As the ship rose on its of fire some of the old love of and came to Ed. There was also a of escape, like that of city of centuries ago, when, and office routines, they had to the country on to a little of nature while they a over a fire in the woods.
On the Moon Dust there were more and children than men: from danger. But would old Mars be much safer? Didn't it now to the same civilization, with its dark undercurrents?
The Dukases were across the to Mars. They at a high south-temperate latitude, not the limit of the cap; though now, in summer, it had to a cake of a hundred miles across and on high ground. Around this a yellow plain up of mud, with the Martian of green algae, and white of ancient-sea salt and alkali.
But Port Smitty itself was in a wide, valley, or "canal," a north. Its many airdomes, necessary to maintain an and to life, among and of tattered, dry-leaved plants. The was by a of old Porter Smith, this region's inhabitant; he was still alive but long gone from the Mars he had loved. For he had himself with the of star ships.
Port Smitty already a population of a million. And there were other of almost equal size. On Mars, many of the had settled. And many of every had come there since.
On the the city were the of a older metropolis—towers, and for which anything have no use. Fifty years ago the Martians, like the people of the Asteroid Planet, had been out in war.
Ed Dukas and his by train from the flame-blasted to the city. Their hotel room a with and flowers. Birds and from branch to bloom. From in the hotel came music.
Their room was to be energy-shielded, but Ed cautious. He left his in his pocket, with the of an old letter. He had already told Barbara all he about Uncle Mitch's message and had added some wild guesses. So now she gave her husband a of as he his on a chair. Then she came into his arms.
Later that evening, dancing, they their carefully. They might be under in any of a hundred different ways: by beams, cameras, or by individuals, or human, they did not know. In of old loyalty, Ed Dukas was not at with the of Mitchell Prell. Yet, he to avoid being so that he act alone and from the and often panic-stricken opinions of others.
On Mars there had been violence, too, though there had been no gliding, that terror. But here, too, there was a of and being, with no visible marks to the one from the other, though to many the was as great as that man and werewolf.
Barbara to in Ed's arms as they danced. Ed slightly. So they from the room and to their own quarters.
Ed the old from the pocket of the on the chair. As he had hoped, a message was on it: "Go Port Karnak—then E.S.E. into desert."
Both Ed and his wife that Martian all of desolation. They looked at each other. The challenge was still in Barbara's eyes. The that she a pack was a that had been settled long ago.
Now Ed speaking—in the of whispers: "So, of going to bed, as people in our position should, we start traveling—fast."
He the safety under his belt. Personal were in it: cylinders, a pair for each of them. A precaution. In the on Earth there should still be others. But one not always be sure of those. Some had disappeared.
As memory of what he he had in a still at Ed Dukas's brain. It was a hint of how Mitchell Prell his messages—in an and way, but with fantastic, dream-shot implications. Could it be part of flexibility? Well, his had him, couldn't be that odd. Still....
Often Ed had over the by the of science. But now him on as as ever. There had to be ahead, for of Mitchell Prell without of new science was impossible.
"Let's go, Babs," he whispered.
Casually, like ordinary guests out, they put two light into the and to the main by elevator. The of their they left behind. They paid their bill and took an to the station. In the they from to the used in the Martian wilderness: light-weight and with air and small radios—all over light and shirts. The of their they transferred to rucksacks.
In the station they with farmers, and homesteaders. Couples such as themselves were common on Mars; they were going out to make their fortunes.
They their to Port Karnak. Ed and Barbara looked around them. A half-dozen men among the waiting no helmets. True, this was pressurized, but the and oxygen-poverty of the Martian air had to be prepared for. The of helmets, then, almost had to be the mark of the android. To keep its going, the of a of its substance, to make up for the of chemical energy.
Ed and Barbara the train with the crowd. Much of this of had been to beings' use from that which had from the of Mars. Behind the coaches, close in the tubes, air-pressure up. Acceleration was swift. Covering the thousand-mile to Port Karnak took twenty minutes.
Once arrived, Ed the additional they needed; then in a small restaurant they ate a last meal. They took an bus out along a glassed-in, and at the final stop, a greenhouses, the of which provided the city with fresh, vegetables.
Here the was at hand, at night, under the of stars. Deimos, the moon, almost in the north. Irregular in shape, it looked like a of chinaware, just big to make its discernible. Probably it was a small which the of Mars had captured.
The Dukases to plod. The came under their boots, and the of the ground gave way, gradually, to a difficult fluffiness, like that of flour. It was millions of square miles of the color of iron, which, in part, it was. Dust, ground to by of thin, wind. Under the light of the sky, colors in to a that only the nearest dunes, and of moving on the wind like ghosts. The a constant, against their helmets, like an to death.
Barbara pressed Ed's hand, as if in reassurance, and he pressed hers in return. Maybe they had all or probe-beam tracking. Certainly the itself would be an screen against the most device. Yet to from the view of men another of danger. It came to Ed that when Mars had with millions of its own inhabitants, no one had a mile of where he and his wife were now walking.
The Dukases on for an hour without saying anything. But a Barbara Ed's arm, thus a channel, so that they talk without using their radios, which might them.
"I we're not too crazy, Ed," she said. "Going out into a like this, on the of a of notes, and with that somehow we'll be guided. I hope; I hope!"
Her was light and courageous, and he was more than glad.
"Think of our home world, and make that a prayer," Ed said. "We might be doing something to help."
So they up their through the night and into the dawn. The was dun. The sky was deep, hard blue. The were dust-plumed waves, in which a was lost. The were wind-carven spires. Earth was the star. It looked very peaceful, the need for haste. Its ring was a blur.
Barbara and Ed water into their mouths through the which from their to the large in their rucksacks. They anti-fatigue and food tablets. For a moment they their helmets. There was no great in that; only the of blood under air pressure and an and of eardrums, and of the of the Martian cold against their cheeks. Forty-eight Fahrenheit, zero, it was just then.
"No more clowning," Ed said as they replaced their helmets. "We might by and what we're doing."
They up their march, through the morning, past the almost warm Martian noon, and on into the that came long sunset. They were still on when it was once more. In of anti-fatigue capsules, they were groggy.
In his Ed had his pen and the on which the latest message from Mitchell Prell had been inked. Now, surely, there had been time enough. So he to the materials. There were more on the envelope: "True on course—keep moving."
So they to the of their small gyrocompass, set to toward east-southeast. Ed no longer questioned an odd miracle. It was there, and he was grateful.
An hour later Barbara movement near by: a of yellow. Then it was gone a large of stone. Then it appeared again. Ed saw it, too, for an instant. It fluttered, it plaintively. It was an in the of Mars, or else on the Red Planet, of an air-conditioned cage. It was a small, bird. A canary.
Barbara at it. Her were and scared. The of her deepened.
"Darling," she said lamely. "I think that is about to the of us."
"Think again," Ed said.
"I you're right," she answered. "Even without vitaplasm, it's not much of a to give a or a spy-robot the of a little bird, with television eyes. And a Midas Touch weapon, or something unpleasant, into it. At the hotel in Port Smitty, it was among the other canaries. Here, though, it's identified. Which means that is it—the police looking for your Uncle Mitch or friends of Granger's, or else—don't any more that we know what it is. We're now—they think."
A came to Ed Dukas. He might have that all of their would have been carefully. This must have them all the way from Port Smitty, just out of sight.
Then a more idea him. But it. "No," he said aloud, Barbara's so that she hear. "If the pseudo-canary was Uncle Mitch's for us, it would have itself sooner, and the on paper would not have been necessary."
In a Ed his own Midas Touch and it at the place among the where the had just vanished. At a little there was the of incandescence, now with red dust. But from the near its base, a small yellow with a and of mockery. Then a voice spoke—one which neither Ed Barbara just then:
"Better luck next time, lovers. Lead on!"
Thereafter, the false was not to itself. And Ed was left with his anger, and with other thoughts. What if the had not come from Mitchell Prell at all, but from someone else with an unknown purpose? Or, what if they were from Uncle Mitch, but had been prepared long ago and left to be presented to him, Ed Dukas, by means of some agent? What if—well—many things.
Using his portable unit to the bird only a blank. Perhaps the little with a radio for a voice was against such detection, at range.
To attempt action would be a waste of time and energy. There was nothing to do but go on, see what developed, and trust to luck. There was the that would come, but what shape it would take unknown.
As Ed and Barbara on through the day, their minds with weariness. Once, in a of from present facts, Ed's touched a that he'd had before, of a of some star. He looked at ground under and saw that each under the strange, had a little in it. And something like a cross, with four rough, brownish-gray arms that in any direction, away, against the soil, its glinting. The all around were than those of Mars.
Yes, it was just a daydream, from himself, like an old, half-buried of some exploration. He if it still have any fulfillment, or if that any more? Perhaps, for all he knew, his wife and he were now for an region.
Ed his to clear it. He did not want to the in his too often. To the to the dried-out Martian air, while the was in progress at hour-hand speed, might a message. But at last he it. It that the was not much by the presence of the bird-thing or what it might mean.
Barbara and Ed read avidly: "Base of you. Lab."
Barbara toward a which a mile ahead in the cold of late afternoon. The slab, on a pinnacle, it doubt, though there were other around it. It its on the dunes. Or was all of that dark, shadow?
Ed Dukas and his had not the luxury of natural sleep for a long time. But their strength, they forward. Ed that at last he was the of ten-year-old enigmas.
The area at one of the was not all shadow. But the Dukases had attention for the of that in this aridity. At another time it might have been fascinating, for it was related to the as is related to a man. It was a of vitaplasm—another of Mitchell Prell's experiments. But Ed and Barbara had no to this.
They an eighteen-inch at the rock's base. Edging into it, they an on hinges. To their touch, it closed them, and clicked. From the now the of the door would a pattern of natural in the pinnacle.
Atomic the passage, and there were more doors, some of them of steel, for Ed and Barbara to them. The place was like a small, fortress. At the of a stair, a small airlock, was Mitchell Prell's latest and last workshop.
He must have it from the of Mars without help. It was a series of a half-dozen rooms and was no larger than a fair-sized apartment. Smallest of all was the sleeping room and kitchen; and there the of months or years of was plainest. The was thick with dust, and food were on plates. The air, of density, of and a pungence. The and were with of the tough, outside. It was at once of and but was like neither. It had a color under the lamps, which had been for a long time.
Ed and Barbara their and a of the premises. The rooms had all the marks of by a man too with his own to waste time on more than the at housekeeping. Apparatus was everywhere. There were parts of a helicopter—the one, no doubt, which had Prell and his to this refuge.
At they that he might since have to some or accident. And then they his in a rectangular, plastic-covered tank, in a cloudy, fluid. It was a of vat, much used in in repairing and a from a personal recording—either in or vitaplasm. Near by, there were three vats, which, when opened, proved to only fluid.
Barbara and Ed looked for a long moment at Mitchell Prell's face. It was peaceful in death that was not death; for of the you be sure any longer, unless it was the death of the species.
If there were that face, it did not show. If there were of purpose, or to errors that he had in a that as it for greatness, it not be seen. But in this refuge, one was plain: Mitchell Prell had gone on with his work in a super-biology.
Ed over to a of a make. Its also started out from a familiar design. It was with of special and levers. When Ed, and then Barbara, into its eye-piece, they that each of these and a tool, almost too small to see with the eye. There were minute cutters, and wheels. Set up under the there was what to be a lathe. In fact, there was an entire machine shop on an ultra-miniature scale. And there were tiny, members, to serve—on such a of things—as hands, where the hand, directly, would have been mountainous.
In to this equipment, there were exact of the across the room and their apparatus, that each entire was less than a half-inch long. In one there was a much smaller than a doll, yet perfect.
Barbara laughed nervously. Even in this century of wonders, the mind had its for making adjustments. The laugh was a of what her beheld.
Ed Dukas's wide looked at once and haggard. Beside the there was also another microscope, complete in every detail, yet of the same relative as the little in the vat. But this was of the variety. It had to be. For at this size light themselves were too in to be for close-range work.
Ed slowly toward his wife, were and wonder-filled in of her weariness. He noticed the in her hair. He noted the of her brow, the and of her nose. And what was all this attention but a to an object of love when a so great that it him as he had been before. Ed Dukas that his must have gone gray.
Now his came slowly and precisely: "Babs, I've told you that I part of Mitchell Prell's message being written. That in the moving of wet ink, for an something looked like a man the size of a mote! I I'd it. But is that what Uncle Mitch is now? An so small that the only way for him to a note to a person of is to his own with a of and to himself across the paper, making the lines and of script?"
Barbara looked at him obliquely, his seriousness.
"Aw, now, Eddie-boy, take it a little easy," she said. "Please do."
He didn't answer her. He let his and many of do the for him. His in his ears.
At last he said, "No, darling, I it. There's no why an no than the smallest can't exist. And the of what Mitchell Prell did in this laboratory are plain enough.
"Working at with the larger and the and under it, he a now common of in half-inch size. In its he to the of himself that you can see. Aside from the in dimensions, that much has been possible and common for years. Its brain having been with all phases of his memory and personality, it him when it awoke. His own he left and in the large vat. But he was not finished. He had just one step toward the of smallness that he wanted to reach. So he started over from scratch, another and then minute and tools, our sight. Under that I'll there's another, smaller machine shop, and a smaller from which a mote-sized Mitchell Prell emerged. It must all have been a job. It's not hard to see where those ten years went."
Barbara was for a long time. Finally, she said, "It reasonable—superficially. But still, is it possible? Consider a brain. It can come in many sizes, from an ant's to a being's. But all are of of the same dimensions. And it has been well that a brain must be always about as big as a being's to be intelligent. Trying to such into a smaller of matter—composed of the familiar molecules—would be like trying to cloth out of rope. How can you around that, Ed?"
"Maybe I can guess," he said. "With smaller units. How about the electron, Babs? Far smaller than the molecule, certainly. And it's been the of the best calculators—thought machines—for a of centuries. There isn't any that a brain of size by patterning. No, it wouldn't work in natural protoplasm. But we already know the of vitaplasm: easy to redesign, of its energy from a source. Well, you it out. What have we here but other advantages? I think my uncle once told me that he meant to go where no one go as a being."
"All right, Eddie," she conceded. "I I'm persuaded. Proud girl, me. I've got a boyfriend. And your uncle—he from the of the regions in his to the smallness of dust! And he seems, actually, to have done the latter—in person! Is that what we're to accept as truth? If so, he must have been with you all the time, or at least for a while. On Earth, even. And he must have come out to Mars with us. He was right in your pocket, with the paper and pen. To write, he must have himself up good with the the pen point. Ugh—what a thought! And maybe he's still in your pocket right now. He—or a of him. Does all this up right in your eyes, Ed?" A had through Barbara's tan.
"Pretty much so," Ed heavily.
"So what do we do now, Ed? Try to your uncle's path—down?"
Ed's tingled. To Mitchell Prell down—a more than traveling to the stars. He did not answer Barbara. He his pocket. He not tell a minute or not. There were no on the envelope.
But from a in a of this workshop, there came that a decade had not from his memory:
"Nipper-hello! Or is it always Ed now? So we've come to Mars together. And you with Barbara! Well, maybe that is an complication! Now we can talk. Here I have the right apparatus. I need help, and you always the best—and like me. I know your about science, and I don't you. But I'm still the same—wanting to learn that I can, that should work out right."
The closed in again. Ed and Barbara looked at each other. Technology was full of tricks—the possibility of a thousand illusions. Could he trust a voice, so like Mitchell Prell's used to be? And he trust the mind it? Even if it was his uncle's?
"Work out right!" Ed mockingly. "That almost pious! If you are what you say you are, you were on Earth and have everything. You know then how right have been! I was around when the Moon blew—remember? And no that. But there are of them now. And from here on Mars, I've to see Earth up into a little nova."
There was a from the cone. "So I'm to blame—at least partly—for helping to give those something to be right or about," Mitchell Prell's voice replied. "Well, I was what I was, and I am what I am, Ed. I'm sorry about many that happened. But I can't them. I've you to come here to help me try to them. I don't think you'll angry with me, Ed. Come where I am—you and Barbara. It can be done now. I have two prepared. They will take the lines and of anyone. Just set the above two of the at one hundred—full energy. Lower yourselves into the fluid. Clothes, or of them, won't matter. Your own will into animation."
Again the voice from the out. Ed's and Barbara's met in a of thought. They were being asked to their natural, physical and to beings of vitaplasm. To many, that was in itself, without a in size. Then there was the of of identity. To be an exact in mind and memory might not necessarily to be the same person. Here was a problem and hard to answer. What others of might have told you satisfy you. You had to learn for yourself.
Beyond all that, there was that drop, and into tininess, to where physical laws themselves must by the of size levels, and to where nothing the same. Could one's mind the difference?
For a moment Ed and panicky. But something and came into him. For the time he that Barbara had not come with him.
Finally he said, "I've got to go down, Babs. There just isn't any other way."
"What's sauce for the is sauce for the goose, Ed," she said. "With us, that was settled a while ago."
He didn't protest. She was resourceful. She'd be a help, not a trouble. And he that love of was as in her as in himself. So the was made.
Suddenly they a and hammering. Metal against stone. The had them to Mitchell Prell's fortress. And of the little had been a for some larger party to the rear.
Again the came from the cone, but in a whisper, "I was sure you'd be followed, Ed. But we should still have time. It'll be hard for them to into here—without everything. And I think they'll want to see what I've got."
Ed Dukas had his uncle in any way impractical. But now he was a and that Mitchell Prell needed him. If it was Mitchell Prell, of course—if the voice itself wasn't a trick. But now Ed was at least more that he was not being fooled. What had to be part of many calculated risks.
"All right, Uncle Mitch," he said.
Barbara at him wanly, but her a glint. He her.
"So here goes, eh, Eddie?" she said.
"Be seein' yuh, sweetheart," he said, taking her in his arms.
