Читать книгу Seven Against Mars - Martin Berman-Gorvine - Страница 6

Chapter 2

The walk back through the jungle was difficult going for Rachel, who envied Katie’s seemingly effortless stride, especially when every root hidden under wet, fallen leaves seemed to be lying in wait for her, and she was still sticky with joowallah sap, though her sweat had washed some of that away. But the going was even tougher for the princess, who had grown up in Mars’s low gravity, so Jack and Karolla adjusted their pace accordingly. Jack offered to carry Anya over the creek that bordered the Medusa’s blast zone and several other rivulets they crossed in the next few hours, but she declined with dignity, though sweat poured from her delicate limbs. Katie worried about being caught outside after dark, but Jack laughed and said sunset wouldn’t be for another 80 Earth days.

“Besides,” he said, “on this planet, the things that hunt in the daytime are much more dangerous than the night-stalkers.”

“Gee, thanks, mister, I feel so much better now,” Katie said.

“Not at all, missy.”

“The name’s Katie, mister.”

“Katie Mister? That’s a funny name.” Jack gallantly handed over a canteen. Katie gulped, followed by Rachel, while Jack and the princess took turns sipping from a second canteen and gazing into each other’s eyes.

When they were under way again and Jack seemed safely out of earshot, Katie whispered to Rachel, “You didn’t make him the sharpest tack in the drawer, did you?”

“He has unexplored depths,” Rachel said. “I didn’t have enough time to get into all of them. Besides, I had an uncle from Chelm who was just as immune to sarcasm as Jack.”

An enormous rustling to their right, as of cannonballs crashing into autumn leaves, interrupted. Both girls jumped, then relaxed when they saw it was only Karolla.

“What did you say about Jack?” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings.”

Blue eyes as large as ponds gazed deep into Rachel’s soul for a long moment. Then the sheepdog head bobbed in acknowledgement and the giant gray legs carried the creature back into the jungle.

Rachel shuddered. “This is going to sound strange, Katie, but Karolla reminds me of my grandfather.”

“Your grandpa?”

“Yes. My zayde was a rabbi in a little shtetl—a Jewish village out in the forest called Bilgoray, very backward. He was always going on about loshon hora, the need to avoid malicious gossip and hurting people’s feelings. My father couldn’t get away from him and his scolding fast enough. He ran away to the city and got into the university by sheer stubbornness, even though they didn’t want him because he was a Jew.”

Katie scratched her head. “So the Venusians are, like, Jews? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. No offense.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t. And that’s not what I wrote, or meant to write. But somehow my ideas, my background, must have influenced things more than I realized. Also with Anya! I didn’t think the Martian language was Polish. That’s just crazy!”

“I found a book about Polish Jews in the library once. Didn’t y’all speak a language called Yiddish?” Katie asked.

Rachel shook her head. “I understand Yiddish thanks to my grandfather, but we don’t speak it at home. My parents are embarrassed by it. They speak Polish and German to me, and now Hebrew since they got all enthusiastic about Zionism. We were all going to move to Palestine before the war started, but we couldn’t get visas.” She stopped walking and rubbed her eyes.

Katie put a hand on her shoulder. “I understand. My family’s like yours in some ways. Leastaways, my grandpa was like your dad. He ran away to the big city to get away from his daddy, who was a Baptist preacher. Went to college, too, graduated with honors and was all set to become a computer programmer.”

“What’s that?”

“Ladies, we need to keep moving!” Jack called. “We got another hour to go till we get to our campsite.”

Katie explained what a computer programmer was as they slogged along. The ground turned marshy, and their feet sank with every step. Rachel’s shoes had big holes, and wet and muddy feet just added to her misery. But she was transfixed by Katie’s story. It sounded a little like the worlds the pulps described. “So how come your grandpa didn’t get to become a computer programmer?”

“He did, for a while. But then New York got atom-bombed by the terrorists, and the Internet crashed, and the old United States broke up, and there wasn’t much call in Texas for computer programmers, what with everyone scrambling to find enough to eat. So he had to go crawling back to his daddy, who had a little farm up in the Panhandle. Grandpa died when I was a little girl, and all I remember of him is an old guy with a sad face.”

Rachel didn’t understand half Katie’s words, but she knew trouble when she heard about it. Before Katie got upset, she changed the subject. “Did you ever see any of his computers?”

“Sure I did. We actually have his favorite one. But we don’t—we didn’t have a generator, so the only way to get it to work was to take it over to the Montoyas’. They had beautiful solar panels on their roof, before a big hailstorm wrecked them when I was ten.”

“Oh. And what did the computers do? Did they walk and talk? Serve you food, help out with the chores?”

Katie laughed. “No, like I said, they were computers, not robots. But what they could do was a lot more exciting than carrying water and feeding the pigs! They could send messages to other computers, all over the world! They’d patched up a partial Internet by then, and I got to email with a guy in England, and a lady in India!” Her mouth drooped. “But it didn’t last long. There was that hailstorm, like I said. And then the Dixies started coming around hassling people, and nobody had time to worry about electricity and all that. Joe Montoya, he tried raise a militia, but my daddy said he could defend our homestead just fine himself.”

Katie’s lower lip trembled, so Rachel asked her where she’d found her story about Jack Flash. Katie explained about the book, and the ruined library on the road to Abilene.

“But why was there a library in the middle of nowhere?”

“It wasn’t in the middle of nowhere, not when they built it. There was a whole town around it, but all the people left during the Troubles. Me and some of the other kids liked to go exploring in the abandoned houses, though of course we weren’t supposed to, which just made it more exciting. I was the only one who cared about the library. Well, me and this no-good character called Johnny Marshall. It was in a glass and steel building, the kind of thing they used to build back in the twentieth century.”

“Katie, what year was it, where you lived?” Rachel asked.

“Hmm? Oh, 2140. Though the Mormons get pretty mad if you call it that. According to them, it’s the year 297, but we don’t use the Deseret calendar in Texas.”

“What are you talkin’ about, little lady?” Jack called back, making both girls jump. “2140 was more than thirty years ago.”

“What? No it wasn’t!” Katie said.

Rachel elbowed her and whispered, “Don’t argue with him. He’ll get suspicious. Besides, by me it’s 1942! Who says your time is any more accurate in this world? Remember Einstein!”

Katie scowled, thinking it over, then nodded slowly and said loud enough for Jack to hear, “Well, I guess maybe I’ve been gone a long time.”

“I guess maybe you have!” Jack replied.

After a moment Katie continued, a little more quietly:

“All the windows in that library broke long ago, of course. A lot of those books were nothin’ more than pulp—real pulp, not what they used to call science fiction magazines. The stink of all that mildew would’ve driven everyone away if nothin’ else did.”

“So what drew you?”

Katie shrugged. “I’m not really sure. Mom and Dad taught me to read and write, and to do basic sums so I won’t get cheated by some scumball grain buyer, but that was about it. And I didn’t know my grandpa long enough for him to get me excited about science. Maybe he had some kind of indirect influence on me, from Dad talking about him. Mainly though, I was just bored and keen for anything that might get me the heck out of the Panhandle, though there ain’t, or there weren’t, anything like the kind of opportunities a girl like me could have had fifty years ago.” She spoke without bitterness: these were the facts of her life, like dust-storms and hostile Dixies.

“So anyways, there were a whole bunch of sci-fi books that hadn’t been damaged too bad, because they were buried under a lot of other ruined books. And Lost Classics of Science Fiction was my favorite.” Katie’s dreamy expression faded for a moment, and her lips thinned. “I almost had to fight Johnny Marshall for it. I could hardly believe it—that that snake took enough time off from beating up little kids and stealing people’s stuff when they weren’t looking to learn to read. But it seemed like he wanted that book as bad as I did. Luckily we found two copies.”

“‘Lost Classics,’ huh?” Rachel mused. “It’s nice to be classic, but not to be lost.”

“A-men to that, little lady.” Jack popped out from behind a tree so abruptly both girls jumped. Jack grinned. “Just came to tell you gals, we’re done walking for the day. Past those trees over there is a nice dry clearing where I’ve got a permanent base camp. We’re staying there for the night.”

“Sounds good to me,” Katie said. “Got any grub, mister? I’m awful hungry.”

“Me too,” Rachel admitted.

“Course I do! I hope you two are really, really hungry, ’cause while you were jabbering away back here, I went and shot a Venusian buffalo!”

Katie looked pleased but Rachel felt a little sick to her stomach. She didn’t recall writing about any buffalos. “What’s it look like?”

“A Venusian buffalo? It’s really a twelve-foot-long reptile covered with grayish-green fur for camouflage, and a head like an Earth alligator. But don’t you worry, the meat looks just like regular old beef and tastes great when you mix it in with potatoes and carrots and some of my special New New Orleans hot sauce! But first, we gotta skin it. Either of you two ladies care to help me with that?”

“Sure thing,” said Katie. “Daddy showed me how to do the butchering when I could hardly walk. Bet I can do it faster than you!”

“Attagirl! That’s my kind of lady!” Jack punched her on the shoulder. Then, glancing back, he hastily amended, “’Cept for Martian princesses, of course. One particular Martian princess, to be exact. Rachel, why don’t you two get acquainted while Katie and me fix dinner?” He gave Rachel a second, long look from head to foot that made her feel weird inside, shivery and melty at the same time. “You know, Katie is right, you really do look an awful lot like Anya. Well, have fun, girls!”

And Rachel was left alone with her creation. Of course, Jack was hers too, and so was this jungle and the whole planet she was standing on, and maybe Katie as well. But nothing was so completely and obviously hers as Anya, who really did look like an idealized version of herself—a little taller, a little bustier, a lot better proportioned overall, with a much thinner scattering of freckles on her cheeks and jade-colored eyes that positively glowed, even in the muted sunlight. The princess gestured at a fallen log, and Rachel sat down beside her after carefully checking to make sure it wasn’t some other creature she might not have made up.

To Rachel’s consternation, Anya seemed shy and diffident. She struggled with her words, starting to speak and stopping herself several times before she said in Polish, “I am so happy to have found a fellow Martian here in the Venusian jungle, of all places. Things are worse than ever back home.”

Even her voice was a better version of Rachel’s, low and soothing and doubtless very sexy to Jack and any other man in range. Rachel tried to remember what she’d written about Anya’s home world. The princess’s family were the rightful rulers of the Red Planet, but they’d been overthrown more than twenty-five years earlier (fifty Earth years ago). Her father was leading the resistance to “Lord Ares II,” and it had been Rachel’s vague plan to write a novel in which Jack and Anya helped him overthrow the fun-loving but cruel usurper’s son, while also rescuing Jack’s brother Jim “in the nick of time.” Okay, so far, so good.

Rachel said, “Worse? How could it be worse?” Maybe Ares II was holding wild drunken parties on the holy Mount Olympus, or something.

Anya gave her a funny look. “The original Ares at least cared for the outward beauty of our precious Mars, though he crushed our people’s spirit. I admit that some saw it as poetic justice when an unknown soldier of fortune murdered his drunken wastrel of a son and took the throne as Ares III last year.…”

What’s this all about? Better just keep quiet and find out.

“I’d take a fool whose only interest is pleasure over a real tyrant like the new Ares any day,” Anya said. “All he talks about is conquest—‘let the Fatherland regain its glory as the Star of War’—but meanwhile he’s turned the people into slaves and wounded the beautiful desert with mines and factories to build his warships!”

Tears streamed down the princess’s face, and she seized Rachel’s hands. “He uses the Grand Canal to dump toxic waste from his weapons plants!” she whispered. “He’s turned Valles Marineris into a giant prison for those who dare cross him! My own parents may be there—I was tipped off they had been arrested and so I fled the planet before Ares could catch me too. And there are rumors”—she paused and lowered her voice still further, so Rachel had to lean forward to hear—“there are rumors he’s building an altar for human sacrifice on the peak of Olympus Mons, the holy mountain!”

“No!” Rachel gasped. Is this all my fault? It must be! I’m the one who dreamed up this world. What did these horrors say about her imagination? She’d thought she was escaping the world of Hitler and Stalin when she wrote about the jungles of Venus and the deserts of Mars, but wasn’t the “new” Lord Ares really just another two-bit dictator? She closed her eyes and shuddered, imagining what he must look like when he was ranting away in front of his goose-stepping army. When she opened her eyes she saw Anya through a blurry lens of tears. “I will help you,” she whispered, squeezing the princess’s hands. “Of course I will help you! Together, we’ll overthrow the tyrant and put your father on the throne where he belongs!” At that they embraced.

“Come and get it!” Katie hollered.

Jack was right, Venusian buffalo stew was tasty. Not that it would have mattered to Rachel if it wasn’t. Everyone watched in amazement as she put away an entire haunch the size of a Thanksgiving turkey. Well, they couldn’t know what it was like to have to survive for years on bread stretched with sawdust and moldy potatoes, how it could turn a noble, cultured man like her father into an animal scrabbling for survival. Anything that filled the hole where her stomach used to be was a good thing, so let the others stare. As soon as she finished eating, Rachel almost collapsed from exhaustion. It was all she could do to crawl into the leaf-tent Jack had set up before her eyes shut. A few seconds later, it seemed, she woke to Katie shaking her shoulder vigorously.

“Lemme sleep,” she muttered.

“Huh? Don’t talk foreign, Rachel, I can’t understand it.”

“It’s not foreign, it’s Polish,” Rachel snapped. The light seemed unchanged. Oh, right. Venus’s day was actually longer than its year. How odd. When was she going to wake up to the sensible, normal, everyday world of the Warsaw Ghetto? And see her parents again.… She blinked away tears. Maybe the shock of losing them drove me crazy and I’m hallucinating all this. But there was so much detail, and the texture of everything seemed so real. Take that caterpillar crawling along her upper arm. It looked like a thick, gaudy orange crayon, complete with paper wrapper, but it was soft and fuzzy and flexible and moving like an inchworm toward her elbow, opening its mouth to reveal gleaming teeth the size of thumbtacks.…

Rachel’s shrieks brought Jack running, zap-gun at the ready. But when he saw what was the matter he dropped the gun and doubled over laughing, his hands on his knees.

“Aww, you didn’t have to stomp all over a little furbug like that!” he said when he had caught his breath. “Them things only want to play! Those teeth may look scary, but they can’t use them on anything bigger than a moosquito!”

“You mean a mosquito,” said Katie, whose boots had reduced the furbug to orange paste.

“No, a moosquito. Hey, there’s one right now!” He pointed at Rachel’s neck. Rachel slapped frantically, reducing Jack to more helpless laughter. She glared at him. A loud droning in her ear brought her up short. She winced and dodged violently to the side, knocking her head into the sturdy stick that served as the tent’s central support and bringing the whole thing down around her. It was like being smothered by a giant mint leaf.

In rescuing her Jack was treated to an earful of Polish profanity. He raised an eyebrow as he helped her to her feet. “Now I never been to Mars myself, but we have some Martian exiles hangin’ around Afro-Port, and I can tell you I ain’t never heard language like that except from some of the roughest, toughest, meanest astronaut types as ever sailed a freighter out of Phobos. Certainly not out of a lady like you.”

Rachel blushed. “You don’t think the princess heard, do you?”

“No, she’s attending to her toilet on the other side of the clearing. But I hope you watch your language around her in the future, Miss Rachel.”

“I don’t normally talk like that. It’s just that everything here is so—Jack, what’s that on your neck?”

“This?” Jack let something that looked like an enormous wasp with water-bug legs crawl onto the back of his hand. “This, here, is a moosquito like the one that made you knock down the tent. Listen.” He flicked the part that looked like a stinger with his finger and it lit up red, giving off a droning hum that shaded into a lowing that sounded for all the world like the mournful noise the skinny cows in Rachel’s grandfather’s shtetl made.

“Fascinating,” Rachel gulped. “Why couldn’t I have made Venus a nice, peaceful park world?”

Jack looked at her quizzically. “See here, missy, it ain’t my business, but I wouldn’t talk like that when we get to Afro-Port if I was you. Out here in the jungle, you can say whatever you want, but in town they’re liable to drag you before Mayor Bellini for a session with the Corrector.”

“What’s a Corrector?”

“You mean to tell me they don’t have any Correctors on Earth? Well, let’s just say it’s one of the reasons I prefer to spend my time out here in the jungle, zapping Medusas and rescuing stupid tourists, no offense.”

“None taken,” Rachel muttered. “A Corrector? What is this, a penal colony?”

“As a matter of fact, Venus did start out as a penal colony, like Australia on Old Earth,” Jack said. “Thought you knew everything about Venus.”

“Apparently not.”

“See here, Miss Rachel, I’d love to stand around jabbering all day, but we got to get moving if we’re going to make Afro-Port within the next twelve hours. There’s a monsoon brewing that’s going to hit around then.”

“How can you tell?” Katie asked, squinting up into the featureless gray sky that was visible through the gaps in the tree canopy.

“Plain as the nose on your face, Miss Katie. Not that your nose is anything to be ashamed of. I once knew a girl with a nose like yours, and she won the Miss Luna 2160 contest hands down.”

“Did he just call me a lunatic?” Katie whispered to Rachel.

“No, Luna’s another name for the moon,” Rachel whispered back.

“Right. I knew that.”

“I’ll explain to you how I can tell a monsoon is coming if you help me with this gear, Miss Katie,” Jack said.

“Deal,” Katie said happily.

As they worked, Anya walked over to Rachel. Glided over, more like, Rachel thought enviously.

“Rachel, I am duty bound to inform you that you if you accompany me and Jack, you will be in grave danger from the moment we arrive on Mars. In fact, Ares’ agents will probably spot us as soon as we arrive in Aphrodite Port.”

“S’alright,” Rachel said, “they can’t be any worse than Nazis.”

“Nazis?” The princess frowned. “What are Nazis?”

“Something from Earth history. Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

“But Earth history is my field! I had almost enough credits to graduate when Ares had me expelled from Wandanian University. Then the faculty and students went on strike in protest, and he got rid of them all and turned the place into a military academy.” She shut her eyes for a moment. “So much suffering on my account.”

Rachel put her hand on the princess’s arm. “It isn’t on your account, Your Highness,” she said. “I mean, I’m sure your people love you, but they are fighting for their own rights. And you, like your father, are their leader and their symbol. You can’t give up, for their sake.”

“You’re right, of course,” Anya said. “But tell me about these Nazis of yours. Were they one of the tribes the Aztecs subjugated?”

“Uh, no, not exactly. Look, can we talk about this another time? Right now I need to know about Ares’ agents—what they look like, how they are armed, what we should do if we run into them in Aphrodite Port.…”

“Breakfast, ladies!” Jack called. “I’m afraid we’ll have to eat on the run. Hope you like bananas!”

“Bananas?” Rachel said. “We have bananas on Earth. In Warsaw, even! At least before the war, we did.”

“Bet they weren’t anything like this!” Jack tossed something to her.

Rachel examined the rose-colored, gracefully curved tube as long as her forearm. It had no obvious stem. “How do you peel this thing?”

“Peel?” Jack laughed. “Earth bananas have peels? That’s funny! Just bite into it, Miss Rachel!”

She did, and her eyes widened. “This tastes just like strawberries and cream! My favorite! I haven’t eaten that since before the war!”

“No it doesn’t,” Katie said, matching her pace to Rachel’s. “It tastes just like my daddy’s barbecued ribs.”

“It tastes like whatever you want it to,” the princess explained. “The technique was a Martian trade secret, but Ares II sold it to finance one of his palaces.” She made a face. “The one with a harem.”

“What’s a harem?” Katie asked. Jack and Rachel blushed.

The princess said, “It is a place where the tyrant keeps his female, ah, that is, his women—”

“Oh, like par-tay time on Mars!” Katie said. “I gotcha.”

The princess frowned. “No, I’m afraid you don’t. Not all the women are there of their own free will.”

“Oh. Oh,” Katie blushed in her turn. “Why, that’s awful! How come you Martians don’t get together and throw the bums out?”

“You mean, have a revolution?” the princess said. “No, I don’t think you understand Martian culture. We are a desert people. The climate on our world has been growing steadily drier for thousands upon thousands of years. People from Earth and Venus who visit for the first time often speak of the beauty of our ocher plains, but they do not remember as we do when it was all green and lush, almost as much as this planet where we are now.” She smiled at Jack. “In Martian we call this world the Jewel of the Night, it shines so brightly in our sky.” Her smile faded slowly as tears welled in her eyes. “Poets and painters travel from the outer system, from Ganymede and Titan as well as Earth and Venus, to capture something of the beauty of our world, but it is the beauty of a young girl dying before her time. And yet, we Martians are a determined people, and we would not let our world die without a fight. So my renowned ancestor Lady Wanda organized the first of the great canal-building projects. Everyone on the planet who was physically able took part. Little children carried little buckets of dirt and pebbles. Together we built the Grand Canal, a thousand miles long, to carry the sweet water from the springs on Olympus Mons into lesser branching canals that irrigate the plains. But we could not have done this without the wise leadership of Wanda, her son Lord Witold I, and his daughter Lady Wanda II.”

“And of course, her son Prince Witold was your father,” Jack said. “Which makes me wonder how come your name isn’t Wanda.”

“Because Ares II would have taken that as a direct challenge, and I would not have lived to reach adulthood. As it is, I’ve still got more than a Martian year—almost two Earth-years—to go before I become an adult. May I continue?”

Jack dropped his wiseguy expression, but Katie frowned. “This is very interesting and all, Miss Anya, but I still don’t understand why your people don’t give these Ares folks the bum’s rush.”

The princess sighed. “Any non-Martian would find it difficult to understand, but the fact is that our planet has been in such terrible danger for such a long time that the idea of overthrowing our rulers is unthinkable. If we don’t all cooperate, we will all die. Not only will our lands dry out, our very atmosphere will blow away into space. We cannot afford wars or revolutions like the people of the sunward planets.”

“But—well—no free-born Texian would stand for that for one minute! We’d chase ’em out with shotguns and pitchforks if we had to!”

“But my dear Katie, I heard you talking with Rachel earlier about how your people live. No, please don’t misunderstand me.” She smiled as Katie’s face darkened. “I am sure you and your parents worked harder than I could ever imagine. But can’t you see, without cooperation to build the sort of canals we have on Mars, your country will remain poor and backward—”

“You can’t say that about Texas!” Katie roared and jumped Anya, sending her to the marshy ground with a loud mucky splash. Though the princess had a few inches on the farm girl, all those mornings lugging water had given Katie some respectable muscles, and before an appalled Jack and an even more appalled Rachel could pull them apart Anya had suffered a bloody nose and was covered in rich Venusian mud.

While the princess toweled off, Jack advanced on a sullen Katie, fists clenched at his side. “I never hit a girl, but I’ve got half a mind to leave you to fend for yourself in this jungle, seein’ as how you’re so tough and all.”

“None of that please, Jack.” Anya held a handkerchief to her nose. “She was defending the honor of her country, which is only right. I was in the wrong. Kaitlyn Webb, I ask your forgiveness.” And she held out her hand.

“Guess maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to use my fists,” Katie mumbled, accepting the outstretched hand. “That’s just how we do things, down Texas way.”

“Seems to me we Martians could use some of that Texas spirit,” the princess said. “If you would help us in our struggle once we reach Aphrodite Port, instead of taking the first rocketship back to Texas, my world will be forever in your debt.”

“The honor would be mine,” Katie said. “I’ve never had a real princess ask me for anything before.” Once they were under way again, she added in a whisper to Rachel, “Besides, I somehow doubt the Texas I would be returning to would be my Texas, if you know what I mean.”

Rachel nodded. “How can there even be a Poland in this world, where the Martians speak Polish and have Polish names?” she whispered back. “I’m only sorry I marooned you here, Katie.”

“Are you kidding? This is the adventure of a lifetime!” Katie grinned ear to ear, but then her face suddenly fell. “Except for my poor folks. I wish I could help them. Or at least find out what happened to them! But that was so long ago. Thirty years…or I guess.…”

“It’s even worse than that,” Rachel said. “It seems like your parents and mine are not just stuck back in the past somewhere, and on another planet, but in a whole other universe!”

“I guess maybe you’re right.” Katie’s eyes widened. “How on earth…uh, anyway, how are we supposed to help them?”

Rachel shook her head slowly. “I think Einstein himself would have a tough time with this.”

“Yeah! But my parents are prisoners of those rotten Dixies and yours,” Katie gulped, “of the Nazis! What are we gonna do?” They both fell silent for a long time.

Rachel rubbed her eyes. I’m not going to cry, I am not. She had a sneaking suspicion that Katie felt the same.

“Einstein,” Katie said suddenly.

“Hmm? What about him?”

“Didn’t he say that imagination is more important than knowledge?” Katie said. “I think if he were here, he would be tell us to keep on doing what we’re doing—trying to learn as much as possible. That’s the only way either of us is gonna be able to help our folks!”

“Ýou’re right, Katie,” Rachel said, looking at her with newfound respect. But then she thought of warmongering Martian emperors and sadistic mayors who liked to “correct” people.

What are we getting into?