Red Planet

by Robert Heinlein

  Another voice called out from one of Gekko's palm flaps, “Hi, Jim boy!” Willis had come home with the bacon, a little late perhaps, but successfully.

  ANOTHER VOICE BOOMED MELLOWLY. GEKKO LISTENED, THEN said, “Where is he who stole our little one?”

  Jim, uncertain of the dominant tongue, at best, was not sure that he had understood. “Huh?”

  “He wants to know where Howe is,” said Frank and answered in fluent, fairly accurate Martian. Howe was still where he had taken refuge, still afraid to face Kelly, despite repeated invitations.

  Gekko indicated that he would come into the building. Amazed, but cooperative, the boys led him in. Gekko was forced to fold himself into a shape resembling a hat rack to get into the lock but he managed it; the lock was large. Inside, the sensation caused by his appearance was like that which might have resulted from introducing an elephant into a church. People gave way before him.

  The door to the outer office was even more of a squeeze than the air lock, but Gekko made it, with Jim and Frank trailing him. Gekko handed Willis to Jim, then gently explored the handle of the door to Howe's office with a hand flap. Suddenly he pulled and the door came away, not only the lock broken but the door wrenched completely off its hinges. He squatted down further, completely filling the door frame.

  The boys looked at each other; Willis closed up. They heard Howe saying “What's the meaning of this? Who are—”

  Then Gekko stood up as well as he could in a room intended for humans and started for the outer door. The boys hesitated; Frank said, “Let's see what he did to him.” He stepped to the wrecked door and looked in. “I don't see him. Hey, Jim—he's not in here at all.”

  Nor was he.

  They hurried after Gekko and reached him at the air lock. No one stopped Gekko; no one stopped them. The repeated indoctrination concerning Martians swept a path before them. Outside Gekko turned to them. “Where is the other one, who would do harm to the little one?”

  Frank explained that Beecher was some distance away and not available. “You will show us,” announced Gekko and picked them both up. Another Martian relieved him of Frank.

  Jim felt himself cradled in the soft palm flaps, even as Willis was still cradled in Jim's arms. Willis extended his eyes, looked around and remarked, “Fine ride, huh?” Jim was not sure.

  The Martians ambled through town at an easy eight miles an hour, over the bridge, and to the planet offices. The pressure lock there was higher and larger than that at the school; the entire party went inside. The ceiling of the building's foyer was quite high enough for even the tallest Martian. Once they were inside Gekko set Jim down, as did the Martian carrying Frank.

  There had been the same scurrying surprise as at the school. MacRae came out and looked the situation over without excitement. “What's all this jamboree?” he asked.

  “They want to talk to Beecher,” Frank explained.

  MacRae raised his eyebrows, then spoke in clear Martian. One of them answered him; they conversed back and forth. “Okay, I'll get him,” agreed MacRae, then repeated it in Martian. He went into the offices. He returned in a few minutes, pushing Beecher in front of him, and followed by Rawlings and Marlowe. “Some people to see you,” MacRae said and gave Beecher a shove that carried him out onto the floor of the foyer.

  “This is the one?” inquired the Martian spokesman.

  “This is verily the one.”

  Beecher looked up at them. “What do you want me for?” he said in Basic. The Martians moved so that they were on all sides of him. “Now you get away from me!” he said. They moved in slowly tightening the circle. Beecher attempted to break out of it; a great hand flap was placed in his way.

  They closed in further. Beecher darted this way and that, then he was concealed completely from the spectators by a screen of palm flaps. “Let me out!” he was heard to shout. “I didn't do anything. You've got no right to—” His voice stopped in a scream.

  The circle relaxed and broke up. There was no one inside it, not even a spot of blood on the floor.

  The Martians headed for the door. Gekko stopped and said to Jim, “Would you return with us, my friend?”

  “No—oh, no,” said Jim. “I have to stay here,” then remembered to translate.

  “And the little one?”

  “Willis stays with me. That's right, isn't it, Willis?”

  “Sure, Jim boy.”

  “Then tell Gekko so.” Willis complied. Gekko said farewell sadly to the boys and to Willis and went on out the lock.

  MacRae and Rawlings were in whispered, worried conference at the spot where Beecher had last been seen; Captain Marlowe was looking sleepy and confused and listening to them. Frank said, “Let's get out of here, Jim.”

  “Right.”

  The Martians were still outside. Gekko saw them as they came out, spoke to one of his kind, then said, “Where is the learned one who speaks our speech? We would talk with him.”

  “I guess they want Doc,” said Frank.

  “Is that what he meant?”

  “I think so. We'll call him.” They went back inside and dug MacRae out of a cluster of excited humans. “Doc,” said Frank, “they want to talk with you—the Martians.”

  “Eh?” said MacRae. “Why me?”

  “I don't know.”

  The doctor turned to Marlowe. “How about it, Skipper? Do you want to sit in on this?”

  Mr. Marlowe rubbed his forehead. “No, I'm too confused to try to handle the language. You take it.”

  “Okay.” MacRae went for his suit and mask, let the boys help dress him, and then did not deny them when they tagged along. However, once outside, they held back and watched from a distance.

  MacRae walked down to the group standing on the ramp and addressed them. Voices boomed back at him. He entered the group and the boys could see him talking, answering, gesticulating with his hands. The conference continued quite a long time.

  Finally MacRae dropped his arms to his sides and looked tired. Martian voices boomed in what was plainly farewell, then the whole party set out at a rapid, leisurely pace for the bridge and their own city. MacRae plodded back up the ramp.

  In the lock Jim demanded, “What was it all about, Doc?”

  “Eh? Hold your peace, son.”

  Inside MacRae took Marlowe's arm and led him toward the office they had pre-empted. “You, too, Rawlings. The rest of you get about your business.” Nevertheless the boys tagged along and MacRae let them come in. “You might as well hear it; you're in it up to your ears. Mind that door, Jim. Don't let anyone open it.”

  “Now what is it?” asked Jim's father. “What are you looking so grim about?”

  “They want us to leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “Get off Mars, go away, go back to Earth.”

  “What? Why do they suggest that?”

  “It's not a suggestion; it's an order, an ultimatum. They aren't even anxious to give us time enough to get ships here from Earth. They want us to leave, every man jack, woman, and child; they want us to leave right away—and they aren't fooling!”

  WILLIS

  FOUR DAYS LATER DOCTOR MACRAE STUMBLED INTO THE SAME office. Marlowe still looked tired, but this time it was MacRae who looked exhausted. “Get these other people out of here, Skipper.”

  Marlowe dismissed them and closed the door. “Well?”

  “You got my message?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is the Proclamation of Autonomy written? Did the folks go for it?”

  “Yes, it's written—we cribbed a good deal from the American Declaration of Independence I'm afraid, but we wrote one.”

  “I'm not interested in the rhetoric of the thing! How about it?”

  “It's ratified. Easily enough here. We had quite a few startled queries from the Project camps, but it was accepted. I guess we owe Beecher a vote of thanks on that; he made independence seem like a fine idea.”

  “We owe Beecher nothing! He nearly got us all kil
led.”

  “Just how do you mean that?”

  “I'll tell you—but I want to know about the Declaration. I had to make some promises. It's gone off?”

  “Radioed to Chicago last night. No answer yet. But let me ask the questions: were you successful?”

  “Yes.” MacRae rubbed his eyes wearily. “We can stay. ‘It was a great fight, Maw, but I won.’ They'll let us stay.”

  Marlowe got up and started to set up a wire recorder. “Do you want to talk it into the record and save having to go over it again?”

  MacRae waved it away. “No. Whatever formal report I make will have to be very carefully edited. I'll try to tell you about it first.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “Jamie, how long has it been since men first landed on Mars? More than fifty Earth years, isn't it? I believe I have learned more about Martians in the past few hours than was learned in all that time. And yet I don't know anything about them. We kept trying to think of them as human, trying to force them into our molds. But they aren't human; they aren't anything like us at all.”

  He added, “They had interplanetary flight millions of years back … had it and gave it up.”

  “What?” said Marlowe.

  “It doesn't matter. It's not important. It's just one of the things I happened to find out while I was talking with the old one, the same old one with whom Jim talked. By the way, Jim was seeing things; he's not a Martian at all.”

  “Wait a minute—what is he, then?”

  “Oh, I guess he's a native of Mars all right, but he isn't what you and I mean by a Martian. At least he didn't look like one to me.”

  “What did he look like? Describe him.”

  MacRae looked puzzled. “Uh, I can't. Maybe Jim and I each saw what he wanted us to see. Never mind. Willis has to go back to the Martians and rather soon.”

  “I'm sorry,” Marlowe answered. “Jim won't like that, but it's not a high price to pay if it pleases them.”

  “You don't understand, you don't understand at all. Willis is the key to the whole thing.”

  “Certainly he's been mixed up in it,” agreed Marlowe, “but why the key?”

  “Don't call Willis ‘he’; call him ‘she.’ There—I did it myself. Habit.”

  “I don't care what sex the little beast is. Go on.”

  MacRae rubbed his temples.”That's the trouble. It's very complicated and I don't know where to start. Willis is important and it does matter that he's a she. Look, Jamie, you'll go down in history as the father of your country, no doubt, but, between ourselves, Jim should be credited for being the savior of it. It was directly due to Jim and Willis—Willis's love for Jim and Jim's staunch befriending of him—that the colonists are alive today instead of pushing up daisies. The ultimatum to get off this globe represented a concession made to Jim; they had intended to exterminate us.”

  Marlowe's mouth dropped open. “But that's impossible! Martians wouldn't do anything like that!”

  “Could and would,” MacRae stated flatly. “They've been having doubts about us for a long time. Beecher's notion of shipping Willis off to a zoo pushed them over the edge—but Jim's relationship to Willis pulled them back again. They compromised.”

  “I can't believe that they would,” protested Marlowe, “nor can I see how they could.”

  “Where's Beecher?” MacRae said bluntly.

  “Mmm … yes.”

  “So don't talk about what they can or can't do. We don't know anything about them … not anything.”

  “I can't argue with you. But can you clear up some of this mystery about Jim and Willis? Why do they care? After all, Willis is just a bouncer.”

  “I don't think I can clear it up,” MacRae admitted, “but I can sure lace it around with some theories. Do you know Willis's Martian name? Do you know what it means?”

  “I didn't know he had one—I mean ‘she.’ “

  “It reads:'In whom the hopes of a world are joined.’ That suggest anything to you?”

  “Gracious, no! Sounds like a name for a messiah, not a bouncer.”

  “Maybe you aren't joking. On the other hand, I may have translated it badly. Maybe it means ‘Young Hopeful,’ or merely ‘Hope.’ Maybe Martians go in for poetical meanings, like we do. Take my name, ‘Donald.’ Means ‘World Ruler.’ My parents sure muffed that one. Or maybe Martians enjoy giving bouncers fancy names. I once knew a Pekinese called, believe it or not, ‘Grand Champion Manchu Prince of Belvedere.’ “ MacRae looked suddenly startled. “Do you know, I just remembered that dog's family-and-fireside name was Willis!”

  “You don't say!”

  “I do say.” The doctor scratched the stubble on his chin and reflected that he should shave one of these weeks. “But it's not even a coincidence. I suggested the name ‘Willis’ to Jim in the first place; I was probably thinking of the Peke. Engaging little devil, with a pop-eyed way of looking at you just like Willis—our Willis. Which is to say that neither one of Willis's names necessarily means anything.”

  He sat so long without saying anything that Marlowe said, “You aren't clearing up the mystery very fast. You think that Willis's real name does mean something, don't you?—Else you wouldn't have brought it up.”

  MacRae sat up with a jerk. “I do. I do indeed. I think Willis is sort of a Martian crown princess. Now wait a minute—don't throw anything. I won't get violent. That's a farfetched figure of speech. What do you think Willis is?”

  “Me?” said Marlowe. “I think he's an example of exotic Martian fauna, semi-intelligent and adapted to his environment.”

  “Big words,” complained the doctor. “I think he is what a Martian is before he grows up.”

  Marlowe looked pained. “There is no similarity of structure. They're as different as chalk and cheese.”

  “Granted. What's the similarity between a caterpillar and a butterfly?”

  Marlowe opened his mouth and closed it. “I don't blame you,” MacRae went on, “we never think of such metamorphosis in connection with higher types, whatever a ‘higher type’ is. But I think that is what Willis is and it appears to be why Willis has to go back to his people soon. He's in the nymph stage; he's about to go into a pupal stage—some sort of a long hibernation. When he comes out he'll be a Martian.”

  Marlowe chewed his lip. “There's nothing unreasonable about it—-just startling.”

  “Everything about Mars is startling. Another thing: we've never been able to find anything resembling sex on this planet— various sorts of species conjugation, yes, but no sex. It appears to me that we missed it. I think that all the nymph Martians, the bouncers, are female; all of the adults are male. They change. I use the terms for want of better ones, of course. But if my theory is correct—and mind you, I'm not saying it is—then it might explain why Willis is such an important personage. Eh?”

  Marlowe said wearily, “You ask me to assimilate too much at once.”

  “Emulate the Red Queen. I'm not through. I think the Martians have still another stage, the stage of the ‘old one’ to whom I talked—and I think it's the strangest one of all. Jamie, can you imagine a people having close and everyday relations with Heaven—their heaven—as close and matter of fact as the relations between, say, the United States and Canada?”

  “Doc, I'll imagine anything you tell me to.”

  “We speak of the Martian ‘other world’; what does it mean to you?”

  “Nothing. Some sort of a trance, such as the East Indians indulge in.”

  “I ask you because I talked, so they told me, to someone in the ‘other world’—the ‘old one’ I mean. Jamie, I think I negotiated our new colonizing treaty with a ghost.

  “NOW JUST KEEP YOUR SEAT,” MACRAE WENT ON. “I'LL TELL you why. I was getting nowhere with him so I changed the subject. We were talking Basic, by the way; he had picked Jim's brains. He knew every word that Jim might know and none that Jim couldn't be expected to know. I asked him to assume, for the sake of argument, that we were to be allowed to stay—in which
case, would the Martians let us use their subway system to get to Co-pais? I rode one of those subways to the conference. Very clever— the acceleration is always down, as if the room were mounted on gymbals. The old one had trouble understanding what I wanted. Then he showed me a globe of Mars—very natural, except that it had no canals. Gekko was with me, just as he was with Jim. The old one and Gekko had a discussion, the gist of which was what year was I ati Then the globe changed before my eyes, bit by bit. I saw the canals crawl across the face of Mars. I saw them being built, Jamie.

  “Now I ask you,” he concluded, “what kind of a being is it that has trouble remembering which millennium he is in? Do you mind if I tag him a ghost?”

  “I don't mind anything,” Marlowe assured him. “Maybe we're all ghosts.”

  “I've given you one theory, Jamie; here is another: bouncers are Martians and Old Ones are entirely separate races. Bouncers are third-class citizens, Martians are second-class citizens, and the real owners we never see, because they live down underneath. They don't care what we do with the surface as long as we behave ourselves. We can use the park, we can even walk on the grass, but we mustn't frighten the birds. Or maybe the ‘old one’ was just hypnosis that Gekko used on me, maybe it's bouncers and Martians only, with bouncers having some fanatical religious significance to Martians, the way Hindus feel about cows. You name it.”

  “I can't,” said Marlowe. “I'm satisfied that you managed to negotiate an agreement that permits us to stay on Mars. I suppose it will be years before we understand the Martians.”

  “You are putting it mildly, Jamie. The white man was still studying the American Indian, trying to find out what makes him tick, five hundred years after Columbus—and the Indian and the European are both men, like as two peas. These are Martians. We'll never understand them; we aren't even headed in the same direction.”

  MacRae stood up.”I want to get a bath and some sleep… after I see Jim.”

  “Just a minute. Doc, do you think we'll have any real trouble making this autonomy declaration stick?”