Nolan. Sort ofmy uncle. I won't say my father; you wouldn't like that."
Nice, embarrassing sentiment, on the surface. Maybe it was just coolmimicry--a keen mind adding up human ways from observation of me andmy kids, and making up something that sounded the same, without beingthe same at all. Yet somehow I hoped that Etl was sincere.
Almost from the building of the cage, of course, we'd kept photographsand drawings of Mars inside for Etl to see.
Hundreds of times I had said to him things like: "It's a ninety-nineand ninety-nine hundredths per cent probability that your race liveson that world, Etl. Before the ship that brought you crashed on Earth,we weren't at all sure that it was inhabited, and it's still an awfulmystery. I guess maybe you'll want to go there. Maybe you'll help usmake contact and establish amicable relations with the inhabitants--ifthere's any way we can do that."
During those five years, no more ships came to Earth from space, asfar as we knew. I guessed that the Martians understood how supremelyhard it would be to make friendly contact between the peoples of twoworlds that had always been separate. There was difference of form,and certainly difference of esthetic concepts. Of custom, nothingcould be the same. We didn't have even an inkling of what the Martiancivilization would be like.
* * * * *
One thing happened during the third year of Etl's existence. And hispresence on Earth was responsible. Enough serious interest in spacetravel was built up to overcome the human inertia that hadcounteracted the long-standing knowledge that such things werepossible. A hydrogen-fusion reaction motor was built into a rocket,which was then hurled to the moon.
Miller went along, ostensibly to help establish the first Armyexperimental station there, but mostly to acquire the practicalexperience for a far longer leap.
In a way, I wished I could have gone, too; but, after all, the shadowsin Etl's background were far more intriguing than the dead and airlesscraters and plains of the lunar surface.
Before Miller and the other moon-voyagers even returned, Detroit wasbusy forging, casting and machining the parts for a better, larger andmuch longer-range rocket, to be assembled in White Sands, New Mexico.
When Miller got back, he was too eager and busy to say much about themoon. For the next two and a half years, he was mostly out in WhiteSands.
But during the first of our now infrequent meetings, he said to Craigand Klein and me: "When I go out to Mars, I'd like to keep my oldbunch as crew. I need men I'm used to working with, those whounderstand the problems we're up against. I have a plan that makessense. The trouble is, to join this expedition, a man has to be partdamn-fool."
Klein chuckled. "I'll sell you some of mine."
I just nodded my way in. I'd never thought of backing out.
Craig grabbed Miller's hand and shook it.
Miller gave Etl a chance to say no. "You can stay on Earth if you wantto, Etl."
But the creature said: "I have lived all my life with the idea ofgoing, Miller. Thank you."
* * * * *
Miller briefed us about his plan. Then he, Klein, Craig and I all tooka lot of psych tests--trick questioning and so forth to reveal defectsof conviction and control. But we were all pretty well indoctrinatedand steady. Etl had taken so many tests already that, if there wereany flaws still hidden in him, they would probably never be found.
Mars and Earth were approaching closer to each other again in theirorbital positions. A month before takeoff time, Craig, Klein and Itook Etl, in a small air-conditioned cage, to White Sands. The shiptowered there, silvery, already completed. We knew its structure andthe function of its machinery intimately from study of its blueprints.But our acquaintance with it had to be actual, too. So we went over itagain and again, under Miller's tutelage.
Miller wrote a last message, to be handed to the newscast boys afterour departure:
"_If by Martian action, we fail to return, don't blame the Martianstoo quickly, because there is a difference and a doubt. Contactbetween worlds is worth more than the poison of a grudge...._"
I said good-by to Alice and the kids, who had come out to see me off.I felt pretty punk. Maybe I was a stinker, going off like that. But,on the other hand, that wasn't entirely the right way to look atthings, because Patty's and Ron's faces fairly glowed with pride fortheir pa. The tough part, then, was for Alice, who knew what it wasall about. Yet she looked proud, too. And she didn't go damp.
"If it weren't for the kids, I'd be trying to go along, Louie," shetold me. "Take care of yourself."
She knew that a guy has to do what's in his heart. I think that thebasic and initial motive of exploration is that richest of humancommodities--high romance. The metallic ores and other commercialstuff that get involved later are only cheap by-products. To make thedream of space travel a reality was one of our purposes. But to try toforestall the danger behind it was at least as important.
* * * * *
We blasted off in a rush of fire that must have knocked down someself-operating television cameras. We endured the strangling thrust ofacceleration, and then the weightlessness of just coasting on ourbuilt-up velocity. We saw the stars and the black sky of space. We sawthe Earth dwindle away behind us.
But the journey itself, though it lasted ninety days, was no realadventure--comparatively speaking. There was nothing unpredictable init. Space conditions were known. We even knew about the tension ofnostalgia. But we understood, too, the mental attitudes that couldlessen the strain. Crossing space to another world under thetremendous power of atomic fusion, and under the precise guidance ofmathematics and piloting devices, reduces the process almost to aformula. If things go right, you get where you're going; if not, thereisn't much you can do. Anyway, we had the feeling that the technicalside of interplanetary travel was the simplest part.
There is a marking near the Martian equator shaped like the funnel ofa gigantic tornado. It is the red planet's most conspicuous featureand it includes probably the least arid territory of a cold, aridworld. Syrtis Major, it is called. Astronomers had always supposed itto be an ancient sea-bottom. That was where our piloting devices wereset to take us.
Over it, our retarding fore-jets blazed for the last time. Ourretractable wings slid from their sockets and took hold of the thinatmosphere with a thump and a soft rustle. On great rubber-tiredwheels, our ship--horizontal now, like a plane--landed in a broadvalley that must have been cleared of boulders by Martian engineerscountless ages before.
Our craft stopped rumbling. We peered from the windows of our cabin,saw the deep blue of the sky and the smaller but brilliant Sun. We sawlittle dusty whirlwinds, carven monoliths that were weathering away,strange blue-green vegetation, some of which we could recognize. Tothe east, a metal tower glinted. And a mile beyond it there was atremendous flat structure. An expanse of glassy roof shone. What mighthave been a highway curved like a white ribbon into the distance.
The scene was quiet, beautiful and sad. You could feel that here maybea hundred civilizations had risen, and had sunk back into the dust.Mars was no older than the Earth; but it was smaller, had cooledfaster and must have borne life sooner. Perhaps some of those earliercultures had achieved space travel. But, if so, it had been forgottenuntil recent years. Very soon now its result would be tested. Themeeting of alien entity with alien entity was at hand.
I looked at Etl, still in his air-conditioned cage. His stalked eyeshad a glow and they swayed nervously. Here was the home-planet that hehad never seen. Was he eager or frightened, or both?
His education and experience were Earthly. He knew no more of Marsthan we did. Yet, now that he was here and probably at home, diddifference of physical structure and emotion make him feel that therest of us were enemies, forever too different for friendly contact?My hide began to pucker.
* * * * *
High in the sky, some kind of aircraft glistened. On the distantturnpike there were the shining specks o
f vehicles that vanished fromsight behind a ridge shaggy with vegetation.
Miller had a tight, nervous smile. "Remember, men," he said."Passivity. Three men can't afford to get into a fight with a wholeplanet."
We put on spacesuits, which we'd need if someone damaged our rocket.It had been known for years that Martian air was too thin and far toopoor in oxygen for human lungs. Even Etl, in his cage, had an oxygenmask that Klein had made for him. We had provided him with thisbecause the Martian atmosphere, drifting away through the ages, mightbe even leaner than the mixture we'd given Etl on Earth. That had beenbased on spectroscopic analyses at 40 to 60 million miles' distance,which isn't close enough for any certainty.
Now all we could do was wait and see what would happen. I know thatsome jerks, trying to make contact with the inhabitants of an unknownworld, would just barge in