"Not funny, Ax," I said. "They got paved roads, but no cars that I've seen. We followed an old road part of the way. It's worn out and unused. I'll tell you about it later."
"See what's going on, if you can, Bill," said Axel. "We're still getting a lot of radio from Pnyx."
"I came here for information and I'll find something to report," I said. "Keep listening."
I slipped on my helmet, picked up my rifle and went through the locks.
I could feel the city as I stepped from the Mars-car. There's a kind of sensation you get when you're approaching a large metropolis, and it holds true on earth as well as on Mars. It's much different from the way you feel in the wide open spaces—on the prairie or in the mountains. Maybe it's extrasensory perception. Or maybe the soles of our feet transmit seismic vibrations of living people to our nerves. I had the feeling now.
Gripping my rifle I moved toward a little ridge just ahead of where I'd stopped the car. This ridge, I'd hoped, would protect the car from radar detection on the part of the Martians, but I believed I could risk a glance at the highway over the top of it without exposing our location.
I was about a half mile from the road and, from the ridge, I could see it, crowded with Martians, trotting in formation eastward toward the canal. They walked five abreast and there must have been hundreds of them.
I didn't have to be a Martian to recognize that this was a military group. Soldiers. Ants march to war like humans do. It's another fundamental that may have its roots in atomic energy, or in the nuclear intelligence that has formed all life so that atoms can control their destiny.
No local war was to be fought by these troops. They were off to meet the earthlings, in the first interplanetary war of the solar system.
So interested was I in watching the Martians that I didn't realize I was standing in full view; and I'd been seen, but not by the marching Martians, of which there were at least fifteen hundred.