Old Mars

The archaeologist ignored the summons, continued to make notes. He had a sense that he was about to discover something new and remarkable, to acquire some transformative knowledge to which he would say, at first, “That’s incredible!” followed almost immediately by, “But, of course!”

Bowman’s voice intruded again on the moment. He reached inside the satchel to switch off the radio, but a momentary flash of cunning stayed his hand: If he didn’t answer, they might think he was hurt; if they thought he was hurt, they might come to help him; if they came, they would take him away from … from whatever was about to fill him with—

“Base to Mather, are you all right?”

He keyed the mike switch. “Mather to base. What’s up?”

“What took you so long?”

The lie came smoothly. “I was cleaning out the carburetor. Wanted to wipe my hands before I picked up the radio.”

There was a silence. He could imagine the crew chief digesting the information, filtering it through his undisguised dislike of the greenhorn—an impersonal dislike that extended to all the Fred Mathers of the two worlds, with their soft palms, their long words and longer sentences. He probably suspected that people like him secretly hoarded books that should have been burned on the great bonfires Bowman would remember from his childhood, when the government had cleansed the people’s minds.

At last, Bowman said, “We may have trouble getting the harvester down the ramp to the seabed tomorrow. It’s steeper than it looked. So it might not arrive on schedule.”

“Okay,” said Mather. “Doesn’t bother me.”

“But we’re all gonna be tied up with this. So if you can’t get the jeep running, nobody’s gonna come and get you.”

“Okay.”

“Or bring you any food or water.”

Mather shrugged. “I’ve got sandwiches and a gallon or so. I’ll get by.”

“You say so,” said Bowman. “I wouldn’t want to spend too long in one of those places. People have seen ghosts.”

“Ghosts don’t bother me,” said Mather. “Over and out.”

He turned off the radio and put it back in the satchel. Then he methodically finished his note-taking. All this time, he had been shielding his gaze from the figured cube. Now he took a settling breath and said, “Okay, here we go.”

He lowered his arm. The pattern seemed to reach out for him. A small, involuntary gasp escaped him, then he nodded and said, “Ah.”

It was the evening of the Touching of the Sea. He had invited neighbors to dine before they went down to the gathering above the harbor. His wife cooked meats in the house, then brought them on golden plates out into the inner courtyard, where they sat on bone chairs and drank the fruited wine from his own trees.

The conversation was relaxed and mellow. The two couples were friends as well as each other’s next-door neighbors. They talked of people they knew; the husbands compared their expectations for the coming season’s hunt up in the hills; the wives discussed the plays they planned to see—mostly timeless revivals, though there was to be a new work by a playwright from across the sea who was developing a reputation for deliberately stimulating his audiences.

When the meal was done and the last, formal toast drunk, they went down to the festival, through darkening streets lit by crystal torches and aflow with golden-eyed folk in their holiday clothes. No one wore a mask this night; it was not a time for circumspection.

The plaza by the sea was thronged. All of the town was there, the oldest given places on the steps of the surrounding buildings, the youngest on the shoulders of their parents, so that all could witness the Touching. A coterie of musicians played the festival anthem and the crowd swayed, humming to the ancient song.

As the last notes died, all of them turned toward the harbor. The boats that usually filled most of the circular basin had been rowed to the sides, tethered to bronze rings set in the stones of the moles or to each other, so that a wide channel lay open from the foot of the steps to the gap where the enclosing barriers did not meet.

One musician struck a single, plangent tone from his harp. As one, the crowd craned forward. Now a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan rose up from each throat. It mingled and became one common note, rising not in volume but in intensity. It filled the plaza like an invisible mist, then it flowed down the steps and across the harbor and out over the sea. And carried with it a single thought.

Minutes piled upon minutes, became almost an hour, the sound continuously pouring from the crowd, the thought uniting them. Then, out beyond the harbor mouth, the waveless summer sea rippled, once, twice. A triangular-fluked tail rose and slapped the surface gently. A dark, gleaming back showed, then disappeared, only to come up once more in the channel between the boats.