It was the story behind the biggest story
on Mars—how Fate had grimly reckoned with
the Rockhead Rastol—but Scott Warren of
Galactic News couldn't write it ... yet.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories May 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Scott Warren snapped off the vision screen and sat down in front ofhis typewriter. Through the glass side of the building he could seethe lights of the celebrations whose sounds he had just silenced. Helighted a cigarette and started to type out the final edition of Todayon Mars for transmission by Interradio to the New York bureau of theGalactic News Service. He started the news roundup:
"IOPA, MARS—(GN)—Events on Mars were at a snailspace today, themidpoint of the traditional three-day Landing Day holiday...."
Scott rolled the paper up in the carriage of his typewriter and jaggeda line through what he had written. Four "days" in the same sentencemight get past the night desk, but the New York bureau chief wouldsend him a memo about it in the morning.
He started again.
"... Landing Day celebrations on Mars are at their midpoint tonight,with both Earth people and natives...."
He x'ed out "natives" and substituted "Martians," remembering the memohe'd got about that.
"... both Earth people and Martians forgetting their political andphysical differences to take part in planetwide carnivals. Businesshouses, government offices and stores have been closed down sinceFriday, and Pleasure is king. The two great cities on Mars—Iopa andSenalla—are ablaze with light, from their desert outskirts to thequarter-mile-high government buildings that mark the center of each.Parades, speeches...."
Scott snubbed out his cigarette, shoved his chair away from the desk.He looked out over Iopa toward the government building, spotted insearchlight rays from all sides of the city. It was bad enough writingthis stuff—bad enough grinding out a routine night lead, to be laterdictated to Interradio for transmission across space to Earth, simplybecause the news schedule demanded two daily Mars roundups—
But it wasn't even the truth.
The truth was that both Earth people and Martians were observingLanding Day with the usual fuss—but that it was all a big masquerade.The oldtime distrust of Terrestrials that had come with the firstspaceship was still there. It had never been completely wiped out. Theonly ones being taken in were the people back home, who knew nothingabout Mars except what they were told by people like Scott Warren, andwho usually saw it only as a red pinpoint in the sky, if the weatherhappened to be right.
When he got to thinking this way, Scott Warren felt more like apropagandist for World Government than a newsman—the chief of the Marsbureau of Galactic News. He wished he could tell them the truth, atruth not dictated by Policy. Some day he'd write a book. That was whatall newsmen said, wasn't it? The truth would have gone something likethis:
"The distrust Martians have for Earth people—yes, that includes you,dear friends of the reading, listening and viewing audience—wasn'tcompletely wiped out even when World Government corrected its firstmonumental blunder. Oh, yes, W.G. has made blunders, and the first wasa whooperdoo, ladies, gentlemen and prodigies, a whooperdoo of thefirst order, a dilly whose details still are skirted when we talk aboutit, because they're very, very embarrassing.
"The first spaceship, you see, dealt naturally enough with thosewho had seemed to be the rulers of Mars, if no