I laughed, alone with my thoughts. Nothing dared, nothing gained. What does a man gain by striking bargains with the mouse in himself?
I awoke in the cool dawn. The morning mists had rolled back and the red desert looked almost beautiful in the sun-glow.
Steve was sitting up, staring at the mirror. The light shifted suddenly, and I could see the radiance which smouldered in the depths of the glass.
I got up, walked to the wall and peered over Steve’s shoulder. The girl was looking at him, her face so beautiful it fairly took my breath away. It was as though after a lifetime of wandering she’d found the only man in the world for her.
Her face was bright with sympathy, with compassion for Steve. But Steve sat slumped in utter dejection, his eyes burning holes in his face. He didn’t even look up when I spoke to him.
“She knows, Tom,” he whispered, hoarsely. “She turned pale when that bullet hit me. She was relieved when you dressed the wound. She’s been watching over me all night, like an angel of mercy.”
“You’ll need her more and more,” I said. “You know what the end will be, Steve. Complete hopelessness in an empty room.”
He stood up, his face savage.
“I never asked your advice,” he ground out. “I’m not asking it now.”
“I’ve got to save you, Steve,” I said.
“I love her, do you hear? I don’t care what happens to me!”
I picked up the mirror before he could guess my purpose. I swung about and I brought that rare and beautiful object down on the rock Steve had been sitting on.
There was a splintering crash, a crackling burst of white flame.
Steve gave a great despairing cry. He stood for an instant staring down at the shattered fragments of the mirror. Then he came at me like a charging bull, his eyes bloodshot.
I clipped him lightly on the jaw.
“That’s all I wanted to know, Steve,” I said. “Thanks, pal.”
I looked down at him, lying in a crumpled heap at my feet.
I was glad he hadn’t fallen on his wounded side. He was plenty sturdy, and he came from a long-lived family, and I didn’t think a little clip on the jaw could hurt him. I hoped he’d forgive me when he woke up. That was important, because I thought a lot of Steve.
When you’ve been to Mars, when you’ve fought your way through the red and raging dust storms, and labored beneath the naked glare of the sun, and juggled with men and ships and supplies like some tremendous Herculean figure in the morning of the world, you’ll never really feel at home on Earth. You’ll see the world of ordinary men and women as a vision of Lilliput, too small to be measurable in terms of human worth. You’ll be lost and helpless, blind and staggering beneath the weight of a memory you can’t throw off. A memory of bigness, too much bigness, integrated into your every fiber, as much a part of you as the beating of your heart.
You’ll lurch and overreach yourself, you’ll never feel at home on Earth, never really at home. You’ll find a way to come back to Mars.
I smiled down at Steve.
So Steve had come back to go prospecting, like an ordinary greed-driven man, and only I knew he was one of the scant dozen great constructive geniuses who had made possible man’s conquest of space.
He was an engineer, a physicist and—a man in need of a partner. So I’d just stepped up and introduced myself. Tom Gierson, who knew every square foot of Mars. For my purpose one Earth name was as good as another, and Tom Gierson had a sturdy ring.
Hard-bitten Tom Gierson, bronzed by the harsh Martian sunlight, as much at home in the desert as the sturdy little spiked plants that thrust their way up through the parched soil when the spring begins to break.
Steve’s finest achievement was years in the past, but he was a young man still, with a young man’s need of a woman as great as himself to share every moment of his waking life. That woman was waiting for him, but I had to be sure that he’d really go berserk if I smashed the glass.
I was sure now.
I raised my arm, and out of the ruins the Martians came.
Steady hands lifted Steve up, and a hushed silence ringed Steve round.
“Azala,” I said. “Where is she—”
Then I saw her. She was advancing straight toward me through the glare of sunset on desert sand, a shining eagerness in her eyes. The girl of the mirror, young and straight and alive, her hair the color of red sand and sunset glow, her eyes twin dark stars.
She paused before me and raised her eyes in questioning wonder.
“Go to him,” I said. “He will never love another woman. I can promise you that.”
She ran to Steve with a little glad cry and fell to her knees beside him. I wanted to break through the circle and slap Steve on the back, and wish him all the happiness on Mars. The first Earthian to wed a Martian, and it was tremendous, and I wanted to tell Steve—
But how could I tell him that Martians had numerous ways of watching Earthians, the very best being mirrors which were really two-way televisual instruments. How could I tell him that the alert Martian women had all been trained to watch and observe Earthians day and night? And all the while the Earthians thought they were carrying about with them, in beautiful jeweled artifacts of a dead culture, the living images of their heart’s desire!
Steve was awake now and sitting up straight, and the image was warm and alive in his arms. But how could I make Steve understand? I had a wild impulse to say: “I’d change places with you if I could, Steve. She’s just about the cutest kid I know.”
You get to thinking that way when you’ve mingled with Earthians around
