Old Mars

“There is none. The helmet was made for a Gollowat’n medic, believe it or not. That’s why it was built with an empathy conceptor, so the medic could work on a wounded soldier or an injured civilian at the scene, usually in a battle situation. Empathy was a Gollowat’n middle name. The greatest doctors on seven worlds. They’re porcine, of course, but close enough to humans for the helmet to work pretty well. It should be compatible with your suit. The noman will make any adjustments you need.”

“It’s no more than a couple of planets at stake.” The helmet was light and felt unexpectedly organic. It shifted like flesh to his touch. It had a faint, pleasant smell, like brine. He lifted it over his head and brought it slowly down, fitting it like a hat. Then it seemed to flow over his skull and snuggle around his throat, his forehead. His suit suddenly buzzed recognition codes. Rounded blinkers fitted over his eyes, but he could see well. If anything, his eyes were sharper. For a moment, his cheekbones itched and he saw an uncomfortable series of cherry-colored flashes. Then a wash of dark red, almost like blood, gave way to enhanced clarity of vision.

The noman extended its arms, touching him gently here and there. His suit settled more comfortably on his body. He was surprised how healthy the thing made him feel. Maybe Gollowat’n medics had to be healthy in order to empathize with their patients. He had a sudden thought.

“This bomb? Is it sentient?”

“Not much,” said Krane.

“So what do I have to do to turn the timer off?”

“You have to open a series of locks. Numbered right to left in what they call G-script. We coded them to a particular melody in a particular time signature. It’s a tune, with each note representing a complex number. Do you know the old Earth tune ‘Dixie’? Just whistle it to yourself. That number should cancel out the existing sequence and effectively baffle the bomb’s key and register. The locks will snap off and it will probably simply go dead in your hand.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Well, it will still be live.”

“And ready to blow.”

“Yes. I’m assured there is very little chance of this going wrong, Mac Stone. Our people worked it out. Essentially, all you have to do is memorize that simple little tune. Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton—”

“There is a problem.” Stone was almost embarrassed.

“What’s that?”

He flushed. “I’m tone-deaf,” he said.

4 Dancing in the Dark

“THEN TRY TO REMEMBER THE INTERVALS.” KRANE SEEMED bitterly amused, like a man who believes he’s thought of everything only to be told of one obvious unconsidered fact. “The helmet should help you. We’ve entered the code and the helmet should translate it automatically.”

Stone shrugged. “And if I succeed, I come back here and you give me the sapphires?”

“The whole bag. I promise.”

Stone didn’t have much choice now. He had to make a decision. Believe this strange Earthman or not? He laughed his long, low purr and tested the helmet’s responses. He pulled the casque down a little more firmly, settling the bond with his suit. Somehow he knew what to do next. He blinked to make the lights come on. Then he lay down on the side of the pit, fishing up his gun. The wanal made an unpleasant noise but went on eating.

Stone wiped slime off the barrel of his Banning and shoved it back in its holster. “What now?”

“The helmet’s programmed to help you find the bomb. If you leave this chamber, you’ll be at the top of a flight of stairs leading to a wide walkway. It runs beside the canal. All the Sheev waterways were made like that and their successors copied them.” There was a warm, Terran voice speaking to him now. Was this what Miguel Krane really sounded like? “There’s a numbering system still based on Sheev. The Sheev system used predominantly eleven. One, two, eleven, eleven, twenty-two, and so on.

“The Ia was rediscovered by the last Martians. They followed us. They built cities where they could shelter from the meteors. Air enough and water. They cultivated plants that grew well in the hydroponic fields. They built the atmosphere factories. They traded up and down that stretch of the canal. They sustained their particular civilization for another thousand years or more. When the meteor storms had passed, as you know, the whole planet had been pulverized. Almost all trace of Martian life was wiped out, except for things that lived belowground. They never really came back to the surface.”