All they wanted to do was help. They said they came from a planet very far away and they were lonely and they wanted to help us make the jump into space. It would be fun, they promised, and would help to end poverty and war between nations, and they would have company in the void between the stars. Politely and deferentially they gave away secrets worth trillions, and humanity burst with a shower of gold into the age of plenty.
Punch was there before them, inspecting the case of bourbon hidden in their blind. "I am delighted to meet you, Chuck, Jer, Bud, Padre and of course Buffie," he said. "It is kind of you to take a stranger along on your fun. I regret I have only some eleven minutes to stay."
Eleven minutes! The boys scowled apprehensively at Buffie. Punch said, in his wistful voice, "If you will allow me to give you a memento, perhaps you would like to know that three grams of common table salt in a quart of Crisco, exposed for nine minutes to the radiations from one of our silicon reactors, will infallibly remove warts." They all scribbled, silently planning a partnership corporation, and Punch pointed out to the bay where some tiny dots rose and fell with the waves. "Are those not the mallards you wish to shoot?"
"That's right," said Buffie glumly. "Say, you know what I was thinking? I was thinking—that transmutation you mentioned before—I wonder—"
"And are these the weapons with which you kill the birds?" He, examined Padre's ancient over-and-under with the silver chasing. "Extremely lovely," he said. "Will you shoot?"
"Oh, not now," said Buffie, scandalized. "We can't do that. That transmutation—"
"It is extremely fascinating," said the star-man, looking at them with his mild pink eyes and returning the gun. "Well. I may tell you. I think, what we have not announced. A surprise. We are soon to be present in the flesh, or near at any rate."
"Near?" Buffie looked at the boys and the boys looked at him; there had been no suggestion of this in the papers and it almost took their minds off the fact that Punch was leaving. He nodded violently, like the flickering of a bad fluorescent lamp.
"Near indeed, in a relative way," he said. "Perhaps some hundreds of miles. My true body, of which this is only a projection, is at present in one of our own interstellar ships now approaching the orbit of Pluto. The American fleet, together with those of Chile, New Zealand and Costa Rica, is there practicing with its silicon-ray weapons and we will shortly make contact with them for the first time in a physical way." He beamed. "But only six minutes remain," he said sadly.
"That transmutation secret you mentioned—" Buffie began, recovering his voice.
"Please," said Punch, "may I not watch you hunt? It is a link between us."
"Oh, do you shoot?" asked Padre.
The star-man said modestly, "We have but little game. But we love it. Won't you show me your ways?"
Buffie scowled. He could not help thinking that twelve growth stocks and a wart-cure were small pickings from the star-men, who had given wealth, weapons and the secret of interstellar travel. "We can't," he growled, his voice harsher than he intended. "We don't shoot sitting birds."
Punch gasped with delight. "Another bond between us! But now I must go to our fleet for the—hum. For the surprise." He began to shimmer like a candle. "Neither do we," he said, and went out.
THE MARTIAN STAR-GAZERS
What killed off the Martian race in 1572? The answer is obvious to anyone who hos a brain in his head — or a tongue in his cheek!
• • •
Recent researches into the surviving documents of the Old Race of Mars have provided insights into the morals and manners of these quaint, extinct creatures who at one time were the only outpost of intelligent life in our Solar System. Three-fingered, cleft of chin, addicted to carrying umbrellas in the early stages of their long history, these Martian humanoids have represented a considerable mystery, both as to their way of life and its abrupt and disastrous end — so recently in time.
Our new studies make it possible to understand many of the questions, including the answer to' the greatest question of all: What killed the Martian race in its prime, only some four centuries ago?
As we know, the Martian civilization, unlike that of Earth, arose in its southern hemisphere. This had far-reaching consequences. As on Earth an entire mythology grew around the North Star and its attendant circumpolar constellations, so on Mars, with its clearer air and consequent sharper view of the Milky Way and other nebulosities.
On Mars, of course, it was the South Star that was the “hub” of their heaven—rather, would have been, had there been a “South Star.”
Unfortunately, at the Martian South Celestial Pole there is no star of significant magnitude. The pole itself is located roughly midway between the quite unimportant stars mu Velae and iotaCarina, in a tentacled patch of the Milky Way shaped rather like a three-fingered hand with opposed thumb. The pole itself is located near the palm of the hand.
This resemblance to a hand had unfortunate effects on the Martian mythos. It was called, in their dialects, either The Clutch or Or Grabby, and it came to be a prime tenet of Martian psycho-anthropology that the heavens were out to get them. (See Figure 1.)
The southerly constellation known to us as Cruris (The Southern Cross) lies astride this extension, at about the position of a wrist. In Martian nomenclature this constellation was called The Cuffs; and in their mythology it was regarded as the manacle which kept Ol’ Grabby from seizing and destroying their planet.
In this view the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds were considered to be Or Grabby’s eyes, known as The Peepers. And the matching extension of the Milky Way coming from what we know as the constellations of Pyxis, Puppis and Monoceros was called 01’ Grabby’s Other Mitt The Martians believed that Ol’
Grabby’s Other Mitt was trying to open The Cuffs and that if this were done, Ol’ Grabby would crush and rend every living Martian and all their works.
The bright southern stars Canopus and Achernar also played a part in this construction. We know that nearly all Martian creatures were hairless and hornless; the only exception is a small and venomous beast much feared by the Martians. It was an additional source of dread to the Martians that Canopus and Achemar were considered to be horns of the head of which The Peepers were the eyes.
With a night sky composed ” principally of the features of a demon, it is n£> wonder that Martian efforts came to be devoted largely to getting out of its sight This accounts for the markedly subterranean quality of their architecture — explaining why their great cities were never seen by telescopic observation from Earth — and also for the fact that all adult Martians carried umbrellas. This feature of the Martian culture puzzled areologists for many years. (Even in historic times Mars was not noted for its rain.) It is now established that these were carried only out of doors and at night, to conceal the carrier from the hungry gaze of The Peepers.
This in turn accounts, at least in part, for the tremendous expansionist spread of the Martian culture northward at about the beginning of their Second Millenium. “Go north, young Martian!” was a familiar Martian injunction for centuries. (Perhaps an additional consideration was the relative mildness of the seasons in the northern hemisphere of Mars. Its axial tilt is such that the northern hemisphere is tipped away from the Sun at closest approach, toward it at farthest. Mars therefore has a warmer winter and cooler summe'r in the north.)
When at last the Martian civilization had re-rooted itself in the north it was discovered that a Pole Star did exist for them.
It was not a very bright star, nor is it particularly close to our own Polaris (due to the difference in axial tilt between Mars and Terra.) It is a star about midway between the star Caph in Cassiopeia and the bright star Deneb (which forms one of the points of the famous terrestrial Summer Triangle.)
The Martian North Pole Star is, in fact, what we call delta Cep-hei, the fourth brightest star in the northerly constellation of Cepheus. (See Figure 2.) To the casual observer it is a star of no great interest. But
it repays dividends on closer study, even with the naked eye. Delta Cephei is a variable star. It flickers like a candle, waxing and waning quite visibly, at fairly short intervals. It is, in fact, a cepheid variable, and the one after which the whole class of cepheids was named.
A Pole Star is, of course, in a favorable position to become the center of astronomical legends, as it is visibly the hub on which the heavens rotate. To the Martians, already uneasy in their cosmological views, it was a source of considerable psychic discomfort to have their northerly heavens swing around a star as unstable as delta Cephei. (Our own Polaris, of course, is itself a variable — but a less conspicuous one, partly innately, partly because it has fewer nearby stars to serve as comparisons.) Delta Cephei’s regular rise and fall in brightness reminded the Martians of the even breathing of a sleeper; and in their language it was named Sleeper, or sometimes The Drowsy One.
The other northerly constellations were thought to be more friendly, on the whole, than the demon-haunted sky of the south. (One major exception is the Andromeda Nebula, which we shall discuss in its place.) The stars we know as Mira Ceti (another famous variable), Fomalhaut and Denebola, along with other stars and the Praesepe Nebula, lying as they did more or less along the plane of the Martian Celestial Equator, were known as The Picket Fence, a heavenly fortification erected to keep Ol’ Grabby in his southerly domain. Two of the brightest stars in the Fence (which we know as Betelgeuse and Bellatrix, in the constellation of Orion) were called The Gates. (See Figure 3.)
By a coincidence, the constellation of Orion itself had long been thought to be the outline of a giant — as it is on Earth, Orion being the name of the mighty Heavenly Hunter (whose companions are the Greater and Lesser Dogs: Canis Major, with Sirius, and Canis Minor, with Procyon.) However, the Martians, their culture arising in the southern half of their planet, had at first viewed Orion in the position we would consider upside-down.
In Earthly eyes, The Gates (Betelgeuse and Bellatrix) are considered to be the shoulders of the giant Saiph and Rigel, to the south, are his feet. The three stars in a row in. the center of the constellation are Orion’s Belt. And the lesser stars, with the Great Nebula in Orion, which dangle below the Belt are called Orion’s Sword.
From the south-oriented Martian view the giant had no feet Rigel and Saiph became his shoulders. The Belt was still the Belt; but as the projection downward was, from their point of view, a projection upward, the stars in the Sword of Orion were ignored; and the Great Nebula (now falling somewhere on the giant’s chest, at about the position of a heart) was called “The Bloody Wound.”
The story associated with the constellation was one of danger and tragedy. Ol’ Grabby, before being manacled, had lashed out and caught the giant (who was called The Guardian) a deadly blow near the heart. The Guardian was dying. When he died, the northward-moving Martians considered, Ol’ Grabby would find The Gates undefended. And then the way would be clear for him to move north after them.
But meanwhile, the Picket Fence stood, and the other northerly constellations were thought to provide valuable secondary defenses.
On Earth it is easy to see the difference in naming customs between northern and southern constellations. The northern skies, first viewed and first mapped by preastronomical shepherds and nomads, have complicated and devious legends. (As the constellations themselves are complicated and difficult to see — at least when viewed in the light of their supposed resemblances to hares, .whales, hunting dogs or swans.) But the southern skies of Earth were named by exploring seafarers. They saw the dries in terms of ships — wherefore such southern terrestrial constellations as The Keel, The Compasses, The Telescope, The Net and so on. (Indeed, the southern sky was at first seen as almost a single Constellation — Argo, the Ship — of which most of the presently renamed constellations are the parts.)
An analogous effect occurred on Mars. The northern constellations were named on a larger plan.
Ol’ Grabby and his various parts, although they dominated the sky, had been only a few of more than a score of southern constellations for the Martians. But of our Earthly northern constellations (there are more than two dozen of them), the Martians made only a few.
Our Summer Triangle, the points of which are the stars Deneb, Altair and Vega, actually takes in five constellations. The Martians considered it one. They called it The Axe, the sharp blade coming to a point at Altair in the south; and it was their weapon to strike at Ol’ Grabby in the event that he should somehow break through The Picket Fence at the point in the year’s parade of constellations when The Gates and their Guardian were out of the night-time sky.
Such northern nebulosities as The Pleiades, the . Hyades and Messier 31, the Great Nebula in Andromeda, gave the Martians pause. Conditioned to think of star clusters, nebulae and the like as somehow inimical — the parts of Ol’ Grabby; the deadly Bloody Wound of The Guardian — they could not well assign friendly roles to these astronomical objects. Pleiades and Hyades were considered to be drops of blood shed by The Guardian in his battle, and the legend arose that once Ol’ Grabby had broken through The Gates, to the point in the sky marked by these star clusters, and was repulsed only as The Guardian’s dying act.
Our Big Dipper (Ursa Major) became for them The Armored Car, a stately and powerful military patrol wheeling through the skies. (As, indeed, in Britain on Earth the same constellation was once called Charles’s Wain, or Wagon.) The Little Dipper was a smaller armored car, patrolling backward through the sky, Polaris first.
The triangle formed by Alde-baran, Capella and the twin stars of Castor and Pollux, located near the Guardian’s spilled blood, just above The Gates, became The Tank Trap, a fortified line of defense behind which The Guardian could retreat if Ol’ Grabby drove him from The Gates. Our constellation of Aries, along with Mirach, Alpheratz and Algenib from other constellations, became The Pit. The Pit lay just above Mira Ceti, the variable star in The Picket Fence; when Mira Ceti waned the Fence was weakened; if then Ol’ Grabby broke through, The Pit might trap him and halt his attack.
Most reassuring of all, our Cassiopeia, the wobbly “W” that swings around the Pole Star, swung also around theirs. (Polaris, however, lies above the “W”. The Sleeper lies to its right.) The deeply cleft Martian chin gave their closed mouths some of the appearance of a “W” — and they chose to look on Cassiopeia as The Smile.
This was, beyond doubt, a favorable sign. Yet the cryptic Sleeper lay just beside The Smile, and below it the ominous, Ol’ Grabby-like fuzziness that we call the
Great Nebula in Andromeda. The likeness to the Orion Nebula (different as they are in reality, one an external galaxy, the other a mere patch of glowing gas) could not escape notice. Messier 31 was called The Other Wound. The Sleeper smiled in his sleep, yet he too had been hurt Perhaps he too would be angry if he woke.
We know that the last surviving Martian perished in a planet-wide death a bare four centuries ago. And we know, finally, why.
The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Millenia of the Martian planetary civilization proceeded in a cultural stasis like nothing so much as our own Ancient Egypt. Perhaps it was for similar reasons: a hostile, near-desert environment, with seasons strongly marked by the annual flooding of the Nile, the annual melting of the Martian polar icecaps. No doubt, too, social causes were involved beyond this. We do not yet know all of the social factors involved; but we know that the Martian theocracy grew, blossomed — and froze.
Nearly all of Mars now lived in the northern hemisphere. Ol’ Grabby was no longer a nightly sight for every Martian. But his worship — more accurately, his propitiation — was the official state religion. And his image, picked out in precious stones, decorated every public building.
Yet in the Martian mind Ol’ Grabby must have receded somewhat as a figure of public terror. We know that the custom of carrying umbrellas by night fell into disuse. They are found everywhere in the abandoned southern Martian cities, but hardly exist in the more recent cities
of the north. Ol’ Grabby was mprely the official property of the theocracy. They interpreted his moods; they ordered acts for his appeasement
So lingered the long afternoon of the Martian civilization, until the year which in our Earthly calendar is called 1572 A. D.
The Sleeper, it should be pointed out, lies itself at the edge of a northerly stream of the Milky Way (whose southerly projections, we recall, were the hands of Ol’ Grabby.) An uneasy sort of convention had come to exist that this branch of the Milky Way was indeed a part of Ol’ Grabby’s body, or perhaps a limb of another Ol’ Grabby, but that as long as The Sleeper slept there was no danger.
In 1572 A. D. (our reckoning) The Sleeper awoke. (Fig. 4.)
This was the year of the great nova in Cassiopeia — which appeared to Martians as well as to pre-Elizabethan terrestrials. It was no ordinary nova; was not, indeed, a nova at all. Tycho, who observed it (it is often called Tycho’s Star in his honor), was stricken with its enormous brightness, dimming the rest of the sky. It was that rare celestial event, a supernova, the total destruction of a star.
Brightest object in the sky, it mushroomed above the closed mouth of The Smile. It looked like an eye — was an eye — was the Eye of the Sleeper, cried the frantic, panicky mobs that swarmed around the Martian cities. Ol’ Grabby — or one like him — had wakened and found them at last; The Sleeper no longer slept. In the terror and riot of those few days of the flaring of Tycho’s Star a planet died at its own hands. It was suicide. Nine-tenths of the Martian race killed itself, through fear; and the few remaining could not long survive.
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