The Martian Way and Other Stories

The Martian Way and Other Stories Page 46

Copies of those first pictures of Junior's surface were added to what might be termed the open files. After a second trip, Fawkes returned in more somber mood and the meeting was correspondingly more subdued.

New photographs went from hand to hand and were then placed by Cimon himself in the special safe that nothing could open short of Cimon's own hands or an all-destroying nuclear blast.

Fawkes said, "The two largest rivers have a generally north-south course along the eastern edges of the western mountain range. The larger river comes down from the northern icecap, the smaller up from the southern one. Tributaries come in westward from the eastern range, interlacing the entire central plain. Apparently the central plain is tipped, the eastern edge being higher. It's what ought to be expected maybe. The eastern mountain range is the taller, broader, and more continuous of the two. I wasn't able to make actual measurements, but I wouldn't be surprised if they beat the Himalayas. In fact, they're a lot like the Wu Ch'ao range on Hesperus. You have to hit the stratosphere to get over them, and rugged-Wow!

"Anyway"-he brought himself back to the immediate subject on hand with an effort-" the two main rivers join about a hundred miles south of the equator and pour through a gap in the western range. They make it to the ocean after that in just short of eighty miles.

"Where it hits the ocean is a natural spot for the planetary metropolis. The trade routes into the interior of the continent have to converge there so it would be the inevitable emporium for space trade. Even as far as surface trade is concerned, the continental east coast has to move goods across the ocean. Jumping the eastern range isn't worth the effort. Then, too, there are the islands we saw when we were landing.

"So right there is where I would have looked for the settlement even if we didn't have a record of the latitude and longitude. And those settlers had an eye for the future. It's where they set up shop."

Novee said in a low voice, "They thought they had an eye for the future, anyway. There isn't much left of them, is there?"

Fawkes tried to be philosophic about it. "It's been over a century. What do you expect? There's a lot more left of them than I honestly thought there would be. Their buildings were mostly prefab. They've tumbled and vegetation has forced its way over and through them. The fact that the climate of Junior if glacial is what's preserved it. The trees-or the objects that rather look like trees-are small and obviously very slow growing.

"Even so, the clearing is gone. From the air, the only way you could tell there had once been a settlement in that spot was that the new growth had a slightly different color and- and, well, texture-than the surrounding forests."

He pointed at a particular photograph. "This is just a slag heap. Maybe it was machinery once. I think those are burial mounds."

Novee said, "Any actual remains? Bones?"

Fawkes shook his head.

Novee said, "The last survivors didn't bury themselves, did they?"

Fawkes said, "Animals, I suppose." He walked away, his back to the group. "It was raining when I poked my way through. It went splat, splat on the flat leaves above me and the ground was soggy and spongy underneath. It was dark, gloomy. There was a cold wind. The pictures I took don't get it across. I felt as though there were a thousand ghosts, waiting-"

The mood was contagious.

Cimon said savagely, "Stop that!"

In the background, Mark Annuncio's pointed nose fairly quivered with the intensity of his curiosity. He turned to Sheffield, who was at his side, and whispered, "Ghosts? No authentic case of seeing-"

Sheffield touched Mark's thin shoulder lightly. "Only a way of speaking, Mark. But don't feel badly that he doesn't mean it literally. You're watching the birth of a superstition, and that's something, isn't it?"