Tome Polar, great-great-great grandson of Vydum Polar, the first Marian inventor, who was honoured on Mar alongside Brat Lua, the creator of the first cave shelter, had inherited from his remote ancestor a daring and penetrating mind that was immune to all prohibitions.
He was a young Marian with a handsome, calm and self-confident face, a straight chin and a curly head on the long, sturdy neck typical of the Marians.
He recognized no obstacles in life, being always ready to tear them down. He learned easily and eagerly, flummoxing the teachers with his questions. It seemed to him that the writings of his ancestors concealed something about the origin of the Marians.
Tome Polar would put on a space-suit, without which Marians could not breathe their planet's atmosphere, and would often wander over the desert sands. He was looking among the mountain ridges for a cave that could be used as a laboratory. In it, mentally, he was already carrying out daring experiments on matter.
However, he had neither the instruments nor a cave for his research.
Once upon a time, the first Marians had been lucky. They had found in the mountains an interconnected network of caves with an underground river flowing through them which they named the River of Life.
Most probably of all, his ancestors had come from a remote region of Mar where the conditions had once been different: the air had been breathable and there had been rivers flowing on the surface of the planet (as now in the caves). That was why the legends told of incredibly large areas of water. After all, every drop of the River of Life in the underground city was precious. They even obtained water artificially, extracting it from mines sunk in distant caves. Water, together with the metal found in the depths, was the basis of Marian civilization. Owing to the small amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, metal was native. This baffled Tome somewhat. After all, his remote ancestors had breathed in the open air.
Tome Polar finally discovered a convenient little cave with a narrow entrance which could easily be converted into an airlock.
Excited and happy, he went down on to the sandy plain from where he would make his way direct to the oasis of cultivated plants and further on down into the underground city.
In his short life. Tome Polar had not known any landscapes other than the dead Marian sands. They were dear to him and he thought them beautiful. As he walked over them, he sometimes tried to imagine himself crossing the bed of one of the fabulous seas of the ancient Marians. But his sceptical reason gained the uppermost over fantasy. He could not imagine what was absolutely impossible.
Tome Polar was hoping to return to the city not alone, but with Ena Fae, the most wonderful girl on the planet. At least, so she seemed to him.
He knew where to find her and headed for the clumps of nutritive plants irrigated by water from the underground river. Tome knew from the ancient folk tales that there was even supposed to be water on the surface at their planet s poles, and at a low heat level it solidified there in the form of a hard cap. This cap sometimes melted under Sol's rays. A lovely folk tale! If it could be proved true, the Marians would one day deliver the melted water from the poles to their oases. But, in the meantime, the fabulous accumulations of solid water on Mar, if they existed, were infinitely far away from the underground Marian city.
To the inhabitants of the legendary Faena, the local plants would have looked like sickly bushes. But to Tome Polar, they were an impassable thicket in which it was possible to make out with difficulty several figures in space-suits.
They could all have seemed identical, but not to Tome Polar. He had no difficulty in recognizing Ena, who was gathering fruits.
She was the only creature on Mar to whom Tome Polar could confide his secret thoughts. He had decided to do that today. He and Ena would begin experimenting in the new cave together and they would revolutionise Marian civilization.
The Marian girl, lissom in spite of her garb, was gathering fruits. Tome Polar went up to the bushes.
Ena Fae recognized him, signalled to him with a wave and followed after him.
They did not switch on the intercom in their helmets so that the others wouldn't hear them talking. They understood one another without words.
The love story of Tome and Ena was touchingly simple. They were brought together by Great Chance, which seemed to be answering a legitimate need. They met during the celebrations for the end of their studies. The young people were singing and dancing in one of the remoter caves.
The stone icicles of stalactites hung from the roof to meet the needles of stalagmites reaching up from the floor. Joined in some places, they formed fantastic columns that seemed to be supporting the roof.
Lit up so that they seemed almost transparent, these colonnades, demolished in other caves to make way for buildings, gave a magical appearance to the place where the young were celebrating.
The young Marians used to enjoy themselves here with all their hearts, donning airtight helmets for a lark to make themselves unrecognizable.
Tome Polar somehow managed to fall for his dancing partner, although he hadn't yet seen her face. It seemed to him that it ought to be beautiful, so vibrant and tender was her voice, even when muffled by the mask.
When Ena took off her helmet, she turned out to be exactly what he had been expecting.
A straight brow sloping slightly backwards to continue the line of the nose, elongated eyes with a slight slant up towards the temples, russet hair with a heavy bun on the neck so that it did not fit easily into a helmet-such was his new acquaintance, Ena Fae. There was something in her of her great-great-great-grandmother, Ala Veg; but neither Tome nor Ena had the slightest idea of what she had looked like.
It was love at first sight between the two Marians, as if two torches had been brought to the same fire.
The young couple passed through the entrance airlock, which had always been a source of puzzlement to Tome Polar. Why had it been made entirely of metal (and when there was a permanent metal famine!), round in shape and straining upwards, like the ancient skyscrapers of the legendary Faena? Had the first Marians perhaps wanted to set up a monument to the beautiful fairy tale? Tome Polar, of course did not share the superstitions according to which the tower had once voyaged among the stars with no mechanical means of propulsion. This legend had been born of the unusual shape of the installation which served as an entrance airlock to the city.
There was only one real monument in the city, the one to the Great Elder. Sculpted out of a stalagmite, the Elder of ancient times towered to his full enormous stature, with his stone beard falling onto his chest and with mystery in the dark, piercing cavities of his eyes.
New deposits had formed with the years on the stone sculpture, and these smoothed over (as in memory) the features of the great Marian of the past who had called himself a Faetian.
The monument to the Great Elder stood in the cave of the young.
It was towards this that Tome Polar and Ena Fae made their way when they had taken off their space-suits.
Nothing, it seemed, could ever come between them to spoil their radiant love and happy life together. Tome and Ena, however, had a hard trial ahead of them.
According to the ancient Marian tradition, it was by the monument to the Great Elder that vows of love and faithfulness were sworn, and also the work was chosen which, from that moment on, the future married couple would take upon themselves. On Mar, the young people bound themselves with ties of marriage which, as they understood it, concerned no one else.
On this spot, the lovers had to declare to one another which path in life each had chosen.
"Ena!" said Tome. "There can be no greater happiness for me than to be with you always, not only in the family but at work. I want you to be a loyal helpmate to me in the scientific research which I have decided to do."
"Am I ready for this?" said Ena doubtfully, looking admiringly at her betrothed.
"It will be enough for me if you are by my side in our cave-laboratory."
"What cave?" asked Ena, brightening up. "Are they going to give us a small hall?"
"No. I've found myself a cave in the mountains. We'll fit it out ourselves. We'll make airlocks and we'll take with us the air-recycling equipment from spare space-suits."
"But what for?" asked Ena, amazed. "Surely you could find a cave in the underground city?"
"The experiments we are going to do are dangerous. No one believes me, but I suspect that matter has a tendency to disintegrate into even smaller particles than the 'indivisible' ones of which matter consists."
"Matter has a tendency to disintegrate?" echoed Ena in horror.
"Yes, that's the thought I've reached. Of course, it's only a scientific hunch, nothing more. You and I will take a vow here to enrich the Marians with the energy of disintegration."
"No," said Ena Fae firmly. "You're mad to have such ambitions."
"But why? Are you really going to become one of those who misunderstand me?"
"Listen to what, as a Marian girl, I have to say to you. We who bear within us new generations of Marians have had passed down to us the injunction of the Great Elder at whose monument we now stand."
"The Great Elder bequeathed to us the power of knowledge. What else?"
"Follow me," commanded Ena.
Tome obediently went after her.
Ena took him by a roundabout path. Descending steeply, it led them into a stalagmite cave which was evidently directly underneath the Cave of Youth.
Ena pointed at the roof.
"The Elder above is pointing downwards, and if you follow the line of direction, it runs through a stalactite to indicate some writings."
Sure enough, under the stalactite there was a stone slab fashioned from the base of a removed stalagmite. The deposits on it had been carefully cleaned off.
"Read it!" commanded Ena.
Some passages in the inscription seemed particularly strange to Tome Polar.
"Never must the Marians, descendants of the Faetians, touch those fields of knowledge which led to the destruction of the beautiful Faena. Never must they strive to learn of what matter consists, never must they strive to achieve movement without propulsion. These prohibitions are for the protection of future generations who must be saved from the suffering that comes from such knowledge."
Tome turned to Ena.
"What crude superstition! What did this Elder do to be called great? What do the structure of matter and movement without propulsion have in common? Apart from that, the deciding question should be, 'Who is in possession of the knowledge?' "
"I don't know enough to argue with you," said Ena, "but what rational people know today can become the property of very different ones tomorrow. That is why the Prohibitions of the Great Elder have been imposed on the Marian women. That duty of ours is higher than anything else. No one must know what is forbidden."
"What d'you mean by 'higher than anything else'?" said Tome, much put out. "Higher than love?"
Ena lowered her eyes.
"Yes, my Tome, even higher than love."
"I don't recognize you!"
Tome Polar could not bear objections, especially if they weren't upheld by the logic of reason. He despised and rejected everything that seemed unfounded. This had been encouraged in him since early childhood by his parents, whom he remembered vaguely (he had been the youngest of nine children), and it had subsequently developed thanks to his own outstanding abilities, enabling him to laugh off any lack of understanding. But to meet with no response from the girl of his choice was too hard for Tome Polar. A spoiled darling of fate, he refused to believe his ears. His mood darkened and he said haughtily:
"I didn't expect your love to be so feeble that it would pale before the first flash of superstition."
"You must make a vow," demanded Ena in a ringing voice that echoed under the roof of the cave, "you must make a vow never again to try and learn the secret of matter which is supposed to be liable to disintegration."
"How can I make such a vow if that is the one thing I yearn for?"
"I thought you were yearning for me..."
Tome Polar was taken aback. He had been ready for anything in the marriage ceremony with Ena Fae except this unreasonable stubbornness. He did not know that his bride was speaking for generations of Faetesses who had handed down their concern for posterity to her. Perhaps the terrible disaster on Faena had awakened in the exiles on Mars a new feature which should guarantee life for the Marians. This had found expression in the Great Elder's Prohibitions, which had been passed on to all without exception.
The tragedy of Faena must not happen again.
Ena realized that Tome Polar would only respond to conviction. She sat beside him on a rock near the stalactite with the inscriptions and told him in a sad voice everything she had learned from her mother about the destruction of Faena.
The exasperated Tome Polar refused to listen. To him, the Marian girl's story was an ignorant fairy tale full of senseless superstitions. What use was the mere assertion that the Faetians who escaped the destruction of their planet had flown from it in a kind of projectile that, it was claimed, moved on its own without pushing itself off from anything? Incidentally, the possible disintegration of matter was quite rightly not in any way connected with such movement.
Convinced that a Marian girl's fictitious duty, to save the population of Mar from future disasters, was being put higher than her own love for him. Tome Polar decided that she did not truly love him.
Hot-tempered, vain, and, moreover, not one to acknowledge half-measures, he broke it off with the girl he loved and walked out of the stalactite cave on his own.
Behaving like that in the heat of the moment, however, proved much easier than living without Ena afterwards.
Tome Polar began pining away. The population of the underground City of Life (it was so named after the River of Life in the caves) was not so great that Tome and Ena could avoid one another. On the contrary, they kept meeting one another accidentally all the time, and Ena seemed even more beautiful than ever to Tome Polar. He started trying to make a date with her, but Ena was cold and distant. At least she managed to make that impression on him.
He was suffering. "She's simply oppressed by ignorant superstitions," he thought, trying to justify her to himself.
He soon became convinced that he couldn't live without Ena. By this time, his dreams of setting up a laboratory for himself in a distant cave had also faded away. He hadn't the strength to equip it by himself, and the Marians he approached for help refused, mentioning the hostility of their wives. These, evidently, were prisoners of the same superstitions as the young Ena.
Tome Polar was in despair. The ancient traditions were tightening round him in a ring, as if squeezing the breathing tubes of a space-suit.
Civilization on Mar had developed in an unusual way. Receiving the heritage of a more ancient culture, the Marians on the whole devoted all their energies not to the struggle with the representatives of the animal world, since the planet's atmosphere was unfavourable for the development of certain species, but to the struggle with the harsh natural environment. It was only possible to live in shelters supplied with artificial air and go out to the surface in space-suits. Plants could be grown successfully at the oases, but the Marians had to supply artificial irrigation and tend them while wearing space-suits. The struggle of rational beings with one another remained only in the memories of long-past generations that had become embodied in the duty of the Marian women and girls.
Perhaps like no other Marian of her kind, Ena felt the full burden of that duty. She suffered more than Tome Polar, because she could renounce her duty in the name of love. She didn't do so, however, never doubting for a moment that she was protecting the whole population of Mar from destruction.
Yet she was the first to call Tome Polar into the Cave of Youth.
Tome Polar was overjoyed. He was no longer hoping for mutual vows at the monument to the Great Elder. He simply wanted to see her.
Ena came to her beloved fully armed with the cunning of her great-grandmothers, who had not lived solely on Mar. She knew perfectly well about his unsuccessful attempts to equip a cave and make the instruments he had invented. She brought with her a flower grown at the oasis.
"Isn't it more important for the Marians to devote all their energies to the struggle for water?" she said, ruffling the petals with her fingers. "I would like my Tome" (she said MY TOME, and his heart missed a beat) "to lay the foundations of an enormous task for the future-to create a river deep underground that will bring the melted waters from the poles to new oases. Isn't that more important than seeking the conditions for the disintegration of matter, forbidden by the Great Elder? Leaves, flowers, fruits..."
Tome Polar had a lively mind. One hint was enough for him to imagine the vast installations of the future irrigation system, as fabulous as the ice caps at the poles. Moreover, he was game for anything just so long as it would bring Ena back to him.
"I surrender, my incomparable Ena," he said, taking the flower from her. "Rather let me leave for the poles in search of melted water than lose you."
So Tome and Ena were joined after overcoming the obstacle that had come between them, and in this way was buried the idea of the disintegration of matter that had arisen so unexpectedly among the Marians. The Great Elder's behest had been fulfilled.
...The struggle for power on Phobo was fought between Vlasta Sirus and Mrak Luton. It ended in favour of the intractable Faetess when Mrak Luton, skilfully driven by her to a heart attack, suddenly died.
Next, Nega Luton, who did not wish to yield her supremacy, was poisoned by a fruit specially grown by Vlasta in the greenhouse.
Left on Phobo, its native inhabitants, the Siruses, lived for many cycles, sick to death of each other's company.
When Dovol Sirus, at an advanced age, fell ill, Vlasta, "desirous of relieving his sufferings", reduced the oxygen supply to his cabin and then, to put an end to them, turned the tap right off.
Vlasta Sirus continued her husband's memoirs and, reduced to despair, with no one left on the station to order about, took her own life by jumping outside without a space-suit. Her rigid corpse, preserved by the absolute cold of interplanetary space, became an eternal satellite of Station Phobo.
End of part Tree