"Aw, shuddup," said Axel to the Martians.
"Shuddup—"
Axel looked at me and shook his head at the Martian reply.
I wheeled the Mars-car around behind Spartan's, halting in a position which would allow me to watch.
The Martians were loping casually toward the two cars, seemingly in no rush to get there. And it was then I suddenly realized that their actions weren't hostile. I'd been frightened when they'd set fire to the Martian saguaro in the canal, but I realized that this had been defensive. They had been as afraid of me as I had been of them. Nothing in the world panics a man as does a situation he's never encountered before and does not know how to handle. And I suppose, in this respect, the Martians were human.
In fact, I was soon to learn that although physical bodies were apt to assume strangely different shapes, the psychology of the Martians was as human as intelligence. And it was a logical thing, too. After all, most of life's actions, possibly all, are aimed toward a double purpose—preservation of the individual and of the race. This fact is as basic as Newton's laws governing the physical actions of the universe.
In fact, the two kinds of matter in space, animate and inanimate, may not be so different, after all. The energy that is in all matter, may be seeking to control its destiny, and life may be a basic property of the power that exists in every atom.
But it was no time for philosophy. I didn't think these thoughts then—it was not until long afterwards that they occurred to me.
I was watching the Martians who now had slowed to a lazy canter, focusing their biological radar on the two similar objects parked in the desert.
As they came abreast of the spaceship, they looked at that too. I expected to see the pile of supplies Axel had stacked near the ship to go up in smoke—flames being highly unlikely in thin air like this. But the Martians were no longer frightened. The enemy had fled at their approach. They assumed, no doubt, that we were no match for them. And this is another trait that has proved the undoing of many a human being—to suspect weakness where it does not exist.