Again, the bare idea was not enough to make a story. I had to figure out why NASA and the scientific establishment were feeding us wrong information. And who might be hurt by this conspiracy.
Or helped.
«I’m not exactly sure why,» said Roy Huggins. «When I asked for another eye checkup, they sent me here.»
«To see me,» said Professor Schmidt, chuckling a bit.
«Yes sir,» Huggins replied. He was totally serious; he did not even notice the professor’s little pun.
A silence fell over them. The athletically slim Huggins, sandy-haired and boyish-looking in his sweat shirt and jeans, seemed quite honestly puzzled. Herb Schmidt, chairman of the astronomy department, was a chunky, white-bearded Santa even down to the twinkle in his baby blue eyes. A Santa in a dark three-piece suit, sitting behind a desk covered with thick reports and scattered memos heaped high like snowdrifts.
The professor eased back in his creaking old swivel chair and studied his student thoughtfully.
How many times had they met in this stuffy little office? Ever since Huggins had taken his first class in astronomy, back when he’d been an undergraduate. Now the boy had turned into a man: a youthful, vigorous man with a fine intelligent mind that had been sharply honed.
Was he enough of a man to accept the truth? And to keep the secret? The next few minutes would decide.
«Why were you having your eyes checked?» the professor asked innocently.
Huggins had to clear his throat before he could answer, «I seem to be… well, seeing things that aren’t there.»
«Ghosts?» asked the professor, smiling to show he did not mean it. «Elvis Presley, perhaps?»
The younger man shook his head. «At the telescope,» he said in a low, unhappy voice.
«Let me see now.» Schmidt made a pretense of searching through the papers scattered across his desk. «Your time at the facility is on …» He let the sentence hang.
«Mars,» Huggins whispered. «I’ve been observing Mars.»
Schmidt had known that all along. He stopped leafing through the papers and leaned back in his chair again, lacing his fingers together over his ample belly.
«Mars, eh?»
«I see—» Huggins swallowed again, «—canals.»
«Canals?» the professor echoed.
«Well—markings. I—I checked with some of the maps that Lowell drew—just as a lark, you know.»
«Percival Lowell? Way back then?»
Huggins’ answer came out as a tortured moan. «They match. My drawings match Lowell’s almost perfectly. A whole network of canals, all across the face of Mars.»
«But the photos you’ve taken don’t show any canals. I’ve seen your photographic work.»
«There aren’t any canals on Mars!» Huggins blurted. «You know that! I know that! We’ve sent spacecraft probes to Mars, and they proved there are no canals there! Lowell was crazy!»
«He was—enthusiastic. That’s a kinder word.»
Huggins nodded unhappily and chewed on a fingernail.
Schmidt heaved a big sigh. «I can see why you’re upset. But it’s not so bad. So you’ve got a problem with your eyesight. That doesn’t matter so much nowadays, what with all the electronics—»
«There’s nothing wrong with my eyes! I can see perfectly well. I had an eye test back home during the Thanksgiving break and I checked out twenty twenty.»
«Yet you see nonexistent canals.»
Huggins’ brief flare of anger withered. «It’s not my eyes. I think maybe it’s my mind. Maybe I’m having hallucinations.»
The professor realized the game had gone far enough. No sense tormenting the poor fellow any further.
«There’s nothing wrong with your mind, my boy. Just as there is nothing wrong with your eyes.»
«But I see canals! On Mars!»
Stroking his snow-white beard, Schmidt replied, «I think it was Sherlock Holmes who pointed out that when you have eliminated all the possible answers then the impossible answer is the correct one. Or was it Arthur Clarke?»
Muggins blinked at him. «What do you mean?»
«Did you ever stop to think that perhaps there really are canals on Mars?»
«Wha—what are you saying?»
«I am saying that Mars is crisscrossed by an elaborate system of canals built by the solar system’s finest engineers to bring precious water to the Martian cities and farmlands.»
Half-rising from his chair, Huggins pointed an accusing finger at his professor. «You’re humoring me. You think I’m crazy, and you’re humoring me.»
«Not at all, my boy. Sit down and relax. I am about to entrust you with a great and wonderful secret.»
Huggins plopped back into the chair, his eyes wide, his mouth half-open, the expression on his face somewhere between despair and expectation.
«You understand that what I am about to tell you must be kept totally secret from everyone you know. Not even that young woman you intend to marry may know it.»
The young man nodded dumbly.
Schmidt leaned his heavy forearms on his littered desk top. «In 1946,» he began, «an experimental spacecraft crash-landed in the Sonoran Desert of New Mexico. Contrary to the rumors that have arisen every now and again, the crew was not killed, and their bodies have not been kept frozen in a secret facility at some Air Force base.»
«No … it can’t be …»
Smiling broadly, the professor said, «But it is true. We have been in contact with our Martian brethren for more than half a century now—»
«We?»
«A very small, very elite group. A few university dons such as myself. The tiniest handful of military officers. Four industrial leaders, at present. The group changes slightly as people die, of course. Three of our members are living on Mars at the present moment.»
«You’re crazy!»
«Am I?» Schmidt opened his top desk drawer and drew out a slim folder. From it he pulled a single photograph and handed it wordlessly to the goggle eyed Huggins.
Who saw three figures standing in a dripping dank jungle. Only the one in the bush hat and moustache was human. They were standing in front of the enormous dead carcass of something that looked very much like a dinosaur. Each of them was holding a rifle of some unearthly design.
«Do you recognize that man?»
Huggins shook his head as he stared hard at the photograph. The man looked vaguely familiar.
«Howard Hughes, of course. Taken in 1957. On Venus.»
«Venus?» Huggins’ voice was a mouse’s squeak.
«Venus,» repeated the professor. «Underneath those clouds it’s a world of Mesozoic jungles, almost from pole to pole.»
«But Venus is a barren desert! Runaway greenhouse! Surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead!»
«That’s all a bit of a subterfuge, I’m afraid,» said Schmidt. «Just as our erasure of the Martian canal network. A necessary deception.»
«What… why?»
Schmidt’s expression grew serious. «When the first Martians landed, back in ‘46, it quickly became clear to those of us privileged to meet them that Mars was ahead of the Earth technologically—but not very far ahead. A century, perhaps. Perhaps only a few decades.»
«How can that be?»
Ignoring his question, the professor went on, «They needed our help. Their own natural resources were dwindling at an alarming rate, despite their heroic efforts of engineering. And conservation, too, I might add.»
«They came to take over the Earth?»
«Nonsense! Pulp-magazine twaddle! Their ethical beliefs would not allow them to step on a beetle. They came to beg for our help.»
Huggins felt a tiny stab of guilt at his fear-filled gut reaction.
«It was obvious,» Schmidt went on, «that the Martians were in desperate straits. It was even more obvious to the tiny group who had been brought together to meet our visitors that the people of Earth were not prepared to face the fact that their planetary neighbor was the home of a high and noble civilization.»