Maya put the telephone quietly back in its cradle and looked across the

table at the Tartar she had caught. Dark smiled at her, easily.

"So the reinforcements you were expecting won't get here tonight, after

all," he remarked softly.

"He didn't say that at all!" she retorted, too quickly.

"There's hardly any point in trying to deceive me about it is there?" he

pointed out. "I can tell a great deal from your conversation and the

expression on your face, and I'd estimate that your help is going to

have to come from Mars City by groundcar--a trip I've just made, so I

know exactly how long it takes. Do you plan for us to spend these two

nights in your room, or mine?"

She looked at him silently, stricken.

"I see our waiter returning," said Dark equably. "I trust you'll enjoy

your meal as much as I'm going to enjoy mine, Miss Cara Nome."

8

The waiter unplugged the telephone and lifted it from their table.

"We're ready to order now," Maya said to him. "And please ask Mr. Gren

to come in here."

A few moments after the waiter left, the manager came to their table.

Quelman Gren was dark and thin-faced, with sleek, oily hair.

"When I told you I was here in an official capacity for the government,

Mr. Gren, you said you would co-operate with me in every way possible,"

said Maya.

"Yes, Miss Cara Nome, I have made every effort to do so," replied Gren.

"Is there some way I can help you now?"

"Yes, there is," she said. "This man is my prisoner, and I'm going to

have to keep him in custody here for two days and a half, until help

arrives from Mars City. I'd like for you to arm a couple of dependable

men with heatguns and assign them to help me guard him."

Gren shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Miss Cara Nome, but none of the employees of the Chateau

Nectaris was employed for that sort of work, and I'm not going to ask

them to do it. What you should have is police help."

"As you know very well, there are no police nearer than Ophir," she

said in an exasperated tone. "Surely, you have some semi-official

officers employed in the chateau in case of trouble among the guests."

"I have a house detective, but his duties are to intervene only when

some crime has been committed against a guest or against the chateau.

You told me that you were seeking political rebels, and I assume that

that is your charge against Mr. Kensington. My house detective has no

authority to act in such cases, and I do not intend to get the chateau

mixed up in these affairs.

"I've co-operated with you to the extent of giving you information you

wanted, Miss Cara Nome, and I'll continue to co-operate insofar as I am

not asked to do something I have no authority to do. It occurs to me

that if you came here seeking rebels, you should have come equipped to

handle them if you found them."

"It occurs to me that you act very much as though you were in sympathy

with the rebel cause," retorted Maya angrily.

"My sympathies are not the government's affair, as long as I take no

illegal actions," said Gren. "Good evening, Miss Cara Nome."

Maya gazed after him furiously as he left the dining room. Dark, sitting

completely relaxed, smiled pleasantly at her.

"Please be assured," he said, "that I'm going to try to avoid injuring

you in any way when I escape your custody."

"I'm not worried, because you aren't going to escape," she said. "But I

appreciate the thought. You seem to be a very mild-mannered person,

for...."

She stopped.

"For a rebel?" he finished for her. "I really don't know what sort of

indoctrination you must have had, Maya--if I may call you Maya, and

there's no point in being formal under the circumstances. The students

at the barber college were all rebels, and the reports I received were

that you got along nicely with most of them."

"Yes, I did. I don't suppose it should surprise me to find that rebels

are human beings, too."

"Merely a matter of a difference in orientation. And a question for you

to consider is, which orientation actually is correct?"

Maya did not like the direction the conversation was taking. She was

relieved by the appearance of the waiter with their meals of thick,

steaming steaks, with all the necessary trimmings.

"It will be a long time before we can be served anything like this by

teleportation," she said, laughing. "But, Mr. Kensington--"

"Dark, if you don't mind."

"Very well. Dark, you say that you drove here from Mars City. How did

you avoid the copter patrols that were out trying to intercept the

escaping rebels?"

"As a matter of fact, I didn't, and that's a very peculiar thing," he

said thoughtfully. "One of them got me just outside Mars City and

blasted the dome of my groundcar."

"I noticed you were wearing a marsuit when you registered here, and Gren

said you were having the dome repaired."

"That's what's peculiar about it. I wasn't wearing the marsuit when the

copter broke my dome. I didn't have any protection at all. The groundcar

went off the road and overturned. I don't know how long I was

unconscious, but it was evidently long enough for the copter to look me

over, decide I was dead, and move on out of sight. What I can't

understand is why I didn't asphyxiate."

"You mean that you were protected by no oxygen equipment at all?"

"None. I returned to consciousness and I was lying there with the dome

broken wide open and my face bare to the Martian air. I got into my

marsuit right away, of course, but that took a few minutes in addition

to the time I was unconscious. And I didn't feel restricted by the lack

of air. I wasn't even breathing. And I felt that I didn't need to!"

"That is peculiar," she said meditatively. "Tell me, do you know a man

named Goat Hennessey?"

"You're the second person who's asked me that recently," said Dark. "I

knew him well, many years ago, but I haven't seen him in years. Why do

you ask?"

"Because the only case I've heard about of any human being able to live

without oxygen in the Martian atmosphere involved some genetic

experiments of Goat Hennessey, before the government made him stop them

and destroy the creatures he'd been experimenting with."

Dark laughed.

"I can assure you I'm not one of Goat's genetic experiments," he said.

"Goat and I were colleagues in this rebel movement twenty-five years

ago, before I was hit by a period of amnesia that I've just come out

of."

She stared at him.

"A twenty-five year period of amnesia? Impossible! You're not more than

twenty-five years old," she said positively.

"If what people tell me is correct, I'm nearer sixty," said Dark.

"Terrestrial years, of course."

"Of course. But I don't believe it."

Dark shrugged, and cut another bite of steak. He seemed to be enjoying

his meal quite as much as though he were not her prisoner and she his

captor--as, indeed, she was, too.

They chatted pleasantly throughout the meal and Maya found, somewhat to

her surprise, that she was talking about herself a great deal to this

pale-eyed man. She told him of her childhood on Mars, among the

Martians, and of going to Earth to live with her uncle, a World Senator

who had had close and profitable connections with Marscorp.

She went on to tell of her decision to become an agent of the

terrestrial government, despite her uncle's objections but as a result

of his often-expressed enthusiasm for the government's role in

developing the planetary colonies; and of her assignment to Mars to

ferret out a rebel headquarters which had eluded the best efforts of the

Martian government. She even told him how she had met Nuwell and fallen

in love with him.

Some time after the meal's conclusion, she suddenly stopped in

mid-sentence.

"What's the matter?" asked Dark.

"I just realized that you're my prisoner," she answered, smiling at him.

"Frankly, I'm not sure what to do with you. We can't just sit here in

the dining room all night."

"Why not go out and sit on the terrace?" he suggested. "They say that

Solis Lacus is a beautiful sight when Phobos is up and moving."

"And a shadowed terrace is a very convenient place from which to attempt

an escape," she countered.

"Look," he said, "there's no point in making the evening more difficult

than it is. I very definitely intend to get away from you and get out of

here during the next two days if I can, but I'm enjoying this

conversation. If I promise that I won't attempt an escape in the next

two hours, are you willing to go up on the terrace for a while?"

She studied his face carefully. It was a handsome, earnest face, full of

strength, full of wisdom, with a touch of weariness.

"All right," she said at last. "But I warn you that if my trust is

misplaced and you do attempt to escape, I'll burn you down without

compunction."

They went up together, quite as casually as might any two guests

relaxing at the resort, and found chairs in the semi-darkness

overlooking the moonlit lowland.

Deimos hung near the zenith, a tiny globe of light, virtually

stationary. Phobos, larger and brighter, was not long risen, and it

moved swiftly and smoothly across the sky, like the cold searchlight of

some giant aircraft. Touched and transformed by the shifting shadows,

Maya and Dark sat and chatted like old friends.

Dark talked now, and he told her of his past life, of his coming to

Mars, of his joining the rebel movement upon realizing how the

government was holding back man's progress toward Martian

self-sufficiency. He spoke soberly, with intense conviction, and Maya,

listening, began to realize that there was another side to this conflict

than the one she had been taught.

She began to waver and to wonder, for the grave voice of this man was

like a deep music she had never heard before but seemed to remember from

some time before there was hearing, a music that touched the depths of

her being.

Then his arm slid around her waist and he drew her gently toward him.

For an instant, she responded, turning her face upward.

And, on that instant, she remembered.

With a lightning twist, she was free, and on her feet before him. She

stepped back, and the lighter-gun was in her hand.

"I thought you said I could trust you," she said coldly. "Evidently, I

was foolish to do so."

He looked up at her, and there was nothing but surprise on his face.

Then, slowly, he smiled at her.

"It depends on your interpretation of the word," he said. "I was merely

attempting to kiss you, my dear."

She let her hand sag, feeling rather foolish.

"Well, don't," she said, her sharpness covering her confusion. "We

aren't lovers, Mr. Kensington."

"No," he said, quite seriously. "And I find that I rather regret that we

aren't."

She stood looking at him, fighting off a sneaking regret of her own that

he hadn't succeeded in his intention.

"I think this moonlight has had an unfortunate effect on us both," she

said. "We'd better go inside. Besides, if I'm to keep watch over you all

night, I want to get into something more practical than an evening

gown."

Without protest, Dark preceded her inside. They went to the manager's

office, and Maya issued instructions to Gren.

"Have a maid move my things from my third-floor room to a room on the

top floor," she ordered. "We'll wait here until it's done."

When the maid brought Maya the key to the new room, she and Dark took

the elevator to it. As soon as they were inside, she locked the door

behind them.

"I'm going into the bathroom to change clothes," she said precisely.

"The window to this room is six floors above a stone courtyard and I

don't think you can jump that far without being killed, even on Mars.

Since these windows don't open, I'll hear you if you break it to get

out, and I can burn you long before you can climb down the face of the

wall."

The lighter-gun in her hand, she went into the bathroom and closed the

door behind her.

She had just stripped off the evening gown when she heard the bathroom

door lock from the outside. A moment later, there was the crashing sound

of breaking glass.

Calmly, Maya burned off the lock of the bathroom door with the little

heatgun. She pushed it open and went out into the room in her underwear.

Dark was in the process of gingerly climbing through the broken window.

"It's a long fall, Dark," she said.

He looked back over his shoulder. He smiled ruefully, and came back into

the room.

"Well, it was worth a try," he said philosophically.

He surveyed her with frankly admiring eyes and added:

"And it was worth failing, for the view."

She turned pink. But, without taking her eyes off him, she reached back

into the bathroom, got the tunic and trousers she had laid out, and

slipped them on.

"I think it would be better if we go down and sit in the middle of the

lobby," she said, unlocking the door to the room. "That way, you'll have

farther to run if you try to get away."

They went down and found comfortable seats. They sat there, talking, to

all casual appearance two of the chateau's guests. Gradually, the

conversation moved back to its earlier informal and friendly terms.

How long they sat chatting, Maya did not know, for she was wrapped up in

her enjoyment of the things Dark said and his attitude toward life. But

after a time she realized that no more guests were sitting in the lobby

or moving through it. They were the only ones there, except for Gren,

sitting morosely behind the registration desk.

"Just how do you propose to get any sleep and watch me at the same

time?" asked Dark.

"I don't," she answered, smiling. "If you can stay awake for two nights,

so can I."

"You forget, young lady," he retorted. "I don't have to."

With that, he stretched out unceremoniously on the sofa on which he had

been sitting, clasped his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

Within a very short time, he was obviously and genuinely sound asleep.

Maya sat and watched him, piqued and a little nonplussed. She could

hardly afford to go to sleep, too. Her only course was to stay awake, to

sit there and watch him sleeping comfortably and soundly. It was not a

pleasant prospect, for two nights.

She sat, heavy-eyed, and racked her brain for some solution, and

silently cursed Gren for refusing to give her the help she needed. Dark

slept on, and a faint smile touched his lips. Then Maya found herself

thinking pleasantly over the things they had talked about during the

long evening, and admiring this man and liking him....

She woke up.

With a start, she woke up, realizing that she had been asleep. She was

not sitting in the chair any more, but curled up comfortably on a sofa,

her head pillowed like a child's against--against what?

Against Dark's chest! He was awake, sitting up, smiling down at her, and

she was cradled in the curve of his arm. And the little lighter-gun was

no longer in her hand.

She did not react violently to the sudden realization. She sighed,

almost happily, and murmured to him:

"So you win, after all. I think I'm glad, Dark. Now you can go, if you

want to."

He shook his head.

"I'm glad you feel that way about it, Maya, but I'm afraid it's too

late. I really shouldn't have stayed around to serve as your pillow till

you awoke."

There was something in his face that caused her to sit up suddenly.

Two uniformed men stood there in the lobby before them, relaxed but

watchful, regulation heatguns dangling from their hands. As she sat up,

one of them touched his cap and spoke to her:

"We're police officers from Ophir, Miss Cara Nome. Mr. Eli called from

Mars City and directed us to drive over here and help you guard the

prisoner until his arrival."

She rose angrily.

"I didn't ask for your help, so you may go," she said, aware of Dark's

surprised gaze on her. "I made a mistake in identification."

The policeman who had spoken shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he said. "We're acting on Mr. Eli's orders, not yours.

We'll have to hold Mr. Kensington until Mr. Eli arrives."

She glared at them. The one who had spoken was big and burly and

efficient-looking. The other was sallow and silent, with a deadly cast

to his thin face.

Then she saw her lighter-gun, lying on the lobby floor beside the chair

in which she had gone to sleep.

She bent down, casually, and picked it up. She straightened, the little

instrument ready in her hand.

"This is not a cigaret lighter, but a heatgun," she said flatly. "I'm in

charge here, and I say Mr. Kensington is to be permitted to go free. If

any effort is made to stop him, I'll burn you down."

Both police heatguns swung up in short arcs and trained on her. The

burly policeman spoke gently.

"I'm sorry, Miss Cara Nome, but we're under orders from Mr. Eli, and we

intend to follow them," he said. "I'd hate to see you injured, but if

you blast either of us the other one will burn off your hand."

"No, Maya!" exclaimed Dark, getting to his feet. "Don't! There's no

point in your getting hurt for my sake."

She ignored him.

"Drop those heatguns, both of you, or I blast!" she snapped, almost

hysterically.

Then Dark hurled himself bodily at the two men.

The thin-faced man swung his heatgun around to meet Dark's charge. Maya

twisted the lighter-gun toward him, and at the same moment the burly

policeman threw himself against her. Her heat beam singed the thin-faced

one's shoulder, then she collapsed under the impact of the other's body.

As she fell, she saw the almost invisible beam of the thin-faced

policeman's heatgun strike Dark directly in the stomach, burning away

the cloth, burning a great gaping hole in his abdomen. Dark slid to the

floor, writhing, gasping, clutching his stomach.

Her lighter-gun knocked from her hand, Maya struggled, half-dazed, to

her feet. The burly policeman had swung his own gun on the prostrate

Dark, but the other one, grimacing with the pain of his wounded

shoulder, stopped him.

"Let him be," he said. "I like to watch them die."

With a wail, Maya dropped to Dark's side. She cradled his head against

her breast and sobbed as he died in her arms.

9

From the time she saw Dark Kensington die until Nuwell's arrival at the

Chateau Nectaris a day later, Maya remained in her room, half in shock,

half in an agony of sorrow and remorse.

She was so exhausted by her ordeal that she did sleep, but it was

fitfully and without genuine rest. She had her meals sent up to her

room, and ate automatically, not tasting the food.

Rationally, she could in no way blame herself for Dark's death, but that

did not prevent her feeling strongly that her insistence on tracking

down the fugitives from the Childress Barber College had made her,

directly, his slayer. Her feeling of distress was much deeper and more

personal than normal regret at having brought about the death of a

friendly enemy while in pursuit of her duty.

Maya realized that in those few hours she had been with Dark and talked

to him, something had taken root and flowered that had changed her whole

outlook on existence. She did not want to call it love; she was a very

practical young woman and did not believe in love on such short notice.

But, in examining her feelings, she was at a loss as to what else to

call it.

She had felt a powerful attraction to this man, a tremendous admiration

and liking for him, a feeling of _belonging_ in his presence. She had

sensed his strength. It had appalled her when she had had to oppose

herself to him in keeping him captive, but in other circumstances she

felt it was the sort of strength she could depend on. Willingly, she

thought now, she, could have dispensed with everything else in her life,

and followed Dark Kensington wherever he chose to wander, a fugitive,

among the deserts and lowlands.

And Nuwell? Her feeling for him had not changed. She was still attracted

to him and she still admired him. But the admiration she had felt for

his sharp, sardonic handling of his opponents in a court of law seemed a

little shallow and a little immature in comparison to the sudden onrush

of what she sensed about Dark.

Since her early teens, she had been an eager enemy of those rebels whom

she conceived to be disrupting the orderly settlement of Mars, and her

desire to contribute to the defeat of those rebels had been a

disciplining, integrating force in her personality. Yet, in only a few

short hours of quiet talk, Dark had cut the foundation from that force

and dissipated it.

If only she had not delayed, if only she had made up her mind decisively

to what she felt now ... Dark need not have died, she could have freed

him, and together they could have left Solis Lacus. With him, she would

have fought as hard for the rebel cause as, in the past, she had fought

against it.

But now it was too late. And, moping tearfully in her room, she found

that she didn't care any more, one way or another, about the struggle

between Marscorp and the rebels.

By the time Nuwell arrived from Mars City, she had regained control over

her feelings. When he telephoned her in her room, she went down to the

lobby to meet him, pale but composed.

She had a strange feeling as she came out into the big lobby, arching up

above its balconies, a feeling as though she had been away in a distant

land for a very long time and was just returning to the world she had

known all her life. In this returning, she looked upon things with new

ideas, and they did not appear the same as before.

This was the same spacious lobby across which she had walked to register

when she came to Solis Lacus from Mars City a few days ago. It was the

same lobby in which, looking down from the balcony, she had seen Dark

Kensington arriving. It was the same lobby in which she had sat with

Dark and talked for so long. But it seemed a strange place, a different

place, one that looked like the lobby she remembered but in which she

had never walked before.

Nuwell was standing across the lobby with the two police officers from

Ophir, beside a long wooden box that rested on the floor next to the

registration counter. Behind the counter, Quelman Gren, the manager of

Chateau Nectaris, was sorting the day's mail.

Nuwell saw her, detached himself from the others and came across the

lobby to meet her. As he approached, she experienced the same feeling

toward him that she had felt toward the lobby: he was like someone she

had known, but a different person.

There was a worried frown on Nuwell's face, and he managed to get

something of disapproval in his greeting kiss.

"It's lucky I called Ophir and had those men sent over here," were his

first words. "If they hadn't gotten here when they did, that rebel might

have killed you and escaped. I told you, Maya, not to try to handle a

situation like that."

"It was very astute of you to send them over," answered Maya dryly. "I

should have thought of it myself."

"That's exactly why you shouldn't try to handle such things alone," said

Nuwell, apparently somewhat mollified.

Maya looked into his face, a handsome, youthful face bearing a slightly

peeved expression, and she thought two things: she thought of the long

and intensive training she had undergone as a terrestrial agent, and she

contemplated just how effectively Nuwell might have handled Dark's

capture, had Nuwell been in her place.

"Come on, Maya, let's clear this up, so we can get out of here and get

back to Mars City," said Nuwell, and led her across the lobby to the two

policemen and the wooden box.

The two men from Ophir greeted her with a certain embarrassment, and

seemed relieved when she smiled wanly at them.

"These men have told me how the rebel had turned the tables and gained

the advantage of you before their arrival," said Nuwell. "They say that

before he was killed, he confessed to them that he was Dark Kensington,

one of the major rebel leaders who escaped from the Childress Barber

College. I believe that coincides with your identification of him,

doesn't it?"

"Yes," answered Maya in a low voice. "He was Dark Kensington. I saw him

once at the college, and he identified himself to me then as a

supervisor."

She did not feel called on to say anything more, and to tell Nuwell what

Dark himself had told her about the rebellion and his part in it.

"Very good," said Nuwell with satisfaction. "We've captured the Chief,

the peculiar-looking individual who escaped by driving his copter

through the city dome. All the indications are that he and Kensington

were the two top figures in the rebellion. I think all that's needed now

is for you to identify the body positively as Kensington, Maya."

He indicated the wooden box, which lay, lidless, on the floor.

Reluctantly, Maya stepped up to it, and looked down into it.

The pain which distorted Dark's face when he lay writhing from the

heatgun blast was gone from his features. They were calm and peaceful in

death.

Maya gazed down at his face wistfully, sorrowfully, then turned away.

"Well?" asked Nuwell impatiently.

"Yes," she murmured. "That's Dark Kensington."

"Very good," said Nuwell, and turned to the two men. "We'll take the

body to the hydroponic farm for the vats," he said. "There'll be others

after the trials and executions of the rebels we've captured."

"Do you have to do that?" protested Maya. "Why can't you give the man a

decent burial out here in the lowland?"

"Don't interfere in matters which are none of your affair," replied

Nuwell brusquely. "Bodies of criminals are always sent to the vats.

They're constantly short of bodies, as it is, and we can't very well

send them corpses of law-abiding citizens."

He turned away. As Maya accompanied him across the corridor, the two men

from Ophir began nailing the lid on the wooden box that contained Dark

Kensington's remains.

At the elevator, Nuwell said:

"Get your things packed as soon as you can. I want to go back to Mars

City right away by copter. I have some things I want to talk to you

about, very seriously, but they can wait until we're airborne."

"Why by copter?" asked Maya. "Groundcar is faster."

For the first time, Nuwell's face broke into a genuine smile, and his

ordinary charming self shone through.

"Because," he replied drolly, "I've just made that trip by groundcar,

and every bone in my body aches. It may be slower, but I want to go back

by air, where there aren't as many bumps!"

Maya was able to laugh at this. She went up to her room.

It did not take her long to pack, and to dress in a tunic and trousers

for travel. When she came back down to the lobby, Nuwell was waiting,

and they took a groundcar from the chateau to the dome airlock.

The three government agents who had come with Nuwell from Mars City had

the helicopter ready for them on the flat lowland just beyond the

airlock. As the groundcar emerged onto the sage-covered plain, the men

were helping the two policemen from Ophir unload the box containing Dark

Kensington's remains from another groundcar and load it into the baggage

bay of the copter.

Nuwell and Maya slipped into their marsuits, secured the helmets and

climbed out of the groundcar. Nuwell gave his men some final

instructions to follow before returning to Mars City by groundcar. Then

he and Maya went aboard the copter.

They strapped themselves in the seats. Nuwell sealed the copter door,

and released oxygen from the tanks into the interior. When the dials

showed the air to be breathable, he and Maya removed their helmets,

Nuwell started the motor and the craft lifted slowly and smoothly into

the air above the Solis Lacus Lowland.

Nuwell headed the copter northwestward. As soon as they were well on

course, he turned to Maya with a stern expression on his face.

"There's one thing I can't understand at all," he said severely. "What

madness possessed you to resist those men I sent over from Ophir, and

attempt to help Kensington escape?"

She looked at him steadily without replying.

What should she answer? Could she say, "I discovered that I had fallen

in love with Dark Kensington. I found that his reasons for the rebellion

made sense to me, and that you and the government and Marscorp are

wrong"?

What would Nuwell's reaction be if she told this truth?

But it could do no good to say that. It could do the rebels no good,

because now they were scattered and defeated. It could do Dark no good,

because he was dead. She did not think she would suffer personally from

such a revelation, but it could only hurt Nuwell, who loved her.

So, at last, she said:

"Nuwell, I'd rather not talk about that. I didn't succeed, so can we

forget it?"

"I think it's best that we do," agreed Nuwell. "The only thing I can

think is that you were slightly hysterical over Kensington's having

gained the upper hand, after the strain of guarding him for so long, and

your action was an unconscious expression of resentment at their having

to take over his custody where you had failed. But we might have learned

a great deal through questioning the man at length, and that action of

yours made it necessary for them to kill him."

Nuwell could not know how deeply those words struck her. She turned her

face away from him, and the tears came to her eyes.

"At any rate," went on Nuwell, unaware, "I think this demonstrates that

these espionage activities have been far too much of a strain for you,

and I think it's time you stopped. We have one of the two major leaders

captured and the other one dead, and I don't think they're going to give

us much more trouble even if we don't locate all the fugitives. So I

want you to give up this idea of wandering around from city to city,

helping identify rebels."

"I think you're right," she agreed in a choked voice. She had no more

interest now, certainly, in tracking down rebels.

"And," continued Nuwell, even more firmly, "marry me when we get back to

Mars City."

Well, why not? Nuwell loved her. What else was there for her?

"Yes, I'll do that, too," she said. "As soon as we get back, I'll make

out my report, and send my resignation with it back on the first ship to

Earth. Then I'll marry you, Nuwell."

His face was radiant and triumphant as he turned to her. He put his arm

around her shoulders, drew her to him and kissed her.

The helicopter flew northwestward. Passing over the Solis Lacus Lowland,

it crossed the Thaumasia Desert and the Tithonius Lacus Lowland, and

whirred above the Desert of Candor. Ahead of it, after a time, there

rose on the horizon the white stone forms of a distant group of

buildings.

Nuwell dropped the helicopter lower. He angled it down, and in a short

time landed it on the desert near one of the four buildings of the

Canfell Hydroponic Farm.

As he and Maya donned their marshelmets, a group of marsuited men

emerged from the building's airlock and came across the sand toward

them.

Maya stared curiously out the copter window. She had heard of this

government experimental station, but had not visited it before.

"This is another reason I wanted to take a copter," explained Nuwell,

releasing the air from the copter's interior. "There aren't any roads to

this place, and I didn't want to drive a groundcar across the desert to

bring Kensington's body here."

They emerged from the copter as the group from the building approached.

Nuwell greeted the five of them and introduced them to Maya. Four of

them were strangers to her, but the fifth she remembered: Goat

Hennessey, white-bearded and watery-eyed.

"How are you adjusting to your new work here, Dr. Hennessey?" Nuwell

asked him.

"Very well," answered Goat in his cracked voice. "They're using a

different approach from mine, but I find it extremely interesting."

Remembering Goat's earlier experiments at Ultra Vires, it occurred to

Maya to be grateful that Dark had not fallen alive into the hands of

these people at the Canfell Hydroponic Farm.

Their entire stop lasted only a few minutes. Nuwell refused an

invitation to remain overnight, explaining that he was anxious to get on

to Mars City. The others unloaded Dark's coffin and moved with it back

toward the building. Nuwell and Maya climbed back into the copter, and

shortly they were airborne again and the buildings of the Canfell

Hydroponic Farm were receding behind and below them.

Nuwell guided the copter almost straight westward now. It passed over

Candor and buzzed out over the broad Xanthe Desert.

And here trouble developed. Without warning, the engine coughed and

stopped. Nuwell worked frantically at the controls, to no avail. As the

big blades slowed in their rotation, the copter sank, slowly at first,

then ever more swiftly, to the surface of the desert. They donned

marshelmets hurriedly.

It struck with a terrific crash, which would have hurled them through

the windows had they not been strapped down. The entire body of the

copter crumpled in on itself, and it came to rest, a collapsed wreck,

with the two of them sitting in its midst, miraculously uninjured.

There was no question of trying to start the engines or fly the machine.

It was a total wreck. Nuwell tried the radio without success.

"What in space went wrong with the thing?" he demanded angrily. "I know

it wasn't short of fuel. There's nothing left for us to do but walk, I'm

afraid, Maya."

"Back to the hydroponic farm?"

"No, we've come too far. By my chart, we're not far from Ultra Vires. I

think we'd better try to make it for the night, and if Goat left his

radio equipment in working order we'll call for help. If not, the only

thing I know to do is to head for Ophir."

Ultra Vires--Maya remembered it with a shudder. The grim, black bastion

in the desert where Goat Hennessey had worked with grotesque, twisted

caricatures of humans.

They fumbled about the wreck to find the minimum emergency supplies they

thought they would need, and started westward on foot.

10

Happy Thurbelow finished sweeping the long barracks and leaned wearily

on his broom. That is, he didn't lean on it, or it would have collapsed

him to the floor, but he made the gesture. Why, he wondered, didn't the

Masters make the Toughs sweep their own barracks? Perhaps the Toughs

couldn't be made, or perhaps the Masters did it just from an excess of

cruelty.

Happy's monstrously bloated body sagged, and his skin felt dangerously

dry and tight. Happy was so adipose that his hands engulfed the broom

handle like a toothpick; under the transparent skin, his flesh was clear

and translucent, and there could be seen the tiny red lines of the

branching veins. Happy was like a jellyfish, in huge human form.

"Shadow!" he called in a high, grating voice. "I'm going below."

Shadow appeared disconcertingly, ten feet away. Dark-skinned Shadow

looked at him silently with white-rimmed eyes. Then Shadow turned and

disappeared, as only Shadow could.

Hanging up the broom, Happy waddled to the iron-barred gate that

prevented entrance to a downward-plunging ramp. He pressed a button

beside it and waited.

He looked out the window beside the gate. The sands of the Desert of

Candor stretched orange and bleak under the bronze sky. Somewhere out

there to the south, across those sands, under that sky, lay the shining

dome of Ophir.

The window would be easily broken, and it was large enough for even

Happy's bulky body to pass through. But the oxygen-scant air of Mars

would sear his lungs to quick death without a helmet; and even if it

would not, Happy's skin would dry and crack in a few hours of that

outside air, and he would die in slower agony.

"What is the purpose of your call?" asked an impersonal voice from the

loudspeaker beside the barred gate.

"I have finished my task, Master," said Happy, puffing a little. "I seek

your grace to go below."

The loudspeaker said no more, but after a moment the gate stirred and

lifted into the ceiling. Happy went through it gratefully, and waddled

down the gently sloping ramp. The gate descended behind him.

Happy did not know whether Shadow had come through the open gate with

him, but it didn't matter. Shadow could slip easily through the bars

when he wished.

At the foot of the ramp was a vast, low cavern, stretching out of sight

in all directions. It was dim, shading into the darkness of distance.

Its floor was water, flat water, subdivided into large rectangular vats.

In most of the vats vegetation grew in various stages, greening under

the ultraviolet rays that radiated from the low roof. Between the vats

ran straight, narrow walkways of packed earth.

Happy waddled along one of the walkways until he found an empty vat. He

lowered himself over its edge and sank happily into the still, cool

water, like a hippopotamus submerging. He immersed himself completely,

then lay back in the water, with only his face floating barely above the

surface.

Shadow appeared, apparently out of nowhere, and sat down on the edge of

the vat, letting his flat legs dangle into the water.

"Nothing like it," proclaimed Happy, splashing a little. "Nothing on

Mars like it. You ought to come on in, Shadow. As flat as you are, you

ought to float on the surface without any trouble at all."

Shadow nodded silently, but made no move.

"I don't see why the Toughs can't take care of their own barracks,"

complained Happy, returning to the subject closest to his displeasure.

"You reckon the Toughs are actually the rebels, and the Masters can't

make them do anything?"

Shadow shook his head, but whether in negation or disclaimer of

knowledge, Happy could not interpret.

Happy flinched, and shifted in the vat.

"There's still part of a skeleton in here," he announced. "I thought

this was an empty one."

Moving, he flinched again. With purpose, he aroused himself and ploughed

to the edge of the vat.

"I've got to find another vat," he said. "I can't take a nap if I'm

going to get punched in the fanny with bones every five minutes."

He heaved himself over the edge onto the walkway with difficulty, and

got slowly to his feet. Shadow lifted his feet out of the vat, stood up

and vanished.

Happy knew how Shadow was able to disappear so suddenly, and it did not

disturb him. Seen directly from front or rear, Shadow had the dimensions

of a normal, black-skinned man. But Shadow was flat, no thicker than

half an inch. When Shadow turned sidewise, he vanished to the sight.

Occasionally, Happy wondered how Shadow happened to be, and why he was

here in the caverns, but it was not the sort of thing to bother his mind

for very long.

Happy moved along the walkways, peering into the vats which appeared to

be empty. He assumed Shadow was following him; Shadow always did.

Around corners, he came upon blubbery creatures like himself, tending

the plants. They nodded greeting at him, and Happy nodded back.

His search was discouraging. All the vats not filled with plants seemed

to have corpses in them, in varying stages of decomposition.

Around one corner, Happy came upon a Tough, lounging in the walkway. The

Tough was a compact, muscular youth, with bullet head, sullen eyes and

hard mouth. He looked as though he lounged with hands in pockets, but,

like Happy and all the others, he was naked, so that was just an

impression.

Happy stopped. He and his soft kind avoided the Toughs when they could.

The Tough looked at him with disinterested eyes, then looked away.

Happy was uncertain what to do or say. His impulse was to turn and go

back, but he did not quite dare.

"Are you a rebel, Tough?" he burbled the first thing in his mind, for

lack of something else to say.

The Tough looked at him contemptuously. Then, suddenly, the Tough's hard

eyes flared with savage excitement and he moved swiftly on Happy. As he

began to turn in panic, Happy saw from the corner of his eye another

Tough racing around the corner of the walkway to come upon him from

behind.

The Tough in front of him reached him and began pummeling him viciously

with his fists, the hard fists sinking like painful hammers deep into

Happy's flesh with every blow. Happy bleated in fright and distress,

trying ineffectually to ward off his attacker.

Then, out of nowhere, Shadow flashed in like a lightning bolt on the

other Tough as he had almost reached Happy. There was a brief, squalling

tangle and the Tough pitched headlong into a plant-choked vat.

Shadow vanished and reappeared, intermittently, like a flashing light.

The first Tough, seeing what had happened to his cohort, ceased

pummeling Happy abruptly and took to his heels. He vanished around a

corner.

The vanquished Tough climbed out of the vat, sputtering and cursing, and

fled in the other direction.

"Oh, my! Oh, my!" exclaimed Happy to the now-invisible Shadow. "What

wicked creatures!"

Sore and shaken, he moved on down the walkway, his search now

intensified by the need for wetness to soothe his injured flesh.

He came upon a vat without vegetation and, at first joyous glance,

thought it empty. Then, disappointment, a comparatively fresh body

floated in it, just under the surface.

It was the body of a man. Naked, it was smooth and plump with the water

that had seeped into its tissues, and it was a uniform dead-white all

over, like the belly of a fish. The face and lips were monochrome white,

the hair was bleached, and when it opened its eyes, they were so

colorless that the action was almost unnoticeable.

Realizing, Happy was paralyzed with shock.

The dead creature's eyes moved from side to side, then stopped, fixing

on Happy. Its chest began to rise and fall slowly, with

breathing--_under water_.

"Shadow!" squeaked Happy helplessly.

Shadow appeared beside him.

"Shadow, it's alive," whispered Happy, desperately frightened.

The two stood side by side, staring breathlessly down into the water.

The creature in the vat moved its hands tentatively, it opened its mouth

and closed it. Then it stirred with purpose, turned and climbed up over

the side of the vat, dripping like a weird creature from the depths of

the sea.

It stood up before them, dripping.

The man bent slightly and belched forth a great quantity of water from

his lungs. He straightened, and breathed in the air in great, satisfied

gasps.

"I'm Dark Kensington," he said in a rusty voice. "Where is this?"

At his words, Shadow disappeared.

Dark Kensington. Had Maya seen him now, she could not possibly have

recognized him. The muscular body and dark, handsome face were bloated

and pale. The black hair was bleached to pale seaweed, and the blue eyes

were completely colorless now.

"This is the Canfell Hydroponic Farm," answered Happy, gaining a little

courage. "Under the surface of the Desert of Candor."

"The Desert of Candor?" repeated Dark, and the pale lips twisted in a

smile. "They hauled me quite a way. I was at Solis Lacus."

"How did you get here?" asked Happy with sudden eagerness. "Only dead

people are thrown in the vats, to make chemicals for the plants. How

could you stay alive under water?"

"I imagine I can breathe water for the same reason I can still live

after a heat beam burned my guts out, but I don't know what that reason

is. I imagine that the first step in finding out is to get out of this

place."

"You can't get away from here," said Happy positively. "Nobody ever

has."

"We'll see," said Dark confidently. "I gather you and your companion are

some sort of prisoners."

"Slaves," corrected Happy with unaccustomed bitterness. "The Jellies are

slaves, to work in the vats. I don't know if the Toughs are slaves, too,

but the Masters let them sleep in barracks on the surface. Shadow's not

either a Jelly or a Tough, and I don't know if he's a slave. Shadow's

just Shadow."

"Before you go on," interrupted Dark, "I seem to be extraordinarily

hungry."

Happy twittered and quivered. He moved hurriedly around a corner to one

of the storage vats, and returned in a moment with a supply of the

tasteless gelatin that was their food here. Dark fell to greedily, and

Happy, his tongue loosed by this new companionship, started feeding him

information in a steady stream.

"I don't know how they get us here," said Happy. "We aren't born here,

but something happens to our memories. We can't stay up in the dry air

very long, or our skin cracks and our flesh collapses. You see, our

tissues are mostly water.

"Everybody down here's like me. Everybody but the Toughs. You'll see

them. I don't know how they got here, either, or what use they are. They

don't work like we do.

"And Shadow. He's different. Shadow likes me. He stays with me all the

time. And then there's Old Beard. He hides down here, and I don't think

the Masters know he's here. He's very old and very wise."

"Who are the Masters?" asked Dark curiously, between mouthfuls. "And

what sort of work do you do for them?"

"They're the people who run the hydroponic farm. They're normal men,

like you--I mean, like you would be if you weren't swollen up and pale

like the bodies that are thrown in the vats.

"Old Beard knows; he's very wise. He calls the Masters 'Marscorp.' I

don't know why, but it seems that before I lost my memory I knew a

language where _corp_ meant _body_. Like _corpse_, you know. Maybe it

has something to do with the bodies they put in the vats.

"Old Beard says that the Masters are developing Martian foods that we

can eat without dying, and he must be right, because sometimes they

bring down some hard foods and make some of us eat them instead of

gelatin. But those who eat the hard foods always die, so I don't suppose

they've succeeded yet, except some of the Toughs. Some of the Toughs

have eaten the hard food without dying, sometimes, but they got pretty

sick. And then--"

"Hold on! Wait a minute!" exclaimed Dark, holding up a restraining hand.

"I know what Marscorp is, and I'm not surprised they're behind it. But

I'm trying to digest all this you're throwing at me."

Happy fell silent, reluctantly, and Dark cogitated deeply.

Happy fidgeted, anxious to speak but afraid to interrupt Dark's

thoughts.

And then Shadow reappeared. Shadow appeared out of nowhere, and made

gestures at Happy. Happy glanced at Dark, timidly. At last, he gained

courage to speak.

"Shadow tells me--" he began, then cringed when Dark looked up in

surprise. Dark gestured to him to go on.

"Shadow tells me," said Happy, "that Old Beard wants to see you. Will

you go with us to Old Beard?"

"Certainly," agreed Dark. "From what you tell me, I'm rather anxious to

meet Old Beard, too."

He followed Happy and the alternately visible and invisible Shadow along

the paths that twisted among the vats for some distance. At last they

ducked into some luxuriant foliage that hung over to form a bower above

the space between two vats.

Old Beard sat there, in a corner of the dimness, pale eyes fixed

silently on the trio. Old Beard was not so very old. He appeared to be

in robust middle age, although his skin was very pale from long

existence underground. His hair and heavy beard were long and untrimmed,

and were a deep iron-gray.

"Thank you for coming," said Old Beard in a deep, resonant voice that

bespoke strength and bore an undertone of bitter determination. "It is

safer for me not to move around too much in the open except at certain

hours."

"I was glad to come, because I'm sure you can help me and I may be able

to help you, too," said Dark. "I'm Dark Kensington."

"So Shadow told me. I find this extremely interesting."

"You've heard of me, then?" asked Dark.

Old Beard laughed, deeply.

"More interesting than that," he said. "Once, before I was marooned here

and Happy's people came to know me as Old Beard, I had a name of my

own."

He stroked his beard, and favored Dark with a shrewd look from his pale

eyes.

"Yes," said Old Beard, "I've heard of Dark Kensington, and there never

was but one Dark Kensington, as far as I knew. That's why I find it so

interesting. You see, I'm Dark Kensington!"

11

The Xanthe Desert stretched red and barren on all sides of the plodding

couple, the sands unbroken by the form of plant or stone or any living

thing, all the way to the tight horizon of Mars. Above them, the small,

glittering sun slid down the copper-hued sky slowly toward the west.

It was remarkable, thought Maya, how smooth and flat the desert looked

from the air, and how rough and rolling it was when one had to walk

across the packed sand. They had been walking for hours and, despite the

gentle gravity of Mars, she was getting very tired.

"It's farther than I thought," said Nuwell, his voice distorted by the

marshelmet speaker. "Distances on the chart are deceptive. We may not

reach Ultra Vires by night."

Maya did not answer. Again, as she had many weeks before, she was in the

grip of a sensation that this desert through which they walked was only

a surface thing, a shimmering mask to the reality which lay behind it.

That reality seemed very deep, very significant, and she felt that she

was on the verge of comprehending it, but could not quite grasp it.

She was a little irritated at Nuwell for speaking when he did. If his

voice had not interrupted her probing emotions, she felt, she might have

broken through to that reality she sensed.

"Nuwell," she said, giving it up, "I'm going to have to rest a while. If

we don't make it by night, we don't make it. There's always tomorrow,

and I'm tired."

Reluctantly, he consented, and they sat down together on the sand.

Nuwell pulled a chart out of his marsuit pocket and began to study it.

Maya lay back, clasped her hands behind her helmet and closed her eyes,

gratefully feeling the tired muscles relax and the perspiration that

bathed her begin to dissolve in the gentle circulation of the marsuit's

temperature-control system.

"Maya!" exclaimed Nuwell suddenly. "Look! We're going to be rescued!"

She sat up and looked in the direction of his pointing finger. On the

horizon to the northeast was a cloud of dust, too placid and stationary

to be a sandstorm.

They stood up, and Nuwell spoke hastily into his helmet radio on the

conventional emergency band.

"Attention, groundcar! Attention, groundcar! We're afoot and in trouble.

We're afoot, due southwest from your position. Help, please. Attention,

groundcar!"

There was no radio reply in the ensuing silence. But all at once it was

as though a deep and alien voice spoke within the depths of Maya's mind:

"_We see you._"

Startled, she looked curiously at Nuwell. But he evidently had not had

the same experience. He was chattering into the radio frantically again.

"They're evidently not tuned in on the emergency band, Nuwell," she said

to him. "But they're coming almost directly toward us. They're bound to

see us soon, if they haven't already."

"That's true," said Nuwell, and added sourly: "But they ought to be

tuned in. It's required by law."

The dustcloud moved closer slowly, too slowly for a groundcar. They were

able to discern a dark nucleus below and in front of it. Then Nuwell

said:

"In the name of space! It isn't a groundcar, Maya. It's a band of

Martians! Let's get out of here!"

He started to walk on swiftly, but Maya stood her ground.

"Don't be silly," she said. "Martians won't hurt us. I was raised among

them."

Nuwell stopped and returned reluctantly to her side.

"They may not hurt us, but why wait for them?" he demanded, and there

was a touch of hysterical fright to his tone. "Let's go on, Maya!"

"We may very well have gotten off course in trying to go straight to

Ultra Vires," replied Maya logically. "That may be why we've not sighted

it yet. The Martians will know where it is, and meeting them may prevent

us from getting lost in the desert."

Nuwell subsided, but she could see from the expression on his face that

he was in a blue funk. This puzzled her. She could not understand why

anyone would be afraid of Martians. They were huge, and ugly, and alien,

but they were not inimical to humans.

When the Martians came near enough, Maya waved her arms at them and

started off to meet them, Nuwell following her at a little distance. The

Martians changed course slightly and came toward them.

Maya called childhood memories to her aid. She turned her helmet speaker

to its maximum volume, and spoke to them in their own language, in the

deepest tones possible to her.

"Children of the past, we seek that place in the desert which is called

'Ultra Vires' by humans," she said. "Can you show us the direction in

which we must travel?"

The Martians gathered around her, towering over her. There were four of

them. Their huge chests moved slowly, mixing oxygen from their great

humps with the surrounding air. Their thin arms hung limp at their

sides, and their big ears were pricked forward toward her. Their huge,

dark eyes seemed to look through her and beyond her.

"The sun moves toward this place, but there are no humans there now,"

boomed one of the Martians. "Nothing lives there now except small

animals in the walls and corridors."

"This we know," answered Maya. "We wish to go there that we may

communicate with other humans and have them come and get us."

She wanted to say that the supplies of oxygen in their marsuit tanks

were inadequate to take them anywhere other than Ultra Vires, but she

did not know how to say this properly in the Martian language.

But, to her astonishment, the Martian answered as though she had said

it.

"If the breathing chemicals which you carry are at such a depleted

stage, you cannot chance going astray," said the creature. "Rather than

tell you the direction of this place, we shall accompany you there."

Throughout this conversation, Nuwell had been standing at Maya's side,

his face bearing an expression of mingled curiosity, irritation and awe.

Maya turned to him.

"The Martians say they will go with us to Ultra Vires, so we won't get

lost," she told him.

"No!" he exclaimed vehemently. "Tell them we don't want them along. Tell

them just to show us the way, and we'll go alone."

"Don't be ridiculous," replied Maya coldly, and indicated to the Martian

that they were ready to accompany the group.

They moved off together toward the west, the four Martians and the two

humans. Maya, feeling somewhat relieved that now they had expert help in

reaching their goal, attempted to talk to Nuwell, but he refused to

answer except in monosyllables. He was angry that she had agreed for the

Martians to accompany them, and obviously was still very nervous at

their presence.

So she talked instead with the Martian who had acted as spokesman for

the group. Its name, she learned, was Qril.

"The place to which you go lies under an evil atmosphere," said Qril.

"The human who abode there many years attempted to do things wrongly."

"We were there in the season before this one," answered Maya. "This was

just before that human left."

"I already had read this in you," said Qril. "I also read in you that,

as a child, you lived among us who are children of the past. Therefore,

perhaps you knew before I spoke that an evil atmosphere remains at this

place and has not yet been washed away by time."

"No, I was not taught such matters as a child," answered Maya. "But tell

me, it is true that this man tried to do evil things, by human

standards, but were Goat Hennessey's genetic experiments also evil by

Martian standards?"

"You do not read what I have said quite correctly," replied Qril. "The

evil atmosphere is left by the man, because what he did was evil by his

own standards. I said only that he attempted to do things wrongly."

"What do you mean?" asked Maya.

"To explain to you, I must speak to you about things about which you

already know partially," answered Qril. "Before you were born, the human

you call Goat was one of a group of humans who sought ways to make

humans independent of the spaceships which bring materials from Earth to

Mars and create small islands of terrestrial conditions in the midst of

the Martian environment. When they met the natural resistance of those

humans who gain material advantage through operation of the spaceships,

they came into the desert to be free to work.

"Seeking to get far from the men who resisted their work, this group of

humans went to that area which you know as the Icaria Desert. Some of us

who are children of the past live at that place sometimes, and these

humans sought our help, knowing that we possess many remnants of the

knowledge that our forefathers had.

"But we had difficulty helping them. They were attempting to follow two

courses simultaneously, and both of them were wrong."

"I know something of those two courses," said Maya. "Some of them were

trying to develop human extrasensory powers so that materials could be

teleported from Earth, and the others were trying to change the human

body physiologically so that humans could live under Martian conditions.

But you say they were both wrong?"

"In each way that they followed, they sought to make humans partly like

us, the children of the past," said Qril. "We have the power to

communicate with our minds over a distance, and some of us are able to

transport things with our minds over a distance. We do not need your

rich terrestrial air, because we take oxygen directly from the soil and

store it in our bodies for combustion purposes.

"But humans and the children of the past are different forms of life,

and they cannot be made so much alike. It is possible for humans to

develop mental powers similar to ours, but this course would leave them

dependent upon importing materials from Earth, even though this would be

by mind transmission instead of by spaceship. The other course they

followed could not succeed, because the human body cannot be altered so

that it is able to take oxygen from the soil and store it for later

use."

"But you're wrong!" exclaimed Maya. "Goat Hennessey had succeeded in

developing some humans who could live without oxygen in the air for a

time. His experiments were imperfect, it's true, but they were able to

do that."

"The imperfect humans that the human called Goat had developed were not

what he thought," replied Qril. "We tried to help the humans to find the

right course, but they could not understand us well. We tried to show

them, by charts and example, that the proper way to adapt a human to

Martian conditions was a different way.

"Because Earth is nearer the Sun, humans have a possibility that we do

not have. What we tried to show these humans was a method whereby they

could change the embryonic physiology so that the adult human would be

able to use the energy of solar radiations directly, instead of

depending on the energy of combustion of those chemicals you call oxygen

and carbon. This makes the body independent of both air and food, and

has the advantage also of giving a far superior regenerative power to

the bodily tissues.

"The human, Goat, for reasons that are not known, stole some of our

charts and two of the pregnant female humans, and continued his work at

this place to which we are going. But he thought he was still attempting

to change the physiology so that oxygen could be stored, and therefore

his experiments went wrongly."

"But he had your charts," objected Maya. "Even though he was not making

the alterations he thought he was, how could he go wrong if he followed

the charts?"

"The charts showed the changes to be made in the embryonic cells, but

they could not show the method whereby the changes are made," replied

Qril. "The human, Goat, attempted to make these changes by mechanical,

surgical methods but these are too crude to be successful. The method we

utilize to make such changes, which is the only right method, is to

focus the mental forces upon the embryo. I believe you would call it

psychokinesis."

Maya was vastly excited at this revelation.

"Then Goat's oldest experiments, the ones he called Brute and Adam, were

actually the ones on whom you children of the past had performed the

embryonic changes!" she exclaimed. "They must have been the sons of the

pregnant women he kidnapped. That's why they were more successful than

the others!"

"That is true," said Qril. "We had completed the change on only one of

the two, therefore only that one would develop into an adult who could

live in complete independence of air and food, if necessary. The other

one would never be able to do it for more than a short period without

returning to terrestrial conditions."

The party now came over a long low ridge, and the mass of Ultra Vires

rose from the desert ahead of them. The sun was near setting, and the

black walls of the stronghold huddled sullenly under its crimson rays.

The Martians left them here, and Nuwell and Maya went on alone toward

their goal. Nuwell expelled an audible sigh of relief.

"I'm glad we're free of those monsters," he said. "I don't understand

how you could carry on a conversation with such creatures, Maya. It

sounded like a series of animal grunts and cries to me. I caught an

occasional word, like 'oxygen' and 'psychokinesis.' What were you

talking about?"

"He was telling me about Goat Hennessey's experiments, and how they

differed from the rebels' experiments before Goat came to Ultra Vires,"

answered Maya.

"That kind of talk serves no good purpose," said Nuwell irritably. "The

rebel movement has been broken now, and there's no point in thinking

about the illegal things they tried to do."

They came down the slope and approached the southern airlock of Ultra

Vires. The airlock was still sealed. Nuwell activated it, and they went

through it into the big building.

It was dark inside. Nuwell fumbled around a wall and found a light

switch. He pressed it, but nothing happened.

"The electrical system isn't operating," he said. "We'll have to use our

marsuit torches."

He switched on his flashlight. It cast a long beam down the dusty

corridor. Far ahead of them, a small animal scurried across the faint

light and vanished into the darkness.

Nuwell checked his atmosphere dial.

"The oxygen in here is all right," he said. "The air has been

maintained, anyhow. We can take off our helmets."

They took off the marshelmets and walked down the corridor. They checked

each side door, looking for the communications room, but found only

empty chambers or abandoned rooms in which books, papers and broken

furniture were scattered in complete disorganization.

It took them nearly an hour to find the communications room. And there

they met disappointment.

Ultra Vires' radio transmitter and receiver had been dismantled. There

was nothing there but a jumble of broken tubes, discarded parts and bare

wire ends dangling from the walls. Nothing but an overturned table and

two bent metal chairs.

"That settles that," said Nuwell, more philosophically then Maya would

have expected. "Our only hope is to find a groundcar."

That necessitated another search, but at last they found the motor pool.

And there were three groundcars, all in various stages of breakdown or

dismantlement.

"It looks like we'll have to walk, Nuwell," said Maya.

Nuwell shook his head.

"I checked the chart carefully," he said. "The oxygen supply of a

marsuit won't take us either back to the Canfell Farm or to Ophir, even

with extra tanks. We're just going to have to cannibalize two of these

machines and repair us a groundcar."

"But, Nuwell, how long will that take?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "It looks like it may be quite a job. I

expect it will take two or three weeks, but that's the only way we're

going to get out of here."

He looked at her speculatively.

"It's a shame we aren't already married," he said. "This would provide

us with a honeymoon, of a sort, out here by ourselves in the desert."

"Well, we aren't," she said flatly. "And we won't be until we get back

to Mars City."

"That's true," he said. "Well, the only thing we can do for tonight is

to have supper and find the rooms that Goat assigned us when we were

here before. I hope he left some beds intact in those, or some of the

other rooms. If not, we may have some uncomfortable nights ahead of us."

12

The two Dark Kensingtons and Happy Thurbelow walked along one of the

pathways between the vats, Happy trailing a bit behind. Somewhere near

them, they knew, Shadow accompanied them.

The place was dim, with the moist dimness of a swamp. The source of the

light that filtered through the faint mist and seemed to permeate the

air was not discernible, and the roof of this underground world was lost

in the darkness above them. The placid surface of the water gleamed

vaguely in the vats they passed, and the pale-green tangle of vegetation

rose above and around them, sometimes drooping over the paths like

skinny arms that sought to detain them.

"What I don't understand," said Dark the younger, "is that our memories

coincide exactly, up to a point which you say is a time twenty-five

years ago. My memories are just as genuine as you say yours are; they

aren't something someone told me, but real memories of things that

happened to me, things I felt and did. If they're both genuine sets of

memories, how can it be explained? Are we the same person, who was

somehow split into two distinct individuals?"

"I can only guess at the explanation, but I have a theory," answered Old

Beard. "You are much younger than I am. I would estimate that you're

twenty-five years younger than I am. My memories are consecutive and

complete: I remember not only the earlier things you say you remember,

but the events of these past twenty-five years, without a break. You say

you suffered a period of amnesia, and your next consecutive memory is of

being with Martians in the Icaria Desert."

"That would appear to give you an advantage in claiming to be the real

Dark Kensington," agreed Dark with a smile. "But, if you are, who am I?

How is it that I remember being Dark Kensington?"

"It's entirely possible that, for some reason, my earlier memories were

grafted onto you as your own," replied Old Beard. "I don't know how this

would be done, perhaps through very deep and extensive hypnosis. The

Martians, as well as we can tell anything about them at all, are experts

in such mental fields, a relic of the ancient science they're legended

to have had when their civilizations covered Mars.

"I worked with Martians very closely for long periods during the early

days of the rebellion--the Phoenix, as you say they call it now--and

they may very well have recorded my memory pattern through some means I

don't know anything about and for reasons I can't imagine."

"That sounds reasonable," conceded Dark. "But that still leaves

unanswered the questions: Who am I, and what's happened to my memories

of the past twenty-five years?"

"I'm afraid I can't answer that," replied Old Beard.

In the dimness ahead of them, they discerned a group of nude Toughs

approaching, swaggering down the path. They turned aside and found a

recess in the vegetation in which they could wait until the Toughs

passed and went on their way. The Toughs were aggressive, and

insensately brutal, and a meeting with them could only mean trouble.

"Happy's explained the situation here, as well as he could, but I'm

afraid it wasn't a very adequate explanation," said Dark as they huddled

in the shadowed recess. "Could you tell me more about it, and explain

how you happen to be here?"

"Happy is very intelligent, for a Jelly, but none of the Jellies are

exceptionally bright," answered Old Beard, with a touch of affection in

his voice. "I'll outline it to you as briefly as I can.

"As your memories--or transplanted memories--indicate, I was one of a

group of Martian colonists who joined forces to work at what, at first,

appeared to be a theoretical and fantastic project: the development of

the ability to live under natural Martian conditions, without dependence

on the regular importation of extremely expensive imports from Earth. As

you know, this project very shortly began to lose its fantastic

qualities and appear to be definitely within the realm of possible

realization.

"Because of the differing background and orientation of those of us who

attempted this project, two approaches were adopted. One, based on

advancing terrestrial research into the field of extrasensory

perception, was aimed at developing telepathic and telekinetic powers so

that food, oxygen, machinery and other essentials could be teleported

directly from Earth into the martian domes without dependence on the

spacelines. The other, based on more orthodox science, was aimed at

genetic development of a human type that could live _without_ these

importations, on native Martian food and in the Martian atmosphere.

"As you know, the government banned these experiments and we retreated

into the desert to carry them on despite the ban. From what you tell me

of the extent of your memories, what you do not know is the reason

behind the ban, which we discovered--or, at least, I did--only after we

had been betrayed and the government had raided and broken up our

experimental colony.

"The spacelines, as one might have guessed, were responsible. They saw

that the success of the experiments would destroy their lucrative

business. These spacelines, led by the Mars Corporation, which later

absorbed the others and gained a monopoly, brought political pressure to

bear and got the project banned.

"I had heard reports that a great many of my colleagues escaped and

formed a rebel organization that carried on the work secretly and

illegally, but I was never able to learn details of it until you came

and told me of the activities in which you have been engaged. You see, I

haven't been out of these caves in a quarter of a century."

Shadow appeared at the recess to report to them that the Toughs had

passed on. How he did it, Dark was unable to determine surely, for he

could hear no words spoken. Either Shadow communicated by subtle

gestures or by tones beyond Dark's powers of hearing, but both Old Beard

and Happy seemed to understand him readily.

"How do you happen to be here, Old Beard?" asked Dark as they left the

recess and resumed their progress down the walkways.

"I was captured when the government broke up the experimental groups,"

answered Old Beard. "I was the leader of the section of the experiments

dealing with extrasensory perception, and, instead of executing me at

once, they tried to persuade me to continue this work for the government

along specific lines and under supervision. I refused, because I knew

that anything I helped them develop would not be used for the benefit of

the Martian colonists, but for greater profits for the spacelines.

"At last I was able to escape into these underground caverns where they

grow food plants hydroponically and sell them to supplement the produce

of the dome farms and the gardens in the dome cities. These caverns are

extensive and, with the friendship and help of the Jellies, I've evaded

discovery for twenty-five years."

"Just who and what are the Jellies?" asked Dark. "I haven't been able to

get a very satisfactory answer to that question from Happy."

"They're human experimental animals," answered Old Beard. "The

terrestrial food plants grown hydroponically and sold in the dome cities

actually are a supplemental sideline to the real purpose of this place.

Marscorp is conducting its own experiments here, with a crew of expert

geneticists.

"What Marscorp is trying to do is to breed native Martian plants, that

will grow in the open lowlands without expensive oxygenation and

irrigation, that are not poisonous to humans and can be used for food.

At the same time, they're approaching the problem from the other side,

and the Jellies are men and women whose glandular structure has been

altered in an effort to make their physiology more receptive to native

Martian vegetation. If they succeed, of course, Marscorp has just as

complete a monopoly over such a food supply as it does over imports from

Earth, but at considerably less expense."

"And the Toughs?"

"They're human experimental animals, too, based on a different type of

glandular alteration. They're neither as docile nor as intelligent as

the Jellies, so they can't be used for slave labour as the Jellies can.

About the only way they're ever used is as occasional goon squads to

terrorize the Jellies and keep them in line."

"You've been here twenty-five years and have never been able to escape?"

asked Dark incredulously.

"This place isn't guarded," replied Old Beard, with a wry smile. "They

don't have to guard it. All they have to guard are the supply room where

the marsuits are kept and the motor pool of groundcars. This place is in

the middle of the Desert of Candor, and no one can live in the Martian

desert without oxygen."

They came now to one of the walls of the underground cavern, and Old

Beard led them suddenly into a fissure that was well concealed from the

walkways by a tangled screen of vegetation. They stumbled along a narrow

passageway for a few feet, and emerged into a rude shaft, around the

walls of which a roughly-chiseled and steep stairway led upward into

pitch darkness. Here Old Beard halted.

"When I told you there's no way of escape here, it was not that I

haven't tried many times," he said to Dark.

"This shaft leads up into the walls of the structure above--above,

although it is still underground--and I have been up there often at

night. It has long been my hope that I might be able to get a marsuit or

a groundcar and make my escape, but they are kept locked up and always

guarded, against the Jellies and the Toughs.

"I want to take you up and give you an idea of the place now, and later

perhaps you will have some ideas to contribute. Happy and Shadow will

stay down here until we get back."

Old Beard mounted the steep steps slowly, and Dark followed at his

heels. Although the bottom of the "well" was lighted with the same dim

light as that which spread throughout the entire underground area, there

was no light at all higher up, and they had to feel their way carefully

lest they fall off the narrow steps.

At the top, Old Beard stopped and Dark bumped sharply into him.

"I'm going to move down the space between the walls," Old Beard

whispered. "Hold onto my hand and follow me. But don't say anything or

make any more noise than you can help, because anyone beyond the wall

may be able to hear you."

They moved ahead. The way was very narrow, very dark and very difficult,

and frequently was choked with ventilator pipes or tangles of wiring.

They had gone some forty or fifty feet, when Old Beard stopped.

By Old Beard's movements, Dark knew he was working at something. Then a

section of ventilator pipe came away from a ventilator grill, and faint

light illuminated the space in which they crouched. In this dimness, Old

Beard gestured to Dark to look through the ventilator.

Peering out, Dark saw that they were near the ceiling of a large,

high-ceilinged room. In it, under glaring lights, a group of half a

dozen white-clad men were working with knives and other instruments on

the body of a man, either anaesthetized or dead, which lay on a surgical

table.

Old Beard put his face against the grill next to Dark's, and the two men

watched the scene below for a few moments. Then one of the men around

the table raised his head, revealing a thin face, with watery blue eyes

and a straggly goatee.

The two men inside the wall gasped as one man.

"_Father!_"

The single loud word was torn from Dark's throat without his volition,

without his actually realizing he had spoken.

The heads of the men in the room jerked up at the cry, and they looked

around and at each other, with puzzled expressions. Old Beard clapped a

firm hand over Dark's mouth and hissed in his ear:

"Fool! Let's get out of here!"

As quietly as possible, they made their way back. Through the ventilator

behind them came the murmur of querulous voices.

When they had climbed back down the stairs and, with Happy and Shadow,

made their way back through the fissure, Old Beard fixed penetrating

eyes on Dark and said:

"I told you to keep quiet up there! What was that exclamation all

about?"

"It's something very strange," murmured Dark, his face thoughtful and

bemused. "But you evidently recognized that man, too. Who is he?"

"Yes, I know him very well," answered Old Beard, with deep bitterness in

his tone. "That's Goat Hennessey. But that's the first time I've seen

him in twenty-five years. He must have just come here recently."

"Goat Hennessey? I heard of him when I was in Mars City."

"Goat Hennessey was one of my most trusted friends," said Old Beard. "If

you bear my earlier memories, I'm surprised you didn't recognize him as

Goat Hennessey, too."

"I recognized him as someone else," said Dark in a low voice.

"We worked together," went on Old Beard. "I was a leader in the effort

to solve our problem through extrasensory perception, and he was the

major scientist in the group attempting to solve it by genetic change.

We worked together and we went into the desert together with the others

when the government banned our experiments.

"But Goat was the man who sold out. He betrayed us to the

government--for what price I don't know. And when government agents

raided us and broke up our organization and captured me, Goat Hennessey

kidnapped my young and pregnant wife, and I never saw her again.

"I'm glad Goat Hennessey is here, because now I can get to him. And when

I can reach him, I'm going to kill him. I'd like to kill him as slowly

and painfully as he killed the heart inside of me!"

As Old Beard spoke these last words, his face was tense, his fists

clenched and a somber fire burned in his pale eyes. Then, slowly, the

fire died out and he turned his eyes, once more cool and rational, a

little quizzical, on Dark.

"Didn't you call him 'father'?" he asked.

"Yes," said Dark in a low voice. "But I'd rather not talk about it right

now."

He looked at Old Beard, and seemed to be ridding himself, with an

effort, of a deep introversion.

"There's one thing that I've remembered as a result of seeing Goat

Hennessey," said Dark in a firmer voice. "This place isn't too far from

a place in the Xanthe Desert where Goat conducted some significant

experiments. If he left any of his records there--and I'm thinking of

some in particular--they might go a long way toward solving the problem

we've all be working on for so long. So now I know what to do next: I'm

going to Ultra Vires."

Old Beard smiled sadly.

"Have you forgotten we can't get out of this place?" he reminded. "We

can't get at either the marsuits or the groundcars."

It was Dark's turn to smile.

"I believe you said there aren't any guards on the airlocks to stop one

from walking out at night?" he said.

"That's true, but--"

"There's something you don't know," continued Dark. "You were wondering

at the basis of the regenerative power that permitted me to revive here

after being shot in the stomach with a heatgun. I don't know what it is,

but whatever it is, it's something that also permits me to live without

oxygen.

"Happy can testify that I was fully alive and conscious underwater. I

discovered, before I was shot, that I can operate just as well outside,

in the Martian atmosphere, without a helmet. And that's why Goat's

records may solve our problem.

"So tonight I'll leave this place and go to Ultra Vires. If there are

any marsuits and groundcars left there, I'll come back here with them,

and you and Happy and Shadow can escape with me. If not, you may have to

wait a while longer.

"But I'll be back!"

13

Brute Hennessey plodded westward through the Xanthe Desert, naked,

wearing no marsuit, his head bare to the thin, oxygen-poor Martian air.

The two small moons shone in the star-spangled sky above the lone

figure, casting fantastic shadows on the sands.

But this was not the stupid, shambling Brute Hennessey of a few months

past. He walked surely and proudly, and the light of intelligence shone

in his eyes.

He called himself, now, Dark Kensington.

Dark's muscular body had not regained, quite, the firmness and tone it

had had before he was shot down at Solis Lacus, but he had recovered

greatly from the bloated flabbiness of a few days ago. Most of that had

been water in his tissues, and resumption of normal physical activity

had wrung it out in short order.

As he plodded through the Martian night toward Ultra Vires, Dark was

remembering, with something of awe, that emotional explosion within him

that had occurred on his first sight of Goat Hennessey at the Canfell

Hydroponic Farm. It was this sudden, overwhelming recognition that had

wrung from his lips the cry: "_Father!_"

In that moment, memory had returned with terrible impact and he had been

overwhelmed by the re-experience of those moments when he had stood

before the man he admired and loved as his father and had seen the

bitter realization of rejection by that man written with the point of a

knife.

Now he remembered it all. He remembered his childhood at Ultra Vires, he

remembered Adam and their experiences together, he remembered their

treks through the desert at Goat Hennessey's command, he remembered his

slaying of Adam and his acceptance of death at Goat's hands. He

remembered that he, Dark Kensington, was Brute Hennessey, somehow

brought to life once before in the Icaria Desert even as he had himself

regained life a second time in the vats of the Canfell Hydroponic Farm.

So Goat Hennessey was his father, apparently. And Old Beard, the real

Dark Kensington, vowed vengeance on Goat. Dark was able to view this

with equanimity. He no longer felt any admiration or affection for Goat,

whatever relationship might exist between them.

But, since he was Brute Hennessey and thus not old enough to be the real

Dark Kensington, how and why had he acquired the memories of Dark

Kensington? That question remained unanswered.

Phobos was setting for the first time that night when Dark reached the

great hulk of Ultra Vires, manipulated one of the airlocks and entered

its dark corridors. There was no light, and a test of the light switch

proved that the electrical system was no longer operating. But Dark knew

every inch of this place from early childhood. He felt his way through

the pitch darkness to Goat Hennessey's old bedroom.

Probing about in the darkness, he discovered that Goat's bed was still

supplied with mattress and crumpled blankets. This surprised him

somewhat, as any item of cloth on Mars had to be imported from Earth and

was far too valuable to abandon. But, apparently, these things had been

left temporarily in Goat's abandonment of Ultra Vires and would be

picked up by truck later.

Deriving a certain humorous satisfaction from taking over the master's

chamber, Dark curled up on Goat's bed and went to sleep.

He awoke the next morning with the glare of the desert sunlight

reflected into the room. He arose, stretched and yawned. The room was a

mess. Goat had left the bed clothing intact, but he had turned

everything else upside down in packing his personal effects to leave the

place.

There was still water in the reservoir, and Ultra Vires' plumbing system

was still in operation. Dark bathed. He felt ruefully at the thick

stubble of beard that had overgrown his face in the past few days, but

Goat had left no shaving equipment behind.

Dark made his way down to the big kitchen. There were supplies of canned

food there, and he found utensils and ate. He was hungry, but not

ravenous, and this surprised him a little, because he had had no food

since he started out afoot from the Canfell Hydroponic Farm, four nights

ago. But he was no hungrier than he would normally be after a night's

sleep.

As he ate, his eye fell on dishes stacked beside the sink. He was

startled to notice that water still sparkled on them.

He arose and checked them. Yes, they were still wet.

There were remnants of fresh food in the garbage can.

People, here? Camping out? Or, more likely, someone passing through the

desert who had taken shelter here for the night? But he thought he would

have heard the roar of a groundcar leaving.

Thoughtfully, Dark finished his breakfast. It occurred to him that

perhaps some members of the Phoenix had taken refuge here after fleeing

Mars City. But most of them did not even know of the existence of Ultra

Vires, much less its location.

At any rate, there was no reason to assume that anyone who happened to

be here would be unfriendly to him, in case they met by chance. He saw

no reason to worry about it.

Finishing breakfast, Dark went down to the storeroom and picked out

three marsuits, for Old Beard, Happy and Shadow. There was a large-sized

suit there that he thought might accommodate Happy's bulk, but he

wondered how Shadow, with his flat build, was going to manage one.

Nakedness felt quite natural to Dark, especially since he remembered his

identity as Brute, but it occurred to him that it would look peculiar

to anyone he might meet before leaving Ultra Vires--or, for that matter,

on his way back to the Canfell Hydroponic Farm. So he donned a marsuit

himself, leaving off the helmet.

Carrying the other three marsuits, he went down the corridor to the

motor pool.

Dark remembered that Goat had always kept four groundcars on hand. There

were three here now, all in advanced stages of dismantlement.

At one of them, a small figure in black tunic and loose trousers was

bending over, head and arms plunged into the bowels of the engine.

Dark hesitated. He had found his intruder, perhaps a traveler who had

run into engine trouble in the desert and had fortuitously been near

enough to take shelter here while making repairs. But, again, there was

no reason to anticipate unfriendliness.

Carrying his marsuits, Dark walked up to the groundcar, overhearing a

muffled bit of profanity as he approached. The unfortunate mechanic

evidently heard his footsteps, because he was greeted with:

"I wish to Phobos you'd stay down here and _try_ to help me, instead of

spending all your time snooping around this deserted shack!"

The voice was muffled, but it was definitely feminine and definitely

irritated. Dark grinned and replied drolly:

"I'm sorry, but this is the first time you've asked me to help you."

With an audible gasp, the woman disentangled herself, in dangerous

haste, from the groundcar engine and faced Dark.

They stared at each other, in mutual shocked recognition.

There was Dark Kensington, bearded, his arms full of marsuits, and there

was Maya Cara Nome, sleeves rolled up, her lovely face streaked with

grease.

Dark's jaw dropped. Maya's lips formed a round, astonished O.

Then, with a squeal, she hurled herself on him, throwing her arms around

his neck. Dark staggered back, overwhelmed by marsuits, an abundance of

wriggling femininity and a babble of happy and-completely unintelligible

words gushed against his bearded cheek.

He managed to disentangle himself by the dual process of dropping the

marsuits and holding Maya forcibly at arm's length. She gazed up into

his face, her own awed and radiant, and was able to reduce her own words

to connected sentences.

"You're not here," she said positively. "You can't be here. You're dead.

I saw you killed. You must be one of the ghosts of Ultra Vires."

She wriggled free and threw her arms around his neck again, announcing

happily, "But you're a solid, _comfortable_ ghost, and I love you!"

Again, Dark managed to get her at arm's length and looked down seriously

into her face.

"Did I hear you correctly?" he asked soberly. "Did you say you love me?"

"I did. And I mean it. Oh, Dark, how I mean it!"

He pulled her to him. He kissed her gravely. Then he held her close in

his arms, while she rested her head contentedly against his shoulder.

"What," he asked at last, "are you doing here, tinkering with a

groundcar?"

"Nuwell and I were on our way to Mars City by helicopter, when it failed

and crashed," she explained. "This was the only place near enough for us

to make it afoot, and the marsuit radios don't have the range to call

for help. We've been here more than two weeks now, trying to repair

these groundcars."

She looked at the machine she had been working on and shook her head

ruefully.

"I don't think any of them can be fixed," she said. "Nuwell, it turns

out, doesn't know a damn thing about machinery, but I was taught a good

deal about mechanics when I was trained as a terrestrial agent. Even

with three groundcars to supply parts, there are some things missing

that I don't think I can jury-rig substitutes for."

She turned back to Dark.

"But you're dead!" she exclaimed. "I know you are, because we carried

your body with us to the Canfell Hydroponic Farm. How in space can you

be here, alive and kissing, when you made such a beautiful corpse?"

Dark explained the circumstances to her; how he had awakened in the vat,

how he had been able to breathe underwater, how the sight of Goat

Hennessey had revived in him the memory of his identity as Brute, how he

had been able to walk across the desert without a marsuit.

"If you're Brute Hennessey, I know why you aren't dead," she said when

he had finished. "We fell in with a party of Martians on our way here,

and they told me about certain embryonic changes they made on you and

Adam before Goat kidnapped your mothers and brought them to Ultra Vires.

Qril--he's the Martian I talked to--said that these alterations not only

permit you to live in a free Martian environment, but give you

extraordinary regenerative powers."

"They must be extraordinary, if they permit me to come to life again

after being stabbed in the heart and having my belly burned out with a

heatgun," observed Dark.

"That's because your tissues aren't dependent on oxygen-carbon

combustion," explained Maya. "According to Qril, when oxygen is no

longer available to you, your cells utilize direct solar energy. That

would prevent your tissues from dying while the damaged area of your

body is under repair."

She looked at him in sudden awed realization.

"It would seem, darling, that you're virtually indestructible!" she

said.

Dark laughed.

"Perhaps so," he said. "But I don't hanker to experiment along those

lines any more than necessary. Dying is a very unpleasant experience,

even if I do come to life again."

"Oh, Dark," said Maya, remembering. "I'd like for Qril to see you, and

maybe he'll give us some more information. They came back here three

days ago and, for some reason, have just been hanging around outside,

under the walls. Let me get on a marsuit, and I'll take you to him."

"Here, put on one of these," suggested Dark, picking up the one he had

selected for Old Beard.

Maya wriggled into it. The Martians, she said, were on the other side of

Ultra Vires, so they left the motor pool and walked down one of the long

corridors together, Maya clinging to Dark's arm with one hand and

carrying her marshelmet under her other arm.

They were halfway across the big building when Nuwell Eli appeared

around a corner about thirty feet ahead of them. He stopped, staring, at

the sight of Maya's companion.

"Maya," he began, as they neared him. "Who ...?"

Then he recognized Dark.

With a terrified yelp, Nuwell turned and raced back down the side

corridor at top speed. They heard the clack-clack of his heels on the

stone floor, fading in the distance.

Dark and Maya stopped and looked at each other.

"It must have been quite a shock to him, too, to see you risen from the

dead," she said. "I don't believe he's as happy to see you as I was,

Dark."

"No, his joy seemed considerably mitigated," replied Dark gravely. "But,

Maya, this raises a rather serious question which hadn't occurred to me

before, in the happiness of our reunion."

"What's that, darling?"

"You're a terrestrial agent and, as such, you put me under arrest. It's

true, you tried to free me later. But didn't you tell me that night that

you were engaged to marry this man, Nuwell Eli?"

"Yes," she admitted in a small voice. "But--"

"I haven't had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman before," continued

Dark, still in the same grave tone. "But you and he were going back to

Mars City together, and, for some reason, it occurs to me that you and

he planned to be married as soon as you could get there."

Maya was somewhat stunned at this evidence of mind reading.

"That's true," she said in a very small voice.

"Now," said Dark, "you tell me that you love me. You must admit that

the question raised by this is rather serious. Does this declaration of

love--which, I assure you, is reciprocated completely--imply a radical

change in your past course of action? Or, since you're still a

terrestrial agent, can I expect to be arrested again as a preliminary to

your joining Mr. Eli in the holy state of matrimony?"

Maya looked up into his face, and burst out laughing.

"I may have put it jokingly," protested Dark, a little taken aback, "but

I'm serious, Maya."

"I know you are!" she giggled. "That's what makes it so funny. Answering

you in the same vein, Mr. Kensington, I don't intend to put you in

double jeopardy!"

Dark raised his eyebrows quizzically.

"I arrested you and you were killed resisting arrest," she explained

mischievously. "I've discharged that duty as a terrestrial agent, so I

don't think I'm either required or entitled to arrest you again. And as

for the other, well, I am a little sorry for Nuwell, but I do love you,

and I won't marry Nuwell, since you're alive. But I can't marry you,

Dark."

Dark was stunned at this.

"Why not, Maya? You mean, because you're a terrestrial agent?"

"No, it isn't that. I'm planning to resign as an agent, as soon as I get

back to Mars City, and that wouldn't stop me, anyway. The reason I can't

marry you is simply that you haven't asked me."

Dark laughed, a rollicking, relieved laugh, and swept her into his arms.

"Maya, darling, I ask you now!" he exclaimed. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes, Dark," she answered demurely.

She leaned back in the circle of his arms and looked up into his face,

seriously.

"Whither thou goest, I will go," she said, very quietly. "If you're a

rebel, Dark, I'll be a rebel, too. I want to be with you, and help you

in whatever you do."

14

Dark and Maya sat with their backs against the wall of Ultra Vires, and

Qril squatted before them, towering huge above them. A little distance

away the other three Martians were grouped, playing some sort of game,

doing some sort of work or participating in some sort of joint

demonstration. Dark could not be sure which.

Qril boomed out a long, rolling sentence and Maya broke into laughter.

She turned to Dark and translated:

"He said he didn't understand why I'm wearing a helmet, when you aren't.

I explained that I have to wear a helmet to breathe, and he said that,

since you and I are alike, it appears that we'd dress alike. So you see,

darling, even the Martians recognize that we're made for each other."

Dark shook his head in wonderment.

"No human has ever been able to figure out Martian thinking processes,

and I doubt that one ever will," he remarked. "This is the Martian who

explained to you the physiological structure that permits me to live

without oxygen, and yet he asks a question like that!"

"There's one thing that puzzles me," said Maya curiously. "Without a

helmet, you can't use your marsuit heater, and you said you walked here

naked. But the temperature out here right now is well below freezing.

Aren't you cold?"

"No," answered Dark. "I get cold in temperatures that are uncomfortable

to anyone else when I'm in a dome or a building and breathing. But out

here, when I'm not breathing, I'm aware of temperature changes but they

don't cause me any discomfort. It must be that switching to direct

utilization of solar power alters my reactions to temperature."

"Well," said Maya, "I can understand that utilization of solar power

when you're in the sunshine. But how can you keep operating when you're

in shadow, or at night, and not breathing?"

"I don't know. Maybe Qril does."

Maya asked the Martian, and relayed his answer to Dark:

"Qril says that you store excess energy in the tissues, very much as the

Martians store oxygen. In a sense, direct sunlight's your generator, and

it charges your batteries for power when it isn't operating. Now, Dark,

why don't you ask him anything you want to know about your origin, and

I'll act as translator."

"All right," agreed Dark. "But first, it was among Martians that I awoke

when I returned to life the first time in the Icaria Desert. That's

pretty far away, but I understand Martians have a weird sort of

sympathetic communication among themselves. Does he know anything about

how I got there?"

Maya talked with Qril and translated:

"Qril is one of the Martians I saw come by here and pick up your body

the morning after Goat killed you and threw your body out in the desert.

Qril says they recognized you from your genetic pattern--and don't ask

me how they did this!--as being the one they had completed embryonic

alteration on years before, so they picked you up and took you with them

to give you a chance to regenerate and revive."

"But how and why did I turn up after my revival with Dark Kensington's

memories?"

"He says they gave you a memory pattern by a deep telepathic process,"

answered Maya after talking with Qril, "because your memory pattern as

Brute was of no value to you in meeting a new environment. It seems that

there was some blockage in the operation of your brain as Brute, because

of a slight fault in the embryonic alteration, and they corrected that

before you revived."

"But why Dark Kensington's memory pattern?" asked Dark. "It turned out

to be a valuable one for me, but I've met the real Dark Kensington since

then, and he's a much older man. Why did they choose his memory

pattern?"

Maya talked with Qril.

"He says names mean very little to them," she said then. "That's

something I learned as a child: that Martians often interchange their

names, and the names evidently refer to a state of experience and being

rather than to a specific individual. But he says that the memory

pattern they chose to give you was that of your father!"

Dark stared at her, stunned.

"Then," he said slowly, "Old Beard is my father. I should have known! I

think I felt it."

"I'm not surprised if you did," said Maya. "From what Qril tells me,

Dark, this prenatal alteration they performed on you gave you even more

extensive powers than we realized. He says that you have extraordinary

extrasensory ability, if you would only make an effort to use it."

"Oh, I do, do I?" murmured Dark thoughtfully.

He looked over at the other Martians, seated in a circle in the morning

sunshine. They were taking turns tossing some small polygons, and

evidently the objective of whatever they were doing lay in the way the

polygons fell.

Dark felt a sudden surge of power in his brain. He concentrated it, he

focused it, and one of the polygons rose slowly from the ground and

drifted into the air above the Martians' heads.

Dark could feel the strength that went out and raised the polygon, like

an invisible extension of himself. Then he felt another force seize the

polygon, and it was drawn back firmly and without hesitation to its

former place.

Dark turned his head back to look into Qril's huge eyes, and at once he

was in mental contact with the Martian.

Qril was laughing at him. There was no change of expression on Qril's

face, but in his mind was the atmosphere of high humor. Qril's thoughts

came to him without words, in no language, silently but clearly:

_You have not practised your power. Experience will be necessary before

you can compete with the simplest effort of one of our race._

Dark turned to Maya.

"He's right," said Dark. "I do have extrasensory powers, but they'll

need some development."

"I know," said Maya. "The telepathic voltage in the atmosphere must be

very high right now, because even I sensed your effort in lifting that

object, and I understood Qril's communication to you."

Maya and Dark took their leave of Qril, and went back into Ultra Vires.

As they did so, Qril and the other Martians arose and began to drift

away into the desert, as though they had had a mission in staying here,

which was now accomplished.

"I hope you know something about mechanics," said Maya as they walked

down the corridor together. "Because if you don't, it looks like we're

stuck here for a while. At least I am, unless you can run one of these

groundcars with psychokinetic power."

"No, apparently I'm not that good at it yet," said Dark. "Maybe I could

teleport in any parts you need. No wait! I just remembered something!

Come with me."

They turned off into a side corridor, found stairs and climbed to the

top floor of the building. There they followed another corridor until

Dark stopped and opened a door.

It was the door to a small airlock. Dark led Maya through it into a huge

room.

A helicopter stood in its center.

"Goat _did_ leave it here!" exclaimed Dark joyfully. "I'd forgotten that

he had this. He must have just packed the most necessary things when he

left the place, planning to send trucks and a crew back and clean it out

later at his leisure. Now, if this copter's only in good flying shape,

we're set."

He checked the machine over. Everything was in order.

"How do we get it out of here?" asked Maya curiously, looking around the

room. "That little airlock's too small for a copter to go through it."

"The roof rolls back," said Dark. "Put on your helmet, and I'll show

you."

Maya donned her marshelmet. Dark went to the wall and pulled a switch.

Nothing happened.

"I forgot," he said. "The electricity's off. Well, let's try something."

Dark concentrated his mind intensely on the movable ceiling. For a

moment, there was resistance, then, very slowly, it began to open. A

crack appeared in its center, and the air of the room hissed out with

the swish of a minor tempest. After that, it was easier. The crack

widened swiftly, and the roof rolled back to the walls, leaving the room

open to the heavens.

"All we have to do now is to climb into it and go," said Dark with

satisfaction. "You fill the fuel tanks, and I'll run down to the motor

pool and pick up those other two marsuits. One of them is for my friend

Happy, who is very fat, and he couldn't wear either of the emergency

suits in the copter."

Maya uncoiled the hose from one of the fuel drums in the room and poked

it into the copter's tank. Dark left the room, walked down the corridor

and descended the stairs.

He made his way to the motor pool. Maya was wearing one of the three

marsuits he had brought down, but the other two were still lying on the

floor. He picked them up and started back.

He was walking down the first floor corridor, carrying the marsuits,

when there crashed in on his mind a terrifying, silent scream:

_Help!_

Dark stopped, appalled. It took him a moment to realize that he was

still standing in the corridor. It took him a moment to realize that he

actually had heard nothing.

The corridor stretched away ahead of him, dim and dusty. There was no

movement in it, no sound. It was utterly silent. He stood there, in a

dim, dusty corridor, in waiting silence, holding two marsuits under his

arms.

_Help!_

It was a cry that shrieked in his mind, reverberated in his mind,

touching nothing around him, touching not the silent corridor.

_Maya!_

Dark's mind went out to her, rode up on swift wings to the room above

where she had waited for his return.

He was there, in that room, and there was the helicopter. There was no

Maya there.

But there were figures in the copter, moving.

He was in the copter, and there was Maya, struggling and writhing, as

Nuwell Eli, in a furious concentration of savage energy, bound her into

one of its seats with a length of rope.

Dark touched her mind, and her mind grasped his, desperately.

_Dark, he followed us up here, and hid until you left. He crept up

behind me and seized me. Hurry, Dark, he's taking me away!_

Hurry? Down those corridors, up those steps, when Nuwell already was

sliding into the pilot's seat of the copter?

Frantically, Dark grasped at his only chance of reaching her in time.

Teleportation.

He clamped down with his mind on himself. With a frenzied burst of

strength, he sought to lift himself bodily, to be there in the copter

with them. He put every ounce of energy he possessed into the effort.

And he failed.

He was standing in the dim, dusty corridor, two marsuits under his arm,

straining futilely toward a place he could not reach. And now he

actually heard, with his ears, the muted vibration above him as the

copter's engines roared to life.

Dark started running.

He dropped the marsuits, and ran down the corridor. He leaped up the

stairs, two and three at a time. Breathless, his heart pounding, he

staggered down the upper corridor and impatiently went through the

seemingly interminable process of negotiating the airlock.

He emerged into the big room.

It was empty.

The ceiling was open to the Martian sky. The sunlight poured into the

roofless room.

In the sky, a small, teetering object rose and moved away from Ultra

Vires, its blades whirring a sparkling circle in the thin air.

Dark reached out to it with his mind, and again he was in the copter.

Nuwell sat tensely at the controls, guiding it. Maya was in the other

seat, her arms bound down by her sides, her expression agonized.

Nuwell was unaware of Dark's mental presence. Maya sensed it and her

mind turned toward him.

_Dark, Dark, what can we do? I should have been watching for him. I

should have known, after he saw us together, that he would do

something._

Dark: _It was my fault, Maya. I shouldn't have left you alone. I just

didn't consider him a factor to be reckoned with, and I should have

known better._