CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE KING OF S(N)OB HILL

Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein;

And he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.

—Holy Bible, Proverbs 26:27

Alex Smith, 20 Bi-January, Mars Year i

San Francisco, California, Planet Earth

I found refuge that night in a hotel on Nob Hill, sleeping in a clean, made-up bed for the first time in weeks. I’d ransacked a couple of rooms for food, until I found some cans of pineapple, a rack of drinks, and those endless packages of salted nuts. Gad, if I never see another roasted peanut or almond again in all my life, it’ll be too damned soon. And there was enough booze in those little storage cabinets that they so tastefully provided the guests that I could have swept my sorrows away for weeks. I sipped at a few of the mini-bottles before giving it up. Ultimately, they just made me sick.

I was careful not to use the flashlights I’d uncovered or the candles, fearing that some Martian might come knocking for dinner during the night.

Something drove me to prowl the huge place, floor by floor and window by window, peering out every so often for some sign of the invaders, but I managed finally to stop my wandering and settle down for the night. The hotel was so big that it ironically made me feel less secure. Thus, despite my fatigue, I slept very little, tossing and turning with wretched, repeated dreams of Lesley and Becky and the monsters chasing me around in circles. But as I lay in bed early the next morning, I found myself thinking clearly once again, something that I hadn’t been able to do since my last argument with the minister.

I had to get on with things—whatever those might be.

The death of Reverend Lesley and the fate of my wife still preoccupied me whenever I had a spare moment. I also needed to know the current whereabouts of the Martians if I was going to survive.

Regarding the good Reverend, well, what can one say? It was she or I. If I had to make the same choices all over again, I’m quite sure that I’d do exactly the same thing. Lesley was unable to cope with the alteration of her world. She was one of those individuals who based her image of herself on her accouterments: in this case, her position and her church. Take those away, and the structure of her personality suddenly collapsed. God had unforgivably dealt her a losing hand. The Martians just didn’t fit into her worldview. Neither did I.

And Becky?—well, she was either alive or dead. I had no way of knowing what’d happened to her. I probably shouldn’t have left her with her aunt, but I did, and now I was paying the price: guilt, guilt, guilty as charged, Your Honor! There was absolutely nothing I could do about the situation now. I still remained an observer at the very heart of the matter. For some reason, for some strange and awful reason, I was the one person in the world who was in the right place at the right time to record the invasion of the Martians.

So I needed to know where the aliens had gone, or even if they were still around. I needed to find out because, well, because I needed to, that’s all. I wanted to know. Even today, I still want to know. Why, why, why? I try to frame questions that are simple enough to answer but complicated enough to hold my interest. And always I come back to the basic question of “why?”

I got up and staggered into the bathroom, making use of the facilities. Better that than a ditch! The water was mostly off this far up from the street. I just got a trickle from the faucet. The haggard image glaring back at me from the mirror was the face of a stranger: salt-and-pepper beard (it itched abominably), lined forehead, gaunt face, matted hair shooting every which way, and old, even ancient eyes.

“Here’s lookin’ at you, kid,” I sighed.

I managed to locate some clean clothing in one of the dresser drawers. Like the previous set, they didn’t fit me exactly, but I didn’t think the aliens would mind. Then I went down to the ruins of the hotel restaurant to scrounge a breakfast. Surely there must be something left down there.

I was opening cupboard doors and storage cabinets and bins, looking for anything that hadn’t spoiled, when I heard a noise just behind me.

“Hands up!” came the command.

Slowly I complied.

“Now turn around.”

I very carefully obeyed. Standing in front of me was a forty-something woman with short, dark hair, a Giants baseball cap, and a really big gun pointed right at my heart.

“What are you doing?”

“Probably the same as you,” I said. “I was looking for something to eat, if you really want to know.”

“I don’t, especially. If I give you some food, will you go away?”

“Well, here I am, practically the only man left on Earth, so far as I can tell; we haven’t even been introduced yet, and already you want me to leave. How about putting that gun down?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“At least tell me your name. I’m Alex Smith, by the way.”

“Umm, Nomsah. Nomsah Vassilidis.”

“Now that’s an odd one. I know, because I study names. That’s just not something you hear everyday.”

I looked at her more closely in the dim light.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

“I’ve heard that line too,” she said. “No. I think you can have a couple of mini-boxes of cereal and maybe a can of peaches, and then you’ll be on your way, sir, or you’ll be very, very dead, sir. I’m good at predicting things, and this is one future I can assure you will actually happen. I’m not interested in playing games.

“I’m certain you’re a fine, upstanding gentleman in real life. I’m certain you have nothing but good in mind for me. But I can’t take that chance, and neither can you, really. So, Alex Smith, whoever the hell you are, take the damned food I’m offering you, and get out of here before I shoot you dead in bed. Because I will, sir, in just about two goddamned minutes, sir.”

What choice did I have? At least I got something to eat.

The morning was bright and clear again, and the eastern sky glowed pink, tinged with fine little golden clouds. The vista reminded me of one of those TV programs about “Beautiful California”—you know, the ones where everything is bright and rosy and “we don’t talk about poverty here, oh no.”

Somewhere near Chinatown I saw the ruins of the panic that must have poured through the city when the evacuations began. A minivan had slewed halfway up the curb by the side of the road, inscribed with the young, seductive, come-hither image of “Madame Stavroula, Grand Mystic and Traveling Tarot Card Reader,” who for just a hundred bucks would tell you your future and your fortune, with a money-back guarantee. She looked like a gypsy in her waist-long hair and multi-colored shawl and quasi-medieval outfit, but the effect was partially ruined by the granny glasses and thick pancake make-up. I wondered who’d refunded her deposit.

Nearby I saw some blood-stained bone fragments next to a vaguely spurting fire hydrant, no doubt all that remained of the dear Madame, at least on this sphere. My movements had become slow and even lazy, as if I had all the time in the world. I thought again of going north to Sonoma to find my wife, although I knew that I probably had little chance of surviving such a trip. I realized suddenly that I was very lonely.

I found cover under a bunch of oleanders in a park near the North Beach area. Patches of red illuminated the paths, but I saw relatively little of the weed there, which seemed, well, odd. Then the sun emerged from behind a cloud, flooding everything with newfound light and vitality. I encountered a swarm of miniature yellow frogs frolicking in a swampy pond amidst the eucalyptus trees, and I drew a lesson from their example.

I would live.

I would survive to tell my story.

These creatures had no more inkling of the aliens than ants did of man.

Suddenly I knew I was being watched. Turning around, I saw a dark figure crouching behind a clump of roses. I stepped towards him, and he pulled out a rifle. I held out my hands where he could see them. He just stood there silent and motionless, waiting for me to approach.

I noticed that he was dressed in camouflage clothing such as a soldier might wear, and I wondered if he was one of the “weekend warriors” who’d gone out to meet the Martian onslaught a month ago. He looked as though he’d been dragged through several ditches and weed patches. His clothes were dirty and tattered, his face streaked with mud, his nose dripping, his dark hair completely unkempt. His entire body was gaunt from stress and hunger. There was a red slash across the lower part of his face that gave him an ugly smirk; it looked as though it might be infected.

“Halt!” he said in his hoarse voice. “Halt, I say. Who are you and where are you from?”

“Novato,” I said. “I was at the first pit that the Martians made.”

“What’s your name, soldier?”

I was tempted to say, “Call me Ishmael,” but instead just mumbled something about “Smith.”

He paid no attention to anything I said.

“There’s no food here. This is my place. From this hill down to the Bay and back again and up to the edge of the park, it’s my place, all mine. I’m the commander of the company here, and there’re only enough supplies for us. What do you want?”

I considered my answer carefully. This man was skating right on the edge.

“I was trapped in the ruins of a house for two weeks. I don’t know anything about what’s happened in the interim, except that everyone seems to have disappeared.”

He looked at me uncertainly. His finger twitched on the rifle.

“Could you possibly lower that gun?” I said.

“I’ll be damned!” he said. “It’s you! It’s the man from Novato! I thought you’d been killed.”

Then I recognized him.

“You’re the National Guardsman from my garden.”

“Yeah, I’m Mayer. We’re the lucky ones! Imagine seeing you again after all this time! I thought you’d been blasted for sure. Bugger-food, you know.” He put down his rifle and held out his hand, and I shook it most gratefully. “I crawled into a drain,” he said. “But they didn’t kill everyone, not after that first bout. And later, well, later they all went away, and I headed off towards San Quentin, taking a shortcut across the fields.” Then he stopped. “You’ve gone part gray! Imagine that! And your beard, you didn’t have a beard before, that’s why I didn’t recognize you. You look like an old fart now.” Suddenly he realized what he’d said. “Sorry,” he said, “sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.”

I shook my head.

“We’ve all been through a lot,” I said.

There was a squawk in the trees. Mayer jumped up, grabbed his weapon, and stood sentinel until the sound repeated itself.

“Just a damn crow.” He gestured with his gun, visibly relaxing. “Lot of ’em about these days. You know, this park’s a bit too open for me. Let’s get under cover where we can talk some more.”

“Have you seen any of the Martians?”

“Nah, they’ve all gone to the other side of the city somewheres,” he said. “They’ve got a camp over there. At night, the sky lights up with their doin’s. It’s just like a big city itself, and in the glare you can barely see them movin’, shadows outlined among the shadows. In daylight you can’t see much of anything, unless you get too close, and you don’t want to do that! But here, well, here I haven’t seen them for”—he counted on his fingers—“five days, I guess. Then I spotted a couple of the big machines carrying something really large, dunno what it was. And night before last”—he stopped and waved again at the distant horizon—”it was just more lights, you know, but they had something up in the sky, this kind of jet, I guess, but bigger than anything I’ve seen before. Now that our fighters are gone, I think they’re building their own warplanes. Maybe they want to rule the rest of the world, huh?”

At his direction, I dropped to my hands and knees to crawl under the rose bushes, cringing every time one of the thorns grabbed my clothing.

“So they’re flying now?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, “they fly! You know, it was so large, the thing was so damn friggin’ big, that it blotted out the whole sky. Geez, I saw the stars covered over one by one as the machine drifted by. It scared the holy shit out of me, tell you the truth, even more than the sting-ray did, and that was bad enough. Had to change my pants, if you know what I mean.”

I allowed as how I did. I settled my bottom into a little dirt hollow and made myself comfortable.

“Then it’s all over,” I said quietly. “If they can do that, they can do anything. We don’t stand a chance.”

He nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, that’s what I think too. But maybe they’ll leave us alone for awhile. ’Sides”—he looked at me furtively—“’Sides, we’re already down, so we have no where to go but up!

“We’re beat, Smith. They crippled the old U.S. of A., the greatest goddam power in the whole friggin’ known universe, and they did it without even breakin’ a sweat. They walked all over us, and we couldn’t do a damn thing about it. And those machines up near San Rafael, hey, that was just an accident! We got lucky! And these’re just the first wave. You know they’ll keep coming. They’ve probably already got another fleet on its way. We’re beat!”

I just stared into space, unable to counter his argument.

“This ain’t a war,” said the Guardsman. “It’s a slaughter. The Martians are so far above us that we never even had a chance.”

Suddenly I recalled that night in Mindon’s observatory.

I mentioned this and added: “I only saw a few ships land.”

“But you don’t know what happened afterwards, you said so yourself. You don’t have any idea how many ships they’ve sent. Look here”—he pointed to a nearby anthill—“These little buggers go right on building their cities, living their lives, waging their wars and revolutions, until man wants them out of his way, and then, pfft! They’re gone! That’s what we are to the Martians—just a bunch of ants. The only thing is—”

He swallowed hard.

“Yes,” I said.

“We’re the edible ants!”

We sat looking at each other in horror.

“What’ll they do with us?” I said.

“Well, that’s what I’ve been thinkin’ about,” he said, shaking his head again, “that’s what I’ve been really thinkin’ about, my friend. After what happened at San Rafael—you were there, you saw it—I headed south, and all the time I was thinkin’. I saw what was happenin’. Most people were squealin’ like rabbits and pissin’ all over themselves. But I’m not a squealer or a pisser. I’ve seen death and I’ve seen pain, and death is just death, you know. It’s the thinkin’ man who always comes through.

“Everyone was runnin’ south towards San José. And there was a Martian camp there! Does that make any sense? Does it? So I says to myself, ‘You know, the food won’t last,’ and I went back to the city. I headed there because I knew I couldn’t outsmart the buggers. Down there”—he waved a hand at the southern horizon—“down there everyone’s starvin’ and runnin’ and killin’ and fightin’ each other, all over scraps of bread. Not me, friend, not me! Mama Mayer didn’t raise any stupid kids.

“The ones who had money, well, they all got away. I’m not goin’ to worry about them. The politicians, the businessmen, the big kahunas, they’re all gone now. They left us in the lurch. Funny thing is there’s plenty of food in the city. Plenty if you know where to look: canned goods in the stores, all kinds of packaged stuff, and lots of wine, beer, even mineral water, if you like that sorta thing. Well, what was I sayin’?”

“You were talking about your plans.”

“Oh, yeah, I was tellin’ you what I was thinkin’. ‘There’s these thingies,’ I says to myself, ‘these aliens, and they need our land and they need us, the people, for food. Well, first thing they did, they smashed us all to smithereens—the ships, the guns, the cities, the government, the police, the army, the stores, everything! All that’s gone now, and it’s not comin’ back neither. If we were ants, well, we might pull through. But we’re not ants. It’s too much for any one person to stop.’ That’s the first thing.”

I nodded my head.

“Well, I’ve thought it all out very carefully, verrry carefully. Right now they can catch us whenever they please. A Martian only has to go a few blocks to get a crowd movin’. The other day I saw one down around the ’Barcadero, rootin’ through the warehouses, pickin’ them to pieces and diggin’ in the wreckage, lookin’ for people and stuff. But they won’t keep doin’ that forever. They can’t. As soon as they’ve finished destroyin’ our shit—and it’s pretty much over already, like I said—they’ll start roundin’ us up more systematic-like, picking out the fattest and the youngest and storing us in cages and stuff like that. That’s what they’ll start doin’, and it won’t take them long, neither. Shit! I’ve seen it already. You understand?”

“They haven’t even begun!” I said.

“Everything that’s happened so far is because we didn’t have enough sense to keep our heads down. Every time we’ve tried to fight them, they’ve beaten us. Every time we’ve tried to run away, we’ve given them another quick source of food. There’re no safe places anymore. They’re still organizin’ all their shit. They’re still makin’ their machine-thingies, puttin’ together all that stuff they couldn’t bring with them, gettin’ things ready for the next batch. That’s probably why the ships have stopped coming now, ’cause they have to make way for the new ones. So, instead of us rushin’ about like fools, without thinkin’, we’ve gotta stop and think for a change. We’ve gotta decide what to do. That’s how I figure it, anyways. See, the cities, civilization, progress—hey, it’s all over now. We’ve been played by someone who’s better at the game.”

“Yes, but what do we do to entertain ourselves?”

I was pulling his leg and he knew it. The Guardsman looked at me suspiciously.

“Hey, there won’t be no more rock concerts for a million, gazilion years, so you can forget all about your game shows and your palm pilots and your IPODs and your computers and your bars. Starbucks ain’t serving no raspberry latté; and every McDonalds in the world is closed. So if that’s what you want, friend, you’re just doomed. Hey, forget all your manners, the Martians ain’t gonna pay any attention to them when they start suckin’ the blood out of your veins. Forget it all, I say.”

“You mean—”

“I mean, guys like me are goin’ to go on livin’, no matter what. I mean, I’m dead set on livin’. I mean, if you want to survive, you’re gonna have to change your ways as well. The human race is not goin’ to let itself be wiped out by a bunch of creepy-crawlies from outer space. And I don’t intend to be caught neither, or tamed like some dumb goat, or fattened up like some whiny sheep, or bred like some stupid cow on the hoof. Christ! Save me from all the wishy-washy namby-pambies!

“I’m goin’ to do it right under their stupid Martian noses”—I didn’t bother pointing out that the Martians had no noses—“I got it all worked out. I’ve thought it out real careful like. I’m no lightweight, friend. Sure, we men were beat, fair and square. Sure, we don’t know enough to fight back, at least right now. So, we’ve got to learn a lot more before we can send those buggers back to alien hell. But we will! We’ll survive, we’ll learn, and in the end we’ll kick some Martian butt. Yeah. Yeah! We’ll kill ’em all, every last one!”

I had to admit, this last part sounded pretty good to me.

“I’m right, ain’t I?” he said, his eyes shining. “Right is right, and you know it when you hear it. I’ve thought it all out, haven’t I?”

“Indeed you have,” I said.

“Well, anyone who wants to escape has to start plannin’ things right now. And I’m doing it! Sure, not all of us are going to make it, but some of us will, the smart ones will, see. That’s why I was watchin’ you, see. I had my doubts at first. You were putzin’ around in the open too much. That’s not smart: you can’t do that any more. I didn’t realize it was you, or I’d’ve said somethin’ right away. The kinda people who live in the city, the damn clerks and paper-pushers, they’re just no good at all. They’re all goin’ to die. They haven’t got any spirit left in them—no dreams—and a man who hasn’t got one or the other—shit! What the hell is he, anyway? Nothin’, I tell you. Nothin’!

“These people, they just shuffled off to work everyday by the hundreds and thousands, stuffin’ breakfast burritos in their bellies, runnin’ to catch their bodacious BARTs and cabs and buses, all because they feared for their little jobbies, slavin’ away in businesses they didn’t even understand, skulkin’ back home to their wifeys and hubbies and kiddies, hidin’ indoors at night because ‘it’s dark out there!’ for cryin’ out loud! All because that was what was expected of them. Hell was built for rabbits!

“Well, the Martians’ll be a godsend to them. Nice comfy cages, some food to fatten them up, a little careful breeding, jeez, not a worry in the world! After a week or so of chasin’ ’round the countryside on empty bellies, they’ll come right on home to mama. They’ll be happy to do it, too. They’ll wonder what people did before there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar hoppers, the performers, the singers—I can imagine them too. I can really imagine them,” he said, with a sort of somber gratification, “singin’ for their suppers. They’ll be full of sloppy sentiment and religion, not that it’ll do them any good. There’s lots of things I saw with my own eyes that I’ve only begun to understand these last few days. There’s lots of folks who’ll take things just as they are—fat and stupid people, all of them; and just a few who’ll be bothered by the sort of feelin’ that it’s all gone wrong, that they ought to be doin’ somethin’ about it.

“Now, whenever things are so bad that a lot of people feel that they ought to be doin’ somethin’ about it, those who’re weak and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinkin’, why they always head for religion, becomin’ very pious and superior-like, and submitting ’emselves ‘to persecution and the will of the Lord.’ You’ve noticed it yourself, I know”—I thought of Reverend Lesley—“The Martian cages will be full of pretty psalms and hymns and pleas for mercy on high. And there’ll be those who’ll get down to basics, so to speak, tee hee, just to maintain the species.

“You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Martians didn’t make pets of some of them, train ’em to do tricks and the like, maybe even get sentimental over the ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ who grew up and finally had to be sacrificed for the tribe. And some, maybe, they’ll train to hunt their own kind.”

“No,” I said, “Not that. That’s impossible!”

“Is it? Why lie to ourselves?” the Guardsman said. “There’re plenty of men who’d do it without any problem at all. Plenty, my friend!”

I just shook my head.

“Well, if they to try to come after me,” he said, “I’ll take care of them, yes I will, and I won’t be taken alive, neither!”

I sat thinking on what he’d said. His reasoning was basically sound, so far as I could see. In the days before the war no one would have questioned my intellectual superiority—I am, after all, a published author, a Ph.D., a commentator on philosophy and the modern times, someone talked about in fashionable circles. Who was he, really? Just a common soldier. Just a rube. And yet he’d already formulated a philosophy to cope with the emergency.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

He hesitated.

“Well, it’s like this,” he said. “We have to invent a way where men can survive, a place that’s safe enough to raise our children. The tame ones are already dead: they’re big, beautiful, rich, stupid—and dead! None of that means shit now. Problem is, those of us who’re left could turn savage. So, we need to move underground where they can’t find us. I’ve been thinkin’ for weeks about the sewers. Of course, there’re those who’ll think that’s a fate worse than death, so to speak, but right beneath our feet are hundreds and hundreds of miles of drainpipes, and just a few days’ rain will wash Old ’Frisco clean, leavin’ them sweet and empty and ready for use. The main sewers are big enough for all of us. Then there’re the cellars, the vaults, even the BART tunnels. See? All we need are people like us: able-bodied, clean-minded, right-thinkin’, hard-hittin’ men. We’re not going to include just anyone who drifts through the door, so to speak.

“Those who’re chosen—and those who choose to remain—will have to follow orders. There’s gotta be a structure if we’re goin’ to survive. I’ll be one of the officers, of course. We also need able-bodied, clean-minded, good-lookin’ women for mothers and teachers and wives. No silly sluts and ‘socies’ here. Life is becoming real again, and the useless ones will have to go, my friend, yes they will. They’re all goin’ to die anyways, don’t you see? So they ought to be willin’ to die for the rest of us. It’s a sort of disloyalty, after all, to not help the human race survive. And they can’t really be happy in this kind of world. Dyin’s not so hard; anyone can do it. It’s the whiners that make it look bad.

“We’ll gather together in the underground places, the hidden places. Our headquarters will be ’Frisco. If we keep our eyes and ears open, we might even be able to come out in the open when the Martians are busy. Play baseball, maybe. That’s how we’ll save the human race. But savin’ the race is nothing in itself. As I said, we have to save our knowledge and somehow add to it if we’re going to live. That’s where men like you come in. There’re books that need to be preserved. We have to establish safe spots way, way down deep, and get all the good books moved there—not the novels or the poetry, but the how-to stuff, the technology books, the science books. That’s where you come in, friend. You can help us. We have to go to the Public Library, even to Stanford and Berkeley, and pick out the good things, the ones we really need. We gotta keep it up, we gotta learn more. We gotta watch the Martians and their machines and learn from them.

“Some of us will be trained as spies. Hell, when it’s all workin’, maybe even I’ll volunteer. And the thing is, we have to leave the Martians alone. We don’t challenge them, we don’t steal from them, we don’t let them see us. If we get in their way, they’ll clean us all out. We gotta show them we mean no harm. Yeah, yeah, I know, that’s hard. But they’re intelligent, and they won’t hunt us down if they have everythin’ they want, if they think we’re just harmless rats.”

The Guardsman paused and laid a brown-burnt hand on my arm, looking into my eyes.

“You know, we might be able to cheat a bit. Think about this: four or five of their fightin’-machines suddenly start off, sting-rays blazing right and left, and not a Martian among ’em. Not a Martian in them, either, but men, red-blooded men who’ve learned how to operate the things. Fancy drivin’ one of those, firing its stinger everywhere! Wow! It wouldn’t matter if you were smashed to smithereens yourself. I reckon the Martians’d open their big beautiful baby blues at that!”—Martian eyes were invariably black—“Can’t you just see ’em? Can’t you just see ’em scurryin’ and hurryin’ and puffin’ and blowin’ and hootin’ to themselves? ‘Something must be out of whack,’ they’d yell. ‘Somethin’s gone screwy again!’ And swish, swish, bang, bang, rattle, crash, boom, just as they’re tryin’ to get things going again, here comes the sting-ray mowin’ ’em all down. Yeah, I can see it as clearly as night turns into day.”

For awhile the imagination of the man, and the sense of certainty and courage he conveyed, completely dominated my reason. I believed in both his forecast of human destiny and in the practicality of his scheme; and anyone who thinks me overly susceptible or startlingly foolish should put himself in my position, crouching fearfully in the rose bushes and listening to this torrent of words, all the while being distracted by fear over our situation.

We talked like this through the early morning hours, and later crept out of the park and hurried as quickly as we could to the house on Nob Hill where he’d made his lair, not far from the hotel I’d stayed in the previous night. His hidey-hole was actually located in the basement of the place, and when I saw the work he’d supposedly expended—it was just a pit ten feet deep, through which he intended to access the main sewer—I had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his abilities. I could have dug the damned thing myself in a day.

But I still believed in him enough to work with him all that morning until noon. We had a shovel and a garden rake, and we stashed the dirt we removed upstairs by the kitchen stove. Then we broke for lunch, washing down a can of vegetable soup with a bottle of Château Saint-Bérnardine Pinot Noir ’77 filched from a neighbor’s wine rack. As we resumed our work, I turned his project over again in my mind, and presently a few doubts began to rise; but I continued to labor all that morning, just because it felt good to have something to do. After an hour I began to speculate on the distance one had to go before the sewer was reached, and the possibility of missing it altogether. I suddenly wondered why we should have to dig this tunnel at all when we could have just opened one of the manholes in the street. Before I could pose the question, though, the Guardsman stopped working.

“We’re doin’ pretty well here,” he noted, putting down his spade. “But I’m gettin’ tired, so let’s take a look-see upstairs.”

I wanted to continue, so he picked up his shovel again, and then I had another thought.

“Where’s the rest of your company?” I asked.

“Uh, uh, well, they’re all, uh, out on patrol, yeah, they’re out patrollin’. I’m expectin’ one of them to report back before nightfall. Private Lambe. He should be here soon.”

“Why were you up in the park, instead of working here?”

“Well, see, I was, uh, I just needed the air, ’cause it gets real hot and stuffy down in the basement, particularly when you’ve been workin’ at it a long time. I was on my way back when I spotted you.”

“But why isn’t the hole any bigger?”

“Well, uh, you can’t work all the time,” he said—and then I saw him for what he was. He hesitated again, then put his spade aside. “You know, we really ought to check the roof,” he said, “because if any of those damn machines are around, they might hear us workin’ and catch us unawares.”

I no longer bothered to object. So we went upstairs and stood on a ladder that loomed out of a trap door on the roof. No aliens were visible anywhere. We ventured out onto the tiles, and slipped down under the shelter of the chimney.

A tree obscured part of Nob Hill, but we could still see the Bay spread out below us, and on the shore a bubbly mass of red weed poking up its hair. Some of the red creeper had swarmed up the trees a few blocks away; the branches of the earthly growth were dying or dead, with brown, shriveled leaves poking out from amidst the purple flower clusters (I realized after the fact that some of the trees may have already dropped their leaves for the winter). Neither of the alien plants had gained much of a foothold on the hill. In the few places where there were open areas, I could see the usual complement of garden shrubs rising out of private patios and plots, green and brilliant in the evening light. In the distance smoke was rising; a blue haze hid the northern hills towards Marin County.

Mayer began telling me about the folks still living in the city.

“One night last week,” he said, “some fools got the lights workin’ again with a generator, and there was one block of Market Street all lit up, crowded with tattooed, ragged dopers and drunks, men and women dancin’ and shoutin’ till dawn. A guy who was there told me all about it. When the sun came up, they suddenly saw a fightin’-machine standin’ over them. Christ knows how long it’d been there. Must’ve given them a real turn. The buggers came down the road, and picked up a hundred or more people who were too stoned or pissed to run away. Hope they made the Marshies sick.”

Then he started back on his ideas again. He spoke so eloquently about the possibility of capturing a fighting-machine that I half-believed him. But I was beginning to understand something about the man. The emphasis that he placed on doing nothing defined his true spirit. I noted that there was now no question of him personally capturing and directing the great and glorious machinery that would save all mankind, oh no. He would just organize the effort. Sometimes he called himself “Captain” and once “Colonel.” He’d been just a Private in the National Guard, but in his own mind, he’d advanced in rank through the deaths of his comrades-in-arms.

After a bit we retired to the basement again. Neither of us was disposed to resuming work, so when he suggested dinner, I readily agreed. He suddenly became very voluble, and when we’d feasted on some sardines and canned crab and asparagus, he fetched two bottles of excellent whiskey and a couple of cigars. I declined the latter, but shared the drinks, while his optimism continued to glow with the same fierce fire that highlighted the tip of his smoke whenever he puffed on it. A self-satisfied grin was etched in crimson on his face. He now regarded my appearance as a godsend.

“You know, I’ve got some pot down in the cellar,” he said.

“‘Candy’s dandy, but liquor’s quicker’.”

“Well, I’m in charge today, so weed it is! We’ve a lot of work before us, my friend! So let’s rest our feet and gather the roses while we may.”

“Ye rosebuds,” I said, making a circular motion with my hands.

“What?”

After he “liberated” his stash and lit up a hand-rolled toke, he pulled out a tarot deck and insisted on trying the cards. He taught me tarot poker, and after dividing San Francisco between us, I taking the northern side and he the south, we played for control of the neighborhoods, money no longer having any value here. I know this sounds foolish, but I found the game and the several others that we played quite refreshing. Perhaps they helped divert my mind from the trauma I’d experienced during the preceding month.

So, with our species dancing on the edge of extinction, and with no clear idea of what to do about it, we sat there all evening pursuing the chance shuffle of these painted pasteboards, playing the “joker” with absolutely unmitigated delight. Afterwards he showed me the meaning of the cards, and then I beat him three times in a row at chess. When darkness fell, we took the risk of lighting a candle.

Then we ate again, an unexpected luxury, dividing up a canned turkey. Mayer lit his second cigar. He was no longer the energetic utopian whom I’d encountered that morning. He was still optimistic, of course, but this was a more thoughtful optimism generated by a full stomach. I remember that he toasted my health in a gesture that moved me to tears. I realized then how much I’d missed ordinary human company. I went upstairs to look at the lights he’d mentioned earlier, the lights that blazed out so greenly in the west along the edge of Golden Gate Park.

I stared across the rolling hills of San Francisco, looking in vain for any sign of the Martians. The northern part of the city was already shrouded in ebon; the fires on the other side of the Bay glowed red, and now and then an orange-tinged tongue of flame flashed up into the deep, blue-black night. The rest of the city was dark. Then I perceived a strange, flickering light, a pale, violet-purple will-o’-the-wisp. For a time I couldn’t imagine what it might be, before realizing that it had to be the red weed. My long dormant sense of wonder, my realization of the proportion of things, stirred once again. I glanced up at Mars itself, hanging red and ugly and mean in the night sky, glowing in the west, and then gazed long and earnestly into the darkness.

I remained there a very long time, looking out upon that eerie vista, wondering at the changes that I’d experienced. As I relived my recent days, suddenly I felt nauseated. I flung the dregs of my drink off the roof, and would have crashed the glass too if I hadn’t been afraid of making a noise. I realized the utter folly of believing the Guardsman’s nonsense. I’d been a traitor to my wife and to my own kind, and I was filled with remorse and despair. I resolved to leave this undisciplined dreamer of great things to his drink and gluttony, and to head towards downtown San Francisco. There, it seemed to me, I had the best chance of learning what the Martians and my fellow men were doing.

I was still standing on the roof when the moon began to rise, blinking its lone sullen eye at me, judging me for the fool that I’d become—and the fool that I still remain.