Not until now.
Martinelli and Lyle Henderson were staring at him with expressions of shock and bewilderment on their open, youthful faces. Regan waited for the inevitable question.
Martinelli supplied it.
‘Sir, may I clarify something?“
‘Go ahead.“
‘It seems to me-I just want to get clear in my own mind, sir-“ He hesitated. ”You said that you spoke to the Martians in the summer, and that they refused to let themselves be exhibited at the Fair.“
Regan nodded.
Martinelli went on, “Now you say that we’re going to have a Martian Pavilion anyway. Does that mean-sir-that the Martians are going to be brought to the Fair forcibly?”
‘That’s right,“ Regan said in a weary voice. ”That’s exactly right. We’re going to kidnap them, Hal. We’re going to kidnap them.“
FOURTEEN
This was one part of the show that Regan knew he had to run all by himself. There was no other way. It was a slimy, foul business, and he could not casually delegate it to someone else to carry out.
Before he could go ahead with it, he had to quell a small rebellion in his own ranks. Both Martinelli and Henderson wanted to resign rather than become accomplices. Regan talked them out of it. It took time, and took all of his rhetorical skills, but the man who could talk a flinty Board of Directors out of firing him could also talk two young aides into staying on the job. He let them see that he loathed the project as much as they did-and he showed them how, in the course of human events, it was sometimes necessary to do absolutely loathsome things. If the Fair went bankrupt, millions of people would suffer. Half a dozen Martians could make the difference between profit and loss. Ergo-Q.E.D…
Martinelli and Henderson stayed. But they insisted that Regan maintain direct responsibility for the Martian Pavilion, and Regan agreed.
There was little enough time to waste. Quickly, and in great secrecy, the preparations commenced.
It was going to be expensive. “It’ll cost you a mint,” the Marsport anthropologist Curtis had said, and Curtis had been right. Regan sent three technicians off to Mars to make a study of the Martian caves. He commandeered a space freighter in Global’s fleet, renting it at a nominal sum for the Fair, and sent it off to the yard to have its guts ripped out and replaced by a sealed chamber in which Martians could live. He put engineers to work reading everything that had been published on the Martian physiology.
The Martians breathed air. It was an oxygen-nitrogen mixture, not unlike what Earthmen breathed, but the proportions were different, higher on the nitro, lower on the oxy. They drank water, and this, thank the Lord, was good old-fashioned H2O. With residual impurities, though, drawn up from the depths of Mars in the roots of the water-plants. Would the Martians survive if their water-plants brought them non-Martian water supplies? In the opinion of medical counsel, yes.
‘We’ll risk it,“ Regan said.
Everything had to be top secret. If so much as a syllable leaked out beforehand, there would be vociferous protests from scientific bodies, from the settlers on Mars, from the SPCA, from various pressure groups on Earth. The hue and cry would certainly prevent Regan from carrying out his plan.
No, it had to be a fait accompli. “Here they are,” Regan would announce. “Martians in their native habitat!” Let the world gasp. It would be too late to do anything to stop him. And the public, fascinated by the strange alien creatures, would flock to see them. Regan had read the accounts of American Indians taken to Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They had caused a sensation, these visitors from a new world. Unhappily, most of the Indians exhibited in the courts of Europe had swiftly perished, of smallpox, measles, venereal infection, alcoholism, or simple overex-citement. It would be decidedly troublesome if any of Regan’s Martians passed away while on exhibit. But there was no reason why that should happen, if only the proper precautions were taken.
Regan took the precautions. The ship that would carry the Martians off would be adapted to their environment. If they lived the week or so it took to get them from Mars to the Fair Satellite, they would be transferred to an equally congenial snuggery there.
Would they live? Would they die?
They wouldn’t dare die, Regan vowed. He would lavish every attention on them. Day by day medical examinations. The best of everything. It was the least he could do, on behalf of his hapless victims.
So Regan went to Mars. Not as a sightseer, this time, but as a thief.
The chartered ship landed at the Marsport spacefield. No one was waiting to greet Regan, nobody offered him the keys to the city, because he had not advertised in advance that he was coming. This was to be a quick trip, a quiet trip.
Dick Avery drove out to the field. As Global’s representative on Mars, he had been tipped off on the purpose of the expedition. He looked a little doubtful about it.
‘Are you serious, Factor?“
‘As serious as I’ll ever be.“
‘There’s going to be one hell of a stink about this, Factor,“ Avery warned.
‘I’ll risk it.“
‘You won’t be a popular man on Mars. The settlers here are very fond of the Old Martians.“
‘I’m not planning to exterminate them,“ Regan said. ”I’m just going to borrow a few of them for a while.“
Avery started to say something, but obviously thought better of it, and choked it back. After a pause he simply nodded his head and said, “All right, Factor. I’m ready whenever you are.”
The convoy wound across the desert.
Avery and Regan, in a sand-crawler, led the way. Behind them was the mobile wagon in which the Martians were to be transported. Bringing lip the rear was another crawler in which rode Regan’s technicians and medics.
Regan said nothing as the caravan moved outward, through the cold red flatlands, toward the caves. He did not feel cheerful about what he was going to do. He told himself, over and over again, that stark necessity was driving him to take this desperate step. But his protestations had that hollow, hollow ring.
‘Here we are,“ Regan said.
‘No,“ Avery said. ”Sorry, Factor. This isn’t the cave you visited. It’s the next one over.“
‘Oh. All right.“
They drove on. A mile beyond, they halted and left the crawlers. Regan felt trapped in his breathing-helmet. The sand crunched nastily beneath his feet, as though he were the first one to bear down on it in a hundred million years. They crossed the patch of flatland in front of the cave. The mobile wagon drew up close, like some bulky dinosaur ready to launch an attack on the beings within.
Regan entered, accompanied only by Avery. The others remained at the mouth of the cave.
Martians appeared. The little leathery gnomes peered at the intruders without curiosity, without interest. Such things had long since eroded from their personalities. They were infuriatingly passive, maddeningly remote.
Regan pointed to one. “You. I spoke to you before, didn’t I?”
‘Yes.“
‘About coming to the World’s Fair.“
Blankness.
‘You know. To be exhibited.“ Regan spoke loudly, as though it would somehow help in communication. ”We will pay well. We will give you whatever you want.“
‘We do not wish to leave home.“
‘A permanent water supply,“ Regan said. ”A reservoir all your own. An electric generator. Do you know what that is? It makes light.“
‘We have light.“
‘This is brighter. Safer. Listen, I'll give you anything you want. Just name it. Medicines, food, equipment, money, anything at all. What do you want?“
‘Nothing.“
‘You must want something!“
‘We want to be left in peace,“ the Martian said.
Regan sighed. “I beg you-”