UNDER THE SKIN

I ran a story the other day about the arrival on Earth of a Martian diplomat and his wife. And I okayed a picture of the lady presiding over a tea at the Martian embassy. I looked at the picture for quite a while. The lady in her costume, fresh from the Couture Syndicate in Rio, was a carbon copy of every other woman. What was different about her was no longer very different. It was sad, and it was frightening, too.

It took me back to the days when Deborah and I were pioneering in the gloomy bureau Universal News had set up in Marsport. I remember the biggest story we ever covered; it was the only one we never wrote. And I've been waiting for a time when I could break it because sooner or later you can take the lid off anything. It illustrates a point I try to make when I can.

In the early days we were frequently involved in Martian difficulties. It was partly through genuine concern for their welfare; we liked the Martians without question. But it was also, curiously, motivated by an almost adolescent eagerness to demonstrate efficiency and speed and worth to a people who remained friendly and grateful but aloof and paternally amused by our energies.

This story started as suddenly and simply as most disasters usually strike on Mars, or anywhere. A news flash was relayed in from an interior hill community, Faleeng, to our Marsport office. The news flash to Universal News came almost simultaneously with the official SOS.

Disaster had struck a small community of Martians in the Ul Mountains—a mining region, remote and inaccessible to the Martian land machines. Power failure threatened the colony of 2,000 with extinction. Intense cold was slowly, inexorably moving in from the cheerless sandstone hills from which Ul had been carved.

It was top news as it stood, but there was an additional detail that made it a real 72-point type headline, a screamer. Ul was the seat of Martian diranium mining operations. And Mars ran on diranium ore and whatever it was that the Martians did with it.

We didn't know anything about diranium then and the Martians kept it that way. We had nothing like it and it drew the con boys like a magnet. But fruitlessly. Ambassador Ferne, a real level guy with the Martians, made sure nothing like diranium ever left in anyone's carpet bag. Our relations with the Martians were smooth, as a result. There was really nothing else we wanted from them.

Except maybe to see what their women looked like, and, oh yes, their children. No ancient system of purdah was ever stricter. They were inflexible on the subject. They had not only instituted elaborate precautions for keeping their women invisible, it was, also, distinctly a breach of good manners to mention them. We had been given a rough idea of the methods the Martians employed in rearing children, but while it excited a lot of psychologist chaps with its novelty, we were still frustrated and speculative about their female relations. Who must have been a pretty attractive and exotic lot, to judge by their men.

But you couldn't, if you were decent, do anything but defer to the Martians in the matter. They were wonderful people, honest, friendly and with no ax to grind. They invariably brought out your best without any seeming effort. They made you examine into your motives, and the darker nooks and crannies of your far-from-perfect-soul.

Consequently, the Ul disaster packed a real wallop for us.

When the Martian authorities got the news from Ul they appealed to Ferne for assistance. The U.F.S. Rocket Auxiliary was the fastest transportation available on Mars, faster than anything the Martians had. The Ambassador ordered the rocket fleet to assist in the immediate evacuation of stricken Ulans to Marsport medical stations.

In addition a team of Martian and Earth Federation technicians boarded the lead ship, Electra. Equipment, food and medical supplies were crowded into the remaining ships. And a large fleet of Martian land machines went into action. The land machines were like enormous onyx bowling balls, rolling heavily but smoothly on bands of gripper treads. They would go as far as they could into the hills, and the clumsy, short-hop Martian wings would make the rest of the trip to Ul.

Of course the monster maw of public interest on Earth devoured the first news like a cocktail sandwich and clamored hungrily for more. In those days news from Mars took priority. The New York bureau of Universal News was explicit about wanting full coverage—and pictures.

And this was where Deborah Wayne first came into the picture—unfortunately. Deborah was a nice girl, a bright girl, and brilliant with her super-speed, super-sensitive cameras. But I think, now, that the psychologist who screened her for that career was drunk. She was supposed to be ready to cope with the rigors and exigencies of the frontier. But in the showdown she turned out to be a sentimental slob who all but got us kicked off Mars.

I didn't think about Debby when the news first broke. I might never have thought of her myself, but the New York bureau did. When their orders came in on the Spacetron, the message link between Earth and Marsport, I was alone in our office with Charley Ray of Galactic News. I read him the tape as it came off the machine.

"And where do you suppose Debby is?" Charley said. "To think I could have forgotten her!"

"Debby!" I said. "Pictures!" I was thinking that the insatiable human glut for horror and tragedy was a pretty sad and unchanging constant in our Earth civilization.

"They want a real production," I said bitterly. "With a gallon count on the blood running in the streets."

"And you get paid for counting it accurately," Charley said. "We got an hour. Feel noble when we're comfortable. And on our way. With Debby. I won't go without her. Mad about the girl."

"Mad," I agreed. "You'd better call our office and then check with Ferne's office on which crate we get to ride in. While I try to locate that two-legged witch."

Kibby came in. He was relief man and almost always shrouded in an alcoholic fog from which the cleanest, clearest prose emerged. He nodded at us, noticed we were looking less bored than usual and picked up the tape for the answer. He groaned. "You mean I have to work this morning? With this head? Background on Ul! The rockpile of Mars."

"Yop," I told him. "SOS came in a couple of hours ago to the communications center. Galactic and Universal got the flash from the stringer in Faleeng, the nearest point to Ul. Sounds real rough out there. And interesting. This is the closest we've ever come to their diranium. But first I have to find Debby."

As I talked, I was looking over a list of stations.

"Ruin my day, altogether," Kibby muttered.

"Try the Celestial. She said she was doing a film on those historic ruins outside of Marsport. The Celestial's the only dump you can stay in out there."

I rang up the Celestial. She had left hours ago.

"Great," I groaned. "She could be anywhere."

Charley put a cigarette in his mouth. And in between the calls I made to different places on the list he told me the seats reserved for the press, us, were on the Starfish. We were going along with some crates of blankets and two mine experts, Sam Vechi and his assistant, Raeburn.

"But no pictures of the mines," Charley said. "Or the mining equipment. This order is backed up with RA zap guns. Dipple, over there, was very emphatic. If he didn't know much about anything else, he knew that. I'm surprised he managed to figure out how we were going to get to Ul."

Kibby was at the water cooler, his head pressed lovingly against the cold metal cylinders. "Why are they letting Vechi go along? He's no humanitarian. His interest on Mars is diranium and they're giving him a chance to run through it barefoot."

"Pure conjecture," I said, cautiously but not convincingly. I had given up trying to locate Deborah. "It's a mine area and Vechi is an engineer. With all that education he should be some help."

Vechi was a hard guy to figure and pretty much on his own for a member of the small Earth Federation colony. He was more or less attached to the United Federated States Geological Research Expedition. But he was a free-lancer, too, and disappeared from Marsport for months at a time. It gave rise to rumors about his being an agent on the side for some big mine development syndicate on Earth. His comings and goings were mysterious but you couldn't pin a thing on him. Vechi was slippery, smooth and indefinably unpleasant. But smart.

I had just suggested we haul our equipment out of the locker when the door slid open. Deborah, her red hair half over her eyes as usual, came in—a blazing little fireball of energy. She was going full blast. I shrank within myself and wanted to crawl under a desk. If Charley thought this was enchanting and feminine, he could have it.

Although—she had the throatiest, most electrifying voice I had ever heard. It was a muted female foghorn with a lovely liquid cold. It turned my spine to wax even though I got angry the minute she opened her mouth and used it to say, witheringly, "What's the matter? How many people have to die before you big shots get interested? You two wouldn't dream of offering to help even if you aren't going after the story!"

"I've been trying to get hold of you," I said coldly.

She just looked her contempt. "I've been at rescue headquarters since 6:00 a.m. You might have tried there. Two thousand people face death, you know."

"And little Deborah has trundled out her armor and is in there pitching like mad," I said.

"You hardboiled newsmen," she said, and she was really upset. "You louses."

"Lice," I said. She had made me feel like a louse. I didn't want it to show, so I got sly and mean. "Don't you think this trip is too dangerous for you?"

She had calmed down. She didn't look like Joan of Arc, any more, just tired and troubled. "No," she said briefly.

"O.K.," I said cheerfully. I was only a little bit sorry to be so mean. "Then there's no bonus involved."

She buttoned a button on her sleek green workalls. "Louse, in the singular. Keep your lousy bonus."

Charley gave me a long, disgusted look and left to get his gear.

From the air all of Marsport seemed enclosed in a shimmering transparent syntho-glass bag. And it was, as were all the other Martian cities, enclosed in some virtually indestructable sheeting that rose to heights of 20,000 feet—contracting and expanding in the extreme temperature changes of the planet. These breathing, nearly invisible skins sheltered the cities, and within them strange hybrid species of flora and fauna flourished. The Martians had evolved a way of life that was tranquil, visually beautiful and civilized—if artificial, by our standards.

Its very artificiality became, in fact, a new kind of reality. The reality of a dream that persists, or a fantasy which retains its unbelievable qualities but becomes actuality. And in this atmosphere we set up our machines and agencies and extensions of Earth—bursting with the conceits and importance of having conquered space. And, oddly, we did not consider it strange that the Martians displayed no interest in returning our visit.

The spaceport lay outside Marsport, however. When we ventured beyond the protection of the city shelter we wore the pixie-like oxygen hoods and adjusted the thermal dials on our workalls. I never got over being surprised that our technicians on Earth could have been so clever at keeping us comfortable. You got used to nearly everything, as a matter of fact, except the psychological sense that freedom existed within the city shelter—and not in the great outdoors. You could get agoraphobia on Mars; it was rough outside.

When we arrived at the spaceport it seemed as though every citizen in the capital city had turned out. The slender Martian men in their colorful, oddly skirted costumes formed the bulk of the crowd. They had need of extra oxygen, too, and the tall, transparent cones within which they breathed glittered like a thousand needles in the early morning air. Martian women were missing from the crowd, as usual, and as usual you had a strangely wistful feeling about these withdrawn people—who were always friendly but never intimate. Who would not trust you any more than you would mischievous children with the treasures of their ancient and beautiful civilization.

We rode past the crowds in our vehicle, with an R.A. sergeant directing us to the Starfish.

It can be said for the Rocket Auxiliary that they worked like beavers loading the U.F.S. Rocket Fleet. The array of ships was impressive. The sleek, silver hulls mirrored the pastel, candy colors of a clear Martian morning. They lay quiescent like glittering feathers on the broad, red-earth field. Far in the distance, low, brown hills rolled out to meet the horizon. Small yellow clouds swirled over a section of the hills—a dust storm into which we would be heading presently.

Our sergeant hopped off the vehicle when we reached the Starfish. She was a real old dowager, the Starfish, with the broadest beam in the fleet: even slower, but more uncomfortable, than a ride on a three-legged Martian ileh, the only beast of burden on the planet.

When we had piled out of the vehicle the first thing I noticed was Deborah's gear, all neat and ready to be stowed. Then Sam Vechi, sitting on a fibreboard crate with his legs crossed at precise right angles. His face in the transparent visor was thin, darkly tanned and healthier looking than any of ours. And his workalls fitted as though they had had him in mind when they tailored the original design. When he got up at our approach I was surprised again by his height. You remembered him, somehow, as being a small man, which he wasn't.

The audio cup in my oxygen helmet buzzed a little when he began to talk, so I adjusted it and picked up the tail end of what he was saying: "... terrible, this Ul thing, isn't it?" I nodded.

Deborah kept fiddling with her audio adjuster, as though she couldn't hear, so she wouldn't have to acknowledge Vechi's greeting. She wasn't good with people she didn't like and she didn't like Vechi.

Charley, who had a bright word for any slob, offered an apology for our offhandedness. "They have a hate on," he lied blithely. "They turned off audio so they couldn't hear my arguments for a reconciliation."

Deborah, who wouldn't let even phony opportunity go by, said nastily, "I wouldn't give him two minutes or two words more than my contract calls for."

"And it's a good thing it isn't up for renewal," I said.

Vechi smiled and there was something agreeable about all those white teeth in that brown face.

I guess it made Deborah uncomfortable to have Vechi agreeable. "Excuse me," she said. "I want some shots of the mob scene." She looked at me. "Are you going to wave in a story to Kibby before takeoff? Lots of color around."

It was a damnfool question. "I do news. You do pictures." I said it patiently.

"I was only thinking of correlating the two, you crab!" she snapped and stamped away.

"Real friendly type," Charley growled at me. "Quit riding her. She knows her job and she does it."

"She knows her job but not her place," I growled back. "She has to run every show."

"Boy, I bet your ancestors beat the spit out of their women when they went out after the vote."

"That was the turning point in history," I said. "We have been paying for it ever since."

Charley grinned. "It ain't such a big price, considering."

He looked around the field. "Well, I'll wave in my story on the takeoff stuff. There's nothing else for the noon leads."

I watched him leave. And then I looked for Debby—and watched her. From a distance she looked mighty nice, it was true. She had a funny way of moving, a little awkwardly like a young animal, but it had its appeal. And so did her red hair, which was short and curly and never in place. She was young all over except for her figure which was as grown up as it had to be. What no one could understand, though, was why the best looking gal in Marsport hadn't been trapped by any one guy as yet. And how anyone that good looking could also be good. So far from home it didn't usually work out that way. The girls did as they pleased and no one blamed them. It was one of the rewards for being a sucker and doing a stint on Mars.

It gradually dawned on me, as I watched her, that she wasn't doing much active picture-taking. Her usual intensity was curiously missing. She seemed to be thinking about something else as she aimed her camera, up there on top of the Starfish. I made a mental note of this. I had learned that when Deborah appeared abstracted there was usually a damned interesting reason for it.

I fished out my communication gimmick and flicked a button. I got the control tower, or, more accurately, underground shelter, and the latest poop. Then I signalled Kibby and dictated a story to him. While I was talking privately into the 'com. Vechi watched me in a disinterested way. Raeburn, his assistant, arrived and they wandered off among the fibreboard crates for a private conversation.

"Paragraph, Kibby," I said into the mouthpiece. "'The vast rocket terminal at Marsport is soberly alive this morning with preparations for the giant rescue job awaiting the joint forces of the U.F.S. Rocket Auxiliary, and the Martian disaster crew....'"

Pundra Doh, the Martian premier, was in the lead ship, Electra. But there wasn't time for an interview. Thin, electric-blue spits of exhaust flickered all over the spaceport by the time I had finished dictating. The high, keening sound of the rockets revving up tore through my helmet and I shouted at Deborah who was still up there, on top of the Starfish. My voice in her helmet must have blasted her eardrums.

"Damn you, Steve," she screamed back at me. Then she clicked another wide-angle shot of the field, sat down suddenly and slid down the polished tail of the Starfish on her fanny.

It's a wonder her camera survived the descent.

The Starfish shuddered as she lurched along, keeping up with the rest of the fleet. Her vibration was too heavy to be soporific but Deborah slept like a baby on a pile of things she had scratched together. Or at least she seemed to be asleep. Maybe because I was looking at her she figured it was a good idea to pretend. There was something wrong with her, something I couldn't put my finger on.

Charley took out a cigarette. He looked at me looking at her. "Why resist?" he grinned.

"You've got a one-track mind," I said. "What I'm wondering is what that little witch has up her sleeve. She's behaving like she's done something—it makes me uneasy."

Charley looked real angry. He flicked an ash meticulously. "You haven't got a damned thing to gripe about, have you? So, instead of relaxing, you're imagining enormities she could have committed! What a jerk. Why don't you admit it to yourself; she attracts you. Like she does everyone else. Say something nice about her for a change—you don't impress me."

"She takes good pictures."

Charley laughed, derisively. "I guess you'd like it better if she went space-crazy, like every other dame does here. She ought to drink more, beef more, hell around. Maybe you could stand having her around if you knew she took the guys home with her who would run at the chance.

"You're just waiting for her to make a slip. So, you can write her off. But she won't. You might as well save time and admit what everybody figured a long time ago."

"You through?" I asked.

"Sure."

"I'd still like to know what she's been up to."

I bent forward and started checking my gear. I was so mad my hands shook. I took out a bottle of hooch and examined it while I calmed down; it was vintage stuff, not home brew. I put it away again. I didn't need a drink, really. Deborah! If it wasn't love it was something just as insidious. I could get real boiled up because of her.

Love, now there was a fancy word! I toyed with it for a minute and considered it in relation to Deborah. And all I came up with was a mental picture of her mouth—very soft, with the ingenuous, upward curve of an eager kid. It didn't solve a damned thing. I closed my gear pack and looked at the other passengers.

Vechi and his boy, Raeburn, were checking gear, too. They spent a little time admiring some scientific gadget Raeburn had fished out for Vechi's approval. Vechi pushed a pointer on a small black dial and sighted us through it; very cool. When they got through playing, they leaned back comfortable-like and looked at us.

Since we were newsmen the conversation was bound to be a little formal.

Vechi must have known he had a doubtful reputation. I guess he figured we were curious about his berth on the Starfish; how come he was riding with the press?

Raeburn was a pudgy, balding civil service sycophant. He had little quick brown eyes, a loose wide mouth filled with an unpleasantly self-conscious smile—and practically no chin to balance the naked shine of his brow. He made bad jokes and thought he was quite the boy.

Since I was never at the head of the class for tact I started the ball rolling down the center alley. "What's your interest in this trip, Vechi?" I said.

I heard Charley sigh resignedly.

"I'm a civil engineer," Vechi said. "It seems they need technical people as well as reporters. Technical people to save as much as they can and newsmen to dramatize what hasn't been saved."

Score one, and not for us! I grinned at him. "Got any ideas for the press on what caused the power failure?"

Vechi smiled a gentle, patronizing smile. "Apparently, the Martians use diranium as a source of atomic power. But since no one knows the characteristics of diranium it would be difficult to imagine the type of power installation they employ. It seems evident to me, also, that we will know as little about diranium, later, as we do now—with the strong security measures taken to safeguard the secrets of diranium.

"Furthermore, the Martians have evolved totally different scientific systems based on materials, limitations and planetary conditions which are alien to us. Entirely different engineering skills are required."

"Then what earthly good are our boys going to be?" I asked.

Vechi stretched his legs. Raeburn listened and said nothing. "We have no way of knowing that Ul station did not sustain a physical catastrophe—in which case a knowledge of construction, how to salvage tunnels, buildings, bridges, heating systems and the like will probably prove useful. We know something of their building techniques from Marsport."

"Well, you certainly appear to be well qualified," I said as courteously as possible. But somewhere a dim instinct warned that this was eye-wash. Why wasn't this joker with the other engineering boys up front?

"Thank you, Mr. Lasker," he said, equally courteous. End of interview.

I looked at Charley. He looked at me. Then he handed me his bottle. Trust Charley. "Have a slug, pal," he said cheerfully. "Stop working."

"I will, pal," I said. "Thanks."

It felt good going down and for the first time I realized I had a hangover from the night before. And the night before that. And then I saw that Deborah's green eyes were wide open and fixed on me.

I took another slug, over and above Charley's little pained exclamation. I didn't like the look in those green eyes.

"Hey, Steve," Debby called in that indecent voice of hers. "I want to talk to you."

"You see, my friend," I said to the owner of the bottle, "she wants to talk to me."

"That makes you lucky," Charley said. He was very carefully putting the top back on the bottle.

"So, talk," I said to her.

"No, you come over here for a change."

Then I knew something was wrong. In some crazy way Deborah and I operated on the same frequency. I could always sense things about her—and, I knew, she could about me, too. I grunted. I moved reluctantly. But I went over to her and sat down.

Her face was propped up by an elbow and about six inches from mine after she had drawn my head down for a real private tete-a-tete.

"Steve, I've got to talk to you."

She was real, damned pretty that close up. But that wasn't the reason I got the breathless feeling in my stomach. I wondered how much this was going to cost Universal. I was thinking in terms of money at that point.

"All right," I said. "I couldn't hit you even if I wanted to. What did you do this time?"

"Well. It's not awfully bad and it's not awfully good. It's a delicate situation. And I need your help."

My alarm grew. "Deborah!" I said warningly.

She drew a deep breath through a small, round red mouth. "I smuggled someone on board," she said very quietly.

Well, that was interesting. I patted her cheek; I wanted to wring her neck. "Fascinating," I said lightly. "Let me know how you make out with customs, or whatever."

I made like I was getting up. She grabbed my collar. "Steve!" she whispered, agonized about something.

"Mr. Lasker," I said briskly. "I'm your boss, not your friend. Take your problem to Charley; he's softheaded."

"I'll give Charley an exclusive," she whispered three inches from my face. "I could tie up the spacetron for the next two days with this story.

"This is Pundra Doh's wife!"

I sank back on my haunches and stared at her. "You've stowed a Martian woman on this tub?"

She nodded a small nod, once.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and I guess it wasn't gently.

"The holiest of all holy Martian women, the Premier's woman!"

"Yes, Mr. Lasker."

I was speechless and, I will admit, scared. This was real serious business. This no newsman on Mars would wade into without a clearance covered with red seals and blazing with blue ribbons. The Martians were touchy about their women, and they meant it.

And our doll, our Deborah had done this all by herself. But why? I asked the burning question even if it was crazy, "You didn't kidnap her, did you? Just for laughs or something?"

"Steve, please!"

She was scared. I loosened a button on my collar. "Okay, baby, give it to me. All of it. You realize this constitutes a breach of faith with the Martians. Not to mention an assault on U.F.S. policy. A lot of people are going to find their heads on the block if this gets out."

"Well, I don't know about that," Deborah said quietly. "I was asked to do this. To arrange this trip for Laapet, in exactly this way. And I gave it a lot of thought before I agreed to do it."

"Laapet? The lady's name?"

She nodded. She backed away a little, down on her elbow again. She had been upsetting that close; even with everything else charging through my brain, I noticed it. Had she?

"I was at the Celestial when the first news from Ul broke," Deborah said. "I was about to go to bed, as a matter of fact, when the Martian innkeep hammered on my door and told me about the disaster. I packed my gear right away and got transportation for rescue headquarters. I figured the biggest picture-wise things would be happening there. Besides, I wanted to help if I could.

"I hadn't gone very far from the Celestial when my vehicle was stopped by a Martian."

I listened to her story incredulously. It was eerie and unbelievable. There in the merciless cold of the white-lighted night desert Deborah had made the first crossing into the secret, private world of the Martians.

The man who intercepted her appeared out of the night, without warning. Tall and slender in a cloak of soft furs, his feet in fine leather quilted boots, the tall glittering oxygen cone crested with the phoenix-like emblem of the ruling group—he was regal, and tragic with uncertainty. He had no taste for his mission but he was urgent.

He frightened Deborah with his intensity but she trusted him. The way you always trusted the Martians. She left her chauffeur to wait for her and went with him in his machine. They drove into the desert for a long while in silence. He did not tell her what to expect, but it was obviously important and secret. He was without attendants. He did not even have a driver but operated his own vehicle.

"I could not understand why I had been chosen," Deborah said. "But I had the feeling that I was very unimportant, in myself."

They came to the rendezvous spot where one of the larger and better land machines waited—like a black monument rising from the white sand. Inside, Laapet waited. He had taken her to his sister, Pundra Doh's wife.

The compartment was luxurious and dimly lit. Laapet sat behind semi-opaque hangings, shy, frightened and all but invisible. But desperate. Her two children were in Ul and she was beside herself with anxiety for them.

Deborah's face was very soft and saddened. I understood something, suddenly, something I had not come close to before. Laapet was not a stowaway to Deborah, or a diplomatic catastrophe, but a woman distraught with concern for her children. If Deborah had any motivation it was to help this other woman—even if she broke the iron rules of the Martian code. She was, in that instant, an entire woman, herself.

And what could you do about it? Forget you were a good guy, too, someplace in your cynical old fibers? And just berate her for getting you involved in an absolutely untenable situation—one that would presently have the Ambassador, himself, running for a bromo fizz?

"So, she wanted to go to Ul. And you were the only woman going and she trusted you to understand?" I said it as gently as I could. Maybe Deborah understood that I understood, for once.

Deborah was thoughtful. "I don't understand all of it," she said slowly. "She was, naturally, not permitted to accompany the Premier. I'm sure she didn't even ask. If you know anything about the way they rear their children, here ..." she said expectantly, and I nodded because I had read a report or two on the subject.

"Well, it seems she had been ill—not physically, but emotionally, I gather. She was unstable and the children were sent to Ul on a holiday, to escape her tensions. Since they had been sent to Ul because of her, she felt it was her fault they were in danger. And because she knew they would receive no better attention, or be found more quickly, under the Martian code, she decided to go herself to make sure they would survive."

"They will not honor her for it," I said. And I was doubtful that Madame Pundra's stability had returned.

"I am sure they won't," Deborah said bitterly. "But I can understand that her children are worth more to her than her honor. And maybe that's an instinct that's common to all mothers regardless of their origin."

I couldn't argue with her. I didn't say that maybe if Madame Pundra had been well, emotionally, according to Martian standards, she wouldn't have done it. What was the point?

The generators of the Starfish hammered through the silence that hung between us. I had never before been touched emotionally, myself, by anything Martian. And here, suddenly, I was a hapless party to a certain tragedy—all the more tragic because it was based on mores I did not understand entirely, or sympathize with.

"Maybe we can help her avoid dishonor?"

Deborah shrugged. "She will, in any event, confess to having petitioned us into helping her. The Martians do not dissemble. That will be enough to condemn her."

I shook myself out of a peculiar gloom. "There may be a way." I said, but I doubted it. "How did you ever get her on board? And where is she? And how did she ever hear about you?"

Deborah looked tired. "The plan was to smuggle her aboard in my portable developing unit; it worked out very smoothly. I don't know how she heard about me. I wish she hadn't."

"That makes two of us," I muttered. "Deborah?"

Her mouth shook a little. "Yes, Steve, I know." Her voice was a register lower and all but inaudible. "I'm glad I can count on you, you louse."

Something pretty incredible was happening to us. In spite of the way she phrased it she was suddenly not out there striding along manfully by herself, any more. Nor had she ever been. To have her suddenly lapse atavistically into a woman instead of a termagent was more than I could handle. I, who had all but resigned myself to the inevitable, eventual appeal of one of the moronic but less assertive ewes of our society! How had Deborah been flushed through the nets and traps and conditioners of our psychologists—to land, thus, a compound personality in my lap?

Here, I thought exultantly, is no glitteringly compatible equal with every brain impulse carefully measured, and every muscle vibrating in harmony with the males on her level. But a thoroughly mixed-up female in the romantic tradition of the last century!

"You damned little fake," I said huskily.

"It took you the longest time to figure me out," Deborah sighed. "I hope you'll treat it as a confidential disclosure or they'll try to cure me and make me normal."

"Heaven forbid!" I let her voice crawl up and down my spine with a freedom I'd never allowed before. It made me feel pretty drunk.

I looked at her and her eyes were green and wide. "God, you're beautiful," I said with the unbidden frankness that comes with any kind of drunkenness.

"You make me feel that way," she said.

I touched her hand very briefly. "It'll turn out as good as I can manage."

"I needed you, Steve. I was so afraid you wouldn't be there. I couldn't be alone with this one. She's going to kill herself, Steve."

"Aren't any of her people interested in helping her? What about her brother?"

"Another potential suicide, I suppose," Deborah said bitterly. "He's with Pundra Doh in the lead ship. He will ostensibly take over when he reaches Ul."

"Well, heaven bless him."

I didn't have to go back and sit next to Charley, but I did. I had a couple of things to think about and if I'd stayed with Deborah I would have thought about only one of them.

Charley was half asleep. Raeburn seemed to be asleep. Vechi was reading. I leaned back and closed my eyes. And still I thought about only one thing. Deborah. Not thinking, really, feeling. I resented Pundra Doh's wife for crowding in on that feeling. And for the vague presentiment I had about Vechi. And Charley's eternally undisturbed equanimity.

Deborah! I wished we were anywhere but where we were. With this new thing to explore and understand, I wanted to be near her, alone. But everything had its price; I had been conditioned successfully enough to accept that.

There was Laapet, Madame Pundra. And what if her brother did not materialize when we reached Ul?

I opened my eyes and watched Charley. He was pouring a shot from his bottle. "Here, pal," he said, "have a medicinal."

I wondered if we would have to tell him about Laapet? Not yet. "Wait," I told myself reassuringly, "her brother will take the whole thing off your hands." But I wasn't sure. I had the uneasy feeling that something would prevent it.

I glanced at Deborah. She was lying on her back, staring at the dome of the Starfish. She didn't look like she was thinking about us, only.

Charley was tuned in on the same vibration band. He gave me the answer. "You know," he said quietly, "I've been thinking about Vechi. I don't like his being on the Starfish."

"Go fight the R.A.," I said sarcastically.

"I don't like other things, too," he went on, ignoring me. "Why hasn't one of the pilots come out for a smoke, yet? Or a drink—or for some bright chatter with us educated chaps?"

"Things too dull for you, pal?" I asked routinely. It hadn't penetrated, yet.

Charley had on his patient expression. "Listen, Brain. While you and Debby were having your big conference I went to the men's lounge to gargle my throat. It's a funny thing how cautious the R.A.'s getting; the door to the control room is locked. I tried it gently. If they didn't want to come out and talk to us—I thought I'd go talk to them."

My stomach froze into a hard knot. I looked at Charley and he said, "There's the barest possibility that Vechi is pulling a fast one. Figure that he wants a diranium sample. With a couple of pals driving this bus he could get into and out of Ul slick as anything."

"But we complicate things," I muttered hopefully.

"It's four to two if you don't count Debby for a muscle man. And with the element of surprise on their side, they think—what have they got to worry about?"

"Vechi wouldn't dare—not with the whole R.A. out there to protect the mines!"

"I dunno," Charley said. "He's real cool."

"Well, well," I said. I was thinking about the additional complication of Madame Pundra. "And if you aren't just off on a pipe night how do we find out for sure? And then what, Charley?"

"I don't know, Master Brain. You think about it. No man of action, I!"

"Why would the control room be locked?" I mused.

"I don't know, Brain."

"Do you suppose Vechi thinks we've caught on?"

"No. He's a Superior Type; to him we're just alcoholic writer chaps."

"I'm glad you're a student of human nature, Charley, old pal. But how do we act effectively without a weapon of some sort?"

"Now, it's real hilarious," Charley said with a broad smile, "but say I had a vision, or planned a stick-up on the First National Bank of Ul. I have a popgun in my gear."

Well. Old Charley. You never could tell.

"Where is it?"

"It has taken the bottle down two inches but I've managed to get it out of the gear-bag and into my workalls."

"A real efficient type, Charley, old pal." I looked about me wondering if we weren't just imagining everything. And if the Ul disaster weren't enough reason for this trip. "How about Deborah?"

"If we had a game of stud king," Charley said, fishing out a token, "and Debby joined us, we could have a lot of conversation between hands."

"Heads," I said clearly.

"Son of a space cook," he said loudly. "You deal."

I glanced at Vechi casually, as though satisfying myself that he didn't want to be disturbed. He was looking at us over his book. He smiled, I thought, in a superior way.

"Want to lose some money?" I called to Deborah.

"I've got some change," she said, sitting up.

And so we commenced to play stud king on a cleared-off space on the floor. Between the laughs we got in a lot of conversation.

We figured we had time. The trip to Ul took four hours and we were only half-way there. If Vechi was up to something it would probably involve a "forced" landing somewhere just outside of Ul, away from the main rocket fleet. After all, what he wanted was in Ul.

If the pilots and Raeburn were in on the deal with him—and they had to be—we were badly outnumbered. Our only chance was not in waiting but in somehow getting control of the Starfish while it was still aloft. And of contacting the lead ship for help.

Deborah was scared. And I was glad she was scared. And I was glad she didn't turn up a single, bright idea for our salvation. Except that she would have to tell Madame Pundra about this development.

It was then that we told Charley about our stowaway. It was to his credit that his expression remained unchanged. And indicative of something that his only excitement was at the possibility of finally seeing a Martian woman.

It may have seemed very little to go on, our conviction that Vechi was masterminding a coup. But it's the little things that make you suspicious. The R.A. is made up of casual characters. They like to talk, gripe about no smoking in the control room, come back to sniff out a drink or a game of stud king, maybe an off-color story. There seems to be a kind of conspiracy to get the rockets to fly themselves while the pilots visit aft—or so it seems to the passengers.

You get to expect informalities from the R.A.; they're usual. And it's the kind of detail a slick, factual guy like Vechi could overlook, or think you might overlook, if he were planning something. The longer the pilots stayed away—the more certain we were.

We were also sure that if Vechi and Raeburn were in the pay of an Earth syndicate to get hold of diranium ore they could have slugged the pilots of the Starfish, put in their own crew and trailed along with the rescue fleet. We didn't represent much of a threat; they could dump us anyplace. The Starfish was no beauty but she could make the trip back to Earth.

We did not want to think they were planning to do anything more serious than dump us. And Charley and I were determined that Vechi wasn't going to reduce us to a trio of dumb pawns. But I guess we couldn't help what happened, at that. There was another mighty powerful piece in this chess game we hadn't even thought about.

Deborah was hopeful almost to the end that we were just imagining the whole thing. "How can we be sure?" she wanted to know.

Then Charley had the inspiration. He remembered one of the pilots permanently assigned to the Starfish, Fats Berenson. The joke was that Fats was too big for the sleek speed-boats up ahead but better suited to this boxcar.

"If Fats were aboard," Charley said, looking over a new hand of stud king, "he would have been out here two hours ago and using every gimmick to stay out here. He's just naturally the laziest slob in the R.A. Besides, I owe him some money from an old bet. Knowing from the passenger list that I was aboard he would have come up from hell, itself, to collect."

"But we're still not sure," Deborah insisted.

"Tell you what," Charley said quietly, raking in a pot, "I'm going to find out who the pilots are. I'll use the gun on the lock—and keep the boys at the controls orderly after that. Then I'll try to contact the lead ship for help. If the pilots aren't old friends."

"The hero type," I muttered. But I was grateful he had the gun. "Okay, Charley. I'll keep Vechi occupied and Deborah can take off to the ladies' lounge for safety, and to tell Madame Pundra what we plan to do."

"You got it, Bright Boy," Charley grinned. "Debby leaves first and then I stroll out real casual. It doesn't matter if Vechi and Raeburn catch wise once I've contacted the lead ship. They won't dare pull anything because the Electra could catch this tub with half its generators conked out."

"It's a comforting thought," I said. And then I looked at Deborah. "Go on," I told her, "get out of here and stay out of sight until I collect you. I've got my mark on you."

It caught Charley off balance. "Well, I'll be damned," he said. "Where was I when this happened?"

"Lushing it up," I said. I watched Deborah get up and leave the compartment. Vechi watched her, too. His chest heaved up as though he were sighing wearily; he turned a page in his book and looked at Raeburn. His assistant lay flat on his back. His wide mouth hung open slack, ugly and resonant with a snore. Vechi went back to his book.

Then, with some elaborate stretching, Charley stood up and I watched him leave, too. Vechi watched him go, as well. He glanced at me, pleasantly.

"The bum," I said conversationally, "he took me for ten fish in stud king!"

"That so?" Vechi smiled agreeably. He folded his book. And then he very calmly reached into the pocket of his work-all and took out a gun. He held it very steadily and it was aimed at me.

"You can't win at everything," he said. "Some days aren't lucky." He had a nice sense of the ironic.

Raeburn, beside him, snored peacefully. And I sat there numb and helpless.

"What in the hell is that for?" I asked and my throat was full of gravel.

Vechi smiled as if I should know and I thought I did. But I was never more mistaken.

Then Vechi did a strange thing. He prodded Raeburn with his foot. It took a lot of prodding to wake him. When Raeburn's eyes opened he was looking straight down the blast channels of Vechi's weapon. It was a hell of a way to wake up. His Adam's apple froze half way through a convulsion of shock.

"Get up," Vechi said gently, "and get over there with our friend in the press box."

Raeburn was a little slow in comprehending and from the way Vechi urged him with the toe of his boot you could tell nobody loved Raeburn.

It didn't figure. The timing was off. Why the switch on Raeburn? Vechi was going to need help getting what he wanted in Ul. If there was going to be a double-cross, why now? Before Raeburn had been useful? Or was Raeburn in on it at all?

"Now, look, Vechi," I blustered, "this is a pretty dumb joke. What's it all about?"

He smiled. "It's no joke."

Raeburn, who was now sitting beside me, stared at his boss in amazement. "You're crazy," he bleated. "You can't pull this thing off by yourself!"

Vechi ignored him. "I'm afraid, Mr. Lasker, I can't wait any longer. You and your friends might discover certain irregularities about this flight. If you haven't, already."

I had nothing to say.

He went on in quiet earnest, "I am about to put into action a plan of great personal importance to me and I must warn you against any opposition. I have no desire to injure you or your colleagues. But there must be no interference."

I listened to Vechi and I watched, fascinated. The man with the gun in his hands was a different personality. The superficial oiliness had washed off clean, revealing, surprisingly, a man I felt I could like. I was less and less sure of his objective. Raeburn was obviously thunderstruck by the turn of events.

Vechi's hard, tanned face was grim. He was a determined man. He got up lightly and his arm reached for a hand-grip on the side of the compartment. The gun covered us. "We are almost at Faleeng," he said to me. "There we part company."

I thought about that; I was agreeable. But I also thought about Charley and how he was making out, if at all. And about Deborah. And last, but not least, about Madame Pundra. Vechi was obviously planning to herd Deborah and Charley into the "press box" as they returned to the compartment.

"Why Faleeng?" I asked. "The diranium is at Ul."

He grinned in genuine amusement. "That is very true," he agreed. "But I am not interested in diranium."

Raeburn made a peculiar sound and Vechi looked at him with contempt. "Raeburn is, however. I'm afraid I'm going to be a great disappointment to him."

I began to feel something of Raeburn's incredulity. If Vechi wasn't going for diranium what in hell was he going for? I opened my mouth to say something like that when the door to the compartment slid back.

I jumped to my feet and would probably have tried something asinine if Vechi hadn't waved me back with his gun. "He's all right," he said.

Charley, our hero, was being carried in on the powerful shoulders of a Martian serf. The Martian, in an ill-fitting R.A. uniform, was one of the semi-slave groups, strong, brutish, and low on the Martian scale of evolution. He put Charley down very gently at Vechi's command.

I envied Charley his blissful oblivion but not the collision he must have sustained with his ham-handed friend. I tried to spot the emblem on the Martian's wrist band; I could have learned which Martian house he belonged to. But no luck. I don't think I was even greatly surprised to discover we had Martians on board.

"All right, Vechi," I said. "What's your game?" The explanations were a little overdue.

What were Martians doing in the control room, Martians who obviously belonged to some powerful family? Why was Vechi hijacking an R.A. ship?

"This will become obvious shortly," Vechi said quietly. "I need the Starfish because I am about to make a long journey, a journey which no authority on Mars will permit in the orthodox fashion." He looked tired but oddly relaxed and deeply happy; it was a tantalizing combination.

"You can't get away with it," I said. And I didn't know what he was trying to get away with.

"I think it possible." Vechi looked at Raeburn. Then he looked back at me. I was staring at the Martian. Standing by the door, with folded arms, oblique black eyes and inscrutable features he made the scene more than unreal.

Vechi waited for me to return his glance. He shrugged at Raeburn. "This is the human garbage you can try, and sentence, and imprison. His crime is greed. He wants money. He will sell anything for money. He is a contact man for the Andean Research Society on Earth. And they are curious about diranium. They pay well. When Raeburn is finished they will send someone else, and someone else. Their persistence is as great as their greed. They have no morality. Eventually, they will succeed, I have no doubt."

"You were in it with me!" Raeburn cried. "It was your plan to go to Ul!"

Vechi paid him no attention. "My crime is something else again," he said softly. "If it is a crime."

Vechi, clinging to the hand-grip, was a strangely intense figure in the compartment. I felt that he directed no ill will towards me. That he was even appealing to me in some way.

"Presently, Lasker," he said to me, "you will be able to judge my crime for yourself. It is no easy judgment to make.

"But I have no desire to bare myself before this obscene caricature of man!"

"Rocz!" he said sharply. He inclined his head to Raeburn.

The powerful Martian moved across the compartment. In the pale blue light Raeburn's vast brow glittered with perspiration. His lips twisted back in the ugliness of terror.

It was over as suddenly as his cry. And infinitely less painful. The Martian went back to his position by the door and I discovered that my breathing was normal again; Raeburn was only unconscious.

Vechi slid his gun back in his pocket. What need had he of it? Then he went to the compartment door and slid it open.

I should have known it was coming, but I didn't. I said, later, that I had suspected it, but I hadn't.

She came in. She was gold and violet and seemed to float in a cloud of silk. She was tiny and slender and her oblique dark eyes looked first at Vechi, and then at me. There was in her manner the shyness of deer and the brightness of birds. This, then, was Vechi's treasure. I could blame him for nothing.

I had not noticed Deborah. I was stunned; she was too. She looked like a bewitched child in the presence of a fairy. Who was, of course, Laapet.

The powerful Martian, Rocz, had dropped to one knee at her entrance, shielded his face with one hand, and kept his eyes fixed on us. I marveled at his restraint and the conditioning which kept him from staring with the rest of us. If I had kicked Charley into sensibility at that point our relations today might be better; he has never really forgiven me.

Laapet touched Deborah very gently—so that she came over to me, I rose to my feet and put my arm around Deborah; she was trembling.

"Oh, Steve," she whispered huskily.

Vechi took his eyes from Laapet and looked at us.

"There is something more valuable on Mars than diranium—to me," he said. "You have guessed, of course, at her identity. And you can understand, now, why we must make a long journey to be with each other."

I realized suddenly that we had been duped. That Laapet had used Deborah and me—and our faith in her honesty. It came as a greater shock than I imagined it would. The bubble had burst and these proud, untouchable people had become suspect and ugly with one lie. The disillusionment made me belligerent.

"She is Pundra Doh's wife," I said to Vechi.

"She is Pundra's concubine," Vechi said gently. "She will be my wife."

"And what of her poor children in Ul?"

"They are Pundra's children. Under the system she is a communal mother. They are with their true mother in Ul."

"She lied," I said obstinately. I had been deceived into sympathy. She had used a powerful and terrible weapon and I remembered the ancient proverb, "God deliver us from the lies of honest men."

But Vechi perceived my disillusionment and all of its meaning. "Yes," he said. "It is necessary for others to lie before they can live by our code."

"You can't blame her duplicity on us," I said.

"Only in so far as we are not acceptable to the people who live in truth. And those who would live with us must break into truth. As she has been forced to do—to protect our secret. It has not been easy for her."

"Steve, Steve, can't you see that it must have been terrible for her?" I looked at Deborah.

"Yes, I suppose it must have been. But—how could you have met?"

"It happened three years ago," Vechi told us. "There was an accident in the desert. Laapet's driver had been killed in an explosion in her machine. I came along quite by chance and I helped her. It was not difficult to fall in love with her."

I watched the man unbelievingly. For three years he, too, had practised deceit. He had deliberately permitted rumor to distort his purpose and character and reputation. And during those three years, his frequent and mysterious trips—were they to see Laapet? I asked him.

"No," he said, "I have been building a place of refuge for us. We could not stay here, and where could we be at ease on Earth?"

"And that is why you are taking the Starfish, to make the trip?"

"I am borrowing it," Vechi said. "Rocz and the pilot will return it once we have reached our destination."

Deborah moved within my arm. Her voice was deep with sympathy for them. "They are going to Venus, Steve, with this story. As a gentleman," he went on, "you can respect a trust."

"You have my word," I said. "But what's the good of telling me if you don't want the story told?"

"Some day," he smiled, "it will occur to you that the time has come to tell this story, when people will not be at all interested in its implications. Though they should be."

I did not understand him, then. But I agreed. "And what will you do with us?"

"Send you down in an 'egg.' The space-raft will hold the four of you. Once we are over Faleeng we'll release it."

"And just how will I explain the disappearance of the Starfish?"

"I don't think there will be any trouble," Vechi smiled. "You can tell them you caught Vechi and Raeburn in a diranium conspiracy, that Vechi pulled a double-cross and got away. It will explain the pilots Raeburn slugged back in Marsport, too. It will do for popular consumption; they expect something like this of me anyway."

"You still don't mind being called a rat?" I said.

Vechi drew Laapet closer to him. "No," he said.

"But why did you drag Raeburn in on this?"

"He's my peace offering to the ambassador, and to Pundra. There's a complete file on Raeburn in my office in Marsport. The ambassador and Pundra will arrive at a diplomatic understanding about the rest, I'm sure. It won't get out that I left with Laapet."

A buzzer sounded in the Starfish. "That'll be Faleeng," Vechi said.

Rocz carried Raeburn, and then Charley into the "egg." They were still unconscious.

Before we got in Deborah impulsively took Laapet's hands in hers.

"I hope you make out, Vechi," I said.

Some of the strain shucked off him. "Thanks, pal," he smiled and while I was shaking hands with him I realized I admired him tremendously. But I did not envy him.

When the door to the "egg" had screwed shut, I turned to Deborah. We were almost alone—Charley and Raeburn were beyond reach. I took her in my arms and I kissed her.

"I've caught it, too," I said. "I don't want to live on Venus—but will you set up housekeeping with me someplace less strenuous?"

"Oh, Steve," she whispered in that husky voice that belonged to me as of then, "what else would I rather do?"

She took some more pictures, though, when we finally got to Ul, and I used them. But not the story about Vechi and Laapet. Not until now—now that the Martian diplomat has learned double talk, and his wife pours tea and smiles for the news cameras. They aren't untouchable any more.

Which is the point I like to make, whenever I can. Though Vechi is right—nobody is particularly interested. If anything, they're much more comfortable now that the Martians are—different.

More like us.

And it's our fault.