The Man the Martians Made Read online

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  _If Frank Belknap Long is not one of the deans of science fiction writers, there can certainly be no dispute that he is high on the faculty board. His pen is indefatigable, it seems, and his characters come alive as with few other writers. We're sure you'll like this new suspenseful tale of his._

  the man the martians made

  _by ... Frank Belknap Long_

  No mortal had ever seen the Martians, but they had heard their whisperings--without knowing the terrible secret they kept hidden.

  There was death in the camp.

  I knew when I awoke that it had come to stand with us in the night andwas waiting now for the day to break and flood the desert with light.There was a prickling at the base of my scalp and I was drenched withcold sweat.

  I had an impulse to leap up and go stumbling about in the darkness. ButI disciplined myself. I crossed my arms and waited for the sky to growbright.

  Daybreak on Mars is like nothing you've ever dreamed about. You wake upin the morning, and there it is--bright and clear and shining. You pinchyourself, you sit up straight, but it doesn't vanish.

  Then you stare at your hands with the big callouses. You reach for amirror to take a look at your face. That's not so good. That's whereugliness enters the picture. You look around and you see Ralph. You seeHarry. You see the women.

  On Earth a woman may not look her glamorous best in the harsh light ofearly dawn, but if she's really beautiful she doesn't look too bad. OnMars even the most beautiful woman looks angry on arising, too wearyand tormented by human shortcomings to take a prefabricated metal shackand turn it into a real home for a man.

  You have to make allowances for a lot of things on Mars. You have tostart right off by accepting hardship and privation as your daily lot.You have to get accustomed to living in construction camps in thedesert, with the red dust making you feel all hollow and dried upinside. Making you feel like a drum, a shriveled pea pod, a salted fishhung up to dry. Dust inside of you, rattling around, canal water seepagerotting the soles of your boots.

  So you wake up and you stare. The night before you'd collected driftwoodand stacked it by the fire. The driftwood has disappeared. Someone hasstolen your very precious driftwood. The Martians? Guess again.

  You get up and you walk straight up to Ralph with your shoulderssquared. You say, "Ralph, why in hell did you have to steal mydriftwood?"

  In your mind you say that. You say it to Dick, you say it to Harry. Butwhat you really say is, "Larsen was here again last night!"

  You say, I put a fish on to boil and Larsen ate it. I had a nice deck ofcards, all shiny and new, and Larsen marked them up. It wasn't mecheating. It was Larsen hoping I'd win so that he could waylay me in thedesert and get all of the money away from me.

  You have a girl. There aren't too many girls in the camps with laughterand light and fire in them. But there are a few, and if you're lucky youtake a fancy to one particular girl--her full red lips and her spun goldhair. All of a sudden she disappears. Somebody runs off with her. It'sLarsen.

  In every man there is a slumbering giant. When life roars about you on aworld that's rugged and new you've got to go on respecting the lads whohave thrown in their lot with you, even when their impulses are as harshas the glint of sunlight on a desert-polished tombstone.

  You think of a name--Larsen. You start from scratch and you build Larsenup until you have a clear picture of him in your mind. You build him upuntil he's a great shouting, brawling, golden man like Paul Bunyon.

  Even a wicked legend can seem golden on Mars. Larsen wasn't just myslumbering giant--or Dick's, or Harry's. He was the slumbering giant inall of us, and that's what made him so tremendous. Anything gigantic hasbeauty and power and drive to it.

  Alone we couldn't do anything with Larsen's gusto, so when some greatact of wickedness was done with gusto how could it be us? Here comesLarsen! He'll shoulder all the guilt, but he won't feel guilty becausehe's the first man in Eden, the child who never grew up, the laughingboy, Hercules balancing the world on his shoulders and looking for awoman with long shining tresses and eyes like the stars of heaven tobend to his will.

  If such a woman came to life in Hercules' arms would you like the job ofstopping him from sending the world crashing? Would you care to try?

  Don't you see? Larsen was closer to us than breathing and as necessaryas food and drink and our dreams of a brighter tomorrow. Don't think wedidn't hate him at times. Don't think we didn't curse and revile him.You may glorify a legend from here to eternity, but the luster neverremains completely untarnished.

  Larsen wouldn't have seemed completely real to us if we hadn't given himmuscles that could tire and eyes that could blink shut in weariness.Larsen had to sleep, just as we did. He'd disappear for days.

  We'd wink and say, "Larsen's getting a good long rest this time. Buthe'll be back with something new up his sleeve, don't you worry!"

  We could joke about it, sure. When Larsen stole or cheated we couldpretend we were playing a game with loaded dice--not really a deadlygame, but a game full of sound and fury with a great rousing outburst ofmerriment at the end of it.

  But there are deadlier games by far. I lay motionless, my arms lockedacross my chest, sweating from every pore. I stared at Harry. We'd beenworking all night digging a well, and in a few days water would bebubbling up sweet and cool and we wouldn't have to go to the canal tofill our cooking utensils. Harry was blinking and stirring and I couldtell just by looking at him that he was uneasy too. I looked beyond himat the circle of shacks.

  Most of us were sleeping in the open, but there were a few youngsters inthe shacks and women too worn out with drudgery to care much whetherthey slept in smothering darkness or under the clear cold light of thestars.

  I got slowly to my knees, scooped up a handful of sand, and let itdribble slowly through my fingers. Harry looked straight at me and hiseyes widened in alarm. It must have been the look on my face. He aroseand crossed to where I was sitting, his mouth twitching slightly. Therewas nothing very reassuring about Harry. Life had not been kind to himand he had resigned himself to accepting the slings and arrows ofoutrageous fortune without protest. He had one of those emaciated,almost skull-like faces which terrify children, and make women want tocry.

  "You don't look well, Tom," he said. "You've been driving yourself toohard."

  I looked away quickly. I had to tell him, but anything terrifying coulddemoralize Harry and make him throw his arm before his face in blindpanic. But I couldn't keep it locked up inside me an instant longer.

  "Sit down, Harry," I whispered. "I want to talk to you. No sense inwaking the others."

  "Oh," he said.

  He squatted beside me on the sand, his eyes searching my face. "What isit, Tom?"

  "I heard a scream," I said. "It was pretty awful. Somebody has beenhurt--bad. It woke me up, and that takes some doing."

  Harry nodded. "You sleep like a log," he said.

  "I just lay still and listened," I said, "with my eyes wide open.Something moved out from the well--a two-legged something. It didn'tmake a sound. It was big, Harry, and it seemed to melt into the shadows.I don't know what kept me from leaping up and going after it. It hadsomething to do with the way I felt. All frozen up inside."

  Harry appeared to understand. He nodded, his eyes darting toward thewell. "How long ago was that?"

  "Ten--fifteen minutes."

  "You just waited for me to wake up?"

  "That's right," I said. "There was something about the scream that mademe want to put off finding out. Two's company--and when you're alonewith something like
that it's best to talk it over before you act."

  I could see that Harry was pleased. Unnerved too, and horribly shaken.But he was pleased that I had turned to him as a friend I could trust.When you can't depend on life for anything else it's good to know youhave a friend.

  I brushed sand from my trousers and got up. "Come on," I said. "We'lltake a look."

  It was an ordeal for him. His face twitched and his eyes wavered. Heknew I hadn't lied about the scream. If a single scream could unnerve methat much it had to be bad.

  We walked to the well in complete silence. There were shadowseverywhere, chill and forbidding. Almost like people they seemed,whispering together, huddling close in ominous gossipy silence, aware ofwhat we