Isaac Asimov - The Martian Way and Other Stories

It wasn’t imagination. Something was behind the tree.

Fawkes took a deep breath and dashed out, holding his blaster before him, nerving himself to shoot at the slightest sign of danger.

But a voice called out, “Don’t. It’s only I.” A frightened but definitely human face looked out from behind the tree.

It was Mark Annuncio.

Fawkes stopped in mid-stride and stared. Finally, he managed to croak, “What are you doing here?”

Mark said, staring at the blaster in the other’s hand, “I was following you.”

“Why?”

“To see what you would do. I was interested in what you might find. I thought if you saw me, you would send me away.”

Fawkes became conscious of the weapon he was still holding and put it away. It took three tries to get it into the holster.

The first fat drops of rain began to fall. Fawkes said harshly, “Don’t say anything about this to the others.”

He glared hostilely at the youngster and they walked back to camp separately and in silence.

A central hall of prefab had been added to the seven tents now, and the group was together within it, sitting about the long table.

It was a great moment, but a rather subdued one. Vernadsky, who had cooked for himself in his college days, was in charge.

He lifted the steaming stew off the Short-wave heater and said, “Calories, anyone?”

He ladled the stuff lavishly.

“It smells very good,” said Novee doubtfully.

He lifted a piece of meat with his fork. It was purplish and still felt tough despite internal heating. The shredded herbs that surrounded it seemed softer, but looked less edible.

“Well,” said Vernadsky, “eat it. Put it in your mouth. I’ve tasted it and it’s good.”

He crammed his mouth and chewed. He kept on chewing.

“Tough, but good.”

Fawkes said gloomily, “It”ll probably kill us.”

“Nuts,” said Vemadsky. “The rats have been living on it for two weeks.”

“Two weeks isn’t much,” said Noveee.

Rodriguez said, ”Well, one bite won’t kill. Say, it is good.”

And it was. They all agreed eventually. So far, it seemed that whenever Junior’s life could be eaten at all, it was good. The grains were almost impossible to grind into flour, but that done,” a protein-high bread could be baked. There was some on the table now, dark and heavy. It wasn’t bad, either.

Fawkes had studied the herb life on Junior and come to the conclusion that an acre of Junior’s surface, properly seeded and watered, could support ten times the number of grazing animals that an acre of Earthly alfalfa could.

Sheffield had been impressed; had spoken of Junior as the granary of a hundred worlds, but Fawkes dismissed his own statements with a shrug.

He said, “Sucker bait.”

About a week earlier, the party had been agitated by the sudden refusal of the hamsters and white rats to touch certain new herbs Fawkes had brought in. Mixing small quantities with regular rations had resulted in the death of those that fed on it.

Solution?

Not quite. Vernadsky came in a few hours later and said calmly, “Copper, lead, and mercury.”

“What?” said Cimon.

“Those plants. They’re high in heavy metals. Probably an evolutionary development to keep from being eaten.”

“The first settlers-” began Cimon.

“No, That’s impossible. Most of the plants are perfectly all right. Just these, and no person would eat them.”

“How do you know?”

“The rats didn’t.”

“They’re just rats.”

It was what Vernadsky was waiting for. He said dramatically, “You may hail a modest martyr to science. I tasted the stuff.”

“What?” yelled Novee.

“Just a lick. Don’t worry. I’m the careful-type martyr. Anyway, the stuff is as bitter as strychnine. What do you expect? If a plant is going to fill itself with lead just to keep the animals off, what good does it do the plant to have the animal find out by dying after he’s eaten it? A little bitter stuff in addition acts as a warning. The combination warning and punishment does the trick.”

“Besides,” said Novee, “it wasn’t heavy metal poisoning that killed she settlers. The symptoms aren’t right for it.”

The rest knew the symptoms well enough. Some in lay terms and some in more technical language. Difficult and painful breathing that grew steadily worse. That’s what it amounted to.

Fawkes put down his fork. “Look here, suppose this stuff contains some alkaloid that paralyzes the nerves that control the lung muscles.”

“Rats have lung muscles,” said Vemadsky. “It doesn’t kill them.”

“Maybe it’s a cumulative thing.”

“All right. All right. Any time your breathing gets painful go back to ship rations and see if you improve. But no fair counting psychosomatics.”

Sheffield grunted, “That’s my job. Don’t worry about it.”

Fawkes drew a deep breath, then another. Glumly he put another piece of meat into his mouth.

At one corner of the table, Mark Annuncio, eating more slowly than the rest, thought of Norris Vinograd’s monograph on “Taste and Smell.” Vinograd had made a taste-smell classification based on enzyme inhibition patterns within the taste buds. Annuncio did not know what that meant exactly but he remembered the symbols, their values, and the descriptive definitions.

While he placed the taste of the stew to three subclassifications, he finished his helping. His jaws ached faintly because of the difficult chewing.

Evening was approaching and Lagrange I was low in the sky. It had been a bright day, reasonably warm, and Boris Vernadsky felt pleased. He had made interesting measurements and his brilliantly colored sweater had showed fascinating changes from hour to hour as the suns’ positions shifted.

Right now his shadow was a long red thing, with the lowest third of it gray, where the Lagrange II shadow coincided. He held out one arm and it cast two shadows. There was a smeared orange one some fifteen feet away and a denser blue one in the same direction but only five feet away. If he had time, he could work out a beautiful set of shadowgrams.

He was so pleased with the thought that he felt no resentment at seeing Mark Annuncio skirting his trail in the distance.

He put down his nucleometer and waved his hand. “Come here!”

The youngster approached diffidently. “Hello.”

“Want something?”

“Just-just watching.”

“Oh? Well, go ahead and watch. Do you know what I’m doing?”

Mark shook his head.

“This is a nucleometer,” said Vernadsky. “You jab it into the ground like this. It’s got a force-field generator at the top so it will penetrate any rock.” He leaned on the nucleometer as he spoke, and it went two feet into the stony outcropping. “See?”

Mark’s eyes shone, and Vernadsky felt pleased. The chemist said, “Along the sides of the uniped are microscopic atomic furnaces, each of which vaporizes about a million molecules or so in the surrounding rock and decomposes them into atoms. The atoms are then differentiated in terms of nuclear mass and charge and the results may be read off directly on the dials above. Do you follow all that?”

“I’m not sure. But it’s a good thing to know.”

Vernadsky smiled and said, “We end up with figures on the different elements in the crust. It’s pretty much the same on all oxygen-water planets.”

Mark said seriously, “The planet with the most silicon I know of is Lepta, with 32.765 per cent. Earth is only 24.862. That’s by weight.”

Vernadsky’s smile faded. He said dryly, “You have the figures on all the planets, pal?”