LITMIR.BIZ

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they have worked to develop their culture, their defensive capabilities, and their art’.”

      “Art?” I just laughed and shook my head. “And what does our dear Madame S. have to say about the war?”

      “She says they’re not inherently an aggressive species, but they were attacked by another off-world race many millions of years ago, and nearly wiped out. They just barely managed to survive by finally destroying their enemy. This has made them paranoid about any perceived incursions on their own world. Our probes, Madame Stavroula says, were perceived as an attack on Mars, and so they responded in kind. The expedition they sent was intended as much to gather information as to measure the level of the threat we represented.”

      “That’s why they killed millions of human beings?”

      “They don’t know anything about that. She says they never had any communication with their fleet after they made landfall. All they know is that the expedition never responded to their messages. Therefore, they assume that we killed them all, and that we have a greater technology than they do. Madame Stavroula says they will now take all appropriate measures to insure their safety.”

      “Well, at least she agrees that the aliens are still a threat,” I said, laughing.

      Then the phone rang. It was Min.

      “Hey, man, turn on CNN right away!”

      “What?”

      “Right away, turn it on!”

      “What is it, Alex?” Becky asked.

      I grabbed the remote and clicked on the news.

      “Reports are coming in,” the newscaster said, “of a massive tsunami sweeping the coasts of Africa and South America.”

      “God, another earthquake,” Becky said, “those poor people.”

      “No, man,” Mindon yelled over the phone, “it’s not an earthquake, it’s the Martians!”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Remember the dino egg?” Mindon asked. “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts they’ve lobbed one of those damned things at Earth.”

      “It’s too soon, Mindon,” I said. “The last opposition was months ago, and the two planets have been moving away from each other ever since. Couldn’t be an asteroid.”

      “Think, man! It takes a long time to move something like a meteor around, even if it already crosses Mars’s and Earth’s orbits. Too much mass. It’d take years to nudge it just right, depending on what kind of engine you had and how close the thing would get to Earth naturally. This wasn’t started months ago. They probably got it moving right after the war. And this was just a small rock.”

      The news on the TV was more serious now.

      “According to Henry Newbolt in our London office, all communication with the Falkland Islands has been lost. The island of Aladore has been obliterated from the map. Survivors are reporting one-hundred-foot waves striking some of the major coastal cities of South America.

      “And this just in! We have reports of a massive explosion, maybe an atom bomb, in the southern Atlantic Ocean.”

      “It was a meteor, I tell you.” Then I hung up.

      Eventually, Mindon and Puff came over, and we sat there all through the rest of the afternoon and early evening glued to the TV set, watching the damage and casualty reports continue to mount. No one knew what’d caused the event. Pictures began to come in of the devastated cities.

      “It’s the invasion all over again,” I said. “I keep thinking about the War of Two Worlds.”

      The phone rang. Becky answered it, and then looked at me strangely, holding the instrument in her right hand.

      “It’s someone from the National Security Council,” she said. “They want to talk to you, Alex.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      THE SHIP THAT SAILED TO MARS

      An eye like Mars, to threaten and command.

      —William Shakespeare

      Alex Smith, 15 Bi-March, Mars Year vii

      U.S.S. Armageddon, in Orbit Around Planet Earth

      “‘Beware the Ides of March!’” I said, pulling myself into the Colonel’s office.

      I’d come aboard just a week earlier, one of a group of advisers assigned to the multinational expedition that was currently being mounted against the Red Planet. I was still trying to get used to the absence of gravity, although the officer “sitting” before me certainly made up for it. He was actually roped into a kind of hanging chair.

      “And I suppose ‘All of Gaul is divided into three parts’.” Timlett replied, quoting the ancient military genius, Gaius Julius Cæsar.

      He was a middle-sized man with a wiry physique and close-cropped hair; like Cassius, he had that “lean and hungry look.”

      I chuckled.

      “So you know some history after all,” I said.

      “Well, I did read the great military minds back in school, not that any of them has really prepared me for what we’re about to face here.”

      “I don’t think that anything would, except surviving the damned war. And if we don’t get the job done, and soon, the Martians will continue pounding poor Earth back into the Stone Age.”

      “We’re still on target, Doctor,” he said. “We’ll make our launch date two weeks hence. If some of the supply vessels aren’t ready, we’ll go without them. We have to.

      “Now, do you have something specific in mind, or can I get back to work?”

      “I, uh, I would most respectfully request once again that you leave my wife and daughter on Earth, sir. This is no place for civilians.”

      “Well, Doctor Smith, ordinarily I would be the first to agree with you,” he said, “but I have no choice in the matter. My orders are explicit. The so-called ‘Sensitives’ are here because they may offer the only hope we have of communicating with the aliens—or of understanding their motives. I’m sorry your womenfolk are among them, truly I am.

      “Me personally, I don’t really believe in all this crap, and I certainly don’t like the idea of having to watch over and feed some additional mouths that I think will contribute very little to our expedition. But, as I said....”

      “You have your orders.”

      “Yes, sir, I do, and I would remind you that although you’re also a civilian, you still come under my direct authority as Captain of this vessel. Now, is there anything else?”

      “There is.”

      I floated over to the little porthole, one of the few privileges of rank accorded the officer. I never tired of looking down at the blue-green vistas sliding below us. From this height you would never guess what Earth had gone through these past dozen years. Over a hundred million men, women, and children dead or injured, many more millions displaced, dozens of cities completely wiped from memory, major damage to shipping and industry—the toll went on and on and on.

      The Martian bombardment had continued, year after year, even when we’d developed the first of our planetary defensive systems and created the United States Space Force. There were always a few rocks that slipped through the net, despite our best efforts. We had to stop them at the source. We had to conquer or destroy Mars any way possible, even at the cost of our own lives. It was us or them, and I was damn well determined that it would be us that walked away from the fight.

      While I was contemplating my next question, the Colonel’s com phone buzzed.

      “Yes,” he said.

      “Col. Morris, sir,” the orderly said, “line two.”

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