I picked the nearest window and it was the right one. Arden and the
rest were in there, moving around, changing clothes, packing, and
talking. They were talking about Mars, and how badly they wanted to go
back there. They seemed a little sorry about the people they wouldn't
be seeing any more, and Arden mentioned me.
But that was all I got to hear. There was a rustle in the bushes and
I whirled to see the tawny coming at me, with the iron bar still
sticking through it and the puncture sealed by something like scar
tissue.
The tawny had its voice back and was howling like a ten-ton tea-kettle.
I heard some yells inside the house. Then the beast was on me and I
felt the choppers starting. I don't suppose many people these days
are familiar with the sensation of being chopped up fine. It isn't
pleasant. But it didn't last long. I passed out.
* * * * *
Now this is corny, but when I woke up I figured I had arrived wherever
it is you arrive when you get through dying. But then I saw Renn
Kettering. I didn't think he'd arrive at the same place I would; at
least not the same suburb. Unless, of course, he was running the place.
So maybe I hadn't died at that.
I saw I was in some kind of room, in bed, and Renn was standing on the
bed. I pinched myself. I was real.
"Welcome to Mars," said Renn.
I sat up. I was in a hut made of little stones, reeds and holes. I
glimpsed bits of a green sand desert, pink sky and yellow clouds.
"The tawny tore you up," said Renn, which was no news to me.
"Luckily, we got you up here in time," Renn continued. "You'll be
wanting to stay, of course."
I remembered all I knew about the Mars scene. I leaped from bed,
putting it between me and Renn.
"Like hell I will!"
"Oh, you'll stay, just like the others."
It was coming a little fast. "Slow down," I said. "I got torn up, and
here I am, sound in wind and limb. That's what happened to the others?
That's the secret of how you shot those realistic scenes?"
"Check," said Renn. "But I won't bore you with the whole long story."
"I love to hear you talk," I said, drooling at the thought of what
Myron Ferdinand would do for me when I told him the story.
"Well," said Renn, "it's really because of the Martians. As you know,
they aren't awfully advanced--or maybe they've retrogressed--but they
do have some wonderful things in medicine. Their medicine, or whatever
it is, works on body cells. You've heard about the lizards that grow a
new tail when the old one is cut off? Or a lobster growing a new claw?
Well, all living body cells, including human, have some of what they
call regenerative power. With most animals it's faint; about all it
does is produce scar tissue or replace a few cells like a bit of skin,
for example. But the Martians can hype up this process so you can grow
practically a whole new body. Arm, leg, liver or lights, rip 'em off
and you can grow 'em back. But there's one catch in it."
"Yah," I said.
"Yah," he said. "Just like Hollywood. In this case the catch is
this--when you grow back, you're a Martian. You're still you--but
different. It began to show up in our cast in about ten days. Maybe the
new cells are part Martian, or pick up something from the medicine or
treatment or whatever it is. Anyway, you want to live on Mars. Pretty
soon you have to live on Mars. You don't like it any place else anyway.
But you like it here."