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CONTENTS
Preface xv
PART I Process Management and Strategy 1
Chapter 1 Products, Processes, and Performance 2
Introduction 2
1.1 The ProcessView of Organizations 3
1.2 Performance Measures 7
1.2.1 The Importance of Measurement: Management by Fact 7
1.2.2 Types of Measures: Financial, External, and Internal 7
1.3 Products and Product Attributes 10
1.4 Processes and Process Competencies 13
1.5 Enabling Process Success 14
1.6 Some Basic Process Architectures 15
1.7 The Plan of the Book 17
Summary 18
Key Terms 18
Discussion Questions 18
Selected Bibliography 19
Chapter 2 Operations Strategy and Management 20
Introduction 20
2.1 Strategic Positioning and Operational Effectiveness 21
2.2 The Strategy Hierarchy 23
2.3 Strategic Fit 25
2.4 Focused Operations 27
2.5 Matching Products and Processes 30
2.6 The Operations Frontier and Trade-Offs 31
2.7 The Evolution of Strategy and Operations Management 37
2.8 The Opportunity Today in Service Operations 40
Summary 41
Key Terms 42
PART II Process Flow Metrics 45
Chapter 3 Process Flow Measures 46
Introduction 46
3.1 The Essence of Process Flow 47
3.2 Three Key Process Measures 48
vii

viii Contents
3.3 FlowTime, Flow Rate, and Inventory Dynamics 50
3.4 Throughput in a Stable Process 55
3.5 Little’s Law: Relating Average FlowTime,Throughput, and
Average Inventory 55
3.5.1 Material Flow 57
3.5.2 Customer Flow 57
3.5.3 Job Flow 58
3.5.4 Cash Flow 58
3.5.5 Cash Flow (Accounts Receivable) 58
3.5.6 Service Flow (Financing Applications at Auto-Moto) 59
3.6 Analyzing Financial Flows through Financial Statements 63
3.6.1 Assessing Financial Flow Performance 63
3.6.2 Cash-to-Cash Cycle Performance 67
3.6.3 Targeting Improvement with Detailed Financial
Flow Analysis 67
3.7 Two Related Process Measures: Takt Time and Inventory Turns
(Turnover Ratio) 70
3.7
.1 Takt Time 70
3.7
.2 Inventory Turns 70
3.8 Linking Operational to Financial Metrics: Valuing
an Improvement 71
3.8.1 Linking Operational Improvements to NPV 71
3.8.2 Linking Operational Improvements to Financial Ratios 73
Summary 75
Key Equations and Symbols 75
Key Terms 76
Exercises 76
Chapter 4 Flow-Time Analysis 80
Introduction 80
4.1 Flow-Time Measurement 81
4.2 The Process Flowchart 83
4.3 Flow Time and Critical Paths 84
4.4 Theoretical Flow Time and the Role of Waiting 86
4.4.1 Flow-Time Efficiency 87
4.5 Levers for ManagingTheoretical FlowTime 90
4.5.1 MovingWork Off the Critical Path 91
4.5.2 Reduce Non-Value-Adding Activities 91
4.5.3 Reduce the Amount of Rework 92
4.5.4 Modifying the Product Mix 92
4.4.5 Increase the Speed of Operations 92
4.4.6 Zhang & Associates Revisited 93

Contents ix
Summary 94
KeyTerms 95
Exercises 96
Appendix 4.1 Subprocesses and Cascading 98
Appendix 4.2 The Critical Path Method 99
Appendix 4.3 Rework andVisits 101
Chapter 5 Flow Rate and Capacity Analysis 102
Introduction 102
5.1 Flow Rate Measurements 103
5.2 Resources and Effective Capacity 103
5.2.1 Resources and Resource Pools 103
5.2.2 Effective Capacity 104
5.2.3 Capacity Utilization 105
5.2.4 Extensions: Other Factors Affecting Effective Capacity 106
5.3 Effect of Product Mix on Effective Capacity and Profitability
of a Process 106
5.3.1 Effective Capacity for Product Mix 107
5.3.2 Optimizing Profitability 108
5.4 CapacityWaste and Theoretical Capacity 109
5.4.1 Theoretical Capacity 109
5.4.2 Theoretical Capacity Utilization 110
5.5 Levers for ManagingThroughput 110
5.5.1 Throughput Improvement Mapping 111
5.5.2 Increasing Resource Levels 112
5.5.3 Reducing Resource Capacity Waste 112
5.5.4 Shifting Bottlenecks and the Improvement Spiral 113
Summary 114
Key Terms 114
Exercises 115
Appendix 5.1 Other Factors Affecting Effective Capacity: Load
Batches, Scheduled Availability, and Setups 117
Appendix 5.2 Optimizing Product Mix with Linear
Programming 119
Chapter 6 Inventory Analysis 121
Introduction 121
6.1 Inventory Classification 122

x Contents
6.2 Inventory Benefits 125
6.2.1 Economies of Scale 125
6.2.2 Production and Capacity Smoothing 126
6.2.3 Stockout Protection 126
6.2.4 Price Speculation 127
6.3 Inventory Costs 128
6.4 Inventory Dynamics of Batch Purchasing 129
6.5 Economies of Scale and Optimal Cycle Inventory 131
6.6 Effect of Lead Times on Ordering Decisions 138
6.7 Periodic Ordering 140
6.8 Levers for Managing Inventories 142
Summary 143
KeyTerms 144
Exercises 145
Appendix 6.1 Derivation of EOQ Formula 147
Appendix 6.2 Price Discounts 148
PART III Process Flow Variability 151
Chapter 7 Managing Flow Variability: Safety Inventory 152
Introduction 152
7
.1 Demand Forecasts and Forecast Errors 154
7
.2 Safety Inventory and Service Level 155
7
.2.1 Service Level Measures 156
7
.2.2 Continuous Review, Reorder Point System 157
7
.2.3 Service Level Given Safety Inventory 159
7
.2.4 Safety Inventory Given Service Level 161
7
.3 Optimal Service Level: The Newsvendor Problem 163
7
.4 Leadtime DemandVariability 170
7
.4.1 Fixed Replenishment Lead Time 170
7
.4.2 Variability in Replenishment Lead Time 172
7
.5 Pooling Efficiency through Aggregation 173
7
.5.1 Physical Centralization 174
7
.5.2 Principle of Aggregation and Pooling Inventory 177
7
.6 Shortening the Forecast Horizon through
Postponement 179
7
.7 Periodic Review Policy 180
7
.8 Levers for Reducing Safety Inventory 182
Summary 183

KeyTerms 184
Exercises 184
Appendix Calculating Service Level for a Given Safety
Inventory 187
Chapter 8 Managing Flow Variability: Safety Capacity 188
Introduction 188
8.1 Service Process and Its Performance 190
8.1.1 Service Processes 190
8.1.2 Service Process Attributes 192
8.1.3 Service Process Performance 192
8.1.4 Relationships between Performance Measures 196
8.2 Effect of Variability on Process Performance 197
8.3 Drivers of Process Performance 200
8.3.1 The Queue Length Formula 200
8.3.2 The Exponential Model 202
8.4 Process Capacity Decisions 205
8.5 Buffer Capacity, Blocking, and Abandonment 206
8.5.1 Effect of Buffer Capacity on Process Performance 207
8.5.2 The Buffer Capacity Decision 208
8.5.3 Joint Processing Capacity and Buffer Capacity
Decisions 210
8.6 PerformanceVariability and Promise 211
8.7 Customer Pooling and Segregation 213
8.7
.1 Pooling Arrivals with Flexible Resources 213
8.7
.2 Segregating Arrivals with Specialized Resources 215
8.8 Performance Improvement Levers 216
8.8.1 Capacity Utilization Levers 217
8.8.2 Variability Reduction Levers 218
8.8.3 Capacity Synchronization Levers 219
8.8.4 Buffer Capacity Levers 220
8.8.5 Pooling and Segregation Levers 220
8.9 Managing Customer Perceptions and
Expectations 221
Summary 222
Key Terms 223
Exercises 224
Appendix The Exponential Model with Finite Buffer
Capacity 228
Contents xi

xii Contents
Chapter 9 Managing Flow Variability: Process Control and Capability 229
Introduction 229
9.1 Performance Variability 231
9.2 Analysis of Variability 233
9.2.1 Check Sheets 233
9.2.2 Pareto Charts 234
9.2.3 Histograms 235
9.2.4 Run Charts 237
9.2.5 Multi-Vari Charts 238
9.3 Process Control 240
9.3.1 The Feedback Control Principle 240
9.3.2 Types and Causes of Variability 241
9.3.3 Control Limit Policy 243
9.3.4 Control Charts 244
9.3.5 Cause–Effect Diagrams 252
9.3.6 Scatter Plots 253
9.4 Process Capability 254
9.4.1 Fraction of Output within Specifications 255
9.4.2 Process Capability Ratios (Cpk and Cp) 256
9.4.3 Six-Sigma Quality 257
9.4.4 Capability and Control 260
9.5 Process Capability Improvement 260
9.5.1 Mean Shift 260
9.5.2 Variability Reduction 261
9.5.3 Effect of Process Improvement on Process Control 262
9.6 Product and Process Design 263
9.6.1 Design for Producibility 263
9.6.2 Robust Design 265
9.6.3 Integrated Design 265
Summary 226
Key Terms 267
Exercises 268
PART IV Process Integration 271
Chapter 10 Lean Operations: Process Synchronization and Improvement 272
Introduction 272
10.1 Processing Networks 273
10.2 The Process Ideal: Synchronization and Efficiency 274

Contents xiii
10.3 Waste and Its Sources 275
10.4 Improving Flows in a Plant: Basic Principles of Lean
Operations 278
10.4.1 Improving Process Architecture: Cellular Layouts 280
10.4.2 Improving Information and Material Flow:
Demand Pull 281
10.4.3 Improving Process Flexibility: Batch-Size Reduction 284
10.4.4 Quality at Source: Defect Prevention and Early Detection 285
10.4.5 Reducing ProcessingVariability: Standardization of Work,
Maintenance, and Safety Capacity 286
10.4.6 Visibility of Performance 287
10.4.7 Managing Human Resources: Employee Involvement 287
10.4.8 Supplier Management: Partnerships 288
10.5 Improving Flows in a Supply Chain 289
10.5.1 Lack of Synchronization: The Bullwhip Effect 290
10.5.2 Causes of the Bullwhip Effect 291
10.5.3 Levers to Counteract the Bullwhip Effect 293
10.6 The Improvement Process 295
10.6.1 Process Stabilization: Standardizing and Controlling
the Process 295
10.6.2 Continuous Improvement: Management by Sight
and Stress 296
10.6.3 Business Process Reengineering: Process Innovation 297
10.6.4 Benchmarking: Heeding theVoices of the Best 298
10.6.5 Managing Change 298
Summary 299
Key Terms 300
Appendix I MBPF Checklist 303
Appendix II Probability Background 306
Solutions to Selected Problems 311
Glossary 317
Index 324

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PREFACE
In this book, we present a novel approach to studying the core concepts in operations,
which is one of the three major functional fields in business management, along with
finance and marketing. We view the task, and the raison d’être, of operations manage-
ment as structuring (designing), managing, and improving organizational processes
and use the process view as the unifying paradigm to study operations. We address
manufacturing as well as service operations in make-to-stock as well as make-to-order
environments.
We employ a structured data-driven approach to discuss the core operations man-
agement concepts in three steps:
• Model and understand a business process and its flows.
• Study causal relationships between the process structure and operational and
financial performance metrics.
• Formulate implications for managerial actions by filtering out managerial
“levers” (process drivers) and their impact on operational and financial measures
of process performance.
NEW TOTHIS EDITION
The first edition of this book was published in 1999 and reflected our experiences from
teaching the core Operations Management course at the Kellogg School of Management
of Northwestern University. The second edition, published in 2006, improved exposi-
tion and clarified the link between theory and practice. While this third edition retains
the general process-view paradigm, we have striven to sharpen the development of
the ideas in each chapter, illustrate with contemporary examples from practice, and
eliminated some content to make room for some new content, such as:
• Opening vignettes and real-life examples of how the theory can be applied in
practice have been made current. In addition, exposition of material in the chap-
ters has been further improved with technical derivations details and other tan-
gential ideas relegated to chapter appendices.
• Chapter 4 has been completely revised, with an emphasis on measurement, analy-
sis of critical path, and management approaches to leadtime improvements.
Technical analysis has been shifted to appendices.
• Chapter 5 has been substantially revised with emphasis on effective capacity and
bottleneck management, on the effects of product mix on capacity, and on reduc-
tion of capacity waste.
• Chapter 6 now includes discussion of quantity discount policies. Discussions of
periodic review policies have been added to Chapters 6 and 7.
• Chapter 8 has undergone a complete revision and reorganization to improve flow
of concepts; we have also added some discussion on priority processing.
• Chapter 9 has more details on control charts, includes fraction defective chart,
recent applications, discussion of integrated design, and total quality management.
• Answers to selected exercises from Chapters 3 to 9 appear at the end of the book.
• The end-of-chapter and end-of-book features have been updated.
Finally, we have removed iGrafx simulation (both the software and the associated sam-
ple models) from this edition.
xv

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OVERVIEW
Our objective is to show how managers can design and manage process structure and
process drivers to improve the performance of any business process. The book consists
of four parts.
In Part I, “Process Management and Strategy,” we introduce the basic concepts of
business processes and management strategy. Processes are the core technologies of any
organization to design, produce and deliver products and services that satisfy external
and internal customer needs. Processes involve transforming inputs into outputs by
means of capital and labor resources that carry out a set of interrelated activities. The
existence of trade-offs in process competencies implies that world-class operations
must align their competencies with the desired product attributes and overall competi-
tive priorities as formulated by the competitive strategy.
In Part II, “Process Flow Metrics,” we examine key process measures, their interre-
lationships, and managerial levers for controlling them. In particular, process flow time,
flow rate or throughput, and inventory are three fundamental operational measures
that affect the financial measures of process performance. Flow time can be improved
by restructuring and shortening the time-critical path of activities; throughput can be
improved by increasing the bottleneck capacity, and inventory can be decreased by
reducing the batch sizes, streamlining the process, or reducing variability. Yet, through-
out this part, the focus is on the average values, ignoring for now the impact of variabil-
ity in process performance.
In Part III, “Process Flow Variability,” we study the effect of variability in flows
and processing on the process performance and the managerial levers to plan for and
control it. Safety inventory is used to maintain the availability of inputs and outputs
in spite of variability in inflows and demands in the make-to-stock environment.
Safety capacity is used to minimize waiting times due to variability in inflows and
processing times in the make-to-order environment. Safety time is used to provide a
reliable estimate of the response time to serve a customer. Finally, feedback control
is used to monitor and respond to variability in process performance dynamically
over time.
In Part IV, “Process Integration,” we conclude with principles of synchronization
of flows of materials and information through a network of processes most economi-
cally. The ideal is to eliminate waste in the form of excess costs, defects, delays, and
inventories. Instead of responding to the economies of scale and variability in flows, the
long-term approach is to eliminate the need for such responses by making processes
lean, flexible, and predictable. It requires continual exposure and elimination of sources
of inefficiency, rigidity, and variability and use of information technology to integrate
various subprocesses. The goal is to design and control the process for continuous flows
without waits, inventories, and defects. We close with the different philosophies of
process improvement toward achieving this goal.
In Appendix I, we give a summary of the “levers” to manage business processes.
We hope that this checklist will be useful to the practitioner. We assume that our readers
have knowledge of some basic concepts in probability and statistics; for completeness,
we summarize these as background material in Appendix II.
INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES
• Instructor Resource Center: The Instructor Resource Center contains the elec-
tronic files for the test bank, PowerPoint slides, and the Solutions Manual. (www.
pearsonhighered.com/anupindi).
xvi Preface

• Register, Redeem, Login: At www.pearsonhighered.com/irc, instructors can
access a variety of print, media, and presentation resources that are available with
this text in downloadable, digital format. For most texts, resources are also avail-
able for course management platforms such as Blackboard, WebCT, and Course
Compass.
• Need help? Our dedicated technical support team is ready to assist instructors
with questions about the media supplements that accompany this text. Visit
http:/
/247.pearsoned.com/ for answers to frequently asked questions and toll-
free user support phone numbers. The supplements are available to adopting
instructors. Detailed descriptions are provided on the Instructor Resource
Center.
Instructor’s Solutions Manual
The Instructor’s Solutions Manual, updated by the authors, is available to adopters as a
download from the Instructor Resource Center.
Test Item File
The test item file, updated by the authors, is available to adopters as a downloaded
from the Instructor Resource Center.
PowerPoint Presentations
The PowerPoint presentations, updated by the authors, are available to adopters as a
downloaded from the Instructor Resource Center.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge the feedback from our full-time, part-time, and executive
management students at our respective institutions and numerous adopters of the text-
book at other institutions. Our colleagues Krishnan Anand (now at David Eccles School
of Business, University of Utah), Sarang Deo, Martin (Marty) Lariviere, Andy King
(now at Dartmouth College), and Matt Tuite (now retired) have, over time, given us
many suggestions for improvement. In particular, Anand suggested the original Loan
Application Flow example in Chapter 3, while Marty offered us several new exercises.
(Instructors know that good problem sets are golden.) Andy pointed out the need to
explicitly account for setup times in determining flow rate more accurately. In addition,
we also benefited from the suggestions by several colleagues at other universities. We
are particularly indebted to Larry Robinson at Cornell University, George Monahan at
the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Kevin Gue and Ken Doerr of the Naval
Postgraduate School at Monterey, and Marty Puterman at the University of British
Columbia.
The manuscript has benefited significantly from extensive and meticulous
reviews from Amy Whitaker, developmental editor at Pearson Prentice Hall. We are
thankful to her for suggesting, among other things, the idea of a glossary of terms and
helping us prepare this list. Several people from the staff at Pearson Prentice Hall have
really worked hard in patiently coordinating the entire project. In particular, we are
thankful to Mary Kate Murray, Senior Project Manager; Chuck Synovec, Senior
Acquisition Editor; Anne Fahlgren, Executive Marketing Manager; Clara Bartunek,
Production Project Manager. We also thank Mohinder Singh of Aptara Incorporation for
his assistance with the production of the book.
Preface xvii

Finally, all of us have been influenced in various ways by the way we were taught
operations at our respective alma maters. Parts of the book reflect what each of us
imbibed from the various classes we took. So we thank our mentors and other faculty at
Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, the State University of New York at
Stony Brook, and the University of California at Berkeley. Last, but not least, we would
like to thank our families for their support during this effort.
Ravi Anupindi
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Sunil Chopra,
Sudhakar D. Deshmukh,
and Jan A. Van Mieghem
J.L. Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University
Eitan Zemel
Leonard N. Stern School of Business
New York University
xviii Preface

Process Management
and Strategy
CHAPTER 1 Products, Processes, and Performance
CHAPTER 2 Operations Strategy and Management
PART
I
1

1
Products, Processes,
and Performance
INTRODUCTION
Walmart has been successful at generating best-in-class profits over an extended period of
time. Walmart’s profits in 2008 were the best in the retailing sector at around $12.7 billion.
eBay shook up the auction industry in the late 1990s by automating several components of
the auction process. In 2008, eBay’s estimated profits were about $1.8 billion. Aravind Eye
Hospital, winner of the 2008 Gates Prize for Global Health, served 2,539,615 outpatients
and performed 302,180 cataract surgeries between April 2009 and March 2010. Despite pro-
viding 67 percent of the outpatient visits and 75 percent of the surgeries as free service to
the poor, Aravind generated healthy profits that it used to fund its growth. Netflix trans-
formed the movie rental business from one where customers primarily visited rental stores
to one where movies arrive by mail or are streamed directly to homes. In 2009, Netflix
reported revenues of $1.67 billion with profits of $115 million. In contrast, Blockbuster
declared bankruptcy in 2010 after many years of losing money and closed many of its
movie rental stores. Each successful organization has achieved strong financial performance
by providing products that meet customer expectations at a production and delivery cost
that is significantly lower than the value perceived by customers. In contrast, as the
Blockbuster example illustrates, inability to provide greater value to customers than the cost
of production and delivery results in financial losses and the potential demise of the organi-
zation. To be successful, all organizations—software manufacturers, park districts,
automakers, postal services, tax-collection agencies, and even hospitals—must provide
products and services whose value to customers is much greater than the cost of production
and delivery.
Introduction
1.1 The Process View of Organizations
1.2 Performance Measures
1.3 Products and Product Attributes
1.4 Processes and Process Competencies
1.5 Enabling Process Success
1.6 Some Basic Process Architectures
1.7 The Plan of the Book
Summary
Key Terms
Discussion Questions
Selected Bibliography
Chapter
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Title: Message From Mars
Author: Clifford D. Simak
Illustrator: Joseph Doolin
Release date: June 9, 2020 [eBook #62357]
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MESSAGE FROM
MARS ***

By CLIFFORD D. SIMAK
Fifty-five pioneers had died on the "bridge of
bones" that spanned the Void to the rusty plains
of Mars. Now the fifty-sixth stood on the red planet,
his only ship a total wreck—and knew that Earth
was doomed unless he could send a warning within hours.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1943.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"You're crazy, man," snapped Steven Alexander, "you can't take off
for Mars alone!"
Scott Nixon thumped the desk in sudden irritation.
"Why not?" he shouted. "One man can run a rocket. Jack Riley's sick
and there are no other pilots here. The rocket blasts in fifteen
minutes and we can't wait. This is the last chance. The only chance
we'll have for months."
Jerry Palmer, sitting in front of the massive radio, reached for a
bottle of Scotch and slopped a drink into the tumbler at his elbow.
"Hell, Doc," he said, "let him go. It won't make any difference. He
won't reach Mars. He's just going out in space to die like all the rest
of them."
Alexander snapped savagely at him. "You don't know what you're
saying. You drink too much."
"Forget it, Doc," said Scott. "He's telling the truth. I won't get to
Mars, of course. You know what they're saying down in the base
camp, don't you? About the bridge of bones. Walking to Mars over a
bridge of bones."
The old man stared at him. "You have lost faith? You don't think
you'll go to Mars?"
Scott shook his head. "I haven't lost my faith. Someone will get
there ... sometime. But it's too soon yet. Look at that tablet, will
you!"
He waved his hand at a bronze plate set into the wall.
"The roll of honor," said Scott, bitterly. "Look at the names. You'll
have to buy another soon. There won't be room enough."
One Nixon already was on that scroll of bronze. Hugh Nixon, fifty-
fourth from the top. And under that the name of Harry Decker, the
man who had gone out with him.

The radio blurted suddenly at them, jabbering, squealing, howling in
anguish.
Scott stiffened, ears tensed as the code sputtered across millions of
miles. But it was the same old routine. The same old message,
repeated over and over again ... the same old warning hurled out
from the ruddy planet.
"No. No. No come. Danger."
Scott turned toward the window, started up into the sky at the
crimson eye of Mars.
What was the use of keeping hope alive? Hope that Hugh might
have reached Mars, that someday the Martian code would bring
some word of him.
Hugh had died ... like all the rest of them. Like those whose names
were graven in the bronze there on the wall. The maw of space had
swallowed him. He had flown into the face of silence and the silence
was unbroken.
The door of the office creaked open, letting in a gust of chilly air.
Jimmy Baldwin shut the door behind him and looked at them
vacantly.
"Nice night to go to Mars," he said.
"You shouldn't be up here, Jimmy," said Alexander gently. "You
should be down at the base, tending to your flowers."
"There're lots of flowers on Mars," said Jimmy. "Maybe someday I'll
go to Mars and see."
"Wait until somebody else goes first," said Palmer bitterly.
Jimmy turned about, hesitantly, like a man who had a purpose but
had forgotten what it was. He moved slowly toward the door and
opened it.
"I got to go," he said.

The door closed heavily but the chill did not vanish from the room.
For it wasn't the chill of the mountain's peak, but another kind of
chill ... a chill that had walked in with Jimmy Baldwin and now
refused to leave.
Palmer tipped the bottle, sloshed the whiskey in the glass.
"The greatest pilot that ever lived," he said. "Now look at him!"
"He still holds the record," Alexander reminded the radio operator.
"Eight times to the Moon and still alive."
The accident had happened as Jimmy's ship was approaching Earth
on that eighth return trip. A tiny meteor had struck the hull, drilling a
sharp-cut hole. It had struck Andy Mason, Jimmy's best friend,
squarely between the eyes.
The cabin had been filled with the scream of escaping air, had
turned cold with the deadly breath of space and frost crystals had
danced in front of Jimmy's eyes.
Somehow Jimmy had patched the hole in the hull, had reached
Earth in a smashing rocket drive, knowing he had little air, that every
minute was a borrowed eternity.
Most pilots would have killed themselves or blown up their ships in
that reckless race for Earth, but Jimmy, ace of all the space-men of
his day, had made it.
But he had walked from the ship with a blank face and babbling lips.
He still lived at the rocket camp because it was home to him. He
puttered among his flowers. He watched the rockets come and go
without a flutter of expression. And everyone was kind to him, for in
his face they read a fate that might be theirs.
"All of us are crazy," said Scott. "Everyone of us. Myself included.
That's why I'm blasting off alone."
"I refuse to let you go," said Alexander firmly.
Scott rested his knuckles on the desk. "You can't stop me. I have my
orders to make the trip. Whether I go alone or with an assistant pilot

makes no difference. That rocket blasts on time, and I'm in it when
it goes."
"But it's foolishness," protested Alexander. "You'll go space-mad.
Think of the loneliness!"
"Think of the coordinates," snapped Scott. "Delay the blast-off and
you have to work out a set of new ones. Days of work and then it'll
be too late. Mars will be too far away."
Alexander spread his hands. "All right then. I hope you make it."
Scott turned away but Alexander called him back.
"You're sure of the routine?"
Scott nodded. He knew the routine by heart. So many hours out to
the Moon, landing on the Moon to take on extra fuel, taking off for
Mars at an exact angle at a certain minute.
"I'll come out and see you off," said Alexander. He heaved himself up
and slid into a heavy coat.
Palmer shouted after Scott. "So long, big boy. It was nice knowing
you."
Scott shrugged. Palmer was a little drunk and very bitter. He'd
watched them go too long. His nerves were wearing out.
Stars shone like hard, bright jewels in the African sky. A sharp wind
blew over the summit of Mt. Kenya, a wind that whined among the
ice-bound rocks and bit deep into the flesh. Far below blazed the
lights of the base camp, hundreds of feet down the slope from the
main rocket camp here atop the mountain set squarely on the
Earth's equator.
The rasping voice of a radio newscaster came from the open door of
the machine shop.

"New York," shrieked the announcer. "Austin Gordon, famous African
explorer, announced this afternoon he will leave soon for the Congo
valley, where he will investigate reports of a strange metallic city
deep in the interior. Natives, bringing reports of the discovery out of
the jungle, claim the city is inhabited by strange metallic insects."
Someone slammed the door and the voice was cut off.
Scott hunched into the wind to light a cigarette.
"The explorers are going crazy, too," he said.
Probably, later on in the program the announcer would have
mentioned Scott Nixon and Jack Riley would blast off in a few
minutes in another attempt to reach Mars. But it would be well along
in the program and it wouldn't take much time. Ten years ago Mars
had been big news. Today it rated small heads in the press, slight
mention on the air.
But the newscaster would have been wrong about Jack Riley. Jack
Riley lay in the base camp hospital with an attack of ptomaine. Only
an hour before Jack had clasped Scott's hand and grinned at him
and wished him luck.
He needed luck. For in this business a man didn't have even an
inside chance.
Scott walked toward the tilted rocket. He could hear the crunch of
Alexander's feet as the man moved with him.
"It won't be new to you," Alexander was saying, "you've been to the
Moon before."
Yes, he had been to the Moon three times and he was still alive. But,
then, he had been lucky. Your luck just simply didn't hold forever.
There was too much to gamble on in space. Fuel, for one thing. Men
had experimented with fuel for ten years now and still the only thing
they had was a combination of liquid oxygen and gasoline. They had

tried liquid hydrogen but that had proved too cold, too difficult to
confine, treacherous to handle, too bulky because of its low density.
Liquid oxygen could be put under pressure, condensed into little
space. It was safe to handle, safe until it combined with gasoline
and then it was sheer death to anything that got within its reach.
Of course, there had been some improvements. Better handling of
the fuel, for instance. Combustion chambers stood up better now
because they were designed better. Feed lines didn't freeze so
readily now as when the first coffins took to space. Rocket motors
were more efficient, but still cranky.
But there were other things. Meteors, for one, and you couldn't do
much about them. Not until someone designed a screen, and no one
had. Radiations were another. Space was full of radiations and,
despite the insulating jacket of ozone some of them seeped through.
Scott climbed through the rocket valve and turned to close it. He
hesitated for a moment, drinking in the smell and sight of Earth.
There wasn't much that one could see. The anxious face of
Alexander, the huddled shadows that were watching men, the
twinkling base camp lights.
With a curse at his own weakness, Scott slammed the valve lock,
twirled it home.
Fitting himself into the shock absorbent chair, he fastened the straps
that held him. His right foot reached out and found the trip that
would fire the rockets. Then he lifted his wrist in front of his eyes
and watched the second hand of the watch.
Ten seconds. Eight. Now five. The hand was creeping up, ticking off
the time. It rested on the zero mark and he slammed down his foot.
Cruel weight smashed down upon him, driving his body back into
the padded chair. His lungs were flattened, the air driven from them.
His heart thumped. Nausea seized him, and black mists swam before
his eyes. He seemed to be slipping into a midnight chasm and he
cried out weakly. His body went limp, sagging in the chair. Twin
streams of blood trickled from his nose and down his lip.

He was far out in space when he struggled back to consciousness.
For a time he did not stir. Lying in the chair, it took long minutes to
realize where he was. Gradually his brain cleared and his eyes
focused and made impressions on his senses. Slowly he became
aware of the lighted instrument board, of the rectangle of quartz
that formed the vision panel. His ears registered the silence that
steeped the ship, the weird, deathly silence of outer space.
Weakly he stirred and sat upright, his eyes automatically studying
the panel. The fuel pressure was all right, atmospheric pressure was
holding, speed was satisfactory.
He leaned back in the chair and waited, resting, storing his strength.
Automatically his hand reached up and wiped the blood from his lips
and chin.
II
He was in space. Headed for the Moon and from there for Mars. But
even the realization of this failed to rouse him from the lethargy of
battered body and tortured brain.
Taking off in a rocket was punishment. Severe, terrible punishment.
Only men who were perfect physical specimens could attempt it. An
imperfect heart would simply stop under the jarring impact of the
blast-off.
Some day rockets would be perfected. Some day rockets would rise
gently from the Earth, shaking off Earth's gravity by gradual
application of power rather than by tremendous thrusts that kicked
steel and glass and men out into space.
But not yet, not for many years. Perhaps not for many generations.
For many years men would risk their lives in blasting projectiles that
ripped loose from the Earth by the sheer savagery of exploding
oxygen and gasoline.

A moan came from the rear of the ship, a stifled pitiful moan that
brought Scott upright in the chair, tearing with nervous hands at the
buckles of his belt.
With belt loosened, body tensed, he waited for a second, hardly
believing he had heard the sound. It came again, a piteous human
cry.
Scott leaped to his feet, staggered under the lack of gravitation. The
rocket was coasting on momentum now and, while its forward
motion gave it a simulation of gravity, enough so a man could orient
himself, there was in actuality no positive gravity center in the shell.
A bundle of heavy blankets lay in a corner formed by a lashed down
pile of boxes ... and the bundle was moving feebly. With a cry in his
throat, Scott leaped forward and tore the blankets aside. Under
them lay a battered man, crumpled, with a pool of blood soaking
into a blanket that lay beneath him. Scott lifted the body. The head
flopped over and he stared down into the vacant, blood-streaked
face of Jimmy Baldwin.
Jimmy's eyes fluttered open, then closed again. Scott squatted on
his heels, wild thoughts hammering in his head. Jimmy's eyes
opened again and regarded the pilot. He raised a feeble hand in
greeting. The lips moved, but Jimmy's voice was faint.
"Hello, Scott."
"What are you doing here?" Scott demanded fiercely.
"I don't know," said Jimmy weakly. "I don't know. I meant to do
something, but I forgot."
Scott rose and took a bottle of water from a case. Wetting his
handkerchief, he bathed the bloodied face. His hands ran over
Jimmy's body but found no broken bones. It was a wonder the man
hadn't been killed outright. Some more Baldwin luck!
"Where are we, Scott?" Jimmy asked.

"We're in space," said Scott. "We're going out to Mars." No use of
telling him anything but the truth.
"Space," said Jimmy. "I use to go out in space. Then something
happened." He shook his head wearily. Mercifully, the memory of
that something had been wiped from his brain.
Half dragging, half carrying, Scott got him to the assistant pilot's
seat, strapped him in, gave him a drink of water. Jimmy's eyes
closed and he sank back into the cushions. Scott resumed his chair,
leaned forward to look out into space.
There was little to see. Space, viewed from any angle, unless one
was near a large body, looked pretty much the same. The Moon was
still out of his range of vision. It would be hours before it would
move upward to intersect the path of the rocket's flight.
Scott leaned back and looked at Jimmy. Apparently the man had
sneaked aboard just before the take-off. No one paid much attention
to him. Everyone was kind to him and he was allowed to do as he
pleased. For he was not insane. The tragedy of those few minutes
years before had merely wiped out his memory, given him the
outlook of a child.
Perhaps when he had gotten into the ship he had held some reason
for his action, but now even that purpose had escaped him. Once
again Jimmy Baldwin was a bewildered child's brain in the body of a
man.
"Anyway," said Scott, half speaking to himself, half to the silent form,
"you're the first rocket stowaway."
They would miss Jimmy back at the camp, would wonder what had
happened to him. Perhaps they'd organize a posse and search for
him. The possibility was they would never know what happened, for

there was slight chance, Scott told himself, that he or Jimmy or the
ship would ever get back to Earth again.
Someone else would have to tend Jimmy's flowers now, but probably
no one would, for his flowers were the Martian lilies. And Martian
lilies no longer were a novelty.
It had been the lilies that started the whole thing, this crazy parade
of men who went into space and died.
Slightly over twelve years ago, Dr. Steven Alexander reported that,
from his observatory on Mt. Kenya, he had communicated with Mars
by ultrashort wave radio. It had been a long and arduous process.
First the signals from Earth, repeated in definite series, at definite
intervals. And then, finally, the answer from the Red Planet. After
months of labor slow understanding came.
"We send you," signalled the Martians. "We send you." Over and
over again. A meaningless phrase. What were they sending? Slowly
Alexander untangled the simple skein of thought. Mars finally
messaged: "We send you token!" That word "token" had been hard.
It represented thought, an abstract thought.
The world waited breathlessly for the token. Finally it came, a rocket
winging its way across space, a rocket that flashed and glinted in the
depth of space as it neared Earth. Kept informed of its location by
the Martians, Earth's telescopes watched it come. It landed near Mt.
Kenya, a roaring, screaming streak of light that flashed across the
midnight sky.
Dug up, it yielded an inner container, well-insulated against heat and
cold, against radiation and shock. Opened, it was found to contain
seeds. Planted, jealously guarded, carefully tended, the seeds grew,
were the Martian lilies. They multiplied rapidly, spread quickly over
the Earth.
Back on Earth today the Martian lilies grew in every hamlet, clogged
the fence rows of every farm. Relieved of whatever natural enemies
and checks they might have had on their native planet, they

flourished and spread, became a weed that every farmer cursed
whole-heartedly.
Their root structure probed deep into the soil. Drought could not kill
them. They grew rapidly, springing to full growth almost overnight.
They went to unkillable seed. Which was what might have been
expected of any plant nurtured on the stubborn soil of Mars. Earth,
to the Martian lilies, was a paradise of air and water and sunlight.
And, as if that first token-load had not been enough, the Martians
kept on sending rocket loads of seeds. At each opposition the
rockets came, each announced by the messages from the Martian
transmitter. And each of them landed almost precisely on the spot
where the first had landed.
That took mathematics! Mathematics and a superb knowledge of
rocketry. The rockets apparently were automatic. There was no
intelligence to guide them once they were shot into space. Their
courses must have been plotted to the finest detail, with every factor
determined in advance. For the Martian rockets were not aimed at
Earth as one broad target but at a certain spot on Earth and so far
every one of them had hit that mark!
At the rocket camp each Martian rocket was waited anxiously, with
the hope it would bring some new pay load. But the rockets never
brought anything but seeds ... more Martian lily seeds.
Jimmy stirred restlessly, opened his eyes and looked out the vision
plate. But there was no terror in his eyes, no surprise nor regret.
"Space?" he asked.
Scott nodded.
"We're going to the Moon?"
"To the Moon first," said Scott. "From there we go to Mars."

Jimmy lapsed into silence. There was no change upon his face.
There never was any change upon his face.
I hope he doesn't make any trouble, Scott told himself. It was bad
enough just to have him along. Bad enough to have this added
responsibility.
For space flight was a dangerous job. Ever since the International
Mars Communication Center had been formed, with Alexander in
charge, space had flung men aside. Ship after ship, pilot after pilot.
The task, alone, of reaching the Moon had taken terrible toll.
Men had died. Some had died before they reached the Moon, some
had died on the Moon but mostly they had died heading back for
Earth. For landing on Earth, jockeying a rocket through Earth's
dense atmosphere, is a tricky job. Others had died enroute to Mars,
ships flaring in space or simply disappearing, going on and on, never
coming back. That was the way it had been with Hugh.
And now his brother, Scott, was following the trail that Hugh had
blazed, the trail to the Moon and out beyond. Following in a bomb of
potential death, with a blank-faced stowaway in the chair beside
him.
Half way to Mars and the ship was still intact. Running true to
course, running on schedule, flashing through space under the
thrust of momentum built up during the blast-out from the Moon.
Half way to Mars and still alive! But too early yet to hope. Perhaps
other men had gotten as far as this and then something had
happened.
Scott watched the depths of space, the leering, jeering emptiness of
star-studded velvet that stretched on and on.
There had been days of waiting and of watching. More days of
waiting and of watching loomed ahead.

Waiting for that warning flicker on the instrument panel, that split
second warning before red ruin struck as cranky fuel went haywire.
Waiting for the "tick" of a tiny meteor against the ship's steel wall ...
the tiny, ringing sound that would be the prelude to disaster.
Waiting for something else ... for that unknown factor of accident
that would spatter the ship and the two men in it through many
empty miles.
Endless hours of watching and of waiting, hastily snatched cat-naps
in the chair, hastily snatched meals. Listening to the babbling Jimmy
Baldwin who wondered how his flowers were getting on, speculated
on what the boys were doing back in the rocket camp on Earth.
One thing hammered at Scott Nixon's brain ... the message of the
Martian radio, the message that had been coming now for many
years. "No. No. No come. Danger." Always that and little else. No
explanation of what the danger was. No suggestion for
circumventing or correcting that danger. No helpfulness in
Earthmen's struggle to cross the miles of space between two
neighboring planets.
Almost as if the Martians didn't want Earthmen to come. Almost as if
they were trying to discourage space travel. But that would hardly
be the case, for the Martians had readily co-operated in establishing
communications, had exhibited real intelligence and earnestness in
working out the code that flashed words and thoughts across
millions of miles.
Without a doubt, had they wished, the Martians could have helped.
For it was with seemingly little effort that they sent their own rockets
to earth.
And why had each Martian rocket carried the same load each time?
Could there be some significance in those Martian lily seeds? Some
hidden meaning the Earth had failed to grasp? Some meaning that
the things from Mars hoped would be read with each new rocket-
load?

Why hadn't the Martians come themselves? If they could shoot
automatic rockets across the miles of space, certainly they could
navigate rockets carrying themselves.
The Martian rockets had been closely studied back on Earth but had
yielded no secrets. The fuel always was exhausted. More than likely
the Martians knew, to the last drop, how much was needed. The
construction was not unlike Earth rockets, but fashioned of a steel
that was hardened and toughened beyond anything Earth could
produce.
So for ten years Earthmen had worked unaided to cross the bridge
of space, launching ships from the Earth's most favored take-off
point, from the top of Mt. Kenya, heading out eastward into space,
taking advantage of the mountain's three mile height, the Earth's
rotation speed of 500 yards per second at the equator.
Scott reviewed his flight, checked the clocklike routine he had
followed. Blast-off from Earth. Landing in the drear, desolate Mare
Serenitatis on the Moon, refueling the ship from the buried storage
tanks, using the caterpillar tractor from the underground garage to
haul the rocket onto the great turn-table cradle. Setting the cradle at
the correct angle and direction, blasting off again at the precise
second, carrying a full load of fuel, something impossible to do and
still take off from Earth. Taking advantage of the Moon's lower
gravity, its lack of atmosphere. Using the Moon as a stepping stone
to outer space.
Now he was headed for Mars. If he landed there safely, he could
spend two days, no more, no less, before he blasted off for Earth
again.
But probably he wouldn't reach Mars. Probably he and Jimmy
Baldwin, in the end, would be just a few more bones to pave the
road to Mars.

III
A gigantic building, rising to several hundred feet in height, domed,
without door or window, stood lonely in the vastness of the red plain
that stretched to the far-off black horizon.
The building and nothing more. No other single sign of habitation.
No other evidence of intelligent life.
The Martian lilies were everywhere, great fields of them, bright
scarlet against the redness of the sand. But in its native soil the
Martian lily was a sorry thing, a poor apology for the kind of flower
that grew on Earth. Stunted, low-growing, with smaller and less
brilliant flowers.
The sand gritted under Scott's boots as he took a slow step forward.
So this was Mars! Here, at the North pole ... the single building ...
the only evidence of intelligence on the entire planet. As the ship
had circled the planet, cutting down its tremendous speed, he had
studied the surface in the telescopic glass and this building had been
the only habitation he had seen.
It stood there, made of shimmering metal, glinting in the pale
sunlight.
"Bugs," said Jimmy, at Scott's elbow.
"What do you mean, bugs?" asked Scott.
"Bugs in the air," said Jimmy. "Flying bugs."
Scott saw them then. Things that looked like streaks of light in the
feeble sunshine. Swarms of them hovered about the great building
and others darted busily about.
"Bees," suggested Jimmy.
But Scott shook his head. They weren't bees. They glinted and
flashed when the sun's light struck them and they seemed more
mechanical than life-like.
"Where are the Martians?" Jimmy demanded.

"I don't know, Jimmy," declared Scott. "Damned if I do."
He had envisioned the first Earthmen reaching Mars as receiving
thunderous ovation, a mighty welcome from the Martians. But there
weren't any Martians. Nothing stirred except the shining bugs and
the lilies that nodded in a thin, cold breeze.
There was no sound, no movement. Like a quiet summer afternoon
back on Earth, with a veil of quietness drawn over the flaming desert
and the shimmering building.
He took another step, walking toward the great building. The sand
grated protestingly beneath his boot-heels.
Slowly he approached the building, alert, watching, ready for some
evidence that he and Jimmy had been seen. But no sign came. The
bugs droned overhead, the lilies nodded sleepily. That was all.
Scott looked at the thermometer strapped to the wrist of his oxygen
suit. The needle registered 10 above, Centigrade. Warm enough, but
the suits were necessary, for the air was far too thin for human
consumption.
Deep shadow lay at the base of the building and as he neared it,
Scott made out something that gleamed whitely in the shadow.
Something that struck a chord of remembrance in his brain,
something he had seen back on Earth.
As he hurried forward he saw it was a cross. A white cross thrust
into the sand.
With a cry he broke into a run.
Before the cross he dropped to his knees and read the crudely
carved inscription on the wood. Just two words. The name of a man,
carven with a jack-knife:
HARRY DECKER
Harry Decker! Scott felt his brain swimming crazily.

Harry Decker here! Harry Decker under the red sand of Mars! But
that couldn't be. Harry Decker's name couldn't be here. It was back
on Earth, graven on that scroll of bronze. Graven there directly
beneath the name of Hugh Nixon.
He staggered to his feet and stood swaying for a moment.
From somewhere far away he heard a shout and swinging around,
ran toward the corner of the building.
Rounding it, he stopped in amazement.
There, in the shelter of the building, lay a rusted space ship and
running across the sand toward him was a space-suited figure, a
figure that yelled as it ran and carried a bag over its shoulder, the
bag bouncing at every leap.
"Hugh!" yelled Scott.
And the grotesque figure bellowed back.
"Scott, you old devil! I knew you'd do it! I knew it was you the
minute I heard the rocket blasts!"
"It's nice and warm here now," said Hugh, "but you'd ought to spend
a winter here. An Arctic blizzard is a gentle breeze compared with
the Martian pole in winter time. You don't see the Sun for almost ten
months and the mercury goes down to 100 below, Centigrade. Hoar
frost piles up three and four feet thick and a man can't stir out of the
ship."
He gestured at the bag.
"I was getting ready for another winter. Just like a squirrel. My
supplies got low before this spring and I had to find something to
store up against another season. I found a half dozen different kinds
of bulbs and roots and some berries. I've been gathering them all
summer, storing them away."

"But the Martians?" protested Scott. "Wouldn't the Martians help
you?"
His brother looked at him curiously.
"The Martians?" he asked.
"Yes, the Martians."
"Scott," Hugh said, "I haven't found the Martians."
Scott stared at him. "Let's get this straight now. You mean you don't
know who the Martians are?"
Hugh nodded. "That's exactly it. I tried to find them hard enough. I
did all sorts of screwy things to contact that intelligence which talked
with the Earth and sent the rockets full of seed, but I've gotten
exactly nowhere. I've finally given up."
"Those bugs," suggested Scott. "The shining bugs."
Hugh shook his head. "No soap. I got the same idea and managed
to bat down a couple of them. But they're mechanical. That's all.
Just machines. Operated by radium.
"It almost drove me nuts at first. Those bugs flying around and the
building standing there and the Martian lilies all around, but no signs
of any intelligence. I tried to get into the building but there aren't
any doors or windows. Just little holes the bugs fly in and out of.
"I couldn't understand a thing. Nothing seemed right. No purpose to
any of it. No apparent reason. Only one thing I could understand.
Over on the other side of the building I found the cradle that is used
to shoot the rockets to Earth. I've watched that done."
"But what happened?" asked Scott. "Why didn't you come back?
What happened to the ship?"
"We had no fuel," said Hugh.
Scott nodded his head.
"A meteor in space."

"Not that," Hugh told him, "Harry simply turned the petcocks, let our
gasoline run into the sand."
"Good Lord! Was he crazy?"
"That's exactly what he was," Hugh declared. "Batty as a bedbug.
Touch of space madness. I felt sorry for him. He cowered like a mad
animal, beaten by the sense of loneliness and space. He was afraid
of shadows. He got so he didn't act like a man. I was glad for him
when he died."
"But even a crazy man would want to get back to Earth!" protested
Scott.
"It wasn't Harry," Hugh explained. "It was the Martians, I am sure.
Whatever or wherever they are, they probably have intelligences
greater than ours. It would be no feat for them, perhaps, to gain
control of the brain of a demented man. They might not be able to
dominate us, but a man whose thought processes were all tangled
up by space madness would be an easy mark for them. They could
make him do and think whatever they wanted him to think or do. It
wasn't Harry who opened those petcocks, Scott. It was the
Martians."
He leaned against the pitted side of the ship and stared up at the
massive building.
"I was plenty sore at him when I caught him at it," he said. "I gave
him one hell of a beating. I've always been sorry for that."
"What finally happened to him?" asked Scott.
"He ran out of the airlock without his suit," Hugh explained. "It took
me half an hour to run him down and bring him back. He took
pneumonia. You have to be careful here. Exposure to the Martian
atmosphere plays hell with a man's lung tissues. You can breathe it
all right ... might even be able to live in it for a few hours, but it's
deadly just the same."
"Well, it's all over now," declared Scott. "We'll get my ship squared
around and we'll blast off for Earth. We made it here and we can

make it back. And you'll be the first man who ever set his foot on
Mars."
Hugh grinned. "That will be something, won't it, Scott? But
somehow I'm not satisfied. I haven't accomplished a thing. I haven't
even found the Martians. I know they're here. An intelligance that's
at least capable of thinking along parallel lines with us although its
thought processes may not be parallel with ours."
"We'll talk it over later," said Scott. "After we get a cup of coffee into
you. I bet you haven't had one in weeks."
"Weeks," jeered Hugh. "Man, it's been ten months."
"Okay, then," said Scott. "Let's round up Jimmy. He must be around
here somewhere. I don't like to let him get out of my sight too
much."
The silence of the dreaming red deserts was shattered by a
smashing report that drummed with a mighty clap against the sky
above. A gush of red flame spouted over the domed top of the
mighty building and metal shards hammered spitefully against the
sides, setting up a metallic undertone to the ear-shattering
explosion.
Sick with dread, Scott plunged to the corner of the building and felt
the sick dread deepen.
Where his space ship had lain a mighty hole was blasted in the sand.
The ship was gone. No part of it was left. It had been torn into tiny
fragments and hurled across the desert. Wisps of smoke crept slowly
from the pit in the sand, twisting in the air currents that still swirled
from the blast.
Scott knew what had happened. There was no need to guess. Only
one thing could have happened. The liquid oxygen had united with
the gasoline, making an explosive that was sheer death itself. A

single tremor, a thrown stone, a vibration ... anything would set it
off.
Across the space between himself and the ship came the tattered
figure of a man. A man whose clothes were torn. A man covered
with blood, weaving, head down, feet dragging.
"Jimmy!" yelled Scott.
He sprinted forward but before he could reach his side, Jimmy had
collapsed.
Kneeling beside him, Scott lifted the man's head.
The eyes rolled open and the lips twitched. Slow, tortured words
oozed out.
"I'm sorry ... Scott. I don't know why...."
The eyes closed but opened again, a faint flutter, and more words
bubbled from the bloody lips.
"I wonder why I did it!"
Scott looked up and saw his brother standing in front of him.
Hugh nodded. "The Martians again, Scott. They could use Jimmy's
mind. They could get hold of him. That blasted brain of his...."
Scott looked down at the man in his arms. The head had fallen back,
the eyes were staring, blood was dripping on the sand.
"Hugh," he whispered, "Jimmy's dead."
Hugh stared across the sand at the little glimmer of white in the
shadow of the building.
"We'll make another cross," he said.
IV

The Martians hadn't wanted them to to come. That much, at least,
was clear. But having gotten here, the Martians had no intention of
letting them return to Earth again. They didn't want them to carry
back the word that it was possible to navigate across space to the
outer planet.
Maybe the Martians were committed to a policy of isolation. Maybe
there was a "Hands Off" sign set up on Mars. Maybe a "No
trespassing" sign.
But if that had been the case, why had the Martians answered the
radio calls from Earth? Why had they co-operated with Dr. Alexander
in working out the code that made communication possible? And
why did they continue sending messages and rockets to the Earth?
Why didn't they sever diplomatic relationship entirely, retire into their
isolation?
If they didn't want Earthmen to come to Mars why hadn't they
trained guns on the two ships as they came down to the scarlet
sand, wiped them out without compunction? Why did they resort to
the expedient of forcing Earthmen to bring about their own
destruction? And why, now that Harry Decker and Jimmy Baldwin
were dead, didn't the Martians wipe out the remaining two of the
unwanted race?
Perhaps the Martians were merely efficient, not vindictive. Maybe
they realized that the remaining two Earthmen constituted no
menace? And maybe, on the other hand, the Martians had no
weapons. Perhaps they never had held a need for weapons. It might
be they had never had to fight for self preservation.
And above and beyond all ... what and where were the Martians? In
that huge building? Invisible? In caverns beneath the surface? At
some point far away?
Maybe ... perhaps ... why? Speculation and wonderment.
But there was no answer. Not even the slightest hint. Just the
building shimmering in the unsetting Sun, the metallic bugs buzzing

in the air, the lilies nodding in the breeze that blew across the
desert.
Scott Nixon reached the rim of the plateau and lowered the bag of
roots from his shoulder, resting and waiting for Hugh to toil up the
remaining few yards of the slope.
Before him, slightly over four miles across the plain, loomed the
Martian building. Squatting at its base was the battered, pitted space
ship. There was too much ozone in the atmosphere here for the
steel in the ship to stand up. Before many years had passed it would
fall to pieces, would rust away. But that made little difference, for by
that time they probably wouldn't need it. By that time another ship
would have arrived or they would be dead.
Scott grinned grimly. A hard way to look at things. But the only way.
One had to be realistic here. Hard-headed planning was the only
thing that would carry them through. The food supply was short and
while they'd probably be able to gather enough for the coming
winter, there was always the possibility that the next season would
find them short.
But there was hope to cling to. Always hope. Hope that the summer
would bring another ship winging out of space ... that this time,
armed by past experience, they could prevent its destruction.
Hugh came up with Scott, slid the bag of roots to the ground and sat
upon it.
He nodded at the building across the desert.
"That's the nerve center of the whole business," he declared. "If we
could get into it...." His voice trailed away.
"But we can't," Scott reminded him. "We've tried and we can't.
There are no doors. No openings. Just those little holes the bugs fly
in and out of."

"There's a door somewhere," said Hugh. "A hidden door. The bugs
use it to bring out machines to do the work when they shoot a
rocket out for Earth. I've seen the machines. Screwy looking things.
Work units pure and simple but so efficient you'd swear they
possessed intelligence. I've tried to find the door but I never could
and the bugs always waited until I wasn't around before they moved
the machines in or out of the building."
He chuckled, scrubbing his bearded face with a horny hand.
"That rocket business saved my life," he said. "If the power lead
running out of the building to the cradle hadn't been there I'd been
sunk. But there it was, full of good, old electricity. So I just tapped
the thing and that gave me plenty of power ... power for heat, for
electrolysis, for atmospheric condensation."
Scott sank down heavily on his sack.
"It's enough to drive a man nuts," he declared. "We can reach out
and touch the building with our hand. Just a few feet away from the
explanation of all this screwiness. Inside that building we'd find
things we'd be able to use. Machines, tools...."
Hugh hummed under his breath.
"Maybe," he said, "maybe not. Maybe we couldn't recognize the
machines, fathom the tools. Mechanical and technical development
here probably wasn't any more parallel to ours than intelligence
development."
"There's the rocket cradle," retorted Scott. "Same principle as we
use on Earth. And they must have a radio in there. And a telescope.
We'd be able to figure them out. Might even be able to send Doc
Alexander a message."
"Yeah," agreed Hugh, "I thought of that, too. But we can't get in the
building and that settles it."
"The bugs get under my skin," Scott complained. "Always buzzing
around. Always busy. But busy at what? Like a bunch of hornets."

"They're the straw bosses of the outfit," declared Hugh. "Carrying
out the orders of the Martians. The Martians' hands and eyes you
might say."
He dug at the sand with the toe of his space boot.
"Another swarm of them took off just before we started out on this
trip," he said. "While you were in the ship. I watched them until they
disappeared. Straight up and out until you couldn't see them. Just
like they were taking off for space."
He kicked savagely at the sand.
"I sure as hell would like to know where they go," he said.
"There've been quite a few of them leaving lately," said Scott. "As if
the building were a hive and they were new swarms of bees. Maybe
they're going out to start new living centers. Maybe they're going to
build more buildings...."
He stopped and stared straight ahead of him, his eyes unseeing.
Going out to start new living centers! Going out to build new
buildings! Shining metallic buildings!
Like a cold wind from the past it came to him, a picture of that last
night on Earth. He heard the whining wind on Mt. Kenya once again,
the blaring of the radio from the machine shop door, the voice of the
newscaster.
"Austin Gordon ... Congo Valley ... strange metallic city ... inhabited
by strange metallic insects!"
The memory shook him from head to foot, left him cold and shivery
with his knowledge.
"Hugh!" he croaked. "Hugh, I know what it's all about!"
His brother stared at him: "Take it easy, kid. Don't let it get you.
Stick with me, kid. We're going to make it all right."

"But, Hugh," Scott yelled, "there's nothing wrong with me. Don't you
see, I know the answer to all this Martian business now. The lilies
are the Martians! Those bugs are migrating to Earth. They're
machines. Don't you see ... they could cross space and the lilies
would be there to direct them."
He jumped to his feet.
"They're already building cities in the Congo!" he yelled. "Lord knows
how many other places. They're taking over the Earth! The Martians
are invading the Earth, but Earth doesn't know it!"
"Hold on," Hugh yelled back at him. "How could flowers build cities?"
"They can't," said Scott breathlessly. "But the bugs can. Back on
Earth they are wondering why the Martians don't use their rockets to
come to Earth. And that's exactly what the Martians are doing.
Those rockets full of seeds aren't tokens at all. They're colonization
parties!"
"Wait a minute. Slow down," Hugh pleaded. "Tell me this. If the lilies
are the Martians and they sent seeds to Earth twelve years ago, why
hadn't they sent them before?"
"Because before that it would have been useless," Scott told him.
"They had to have someone to open the rockets and plant the seeds
for them. We did that. They tricked us into it.
"They may have sent rockets of seeds before but if they did, nothing
came of it. For the seeds would have been useless if they weren't
taken from the rocket. The rocket probably would have weathered
away in time, releasing the seeds but by that time the seeds would
have lost their germinating power."
Hugh shook his head.
"It seems impossible," he declared. "Impossible that plants could
have real intelligence ... that flowers could hold the mastery of a
planet. I'm ready to accept almost any theory but that one...."

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