The Lawyers of Mars: Three Novellas

by Pam Uphoff

  "Hmm, you won't be able to steer it, though." L'on pointed out, once again hopping onto the other side of the padded bench.

  Jemi stretched to grab the engine compartment lid and closed it, then stepped around to the side window. "It didn't do anything like starting, but the only thing I didn't do was twist the key."

  Albe twisted the key carefully. He had one hand still on the steering yoke and it shifted suddenly. "OK, one click unlocks the steering." He turned the key again. All the instruments lit up. He turned it again, releasing it when a sudden sound from under the engine resulted. It stopped, and the key jumped back to the second position. Shrugging he turned it again, and held it. The resulting noises were alarming and he released it again. The noises settled down but didn't stop totally.

  "I think you've got it running." Jemi said, grinning. "Now can you make it go?"

  Albe looked uncertainly at the writing on the instruments and all the switches, and then lower, to the two foot pedals.

  He stretched one foot out and pressed one of the pedals. Nothing. The other however, increased the engine sounds. He let it off and on several times. "That's how you speed up, but the drive train isn't connected, somehow."

  "Think ergonomics." Trev suggested. "What controls can the driver easily reach?"

  Albe pulled himself back up. "Whoever built this was about thirty percent larger than I am." He frowned. "The pedals, if I was a giant, the yoke and these two levers."

  "The one on the left side controlled the lights," Jemi pointed out. "Try the right one."

  Albe experimented briefly, jerking the cart backwards to tap the tree behind it, then forward with maybe a hint of sliding wheels.

  L'on dropped from the seat to the floor. "I'm going to push the pedals."

  The cart lurched, and the wheels spun. The whole thing slid a bit sideways, rotating slightly.

  "Pull it with our cart. " L'on called.

  Trebore jumped in and eased the cart forward until the slack was out of the strap and then gave it more power.

  Xaero stumped out to the low growing brush and trimmed off an armful of branches. "Stuff these under the wheels for traction," she said to Trev who'd followed her.

  Eventually they got the strange cart onto dry land, and then kept going. Jemi wanted it under his eyes at the Dzi.

  They parked it behind the Dzi where it could be easily accessed from the cargo hold ramp, in case the hunter came back. After some discussion, they spent the next morning spreading a thin netting over both the Dzi and the alien cart. Designed to shield an area from the more powerful ultra violet light from the closer Sun, the colors didn't blend well with the Blue vegetation, but a few hours of randomly weaving in leaves here and there reduced the stark obviousness of the two vehicles.

  Trebore reluctantly dragged his people back to the mining site, and the flight crew blissfully dug into the puzzle of the cart. Nyx and Riu joined Xaero in wandering back and forth between their biological studies and the fascinating machine.

  "I don't see how the giants could sit in those seats." Xaero commented. "Their tails seem even stiffer than ours."

  "Well, this may be proof that that isn't universally so." Riu climbed into the driver's seat and squirmed around, trying to sit comfortably. "The spines are nearly as bad as the tail," he complained as he maneuvered to free his back spines from the cushions. "The giants have an advantage there." Sitting facing diagonally worked all right tail-wise, but left him with only one foot able to stretch out to the pedals on the floor.

  Xaero moved all her traps, shifting them into the forested and swampy areas for more variety, and made copious notes about the care she was giving her potted plants.

  A bit of experimentation had shown that the Blue animals were much more specialized in their diets than the universally omnivorous Martian biota. She started trials of the more common Blue animals, starting them on diets of Martian products. If they could survive, she could keep a larger number of live specimens. None of them died immediately, so she had hopes.

  Trev commed that the miner had reached a rich ore body and that he was on the way to collect the processing equipment. They wouldn't be able to process much ore at a time, but the automated miners and processor together could slowly accumulate sufficient uranium ore concentrate that just this trip alone would show a profit. If the automatic machinery worked, they'd have all the uranium they needed to power the desperately needed new excavations. Xaero squashed a thought that if they didn't work she'd have a better chance of returning to this fascinating planet. She straightened and stretched a bit. Assuming her back could take much more of this gravity.

  To her delight she'd managed to trap one of the fliers at the swamp edge. It was covered with blades like the hunter's display blades, but these had taken on another task. They were arranged down the forelimbs in an en echelon row that served as the wing surface. The modified limb was long and strong. The tail was shortened and also had a fanlike array of blades. The remainder of the body was covered with shorter softer blades that formed an aerodynamic shape. The horny edges of its mouth reminded her of the hunchies' mouth plates, but it had evolved much further, producing a sharply pointed structure on an otherwise rather round head. It was weird, but pretty.

  Unfortunately Loverboy returned the next day. Trev drove her around to collect her specimens before he left, but she stayed closer to the Dzi than she had the previous day. Even so she felt vaguely alarmed at how casual she was getting about the presence of a carnivore triple her size and weight. The hunter seemed wary of the netting and kept his distance, none-the-less they all kept track of him while they continued to examine the cart. Reluctantly turning away from the engine, they were trying the rest of the keys on what looked like a straightforward padlock to get into the boxy back part of the vehicle.

  Inside the Dzi Xaero listened to their chatter with half an ear while she examined a blade the flyer had lost overnight under the microscope. The sudden quiet caught her attention, and as it prolonged she grabbed the stunner and an experimental electric prod and hustled out the cargo door. The Captain, Jemi and Albe had gotten the box door open and were just standing staring into it. Stepping around to see, she stopped dead herself.

  There were two seats facing each wall, and each wall was covered with . . . stuff. Electronic stuff with lights and dials and vid screens. It reminded her of a miniature version of the space base control room. The screens were all dark, a few lights shone or blinked, here and there.

  Nyx came up behind her and gawped as well. "We should have detected a civilization like this from Mars."

  "This is nineteen million years ago." Xaero said. "Whoever built this, their whole civilization is gone by our time."

  "Not necessarily." Nyx said, pointing, "See those." He pointed to little white globes stuck on the roof and walls on stalks.

  "They're time travelers." L'on hissed. "That's why there's just this one cart."

  Albe grinned suddenly. "They dropped out of nowhere into all those trees and a swamp. Then they couldn't get their equipment out. They must be exploring on foot, and planning on coming back to their cart for the return trip."

  "I want to know how they got from ground to ground in a cart." Jemi said. "The velocity differential should be too high for anything more than a few hundred years."

  "Not if they stuck to the same planet." Nyx said. "There are some gravity effects even during travel. And that. . . Dr. M'kabon said something about a magnetosphere creating local references in the electromagnetic dimension. Something about how we don't actually exist in the three dimensional world while jumping." He looked over at their no doubt blank expressions and shrugged. "Anyway. I'll bet these guys are natives from a million years from now."

  "But there's no civilization here in our time either." Xaero pointed out. "So either they've gone extinct or are from even further in the future."

  Captain L'on rubbed his face. "Maybe we'd better consider putting this thing back where we found it. Or at least close en
ough that they won't come hunting for us."

  Riu shook his head, "We should introduce ourselves."

  "I wonder if that was them we saw two evenings ago?" Xaero frowned, stepping out to where she could see Loverboy. "They seemed to have tamed some of the local animals, which argues that they've been here awhile." She looked to the northeast. "I could follow that trail . . . "

  L'on glared. "No. I think we'll finish up quietly here and then just disappear tracelessly. I'll tell Trebore he's got to hide as much of his setup as possible."

  Xaero thought about that. "Oh. Yeah the thought of two time traveling civilizations getting into a war is a bit . . . unnerving."

  "Even if we had a clue when they were from or if they really are from this planet . . . " the Captain trailed off thinking, then shook his head. "If we meet these guys, we keep them away from the Dzi, and nobody gets all cozy swapping scientific information—and nobody even thinks of telling them we're from Mars or even pointing at the sky and making gestures. Understand?"

  "Right." Riu nodded. "There are so many physiological parallels it shouldn't occur to them that we're not just another type of giant, probably related to the hunters."

  "And what they don't know, they can't mess up the past history of." Xaero sighed. "I really would have liked to talk to them though.

  With the possibility of having to return the cart to its proper owners in mind, their explorations became much more careful. Or perhaps it was the possibility of accidentally triggering time travel controls and finding out, in person, where the owners of the cart had come from.

  The first time they touched one of the control pads the vid screen in front of it had lit up and displayed . . . something.

  Xaero looked at the alien instruments and sighed. "Nyx, I hate to say it, but I actually wish we'd brought your older self along for the trip."

  He snorted. "Not nearly as much as I wish I stuck to physics." He waved at the cart's interior. "I about half recognize what some of this stuff seems to be doing.

  "I barely touched it." Albe said, defensively. "Why did it start doing all that?"

  "I think it was already doing it." Nyx said. "I think the display just shut down to conserve power. All this is running off the battery, I don't see any other power source."

  L'on eyed the ranks of instruments. "Must be pretty sandy efficient, or else it wasn't stuck in the swamp for very long."

  Xaero looked for a hold on the outside of the cart, then thought better of it and backtracked up the Dzi's rear ramp. From the top of the ramp she could just see the top of the carts' boxlike back section. "I think it has solar panels on the top," she called. "Some sort of flat shiny black rectangles, at any rate."

  Nyx limped up to join her. With so little outside travel he'd unwisely forgone wearing the joint supports. But since he was still walking, she doubted he was too badly injured. The lecture from Riu might have been the worst part.

  Being taller he could see the roof of the box better. "That has to be what those are." He said. "That explains why there was enough juice in the battery that the cart could still start. Internal combustion engines can be real sandy to get going. Plus it explains why their computers are still working." He hobbled back to the box and leaned in.

  Xaero was circling the area near the Dzi, collecting plant seeds (although Riu said they weren't really seeds, but the name had stuck to the local analogues) with associated vids and soil samples when she saw Loverboy slink off again.

  She walked to the back and warned the others that the smart giants might be coming.

  L'on ordered them back into the Dzi and pulled up all the ramps. "If they want their cart they can have it." He turned to the comm, "I'm going to warn Trebore, although they shouldn't be anywhere near where we found the cart."

  Xaero monitored the outside vids. Nothing. "Either it's a false alarm or they're staying further north, out of sight."

  L'on nodded. "Hopefully a false alarm. Aura and Zila were on their way back to pick up the boxes for the small gate. They're laying low in some brush and should be safe."

  They stayed alert and buttoned up until sunset.

  Zila and Aura never showed up and failed to answer on the comm.

  Chapter Four

  "Can we wait till morning?" Riu mutter nervously staring at the twilit landscape in the screen.

  "No." Xaero told him, double checking her boot laces and carrying every conceivable improvised weapon they'd come up with over the last few days. "The giants are diurnal, but there are some nasty critters out there none-the-less. We need to find them as quickly as possible."

  The alien cart was equipped with bright forward lights, but Albe still drove carefully, using makeshift stilts to operate the floor pedals. Jemi, Nyx and Vasi had been left behind. Jemi could get the Dzi out of there by himself if he had to, and even though the cart was made for larger beings, it was a squeeze for the four of them up front. If they found Aura and Zila they'd have to ride in back, although swapping to their own cart—if they could find it—would be preferable. The Captain was already berating himself for moving the aliens' machine.

  "They must have been looking for it, and followed our cart's tracks instead. We've always stayed to the same path for these relay trips."

  "So, stay to that path now and we'll see if we can spot where they turned off it." Xaero suggested. She was sitting squashed up against side with her head out the window trying to spot any disturbed vegetation to the side, without poking anyone with her spines.

  Albe kept the speed low, and halted quickly when she asked. She climbed down carefully—this would be a really bad time to break a leg—and examined the crushed brush she'd spotted. "I think this was from our first sighting, the leaves on the broken branches have had time to wither." Looking back along their track, she saw Loverboy, or perhaps a different hunter altogether, walking cautiously toward the cart. She climbed back up and closed the door. She and the Captain both flinched away as they spined each other. A few hundred strides on they crossed another path of crushed bushes, this one turned and followed their usual road for another couple of kstrides, then angled sharply off to the east.

  "This should be about where Aura and Zila cut off to find cover." She said, apprehensively.

  "Follow them," L'on told Albe. Leaning forward, she could get a backwards view in the cart's side mirror. Loverboy was trotting along after them.

  The cart was parked almost out of sight in some tall brush. Abandoned. Giant footprints everywhere. Some very much like Loverboy's, others smaller, others a different sort altogether.

  "At least there's no blood." Riu pointed out. "Or bodies."

  Xaero circled around the area. "They left here still going east." She kept an eye on Loverboy, but he was staying well back. Good. All they needed was a wild animal attack on top of this.

  "Right." L'on climbed into their cart. "Albe, follow in the Alien's cart. Xaero, ride with me."

  They had to reverse the order almost immediately, as the alien lights were superior to their cart's spotlight for traveling cross country at night.

  By dawn the tracks had disappeared on the hard packed surface of a broad and well traveled path.

  L'on eyed it. "Follow it, we'll try north first, that's how they were angling."

  Albe turned north and sped up slightly.

  "I don't see any signs of wheeled traffic." Xaero said, "The ruts wobble all over the place, instead of being a constant distance apart. This could just be a wild giant track, going between feeding grounds or to nesting sites or something."

  "I think that's your something, dead ahead." L'on said, as they crested a slight rise and halted in the early dawn light. Albe hastily turned off his lights.

  Xaero blinked as she took in the cluster of structures ahead. They seemed to be constructed of mud and roofed with plant fronds. She supposed they were probably braced with wood under it all, but it looked amazingly alien. She was used to solid rock structures in underground caverns. Speaking of rock structures . .
.

  As the sky to the east brightened she noticed the hill in the center of the village was very symmetrical. With broad layers forming giant steps up to the flat top.

  "That hill is a construction." Captain L'on had noticed too. "Or at least augmented." He looked around. "All right, back off this hill and get both these carts hidden."

  Chapter Five

  Sneaking into the village was easy. Staying unnoticed wasn't. Some Giants roamed about, but in the mid day heat the paths between structures were nearly empty. They had watched for hours, as the giants woke and started their day. Now, in the hot afternoon the giants had apparently all decided to nap, and L'on had decided it was time to explore.

  Leaving Riu with the carts, L'on led down the hill. "Let's get closer and take a look. If we can get well into the . . . village before dark, if we can locate Zila and Aura we'll have the cover of darkness to get them out and lose any pursuit."

  From around a corner of the first mud hut, Xaero watched a rather grubby and thin giant stumble sleepily out of the hut across the street to . . . well, that explained the odor hanging about the dirt streets. Instead of returning to the hut, the giant, who was actually only a little larger than most male Martians, just reached through the doorway to grab a ragged square of leather. As he, she or it walked away, he ducked his head to fit it through a hole in the middle and then flipped the rest of it over his back.

  "Looks like it's got a hood." Albe breathed. "If we had some of those . . ."

  "They're barefoot, with huge feet and thick legs. Big claws on three toes. Hunched over." She hissed back.

  Albe slithered around the corner and while she held her breath in disbelief, stuck his head into the hut, grabbed something and scuttled back to them.

  "Don't do that!" L'on hissed, snatching the leather cloak from him and wrinkling his nose over the odor, putting it on.

  "You know, with those dusty boots and the hood up, you'll pass from a distance." Xaero admitted. "The backpack even gives you a hump."