WHAT THE MARTIANS MIGHT SAY OF US
O wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us! - Robert Burns
The narrative of space exploration as a "New Frontier" has been criticized as unreflected continuation of settler colonialism and manifest destiny, continuing the narrative of colonial exploration as fundamental to the assumed human nature.
Reasons for colonizing Mars include curiosity, the potential for humans to provide more in-depth observational research than unmanned rovers, economic interest in its resources, and the possibility that the settlement of other planets could decrease the likelihood of human extinction. Difficulties and hazards include radiation exposure during a trip to Mars and on its surface, toxic soil, low gravity, the iMyation that accompanies Mars' distance from Earth, a lack of water, and cold temperatures.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, a dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. Mars is also a dynamic planet with seasons, polar ice caps, canyons, extinct volcanoes, and evidence that it was even more active in the past.
The Martian astronomers, for there are astronomers on Mars, although they are different beings from men, were naturally profoundly interested by these things. They saw them from their own standpoint, of course.
"It is a strange tale," I confided, "too long to attempt to tell you now, and one which I so much doubt the credibility of myself that I fear to hope that others will believe it. Suffice it, for the present, that I am your friend, and, so far as our captors will permit, your protector and your servant."
Here is an impressive story based on the inter-action of planetary bodies and of the sun upon them. A great star is seen approaching the earth. At first it is only an object of interest to the general public, but there is an astronomer on the earth, who is watching each phase and making mathematical calculations, for he knows the intimate relation of gravitation between bodies and the effect on rotating bodies of the same force from an outside source. He fears all sorts of wreckage on our earth. He warns the people, but they, as usual, discount all he says and label him mad. But he was not mad. H. G. Wells, in his own way, gives us a picturesque description of the approach of the new body through long days and nights. He tells how the earth and natural phenomena of the earth will react. Though this star never touches our sphere, the devastation and destruction wrought by it are complete and horrible. The story is correct in its astronomical aspects.
There was but one slight chance and that we must take quickly. Raising my strange Martian rifle to my shoulder I sighted and touched the button which controlled the trigger; there was a sharp explosion as the missile reached its goal, and the charging chieftain pitched backward from his flying mount.
nyhow, everything is fine, now. The people are behind Deimos and he's coming back to New Iowa with us and wants to go on to Terra for a good-will visit. He wants to open the northern country to Terrans and trade scientific secrets.
We sat silent for a few moments, she wrapped in the gloomy thoughts of her terrible past, and I in pity for the poor creatures whom the heartless, senseless customs of their race had doomed to loveless lives of cruelty and of hate. Presently she spoke. Because of the differences in cultures and customs her words were incomprehensible to me, but that did not stop what was happening to us. Then her mate returned and sat next to her.
He shook his head. "I don't know. It doesn't matter." He took her between his two hands, feeling the strength and the splendor of her, and it was oddly difficult to find words.
They talked about what they'd do, but Deimos made the final decision because he was the Emperor. He said he wanted to reveal himself to the people at a dramatic moment because that was what had an affect on crowds. He decided the most dramatic moment would be while the knife was raised over Mya.
That night the star rose later, for its proper eastward motion had carried it some way across Leo toward Virgo, and its brightness was so great that the sky became a luminous blue as it rose, and every star and planet was hidden, save only Jupiter near the zenith, Capella, Aldebaran, Sirius, and the pointers of the Bear. It was white and beautiful. In many parts of that world that night a pallid halo encircled it about. It was perceptibly larger; in the clear refractive sky of the tropics it seemed as if it were nearly a quarter of the size of the moon. The frost was still on the ground in Nova England, but the world was as brightly lit as if it were midsummer moonlight. One could see to read quite ordinary print by that cold clear light, and in the cities the lamps burnt yellow and wan.
"The little one is shrewd, and she is right. I don't know that I can be as wise as she.... Will you stay with me, Albedo, or will you go?"
What a story I'll have to tell! I guess I'm about the luckiest kid on Mars right now because when we get back, they're going to let me tell what happened! I've got it all written down so I won't forget anything. I've got it up to the time we left Eris and the Martian in the passageway behind the wall. Eris didn't tell me all that happened but when Noachis got back there, after hearing the noise, he found Phobos on the floor unconscious. Eris said Phobos came at him with a sword and he was pretty sure Phobos would kill him but Phobos missed a thrust and Eris got in a lucky grab and pushed a nerve on Phobos's neck. He made it sound very easy but I'll bet Eris is about the best nerve fighter in the world. That's what they call men who can kill with nothing but their bare hands.
The true Lord of the Northern Hemisphere stood with his arms out-stretched imperiously over the crowd below. He held this position until the roaring died away and a whisper could have been heard in the great square. Then he spoke.
"An evil day, an evil deed. And now I have Valles Utopia to govern, with no reward of power from beyond the Gates of Death. How man can be misled!"
Noachis moved in swiftly. For a moment he stayed his thrust hoping. And what he hoped for, came to pass. Phobos's courage broke. With terror in his eyes, the fallen Martian shouted. "Stop! I am of royal blood. You don't dare kill me!"
He, too, was marked deep by what he had seen and done, beyond the Gates of Death.
They went up into the castle.
Mya was ready for the sacrifice. She had been dressed in a rich golden harness and wore golden manacles on her wrists. She had waited in the room with the sound of the crowds in the great court below rising in volume as their impatience increased.
The priests laid her along its length. The golden manacles were removed. Each priest took an arm and held her to the slab with the tall masked figure raising his knife and looking down at her. The knife arched.
But they would not go out through the Gates of Death. Aphelion in his rusty nail was still lord of the pass, the warder of the Bradbury Highlands.
The shimmering darkness brooded still over the distant tower. Underneath the ice, the elfin city still spread downward. The shining ones would rebuild their bridges in the shaft, and go on as they had before, dreaming their cold dreams of ancient power.
Phobos apprised the situation swiftly. He said, "Pick up the sword, Terran scum."
Without reply, Eris bent down and did as directed.
"Are you skilled in its use?" Phobos asked.
"I never had one in my hand before."
Phobos raised his own sword, identical to the one Eris held.
He raised the sword to smite down at the whirring disc, to smash it, but there was no need. When the full force of that concentrated beam struck it, meeting the focus of shadow that it held, there was a violent flare of light and a shattering of crystal. The mechanism was silent.
The glooming veil was gone from around the ice-shelled man and woman. Albedo forgot the creatures in the shaft below him. He turned the blazing sword full upon Haumea and Ceres.
On the trip to the Amphitheater of the Gods, the two rebels were killed and one loyal Martian added to the cavalcade. As they moved into the great hall, Deimos said, "They are here!"
This appeared to be true. The seats flanking the central throne were still occupied. The throne itself was vacant. Immediately upon entering the great hall, Eris ran forward and climbed to the tier of benches. The council members sat silent, unmoving. Eris pushed the body of the nearest one. It tumbled off the bench like a sack of grain and fell to the floor.
Instinct only made him cling to the sword. Waves of blinding anguish racked him. The coiling lash of darkness encircled him, and its touch was the abysmal cold of outer space, striking deep into his heart.
The cairn loomed up ahead, dark and high. It seemed to Albedo that the brooding figure of Aphelion watched him coming with those shadowed eyes beneath the rusty helm. The great sword blazed between those dead, frozen hands.
Then there was new, sudden, and devastating action. From the rear of the guards, came a crazed, unarmed juggernaut of destruction; a mad Terran; bloody, savage-eyed, lethal, he threw himself against the flank of the advancing trio, locked an arm around his throat, and with leverage obtained by wrapping his legs around the Martian's body, snapped the ugly head at the base of the spine.
Frost. Bright, sparkling, beautiful, a halo of frost around their bodies. A dust of splintered diamond across their faces, an aureole of brittle light to crown their heads.
Now the block had been returned; the minds of the people had been inflamed and they awaited the first sacrifice of the New Age, the age in which proud pagan Mars would again demand its rightful place in the sun. Phobos's hand thrilled for the feel of the knife. He thrilled at the thought of driving it home and thus ushering in the New Age.
Their bodies were strangely rigid, but their eyes and minds were awake. Terribly awake. Albedo saw their eyes, and his heart turned within him. She was taken to a high room, far up in the building. The room seemed to be some sort of a storage place for fine garments. They were everywhere; gold surplices hanging in rows; gold and silver sandals hanging from pegs along the wall. A rich room with windows and daylight coming in; the first Mya had seen in a long time.
He knew the canals, the pitiful waterways that were all that stood between the people of Mars and extinction. He remembered the yearly release from death when the spring thaw brought the water rushing down from the north.
He himself was learning why men went mad beyond the Gates of Death.
The moment was enough. Suddenly the guard stiffened and came awkwardly erect. There was an empty look in his eyes and then Albedo saw the reason. The handle of a dagger protruded from his chest, driven in by Noachis who was even now rolling the corpse over and coming free. Chill, dreadful fingers touched him expertly. A flash of pain drove down his spine, and he could stand again.
The people of the city gathered along the way to watch, a living, shifting rainbow of amethyst and rose and green, against the pure blue-white. And there was no least whisper of sound anywhere.
They moved down the corridor. Only one guard lay in their path but he was down on his haunches, asleep. They glided past him, Noachis' gun held ready. They moved on until they were approaching a more brightly lighted intersection. A small table was located against the bars of a corner cell and a Martian sat at the table occupied with some papers.
Flying spirals of ice climbed up inside the tower, spanning the great stone well with spidery bridges, joining icy galleries. In some of those galleries, Albedo vaguely glimpsed rigid, gleaming figures like statues of ice, but he could not see them clearly as he was carried on.
But they had waited too long. The door opened and four Martian guards entered. They almost filled the room. Albedo hurled himself at the closest one but was knocked viciously back against the wall. It seemed that fate had deserted him at last. The glowing creatures surrounded him. He saw their bodies bending over him, the frosty tendrils of their faces writhing as though in excitement or delight.
They had no faces, but they watched. They were eyeless but not blind, earless, but not without hearing. The inquisitive tendrils that formed their sensory organs stirred and shifted like the petals of ungodly flowers, and the color of them was the white frost-fire that dances on the snow.
A barrier, a wall of force, closing the inner end of the Gates of Death. A barrier that was not designed against man.
A girl with wrists and ankles bound down. She had long chestnut hair that hung down over the edge of the table. She was helpless. And she was completely nude....
The figure of a man in antique Martian armor.
But the thin veneer of civilization sloughed away and left him with the naked bones of truth. His nostrils twitched to the smell of evil, the subtle unclean taint that only a beast, or one as close to it as he, can sense and know. Every nerve was a point of pain, raw with apprehension. An overpowering recognition of danger, hidden somewhere, mocking at him, made his very body change, draw in upon itself and flatten forward, so that when at last he went on again he was more like a four-footed thing than a man walking upright.
Inside, the light was very dim. Albedo listened at the door as the sound of footsteps diminished. He smiled, quite proud of his ability to take care of himself under these circumstances. He would certainly have a lot to put in his diary when he got home.
For a long moment he studied the intricate lens, the incredible depository of a man's mind. Then he raised it slowly to his forehead. He turned to one of the tall windows and looked out at the cliffs and the high notch of the pass, touched with greenish silver by the little moons.
The Martian had not moved a muscle. His chest neither rose nor fell. Completely fascinated, Albedo extended his hand. He touched the face of the guard. It was rough and cool. The guard did not move, Albedo laid a hand against the golden harness. Nothing happened. He had not intended to push, but he did. He pushed so hard the guard tilted over on one stiff leg. Appalled, Albedo leaped back.
The room beyond was large and high and full of shadows. A fire burned low on the hearth, and the uncertain light showed dimly the hangings and the rich stuffs that carpeted the floor, and the dark, sparse shapes of furniture.
According to the immemorial pattern of Martian city-states, the castles of the king and the noble families were clustered together in solitary grandeur. Many of the towers were fallen now, the great halls open to the sky. Time had crushed the grandeur that had been Valles Utopia, more fatally than the boots of any conqueror.
Then he saw it. A beautiful, domed room that gave a first impression of being a public bath of some sort. But there was no water, only brilliant, breathtaking color; all the gorgeous colors of the rainbow dancing down from the ceiling in beams of crystal clarity. There was sound and color, and something else; a subtle something that made Albedo very happy; excitedly happy in a way he had never before experienced.
He moved forward, completely engrossed in his new surroundings. He moved in under the shower of color and a feeling of ecstatic exhilaration went through him. It was wonderful.
The woman wheeled her mount. Bending low, she took up the axe from where it had fallen, and faced her warriors, who were as dazed as Albedo.
There was a beast with no rider to claim it, tugging at its headrope. Albedo swung onto the saddle pad and cut it free. Where the press was thickest, a welter of struggling brutes and men fighting knee to knee, there was the man in black armor, riding like a god, magnificent, born to war. Albedo's eyes shone with a strange, cold light. He struck his heels hard into the scaly flanks. The beast plunged forward.
He stopped for breath, backed into a partially secluded niche and admired his surroundings. Was this the kind of place the Martians lived in? It certainly didn't fit into his preconceived notions of a place where backward ice people would dwell.
Wave after wave of them rolled up, and was cast back, and came on again relentlessly. The intermittent thunder boomed still from the gates, where sweating giants swung the rams under cover of their own bowmen. And everywhere, up and down through the forefront of the fighting, rode the man in black armor, and wild cheering followed him.
Swiftly now, in the thin air of Mars, the dawn came with a rush and a leap, flooding the world with harsh light. It flashed in cruel brilliance from sword-blades, from spearheads, from helmets and burnished mail, from the war-harness of beasts, glistened on bare russet heads and coats of leather, set the banners of the clans to burning, crimson and gold and green, bright against the snow.
The Martian was not too bright. Also, he was lazy. The capturing of this Terran changed things, he told himself. He would take the boy to the terminal. Then perhaps something would happen so he would not have to take the long walk back through the tunnel. Perhaps he would be honored for his capture and another would be sent to the hutch.
He had come painfully across half a world, to crouch before the Gates of Death. Some evil magic had let him see forbidden things, had linked his mind in an unholy bond with the long-dead mind of one who had been half a god. These evil miracles had not been for nothing. He would not be allowed to go unscathed.
If carried to their ultimate, his acts could only lead to the destruction of his people at the hands of the Terrans. But this made the situation no less perilous for Eris and Mya and other Terrans on Mars.
"This is a strange tale you bring, wanderer. I would hear it from your own lips."
He forced remembrance of that vision from his mind, by a great effort. He could not turn back now. There was no place to go.
He eyed Eris for signs of fear. When they did not appear he seemed mildly disappointed. When he spoke again it was in a quieter tone. "But first I would have you see a little of what Martian science is like. I would have you know how far ahead of the Terran bunglers our scientists were even a thousand years ago. I would have you know by what power Mars will again come into its own."
The wind scoured his tracks clean as soon as he made them. Twice, in the distance, he did see riders, and one of those times he burrowed into a tall drift and stayed there for several hours.
But the thing that caught and held the two Terrans were the towering cliffs of ice framed in the great window as by a master painter. Eris and Mya were pushed forward. As they came near the high throne, the young Martian smiled coldly as he noted the direction of their eyes.
A cunning that was purely animal guided his movements then. His head fell forward, and his body hung inert against the thongs. He might almost have been dead.
But the wonder in store made the corridor look like a tunnel clawed through bare earth. It was a huge amphitheater into which he and Mya were rudely shoved. They stood frozen, their perilous position momentarily forgotten.
The flames leaped high from the fire in the windless gorge. Men sat around it in a great circle, the wild riders out of the mountain valleys of Mekh. They sat with the curbed and shivering eagerness of wolves around a dying quarry. Now and again their white teeth showed in a kind of silent laughter, and their eyes watched.
Many times, in his heart, Deimos had wondered if the policy of the old ones had been wise. Deimos was a scholar. The books of the Terrans had been smuggled into the north country. He had learned the language and read the books and there was one Terran writer of whom he never tired; a genius named William Shakespeare. In his great play called Julius Caesar, Shakespeare had said: There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at its flood leads on to fortune.
They came at length to a shelter larger than the others, but built exactly the same and no more comfortable. A spear was thrust into the snow beside the entrance, and from it hung a black pennant with a single bar of silver across it, like lightning in a night sky. Beside it was a shield with the same device. There were no guards.
They walked for what seemed hours before a light showed in the distance. Another hour brought them to the spot where a dusty overhead bulb glowed dimly. It appeared to have been there untouched for centuries because the ceiling was damp and calcium-bearing droplets had almost covered it. Yet it glowed bravely.
To the north, the horizon showed a strange and ghostly glimmer where the barrier wall of the polar pack reared up, gigantic against the sky. The wind blew, down from the ice, through the mountain gorges, across the plains, never ceasing. And here and there the cryptic towers rose, broken monoliths of stone. Albedo remembered the vision of the talisman, the huge structure crowned with eerie darkness. He looked upon the ruins with loathing and curiosity. The men of Mekh could tell him nothing.
He said but little, but the great muscles of his face worked in passion and in agony at recollection of the horrors which had been heaped upon the only thing he had ever loved in all his cold, cruel, terrible existence.
They did not answer him. They sat their restive mounts and stared at him, and Albedo knew that Camar had spoken the truth. These were the riders of Mekh, and they were wolves.
He said no more, nor was there opportunity, for the Bradburys were closing in about us, and together we fought, shoulder to shoulder, during all that long, hot afternoon, until the tide of battle turned and the remnant of the fierce Bradbury horde fell back upon their thoats, and fled into the gathering darkness.
All at once there was a shadow in the mist before him, a dim gigantic shape that moved toward him, and he knew that he looked at death. He cried out....
He moved. He glided snakelike, with infinite caution, over the smooth surface. The tower was gone, and far below him was a city. He saw the temples and the palaces, the glittering lovely city beneath him in the ice, blurred and fairylike and strange, a dream half glimpsed through crystal.
As my machine sank among them I realized that it was fight or die, with good chances of dying in any event, and so I struck the ground with drawn long-sword ready to defend myself as I could.
The wind howled down from the northern ice, and the broken walls rose up against it, brooding, gigantic, roofless now but so huge and sprawling that they seemed less like walls than cliffs of ebon stone. Albedo would not have gone near them but for Camar. They were wrong, somehow, with a taint of forgotten evil still about them.
Believing that I had come too far to the north and west, I turned back in a southeasterly direction, passing during the forenoon several other large cities, but none resembling the description which Kantos Kan had given me of Helium. In addition to the twin-city formation of Helium, another distinguishing feature is the two immense towers, one of vivid scarlet rising nearly a mile into the air from the center of one of the cities, while the other, of bright yellow and of the same height, marks her sister.
In the same deathly silence I grasped Tintinia by the hand, and motioning Mya to follow we sped noiselessly from the chamber and to the floor above. Unseen we reached a rear window and with the straps and leather of my trappings I lowered, first Mya and then Tintinia to the ground below. Dropping lightly after them I drew them rapidly around the court in the shadows of the buildings, and thus we returned over the same course I had so recently followed from the distant boundary of the city.
I loved Tintinia. The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder had spoken to me in words I would not mistake, and I knew that I had loved her since the first moment that my eyes had met hers that first time in the plaza of the dead city of Sirenum.
As her gaze rested on me her eyes opened wide in astonishment, and she made a little sign with her free hand; a sign which I did not, of course, understand. Just a moment we gazed upon each other, and then the look of hope and renewed courage which had glorified her face as she discovered me, faded into one of utter dejection, mingled with loathing and contempt. I realized I had not answered her signal, and ignorant as I was of Martian customs, I intuitively felt that she had made an appeal for succor and protection which my unfortunate ignorance had prevented me from answering. And then she was dragged out of my sight into the depths of the deserted edifice.
If the Sun were as tall as a typical front door, Earth would be the size of a dime, and Mars would be about as big as an aspirin tablet. No other planet has captured our collective imagination quite like Mars.
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