Robert Heinlein - Red Planet

Neither of the boys had ever seen a Martian hurry before, nor show any signs of excitement. Gekko let out a deep snort and left the room at once, to return promptly with as many companions as could crowd into the room. They all talked at once and paid no attention to the boys.

"What goes on here?" asked Frank, as he crowded against a wall and peered through a thicket of legs.

"Blessed if I know."

After a while they calmed down a little. One of the larger Martians gathered up the eggs with exaggerated care and clutched mem to him. Another picked up Willis and they all trooped out.

Jim stood hesitantly at the door and watched them disappear. "I'd like to find Gekko and ask him about it," he fretted.

"Nuts," said Frank. "Let's finish breakfast."

"Well... all right."

Once the meal was over. Frank opened the larger question. "Okay, so we are in Cynia. We've still got to get home and fast. The question is: how do we go about it? Now as I see it, if these Martians could bring us back here so fast, they can turn around and put us back where they found us and then we can head home up the east leg of Strymon. How does that strike you?"

"It sounds all right, I guess," Jim answered, "but-"

"Then the first thing to do is to find Gekko and try to arrange it, without fiddling around."

"The first thing to do," Jim contradicted, "is to find Willis."

"Why? Hasn't he caused enough trouble? Leave him; he's happy here."

"Frank, you take entirely the wrong attitude toward Willis. Didn't he get us out of a jam? If it hadn't been for Willis, you'd be coughing your lungs out in the desert."

"If it hadn't been for Willis, we wouldn't have been in that jam in the first place."

"Now that's not fair. The truth is-"

"Skip it, skip it. Okay, go find Willis."

Jim left Frank to clean up the litter of breakfast and set out. Although he was never able thereafter to give a fully coherent account of just what happened to him on this errand, certain gross facts are clear. He started by looking for Gekko, asking for him of the first Martian he met in the corridors by the barbarous expedient of voicing the general inquiry followed by Gekko's name.

Jim was not and probably never would be a competent linguist, but his attempt worked. The first Martian he encountered took him to another, as an Earthly citizen might lead a foreigner to a policeman. This Martian took 'him to Gekko.

Jim had no great trouble in explaining to Gekko that he wanted Willis returned to him. Gekko listened, then explained gently that what Jim wanted was impossible.

Jim started over again, sure that his own poor command of me language had caused misunderstanding. Gekko let him finish, then made it quite clear that he understood correctly what it was that Jim wanted, but that Jim could not have it-could not have Willis. No. Gekko was sorrowful to have to refuse his friend with whom he had shared the pure water of life, but this thing could not be.

Under the direct influence of Gekko's powerful personality Jim understood most of what was said and guessed the rest. Gekko's refusal was unmistakable. It is not important that Jim did not have his gun with him; Gekko could not inspire the hatred in him that Howe did. For one thing Gekko's warm sympathy poured over him in a flood; nevertheless Jim was thunderstruck, indignant, and quite unable to accept the verdict. He stared up at the Martian for a long moment. Then he walked away abruptly, not choosing his direction and shouting for Willis as he did so. "Willis! Oh, Willis! Here, Willis boy -come to Jim!"

The Martian started after him, each stride three of Jim's. Jim ran, still shouting. He turned a comer, came face-to-face with three natives and darted between their legs and beyond. Gekko got into a traffic jam with them which required the time-wasting exercise of Martian protocol to straighten out. Jim got considerably ahead.

He stuck his head into every archway he came to and shouted. One such led into a chamber occupied by Martians frozen in that trancelike state they call visiting the "other world." Jim would no more have disturbed a Martian in a trance, ordinarily, than an American western frontier child would have teased a grizzly-but he was in no shape to care or notice; he shouted in there, too, thereby causing an unheard-of and unthinkable disturbance. The least response was violent trembling; one poor creature was so disturbed that he lifted abruptly all of his legs and fell to the floor.

Jim did not notice; he was already gone, shouting into the next chamber.

Gekko caught up with him and scooped him up with two great hand flaps. "Jim-Marlowe!" he said. "Jim-Marlowe, my friend-"

Jim sobbed and beat on the Martian's hard thorax with both his fists. Gekko endured it for a moment, then wrapped a third palm flap around Jim's arms, securing him. Jim looked wildly up at him. "Willis," he said in his own language, "I want Willis. You've got no right!"

Gekko cradled him and answered softly, "I have no power. This is beyond me. We must go to the other world." He moved away. Jim made no answer, tired by his own outburst. Gekko took a ramp downward, then another and another. Down and down he went, much deeper than Jim had ever been before, deeper perhaps than any terrestrial had ever been. On the upper levels they passed other Martians; farther down there were none.

At last Gekko halted in a small chamber far underground. It was exceptional in that it was totally without decoration; its plain, pearl-grey walls seemed almost unMartian. Gekko laid Jim on the floor here and said, "This is a gate to the other world."

Jim picked himself up. "Huh?" he said. "What do you mean?" and then carefully rephrased the question in the dominant tongue. He need not have bothered; Gekko did not hear him.

Jim craned his neck and looked up. Gekko stood utterly motionless, all legs firmly planted. His eyes were open but lifeless. Gekko had crossed over into the "other world."

"For the love of Mike," Jim fretted, "he sure picks a sweet time to pull a stunt like that." He wondered what he ought to do, try to find his way to upper levels alone or wait for Gekko. Natives were reputed to be able to hold a trance for weeks at a time, but Doc MacRae had pooh-poohed such stories.

He decided to wait for a while at least and sat down on the floor, hands clasped around his knees. He felt considerably calmed down and in no special hurry, as if Gekko's boundless calm had flowed over into him while the native had carried him.

After a while, an indefinitely long while, the room grew darker. Jim was not disturbed; he was vastly content, feeling again the untroubled happiness that he had known in his two experiences of "growing together."

A tiny light appeared at a great distance in the darkness and grew. But it did not illuminate the small pearl-grey room; it built up an outdoor scene instead. It was as if a stereo-movie projector were being used to project New Hollywood's best work, in full, natural color. That it was not an importation from Earth Jim knew, for the scene, while utterly realistic, had no slick commercial finish, no plot.

He seemed to be seeing a grove of canal plants from a viewpoint about a foot off the ground. The viewpoint shifted steadily and erratically as if the camera were being trucked on a very low dolly here and there through the stalks of the canal plants. The viewpoint would shift quickly for a few feet, stop, then change direction and move again, but it never got very far off the ground. Sometimes it would wheel in a full circle, a panorama of three hundred and sixty degrees.

It was during one of these full rotations that he caught sight of a water-seeker.

It would not have been strange if he had not recognized it as such, for it was enormously magnified. As it charged in, it filled the entire screen. But it was impossible not to recognize those curving scimitar claws, the grisly horror of the gaping sucker orifice, those pounding legs-and most particularly the stomach-clutching revulsion the thing inspired. Jim could almost smell it.