and hit my head.”
Reade’s worried face relaxed in a grin.
“Rubbish! The bump on your head mixed up your timesense a little, that’s all. Your hallucination, or whatever it was, came after the bump, not before.”
“No,” Andrew said quietly, but with absolute conviction. “I wasn’t hurt that bad, John.”
Reade’s face changed; held concern again, “All right,” he said gently, “Tell me what you think you know.”
Andrew dropped his face in his hands. “Whatever it was, it’s gone! The bump knocked it right out of my head. I remember that I knew—” he raised a drawn face, “but I can’t remember what!”
Reade put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Let’s get back to the tent, Andy, I’m freezing out here. Look, son, the whole thing is just your mind working overtime from that bump you got. Or—”
Andrew said bitterly, “You think I’m going crazy.”
“I didn’t say that, son. Come on. We can talk it over in the morning.” He hoisted Andrew to his feet. “I told Spade that if we weren’t back in half an hour, he’d better come looking for us.”
The men looked up from their cards, staring at the blood on Andrew’s face, but the set of Reade’s mouth silenced any comments. Andrew didn’t want to talk. He quickly shucked jacket and trousers, crawled into his sleeping bag, thumbed the heat-unit and immediately fell asleep.
When he woke, the tent was empty. Wondering why he had been allowed to sleep—Spade usually meted out rough treatment to blanket-huggers—Andrew dressed quickly, gulped a mug of the bitter coffee that stood on the hot-box, and went out to look for the others.
He had to walk some distance to find them. Armed with shovels, the four roughnecks were digging up the thorny prickle-bushes near the hollow where Andrew had fallen, while Reade, in the lee of a rock, was scowling over the fine print of an Army manual of Martio-biology.
“Sorry I overslept, John. Where do I go to work?”
“You don’t. I’ve got another job for you.” Reade turned to bark a command at Fairbanks. “Careful with the damned plant! I told you to wear gloves! Now get them on, and don’t touch those things with your bare hands.” He glanced back at Andrew. “I had an idea overnight,” he said. “What do we really know about spinosa martis? And this doesn’t quite look like the species that grows around Mount Denver. I think maybe this variety gives off some kind of gas—or poison.” He pointed at the long scratch on Andrew’s hand. “Your trouble started after you grabbed one of them. You know, there’s locoweed on Earth that drives cattle crazy-mushrooms and other plants that secrete hallucinogens. If these things give off some sort of volatile mist, it could have dispersed in that little hollow down there—there wasn’t much wind last night.”
“What shall I do?” he asked.
“I’d rather not discuss that here. Come on, 111 walk back to the tent with you.” He scrambled stiffly to his feet. “I want you to go back to Mount Denver, Andy.”
Andrew stopped; turned to Reade accusingly.
“You do think I’ve gone crazy!”
Reade shook his head. “I just think you’ll be better off in Mount Denver. —I’ve got a job for you there—one man would have to go, anyhow, and you’ve had one—well, call it a hallucination—already. If it’s a poison, the stuff might be cumulative. We may just wind up having to wear gas masks.” He put a hand on the thick leather of Andrew’s jacket sleeve. “I know how you feel about this place, Andy. But personal feelings aren’t important in this kind of work.”
“John—” half hesitant, Andrew looked back at him, “I had an idea overnight, too.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“It sounds crazy, I guess,” Andrew said diffidently, “but it just came to me. Suppose the old Martians were beings without bodies—discarnate intelligences? And they’re trying to make contact with us? Men aren’t used to that kind of contact, and it drives them insane.”
Reade scowled. “Ingenious,” he admitted,, “as a theory, but there’s a hole in it. If they’re discarnate, how did they build—” he jerked his thumb at the squat, fortress-like mass of Xanadu behind them.
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t know how the drive units of a spaceship work, either. But I’m here.” He looked up. “I think one of them was trying to get in touch with me, last night. And maybe if I was trying, too—maybe if I understood, and tried to open my mind to it, too—”
Reade looked disturbed. “Andy, do you realize what you’re suggesting? Suppose this is all your imagination—”
“It isn’t, John.”
“Wait, now. Just suppose, for a minute; try to see it my way.”
“Well?” Andrew was impatient.
“By trying to ‘open your mind’, as you put it, you’d just be surrendering your sane consciousness to a brooding insanity. The human mind is pretty complex, son. About nine-tenths of your brain is dark, shadowy, all animal instinct. Only the conscious fraction can evaluate—use logic. The balance between the two is pretty tricky at best. I wouldn’t fool around with it, if I were you. Listen, Andy, I know you were born on Mars, I know how you feel. You feel at home here, don’t you?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean—”
“You resent men like Spade and Kater, coming here for the money that’s in it, don’t you?”
“Not really. Well, yes, but—”
There was a Mars-born kid with Kingslander, Andy. Remember the log? He was the first to go. In a place like this, imagination is worse than smallpox. You’re the focal point where trouble would start, if it started. That’s why I picked men like Spade and Kater—insensitive, unimaginative—for the first groundwork here. I’ve had my eye on you from the beginning, Andy, and you reacted just about the way I expected. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go.”
Andrew clenched his fists in his pocket, speaking dry-mouthed. “But if I was right—wouldn’t it be easier for them to contact someone like me? Won’t you try to see it my way?” He made a final, hopeless appeal. “Won’t you let me stay? I know I’m safe here—I know they won’t hurt me, whatever happens to the others. Take my gun if you want to—keep me in handcuffs, even—but don’t send me back!”
Reade’s voice was flat and final. “If I had any doubts, I wouldn’t have them after that. Every word you say is just making it worse. Leave while you still can, Andy.”
Andrew gave up. “All right. I’ll start back now, if you insist.”
“I do.” Reade turned away and hurried back toward the crew, and Andrew went into the tent and started packing rations in his blanket-roll for the march. The pack was clumsy, but not a tenth as heavy as the load he’d packed on the way up here. He jerked the straps angrily tight, hoisted the roll to his shoulder, and went out.
Reade was waiting for him. He had Andrew’s pistol.
