by Jerry eBooks
THEY would form a net, a circle, Spender knew that. They would go around and close in and they would get him. It was a strange thing that the grenades were not used. Captain Wilder could easily order the grenades tossed.
But I’m much too nice to be blown to bits, thought Spender, that’s what the captain thinks. He wants me with only one hole in me. Now isn’t that strange? The captain wants my death to be clean. Nothing messy. Because why? Because he understands me and, because he understands, therefore is willing to risk his good men to give me a clean shot in the head?
Seven, eight, nine shots broke out in a rattle. The rocks around him flew up at the explosions. Spender fired steadily, sometimes while looking at the aluminum book he carried in his hand.
The captain ran in the hot sunlight, with a rifle in his hand. Spender followed him in the sights of his pistol, but did not fire. Instead he shifted over and blew the top off a rock where Whitie lay, and heard an angry shout. Suddenly the captain stood up and he had a white handkerchief in his hands. He said something to the men and came walking up the mountain after putting aside his rifle. Spender lay there, then arose to his feet, his pistol ready.
The captain came up and sat down on a warm boulder, not looking at Spender for a moment.
When he reached into his pocket, Spender waved his pistol a little.
The captain said, “Cigarette?”
“Thanks.” Spender took one.
“Light?”
“Got my own.”
They took one or two puffs and let it out.
“Warm,” said the captain.
“It is.”
“Are you comfortable up here?”
“Enough.”
“How long do you think you can hold out?”
“About twelve men’s worth.”
“Why didn’t you kill all of us this morning when you had the chance. You could have, you know.”
“I know. I got sick. When you want to do a thing badly enough you lie to yourself. You say the other is all wrong. Well, soon after I started killing people, I realized they were just fools and I shouldn’t be killing them. But it was too late. I couldn’t go on with it then, so I came up here so I could lie to myself some more and get angry, to build it all up.”
“Is it built up?”
“Not very high. Enough.”
The captain puffed on a cigarette. “Why did you do it?”
Spender quietly laid his pistol at his feet. “Because I’ve seen that what these Martians had was just as good as anything we’ll ever hope to have. They stopped where we should have stopped a hundred years ago. I’ve walked in their cities and I know these people and I’d be glad to call them my ancestors.”
“They have a beautiful city there.” The captain nodded at one of several places.
“It’s not that alone. Yes, they have a good city here. They knew how to blend art into their living. It’s always been a thing apart for Americans. Art was something you kept in the crazy son’s room upstairs. Art was something you took in Sunday doses, mixed with some religion, maybe. Well, these Martians have art and religion and everything.”
“You think they knew what it was all about, do you?”
“For my money.”
“And for that reason, you started shooting people.”
“When I was a kid my folks took me on a visit to Mexico City. I’ll always remember the way my father acted—loud and big. And my mother didn’t like the people because they were dark and didn’t wash right. And my sister wouldn’t talk to some of them. I was the only one really liked it. And I can see my mother and my father coming to Mars and doing the same.
“Anything that’s strange is no good to the average American. If it doesn’t have Chicago plumbing, it’s nonsense. The thought of that! Oh God, the thought of that! And then—the war. You heard the Congressional speeches before we left. If things work out they hope to establish three atomic research and atom bomb depots on Mars. And that means Mars is doomed, all of this wonderful stuff gone. How would you feel if a Martian came and vomited stale liquor all over the White House floor?”
QUIETLY the captain sat blinking in the smoke.
“And then the other power interests coming hi,” said Spender. “The mineral men and the travel men. Do you remember what happened to Mexico when Cortez and his very fine good friends arrived from Spain? A whole civilization destroyed by greedy, righteous bigots. History will never forgive Cortez.”
“You haven’t been acting ethically yourself, today,” observed the captain.
“What could I do? Argue with you? It’s simply me against the whole crooked grinding greedy setup on earth. They’ll be flopping their filthy atom bombs up here, fighting for bases to have wars. Isn’t it enough they’re ruining one planet, without ruining another; do they have to foul someone else’s manger? The simple-minded wind-bags. When I got up here, I felt I was not only free of their so called culture, I felt I was free of their ethics and their customs. I’m out of their frame of reference, I thought. All I have to do is kill you all off, and live my own life.”
“But it didn’t work out,” said Captain Wilder.
“No, after the fifth killing at breakfast, I discovered I wasn’t all new, all Martian, after all. I couldn’t throw away everything I had learned on earth so easily. But now I’m all right. I’ll kill all of you off. That’ll delay the next trip in a rocket for a good five years. There’s no other rocket in existence today, save this one. The people on Earth will wait a year, two years, and then when they hear nothing from us, they’ll be very afraid to build a new rocket. They’ll take twice as long, and make a hundred extra experimental models to insure themselves against another failure.”
“You’re correct.”
“A good report from you, on the other hand, when you returned, would hasten the whole invasion of Mars. If I’m lucky, I’ll live to be sixty years old. Every expedition that lands on Mars will be met by me. There won’t be more than one ship at a time coming up, one every year or so, and never more than twenty men. After I’ve made friends with them and explained that our rocket blew up one day—I intend to blow it up after I finish my job, today—I’ll kill them off, every one of them. Mars will be untouched for the next half century. After awhile, perhaps the people of Earth will give up trying. Remember how they grew leery of the idea of building Zeppelins that were always going down in flames?”
“You’ve got it all planned,” said the captain.
“I have.”
“And yet you’re outnumbered and in about an hour we’ll have you surrounded and you’ll be dead.”
“I’ve found some underground passages and a place to live that you’ll never find. I’ll withdraw there and live for a few weeks. Until you’re off guard. Then I’ll come out and pick you off, one by one.”
“Will you have something to drink?” The captain threw down his cigarette.
“I don’t mind.”
The captain poured two drinks from a hip flask.
“If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll take your cup, you take mine. That way we won’t have anyone falling down poisoned.” The captain looked him in the face. “You don’t think I’d pull a thing like that.”
Spender said, “No. No, I guess you wouldn’t. Here.” They drank the whisky slowly.
“Tell me about your civilization here,” suggested the captain, casually examining his man.
“They knew how to live with nature and get along with nature. They didn’t try too hard to be all men and no animal. That’s the mistake we made when Darwin showed up. We embraced him, and Huxley and Freud, all smiles. And then we discovered that Darwin and our religions didn’t mix. Or at least we didn’t think they did. We were fools. We tried to budge Darwin and Huxley and Freud, and they wouldn’t move very well. So, like fools, we tried knocking down religion.
“We succeeded pretty well in many instances. We lost our faith and went around wondering what life was for. If art was no more than a frustrated outflinging of
desire, if religion was no more than self-delusion, what good was life? Faith had always given us answers to all things. But it all went down the drain with Freud and Darwin. We were and still are a lost people.”
WILDER was staring steadily at Spender whose eyes had taken on a dreamy expression.
“And these Martians are a found people?” asked the captain.
“Yes, They knew how to combine science and religion so the two worked side by side, neither denying the other, one enriching the other.”
“That sounds ideal.”
“It was. And do you know how the Martians did this? I’d like to show you.”
“The men are waiting down the hill for me.”
“We’ll be gone hall an hour. Tell them that, sir.”
The captain hesitated, then rose and called an order down the hill.
Spender took him down into a little mountain village built all of cool perfect marble. There were great friezes of beautiful animals, white-limbed cat things, and yellow-limbed sun symbols, and statues of bull-like creatures and statues of men and women and huge, fine-featured dogs.
“There’s your answer, Captain.”
“I don’t see.”
“The Martians discovered the secret of life in the animals. The animal does not question life. It lives. Its very reason for living is life, it enjoys and relishes life. You see—the statuary, the animal symbols, again and again.”
“It looks pagan.”
“On the contrary, those are God symbols, symbols of life. Man had become too much man, and not enough animal on Mars, too, one day. And man realized that, in order to survive, he would have to forego asking that one question any longer. Why live? Life was its own answer. Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good life as possible. The Martians realized that they asked the question “Why live at all?” at the height of some period of war and despair, when there was no answer. But once the civilization calmed, quieted, and became economically sound, and wars ceased, the question became senseless in a new way: Life was good now, and needed no arguments.”
“It sounds as if the Martians were quite naive.”
“Only when it paid to be naive. They quit trying too hard to destroy everything, to humble everything. They blended religion and art and science, because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. They never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful. It is all simply a matter of degree. The Earth man thinks:
“In that picture, color does not exist, really. A scientist can prove that color is only the way the cells are placed in a certain material to reflect light. Therefore color is not really an actual part of the thing I happen to see.”
“A Martian, far cleverer, would say: “This is a fine picture. It came from the hand and mind of a man inspired. Its idea and its color are from life. This thing is good.”
CHAPTER IV
Stone Sarcophagus
CURIOUSLY the captain looked around at the little quiet cool town, sitting in the afternoon sun.
“I’d like to live here,” he said.
“You may if you want.”
“You ask me that?”
“Will any of those men under you ever really understand all this? They’re professional cynics, and it’s too late for them. Why do you want to go back with them? So you can keep up with the Joneses? To buy a gyro just like Smith has? To listen to music with your pocketbook instead of your glands? There’s a little patio down here with a reel of Martian music in it at least fifty thousand years old. It still plays. Music you’ll never hear in your life. You could hear it. There are books. I’ve gotten on well in reading them, already. You could sit and read.”
“It all sounds quite wonderful, Spender.”
“But you won’t stay?”
“No. Thanks, awfully.”
“And you certainly won’t let me stay, without trouble. I’ll have to kill you all.”
“You’re optimistic.”
“I have something to fight for and live for, that makes me a better warrior. I’ve got a religion now. It’s learning how to smell and breathe all over. And how to lie in the sun getting a tan, letting the sun get into you. And how to hear music and how to read a book. What does your civilization have to offer?” The captain shifted his feet. He shook his head. “I’m sorry all this is happening. I’m sorry about it all.”
“I am too. I guess I’d better take you back now so you can start the attack.”
“I guess so.”
“I won’t kill you, captain. When it’s all over, you’ll still be alive.”
“What?”
“Yes. I decided that when I began all this. You would be the one I would leave alive. I never intended touching you. I don’t intend to now.”
“Well,” said the captain.
“I won’t kill you, I’ll save you out from the rest,” said Jeff Spender. “When they’re all dead, maybe you’ll change your mind.”
“No,” the captain said, “I won’t change. There’s too much Earth blood in me. I’ll have to kill you.”
“Even when you have a chance to stay here?”
“It’s funny, but yes, even with that. I don’t know why. I’ve never asked myself. Well, here we are.” They had reached the place where they had met now. “Will you come on quietly with me, Spender? That is my last offer.”
“Thanks, no.” Spender put out his hand. “And one last thing? If you win, do me a favor? See what can be done to restrict tearing this planet apart, at least for fifty years, until the archaeologists have had a decent time of it, will you?”
“Right.”
“And one more thing. If it’ll help you any, just think of me as a very crazy fellow who went berserk one summer day and never was right again. It’ll be a little easier on you, perhaps. Do that.”
“I’ll think it over. So long, Spender. Good luck.”
“You’re an odd one,” said Spender as the captain walked back down the trail in the warm blowing wind.
The captain returned like something lost to his dusty men. He kept squinting at the sun and breathing hard.
“Is there a drink?” he wondered. He felt the bottle put cool into his hand. “Thanks.” He drank. He wiped his mouth. “All right,” he said. “Take it easy, we have all afternoon. I don’t want any more lost. You’ll have to kill him. He won’t come down. Make it a clean shot if you can. Don’t mess him. Get it over with.” He took another cool drink.
“I’ll kick his bloody brains out,” said Whitie.
“No, through the chest,” said the captain. He could see Spender’s strong, clearly determined face.
“His bloody brains,” said Whitie.
The captain handed him the bottle jerkingly. “You heard what I said, through the chest.”
Whitie talked to himself.
“Now,” said the captain.
THEY spread again, walking and then running, and then walking on the hot hillside places where there would be sudden cool grottoes that smelled of moss, and sudden open blasting places that smelled of sun on stone.
I hate being clever, thought the captain, when you don’t really feel clever and don’t want to be clever. To sneak around and make plans and feel big about making them. I hate this feeling of thinking I’m doing right when I’m not really certain I am. Who are we, anyway? The majority? Is that the answer. The majority is always holy, isn’t it? It is always right, is it not? Always, always; just never wrong for one little insignificant, tiny moment, is it? Never ever wrong in ten million years? He thought: What is this majority and who are in it? And what do they think and how did they get that way and will they ever change and how the devil did I get caught in this rotten majority? I don’t feel comfortable. Is it claustrophobia, fear of crowds, or common sense? Can one man be right, while all the world thinks they are right. Let’s not think about it. Let’s crawl around and act exciting and glamorous and run around and pull the trigger.
There, and there!
The men ran and ducked and ran and squatted in shadow and showed their teeth and tightened their eyes and lifted their guns and tore holes in the summer air, holes of sound and heat.
Spender remained where he was, firing only on occasion. “Bloody brains all over!”
Whitie kept yelling as he ran up the hill.
The captain aimed his gun at Whitie. He stopped and put it down and stared at it in horror. “What were you doing?” he asked of his limp hand and the gun. His eyes widened and shut and he gasped and could not breathe.
He had almost shot Whitie in the back.
“God help you!” breathed the captain. “What are you doing? What’s happening!”
He opened his eyes to see Whitie still running, then falling to lie safe under an outcrop.
“What goes on?” The captain stared up. From where he lay he could see it all. Spender was being gathered in by a loose running net of men. At the top of the hill, behind two rocks, Spender lay, grinning with exhaustion, great islands of sweat under each arm. The captain saw the rocks. There was an interval of about four inches giving free access through to Spender’s chest.
“Hey, you!” Whitie cried. “A bullet in your head, I will!” The captain waited. Go on, Spender, he thought. Get out, like you said you would. You’ve only got a few more minutes to escape. Get out and come back later. Go on, get out. You said you would. Go down in the tunnels you said you found and lie there and live for months and years, reading your fine books and bathing in your temple pools. Go on, now, man, before it’s too late.
Spender did not move from his position on the hill. “What’s wrong with him?” the captain asked himself. The captain picked up his gun. He watched the running, hiding men. He looked at the towers of the little clean Martian village, like sharply carved chess pieces lying in the afternoon. He saw the rocks and the interval between where Spender’s chest showed through.