Transcriber's Note: This eBook was produced from the 1949 book _A Martian Odyssey andOthers_ by Stanley G. Weinbaum, pp. 1-27. Extensive research did notuncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication wasrenewed. A MARTIAN ODYSSEY Jarvis stretched himself as luxuriously as he could in the crampedgeneral quarters of the _Ares_. "Air you can breathe!" he exulted. "It feels as thick as soup after thethin stuff out there!" He nodded at the Martian landscape stretchingflat and desolate in the light of the nearer moon, beyond the glass ofthe port. The other three stared at him sympathetically--Putz, the engineer, Leroy, the biologist, and Harrison, the astronomer and captain of theexpedition. Dick Jarvis was chemist of the famous crew, the _Ares_expedition, first human beings to set foot on the mysterious neighbor ofthe earth, the planet Mars. This, of course, was in the old days, lessthan twenty years after the mad American Doheny perfected the atomicblast at the cost of his life, and only a decade after the equally madCardoza rode on it to the moon. They were true pioneers, these four ofthe _Ares_. Except for a half-dozen moon expeditions and the ill-fatedde Lancey flight aimed at the seductive orb of Venus, they were thefirst men to feel other gravity than earth's, and certainly the firstsuccessful crew to leave the earth-moon system. And they deserved thatsuccess when one considers the difficulties and discomforts--the monthsspent in acclimatization chambers back on earth, learning to breathe theair as tenuous as that of Mars, the challenging of the void in the tinyrocket driven by the cranky reaction motors of the twenty-first century, and mostly the facing of an absolutely unknown world. Jarvis stretched and fingered the raw and peeling tip of hisfrost-bitten nose. He sighed again contentedly. "Well, " exploded Harrison abruptly, "are we going to hear what happened?You set out all shipshape in an auxiliary rocket, we don't get a peepfor ten days, and finally Putz here picks you out of a lunatic ant-heapwith a freak ostrich as your pal! Spill it, man!" "Speel?" queried Leroy perplexedly. "Speel what?" "He means '_spiel_', " explained Putz soberly. "It iss to tell. " Jarvis met Harrison's amused glance without the shadow of a smile. "That's right, Karl, " he said in grave agreement with Putz. "_Ich spieles!_" He grunted comfortably and began. "According to orders, " he said, "I watched Karl here take off toward theNorth, and then I got into my flying sweat-box and headed South. You'llremember, Cap--we had orders not to land, but just scout about forpoints of interest. I set the two cameras clicking and buzzed along, riding pretty high--about two thousand feet--for a couple of reasons. First, it gave the cameras a greater field, and second, the under-jetstravel so far in this half-vacuum they call air here that they stir updust if you move low. " "We know all that from Putz, " grunted Harrison. "I wish you'd saved thefilms, though. They'd have paid the cost of this junket; remember howthe public mobbed the first moon pictures?" "The films are safe, " retorted Jarvis. "Well, " he resumed, "as I said, Ibuzzed along at a pretty good clip; just as we figured, the wingshaven't much lift in this air at less than a hundred miles per hour, andeven then I had to use the under-jets. "So, with the speed and the altitude and the blurring caused by theunder-jets, the seeing wasn't any too good. I could see enough, though, to distinguish that what I sailed over was just more of this grey plainthat we'd been examining the whole week since our landing--same blobbygrowths and the same eternal carpet of crawling little plant-animals, orbiopods, as Leroy calls them. So I sailed along, calling back myposition every hour as instructed, and not knowing whether you heardme. " "I did!" snapped Harrison. "A hundred and fifty miles south, " continued Jarvis imperturbably, "thesurface changed to a sort of low plateau, nothing but desert andorange-tinted sand. I figured that we were right in our guess, then, and this grey plain we dropped on was really the Mare Cimmerium whichwould make my orange desert the region called Xanthus. If I were right, I ought to hit another grey plain, the Mare Chronium in another coupleof hundred miles, and then another orange desert, Thyle I or II. And soI did. " "Putz verified our position a week and a half ago!" grumbled thecaptain. "Let's get to the point. " "Coming!" remarked Jarvis. "Twenty miles into Thyle--believe it ornot--I crossed a canal!" "Putz photographed a hundred! Let's hear something new!" "And did he also see a city?" "Twenty of 'em, if you call those heaps of mud cities!" "Well, " observed Jarvis, "from here on I'll be telling a few things Putzdidn't see!" He rubbed his tingling nose, and continued. "I knew that Ihad sixteen hours of daylight at this season, so eight hours--eighthundred miles--from here, I decided to turn back. I was still overThyle, whether I or II I'm not sure, not more than twenty-five milesinto it. And right there, Putz's pet motor quit!" "Quit? How?" Putz was solicitous. "The atomic blast got weak. I started losing altitude right away, andsuddenly there I was with a thump right in the middle of Thyle! Smashedmy nose on the window, too!" He rubbed the injured member ruefully. "Did you maybe try vashing der combustion chamber mit acid sulphuric?"inquired Putz. "Sometimes der lead giffs a secondary radiation--" "Naw!" said Jarvis disgustedly. "I wouldn't try that, of course--notmore than ten times! Besides, the bump flattened the landing gear andbusted off the under-jets. Suppose I got the thing working--what then?Ten miles with the blast coming right out of the bottom and I'd havemelted the floor from under me!" He rubbed his nose again. "Lucky for mea pound only weighs seven ounces here, or I'd have been mashed flat!" "I could have fixed!" ejaculated the engineer. "I bet it vas notserious. " "Probably not, " agreed Jarvis sarcastically. "Only it wouldn't fly. Nothing serious, but I had my choice of waiting to be picked up ortrying to walk back--eight hundred miles, and perhaps twenty days beforewe had to leave! Forty miles a day! Well, " he concluded, "I chose towalk. Just as much chance of being picked up, and it kept me busy. " "We'd have found you, " said Harrison. "No doubt. Anyway, I rigged up a harness from some seat straps, and putthe water tank on my back, took a cartridge belt and revolver, and someiron rations, and started out. " "Water tank!" exclaimed the little biologist, Leroy. "She weighone-quarter ton!" "Wasn't full. Weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds earth-weight, which is eighty-five here. Then, besides, my own personal two hundredand ten pounds is only seventy on Mars, so, tank and all, I grossed ahundred and fifty-five, or fifty-five pounds less than my everydayearth-weight. I figured on that when I undertook the forty-mile dailystroll. Oh--of course I took a thermo-skin sleeping bag for these wintryMartian nights. "Off I went, bouncing along pretty quickly. Eight hours of daylightmeant twenty miles or more. It got tiresome, of course--plugging alongover a soft sand desert with nothing to see, not even Leroy's crawlingbiopods. But an hour or so brought me to the canal--just a dry ditchabout four hundred feet wide, and straight as a railroad on its owncompany map. "There'd been water in it sometime, though. The ditch was covered withwhat looked like a nice green lawn. Only, as I approached, the lawnmoved out of my way!" "Eh?" said Leroy. "Yeah, it was a relative of your biopods. I caught one--a littlegrass-like blade about as long as my finger, with two thin, stemmylegs. " "He is where?" Leroy was eager. "He is let go! I had to move, so I plowed along with the walking grassopening in front and closing behind. And then I was out on the orangedesert of Thyle again. "I plugged steadily along, cussing the sand that made going so tiresome, and, incidentally, cussing that cranky motor of yours, Karl. It was justbefore twilight that I reached the edge of Thyle, and looked down overthe gray Mare Chronium. And I knew there was seventy-five miles of_that_ to be walked over, and then a couple of hundred miles of thatXanthus desert, and about as much more Mare Cimmerium. Was I pleased? Istarted cussing you fellows for not picking me up!" "We were trying, you sap!" said Harrison. "That didn't help. Well, I figured I might as well use what was left ofdaylight in getting down the cliff that bounded Thyle. I found an easyplace, and down I went. Mare Chronium was just the same sort of place asthis--crazy leafless plants and a bunch of crawlers; I gave it a glanceand hauled out my sleeping bag. Up to that time, you know, I hadn't seenanything worth worrying about on this half-dead world--nothingdangerous, that is. " "Did you?" queried Harrison. "_Did I!_ You'll hear about it when I come to it. Well, I was just aboutto turn in when suddenly I heard the wildest sort of shenanigans!" "Vot iss shenanigans?" inquired Putz. "He says, 'Je ne sais quoi, '" explained Leroy. "It is to say, 'I don'tknow what. '" "That's right, " agreed Jarvis. "I didn't know what, so I sneaked over tofind out. There was a racket like a flock of crows eating a bunch ofcanaries--whistles, cackles, caws, trills, and what have you. I roundeda clump of stumps, and there was Tweel!" "Tweel?" said Harrison, and "Tveel?" said Leroy and Putz. "That freak ostrich, " explained the narrator. "At least, Tweel is asnear as I can pronounce it without sputtering. He called it somethinglike 'Trrrweerrlll. '" "What was he doing?" asked the Captain. "He was being eaten! And squealing, of course, as any one would. " "Eaten! By what?" "I found out later. All I could see then was a bunch of black ropy armstangled around what looked like, as Putz described it to you, anostrich. I wasn't going to interfere, naturally; if both creatures weredangerous, I'd have one less to worry about. "But the bird-like thing was putting up a good battle, dealing viciousblows with an eighteen-inch beak, between screeches. And besides, Icaught a glimpse or two of what was on the end of those arms!" Jarvisshuddered. "But the clincher was when I noticed a little black bag orcase hung about the neck of the bird-thing! It was intelligent! That ortame, I assumed. Anyway, it clinched my decision. I pulled out myautomatic and fired into what I could see of its antagonist. "There was a flurry of tentacles and a spurt of black corruption, andthen the thing, with a disgusting sucking noise, pulled itself and itsarms into a hole in the ground. The other let out a series of clacks, staggered around on legs about as thick as golf sticks, and turnedsuddenly to face me. I held my weapon ready, and the two of us stared ateach other. "The Martian wasn't a bird, really. It wasn't even bird-like, exceptjust at first glance. It had a beak all right, and a few featheryappendages, but the beak wasn't really a beak. It was somewhat flexible;I could see the tip bend slowly from side to side; it was almost like across between a beak and a trunk. It had four-toed feet, and fourfingered things--hands, you'd have to call them, and a little roundishbody, and a long neck ending in a tiny head--and that beak. It stood aninch or so taller than I, and--well, Putz saw it!" The engineer nodded. "_Ja!_ I saw!" Jarvis continued. "So--we stared at each other. Finally the creaturewent into a series of clackings and twitterings and held out its handstoward me, empty. I took that as a gesture of friendship. " "Perhaps, " suggested Harrison, "it looked at that nose of yours andthought you were its brother!" "Huh! You can be funny without talking! Anyway, I put up my gun and said'Aw, don't mention it, ' or something of the sort, and the thing cameover and we were pals. "By that time, the sun was pretty low and I knew that I'd better build afire or get into my thermo-skin. I decided on the fire. I picked a spotat the base of the Thyle cliff, where the rock could reflect a littleheat on my back. I started breaking off chunks of this desiccatedMartian vegetation, and my companion caught the idea and brought in anarmful. I reached for a match, but the Martian fished into his pouch andbrought out something that looked like a glowing coal; one touch of it, and the fire was blazing--and you all know what a job we have starting afire in this atmosphere! "And that bag of his!" continued the narrator. "That was a manufacturedarticle, my friends; press an end and she popped open--press the middleand she sealed so perfectly you couldn't see the line. Better thanzippers. "Well, we stared at the fire a while and I decided to attempt some sortof communication with the Martian. I pointed at myself and said 'Dick';he caught the drift immediately, stretched a bony claw at me andrepeated 'Tick. ' Then I pointed at him, and he gave that whistle Icalled Tweel; I can't imitate his accent. Things were going smoothly; toemphasize the names, I repeated 'Dick, ' and then, pointing at him, 'Tweel. ' "There we stuck! He gave some clacks that sounded negative, and saidsomething like 'P-p-p-proot. ' And that was just the beginning; I wasalways 'Tick, ' but as for him--part of the time he was 'Tweel, ' and partof the time he was 'P-p-p-proot, ' and part of the time he was sixteenother noises! "We just couldn't connect. I tried 'rock, ' and I tried 'star, ' and'tree, ' and 'fire, ' and Lord knows what else, and try as I would, Icouldn't get a single word! Nothing was the same for two successiveminutes, and if that's a language, I'm an alchemist! Finally I gave itup and called him Tweel, and that seemed to do. "But Tweel hung on to some of my words. He remembered a couple of them, which I suppose is a great achievement if you're used to a language youhave to make up as you go along. But I couldn't get the hang of histalk; either I missed some subtle point or we just didn't _think_alike--and I rather believe the latter view. "I've other reasons for believing that. After a while I gave up thelanguage business, and tried mathematics. I scratched two plus twoequals four on the ground, and demonstrated it with pebbles. Again Tweelcaught the idea, and informed me that three plus three equals six. Oncemore we seemed to be getting somewhere. "So, knowing that Tweel had at least a grammar school education, I drewa circle for the sun, pointing first at it, and then at the last glow ofthe sun. Then I sketched in Mercury, and Venus, and Mother Earth, andMars, and finally, pointing to Mars, I swept my hand around in a sort ofinclusive gesture to indicate that Mars was our current environment. Iwas working up to putting over the idea that my home was on the earth. "Tweel understood my diagram all right. He poked his beak at it, andwith a great deal of trilling and clucking, he added Deimos and Phobosto Mars, and then sketched in the earth's moon! "Do you see what that proves? It proves that Tweel's race usestelescopes--that they're civilized!" "Does not!" snapped Harrison. "The moon is visible from here as a fifthmagnitude star. They could see its revolution with the naked eye. " "The moon, yes!" said Jarvis. "You've missed my point. Mercury isn'tvisible! And Tweel knew of Mercury because he placed the Moon at the_third_ planet, not the second. If he didn't know Mercury, he'd put theearth second, and Mars third, instead of fourth! See?" "Humph!" said Harrison. "Anyway, " proceeded Jarvis, "I went on with my lesson. Things were goingsmoothly, and it looked as if I could put the idea over. I pointed atthe earth on my diagram, and then at myself, and then, to clinch it, Ipointed to myself and then to the earth itself shining bright greenalmost at the zenith. "Tweel set up such an excited clacking that I was certain he understood. He jumped up and down, and suddenly he pointed at himself and then atthe sky, and then at himself and at the sky again. He pointed at hismiddle and then at Arcturus, at his head and then at Spica, at his feetand then at half a dozen stars, while I just gaped at him. Then, all ofa sudden, he gave a tremendous leap. Man, what a hop! He shot straightup into the starlight, seventy-five feet if an inch! I saw himsilhouetted against the sky, saw him turn and come down at me headfirst, and land smack on his beak like a javelin! There he stuck squarein the center of my sun-circle in the sand--a bull's eye!" "Nuts!" observed the captain. "Plain nuts!" "That's what I thought, too! I just stared at him open-mouthed while hepulled his head out of the sand and stood up. Then I figured he'd missedmy point, and I went through the whole blamed rigamarole again, and itended the same way, with Tweel on his nose in the middle of my picture!" "Maybe it's a religious rite, " suggested Harrison. "Maybe, " said Jarvis dubiously. "Well, there we were. We could exchangeideas up to a certain point, and then--blooey! Something in us wasdifferent, unrelated; I don't doubt that Tweel thought me just as screwyas I thought him. Our minds simply looked at the world from differentviewpoints, and perhaps his viewpoint is as true as ours. But--wecouldn't get together, that's all. Yet, in spite of all difficulties, I_liked_ Tweel, and I have a queer certainty that he liked me. " "Nuts!" repeated the captain. "Just daffy!" "Yeah? Wait and see. A couple of times I've thought that perhaps we--"He paused, and then resumed his narrative. "Anyway, I finally gave itup, and got into my thermo-skin to sleep. The fire hadn't kept me anytoo warm, but that damned sleeping bag did. Got stuffy five minutesafter I closed myself in. I opened it a little and bingo! Someeighty-below-zero air hit my nose, and that's when I got this pleasantlittle frostbite to add to the bump I acquired during the crash of myrocket. "I don't know what Tweel made of my sleeping. He sat around, but when Iwoke up, he was gone. I'd just crawled out of my bag, though, when Iheard some twittering, and there he came, sailing down from thatthree-story Thyle cliff to alight on his beak beside me. I pointed tomyself and toward the north, and he pointed at himself and toward thesouth, but when I loaded up and started away, he came along. "Man, how he traveled! A hundred and fifty feet at a jump, sailingthrough the air stretched out like a spear, and landing on his beak. Heseemed surprised at my plodding, but after a few moments he fell inbeside me, only every few minutes he'd go into one of his leaps, andstick his nose into the sand a block ahead of me. Then he'd comeshooting back at me; it made me nervous at first to see that beak of hiscoming at me like a spear, but he always ended in the sand at my side. "So the two of us plugged along across the Mare Chronium. Same sort ofplace as this--same crazy plants and same little green biopods growingin the sand, or crawling out of your way. We talked--not that weunderstood each other, you know, but just for company. I sang songs, andI suspect Tweel did too; at least, some of his trillings and twitteringshad a subtle sort of rhythm. "Then, for variety, Tweel would display his smattering of English words. He'd point to an outcropping and say 'rock, ' and point to a pebble andsay it again; or he'd touch my arm and say 'Tick, ' and then repeat it. He seemed terrifically amused that the same word meant the same thingtwice in succession, or that the same word could apply to two differentobjects. It set me wondering if perhaps his language wasn't like theprimitive speech of some earth people--you know, Captain, like theNegritoes, for instance, who haven't any generic words. No word for foodor water or man--words for good food and bad food, or rain water and seawater, or strong man and weak man--but no names for general classes. They're too primitive to understand that rain water and sea water arejust different aspects of the same thing. But that wasn't the case withTweel; it was just that we were somehow mysteriously different--ourminds were alien to each other. And yet--we _liked_ each other!" "Looney, that's all, " remarked Harrison. "That's why you two were sofond of each other. " "Well, I like _you_!" countered Jarvis wickedly. "Anyway, " he resumed, "don't get the idea that there was anything screwy about Tweel. In fact, I'm not so sure but that he couldn't teach our highly praised humanintelligence a trick or two. Oh, he wasn't an intellectual superman, Iguess; but don't overlook the point that he managed to understand alittle of my mental workings, and I never even got a glimmering of his. " "Because he didn't have any!" suggested the captain, while Putz andLeroy blinked attentively. "You can judge of that when I'm through, " said Jarvis. "Well, we pluggedalong across the Mare Chronium all that day, and all the next. MareChronium--Sea of Time! Say, I was willing to agree with Schiaparelli'sname by the end of that march! Just that grey, endless plain of weirdplants, and never a sign of any other life. It was so monotonous that Iwas even glad to see the desert of Xanthus toward the evening of thesecond day. "I was fair worn out, but Tweel seemed as fresh as ever, for all I neversaw him drink or eat. I think he could have crossed the Mare Chronium ina couple of hours with those block-long nose dives of his, but he stuckalong with me. I offered him some water once or twice; he took the cupfrom me and sucked the liquid into his beak, and then carefully squirtedit all back into the cup and gravely returned it. "Just as we sighted Xanthus, or the cliffs that bounded it, one of thosenasty sand clouds blew along, not as bad as the one we had here, butmean to travel against. I pulled the transparent flap of my thermo-skinbag across my face and managed pretty well, and I noticed that Tweelused some feathery appendages growing like a mustache at the base of hisbeak to cover his nostrils, and some similar fuzz to shield his eyes. " "He is a desert creature!" ejaculated the little biologist, Leroy. "Huh? Why?" "He drink no water--he is adapt' for sand storm--" "Proves nothing! There's not enough water to waste any where on thisdesiccated pill called Mars. We'd call all of it desert on earth, youknow. " He paused. "Anyway, after the sand storm blew over, a little windkept blowing in our faces, not strong enough to stir the sand. Butsuddenly things came drifting along from the Xanthus cliffs--small, transparent spheres, for all the world like glass tennis balls! Butlight--they were almost light enough to float even in this thinair--empty, too; at least, I cracked open a couple and nothing came outbut a bad smell. I asked Tweel about them, but all he said was 'No, no, no, ' which I took to mean that he knew nothing about them. So they wentbouncing by like tumbleweeds, or like soap bubbles, and we plugged ontoward Xanthus. Tweel pointed at one of the crystal balls once and said'rock, ' but I was too tired to argue with him. Later I discovered whathe meant. "We came to the bottom of the Xanthus cliffs finally, when there wasn'tmuch daylight left. I decided to sleep on the plateau if possible;anything dangerous, I reasoned, would be more likely to prowl throughthe vegetation of the Mare Chronium than the sand of Xanthus. Not thatI'd seen a single sign of menace, except the rope-armed black thing thathad trapped Tweel, and apparently that didn't prowl at all, but luredits victims within reach. It couldn't lure me while I slept, especiallyas Tweel didn't seem to sleep at all, but simply sat patiently aroundall night. I wondered how the creature had managed to trap Tweel, butthere wasn't any way of asking him. I found that out too, later; it'sdevilish! "However, we were ambling around the base of the Xanthus barrier lookingfor an easy spot to climb. At least, I was. Tweel could have leaped iteasily, for the cliffs were lower than Thyle--perhaps sixty feet. Ifound a place and started up, swearing at the water tank strapped to myback--it didn't bother me except when climbing--and suddenly I heard asound that I thought I recognized! "You know how deceptive sounds are in this thin air. A shot sounds likethe pop of a cork. But this sound was the drone of a rocket, and sureenough, there went our second auxiliary about ten miles to westward, between me and the sunset!" "Vas me!" said Putz. "I hunt for you. " "Yeah; I knew that, but what good did it do me? I hung on to the cliffand yelled and waved with one hand. Tweel saw it too, and set up atrilling and twittering, leaping to the top of the barrier and then highinto the air. And while I watched, the machine droned on into theshadows to the south. "I scrambled to the top of the cliff. Tweel was still pointing andtrilling excitedly, shooting up toward the sky and coming down head-onto stick upside down on his beak in the sand. I pointed toward the southand at myself, and he said, 'Yes--Yes--Yes'; but somehow I gathered thathe thought the flying thing was a relative of mine, probably a parent. Perhaps I did his intellect an injustice; I think now that I did. "I was bitterly disappointed by the failure to attract attention. Ipulled out my thermo-skin bag and crawled into it, as the night chillwas already apparent. Tweel stuck his beak into the sand and drew up hislegs and arms and looked for all the world like one of those leaflessshrubs out there. I think he stayed that way all night. " "Protective mimicry!" ejaculated Leroy. "See? He is desert creature!" "In the morning, " resumed Jarvis, "we started off again. We hadn't gonea hundred yards into Xanthus when I saw something queer! This is onething Putz didn't photograph, I'll wager! "There was a line of little pyramids--tiny ones, not more than sixinches high, stretching across Xanthus as far as I could see! Littlebuildings made of pygmy bricks, they were, hollow inside and truncated, or at least broken at the top and empty. I pointed at them and said'What?' to Tweel, but he gave some negative twitters to indicate, Isuppose, that he didn't know. So off we went, following the row ofpyramids because they ran north, and I was going north. "Man, we trailed that line for hours! After a while, I noticed anotherqueer thing: they were getting larger. Same number of bricks in eachone, but the bricks were larger. "By noon they were shoulder high. I looked into a couple--all just thesame, broken at the top and empty. I examined a brick or two as well;they were silica, and old as creation itself!" "How you know?" asked Leroy. "They were weathered--edges rounded. Silica doesn't weather easily evenon earth, and in this climate--!" "How old you think?" "Fifty thousand--a hundred thousand years. How can I tell? The littleones we saw in the morning were older--perhaps ten times as old. Crumbling. How old would that make _them_? Half a million years? Whoknows?" Jarvis paused a moment. "Well, " he resumed, "we followed theline. Tweel pointed at them and said 'rock' once or twice, but he'd donethat many times before. Besides, he was more or less right about these. "I tried questioning him. I pointed at a pyramid and asked 'People?' andindicated the two of us. He set up a negative sort of clucking and said, 'No, no, no. No one-one-two. No two-two-four, ' meanwhile rubbing hisstomach. I just stared at him and he went through the business again. 'No one-one-two. No two-two-four. ' I just gaped at him. " "That proves it!" exclaimed Harrison. "Nuts!" "You think so?" queried Jarvis sardonically. "Well, I figured it outdifferent! 'No one-one-two!' You don't get it, of course, do you?" "Nope--nor do you!" "I think I do! Tweel was using the few English words he knew to put overa very complex idea. What, let me ask, does mathematics make you thinkof?" "Why--of astronomy. Or--or logic!" "That's it! 'No one-one-two!' Tweel was telling me that the builders ofthe pyramids weren't people--or that they weren't intelligent, that theyweren't reasoning creatures! Get it?" "Huh! I'll be damned!" "You probably will. " "Why, " put in Leroy, "he rub his belly?" "Why? Because, my dear biologist, that's where his brains are! Not inhis tiny head--in his middle!" "_C'est_ impossible!" "Not on Mars, it isn't! This flora and fauna aren't earthly; yourbiopods prove that!" Jarvis grinned and took up his narrative. "Anyway, we plugged along across Xanthus and in about the middle of theafternoon, something else queer happened. The pyramids ended. " "Ended!" "Yeah; the queer part was that the last one--and now they wereten-footers--was capped! See? Whatever built it was still inside; we'dtrailed 'em from their half-million-year-old origin to the present. "Tweel and I noticed it about the same time. I yanked out my automatic(I had a clip of Boland explosive bullets in it) and Tweel, quick as asleight-of-hand trick, snapped a queer little glass revolver out of hisbag. It was much like our weapons, except that the grip was larger toaccommodate his four-taloned hand. And we held our weapons ready whilewe sneaked up along the lines of empty pyramids. "Tweel saw the movement first. The top tiers of bricks were heaving, shaking, and suddenly slid down the sides with a thin crash. Andthen--something--something was coming out! "A long, silvery-grey arm appeared, dragging after it an armored body. Armored, I mean, with scales, silver-grey and dull-shining. The armheaved the body out of the hole; the beast crashed to the sand. "It was a nondescript creature--body like a big grey cask, arm and asort of mouth-hole at one end; stiff, pointed tail at the other--andthat's all. No other limbs, no eyes, ears, nose--nothing! The thingdragged itself a few yards, inserted its pointed tail in the sand, pushed itself upright, and just sat. "Tweel and I watched it for ten minutes before it moved. Then, with acreaking and rustling like--oh, like crumpling stiff paper--its armmoved to the mouth-hole and out came a brick! The arm placed the brickcarefully on the ground, and the thing was still again. "Another ten minutes--another brick. Just one of Nature's bricklayers. I was about to slip away and move on when Tweel pointed at the thing andsaid 'rock'! I went 'huh?' and he said it again. Then, to theaccompaniment of some of his trilling, he said, 'No--no--, ' and gave twoor three whistling breaths. "Well, I got his meaning, for a wonder! I said, 'No breath?' anddemonstrated the word. Tweel was ecstatic; he said, 'Yes, yes, yes! No, no, no breet!' Then he gave a leap and sailed out to land on his noseabout one pace from the monster! "I was startled, you can imagine! The arm was going up for a brick, andI expected to see Tweel caught and mangled, but--nothing happened! Tweelpounded on the creature, and the arm took the brick and placed it neatlybeside the first. Tweel rapped on its body again, and said 'rock, ' and Igot up nerve enough to take a look myself. "Tweel was right again. The creature was rock, and it didn't breathe!" "How you know?" snapped Leroy, his black eyes blazing interest. "Because I'm a chemist. The beast was made of silica! There must havebeen pure silicon in the sand, and it lived on that. Get it? We, andTweel, and those plants out there, and even the biopods are _carbon_life; this thing lived by a different set of chemical reactions. It wassilicon life!" "_La vie silicieuse!_" shouted Leroy. "I have suspect, and now it isproof! I must go see! _Il faut que je--_" "All right! All right!" said Jarvis. "You can go see. Anyhow, there thething was, alive and yet not alive, moving every ten minutes, and thenonly to remove a brick. Those bricks were its waste matter. See, Frenchy? We're carbon, and our waste is carbon dioxide, and this thingis silicon, and _its_ waste is silicon dioxide--silica. But silica is asolid, hence the bricks. And it builds itself in, and when it iscovered, it moves over to a fresh place to start over. No wonder itcreaked! A living creature half a million years old!" "How you know how old?" Leroy was frantic. "We trailed its pyramids from the beginning, didn't we? If this weren'tthe original pyramid builder, the series would have ended somewherebefore we found him, wouldn't it?--ended and started over with the smallones. That's simple enough, isn't it? "But he reproduces, or tries to. Before the third brick came out, therewas a little rustle and out popped a whole stream of those littlecrystal balls. They're his spores, or eggs, or seeds--call 'em what youwant. They went bouncing by across Xanthus just as they'd bounced by usback in the Mare Chronium. I've a hunch how they work, too--this is foryour information, Leroy. I think the crystal shell of silica is no morethan a protective covering, like an eggshell, and that the activeprinciple is the smell inside. It's some sort of gas that attackssilicon, and if the shell is broken near a supply of that element, somereaction starts that ultimately develops into a beast like that one. " "You should try!" exclaimed the little Frenchman. "We must break one tosee!" "Yeah? Well, I did. I smashed a couple against the sand. Would you liketo come back in about ten thousand years to see if I planted somepyramid monsters? You'd most likely be able to tell by that time!"Jarvis paused and drew a deep breath. "Lord! That queer creature! Do youpicture it? Blind, deaf, nerveless, brainless--just a mechanism, andyet--immortal! Bound to go on making bricks, building pyramids, as longas silicon and oxygen exist, and even afterwards it'll just stop. Itwon't be dead. If the accidents of a million years bring it its foodagain, there it'll be, ready to run again, while brains andcivilizations are part of the past. A queer beast--yet I met a strangerone!" "If you did, it must have been in your dreams!" growled Harrison. "You're right!" said Jarvis soberly. "In a way, you're right. Thedream-beast! That's the best name for it--and it's the most fiendish, terrifying creation one could imagine! More dangerous than a lion, moreinsidious than a snake!" "Tell me!" begged Leroy. "I must go see!" "Not _this_ devil!" He paused again. "Well, " he resumed, "Tweel and Ileft the pyramid creature and plowed along through Xanthus. I was tiredand a little disheartened by Putz's failure to pick me up, and Tweel'strilling got on my nerves, as did his flying nosedives. So I just strodealong without a word, hour after hour across that monotonous desert. "Toward mid-afternoon we came in sight of a low dark line on thehorizon. I knew what it was. It was a canal; I'd crossed it in therocket and it meant that we were just one-third of the way acrossXanthus. Pleasant thought, wasn't it? And still, I was keeping up toschedule. "We approached the canal slowly; I remembered that this one was borderedby a wide fringe of vegetation and that Mud-heap City was on it. "I was tired, as I said. I kept thinking of a good hot meal, and thenfrom that I jumped to reflections of how nice and home-like even Borneowould seem after this crazy planet, and from that, to thoughts of littleold New York, and then to thinking about a girl I know there--FancyLong. Know her?" "Vision entertainer, " said Harrison. "I've tuned her in. Niceblonde--dances and sings on the _Yerba Mate_ hour. " "That's her, " said Jarvis ungrammatically. "I know her pretty well--justfriends, get me?--though she came down to see us off in the _Ares_. Well, I was thinking about her, feeling pretty lonesome, and all thetime we were approaching that line of rubbery plants. "And then--I said, 'What 'n Hell!' and stared. And there she was--FancyLong, standing plain as day under one of those crack-brained trees, andsmiling and waving just the way I remembered her when we left!" "Now you're nuts, too!" observed the captain. "Boy, I almost agreed with you! I stared and pinched myself and closedmy eyes and then stared again--and every time, there was Fancy Longsmiling and waving! Tweel saw something, too; he was trilling andclucking away, but I scarcely heard him. I was bounding toward her overthe sand, too amazed even to ask myself questions. "I wasn't twenty feet from her when Tweel caught me with one of hisflying leaps. He grabbed my arm, yelling, 'No--no--no!' in his squeakyvoice. I tried to shake him off--he was as light as if he were built ofbamboo--but he dug his claws in and yelled. And finally some sort ofsanity returned to me and I stopped less than ten feet from her. Thereshe stood, looking as solid as Putz's head!" "Vot?" said the engineer. "She smiled and waved, and waved and smiled, and I stood there dumb asLeroy, while Tweel squeaked and chattered. I _knew_ it couldn't be real, yet--there she was! "Finally I said, 'Fancy! Fancy Long!' She just kept on smiling andwaving, but looking as real as if I hadn't left her thirty-seven millionmiles away. "Tweel had his glass pistol out, pointing it at her. I grabbed his arm, but he tried to push me away. He pointed at her and said, 'No breet! Nobreet!' and I understood that he meant that the Fancy Long thing wasn'talive. Man, my head was whirling! "Still, it gave me the jitters to see him pointing his weapon at her. Idon't know why I stood there watching him take careful aim, but I did. Then he squeezed the handle of his weapon; there was a little puff ofsteam, and Fancy Long was gone! And in her place was one of thosewrithing, black, rope-armed horrors like the one I'd saved Tweel from! "The dream-beast! I stood there dizzy, watching it die while Tweeltrilled and whistled. Finally he touched my arm, pointed at the twistingthing, and said, 'You one-one-two, he one-one-two. ' After he'd repeatedit eight or ten times, I got it. Do any of you?" "_Oui!_" shrilled Leroy. "_Moi--je le comprends!_ He mean you think ofsomething, the beast he know, and you see it! _Un chien_--a hungry dog, he would see the big bone with meat! Or smell it--not?" "Right!" said Jarvis. "The dream-beast uses its victim's longings anddesires to trap its prey. The bird at nesting season would see its mate, the fox, prowling for its own prey, would see a helpless rabbit!" "How he do?" queried Leroy. "How do I know? How does a snake back on earth charm a bird into itsvery jaws? And aren't there deep-sea fish that lure their victims intotheir mouths? Lord!" Jarvis shuddered. "Do you see how insidious themonster is? We're warned now--but henceforth we can't trust even oureyes. You might see me--I might see one of you--and back of it may benothing but another of those black horrors!" "How'd your friend know?" asked the captain abruptly. "Tweel? I wonder! Perhaps he was thinking of something that couldn'tpossibly have interested me, and when I started to run, he realizedthat I saw something different and was warned. Or perhaps thedream-beast can only project a single vision, and Tweel saw what Isaw--or nothing. I couldn't ask him. But it's just another proof thathis intelligence is equal to ours or greater. " "He's daffy, I tell you!" said Harrison. "What makes you think hisintellect ranks with the human?" "Plenty of things! First, the pyramid-beast. He hadn't seen one before;he said as much. Yet he recognized it as a dead-alive automaton ofsilicon. " "He could have heard of it, " objected Harrison. "He lives around here, you know. " "Well how about the language? I couldn't pick up a single idea of hisand he learned six or seven words of mine. And do you realize whatcomplex ideas he put over with no more than those six or seven words?The pyramid-monster--the dream-beast! In a single phrase he told me thatone was a harmless automaton and the other a deadly hypnotist. Whatabout that?" "Huh!" said the captain. "_Huh_ if you wish! Could you have done it knowing only six words ofEnglish? Could you go even further, as Tweel did, and tell me thatanother creature was of a sort of intelligence so different from oursthat understanding was impossible--even more impossible than thatbetween Tweel and me?" "Eh? What was that?" "Later. The point I'm making is that Tweel and his race are worthy ofour friendship. Somewhere on Mars--and you'll find I'm right--is acivilization and culture equal to ours, and maybe more than equal. Andcommunication is possible between them and us; Tweel proves that. It maytake years of patient trial, for their minds are alien, but less alienthan the next minds we encountered--if they _are_ minds. " "The next ones? What next ones?" "The people of the mud cities along the canals. " Jarvis frowned, thenresumed his narrative. "I thought the dream-beast and thesilicon-monster were the strangest beings conceivable, but I was wrong. These creatures are still more alien, less understandable than eitherand far less comprehensible than Tweel, with whom friendship ispossible, and even, by patience and concentration, the exchange ofideas. "Well, " he continued, "we left the dream-beast dying, dragging itselfback into its hole, and we moved toward the canal. There was a carpet ofthat queer walking-grass scampering out of our way, and when we reachedthe bank, there was a yellow trickle of water flowing. The mound cityI'd noticed from the rocket was a mile or so to the right and I wascurious enough to want to take a look at it. "It had seemed deserted from my previous glimpse of it, and if anycreatures were lurking in it--well, Tweel and I were both armed. And bythe way, that crystal weapon of Tweel's was an interesting device; Itook a look at it after the dream-beast episode. It fired a little glasssplinter, poisoned, I suppose, and I guess it held at least a hundred of'em to a load. The propellent was steam--just plain steam!" "Shteam!" echoed Putz. "From vot come, shteam?" "From water, of course! You could see the water through the transparenthandle and about a gill of another liquid, thick and yellowish. WhenTweel squeezed the handle--there was no trigger--a drop of water and adrop of the yellow stuff squirted into the firing chamber, and the watervaporized--pop!--like that. It's not so difficult; I think we coulddevelop the same principle. Concentrated sulphuric acid will heat wateralmost to boiling, and so will quicklime, and there's potassium andsodium-- "Of course, his weapon hadn't the range of mine, but it wasn't so bad inthis thin air, and it _did_ hold as many shots as a cowboy's gun in aWestern movie. It was effective, too, at least against Martian life; Itried it out, aiming at one of the crazy plants, and darned if the plantdidn't wither up and fall apart! That's why I think the glass splinterswere poisoned. "Anyway, we trudged along toward the mud-heap city and I began to wonderwhether the city builders dug the canals. I pointed to the city and thenat the canal, and Tweel said 'No--no--no!' and gestured toward thesouth. I took it to mean that some other race had created the canalsystem, perhaps Tweel's people. I don't know; maybe there's stillanother intelligent race on the planet, or a dozen others. Mars is aqueer little world. "A hundred yards from the city we crossed a sort of road--just ahard-packed mud trail, and then, all of a sudden, along came one of themound builders! "Man, talk about fantastic beings! It looked rather like a barreltrotting along on four legs with four other arms or tentacles. It had nohead, just body and members and a row of eyes completely around it. Thetop end of the barrel-body was a diaphragm stretched as tight as a drumhead, and that was all. It was pushing a little coppery cart and toreright past us like the proverbial bat out of Hell. It didn't even noticeus, although I thought the eyes on my side shifted a little as itpassed. "A moment later another came along, pushing another empty cart. Samething--it just scooted past us. Well, I wasn't going to be ignored by abunch of barrels playing train, so when the third one approached, Iplanted myself in the way--ready to jump, of course, if the thing didn'tstop. "But it did. It stopped and set up a sort of drumming from the diaphragmon top. And I held out both hands and said, 'We are friends!' And whatdo you suppose the thing did?" "Said, 'Pleased to meet you, ' I'll bet!" suggested Harrison. "I couldn't have been more surprised if it had! It drummed on itsdiaphragm, and then suddenly boomed out, 'We are v-r-r-riends!' and gaveits pushcart a vicious poke at me! I jumped aside, and away it wentwhile I stared dumbly after it. "A minute later another one came hurrying along. This one didn't pause, but simply drummed out, 'We are v-r-r-riends!' and scurried by. How didit learn the phrase? Were all of the creatures in some sort ofcommunication with each other? Were they all parts of some centralorganism? I don't know, though I think Tweel does. "Anyway, the creatures went sailing past us, every one greetingus with the same statement. It got to be funny; I never thought tofind so many friends on this God-forsaken ball! Finally I made apuzzled gesture to Tweel; I guess he understood, for he said, 'One-one-two--yes!--two-two-four--no!' Get it?" "Sure, " said Harrison, "It's a Martian nursery rhyme. " "Yeah! Well, I was getting used to Tweel's symbolism, and I figured itout this way. 'One-one-two--yes!' The creatures were intelligent. 'Two-two-four--no!' Their intelligence was not of our order, butsomething different and beyond the logic of two and two is four. Maybe Imissed his meaning. Perhaps he meant that their minds were of lowdegree, able to figure out the simple things--'One-one-two--yes!'--butnot more difficult things--'Two-two-four--no!' But I think from what wesaw later that he meant the other. "After a few moments, the creatures came rushing back--first one, thenanother. Their pushcarts were full of stones, sand, chunks of rubberyplants, and such rubbish as that. They droned out their friendlygreeting, which didn't really sound so friendly, and dashed on. Thethird one I assumed to be my first acquaintance and I decided to haveanother chat with him. I stepped into his path again and waited. "Up he came, booming out his 'We are v-r-r-riends' and stopped. I lookedat him; four or five of his eyes looked at me. He tried his passwordagain and gave a shove on his cart, but I stood firm. And then the--thedashed creature reached out one of his arms, and two finger-like nipperstweaked my nose!" "Haw!" roared Harrison. "Maybe the things have a sense of beauty!" "Laugh!" grumbled Jarvis. "I'd already had a nasty bump and a meanfrostbite on that nose. Anyway, I yelled 'Ouch!' and jumped aside andthe creature dashed away; but from then on, their greeting was 'We arev-r-r-riends! Ouch!' Queer beasts! "Tweel and I followed the road squarely up to the nearest mound. Thecreatures were coming and going, paying us not the slightest attention, fetching their loads of rubbish. The road simply dived into an opening, and slanted down like an old mine, and in and out darted thebarrel-people, greeting us with their eternal phrase. "I looked in; there was a light somewhere below, and I was curious tosee it. It didn't look like a flame or torch, you understand, but morelike a civilized light, and I thought that I might get some clue as tothe creatures' development. So in I went and Tweel tagged along, notwithout a few trills and twitters, however. "The light was curious; it sputtered and flared like an old arc light, but came from a single black rod set in the wall of the corridor. Itwas electric, beyond doubt. The creatures were fairly civilized, apparently. "Then I saw another light shining on something that glittered and I wenton to look at that, but it was only a heap of shiny sand. I turnedtoward the entrance to leave, and the Devil take me if it wasn't gone! "I suppose the corridor had curved, or I'd stepped into a side passage. Anyway, I walked back in that direction I thought we'd come, and all Isaw was more dimlit corridor. The place was a labyrinth! There wasnothing but twisting passages running every way, lit by occasionallights, and now and then a creature running by, sometimes with apushcart, sometimes without. "Well, I wasn't much worried at first. Tweel and I had only come a fewsteps from the entrance. But every move we made after that seemed to getus in deeper. Finally I tried following one of the creatures with anempty cart, thinking that he'd be going out for his rubbish, but he ranaround aimlessly, into one passage and out another. When he starteddashing around a pillar like one of these Japanese waltzing mice, I gaveup, dumped my water tank on the floor, and sat down. "Tweel was as lost as I. I pointed up and he said 'No--no--no!' in asort of helpless trill. And we couldn't get any help from the natives. They paid no attention at all, except to assure us they werefriends--ouch! "Lord! I don't know how many hours or days we wandered around there! Islept twice from sheer exhaustion; Tweel never seemed to need sleep. Wetried following only the upward corridors, but they'd run uphill a waysand then curve downwards. The temperature in that damned ant hill wasconstant; you couldn't tell night from day and after my first sleep Ididn't know whether I'd slept one hour or thirteen, so I couldn't tellfrom my watch whether it was midnight or noon. "We saw plenty of strange things. There were machines running in some ofthe corridors, but they didn't seem to be doing anything--just wheelsturning. And several times I saw two barrel-beasts with a little onegrowing between them, joined to both. " "Parthenogenesis!" exulted Leroy. "Parthenogenesis by budding like _lestulipes_!" "If you say so, Frenchy, " agreed Jarvis. "The things never noticed us atall, except, as I say, to greet us with 'We are v-r-r-riends! Ouch!'They seemed to have no home-life of any sort, but just scurried aroundwith their pushcarts, bringing in rubbish. And finally I discovered whatthey did with it. "We'd had a little luck with a corridor, one that slanted upwards for agreat distance. I was feeling that we ought to be close to the surfacewhen suddenly the passage debouched into a domed chamber, the only onewe'd seen. And man!--I felt like dancing when I saw what looked likedaylight through a crevice in the roof. "There was a--a sort of machine in the chamber, just an enormous wheelthat turned slowly, and one of the creatures was in the act of dumpinghis rubbish below it. The wheel ground it with a crunch--sand, stones, plants, all into powder that sifted away somewhere. While we watched, others filed in, repeating the process, and that seemed to be all. Norhyme nor reason to the whole thing--but that's characteristic of thiscrazy planet. And there was another fact that's almost too bizarre tobelieve. "One of the creatures, having dumped his load, pushed his cart asidewith a crash and calmly shoved himself under the wheel! I watched himbeing crushed, too stupefied to make a sound, and a moment later, another followed him! They were perfectly methodical about it, too; oneof the cartless creatures took the abandoned pushcart. "Tweel didn't seem surprised; I pointed out the next suicide to him, andhe just gave the most human-like shrug imaginable, as much as to say, 'What can I do about it?' He must have known more or less about thesecreatures. "Then I saw something else. There was something beyond the wheel, something shining on a sort of low pedestal. I walked over; there was alittle crystal about the size of an egg, fluorescing to beat Tophet. Thelight from it stung my hands and face, almost like a static discharge, and then I noticed another funny thing. Remember that wart I had on myleft thumb? Look!" Jarvis extended his hand. "It dried up and felloff--just like that! And my abused nose--say, the pain went out of itlike magic! The thing had the property of hard x-rays or gammaradiations, only more so; it destroyed diseased tissue and left healthytissue unharmed! "I was thinking what a present _that'd_ be to take back to Mother Earthwhen a lot of racket interrupted. We dashed back to the other side ofthe wheel in time to see one of the pushcarts ground up. Some suicidehad been careless, it seems. "Then suddenly the creatures were booming and drumming all around us andtheir noise was decidedly menacing. A crowd of them advanced toward us;we backed out of what I thought was the passage we'd entered by, andthey came rumbling after us, some pushing carts and some not. Crazybrutes! There was a whole chorus of 'We are v-r-r-riends! Ouch!' Ididn't like the 'ouch'; it was rather suggestive. "Tweel had his glass gun out and I dumped my water tank for greaterfreedom and got mine. We backed up the corridor with the barrel-beastsfollowing--about twenty of them. Queer thing--the ones coming in withloaded carts moved past us inches away without a sign. "Tweel must have noticed that. Suddenly, he snatched out that glowingcoal cigar-lighter of his and touched a cart-load of plant limbs. Puff!The whole load was burning--and the crazy beast pushing it went rightalong without a change of pace! It created some disturbance among our'V-r-r-riends, ' however--and then I noticed the smoke eddying andswirling past us, and sure enough, there was the entrance! "I grabbed Tweel and out we dashed and after us our twenty pursuers. Thedaylight felt like Heaven, though I saw at first glance that the sun wasall but set, and that was bad, since I couldn't live outside mythermo-skin bag in a Martian night--at least, without a fire. "And things got worse in a hurry. They cornered us in an angle betweentwo mounds, and there we stood. I hadn't fired nor had Tweel; therewasn't any use in irritating the brutes. They stopped a little distanceaway and began their booming about friendship and ouches. "Then things got still worse! A barrel-brute came out with a pushcartand they all grabbed into it and came out with handfuls of foot-longcopper darts--sharp-looking ones--and all of a sudden one sailed past myear--zing! And it was shoot or die then. "We were doing pretty well for a while. We picked off the ones next tothe pushcart and managed to keep the darts at a minimum, but suddenlythere was a thunderous booming of 'v-r-r-riends' and 'ouches, ' and awhole army of 'em came out of their hole. "Man! We were through and I knew it! Then I realized that Tweel wasn't. He could have leaped the mound behind us as easily as not. He wasstaying for me! "Say, I could have cried if there'd been time! I'd liked Tweel from thefirst, but whether I'd have had gratitude to do what he wasdoing--suppose I _had_ saved him from the first dream-beast--he'd doneas much for me, hadn't he? I grabbed his arm, and said 'Tweel, ' andpointed up, and he understood. He said, 'No--no--no, Tick!' and poppedaway with his glass pistol. "What could I do? I'd be a goner anyway when the sun set, but I couldn'texplain that to him. I said, 'Thanks, Tweel. You're a man!' and feltthat I wasn't paying him any compliment at all. A man! There are mightyfew men who'd do that. "So I went 'bang' with my gun and Tweel went 'puff' with his, and thebarrels were throwing darts and getting ready to rush us, and boomingabout being friends. I had given up hope. Then suddenly an angel droppedright down from Heaven in the shape of Putz, with his under-jetsblasting the barrels into very small pieces! "Wow! I let out a yell and dashed for the rocket; Putz opened the doorand in I went, laughing and crying and shouting! It was a moment or sobefore I remembered Tweel; I looked around in time to see him rising inone of his nosedives over the mound and away. "I had a devil of a job arguing Putz into following! By the time we gotthe rocket aloft, darkness was down; you know how it comes here--liketurning off a light. We sailed out over the desert and put down once ortwice. I yelled 'Tweel!' and yelled it a hundred times, I guess. Wecouldn't find him; he could travel like the wind and all I got--or elseI imagined it--was a faint trilling and twittering drifting out of thesouth. He'd gone, and damn it! I wish--I wish he hadn't!" The four men of the _Ares_ were silent--even the sardonic Harrison. Atlast little Leroy broke the stillness. "I should like to see, " he murmured. "Yeah, " said Harrison. "And the wart-cure. Too bad you missed that; itmight be the cancer cure they've been hunting for a century and a half. " "Oh, that!" muttered Jarvis gloomily. "That's what started the fight!"He drew a glistening object from his pocket. "Here it is. "