Martian Time-Slip Page 3

  It was far from accidental that Mrs. Esterhazy and her newsletter and organization on Earth were advocating a cause which would be of economic value to Arnie. Anne Esterhazy was Arnie’s ex-wife. They were still good friends, and still owned jointly a number of economic ventures which they had founded or bought into during their marriage. On a number of levels they still worked together, even though on a strictly personal basis they had no common ground whatsoever. He found her aggressive, domineering, overly masculine, a tall and bony female with a long stride, wearing low-heeled shoes and a tweed coat and dark glasses, a huge leather purse slung from a strap over her shoulder. . . but she was shrewd and intelligent and a natural executive. As long as he did not have to see her outside of the business context, he could get along with her.

  The fact that Anne Esterhazy had once been his wife and that they still had financial ties was not well known. When he wanted to get in touch with her he did not dictate a letter to one of the settlement’s stenographers; instead he used a little encoding dictation machine which he kept in his desk, sending the reel of tape over to her by special messenger. The messenger dropped off the tape at an art object shop which Anne owned over in the Israeli settlement, and her answer, if any, was deposited the same way at the office of a cement and gravel works on the Bernard Baruch Canal which belonged to Arnie’s brother-in-law, Ed Rockingham, his sister’s husband.

  A year ago, when Ed Rockingham had built a house for himself and Patricia and their three children, he had acquired the unacquirable: his own canal. He had had it built, in open violation of the law, for his private use, and it drew water from the great common network. Even Arnie had been outraged. But there had been no prosecution, and today the canal, modestly named after Rockingham’s eldest child, carried water eighty miles out into the desert, so that Pat Rockingham could live in a lovely spot and have a lawn, a swimming pooi, and a fully irrigated flower garden. She grew especially large camellia bushes, which were the only ones that had survived the transplanting to Mars. All during the day, sprinklers revolved and sprayed her bushes, keeping them from drying up and dying.

  Twelve huge camellia bushes seemed to Arnie Kott an ostentation. He did not get along well with his sister or Ed Rockingham. What had they come to Mars for? he asked himself. To live, at incredible expense and effort, as much as possible as they had back Home on Earth. To him it was absurd. Why not remain on Earth? Mars, for Arnie, was a new place, and it meant a new life, lived with a new style. He and the other settlers, both big and small, had made in their time on Mars countless minute adjustments in a process of adaptation through so many stages that they had in fact evolved; they were new creatures, now. Their children born on Mars started out like this, novel and peculiar, in some respects enigmatic to their parents. Two of his own boys-- his and Anne’s--now lived in a settlement camp at the outskirts of Lewistown. When he visited them he could not make them out; they looked toward him with bleak eyes, as if waiting for him to go away. As near as he could tell, the boys had no sense of humor. And yet they were sensitive; they could talk forever about animals and plants, the landscape itself. Both boys had pets, Martian critters that struck him as horrid: praying mantis types of bugs, as large as donkeys. The damn things were called boxers, because they were often seen propped up erect and squaring off at one another in a ritual battle which generally ended up with one killing and eating the other. Bert and Ned had gotten their pet boxers trained to do manual chores of a low caliber, and not to eat each other. And the things were their companions; children on Mars were lonely, partly because there were still so few of them and partly because . . . Arnie did not know. The children had a large-eyed, haunted look, as if they were starved for something as yet invisible. They tended to become reclusive, if given half a chance, wandering off to poke about in the wastelands. What they brought back was worthless, to themselves and to the settlements, a few bones or relics of the old nigger civilization, perhaps. When he flew by ‘copter, Arnie always spotted some isolated children, one here and another there, toiling away out in the desert, scratching at the rock and sand as if trying vaguely to pry up the surface of Mars and get underneath. . . .

  Unlocking the bottom drawer of his desk, Arnie got out the little battery-powered encoding dictation machine and set it up for use. Into it he said, “Anne, I’d like to meet with you and talk. That committee has too many women on it, and it’s going the wrong way. For example, the last ad in the Times worries me because--“ He broke off, for the encoding machine had groaned to a stop. He poked at it, and the reels turned slowly and then once more settled back into silence.

  Thought it was fixed, Arnie thought angrily. Can’t those jerks fix nothing? Maybe he would have to go to the black market and buy, at an enormous price, another. He winced at the thought.

  The not-too-good-looking secretary from the pool, who had been sitting quietly across from him waiting, now responded to his nod. She produced her pencil and pad and began as he dictated.

  “Usually,” Arnie Kott said, “I can understand how hard it is to keep things running, what with no parts hardly, and the way the local weather affects metal and wiring. However, I’m fed up with asking for competent repair service on a vital item like my encoding machine. I just got to have it, that’s all. So if you guys can’t keep it working, I’m going to disband you and withdraw your franchise to practice the craft of repairing within the settlement, and I’ll rely on outside service for our maintenance.” He nodded once more, and the girl ceased writing.

  “Shall I take the encoder over to the repair department, Mr. Kott?” she asked. “I’d be happy to, sir.”

  “Naw,” Arnie grumbled. “Just run along.”

  As she departed, Arnie once more picked up his New York Times and again read. Back home on Earth you could buy a new encoder for almost nothing; in fact, back home you could--hell. Look at the stuff being advertised . . . from old Roman coins to fur coats to camping equipment to diamonds to rocket ships to crabgrass poison. Jeez!

  However, his immediate problem was how to contact his ex-wife without the use of his encoder. Maybe I can just drop by and see her, Arnie said to himself. Good excuse to get out of the office.

  He picked up the telephone and called for a ‘copter to be made ready up above him on the roof of the Union Hall, and then he finished off the remains of his breakfast, wiped his mouth hurriedly, and set off for the elevator.

  “Hi, Arnie,” the ‘copter pilot greeted him, a pleasantfaced young man from the pilot pool.

  “Hi, my boy,” Arnie said, as the pilot assisted him into the special leather seat which he had had made at the settlement’s fabric and upholstery shop. As the pilot got into the seat ahead of him Arnie leaned back comfortably, crossed his legs, and said, “Now you just take off and I’ll direct you in flight. And take it easy because I’m in no hurry. It looks like a nice day.”

  “Real nice day,” the pilot said, as the blades of the ‘copter began to rotate. “Except for that haze over around the F.D.R. Range.”

  They had hardly gotten into the air when the ‘copter’s loudspeaker came on. “Emergency announcement. There is a small party of Bleekmen out on the open desert at gyrocompass point 4.65003 dying from exposure and lack of water. Ships north of Lewistown are instructed to direct their flights to that point with all possible speed and give assistance. United Nations law requires all commercial and private ships to respond.” The announcement was repeated in the crisp voice of the UN announcer, speaking from the UN transmitter on the artificial satellite somewhere overhead.

  Feeling the ‘copter alter its course, Arnie said, “Aw, come on, my boy.”

  “I have to respond, sir,” the pilot said. “It’s the law.”

  Chrissake, Arnie thought with disgust. He made a mental note to have the boy sacked or at least suspended as soon as they got back from their trip.

  Now they were above the desert, moving at good speed toward the intersect which the UN announcer had given. Bleekmen niggers, Arnie
thought. We have to drop everything we’re doing to bail them out, the damn fools--can’t they trot across their own desert? Haven’t they been doing it without our help for five thousand years?

  As Jack Bohlen started to lower his Yee Company repairship toward McAuliff’s dairy ranch below, he heard the UN announcer come on with the emergency notification, the like of which Bohlen had heard many times before and which never failed to chill him.

  “. . . Party of Bleekmen out on the open desert,” the matter-of-fact voice declared. “. . . Dying from exposure and lack of water. Ships north of Lewistown--“

  I’ve got it, Jack Bohlen said to himself. He cut his mike on and said, “Yee Company repairship close by gyrocompass point 4.65003, ready to respond at once. Should reach them in two or three minutes.” He swung his ‘copter south, away from McAuliff ‘s ranch, getting a golden-moment sort of satisfaction at the thought of McAuliff’s indignation right now as he saw the ‘copter swing away and guessed the reason. No one had less use for the Bleekmen than did the big ranchers; the poverty-stricken, nomadic natives were constantly showing up at the ranches for food, water, medical help, and sometimes just a plain old-fashioned handout, and nothing seemed to madden the prosperous dairymen more than to be used by the creatures whose land they had appropriated.

  Another ‘copter was responding, now. The pilot was saying, “I am just outside Lewistown at gyrocompass point 4.78995 and will respond as soon as possible. I have rations aboard including fifty gallons of water.” He gave his identification and then rang off.

  The dairy ranch with its cows fell away to the north, and Jack Bohlen was gazing intently down at the open desert once more, seeking to catch sight of the party of Bleekmen. Sure enough, there they were. Five of them, in the shade cast by a small hill of stone. They were not moving. Possibly they were already dead. The UN satellite, in its swing across the sky, had discovered them, and yet it could not help them. Their mentors were powerless. And we who can help them-- what do we care? Jack thought. The Bleekmen were dying out anyhow, the remnants getting more tattered and despairing every year. They were wards of the UN, protected by them. Some protection, Jack thought.

  But what could be done for a waning race? Time had run out for the natives of Mars long before the first Soviet ship had appeared in the sky with its television cameras grinding away, back in the ‘60s. No human group had conspired to exterminate them; it had not been necessary. And anyhow they had been a vast curiosity, at first. Here was a discovery worth the billions spent in the task of reaching Mars. Here was an extraterrestrial race.

  He landed the ‘copter on the flat sand close by the party of Bleekmen, switched off the blades, opened the door, and stepped out.

  The hot morning sun beat down on him as he walked across the sand toward the unmoving Bleekmen. They were alive; they had their eyes open and were watching him.

  “Rains are falling from me onto your valuable persons,” he called to them, the proper Bleekman greeting in the Bleeky dialect.

  Close to them now he saw that the party consisted of one wrinkled old couple, a young male and female, no doubt husband and wife, and their infant. A family, obviously, which had set out across the desert alone on foot, probably seeking water or food; perhaps the oasis at which they had been subsisting had dried up. It was typical of the plight of the Bleekmen, this conclusion to their trek. Here they lay, unable to go on any farther; they had withered away to something resembling heaps of dried vegetable matter and they would have died soon had not the UN satellite spotted them.

  Rising to his feet slowly, the young Bleekman male genuflected and said in a wavering, frail voice, “The rains falling from your wonderful presence envigor and restore us, Mister.”

  Jack Bohlen tossed his canteen to the young Bleekman, who at once knelt down, unscrewed the cap, and gave it to the supine elderly couple. The old lady seized it and drank from it.

  The change in her came at once. She seemed to swell back into life, to change from the muddy gray color of death before his eyes.

  “May we fill our eggshells?” the young Bleekman male asked Jack. Lying upright on the sand were several paka eggs, pale hollow shells which Jack saw were completely empty. The Bleekmen transported water in these shells; their technical ability was so slight that they did not even possess clay pots. And yet, he reflected, their ancestors had constructed the great canal system.

  “Sure,” he said. “There’s another ship coming with plenty of water.” He went back to his ‘copter and got his lunch pail; returning with it, he handed it to the Bleekman male. “Food,” he explained. As if they didn’t know. Already the elederly couple were on their feet, tottering up with their hands stretched out.

  Behind Jack, the roar of a second ‘copter grew louder. It was landing, a big two-person ‘copter that now coasted up and halted, its blades slowly spinning.

  The pilot called down, “Do you need me? If not, I’ll go on.”

  “I don’t have much water for them,” Jack said.

  “O.K.,” the pilot said, and switched off his blades. He hopped out, lugging a five-gallon can. “They can have this.”

  Together, Jack and the pilot stood watching the Bleekman filling their eggshells from the can of water. Their possessions were not many--a quiver of poisoned arrows, an animal hide for each of them; the two women had their pounding blocks, their sole possessions of value: without the blocks they were not fit women, for on them they prepared either meat or grain, whatever food their hunt might bring. And they had a few cigarettes.

  “My passenger,” the young pilot said in a low voice in Jack’s ear, “isn’t too keen about the UN being able to compel us to stop like this. But what he doesn’t realize is they’ve got that satellite up there and they can see if you fail to stop. And it’s a hell of a big fine.”

  Jack turned and looked up into the parked ‘copter. He saw seated inside it a heavy-set man with a bald head, a well-fed, self-satisifed-looking man who gazed out sourly, paying no attention to the five Bleekmen.

  “You have to comply with the law,” the pilot said in a defensive voice. “It’d be me who they’d sock with the fine.”

  Walking over to the ship, Jack called up to the big baldheaded man seated within, “Doesn’t it make you feel good to know you saved the lives of five people?”

  The bald-headed man looked down at him and said, “Five niggers, you mean. I don’t call that saving five people. Do you?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Jack said. “And I intend to continue doing so.”

  “Go ahead, call it that,” the bald-headed man said. Flushing, he glanced over at Jack’s ‘copter, read the markings on it. “See where it gets you.”

  Coming over beside Jack, the young pilot said hurriedly, “That’s Arnie you’re talking to. Arnie Kott.” He called up, “We can leave now, Arnie.” Climbing up, the pilot disappeared inside the ‘copter, and once more the blades began to turn.

  The ‘copter rose into the air, leaving Jack standing alone by the five Bleekmen. They had now finished drinking and were eating from the lunch pail which he had given them. The empty water can lay off to one side. The paka eggshells had been filled and were now stoppered. The Bleekmen did not glance up as the ‘copter left. They paid no attention to Jack, either; they murmured among themselves in their dialect.

  “What’s your desination?” Jack asked them.

  The young Bleekman named an oasis very far to the south.

  “You think you can make it?” Jack asked. He pointed to the old couple. “Can they?”

  “Yes, Mister,” the young Bleekman answered. “We can make it now, with the food and water yourself and the other Mister gave us.”

  I wonder if they can, Jack said to himself. Naturally they’d say it, even if they knew it wasn’t possible. Racial pride, I guess.

  “Mister,” the young Bleekman said, “we have a present for you because you stopped.” He held out something to Jack.

  Their possessions were so meager that he could not be
lieve they had anything to spare. He held his hand out, however, and the young Bleekman put something small and cold into it, a dark, wrinkled, dried bit of substance that looked to Jack like a section of tree root.

  “It is a water witch,” the Bleekman said. “Mister, it will bring you water, the source of life, any time you need.”

  “It didn’t help you, did it?” Jack said.

  With a sly smile the young Bleekman said, “Mister, it helped; it brought you.”

  “What’ll you do without it?” Jack asked.

  “We have another. Mister, we fashion water witches.” The young Bleekman pointed to the old couple. “They are authorities.”

  More carefully examining the water witch, Jack saw that it had a face and vague limbs. It was mummified, once a living creature of some sort; he made out its drawn-up legs, its ears . . . he shivered. The face was oddly human, a wizened, suffering face, as if it had been killed while crying out.

  “How does it work?” he asked the young Bleekman.

  “Formerly, when one wanted water, one pissed on the water witch, and she came to life. Now we do not do that, Mister; we have learned from you Misters that to piss is wrong. So we spit on her instead, and she hears that, too, almost as well. It wakes her, and she opens and looks around, and then she opens her mouth and calls the water to her. As she did with you, Mister, and that other Mister, the big one who sat and did not come down, the Mister with no hair on his head.”