"Luckily, we got you up here in time," Renn continued. "You'll be wanting to stay, of course."
I remembered all I knew about the Mars scene. I leaped from bed, putting it between me and Renn.
"Like hell I will!"
"Oh, you'll stay, just like the others."
It was coming a little fast. "Slow down," I said. "I got torn up, and here I am, sound in wind and limb. That's what happened to the others? That's the secret of how you shot those realistic scenes?"
"Check," said Renn. "But I won't bore you with the whole long story."
"I love to hear you talk," I said, drooling at the thought of what Myron Ferdinand would do for me when I told him the story.
"Well," said Renn, "it's really because of the Martians. As you know, they aren't awfully advanced—or maybe they've retrogressed—but they do have some wonderful things in medicine. Their medicine, or whatever it is, works on body cells. You've heard about the lizards that grow a new tail when the old one is cut off? Or a lobster growing a new claw? Well, all living body cells, including human, have some of what they call regenerative power. With most animals it's faint; about all it does is produce scar tissue or replace a few cells like a bit of skin, for example. But the Martians can hype up this process so you can grow practically a whole new body. Arm, leg, liver or lights, rip 'em off and you can grow 'em back. But there's one catch in it."
"Yah," I said.
"Yah," he said. "Just like Hollywood. In this case the catch is this—when you grow back, you're a Martian. You're still you—but different. It began to show up in our cast in about ten days. Maybe the new cells are part Martian, or pick up something from the medicine or treatment or whatever it is. Anyway, you want to live on Mars. Pretty soon you have to live on Mars. You don't like it any place else anyway. But you like it here."