Pied Piper of Mars By FREDERIC ARNOLD KUMMER, Jr. Elath Taen made mad music for the men of Mars. The red planet lived and would die to the soul-tearing tunes of his fiendish piping. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] In all the solar system there is no city quite like Mercis, capital of Mars. Solis, on Venus, is perhaps more beautiful, some cities of Earth certainly have more drive and dynamitism, but there is a strange inscrutable air about Mercis which even terrestials of twenty years' residence cannot explain. Outwardly a tourists' mecca, with white plastoid buildings, rich gardens, and whispering canals, it has another and darker side, ever present, ever hidden. While earthmen work and plan, building, repairing, bringing their vast energy and progress to decadent Mars, the silent little reddies go their devious ways, following ancient laws which no amount of terrestial logic can shake. Time-bound ritual, mysterious passions and hates, torturous, devious logic ... all these, like dark winding underground streams run beneath the tall fair city that brings such thrilled superlatives to the lips of the terrestial tourists. Steve Ranson, mounting the steps of the old house facing the Han canal, was in no mood for the bizarre beauties of Martian scenery. For one thing, Mercis was an old story to him; his work with Terrestial Intelligence had brought him here often in the past, on other strange cases. And for another thing, his mission concerned more vital matters. Jared Haller, as head of the state-owned Martian Broadcasting System, was next in importance to the august Governor Winship himself. As far back as the Hitlerian wars on earth it had been known that he who controls propaganda, controls the nation ... or planet. Martian Broadcasting was an important factor in controlling the fierce warlike little reddies, keeping the terrestial-imposed peace on the red planet. And when Jared Haller sent to Earth for one of the Terrestial Intelligence, that silent efficient corps of trouble-shooters, something was definitely up. The house was provided with double doors as protection against the sudden fierce sandstorms which so often, in the month of Tol, sweep in from the plains of Psidis to engulf Mercis in a red choking haze. Ranson passed the conventional electric eye and a polite robot voice asked his name. He gave it, and the inner door opened. A smiling little Martian butler met him in the hall, showed him into Haller's study. The head of M.B.C. stood at one end of the big library, the walls of which were lined with vivavox rolls and old-fashioned books. As Ranson entered, he swung about, frowning, one hand dropping to a pocket that bulged unmistakably.