They sat there waiting for us to speak, so I began. “I am a United States citizen,” I said. “My name is—"
“Since when?” interrupted the Consul.
That stopped me, but I saw a light began to glimmer in the narrowing eyes of his companion.
“We have no record of a Vanyan becoming a citizen—"
It was then I realized that I should have renovated my Earthman clothes. I was dressed as a Vanyan, or undressed like one, and I had come into the office speaking the Vanyan tongue with what to them must have been perfect fluency.
“Wait a minute,” said the plainclothesman. “That English is too good. Who are you?"
“I am Raymond Sanders, of Los Angeles, California."
The Consul tore his eyes from Kria long enough to raise his brows at me. The plainclothesman snapped to attention.
“Ye gods!” he exclaimed. “I just got here and my job's done! I came here to trace you."
“Why?” I said.
“You're a U. S. citizen. You disappeared. The story was that the Vanyans kidnapped you."
I laughed. “On the contrary, they sort of rescued me during the anti-Vanyan uprising. I have been living in a Vanyan household ever since, and now I want to get married. This is Kria, my fiancée. And this is her brother, Drganu."
The Consul half rose to his feet. “You what!"
“I said we want to get married. I want to know how to legalize it according to Stateside law-Earthside laws, to coin a term."
“But-!” The Consul was apparently at a loss for words.
“Hold it!” exclaimed the plainclothesman. He looked us over carefully, and I almost saw cogs whirling swiftly in his brain. “Could you excuse us for a few moments?
Drganu and I and Kria stepped outside into the great halls of the Palace proper.
“Your world is very complicated,” remarked Kria, holding onto my arm.
“It seems to tie itself up and get strangled in its own complexities,” put in Drganu.
I could have given them a lecture on the subject, but I was busy wondering what was going on in the Consul's office. Something bothered me, vaguely, like a dark premonition, but I soon threw the feeling off, embracing the simpler and cleaner philosophy of the Vanyan. Honor and idealism were impregnable fortresses. I had only to stick to my guns, without subterfuge, and the battle would be won.
Within three minutes, the Consul, himself, appeared at the door of his office. His attitude had changed remarkably. He seemed to be vitally interested in our case. With a pleasant smile, he ushered us back in. The plainclothesman merely sat where he had been before. There was a somewhat baleful expression on his face which I did not like.
“I think,” said the Consul, “that everything can be straightened out. First we'll legalize your residence here and then we'll get down to the business of the marriage...
* * * *
We were married by the Consul next day, after I had received a provisional passport, a Vanyan resident's visa and a Vanyan alien's carnet of identification. Drganu was best man, Sanal gave the bride away, and Mr. Motter, who turned out to be a special U. S. agent attached to the United Nations in some way, was a witness. The legalization of our marriage was almost overwhelming.
Then they told me about the string that was attached to the whole business. Or rather, Mr. Motter did. And it wasn't so much a string as a ship's hawser.
He asked to see me privately and the Consul gave us his office. When we were alone he came up to me and shook my hand gravely.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“Thanks,” I answered, “but you don't seem to be referring to the obvious."
“I'm not. I'm referring to your unique position to be of great service to your country and to your native world."
“Oh, oh."
“Sit down. I want to talk to you about that."
I needed to sit down, all right. And I was also trying to contain my temper. If what I was thinking was true...
“You have resided on Mars longer than any other Earthman,” he began, with enviable smoothness. “You are also a trained linguist and have evidently mastered the Vanyan tongue as well as come to understand their way of life. By the medallion you were wearing yesterday I see that you have been accepted as a member of a Vanyan household. And now this marriage between you and a Vanyan woman completes the picture."
“What picture?"
He saw my belligerence but he was prepared to take that in stride, too. These special agents didn't acquire their posts for nothing. That was often the difference between them and the usual type of character we have representing us abroad. That's what special agents were for, I reasoned. They were fill-ins for places where the chips were down and the going was rough.
“Why did you voluntarily seek a U.S. Consul here on Mars and attempt to reestablish yourself as a citizen of the United States of America?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “Habit. Gregarious instinct. The need for a sense of identity, I guess. I have to be some kind of a citizen. I don't prefer to be a man without a country."
He impaled me with a stare. “Is that all your U.S. citizenship means to you?"
“Look! I don't duck draft boards. I'm just as good a citizen as anybody else."
“I know. And you've been a taxpayer, too. But, as a professor attached to the American educational system don't you think you should adhere to a more clearly delineated patriotic policy?"
“I'll put it this way. Patriotism is like religion. It's kind of personal. When Pearl Harbor happened—"
“I know. I know. You volunteered. Well that wasn't nearly as important as what you can do now. Then a people were in danger, as well as cherished ideologies. But now the entire Earth is in danger, and it hasn't much to do with ideologies, unless you could tack an -ism onto the word, Freedom."
“If I picked a label for your speech I'd call it ‘razzmatazz.’”
“Please don't be facetious, Sanders. If you don't believe what I tell you, take it on authority. While you've been dreaming around the hill country with your fiancée, things have been happening."
“Such as?"
“So damn much benevolence from the Vanyans that we can already see the pattern behind it all. It's a gigantic booby trap."
“I'm still listening.” I really was. I had only gotten married. I hadn't gone deaf. If the Vanyans really were up to something, which I still doubted, well-again there was instinct. Preservation of my own kind. I wanted to know what the Government claimed to know, and here was my chance.
“Consider all the weapons and technological gadgets they've given us. Suppose I told you that they all have a common denominator in the form of a remote control unit? True, those controls are supposed to be for our own use—” He leaned forward to drive his point home. “But there's nothing we can see to prevent them from controlling everything we've got on Earth-from up here, on Mars."
I sat there and studied him, trying to be calm and collected in the middle of incipient apoplexy.
“You have no proof of that possibility,” I stated, finally.
“Would you like to prove that we're all wrong?"
That was a clever way of putting it. I couldn't turn my country down-or the whole Earth, my own native planet. On the other hand, I liked the Vanyans tremendously. Here was a chance to prove them villains or friends, and I could hope to prove the latter.
“In other words, you'd like to deputize me as an agent?"
“Exactly. You would be representing the Government of the United States-the O.S.S., to be exact-as well as the United Nations."
“What is it, specifically, that you want me to do?"
“Remain here in residence on the pretext of taking your honeymoon here. But get around and see if you can find us a clue to their real intentions. Actually, the ideal discovery would be the master switch for those remote controls."
“Ideal? It would mean interplanetary war."
“If that's in the cards, we naturally want to be in a
position to strike the first blow."
“Uh huh. Well, I think you're wrong, but if you're right-I'll tell you."
Motter got to his feet with a wan smile on his face. Again he extended his hand. “I guess you're all right, Sanders,” he said. “And that's why I say-congratulations."
“Yeah."
I did not feel too happy. I was a spy against my wife's people. Nice...
* * *
CHAPTER VIII
SO it was that Kria and I started taking our honeymoon on Mars. I had double reasons for traveling, so by the authority of the Council we were issued a small version of the interstellar type disc, and we managed to get around. Kria was still my third order teacher, and as I had expressed a sudden interest in Vanyan technology she personally escorted me to various strategic spots.
There were no security regulations covering atmospheric plants, or their atomic power stations. I even went through Research Center and Communications-interplanetary communications. I studied their methods of production, learned the intricacies of their weapons.
But there was no master switch-so far. I made weekly reports to Motter, and he was disappointed at my lack of concrete progress. I was not. But I kept my eyes open, as directed.
One day in Sanal's house I was introduced to an important Vanyan-a first order Master teacher by the name of Ralsyan. He was supposed to be centuries old but he looked about sixty-a healthy sixty.
He was very much impressed with my mastery of the Vanyan language and invited me to witness a tour of first order students under his guidance. Kria and I went along in his “sky island” school, in the company of about twenty Vanyans who were almost of Sanal's age. And one night in a lonely region of Mars I was permitted to stroll with Ralsyan alone in the desert and converse with him.
“Perhaps you can tell me something that I have long hesitated to ask anyone else even Kria, my own wife,” I said to him. “You are a wiseman and can consider certain vital questions in the absolute sense."
“I should be glad to help you if I can,” he answered.
“All right. Then tell me this. Why are you Vanyans so willing to give us Earthmen all your technological secrets-your method of space flight, your weapons, everything? You don't even seem to be much concerned about defense against the possibility of attack. After all, your total number is infinitesimal compared with the population of my own planet. Our industrial capacity is tremendous in comparison with yours. In another couple of years—"
He laid his hand on my arm and smiled. “Now that you have acquired a knowledge of our tongue, perhaps I can explain it to you. I know exactly what you mean, of course, and as a Vanyan I appreciate your concern."
We walked on across the sands in the light of Phobos and one artificial sun satellite. Earth stood out in the sky, like the biblical Star of the East.
“You see, as immortals we abhor the thought of death by killing more than anything else. To lose one Vanyan life would be cataclysmic to us. In cases where wisdom has been obtained-which lies beyond knowledge and mere intelligence-the loss would be very great, indeed. So we have only one form of protection against violence from our neighbors. It is the firm knowledge that they will not attack us."
He held up his hand as I was about to interrupt, and went on. “The cause of war is a difference in potentials, which causes discontentment and suspicion. We have attempted to reduce the difference in potential to zero, by making our neighbors as strong as us. We could not tolerate the idea of maintaining constant defenses against possible attack. We can only know that our neighbor has good intentions when he is able to attack and does not. Then we can be assured we are at peace."
“But-that's leaving yourselves wide open!"
“Perhaps—"
“It doesn't make sense. You tell me you abhor the idea of death by violence, yet you take a mad gamble by giving us all your weapons, and we can out-produce you a million to one!"
He shrugged. “There is the parting line between mere rationality and wisdom. You must wait until you acquire wisdom."
“I don't know about that. The way I see it, you people have no instinct of self-preservation at all.” Ralsyan laughed. “If you only knew!” he exclaimed, cryptically.
There was the first dangerous remark I had heard. Here was the first hint of a hidden weapon. My ears felt like rabbit's ears. But how could I get him to let me know what he was hiding?
“I'd like to know,” I said.
He patted my arm. “Some things cannot be told,” he replied. “You will have to wait. Someday it may be revealed to you."
This harkened back to the cryptic remarks made by Sanal on the day I declared my intentions of marrying Kria. To say that I was assailed by a sense of frustration would be putting it mildly.
Now I was discontented and troubled. Could my Government be right, after all? Were the Vanyans wolves masquerading in sheep's clothing?-to use a cliché. But no. There was such a thing as sensing the intentions of another The Vanyans were intrinsically benevolent. I could judge them by my own gentle Kria. I would have staked my life and gambled a world on the conviction that there was nothing deceitful or malignant in the Vanyan nature.
But how was I to prove this now?
“I have another question. You people are able to redesign any world to suit your own physiological needs-anywhere. If you value your lives so much, how come you haven't established yourselves on a more isolated planet? Why set up your civilization here so close to Earth and give us the means of reaching you through space?"
“That is related to the basic nature of our purpose in life,” he answered. “Of what use is wisdom or knowledge if it cannot be applied? Happiness is derived from striving toward higher goals, and Man's goal is always knowledge and wisdom. But not wisdom in a vacuum. We have deliberately sought contact with a race that could use our help and guidance. It's the way we prefer to live, evaluating our accomplishments in relation to expanding achievement. Therefore you might say that Earth is a sort of catalytic agent to our endeavors. To live for ourselves alone would be anathama.” Here was almost an incomprehensible vista of benevolence. I gave up, for the time being. But I present this conversation as further evidence that the Vanyans were as close to being gods as it is possible to be in mortal life. Study it well, and remember! Earth stabbed them in the back. You destroyed them!
* * * *
A few days later, Kria and I had the intention of going over the hill again to watch the sunset, by the waterfall. She was still in the sun-ray mist bath, or Vanyan version of “shower,” when I called her, so I walked on ahead with her promise to meet me there soon. I did not bring along the sleth as on previous occasions because my mind was troubled. I was even wondering how I might question Kria about her people without arousing her suspicions, yet I was angered by the thought that this cloak and danger intrigue had entered the picture in the first place.
I had no sooner arrived at my favorite spot near the pool below the waterfall than I discerned the lone figure of a man ascending the slope of the hills from the direction of the Palace of the. Long before he arrived at the pool I knew it was Motter, Earth's special agent, who had actually been masquerading as the U. S. Vice-Consul on Mars.
When he came within earshot he said, “I thought I'd come up here to take a look at the sunset and the sunrise. It's the only place I know of where you can watch both simultaneously."
“And you came to get another report,” I told him.
“A double sun phenomenon and a strategic report affecting the fate of a world, all in one spot,” he grinned. “Can you blame me?"
He offered me a cigarette, but I refused it just as though I were a native Vanyan. He smoked and we both watched the true sun sink and the first artificial sun rise. Deimos and Phobos were both near the zenith, and Earth was a gleaming diamond in the darkening sky. After the real sun sank, the combined light of the two moons and the synthetic sun produced a brilliance comparable to full moonlight on Earth.
“Well?” he sa
id, finally. “Anything new? You went on a little trip, I hear, with a first order Master-name of Ralsyan. He's big timber among the Vanyans and second only in the Council."
“You really get around, don't you?” I retorted.
He shrugged, waiting. His pale blue eyes watched me.
“Okay,” I said, “I did pick up one thing.” I told him in detail my entire conversation with Ralsyan that night on the desert. When I came to the cryptic part of it where Ralsyan said, “If you only knew!"-Motter raised his brows.
“So that's the way it stands,” he remarked. “Well, maybe we were right, after all, Sanders. When I first gave you your assignment, you might have been chagrined to know that we are well prepared to meet the Vanyans in combat. Now, however, perhaps that fact will be of some consolation to you."
I remained silent, and finally I did ask him for a cigarette. I puffed on it rather furiously, more troubled than before.
“Look!” he added. “I'm going back to Earth for a few days. I think the home office would be interested in Master Ralsyan's remarks. In the meantime, you'd better concentrate a little harder on getting vital information. Don't forget that the Vanyans might be able to snuff us out with a flick of the wrist, and our only protection may be to strike without open provocation-unless you can show us that we're wrong."
Martian Honeymoon and Beyond the Darkness Page 5