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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78212 ***
+
+
+
+
+                           Snowstorm on Mars
+
+                         by Jacques Jean Ferrat
+                     [Pseudonym of Sam Merwin, Jr.]
+
+
+
+
+  _We might have known it would be dangerous to publish a
+  science fantasy novel as well-liked as Jacques Jean Ferrat’s_
+  NIGHTMARE TOWER, _followed by a sequel in much the
+  same exciting vein. Unhappily for us the popularity of_ THE
+  WHITE RAIN CAME _spread in widening circles all the way to
+  Mars and brought dire threats of telepathic reprisal for our delay
+  in enlivening our pages once again with Lynne and Rolf Marcein
+  in Martian splendor arrayed. Here then is a second sequel, made
+  mandatory by our desire to keep all such threats at bay._
+
+  =So bright and fateful was Lynne Marcein’s destiny that it set her
+  apart from all other women. She was soon to have a baby--on Mars!=
+
+
+
+
+Lynne Fenlay Marcein was the most conspicuous landmark at Nampura
+Depot--or, for that matter, on all of Mars. Although the Red Planet
+was sparsely populated, with only a little over a million men and
+women to cultivate its vast, waterless land-area, she could go nowhere
+outside of the Depot itself without finding a crowd of the curious, the
+awestruck, and the morbidly pessimistic about her.
+
+She had long since given up her weekly visits to New Samarkand, the
+Martian metropolis and capital city. She could not enter a store,
+a theater, or an office without finding herself a focus of a mass
+interest that brought all normal traffic to a standstill. Women eyed
+her with sympathy and disbelief, men with downright incredulity. For
+Lynne was the only visibly pregnant woman on the entire planet.
+
+“Not only visible, but apparently downright shocking,” she told her
+husband, Rolf Marcein, over the Earth-Mars radarphone during their
+weekly conversation. “Hold on tight, _vinral_,” Rolf told her,
+using the Martian term of supreme endearment. She longed to see his
+face, but so far there was no vidar communication between Mars and the
+mother planet. With obvious concern, he asked, “How soon?”
+
+“Dr. Smetana says another two weeks, at least,” she replied. “Don’t
+worry, darling. If that little snip Rana Willis could have her baby
+here on Mars, I can be lucky too.”
+
+Rolf said, “I could kill these _ferkab_ VIP’s in Paulo City for
+their _czanworm_ sluggishness. We’ve had their E-source taped
+for a solid Martian month. It’s right smack under the Eastern Siberian
+topsoil. I’ve laid down a reserve power-program, but they won’t let me
+go until they’ve adapted it officially. Right now the date seems as far
+away as ever.”
+
+“I know,” said Lynne soothingly. “You stick there until the job is
+done. I’m doing wonderfully well, according to Dr. Smetana. It’s just
+that I’m getting a little tired of being a freak.”
+
+“And I’m getting fed up with being an engineering genius fifty million
+miles away while a lot of politicians check endless brain-team
+coordinates to make sure E-power on Earth won’t upset their wretched
+little _ferkab_ arrangements. Also, _vinral_, I miss you
+_farbly_.”
+
+“Doubled in diamonds,” said Lynne warmly. Before she could add further
+words of affection her transmission time expired and she was cut off
+from her husband for another Earth-week.
+
+The fact that Lynne Marcein was pregnant was no small thing on the Red
+Planet. From the very first, when pioneering space ranging humanity
+sought to colonize Mars, the combination of rarefied atmosphere and
+light gravity had rendered child-bearing impossible. Since the rigors
+of settling a planet alien to humanity demanded the highest-level young
+minds and bodies, the genetic solution had originally been through
+induced identical twins and a better solution had not been found.
+
+From birth one twin was conditioned and trained for life on the Red
+Planet, while the other was trained for life on Earth. Thus, Earth was
+not stripped of its most gifted and adventurous young men and women,
+and Mars was equally favored. Both Rolf and Lynne were the products of
+such training.
+
+But Lynne was especially remarkable. She had not only been one of a
+pair of identical twins of opposite sexes--she had been trained for
+life on Earth, while her brother, Revere, had been the Mars-bred one.
+And yet, here she was, a Martian in the fullest sense.
+
+“Once a freak, always a freak,” she told herself wryly, as she left
+the Earth-Mars communications chamber and walked slowly across the
+courtyard of Nampura Depot Center. Her objective was the residence wing
+where both she, and Rolf--and the Willises--had their apartments.
+
+Rough lichen-shrubs, a triumph of creative botany, bordered a smooth
+pathway that had a short while previously been as bare of foliage as
+the aluminum, cold-resistant coverall that housed both Lynne and the
+unborn life within her. She halted for a moment to look upward at the
+incredible blaze of the night heavens in the black-velvet sky, noting
+the brilliant passage of Deimos, one of Mars’ two small moons, as it
+slowly blacked out of the three-starred belt of Orion.
+
+Since she had become partially inured to the rarefied atmosphere that
+had made breathing difficult on her first landing, and since she hadn’t
+far to go, she did not bother to use her oxyrespirator. The cold air
+stung her nostrils like fine sand and caused her to inhale deeply.
+
+She was grateful for the air’s lack of density, since its very
+sparseness enabled the heavens to blaze without atmospheric hindrance.
+She would never, being Earth-conditioned, cease wondering at the
+incredible splendor of the Martian skies.
+
+And yet it seemed to her that the spectacle was infinitesimally less
+brilliant than it had been during her early months on the Red Planet.
+She could remember vividly how, abetted by her husband-to-be, she
+had helped save the telepaths, on whom all Mars depended for lateral
+planetwide communications. By themselves they would have succumbed
+to the maddening onslaught of the bodiless, electricity-devouring
+aborigines who had so nearly driven her twin insane with their
+insidious mind-destroying suggestions.
+
+She had been virtually shanghaied to Mars by Rolf Marcein and, later,
+had helped him to discover and harness the E-power sources--those
+mysterious mineral brains that seemed to exist either on or within
+every stable planet and atmosphere-bearing satellite. It was E-power
+that had brought atmospheric moisture to Mars, where virtually no
+atmosphere existed, and had thereby speeded up the process of making
+the planet increasingly fertile and habitable.
+
+Yet it was E-power that was holding her husband on faraway Earth, when
+she longed more than ever before to have him by her side. Not, she
+thought, that Rolf or any man could help her with the ordeal of giving
+birth to the second baby born on Mars. And it was the result of E-power
+that would someday blanket the spectacle of the night skies by giving
+the Red Planet a new atmosphere.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+
+Lynne Marcein rapped on the green plastic door of the three-room suite
+where Tony and Rana Willis, and their infant daughter made their home,
+and entered in response to a cheery, “Come in!”
+
+The first baby ever to be born on Mars was in the process of having
+a bath. Its parents--plump, amiable Tony Willis and tiny, vivacious
+Rana Spinelli--were cooing over the small portable tub like any two of
+the hundreds of millions of doting new parents on Earth. The bedroom,
+where the bath had been set up, smelled of talcum and soap and, of
+course--baby.
+
+Rana looked up quickly at Lynne and said, “Well! How goes it with you,
+little mother?”
+
+“_Little_ mother!” exclaimed Tony, who was standing by with the
+towel. “Aren’t you being medically inexact?”
+
+“Don’t be conceited,” Lynne snapped at him. “You had little enough to
+do with her,” she nodded toward the infant, who was cooing contentedly
+in her tiny plastic tub.
+
+“Well, I did what I could,” he replied with false male modesty. “Watch
+out, _vinral_--or you’ll get soap in its eye.”
+
+“I’ll thank you not to refer to our daughter as ‘it,’” said Rana
+loftily, lifting the baby out and allowing her husband to wrap the
+towel around her glowing, plump little pink limbs.
+
+Operation bath completed, and the infant safely deposited in its crib
+with a bottle, the Willises joined Lynne in a cola-fizz and cigarettes.
+“When is Rolf coming back?” Tony asked.
+
+“He doesn’t know,” said Lynne. “At least, he didn’t say. As usual, the
+transmission time ran out before he could really discuss his plans.”
+
+“Those _ferkab_ stuffed-shirts at the Earth-end!” Rana exclaimed,
+inhaling and blowing twin plumes of blue smoke through her nostrils.
+“How are you--holding out? You look simply _zwirchy. Farbish
+zwirchy_.”
+
+“I feel like a three-headed monster,” said Lynne. “Everybody stares at
+me. I envy you, Rana--getting through it on outpost assignment beyond
+New Walla Walla.”
+
+“And I envy you,” said Rana, her eyes sparkling. “Here I have the first
+baby on Mars, and you get virtually all the attention. It got pretty
+lonely out there during the final weeks.”
+
+“I can imagine,” said Lynne, with open admiration. What the tiny
+Italo-Indian girl had done seemed to her akin to the greatest epics
+of human heroism. Once Mars had ceased to be a raw frontier the
+induced-twin method had been dropped in favor of natural reproduction
+on the Red Planet. But since Martian environmental conditions prevented
+normal births, it was necessary--once a woman was known to be carrying
+a child--to ship her to Earth for pregnancy care and the actual birth
+of her baby.
+
+It was an expensive process, not only in the strain it put on
+domestic relations, but because it used up cargo space sadly needed
+for supplies. Already Mars had built up a thriving export trade in
+lichenwassers, lean Martian boarmeat, archeological products and rare
+minerals.
+
+A brilliant telepath--which her husband was not in spite of his not
+inconsiderable virtues as an executive and organizer--Rana had been
+assigned to the lonely Thule station beyond New Walla Walla in the
+far Southern Polar district. Her task was to install and supervise
+a new trans-polar tele-communications unit that had cut and greatly
+simplified complex relays around the Red Planet’s top. Not even Tony
+had known his wife was pregnant.
+
+“I decided, since I was a Martian, that my baby was going to be Martian
+too,” was what the tiny slip of a woman had told an almost raging Rolf
+and Tony. Incredible had seemed her courage when her condition had been
+finally discovered--much too late for the usual transport to Earth.
+When the male protests continued, Rana said quietly, “No woman on Mars
+has ever carried a child more than four months. I’m already in my
+seventh. Now will you stop worrying?”
+
+At this stage, Lynne had intervened, firm in her conviction that Rana
+had accomplished a miracle. “How?” she asked.
+
+Rana’s reply had been as original as it had been unexpected. “A trained
+telepath must be able to attain total concentration at will. To achieve
+such concentration we need complete mental control. That in itself is
+inseparably tied up with complete control of our bodies. And a baby is
+closer than breathing to its own mother.”
+
+“But I still don’t see how--”
+
+“_Crehut!_” had been Rana’s reply. “You remind me of the
+Indian chief who said to the mermaid in the old Earth-joke: ‘_I
+did exercises_.’” Then, growing serious, she had explained the
+process--a well conceived combination of TP and yoga, practiced at
+regular intervals, that had thus far assured the child’s safety.
+
+Later, noting the detached look in Lynne’s eye, Rolf had protested,
+“If you think for a moment, _vinral_, that you’re going to put me
+through what poor Tony’s enduring, you’re out of your mind.”
+
+“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about that,” Lynne had affirmed,
+“_after_ Rana’s baby is born.”
+
+“_If_ Rana’s baby is born,” had been Rolf’s tormented comment.
+
+But the baby had been born, and was thriving. Now Lynne was carrying
+the second Mars-child, with only two weeks to go unless Dr. Smetana was
+grievously mistaken. She had found the “exercises” which enabled her to
+protect the child curiously restful--once she had mastered the task of
+attaining close rapport between her body’s precious new burden and the
+universe around her.
+
+Despite the awkwardness of advanced pregnancy, she felt strangely at
+peace with herself and the infinite. Even Rolf’s enforced absence
+didn’t matter too much--though she longed to have him with her. She
+moved through her daily work at the Depot--the task of seeking new
+telepathic relays which would detect the existence of other, alien
+intellects in the cosmos--almost as if it were being done by a complete
+stranger.
+
+She finished her second cola-fizz, glanced at her wristwatch and rose,
+a trifle clumsily, even though the light gravity of Mars made the
+weight within her comparatively light. “Well, chilluns,” she said,
+“it’s time for this little mother-to-be to go home and commune with
+nature.”
+
+Tony was about to ask her a question, when a choking wail from the
+bedroom sent him flying. “Honestly--_men!_” exclaimed Rana.
+“They’re such idiots about babies!”
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+
+Late the following morning, in accordance with her pre-maternity
+schedule, Lynne paid her daily visit to Dr. Smetana’s office. It
+adjoined the gray-walled infirmary in the southeast corner of the
+low, sprawling complex of semi-cylindrical buildings that was Nampura
+Depot--literally the brain-center of Mars. The doctor was a stocky,
+square-jawed man with unexpectedly light-blue eyes and a deceptive
+appearance of ill-health, thanks to the refusal of his skin to acquire
+the usual Martian sunburn. He put her through the usual run of tests
+and shook his head.
+
+“I’ll be _zwirched_,” he said, “if I can figure out how you manage
+it, Lynne. According to everything we’ve learned about women on this
+ghastly, wonderful planet you should have lost your child four months
+ago. Yet everything still looks one hundred percent.”
+
+“If I’m such a freak, what about Rana Willis?” said Lynne, who was
+beginning to tire of the “miracle” aspects of her pregnancy.
+
+“We expect miracles to happen once in a long while,” Dr. Smetana told
+her, “but not two in a row.”
+
+“Or maybe it’s not such a miracle after all,” Lynne suggested. “I’m
+merely following Rana’s technique--with a wrinkle or two of my own
+thrown in. If it works for two of us--”
+
+“Remember, you’re both Class-C telepaths,” said the physician. “I’d
+hate to recommend this yoga-and-TP technique to anyone less gifted.
+And, right now, there are only fifty-three Class-C telepaths, female
+gender, on Mars. So....” He lifted one thick, dark eyebrow.
+
+Leaving the doctor, on her way to the dining hall for lunch, Lynne
+ran into an old acquaintance--dark-skinned Joanna Wheatley, who had
+shared a space-ship cabin with her on her trip out from Earth. The
+young animal husbandry expert had, quite by accident, put Lynne on the
+track of the E-power source that was already doing so much to increase
+the density of the Martian atmosphere, and make successful cultivation
+possible on the bleak desert wastes.
+
+Joanna, a buoyantly healthy, good-natured girl who usually wore her
+exuberant emotions close to the ebony surface of her skin, seemed to
+Lynne strangely subdued. Looking at her in disbelief, Lynne said,
+“_Crehut_, Joanna, you can’t be ill. Not you.”
+
+“I’m not,” was the reply. “At least, I don’t think I am. But my chief
+at Woomera Station thought your Dr. Smetana had better look me over.”
+Then, eying Lynne’s figure, “You look wonderful. Lynne, I’d give
+anything to trade places with you. Every woman on Mars would.”
+
+That, Lynne decided, was probably untrue. She interrupted with,
+“Woomera Station? I thought you were running the beef garden at
+Patagonia since old E gave us enough moisture for pampas.”
+
+“I am,” said the girl with a flash of pride. “But Patagonia is still
+under Woomera control. Lynne, what you did to harness E-power was the
+most marvelous thing. And now, this!”
+
+“_This_ is one prolonged headache,” said Lynne, looking down at
+herself ruefully. “One of these days, when it’s over, I’m coming down
+to pay you and your prize shorthorns a visit.”
+
+“That would be wonderful,” Joanna said, her eyes glowing. Then her gaze
+fell away, her manner became diffident. “But not too soon,” she said in
+an abnormally small voice. “Things are a bit messed up right now. I’d
+say they were downright _swackish_.” Another pause, then, “I’ll
+let you know when we have everything _purt_. I do want you down
+there.”
+
+“I’ll be there--whenever you’re ready,” said Lynne. “Don’t let old
+Smetana intimidate you, Joanna. He has a heart of lichen-jelly.”
+
+She gave Joanna’s smooth-fleshed, muscular forearm a friendly squeeze.
+Then she went on out and crossed the main patio to the dining hall,
+where she joined her twin brother, Revere and his wife, Lao Mei, at one
+of the smaller tables. As always, when confronted with Revere, Lynne
+wondered why she hadn’t been born a man. To her, the Fenlay face looked
+far better in masculine gender. Fortunately, she thought, her husband
+did not agree.
+
+Lao Mei, small, exquisitely feminine and endowed not only with quiet
+charm but with that combination of fine human ingredients customarily
+lumped under the general heading of “character,” was recently back from
+Earth, where she had born Revere induced twins. She said, “How is it,
+Lynne. Is everything still _purt?_”
+
+Lynne nodded and turned her attention to her soup. “Couldn’t be
+_purter_,” she replied, thinking that Lao Mei, with her hard core
+of integrity had been a wonderful mate for Revere, who was brilliant,
+telepathically gifted, but given to occasional lapses of weakness.
+
+_You can say that again._ Revere’s thought came through to her
+clearly across the table. _Everything really_ zwirchy?
+
+_Everything’s fine._ It was not really good manners at Nampura
+Depot for two Class-C telepaths, capable of receiving, selecting and
+projecting thoughts to indulge in silent dialogue in the presence of a
+mere Class-A like Lao Mei. But since it was all in the family....
+
+Lynne went on silently to Revere, who, with non-TP Tony Willis
+virtually ran Martian communications while Rolf was away on Earth,
+_I’ve got to take an exercise spell after lunch or I’d tend to it
+myself. But I wish you’d check Doc Smetana on Joanna Wheatley of
+Patagonia Station this pip emma and give me the gen on her._
+
+_Why, something up?_ Revere inquired with a thought-probe.
+Lynne told him of her meeting in the doctor’s office, and the girl’s
+strange behavior. Then, aloud, she said, “If something _is_ wrong
+down there, it might be a good idea to find it out now. You know how
+touchy Husbandry has been about our mucking into their _ferkab_
+affairs--ever since we had them shut off their atomic transmuter
+while we were getting Old E in a harness. It’s probably nothing. But
+it didn’t _feel_ like nothing. Joanna was keeping her thoughts
+rigidly masked while I talked to her.”
+
+“If you two _marlets_ do any more silent talking while I’m at
+this table,” said Lao Mei sternly, “I’m going to dump your food right
+over your heads. It’s like being stranded in the middle of a deaf-mute
+convention and not knowing sign language.”
+
+“Sorry,” said Lynne.
+
+Revere took his wife’s hand and squeezed it. Then, telepathically, to
+Lynne he said: _Will do, female. Go do your exercises and let Brother
+Revere ride again._
+
+Lao Mei, looking at them closely, made a move toward a particularly
+drippy canalberry salad with leeks, and thereafter the table talk was
+just that. When Lynne left them to go to her room, her sister-in-law
+said with a sigh, “I’m going to turn my old brain in for a new model-a
+TP Class-D one.”
+
+“If you do,” said Revere Fenlay, “you’ll be the only one in all the
+worlds. So who will you have to talk to?”
+
+“It’s not _whom_ I’ll have to talk to,” said Lao Mei demurely.
+“It’s the _whoms_ I’ll be able to shut out.”
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+Lynne lay on her plastomat for the next two hours, one hour on her
+stomach, the other on her back. Under the conditions of light Martian
+gravity, these positions had been discovered to be better for yoga
+breathing and trance than the cross-legged, sitting positions of
+yoga on Earth. More important, they maintained a more normal flow of
+circulation through the brain, a flow essential to full TP keying and
+control.
+
+At first, as she lay prone on the mat, it seemed to her that every
+stray thought in the Depot came tripping, unwanted, into her
+head--every stray thought in Mars. She could, had she wished, have
+identified the senders, but to do so would have destroyed her purpose.
+A vital factor in Rana’s success with the first Mars-born baby, had
+been the isolation of her post, and her ability to shut out extraneous
+thoughts, and concentrate entirely upon the union of her own existence
+and the new life blossoming in her womb.
+
+Lynne breathed deeply and closed her eyes. She relaxed the muscles
+at the corners of her eyes and little by little awareness of outside
+thoughts faded. At the end of the first hour, after rolling over on
+her back, she was able to lose all outside interference in a matter of
+mere minutes. Then her real concentration began. She grew conscious
+of the unborn child she was carrying, even to sensing the faint and
+fitful radiations of its thoughts. From time to time she felt the stir
+of its body, the kick of its feet. She conveyed a message of union, of
+_oneness_, of warmth and security to the embryo brain within her.
+Then, after a while, she slept dreamlessly.
+
+She awoke at the exact end of the second hour, feeling serene and
+refreshed. A thought reached her mind, probing, a thought unmistakably
+that of her twin, Revere. He was telling her, if she was awake, to go
+immediately to the doctor’s office. Something about Joanna Wheatley and
+a cattle plague and the DT’s....
+
+Revere and the doctor were waiting for Lynne in the physician’s inner
+laboratory. It was the room of a medical jack-of-all-trades, for Mars,
+being thinly populated and in need of a variety of medical services,
+was unable to afford the specialists of Earth. Dr. Smetana was not
+only a fine general practitioner. He was also the only competent
+psychiatrist in this entire sector of the Red Planet. It was therefore
+not surprising that he had been assigned to Nampura Depot, since
+the telepathic headquarters of Mars was a place where, presumably a
+head-shrinker might be needed.
+
+However, as Dr. Smetana was fond of saying, “In that department, I’m
+merely an observer, since TP’s are mentally just about the healthiest
+folk there are. Telepathy and repression don’t exactly walk hand in
+hand.”
+
+Revere spoke to Lynn aloud for the benefit of the doctor, who was
+barely a Class-A telepath. “I’ve been doing some checking on conditions
+at Patagonia Station,” he said. “Those _marlets_ have been
+having a bucketful of _swackish_ troubles lately. It seems the
+cattle have been showing every symptom of going off their collective
+rails--stampedes, off-season breeding fits, berserk tempers, even
+dancing.”
+
+“That I’ll have to see,” said Lynne, lighting a cigarette.
+
+“You will--in a moment,” said Dr. Smetana. “I’ve got Joanna Wheatley’s
+tapes right here.” He turned on a switch.
+
+At once a wall screen flashed on, revealing a set of file numbers.
+Thanks to Rolf Marcein’s development of the formerly dangerous
+necro-recorder, which reproduced on a screen the thoughts of a person
+under certain hypnotic drugs, psychiatry on Mars had taken a long leap
+ahead of parallel progress on the mother planet. There, because its use
+hastened death or insanity through the strain it put on the patient’s
+mind and body, the recorder was still used only in cases of extreme
+urgency. On Mars, thanks to Rolf’s improvements its use had become mere
+examination routine.
+
+The screen flashed its polychromatic “adjustment” patterns, some of
+which were highly revealing of Joanna’s normal young woman desires.
+Then, in response to channeled suggestion, got to the matter under
+examination. The miraculous green grasses of the newly-created
+Patagonia Station veldt appeared in brilliant color with the dark blue
+sky of Mars over them. Small herds of plump, carefully selected beef
+cattle grazed peacefully on the grass which the wonder of E-power had
+made possible. There was even a glimpse of Joanna, riding herd on a
+tractoscooter, and smoking a cigarette.
+
+Then the vehicle was halted close to a herd which the dark-skinned girl
+was inspecting. A plump steer turned to watch her. It seemed to be
+regarding her with speculation. There was a close-up of the creature’s
+face, its eyes revealing a startling intelligence.
+
+All at once, the steer went into a dance. It was a rhythmic swaying, at
+first, but it quickly became a series of small steps in harmony with
+some unheard rhythm or meter. The other steers looked, nodded or shook
+their heads and finally joined in, following the leader. They performed
+almost like a vidar chorus-line back on Earth, kicking in unison and
+swaying as if to music.
+
+Then they broke up into groups and entered into a series of
+unbelievable revels that could only be described as immoral, even for
+animals. There was a flash of Joanna, taking off on her tractoscooter,
+followed by a picture of her back on the scene, with the neighboring
+Woomera Depot superintendent, while the creatures placidly grazed.
+
+“What do you make of it?” Dr. Smetana asked the instant the film ended.
+He was frowning as he switched off the recorder. “Is she crazy?”
+
+Lynne knew what Revere was thinking, and for a moment, there was
+shared horror between them. They _knew_ what had happened to the
+prize cattle of the Red Planet’s only ranch. Lynne said aloud, for the
+doctor’s benefit, “Joanna Wheatley isn’t crazy, Doctor.”
+
+“But what about those cattle?” the physician asked.
+
+“Revere will tell you,” Lynne replied. “I’ve got to put an emergency
+call through to my husband. He’s needed here--at once.”
+
+Absently, she cursed the fact of her advanced pregnancy, and the
+demands it made on her. If she hadn’t been so nearly incapacitated, she
+would have been able to handle the matter herself. How and where, she
+wondered, had the grotesque, bodiless aborigines of Mars--life forms
+that fed on electricity--managed to get enough of it to obtain strength
+for possession even of bovine brains? Rolf would have to come back at
+once, to deal with this new outbreak of a problem long considered under
+control.
+
+Lynne put through her call, and obtained Mars Central on New Samarkand.
+Fortunately, she was able to cut through red tape and obtain the chief
+supervisor without delay.
+
+“I’m sorry, Mrs. Marcein,” he said, in reply to her request for
+an immediate Earth-call to her husband. “Solar disturbances have
+temporarily blocked interplanetary communications.”
+
+Lynne hung up, feeling almost physically ill. All the terrors of
+Nightmare Tower, where she had battled the vicious aborigines alone in
+the darkness, returned to plague her. Then she rallied and remembered
+that a deadly threat that had been conquered before could be conquered
+again. She was going to have to go it alone.
+
+Inside her, the baby kicked feebly.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+Martin Juarez, Director of Woomera Station and Patagonia Station,
+and the most influential single individual in the entire Martian
+Agricultural Experiment Program, was a wiry, swarthy man whose face and
+bare forearms had been burned almost black by the fierce Martian sun.
+Looking at Lynne, across his office desk, he said, “Mrs. Marcein, I’m
+almost beginning to wish Joanna was as crazy as a _czanworm_.”
+
+“So am I,” said Lynne quietly. She turned and looked directly at the
+dark-skinned young animal husbandry expert she had seen only the day
+before in Dr. Smetana’s office at Nampura Depot. “Nothing personal,
+Joanna,” she said.
+
+“_Crehut!_” exploded the girl. “I wish I was crazy instead of
+those steers. Mars can always ship out a replacement for me. But they
+can’t breed cattle on Earth capable of surviving on this planet.”
+
+Lynne thought Joanna had put the problem very eloquently. Somehow, the
+zombies, as she termed the electrophagic aborigines that had supposedly
+been routed forever shortly after her arrival, had discovered a new
+source of dietary strength. This time, with appalling ingenuity, they
+had evidently decided not to seek possession of human bodies--or, to be
+more exact, human minds laid bare to them by telepathic exposure.
+
+Instead, they had elected to take over the minds of the Patagonia
+Station steers. Lynne would have given several years of her life to
+know why and how the selection had been made. According to Martin
+Juarez and Joanna, there had been no abnormal behavior on the part of
+other species of food-on-the-hoof bred and raised at the two stations.
+Sheep, fowl and pigs had been left entirely alone, either through
+choice, or because they were invulnerable to zombie possession.
+
+The zombies, whose visible record had been left for human study
+on hundreds of magnificent murals in the ruins that had survived
+for untold ages, owing to the airless and moistureless Martian
+climate, had been one of the two dominant species on the Red Planet.
+Somehow--probably through their ability to survive in electronic rather
+than physical form--they had survived the long desolation of their
+home world, where all animate life with the exception of the mindless
+czanworms and the imbecilic sand-lurtonks had succumbed.
+
+They were weird and utterly repulsive creatures--with complex multiple
+bodies, undefined appendages and much-too-well-defined reproductive
+organs. Their concept of proper mating behavior was utterly beyond the
+pale from a human point of view. They were revolting--and Lynne well
+knew that much of the horror they inspired in human minds was caused by
+the fact that they managed to make their ghastly idea of fun and games
+even momentarily alluring.
+
+Lynne shuddered, remembering her previous combats with them, before
+their positively-charged entities had succumbed to the telepathically
+directed bursts of negative anion-gun barrages. Then she said, “The
+first thing I’d like to do is examine every record you have of abnormal
+behavior among the cattle.”
+
+“Joanna will give you the tapes, Mrs. Marcein,” said Martin Juarez. He
+paused, then added, “I’m sorry to be causing you such trouble at this
+time.”
+
+“Forget it,” said Lynne, lighting a cigarette. “I’ll manage. Even if
+the worst should happen, I can always try again. You may not have the
+chance if we don’t lick this thing right now.”
+
+She knew that Juarez knew he should have reported the trouble
+sooner--at least to Mars Agriculture Chief Radchev. But Mars was still
+a pioneer planet, and a responsible project boss like Juarez was very
+much on his own. Naturally, he had not wished to report a failure until
+he could be sure it was real and that there was no possibility of
+mastering it with the means at his command. Lynne liked him, sensed his
+very real abilities, and had no wish to chide him.
+
+While studying the record-tapes in Joanna’s neat office, with its
+bright pots of flowering lichenheather, Lynne considered just how
+serious the problem was. Until E-power had been harnessed to give
+impetus to the restoration of Martian atmosphere, the planet’s human
+population had had to subsist largely on synthetic foods, plus the
+occasional lean, leather-tough meat from wild pigs which had somehow
+survived exportation from Earth and reverted to savagery.
+
+The small bits of grass and grain and vegetables that were painfully
+nurtured in the bone-dry Red Planet soil were far too precious and
+costly to be used for animal fodder. Not until the atomic transmuter
+had been installed at Woomera Station could any cattle be grazed at
+all. And here, the cost was way out of line with even experimental
+results. Until E-power, through controlled moisture production, enabled
+an ever-growing patch of Martian soil to become fertile, the effort to
+grow cattle on Mars was doomed.
+
+“Here’s the first case on record,” said Joanna, halting the tape
+unwinding its record of pictures, written matter and her own clear,
+precise accents on a vidarscreen. “It happened last May twenty-third,
+Earth-calendar. Old Bill, one of our prize musk-Brahmas, went on a
+rampage and tried to catwalk the drinking pool border and fell in. It
+was pretty unusual, but not alarming. No harm was done.”
+
+“Stay with it, Joanna,” said Lynne.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was thinking of what failure of the husbandry program could mean
+at this stage. Since the Red Planet had no water surface--above all
+no salt water--the plankton which had become the staple diet of an
+overpopulated Earth was simply not available. Mars needed beef, and
+lamb, and good rich pork. No heat or energy tablets could make up for
+the real things--especially on a sub-Arctic pioneer planet.
+
+Other incidents of cattle aberration showed on the record with
+increasing frequency and severity. It was a senseless duel that had
+left two prime musk-oxen dripping their own insides. It was an utterly
+out-of-season misbreeding in which the bull seemed to have been helped
+to achieve his purpose in a sort of team operation--a senseless
+miniature stampede that had run off tons of good meat from the bones of
+its owners.
+
+“You know about the dance I saw yesterday,” said Joanna, her bright
+eyes falling away. “When I reported it, Martin went back with me
+to witness it. The cattle were all as mild as turtles. He ordered
+_me_ to report to Dr. Smetana.”
+
+“_Crehut_, I was there yesterday--remember?” Lynne said.
+
+She glanced at the biplanetary chronometer on her wrist--a trim and
+amazing simplification of complexities which Rolf had given her on her
+last birthday. She wondered if her brother or Tony Willis, back at
+Nampura Depot, had got through to Rolf yet.
+
+Then she became aware of the time, and realized that she had missed her
+period of yoga-TP concentration on the precious burden she was carrying
+inside her. As if in protest, the baby kicked vigorously, twice. Lynne
+closed her eyes and sent a message to the unborn tot--_Easy, infant,
+mummy’s right here_. There was no time for rest now. She had to try
+to make some sense out of Joanna’s records.
+
+She began to make sense out of the problem after a while. But it was an
+understanding that deepened, rather than relieved her growing concern
+and mounting fear. Fear of the zombies had never fully left her since
+her first ghastly encounter with them in Nightmare Tower, when it
+had seemed to her that her mind must forever stand alone against the
+ghastly phantoms of an alien world.
+
+Until the previous February Patagonia Station had been little more than
+a blueprint addition to the rapidly spreading green acres of Woomera
+Station. In the fenced-in, relatively small grazing areas of the parent
+station there had been plenty of negative electricity protection
+against zombie inroads. And similar fences had been erected around
+every important official installation on Mars.
+
+But the zombie threat was ancient history, and the broad new pastures
+of Patagonia Station had been planned to enable the specially bred Red
+Planet cattle to roam free--as they had done in the early days of the
+American Southwest, the Argentina pampas and the tse fly-freed plateau
+of Central Africa. The results of this mistake could be ticked off
+almost by the calendar.
+
+The zombies had moved in and were feeding on the vast electrical
+discharges of the mysterious E-entity that provided the power--through
+human-inspired irritation--to create the storms and moisture that made
+the expanded station possible. Taking possession of the empty bovine
+minds, they were beginning to play their monstrous games as their
+new-fed strength waxed.
+
+“_Crehut!_ Look at those _ferkab_ devils now!” Joanna had
+risen and was staring in horror at a vidarscreen on which was projected
+a fairly wide expanse of New Patagonia Station. “Come _on_!” she
+cried.
+
+Lynne paused for an incredulous moment to study the screen. It showed
+level acres, bright with tough, waving grass, each green stretch dotted
+with gray, long-haired cattle. The normally stupid and independent
+beasts were clustering together in a strange way, forming distinct
+group shapes, almost as if in response to some alien military command.
+
+Even as she watched she saw the leader--a large long-horned
+steer--deliberately lower his head and savagely attack an animal that
+had managed to get in his way. She caught a glimpse of blood dripping
+from its torn flanks and spreading like a sun-reddened shadow over the
+emerald-green grass.
+
+“I’m _coming!_” she said grimly in response to another plea from
+Joanna.
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+They rode a two-place tractoscooter together, with Joanna driving the
+rugged, almost-springless vehicle recklessly out over the expanse of
+the growing station toward the scene of incipient disaster. Lynne hung
+onto her perch with both hands, her lips white as they rocketed over
+grassland that had looked level on the vidarscreen, but proved in
+reality to be savagely bumpy and uneven.
+
+Joanna, dominated as she was by a desperate concern for the safety of
+her cattle, did not realize her recklessness until she had braked the
+vehicle, almost in the midst of the zombie-driven beasts. She plucked a
+long bullwhip from a boot at her side, and a stunner from the dashboard
+pocket in front of her. She marched boldly toward the herd, which had
+ceased all movement and was regarding her with massed, owlish eyes.
+
+Then, suddenly, she stopped and turned to Lynne, a look of utter
+consternation on her face. “Lynne!” she exclaimed. “What a _ferkab
+marlet_ I am. I completely forgot about the baby! Are you all right?”
+
+“So far everything’s _purt_,” said Lynne, reassured by her own
+lack of distress. She was all right, she decided, and felt relief flood
+through her. “Get on with it, Joanna,” she urged. “I needn’t tell you
+how important it is.”
+
+Alarm rang like an old-fashioned radar _ping_ in her brain, and
+she swung about just in time to see a long-haired musk-ox rising from
+the tall grass in which he had been lying concealed, and advancing on
+the tractoscooter they had just abandoned.
+
+She experienced a chilling sense of triumphant malice as the shaggy
+beast reared and brought its forefeet viciously down on the dashboard
+and steering apparatus of the vehicle. Instantly the scooter was
+wrecked beyond immediate hope of repair.
+
+Fear became so much a part of Lynne she could feel its copper taste at
+the base of her tongue.
+
+“Joanna!” she cried, her voice strangely weak. “Look behind you.”
+
+The girl turned, her eyes narrowed in desperate rage. Raising the
+stunner she felled the zombie-ridden creature with a perfect shot
+between the eyes, and watched it collapse beside the vehicle it had
+wrecked.
+
+“That should put you to sleep for a while, you _czanworm_,” she
+said, furiously.
+
+Lynne had turned again. The massed herd was advancing remorselessly
+now, spear-headed by an even larger creature. She recognized it as the
+leader she had seen in the vidar screen in Joanna’s office. There was
+still blood on its horns, and tumultuously heaving flanks. Lynne could
+feel the triumphant malice pouring from the zombie in control, and an
+even greater horror came upon her.
+
+“Joanne,” she called desperately, wondering in an extremity of panic,
+what had possessed her to expose herself to so great a danger at such a
+time. She had no doubt at all concerning the deadliness of the danger.
+And it was increased immeasurably seconds later when the dark girl
+swung about and fired pointblank at the menacing ovebos. As the echoes
+of the blast died she hurled her weapon away with a Martian curse.
+
+“Forgot to recharge it,” Joanna said bitterly. Swinging about and
+whirling the bullwhip about her head, she advanced straight toward the
+herd, cracking the whip at them, the flicks sounding like a series of
+rifle-shots.
+
+Some of the cattle shifted uneasily and refused to come forward. Here
+and there a steer even turned and broke away. But the leader, and those
+close behind him continued their inexorable advance.
+
+Lynne got a flash of a too-familiar alien thought, and cried aloud,
+“Careful, Joanna, they’re going to stampede.”
+
+The leader executed an odd, an un-oxlike little shuffle. Then he
+lowered his bloody horns for the charge.
+
+Lynne Marcein, at that moment of great peril, became telepathically
+hyper-acute. She received, sifted, analyzed, and identified a series of
+terrifying mental impressions which came in such quick succession that
+they seemed dreamlike and unreal. There was Joanna, whatever fear she
+felt sublimated to outrage at the grotesque derelictions of the animals
+whose breeding and care was her job. Joanna was going to use her whip
+until the stupid, insane creatures turned and fled in blind panic.
+
+But the creatures were neither stupid nor insane. At least, the
+brains and beings that controlled them were not craven. They were as
+determined as Joanna to destroy her, an obstacle in the path of their
+appalling urge for such degenerate pleasure as their bovine embodiment
+would permit. She caught the mass urge to destroy, and instantly
+thereafter the driving mental force of the leader with his gore-soaked
+horns.
+
+By concentrating telepathically on the leader, Lynne automatically
+shut out all other minds from her consciousness. This was a weapon
+that would have stood all telepaths in good stead when the zombies
+threatened their sanity with mass possession. For the Martian
+aborigines, standing alone, lacked the strength to overpower and
+possess a human TP brain. Their power lay in numbers, not in the
+individual mind.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+
+All this Lynne learned in an eyelid’s flicker, while the leader lowered
+his horns to charge, and the lazy snake of Joanna’s long whip made
+a black silhouette against the Martian sky. She sensed the revelry
+and sense of power that came from possession of a strong animal body
+after uncounted ages of disembodiment. But that feeling of power
+was accompanied by the unsureness of not knowing exactly the stolen
+body’s limitations or what animal instincts the possessor might have
+to control at a moment’s notice. She sensed concern at the defection
+of some of the herd, evidently against the wishes of their zombie
+controllers.
+
+Deliberately, Lynne lowered the level of her probe, shutting out the
+aboriginal brain completely. Somewhere, underneath, lay the stupid,
+foolish, instinct-ridden cattle brain. Never before had Lynne--or
+anyone else to her knowledge--sought telepathic contact with an animal
+mind. Yet alien brains of all levels had been contacted during the
+long-range experiments at Nampura Depot.
+
+It could be done. It had to be done. She was dealing with the leader.
+If she could force his bovine body to revolt, to stampede wildly, other
+bovine bodies would follow--for such unreasoning obedience was deeply
+instinctive in all cattle.
+
+Suddenly she caught it--faint, inchoate as the mind of the unborn child
+within her--a fear buried deep beneath the alien mentality. But she
+caught it, and held it, probing it relentlessly. She felt it catch
+explosively. She saw the great beast halt and tremble, helpless in the
+grip of three minds, just as Joanna cracked the whip with aggressive
+violence.
+
+There was a frantic shaking of a shaggy head, a momentary
+quivering. Then the leader turned and began to trot in front of his
+followers--began to trot, to lope, to canter, finally to cut around the
+body of them at a full, heavy gallop.
+
+There was a confused chorus of other cattle sounds. Then, punctuated
+by the lashings of the bullwhip, the entire herd was galloping away in
+helpless stampede toward the distant rim of the ever-widening Patagonia
+pasturage.
+
+Joanna coiled her whip, and stared after the galloping herd. “Spooky
+_marlets_,” she muttered. “I hardly cracked the whip at them, and
+they take off like a bunch of locos.”
+
+Lynne, who was still trembling violently, looked at the girl in
+amazement. “You don’t sound very happy about they’re not trampling us
+into the ground,” she said.
+
+“That’s not the point,” Joanna replied. “I just don’t like having them
+stampede. They’ll run off fifty pounds a head before they’re through.
+It means fattening them up all over again, and a serious delay in our
+schedule.”
+
+There, thought Lynne, spoke the dedicated animal husbandry woman. She
+followed slowly while Joanna walked to the base of a vidar-tower,
+plucked a communicator from a plastobox, and called Woomera to send out
+a pickup for them. Both girls waited by the tower, smoking cigarettes,
+until the low-built airsled arrived.
+
+Less than two hours later, Marstime, Lynne and Joanna were in
+conference with Martin Juarez and Nicholas Radchev, Planetary
+Agricultural Director, who had hopped a rocket from New Samarkand to
+confer on the emergency. A huge, swarthy man with tousled white hair,
+he shook his head slowly at the conclusion of Lynne’s report.
+
+“An unfortunate mess, Mrs. Marcein,” he said. “What do you suggest we
+do about it?” He spoke with respect, for he had not forgotten that
+it was Lynne and her husband who had made Patagonia Station possible
+through their harnessing of the hitherto deadly and uncontrollable
+E-power.
+
+“I’d like to know a bit more about it before I suggest anything,” said
+Lynne quietly.
+
+Joanna said: “I thought that big fellow spooked _ferkab_ easily
+when I cracked the whip at him. Lynne, why didn’t you _tell_ me
+you were using TP on him?”
+
+“I didn’t want to bore you with long explanations just then,” said
+Lynne, her eyes bright with amusement. Then, becoming serious once
+more, she asked, “Any results on the anion-gun tests?”
+
+Juarez, who had been busying himself with a vidar screen in a corner of
+his office turned and replied, “The report just came in. The results,
+I’m sorry to say, are negative. The zombie steer used for the testing
+is dead.”
+
+“I was afraid of that,” said Radchev, running thick, muscular fingers
+through his shock of white hair. “The poor beast was well electrocuted.
+They’re a lot more sensitive than sheep in some ways. They have more
+delicate nervous systems.”
+
+“What about the zombie?” Lynne asked.
+
+“Burned out, too,” said Juarez. “The _marlet_ couldn’t shake
+itself out in time and took a full negative charge.”
+
+There was a moment of silence. Lynne didn’t have to probe the other
+minds in the room to know what they were thinking. Her own mind was
+following the same channel. If mechanical means--via the anion-guns
+which had routed the disembodied zombies--failed conspicuously now, the
+problem remained grave. For uninhibited possession would destroy the
+all-important Patagonia Station development and, with it, all hope of
+future beef for Mars. Left in possession the aborigines would run the
+cattle ragged, foul up the breeding lines, and destroy one another in
+spurts of sheer malice.
+
+Furthermore, it was conceivable that they might batten on their bovine
+hosts until they grew sufficiently strong to leave them and assume some
+form still more dangerous to humanity on Mars.
+
+Director Radchev spoke in his deep rumble of a voice. “You say, Lynne,
+it’s positive emanations from the E-for-Entity that has made them
+strong enough to take over the beeves?”
+
+“I’m sure of it,” Lynne told him. “Whenever we irritate E to create
+a storm, he releases plenty of positive electricity over the entire
+area--and that’s what the zombies feed on.”
+
+“How long can Woomera and Patagonia endure without rain or snow?”
+Radchev asked Martin Juarez.
+
+“Not long enough,” said the station boss quickly. “One Marsweek without
+moisture would dry us up. Two would cripple us.”
+
+The director nodded, his full lips tightly compressed. Then he turned
+deliberately to Lynne and said, “Any suggestions?”
+
+She returned his level stare while she turned over in her mind the
+idea that had been burgeoning there. “Just one,” she said. “While
+I was probing the leader out there I received a number of definite
+impressions. Most of them were straight zombie--the usual ghastly
+_swackish_ stuff.”
+
+After a brief, organizational pause, she added, “But there was also an
+impression of discomfort, almost of fear. The only comparison I can
+make is to the uneasiness a green rider feels mounted on a new and
+too-spirited horse. He knows he has control, but he isn’t quite sure
+what the beast may try on him, and he isn’t quite sure just how he’s
+going to come down--of his own volition, or his mount’s.”
+
+“Then you think--”
+
+“I think they’re still struggling for control,” Lynne said. “They can’t
+control the human mind because it’s too tough, too alien, and complex.
+They failed to take permanent possession even of a wide open TP brain.
+Now they’ve hit the other extreme--a bovine brain that is beneath their
+comprehension. They can move in on it, they can blanket it--but they
+can’t be sure it won’t kick off the covers.
+
+“Not one of those beasts wanted to stampede the way they did. But once
+I triggered the beast-brain in the leader, and Joanna cracked her whip,
+he had to obey steer-instinct and flee. And the others had to follow
+him, zombie control or not.”
+
+“What’s this leading up to?” Radchev asked. He had pulled out a
+plastopipe, and was packing it with coarse Martian shag. Lynne caught
+a wry longing for good Earth-tobacco, inhibited by a stern resolve to
+fulfill his obligations as Agricultural Director of Mars by using only
+the home-grown product.
+
+She checked her amusement out of courtesy, and said, “There’s another
+factor that may prove vital--_farbishly_ so. In their disembodied
+form the zombies went streaking off at the first threat of danger.
+That’s why we haven’t been able to put them out of business for keeps.
+But this time, they may be in trouble. I’m not at all sure they can get
+out of these bovine bodies they’ve taken over.”
+
+“So what do you propose?” Martin Juarez asked.
+
+“We’re going to try to put the zombies to sleep,” said Lynne quietly.
+“I’ve already sent out a call for help to my TP pals from Nampura
+Depot. We’re going to set up a TP brain-team on Patagonia Station and
+use mass-hypnosis on the whole _farbish_ herd.”
+
+“You’re going to hypnotize the zombies?” Joanna was appalled.
+
+Lynne shook her head and smiled. “Hardly!” she said. “We don’t even
+know that they’ll react to our suggestions. We’re going to give the
+cattle immunity to possession.”
+
+Radchev and Juarez exchanged glances. Then the director rose and took
+her small hand in his. “Young lady,” he said, “you seem to have done it
+again.”
+
+“Better save your congratulations until the job is completed,” she told
+him. “We may not even get out of the batter’s box.”
+
+Lynne and her colleagues were waiting at the trim Woomera Station
+landing field when the newcomers’ Nampura Depot runabout landed, and
+her twin brother and Rana Willis got out. Rana, looking irrepressible
+as usual, went into a bowlegged stance and said, “Well, pardner, how’s
+the roundup?”
+
+Lynne sensed that the girl was glad to get briefly away from her
+first-born Mars-child as she made the introductions. At their
+conclusion, Revere Fenlay said, “Well, we brought the tri-di projector
+along.”
+
+“Okay,” said Lynne. “Don’t unpack it yet. We’ve got a bit further to
+go. Back in with you, _czanworms_.” She waved farewell to the
+others and climbed into the runabout after them, to make the short hop
+to Mars’ still small cattle country.
+
+They landed at the far side of Patagonia Station’s fenced-in acres,
+and Lynne stood by while Revere and Rana unpacked the light but sturdy
+gear. She had asked for and secured a three-dimensional projector,
+knowing that the eyes of cattle would not respond to a picture
+on a flat screen. Her plan was to flash a series of flickering,
+bright-moving objects before the animals, hoping to attract their
+attention willy nilly, very much as a toreador’s cape attracts a ring
+bull. Then, when the cattle were all focused, she planned to use the
+combined TP power of three minds like a trebly stepped-up battery--to
+hypnotize the entire herd and build a protective mental wall around
+each of the stupid steer brains.
+
+If all went well, the zombies would be locked in their new bodies, but
+would be unable to control them at all.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+Three hours after its inauguration, Lynne Marcein realized that the
+experiment was a failure. The cattle showed no signs of being menacing
+or resentful. They did not stampede or go into weird parade formations,
+or gore one another for sport. They were evidently spent of body from
+their exertions earlier in the day.
+
+But, save for a few individuals, they simply refused to pay attention.
+Having glanced at the screen that was supposed to fix their interest
+they would lower their heads and resume grazing, or would simply turn
+away.
+
+Five times, Lynne had Revere and Rana move the tri-di projector, in an
+effort to so arrange its viewing curvature so that general attention
+would be compulsory. Five times the possessed beasts figuratively
+shrugged, humped their shaggy shoulders, and mooed, _So What?_
+Then they went about their bovine business.
+
+“_Farbish_ clever, these Mars-steers,” said Revere with a weak
+attempt at humor, when Lynne finally called a halt.
+
+“I’ve worn my _ferkab_ brain to the bone,” put in tiny Rana
+inelegantly, “trying to bring those stupid creatures under my spell.
+The _farb_ of it is, I can feel those zombies snickering at me. I
+should like to twist them out of their silly cow-brains with my bare
+hands.”
+
+“I know,” said Lynne with a wan smile, suddenly close to the outer
+limits of physical, nervous and mental endurance. “I feel like....” She
+paused, her face turning deathly pale, and then said in a wondering
+tone, “I feel like I’m going to have the baby right here.”
+
+They got her back to adjoining Woomera Station in a hurry, where she
+was soon stretched out on a dispensary plastomat, sobbing with pain,
+with fatigue and with the sickening sense of double failure. Not only
+had she failed to destroy zombie possession of the Patagonia Station
+cattle, but she had put aside her primary duty to handle the big
+problem--had neglected to take care of the precious unborn life she had
+fought so hard to keep for all but a tiny fraction of nine months.
+
+She knew she was acting like a baby herself--whimpering, crying out
+when the pain grew severe, making an idiot of herself.
+
+“Where’s Dr. Smetana?” she said to Martin Juarez, who was standing over
+her bed with rolled-up sleeves and a deep concern in his eyes.
+
+“Don’t worry about a thing,” he told her soothingly, bending to inject
+something into her left arm. “Just relax now--”
+
+“I want my husband,” she heard herself scream. “Where’s Rolf? He should
+be here at this time.”
+
+Then, mercifully, she blacked out, riding a storm-tossed ocean such
+as Mars had not known for half a million years. Coming out of it, an
+indeterminable time later, she realized she must have been delirious.
+She had actually dreamed Rolf was there at her side--though she knew he
+was still on Earth trapped in an octopus monster of Mother-Planet red
+tape. She had dreamed of actually having her baby....
+
+_Baby!_ Her hands flew to her abdomen. It was flat! All at once
+tears of utter desolation and defeat rolled down her cheek. She had
+lost the child--and through her own heedlessness and neglect, after
+working so hard, so faithfully, for so long.
+
+“You’ve got nothing to cry about,” said a familiar voice.
+
+She opened her eyes, and there was Dr. Smetana, sitting by her
+plastomat. She murmured, “Thank God! You got here, Doctor.”
+
+“I got here,” he replied quietly, “but too _swackish_ late. By the
+time I arrived, your son was already born and howling.”
+
+“_My son!_ Where is he?” Lynne cried eagerly, trying to sit up.
+
+Dr. Smetana gently but firmly pushed her flat. “You’ll be up soon
+enough,” he told her. “When you’ve walked the floor a few nights with
+this he-banshee of yours you’ll regret every minute you didn’t lie down
+in your life. A good baby--eight pounds, thirteen ounces.”
+
+“_Crehut!_” said Lynne inelegantly, pushing back the light hair
+from her forehead. “But how--I mean, who delivered it if you didn’t?”
+
+“Dr. Martin Juarez, in person,” was the reply.
+
+Lynne was puzzled. “I didn’t know he was a doctor,” she said.
+
+“One of the finest,” said Dr. Smetana with a wry smile. “It’s his proud
+claim he never lost a calf, a foal, a kid or an egg. And now he’s
+batting a _zwirchy_ one thousand with a human birth.”
+
+“You mean--he’s a veterinary?” Lynne asked incredulously. The idea
+that her child, the second human baby born on Mars, should have been
+delivered by an animal doctor was appalling. Then, suddenly, it was
+funny. Lynne laughed until tears again ran down her cheeks. Recovering,
+she gasped, “I want to see my baby.”
+
+Dr. Smetana had it wheeled alongside the plastomat in a jerry-built
+incubator. “Afraid we can’t take him out yet,” he said. “Got to make
+sure he’s ready for the Martian atmosphere.”
+
+“I understand,” said Lynne, turning her head to look at the bright red,
+tiny creature, asleep under its coverlet with its eyes squeezed tightly
+shut. _Did that come out of me?_ she thought, in the immemorial
+self-question of all new mothers. She probed gently for its thought,
+caught a blanket of sleep, and knew she was going to love it and care
+for it as no mother on any planet had cared for her child.
+
+“As a matter of fact, you gave Dr. Juarez a pretty bad time,” said Dr.
+Smetana. “That boy of yours didn’t want to leave at all.”
+
+“Then my neglect and carelessness these last few days didn’t hurt?”
+asked Lynne, with relief. “I thought that bumpy ride with Joanna--was
+it yesterday?”
+
+“The day before,” said the doctor. “We’ve kept you under to give you
+some rest. As for that bumpy ride, it’s a good thing you had it, or you
+might have been carrying that infant another month.”
+
+“You mean, I did my exercises too well?” Lynne asked.
+
+“I mean, you didn’t need to do them at all,” was the reply, “although
+I’m beginning to believe they’re a good idea for any mother-to-be. You
+and the boy have proved exactly what I _farbish_ well hoped you’d
+prove, Lynne. Thanks to the increased density of atmosphere caused by
+E-power, Mars is safe for human birth.”
+
+He paused, then added, “Two swallows don’t make a summer, of course,
+but I don’t believe either your TP or Rana’s had much to do with it.”
+
+“All that work wasted!” mourned Lynne as one of the Station girls, in a
+striped nurse’s clout and bolero, wheeled the infant away.
+
+“_Wasted!_” Dr. Smetana was indignant. “You and Rana have taken
+the biggest step forward since the first passenger ship landed on Mars.
+You’ve brought the planet out of a biological iron lung. When Dr.
+Juarez vidared me what was happening, I actually cheered.”
+
+“Where _is_ Martin?” Lynne inquired. “I’d like to thank him.”
+
+“You can--later,” said Dr. Smetana. “Right now, he’s out on Patagonia
+Station, watching your husband hypnotize those goofy cows.”
+
+“Rolf!” she asked tremulously. “Rolf here? I thought I was only
+dreaming....”
+
+“He wouldn’t stir from your side until the infant was safely born,”
+said the doctor. “He took the birth like a man--never so much as a
+whimper out of _him_. Then he got busy--_look!_” He nodded
+toward the big vidar screen on the opposite wall.
+
+It was keyed to a Patagonia Station tower. Lynne stared at the picture,
+first with incomprehension, and then with admiration for the man
+she had married, the father of her child. Almost out of the screen
+were four small gleaming dots humans in their aluminum climate-proof
+coveralls. They were clustered around a black cube that was the tri-di
+director. They were standing ankle-deep in snow!
+
+Facing them, as if polarized by some invisible magnet, was a great
+herd of Martian cattle. The animals were clustered close together,
+and were all looking directly at the projector. Rolf had done it, she
+thought with relief. He had converted her failure into triumph. The
+cleverness with which the possessed cattle avoided looking at the
+projector proved, to her satisfaction, that they were not strong enough
+to withstand the hypnosis directed at them.
+
+“Who thought of using a snowstorm?” asked Lynne. “Was it--?”
+
+“It was Rolf,” said Dr. Smetana. “It seems he had been keeping in
+telepathic touch with your problem all the way from New Samarkand. When
+he got here, he simply gave the orders.”
+
+“That’s the trouble with Earthtraining,” said Lynne. “I read somewhere
+that cattle always turn their backs on a snowstorm. But it didn’t
+really register. I never saw cows, or steers outside of a zoo--until I
+got to Mars.”
+
+“We have all the disadvantages of Earth, here on Mars, Lynne,” Dr.
+Smetana said, smiling. “Including, from now on, children. You get some
+rest now, and let me get a little. If you’re restless think about your
+first PTA meeting. That should drop you off in a hurry.”
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+
+When next Lynne woke up, Rolf was there, his hair still wet with snow.
+Lynne’s heart went out to him in a manner that left her, weak and spent
+as she was, aware that she had never been so glad to see anyone in her
+life, even the baby. His eyes were suspiciously moist.
+
+“Well, my _zwirchy_ darling,” he said, “you went and did it.”
+
+“I’ll have them bring the baby in,” she said.
+
+“I just had a look at him,” Rolf told her. “I’m the proudest father on
+Mars.” He lit a cigarette and handed it to her. Then he lit another for
+himself. “I don’t know if you’re marked ‘Fragile, don’t break’ but I’d
+like very much to kiss you.”
+
+“Since when did you ever ask to kiss me--or any girl!” said Lynne,
+reaching for him.
+
+“They couldn’t hold me on Earth,” said Rolf, standing up and exhaling
+twin plumes of smoke through his nostrils. “With you using the team
+on the cattle at Patagonia, I got the pickup on Earth. When you and
+Revere and Rana start TP’ing, the whole Solar System gets it. Wild
+_czanworms_ couldn’t have held me.”
+
+“But I flopped,” said Lynne, feeling safe and comfortable and secure,
+merely having Rolf on the same planet with her. “You had to come up
+with the snowstorm idea.”
+
+Rolf grinned. “Didn’t you ever see anyone come along and put the last
+piece in a jigsaw puzzle?” he asked.
+
+Lynne said, “Come back here.” She held out her arms.
+
+It was three full Mars-days later when Lynne, Rolf, the baby--whose
+name was, by unanimous decision, Martin Juarez Marcein--Revere Fenlay
+and Rana Willis flew back to Nampura Depot, with Rolf at the controls.
+The time had been employed, not only in preparing the infant for
+travel, but for testing and re-testing the processed cattle, until all
+were satisfied that the zombies’ power had again been broken--this
+time, it was hoped, for good.
+
+Revere Fenlay said, “I hope this does it for keeps.”
+
+Rolf replied, thoughtfully, “So do I. But I’d like to be sure they’re
+safely contained in their new bodies.”
+
+“I’ll never eat steak again,” said Rana, shivering.
+
+“Neither will I--without mushrooms,” said Lynne. She looked backward,
+to check the baby, who was sleeping peacefully.
+
+Rolf and Revere Fenlay raised their voices in the old Martian refrain,
+“There’ll never be brisket on Mars. For that we must go to the stars.
+Give me some tablets with vitamin Q. If you don’t like it, to Earthside
+with you!”
+
+It was dark when they reached the Depot under a blazing Martian night
+sky that looked to Lynne definitely less spectacular than it had a mere
+Martian year before.
+
+With the new baby safely asleep in his incubator, they crossed the hall
+to visit Rana and Tony Willis, leaving Revere and Lao Mei to watch the
+tot.
+
+They found Tony up to his elbows in baby-suds in the bathroom.
+Regarding them fondly, he said, “Congratulations, Lynne. I hear you
+were tactful enough to provide Ranita with a future boy-friend.”
+
+“If I know kids,” Rana said, “they probably won’t speak to each other,
+except to bring down the other one’s crushes.”
+
+“When were you ever a child?” Tony Willis asked.
+
+“She’s still a child,” said Lynne. “And a truly _zwirchy_ child,
+too. So stop kicking each other around.”
+
+“Well,” said Tony, thoughtfully. “When I had the time, which was
+_farbish_ seldom, I did miss the little character.”
+
+Rolf, who had appeared to be in a brown study, came out of it with,
+“You know, _czanworms_, we ought to help Tony out.”
+
+“Take over,” said Tony, nodding toward the sink full of baby wash.
+
+Rolf made a gesture of disdain. “Use your wits, man,” he said. “You and
+I are going to pay a visit to New Samarkand. _On business._”
+
+“What business?” asked Tony.
+
+Lynne and Rana, being TP’s, were already laughing.
+
+“What do you think?” Rolf asked. “We’ve got to get busy and start a
+diaper service. If you think I’m going through what you’ve been through
+for the last week, you’re mad!”
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s note:
+
+
+ This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, June 1956 (Vol. 5,
+No. 5.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+ Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78212 ***