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DEDICATION
To the memory of my long-departed friends:
Malcolm “Mac” Hulke
(24 November 1924 - 6 July 1979)
Leonard Wibberley
(9 April 1915 - 22 November 1983)
Robert Nathan
(2 January 1894 - 25 May 1985)
And a tip of the hat to a trilogy of the living...
Frater Stephanus of the Order of Saint Bernardine,
Who was there when it mattered;
Frater Marcus of the Order of Saint Bufo,
And his Dog Daze and Cat Naps;
Frater Scotus of the Order of Saint Leibowitz,
Somewhere in a tenured position.
PART ONE
MARS CENTRAL
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
—Charles Wolfe
PROLOGUE
HE WATCHES ME
Like a fish out of water.
—Thomas Shadwell
Mellie Smith, 28 Bi-September, Mars Year viii
Habitat Three, Planet Mars
Excerpt from the Diary of Mellie Smith
Daddy’s sick again. Mother doesn’t want me to know, but I overheard them talking about it:
He said, “They don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
She said, “Your color’s not good, Alex. I’m really worried. There has to be something messing around with your metabolism.”
He said, “I tried to ask Big Guy if he could help, but you know how it is trying to talk with the Marties—the answers are sometimes harder to understand than the questions. All he would say is ‘Yes’ when I queried him about whether I was OK, but what the hell does that mean? I keep getting these cramps in my legs at night, like someone’s jabbed a needle through the muscle and bone. It wakes me up—and that wakes you up.”
“What does Markus say?”
“Well, he’s really an exo-biologist, not a physician, but he said there were some unusual markers showing up in my blood cells. He’s talked it over with Dr. Wickizer.”
“What does that mean?”
“The alien doodads—their genetic DNA—are somehow multiplying throughout my body. Markus and Wickizer believe that my physiology is gradually changing—and they’ve seen the beginnings of similar changes in some of the other Sensitives here.”
“Oh, God, what about Mellie?”
“Her too. But she’s younger and more adaptable than I am, and so the alterations have been easier on her system than mine—or at least that’s what they’re telling me.”
I don’t want to be different from anyone else. I love Buddy, but I don’t want to be him. He’s a Martie, and he doesn’t think or feel like I do. He’s also a boy, and boys are nasty sometimes. Maybe that’s why he’s so different. And I certainly don’t want to be like Big Guy. He’s really creepy at times.
He watches me, even when he isn’t there. I can feel him inside me, just like I feel Buddy—and sometimes even Daddy and Mother. He knows what I think. I caught him once last week creeping through my mind, and I waited for him around one corner, and jumped out and said “Boo!” It surprised him, I think, because he went away for several days. Then he came back again, but more quietly. Sometimes Crook Mouth or Long Arm join him.
And sometimes, just recently, sometimes I’ve been able to See inside him.
Now, isn’t that a switch!
CHAPTER ONE
WALTZING STAVROULA
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,
Under the shade of a coolibar tree,
And he sang as he sat, and waited for his billy-boil,
“You’ll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me.”
—Banjo Paterson
Alex Smith, 1 Bi-October, Mars Year viii
Isis Station, Planet Mars
I sometimes think that I’ve become nothing more than the plaything of Life, the Universe, and Everything. My existence has been manipulated by man and alien alike, and my children and I have become mere biological experiments, little more than random DNA samples to be altered this way or that, depending on the whim of our squid-like or monkey-faced superiors. What will become of us individually—and our two races generally—has been the abiding question ever since the War of Two Worlds started fifteen years ago.
It’s been two years—one long Martian year—since Buddy was born, and Becky, Mellie, Buddy, and I settled in the underground milieu of an alien species. We’ve actually been moved several times since then, and now abide in what I call “Habitat Three” of “Down Under.” It differs from our first two subterranean homes in including some vegetation, both terrestrial (green) and Martian (red), among our surroundings. Somehow the plants seem to live together just fine in the artificial environment of the Red Planet—how, I have no idea, as with most things involving Mars.
Aroostook, the chief-bugger-in-charge whom most of us call “Big Guy,” insists that we remain with it and its companions, and allows no one else from the surface—my fellow humans—to do more than visit us occasionally. And, just as occasionally, I’m allowed on my leash to return to Isis Station, our only surviving base on the planet, so long as I do so alone. My family obviously remains hostage for my return.
I had a specific reason for making this particular trip. I knew that Expedition IV, our next great outpouring from Earth, was due to arrive in the next few weeks, together with additional supplies, personnel, equipment, and (presumably) weapons. I was worried that our fragile truce would somehow be broken, and that all-out war would erupt again on one or both of our worlds.
Because the truth is, our glorious military and political leaders appear to have learned nothing from our two previous bouts with the Martians. We still know so very little about how the aliens think, or what they want, or even if they feel emotions in the same way we do. They have ever proven to be a resourceful and a dangerous enemy, and I wouldn’t want to provoke them again. And I fear that’s exactly what General Fritz Burgess, our Commander-in-Chief, intends to do, from the little comments he’s made at the few meetings I’ve attended—and from what my friend Mindon has told me.
So
