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diff --git a/32360.txt b/32360.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f24286d --- /dev/null +++ b/32360.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1305 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Holes Around Mars, by Jerome Bixby + +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: The Holes Around Mars + +Author: Jerome Bixby + +Release Date: May 13, 2010 [EBook #32360] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLES AROUND MARS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction January 1954. +Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright +on this publication was renewed. + + + + +The holes around Mars + +By JEROME BIXBY + + + _Science said it could not be, + but there it was. And whoosh--look out--here + it is again!_ + + +Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS + + + +Spaceship crews should be selected on the basis of their non-irritating +qualities as individuals. No chronic complainers, no hypochondriacs, no +bugs on cleanliness--particularly no one-man parties. I speak from +bitter experience. + +Because on the first expedition to Mars, Hugh Allenby damned near drove +us nuts with his puns. We finally got so we just ignored them. + +But no one can ignore that classic last one--it's written right into the +annals of astronomy, and it's there to stay. + +Allenby, in command of the expedition, was first to set foot outside the +ship. As he stepped down from the airlock of the _Mars I_, he placed +that foot on a convenient rock, caught the toe of his weighted boot in a +hole in the rock, wrenched his ankle and smote the ground with his +pants. + +Sitting there, eyes pained behind the transparent shield of his +oxygen-mask, he stared at the rock. + + * * * * * + +It was about five feet high. Ordinary granite--no special shape--and +several inches below its summit, running straight through it in a +northeasterly direction, was a neat round four-inch hole. + +"I'm _upset_ by the _hole_ thing," he grunted. + +The rest of us scrambled out of the ship and gathered around his plump +form. Only one or two of us winced at his miserable double pun. + +"Break anything, Hugh?" asked Burton, our pilot, kneeling beside him. + +"Get out of my way, Burton," said Allenby. "You're obstructing my view." + +Burton blinked. A man constructed of long bones and caution, he angled +out of the way, looking around to see what he was obstructing view _of_. + +He saw the rock and the round hole through it. He stood very still, +staring. So did the rest of us. + +"Well, I'll be damned," said Janus, our photographer. "A hole." + +"In a rock," added Gonzales, our botanist. + +"Round," said Randolph, our biologist. + +"An _artifact_," finished Allenby softly. + +Burton helped him to his feet. Silently we gathered around the rock. + +Janus bent down and put an eye to one end of the hole. I bent down and +looked through the other end. We squinted at each other. + +As mineralogist, I was expected to opinionate. "Not drilled," I said +slowly. "Not chipped. Not melted. Certainly not eroded." + +I heard a rasping sound by my ear and straightened. Burton was +scratching a thumbnail along the rim of the hole. "Weathered," he said. +"Plenty old. But I'll bet it's a perfect circle, if we measure." + +Janus was already fiddling with his camera, testing the cooperation of +the tiny distant sun with a light-meter. + +"Let us see _weather_ it is or not," Allenby said. + + * * * * * + +Burton brought out a steel tape-measure. The hole was four and +three-eighths inches across. It was perfectly circular and about sixteen +inches long. And four feet above the ground. + +"But why?" said Randolph. "Why should anyone bore a four-inch tunnel +through a rock way out in the middle of the desert?" + +"Religious symbol," said Janus. He looked around, one hand on his gun. +"We'd better keep an eye out--maybe we've landed on sacred ground or +something." + +"A totem _hole_, perhaps," Allenby suggested. + +"Oh. I don't know," Randolph said--to Janus, not Allenby. As I've +mentioned, we always ignored Allenby's puns. "Note the lack of +ornamentation. Not at all typical of religious articles." + +"On Earth," Gonzales reminded him. "Besides, it might be utilitarian, +not symbolic." + +"Utilitarian, how?" asked Janus. + +"An altar for snakes," Burton said dryly. + +"Well," said Allenby, "you can't deny that it has its _holy_ aspects." + +"Get your hand away, will you, Peters?" asked Janus. + +I did. When Janus's camera had clicked, I bent again and peered through +the hole. "It sights on that low ridge over there," I said. "Maybe it's +some kind of surveying setup. I'm going to take a look." + +"Careful," warned Janus. "Remember, it may be sacred." + +As I walked away, I heard Allenby say, "Take some scrapings from the +inside of the hole, Gonzales. We might be able to determine if anything +is kept in it...." + +One of the stumpy, purplish, barrel-type cacti on the ridge had a long +vertical bite out of it ... as if someone had carefully carved out a +narrow U-shaped section from the top down, finishing the bottom of the U +in a neat semicircle. It was as flat and cleancut as the inside surface +of a horseshoe magnet. + +I hollered. The others came running. I pointed. + +"Oh, my God!" said Allenby. "Another one." + +The pulp of the cactus in and around the U-hole was dried and +dead-looking. + +Silently Burton used his tape-measure. The hole measured four and +three-eighths inches across. It was eleven inches deep. The semicircular +bottom was about a foot above the ground. + +"This ridge," I said, "is about three feet higher than where we landed +the ship. I bet the hole in the rock and the hole in this cactus are on +the same level." + + * * * * * + +Gonzales said slowly, "This was not done all at once. It is a result of +periodic attacks. Look here and here. These overlapping depressions +along the outer edges of the hole--" he pointed--"on this side of the +cactus. They are the signs of repeated impact. And the scallop effect on +_this_ side, where whatever made the hole emerged. There are juices +still oozing--not at the point of impact, where the plant is desiccated, +but below, where the shock was transmitted--" + +A distant shout turned us around. Burton was at the rock, beside the +ship. He was bending down, his eye to the far side of the mysterious +hole. + +He looked for another second, then straightened and came toward us at a +lope. + +"They line up," he said when he reached us. "The bottom of the hole in +the cactus is right in the middle when you sight through the hole in the +rock." + +"As if somebody came around and whacked the cactus regularly," Janus +said, looking around warily. + +[Illustration] + +"To keep the line of sight through the holes clear?" I wondered. "Why +not just remove the cactus?" + +"Religious," Janus explained. + +The gauntlet he had discarded lay ignored on the ground, in the shadow +of the cactus. We went on past the ridge toward an outcropping of rock +about a hundred yards farther on. We walked silently, each of us +wondering if what we half-expected would really be there. + +It was. In one of the tall, weathered spires in the outcropping, some +ten feet below its peak and four feet above the ground, was a round +four-inch hole. + +Allenby sat down on a rock, nursing his ankle, and remarked that anybody +who believed this crazy business was really happening must have holes in +the rocks in his head. + +[Illustration] + +Burton put his eye to the hole and whistled. "Sixty feet long if it's +an inch," he said. "The other end's just a pinpoint. But you can see it. +The damn thing's perfectly straight." + +I looked back the way we had come. The cactus stood on the ridge, with +its U-shaped bite, and beyond was the ship, and beside it the perforated +rock. + +"If we surveyed," I said, "I bet the holes would all line up right to +the last millimeter." + +"But," Randolph complained, "why would anybody go out and bore holes in +things all along a line through the desert?" + +"Religious," Janus muttered. "It doesn't _have_ to make sense." + + * * * * * + +We stood there by the outcropping and looked out along the wide, red +desert beyond. It stretched flatly for miles from this point, south +toward Mars' equator--dead sandy wastes, crisscrossed by the "canals," +which we had observed while landing to be great straggly patches of +vegetation, probably strung along underground waterflows. + +_BLONG-G-G-G- ... st-st-st- ..._ + +We jumped half out of our skins. Ozone bit at our nostrils. Our hair +stirred in the electrical uproar. + +"L-look," Janus chattered, lowering his smoking gun. + +About forty feet to our left, a small rabbity creature poked its head +from behind a rock and stared at us in utter horror. + +Janus raised his gun again. + +"Don't bother," said Allenby tiredly. "I don't think it intends to +attack." + +"But--" + +"I'm sure it isn't a Martian with religious convictions." + +Janus wet his lips and looked a little shamefaced. "I guess I'm kind of +taut." + +"That's what I _taut_," said Allenby. + +The creature darted from behind its rock and, looking at us over its +shoulder, employed six legs to make small but very fast tracks. + +We turned our attention again to the desert. Far out, black against +Mars' azure horizon, was a line of low hills. + +"Shall we go look?" asked Burton, eyes gleaming at the mystery. + +Janus hefted his gun nervously. It was still crackling faintly from the +discharge. "I say let's get back to the ship!" + +Allenby sighed. "My leg hurts." He studied the hills. "Give me the +field-glasses." + +Randolph handed them over. Allenby put them to the shield of his mask +and adjusted them. + +After a moment he sighed again. "There's a hole. On a plane surface +that catches the Sun. A lousy damned round little impossible hole." + +"Those hills," Burton observed, "must be thousands of feet thick." + + * * * * * + +The argument lasted all the way back to the ship. + +Janus, holding out for his belief that the whole thing was of religious +origin, kept looking around for Martians as if he expected them to pour +screaming from the hills. + +Burton came up with the suggestion that perhaps the holes had been made +by a disintegrator-ray. + +"It's possible," Allenby admitted. "This might have been the scene of +some great battle--" + +"With only one such weapon?" I objected. + +Allenby swore as he stumbled. "What do you mean?" + +"I haven't seen any other lines of holes--only the one. In a battle, the +whole joint should be cut up. + +That was good for a few moments' silent thought. Then Allenby said, "It +might have been brought out by one side as a last resort. Sort of an ace +in the hole." + +I resisted the temptation to mutiny. "But would even one such weapon, in +battle make only _one_ line of holes? Wouldn't it be played in an arc +against the enemy? You know it would." + +"Well--" + +"Wouldn't it cut slices out of the landscape, instead of boring holes? +And wouldn't it sway or vibrate enough to make the holes miles away from +it something less than perfect circles?" + +"It could have been very firmly mounted." + +"Hugh, does that sound like a practical weapon to you?" + +Two seconds of silence. "On the other hand," he said, "instead of a war, +the whole thing might have been designed to frighten some primitive +race--or even some kind of beast--the _hole_ out of here. A +demonstration--" + +"Religious," Janus grumbled, still looking around. + +We walked on, passing the cactus on the low ridge. + +"Interesting," said Gonzales. "The evidence that whatever causes the +phenomenon has happened again and again. I'm afraid that the war +theory--" + +"Oh, my God!" gasped Burton. + +We stared at him. + +"The ship," he whispered. "It's right in line with the holes! If +whatever made them is still in operation...." + +"Run!" yelled Allenby, and we ran like fiends. + + * * * * * + +We got the ship into the air, out of line with the holes to what we +fervently hoped was safety, and then we realized we were admitting our +fear that the mysterious hole-maker might still be lurking around. + +Well, the evidence was all for it, as Gonzales had reminded us--that +cactus had been oozing. + +We cruised at twenty thousand feet and thought it over. + +Janus, whose only training was in photography, said, "Some kind of +omnivorous animal? Or bird? Eats rocks and everything?" + +"I will not totally discount the notion of such an animal," Randolph +said. "But I will resist to the death the suggestion that it forages +with geometric precision." + +After a while, Allenby said, "Land, Burton. By that 'canal.' Lots of +plant life--fauna, too. We'll do a little collecting." + +Burton set us down feather-light at the very edge of the sprawling flat +expanse of vegetation, commenting that the scene reminded him of his +native Texas pear-flats. + +We wandered in the chilly air, each of us except Burton pursuing his +specialty. Randolph relentlessly stalked another of the rabbity +creatures. Gonzales was carefully digging up plants and stowing them in +jars. Janus was busy with his cameras, recording every aspect of Mars +transferable to film. Allenby walked around, helping anybody who needed +it. An astronomer, he'd done half his work on the way to Mars and would +do the other half on the return trip. Burton lounged in the Sun, his +back against a ship's fin, and played chess with Allenby, who was +calling out his moves in a bull roar. I grubbed for rocks. + +My search took me farther and farther away from the others--all I could +find around the 'canal' was gravel, and I wanted to chip at some big +stuff. I walked toward a long rise a half-mile or so away, beyond which +rose an enticing array of house-sized boulders. + +As I moved out of earshot, I heard Randolph snarl, "Burton, _will_ you +stop yelling, 'Kt to B-2 and check?' Every time you open your yap, this +critter takes off on me." + +Then I saw the groove. + + * * * * * + +It started right where the ground began to rise--a thin, shallow, +curve-bottomed groove in the dirt at my feet, about half an inch across, +running off straight toward higher ground. + +With my eyes glued to it, I walked. The ground slowly rose. The groove +deepened, widened--now it was about three inches across, about one and a +half deep. + +I walked on, holding my breath. Four inches wide. Two inches deep. + +The ground rose some more. Four and three-eighths inches wide. I didn't +have to measure it--I _knew_. + +Now, as the ground rose, the edges of the groove began to curve inward +over the groove. They touched. No more groove. + +The ground had risen, the groove had stayed level and gone underground. + +Except that now it wasn't a groove. It was a round tunnel. + +A hole. + +A few paces farther on, I thumped the ground with my heel where the hole +ought to be. The dirt crumbled, and there was the little dark tunnel, +running straight in both directions. + +I walked on, the ground falling away gradually again. The entire process +was repeated in reverse. A hairline appeared in the +dirt--widened--became lips that drew slowly apart to reveal the neat +straight four-inch groove--which shrank as slowly to a shallow line of +the ground--and vanished. + +I looked ahead of me. There was one low ridge of ground between me and +the enormous boulders. A neat four-inch semicircle was bitten out of the +very top of the ridge. In the house-sized boulder directly beyond was a +four-inch hole. + + * * * * * + +Allenby winced and called the others when I came back and reported. + +"The mystery _deepens_," he told them. He turned to me. "Lead on, +Peters. You're temporary _drill_ leader." + +Thank God he didn't say _Fall in_. + +The holes went straight through the nest of boulders--there'd be a hole +in one and, ten or twenty feet farther on in the next boulder, another +hole. And then another, and another--right through the nest in a line. +About thirty holes in all. + +Burton, standing by the boulder I'd first seen, flashed his flashlight +into the hole. Randolph, clear on the other side of the jumbled nest, +eye to hole, saw it. + +Straight as a string! + +The ground sloped away on the far side of the nest--no holes were +visible in that direction--just miles of desert. So, after we'd stared +at the holes for a while and they didn't go away, we headed back for the +canal. + +"Is there any possibility," asked Janus, as we walked, "that it could be +a natural phenomenon?" + +"There are no straight lines in nature," Randolph said, a little +shortly. "That goes for a bunch of circles in a straight line. And for +perfect circles, too." + +"A planet is a circle," objected Janus. + +"An oblate spheroid," Allenby corrected. + +"A planet's orbit--" + +"An ellipse." + +Janus walked a few steps, frowning. Then he said, "I remember reading +that there _is_ something darned near a perfect circle in nature." He +paused a moment. "Potholes." And he looked at me, as mineralogist, to +corroborate. + +"What kind of potholes?" I asked cautiously. "Do you mean where part of +a limestone deposit has dissol--" + +"No. I once read that when a glacier passes over a hard rock that's +lying on some softer rock, it grinds the hard rock down into the softer, +and both of them sort of wear down to fit together, and it all ends up +with a round hole in the soft rock." + +"Probably neither stone," I told Janus, "would be homogenous. The softer +parts would abrade faster in the soft stone. The end result wouldn't be +a perfect circle." + +Janus's face fell. + +"Now," I said, "would anyone care to define this term 'perfect circle' +we're throwing around so blithely? Because such holes as Janus describes +are often pretty damned round." + +Randolph said, "Well...." + +"It is settled, then," Gonzales said, a little sarcastically. "Your +discussion, gentlemen, has established that the long, horizontal holes +we have found were caused by glacial action." + +"Oh, no," Janus argued seriously. "I once read that Mars never had any +glaciers." + +All of us shuddered. + + * * * * * + +Half an hour later, we spotted more holes, about a mile down the +'canal,' still on a line, marching along the desert, through cacti, +rocks, hills, even through one edge of the low vegetation of the 'canal' +for thirty feet or so. It was the damnedest thing to bend down and look +straight through all that curling, twisting growth ... a round tunnel +from either end. + +We followed the holes for about a mile, to the rim of an enormous +saucerlike valley that sank gradually before us until, miles away, it +was thousands of feet deep. We stared out across it, wondering about the +other side. + +Allenby said determinedly, "We'll burrow to the _bottom_ of these holes, +once and for all. Back to the ship, men!" + +We hiked back, climbed in and took off. + +At an altitude of fifty feet, Burton lined the nose of the ship on the +most recent line of holes and we flew out over the valley. + +On the other side was a range of hefty hills. The holes went through +them. Straight through. We would approach one hill--Burton would +manipulate the front viewscreen until we spotted the hole--we would pass +over the hill and spot the other end of the hole in the rear screen. + +One hole was two hundred and eighty miles long. + +Four hours later, we were halfway around Mars. + +Randolph was sitting by a side port, chin on one hand, his eyes +unbelieving. "All around the planet," he kept repeating. "All around the +planet...." + +"Halfway at least," Allenby mused. "And we can assume that it continues +in a straight line, through anything and everything that gets in its +way...." He gazed out the front port at the uneven blue-green haze of a +'canal' off to our left. "For the love of Heaven, why?" + +Then Allenby fell down. We all did. + +Burton had suddenly slapped at the control board, and the ship braked +and sank like a plugged duck. At the last second, Burton propped up the +nose with a short burst, the ten-foot wheels hit desert sand and in five +hundred yards we had jounced to a stop. + +Allenby got up from the floor. "Why did you do that?" he asked Burton +politely, nursing a bruised elbow. + +Burton's nose was almost touching the front port. "Look!" he said, and +pointed. + +About two miles away, the Martian village looked like a handful of +yellow marbles flung on the desert. + + * * * * * + +We checked our guns. We put on our oxygen-masks. We checked our guns +again. We got out of the ship and made damned sure the airlock was +locked. + +An hour later, we crawled inch by painstaking inch up a high sand dune +and poked our heads over the top. + +The Martians were runts--the tallest of them less than five feet +tall--and skinny as a pencil. Dried-up and brown, they wore loincloths +of woven fiber. + +They stood among the dusty-looking inverted-bowl buildings of their +village, and every one of them was looking straight up at us with +unblinking brown eyes. + +The six safeties of our six guns clicked off like a rattle of dice. The +Martians stood there and gawped. + +"Probably a highly developed sense of hearing in this thin atmosphere," +Allenby murmured. "Heard us coming." + +"They thought that landing of Burton's was an earthquake," Randolph +grumbled sourly. + +"Marsquake," corrected Janus. One look at the village's scrawny +occupants seemed to have convinced him that his life was in no danger. + +Holding the Martians covered, we examined the village from atop the +thirty-foot dune. + +The domelike buildings were constructed of something that looked like +adobe. No windows--probably built with sandstorms in mind. The doors +were about halfway up the sloping sides, and from each door a stone ramp +wound down around the house to the ground--again with sandstorms in +mind, no doubt, so drifting dunes wouldn't block the entrances. + +The center of the village was a wide street, a long sandy area some +thirty feet wide. On either side of it, the houses were scattered at +random, as if each Martian had simply hunted for a comfortable place to +sit and then built a house around it. + +"Look," whispered Randolph. + +One Martian had stepped from a group situated on the far side of the +street from us. He started to cross the street, his round brown eyes on +us, his small bare feet plodding sand, and we saw that in addition to a +loincloth he wore jewelry--a hammered metal ring, a bracelet on one +skinny ankle. The Sun caught a copperish gleam on his bald narrow head, +and we saw a band of metal there, just above where his eyebrows should +have been. + +"The super-chief," Allenby murmured. "Oh, _shaman_ me!" + +As the bejeweled Martian approached the center of the street, he glanced +briefly at the ground at his feet. Then he raised his head, stepped with +dignity across the exact center of the street and came on toward us, +passing the dusty-looking buildings of his realm and the dusty-looking +groups of his subjects. + +He reached the slope of the dune we lay on, paused--and raised small +hands over his head, palms toward us. + +"I think," Allenby said, "that an anthropologist would give odds on that +gesture meaning peace." + +He stood up, holstered his gun--without buttoning the flap--and raised +his own hands over his head. We all did. + + * * * * * + +The Martian language consisted of squeaks. + +We made friendly noises, the chief squeaked and pretty soon we were the +center of a group of wide-eyed Martians, none of whom made a sound. +Evidently no one dared peep while the chief spoke--very likely the most +articulate Martians simply squeaked themselves into the job. Allenby, +of course, said they just _squeaked by_. + +He was going through the business of drawing concentric circles in the +sand, pointing at the third orbit away from the Sun and thumping his +chest. The crowd around us kept growing as more Martians emerged from +the dome buildings to see what was going on. Down the winding ramps of +the buildings on our side of the wide, sandy street they came--and from +the buildings on the other side of the street, plodding through the +sand, blinking brown eyes at us, not making a sound. + +Allenby pointed at the third orbit and thumped his chest. The chief +squeaked and thumped his own chest and pointed at the copperish band +around his head. Then he pointed at Allenby. + +"I seem to have conveyed to him," Allenby said dryly, "the fact that I'm +chief of our party. Well, let's try again." + +He started over on the orbits. He didn't seem to be getting anyplace, so +the rest of us watched the Martians instead. A last handful was +straggling across the wide street. + +"Curious," said Gonzales. "Note what happens when they reach the center +of the street." + +Each Martian, upon reaching the center of the street, glanced at his +feet--just for a moment--without even breaking stride. And then came on. + +"What can they be looking at?" Gonzales wondered. + +"The chief did it too," Burton mused. "Remember when he first came +toward us?" + +We all stared intently at the middle of the street. We saw absolutely +nothing but sand. + +The Martians milled around us and watched Allenby and his orbits. A +Martian child appeared from between two buildings across the street. On +six-inch legs, it started across, got halfway, glanced downward--and +came on. + +"I don't get it," Burton said. "What in hell are they _looking_ at?" + +The child reached the crowd and squeaked a thin, high note. + +A number of things happened at once. + + * * * * * + +Several members of the group around us glanced down, and along the edge +of the crowd nearest the center of the street there was a mild stir as +individuals drifted off to either side. Quite casually--nothing at all +urgent about it. They just moved concertedly to get farther away from +the center of the street, not taking their interested gaze off us for +one second in the process. + +Even the chief glanced up from Allenby's concentric circles at the +child's squeak. And Randolph, who had been fidgeting uncomfortably and +paying very little attention to our conversation, decided that he must +answer Nature's call. He moved off into the dunes surrounding the +village. Or rather, he started to move. + +The moment he set off across the wide street, the little Martian chief +was in front of him, brown eyes wide, hands out before him as if to +thrust Randolph back. + +Again six safeties clicked. The Martians didn't even blink at the sudden +appearance of our guns. Probably the only weapon they recognized was a +club, or maybe a rock. + +"What can the matter be?" Randolph said. + +He took another step forward. The chief squeaked and stood his ground. +Randolph had to stop or bump into him. Randolph stopped. + +The chief squeaked, looking right into the bore of Randolph's gun. + +"Hold still," Allenby told Randolph, "till we know what's up." + +Allenby made an interrogative sound at the chief. The chief squeaked and +pointed at the ground. We looked. He was pointing at his shadow. + +Randolph stirred uncomfortably. + +"Hold still," Allenby warned him, and again he made the questioning +sound. + +The chief pointed up the street. Then he pointed down the street. He +bent to touch his shadow, thumping it with thin fingers. Then he pointed +at the wall of a house nearby. + +We all looked. + +Straight lines had been painted on the curved brick-colored wall, up and +down and across, to form many small squares about four inches across. In +each square was a bit of squiggly writing, in blackish paint, and a +small wooden peg jutting out from the wall. + +Burton said, "Looks like a damn crossword puzzle." + +"Look," said Janus. "In the lower right corner--a metal ring hanging +from one of the pegs." + + * * * * * + +And that was all we saw on the wall. Hundreds of squares with figures in +them--a small peg set in each--and a ring hanging on one of the pegs. + +"You know what?" Allenby said slowly. "I think it's a calendar! Just a +second--thirty squares wide by twenty-two high--that's six hundred and +sixty. And that bottom line has twenty-six--twenty-_seven_ squares. Six +hundred and eighty-seven squares in all. That's how many days there are +in the Martian year!" + +He looked thoughtfully at the metal ring. "I'll bet that ring is hanging +from the peg in the square that represents _today_. They must move it +along every day, to keep track...." + +"What's a calendar got to do with my crossing the street?" Randolph +asked in a pained tone. + +He started to take another step. The chief squeaked as if it were a +matter of desperate concern that he make us understand. Randolph stopped +again and swore impatiently. + +Allenby made his questioning sound again. + +The chief pointed emphatically at his shadow, then at the communal +calendar--and we could see now that he was pointing at the metal ring. + +Burton said slowly, "I think he's trying to tell us that this is +_today_. And such-and-such a _time_ of day. I bet he's using his shadow +as a sundial." + +"Perhaps," Allenby granted. + +Randolph said, "If this monkey doesn't let me go in another minute--" + +The chief squeaked, eyes concerned. + +"Stand still," Allenby ordered. "He's trying to warn you of some +danger." + +The chief pointed down the street again and, instead of squealing, +revealed that there was another sound at his command. He said, +"Whooooooosh!" + +We all stared at the end of the street. + + * * * * * + +Nothing! Just the wide avenue between the houses, and the high sand dune +down at the end of it, from which we had first looked upon the village. + +The chief described a large circle with one hand, sweeping the hand +above his head, down to his knees, up again, as fast as he could. He +pursed his monkey-lips and said, "Whooooooosh!" And made the circle +again. + +A Martian emerged from the door in the side of a house across the avenue +and blinked at the Sun, as if he had just awakened. Then he saw what was +going on below and blinked again, this time in interest. He made his way +down around the winding lamp and started to cross the street. + +About halfway, he paused, eyed the calendar on the house wall, glanced +at his shadow. Then he got down on his hands and knees and _crawled_ +across the middle of the street. Once past the middle, he rose, walked +the rest of the way to join one of the groups and calmly stared at us +along with the rest of them. + +"They're all crazy," Randolph said disgustedly. "I'm going to cross that +street!" + +"Shut up. So it's a certain time of a certain day," Allenby mused. "And +from the way the chief is acting, he's afraid for you to cross the +street. And that other one just _crawled_. By God, do you know what this +might tie in with?" + +We were silent for a moment. Then Gonzales said, "Of course!" + +And Burton said, "The _holes_!" + +"Exactly," said Allenby. "Maybe whatever made--or makes--the holes comes +right down the center of the street here. Maybe that's why they built +the village this way--to make room for--" + +"For what?" Randolph asked unhappily, shifting his feet. + +"I don't know," Allenby said. He looked thoughtfully at the chief. "That +circular motion he made--could he have been describing something that +went around and around the planet? Something like--oh, no!" Allenby's +eyes glazed. "I wouldn't believe it in a million years." + +His gaze went to the far end of the street, to the high sand dune that +rose there. The chief seemed to be waiting for something to happen. + +"I'm going to crawl," Randolph stated. He got to his hands and knees and +began to creep across the center of the avenue. + +The chief let him go. + +The sand dune at the end of the street suddenly erupted. A forty-foot +spout of dust shot straight out from the sloping side, as if a bullet +had emerged. Powdered sand hazed the air, yellowed it almost the full +length of the avenue. Grains of sand stung the skin and rattled minutely +on the houses. + +WhoooSSSHHHHH! + +Randolph dropped flat on his belly. He didn't have to continue his trip. +He had made other arrangements. + + * * * * * + +That night in the ship, while we all sat around, still shaking our heads +every once in a while, Allenby talked with Earth. He sat there, wearing +the headphones, trying to make himself understood above the godawful +static. + +"... an exceedingly small body," he repeated wearily to his unbelieving +audience, "about four inches in diameter. It travels at a mean distance +of four feet above the surface of the planet, at a velocity yet to be +calculated. Its unique nature results in many hitherto unobserved--I +might say even unimagined--phenomena." He stared blankly in front of him +for a moment, then delivered the understatement of his life. "The +discovery may necessitate a re-examination of many of our basic +postulates in the physical sciences." + +The headphones squawked. + +Patiently, Allenby assured Earth that he was entirely serious, and +reiterated the results of his observations. I suppose that he, an +astronomer, was twice as flabbergasted as the rest of us. On the other +hand, perhaps he was better equipped to adjust to the evidence. + +"Evidently," he said, "when the body was formed, it traveled at such +fantastic velocity as to enable it to--" his voice was almost a +whisper--"to punch holes in things." + +The headphones squawked. + +"In rocks," Allenby said, "in mountains, in anything that got in its +way. And now the holes form a large portion of its fixed orbit." + +_Squawk._ + +"Its mass must be on the order of--" + +_Squawk._ + +"--process of making the holes slowed it, so that now it travels just +fast enough--" + +_Squawk._ + +"--maintain its orbit and penetrate occasional objects such as--" + +_Squawk._ + +"--and sand dunes--" + +_Squawk._ + +"My God, I _know_ it's a mathematical monstrosity," Allenby snarled. +"_I_ didn't put it there!" + +_Squawk._ + +Allenby was silent for a moment. Then he said slowly, "A name?" + +_Squawk._ + +"H'm," said Allenby. "Well, well." He appeared to brighten just a +little. "So it's up to me, as leader of the expedition, to name it?" + +_Squawk._ + +"Well, well," he said. + +That chop-licking tone was in his voice. We'd heard it all too often +before. We shuddered, waiting. + +"Inasmuch as Mars' outermost moon is called Deimos, and the next +Phobos," he said, "I think I shall name the third moon of +Mars--_Bottomos_." + + --JEROME BIXBY + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Holes Around Mars, by Jerome Bixby + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLES AROUND MARS *** + +***** This file should be named 32360.txt or 32360.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/6/32360/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://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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