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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78212-0.txt b/78212-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a59f1fb --- /dev/null +++ b/78212-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1378 @@ +*** 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 *** diff --git a/78212-h/78212-h.htm b/78212-h/78212-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e511f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/78212-h/78212-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1507 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + Snowstorm on Mars | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.f15 {font-size: 1.5em;} +img.w20 {width: 20em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe116_5625 {width: 116.5625em;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78212 ***</div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe116_5625" id="cover"> + <img class="w20" src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + Transcribed from Fantastic Universe, June 1956 (Vol. 5, No. 5.). + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> +<h1> +Snowstorm on Mars +</h1> + + +<p class="center f15">by <strong>Jacques Jean Ferrat</strong></p> +<p class="center">[Pseudonym of <strong>Sam Merwin, Jr.</strong>]</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> +<blockquote> +<p><i>We might have known it would be dangerous to publish a +science fantasy novel as well-liked as Jacques Jean Ferrat’s</i> +<span class="allsmcap">NIGHTMARE TOWER</span>, <i>followed by a sequel in much the +same exciting vein. Unhappily for us the popularity of</i> <span class="allsmcap">THE +WHITE RAIN CAME</span> <i>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.</i></p> + +<p class="p2"><b>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!</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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, <i>vinral</i>,” 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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Rolf said, “I could kill these <i>ferkab</i> VIP’s in Paulo City for +their <i>czanworm</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>ferkab</i> arrangements. Also, <i>vinral</i>, I miss you +<i>farbly</i>.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="II"> + II + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Rana looked up quickly at Lynne and said, “Well! How goes it with you, +little mother?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Little</i> mother!” exclaimed Tony, who was standing by with the +towel. “Aren’t you being medically inexact?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Well, I did what I could,” he replied with false male modesty. “Watch +out, <i>vinral</i>—or you’ll get soap in its eye.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Those <i>ferkab</i> 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 <i>zwirchy. Farbish +zwirchy</i>.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>At this stage, Lynne had intervened, firm in her conviction that Rana +had accomplished a miracle. “How?” she asked.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“But I still don’t see how—”</p> + +<p>“<i>Crehut!</i>” had been Rana’s reply. “You remind me of the +Indian chief who said to the mermaid in the old Earth-joke: ‘<i>I +did exercises</i>.’” 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.</p> + +<p>Later, noting the detached look in Lynne’s eye, Rolf had protested, +“If you think for a moment, <i>vinral</i>, that you’re going to put me +through what poor Tony’s enduring, you’re out of your mind.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about that,” Lynne had affirmed, +“<i>after</i> Rana’s baby is born.”</p> + +<p>“<i>If</i> Rana’s baby is born,” had been Rolf’s tormented comment.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Tony was about to ask her a question, when a choking wail from the +bedroom sent him flying. “Honestly—<i>men!</i>” exclaimed Rana. +“They’re such idiots about babies!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="III"> + III + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’ll be <i>zwirched</i>,” 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.”</p> + +<p>“If I’m such a freak, what about Rana Willis?” said Lynne, who was +beginning to tire of the “miracle” aspects of her pregnancy.</p> + +<p>“We expect miracles to happen once in a long while,” Dr. Smetana told +her, “but not two in a row.”</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +“<i>Crehut</i>, Joanna, you can’t be ill. Not you.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“<i>This</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>swackish</i>.” Another pause, then, “I’ll +let you know when we have everything <i>purt</i>. I do want you down +there.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>purt?</i>”</p> + +<p>Lynne nodded and turned her attention to her soup. “Couldn’t be +<i>purter</i>,” 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.</p> + +<p><i>You can say that again.</i> Revere’s thought came through to her +clearly across the table. <i>Everything really</i> zwirchy?</p> + +<p><i>Everything’s fine.</i> 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....</p> + +<p>Lynne went on silently to Revere, who, with non-TP Tony Willis +virtually ran Martian communications while Rolf was away on Earth, +<i>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.</i></p> + +<p><i>Why, something up?</i> 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 <i>is</i> 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 <i>ferkab</i> +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 <i>feel</i> like nothing. Joanna was keeping her thoughts +rigidly masked while I talked to her.”</p> + +<p>“If you two <i>marlets</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“Sorry,” said Lynne.</p> + +<p>Revere took his wife’s hand and squeezed it. Then, telepathically, to +Lynne he said: <i>Will do, female. Go do your exercises and let Brother +Revere ride again.</i></p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“If you do,” said Revere Fenlay, “you’ll be the only one in all the +worlds. So who will you have to talk to?”</p> + +<p>“It’s not <i>whom</i> I’ll have to talk to,” said Lao Mei demurely. +“It’s the <i>whoms</i> I’ll be able to shut out.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="IV"> + IV + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>oneness</i>, of warmth and security to the embryo brain within her. +Then, after a while, she slept dreamlessly.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>marlets</i> have been +having a bucketful of <i>swackish</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“That I’ll have to see,” said Lynne, lighting a cigarette.</p> + +<p>“You will—in a moment,” said Dr. Smetana. “I’ve got Joanna Wheatley’s +tapes right here.” He turned on a switch.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>Lynne knew what Revere was thinking, and for a moment, there was +shared horror between them. They <i>knew</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“But what about those cattle?” the physician asked.</p> + +<p>“Revere will tell you,” Lynne replied. “I’ve got to put an emergency +call through to my husband. He’s needed here—at once.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Inside her, the baby kicked feebly.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="V"> + V + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>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 <i>czanworm</i>.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“<i>Crehut!</i>” 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Stay with it, Joanna,” said Lynne.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<i>me</i> to report to Dr. Smetana.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Crehut</i>, I was there yesterday—remember?” Lynne said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>Easy, infant, +mummy’s right here</i>. There was no time for rest now. She had to try +to make some sense out of Joanna’s records.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“<i>Crehut!</i> Look at those <i>ferkab</i> 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 <i>on</i>!” she +cried.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’m <i>coming!</i>” she said grimly in response to another plea from +Joanna.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="VI"> + VI + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, she stopped and turned to Lynne, a look of utter +consternation on her face. “Lynne!” she exclaimed. “What a <i>ferkab +marlet</i> I am. I completely forgot about the baby! Are you all right?”</p> + +<p>“So far everything’s <i>purt</i>,” 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.”</p> + +<p>Alarm rang like an old-fashioned radar <i>ping</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Fear became so much a part of Lynne she could feel its copper taste at +the base of her tongue.</p> + +<p>“Joanna!” she cried, her voice strangely weak. “Look behind you.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“That should put you to sleep for a while, you <i>czanworm</i>,” she +said, furiously.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Lynne got a flash of a too-familiar alien thought, and cried aloud, +“Careful, Joanna, they’re going to stampede.”</p> + +<p>The leader executed an odd, an un-oxlike little shuffle. Then he +lowered his bloody horns for the charge.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="VII"> + VII + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Joanna coiled her whip, and stared after the galloping herd. “Spooky +<i>marlets</i>,” she muttered. “I hardly cracked the whip at them, and +they take off like a bunch of locos.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to know a bit more about it before I suggest anything,” said +Lynne quietly.</p> + +<p>Joanna said: “I thought that big fellow spooked <i>ferkab</i> easily +when I cracked the whip at him. Lynne, why didn’t you <i>tell</i> me +you were using TP on him?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“What about the zombie?” Lynne asked.</p> + +<p>“Burned out, too,” said Juarez. “The <i>marlet</i> couldn’t shake +itself out in time and took a full negative charge.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“How long can Woomera and Patagonia endure without rain or snow?” +Radchev asked Martin Juarez.</p> + +<p>“Not long enough,” said the station boss quickly. “One Marsweek without +moisture would dry us up. Two would cripple us.”</p> + +<p>The director nodded, his full lips tightly compressed. Then he turned +deliberately to Lynne and said, “Any suggestions?”</p> + +<p>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 +<i>swackish</i> stuff.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Then you think—”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>She checked her amusement out of courtesy, and said, “There’s another +factor that may prove vital—<i>farbishly</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“So what do you propose?” Martin Juarez asked.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>farbish</i> herd.”</p> + +<p>“You’re going to hypnotize the zombies?” Joanna was appalled.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Better save your congratulations until the job is completed,” she told +him. “We may not even get out of the batter’s box.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Okay,” said Lynne. “Don’t unpack it yet. We’ve got a bit further to +go. Back in with you, <i>czanworms</i>.” She waved farewell to the +others and climbed into the runabout after them, to make the short hop +to Mars’ still small cattle country.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If all went well, the zombies would be locked in their new bodies, but +would be unable to control them at all.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII"> + VIII + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>So What?</i> +Then they went about their bovine business.</p> + +<p>“<i>Farbish</i> clever, these Mars-steers,” said Revere with a weak +attempt at humor, when Lynne finally called a halt.</p> + +<p>“I’ve worn my <i>ferkab</i> brain to the bone,” put in tiny Rana +inelegantly, “trying to bring those stupid creatures under my spell. +The <i>farb</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She knew she was acting like a baby herself—whimpering, crying out +when the pain grew severe, making an idiot of herself.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Don’t worry about a thing,” he told her soothingly, bending to inject +something into her left arm. “Just relax now—”</p> + +<p>“I want my husband,” she heard herself scream. “Where’s Rolf? He should +be here at this time.”</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p><i>Baby!</i> 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.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got nothing to cry about,” said a familiar voice.</p> + +<p>She opened her eyes, and there was Dr. Smetana, sitting by her +plastomat. She murmured, “Thank God! You got here, Doctor.”</p> + +<p>“I got here,” he replied quietly, “but too <i>swackish</i> late. By the +time I arrived, your son was already born and howling.”</p> + +<p>“<i>My son!</i> Where is he?” Lynne cried eagerly, trying to sit up.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Crehut!</i>” said Lynne inelegantly, pushing back the light hair +from her forehead. “But how—I mean, who delivered it if you didn’t?”</p> + +<p>“Dr. Martin Juarez, in person,” was the reply.</p> + +<p>Lynne was puzzled. “I didn’t know he was a doctor,” she said.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>zwirchy</i> one thousand with a human birth.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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. <i>Did that come out of me?</i> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You mean, I did my exercises too well?” Lynne asked.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>farbish</i> well hoped you’d +prove, Lynne. Thanks to the increased density of atmosphere caused by +E-power, Mars is safe for human birth.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“All that work wasted!” mourned Lynne as one of the Station girls, in a +striped nurse’s clout and bolero, wheeled the infant away.</p> + +<p>“<i>Wasted!</i>” 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.”</p> + +<p>“Where <i>is</i> Martin?” Lynne inquired. “I’d like to thank him.”</p> + +<p>“You can—later,” said Dr. Smetana. “Right now, he’s out on Patagonia +Station, watching your husband hypnotize those goofy cows.”</p> + +<p>“Rolf!” she asked tremulously. “Rolf here? I thought I was only +dreaming....”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>him</i>. Then he got busy—<i>look!</i>” He nodded +toward the big vidar screen on the opposite wall.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Who thought of using a snowstorm?” asked Lynne. “Was it—?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="IX"> + IX + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Well, my <i>zwirchy</i> darling,” he said, “you went and did it.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll have them bring the baby in,” she said.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Since when did you ever ask to kiss me—or any girl!” said Lynne, +reaching for him.</p> + +<p>“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 +<i>czanworms</i> couldn’t have held me.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Rolf grinned. “Didn’t you ever see anyone come along and put the last +piece in a jigsaw puzzle?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Lynne said, “Come back here.” She held out her arms.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Revere Fenlay said, “I hope this does it for keeps.”</p> + +<p>Rolf replied, thoughtfully, “So do I. But I’d like to be sure they’re +safely contained in their new bodies.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll never eat steak again,” said Rana, shivering.</p> + +<p>“Neither will I—without mushrooms,” said Lynne. She looked backward, +to check the baby, who was sleeping peacefully.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“If I know kids,” Rana said, “they probably won’t speak to each other, +except to bring down the other one’s crushes.”</p> + +<p>“When were you ever a child?” Tony Willis asked.</p> + +<p>“She’s still a child,” said Lynne. “And a truly <i>zwirchy</i> child, +too. So stop kicking each other around.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Tony, thoughtfully. “When I had the time, which was +<i>farbish</i> seldom, I did miss the little character.”</p> + +<p>Rolf, who had appeared to be in a brown study, came out of it with, +“You know, <i>czanworms</i>, we ought to help Tony out.”</p> + +<p>“Take over,” said Tony, nodding toward the sink full of baby wash.</p> + +<p>Rolf made a gesture of disdain. “Use your wits, man,” he said. “You and +I are going to pay a visit to New Samarkand. <i>On business.</i>”</p> + +<p>“What business?” asked Tony.</p> + +<p>Lynne and Rana, being TP’s, were already laughing.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> +<div class="transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note"> + Transcriber’s note: + </h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version.</p> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78212 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78212-h/images/cover.jpg b/78212-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7265fbc --- /dev/null +++ b/78212-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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