MADMEN OF MARS
By ERIK FENNEL
Why do the Martians drink red wine, swagger
about, spout vile poetry and fight endless duels
with each other? How did Terence Michael Burke
change their minds about invading the Earth?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
All this time we've kept quiet as a whole cageful of mice. And withgood reason. During the Big Scare, while everyone was afraid thatthe Exclusion Ultimatum meant the Martians wanted an interplanetarywar, the Earth Governments would have been only too ready to hang,shoot, stab, gas, electrocute, freeze, burn, poison, impale and/ordefenestrate the dastardly culprits responsible. If they could havediscovered who did what to whom. They didn't savvy Marties then—andstill don't.
But we are lucky. The Marties never explained why they called hometheir Cultural Emissaries, abandoned space travel, cut off Luminophonecontact and excluded Earthmen and Earth ships from Mars. They couldn't,because they themselves weren't sure what had happened. And amid theconfusion on Earth the last Mars transit of the spaceship Bansheeescaped official attention, which was largely due to Polly's goodsense in making Mike see he'd better keep his big mouth shut. Our storywould only have caused us trouble, even after the Scare died down.
All that was five years ago, but we still thought it best to keepstill when this rather surprising diplomatic angling for resumptionof Martio-Terran relations began just recently. The five of us werecloser to what caused the Malignant Inertia Complex than all thebig-name psychologists who have written books of wrong guesses since itdisappeared, and we could see no danger of it starting up again. Mikewas sure the Martian Thing had lost its grip. So we were willing tolet the new treaty come up for a popular vote, as all interplanetarytreaties must under the Earth Governments charter, without sticking ouroars in or our necks out.
But last night Wild Bill Harrigan and I bumped into Miu Tlenow, aNorth Venus cat-man and veteran space-hopper who had just brought theVenusian diplomatic intermediaries from Mars to Earth for more treatytalks.
Naturally Bill and I were curious about what cooked on Mars. Tlenowtalked, openly puzzled, while Bill and I looked at each other andremembered.
I'm not mad at anyone. Not even at the Thing. Mike swears the Thingmeant no harm and the Cultural Emissaries couldn't help themselves,and I believe him. In fact I feel rather sorry for the poor Martiesthemselves. It must be tough on them to have to live with themselvesand each other.
The psychos would probably name the Marties' current condition AcuteVirulent Mass Burke-itis and laugh it off. But the psychos don't knowMike as Bill and I do. So Bill insists it's our duty as Earth citizensto divulge everything, and I'm inclined to agree. The thought of awhole planetful of Marties obsessed with Mike's sense of humor isappalling.
Telling this really should be Mike's job—he's the only human whoever made contact with the Martian Thing—but he and Polly live atVenus Central now and the Professor is out there now visiting hisgrandchildren, Mike, Jr. and Bridget Dorrene. So I'm stuck. But I stillthink Bill ran in his own dice when we rolled to see which of us had towrite this.
The Malignant Inertia Complex started while we were in space andwas already pretty widespread when Bill and Mike and I brought theBanshee in from a Venus haul, and during the three weeks we spentgetting ready for the Mars transit and installing the