LITMIR.BIZ

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wasn’t designed for beauty, but for war. I and the other members of the Advisory Council watched the slow approach of the flagship of Mars Expedition IV to its holding station.

      “Requesting permission to dock,” the pilot said.

      “Permission granted, sir,” Phobos responded.

      “Dock achieved. All stop.”

      “All stop,” came the echo.

      “I have Vice Admiral Bruce holding for General Burgess.”

      “Burgess here, sir,” the Military Commander of Mars said.

      “Per the orders of the United States Space Command and the United Nations Security Service, I hereby request and require that you relinquish to me all authority over the military forces and civilian personnel currently stationed on or around Mars, effective this date and time.”

      And so on and so forth, in the little game of charades that authoritarian folks play. It took about a half hour to settle everyone’s hash appropriately. In the end, it came down to this: Bruce, being the senior officer on site, had control of the overall mission, while Burgess retained some authority on the ground as Military Governor of the Red Planet. I assumed that Bruce reported only to God.

      Then we got down to business again. The Admiral’s face appeared once more on our wallscreen.

      “Fritz, I’ve had a chance to review your plans over the last few weeks, and I think they’re fairly sound. You’ve had no problems with the Martians?”

      “Nothing recently, sir,” he said. “I assume they’re aware of your presence in orbit and the impending arrival of the rest of the fleet, but so far they haven’t said or done anything. We’ve managed to keep our plans completely secret, so far as I can tell.”

      “I note that several of your advisors think differently.”

      “Well, sir, they…,” the General said.

      “If I may speak, sir,” I said.

      “You’re…?”

      “Dr. G. Alexander Smith.”

      “Ah, yes, the philosopher: you were held by the Martians for two years, weren’t you?”

      “I chose to live with them together with my family, and they chose to have me—a privilege, I might add, that has thus far been extended to no other human. I’ve had more experience dealing with the aliens than any other person.”

      “By your own admission, Smith,” she said, “you have no better idea than the rest of us of what they want or what they’re going to do.”

      “That’s true, but I still know them better than anyone else. They won’t allow an attack against their race, against their home planet, to go unchallenged. And we really have no notion, none whatever, of what they can do. They could destroy Earth, sir.”

      “They already tried that. We defeated them.”

      “No, sir, we did not! They withdrew, they ceased bombarding our planet with asteroids, and they agreed to a truce. Clear boundaries were established for both parties. If we break that treaty, the consequences could be disastrous, for us as well as the aliens.”

      “President Bush believes that we must push forward. I have my orders, Smith. We’ll either civilize the Martians, or we’ll destroy them. The United States will not be bullied by any other government.”

      “I don’t think they have a government, sir,” I said.

      “Enough! General Burgess, we’ll commence bombardment at 0600 tomorrow. Prepare to defend yourselves against any possible response by the enemy.”

      “Yes, sir,” the Governor said.

      Don Juan of Austria was marching off to war, come hell or high water, come rain or come shine, come all the King’s men and all the King’s horses—and no one would ever be able to put the pieces back together again. I’d seen this all before, but each time it was worse.

      “Damned fools,” I mumbled—or at least I thought I did.

      “You’ll keep such comments to yourself, Smith,” Burgess ordered, “or you’ll be confined to quarters indefinitely. Understood?”

      “I again request permission to rejoin my wife and children.”

      “Request denied! This meeting is adjourned.”

      I was angry and disgusted, at myself and at everyone else; as I walked slowly back towards my room, Min caught up with me.

      “What’re you going to do, Alex?”

      “I don’t know,” I said. “Something, anything to stop this madness from happening again, but I don’t have any idea at this point what I can do.”

      “Is there any way you can warn Becky?”

      “They’ve cut off all communication to our habitat, and if any of the rest of you tries to break that lock during a wartime situation, you might well be charged with treason. I can’t allow you to do that.”

      “What about mental contact?”

      “I don’t have the focus to initiate such connections, or to frame them when and if they occur. With me they’re always amorphous, occurring in dreams and musings and such.”

      “Stavroula might help.”

      “She was the one that got me into this situation in the first place. She would never agree.”

      “All she can do is say ‘no’,” Mindon said. “You have nothing to lose but your pride.”

      “That’s what I was afraid of,” I said. “All right, I’ll try, but I want some dinner first. I might as well go to my execution with a full tummy.”

      But truth to tell, my appetite was no better than my humor, and I pushed and picked on a mixed salad of greens and a bowl of beans, and then gave it up in disgust. I was fit for neither man nor beastie these days.

      “Someone said you wanted me.” Nomsah Vassilidis, the soi-disant Madame Stavroula, was standing by my table in the cafeteria.

      “A little bird, no doubt.”

      “Something like that. Look, Alex, I’m sorry you’re stuck here. I didn’t know….”

      “Seems like you don’t know a lot of things for someone supposedly so well connected.”

      “When I glimpsed the threat in the alien’s mind, I felt that I had to report it.”

      “What exactly did you see, Nomsah?”

      “I saw them merging us with their own race.”

      “I don’t know about you,” I said, “but nothing I’ve received mentally from Big Guy has ever been quite that clear. It’s all either allegorical or symbolic. I think that’s because they don’t perceive in the same way that we do. They’re hive creatures of a sort, and they don’t really understand our individuality—or why it’s important to us. Everything for them is communal.

      “So perhaps what you really saw was simply their attempt at common cordiality—reaching out to you and welcoming you to their group.”

      “I don’t think so,” she said.

      “But if you’re wrong in your interpretation….”

      There was a long silence.

      “If I’m wrong, then I’ve made the situation worse.”

      “In my experience, the Martians are predictable in only one respect: they’ll respond to aggression in kind, and they’ll do so in ways that can’t always be predicted—at least by us. There’ll be another war. Do you want that?”

      “No, of course not. But….”

      “Then

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