That's Just Like a Martian, page 1
That's Just Like a Martian
by Manly Wade Wellman
* * *
Meet Rugged Individualist Patch Merrick, Sentimental Scientist Zaarrgon, and Spoiled Darling Morgans Conti in the First of a New Series of Stories of Adventure Amid the Mysterious Asteroids
* * *
Mars is practical about prisoners, as about all things else.
It was really a compliment to Zaarrgon, suspending him in the block-ray; but it was also necessary, for Zaarrgon was the type of individual who must be held for grim justice's sake.
He had violated nobody knew how many rules of scientific conduct. A trusted technician of the jealously guarded water-synthesis system maintained by both government and private enterprise, he had gone to Phobos, closest of the two tiny Martian moons. There he had found and shipped back valuable water-producing minerals.
At home, he began to synthesize at once. Then he released this supply, without orders, to drought-stricken paupers on the northern desert. Their frantic pleas sounded too desperate to wait for government approval, and he piped the water along, saving lives—none of them scientifically precious and a trifle of vegetation, which his superiors had planned to abandon.
This was sentimental and Mars is too grimly thirsty a world to excuse sentimentality. Anyway, misuse of scientific apparatus or supplies is punishable, under Martian law, by death.
In an upper chamber of the great administration building at Ekadome, in a high pinnacle that towered above the massed tenements, the sky-aspiring travel-ways, the landing stages, the battlements that are aeons old, a buzzing little camera-device shed a great cone of light. In the midst of it lay Zaarrgon, silent and motionless.
He was small and frail, even for a Martian. Like most advanced members of his race, he had been surgically made over to approximate in general outline and function the more handy Terrestrial figure. His bladder body was corseted into something like a torso, his two lower tentacles were strengthened by jointed tubes to serve as legs, and their tips inserted in metal boots. Two upper tentacles served as arms, sleeved properly in his tunic, and upon harness-braced shoulders was a pink chrysanthemum of head, tufted with sensitive flesh-petals that housed the awareness-power which serves a Martian for eyes, nose, and mouth.
He could twitch no tentacle, inhale no air, speak no metallic word through the artificial voice-box in his breathing hole. The ray in which he bedded took away those powers, took away the very sense of them. All Zaarrgon could do was think.
By rights, he should think rueful, self-abnegating thoughts of his misbehavior and the certain and merited punishment. But Zaarrgon's mind, unfettered from his ray-lulled body, roamed in other channels. The poor folk of the desert, reprieved by his illegal gift of moisture, would know of his death in their service.
Life is cheap on Mars, but high-ranking scientific officers don't often throw their own lives away. He judged that a few, only a few, of the rescued paupers would be impressed. They might strive to be more than poor and obscure. Perhaps they might be interested in his own case, enough to study it, to come across what he had always conned and pondered, even to take up the study where he was leaving off. Several brains, even ordinary brains, would be better than one.
As for himself, he'd been about to die, anyway. A medical authority had told him that he could not live long in the vibration-zone of Mars. He must seek smaller, less sunshiny worlds. And the government would never have discharged him on plea of poor health. Zaarrgon, at ease in his ray captivity, had little to regret and less to repent. Beyond that, he had what Terrestrials call a trump card...
* * *
On the great landing-stage that lies like a roof upon Ekadome's upper levels, a silvery-sleek rocket cruiser came to rest. Attendants ran out to it. The hatch-panel opened, and forth came a tall, lusty Terrestrial with a certain gay savagery manifest in his dark face.
"Cruiser Omen," he reported to the senior clerk, a supple Martian. "Patch Merrick, owner and pilot, from the Saturnian system."
"Welcome, Missterr Merrick," purred the clerk. "We have hearrd of yourr exploitss therre—disscoverry of Z-metal and yourr rrisse to wealth."
Merrick grinned harshly. The wealth-conscious inner planets would surely know of that, and find it convenient to forget his earlier adventures, but he remembered.
He was out of place in the thirtieth century, to which no gypsies as such, had survived. He had first entered the Omen as a stow-away, and when the Omen was wrecked on a certain wild asteroid, he had become leader and schemer to keep the hapless company alive. He had made a debtor and dependent out of Coburn Conti, once director of Spaceways, Inc., and a frank worshipper out of Conti's daughter Morgana, who had the loveliest gray eyes and the most arrogant manner on all the habitable worlds. Thus, when help came and the Omen was repaired, he'd stolen the ship and fled, to escape the rewards of Conti's money and Margana's admiration.
For Patch Merrick valued personal freedom above luxury and wealth. It was fate, fantastic even for outer worlds, that had cast him among the Z-metal prospectors and made him embarrassingly rich and important. Z-metal was needed for speed-precision machinery, and he knew that he was responsible to the System for it. He hoped, however, that he need not now assume too much responsibility...
"Patch!" cried a voice as silvery as a bell, as triumphant as a trumpet. "Old Cross Patch, who ran away from me! And now you've come back!"
He faced her—Morgana. The savagery went out of his face, and embarrassment dawned in its stead.
"Where did you come from?" he mumbled, inwaxdly quivering.
"Didn't you think the whole System has buzzed with your adventures and successes?" she cried, all glorious smiles. "I knew about you—found out when you'd arrive, and I waited. Now," and her arm glided through his, "you won't get away again."
Patch Merrick, in the old days, had heard such words from Martian and Terrestrial police who did not sympathize with his unorthodox ways. He had never felt so helpless in their hands as in Morgana's. He thrilled at her touch —she was lovely—but a terrible dread clutched his heart. Had he returned to be trapped by civilization at last?
"Come," she urged. "Daddy will want to see you and congratulate you. He's sitting in judgment."
"Judgment?" repeated Merrick. "On what?"
"Yes. In the administration building. Daddy wouldn't stay retired, he's chief Terrestrial administrator for Martian Hydro Limited. And I'm also a director. We're operators of public resources and influential adherents of the Martio-Terrestrial League. So we're officers, technically, of that part of the government. To us, because the Martians can't understand, comes a report and request for judgment on this Zaarrgon—"
"Who's Zaarrgon? demanded Merrick. "And why can't Martians understand?"
"Because he doesn't act like a Martian. Come along."
She took him to an elevator, along a covered travel-way in a surface-car, and to the office where her big, grizzled father waited.
* * *
Conti had once helped Merrick steal the Omen, because he did not think that Morgana would be happy with a fundless rebel. But now he rose with a beaming face and outstretched hand.
"Patch, my boy! Delighted to see you. What a fine record you're making!"
Merrick shook hands, grimly aware that his Z-metal made himself so welcome. Conti said other things, cordial and confident—how much he hoped to learn from Marrick, how profitable and cozy it would be if Merrick came into Martian Hydro, Inc., and what a fine-looking pair Merrick and Morgana made. Then they all sat down, and Conti and Morgana quickly reviewed the case of Zaarrgon, the Martian whose crime baffled his fellow-Martians.
"It's clear that he's guilty," summed up Conti, "but why is a cold-brained Martian sorry for anyone? It's not that he's sorry, they say. There's a deeper reason, and they think Terrestrial viewpoints can find it."
"Zaarrgon was bound to die," reminded Morgana. "His illness is a fatal one, might become painful. Perhaps he figures on a painless death—just like a Martian."
Merrick frowned. "But," he protested, "if Zaarrgon's just a death-hungry invalid, wouldn't he blow off his flowery head? Honorable, by Martian standards. He must have had a real reason for releasing the water. You say he got it from Phobos?"
Conti shook his head. "Only the water-fixing elements. Phobos is full of them, but they're hard to mine, and they're all needed for regular channels of use." He fixed Merrick's eye with his. "You credit Zaarrgon with humanity, Patch, my boy. But Martians are inhuman, and glory in the fact. This starved world of theirs makes them so. Morgana, what else do we know about Zaarrgon?"
Morgana studied notes. "He was interested in asteroids—another un-Martian trait. The asteroids are adjudged to belong neither to the Martio-Terrestrial nor the Jovian system governments, until more is learned about them. That wasn't Zaarrgon's job, or his business. He had no reason to dig into their mysteries."
"Why not?" Patch Merrick wanted to know.
"Because," said Conti, "Martians stick to their own assignments. Zaarrgon's business was water-synthesis and water-preservation, mighty important on this thirsty planet. Let astronomers and astro-archaeologists worry about the asteroids. Yet Zaarrgon seems to have shown sentimentality and curiosity in un-Martian degrees. Unnatural."
"When it comes to talk of business," pursued Merrick, "what business is it of ours to advise on Zaarrgon's fate?"
"Oh!" sighed Morgana, a little distractedly. She was joyous and thrilled to see Patch Merrick again,
The door opened, and a Martian entered. His name was Sskirr. He was Conti's First Advisor, and fresh from a conference of his own.
"The grreetingss of the judiciarry authorrity," he slurred out through his artificial voice-box. "They rrecommend that Zaarrgon die, forr the ssake of sscience. It iss not often that an individual of ssuch sscientific attainment iss killed, and many rressearchers will be glad forr the chance to dissect hiss ssuperrior thought-ganglia."
"That's the closest to sense I've heard yet, which isn't saying much," groaned Merrick. "If the purpose of legal execution is to get high-type specimens for medical study, why not frame the Martian Ruler himself? He should be interesting?"
SSkirr was shocked, and his quivering face-petals showed it, but he only continued his report. "Telepathic sstudy of Zaarrgon'ss thought processs rrevealss that he hass no prroperr apprreciation of the grravity of hiss missdeed. He iss wrrapped in contemplation of the assterroidss."
"Asteroid's?" repeated Conti. "We haven't anything to do with them, until the claims of Jupiter and the League are examined and settled. I'm afraid that Zaarrgon's better out of the way."
"Excuse me," said Merrick, suddenly rising. "I'm going for a little stroll on the battlements. Maybe I can capture some rationality."
"I hope so," called Morgana pointedly, but gazing possessively after his departing broad shoulders.
* * *
The battlements outside towered almost a mile above the red-rusty desert plain. Above was the momentous shade of landing platforms. Merrick strode along a railed footway, and then paused to lean his big forearms on the topmost rail and stare across the distances.
Desert, that was Mars. Barely a quarter of the planet's surface was vegetated, and that only by herculean efforts of irrigation and planting and care. The value of water on Mars was rather higher than the value of blood anywhere else. And Zaarrgon had transgressed, had wasted the precious liquid, and must be punished. His arresters and accusers were not vindictive, but they were in deadly earnest.
Meanwhile, Zaarrgon was un-Martian in another respect—his curiosity about what did not concern him. Who, indeed, could be legitimately concerned for the Asteroids? They were tiny crumbs of mineral rock, circling the sun in a band between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, claimed by both planets but not fought or even argued over because they were not worth too much fight and argument.
A few of the largest—Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Eros—had settlements of a sort, that bore allegiance to nobody. And even these were hardly practical in the development of the cosmos. Where did this Zaarrgon get off, worrying about the Asteroids and causing others to worry about him?
Asteroids... Merrick remembered how he had adventured on one. A stowaway and fugitive from Terrestrial law, because he'd rather be a woodland hermit than a pillar of Thirtieth-century society, he had been aboard the ship of Coburn Conti that was cast away on a little detached hillock in space. He, Merrick, had taken command because he'd learned how to live without civilization.
And Morgana Conti had come out of it loving him. He'd fled from that into what he hoped was obscurity, and stumbled upon rich Z-metal findings on Titan of the Saturnian system. He'd let himself become possessed by wealth, had come back to the inner planets, and to Morgana. Here he was, not happy about it in any particular.
* * *
Abruptly he went away from there, restlessly seeking vehicles, travelways, elevators. Already he felt the cramping hand of civilization tightening about him. On the landing-stage above, he ordered his cruiser out. He rocketed away, tossing stratospheric miles over his shoulder like apple-peelings. He came to the northern desert where Zaarrgon had given water illegally.
It wasn't a desert any more. He could see that even from high up, as he descended to the rocket port. The desert was green, as Martian deserts always turn green with even minutes of encouragement. Old-fashioned, disused canal beds held trickles of moisture, little antlike figures toiled and bustled around furrowed plots and fields. There were miles of dead ground become cultivable and cultivated. Yes, and here and there, a patch of misty cloud, promising a spatter of rain.
In the port administration cubicle, he found an overworked official, a grim young Terrestrial who answered his questions:
"Oh, the water's always here, what time it doesn't evaporate and slide clear out of Martian gravity-pull. That moisture-fixing stuff that was turned loose here against orders keeps it condensing and working, the same water many times over."
"The land looks wonderful," complimented Merrick. "Almost like Earth."
"Because we're trying Terrestrial crops. Nitrogen plantings, and cereals. We might as well, since the water must not be wasted. It was really destined for the sub-polar regions."
"No people there," pointed out Merrick. "And I see lots of them here. Hard at work."
"Yes, the paupers." The official sounded contemptuous. "We couldn't waste them, either. The government provided harnesses and leg-tubes and so on, to make them adequate for farm labor."
"I see. And they'd have died otherwise?"
"Or they'd have been transferred to other areas, on doles and so on. Thanks for being interested, but do you mind going now? I've got a triple job of work to do."
Merrick went back. High in the stratosphere, he glanced up and saw the two moons of Mars overhead, jagged little clods less than ten miles in diameter. Small, barren, yet one and perhaps both held reprieving water-powers for Mars. Zaarrgon was accused of criminal waste. Yet his crime had reclaimed desert, had given people life and work and respectability. Was that so bad?
Merrick realized that his own outdated preferences were at work, and flying rebeliously in the face of Martian method and law. He returned to Ekadome, having been gone less than an hour.
"Refuel this cruiser, and get provisions aboard," he told the attendants. Then he descended to the very battlement from which he had departed. Someone had come out looking for him—Sskirr.
"The Marrtian divission of the Marrtio-Terresstrrial League takess verry ssehrioussly the casse of Zaarrgon. We arre grrateful forr the chance to rreferr hiss behaviorr to Terresstrrialss."
"I'd like to know more of his thoughts," said Merrick.
"That can be arranged," said Sskirr. "Come with me."
* * *
Zaarrgon, floating in space, was thinking: Asteroids... gravelly obstruction band between inner and outer planets... the largest five hundred miles through, the smallest only a whirling boulder... whence did they come?
Into his mind stole an answer, spoken it seemed by another thought process:
"They came from the explosion of a planet, of course. Their jagged formations show that. It's generally accepted, isn't it? But what I'm wondering is why you got into this jam."
Zaarrgon digested that. He pondered an answer:
"I wonder, too. Not that I acted in caprice, only because I thought it well that thirsty creatures should drink a little now. Isn't the end of Mars certain, and why should I slow or hasten it? Yet who are you and how do you communicate ?"
Again foreign thoughts came to him: "You're in the block-ray. I freezes your motions and senses, which leaves more clear-cut your pure thoughts. That is why they can be picked up on the thought-detector. "You've been studied for many hours by legal mirids. I happen to be a Terrestrial official by the name of Merrick. I have a voice in deciding your fate."
"I am too well-mannered to ask or suggest concerning that fate," Zaarrgon concentrated on replying. "In any case, my unauthorized use of water hastened by a small bit the ultimate death of this world. Dead words preoccupy me. I ponder a world not only dead, but dismembered."
"The asteroids?"
"The asteroids. Broken crumbs of what must once have been a huge planet. As you say, the jagged form of the asteroids establishes the fact of their being remnants of a breaking-up, else they would be round, like Earth or Mars, or Earth's moon."
