Meals were awkward affairs to begin with. Military etiquette insisted that Regelin use the dining room, while his men ate in the big kitchen. After a few dreary meals together, with silence on both sides, we made a tacit agreement: Regelin ate an hour ahead of Kit, Alice, and myself. Then we hardly ever saw him.

  I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the Martians. They were a long way from home, and Earth’s conditions were barely tolerable for them. The dragging weight, the air pressure, heat, humidity, sun-glare, even the blatant, swarming greenness, were hard to endure.

  “Though at that,” I remarked once to Kit, “they’re luckier than we would have been occupying Mars.”

  She frowned, the tiny crease between arched brows which I found so endearing. “Why?” she asked.

  “Well, they can live here without special equipment, if they must,” I said. “But put a man on Mars, without an air-suit or a dome around him, and he’d choke to death immediately. At that, he’d freeze almost as fast, after dark anyway.”

  “They don’t breathe at all, do they?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I said, “but it isn’t our kind of breathing. A Martian’s lungs are very different from ours—huge spongy masses that not only draw oxygen from the air but get it out of food—symbiosis with anaerobic bacteria. Their metabolism is pretty strange all around, though I suppose ours looks as odd to them.” I sat back, longing for a cigarette. Sunlight streamed in the window and caressed Kit’s hair. “They’re a lot tougher than we, they can stand more punishment. Though physically we did have a whale of a big advantage in the war, in that we could endure twice the acceleration they could.” I scowled. “If Admiral Swayne had had the sense to use that fact, we wouldn’t have lost at the Trojans. And that was a critical battle, some say it was the turning point of the war.”

  “Too late now, Dave,” she sighed.

  She was giving most of her time to Alice, the rest went to helping with the housekeeping, working in the garden, reading, or listening to our extensive music library. It was a quiet life, but mother and daughter were blooming under it. As for me, I found the hours rather heavy on my hands. I couldn’t assist the neighbors much, having no farm experience at all, and though they were teaching me what they could they didn’t have a lot of time to spare for that. I took long walks, rode horseback, puttered around the house, visited old friends, went down to the village or to Albany for an occasional spree. I tried to write, but that didn’t come to much. What was there to write about, these days?

  It was frank boredom which finally drove me to talk to Regelin. I had wandered from the house into the woods, following a dim old trail. It was quiet here, a rustle of leaves, a twitter of birds, a squirrel running like red fire up a mossy trunk. I had some heavy thinking to do.

  Let’s face it, boy, I told myself, Kit is beginning to mean a lot to you. Call it propinquity if you like, the fact remains she’s a brave and loyal and intelligent girl and it’s about time you settled down anyway. Only—damn it!—she owes me too much! She’s given no sign of anything but friendship for me, I think Jim Hawthorne is still very much with her. Or is he? How should I know? I’ve seen too little of women, I’ve been too nearly a monk, to tell what they’re thinking…If I asked her to marry me, she’d probably say yes out of gratitude and to give her daughter a home—but I don’t want that. Gentlemanly instincts again? Hell, no, just masculine ego. But I can’t get rid of it.

  I was getting nowhere. It was almost a relief to come around a thicket and see Regelin. He was alone, tall and stiff and black-uniformed, but his face was buried in a cluster of wild roses.

  He turned, though I tried to retreat softly. Martians have preternaturally keen ears in our dense atmosphere. I couldn’t read his face, but he laughed harshly, embarrassed.

  “How do you do, Mr. Arnfeld,” he said. “You seem to have caught me in a strategically bad position.”

  I grinned, enjoying his discomfiture. “Aren’t officers allowed to smell flowers?” I asked.

  “Oh, we have a different etiquette on Mars,” he said eagerly. “Our officer corps is recruited from the old aristocracy, you know, and its members are expected to have an esthetic sense.” He touched the frail blossoms. “Exquisite,” he whispered. Then: “However, you of Earth seem to feel that manliness includes—ah—a certain blindness to such matters.”

  I leaned against a tree bole and shoved my hands in my pockets. “Your civilization is older than ours,” I said, rather cruelly. “Some have called it decadent.”

  He bowed, with ice in his eyes, and turned to go.

  “No, wait.” Impulsively, I went after him, even took his arm. “I’m sorry. There was nothing decadent about the way you whipped us at Juno.”

  “I understand your grace,” he said. It was the old Martian formula for accepting an apology.

  “Sit down, if you’re not in a hurry.” I lowered myself to a fallen trunk, and after a moment he joined me. We sat quietly under the sun-spattered shadows till he said, slowly and without looking at me:

  “Yes, forty thousand years of recorded history is a long time. But it never got off its planet, we weren’t technically minded, and it had fallen into feudalism when you came. You taught us to build machines, draw energy from the atom; your challenge and example drew us together into the Tarketh dzu Zanthevu—Archate of Mars, as you call it. We had, of a sudden, new hope and new strength, and our eyes turned starward. The younger taught the older. Mars owes much to Earth.”

  “But you destroyed us,” I said. I felt no bitterness just then, in that oddly suspended moment; it was as if we were old comrades talking of something that had happened centuries past.

  “In self-defense,” he said, equally low. “You declared war on us.”

  “After your fleet seized Hera.”

  “We had to. You claimed the asteroid group from which we got most of our thorium, and were about to grab it. We needed a defensive base.”

  “Let’s not hash it over,” I said. “It’s a long, ugly story of growing commercial and military rivalry, clashing imperialisms, rising tensions. It finally blew up in our faces.”

  Regelin shook his head. The light turned to molten gold in his eyes. “I cannot understand it,” he said. “I am a military man, not an Assembly politician or a Cabinet noble, so perhaps I do not grasp some essential fact. But why should that rivalry have built up? Why should one incident after another have strained relations between our planets? There was enough in space for both of us.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It often puzzled me, too. Of course, we were told it was a matter of Martian aggressiveness, and you were no doubt told the same thing about us. Now the propaganda blanket is so thick we’ll never get at the facts.”

  “Even so,” he said, “it should have been a short war—a limited war for limited goals, such as you Earthlings used to have in your fifteenth or eighteenth centuries.” I blinked, surprised that he’d studied so much of our history, and realized how blankly ignorant I was of his. “It shouldn’t have become that long-drawn, hideous doom-of-gods it was.”

  “Well,” I said, “space is big. In the beginning, as I recall, there might only be one engagement a year.”

  “One engagement might have settled it, if either side had had truly competent commanders. It is not for me to criticize my superiors, Mr. Arnfeld, but you must know yourself how often the chance for a decisive victory was lost—by both sides. For instance, if we had pushed on after Juno, instead of going home—” His fists clenched and his voice grew thin. “Skyblast! I was in Intelligence then. We knew we could catch your Task Force Three beyond Venus and annihilate it in detail. After that, the war would have been virtually over. But no, we went back to Mars.”

  “Well, you haven’t a monopoly on such blunders,” I said. “There was a near mutiny when we let your ships escape after Second Orbit. And if the chief admiral hadn’t panicked at Mars and taken us back, if we could have kept on bombarding you—”

  “The destruction of Zuneth was your most terrible mistake,” he said gravely. “Before then, we would have settled for very moderate terms, even after an absolute victory. But when you laid waste our greatest and oldest city, the pride of all Mars, well, that atrocity made us howl for blood. After that the Archon and the Assembly all voted to end Earth as a power in space.”

  “We shouldn’t have done it,” I mumbled, wondering if he knew I had been there. “If we bombarded at all, we should have been thorough—but it was wrong to do it in the first place, yes.”

  “Still,” said Regelin, “we would not have been vindictive. We would have settled for your disarmament and an indemnity; I think. But your politicians and admirals were too reckless. When we finally broke through and took the moon, they must have seen the game was up. They should have surrendered then and there. But no, they managed to keep the very fact secret from a people who would otherwise have revolted. They called for their remaining fleet to come home and give battle. After that, we had no choice. We took over the U. N. rocket bases and wiped you out. And now the temper of Mars is such that you will never be given another chance.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “A fourth of our small population dead,” he said heavily. “Our economy shaken, groaning under taxes, the folk impoverished, the whole history of our race thrown back. It will take us a hundred years to recover. Oh, a cold victory!”

  We sat without talking for a long while then. I think the same thought was in both of us: It’s as if Earth and Mars together had an evil genius, as if something has driven our two unhappy races, against reason and desire and decency, to this war that wasn’t needed, that only brought ruin. But forget that. It’s our own stupidity. Any other assumption is paranoia. —But was the war less mad?

  “How long will you be here, Sevni?” I asked finally.

  “On Earth? I don’t know. Several years, I’m afraid. Reorganizing your planet will be a long and difficult task.” Regelin smiled wryly. “You, the defeated, are home, comfortable, safe, you can pick up your life again and be free. We, the conquerors, are chained here on a world we cannot love. Strange war, strange victory!”

  “They might bring your family here,” I suggested.

  “Oh, no, I would never wish that for them. Let them stay in the old castle on the edge of the Purple Gulf, let them breathe air that is clean and cool, and gather thorn-blossoms, and hear the crystal bells across the redsand plains at sunset.”

  I couldn’t see anything attractive about his grim and barren world, but I nodded.

  He felt eagerly in his tunic. “Here, let me show you,” he said. “I have a portrait, my wife and three children—”

  Martian females look less human than the males, but I pretended a degree of admiration.

  “That is a most attractive young woman you have,” he said shyly.

  “She’s not mine,” I said, and got up. “I’m going back to the house.”

  We walked slowly along the trail talking. Regelin was fond of our classical music, but hadn’t felt free to attend the concerts in Albany or, since I came, to use my tapes. “Go ahead,” I offered. “Borrow as many as you like.”

  “You are most gracious, Commander,” he said. I knew enough of the curiously knightly Martian code to realize that his addressing me—illegally—by my old rank was a considerable honor. “It is a shame you cannot hear the total range of my people’s music. But I have been amusing myself by transposing some of it to your range, when I find time, and it might interest you—”

  “Sure,” I said. “We have a good piano, and I used to be pretty fair on the violin, too. Let’s try it sometime.”

  The conversation shifted, as such do. I was astonished by the range of his reading in our literature. Much of it puzzled him, but he tried hard to put himself into the human personality. I suggested some books to him, and he told me which were the best English and Portuguese translations of Martian classics.

  We came out on the lawn, side by side. Kit was playing with Alice on the grass, and I saw how the light and shadow touched the curves of her.

  She looked up and saw us. Regelin bowed, but she turned to me, and her eyes were the bleakest sight I have ever seen. “What were you doing?” she asked. There was a thickness in her tone.

  “Why,” I stumbled, “just talking. Talking with Senvi Regelin. He—”

  “I see.” She bit off the words, one by one. “I see. Well, Mr. Arnfeld, I will be leaving tomorrow. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “Hey, now!” I grabbed for her arm. She shook me off with an angry gesture. “Kit! Kit, you can’t—”

  Her lip quivered, and I saw the tears begin. “Let me alone,” she said.

  Regelin stood like a black steel pillar, his long shadow falling across us. Looking up into his face, I saw that it had gone blank. His voice snapped like a clicking trigger. “Mr. Arnfeld, I am sorry to have bothered you, but my business forced me to do so. As for the records we discussed, you need not concern yourself. I do not require them after all. I trust I shall not have to disturb you again.”

  He bowed and strode off, past his saluting sentry and into his office. I didn’t see him at all for several days.

  Kit wiped her eyes after a while, apologized, and followed me into the house. That night I went down to the village and got drunk.

  -4-

  There is not always a sign on the events that change your life, to tell you what they are. The chain of destruction which was ended here where I sit helplessly waiting, began with Regelin’s announcement to me, a few weeks after our talk, that we would have visitors. He spoke with the court formality that had become habitual, and the third lids veiled his eyes from me.

  “We will have two guests tomorrow, who will stay for three or four days. They are Dzuga ay Zamudring, inspector for the Commandant of North America, and a terrestrial liaison officer. Since the Martian quarters in this house are filled, and you have an extra bedroom in your section, I must request that you offer them accommodations.”

  “That was not in the bargain,” I said as stiffly as he.

  “A fair rental will be paid you. I would prefer to keep this on the basis of a request, Mr. Arnfeld.”

  Well, there was nothing I could do. My refusal would simply have made him order me to house the strangers, and that would have strained the thin relations between us close to breaking. I agreed with as good a grace as possible, and went to find Kit. There were three bedrooms in a row on the second floor of our wing: mine, hers, and the empty one, which lay at the end of the hall. She made a wry face. “Next to me?” she asked. “I could stand the Martians, maybe, but a human traitor—”

  “Some of us have to cooperate, if Earth is to keep any vestige of self-government,” I said tiredly. “I’ll trade rooms with you, if you want.”

  “Hmmm—well.” She stroked her chin with one slender hand, and I saw thoughtfulness in her eyes. “Who are these creatures, anyway?”

  “An inspection team, checking up on the various districts for the continental commandant. Important officers.”

  “I can stand it.” Her voice was remote. “We needn’t swap.” Suddenly she came to some kind of decision. Her laugh was brittle. “Do me a favor, Dave?”

  “Sure,” I said. Anything at all, Kit.

  We had a little museum of family relics, and it turned out that she wanted to borrow the ear trumpet of a nineteenth-century ancestor, to amuse Alice. I agreed, of course, and she laughed with real merriment and kissed me. It was all I could do to keep my response—brotherly.

  That evening I noticed that the bath hose was missing. I swore, because it would be impossible to replace, and called Mrs. Hoose to task for it. She denied any knowledge of its whereabouts, and started a grumbling search, without luck. The trivial thing soon faded from my mind.

  The inspector came the following afternoon, roaring up the drive in a long ground-car, accompanied by a squad of scooterbug-riding guards. Those wore light body armor and carried guns at the ready; there must be a good deal of sniping at Martians. The guards set up camp in the back yard while the inspector, a tall wrinkled Martian who seemed to creak with age, and the only human in his party, a plump, balding, middle-aged man introduced as Hale, were received by Regelin in the living room. Kit and I were asked to join them, and she surprised me by turning on all her charm, smiling and laughing and ringing for drinks. What’s she up to? I wondered.

  Hale offered cigarettes, which I hadn’t seen for months, and lifted his glass. “I’m happy to see you people so hospitable and—considerate,” he said with a politician’s geniality. His voice was loud, it didn’t fit in this long quiet room. There was a tradition that Thomas Jefferson had once been entertained here. I nodded, keeping my face chill, but Kit responded gaily to him.

  “It has been a cruel war,” said Hale, “but now, thank God, it is over, and we must start rebuilding.” He looked at me. “Perhaps, Mr. Arnfeld, you would consider taking a job similar to mine. We’re badly in need of human gobetweens at occupation headquarters.” My manner froze him off, and he turned to Kit. “Miss—ah—Mrs. Hawthorne, possibly you—”

  “I’m afraid not,” she said. “I have a daughter to look after. But it must be interesting work.”

  Hale boomed on. He told a couple of off-color stories which obviously embarrassed the Martians, though they smiled mechanically. Dzuga was almost wholly silent, and Regelin said little more than I. Hale and Kit more or less took over the conversation, then and at the evening meal which we all attended. I gathered that he and Dzuga would use this house as a base for the next few days, while they surveyed the district. I was glad when bedtime came and they were shown to their room. I let Kit do that; the room had been my parents’.

  She met me in the hall afterward, and I saw her flushed and angry. “He pinched me,” she whispered furiously.