Crab Looking Martians

Crab Looking Martians

(The Wreck of the Mars Adventure, by David D. Levine)

The natives somewhat resembled crabs – man-sized crabs with only four limbs, drawn out lengthiwise and walking about on their hind legs. But though they had two arms and two legs, those limbs bent in all the wrong places, and both limbs and body were covered with a hard shell that shades from white on the belly to the same red-ochre as the sand on the back. There was no distinct head, only a bulge at the top of the torso from which sprouted two black eyes on flexible stalks, like a lobster’s and a vertical mouth like the working end of a blacksmith’s pincers. Each hand resembled a crab in itself, the fingers tipped with vicious-looking claws.

…

Their clothing. Note the colors and patterns – very sophisticated. Somewhat reminiscent of Persian carpet. And especially that one in the center, the one with the hat. He appears to have jewelry at his shoulders and wrists…. Each natives carried a long, thing sword, curved like a Persian shamshir, thrust scabbardless through his belt; smaller blades, likewise slim and curved, were also in evidence. They gleamed in the pale sunlight.

…

The Martians, he noticed, had wide flexible feet well suited for waling on sand; their lower garments were loose pantaloons like the Hindoos’, cuffed at the knee, leaving the red-carapaced lower legs bare.

Crab Looking Martians. Weird Martians in the fog. Painting by Elena

The Martian with the hat stepped forward from the rest. Hi had a distinct but not unpleasant odor, something between horses and cinnamon, and the bright metal fixed to his carapace at several points had the appearance of real gold. Chittering and clattering in his own languages, he pointed on chitinous hand up to the sky, then swept it downward in a gesture that encompassed the Mars Adventure, the Englishmen, and the Martians as well. Then he stood silent, with folded hands.

…

“Perhaps we should show him the Bible?” Kidd suggested. “He waved up at Heaven…”

“I’ve no better notion,” Sexton confessed. Kidd handed him the heavy book, and he opened it to Genesis”. “This is our most sacred book,” Sexton said to the native, presenting it reverently, “and this is the story of the creation of the universe”.

The Martian took up the book, examining it on all sides with chittered commentary to his fellows. He ran crab-leg claws down the columns of text, as though reading, and tapped delicately at the leather cover and spine. He held the Bible close to his face, the eyes bending in together in a most disturbing manner.

Then, to Kidd’s horror, he slowly and deliberately tore out a page, folded it, and crammed it between his hideous jaws.

Weird Martians in the Fog. Illustration : Elena.

Shoals

Shoals

by Mary Rosenblum

Water leaped in the center of each basin, giving off the tinkle of glass chimes as it splashed back down, overflowing the rim and trickling across the plaza in snaking streams. The two Martians stood in front of him. He smiled at them, recognizing them. He’d names them Rose and Shane because he lied the names. He wasn’t sure that “name” was something that they understood. It wasn’t like they talked in words.

Tall and skinny as the winter trees he’d seen vids of from Earth, they pirouetted, bathing him in their smiles. Well, it felt like a smile. He pirouetted with them, laughing without his mouth because they heard. Their faces had looked weird at first, with a ridge pushing out down the middle from forehead to chin, so that their elongated, cloudy eyes were set back on either side of the ridge. Their mouths were perfectly round, mostly closed with pale lips, although now and again they opened wide to show darkness and nothing like teeth that he could see. He had no idea what they ate, had never seen a Martian eating.

They fluttered their long, six-fingered hands, and he followed them toward the canal along a long, curving street paved with azure tiles edged with silver so that it flashed in the sunshine, a ghostly image overlaid on red dust and rock. Tall, twisted spires of buildings rose on either side and the tall, slender Martians strolled in and out, crossing the spaces between the buildings on narrow, arching ribbons of crystal, like graceful tightrope walkers he’d seen in vids of old-days circuses. Only, you could see in the circus videos that the tightrope walkers were afraid of falling.

They Came from the Past. Illustration : Megan Jorgensen - Elena(when she was young)

Nobody here was afraid.

Five more Martians had joined them, fluttering their hands as they strolled along the azure path in a ghostly shimmer, their half-length robes fluttering in the breeze, a shifting rainbow of color, like an oil slick on the air. Small thorny plants covered with pink blossoms lined the path here, barely visible in the noonday sun, and the spires were less crowded. Maartin stopped, fascinated, as one of the plants began to rock back and forth. It slowly worked thick rootlets free of the soil. The rootlets, pink and fleshy, flexed like fingers, stretching and elongating, reaching away from the path to bury themselves in the reddish soil. Slowly, the rootlets contracted, pulling the plant away from the neat row along the path.

A Martian hurried up, long fingers of one hand fluttering furiously. The other hand held a slender black wand. The Martian poked the tip of the wand into the soil where the plant had anchored its rootlets. The rootlets whipped out of the soil, coiling tightly under the plant’s thorny branches. It shook its dull green leaves with a threatening rustle and all its thorns slowly aligned to point at the Martian with the wand. The Martian shook its fingers at the plant and poked the wand tip into the soil again. Slowly, the rootlets extended on the far side, and the plant began to drag itself back to the path and the space it had left between its neighbors.  Just like the school av’. Maartin covered a smile because moving his mouth made his Martian friends finger-laugh at him. The plant looked defeated, its leaves dropping slightly, its thorns no longer erect.

A finger of urgency prodded him and he looked up. The group of Martians had stopped and were looking back at him. Rose stepped forward.  It was her urgency he’d felt. Her. He shrugged as he hurried to catch up. She felt like a her, and he wasn’t sure why, but she did. She looked the same as Shane and he felt like a he.

The canal lay ahead, Towers soared gracefully along its rippling expanse. Barges floated on the water, moving slowly along. When he sneaked out at dusk, the water looked almost solid, but in the sunshine, you could see the empty bed through the barges and the water. Colorful awning flapped in the breeze, and, in their shade, Martians reclined on footed cushions, their fingers flickering in conversation. A trio stood at the bow of one barge, blowing into polished and twisted horns that branched into multiple mouths. He couldn’t hear anything, but the gave out a soft blue smoke and suddenly he was filled with gentle feelings, sort of like the way he felt at night, when Mom used to tuck in the covers and say good night. He swallowed, and Rose drifted back to walk close to him, floating along, on her long toes, as if she was nearly weightless. She waved her fingers in front of him and her head dipped, mouth opening briefly.

Sharing his sorrow. He blinked. They had never paid this much attention to him before. Sometimes they walked with him, but there was no … communication. He felt them some, but they usually didn’t really feel him.

Maybe that was changing

In the Tombs of the Martian Kings

In the Tombs of the Martian Kings

Mike Resnick

There was really nothing about him to attract any attention – except for the creature lying on the floor at his feet.  At first, it seemed like a dog, but there weren’t any dogs on Mars, and certainly not any that approached the size of a lion. It had for nostrils – two in front, one on each cheek – eyes that seemed to glow even through they were totally shielded from the dim lights, and a tail that ended in such a sharp point that it could very well be used as a weapon, The animal was covered by a dull blue curly down, and when it yawned, it displayed a double row of coal-black fangs.

— What was annoyed got to do with it? I’ll face five duxbollahs a day for my half of what he’s paying us.

I had no idea you valued money was Scorpio’s sardonic thought. I thought you were a superior species.

We are. But we need money when dealing with inferior species, like Earthmen.

And while Mars slept, the ancient king, the Earthman, and the Venusian settled down for a long night of hard negotiations.

The tombs of Martian Kings. Painting by Elena

Out of Scarlight

Out of Scarlight

By Liz Williams

Scarlight sits in a narrow valley, at a point where the Yss river is channeled between steps of stone, and cascades down to the canals of the plains in a series of dramatic chasms. At the top of Scarlight itself, an ancient arched bridge sits over one of these waterfalls, which then plummets several hundred feet to a dark pool, and on down through the town. Scarlight is one of those nexus places, where many roads meet, and they say that the pool is filled with the bones of those who have upset the lords of Scarlight.

…

The pursuer rode a green beast, one of the burrow-dwelling things that live in the hills of Ithness, and it was therefore a long way from home. Part reptile, part cat, it leaped along sinuously, and I could see its rider casting the malefic incantations that the sorcerers of Ithness are wont to employ, hurling poisons like bolts.

An extraterrestrial dream. Painting by Elena

…

The Shan-hai called on the carrion spirits of the wind. They use an older tongue for these ceremonies, a language that has been dead for thousands of years and has nothing to do with the builders of the canals or the cities of the plain. It is wilder, stranger, not at all human. It made my skin crawl to hear it, and yet it filled me with a strange ascetic sense of longing : the reverse of the sex-songs that they sing in the palaces to inflame all those who hear them. This spoke of purity and deliberate isolation. Perhaps it was what I needed. I became lost in the thin harmonies, as the priestess berated or cajoled or implored the carrion gods; I did not know which. But then I became aware that someone was close to my shoulder. Casually, I turned.

A Man Without Honor

A Man Without Honor

by James S.A. Corey

As we passed through the vast interior of the Serkeriah, Carina Meer – for this proved to be the captain’s name – did her best to apprise me of our situation, and I will do my best to summarize here what she said to me. That body that we call Mars was once home to a vast and flourishing civilization. Great cities of living crystal filled with sweet water. The seven races lived together there in harmony and conflict, peace and war, much in the fashion of the nations of our own world. She told me of being a child and looking up at the vast night sky to see the brightness that that, to her, was our own world, and I found myself powerfully moved by the image.

Those cities now lie in shards, the canals empty and dry. The Ikkean race, for reasons known only in their own insectile councils, turned en masse upon the other six races. The soft-shelled Manae, wise and gentle Sord (of whom La’an was the first of my acquaintance), radian Imesqu, vast and slow Norian, mechanical Achreon, and our own cousin Humanity were driven under the surface of the planet, to live in the great caverns where the Ikkeans feared to follow.

The six conquered races lived in darkness and despair until Carina’s borther, Hermeton, happened in his alchemical investigations upon a rare alloy capable of bringing enormous power. His new solar engines, it was hoped, might tame the Ikkean threat, should the alloy be found in sufficient quantity.

An Old Martian Castle Landscape. Image : © Megan Jorgensen (Elena)

To this end, the conquered races had sent their agent to the rich profundity that is Earth, to gather from the violence of our planet’s core the means of their liberty. Great was their feat of discovery, for while their power is vast, their position with the Ikkean threat is tenuous. An alliance between the Ikkean race and the humans of Earth would certainly have spelled doom to the six races. And their fears, as you will see, were not unjustified.

…

The Palace of the Underworld had grown to almost twice its height when the enemy’s flying scouts appeared.

Imagine if you will, Your Grace, the wast Martian sky, as purple as a lilac, with the same sun that shines on Westminster and London here taking on a wholly foreign aspect, with wide tendrils of rainbow snaking from its centrally glowing orb. See, if you will, the vast ruins that had once been the pride of seven races with their crystal hearts laid bare by storms and war; the massive, dying river, slow as an old man’s blood ; the bleeding and desperate crew hauling the hope of survival on a half-shattered cart that struggled and failed to rise from the ground like a wounded moth.

The air was thin and held the scent of metal and spent gunpowder. The heat of the sun oppressed as powerfully as a tropical noontime.

Now hear the familiar cry of Quohog – awch loy – smoke ahoy. Picture a storm of dragonflies, each as large as a man’s arm. They rose in the east, thick as the billows of a vast conflagration, and spread out across the sky. I heard Carina Meer’s cry when she caught sitght of them and saw the blood drain from her tawny face.