CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Willis

FOUR DAYS LATER Doctor MacRae stumbled into the same office. Marlowe still looked tired, but this time it was MacRae who looked exhausted. "Get these other people out of here. Skipper."

Marlowe dismissed them and closed the door. "Well?"

"You got my message?"

"Yes."

"Is the Proclamation of Autonomy written? Did the folks go for it?"

"Yes, it's written-we cribbed a good deal from the American Declaration of Independence I'm afraid, but we wrote one."

"I'm not interested in the rhetoric of the thing! How about it?"

"It's ratified. Easily enough here. We had quite a few startled queries from the Project camps, but it was accepted. I guess we owe Beecher a vote of thanks on that; he made independence seem like a fine idea."

"We owe Beecher nothing! He nearly got us all killed."

"Just how do you mean that?"

"I'll tell you-but I want to know about the Declaration. I had to make some promises. It's gone off?"

"Radioed to Chicago last night. No answer yet. But let me

ask the questions: were you successful?"

"Yes." MacRae rubbed his eyes wearily. "We can stay. 'It was a great fight. Maw, but I won.' They'll let us stay."

Marlowe got up and started to set up a wire recorder. "Do you want to talk it into the record and save having to go over it again?"

MacRae waved it away. "No. Whatever formal report I make will have to be very carefully edited. I'll try to tell you about it first." He paused and looked thoughtful. "Jamie, how long has it been since men first landed on Mars? More than fifty Earth years, isn't it? I believe I have teamed more about Martians in the past few hours than was learned in all that time. And yet I don't know anything about them. We kept trying to think of them as human, trying to force them into our molds. But they aren't human; they aren't anything like us at all."

He added, "They had interplanetary flight millions of years back... had it and gave it up."

"What?" said Marlowe.

"It doesn't matter. It's not important. It's just one of the things I happened to find out while I was talking with the old one, the same old one with whom Jim talked. By the way, Jim was seeing things; he's not a Martian at all."

"Wait a minute-what is he, then?"

"Oh, I guess he's a native of Mars all right, but he isn't what you and I mean by a Martian. At least he didn't look like one to me."

"What did he look like? Describe him."

MacRae looked puzzled. "Uh, I can't. Maybe Jim and I each saw what he wanted us to see. Never mind. Willis has to go back to the Martians and rather soon."

"I'm sorry," Marlowe answered. "Jim won't like that, but it's not a high price to pay if it pleases them."

"You don't understand, you don't understand at all. Willis is the key to the whole thing."

"Certainly he's been mixed up in it," agreed Marlowe, "but why the key?"

"Don't call Willis 'he'; call him 'she.' There-1 did it myself. Habit."

"I don't care what sex the little beast is. Go on."

MacRae rubbed his temples. "That's the trouble. It's very complicated and I don't know where to start. Willis is important and it does matter that he's a she. Look, Jamie, you'll go down in history as the father of your country, no doubt, but, between ourselves, Jim should be credited for being the savior of it. It was directly due to Jim and Willis-Willis's love for Jim and Jim's staunch befriending of him-that the colonists are alive today instead of pushing up daisies. The ultimatum to get off this globe represented a concession made to Jim; they had intended to exterminate us."

Marlowe's mouth dropped open. "But that's impossible! Martians wouldn't do anything like that!"

"Could and would," MacRae stated flatly. "They've been having doubts about us for a long time. Beecher's notion of shipping Willis off to a zoo pushed them over the edge-but Jim's relationship to Willis pulled them back again. They compromised."

"I can't believe that they would," protested Marlowe, "nor can I see how they could."

"Where's Beecher?" MacRae said bluntly.

"Mmm... yes."

"So don't talk about what they can or can't do. We don't know anything about them... not anything."

"I can't argue with you. But can you clear up some of this mystery about Jim and Willis? Why do they care? After all, Willis is just a bouncer."

"I don't think I can clear it up," MacRae admitted, "but I can sure lace it around with some theories. Do you know Willis's Martian name? Do you know what it means?"

"I didn't know he had one-I mean 'she'."

"It reads: 'In whom the hopes of a world are joined.' That suggest anything to you?"

"Gracious, no! Sounds like a name for a messiah, not a bouncer."

"Maybe you aren't joking. On the other hand, I may have translated it badly. Maybe it means 'Young Hopeful,' or merely 'Hope.' Maybe Martians go in for poetical meanings, like we do. Take my name, 'Donald.' Means 'World Ruler.' My parents sure muffed that one. Or maybe Martians enjoy giving bouncers fancy names. I once knew a Pekinese called, believe it or not, 'Grand Champion Manchu Prince of Belvedere.'" MacRae looked suddenly startled. "Do you know, I just remembered that dog's family-and-fireside name was Willis!"

"You don't say!"

"I do say." The doctor scratched the stubble on his chin and reflected that he should shave one of these weeks. "But it's not even a coincidence. I suggested the name 'Willis' to Jim in the first place; I was probably thinking of the Peke. Engaging little devil, with a pop-eyed way of looking at you just like Willis-our Willis. Which is to say that neither one of Willis's names necessarily means anything."

He sat so long without saying anything that Marlowe said, "You aren't clearing up the mystery very fast. You think that Willis's real name does mean something, don't you?-else you wouldn't have brought it up."

MacRae sat up with a jerk. "I do. I do indeed. I think Willis is sort of a Martian crown princess. Now wait a minute -don't throw anything. I won't get violent. That's a farfetched figure of speech. What do you think Willis is?"

"Me?" said Marlowe. "I think he's an example of exotic Martian fauna, semi-intelligent and adapted to his environment."

"Big words," complained the doctor. "I think he is what a Martian is before he grows up."

Marlowe looked pained. "There is no similarity of structure. They're as different as chalk and cheese."

"Granted. What's the similarity between a caterpillar and a butterfly?"

Marlowe opened his mouth and closed it. "I don't blame you," MacRae went on, "we never think of such metamorphosis in connection with higher types, whatever a 'higher type' is. But I think that is what Willis is and it appears to be why

Willis has to go back to his people soon. He's in the nymph stage; he's about to go into a pupal stage-some sort of a long hibernation. When he comes out he'll be a Martian."

Marlowe chewed his Up. "There's nothing unreasonable about it-just startling."

"Everything about Mars is startling. Another thing: we've never been able to find anything resembling sex on this planet -various sorts of species conjugation, yes, but no sex. It appears to me that we missed it. I think that all the nymph Martians, the bouncers, are female; all of the adults are male. They change. I use the terms for want of better ones, of course. But if my theory is correct-and mind you, I'm not saying it is-then it might explain why Willis is such an important personage. Eh?"

Marlowe said wearily, "You ask me to assimilate too much at once."

"Emulate the Red Queen. I'm not through. I think the Martians have still another stage, the stage of the 'old one' to whom I talked-and I think it's the strangest one of all. Jamie, can you imagine a people having close and everyday relations with Heaven-their heaven-as close and matter of fact as the relations between, say, the United States and Canada?"