"You don't grow old and die?"

"I don't know what you mean. We grow, yes. We develop all our lives, not physically-that takes only a little time. Several of your Earth years. But mentally and spiritually we grow always. Our vi grows with us."

"Vi? I have not heard you speak of that before."

"Vi is our…" He paused, searching Spence's vocabulary for the proper word. "Our true selves. Our souls."

"No one on Ovs ever dies?" Spence's voice rose incredulously. Even granting the fact that the lower gravity on Mars might have the effect of radically increasing the life span of its inhabitants in the same way it increased their stature, Spence could not believe they did not know death.

"Death? No. We can be killed-disease, accident-the burning killed entire cities. Or we may simply cease to be. Those who have grown great in wisdom may decide it is time to take up their viand join Dal Elna. It is a choice everyone must eventually make." "Then what happens?"

"I do not know. I have not undergone the change. But a wise one may call his friends around him to celebrate his decision and he then imparts all he has learned in his life to those he loves. In a little while no one will see him anymore. He becomes one with the dust and goes to be with Dal Elna, the All-Being."

Spence glared at the alien in disbelief. "Then why didn't you join Dal Elna when you ceased to be?"

"When did I ever cease to be?"

"When you were in the growing-machine."

"The emra?"

"Yes, that box of yours where I found you."

The Martian made his laughing sound. "I had not ceased to be. I was…" No word came.

"Sleeping?"

"No, it is not the same thing."

"Dormant?"

The creature waved his head and contemplated the meaning of the word. "Yes, dormant."

"But I looked in there and saw nothing but dust and dry fibers."

"The material of my body can be reborn many times."

Spence could not fathom such a possibility, but then reflected that there were plants on Earth, desert plants, that possessed the same abilities. Several lower life forms also carried the seed of life with them even though they remained paper-dry and dormant for years between cycles.

"What happens to you while you are dormant?"

"I do not understand your question. I exist, but I do not exist in the same way as before. I am not conscious."

"But what keeps you from dying? And why do you wake up knowing who you are? If you are recreated, why do you remember your past life?"

Kyr spread his hands wide in a gesture of great humility. He said, "The questions you ask are questions for Dal Elna himself. Are all Earthmen as inquisitive as you?"

Spence admitted that there were many things he had trouble accepting and that the All-Being's role in creation was one of them.

"So I have come to believe. But I will find a way to help you see."

"You have already shown me much." He gestured toward the blank screen where only moments before the splendor of a glorious past had unfolded before his eyes. "I understand now why Tso must remain a secret. The sudden explosion of interest would destroy it."

"One day, when your world has regained the peace that it lost long ago, Tso will be revealed. Until then it is better that such secrets remain hidden."

"And you trust me with this secret?" Spence experienced a fleeting doubt that perhaps the Martian had no intention of allowing him to return to tell the tale.

"Yes." Kyr reached out a long hand to him. Spence took it. "I must trust you, for how can it be otherwise? I cannot prevent you. Dal Elna himself will hold or give as he sees fit."

"Kyr, how much do you know of Earth and its people? Have you ever been there?"

"No, but others have. In the days before the starships your planet was visited. Many times. But when we discovered it inhabited by sentient beings, not unlike ourselves, we knew that we could not look for a home there. No one ever went back after that; it was forbidden."

"Forbidden? Why? I would have thought friendly contact with a higher intelligence could have been very beneficial to primitive Earth societies."

"There were those among us who took that view. But in the end the leader of the Earth expeditions argued very persuasively against going back. His name was Ortu, and he was one of the great leaders of his day. It was his view that the primitive Earthmen should be allowed to develop in their own time. Dal Elna, he said, had not meant for us to interfere with others of his creations."

"So no one ever went back?"

"Never. Even the watcher ships were withdrawn. Ortu said that was necessary if we were ever to keep peace here on Ovs. Otherwise the temptation to step in and save Earthmen in times of distress would be too great. They had to survive on their own, if they were to become strong."

"And then the migration began?"

"Exactly. With Res destroyed, we knew there to be no other inhabitable planets in this solar system. The stars offered our only hope. Again, Ortu led the development of the starships and even led the first wave to leave Ovs."

Spence nodded slowly. "And now I, too, must think about leaving Ovs. "

Kyr turned and led them out of the bout to show you before we talk of leaving. Come, there is much to see." ding Spence followed his lanky host through the silent, vacant pathways of Tso and tried to imagine what it had been like,,ant the tall, graceful Martians had lived there and the narrow trafficways rang with the chirrup of their voices and the floating sounds of their eerily beautiful music. He was immediately ov. come with a heavy sense of loss and loneliness, as if someone h loved very much had died.

11

… THE LAST THREE DAYS had been a blur of activity to Spence. He felt as if he were a sponge that had absorbed ten times its weight, he had seen and experienced so much of ancient Martian culture. Now he and Kyr stood looking at a large model of the Red Planet which had the area of the underground cities marked on its surface.

He frowned as he looked at the terrain. "I don't see anything I recognize." The model, of course, had been made before the Martians left; it was several thousand years old. "The surface features have changed a lot."

They walked around the perimeter of the sculptured replica.

"Wait a minute," said Spence. "Where is that great volcano?"

Kyr thought for a moment about what the word meant and then pointed a long finger to an area between two dry canal beds.

"At the time of the Burning, several small volcanoes erupted in this area. It is not far from Tso."

"Could it have been active since then? I mean, really active?"

"It is possible, yes."

"Then I think that is what we call Olympus Mons. That is the mountain I was walking toward when I got lost." He studied the model carefully, noting the huge canyon directly to the west of the giant Mariner Valley, a hole so big it could have swallowed the entire Rocky Mountain range and still have room for the Grand Canyon. According to the model, the outskirts of Tso lay near one of the tributary troughs which fed into this canyon system.

"I think this is where I came upon the tunnels. Right here. Since I didn't tumble into the canyon, the installation must lie somewhere in this area." He pointed to the smooth plain eastward.

"Kali," said Kyr.

"What is that?"

"It is a smaller underground settlement which housed the workers building the starships. It is not shown here. The plain is where the starships were built, and from there they left Ovs forever."

Spence had the picture in his mind of hundreds of shiping like silver balloons into the pink sky of Mars to disappear like fragile bubbles into the void. "Then this is where the last of the Martians left and the first of the Earthmen came. Because, I miss my guess, this is where the installation is."