It appeared that a sandstorm was brewing in Mesogaea, the drylands adjacent to the Zephyria region. This sort of weather isn’t uncommon in the summer; we call them haboobs, the Arabic name for sandstorms on Earth that somehow found their way to Mars. From the looks of things, it would reach the Zephyria outback sometime tomorrow afternoon. Good thing I’d come home; the last thing anyone would want is to be caught out in the desert during a bad storm.
A waitress strolled by, adjusting a strap of her costume bikini top. I raised my glass and silently jiggled it back and forth, and she feigned a smile as she nodded and headed for the bar. I was searching my pockets for another quarter so that she’d see that I was still pretending to be a gambler, when my cell buzzed.
“Jim? Are you still here?”
“In the bar, professor. Come down and have a drink with me.”
“No! No time for that! Come upstairs right away! I need to see you!”
“What’s going on?”
“Just come up here! It’s better if I show you!”
Dr. al-Baz opened the door at the first knock. Spotting the cocktail glass in my hand, he snatched it from me and drained it in one gulp. “Good heavens,” he gasped, “I needed that!”
“Want me to get you another one?”
“No … but you can buy me a drink when I get to Stockholm.” I didn’t understand what he meant, but before I could ask he pulled me into the room. “Look!” he said, pointing to one of the computers set up on the bar. “This is incredible!”
I walked over to the bar, peered at the screen. Displayed upon it were rows of A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s, arranged in a seemingly endless series of combinations, with smears that looked a little like dashes running in a vertical bar down the right side of the screen. A five-line cluster of combinations and smears was highlighted in yellow.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Professor, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to …”
“You have no idea what you’re looking at, do you?” he asked, and I shook my head. “This is the human genome … the genetic code present in every human being. And these”—his hand trembled as he pointed to the highlighted cluster—“are strands that are identical to the partially sequenced genome from the aborigine specimen.”
“They’re the same?”
“Exactly. There is no error … or at least none that the computers can detect.” Dr. al-Baz took a deep breath. “Do you see what I’m getting at? The hypothesis is correct! Human life may have originated on Mars!”
I stared at the screen. Until then, I hadn’t really believed anything that Dr. al-Baz had told me; it seemed too unlikely to be true. But now that the evidence was in front of me, I realized that I was looking at something that would shake the foundations of science. No, not just science … it would rattle history itself, forcing humankind to reconsider its origins.
“My god,” I whispered. “Have you told anyone yet? On Earth, I mean.”
“No. I’m tempted to send a message, but … no, I need to confirm this.” The professor walked over to the window. “We have to go back,” he said, his voice quiet but firm as he gazed out at the city lights and, beyond them, the dark expanse of the desert. “I need to get another blood sample, this time from a different shatan. If the same sequence appears in the second sample, then we’ll know for sure.”
Something cold slithered down my spine. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. The chieftain …”
“The chieftain told us that he wanted to know what we discovered. So we’ll tell him, and explain that we need more blood … just a little … from one of his tribesmen to make sure that it’s the truth.” Dr. al-Baz glanced over his shoulder at me. “Not an unreasonable request, no?”
“I don’t think he’s going to be very happy about this, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He was quiet for a few moments, contemplating what I’d just said. “Well … that’s a risk we’ll just have to take,” he said at last. “I’ll pay you again for another trip, if that’s your concern … double your original fee, in fact. But I must go back as soon as possible.” He continued to gaze out the window. “Tomorrow morning. I want to leave tomorrow morning.”
My head was beginning to ache, dull blades pressing upon my temples. I shouldn’t have had so much to drink. What I should have done was turn him down right then and there. But his offer to double my fee for a return trip was too good to pass up; I needed the money, and that would pay my rent for a couple of months. Besides, I was too drunk to argue.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll head out first thing.”
I went back to my place, took some aspirin, stripped off my filthy clothes, and took a shower, then flopped into bed. But I didn’t fall asleep for quite a while. Instead, I stared at the ceiling as unwelcome thoughts ran an endless loop through my mind.
What would the chieftain do when Omar al-Baz informed him that shatan blood and nashatan blood were very much alike and that our two races might be related? He wouldn’t be pleased, that much was certain. The aborigines never wanted to have anything to do with the invaders from Earth; as soon as our ships had arrived, they had retreated into the wilderness. This was the reason why they’d become nomads …
But they weren’t anymore, were they? The significance of what I’d seen at the village suddenly became clear to me. Not only had this particular tribe built permanent houses, but they were also erecting a wall around them. That meant they were planning to remain where they were for some time to come and were taking measures to defend themselves. They were tiring of running from us; now they were digging in.
Until now, the human colonists had been content to ignore the shatan, thinking of them as reclusive savages best left alone. This would change, though, if humans came to believe that Homo sapiens and Homo artesian were cousins. Suddenly, we’d want to know all about them. First would come more biologists like Dr. al-Baz, more anthropologists like Dr. Horner. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad … but right behind them would be everyone else. Historians and journalists, tour buses and camera safaris, entrepreneurs looking to make a buck, missionaries determined to convert godless souls, real-estate tycoons seeking prime land on which to build condos with a nice view of those quaint aborigine villages …
The shatan wouldn’t tolerate this. And the chieftain would know that it was inevitable the moment Dr. al-Baz told him what he’d learned. First, he’d order his warriors to kill both him and me. And then …
In my mind’s eye, I saw the horrors to come. Wave upon wave of shatan warriors descending upon Rio Zephyria and the other colonies, hell-bent on driving the invaders from their world once and for all. Oh, we had superior weapons, this was true … but they had superior numbers, and it would only be a matter of time before they captured a few of our guns and learned how to use them. Ships from Earth would bring soldiers to defend the colonies, but history is unkind to would-be conquerors. Either we would be driven back, step by inexorable step, or we would commit genocide, exterminating entire tribes and driving the few survivors farther into the wilderness.
Either way, the outcome was inevitable. War would come to a world named for a god of war. Red blood would fall upon red sand, human and Martian alike.
A storm was coming. Then I thought of a different storm, and knew what I had to do.
Two days later, I was found staggering out of the desert, caked with red sand from my hair to my boots save for raccoonlike patches around my eyes where my goggles had protected them. I was dehydrated and exhausted to the point of delirium.