The Old Martians Read online

tourist trails of this deadplanet. It would remain there until the day when human science advancedfar enough to understand it.

  "What about the wall in the dome?" I asked.

  "They roped it off. They're afraid of it."

  "Did you convince his wife he's insane?" one of the science staff asked.

  I nodded. "I used the same old line. Told her there were dozens likehim, and the law of averages made it certain at least one of them wouldfind something."

  He nodded, grinned without humor. "How we love to lie."

  I turned away. There was a bitter taste in my mouth from all the liesI'd told--all the bilge.

  But I knew the truth, too. I was as sure of that as I was of anything.It wasn't insanity, of course. And it wasn't reincarnation. It seemed tobe, because the mind has a habit of _possessing_ for its very ownanything that enters it.

  The truth of the matter was that somehow, in some incomprehensible way,the Martians were still with us. They hated us and they knew how to useour weak ones.

  The old Martians--and their science.

  I took a last look at the weapon lying on the table, then left the roomand climbed the stairs to the first floor. I walked down the silent,empty hall to the exit and out into the night.

  I let my eyes roam the blackness of the lifeless Martian desert. With aneffort I pulled them away and fixed them on the warmth, the humanwarmth, beckoning from the hotel.

  I started walking toward that bit of comfort, and as I walked theeternal question that haunted all of us in C.I. hovered in thebackground of my thoughts.

  Would we be able to _contain_ the Martians until we understood theterrible machines they had left as a deadly heritage?

  Tonight we almost hadn't....

  I thought of Steve.