George Martin: Old Mars

He raised an eyebrow. “Are they dangerous?”

“Not so long as you mind your manners. They can be … well, kinda aggressive … if you cross the line with them.” I didn’t want to tell him some of the worst stories—I’d scared off other clients that way—so I tried to reassure him. “I’ve met some of the local tribesmen, so they know me well enough to let me visit their lands. But I’m not sure how much they trust me.” I hesitated. “Dr. Horner didn’t get very far with them. I’m sure he’s told you that they wouldn’t let him into their village.”

“Yes, he has. To tell the truth, though, Ian has always been something of an ass”—I laughed out loud when he said this, and he gave me a quick smile in return—“so I imagine that, so long as I approach them with a measure of humility, I may have more success than he did.”

“You might.” Ian Horner had come to Mars with the attitude of a British army officer visiting colonial India, a condescending air of superiority that the shatan picked up on almost immediately. He learned little as a result and had come away referring to the “abos” as “cheeky bahstahds.” No doubt the aborigines felt much the same way about him … but at least they’d let him live.

“So you’ll take me out there? To one of their villages, I mean?”

“That’s why you hired me, so … yeah, sure.” I picked up my beer again. “The nearest village is about 150 kilometers southeast of here, in a desert oasis near the Laestrygon canal. It’ll take a couple of days to get there. I hope you brought warm clothes and hiking boots.”

“I brought a parka and boots, yes. But you have your jeep, don’t you? Then why are we going to need to walk?”

“We’ll drive only until we get near the village. Then we’ll have to get out and walk the rest of the way. The shatan don’t like motorized vehicles. The equatorial desert is pretty rough, so you better prepare for it.”

He smiled. “I ask you … do I look like someone who’s never been in a desert?”

“No … but Mars isn’t Earth.”

I spent the next day preparing for the trip: collecting camping equipment from my rented storage shed, buying food and filling water bottles, putting fresh fuel cells in the jeep and making sure the tires had enough pressure. I made sure that Dr. al-Baz had the right clothing for several days in the outback and gave him the address of a local outfitter if he didn’t, but I need not have worried; he clearly wasn’t one of those tourists foolish enough to go out into the desert wearing Bermuda shorts and sandals.

When I came to pick him up at the hotel, I was amazed to find that the professor had turned his suite into a laboratory. Two flat-screen computers were set up on the bar, a microscope and a testtube rack stood on the coffee table, and the TV had been pushed aside to make room for a small centrifuge. More equipment rested on bureaus and side tables; I didn’t know what any of it was, but I spotted a radiation symbol on one and a WARNING–LASER sticker on another. He’d covered the carpet with plastic sheets, and there was even a lab coat hanging in the closet. Dr. al-Baz made no mention of any of this; he simply picked up his backpack and camera, put on a slouch cap, and followed me out the door, pausing to slip the DO NOT DISTURB sign over the knob.

Tourists stared at us as he flung his pack into the back of my jeep; it always seemed to surprise some people that anyone would come to Mars to do something besides drink and lose money at the gaming tables. I started up the jeep, and we roared away from the John Carter, and in fifteen minutes we were on the outskirts of town, driving through the irrigated farmlands surrounding Rio Zephyria. The scarlet pines that line the shores of Mare Cimmerium gradually thinned out as we followed dirt roads usually traveled by farm vehicles and logging trucks, and even those disappeared as we left the colony behind and headed into the trackless desert.

I’ve been told that the Martian drylands look a lot like the American Southwest, except that everything is red. I’ve never been to Earth, so I wouldn’t know, but if anyone in New Mexico happens to spot a six-legged creature that looks sort of like a shaggy cow or a raptor that resembles a pterodactyl and sounds like a hyena, please drop me a line. And stay away from those pits that look a little like golf-course sand traps; there’s something lurking within them that would eat you alive, one limb at a time.

As the jeep wove its way through the desert, dodging boulders and bouncing over small rocks, Dr. al-Baz clung to the roll bars, fascinated by the wilderness opening before us. This was one of the things that made my job worthwhile, seeing familiar places through the eyes of someone who’d never been there before. I pointed out a Martian hare as it loped away from us, and stopped for a second to let him take pictures of a flock of stakhas as they wheeled high above us, shrieking their dismay at our intrusion.

About seventy kilometers southeast of Rio, we came upon the Laestrygon canal, running almost due south from the sea. When Percival Lowell first spotted the Martian canals through his observatory telescope, he thought they were excavated waterways. He was half-right; the shatan had rerouted existing rivers, diverting them so that they’d go where the aborigines wanted. The fact that they’d done this with the simple, muscle-driven machines never failed to amaze anyone who saw them, but Earth people tend to underestimate the shatan . They’re primitive, but not stupid.

We followed the canal, keeping far away from it so that we couldn’t be easily spotted from the decks of any shatan boats that might be this far north. I didn’t want any aborigines to see us before we reached the village; they might pass the word that humans were coming and give their chieftain a chance to order his people to pack up and move out. We saw no one, though; the only sign of habitation was a skinny wooden suspension bridge that spanned the channel like an enormous bow, and even that didn’t appear to be frequently used.

By late afternoon, we’d entered hill country. Flat-topped mesas rose around us, with massive stone pinnacles jutting upward between them; the jagged peaks of distant mountains lay just beyond the horizon. I drove until it was nearly dusk, then pulled up behind a hoodoo and stopped for the night.

Dr. al-Baz pitched a tent while I collected dead scrub brush. Once I had a fire going, I suspended a cookpot above the embers, then emptied a can of stew into it. The professor had thought to buy a couple of bottles of red wine before we left town; we opened one for dinner and worked our way through it after we ate.

“So tell me something,” Dr. al-Baz said once we’d scrubbed down the pot, plates, and spoons. “Why did you become a guide?”

“You mean, rather than getting a job as a blackjack dealer?” I propped the cookware up against a boulder. A stiff breeze was coming out of the west; the sand it carried would scour away the remaining grub. “Never really thought about it, to be honest. My folks are first-generation settlers, so I was born and raised here. I started prowling the desert as soon as I was old enough to go out alone, so …”

“That’s just it.” The professor moved a little closer to the fire, holding out his hands to warm them. Now that the sun was down, a cold night was ahead; we could already see our breath by the firelight. “Most of the colonists I’ve met seem content to stay in the city. When I told them that I was planning a trip into the desert, they all looked at me like I was mad. Someone even suggested that I buy a gun and take out extra life insurance.”

“Whoever told you to buy a gun doesn’t know a thing about the shatan . They never attack unless provoked, and the surest way to upset them is to approach one of their villages with a gun.” I patted the utility knife on my belt. “This is the closest I come to carrying a weapon when there’s even a possibility that I might run into aborigines. One reason why I’m on good terms with them … I mind my manners.”