Red Planet (3 page)

'Certainly, Doctor.’ She poured for him, then went on. ‘James, I am not sorry you decided to let Jim take Willis. It will be a relief.’

'Why, dear? Jim was correct when he said that the little beggar isn't much trouble.’

'Well, he isn't really. But—I just wish he weren't so truthful.’

'So? I thought he was the perfect witness in settling the children's squabbles?’

'Oh, he is. He'll play back anything he hears as accurately as a transcriber. That's the trouble.’ She looked upset, then chuckled. ‘You know Mrs Pottle?’

'Of course.’

The doctor added, ‘How can one avoid it? I, unhappy man, am in charge of her nerves.’

Mrs Marlowe asked, ‘Is she actually sick, Doctor?’

'She eats too much and doesn't work enough. Further communication is forbidden by professional ethics.’

'I didn't know you had any.’

'Young lady, show respect for my white hairs. What about this Pottle female?’

'Well, Luba Konski had lunch with me last week and we got to talking about Mrs Pottle. Honest, James, I didn't say much and I did not know that Willis was under the table.’

'He was?’ Mr Marlowe covered his eyes. ‘Do go on.’

'Well, you both remember that the Konskis housed the Pottles at North Colony until a house was built for them. Sarah Pottle has been Luba's pet hate ever since, and Tuesday Luba was giving me some juicy details on Sarah's habits at home. Two days later Sarah Pottle stopped by to give me advice on how to bring up children. Something she said triggered Willis—I knew he was in the room but I didn't think anything of it—and Willis put on just the wrong record and I couldn't shut him up. I finally carried him out of the room. Mrs Pottle left without saying goodbye and I haven't heard from her since.’

'That's no loss.’ her husband commented.

'True, but it got Luba in Dutch. No one could miss Luba's accent and Willis does it better than she does herself. I don't think Luba minds, though—and you should have heard Willis's playback of Luba's description of how Sarah Pottle looks in the morning—and what she does about it.’

'You should hear,’ answered MacRae, ‘Mrs Pottle's opinions on the servant problem.’

'I have. She thinks it's a scandal that the Company doesn't import servants for us.’

The doctor nodded. ‘With collars riveted around their necks.’

'That woman! I can't see why she ever became a colonist.’

'Didn't you know?’ her husband said. ‘They came out here expecting to get rich in a hurry.’

'Hummph!’

Doctor MacRae got a far-away look. ‘Mrs Marlowe, speaking as her physician, it might help me to hear what Willis has to say about Mrs Pottle. Do you suppose he would recite for us?’

'Doctor, you're an old fraud, with a taste for gossip.’

'Granted. I like also eavesdropping.’

'You're shameless.’

'Again granted. My nerves are relaxed. I haven't felt ashamed in years.’

'Willis may just give a thrilling account of the children's chit-chat for the past two weeks.’

'Perhaps if you coaxed him?’

Mrs Marlowe suddenly dimpled. ‘It won't hurt to try.’ She left the room to fetch Jim's globular friend.

Wednesday morning dawned clear and cold, as mornings have a habit of doing on Mars. The Suttons and the Marlowes, minus Oliver, were gathered at the Colony's cargo dock on the west leg of Strymon canal, ready to see the boys off.

The temperature was rising and the dawn wind was blowing firmly, but it was still at least thirty below. Strymon canal was a steel-blue, hard sheet of ice and would not melt today in this latitude. Resting on it beside the dock was the mail scooter from Syrtis Minor, its boat body supported by razor-edged runners. The driver was still loading it with cargo dragged from the warehouse on the dock.

The tiger stripes on Jim's mask, the war paint on Frank's, and a rainbow motif on Phyllis's made the young people easy to identify. The adults could be told apart only by size, shape, and manner; there were two extras, Doctor MacRae and Father Cleary. The priest was talking in low, earnest tones to Frank.

He turned presently and spoke to Jim. ‘Your own pastor asked me to say good-bye to you, son. Unfortunately the poor man is laid up with a touch of Mars throat. He would have come anyhow had I not hidden his mask.’ The Protestant chaplain, as well as the priest, was a bachelor; the two shared a house.

'Is he very sick?’ asked Jim.

'Not that sick. But take his blessing—and mine too.’ He offered his hand.

Jim dropped his travel bag, shifted his ice skates and Willis over to his left arm and shook hands. There followed an awkward silence. Finally Jim said, ‘Why don't you all go inside before you freeze to death?’

'Yeah,’ agreed Francis. ‘That's a good idea.’

'I think the driver is about ready now,’ Mr Marlowe countered. ‘Well, son, take care of yourself. We'll see you at migration.’ He shook hands solemnly.

'So long, Dad.’

Mrs Marlowe put her arms around him, pressed her mask against his and said, ‘Oh, my little boy—you're too young to go away from home!’

'Oh, Mother, please!’ But he hugged her. Then Phyllis had to be hugged. The driver called out: ‘'Board!’

''Bye everybody!’ Jim turned away, felt his elbow caught.

It was the doctor. ‘Take care of yourself, Jim. And don't take any gruff off of anybody.’

'Thanks, Doc.’ Jim turned and presented his school authorization to the driver while the doctor bade Francis good-bye.

The driver looked it over. ‘Both deadheads, eh? Well, seeing as how there aren't any pay passengers this morning you can ride in the observatory.’ He tore off his copy; Jim climbed inside and went up to the prized observation seats behind and above the driver's compartment. Frank joined him.

The craft trembled as the driver jacked the runners loose from the ice, then with a roar from the turbine and a soft, easy surge the car got under way. The banks flowed past them and melted into featureless walls as the speed picked up. The ice was mirror smooth; they soon reached cruising speed of better than two hundred fifty miles per hour. Presently the driver removed his mask; Jim and Frank, seeing him, did likewise. The car was pressurized now by an air ram faced into their own wind of motion; it was much warmer, too, from the air's compression.

'Isn't this swell?’ said Francis.

'Yes. Look at Earth.’

Their mother planet was riding high above the Sun in the north eastern sky. It blazed green against a deep purple background. Close to it, but easy to separate with the naked eye, was a lesser, pure white star—Luna, Earth's moon. Due north of them, in the direction they were going, Deimos, Mars’ outer moon, hung no more than twenty degrees above the horizon. Almost lost in the rays of the sun, it was a tiny pale disc, hardly more than a dim star and much outshone by Earth.

Phobos, the inner moon, was not in sight. At the latitude of Charax it never rose more than eight degrees or so above the northern horizon and that for an hour or less, twice a day. In the daytime it was lost in the blue of the horizon and no one would be so foolhardy as to watch for it in the bitter night. Jim did not remember ever having seen it except during migration between colonies.

Francis looked from Earth to Deimos. ‘Ask the driver to turn on the radio,’ he suggested. ‘Deimos is up.’

'Who cares about the broadcast?’ Jim answered. ‘I want to watch.’ The banks were not so high now; from the observation dome he could see over them into the fields beyond. Although it was late in the season the irrigated belt near the canal was still green and getting greener as he watched, as the plants came out of the ground to seek the morning sunlight.

He could make out, miles away, an occasional ruddy sand dune of the open desert. He could not see the green belt of the east leg of their canal; it was over the horizon.

Without urging, the driver switched on his radio; music filled the car and blotted out the monotonous low roar of the turbo-jet. It was terrestrial music, by Sibelius, a classical composer of another century. Mars colony had not yet found time to develop its own arts and still borrowed its culture. But neither Jim nor Frank knew who the composer was, nor cared. The banks of the canal had closed in again; there was nothing to see but the straight ribbon of ice; they settled back and day-dreamed.

Willis stirred for the first time since he had struck the outer cold. He extended his eye stalks, looked inquiringly around, then commenced to beat time with them.

Presently the music stopped and a voice said: ‘This is station D-M-S, the Mars Company, Deimos,
circum
Mars. We bring you now by relay from Syrtis Minor a program in the public interest. Doctor Graves Armbruster will speak on Ecological Considerations involved in Experimental Artificial Symbiotics as related to —’

The driver promptly switched the radio off.

'I would like to have heard that,’ objected Jim. ‘It sounded interesting.’

'Oh, you're just showing off,’ Frank answered. ‘You don't even know what those words mean.’

'The dickens I don't. It means —’

'Shut up and take a nap.’ Taking his own advice Frank lay back and closed his eyes. However he got no chance to sleep. Willis had apparently been chewing over, in whatever it was he used for a mind, the programme he had just heard. He opened up and started to play it back, woodwinds and all.

The driver looked back and up, looked startled. He said something but Willis drowned him out. Willis bulled on through to the end, even to the broken-off announcement. The driver finally made himself heard. ‘Hey, you guys! What you got up there? A portable recorder?’

'No, a bouncer.’

'A what?’

Jim held Willis up so that the driver could see him. ‘A bouncer. His name is Willis.’ The driver stared.

'You mean
that
thing is a recorder?’

'No, he's a bouncer. As I said, his name is Willis.’

'This I got to see,’ announced the driver. He did something at his control board, then turned around and stuck his head and shoulders up into the observation dome.

Frank said, ‘Hey! You'll wreck us.’

'Relax,’ advised the driver. ‘I put her on echo-automatic. High banks for the next couple o’ hundred miles. Now what is this gismo? When you brought it aboard I thought it was a volley ball.’

'No, it's Willis. Say hello to the man, Willis.’

'Hello, man,’ Willis answered agreeably.

The driver scratched his head. ‘This beats anything I ever saw in Keokuk. Sort of a parrot, eh?’

'He's a bouncer. He's got a scientific name, but it just means Martian roundhead. Never seen one before?’

'No. You know, bud, this is the screwiest planet in the whole system.’

'If you don't like it here,’ asked Jim, ‘why don't you go back where you came from?’

'Don't go popping off, youngster. How much will you take for the gismo? I got an idea I could use him.’

'Sell Willis? Are you crazy?’

'Sometimes I think so. Oh, well, it was just an idea.’ The driver went back to his station, stopping once to look back and stare at Willis.

The boys dug sandwiches out of their travel bags and munched them. After that Frank's notion about a nap seemed a good idea. They slept until wakened by the car slowing down. Jim sat up, blinked and called down, ‘What's up?’

'Coming into Cynia Station,’ the driver answered. ‘Lay over until sundown.’

'Won't the ice hold?’

'Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. The temperature's up and I'm not going to chance it.’ The car slid softly to a stop, then started again and crawled slowly up a low ramp, stopped again. ‘All out!’ the driver called. ‘Be back by sundown—or get left.’ He climbed out; the boys followed.

Cynia Station was three miles west of the ancient city of Cynia, where west Strymon joins the canal Oeroe. It was merely a lunchroom, a bunkhouse, and a row of pre-fab warehouses. To the east the feathery towers of Cynia gleamed in the sky, seemed almost to float, too beautifully unreal to be solid.

The driver went into the little inn. Jim wanted to walk over and explore the city; Frank favoured stopping in the restaurant first. Frank won out. They went inside and cautiously invested part of their meagre capital in coffee and some indifferent soup.

The driver looked up from his dinner presently and said, ‘Hey, George! Ever see anything like that?’ He pointed to Willis.

George was the waiter. He was also the cashier, the hotel keeper, the station agent, and the Company representative. He glanced at Willis. ‘Yep.’

'You did, huh? Where? Do you suppose I could find one?’

'Doubt it. You see ‘em sometimes, hanging around the Martians. Not many of ‘em.’ He turned back to his reading—a
New York Times
, more than two years old.

The boys finished, paid their bills, and prepared to go outside. The cook-waiter-station-agent said, ‘Hold on. Where are you kids going?’

'Syrtis Minor.’

'Not that. Where are you going right now? Why don't you wait in the dormitory? Take a nap if you like.’

'We thought we would kind of explore around outside,’ explained Jim.

'Okay. But stay away from the city.’

'Why?’

'Because the Company doesn't allow it, that's why. Not without permission. So stay clear of it.’

'How do we get permission?’ Jim persisted.

'You can't. Cynia hasn't been opened up to exploitation yet.’ He went back to his reading.

Jim was about to continue the matter but Frank tugged at his sleeve. They went outside together. Jim said, ‘I don't think he has any business telling us we can't go to Cynia.’

'What's the difference? He thinks he has.’

'What'll we do now?’

'Go to Cynia, of course. Only we won't consult his nibs.’

'Suppose he catches us?’

'How can he? He won't stir off that stool he's warming. Come on.’

'Okay.’ They set out to the east. The going was not too easy; there was no road of any sort and all the plant growth bordering the canal was spread out to its greatest extent to catch the rays of the midday sun. But Mars’ low gravity makes walking easy work even over rough ground. They came shortly to the bank of Oeroe and followed it to the right, toward the city.