I screamed at General Burgess. “You can’t do that!”
“I would remind you, Dr. Smith,” the officer said, “that I’m the Military Governor of Mars, and I can take whatever action that I deem necessary to preserve our colony—not to mention mankind.”
“If you attack the Martians again, sir, they will respond in kind,” I said, “and they’ve always been able to block our initiatives in the past, usually in ways that we haven’t even considered.”
“The new weapons arriving with the fleet next week will give us an advantage that we’ve never had before. I feel that we have to take it, particularly in light of the new information provided by Ms. Vassilidis.”
“With all respect, sir, that so-called ‘information’ is based on fleeting mental impressions gleaned with a brief encounter with just one individual among the aliens. I know from my own interaction with these creatures that they think very differently than we do. Trying to interpret their thoughts like ours, or trying to put together an integrated picture of their plans or notions from just a few dots and lines is simply not possible, in my estimation.”
“Would you agree that the Martian you call ‘Big Guy’ is one of their leaders?”
“No, General. I couldn’t even tell you if they have leaders. Aroostook’s been the primary contact that I’ve had over the past two years, but that may just be because they want to limit such encounters to a relatively few individuals on both sides. And they don’t see the ‘individual’ as individual, if you know what I mean. They’re a telepathic race: they act and think collectively.”
“Which makes Ms. Vassilidis’s conclusions that much more valid, in my opinion.”
I started to object again, but he held up his right hand.
“We obviously need a break. I suggest we get some lunch, ladies and gentlemen, and return here at one.”
I was getting a headache from knocking heads with the bureaucratic mind, so I headed off to the cafeteria, where I drowned my sorrows in a bowl of vegetable soup and a fresh salad. I’d deliberately found myself a niche in one corner, near a viewscreen constantly displaying a live picture of the terrain outside. The Seabees were still working on new abodes for the settlers expected to arrive in the next month, and I found their to-ings and fro-ings somewhat soothing.
Suddenly Zee appeared and handed me a small, ripe blood orange.
“N-new,” he said.
I looked at the fruit in wonder: I hadn’t seen anything like it since leaving Earth, and it seemed like manna from heaven.
“How?” I asked.
“G-grow. G-good s-s-soil.”
“Thank you, Zee.”
But he just wandered off again. Zee was like that: sometimes he made sense, sometimes he didn’t.
Mindon spotted me across the room, and started to come over, but I just shook my head “no.” I didn’t want company, not in that way. Instead, I uplinked my watchpad to the net, and checked my special account.
I could access my messages and information in Habitat Three, but when I’d settled Down Under two years earlier, I’d set up a second account that could only be reached from Isis Station, and then only with a series of special passwords that changed with the season. Even though I only visited Isis infrequently, there were communications that I wanted to keep private from both the aliens and my fellow humans.
I entered the command, “Alpha iota san,” that being a warped ancient Greek version of a key date (9-11) in twenty-first-century history, and then pressed my right thumb over the face of the pad.
I quickly scanned through the six-month accumulation of private messages. Some I downloaded to my regular account, some I deleted, and a few I moved into a holding folder.
One of the latter caught my eye: a recent memo from Ferdy Jarmann. Herr Doktor Franz-Ferdinand von Jarmann was an octogenarian Heidelberg-based German exobiologist who’d published the first significant research on Martian physiology in the immediate aftermath of the War of Two Worlds. Many of his observations still had merit, even after fifteen years, and he’d since issued a series of supplemental studies, a few of them refuting the conclusions that he’d made in his original work. I liked the way his mind moved.
His note read:
My Dear Alexander,
I am sorry to inform you that I have been unwell of late, a “stytche” of the heart, as they would have said during the Hundred Years War; and so my investigations into the “Outlanders” have been hampered by my physical inabilities. Since this situation is not likely to change very soon, if ever, I thought that I would summarize some of my most recent findings, while still I can.
I have reported previously about the curious anomalies that I noted in specimens of Taraxacum officinale, which you call the “dandelion.” I have now received specimens in which these mutations seem more advanced. As you know, these plants are able to disperse their seeds through their Pusteblume, or blow flower (which you call the dandelion clock), which collects as many as 200 seed-carrying achenes in a puffball surrounding the site of the original flower head. The new variety that I have been examining increases the length of the stem and the number of seeds by a factor of two or three; and the genetic structure of the plant indicates an amalgamation of certain genes from the red weed.
How this occurred I have no idea. In theory it should not have been possible. However, as I think I have mentioned in my earlier communiqués, I have been able to locate isolated patches of the weed growing in gardens, marshes, and forests throughout the region, never in great numbers, but seemingly healthy—if not as verdant as before. The survival of these alien intruders is a remarkable testimony to the genetic diversity of the Martian flora—and possibly of the alien fauna as well—for it implies the prospect of further small discoveries of both on our world.
I am concerned over your last report to me, stating that certain traces of the Martian genome have now appeared in your bloodstream. I suspect that anyone who has had prolonged contact with Martian life or the red planet’s surface may, in fact, be similarly infected. What does this imply for the future?
I wish I had some answers for you. Alas, my old friend, I do not think that I will be the one to make these discoveries, and I do not know of anyone else here who is following similar lines of research. I will continue to do what I can, while my energy allows me, and to keep you informed of my progress, or lack thereof. I hope you will do the same.
Your friend:
Ferdinand
I found Jarmann’s note particularly disturbing, because, truth to tell, I hadn’t been feeling very well myself during recent months. The obvious symptoms were night pains in my legs, particularly the calf muscles. But there were other things too, things that I hadn’t told anyone about: the involuntary nervous twitches of my fingers, the constant itching of my skin, the frequent urination, the peculiar musty odor associated with my pee, the skin encrustations on my feet, the frequent indigestion and gas, and all the other shit that I would have normally just written off as advancing age—but which I now attributed to something else entirely.
Something strange was going on within me, some metamorphosis, and to what end and what outcome, I had no idea. I was being manipulated again
