Illustrated by ENGLE
The road to Ul was paved with danger, difficulty,
and good intentions—and it's an open question
which of the three was most disastrous!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity Science Fiction, June 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I ran a story the other day about the arrival on Earth of a Martiandiplomat and his wife. And I okayed a picture of the lady presidingover a tea at the Martian embassy. I looked at the picture for quitea while. The lady in her costume, fresh from the Couture Syndicate inRio, was a carbon copy of every other woman. What was different abouther was no longer very different. It was sad, and it was frightening,too.
It took me back to the days when Deborah and I were pioneering in thegloomy bureau Universal News had set up in Marsport. I remember thebiggest story we ever covered; it was the only one we never wrote. AndI've been waiting for a time when I could break it because sooner orlater you can take the lid off anything. It illustrates a point I tryto make when I can.
In the early days we were frequently involved in Martian difficulties.It was partly through genuine concern for their welfare; we liked theMartians without question. But it was also, curiously, motivated by analmost adolescent eagerness to demonstrate efficiency and speed andworth to a people who remained friendly and grateful but aloof andpaternally amused by our energies.
This story started as suddenly and simply as most disasters usuallystrike on Mars, or anywhere. A news flash was relayed in from aninterior hill community, Faleeng, to our Marsport office. The newsflash to Universal News came almost simultaneously with the officialSOS.
Disaster had struck a small community of Martians in the UlMountains—a mining region, remote and inaccessible to the Martian landmachines. Power failure threatened the colony of 2,000 with extinction.Intense cold was slowly, inexorably moving in from the cheerlesssandstone hills from which Ul had been carved.
It was top news as it stood, but there was an additional detail thatmade it a real 72-point type headline, a screamer. Ul was the seat ofMartian diranium mining operations. And Mars ran on diranium ore andwhatever it was that the Martians did with it.
We didn't know anything about diranium then and the Martians keptit that way. We had nothing like it and it drew the con boys like amagnet. But fruitlessly. Ambassador Ferne, a real level guy with theMartians, made sure nothing like diranium ever left in anyone's carpetbag. Our relations with the Martians were smooth, as a result. Therewas really nothing else we wanted from them.
Except maybe to see what their women looked like, and, oh yes, theirchildren. No ancient system of purdah was ever stricter. They wereinflexible on the subject. They had not only instituted elaborateprecautions for keeping their women invisible, it was, also, distinctlya breach of good manners to mention them. We had been given a roughidea of the methods the Martians employed in rearing children, butwhile it excited a lot of psychologist chaps with its novelty, we werestill frustrated and speculative about their female relations. Who musthave been a pretty attractive and exotic lot, to judge by their men.
But you couldn't, if you were decent, do anything but defer to theMartians in the matter. They were wonderful people, honest, friendlyand with no ax to grind. They invariably brought out your best withoutany seeming effort. They made you examine into your motives, and thedarker nooks and crannies of your