Chapter IV

Lynne lay on her plastomat for the next two hours, one hour on her stomach, the other on her back. Under the conditions of light Martian gravity, these positions had been discovered to be better for yoga breathing and trance than the cross-legged, sitting positions of yoga on Earth. More important, they maintained a more normal flow of circulation through the brain, a flow essential to full TP keying and control.

At first, as she lay prone on the mat, it seemed to her that every stray thought in the Depot came tripping, unwanted, into her head--every stray thought in Mars. She could, had she wished, have identified the senders, but to do so would have destroyed her purpose. A vital factor in Rana’s success with the first Mars-born baby, had been the isolation of her post, and her ability to shut out extraneous thoughts, and concentrate entirely upon the union of her own existence and the new life blossoming in her womb.

Lynne breathed deeply and closed her eyes. She relaxed the muscles at the corners of her eyes and little by little awareness of outside thoughts faded. At the end of the first hour, after rolling over on her back, she was able to lose all outside interference in a matter of mere minutes. Then her real concentration began. She grew conscious of the unborn child she was carrying, even to sensing the faint and fitful radiations of its thoughts. From time to time she felt the stir of its body, the kick of its feet. She conveyed a message of union, of _oneness_, of warmth and security to the embryo brain within her. Then, after a while, she slept dreamlessly.

She awoke at the exact end of the second hour, feeling serene and refreshed. A thought reached her mind, probing, a thought unmistakably that of her twin, Revere. He was telling her, if she was awake, to go immediately to the doctor’s office. Something about Joanna Wheatley and a cattle plague and the DT’s....

Revere and the doctor were waiting for Lynne in the physician’s inner laboratory. It was the room of a medical jack-of-all-trades, for Mars, being thinly populated and in need of a variety of medical services, was unable to afford the specialists of Earth. Dr. Smetana was not only a fine general practitioner. He was also the only competent psychiatrist in this entire sector of the Red Planet. It was therefore not surprising that he had been assigned to Nampura Depot, since the telepathic headquarters of Mars was a place where, presumably a head-shrinker might be needed.

However, as Dr. Smetana was fond of saying, “In that department, I’m merely an observer, since TP’s are mentally just about the healthiest folk there are. Telepathy and repression don’t exactly walk hand in hand.”

Revere spoke to Lynn aloud for the benefit of the doctor, who was barely a Class-A telepath. “I’ve been doing some checking on conditions at Patagonia Station,” he said. “Those _marlets_ have been having a bucketful of _swackish_ troubles lately. It seems the cattle have been showing every symptom of going off their collective rails--stampedes, off-season breeding fits, berserk tempers, even dancing.”

“That I’ll have to see,” said Lynne, lighting a cigarette.

“You will--in a moment,” said Dr. Smetana. “I’ve got Joanna Wheatley’s tapes right here.” He turned on a switch.

At once a wall screen flashed on, revealing a set of file numbers. Thanks to Rolf Marcein’s development of the formerly dangerous necro-recorder, which reproduced on a screen the thoughts of a person under certain hypnotic drugs, psychiatry on Mars had taken a long leap ahead of parallel progress on the mother planet. There, because its use hastened death or insanity through the strain it put on the patient’s mind and body, the recorder was still used only in cases of extreme urgency. On Mars, thanks to Rolf’s improvements its use had become mere examination routine.

The screen flashed its polychromatic “adjustment” patterns, some of which were highly revealing of Joanna’s normal young woman desires. Then, in response to channeled suggestion, got to the matter under examination. The miraculous green grasses of the newly-created Patagonia Station veldt appeared in brilliant color with the dark blue sky of Mars over them. Small herds of plump, carefully selected beef cattle grazed peacefully on the grass which the wonder of E-power had made possible. There was even a glimpse of Joanna, riding herd on a tractoscooter, and smoking a cigarette.

Then the vehicle was halted close to a herd which the dark-skinned girl was inspecting. A plump steer turned to watch her. It seemed to be regarding her with speculation. There was a close-up of the creature’s face, its eyes revealing a startling intelligence.

All at once, the steer went into a dance. It was a rhythmic swaying, at first, but it quickly became a series of small steps in harmony with some unheard rhythm or meter. The other steers looked, nodded or shook their heads and finally joined in, following the leader. They performed almost like a vidar chorus-line back on Earth, kicking in unison and swaying as if to music.

Then they broke up into groups and entered into a series of unbelievable revels that could only be described as immoral, even for animals. There was a flash of Joanna, taking off on her tractoscooter, followed by a picture of her back on the scene, with the neighboring Woomera Depot superintendent, while the creatures placidly grazed.

“What do you make of it?” Dr. Smetana asked the instant the film ended. He was frowning as he switched off the recorder. “Is she crazy?”

Lynne knew what Revere was thinking, and for a moment, there was shared horror between them. They _knew_ what had happened to the prize cattle of the Red Planet’s only ranch. Lynne said aloud, for the doctor’s benefit, “Joanna Wheatley isn’t crazy, Doctor.”

“But what about those cattle?” the physician asked.

“Revere will tell you,” Lynne replied. “I’ve got to put an emergency call through to my husband. He’s needed here--at once.”

Absently, she cursed the fact of her advanced pregnancy, and the demands it made on her. If she hadn’t been so nearly incapacitated, she would have been able to handle the matter herself. How and where, she wondered, had the grotesque, bodiless aborigines of Mars--life forms that fed on electricity--managed to get enough of it to obtain strength for possession even of bovine brains? Rolf would have to come back at once, to deal with this new outbreak of a problem long considered under control.

Lynne put through her call, and obtained Mars Central on New Samarkand. Fortunately, she was able to cut through red tape and obtain the chief supervisor without delay.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Marcein,” he said, in reply to her request for an immediate Earth-call to her husband. “Solar disturbances have temporarily blocked interplanetary communications.”

Lynne hung up, feeling almost physically ill. All the terrors of Nightmare Tower, where she had battled the vicious aborigines alone in the darkness, returned to plague her. Then she rallied and remembered that a deadly threat that had been conquered before could be conquered again. She was going to have to go it alone.

Inside her, the baby kicked feebly.