Bombs crashed. Ack-ack hammered. Gunnar
and Martha crouched in a cave, slowly
starving, grimly preferring death to capture.
What a time for a Martian to visit Earth!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The amphibious force moved in with big guns ready, with rocketsand flame throwers and LCI's and LCT's and planes and thousandsof combat-hardened men, expecting to shoot the works against thefog-shrouded little island that might have held the northern key toinvasion.
The men were all tensely expectant. All, that is, except the nurse andthe Air Force radioman whom one of the LCT's had picked up en route,drifting in a rubber life raft. But their apparent indifference to theimpending battle aroused little comment. The task force had its ownproblems to consider, and that pair had already had it rugged. Theirplane, they said, had been shot down weeks before and they'd beendodging Japs ever since.
When the ramp of the first landing craft grated on the gravel and wordwent back to the waiting ships that the battle was off, that theJaps for some unknown reason of their own had pulled out without evenpausing to destroy their equipment, the nurse and the radioman seemedas calm as though it were what they had expected all along. But in theexcitement over the startling new development their peculiar behaviorwas overlooked. They didn't complain, for they had no desire to do anymore lying than necessary....
... Yark was a Great Brain. Even the more advanced embryos wereconscious of his revered status. But his three eyes blinked inrotation—a sure sign of pleasure in a Martian—and in the pleasure ofaddressing the most distinguished Martians from every field of endeavorhis outlines wavered and grew dim. For seconds at a time he thinnedout almost to transparency.
He addressed the gathering orally, though of course all present weresufficiently advanced for direct brain-to-brain communication. Yarkfancied himself as an orator—the one atavistic trait he consciouslyallowed himself—and mental contact did not allow the little frills ofspeech-making.
"The outer hull of the spaceship is made of oxides," he declared,"because the planet selected for initial exploration has anunconscionable amount of oxygen in its atmosphere, and oxides will notoxidize."
Mental applause resounded through the great Hall. This was excellentMartian logic.
"Construction of the vessel was relatively simple. The great problemlay in developing a life form which could withstand the rigors of thejourney.
"What sets us apart from the lower forms of life?"
The question was purely rhetorical. Every Martian knew it was theability to change form at will.
"This trait is of course due to superior mental ability and training.But even for us there has been a definite limitation, caused of courseby residual atavisms ... atavisms which we must, and some day will,extirpate completely from our glorious race."
Excitement overcame his mental control and for a moment he becamecompletely invisible. He frowned mentally as he caught a titteringreaction from some individual in the audience. Invisibility, too,was an aspect of shape adaptation, of superiority, though because itno longer served a useful purpose it had come to be regarded withsuspicion as an atavistic trait. This was particularly true of theinvoluntary invisibility which sometimes accompanied high emotionaltension. A powerful and growing school of thought even consideredemotions themselves as atavisms.