"Is that all?" demanded Fields, with a disappointed cry.
"What more do you wish?"
"All you've described is very useful-but where is the beauty in it? Has this strange sense of yours no value to the spirit as well as to the body?"
Garth Jan made an impatient movement. "Really, Lincoln, you talk foolishly. I have given you only that for which you asked-the uses I put this sense to. I certainly didn't attempt to explain its nature. Take your color sense. As far as I can see its only use is in making certain fine distinctions which I cannot.
You can identify certain chemical solutions, for instance, by something you call color when I would be forced to run a chemical analysis. Where's the beauty in that?"
Field opened his mouth to speak but the Martian motioned him testily into silence. "I know. You're going to babble foolishness about sunsets or something.
But what do you know of beauty? Have you ever known what it was to witness the beauty of the naked copper wires when an AC current is turned on? Have you sensed the delicate loveliness of induced currents set up in a solenoid when a magnet is passed through it? Have you ever attended a Martian pogrtwem?"
Garth Jan's eyes had grown misty with the thoughts he was conjuring up, and Fields stared in utter amazement. The shoe was on the other foot now and his sense of superiority left him of a sudden.
"Every race has its own attributes," he mumbled with a fatalism that had just a trace of hypocrisy in it, "but I see no reason why you should keep it such a blasted secret. We Earthmen have kept no secrets from your race."
"Don't accuse us of ingratitude," cried Garth Jan vehemently. According to the Martian code of ethics, ingratitude was the supreme vice, and at the insinuation of that Garth's caution left him. "We never act without reason, we Martians. And certainly it is not for our own sake that we hide this magnificent ability."
The Earthman smiled mockingly. He was on the trail of something-he felt it in his bones-and the only way to get it out was to tease it out.
"No doubt there is some nobility behind it all. It is a strange attribute of your race that you can always find some altruistic motive for your actions."
GARTH JAN bit his lip angrily "You have no right to say that." For a moment he thought of pleading worry over Fields' future peace of mind as a reason for silence, but the latter's mocking reference to "altruism" had rendered that impossible. A feeling of anger crept over him gradually and that forced him to his decision.
There was no mistaking the note of frigid unfriendliness that entered his voice.
"I'll explain by analogy." The Martian stared straight ahead of him as he spoke, eyes half-closed.
"You have told me that I live in a world that is composed merely of shades of light and dark. You try to describe a world of your own composed of infinite variety and beauty. I listen but care little concerning it. I have never known it and never can know it. One does not weep over the loss of what one has never owned.
"But-what if you were able to give me the ability to see color for five minutes? What if, for five minutes, I reveled in wonders undreamed of? What if, after those five minutes, I have to return it forever? Would those five minutes of paradise be worth a lifetime of regret afterwards-a lifetime of dissatisfaction because of my own shortcomings? Would it not have been the kinder act never to have told me of color in the first place and so have removed its ever-present temptation?"
Fields had risen to his feet during the last part of the Martian's speech and his eyes opened wide in a wild surmise. "Do you mean an Earthman can possess the Martian sense if so desired?"
"For five minutes in a lifetime," Garth Jan's eyes grew dreamy, "and in those flve minutes sense-"
He came to a confused halt and glared angrily at his companion, "You know more than is good for you. See that you don't forget your promise."
He rose hastily and hobbled away as quickly as he could, leaning heavily upon the cane. Lincoln Fields made no move to stop him. He merely sat there and thought.
THE GREAT height of the cavern shrouded the roof in misty obscurity in which, at fixed intervals, there floated luminescent globes of radite. The air, heated by this subterranean volcanic stratum, wafted past gently. Before Lincoln Fields stretched the wide, paved avenue of the principal city of Mars, fading away into the distance.
He clumped awkwardly up to the entrance of the home of Garth Jan, the six-inch-thick layer of lead attached to each shoe a nuisance unending. Though it was still better than the uncontrollable bounding Earth muscles brought about in this lighter gravity.
The Martian was surprised to see his friend of six months ago but not altogether joyful. Fields was not slow to notice this but he merely smiled to himself. The opening formalities passed, the conventional remarks were made, and the two seated themselves.
Fields crushed the cigarette in the ash-tray and sat upright suddenly serious.
"I've come to ask for those five minutes you claim you can give me! May I have them?"
"Is that a rhetorical question? It certainly doesn't seem to require an answer."
Garth's tone was openly contemptuous.
The Earthman considered the other thoughtfully. "Do you mind if I outline my position in a few words?"
The Martian smiled indifferently. "It won't make any difference," he said.
"I'll take my chance on that. The situation is this: I've been born and reared in the lap of luxury and have been most disgustingly spoiled. I've never yet had a reasonable desire that I have not been able to fulfill, and I don't know what it means not to get what I want. Do you see?"
There was no answer and he continued, "I have found my happinese in beautiful sights, beautiful words, and beautiful sounds. I have made a cult of beauty. In a word, I am an aesthete."
"Most interesting," the Martian's stony expression did not change a whit, "but what bearing has all this on the problem at hand?"