineers thought possible and exceeded the specs

                 on the insulation.

                 I'm going back in now. It's too much out here. Too

                 dark. No moons visible.

  

                 Now at the telterm keyboard. Down to meaningful

                 monologue.

                 Mission Commander Linker, First Pilot Cobb, and

                 myself, Mission Specialist Mercer, have finished

                 ninety percent of the local survey work and

                 compared it with Willy's detailed mapping. What

                 we've found is fascinating.

                 At one time there were lines on Mars, stripes like

                 canals. Until a century ago, any good telescope on

                 Earth, on a good night, could have revealed them for

                 a sharp-eyed observer. As the decades went by, it

                 was not the increased skill of astronomers and the

                 quality of instruments that erased these lines, but the

                 end of the final century of the Anno Fecundis. Is my

                 Latin proper? I have no dictionary to consult.

                 With the end of the Fertile Year, a thousand centuries

                 long, came the first bleak sandy winds and the

                 lowering of the Martian jet streams. They picked up

                 sand and scoured.

                 The structures must have been like fairy palaces

                 before they were swept down. I once saw a

                 marketplace full of empty vinegar jugs in the

                 Philippines, made from melted Coca Cola bottles.

                 They used glass so thin you could break them with a

                 thumbnail tap in the right place--but they easily held

                 twenty or thirty gallons of liquid. These colonies

                 must have looked like grape-clusters of thousands of

                 thin glass vinegar bottles, dark as emeralds, mounted

                 on spider-web stilts and fed with water pumped

                 through veins as big as Roman aqueducts. We

                 surveyed one field and found the fragments buried in

                 red sand across a strip thirty miles wide. From a

                 mile or so up, the edge of the structure can still be

                 seen, if you know where to look.

                 Neither of the two previous expeditions found them.

                 They're ours.

                 Linker believes these ribbons once stretched clear

                 around the planet. Before the sand storm, Willy's

                 infrared mapping proved him correct. We could

                 trace belts of ruins in almost all the places Lowell

                 had mapped--even the civic centers some of his

                 followers said he saw. Aqueducts laced the planet

                 like the ribs on a basketball, meeting at ocean-sized

                 black pools covered with glassy membranes. The

                 pools were filled by a thin purple liquid, a kind of

                 resin, warming in the sun, undergoing photosynthesis.

                 The resin was pumped at high pressure through tissue

                 and glass tubes, nourishing the plantlike colonies

                 inhabiting the bottles. They probably lacked any sort

                 of intelligence. But their architectural feats put all of

                 ours to shame, nonetheless.

                 Sandstorms and the rapidly drying weather of the last

                 century are still bringing down the delicate

                 structures. Ninety-five percent or more have fallen

                 already, and the rest are too rickety to safely

                 investigate. They are still magnificent. Standing on

                 the edge of a plain of broken bottles and shattered

                 pylons stretching to the horizon, we can't help but

                 feel very young and very small.

                 A week ago, we discovered they've left spores

                 buried deep in the red-orange sand, tougher than

                 coconuts and about the size of medicine balls.

                 Six days ago, we learned that Mars provides

                 children for all his seasons. Digging for ice lenses

                 that Willy had located, we came across a cache of

                 leathery eggshells in a cavern shored up with a

                 translucent organic cement. We didn't have time to

                 investigate thoroughly. We managed to take a few

                 samples of the cement--scrupulously avoiding

                 disturbing the eggs--and vacated before our tanks ran

                 out. While cutting out the samples, we noticed that

                 the walls had been patterned with hexagonal

                 carvings, whether as a structural aid or decoration

                 we couldn't tell.

                 Yesterday, that is, about twenty-six hours ago, we

                 saw what we believe must be the hatchlings: the

                 Winter Troops, five or six of them, walking along the

                 edge of the plateau, not much more than white specks

                 from where we sat in the lander.

                 We took the sand sled five kilometers from the

                 landing to investigate the cache again, and to see

                 what Willy's mapping revealed as the last standing

                 fragments of an aqueduct bridge in our vicinity. We

                 didn't locate our original cache. Collapsed caverns

                 filled with leathery egg skins pocked the landscape.

                 More than sandstorms had been at the ruins. The

                 bridges rested on the seeds of their own destruction--

                 packs of kangaroo-rat Winter Troops crawled over

                 the structure like ants on a carcass, breaking off bits,

                 eating or just cavorting like sand fleas.

                 Linker named them. He snapped pictures

                 enthusiastically. As a trained exobiologist, he was in

                 a heat of excitement and speculation. His current

                 theory is that the Winter Troops are on a binge of

                 destruction, programmed into their genes and

                 irrevocable. We retreated on the sled, unsure

                 whether we might be swamped as well.

                 Linker babbled--pardon me, expounded--all the way

                 back to the lander. "It's like Giambattista Vico

                 resurrected from the historian's boneyard!" We

                 barely listened; Linker was way over our heads.

                 "Out with the old, in with the new! Vico's historical

                 ricorso exemplified."

                 Cobb and I were much less enthusiastic.

                 "Indiscriminate buggers," he grumbled. "How long

                 before they find us?"

                 I had no immediate reaction. As in every situation in

                 my life, I decided to sit on my emotions and wait

                 things out.

                 Cobb was prescient. Unluckily for us, our lander and

                 glider rise above the ground like a stray shard of an

                 aqueduct-bridge. At that stage of their young lives,

                 the Winter Troops couldn't help but swarm over

                 everything. An hour ago, I braved the hash and our

                 own confusion and sent out descriptions of our find.

                 So far, we've received no reply to our requests for

                 First Contact instructions. The likelihood was so

                 small nobody planned for it. The message was

                 probably garbled.

                 But enough pessimism. Where does this leave us, so

                 far, in our speculations?

                 Gentlemen, we sit on the cusp between cycles. We

                 witness the end of the green and russet Mars of

                 Earth's youth, ribbed with fairy bridges and

                 restrained seas, and come upon a grimmer, more

                 practical world, buttoning down for the long winter.

                 We haven't studied the white Martians in any detail,

                 so there's no way of knowing whether or not they're

                 intelligent. They may be the new masters of Mars.

                 How do we meet them--passively, as Linker seems

                 to think we should, or as Cobb believes: defending

                 ourselves against creatures who may or may not

                 belong to our fraternal order of Thinkers?

                 What can we expect if we don't defend ourselves?

                 Let your theologians and exobiologists speculate on

                 that. Are we to be the first to commit the sin of an

                 interplanetary Cain? Or are the Martians?

                 It will take us nine or ten hours tomorrow to brace

                 the lander pads. Our glider sits with sylar wings

                 half-flexed, crinkling and snapping in the rising

                 wind, silver against the low sienna hills of the Swift

                 Plateau.

                 Sunlight strikes the top of the plateau. Pink sky to the

                 East; fairy bridges, fairy landscape! Pink and

                 dreamlike. Ice-crystal clouds obscure a faded curtain

                 of aurora. The sky overhead is black as obsidian.

                 Between the pink sunrise and the obsidian is a band

                 of hematite, a dark rainbow like carnival glass,

                 possibly caused by crystalline powder from the

                 aqueduct bridges elevated into the jetstreams. From

                 our vantage on the plateau, we can see dust devils

                 crossing Edom's eastern rim and the tortured mounds

                 and chasms of the Moab-Marduk range, rising like

                 the pillars of some ancient temple. Boaz and Jachin,

                 perhaps.

                 Since writing the above, I've napped for an hour or

                 so. Willy relayed a new chart. He's found

                 construction near the western rim of Edom

                 Crater--recent construction, not there a few days ago

                 when the area was last surveyed. Hexagonal

                 formations--walls and what could be roads. From his

                 altitude, they must rival the Great Wall of China.

                 How could such monumental works be erected in

                 just days? Were they missed on the previous passes?

                 Not likely.

                 So there we have it. The colonies that erected the

                 aqueduct-bridges were not the only architects on

                 Mars. The Winter Troops are demonstrating their

                 skills. But are they intelligent, or just following some

                 instinctual imperative? Or both?

                 Both men are sleeping again now. They've been

                 working hard, as have I, and their sleep is sound.

                 The telterm clicking doesn't wake them. I can't sleep

                 much--no more than a hour at a stretch before I

                 awake in a sweat. My body is running on

                 supercharge and I'm not ready to resort to

                 tranquilizers. So here I sit, endlessly observing.

                 Linker is the largest of us. Though I worked with him

                 for three years before this mission, and we have

                 spent over eight months in close quarters, I hardly

                 know the man. He's not a quiet man, and he's always

                 willing to express his opinions, but he still surprises

                 me. He has a way of raising his eyebrows when he

                 listens, opening his dark eyes wide and wrinkling his

                 forehead, that reminds me of a dog cocking its ears.

                 But it would have to be a devilishly bright dog.

                 Perhaps I haven't plumbed Linker's depths because

                 I'd go in over my head if I tried. He's certainly more

                 dedicated than either Cobb or I. He's been in the

                 USN for twenty-one years, fifteen of them in space,

                 specializing in planetary geology and half a dozen

                 other disciplines.

                 Cobb, on the other hand, can be read like a book. He

                 tends toward bulk, more in appearance than mass; he

                 weighs only a little more than I do. He's shorter and

                 works with a frown; it seems to take twice his

                 normal concentration to finish some tasks. I do him

                 no injustice by saying that; he gets the work done,

                 and well, but it costs him more than it would Linker.

                 The extra effort sometimes takes the edge off his

                 nonessential reasoning. He's not light on his mental

                 feet, particularly in a situation like this. Doggedness

                 and quick reflexes brought him to his prominence in

                 the Mars lander program; I respect him none the less

                 for that, but.... He tends to the technical, loving

                 machines more than men, I've often thought, and from

                 my more liberal arts background, I've resented that.

                 Linker and I once had him close to tears on the

                 outward voyage. We conversed on five or six

                 subjects at once, switching topics every three or four

                 minutes. It was a cruel game and neither of us are

                 proud of it, but I for one can peg part of the blame on

                 the mission designers. Three is too small a

                 community for a three year mission in space. Hell.

                 Space has been billed as making children out of us

                 all, eh? A two-edged sword.

                 I have (as certain passages above might indicate)

                 been thinking about the Bible lately. My old

                 childhood background has been stimulated by the

                 danger and moral dilemmas--hair of the dog that bit

                 me. The maps of Mars, with their Biblical names,

                 have contributed to my thoughts. We're not far from

                 Eden as gliders go. We sit in fabled Moab, above the

                 Moab-Marduk range, Marduk being one of the chief

                 "baals" in the Old Testament. Edom Crater--Edom

                 means red, an appropriate name for a Martian crater.

                 I have red hair. Call me Esau!

                 Mesogaea--Middle Earth. Other hair, other dogs.

  

                 Back on the recorder again. Time weighs heavily on

                 me. I've retreated to the equipment bay to weather a

                 bit of grumpiness between Linker and Cobb.

                 Actually, it was an out and out argument. Linker, still

                 the pacifist, expressed his horror of committing

                 murder against another species. His scruples are

                 oddly selective--he fought in Eritrea in the nineties.

                 Neither has been restrained by rank; this could lead

                 to really ugly confrontations, unless danger

                 straightens us all out and makes brothers of us.

                 Three comrades, good and true, tolerant of different

                 opinions.

                 Oh, God, here they come again! I'm looking out the

                 equipment bay port, looking East. They must number

                 five or six thousand, lining a distant hill like Indians.

                 That many attacking.... Cobb can have his way, and it

                 won't matter, we'll still have had the course. If they

                 rip a section of wing sylar larger than we can stretch

                 by hand, we're stuck.

  

                 That was close. Cobb fired bursts of the surveyor's

                 laser over their heads. Enough dust had been raised

                 by their movement and by the wind to make a fine

                 display. They moved back slowly and then vanished

                 behind the hill. The laser is powerful enough to burn

                 them should the necessity arise.

                 Linker has as much as said he'd rather die than

                 extend the sin of Cain. I'm less worried about that sin

                 than I am about lifting off. We have yet to brace the

                 sled pad. Linker's out below the starboard hatch

                 now, rigging the sling that will keep one section of

                 the glider body level when the RATOs fire.

                 More dust to the East now. Night is coming slowly.

                 After the sun sets, it'll be too cold to work outside

                 for long. If the Winter Troops are water-based, how

                 do they survive the night? Anti-freeze in their blood,

                 like Arctic fish? Can they keep up their activity in

                 temperatures between fifty and one hundred below?

                 Or will we be out of danger until sunrise, with the

                 Martians warm in their blankets, and we in our

                 trundle-bed, nightmaring?

  

                 I've helped Linker rig the sling. We've all worked on

                 the sled pad. Cobb has mounted the laser on a

                 television tripod--clever warrior. Linker advised

                 him to beware the fraying power cable. Cobb looked

                 at him with a sad sort of resentment and went about

                 his work. Other than the few bickerings and

                 personality games of the trip out, we managed to

                 keep respect for one another until the last few days.

                 Now we're slipping. At one time, I had the fantasy

                 we'd all finish the mission lifetime friends, visiting

                 each other years after, comparing pictures of our

                 grandchildren and complaining about the quality of

                 young officers after our retirement. What a dream.

                 Steam rises from the hoarfrost accumulated during

                 the night. It vanishes like a tramp after dinner.

                 Should we wish to send a message to Willy now, we

                 shall have to unship the laser and remount it. The

                 hash has increased and Willy says his pickup is

                 deteriorating.

                 More ice falls during the night. Linker kept track of

                 them. My insomnia has communicated itself to

                 him--ideal for standing long watches. Ice falls are

                 more frequent here than on Earth--the leavings of

                 comets and the asteroids come through this thin

                 atmosphere more easily. A small chunk came to

                 within a sixty meters of our site, leaving an

                 impressive crater.

  

                 Another break. Willy has relayed a message from

                 Control. They managed to pick up and reconstruct

                 our request for instructions on first contact. They

                 must have thought we were joking. Here's part of the

                 transmission:

                 "We think you're not content with finding giant

                 vegetables on Mars. Dr. Wender advised on

                 Martians...(hash)...some clear indications of their

                 ability to fire large cylindrical bodies into space.

                 Beware tripod machines. Second opinion from

                 Frank: Not all green Martians are Tharks. He wants

                 sample from Dejah Thoris--can you arrange for

                 egg?"

                 I put on a pressure suit and went for a walk after the

                 disappointment of the transmission. Linker suited up

                 after me and followed for a while. I armed myself

                 with a piece of aluminum from the salvaged pad. He

                 carried nothing.

                 Swift Plateau is about four hundred kilometers

                 across. At its northern perimeter, an aqueduct had

                 once hoisted itself a kilometer or so and vaulted

                 across the flats, covering fifteen kilometers of upland

                 before dropping over the south rim into the

                 Moab-Marduk Range. Our landing site is a kilometer

                 from the closest stretch of fragments. Linker

                 followed me to the edge of the field of green and

                 blue grass, keeping quiet, looking behind

                 apprehensively as if he expected something to pop up

                 between us and the lander.

                 I had a notebook in my satchel and paused to sketch

                 some of the piers the Winter Troops hadn't yet

                 brought down. None of them were over four meters

                 tall.

                 "I'm afraid of them," Linker said over the suit radio. I

                 stopped my sketching to look at him.

                 "So?" I inquired with a touch of irritation. "We're all

                 afraid of them."

                 "I'm not afraid because they'll hurt me. It's because of

                 what they might bring out in me, if I give them half a

                 chance. I don't want to hate them."

                 "Not even Cobb hates them," I said.

                 "Oh, yes he does," Linker said, nodding his head

                 within the bulky helmet. "But he's afraid for his life. I

                 fear for my self-respect."

                 I shook my helmet to show I didn't understand.

                 "Because I can't understand them. They're irrational.

                 They don't seem to see us. They run around us,

                 fulfilling some mission.... they don't care whether we

                 live or die. Yet I have to respect them--they're alien.

                 The first intelligent creatures we've ever met."

                 "If they're intelligent," I reminded him.

                 "Come on, Mercer, they must be. They build."

                 "So did these," I said, waving a gloved hand at the

                 field of shattered green bottles.

                 "I'm trying to make myself clear," he said,

                 exasperated. "When I was in Eritrea, I didn't

                 understand the nationalists. Or the communists. Both

                 sides were willing to kill their own people or allow

                 them to starve if it won some small objective. It was

                 sick. I even hated the ones we were supporting."

                 "The Martians aren't Africans," I said. "We can't

                 expect to understand their motives."

                 "Comes back double, then, don't you see? I want to

                 understand, to know why--"

                 He suddenly switched his radio off, raised his hands

                 in frustration and turned to walk back to the lander.

                 Our automatic interrupts clicked on and Cobb spoke

                 to us. "That's it, friends. We're blanketed by hash. I

                 can't get through to Willy. We'll have to punch

                 through with the laser."

                 "I'm on my way back," Linker said. "I'll help you set

                 it up."

                 In a few minutes, I was alone on the field of ruins. I

                 sat on a weather-pocked boulder and took out my

                 sketchbook again. 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 was 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 mouselike 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 a low

                 charge. Cautiously, in distinct stages, I stood and

                 brushed my pressure suit. The Martian to my right

                 jerked, fingers trembling, and I held my pose,

                 apprehensive. With a swift motion, it pulled a green,

                 fibrous piece of aqueduct-bridge girder from its stiff

                 rump fur with its behind-arm 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

                 leaped across the plateau, running and leaping

                 simultaneously.

                 Clutching my gift, I returned to the lander. My feet

                 and fingers were numb when I arrived.

                 The tripod lay on the ground, legs spraddled. 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 uncertain finger

                 and the garnet. "What 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, face still blank.

                 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?"

                 "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 were now, the

                 sadness we all felt coming 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, then I'll do it. If it means overruling the

                 mission commander, then 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. When we get

                 out of here, we can argue philosophy all the way

                 home. And to get home, we need the laser."

                 Linker nodded. "We'll 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 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

                 sylar specimen bag, while we rested and sipped hot

                 chocolate. Linker was the first to pick it up, glancing

                 at me, puzzled.

                 "We have enough of these, 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 then.

                 "Did they chew on it in your presence?" Linker

                 asked.

                 "No."

                 "Maybe they were offering food," Cobb said. "A

                 peace offering?" His expression was sad, as if all the

                 energy and anger had been drained and nothing much

                 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

                 much more complex. Here--there's an oval--"

                 "Unless it's a tooth-mark," I said.

                 "Whether 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 around 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 telescope observations, has been criss-crossed

                 with roads or trails. The white Martians are using the

                 sand-filled black old 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 break again 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 a good 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 gave us our chance. We didn't reply.

                 Linker had finished clearing the path. They caught

                 him a half-kilometer from the lander. I think they just

                 trampled him to death. They were moving much

                 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 on--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 he 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 them in. 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. 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 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 hit

                 them.

                 I killed one. It was in the Martian equivalent of pain.

                 Pain/Cain. I hit it over 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 capsule are firing and

                 I'm through the glider framework. I can see the glare

                 and feel the punch and the wings are far down to

                 port, twirling 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. That was not easy. An

                 hour ago. 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

                 testing. In a few days, they'll have it.

                 Beware, Control. These brave lads will go far.