The Martian Chronicles Read online

  "You think they knew what it was all about, do you?"

  "For my money."

  "And for that reason you started shooting people."

  "When I was a kid my folks took me to visit Mexico City. I'll always remember the way my father acted--loud and big. And my mother didn't like the people because they were dark and didn't wash enough. And my sister wouldn't talk to most of them. I was the only one really liked it. And I can see my mother and father coming to Mars and acting the same way here.

  "Anything that's strange is no good to the average American. If it doesn't have Chicago plumbing, it's nonsense. The thought of that! Oh God, the thought of that! And then--the war. You heard the congressional speeches before we left. If things work out they hope to establish three atomic research and atom bomb depots on Mars. That means Mars is finished; all this wonderful stuff gone. How would you feel if a Martian vomited stale liquor on the White House floor?"

  The captain said nothing but listened.

  Spender continued: "And then the other power interests coming up. The mineral men and the travel men. Do you remember what happened to Mexico when Cortez and his very fine good friends arrived from Spain? A whole civilization destroyed by greedy, righteous bigots. History will never forgive Cortez."

  "You haven't acted ethically yourself today," observed the captain.

  "What could I do? Argue with you? It's simply me against the whole crooked grinding greedy setup on Earth. They'll be flopping their filthy atoms bombs up here, fighting for bases to have wars. Isn't it enough they've ruined one planet, without ruining another; do they have to foul someone else's manger? The simple-minded windbags. When I got up here I felt I was not only free of their so-called culture, I felt I was free of their ethics and their customs. I'm out of their frame of reference, I thought. All I have to do is kill you all off and live my own life."

  "But it didn't work out," said the captain.

  "No. After the fifth killing at breakfast, I discovered I wasn't all new, all Martian, after all. I couldn't throw away everything I had learned on Earth so easily. But now I'm feeling steady again. I'll kill you all off. That'll delay the next trip in a rocket for a good five years. There's no other rocket in existence today, save this one. The people on Earth will wait a year, two years, and when they hear nothing from us, they'll be very afraid to build a new rocket. They'll take twice as long and make a hundred extra experimental models to insure themselves against another failure."

  "You're correct."

  "A good report from you, on the other hand, if you returned, would hasten the whole invasion of Mars. If I'm lucky I'll live to be sixty years old. Every expedition that lands on Mars will be met by me. There won't be more than one ship at a time coming up, one every year or so, and never more than twenty men in the crew. After I've made friends with them and explained that our rocket exploded one day--I intend to blow it up after I finish my job this week--I'll kill them off, every one of them. Mars will be untouched for the next half century. After a while, perhaps the Earth people will give up trying. Remember how they grew leery of the idea of building Zeppelins that were always going down in flames?"

  "You've got it all planned," admitted the captain.

  "I have."

  "Yet you're outnumbered. In an hour we'll have you surrounded. In an hour you'll be dead."

  "I've found some underground passages and a place to live you'll never find. I'll withdraw there to live for a few weeks. Until you're off guard. I'll come out then to pick you off, one by one."

  The captain nodded. "Tell me about your civilization here," he said, waving his hand at the mountain towns.

  "They knew how to live with nature and get along with nature. They didn't try too hard to be all men and no animal. That's the mistake we made when Darwin showed up. We embraced him and Huxley and Freud, all smiles. And then we discovered that Darwin and our religions didn't mix. Or at least we didn't think they did, We were fools. We tried to budge Darwin and Huxley and Freud. They wouldn't move very well. So, like idiots, we tried knocking down religion.

  "We succeeded pretty well. We lost our faith and went around wondering what life was for. If art was no more than a frustrated outflinging of desire, if religion was no more than self-delusion, what good was life? Faith had always given us answers to all things. But it all went down the drain with Freud and Darwin. We were and still are a lost people."

  "And these Martians are a found people?" inquired the captain.

  "Yes. They knew how to combine science and religion so the two worked side by side, neither denying the other, each enriching the other."

  "That sounds ideal."

  "It was. I'd like to show you how the Martians did it."

  "My men are waiting."

  "We'll be gone half an hour. Tell them that, sir."

  The captain hesitated, then rose and called an order down the hill.

  Spender led him over into a little Martian village built all of cool perfect marble. There were great friezes of beautiful animals, white-limbed cat things and yellow-limbed sun symbols, and statues of bull-like creatures and statues of men and women and huge fine-featured dogs.

  "There's your answer, Captain."

  "I don't see."

  "The Martians discovered the secret of life among animals. The animal does not question life. It lives. Its very reason for living is life; it enjoys and relishes life. You see--the statuary, the animal symbols, again and again."

  "It looks pagan."

  "On the contrary, those are God symbols, symbols of life. Man had become too much man and not enough animal on Mars too. And the men of Mars realized that in order to survive they would have to forgo asking that one question any longer: Why live? Life was its own answer. Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good a life is possible. The Martians realized that they asked the question 'Why live at all?' at the height of some period of war and despair, when there was no answer. But once the civilization calmed, quieted, and wars ceased, the question became senseless in a new way. Life was now good and needed no arguments."

  "It sounds as if the Martians were quite naive."

  "Only when it paid to be naive. They quit trying too hard to destroy everything, to humble everything. They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. They never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful. It's all simply a matter of degree. An Earth Man thinks: 'In that picture, color does not exist, really. A scientist can prove that color is only the way the cells are placed in a certain material to reflect light. Therefore, color is not really an actual part of things I happen to see.' A Martian, far cleverer, would say: "This is a fine picture. It came from the hand and the mind of a man inspired. Its idea and its color are from life. This thing is good.'"

  There was a pause. Sitting in the afternoon sun, the captain looked curiously around at the little silent cool town.

  "I'd like to live here," he said.

  "You may if you want."

  "You ask me that?"

  "Will any of those men under you ever really understand all this? They're professional cynics, and it's too late for them. Why do you want to go back with them? So you can keep up with the Joneses? To buy a gyro just like Smith has? To listen to music with your pocketbook instead of your glands? There's a little patio down here with a reel of Martian music in it at least fifty thousand years old. It still plays. Music you'll never hear in your life. You could hear it. There are books. I've gotten on well in reading them already. You could sit and read."

  "It all sounds quite wonderful, Spender."

  "But you won't stay?"

  "No. Thanks, anyway."

  "And you certainly won't let me stay without trouble. I'll have to kill you all."

  "You're optimistic."

  "I have something to fight for and live for; that makes me a better killer. I've got what amounts to a religio
n, now. It's learning how to breathe all over again. And how to lie in the sun getting a tan, letting the sun work into you. And how to hear music and how to read a book. What does your civilization offer?"

  The captain shifted his feet. He shook his head. "I'm sorry this is happening. I'm sorry about it all."

  "I am too. I guess I'd better take you back now so you can start the attack."

  "I guess so."

  "Captain, I won't kill you. When it's all over, you'll still be alive."

  "What?"

  "I decided when I started that you'd be untouched."

  "Well ... "

  "I'll save you out from the rest. When they're dead, perhaps you'll change your mind."

  "No," said the captain. "There's too much Earth blood in me. I'll have to keep after you."

  "Even when you have a chance to stay here?"

  "It's funny, but yes, even with that. I don't know why. I've never asked myself. Well, here we are." They had returned to their meeting place now. "Will you come quietly, Spender? This is my last offer."

  "Thanks, no." Spender put out his hand. "One last thing. If you win, do me a favor. See what can be done to restrict tearing this planet apart, at least for fifty years, until the archaeologists have had a decent chance, will you?"

  "Right."

  "And last--if it helps any, just think of me as a very crazy fellow who went berserk one summer day and never was right again. It'll be a little easier on you that way."

  "I'll think it over. So long, Spender. Good luck."

  "You're an odd one," said Spender as the captain walked back down the trail in the warm-blowing wind.

  The captain returned like something lost to his dusty men. He kept squinting at the sun and breathing bard.

  "Is there a drink?" he said. He felt a bottle put cool into his hand. "Thanks." He drank. He wiped his mouth.

  "All right," he said. "Be careful. We have all the time we want. I don't want any more lost. You'll have to kill him. He won't come down. Make it a clean shot if you can. Don't mess him. Get it over with."

  "I'll blow his damned brains out," said Sam Parkhill.

  "No, through the chest," said the captain. He could see Spender's strong, clearly determined face.

  "His bloody brains," said Parkhill.

  The captain handed him the bottle jerkingly. "You heard what I said. Through the chest."

  Parkhill muttered to himself.

  "Now," said the captain.

  They spread again, walking and then running, and then walking on the hot hillside places where there would be sudden cool grottoes that smelled of moss, and sudden open blasting places that smelled of sun on stone.

  I hate being clever, thought the captain, when you don't really feel clever and don't want to be clever. To sneak around and make plans and feel big about making them. I hate this feeling of thinking I'm doing right when I'm not really certain I am. Who are we, anyway? The majority? Is that the answer? The majority is always holy, is it not? Always, always; just never wrong for one little insignificant tiny moment, is it? Never ever wrong in ten million years? He thought: What is this majority and who are in it? And what do they think and how did they get that way and will they ever change and how the devil did I get caught in this rotten majority? I don't feel comfortable. Is it claustrophobia, fear of crowds, or common sense? Can one man be right, while all the world thinks they are right? Let's not think about it. Let's crawl around and act exciting and pull the trigger. There, and there!

  The men ran and ducked and ran and squatted in shadows and showed their teeth, gasping, for the air was thin, not meant for running; the air was thin and they had to sit for five minutes at a time, wheezing and seeing black lights in their eyes, eating at the thin air and wanting more, tightening their eyes, and at last getting up, lifting their guns to tear holes in that thin summer air, holes of sound and heat.

  Spender remained where he was, firing only on occasion.

  "Damned brains all over!" Parkhill yelled, running uphill.

  The captain aimed his gun at Sam Parkhill. He put it down and stared at it in horror. "What were you doing?" he asked of his limp hand and the gun.

  He had almost shot Parkhill in the back.

  "God help me."

  He saw Parkhill still running, then falling to lie safe.

  Spender was being gathered in by a loose, running net of men. At the hilltop, behind two rocks, Spender lay, grinning with exhaustion from the thin atmosphere, great islands of sweat under each arm. The captain saw the two rocks. There was an interval between them of some four inches, giving free access to Spender's chest.

  "Hey, you!" cried Parkhill. "Here's a slug for your head!"

  Captain Wilder waited. Go on, Spender, he thought. Get out, like you said you would. You've only a few minutes to escape. Get out and come back later. Go on. You said you would. Go down in the tunnels you said you found, and lie there and live for months and years, reading your fine books and bathing in your temple pools. Go on, now, man, before it's too late.

  Spender did not move from his position.

  "What's wrong with him?" the captain asked himself.

  The captain picked up his gun. He watched the running, hiding men. He looked at the towers of the little clean Martian village, like sharply carved chess pieces lying in the afternoon. He saw the rocks and the interval between where Spender's chest was revealed.

  Parkhill was charging up, screaming in fury.

  "No, Parkhill," said the captain. "I can't let you do it. Nor the others. No, none of you. Only me." He raised the gun and sighted it.

  Will I be clean after this? he thought. Is it right that it's me who does it? Yes, it is. I know what I'm doing for what reason and it's right, because I think I'm the right person. I hope and pray I can live up to this.

  He nodded his head at Spender. "Go on," he called in a loud whisper which no one heard. "I'll give you thirty seconds more to get away. Thirty seconds!"

  The watch ticked on his wrist, The captain watched it tick. The men were running. Spender did not move. The watch ticked for a long time, very loudly in the captain's ears. "Go on, Spender, go on, get away!"

  The thirty seconds were up.

  The gun was sighted. The captain drew a deep breath. "Spender," he said, exhaling.

  He pulled the trigger.

  All that happened was that a faint powdering of rock went up in the sunlight. The echoes of the report faded.

  The captain arose and called to his men: "He's dead."

  The other men did not believe it. Their angles had prevented their seeing that particular. fissure in the rocks. They saw their captain run up the hill, alone, and thought him either very brave or insane.

  The men came after him a few minutes later.

  They gathered around the body and someone said, "In the chest?"

  The captain looked down. "In the chest," he said, He saw how the rocks had changed color under Spender. "I wonder why he waited. I wonder why he didn't escape as he planned. I wonder why he stayed on and got himself killed."

  "Who knows?" someone said.

  Spender lay there, his hands clasped, one around the gun, the other around the silver book that glittered in the sun.

  Was it because of me? thought the captain. Was it because I refused to give in myself? Did Spender hate the idea of killing me? Am I any different from these others here? Is that what did it? Did he figure he could trust me? What other answer is there?

  None. He squatted by the silent body.

  I've got to live up to this, he thought. I can't let him down now. If he figured there was something in me that was like himself and couldn't kill me because of it, then what a job I have ahead of me! That's it, yes, that's it. I'm Spender all over again, but I think before I shoot. I don't shoot at all, I don't kill. I do things with people. And he couldn't kill me because I was himself under a slightly different condition.

  The captain felt the sunlight on the back of his neck. He heard himself talking: "If onl
y he had come to me and talked it over before he shot anybody, we could have worked it out somehow."

  "Worked what out?" said Parkhill. "What could we have worked out with his likes?"

  There was a singing of heat in the land, off the rocks and off the blue sky. "I guess you're right," said the captain. "We could never have got together. Spender and myself, perhaps. But Spender and you and the others, no, never, He's better off now. Let me have a drink from that canteen."

  It was the captain who suggested the empty sarcophagus for Spender. They had found an ancient Martian tomb yard. They put Spender into a silver case with waxes and wines which were ten thousand years old, his hands folded on his chest. The last they saw of him was his peaceful face.

  They stood for a moment in the ancient vault. "I think it would be a good idea for you to think of Spender from time to time," said the captain.

  They walked from the vault and shut the marble door.

  The next afternoon Parkhill did some target practice in one of the dead cities, shooting out the crystal windows and blowing the tops off the fragile towers. The captain caught Parkhill and knocked his teeth out.

  August 2001: THE SETTLERS

  The men of Earth came to Mars.

  They came because they were afraid or unafraid, because they were happy or unhappy, because they felt like Pilgrims or did not feel like Pilgrims. There was a reason for each man. They were leaving bad wives or bad jobs or bad towns; they were coming to find something or leave something or get something, to dig up something or bury something or leave something alone. They were coming with small dreams or large dreams or none at all. But a government finger pointed from four-color posters in many towns: THERE'S WORK FOR YOU IN THE SKY: SEE MARS! and the men shuffled forward, only a few at first, a double-score, for most men felt the great illness in them even before the rocket fired into space. And this disease was called The Loneliness, because when you saw your home town dwindle the size of your fist and then lemon-size and then pin-size and vanish in the fire-wake, you felt you had never been born, there was no town, you were nowhere, with space all around, nothing familiar, only other strange men. And when the state of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, or Montana vanished into cloud seas, and, doubly, when the United States shrank to a misted island and the entire planet Earth became a muddy baseball tossed away, then you were alone, wandering in the meadows of space, on your way to a place you couldn't imagine.