George Martin: Old Mars

“Most people here haven’t even seen an aborigine, I think.”

“You’re right, they haven’t. Rio Zephyria is the biggest colony because of tourism, but most permanent residents prefer to live where there are flush toilets and cable TV.” I sat down on the other side of the fire. “They can have it. The only reason I live there is because that’s where the tourists are. If it wasn’t for that, I’d have a place out in the boonies and hit town only when I need to stock up on supplies.”

“I see.” Dr. al-Baz picked up his tin cup and mine and poured some wine into each. “Forgive me if I’m wrong,” he said as he handed my cup to me, “but it doesn’t sound as if you very much approve of your fellow colonists.”

“I don’t.” I took a sip and put the cup down beside me; I didn’t want to get a headful of wine the night before I was going to have to deal with shatan tribesmen. “My folks came out here to explore a new world, but everyone who’s come after those original settlers … well, you saw Rio. You know what it’s like. We’re building hotels and casinos and shopping centers, and introducing invasive species into our farms and dumping our sewage into the channels, and every few weeks during conjunction another ship brings in more people who think Mars is like Las Vegas only without as many hookers … not that we don’t have plenty of those, too.”

As I spoke, I craned my neck to look up at the night sky. The major constellations gleamed brightly: Ursa Major, Draco, Cygnus, with Denes as the north star. You can’t see the Milky Way very well in the city; you have to go out into the desert to get a decent view of the Martian night sky. “So who can blame the shatan for not wanting to have anything to do with us? They knew the score as soon as we showed up.” Recalling a thought I’d had the day before, I chuckled to myself. “The old movies got it wrong. Mars didn’t invade Earth … Earth invaded Mars.”

“I didn’t realize there was so much resentment on your part.”

He sounded like his feelings were wounded. That was no way to treat a paying customer.

“No, no … it’s not you,” I quickly added. “I don’t think you’d be caught dead at a poker table.”

He laughed out loud. “No, I don’t think the university would look very kindly upon me if my expense report included poker chips.”

“Glad to hear it.” I hesitated, then went on. “Just do me a favor, will you? If you find something here that might … I dunno … make things worse, would you consider keeping it to yourself? Humans have done enough stupid things here already. We don’t need to do anything more.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Dr. al-Baz said.

The next day, we found the shatan . Or rather, they found us.

We broke camp and continued following the Laestrygon as it flowed south through the desert hills. I’d been watching the jeep’s odometer the entire trip, and when we were about fifty kilometers from where I remembered the aborigine settlements being, I began driving along the canal banks. I told Dr. al-Baz to keep a sharp eye out for any signs of habitation—trails, or perhaps abandoned camps left behind by hunting parties—but what we found was a lot more obvious: another suspension bridge, and passing beneath it, a shatan boat.

The canal boat was a slender catamaran about ten meters long, with broad white sails catching the desert wind and a small cabin at its stern. The figures moving along its decks didn’t notice us until one of them spotted the jeep. He let out a warbling cry— “wallawallawalla!” —and the others stopped what they were doing to gaze in the direction he was pointing. Then another shatan standing atop the cabin yelled something and everyone turned to dash into the cabin, with their captain disappearing through a hatch in its ceiling. Within seconds, the catamaran became a ghost ship.

“Wow.” Dr. al-Baz was both astounded and disappointed. “They really don’t want to see us, do they?”

“Actually, they don’t want us to see them .” He looked at me askance, not understanding the difference. “They believe that, if they can’t be seen, then they’ve disappeared from the world. This way, they’re hoping that, so far as we’re concerned, they’ve ceased to exist.” I shrugged. “Kind of logical, if you think about it.”

There was no point in trying to persuade the crew to emerge from hiding, so we left the boat behind and continued our drive down the canal bank. But the catamaran had barely disappeared from sight when we heard a hollow roar from behind us, like a bullhorn being blown. The sound echoed off the nearby mesas; two more prolonged blasts, then the horn went silent.

“If there are any more shatan around, they’ll hear that and know we’re coming,” I said. “They’ll repeat the same signal with their own horns, and so on, until the signal reaches the village.”

“So they know we’re here,” Dr. al-Baz said. “Will they hide like the others?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” I shrugged. “It’s up to them.”

For a long time, we didn’t spot anyone or anything. We were about eight kilometers from the village when we came upon another bridge. This time, we saw two figures standing near the foot of the bridge. They appeared unusually tall even for aborigines, but it wasn’t until we got closer that we saw why: each of them rode a hattas —an enormous buffalo-like creature with six legs and an elongated neck that the natives tamed as pack animals. It wasn’t what they were riding that caught my attention, though, so much as the long spears they carried, or the heavy animal-hide outfits they wore.

“Uh-oh,” I said quietly. “That’s not good.”

“What’s not good?”

“I was hoping we’d run into hunters … but these guys are warriors. They can be a little … um, intense. Keep your hands in sight and never look away from them.”

I halted the jeep about twenty feet from them. We climbed out and slowly walked toward them, hands at our sides. As we got closer, the warriors dismounted from their animals; they didn’t approach us, though, but instead waited in silence.

When the owners of the John Carter hired a basketball star to masquerade as a shatan , they were trying to find someone who might pass as a Martian aborigine. Tito Jones was the best they could get, but he wasn’t quite right. The shatan standing before us were taller; their skin was as dark as the sky at midnight, their long, silky hair the color of rust, yet their faces had fine-boned features reminiscent of someone of northern European descent. They were swathed in dusty, off-white robes that made them look vaguely Bedouin, and the hands that gripped their spears were larger than a human’s, with long-nailed fingers and tendons that stood out from wrists.

Unblinking golden eyes studied us as we approached. When we’d come close enough, both warriors firmly planted their spears on the ground before us. I told Dr. al-Baz to stop, but I didn’t have to remind him not to look away from them. He stared at the shatan with awestruck curiosity, a scientist observing his subject up close for the first time.

I raised both hands, palms out, and said, “Issah tas sobbata shatan” (Greetings, honored shatan warriors). “Seyta nashatan habbalah sa shatan heysa” (Please allow us human travelers to enter your land).

The warrior on the left replied, “Katas nashatan Hamsey. Sakey shatan habbalah fah?” (We know you, human Ramsey. Why have you returned to our land?)

I wasn’t surprised to have been recognized. Only a handful of humans spoke their language—albeit not very well; I probably sounded like a child to them—or knew the way to their village. I may not have met these particular warriors before, but they’d doubtless heard of me. And I tried not to smile at the mispronunciation of my name; the shatan have trouble rolling the “r” sound off their tongues.