Chapter III

Malovar left behind him an exceedingly perturbed human. Larkin knew the ruler well enough to know that Malovar meant what he said. His hand would not be stayed at the time of the testing. And that time might be any time when the temple bells sounded a summons to the vast, almost-ruined amphitheater which was used for the tests. Again a chill passed through Larkin. He had been through the testing before, many times, but there had never been any doubt in his mind that he would win through it. Now there was doubt.

He had seen what happened to those who failed. In him the chill grew to a shudder. These Martians had the damnedest customs.

Faced with this choice, there could be only one answer.

Docker and his cut-throat crew could really go to hell. Better defy Docker than Malovar. There was no way in which the humans could enforce their demands on him.

Or was there? So far as he knew there were no weapons in this city strong enough to resist the power of the single ship that lay outside. The Martians obeyed Malovar because of custom, and not because the ruler had any way to enforce his orders. Larkin could see no way by which Malovar could force Docker to go through the testing. A single trader could be forced. But a ship full of men armed with _Kell_ guns--No!

Larkin spent most of the night going over what he would say to Docker's men when they arrived in the morning.

They came early. Three were the same. Standing in the door of his store, Larkin stared at the fourth man with growing horror in his heart. The sight of that fourth man hit him harder than Malovar's grim warning about the time of the testing.

The fourth man moved ahead of the others, came toward him. In this minute it seemed to Boyd Larkin that he had aged years. Something that he had left back on Earth, left there because he could neither control it nor face it, had come unbidden to him here on Mars. In this moment, he wildly regretted that he had not fled to some outlying village during the hours of darkness.

It was too late to flee now. He had to face the consequences.

He forced himself to move forward, to hold out his hand. Inside of him, operating on an unconscious level, a kind of wild gladness came up. He forced it back down. This was no time for errant emotions.

"Roy!"

This man was his son.

Roy Larkin took his father's hand indifferently. "Hi," he said, and dropped the hand.

With horribly mixed memories flooding through him, Boyd Larkin stared at this man who was his son. He remembered this man in his play-pen, a curly headed tot fiercely demanding his toys. He remembered him in high school, the kid who was going to be the best athlete in school, or else. The hard driving, I-don't-give-a-damn-what-happens-to-you, I'll-get-mine attitude had been obvious in him even then.

It was an attitude which the best specialists in the functioning of the emotions had been unable to control. Roy Larkin seemed to have been born with the grim intention of grabbing everything that was handy, and to hell with everybody else. When his father, knowing the inevitable outcome of such an attitude, had been driven finally to interfere, the explosion had been catastrophic.

Larkin's ears still burned with the memory of what he had been called. "A stupid fool. An incompetent jackass. An idiot without enough sense to come in out of the rain!" There had been other words too. At the end of the argument, the youth had slugged his father. This had happened when he was twenty.

Boyd Larkin had come to Mars then, a grim, bitter, disappointed and frustrated man fleeing from all memories. He had hoped never to hear of his son again.

But his son had come to him here on Mars.

"I'm taking over," Roy Larkin said. "The fact that you're my old man won't get you anything."

"_You're_ taking over? I thought Docker--"

"Docker works for me."

"What?"

"You heard me." The voice was blunt. It stated a fact. "I listened while he talked to you last night. I wanted to get an estimate of the situation. Of course, we'll take care of you. We'll leave you in charge of the station here."

"But--"

"There are no 'buts' about it. I have made a study of the need for agricultural minerals on Mars. If handled properly, the thing is richer than forty mints. I intend to see that it is handled properly. You could have made a fortune here, if you'd a had good sense." An accusatory note crept into the voice as if the failure to make a fortune when one was to be had was an act that Roy Larkin could neither understand nor forgive.

* * * * *

Boyd Larkin felt a burning inside of him, replacing the gladness he had felt when first he saw this man. There had been no change. There was no possibility of change. "You seem to know quite a lot about Mars."

"I do," Roy Larkin grinned. "I've made a study of the subject. A couple of articles you wrote gave me the idea that the right man could clean up here. Of course, I didn't think that _you_ were the man--"

"There may be difficulties," the father said.

"We expect them. So what?" Roy Larkin gestured at the men with him, a gesture which also included the _Kell_ guns they carried and which included the _Kell_ gun held in the elbow of his left arm. "If these don't do the job, we've got bigger things on the ship."

"I see," Boyd Larkin said. He was regaining some of his lost composure but he was acquiring no liking for the situation.

"We're not looking for trouble but we came prepared for it. I thought you would be a big enough fool to tell us to go to hell if you had the chance. Well, you've got the chance but you either throw in with us or we throw you out--bodily." His manner said he was prepared to back up his words.

Larkin was silent. They could remove him bodily from this place. He could not resist four men. "But what if the Martians refuse to trade with you when you take over?" he said quietly.

"How can they refuse? They've got to have minerals. Without them, they starve."

"They might choose to starve," Boyd Larkin said.

"What?" the younger man gasped. "But that's silly. That's crazy. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. You're trying to pull a fast one."

"They're a strange people," Boyd Larkin said, ignoring his son's outburst. "Sometimes they seem to do crazy things though I have usually found that back of their craziness is a vein of such hard common sense that it is bewildering to us humans."

Roy Larkin was a little uncertain. "They've been dealing with you. They'll deal with us."

"That does not necessarily follow. What you do not understand is that they have a certain test, and that I have passed it."

"A test? Well, what is it. If you can pass it so can we. You haven't got anything that we haven't got."

An involuntary shudder passed over Larkin. "Perhaps. But this test isn't exactly easy." A sound came to his ears. Over the city of Sudal was flooding the sound of temple bells. The shudder came over him again, grew stronger.

His son's eyes were sharp on him. "What the hell are you shaking about?"

"The temple bells--"

"So what?"

"That's the call to the testing. It's an emergency call. It means us."

He saw unease appear momentarily on the face of his son and the men with him, then he saw it shrugged away. "If we have to pass some kind of a test to do business with these fools, all right. We'll pass it."

"I hope," Boyd Larkin whispered. Already the elders had put in their appearance and were coming toward them. They carried with them the long metal rods like the one Malovar carried and which were the sign of their office.

"They come to take us to the place of the testing," Larkin said. He straightened his shoulders. The Martian elders bowed politely and motioned him to precede them.

Neither his son nor the men with him liked the idea. They did not know what was going to happen. They would have preferred to go elsewhere. But Larkin was going and they could hardly let him out-face them. Besides, they had _Kell_ guns. So what danger could they meet that they could not overcome?