Dumb Martian

by John Wyndham

  A middle-aged man who has read nothing longer than an occa­sional maga­zine article does not take to books. He tired very quickly, as his pre­deces­sor had proph­esied, of the popu­lar records, and could make nothing of the others. He taught him­self the moves in chess from a book, and instruc­ted Lellie in them, intend­ing after a little prac­tice with her to chal­lenge the man on Callisto. Lellie, how­ever, managed to win with such consis­tency that he had to decide that he had not the right kind of mind for the game. Instead, he taught her a kind of double solitaire, but that didn't last long, either; the cards seemed always to run for Lellie.

  Occasionally there was some news and enter­tain­ment to be had from the radio, but with Earth some­where round the other side of the sun just then, Mars screened off half the time by Callisto, and the rota­tion of the satel­lite itself, recep­tion was either im­pos­sible, or badly broken up.

  So mostly he sat and fretted, hating the satellite, angry with himself and irritated by Leslie.

  Just the phleg­matic way she went on with her tasks irri­tated him. It seemed an injus­tice that she could 'take it all better than he could simply because she was a dumb Mart. When his ill-temper became vocal, the look of her as she listened exas­pera­ted him still more.

  “For crysake,” he told her one time, “can't you make that silly face of yours mean some­thing? Can't you laugh, or cry, or get mad, or some­thing? It's enough to drive a guy nuts going on looking at a face that's fixed perma­nent like it was a doll just heard its first dirty story. I know you can't help being dumb, but for heaven's sake crack it up a bit, get some expres­sion into it.”

  She went on looking at him with­out a shadow of a change.

  “Go on, you heard me! Smile, damn you, smile!”

  Her mouth twitched very slightly.

  “Call that a smile! Now, there's a smile!” He pointed to a pin-up with her head split pretty much in half by a smile like a piano key­board. “Like that! Like this!” He grinned widely.

  “No,” she said. “My face can't wriggle like Earth faces.”

  “Wriggle!” he said, incensed. “Wriggle, you call it!” He freed him­self from the chair's spring-cover, and came towards her. She backed away until she fetched up against the wall. “I'll make yours wriggle, my girl. Go on, now — smile!” He lifted his hand.

  Lellie put her hands up to her face.

  “No!” she protested. “No — no — no!”

  It was on the very day that Duncan marked off the eighth com­pleted month that Callisto relayed news of a ship on the way. A couple of days later he was able to make contact with her him­self, and con­firm her arrival in about a week. He felt as if he had been given several stiff drinks. There were the prep­ara­tions to make, stores to check, defi­cien­cies to note, a string of nil-nil-nil entries to be made in the log to bring it up to date. He bustled around as he got on with it. He even hummed to him­self as he worked, and ceased to be annoyed with Lellie. The effect upon her of the news was imper­cep­tible — but then, what would you expect...?

  Sharp on her estimated time the ship hung above them, growing slowly larger as her upper jets pressed her down.

  The moment she was berthed Duncan went aboard, with the feel­ing that every­thing in sight was an old friend. The Captain received him warmly, and brought out the drinks. It was all routine — even Duncan's babbling and slightly ine­briated manner was the regular thing in the circum­stances. The only depar­ture from pattern came when the Captain intro­duced a man beside him, and explained him.

  “We've brought a sur­prise for you, Super­inten­dent. This is Doctor Whint. He'll be sharing your exile for a bit.”

  Duncan shook hands. “Doctor . . .?” he said, surpris­edly.

  “Not medicine — science,” Alan Whint told him. “The Company's pushed me out here to do a geo­logi­cal survey — if geo isn't the wrong word to use. About a year. Hope you don't mind.”

  Duncan said con­ven­tion­ally that he'd be glad of the com­pany, and left it at that for the moment. Later, he took him over to the dome. Alan Whint was sur­prised to find Lellie there; clearly nobody had told him about her. He inter­rupted Duncan's expla­na­tions to say:

  “Won't you intro­duce me to your wife?”

  Duncan did so, with­out grace. He resented the re­prov­ing tone in the man's voice; nor did he care for the way he greeted Lellie just as if she were an Earth woman. He was also aware that he had noticed the bruise on her cheek that the colour did not altogether cover. In his mind he classified Alan Whint as one of the smooth, snooty type, and hoped that there was not going to be trouble with him.

  It could be, indeed, it was, a matter of opinion who made the trouble when it boiled up some three months later. There had already been several occa­sions when it had lurked uneasily near. Very likely it would have come into the open long before had Whint's work not taken him out of the dome so much. The moment of touch-off came when Lellie lifted her eyes from the book she was reading to ask:

  “What does ‘female emancipation’ mean?”

  Alan started to explain. He was only half­way through the first sentence when Duncan broke in:

  “Listen — who told you to go putting ideas into her head?”

  Alan shrugged his shoulders slightly, and looked at him.

  “That's a damn silly question,” he said. “And, any­way, why shouldn't she have ideas? Why shouldn't any­one?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I never under­stand you guys who appa­rently can't say what you mean. Try again.”

  “All right then. What I mean is this: you come here with your ritzy ways and your snazzy talk, and right from the start you start shoving your nose into things that aren't your busi­ness. You begin right off by treating her as if she was some toney dame back home.”

  “I hoped so. I'm glad you noticed it.”

  “And do you think I didn't see why?”

  “I'm quite sure you didn't. You've such a well-grooved mind. You think, in your simple way, that I'm out to get your girl, and you resent that with all the weight of two thousand, three hundred and sixty pounds. But you're wrong: I'm not.”

  Duncan was momentarily thrown off his line, then:

  “My wife,” he corrected. “She may be only a dumb Mart, but she's legally my wife: and what I say goes.”

  “Yes, Lellie is a Mart, as you call it; she may even be your wife, for all I know to the contrary; but dumb, she certainly is not. For one example, look at the speed with which she's learned to read — once some­one took the trouble to show her how. I don't think you'd show up any too bright your­self in a language where you only knew a few words, and which you couldn't read.”

  “It was none of your business to teach her. She didn't need to read. She was all right the way she was.”

  “The voice of the slaver down the ages. Well, if I've done noth­ing else, I've cracked up your igno­rance racket there.”

  “And why? — So she'll think you're a great guy. The same reason you talk all toney and smarmy to her. So you'll get her think­ing you're a better man than I am.”

  “I talk to her the way I'd talk to any woman any­where — only more simply since she's not had the chance of an edu­ca­tion. If she does think I'm a better man, then I agree with her. I'd be sorry if I couldn't.”

  “I'll show you who's the better man —” Duncan began.

  “You don't need to. I knew when I came here that you'd be a waster, or you'd not be on this job — and it didn't take long for me to find out that you were a goddam bully, too. Do you suppose I've not noticed the bruises? Do you think I've enjoyed having to listen to you bawling out a girl whom you've deli­be­rat­ely kept ignor­ant and defence­less when she's poten­tially ten times the sense you have? Having to watch a clod­kopf like you lord­ing it over your ‘dumb Mart’? You emetic!”

  In the heat of the moment, Duncan could not quite remember what an emetic was, but any­where else the man would not hav
e got that far before he had waded in to break him up. Yet, even through his anger, twenty years of space expe­rience held — as little more than a boy he had learnt the ludi­crous futi­lity of weight­less scrap­ping, and that it was the angry man who always made the bigger fool of him­self.

  Both of them simmered, but held in. Some­how the occa­sion was patched up and smoothed over, and for a time things went on much as before.

  Alan continued to make his expeditions in the small craft which he had brought with him. He examined and explored other parts of the satellite, returning with specimen pieces of rock which he tested, and arranged, carefully labelled, in cases. In his off times he occupied himself, as before, in teaching Lellie.

  That he did it largely for his own occu­pation as well as from a feeling that it should be done, Duncan did not alto­gether deny; but he was equally sure that in conti­nued close asso­cia­tion one thing leads to another, sooner or later. So far, there had been nothing between them that he could put his finger on — but Alan's term had still some nine months to go, even if he were relieved to time. Lellie was already hero-wor­ship­ping. And he was spoil­ing her more every day by this fool busi­ness of treat­ing her as if she were an Earth woman. One day they'd come alive to it — and the next step would be that they would see him as an obstacle that would be better removed. Preven­tion being better than cure, the sensi­ble course was to see that the situ­ation should never develop. There need not be any fuss about it...

  There was not.

  One day Alan Whint took off on a routine flight to pros­pect some­where on the other side of the satel­lite. He simply never came back. That was all.

  There was no telling what Lellie thought about it; but some­thing seemed to happen to her.

  For several days she spent almost all her time stand­ing by the main window of the living-room, looking out into the black­ness at the flaring pin­points of light. It was not that she was waiting or hoping for Alan's return — she knew as well as Duncan him­self that when thirty-six hours had gone by there was no chance of that. She said nothing. Her expression main­tained its exas­pera­ting look of slight sur­prise, un­changed. Only in her eyes was there any percep­tible differ­ence: they looked a little less live, as if she had with­drawn herself farther behind them.

  Duncan could not tell whether she knew or guessed any­thing. And there seemed to be no way of finding out with­out planting the idea in her mind — if it were not already there. He was, with­out admit­ting it too fully to him­self, nervous of her — too nervous to turn on her roundly for the time she spent vacantly mooning out of the window. He had an uncom­for­table aware­ness of how many ways there were for even a dim­wit to contrive a fatal acci­dent in such a place. As a pre­cau­tion he took to fitting new air-bottles to his suit every time he went out, and check­ing that they were at full pres­sure. He also took to placing a piece of rock so that the outer door of the air-lock could not close behind him. He made a point of notic­ing that his food and hers came straight out of the same pot, and watched her closely as she worked. He still could not decide whether she knew, or suspected ... After they were sure that he was gone, she never once men­tioned Alan's name...

  The mood stayed on her for per­haps a week. Then it changed abruptly. She paid no more atten­tion to the black­ness out­side. Instead, she began to read, vora­ciously and indis­crimi­nate­ly.

  Duncan found it hard to under­stand her absorp­tion in the books, nor did he like it, but he deci­ded for the moment not to inter­fere. It did, at least, have the advan­tage of keeping her mind off other things.

  Gradually he began to feel easier. The crisis was over. Either she had not guessed, or, if she had, she had decided to do nothing about it. Her addic­tion to books, how­ever, did not abate. In spite of several remin­ders by Duncan that it was for company that he had laid out the not in­con­sider­able sum of £2,360, she con­tinued, as if deter­mined to work her way through the station's library.

  By degrees the affair retreated into the back­ground. When the next ship came Duncan watched her anxiously in case she had been biding her time to hand on her sus­picions to the crew. It turned out, how­ever, to be un­neces­sary. She showed no ten­den­cy to refer to the matter, and when the ship pulled out, taking the oppor­tunity with it, he was re-lievedly able to tell him­self that he had really been right all along — she was just a dumb Mart: she had simply for­gotten the Alan Whint inci­dent, as a child might.

  And yet, as the months of his term ticked steadily away, he found that he had, bit by bit, to revise that esti­mate of dumb­ness. She was learn­ing from books things that he did not know him­self. It even had some advan­tages, though it put him in a posi­tion he did not care for — when she asked, as she some­times did now, for expla­nations, he found it un­pleasant to be stumped by a Mart. Having the prac­tical man's sus­picion of book-acquired know­ledge, he felt it neces­sary to explain to her how much of the stuff in the book was a lot of non­sense, how they never really came to grips with the problems of life as he had lived it. He cited in­stances from his own affairs, gave examples from his expe­rience, in fact, he found himself teach­ing her.

  She learnt quickly, too; the prac­tical as well as the book stuff. Of neces­sity he had to revise his opi­nion of Marts slightly more — it wasn't that they were al­to­geth­er dumb as he had thought, just that they were nor­mally too dumb to start using the brains they had. Once started, Lellie was a regu­lar vacuum-cleaner for know­ledge of all sorts: it didn't seem long before she knew as much about the way-load station as he did him­self. Teach­ing her was not at all what he had intended, but it did provide an occu­pation much to be preferred to the bore­dom of the early days. Besides, it had occurred to him that she was an appre­cia­ting asset...

  Funny thing, that. He had never before thought of edu­ca­tion as any­thing but a waste of tune, but now it seriously began to look as if, when he got her back to Mars, he might recover quite a bit more of the £2,360 than he had expected. Maybe she'd make quite a use­ful secre­tary to some­one ... He started to instruct her in ele­men­tary book-keeping and finance — in so far as he knew any­thing about it...

  The months of service kept on piling up; going a very great deal faster now. During the later stretch, when one had acquired confi­dence in his ability to get through with­out cracking up, there was a com­fort­able feeling about sitting quietly out there with the know­ledge of the money gradu­ally piling up at home.

  A new find opened up on Callisto, bring­ing a slight increase in deli­veries to the satel­lite. Other­wise, the routine conti­nued un­changed. The infre­quent ships called in, loaded up and went again. And then, sur­prisingly soon, it was possible for Duncan to say to him­self: “Next ship but one, and I'll be through!” Even more sur­prisingly soon there came the day when he stood on the metal apron out­side the dome, watch­ing a ship lifting her­self off on her under-jets and dwind­ling upwards into the black sky, and was able to tell him­self: “That's the last time I'll see that! When the next ship lifts off this dump, I'll be aboard her, and then — boy, oh boy...!”

  He stood watch­ing her, one bright spark among the others, until the turn of the satel­lite carried her below his hori­zon. Then he turned back to the air-lock — and found the door shut...

  Once he had decided that there was going to be no reper­cus­sion from the Alan Whint affair he had let his habit of wedg­ing it open with a piece of rock lapse. When­ever he emerged to do a job he left it ajar, and it stayed that way until he came back. There was no wind, or any­thing else on the satel­lite to move it. He laid hold of the latch-lever irri­tably, and pushed. It did not move.

  Duncan swore at it for sticking. He walked to the edge of the metal apron, and then jetted him­self a little round the side of the dome so that he could see in at the win­dow. Lellie was sitting in a chair with the spring-cover fixed across it, appar­ently lost in thought. The inner door of the air-lock was
stand­ing open, so of course the outer could not be moved. As well as the safety-locking device, there was all the dome's air pressure to hold it shut.

  Forgetful for the moment, Duncan rapped on the thick glass of the double window to attract her atten­tion; she could not have heard a sound through there, it must have-been the move­ment that caught her eye and caused her to look up. She turned her head, and gazed at him, with­out mov­ing. Duncan stared back at her. Her hair was still waved, but the eyebrows, the colour, all the other touches that he had insisted upon to make her look as much like an Earth woman as possible, were gone. Her eyes looked back at him, set hard as stones in that fixed expres­sion of mild astonish­ment.

  Sudden com­prehen­sion struck Duncan like a physi­cal shock. For some seconds every­thing seemed to stop.

  He tried to pretend to both of them that he had not under­stood. He made gestures to her to close the inner door of the air-lock. She went on staring back at him, with­out moving. Then he noticed the book she was hold­ing in her hand, and recog­nized it. It was not one of the books which the Company had supplied for the station's library. It was a book of verse, bound in blue. It had once belonged to Alan Whint...

  Panic suddenly jumped out at Duncan. He looked down at the row of small dials across his chest, and then sighed with relief. She had not tampered with his air-supply: there was pressure there enough for thirty hours or so. The sweat that had started out on his brow grew cooler as he regained control of him­self. A touch on the jet sent him floating back to the metal apron where he could anchor his mag­netic boots, and think it over.

  What a bitch! Letting him think all this time that she had for­got­ten all about it. Nursing it up for him. Letting him work out his time while she planned. Wait­ing until he was on the very last stretch before she tried her game on. Some minutes passed before his mixed anger and panic settled down and allowed him to think.

  Thirty hours! Time to do quite a lot. Arid even if he did not succeed in gett­ing back into the dome in twenty or so of them, there would still be the last, despe­rate resort of shoot­ing him­self off to Callisto in one of the cylinder-crates.