Old Mars Read online

  When the owners of the John Carter hired a basketball star to masquerade as a shatan, they were trying to find someone who might pass as a Martian aborigine. Tito Jones was the best they could get, but he wasn’t quite right. The shatan standing before us were taller; their skin was as dark as the sky at midnight, their long, silky hair the color of rust, yet their faces had fine-boned features reminiscent of someone of northern European descent. They were swathed in dusty, off-white robes that made them look vaguely Bedouin, and the hands that gripped their spears were larger than a human’s, with long-nailed fingers and tendons that stood out from wrists.

  Unblinking golden eyes studied us as we approached. When we’d come close enough, both warriors firmly planted their spears on the ground before us. I told Dr. al-Baz to stop, but I didn’t have to remind him not to look away from them. He stared at the shatan with awestruck curiosity, a scientist observing his subject up close for the first time.

  I raised both hands, palms out, and said, “Issah tas sobbata shatan” (Greetings, honored shatan warriors). “Seyta nashatan habbalah sa shatan heysa” (Please allow us human travelers to enter your land).

  The warrior on the left replied, “Katas nashatan Hamsey. Sakey shatan habbalah fah?” (We know you, human Ramsey. Why have you returned to our land?)

  I wasn’t surprised to have been recognized. Only a handful of humans spoke their language—albeit not very well; I probably sounded like a child to them—or knew the way to their village. I may not have met these particular warriors before, but they’d doubtless heard of me. And I tried not to smile at the mispronunciation of my name; the shatan have trouble rolling the “r” sound off their tongues.

  “(I’ve brought a guest who wishes to learn more about your people),” I replied, still speaking the local dialect. I extended a hand toward the professor. “(Allow me to introduce you to Omar al-Baz. He is a wise man in search of knowledge.)” I avoided calling him “doctor”; that word has a specific meaning in their language, as someone who practices medicine.

  “(Humans don’t want to know anything about us. All they want to do is take what doesn’t belong to them and ruin it.)”

  I shook my head; oddly, that particular gesture means the same thing for both shatan and nashatan. “(This is not true. Many of my people do, yes, but not all. On his own world, al-Baz is a teacher. Whatever he learns from you, he will tell us students, and therefore increase their knowledge of your people.)”

  “What are you saying?” Dr. al-Baz whispered. “I recognize my name, but …”

  “Hush. Let me finish.” I continued speaking the native tongue. “(Will you please escort us to your village? My companion wishes to beg a favor of your chieftain.)”

  The other warrior stepped forward, walking toward the professor until he stood directly before him. The shatan towered above Dr. al-Baz; everything about him was menacing, yet the professor held his ground, saying nothing but continuing to look the shatan straight in the eye. The warrior silently regarded him for several long moments, then looked at me.

  “(What does he want from our chieftain? Tell us, and we will decide whether we will allow you to enter our village.)”

  I hesitated, then shook my head again. “(No. His question is for the chieftain alone.)”

  I was taking a gamble. Refusing a demand from a shatan warrior guarding his homeland was not a great way to make friends. But it was entirely possible that the warriors would misunderstand me if I told them that Dr. al-Baz wanted to take some of their blood; they might think his intent was hostile. The best thing to do was have the professor ask the chieftain directly for permission to take a blood sample from one of his people.

  The shatan stared at us for a moment without saying anything, then turned away and walked off a few feet to quietly confer with each other. “What’s going on?” the professor asked, keeping his voice low. “What did you tell them?”

  I gave him the gist of the conversation, including the risky thing I’d just said. “I figure it can go one of three ways. One, they kick the matter upstairs to the chieftain, which means that you get your wish if you play your cards right. Two, they tell us to get lost. If that happens, we turn around and go home, and that’s that.”

  “Unacceptable. I’ve come too far to go away empty-handed. What’s the third option?”

  “They impale us with their spears, wait for us to die, then chop up our bodies and scatter our remains for the animals to find.” I let that sink in. “Except our heads,” I added. “Someone will carry those back to the city in the middle of the night, where they’ll dump them on the doorstep of the nearest available house.”

  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  I didn’t. The professor was scared enough already, and he didn’t need any stories about what had happened to explorers who’d crossed the line with the shatan, or the occasional fool stupid enough to venture onto aboriginal territory without someone like me escorting them. I hadn’t exaggerated anything, though, and he seemed to realize that, for he simply nodded and looked away.

  The shatan finished their discussion. Not looking at us, they walked back to their hattases and climbed atop them again. For a moment, I thought that they were taking the second option, but then they guided their mounts toward Dr. al-Baz and me.

  “Hessah,” one of them said (Come with us).

  I let out my breath. We were going to meet the village chieftain.

  The village was different from the last time I’d seen it. Since the shatan became nomads, their settlements are usually tent cities, which can be taken down, packed up, and relocated when necessary. This one had been there for quite a while, though; apparently the inhabitants had decided that they’d stay at the oasis for some time to come. Low, flat-roofed adobe buildings had taken the place of many of the tents, and scaffolds surrounded a stone wall being built to enclose them. But if the place had a name, I wasn’t aware of it.

  Dr. al-Baz and I were footsore and tired by the time we reached the village. As expected, the warriors had insisted that we leave the jeep behind, although they allowed us to retrieve our packs. They’d slowly ridden abreast of us all the way, only reluctantly letting us stop now and then to rest. Neither of them had spoken a word since we’d left the bridge, but when we were within sight of the settlement, one of them raised a whorled shell that looked like a giant ammonite. A long, loud blast from his horn was answered a few seconds later by a similar call from the village. The professor and I exchanged a wary glance. Too late to turn around now; the inhabitants knew we were coming.

  The village seemed empty as we entered through a half-built gate and walked down packed-dirt streets. No one to be seen, and the only things that moved were hattases tied up to hitching posts. The tent flaps were closed, though, and the narrow windows of the adobe houses were shuttered. No, the place wasn’t deserted; it was just that the people who lived there had gone into hiding. The silence was eerie, and even more unsettling than the spears our escorts pointed at our backs.

  The village center was a courtyard surrounding an artesian well, with a large adobe building dominating one side of the square. The only shatan we’d seen since our arrival peered down at us from a wooden tower atop the building. He waited until we’d reached the building, then raised an ammonite horn of his own and blew a short blast. The warriors halted their hattases, dismounted, and silently beckoned for us to follow them. One of them pushed aside the woven blanket that served as the building’s only door, and the other warrior led us inside.

  The room was dim, its sole illumination a shaft of sunlight slanting down through a hole in the ceiling. The air was thick with musky incense that drifted in hazy layers through the light and made my eyes water. Robed shatan stood around the room, their faces hidden by hoods they’d pulled up around their heads; I knew none of them were female because their women were always kept out of sight when visitors arrived. The only sound was the slow, constant drip of a water clock, with each drop announcing the passage of two m
ore seconds.

  The chieftain sat in the middle of the room. Long-fingered hands rested upon the armrests of his sandstone throne; golden eyes regarded us between strands of hair turned white with age. He wore nothing to indicate his position as the tribal leader save an implacable air of authority, and he let us know that he was the boss by silently raising both hands, then slowly lowering them once we’d halted and saying nothing for a full minute.

  At last he spoke. “Essha shakay Hamsey?” (Why are you here, Ramsey?)

  I didn’t think I’d ever met him before, but obviously he recognized me. Good. That would make things a little easier. I responded in his own language. “(I bring someone who wants to learn more about your people. He is a wise man from Earth, a teacher of others who wish to become wise themselves. He desires to ask a favor from you.)”

  The chieftain turned his gaze from me to Dr. al-Baz. “(What do you want?)”

  I looked at the professor. “Okay, you’re on. He wants to know what you want. I’ll translate for you. Just be careful … they’re easily offended.”

  “So it seems.” Dr. al-Baz was nervous, but he was hiding it well. He licked his lips and thought about it a moment, then went on. “Tell him … tell him that I would like to collect a small sample of blood from one of his people. A few drops will do. I wish to have this because I want to know … I mean, because I’d like to find out … whether his people and mine have common ancestors.”

  That seemed to be a respectful way of stating what he wanted, so I turned to the chief and reiterated what he’d said. The only problem was that I didn’t know the aboriginal word for “blood.” It had simply never come up in any previous conversations I’d had with the shatan. So I had to generalize a bit, calling it “the liquid that runs within our bodies” while pantomiming a vein running down the inside of my right arm, and hoped that he’d understand what I meant.

  He did, all right. He regarded me with cold disbelief, golden eyes flashing, thin lips writhing upon an otherwise stoical face. Around us, I heard the other shatan murmuring to one another. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but it didn’t sound like they were very happy either.

  We were in trouble.

  “(Who dares say that shatan and nashatan have the same ancestors?),” he snapped, hands curling into fists as he leaned forward from his throne. “(Who dares believe that your people and mine are alike in any way?)”

  I repeated what he’d said to Dr. al-Baz. The professor hesitated, then looked straight at the chieftain. “Tell him that no one believes these things,” he said, his tone calm and deliberate. “It is only an hypothesis … an educated guess … that I want to either prove or disprove. That’s why I need a blood sample, to discover the truth.”

  I took a deep breath, hoped that I was going to get out of there alive, then translated the professor’s explanation. The chieftain continued to glare at us as I spoke, but he seemed to calm down a little. For several long seconds, he said nothing. And then he reached a decision.

  Reaching into his robes, he withdrew a bone dagger from a sheath on his belt. My heart skipped a beat as the light fell upon its sharp white blade, and when he stood up and walked toward us, I thought my life had come to an end. But then he stopped in front of Dr. al-Baz and, still staring straight at him, raised his left hand, placed the knife against his palm, and ran its blade down his skin.

  “(Take my blood),” he said, holding out his hand.

  I didn’t need to translate what he’d said. Dr. al-Baz quickly dropped his backpack from his shoulders and opened it. He withdrew a syringe, thought better of it, and pulled out a plastic test tube instead. The chieftain clenched his fist and let the blood trickle between his fingers, and the professor caught it in his test tube. Once he’d collected the specimen, he pulled out a tiny vial and added a couple of drops of anticoagulant. Then he capped the tube and nodded to the chieftain.

  “Tell him that I greatly appreciate his kindness,” he said, “and that I will return to tell him what I have found.”

  “Like hell we will!”

  “Tell him.” His eyes never left the chieftain’s. “One way or another, he deserves to know the truth.”

  Promising the chieftain that we intended to return was the last thing I wanted to do, but I did it anyway. He didn’t respond for a moment, but simply dropped his hand, allowing his blood to trickle to the floor.

  “(Yes),” he said at last. “(Come back and tell me what you’ve learned. I wish to know as well.)” And then he turned his back to us and walked back to his chair. “(Now leave.)”

  “Okay,” I whispered, feeling my heart hammering against my chest. “You got what you came for. Now let’s get out of here while we still have our heads.”

  Two days later, I was sitting in the casino bar at the John Carter, putting away tequila sunrises and occasionally dropping a coin into the video poker machine in front of me. I’d discovered that I didn’t mind the place so long as I kept my back turned to everything going on around me, and I could drink for free if I slipped a quarter into the slots every now and then. At least that’s what I told myself. The fact of the matter was that there was a certain sense of security in the casino’s tawdry surroundings. This Mars was a fantasy, to be sure, but just then it was preferable to the unsettling reality I’d visited a couple of days earlier.

  Omar al-Baz was upstairs, using the equipment he’d brought with him to analyze the chieftain’s blood. We’d gone straight to the hotel upon returning to the city, but when it became obvious that it would take a while for the professor to work his particular kind of magic, I decided to go downstairs and get a drink. Perhaps I should have gone home, but I was still keyed up from the long ride back, so I gave Dr. al-Baz my cell number and asked him to call me if and when he learned anything.

  I was surprised that I stuck around. Usually, when I return from a trip into the outback, all I really want to do is get out of the clothes I’d been wearing for days on end, open a beer, and take a nice, long soak in the bathtub. Instead, there I was, putting away one cocktail after another while demonstrating that I knew absolutely nothing about poker. The bartender was studying me, and the waitresses were doing their best to stay upwind, but I couldn’t have cared less about what they thought. They were make-believe Martians, utterly harmless. The ones I’d met a little while ago would have killed me just for looking at them cross-eyed.

  In all the years that I’d been going out in the wilderness, this was the first time I’d ever been really and truly scared. Not by the desert, but by those who lived there. No shatan had ever threatened me, not even in an implicit way, until the moment the chieftain pulled out a knife and creased the palm of his hand with its blade. Sure, he’d done so to give Dr. al-Baz a little of his blood, but there was another meaning to his actions.

  It was a warning … and the shatan don’t give warnings lightly.

  That was why I was doing my best to get drunk. The professor was too excited to think of anything except the specimen he’d just collected—all the way home, he’d babbled about nothing else—but I knew that we’d come within an inch of dying and that ours would have been a really nasty death.

  Yet the chieftain had given his blood of his own free will, and even asked that we return once the professor learned the truth. That puzzled me. Why would he be interested in the results if the thought of being related to a human was so appalling?

  I threw away another quarter, pushed the buttons, and watched the machine tell me that I’d lost again, then looked around to see if I could flag down a princess and get her to fetch another sunrise. Dejah or Thuvia or Xaxa or whoever she was had apparently gone on break, though, because she was nowhere to be seen; I was about to try my luck again when something caught my eye. The TV above the bar was showing the evening news, and the weatherman was standing in front of his map. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he was pointing at an animated cloud system west of Rio Zephyria that was moving across the desert toward the Laestrygon can
al.

  It appeared that a sandstorm was brewing in Mesogaea, the drylands adjacent to the Zephyria region. This sort of weather isn’t uncommon in the summer; we call them haboobs, the Arabic name for sandstorms on Earth that somehow found their way to Mars. From the looks of things, it would reach the Zephyria outback sometime tomorrow afternoon. Good thing I’d come home; the last thing anyone would want is to be caught out in the desert during a bad storm.

  A waitress strolled by, adjusting a strap of her costume bikini top. I raised my glass and silently jiggled it back and forth, and she feigned a smile as she nodded and headed for the bar. I was searching my pockets for another quarter so that she’d see that I was still pretending to be a gambler, when my cell buzzed.

  “Jim? Are you still here?”

  “In the bar, professor. Come down and have a drink with me.”

  “No! No time for that! Come upstairs right away! I need to see you!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just come up here! It’s better if I show you!”

  Dr. al-Baz opened the door at the first knock. Spotting the cocktail glass in my hand, he snatched it from me and drained it in one gulp. “Good heavens,” he gasped, “I needed that!”

  “Want me to get you another one?”

  “No … but you can buy me a drink when I get to Stockholm.” I didn’t understand what he meant, but before I could ask he pulled me into the room. “Look!” he said, pointing to one of the computers set up on the bar. “This is incredible!”

  I walked over to the bar, peered at the screen. Displayed upon it were rows of A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s, arranged in a seemingly endless series of combinations, with smears that looked a little like dashes running in a vertical bar down the right side of the screen. A five-line cluster of combinations and smears was highlighted in yellow.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Professor, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to …”

  “You have no idea what you’re looking at, do you?” he asked, and I shook my head. “This is the human genome … the genetic code present in every human being. And these”—his hand trembled as he pointed to the highlighted cluster—“are strands that are identical to the partially sequenced genome from the aborigine specimen.”