planet, and from that, to thoughts of littleold New York, and then to thinking about a girl I know there--FancyLong. Know her?"
"Vision entertainer," said Harrison. "I've tuned her in. Niceblonde--dances and sings on the _Yerba Mate_ hour."
"That's her," said Jarvis ungrammatically. "I know her pretty well--justfriends, get me?--though she came down to see us off in the _Ares_.Well, I was thinking about her, feeling pretty lonesome, and all thetime we were approaching that line of rubbery plants.
"And then--I said, 'What 'n Hell!' and stared. And there she was--FancyLong, standing plain as day under one of those crack-brained trees, andsmiling and waving just the way I remembered her when we left!"
"Now you're nuts, too!" observed the captain.
"Boy, I almost agreed with you! I stared and pinched myself and closedmy eyes and then stared again--and every time, there was Fancy Longsmiling and waving! Tweel saw something, too; he was trilling andclucking away, but I scarcely heard him. I was bounding toward her overthe sand, too amazed even to ask myself questions.
"I wasn't twenty feet from her when Tweel caught me with one of hisflying leaps. He grabbed my arm, yelling, 'No--no--no!' in his squeakyvoice. I tried to shake him off--he was as light as if he were built ofbamboo--but he dug his claws in and yelled. And finally some sort ofsanity returned to me and I stopped less than ten feet from her. Thereshe stood, looking as solid as Putz's head!"
"Vot?" said the engineer.
"She smiled and waved, and waved and smiled, and I stood there dumb asLeroy, while Tweel squeaked and chattered. I _knew_ it couldn't be real,yet--there she was!
"Finally I said, 'Fancy! Fancy Long!' She just kept on smiling andwaving, but looking as real as if I hadn't left her thirty-seven millionmiles away.
"Tweel had his glass pistol out, pointing it at her. I grabbed his arm,but he tried to push me away. He pointed at her and said, 'No breet! Nobreet!' and I understood that he meant that the Fancy Long thing wasn'talive. Man, my head was whirling!
"Still, it gave me the jitters to see him pointing his weapon at her. Idon't know why I stood there watching him take careful aim, but I did.Then he squeezed the handle of his weapon; there was a little puff ofsteam, and Fancy Long was gone! And in her place was one of thosewrithing, black, rope-armed horrors like the one I'd saved Tweel from!
"The dream-beast! I stood there dizzy, watching it die while Tweeltrilled and whistled. Finally he touched my arm, pointed at the twistingthing, and said, 'You one-one-two, he one-one-two.' After he'd repeatedit eight or ten times, I got it. Do any of you?"
"_Oui!_" shrilled Leroy. "_Moi--je le comprends!_ He mean you think ofsomething, the beast he know, and you see it! _Un chien_--a hungry dog,he would see the big bone with meat! Or smell it--not?"
"Right!" said Jarvis. "The dream-beast uses its victim's longings anddesires to trap its prey. The bird at nesting season would see its mate,the fox, prowling for its own prey, would see a helpless rabbit!"
"How he do?" queried Leroy.
"How do I know? How does a snake back on earth charm a bird into itsvery jaws? And aren't there deep-sea fish that lure their victims intotheir mouths? Lord!" Jarvis shuddered. "Do you see how insidious themonster is? We're warned now--but henceforth we can't trust even oureyes. You might see me--I might see one of you--and back of it may benothing but another of those black horrors!"
"How'd your friend know?" asked the captain abruptly.
"Tweel? I wonder! Perhaps he was thinking of something that couldn'tpossibly have interested me, and when I started to run, he realizedthat I saw something different and was warned. Or perhaps thedream-beast can only project a single vision, and Tweel saw what Isaw--or nothing. I couldn't ask him. But it's just another proof thathis intelligence is equal to ours or greater."
"He's daffy, I tell you!" said Harrison. "What makes you think hisintellect ranks with the human?"
"Plenty of things! First, the pyramid-beast. He hadn't seen one before;he said as much. Yet he recognized it as a dead-alive automaton ofsilicon."
"He could have heard of it," objected Harrison. "He lives around here,you know."
"Well how about the language? I couldn't pick up a single idea of hisand he learned six or seven words of mine. And do you realize whatcomplex ideas he put over with no more than those six or seven words?The pyramid-monster--the dream-beast! In a single phrase he told me thatone was a harmless automaton and the other a deadly hypnotist. Whatabout that?"
"Huh!" said the captain.
"_Huh_ if you wish! Could you have done it knowing only six words ofEnglish? Could you go even further, as Tweel did, and tell me thatanother creature was of a sort of intelligence so different from oursthat understanding was impossible--even more impossible than thatbetween Tweel and me?"
"Eh? What was that?"
"Later. The point I'm making is that Tweel and his race are worthy ofour friendship. Somewhere on Mars--and you'll find I'm right--is acivilization and culture equal to ours, and maybe more than equal. Andcommunication is possible between them and us; Tweel proves that. It maytake years of patient trial, for their minds are alien, but less alienthan the next minds we encountered--if they _are_ minds."
"The next ones? What next ones?"
"The people of the mud cities along the canals." Jarvis frowned, thenresumed his narrative. "I thought the dream-beast and thesilicon-monster were the strangest beings conceivable, but I was wrong.These creatures are still more alien, less understandable than eitherand far less comprehensible than Tweel, with whom friendship ispossible, and even, by patience and concentration, the exchange ofideas.
"Well," he continued, "we left the dream-beast dying, dragging itselfback into its hole, and we moved toward the canal. There was a carpet ofthat queer walking-grass scampering out of our way, and when we reachedthe bank, there was a yellow trickle of water flowing. The mound cityI'd noticed from the rocket was a mile or so to the right and I wascurious enough to want to take a look at it.
"It had seemed deserted from my previous glimpse of it, and if anycreatures were lurking in it--well, Tweel and I were both armed. And bythe way, that crystal weapon of Tweel's was an interesting device; Itook a look at it after the dream-beast episode. It fired a little glasssplinter, poisoned, I suppose, and I guess it held at least a hundred of'em to a load. The propellent was steam--just plain steam!"
"Shteam!" echoed Putz. "From vot come, shteam?"
"From water, of course! You could see the water through the transparenthandle and about a gill of another liquid, thick and yellowish. WhenTweel squeezed the handle--there was no trigger--a drop of water and adrop of the yellow stuff squirted into the firing chamber, and the watervaporized--pop!--like that. It's not so difficult; I think we coulddevelop the same principle. Concentrated sulphuric acid will heat wateralmost to boiling, and so will quicklime, and there's potassium andsodium--
"Of course, his weapon hadn't the range of mine, but it wasn't so bad inthis thin air, and it _did_ hold as many shots as a cowboy's gun in aWestern movie. It was effective, too, at least against Martian life; Itried it out, aiming at one of the crazy plants, and darned if the plantdidn't wither up and fall apart! That's why I think the glass splinterswere poisoned.
"Anyway, we trudged along toward the mud-heap city and I began to wonderwhether the city builders dug the canals. I pointed to the city and thenat the canal, and Tweel said 'No--no--no!' and gestured toward thesouth. I took it to mean that some other race had created the canalsystem, perhaps Tweel's people. I don't know; maybe there's stillanother intelligent race on the planet, or a dozen others. Mars is aqueer little world.
"A hundred yards from the city we crossed a sort of road--just ahard-packed mud trail, and then, all of a sudden, along came one of themound builders!
"Man, talk about fantastic beings! It looked rather like a barreltrotting along on four legs with four other arms or tentacles. It had nohead, just body and members and a row of eyes completely around it. Thetop end of the barrel-body was a diaphragm
stretched as tight as a drumhead, and that was all. It was pushing a little coppery cart and toreright past us like the proverbial bat out of Hell. It didn't even noticeus, although I thought the eyes on my side shifted a little as itpassed.
"A moment later another came along, pushing another empty cart. Samething--it just scooted past us. Well, I wasn't going to be ignored by abunch of barrels playing train, so when the third one approached, Iplanted myself in the way--ready to jump, of course, if the thing didn'tstop.
"But it did. It stopped and set up a sort of drumming from the diaphragmon top. And I held out both hands and said, 'We are friends!' And whatdo you suppose the thing did?"
"Said, 'Pleased to meet you,' I'll bet!" suggested Harrison.
"I couldn't have been more surprised if it had! It drummed on itsdiaphragm, and then suddenly boomed out, 'We are v-r-r-riends!' and gaveits pushcart a vicious poke at me! I jumped aside, and away it wentwhile I stared dumbly after it.
"A minute later another one came hurrying along. This one didn't pause,but simply drummed out, 'We are v-r-r-riends!' and scurried by. How didit learn the phrase? Were all of the creatures in some sort ofcommunication with each other? Were they all parts of some centralorganism? I don't know, though I think Tweel does.
"Anyway, the creatures went sailing past us, every one greetingus with the same statement. It got to be funny; I never thought tofind so many friends on this God-forsaken ball! Finally I made apuzzled gesture to Tweel; I guess he understood, for he said,'One-one-two--yes!--two-two-four--no!' Get it?"
"Sure," said Harrison, "It's a Martian nursery rhyme."
"Yeah! Well, I was getting used to Tweel's symbolism, and I figured itout this way. 'One-one-two--yes!' The creatures were intelligent.'Two-two-four--no!' Their intelligence was not of our order, butsomething different and beyond the logic of two and two is four. Maybe Imissed his meaning. Perhaps he meant that their minds were of lowdegree, able to figure out the simple things--'One-one-two--yes!'--butnot more difficult things--'Two-two-four--no!' But I think from what wesaw later that he meant the other.
"After a few moments, the creatures came rushing back--first one, thenanother. Their pushcarts were full of stones, sand, chunks of rubberyplants, and such rubbish as that. They droned out their friendlygreeting, which didn't really sound so friendly, and dashed on. Thethird one I assumed to be my first acquaintance and I decided to haveanother chat with him. I stepped into his path again and waited.
"Up he came, booming out his 'We are v-r-r-riends' and stopped. I lookedat him; four or five of his eyes looked at me. He tried his passwordagain and gave a shove on his cart, but I stood firm. And then the--thedashed creature reached out one of his arms, and two finger-like nipperstweaked my nose!"
"Haw!" roared Harrison. "Maybe the things have a sense of beauty!"
"Laugh!" grumbled Jarvis. "I'd already had a nasty bump and a meanfrostbite on that nose. Anyway, I yelled 'Ouch!' and jumped aside andthe creature dashed away; but from then on, their greeting was 'We arev-r-r-riends! Ouch!' Queer beasts!
"Tweel and I followed the road squarely up to the nearest mound. Thecreatures were coming and going, paying us not the slightest attention,fetching their loads of rubbish. The road simply dived into an opening,and slanted down like an old mine, and in and out darted thebarrel-people, greeting us with their eternal phrase.
"I looked in; there was a light somewhere below, and I was curious tosee it. It didn't look like a flame or torch, you understand, but morelike a civilized light, and I thought that I might get some clue as tothe creatures' development. So in I went and Tweel tagged along, notwithout a few trills and twitters, however.
"The light was curious; it sputtered and flared like an old arc light,but came from a single black rod set in the wall of the corridor. Itwas electric, beyond doubt. The creatures were fairly civilized,apparently.
"Then I saw another light shining on something that glittered and I wenton to look at that, but it was only a heap of shiny sand. I turnedtoward the entrance to leave, and the Devil take me if it wasn't gone!
"I suppose the corridor had curved, or I'd stepped into a side passage.Anyway, I walked back in that direction I thought we'd come, and all Isaw was more dimlit corridor. The place was a labyrinth! There wasnothing but twisting passages running every way, lit by occasionallights, and now and then a creature running by, sometimes with apushcart, sometimes without.
"Well, I wasn't much worried at first. Tweel and I had only come a fewsteps from the entrance. But every move we made after that seemed to getus in deeper. Finally I tried following one of the creatures with anempty cart, thinking that he'd be going out for his rubbish, but he ranaround aimlessly, into one passage and out another. When he starteddashing around a pillar like one of these Japanese waltzing mice, I gaveup, dumped my water tank on the floor, and sat down.
"Tweel was as lost as I. I pointed up and he said 'No--no--no!' in asort of helpless trill. And we couldn't get any help from the natives.They paid no attention at all, except to assure us they werefriends--ouch!
"Lord! I don't know how many hours or days we wandered around there! Islept twice from sheer exhaustion; Tweel never seemed to need sleep. Wetried following only the upward corridors, but they'd run uphill a waysand then curve downwards. The temperature in that damned ant hill wasconstant; you couldn't tell night from day and after my first sleep Ididn't know whether I'd slept one hour or thirteen, so I couldn't tellfrom my watch whether it was midnight or noon.
"We saw plenty of strange things. There were machines running in some ofthe corridors, but they didn't seem to be doing anything--just wheelsturning. And several times I saw two barrel-beasts with a little onegrowing between them, joined to both."
"Parthenogenesis!" exulted Leroy. "Parthenogenesis by budding like _lestulipes_!"
"If you say so, Frenchy," agreed Jarvis. "The things never noticed us atall, except, as I say, to greet us with 'We are v-r-r-riends! Ouch!'They seemed to have no home-life of any sort, but just scurried aroundwith their pushcarts, bringing in rubbish. And finally I discovered whatthey did with it.
"We'd had a little luck with a corridor, one that slanted upwards for agreat distance. I was feeling that we ought to be close to the surfacewhen suddenly the passage debouched into a domed chamber, the only onewe'd seen. And man!--I felt like dancing when I saw what looked likedaylight through a crevice in the roof.
"There was a--a sort of machine in the chamber, just an enormous wheelthat turned slowly, and one of the creatures was in the act of dumpinghis rubbish below it. The wheel ground it with a crunch--sand, stones,plants, all into powder that sifted away somewhere. While we watched,others filed in, repeating the process, and that seemed to be all. Norhyme nor reason to the whole thing--but that's characteristic of thiscrazy planet. And there was another fact that's almost too bizarre tobelieve.
"One of the creatures, having dumped his load, pushed his cart asidewith a crash and calmly shoved himself under the wheel! I watched himbeing crushed, too stupefied to make a sound, and a moment later,another followed him! They were perfectly methodical about it, too; oneof the cartless creatures took the abandoned pushcart.
"Tweel didn't seem surprised; I pointed out the next suicide to him, andhe just gave the most human-like shrug imaginable, as much as to say,'What can I do about it?' He must have known more or less about thesecreatures.
"Then I saw something else. There was something beyond the wheel,something shining on a sort of low pedestal. I walked over; there was alittle crystal about the size of an egg, fluorescing to beat Tophet. Thelight from it stung my hands and face, almost like a static discharge,and then I noticed another funny thing. Remember that wart I had on myleft thumb? Look!" Jarvis extended his hand. "It dried up and felloff--just like that! And my abused nose--say, the pain went out of itlike magic! The thing had the property of hard x-rays or gammaradiations, only more so; it destroyed diseased tissue and left healthytissue unharmed!
"I was thinking what a present _that'
d_ be to take back to Mother Earthwhen a lot of racket interrupted. We dashed back to the other side ofthe wheel in time to see one of the pushcarts ground up. Some suicidehad been careless, it seems.
"Then suddenly the creatures were booming and drumming all around us andtheir noise was decidedly menacing. A crowd of them advanced toward us;we backed out of what I thought was the passage we'd entered by, andthey came rumbling after us, some pushing carts and some not. Crazybrutes! There was a whole chorus of 'We are v-r-r-riends! Ouch!' Ididn't like the 'ouch'; it was rather suggestive.
"Tweel had his glass gun out and I dumped my water tank for greaterfreedom and got mine. We backed up the corridor with the barrel-beastsfollowing--about twenty of them. Queer thing--the ones coming in withloaded carts moved past us inches away without a sign.
"Tweel must have noticed that. Suddenly, he snatched out that glowingcoal cigar-lighter of his and touched a cart-load of plant limbs. Puff!The whole load was burning--and the crazy beast pushing it went rightalong without a change of pace!
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