OLD FAITHFUL

by Raymond Z. Gallun

If Number 774 had been a human being, he might have cursed bitterly or he might have wept. Certainly he had reason to do so. But Number 774 was not a human being. His fragile form bore not the slightest resemblance to that of a man; he knew nothing of smiles or frowns or tears, and whatever emotions passed within his cool, keen mind were hidden even to members of his own race.

The two messengers who had come to his workshop that afternoon had not seen into his heart, and he received their message with the absolute outward calm that was characteristic of his kind—at the end of forty days Number 774 must die. He had lived the allotted span fixed by the Rulers.

With food and water as scarce as they were, no one had the right to live longer unless he had proved through the usefulness of his achievements that it was for the good of all that he be granted an extension. Otherwise the young and strong must always replace the old and weak.

In the opinion of the Rulers the work of Number 774 was not useful; it was without value and was even wasteful. An extension of life-span could not be considered; Number 774 must die.

Having imparted this information the messengers had crept into the streamlined hull of their ornithopter. Silvery wings had flapped, and the weird craft had lifted lightly, circled the great isolated workshop once in parting salute, and then had sped off into the west toward a distant city.

In obedience to some impulse Number 774 had ascended to a high-placed window in the towering wall of his domicile, to watch the ornithopter go. But long after the glinting metallic speck of its form had vanished into the sunset, Number 774 continued to stare out toward the west. Pools of purple shade swelled and broadened in the hollows between the dunes of the Martian desert that stretched in undulating flatness to the far horizon.

The sun sank out of sight, leaving only a faint reddish glow that quickly faded out at the rim of the world. The Martian sky, deep purple and shot with stars even during the day, became almost black, and the stars, veiled by an atmosphere only one-sixth as dense as that of Earth, gleamed with a steady and eerie brilliance that is never seen by terrestrial observers.

It was a strange, beautiful sight, and perhaps in other circumstances something fine and paradoxically human in Number 774’s being might have appreciated its wild and lonely grandeur. But natural splendors could scarcely have interested him now, for his mind was too full of other things.

In the sky was a tiny gray-green streak which he knew marked the position of an approaching comet. For a long moment he stared at it; and then his gaze wandered up among the welter of stars and sought out a greenish silver speck far brighter than any of its fellows.

For many minutes his attention clung unwavering to that brilliant point of light. He knew more about that planet than any other inhabitant of Mars. He had never heard its name, nor in fact did he have a vocal name of his own for it. To him it was just the world which held the third orbital position in order from the sun. And yet, for him, there was concentrated in it all the hopes and all the fascination of a lifetime of painstaking work and effort.

Gradually, by patient, methodical observation, he had wrested a few of its secrets from it. He had learned the composition of its atmosphere; he could describe its climates accurately; he even knew something about its soil. But beyond such superficial information for a long time it seemed that he could never go.

And then one night when, with stoical resignation, he had all but laid aside his fondest dream, a sign had come. The third planet, Earth, was inhabited by thinking beings. It was not a spectacular sign; neither was his conclusion guesswork. Number 774’s telescope had revealed, on the darkened side of Earth, between the limbs of its crescent, a barely discernible flicker of light flashes, evenly spaced, and repeated at perfectly regular intervals. Only a high order of intelligence could have produced such signals.

Dominated by a new zeal, Number 774 had constructed a gigantic apparatus and had duplicated the Earthian signals flash for flash. Immediately he had been answered. Then he had tried a new arrangement of flashes, and the unknown beings on Planet Three had seen, for they had repeated his signals perfectly.

For five Martian years, the equivalent of nearly ten passages of the Earth around the sun, he and the unimaginable entities on that other world, hardly ever less than thirty-five million miles away, had labored on the colossal problem of intelligent communication.

The results of their efforts had been small and discouraging; yet in ten or twenty years even that gigantic enigma might have yielded to persistence, ingenuity, and the indomitable will to do. But now no such thing could be. In forty days Number 774 would no longer exist. Nor would there be another to carry on his work.

Study of the third world could not produce more food or make water more plentiful. The Rulers would dismantle all the marvelous equipment that he had assembled to aid him in his quest for useless and impractical knowledge. The veil of mystery would remain drawn over Planet Three for many thousands of years, perhaps forever.

But it was the Rulers’ privilege to command and to expect unquestioning obedience. Never once in a millennium had their authority been disputed; for the very existence of the dominant race of Mars, a world aged almost to the limit of its ability to support life, depended on absolute spartan loyalty and discipline. Revolt now was unheard of; it could not be.

Did Number 774 feel resentment over his fate? Or did he accept his sentence with the stoicism of a true child of Mars? There was no way of telling. His position was almost unduplicated in the annals of the Red Planet, and, in consequence, his reactions may have been out of the ordinary. Almost never before had a creature of his kind wandered so far along the road of impractical knowledge, or had received the notice of the termination of life-span so inopportunely.

And so Number 774 continued to gaze up at the green star that had been included in every dream and effort of his existence. Thoughts and feelings must have tumbled in riotous confusion inside his brain.

After a while Phobos, the nearer moon, mounted up over the western [Mars rotates on its axis in 24 hours, 37 minutes, 22.67 seconds. Phobos, the nearer Moon, which is only 3,700 miles distant from Mars, completes its orbit in only 7 hours, 39 minutes, thus circling its primary more than three times in every Martian day. Since Phobos follows its path in the same direction that the planet rotates, it is evident that to an observer on Mars, it would appear to rise in the west and set in the east.] horizon and began its rapid march among the stars. Its pallid radiance converted everything into a half-seen fairyland of tarnished silver and ebony, the dunes of the lonely desert extending mile on mile in every direction, the low, fortlike walls of Number 774’s workshop, the great shining dome of metal that capped it. Nothing was clearly discernible, nothing seemed real.

The coming of Phobos aroused Number 774 from his lethargy. It may be that he realized that time was fleeting, and that an hour could ill be spared from the forty days of life that still remained to him. At a deft touch the crystal pane that glazed the window before him slipped aside, and a faint night breeze, arid and chilled far below zero, blew in upon him.

Edging his strange form forward, he leaned far out of the window and seemed intent upon creeping headlong down the rough stone wall. Long slender portions of his anatomy clutched the sill, and he hung inverted like a roosting bat of Earth. But otherwise there was not the remotest resemblance between Number 774 and a winged terrestrial mammal.

If, by means of some miraculous transition, an Earthman had suddenly found himself standing there on the desert and looking up at the wall of the workshop close above, he might not even have recognized Number 774 as a living creature in the shifting, uncertain moonlight. Amid the fantastic jumble of light and shade he would have seen only a blob of rusty brown color that might have been just the distorted shadow of one of the stone projections that jutted from the wall.

If he had looked closer he might have believed that the thing he saw was a small bundle of ancient and rotten rags dangling from the window ledge, with long, loose tatters stirring idly in the faint breeze. Still, the glint of bright metal from Number 774’s equipment would have puzzled him, and perhaps his flesh would have tingled slightly at the suggestively gruesome aspect of this unknown and poorly illuminated object.

From his dangling position Number 774 sucked a great breath of cold air into his complex breathing organs. The frigid tang of the night refreshed him and seemed to endow him with new life. One last glance he cast toward the glory of the Martian heavens. At sight of Earth and the threadlike speck of the comet, his great eyes, dark and limpid and more nearly human than anything else about him, flashed briefly with a vague, slumberous suggestion of something pent up behind a barrier that was none too strong to hold it back. Then Number 774 drew himself up into the window.

Three jointed rods of metal unfolded themselves from the complicated arrangement of mechanisms that was fastened to his fragile body, and in a moment he was striding along on them like a man, down a green-lighted cylindrical passage that extended off into misty obscurity. A faint and regular clicking came from the device, but Number 774 did not hear it. He knew of sound only as a vibration detectable by his keen sense of touch, and as a phenomenon registered by his scientific instruments, for Number 774 had no organs of hearing.

His steps seemed hurried and feverish. Perhaps some un-Martian plan was already half formulated in his restless and troubled mind.

The tunnel debouched at last into a colossal chamber where gigantic flying buttresses swept up and up through a misty green glow to meet the sides of an enormous rotunda of white metal that roofed the room.

Enigmatic forms of weird apparatus crowded in bewildering complexity against the walls. Tipped at a steep angle at the center of the floor was a vast cylinder of webby girders. Piercing the dome, opposite the upper end of the cylinder, was a circular opening through which a portion of the starlit sky was visible; and at the base of the cylinder a great bowl rotated rapidly, like a huge wheel.

Here was the observatory of Number 774, housing his telescope, and here were the controlling mechanisms of his signaling apparatus. He hurried up a steep ramp, from the upper end of which he could look down into the interior of the great rotating bowl. His eyes glanced critically over the device, searching for any possible slight disorder in its function. But there was none.

To an Earthman acquainted with astronomical equipment, the purpose of the rotating bowl would have been at once apparent, and he would have marveled at the simple cleverness of this piece of Martian ingenuity.

The bowl contained mercury. As the container spun on its perfectly balanced axis, centrifugal force caused the mercury to spread in a thin, precisely distributed layer over the inside of the bowl, forming a convex surface that acted admirably as a mirror for Number 774’s gigantic reflecting telescope. Its area, and its consequent light-collecting capacity, was many times greater than any rigid mirror that could have been constructed without flaws.

Satisfied with his inspection, Number 774 hoisted himself nimbly to a small platform, placed high among the spidery girders of the chamber. His movements were quick and catlike, yet coolly efficient, and he seemed bent upon making use of every moment of life that remained to him.

His eyes almost lambent with eagerness, he stared into the large crystal sphere which the platform supported. From a prismatic arrangement fixed to the telescope arrangement above, an invisible beam of light came down, impinging on the sphere and causing the picture which Number 774 was so intent upon to appear.

In the depths of the crystal was an image of the third world, Earth. Since it was to sunward and nearing inferior conjunction with Mars, most of its surface that was turned to the Red Planet was in shadow and could not be seen. Only a thin curve of light fringed one hemisphere.

Visible in the crescent were mottled areas of gray and green and brown, which Number 774 knew were oceans, continents, deserts, and verdant countryside. The shifting blurs of clouds, the winding rivers, and the snow-capped mountain chains, he could recognize and understand, too; but there was so much that distance and the distorting effects of two atmospheres left hidden and seemingly unattainable—things about which he had longed so passionately to see and to know.

A delicate bundle of pink filaments that terminated one of Number 774’s stalklike limbs rested on a tiny lever before him. The threadlike tentacles, marvelously adapted and trained for the finest and most accurate sort of work, moved the lever slightly to the right.

Immediately there was responding movement in the heavy parts of the huge telescope, and the image of Planet Three in the crystal globe began to grow. Mountains loomed larger; seas and continents swelled until the whole of the image of the terrestrial sphere could not occupy the globe, and all that could be seen was a small part of the illuminated crescent.

For a while, as the increase in magnification went on, details on Planet Three were brought more clearly into view; but presently, as the picture grew larger and larger, it began to tremble and to undulate, as if it were seen through a million atmospheric heat waves.

As the power of the telescope was increased still further, the flickering, jumping, shifting luminescence that appeared in the vision globe became totally incoherent and meaningless and bore no slight relationship to an Earthly scene. Number 774’s huge optical instrument was failing before one of the same obstacles to magnification that terrestrial observers have noted in their telescopes.

The gaseous envelopes of Earth and Mars, with their countless irregular air currents and varying indices of refraction due to differences in temperature and humidity, were distorting the image-bearing rays of light coming from Earth across fifty million miles of space and rendering magnification beyond a certain point useless. The telescope of Number 774 still had many Martian units of magnification in reserve, but for probing into the mysteries of Planet Three that reserve was of not the least value.

Still, Number 774 often gave his instrument full power in the vain hope, perhaps, that some day, by some trick of fate, the atmospheres of the two worlds would be quiet enough and clear enough to give him a momentary glimpse into the unknown. But the opportunity for such a glimpse had never come.

Cool and collected, Number 774 brought his telescope back to the limit of effective magnification. In response to the manipulation of some instrument, the image of Planet Three shifted so that no portion of the crescent was visible. The crystal globe was dark, but Number 774 knew that the third world was within the field of view.

Unerringly, guided by his instruments, he fixed his telescope on a certain spot on the dark side of Planet Three. He knew that shrouded in the shadows of the night hemisphere of that distant world there was a great continent extending broad and diversified, between two vast oceans. It had lofty ranges of snow-crowned mountains, extensive plains green with an unknown vegetation, great lakes, and winding rivers. In the southwestern portion of that continent was a desert, and near the edge of that desert was the Place of the Light—the light that was the voice of the friend he had never seen, and whose form was unimaginable to him, much though he might imagine and long to know.

The light was not there now; only the vague, white blurs of Earthly cities dotting the darkened continent, adding the mystery of their existence to the enigma of Planet Three. But Number 774 was not troubled by the absence of the light, for he had faith in it. When he had signaled, it had always appeared in answer; it would appear this time, too.

At his touch a vast mechanism in a room far beneath the chamber of the telescope began to function silently and efficiently, building up power. Feeble and delicate and hideous though Number 774 was by Earthly standards, at a mere gesture he could evoke forces that were worthy of the gods.

Number 774 watched a Martian version of a potentiometer. It was not like a terrestrial potentiometer. It had no graduated scale, no nervous pointer. It was just a globe of something that looked like frosted glass, from which a soft luminescence proceeded.

First, Number 774 saw in its depths a slumberous glow of a beautiful shade, quite unknown and unseeable to human eyes. It was what is called infrared on Earth. The color, being invisible to men, was of course quite indescribable, but to Number 774 it was as common as blue or yellow, for his eyes, like the eyes of some of the lower forms of Earth, were constructed to see it.

In addition, like all Martians, he was able to distinguish the slightest difference between one shade of color and another.

It is upon this fact that Martians depend for the accurate reading of instruments which, among men, would ordinarily have pointers and graduated scales. In any Martian meter, infrared, and of course the various shades of infrared, in their order of appearance in the spectrum, means a low reading. Red, and the shades of red, advancing toward orange, constitute somewhat higher readings. Orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet are progressively higher; while the shade at the extreme outer end of the ultraviolet band, which Martian eyes can also see, represents the highest reading.

In short, light of various wavelengths is used in practically all Martian meters to designate readings. Low readings are represented by long wavelengths near the infrared end of the spectrum; while high readings are designated by short wavelengths near the ultraviolet end of the spectrum.

Number 774 waited until the changing kaleidoscope of ordinary colors had passed and the delicate hue of ultraviolet had reached its maximum in the globe of the potentiometer before he made any further move. Then his tense body swayed forward, closing a complicated switch.

The result was instantaneous. Through the circular opening in the rotunda, at which the muzzle of the telescope was pointed, a dazzling blaze of incandescence was visible in a sudden tremendous flash. The detonation that accompanied it was of a magnitude which one would have scarcely believed the rarefied atmosphere of old Mars capable of transmitting. The whole building, solidly constructed though it was, trembled with the concussion.

For a moment the Martian night, within a radius of twenty miles or more of Number 774’s workshop, became brighter than midday, as an enormous store of energy, released from the outer surface of the metal dome which capped the observatory, poured suddenly into the atmosphere, thus forming above the workshop a vast canopy of cold light, far more intense than any aurora borealis of Earth.

But the sudden flare died out as quickly as it had come; the echoes of the crash faded, and the calm of lonely desert and stars reasserted itself. Some eerie monster, which had unwittingly buried itself in the sand too close to the lair of Number 774, scrambled out of its warm sleeping place amid a cloud of dust and on gauzy wings sped hurriedly away from the zone of the thunder that had terrified it. As it flew, its fantastic shadow bobbed crazily over the moonlit sand.

But Number 774 was quite oblivious of any fears his experiments might arouse in the creatures of Mars. As far as his mind was concerned, for the time being things Martian had almost ceased to exist for him. Earth, Planet Three, claimed all his attention, and there was room for nothing else. He had given his sign; now he would wait for the answer that was sure to come.

It would take approximately nine minutes for Earth to get signals back to him. For that was the time which light, traveling at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, required to bridge twice the fifty-million-mile void lying between the two planets.

Number 774’s weird, fragile body hunched eagerly forward on the small mat on which he squatted. His great eyes burned with the same fire of fascination which they had held when, a little while ago, he had gazed up at Earth and the approaching comet from the window in the wall of his workshop. Unwaveringly they were fixed on the spot in the darkened vision globe where the light would appear.

Sometimes that light was too dim for his trained and sensitive eyes to see; but arranged and hooded on a carefully shaded portion of the vision globe was a Martian photoelectric cell which would pick up the faintest of light signals and convert them into electrical impulses which would be amplified and relayed to an instrument close beside Number 774.

This instrument would reproduce the signals just as they came from Earth, but bright enough to be easily watched. Another device would record each flash for later study.

* * * *

II

The body of Number 774 tensed suddenly. There was the first signal, flickering faint and feeble across the millions of miles of space; yet on the desert of Earth it doubtless represented flashes almost comparable with those which Number 774s powerful sending equipment produced.

Number 774 could barely see them in his vision globe, but the little glass bulb of the reproducing apparatus flickered them out plain and clear-long flashes, short flashes, representing the dots and dashes of the Morse code of Earth.

Flash—flash—flash—flash-

“Hello, Mars! Hello, Mars! Hello, Mars! Earth calling. Earth calling. Earth calling,” the message spelled, and Number 774 was grimly in the midst of the colossal task he had set for himself.

Lurking in the back of his mind was the realization that his death was decreed and that soon, unless something unprecedented happened, all this work of his, and of his friend of the light, must end, unfinished, before the intelligences of two worlds could really meet and exchange ideas freely. But it did not divert him or make his attention to the task in hand less keen. In fact it seemed to sharpen his wits and to add pressure to his determination.

Still, his mind seemed divided into two parts, one of which was cool and logical and scientific, the other in a turmoil, fighting with itself and its loyalty to time-honored traditions.

“Hello, Mars! Hello, Mars! Earth calling. Man of Mars is late—late—late—late—One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Four and five are nine. Two times three is six. Man of Mars is late—late—late—late—”

How much of this queer jangle of light flashes, spelling out Earth words and numbers in the Morse code did Number 774 understand? How much could he understand?

Intelligent comprehension of anything new is almost always based on an understanding of similar things previously in the experience of the individual in question. The mind of Number 774 was brilliantly clever and methodical, but what can an Earthman and a Martian have in common? Many points of contact exist, it is true, but for two entities so far removed from one another in physical form, senses, environment, and modes of living, with not the vaguest conception of what the other upon the distant world is like, such similarities of experience are extremely hard to find.

In the first place, the messages that were coming to Number 774 were the code representations of alphabetical letters standing for various sounds which, when taken in groups, made up words of vocal speech.

As previously stated, Number 774 had no idea of sound except as an interesting phenomenon recorded by his scientific instruments, and as a vibration detectable by his touch sense in the same way that human beings can feel sound vibrations in solid objects. He had no ears; neither did he have well-developed vocal organs.

Strange as it may seem to us, prior to his experience with the light, he had not the faintest idea of what a word was, either a vocal word or a written word, or a word represented in the form of a group of signals. Because Martian methods of communicating with one another, and of recording knowledge, are so different from ours that a word would have been as great a mystery to him as it would have been to a newborn kitten.

Describing sound to him, as we know it through our sense of hearing, would have been as hopeless a task as describing red to a man who has been stone-blind since birth. It simply could not be done. He might know that sound and vocal speech existed, but short of trading actual sensations with an Earthman, he could never fully comprehend. Neither could he have told us in any way how the color of ultraviolet or infrared looked, for such things are totally out of our experience.

In the face of these enormous handicaps, in spite of his intelligence and scientific knowledge, he had been like a little child, humbly and intensely eager to learn, yet bungling and quick to make mistakes which, from an Earthman’s point of view, would often have seemed more than childish.

Once he had tried a method of his own of establishing communication. If Earth had been peopled by a race physically and psychologically similar to the Martians, quick success might have been expected; but his efforts had evoked only a, to him, meaningless jumble of flashes from the light. Realizing that his method was not suited to Earthmen, he had given up trying to be teacher and had assumed instead the role of conscientious pupil.

“Hello, Mars!” Those two groups of symbols had always been the beginning of every message flashed by the light; but except for seeing the unmistakable evidence of intelligence in the oft-repeated and unvarying signal, Number 774 had been quite unable at first to grasp in it any thread of meaning.

A greeting phrase was, if possible, even more incomprehensible to him than a word itself. Try as he might, he could not understand. On Mars, where speech is not the mode of communication, greeting phrases did not exist.

Then Earthly genius, doubtless assisted a great deal by chance, had come to his aid. Number 774 had no difficulty in separating the twenty-six alphabetical symbols of the Morse code. Nor when the Earth entities, controlling the flickerings of the light, had sent out code symbols for numerals in a sequence of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on, did he have any trouble in recognizing and cataloguing each separate signal, though their meanings were still entirely unfathomable to him.

It was when the counting proceeded above nine, and numbers of more than one digit appeared, that Number 774, after a long period of association with the riddle, had received his first faint glimmer of understanding. No; it was not really understanding yet; just a vague, intuitive intimation that something concrete and graspable was not far off.

He had noted that there were but ten separate signals in this strange system, which was apparently quite distinct from that other mysterious system of twenty-six symbols, for the two had never yet been mixed in one signal group or word; and that, as the flashing of the signals proceeded, each symbol seemed to bear a definite relationship to the others.

They always were in fixed sequence. 1 was followed by 2, 2 by 3, and so on through a sequence of ten. The first symbol of a two-digit number was always repeated ten times as the counting went on, while the second symbol changed according to the fixed rule which he had already noted.

Perhaps Number 774 already had a dim notion of the terrestrial numeral system, when his friend of the light conceived the plan of sending simple problems of arithmetic. Obviously, one plus one of anything is two on the planet Mars just as certainly as it is on Earth.

There was the real beginning. Number 774 had studied carefully the simple equations that had come to him, and at length he had been able to grasp what was meant. In a message like “3 and 3 are 6” he was presently able to see the relationship between the numeral signals. The last in the group was the sum of the preceding two.

Finally he understood. Here was some quaint terrestrial method of expressing the unit quantity of anything. The first point of contact between Earth and Mars had been established.

Flushed with success, Number 774 had made rapid progress for a while after he had learned about the terrestrial decimal system. If 3 and 3 are 6, and 2 and 5 are 7, then 4 and 5 are 9. Reproducing faithfully, though without clear comprehension, the intermediate letter groups of the Earthly equation he had invented, “a-n-d” and “a-r-e,” he had flashed the equation to his friend of the light: “4 and 5 are 9.”

And the answering flicker of the light seemed to dance with an eager exultation: “4 and 5 are 9. 4 and 5 are 9. Yes, yes, yes. 5 and 5 are 10. 8 and 4 are 12. 9 and 7 are? 9 and 7 are?”

Keyed to a high pitch, Number 774 had sensed immediately what was required of him. Answers were wanted. Though two-digit numbers were still something of a mystery to him, making his reply partly guesswork, he lit upon the correct representation of the sum: “9 and 7 are 16.”

Through the succeeding months, during which the positions of the two planets were favorable for astronomical observation of each other, the work had gone on, various methods being employed. Sometimes Number 774 presented his own problems of addition, giving the answers. If his answer was correct, the light invariably flashed “Yes, yes, yes,” exultantly, and repeated the equation.

On those rare occasions when the problems became more complex, Number 774 made mistakes, the answering message was “No, no, no,” and the correction was made.

Thus Number 774 had gained his first knowledge of words, as represented by the twenty-six letter code alphabet. “Yes, yes, yes,” meant that he was right, and “no, no, no,” meant that he was wrong. It trickled into his mind that each group of alphabetical symbols represented, in its crude way, some definite idea. “And” and “are” in a simple addition problem, showed certain relationships between the numbers; and those relationships were different from the ones expressed by other words.

A mistake he had once made had clearly demonstrated this fact to him. It was in the transition from addition problems to problems of multiplication. 10 and 2 was different from 10 times 2. 10 and 2 made 12, while 10 times 2 made 20. “Times” represented a different relationship between numbers than “and.” One indicated that the sum was to be taken, while the other indicated that the two were to be multiplied together.

In a similar way he found out what “divided by,” “plus,” “minus,” and other words meant by noting the relationship of the numbers of the equation to the final answer.

Once understanding simple division as it is done on Earth, Number 774 quickly grasped the decimal-position system of representing fractions. In an equation like 36÷5 equals 7.2, he could substitute Martian methods of representing values and division and correlate them with terrestrial methods. In the Martian way he knew what 36÷5 was, and of course his answer thus obtained might just as well be represented by the Earthly 7.2, for they were the same.

Number 774 had found in the number 3.1416, part of which was a decimal fraction, the relationship of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and so the oft-repeated message of the light, “Diameter times 3.1416 equals the circumference of a circle,” had a certain vague meaning for him that was not by any means completely understandable at once.

“Earth, Planet 3, Mars, Planet 4,” was a message he was able to guess the meaning of correctly because in the Martian system numbers were used to designate planets in their order from the sun. Aided by the message, “Earth Planet 3, has 1 moon. Mars, Planet 4, has 2 moons,” he had been half able to clinch his guess.

Stumblingly, yet reproducing the Earth words with the faithfulness of a good mimic, he had flashed: “Planet 1 has 0 moon. Planet 2 has 0 moon. Earth, Planet 3, has 1 moon. Mars, Planet 4, has 2—”

And an enthusiastic “yes, yes, yes” had come from the light, and the dim flickering glow had gone on to tell that: “Mercury, Planet 1, has no moon. Venus, Planet 2, has no moon. Jupiter, Planet 5, has 9 moons. Saturn, Planet 6, has 10 moons—” And so on out to Pluto, Planet Nine, beyond Neptune.

Thus Number 774 had learned the names of the planets and the meaning of the words “moon” and “planet.” In the same way he received a dim idea of such simple verbs as “has.”

And so the process of his Earthly education had gone on, slowly, depending to a large extent upon brilliant though not very certain guesswork, and demanding a degree of patience in instructor and pupil for which teaching a person to talk who has been deaf, blind, and dumb since birth is but a feeble and inadequate analogy.

Number 774 had certain knowledge of a few Earthly words and the privilege of guessing more or less accurately on a number of others. Words like “snow,” “clouds,” or “storm,” he could perhaps gather the general sense of fairly well. For whenever a great atmospheric disturbance appeared over the continent of the light, disturbing observations, the light repeated these words over and over again.

He knew a little about the structure of the simplest of verbs and perhaps somewhat more about the forming of the plurals of nouns by the addition of an “s” symbol. “Hello!” in the phrase “Hello, Mars!” still was beyond him. He could answer it correctly with “Hello, Earth!” knowing that this was the Earthly way; but the human sentiment of the greeting eluded him completely. And of course he had no sound values to give to those Earthly words which he did understand.

Progress had been made, but the forms which the intelligences of Planet Three inhabited, their manner of living, their machines and their accomplishments, were still as much of an enigma as ever. Consummation of the great dream of intelligent communication still belonged to the future, and now there would be no future—only death and a mighty prophecy unfulfilled.

That prophecy had been, and still was, the essence of Number 774’s life. In the face of defeat he still worked on the fulfillment of it now, as though a thousand years of usefulness still lay ahead of him. It was habit, perhaps; and meanwhile his mind smoldered with thoughts which we of Earth can only guess at.

“You are late, Man of Mars. Late, late, late,” the dim flicker in the vision globe, and the brighter light in the reproducer bulb beside him, spelled; and Number 774 bent to his task.

He understood sketchily most of the message. He knew that the light referred to him as “Man of Mars.” He knew that “you are” should be followed by a group of signals describing him. Only “late,” the essence of the sentence, the word which gave it sense, was new. What could “late” mean?

Intuition told him that some circumstances which existed only for the present had combined to make him “late,” since he had never been called that before. What were those circumstances? He racked his brain over the question. Perhaps the light wished to indicate that he had been delayed in sending out his flash call-signal. But this was only a guess which could be right or wrong.

Still, perhaps it could be clinched. Some other day he might be purposely several minutes behind in sending out his call; then, by way of beginning he could admit that he was “late” and, if his surmise had been correct, the light would confirm it.

But the matter of this new combination of signals could wait now. Number 774 must watch for other, possibly intelligible, things which the light might flash.

“Comet coming. Comet coming. Comet coming,” the flicker in the reproducer bulb spelled. “Comet coming toward sun, Mars, and Earth. Comet coming. Comet coming. Comet coming.”

If Number 774 had been a man, he might have given a sudden start. And it was not the message itself that would have been responsible, even though he caught some of its meaning. “Comet” was not a word that was new in his experience; for on several occasions when one of those long-tailed wanderers had come back into the solar system, after taking its long dive out toward interstellar space, the light had flashed the information: “Comet coming.”

Number 774 knew what “comet” meant, and he could differentiate vaguely between “comet coming” and “comet going,” for one indicated that the celestial visitor was entering the solar system, and the other that it was leaving. For several evenings the light had been telling him that a comet was arriving, and he had accepted the information as nothing particularly startling or new; he had been puzzled only at the significance of the other words of the message, “toward,” for instance. So far he had not been quite able to grasp “toward.”

No; it was not the message itself that was so startling to Number 774. Somehow, tonight, the flashing of the distant light on Earth, telling in its cryptic way of the arrival of the visitor, bridged a gap between two of Number 774’s thoughts and furnished him with an inspiration—a colossal inspiration which only genius, backed up by a knowledge considerably in excess of that of mankind, and a wonder-deadening familiarity with marvelous scientific triumphs, would have dreamed possible of fulfillment.

In one timeless instant, all of Number 774’s dreams and hopes became linked together with the comet. Might he not still be guilty of revolt against the age-honored conventions of old Mars?

* * * *

III

Something almost electrical seemed suddenly to take possession of Number 774. His cold eyes, fixed on the reproducer bulb, glittered with impatience. The flickering message, which a moment before would have held the complete attention of his every deductive faculty, had little interest for him now. He translated the signals perfunctorily, gathering what little meaning he could from them and not bothering to puzzle over what was new. He waited with tense eagerness for the moment when the light would go out, and it would be his turn to speak. There was something which he must tell his friend of Planet Three, and he must tell it so that it would be understood. But how? How could he direct those strange, clumsy signals, of which he knew so very little, so that the information he wished to convey would be received and properly understood?

There! The closing phrase of the message from Planet Three was coming: “Earth standing by for Mars. Earth standing by—” The scarcely noticeable speck of light in the vision globe of the telescope disappeared; the pulsating purple glow in the reproducer bulb faded out, and the darkness there seemed tense with expectancy and eager waiting. It seemed to fling an insurmountable challenge at the intellect and ingenuity of Number 774.

In their present relative positions, Earth and Mars were about fifty million miles, or four and a half light-minutes, apart. Thus any message depending on light would of course take four and a half minutes to travel from Earth to Mars, or vice versa.

To avoid confusion in exchanging their communications, Number 774 and his friend of Planet Three had worked out a system whereby each would send out his signals for two minutes, with an intervening pause of two minutes, during which the other could answer. This Earthly time interval Number 774 had learned to recognize and to interpret in terms of the Martian method of measuring time.

It was his turn now; and though he had something far more important to say than ever before, he hesitated, all his cleverness seemingly checkmated by the immensity of his problem. But the lagging, slipping moments lashed his mind, driving it by sheer tenseness of determination to a higher pitch of keenness, almost, than ever before. At least he could try. He could guess, and he could stumble, but he could try.

The little lever of the signaling mechanism trembled in his grasp, and in response to its feeble movements the signals thundered and flared from the outer surface of the dome overhead. For a full three minutes, violating the rule, Number 774 continued to send, repeating the same phrase over and over again, changing certain words each time, in the hope of hitting the right combination that would convey his meaning.

He did not wait for a reply. Earth had already sunk low in the west, and before a reply could come the flashes arriving from the feeble station on Earth would be rendered too dim and wavering and uncertain by the almost imperceptible haze of the Martian horizon to be properly recorded. Besides, he had so little time and so much to do.

Ponderously, under his guidance, the great telescope tube swung into line with the comet, which still rode high up in the west. The circular opening in the dome shifted automatically with the telescope, keeping opposite to its muzzle.

The huge form of the comet’s head filled the vision globe, spreading brilliant and silvery and tenuous around the more solid spot of the glowing central nucleus.

Delicate instruments came into play, recording and measuring speeds, distances, and densities. But this was no mere quest for abstract scientific knowledge. His eyes smoldered with a grimly definite purpose, in which the shadow of death was very near.

But toward death Number 774’s reactions were hardly human. In the torrent of his thoughts one thing shone out clear—the comet would pass close to Mars, and it would also pass close to Earth. That fact offered a slender and stupendous possibility. But in ten days the comet would pass and his chance would be gone. Unless he could cram into that brief time more work than anything human or Martian had ever before been called upon to do, his opportunity would be gone forever.

He finished his measurements quickly and efficiently. Switches clicked, and great mechanisms, and incredibly delicate and sensitive instruments, ceased functioning. The circular opening in the rotunda closed, hiding the stars and the comet. The observatory was at rest, for its eerie, fragile master needed it no more.

Number 774 was hurrying down a passage, the stalky limbs of the machine that carried him making a regular, clicking sound.

He came to a great wall that tumbled away in a murky, green-lighted haze, far beneath. Without hesitation he leaped into it and, seemingly supported and retarded in his fall by the emerald substance of the glow from the metal walls, he floated downward as gently and securely as a feather in the heavy atmosphere of Earth.

At the bottom of the well another vast, low-ceiled chamber spread out, its remote walls lost in the luminescent emerald murk, through which the burnished forms of gigantic machines gleamed elfinly.

This was Number 774’s workroom, and here, now, he set to work, laboring with cool, unhurried efficiency, so characteristic of the children of dying Mars.

Many times before he had struggled with the same problem which now held his attention, and he had learned much concerning it, yet the technical difficulties he had encountered had convinced him that the solution of that problem still lay many years in the future.

But now something had happened. An unforeseen chance had come— a chance which might or might not be possible. It was all a gamble.

There was no time for further experiments. Perhaps with this new opportunity there was no need for further experiments, for Number 774 grasped the underlying principles. He must plan and build; above all he must be quick and sure.

He was thinking of a certain barren valley far out in the desert. In a thousand years, perhaps, no one had visited it except him. Aircraft hardly ever flew over that waterless sand pocket set amid the arid hills of Mars. There would be the ideal spot for the completion of his task, for here in his workshop he knew that he dared not stay.

Delicate electrical impulses transmitted his commands, and in response five giant shapes, paradoxically human travesties wrought in shining metal, rose from their resting places to do his bidding. Under his guidance they made preparation for the exodus, gathering instruments, tools, and other paraphernalia, and packing them in metal cases; binding long arms of metal into great sheafs that would be easy to carry. Meanwhile Number 774 busied himself with a complicated Martian calculating machine.

Thus the night passed. In the almost momentary twilight that preceded the dawn, the strange caravan set out. Number 774 had changed his identity; instead of being only a fragile lump of living protoplasm, he was now a giant of metal, like the five automatons that served him, for the powerful machine he rode was so versatile, and so quick and accurate in its responses to his every guiding gesture, that it was to all intents and purposes his body.

A pair of wings of metal fabric disengaged themselves from the intricacies of his machine and began to flap ponderously. Number 774 soared upward on them, over his servitors that plodded along on the ground, bearing their heavy burdens. His gaze darted back briefly toward the silvery dome of his workshop and at its dusty walls, matching the slightly ocher-tinged dun color of the desert.

But the fact that he had lived in that structure most of his life, and that he was now leaving it forever, aroused no sentiment in his mind. He had no time for sentiment now, for time was precious. Besides, he was looking forward to the trials and dangers that were certain to come soon and to the triumphs that might come with them.

He swung and turned in the air, scanning the terrain with wary watchfulness, on guard for any possible approaching aircraft. It would not be well if he were seen, and if a flier should appear he must take cover. But there was really little danger to face as far as his own people were concerned.

Avoidance of the death sentence imposed by the Rulers was practically without precedent. For thousands of years Martians had obeyed their Rulers’ commands so implicitly that now prisons for the detention of the condemned were unknown. When the order came, the people of Mars went to their deaths willingly and without a guard. And so it was unlikely that any one would suspect that Number 774 had intentions of escaping execution now.

It is hardly likely that Number 774 felt triumphant over his revolt against ancient law—possibly he even felt guilty—but his earnest eagerness to learn things that he did not know, and to give himself to the cause to which his life had been pledged, was an urge that surpassed and defied even age-old code and tradition.

The stars, and leisurely Deimos, the farther moon, shone on an ashen haze that obscured the horizon in every direction. A mounting breeze, keen and cutting for all its thinness, blew out of the west. When the sun rose, it changed the haze of the dust-laden air to a tumultuous, fiery murk that flung long, ominous streamers of orange and red across the sky. Number 774 knew what was coming and knew the hazards that it brought.

The wind became more and more violent, increasing by puffs and gusts, and at last settling down to a steady powerful blast of the proportions of a terrestrial hurricane. If human ears had been there to hear, they would have detected the mounting whisper and rustle of millions of flying sand particles, rubbing and sliding over each other, making a blurred and soothing purr of sound.

As the streaming, flame-hued trains of sand thickened and mounted higher in the atmosphere, the sun dimmed to a red bubble floating in the murk, and only a bloody reminder of its normal brilliance reached the ground.

Number 774 had descended to join his robots in their march on the ground. He had seen many of these fierce dust storms of Mars, and he accepted them as a matter of course, just as an experienced old mariner of Earth accepts tempests at sea. He himself was safely incased in an airtight glass cage atop the machine he rode; he was breathing pure filtered air.

The chief dangers were that the filtering equipment which fed oxygen to the engines of his automatons would become clogged, or that he would accidentally be engulfed in some newly formed bed of quicksand, hidden beneath the clouds of dust that swirled about him. But these were unavoidable dangers which must be faced.

Under the pressure of necessity, Number 774 urged his robots to the fastest pace they could attain in the shifting desert soil. The metal giants’ long, webby limbs swung on and on steadily, into the east, breasting sand and wind, and climbing several steep rocky ridges they encountered with agile ease, in spite of their great bulk and the weight of the burdens they carried.

Twice they crossed deep, twenty-mile-wide artificial gorges, which on Earth have earned the not entirely correct name of “canals.” Now and then during each crossing, the dry and lifeless stalks of some weird Martian vegetation would loom dimly through the storm like grotesque totem poles. The canals were as desolate as the desert itself, for it was very early in the spring, and the water from the melting polar snowcaps had not yet come down through the network of conduits and perforated pipettes buried beneath the canal bed.

When the water did appear, vegetation would spring up in rapid growth along the bottoms of the hundreds of straight scars that had been dredged across the barren desert ages before. But as yet there was no sign of the great Martian planting machines, for it was still too early in the season even for them.

Number 774’s wariness in crossing seemed completely unnecessary, for his eyes caught no sign of his own kind, or, in fact, of any living creature. He was as completely alone in the flat expanses of the canals as he was in the desert proper.

Late in the afternoon he arrived at his destination. By sunset the wind had subsided and the air was clearing. The work was already underway. Two of the robots, equipped now with great scooplike claws, had excavated a vast hole in the sand. Feverishly active, the other two were assisting Number 774 with other tasks. Rods were being arranged around the pit. Something of a strange, dark substance was taking form. A stream of molten metal was pouring from a broad, squat mechanism. A thin trickle of white vapor trailed up in the quiet air.

At dusk Number 774 paused to look up, over the rounded hills that ringed the valley, at Planet Three that hung in the western sky, gleaming regally amid its retinue of stars. The light on that distant world would flicker in vain tonight, calling eagerly to the Man of Mars. There would be no answer. Higher up, fainter and less conspicuous, was the silvery dart of the comet.

Perhaps Number 774 was trying to imagine what his unknown friend of the light would think when no replying flicker appeared on the disk of Mars. Perhaps he was trying to imagine, as he had done so often before, what his friend of the light was like. Maybe he was wondering whether he should soon know.

His pause was only momentary. There was much to do, for in effect he was racing with the comet. Martians need very little sleep, and it was certain that Number 774 would get no sleep this night, nor the next, nor the next.

* * * *

IV

Young Jack Cantrill cast a brief glance at the big diesel engine he had been inspecting, and then, with an air of finality, wiped his grease-blackened hands on a fistful of cotton waste. The outfit was functioning perfectly. Ordinarily he might have paused for a moment to admire the easy strength and motion of the machinery to which he played nursemaid, but, lover of machines though he certainly was, he had no time now.

His eyes did not linger on the reflection of the glowing electric light-bulbs mirrored on the polished circumference of the spinning flywheel, as they usually did; nor did his attention wander to the sparks that purred blue and steady on the brushes of the gigantic dynamo attached to the engine.

He had something far more interesting to occupy his mind, and besides, a rather astounding idea had just occurred to him. Old Doc Waters and Yvonne might laugh at the notion; and then again they might be struck by it just as he had been. He’d have to try it out on them right away.

He tossed the handful of waste carelessly into a metal box, then made a perfunctory reading of the meters and instruments banked close and bewilderingly on the switchboard. He adjusted a small rheostat and jotted something down on a chart on the wall with a red crayon. Then, heedless of his light clothing and his perspiring condition, he hurried out into the frosty desert night.

The breeze, cold and untainted by the smell of burning fuel oil, chilled his damp body uncomfortably, but he did not heed it. The steady thud of the exhaust of the high-compression motor in the iron shack receded rapidly behind him as he ran up a path which led to the summit of a low hill.

On the crest of a neighboring knoll, a broad patch of dazzling light winked on and off regularly, where scores of huge searchlights poured their billions of candlepower toward the twinkling stars, in systematically arranged long and short spurts. Jack Cantrill’s glance toward them was brief but intense. His lips moved as though he were counting to himself.

The door of the domed observatory building at the top of the hill opened at his touch. He passed through a small lean-to and entered the brick-lined circular chamber that housed the telescope. Here a single shaded lamp cast a subdued glow over a big desk on which various opened notebooks and papers were scattered. Amid the litter an astronomer’s chronometer ticked loudly in shadowed stillness. The gloom was eerie and soft and strange.

Jack Cantrill made his way quietly to the low platform under the eyepiece of the telescope, where the other two occupants of the room stood.

The girl was pretty in a blond, elfin sort of way. She smiled briefly at Jack’s approach.

“Any luck, folks?” he inquired.

He was trying to make his voice sound calm and casual, but a tense and excited huskiness crept into his words and spoiled his bluff.

Professor Waters looked up from the eyepiece of the big instrument. The glow coming from the nearby lamp accentuated the tired lines of his face, making him look almost haggard. He grinned wearily.

“Not yet, boy,” he said. “It seems as though Old Faithful has deserted us completely. It’s funny, too, when you remember that when conditions were at all favorable for observation, he hasn’t failed me once in nine years. And yet this is the second night that he hasn’t given us a sign. The shaded side of Mars hasn’t shown a single flicker that you can see, and even the photoelectric cell doesn’t detect anything.”

The young man glanced uncertainly at the girl and then back at her father. The fingers of one of his hands crept slowly through his curly red hair. With the air of a small schoolboy about to make his first public address, he was fumbling with a soiled sheet of paper he had taken from his pocket. He felt rather sheepish about that idea he had thought of.

“Yvonne— Doc—” he said almost plaintively, in an awkward attempt to get their undivided attention centered on what he was going to say. “I’m not much of a scientist, and maybe I’m a darned fool; but—well, this message—the final one we received the night before last—we thought it was just a jumble but, when you read it, it almost has meaning. Here, listen to it once.”

Clearing his throat he proceeded to read from the sheet of paper: “Comet coming. Yes. Comet coming. Yes. Comet coming of Man of Mars. Comet Man of Mars coming toward Earth. Comet coming Man of Mars. Man of Mars. Comet. Man of Mars. Comet. Man of Mars. Comet. Yes, yes, yes. Man of Earth. Yes, yes, yes. Signing off. Signing off.”

Jack Cantrill’s thin cheeks were flushed when he stopped reading.

“Get it?” he asked in a husky whisper. “Get any sense out of that?”

Yvonne Waters’ pretty face had paled slightly. “You mean, Jack—you mean that he wanted to say that he was coming here, across fifty million miles of emptiness? He can’t do that! He can’t! It’s too far and too impossible!”

Her concerned manner bolstered up the youth’s confidence in his idea. “You caught on to exactly what I thought of,” he said.

Professor Waters did not betray any outward excitement. His manner was musing, and he rubbed his cheek reflectively. “I thought of that, too,” he admitted after a moment. “But it seemed too wild for serious consideration. Still there’s a chance—that you are right.”

The thought put into words seemed suddenly to startle the old man. “Gad, boy!” he exploded suddenly. “Supposing it is the truth! Old Faithful signaled about the comet. If there’s anything to this at all, the comet must be tied up with his coming. And for all we know the comet might help. It passes close to both Earth and Mars. If in some way he could fall into its gravitation field, it would drag him almost all the way. That’s it! It would save an enormous energy. It would put his trip, otherwise still impossible, into the realm of possibility!”

“You get me at last, doc,” Jack said quickly. “And when you say, ‘Supposing it’s the truth,’ think of what it means! The navigation of interplanetary space, maybe! Commerce between Earth and Mars! A new and wonderful era, with the minds of one world exchanging ideas with the minds of another.”

Unconsciously Jack Cantrill had taken Yvonne Waters’ hand. Her eyes were starry.

“If it did happen we’d all be heroes, Jack,” she said. “Dad and you and I. We’d be the ones to get the credit.”

“We would, Yvonne,” Jack admitted with a chuckle.

It was the professor’s turn to smile. “You two have got the whole business nicely ready-made, haven’t you?” he chided. Then his face sobered as he went on: “The gap is pretty wide between Earthman and Martian; and in consequence yours may be very far off, even if that guess of ours about the message is right.

“We don’t know that Martians are human beings. The chances are a million to one that they aren’t. It is very unlikely that evolution, operating on so different a planet, could produce a being even remotely resembling a man. We don’t even know that the people of Mars use speech as we use it. Old Faithful certainly is very intelligent, yet the way he has fumbled blunderingly with our code seems to indicate that even a faint conception of vocal speech is something new and strange to him.

“Those are some of the gaps, but there may be sinister similarities between Earthmen and Martians.

“Who knows but that something darker lies behind what we think is friendly interest in us? Sometimes conquest is more satisfying than commerce. We can’t tell.” Professor Waters paused.

“Making it extra strong, aren’t you, doc?” Jack put in.

“I guess I am, and now I think I’ll do a little news-spreading.” The professor strode to the desk.

“Human or not, I hope the Martians are handsome,” Yvonne confided impishly to Jack.

“And I hope they’re not, darling,” he replied, putting his arm affectionately about her waist. He was about to add something more when what the girl’s father was saying into the telephone riveted their attention.

“Long distance? I’m calling Washington. I want to speak directly to Mr. Grayson, the Secretary of War. Strange call? Perhaps. But put it through.”

Before dawn all the observatories of Earth had begun their watch.

* * * *

V

Far away on the Red Planet, the work of Number 774 went steadily forward. Then came the night when all was ready except for one thing. A powerful urge, the roots of which are deeply implanted in the dominant forms of life on both Earth and Mars, and perhaps the whole universe, was calling him to a city at the joining place of four canals, far to the east. In that urge there was a pathetic something, perfectly understandable by human standards.

The bright stars reeled dizzily before Number 774 as he swooped out over the desert on the wings of the ornithopter that bore him and sped eastward. He must be cautious, but above all he must hurry.

An hour or so slipped by. The Martian’s big eyes, keen and catlike, picked out in the broad cleft of a canal a gigantic angular shape, looming dim and uncertain in the gloom. Inconspicuous as a drifting shadow, he settled toward it. The talons of his automaton found a metal panel that slipped aside at a touch. The green glow of the immense well thus revealed dropped away into deserted obscurity. In a moment he was floating down it, past myriads of openings, from which radiated the labyrinthine tunnels of the buried Martian city.

He entered one of these passages and followed it for perhaps a mile, until he came to a vast chamber, pervaded by a moist, humid heat. The floor was covered with thousands of boxes of clear crystal; and in each box was a purple gob of something feeble and jellylike and alive.

Aided perhaps by some Martian numeral system, Number 774 found his way to the box he sought. At his touch the lid opened. He had dismounted from his automaton, and now, creeping forward, he thrust a slender appendage into the crystal case.

A score of nerve filaments, fine, almost, as human hair, darted out from the chitinous shell that protected them and roved caressingly over the lump of protoplasm. Immediately it responded to the gentle touch of the strange creature that had sired it. Its delicate integument quivered, and a thin pseudopod oozed up from its jellylike form and enveloped the nerve filaments of Number 774. For minutes the two remained thus, perfectly motionless.

It was a bizarre travesty of a touching and perfectly human situation; yet its utter strangeness by Earthly standards robbed it of some of its pathos. No words were spoken, no sign of affection that a terrestrial being could interpret was given; and yet perhaps the exchange of feeling and thought and emotion between parent and offspring was far more complete than anything of the kind possible on Earth.

Number 774 did not forget caution. Perhaps it was intuition that informed him that someone was coming. Quickly, yet without haste, he regained his automaton, replaced the lid on the crystal box, and slipped quietly away into the luminescent obscurity of the tunnel. In a few minutes he had safely reached the open of the canal bed. Broad wings flapped, and the starlit night swallowed him up.

As he hurried back toward his hidden valley, he saw the silvery green speck of Earth dip beneath the western horizon. The sight of it must have aroused a turmoil of forebodings within him; for absently, as if he were already facing unknown horrors in mortal combat, he moved a small switch, and in response a jagged flash of flame leaped from an apparatus carried on a long arm of his flying automaton. Where the bolt struck, the desert sand turned molten.

Above, the comet glowed, pallid and frosty and swollen. It was very near to Mars now.

Having reached his valley, Number 774 descended into the pit. A silvery thing that was ill defined in the uncertain light loomed over him. A door opened and closed, and Number 774 was alone and busy amid a bewildering array of machinery.

There came a blinding flash of incandescence, and a roar that sounded like the collision of two worlds; then a shrill, tortured, crackling whistle. The pit glowed white-hot, and the silvery thing was gone. Above the pit, towering many miles into the sky, was an immense jetted plume of vapor, shining rosy with heat. It would be many minutes before that huge gaseous cloud would cool sufficiently to be invisible.

The body of Number 774 was battered and torn and broken; the terrific acceleration was crushing him; consciousness was slipping, even though he was exerting a tremendous effort of will to cling to it. In a few minutes it would not matter if he did go out, but now there were controls to watch and to handle. If they were not manipulated properly everything he had done was for naught.

But the blackness of oblivion was closing in. He struggled valiantly to master himself and to fight through the gathering gloom that was misting his vision and clouding his mind. Though his whole being cried out for a cessation of torturing effort, still he kept fiercely at his task. There was too much at stake. That little globe there—it was glowing red when it should glow violet. It must be attended to. The craft was wobbling, and it must not wobble. A trifling adjustment of delicate stabilizers would fix that, if he could only somehow make the adjustment.

A dribble of sticky, oozy fluid welled from a wound in Number 774’s side. His limbs, some of them broken, fumbled awkwardly and inefficiently with the complicated controls. He was gasping, and all the while his glazing eyes remained fixed grimly on the form of the comet, toward which he and the strange craft he had built were hurtling. Could he reach it? He must!

* * * *

VI

On Earth, Professor Waters, his daughter, and his young engineer, watched and waited. It was a tense, grueling task, heavy-laden with monotony, a thousand weird imaginings, and a horde of questions, none of which could be answered with any certainty.

They were uncertain whether to be fearful of the unknown thing whose approach they sensed, or to be exultant. They did not even know whether their vigil was just a huge nerve-racking practical joke which their fancies had played upon them.

Time dragged with torturing slowness. Tardy seconds became minutes, tedious minutes were built up into hours, and hours became days that seemed like centuries. And over the rest of the world, the vigil was much the same.

On the ninth day after the last flickering message had come from Mars, Professor Waters had seen through his telescope, on the surface of the Red Planet, a fine dot of white light that, after its sudden appearance, faded quickly to red, and then, after a few minutes, disappeared altogether. A few hours later he thought he detected a slight and momentary ripple in the gaseous substance of the comets head, which then had just passed Mars on its sunward journey.

Newspaper reporters who had come many miles to this lonely spot in the desert were constantly seeking interviews. The three watchers supplied them with all the information they knew; and at last, tiring of the additional strain of being constantly hounded by these persistent seekers after sensational news, they refused even to grant them admittance into the barbed-wire stockade of the camp.

At last the comet reached its point of closest approach to the Earth. Faint and ashy though it was, low down in the sunlit afternoon heavens, still it was an awesome, impressive object, with its colossal, fan-shaped head and the vast curved sweep of its gigantic ghost-silver tail.

When the desert dusk settled, the visiting wanderer increased a score of times in brilliance and glory. It had now passed the line and was hurtling away. And as yet nothing that would satisfy the eager hopes and fears of the watchers had happened.

The three were standing on the veranda of the little adobe house they inhabited. All of a sudden Doctor Waters’ haggard face relaxed. He sighed heavily.

“I guess that it has been proved that we are all of us fools,” he said wearily. “There hasn’t been much of anything to reward us for our pains.” His glance toward Jack Cantrill was slightly apologetic. “I think I’ll go to bed,” he added abruptly.

Jack’s rather good-looking face twisted into a rueful smile. “Bed isn’t at all a bad idea,” he admitted. “I feel as though I could snooze a week straight without waking up. Well, anyway, if we’re fools, I’m the biggest one, because I started all this.” He looked at the old man and then at the girl. “Forgive me, Yvonne?” he queried good-humoredly.

“No,” she replied with mock seriousness. “Making me lose so much of my beauty sleep like this! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Her little speech was terminated by a faintly amused chuckle, and she pinched his cheek impishly.

It was some hours after they had retired that a faint soughing noise began from somewhere, apparently at a great distance. It was like the sound of a suddenly stiffening night breeze, sweeping through a grove of pine trees. Something that glowed rosy with the heat of atmospheric friction swept in hurtling flight across the sky. A mile or so beyond the camp, broad thin flanges of metal shot out from it, and it made a feeble attempt to steady itself and check its almost meteoric speed. It wobbled, then fluttered down weakly. A cloud of dust and sand rose where it smashed into the ground. But there was no human eye to see. For an hour or more it gave no further sign of life or motion.

Yvonne Waters was a light sleeper. Unusual night noises ordinarily aroused her. The momentary soughing rustle caused her to stir, but she did not awaken. Then, toward four in the morning, another disturbance came. It was a faint stretching, creaking, straining sound, that nevertheless held a suggestion of powerful forces acting stealthily.

Instantly Yvonne was wide awake. She sat up in bed, listening. What she heard produced quick and accurate associations in her nimble and cool young mind. A barbed-wire fence would make a creaking, straining noise like that, if something big and powerful were seeking tentatively to force an entrance. The stockade!

Yes; she was right. Presently there came the sharp snap and snarl that told of the sudden parting of a taut wire. Four times the sound was repeated.

Yvonne Waters had bounded out of her bunk and had rushed to a window. It was still very dark, but outlined against the stars she saw a vague shape that swayed and moved. The girl’s hand groped quickly into the drawer of a small stand beside her and drew out a heavy automatic pistol. Then she hurried to the door and across the hallway.

“Dad! Jack!” she called in a husky whisper. “I’ve seen something big. It’s coming toward the house!”

The young man responded quickly, his unshod feet thudding across the floor. His eyes narrowed when he leaned out of the window. There the thing stood, statuesquely now, not fifty paces away. It was not clearly defined in the darkness, but Jack Cantrill knew at once that it was something completely out of his experience. It seemed to have an upright, cylindrical body that rose perhaps fifteen feet above the ground. Leverlike limbs projected grotesquely from the upper end of this torso, and at the lower end there were shadowy suggestions of other limbs, long and spidery. An angular object surmounted the cylinder, and in its present position it was an outlandish travesty of the head of a man, cocked to one side, listening.

A minute passed. Obeying what must have been an automatic impulse, Yvonne Waters drew on her boots. About the camp she always dressed like the men, and during the last few nights, anticipating sudden developments, they had all slept in their clothing.

Jack Cantrill, crouching by the window, felt the short hairs at the nape of his neck stiffen. Doctor Waters’ hand was on the young man’s shoulder. The fingers were trembling slightly.

It was Jack who first put into words what they were all sure was the truth: “Old Faithful, I think,” he whispered, without any apparent excitement.

He paused for a moment, during which neither of his companions made any comment, for even a slight sound, as far as they knew, might be heard, with disastrous consequences.

The young man was thinking fast. Something had to be done and done quickly, and it was perhaps very easy to do the wrong thing.

“Flashlight!” he whispered presently, taking command of the situation, and the girl, responding quickly to his leadership, slipped her big electric torch into his hand.

“Now out into the open—all of us,” he ordered. “Armed?”

Each carried a pistol. They slipped around to the side of the house, with Cantrill in the lead. The weird giant stood as before, rigid and perfectly still.

Jack raised the flashlight. Working the flash button with his thumb, he proceeded to signal out in the Morse code, a familiar message: “Hello, Man of Mars! Hello, Man of Mars! Hello, Man of Mars!”

And the answer came immediately, flickering from a small spot of green light on the angular “head” of the automaton: “Hello, Man of Earth! Hello, Man of Earth! Comet. Comet. Comet. Comet.” The message was clear enough, but there was an unusual halting, stumbling hesitancy in the way it was given. Old Faithful had always been precise and quick in the messages he had flashed from Mars.

As the three watchers stood spellbound, the great quasi-human machine started forward toward the house. Its movements were powerful, but drunken and unsteady. It seemed to be little more than an insensate mechanism running amuk. The intelligence that was guiding it was losing its hold. Nothing could avert an accident.

The robot struck the side of the house with a heavy thud, lurched forward, stumbled, and fell with a clatter and clang of metal across the low roof that collapsed under its weight and the force of its overthrow. Prostrate though it was, its lower limbs continued to simulate the movements of walking.

Its arms sprawled wide, and from a metal knob at the tip of one a torrent of blue sparks began to pour into the earth, causing the patch of sand it struck to turn molten and boil away in a cloud of incandescent vapor. A minute must have passed before the sparks burned out and the appendages of the machine ceased their ponderous thrashing.

Meanwhile the three watchers had been staring at the weird and inspiring sight, not knowing just what to do. But now, when quiet was restored, they edged cautiously toward the fallen machine. Jack Cantrill’s flashlight beam played over the wreckage and halted upon the flattened “head” of the robot. It was pyramidal in form and had been supported by a flexible pillar of pointed metal. There was an opening in one side, and from it something had tumbled. A shadow veiled it, so that the watchers could not immediately see what it was. Then Jack leaped to a different position and poured the beam of the flashlight full upon it.

The effect of its strangeness did not come upon them right away, for they did not at once realize its true nature. It seemed at first only a sprawling mass of drab gray, as large, perhaps, as the open top of an ordinary umbrella. It might have been nothing more than a large lump of wet mud, flattened out by being dropped.

Then, after a moment, the three took note of the ragged tendrils that radiated out from the oblate form somewhat in the manner of the arms of a starfish. The ends of some of those tendrils were slender and stalklike and were terminated by incredibly fine filaments of coral pink. Those filaments were twitching convulsively.

Yvonne Waters was the first to find her voice. It was choking and tremulous: “The thing’s alive!” she cried. “Dad! Jack! It’s alive!”

Obscure primal instincts had taken possession of them. Like wary alley curs they inched their way forward, craning their necks to look closer at the creature, in which, for them, both fascination and fear were combined.

It was then they saw that the central lump of the thing was contracting in painful, jerky spasms. It was breathing, or gasping, rather. Feathery pink palps around a cone-shaped orifice that resembled the inside of a funnel coiled in agony. They could hear the monster’s breath whistle through the opening in long, rasping sighs.

But the creature’s eyes, fixed to the ends of two tentacular appendages that protruded from beneath the outer folds of its flattened body, regarded them with what seemed to be an interest which could not be dimmed by physical pain and suffering. They were very large eyes, three inches across, and there was in their alien, brooding intensity, slightly veiled now by the film of approaching death, a suggestion of an intelligence in this monstrous, inhuman body that was more than human.

Yvonne Waters had taken note of these things almost in the space of a moment. She saw the hideous festering gashes of wounds that must have been several days old on the body of the visiting being, and she saw that several of its limbs were shattered. Some of them seemed to be partly knit, but others were evidently recent injuries. From the fresh wounds bright red blood oozed, giving evidence of a very high hemoglobin content, which would be necessary for a creature accustomed to breathing an atmosphere much more rarefied than that of Earth.

Maybe it was because Yvonne Waters was a woman that she bridged the gap between Earthman and Martian more quickly than her companions.

“He’s hurt!” she gasped suddenly. “We’ve got to help him some way! We ought to—ought to—get a doctor.” She halted a little in expressing this last idea. It seemed so totally wild and fantastic.

“A doctor for that horror?” Jack Cantrill asked, a trifle dazed.

“Yes! Well, maybe no,” the girl amended. “But still we must do something. We’ve got to! He’s human, Jack—human in everything but form. He has brains; he can feel pain like any human being. Besides, he has courage of the same kind that we all worship. Think of the pluck it took to make the first plunge across fifty million miles of cold, airless void! That’s something to bow down to, isn’t it? And, besides, this is our friend, Old Faithful!”

“By the gods, Yvonne, you’re right!” the young man exploded with sudden realization. “And here I am, wasting time like a dumb fool!”

He dropped to his knees beside the injured Martian, and his big hands poised, ready and willing, but still uncertain how to help this bizarre entity of another world.

Doctor Waters had by this time shaken the fog of sleep from his older and less agile faculties, and he was now able to grasp the situation. With a brief and crisp, “I’ll get the first-aid kit!” he hurried into the partially wrecked house, across the roof of which sprawled Old Faithful’s automaton.

Conquering her natural revulsion, Yvonne brought herself to touch the dry, cold flesh of the Martian, and to try as best she might to ease its suffering. Presently the three of them were working over their weird patient, disinfecting and bandaging its wounds. But there was small hope that their efforts would be of any avail.

At their first touch, Old Faithful had started convulsively, as though in fear and repugnance of these, to him, horrid monsters; and a low, thick cry came from the opening in his body. But he must have realized that their intentions were harmless, for he had relaxed immediately. His breath, however, was rapidly growing weaker and more convulsive, and his eyes were glazing.

“We’re dumb!” Jack stated with sudden vehemence. “He’s badly hurt, but that’s not all. This atmosphere is six times too dense for him. He’s smothering in it—drowning! We’ve got to get him somewhere where the pressure won’t be crushing him!”

“We’ll rig up a vacuum tank down in the engine shed,” said Doctor Waters. “It won’t take but a minute.”

It was done. However, when they were lifting Old Faithful onto the litter they had improvised, his body stiffened, shuddered, and grew suddenly limp. They knew that Old Faithful—Number 774—was gone. Still, to aid the remote possibility that he would revive, they placed him in the vacuum tank and exhausted most of the air so that the pressure inside duplicated that of the rarefied Martian atmosphere. Fresh air was admitted slowly through the pet cock. But within an hour Old Faithful’s flesh had become stiff with rigor mortis. He was dead.

Much must have passed through the devious channels of his Martian mind during those brief hours on Planet Three. He must have felt satisfied that his eagerness to penetrate the unknown was partly rewarded, his ambition partly fulfilled. He had learned what lay back of, and what had guided, the flickerings of the light. He had seen the people of Planet Three. Perhaps, at the last, he had thought of Mars, his home, and the sorry plight of his race.

Maybe he thought of his growing offspring in that buried nursery chamber, fifty million miles away. Maybe the possibilities of Earth, as a means of aiding dying Mars, occurred to him, if it had not come into his mind before, and it is quite likely that his ideas in that direction were not altogether altruistic toward mankind.

Certainly he hoped that his friend of the light would find his space car and what it contained, out there in the desert, and that they would study and understand.

Dawn came, with the eastern sky sprinkled with a few pink feathery clouds that the bright sun would soon dissipate.

In one of the various corrugated iron sheds of the camp, Yvonne, Jack, and the doctor were bending over the body of Old Faithful, which lay stiff and lifeless on a long table.

“Kind of heartless to be preparing this intelligent being for immersion in a preservative spirit bath so that a lot of curious museum-goers can have a thrill, don’t you think, folks?” Jack was complaining with make-believe gruffness. “How would you like it if the situation was reversed—if we were stiffs with the curious of Mars looking at us?”

“I wouldn’t mind if I was dead.” The girl laughed. “It would be an honor. Oh, look, Jack—the funny little mark on Old Faithful’s skin—it’s tattooed with red ink. What do you suppose it means?”

Jack had already seen the mark. It was a circle with a bar through the center and was, as the girl had said, an artificial decoration or symbol. Jack shrugged. “Search me, honey!” He chuckled. “Say, doc, do you suppose that space car is around here somewhere?”

The doctor nodded. “It must be.”

“Well, come on! Let’s look for it, then! This can wait.”

After a very hasty and sketchy breakfast, they made their way on horseback out into the desert, following the tracks the Martian robot had made.

At the summit of a rocky ridge they found what they sought—a long cylinder of metal deeply imbedded in sand that seemed literally to have splashed like soft mud around it. The long fins of the space car were crumpled and broken and covered with the blue-gray ash of oxidation. Here and there a fragment had peeled away, revealing bright metal beneath.

The nose of the shell had become unscrewed, exposing burnished threads that glistened in the sun. Into the shadowed interior they made their way, rummaging gingerly among the bewildering maze of Martian instruments. The place reeked with a scorched, pungent odor.

At the rear of the cylindrical compartment they found a great round drum of metal, fitting snugly into the interior of the shell. Sleepily they wondered what was in it and made several weary attempts to move it. At nine o’clock the police guard that Doctor Waters had sent for arrived.

“Tell those damned reporters who are trying to crash in on us to go to hell,” Jack Cantrill told the lieutenant in charge, as he and his two companions were starting wearily back toward camp. “We’ve got to snooze.”

Several weeks had passed. In a hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona, Doctor Waters was speaking to Mr. and Mrs. Cantrill, who had just arrived.

“I’m turning the camp and the signaling apparatus over to Radeau and his associates,” he was saying. “No more signals from Mars, somehow, and I don’t feel very much like continuing there anyway. There are a lot more interesting things on the horizon.

“That drum which Old Faithful brought us—it contained models and many charts and sheets of parchment with drawings on them. I’m beginning to see light through the mystery at last. There are suggestions there for constructing a spaceship. I’m going to work on that problem as long as I live.

“Maybe I’ll succeed with the help of Old Faithful. Human ingenuity will have to be called on, too, of course. I don’t think that the Martians have the problem completely solved themselves. Old Faithful used the comet, you know.”

The doctor’s smile broadened as he went on: “Children, how would you like to go to Mars with me some day?”

“Don’t ask silly questions, dad,” said Yvonne. “We’d go in a minute!”

The young man nodded seriously. “What a honeymoon that would make, if we could have it now!” he enthused.

“A million times better than going to Seattle,” the girl agreed.

The doctor grinned faintly. “Even if you were treated like poor Old Faithful—pickled and put in a museum?”

“Even if!”

Jack Cantrill’s eyes narrowed and seemed to stare far away into nothing. His lips and his gaunt sunburned cheeks were stern. Perhaps he was looking into the future toward adventures that might or might not come.

Something of the same rugged spirit seemed suddenly to have infused itself into the strong, bronzed beauty of the girl at his side. They both loved adventure; they both knew life in the rough.

At the door Yvonne kissed her father good-bye. “Just a little run up to Seattle, dad,” she explained cheerily, “two or three weeks, maybe. Then both of us back with you—to work.”