Part-4
Ivan Fitzgerald the that had the Finchley girl's illness. Shortly afterward, the into a mild fever, from which she recovered. Nobody else to have it. Fitzgerald was still trying to out how the had been transmitted.
They a of Mars, when the city had been a seaport. They the city, and learned that its name had been Kukan—or something with a vowel-consonant ratio. Immediately, Sid Chamberlain and Gloria Standish their a Kukan dateline, and Hubert Penrose used[Pg 37] the name in his official reports. They also a Martian calendar; the year had been into ten more or less equal months, and one of them had been Doma. Another month was Nor, and that was a part of the name of the scientific Martha had found.
Bill Chandler, the zoologist, had been going and into the old sea of Syrtis. Four hundred miles from Kukan, and at fifteen thousand altitude, he a bird. At least, it was a something with and what were almost but not feathers, though it was more than in characteristics. He and Ivan Fitzgerald and it, and then the almost by tissue. About seven-eighths of its was lungs; it air at least to support life, or five times as much as the air around Kukan.
That took the center of away from archaeology, and started a new of activity. All the expedition's aircraft—four and three fighters—were into of the sea bottoms, and the bio-science boys and girls were wild with and making new on each flight.
The University was left to Selim and Martha and Tony Lattimer, the to himself while she and the old Turco-German together. The in other fields, and the Space Force people who had been tape lines and making sketches and cameras, were all to Syrtis to out how much there was and what of life it supported.
Sometimes Sachiko in; most of the time she was helping Ivan Fitzgerald specimens. They had four or five of what might be called birds, and something that easily be as a reptile, and a the size of a cat with claws, and a almost with the thing in the big Darfhulva mural, and another like a with a single in the middle of its forehead.
The high point came when one party, at thirty thousand the level of Kukan, air. One of them had a mild attack of and had to be for in a hurry, but the others no effects.
The daily from Terra a shift in at home. The of the University had attention on the past of Mars; now the public was in Mars as a possible home for humanity. It was Tony Lattimer who into the of the and the news at home.
Martha and Selim were in the on the second floor, the from the cases, contents, and grease-penciling numbers; Lattimer and a[Pg 38] of Space Force officers were going through what had been the offices on the other side. It was one of these, a second lieutenant, who came in from the mezzanine, almost with excitement.
"Hey, Martha! Dr. Ohlmhorst!" he was shouting. "Where are you? Tony's the Martians!"
Selim his in the bucket; she her on top of the case her.
"Where?" they asked together.
"Over on the north side." The took of himself and spoke more deliberately. "Little room, of one of the old offices—conference room. It was locked from the inside, and we had to it with a torch. That's where they are. Eighteen of them, around a long table—"
Gloria Standish, who had in for lunch, was on the mezzanine, into a extension:
" ... Dozen and a of them! Well, of they're dead. What a question! They look like with leather. No, I do not know what they died of. Well, it; I don't if Bill Chandler's a three-headed hippopotamus. Sid, don't you it? We've the Martians!"
She the phone on its hook, away ahead of them.
Martha the closed door; on the survey, they hadn't opening it. Now it was away at and lay, still along the edges, on the of the big office room in front. A was on in the room inside, and Lattimer was going around looking at while a Space Force officer by the door. The center of the room was by a long table; in around it sat the eighteen men and who had the room for the last fifty millennia. There were bottles and on the table in of them, and, had she them in a light, she would have that they were over their drinks. One had a over his chair-arm and was in sleep. Another had onto the table, arms extended, the set of a ring on one finger. Skeletons with leather, Gloria Standish had called them, and so they were—faces like skulls, arms and like sticks, the onto the under it.
"Isn't this something!" Lattimer was exulting. "Mass suicide, that's what it was. Notice what's in the corners?"
Braziers, of two-gallon-odd metal cans, the white with above them. Von Ohlmhorst had noticed them at once, and was into one of them with his flashlight.
"Yes; charcoal. I noticed a quantity of it around a of hand-[Pg 39]forges in the shop on the floor. That's why you had so much trouble in; they'd sealed the room on the inside." He and around the room, until he a ventilator, and into it. "Stuffed with rags. They must have been all that were left, here. Their power was gone, and they were old and tired, and all around them their world was dying. So they just came in here and the charcoal, and sat together till they all asleep. Well, we know what of them, now, anyhow."
Sid and Gloria the most of it. The Terran public wanted to about Martians, and if live Martians couldn't be found, a room full of ones was the next best thing. Maybe an thing; it had been only sixty-odd years since the Orson Welles invasion-scare. Tony Lattimer, the discoverer, was to cash in on his to Gloria and his with Sid; he was always either making voice-and-image talks for or to the news from the home planet. Without question, he had become, overnight, the most in history.
"Not that I'm in all this, for myself," he disclaimed, after to the from Terra two days after his discovery. "But this is going to be a big thing for Martian archaeology. Bring it to the public attention; it. Selim, can you when Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter the of Tutankhamen?"
"In 1923? I was two years old, then," Ohlmhorst chuckled. "I don't know how much that did for Egyptology. Oh, the did more space to Egyptian exhibits, and after a a showcases, you know how hard it is to make him give them up. And, for a while, it was to financial support for new excavations. But I don't know how much good all this public does, in the long run."
"Well, I think one of us should go on the Cyrano, when the Schiaparelli in," Lattimer said. "I'd it would be you; your voice would the most weight. But I think it's that one of us go back, to present the of our work, and what we have and what we to accomplish, to the public and to the and the learned societies, and to the Federation Government. There will be a great of work that will have to be done. We must not allow the other scientific and the so-called practical to public and support. So, I I shall go at least for a while, and see what I can do—"
Lectures. The organization of a Society of Martian Archaeology, with Anthony Lattimer, Ph.D., the logical candidate for the chair. Degrees, honors; the of the learned, and the of the[Pg 40] public. Positions, with titles and salaries. Sweet are the of publicity.
She out her cigarette and got to her feet. "Well, I still have the final of what we in Halvhulva—Biology—department to check over. I'm starting on Sornhulva tomorrow, and I want that in shape for expert evaluation."
That was the of thing Tony Lattimer wanted to away from, the detail-work and the drudgery. Let the do the through the mud; the brass-hats got the medals.
