CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

THE SWEETNESS OF THE AIR

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

—Thomas Jefferson

Alex Smith, 13 Bi-January, Mars Year i

Marin County, California, Planet Earth

By the eleventh day I was getting so weak that I finally found the gumption to abandon my refuge. The kitchen and the storeroom were empty. The Martians had apparently confiscated every scrap of food, perhaps to sustain their human captives. For the first time I despaired: I’d had nothing to eat or drink for several days, and I didn’t know where to go or what to do.

My mouth and throat had swelled up and my strength was ebbing very rapidly. I sat alone in the darkness of the storage nook while I sank further into my funk. I would have killed for a piece of bread. I thought I might have lost my hearing as well, because the noises from the pit had ceased. But I didn’t feel strong enough to crawl to the peephole to check on what was happening outside.

On Day Twelve, however, I knew I had to do something or die. I wasn’t going to last much longer. So I took a chance, crept out into the kitchen, and attacked the leaking faucet that stood on the sink. I got a couple of handfuls of green, rusty water. It tasted like shit—but it was the nectar of the gods! Despite the noises I made slurping the foul liquid, nothing with tentacles poked its way through the hole.

I kept thinking about the minister and her awful death. I felt guilty over my treatment of the woman, who had obviously gone completely gaga. I wondered how much I’d contributed to her dementia.

The next day I drank some more water and then dozed. My dreams were filled with food and of vague plans of escape. I conjured a series of nightmares about the death of the minister, and one of Becky; but, asleep or awake, the hunger in my belly kept me drinking constantly. The light outside had changed to a dull rouge, like the color of blood.

On Day Fourteen I snuck into the kitchen again, and I was astonished to find that fronds of the red weed were now poking through the hole in the wall, turning the half-light of the place into a crimson-hued obscurity.

It was early on the following day that I heard the dog scratching outside. When I investigated, I saw its nose peering through the red weeds. At my sudden appearance the terrified creature began barking quite furiously.

I thought that if I could induce the mutt to come a little closer (“Here, doggy, doggy!”), I might just be able to kill and eat him, or at least to shut the bugger up, lest his actions attract the Martians.

I crept forward very slowly, softly whispering “Good dog! Good dog!”—but it suddenly withdrew its head and disappeared.

The pit remained absolutely still thereafter. Then I heard the flutter of a bird’s wings and a hoarse, harsh cawing.

For a long while I lay next to the peephole, not daring to touch the red plants that now obscured it. Once or twice I heard a faint pitter-patter—perhaps the feet of the dog again—running on the sand below me, and there were more bird sounds. Finally, emboldened by the silence, I found the courage to look out.

Except in one corner, where a multitude of crows hopped and fought over the remains of the men the Martians had consumed, there wasn’t a living thing to be seen anywhere.

I could hardly believe my eyes. The machines were gone. Save for the mound of grayish-blue powder in one corner and some leftover bars of aluminum in another, the place was just an empty circle in the sand.

Slowly I thrust myself outside, and finally stood staggering in the open air for the first time in two weeks. I could see clearly in every direction. The aliens were gone! The pit dropped off right at my feet, but I found a slope that would take me to the top of the ruins. I trembled in anticipation of my escape.

Even so, I hesitated for about ten minutes; and then, with my heart pounding in my chest, I scrambled to the top of the mound under which I’d been buried so long.

I carefully looked in every direction.

No Martians!

When I’d last viewed this area, it’d been a neatly paved street of comfortable houses interspersed with well-trimmed shade trees. Now I stood on a mound of smashed bricks, plaster, clay, lumber, and gravel, over which had grown a mass of red, cactus-shaped plants, almost knee-high, without a shoot of green anywhere to dispute their hegemony. The surviving trees of Earth were sere and dead; in the distance, however, I could see a network of red thread intertwined around some still living branches. How long the latter would survive was unknown.

The neighboring homes had all been wrecked, although none had burned; some of their walls still stood intact, sometimes as high as the second story, with smashed windows and shattered doors. The red weed had spread riotously through their roofless rooms. Before me was the great pit, where the crows now fought over the scraps of man. I could also see and hear other birds hopping among the ruins. Far away I spied a gaunt cat slinking along a wall, but no traces of any living man whatsoever.

The day seemed, by contrast with my dark confinement, dazzlingly bright, the sky a brilliant blue. The alien invasion had at least rid us of smog and other pollutants!

A gentle breeze moved the red weed in a pavane that parodied popular dance: every inch of unoccupied ground waved at me, gently swaying back and forth, back and forth. I was mesmerized by its stately pantomime of planet-cide. The perfume of its little purple pustules penetrated my befuddled brain.

And oh! Oh! The very sweetness of the air!