"Take Gail with you," he said.
"But this will be a dangerous mission," I told him.
"Not half as dangerous for all of us if you leave her behind."
"Why?"
"I don't trust Joel," said Axel. "If he turned the tables and got the
drop on Gail and me, nothing could keep Spartan from blasting off,
leaving you behind and probably me, too, if I lived that long. But
Spartan has his plans for Gail. He won't leave without her. If she's
with you, he won't do anything till you get back."
"And if he's in control, what chance would we have?"
Axel shrugged. "As long as there's life there's some kind of chance,"
he replied. "But if Gail were aboard the ship, you wouldn't have any
chance. Spartan could go back to earth, report a mutiny and subsequent
casualties that occurred in quelling it. Nobody could prove anything
different. But with Gail gone, I think Spartan will postpone any moves
he might make until she returns."
I thought it over. Gail, being one of us, would never live to reach the
earth, that was certain.
The thought decided me. She would be safer with me, facing all of the
Martians on Mars, than in Spartan's hands.
"Tell her she's on this patrol, too," I told Axel. "I'll get some grub
and water aboard the Mars-car."
_Chapter 15_
Our chart which was very spare of detail since it was made from the
maps drawn by Percival Lowell many years ago, showed Pnyx as the
junction point of two large canals. One, called Agathedaemon, ran
southeast from Oasis Erithraeum to another junction point, Messeis
Fons. The other ran southwest from Lacus Major and ended at Pnyx, which
seemed to be at the edge of a small oasis.
I set my compass due south, deciding to travel in that direction until
I reached the canal from Lacus Major, which Lowell called Chalus.
Gail was happy to be making the extensive land trip over the surface of
Mars. Pnyx was at least three times as far as Lacus Minor, but since
the Mars-cars could easily maintain a speed of 150 miles an hour over
the desert, we expected to reach it in a little over three hours, if
nothing interfered.
"If there were only some way of communicating with the Martians," she
said. "If we could only explain to them that the man who murdered the
other two is in custody and will be punished and that the people of the
earth didn't come to this planet to kill Martians!"
"It would solve everything but I'm afraid it's impossible," I said.
"There was a big gulf between Martians and earthmen to start with. Now
this thing has spread them farther apart."
"You mean they're poison to us and all that? We've demonstrated that we
have some things in common, psychologically speaking."
"That could turn out to be the main stumbling block," I said. "Remember
when you, Axel and I talked about personal selfishness and race
selfishness? How a person would kill to save himself and die for an
ideal that was important to the race?"
"Yes. Are you suggesting the Martians want to become martyrs?"
"No. Race-preservation or race-selfishness exhibits itself in other
ways besides that of dying for principles. One manifestation is
intolerance. There's a hatred for anything that is different or
nonconformist. Martians and earthmen seem to have the same psychology,
but we're different in looks so we repel each other, just as do
certain elements. Maybe intolerance and hatred have their roots in the
chemistry of an atom. Be that as it may, most creatures of the earth
tend to destroy what they don't understand."
"But we don't hate Martians!" Gail insisted.
"Maybe hatred is too strong a word. However, for want of a more
accurate one, let's considered the difference between the hatred we
feel for, say, a Dr. Spartan, and the kind we feel for Martians. One
stems from self-preservation, and one from race-preservation. This
scouting trip, for example, is hate motivated. We're trying to get the
best of the Martians without getting hurt ourselves. And they want to
destroy us with a minimum of casualties."
"I suppose, as you've hinted, this hatred of differences is the
foundation of racial intolerance?"
"Basically," I said. "Racial differences on earth--between men, I
mean--are so slight they don't actually matter. Some people are a
little darker or lighter, with maybe a few differences in features. But
the Martians are so different that you can hardly find any resemblance
except in psychology. The gulf is just too big to cross."
"Even if we're intelligent?"
"Perhaps intelligence can cross the barrier, but there are bound to be
different levels of Martian intelligence. The ignorant Martians would
heap indignities on us because we're a _different_ minority."
"You have it all figured out, haven't you, Bill Drake?" she asked,
leaning back in her seat. We had removed our helmets--they weren't
necessary in the car--and her hair, beautiful and now grown out from
the mannish bob she'd worn when she left the earth, fell nearly to her
shoulders. "I suppose you are insecure because we're in an environment
so utterly strange and unreal that we can hardly convince ourselves
we're living in it."
"I'll admit that sometimes I think I'm in a dream world," I said, "and
I'd like to be surrounded by things I'm used to. But I have confidence
in myself to pull through. I like self-confidence. It's something you
can have in yourself, which nobody else may have in you."
"But some things are the same," she said quietly. "The very things I
didn't want to bring along with us. And I don't mean self-confidence."
I glanced in her direction. Her eyes were closed, her lips looked soft
and her body yielding. "Such as?" I asked.
"Morrie mentioned it," she said.
Now I knew what she was talking about. I took a mental grip on myself.
Morrie went off his rocker. I'd stay sane. It'd be a tough fight but--
"Did you say something, Bill?" she said, opening her eyes.