at all—because what drew my attention, and the attention of everything else in our little drama, was the open mouthful of long, curved teeth.
“Daddy!” my daughter screamed, churning her arms as fast as she could.
“Mellie!” I yelled back, trying to propel myself towards her.
But it was Aroostook who interposed itself between the monster and my teenaged girl—and then the thing was gone!
When I regained my breath again (underwater, no less!), I asked Big Guy: “What was that?”
It swiveled its gray lump of a head back in my direction, and raised two of its tentacles toward me. I drifted into them in spite of myself, and the Martian placed the tips of its feelers on both sides of my brain.
I had then the flash of an impression: that was the enemy, and that was what we should be fighting together—and not each other.
But the alien’s thought or communication or whatever it was so overwhelmed my senses that I struggled once again towards the surface, trying to regain my equilibrium.
“Ahhhh!” I screamed, and I know I did so out loud.
And then I awoke.
Someone was sitting right next to the bed. I could feel the touch of the individual’s hand on one arm.
“Who…?”
I abruptly sat up and found myself face to face with Madame Stavroula.
“You!”
I jerked my limb back and tucked it under the cover.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
She said nothing for a very long time. Her face had gone completely white.
“I…I had no idea,” she finally said. “I really had no idea at all.”
Then she grabbed me by both arms and looked straight into my eyes.
“They want to assimilate us, Alex! While he was reading you, I was reading him! They want to make us part of them! That’s what this is all about! My God, they, they….”
I again pulled myself away from her.
“It was just a dream,” I said, “just like all the dreams we’ve had, just like all the communications we’ve had, Nomsah. You can’t interpret them straightforwardly. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. They don’t think like us. You can’t apply human standards to Martian norms.”
She shook her head “no.”
“I could see them, Alex, I could see him! They want us as part of them, so they can use our strength to conquer some other race out there. They want to make us one with their collective. It would mean the end of man. The General has to know: they want to destroy us!”
Then she quickly got up and ran into the corridor, swishing the entrance veil as she went.
“Wait!” I said, but she was gone by the time I could follow her.
My com rang, shocking me with its buzz.
I answered it absentmindedly.
“Daddy!” Mellie said.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine, Daddy. I had the dream too. Don’t worry. Big Guy knows what it’s doing.”
“I wish I did,” I said. “Is your mother there?”
When Becky came on the line, I explained to her what had happened.
“Do you think she’s right, Alex?” my wife asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve been wrong so many times in the past about the aliens that I’m hesitant to say yea or nay about anything they do. But…I do trust Big Guy. I’ve felt all along that there’s no meanness in its nature, that it will do us no deliberate harm. It certainly has had its opportunities in the past. The rest of them…well, who knows?”
“You take care,” she said. “I’ll be thinking of you tomorrow.”
“It’s tomorrow already,” I said, glancing at the chronometer, which had just moved past midnight. “I need to get back to sleep, if I can. I love you and I love Mellie and Buddy with all my heart.”
“I love you too, Alex.”
“Sleep well, Daddy!” came Mellie’s voice from a distance.
And so I did.
CHAPTER TWO
SQUIDS “R” US
Our disputants put me in mind of the skuttle fish,
That when he is unable to extricate himself,
Blackens all the water about him,
Till he becomes invisible.
—Joseph Addison
Alex Smith, 2 Bi-October, Mars Year viii
Isis Station, Planet Mars
“No!” I screamed at General Burgess. “You can’t do that!”
“I would remind you, Dr. Smith,” the officer said, “that I’m the Military Governor of Mars, and I can take whatever action that I deem necessary to preserve our colony—not to mention mankind.”
“If you attack the Martians again, sir, they will respond in kind,” I said, “and they’ve always been able to block our initiatives in the past, usually in ways that we haven’t even considered.”
“The new weapons arriving with the fleet next week will give us an advantage that we’ve never had before. I feel that we have to take it, particularly in light of the new information provided by Ms. Vassilidis.”
“With all respect, sir, that so-called ‘information’ is based on fleeting mental impressions gleaned with a brief encounter with just one individual among the aliens. I know from my own interaction with these creatures that they think very differently than we do. Trying to interpret their thoughts like ours, or trying to put together an integrated picture of their plans or notions from just a few dots and lines is simply not possible, in my estimation.”
“Would you agree that the Martian you call ‘Big Guy’ is one of their leaders?”
“No, General. I couldn’t even tell you if they have leaders. Aroostook’s been the primary contact that I’ve had over the past two years, but that may just be because they want to limit such encounters to a relatively few individuals on both sides. And they don’t see the ‘individual’ as individual, if you know what I mean. They’re a telepathic race: they act and think collectively.”
“Which makes Ms. Vassilidis’s conclusions that much more valid, in my opinion.”
I started to object again, but he held up his right hand.
“We obviously need a break. I suggest we get some lunch, ladies and gentlemen, and return here at one.”
I was getting a headache from knocking heads with the bureaucratic mind, so I headed off to the cafeteria, where I drowned my sorrows in a bowl of vegetable soup and a fresh salad. I’d deliberately found myself a niche in one corner, near a viewscreen constantly displaying a live picture of the terrain outside. The Seabees were still working on new abodes for the settlers expected to arrive in the next month, and I found their to-ings and fro-ings somewhat soothing.
Suddenly Zee appeared and handed me a small, ripe blood orange.
“N-new,” he said.
I looked at the fruit in wonder: I hadn’t seen anything like it since leaving Earth, and it seemed like manna from heaven.
“How?” I asked.
“G-grow. G-good s-s-soil.”
“Thank you, Zee.”
But