Authors: Theodore Sturgeon
“We will share it,” decided Its Wonders instantly. “All we know is this: The Artnans are a race totally unlike anything in our System. They have a mineral metabolism, feeding on ores and excreting sulphides. Their culture is beyond our understanding; they seem beyond the reach of Solar reasoning. They have made no attempt to drive us away from the planet. They have also made no attempt to communicate with us, in spite of the fact that they must know we are Martians and that it is with Martians that they trade. The vibration field around the transmutation plant cannot be penetrated by anything but light; it even excludes a spy ray. There is no way of estimating the extent of their science or their civilization. They exist mainly underground; for all we know, this may be an artificial planet. There is a possibility that their science is no more advanced than ours, but that it has simply progressed along other lines. The trade with Mars may be a major or a very minor industry with them. It is completely impossible to tell. That is all we have been able to discover.”
“That might help,” said Bellew, “and it might not. We’ll work on it. Now. There’s one more little point we have to take care of. How can all concerned be sure that there is no dirty work? How do we know that we will not be killed if we get the secret; how do you know that we will not kill you for it if you beat us to the gun?”
“We can promise,” said Its Wonders in his spark-coil voice.
“Won’t do, chum,” said Slimmy. “No reflection on you, but in spite of the fact that a Martian has never been known to break his word, we don’t want you establishing precedents. Bad for the racial morale. Got any other ideas?”
Bellew sometimes wished that Martians could add inflection, voice control, to their speech. You couldn’t tell whether they were sore, happy, insulted—anything. He shook his head quickly at Slimmy—the little man was pushing things a little.
However, Its Wonders didn’t seem annoyed by the refusal of his word. “We could,” he said, “destroy each other’s weapons.”
“Would you agree to such a proposition?”
“Yes,” chorused the three Martians.
Once they were together again in their emasculated ship, Slimmy and Bell compared notes.
“What’s their ship like?” Slimmy wanted to know.
“Smooth,” said Bell. “An Ikarion 44, with all the fixin’s. Got that old-style ether-cloud steering for hyper-space travel, though—you know—the one that builds etheric resistance on one bow or the other to turn the ship when she’s traveling faster than light? We can outmaneuver them if it comes to a chase.”
Slimmy grinned. “That bootleg ether rudder of ours is so perfect because it’s so simple, but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to adapt to an Ikarion. How’s their spatial steering?”
“Same as ours,” answered Bell. “So all we need is the process and a small start. Fat chance … By the way—remember what Its Wonders said about the killer field’s stopping a spy ray? That was a slip on his part. I got looking for one when I was busting up their big guns. They have one, sure enough—a neat, little portable, sound and visiscreen; and I’ll bet my back teeth it records. We got to watch our mouths.”
“Yeah.” Slimmy walked over and drew himself a flask of cocola, then came and sat on his bunk next to Bell.
Bell was surprised to find that on the way Slimmy had snatched up the cellotab and stylus. He took it, shielded it closely, and began to write as he talked about the Martian ship. In a few minutes he passed the tablet to Slimmy. It read:
“A laugh for you. Heaven and Its Wonders no sooner got out of here than they began to pump me about why you’d tried to kill me just before we landed. We were right; they saw you shooting me with the water pistol and it threw their mental gears into six speeds at once. Couldn’t understand why you didn’t kill me or why I didn’t kill you for trying. Suggested that if I wanted to slip you the double-x, they’d see to it that you were killed. Gave me a phial of Martian paralysis virus. They told me that if we found the Artnan secret, if I killed you with the virus, I’d be protected when they brought me back to the System.”
“Yep,” said Slimmy aloud as he reached for the stylus, “them Martians are certainly nice fellers.”
Bellew motioned to Slimmy to duck the cellotab, winked, stretched and said, “You think we ought to grab some sleep?”
Slimmy said, “Why, sure,” with admirable promptness, considering that both of them had had the sleep-centers removed from their brains by outlaw Earth surgeons in preparation for the trip.
While Slimmy pulled off his shoes, Bell went to a locker and slid two pairs of thick spectacles under his tunic, along with two disks of the same material as the lenses. He switched off the lights, pulled his own bunk out from the bulkhead over Slimmy’s, dropped a pair of spectacles and a disk on the little man’s chest, and rolled into bed. Both men clipped the disks to their bunklights, switched them on, and donned the glasses. Martians, possessing vision far into the ultraviolet, are blind to the reds merging into the infrared which is so prevalent on their own planet. If the spy ray was functioning—and of course it was—all the screen showed was a lot of nothing on a background of the same, and all the amplifier picked up was the tiny whisper of a busy stylus.
“Been thinking about those Artnans,” wrote Bell. “What do you suppose is the reason for their building that transmutation shed on the surface of the planet if their civilization is underground?”
“To be near the transmitter, I’d imagine. Far as I know, a probability wave can’t operate below ground.”
“Seems likely. What’s your guess about the process?”
“That, bud, is our little stymie. The Martians have tested the ground right clear up to the edge of the killer field for vibrations from machinery. They heard the footsteps and the burrowing of the Artnans, and the noise from the Prob.-wave transmitter and receiver. But that’s all. Artnan workers—not more than eight or ten at a time—tend whatever’s in that shed. Now and then a blast of artificial wind rushes through the shed. Right afterward big suction intakes gather up a powdery material and collect it in the hoppers which feed ’235 into the transmitter. Then the wind blasts back with a slightly heavier powder. There’s also a little vegetative sound—spores popping and what-not—but our Martian friends don’t know whether there is some plant life in the shed or whether the vibrations come from the flora outside. That’s lot of info to get from ground vibrations, but you know Martian detection instruments.”
“Wonder what the Artnans do with the boron they get from
Mars?” Slimmy wrote after a silent interval.
“Eat it, I guess. For all we know, the whole setup that has made Earth a slave and put Mars on the economic rocks may be just a sideline to the Artnans. Maybe it’s candy to them, or a liquor industry. That’s something we’ll never know as long as the Artnans act so unsociable.”
“They don’t behave like an outfit that’s trying to keep a monopoly,” Slimmy scrawled. “Seems to me their very treatment of us and the Martians is their way of telling us, ‘We found the process. If you want to dig it up for yourselves, go to it.’ They don’t seem to give much of a damn whether we do or not.”
“Seems sound enough. I wish we could get some slant on their psychology. Their reasoning is so alien to anything we have in our System. Old Laidlaw was right.”
Bell handed this to Slimmy and then snatched it back excitedly.
“The Laidlaw Hypothesis!”
he underlined. “That’s the answer! Laidlaw said that each Solar System had civilizations and cultures with a common ancestor, which ancestor was peculiar to the System. For that reason there is no way of predicting in what direction a new system’s fauna will evolve. The Artnans are mineral eaters, right? Then, according to Laidlaw, their plants have a corresponding metabolism, and so has every other living thing in the system! Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“No,” said Slimmy aloud, forgetting himself. Bell snatched the pad and belted the little man’s mouth with it before he wrote:
“It isn’t an apparatus process, dope! The Artnans don’t transmute ’238 into ’235 by electrochemistry or radiophysics or any other process we ever heard of! Those Artnans in the shed aren’t scientists or even mechanics! They’re
gardeners!”
“Plants?” Slimmy’s amazement dug the stylus deep into the cellotab. “How can plants transmute one isotope into another?”
“An Artnan might like to know how an Earth plant can change light and water and minerals into cellulose,” wrote Bell. “Now; plant or mold or fungus—what sort of a place might it come from?”
“Not here,” was Slimmy’s prompt reply. “The atmosphere is slightly humid. Water and pure ’235 don’t mix. Any plant that gave
off atomic fuel that way would blow itself from here to Scranton. It must have been brought here from an airless planet or satellite too hot or too cold for water to exist.”
“Is there such a body in this system?”
In answer, Slimmy rolled out of his bunk and went to the chart desk, returning with a sketched astro map of the system.
“Two,” he wrote on the edge of the chart. “This one”—an arrow indicated a large planet far away from the double sun—“and this peanut here. A ninety-six-day year, son, and it’s hot. I mean, but torrid. Don’t tell me anything from there could live here, if at all.”
“Might, if it’s a mold, or a bacterium. Temperature wouldn’t make much difference to a really simple metallic mold. It’s worth a try. How do we get out there without taking our three little playmates with us?”
They thought that over for a while, and then Slimmy giggled and wrote, “Buddy, I feel an awful attack of Martian paralysis coming on!”
Bell snapped his fingers, lay back in his bunk and roared with laughter.
Heaven, Its Wonders and Hell squatted excitedly before the portable spy-ray set in the center of their control room, watching the scene it pictured. Slimmy’s head protruded from a small iron lung built into the bulkhead, and his head was stretched back so far that the skin on his neck seemed on the breaking point. His face was bluish; there was a thin line of foam on his lips, and his breath whispered whistling through the annunciator.
“Traitorous creature,” piped Its Wonders. “He has taken our advice and inoculated his companion with the disease.”
Heaven waved his eyestalks. “Where is that Earthman, anyway?”
A loud
thuck! thuck!
answered his question, as Bell Bellew banged on the insulated gate to the Martians’ air lock. Heaven reached out a long, jointless arm and pressed a panel; the door opened.
“Hey,” Bell roared before he was well into the room, “you guys better come a-runnin’. My partner’s went and got himself some Martian paralysis and he can’t last much longer.” Bell permitted himself a leer.
“What has that to do with us?” Heaven wanted to know.
“Everything. He has the secret of the Artnan process. His voice is gone now; all he can do is gurgle. I ain’t telepathic; you are. His gurgles ought to make some sense to you.”
“You stupid primitive,” squeaked Its Wonders. “What do you mean by inoculating him and endangering the secret? If he dies with it, we may never discover it!”
Bell looked sheepish. “Well, it was this way,” he said. “Slimmy figured it all out. Said it was simple once you got the idea—one of those things that’s so evident you can’t see it. I asked him what it was. He wouldn’t say. Said he’d tell me if his life was in danger, but not before. It was too dangerous for both of us to know. I got to thinking. If we got back to Earth with the secret, we’d have no chance of keeping it from Mars. Mars would take the process and kill us for our pains. Why should I get myself killed? If I tied in with you, I had your promise of protection. So I slipped him the virus, thinkin’ he’d tell me the process when he knew what was the matter with him. But it hit him too fast. I can’t understand a word. Come on—he may be dead before we get there!” So saying, the big Earthman turned and bolted out of the Martian ship.
The Martians held a shrill consultation and then took out after Bell, their thin claws eating up the distance. Bell was running with everything he had, but the Martians passed him before he had gone an eighth of the way. They were not even breathing hard.
Martian paralysis is sure death to the people of the red planet. When Bell got to the ship he found the three Martians pressing as close to Slimmy as they dared, which was about five feet. They were straining to hear what Slimmy was mumbling, and stared annoyedly when Bell burst in.
“Get away from him,” Bell wheezed. “Dammit, now you’ll never get the information. He’d die before he’d tell it to a Martian.”
“Be quiet!” snapped Hell. “He is past that. The paralysis strikes first at the eyes, then at the hearing. He doesn’t know who is here.”
Slimmy’s tortured voice broke from moans into words. “Bell … process … electrolization of … dying, I guess … lousy Martian … process … electrolization of—” Suddenly he made a tremendous
effort, lifted his head, and said in a perfectly normal, conversational tone, “We’re rikbijitting for a dewjaw.” Then his head snapped back and he lay still.
Bell blundered over to the after bulkhead, ripped open the cold locker, and tossed three flasks of cocola to the Martians. “Drink up,” he snapped. “You’re going to need all your brains from now on if you’re going to savvy
that
.” He waved a hand toward Slimmy, who was babbling busily away about fortissing a sanzzifranz.
The Martians sucked away eagerly at the frothy liquid; willing to do anything that would sharpen their senses.
So Slimmy muttered and the Martians guzzled, and in forty minutes Bell stopped passing out cocola and went to the iron lung and opened it, and Slimmy climbed out, rubbing his neck and cussing softly.
“That was a long haul, Bell,” he complained.
“You did fine, kid,” said Bell. “I must remember to slip you the real thing sometime.”
“What are we going to do with these disgustingly intemperate creatures?” asked Slimmy, indicating the Martians.
They were propped up against the bulkhead, limp eyestalks registering their impotent rage. They were absolutely helpless, though their implacable brains were clicking away like high-speed calculating machines.