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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/22301-h.zip b/22301-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e2b2a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/22301-h.zip diff --git a/22301-h/22301-h.htm b/22301-h/22301-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..029a79b --- /dev/null +++ b/22301-h/22301-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1552 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Valley of Dreams, by Stanley G. Weinbaum. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + + .center {text-align: center;} + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .tnote {background-color: #EEE; + color: inherit; + text-align: left; + margin: 2em 10% 1em 10%; + padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 2px; + border-width: 2px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Valley of Dreams, by Stanley Grauman Weinbaum + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Valley of Dreams + +Author: Stanley Grauman Weinbaum + +Release Date: August 11, 2007 [EBook #22301] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALLEY OF DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Pat A. Benoy and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class='tnote'> +<p class='center'>Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p>This etext of Valley of Dreams by Stanley G. Weinbaum was +produced from "A Martian Odyssey and Others" +published in 1949. Extensive research did not uncover +any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Pagination +corresponds to that of the original text.</p> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<hr class='full' /> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + + + +<h1>VALLEY OF DREAMS</h1> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Captain Harrison</span> of the <em>Ares</em> expedition turned away from the little +telescope in the bow of the rocket. "Two weeks more, at the most," he +remarked. "Mars only retrogrades for seventy days in all, relative to +the earth, and we've got to be homeward bound during that period, or +wait a year and a half for old Mother Earth to go around the sun and +catch up with us again. How'd you like to spend a winter here?"</p> + +<p>Dick Jarvis, chemist of the party, shivered as he looked up from his +notebook. "I'd just as soon spend it in a liquid air tank!" he averred. +"These eighty-below zero summer nights are plenty for me."</p> + +<p>"Well," mused the captain, "the first successful Martian expedition +ought to be home long before then."</p> + +<p>"Successful if we get home," corrected Jarvis. "I don't trust these +cranky rockets—not since the auxiliary dumped me in the middle of Thyle +last week. Walking back from a rocket ride is a new sensation to me."</p> + +<p>"Which reminds me," returned Harrison, "that we've got to recover your +films. They're important if we're to pull this trip out of the red. +Remember how the public mobbed the first moon pictures? Our shots ought +to pack 'em to the doors. And the broadcast rights, too; we might show a +profit for the Academy."</p> + +<p>"What interests me," countered Jarvis, "is a personal profit. A book, +for instance; exploration books are always popular. <em>Martian +Deserts</em>—how's that for a title?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p><p>"Lousy!" grunted the captain. "Sounds like a cook-book for desserts. +You'd have to call it 'Love Life of a Martian,' or something like that."</p> + +<p>Jarvis chuckled. "Anyway," he said, "if we once get back home, I'm going +to grab what profit there is, and never, never, get any farther from the +earth than a good stratosphere plane'll take me. I've learned to +appreciate the planet after plowing over this dried-up pill we're on +now."</p> + +<p>"I'll lay you odds you'll be back here year after next," grinned the +Captain. "You'll want to visit your pal—that trick ostrich."</p> + +<p>"Tweel?" The other's tone sobered. "I wish I hadn't lost him, at that. +He was a good scout. I'd never have survived the dream-beast but for +him. And that battle with the push-cart things—I never even had a +chance to thank him."</p> + +<p>"A pair of lunatics, you two," observed Harrison. He squinted through +the port at the gray gloom of the Mare Cimmerium. "There comes the sun." +He paused. "Listen, Dick—you and Leroy take the other auxiliary rocket +and go out and salvage those films."</p> + +<p>Jarvis stared. "Me and Leroy?" he echoed ungrammatically. "Why not me +and Putz? An engineer would have some chance of getting us there and +back if the rocket goes bad on us."</p> + +<p>The captain nodded toward the stern, whence issued at that moment a +medley of blows and guttural expletives. "Putz is going over the insides +of the <em>Ares</em>," he announced. "He'll have his hands full until we leave, +because I want every bolt inspected. It's too late for repairs once we +cast off."</p> + +<p>"And if Leroy and I crack up? That's our last auxiliary."</p> + +<p>"Pick up another ostrich and walk back," suggested Harrison gruffly. +Then he smiled. "If you have trouble, we'll hunt you out in the <em>Ares</em>," +he finished. "Those films are important." He turned. "Leroy!"</p> + +<p>The dapper little biologist appeared, his face questioning.</p> + +<p>"You and Jarvis are off to salvage the auxiliary," the Captain said. +"Everything's ready and you'd better start now. Call back at half-hour +intervals; I'll be listening."</p> + +<p>Leroy's eyes glistened. "Perhaps we land for specimens—no?" he queried.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p><p>"Land if you want to. This golf ball seems safe enough."</p> + +<p>"Except for the dream-beast," muttered Jarvis with a faint shudder. He +frowned suddenly. "Say, as long as we're going that way, suppose I have +a look for Tweel's home! He must live off there somewhere, and he's the +most important thing we've seen on Mars."</p> + +<p>Harrison hesitated. "If I thought you could keep out of trouble," he +muttered. "All right," he decided. "Have a look. There's food and water +aboard the auxiliary; you can take a couple of days. But keep in touch +with me, you saps!"</p> + +<p>Jarvis and Leroy went through the airlock out to the grey plain. The +thin air, still scarcely warmed by the rising sun, bit flesh and lung +like needles, and they gasped with a sense of suffocation. They dropped +to a sitting posture, waiting for their bodies, trained by months in +acclimatization chambers back on earth, to accommodate themselves to the +tenuous air. Leroy's face, as always, turned a smothered blue, and +Jarvis heard his own breath rasping and rattling in his throat. But in +five minutes, the discomfort passed; they rose and entered the little +auxiliary rocket that rested beside the black hull of the <em>Ares</em>.</p> + +<p>The under-jets roared out their fiery atomic blast; dirt and bits of +shattered biopods spun away in a cloud as the rocket rose. Harrison +watched the projectile trail its flaming way into the south, then turned +back to his work.</p> + +<p>It was four days before he saw the rocket again. Just at evening, as the +sun dropped behind the horizon with the suddenness of a candle falling +into the sea, the auxiliary flashed out of the southern heavens, easing +gently down on the flaming wings of the under-jets. Jarvis and Leroy +emerged, passed through the swiftly gathering dusk, and faced him in the +light of the <em>Ares</em>. He surveyed the two; Jarvis was tattered and +scratched, but apparently in better condition than Leroy, whose +dapperness was completely lost. The little biologist was pale as the +nearer moon that glowed outside; one arm was bandaged in thermo-skin and +his clothes hung in veritable rags. But it was his eyes that struck +Harrison most strangely; to one who lived these many weary days with the +diminutive Frenchman, there was something queer about them. They were +frightened, plainly enough, and that was odd, since Leroy was no coward +or he'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> never have been one of the four chosen by the Academy for the +first Martian expedition. But the fear in his eyes was more +understandable than that other expression, that queer fixity of gaze +like one in a trance, or like a person in an ecstasy. "Like a chap who's +seen Heaven and Hell together," Harrison expressed it to himself. He was +yet to discover how right he was.</p> + +<p>He assumed a gruffness as the weary pair sat down. "You're a fine +looking couple!" he growled. "I should've known better than to let you +wander off alone." He paused. "Is your arm all right, Leroy? Need any +treatment?"</p> + +<p>Jarvis answered. "It's all right—just gashed. No danger of infection +here, I guess; Leroy says there aren't any microbes on Mars."</p> + +<p>"Well," exploded the Captain, "Let's hear it, then! Your radio reports +sounded screwy. 'Escaped from Paradise!' Huh!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't want to give details on the radio," said Jarvis soberly. +"You'd have thought we'd gone loony."</p> + +<p>"I think so, anyway."</p> + +<p>"<em lang='fr'>Moi aussi!</em>" muttered Leroy. "I too!"</p> + +<p>"Shall I begin at the beginning?" queried the chemist. "Our early +reports were pretty nearly complete." He stared at Putz, who had come in +silently, his face and hands blackened with carbon, and seated himself +beside Harrison.</p> + +<p>"At the beginning," the Captain decided.</p> + +<p>"Well," began Jarvis, "we got started all right, and flew due south +along the meridian of the <em>Ares</em>, same course I'd followed last week. I +was getting used to this narrow horizon, so I didn't feel so much like +being cooped under a big bowl, but one does keep overestimating +distances. Something four miles away looks eight when you're used to +terrestrial curvature, and that makes you guess its size just four times +too large. A little hill looks like a mountain until you're almost over +it."</p> + +<p>"I know that," grunted Harrison.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but Leroy didn't, and I spent our first couple of hours trying to +explain it to him. By the time he understood (if he does yet) we were +past Cimmerium and over that Xanthus desert, and then we crossed the +canal with the mud city and the barrel-shaped citizens and the place +where Tweel had shot the dream-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>beast. And nothing would do for Pierre +here but that we put down so he could practice his biology on the +remains. So we did.</p> + +<p>"The thing was still there. No sign of decay; couldn't be, of course, +without bacterial forms of life, and Leroy says that Mars is as sterile +as an operating table."</p> + +<p>"<em lang='fr'>Comme le coeur d'une fileuse</em>," corrected the little +biologist, who was beginning to regain a trace of his usual energy. +"Like an old maid's heart!"</p> + +<p>"However," resumed Jarvis, "about a hundred of the little grey-green +biopods had fastened onto the thing and were growing and branching. +Leroy found a stick and knocked 'em off, and each branch broke away and +became a biopod crawling around with the others. So he poked around at +the creature, while I looked away from it; even dead, that rope-armed +devil gave me the creeps. And then came the surprise; the thing was part +plant!"</p> + +<p>"<em lang='fr'>C'est vrai!</em>" confirmed the biologist. "It's true!"</p> + +<p>"It was a big cousin of the biopods," continued Jarvis. "Leroy was quite +excited; he figures that all Martian life is of that sort—neither plant +nor animal. Life here never differentiated, he says; everything has both +natures in it, even the barrel-creatures—even Tweel! I think he's +right, especially when I recall how Tweel rested, sticking his beak in +the ground and staying that way all night. I never saw him eat or drink, +either; perhaps his beak was more in the nature of a root, and he got +his nourishment that way."</p> + +<p>"Sounds nutty to me," observed Harrison.</p> + +<p>"Well," continued Jarvis, "we broke up a few of the other growths and +they acted the same way—the pieces crawled around, only much slower +than the biopods, and then stuck themselves in the ground. Then Leroy +had to catch a sample of the walking grass, and we were ready to leave +when a parade of the barrel-creatures rushed by with their push-carts. +They hadn't forgotten me, either; they all drummed out, 'We are +v-r-r-iends—ouch!' just as they had before. Leroy wanted to shoot one +and cut it up, but I remembered the battle Tweel and I had had with +them, and vetoed the idea. But he did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> hit on a possible explanation as +to what they did with all the rubbish they gathered."</p> + +<p>"Made mud-pies, I guess," grunted the captain.</p> + +<p>"More or less," agreed Jarvis. "They use it for food, Leroy thinks. If +they're part vegetable, you see, that's what they'd want—soil with +organic remains in it to make it fertile. That's why they ground up sand +and biopods and other growths all together. See?"</p> + +<p>"Dimly," countered Harrison. "How about the suicides?"</p> + +<p>"Leroy had a hunch there, too. The suicides jump into the grinder when +the mixture has too much sand and gravel; they throw themselves in to +adjust the proportions."</p> + +<p>"Rats!" said Harrison disgustedly. "Why couldn't they bring in some +extra branches from outside?"</p> + +<p>"Because suicide is easier. You've got to remember that these creatures +can't be judged by earthly standards; they probably don't feel pain, and +they haven't got what we'd call individuality. Any intelligence they +have is the property of the whole community—like an ant-heap. That's +it! Ants are willing to die for their ant-hill; so are these creatures."</p> + +<p>"So are men," observed the captain, "if it comes to that."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but men aren't exactly eager. It takes some emotion like +patriotism to work 'em to the point of dying for their country; these +things do it all in the day's work." He paused.</p> + +<p>"Well, we took some pictures of the dream-beast and the +barrel-creatures, and then we started along. We sailed over Xanthus, +keeping as close to the meridian of the <em>Ares</em> as we could, and pretty +soon we crossed the trail of the pyramid-builder. So we circled back to +let Leroy take a look at it, and when we found it, we landed. The thing +had completed just two rows of bricks since Tweel and I left it, and +there it was, breathing in silicon and breathing out bricks as if it had +eternity to do it in—which it has. Leroy wanted to dissect it with a +Boland explosive bullet, but I thought that anything that had lived for +ten million years was entitled to the respect due old age, so I talked +him out of it. He peeped into the hole on top of it and nearly got +beaned by the arm coming up with a brick, and then he chipped off a few +pieces of it, which didn't disturb the crea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>ture a bit. He found the +place I'd chipped, tried to see if there was any sign of healing, and +decided he could tell better in two or three thousand years. So we took +a few shots of it and sailed on.</p> + +<p>"Mid afternoon we located the wreck of my rocket. Not a thing disturbed; +we picked up my films and tried to decide what next. I wanted to find +Tweel if possible; I figured from the fact of his pointing south that he +lived somewhere near Thyle. We plotted our route and judged that the +desert we were in now was Thyle II; Thyle I should be east of us. So, on +a hunch, we decided to have a look at Thyle I, and away we buzzed."</p> + +<p>"<em lang='de'>Der</em> motors?" queried Putz, breaking his long silence.</p> + +<p>"For a wonder, we had no trouble, Karl. Your blast worked perfectly. So +we hummed along, pretty high to get a wider view, I'd say about fifty +thousand feet. Thyle II spread out like an orange carpet, and after a +while we came to the grey branch of the Mare Chronium that bounded it. +That was narrow; we crossed it in half an hour, and there was Thyle +I—same orange-hued desert as its mate. We veered south, toward the Mare +Australe, and followed the edge of the desert. And toward sunset we +spotted it."</p> + +<p>"Shpotted?" echoed Putz. "Vot vas shpotted?"</p> + +<p>"The desert was spotted—with buildings! Not one of the mud cities of +the canals, although a canal went through it. From the map we figured +the canal was a continuation of the one Schiaparelli called Ascanius.</p> + +<p>"We were probably too high to be visible to any inhabitants of the city, +but also too high for a good look at it, even with the glasses. However, +it was nearly sunset, anyway, so we didn't plan on dropping in. We +circled the place; the canal went out into the Mare Australe, and there, +glittering in the south, was the melting polar ice-cap! The canal +drained it; we could distinguish the sparkle of water in it. Off to the +southeast, just at the edge of the Mare Australe, was a valley—the +first irregularity I'd seen on Mars except the cliffs that bounded +Xanthus and Thyle II. We flew over the valley—" Jarvis paused suddenly +and shuddered; Leroy, whose color had begun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> to return, seemed to pale. +The chemist resumed, "Well, the valley looked all right—then! Just a +gray waste, probably full of crawlers like the others.</p> + +<p>"We circled back over the city; say, I want to tell you that place +was—well, gigantic! It was colossal; at first I thought the size was +due to that illusion I spoke of—you know, the nearness of the +horizon—but it wasn't that. We sailed right over it, and you've never +seen anything like it!</p> + +<p>"But the sun dropped out of sight right then. I knew we were pretty far +south—latitude 60—but I didn't know just how much night we'd have."</p> + +<p>Harrison glanced at a Schiaparelli chart. "About 60—eh?" he said. +"Close to what corresponds to the Antarctic circle. You'd have about +four hours of night at this season. Three months from now you'd have +none at all."</p> + +<p>"Three months!" echoed Jarvis, surprised. Then he grinned. "Right! I +forget the seasons here are twice as long as ours. Well, we sailed out +into the desert about twenty miles, which put the city below the horizon +in case we overslept, and there we spent the night.</p> + +<p>"You're right about the length of it. We had about four hours of +darkness which left us fairly rested. We ate breakfast, called our +location to you, and started over to have a look at the city.</p> + +<p>"We sailed toward it from the east and it loomed up ahead of us like a +range of mountains. Lord, what a city! Not that New York mightn't have +higher buildings, or Chicago cover more ground, but for sheer mass, +those structures were in a class by themselves. Gargantuan!</p> + +<p>"There was a queer look about the place, though. You know how a +terrestrial city sprawls out, a nimbus of suburbs, a ring of residential +sections, factory districts, parks, highways. There was none of that +here; the city rose out of the desert as abruptly as a cliff. Only a few +little sand mounds marked the division, and then the walls of those +gigantic structures.</p> + +<p>"The architecture was strange, too. There were lots of devices that are +impossible back home, such as set-backs in reverse, so that a building +with a small base could spread out as it rose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> That would be a valuable +trick in New York, where land is almost priceless, but to do it, you'd +have to transfer Martian gravitation there!</p> + +<p>"Well, since you can't very well land a rocket in a city street, we put +down right next to the canal side of the city, took our small cameras +and revolvers, and started for a gap in the wall of masonry. We weren't +ten feet from the rocket when we both saw the explanation for a lot of +the queerness.</p> + +<p>"The city was in ruin! Abandoned, deserted, dead as Babylon! Or at +least, so it looked to us then, with its empty streets which, if they +had been paved, were now deep under sand."</p> + +<p>"A ruin, eh?" commented Harrison. "How old?"</p> + +<p>"How could we tell?" countered Jarvis. "The next expedition to this golf +ball ought to carry an archeologist—and a philologist, too, as we +found out later. But it's a devil of a job to estimate the age of +anything here; things weather so slowly that most of the buildings might +have been put up yesterday. No rainfall, no earthquakes, no vegetation +is here to spread cracks with its roots—nothing. The only aging factors +here are the erosion of the wind—and that's negligible in this +atmosphere—and the cracks caused by changing temperature. And one other +agent—meteorites. They must crash down occasionally on the city, +judging from the thinness of the air, and the fact that we've seen four +strike ground right here near the <em>Ares</em>."</p> + +<p>"Seven," corrected the captain. "Three dropped while you were gone."</p> + +<p>"Well, damage by meteorites must be slow, anyway. Big ones would be as +rare here as on earth, because big ones get through in spite of the +atmosphere, and those buildings could sustain a lot of little ones. My +guess at the city's age—and it may be wrong by a big percentage—would +be fifteen thousand years. Even that's thousands of years older than any +human civilization; fifteen thousand years ago was the Late Stone Age in +the history of mankind.</p> + +<p>"So Leroy and I crept up to those tremendous buildings feeling like +pygmies, sort of awe-struck, and talking in whispers. I tell you, it was +ghostly walking down that dead and deserted street, and every time we +passed through a shadow, we shivered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> and not just because shadows are +cold on Mars. We felt like intruders, as if the great race that had +built the place might resent our presence even across a hundred and +fifty centuries. The place was as quiet as a grave, but we kept +imagining things and peeping down the dark lanes between buildings and +looking over our shoulders. Most of the structures were windowless, but +when we did see an opening in those vast walls, we couldn't look away, +expecting to see some horror peering out of it.</p> + +<p>"Then we passed an edifice with an open arch; the doors were there, but +blocked open by sand. I got up nerve enough to take a look inside, and +then, of course, we discovered we'd forgotten to take our flashes. But +we eased a few feet into the darkness and the passage debouched into a +colossal hall. Far above us a little crack let in a pallid ray of +daylight, not nearly enough to light the place; I couldn't even see if +the hall rose clear to the distant roof. But I know the place was +enormous; I said something to Leroy and a million thin echoes came +slipping back to us out of the darkness. And after that, we began to +hear other sounds—slithering rustling noises, and whispers, and sounds +like suppressed breathing—and something black and silent passed between +us and that far-away crevice of light.</p> + +<p>"Then we saw three little greenish spots of luminosity in the dusk to +our left. We stood staring at them, and suddenly they all shifted at +once. Leroy yelled '<em lang='fr'>Ce sont des yeux!</em>' and they were! They +were eyes!</p> + +<p>"Well, we stood frozen for a moment, while Leroy's yell reverberated +back and forth between the distant walls, and the echoes repeated the +words in queer, thin voices. There were mumblings and mutterings and +whisperings and sounds like strange soft laughter, and then the +three-eyed thing moved again. Then we broke for the door!</p> + +<p>"We felt better out in the sunlight; we looked at each other sheepishly, +but neither of us suggested another look at the buildings inside—though +we <em>did</em> see the place later, and that was queer, too—but you'll hear +about it when I come to it. We just loosened our revolvers and crept on +along that ghostly street.</p> + +<p>"The street curved and twisted and subdivided. I kept careful note of +our directions, since we couldn't risk getting lost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> in that gigantic +maze. Without our thermo-skin bags, night would finish us, even if what +lurked in the ruins didn't. By and by, I noticed that we were veering +back toward the canal, the buildings ended and there were only a few +dozen ragged stone huts which looked as though they might have been +built of debris from the city. I was just beginning to feel a bit +disappointed at finding no trace of Tweel's people here when we rounded +a corner and there he was!</p> + +<p>"I yelled 'Tweel!' but he just stared, and then I realized that he +wasn't Tweel, but another Martian of his sort. Tweel's feathery +appendages were more orange hued and he stood several inches taller than +this one. Leroy was sputtering in excitement, and the Martian kept his +vicious beak directed at us, so I stepped forward as peace-maker. I said +'Tweel?' very questioningly, but there was no result. I tried it a dozen +times, and we finally had to give it up; we couldn't connect.</p> + +<p>"Leroy and I walked toward the huts, and the Martian followed us. Twice +he was joined by others, and each time I tried yelling 'Tweel' at them +but they just stared at us. So we ambled on with the three trailing us, +and then it suddenly occurred to me that my Martian accent might be at +fault. I faced the group and tried trilling it out the way Tweel himself +did: 'T-r-r-rwee-r-rl!' Like that.</p> + +<p>"And that worked! One of them spun his head around a full ninety +degrees, and screeched 'T-r-r-rweee-r-rl!' and a moment later, like an +arrow from a bow, Tweel came sailing over the nearer huts to land on his +beak in front of me!</p> + +<p>"Man, we were glad to see each other! Tweel set up a twittering and +chirping like a farm in summer and went sailing up and coming down on +his beak, and I would have grabbed his hands, only he wouldn't keep +still long enough.</p> + +<p>"The other Martians and Leroy just stared, and after a while, Tweel +stopped bouncing, and there we were. We couldn't talk to each other any +more than we could before, so after I'd said 'Tweel' a couple of times +and he'd said 'Tick,' we were more or less helpless. However, it was +only mid-morning, and it seemed important to learn all we could about +Tweel and the city, so I suggested that he guide us around the place if +he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> weren't busy. I put over the idea by pointing back at the buildings +and then at him and us.</p> + +<p>"Well, apparently he wasn't too busy, for he set off with us, leading +the way with one of his hundred and fifty-foot nosedives that set Leroy +gasping. When we caught up, he said something like 'one, one, two—two, +two, four—no, no—yes, yes—rock—no breet!' That didn't seem to mean +anything; perhaps he was just letting Leroy know that he could speak +English, or perhaps he was merely running over his vocabulary to refresh +his memory.</p> + +<p>"Anyway, he showed us around. He had a light of sorts in his black +pouch, good enough for small rooms, but simply lost in some of the +colossal caverns we went through. Nine out of ten buildings meant +absolutely nothing to us—just vast empty chambers, full of shadows and +rustlings and echoes. I couldn't imagine their use; they didn't seem +suitable for living quarters, or even for commercial purposes—trade and +so forth; they might have been all right as power-houses, but what could +have been the purpose of a whole city full? And where were the remains +of the machinery?</p> + +<p>"The place was a mystery. Sometimes Tweel would show us through a hall +that would have housed an ocean-liner, and he'd seem to swell with +pride—and we couldn't make a damn thing of it! As a display of +architectural power, the city was colossal; as anything else it was just +nutty!</p> + +<p>"But we did see one thing that registered. We came to that same building +Leroy and I had entered earlier—the one with the three eyes in it. +Well, we were a little shaky about going in there, but Tweel twittered +and trilled and kept saying, 'Yes, yes, yes!' so we followed him, +staring nervously about for the thing that had watched us. However, that +hall was just like the others, full of murmurs and slithering noises and +shadowy things slipping away into corners. If the three-eyed creature +were still there, it must have slunk away with the others.</p> + +<p>"Tweel led us along the wall; his light showed a series of little +alcoves, and in the first of these we ran into a puzzling thing—a very +weird thing. As the light flashed into the alcove, I saw first just an +empty space, and then, squatting on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> floor, I saw—it! A little +creature about as big as a large rat, it was, gray and huddled and +evidently startled by our appearance. It had the queerest, most devilish +little face!—pointed ears or horns and satanic eyes that seemed to +sparkle with a sort of fiendish intelligence.</p> + +<p>"Tweel saw it, too, and let out a screech of anger, and the creature +rose on two pencil-thin legs and scuttled off with a half-terrified, +half defiant squeak. It darted past us into the darkness too quickly +even for Tweel, and as it ran, something waved on its body like the +fluttering of a cape. Tweel screeched angrily at it and set up a shrill +hullabaloo that sounded like genuine rage.</p> + +<p>"But the thing was gone, and then I noticed the weirdest of imaginable +details. Where it had squatted on the floor was—a book! It had been +hunched over a book!</p> + +<p>"I took a step forward; sure enough, there was some sort of inscription +on the pages—wavy white lines like a seismograph record on black sheets +like the material of Tweel's pouch. Tweel fumed and whistled in wrath, +picked up the volume and slammed it into place on a shelf full of +others. Leroy and I stared dumbfounded at each other.</p> + +<p>"Had the little thing with the fiendish face been reading? Or was it +simply eating the pages, getting physical nourishment rather than +mental? Or had the whole thing been accidental?</p> + +<p>"If the creature were some rat-like pest that destroyed books, Tweel's +rage was understandable, but why should he try to prevent an intelligent +being, even though of an alien race, from <em>reading</em>—if it <em>was</em> reading? I +don't know; I did notice that the book was entirely undamaged, nor did I +see a damaged book among any that we handled. But I have an odd hunch +that if we knew the secret of the little cape-clothed imp, we'd know the +mystery of the vast abandoned city and of the decay of Martian culture.</p> + +<p>"Well, Tweel quieted down after a while and led us completely around +that tremendous hall. It had been a library, I think; at least, there +were thousands upon thousands of those queer black-paged volumes printed +in wavy lines of white. There were pictures, too, in some; and some of +these showed Tweel's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> people. That's a point, of course; it indicated +that his race built the city and printed the books. I don't think the +greatest philologist on earth will ever translate one line of those +records; they were made by minds too different from ours.</p> + +<p>"Tweel could read them, naturally. He twittered off a few lines, and +then I took a few of the books, with his permission; he said 'no, no!' +to some and 'yes, yes!' to others. Perhaps he kept back the ones his +people needed, or perhaps he let me take the ones he thought we'd +understand most easily. I don't know; the books are outside there in the +rocket.</p> + +<p>"Then he held that dim torch of his toward the walls, and they were +pictured. Lord, what pictures! They stretched up and up into the +blackness of the roof, mysterious and gigantic. I couldn't make much of +the first wall; it seemed to be a portrayal of a great assembly of +Tweel's people. Perhaps it was meant to symbolize Society or Government. +But the next wall was more obvious; it showed creatures at work on a +colossal machine of some sort, and that would be Industry or Science. +The back wall had corroded away in part, from what we could see, I +suspected the scene was meant to portray Art, but it was on the fourth +wall that we got a shock that nearly dazed us.</p> + +<p>"I think the symbol was Exploration or Discovery. This wall was a little +plainer, because the moving beam of daylight from that crack lit up the +higher surface and Tweel's torch illuminated the lower. We made out a +giant seated figure, one of the beaked Martians like Tweel, but with +every limb suggesting heaviness, weariness. The arms dropped inertly on +the chair, the thin neck bent and the beak rested on the body, as if the +creature could scarcely bear its own weight. And before it was a queer +kneeling figure, and at sight of it, Leroy and I almost reeled against +each other. It was, apparently, a man!"</p> + +<p>"A man!" bellowed Harrison. "A man you say?"</p> + +<p>"I said apparently," retorted Jarvis. "The artist had exaggerated the +nose almost to the length of Tweel's beak, but the figure had black +shoulder-length hair, and instead of the Martian four, there were <em>five</em> +fingers on its outstretched hand! It was kneeling as if in worship of +the Martian, and on the ground was what looked like a pottery bowl full +of some food as an offering. Well!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> Leroy and I thought we'd gone +screwy!"</p> + +<p>"And Putz and I think so, too!" roared the captain.</p> + +<p>"Maybe we all have," replied Jarvis, with a faint grin at the pale face +of the little Frenchman, who returned it in silence. "Anyway," he +continued, "Tweel was squeaking and pointing at the figure, and saying +'Tick! Tick!' so he recognized the resemblance—and never mind any +cracks about my nose!" he warned the captain. "It was Leroy who made the +important comment; he looked at the Martian and said 'Thoth! The god +Thoth!'"</p> + +<p>"<em lang='fr'>Oui!</em>" confirmed the biologist. "<em lang='fr'>Comme l'Egypte!</em>"</p> + +<p>"Yeah," said Jarvis. "Like the Egyptian ibis-headed god—the one with +the beak. Well, no sooner did Tweel hear the name Thoth than he set up a +clamor of twittering and squeaking. He pointed at himself and said +'Thoth! Thoth!' and then waved his arm all around and repeated it. Of +course he often did queer things, but we both thought we understood what +he meant. He was trying to tell us that his race called themselves +Thoth. Do you see what I'm getting at?"</p> + +<p>"I see, all right," said Harrison. "You think the Martians paid a visit +to the earth, and the Egyptians remembered it in their mythology. Well, +you're off, then; there wasn't any Egyptian civilization fifteen +thousand years ago."</p> + +<p>"Wrong!" grinned Jarvis. "It's too bad we <em>haven't</em> an archeologist +with us, but Leroy tells me that there was a stone-age culture in Egypt +then, the pre-dynastic civilization."</p> + +<p>"Well, even so, what of it?"</p> + +<p>"Plenty! Everything in that picture proves my point. The attitude of the +Martian, heavy and weary—that's the unnatural strain of terrestrial +gravitation. The name Thoth; Leroy tells me Thoth was the Egyptian god +of philosophy and the inventor of <em>writing</em>! Get that? They must have +picked up the idea from watching the Martian take notes. It's too much +for coincidence that Thoth should be beaked and ibis-headed, and that +the beaked Martians call themselves Thoth."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be hanged! But what about the nose on the Egyptian? Do you +mean to tell me that stone-age Egyptians had longer noses than ordinary +men?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Of course not! It's just that the Martians very naturally cast their +paintings in Martianized form. Don't human beings tend to relate +everything to themselves? That's why dugongs and manatees started the +mermaid myths—sailors thought they saw human features on the beasts. So +the Martian artist, drawing either from descriptions or imperfect +photographs, naturally exaggerated the size of the human nose to a +degree that looked normal to him. Or anyway, that's my theory."</p> + +<p>"Well, it'll do as a theory," grunted Harrison. "What I want to hear is +why you two got back here looking like a couple of year-before-last +bird's nests."</p> + +<p>Jarvis shuddered again, and cast another glance at Leroy. The little +biologist was recovering some of his accustomed poise, but he returned +the glance with an echo of the chemist's shudder.</p> + +<p>"We'll get to that," resumed the latter. "Meanwhile I'll stick to Tweel +and his people. We spent the better part of three days with them, as you +know. I can't give every detail, but I'll summarize the important facts +and give our conclusions, which may not be worth an inflated franc. It's +hard to judge this dried-up world by earthly standards.</p> + +<p>"We took pictures of everything possible; I even tried to photograph +that gigantic mural in the library, but unless Tweel's lamp was +unusually rich in actinic rays, I don't suppose it'll show. And that's a +pity, since it's undoubtedly the most interesting object we've found on +Mars, at least from a human viewpoint.</p> + +<p>"Tweel was a very courteous host. He took us to all the points of +interest—even the new water-works."</p> + +<p>Putz's eyes brightened at the word. "Vater-vorks?" he echoed. "For vot?"</p> + +<p>"For the canal, naturally. They have to build up a head of water to +drive it through; that's obvious." He looked at the captain. "You told +me yourself that to drive water from the polar caps of Mars to the +equator was equivalent to forcing it up a twenty-mile hill, because Mars +is flattened at the poles and bulges at the equator just like the +earth."</p> + +<p>"That's true," agreed Harrison.</p> + +<p>"Well," resumed Jarvis, "this city was one of the relay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> stations to +boost the flow. Their power plant was the only one of the giant +buildings that seemed to serve any useful purpose, and that was worth +seeing. I wish you'd seen it, Karl; you'll have to make what you can +from our pictures. It's a sun-power plant!"</p> + +<p>Harrison and Putz stared. "Sun-power!" grunted the captain. "That's +primitive!" And the engineer added an emphatic "<em lang='de'>Ja!</em>" of +agreement.</p> + +<p>"Not as primitive as all that," corrected Jarvis. "The sunlight focused +on a queer cylinder in the center of a big concave mirror, and they drew +an electric current from it. The juice worked the pumps."</p> + +<p>"A t'ermocouple!" ejaculated Putz.</p> + +<p>"That sounds reasonable; you can judge by the pictures. But the +power-plant had some queer things about it. The queerest was that the +machinery was tended, not by Tweel's people, but by some of the +barrel-shaped creatures like the ones in Xanthus!" He gazed around at +the faces of his auditors; there was no comment.</p> + +<p>"Get it?" he resumed. At their silence, he proceeded, "I see you don't. +Leroy figured it out, but whether rightly or wrongly, I don't know. He +thinks that the barrels and Tweel's race have a reciprocal arrangement +like—well, like bees and flowers on earth. The flowers give honey for +the bees; the bees carry the pollen for the flowers. See? The barrels +tend the works and Tweel's people build the canal system. The Xanthus +city must have been a boosting station; that explains the mysterious +machines I saw. And Leroy believes further that it isn't an intelligent +arrangement—not on the part of the barrels, at least—but that it's been +done for so many thousands of generations that it's become +instinctive—a tropism—just like the actions of ants and bees. The +creatures have been bred to it!"</p> + +<p>"Nuts!" observed Harrison. "Let's hear you explain the reason for that +big empty city, then."</p> + +<p>"Sure. Tweel's civilization is decadent, that's the reason. It's a dying +race, and out of all the millions that must once have lived there, +Tweel's couple of hundred companions are the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> remnant. They're an +outpost, left to tend the source of the water at the polar cap; probably +there are still a few respectable cities left somewhere on the canal +system, most likely near the tropics. It's the last gasp of a race—and +a race that reached a higher peak of culture than Man!"</p> + +<p>"Huh?" said Harrison. "Then why are they dying? Lack of water?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," responded the chemist. "If my guess at the city's +age is right, fifteen thousand years wouldn't make enough difference in +the water supply—nor a hundred thousand, for that matter. It's +something else, though the water's doubtless a factor."</p> + +<p>"<em lang='de'>Das wasser</em>," cut in Putz. "Vere goes dot?"</p> + +<p>"Even a chemist knows that!" scoffed Jarvis. "At least on earth. Here +I'm not so sure, but on earth, every time there's a lightning flash, it +electrolyzes some water vapor into hydrogen and oxygen, and then the +hydrogen escapes into space, because terrestrial gravitation won't hold +it permanently. And every time there's an earthquake, some water is lost +to the interior. Slow—but damned certain." He turned to Harrison. +"Right, Cap?"</p> + +<p>"Right," conceded the captain. "But here, of course—no earthquakes, no +thunderstorms—the loss must be very slow. Then why is the race dying?"</p> + +<p>"The sun-power plant answers that," countered Jarvis. "Lack of fuel! +Lack of power! No oil left, no coal left—if Mars ever had a +Carboniferous Age—and no water-power—just the driblets of energy they +can get from the sun. That's why they're dying."</p> + +<p>"With the limitless energy of the atom?" exploded Harrison.</p> + +<p>"They don't know about atomic energy. Probably never did. Must have used +some other principle in their space-ship."</p> + +<p>"Then," snapped the captain, "what makes you rate their intelligence +above the human? We've finally cracked open the atom!"</p> + +<p>"Sure we have. We had a clue, didn't we? Radium and uranium. Do you +think we'd ever have learned how without those elements? We'd never even +have suspected that atomic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> energy existed!"</p> + +<p>"Well? Haven't they—?"</p> + +<p>"No, they haven't. You've told me yourself that Mars has only 73 percent +of the earth's density. Even a chemist can see that that means a lack of +heavy metals—no osmium, no uranium, no radium. They didn't have the +clue."</p> + +<p>"Even so, that doesn't prove they're more advanced than we are. If they +were <em>more</em> advanced, they'd have discovered it anyway."</p> + +<p>"Maybe," conceded Jarvis. "I'm not claiming that we don't surpass them +in some ways. But in others, they're far ahead of us."</p> + +<p>"In what, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"Well—socially, for one thing."</p> + +<p>"Huh? How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>Jarvis glanced in turn at each of the three that faced him. He +hesitated. "I wonder how you chaps will take this," he muttered. +"Naturally, everybody likes his own system best." He frowned. "Look +here—on the earth we have three types of society, haven't we? And +there's a member of each type right here. Putz lives under a +dictatorship—an autocracy. Leroy's a citizen of the Sixth Commune in +France. Harrison and I are Americans, members of a democracy. There you +are—autocracy, democracy, communism—the three types of terrestrial +societies. Tweel's people have a different system from any of us."</p> + +<p>"Different? What is it?"</p> + +<p>"The one no earthly nation has tried. Anarchy!"</p> + +<p>"Anarchy!" the captain and Putz burst out together.</p> + +<p>"That's right."</p> + +<p>"But—" Harrison was sputtering. "What do you mean—they're ahead of us? +Anarchy! Bah!"</p> + +<p>"All right—bah!" retorted Jarvis. "I'm not saying it would work for us, +or for any race of men. But it works for them."</p> + +<p>"But—anarchy!" The captain was indignant.</p> + +<p>"Well, when you come right down to it," argued Jarvis defensively, +"anarchy is the ideal form of government, if it works. Emerson said that +the best government was that which governs least, and so did Wendell +Phillips, and I think George Wash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>ington. And you can't have any form of +government which governs less than anarchy, which is no government at +all!"</p> + +<p>The captain was sputtering. "But—it's unnatural! Even savage tribes +have their chiefs! Even a pack of wolves has its leader!"</p> + +<p>"Well," retorted Jarvis defiantly, "that only proves that government is +a primitive device, doesn't it? With a perfect race you wouldn't need it +at all; government is a confession of weakness, isn't it? It's a +confession that part of the people won't cooperate with the rest and +that you need laws to restrain those individuals which a psychologist +calls anti-social. If there were no anti-social persons—criminals and +such—you wouldn't need laws or police, would you?"</p> + +<p>"But government! You'd need government! How about public +works—wars—taxes?"</p> + +<p>"No wars on Mars, in spite of being named after the War God. No point in +wars here; the population is too thin and too scattered, and besides, it +takes the help of every single community to keep the canal system +functioning. No taxes because, apparently, all individuals cooperate in +building public works. No competition to cause trouble, because anybody +can help himself to anything. As I said, with a perfect race government +is entirely unnecessary."</p> + +<p>"And do you consider the Martians a perfect race?" asked the captain +grimly.</p> + +<p>"Not at all! But they've existed so much longer than man that they're +evolved, socially at least, to the point where they don't need +government. They work together, that's all." Jarvis paused. "Queer, +isn't it—as if Mother Nature were carrying on two experiments, one at +home and one on Mars. On earth it's trial of an emotional, highly +competitive race in a world of plenty; here it's the trial of a quiet, +friendly race on a desert, unproductive, and inhospitable world. +Everything here makes for cooperation. Why, there isn't even the factor +that causes so much trouble at home—sex!"</p> + +<p>"Huh?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah: Tweel's people reproduce just like the barrels in the mud cities; +two individuals grow a third one between them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Another proof of Leroy's +theory that Martian life is neither animal nor vegetable. Besides, Tweel +was a good enough host to let him poke down his beak and twiddle his +feathers, and the examination convinced Leroy."</p> + +<p>"<em lang='fr'>Oui</em>," confirmed the biologist. "It is true."</p> + +<p>"But anarchy!" grumbled Harrison disgustedly. "It would show up on a +dizzy, half-dead pill like Mars!"</p> + +<p>"It'll be a good many centuries before you'll have to worry about it on +earth," grinned Jarvis. He resumed his narrative.</p> + +<p>"Well, we wandered through that sepulchral city, taking pictures of +everything. And then—" Jarvis paused and shuddered—"then I took a +notion to have a look at that valley we'd spotted from the rocket. I +don't know why. But when we tried to steer Tweel in that direction, he +set up such a squawking and screeching that I thought he'd gone batty."</p> + +<p>"If possible!" jeered Harrison.</p> + +<p>"So we started over there without him; he kept wailing and screaming, +'No—no—no! Tick!' but that made us the more curious. He sailed over our +heads and stuck on his beak, and went through a dozen other antics, but +we ploughed on, and finally he gave up and trudged disconsolately along +with us.</p> + +<p>"The valley wasn't more than a mile southeast of the city. Tweel could +have covered the distance in twenty jumps, but he lagged and loitered +and kept pointing back at the city and wailing 'No—no—no!' Then he'd +sail up into the air and zip down on his beak directly in front of us, +and we'd have to walk around him. I'd seen him do lots of crazy things +before, of course; I was used to them, but it was as plain as print that +he didn't want us to see that valley."</p> + +<p>"Why?" queried Harrison.</p> + +<p>"You asked why we came back like tramps," said Jarvis with a faint +shudder. "You'll learn. We plugged along up a low rocky hill that +bounded it, and as we neared the top, Tweel said, 'No breet', Tick! No +breet'!' Well, those were the words he used to describe the silicon +monster; they were also the words he had used to tell me that the image +of Fancy Long, the one that had almost lured me to the dream-beast, +wasn't real. I remembered that, but it meant nothing to me—then!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Right after that, Tweel said, 'You one-one-two, he one-one-two,' and +then I began to see. That was the phrase he had used to explain the +dream-beast to tell me that what I thought, the creature thought—to +tell me how the thing lured its victims by their own desires. So I +warned Leroy; it seemed to me that even the dream-beast couldn't be +dangerous if we were warned and expecting it. Well, I was wrong!</p> + +<p>"As we reached the crest, Tweel spun his head completely around, so his +feet were forward but his eyes looked backward, as if he feared to gaze +into the valley. Leroy and I stared out over it, just a gray waste like +this around us, with the gleam of the south polar cap far beyond its +southern rim. That's what it was one second; the next it was—Paradise!"</p> + +<p>"What?" exclaimed the captain.</p> + +<p>Jarvis turned to Leroy. "Can you describe it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The biologist waved helpless hands, "<em lang='fr'>C'est impossible!</em>" he +whispered. "<em lang='fr'>Il me rend muet!</em>"</p> + +<p>"It strikes me dumb, too," muttered Jarvis. "I don't know how to tell +it; I'm a chemist, not a poet. Paradise is as good a word as I can think +of, and that's not at all right. It was Paradise and Hell in one!"</p> + +<p>"Will you talk sense?" growled Harrison.</p> + +<p>"As much of it as makes sense. I tell you, one moment we were looking at +a grey valley covered with blobby plants, and the next—Lord! You can't +imagine that next moment! How would you like to see all your dreams made +real? Every desire you'd ever had gratified? Everything you'd ever +wanted there for the taking?"</p> + +<p>"I'd like it fine!" said the captain.</p> + +<p>"You're welcome, then!—not only your noble desires, remember! Every +good impulse, yes—but also every nasty little wish, every vicious +thought, everything you'd ever desired, good or bad! The dream-beasts +are marvelous salesmen, but they lack the moral sense!"</p> + +<p>"The dream-beasts?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It was a valley of them. Hundreds, I suppose, maybe thousands. +Enough, at any rate, to spread out a complete picture of your desires, +even all the forgotten ones that must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> have been drawn out of the +subconscious. A Paradise—of sorts! I saw a dozen Fancy Longs, in every +costume I'd ever admired on her, and some I must have imagined. I saw +every beautiful woman I've ever known, and all of them pleading for my +attention. I saw every lovely place I'd ever wanted to be, all packed +queerly into that little valley. And I saw—other things." He shook his +head soberly. "It wasn't all exactly pretty. Lord! How much of the beast +is left in us! I suppose if every man alive could have one look at that +weird valley, and could see just once what nastiness is hidden in +him—well, the world might gain by it. I thanked heaven afterwards that +Leroy—and even Tweel—saw their own pictures and not mine!"</p> + +<p>Jarvis paused again, then resumed, "I turned dizzy with a sort of +ecstasy. I closed my eyes—and with eyes closed, I still saw the whole +thing! That beautiful, evil, devilish panorama was in my mind, not my +eyes. That's how those fiends work—through the mind. I knew it was the +dream-beasts; I didn't need Tweel's wail of 'No breet'! No breet'!' +But—<em>I couldn't keep away!</em> I knew it was death beckoning, but it was +worth it for one moment with the vision."</p> + +<p>"Which particular vision?" asked Harrison dryly.</p> + +<p>Jarvis flushed. "No matter," he said. "But beside me I heard Leroy's cry +of 'Yvonne! Yvonne!' and I knew he was trapped like myself. I fought for +sanity; I kept telling myself to stop, and all the time I was rushing +headlong into the snare!</p> + +<p>"Then something tripped me. Tweel! He had come leaping from behind; as I +crashed down I saw him flash over me straight toward—toward what I'd +been running to, with his vicious beak pointed right at her heart!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" nodded the captain. "<em>Her</em> heart!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind that. When I scrambled up, that particular image was gone, +and Tweel was in a twist of black ropey arms, just as when I first saw +him. He'd missed a vital point in the beast's anatomy, but was jabbing +away desperately with his beak.</p> + +<p>"Somehow, the spell had lifted, or partially lifted. I wasn't five feet +from Tweel, and it took a terrific struggle, but I managed to raise my +revolver and put a Boland shell into the beast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> Out came a spurt of +horrible black corruption, drenching Tweel and me—and I guess the +sickening smell of it helped to destroy the illusion of that valley of +beauty. Anyway, we managed to get Leroy away from the devil that had +him, and the three of us staggered to the ridge and over. I had presence +of mind enough to raise my camera over the crest and take a shot of the +valley, but I'll bet it shows nothing but gray waste and writhing +horrors. What we saw was with our minds, not our eyes."</p> + +<p>Jarvis paused and shuddered. "The brute half poisoned Leroy," he +continued. "We dragged ourselves back to the auxiliary, called you, and +did what we could to treat ourselves. Leroy took a long dose of the +cognac that we had with us; we didn't dare try anything of Tweel's +because his metabolism is so different from ours that what cured him +might kill us. But the cognac seemed to work, and so, after I'd done one +other thing I wanted to do, we came back here—and that's all."</p> + +<p>"All, is it?" queried Harrison. "So you've solved all the mysteries of +Mars, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Not by a damned sight!" retorted Jarvis. "Plenty of unanswered +questions are left."</p> + +<p>"<em lang='de'>Ja!</em>" snapped Putz. "<span lang='de'>Der</span> evaporation—dot iss shtopped how?"</p> + +<p>"In the canals? I wondered about that, too; in those thousands of miles, +and against this low air-pressure, you'd think they'd lose a lot. But +the answer's simple; they float a skin of oil on the water."</p> + +<p>Putz nodded, but Harrison cut in. "Here's a puzzler. With only coal and +oil—just combustion or electric power—where'd they get the energy to +build a planet-wide canal system, thousands and thousands of miles of +'em? Think of the job we had cutting the Panama Canal to sea level, and +then answer that!"</p> + +<p>"Easy!" grinned Jarvis. "Martian gravity and Martian air—that's the +answer. Figure it out: First, the dirt they dug only weighed a third its +earth-weight. Second, a steam engine here expands against ten pounds per +square inch less air pressure than on earth. Third, they could build the +engine three times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> as large here with no greater internal weight. And +fourth, the whole planet's nearly level. Right, Putz?"</p> + +<p>The engineer nodded. "<em lang='de'>Ja!</em> <span lang='de'>Der</span> shteam—engine—it iss +<em lang='de'>sieben-und zwanzig</em>—twenty-seven times so effective here."</p> + +<p>"Well, there <em>does</em> go the last mystery then," mused Harrison.</p> + +<p>"Yeah?" queried Jarvis sardonically. "You answer these, then. What was +the nature of that vast empty city? Why do the Martians <em>need</em> canals, +since we never saw them eat or drink? Did they really visit the earth +before the dawn of history, and, if not atomic energy, what powered +their ship? Since Tweel's race seems to need little or no water, are +they merely operating the canals for some higher creature that does? +<em>Are</em> there other intelligences on Mars? If not, what was the +demon-faced imp we saw with the book? There are a few mysteries for +you!"</p> + +<p>"I know one or two more!" growled Harrison, glaring suddenly at little +Leroy. "You and your visions! 'Yvonne!' eh? Your wife's name is Marie, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>The little biologist turned crimson. "<em lang='fr'>Oui</em>," he admitted +unhappily. He turned pleading eyes on the captain. "Please," he said. +"In Paris <em lang='fr'>tout le monde</em>—everybody he think differently of +those things—no?" He twisted uncomfortably. "Please, you will not tell +Marie, <em lang='fr'>n'est-ce pas</em>?"</p> + +<p>Harrison chuckled. "None of my business," he said. "One more question, +Jarvis. What was the one other thing you did before returning here?"</p> + +<p>Jarvis looked diffident. "Oh—that." He hesitated. "Well I sort of felt +we owed Tweel a lot, so after some trouble, we coaxed him into the +rocket and sailed him out to the wreck of the first one, over on Thyle +II. Then," he finished apologetically, "I showed him the atomic blast, +got it working—and gave it to him!"</p> + +<p>"You <em>what</em>?" roared the Captain. "You turned something as powerful as +that over to an alien race—maybe some day as an enemy race?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did," said Jarvis. "Look here," he argued defensively. "This +lousy, dried-up pill of a desert called Mars'll never support much human +population. The Sahara desert is just as good a field for imperialism, +and a lot closer to home. So we'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> never find Tweel's race enemies. The +only value we'll find here is commercial trade with the Martians. Then +why shouldn't I give Tweel a chance for survival? With atomic energy, +they can run their canal system a hundred per cent instead of only one +out of five, as Putz's observations showed. They can repopulate those +ghostly cities; they can resume their arts and industries; they can +trade with the nations of the earth—and I'll bet they can teach us a +few things," he paused, "if they can figure out the atomic blast, and +I'll lay odds they can. They're no fools, Tweel and his ostrich-faced +Martians!"</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Valley of Dreams, by Stanley Grauman Weinbaum + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALLEY OF DREAMS *** + +***** This file should be named 22301-h.htm or 22301-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/3/0/22301/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Pat A. Benoy and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Valley of Dreams + +Author: Stanley Grauman Weinbaum + +Release Date: August 11, 2007 [EBook #22301] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALLEY OF DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Pat A. Benoy and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + ++--------------------------------------------------------------+ +| | +| Transcriber's Note: | +| | +| This etext of Valley of Dreams by Stanley G. Weinbaum was | +| produced from "A Martian Odyssey and Others" published in | +| 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that | +| the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. | +| | ++--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + +VALLEY OF DREAMS + + +Captain Harrison of the _Ares_ expedition turned away from the little +telescope in the bow of the rocket. "Two weeks more, at the most," he +remarked. "Mars only retrogrades for seventy days in all, relative to +the earth, and we've got to be homeward bound during that period, or +wait a year and a half for old Mother Earth to go around the sun and +catch up with us again. How'd you like to spend a winter here?" + +Dick Jarvis, chemist of the party, shivered as he looked up from his +notebook. "I'd just as soon spend it in a liquid air tank!" he averred. +"These eighty-below zero summer nights are plenty for me." + +"Well," mused the captain, "the first successful Martian expedition +ought to be home long before then." + +"Successful if we get home," corrected Jarvis. "I don't trust these +cranky rockets--not since the auxiliary dumped me in the middle of Thyle +last week. Walking back from a rocket ride is a new sensation to me." + +"Which reminds me," returned Harrison, "that we've got to recover your +films. They're important if we're to pull this trip out of the red. +Remember how the public mobbed the first moon pictures? Our shots ought +to pack 'em to the doors. And the broadcast rights, too; we might show a +profit for the Academy." + +"What interests me," countered Jarvis, "is a personal profit. A book, +for instance; exploration books are always popular. _Martian +Deserts_--how's that for a title?" + +"Lousy!" grunted the captain. "Sounds like a cook-book for desserts. +You'd have to call it 'Love Life of a Martian,' or something like that." + +Jarvis chuckled. "Anyway," he said, "if we once get back home, I'm going +to grab what profit there is, and never, never, get any farther from the +earth than a good stratosphere plane'll take me. I've learned to +appreciate the planet after plowing over this dried-up pill we're on +now." + +"I'll lay you odds you'll be back here year after next," grinned the +Captain. "You'll want to visit your pal--that trick ostrich." + +"Tweel?" The other's tone sobered. "I wish I hadn't lost him, at that. +He was a good scout. I'd never have survived the dream-beast but for +him. And that battle with the push-cart things--I never even had a +chance to thank him." + +"A pair of lunatics, you two," observed Harrison. He squinted through +the port at the gray gloom of the Mare Cimmerium. "There comes the sun." +He paused. "Listen, Dick--you and Leroy take the other auxiliary rocket +and go out and salvage those films." + +Jarvis stared. "Me and Leroy?" he echoed ungrammatically. "Why not me +and Putz? An engineer would have some chance of getting us there and +back if the rocket goes bad on us." + +The captain nodded toward the stern, whence issued at that moment a +medley of blows and guttural expletives. "Putz is going over the insides +of the _Ares_," he announced. "He'll have his hands full until we leave, +because I want every bolt inspected. It's too late for repairs once we +cast off." + +"And if Leroy and I crack up? That's our last auxiliary." + +"Pick up another ostrich and walk back," suggested Harrison gruffly. +Then he smiled. "If you have trouble, we'll hunt you out in the _Ares_," +he finished. "Those films are important." He turned. "Leroy!" + +The dapper little biologist appeared, his face questioning. + +"You and Jarvis are off to salvage the auxiliary," the Captain said. +"Everything's ready and you'd better start now. Call back at half-hour +intervals; I'll be listening." + +Leroy's eyes glistened. "Perhaps we land for specimens--no?" he queried. + +"Land if you want to. This golf ball seems safe enough." + +"Except for the dream-beast," muttered Jarvis with a faint shudder. He +frowned suddenly. "Say, as long as we're going that way, suppose I have +a look for Tweel's home! He must live off there somewhere, and he's the +most important thing we've seen on Mars." + +Harrison hesitated. "If I thought you could keep out of trouble," he +muttered. "All right," he decided. "Have a look. There's food and water +aboard the auxiliary; you can take a couple of days. But keep in touch +with me, you saps!" + +Jarvis and Leroy went through the airlock out to the grey plain. The +thin air, still scarcely warmed by the rising sun, bit flesh and lung +like needles, and they gasped with a sense of suffocation. They dropped +to a sitting posture, waiting for their bodies, trained by months in +acclimatization chambers back on earth, to accommodate themselves to the +tenuous air. Leroy's face, as always, turned a smothered blue, and +Jarvis heard his own breath rasping and rattling in his throat. But in +five minutes, the discomfort passed; they rose and entered the little +auxiliary rocket that rested beside the black hull of the _Ares_. + +The under-jets roared out their fiery atomic blast; dirt and bits of +shattered biopods spun away in a cloud as the rocket rose. Harrison +watched the projectile trail its flaming way into the south, then turned +back to his work. + +It was four days before he saw the rocket again. Just at evening, as the +sun dropped behind the horizon with the suddenness of a candle falling +into the sea, the auxiliary flashed out of the southern heavens, easing +gently down on the flaming wings of the under-jets. Jarvis and Leroy +emerged, passed through the swiftly gathering dusk, and faced him in the +light of the _Ares_. He surveyed the two; Jarvis was tattered and +scratched, but apparently in better condition than Leroy, whose +dapperness was completely lost. The little biologist was pale as the +nearer moon that glowed outside; one arm was bandaged in thermo-skin and +his clothes hung in veritable rags. But it was his eyes that struck +Harrison most strangely; to one who lived these many weary days with the +diminutive Frenchman, there was something queer about them. They were +frightened, plainly enough, and that was odd, since Leroy was no coward +or he'd never have been one of the four chosen by the Academy for the +first Martian expedition. But the fear in his eyes was more +understandable than that other expression, that queer fixity of gaze +like one in a trance, or like a person in an ecstasy. "Like a chap who's +seen Heaven and Hell together," Harrison expressed it to himself. He was +yet to discover how right he was. + +He assumed a gruffness as the weary pair sat down. "You're a fine +looking couple!" he growled. "I should've known better than to let you +wander off alone." He paused. "Is your arm all right, Leroy? Need any +treatment?" + +Jarvis answered. "It's all right--just gashed. No danger of infection +here, I guess; Leroy says there aren't any microbes on Mars." + +"Well," exploded the Captain, "Let's hear it, then! Your radio reports +sounded screwy. 'Escaped from Paradise!' Huh!" + +"I didn't want to give details on the radio," said Jarvis soberly. +"You'd have thought we'd gone loony." + +"I think so, anyway." + +"_Moi aussi!_" muttered Leroy. "I too!" + +"Shall I begin at the beginning?" queried the chemist. "Our early +reports were pretty nearly complete." He stared at Putz, who had come in +silently, his face and hands blackened with carbon, and seated himself +beside Harrison. + +"At the beginning," the Captain decided. + +"Well," began Jarvis, "we got started all right, and flew due south +along the meridian of the _Ares_, same course I'd followed last week. I +was getting used to this narrow horizon, so I didn't feel so much like +being cooped under a big bowl, but one does keep overestimating +distances. Something four miles away looks eight when you're used to +terrestrial curvature, and that makes you guess its size just four times +too large. A little hill looks like a mountain until you're almost over +it." + +"I know that," grunted Harrison. + +"Yes, but Leroy didn't, and I spent our first couple of hours trying to +explain it to him. By the time he understood (if he does yet) we were +past Cimmerium and over that Xanthus desert, and then we crossed the +canal with the mud city and the barrel-shaped citizens and the place +where Tweel had shot the dream-beast. And nothing would do for Pierre +here but that we put down so he could practice his biology on the +remains. So we did. + +"The thing was still there. No sign of decay; couldn't be, of course, +without bacterial forms of life, and Leroy says that Mars is as sterile +as an operating table." + +"_Comme le coeur d'une fileuse_," corrected the little biologist, who +was beginning to regain a trace of his usual energy. "Like an old maid's +heart!" + +"However," resumed Jarvis, "about a hundred of the little grey-green +biopods had fastened onto the thing and were growing and branching. +Leroy found a stick and knocked 'em off, and each branch broke away and +became a biopod crawling around with the others. So he poked around at +the creature, while I looked away from it; even dead, that rope-armed +devil gave me the creeps. And then came the surprise; the thing was part +plant!" + +"_C'est vrai!_" confirmed the biologist. "It's true!" + +"It was a big cousin of the biopods," continued Jarvis. "Leroy was quite +excited; he figures that all Martian life is of that sort--neither plant +nor animal. Life here never differentiated, he says; everything has both +natures in it, even the barrel-creatures--even Tweel! I think he's +right, especially when I recall how Tweel rested, sticking his beak in +the ground and staying that way all night. I never saw him eat or drink, +either; perhaps his beak was more in the nature of a root, and he got +his nourishment that way." + +"Sounds nutty to me," observed Harrison. + +"Well," continued Jarvis, "we broke up a few of the other growths and +they acted the same way--the pieces crawled around, only much slower +than the biopods, and then stuck themselves in the ground. Then Leroy +had to catch a sample of the walking grass, and we were ready to leave +when a parade of the barrel-creatures rushed by with their push-carts. +They hadn't forgotten me, either; they all drummed out, 'We are +v-r-r-iends--ouch!' just as they had before. Leroy wanted to shoot one +and cut it up, but I remembered the battle Tweel and I had had with +them, and vetoed the idea. But he did hit on a possible explanation as +to what they did with all the rubbish they gathered." + +"Made mud-pies, I guess," grunted the captain. + +"More or less," agreed Jarvis. "They use it for food, Leroy thinks. If +they're part vegetable, you see, that's what they'd want--soil with +organic remains in it to make it fertile. That's why they ground up sand +and biopods and other growths all together. See?" + +"Dimly," countered Harrison. "How about the suicides?" + +"Leroy had a hunch there, too. The suicides jump into the grinder when +the mixture has too much sand and gravel; they throw themselves in to +adjust the proportions." + +"Rats!" said Harrison disgustedly. "Why couldn't they bring in some +extra branches from outside?" + +"Because suicide is easier. You've got to remember that these creatures +can't be judged by earthly standards; they probably don't feel pain, and +they haven't got what we'd call individuality. Any intelligence they +have is the property of the whole community--like an ant-heap. That's +it! Ants are willing to die for their ant-hill; so are these creatures." + +"So are men," observed the captain, "if it comes to that." + +"Yes, but men aren't exactly eager. It takes some emotion like +patriotism to work 'em to the point of dying for their country; these +things do it all in the day's work." He paused. + +"Well, we took some pictures of the dream-beast and the +barrel-creatures, and then we started along. We sailed over Xanthus, +keeping as close to the meridian of the _Ares_ as we could, and pretty +soon we crossed the trail of the pyramid-builder. So we circled back to +let Leroy take a look at it, and when we found it, we landed. The thing +had completed just two rows of bricks since Tweel and I left it, and +there it was, breathing in silicon and breathing out bricks as if it had +eternity to do it in--which it has. Leroy wanted to dissect it with a +Boland explosive bullet, but I thought that anything that had lived for +ten million years was entitled to the respect due old age, so I talked +him out of it. He peeped into the hole on top of it and nearly got +beaned by the arm coming up with a brick, and then he chipped off a few +pieces of it, which didn't disturb the creature a bit. He found the +place I'd chipped, tried to see if there was any sign of healing, and +decided he could tell better in two or three thousand years. So we took +a few shots of it and sailed on. + +"Mid afternoon we located the wreck of my rocket. Not a thing disturbed; +we picked up my films and tried to decide what next. I wanted to find +Tweel if possible; I figured from the fact of his pointing south that he +lived somewhere near Thyle. We plotted our route and judged that the +desert we were in now was Thyle II; Thyle I should be east of us. So, on +a hunch, we decided to have a look at Thyle I, and away we buzzed." + +"_Der_ motors?" queried Putz, breaking his long silence. + +"For a wonder, we had no trouble, Karl. Your blast worked perfectly. So +we hummed along, pretty high to get a wider view, I'd say about fifty +thousand feet. Thyle II spread out like an orange carpet, and after a +while we came to the grey branch of the Mare Chronium that bounded it. +That was narrow; we crossed it in half an hour, and there was Thyle +I--same orange-hued desert as its mate. We veered south, toward the Mare +Australe, and followed the edge of the desert. And toward sunset we +spotted it." + +"Shpotted?" echoed Putz. "Vot vas shpotted?" + +"The desert was spotted--with buildings! Not one of the mud cities of +the canals, although a canal went through it. From the map we figured +the canal was a continuation of the one Schiaparelli called Ascanius. + +"We were probably too high to be visible to any inhabitants of the city, +but also too high for a good look at it, even with the glasses. However, +it was nearly sunset, anyway, so we didn't plan on dropping in. We +circled the place; the canal went out into the Mare Australe, and there, +glittering in the south, was the melting polar ice-cap! The canal +drained it; we could distinguish the sparkle of water in it. Off to the +southeast, just at the edge of the Mare Australe, was a valley--the +first irregularity I'd seen on Mars except the cliffs that bounded +Xanthus and Thyle II. We flew over the valley--" Jarvis paused suddenly +and shuddered; Leroy, whose color had begun to return, seemed to pale. +The chemist resumed, "Well, the valley looked all right--then! Just a +gray waste, probably full of crawlers like the others. + +"We circled back over the city; say, I want to tell you that place +was--well, gigantic! It was colossal; at first I thought the size was +due to that illusion I spoke of--you know, the nearness of the +horizon--but it wasn't that. We sailed right over it, and you've never +seen anything like it! + +"But the sun dropped out of sight right then. I knew we were pretty far +south--latitude 60--but I didn't know just how much night we'd have." + +Harrison glanced at a Schiaparelli chart. "About 60--eh?" he said. +"Close to what corresponds to the Antarctic circle. You'd have about +four hours of night at this season. Three months from now you'd have +none at all." + +"Three months!" echoed Jarvis, surprised. Then he grinned. "Right! I +forget the seasons here are twice as long as ours. Well, we sailed out +into the desert about twenty miles, which put the city below the horizon +in case we overslept, and there we spent the night. + +"You're right about the length of it. We had about four hours of +darkness which left us fairly rested. We ate breakfast, called our +location to you, and started over to have a look at the city. + +"We sailed toward it from the east and it loomed up ahead of us like a +range of mountains. Lord, what a city! Not that New York mightn't have +higher buildings, or Chicago cover more ground, but for sheer mass, +those structures were in a class by themselves. Gargantuan! + +"There was a queer look about the place, though. You know how a +terrestrial city sprawls out, a nimbus of suburbs, a ring of residential +sections, factory districts, parks, highways. There was none of that +here; the city rose out of the desert as abruptly as a cliff. Only a few +little sand mounds marked the division, and then the walls of those +gigantic structures. + +"The architecture was strange, too. There were lots of devices that are +impossible back home, such as set-backs in reverse, so that a building +with a small base could spread out as it rose. That would be a valuable +trick in New York, where land is almost priceless, but to do it, you'd +have to transfer Martian gravitation there! + +"Well, since you can't very well land a rocket in a city street, we put +down right next to the canal side of the city, took our small cameras +and revolvers, and started for a gap in the wall of masonry. We weren't +ten feet from the rocket when we both saw the explanation for a lot of +the queerness. + +"The city was in ruin! Abandoned, deserted, dead as Babylon! Or at +least, so it looked to us then, with its empty streets which, if they +had been paved, were now deep under sand." + +"A ruin, eh?" commented Harrison. "How old?" + +"How could we tell?" countered Jarvis. "The next expedition to this golf +ball ought to carry an archeologist--and a philologist, too, as we +found out later. But it's a devil of a job to estimate the age of +anything here; things weather so slowly that most of the buildings might +have been put up yesterday. No rainfall, no earthquakes, no vegetation +is here to spread cracks with its roots--nothing. The only aging factors +here are the erosion of the wind--and that's negligible in this +atmosphere--and the cracks caused by changing temperature. And one other +agent--meteorites. They must crash down occasionally on the city, +judging from the thinness of the air, and the fact that we've seen four +strike ground right here near the _Ares_." + +"Seven," corrected the captain. "Three dropped while you were gone." + +"Well, damage by meteorites must be slow, anyway. Big ones would be as +rare here as on earth, because big ones get through in spite of the +atmosphere, and those buildings could sustain a lot of little ones. My +guess at the city's age--and it may be wrong by a big percentage--would +be fifteen thousand years. Even that's thousands of years older than any +human civilization; fifteen thousand years ago was the Late Stone Age in +the history of mankind. + +"So Leroy and I crept up to those tremendous buildings feeling like +pygmies, sort of awe-struck, and talking in whispers. I tell you, it was +ghostly walking down that dead and deserted street, and every time we +passed through a shadow, we shivered, and not just because shadows are +cold on Mars. We felt like intruders, as if the great race that had +built the place might resent our presence even across a hundred and +fifty centuries. The place was as quiet as a grave, but we kept +imagining things and peeping down the dark lanes between buildings and +looking over our shoulders. Most of the structures were windowless, but +when we did see an opening in those vast walls, we couldn't look away, +expecting to see some horror peering out of it. + +"Then we passed an edifice with an open arch; the doors were there, but +blocked open by sand. I got up nerve enough to take a look inside, and +then, of course, we discovered we'd forgotten to take our flashes. But +we eased a few feet into the darkness and the passage debouched into a +colossal hall. Far above us a little crack let in a pallid ray of +daylight, not nearly enough to light the place; I couldn't even see if +the hall rose clear to the distant roof. But I know the place was +enormous; I said something to Leroy and a million thin echoes came +slipping back to us out of the darkness. And after that, we began to +hear other sounds--slithering rustling noises, and whispers, and sounds +like suppressed breathing--and something black and silent passed between +us and that far-away crevice of light. + +"Then we saw three little greenish spots of luminosity in the dusk to +our left. We stood staring at them, and suddenly they all shifted at +once. Leroy yelled '_Ce sont des yeux!_' and they were! They were eyes! + +"Well, we stood frozen for a moment, while Leroy's yell reverberated +back and forth between the distant walls, and the echoes repeated the +words in queer, thin voices. There were mumblings and mutterings and +whisperings and sounds like strange soft laughter, and then the +three-eyed thing moved again. Then we broke for the door! + +"We felt better out in the sunlight; we looked at each other sheepishly, +but neither of us suggested another look at the buildings inside--though +we _did_ see the place later, and that was queer, too--but you'll hear +about it when I come to it. We just loosened our revolvers and crept on +along that ghostly street. + +"The street curved and twisted and subdivided. I kept careful note of +our directions, since we couldn't risk getting lost in that gigantic +maze. Without our thermo-skin bags, night would finish us, even if what +lurked in the ruins didn't. By and by, I noticed that we were veering +back toward the canal, the buildings ended and there were only a few +dozen ragged stone huts which looked as though they might have been +built of debris from the city. I was just beginning to feel a bit +disappointed at finding no trace of Tweel's people here when we rounded +a corner and there he was! + +"I yelled 'Tweel!' but he just stared, and then I realized that he +wasn't Tweel, but another Martian of his sort. Tweel's feathery +appendages were more orange hued and he stood several inches taller than +this one. Leroy was sputtering in excitement, and the Martian kept his +vicious beak directed at us, so I stepped forward as peace-maker. I said +'Tweel?' very questioningly, but there was no result. I tried it a dozen +times, and we finally had to give it up; we couldn't connect. + +"Leroy and I walked toward the huts, and the Martian followed us. Twice +he was joined by others, and each time I tried yelling 'Tweel' at them +but they just stared at us. So we ambled on with the three trailing us, +and then it suddenly occurred to me that my Martian accent might be at +fault. I faced the group and tried trilling it out the way Tweel himself +did: 'T-r-r-rwee-r-rl!' Like that. + +"And that worked! One of them spun his head around a full ninety +degrees, and screeched 'T-r-r-rweee-r-rl!' and a moment later, like an +arrow from a bow, Tweel came sailing over the nearer huts to land on his +beak in front of me! + +"Man, we were glad to see each other! Tweel set up a twittering and +chirping like a farm in summer and went sailing up and coming down on +his beak, and I would have grabbed his hands, only he wouldn't keep +still long enough. + +"The other Martians and Leroy just stared, and after a while, Tweel +stopped bouncing, and there we were. We couldn't talk to each other any +more than we could before, so after I'd said 'Tweel' a couple of times +and he'd said 'Tick,' we were more or less helpless. However, it was +only mid-morning, and it seemed important to learn all we could about +Tweel and the city, so I suggested that he guide us around the place if +he weren't busy. I put over the idea by pointing back at the buildings +and then at him and us. + +"Well, apparently he wasn't too busy, for he set off with us, leading +the way with one of his hundred and fifty-foot nosedives that set Leroy +gasping. When we caught up, he said something like 'one, one, two--two, +two, four--no, no--yes, yes--rock--no breet!' That didn't seem to mean +anything; perhaps he was just letting Leroy know that he could speak +English, or perhaps he was merely running over his vocabulary to refresh +his memory. + +"Anyway, he showed us around. He had a light of sorts in his black +pouch, good enough for small rooms, but simply lost in some of the +colossal caverns we went through. Nine out of ten buildings meant +absolutely nothing to us--just vast empty chambers, full of shadows and +rustlings and echoes. I couldn't imagine their use; they didn't seem +suitable for living quarters, or even for commercial purposes--trade and +so forth; they might have been all right as power-houses, but what could +have been the purpose of a whole city full? And where were the remains +of the machinery? + +"The place was a mystery. Sometimes Tweel would show us through a hall +that would have housed an ocean-liner, and he'd seem to swell with +pride--and we couldn't make a damn thing of it! As a display of +architectural power, the city was colossal; as anything else it was just +nutty! + +"But we did see one thing that registered. We came to that same building +Leroy and I had entered earlier--the one with the three eyes in it. +Well, we were a little shaky about going in there, but Tweel twittered +and trilled and kept saying, 'Yes, yes, yes!' so we followed him, +staring nervously about for the thing that had watched us. However, that +hall was just like the others, full of murmurs and slithering noises and +shadowy things slipping away into corners. If the three-eyed creature +were still there, it must have slunk away with the others. + +"Tweel led us along the wall; his light showed a series of little +alcoves, and in the first of these we ran into a puzzling thing--a very +weird thing. As the light flashed into the alcove, I saw first just an +empty space, and then, squatting on the floor, I saw--it! A little +creature about as big as a large rat, it was, gray and huddled and +evidently startled by our appearance. It had the queerest, most devilish +little face!--pointed ears or horns and satanic eyes that seemed to +sparkle with a sort of fiendish intelligence. + +"Tweel saw it, too, and let out a screech of anger, and the creature +rose on two pencil-thin legs and scuttled off with a half-terrified, +half defiant squeak. It darted past us into the darkness too quickly +even for Tweel, and as it ran, something waved on its body like the +fluttering of a cape. Tweel screeched angrily at it and set up a shrill +hullabaloo that sounded like genuine rage. + +"But the thing was gone, and then I noticed the weirdest of imaginable +details. Where it had squatted on the floor was--a book! It had been +hunched over a book! + +"I took a step forward; sure enough, there was some sort of inscription +on the pages--wavy white lines like a seismograph record on black sheets +like the material of Tweel's pouch. Tweel fumed and whistled in wrath, +picked up the volume and slammed it into place on a shelf full of +others. Leroy and I stared dumbfounded at each other. + +"Had the little thing with the fiendish face been reading? Or was it +simply eating the pages, getting physical nourishment rather than +mental? Or had the whole thing been accidental? + +"If the creature were some rat-like pest that destroyed books, Tweel's +rage was understandable, but why should he try to prevent an intelligent +being, even though of an alien race, from _reading_--if it _was_ reading? I +don't know; I did notice that the book was entirely undamaged, nor did I +see a damaged book among any that we handled. But I have an odd hunch +that if we knew the secret of the little cape-clothed imp, we'd know the +mystery of the vast abandoned city and of the decay of Martian culture. + +"Well, Tweel quieted down after a while and led us completely around +that tremendous hall. It had been a library, I think; at least, there +were thousands upon thousands of those queer black-paged volumes printed +in wavy lines of white. There were pictures, too, in some; and some of +these showed Tweel's people. That's a point, of course; it indicated +that his race built the city and printed the books. I don't think the +greatest philologist on earth will ever translate one line of those +records; they were made by minds too different from ours. + +"Tweel could read them, naturally. He twittered off a few lines, and +then I took a few of the books, with his permission; he said 'no, no!' +to some and 'yes, yes!' to others. Perhaps he kept back the ones his +people needed, or perhaps he let me take the ones he thought we'd +understand most easily. I don't know; the books are outside there in the +rocket. + +"Then he held that dim torch of his toward the walls, and they were +pictured. Lord, what pictures! They stretched up and up into the +blackness of the roof, mysterious and gigantic. I couldn't make much of +the first wall; it seemed to be a portrayal of a great assembly of +Tweel's people. Perhaps it was meant to symbolize Society or Government. +But the next wall was more obvious; it showed creatures at work on a +colossal machine of some sort, and that would be Industry or Science. +The back wall had corroded away in part, from what we could see, I +suspected the scene was meant to portray Art, but it was on the fourth +wall that we got a shock that nearly dazed us. + +"I think the symbol was Exploration or Discovery. This wall was a little +plainer, because the moving beam of daylight from that crack lit up the +higher surface and Tweel's torch illuminated the lower. We made out a +giant seated figure, one of the beaked Martians like Tweel, but with +every limb suggesting heaviness, weariness. The arms dropped inertly on +the chair, the thin neck bent and the beak rested on the body, as if the +creature could scarcely bear its own weight. And before it was a queer +kneeling figure, and at sight of it, Leroy and I almost reeled against +each other. It was, apparently, a man!" + +"A man!" bellowed Harrison. "A man you say?" + +"I said apparently," retorted Jarvis. "The artist had exaggerated the +nose almost to the length of Tweel's beak, but the figure had black +shoulder-length hair, and instead of the Martian four, there were _five_ +fingers on its outstretched hand! It was kneeling as if in worship of +the Martian, and on the ground was what looked like a pottery bowl full +of some food as an offering. Well! Leroy and I thought we'd gone +screwy!" + +"And Putz and I think so, too!" roared the captain. + +"Maybe we all have," replied Jarvis, with a faint grin at the pale face +of the little Frenchman, who returned it in silence. "Anyway," he +continued, "Tweel was squeaking and pointing at the figure, and saying +'Tick! Tick!' so he recognized the resemblance--and never mind any +cracks about my nose!" he warned the captain. "It was Leroy who made the +important comment; he looked at the Martian and said 'Thoth! The god +Thoth!'" + +"_Oui!_" confirmed the biologist. "_Comme l'Egypte!_" + +"Yeah," said Jarvis. "Like the Egyptian ibis-headed god--the one with +the beak. Well, no sooner did Tweel hear the name Thoth than he set up a +clamor of twittering and squeaking. He pointed at himself and said +'Thoth! Thoth!' and then waved his arm all around and repeated it. Of +course he often did queer things, but we both thought we understood what +he meant. He was trying to tell us that his race called themselves +Thoth. Do you see what I'm getting at?" + +"I see, all right," said Harrison. "You think the Martians paid a visit +to the earth, and the Egyptians remembered it in their mythology. Well, +you're off, then; there wasn't any Egyptian civilization fifteen +thousand years ago." + +"Wrong!" grinned Jarvis. "It's too bad we _haven't_ an archeologist +with us, but Leroy tells me that there was a stone-age culture in Egypt +then, the pre-dynastic civilization." + +"Well, even so, what of it?" + +"Plenty! Everything in that picture proves my point. The attitude of the +Martian, heavy and weary--that's the unnatural strain of terrestrial +gravitation. The name Thoth; Leroy tells me Thoth was the Egyptian god +of philosophy and the inventor of _writing_! Get that? They must have +picked up the idea from watching the Martian take notes. It's too much +for coincidence that Thoth should be beaked and ibis-headed, and that +the beaked Martians call themselves Thoth." + +"Well, I'll be hanged! But what about the nose on the Egyptian? Do you +mean to tell me that stone-age Egyptians had longer noses than ordinary +men?" + +"Of course not! It's just that the Martians very naturally cast their +paintings in Martianized form. Don't human beings tend to relate +everything to themselves? That's why dugongs and manatees started the +mermaid myths--sailors thought they saw human features on the beasts. So +the Martian artist, drawing either from descriptions or imperfect +photographs, naturally exaggerated the size of the human nose to a +degree that looked normal to him. Or anyway, that's my theory." + +"Well, it'll do as a theory," grunted Harrison. "What I want to hear is +why you two got back here looking like a couple of year-before-last +bird's nests." + +Jarvis shuddered again, and cast another glance at Leroy. The little +biologist was recovering some of his accustomed poise, but he returned +the glance with an echo of the chemist's shudder. + +"We'll get to that," resumed the latter. "Meanwhile I'll stick to Tweel +and his people. We spent the better part of three days with them, as you +know. I can't give every detail, but I'll summarize the important facts +and give our conclusions, which may not be worth an inflated franc. It's +hard to judge this dried-up world by earthly standards. + +"We took pictures of everything possible; I even tried to photograph +that gigantic mural in the library, but unless Tweel's lamp was +unusually rich in actinic rays, I don't suppose it'll show. And that's a +pity, since it's undoubtedly the most interesting object we've found on +Mars, at least from a human viewpoint. + +"Tweel was a very courteous host. He took us to all the points of +interest--even the new water-works." + +Putz's eyes brightened at the word. "Vater-vorks?" he echoed. "For vot?" + +"For the canal, naturally. They have to build up a head of water to +drive it through; that's obvious." He looked at the captain. "You told +me yourself that to drive water from the polar caps of Mars to the +equator was equivalent to forcing it up a twenty-mile hill, because Mars +is flattened at the poles and bulges at the equator just like the +earth." + +"That's true," agreed Harrison. + +"Well," resumed Jarvis, "this city was one of the relay stations to +boost the flow. Their power plant was the only one of the giant +buildings that seemed to serve any useful purpose, and that was worth +seeing. I wish you'd seen it, Karl; you'll have to make what you can +from our pictures. It's a sun-power plant!" + +Harrison and Putz stared. "Sun-power!" grunted the captain. "That's +primitive!" And the engineer added an emphatic "_Ja!_" of agreement. + +"Not as primitive as all that," corrected Jarvis. "The sunlight focused +on a queer cylinder in the center of a big concave mirror, and they drew +an electric current from it. The juice worked the pumps." + +"A t'ermocouple!" ejaculated Putz. + +"That sounds reasonable; you can judge by the pictures. But the +power-plant had some queer things about it. The queerest was that the +machinery was tended, not by Tweel's people, but by some of the +barrel-shaped creatures like the ones in Xanthus!" He gazed around at +the faces of his auditors; there was no comment. + +"Get it?" he resumed. At their silence, he proceeded, "I see you don't. +Leroy figured it out, but whether rightly or wrongly, I don't know. He +thinks that the barrels and Tweel's race have a reciprocal arrangement +like--well, like bees and flowers on earth. The flowers give honey for +the bees; the bees carry the pollen for the flowers. See? The barrels +tend the works and Tweel's people build the canal system. The Xanthus +city must have been a boosting station; that explains the mysterious +machines I saw. And Leroy believes further that it isn't an intelligent +arrangement--not on the part of the barrels, at least--but that it's been +done for so many thousands of generations that it's become +instinctive--a tropism--just like the actions of ants and bees. The +creatures have been bred to it!" + +"Nuts!" observed Harrison. "Let's hear you explain the reason for that +big empty city, then." + +"Sure. Tweel's civilization is decadent, that's the reason. It's a dying +race, and out of all the millions that must once have lived there, +Tweel's couple of hundred companions are the remnant. They're an +outpost, left to tend the source of the water at the polar cap; probably +there are still a few respectable cities left somewhere on the canal +system, most likely near the tropics. It's the last gasp of a race--and +a race that reached a higher peak of culture than Man!" + +"Huh?" said Harrison. "Then why are they dying? Lack of water?" + +"I don't think so," responded the chemist. "If my guess at the city's +age is right, fifteen thousand years wouldn't make enough difference in +the water supply--nor a hundred thousand, for that matter. It's +something else, though the water's doubtless a factor." + +"_Das wasser_," cut in Putz. "Vere goes dot?" + +"Even a chemist knows that!" scoffed Jarvis. "At least on earth. Here +I'm not so sure, but on earth, every time there's a lightning flash, it +electrolyzes some water vapor into hydrogen and oxygen, and then the +hydrogen escapes into space, because terrestrial gravitation won't hold +it permanently. And every time there's an earthquake, some water is lost +to the interior. Slow--but damned certain." He turned to Harrison. +"Right, Cap?" + +"Right," conceded the captain. "But here, of course--no earthquakes, no +thunderstorms--the loss must be very slow. Then why is the race dying?" + +"The sun-power plant answers that," countered Jarvis. "Lack of fuel! +Lack of power! No oil left, no coal left--if Mars ever had a +Carboniferous Age--and no water-power--just the driblets of energy they +can get from the sun. That's why they're dying." + +"With the limitless energy of the atom?" exploded Harrison. + +"They don't know about atomic energy. Probably never did. Must have used +some other principle in their space-ship." + +"Then," snapped the captain, "what makes you rate their intelligence +above the human? We've finally cracked open the atom!" + +"Sure we have. We had a clue, didn't we? Radium and uranium. Do you +think we'd ever have learned how without those elements? We'd never even +have suspected that atomic energy existed!" + +"Well? Haven't they--?" + +"No, they haven't. You've told me yourself that Mars has only 73 percent +of the earth's density. Even a chemist can see that that means a lack of +heavy metals--no osmium, no uranium, no radium. They didn't have the +clue." + +"Even so, that doesn't prove they're more advanced than we are. If they +were _more_ advanced, they'd have discovered it anyway." + +"Maybe," conceded Jarvis. "I'm not claiming that we don't surpass them +in some ways. But in others, they're far ahead of us." + +"In what, for instance?" + +"Well--socially, for one thing." + +"Huh? How do you mean?" + +Jarvis glanced in turn at each of the three that faced him. He +hesitated. "I wonder how you chaps will take this," he muttered. +"Naturally, everybody likes his own system best." He frowned. "Look +here--on the earth we have three types of society, haven't we? And +there's a member of each type right here. Putz lives under a +dictatorship--an autocracy. Leroy's a citizen of the Sixth Commune in +France. Harrison and I are Americans, members of a democracy. There you +are--autocracy, democracy, communism--the three types of terrestrial +societies. Tweel's people have a different system from any of us." + +"Different? What is it?" + +"The one no earthly nation has tried. Anarchy!" + +"Anarchy!" the captain and Putz burst out together. + +"That's right." + +"But--" Harrison was sputtering. "What do you mean--they're ahead of us? +Anarchy! Bah!" + +"All right--bah!" retorted Jarvis. "I'm not saying it would work for us, +or for any race of men. But it works for them." + +"But--anarchy!" The captain was indignant. + +"Well, when you come right down to it," argued Jarvis defensively, +"anarchy is the ideal form of government, if it works. Emerson said that +the best government was that which governs least, and so did Wendell +Phillips, and I think George Washington. And you can't have any form of +government which governs less than anarchy, which is no government at +all!" + +The captain was sputtering. "But--it's unnatural! Even savage tribes +have their chiefs! Even a pack of wolves has its leader!" + +"Well," retorted Jarvis defiantly, "that only proves that government is +a primitive device, doesn't it? With a perfect race you wouldn't need it +at all; government is a confession of weakness, isn't it? It's a +confession that part of the people won't cooperate with the rest and +that you need laws to restrain those individuals which a psychologist +calls anti-social. If there were no anti-social persons--criminals and +such--you wouldn't need laws or police, would you?" + +"But government! You'd need government! How about public +works--wars--taxes?" + +"No wars on Mars, in spite of being named after the War God. No point in +wars here; the population is too thin and too scattered, and besides, it +takes the help of every single community to keep the canal system +functioning. No taxes because, apparently, all individuals cooperate in +building public works. No competition to cause trouble, because anybody +can help himself to anything. As I said, with a perfect race government +is entirely unnecessary." + +"And do you consider the Martians a perfect race?" asked the captain +grimly. + +"Not at all! But they've existed so much longer than man that they're +evolved, socially at least, to the point where they don't need +government. They work together, that's all." Jarvis paused. "Queer, +isn't it--as if Mother Nature were carrying on two experiments, one at +home and one on Mars. On earth it's trial of an emotional, highly +competitive race in a world of plenty; here it's the trial of a quiet, +friendly race on a desert, unproductive, and inhospitable world. +Everything here makes for cooperation. Why, there isn't even the factor +that causes so much trouble at home--sex!" + +"Huh?" + +"Yeah: Tweel's people reproduce just like the barrels in the mud cities; +two individuals grow a third one between them. Another proof of Leroy's +theory that Martian life is neither animal nor vegetable. Besides, Tweel +was a good enough host to let him poke down his beak and twiddle his +feathers, and the examination convinced Leroy." + +"_Oui_," confirmed the biologist. "It is true." + +"But anarchy!" grumbled Harrison disgustedly. "It would show up on a +dizzy, half-dead pill like Mars!" + +"It'll be a good many centuries before you'll have to worry about it on +earth," grinned Jarvis. He resumed his narrative. + +"Well, we wandered through that sepulchral city, taking pictures of +everything. And then--" Jarvis paused and shuddered--"then I took a +notion to have a look at that valley we'd spotted from the rocket. I +don't know why. But when we tried to steer Tweel in that direction, he +set up such a squawking and screeching that I thought he'd gone batty." + +"If possible!" jeered Harrison. + +"So we started over there without him; he kept wailing and screaming, +'No-no-no! Tick!' but that made us the more curious. He sailed over our +heads and stuck on his beak, and went through a dozen other antics, but +we ploughed on, and finally he gave up and trudged disconsolately along +with us. + +"The valley wasn't more than a mile southeast of the city. Tweel could +have covered the distance in twenty jumps, but he lagged and loitered +and kept pointing back at the city and wailing 'No--no--no!' Then he'd +sail up into the air and zip down on his beak directly in front of us, +and we'd have to walk around him. I'd seen him do lots of crazy things +before, of course; I was used to them, but it was as plain as print that +he didn't want us to see that valley." + +"Why?" queried Harrison. + +"You asked why we came back like tramps," said Jarvis with a faint +shudder. "You'll learn. We plugged along up a low rocky hill that +bounded it, and as we neared the top, Tweel said, 'No breet', Tick! No +breet'!' Well, those were the words he used to describe the silicon +monster; they were also the words he had used to tell me that the image +of Fancy Long, the one that had almost lured me to the dream-beast, +wasn't real. I remembered that, but it meant nothing to me--then! + +"Right after that, Tweel said, 'You one-one-two, he one-one-two,' and +then I began to see. That was the phrase he had used to explain the +dream-beast to tell me that what I thought, the creature thought--to +tell me how the thing lured its victims by their own desires. So I +warned Leroy; it seemed to me that even the dream-beast couldn't be +dangerous if we were warned and expecting it. Well, I was wrong! + +"As we reached the crest, Tweel spun his head completely around, so his +feet were forward but his eyes looked backward, as if he feared to gaze +into the valley. Leroy and I stared out over it, just a gray waste like +this around us, with the gleam of the south polar cap far beyond its +southern rim. That's what it was one second; the next it was--Paradise!" + +"What?" exclaimed the captain. + +Jarvis turned to Leroy. "Can you describe it?" he asked. + +The biologist waved helpless hands, "_C'est impossible!_" he whispered. +"_Il me rend muet!_" + +"It strikes me dumb, too," muttered Jarvis. "I don't know how to tell +it; I'm a chemist, not a poet. Paradise is as good a word as I can think +of, and that's not at all right. It was Paradise and Hell in one!" + +"Will you talk sense?" growled Harrison. + +"As much of it as makes sense. I tell you, one moment we were looking at +a grey valley covered with blobby plants, and the next--Lord! You can't +imagine that next moment! How would you like to see all your dreams made +real? Every desire you'd ever had gratified? Everything you'd ever +wanted there for the taking?" + +"I'd like it fine!" said the captain. + +"You're welcome, then!--not only your noble desires, remember! Every +good impulse, yes--but also every nasty little wish, every vicious +thought, everything you'd ever desired, good or bad! The dream-beasts +are marvelous salesmen, but they lack the moral sense!" + +"The dream-beasts?" + +"Yes. It was a valley of them. Hundreds, I suppose, maybe thousands. +Enough, at any rate, to spread out a complete picture of your desires, +even all the forgotten ones that must have been drawn out of the +subconscious. A Paradise--of sorts! I saw a dozen Fancy Longs, in every +costume I'd ever admired on her, and some I must have imagined. I saw +every beautiful woman I've ever known, and all of them pleading for my +attention. I saw every lovely place I'd ever wanted to be, all packed +queerly into that little valley. And I saw--other things." He shook his +head soberly. "It wasn't all exactly pretty. Lord! How much of the beast +is left in us! I suppose if every man alive could have one look at that +weird valley, and could see just once what nastiness is hidden in +him--well, the world might gain by it. I thanked heaven afterwards that +Leroy--and even Tweel--saw their own pictures and not mine!" + +Jarvis paused again, then resumed, "I turned dizzy with a sort of +ecstasy. I closed my eyes--and with eyes closed, I still saw the whole +thing! That beautiful, evil, devilish panorama was in my mind, not my +eyes. That's how those fiends work--through the mind. I knew it was the +dream-beasts; I didn't need Tweel's wail of 'No breet'! No breet'!' +But--_I couldn't keep away!_ I knew it was death beckoning, but it was +worth it for one moment with the vision." + +"Which particular vision?" asked Harrison dryly. + +Jarvis flushed. "No matter," he said. "But beside me I heard Leroy's cry +of 'Yvonne! Yvonne!' and I knew he was trapped like myself. I fought for +sanity; I kept telling myself to stop, and all the time I was rushing +headlong into the snare! + +"Then something tripped me. Tweel! He had come leaping from behind; as I +crashed down I saw him flash over me straight toward--toward what I'd +been running to, with his vicious beak pointed right at her heart!" + +"Oh!" nodded the captain. "_Her_ heart!" + +"Never mind that. When I scrambled up, that particular image was gone, +and Tweel was in a twist of black ropey arms, just as when I first saw +him. He'd missed a vital point in the beast's anatomy, but was jabbing +away desperately with his beak. + +"Somehow, the spell had lifted, or partially lifted. I wasn't five feet +from Tweel, and it took a terrific struggle, but I managed to raise my +revolver and put a Boland shell into the beast. Out came a spurt of +horrible black corruption, drenching Tweel and me--and I guess the +sickening smell of it helped to destroy the illusion of that valley of +beauty. Anyway, we managed to get Leroy away from the devil that had +him, and the three of us staggered to the ridge and over. I had presence +of mind enough to raise my camera over the crest and take a shot of the +valley, but I'll bet it shows nothing but gray waste and writhing +horrors. What we saw was with our minds, not our eyes." + +Jarvis paused and shuddered. "The brute half poisoned Leroy," he +continued. "We dragged ourselves back to the auxiliary, called you, and +did what we could to treat ourselves. Leroy took a long dose of the +cognac that we had with us; we didn't dare try anything of Tweel's +because his metabolism is so different from ours that what cured him +might kill us. But the cognac seemed to work, and so, after I'd done one +other thing I wanted to do, we came back here--and that's all." + +"All, is it?" queried Harrison. "So you've solved all the mysteries of +Mars, eh?" + +"Not by a damned sight!" retorted Jarvis. "Plenty of unanswered +questions are left." + +"_Ja!_" snapped Putz. "Der evaporation--dot iss shtopped how?" + +"In the canals? I wondered about that, too; in those thousands of miles, +and against this low air-pressure, you'd think they'd lose a lot. But +the answer's simple; they float a skin of oil on the water." + +Putz nodded, but Harrison cut in. "Here's a puzzler. With only coal and +oil--just combustion or electric power--where'd they get the energy to +build a planet-wide canal system, thousands and thousands of miles of +'em? Think of the job we had cutting the Panama Canal to sea level, and +then answer that!" + +"Easy!" grinned Jarvis. "Martian gravity and Martian air--that's the +answer. Figure it out: First, the dirt they dug only weighed a third its +earth-weight. Second, a steam engine here expands against ten pounds per +square inch less air pressure than on earth. Third, they could build the +engine three times as large here with no greater internal weight. And +fourth, the whole planet's nearly level. Right, Putz?" + +The engineer nodded. "_Ja!_ Der shteam--engine--it iss _sieben-und +zwanzig_--twenty-seven times so effective here." + +"Well, there _does_ go the last mystery then," mused Harrison. + +"Yeah?" queried Jarvis sardonically. "You answer these, then. What was +the nature of that vast empty city? Why do the Martians _need_ canals, +since we never saw them eat or drink? Did they really visit the earth +before the dawn of history, and, if not atomic energy, what powered +their ship? Since Tweel's race seems to need little or no water, are +they merely operating the canals for some higher creature that does? +_Are_ there other intelligences on Mars? If not, what was the +demon-faced imp we saw with the book? There are a few mysteries for +you!" + +"I know one or two more!" growled Harrison, glaring suddenly at little +Leroy. "You and your visions! 'Yvonne!' eh? Your wife's name is Marie, +isn't it?" + +The little biologist turned crimson. "_Oui_," he admitted unhappily. He +turned pleading eyes on the captain. "Please," he said. "In Paris _tout +le monde_--everybody he think differently of those things--no?" He +twisted uncomfortably. "Please, you will not tell Marie, _n'est-ce +pas_?" + +Harrison chuckled. "None of my business," he said. "One more question, +Jarvis. What was the one other thing you did before returning here?" + +Jarvis looked diffident. "Oh--that." He hesitated. "Well I sort of felt +we owed Tweel a lot, so after some trouble, we coaxed him into the +rocket and sailed him out to the wreck of the first one, over on Thyle +II. Then," he finished apologetically, "I showed him the atomic blast, +got it working--and gave it to him!" + +"You _what_?" roared the Captain. "You turned something as powerful as +that over to an alien race--maybe some day as an enemy race?" + +"Yes, I did," said Jarvis. "Look here," he argued defensively. "This +lousy, dried-up pill of a desert called Mars'll never support much human +population. The Sahara desert is just as good a field for imperialism, +and a lot closer to home. So we'll never find Tweel's race enemies. The +only value we'll find here is commercial trade with the Martians. Then +why shouldn't I give Tweel a chance for survival? With atomic energy, +they can run their canal system a hundred per cent instead of only one +out of five, as Putz's observations showed. They can repopulate those +ghostly cities; they can resume their arts and industries; they can +trade with the nations of the earth--and I'll bet they can teach us a +few things," he paused, "if they can figure out the atomic blast, and +I'll lay odds they can. They're no fools, Tweel and his ostrich-faced +Martians!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Valley of Dreams, by Stanley Grauman Weinbaum + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALLEY OF DREAMS *** + +***** This file should be named 22301.txt or 22301.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/3/0/22301/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Pat A. Benoy and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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