Jerome Bixby

“ We would approach one hill—Burton would manipulate the front viewscreen until we spotted the hole—we would pass over the hill and spot the other end of the hole in the rear screen.
One hole was two hundred and eighty miles long.
Four hours later, we were halfway around Mars.
Randolph was sitting by a side port, chin on one hand, his eyes unbelieving. "All around the planet," he kept repeating. "All around the planet...."
"Halfway at least," Allenby mused. "And we can assume that it continues in a straight line, through anything and everything that gets in its way...." ”

“ A hairline appeared in the dirt—widened—became lips that drew slowly apart to reveal the neat straight four-inch groove—which shrank as slowly to a shallow line of the ground—and vanished.
I looked ahead of me. There was one low ridge of ground between me and the enormous boulders. A neat four-inch semicircle was bitten out of the very top of the ridge. In the house-sized boulder directly beyond was a four-inch hole.
Allenby winced and called the others when I came back and reported.
"The mystery deepens," he told them. He turned to me. "Lead on, Peters. You're temporary drill leader." ”

“ Randolph asked unhappily, shifting his feet.
"I don't know," Allenby said. He looked thoughtfully at the chief. "That circular motion he made—could he have been describing something that went around and around the planet? Something like—oh, no!" Allenby's eyes glazed. "I wouldn't believe it in a million years."
His gaze went to the far end of the street, to the high sand dune that rose there. The chief seemed to be waiting for something to happen.
"I'm going to crawl," Randolph stated. He got to his hands and knees and began to creep across the center of the avenue. ”

“ Only one or two of us winced at his miserable double pun.
"Break anything, Hugh?" asked Burton, our pilot, kneeling beside him.
"Get out of my way, Burton," said Allenby. "You're obstructing my view."
Burton blinked. A man constructed of long bones and caution, he angled out of the way, looking around to see what he was obstructing view of.
He saw the rock and the round hole through it. He stood very still, staring. So did the rest of us.
"Well, I'll be damned," said Janus, our photographer. "A hole."
"In a rock," added Gonzales, our botanist.
"Round," said Randolph, our biologist. ”

“ Randolph said, "Well...."
"It is settled, then," Gonzales said, a little sarcastically. "Your discussion, gentlemen, has established that the long, horizontal holes we have found were caused by glacial action."
"Oh, no," Janus argued seriously. "I once read that Mars never had any glaciers."
All of us shuddered.
Half an hour later, we spotted more holes, about a mile down the 'canal,' still on a line, marching along the desert, through cacti, rocks, hills, even through one edge of the low vegetation of the 'canal' for thirty feet or so. ”

“ Burton came up with the suggestion that perhaps the holes had been made by a disintegrator-ray.
"It's possible," Allenby admitted. "This might have been the scene of some great battle—"
"With only one such weapon?" I objected.
Allenby swore as he stumbled. "What do you mean?"
"I haven't seen any other lines of holes—only the one. In a battle, the whole joint should be cut up.
That was good for a few moments' silent thought. Then Allenby said, "It might have been brought out by one side as a last resort. Sort of an ace in the hole." ”

“ I once read that when a glacier passes over a hard rock that's lying on some softer rock, it grinds the hard rock down into the softer, and both of them sort of wear down to fit together, and it all ends up with a round hole in the soft rock. ”

“ Allenby sat down on a rock, nursing his ankle, and remarked that anybody who believed this crazy business was really happening must have holes in the rocks in his head.
Burton put his eye to the hole [Pg 116] and whistled. "Sixty feet long if it's an inch," he said. "The other end's just a pinpoint. But you can see it. The damn thing's perfectly straight."
I looked back the way we had come. The cactus stood on the ridge, with its U-shaped bite, and beyond was the ship, and beside it the perforated rock. ”

“ We turned our attention again to the desert. Far out, black against Mars' azure horizon, was a line of low hills.
"Shall we go look?" asked Burton, eyes gleaming at the mystery.
Janus hefted his gun nervously. It was still crackling faintly from the discharge. "I say let's get back to the ship!"
Allenby sighed. "My leg hurts." He studied the hills. "Give me the field-glasses."
Randolph handed them over. Allenby put them to the shield of his mask and adjusted them.
After a moment he sighed again. "There's a hole. On a [Pg 117] plane surface that catches the Sun. ”

“ The softer parts would abrade faster in the soft stone. The end result wouldn't be a perfect circle."
Janus's face fell.
"Now," I said, "would anyone care to define this term 'perfect circle' we're throwing around so blithely? Because such holes as Janus describes are often pretty damned round." ”

“ Allenby said.
Burton brought out a steel tape-measure. The hole was four and three-eighths inches across. It was perfectly circular and about sixteen inches long. And four feet above the ground. [Pg 113]
"But why?" said Randolph. "Why should anyone bore a four-inch tunnel through a rock way out in the middle of the desert?"
"Religious symbol," said Janus. He looked around, one hand on his gun. "We'd better keep an eye out—maybe we've landed on sacred ground or something."
"A totem hole, perhaps," Allenby suggested.
"Oh. I don't know," Randolph said—to Janus, not Allenby. ”

“ Then he got down on his hands and knees and crawled across the middle of the street. Once past the middle, he rose, walked the rest of the way to join one of the groups and calmly stared at us along with the rest of them.
"They're all crazy," Randolph said disgustedly. "I'm going to cross that street!"
"Shut up. So it's a certain time [Pg 126] of a certain day," Allenby mused. "And from the way the chief is acting, he's afraid for you to cross the street. ”