"No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our
civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours
is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you
thought you were taking it from equals or not."
"Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with
us?"
The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect.
Unfortunately, you must die."
* * * * *
It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet
he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep
the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian
must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood,
holding himself in check with an effort.
"Will you tell us why?" Tate asked.
"You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception
of justice. I will tell you and your--friend--anything you wish to
know."
Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of
the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the
leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away
from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to
think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like
trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus."
Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently
unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why--" he
began.
"There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a
very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform
Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere."
"I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim
all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then
we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out.
You couldn't have that, of course."
He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked
at them with a queer intentness. "Well--how about the Martians--the
Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that
one."
"Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a
separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our
ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors."
"Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make
itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves
into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to
the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem
was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for
we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained
its slaves. They died of a plague--and other causes.
"You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural
confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we."
"And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with
an--inferior--culture."
"We hope to win yet," the Martian said.
Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged.
"Will our two races ever live together in amity?"
The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He
looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man,"
he said. "I am sorry."
Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the
sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in
him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before
he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the
Martian.
* * * * *
It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly
strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't
tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost
feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the
swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern.
He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every
muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with
power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's
iron grip!
He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the
weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped
his lance and fell without a sound.
The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way
barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and
swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of
the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor.
Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the
trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely
to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped
his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His
right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And
all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths,
seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes,
dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of
his powerful lungs.
At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down
the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped
the weapon from blistered fingers.
He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from
the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency
kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out
a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing
it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the
burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid
formed an airtight patch.
Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind
him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I
could have grabbed a spear or something, but--I just couldn't, not even
to save my own life. I--I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us."
Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He
turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly,
but with his feral, tigerish head held high.
He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed
him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something
that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and
didn't know what to do about it.
Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the
same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black
suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around
to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which
might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That
was that.
* * * * *
They started off down the canyon, Syme urging the slighter man to
a fast clip, even though his leg was already stiffening. When they
finally reached a climbable spot, Syme was limping badly and Tate was
obviously exhausted.
They clambered wearily out onto the level sands again just as the
small, blazing sun was setting. "Luck," grunted Syme. "Our only chance
of getting near the city is at night." He peered around, shading his
eyes from the sun's glare with a gauntleted hand. "See that?"
Following his pointing finger, Tate saw a faint, ephemeral arc showing
above a line of low hills in the distance. "Kal-Jmar," said Syme.
Tate brightened a little. His body was too filled with fatigue for his
mind to do any work on the problem that was baffling him, and so it
receded into the back of his mind.
"Kal-Jmar," whispered Syme again.
There was no twilight. The sun dropped abruptly behind the low horizon,
and darkness fell, sudden and absolute. Syme picked up the extra oxygen
tank and the suitcase, checked his direction by a wrist compass, and
started toward the hills. Tate rose wearily to his feet and followed
again.
Two hours later, Kal-Jmar stood before them. They had wormed their
way past the sentry posts, doing most of the last two hundred meters
on all fours. With skill and luck, and with Syme's fierce, burning
determination, they had managed to escape detection--and there they
were. Journey's end.
Tate stared up at the shining, starlight towers in speechless
admiration. If the people who had built this city had been decadent,
still their architecture was magnificent. The city was a rhapsody made
solid. There was a sense of decay about it, he thought, but it was the
decay of supreme beauty, caught at the very verge of dissolution and
preserved for all eternity.
"Well?" demanded Syme.
Tate started, shaken out of his dream. He looked down at the black
suitcase, a little wonderingly, and then pulled it to him and opened it.
Inside, carefully wrapped in shock-absorbing tissue, was a fragile
contrivance of many tubes and wires, and a tiny parabolic mirror. It
had a brand new Elecorp 210 volt battery, and it needed every volt of
that tremendous power. Tate made the connections, his hands trembling
slightly, and set it up on a telescoping tripod. Syme watched him
closely, his big body tensed with expectation.
The field was before them, shimmering faintly in the starlight. It
looked unsubstantial as the stuff of dreams, but both men knew that no
power man possessed, unless it was the thing Tate held, could penetrate
that screen.
Tate set the mechanism up close to the field, aimed it very delicately,
and closed a minute switch. After a long second, he opened it again.
Nothing happened.
The screen was still there, as unsubstantial and as solid as ever.
There was no change.
* * * * *
Tate looked worriedly at his wiring, a deep wrinkle appearing between
his pale, serious eyes. Syme stood stock-still but quivering with
repressed energy, scowling like a thundercloud.
"It must be capable of working," Tate told himself querulously. "The
Martians knew--they wouldn't have tried to stop us if--Wait a minute."
He paced back and forth, biting his lip. Syme watched him with catlike
eyes, clenching and unclenching his great fists.
Tate paused. "I think I have it," he said slowly. "I haven't enough
power to hetrodyne the whole screen, although that's theoretically
possible. But there must be weaker portions of the field--doors--set
to open on the impact of a beam like this one. But I've only got power
enough for two more tries. Jones, where would you put an entrance, if
you'd built Kal-Jmar?"
Syme's eyes widened, and he stared around slowly. "A thousand years
ago?" he muttered. "Two thousand? These hills were raised in five
hundred. We can't go by topography.
"In front of one of the main arteries, then. But there are dozens, no
one larger than the other. Did they have dozens of doors?"
"Maybe," said Tate. He pointed to the right, where the fairy towers of
Kal-Jmar swept aside to leave a broad avenue. "It's the nearest--as
good as any other."
They walked over to it in silence, and in silence Tate set up his
equipment once more. He shifted it from side to side, squinting, until
he had it lined up exactly on the center of the avenue. Then he took a
long breath, and closed the switch again.
The switch came up. Syme stared with fierce eagerness, eyes ablaze. For
a moment there was nothing, and then--
Tate clutched the big man's arm. "Look!" he breathed.
Where the ray from Tate's machine had impinged, a faintly-glowing
spot of violet radiance! As they watched it widened, dilating into a
perfect circle of violet, enclosing nothingness. The door was opening.
"It worked," Tate said softly. "It worked!"
Syme shook off his grip impatiently, put his hand to the gun in the
holster of his suit. Tate was still watching, fascinated. "Look," he
said again. "The color is changing slightly, falling down the spectrum.
I think that's a warning signal. When it reaches red, the door will
close." He moved toward the widening door, like a sleepwalker.
"Wait," Syme said hoarsely. "You forgot the machine."
Tate turned, said, "Oh yes," and walked back. Then he saw the gun in
Syme's hand. His jaw dropped slightly, but he didn't say anything. He
just stood there, looking dumbly from the gun to Syme's dark face.
Syme shot him carefully in the chest.
He dropped like a rag doll, but Syme's aim had been bad. He wasn't dead
yet. He rolled his eyes up, like a child. His lips moved. In spite of
himself, Syme bent forward to listen.
"_You'll be_--_sorry_," Tate said, and died.
Air was sighing out through the widening hole in the screen. Syme
straightened and smiled tolerantly. For a moment, he had been
unreasonably afraid of what Tate was about to say. Some detail he had
forgotten, perhaps, something that would trap him now that Tate, the
man who knew the answers, was dead. But--he'd be sorry!
For what? Another dead fool?
He gathered up the delicate mechanism in one arm, and, filling his deep
lungs, stepped forward through the opening.
* * * * *
The towers of dead Kal-Jmar loomed over him in the dusk as he strode
like a conqueror down the long-deserted avenue. The city was full of
the whisperings of Kal-Jmar's ancient wraiths, but they touched only
a corner of his mind. He was filled to overflowing with the bright,
glowing joy of conquest. The city was his!
His boots trod an avenue where no foot had fallen these untold eons,
yet there was no dust. The city was bright and furbished waiting for
him. He was intoxicated. _The city was his!_
There was a gentle ramp leading upward, and Syme followed it, breathing
in the manufactured air of his pressure suit like wine. All around him,
the city blazed with treasures beyond price.
_It was his!_
The ramp led to a portal set in the side of a shining needle of a
building. Syme strode up to the threshold, and the door dilated for
him. He stepped inside; the door closed and a soft light glowed on.
There was air here: good, breathable air. A tiny zephyr of it was
blowing from some hidden source against his body. Greatly daring, he
unfastened the helmet of his suit and flung it back. He breathed in a
lungful of it. God, but it was good after that canned stuff! It was a
little heady; it made his head swim--but it was good air, excellent air!
He looked around him, measuring, assessing for the first time. This
room alone was worth a fortune. There was platinum; in ornaments, set
into the walls, in furniture. That would be enough to buy the little
things--a new ship, or perhaps even immunity back on Earth. But that
was as nothing to the rest of it, the things three worlds would clamor
for--the artifacts, the record books, the machines!
He strode about the room, building plan on grandiose plan. He could
take back only a little with him at first; but he could return again
and again, with Tate's mechanism and new batteries. But he'd explore
the city thoroughly before he left. Somewhere there must be weapons. An
invincible weapon, perhaps, that a man could carry in his hand. Perhaps
even a perfect body screen. With that he wouldn't have to steal away
from Mars on a freighter, hiding his loot and his greatness in a dingy
engine room. He could walk into a Triplanet ship and order its captain
to take him wherever he chose to go!
* * * * *
He stood then in the middle of the room, arms akimbo, his head swimming
with glory--and remembered suddenly that he was hungry. He felt in the
container of his helmet, extracted a couple of food tablets, and popped
them into his mouth.
They would take care of his needs, but they didn't satisfy his hunger.
No food tablets for him after this! Steaks, wines, souffles.... His
mouth began to water at the very thought.
And then the robot rolled on soundless wheels into the room. Syme
whirled and saw it only when it was almost upon him. The thing was
remarkably lifelike, and for a moment he was startled.
But it was not alive. It was only a Martian feeding-machine, kept in
repair all these millennia by other robots. It was not intelligent,
and so it did not know that its masters would never return. It did not
know, either, that Syme was not a Martian, or that he wanted a steak,
and not the distilled liquor of the _xopa_ fungus, which still grew in
the subterranean gardens of Kal-Jmar. It was capable only of receiving
the mental impulse of hunger, and of responding to that impulse.
And so when Syme saw it and opened his mouth in startlement, the
robot acted as it had done with its degenerate, slothful masters. Its
flexible feeding tube darted out and half down the man's gullet before
he could move to avoid it. And down Syme Rector's throat poured a flood
of _xopa_-juice, nectar to Martians, but swift, terrible death to human
beings....
Outside, the last doorway to Kal-Jmar closed forever, across from the
cold body of Tate.