"I haven't seen any other lines of holes--only the one. In a battle, the
whole joint should be cut up.
That was good for a few moments' silent thought. Then Allenby said, "It
might have been brought out by one side as a last resort. Sort of an ace
in the hole."
I resisted the temptation to mutiny. "But would even one such weapon, in
battle make only _one_ line of holes? Wouldn't it be played in an arc
against the enemy? You know it would."
"Well--"
"Wouldn't it cut slices out of the landscape, instead of boring holes?
And wouldn't it sway or vibrate enough to make the holes miles away from
it something less than perfect circles?"
"It could have been very firmly mounted."
"Hugh, does that sound like a practical weapon to you?"
Two seconds of silence. "On the other hand," he said, "instead of a war,
the whole thing might have been designed to frighten some primitive
race--or even some kind of beast--the _hole_ out of here. A
demonstration--"
"Religious," Janus grumbled, still looking around.
We walked on, passing the cactus on the low ridge.
"Interesting," said Gonzales. "The evidence that whatever causes the
phenomenon has happened again and again. I'm afraid that the war
theory--"
"Oh, my God!" gasped Burton.
We stared at him.
"The ship," he whispered. "It's right in line with the holes! If
whatever made them is still in operation...."
"Run!" yelled Allenby, and we ran like fiends.
* * * * *
We got the ship into the air, out of line with the holes to what we
fervently hoped was safety, and then we realized we were admitting our
fear that the mysterious hole-maker might still be lurking around.
Well, the evidence was all for it, as Gonzales had reminded us--that
cactus had been oozing.
We cruised at twenty thousand feet and thought it over.
Janus, whose only training was in photography, said, "Some kind of
omnivorous animal? Or bird? Eats rocks and everything?"
"I will not totally discount the notion of such an animal," Randolph
said. "But I will resist to the death the suggestion that it forages
with geometric precision."
After a while, Allenby said, "Land, Burton. By that 'canal.' Lots of
plant life--fauna, too. We'll do a little collecting."
Burton set us down feather-light at the very edge of the sprawling flat
expanse of vegetation, commenting that the scene reminded him of his
native Texas pear-flats.
We wandered in the chilly air, each of us except Burton pursuing his
specialty. Randolph relentlessly stalked another of the rabbity
creatures. Gonzales was carefully digging up plants and stowing them in
jars. Janus was busy with his cameras, recording every aspect of Mars
transferable to film. Allenby walked around, helping anybody who needed
it. An astronomer, he'd done half his work on the way to Mars and would
do the other half on the return trip. Burton lounged in the Sun, his
back against a ship's fin, and played chess with Allenby, who was
calling out his moves in a bull roar. I grubbed for rocks.
My search took me farther and farther away from the others--all I could
find around the 'canal' was gravel, and I wanted to chip at some big
stuff. I walked toward a long rise a half-mile or so away, beyond which
rose an enticing array of house-sized boulders.
As I moved out of earshot, I heard Randolph snarl, "Burton, _will_ you
stop yelling, 'Kt to B-2 and check?' Every time you open your yap, this
critter takes off on me."
Then I saw the groove.
* * * * *
It started right where the ground began to rise--a thin, shallow,
curve-bottomed groove in the dirt at my feet, about half an inch across,
running off straight toward higher ground.
With my eyes glued to it, I walked. The ground slowly rose. The groove
deepened, widened--now it was about three inches across, about one and a
half deep.