Part-1
Martha Dane paused, looking up at the purple-tinged copper sky. The wind had since noon, while she had been inside, and the that was the high to the east was now out over Syrtis. The sun, by the haze, was a ball, as large as the sun of Terra, at which she look directly. Tonight, some of that would come from the upper to add another to what had been the city for the last fifty thousand years.
The red over everything, the and the open of park and plaza, the small houses that had been and pressed under it and the that had come from the tall when had in and had outward. Here, where she stood, the were a hundred to a hundred and fifty the surface; the they had in the of the her had opened into the story. She look on the of and sheds, on the brush-grown that had been the when this place had been a on the that was now Syrtis Depression; already, the metal was with red dust. She thought, again, of what this city would mean, in terms of time and labor, of people and and across fifty miles of space. They'd have to use machinery; there was no other way it be done. Bulldozers and power and draglines; they were fast, but they were and indiscriminate. She the around Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, in the Indus Valley, and the careful, patient native laborers—the foremen, the and spademen, the long of away the earth. Slow and as the they were uncovering, yes, but she count on the of one hand the times[Pg 10] one of her had a valuable object in the ground. If it hadn't been for the and native laborer, would still be where Wincklemann had it. But on Mars there was no native labor; the last Martian had died five hundred centuries ago.
Something started like a machine gun, four or five hundred yards to her left. A jack-hammer; Tony Lattimer must have which he wanted to into next. She conscious, then, of the weight of her equipment, and it, shifting the of her oxy-tank pack, the camera from one and the and from the other, the and under her left arm. She started walking the road, over of rubble, around of up out of the loess, past still standing, some of them already and explored, and across the brush-grown to the huts.
There were ten people in the main office room of Hut One when she entered. As soon as she had of her equipment, she a cigarette, her since noon, then looked from one to another of them. Old Selim Ohlmhorst, the Turco-German, one of her two archaeologists, at the end of the long table against the wall, his big pipe and going through a notebook. The girl officer, Sachiko Koremitsu, two at the other end of the table, her over her work. Colonel Hubert Penrose, the Space Force CO, and Captain Field, the officer, to the report of one of the pilots, returned from his survey flight. A of girl from Signals, going over the of the telecast, to be to the Cyrano, on five thousand miles off and from to Terra Lunar. Sid Chamberlain, the Trans-Space News Service man, was with them. Like Selim and herself, he was a civilian; he was the with a white shirt and a sweater. And Major Lindemann, the officer, and one of his assistants, over some plans on a board. She hoped, a of water to wash her hands and off her face, that they were doing something about the pipeline.
She started to the and over to where Selim Ohlmhorst was sitting, and then, as she always did, she and stopped to watch Sachiko. The Japanese girl was what had been a book, fifty thousand years ago; her were by a loup, the black against her black hair, and she was at the page[Pg 11] with a hair-fine wire set in a of copper tubing. Finally, a particle as as a snowflake, she it with tweezers, it on the of plastic on which she was the page, and set it with a of from a little spraygun. It was a to watch her; every movement was as and as though done to music after being a hundred times.
"Hello, Martha. It isn't cocktail-time yet, is it?" The girl at the table spoke without her head, almost without moving her lips, as though she were that the would the in of her.
"No, it's only fifteen-thirty. I my work, over there. I didn't any more books, if that's good news for you."
Sachiko took off the and in her chair, her over her eyes.
"No, I like doing this. I call it micro-jigsaw puzzles. This book, here, is a mess. Selim it open, with some on top of it; the pages were crushed." She briefly. "If only it would something, after I did it."
There be a to that. As she replied, Martha that she was being defensive.
"It will, some day. Look how long it took to read Egyptian hieroglyphics, after they had the Rosetta Stone."
Sachiko smiled. "Yes. I know. But they did have the Rosetta Stone."
"And we don't. There is no Rosetta Stone, not on Mars. A whole race, a whole species, died while the Crò-Magnon cave-artist was pictures of and bison, and across fifty thousand years and fifty miles there was no of understanding.
"We'll one. There must be something, somewhere, that will give us the meaning of a words, and we'll use them to meaning out of more words, and so on. We may not live to learn this language, but we'll make a start, and some day somebody will."
Sachiko took her hands from her eyes, being not to look toward the light, and again. This time Martha was sure that it was not the Japanese of politeness, but the of friendship.
"I so, Martha: I do. It would be for you to be the to do it, and it would be for all of us to be able to read what these people wrote. It would this city to life again." The slowly. "But it so hopeless."
"You haven't any more pictures?"
Sachiko her head. Not that it would have meant much if she had. They had hundreds of pictures with captions; they had[Pg 12] been able to a positive relationship any pictured object and any printed word. Neither of them said anything more, and after a moment Sachiko replaced the and her over the book.
Selim Ohlmhorst looked up from his notebook, taking his pipe out of his mouth.
"Everything finished, over there?" he asked, a of smoke.
"Such as it was." She the and sketches on the table. "Captain Gicquel's started the from the down, with an entrance on the sixth; he'll start in as soon as that's done. I have up where he'll be working."
Colonel Penrose looked up quickly, as though making a note to to something later. Then he returned his attention to the pilot, who was pointing something out on a map.
Von Ohlmhorst nodded. "There wasn't much to it, at that," he agreed. "Do you know which Tony has to enter next?"
"The tall one with the thing like a on top, I think. I him for the over that way."
"Well, I it out to be one that was up to the end."
The last one hadn't. It had been of its and fittings, a piece of this and a of that, haphazardly, over a long period of time, until it had been almost gutted. For centuries, as it had died, this city had been itself by a of auto-cannibalism. She said something to that effect.
"Yes. We always that—except, of course, at places like Pompeii. Have you any of the other Roman in Italy?" he asked. "Minturnae, for instance? First the this to repair that, and then, after they had the city, other people came along and what was left, and the for lime, or them to roads, till there was nothing left but the traces. That's where we are fortunate; this is one of the places where the Martian perished, and there were no to come later and what they had left." He slowly at his pipe. "Some of these days, Martha, we are going to into one of these and that it was one in which the last of these people died. Then we will learn the of the end of this civilization."
And if we learn to read their language, we'll learn the whole story, not just the obituary. She hesitated, not the into words. "We'll that, sometime, Selim," she said, then looked at her watch. "I'm going to some more work done on my lists, dinner."[Pg 13]
For an instant, the old man's in disapproval; he started to say something, of it, and put his pipe into his mouth. The around his mouth and the of his white had been enough, however; she what he was thinking. She was time and effort, he believed; time and not to herself but to the expedition. He be right, too, she realized. But he had to be wrong; there had to be a way to do it. She from him and to her own packing-case seat, at the middle of the table.
Photographs, and of pages of books, and of inscriptions, were in of her, and the in which she was her lists. She sat down, a fresh cigarette, and over to a of material, taking off the top sheet. It was a of what looked like the title page and of some of a periodical. She it; she had it herself, two days before, in a in the of the she had just examining.
She sat for a moment, looking at it. It was readable, in the that she had set up a purely but of for the letters. The long were vowels. There were only ten of them; not too many, for long and sounds. There were twenty of the letters, which meant that like -ng or -ch or -sh were single letters. The were millions to one against her being anything like the original of the language, but she had thousand Martian words, and she all of them.
And that was as as it went. She three and four thousand Martian words, and she couldn't a meaning to one of them. Selim Ohlmhorst that she would. So did Tony Lattimer, and he was a great less about saying so. So, she was sure, did Sachiko Koremitsu. There were times, now and then, when she to be that they were right.
The on the page in of her and dancing, with little consonants. They did that, now, every night in her dreams. And there were other dreams, in which she read them as easily as English; waking, she would try and to remember. She blinked, and looked away from the page; when she looked back, the were themselves again. There were three at the top of the page, over-and-underlined, which to be the Martian method of capitalization. Mastharnorvod Tadavas Sornhulva. She them mentally, through her to see if she had them before,[Pg 14] and in what contexts. All three were listed. In addition, was a common word, and so was norvod, and so was nor, but -vod was a and nothing but a suffix. Davas, was a word, too, and ta- was a common prefix; and were common words. This language, she had long ago decided, must be something like German; when the Martians had needed a new word, they had just a of together. It would turn out to be a horror. Well, they had published magazines, and one of them had been called Mastharnorvod Tadavas Sornhulva. She if it had been something like the Quarterly Archaeological Review, or something more on the order of Sexy Stories.
A smaller line, under the title, was the issue number and date; had been numbered in series to her to identify the and that a of had been used. This was the one thousand and seven hundred and fifty-fourth issue, for Doma, 14837; then Doma must be the name of one of the Martian months. The word had up times before. She herself on her cigarette as she through and of already material.
Sachiko was speaking to somebody, and a chair at the end of the table. She her head, to see a big man with red and a red face, in Space Force green, with the single star of a major on his shoulder, down. Ivan Fitzgerald, the medic. He was from a book to the one the girl officer was restoring.
"Haven't had time, lately," he was saying, in reply to Sachiko's question. "The Finchley girl's still with it is she has, and it's something I haven't been able to yet. And I've been on cultures, and in what time I have, I've been for Bill Chandler. Bill's a mammal. Looks like a lizard, and it's only four long, but it's a warm-blooded, gamogenetic, placental, mammal. Burrows, and to live on what pass for here."
"Is there for anything like that?" Sachiko was asking.
"Seems to be, close to the ground." Fitzgerald got the of his adjusted, and it over his eyes. "He this thing in a on the sea bottom—Ha, this page to be intact; now, if I can it out all in one piece—"
He on talking to himself, the page a little at a time and one of the plastic under it, with minute delicacy. Not the of the Japanese girl's small hands, moving like the of a[Pg 15] cat her face, but like a steam-hammer a peanut. Field a of touch, too, but Martha the pair of them with admiration. Then she to her own work, the table of contents.
The next page was the of the article listed; many of the were unfamiliar. She had the that this must be some of scientific or journal; that be such up the of her own reading. She if it were fiction; the paragraphs had a solid, look.
At length, Ivan Fitzgerald gave a short, grunt.
"Ha! Got it!"
She looked up. He had the page and was another plastic onto it.
"Any pictures?" she asked.
"None on this side. Wait a moment." He the sheet. "None on this side, either." He another of plastic to sandwich the page, then up his pipe and it.
"I fun out of this, and it's good for my hands, so don't think I'm complaining," he said, "but, Martha, do you think anybody's going to anything out of this?"
Sachiko up a of the plastic the Martians had used for paper with her tweezers. It was almost an square.
"Look; three whole on this piece," she crowed. "Ivan, you took the easy book."
Fitzgerald wasn't being sidetracked. "This stuff's meaningless," he continued. "It had a meaning fifty thousand years ago, when it was written, but it has none at all now."
She her head. "Meaning isn't something that with time," she argued. "It has just as much meaning now as it had. We just haven't learned how to it."
"That like a pointless distinction," Selim Ohlmhorst joined the conversation. "There no longer a means of it."
"We'll one." She was speaking, she realized, more in self-encouragement than in controversy.
"How? From pictures and captions? We've pictures, and what have they us? A is to the picture, not the picture to the caption. Suppose some to our a picture of a man with a white and a from a log. He would think the meant, 'Man Sawing Wood.' How would he know that it was 'Wilhelm II in Exile at Doorn?'"
Sachiko had taken off her and was a cigarette.
"I can think of pictures to their captions," she said. "These picture language-books, the we use in the Service—little[Pg 16] line drawings, with a word or phrase under them."
"Well, of course, if we something like that," Ohlmhorst began.
"Michael Ventris something like that, in the Fifties," Hubert Penrose's voice in from directly her.
She her head. The was by the archaeologists' table; Captain Field and the pilot had gone out.
"He a of Greek of stores," Penrose continued. "They were in Cretan Linear B script, and at the of each list was a little picture, a or a or a cooking or a wheel. That's what gave him the key to the script."
"Colonel's to be an archaeologist," Fitzgerald commented. "We're all learning each others' specialties, on this expedition."
"I about that long this was contemplated." Penrose was a cigarette on his gold case. "I about that the Thirty Days' War, at Intelligence School, when I was a lieutenant. As a of cryptanalysis, not an discovery."
"Yes, cryptanalysis," Ohlmhorst pounced. "The reading of a language in an unknown of writing. Ventris' were in the language, Greek. Neither he else read a word of the Cretan language until the of the Greek-Cretan in 1963, only with a text, one language already known, can an unknown language be learned. And what hope, I ask you, have we of anything like that here? Martha, you've been on these Martian texts since we here—for the last six months. Tell me, have you a single word to which you can positively a meaning?"
"Yes, I think I have one." She was trying hard not to too exultant. "Doma. It's the name of one of the months of the Martian calendar."
"Where did you that?" Ohlmhorst asked. "And how did you establish—?"
"Here." She up the and it along the table to him. "I'd call this the title page of a magazine."
He was for a moment, looking at it. "Yes. I would say so, too. Have you any of the of it?"
"I'm on the page of the article, there. Wait till I see; yes, here's all I found, together, here." She told him where she had it. "I just it up, at the time, and gave it to Geoffrey and Rosita to photostat; this is the I've it."
The old man got to his feet, tobacco from the of his jacket, and came to where she was sitting, the title page on the table and leafing[Pg 17] through the of photostats.
"Yes, and here is the second article, on page eight, and here's the next one." He the of photostats. "A of pages missing at the end of the last article. This is remarkable; that a thing like a magazine would have so long."
"Well, this the Martians used for paper is durable," Hubert Penrose said. "There doesn't to have been any water or any other in it originally, so it wouldn't out with time."
"Oh, it's not that the material would have survived. We've a good many books and papers in excellent condition. But only a culture, an culture, will magazines, and this had been for hundreds of years the end. It might have been a thousand years the time they died out that such as ended."
"Well, look where I it; in a in a cellar. Tossed in there and forgotten, and then ignored[Pg 18] when they were the building. Things like that happen."
Penrose had up the title page and was looking at it.
"I don't think there's any about this being a magazine, at all." He looked again at the title, his moving silently. "Mastharnorvod Tadavas Sornhulva. Wonder what it means. But you're right about the date—Doma to be the name of a month. Yes, you have a word, Dr. Dane."
Sid Chamberlain, that something was going on, had come over from the table at which he was working. After the title page and some of the pages, he into the he had taken from his belt.
"Don't try to this up to anything big, Sid," she cautioned. "All we have is the name of a month, and Lord only how long it'll be till we out which month it was."
"Well, it's a start, isn't it?" Penrose argued. "Grotefend only had the word for 'king' when he started reading Persian cuneiform."
"But I don't have the word for month; just the name of a month. Everybody the names of the Persian kings, long Grotefend."
"That's not the story," Chamberlain said. "What the public on Terra will be in is out that the Martians published magazines, just like we do. Something familiar; make the Martians more real. More human."
Three men had come in, and were their and and oxy-tanks, and out of their coveralls. Two were Space Force lieutenants; the third was a with close-cropped hair, in a shirt. Tony Lattimer and his helpers.
"Don't tell me Martha got something out of that stuff?" he asked, the table. He might have been on the of the village half-wit, from his tone.
"Yes; the name of one of the Martian months." Hubert Penrose on to explain, the photostat.
Tony Lattimer took it, at it, and it on the table.
"Sounds plausible, of course, but just an assumption. That word may not be the name of a month, at all—could 'published' or 'authorized' or 'copyrighted' or anything like that. Fact is, I don't think it's more than a wild that that thing's anything like a periodical." He the and to Penrose. "I out the next to enter; that tall one with the thing on top. It ought to be in good shape inside; the top wouldn't allow to accumulate, and from the nothing to be in or crushed. Ground level's higher than the other one, about the seventh[Pg 19] floor. I a good place and for the shots; tomorrow I'll blast a in it, and if you can some people to help, we can start it right away."
"Yes, of course, Dr. Lattimer. I can about a dozen, and I you can a volunteers," Penrose told him. "What will you need in the way of equipment?"
"Oh, about six demolition-packets; they can all be together. And the thing in the way of lights, and and tools, and in case we into or stairways. We'll into two parties. Nothing ought to be entered for the time without a along. Three parties, if Martha can tear herself away from this of she's making long to do some work."
She her and her stiff. She was pressing her together to lock in a when Hubert Penrose answered for her.
"Dr. Dane's been doing as much work, and as work, as you have," he said brusquely. "More work, I'd be to say."
Von Ohlmhorst was visibly distressed; he once toward Sid Chamberlain, then looked away from him. Afraid of a of among out.
"Working out a of by which the Martian language be was a most contribution," he said. "And Martha did that almost unassisted."
"Unassisted by Dr. Lattimer, anyway," Penrose added. "Captain Field and Lieutenant Koremitsu did some work, and I helped out a little, but nine-tenths of it she did herself."
"Purely arbitrary," Lattimer disdained. "Why, we don't know that the Martians make the same of we do."
"Oh, yes, we do," Ivan Fitzgerald contradicted, safe on his own ground. "I haven't any Martian skulls—these people to have been very tidy about of their dead—but from and and pictures I've seen. I'd say that their organs were with our own."
"Well, that. And that it's going to be to off the names of Martian we find, and that if we're able to any placenames, they'll a than this horse-doctors' Latin the old all over the map of Mars," Lattimer said. "What I object to is her time on this stuff, of which nobody will be able to read a word if she around with those till there's another hundred of on this city, when there's so much work to be done and we're as as we are."[Pg 20]
That was the time that had come out in just so many words. She was Lattimer had said it and not Selim Ohlmhorst.
"What you mean," she retorted, "is that it doesn't have the value that up has."
For an instant, she see that the had scored. Then Lattimer, with a at Chamberlain, answered:
"What I is that you're trying to something that any archaeologist, included, should know doesn't exist. I don't object to your your professional and making a laughing stock of yourself; what I object to is that the of one the whole in the of the public."
That to be what Lattimer most. She was a reply when the communication-outlet shrilly, and then squawked: "Cocktail time! One hour to dinner; in the library, Hut Four!"
The library, which was also lounge, room, and gathering-place, was already crowded; most of the was at the long table with of plastic that had been panels out of one of the buildings. She herself what passed, here, for a martini, and it over to where Selim Ohlmhorst was alone.
For a while, they talked about the they had just exploring, then into of their work on Terra—von Ohlmhorst's in Asia Minor, with the Hittite Empire, and hers in Pakistan, the of the Harappa Civilization. They their drinks—the were plentiful; and from Martian vegetation—and Ohlmhorst took the two to the table for refills.
"You know, Martha," he said, when he returned, "Tony was right about one thing. You are your professional and reputation. It's against all that a language so as this one be deciphered. There was a all the other languages—by Greek, Champollion learned to read Egyptian; by Egyptian, Hittite was learned. That's why you and your have been able to the Harappa hieroglyphics; no such there. If you that this language can be read, your will for it."
"I Colonel Penrose say, once, that an officer who's to his makes much of a reputation. It's the same with us. If we want to out, we have to making mistakes. And I'm a more in out than I am in my reputation."
She across the room, to where Tony Lattimer was sitting[Pg 21] with Gloria Standish, talking earnestly, while Gloria one of the and listened. Gloria was the leading for the title of Miss Mars, 1996, if you liked big blondes, but Tony would have been just as to her if she'd looked like the Wicked Witch in "The Wizard of Oz." Gloria was the Pan-Federation Telecast System with the expedition.
"I know you are," the old Turco-German was saying. "That's why, when they asked me to name another for this expedition, I named you."
He hadn't named Tony Lattimer; Lattimer had been pushed onto the by his university. There'd been a of high-level string-pulling to that; she she the whole story. She'd managed to keep clear of and politics; all her had been by non-academic or art museums.
"You have an excellent standing: much than my own, at your age. That's why it me to see you it by this that the Martian language can be translated. I can't, really, see how you can to succeed."
She and some more of her cocktail, then another cigarette. It was to try to something she only felt.
"Neither do I, now, but I will. Maybe I'll something like the picture-books Sachiko was talking about. A child's primer, maybe; surely they had like that. And if I don't. I'll something else. We've only been here six months. I can wait the of my life, if I have to, but I'll do it sometime."
"I can't wait so long," Ohlmhorst said. "The of my life will only be a years, and when the Schiaparelli in, I'll be going to Terra on the Cyrano."
"I wish you wouldn't. This is a whole new world of archaeology. Literally."
"Yes." He the and looked at his pipe as though to re-light it so soon dinner, then put it in his pocket. "A whole new world—but I've old, and it isn't for me. I've my life studying the Hittites. I can speak the Hittite language, though maybe King Muwatallis wouldn't be able to my modern Turkish accent. But the I'd have to learn here—chemistry, physics, engineering, how to on and beryllo-silver and and silicones. I'm more at home with a that in and with and was just learning how to work iron. Mars is for people. This is a of leadership—not only the Space Force people, who'll be the of the main expedition, but us scientists, too. And I'm just an old who can't learn to and[Pg 22] aircraft. You'll have time to learn about Mars. I won't."
His as the of Hittitologists was solid and secure, too, she added mentally. Then she of the thought. He wasn't to be with Tony Lattimer.
"All I came for was to the work started," he was continuing. "The Federation Government that an old hand should do that. Well, it's started, now; you and Tony and come out on the Schiaparelli must it on. You said it, yourself; you have a whole new world. This is only one city, of the last Martian civilization. Behind this, you have the Late Upland Culture, and the Canal Builders, and all the and and them, clear to the Martian Stone Age." He for a moment. "You have no idea what all you have to learn, Martha. This isn't the time to start too narrowly."
