Regan's Planet

FOURTEEN

This was one part of the show that Regan knew he had to run all by himself. There was no other way. It was a slimy, foul business, and he could not casually delegate it to someone else to carry out.

Before he could go ahead with it, he had to quell a small rebellion in his own ranks. Both Martinelli and Henderson wanted to resign rather than become accomplices. Regan talked them out of it. It took time, and took all of his rhetorical skills, but the man who could talk a flinty Board of Directors out of firing him could also talk two young aides into staying on the job. He let them see that he loathed the project as much as they did-and he showed them how, in the course of human events, it was sometimes necessary to do absolutely loathsome things. If the Fair went bankrupt, millions of people would suffer. Half a dozen Martians could make the difference between profit and loss. Ergo-Q.E.D…

Martinelli and Henderson stayed. But they insisted that Regan maintain direct responsibility for the Martian Pavilion, and Regan agreed.

There was little enough time to waste. Quickly, and in great secrecy, the preparations commenced.

It was going to be expensive. “It’ll cost you a mint,” the Marsport anthropologist Curtis had said, and Curtis had been right. Regan sent three technicians off to Mars to make a study of the Martian caves. He commandeered a space freighter in Global’s fleet, renting it at a nominal sum for the Fair, and sent it off to the yard to have its guts ripped out and replaced by a sealed chamber in which Martians could live. He put engineers to work reading everything that had been published on the Martian physiology.

The Martians breathed air. It was an oxygen-nitrogen mixture, not unlike what Earthmen breathed, but the proportions were different, higher on the nitro, lower on the oxy. They drank water, and this, thank the Lord, was good old-fashioned H₂O. With residual impurities, though, drawn up from the depths of Mars in the roots of the water-plants. Would the Martians survive if their water-plants brought them non-Martian water supplies? In the opinion of medical counsel, yes.

‘We’ll risk it,“ Regan said.

Everything had to be top secret. If so much as a syllable leaked out beforehand, there would be vociferous protests from scientific bodies, from the settlers on Mars, from the SPCA, from various pressure groups on Earth. The hue and cry would certainly prevent Regan from carrying out his plan.

No, it had to be a fait accompli. “Here they are,” Regan would announce. “Martians in their native habitat!” Let the world gasp. It would be too late to do anything to stop him. And the public, fascinated by the strange alien creatures, would flock to see them. Regan had read the accounts of American Indians taken to Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They had caused a sensation, these visitors from a new world. Unhappily, most of the Indians exhibited in the courts of Europe had swiftly perished, of smallpox, measles, venereal infection, alcoholism, or simple overex-citement. It would be decidedly troublesome if any of Regan’s Martians passed away while on exhibit. But there was no reason why that should happen, if only the proper precautions were taken.

Regan took the precautions. The ship that would carry the Martians off would be adapted to their environment. If they lived the week or so it took to get them from Mars to the Fair Satellite, they would be transferred to an equally congenial snuggery there.

Would they live? Would they die?

They wouldn’t dare die, Regan vowed. He would lavish every attention on them. Day by day medical examinations. The best of everything. It was the least he could do, on behalf of his hapless victims.

So Regan went to Mars. Not as a sightseer, this time, but as a thief.

The chartered ship landed at the Marsport spacefield. No one was waiting to greet Regan, nobody offered him the keys to the city, because he had not advertised in advance that he was coming. This was to be a quick trip, a quiet trip.

Dick Avery drove out to the field. As Global’s representative on Mars, he had been tipped off on the purpose of the expedition. He looked a little doubtful about it.

‘Are you serious, Factor?“

‘As serious as I’ll ever be.“

‘There’s going to be one hell of a stink about this, Factor,“ Avery warned.

‘I’ll risk it.“

‘You won’t be a popular man on Mars. The settlers here are very fond of the Old Martians.“

‘I’m not planning to exterminate them,“ Regan said. ”I’m just going to borrow a few of them for a while.“

Avery started to say something, but obviously thought better of it, and choked it back. After a pause he simply nodded his head and said, “All right, Factor. I’m ready whenever you are.”

The convoy wound across the desert.

Avery and Regan, in a sand-crawler, led the way. Behind them was the mobile wagon in which the Martians were to be transported. Bringing lip the rear was another crawler in which rode Regan’s technicians and medics.

Regan said nothing as the caravan moved outward, through the cold red flatlands, toward the caves. He did not feel cheerful about what he was going to do. He told himself, over and over again, that stark necessity was driving him to take this desperate step. But his protestations had that hollow, hollow ring.

‘Here we are,“ Regan said.

‘No,“ Avery said. ”Sorry, Factor. This isn’t the cave you visited. It’s the next one over.“

‘Oh. All right.“

They drove on. A mile beyond, they halted and left the crawlers. Regan felt trapped in his breathing-helmet. The sand crunched nastily beneath his feet, as though he were the first one to bear down on it in a hundred million years. They crossed the patch of flatland in front of the cave. The mobile wagon drew up close, like some bulky dinosaur ready to launch an attack on the beings within.

Regan entered, accompanied only by Avery. The others remained at the mouth of the cave.

Martians appeared. The little leathery gnomes peered at the intruders without curiosity, without interest. Such things had long since eroded from their personalities. They were infuriatingly passive, maddeningly remote.

Regan pointed to one. “You. I spoke to you before, didn’t I?”

‘Yes.“

‘About coming to the World’s Fair.“

Blankness.

‘You know. To be exhibited.“ Regan spoke loudly, as though it would somehow help in communication. ”We will pay well. We will give you whatever you want.“

‘We do not wish to leave home.“

‘A permanent water supply,“ Regan said. ”A reservoir all your own. An electric generator. Do you know what that is? It makes light.“

‘We have light.“

‘This is brighter. Safer. Listen, I'll give you anything you want. Just name it. Medicines, food, equipment, money, anything at all. What do you want?“

‘Nothing.“

‘You must want something!“

‘We want to be left in peace,“ the Martian said.

Regan sighed. “I beg you-”

Avery murmured, “It’s no use, Factor. Can’t you see that? It’s no goddam use at all.”

‘You’re right,“ Regan said. He looked sadly at the little group of solemn-faced Martians. Then he turned away, walked back to the mouth of the cave, where his technicians and medics waited. Regan nodded at them.

‘Okay,“ he said. ”Six of them. Two adult males, two adult females, one child of each sex. Don’t be rough with them. That’s an order.“

They went in.

He went out.

He walked away, a hundred yards into the desert, and stood there, scuffing his boot into the sand. He couldn’t bear to face the Martians as they were dragged from the security of their cave.

Right now he couldn’t even bear to face himself.

Lyle Henderson said, “As of July 30, 1992, the first three months of the Fair are completely sold out. There isn’t a booking to be had on any of the flights to the Fair.”

Regan nodded. “How’s construction coming on those extra sections?”

‘First one will be ready in February,“ Henderson said. ”And then a new one every three weeks through May. That ought to be enough.“

‘Let’s hope so. What are the figures for the second three months?“

Henderson glanced at the tally sheet. “Every weekend flight is sold out between October 12 and the following June. In addition, seventy-three and six-tenths percent of the weekday flights in the months of January 12-April 12 are sold out. The rest are going fast. I estimate that by Opening Day the Fair will be booked solid for at least its first year.”

‘There’s a black market in tickets already,“ Hal Martinelli put in. ”A seat on one of the flights in the first two months is quoted at around five hundred dollars.“

Regan smiled thinly. “Things are breaking our way finally, aren’t they?”

‘It’s because of the Martians,“ Henderson said. ”Yes. The Martians.“

‘How are they taking it?“ Martinelli asked. Regan shrugged. ”They don’t seem to mind,“ he said. ”Frankly, they don’t seem to give a damn.“

It was true enough. Regan had visited the Satellite two days before, a routine business visit. He had stopped off at the Martian Pavilion, which was completed now. The Martians had been installed eight weeks before.

They were living in the pavilion as though it were their own cave. It looked like their cave, all right, a perfect copy, except that one wall was one-way glass to permit the spectators to get a close look at the alien beings. Regan had suited up, had gone into the cave to talk to his prisoners. They had given him what he by now had come to think of as the Martian Stare: a completely noncommittal look, expressionless and blank.

‘I wanted to find out if you were getting good treatment,“ Regan said.

‘We are comfortable.“

‘That’s terribly important,“ Regan said. ”I want you to be absolutely comfortable here. I want it to seem just like home to you.“

‘We are comfortable.“

They didn’t seem angry with him for having kidnaped him. There was no reproach in their eyes. They seemed perfectly happy where they were. They just didn’t seem to care.

Which didn’t ease Regan’s conscience any. Simply because his prisoners weren’t visibly suffering, the Factor thought, that didn’t make him any the less a louse.

But then the presence of the Martians aboard the Satellite had made all the difference between the success or failure“ of the 1992 Columbian Exposition. There was no getting around that. The day Regan had made the announcement, a wave of excitement had swept over the world almost un-equaled in his memory. Suddenly everybody wanted tickets to the Fair. Regan flew a cadre of selected media correspondents up to the Satellite for a preview of the Martian Pavilion, and they returned with photographs that stirred the imagination of the world. Live Martians! On view at the Fair! Who could resist?

Nobody could resist.

Oddly, there was less of a furor over the kidnaping of the Martians than Regan had anticipated. Chiefly, this was because nobody realized the Martians had been kidnaped. They seemed perfectly happy in their pavilion. The Martians back on Mars were not signing any petitions. In their passive way, they were taking no notice of the disappearance of six of their number. The colonists on Mars expressed surprise that Martians had been willing to leave their caves to become sideshow exhibits, but if anyone guessed the truth about their departure, Regan never heard it.

The Fair was made.

The Martians were the biggest gate attraction since Barnum’s day. Everybody was talking about them. Everybody wanted to see them. As a result, the Fair’s economic projections were beginning to look rosy for the first time. On the basis of advance ticket sales and pavilion rentals, it was now safe to say that the Fair would at least break even, which was all it was intended to do. Regan’s balance sheet showed that the bonds could be liquidated on schedule, the Fair’s assets sold off at a good price, and the Exposition wound up without a loss to the investors. American prestige would have been enhanced, and the public would have had a hell of a good show. If that wasn’t success, Regan didn’t know what kind of word to use.

The directors of Global Factors began to look more kindly upon their impetuous Chief Executive Officer. Even Rex Bennett began to smile at him now and then, as the finances of the World’s Fair grew brighter.

Tim Field buttonholed Regan and said, “Factor, are you still planning to sell the Fair Satellite to Global when the Fair ends in ‘93?”

‘Sure.“

‘And the Martians,“ Field said. ”Will they remain with the Satellite?“

‘Absolutely not,“ Regan snapped. ”My agreement with them covers only the Fair. They can’t remain on exhibit forever. When the Fair closes, they go back home to Mars.“

‘But it’s greatly to Global’s advantage to keep Martians as a permanent exhibit,“ Field protested. ”If we’re going to run the Satellite as a kind of pleasure resort, wouldn’t it be profitable to show Martians there?“

Regan shook his head. “It may be to Global’s advantage, but it won’t be to the advantage of the Martians. They don’t belong in a zoo forever. They go back. Global will have to find some other way of getting people to come to the Satellite, Tim.”

Field looked startled at the thought that the Factor Regan might possibly place the welfare of a few Martians above that of Global Factors. Regan smiled. “What’s the matter, Tim?”

‘N-nothing, Factor.“

‘Sure. You think I’m being disloyal to the good old company, don’t you?“

‘Well, sir-“

‘The Martians go back to Mars. That’s final, Tim. Absolutely final. As soon as the Fair ends-back they go.“

Field seemed to accept that. The matter was allowed to drop. The days ticked by. Regan visited his Martians once more, just to make sure they were still comfortable.

They had no complaints. They seemed neither happy nor unhappy. They seemed-well, like Martians.