Willis stirred for the first time since he had struck the outer cold. He extended his eye stalks, looked inquiringly around, then commenced to beat time with them.
Presently the music stopped and a voice said: "This is station D-M-S, the Mars Company, Deimos, circwn Mars. We bring you now by relay from Syrtis Minor a program in the public interest. Doctor Graves Armbruster will speak on 'Ecological Considerations involved in Experimental Artificial Symbiotics as related to-'"
The driver promptly switched the radio off.
"I would like to have heard that," objected Jim. "It sounded interesting."
"Oh, you're just showing off," Frank answered. "You don't even know what those words mean."
"The deuce I don't. It means-"
"Shut up and take a nap." Taking his own advice Frank lay back and closed his eyes. However he got no chance to sleep. Willis had apparently been chewing over, in whatever it was he used for a mind, the program he had just heard. He opened up and started to play it back, woodwinds and all.
The driver looked back and up, looked startled. He said something but Willis drowned him out. Willis bulled on through to the end, even to the broken-off announcement. The driver finally made himself heard. "Hey, you guys! What yuh got up mere? A portable recorder?"
"No, a bouncer."
"A what?"
Jim held Willis up so that the driver could see him. "A bouncer. His name is Willis."
"You mean that thing is a recorder?"
"No, he's a bouncer. As I said, his name is Willis."
"This I got to see," announced the driver. He did something at his control board, then turned around and stuck his head and shoulders up into the observation dome.
Frank said, "Hey! You'll wreck us."
"Relax," advised the driver. "I put her on echo-automatic. High banks for the next couple o' hundred miles. Now what is this gismo? When you brought it aboard I thought it was a volleyball."
"No, it's Willis. Say hello to the man, Willis."
"Hello, man," Willis answered agreeably.
The driver scratched his head. "This beats anything I ever saw in Keokuk. Sort of a parrot, eh?"
"He's a bouncer. He's got a scientific name, but it just means 'Martian roundhead'. Never seen one before?"
"No. You know, bud, this is the screwiest planet in the whole system."
"If you don't like it here," asked Jim, "why don't you go back where you came from?"
"Don't go popping off, youngster. How much will you take for the gismo? I got an idea I could use him."
"Sell Willis? Are you crazy?"
"Sometimes I think so. Oh, well, it was just an idea." The driver went back to his station, stopping once to look back and stare at Willis.
The boys dug sandwiches out of their travel bags and munched them. After mat Frank's notion about a nap seemed a good idea. They slept until wakened by the car slowing down. Jim sat up, blinked, and called down, "What's up?"
"Coming into Cynia Station," the driver answered. "Lay over until sundown."
"Won't the ice hold?"
"Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. The temperature's up and I'm not going to chance it." The car slid softly to a stop, then started again and crawled slowly up a low ramp, stopped again. "All out!" the driver called. "Be back by sundown-or get left." He climbed out; the boys followed.
Cynia Station was three miles west of the ancient city of Cynia, where west Strymon joins the canal Oeroe. It was merely a lunchroom, a bunkhouse, and a row of pre-fab warehouses. To the east the feathery towers of Cynia gleamed in the sky, seemed almost to float, too beautifully unreal to be solid.
The driver went into the little inn. Jim wanted to walk over and explore me city; Frank favored stopping in the restaurant first. Frank won out. They went inside and cautiously invested part of their meager capital in coffee and some indifferent soup.
The driver looked up from his dinner presently and said, "Hey, George! Ever see anything like that?" He pointed to Willis.
George was the waiter. He was also the cashier, the hotel keeper, the station agent, and the Company representative. He glanced at Willis. "Yep."
"You did, huh? Where? Do you suppose I could find one?"
"Doubt it. You see 'em sometimes, hanging around the Martians. Not many of 'em." He turned back to his readinga New York Times, more than two years old.
The boys finished, paid their bills, and prepared to go outside. The cook-waiter-station-agent said, "Hold on. Where are you kids going?"
"Syrtis Minor."
"Not that. Where are you going right now? Why don't you wait in the dormitory? Take a nap if you like."
"We thought we would kind of explore around outside," explained Jim.
"Okay. But stay away from the city."
"Why?"
"Because the Company doesn't allow it, that's why. Not without permission."
"How do we get permission?" Jim persisted.
"You can't. Cynia hasn't been opened up to exploitation yet." He went back to his reading.
Jim was about to continue the matter but Frank tugged at his sleeve. They went outside together. Jim said, "I don't think he has any business telling us we can't go to Cynia."
"What's the difference? He thinks he has."
"What'U we do now?"
"Go to Cynia, of course. Only we won't consult his nibs."
"Suppose he catches us?"
"How can he? He won't stir off that stool he's warming. Come on."
"Okay." They set out to the east. The going was not too easy; there was no road of any sort and all the plant growth bordering the canal was spread out to its greatest extent to catch the rays of the midday sun. But Mars' low gravity makes walking easy work even over rough ground. They came shortly to the bank of Oeroe and followed it to the right, toward the city.
The way was easy along the smooth stone of the bank. The air was warm and balmy even though the surface of the canal was still partly frozen. The sun was high; they were the better part of a thousand miles closer to the equator than they had been at daybreak.
"Warm," said Willis. "Willis want down."
"Okay," Jim agreed, "but don't fall in."
"Willis not fall in." Jim put him down and the little creature went skipping and rolling along the bank, with occasional excursions into the thick vegetation, like a puppy exploring a new pasture.
They had gone perhaps a mile and me towers of the city were higher in the sky when they encountered a Martian. He was a small specimen of his sort, being not over twelve feet tall. He was standing quite still, all three of his legs down, apparently lost in contemplation of the whichness of what. The eye facing them stared unblinkingly.
Jim and Frank were, of course, used to Martians and recognized that this one was busy in his "other world"; they stopped talking and continued on past him, being careful not to brush against his legs.
Not so Willis. He went darting around the Martian's peds, rubbing against them, then stopped and let out a couple of mournful croaks.
The Martian stirred, looked around him, and suddenly bent and scooped Willis up.
"Hey!" yelled Jim. "Put him down!"
No answer.
Jim turned hastily to Frank. "You talk to him, Frank. I'll never be able to make him understand me. Please!" Of the Martian dominant language Jim understood little and spoke less. Frank was somewhat better, but only by comparison. Those who speak Martian complain that it hurts their throats.
"What'U I say?"
"Tell him to put wills down! Or, so help me, I'll burn his legs off!"
"Oh, now, Jim, you wouldn't do anything like that. It would get your whole family in trouble."
"If he hurts Willis, I sure will!"
"Grow up. Martians never hurt anybody."
"Well, tell him to put Willis down, then."
"I'll try." Frank screwed up his mouth and got to work. His accent, bad at best, was made worse by the respirator and by nervousness. Nevertheless he clucked and croaked his way through a phrase that seemed to mean what Jim wanted.