Avery murmured, “It’s no use, Factor. Can’t you see that? It’s no goddam use at all.”
‘You’re right,“ Regan said. He looked sadly at the little group of solemn-faced Martians. Then he turned away, walked back to the mouth of the cave, where his technicians and medics waited. Regan nodded at them.
‘Okay,“ he said. ”Six of them. Two adult males, two adult females, one child of each sex. Don’t be rough with them. That’s an order.“
They went in.
He went out.
He walked away, a hundred yards into the desert, and stood there, scuffing his boot into the sand. He couldn’t bear to face the Martians as they were dragged from the security of their cave.
Right now he couldn’t even bear to face himself.
Lyle Henderson said, “As of July 30, 1992, the first three months of the Fair are completely sold out. There isn’t a booking to be had on any of the flights to the Fair.”
Regan nodded. “How’s construction coming on those extra sections?”
‘First one will be ready in February,“ Henderson said. ”And then a new one every three weeks through May. That ought to be enough.“
‘Let’s hope so. What are the figures for the second three months?“
Henderson glanced at the tally sheet. “Every weekend flight is sold out between October 12 and the following June. In addition, seventy-three and six-tenths percent of the weekday flights in the months of January 12-April 12 are sold out. The rest are going fast. I estimate that by Opening Day the Fair will be booked solid for at least its first year.”
‘There’s a black market in tickets already,“ Hal Martinelli put in. ”A seat on one of the flights in the first two months is quoted at around five hundred dollars.“
Regan smiled thinly. “Things are breaking our way finally, aren’t they?”
‘It’s because of the Martians,“ Henderson said. ”Yes. The Martians.“
‘How are they taking it?“ Martinelli asked. Regan shrugged. ”They don’t seem to mind,“ he said. ”Frankly, they don’t seem to give a damn.“
It was true enough. Regan had visited the Satellite two days before, a routine business visit. He had stopped off at the Martian Pavilion, which was completed now. The Martians had been installed eight weeks before.
They were living in the pavilion as though it were their own cave. It looked like their cave, all right, a perfect copy, except that one wall was one-way glass to permit the spectators to get a close look at the alien beings. Regan had suited up, had gone into the cave to talk to his prisoners. They had given him what he by now had come to think of as the Martian Stare: a completely noncommittal look, expressionless and blank.
‘I wanted to find out if you were getting good treatment,“ Regan said.
‘We are comfortable.“
‘That’s terribly important,“ Regan said. ”I want you to be absolutely comfortable here. I want it to seem just like home to you.“
‘We are comfortable.“
They didn’t seem angry with him for having kidnaped him. There was no reproach in their eyes. They seemed perfectly happy where they were. They just didn’t seem to care.
Which didn’t ease Regan’s conscience any. Simply because his prisoners weren’t visibly suffering, the Factor thought, that didn’t make him any the less a louse.
But then the presence of the Martians aboard the Satellite had made all the difference between the success or failure“ of the 1992 Columbian Exposition. There was no getting around that. The day Regan had made the announcement, a wave of excitement had swept over the world almost un-equaled in his memory. Suddenly everybody wanted tickets to the Fair. Regan flew a cadre of selected media correspondents up to the Satellite for a preview of the Martian Pavilion, and they returned with photographs that stirred the imagination of the world. Live Martians! On view at the Fair! Who could resist?
Nobody could resist.
Oddly, there was less of a furor over the kidnaping of the Martians than Regan had anticipated. Chiefly, this was because nobody realized the Martians had been kidnaped. They seemed perfectly happy in their pavilion. The Martians back on Mars were not signing any petitions. In their passive way, they were taking no notice of the disappearance of six of their number. The colonists on Mars expressed surprise that Martians had been willing to leave their caves to become sideshow exhibits, but if anyone guessed the truth about their departure, Regan never heard it.
The Fair was made.
The Martians were the biggest gate attraction since Barnum’s day. Everybody was talking about them. Everybody wanted to see them. As a result, the Fair’s economic projections were beginning to look rosy for the first time. On the basis of advance ticket sales and pavilion rentals, it was now safe to say that the Fair would at least break even, which was all it was intended to do. Regan’s balance sheet showed that the bonds could be liquidated on schedule, the Fair’s assets sold off at a good price, and the Exposition wound up without a loss to the investors. American prestige would have been enhanced, and the public would have had a hell of a good show. If that wasn’t success, Regan didn’t know what kind of word to use.
The directors of Global Factors began to look more kindly upon their impetuous Chief Executive Officer. Even Rex Bennett began to smile at him now and then, as the finances of the World’s Fair grew brighter.
Tim Field buttonholed Regan and said, “Factor, are you still planning to sell the Fair Satellite to Global when the Fair ends in ‘93?”
‘Sure.“
‘And the Martians,“ Field said. ”Will they remain with the Satellite?“
‘Absolutely not,“ Regan snapped. ”My agreement with them covers only the Fair. They can’t remain on exhibit forever. When the Fair closes, they go back home to Mars.“
‘But it’s greatly to Global’s advantage to keep Martians as a permanent exhibit,“ Field protested. ”If we’re going to run the Satellite as a kind of pleasure resort, wouldn’t it be profitable to show Martians there?“
Regan shook his head. “It may be to Global’s advantage, but it won’t be to the advantage of the Martians. They don’t belong in a zoo forever. They go back. Global will have to find some other way of getting people to come to the Satellite, Tim.”
Field looked startled at the thought that the Factor Regan might possibly place the welfare of a few Martians above that of Global Factors. Regan smiled. “What’s the matter, Tim?”
‘N-nothing, Factor.“
‘Sure. You think I’m being disloyal to the good old company, don’t you?“
‘Well, sir-“
‘The Martians go back to Mars. That’s final, Tim. Absolutely final. As soon as the Fair ends-back they go.“
Field seemed to accept that. The matter was allowed to drop. The days ticked by. Regan visited his Martians once more, just to make sure they were still comfortable.
They had no complaints. They seemed neither happy nor unhappy. They seemed-well, like Martians.
FIFTEEN
October 12, 1992.
Five hundred years before, at two hours past midnight, a cannon had boomed out across the quiet Caribbean, and a five-week journey across the uncharted Atlantic reached its climax. A leather-lunged seaman yelled, “Tierra! Tierra!” as he sighted land. A Genoese sea-captain named Cristoforo Colombo thereby attained a permanent place in history, despite the claims of such earlier travelers as Hoei-Shin of China, Ari Marson of Iceland, Leif Ericsson, and Prince Madoc of Wales.
Five centuries later, three small spaceships soared skyward shortly after dawn, Mountain Standard Time. Some clown in the World’s Fair publicity office had named the ships the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and Claude Regan had let the whimsy stand.
The passenger lists of those three ships glittered with the names of celebrities. The Santa Maria, as the flagship, carried the most resplendent cargo of alclass="underline" the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the President of the United States of America, the Premier of the United States of Europe, and the heads of such states as the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, Brazil, Nigeria, the Congo, Argentina. The Factor Claude Regan was aboard, also.