LITMIR.BIZ

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Min!” one of them said. The orbs Min was staring at weren’t anywhere near the sky!

      I sat on a wooden bench in the dimming light, patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I hadn’t smoked in years, but I suddenly wanted a cigar so bad I could taste it. That wasn’t the kind of smoke that Mindon stocked in his rural retreat, however. We kept watching for another hour before finally giving up. Becky and I drove slowly downhill back to town.

      “What do you think it is?” she asked.

      “Probably nothing,” I said, “just the Martian equivalent of farting.”

      I chuckled at my witticism, but she didn’t think it was funny. Marriage is often like that: it survives (or not) based on the efficacy of one’s humor, good or ill.

      The next day, the Chronicle ran a long story on the Martian lights, eventually concluding that the phenomenon was indeed some vast geological outgassing. After all, volcanism was common on the other planets within the Solar System, and we’d seen signs that Mars had had its share of eruptions in the past. Why not now? We knew so little about the planet, really, that anything was possible.

      Truer words were never thought.

      That evening I walked downtown with Becky by my side. I pointed out the twelve signs of the Zodiac, showing off, as academic men like to do, my accumulated superficiality of knowledge. Then I identified Mars, a dull red hostile eye hanging low in the evening sky.

      “It’s beautiful,” she said.

      “The Roman God of War,” I said. “It was he who brought death and destruction and chaos to the ancient world. Only Janus, the two-faced God of Peace, could stare him down.”

      “Only a man can start a war,” she said, once again showing a wisdom that seemed beyond anything I could comprehend, “and only a woman can end one.”

      “Yes, but….” I rambled on and on with my philosophical meanderings.

      But peace was demonstrated on this summer’s eve with ice cream and chocolate and some gentle conversation, and gradually the rabid beast was stilled within. On our way home, we passed several groups of young people, energized by their noisy boom boxes and singing off-key in accompaniment.

      “Were we ever so foolish?” I said.

      “Oh, I think we were, Alex.”

      “I’d almost forgotten.”

      I sighed for all the years lost.

      And I noticed, as we strode quietly towards home, the lights beginning to dim in the windows around us, blinking out one by one.

      It was the end of day.

      It was the beginning of night.

      And there were only fifty million shopping days left until Christmas.

      It was the last time that any of us really felt safe.

      CHAPTER TWO

      WISH UPON A FALLING STAR

      If wishes were horses, beggars might ride.

      —John Ray

      Alex Smith & Mindon Min, 23 December, Mars Year i

      Novato, California, Planet Earth

      But nothing actually happened for another six months. I got further into my book and further away from academe. I found that I didn’t miss the classroom at all, and I’m sure the randy little buggers didn’t miss me. I was quite content to putter around with my book and my wife, and she didn’t seem to mind my presence either.

      The first meteor was spotted in late December, scudding through the atmosphere over Hawaii. It shot by Mendocino, leaving a bright green trail in its wake, pieces of it flaking off as it dove headlong towards the Earth. Despite the hour, thousands witnessed its passage and took it for an ordinary shooting star.

      Dr. Dylan Gregory, a well-known tele-astronomer, was quoted on CNN as saying, “This one was really big! Maybe it hit something! Ha, ha, ha!” He urged residents of Marin County to be especially vigilant at this rare opportunity of discovering a freshly-deposited meteorite.

      I was ensconced in my home office late that evening; and although the blind on my west-facing French windows were open (I loved to look at the night sky), I somehow missed the object’s passing. The phenomenon was visible as far south as San Francisco and as far east as Berkeley. Some observers described a hissing sound, others a kind of crackling in the atmosphere. But I was buried deep in my new book, contemplating the future of civilization (which actually had less of a future than I supposed), and couldn’t be bothered with anything “real.”

      If wishes were horses, then beggars might ride.

      * * * *

      But Min had actually seen the falling star, as he told me later, and was convinced that it had landed somewhere up in the hills west of Novato. He drove out of town as far as he could, and then set off across the countryside on foot, taking with him a couple of flashlights and some extra batteries. He would have included his female understudies if any had been available.

      After meandering through the woods and being attacked by giant mosquitoes, he stumbled across an open sandy field just after dawn, a few miles west of State Highway 101. There an enormous hole had been carved by the impact of the falling star, with sand and gravel heaped all around it. Some dried shrubs had burned at the edge of the site, and he could see a thin line of blue-green smoke rising against the new-born sun.

      The thing was almost entirely buried, surrounded by shattered splinters of pulverized trees. The uncovered section was thirty or forty yards wide, and had the appearance of a huge egg caked with reddish mud and earth, its outline softened by thick, scaly, iron-colored encrustations.

      Min carefully approached the site, surprised at the size and shape of the object, since most meteorites appear as melted chunks of bare rock; but the metal casing was still so hot that he had to keep his distance. He could hear a kind of grinding noise inside, but assumed it was being generated by the gradual cooling of the thing beneath the earth’s surface.

      He realized, of course, that this was a major find! The “Mindon Meteorite” would make his reputation, if only he could devise some way of removing the artifact without actually destroying it.

      He stood there at the edge of the pit, gazing down at the steaming thing, and then, as the light began to grow, noticed that it had an odd symmetry. Maybe, he thought to himself, just maybe this would more than make his reputation. If this was a machine of sorts, or even a Martian probe sent to explore our world….

      The morning was wonderfully still. He wiped an unnatural sweat from his brow. Then he noticed that the winter birds had gone completely quiet. The only sound that he could hear was the faint crackling emanating from within the cindery ship.

      Some of the crusty ash that covered the protruding end began flaking away in rusty scabs and raining down upon the sand, where it shattered into small bits. A large piece dropped off with an audible pop that brought his heart into his mouth.

      Although the thing continued to radiate heat, he was finally able to scramble into the pit to view the rock more clearly. There was something about the structure of the meteorite that was profoundly disturbing, even artificial. This just didn’t look like anything that he’d seen in the museums.

      Then he realized that, very slowly, the top of the thing had begun rotating. It was such a gradual thing that he discovered it quite by accident, noticing that a black mark that had been close to him a few minutes earlier was now positioned on the opposite side of the meteorite. He watched it more closely, and was able to see it slide forward an inch or so. Understanding came in a flash. Yes! The thing was artificial! It was hollow, in fact, with an obvious hatch that could be unfastened! Something inside was trying to get out!

      “I’ll be damned!” he said to himself. “I was right! It’s a probe from outer space! I’m rich!”

      The thought of his

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