I woke up with my head in Molly's lap. She was looking down into my
face, sobbing in a funny sort of way and running her fingers through my
hair.
She looked startled when she saw that I was wide awake. She blinked
furiously and started fumbling at her waist for a handkerchief.
"I must have passed out cold," I said. "It's quite a strain to be at the
receiving end of a lynching bee. And what I saw afterwards wasn't
exactly pleasant."
"Darling," she whispered, "don't move, don't say a word. You're going to
be all right."
"You bet I am!" I said. "Right now I feel great."
My arm went around her shoulder, and I drew her head down until her
breath was warm on my face. I kissed her hair and lips and eyes for a
full minute in utter recklessness.
When I released her her eyes were shining, and she was laughing a little
and crying too. "You've changed your mind," she said. "You believe me
now, don't you?"
"Don't talk," I said. "Don't say another word. I just want to look at
you."
"It was you right from the start," she said. "Not Ned--or anyone else."
"I was a blind fool," I said.
"You never gave me a second glance."
"One glance was enough," I whispered. "But when I saw how it seemed to
be between you and Ned--"
"I was never in love with him. It was just--"
"Never mind, don't say it," I said. "It's over and done with."
I stopped, remembering. Her eyes grew wide and startled, and I could see
that she was remembering too.
"What happened?" I asked. "Did they catch that vicious rat?"
She brushed back her hair, the sunlight suddenly harsh on her face. "He
fell into the canal. The bullets brought him down, and he collapsed on
the bank."
Her hand tightened on my wrist. "Bill told me. He tried to swim, but the
current carried him under. He went down and never came up."
"I'm glad," I said. "Did anyone in the camp ever see him before?"
Molly shook her head. "Bill said he was a drifter--a dangerous maniac
who must have been crazed by the sun."
"I see," I said.
I reached out and drew her into my arms again, and we rested for a
moment stretched out side by side on the sand.
"It's funny," I said after a while.
"What is?"
"You know what they say about the whispering. Sometimes when you listen
intently you seem to hear words deep in your mind. As if the Martians
had telepathic powers."
"Perhaps they have," she said.
I glanced sideways at her. "Remember," I said. "There were cities on
Mars when our ancestors were hairy apes. The Martian civilization was
flourishing and great fifty million years before the pyramids arose as a
monument to human solidarity and worth. A bad monument, built by slave
labor. But at least it was a start."
"Now you're being poetic, Tom," she said.
"Perhaps I am. The Martians must have had their pyramids too. And at the
pyramid stage they must have had their Larsens, to shoulder all the
guilt. To them we may still be in the pyramid stage. Suppose--"
"Suppose what?"
"Suppose they wanted to warn us, to give us a lesson we couldn't forget.
How can we say with certainty that a dying race couldn't still make use
of certain techniques that are far beyond us."
"I'm afraid I don't understand," she said, puzzled.
"Someday," I said, "our own science will take a tiny fragment of human
tissue from the body of a dead man, put it into an incubating machine,
and a new man will arise again from that tiny shred of flesh. A man who
can walk and live and breathe again, and love again, and die again after
another full lifetime.
"Perhaps the Martian science was once as great as that. And the Martians
might still remember a few of the techniques. Perhaps from our human
brains, from our buried memories and desires, they could filch the key
and bring to horrible life a thing so monstrous and so terrible--"