Part 3

"Of course. I never make careless statements." He made a gesture toward the elder who held his metal staff.

Around him Larkin was aware that the other humans were being freed from the force envelopes that held them powerless. There were clattering sounds, the noises of weapons being dropped from hands that no longer chose to use them.

Over the watching throng a sigh was rising, such a sigh as may come from the lips of those who have seen wonders past the understanding.

* * * * *

At the top of the coliseum, where the vast red deserts stretched away under a thin harness of tiny canals, they paused.

Roy Larkin had changed. The fear and the terror were gone. A different enthusiasm was in his voice. "We can still bring minerals here but we will no longer operate as I had planned. We will operate on a cost-plus basis, we will deliver them here at a price...."

"The buyer can afford," Boyd Larkin said softly.

"Right," his son said.

Behind them stood Malovar and Seekin. Malovar grunted approvingly. "Through such men as you, minerals can come to Mars--and with them new life may come to an old and dying world."

Malovar looked beyond the city to the red deserts. He seemed to be seeing them as vast stretches of greenery, as interlacing canals with lush vegetation covering all the land that now was desert but someday would be something else. His face glowed.

"You also seem to have won a victory here," Boyd Larkin spoke.

"Yes," Malovar answered. "I have blended the laws of my people with the drive of you humans, made each aware of the other, made each respect and support the other. The victory will be _there_, in the years that are to come."

He gestured toward the deserts where in his imagination an old world was again coming to life. The glow deepened on his face. He was seeing a lost dream come true.

Boyd Larkin had the fleeting impression that this old Martian ruler had somehow manipulated and conspired the actions that had taken place in the arena down below, that he had moved both his own people--and the humans--like puppets on strings. For an instant the thought startled the trader. Then he looked again at Malovar's face, saw the glow there, and knew that even if Malovar had manipulated them like puppets on strings the purpose of Malovar's manipulations was clear. It was new life on an old planet, new life for two peoples, the Martians and the humans.

With that purpose, Boyd Larkin had complete sympathy.

Quietly the four of them moved down from the top of the coliseum, toward the peaked roofs of the city of Sudal.

Beyond them, the red deserts already seemed to be greening with new vegetation, new life.