11

It was obvious that they were headed for starvation. As fall increased the fogginess of the region, the mood in the colony became increasingly tense. Franklin frequently left the colony for long walks along the beach. Sometimes he was gone all day. With that same fatality that followed Franklin throughout his life, an important and disastrous event occurred in his absence. This was the first affray of the Penists with the Vacationers.¹

The Vacationers appeared past midday, when the sun had finally dissolved the mists and grown warm enough to point out the coolness of the breeze. There were perhaps as many as five hundred. The accounts of the affair differ greatly,² but it seems clear that the natives had no hostile intention in their visit.³ They descended on the settlement quite suddenly and without warning, bearing roasted turkeys, green bean casseroles, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, pecan and pumpkin pies—in short all the traditional dishes of the Martian harvest time. Some of the Vacationers were playing music, while others raised cold bottles of beer.

The Penists clearly felt that they were invested with a considerable body of Vacationers, and that they were being surrounded.⁴ The prisoners stumbled out of their tent, looking weak and confused. The sudden profusion of good things to eat and the delicious odors overwhelmed them, and seemed to rob them of their senses.

The Vacationers had almost reached the barracks tent when a figure charged into their midst. It was Rae and he was carrying a pick ax. It appeared to Rae from the numbers of them, and from the Alien products with which they were arrayed, that their design was to corrupt the colony. However, it was not until he was thoroughly convinced of this that he attacked.⁵

He swung the pick high over his head and brought it down on one of the male Vacationers, impaling him. With almost superhuman strength, Rae pulled the pick from the twitching body and caught a female Vacationer in the stomach. The pick became fouled with her body as she fell, and he was forced to abandon it.

The Vacationers stopped their advance, but seemed unsure how to proceed. Their halt broke the spell among the guards and prisoners, and as a host the Penists raised their chainsaws and axes, and garden implements and charged the Vacationers. It is easy to understand that the Penists were terrified by this sudden arrival of a horde of Vacationers carrying food and Alien products.⁶ And if their violent response seems a little disproportionate, I will only say that isolation can do strange things to the Martian psyche.

The Vacationers were entirely unprepared for this assault, and many of them were slain before they broke and ran for the woods. The prisoners gave chase and many more Vacationers dispatched that afternoon, including a number of women and children. It is said that the whole party would have met their death in the massacre had not the prisoners been starving and abandoned their pursuit to gorge themselves on the many delectable dishes the Vacationers had left behind in their eagerness to escape.