Scores of the little green men began work even while Mahnmut stood there, his hand deep in the translator's chest. They began sinking rods into the sand, running more cables to The Dark Lady, The Dark Lady, and rigging pulleys. The translator waited with Mahnmut's hand around his heart. and rigging pulleys. The translator waited with Mahnmut's hand around his heart.

"I want to ask him about the stone heads," said Mahmut over the commline. "Ask him who they are, why they're doing this."

"Not until we try to find a way to get to Olympus," insisted Orphu.

Mahmut sighed and communicated the request for help in getting to the large volcano. He transmitted images of Olympus Mons as he'd seen it from orbit and asked if there was anyway the LGM could help them travel either overland over the Tempe Terra highlands or east along the Tethys coast for more than four thousand kilometers, then south along the Alba Patera coast to Olympus Mons.

THAT.

IS.

NOT.

POSSIBLE.

"What does he mean?" asked Orphu when Mahnmut relayed the response. "Does he mean it's not possible to help us, or to travel east that way?"

Mahnmut had felt something like relief when the LGM translator had all but pronounced their mission over, but now he forwarded Orphu's request for clarification.

NOT.

POSSIBLE.

FOR.

YOU.

TO.

TRAVEL.

EAST.

SECRETLY.

BECAUSE.

THE.

DWELLERS.

ON.

OLYMPOS.

WOULD.

SEE.

YOU.

AND.

KILL.

YOU.

"Ask him if there's another way," said Orphu. "Maybe we could go overland along the Kasei Valles."

NO.

YOU.

WILL.

GO.

TO.

THE.

NOCTIS.

LABYRINTH.

BY.

FELUCCA.

"What's a felucca?" asked Orphu when Mahnmut relayed the answer. "It sounds like an Italian dessert."

"It's a two-masted, lateen-rigged sailing ship," said Mahnmut, whose training for the black underseas of Europa had included everything available in download about sailing the liquid seas of Earth. "Used to ply the Mediterranean millennia ago."

"Ask them when we can leave," sent Orphu.

"When can we leave?" asked Mahmut, feeling the question as a vibration through his fingers and a tickling in his mind.

THE.

STONE.

BARGE.

ARRIVES.

IN.

THE.

MORNING.

THE.

FELUCCA.

WILL.

BE.

WITH.

IT.

YOU.

CAN.

LEAVE.

ON.

IT.

"We'll need some other things salvaged from our submersible," said Mahnmut. He sent the images of the Device and the two other pieces of cargo in the hold, visualized it being brought ashore and transported to the sea cave. Then he sent the image of LGM rolling Orphu to the same cave.

As if in response, dozens of the little green men began to wade and paddle back out to the ship. Others walked closer to Orphu and began arranging the rollers into an Orphu-sized pallet.

"I don't think I can hold this man's heart any longer," Mahnmut said to Orphu over the comm. "It's like grabbing a live electric wire."

"Let go then," said the Ionian.

"But ..."

"Let go."

Mahnmut thanked the translator-thanked all of them-and released his grip. Just as with the first translator, this little green man fell to the sand, twitched, hissed, dried out, and died.

"Oh, God," whispered Mahnmut. He leaned back against Orphu's shell. The little green men were already lifting the Ionian's bulk, sliding rollers under him.

"What are they doing?"

Mahnmut described the translator's body and the work all around him-their preparation to transport Orphu and the Device and other objects already being hauled in from the ship, the cables being attached to the sub, the hundreds of LGM pulling at the cables from the shore, already dragging The Dark Lady The Dark Lady west toward the ocean cave where it would be safe from airborne eyes. west toward the ocean cave where it would be safe from airborne eyes.

"I'll go with you to the cave," Mahnmut said dully. The translator's body was like a dry, shriveled brown husk on the red sand. All of the interior organs had dried up and the fluid had flowed out of it, making the mud under it run like red blood. The other little green men ignored the translator's corpse and were already beginning to roll Orphu along the sand toward the west.

"No," said Orphu. "You know what you have to do."

"I already described the faces to you when I saw them from the sea."

"That was at night, through the periscope buoy," said Orphu. "We need to look at one or two of them in the daylight."

"The one at the base of the cliff is in pieces," said Mahnmut, feeling like whining. "The next one is a full kilometer to the east. Way up on the cliffs."

"You go ahead," said Orphu. "I'll stay in touch on comm while they trundle me off to the cave. You'll be able to see how they handle The Lady The Lady during most of your walk." during most of your walk."

Mahnmut grudgingly complied, walking east, away from the crowd of LGM pulling his dead sub along the coast and rolling Orphu toward the cool shadow of the sea cave.

The fallen head was in too many pieces to make out its features. Mahnmut struggled up the steep trail that the little green men had descended with such apparent effortlessness. The path was narrow and frighteningly steep and wet-sandstone-slick.

At the top, Mahnmut paused a second to recharge his cells and to look around. The Tethys Sea stretched out as far as he could see to the north. To the south, inland, red stone gave way to low red hills and-several klicks further south-Mahnmut could make out the green of forests of shrubs on the foothills. There was some grass along the path he followed east along the edge of the cliff.

Mahnmut paused to look at the pad and prepared hole for the face the little green men had sacrificed in shoving off the cliff to pry open the hold-bay doors. It had been prepared carefully and Mahnmut could see how the stem at the base of the great stone heads' necks slid down into the hole in the stone and then locked in place. These little green men were craftsmen and skilled stone workers.

Mahnmut walked east. He could see the next head along the eastern horizon. The moravec was not designed for walking-his role was mostly to sit in an exploration submersible, sometimes to swim-and when he grew tired of being a biped, he altered the workings of his joints and spine and padded along like a dog for a while.

When he reached the next stone head he paused by its broad base, seeing how the stone at the neck had been filled in with something like cement. He looked east at the path the rollers and thousands of LGM had created along the cliff top, and west to where the green mob had pulled the sub and pushed Orphu almost to the headland cave.

"There yet?" came Orphu's voice.

"Yes. Leaning against the thing."

"How about the face?"

"This is a bad angle from beneath," said Mahnmut. "Mostly lips and chin and nostrils."

"Get out on the beach again. These faces are meant to be seen from the sea for some reason."

"But ..." began Mahnmut, looking down at the steep cliff dropping at least a hundred meters away to the sand. There was a faint path on the greasy rock, just as at the other site. "If I break my neck getting down there," he sent, "it's your damned fault."

"Understood," said Orphu. "I can feel the vibration as they move me along here, but I have no idea how close we are to the cave. Can you see?"

Mahnmut magnified his vision as he looked to the west. "Just a couple of hundred meters from the overhang," he said. "I'm going to climb down now. Are you sure you want me to check the next head as well? It's another kilometer east and the heads looked all the same from orbit."

"I think we should check it," said Orphu.

"Sayeth the 'vec with no legs," muttered Mahnmut. He began the long, steep descent to the beach.

He stood as far away as he could, backing up until the low waves lapped at his legs. The face was distinct but not familiar. Saying nothing, lost in his own thoughts, he walked another kilometer east along the water's edge. The next face was identical to the first: proud, imperious, commanding, its visage staring fiercely out to sea, the sculpted stone showing an old man's face, mostly bald on top but with long hair flowing back on either side of the wrinkled face, small eyes under hard, downward slashes of eyebrows, wrinkles at the corner, high cheekbones gouged into stone, a small but firm chin, thin lips curving into a frown, and the same severe countenance.

"It's an old man," Mahnmut said on the comm. "Definitely an elderly human male, but I don't recognize him from the history databanks."

There was only static for a few seconds. "Fascinating," said Orphu. "Why would an old man from Earth deserve thousands of these stone heads all along the Martian coastline?"

"I have no idea," said Mahnmut.

"Is he one of the chariot people?" asked Orphu. "Does he look like a god?"

"Not a Greek god," said Mahnmut. "More than anything else, he looks like a powerful but dyspeptic old man. Can I come back now? Before one of the toga-wearing graybeards in a chariot does come flying along and sees me standing out here gawking like a tourist?"