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x The blue globes! he thought. Could they be means of transmit-ting messages?
He did not know or think further about them because fatigue overwhelmed him, and he fell asleep. His last memory was that of Martia leaning over him and smiling at him.
When he awoke reluctantly, his muscles ached, and his mouth was as dry as the Martian desert. He rose in time to see Martia drop out of the tu
He stumbled up and into the shower cubicle. Coming out much refreshed, he found breakfast hot on the table. Martia conducted the communion rite, and then they ate. He missed his coffee. The hot soup was good but did not make a satisfactory substitute. There was a bowl of mixed cereal and fruit, both of which came out of a can. It must have had a high energy content, for it made him wide awake. Afterward, he did some setting-up exercises while she did the dishes. Though he kept his body busy, he was thinking of things unco
His duty demanded that he return to the base and report. What news he would send to the orbital ship! The story would flash from the ship back to Earth. The whole planet would be in an uproar.
There was one objection to his plan to take Martia back with him.
She would not want to go.
Halfway in a deep knee bend, he stopped. What a fool he was! He had been too tired and confused to see it. But if she had revealed that the base of her people was on Ganymede, she did not expect him to take the information back to his transmitter. It would be foolish on her part to tell him unless she were absolutely certain that he would be able to communicate with no one.
That must mean that a vessel was on its way and would arrive soon. And it would not only take her but him. If he was to be killed, he would be dead now.
Lane had not been chosen to be a member of the first Mars expedition because he lacked decision. Five minutes later, he had made up his mind. His duty was clear. Therefore, he would carry it out, even if it violated his personal feelings toward Martia and caused her injury.
First, he’d bind her. Then he would pack up their two pressure suits, the books, and any tools small enough to carry so they might later be examined on Earth. He would make her march ahead of him through the tube until they came to the point opposite his base. There they would don their suits and go to the dome. And as soon as possible the two would rise on the rocket to the orbital ship. This step was the most hazardous, for it was extremely difficult for one man to pilot the rocket. Theoretically, it could be done. It had to be done.
Lane tightened his jaw and forced his muscles to quit quivering. The thought of violating Martia’s hospitality upset him. Still, she had treated him so well for a purpose not altogether altruistic. For all he knew, she was plotting against him.
There was a rope in one of the cabinets, the same flexible rope with which she had pulled him from the mire. He opened the door of the cabinet and removed it. Martia stood in the middle of the room and watched him while she stroked the head of the blue-eyed worm coiled about her shoulders. He hoped she would stay there until he got close. Obviously, she carried no weapon on her nor indeed anything except the pet. Since she had removed her suit, she had worn nothing.
Seeing him approaching her, she spoke to him in an alarmed tone. It didn’t take much sensitivity to know that she was asking him what he intended to do with the rope. He tried to smile reassuringly at her and failed. This was making him sick.
A moment later, he was violently sick. Martia had spoken loudly one word, and it was as if it had struck him in the pit of his stomach. Nausea gripped him, his mouth began salivating, and it was only by dropping the rope and ru
Ten minutes later, he felt thoroughly cleaned out. But when he tried to walk to the bed, his legs threatened to give way. Martia had to support him.
Inwardly, he cursed. To have a sudden reaction to the strange food at such a crucial moment! Luck was not on his side. That is, if it was chance. There had been something so strange and forceful about the ma
Language? Words? They weren’t necessary. If she had given him a hypnotic drug in his food, and then had awakened him during his sleep, she could have dramatized how he was to react if she wanted him to do so. She could have given him the key word, ‘t then have allowed him to go to sleep again.
He knew enough hypnotism to know that that was possible. Whether his suspicions were true or not, it was a fact that he had laid flat on his back. However, the day was not wasted. He learned twenty more words, and she drew many more sketches for him. He found out that when he had jumped into the mire of the garden he had literally fallen into the soup. The substance in which the young umbrella trees had been planted was a zoogloea, a glutinous mass of one-celled vegetables and somewhat larger anaerobic animal life that fed on the vegetables. The heat from the jam-packed water-swollen bodies kept the garden soil warm and prevented the tender plants from freezing even during the forty degrees below zero Fahrenheit of the midsummer nights.
After the trees were transplanted into the roof of the tube to replace the dead adults, the zoogloea would be taken piecemeal back to the tube and dumped into the cha
Toward the end of the day, he tried some of the zoogloea soup and managed to keep it down. A little later, he ate some cereal.
Martia insisted on spooning the food for him. There was something so feminine and tender about her solicitude that he could not protest.
“Martia,” he said, “I may be wrong. There can be good will and rapport between our two kinds. Look at us. Why, if you were a real woman, I’d be in love with you.
“Of course, you may have made me sick in the first place. But if you did, it was a matter of expediency, not malice. And now you are taking care of rne, your enemy. Love thy enemy. Not because you have been told you should but because you do.”
She, of course, did not understand him. However, she replied in her own tongue, and it seemed to him that her voice had the same sense of sympatico.
As he fell asleep, he was thinking that perhaps Martia and he would be the two ambassadors to bring their people together in peace. After all, both of them were highly civilized, essentially pacifistic, and devoutly religious. There was such a thing as the brotherhood, not only of man, but of all sentient beings throughout the cosmos, and…
Pressure on his bladder woke him up. He opened his eyes. The ceiling and walls expanded and contracted. His wristwatch was distorted. Only by extreme effort could he focus his eyes enough to straighten the arms on his watch. The piece, designed to measure the slightly longer Martian day, indicated midnight.
Groggily, he rose. He felt sure that he must have been drugged and that he would still be sleeping if the bladder pain hadn’t been so sharp. If ony he could take something to counteract the drug, he could carry
To do so, he had to pass close to Martia’s bed. She did not move but lay on her back, her arms flung out and hanging over the sides of the bed, her mouth open wide. He looked away, for it seemed indecent to watch when she was in such a position. But something caught his eye—a movement, a flash of light like a gleaming jewel in her mouth. He bent over her, looked, and recoiled in horror. A head rose from between her teeth. He raised his hand to snatch at the thing but froze in the posture as he recognized the tiny pouting round