Robert Silverberg - Lost Race of Mars

Mrs. Chambers was horrified to learn that her husband had given Jim and Sally permission to make another solo trip into the desert. But her objections were soon put down. She had been married to Dr. Chambers long enough to realize that, for him, science came before anything else, and that Jim and Sally would not be in any serious danger traveling in the desert.

Jim and Sally left again right after lunch. Dr. Chambers accompanied them as far as the air lock and waved good-by as they drove off. Jim headed due south again. After an hour of traveling, he said out loud, “Martians? Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” came the silent reply. “Our mental perceptions range over vast distances.”

“We’re along this time, just the two of us. Is it all right if we come to you?”

“You may visit us.”

The Martians began to guide Jim. Following their telepathic directions, he turned the sled slightly to the west and continued on in that direction for fifteen more minutes. Every time he got slightly off course, the Martians would let him know. Finally, a cliff formation lay straight ahead, and it looked like the right one.

It was. The Martians told Jim to stop the sled and walk toward the cliff on foot. He and Sally got off and advanced. Jim carried the camera.

“Walk to the left,” the Martians said.

Jim and Sally walked to the left.

“Now three paces forward.”

They came forward.

“I don’t see the cave entrance at all,” Sally said. “Do you think there’s some mistake?”

“No—look!” Jim cried.

Before their eyes the desert sand seemed to be shifting. What they had thought was solid ground was melting, vanishing like the illusion it was. The cave entrance stood revealed before them.

“Welcome, young friends,” came the Martian voice.

Jim and Sally carefully clambered down the steps.

The Martians were waiting on the cave floor. They looked more than ever like friendly gnomes.

“Do you know why we’re here?” Jim asked.

“Of course,” the mental reply came. “You minds have no secrets from us.”

“And you don’t mind if we take pictures?” Sally questioned.

“If it will make you happy, you may take pictures of us. So long as you come alone, you may visit us and take pictures of us whenever you wish. A bond of friendship links you to us, Jim and Sally.”

An hour later, Jim and Sally were on their way back across the desert to the colony. Their hearts were pounding with excitement.

Safe inside the camera were a dozen full-color three-dimensional photographs taken inside the Martian cave. They has also brought away with them small samples of the different cave plants. In the back of the sled lay a piece of the light-giving plant, and a stem of the water-storing plant with an unbroken pod at the end, and a few sprigs of the air-manufacturing plant.

Dr. Chambers was waiting for them at the air lock, pacing up and down anxiously. The moment their sled came through, he ran up to them.

“Well? Did you find them?”

“They found us, Dad,” Jim said.

“They guided us right to the cave,” added Sally. “And they didn’t mind about letting us take photos, or anything. They even gave us little pieces of their plants.”

Dr. Chambers took the camera as if it were full of priceless diamonds and rubies. “Hurry up!

Get those breathing suits off! We’ve got to develop these films!”

He did not have a darkroom himself, but Martin Huber had arranged for him to use the photographic equipment at the college. By five in the afternoon the prints had been made.

They were beautiful. They showed the Martians in their natural color against the background of their caves.

“This is fantastic!” Martin exclaimed when he entered the darkroom. “It means—the Old Martians are still alive—Jim and Sally were telling the truth all the time—”

“Of course they were,” Dr. Chambers said. “Where’s a telephone? I want to talk to Mr.

Frahm.”

A short while later Jim and Sally and Dr. Chambers were once again in the office of the colony director. Mr. Frahm held the twelve photographs carefully on the palm of one big hand. He went through them, looking for a long time at each one, and arranged them on his desk in a row. The expression on his face was strange. He looked astonished and annoyed and pleased all at the same time.

Almost five minutes of uncomfortable silence passed. Then the director said, in his slow, heavy voice, “If these are fakes, they’re the cleverest I’ve ever seen.”

“They aren’t,” Dr. Chambers answered silently.

“That’s what I keep trying to tell myself,” agreed the director. “But I can’t believe it yet. It’s absolutely incredible that there should still be a civilization out there! And yet—I can’t argue with these pictures.” He shook his head sadly. “I owe the three of you an apology. I was very rude to you Sunday night.”

“We understand,” Dr. Chambers said. “After all, we were asking you to take the word of two children about something fantastic—and we had no proof at all. But now we do.”

“Yes. Now you have proof. But we’ll never see these Martians with our own eyes.”

“Perhaps we will, someday,” Dr. Chambers disagreed. “If Jim and Sally can convince the Martians that Earth men won’t harm them. It’ll take time, but perhaps we can persuade them to trust us, eventually.”

“I hope so,” Mr. Frahm said.

“and in the meanwhile,” added Dr. Chambers, “we have these marvelous plants. Do you know what one of them can do? It grows in desert sand. It doesn’t need warmth or sunlight or water. And it breaks down the iron oxide in the sand and releases oxygen! We can plant them all over the desert. And when there are enough of them, releasing oxygen into the air, it will be possible for Earth men to go outside the dome without breathing suits!”

Mr. Frahm nodded. “And the other plant, the one that sucks up water from deep below the surface and stores it in pods—we can plant that one, too. And in a generation or two we can restore Mars to the way it was before the deserts came.”

The news was revealed to the colony the next morning. It caused a sensation. There was cheering and shouting in the streets. Jim and Sally were famous.

By radio beam the startling news was sent to Earth. A few hours later Earth sent back facsimiles of the front pages of several Earth newspapers. Bold black headlines told of the discovery:

MARTIANS FOUND LIVING IN DESERT! BROTHER-SISTER TEAM UNCOVERS LOST MARTIAN RACE!

MARS TO BLOOM AGAIN, SAYS BIOLOGIST.

Jim and Sally were a little dazed by all the excitement. One day they had been outcasts, the next heroes. It was all hard to believe.

“I hope things calm down soon,” Sally said, later that night. It was well past bedtime, but there had been visitors and calls and other interruptions.

“If this is what being a hero is like,” Jim said, “I don’t think I like the idea.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dr. Chambers advised. “The fuss won’t last forever. The importance of your find will.”

“Dad,” Sally said, “will the plants from the caves really make it possible for men to live on Mars without domes?”

Dr. Chambers shrugged. “We think so, Sally. But not for a long time. First we have to ask the Old Martians for seeds—that will be a job for you and Jim. And then we have to begin growing the plants and helping them spread all over. If each of them releases just a little bit of oxygen, why, once enough plants are growing there’ll be air that’s fit to breathe. If the Martians had thought of planting the air plants in the desert, they might not have had to live in caves.”