“The air’s pretty thin.
Some can’t take it.
I think you’ll have to go back to Earth.”
“No!”
He sat up and almost immediately felt his eyes darken and Mars revolve twice around under him.
His nostrils dilated and he forced his lungs to drink in deep nothingness.
“I’ll be all right.
I’ve got to stay here!”
They let him lie gasping in horrid fishlike motions. And he thought, Air, air, air.
They’re sending me back because of air.
And he turned his head to look across the Martian fields and hills.
He brought them to focus, and the first thing he noticed was that there were no trees, no trees at all, as far as you could look in any direction.
The land was down upon itself, a land of black loam, but nothing on it, not even grass.
Air, he thought, the thin stuff whistling in his nostrils.
Air, air. And on top of hills, or in their shadows, or even by little creeks, not a tree and not a single green blade of grass.
Of course!
He felt the answer came not from his mind, but his lungs and his throat.
And the thought was like a sudden gust of pure oxygen, raising him up.
Trees and grass.
He looked down at his hands and turned them over.
He would plant trees and grass.
That would be his job, to fight against the very thing that might prevent his staying here.
He would have a private horticultural war with Mars.
There lay the old soil, and the plants of it so ancient they had worn themselves out.
But what if new forms were introduced?
Earth trees, great mimosas and weeping willows and magnolias and magnificent eucalyptus.
What then?
There was no guessing what mineral wealth hid in the soil, untapped because the old ferns, flowers, bushes, and trees had tired themselves to death.
“Let me up!” he shouted.
“I’ve got to see the Co-ordinator!”
He and the Co-ordinator had talked an entire morning about things that grew and were green.
It would be months, if not years, before organized planting began.
So far, frosted food was brought from Earth in flying icicles; a few community gardens were greening up in hydroponic plants.
“Meanwhile,” said the Co-ordinator, “it’s your job.
We’ll get what seed we can for you, a little equipment.
Space on the rockets is mighty precious now.
I’m afraid, since these first towns are mining communities, there won’t be much sympathy for your tree planting — ”
“But you’ll let me do it?”
They let him do it.
Provided with a single motorcycle, its bin full of rich seeds and sprouts, he had parked his vehicle in the valley wilderness and struck out on foot over the land.
That had been thirty days ago, and he had never glanced back.
For looking back would have been sickening to the heart.
The weather was excessively dry; it was doubtful if any seeds had sprouted yet.
Perhaps his entire campaign, his four weeks of bending and scooping were lost.
He kept his eyes only ahead of him, going on down this wide shallow valley under the sun, away from First Town, waiting for the rains to come.
Clouds were gathering over the dry mountains now as he drew his blanket over his shoulders.
Mars was a place as unpredictable as time.
He felt the baked hills simmering down into frosty night, and he thought of the rich, inky soil, a soil so black and shiny it almost crawled and stirred in your fist, a rank soil from which might sprout gigantic beanstalks from which, with bone-shaking concussion, might drop screaming giants.
The fire fluttered into sleepy ash.
The air tremored to the distant roll of a cartwheel.