"In general," replied the Eurasian girl. "The aborigines seem to have
been mostly a philosophic sort. Perhaps they became so when their
planet began to die. All that have survived are such low life-orders
as the _czanworm_ and sand-_lurtonk_. Unless, of course, the invisible
ones are natives. I for one am inclined to believe they are."
"So does Rolf Marcein," said Lynne.
"You love him, don't you?" Lao asked matter-of-factly.
"I'm beginning to be afraid so," said Lynne as frankly.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of," replied the other. "I love Revere, you
know--and I don't expect to see him ever again."
"I know," said Lynne, feeling her companion's unhappiness like a knife.
She pulled the parka over her head although it was not the cool Martian
afternoon breeze that was making her cold. She said, "It must have been
very difficult for you--what you had to do to help get me here. I don't
wonder if you hate me."
"I don't hate you, Lynne," said Lao. "But if you fail on this job I
shall. I should not enjoy sacrificing Revere for nothing."
"I won't fail," Lynne told her with more assurance than she felt.
"After all, I have Revere to think of--and you--_and_ Rolf."
"I encourage myself with similar thoughts," said Lao. "Come--let us go
on inside."
It was like entering a pagan cathedral. The tower in which Lynne's post
was bore heavy over-marks of human habitation. Probably, she thought,
it had long since been stripped by the archeologists of any objects of
historical or cultural value. Save for its crystaline flying buttresses
it might almost have been an Earth skyscraper.
But, outside of a few pieces of scaffolding, where restoration work or
study was evidently in progress, this immense building had been left
untouched by the new inhabitants of the red planet. Thanks probably
to the thinness and dryness of the atmosphere, brilliant murals had
retained their coloring intact. Yet in numerous patches the colors
seemed to fade into neutral tints at variance with the brightness of
the rest.
"Here." Lao took from a table, on which tools and other instruments
had been laid, an odd-looking stereoptical device, handed it to Lynne,
adding, "Adjust it and you'll get the full effect. A lot of their work
was done below the human color-scale, in the infra-red."
Lynne gasped when she studied the hitherto drab patches in the murals
through the double-eye-piece of the viewer. She saw strange beings,
hauntingly near-human, engaged in fantastic gambols. Multi-faceted
eyes leered out at her from the Capuchin heads of twin-bodied smaller
creatures of a boldness that almost made her flinch. And there were
endlessly varied poses of both sorts of beings....
"Rather disturbing, isn't it?" said Lao. "I didn't bring you out here
just to see the sights, Lynne. From what little your brother was able
to tell me, the odd little games those creatures are playing are very
like those his invaders hinted at."
"You mean," said Lynne with a shudder, "that the zombies or whatever
they are looked like that before they lost their bodies?"
"Or before they became invisible," said Lao quietly. "The near-humans
seem to have been the dominant species. These others--the twin-bodied
monkeylike things--seem to have been their pets."
"What disgusting games they played!" said Lynne. "They sound a lot
like...." She hesitated, realising she was about to repeat Lao's remark.
"Exactly," said Lao.
They walked back to the settlement in silence. Both girls had a great
deal to ponder over. When they got there Lynne settled down to listen
to some musicrolls in the recreation building and Lao left to tend to
her various executive functions.
Lynne's new life on Mars passed without notable incident for another
week, Earth-time. She was beginning to adjust to days and nights almost
twice as long as those of her home planet, to the small cool sun, to
the use of her oxyrespirator whenever her lungs felt empty.
She was even beginning to enjoy the give-and-take of the neo-pioneer
society of Barkutburg. Yet loneliness continued to gnaw at her,
loneliness for the twin she had known such a short time, loneliness for
Rolf, at whose activities she could only guess. And some of her guesses
were in lurid vidarcolor.
Late one afternoon, in the recreation building, the musicroll was
playing a fine concerto for theraharp by Liston-Lutz, the most
important human composer yet to emerge on Mars. Back on Earth his
music had seemed to Lynne to be both glaringly dissonant and a trifle
decadent. Here on Mars she understood it. He was writing of the red
planet itself, of a world that had all but died and was now having its
life renewed through lusty Earth-pioneers.
"Like it?" one of the engineers enjoying an off-shift rest asked Lynne
over a colafizz globe.
"Very much. It--fits," said Lynne. She was still smiling at him when
the headache came back--with a sharpness and depth of discomfort she
had never felt on Earth. For a full minute or two she thought she was
going to be physically sick from the pain.
She managed to get up and move toward her quarters before anyone
noticed she was feeling badly. It would never do to have them worried
about _her_--after all, they had enough to worry about. Besides, she
knew what was the matter. Revere was in New Samarkand and they were
doing something to him, something that might easily either kill him or
drive him permanently insane.