The Martians Strike Back!. Robert Reginald
spotted me across the room, and started to come over, but I just shook my head “no.” I didn’t want company, not in that way. Instead, I uplinked my watchpad to the net, and checked my special account.
I could access my messages and information in Habitat Three, but when I’d settled Down Under two years earlier, I’d set up a second account that could only be reached from Isis Station, and then only with a series of special passwords that changed with the season. Even though I only visited Isis infrequently, there were communications that I wanted to keep private from both the aliens and my fellow humans.
I entered the command, “Alpha iota san,” that being a warped ancient Greek version of a key date (9-11) in twenty-first-century history, and then pressed my right thumb over the face of the pad.
I quickly scanned through the six-month accumulation of private messages. Some I downloaded to my regular account, some I deleted, and a few I moved into a holding folder.
One of the latter caught my eye: a recent memo from Ferdy Jarmann. Herr Doktor Franz-Ferdinand von Jarmann was an octogenarian Heidelberg-based German exobiologist who’d published the first significant research on Martian physiology in the immediate aftermath of the War of Two Worlds. Many of his observations still had merit, even after fifteen years, and he’d since issued a series of supplemental studies, a few of them refuting the conclusions that he’d made in his original work. I liked the way his mind moved.
His note read:
My Dear Alexander,
I am sorry to inform you that I have been unwell of late, a “stytche” of the heart, as they would have said during the Hundred Years War; and so my investigations into the “Outlanders” have been hampered by my physical inabilities. Since this situation is not likely to change very soon, if ever, I thought that I would summarize some of my most recent findings, while still I can.
I have reported previously about the curious anomalies that I noted in specimens of Taraxacum officinale, which you call the “dandelion.” I have now received specimens in which these mutations seem more advanced. As you know, these plants are able to disperse their seeds through their Pusteblume, or blow flower (which you call the dandelion clock), which collects as many as 200 seed-carrying achenes in a puffball surrounding the site of the original flower head. The new variety that I have been examining increases the length of the stem and the number of seeds by a factor of two or three; and the genetic structure of the plant indicates an amalgamation of certain genes from the red weed.
How this occurred I have no idea. In theory it should not have been possible. However, as I think I have mentioned in my earlier communiqués, I have been able to locate isolated patches of the weed growing in gardens, marshes, and forests throughout the region, never in great numbers, but seemingly healthy—if not as verdant as before. The survival of these alien intruders is a remarkable testimony to the genetic diversity of the Martian flora—and possibly of the alien fauna as well—for it implies the prospect of further small discoveries of both on our world.
I am concerned over your last report to me, stating that certain traces of the Martian genome have now appeared in your bloodstream. I suspect that anyone who has had prolonged contact with Martian life or the red planet’s surface may, in fact, be similarly infected. What does this imply for the future?
I wish I had some answers for you. Alas, my old friend, I do not think that I will be the one to make these discoveries, and I do not know of anyone else here who is following similar lines of research. I will continue to do what I can, while my energy allows me, and to keep you informed of my progress, or lack thereof. I hope you will do the same.
Your friend:
Ferdinand
I found Jarmann’s note particularly disturbing, because, truth to tell, I hadn’t been feeling very well myself during recent months. The obvious symptoms were night pains in my legs, particularly the calf muscles. But there were other things too, things that I hadn’t told anyone about: the involuntary nervous twitches of my fingers, the constant itching of my skin, the frequent urination, the peculiar musty odor associated with my pee, the skin encrustations on my feet, the frequent indigestion and gas, and all the other shit that I would have normally just written off as advancing age—but which I now attributed to something else entirely.
Something strange was going on within me, some metamorphosis, and to what end and what outcome, I had no idea. I was being manipulated again by the Martian scientists, in the same way that they’d used my blood to create Buddy, my hybrid Martian-human son.
Why? What purpose did it all serve?
I was beginning to feel that unless I could somehow solve this mystery, I would never understand the aliens—or they me! And somehow, I now believed, the future of both races hinged on li’l ole me and my absence of understanding—a daunting thought, if there ever was one. I had to make sense of it, for my own sanity, if no other reason.
I sent a reply to Ferdy, cleared the terminal, picked up my tray, and went back to the Council meeting.
The afternoon session went much as the first, and the conclusion was foretold in any case.
“We’ll make the attack as planned,” General Burgess announced at the end of the meeting, “as soon as the weapons are deployed, about two weeks from now. I want to act before the Martians are able to discover our plans….”
“They already know your plans,” I said. “They’re telepathic. They’re able to read our thoughts when we’re in close proximity to them. How close, I have no idea. But you won’t be able to hide this for long.”
“We don’t need to hide it for long,” the officer said, “just long enough to make it work.”
“Then I’ll take my chances with the aliens. I’ll return home tomorrow.”
“And tip them off? I don’t think so, Smith. You’re confined to quarters for the duration.”
“I’m not one of your military personnel. You can’t stop me from rejoining my family. They’re hostage for my return.”
The commander turned to one of the MPs at the door: “Sergeant Wilcoe, you will take Dr. Smith into custody immediately, and keep him under secure watch at all times. He is not to leave this base without my authorization.”
“Yes, sir!”
I sank back into my chair. I was stunned. I don’t why I’d been so stupid, but I hadn’t anticipated this move at all.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” Madame Stavroula (aka Nomsah Vassilidis) said from across the table. “I had no idea….”
“It’s all your doing,” I said, “and you don’t even know if you’re right. Damn you anyway! If Becky or my children are killed or hurt, you’re the one I’ll blame!”
Then I got up and returned to my room, so angry that I dared not talk to anyone. I just waved them off. I also didn’t bother with the evening meal: I couldn’t have kept it down anyway. I tried calling my wife, but the bastards had blocked my link—and they also prevented me from sending a text message. Even my secure account was walled off from access.
All the waters around me had been blackened, until I had become the invisible man.
What the hell was I going to do?
CHAPTER THREE
BOOMDELAY, BOOMDELAY, BOOMDELAY, BOOM!
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far
(Don Juan of Austria is going to the war);
Stiff flags straining in the night blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old gold;
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon,
And he comes.
—G. K. Chesterton
Alex