Isaac Asimov: The Martian Way and Other Stories

And then came Mark Annuncio, who heard much of all this and was as thrilled at the prospect as any Joe Earthman, but who one day thought of something he had seen while sniffing idly through the “dead matter” files of the Bureau of Outer Provinces. He had seen a medical report about a colony on a planet of a system whose description and position in space tallied with that of the Lagrange group.

Sheffield remembered the day Mark came to him with that news.

He also remembered the face of the Secretary for the Outer Provinces when the news was passed on to him . He saw the Secretary’s square jaw slowly go slack and a look of infinite trouble come into his eyes.

The government was committed! It was going to ship millions of people to Junior. It was going to grant farmland and subsidize the first seed supplies, farm machinery, factories. Junior was going to be a paradise for numerous voters and a promise of more paradise for a myriad others.

If Junior turned out to be a killer planet for some reason or other, it would mean political suicide for all government figures concerned in the project. That meant some pretty big men, not least the Secretary for the Outer Provinces.

After days of checking and indecision, the Secretary had said to Sheffield, “It looks as though we’ve got to find out what happened and weave it into the propaganda somehow. Don’t you think we could neutralize it that way?”

“If what happened isn’t too horrible to neutralize.”

“But it can’t be, can it? I mean what can it be?” The man was miserably unhappy.

Sheffield shrugged.

The Secretary said, “See here. We can send a ship of specialists to the planet. Volunteers only and good reliable men, of course. We can give it the highest priority rating we can move, and Project Junior carries considerable weight, you know. We’ll slow things up here, and hold on till they get back. That might work, don’t you think?”

Sheffield wasn’t sure, but he got the sudden dream of going on that expedition, of taking Mark with him. He could study a Mnemonic in an off-trail environment, and if Mark should be the means of working out the mystery-

From the beginning, a mystery was assumed. After all, people don’t die of influenza. And the medical ship hadn’t landed; they hadn’t really observed what was going on. It was fortunate, indeed, that that medical man was now dead thirty-seven years, or he would be slated for court-martial now.

If Mark should help solve the matter, the Mnemonic Service would be enormously strengthened. The government had to be grateful.

But now-

Sheffield wondered if Cimon knew the story of how the matter of the first settlement had been brought to light. He was fairly certain that the rest of the crew did not. It was not something the Bureau would willingly speak about.

Nor would it be politic to use the story as a lever to pry concessions out of Cimon. If Mark’s correction of Bureau “stupidity” (that would undoubtedly be the opposition’s phrasing) were overpublicized, the Bureau would look bad. If they could be grateful, they could be vengeful, too. Retaliation against the Mnemonic Service would not be too pretty a thing to expect.

Still-

Sheffield stood up with quick decision. “All right, Mark. I’ll get you out to the settlement site. I”ll get us both out there. Now you sit down and wait for me. Promise you’ll try nothing on your own.”

“All right,” said Mark. He sat down on his bunk again.

“Well now, Dr. Sheffield, what is it?” said Cimon. The astrophysicist sat at his desk, on which papers and film formed rigidly arranged heaps about a small Macfreed integrator, and watched Sheffield step over the threshold.

Sheffield sat carelessly down upon the tautly yanked topsheet of Cimon’s bunk. He was aware of Cimon’s annoyed glance in that direction and it did not worry him. In fact, he rather enjoyed it.

He said, “I have a quarrel with your choice of men to go to the expedition site. It looks as though you’ve picked two men for the physical sciences and three for the biological sciences. Right?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose you think you’ve covered the ground like a Danielski ovospore at perihelion.”

“Oh, space! Have you anything to suggest?”

“I would like to come along myself.”

“Why?”

“You have no one to take care of the mental sciences.”

“The mental sciences! Good Galaxy! Dr. Sheffield, five men are quite enough to risk. As a matter of fact, Doctor, you and your-uh-ward were assigned to the scientific personnel of this ship by order of the Bureau of Outer Provinces without any prior consultation of myself. I’ll be frank. If I had been consulted, I would have advised against you. I don’t see the function of mental science in an investigation such as this, which, after all, is purely physical. It is too bad that the Bureau wishes to experiment with Mnemonics on an occasion such as this. We can’t afford scenes like that one with Rodriguez.”

Sheffield decided that Cimon did not know of Mark’s connection with the original decision to send out the expedition.

He sat upright, hands on knees, elbows cocked outward, and let a freezing formality settle over him. ”So you wonder about the function of mental science in an investigation such as this, Dr. Cimon. Suppose I told you that the end of the first settlement might possibly be explained on a simple, psychological basis.”

“It wouldn’t impress me. A psychologist is a man who can explain anything and prove nothing.” Cimon smirked like a man who had made an epigram and was proud of it

Sheffield ignored it. He said, “Let me go into a little detail. In what way is Junior different from every one of the eightythree thousand inhabited worlds?”

“Our information is as yet incomplete. I cannot say.”

“Oh, cobber-vitals. You had the necessary information before you ever came here. Junior has two suns.”

“Well, of course.” But the astrophysicist allowed a trace of discomfiture to enter his expression.

“Colored suns, mind you. Colored suns. Do you know what that means? It means that a human being, yourself or myself, standing in the full glare of the two suns, would cast two shadows. One blue green, one red orange. The length of each would naturally vary with the time of day. Have you taken the trouble to verify the color distribution in those shadows? The what-do-you-call-‘em-reflection spectrum?”

“I presume,” said Cimon loftily, “they’d be about the same as the radiation spectra of the suns. What are you getting at?”

“You should check. Wouldn’t the air absorb some wave lengths? And the vegetation? What’s left? And take Junior’s moon, Sister. I’ve been watching it in the last few nights. It’s in colors, too, and the colors change position.”

“Well, of course, damn it. It runs through its phases independently with each sun.”

“You haven’t checked its reflection spectrum, either, have you?”

“We have that somewhere. There are no points of interest about it. Of what interest is it to you, anyway?”

“My dear Dr. Cimon, it is a well-established psychological fact that combinations of red and green colors exert a deleterious effect on mental stability. We have a case here where the red-green chromopsychic picture (to use a technical term) is inescapable and is presented under circumstances which seem most unnatural to the human mind. It is quite possible that chromopsychosis could reach the fatal level by inducing hypertrophy of the trinitarian follicles, with consequent cerebric catatonia.”

Cimon looked floored. He said, “I never heard of such a thing.”