Part 2

"Eh?" Ronson said. It was difficult to follow her thinking. She seemed to say a lot, or nothing, all with the same words, the only difference being the voice tone she used. If she chose, she had all the gifts of a man in concealing her true feelings and real opinions.

Her voice was calm, her face expressionless. "The grapevine in Mars Port said the Earth's top-flight bio-physicist was coming here, that old Les Ro was thought to have something that human scientists were all hotted up about, and that you were coming here to investigate, and to chisel Les Ro out of a piece of it, if he would stand still for such treatment."

Ronson blinked at her. She had delivered a bombshell and she had done it as if she thought what she said was of no importance: "I'm not trying to chisel Les Ro or anybody out of anything." His calm matched her aplomb.

"That's not the way the grapevine had it."

"I don't care how the grapevine had it. I know my own motives and my purpose in coming here." An edge crept into his voice as he realized one possible result of what she was saying.

"That may be true. But do the Martians know them?"

Ronson was silent, his thinking perturbed.

"So I hired Sam and came here," Jennie Ware continued. "If Les Ro was big enough to attract you, he was also big enough to provide me with copy for my next book."

"So you could find copy for a damned book, you risked my neck!" Ronson said, his voice hot.

"I didn't risk it a tenth as much as you're doing, by yelling at the top of your lungs where half of Mars can hear you. Anyhow, I saved your clothes and maybe your hide out in front a while ago. Doesn't that count for something?"

"Sorry," Ronson said abruptly. "I lost my temper."

"I'd like to make one point," Crick said. "We've got a mighty hot collection of thieves, crooks, and killers present in this joint."

Jennie Ware and Jim Ronson stared at him.

Crick gestured toward the Martian with the two guards. "That's Tal Bock. He belongs in the upper lentz country, where he is the leader of a gang of killers and thieves. The one over there soaking his hands in smoke is Kus Dorken. He's not any better than Tal Bock."

"What are they doing here?" the girl asked.

"I don't know," Crick answered. "Unless maybe they've been listening in on the grapevine too."

For a moment, it looked as if Jennie Ware was about to cry. She seemed, suddenly, to become a small girl who had done something wrong and was very sorry for it and was trying to find some way to express her sorrow. Her hand came across the table again, touched Ronson's hand hesitantly.

"I'm sorry, Jim, if I got you into trouble. But I knew your reputation. If you were coming here, something big was here. I--I wanted to be in on it. I guess all my life I've wanted to be in on something big. If I actually got you into trouble, Sam and I are here to help you get out of it. Isn't that right, Sam?"

"Right, Jennie." A growl sounded in the tall adventurer's voice. "Thanks, both of you," Ronson said. He was deeply touched. In spite of the shell of bravado that she wore, and her sudden spurting anger, he liked this girl. She might have the reputation of an uninhibited vixen, but somewhere inside of her was a small girl looking out from awed and wondering eyes at the vastness of the world.

"Watch it!" Crick's whisper was shrill and sharp. His eyes were focused on the ceiling.

All the sounds of the place, the rattle of glasses, the sharp giggling of soliciting women, the deep voices of the Martian males, had gone into sudden and complete silence. Like Crick, they were looking upward. Ronson followed their gaze to the ceiling. Jennie Ware gave a quick cry. Glass tinkled and broke as she dropped her drink.

Jim Ronson did not hear the sound. His entire attention was focused on what was happening on the ceiling.

The dive itself had been cut into the side of the cliff. The solid rock of the ceiling had not been disguised or masked.

At first glance, Ronson thought his eyes were deceiving him. The solid stone itself seemed to be in motion. A sort of melting, shifting flow seemed to be taking place as if the molecules and perhaps even the atoms themselves were dissolving.

"That's atomic disintegration, or atomic shifting, under control!" Sam Crick gasped.

"It's a mirage," Jennie Ware whispered. "It must be."

"If it's a mirage, everybody in the place is seeing it," Ronson said.

There was not a sound in the huge room. The waiters had come to attention like trained soldiers. The females had abruptly lost all interest in what they were doing. Out of the corner of his eyes, Ronson saw one female make a sudden darting movement across the room. One foot touched the circle on the floor as she ran. She took two more steps and fell, sagging downward as if every muscle in her body had suddenly refused to function. She lay on the floor without moving. Not a head was turned toward her, not a Martian moved to help her. In her action Ronson saw one reason why the Martians avoided the circle on the floor. Something was definitely wrong with that circle. Looking at the roof, he saw the reason.

The flowing, shifting movement there had formed into a circle the same size as the circle on the floor and directly above it. Little flickers of light, like the discharge of high frequency currents, were flowing between the two circles. Swiftly the flickers of light became an opaque cylinder of misty flame extending from the ceiling to the floor.

From the opaque cylinder of light, a Martian stepped.

Without quite knowing how he knew it, Ronson knew that this was Les Ro's Messenger.

The Messenger was old, perhaps as old as the granite mountain above them, if the network of fine wrinkles on his face were an accurate indication of his age. With age, calmness and serenity had come to this Martian. His eyes gave the impression that they had seen everything. What they had not seen, the brain behind them had imagined. Peace was in the eyes and on the face, the deep peace that many human saints had sought and had found.

"I like him," Jennie Ware whispered.

The Messenger carried himself with a sureness that was full of meaning. He glanced around the room. His eyes settled on the three humans at the table. A sort of a glow appeared on his face, lighting it as if with a halo. He moved toward them, stopped and stood looking down at them. For a moment, his face was blank, and even his eyes seemed to be withdrawn.

"ESP!" Crick whispered. "Guard your thinking."

The eyes flicked toward Crick, then came to Ronson. The human felt a touch that was feather-light appear in his brain. It seemed to run like lightning through the nerve cells. Then it was withdrawn. The smile came back to the face of the Messenger.

"Les Ro has waited a long time for one like you, my son. He will see you." The voice was deep and pleasant. Somewhere in it were tones that were bell pure.

Ronson rose to his feet.

"Watch it!" Crick whispered. "This may not be on the up and up."

"I came here to see Les Ro." Ronson answered. "I'm not going to back out now. Which way do I go?" The last was spoken to the Messenger.

The Martian bowed. The wave of his hand indicated the cylinder of misty radiance flowing from the ceiling to the floor. "Just step into the light, my son."

"Jim!" Jennie's voice had a frantic plea in it.

"May my friends go with me?" Ronson said.

The Messenger shook his head. His face said he was very sorry but that the answer was no. "I have no instructions for them. Only you, my son. Les Ro has waited very long for someone like you."

Ronson did not know whether he was pleased or not. But he knew he was greatly excited. If the rumors had been right, if the grapevine had reported correctly, something was here in the heart of the Martian mountain that had never existed before in the solar system--and perhaps not in the universe. He stepped boldly into the opaque radiance.

To Jennie Ware and Sam Crick it looked as if he had stepped out of existence.

To Jim Ronson, when he stepped into the light, it seemed to him that millions of tiny hands instantly grasped him. They lifted him upward. It seemed as if they changed directions, but he could not be sure of that. The motion stopped. He felt a firm substance under his feet. The tiny hands released him, the opaque light fell away from him. He was standing in the center of a circle in a room cut out of solid stone, a room that had no exit and no entrance except the one under his feet, the solid stone floor through which the microscopic hands had lifted him.

Panic came up in him then and his hand dived for the gun in his coat pocket. It came away empty. The gun had been removed without his knowledge on the transit upward. Examination revealed that every bit of metal had been removed from his pockets. Only his wrist watch had been left and that apparently because the metal strap around his wrist had resisted removal. Automatically he pushed the button on the side of the watch. On the dial the tiny green light glowed. Neither the light that had lifted him upward nor this room contained lethal radiations. The sight of the green light made him feel better. But not much. Sweat appeared on his skin as he waited. Inside his chest, he felt his heart begin to speed up its beating.

Light danced in the wall. The stone seemed to dissolve. The Messenger came through. The wrinkles on the fine face glowed like ivory at the sight of Ronson.

"I hope you will forgive me for keeping you waiting. Other--ah--tasks demanded my attention at the moment."

"It's quite all right. Finding myself here unexpectedly was a little hard on my nerves but the chance to see Les Ro will be worth the shock to my nervous system. I assume this is the way." Ronson moved toward the light dancing on the wall, then stopped as he saw the Martian was not following. "What's wrong?"

The smile was gone from the face of the Messenger. "One must prove himself worthy of seeing Les Ro."

"Eh?" A little touch of fear came up in the human. "Worthy?"

"Also, it would be well to tell me why you want to see Les Ro. I will carry your request to him."

"But you said Les Ro wanted to see me, that he had waited a long time for someone like me. Though how he knows anything about me--" Ronson's voice went into uneasy silence. Had the grapevine reported his coming here? Or had Crick's whisper about extra-sensory perception in operation had some basis in fact?

"I said Les Ro waited a long time for someone _like_ you." For a moment hope showed on the wrinkled face. "But not necessarily for you. You have certain qualities that Les Ro seeks, but until you have proved that you have other qualities as well--" Sadness replaced the hope. "Tell me what you seek here?"

Ronson felt rebellion come up in him. Then he remembered that on Mars the only law protecting humans was what they could make and enforce for themselves. "Rumors have reached us on Earth of Les Ro's great accomplishments. It is our hope that we can share our knowledge, pool our discoveries. It is our belief that great advances can come from this sharing--for both humans and Martians."

Ronson spoke quietly. Only the tone of his voice expressed the very deep and very real feeling he was putting into words. Yet in the quietly spoken words his dream was expressed--and the dream of every real scientist in the history of Earth--of progress, of forward motion, of leaving behind them a world a little better than the one they had known. Once this dream had been only for humans. Now it included Martians too, and every other race within the solar system.

The Messenger smiled at the words. But under the smile was concern.

"Do you mean that you humans still face problems that you cannot solve? But you have made tremendous scientific advances, much greater than we of Mars have made. Space flight is only one illustration--"

"Unfortunately, many of our scientific advances have brought more problems than they have solved." Grimness crept into Ronson's voice "Before atomic energy was released, it was prophesied that the release of this energy would solve all the problems of our planet. This was over two hundred years ago. We are still striving to regain the losses suffered in the first and second atomic wars."

"Wars?" The face of the Martian showed amazement. "You humans are fools."

"We are trying to stop being fools. Or some of us are. But something seems to defeat our efforts."

"Yes." Keen interest showed on the face of the Martian. "Do you have this problem too? I wonder if it's the same something--"

"We live in the same universe."

"Can you state the problem more exactly?"

"I can give you an illustration of it. At the same time, I will give you my reason for being here." Ronson took a deep breath, considered the words he was going to use. "I'm a bio-physicist. This means that my specialty is the living cell and the changes that can and do take place in it. We have a name for one of the changes that may take place there--cancer."

"A disease."

"Yes. And a very serious one. Often tied up with radioactivity, it is a change that takes place in the interior of a living cell."

"I know--"

"No less than eight times in the past hundred years, human doctors have found a cure for this mutation within the cell. Each cure worked, perfectly, for a time."

"And then--"

"Then this something defeated their efforts. A change took place. A new form of cancer appeared, which did not yield to the treatment that had been effective previously." Ronson found his breathing was becoming heavier.

The Messenger moved up and down the cell, pacing, his right hand rubbing his chin. "Yes, it is the same something. Les Ro has talked of it often. It has defeated even him. He calls it _change_. There seems to be a law in this universe against anything remaining the same--But why did you come here? Do you seek a new way to cure this disease called cancer?"

"Yes. A permanent way. A way that goes behind the law of change."

"Do you think you could find such a thing here?"

"Yes. And here I have proof. Detailed reports from human physicians at Mars Port. In three instances, Martian patients admitted to the human hospital there were found to be suffering from inoperable cancer. Each was discharged, as incurable. Within the following two years, each patient returned to the hospital there, one to have a knife wound treated, a second to have a broken bone set, a third because of injuries suffered in an accident. As soon as they were admitted, the records were checked, and the previous diagnosis of cancer was found. Each case of cancer had been cured. Each Martian told the same story, that he had been here, and that Les Ro had cured the disease."

"And you came here seeking the ninth solution from Les Ro for your people?"

"Yes. And for one other reason."

"Eh?"

"The cancer I am trying hardest to cure is--here." Very gently, Jim Ronson rubbed his chest. At the action, and at his thought, his heart picked up an anxious beat.

For an instant, the face of the Martian showed blank astonishment. Compassion followed the astonishment, a flood of it. "My son!" The voice had pity and understanding and sympathy in it. "Les Ro will see you."

"Good!" Relief surged up inside Jim Ronson. He had travelled many a weary mile for this moment. He had faced frustration and despair. The best doctors on Earth had told him they could do nothing for him. Now, here, in the heart of a mountain near the south pole of Mars--

"Follow me," the Messenger said.

The wall swirled in front of him. He stepped into the misty opaqueness and Ronson followed him. Inside the light, the human felt the millions of microscopic hands take hold of him. Their touch was gentle and caressing, softly tender. Suddenly their touch was firm and strong. He felt them seize his clothing and rip it from his body. Their gentle, caressing touch was gone. In its place was an almost manic fury. A scream ripped involuntarily from his throat.

The scream was flung into complete silence. No echo of it came back to his ears.

Blackness beat at him, flowed in over him, flowed through him. The blackness ransacked every nook and corner of his body. It probed to the bottom of his soul.

It swallowed him whole. It dissected his consciousness, tore it to shreds, then yanked away even the shreds. He seemed to be falling into a black hole that had no end.

Ronson did not know how long the blackness lasted. The first sense to come back was hearing. Somewhere near him he heard a grunt. Then the sense of feeling came back and he realized he was lying naked on sand. He didn't much want to open his eyes. Finally he forced them open. His vision was blurred and vague. When it cleared he saw the source of the grunt.

The sound had come from Tal Bock, squatting on the sand near him. Tal Bock was also naked. Unlike Ronson, the millions of microscopic hands in the darkness had not left even a wrist watch on the Martian.

"Happy--ah--wind time," Ronson said. Tal Bock grunted, but did not answer.

"Where are we?"

"Hell," Tal Bock said. He got up and walked into the shrubbery behind him.

Ronson rose. He was shaky, his legs seemed too long to reach the sand, a subjective impression that almost amused him, but didn't quite. To the left another Martian was squatting cross-legged on the sand. Ronson looked, then looked again. He moved toward the Martian to make certain.

It was the leper who had been on the street outside the dive. Without the rags, the Martian was hardly recognizable. The sores provided a certain means of identification. There was no mistaking them.

"How did you get here?" Ronson asked.

The leper made a weak gesture with his hands which said, "Go away." His attitude was resigned but about his manner was an air of expectancy.

Ronson discovered that the place in which he had found himself was a cavern about half a mile in diameter. It was adequately lighted though the light sprang from no source that he could detect. The place was pleasant enough. There was water here. It flowed in little rills set in stonework. Grass and desert shrubs grew here. The air was moist, with a fragrant sweetness somewhere about it.

Something was in the air besides the moisture and the fragrant sweetness. It was intangible, almost imperceptible. Ronson cocked his head, trying to catch this something. It was always out of the range of his sensory perception, an intangible, elusive quality that perplexed him.

"Subliminal," he thought. "Maybe super-sonic sound just above the range of hearing."

Why super-sonic sound? He did not know. He felt dazed. There was a heavy feeling through his whole body. Why was he here? He had been told he would see Les Ro. There was also talk about a man proving if he was worthy--

He did not like this thinking. He tried to shut it off, but it was a persistent gadfly that returned to buzz again and again in his brain.

The out-of-hearing sound seemed to buzz with it, slipping in and out of hearing too fast for the mind to grasp it. Each time it slipped into hearing for the fractional part of a second, it brought a flick of agony with it. At the touch, he became almost giddy. Alarm bells rang suddenly inside his head. The note went out of hearing again, the giddiness passed, the alarm bells went into silence.

In the shrubbery ahead of him, a figure moved--Kus Dorken.

Two of the worst killers on Mars were here in this place. A leper. A human. Unease came up inside Jim Ronson, a sharp stab of it. Inside his chest a surge of pain broke through the barriers he had erected around it, reminding him of what was there.

He had come here seeking relief for that surge of pain. Instead of getting what he had asked for, he had been thrust into place. With two killers and a leper and--A shout broke into his thinking. A Martian was running along the walls, seeking for an exit. It was Te Hold. Te Hold had recovered from the effect of the thormoline and had been brought here. Ronson watched the Martian run along the walls, searching desperately for a way out. Te Hold screamed as he ran but he didn't find an exit. The screams died out as he reached the far end of the oval, then grew stronger as he came back again upon his own steps.

Kus Dorken slid out of sight. Tal Bock was somewhere in that shrubbery too, where, Ronson didn't know. And didn't care. A feeling of hopelessness was coming up in him. He moved back to the leper, squatted on the sand beside the man, asked a question.

The leper's eyes flicked at him in response but there was no other answer. An ecstacy was in the eyes now. The leper was so lost in this ecstacy that such things as grunted noises from a member of an alien race made no impression on him. Ronson envied him. The leper was close to death but he was so lost in some inner ecstacy that death was unimportant to him.

"Did Les Ro's Messenger promise you that you would be cured of your leprosy?" Ronson asked, persisting.

The leper nodded. Again his hand waved in the "Go away," gesture.

"Go away and let you die in peace?" Ronson said.

"Just go away," the leper answered.

Ronson rose to his feet, angry. What farce was being perpetrated here? What--The super-sonic note came into hearing. Pain stabbed at his chest.

He lifted his hand involuntarily. The sight of the dial on his wrist watch forced itself through the pulses of pain.

As a part of his research into cell structure, Ronson had worked extensively with radioactivity. In order to protect himself, he had had a microscopically small radiation detector built into the watch itself. Three tiny glow tubes were set into the dial. If the green tube glowed, radiation was present but was safe. If the amber light glowed, be wary. If the red light glowed, _get out fast_!

The red light was glowing now. As Ronson stared, it winked out. Before he could take his eyes away from the dial, the red light flicked on again. The super-sonic note came with it. A flick of very real pain came with the note. The red light flicked out, the note vanished. The pain was gone.

"Regular pulsations of radiation are being poured through this place!" Ronson whispered.

It was being done deliberately. The whole cavern was being flooded periodically with bursts of radiation. This meant deliberate intention, purpose, plan. He did not know what impact this radiation might have on Martian flesh but he could guess the effect it might have on human tissue.

Fear came up in him, a flood of it. Anger followed it. The lights on his watch danced. Pain, agony, and the shrill note of the super-sonic came again. Grimly, he began to prowl the cavern, searching for the source of the radiations. The radiation counter in his watch led him to it, by the increased intensity of its glow. The radiations were coming from a single spot in the wall of the cavern. So far as he could tell, the wall was solid stone at this place, but he had seen solid stone walls dissolve in this madhouse. Behind this spot there was intelligent direction of the bursts of radiation.

Back there Les Ro, or someone with him, was playing games of life and death with--

Te Hold came past him, screaming. The Martian was beginning to stumble as he ran. The screams were only gasping sounds in his throat.

Voices rose in shouted argument somewhere in the shrubbery. Ronson moved away.

"What's going on there?" he asked the leper.

"Tal Bock--and Kus Dorken--have disagreed--as to which is the bigger killer--and therefore which is the more worthy. They fight--to decide the problem."

The words were quietly spoken. The tone said the matter was of no importance. After he had finished speaking, the leper's eyes went back to the inner ecstacy that he seemed to be watching. Or was it _future_ ecstacy that he was imagining?

"I hope there is a heaven for Martians," Ronson said. So far as he knew, only in heaven could this leper's health be restored. Was the same true for him?