The Holes Around Mars.

by Jerome Bixby.

_Science said it could not be, but there it was. And whoosh--look out--here it is again!_

Ill.u.s.trated by d.i.c.k FRANCIS

s.p.a.ceship crews should be selected on the basis of their non-irritating qualities as individuals. No chronic complainers, no hypochondriacs, no bugs on cleanliness--particularly no one-man parties. I speak from bitter experience.

Because on the first expedition to Mars, Hugh Allenby d.a.m.ned near drove us nuts with his puns. We finally got so we just ignored them.

But no one can ignore that cla.s.sic last one--it's written right into the annals of astronomy, and it's there to stay.

Allenby, in command of the expedition, was first to set foot outside the ship. As he stepped down from the airlock of the _Mars I_, he placed that foot on a convenient rock, caught the toe of his weighted boot in a hole in the rock, wrenched his ankle and smote the ground with his pants.

Sitting there, eyes pained behind the transparent shield of his oxygen-mask, he stared at the rock.

It was about five feet high. Ordinary granite--no special shape--and several inches below its summit, running straight through it in a northeasterly direction, was a neat round four-inch hole.

"I'm _upset_ by the _hole_ thing," he grunted.

The rest of us scrambled out of the ship and gathered around his plump form. Only one or two of us winced at his miserable double pun.

"Break anything, Hugh?" asked Burton, our pilot, kneeling beside him.

"Get out of my way, Burton," said Allenby. "You're obstructing my view."

Burton blinked. A man constructed of long bones and caution, he angled out of the way, looking around to see what he was obstructing view _of_.

He saw the rock and the round hole through it. He stood very still, staring. So did the rest of us.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned," said Ja.n.u.s, our photographer. "A hole."

"In a rock," added Gonzales, our botanist.

"Round," said Randolph, our biologist.

"An _artifact_," finished Allenby softly.

Burton helped him to his feet. Silently we gathered around the rock.

Ja.n.u.s bent down and put an eye to one end of the hole. I bent down and looked through the other end. We squinted at each other.

As mineralogist, I was expected to opinionate. "Not drilled," I said slowly. "Not chipped. Not melted. Certainly not eroded."

I heard a rasping sound by my ear and straightened. Burton was scratching a thumbnail along the rim of the hole. "Weathered," he said.

"Plenty old. But I'll bet it's a perfect circle, if we measure."

Ja.n.u.s was already fiddling with his camera, testing the cooperation of the tiny distant sun with a light-meter.

"Let us see _weather_ it is or not," Allenby said.

Burton brought out a steel tape-measure. The hole was four and three-eighths inches across. It was perfectly circular and about sixteen inches long. And four feet above the ground.

"But why?" said Randolph. "Why should anyone bore a four-inch tunnel through a rock way out in the middle of the desert?"

"Religious symbol," said Ja.n.u.s. He looked around, one hand on his gun.

"We'd better keep an eye out--maybe we've landed on sacred ground or something."

"A totem _hole_, perhaps," Allenby suggested.

"Oh. I don't know," Randolph said--to Ja.n.u.s, not Allenby. As I've mentioned, we always ignored Allenby's puns. "Note the lack of ornamentation. Not at all typical of religious articles."

"On Earth," Gonzales reminded him. "Besides, it might be utilitarian, not symbolic."

"Utilitarian, how?" asked Ja.n.u.s.

"An altar for snakes," Burton said dryly.

"Well," said Allenby, "you can't deny that it has its _holy_ aspects."

"Get your hand away, will you, Peters?" asked Ja.n.u.s.

I did. When Ja.n.u.s's camera had clicked, I bent again and peered through the hole. "It sights on that low ridge over there," I said. "Maybe it's some kind of surveying setup. I'm going to take a look."

"Careful," warned Ja.n.u.s. "Remember, it may be sacred."

As I walked away, I heard Allenby say, "Take some sc.r.a.pings from the inside of the hole, Gonzales. We might be able to determine if anything is kept in it...."

One of the stumpy, purplish, barrel-type cacti on the ridge had a long vertical bite out of it ... as if someone had carefully carved out a narrow U-shaped section from the top down, finishing the bottom of the U in a neat semicircle. It was as flat and cleancut as the inside surface of a horseshoe magnet.

I hollered. The others came running. I pointed.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" said Allenby. "Another one."

The pulp of the cactus in and around the U-hole was dried and dead-looking.

Silently Burton used his tape-measure. The hole measured four and three-eighths inches across. It was eleven inches deep. The semicircular bottom was about a foot above the ground.

"This ridge," I said, "is about three feet higher than where we landed the ship. I bet the hole in the rock and the hole in this cactus are on the same level."