by Larry Niven
“Having sex,” Miya said, “in masks,” and touched the frieze with her fingertips. The wall turned transparent. Another touch opaqued it. “Privacy. They could take it or leave it.”
“Where are the beds?” Svetz wondered.
Miya shrugged. They took the beds with them, or they disintegrated, or there weren’t any because Mars gravity is so light.…
Svetz found a touch plate.
Gray fog seeped from the floor. They backed out fast. Fog filled the room to half a meter deep. At the doorless doorway it hovered like a breaking wave.
Svetz watched for a time, then reached into it. It sagged under his hand, congealed into foam like a too-soft mattress. He threw himself into it. It held his weight.
He cried, “Miya! Is this or is this not a bed?”
“Hanny, we have a mission. We’ve learned as much as we can here.”
There was a snap in her voice. He looked at her face to see if she meant it. She did. Chagrined, he rolled out. There’s certainly something we haven’t learned.…
Before they left he got the other room to generate another bed of semisolid fog. Twin bedrooms, no doors. No closets. He would have liked to ask.…
They climbed out the way they came.
* * *
“Teach me to run,” Svetz said.
“Are you up to that?”
“I can always stop.”
“Start by walking. Now you’re bouncing too high. Feel it? You want to stay closer to the ground. Reach out with your feet. Lean forward a little. Now start pushing back with your toes.…”
He tried to keep his run level, following curves to avoid up-and-down, leaning way over to take a curve. Miya flew alongside. His knee and back and ribs were easing up. They still hurt. He’d get medical attention when they reached Mons Olympus.
They kept to the heights. They’d seen that the old canal was treacherous footing.
Thin air had him gasping, but he ran for half an hour before he had to stop. Then Miya walked alongside him, not using the flight stick. Presently she asked, “What are you singing?”
“Don’t know.” A tune was running through his head. The music was there, and the thoughts, but the words didn’t quite fit.
“‘… float past all our days,’” he sang, and reached farther, and found only:
We dare not face the ocean’s loss,
A change already come.
The world’s long death must never harm
This stove, these lights, our home.
We build to hide ourselves from Time
a stone and crystal wall
And Time will float past all our days
along the Grand Canal.
“Doggerel.”
“It’s not quite right yet.”
“Ocean? Never mind that. Why are you singing?”
“I’m happy.” It was true: a grin was pulling his face out of shape. He let it have its way.
“Why?”
The gravity made every few footsteps a dance. “I fell twenty thousand klicks and I’m alive, I’m healing, I’m on Mars.”
“You don’t care about Mars, Hanny. I talked to Zeera. You’re ITR’s best operative, but you’re afraid all the time. You’re no explorer. You tried to back out!”
“Why am I singing, then? Hey—”
“How would I know?”
“But I do! Miya, was that or was that not the last native martian bed you will ever see in your life?”
“And?”
“It wasn’t any kind of a record you wanted. It was me.”
“That was then.”
“You could have said something. You didn’t have to wait until we were moving through time.”
“That was then.”
The song still played through his head, lyrics writhing around a theme. Yes, things change, but she had loved him.
“How big a town was this, do you think?” Svetz pointed down toward the dry canal. “The canals that cross at Hangtree City weren’t any bigger than this. Look: smooth, then rectilinear lumps on the far side. Buried buildings. That shallow bulge. City Hall?”
“Hanny, do you regard yourself as mission oriented?”
“Is that a cosmonaut’s term?” He thought about it. “History isn’t like astronomy. Miya, my briefings tend to be totally futzed. I’ve had to rethink my goal on every mission. Even this one. We’ve got the seeds that grow the anchor trees, right? Are we still looking for the seeds that grow the Hangtree?”
“Not on the martian surface, I wouldn’t think.”
“And you don’t think that big bulge could be a granary? Or a library?”
She didn’t answer.
“We don’t know how to find Hangtree seeds, what they look like, or even if the Allied Peoples have a billion of them in storehouses ready to launch at Europa.”
Her voice was turning brittle again. “We can’t read Martian, Hanny.”
“It’s not a library anyway. Likely it’s something we don’t have a word for. But you have to look, Miya. You don’t find anything if you don’t look.”
“We searched the Hangtree!”
“First you dream. Then you look in a hundred wrong places. Maybe one of those buried buildings is your library, and somewhere there are picture books or comic books, and in one of those you find pictures of the Hangtree and some seed clusters and a close-up of a seed. Or maybe you find something you never expected at all.”
“A seed storehouse?”
“No, not that. Why store them at all? Let the tree deal with them. We were probably looking at the wrong end.”
“What?”
“Think like a tree, now. You’re anchored deep in the watery soil of Mars. You grew an anchor grove and then linked to it, and now it’s a part of you. Your roots close on the bedrock, way down. You grow more anchor trees in case you lose your anchor and have to reattach. You make Hangtree seeds too, orbiter seeds, because Willy Gorky needs them. But are you putting them in orbit? Why? You already have Mars. Why do you want competition? You want your children on other worlds—”
“Yes.”
“It’s what you were made for. So you drop your orbiter seeds from the upper end. The far tip is swinging ’round at better than escape velocity. It flings them at the stars.”
A long moment passed. They were both panting. Then, “How long have you been thinking like this, Hanny?”
“Only just. It always feels like I should have known right away, but it can take forever. I have to go down all these blind alleys first. I … eventually … get it.”
“All right. I’m starting to see what Zeera meant.”
Svetz was starting to wish he’d heard that conversation.
“All we’d need to do is go get them,” Miya said. “Take up position beyond the high end of the Hangtree and catch what falls. Hanny, what’s wrong with this picture?”
“You tell me.”
“It feels wrong. Throw seeds all over the sky? It’s a strategy that works on Earth, works on a planet, but, Hanny, the sky is bigger than that.”
“Futz, Miya, you can’t steer a seed.”
“Ahh,” Miya drew it out, a long sigh. “Willy and his seeds. We’re hung up on seeds. All right. We still need to get to Mons Olympus. Four thousand klicks across Amazonis, but we can do it. I don’t know our fuel situation. Maybe Zeera’s already taken care of that.” And she would say no more.
* * *
They’d been following the crests of three interlocked craters. The broad, dusty road that had been a canal cut through two of them, and time had worn them near to nothing. But the largest and latest impact had fallen on the canal itself. Svetz thought to find water backed up behind the blockage, but it was dry on both sides.
“Hanny, why didn’t we go look under that bulge?”
“Because we don’t split up, and this is a space mission, and you’ve been on Mars and I haven’t.”
They walked for a time. Then she said, “Hanny, I didn’t realize you were taking my orders. This
is an ITR mission too. If you think about it, you’ve seen more aliens than I have. Pre-Industrial humanity isn’t like us. They’re closer to nature. They’re surrounded by ten thousand times as many species as we’ve managed—”
“You want me in charge, Miya?”
No answer.
“I think Zeera’s the official Head of Mission. Thing is, you clearly weren’t taking my orders, so—”
“Hanny.” She pointed.
Beyond the next dune was another. Something slid over its crest like a caterpillar crossing the edge of a leaf. It had far too many legs. It was gone before he could see more.
“Something alive,” he said. “Big.”
“What? Really? I meant the house.”
House? Where she pointed … where the crater rim abruptly ended, chopped through to make a canal, stood a clump of crystals. Two were of smoky transparency, two were the color of brick, and the nearest was black. Not much like a house, those structures. But now he could see the shadows of rooms, and—
“I did see something stalking us, Miya. It looks like a caterpillar dreaming it’s a tiger.”
The blaster was in her hands. Svetz cradled his needle gun. They eased casually toward a peak—the high ground—and waited.
“Doesn’t have to be a predator,” Miya said. “What would it eat out here?”
“What would it eat if it isn’t?”
“Mmm. Something living below the sand?”
“There,” he said as it came over the crest of the nearest dune. For an instant he saw why such a creature might want ten legs in Mars gravity. The beast didn’t charge off the crest and maroon itself in the air and wait to be pulled down. It flowed over and down in a minimal shower of sand, bending like a caterpillar, its legs hugging the contours of the dune, and was already much too close.
Over the dunecrest and down to the flat and up the side of the crater, it came fast. It had a huge head in a collar of red fur, several rows of teeth, and four little tongues splayed like flower petals near the back. Svetz fired anesthetic needles into the thing’s huge and gaping mouth. In the last instant he twisted and leapt away.
The creature whipped around to follow, and stumbled. It tripped over its multitude of feet, and one side went down and it rolled. It rolled over Svetz. Svetz, half crushed, caught its weight on both feet and kicked.
The beast snapped at what it felt under it. Svetz yelled as he felt teeth close on his ribs. They slid off the slippery skintight and snapped shut on his silver cloak. That ripped like tissue.
He was alive. He lay as he’d fallen, taking stock. No blood, no torn flesh. He’d look at bruises later.
The needle gun didn’t look broken.
The ten-legged predator lay twisted on itself and glassy-eyed.
Miya?
Miya hovered on her flight stick, looking down. “Hanny?”
He tried sitting up. “Fine.”
She had pulled her helmet over her head. “I saw another one.”
“Why didn’t you use the blaster?”
“Hanny, it was too close. I lofted the flight stick and climbed on after I was up, because I d-didn’t want to come down, after all, and by then it was on you.”
“Use it now.” Svetz set his own helmet in place and looked around. He would have to find a target before he could zoom on it. “See anything?”
“No.”
“My bruises have bruises on them.” He started walking. He could still do that.
“Anything we do with a blaster could mark us for any aircraft,” Miya said.
“Right. Will you look at this?”
They stood like quartz crystals thirty-odd meters tall, almost vertical but leaning a bit at odd angles. Two crystals might have been made of cut pink brick. Two were of smoky glass. It still looked like a geological outcropping, but within the glass Svetz could see rooms and spiral stairs.
The near side of this nearest structure was a black wall painted with blurred pink silhouettes. One, high up, had the shape of a bird or big insect. Three could have been human athletes, a child and two adults, if one adult was wearing a helmet or had a head the size of a watermelon. The big-headed one was holding a weapon or baseball mitt or Jai-alai basket. And the fifth silhouette was a black circle, a ball or discus in flight. The bird was diving on it.
“Energy weapon,” Miya said.
“Might be just paint.” Svetz touched the child’s silhouette and felt the raised edge. “Nope. The flying woks have energy weapons that could have done this.”
“They fought for the last of the water. Bet on it. Hanny, let’s be careful. People who fight like this might set traps too.”
“We should be on the roof.”
“No, we just don’t use the door.” Miya fired at a transparent wall and stepped through the hole.
Svetz backed after her. No ten-legged tigers followed them.
Here was another pool of silver lava. Miya took its temperature: 190°C. “Same as the other one. I was right, it’s for cooking. Up the stairs, those little staggered platforms are where they ate.”
“Let’s stay here. The beasts won’t come into a house.”
“Hanny, is that your expert opinion?”
Would he stand behind that? He would. “Anything that thinks like a ten-legged tiger won’t trap itself in this maze of rooms. Furthermore, it’s my expert opinion that I need rest. I don’t know where you’re getting your strength, Miya. I’ve run out.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. The sleeping rooms must be in one of the opaque towers. He borrowed the blaster and shot a hole in a wall. Up the spiral stair were two matched cubicles bigger than closets, and a glass wall with a faded obscene frieze on the glass.
The touch point in one room got him nothing.
The other deployed gray smoke that half-congealed to a springy bed. He heard Miya behind him, and he said, “Mine.”
“One of us should stay on guard,” she said. “Me?”
“My mind’s foggy. Do it. Wake me up when you can’t stand it anymore.” He started to strip off his pressure suit. Just opening zips was enough to tell him that the air was martian-cold. He kept it on. The gray foam accepted him and he slept.
* * *
He woke.
Miya was on the stair with her back to him.
He rolled out of the foam. He touched her shoulder and she jumped. “Four hours,” she said. “It’s still dark out. Nothing threatening. The moons—well, look for yourself. How’s the bed?”
“You’re going to love it,” he said.
She nodded. She crawled into the foam.
Feeling the need to stretch, he went downstairs. He felt elated. Maybe that was only the bouncy feel of Mars gravity. There were no windows upstairs or down. The only light came from the forever bulbs. He armed himself before he stepped out.
Behind the sharp, close horizon was a silver flower, the Hangtree with solar sails deployed. That would be west, then. The Hangtree in its higher, slower orbit must be near setting.
Above the Hangtree, one of the hurtling moons was a glowing disk smaller than Luna but still too large. He watched it for an hour or so while he stretched against yesterday’s kinks and injuries. The moon rose up the western sky. It was pale and featureless … but it was changing phase, from full to a fat crescent.
Maybe Miya had guessed right: that was moonlight on stratospheric ice crystals.
The corner of his eye caught motion.
He jumped straight backward through the doorway. The dark shape resolved, all teeth and too many legs, and slammed into the jamb while Svetz completed a backward somersault and jumped again, straight up three meters of stairwell. The beast roared like a high-pitched jackhammer and pushed through into the house. It was as big as the door.
Still in flight, Svetz screamed back, “Miya!” in case the beast’s roar hadn’t wakened her. The curve of the stairwell caught him. Now that his feet had some purchase, Svetz reached for the needle gun on his back.
Too slow! The bea
st flowed up the stairs and Svetz had to jump again. Its roar froze him and he landed badly. Miya must have heard the roar—
Miya was in the bedroom doorway with the blaster in her hands.
He stumbled past her, snatched at the doorway, turned with needle gun in hand. Too late. Miya fired downward. Her backhand slapped his chest, sending him into the other bedroom as the blast roared back up at them.
He waited until he couldn’t hear anything before he crawled out.
The beast was gone. Below the upper landing, both lower landings and half the stair were gone. Shrapnel had spattered the living space below.
Miya said, “What a rush!”
“My hero,” he said. He craned his neck to see if the flight stick had survived. It looked untouched.
Miya said, “There, there, my pretty one, no danger shall harm you.”
Svetz said, “We’re doing this all wrong.”
“It’s dead. We’re alive. Sorry about the stair.”
“No, hear me out. We can’t walk a quarter of the way around the planet! We’ve got one flight stick. I stay here. You take the flight stick to Mons Olympus. Debrief Zeera and vice versa, then come back here with Zeera’s flight stick and we’ll fly back.”
Miya thought it over. Presently she nodded. She said, “You’re the boss.”
“I don’t know how to give orders. I was alone on every mission.”
“There has to be a boss.” She looked over the landing’s fractured edge. “Long way down.”
“Nah.” Mars gravity. He jumped.
She caught him by his backpack frame and lifted him. “You’d just have to come back up,” she said.
“That’s right, you’ve only had an hour’s sleep.”
“Never mind that. Take off your skintight.”
“Why?… oh. Miya, I’m getting whiplash here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you’d made yourself pretty clear, so I gave you up. I’m not sure how often I can do that.”
She sat down on the edge of the landing and swung her legs, not looking at him. “You work for the ITR. I work for Space Bureau. Most of the time we wouldn’t be in the same time or place.”
“I hadn’t thought that far.” He sat down beside her.