Dateline: MARS By RICHARD WILSON It was the story behind the biggest story on Mars--how Fate had grimly reckoned with the Rockhead Rastol--but Scott Warren of Galactic News couldn't write it ... yet. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Scott Warren snapped off the vision screen and sat down in front of his typewriter. Through the glass side of the building he could see the lights of the celebrations whose sounds he had just silenced. He lighted a cigarette and started to type out the final edition of _Today on Mars_ for transmission by Interradio to the New York bureau of the Galactic News Service. He started the news roundup: "IOPA, MARS--(GN)--Events on Mars were at a snailspace today, the midpoint of the traditional three-day Landing Day holiday...." Scott rolled the paper up in the carriage of his typewriter and jagged a line through what he had written. Four "days" in the same sentence might get past the night desk, but the New York bureau chief would send him a memo about it in the morning. He started again. "... Landing Day celebrations on Mars are at their midpoint tonight, with both Earth people and natives...." He x'ed out "natives" and substituted "Martians," remembering the memo he'd got about _that_. "... both Earth people and Martians forgetting their political and physical differences to take part in planetwide carnivals. Business houses, government offices and stores have been closed down since Friday, and Pleasure is king. The two great cities on Mars--Iopa and Senalla--are ablaze with light, from their desert outskirts to the quarter-mile-high government buildings that mark the center of each. Parades, speeches...." Scott snubbed out his cigarette, shoved his chair away from the desk. He looked out over Iopa toward the government building, spotted in searchlight rays from all sides of the city. It was bad enough writing this stuff--bad enough grinding out a routine night lead, to be later dictated to Interradio for transmission across space to Earth, simply because the news schedule demanded two daily Mars roundups-- But it wasn't even the truth. * * * * * The truth was that both Earth people and Martians were observing Landing Day with the usual fuss--but that it was all a big masquerade. The oldtime distrust of Terrestrials that had come with the first spaceship was still there. It had never been completely wiped out. The only ones being taken in were the people back home, who knew nothing about Mars except what they were told by people like Scott Warren, and who usually saw it only as a red pinpoint in the sky, if the weather happened to be right.