I glanced up and saw that the city was open to the sky, for I could make out the stars overhead. Curiously, though, the air was as dense here as it had been inside the corridors, and the temperature was much warmer than we had experienced in the desert.
The street we were in was lighted: at intervals along each side were several more of the towers we had seen, and now we realized a part, at least, of their function, for on the polished roof of each tower was a powerful light which swept to and fro as the platform rotated slowly. These constantly sweeping beams had a strangely sinister aspect, and they were far removed from the warm, placid gaslights to which we were both accustomed, but the very fact that the Martians illuminated their streets at night was a reassuringly human detail.
“Which way shall we go?” Amelia said.
“We must find the centre of the city,” I said. “Clearly this is a quarter that has fallen into disuse. I suggest we strike directly away from this rail-terminus until we meet some of the people.”
“The people? You mean … Martians?”
“Of course,” I said, taking her hand in mine with a show of confidence. “We have already accosted several without knowing who they were. They seem very like us, so we have nothing to fear from them.”
Without waiting for a reply I pulled her forward, and we walked briskly along the street towards the right. When we came to the corner we turned with it, and found we were in a similar, though rather longer, street Along each side of this were more buildings, styled as ornately as the first we had seen, but with sufficient subtle variations in architecture to avoid obvious repetition of shape. Here too the buildings were in decay, and we had no means of knowing for what purposes they had once been used. The ruination apart, this was not a thoroughfare which would have disgraced one of the spa-towns of England.
We walked for about ten minutes without seeing any other pedestrians, although as we passed one street-junction we briefly saw, at some distance down the intersecting road, a powered conveyance moving swiftly across our view. It had appeared too quickly for us to see it in any detail, and we were left with an impression of considerable speed and incontinent noise.
Then as we approached a cluster of buildings from which several lights issued, Amelia suddenly pointed along a smaller street to our right.
“See, Edward,” she said softly. “There are people by that building.”
Along that street too were lighted buildings, and from one of them, as she had indicated, several people had just walked. I turned that way instantly, but Amelia held back.
“Let’s not go that way,” she said. “We don’t know—”
“Are you prepared to starve?” I cried, although my bravura was a façade. “We must see how these people live, so that we may eat and sleep.”
“Do you not think we should be more circumspect? It would be foolhardy to walk into a situation we could not escape from.”
“We are in such a situation now,” I said, then deliberately made my voice more persuasive. “We are in desperate trouble, Amelia dear. Maybe you are right to think it would be foolish to walk straight up to these people, but I know no other way.”
Amelia said nothing for a moment, but she stood close by my side, her hand limp in mine. I wondered if she were about to faint once more, for she seemed to be swaying slightly, but after a while she looked up at me. As she did so, the sweeping beam from one of the towers fell full across her face, and I saw how tired and ill she looked.
She said: “Of course you are right, Edward. I did not think we should survive in the desert. We must of course mingle with these Martian people, for we cannot return to that.”
I squeezed her hand to comfort her, and then we walked slowly towards the building where we had seen the people. As we approached, more appeared through the main doorway and headed up the street away from us. One man even glanced in our direction as two of the light-beams swept across us, so that he must have seen us clearly, but he showed no visible reaction and walked on with the others.
Amelia and I came to a halt in front of the doorway, and for a few seconds I stared down the street at the Martians. They all walked with a curious, easy loping motion; doubtless this was a product of the low gravity conditions, and doubtless a gait that Amelia and I would perfect as soon as we grew more accustomed to the conditions here.
“Do we go inside?” Amelia said.
“I can think of no other course,” I said, and led the way up the three low steps in front of the door. Another group of Martian people was coming out in the opposite direction, and they passed without appearing to notice us. Their faces were indistinct in the half-light, but close to we saw just how tall they were. They were all at least six inches taller than I.
Light from within was spilling down the passage beyond the door, and as we passed through we came into a huge, brightly lit room, one so large that it seemed it must occupy the whole of the building.
We stopped just inside the door, standing warily, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the brilliance.
All was at first confusing, for what furniture was there was in haphazard order, and consisted, for the most part, of what seemed to be tubular scaffolding. From this were suspended by ropes what I can best describe as hammocks: large sheets of thick fabric or rubber, hanging some two feet from the ground. On these, and standing around them, were several dozen of the Martian people.
With the exception of the peasant-slaves—whom we surmised to be of the lowest social order—these were the first Martians we had seen closely. These were the city-dwellers, the same as those men we had seen wielding the electrical whips. These were the people who ordered this society, elected its leaders, made its laws. These were from now to be our peers, and in spite of our tiredness and mental preoccupations Amelia and I regarded them with considerable interest.
iv
I have already noted that the average Martian is a tall being; what is also most noticeable, and of emphatic importance, is that the Martians are undeniably human, or human-like.
To speak of the average Martian is as misleading as to speak of the average human on Earth, for even in those first few seconds as we regarded the occupants of the building, Amelia and I noticed that there were many superficial differences. We saw some who were taller than most, some shorter; there were thinner Martians and fatter ones; there were some with great manes of hair, others were bald or balding; the predominant skin-tone was a reddish tint, but this was more evident in some than in others.
With this in mind, then, let me say that the, average adult Martian male could be roughly described thus:
He would be of the order of some six feet six inches tall, with black or brown head-hair. (We saw no red-heads, and no blonds.) He would weigh, if he were to step on scales an Earth, some two hundred pounds. His chest would be broad, arid apparently well-muscled. He would have facial hair, with thin eyebrows and wispy beard; some of the males we saw were clean-shaven, but this was uncommon. His eyes would be large, uncannily pale in coloration, and set wide apart in his face. His nose would be flat and broad, and his mouth would be generously fleshed.
At first sight the Martian face is a disturbing one for it seems brutal and devoid of emotion; as we later mingled with these people, however, both Amelia and I were able to detect facial nuances, even though we were never sure how to interpret them.
(My description here is of a city-Martian. The slave people were of the same racial stock, but due to the privations they suffered, most of the slaves we saw were comparatively thin and puny.)
The Martian female—for women there were in that room, and children too—is, like her Earthly counterpart, slightly the physical inferior of the male. Even so, almost every Martian female we saw was taller than Amelia, who is, as has already been said, taller than the average Earth woman. There is no woman on Mars who could ever be considered to be a beauty by Earth standards, nor, I suspect, would that concept have any meaning on Mars. At no time did we ever sense that Martian females were appreciated for their physical charms, and indeed we often had reason to believe that, as with some animals on Earth, the rôles on Mars were reversed in this respect.