The Old Martians Read online

timid."

  "Okay," Steve said. "The next funeral we attend may be our own."

  "Yeah," I said. "It might."

  I moved into the darkness, not using my black light pencil, but keepingmy sensitized glasses on so I could see Herb's if I got close enough.

  I reached the spot where we had done the digging. I hesitated, then kepton, toward the spot where Herb and Dotty had been so engrossed thatafternoon. In my mind's eye I knew exactly where it was.

  My hands explored ahead of me, searching out each stone marker along mypath, clinging to it as I passed it, and slipping off as I went on tothe next. They were my only contact with reality in this totalblackness.

  I was thinking, too. I was thinking of what Herb had said about thisbeing a parking area for airsleds back before the earliest known recordsof man on Earth when this city was alive. He was probably right about itat that. Analysis had shown the presence of copper and aluminum in thetop surface of some of the markers that could only be accounted for bysome metallic object setting atop each one long ago, and remaining sothat molecular and atomic creep could set in, carrying such atoms deepinto the surface crystals of the stone.

  And I was wondering what it was he hoped to dig up. If it were some sortof weapon it probably wouldn't work after all this time. It couldn't! Orcould it? A few things had been pieced together about the ancientMartian civilization. Not much, but enough to be sure that they knew afew things we had never discovered. They had been masters at creatingmachines with no moving parts. The electronic devices we had found hadproven they knew far more about V.H.F. than we did.

  I could see what C.I. was aiming at now. We might not even recognizewhat Herb was searching for. It would be better to let him find it, andget it from him before he could use it. If it was a weapon.

  And it probably was a weapon. I was pretty sure his main objective washidden in the wall in the dome, and that this thing in the cemetery wassomething that would help him get to that objective.

  My thoughts came back to my surroundings. I was less than a dozen feetfrom where Herb and Dotty should be. I stopped. There was no trace ofblack light. I held my breath and listened. And I heard the faintscraping of the knife against stone.

  * * * * *

  I wished fervently that I had a standard C.I. infrascope so that I couldsee. Steve probably knew more of what was going on than I did. I hadcounted on watching Herb by his own black light pencil, and he wasworking in darkness.

  Carefully I stole forward, inch by slow inch, my ears tuned for thefaintest significant sound such as a grunt of satisfaction that wouldtell of finding what he was digging for.

  And a million thoughts taunted me, thoughts about the latest discoveriesin disintegration frequencies, thoughts about how little we knew of thatancient Martian civilization.

  But also I was figuring what Herb would do. He would find the object hewas digging for. Unwittingly he would grunt his triumph. Dotty mightforget his strict warnings to be quiet, and say something. Regardless ofthat, he would stand up slowly, fondling what he had found, rememberingwhat it was and how it worked. There would be a few seconds before itwould become a weapon in his hands, seconds that I had to make the mostuse of, and be ready for.

  "Uh!" It was the triumphant grunt I had known would come.

  Sudden panic made me cast aside whatever vague plan of action I had had.

  I turned on my pencil, bathing the two in its black light. At the sametime I said, "I _thought_ it was a scheme to get rid of me."

  It was the element of surprise that saved me. A still picture of thescene the black light disclosed etched itself into my mind. There was anobject in Herb's hand. A strange, meaningless object, dirty, yet withdefinite form. It was cradled in his hand like a weapon. It was pointedalmost at me.

  I dropped my pencil and went in low, diving for his legs. I felt the aircrackle where I had just stood. As my arms encircled his legs I heardthunder exploding nearby.

  Training has its advantages. The moment I felt contact with Herb thattraining took over. I jerked and rolled in a movement calculated tothrow him to the ground face down, the motion ending in a backbreakerhold.

  But only a part of my mind was concerned with that. The other part wasfrozen with horror. Approximately a half acre of the cemetery wasglowing. I saw Steve in the center of it with Herb's weapon pointing hisway. The very inertia of matter held Steve together for that briefinstant, then he was falling apart, melting and evaporating at the sametime, just like the stone markers and the ground around him.

  I had the thing away from him suddenly, and I wondered what to do next.Running footsteps gave me the answer. It was other C.I. agents closingin.

  Seconds later they had Herb under control. Dotty was wringing her handsand crying.

  Me, I was holding the thing, afraid to let go of it and afraid to keepon holding it. But as the seconds passed without it exploding intodestructive action again I began to let myself think I might live awhile longer.

  The area of destruction was molten now. Its heat was like that of anopen blast furnace.

  We skirted it and headed toward the road, lights in the distance tellingus that cars were on the way to get us.

  I saw Dotty stumble. I took her arm. She looked up at me, recognized mein the light from the glowing pool of bubbling lava, and tried to pullaway.

  "Take it easy," I said gruffly. "I'm your friend. Maybe the only friendyou've got here."

  Her look told me she didn't believe me, but she didn't pull away anymore.

  We walked along, and after a moment she seemed to struggle up out of hermental paralysis.

  "Herb was right!" she said in a low, wondering tone. "He really didremember."

  "It was plain coincidence," I said sharply, "and don't ever let yourselfthink differently. He's insane. It's a recognized form of insanity.He'll be sent to a good mental hospital, and in a year or two he'll comeout good as new."

  "Coincidence?" she echoed. Then she laughed. It was mirth that driftedquickly into hysterical hopelessness. I dug my fingers into her fleshuntil the pain brought her to her senses.

  "Coincidence," I said. "Nothing more. I've seen seventeen cases justlike his. How else did I spot him? I recognized the type. None of theothers found what they rationalized themselves into thinking theyremembered from the time they were Martians. Eventually one of themwould stumble onto something. That's coincidence. Not incarnatedmemory."

  She turned her head and blinked at me. I nodded grimly. "I'm an agent,"I said. "I go out on the tours for one purpose only--to spot psychos andmake sure they don't get out of control. You'd be surprised how manythere are. Some of them, like your husband, probably show no sign ofinstability until they get here. They look around at the evidence of acivilization that existed before _homo sapiens_ had evolved on theEarth, and it throws them. If you want to understand more about it readthe medical books. They get irrational pre-memories. They look atsomething and the idea of familiarity associates with the newimpression. They look around a corner and see something, and build upthe conviction that they had consciously known what was there beforethey looked around the corner."

  I felt that I was making headway with her. I wanted to. I had to.

  "You--you say there were others, and they didn't find anything?" shesaid. She was groping for something logical to grasp. I had to give herthat something.

  "That's right," I said. "And the law of averages said that somedaysomeone would uncover something that's been missed."

  She was nodding slowly now, accepting what I was saying. It wasauthoritative. She would find confirmation in authoritative books. Ifshe wanted to pursue the subject she would find plenty of evidence, realevidence, to support it. It is a common form of insanity. It wasimportant that she believe that.

  We reached the road. C.I. had been prepared. There was a car to take herback to the hotel, a stationwagon for Herb who was now very submissiveand somewhat dazed, and a third car for me and my precious cargo.

 
* * * * *

  Ten minutes later I was in the Science Building basement, laying thething on a wooden table, very gently. It seemed solid, each integralpart of its form being of a different metal.

  None of the men watching me lay it down discounted the danger itcontained. They knew too much about how shape and dimension can affectthe electronic properties of metal. They knew the thing probably didn'tcontain an erg of power of its own, but probably triggered and directedthe release of cosmic energies as yet unknown to them.

  They stared at it. One of them reached out to touch it, then slowly drewhis finger back.

  I could see the decision crystallizing in their minds behind theirserious eyes. This thing would go with the other strange andincomprehensible machines locked in vaults in a concrete building farout on the Martian desert away from the