: Madmen of Mars by Fennel Erik Elkan Max Illustrator - Science fiction; Adventure stories; Martians Fiction; Space ships Fiction; Human-alien encounters Fiction

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MADMEN OF MARS

Why do the Martians drink red wine, swagger about, spout vile poetry and fight endless duels with each other? How did Terence Michael Burke change their minds about invading the Earth?

All this time we've kept quiet as a whole cageful of mice. And with good reason. During the Big Scare, while everyone was afraid that the Exclusion Ultimatum meant the Martians wanted an interplanetary war, the Earth Governments would have been only too ready to hang, shoot, stab, gas, electrocute, freeze, burn, poison, impale and/or defenestrate the dastardly culprits responsible. If they could have discovered who did what to whom. They didn't savvy Marties then--and still don't.

All that was five years ago, but we still thought it best to keep still when this rather surprising diplomatic angling for resumption of Martio-Terran relations began just recently. The five of us were closer to what caused the Malignant Inertia Complex than all the big-name psychologists who have written books of wrong guesses since it disappeared, and we could see no danger of it starting up again. Mike was sure the Martian Thing had lost its grip. So we were willing to let the new treaty come up for a popular vote, as all interplanetary treaties must under the Earth Governments charter, without sticking our oars in or our necks out.

But last night Wild Bill Harrigan and I bumped into Miu Tlenow, a North Venus cat-man and veteran space-hopper who had just brought the Venusian diplomatic intermediaries from Mars to Earth for more treaty talks.

Naturally Bill and I were curious about what cooked on Mars. Tlenow talked, openly puzzled, while Bill and I looked at each other and remembered.

I'm not mad at anyone. Not even at the Thing. Mike swears the Thing meant no harm and the Cultural Emissaries couldn't help themselves, and I believe him. In fact I feel rather sorry for the poor Marties themselves. It must be tough on them to have to live with themselves and each other.

The psychos would probably name the Marties' current condition Acute Virulent Mass Burke-itis and laugh it off. But the psychos don't know Mike as Bill and I do. So Bill insists it's our duty as Earth citizens to divulge everything, and I'm inclined to agree. The thought of a whole planetful of Marties obsessed with Mike's sense of humor is appalling.

Telling this really should be Mike's job--he's the only human who ever made contact with the Martian Thing--but he and Polly live at Venus Central now and the Professor is out there now visiting his grandchildren, Mike, Jr. and Bridget Dorrene. So I'm stuck. But I still think Bill ran in his own dice when we rolled to see which of us had to write this.

Day and night the telaudio jabbered about the Complex, mostly learned doctors issuing statements that it was a purely psychological phenomenon, a sort of hysteria induced by this, that and the other factor in a civilization altering too rapidly for human minds to adjust.

Most of them followed the line that the disease would cure itself soon, but behind their seven-jet words they seemed a bit uneasy themselves. And I'll never forget the particularly learned gent who suffered an attack right in the middle of his broadcast speech. He was talking reassuringly when all of a sudden his voice petered out. His eyes got all glazed and his face took on an empty look, and he sat there staring at the mike until the control room cut him off. It gave me the shivers.

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